Gods of the Greataway Read Online Free PDF Page A

that shore, solid and massive, capped with silver, like no land Kamaha had seen before. He gazed at the sight, while deep longings awakened from somewhere inside him. This was the legendary Dry Land.
    His subjects toiled along the water’s edge, some bent low under loads of dying and diseased grass, which they tossed into the sea, others instructing the guidewhales with yelps and barks. The huge beasts rolled and scattered and reorganized, venting spray, working as a vast team with two main purposes: to keep the island from breaking up in the heavy seas, and to head it away from the distant land. They thrust their heads into the vegetation and, along a wide front, shoved with churning flukes. The people yelled encouragement.
    Kamaha regarded the distant mountains. The island trembled to the thrusting of the whales.
    Suddenly Kamaha rose to his feet. “No!” he shouted.
    *
    Little is known of the expedition ashore — the walk through the deserted town with its monolithic dwellings, while Kamaha’s subjects watched from their island home, becalmed in a sweeping bay. It is known that Kamaha returned with artifacts, one of which, a small crystal, caused him to experience wonderful visions when he plugged it into his ear. It is certain that from that day Kamaha was a changed man: still fat and indolent — maybe more so — but no longer domineering, no longer unpleasant. He spent all day sitting in the sun and let his people do as they pleased. With the crystal in his ear, he experienced visions of beauty, of an Earth that men had forgotten and only the machines remembered.
    His people, concernedby his blank expression but relieved by his personality change, left him alone. He had no desire to share his treasure, no urge to discuss the wonders he was experiencing. He retreated in on himself, allowed the crystal to take him where it would.
    Matters would have remained that way until Kamaha died and his body, together with the crystal, had been committed to the ocean — if a strange occurrence had not taken place late one foggy evening.
    Kamaha’s island was by that time called Zo-ben-tzintl, having moved far north into a region of cold nights and sparkling icebergs. When strange sounds first whispered across the foggy sea, people thought they heard icebergs making love. Nothing was inanimate in or around Zo-ben-tzintl, neither the land, nor the sky or sea. Life was everywhere.
    The sounds increased, a deep rumbling accompanied by a high clatter, punctuated by fierce puffings like the exhalations of the greatest whale in the ocean. The people stirred uneasily, drew their sealskin wraps closer and huddled beside their shelters, staring into the mists that surrounded them. Even Kamaha looked up when the sounds interrupted a vision of ancient Athens. Something showed in his face, and a nearby girl forgot her apprehension to regard him in surprise. He touched the crystal in his ear and looked around him as though awakening from a long sleep. The sounds were very loud now, and the island seemed to tremble.
    The fog lifted. Out ofthe evening sky a huge thing bore down upon the people of Zo-ben-tzintl. It was enormous, a frightening monster, snorting fire and bellowing and whipping a long, glowing tail behind, so long they could not see the end of it. Afterward, when they dared speak of it, they called it the Fire Dragon of Northsea — and so it was absorbed into legend. Its din hurt their ears, and the sight of it struck some men mad, so that later they had to be committed to the ocean. As it passed they caught a glimpse of its entrails, exposed and flaring, and it seemed men were trapped there, consumed by the dragon, tiny figures working feverishly within the very flesh of the creature. Then the tail passed close overhead, bright and segmented and rattling. It took a long time, beating at the ears of the people with its din. That is what the people saw. A frightful dragon.
    Kamaha saw something incomparably great and thrilling.