Pallahaxi

by Michael Coney

  Spring brought me food every day, the last of the meltwater dried up, and at last I felt ready to leave the house.

  EARLY SUMMER

  I’d paid my debt. People behaved as though nothing had happened. It was kind of them, considering how pervasive memory is. I strolled around the men’s village and heard the news of the latest hunt — which wasn’t good — and I visited the woman’s village and heard similarly gloomy news about the crops.

  Uncle Stance invited me to join his hunting team on their next outing in two days’ time. It was apparently a gesture of goodwill, so I accepted. Caunter would be going too, and Trigger, and some twenty Yam notables. Word had arrived of game moving near Totney, a day’s loxride away. We couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity.

  The day of my release was sunny and pleasant but this warm weather — people never tired of pointing out — was late in coming. Soon I became sick of the gloom and despondency around me and set out for my little stardreaming pool to lose myself in happier days of the past. Moreover, it was time I justified my elevated position in Yam by absorbing a few generations of experience. Dad once told me he’d stardreamed as far back as twenty generations. Not so far back as the mythical Drove and Browneyes, but far enough to get a good idea of what life was all about.

  I flopped down on the gentle slope that fell away to the water. All was quiet apart from the distant bellowing of a breeding lox. Alone in my private place, I lit my pipe, composed myself and opened up my memory.

  Dad was with me, you understand? In my mind. I missed his presence, but not so wrenchingly as a human would. He will always be there and I can always visit him, any time I want. So, stardreaming, I hurried back through Dad’s early life with which I was already familiar. Soon I was dawdling among Granddad’s happier days, sidetracked as usual by fascinating byways. It takes a lot of discipline to stardream purposefully.

  “Hey, there’s a couple of girls coming this way, look!”

  Rax! I’d stumbled across the begetting of the Nowhere Man again! Maybe it was a bad day for serious stardreaming after all. I worked my way forward into more recent times, living dear old Dad’s life. I searched here and there with the vague idea of finding an alternative reason for his death, since my Cuff theory threatened political suicide. Had he made any other enemies during his life?

  I came across a scene in a cottage, which after a moment I recognized as Granddad’s place before Uncle Stance took over. Granddad himself sat in an old chair that had been used for firewood during a subsequent emergency. Dad was sitting on the floor; I was conscious of a queer immature excitement from him. Thirty or more men and several women stood around the walls, watching.

  “Breath easily now. Relax and let the smoke do the work. Open your mind.”

  Granddad was talking to a young Uncle Stance. It was his coming-of-age, his first pipe of hatch. The young fool, looking remarkably like Trigger did now, choked and gagged. It was good to see Uncle Stance in unflattering circumstances. Granddad sprang up and pounded him on the back. Dad chuckled. I could tell he felt the same way about Uncle Stance as I did about Trigger.

  In due course the novitiate pulled himself together, blew his nose violently on a handful of moss and stuck the pipe in his mouth for another try.

  “Easy, now,” said Granddad. “Don’t force it.”

  Young Uncle Stance relaxed visibly with his next lungful. Hatch does that to a fellow. He lay back on his bed of furs and puffed away like an expert. Changing expressions flitted over his face. I guessed what he was doing; we all do it in our early days of stardreaming. He was hopping from memory to memory, person to person, not concentrating but picking the most exciting memories as you might pick the ripest fruit from a bowl.

  Then suddenly his face froze.

  “What is it, son?” asked Granddad.

  Uncle Stance didn’t answer. He frowned as though concentrating. Time passed in a breathless silence. Tears crept from under his closed eyelids.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Granddad, an edge to his voice.

  And Dad’s vision suddenly clouded. The memory shimmered and grew hazy. A strong compulsion entered my mind: Move away. Keep off. Go.

  Geas.

  Dad had put the memory under geas, and I couldn’t probe any further without betraying his trust in me and my descendants. Did it matter? I wasn’t particularly interested in Uncle Stance’s coming-of-age, but I’d have liked to know what tidbit of family history he’d unearthed.

