Cloud Atlas

Old Georgie’s path an’ mine crossed more times ’n I’m comfy mem’ryin’, an’ after I’m died, no sayin’ what that fangy devil won’t try an’ do to me . . . so gimme some mutton an’ I’ll tell you ’bout our first meetin’. A fat joocesome slice, nay, none o’ your burnt wafery off’rin’s . . .

Adam, my bro, an’ Pa ’n’ me was trekkin’ back from Honokaa Market on miry roads with a busted cart axle in draggly clothesies. Evenin’ catched us up early, so we tented on the southly bank o’ Sloosha’s Crossin’, ’cos Waipio River was furyin’ with days o’ hard rain an’ swollen by a spring tide. Sloosha’s was friendsome ground tho’ marshy, no un lived in the Waipio Valley ’cept for a mil’yun birds, that’s why we din’t camo our tent or pull cart or nothin’. Pa sent me huntin’ for tinder ’n’ firewood while he ’n’ Adam tented up.

Now, I’d got diresome hole-spew that day ’cos I’d ate a gammy dog leg in Honokaa, an’ I was squattin’ in a thicket o’ ironwood trees upgulch when sudd’nwise eyes on me, I felt ’em. “Who’s there?” I called, an’ the mufflin’ ferny swallowed my voice.

Oh, a darky spot you’re in, boy, murmed the mufflin’ ferny.

“Name y’self!” shouted I, tho’ not so loud. “I got my blade, I have!”

Right ’bove my head someun whisped, Name y’self, boy, is it Zachry the Brave or Zachry the Cowardy? Up I looked an’ sure ’nuff there was Old Georgie cross-leggin’ on a rottin’ ironwood tree, a slywise grinnin’ in his hungry eyes.

“I ain’t ’fraid o’ you!” I telled him, tho’ tell-it-true my voice was jus’ a duck fart in a hurrycane. Quakin’ inside I was when Old Georgie jumped off his branch an’ then what happened? He dis’peared in a blurry flurryin’, yay, b’hind me. Nothin’ there . . . ’cept for a plump lardbird snufflyin’ for grubs, jus’ askin’ for a pluckin ’n’ a spit! Well, I reck’ned Zachry the Brave’d faced down Old Georgie, yay, he’d gone off huntin’ cowardier vic’tries ’n me. I wanted to tell Pa ’n’ Adam ’bout my eerie adventurin’, but a yarnin’ is more delish with broke-de-mouth grinds, so hushly-hushly up I hoicked my leggin’s an’ I crept up on that meatsome feathery buggah . . . an’ I dived.

Mister Lardbird he slipped thru my fingers an’ skipped off, but I wasn’t givin’ up, nay, I chased him upstream thru bumpy ’n’ thorny thickets, spring-heelin’ dead branches ’n’ all, thorns scratched my face diresome, but see I’d got the chasin’ fever so I din’t notice the trees thinnin’ nor the Hiilawe Falls roarin’ nearer, not till I ran schnock into the pool clearin’ an’ giddied up a bunch o’ horses. Nay, not wild horses, these was horses decked in studded leather armor an’ on the Big Isle that means one thing only, yay, the Kona.

Ten–twelve of them painted savages was ’ready risin ’n’ reachin’ for their whips ’n’ blades, yellin’ war cries at me! Oh, now I legged it back downgulch the way I’d come, yay, the hunter was the hunted. The nearest Kona was runnin’ after me, others was leapin’ on their horses an’ laughin’ with the sport. Now panickin’ wings your foot but it muddies your thinkin’ too, so I rabbited back to Pa. I was only a niner so I jus’ followed my instinct without thinkin’ thru what’d happen.

I never got back to our tentin’ tho’, or I’d not be sittin’ here yarnin’ to you. Over a ropy root—Georgie’s foot maybe—I tripped ’n’ tumblied into a pit o’ dead leaves what hid me from the Kona hoofs thunderin’ over me. I stayed there, hearin’ them jagged shouts goin’ by, jus’ yards away runnin’ thru them trees . . . straight t’ward Sloosha’s. To Pa ’n’ Adam.

I creeped slywise ’n’ speedy, but late I was, yay, way too late. The Kona was circlin’ our camp, their bullwhips crackin’. Pa he’d got his ax swingin’ an’ my bro’d got his spiker, but the Kona was jus’ toyin’ with ’em. I stayed at the lip o’ the clearin’, see fear was pissin’ in my blood an’ I cudn’t go on. Crack! went a whip, an’ Pa ’n’ Adam was top-sied an’ lay wrigglyin’ like eels on the sand. The Kona chief, one sharky buggah, he got off his horse an’ walked splishin’ thru the shallows to Pa, smilin’ back at his painted bros, got out his blade an’ opened Pa’s throat ear to ear.

Nothin’ so ruby as Pa’s ribbonin’ blood I ever seen. The chief licked Pa’s blood off the steel.

Adam’d got the dead shock, his spunk was drained off. A painted buggah binded his heels ’n’ wrists an’ tossed my oldest bro over his saddle like a sack o’ taro, an’ others sivvied our camp for ironware ’n’ all an’ busted what they din’t take. The chief got back on his horse an’ turned ’n’ looked right at me . . . them eyes was Old Georgie’s eyes. Zachry the Cowardy, they said, you was born to be mine, see, why even fight me?

Did I prove him wrong? Stay put an’ sink my blade into a Kona neck? Follow ’em back to their camp an’ try ’n’ free Adam? Nay, Zachry the Brave Niner he snaky-snuck up a leafy hideynick to snivel ’n’ pray to Sonmi he’d not be catched ’n’ slaved too. Yay, that’s all I did. Oh, if I’d been Sonmi list’nin’, I’d o’ shooked my head digustly an’ crushed me like a straw bug.

Pa was still lyin ’n’ bobbin’ in the salt shallows when I sneaked back after night’d fallen; see, the river was calmin’ down now an’ the weather clearin’. Pa, who’d micked ’n’ biffed ’n’ loved me. Slipp’ry as cave fish, heavy as a cow, cold as stones, ev’ry drop o’ blood sucked off by the river. I cudn’t grief prop’ly yet nor nothin’, ev’rythin’ was jus’ too shock ’n’ horrorsome, see. Now Sloosha’s was six–seven up ’n’ down miles from Bony Shore, so I built a mound for Pa where he was. I cudn’t mem’ry the Abbess’s holy words ’cept Dear Sonmi, Who art amongst us, return this beloved soul to a valley womb, we beseech thee. So I said ’em, forded the Waipio, an’ trogged up the switchblade thru the night forest.

An elf owl screeched at me, Well fought, Zachry the Brave! I yelled at the bird to shut up, but it screeched back, Or else? You’ll bust me like you bust them Kona? Oh, for the sake o’ my chicky-chick-chicks do have mercy! Up in the Kohala Mountains, dingos was howlin’, Cowardyyy-yy-y Zachryyy-yy-y. Lastly the moon she raised her face, but that cold lady din’t say nothin’ nay she din’t have to, I knowed what she thinked o’ me. Adam was lookin’ at that same moon, only two–three–four miles away, but for all I could help him, that could o’ been b’yonder Far Honolulu. I bust open an’ sobbed ’n’ sobbed ’n’ sobbed, yay, like a wind-knotted babbit.

An uphill mile later I got to Abel’s Dwellin’ an’ I hollered ’em up. Abel’s eldest Isaak let me in an’ I telled ’em what’d happened at Sloosha’s Crossin’, but . . . did I tell the hole true? Nay, wrapped in Abel’s blankies, warmed by their fire ’n’ grinds, the boy Zachry lied. I din’t ’fess how I’d leaded the Kona to Pa’s camp, see, I said I’d just gone huntin’ a lardbird into the thicket, an’ when I got back . . . Pa was killed, Adam taken, an’ Kona hoofs in the mud ev’rywhere. Cudn’t do nothin’, not then, not now. Ten Kona bruisers could o’ slayed Abel’s kin jus’ as easy as slayin’ Pa.

Your faces are askin’ me. Why’d I lie?

In my new tellin’, see, I wasn’t Zachry the Stoopit nor Zachry the Cowardy, I was jus’ Zachry the Unlucky ’n’ Lucky. Lies are Old Georgie’s vultures what circle on high lookin’ down for a runty ’n’ weedy soul to plummet ’n’ sink their talons in, an’ that night at Abel’s Dwellin’, that runty ’n’ weedy soul, yay, it was me.

Now you people’re lookin’ at a wrinkly buggah, mukelung’s nibblin’ my breath away, an’ I won’t be seein’ many more winters out, nay, nay, I know it. I’m shoutin’ back more ’n forty long years at myself, yay, at Zachry the Niner, Oy, list’n! Times are you’re weak ’gainst the world! Times are you can’t do nothin’! That ain’t your fault, it’s this busted world’s fault is all! But no matter how loud I shout, Boy Zachry, he don’t hear me nor never will.

Goat tongue is a gift, you got it from the day you’re borned or you ain’t got it. If you got it, goats’ll heed your say-so, if you ain’t, they’ll jus’ trample you muddy an’ stand there scornin’. Ev’ry dawnin’ I’d milk the nannies an’ most days take the hole herd up the throat o’ Elepaio Valley, thru Vert’bry Pass to pasturin’ in the Kohala Peaks. I herded Aunt Bees’s goats too, they’d got fifteen–twenty goats, so all-telled I’d got fifty–sixty to mind ’n’ help their birthin’ an’ watch for sick uns. I loved them dumb beasts more ’n I loved myself. When rain thundered I’d get soaked pluckin’ off their leeches, when sun burnt I’d crispen ’n’ brown, an’ if we was high up in the Kohalas times was I’d not go back down for three–four nights runnin’, nay. You’d got to keep your eyes beetlin’. Dingos scavved in the mountains an’ they’d try to pick off a wibbly newborn if you wasn’t mindin’ with your spiker. When my pa was a boy, savages from Mookini’d wander up from Leeward an’ rustler away a goat or two, but then the Kona slaved the Mookini all southly an’ their old dwellin’s in Hawi went to moss ’n’ ants. We goaters we knowed the Kohala Mountains like no un else, the crannies ’n’ streams ’n’ haunted places, steel trees what the old-time scavvers’d missed, an’ one–two–three Old Un buildin’s what no un knowed but us.

I planted my first babbit up Jayjo from Cutter Foot Dwellin’ under a lemon tree one a-sunny day. Leastways hers was the first what I knowed. Girls get so slywise ’bout who ’n’ when ’n’ all. I was twelve, Jayjo’d got a firm ’n’ eager body an’ laughed, twirly an’ crazy with love we both was, yay, jus’ like you two sittin’ here, so when Jayjo plummed up ripe we was talkin’ ’bout marryin’ so she’d come ’n’ live at Bailey’s Dwellin’. We’d got a lot o’ empty rooms, see. But then Jayjo’s waters busted moons too soon an’ Banjo fetched me to Cutter Foot, where she was laborin’. The babbit came out jus’ a few beats after I’d got there.

This ain’t a smilesome yarnie, but you asked ’bout my life on Big Island, an’ these is the mem’ries what are minnowin’ out. The babbit’d got no mouth, nay, no nose-holes neither, so it cudn’t breathe an’ was dyin’ from when Jayjo’s ma skissored the cord, poor little buggah. Its eyes never opened, it just felt the warm of its pa’s hands on its back, turned bad colors, stopped kickin’ an’ died.

Jayjo she was clammy ’n’ tallow an’ looked like dyin’ too. The women telled me to clear out an’ make space for the herb’list.

I took the died babbit wrapped in a woolsack to the Bony Shore. So lornsome I was, wond’rin’ if Jayjo’s seed was rotted or my seed was rotted or jus’ my luck was rotted. Slack mornin’ it was under the bloodflower bushes, waves lurched up the beach like sickly cows an’ fell over. Buildin’ the babbit’s mound din’t take as long as Pa’s. Bony Shore had the air o’ kelp an’ flesh ’n’ rottin’, old bones was lyin’ ’mongst the pebbles, an’ you din’t hang ’bout longer ’n you needed to, ’cept you was borned a fly or a raven.

Jayjo she din’t die, nay, but she never laughed twirly like b’fore an’ we din’t marry, nay, you got to know your seeds’ll grow a purebirth or sumthin’ close, yay? Or who’ll scrape the moss off your roof an’ oil your icon ’gainst termites when you’re gone? So if I met Jayjo at a gath’rin’ or bart’rin’ she’d say, Rainy mornin’ ain’t it? an’ I’d answer, Yay, rain till nightfall it will I reck’n, an’ we’d pass by. She married a leather maker from Kane Valley three years after, but I din’t go to their marryin’ feast.

It was a boy. Our died no-name babbit. A boy.

Valleysmen only had one god an’ her name it was Sonmi. Savages on Big I norm’ly had more gods ’n you could wave a spiker at. Down in Hilo they prayed to Sonmi if they’d the moodin’ but they’d got other gods too, shark gods, volcano gods, corn gods, sneeze gods, hairy-wart gods, oh, you name it, the Hilo’d birth a god for it. The Kona’d got a hole tribe o’ war gods an’ horse gods ’n’ all. But for Valleysmen savage gods weren’t worth knowin’, nay, only Sonmi was real.

She lived ’mongst us, minderin’ the Nine Folded Valleys. Most times we cudn’t see her, times was she was seen, an old crone with a stick, tho’ I sumtimes seen her as a shimm’rin’ girl. Sonmi helped sick uns, fixed busted luck, an’ when a truesome ’n’ civ’lized Valleysman died she’d take his soul an’ lead it back into a womb somewhere in the Valleys. Time was we mem’ried our gone lifes, times was we cudn’t, times was Sonmi telled Abbess who was who in a dreamin’, times was she din’t . . . but we knew we’d always be reborned as Valleysmen, an’ so death weren’t so scarysome for us, nay.

Unless Old Georgie got your soul, that is. See, if you b’haved savage-like an’ selfy an’ spurned the Civ’lize, or if Georgie tempted you into barb’rism an’ all, then your soul got heavy ’n’ jagged an’ weighed with stones. Sonmi cudn’t fit you into no womb then. Such crookit selfy people was called “stoned” an’ no fate was more dreadsome for a Valleysman.

The Icon’ry was the only buildin’ on Bony Shore ’tween Kane Valley an’ Honokaa Valley. There was no say-so ’bout keepin’ out, but no un went in idlesome ’cos it’d rot your luck if you din’t have no good reason to ’sturb that roofed night. Our icons, what we carved ’n’ polished ’n’ wrote words on durin’ our lifes, was stored there after we died. Thousands of ’em there was shelfed in my time, yay, each un a Valleysman like me borned ’n’ lived ’n’ reborned since the Flotilla what bringed our ancestors got to Big I to ’scape the Fall.

First time I went inside the Icon’ry was with Pa ’n’ Adam ’n’ Jonas when I was a sevener. Ma’d got a leakin’ malady birthin’ Catkin, an’ Pa took us to pray to Sonmi to fix her, ’cos the Icon’ry was a spesh holy place an’ Sonmi was norm’ly list’nin’ there. Watery dark it was inside. Wax ’n’ teak-oil ’n’ time was its smell. The icons lived in shelfs from floor to roof, how many there was I cudn’t tell, nay, you don’t go countin’ ’em like goats, but the gone-lifes outnumber the now-lifes like leafs outnumber trees. Pa’s voice spoke in the shadows, fam’liar it was but eerie too, askin’ Sonmi to halt Ma’s dyin’ an’ let her soul stay in that body for longer, an’ in my head I prayed the same, tho’ I knowed I been marked by Old Georgie at Sloosha’s Crossin’. An’ then we heard a sort o’ roaring underneath the silence, made o’ mil’yuns o’ whisp’rin’s like the ocean, only it wasn’t the ocean, nay, it was the icons, an’ we knew Sonmi was in there list’nin’ to us.

Ma din’t die. Sonmi’s got mercy, see.

My second time in the Icon’ry was Dreamin’ Night. When fourteen notches on our icons said we was a growed Valleysman, we’d sleep ’lone in the Icon’ry an’ Sonmi’d give us a spesh dreamin’. Some girls seen who they’d marry, some boys seen a way o’ livin’, other times we’d see stuff what we’d take to Abbess for an augurin’. When we left the Icon’ry in the mornin’ we’d be men an’ women.

So gone sunset I lay under my pa’s blanky in the Icon’ry with my own uncarved icon as a pillow. Outside Bony Shore was rattlin ’n’ clackin’ an’ breakers was churnin ’n’ boilin’ an’ a whippoorwill I heard. But it weren’t no whippoorwill, nay, it was a trapdoor openin’ right by me, an’ a rope swingin’ down into the underworld sky. Climb down, Sonmi telled me, so I did, but the rope was made o’ human fingers ’n’ wrists weaved together. I looked up an’ seen fire comin’ down from the Icon’ry floor. Cut the rope, said a crookit man, but I was scared to ’cos I’d o’ fallen, yay?

Next dream, I was holdin’ my freakbirth babbit boy in Jayjo’s room. He was kickin ’n’ wrigglyin’ like he’d done that day. Quick, Zachry, said the man, cut your babbit a mouth so he can breathe! I’d got my blade in my hand so I carved my boy a smily slit, like cuttin’ cheese it was. Words frothed out, Why’d you kill me, Pa?

My last dream had me walkin’ ’long Waipio River. On the far side I seen Adam, fishin’ happ’ly! I waved but he din’t see me, so I ran to a bridge what ain’t there in wakin’ life, nay, a gold ’n’ bronze bridge. When fin’ly I got to Adam’s side tho’, I sobbed griefsome ’cos nothin’ was left but mold’rin’ bones an’ a little silver eel flippy-flappin’ in the dust.

The eel was dawnlight crackin’ under the Icon’ry door. I mem’ried the three dreams an’ walked thru the drizzly surf to Abbess without meetin’ not a body. Abbess was feedin’ her chicklin’s b’hind the school’ry. She list’ned close to my dreamin’s, then telled me they was slywise augurin’s an’ say-soed me to wait inside the school’ry while she prayed to Sonmi for their true meanin’s.

The school’ry room was touched with the holy myst’ry o’ the Civ’lize Days. Ev’ry book in the Valleys sat on them shelfs, saggy ’n’ wormy they was gettin’ but, yay, they was books an’ words o’ knowin’! A ball o’ the world there was too. If Hole World is a giant big ball, I din’t und’stand why people don’t fall off it an’ I still don’t. See, I’d not much smart in school’ry learnin’, not like Catkin, who could o’ been the next Abbess if all things happened diff’rent. School’ry windows was glass still unbusted since the Fall. The greatest of ’mazements tho’ was the clock, yay, the only workin’ clock in the Valleys an’ in hole Big I, hole Ha-Why, far as I know. When I was a schooler I was ’fraid of that tick-tockin’ spider watchin ’n’ judgin’ us. Abbess’d teached us Clock Tongue but I’d forgot it, ’cept for O’Clock an’ Half Past. I mem’ry Abbess sayin’, Civ’lize needs time, an’ if we let this clock die, time’ll die too, an’ then how can we bring back the Civ’lize Days as it was b’fore the Fall?

I watched the clock’s tickers that mornin’ too till Abbess came back from her augurin’ an’ sat ’cross from me. She telled me Old Georgie was hungerin’ for my soul, so he’d put a cuss on my dreamin’s to fog their meanin’. But Sonmi’d spoke her what the true augurin’s was. An’ you too you got to mem’ry these augurin’s well ’cos they’ll change the path o’ this yarnin’ more ’n once.

One: Hands are burnin’, let that rope be not cut.

Two: Enemy’s sleeping, let his throat be not slit.

Three: Bronze is burnin’, let that bridge be not crossed.

I ’fessed I din’t und’stand. Abbess said she din’t und’stand neither, but I’d und’stand when the true beat come, an’ she made me nail her augurin’s to my mem’ry. Then she gave me a hen’s egg for brekker, still spitty ’n’ warm from the bird, an’ showed me how to suck its yolk thru a straw.

So you want to hear about the Great Ship o’ the Prescients?

Nay, the Ship ain’t no mythy yarnin’, it was real as I am an’ you are. These here very eyes they seen it ooh, twenty times or more. The Ship’d call at Flotilla Bay twice a year, near the spring an’ autumn half ’n’ halfs when night ’n’ day got the same long. Notice it never called at no savage town, not Honokaa, not Hilo, not Leeward. An’ why? ’Cos only us Valleysmen got ’nuff Civ’lize for the Prescients, yay. They din’t want no barter with no barb’rians what thinked the Ship was a mighty white bird god! The Ship was the sky’s color so you cudn’t see it till it was jus’ offshore. It’d got no oars, nay, no sails, it din’t need wind nor currents neither, ’cos it was driven by the Smart o’ Old Uns. Long as a big islet was the Ship, high as a low hill, it carried two–three–four hundred people, a mil’yun maybe.

