They left the marae in the early morning of the sixth day after Genevieve had fled from Mahahm-qum, spending all that day and the two following along tortuous trails. Each morning they started well before sunrise and stopped at some shaded place midmorning for food and rest while the sun was at its zenith. During these stops, Genevieve usually fell asleep, for though she felt exhausted by the end of each day, she lay half awake in the night silences, haunted by sounds and visions that seemed always to stay just beyond her understanding. ..
So, this morning, when she fell into a doze, the others moved around her quietly, letting her sleep, only to be startled half out of their wits as she sat up suddenly and screamed. It was an enormous cry, one that went out of her like a visible thing, like a great wing of sound, reverberating among the rocky cliffs, propagating as it soared over the desert, going away among its own echoes still sounding, plangent as an enormous bell.
This was followed by a profound hush, during which her companions scarcely breathed. Thus, silenced within silence, they heard from afar an answering sound, lower, and yet alike, a sound that did not diminish but went on and on, like the endless vibrations of a tuning fork.
Genevieve staggered to her feet in one panicky motion, and the others shook off their immobility and surrounded her, as she glared with wide eyes into the cliff face that sheltered them as though it were a door into some other world.
“I see,” she cried. “Oh, I see.”
“What,” urged Joncaster, coming to place his hand on her shoulder. “What do you see?”
“They said call upon them on the sea,” she whispered, eyes focused on something they could not see. “We must get to the sea. There is a place by the shore where a pillar of stone rests on a black pedestal. I see a great stone serpent, a horned serpent . . .”
“We know the place,” said Gilber. “It marks on offshore deep . . .”
“A ship is coming there.”
“What . . . Who . . . told you?” asked Melanie.
Genevieve laughed, almost hysterically. “Your spirit, I suppose. The one you’re so determined to convince me of!”
“Te wairua taiao?”
“The one you say you’ve never seen.” She put her head in her hands, shuddering. “Oh, Aufors, Aufors . . . Please, someone, help him! He’s . . . he’s wounded. He’s sick. He needs help.”
“Where?” cried Joncaster. “How?”
“I see a red cliff with a black layer in it, like a wide stripe. I see him moving . . . moving bodies. Moving women’s bodies away from the lichen, so they won’t be found there. He is wounded, the wound is infected. He’s delirious. I don’t know if he lives … ah, Aufors … I see a red cliff and I see rocks covered with birds, along the shore . . .”
“You’ve seen three separate places,” muttered Joncaster.
“Aufors at the red cliff or the bird rocks,” Genevieve cried. “The serpent rock is something else . . .”
“We’ll empty two sleds at the refuge tonight,” offered Enid, “and send one to the bird rocks and one to red cliff . . .”
“No,” said Joncaster. “We’ve seen proof of her visions already, Enid. We’ve seen that delay is a mistake. We’ve already reduced the loads by half, so we’ll unload two of them onto the other five. If her man is there and wounded, best we find him while he’s still alive.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Genevieve muttered. “Take care. Oh, Joncaster,that’s why Aufors was moving bodies! I said they would come! Theyhave come! The Aresians! Mahahm-qum is taken. Havenor is taken. The Lord Paramount, oh, see him go down, down. Oh, now he lies deep, deep in the tunnels below Havenor. The Shah is no more. Oh . . .” She put her hands to her head, her eyes wide, unseeing. “More. Animals? From below Havenor? I told Veswees … it wasn’t supposed to be animals . . .”
“What do you mean, wasn’t supposed?”
“I’d seen something else moving from Havenor. No matter, no matter, it will have to wait. My father. He’s up there behind us, following us. He has murder in his eyes. There is danger . . .”