Many Waters Part 7

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

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

j.a.pheth asked, "Dennys?"

"Dennys," the boy moaned.

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

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

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

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

j.a.pheth frowned. "They said they are twins, but I think twins is human."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You doubt me?" j.a.pheth demanded.

"Just want to make sure," Ham said.

Less hotly, j.a.pheth said, "I found it difficult to believe at first, myself."

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

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

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

"I do," j.a.pheth commented mildly. "I work with you."

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

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

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

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

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

Yalith looked gratefully at her mother.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Yalith's eyes, Sandy/Dennys was not a child. Elisheba asked, "How near to the time of the moon is it for any of us?"

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

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

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

"Perhaps we should call on one of the seraphim?"

j.a.pheth suggested.

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

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

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

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

"I will crush some figs and make juice for him to drink."

Matred always felt better when there was something to do.

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

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

Yalith protested, "Father!"

j.a.pheth reached comfortingly for her hand.

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

"I can try!"

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

"Oh, Father-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Jay-" he whispered through parched lips.

"Den!" j.a.pheth exclaimed gladly. "Oholi, he's coming back to consciousness!"

"Jay-" Dennys's teeth were chattering.

"Who's hurt you?" j.a.pheth asked. "Can you tell us?"

Dennys closed his eyes again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He recognizes me now." j.a.pheth's voice was troubled.

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

"Water-" Dennys begged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I love Grandfather's stories!"

"I, too, Yalith."

Yalith, that was the name of the amber-eyed one. Yalith and Oholi. Dennys was vaguely aware of something cool touching his skin, something that numbed the pain.

The one called Oholi continued. "I always enjoy it when it's my turn to take him the night-light. And at least your mother feels as we do. She'll always manage to get the oil for us to take to him."

"When did it change?" Yalith asked. "People need to sit at the feet of the old people and listen. But now-I heard Anah say that her grandfather was put out in the desert to die, and his bones were picked clean by vultures."

"Oh, El, what are we coming to!"

At the trouble in the dark voice, Dennys opened his eyes.

"He is still so hot, so hot," Oholi said. "I wish we knew who had hurt him."

"But what could we do?" Yalith asked. "What in El's name could we do? People are ugly to one another today. Were we this cruel before the nephilim and the seraphim came?"

"I don't know."