How did it move? Where’d its journeyin’s take it? How’d it s’vived all the flashbangin’ an’ the Fall? Well, I never knowed many o’ the answers, an’ unlike those o’ most storymen, Zachry’s yarns ain’t made up. The tribe what lived on the Ship was called Prescients, an’ they came from an isle named Prescience I. Prescience was bigger ’n Maui, smaller ’n Big I, an’ far-far in the northly blue, more ’n that I ain’t knowin’ or ain’t sayin’.

So the Ship’d anchor ’bout ten throws off School’ry Head an’ a pair o’ littler hornety boats’d come out the Ship’s prow an’ fly over the surf to the beach. Each’d got six–eight men ’n’ women. Oh, ev’rythin’ ’bout ’em was wondersome. Shipwomen too was man-some, see, their hair was sheared, not braided like Valleyswomen, an’ they was wirier ’n’ strong. Their skins was healthy ’n’ smooth without a speck o’ the scabbin’, but brewy-brown ’n’ black they was all of ’em, an’ they looked more alike ’n other people what you see on Big I. An’ Prescients din’t speak much, nay. Two guards stayed by the shored boats an’ if we asked ’em, What’s your name, sir? or Where you headed, miss? they’d just shake their heads, like sayin’, I won’t answer nothin,’ nay, so don’t ask no more. A myst’rous Smart stopped us goin’ close up. The air got thicker till you cudn’t go no nearer. A dizzyin’ pain it gave you too so you din’t donkey ’bout with it, nay.

The barterin’ took place in the Commons. Prescients spoke in a strange way, not lazy ’n’ spotty like the Hilo but salted ’n’ coldsome. By the time they’d landed, the yibber’d been busy an’ most dwellin’s was ’ready rushin’ baskets o’ fruits ’n’ veggies ’n’ meats ’n’ all to the Commons. Also the Prescients filled spesh casks with fresh water from the stream. In return, Prescients bartered ironware what was better ’n any made on Big I. They bartered fair an’ never spoke knuckly like savages at Honokaa, but politesome speakin’ it draws a line b’tween you what says, I respect you well ’nuff but you an’ I ain’t kin, so don’t you step over this line, yay?

Yay, the Prescients’d whoah strict rules ’bout barterin’ with us. They’d not barter gear Smarter ’n anythin’ ’ready on Big I. For ’zample, after Pa was killed, a gath’rin’ agreed to build a garrison by Abel’s Dwellin’ to protect the Muliwai Trail what was our main track from Sloosha’s Crossin’ into our Nine Valleys. Abbess asked the Prescients for spesh weapons to defend us from Kona. The Prescients said nay. Abbess begged ’em, more-less. They still said nay an’ that was that.

’Nother rule was not to tell us nothin’ ’bout what lay b’yonder the ocean, not even Prescience Isle, ’cept for its name. Napes of Inouye Dwellin’ asked to earn passage on the Ship, an’ that was nearest I seen the Prescients all laugh. Their chief said nay an’ no un was s’prised. We never pushed these rules to bendin’ point, ’cos we reck’ned they did our Civ’lize an honor by barterin’ with us. Abbess’d always invite ’em to stay for a feastin’, but the chief’d always naysay politesome. Back to their boats they’d lug their bartered gear. An hour later the Ship’d be gone, eastly in spring, northly in fall.

So the visits was, ev’ry year, since anyun could mem’ry. Until my sixteenth year, when a Prescient woman called Meronym visited my dwellin’ for a spell, an’ nothin’d be the same, not in my life, not in the Valleys, nay, not never.

Way back up b’hind Vert’bry Pass was a ridge called Moon’s Nest what’d got the best view o’ Windward from the Kohala pastures. One glitt’ry spring aft’noon I was herdin’ up on Moon’s Nest when I spied the Ship ’proachin’ Flotilla Bay an’ a whoah beautsome sight she was too, blue same as the ocean an’ if you wasn’t lookin’ right at her you’d not see her, nay. Now I knowed I should o’ gone quicksharp to the barterin’ but, see, I’d the goats to minder ’n’ all an’ by the time I got to the Commons the Prescients’d prob’ly be leavin’ anyhow, so I stayed put an’ lolled, gazin’ on that wondersome Ship o’ Smart what came ’n’ went with the wild gooses an’ whales.

Well, that’s my reason for stayin’, what I telled myself, tho’ the true reason was a girl called Roses, who’d been gatherin’ palila leafs for her ma’s med’sun-makin’. We’d got a feverish hornyin’ for each other, see, an’ in that druggy skylarkin’ aft’noon I was slurpyin’ her lustsome mangoes an’ moistly fig an’ the true is I din’t want to go nowhere else, an’ Roses din’t gather many palila leafs that day neither, nay. Oh, you’re laughin’ you blushin’ young uns, but time was, yay, I was jus’ as you are now.

Come evenin’ when I herded my goats home, Ma was flappin’ n’anxin’ like a one-wing gander an’ cussin’ me so crazy it was Sussy what I got the hole yibber off. After barterin’ at the Commons, the Prescient chief asked to speak to Abbess in private. After a long beat, Abbess’d come out o’ the meet an’ called a gath’rin’. Valleysmen from the nearby dwellin’s was there, ’cept Bailey’s, our dwellin’. See Ma’d not gone to the Commons neither. So the gath’rin’ kicked off there ’n’ then. The Prescient chief wants to make a spesh bart’rin’ this year, said Abbess. One Shipwoman wishes to live ’n’ work in a dwellin’ for half a year, to learn our ways an’ und’stand us Valleysmen. In return, the chief’ll pay us double ev’rythin’ we bartered today. Nets, pots, pans, ironware, ev’rythin’ double. Now think what an honor this is, an’ think o’ what we can get for all the gear at the next Honokaa Barter. Well, it din’t take long for one great Yay! to gather speed round the gath’rin’, an’ Abbess had to shout her next question over the rowdy. Who’s to host our Prescient guest? Oh, that Yay! stopped cold. Folks sudd’nwise had hole bags o’ ’scuses. We ain’t got nuff space. We got two babbits comin,’ our guest cudn’t sleep well. The mozzies round our dwellin’d bite her to shreds. Rusty Volvo that greasy buggah it was who first speaked it. What ’bout Bailey’s Dwellin’? See, Ma nor me wasn’t there to coldwater the plan, an’ it fired hot pretty quick. Yay, they got empty rooms since Pa Bailey was killed! Baileys taked more out o’ Commons ’n they put in last harvest, yay, it’s their duty! Yay, they got need o’ workin’ hands at Bailey’s, Ma Bailey’ll be glad o’ the help! An’ so the gath’rin’s say-so was settled.

Well, the one-wing gander now it was me, yay. What do Prescients eat ’n’ drink? Do they sleep in straw? Do they sleep? Six moons! Ma was cussin’ me for not goin’ to the Ship Barter, an’ even tho’, yay, Ma was the real chief o’ Bailey’s, I was the oldest man o’ the dwellin’ so I should o’ gone fair cop. I said, Look I’ll go to Abbess an’ tell her we can’t host no Prescient here . . . when knock, knock, knock, said our door.

Yay, it was Abbess bringin’ the Prescient to move in, with Mylo the school’ry ’sistant. We all knowed we was lumbered with the Valleys’ guest then, like it or not like it, we cudn’t say Get lost now, yay? It’d bring shame to our roof an’ shame to our icons. The Shipwoman she’d got that vin’gary stink o’ Smart an’ she spoke first, ’cos me ’n’ Ma was both tongue-knotted so. Good evenin’, she said, I’m Meronym, an’ I’m thankin’ you kindly for hostin’ my stay in the Valleys. Mylo was grinnin’ mocksome ’n’ toady at my anxin’, I could o’ killed him.

Sussy mem’ried her hostin’ manners first, an’ she settled our guests an’ sent Jonas to fetch brew ’n’ grinds ’n’ all. Meronym speaked, My people got a custom to give small presents to their hosts at the beginnin’ of a visit, so I hope you won’t mind . . . She reached into a bag what she’d bringed an’ gived us presents. Ma got a fine pot what’d cost five–six bales o’ wool at Honokaa, an’ she was left breathy sayin’ she cudn’t accept such a presh gift ’cos welcomin’ strangers was Sonmi’s way, yay, welcomin’ should be free or not at all, but the Prescient woman answered these gifts wasn’t payments, nay, they was jus’ thanks b’fore kindnesses, an’ Ma din’t refuse the pot a second time, nay. Sussy ’n’ Catkin got necklesses what twinked starry, bug-eyed ’n’ joysome they was, an’ Jonas got a hole square mirror what fass’nated him, brighter ’n any busted shard what you still see now ’n’ again.

Mylo wasn’t grinnin’ so toadsome now, but I din’t like this giftin’ not a bit, nay, see this offlander was buyin’ my kin sure ’nuff an’ I wasn’t havin’ it. So I jus’ said the Shipwoman could stay in our dwellin’ but I din’t want her gift an’ that was that.

I said it ruder ’n I meant, an’ Ma looked spikers at me, but Meronym jus’ said, Sure I und’stand, like I’d speaked ord’nary ’n’ norm’ly.

Now a herd o’ visitors bleated to our dwellin’ that night an’ some nights after, from up ’n’ down the Nine Valleys, kin ’n’ bros ’n’ lastlife fam’ly ’n’ half-strangers what we only met at bart’rin’s, yay, ev’ryun from Mauka to Mormon came knockin’ to see if Old Ma Yibber spoke it true, that a real ’n’ livin’ Prescient was stayin’ at Bailey’s. We’d got to invite ev’ry last visitor inside o’ course an’ they gaped in wonderment like Sonmi herself was sittin’ in our kitchen, tho’ their ’mazement weren’t so great they cudn’t chomp our grinds an’ down our brew no worries, an’ as they drank years o’ questions ’bout Prescience an’ their whoahsome Ship came pourin’ thick ’n’ fast.

But the wyrd thing was this. Meronym seemed to answer the questions, but her answers didn’t quench your curio none, nay, not a flea. So my cuz Spensa o’ Cluny Dwellin’ asked, What makes your Ship move? The Prescient answered, Fusion engines. Ev’ryun nodded wise as Sonmi, Oh, fusion engines it is, yay, no un asked what “fusion engine” was ’cos they din’t want to look barb’ric or stoopit in front o’ the gath’rin’. Abbess asked Meronym to show us Prescience Isle on a map o’ the world, but Meronym jus’ pointed to a spot an’ said, Here.

Where? we asked. See, there weren’t nothin’ but blue sea an’ I for one thinked she was mickin’ us mocksome.

Prescience I weren’t on any map made jus’ b’fore the Fall, Meronym said, ’cos Prescience’s founders kept it secret. It was on older maps, yay, but not the Abbess’s.

I’d got a bit o’ the brave by now an’ I asked our visitor why Prescients with all their high Smart ’n’ all want to learn ’bout us Valleysmen? What could we poss’bly teach her what she din’t know? The learnin’ mind is the livin’ mind, Meronym said, an’ any sort o’ Smart is truesome Smart, old Smart or new, high Smart or low. No un but me seen the arrows o’ flatt’ry them words fired, or how this crafty spyer was usin’ our ign’rance to fog her true ’tentions, so I follered my first question with this pokerer: But you Prescients got more greatsome ’n’ mighty Smart ’n this Hole World, yay? Oh, so slywise she picked her words! We got more ’n the tribes o’ Ha-Why, less ’n Old Uns b’fore the Fall. See? Don’t say a hole lot does it, nay?

I mem’ry jus’ three honest answers she gived us. Ruby o’ Potter’s asked why Prescients’d all got dark skins like cokeynuts, nay, we’d never seen a pale un or pink un come off of their Ship. Meronym said her ancestors b’fore the Fall changed their seeds to make dark-skinned babbits to give ’em protection ’gainst the redscab sickness, an’ so them babbits’ babbits also got it, like father like son, yay, like rabbits ’n’ cukes.

Napes o’ Inouye Dwellin’ asked, was she married, ’cos he was single an’ had a macadnut orchard an’ fig ’n’ lemon plantation all his own. Ev’ryun laughed, even Meronym smiled. She said she’d been married once, yay, an’ had a son named Anafi livin’ on Prescience I, but her husband’d been killed by savages years ago. She sorried losin’ the chance o’ them lemons ’n’ figs but she was too old for the husband market, an’ Napes shaked his head in dis’pointment an’ said, Oh Shipwoman, you breaked my heart yay you do.

Last up, my cuz Kobbery asked, So how old are you? Yay, that was what we was all wond’rin’. No un was ready for her answer tho’. Fifty. Yay, that’s what she said an’ we was ’mazed as you are now. Fifty. The air in our kitchen changed like the cold wind suddenwise comin’. Livin’ to fifty ain’t wondersome, nay, livin’ to fifty is eerie an’ ain’t nat’ral, yay? How old do Prescients live, then? asked Melvil o’ Black Ox. Meronym shrugged. Sixty, seventy . . . Oh, we all got the gaspin’ shock! Norm’ly by forty we’re prayin’ Sonmi to put us out o’ misery an’ reborn us quick in a new body, like bladin’ a dog’s throat what you loved what was sick ’n’ agonyin’. The only Valleysman who’d ever lived to fifty an’ weren’t flakin’ with redscab or dyin’ of mukelung was Truman Third, an’ ev’ryun knowed how he’d done a deal with Old Georgie one hurrycanin’ night, yay, that fool’d sold his soul for some extra years. Well, the yarnin’ was busted prop’ly after that, an’ folks left in gaggles to yibber what’d been said an’ answered, ev’ryun whispin’, Thank Sonmi she’s not stoppin’ in our dwellin’.

I was pleased our dammit crookit guest’d teached ev’ryun to step slywise an’ not trust her, nay, not a flea, but I din’t sleep none that night, ’cos o’ the mozzies an’ nightbirds an’ toads ringin’ an’ a myst’rous someun what was hushly clatt’rin’ thru our dwellin’ pickin’ up stuff here an’ puttin’ it down there an’ the name o’ this myst’rous someun was Change.

First, second, third days the Prescient woman was wormyin’ into my dwellin’. Got to ’fess she din’t b’have like no queeny-bee, nay, she never lazed a beat. She helped Sussy with dairyin’ an’ Ma with twinin ’n’ spinnin’ an’ Jonas took her bird-eggin’ an’ she list’ned to Catkin’s yippin’ ’bout school’ry an’ she fetched water ’n’ chopped wood an’ she was a quicksome learner. Course the yibber was keepin’ a close eye on her an’ visitors kept callin’ to see the wondersome fifty-year-old woman what jus’ looked twenty-five years. Folks what s’pected her to be doin’ tricks ’n’ whizzies was dis’pointed very soon ’cos she din’t, nay. Ma she lost her anxin’ ’bout the Shipwoman in a day or two, yay, she started gettin’ friendsome with her an’ crowy too. Our visitor Meronym this an’ Our visitor Meronym that, it was cockadoodlydooin’ morn till night, an’ Sussy was ten times badder. Meronym she jus’ got on with her work, tho’ at night she’d sit at our table an’ write on spesh paper, oh so finer ’n ours. A whoah fast writer she was, but she din’t write in our tongue, nay, she wrote in some other speakin’. See, there was other tongues spoken in the Old Countries, not just ours. What you writin’ ’bout, Aunt Meronym? asked Catkin, but the Prescient jus’ answered, My days, pretty one, I’m writin’ ’bout my days.

I hated her pretty one stuff in my fam’ly an’ I din’t like the way old folks came creepin’ up askin’ her for lowdown on how to live long. But her writin’ ’bout the Valleys what no Valleysman could read, that anxed me most. Was it Smart or was it spyin’ or was it the touch o’ Old Georgie?

One steamin’ dawn I’d done the milkin’ when our guest asked to come herdin’ the goats with me. Ma said yay, o’ course. I din’t say yay, I said, coolsome ’n’ stony, Grazin’ goats ain’t int’restin’ for folks with so much Smart as you. Meronym said politesome, Ev’rythin’ Valleysmen do is int’restin’ for me, Host Zachry, but course if you jus’ don’t want me to watch your work, that’s fine, jus’ come out an’ say-so. See? Her words was slipp’ry wrestlers, they jus’ flipped your nay into a yay. Ma was hawkeyein’ me so, Sure, fine, yay, come, I’d got to say.

Herdin’ my goats up Elepaio Track, I din’t say nothin’ else. Past Cluny’s Dwellin’ a bro o’ mine, Gubboh Hogboy, shouted, Howzit, Zachry! for a discussin’, but when he seen Meronym he awked an’ jus’ said, Go careful, Zachry. Oh, I wished I could shruck that woman off my back, so I say-soed Stop draggin’, you slugger-buggahs, to my goats an’ hiked harder, hopin’ to wear her out, see, upstream thru Vert’bry Pass we went but she din’t quit, nay, not even on the rocky trail to Moon’s Nest. Prescient tuff it’s a match for goater tuff, I learnt it then. I reck’ned she knowed my thinkin’ an’ was laughin’ at me, inward, so I din’t speak nothin’ more to her.

What did she do when we reached Moon’s Nest? She sat on Thumb Rock an’ got out a writin’ book an’ sketched that whoahsome view. Oh, Meronym’d got whoahsome drawin’-Smart I got to ’fess. On that paper the Nine Folded Valleys appeared an’ the coast ’n’ headlands, an’ highlands ’n’ lowgrounds, jus’ as real as the real uns. I din’t want to give her no int’rest, but I cudn’t stop me. I named ev’rythin’ she’d marked, an’ she wrote the names until it was half-picturin’ half-writin’, I said. ’Zactly so, said Meronym, it’s a map we done here.

Now. I heard a twig snappin’ in a fringe o’ firs b’hind us. Not the fluky wind it weren’t, nay, it was a leg done it sure ’nuff, but a foot or hoof or claw I cudn’t tell. Kona up the Windward Kohalas weren’t knowed but so weren’t Kona at Sloosha’s Crossin’, nay, so into that thicket I went for a look-see. Meronym wanted to come with me but I telled her to stay put. Could it be Old Georgie come back to stone my soul some more? Or jus’ a hermity Mookini wand’rin’ for grinds? I’d got my spiker an’ I crept nearer the firs, nearer the firs . . .

Roses sat straddlin’ a mossy fat stump. See you got fresh comp’ny, she said politesome, but there was a furyin’ dingo bitch in her eyes.

Her? I pointed back at Meronym, who sat watchin’ us talk. Ain’t yibber telled you, the Shipwoman’s older ’n my granny was when Sonmi reborned her! Don’t be jealous o’ her! She ain’t like you, Roses. She’s got so much Smart in her head she’s got a busted neck.

Roses weren’t politesome now. So I ain’t got no Smart?

Women, oh, women! They’ll find the baddest meanin’ in your words an’ hold it up, sayin’, Look what you attacked me with! Lust-bonered hothead what I was, a bit o’ knuckly talkin’d cure Roses’s senses, so I reck’ned. You know that ain’t what I’m sayin’ you dumb vamoosin’ bint—

I din’t finish speakin’ my cure ’cos Roses schnockoed my face so hard the ground dived forward an’ I crashed on my jaxy. So shocked I was I jus’ sat there like a dropped babbit, I dabbed my nose an’ my fingers was red. Oh, said Roses, then Ha! then, You can bitchmouth your nanny goats all you wants, herder, but not me, so Old Georgie stone your soul! Our lovin ’n’ throbbin’ was smashed to a mil’yun ittybitties an’ off Roses went then, swingin’ her basket.

Mis’ry ’n’ barrassment are hungersome for blame, an’ what I blamed for losin’ Roses was the dammit Prescient. That mornin’ on Moon’s Nest I got up an’ hollered my goats an’ droved ’em to Thumb Pasture without even sayin’ good-bye to Meronym. She’d got ’nuff Smart to leave me be, mem’ry she’d got a son o’ her own back on Prescience I.

When I got home that evenin’, Ma ’n’ Sussy ’n’ Jonas was sittin’ round. They seen my nose an’ looked slywise at each other. What happened to your conker there, bro? Jonas asked, all la-di-da. This? Oh, I slipped ’n’ schnockoed it on Moon’s Nest, I telled him quicksharp.

Sussy sort o’ snigged. You don’t mean you schnockoed it on Roses’s Nest there, bro Zachry? an’ all three of ’em cackled like a danglin’ o’ screech bats an’ I redded diresome ’n’ steamin’. Sissy telled me she’d got the yibber off Roses’s cuz Wolt, what’d telled Bejesus, what’d met Sissy, but I wasn’t really list’nin’, nay, I was cussin’ Meronym to Old Georgie, an’ I din’t stop, an’ it’s a bless she weren’t at Bailey’s that night, nay, she was learnin’ loomin’ at Aunt Bees’s.

