by Brian Aldiss
“You think we live at the centre of the universe. I say we live in the centre of a farmyard. Our position is so obscure that you cannot realise how obscure.
“This I tell you all. Some disaster happened in the past, in the long past. So complete was it that no one now can explain to you what it was or how it came about. We know only that it brought darkness and cold.
“You try to live the best you can. Good, good, live well, love one another, be kind. But don’t pretend that the disaster has nothing to do with you. It may have happened long ago, yet it infects every day of our lives. It ages us, it wears us out, it devours us, it tears our children from us, as it has torn Loilanun. It makes us not only ignorant but in love with ignorance. We’re infested with ignorance.
“I’m going to propose a treasure hunt—a quest, if you like. A quest in which every one of us can join. I want you to be aware of our fallen state, and to maintain constant vigilance for evidence as to its nature. We have to piece together what has happened to reduce us to this chilly farmyard; then we can improve our lot, and see to it that the disaster does not befall us and our children again.
“That’s the treasure I offer you. Knowledge. Truth. You fear it, yes. But you must seek it. You must grow to love it.
“Seek the light!”
As children, Oyre and Laintal Ay had often explored beyond the barricades. Dotted about the wilderness were stone pillars, the insignia of old tracks, which served as perches for the large birds doing sentry duty over their domain. Together, they scrambled across forlorn ruins, skull-like remains of habitations, backbones of ancient walls, where rime scoured gate towers and age under-ate everything. Little the kids had cared. Their laughter echoed against these stranded anatomies.
Now the laughter was subdued, the expeditions more strained. Laintal Ay had reached puberty; he underwent the blood-drinking ceremony, and was initiated into the chase. Oyre had developed a mischievous will, and walked with a more springy tread. Their play became tentative; old charades were abandoned as carelessly as the structures they haunted, never to be reenacted.
The truce of innocence between them was ended finally when Oyre insisted that her father’s slave, Calary, come on one of their excursions. This development marked their last expedition together, though neither realised it at the time; they pretended to hunt for treasure as before.
They came on a pile of masonry from which all trace of timber had been filched. Leaves of brassimips thrust up among the remains of a monument where old skilled work sank to loam crust. Once, as children, they made this their castle: here they had been a host defying charge on charge of phagors, and hid imitated the cheerful imaginary sounds of battle.
Laintal Ay was preoccupied with a more troubling panorama which unfolded in his mind. In that panorima—slightly resembling a cloud, but also seeming to be a declaration by Shay Tal, or perhaps some ancient proclamation carved on rock—he and Oyre and their reluctant slave, and Oldorando, and even the phagors and unknown creatures inhabiting the wilderness, were whirled about in a great process … but there the light of his intellect went out, to leave him wondering on the edge of a precipice at once dangerous and glamorous. He knew not what he did not know.
He stood on an eminence of the ruin, looking down at Oyre below him. She was doubled up, investigating something far removed from his concern.
“Is it possible there was once a great city here? Could anyone rebuild it in times to come? People like us, with wealth?”
Getting no answer, he squatted on the wall, staring down at her back, and added more questions. “What did all the people eat? Do you think Shay Tal knows about such things? Is her treasure here?”
She, sewn into her furs, stooping, looked from above more like an animal than a girl. She was prying into an alcove among the stones, not really attending to him.
“The priest who comes from Borlien says that Borlien was once a huge country that ruled all Oldorando farther than hawk can fly.”
He set his keen gaze across the countryside, which a thick cloud layer made tenebrous. “That’s nonsense.”
He knew as perhaps Oyre did not that the territory of hawks was circumscribed even more severely than that of men. Shay Tal’s address had brought to his notice other circumscriptions in life, which he now chewed over fruitlessly while scowling down at the figure below. He was vexed with Oyre, he could not say why, longing to probe her in some way, to find tongue for what lay beyond silence.
“Come and see what I’ve found, Laintal Ay!” Her bright dark face looked up at him. Her features had recently fined towards womanhood. He forgot his vexation and slithered down the declivitous wall to land beside her.
She had fetched from the alcove a small naked living thing, its pink rat face distorted with alarm as it wriggled in her grasp.
His hair brushed hers as he looked down at this new arrival in the world. He cupped his rougher hands round hers till their fingers were interlocked round the struggling centre.
She raised her gaze to regard him direct, her lips apart, smiling slightly. He smelt her scent. He grasped her about her waist.
But beside them stood the slave, his face showing sullen comprehension of the flame of new intuition which flew between them. Oyre moved a pace away, then pushed the baby mammal carelessly back into its nook. She scowled down at the ground.
