Maia

by Richard Adams

  Ahead of and below them lay a vast, shallow dip, something like two or three miles across. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, it was compact with trees, unbroken and even as a roof in the still heat. So uniform, so

  featureless was this prospect that they might have been looking out across a smoothly undulant, green lake. No tree seemed taller than another and none, one would suppose, could have moved even in a wind, so close together were they crowded. Looking at that forest, no one could tell in what millennium he might be living. The god of that place, thought Maia, was not hostile to mankind; no, he was simply indifferent, distinguishing not at all between men, beasts and the insects darting among the leaves. Once in there, their lives would have no more value than those of ants; and they themselves would be as helpless.

  On the farther side of this great bowl the horizon was closed by a line of the same trees; and one could imagine the forest continuing unchanged beyond. Away to their right, below the ridge on which they were standing, they could catch, here and there, glimpses of the river.

  "Jumping Cran!" muttered Zirek, staring. "It can't be done, sir!"

  "Nobody has to do it who doesn't want to," replied Zen-Kurel with (so it seemed to Maia) a somewhat forced air of confidence. "Personally, I'm going to Terekenalt and that's the way. But let's have a rest and eat now, shall we?"

  "I was just thinking about the eating,' said Bayub-Otal. "I think it may take us quite a long time to reach the Zhairgen through that; certainly two days. We ought to be rather sparing, I think, of what food we've got."

  "We might be able to kill something," said Zen-Kurel. "I'd like a chance to try these arrows."

  Having eaten, they descended the ridge, making once more for the river, and now entered in earnest the forest depth. Within half an hour Maia was almost as frightened as though Fornis herself, innumerably multiplied, were lying in wait behind every tree. There was no true light; only a murky, green gloom filtering down from far above, so dim that neither they themselves nor the trees cast shadows. They could not see more than twenty or thirty yards ahead, partly for the gloom and partly for the undergrowth all around. The humidity was like damp felt clinging to skin and clothes; a thick, resistant film which they seemed to thrust apart with their bodies in pushing on. There were weird, disturbing noises-sudden cries and chatterings, and sometimes the squawking of alarmed birds in the confined stillness-but the creatures making them remained unseen.

  She felt diminished, shrunken as though by an evil spell, a minute creature walking between the legs of a giant. And the giant was vigilant. He, she now knew, was the god: a god unknown to man; nameless-what were names?-infinitely remote and old. He was watching them as he watched everything in the forest, yet their fate was nothing to him. Nor would propitiation be of the least avail. He was lord of a world in which prayer had no meaning and death itself very little; a world in which the frog sat impassively as the snake approached closer to devour it.

  After a time they had lost all sense of direction. There was, of course, no telling where the sun might be. Zen-Kurel, using Maia's knife-the only one they had-tried to maintain a line by marking successive tree-trunks, but the undergrowth, in many places so impenetrable as to force them to turn this way and that, rendered the scheme futile. After a long time they came upon a tree already marked and realized that they must have returned to it. Of the river there was neither sight nor sound.

  Zen-Kurel, however, remained outwardly calm. The river, he insisted, could not be far away, but when Zirek asked him how he could be sure that they were not going away from it, he could only reply that he expected before long to come on some tributary brook which they would be able to follow. As the afternoon wore on, Maia began to entertain first the possibility, then the likelihood and finally the conviction that they might very well wander until they died. When, like a specter, the idea first glimmered in her mind, she dismissed it as a morbid fancy. But with growing thirst and fatigue adding to the discomfort of her menstruation, it was all she could do-and, as we have seen, Maia did not lack courage-not to give way openly to her fear. If ever they did find the basting river, she thought, she would plunge in and be damned to the lot of them, so she would. Meanwhile, Meris was showing no alarm whatever. Meris, as well she knew, had seen unspeakable things, and survived them. She, Maia, was not going to be put to shame by Meris. Well, not yet, anyway.

