by Tanith Lee
Hone was a big man, tall, brawny and fat, and though there was no hair on his head and he had no eyebrows or lashes, a beard sprouted from his face and hung to his belly, full of things he never bothered to comb away. He wore a bandit’s case of leather and brass; in his belt were three knives of varying and exaggerated size. Now Hone grinned, and his six remaining front teeth put the watchers on the village street in mind of a happy hungry jackal.
“Hey you!” shouted Hone. “Fetch your headman!”
And when response was not immediate, he strode up to the nearest villager and belted him senseless with his brass-knuckled fist. The others of course ran to do Hone’s bidding.
Hone looked round. He was thinking over to himself all the good things that were obviously on offer here. He had found villages like this in the past, and he always enjoyed a long and prosperous stay. Some even had treasures in gold and jewels tucked away, in their temple perhaps, (Hone was neither religious nor superstitious.)
Back came the mobile villagers with their headman, who had a small ruby in one ear.
“You’ll give me that,” stated Hone, pointing.
The headman, already sweating and swallowing, inquired why he should.
Hone, instead of knocking him over, encircled the headman’s shoulders with one meaty arm. In a friendly tone, he set about enlightening him. “You see, dearie, if you and yours don’t do exactly as I say, my mates, who are a few days behind me on the road here, will make a nasty mess of you all when they arrive. That’s if I don’t make a nasty mess first. And Hone tweaked the headman’s nose playfully, causing it to bleed. “Got a daughter?” he added.
“Two,” choked the headman. He appended carefully, “Sir.”
Hone asked their ages, plumpness, and at the reply his grin broadened.
The surviving villager said, “This gentleman and his mates have obviously come here because of the hill.”
Hone reckoned he was quick, and life had never lessoned him otherwise. Now he turned, and in the westering rays of the sun, squinted at the wooded slopes above the village. He noticed that none of the goats grazed there, though the grass was lush, and that no part of the hill had been cleared to make a field or vineyard. There were no tracks. The houses stopped in a row at the hill’s foot. But for now he only said, “What’s for dinner?” And urged them to lead him somewhere for a feast.
Hone dined lavishly in the headman’s hall, waited on by the headman’s shivering wife and sister, who, being too mature for Hone’s taste, he merely tormented, spooning scalding soup on their wrists and wiping off butter in their hair. Since he had demanded each of the important men of the village be present, there they were, and by calling on the headman’s wine casks, Hone had seen to it that all were fairly drunk.
As the sun began to sink through the fine glass window, Hone addressed the frightened and addled company.
“Now tell me about this hill of yours.”
A silence resulted. Hone freed a knife and turning to one of his neighbours, the baker, he cut off one of his fingers. “What did I say?” asked Hone.
“The hill is enchanted.”
“Demons and weird spirits have charge of it.”
“No one dares venture there.”
“Who would want to?” said Hone, craftily.
“Many have wanted to. Legend says there’s treasure at the top of marvellous value,” said the village scribe. “They go by night –”
“Why fear the hill?” interrupted Hone.
“Whoever goes up there,” said the village blacksmith in a loud voice, “is never seen or heard of again. Two men went up the hill one night in my boyhood. One was betrothed to my sister, who he loved, and the other too had good reasons to come back. But neither man was ever seen after that night.”
Hone brooded in thought. Though to help his cogitations, he reached over to his other neighbours, the butcher and the carpenter, and cracked their heads together.
Undoubtedly something valuable was on the hill, for often these tales of banes and vanishments surrounded such hoards – in order to keep off fools.
Presently Hone spoke. “It’s my bedtime, where’s the bed?” And he threw a heel of bacon at the headman’s wife.
Naturally, Hone did not entirely trust the villagers. Therefore he did not call for the plump daughters, but lay on the headman’s bed – now his own – until the village was in darkness. Then Hone got up, sidled out, and took his way off up the hill.
