The Beyond by Jeffrey Ford Page B

was to be successful in his quest. What that quality was, he felt ever on the verge of discovering when waking each morning in his hut. He followed them in their daily routines, watched them work and hunt and play, but at night, when he rolled back onto the reed mat, he fell off to sleep with the frustrating realization that he was no closer to the answer than when he had first arrived in the village.
    He stayed on for two weeks, casually studying their body art, their subtle communication of furtive glances, their desire to ingest the pages of the book. He hoped that in a wink, a spiral of blue line, he might find the answer to how they knew he was stranded on the rock island in the middle of the flood, or, more importantly, why they had made the effort to save him.
    The gravity of the second question became clear to him on the day he accompanied two young men of the tribe back to the edge of the drowned flatland and saw out, across the now decreasing waters, the Country of Six Boulders, an insignificant dot on the horizon.
    He couldn’t tell if they were pleased to have him as a guest or if he was a burden. As with most things, they seemed neutral on the subject and continued to conduct their lives in the same unassuming manner from day to day.
    The body images had been rendered with such incredible precision that Cley was constantly tricked by the design of a large spider on one young man’s shoulder and tried, on more than one occasion, to brush it off. The fellow appeared unfazed by the hunter’s foolishness.
    In order to avoid unknown social blunders, Cley attempted to decipher the power structure of the Silent Ones. It was plain to see that he was correct in assuming that the young man with the necklace and the Sirimon skull tattooed on his chest was the chief. The others seemed to pay him deference by looking at his feet when first in his presence. There were only two individuals among the tribe who appeared to contradict his command at certain times. One was his wife, or the woman Cley at first guessed to be the queen. On a certain morning when the chief was casting symbolic glances all over the place and motioning with his hands, she asserted herself by thrusting out her own left hand, making a fist, flipping out the thumb, and jabbing it at the ground. Upon seeing this sign, the head of the village immediately ceased dispensing his silent commands, rushed to their hut, and returned with a bright yellow plum for her, which she devoured on the spot.
    When none of the adults were nearby, Cley tried out this same hand motion on one of the many children who followed him through the course of his daily activities. He wondered if the boy would bring him fruit. Instead the child crossed his eyes and made a hand gesture involving the middle finger.
    The only other person who seemed to hold a position of power was the bent old man. Cley learned that he was the body scribe, supplying all the members of the tribe with tattoos. He worked outside his modest hut. The subject either lay down or sat on an animal skin. The hunter watched as the old man mixed together different ingredients—plant sap, berries, and the secretions of a fat toad—to create a blue ink, the color reminiscent of the spire rock once mined in Anamasobia. The artisan’s tools were a series of long thin needles with stone-ground points that had been crafted from the tail spikes of Sirimon skeletons. Cley sat beside him as he rendered a depiction of the flood on the stomach of a middle-aged woman.
    Cley woke one morning to find the chief sitting in his hut, patting Wood’s head, and holding across his lap the long spear that was the Silent Ones’ weapon of choice. The native pointed to the hunter’s clothes and closed his eyes, indicating that Cley should get dressed. As soon as he dressed and put on his hat, the young man somehow knew to open his eyes. Then he pointed to the rifle. Cley picked up the gun, and the chief rose