Stance’s clumsiness at the tiller of the motorcart; such skills are inherited like memories. His growing support of religion over remembered facts. His frequent shouts of ‘I remember that!’ as though his memory was being challenged. I recalled an incident in the motorcart: Stance swinging round, his face crimson in the glow from the firebox, shouting at Dad, Yes, you’d like to betray me, wouldn’t you, you freezer! Many, many things.
“But why did he kill your dad?”
“Last thaw there was a big argument between Wand and my uncle about crop failures. Stance invented a memory to prove his point and Dad caught him at it. Later on I was inspecting my boat, and I overheard Dad tell Stance he was thinking of withdrawing his support. I think Stance thought Dad was on the verge of exposing him and taking over the chiefship. Dad would never have done that, of course. I don’t think Stance appreciated the extent of Dad’s loyalty. Next day, Dad was killed.”
“Surely… . After all those years, he wouldn’t think your dad would suddenly tell on him, just like that?”
“I don’t think he’s quite right in the head. It’s more than just his memory lobe’s gone wrong. Life was easy for a long time, but this last year things haven’t gone well for the village. He didn’t have the memories to deal with the situation. He came in for criticism. He began to feel everybody was against him. And then the ultimatum from his own brother, who talked about kicking his last support away. It was too much.”
“But to decide to kill his brother?”
“He had Trigger to think of, too. If Stance’s memory is flawed, then so is Trigger’s, obviously. If Dad had exposed Stance, Trigger would never be chief.”
“I can see that. But why does he want to kill you?”
“The memory of his coming-of-age is like a—” I searched for the right word and finally had to use a human expression, “—time bomb. Just waiting to go off. He didn’t know Dad had put it under geas. And even if he had known, sooner or later I might find a reason to break the geas. Which I did. And unlike Dad, I feel no loyalty to Stance.”
“So what happens now?”
“There’s only one thing to do. I have to confront the freezer in the presence of witnesses. I won’t be safe until then.”
But confronting the freezer was not a thing to be rushed into. It had to be planned, and the right moment chosen. And there were other priorities.
When Charm and I arrived back at Noss, the grume was full and the place was buzzing with activity. It was not a good time to talk to people about my problems. The grume was here, and the grume couldn’t wait.
“I have something to tell you, Mom, and I want you to be sensible about it,” Charm said to Lonessa.
“I’m always sensible,” said her mother cautiously.
“I’m going to live with Hardy.”
“You’re what?” the redoubtable womanchief shouted. “Not in my village you’re not! And Walleye won’t have you in the men’s village, either!”
“So we’ll live in the cottage down by the old ferry wharf. And it’s no good puffing yourself up like that, Mom. I bet you’d have jumped at a chance to live with Hardy’s dad. So simmer down.”
“That cottage is not a fit home for a daughter of mine.” Lonessa recognized Charm’s determination and commenced a rearguard action. “The roof’s fallen in. It’s full of drivets. It hasn’t been lived in since the ferry was in operation.”
“So we’ll fix it up. You might as well give in gracefully, Mom. It’s much more dignified that way, in front of Hardy.”
“And you expect that grubber to fit in here, in Noss?”
“Hardy would fit in anywhere if it meant living with me,” said my girl, with a supreme confidence that left her mother speechless.
We left her gaping like a fish stranded by the grume, and strolled hand in hand past the men’s village and a scene of frantic activity. Boats were sailing right up to the beach, unloading baskets of fish onto loxcarts, pushing off and tacking back to the fishing grounds just past the bar. Women urged the lox into action, driving the loaded carts to the women’s village where the gutting teams and the drying racks waited. Lorin ambled here and there helping out, encouraging the lox, their relaxed demeanor contrasting with the bustle around them.
“There’s Cuff,” said Charm with a chuckle.
