Many Waters Page 6

Yalith glanced at her mother, then back at Oholibamah. Thought of Eblis and his glorious purple wings. "Would that be so terrible?"

  "It is absurd. I love my parents. I love my father."

  Yalith had never seen Oholibamah's parents. And how would she herself feel if someone suggested that her father was not, in fact, her father? But now that Matred had put the thought in her mind, it was easy to believe that Oholibamah had been sired by a nephil. She had gifts of healing. Ham was right about that. Her voice when she sang was beautiful as a bird's. She saw things no one else saw.

  But then, Yalith reminded herself, she, too, was different, the seventh child of her parents, and she knew quite well who her parents were, and that they had been disappointed when they had had a fourth daughter instead of a fourth son.

  "Did you hear me saying that Mahlah is betrothed to a nephil?" she asked Oholibamah.

  "Yes, I heard. Mahlah likes pretty things. The wives of the nephilim live in houses of stone and clay, not in tents. I'm sure Mahlah feels proud to have been chosen."

  "What do you think about it?" Yalith asked.

  "I'm not sure. I'm not sure what I think about the nephilim. Especially if--" She broke off.

  "And the seraphim?" Yalith asked.

  "I'm not sure what I think about them, either." Oholibamah pressed her fingers against her ears as Ham started to shout.

  For a small man, he had a powerful voice. "Selah, come here! If Oholibamah won't help me, then I need a unicorn!"

  Anah said crossly, "You know a unicorn can't come near you."

  "It doesn't have to come near," Ham grunted. "They can cast their light from any distance. It's only the light I need."

  Anah muttered, "You need more than that."

  "Yalith! You can call a unicorn. Or Selah! Call me a unicorn!"

  A sudden flash of light made them all blink. It was as though lightning had somehow managed to get inside the heavy hides of the tent, perhaps flashing down through the roof hole.

  "Get away!" Ham cried. "Who are you!"

  He was not referring to the unicorn, which stood glimmering in the tent. On the skins right by Ham lay a very young man, with raw, sunburned skin, and eyes glazed with fever.

  Matred peered down at the boy. "How did he get here? Ham, is he a friend of yours?"

  Ham looked totally bewildered. "I've never seen him before."

  "What is he?" Shem demanded.

  The patriarch, who had been chewing on a mutton bone, looked at the boy. "Another kind of giant," he said disgustedly.

  Oholibamah said. "Whoever he is, give him air. Don't crowd around. Look, he has sun fever. Oh my, he looks terrible."

  Elisheba, Shem's wife, peered at the boy. "If he's a giant, he's a very young one."

  Yalith managed to push between Matred and Oholibamah so that she could see. She shrieked, "It's my young giant!"

  "What's that, daughter?" Matred asked. "You've seen him before?"

  "In Grandfather's tent, when I took him his night-light."

  The patriarch scowled. "If my father, Lamech, doesn't want a giant in his tent, why should I have him in mine?"

  "Oh, please, Father," Yalith begged.

  "You've really seen him before?" Oholibamah asked.

  "When I brought Grandfather Lamech his night-light," Yalith repeated, "there was this young, sunburned giant in his tent." She looked at the fevered young man. "I'm not sure this is... Where's Japheth?"

  The tent flap was pushed aside, and Japheth came in. "Why, here I am, looking for a unicorn and--"

  Selah raised her trunk and trumpeted.

  "Why!" Japheth exclaimed. "I've been looking all over the oasis and there's one right here! And--so is the Den, the one I've been looking for!" He dropped to his knees. "Great auk. Is he alive?"

  Oholibamah ordered, "Move back, all of you." She put her hand against Dennys's bare chest. "He's alive, but he's burning with fever."

  Anah moved back slightly, pushing her red hair away from her face with a dirty hand. "Is he a seraph or a nephil?"

  Yalith shook her head. "He doesn't have wings. Oh, Japheth, I'm glad you're back. He is the other one, isn't he, the one you were looking for?"

  "Yes," Japheth said. "But he looks burned nearly to death."

  Oholibamah pressed her hand against the reddened forehead, wincing at the heat of it, turning to look for the unicorn, who had almost dimmed out of being. "Unicorn, can you help?"

  The unicorn's outline sharpened, and it bent toward the flushed boy, and light flowed from its forehead, cooling the burning skin.

