Redemption in Indigo

16

a rare and beautiful thing

The djombi remembered that Paama had to eat, so they stopped in a busy, confusing, colourful metropolis where he could make himself visible without attracting very much attention. Paama found it necessary to pawn a gold coin to obtain the city's peculiar legal tender—colourful banknotes and dull coinage—before she could buy food at a small restaurant. While she ate, the djombi read from a newspaper and absently snacked on portions of her dessert ... ‘just for the taste', he said. Paama recalled how fond another djombi had been of her sugar sweets and cakes, and she smiled slightly.

'We have a ship to catch,’ he said at last, folding up the paper.

Paama found the statement interesting, but not as interesting as his action.

'Why do you read that? I thought that you knew everything,’ she asked.

He seemed surprised. ‘Where did you get the impression that I know everything? I do not know what you are thinking. I certainly do not know what you will choose to do next.'

'Except for my giving you the Stick. You seem very certain about that,’ she said dryly.

He gave her one of his unfathomable, blank looks. ‘I like to read the paper for the same reason that I like the occasional bit of food—to sample human tastes.'

'I thought you despised us,’ she said quietly.

His hands squirmed on the folded newspaper. ‘Not despise. Not all of human taste is abhorrent. There are bits that are enjoyable.'

'Like chocolate cake and comic strip humour?’ she murmured, eyes downcast, sarcasm mild.

'Are you eating that last piece of cake?’ he asked, unmoved by her criticism.

'That depends on what horrible thing you are going to show me next. I might need to fortify myself. Wouldn't it be more fair and balanced if you showed me something good about chance and human choice?'

'There is this ship—’ he began.

'Please!’ Paama cried, daring to interrupt. ‘Answer me! Will you be fair?'

He seemed offended. ‘I have every intention of being fair. I was trying to tell you, this ship will not be much to see at first glance, but there is something worth seeing, something rare. The point is, will you see it, or will you put the Stick to poor use?'

She pushed the remainder of the cake over the table towards him. ‘Eat. I have lost my appetite. I forgot that this exercise of yours is not simply to show me how unworthy humanity is, but how unworthy I am.'

'There's no need to take it so personally,’ he said, but he took the cake without any sign of remorse.

'No women on board,’ he noted. ‘I have given you a kind of invisibility. They will see you, but they will immediately forget who and what they have seen.'

He watched Paama struggling to stay upright on the surging deck.

'Try not to stumble into anyone,’ he remarked. ‘That's a little harder to forget.'

Paama doubted it. The crew members were busy. They moved quickly with the purposefulness of cogs who know precisely what is their place and function in the larger machine, but there was a touch of nervous exhilaration in their enthusiasm and preoccupation on every face.

'A storm is coming?’ she guessed.

He nodded. ‘Are you afraid?'

She set her face sternly and replied, ‘I choose not to be, thank you. Are they all going to die?'

'Not all. Not even many. Watch.'

He found her a semi-sheltered spot, and she settled in with her back braced against the boards and her feet pressed against thick coils of rope. It was better to be seated, for now even the sailors stumbled from the motion of the turbulent waves.

Paama began to hate the djombi for his talent at keeping dry. For the second time in twenty-four hours she was drenched. Both saltwater and rainwater poured over her and pooled under her. She was thoroughly miserable and so self-absorbed that it was a shock when he spoke to call something to her attention.

'Look, by the upper deck.'

Lightning struck. Several men fell flat on their faces, some from the shock of the noise, but others actually stunned from having been too close to that massive surge of power.

'See that one?'

The djombi pointed. Whether he had been blasted up there or had fallen, Paama could not tell, but a man hung tangled in lines halfway up the mainmast, either dead or unconscious. She began to reach towards the bag at her waist for the Stick.

'Not so fast,’ the djombi cautioned, holding back her hand.

'But he may be alive, and there's a chance that lightning will strike again before they get him down,’ Paama protested.

'Trust me,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘The issue is not life or death this time. It's something more.'

Men were slow to move, still shocked by the force of the bolt of lightning, but one man, one sleek, wet, dark figure went climbing up the mast. A knife was held clenched in his maniacally grinning teeth, making him look like a pantomime pirate. He reached the hanging man, took the blade in hand, and drove it into the mast's wood before gingerly leaning out and catching a trailing line to haul the inert body towards him.

'Isn't that rare, isn't that beautiful?'

Paama looked back in shock at the djombi. His face and voice had never been so animated. He saw her expression and his face fell.

'You don't understand. You can't see it. Keep watching and I'll explain later.'

The rescuer pulled his knife free and began to cut his comrade loose from the tangled ropes. As he did so, Paama began to feel a sense of something about to happen, something beyond human capacity to prevent.

'No,’ she breathed. ‘I must stop it.'

'Paama, let it be.’ His hand blocked hers gently, not forcefully, leaving her the freedom to shake it off and grab the Stick if she wished. ‘Paama, look at the boy.'