He’d just brought his skimmer in. He saw Charm and me as he was stepping onto the muddy beach. His face darkened. All movement ceased. He was trying to decide whether to unload his fish, or smash my face in. He hung there, one foot out and one foot in his boat. A huge grummet swooped, alighted on the gunwale and started to wolf down fish from one of his baskets. He swatted at it with a snarl of temper and, the spell broken, began to offload his catch onto the beach while a companion carried it to the loxcarts.
“It must be a terrible thing, losing a girl like you,” I said.
“He never really wanted me, not the way you do. His pride’s hurt, that’s all. It made so much sense to people — the manchief’s son and the womanchief’s daughter. It seemed to tie up loose ends. But it took no account of love.”
As we walked on past the men’s village we could see the far headland, the sky a blizzard of whirling birds. We could hear them too, a continuous yelling din bouncing from the cliffs and echoing up the estuary. A group of long-legged loats scrambled ponderously down the opposite bank, making for a narrow beach where they could use their wide jaws to good purpose. The surface of the water was littered with weed, dying and dead things and the occasional wrecked boat, all brought up by the grume.
“I’m going to teach you to swim,” said Charm.
“Not in all that muck, you’re not.”
“It won’t look like that for long. That stuff drifts ashore. The water’ll be clean in a few days. And the grume’s the very best time to learn to swim because you can’t sink. Listen, would you mind walking a bit faster? I need to be made love to.”
We spent several days making the cottage habitable, visited frequently by Charm’s dad who brought us small items of furniture and pottery. He offered to take me in his fishboat.
“Not until he can swim,” said Charm. “And he has his own skimmer, remember? He has to learn to sail, too. He’s not very good at it.”
“He can’t sink, not with the grume here.”
“He might get eaten by a grume rider while he’s thrashing about in panic. I want to be sure he can handle himself.”
She was adamant, and her dad went away chuckling. On the other hand Lonessa ignored us, apart from one occasion when she walked by on her way to the cliff top while we were repairing the roof. Her eyes definitely swiveled in our direction, but her head didn’t turn and she made no acknowledgment of our presence.
“She’ll come round,” Charm assured me. “Stubborn old fool. After her tantrum she feels obliged to make a stand.”
The swimming lesson took place three days after our arrival. The sun was warm, although not as hot as other years, when Charm took me down the ancient stone slipway. I wore my shorts; Charm wore a very attractive two-piece costume of human fabric. At first I thought the whole episode was going to be worthwhile because of the way she looked, but matters soon took a turn for the worse. The slipway was well named. My feet slid on slick weed and I tobogganed into thick cold water. I scrambled back onto dry land, spluttering and very scared.
“That’s good,” said Charm. “That’s a start. Now you know what it’s like. It’s given you confidence.”
“No, it hasn’t.” The sun seemed to have grown small and cold and Raxlike, and a bitter breeze swept in from the sea. A commotion started up about twenty paces offshore; big slow bubbles welling to the surface and bursting with an audible pop. I could visualize a huge carnivore lurking down there, exhaling, deciding to come up and see if there was any food around, such as a struggling grubber.
“We’ll wade in together.”
“Not until that thing’s gone.”
The bu
bbles reached a crescendo of popping, and suddenly a long shadowy thing reared from the depths and settled on the surface, rocking and shedding sluggish drops of water. I stepped back with a yell of dismay, lost my footing and sat down heavily.
Charm laughed. “It’s only the old ferry, silly. It sank at its moorings one drench, generations ago. It always comes back up at this time of year.”
“Yes, well I didn’t know that, did I? I thought… . Well, never mind what I thought.” The thing bobbed there, maybe twelve paces long, black and rotting and sinister, its weed-draped anchor line still in place.
“Ready then?” She took my hand and hauled me to my feet. I scanned the water warily. At least most of the initial muck had floated ashore by now. Further out, fishboats sailed out to sea, exchanging banter with returning boats low in the water. Cuff might be in one of those boats, laughing at my fear.
“I’m ready.” I took a deep breath and waded out, Charm at my side. The water was atrociously cold, as though I’d stepped onto the very surface of Rax itself. Terror rose within me but the warm hand of Charm kept it from getting the better of me.