  Ham pushed up from his pelts and blundered toward the unicorn. "Me. I need help. I feel sick. Help me." His fair hair was stringy with sweat. The even lighter hair on his chest held drops of moisture.

  Again there was a flash of light, and when they could see again, the unicorn had disappeared.

  "Idiot." Anah's green eyes sparked. "You know you can't get near a unicorn."

  "Meanwhile," the patriarch said, "how are we going to get rid of this half-baked giant?"

  "My dear," Matred protested, "surely we should show him some hospitality."

  "My good father, Lamech, evidently threw him out of his tent," her husband retorted.

  "No, Father!" Yalith protested. "You don't understand! There are two giants, and Grandfather has the other one in his tent and is taking care of him."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," her father said. "Flow can there be two of these peculiar giants?"

  "Oh, Father, if only you'd go to see Grandfather Lamech!"

  "I will have nothing to do with coddling the old man. Or his strange giants. We have enough troubles without sick giants being added to them."

  Yalith knelt beside Oholibamah and looked at the boy, who lay breathing shallowly, eyelids twitching slightly. Yalith reached out a tentative finger and touched the boy's flushed cheek. "You're not Sand? You're his brother?"

  The reddened eyelids opened slightly. "Dennys. Dennys." Then the boy flung his arm over his face, as though to ward off a blow. His limbs began to shake convulsively.

  "What's happened?" Japheth demanded. "Somebody's hurt him. And he doesn't recognize me."

  "He's afraid!" Elisheba's voice was shocked.

  Shem protested, "Surely Grandfather Lamech couldn't have hit him!"

  "Never," Japheth defended swiftly.

  "Not Grandfather!" Yalith spoke at the same time.

  "El! His skin is rubbed raw!" Oholibamah exclaimed.

  "Someone between Grandfather Lamech's tent and here has hurt him."

  Matred bent close, asking softly, "Who could have done this? Even to a deformed giant?"

  Japheth asked, "Dennys?"

  "Dennys," the boy moaned.

  "Where have you been? Did someone call you and the unicorn back into being? Who was it?"

  Oholibamah touched her husband's hand. "Selah called a unicorn, and suddenly this wounded giant was here."

  "But he's been somewhere else on the oasis." Japheth took his wife's hand and pressed it against his cheek. "And he has been abused. He's barely conscious. This is terrible."

  Anah peered over Yalith's shoulder. "Are you sure he's human?"

  Japheth frowned. "They said they are twins, but I think twins is human."

  The patriarch murmured, "What with the winged creatures around, sleeping with the daughters of men, it is hard to know anymore who is human and who is not." He looked at Oholibamah, but not unkindly.

  Oholibamah touched Dennys's forehead again, and he opened his eyes and flinched. "Shh. I will not hurt you." She looked at Yalith and Japheth. "The unicorn's horn has taken away some of his fever, but he is still very hot. Was it this bad when you saw him, Japheth?"

  Japheth shook his head. "He was sun-sick, worse than the Sand, but not like this."

  The patriarch asked, "You say there are two of these giants?"

  "Two. Exactly alike. I left the one called Sand in Grandfather Lamech's tent"--he looked rather defensively at his father--"to g
o look for this one. And then, to my surprise, when I'd given up for the night, he was here, right in our own home tent."

  Ham suggested, "We've never seen two look-alikes. We should send someone to Grandfather Lamech's tent to make sure there's another one."

  "You doubt me?" Japheth demanded.

  "Just want to make sure," Ham said.

  Less hotly, Japheth said, "I found it difficult to believe at first, myself."

  Cutting across their conversation, Oholibamah said, "We should bathe him with water, to try to keep him cool and moist."

  "Water!" Matred exclaimed. "Even the mammoths are having difficulty scenting for water. But there is plenty of wine."

  "Not my wine!" the patriarch roared. "Woman! You have no idea how hard I work in the vineyard."

  "I do," Japheth commented mildly. "I work with you."

  Oholibamah frowned slightly. "I don't think wine will do."

  Japheth said, "Higgaion sprayed water from Grandfather Lamech's water pot on the Sand, and I think it helped." He looked toward Selah, who again was at Matred's feet.