So down I went to the ocean an’ watched Lady Moon to cool my fiery mis’ry. A greenbill came draggin’ itself up the beach to lay eggs I mem’ry, an’ I nearly spikered the turtle there ’n’ then out o’ spite, see, if my life weren’t fair why should an animal’s be? But I seen its eyes, so ancient was its eyes they seen the future, yay’ an’ I let the turtle go. Gubboh ’n’ Kobbery came troopin’ with their boards an’ started surfin’ in the starry water, a whoah beautsome surfer was Kobbery, an’ they called me to join ’em but I weren’t in no surfin’ mood, nay, I’d got more soberin’ bis’ness to push at with Abbess at the school’ry. So there I went an’ spoke my worryin’s for a long beat.

Abbess she list’ned, but she din’t b’lief me none, nay, she thinked I was jus’ wrigglyin’ out o’ hostin’ Meronym. You seen the Ship, an’ you seen their ironware, an’ you seen the bit o’ the Smart they’ll show us. If Prescients was plannin’ on invadin’ Nine Valleys, d’you truesome reck’n we’d be sittin’ here discussin’ it? Bring me ev’dence Meronym’s plannin’ to murder us all in our beds, I’ll summon a gath’rin’. If you ain’t got ev’dence, well, hold your counsel. Makin’ ’cusations ’gainst a spesh guest, it jus’ ain’t politesome, Zachry, an’ your pa’d not o’ been pleased.

Our Abbess never stamped her say-sos on no un, but you knew when the discussin’ was over. That was it, then, I was on my own, yay. Zachry ’gainst the Prescients.

Days rose ’n’ fell an’ summer hotted up green ’n’ foamy. I watched Meronym wormy her way round all the Valleys, meetin’ folk an’ learnin’ how we lived, what we owned, how many of us could fight, an’ mappin’ passes into the Valleys thru the Kohalas. One or two o’ the older ’n’ cunninger men, I tried to suss out if they’d got any doubts or anxin’s ’bout the Prescient, but when I said invade or attack they looked shocked ’n’ s’prised spikers at me ’n’ my accusin’s so I got shamed an’ I shut up, see, I din’t want yibber smearin’ me. I should fake a bit o’ manners to Meronym so she may get lazy an’ let her friendsome mask slip a littl’ an’ show me her true plannin’s b’hind that mask, yay, give me some ev’dence I could show to Abbess an’ summon a gath’rin’.

I din’t have no choice to wait ’n’ see. Meronym was truesome pop’lar. Women ’fessed stuff to her ’cos she was an outsider an’ she’d not tell Old Ma Yibber no secrets. Abbess asked our guest to teach numbers at the school’ry an’ Meronym said yay. Catkin said she was a good teacher but din’t teach ’em nothin’ b’yonder Abbess’s own Smart tho’ Catkin knowed she could o’ done if she’d o’ wanted. Some schoolers even started inkin’ their faces blacker to look like a Prescient, but Meronym telled ’em to clean up or she’d not teach ’em nothin’, ’cos Smart ’n’ Civ’lize ain’t nothin’ to do with the color o’ the skin, nay.

Now one evenin’ on our v’randa, Meronym was questionin’ ’bout icons. Is icons a home for the soul? Or a common mem’ry o’ faces ’n’ kin ’n’ age ’n’ all? Or a prayer to Sonmi? Or a tombstone wrote in this-life with messages for next-life? See it was always whys ’n’ whats with Prescients, it weren’t never ’nuff sumthin’ just was an’ leave it be. Duophysite was the same here on Maui, nay? Unc’ Bees was tryin’ to answer but foggin’ out, he ’fessed he knowed ’zactly what icons is until the beat he’d to explain ’em. The Icon’ry, Aunt Bees said, held Valleysmen’s past an’ present all t’gether. Now it didn’t often happ’n I could read anyun’s thinkin’s, but that beat I seen the Shipwoman wond’rin’, Oho, then this Icon’ry I got to go visit it, yay. Nay, I din’t say nothin’, but the f’llowin’ sunup I strolled down to Bony Shore an’ hid up on Sooside Rock. See, I reck’ned if I could catch the offlander bein’ dis-’spectful to our icons or better still cockaroachin’ one, I could pit the older Valleysmen ’gainst her, an’ so wise up my people ’n’ kin to the Prescient’s truesome plannin’s ’n’ all.

So I sat ’n’ waited on Sooside Rock, thinkin’ o’ the folks Georgie’d pushed off o’ there into the gnashin’ foamin’ b’low. Windy mornin’ it was, yay, I mem’ry well, sand ’n’ dune grass whippin’ an’ bloodflower bushes threshin’ an’ surf flyin’ off scuddin’ breakers. I ate some fungusdo’ what I’d bringed for brekker, but b’fore I’d finished who do I spy trompin’ ’long to the Icon’ry but Meronym, yay, an’ Napes of Inouye. Clusterin ’n’ talkin’ thick as thiefs! Oh, my thinkin’ giddyupped now! Was Napes settin’ himself up as the offlander’s right arm? S’pose he was plannin’ on replacin’ Abbess as chief o’ Nine Valleys once the Prescients’d run us all over the Kohalas an’ into the sea with their snaky judasin’ Smart?

Now Napes’d got the charm he had, yay, ev’ryun loved him, his jokey yarnin’s ’n’ smile ’n’ all. If I got the goat tongue, well, Napes’d sort o’ got the people tongue. You can’t go trustin’ folks what lassoop words so skillsome as him. Into the Icon’ry Napes ’n’ Meronym went, bold as a pair o’ cockadoodlies. The dog Py waited outside where Meronym told him.

Quiet as breezes I crept in after ’em. Napes’d ’ready jammed the door open for seein’-light an’ so it din’t squeak none when I tippied in b’hind ’em. From the dim ’n’ shadowy shelfs what the oldest icons was kept on I heard Napes murmin’. Plans ’n’ conspiries, I jus’ knowed it! I crept nearer to hear what I’d hear.

But Napes was braggin’ ’bout his gran’pa’s pa named Truman, yay, the self-same Truman Third what still walks thru stories on Big I an’ here on Maui too. Well, if you young uns don’t know the story o’ Truman Napes time you did, so sit still, be patient an’ pass me the dammit weed.

Truman Napes was a scavver back when Old-Un gear was still junkifyin’ in craters here ’n’ there. One mornin’ an idea rooted in his mind what said the Old Uns may o’ stashed presh gear up on Mauna Kea for safekeepin’. This idea growed ’n’ growed till by evenin’ Truman’d settled to climb that scaresome mountain an’ see what he’d see, yay, an’ leave the very next day. His wife telled him, You’re crazy, there ain’t nothin’ on Mauna Kea but Old Georgie an’ his temples hid in his ’closure walls. He’ll not let you in unless you’re ’ready died an’ your soul is his. Truman jus’ said, Go to sleep, you crazy old bint, there ain’t no truth in them crookit supe’stitions, so he sleeps ’n’ wakes an’ thru the crack o’ dawn up Waipio Valley off he stomps.

Brave Truman trekked ’n’ climbed for three solid days an’ had varyin’ adventurin’s what I ain’t time to tell you now, but he s’vived ’em all till he was up that feary ’n’ ghostsome summit in the clouds what you can see from anywhere on Big I an’ so high up he cudn’t see the world b’low. Ashy it was, yay, no speck o’ green an’ a mil’yun winds tore here ’n’ there like rabies’ dingos. Now Truman’s steps was stopped by a wondersome ironstone wall, higher ’n redwoods, what circled the hole peak for miles ’n’ miles. Truman walked daylong round it searchin’ for a breach, ’cos there wasn’t no scalin’ it nor diggin’ under, but guess what he finded in the hour b’fore dark? A man o’ Hawi, yay, hooded tight ’gainst the wind, cross-leggin’ behind a rock an’ smokin’ a pipe. The Hawi was a scavver too up on Mauna Kea for the selfsame reason o’ Truman, can you b’lieve it? So lornsome was that place, Truman an’ the man o’ Hawi settled to team-up ’n’ divvy any gear what they finded t’gether, fifty-fifty.

Well, Truman’s luck changed the very next beat, yay. Them thick’nin’ clouds got watery ’n’ thin an’ that archin’ steely gate in the ’closure wall shook free an’ groaned thundersome an’ budged open all o’ itself. Thru that gate, Smart or magic Truman din’t know, our hero spied a cluster o’ eeriesome temples, jus’ like the old yarns say there was, but Truman din’t get feary, nay, he got joocey thinkin’ ’bout all the presh Old-Un gear ’n’ makin’s what must be inside ’em. He slapped the Hawi Man’s back, sayin’, Yo ho ho, we’re richer ’n kings ’n’ senators b’fore the Fall, Bro Hawi! Tho’ if Truman Napes was like his great-gran’son, he was prob’ly plottin’ how to keep that scavved loot all for himself.

But that Hawi Man weren’t smilesome, nay, he speaked grim from under his hood. Bro Valleysman, my sleepin’ hour is come at last.

Truman Napes din’t und’stand. It ain’t sundown yet, what’s your meanin’? I ain’t so sleepy so why are you now?

But thru that mournsome gate the Hawi Man treaded. Truman was puzzlin’ now, an’ called out, It ain’t no time for sleepin’, Bro Hawi! It’s time for scavvin’ whoah presh gear o’ the Old Uns! Into that silent ’closure Truman followed his partner-scavver. Black ’n’ twisted rocks was lyin’ ev’rywhere an’ the sky it was black ’n’ busted. The Hawi Man sank to his knees, prayin’. Truman’s heart was struck chillsome, see, a cold hand o’ wind unhooded that kneelin’ Hawi Man. Truman seen his partner was a long-died corpse, half skellyton ’n’ half maggoty meat, an’ that cold hand o’ wind was Old Georgie’s hand, yay, the devil what was standin’ there wavin’ a crookit spoon. Wasn’t you achin ’n’ lornsome outside, my presh, speaked that king o’ devils to the man o’ Hawi, wand’rin’ the lands o’ the livin’ with a stony soul an’ ’ready died? Why din’t you obey my summ’nin’ sooner, you foolsome man? Then Old Georgie sunk his crookit spoon thru the Hawi Man’s sockets, yay, an’ dug out the soul, drippin’ in smeary brain, an’ crunched it, yay, it cracked ’tween his horsey teeth. The man o’ Hawi folded over an’ was suddenwise jus’ one more black ’n’ twisted rock litt’rin’ the ’closure.

Old Georgie swallered the Hawi Man’s soul, wiped his mouth, ass-belched, an’ started hickin’. Bar’b’rians’ souls, delish an’ fine, that devil rhymed, dancin’ up to Truman, walnuts pickled, sourest wine. Truman cudn’t move one limb, nay, so scarysome was that sight, see. But Valleys’ souls are pure ’n’ strong, an’ melt like honey on my tongue. The devil’s breath stunk fishy ’n’ farty Fifty-fifty your deal, it said. Old Georgie licked his own crookit ’n’ warty spoon. D’you want your half now, or when you’re dead, Truman Napes Third o’ Mormon Valley?

Well, now, Truman got his limbs back an’ rabbited ’n’ ran ’n’ fell out o’ the mournsome gate, an’ slid down that screesome mountain for his life never lookin’ b’hind him not once. When he got back to the Valleys, ev’ryun stared in ’mazement even b’fore he voiced his ’ventures. Truman’s hair’d been black as crows b’fore, but now it was whiter ’n surf. Ev’ry single hair.

You’ll mem’ry I, Zachry, was curled in my hideynick in the Icon’ry, list’nin’ to Napes tellin’ that mildewy yarn to my unwelcome dwellin’-guest an’ showin’ Meronym his fam’ly icons o’ dead-lifes. He teached her their meanin’s an’ usin’s for a fair few beats, then Napes said he’d got to go fix nets, an’ off he went, leavin’ Meronym ’lone. Now he’d not been gone hardly any time b’fore the Prescient called out in the dark, So what d’you reck’n ’bout Truman, Zachry?

Oh, I’d got the shock, I din’t dream she knowed I was there eavesdroppin’! But she faked her voice like weren’t her plan to ’barrass nor shame me, nay, she faked her voice like we’d both gone into the Icon’ry t’gether. D’you reck’n Truman’s jus’ an old woman’s stoopit yarner? Or d’you reck’n it’s got some true in it?

No point me fakin’ I weren’t there neither, nay, ’cos she knowed I was there, no frettin’. Up I stood an’ walked thru the shelfs to where the Prescient sat sketchin’ the icon. My eyes’d got owlier in the dim, an’ I could see Meronym’s face prop’ly now. This place it’s got the holy o’ holies, I telled her. This is Sonmi’s dwellin’ you’re in. My voice’d got my strongest say-so, tho’ my eavesdroppin’ made it weaker. No offlander’s got no bis’ness trespyin’ thru our icons.

Meronym was politesome as I weren’t. I asked Abbess’s p’mission to enter. She say-soed I could. I ain’t touchin’ no icon but Napes’s fam’ly’s. He say-soed I could. Please s’plain why you’re frettin’ so, Zachry. I want to und’stand but I can’t.

See? That dammit Prescient thinked o’ your attacks b’fore you thinked of ’em yourself! You may be stoopitin’ our Abbess, I telled her, coolsome ’n’ mean now, an’ you may be stoopitin’ Ma ’n’ my fam’ly an’ the hole dammit Nine Valleys, but you ain’t stoopitin’ me nay not for one beat! I know it you ain’t sayin’ the hole true! Now I’d s’prised her for once, an’ a pleasin’ feelin’ it was to stop my skulkin’ an’ show my thinkin’s to the open day.

Meronym sort o’ frowned. I ain’t sayin’ the hole true ’bout what? Yay, I’d got Queen Smart cornered proper.

’Bout why you’re here sussin’ our lands! Sussin’ our ways! Sussin’ us!

Meronym sighed an’ put Napes’s icon back in its shelf. What matters here ain’t part true or hole true, Zachry, but harm or not harmin’, yay. What she said next was a spiker thru my guts. Ain’t you yourself got a secret what you’re hidin’ this “hole true” to ev’ryun, Zachry?

My thinkin’ went blurry. How could she know ’bout Sloosha’s Crossin’? That was years ago! Was Prescients workin’ with the Kona? Did they have some Smart what dug deep ’n’ dark lookin’ for buried shames in minds? I din’t say nothin’.

I swear it, Zachry, she said, I vow on Sonmi—

Oh, I shouted at her, offlanders ’n’ savages don’t even b’lief in Sonmi, so she’d got no bis’ness dirtyin’ Sonmi’s name with her tongue!

Meronym speaked calm ’n’ quietsome like always. I was way wrong, she said, she b’liefed in Sonmi, yay, even more ’n I did, but if I pr’ferred it she’d lay her vowin’ on her son, Anafi. On his luck ’n’ life, she vowed, no Prescient planned no harm to any Valleysman, nor ever, an’ Prescients r’spected my tribe way way way more ’n I knowed. She vowed when she could tell me the hole true she’d do it.

An’ she left, takin’ her vic’try with her.

I stayed a whiles an’ visited Pa’s icon, an’ seein’ his face carved in the grain I seen his face lyin’ in Waipio River. Oh, hot tears o’ shame ’n’ sorryin’ brimmed out. Head o’ Bailey’s Dwellin’ I was s’posed to be, but I’d got no stronger say-so ’n a frighty lambkin an’ no springier wit ’n a coney in a trap.

Bring me ev’dence, Valleysman, Abbess’d said, or hold your counsel, so now I thinked ev’ry moment how to get my ev’dence, an’ if I cudn’t get grasp of it honor’bly well, so-be-it, I’d have to sneak my ev’dence. A bunch o’ days later my fam’ly was over at Aunt Bees’s, with Meronym, ’cos she was learnin’ honeyin’. I came back from herdin’ early, yay, with the sun still ’bove the Kohalas, an’ I crept into our vis’tor’s room an’ searched for her gearbag. Din’t take long, the Shipwoman’d stowed it under the plankin’. Inside was littl’ gifts like what she’d gived us when she first come, but some Smart gear too. Sev’ral boxes what din’t rattley but’d got no lid neither so I cudn’t open ’em, an eerie tool what I din’t know shaped ’n’ smooth as a goat’s shinbone but gray ’n’ heavy like lava-stone, two pairs o’ well-crafted boots, three–four books o’ sketchin’s ’n’ writin’s in secret Prescient tongue. I don’t know where them sketchin’s was drawn, but it weren’t on Big Isle, nay, there was plants ’n’ birds what I’d not even seen in dreamin’s, nay. Last was most wondersome.

One big silv’ry egg it was, sized a babbit’s head, with dents ’n’ markin’s on it what fingers rested in. Its fat weight was eerie an’ it wouldn’t roll. I know that don’t sound senseful, but yarns ’bout Old-Un Smart an’ flyin’ dwellin’s an’ growin’ babbits in bottles an’ pictures zoomin’ cross the Hole World ain’t senseful neither but that’s how it was, so storymen an’ old books tell it. So I cupped that silv’ry egg in my own hands, an’ it started purrin’ an’ glowin’ some, yay, like it was livin’. Quicksharp I let go the egg, an’ it died dull. Was my hands’ warmness makin’ it stir?

So hungrysome was my curio, I held it again, an’ the egg vibed warm till a ghost-girl flickered ’n’ appeared there! Yay, a ghost-girl, right ’bove the egg, as truesome as I’m sittin’ here, her head ’n’ neck was jus’ floatin’ there, like ’flection in moon-water, an’ she was talkin’! Now I got scared an’ took my hands off the sil’vry egg, but the ghost-girl stayed, yay.

What did she do? Nothin’ but talk ’n’ talk, like I am to you. But not a norm’ly storyman she weren’t, nay, she was talkin’ in Old-Un tongue, an’ not p’formin’ none, jus’ answerin’ questions what a man’s hushly voice asked, tho’ he never showed his face. For ev’ry word I und’standed ’bout five–six followed what I din’t. The ghost-girl’s lips was fixed in a bitter smile, but her creamy eyes was sad so sad but proud ’n’ strong too. When I got ’nuff spunk I speaked up, I murmed, Sis, are you a lost soul? Ignored me she did, so I asked, Sis, can you see me? Fin’ly I cogged the ghost-girl weren’t talkin’ to me an’ cudn’t see me.

I tried strokin’ her cloudy skin ’n’ bristly hair but, I vow it, my fingers passed right thru, yay, jus’ like a water ’flection. Papery moths blowed thru her shimm’rin’ eyes ’n’ mouth too, to ’n’ fro, yay, to ’n’ fro.

Oh, eerie ’n’ so beautsome ’n’ blue she was, my soul was achin’.

Suddenwise the ghost-girl vanished back into that egg an’ a man took her place. A ghost-Prescient he was, this un could see me an’ fiercesome he speaked at me. Who are you, boy, an’ where is Meronym?

The Prescient leant nearer an’ his face growed. Growly ’n’ fangy his voice was. I asked you two questions, boy, answer ’em now or I’ll cuss your fam’ly so diresome no babbit’ll live past one moon old now nor never!

I sweated ’n’ gulped dry. Zachry, sir, I said, an’ Meronym’s howzittin’ fine, yay, she’s at Aunt Bees’s learnin’ honeyin’.

The Prescient shootered my soul with his eyes, yay, settlin’ whether or nay to b’lief me. An’ does Meronym know her host sivvies his guest’s gear when she’s out? Answer truesome now ’cos I can tell a liar.

I was flinchin’ for pain as I shaked my head.

List’n close. That man had as much say-so as any Abbess. You’ll put this orison, this “egg” you’re holdin’ now, back where you finded it. You’ll tell no un but no un ’bout it. Or else d’you know what I’ll do?

Yay, answered I. Cuss my fam’ly so diresome no babbit’ll ever live.

Yay, you cogged it, answered that thund’ry man. I’ll be watchin’, Zachry o’ Bailey’s Dwellin’, that ghost-Prescient speaked, see he even knowed my dwellin’ like Old Georgie. He vanished, an’ the silv’ry egg simmered quiet then died. Quicksharp I packed Meronym’s b’longin’s in her gearbag an’ stowed it back under the plankin’, wishin’ I’d never gone nosyin’. See, what I’d found weren’t ev’dence for my doubtin’s to show Abbess, nay, what I’d finded was a Smart cuss on my stoned luck an’, I ’fessed it to me myself, a grimy smear on my honor as a host.

But I cudn’t forget that ghost-girl neither, nay, she haunted my dreams wakin ’n’ sleepin’. So many feelin’s I’d got I din’t have room ’nuff for ’em. Oh, bein’ young ain’t easy ’cos ev’rythin’ you’re puzzlin ’n’ anxin’ you’re puzzlin ’n’ anxin’ it for the first time.

