A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (88 page)

She pouted. “I thought you liked me.”

“You’re a delicious dish, Tiglah. Now please bind me again, but perhaps you don’t need to do it as tightly as before.”

She was offended. She tied the thongs
as tightly as she could, with vicious little jerks, but Sandy used enough strength so that she did not succeed. Then she flounced out, slapping the tent flap closed behind her.

He didn’t mind the darkness. Enough light came in through the edges of the closed roof hole. He needed to think. He was extremely confused at his own reactions. He and Dennys had had their fair share of fistfights when
they were younger, though perhaps not as many as their sister, Meg. They played mostly team games and did not go in for boxing or wrestling. Was he being a coward? He knew that Tiglah’s father and brother would not hesitate to use bow and arrow, stone knives, or spears. He knew they were quite capable of killing him, just as much if he ran away as if he stayed. In fact, he thought he had more chance
of surviving if he stayed and figured out some way and route of escape than if he rushed out to the desert, unthinking. He was not so much afraid as outraged. He did not think he was a coward.

So. What to do? Violence was not going to work. Violence was what these little men turned to, and he did not want to be like them.

He wondered if they had gone to Noah with their wild demand for his vineyards.
He did not know Noah as well as Dennys did, but he did not think Noah would give in. Sandy’s rejection of violence had nothing to do with giving in. Anything but.

*   *   *

After Grandfather Lamech was buried in the grave in the small cave, and the singing had died out, and the seraphim were gone, Noah and his family walked slowly toward the big tent. Wherever there was an outcropping or rock
or a cave, Japheth, holding his tiny bow and darts, would hurry to look, Dennys on his heels.

“I do not like this,” Noah said.

Dennys and Japheth returned from peering into the deep shadows of a little cave. The starlight was so bright that the shadows seemed to increase in darkness. “Is Sandy lost in the desert?” Dennys’s voice cracked more than usual in his anxiety.

In the distance they heard
a howl:
“Hungry!”

Yalith reached for Dennys’s hand and squeezed it.

Shem said, “If the manticore is hungry, then he hasn’t found anything to eat.”

Oholibamah said, “Don’t worry about the manticore. Sandy scared it away from Grandfather Lamech’s tent.”

Could Sandy scare the manticore again, if they met out on the desert? Dennys was not certain, not after his own encounter with the ugly creature.

Elisheba said. “Sandy would never have just wandered off on his own.”

Yalith nodded. “He was following you to Grandfather Lamech’s tent.”

Noah rubbed his beard. “Yes, yes, that’s what we thought. But when he didn’t come, then we thought he must have stayed in the big tent.”

Anah said, “Well, he didn’t, and that’s that. I think he’s off with my sister, Tiglah, that’s what I think.”

Nobody replied.
The stars moved slowly across the sky. Dennys tried to listen for their singing, but he could hear nothing. After the glorious requiem for Grandfather Lamech, they were silent.

The moon was dipping behind the horizon when they reached Noah’s tents, tired, sorrowful, anxious.

“Now, before anything else, all of us must eat,” Matred said.

Noah said, “She is right. Come, Den.”

Dennys accepted
the bowl of broth Matred gave him. He knew that he needed all his strength for whatever lay ahead.

With his strong teeth, Shem pulled the meat off a mutton bone. Elisheba handed him a bowl of broth. “Will you go look for the Sand?” Shem, the hunter, was the one who knew the oasis and the desert best. Japheth and Ham worked in the vineyards, close to home. Shem was the one who should go, and Dennys
flashed Elisheba a glance of gratitude. Absently, he patted Selah, who was leaning against him, putting her trunk on his knee.

Shem saw that Dennys had finished his broth, and nodded. He reached for one of the tall spears leaning against the inner wall of the tent. Hefted it. Offered it to Dennys. Dennys took it, though he had never used a spear. Shem checked his small quiver of blow darts, then
reached for a second spear, and nodded at Dennys, not speaking. The boy followed the short, stocky man out of the tent, feeling a little hope. There was something about Shem that gave him confidence.

Noah said, “Japheth and I will search the paths of the oasis.”

Ham said, “Anah and I will go to the marketplaces.”

Matred spoke too cheerfully. “If the Sand returns to the tent, which seems likely,
we will let everybody know.”