“Your precious Shay Tal doesn’t know everything. Father told me in confidence that he thinks she is definitely strange. Let’s go home now.
Laintal Ay lived with Shay Tal for a while. With his parents and grandparents dead, he was severed from his childhood; but he and Dathka were now fully fledged hunters. Disinherited by his uncles, he determined to prove himself their equal. He thrived and matured early, growing up with a genial expression on his countenance. His jaw was firm, his features clear-cut. His strength and speed soon became generally noticed. Many girls cast a smiling glance on him, but he had eyes only for Aoz Roon’s daughter.
Although he was popular, something about him made people keep their distance. He had taken to heart Shay Tal’s brave words. Some said he was too conscious of his descent from the Great Yuli. He remained apart, even in company. His one close friend was Dathka Den, corpsman turned hunter, and Dathka rarely spoke, even to Laintal Ay. As someone said, Dathka was the next best thing to no- one.
Laintal Ay eventually took up residence with some of the other hunters in the big tower, above Nahkri’s and Klils’ chamber. There he heard the old tales re-told, and learned to sing ancient hunters’ songs. But what he preferred was to take supplies and snow shoes, and rove the countryside newly emerging into green. He no longer sought Oyre’s company on such expeditions.
At this period, nobody else ventured out alone. The hunters hunted together, the swineherds and gozzards had their fixed paths near the settlement, those who tended the brassimips worked in groups. Danger and death so often accompanied solitude. Laintal Ay acquired a reputation for eccentricity, although his good- standing was not damaged, because he added considerably to the number of animal skulls which adorned the stockades of Oldorando.
The storm winds howled. He travelled far, untroubled by the inhospitality of nature. He found his way to unfrequented valleys, and to broken old remains of towns from which the inhabitants had long since fled, leaving their homes to wolves and weather.
At the time of the festival of Double Sunset, Laintal Ay made his name in the tribe with a feat that rivalled his and Aoz Roon’s achievement of capturing the Borlienian traders. He was travelling alone in high country to the northeast of Oldorando, over deep snow, when a hole opened under his feet, and he fell in. At the bottom of the drift sat a stungebag, waiting for its next meal.
Stungebags resemble nothing so much as collapsed wooden huts, covered by makeshift thatch. They grew to great lengths, having few enemies but man, feeding rarely, being inordinately slow. All that Laintal Ay saw of this one, curled at the bottom of its trap, was its asymmetrical horned head and gaping mouth, in whic
h the teeth appeared to be made of wooden pegs. As the jaws closed on his leg, he kicked out and rolled to one side.
Fighting against the encompassing snow, he brought up his spear and wedged it far back in the hinges of the stungebag’s mouth. The animal’s rhythmic struggles were slow but powerful. It knocked Laintal Ay down again, but was unable to close its mouth. Jumping away from the probing horns, he flung himself on the back of the beast, clinging to stiff tufts of hair which burst from between octagonal armour plates. He pulled his knife from his belt. Clutching the hair with one hand, he hacked away at the fibrous tendons that held one of the plates in place.
The stungebag screamed with rage. It too was impeded by the snow and could not roll over sufficiently to crush Laintal Ay. He managed to sever the plate from its back. The plate was splintery, and in texture woodlike. He jammed it down the beast’s throat, and then commenced to cut the clumsy head off.
It fell. No blood ran, only a slight whitish ichor. This stungebag had four eyes—there was a lesser breed with two. One pair stared forward in the skull; the other looked backward and was set in hornlike protrusions at the back of the skull. Both pairs rolled over into the snow, still blinking in disbelief.
The decapitated body began to burrow backwards through the snow at its fastest rate. Laintal Ay followed, struggling through chunks of falling snow until it and he emerged into daylight.
Stungebags were proverbially difficult to kill. This one would keep travelling for a long while before falling to pieces.
Laintal Ay let out a whoop of exhilaration. Bringing out his flints, he jumped up on the neck of the creature and set light to the coarse fur, which burnt with a furious sizzling noise. Evil-smelling smoke billowed into the sky. By burning one side or the other, he was able to do a rough job of steering. The creature shunted backwards towards Oldorando.
Horns sounded from high towers. He saw the spray of geysers. The stockade loomed, decorated with skulls painted in bright colours. Women and hunters ran out to greet him.
He waved his fur cap in return. Seated at the hot end of a blazing wooden caterpillar, he rode it backwards in triumph through the lanes of Embruddock.