Lady Moon growed fat, Lady Moon growed thin, an’ suddenwise three o’ the six moons b’fore the Prescient Ship was due back for Meronym’d ’ready gone by. A sort o’ truce was laid b’tween me ’n’ our guest now. I din’t trust the Shipwoman but I tol’rated her ’round my dwellin’ politesome ’nuff so I could spy her better. Then one squally aft’noon the first o’ sev’ral happ’nin’s fell, yay, happ’nin’s what changed that truce into sumthin’ where her fate ’n’ mine was binded t’gether like twines o’ vine-cord.

One rainy mornin’ Bro Munro’s littlest F’kugly came screein’ upgulch to find me huddlin’ ’neath ’brella leaves on Ranch Rise, fetchin’ direst news to me he was. My sis Catkin’d been line-fishin’ on Dog Rock Shore an’d trod on a scorpion fish an’ now she was dyin’ o’ shakes ’n’ heats at Munro’s Dwellin’. The herb’list, Wimoway yay, Roses’s ma, was tendin’ her, an’ Leary the Hilo healer was doin’ his inchanties too, but Catkin’s life was fadin’, yay. Strappin’ musclers don’t usually s’vive a scorpion fish, nay, an’ poor littl’ Catkin was dyin ’n’ d got two hours maybe three.

F’kugly mindered the goats an’ I slid down thru the dogwood trees to Munro’s Dwellin’ an’, yay, there it was jus’ like F’kugly’d said it. Catkin was burnin’ an’ breathin’ chokely an’ she din’t know no un’s face. Wimoway’d tweezed out the poison fins an’ bathed the stingin’ in noni pulp an’ Sussy was pressin’ cool sops to calm her head. Jonas was gone prayin’ to Sonmi at the Icon’ry. Beardy Leary was mumblin’ his Hilo spells an’ shakin’ his magic tufty spikers to drive off evil spirits. Din’t seem Leary was helpin’ much, nay, Catkin was dyin’, the air smelled of it, but Ma wanted Leary there, see you’ll b’lief in a mil’yun diff’rent b’liefin’s if you reck’n jus’ one of ’em may aid you. So what could I do, ’cept sit there an’ hold b’loved Catkin’s burnin’ hands an’ mem’ry my stock-still useless self watchin’ Kona bullwhippin ’n’ circlin’ Pa ’n’ Adam? Now maybe the voice was Pa’s or maybe Sonmi’s or maybe no un’s but mine, but a hushly voice popped a bubble jus’ inside my ear: Meronym, it said.

Yibber telled me Meronym was up Gusjaw’s Gulch, so there I ran an’, yay, there she was fillin’ littl’ Smart jars o’ water up Gusjaw’s Gulch in the steamin’ rain, see Wolt’d passed by her earlier ’n telled the yibber. The Prescient’d got her spesh gearbag with her an’ I thanked Sonmi for that. Good aft’noon, called the Shipwoman when she seen me splashin’ upstream.

No, it ain’t, I shouted back. Catkin’s dyin’! Meronym list’ned grief-some ’nuff as I telled her ’bout the scorpion fish, but she sorried, nay, she din’t have no healin’ Smart an’ anyway Wimoway’s herb’lin’s an’ Leary’s ’cantations was Big Isle healin’ an’ that was best for Big Isle sick folks, wasn’t it, nay?

Dingo shit, said I.

She shaked her head so sadsome.

Slywise I speaked now, Catkin calls you Auntie an’ she b’liefs you’re kin. You surefire b’have in our dwellin’ like you’re kin. Is that jus’ ’nother fake for you to study us some more? ’Nother part o’ your “not the hole true”?

Meronym flinched. No, Zachry, it ain’t.

Well, then, I gambled some luck, I say you got spesh Smart what’ll help your kin.

Meronym threw a spiker in her words. Why don’t you sivvy thru my gear again an’ thief my spesh Prescient Smart yourself?

Yay, she knowed ’bout me ’n’ the silv’ry egg. She’d been fakin’ she din’t but she knowed. No point naysayin’, so I din’t. My sis is dyin’ while we’re standin’ here knucklyin’.

So much rivers ’n’ rain in the world it flowed by us. Fin’ly Meronym said yay, she’d come ’n’ see Catkin, but scorpion fish poison was quick ’n’ thick an’ she prob’ly cudn’t do nothin’ to save my littl’ sis an’ I’d best und’stand that truth now. I din’t say yay nor nay I jus’ leaded her quicksharp down to Munro’s Dwellin’. When the Prescient walked in, Wimoway ’splained what she’d done tho’ Beardy Leary said, Ooo . . . a devil’s drawn near . . . ooo, I sense her with my spesh powers . . .

Catkin’d gone under now, yay, she lay still ’n’ stiff as an icon, jus’ a whispin’-breathin’ scratched in her throat. Meronym’s griefsome face jus’ said, Nay, she’s too far gone I can’t do nothin’, an’ she kissed my sis’s forehead g’bye, walked back sadsome into the rain. Oh, see the Prescient, Leary crowed, their Smart can move magicky ships o’ steel but only the Holy Chant o’ Angel Laz’rus can tempt back the girl’s soul from them despairin’ marshes b’tween life ’n’ death. Despair I felt, my sis was dyin’, rain was drummin’, but that same voice din’t shut up in my ear. Meronym.

I din’t know why but I followed her out. Shelt’rin’ in Munro’s pott’ry doorway she was starin’ at the rods o’ rain. I ain’t got no right to ask you for favors, I ain’t been a good host, nay I been a pisspoor bad un, but . . . I’d ran out o’ words.

The Prescient din’t move nor look at me, nay. The life o’ your tribe’s got a nat’ral order. Catkin’d o’ treaded on that scorpion fish if I’d been here or not.

Rainbirds spilt their galoshin’-galishin’ song. I’m jus’ a stoopit goat herder, but I reck’n jus’ by bein’ here you’re bustin’ this nat’ral order. I reck’n you’re killin’ Catkin by not actin’. An’ I reck’n if it was your son, Anafi, lyin’ there with scorpion fish poison meltin’ his heart ’n’ lungs, this nat’ral order’d not be so important to you, yay?

She din’t answer, but I knowed she was list’nin’.

Why’s a Prescient’s life worth more ’n Valleysman’s?

She lost her calm. I ain’t here to play Lady Sonmi ev’ry time sumthin’ bad happ’ns an’ click my fingers ’n make it right! I’m jus’ human, Zachry, like you, like anyun!

I promised, It won’t be ev’ry time sumthin’ bad happens, it’s jus’ now.

Tears was in her eyes. That ain’t no promise you can keep or break.

Sudd’nwise I finded myself tellin’ her ev’ry flea o’ true ’bout Sloosha’s Crossin’, yay, ev’rythin’. How I’d leaded the Kona to kill Pa an’ slave Adam an’d never ’fessed to no un till that very beat. I din’t know why I was spillin’ this corked secret to my enemy, not till the very end, when I cogged its meanin’ an’ telled her too. What I jus’ teached you ’bout me ’n’ my soul is a spiker ’gainst my throat an’ a gag over my mouth. You can tell Old Ma Yibber what I telled you, an’ ruin me, any time you want. She’ll b’lief you an’ so she should ’cos it’s true ev’ry word an’ folks’ll b’lief you ’cos they sense my soul is stoned. Now if you got any Smart, yay, anythin’ what may help Catkin now, give it me, tell it me, do it. No un’ll ever, ever know, nay, I vow it, jus’ you an’ me.

Meronym placed her hands on her head like it boomed up with woe an’ she mumbed to herself sumthin’ like If my pres’dent ever finded out, my hole faculty’d be disbandied, yay, times was she used hole flocks o’ words what I din’t know. From a lidless jar in her gearbag she got out a tiny small-as-an-ant-egg turquoise stone an’ telled me to sneak it into Catkin’s mouth so slywise no un seen, nay, nor even thinked they seen. An’ for Sonmi’s sake, Meronym warned me, if Catkin lives, an’ I ain’t promisin’ she will, make sure the herb’list gets the hooray-hooray for healin’ her, not that voodoo snake-oilster from Hilo, yay?

So I took that turquoise med’sun an’ thanked her jus’ once. Meronym said, Don’t mention no words, not now an’ never while I’m livin’, an’ that promise I kept tight. Into my presh sis’s mouth I dropped it as I changed her sop-cloth, like Meronym’d telled me, so no un saw nothin’. An’ what happ’ned?

Three days later Catkin was back learnin’ in the school’ry, yay.

Three days! Well, I stopped lookin’ for ev’dence that Prescients was spyin’ to slave us. Leary from Hilo crowed to the toads on the roads an’ the hole wide world, no healer was greater ’n he, not even the Prescients, tho’ folks mostly b’liefed Wimoway’d done it, yay, not him.

Coneys ’n’ roasted taro we was eatin’ one supper ’bout a moon after Catkin’s sick when Meronym made a s’prisin’ ’nouncement. She meant to climb up Mauna Kea b’fore the Ship returned, she said, for to see what she’d see. Ma speaked first, ’ready worrysome. What for, Sis Meronym? Ain’t nothin’ up Mauna Kea but never-endin’ winter an’ a big heap o’ rocks.

Now Ma’d not said what we was all thinkin’ ’cos she din’t want to look barb’ric ’n’ savage, but Sussy din’t hold back none. Aunt Mero, if you go up there Old Georgie’ll freeze you an’ dig out your soul with a cruel ’n’ crookit spoony an’ eat it so you’ll never even be reborned an’ your body’ll be turned into a frostbited boulder. You want to stay here in the Valleys, where it’s safe.

Meronym din’t mick Sussy none, she jus’ said Prescients’d got Smart what’d ward Old Georgie away. Climbin’ Mauna Kea was ne’ssary to map Windward, she said, an’ anyhow, Valleysmen needed more lowdown on Kona movements over Leeward ’n’ Waimea Town. Now time was, such words’d o’ roused my s’picions buzzin’, but I din’t think that now, nay, tho’ I was diresome worried for our guest. Well, the yibber was busy for days when this news jumped out. The Shipwoman’s climbin’ Mauna Kea! Folks dropped by warnin’ Meronym not to go pokin’ her nose into OG’s ’closure or she’d never come back down. Even Napes visited, sayin’ climbin’ Mauna Kea in a story was one thing, doin’ it for real was cracked ’n’ crazed. Abbess said Meronym could come ’n’ go where she pleased, but she’d not say-so no un to guide Meronym up, jus’ too unknowed ’n’ risky that summit was, three days up ’n’ three more down, an’ dingos ’n’ Kona ’n’ Sonmi knows what on the way, an’ anyhow prep’ration for the Honokaa barterin’ was needin’ all hands in the dwellin’s.

Now I s’prised ev’ryun, yay, me too, when I settled to go with her. I weren’t known as the bravest-balled bullock in the barn. So why’d I done it? Simple ’nuff. One, I owed Meronym for Catkin. Two, my soul was ’ready half stoned, yay, surefire I’d not get rebirthed, so what’d I got to lose? Better if Old Georgie ate my soul ’n someun else’s who’d get rebirthed else, yay? That ain’t brave, nay, it’s jus’ sense. Ma din’t act pleased, a busy ’nuff time in the Valleys ’cos o’ harvest comin ’n’ all, but come the dawn Meronym ’n’ me set off she gived me journey-grinds what she’d smoked ’n’ brined an’ said Pa’d o’ prouded to see me so growed ’n’ gutsy. Jonas gived me a spesh sharp ’n’ fine rockfish spiker, an’ Sussy gived amulets o’ pearlshell to dazzle ’n’ blind Georgie’s eye if he chased us. Kobbery my cuz was over to minder my goats, he gived a bag o’ raisins from his fam’ly’s vines. Catkin was last, she gived me a kiss an’ Meronym too, an’ made us both promise we’d be back in six days.

Eastly o’ Sloosha’s we din’t climb the Kuikuihaele Track, nay, we trekked inland southly up Waiulili Stream, an’ I cogged the clearin’ by Hiilawe Falls where I’d s’prised the Kona what killed Pa five–six years b’fore. Overgrown now it was, jus’ traces o’ bygone campfires scorchin’ the middle. In Hiilawe Pool’s shallows I spikered a couple o’ rockfish with Jonas’s gift, to last out our grinds. Rain fell so the Waiulili Stream gushed too fierce for footin’, so we bushwhacked up thru sugarcane, yay, a hard half day’s goin’ it was till we cleared the Kohala Ridge; the windy open made us gasp an’ thru riftin’ clouds we seen Mauna Kea higher ’n the sky, yay. Now I seen Mauna Kea from Honokaa b’fore, o’ course, but a mountain you’re plannin’ on climbin’ ain’t the same as the one you ain’t. It ain’t so pretty, nay. Hush ’nuff an’ you’ll hear it. The cane thinned to tind’ry pines an’ we got to Old Uns’ Waimea Way. Sev’ral miles ’long this ancient ’n’ cracked road we clopped till we met a fur trapper an’ his laughin’ doggy restin’ by a slopin’ pond. Old Yanagi was his name an’ he’d got mukelung so bad by ’n’ by Young Yanagi’d be takin’ over the fam’ly bis’ness, I thinked. We said we was herb’lists sivvyin’ for presh plants an’ maybe Yanagi b’liefed us an’ maybe he din’t, but he bartered us fungusdo’ for rockfish an’ warned us Waimea Town weren’t so friendsome as it’d been once, nay, Kona say-soed ’n’ knucklied ficklewise an’ you cudn’t guess their b’havin’s.

A mile or so eastly o’ Waimea Town we heard shod hoofs cloppin’ an’ we dived off the track in the nick b’fore three Kona fighters on black stal’yons an’ their horse boy on a pony galloped by Hate ’n’ fear quaked me an’ I wanted to kill ’em like prawns on a skewer, but slower ’n that. The boy I thought may o’ been Adam, but I always thinked that ’bout young Kona, they was wearin’ helms so I cudn’t see too sure, nay. We din’t speak much from then ’cos speakin’ can be heard by spyers what you can’t spy. Southly thru shrubby heath we tromped now till we got to wideway. Wideway I’d heard o’ from storymen an’ here it was, an open, long, flat o’ roadstone. Saplin’s ’n’ bush was musclin’ up, but wondersome ’n’ wild was that windy space. Meronym said it was named Air Port in Old Uns’ tongue, where their flyin’ boats’d anchor down, yay, like wild geese on the Pololu Marshes. We din’t cross wideway, nay, we skirted it, there wasn’t no cover see.

By sundown we tented up in a cactusy hollow, an’ when it was dark ’nuff I lit us a fire. Lornsome I felt to be away from my Valleys ’n’ kin, but in that no-man’s-land Meronym’s mask was slippin’ an’ I was seein’ her more clear ’n I’d ever done b’fore. I asked her straight, What’s it like, the Hole World, the offlands over the ocean?

Her mask’d not slipped right off tho’. What d’you reck’n?

So I telled her my ’maginin’s o’ places from old books ’n’ pics in the school’ry. Lands where the Fall’d never falled, towns bigger ’n all o’ Big I, an’ towers o’ stars ’n’ suns blazin’ higher ’n Mauna Kea, bays of not jus’ one Prescient Ship but a mil’yun, Smart boxes what make delish grinds more ’n anyun can eat, Smart pipes what gush more brew ’n anyun can drink, places where it’s always spring an’ no sick, no knucklyin’ an’ no slavin’. Places where ev’ryun’s a beautsome purebirth who lives to be one hun’erd ’n’ fifty years.

Meronym pulled her blanky tighter. My parents an’ their gen’ration b’liefed, somewhere, hole cities o’ Old Uns s’vived the Fall b’yonder the oceans, jus’ like you, Zachry. Old-time names haunted their ’maginin’s . . . Melbun, Orkland, Jo’burg, Buenas Yerbs, Mumbay, Sing’pore. The Shipwoman was teachin’ me what no Valleysman’d ever heard, an’ I list’ned tight ’n’ wordless. Fin’ly, five decades after my people’s landin’ at Prescience, we relaunched the Ship what bringed us there. Dingos howled in the far-far ’bout folks soon to die, I prayed Sonmi it weren’t us. They finded the cities where the old maps promised, dead-rubble cities, jungle-choked cities, plague-rotted cities, but never a sign o’ them livin’ cities o’ their yearnin’s. We Prescients din’t b’lief our weak flame o’ Civ’lize was now the brightest in the Hole World, an’ further an’ further we sailed year by year, but we din’t find no flame brighter. So lornsome we felt. Such a presh burden for two thousand pairs o’ hands! I vow it, there ain’t more ’n sev’ral places in Hole World what got the Smart o’ the Nine Valleys.

Anxin ’n’ proudful at one time hearin’ them words made me, like a pa, an’ like she an’ me weren’t so diff’rent as a god an’ a worshiper, nay.

Second day fluffsome clouds rabbited westly an’ that snaky leeward sun was hissin’ loud ’n’ hot. We drank like whales from icy ’n’ sooty brooks. Higher to cooler air we climbed till no mozzie pricked us no more. Stunty ’n’ dry woods was crossed by swathes o’ black ’n’ razory lava spitted ’n’ spewed by Mauna Kea. Snailysome goin’ was them rockfields, yay, jus’ brush that rock light an’ your fingers’d bleed fast ’n’ wetly, so I binded my boots ’n’ hands in strips o’ hide-bark an’ did the same for Meronym. Blisters scabbed her foots, her soles’d not got my goat tuff see, but that woman weren’t no moaner, nay, whatever else she was. We tented up in a forest o’ needles ’n’ thorns an’ a waxy mist hid our campfire but it hid any sneaker-uppers too an’ I got nervy. Our bodies was busted by tiredness but our minds wasn’t sleepy yet so we talked some while eatin’. You really ain’t feary, said I, jerkin’ my thumb upwards, o’ meetin’ Georgie when we get to the summit, like Truman Napes did?

Meronym said the weather was way more scaresome to her.

I spoke my mind: You don’t b’lief he’s real, do you?

Meronym said Old Georgie weren’t real for her, nay, but he could still be real for me.

Then who, asked I, tripped the Fall if it weren’t Old Georgie?

Eerie birds I din’t knowed yibbered news in the dark for a beat or two. The Prescient answered, Old Uns tripped their own Fall.

Oh, her words was a rope o’ smoke. But Old Uns’d got the Smart!

I mem’ry she answered, Yay, Old Uns’ Smart mastered sicks, miles, seeds an’ made miracles ord’nary, but it din’t master one thing, nay, a hunger in the hearts o’ humans, yay, a hunger for more.

More what? I asked. Old Uns’d got ev’rythin’.

Oh, more gear, more food, faster speeds, longer lifes, easier lifes, more power, yay. Now the Hole World is big, but it weren’t big ’nuff for that hunger what made Old Uns rip out the skies an’ boil up the seas an’ poison soil with crazed atoms an’ donkey ’bout with rotted seeds so new plagues was borned an’ babbits was freak-birthed. Fin’ly, bit’ly, then quicksharp, states busted into bar’bric tribes an’ the Civ’lize Days ended, ’cept for a few folds ’n’ pockets here ’n’ there, where its last embers glimmer.

I asked why Meronym’d never spoke this yarnin’ in the Valleys.

Valleysmen’d not want to hear, she answered, that human hunger birthed the Civ’lize, but human hunger killed it too. I know it from other tribes offland what I stayed with. Times are you say a person’s b’liefs ain’t true, they think you’re sayin’ their lifes ain’t true an’ their truth ain’t true.

Yay, she was prob’ly right.

Third day out was clear ’n’ blue, but Meronym’s legs was jellyfishin’ so I lugged ev’rythin’ on my back ’cept for her gearbag. We’d trekked over the mountain’s shoulder to the southly face, where the scars of an Old-Un track zigzaggered summitwards. Around noon Meronym rested while I gathered ’nuff firewood for two faggots ’cos we was in the last trees now. Lookin’ down t’ward Mauna Loa, we squinted a troop o’ horses on Saddle Road, their Kona metal spicklin’ in sunlight. So high up we was, their horses was jus’ termite-size. I wished I could o’ crushed them savages b’tween my finger ’n’ thumb an’ wiped the slime off on my pants. I prayed Sonmi no Kona ever turned up this Summit Track ’cos fine places there was for an’ ambushin’ an’ Meronym ’n’ me cudn’t knuckly hard nor long I reck’ned. I din’t see no hoofprints nor tentin’ marks anyhow.