Distracted, she looked at the young man he was pointing out, and thus never saw the moment when lightning, striking twice in the same place, blasted the two men from the mast. She did see the young man's expression. It was too intense, even when compared to the blaze of light that illuminated it. She felt seared.

The djombi began to speak quickly. ‘The young man is the son of the man who was injured in the ropes. He has just seen his father's avowed enemy and lifelong rival give up his life to try to save him. This chance moment changes him for all time.'

'Didn't I hear you tell me before that you can't tell what people are thinking?’ she snapped at him. ‘How do you know he is changed? How can you claim to know the future which he will build out of his own choices?'

'I claim no such thing, but what I can see is how likely those choices will be, and I can tell you, Paama, many will be saved in the future when this man goes to war as a general because of this one time when he saw what it means to treat an enemy with love and honour.'

She heard his words but could not grasp that knowledge which allowed him to see the beauty in two more corpses, destroyed between fire and water. He realised. Once more he was at a loss; once more he looked at her with compassion, and regret.

The ship's crew began to recover their senses and rushed to their duties, removing the injured from the deck and striving with all their power to safeguard their own lives from the storm. It was over, and there were more things to be done—that was their way of dealing with it.

'I'm cold and wet and tired,’ said Paama.

It was a bleak statement of fact, without any hint of a plea or complaint.

'I'll take you to where you can rest,’ he replied.

He brought her to an empty tower high in the hills, a rest station used by hunters, in a country where the time was well past sunset. She was near collapse, wearied by constant travel, weakened by the elements, and grieved with loss. He put her to bed and set her to dreaming, and then went to the top of the tower to brood about his future.

Paama dreamed. If she had been able to bring with her the cushion from Sister Carmis, he would not have found her so vulnerable, but on this occasion, his influence and intent were benign, so we need not worry about her.

She dreamed that she was in a strange land of dry savannah and dusty winds. There were many people with her, all tired, all grieved, and they were made to march along an endless road to an unknown destination. Some fell and were dragged along by their comrades until they moved their own feet once more, preferring as yet not to die. Finally they arrived at a camp, a set of rough, ramshackle buildings made of bare, sand-scoured, heat-warped wood. It was the highest point from horizon to horizon, the only feature amid vast stretches of dry, yellow grass. Escape was made even less likely by the presence of guards whose faces showed that they blamed the prisoners as much as they blamed their superiors for their being posted to the middle of this barrenness.

The difference was that they could show their displeasure far more easily to the prisoners. Paama saw a woman pushed down by a guard for no other reason than that she was beautiful and fragile, and the guard, a hard-faced woman with the strength of a man, was tired of beautiful, fragile females who could not walk far or bear burdens without stumbling and fainting. As her husband stood powerless, held at bay by the weapons of other guards, the woman sprawled face down in the dust. The guard screamed at her and kicked the ground near her again and again, the heavy boot coming closer and closer to her flinching body. Paama could no longer bear it. She rushed at the guard, beating her down to the same dust, and stood with her heart pounding at her folly, expecting to die.

There was no reaction, only the sound of slow, firm footsteps and the snap of booted heels coming to attention. She turned to see a man in a drab but neat uniform walking towards her. He stopped and looked at the two women on the ground, the prisoner and the guard, and at Paama standing between them. There was a long silence. Then he stooped and lifted the prisoner, put his arm about her, and helped her to her husband's waiting arms. To the fallen guard he gave one uncaring glance, and with another glance he dispersed the other guards. The last look was saved for Paama, and it was a long look, and only the intensity of that look identified for her the face of the boy who had looked into the lightning and seen death??nd something else.

All right, she thought angrily in the midst of the dream. I understand now, I see it. Not with the beauty that you have seen, but I grant you your vision. Now leave me alone and let me rest!

The dream ended. If the remainder of the night held any more dreams, she did not remember them.

He had the nerve, the following day, to ask her how she had slept. She narrowed her eyes at him and did not answer. The taste of dust was still in her mouth, the brawling yells of the guard echoed in her ears, and the look of the man's eyes remained printed on the back of her mind.

'Wherever you plan to take me today, I do not care, but I tell you I am tired of death and crisis. If you cannot show me something lighthearted, I will kill myself and save you the trouble of ever having to convince me to return your power to you.'

He blinked, slightly startled. ‘Lighthearted?'

'Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Entertain me. Have a thought for my sanity. Perhaps your kind can look long at the deep questions of existence, but our sort need variation in our philosophical diet.'

He pondered briefly. ‘I could show you the tricksters at work.'

'And who are they?'

'Minor adversaries. Sometimes they must be stopped, but at other times they are allowed to do their worst. I can show you tricksters who have been permitted to teach someone a lesson.'

'This will be entertaining?’ she asked doubtfully.

'Some humans find it so. There will be no death, I promise you, but there will be severe embarrassment, which is but a small death of the ego.'

Paama shrugged in resignation. It sounded as if that was the best compromise she could expect.

'Give me time to have breakfast, and then we can go.'