by Brian Aldiss
“That had not occurred to me. I have always thought of an even older allusion, the minotaur of ancient Greek myth, a creature stuck between human and animal, lost in the labyrinths of its own lusts.”
“Presumably you think that the Helliconian humans should allow the phagors to coexist, to maintain the biospheric balance?”
“ ‘Presumably…’ We presume so much.” A long silence followed. Then Sartorilrvrash said, reluctantly, “With the deepest respect to Gaia and her Serpent-Bearing sister out there, they are old biddies at times. Mankind learnt aggression in their wombs. I mean, to use another ancient analogy, humans and phagors are rather Cain and Abel, aren’t they? One or other of them has to go…”
Trumpets sounded above the heads of the gathering. Their voices were muted and sweet, and in no way reminiscent of those work trumpets buried far below their feet—except to Luterin Shokerandit.
The dignitaries in the great chamber swallowed their last bird-shaped pastries and put on reverential faces. Luterin moved among them feeling cumbersome among so many ectomorphic shapes. He lost sight of Insil.
The Keeper and the Master, Insil’s father and husband, were returning down the spiral stair. They had assumed silken robes of carmine and blue over their ordinary clothes, and put on odd-shaped hats. Their faces were as if cast from an alloy of lead and flesh.
Side by side, they paraded to the curtained windows. There they turned and bowed to the assembly. The assembly fell silent, the musicians tiptoed away over creaking boards.
Keeper Esikananzi spoke first.
“You all know of the reasons why Bambekk Monastery was built, many centuries ago. It was built to service the Wheel—and of course you know why the Architects built the Wheel. We stand on the site of the greatest act of faith ever achieved/to be by mankind. But perhaps you will/permissive allow me to remind you why this particular position was chosen by our illustrious ancestors, in what some people regard as a remote part of the Sibornalese continent.
“Let me draw your attention to the iron band running under your feet which divides this dome in half. That band marks the line of latitude on which this edifice is built. We are here fifty-five degrees north of the equator, and standing upon that actual line. As you scarcely need reminding, fifty-five degrees north is the line of the Polar Circle.”
At this point, he gestured to a servant. The curtains concealing the windows were drawn apart.
A view over the town was revealed, looking south. The visibility was good enough for everything to be seen clearly, including the far horizon, bare except for a thin line of denniss trees.
“We are fortunate on this occasion. The cloud has cleared. We are privileged to witness a solemn event which the rest of Sibornal will be commemorating.”
At this point, Master Asperamanka stood forward and spoke, stiffening his speech with High Dialect. “Let me echo my good friend and colleague’s word, ‘fortunate.’ Fortunate we are/tend indeed. Church and State have kept/keeping/will the people of Sibornal united. The plague has been/aspirational eradicated, and we have slain most of the phagors on our continent.
“You know that our ships have mastery of the seas. In addition, we are now/will building a Great Wall to serve as an act of faith comparable with our formidable Great Wheel.
“This is/proclamatory a New Great Age. The Great Wall will run right across the north of Chalce. There will be watchtowers on it every two kilometres, and the walls will be seven metres high. That Wall, together with our ships, will keep/keeping out all enemies from our territory. The Day of Myrkwyr is the harbinger of Weyr-Winter ahead, but we shall live through it, our grandchildren will live through it, and their grandchildren. And we shall emerge in the spring, the next Great Spring, ready to conquer all of Helliconia.”
Cheers and handclaps had sounded throughout this speech. Now the applause was clamorous. Asperamanka stared down to hide the gleam of satisfaction on his face.
Ebstok Esikananzi raised a hand.
“Friends, it is five to noon on this solemn day. Watch the southern horizon. Since it is small winter, Batalix is below that horizon. She will rise again with her puny light in another four tenners, but—”
His words were lost, as everyone pressed to the windows.
Down in the village below, a bonfire had just been lit. The villagers were seen as ants, running about it, arms upraised, swaddled in woollens or furs.
