George Martin - Aces Abroad

The giant first appeared as the smallest nub on the horizon.

"That's where we're going?" said Cordelia. "Uluru?"

"The place of greatest magic."

The morning sun rose high as they walked. The heat was no less pressing than it had been the previous day. Cordelia tried to ignore her thirst. Her legs ached, but it was not from trudging. She welcomed the feeling.

Various creatures of the outback sunned themselves by the path and inspected the humans as they passed.

An emu.

A frilled lizard. A tortoise.

A black snake. A wombat.

Wyungare acknowledged the presence of each with a courteous greeting. "Cousin Dinewan" to the emu; "Mungoongarlie" to the lizard; "Good morning, Wayambeh" to the tortoise, and so on.

A bat circled them three times, squeaked a greeting, and flew off. Wyungare waved politely. "Soar in safety, brother Narahdarn."

His greeting to the wombat was particularly effusive. "He was my boy-totem," he explained to Cordelia. "Warreen." They encountered a crocodile sunning itself beside their trail.

"He is your cousin as well," said Wyungare. He told her what to say.

"Good morning, cousin Kurria," said Cordelia. The reptile stared back at her, moving not an inch in the baking heat. Then it opened its jaws and hissed. Rows of white teeth flashed in the sun.

"A fortunate sign," said Wyungare. "The Kurria is your guardian."

As Uluru grew in the distance, fewer were the creatures that came to the path to look upon the humans.

Cordelia realized with a start that for an hour or more she had been dwelling within her own thoughts. She glanced aside at Wyungare. "How was it that you were in the alley at just the right time to help me?"

"I was guided by Baiame, the Great Spirit."

"Not good enough."

"It was a sort of a corroboree that night, a get-together with a purpose."

"Like a rally?"

He nodded. "My people don't usually engage in such things. Sometimes we have to use European ways."

"What was it about?" Cordelia shaded her eyes and squinted into the distance. Uluru had grown to the size of a fist.

Wyungare also narrowed his eyes at Uluru. Somehow he seemed to be gazing much farther. "We are going to drive the Europeans out of our lands. Especially we are not going to allow the men-who-preach to seize further footholds."

"I don't think that's going to be very easy. Aren't the Aussies pretty well entrenched?"

Wyungare shrugged. "Have you no faith, little missy? Just because we are outnumbered forty or fifty to one, own no tanks or planes, and know that few care about our cause? Just because we are our own worst enemies when it comes to organizing ourselves?" His voice sounded angry. "Our way of life has stretched unbroken for sixty thousand years. How long has your culture existed?"

Cordelia started to say something placating.

The young man rushed on. "We find it hard to organize effectively in the manner of the Maori in New Zealand. They are great clans. We are small tribes." He smiled humorlessly. "You might say the Maori resemble your aces. We are like the jokers."

"The jokers can organize. There are people of conscience who help them."

"We will not need help from Europeans. The winds are rising-all around the world, just as they are here in the outback. Look at the Indian homeland that is being carved with machetes and bayonets from the American jungle. Consider Africa, Asia, every continent where revolution lives." His voice lifted. "It's time, Cordelia. Even the white Christ recognizes the turning of the great wheel that will groan and move again in little more than a decade. The fires already burn, even if your people do not yet feel the heat."

Do I know him? thought Cordelia. She knew she did not. She had suspected none of this. But within her heart she recognized the truth of what he said. And she did not fear him.

"Murga-muggai and I are not the only children of the fever," said Wyungare. "There are others. There will be many more, I fear. It will cause a difference here. We will make a difference."

Cordelia nodded slightly.

"The whole world is aflame. All of us are burning. Do your Dr. Tachyon and Senator Hartmann and their entire party of touring Europeans know this?" His black eyes stared directly into hers. "Do they truly know what is happening, outside their limited sight in America?"

Cordelia said nothing. No, she thought. Probably not. "I expect they don't."

"Then that is the message you must bear them," said Wyungare.

"I've seen pictures," said Cordelia. "This is Ayers Rock."

"It is Uluru," said Wyungare.

They stared up at the gigantic reddish sandstone monolith. "It's the biggest single rock in the world," said Cordelia. "Thirteen hundred feet up to the top and several miles across."

"It is the place of magic."

"The markings on the side," she said. "They look like the cross section of a brain."

"Only to you. To me they are the markings on the chest of a warrior."

Cordelia looked around. "There should be hundreds of tourists here."

"In the shadow world there are. Here they would be fodder for Murga-muggai."

Cordelia was incredulous. "She eats people?"

"She eats anyone."

"God, I hate spiders." She stopped looking up the cliff. Her neck was getting a crick. "We have to climb this?"

"There is. a slightly gentler trail." He indicated they should walk farther along the base of Uluru.

Cordelia found the sheer mass of the rock astonishing-and something more. She felt an awe that large stones did not ordinarily kindle. It's gotta be magic, she thought.

After a twenty-minute hike Wyungare said, "Here." He reached down. There was another cache of weapons. He picked up a spear, a club-nullanulla, he called it-a flint knife, a boomerang.

"Handy," Cordelia said.

"Magic." With a leather strap Wyungare tied the weapons together. He shouldered the packet and pointed toward the summit of Uluru. "Next stop."

To Cordelia the proposed climb looked no easier than it had at the first site. "You're sure?"

He gestured at her handbag and the H and K. "You should leave those."

She shook her head, surveying first his weapons, then hers. "No way."

Cordelia lay flat on her belly, peering up the rocky slope. Then she looked down. I shouldn't have done that, she thought. It might only have been a few hundred yards, but it was like leaning over an empty elevator shaft. She scrambled for a purchase. The H and K in her left hand didn't help. "Just let it go," said Wyungare, reaching back to secure her free hand.

"We might need it."

"Its power will be slight against the Murga-muggai."

"I'll risk it. When it comes to making magic, I need all the help I can get." She was out of breath. "You're sure this is the easiest ascent?"

"It is the only one. In the shadow world there is a heavy chain fixed to the rock for the first third of this journey. It is an affront to Uluru. Tourists use it to pull themselves up."

"I'd settle for the affront," said Cordelia. "How much farther?"

"Maybe an hour, maybe less. It depends whether Murgamuggai decides to hurl boulders down upon us."

"Oh." She considered that. "Think there's a good chance?"

"She knows we are coming. It depends on her mood."

" I hope she doesn't have PMS."

"Monsters don't bleed," said Wyungare seriously.

They reached the broad, irregular top of Uluru and sat on a flat stone to rest. "Where is she?" said Cordelia.

"If we don't find her, she'll find us. Are you in a hurry?"

"No." Cordelia looked around apprehensively. "What about the Eer-moonans?"

"You killed them all on the shadow plane. There is not an endless supply of such creatures."

Oh, God, thought Cordelia. I killed off an endangered species. She wanted to giggle.