  At last they happened to come out into a clearing-an acre or two of relatively open ground which none of them could remember seeing from the ridge. Here there must have been, or so it seemed, some local disease of the trees, for a great many were dead; several leaning against those still living, others lying their huge length along the open

  ground. There was a little pool of water, too, in a rock-hollow, from which they drank. Although this was apparently fed by a spring, it flowed nowhere, the overflow merely seeping away into the surrounding, parched ground.

  Now at last they could see the sun. It was low, reddening to evening, and lay on their right. Looking back, they could catch sight, far off above the trees, of the ridge which they had descended.

  "Well, at least we've been going more or less in the right direction, Anda-Nokomis," said Zen-Kurel, "though I'm afraid we must have gone something like two miles for every one that's been any good to us. And, now we know where the river must be, too."

  "I don't think we'd better try to reach it tonight," said Bayub-Otal. "Everyone's tired out. Wherever we are, we're going to need a fire, and there's plenty of dead wood here. I suggest we camp."

  "How much further d'you reckon it is to the Zhairgen, then, sir?" asked Zirek. "We've got very little food, and the girls can't be expected to stand up to much more of this."

  "We must just hope for the best, mustn't we?" replied Bayub-Otal expressionlessly. He turned away and began gathering sticks with his one hand.

  "We shall get there tomorrow," said Zen-Kurel. "Why not, once we reach the river bank?"

  A few hours later, as night fell with only the briefest of twilight, Maia realized that in the forest, darkness called forth another world. Here, human order was reversed. Daylight was the time appointed by the god for concealment, inaction and sleep. In daylight he was sole, a presence absorbing his creatures into himself, sheltering them from the intrusion of that upstart, the sun. At nightfall he became manifold, breathing into them his fell, rapacious spirit, so that they became as he, indifferent to fear, suffering and death, intent only upon obeying his will. They must kill and eat, for with the renewal of day it was decreed that they should return once more into the single essence of their master. Kill-be killed: eat-be eaten: which, mattered little. This was their pursuit and calling, and they were impelled to it without power of decision.

  Zirek still had his pedlar's fire-making tools-quartz, iron and sulphur-and had little trouble in transferring the flame to a heap of dry grass. Soon their sticks were burning

  well, and Maia and Meris joined the men in dragging up fallen branches and logs. Having no axe, they set the logs to burn at one end, pushing them forward into the blaze as they were consumed. Neither Bayub-Otal nor Zen-Ku-rel said anything about turns on watch, and Maia guessed that the three men had already come to some arrangement among themselves.

  When she had eaten the few mouthfuls that were her share of supper, she wrapped herself in her cloak and lay down to sleep. Yet tired out as she was, sleep would not come. She was hungry; her head ached; her belly hurt. Her flux had come on strongly and there was nothing clean or dry to put between her legs. But these discomforts were as nothing compared with her terror of the forest and the thought of the morrow. I can't go on, she thought. Even if no one'll come with me, I'll go back to the farm alone. Yet she knew very well that she could not attempt it.

  The active night was full of wild, disturbing cries. From somewhere far off sounded a many-voiced clamor which must, she thought, be the howling of wolves. As she lay listening to this and trying to guess how distant it might be, there came from c
lose by a deep, mewling cough, repeated several times. She turned faint with fear. At supper-parties in the upper city she had once or twice listened to Beklan hunters' stories of the great cats. An armed man, someone had told her, stood iio least chance against one of these creatures, and hunters invariably left them alone in their wild, forest territories, which, he had added, it was their nature to defend fiercely against intruders.

  Looking out into the darkness she could see, here and there, eyes reflecting the firelight-some glowing red, others white or green. There seemed a continual coming and going of eyes between the trees. They were being watched. How could these watchers be anything but hostile? And they themselves-what could they do against them? Nothing; and this was the worst of her fear. Danger is far harder to bear when one can neither retaliate nor fly.

  Meris was sleeping as soundly as a child. How strangely contradictory people often were, thought Maia. Meris, the agent of so much pointless, destructive trouble, had been composed and cooperative all day; unsmiling, but also uncomplaining and performing promptly whatever was asked of her. Probably the men felt less encumbered by Meris than by herself.