Fresh drink was brought to the watchers in the dome. Mostly, it was drunk as soon as received, and the empty glasses thrust out for more. An unease had settled on the privileged crowd, whose faces made a gloomy contrast to the merry gestures of the ants far below.
A bell began to sound noon. As if in response to its brazen tongue, a change took place on the southern horizon.
On that horizon, the road could be seen as it wound from the village. Elsewhere was unbroken white, trees and buildings standing in frosty outline. Wisps of snow perpetually blew from lodgements, streaming out on the wind like smoke from candles newly extinguished. The horizon itself was clear, and bright with dawn—with sunrise.
Above its crusty line rose a rim of red, a red of heaviness, of congealing blood, the upper part of Freyr’s orb.
“Freyr!” came the exclamation from the throats of all who watched, as if by naming the star they could have power over it.
A shaft of light spread upon the world, casting shadows, flooding a range of far hills with pink light till they gleamed against the slatey sky behind them. The faces of the privileged in the dome were made red. Only the village below, where the ants were circling, remained in shadow.
The privileged glared upon that sliver of disc. It remained as it was, growing no greater. The most intense scrutiny could not determine the instant at which, instead of increasing, it began to shrink. Sunrise was enantiodromic sunset.
Light was withdrawn from the world. The range of far hills faded, was absorbed into the increasing murk.
The precious slice of Freyr shrivelled still further. By now, the giant sun had in actuality set: what remained behind was an image of it, a refraction through the thickness of atmosphere of the real thing below the horizon. None could tell the image from the real. Myrkwyr had already begun, without their knowing it.
The red image shrivelled.
It divided itself into bars of light. Shattered.
Then it was gone.
In the centuries ahead, Freyr would hide like a mole beneath the mountain, never to be seen again. In the small summers, Batalix would shine as previously; the small winters would remain unlit, under the shadow of the greater winter. Auroras would unfold their mysterious banners in the skies above the mountain. Meteorites would briefly glitter. Comets would occasionally be sighted. The stars would still shine. Throughout the next ninety revolutions of the Great Wheel, the major luminary, that massive furnace which had given life to the Sons of Freyr, would be little more than a rumour.
For all who experienced it, Myrkwyr was a day of doom. The faceless deity who presided over the biosphere was powerless to intervene, relying perhaps on the shortsightedness of the humans, on their involvement in their own affairs, to damp down its psychic shock. She was carried along with her world. Seen in wider perspective, Freyr continued to shine, and ever would do until its comparatively brief lifespan was finished: its darkness was merely a local condition, of small duration.
For most of nature, there could be only submission to fate. On land, the sap, the seed, the semen, would wait, dormant for the most part. In the sea, the complex mechanisms of the food chain would continue unabated. Only mankind could lift itself above direct necessity. In mankind lay reserves of strength unknowable to those who held them, reserves which could be drawn upon in situations where survival demanded.
Such reflections were far from the minds of those in the assembly who watched Freyr shatter into fragments of light. They were touched by fear. They wondered for their family’s survival and their own. The most basic question of existence faced the
m: How am I to keep fed and warm?
Fear is a powerful emotion. Yet it is easily overcome by anger, hope, desperation, and defiance. Fear would not last. The great processes of the Helliconian year would grind on towards apastron and the winter solstice. That turning point of the year was many generations away. By then, the twilights of Weyr- Winter would have long since become all that northern Sibornal knew. The rise of Freyr once more, majestic in the Great Spring, would be greeted with the same awe as its departure. But fear would have died long before hope.
How mankind would survive the centuries of Weyr-Winter would depend upon its mental and emotional resources. The cycle of human history was not immutable. Given determination, better could succeed worse; it was possible to row into the light, to navigate in the tide of Myrkwyr.
Keeper Esikananzi said solemnly, “The long night holds no fear for those who trust in the Lord God the Azoiaxic, who existed before life, and round whom all life revolves. With his aid, we shall bring this precious world of ours through the long night, to bask again in his glory.” And Master Asperamanka shouted spiritedly, “To Sibornal— united throughout the long Weyr-Winter to come!”
