were too many.
Rigo. Gunning Karl pursed his lips. “So, it’s
“You can’t cross southern Cuffland without
back?”
tripping over a dozen or more gods,” the chief
Keckenhem turned to Sammi and said with
cartographer complained. “And each one
a suggestion of hope, “You might be mistaken,
must be propitiated, lest she bring bad luck.
sor.”
They think every tree is alive.”
But the hillman shook his head. “Sammi
“Innit?” said Bepelo. “I grew up in the forest.”
mistaken only once. He thought he made er-
“No, I mean the southerners believe every
ror but was wrong.”
tree has a god inside it, a ‘triad.’ That’s why
Teo said, “Didn’t you say there were three
the engineers recited those prayers before
columns of refugees? Why divide into three
they started cutting. Everything is a god: the
columns if there were only two routes? What’s
stars are gods, the seas, the winds . . .”
the name of the third gap?”
Teo was acutely aware that his people had
“Madness Gap,” admitted Gunning Karl.
identified the four winds with the gods. Each
Teo laughed, suddenly seeing the humor of
lurked just over the horizon at the four cor-
it. “So . . . there was this fellow Lucky, Fortu-
ners of the world and the wind was their
nado, and . . . I suppose the third column was
breath. The Wise Women would study the
led by some ‘Joe Madne.’”
strength and direction of the winds and fore-
But the others remained solemn. Lar Rigo
tell whether the gods would bring rain or the
said, “Why, what an odd notion, sir. No, of
seasons and such. They were usually right,
course not. It was given that name because any
too. But he had learned from the ironmen that
man who tries to pass through it loses his
World was a sphere and had no corners, let
mind.”
alone four of them, and even the horizons
Teo ran his hand through his hair and
were the illusion of distance and curvature.
looked at Sammi. “That can’t be good.”
Many of the ironmen had come to believe
The hillman shrugged. “Safe enough for stu-
there was only the One-God, which made
pid plainsman. Got nothing to lose.”
sense. A Sphere was One. Besides, everything
in World worked together: predators, prey,
A god in the gap
f lowers, insects, stars rotated in their orbs,
Sammi led them to the location of the gap,
seasons alternated in repeated if somewhat ir-
and Teo ordered the engineers attached to his
regular succession. That consistency argued
regiment to cut down the trees and brush that
either One-God alone or as God-of-all-gods.
blocked the entrance. “We won’t need be a-
Those few strange irregularities, like the
goin’ up the gap ourselfs,” the engineering-
comets thrown about by the Red Sun and the
cārjeñt suggested.
streaks of light that came now and then from
“No,” said Jerry, who was overseeing the
Hole-in-Sky would one day be explained, the
clearance. “We won’t be takin’ no oynocks
Wise Women insisted, when the wind blew
with us.” But the sprock word differed suff i-
from the right direction.
ciently from the xhavla word gazdradi that the
“Southerners have big advantage,” Sammi
man took no shame at the implicit accusation.
said. “Someone say ‘Show me god,’ they just
The cartographers meanwhile laid out a da-
point to tree or star or sea. Most gods not so
tum, surveyed the location, and pricked it off
visible.”
on the charts. Most of them were from north-
Reff smiled. “But how can you develop a
west Cuff land and had either never heard of
knowledge of nature if everything in it has a
Madness Gap or possessed no dread of it.
mind of its own?”
THE JOURNEYMAN: THROUGH MADNESS GAP
77
ANALOG
“Tsenza no matter,” the hillman insisted.
The party came to a halt before a tumble of
“World governed by two Beings: Dharumph
rocks shrouded with vines and bright yellow
and She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. God of evil and
flowers. Jerry reined in and scowled at the ob-
goddess of evil, locked in endless struggle
stacle.
through eternity over who gets to screw us
“I don’t much care for vertical,” he said.
over.”
Sammi snorted and slid off his horse.
Reff Wang cocked an eyebrow. “What! You
“Morning stroll for hillman. See two ways
only have gods of evil? No god of good?”
through, not much climbing.” So saying, he
Sammi waved an arm. “Look around World.
monkeyed up the face of the rubble.
What you think?”
Teo and the others dismounted to wait.