“That’s far enough. Now we’ll sit down, and you’ll find you’re floating. Just don’t worry about the cold. You’ll get used to it. Remember, the sea never freezes, and grume water is warm.”
It didn’t feel warm to me. The sitting down brought on an even stronger anxiety attack. Then Charm began to fool around with my shorts and distracted me. I retaliated by investigating her costume, and soon we were laughing and splashing about like a couple of kids. Losing my fear, I tried to swim. It was easy enough; I lay on the water and sculled myself along. We circumnavigated the old ferry, returned to the dock and played around some more. Somehow the top of Charm’s costume came off. I swam away with it, Charm chasing after me, yelling breathless threats. Finally, she pronounced me a proficient swimmer and we returned to the cottage.
It was one of the last really good times.
That night I had a peculiar dream. I’ve mentioned that our dreams are very like backflashes; they’re old memories that surface involuntarily. They could come from further back than a person has ever stardreamed. So, unlike your human dreams, they’re completely realistic. In this dream I took on the persona of Dad. Three of us: Dad/me, Stance and Granddad made a pilgrimage to Pallahaxi, the holy fount.
We stood at the end of the main street. The houses, now roofless shells, climbed the hillsides on either side of the basin of the small harbor. There were no boats, no people, nothing. Nobody lived in Pallahaxi. It was a shrine, home of the legendary Browneyes, visited only by pilgrims. I was supposed to be impressed, but I wasn’t. It was all such a decayed mess. I didn’t know where to look, to find something to be impressed by.
The young Stance said, “Can we go back to the motorcart now?”
Granddad looked sad. “Doesn’t this place do anything to you, son?”
“Yes, it bores me.”
Legends tell that Pallahaxi is where our memories start. Granddad had hoped a visit to Pallahaxi would trigger off Stance’s memory lobe, but it wasn’t happening. We walked along the harbor wall and soon arrived at a building much the same as the others, except that parts of it had been renewed by templekeepers over generations of pilgrimages. It would be uncomfortable to live in, but at least it was in better repair than anywhere else in the town. Over the door was a device painted gold: a soaring grummet.
“The birthplace of Browneyes,” intoned Granddad impressively. “She lived there with the great Drove, who came from Alika.”
Stance stared up at the device, his mouth hanging limply open, an oafish expression on his face. “So we’ve seen it. Let’s go home now,” he said.
“We’ll go to the cannery,” snapped Granddad. “We haven’t come all this way to give up now.”
The cannery is another shrine and a really strange one. Close to Pallahaxi, it covers a lot of flat land near the marshes. We had to watch our step because ice-devils abound in the pools here. The cannery is a huge building of stone blocks that will endure for ever. It’s gray and forbidding, surrounded by posts of metal so rusted that many of them have disappeared entirely.
“What an awful place,” said Stance. “What’s so holy about this?”
Legend has it that the cannery was built to protect our ancestors against the onslaught of savage animals, and that they sat out the Great Freeze here, to emerge triumphant and memory-rich. Led, of course, by Drove and Browneyes. It’s an inspiring legend, but nobody I know has ever had the inclination or the ability to stardream back far enough to prove its truth.
We strolled through the main entrance into the cannery building. Pilgrims had set up little shrines here and there: benches with artifacts, statues of the Great Lox often dragging the sun-god Phu in his wake. We came across one shrine that must have been someone’s sick joke: the sun-god in the clutches of the ice-devil Rax. Rax had some twenty arms made of dried vines, and his clay face wore an expression of gloating lust.
In a smaller chamber we found a huge heap of wafer-thin ashes.
“Books,” explained Granddad. “Full of writing, to teach people and to help them remember. They burned the books because the sun-god Phu had given them perfect memories during their stay in this holy place. They had no need of books any more.” He glanced at Stance, who was looking mildly interested. “Come one, we’ll go deeper into this place.”