The trees ended an’ the wind got musclier ’n’ angrier, bringin’ not a sniff o’ smoke, no farmin’, no dung, no nothin’ ’cept fine, fine dust. Birds was rarer too in them sheer ’n’ scrubby slopes, jus’ buzzards surfin’ high. By evenin’ we got to a cluster of Old-Un buildings what Meronym said’d been a village for ’stron’mers what was priests o’ the Smart what read the stars. This village’d not been lived in since the Fall an’ no more des’late place I’d ever seen. No water nor soil an’ the night fell, oh, fangy ’n’ cold, so we dressed thick an’ lit a fire in an empty dwellin’. Flamelights danced with shadows round them unloved walls. I was anxin’ ’bout the summit next day, so in part to blind my mind, I asked Meronym if Abbess spoke true when she said the Hole World flies round the sun, or if the Men o’ Hilo was true sayin’ the sun flies round the Hole World.

Abbess is quite correct, answered Meronym.

Then the true true is diff’rent to the seemin’ true? said I.

Yay, an’ it usually is, I mem’ry Meronym sayin’, an’ that’s why true true is presher ’n’ rarer ’n diamonds. By ’n’ by sleep hooded her, but my thinkin’s kept me awake till a silent woman came an’ sat by the fire, sneez-in ’n’ shiv’rin’ hushly. Her neckless o’ cowrie shells said she was a Honomu fisher, an’ if she’d o’ been living she’d o’ been joocesome no frettin’. Into the fire the woman uncurled her fingers, into the prettiest bronze ’n’ ruby petals, but she jus’ sighed lornsomer ’n a bird in a box in a well, see, them flames cudn’t heat her up none. She’d got pebbles ’stead o’ eyeballs an’ I wondered if she was climbin’ Mauna Kea to let Old Georgie fin’ly put her soul to stony sleep. Dead folk hear livin’s thinkin’s, an’ that drowned fisher gazed at me with them pebbles, noddin’ yay, an’ she took out a pipe for comfort but I din’t ask for no skank. Long beats later I waked, the fire was dyin’ an’ the stoned Honomu’d taked her leave. No tracks that un left in the dust, but I smelt the smoke from her pipe for a beat or two. See, I thinked, Meronym knows a lot ’bout Smart an’ life but Valleysmen know more ’bout death.

Fourth dawn was a wind not o’ this world, nay, it warped that brutal ’n’ ringin’ light an’ hooped the horizon an’ ripped words out o’ your mouth an’ your body’s warmness thru your tarp ’n’ furs. Summit trail from the ’stron’mers’ village was busted ’n’ roded diresome, yay, great mouthfuls landslipped away an’ no leafs nor roots nor mosses even jus’ dry ’n’ freezed dust ’n’ grit what scratched our eyes like a crazed woman. Our Valleys boots was shredded by now, so Meronym gived us both a pair o’ Smart Prescient boots made o’ I din’t know what but whoah warm ’n’ soft ’n’ tuff they was so we could go on. Four–five miles later the ground flatted out so you din’t feel you was on a mountain no more, nay, more like an ant on a table, jus’ a flatness hangin’ in nothin’ b’tween worlds. Fin’ly near noon we rounded a bend an’ I gasped shocksome ’cos here was the ’closure, jus’ like Truman’d said it, tho’ its walls wasn’t as tall as a redwood, nay, more a spruce high. The track leaded straight to the steely gate, yay, but its unbusted walls weren’t so endless long, nay, you could o’ walked round it in a quarter of a mornin’. Now inside the ’closure on rising ground was the bowls o’ temples, yay, the eeriest Old-Un buildings in Ha-Why or Hole World, who knows? How could we get to ’em tho’? Meronym stroked that awesome gate an’ muttered, We’d need a dammit diresome flashbang to get these off their hinges, yay. Out o’ her gearbag tho’ she got not a flashbang, nay, but a Smart rope, like the Prescients bartered sumtimes, fine ’n’ light. Two stumps stuck up ’bove the steely gate, an’ she tried to lassoop one. The wind was craftier ’n her aim, but I tried next an’ lassooped it first time, an’ up Old Georgie’s ’closure we scaled hand by hand by hand.

Inside that dreadsome place at the world’s top, yay, the wind hushed like a hurrycane’s clear eye. The sun was deaf’nin’ so high up, yay, it roared an’ time streamed from it. No paths there wasn’t inside the ’closure just a mil’yun boulders like in Truman Napes’s yarn, the bodies o’ the stoned ’n’ unsouled they was, an’ I wondered if Meronym or me or both’d be boulders by nightfall. Ten–twelve temples waited here ’n’ there, white ’n’ silv’ry an’ gold ’n’ bronze with squat bodies ’n’ round crowns an’ mostly windowless. The nearest un was jus’ a hun’erd paces away, an’ we set off for it first. I asked if this was where Old Uns worshiped their Smart.

Meronym spoke, marv’lin’ as much as me, they wasn’t temples, nay, but observ’trees what Old Uns used to study the planets ’n’ moon ’n’ stars, an’ the space b’tween, to und’stand where ev’rythin’ begins an’ where ev’rythin’ ends. We stepped caref’ly b’tween them twisted rocks. Round one I seen crushed cowrie shells from Honomu way, an’ I knowed it was my visitor the night b’fore. The wind bringed my gran’pa’s voice whispin’ from the far-far . . . Judas. Eerie, yay, but shockin’, nay, ’cos ev’rythin’ in that place was eerie . . . Judas. I din’t tell Meronym.

How she got that observ’tree door open, I ain’t knowin’ so don’t mozzie me. A sort of umb’licky cord b’tween the door’s dusted ’n’ rusty niche an’ her orison-egg worked in a beat or two. Now I was busy guardin’ us from the dwellers o’ that ’closure. My gran’pa’s whispin’s was now cussin’ half faces what dis’peared when you stared straight. A sharp hiss as the observ’tree door cracked open. Air guffed out stale ’n’ sour like it was breathed b’fore the Fall an’, yay, so it prob’ly was. In we stepped an’ what did we find?

Describin’ such Smart ain’t easy. Gear there was what we ain’t mem’ried on Ha-Why, so its names ain’t mem’ried neither, yay, almost nothin’ in there could I cogg. Shimm’rin’ floors, white walls ’n’ roofs, one great chamber, round ’n’ sunk, filled by a mighty tube wider ’n a man an’ longer ’n five what Meronym named a radyo tel’scope what was, she said, the furthest-seein’ eye Old Uns ever made. Ev’rythin’ white ’n’ pure as Sonmi’s robes, yay, not one flea o’ dirt ’cept what we tromped in. Tables ’n’ chairs sat round waitin’ for sitters on balconies made o’ steel so our foots gonged. Even the Shipwoman was smacked wondersome by all this perfect Smart. She showed her orison ev’rythin’ we seed. The orison glowed ’n’ purred an’ windows came ’n’ went. It’s mem’ryin’ the place, ’splained Meronym, tho’ I din’t und’stand so good an’ I asked what that Smart egg was true-be-telled.

Meronym rested a beat an’ drank a mouth o’ brew from her flask. An orison is a brain an’ a window an’ it’s a mem’ry. Its brain lets you do things like unlock observ’tree doors what you jus’ seen. Its window lets you speak to other orisons in the far-far. Its mem’ry lets you see what orisons in the past seen ’n’ heard, an’ keep what my orison sees ’n’ hears safe from f’gettin’.

Shamed to mem’ry Meronym o’ my sivvyin’ I was, yay, but if I din’t ask then I may not o’ got the chance ever, so I asked it, The shimm’rin ’n’ beautsome girl what I seen in this . . . orison b’fore . . . was she a mem’ry or a window?

Meronym hes’tated. Mem’ry.

I asked if the girl was livin’ still.

Nay, answered Meronym.

I asked, was she a Prescient?

She hes’tated, an’ said she wanted to tell me a hole true now, but that other Valleysmen’d not be ready for its hearin’. I vowed on Pa’s icon to say nothin’, nay, to no un. Very well. She was Sonmi, Zachry. Sonmi the freakbirthed human what your ancestors b’liefed was your god.

Sonmi was a human like you ’n’ me? I’d never thinked so nor’d Abbess ever speaked such loonsomeness, nay. Sonmi’d been birthed by a god o’ Smart named Darwin, that’s what we b’liefed. Did Meronym b’lief this Sonmi’d lived on Prescience I or on Big I?

She was borned ’n’ died hun’erds o’ years ago ’cross the ocean west-nor’westly, so Meronym speaked, on a pen’sula all deadlanded now but its old-time name was Nea So Copros an’ its ancient one Korea. A short ’n’ judased life Sonmi had, an’ only after she’d died did she find say-so over purebloods ’n’ freakbirths’ thinkin’s.

All this shockin’ newness buzzed ’n’ busted my brain an’ I din’t know what to b’lief. I asked what Sonmi’s mem’ry was doin’ in Meronym’s orison hun’erds o’ years after.

Now I seen Meronym was sorryin’ she’d beginned, yay. Sonmi was killed by Old-Un chiefs what feared her, but b’fore she died she spoke to an orison ’bout her acts ’n’ deedin’s. I’d got her mem’ry in my orison ’cos I was studyin’ her brief life, to und’stand you Valleysmen better.

That’s why that girl’d haunted me so. I seen a sort o’ Smart ghost?

Meronym yayed. Zachry, we got many buildin’s to visit b’fore nighfall.

Now as we were crossin’ the ’closure to the second observ’tree, the boulders began speakin’. Oh, you was right ’bout the dammit Prescients first time, Bro Zachry! She’s fuggin’ your b’liefs ’n’ all up’ndown ’n’ in ’n’ out! I clamped my ears, but yay, them voices went thru these hands. This woman only saved Catkin’s life to cloudy your thinkin’ with debt ’n’ honor! Crampsome was them stones’ shapes ’n’ words. I clamped my jaw shut to stop me answerin’. She’s scavvin ’n’ sivvyin’ Big Isle Smart what truesome b’longs to Valleysmen! Grit devils got under my eyelids. Your pa’d not let no lyin’ offlander worm into his trust, bro, nor use him as a pack mule! Them words was so true I cudn’t argue back none, an’ I stumbled painsome.

Meronym steadied me. I din’t ’fess the boulders was yibber-stinkin’ her, but she seen sumthin’ weren’t right. The air up here is thin ’n’ watery, she speaked, an’ your brain’ll get diresome hungry an’ make this wyrd place wyrdsomer.

We got to the second buildin’ an’ I slumped droozy while the Prescient worked the door open. Oh, that hollerin’ sun hollowed my head. She’s a sly un, no frettin’, Zachry! Truman Napes Third was perched on his boulder. Meronym’d not even heard him. You b’lief her or your own kin? he called me, mournsome. Are your truths jus’ “thin ’n’ watery air”? Am I? Oh, I was reliefed the next beat when the observ’tree door open. Them ghosts ’n’ their spikery truths cudn’t follow us inside, see, I s’pose the Smart kept ’em out.

So it went all aft’noon long, yay. Most o’ the observ’trees was much like the first. The Prescient opened up, ’splored the place with her orison, an’ mostly forgot I was there. Me, I just sat an’ breathed that Smart air till she was done. But stompin’ b’tween buildin’s, twisted boulders chorused me, Judas! an’ Pack mule! an’ Ship slave! Ghosts o’ Valleysmen pleaded me thru unpartin’ frostbited lips, yay, She ain’t your tribe! Ain’t even your color! an’ then ’n’ there, oh, frightsome sense they made, I ’fess it here ’n’ now.

S’picion rotted me.

No Prescient’d ever been straight with no Valleysman, an’ that day I knowed Meronym was no diff’rent. The boulders’d changed the blue sky to anxin ’n’ flinty gray by the last buildin’. Meronym teached me it weren’t no observ’tree but a gen’rator what made a Smart magic named ’lectric what worked the hole place like a heart works the body. She was whoahin’ at the machines ’n’ all, but I was jus’ feelin’ stoopit ’n’ judased for bein’ blinded by the Shipwoman since she’d come elbowin’ into my dwellin’. I din’t know what to do nor how to stop her plans, but Georgie’d got his plans, cuss him.

This gen’rator’s innards was diff’rent from other buildin’s. The Prescient woman glowed with fass’nation as we stepped into the echoey chambers, but I din’t. See, I knowed we wasn’t alone in there. Shipwoman din’t b’lief me, o’ course, but in the biggest space where a mighty iron heart stood silent was a sort o’ throne s’rounded by tables o’ littl’ windows an’ numbers ’n’ all, an’ on this throne was a died Old-Un priest slumpin’ under an arched window. The Prescient swallowed hard an’ peered close. A chief stron’mer, I reck’n, she spoke hushly, he must o’ soosided here when the Fall came, an’ the sealed air’s saved his body from rottin’. A priest-king not a chief, I reck’ned, in such a wondersome palace. She got to work mem’ryin’ ev’ry inch o’ that doomin’ place on her orison while I ’proached nearer that priest-king from the world o’ perfect Civ’lize. His hair straggled an’ his nails was hooky an’ the years’d shrunk ’n’ sagged his face some sure, but his Smart sky clothes was spiff ’n’ fine, sapphires pierced his ear, an’ he mem’ried me of Unc’ Bees, same hoggy nose, yay.

List’n to me, Valleysman, the soosided priest-king spoke, yay, list’n. We Old Uns was sick with Smart an’ the Fall was our cure. The Prescient don’t know she’s sick, but, oh, real sick she is. Thru that arch o’ glass waves o’ snow was tossin ’n’ turnin’ an’ drownin’ the sun. Put her to sleep, Zachry, or she ’n’ her kind’ll bring all their offland sick to your beautsome Valleys. I’ll minder her soul well in this place, never fear. The Shipwoman was movin’ ’bout with her orison, hummin’ a Prescient babbybie what she’d teached Catkin ’n’ Sussy Tick-tockin’ was my thinkin’. Wasn’t killin’ her barb’ric ’n’ savage?

Ain’t no right or wrong, the ’stron’mer king teached me, jus’ protectin’ your tribe or judasin’ your tribe, yay, jus’ a strong will or a weak un. Kill her, bro. She ain’t no god, she’s only blood ’n’ tubes.

I said I cudn’t, the yibber’d tag me murderer an’ Abbess’d call a gath’rin’ what’d exile me from the Valleys.

Oh, think, Zachry, the king micked me. Think! How’ll the yibber know? Yibber’ll say, “That knowed-all offlander ignored our yarns ’n’ ways an’ went trespyin’ up Mauna Kea an’ brave Zachry went ’long to try ’n’ minder her, but it turned out she weren’t so Smart what she thinked.”

Beats passed. All right, I answered fin’ly ’n’ grim, I’ll spiker her when we step outside. The priest-king smiled, pleased, an’ din’t speak no more. Fin’ly my victim howzitted me. Fine, said I, tho’ I were nervy, see, the biggest thing I ever killed was goats an’ now I’d vowed to kill a Prescient human. She said we should set off ’cos she din’t want to get stranded in no blizzard up here an’ leaded us back out the gen’rator.

Outside, the boulders’d falled silent in the ankle-snow. One snowstorm’d gone but another, bigger un was comin’ so I reck’ned.

We walked t’ward the steely gate, her in front, me grippin’ Jonas’s spiker an’ testin’ its sharp on my thumb.

Do it now! say-soed ev’ry murd’rous stone on Mauna Kea.

Nothin’ to be gained by dillyin’, nay. Hushly I aimed at the top o’ the Prescient’s neck, an’ Sonmi have mercy on my soul, I thrust that sharky point home as hard as I could.

Nay, I din’t murder her, see in a split-beat b’tween aimin’ an’ thrustin’, Sonmi had mercy on my soul, yay, she changed my aim an’ that spiker went flyin’ high over that steely gate. Meronym din’t even cogg she’d nearly had her skull skewered, but I cogged sure ’nuff I’d been magicked by the devil o’ Mauna Kea, yay, we all know his name, cuss him.

You see sumthin’ up there? asked Meronym, after my spiker.

Yay, I lied, but it weren’t no un, nay, it was jus’ the tricks o’ this place.

We’re leavin’, she said, we’re leavin’ now.

Old Georgie was outwitted, see, there weren’t no means I could kill her quicksharp without my spiker, but he’d not jus’ lay down an’ watch my vic’try, nay, I knowed that slywise buggah of old.

As I climbed up the rope with the gearbag, Mauna Kea took a lungsome breath an’ howled giddyin’ snow so I cudn’t see the ground clearly an’ ten winds tore our faces an’ my fingers was stiff with cold an’ halfway up I slid halfway down an’ that rope burned my hands but fin’ly I hauled myself up top an’ bringed up the gearbag with my painful stingin ’n’ raw palms. Meronym weren’t so fast, but she weren’t far from the top o’ the wall when suddenwise time stopped.

Time stopped, yay, you heard right. For Hole World ’cept me an’ a certain cunnin’ devil, yay, you know which un came swagg’rin’ along the wall, time was jus’ . . . stopped.

Snowflakes hanged specklin’ the air. Old Georgie swished ’em aside. I tried reas’nin’ with you, Zachry, you stubbornsome boy, now I got to use warnin’s an’ augurin’s an’ say-so. Get out your blade an’ cut this rope thru. His foot touched the rope what was holdin’ time-freezed Meronym. Worn face screwed ’gainst the blizzard it was, an’ her muscles strainin’ to climb that rope. Twenty feet o’ nothin’ below. Her fall may not kill her when I let time flow again, Old Georgie seen my thinkin’, but them rocks b’low’ll bust her spine ’n’ legs an’ she’ll not s’vive the night. I’ll let her consider her follyin’s.

I asked him why he din’t jus’ kill Meronym himself.

Why-why-why? Old Georgie micked. I want you to do it, an’ here’s why-why-why. See, if you don’t cut that rope, inside o’ three moons your dearsome fam’ly be dead, I vow it! I vow it. So you got a choosin’. On one side you got Brave Ma, Strong Sussy, Bright Jonas, Sweet Catkin, all dead. Cowardy Zachry’ll live on an’ regret’ll flay him till his dyin’ day. On th’ other side you got jus’ one dead offlander no un’ll miss. Four you love ’gainst one you don’t. I may even magick Adam back from Kona.

No bolt-hole out o’ this. Meronym had to die.

Yay, no bolt-hole, boy. I’m countin’ to five . . .

I got my blade. A seed sprouted thru the crust o’ my mem’ry, an’ that seed was a word Georgie’d speaked jus’ then, augurin’.

Quicksharp I chucked my blade down after my spiker an’ looked that devil in his terrorsome eyes. He’d got the s’prised curio, an’ his dyin’ smile’d got a bucket o’ dark meanin’s. I spat at him, but my spit boom’ranged back on me. Why? Was I crazed ’n’ loonin’?

Old Georgie’d made a diresome mistake, see, he’d mem’ried me o’ my augurin’s from my Dreamin’ Night. Hands are burnin’, let that rope be not cut. My decidin’ was settled, see, my hands was burnin’, so this was that rope Sonmi’d say-soed me not to cut.

My blade chimed on the ground an’ time started an’ the mil’yun hands ’n’ screams o’ that devil’s blizzard tore ’n’ pummeled me but cudn’t hurl me off the ’closure wall, nay, somehow I pulled up Meronym an’ got us down the other side too with no bones busted. We leaned ’gainst the furyin’ white ’n’ dark snowstorm back to the ’stron’mers’ village, we staggered ’n’ tripped an’ got back more freezin ’n livin’, but a dry faggot was waitin’ by Sonmi’s grace an’ I somehow got a fire cracklin’ an’ I vow that fire saved our lifes all over again. We boiled ice to water an’ unfroze our bones an’ dried our furs best we could. We din’t speak none, we was too icy ’n’ drained. Did I regret spurnin’ Old Georgie?

Nay, not then, not now. Whatever Meronym’s cause was for scalin’ this cussed mountain, I din’t b’lief she’d ever judas no Valleysman, nay, not in my heart, an’ the Kona’d o’ done to the Valleys what happened sooner or later anyhow. That was in the future that first night from the summit. My friend gived us both med’sun pills after grinds an’ we sleeped the no-dream sleep o’ the ’stron’mer king.

Now, gettin’ back to the Valleys weren’t no summery stroll neither, nay, but tonight ain’t the time to yarn them ’ventures. Meronym ’n’ me din’t talk much goin’ down, a sort o’ trust ’n’ un-d’standin’ tied us now. Mauna Kea’d done its cussed best to kill us but we’d s’vived it t’gether. I cogged she was far-far from her own fam’ly ’n’ kin, an’ my heart ached for her lornsomeness. Abel welcomed us in his garrison dwellin’ three evenin’s later an’ sent word to Bailey’s we’d come back. Ev’ryun’d got jus’ one question, What did you see up there? It was lornsome ’n’ hushly, I telled ’em, with temples o’ lost Smart ’n’ bones. But I din’t breathe a word ’bout the ’stron’mer king nor what Meronym’d telled me ’bout the Fall an’ speshly not my knuckly with Old Georgie, nay, not till years’d come ’n’ gone.