Their audience responded bravely. But in every heart lay the knowledge that they would never see Freyr again; nor would their children, nor their children’s children. On the latitude of Kharnabhar the brighter sun of Freyr would never shine in the sky until another forty-two generations had been born and died. Nobody present could ever hope to see that brilliant luminary again.
A choir sang distantly the anthem, “Oh, May We All Find Light at Last.” Gloom settled in every heart. The loss was as sharp as the loss of a child.
The lackey solemnly drew the curtains again, hiding the landscape from view.
Many in the assembly stayed to drink more yadahl. They had little to say to each other. The musicians played, but a mood of sullen resignation had settled which would not be dispelled. Singly or in groups, the guests were leaving. They evaded each other’s gaze.
Stone steps wound down through the monastery to the entrance. A carpet had been laid on the stairs in honour of the occasion. Cold drafts, blowing upwards, lifted the edges of the carpet. As Luterin was descending, two men emerged from an archway on a landing and seized him.
He fought and shouted, but they locked his arms behind him and carried him into a stone washroom. Asperamanka was waiting there. He had divested himself of his ceremonial robes, and was putting on a coat and leather gauntlets. His two men wore leather and carried guns at their belts. Luterin thought of what Insil had said: “All those leather-clad men… doing secret things.”
Asperamanka put on a genial tone. “It isn’t going to work, is it, Luterin? We can’t have you going free in a tight-knit community like Kharnabhar. You’ll be too disruptive an influence.”
“What are you trying to preserve here—apart from yourself?”
“I wish to preserve my wife’s honour for one thing. You seem to think there is evil here. The fact is, we have to fight to survive. The good— and the bad—will naturally survive in us. Most people understand that. You don’t.
“You are inclined to play the part of a holy innocent, and they always make trouble. So we are going to give you a chance to help the whole community. Helliconia needs to be hauled back into the light. You are going to go into the Wheel for another ten-year spell.”
He fought free and ran for the door. One of the huntsmen reached it in time to slam it in his face. He struck the man on the jaw, but was made captive again.
“Tie him,” Asperamanka ordered. “Don’t let him go again.”
The men had no cord. One reluctantly yielded up the broad belt of his jacket, and with that they lashed Luterin’s hands behind his back.
When Asperamanka opened the door, they marched down the rest of the stairs, the men flanking Luterin closely. Asperamanka seemed greatly pleased with himself.
“We said farewell to Freyr with courage and ceremony. Admire power, Luterin. I admired your father for his ruthlessness as Oligarch. What a fateful generation ours is. Either we’ll be wiped out or we’ll decide the course of the world…”
“Or you’ll choke on a fish bone,” Luterin said.
They descended to the entrance hall. Through the broad archway, the outer world could be seen. The chill came in, and also the noise of the crowd and the bonfire. The simple people were dancing round the fires they had lit, faces gleaming in the light of the flames. Traders scurried about, selling waffles and spitted fish.
“For all their religion, they believe that lighting fires may bring Freyr back,” Asperamanka said. He lingered at the entrance. “What they are really doing is ensuring that wood becomes short before it need be. … Well, let them get on with it. Let them go into pauk or do whatever they please. The elite is going to have to survive on the backs of just such peasants as these for the next few centuries or more.”
There was shouting and a stir from the back of the crowd. Soldiers came into view as the crowd parted to make way for them. They carried something struggling between them.
“Ah, they’ve caught another phagor. Good. We’ll see this,” Asperamanka said, with a hint of ancient angers under his brows.
The phagor was lashed upside down to a pole. It struggled violently as its captors brought it to one of the fires.
Behind came a figure of a man, lifting his arms and shouting. Luterin could not hear what he said for the general hubbub, but he recognised him by his long beard. The man was his old schoolmaster, who had taught him—long ago in another existence—when he was lying paralysed in bed. The old man had kept a phagor as servant, being too poor to afford a slave. It was clearly his phagor which the soldiers had captured.