“Not me,” said I/Dad. “It gives me the creeps.”
I awakened to find daylight streaming into the cottage and Charm tickling my face with a grummet feather. I told her about the dream. There were valuable memories in there. The time might come when they would be useful.
Later that morning my mother and Faun arrived unexpectedly on loxback, having spent the night at Mister McNeil’s place. It was good to see them. Charm welcomed them — warily, I thought — and we sat down with mugs of stuva.
“What brings you here, Spring?” my girl asked suspiciously. “You haven’t been talking to Lonessa, have you?”
Spring hesitated, blue eyes regarding us worriedly. “Lonessa? No.”
“Thank Phu for that. She has some funny notions, my mom.”
“But I do have a favor to ask. Wand asked me to get Hardy’s advice about the way things are going in Yam.”
I was stunned into silence. When did my advice ever count for anything in Yam?
“Why Hardy?” asked Charm.
“Hardy has our longest male memory line. He’s an obvious person to advise us. And… . I wanted to see you, Hardy. I couldn’t really believe you were still alive.”
“It’s really me, Spring.” I reached out and took her hand. “But why do you say I have the longest memory line? What about Stance and Trigger?”
She regarded me steadily. “You can’t fool me, Hardy. You know about Stance, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Dad had it under geas. I broke the geas. It was necessary. So you knew about it, too?”
“Of course I did. Your dad and I were very close. Nobody else knows.”
“Just as well for them. Faun, you must never mention this to anyone, all right? Never.” People who knew of Stance’s deficiency were at risk.
“If you say so, Hardy.”
We discussed generalities for a while, then I asked, “So what’s been going wrong in Yam?”
“Religion. Your uncle is a good speaker, I’ll say that for him. He’s deposed the templekeeper and taken over himself. He gets up in the pulpit and rants on about how the sun-god Phu is withholding his warmth because he’s angry with us and needs propitiating. And certainly it’s been getting colder every year, and Stance’s explanation seems as good as any other. In fact there isn’t any other. He’s carrying people with him, and there’s even talk of a mass pilgrimage to Pallahaxi! I suppose they’ll pray to Drove and Browneyes to saddle up the Great Lox and haul the sun back into the sky, or whatever it is they’re supposed to do. Can you believe it? W
hen now, of all times, they should be tending crops and hunting game!”
“Stance always did have a religious streak in him. Maybe the stress of leadership has sent him over the edge, now he doesn’t have Dad to bail him out.”
“I think he killed your dad,” she said flatly. “Killing is easier for him; he doesn’t have the same urge to protect old memories that we have. For some reason or other he thought Bruno was going to betray him. If only he’d asked me! You dad would never have betrayed his own brother. He was absolutely loyal. I used to pull his leg about it.”
“Stance didn’t have the sense to realize that.” I told them about the argument I’d overheard between Stance and Dad. “That’s why he killed Dad. Just a few words, maybe badly chosen.”
It came as no surprise to my mother. “I thought so. I thought he’d killed you, too.” The round eyes were shining with tears. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I got word you were here in Noss.”
“I couldn’t bear to think you were dead,” said Faun, and was rewarded with another suspicious look from Charm.
“I think it was Stance who knocked a hole in my boat last year. How did he take the news I’d, uh, cheated death again?”
“He went berserk, raving around the village. He’s saying you killed your dad, and the hunters are on his side. It’s a funny thing about hunters; they love a violent leader. If you’d been anywhere other than Noss, they’d have come and dragged you away. But even Stance realizes he can’t afford to offend Noss.”
Charm broke a long silence. She’d been watching Spring with an unreadable expression. “Spring, what else did you come here for?”
Spring looked at her. “You’re no fool, are you? If you really want to know, Wand told me to persuade Hardy to come back to Yam. She thought Faun might help.”
“Mom would think that,” said Faun sadly, gazing around the interior of the cottage, finishing up with a frank appraisal of Charm. “But Hardy looks very comfortable here. We’re wasting our time.”
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