Steve Cash - The Meq

Opari took my hand in hers and held it tighter than usual. Sailor went on.

“Now Pello comes to Mowsel with disturbing news, at the very moment we are leaving Africa, he comes with news that Trumoi-Meq has never heard before, news that. ” Sailor stopped pacing and turned his back to all of us. “Pello told Trumoi-Meq. that the child of Unai and Usoa. had died of influenza.”

Opari began a low, rumbling growl that climbed octave after octave until it became a high, whining trill. Geaxi joined her, like another dog or wolf, and added a clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth. It was frightening. I looked at Sailor and he stood where he was, staring away in silence. For a moment, I thought the slab of granite over our heads had moved. I stretched my hand out and touched the stone behind me. It was cold and solid. My heart was racing and my thoughts tumbled and slipped. I had missed something. What was it? I couldn’t grab hold of it. I took a step out of the enclosure and looked up at the sky. I focused on one star and then another, and then the space between them, which became another star, and another. I turned back inside and almost fell on Sailor. My voice felt disconnected.

“Will Usoa not be able to have another child?” I asked.

“No, beloved, no,” Opari said. “Do you not see? Do you not see the truth. the consequence?”

Then, like a crack between the light, Sailor’s meaning came to me and took my breath away. I said it out loud and Opari shed a tear with each word. It was so simple and yet, for all these millennia, it was the only true thing that separated us from all others. “Meq. babies. do not die.”

“That is correct, Zianno,” Sailor said. “Meq babies do not die — they do not.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means we may be the last,” Geaxi said. “The last ones.”

“Not necessarily,” Sailor said.

“But we only have our blood!” Geaxi shouted. “You know this, Sailor. What is the Wait about but this? Nothing! Nothing but our blood sustains us. Nothing!”

“Wait,” Opari said firmly. She was the oldest and had been on her own the longest. Even Geaxi calmed down and listened. “Sailor, why do you carry Unai’s Stone?”

Sailor reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cracked leather pouch, gathered at the top with a thin leather strap. He opened it and out rolled the Stone into his palm. The tiny gems still embedded in Unai’s Stone sparked and flashed like shooting stars as he turned it over and held it out. “He could not wear it any longer,” Sailor said. “He has. drifted. He is very close to madness. Usoa does not even try. She is completely lost within herself and will not stay in any one house or dwelling longer than one night. They move about like child demons. Unai gave the Stone to Pello, telling him his heart was too weak to wear it.”

“Sailor,” Opari said gently. “What do you think we should do?”

“I. am not sure,” he said and started pacing and retracing his figure of eight. “But. I feel somehow we should. we must find it here. there may have been something. possibly the Stones. together. I am not sure, but. ”

“Sailor,” Geaxi said, grabbing him by the shoulders, “you are rambling.”

At that moment I saw a look in Sailor’s eye that made me think of something Carolina had said when she spoke of Nicholas, what she called the “madness of loss.” But it was only beginning. What happened next was a madness unique to Sailor, a madness I have not seen since, and a madness that is the reason Sailor is sought to this day. Prehistoric slabs of granite weighing several tons each do not move themselves. For the first time in my life, I was witness to the “ability” of Umla-Meq, Egizahar Meq, Stone of Memory.

“The old way will not work,” a voice said out of the darkness. It was Nova. “The old Zeharkatu will not cross in the old way. The shift is soon. The light has been turned on.” She walked inside the enclosure without explanation and was followed by a silent Trumoi-Meq. At the sight of her, Sailor seemed to do what I had done earlier. His mind tumbled and glanced, sorting through a thousand reasons why Nova would be there, how it was even possible, then landed in an instant on the right one, the real one.

“Where is Eder?” he asked.

No one said a word. All around us, the wind hammered at the ancient stones.

“Sailor—” Geaxi said.

“Where is Eder?” he asked, turning and walking within a foot of Opari. “Where is Eder, Opari?”

“She is dead,” Opari said evenly. “In Nova’s arms she died, Umla-Meq. from influenza.”

Opari watched Sailor and his movements, his breathing, his eyes. “In Nova’s arms, Umla-Meq,” she repeated. She spoke evenly and easily, as a shepherd to one of his flock about to bolt. “There is still Nova, Umla-Meq. you must see this. there is still Nova.”

“Yes, I see, Opari! And you are correct, as Zianno was correct. Yes, yes, yes, there. is. still. Nova.” He took three quick steps and tossed Unai’s Stone through the air in Nova’s direction. She caught it gracefully with one hand. “You wear that, Nova. You wear that and remember its. travels,” he said with a snort and a laugh. Sailor turned back to Opari. “Is that all I should think, Opari? That there is still Nova and not see what has happened, what is becoming? Am I to ignore, after all our precious time among the Giza, learning to survive their pettiness and viciousness, learning to survive and last despite being maimed, ridiculed, tortured. beheaded! Now, in the very century before the Remembering, am I to ignore that their poison has poisoned my own blood — our own blood! Yes, yes, yes, despite this, there. is. still. Nova.”

Sailor closed his eyes and his whole body shook and trembled. He leaned his head back, then forward until his chin was buried in his chest. And then I felt the rumbling. It was almost silent, and rolling, like a hibernating bear beneath our feet turning in his sleep. I barely felt the first one. Suddenly Sailor raised his head and looked at Opari.

“This place shall be the first correction,” he said.

The rumbling became audible and a vibration began below us and around us, causing the massive slabs of stone to move.

“I am ending this plan I foolishly conceived and believed in, the plan I sold to Solomon and bought myself. Do you appreciate the irony, Zianno? Solomon would. Well — there is less than a hundred years until the Gogorati. I do not intend to let the Giza interfere with this inevitability. What did Nova say? ‘The shift is soon.’ She is correct. and it begins here. now! I suggest all of you find safety at once.”

Sailor started walking west, the same direction in which the ancient builders had pointed “the slabs.” “Opari,” he yelled. “You and Geaxi follow Nova’s progress and be patient. Zianno, you must serve the family. it is a good choice,” he said and laughed. “I will not be back. the light has been turned on.”

The sound of his laughter was drowned out by twenty tons of granite vibrating and beginning to fall as easily as a house of cards. And Sailor had done it with his mind.

Sailor disappeared, of course, even before the stones had ceased falling. There was no reason to discuss it or ponder it. It was clear what he wanted and it would have been impossible to find him, even if we’d tried. None of us was injured. Caitlin’s six paths became our paths to safety. I checked Opari thoroughly, then listened for the last broken stone to settle and rest. I looked up and Sirius was rising in the east, and Opari’s words came to me, “We are Meq. first, last, and all in between.”

Sailor was gone, I knew that. Lost, found, shaken, driven, who knows? The best way to describe it might be the way Mowsel described it later. He said, “Sailor is sounding.”