“Hope he don’t expect us to go that way,” Jerry
While Lar Rigo gave every indication of will-
said.
ingness to probe Madness Gap, he could not
Reff Wang said in a speculative tone, “This
help a gust of relief when Teo ordered him to
was surely the basis for the legend.” When
stay behind and conduct the exercise. “We
Teo cocked an eyebrow at him, he explained.
can’t both be on the away team,” he ex-
“According to the old legends a trickster
plained. “And this sort of heroic stunt pretty
god lives in Madness Gap—the Briar Rabbit,
much requires the son of Nagarajan to make it
sometimes the Monkey King or Hanuman de-
happen. I’ll just take a couple of friends with
pending on regional versions of the legend—
me.” He glanced over at Sammi, but Sammi
he enslaves the minds of all who try to pass
looked around as if searching for one of those
through. Since they could not slay the god
friends.
himself, our ancestors attempted to bottle him
“He coulda sent one of the captains,” said
up by closing up the gap.”
Jerry as he watched the lieutenant-colonel re-
Teo nodded toward the rubble. “And that
turn to the headquarters staff. “Orders is or-
was the result?”
ders with these greenies, right?”
“More likely, they encountered the block-
“Yeah, but a good commander knows not
age, and devised the story to account for it.
to give orders that his people will balk at.”
Makes us seem more powerful that way. But
Jerry pulled his chin. “I don’t trust him.”
these matters always proceed in threes. So the
“Who, Rigo? He’s okay. He’s the only one of
first time, they used something called a pran-
the major officers who takes this re
giment se-
naḻ aya or ‘cosmic string’ and it reduced
riously.”
everything to a fine dust.”
“Yah, but he’s a feríkken Lar. What’s he do-
“The first time,” Teo said. “Is that what Ma-
ing in second saddle?”
jor Karl mean when he said, ‘It’s back’? A gap
Jestapul spoke up. “Sors, Cuffland shuffled
in a ridge can’t go away and return, can it?”
six kingdoms into one. Lars were a glut on the
The Royal Cartographer nodded. “That is
market. Those that ain’t attached to the royal
correct, sir. After a few hundreds of sun-cir-
court or the administration mostly sit on their
cuits, the dust began to collect because of the
. . . on their estates. A few, like Lar Feddy keep
Ill Wind.”
busy in tsenza.” Jestapul implied without so
“The Ill Wind?”
much as a change of expression what he
“It blew no good. It drives men mad and, in
thought of men who spent their time in
this case, gathers the dust and hardens it into
leisure. Nor was this the first hint that Teo had
rocks once more. Though that is not one of the
heard of dissatisfaction with “the wastrel no-
three ways the tsenza of geology tells us that
bility.” The roy and his people were sitting on
rocks can form. And so their descendants tried a
an earthquake zone, whether they knew it or
second time and blew the gap to gravel, only this
not.
time they used what they called a ‘new, clear ex-
plosive,’ probably because it was a new way to
The f irst stretch through the gap was an
clear the god from the gap. Or perhaps, as they
easy ride. The ground rose only moderately,
say in the Mayco version of the tale, they had
and the brush was easy for the engineers to
simply forgotten how to make cosmic strings.”
hack aside. “And no one go crazy,” Sammi ad-
Jerry chuckled. “Well, I sure as hell don’t re-
vised them helpfully. “Yet.”
member.”
78
MICHAEL F. FLYNN
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
Teo raised his look-glass to follow Sammi’s
tain of f iref lies in a cave deep inside the
progress. “Let me guess,” he said. “The Ill
mountains north of New Cuffy. There had
Wind reassembled the gravel and the greenies
been a fight once, high up in the air, so long
blew it up a third time.”
ago that the very forgetting had been forgot-
Wang nodded. “Only by then they had for-
ten; and the ships of men had eked out a vic-
gotten how to make the new, clear explosive
tory little better than defeat. The wreckage of
and used something called ‘tent’ or ‘tenet,’
that victory lay scattered and buried across the
and reduced the gap to the rubble we see
face of World.
now.”
Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand felt
Teo collapsed his look-glass and said impa-
more sanguine now about entering Madness
tiently, “Is there a point to the story, Chief, or
Gap. The god of the gap sounded like another
does it just go on and on?”
example of old Commonwealth hiteq, and Teo
The cartographer shrugged. “And now the
was an Authorized Personnel, a “Subadar of
gap has opened once again and I suppose the
Scouts” with a warrant from Jamly-ghost. Al-
roy shall now feel obliged to attempt closing it
though Iabran had decayed to become Yaval-
with thunderpowder, though that will spoil
prawns—and he now supposed a similar fate
the symmetry of the threes.”
to have overtaken Varucciyamen as well—his
Teo abruptly grasped the point of the fable.
warrant had served to gain entry into Phanklar
Everyone knew, from the hill country of Sam-
Noi and the protection of entities called
mi’s folk in the far west to the Great States
“ehyais.” It would probably be suff icient for
here in the east, that men had once com-
safe passage through the gap, too.