I und’standed why Meronym’d not said the hole true ’bout Prescience Isle an’ her tribe too. People b’lief the world is built so an’ tellin ’em it ain’t so caves the roofs on their heads ’n’ maybe yours.

Old Ma Yibber spread the news that the Zachry what came down off Mauna Kea weren’t the same Zachry what’d gone up, an’ true ’nuff I s’pose, there ain’t no journey what don’t change you some. My cuz Kobbery ’fessed that mas ’n’ pas thru the Nine Valleys was warnin’ their daughters ’gainst frolickin’ with Zachry o’ Bailey’s ’cos they reck’ned I must o’ bis’nessed with Old Georgie to ’scape that shrieky place with my soul still in my skull, an’ tho’ that weren’t the hole true, it weren’t the hole wrong. Jonas ’n’ Sussy din’t mick with me like they once did. But Ma got weepy to see us home an’ hugged me—My little Zachaman—an’ my goats was gladsome an’ Catkin din’t change none. She ’n’ her bros at the school’ry’d made a new game, Zachry ’n’ Meronym on Mauna Kea, but Abbess say-soed ’em not to ’cos times are pretendin’ can bend bein’. A whoah game it was, said Catkin, but I din’t want to know its rules nor endin’.

By ’n’ by Meronym’s last moon in Nine Valleys swelled up, an’ time it was for the Honokaa Barter, the biggest gath’rin’ o’ Windward peoples, jus’ once a year it comed round under the harvest moon, so for many days we was hard at work loomin’ goatwool blankies what was our dwellin’s bestest bart’rin’. Now, since my pa’s killin’ we’d trekked to Honokaa in groups o’ ten or more, but that year there was twice that number ’cos o’ the spesh Prescient loot we’d got, thanks to us hostin’ Meronym. There was handcarts an’ pack mules for all the dried meat ’n’ leather ’n’ cheese ’n’ wool. Wimoway ’n’ Roses was goin’ to trade herbs what din’t grow near the Valleys, tho’ Roses ’n’ Kobbery was spoonyin’ by then an’ that was fine by me. I wished my cuz luck ’cos luck he’d need an’ a whip ’n’ iron back ’n’ all.

Crossin’ Sloosha’s Crossin’ I’d to bear watchin’ journeyers put fresh stones on Pa’s mound, so our custom was my pa’d got a bucket o’ friends ’n’ bros what loved him truesome. Up on Mauna Kea that devil was sharp’nin’ his nails on a whetstone to feast on this cowardy liar, yay. After Sloosha’s came the zigzag up to Kuikuihaele. One handcart busted ’n’ tipped so slow ’n’ thirstsome goin’ it was, yay, noon was long gone b’fore we reached the scraggy hamlet sittin’ up the far side. Us young uns shimmed the cokeynut trees for grinds, an’ ev’ryun welcomed that milk, no frettin’. Trampin’ southly the buckin’ Old-Un way t’ward Honokaa Town, the ocean breeze turned freshly an’ our spirits was mended so we telled yarnies to shrink the miles, with the yarner sittin’ backwards on the leadin’ ass so ev’ryun could hear. Rod’rick yarned the Tale o’ Rudolf the Red-Ringed Goat Thief an’ Iron Billy’s Hideous Spiker, an’ Wolt sang a spoony song, “O Sally o’ the Valleys-o,” tho’ we pelted him with sticks ’cos his singin’ busted that liltsome tune. Then Unc’ Bees asked Meronym to teach us a Prescient yarnie. She hes’tated a beat or two an’ said Prescience tales was drippin’ with regret ’n’ loss an’ not good augurin’ for a sunny aft’noon b’fore Barter Day, but she could tell us a yarn what she’d heard from a burntlander in a far-far spot named Panama. We all yaysayed, so up she sat on the lead ass an’ a short ’n’ sweet yarn she spoke what I’ll tell you now so all you shut up, sit still an’ someun fetch me a fresh cup o’ spirit-brew, my throat’s gluey ’n’ parched.

Back when the Fall was fallin’, humans f’got the makin’ o’ fire. Oh, diresome bad things was gettin’, yay. Come night, folks cudn’t see nothin’, come winter they cudn’t warm nothin’, come mornin’ they cudn’t roast nothin’. So the tribe went to Wise Man an’ asked, Wise Man, help us, see we f’got the makin’ o’ fire, an’, oh, woe is us an’ all.

So Wise Man summ’ned Crow an’ say-soed him these words: Fly across the crazed ’n’ jiffyin’ ocean to the Mighty Volcano, an’ on its foresty slopes, find a long stick. Pick up that stick in your beak an’ fly into that Mighty Volcano’s mouth an’ dip it in the lake o’ flames what bubble ’n’ spit in that fiery place. Then bring the burnin’ stick back here to Panama so humans’ll mem’ry fire once more an’ mem’ry back its makin’.

Crow obeyed the Wise Man’s say-so, an’ flew over this crazed ’n’ jiffyin’ ocean until he saw the Mighty Volcano smokin’ in the near-far. He spiraled down onto its foresty slopes, nibbed some gooseb’ries, gulped of a chilly spring, rested his tired wings a beat, then sivvied round for a long stick o’ pine. A one, a two, a three an’ up Crow flew, stick in his beak, an’ plop down the sulf’ry mouth o’ the Mighty Volcano that gutsy bird dropped, yay, swoopin’ out of his dive at the last beat, draggin’ that stick o’ pine thru the melty fire, whooo-ooo-ooosh, it flamed! Up ’n’ out o’ that Crow flew from the scorchin’ mouth, now flew with that burnin’ stick in his mouth, yay, toward home he headed, wings poundin’, stick burnin’, days passin’, hail slingin’, clouds black’nin’, oh, fire lickin’ up that stick, eyes smokin’, feathers crispin’, beak burnin’ . . . It hurts! Crow crawed. It hurts! Now, did he drop that stick or din’t he? Do we mem’ry the makin’ o’ fire or don’t we?

See now, said Meronym, riding backwards on that lead ass, it ain’t ’bout Crows or fire, it’s ’bout how we humans got our spirit.

I don’t say that yarn’s got a hole sack o’ sense, but I always mem’ried it, an’ times are less sense is more sense. Anyhow, the day was dyin’ in soddy clouds an’ we was still some miles shy o’ Honokaa, so we tented up for the night an’ throwed dice for watch, see, times was bad an’ we din’t want to risk no ambush. I got a six ’n’ six so maybe my luck was healin’, so I thinked, fool o’ fate what I am, yay, what we all are.

Honokaa was the bustlin’est town o’ noreast Windward, see, Old Uns’d builded it high ’nuff to s’vive the risin’ ocean, not like half o’ Hilo nor Kona neither, what was flooded most moons. Honokaa men was traders ’n’ makers mostly, oh they worshiped Sonmi but they divvied their chances slywise an’ worshiped Hilo gods too so we Valleysmen reck’ned ’em half savages. Their chief was called Senator, he’d got more power ’n our Abbess, yay, he’d got an army o’ ten–fifteen knuckly men with whoah spikers whose job was to force Senator’s say-so, an’ no un chose Senator, nay, it was a barb’ric pa-to-son bis’ness. Honokaa was a fair midway for Hilo ’n’ Honomu folks, an’ Valleysmen ’n’ Mookini b’fore they was slaved, an’ the hill tribes upcountry. The town’s Old-Un walls was rebuilded fresh an’ blown-off roofs mended over ’n’ over, but you could still strolly round its narrow ’n’ windy streets an’ ’magin’ flyin’ kayaks an’ no-horse carts wheelyin’ here ’n’ there. Last there was the bart’rin’ hall, a whoah spacy buildin’ what Abbess said was once named church where an ancient god was worshiped, but the knowin’ of that god was lost in the Fall. Church’d got strong walls an’ beautsome colored glass an’ sat in a lushly green space with lots o’ stone slabs for pennin’ sheep ’n’ goats ’n’ pigs ’n’ all. Durin’ the barter, Senator’s guards manned the town gates an’ storehouses an’ they’d got a lockup too with iron bars. No armyman never knucklied no trader tho’, not unless he thiefed or busted peace or law. Honokaa’d got more law ’n anyplace else on Big Isle ’cept the Nine Folded Valleys I s’pose, tho’ law an’ Civ’lize ain’t always the same, nay, see Kona got Kona law but they ain’t got one flea o’ Civ’lize.

That bart’rin’, we Valleysmen did a whoah good trade for ourselves an’ the Commons. Twenty sacks o’ rice from the hill tribes we got for the Prescient tarps, yay, an’ cows ’n’ hides from Parker’s Ranch for the metalwork. We telled no un ’bout Meronym bein’ an’ offlander, nay, we named her Ottery o’ Hermit Dwellin’ from upgulch Pololu Valley, Ottery was a herb’list an’ a lucky freakbirth, we said, to ’splain her black skin an’ white tooths. The Prescients’ gear we said was new salvage we’d finded in a stashed hideynick, tho’ no un ever asks So where’d you get this gear? an’ s’pects to hear a truesome answer. Old Ma Yibber keeps her slurryful mouth corked outside Nine Valleys, so when a storyman named Lyons asked me if I was the same Zachry o’ Elepaio Valley what’d climbed Mauna Kea last moon, I was diresome s’prised. Yay, said I, I’m Zachry o’ that Valley, but I don’t hate this life so much I’d go anywhere near the roof o’ that mountain, nay. I said I’d gone huntin’ presh leafs ’n’ roots with my last-life Aunt Ottery, but we din’t go no higher ’n where the trees stopped, nay, an’ if he’d heard diff’rent, well, I were here tellin’ him he’d heard wrong. Lyons’s words was friendsome ’nuff, but when my bro Harrit telled me he’d seen Lyons ’n’ Beardy Leary mutt’rin’ down a smoky dead end I reck’ned I’d tell-tale him to Abbess when we got home an’ see what she thinked. A rat’s ass tang I’d always smelled comin’ off Leary, an’ I’d be findin’ in jus’ a bunch o’ hours how, oh, how right I was.

Meronym ’n’ me bartered off our goatwool spinnin’s ’n’ blankies ’n’ all pretty soon on, yay, I got a sack o’ fine Manuka coffee, some plastic pipin’ in fine nick, fat oats an’ bags o’ raisins from a dark Kolekole girl, an’ more gear too what I don’t mem’ry now. Kolekole folk ain’t so savage I reck’n tho’ they bury their dead uns b’neath them same longhouses where the livin’ dwell ’cos they b’lief they’ll be less lonesome there. Then I helped with our Commons barter for a beat or two then strolled here ’n’ there, howzittin’ with some traders from round’bouts, savages ain’t always bad folks, nay. I learned the Mackenzymen’d dreamed up a shark god an’ was sac’ficin’ bladed ’n’ footless sheeps into their bay. Usual tales I heard too ’bout Kona rowdy-in’s eastly o’ their normal huntin’ grounds what shadowed all our hearts ’n’ minds. A crowd o’ watchers I finded gatherin’ round someun, nustlied nearer an’ seen Meronym, or Ottery, sittin’ on a stool an’ sketchin’ people’s faces, yay! She bartered her sketchin’s for trinklety doodahs or a bite o’ grinds, an’ folks was gleesomer ’n anythin’, watchin’ with ’mazement as their faces ’ppeared from nowhere onto paper, an’ more folks clustered sayin’, Do me next! Do me next! Folks asked her where she’d got that learnin’ an’ her answer was always It ain’t learnin’, bro, jus’ practice is all. Uglies she gived more beautsome ’n their faces’d got, but artists’d done so all down hist’ry so Ottery the Sketchin’ Herb’list said. Yay, when it came to faces, pretty lies was better ’n scabbin’ true.

Night fell an’ we tromped back to our stores an’ drawed lots for sentryin’, then partyin’ began in spesh dwellin’s named bars. I did my sentryin’ early on, then showed Meronym some places with Wolt an’ Unc’ Bees b’fore the musickers drawed us back to Church. A squeezywheezy an’ banjos an’ catfish fiddlers an’ a presh rare steel guitar there was, an’ barrels o’ liquor what each tribe bringed to show their richness an’ sacks o’ blissweed ’cos where there’s Hilo, oh, there’s blissweed. I skanked deep on Wolt’s pipe an’ four days’ march from our free Windward to Kona Leeward seemed like four mil’yun, yay, babbybies o’ blissweed cradled me that night, then the drummin’ started up, see ev’ry tribe had its own drums. Foday o’ Lotus Pond Dwellin’ an’ two–three Valleysmen played goatskin ’n’ pingwood tom-toms, an’ Hilo beardies thumped their flumfy-flumfy drums an’ a Honokaa fam’ly beat their sash-krrangers an’ Honomu folk got their shell-shakers an’ this whoah feastin’ o’ drums twanged the young uns’ joystrings an’ mine too, yay, an’ blissweed’ll lead you b’tween the whack-crack an’ boom-doom an’ pan-pin-pon till we dancers was hoofs thuddin’ an’ blood pumpin’ an’ years passin’ an’ ev’ry drumbeat one more life shedded off of me, yay, I glimpsed all the lifes my soul ever was till far-far back b’fore the Fall, yay, glimpsed from a gallopin’ horse in a hurrycane, but I cudn’t describe ’em ’cos there ain’t the words no more but well I mem’ry that dark Kolekole girl with her tribe’s tattoo, yay, she was a saplin’ bendin’ an’ I was that hurrycane, I blowed her she bent, I blowed harder she bent harder an’ closer, then I was Crow’s wings beatin’ an’ she was the flames lickin’ an’ when the Kolekole saplin’ wrapped her willowy fingers around my neck, her eyes was quartzin’ and she murmed in my ear, Yay, I will, again, an’ yay, we will, again.

Get up now, boy, my pa biffed me anxsome, this ain’t no mornin’ for slug-gybeddin’, cuss you. That bubbly dream popped an’ I waked proper under itchy Kolekole blankies. The dark girl ’n’ me was twined, yay, like a pair o’ oily lizards swallowin’ each other. She smelled o’ vines ’n’ lava ash an’ her olive breasts rose ’n’ fell an’ watchin’ her I got the tenderlies like she was my own babbit slumb’rin’ by me. Blissweed was foggin’ me still, an’ I heard near-far shouts o’ wild partyin’ tho’ a misty dawn was ’ready up, yay, it happens so at harvest barterin’s, times are. So I yawned ’n’ stretched, yay, achin ’n’ feelin’ all good ’n’ scooped, y’know how it is when you shoot up a beautsome girl. Smoky brekkers was bein’ cooked nearby, so I put on my pants ’n’ jacket ’n’ all an’ the Kolekole girl’s eyes opened fawny an’ she murmed, Mornin’, goatman, an’ I laughed an’ said, I’ll be back with grinds, an’ she din’t b’lief me so I settled I’d prove her wrong an’ see her smile when I bringed her brekker. Outside the Kolekole storehouse was a cobbly track runnin’ by the Town Wall, but northly or southly I din’t cogg, so I was puzzlin’ my path there when a Honokaa guard dropped from the rampart an’ missed killin’ me by inches.

My guts shot half up an’ half down.

A crossbolt shaft stuck out his nose an’ its point thru the back o’ his head. Its iron point jolted that mornin’ an’ ev’rythin’ into, oh, its horrorsome place.

That near-far wild partyin’ were battlin ’n’ fightin’, yay! That smokin’ brekker was thatch burnin’, yay! Now my first thinkin’ was my people, so I backrabbited t’ward the Valleysmen’s store in the town hub shoutin’, Kona! Kona! Yay, the dark wings o’ that dreadsome word beat furyin’ thru Honokaa an’ I heard a thund’ry splint’rin’ an’ a diresome shout kicked up an’ I cogged the town gate was busted down. Now I got to the square, but whackaboom panickin’ blocked my way an’ fear, yay, fear an’ its hot stink turned me back. I roundybouted the narrow roads, but nearer ’n’ nearer Kona roars an’ horses an’ bullwhips came, fillin’ them misty ’n’ burnin’ alleys like a tsunami an’ I din’t know what way I’d come nor was goin’ an’ ker-bam! I got shoved into the gutter by a milk-eyed old ma clubbin’ thin air with a roller pin bansheein’, You’ll never lay your filthsome hands on me, but when I got up again she was still ’n’ pale, see, she’d got a crossbolt blossomin’ her bosom an’ suddenwise whoah a whip binded my legs t’gether an’ whoah up I flew an’ whoah down my head dropped an’ aieee the pavestones smashed my skull, yay, fiercer ’n a chop from a cold dammit chisel.

When I waked next my young body was an old bucket o’ pain, yay, my knees was busted an’ one elbow stiff ’n’ bruised an’ my ribs chipped an’ two teeth gone an’ my jaws din’t fit no more an’ that lump on my head was like a second head. I was hooded like a goat b’fore slaught’rin’ an’ my hands ’n’ feet binded cruelsome an’ laid flat on ’n’ under other sorrysome bodies, yay, I hurt like I’d never knowed b’fore nor since, nay! Cartwheels was groanin’ an’ iron shoes clip-cloppin’ an’ with each sway pain sloshed round my skull.

Well, there weren’t no myst’ry. We was bein’ slaved an’ carted back to Kona jus’ like my lost bro Adam. I weren’t speshly gladsome at livin’ still, I weren’t nothin’ jus’ achin’ an’ helpless as a strung-up lardbird bein’ bled from a hook. A squirmin’ foot squashed my balls, so I murmed, Anyun else awake here? See, I thinked I may yet manage to rabbit out o’ that hole, but a rook-raw Kona voice yelled jus’ inches away, Shut your mouths, my strappin’ lads, or I vow on my blade I’ll slit the tongues from ev’ry last dingo-shat one o’ you! A warm wet quilted my arm, as someun lyin’ on me pissed, what cooled to a chill wet as beats went by. I counted five Kona speakin’, three horses, an’ a cage o’ chicklin’s. Our slavers was discussin’ the girls what they’d torn open ’n’ shooted up durin’ the Honokaa raid, so I knowed I’d been hooded half the day or more. I din’t have no hungry but, oh, I was thirsty as hot ash. One o’ the Kona voices I cogged but I din’t see how. Ev’ry long beat’d bring a thund’rin’ o’ war hoofs ’long the road an’ there’d be a Howzit, Captain! an’ a Yay, sir an’ The battlin’ goes well! an’ so I learned the Kona’d not made jus’ a reccyin’ raid on Honokaa but was seizin’ the hole o’ northly Big I, yay, an’ that meant the Valleys. My Nine Folded Valleys. Sonmi, I prayed, Mercysome Sonmi, minder my fam’ly ’n’ kin.

Fin’ly sleep dragged me off an’ I dreamed o’ the Kolekole girl, but her breasts ’n’ flank was made o’ snow ’n’ lava rock, an’ when I waked in that cart again I found a died slave under me was suckin’ all the warmness out o’ me. I shouted, Hey, Kona, you got a died un here an’ maybe your cart horse’d thank you to lose some draggin’ heavy. A boy on top o’ me yelped as the Kona driver whipflicked him to reward him for my oh-so-kindly consid’ration, he was the pisser maybe. I knowed by the birds’ lilts evenin’ was near, yay, an’ all day we’d been carted.

A long beat later we stopped an’ off that cart I was hauled an’ pricked by a spiker. I yelled an’ wrigglied, heard a Kona say, This un’s still livin’ anyhow, an’ was lifted off ’n’ leaned ’gainst a hut-size rock, an’ after a beat my hood was taken off. I sat up an’ squinted in the mournsome dim. We was on the drizzly Waimea Track, an’ I cogged ’zactly where, yay, see it was by the slopin’ pond an’ that hut-size rock we was leaned against was the selfsame rock where Meronym ’n’ me’d meeted Old Yanagi jus’ a moon ago.

