Rift by Kay Kenyon Page B

hands. Dripping with algae, the ball looked like a deeply pitted rock, perhaps a geode of some kind.
    A slopping noise behind him. He spun around. There, moving slowly toward him was a whitish upright figure, carrying a sack over its shoulder. An orthong, by the Lord above. Reeve froze, staring. It wore a long belted black coat that glistened in the sun like a chitinous shell. The coat parted in front to show a snowy white hide.
    It had no face.
    His heart knocked against his chest wall. The creaturebegan loping toward him, in great strides that brought it to Reeve quicker than he could have turned and taken even one step to flee. It stood a full head taller than he, and there seemed to be two eyes peering at him from the deep ridges of its face. With supreme irrelevance, Reeve found himself thinking,
It does have a mouth—a tiny vestigial mouth
 … Then, in the next instant, the creature extruded its one-inch claws and slashed down the front of Reeve’s jacket, slicing the material and skimming Reeve’s skin in a cut he hardly felt except for the rush of cold air. Reeve staggered backward and fell into the muck.
    The creature threw down its sack. Through the net of rope that made up the sack, Reeve saw a few large, perfectly round rocks. The orthong advanced, noiseless except for the slap of its great feet through the algae.
    For a moment the creature was distracted, looking over Reeve’s head, down the shoreline. Perhaps, he saw the others, Reeve’s companions. In that moment’s hesitation, Reeve stood, still holding the rock, and offered the geode to the monster.
    It was a stupid thing to do. He was the creature’s next meal, yet he was giving the orthong a gift. His wits had left him.
    They stood unmoving, the orthong and Reeve, for what seemed a long, mind-bending minute. Reeve’s arms grew tired, holding the rock out at arm’s length, knowing for a certainty that if his arms dropped it would be his last movement. The ridges of the orthong’s hide were hard-looking, not the soft folds he’d thought they’d be. Over the back of the creature’s elongated hands, a gray discoloration spread and disappeared up the coat sleeve.
    The creature was looking over Reeve’s shoulder again, its eyes sunk in their sockets like emeralds in snow. Then, slowly, it clutched its giant fingers over the geode and plucked it from Reeve’s tremblinghands. Finally, with a swift punch, it thumped Reeve in the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back.
    When Reeve gathered himself up again the orthong was loping down the beach, its sack riding easily over its shoulder as though it contained oranges and not a bunch of fifteen-pound stones.
    More splashing, and then Marie, Spar, and Loon were at his side, staring after the creature. Marie and Loon crouched down to examine Reeve’s bleeding chest.
    He couldn’t speak. The day gleamed preternaturally bright, and the breeze sang with the rich, deep smells of the world. He looked into Loon’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself saying. “For what I said.” He turned to look into Marie’s worried face. “Sorry,” he said again.
    Spar reached out a hand and pulled him to his feet.
    Reeve felt a sharp stab under his fingernail. Swearing, he yanked out a half-inch splinter of wood.
    Spar laughed silently, showing his crooked teeth. He continued lashing the pieces of framing wood together, using a length of salvaged rope.
    Reeve sucked on his hurt finger, glaring at the claver.
    Shaking his head, Spar said: “Guess they don’t teach you how to build rafts up there in the sky, now do they.”
    That comment needed no response, or not the response that came immediately to mind. Marie was right. No sense killing each other, no matter how the older man goaded him.
    They had spent the morning and half of yesterday combing the beach for scraps of washed-up or abandoned refuse that could be used for the raft, and their efforts were hugely successful. The beach was strewn liberally