The moon was high, and white as if afraid. The stars shone like knife points. It was black under the trees, but shadows did not trouble Hone. There was nothing else there, certainly, and in the scared-clear moonlight Hone did not discern the trails of foxes; he disturbed no feeding hare, heard no sound but his own footfalls and the slosh of the wine he had brought.
But there was nothing in that. The climb was long but not difficult, for Hone was strong and used to exercise.
He reached the hill’s summit as the moon was going down the other side.
Up on the hill top was a ring of perfect quiet so intense Hone might have been dropped in there like a pebble, but the ripples he made were silence. The hill top was, in addition, bare of anything. Hone stamped about, not pleased, until his foot kicked against a square flat stone set into the ground. The bandit knelt, and putting his largest knife under this stone, levered it up. On show then, in the departing moonlight, was an empty hollow in the earth. Cursing, Hone peered into it. There were only some pale shards of stone lying in the hollow. Hone realised they spelled the words gone away.
Hone jumped to his feet, knife much in evidence. A trick? He glared snarling at the trees, but no one was there. Only silence sat on the hill with Hone wriggling in her lap.
Presently, very much discouraged, the bandit sat also, and fell asleep with his back to the tree, dreaming vengeance on the village in the morning.
And while he slept, an owl circled the hill once, but did not fly over it.
Up with the lark was Hone the next day.
The sun rose to meet him as he hurtled down the hill in great bounds, making chopping motions with his knife in the air.
He gained the village by midmorning, and was delighted to see the main street full of men and women and several plump maidens, most of whom were looking towards the hill with strange wild faces.
“Here I come!” yelled Hone, leaping off the last slope, and bursting out before the crowd. “You rabbits’ phlegm, now you’ll learn what it is to make a joke at Hone’s expense!”
The crowd stared on, transfixed.
Hone came to the bandaged baker, and shouted in his face: “You’re first!” And something odd struck Hone. The baker did not flinch or try to draw away. The baker only stared, unmoved, straight through Hone and up the hill.
Hone lashed out with his knife. He meant to take off the baker’s nose, and was astonished when he missed. He tried again. The baker’s nose stayed pristine before him. So then Hone bashed the baker in the face – and Hone saw his own arm had passed right through the baker and out the other side, and when he drew it back again, it left the baker standing there unblemished and – worse – in complete ignorance of the blow.
“Here I am,” said Hone to the baker cautiously.
Then to the village, and the world, he bellowed: ”Here! Here!” But no one looked at Hone, no one listened. And those he touched and pushed and thumped and finally pulled at and begged, these did not see him or hear him, or feel him either. His hands and knives went through them like smokes, and through everything indeed.
“Well,” snuffled the headman to the crowd, “this time it was lucky for us, the hill.”
“Whoever goes there goes by night,” said the scribe.
“And is never more seen or heard of,” smugly finished the headman’s wife.
And it is a fact, Hone never was seen or heard of, ever again.
Seeing, Believing
(From an Idea by Mike Ashley)
You say my English is quite good now. S
o I will write this for you in English. You won’t believe it. What an imaginative story, you’ll say. And give me a little prize. I should like the metric ruler, please, with the golden tiger painted on both sides.
When I was in my village, one day Ranjish said to me, “What is it like, Meera, not being able to see?”
And I said, “I don’t know.” But then I thought, and I said, “You say when the elephants come to drink at the river, they have long noses that are trunks.”
“Yes,” said Ranjish, “so they do.”
“Well,” I said, “suppose one of the elephants said to you, what is it like, Ranjish, not having a trunk?”
Ranjish laughed. “I don’t know, Mrs Elephant.”
“It’s like that for me,” I said. “I don’t know what it’s like, not having something I never had.”
I was born blind, and my mother and sisters cried for days. I think one of the old women said I shouldn’t have been born at all. But my father said, “This is her life, this time. And she must live it.”