Shem and Dennys pushed out of the tent flap. The stars were dimming. Light tinged the eastern horizon. Heat was already beginning to shimmer in watery mirages on the desert. Dennys had on one of Matred’s woven hats and hoped it would be adequate once day broke.

Shem looked at him. “Once the sun is high, you must go back to the tent.”

Dennys nodded. Shem, like Japheth,
was right about that. Already his skin was prickling from heat as well as anxiety. He tried to keep himself from imagining what might have happened to his twin. He followed Shem. Followed. The heat bore down. The futile searching seemed interminable. After what must have been several hours he asked, “Where’s Higgaion?”

Shem said, “He will spend the day mourning at Grandfather Lamech’s grave.
Then he will come to us. Selah will help lighten his grief.”

“Higgaion scents for water,” Dennys said with sudden hope. “Do you think he could scent for Sandy?”

Shem leaned on his spear, thinking. “Mammoths are strange creatures. They can do strange things. Let us try.”

Shem strode off. He walked at a rapid pace, but Dennys, with his much longer legs, could easily have outstripped him and had
to hold himself back. Grandfather Lamech’s burial cave was about halfway between his tent and Noah’s, and the sun was rising by the time they reached it. Higgaion was stretched out on the sand. His fan-like ears lifted at the approaching footsteps.

Dennys hurried to him. “Higgy, do you think you could scent for Sandy, the way you scent for water?”

The mammoth’s little eyes had been shadowed
with grief. Now they brightened. Shem dropped to his knees by Higgaion, bending down toward him in intimate communication, speaking softly.

The mammoth raised his trunk in a small, hopeful trumpet.

Dennys’s eyes, too, were hopeful. “Oh, Shem, what could have happened to him?”

Shem’s voice was heavy. “Some people are wicked, and the imagination of their hearts is only to do evil.”

“What about
Grandfather?” Dennys asked.

Shem stroked his beard in a gesture much like Noah’s. “Grandfather knew. There is much wickedness. It, too, smells. You do not smell wicked, Den, nor does the Sand. Grandfather said that there is a great warmth in your hearts, and that is a pleasing smell.” It was the longest speech Shem had ever made.

“Thank you,” Dennys said. Then: “Let’s go.”

Shem shook his head,
glancing up at the sun. “I thought we would have found him by now.”

“Come
on
,” Dennys urged.

“Den, I have hunting to do if we are to eat tonight.”

“But—”

“My sisters and their families ate hugely, did you notice?”

—Funeral baked meats, Dennys thought angrily.

“Den, we must eat if we are to have strength for whatever—”

Dennys turned to Higgaion. “Come on, Higgy.”

“Den. I hunt best alone.
But I will continue to search for the Sand. Find Japheth.”

“But he’s—”

“He and Father will be searching near the tent. Do not go off with Higgaion alone. It is not safe.”

Dennys looked at Shem’s anxious face. Not safe. Not safe, because whatever had happened to Sandy might happen to Dennys …

“We will not stop until we find him,” Shem said. “Go find Japheth. You and Higgaion.”

*   *   *

Noah sat in the big tent, cross-legged, his elbows on his knees, his head bent down to his hands. Matred came and sat beside him.

“I don’t know where he is,” Noah said. “Where he could be.”

“Rest, husband,” Matred urged. “He will be found.”

Noah nodded. “My heart is heavy. I grieve for my father.”

“He was an old man, full of years,” Matred consoled him.

“The Sand is not.”

“You think something
has happened to him?”

“Why else would he not have joined me at my father’s tent? He is not like the young men of the oasis, thinking of nobody but themselves.”

“He and the Den are not like anybody else,” Matred said. “We do not know that something terrible has happened.”

Noah did not reply, nor did he look at her. “And I must begin to build the ark.”

Matred said, “El has never before asked
you to do anything wild.”

“Is it so wild? If the rains cover the earth, as he says they will, it will not be a wild thing to have an ark.”

“The rains had better not cover the earth for a while,” Matred said. “You have to build the ark, find all the animals.”

“I will begin right away.”

“And you will be laughed at. You will be the big joke of the oasis.”

“I do not find it amusing,” Noah said.
“My father is dead. The Sand is El knows where.”

“Why don’t you ask El?”

