Motherstone by Maurice Gee

Author:Maurice Gee [Gee, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781742532424
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2005-10-05T06:00:00+00:00

In the night and in the dawn,

Fierce is one and gentle one,

In the dying and the birthing

They must go together.’

‘Yes,’ Nick said, ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘I’m not dumb. You’re white. He’s red. You’re gentle and he’s fierce. I don’t get the rest of it. Is Susan supposed to be the one who knows?’ He was jealous that they must go hand in hand. ‘And what’s all this about night and dawn? And dying and birthing?’

‘I don’t know. It’s only an old song.’

‘You don’t believe that.’

‘All I know is, the Hotlander – the red one – recognized me. We’re strangers, but he knew, something spoke in him. It spoke in me. What the rest is we’ll learn in Furthermost.’

‘If we find it.’

The first island was astern. Others lay on the left and right, and stretched ahead as far as Nick could see. He got up and went to the rail. ‘Seafolk,’ he called, ‘do you know where Furthermost is?’

One of the seals, swimming with his head above the water, croaked in answer, ‘We know.’

‘Is Susan there?’

‘She is there. And her friend, Thief.’

‘Thief? Who’s he?’ But the seal was gone.

‘Too many questions, Nick,’ Soona said. ‘We’ll know in good time.’ She raised her flute and played a happier tune. He listened a while, then turned to leave.

‘Nick,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘Guard him when he wakes. He will try to kill me.’

‘We’ll guard him.’

‘Guard me too. If I grow afraid I will kill him.’

He went back to the stern. Jimmy and Dawn had shifted the Hotlander into the deck-house. He lay covered to his chin, with his head on a pillow of blankets. His cheeks had stopped twitching. He seemed no more than a boy in face-paint. If he scrubbed it off and let his hair grow he would be just a skinny kid.

‘Soona says we’ve got to keep him.’ The red one. The fierce one. He hoped that Susan would have answers. He went outside and spent the rest of the afternoon digging spears from the deck-house with his knife. He gave them to Silverwing and Yellowclaw to make into arrows.

The Seafolk kept the barge moving till nightfall. They beached it on an island and swam off to a reef to sleep till dawn. But their leader, a big old seal with grey fur and a voice like a saw, stayed with the band. His name, he said, was Watcher of Furthermost. He had watched all his life, hoping that in his time none would need to go there. But word had come that Humankind had made the Weapon, so he and his tribe had stolen a barge from a river town and waited at the appointed place for the legendary ‘One who knows’. Susan Ferris came. It seemed that she was woven into the history of O.

‘We carried her to Furthermost on the barge. Then she told us to return for you.’

‘And Thief was with her?’ Nick said.

‘Oh yes. Thief.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A creature we had thought none could befriend. But while he stays with her she need not fear.

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