manded the lightning itself, and the star men
Sammi reappeared atop the pile of boul-
had travelled between villages in the sky. This
ders. “Hey, stupid plainsman! There’s an easy
legend of the god of the gap was an allegory
way over there: a zigzag path. No climbing.
for the Long Fall from Heaven, during which
Bring my horse.”
arts once known were lost, one by one. The
Teo mounted and clicked his cheeks to his
greenies had started with cosmic strings, a
horse. The hillman had been calling him “stu-
f ine, meaningless phrase that implied great
pid plainsman” ever since they had met at Jam-
mastery, to the new-clear to the tent to the
ly’s shuttle. But this time, for some reason, it
thunderpowder. And each time the destruc-
had sounded genuinely contemptuous.
tion crumbled into larger pieces and reassem-
bled more quickly. Teo wondered whether
Teo clambered atop the boulders beside
the Monkey King would even notice the thun-
Sammi and used his look-glass to study the gap
derpowder.
ahead. Narrow at this point but widening to-
“There must be a simpler way,” he said, and
ward the south, the land was coarse sand-
Jerry, Wang, and Bepelo cast him puzzled
stone shot through with rusty stains. The
glances. “Because,” he explained, “if the Mon-
wind had gathered the loose sand into dunes
key King did not fear something, he wouldn’t
and scoured the rock into strange and fantas-
be hiding in the gap all this time, and what do
tic shapes, though what they were shapes of
we have that compares to this ‘cosmic string’?
hovered just past the horizon of his recogni-
No, there must be some other thing, some-
tion. Along the f loor of the gap, the rocks
thing still within our kennings, that can clear
stood as individual pillars called “John
him out.”
Darms,” but off to the side, these blended into
Reff Wang laughed nervously. “Or else it is
the walls of the gap as a sort of bas relief. The
only a folk tale to explain why this one gap is
pillars, interspersed with squat blocks of vari-
blocked by a landslide.”
ous sizes, grew more plentiful as the land rose
Teo reserved judgment. He had seen too
toward the crest. The brush and trees that had
many strange things in his travels. Jamly-the-
clogged the entrance thinned out and disap-
ghost in the buried shuttlecraft on the distant
peared, as if no rain had fallen in the gap for
prairies; the marvelous book (he no longer
centuries. The other two gaps were bogged
thought of it as magic) that the ironmen
had
down with melting snows; but not here, at
kept as a relic at Cliffside Keep; Phanklar Noi,
Madness Gap. Even the chill of Little Spring
the refuge city crouching behind a deadly cur-
seemed a bit warmer and drier.
THE JOURNEYMAN: THROUGH MADNESS GAP
79
ANALOG
Teo lowered the glass abruptly, and Sammi
“Ye don’t get it,” Teo insisted. “Sammi and
looked at him. “What you see?”
me, we gotta go. We got the warrants from
For an instant, Teo had thought that one John
Jamly-ghost, so we got a chance o’ talking
Darm had had eyes, that it had looked at him.
whatever ghosts live up the gap there down
But it must have been a trick of the light, for
off’n their ledges.”
when he trained his glass once more upon it,
Sammi muttered, “What you mean ‘we,’
there was no such feature. “Nothing,” he said.
bronze man?”
Because only Sammi and he had warrants
“Besides, someone gotta take word back to
from the Commonwealth of Suns, Teo set up a
Lar Rigo . . .” A half dozen engineers raised
base camp on the north side of the rockslide
their hands to volunteer. “. . . and some of ye
and told the others to wait there until he sum-
gotta stay here and hold a base camp. Jestapul,
moned them. Naturally, everyone argued with
that’s you. Put some muskets up here to cover
him. Bepelo and the other westerners did not
the approach from the south. Jerry, I need yuh
believe in these east-continent fables and
to keep up the training in plains-style fighting
weren’t about to cower behind any rocks. Jesta-
for the regiment, so you and Bepelo take the
pul protested that Teo was the colonel of the
engineers back to Lar Rigo. It’s all sand dunes
whole damned regiment and it was not seemly
south of here, so we don’t need their skills.
for him to go out on the away team. Jerry ac-
Sammi, who yuh want to scout with yuh?”
cused him of hogging all the glory for himself.
The hillman heaved a sigh. “Tunny, Jimjim,
“What glory is that, Jerry?” Teo asked.
come with me.” Tunny Xhozeyof was a free-
“I dunno, but if yer goin’ out with just yer pet
lance formerly with House Bear, and Jimjim
hillman as side-rider, there must be some glory
Dancing Deer had ridden under Bepelo with
to be got. That’s the way the songs always run.”
Tiger’s Legion. Both regarded greenie fears
Reff Wang reminded him that the cartogra-
Analog Science Fiction and Fact Page 22