"I don"t want to think about it, about time," Sandy said. He looked at his twin. "We"re browner than we ever got at home. Anah"s right about that."
"And our hair is bleached. At least, if mine is like yours, it is."
Sandy looked at his twin. "Well, your hair is lots lighter than it used to be."
"I wonder what it would feel like to wear clothes again?" They were used to wearing loincloths. They were even used to no showers, no water for bathing. The smells of the tent were hardly noticeable.
With a strong green vine, Sandy was tying up tall, green-leafed bushes, giant versions of the basil they planted between the tomatoes in the garden at home. Grandfather Lamech often chopped up the leaves to season his stews. "I"m not homesick anymore. At least, I"m not homesick."
"I try not to think about it too often," Dennys said, "except to remind myself that since I didn"t die of sun-stroke, then somehow or other we ought to be able to get home."
"We won"t be the same," Sandy said.
Sandy made a face. "Hey, I don"t like the way Tiglah keeps coming around. I don"t think I"m ready for Tiglah."
"Tiglah," Dennys said, "is what the kids at school would call an easy lay."
"Except," Sandy said, "there isn"t anybody remotely like Tiglah at school."
"She"s older." Still, neither of them mentioned Yalith.
"Yeah," Sandy said.
"The thing is-" Dennys paused. "Something"s happened. We"re not just kids anymore."
"I know." Sandy bent over one of the plants.
Dennys pulled up a resisting weed with such force that he sat down. "We haven"t seen Adnarel lately. Or any of the other seraphim."
Sandy finished tying the plant to a bamboo stalk. Images of scarab beetle and pelican, camel and lion, flashed before him. He always felt better if Adnarel was with them. When the seraph was in his scarab-beetle form, he was usually near Grandfather Lamech"s sleeping skins, or on Higgaion"s ear. He gave Sandy a sense of security. "I think the seraphim like us."
"But the others don"t," Dennys said. "I mean, the other ones, the nephilim. I"ve seen them looking at us when they thought we weren"t noticing. And a mosquito kept buzzing around me the other day after Tiglah had been around. I don"t think it was just a mosquito."
"Rofocale," Sandy said. "I heard her call one of the nephilim Rofocale."
"They don"t like us," Dennys said.
When supplies were needed, the twins left Grandfather Lamech"s and went to the nearby shops, carrying figs, dates, and the produce of their garden to barter for rice or lentils. On the dusty paths they pa.s.sed many of the people of the oasis, who always paused to look up at Sandy and Dennys, surrept.i.tiously if not openly.
When they pa.s.sed nephilim, with whom they could look eye-to-eye, brilliant wings quivered, but the nephilim did not acknowledge their presence, except in sudden reversion to the animal host, so that a tall, bright-winged man would vanish, and there would be a skink scuttling across the path, or a red ant, or a slug leaving its slimy trail.
The women, at least the young ones, let Sandy and Dennys know that they were admired. Small hands reached up to touch them. They were bathed in lavish smiles. Tiglah seemed to know when they needed rice or beans or lentils, and would be waiting at whichever stall they were headed for.
The men and the older women were different. Sometimes the twins were cursed at, spat at. They did not tell Grandfather Lamech, who would have been distressed. They learned to go to the few venders who treated them kindly and did not try to cheat.
Dennys said, one day, "Hey, Sand. If you want to go for a walk with Tiglah, don"t let me stop you."
"I don"t want to." Sandy turned his gaze from the side of the path, where a vulture was picking the flesh from a small carca.s.s.
"I mean, just because it was her father and brother who threw me into the garbage pit-I mean, I"m not stopping you, or anything."
"No problem," Sandy agreed.
They were careful with each other as they had never been careful before.
And still they did not mention Yalith.
Yalith and Oholibamah were helping Matred to clean the big tent when they were disturbed by the flap being pushed open, and a lavender-winged nephil came in. He spoke without greeting. "It is nearly Mahlah"s time. She will need you to help with the birthing of the baby."
Matred held the broken palm branch which she was using as a broom. "Do you not have one of your own kind to help?"
Ugiel looked at Oholibamah with hooded eyes. Flicked a long finger in her direction. "She will be of use. And Mahlah will need her mother and sister."
Oholibamah took a step away from the nephil. "How will we know when to come?"
"Tonight. At the time of the moonrise. I, Ugiel of the nephilim, tell you so."
"We will come," Matred p.r.o.nounced. "I will not have my daughter labor alone."
"Good. I will expect you."
"We will come," Matred repeated, "but you will wait outside."
Ugiei shrugged. "Have it your own way. It is a woman"s job to see to all the blood and mess of a birth." He started out, then turned his burning gaze on Yalith.
