by neetha Napew
He raised his arms, fingers tensed.
The phagors, armed with their matchlocks, lay about at a short distance, like shapeless cattle, looking over the plain. Some rooted under stones and found grubs or rickybacks, which they ate. Others stood without movement, beyond the occasional swing of the head or a flick of the ears to ward off flies. Winged things buzzed in the shade. Made uneasy, Esomberr sat up.
'I don't understand what you mean, but do enjoy yourself.' His voice was dry.
The king scrutinized the horizon as he spoke. 'An example for you, so that you understand well the kind of man I am. Although I may have rejected my Queen MyrdemInggala for whatever reason, nevertheless she remains mine. If I discovered that you, for instance, had dared to enter her bedchamber to consort with her while we were in Gravabagalinien, then, notwithstanding our friendship, I would kill you without compunction, and hang your eddre from this tree.'
Neither of them moved. Then Esomberr rose and stood with his back to one of the trunks of the denniss. His narrow handsome face had grown as pale as a dead leaf.
'I say, did it ever occur to you that those damned phagors of yours, well armed, with Sibornalese weapons, strike fear into ordinary chaps like me? That they will most likely meet with an ill reception in Sayren Stund's capital, where a holy drumble is in progress? Are you ever afraid that you might... well, grow to be a bit like a phagor yourself?'
The king turned slowly, with an expression denoting total lack of interest in the question.
'Watch.'
He screwed his face into a mixture of grimace and grin, and snorted breath through his nose. He broke into a run, gathered himself, and leaped clear over one of the trunks of the tree, a full four feet above the ground. It was a perfect jump. He recovered himself, turned, and jumped the trunk in the opposite direction, with a force which carried him almost against Esomberr.
The king was half a head taller than the envoy. The latter, alarmed, reached for his sword, then stood without movement, tense against the king.
'I am twenty-five years of age, in fine condition, and fear neither man nor phagor. My secret is that I am capable of going with circumstances. Oldorando shall be my circumstance. I gain energy from the geometry of circumstance.... Do not vex me, Alam Esomberr, or forget my words about the sanctity of what was once mine. I am one of your circumstances, and not vice versa.'
The envoy moved to one side, coughed as a reason for moving his hand from his sword hilt to his mouth, and managed a pale smile.
'You're terribly fit, I see that. That's tremendous. By the beholder, but I envy you. It's a wretched nuisance that I and my little rabble of vicars aren't in such fine trim. I've often thought that praying vitiates the muscles. Therefore, I must request that you proceed ahead with your party and your favoured species - at your breakneck pace - while we follow on behind at our own feeble pace, eh?'
JandolAnganol regarded him without change of expression. Then he gave a fierce grimace. 'Very well. The country hereabouts is peaceful, but guard yourselves. Robbers have scant respect for vicars. Remember you carry my bill of divorcement.'
'Strive ever onwards, if you will. I shall deliver your bill to the C'Sarr in good time.' He gave a wave of his hand and left it dangling in front of him. The king did not take it.
Instead, JandolAnganol turned away without further word and whistled Yuli to his side. He called the gillot leader of the guard, Ghht-Mlark Chzarn. The ahuman columns formed up and marched away; the humans followed more informally. In a short while, Alam Esomberr, together with his followers, was left standing silent under the denniss tree. Then the figures were lost to JandolAnganol amid the shade. Soon the great tree itself was lost in the shimmering heat of the plain.
Two days later, the king halted his force only a few miles short of Oldorando. Wisps of smoke trailed across the rolling landscape.
He stood by one of the aged stone pillars which dotted the landscape. Impatient for the rear of the phagor column to catch up, JandolAnganol traced with one finger the worm design on the stone, a familiar pattern of two concentric circles with curving lines running from inner to outer circle. Just for a moment, he wondered what the pillar and its pattern could signify; but such enigmas -presumably never capable of resolution, any more than he expected to be told what long-dead king had erected the stones - occupied his mind only for a moment. His thoughts were all on what lay immediately ahead.
They had reached a region which was in fact a hinterland of the fabled city they were approaching.