Now I watched the Kona sling away three died slaves for the dingos ’n’ ravens, an’ I knowed why I’d cogged a fam’liar voice b’fore, see one of our capturers was Lyons the storyman bro o’ Leary. Storyman an’ spyer, may Old Georgie cuss his bones. There was no Valleysmen ’cept me in the s’vivin’ ten, nay, mostly Honomu ’n’ Hawi I reck’ned. I prayed one o’ the slinged three wasn’t Kobbery my cuz. All of us was young men, yay, so they’d killed the older uns back in Honokaa, I s’posed, Meronym too, I reck’ned, ’cos I knowed she cudn’t s’vive nor ’scape such a furyin’ attack. One o’ the Kona poured a slug o’ pond water on our faces, we opened our mouths for ev’ry brackish drop but it weren’t ’nuff to damp our parchin’. The chief say-soed their horse boy to tent up an’ then spoke to his trembly catches. Since this mornin’, said the painted buggah, your lifes, yay, your bodies are Kona b’longin’s, an the sooner you accept this, the likelier you’ll s’vive as a slave o’ the true inheritors o’ Big I an’ one day Hole Ha-Why. Chief telled us our new lifes’d got new rules, but luck’ly the rules was easy learnin’. First rule is, slaves do your Kona masters’ say-so, quicksharp an’ no but-whyin’. Bust this rule an’ your master’ll bust you a bit, or a lot, d’pends on his will, till you learn better obeyin’. Second rule is, slaves don’t speak ’cept when your master asks ’em. Bust this rule an’ your master’ll slit your tongue an’ I will too. Third rule is, you don’t waste no time plottin’ scapes. When you’re sold next moon you’ll be branded on your cheeks with your master’s mark. You’ll never pass for pureblood Kona ’cos you ain’t, true-be-telled all Windwards are freakbirthed shits. Bust this rule an’ I vow it, when you’re catched your master’ll blade off your hands an’ feet, blade off your cock to gag your mouth, an’ leave you by the wayside for the flies ’n’ rats feastin’. Sounds like a quick death you may think, but I done it sev’ral times an’ s’prisin’ slowsome it is, b’lief me. Chief said all good masters kill a bad or idlin’ slave now ’n’ then to mem’ry the others what happens to slackers. Last, he asked if there was any complainers.

No complainers there weren’t, nay. Us peacesome Windward men was busted in body by wounds ’n’ thirst ’n’ hunger an’ busted in spirit by the killin’ we’d seen an’ the slaved future we seen b’fore us. No fam’ly, no freeness, no nothin’ but work an’ pain’ an’ work an’ pain till we died, an’ where’d our souls be rebirthed then? I wondered if I may meet Adam or if he was died ’ready or what. An elfy Hawi boy started blubbin’ some, but he was jus’ a niner or a tenner so no un hissed him to shuttup, in fact he shedded tears for all of us, yay. Jonas’d be slaved most prob’ly, an’ Sussy ’n’ Catkin too, but they was grim thinkin’s, see, both was pretty ’nuff girls. Ma was an agin’ woman, tho’ . . . What use’d the Kona find for her? I din’t want to think ’bout the roller pin woman in Honokaa who’d whocked me into the ditch, but I cudn’t stop myself. Lyons came over, said Boo! to the elfy boy so he blubbed badder, an’ Lyons laughed, then yanked off my Prescient boots. He admired ’em on his own feet. No more scavvin’ up Mauna Kea for Zachry Goatboy, that judaser speaked, so he won’t be needin’ these no more, nay.

I din’t say nothin’, but Lyons din’t like the way I din’t say nothin’ so he kicked my head ’n’ groin with my own boots. I weren’t sure but I reck’n he was second in charge after chief, leastways no un challenged him for my boots.

Night dripped an’ the Kona roasted chicklin’s over the fire an’ any of us’d o’ bartered our souls for a drip o’ that chicklin’ grease on our tongues. We was gettin’ chill now, an’ tho’ the Kona din’t want us too busted b’fore the slave market, they wanted us kept puny ’n’ frail ’cos we was ten but they was only five. They opened a cask o’ liquor an’ drank an’ drank some more an’ tore them delish-smellin’ chicklin’s an’ drank some more. They murmed a bit an’ looked at us, then a Kona was sent over to us with a torchin’ stick. He held it by each of us while his tribesmen crowed Yay! or Nay! Fin’ly he unbinded the elfy Hawi’s feet an’ s’ported him hobblin’ over to the campfire. There they warmed him an’ fed him some chicklin’ an’ liquor. Us f’gotten slaves was bein’ drained by hunger ’n’ pain an’ the mozzies from the slopin’ pond now an’ we was envyin’ that Hawi boy diresome, till at a nod from Lyons they ripped down Elfy’s pants an’ held him an’ busted that boy’s ring, oilin’ his hole up with lardbird fat b’tween turns.

Lyons was porkerin’ the sorrysome child when I heard a kssssss noise an’ he jus’ keeled over. The other four bust laughin’, see they b’lieved Lyons was bladdered with liquor but then ksss-ksss an’ two red spots grew b’tween another Kona’s eyes an’ he dropped stone dead too. A helmeted ’n’ caped Kona strided into the clearin’ holdin’ a sort o’ shinbone what he pointed at our last three catchers. Another kssss an’ the boy Kona was felled. Now the chief grabbed his spiker an’ hurled it at the helmeted killer, who dived ’n’ sort o’ rolled cross the clearin’ so the spiker tore his cloak but missed his body. A ksssSSSsss tore a slopin’ gash cross the chief’s torso an’ he sort o’ slid into two halfs. Hope creeped up on my shock but crack! The last Kona’s bullwhip wrapped round that lethal killin’ shinbone an’ crack! That shooter quicksharped out o’ the rescuer’s hands an’ into our catcher’s hands like a magicky. Now the last Kona swivvied the weapon at our rescuer an’ ’proached close so he cudn’t miss an’ I seen his hands squeeze its trigger an’ KSSSS! The last Kona’s head was missin’ an’ the breadfruit tree what’d stood b’hind him was a whooosh o’ cindery flamin’s cracklin ’n’ steamin’ in the rain.

His body stood lonesome for a beat like a babbit learnin’ to walk, then . . . dumm-fff! See, he’d errored the shooter’s mouth for its ass and flashbanged his own head off. Our myst’ry Kona rescuer sat up, rubbin’ elbows tendersome, plucked off his helmet, an’ stared mis’rably at the five died uns.

I’m too old for this, Meronym said, grim ’n’ frownin’.

We unbinded the other slaves an’ let ’em have the Kona’s grinds, Meronym’d got ’nuff for us in her horse’s saddlebags an’ them unslaved buggahs needed all the help they could get. All we took from the died five was my boots back off Lyons’s foots. In war, Meronym teached me, first you anx ’bout your boots, only second you anx ’bout grinds ’n’ all. My rescuer gived me her full yarn a long beat later in this Old-Un ruin in trackless bush on the Leeward Kohalas what we found an’ lit a small fire.

It ain’t long in the yarnin’, nay. Meronym weren’t in the Valleysmen’s store when the Kona attacked Honokaa, nay, she was up on the town walls sketchin’ the sea till a torchin’ crossbolt kicked that sketchbook out o’ her hands. She got back to the Valleysmen’s store b’fore the town gate was down, but Unc’ Bees shouted her I was missin’, so she went off lookin’ an’ that was the last she seen o’ my kin. Her horse ’n’ helmet she’d got from a Kona chief who’d charged down an alley an’ din’t charge out no more. In Kona gear an’ riotsome annacky, Meronym bluffed a way out o’ the blood-shot ’n’ torchin’ town. There weren’t no battlin’, nay, it was jus’ more a roundup, see, the Senator’s army s’rendered faster ’n anyun. Meronym first rided northly Valleywards, but Kona was gath’rin’ thick round Kuikuihaele for their swarm into the Valleys so she’d turned inland ’long the Waimea Track, but that road was thickly sentried an’ she cudn’t pass for Kona if stopped. Meronym turned southly reck’nin’ to reach Hilo an’ see if it was still in freesome hands. But Sonmi stayed her for long ’nuff to glance a cart trundlin’ by, an’ stickin’ out o’ that cart was two feet, an’ on those two feet was Prescient boots, an’ only one Windwardsman she knowed what weared Prescient boots. She daren’t try to rescue me in daylight, an’ one time she lost the cart ’cos she’d roundybouted a platoon o’ horses, an’ if it weren’t for the Kona’s bladdery chorusin’ as they gewgawed the Hawi boy she might’ve missed us in the dark an’ ridden by. Oh, the risk she’d taked to rescue me! Why din’t you hide an’ save your skin proper? asked I.

She made a stoopit question face.

Yay, but what’d we do? My thinkin’ was stormin ’n’ fearin’. The Valleys is raided ’n’ burnin, prob’ly . . . an’ if Hilo ain’t fallen yet, it’ll fall soon . . .

My friend jus’ tended my wounds ’n’ hurtin’s with bandagin’s ’n’ stuff, then raised a cup ’n’ med’sun stone to my lips. This’ll help fix your busted body, Zachry. Shut up your yibberin’ an’ sleep now.

A murmin’ man woked me in a leaky Old-Un shelter with leafs bustin’ thru the window holes. I was achin’ in a dozen places but not painin’ so sharply. Mornin’ was brisk ’n’ leeward-smellin’, but I mem’ried the desp’rate new age what was shadowin’ Windward an’, oh, in my head I groaned to be wakin’. ’Cross the room Meronym was speakin’ thru her orison to that sternsome Prescient what’d catched me sivvyin’ thru Meronym’s gear that first time. I gazed on for a beat, marv’lin’ once more, see, colors are spicier ’n’ brighter in orison windows. Soon he seen me risin’ an’ cogged me with a raise o’ his head. Meronym turned too an’ howzitted.

Better ’n yesterday. I stepped over to see that spesh Smart. My joints ’n’ bones groaned some. Meronym said I’d ’ready met this Prescient what she said was named Duophysite, an’ I said I’d not f’gotten ’cos he’d been so scarysome. The windowed Prescient was list’nin’ to us, an’ his skel’tony face soft’ned jus’ one shade. Oh, I wish we wasn’t meetin’ in such dark times, Zachry, said Duophysite, but I’m askin’ you to guide Meronym on one last trek, to Ikat’s Finger. You know it?

Yay, I knowed it, northly from the Last Valley over Pololu Bridge, a long spit o’ land what pointed nor’eastly. Was the Ship an-chorin’ for Meronym at Ikat’s Finger?

The two Prescients bartered a glance, an’ Duophysite spoked after a beat. We got bad news of our own to teach you, sorrysome to say. The orisons on Prescience an’ the Ship ain’t answered no transmission for days ’n’ days.

What’s a transmission? I asked.

A message, said Meronym, a window, an orison gath’rin’ like we was discussin’ with Duophysite now.

I asked, Are the orisons busted?

Way worser it may be, speaked the windowed un, see in recent moons a plague’s neared Prescience Isle, westly from Ank’ridge, yay, a terrorsome sick what our Smart can’t cure. Jus’ one in two hundred what catch this plague s’vive it, yay. Us Prescients on Ha-Why we got to act like we’re on our own now ’cos the Ship prob’ly ain’t comin’.

But what ’bout Anafi, Meronym’s son? Meronym’s face made me wish I’d bit my tongue off b’fore I’d asked.

I got to live with not knowin’, said my friend, so bleaksome I could o’ blubbed. I ain’t the first un who lived so, an’ I ain’t the last neither.

Well, that yibber busted a hope in me what I’d not cogged I’d got. I asked Duophysite how many Prescients was there on Hole Ha-Why.

Five, answered the man.

Five hun’erd? I asked.

Duophysite seen my dismay an’ knowed it too. Nay jus’ five. One on each main I o’ the chain. Our hole true is simply telled, an’ it’s time now you knowed it. We anxed this plague’d reach Prescience an’ snuff out Civ’lize’s last bright light. We was searchin’ for good earth to plant more Civ’lize in Ha-Why, an’ we din’t want to scare you islandsmen by big numbers of offlanders.

So you see, spoked Meronym now, your fears ’bout my true aims ’n’ all wasn’t total wrong.

I din’t care ’bout that no more. I said, if Prescients was like Meronym, yay, five thousand of ’em’d o’ been welcomed in the Valleys.

Duophysite darked, thinkin’ how few Prescients might be livin’ now. The boss o’ my tribe here on Maui where I’m speakin’ to you from is a friendsome leader same as your Abbess. He’s say-soed two war kayaks to cross the Maui Straits what’ll be at Ikat’s Finger come noon the day after ’morrow.

I vowed him I’d get Meronym safe there by then.

Then I can thank you for helpin’ her in person. Duophysite plussed there’d be space on them kayaks if I wanted to ’scape off Big I with her.

That settled my mind. Thank you, I telled the stranded Prescient, but I got to stay an’ find my fam’ly.

We stayed hid in that ruin one more night for my muscles to knit ’n’ my bruisin’ to heal. Heartbuggahin’ it was not rushin’ back to the Valleys for battlin’ or reccyin’, but Meronym seen the Kona horses ’n’ crossbowmen pourin’ t’ward the Valleys via Kuikuihaele an’ she ’ssured me, there’d not o’ been no dragged battlin’ for Nine Valleys yay it’d all o’ been over in hours not days, nay.

Bleaksome ’n’ haunted day it was. Meronym teached me how to use that spesh shinboney shooter. We practiced on pineapples then giant burrs then acorns till my aim was sharp. I sentried while Meronym sleeped, then she sentried while I sleeped some more. Soon our fire was dirtyin’ twilight mist again an’ we dined on Kona rations o’ salt mutton ’n’ seaweed an’ lilikoi fruits what growed in that ruin. I filled the horse’s oat bag an’ petted him an’ named him Wolt ’cos he was ugly as my cuz, then gloomed hurtsome, wond’rin’ who o’ my kin was still livin’. True-be-telled, not knowin’ the worst is badder ’n knowin’ it.

A flutterby-thinkin’ touched me, an’ I asked Meronym why a Shipwoman rode horses as good as any Kona. She ’fessed most Prescients cudn’t ride no animal, but she’d lived with a tribe called the Swannekke what lived way past Ank’ridge an’ way past Far Couver. The Swannekke bred horses like Valleysmen bred goats, yay, an’ their littl’ uns could ride b’fore they could walk, an’ she’d learnt durin’ her seasons with them. Meronym teached me lots ’bout the tribes she’d lived ’mongst, but I ain’t got time for those yarns now, nay, it’s gettin’ late. We speaked ’bout the ’morrow’s route to Ikat’s Finger, see, one way was to follow the Kohalas’ razorback over Nine Valleys, but ’nother way was to follow Waipio River down to Abel’s Garrison first an’ spy what we’d spy. We din’t know see if the Kona’d slashed ’n’ burned then emptied the Valleys like they’d done the Mookini or if they was aimin’ to conquer ’n’ settle our dwellin’s an’ slave us in our own lands. Now I’d vowed to get Meronym to Ikat’s Finger safe ’n’ sound an’ reccyin’ ’bout Kona horsemen weren’t safe nor sound, but Meronym say-soed we’d spy the Valleys first an’ so the ’morrow’s way was settled.

Dawn fogged waxy ’n’ silty. It weren’t easy gettin’ the horse over the Kohala Ridge ’n’ thickets to Waipio Spring, not knowin’ if a Kona platoon was waitin’ thru the walls o’ cane we was noisesomely hackin’. Mostly we’d to walk ’n’ lead the beast, but we reached the spring fin’ly by noon an’ tethered him in a hollow upgulch an’ creeped the mile to Abel’s ’long the spruce spur. Fog turned ev’ry tree stump into a huddled Kona sentry, but still I was thanksome to Sonmi for the camo. We spied over the peerin’ lip an’ looked down on the garrison. Grim viewin’, yay. Only Abel’s gates stood shut, see, the walls ’n’ outbuildin’s was all charred ’n’ busted. A naked man was hanged off the gate bar, yay, by his ankles in the Kona way, maybe it were Abel an’ maybe it weren’t, but crows was ’ready minin’ his guts an’ a pair o’ ballsy dingos scavvin’ dropped slops.

Now as we watched, a thirty–forty-head roundup o’ slaved Valleysmen was bein’ shunted out to Kuikuihaele. I’ll mem’ry that sight till my dyin’ day an’ longer. Some was mulin’ carts o’ loot ’n’ gear. Kona shouts ’n’ say-soes ruckused an’ whips crackled. The fog was too swampy for me to make out my tribesmen’s faces, but, oh, sorrysome was their figures dragglin’ out t’ward Sloosha’s Crossin’. Ghosts. Livin’ ghosts. Watch the fate o’ the last Civ’lized tribe o’ the Big I, thinked I, yay, the result of our school’ry ’n’ Icon’ry, jus’ slaved for Kona fields an’ dwellin’s an’ stables an’ beds an’ holes in Leeward ground.

What could I do? Rush ’em? Some twenty Kona horsemen was convoyin’ ’em off the Leeward. Even with Meronym’s shooter I could maybe take out five o’ the twenty sentries, maybe more if I got lucky, but then what? The Kona’d spiker ev’ry Valleysman to death at the first whisp o’ knucklyin’. This weren’t Zachry the Cowardy knucklyin’ Zachry the Brave, nay, it was Zachry the Soosider knucklyin’ Zachry the S’viver, an’ I ain’t got no shame to say which Zachry vic’tried. To Meronym I signaled we was retreatin’ back to the horse tho’ tears was in my eyes.

Short-ass, get me a roasted taro. Mem’ryin’ that despair is hollowin’ me out.

Now backtrackin’ up to the Kohala grazin’ pastures, the mist slid b’low us an’ southly rose Mauna Kea from that ocean o’ cloud, clear ’n’ close ’nuff to spit at so it seemed, so I did, yay, I spitted hard. My soul may be stoned an’ my luck may be rotted but I can still cuss a cuss. From each o’ the Nine Folded Valleys black cobras o’ smoke was risin’ an’ ev’ry carrion winger ’n’ legger on Big I was crawk-in ’n’ feastin’ in our Valleys that mornin’ I reck’ned. Up in the pastures we finded goats scattered, some o’ mine, some from Kaima, but we din’t see not one goatherd, nay. I milked some, an’ we drank the last free Valleysman’s goat milk. Thru Vert’bry Pass we downed t’ward Thumb Rock, where Meronym’d sketched her map five moons b’fore, yay, over the heathery turf what’d cupped Roses under me six moons b’fore. Sun steamed the mist ’n’ dew away, an’ thru a fine-weaved rainbow I seen the school’ry was razed, yay, jus’ a black shell now, the last books an’ the last clock. Down we rode to Elepaio Stream, where I got off an’ Meronym helmeted up an’ loosely roped my hands so if we was spied it’d look like she’d slaved a ’scaped run’way an’ maybe win us a lethal beat. Down the track we walked this way to Cluny’s, what was the highest dwellin’ upgulch. Meronym dismounted an’ gripped her shooter as we creeped hushly as mouses thru the buildin’s, but my heart weren’t hushly, nay. A big knuckly’d happened there an’ gear was crashed ’n’ busted, but no bodies was lyin’ round, nay. We taked some fresh grinds for the journey ahead, I knowed Cluny’d not o’ minded. Leavin’ Cluny’s front gate I spied a cokeynut spikered on a stained pole with flies buzzin’ what was wyrd ’n’ unnat’ral, so we peered closer an’ it weren’t no cokeynut, nay, it was Macca Cluny’s head, yay, with his pipe still poked in his mouth.

Such barb’ric buggahs are them painted Kona, bros. You trust one once you’re a dead man, b’lief me. Macca’s head gived me furyin’ nervies as we trekked further down to Bailey’s Dwellin’.

A pail o’ curdlin’ goat milk stood in the milk’ry an’ I cudn’t stop ’maginin’ Sussy bein’ dragged away from that upbusted milkin’ stool an’ what’d been done to her, oh, my poor ’n’ sweet ’n’ dear sis. A possy o’ hoofs stamped the yard mud. Goats was all shooed away, our chicklin’s thiefed. So hush. No loom clackin’, no Catkin singin’, no Jonas makin’ nothin’. The stream an’ a laughin’ thrush in the eaves an’ nothin’ else. No horrorsome sight on the gatepost, I thanked Sonmi for that much. Inside, eggs ’n’ apricocks was spilled from the upturned table. Ev’ry room I was dreadin’ what I’d find but, nay, by the grace o’ Sonmi it seemed my fam’ly’d not been slayed yet . . .

Guilt an’ sorrow whacked me.

Guilt ’cos I always s’vived an’ ’scaped despite my dirtsome ’n’ stony soul. Sorrow ’cos the ruins o’ my busted old life was strewed here ’n’ there ’n’ ev’rywhere. Jonas’s toys what Pa’d whittled years ago. Ma’s loomwork hangin’ in the doorways, swayin’ in the last o’ summer’s soft breathin’. Burnt fish an’ blissweed hanged in the air. Catkin’s writin’ work for school’ry still lied on the table where she was workin’. Din’t know what to think or say or what. What do I do? I asked my friend as I asked me. What do I do?

Meronym sat on a wood box Jonas’d made, what Ma’d called his first masterwork. A bleaksome ’n’ dark choice to settle, Zachry, she replied. Stay in the Valleys till you’re slaved. ’Scape to Hilo an’ stay till the Kona attack an’ be killed or slaved. Live in backwilds as a hermit bandit till you’re catched. Cross the straits to Maui with me an’ prob’ly never return to Big I no more. Yay, that was my all choices, no frettin’, but I cudn’t settle one, all I knowed was that I din’t want to run away from Big I without vengeancin’ what’d happened here.

