Nation

THE CAVE WAS WAITING. It might contain anything, Mau thought. And that was the point, wasn’t it? You had to find out. You had to know. And Daphne didn’t seem concerned. Mau told her that there would probably be bones, and she said that was fine, because bones didn’t try to kill you, and that since she had got the message from the Grandmothers, she was going to see it through, thank you so very much.

They found the Grandfathers right at the point where you could just see the waning daylight, and Mau began to understand. They weren’t scary, they were just… sad. Some of them still sat as they had been put, with their knees up under their chins, staring toward the distant light with flat dead eyes. They were just husks and crumbled bones. If you looked carefully, you could see that they had been held together with papervine. It really did have many uses, even after death.

They stopped when the daylight was a little dot at the end of the tunnel.

“How many more can there be? ” Ataba wondered.

“I’m counting, ” said Mau. “There’s more than a hundred of them so far. ”

“One hundred and two, ” said Daphne. There seemed to be no end to them, sitting one behind the other like the world’s oldest rowing crew, sculling into eternity. Some of them still had their spears or clubs, tied to their arms.

They went on, and the light vanished. The dead passed in their hundreds and Daphne lost count. She kept reminding herself how scared she wasn’t. After all, hadn’t she quite enjoyed that lecture on anatomy she had attended? Even though she had kept her eyes shut throughout?

However, if you were going to look at hundreds and thousands of dead men, it didn’t help to see the light from Ataba’s lamp flicker over them. It seemed to make them move. And they had been men of the islands; she could see, on ancient, leathery skin, blurred tattoos, like the ones every man — well, every man except Mau — wore even now. A wave, curling across the face of the setting sun…

“How long have you been putting people in here? ” she asked.

“Forever, ” said Mau, running on ahead. “And they came from the other islands, too! ”

“Are you tired, sir? ” said Daphne to Ataba, when they were left alone.

“Not at all, girl. ”

“Your breathing does not sound good. ”

“That is my affair. It is not yours. ”

“I was just… concerned, that’s all. ”

“I would be obliged if you would stop being concerned, ” Ataba snapped. “I know what is happening. It starts with knives and cooking pots, and suddenly we belong to the trousermen, yes, and you send priests and our souls do not belong to us. ”

“I’m not doing anything like that! ”

“And when your father comes in his big boat? What will happen to us then? ”

“I… don’t know, ” said Daphne, which was better than telling the truth. We do tend to stick flags in places, she had to admit it herself. We do it almost absentmindedly, as though it’s a sort of chore.

“Hah, you fall silent, ” said the priest. “You are a good child, the women say, and you do good things, but the difference between the trousermen and the Raiders is that sooner or later the cannibals go away! ”

“That’s a terrible thing to say! ” said Daphne hotly. “We don’t eat people! ”

“There are different ways to eat people, girl, and you are clever, oh yes, clever enough to know it. And sometimes the people don’t realize it’s happened until they hear the belch! ”

“Come quickly! ” That was Mau, whose lamp was a faint green glow in the distance.

Daphne ran to stop Ataba from seeing her face. Her father, well, he was a decent man but, well, this century was a game of empires, apparently, and no little island was allowed to belong to itself. What would Mau do if someone stuck a flag on his beach?

There he was now, looking green, and pointing to the line of Grandfathers.

As she got closer, she saw the white stone on the edge of the passage. There was a Grandfather sitting on it like a chieftain, but with his hands clasped around his knees like the rest. And he was facing down the corridor, away from the cave mouth, toward the unknown.

In front of him the line of dead warriors continued, all now turned to face… what? The light of day was behind them now.

Mau was waiting, a glint in his eye, when Ataba hobbled up. “Do you know why they are facing the wrong way, Ataba? ” he asked.

“They look as though they are protecting us from something, ” said the priest.

“Down here? From what? There’s nothing down here but darkness. ”

“And something best forgotten, perhaps? Do you think the wave never happened before? And the last time it never went away. It was a wave that never ebbed. It ended the world. ”

“That’s just a story. I remember my mother telling it to me, ” said Mau. “Everyone knows it: ‘In the Time When Things Were Otherwise and the Moon Was Different… Men were becoming troublesome, and so Imo swept them away with a great wave. ’”

“Was there an ark? I mean, er, some sort of big boat? ” asked Daphne. “I mean, how did anyone survive? ”

“There were people on the sea and high ground, ” said Mau. “That’s the story, isn’t it, Ataba? ”

“What had they done that was so bad? ” Daphne asked.

Ataba cleared his throat. “It is said they tried to make themselves into gods, ” he said.

“That’s right. ” Mau went on: “I wonder if you can tell me what we did wrong this time? ”

Ataba hesitated.