  Zirek was on watch, pacing slowly up and down on the opposite side of the fire as he looked out into the darkness. In one hand he was carrying his bow and an arrow, but seemed not so much tense as simply wary. On impulse she got up and walked round to him, conscious of the fouled cloth chafing between her legs. He nodded and smiled but said nothing.

  "Zirek," she whispered, "how are we going to get out of this?"

  He raised his eyebrows, feigning surprise.

  "Why, your chap's going to get us out, isn't he?"

  "My chap?" She was vexed. She did not,want teasing.

  "Well, the man you love, then. But he has been your lover, even if he isn't now."

  "Oh, don't be silly, Zirek! It really makes me angry to hear you go on like that. Why, he hates me! He thinks I tricked him and deceived him."

  "Maybe he does: but he's still in love with you, even if he wishes he wasn't."

  "How do you know that? He's never told you so, I'm sure."

  "No, but I can tell. A man can tell, you know.".

  "How?"

  "I don't know, but you can." He paused. "Well, for a start, the way you treated each other at the farm."

  "But Anda-Nokomis-he's just as angry with me for swimming the river."

  "I know, but he hasn't been your lover. He's just in love with you: that's different."

  "What? Zirek, whatever do you mean? I never heard such nonsense!"

  "Funny, isn't it, how men can see things women can't? And sometimes the other way round. But I'd bet all I've got; which isn't much, unless we ever get to Santil. If only we can get to Santil, though, I reckon I'll be made for life. He might even give me some sort of estate, I dare say."

  "Will you marry Meris, then?"

  He looked at her sidelong and winked. "Pretty girl, isn't she?" Then, briskly, "But we were talking about you, Maia, not about me. Your Katrian, he's a good lad. I trust him, anyway. He's got plenty of guts and he's no fool. I'm sure he will get us through this damned place, somehow or other." He shoved the heaviest log a couple of feet further into the fire with his foot and added some sticks

  to make a brighter blaze. "Besides, he's still in love with you, so he's bound to."

  Suddenly, about eighty yards away from the trees, something squealed in agony. It was the death-cry of some fairly large animal-monkey, orjtvda, perhaps, or creeping hak-kukar. They both waited unspeaking, but nothing followed-only the resumption of the swarming babble all about them.

  "And that's why I personally believe he is going to get us out of it," said Zirek. "Or you are, or someone is. Because that's what the gods intend, you see. They've put it into our hearts. We shan't die. We've allof us got much too much motive for staying alive."

  "Even Meris?"

  "Meris? She's got more motive than all the rest of us put together."

  "What's that, then?"

  "To be basted by more men than any girl yet. Do you know, she even managed to have a few while we were hiding in the warehouse? Malendik, of course; and even N'Kasit, now and again. But others, too. I was always terrified she was going to get us caught, only somehow she never quite did."

  He looked up at the scatter of stars visible above the clearing. Then, turning aside and making as though to rake the fire with his wooden spear, he asked, "Did you know it was me that gave the information about Tharrin?"

  "About Tharrin? To Sencho, you mean?"

  "Well, Tharrin was-he meant something to you once, didn't he?"

  "How did you know?"

  "Oh, pedlars hear everything, you know; and people in Meerzat are no blinder than anywhere else. I've often felt very bad about Tharrin. But you see, I had to give some sort of worthwhile information to Sencho if I was going to keep him convinced that I really was a Leopard agent. And anyway, the plain truth was that Tharrin had as good as done for himself before ever I spoke a word."

  "It doesn't matter now," she said. "Not any more it doesn't."

  "I'd warned him to get out," went on Zirek, "but he was always such a fool. Tharrin-he never really understood what he'd taken on, you know. It was all just a matter of easy money-kind of a game-to him; until the day he

  found it wasn't, I suppose. 'Oh, I'm a master of cunning!' he said to me once. Cran! That was about the last damn' thing he was! Santil had already come to see him as a liability-he could never keep his mouth shut, you see. All the same, I've been very sorry, Maia. I wanted to tell you and get it off my chest."