In my world there was everything. All these sounds and smells, and touching things, and the warmth of them, and the coolness. I remember all those pulses of heat and cool and wet and stillness and movement. And the noises of them all. The daytime house was spice and sweat and smoke, and the grain I learned to grind for bread, and the sticky smell of the rice. My sisters singing, and me singing, and the radio with its nice songs playing. And at night, the smell changed. After-scents of food, and clean skin from washing, and spilled water, and my father’s cigarettes.
Outside – goats, smooth, prickly, butting, going “maaa”. Strong goat smell, loud with health. And perfumes that now I think have colours all their own, from the women’s hair and clothes. And milk, the village smells of milk. And powdered earth. And beyond the village is the forest.
The forest has other smells and other sounds. In parts of the year the forest smells wet, and at different times like dry fire. Monkeys scream, and their shadows go over in a flash of cool. Frogs go like clocks – tick, tick, click, clock. Parrots – like funny musical instruments. Smell of feathers. Smell of sun on feathers and leaves, and deep wet places.
The old women, some, said, “She will go where she shouldn’t, the blind one. Tread on a snake. Meet tiger.”
My father, who told me stories, said to me, “Snakes sound like this.” And he pulled something – was it his tie for the town? – through the dust, and then through the leaves in the scented bush by the door. “Tiger is hot,” said my father.
My mother said, “If you know the tiger comes, kneel down, as you do to the gods. Bow your head and speak softly. Praise him. He’ll let you alone.”
Our gods live in the house by one wall. But really, they’re over the sky, and everywhere. They smell sweet from the honey and butter and milk offerings, and from the little flame that burns there. They feel smooth as the smoothest stone. Something comes from them, too. Not smell or touch.
A feeling. You can be afraid of it, or just not worry, just give in. And then it’s kind. Kind like a father or mother.
Kind like very soft.
Last year when I was, you told me, ten, I walked down the village street. And the old women loudly whispered “Look at her, the blind one. Look at her blue eyes.” Which I thought just meant my eyes looked nasty to them. But the old women sounded nasty to me.
By the well, where the smell of the wet is, cold, warm, and I could hear the grasshoppers singing, Ranjish came up, with the sense of Ranjish, Coca-Cola and bounce and running about. “Come to the ruined temple, Meera.”
“I want to get some water.”
“Get the water, then come.”
“All right.”
But Ranjish got the water, hauling it up, and I only took the pot. He shouldn’t have done that. It seemed he liked me. What does he look like?
We haven’t got a word for ‘Thank you’, or for ‘Please’.
I expect you know this. It’s because no one is supposed to have to plead for anything, and if anything is given them, then it should be given freely. So, no please, no thank you.
After the water, I came back. I said to Ranjish, “Which temple?” I hope you notice I say in English ‘Which’. That’s correct grammar, isn’t it? I do want that ruler, for the tiger.
Of course, I’m translating what I really said. What I really said wasn’t like that. Ranjish said that some trees had been cleared a bit, and a temple had appeared out of the depths of the forest, all covered in creepers. But the temple was haunted by a demon, or ghost.
“Who says so?”
Then the others, who had come up, laughed. “Everyone says so. The man who drives the bus – the old man who wanders about – Mrs Heaven, (that is the proper translation of her name), who went there after a stray cow – she said a ghost came out and she felt it was near and ran away in terror.”
“What is it like?”
Ranjish said, “No one has seen it.”
I don’t know if Ranjish knew, when he said that, how I’d feel. Maybe not.
But I thought: No one sees the ghost. I don’t see anything. Here’s something they can’t do like I can’t do. (Or is it, as I can’t do...?)
So, I went.
Which wasn’t good, because I had things to help with in the house, with my mother, who has six other daughters, and I am the seventh.
The old women whispered behind me, like the grasshoppers. I think they turn into grasshoppers, in the end.