  Anah glanced out of the corner of her green eyes at pasty Ham, then at Dennys's recumbent form. "If his skin didn't look like raw meat, he'd be quite gorgeous."

  Elisheba, Shem's wife, stocky and sensible-looking, with thickly curling black hair and dark, placid eyes, snorted. "Keep away from him, Anah. You saw that the unicorn went right to him. For all his giant's size, he's barely more than a baby. And he's trembling. He's frightened."

  Matred said fiercely, "Whatever, he shall not be ill-treated again."

  Yalith looked gratefully at her mother.

  Her father snorted. "Women. I'm always being bullied by women and their good works. Matred feeds any lazy beggar who comes to the tent, and Elisheba helps her keep the soup pot full."

  "People do not choose to be poor and hungry," Matred said calmly. "We have enough, and to spare. Husband, I will not have this young giant abused."

  "Do what you want with him," the patriarch said. "It makes no difference to me, as long as I'm not bothered about it."

  Oholibamah looked at her husband. "We shouldn't leave him here. It's too hot and crowded. He was near death when the unicorn's light touched him, and I think he's still very ill."

  "Listen to Oholi," Ham said. "She knows what she's talking about."

  For Yalith, no matter what Japheth had said, Dennys was the same young man she had seen in her grandfather's tent. She had been afraid of him when she had first seen him, and now, this time, it was the young giant who seemed terrified. "Where can we take him?"

  "He's just a child," Oholibamah suggested. "What about the women's tent?"

  In Yalith's eyes, Sandy/Dennys was not a child.

  Elisheba asked, "How near to the time of the moon is it for any of us?"

  Matred, who was the one to keep track of such things, drew her brows together in thought, and touched her fingers, counting. "Not for a while. Soon he will be well enough to sleep here in the big tent. Or he will be dead."

  Yalith shuddered. "Don't say that. He is our guest. We don't let our guests die."

  "My dear," Matred said. "He is badly burned. His skin is raw, as though someone has been scraping him, like a carrot."

  "Perhaps we should call on one of the seraphim?" Japheth suggested.

  His mother nodded. Looked at Yalith. "Your friend Aariel would come, would he not?"

  "I think so, yes." If she had to call Aariel, Yalith would make very certain that it was Aariel, not Eblis, though she was not sure why she felt that making sick calls was not part of the business of the nephilim.

  "Elisheba," Matred continued, "if you will look into the chest by my sleeping skins, you will find some soft linen for him to lie on. The animal skins are too rough."

  Anah simpered, "Mother always knows best, eh, Ham?" and moved away.

  "I will crush some figs and make juice for him to drink." Matred always felt better when there was something to do.

  Oholibamah pressed her palm against Dennys's forehead again. "He is so hot." She frowned, as he flinched and moaned, eyes tightly closed.

  The patriarch said, "If he's going to die on us, get him out of the tent, quickly."

  Yalith protested, "Father!"

  Japheth reached comfortingly for her hand.

  The patriarch said, "You will have to learn, daughter, that you cannot nurse every broken-winged bird or wounded salamander back to health."

  "I can try!"

  "Perhaps you make them suffer more that way," her father suggested, "than if you let them die?"

  "Oh, Father--"

  "Now." Matred bustled back. "Enough talk. Japheth will help us carry our strange little giant to the women's tent. Quick, now!"

  FOUR

  Grandfather Lamech and Grandfather Enoch

  When Dennys opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by little brown people, he was terrified. How had he got back into that terrible tent? Surely the unicorn wouldn't have returned him to the people who had tossed him out into the dung heap. Where was the unicorn?

  Brilliant light flared against his closed eyelids, then darkness. He began to shiver, uncontrollably, and he felt a hand against his forehead. Cool. Gentle. It might almost have been his mother's hand. When he had had flu, only his mother's touch could cool him. "Mother," he moaned. Then, like a small child, "Mommy..."

  A small woman leaned over him, looked at him with twinkly eyes surrounded by a crisscrossing of wrinkles. She did not look as though she would throw him into a garbage pit.

  She moved away, and then two pairs of younger eyes were looking at him. One pair was a deep amber, with golden flecks, and belonged to a girl with hair as amber as the eyes. Beautiful eyes. Pure. The other girl's eyes were black, but a black which held light, and wisdom. Wherever he was, it could not be the tent from which he had been thrown by the men while the girl with flaming-red hair looked on.