  "It doesn't matter now-not any more," she said again. "Tharrin-if he hadn't 'a done for himself one way he'd 'a done it another; I c'n see that now. But Bekla-Sen-cho-the Leopards-it's all so far away now, isn't it?"

  "Not for Occula it isn't. She's pledged herself to her goddess, you know, to revenge her father; to revenge him or die. I was there, in Thettit, when she did it. I believe she'll succeed, too."

  "I pray for Occula night and morning," she answered. He nodded: then raised her hand to his lips for a moment.

  "I reckon my watch is finished and more than finished. The demon pedlar's given good value, as usual: I'm going to wake the young master. Why don't you get some sleep now, Maia? It's a short enough night and you'll need it all tomorrow. There isn't really anything to be afraid of, you know. None of those bastards out there's going to come any nearer, and we've plenty of wood to last till morning."

  She gave him a quick kiss on each cheek and went back to her place. Her head still ached, but she felt in better spirits for their talk. Yet how strange-what he had said of Zen-Kurel and Anda-Nokomis! She couldn't tell what to make of it. Both the forest clamor and the eyes were still as present as ever, yet now she was so tired that she was past all caring. They can eat me in my sleep, she thought; I wouldn't even bother to wake. Soon she was sleeping as soundly as any healthy sixteen-year-old in the world.

  90: DOWN THE DAUUS

  When Maia awoke, in daylight, the first sight that met her eyes was Zen-Kurel standing a few yards away and looking intently down at her. Somehow she had the feeling that he had been doing so for a little while. His expression was certainly not one of dislike. It was difficult to feel sure exactly how it struck her; it suggested at one and the same

  time both aloofness-well, distance, say-and a kind of wistful admiration; rather as a man might look while standing beside a lake and watching a graceful boat passing offshore. However, it was only there for a second, for she had hardly met his gaze before he had glanced away.

  She looked around her. There was no one else in sight. Uncertain and alarmed, she addressed him directly for the first time since Suba.

  "Where are the others?"

  "They've gone hunting."

  But he hadn't, she thought. Why not? If they were going hunting, the obvious person to leave behind would have been Anda-Nokomis.

  He said no more, and she began to feel tense and embarrassed. After a little
she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, got up and went into the undergrowth to pass water and get cleaned up as best she could.

  She remained there until she heard the others coming back.

  The only person who had had any success was Meris, who had shot a fair-sized monkey. Zirek had missed a parrot and lost the arrow. It was clear, however, that both he and Bayub-Otal were in better spirits, while Meris, when Maia congratulated her, came close to smiling.

  "I always could shoot," she said. "Latto used to say I had a natural eye. You never know what's going to come in useful."

  "Oh, I don't know; sometimes you do," said Zirek, looking at her with his head on one side. Maia had to turn away to conceal her amusement. Yet all the same, she thought, perhaps there had once been a time when Meris's ways had had power to give him pain.

  Zen-Kurel gutted, skinned and quartered the monkey with Maia's knife and they roasted it over the glowing ashes. It tasted better than she had expected; especially the kidneys, which they shared between them. Wiping her knife and sheathing it at her belt, she recalled what Zirek had said about the gods intending them to survive. Well, it wouldn't hurt to believe it: he himself evidently did. She only wished that she, like him, had the assurance of gaining everything she desired in the world.

  Setting off westwards into the forest, they soon found themselves lost in the same dim maze as before. Indeed, thought Maia, one might suppose it to be the very ground

  they had covered yesterday. In this place there were no landmarks, no localities, no distinctive features at all. The thought of the identical miles of jungle extending round them began to fill her with despair.

  She was plodding behind Zirek, thinking wretchedly of her house in Bekla and wondering what might have happened to Occula, when Zen-Kurel, who was in front, turned quickly round, a finger to his lips, and gestured to them to remain still. For a moment she felt afraid, until she saw that he was not. The next instant he had crouched down, pointing towards a place a little way ahead where the undergrowth and bushes appeared to have been trodden almost fiat.