  Was it something scandalous in Granddad’s past? Something worse than the begetting of the Nowhere Man? I slipped into Granddad’s memories and visited the same scene.

  And the same thing happened.

  Granddad had put the incident under geas too. It was frustrating, but geas is not invoked without good reason. I abandoned stardreaming and strolled to the water’s edge. At this time of year the pool is usually full of flutterfish, those creatures that spend the freeze in hibernation at the bottom of fresh waters, then emerge and fly off when the warm weather comes, their fins grown into rainbow translucent wings. I stared into the muddy depths. There was not a flutterfish in sight.

  That should have told me something.

  But Phu’s rays were warm on my back, and I’d just been released from a long imprisonment, and my spirits were high. I was thinking that the flutterfish were still burrowed in the mud due to the late thaw, when something bright caught my eye.

  I knelt, peering into the pool. A cloud passed across the sun, the glaring reflections eased and the bottom of the pool became clearly visible. A sparkling jewel winked up at me. It was pink and crystalline, held in a silvery setting. It was a common enough design, symbolizing the death of evil, but this particular crystal I recognized by its unusual size and beauty.

  It was Charm’s crystal; the one she’d lost that ill-fated day in Noss.

  How had it got here?

  I supposed at first a flutterfish had brought it; they’re attracted by bright objects. But my main thought was to retrieve it and return it to Charm. I’d been searching for an excuse to visit Noss again; this could be it. Then perhaps she’d look on me more kindly.

  It lay an arm’s length below the surface. I lay on my stomach and reached into the water.

  The snapping, crackling sound warned me, but too late. I tried to jerk my arm from the water. I couldn’t move it. It was held in a cold and crushing grip. The surface displayed a bright crystalline pattern. I was trapped.

  There was an ice-devil in the pool.

  I shouted until I was hoarse but I was some distance from the Totney track and I doubted that anyone would hear me. I lay face-down, my hand frozen in the act of grasping the crystal, knowing that somewhere down there lurked a many-tentacled thing that would keep me imprisoned until I was dead.

  And that wouldn’t take long, because in due course Phu would drop below the horizon taking his warmth with him, and Rax would rise into the night sky. And I would know fear and cold, and go mad, screaming and thrashing, and then tire and freeze. The ice-devil would sense the stillness in me and, when morning came and the temperature rose, would release me and draw me into the depths, and consume me.

  Unless somebody traveling the Totney road heard me yelling before nightfall. Then they could bring blankets and hot bricks and a tent, and start chipping at the crystals in the hope that the ice-devil would let go. Ice-devils sometimes do that when they feel threatened. But it was unlikely anyone would be traveling the Totney road until morning, when Uncle Stance’s hunting party would pass by… .

  On their way they’d have looked in my cottage and seen I wasn’t there.

  “Irresponsible young freezer,” Uncle Stance would say, with a certain grim satisfaction. “He’s probably gone chasing after that Noss girl. Well, to Rax with him. Come on, men, we have hunting to do!”

  By the time they passed, I’d have been drawn under the surface.

  This thought brought on another bout of screami
ng, but nobody heard. It was unlikely anyone would. They weren’t meant to. This was not the work of a flutterfish.

  No, it bore the mark of careful planning. Somebody, knowing I used this place for stardreaming, had planted the crystal here. It was no accident. Somebody was out to get me. Probably Cuff.

  And he’d succeeded.

  I tried some more screaming but without effect. A shameful loss of composure took me, and I jerked and thrashed and cried until, exhausted, I lay still and wished I’d used my life more gainfully, and been nicer to people.

  That was when I felt the touch on my shoulder.

  It was so unexpected I yelped with fright. I rolled onto my back, my trapped arm twisted painfully behind me, and prepared to fight off some sharp-toothed scavenger come to cheat the ice-devil of its kill.

