“Sometimes. I knew of my journey to Mahahm long before it took place. I saw this place, long before I came here. What is it, really?”
“Didn’t the song of Tenopia tell you?”
“It was called a marae morehu. Awhero said that meant a house of refuge. Is it only that?”
“No thing, no person, no place is only one thing. For me, marae morehu is a home when I am away from Galul.”
“There really is a Galul!”
“Oh, indeed there is a Galul. Our visionaries are there. Galul is where Tenopia first came from her island home. Our government, such as it is, has its seat in Galul.”
“Aufors and I … we thought perhaps it was legendary, like Eden, a kind of Utopia. Aufors told me the original surveys show only ice at the southern end of the continent. And there’s nothing in the archives more recent than that.”
“There were glaciers over much of Galul when the survey was made, and also it was winter, with even the unglaciated areas covered in snow. Settlers are usually not very interested in areas covered with snow and ice, for which we were thankful. In the centuries between then and now the glaciers shrank and the winters became shorter. Indeed, Galul was warm and lovely long before these Mahahmbi came wandering in, unwelcome visitors to the north end of a landmass we had considered ours. Well, they settled in the desert, an area we had no use for, so we left them alone while we remained high in the southern mountains, drinking from pure streams that flow from ancient ice, our fields catching the rain that makes them green. Galul is our land. It was ours before the Havenites came.”
“Before!”
“Weren’t you told how Haven was discovered in the first place?” Melanie took a few long hairs from the comb, twisted them into a strand and fastened the finished braid with it, standing back to admire her work.
Genevieve fumbled to rearrange her thoughts. “I read Stephanie’s book. A ship … an ark ship went down, and the book seems to say Stephanie’s forebears were on it, though I was taught that all the crew were rescued.”
“Oh, yes, the ship’screw was rescued. But the people who cared for the cargo were not. Nor was the cargo itself. The Captain of the ship simply abandoned the creatures he had sworn to carry away to safety, and us along with them.”
“I was taught that many birds survived . . .”
“Actually, everything alive on that ship survived, including our ancestors, though we had our charges to thank for that! Once we got them free . . .”
“Your people were struggling in the water,” cried Genevieve. “Trying to open a great door!”
“Exactly. You see? At some level, you knew about this. You were told something, likely by your mother, and you knew about this though your conscious mind had not made the connection. Our people got the seadoors open, and once we did, our charges came out and saved us in turn, carrying us to an island where we could live, bringing us food until we were able to find it or grow it for ourselves.”
“How many?” Genevieve asked, her eyes wide with wonder. “How many of you?”
“Several dozens. Most of us young, luckily. So, we lived upon our island, and we begot children—huge numbers of them in that first generation, though we have become more sensible since. When our population grew too large for our island, our friends brought one group of us to Galul, the ones least suited to the sun and the sea, and took others of us to other islands. During those years, we and they have resurrected their ancient culture, the suitable parts of it at least, though now the language is used mostly for ritual.”
“Awhero speaks it.”
“Awhero, as I’ve said, plays her part to the hilt. She’s an oral historian, and she lives the role.”
“How did you keep the Mahahmbi out?”
“The seas around this island are full of our friends, the mountains are difficult to traverse. When the Mahahmbi first came, they tried to explore, but whenever they got close, we frustrated their expeditions in one way or another. More recently, since they’ve become devoted to the Shah’s benefices, they’ve had no energy for exploration, no energy for anything but the lengthening of their own lives.”