In the forest, one of the girls tried to guide me, but Ranjish explained she didn’t need to. I sensed things – could feel them, a sort of different air around them. So I didn’t bang into trees, or step on sharp stones, or fall.
Ranjish seemed proud of me. This was nice. But then we came to the temple.
How to tell you about this? I know, you would look, and see, how walls went up, and the pavilions of old marble, and lattice screens with lots of little holes the sun shone through. And great creepers, and flowers, and birds flying away.
Well, I could smell the marble – wet-dry smell. And smell the cool of the shadow falling between us and the sun. And the key-holes of light. And hear the clatter of wings. The temple was heavy. I could feel it hanging there. Sky open and then turned into stones.
We went in.
I heard them whispering, not like the old women. And then I knew they’d gone, Ranjish and the other boys, and the girls. I felt their warmth and spice-smell and live-skin smell melt away.
They had brought me, then left me.
In the past, sometimes people had been cruel to me. I mean, like when the little girl who was my cousin tried to make me put my hand in the fire I couldn’t see. But of course I felt the fire before I touched it. And other things.
Now they’d brought me here into the temple and left me, for the demon-ghost.
I turned around. It was cold, and – dark. Yes, it must have been dark. It felt the way I know dark is now. And heavy wet air.
Carvings – I felt them under my fingers. And water, cool, round water in a tank.
I sat on the edge of the tank. I thought, my father would come home, and he would know they’d brought me here. Somehow he would. And he’d find me. I only had to wait.
And the gods knew as well. They see all things. There’s no need ever to be afraid.
Then, the dark grew deeper, wetter, heavier.
And then – I saw the ghost.
I saw it.
This is hard to describe to you. You see, where you have eyes, where you see – for me, never. There was nothing. Just – nothing. Not darkness, or brightness. Just – an open closed space with not a thing in it.
But now, suddenly, there in that space, which normally for you, would have all sorts of images and colours, there was this – thing.
It was – I think now, I think it was – blue. Very pale blue, and very glowing. Inside my head.
I jumped up. I screamed. I heard my scream rush round the upper places of the temple, and bats rose like a w
ind. I could smell them.
But in my head, this thing – like a flame – stood, trembled, was. No smell, no sound. No feel. But I saw it. Saw – saw –
I was lying on the ground, but it came closer, it came and trembled over me. And then I saw the shape, and it was a shape, of course, I didn’t understand. It was this way: (have I got the mark right? A dot over a dot – what do you call it? Colon:) A mass at the top, flowing and shifting. And then a long shape that went in a bit about halfway down, and under this split into two. But it split above that also, into two. And the two long upper parts waved about.
Then everything slowed down. And then it drew away. And it moved, still. But now, it moved in a sort of music. I mean, it was a pattern. It surged and shifted. The long upper split parts, and the upper mass, all lifting and flowing and the two lower split parts, all flowing. It was graceful. It was beautiful. And then I felt the beauty of it. After all, it had a feeling.
I sat up. I watched it. I remembered something from a story my father had told me. Then I realised that the ghost was dancing. And then I realised that what I had seen was a head with long hair, and two arms, and a body, and two legs.
I was like this too. This shape. Just the same.
Then the glowing ghost got smaller and smaller, and I knew it was going away.
I said, “Don’t go.” And then, “What shall I bring you?”
But the ghost got so small, and then it darted to one side, and vanished. I thought it had gone behind something. Something had hidden it from me, in the way it happens if you can see.
For a long while I stayed there, but the day was changing, growing late, so then I found my way down carefully, and as I was coming out into the warmer, thicker place that was the forest, I heard my father running up, calling me.
“Ranjish has been beaten,” said my father, as he carried me home on his shoulders. I had forgotten Ranjish. “But someone has come to talk to you, my Meera.”
I was sleepy. When we got home, my mother gave me a cup of milk, and then a man who smelled of disinfectant talked to me, as my father had said. It was the English doctor. He examined my eyes, gently, and his breath bloomed with mint.