  But it was only the lorin. Three of them, wide-eyed. They crouched around me, laying hands on me and uttering soft cooing sounds. Their presence was strangely comforting and I relaxed, closing my eyes. Something was happening inside me; I could feel my heartbeat slowing. Under any other circumstances this would have been frightening, but my mind seemed to be slowing as well; my thoughts flowed sluggishly like the grume itself, softly as though pillowed on cloud. I was too comfortable to be frightened; too contented. The lorin pressed close, enfolding me… .

  I awakened.

  I was lying on the grass, well clear of the pool. A light breeze rippled the surface. My arm was red and sore, but undamaged. Charm’s crystal lay in my hand. The sun was low. The lorin had gone.

  I was alive. Life was good.

  Marveling, I walked back to Yam.

  A biological need for comfort took me to Spring’s cottage. I found her lighting her lamps as evening darkened the sky outside. The euphoria generated by the presence of the lorin had worn off by now, and I was trembling with cold and shock.

  “Sit down and tell me what happened,” she said before I could speak; understanding woman.

  “You cut it fine, coming back this late.” This from Wand, lurking in a dark corner like the Nowhere Man. “It’s going to be a cold night for the time of year.”

  I recounted my experience at the stardreaming pool and showed them the crystal while I sipped at a cup of hot stuva. Spring made clicking noises of concern from time to time; Wand listened in silence.

  When I told them about the lorin, Spring said, “They’ve been known to do that before, occasionally. When the mood takes them.”

  I mentioned my suspicions. “There was no ice-devil in the pool last year. So how did it get there? Ice-devils can’t fly, for Phu’s sake.”

  “There was plenty of flooding during the drench,” said Wand. “It could have swum from one of those pools around the river.”

  “My pool’s on high ground. No amount of flooding could have joined it to the Yam. And last drench wasn’t as heavy as usual, anyway.”

  “Are you saying someone put the ice-devil in there deliberately?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me.”

  “More likely some child from the village dropped an ice-goblin in.” Wand seemed determined to make light of the incident. Children keep tiny immature ice-devils in jars for fun; they call them ice-goblins. I’ve kept them myself and fed them with insects.

  “No ice-goblin could have grown big enough during the winter to control a pool that size. I tell you, a full-sized ice-devil must have been moved from its home pool to my pool.”

  “Impossible! There’s no way of getting an ice-devil out of its pool. It would solidify the water as soon as you tried.”

  It would have been easy to lose my temper with the negative old fool, but that would have gotten me nowhere; and after all, she was the Yam womanchief. I tried to reason with her. “All right, now just suppose someone found a way of doing it. Plenty of folk know that’s my stardreaming pool. And plenty of folk know that Noss Charm lost her crystal. Cuff, for one.”

  Wand opened her wrinkled old mouth to object. She looked like nothing more than a dried fish.

  I said quickly, “So it would be quite a simple matter for him to booby-trap the pool and drop the crystal into it, knowing I’d see it there sooner or later.”

  I glanced at Spring for support but she remained silent, a thoughtful expression on her plump, pink face.

  Wand, confounded by my cogent reasoning, took refuge. “It’s a man thing, anyway,” she said dismissively. “Nothing to do with us women.”

  “I’m talking about a Noss man trying to wipe out a Yam family, and you say it’s nothing to do with you? Who will be next? Uncle Stance and Trigger?”

  “Take my advice and stop talking nonsense about Cuff. We’re going to need all the help we can get from Noss, next freeze.”

  “I’m not saying the rest of Noss knows what’s going on. I’m not saying they’d approve of what Cuff’s doing. I’m saying that he, personally, has a grudge against Dad and me. And now Dad’s dead, and I’ve just had a very close call.”

  “We all know your father attacked Cuff, and you’ve been seen with his prospective mate, young fool that you are. But what’s Cuff got against Stance and Trigger?”

  I hesitated. Truth was, I’d tossed them in as makeweights. “It’s vendetta against Yam leadership because of our food shortage. Cuff disapproves of Noss helping us out.”