She did not drop her eyes. Biting her lower lip, she met his stare.
"You cannot have them both, you know," Ugiel said.
Then he was gone.
Yalith and Oholibamah spread skins over some low scrub palms. Some skins they would discard, if they were too soiled. Others they would sc.r.a.pe and beat clean.
"What did he mean?" Oholibamah asked.
"Who?"
"Ugiel."
"About what?"
"About not having them both."
Yalith picked up a skin foul with spills and put it in the dump pile. "Who ever knows what a nephil means?"
"You do, and I do," Oholibamah said. "He meant our young twins."
Yalith picked up another skin, appearing to examine it closely. "The Sand was the first one I met. The Den is the one we saved from the sun death."
"And they are two people, not one," Ohoiibamah reminded her.
"I know. Oh, yes, Oholi. I know that. They are very different when you get to know them."
"And you do not love one more than the other?"
Yalith shook her head. "Anyhow, they are too young."
"Are they that young in their own time?"
"We don"t know anything about their own time."
Oholibamah sat on a stump, a pile of cleaned skins across her knees. "I love my j.a.pheth. I am very happy with him. I wane you to be happy, too."
Yalith shivered. "Mahlah seems to be happy, married to a nephil."
"Our twins are not nephilim."
"But they are different. They are not like us."
"And you love them."
"Yes."
"You love them both."
Yalith picked up a pile of skins to be discarded. "I"m going to throw these away. Then we"d better stop. The sun"s getting high and it"s too hot for this kind of work."
Matred said to Elisheba, "You have not been to the women"s tent for two moons."
Elisheba nodded, put her hands to flushed cheeks in an unwontedly girlish gesture.
Matred embraced her. "Is it true?"
"Yes. You will have yet another grandchild." Hugging each other, they danced with joy.
Eblis the dragon/lizard was waiting for Yalith when she went to the well for water. He was not in his animal host, but was leaning against the trunk of a royal palm, purple wings wrapped around him, so that he was almost lost in shadows-When he stepped forward, Yalith was so startled that she almost dropped the clay pitcher which she carried on one shoulder.
Eblis rescued the pitcher and put it down. "Every day you grow lovelier." He touched her gently on one cheek.
Yalith blushed and reached for the pitcher.
"Let me help you," Eblis said. When the pitcher was full, he touched her again, tracing her brows with one pale finger. "Ugiel is right, you know."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"Oh, yes, you do, my sweet one, yes, you do. And I am the only answer to your problem."
She looked at him questioningly.
"I want you, lovely little one. You know that I want you. I can give you all that Ugiel gives your sister Mahlah, and you know how happy she is."
"I know ..."
"Those stupid young giants who dazzle you with their youth can give you nothing except grief. You cannot choose between them, and if you should choose one, what would happen to the other?"
"They have not asked me-" She faltered.
"But I have. I do. I want you."
He bent toward her, and suddenly she felt nothing but fear. It was as he said: he wanted her. He did not love her. She picked up the water pitcher and fled, heedless of the water splashing on the ground.
9 Mahlah"s time, Lamech"s time The afternoon was the hottest the twins had ever experienced. Sandy woke from unpleasant dreams of erupting volcanoes, to see Dennys sitting up on his sleeping skins, shiny with sweat.
Higgaion spent the midday sleeping hours with Lamech. At night he dutifully took turns with the twins, but Sandy suspected that the past few nights had been spent at Grandfather Lamech"s feet. The old man"s extremities tended to get cold from lack of circulation.
"Is anything wrong?" Sandy asked.
"It"s terribly hot."
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"That might mean rain," Sandy said. For the moment he had forgotten that rain might mean flood.
So had Dennys. "Oh, good, for the orchards and the garden. Even with all our watering-"
The thunder came again, with a crackling, electrical sound.
Higgaion padded over to them, whimpering, looking across the tent to Grandfather Lamech.
The two boys hurried to the old man. The flap had been pegged open to let in as much breeze as possible, and the air outside was sulfurous, the sky a greenish-yellow.
Sandy squatted at one side of Grandfather Lamech, Dennys at the other. The old man was propped high on folded skins. Dennys took one of his hands and was shocked at how cold it was. He began to ma.s.sage it, trying to get some circulation into the withered fingers.
Lamech opened his eyes and smiled, first at one twin, then the other. When he spoke, his voice was so faint that they had to strain to hear. "In your time and place-over the mountain-is it better?"
Sandy and Dennys looked at each other.
Sandy said, "It"s very different."
"How?" the voice whispered.
"Well. People are taller. And we don"t live as long "
"How long?"
Dennys answered in words which seemed to him an echo of something long lost. "Threescore years and ten."
"Sometimes fourscore," Dennys amended.