  Men. He looked around fearfully. There were men there. Spears were stacked against the side of the tent. One of the men held a wineskin. They did not seem to be threatening.

  Then one of the small men came over to him, and smiled down at him, and he felt a great wave of relief. It was Japheth.

  "Jay--" he whispered through parched lips.

  "Den!" Japheth exclaimed gladly. "Oholi, he's coming back to consciousness!"

  "Jay--" Dennys's teeth were chattering.

  "Who's hurt you?" Japheth asked. "Can you tell us?"

  Dennys closed his eyes again.

  "Don't bother him with questions now," Oholibamah said.

  "Don't be afraid, Den," Japheth encouraged. "We're not going to let anybody hurt you." Japheth bent down to him. "I'm going to carry you to some place where it's cool and quiet. Don't be afraid." Japheth picked Dennys up as carefully as possible and slung him over his shoulder.

  Japheth was the tallest man in the tent; even so, he was so much smaller than Dennys that the boy's feet dragged on the ground, and he curled his fingers to keep them from scraping, too. No wonder in this place he and Sandy were thought of as giants. Dennys had a feverish vision of a trip his class had taken to a museum, where everybody had been amazed at the exhibition of knights' armor. How small those knights must have been! The people on this planet where he and Sandy had been flung were even smaller than the medieval knights.

  His thoughts misted off, as tenuous as the virtual unicorns. The remembrance of the field trip to the museum was no more of a dream than his being carried by Japheth, who was amazingly strong for so small a man, a short young shepherd carrying a lamb. A very small shepherd. Dennys's toes scraped over a rock, and he cried out. If he could wake up, if he could shake off the heat of this feverish dream, he and Sandy would be in their bunk bed at home.

  He opened his eyes, and the stars were brilliant, and he took a gulp of fresh air. Then his head brushed against a tent flap, and he felt himself being lowered onto something soft but so delicate that he could feel the rough skins underneath. He licked
his cracked lips and realized that he had a raging thirst. "Water, Jay," he managed to croak, but could not summon the energy to add, please.

  The black-eyed girl bent over him and held a wineskin to his lips, and he tasted something bitter and sweet at the same time. It stung his throat as he swallowed, but at least it was wet.

  The black-eyed girl withdrew the skin. "We shouldn't give him too much wine."

  "I forgot the fig juice," the plump, nut-like woman exclaimed. "I'll be right back."

  Dennys heard the pad of bare feet, and the thud of a leather tent flap falling.

  "He recognizes me now." Japheth's voice was troubled.

  "I don't think he's afraid of us anymore," the younger girl said, the one with amber eyes.

  "Water--" Dennys begged.

  The amber-eyed girl said, wistfully, "Grandfather Lamech's wells still have water to spare."

  The other girl agreed. "I wouldn't mind going to get a pitcherful, but I wish Grandfather Lamech did not live at the bottom of the oasis."

  Japheth put his arm lovingly about the girl. "I'll take one of the camels and go. I don't want either of you crossing the oasis at this time of night. Every moon, there are more bandits and thieves."

  "Oh, but be careful," the younger girl begged.

  "Take my camel, love," the black-haired woman offered. "She's the swiftest, and you'll be safe on her."

  "Thank you, Oholibamah, my wife." Japheth leaned to her and kissed her on the lips. Dennys, watching through the confusion of headache and fever, thought that it was a nice kiss. It was the kind of kiss he had seen his father give his mother. A real kiss. If he lived through this, he would like to kiss someone like that.

  He heard Japheth leave, and closed his eyes, sliding into a fevered sleep. Like his virtual unicorn, he seemed to flicker in and out of being. He retreated deep within himself in order to retreat from the flaming pain of his scraped skin. He did not know how long he had been unconscious before he became aware of the two women speaking softly.

  "Why won't my father reconcile with Grandfather Lamech?" the lighter voice asked. "I had to beg him for the oil for Grandfather's night-light."

  The older girl, the one Japheth had kissed, with an odd name, Oholi something, had a voice like velvet. "Your father was hurt when Grandfather Lamech insisted on staying in his own tent."

  "But as long as Grandfather can care for himself--"

  "It's complicated," the dark voice said. "People don't revere old people the way they used to. They don't want to listen to their stories."