Nation - Пратчетт Терри Дэвид Джон - Страница 37

Milo gave him a long, slow look and then kept on coming, his muscles moving like oiled coconuts under his skin. Daphne could hear the sand being crushed under his feet as he plodded over to the god anchors and set his burden down with a grunt. It sank a little into the beach.

There were already four lying in the sand. That isn’t right, is it? she wondered. Weren’t there supposed to be three but one got lost? Where did the other ones come from?

She saw the big man stretch himself out with a cracking of joints before turning to the little crowd and saying, in the slow and solemn voice of a man who tests the truth of every word before letting it go: “If anyone touches the stones, they answer to me.”

“That one was made by a demon!” shouted Ataba. He looked at the crowd for some support here but didn’t find any. The people weren’t on anyone’s side, as far as Daphne could tell. They just didn’t like shouting. Things were bad enough as they were.

“Demon,” rumbled Milo. “You like that word? Demon boy, you call him. But he saved you from the shark, right? And you said we made the god anchors. You did! I heard you!”

“Only some,” said Ataba, backing away. “Only some!”

“You never said some!” said Milo quickly. “He never said some,” he announced to the crowd. “He was speaking for his life an’ he never said some! I have good ears and he never said some!”

“Who cares what he said?” said Daphne. She turned to the nearest woman. “Get Mau some blankets! He’s as cold as ice!”

“Mau did rescue Ataba from a shark,” said Pilu.

“That is a lie! I was in no danger — ” the priest began, and stopped, because Milo had started to growl.

“You should have seen it!” said Pilu quickly, turning to the crowd with his eyes wide open and his arms outspread. “It was the biggest one I have ever seen! It was as long as a house! It had teeth like, like, like huge teeth! As it came toward us, its speed made waves that almost sank the canoe!”

Daphne blinked and looked sideways at the people. Their eyes were as wide as Pilu’s. Every mouth hung open.

“And Mau just waited, treading water,” the boy went on. “He did not turn and flee! He did not try to get away! He looked it in the eye, there in its own world! He waved at the shark, the shark with the teeth like machetes, the shark with teeth like needles, to call it to him! He called it to him! Yes, he did! I was in the water and I saw! He was waiting for it! And the shark came faster! It came like a spear! Faster and faster it came!”

In the audience, someone started to whimper.

“And then I saw an amazing thing!” Pilu went on, his eyes wide and gleaming. “It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen! I will never see anything like it if I live to be a hundred! As the shark charged through the water, as the shark with the huge teeth sped toward him, as the shark as long as a house came through the water like a knife, Mau — he pissed himself!”

The little waves of the lagoon lapped at the sand with small sup-sup noises, suddenly loud in the bottomless moment of silence.

The woman bringing a grubby blanket from the hut almost walked into Daphne because she couldn’t bear to take her eyes off Pilu.

Oh, thank you, Pilu, Daphne thought bitterly as the magic drained away. You were doing so well, you had their hearts in the palm of your hand, and then you had to go and spoil it by —

“And that was when I saw,” whispered Pilu, lowering his voice and staring around the circle of faces, catching every eye. “That is when I knew. That is when I understood. He was no demon! He was no god, no hero. No. He was nothing but a man! A man who was frightened! A man like you and me! But would we wait there, full of fear, as the shark with huge teeth came to eat us? He did! I saw him! And as the shark was upon him, he shouted at it in scorn! He shouted these words: Da! Na! Ha! Pa!”

“Da! Na! Ha! Pa!” several people mumbled, as if they were in a dream.

“And the shark turned and fled from him. The shark could not face him. The shark turned about and we were saved. I was there. I saw this.”

Daphne realized that her hands were sweating. She had felt the shark brush past her. She had seen its terrible eye. She could draw a picture of its teeth. She had been there. She had seen it. Pilu’s voice had shown it to her.

She remembered when Mr. Griffith from the Nonconformist chapel had been invited to speak in the parish church. The sermon was rather damp, because he spat a fine spray when he shouted, but the man was so full of God that it overflowed everywhere.

He preached as if he had a flaming sword in his hand. Bats fell out of the rafters. The organ started up by itself. The water sloshed in the font. All in all, it was very unlike the sermons of the Reverend Fleblow-Poundup, who on a fine day could get through a mumbled service in half an hour, with his butterfly net and collecting jar leaning against the pulpit.

When they had got home, her grandmother had stood in the hallway, taken a deep breath, and said, “Well!” And that was that. Normally people tended to be very quiet in the parish church. Perhaps they were afraid of waking God up in case He asked pointed questions or gave them a test.

But Pilu had unfolded the story of the shark like Mr. Griffith had preached. He had unfolded a picture in the air and then made it move. Was it true? Had it really happened like that? But how could it not be true, now? They had been there. They had seen it. They had shared it.

She looked down at Mau. His eyes were still open and his body was still twitching. And then she looked up, and into the face of Cahle, who said: “Locaha has taken him.”

“You mean he’s dying?”

“Yes. The cold hand of Locaha is on him. You know him. He does not sleep. He eats not enough. He carries all weights, runs every distance. In his head, too much thinking. Has anyone here seen him not working, guarding, digging, carrying? He tries to carry the world on his back! And when such people weaken, Locaha springs.”

Daphne leaned down to Mau. His lips were blue. “You’re not dying,” she whispered. “You can’t be dying.”

She shook him gently, and there was a rush of air from his lips, faint as a spider’s sneeze: “Does… ”

“Does not happen!” she said triumphantly. “See? Locaha hasn’t got him yet! Look at his legs! He is not dying! In his head he is running!”

Cahle looked carefully at Mau’s twitching legs and put her hand on his forehead. Her eyes widened. “I have heard of this,” she said. “It’s shadow stuff. It will kill him, even so. The Sky Woman will know what to do.”

“Where is she, then?”

“You chew her food for her,” said Cahle, smiling. The Unknown Woman appeared behind her, staring at Mau in horror.

“Mrs. Gurgle?” said Daphne.

“She is very old. A woman of great power.”

“Then we’d better hurry!”

Daphne put her hands under Mau’s shoulders and pulled him up. To her astonishment the Unknown Woman handed her baby to Cahle and took Mau’s feet. She looked at Daphne expectantly.

Together they ran up the hill, leaving everyone else behind after they had gone a little way. By the time they arrived in the hut, Mrs. Gurgle was waiting for them with her little black eyes gleaming.

As soon as Mau was laid on a mat, she changed.

Until now Mrs. Gurgle had been rather a strange, half-sized person to Daphne. She had lost most of the hair on her head, moved on all fours like a chimpanzee, and looked as if she’d been made out of old leather bags. Also, she was, frankly, grabby when it came to food, and tended to fart in an unladylike way, although that was mostly the fault of the salt-pickled beef.

Now she crawled around Mau carefully, touching him gently here and there. She listened intently at his ears and lifted each of his legs in turn, watching the twitching as closely as if she was observing a new species of wild animal.