The soldiers dragged the creature nearer to the fire. The crowd ceased its dancing and shouted with excitement, the women egging the soldiers on along with the men.
“Burn it!” shouted Asperamanka, but he merely echoed the voice of the mob.
“It’s just a domestic,” Luterin said. “Harmless as a dog.”
“It’s still capable of spreading the Fat Death.”
Fight though it would, the ancipital was pulled and pushed to the largest of the fires. Its coat began to burn. Another inch—a yell from the crowd—a heave—and then a mournful call sounded from beyond the gathering. Distant human screams. Into the marketplace poured armed ancipitals on kaidaws.
Each ancipital wore body armour. Some wore primitive skull shields. They rode their red kaidaws from a position behind the animals’ low humps, at the crouch. In this position they could strike out with spears as they went.
“Freyr die! Sons of Freyr die!” they cried from their harsh throats.
The crowd began to move, less as separate individuals than as a wave. Only the soldiers made a stand. The captive phagor was left with its pale harneys boiling in its skull, but it rose up and made off, coat still smouldering.
Asperamanka ran forward, shouting to the soldiers to fire. Luterin, as an observer, could see that there were no more than eight of the invaders. Some of them sprouted black hairs, a mark of ancipital old age. All but one had been dehorned—a sure sign that these were no kind of threat from the mountains, such as tremulous imaginations in Kharnabhar fed on, but a few refugee phagors who had banded together on this special day, when conditions in Sibornal reverted to virtually what they had been before Freyr entered Helliconia’s sky, many epochs ago.
He saw how members of the crowd who were impeded in some way fell first to the stabbing spears: pedlars with trays, women with babies or small children, the lame, the sick. Some were trampled underfoot. A baby was scooped up and flung into the heart of a fire.
As Asperamanka and his two bullies drew guns and started firing, the horned ancipital wheeled its russet-haired mount and charged at the Master. It came straight, its skull low over the massive skull of the kaidaw. In its eye was no light of battle, simply a dull cerise stare: it was doing what it did according to some ancient template set in
its eotemporal brain.
Asperamanka fired. The bullets lost themselves in the thick pelage of animal. It faltered in mid-stride. The two bullies turned and ran. Asperamanka stood his ground, firing, shouting. The kaidaw fell suddenly on one knee. Up came the spear. It caught Asperamanka as he turned. The tip entered his skull through the eye socket and he fell back into the monastery entrance.
Luterin ran for his life. He had wrenched his arms free of the belt. He jumped down into the street, into the trampled snow, and ran. There were other running figures nearby, too concerned with saving their own lives to bother with his. He hid behind a house, panting, and surveyed the scene.
Blue shadows and bodies lay on the marketplace. The sky overhead was a deep blue, in which a bright star gleamed—Aganip. Hues of sunset lay to the south. It was bitterly cold.
The mob had surrounded one kaidaw and was pulling its rider to the ground. The others were galloping off to safety—another sign that this was not an arm of a regular ancipital component, which would not have abandoned a fight so easily.
He made his way without trouble towards Sanctity Street and his appointment with Toress Lahl.
Sanctity Street was narrow. Its buildings were tall. Most had been constructed in a better age to house the pilgrims who came to visit the Wheel. Now the shutters were up; many doors were barricaded. Slogans had been painted on the walls: God Keep the Keeper, We Follow the Oligarch—presumably as a form of life insurance. At the rear of the houses and hostels, the snow was piled up to the eaves.
Luterin started cautiously down the street. His mood was one of elation at his escape. He could see beyond the end of the street, where it seemed eternity began. There was an unlimited expanse of snow, its dimensions emphasised by occasional trees. In the distance stretched a band of pink of the most delicate kind, where the sun Freyr still lit on a far cliff, the southern face of the northern ice cap. This vista lifted his spirits further, suggesting as it did the endless possibilities of the planet, beyond the reach of human pettiness. Despite all oppression, the great world remained, inexhaustible in its forms and lights. He might be gazing upon the face of the Beholder herself.