Of that city, there was as yet no sign. The view comprised low rolling hills, the foothills of the foothills of the Quzint Mountains, running like an armoured spine over the continent. Ahead, sprawling across the ground, was one of the ucts, threading its way into the distance on either side.
The uct here formed a tawny rather than a green line, comprising few large trees, but many bushes and cyclads, entwined by gaudy mantle flowers, the seeds of which migrant tribes chewed as they progressed.
No road was as wide as this uct. Unlike a road, however, it was not to be travelled by humans. Despite the depredations of arang and fhlebiht, it had become impenetrable. The Madi tribes with their animals travelled along its edge. There, scattering seeds and droppings, the protognostics unthinkingly widened the uct. Year by year it spread, becoming a strip of forest.
Not that the strip was regular. Alien growths like a shoatapraxi, introduced as burrs on the coats of animals, had prospered in places where they could take advantage of favourable soil conditions and spread in thickets. The Madi skirted the new thickets, or else plunged through them leaving a trail later obliterated by further waves of aliens.
What was incidental became established. The uct served as a barrier. Butterflies and small animals found on one side of the barrier were not to be seen on the other. There were birds and rodents and a deadly golden snake which kept to the shelter of the uct and never ventured beyond its confines as they spread across the continent. Several kinds of Others lived their pranksome lives out in the uct.
Humans, too, recognized the existence of the uct by using it as a frontier. This uct marked the frontier between Northern Borlien and the land of Oldorando.
And that frontier was on fire.
A lava flow from a newly erupting volcano had set the uct ablaze. It had begun to burn along its length like a fusee.
Instruments on the Avernus were recording details of increasing volcanic activity on the world approaching periastron below. Data relayed to Earth concerning Mount Rustyjonnik showed that the material from the eruption rose to a height of 50 kilometres. The lower layers of this cloud were carried rapidly eastwards, circling the globe in 15 days. The material rising above 21 kilometres moved westwards with the prevailing flow of the lower stratosphere, to circle the globe in 60 days.
Similar readings were obtained for other eruptions. Dust clouds gathering in the stratosphere were about to double Helliconia's albedo, reflecting the increasing heat of Freyr away from the surface. Thus the elements of the biosphere worked like an interrelated body or machine to preserve its vital processes.
During the decades when Freyr was closest to Helliconia, the planet would be shielded by acidic dust layers from its worst effects.
Nowhere was this dramatic homeostasis observed with more wonder and awe than on Earth.
On Helliconia, the forest fire was the end of the world for many frightened creatures. To a more detached view, it was a sign of the world's determination to save itself and its freight of organic life.
JandolAnganol's forces waited, tucked in a shallow valley. A pall of smoke to the east announced the approach of the fire. Numbers of hairy pigs and deer ran along the line of the uct westwards to safety. Herds of slower fhlebiht followed, setting up a massive bleating as they passed.
Families of Others went by, encouraging their young in a human fashion. They had dark fur and white faces. Some species were tailless. They swung deftly from branch to branch and were gone.
/> JandolAnganol rose and stood in a crouch to watch the game go by. The little runt Yuli leapt up sportively to join him. The phagors continued to rest impassively like cattle, chewing their day's ration of porridge and pemmican.
To the east, Madis and their flocks were fleeing before the blaze. While some of their animals bolted for freedom or ran in terror into the thicket, the protognostics themselves remained obedient to custom and followed the line of the uct.
'Blind fools!' exclaimed JandolAnganol.
His quick mind devised a plan. Ordering up a section of phagorian guard, he set a trap into action. When the leading Madis came up, a rope draped with thorn-lianas from the thickets suddenly sprang into the air before them. They came to a confused halt, sheep, asokins, and dogs milling about their legs.
Their Madi faces were as innocuous as the faces of parrots or flowers. Foreheads and jaws receded, eyes and noses were prominent, giving them a permanent look of incredulity before the world. The males had bosses on foreheads and jaws. Their hair was glossy brown. They called to each other in despairing pigeon voices.