“I have. El says only that I must begin to build the ark. El says nothing about the Sand.”

“Or the Den?”

Noah grunted in agreement.

“Will you bring them onto the ark?”

“Of people, only you, and our sons, and their wives. No more.”

“Yalith—” Matred started, but stopped as two men came, unannounced, through the open
tent flap.

Tiglah’s father and brother.

ELEVEN

Many waters cannot quench love

Yalith went out into the desert. She was anxious, and anything but sleepy. She wanted to fling herself into Matred’s lap and sob, as though she were still a little girl. She wanted to cry herself to sleep.

But she was no longer a little girl, and her eyes felt dry and burning. She was not used to being out at this time of day. She was not sure what drew
her to the desert, because there was no hope that she might see Aariel. He would be in his cave, sleeping.

Nevertheless, she walked in that direction, and as she approached she was amazed to see him lying in the shadows at the mouth of the cave. Although she was certain it was Aariel, she was cautious. She had been certain that it was Aariel when the lion turned into the dragon/lizard Eblis.

She whispered, “Aariel—”

The lion rose, stretched, yawned, then paced toward her.

“Oh, Aariel!” She flung her arms about the tawny neck, though her tears were spent. “We don’t know where the Sand is! Grandfather Lamech sent him to get my father. The Sand knew that Grandfather was dying, so he gave the camel to my father so that he could get back to Grandfather Lamech in time, and the Sand said
that he would walk back. And Grandfather died, and everybody was thinking about him, and we didn’t even notice, at first, that the Sand was not with any of us, and then we had to bury Grandfather, and—oh, oh, Aariel, we don’t know what has happened—”

Aariel let her talk. When her voice faded and she pressed her face once again into his fur, he transformed slowly, gently, until she was enfolded
in his wings. “Higgaion has gone to scent for him.”

“He left Grandfather’s grave?”

“For the living, yes. The Den and Japheth will go with him.”

“Oh, that’s good, I’m glad, I’m glad! Higgaion will be sure to find him, and Japheth will know what to do, and the Den, too.”

Aariel drew her into the shade of the entrance to his cave.

“Aariel—my father is going to build a boat, an enormous boat.”

“That is wise,” Aariel said gravely.

“For my brothers and their wives. For animals of every kind.”

“Yes, to preserve the species.”

“But not for my sisters, Seerah and Hoglah, and their husbands and children. Not for Mahlah and her nephil baby. Not for—not for me.”

Aariel drew her close. “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” His voice was calm, gentle.

“What about
the twins?” Again her eyes filled.

The seraph’s arm was strong as it held her. “I do not know.”

“But you know that El told my father to build an ark?”

“Yes. That I know.”

“But you don’t know about the twins?”

“We do not have to know everything.”

“But you could ask—”

“We have asked.”

“Are the stars silent, too?”

“The stars are silent.”

“Aariel, I’m afraid.”

“Fear not. I will hold you,”
he promised.

“I am more afraid for the Sand and the Den than I am for myself. I love them.”

“And they love you.”

“I don’t want them to die. Will they die?”

Aariel folded his wings about her. He did not look at her. “I do not know.”

*   *   *

Sandy slept. He still did not understand his reaction to Tiglah and her proposals for escape, but after a while he stopped questioning himself. When
the time came for him to do something, he would know what to do.

Daylight was not a good time for escape. Perhaps in the cover of the night …

“Twin!”

It was Tiglah’s voice, Tiglah’s smell.

She pegged open the flap. “You have a visitor,” she said.

He sat up, instantly alert. So her father and brother had come to kill him.

But it was Rofocale who came into the tent, bowing low to enter, so
that his flaming wings dragged in the dust. Like Sandy, he was too tall to stand upright in this small tent. With swift grace he sat, facing Sandy, staring at him with garnet eyes. His bright hair was tied back, his cheeks white as snow.

He thrust out one hand and touched Sandy on the knee. The touch was that cold which is so cold that it burns. Sandy flinched, but did not cry out. “Why are you
still here?” Rofocale demanded.

Sandy replied in his calmest voice. “I have been kidnapped and am being held hostage. If I escape and leave this tent, I will be easily seen. There is no way I can lose myself in a crowd. I am as tall as you are. I’d make an easy target.”