  “And because of that,” Wand said in sarcastic tones, “he miraculously transported a live ice-devil from Noss to your pool. By Phu, he’s a clever young freezer!”

  Spring said quietly, “That’s all very well, Wand, but you can’t deny there’s something funny going on.”

  “And there was the distil business too,” I said. “Someone switched the cans.”

  “So a few Noss fishermen got drunk on your distil. Foolish and thoughtless. But not murderous. No, you’d be well advised to forget all this stuff, Hardy. You’ve atoned for your misdeeds; now get on with your life. I’m not going to say anything to Stance about it.” She stood, a small wizened woman with an undeniable stock of commonsense, and left us.

  I turned to my mother. “You’re very quiet, Spring.”

  “I’m frightened for you, Hardy.”

  “Because I might blurt out all this, and get confined to the cottage again?”

  “No. I’m frightened you may be right.”

  We sat in silence for a while. Eventually I said, “How can a person live with himself if he’s committed murder?”

  “That’s a young person’s question. That’s why young people are so… good. But once you’ve had your children and done with it, your attitude changes slowly. You get used to the idea that whatever you do, it won’t go down in anyone’s memory. It’s as though nobody’s looking over your shoulder any more. You can do whatever you like.”

  “I’ve never felt anyone’s looking over my shoulder.”

  “You will, more and more as you take on more responsibilities. It can be quite overpowering. And then one day you’ve done your duty and had your children. Suddenly you’re free. It can go to a person’s head.”

  “Are you saying an older person may have killed Dad? And tried to kill me?”

  “You can’t rule it out, Hardy. Don’t be too quick to accuse Cuff.”

  I thought about what she’d said the next day, as I heard the sounds of the hunt assembling in the village square. My anger, which had up to then been directed against Cuff, had overnight become more controlled and logical. First, I must make sure who the culprit was. Then, I must take my revenge, and put it under geas, and hope it stayed there forever. And — I told myself — the revenge was not just a matter of personal satisfaction. It was a safeguard against future murder attempts. I was protecting not only myself, but Uncle Stance and Trigger, and possibly other people in Yam.

  My desire to protect Uncle Stance ebbed somewhat when the cottage door burst open and the arrogant fool himself stood on the threshold, a stocky figure against the daylight.

  “Still in bed, Hardy?”r />
  “I was planning my day.”

  “Your day, as I understand it, consists of accompanying us on the hunt.”

  “I have other plans.”

  “They can hardly be more pressing than saving the village from starvation.” Uncle Stance had a knack of skillfully overstating the case.

  “Actually, they are.”

  Frustrated, he took a step into the cottage. “Get up, you idle young freezer! I don’t have time to stand here arguing with you!”

  “Then go away.”

  It had never occurred to me before to wonder when childhood becomes adulthood. People say it’s was when a fellow becomes capable of siring children, or maybe when he smokes his first pipe of hatch. But in my case they’d be wrong. It was when I came to terms with the death of Dad, realized that I was on my own from now on, and with a decisive action set my course for the future. I couldn’t do that with Dad alive because subconsciously I felt protected all the time.

  My decisive action was to tell Uncle Stance to go away, knowing I wasn’t going to back down. How did I know that? I was possessed by a most vivid backflash, when some far-distant ancestor had made a similar stand against a tall man in a strange uniform. One day I’d track that memory down.

  Uncle Stance was unimpressed by my leap into adulthood. In fairness, he’d just come from sunlight into the dark room and couldn’t see the light of maturity blazing in my eyes.

  “Get out of bed right now!” he shouted.

  There is a disadvantage in lying down with someone towering over you. I rolled out of bed and stood up. I was taller than he. I stepped close to him. It would have been better if I’d had clothes on, but these things can’t always be planned in full detail.

  “I recognize the importance of the hunt,” I said steadily, “so you must understand that when I say I have other plans, they must be of greater importance. We don’t have time to discuss them now. I’ll talk to you when you get back. So off you go, Stance.”

  I dropped the ‘Uncle’ from that moment on.