Out leaped the phagor section from its concealment. Each phagor closed in on the frightened Madis. Each caught three or four by their arms, arms burned red by the suns and powdered by the dust of the track. They came without fight. A gillot caught the bellwether, an asokin with a can thumping against its chest. The ewes stood meekly by.
Some Madis tried to run. JandolAnganol clubbed two with his fist, sending them sprawling. They lay crying in the dirt. But others were coming up from the rear all the while, and he let them go.
His party forced their way through the uct with their bag. The dense coats of the phagors rendered them immune to thorns. Driving their captives before them, they crossed over from Borlien to Oldorando. They were safely on their way when the fire passed through the strip, travelling at a brisk walking pace, leaving ashes behind it.
It was in this manner that the royal party arrived at the city of Oldorando, more resembling shepherds than royalty. Their protognostic prisoners were torn and bleeding from the uct thicket, as were many of the humans. The king himself was covered in dust.
There was about Oldorando something almost theatrical, perhaps because at its heart lay the gaudy stage on which worship of Akhanaba the ox-faced All-Powerful was at its most resplendent. True worship is solitary; when the religious gather together, they put on pageants for their gods.
Lying in the steamy centre of Campannlat, threaded by the River Valvoral which connected it with Matrassyl and - ultimately - the sea, Oldorando was a city of travellers. Mostly they came to worship or, if not to worship, to trade.
In the physical form of the city was commemorated the long existence of these opposed intentions. The Holyval sector of the city ran in a diagonal line from southwest to northeast, rising above the sprawl of commerce like a fretted cliff. Holyval included the Old City, with its quaint seven-storey towers, in which lived permanent religious communities. Here were the Academicians, a female order. Here, too, were pilgrims and beggars, as well as god's scum, those who beat empty breasts. Here were courts of shadow and places of prayer sunk deep into the earth. Here too stood the Dom with its attendant monastries, and King Sayren Stund's palace.
It was generally agreed - at least by those whose lives were enclosed by Holyval - that this sector of saintliness, this diagonal of decency, ran between sewers of worldly vices.
But set in Holyval's pompous and fretted walls and forbidding ramparts were a variety of doors. Some were opened only on ceremonial occasions. Others allowed access to the Old City only for the privileged. Others admitted only women or only men (no phagors were permitted to sully Holyval). But others, and those among the most used, let even the most secular of persons to come and go as they would. Between the holy and the unholy, as between the living and the dead, was set a barrier which detained nobody from crossing it.
The unholy lived in less grand premises, although even here the rich had built their palaces along the broader boulevards. The wicked prospered, the good made their way through life as best they could. Of the city's present population of eight hundred and ninety thousand humans, almost one hundred thousand were in religious orders, and served Akhanaba. At least as many were slaves, and served believer and unbeliever alike.
It was in keeping with the shows which Oldorando loved that two messengers clad in blue and gold should wait on JandolAnganol's arrival at the south gate, with a coach in which to draw him to King Sayren Stund.
JandolAnganol refused the coach and, instead of taking the triumphal route along Wozen Avenue, paraded his dusty company into the Pauk. The Pauk was a comfortable, down-at-heel area of taverns and markets where there were traders who would buy both animals and protognostics.
'Madis don't fetch much in Embruddock,' said one sturdy dealer, using the old country name for Oldorando. 'We got enough of them and, like the Nondads, they don't work well. Now your phagors would be a different question, but in this city I'm not allowed to trade in phagors.'
'I'm selling only the Madis and animals, man. Your price, or I'll go elsewhere.'
When a sum had been agreed on, the Madis were sold into captivity and the animals to slaughter. The king retired in satisfaction. He was now better prepared to meet Sayren Stund. Before the transaction, he had not so much as a roon piece on him. Phagors dispatched to Matrassyl for gold had not returned.
Moving in military order, the First Phagorian proceeded up Wozen Avenue, where crowds had assembled to watch them. The crowds cheered JandolAnganol as he strode along with Yuli. He was popular with the rabble of Oldorando, despite his championship of the officially deplored ancipitals. The common people contrasted a lively, eager man favourably with their fat, idle, domestic breed of monarch. The common people did not know the queen of queens. The common people had sympathy for a king whose bride-to-be had been brutally murdered -even if that bride was only a Madi, or half-Madi.