This ain’t the safest place to sit ’n’ think, Zachry, said Meronym, so tendersome that fin’ly my tears oozed out.

Mountin’ the horse to leave back upgulch, I mem’ried my fam’ly’s icons in our shrine. Now, if I left ’em there to be axed by ’n’ by for firewood there’d be nothin’ to proof the Bailey’s Dwellin’ kin’d ever existed. So back I ran alone to get ’em. Comin’ back down the passage, I heard crock’ry fall off the pantry shelf. I freezed.

Slowsome I turned an’ looked.

A fat rat strutted there, stink-eyein’ me an’ twitchin’ its whisk’ry nose. Bet you’re sorryin’ you din’t jus’ cut that rope on the wall o’ my ’closure now, Zachry, yay? All this woe ’n’ grief you could o’ voided.

I din’t list’n to that liar’s liar. The Kona’d o’ attacked anyhow, yay, it weren’t nothin’ to do with me defyin’ that Dev’lish Buggah. I picked up a pot to hurl at Old Georgie, but when I taked aim the fat rat’d dis’peared, yay, an’ from the empty room to my left came a breezy sighin’ from the bed where I din’t see b’fore. I should o’ jus’ rabbited, yay, I knowed it but I din’t, I tippytoed in an’ seen a Kona sentry lyin’ there in a soft nest o’ blankies an’ skankin’ deep on Mormon Valley blissweed. See, he’d been so sure us Valleysmen was all rolled over ’n’ slaved that he’d blissed out, on duty.

So here was the fearsome en’my. Nineteen–twenty maybe he was. A vein pulsed in his Adam’s apple what was left white b’tween two lizardy tattoos. You found me, yay, so slit me, whisped that throat. Blade me.

My second augurin’, you’ll be mem’ryin’ an’, yay, so was I. Enemy’s sleeping, let his throat be not slit. This was the beat that augurin’d foreseen, no frettin’. I say-soed my hand ’n’ arm to do it, but they was locked ’n’ springed somehow. I’d been in knucklies ’nuff, who ain’t? but I’d never killed no un b’fore. See, murderin’ was forbidded by Valleysmen law, yay, if you stole another’s life no un’d barter nothin’ with you nor see you nor nothin’ ’cos your soul was so poisoned you may give ’em a sickness. Anyhow I stood there, by my own bed, my blade inches from that soft, pale throat.

That laughin’ thrush was yarnin’ fast ’n’ loud. Bird lilts sound like blades bein’ sharp’ned, I cogged for the first time there ’n’ then. I knowed why I shudn’t kill this Kona. It’d not give the Valleys back to the Valleysmen. It’d stony my cussed soul. If I’d been rebirthed a Kona in this life, he could be me an’ I’d be killin’ myself. If Adam’d been, say, adopted an’ made Kona, this’d be my brother I was killin’. Old Georgie wanted me to kill him. Weren’t these reasons ’nuff jus’ to leave him be an’ hushly creep away?

Nay, I answered my en’my, an’ I stroked my blade thru his throat. Magicky ruby welled ’n’ pumped an’ frothed on the fleece an’ puddled on the stone floor. I wiped my blade clean on the dead un’s shirt. I knowed I’d be payin’ for it by ’n’ by, but like I said a while back, in our busted world the right thing ain’t always possible.

Goin’ out I bumped Meronym rushin’ in. Kona! she hissed. There weren’t no time to ’splain what I’d done in there an’ why. Hurryin’, I stuffed my fam’ly’s icons in the saddlebags, an’ she hoicked me on the horse. Comin’ up the track from Aunt Bees’s was three–four horses cloppin’. Oh, we speeded out o’ Bailey’s for the final time like Old Georgie was bitin’ our asses. I heard men’s voices b’hind an’ glanced back an’ even saw their armor glintin’ thru the fig orchards, but by Mercysome Sonmi, they din’t see us vanishin’. One beat later we heard a shrill conchin’s echo up the Valley, yay, three blasts it was, an’ I knowed the Kona must o’ found that sentry I’d slayed an’ was sendin’ an alarm out, Valleysmen ain’t all slaved or mass’kered. I knowed I’d be payin’ for ignorin’ the second augurin’ sooner ’n I’d gambled, yay, an’ Meronym too.

But our luck din’t yet wilt. Other conchin’s answered the first, yay, but they was downgulch an’ we galloped back thru Vert’bry Pass anxin’ but we wasn’t ambushed. One whoah narrow escape it was, yay, one more beat at my dwellin’ an’ them Kona horsemen’d o’ seen an’ chased us. Avoidin’ the open Kohala Ridge ’n’ pastures, we skirted the forest for camo, an’ only then did I ’fess to Meronym what I’d done back to that sleepin’ sentry. I don’t know why it is, but secrets jus’ rot you like teeth if you don’t yank ’em out. She just list’ned, yay, an’ she din’t judge me none.

I knowed a hid cave by Mauka Waterfall, an’ to here it was I took us for what’d be Meronym’s final night on Big Isle if ev’rythin’ worked as planned. I’d hoped Wolt or Kobbery or ’nother goatherd may o’ ’scaped an’ be hidin’ there but, nay, it was empty, jus’ some blankies what we goatherds stashed for sleepin’. The trade wind was giddyuppin’, an’ I feared for the kayakers who’d be settin’ out from Maui at dawn, but it weren’t so chillsome so I din’t risk no fire, not so near the en’my, nay. I bathed my wounds in the pool an’ Meronyn bathed an’ we ate the grinds I’d got from Cluny’s an’ fig loaf what I grabbed from my own dwellin’ when I’d gone back for the icons.

I cudn’t stop mem’ryin ’n’ yarnin’ while we ate, nay, ’bout my fam’ly an’ Pa ’n’ Adam too, it was like if they lived in words they cudn’t die in body. I knowed I’d miss Meronym diresome when she was gone, see I din’t have no other bro on Big I who weren’t ’ready slaved. Lady Moon rose an’ gazed o’er my busted ’n’ beautsome Valleys with silv’ry ’n’ sorryin’ eyes, an’ the dingos mourned for the died uns. I wondered where’d my tribesmen’s souls be reborned now Valleyswomen’d not be bearin’ babbits here. I wished Abbess was there to teach me, ’cos I cudn’t say an’ nor could Meronym. We Prescients, she answered, after a beat, b’lief when you die you die an’ there ain’t no comin’ back.

But what ’bout your soul? I asked.

Prescients don’t b’lief souls exist.

But ain’t dyin’ terrorsome cold if there ain’t nothin’ after?

Yay—she sort o’ laughed but not smilin’, nay—our truth is terrorsome cold.

Jus’ that once I sorried for her. Souls cross the skies o’ time, Abbess’d say, like clouds crossin’ skies o’ the world. Sonmi’s the east ’n’ west, Sonmi’s the map an’ the edges o’ the map an’ b’yonder the edges. The stars was lit, an’ I sentried first, but I knowed Meronym weren’t sleepin’, nay, she was thinkin ’n’ tossin’ under her blanky till she gived up an’ sat by me watchin’ the moonlighted waterfall. Questions was mozziein’ me plaguesome. The fires o’ Valleysmen an’ Prescients both are snuffed tonight, I speaked, so don’t that proof savages are stronger ’n Civ’lized people?

It ain’t savages what are stronger ’n Civ’lizeds, Meronym reck’ned, it’s big numbers what’re stronger ’n small numbers. Smart gived us a plus for many years, like my shooter gived me a plus back at Slopin’ Pond, but with ’nuff hands ’n’ minds that plus’ll be zeroed one day.

So is it better to be savage ’n to be Civ’lized?

What’s the naked meanin’ b’hind them two words?

Savages ain’t got no laws, I said, but Civ’lizeds got laws.

Deeper ’n that it’s this. The savage sat’fies his needs now. He’s hungry, he’ll eat. He’s angry, he’ll knuckly. He’s swellin’, he’ll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an’ if his will say-soes “Kill” he’ll kill. Like fangy animals.

Yay, that was the Kona.

Now the Civ’lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He’ll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won’t go hungry ’morrow. He’s angry, he’ll stop ’n’ think why so he won’t get angry next time. He’s swellin’, well, he’s got sisses an’ daughters what need respectin’ so he’ll respect his bros’ sisses an’ daughters. His will is his slave, an’ if his will say-soes, “Don’t!” he won’t, nay.

So, I asked ’gain, is it better to be savage ’n to be Civ’lized?

List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.

“One day” was only a flea o’ hope for us.

Yay, I mem’ry Meronym sayin’, but fleas ain’t easy to rid.

Lady Moon lit a whoahsome wyrd birthmark jus’ b’low my friend’s shoulder blade as she sleeped fin’ly. A sort o’ tiny hand mark it were, yay, a head o’ six streaks strandin’ off, pale ’gainst her dark skin, an’ I curioed why I’d never seen it b’fore. I covered it over with the blanky so she din’t catch cold.

Now Mauka Stream falled snaky ’n’ goshin’ down dark Mauka Valley, yay, it watered only five–six dwellin’s in the hole valley ’cos it weren’t no friendsome ’n’ summery place, nay. No Mauka dwellin’ did goatin’, so the track was strangled by creepers ’n’ thornbushes what’d whelk your eye out if you din’t watch close, an’ hard goin’ it was for the horse. I got clawed fierce after a quart’ mile even shelt’rin’ b’hind Meronym. The last dwellin’ upvalley an’ the first we comed to was Saint-Sonmi’s Dwellin’, whose chief was a one-eye named Silvestri who farmed taro ’n’ oats. The yibber reck’ned Silvestri was too fond o’ his many daughters ’n was nat’ral an’ skank-mouthed him for not payin’ no fairshare to Commons. Laundry was scattered round the yard an’ the daughters’d been taken, but Silvestri’d not gone nowhere, his bladed head was up on the pole watchin’ us as we rided up. Some time he’d been there, see, he’d gotten maggoty an’ a fat rat’d scamped up the pole an’d eaten thru one eyeball as we rided up. Yay, the whiskery devil twitched his sharp nose at me. Howzit, Zachry, don’t you reck’n Silvestri looks handsomer now ’n b’fore? But I din’t pay him no mind. A cocklydoo ’rupted from the chimney pot an’ nearly shocked me off the horse, see, I thinked it was an ambush yell.

Now we’d a choice o’ sorts, to farewell the horse an’ spider up the crumbly ridge over to Pololu Valley, or to follow the Mauka Trail down to the shore an’ risk runnin’ into stray Kona moppin’ up their attackin’. Dwindlin’ time choosed for us to stay on the horse, see, we’d to get to Ikat’s Finger by noon what was still ten miles far from Silvestri’s. We missed Blue Cole Dwellin’ an’ Last Trout too, see, we wasn’t reccyin’ no more. A tide o’ rain skirted us downvalley from the Kohalas, but we got to the shore without no ambush tho’ we seen fresh Kona prints b’neath the knife-finger palms. The ocean was no pond that day, nay, but nor so hilly a craft’ly oared kayak’d overtoss. A Kona conch churned in the near-far an’ vibed me uneasy. I heard my name in its churnin’. The air was drummed tight, an’ I’d ignored my second augurin’, I’d knowed I’d be payin’ for that life I taked what weren’t ne’ssary to take.

Where the rucky beach rocked up into Medusa Cliffs we had to wind inland thru banana groves to the Pololu Track, what leaded out o’ the northliest valley into No Un’s Land an’ fin’ly Ikat’s Finger. The track squeezed thru two fat black rocks, an’ we heard a whistlin’ what was more human ’n bird. Meronym reached in her cloak, but b’fore she’d got the shinboney two sharky Kona sentries’d leapt down both sides on both rocks. That was four cock ’n’ primed crossbows aimed right at our heads from inches. Thru rubbery trees I spied a hole dammit Kona platoon! A dozen horsemen or more was sittin’ round a tentment, an’ I knowed we was finished so near the end an’ all.

Pass code, horseman? barked one sentry.

What’s this, soldier, an’ why? Another jiggered his crossbow at my nips. A Valleysboy’s ass smearin’ a good Kona horse? Who’s your gen’ral, horseman?

I was fearin’ diresome, an’ I knowed I looked it.

Meronym did an eerie ’n’ angry yarlin’ growl an’ looked thru her helmet at the four, then ’rupted a shout out so blastsome, birds skimmed off krawlin’ an’ her tongue-slant was buried under furyin’ noise. HOW DARE YOU DAMMIT RAT-SHAT HOG-SLITS ADDRESS A GEN’RAL IN THAT MANNER! MY SLAVE’S ASS’LL SMEAR WHEREVER AN’ WHATEVER I SAY-SO! WHO’S MY GEN’RAL? MY GEN’RAL IS ME YOU DAMMIT WORMS’ BLADDERS! OFF THAT ROCK THIS SPLIT-BEAT AN’ BRING ME YOUR CAPTAIN NOW OR I VOW BY ALL THE WAR GODS I’LL HAVE YOU PEELED ’N’ NAILED TO THE NEAREST HORNET TREE!

A desp’rate an’ freakbirthed plan, yay.

Meronym’s bluff vic’tried jus’ one beat, an’ one beat was nearly ’nuff. Two sentries paled an’ lowered their crossbows an’ jumped down in our path. Two more dis’peared the back way. Ksss! Ksss! Them two Kona b’fore us din’t get up no more, Meronym suddenwise heel-digged, an’ our horse whinnied ’n’ reared ’n’ bolted ’n’ my balance was busted. Sonmi’s hand stayed me on the saddle, yay, ’cos if hers din’t whose did? Shouts an’ Stops! an’ conches ruckused b’hind us, an’ the horse galloped an’ a fisssssssss-kwanggggggggg as the first crossbolt bedded into a bough I ducked under, then a crackle o’ pain flamed in my left calf jus’ here an’ I got that sick ’n’ calm shock you get when your body knows sumthin’s way too busted for an easy mendin’. Look, I’ll roll my trousers an’ you can see the scar where the crossbolt tip bedded . . . yay, it hurt as much as it looks it hurt an’ more.

We was gallopin’ down Pololu Track now over knotty ’n’ rooty ground, faster ’n surfin’ inside a roller an’ as hard to stay balanced, an’ there was nothin’ I could do ’bout that seizin’ agonyin’ ’cept grip Meronym’s waist tighter ’n’ tighter an’ try ’n ride the horse’s rhythmin’ with my right leg or I’d be tossed right off, yay, an’ there’d not be no time to mount me on again b’fore the Kona an’ their bone-drillin’ crossbolts catched us up.

The track leaded thru the scalp-brushin’ tunnel o’ trees to the Old Uns’ bridge over the Pololu River’s sea mouth, what marked the Valley’s northly bound’ry. Now we was jus’ a hun’erd paces shy o’ this bridge when the sun unclouded an’ I looked ahead an’ its worn plankin’ burned bright ’n’ gold, an’ its rusted struts was shaded bronze. My pain shaked loose a mem’ry, yay, my third augurin’: Bronze is burnin’, let that bridge be not crossed. I cudn’t ’splain to Meronym on a gallopin’ horse, so I jus’ yelled in her ear, I’m hit!

She pulled up the horse a yard shy o’ the bridge. Where?

My left calf, I telled her.

Meronym looked back anxin’ diresome. Weren’t no sign of our chasers yet, so she swung down to the ground an’ peered at the pain. She touched my wound an’ I groaned. Right now the shaft’s pluggin’ the wound, yay, we got to get to friendsome ground first then I’ll—

Drummin’ o’ vengesome hoofs was nearin’ up Pololu Track.

I telled her then, we cudn’t cross that bridge. What? She twisted to fix my eyes. Zachry, are you sayin’ that bridge ain’t safe?

Now so far’s I knowed the bridge was strong ’nuff, see, I often taked Jonas gull-eggin’ northly when he was littler, an’ McAulyff o’ Last Trout went seal-huntin’ over it with his handcart most moons, but an’ Icon’ry dreamin’ din’t lie, nay, not never, an’ Abbess’d made me mem’ry my augurin’s for a spesh day an’ that day was now. I’m sayin’, I said, Sonmi telled me not cross to it.

Fear made Meronym sarky, see, she was jus’ human like you ’n’ me. An’ did Sonmi know we got a furyin’ swarm o’ Kona on our tail?

Pololu River is wide at its sea mouth, I teached her, so it ain’t whooshin’ deep nor its current so sinewy. The track forked b’fore the bridge right where we was, yay, an’ it leaded down jus’ a stretch away where we could ford the river. The hoofs drummed closer ’n’ closer, an’ soon the Kona’d be seein’ us.

Well, Meronym b’liefed my loonsome say-so, I cudn’t say why but she did, an’ soon the bright ’n’ cold Pololu was up numbin’ my wound but the horse was slippin’ diresome on the shingly riverbed. Padddooom padddooom, three Kona galloped onto the bridge an’ seen us, an’ the air round us quavered ’n’ slit with one crossbolt, two, the third hit the water an’ sprayed us. Three new Kona catched up the first three an’ din’t stop to shoot, nay, they was padddooomin’ ’cross Pololu Bridge to cut us off on the far bank. Desp’rate I was, cussin’ myself, Yay, we’re died lardbirds no frettin’, I was thinkin’.

Now you know when you adze down a tree for lumber? The noise after the last stroke, o’ fibers shriekin’ an’ the hole trunk groanin’ slowsome as it falls? That’s what I heard. See one or two Valleysmen crossin’ hushly with a handcart was one thing, but a gallopin’ horse was another, an’ six–seven–eight gallopin’ Kona armored warhorses was too much. That bridge busted like it was made o’ spit ’n’ straw, yay, struts snapped an’ plankin’ split an’ worn cables pinged.

It weren’t no little drop, nay. It was fifteen men high or more was Pololu Bridge. Down fell the horses, spinnin’ belly-up, the riders catched in their stirrups an’ all, an’ like I said the Pololu River weren’t a safe deep pool what’d catch ’em an’ buoy ’em up, nay, it was a crowded river o’ fat tabley ’n’ pointy rocks what busted their falls bad, diresome bad. None o’ the Kona got up, nay jus’ two–three sorrysome horses lay writhin ’n’ kickin’, but it weren’t no time for animal doctorin’, nay.

Well, my yarn’s nearly done ’n’ telled now. Meronym ’n’ me forded the far side, an’ I prayed my thanks to Sonmi tho’ there weren’t no Valleys Civ’lize to save no more, she’d saved my skin one last time. I s’pose the rest o’ the Kona platoon was too busy with their died ’n’ drowned to come trackin’ us two, yay. We crossed the Lornsome Dunes an’ fin’ly reached Ikat’s Finger with no ax’dents. No kayaks was waitin’ yet, but we dismounted an’ Meronym used her Smart on that crossbolt-mauled calf o’ mine. When she pulled the bolt out, the pain traveled up my body an’ hooded my senses so true-be-telled I din’t see the Maui kayaks arrivin’ with Duophysite. Now my friend had a choice to settle, yay, see, either she loaded me in that kayak or left me on Big Isle not able to walk nor nothin’ jus’ a short ride off from Kona ground. Well, here I am yarnin’ to you, so you know what Meronym settled, an’ times are I regret her choosin’, yay, an’ times are I don’t. The chanty o’ my new tribe’s rowers waked me halfway ’cross the Straits. Meronym was changin’ my bleeded bindin’, she’d used some Smart med’sun to numb its pain a hole lot.

I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o’ that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same, it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ’morrow? Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds.

Duophysite saw my eyes was open an’ pointed me Big Isle, purple in the sou’eastly blue, an’ Mauna Kea hidin’ its head like a shy bride.

Yay, my Hole World an’ hole life was shrinked ’nuff to fit in the O o’ my finger ’n’ thumb.

Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets ’n’ all.

Do I b’lief his yarn ’bout the Kona an’ his fleein’ from Big I? Most yarnin’s got a bit o’ true, some yarnin’s got some true, an’ a few yarnin’s got a lot o’ true. The stuff ’bout Meronym the Prescient was mostly true, I reck’n. See, after Pa died my sis ’n’ me sivvied his gear, an’ I finded his silv’ry egg what he named orison in his yarns. Like Pa yarned, if you warm the egg in your hands, a beautsome ghost-girl appears in the air an’ speaks in an Old-Un tongue what no un alive und’stands nor never will, nay. It ain’t Smart you can use ’cos it don’t kill Kona pirates nor fill empty guts, but some dusks my kin ’n’ bros’ll wake up the ghost-girl jus’ to watch her hov’rin ’n’ shimm’rin’. She’s beautsome, and she ’mazes the littl’ uns an’ her murmin’s babbybie our babbits.

Sit down a beat or two.

Hold out your hands.

Look.