Among the common people went the religious. The clerics were out with banners. RENOUNCE YOUR SINS. THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH. REPENT YE WHILE TIME IS. Here as in Borlien, the Pannovalan Church played on public fears in order to bring the independent-minded to heel.
The dusty progress continued. Past the ancient King Denniss Pyramid. Through the Wozen sector. Into the wide Loylbryden Square. On the far side of the square across a stream, Whistler Park. Facing on to square and park, the great Dom of Striving and the picturesque town palace of the king. In the centre of the square, a golden pavilion, in which was seated King Sayren Stund himself, waiting to greet his visitor.
Beside the king sat Queen Bathkaarnet-she, wearing a grey keedrant decorated with black roses, and an uncomfortable crown. Between their majesties on a smaller throne sat their one remaining daughter, Milua Tal. The three of them reposed in absurd dignity under an awning, while the rest of the court sweated in the sun. The heat buzzed with flies. A band played. The absence of soldiers was noticeable, but several elderly officers in resplendent uniforms marched slowly about. The civil guard kept the crowd in order along the perimeters of the square.
The Oldorandan court was known for its stifling formality. Sayren Stund had done his best to soften court etiquette on this occasion, but there remained a line of advisors and church dignitaries, many of them in flowing canonicals, drawn up severely as they waited to shake JandolAnganol's hand and kiss his cheek.
The Eagle stood with his party of captains and his hunchbacked armourer, surveying them challengingly, the dust of his journey still about him.
'Your parade would do credit to a museum, Cousin Sayren,' he said.
Sayren Stund was dressed, as were his officers, in a severe black charfrul to express mourning. He levered himself out of his throne and came to JandolAnganol with arms extended. JandolAnganol made a bow, holding himself stiffly. Yuli stood a pace behind him, sticking his milt up alternate nostrils, otherwise motionless.
'Greetings in the name of the All-Powerful. The Court of Oldorando welcom
es you in your peaceful and fraternal visit to our capital. May Akhanaba make the meeting fruitful.'
'Greetings in the name of the All-Powerful. I thank you for your fraternal reception. I come to offer my condolences and my grief at the death of your daughter, Simoda Tal, my bride-elect.'
As JandolAnganol spoke, his glance, under the line of his eyebrows, was ever active. He did not trust Sayren Stund. Stund paraded him along the ranks of dignitaries, and JandolAnganol allowed his hand to be shaken and his grimy cheek to be kissed.
He saw from Sayren Stund's demeanour that the King of Oldorando bore him ill will. The knowledge was a torment. Everywhere was hatred in men's hearts. The murder of Simoda Tal had left its stain, with which he now had to reckon.
After the parade, the queen approached, limping, her hand resting on Milua Tal's arm. Bathkaarnet-she's looks had faded, yet there was something in her expression, in the way she held her head - submissively yet perkily -which affected JandolAnganol. He recalled a remark of Sayren Stund's which had once been reported to him -why had that lodged in his memory? - 'Once you have lived with a Madi woman, you want no other.'
Both Bathkaarnet-she and her daughter had the captivating bird faces of their kind. Though Milua Tal's blood had been diluted with a human stream, she presented an exotically dark, brilliant impression, with enormous eyes glowing on either side of her aquiline nose. When she was presented, she gazed direct at JandolAnganol, and gave him the Look of Acceptance. He thought briefly of SartoriIrvrash's mating experiments; here if ever was a fertile cross-breeding.
He was pleased to gaze on this one bright face among so many dull ones, and said to her, 'You much resemble the portrait I was sent of your sister. Indeed, you are even more beautiful.'
'Simoda and I were much alike, and much different, like all sisters,' Milua Tal replied. The music of her voice suggested to him many things, fires in the night, baby Tatro cooing in a cool room, pigeons in a wooden tower.