Everyone laughed. But it was several days before the stink died from rooms along his triumphal route.
The unburnt remains of Laintal Ay’s stungebag were used up during the festival of Double Sunset. Even slaves were involved with this event—one of them was offered as a sacrifice to Wutra.
Double Sunset coincided in Oldorando with New Year’s Day. It was to be Year 21 by the new calendar, and celebrations were in order. Despite everything that nature could do, life was good and had to be secured by sacrifice.
For weeks, Batalix had been overtaking its slower fellow sentry in the sky. In midwinter, they came close, and days and nights were of equal length, with no dimday intervening.
“Why should they move as they do?” Vry asked Shay Tal.
“That’s how they have always moved,” Shay Tal said.
“You don’t answer my question, ma’am,” said Vry.
The prospect of a sacrifice first, with a feast succeeding, lent excitement to the ceremony of the sunsets. Before the ceremonies began, there was dancing round a mighty fire in the square; the music was of tabor and pipe and fluggel—which latter instrument some claimed was invented by Great Yuli himself. Rathel was provided for the dancers after which all, in a glow of sweat beneath their hides, moved beyond the stockades.
A sacrificial stone lay to the east of the old pyramid. The citizens gathered about it, standing at a respectful distance, as one of the masters commanded.
Lots had been drawn among the slaves. The honour of being victim fell to Calary, the young Borlienian slave belonging to Aoz Roon. He was led forth, hands lashed behind his back, and the crowd followed expectantly. A cold stillness filled the air. Overhead was barred grey cloud. To the west, the two sentinels sank towards the horizon.
Everyone carried torches fashioned from stungebag hide. Laintal Ay led his silent friend Dathka to walk along with Aoz Roon, because Aoz Roon’s beautiful daughter was there.
“You must feel sorry to lose Calary, Aoz Roon,” Laintal Ay said to the older man, making eyes at Oyre.
Aoz Roon clapped him over the shoulder. “My principle in life is never to feel regret. Regret’s death to a hunter, as it was to Dresyl. Next year, we will capture plenty more slaves. Never mind Calary.” There were times when Laintal Ay mistrusted his friend’s heartiness. Aoz Roon looked at Eline Tal, and both laughed together, emitting rathel fumes.
Everyone was jostling along and laughing, except for Calary. Taking advantage of the crowd, Laintal Ay seized Oyre’s hand and squeezed it. She gave him an answering pressure and smiled, not daring to look at him directly. He swelled with exhilaration. Life was truly wonderful.
He could not stop grinning as the ceremony proceeded more seriously. Batalix and Freyr would disappear simultaneously from Wutra’s realm and sink into the earth like gossies. Tomorrow, if the sacrifice proved acceptable, they would rise together, and for a while their parades across the sky would coincide. Both would shine by day, and night be left to darkness. By spring, they would be out of step again, and Batalix commencing dimday.
Everyone said the weather was milder. Signs of improvement abounded. Geese were fatter. Nevertheless, a solemn silence fell over the crowd as they faced towards the west and their shadows lengthened. Both sentinels were leaving the realm of light. Illness and ill things were presaged. A life must be offered lest the sentinels depart forever.
As the double shadows extended, the crowd grew still, though it shuffled its feet like a great beast. Its cheerful mood evaporated. It became faceless in the smoke from the raised torches. The shadows spread. A greyness which was not to be dispersed by the torches blanketted the scene. People were submerged in evening and the massed psyche of the crowd.
Elders of the council, all grey and bent, came forth in line, and called out a prayer in shaky singsong. Four slaves brought Calary forward. He staggered between them with his head hanging, saliva flecking his jaw. A flight of birds wheeled overhead, the sound of its wings like rainfall, and was gone towards the western gold.
Upon a sacrificial stone, lozenge-shaped, the sacrificial victim was laid, his head set in a depression carved in its leprous upper surface, directed to the west. His feet were secured in a wooden brace, pointing to the direction—now slatey with oncoming night—where the sentinels would next appear if they completed their perilous journey. Thus, in his body, with its vents and passages, the victim represented the mystic union between the two immense mysteries of human and cosmic life: as above, so, with an effort of massed will, below.
The victim had already shed its individuality. Although its eyes rolled, it made no sound, stilled as if awed by the presence of Wutra.
As the four slaves stepped back, Nahkri and Klils appeared. Over their furs they had assumed cloaks of stammel, dyed red. Their women accompanied them to the edge of the crowd, then left them to proceed alone. Their straggling rat beards for once lent solemnity to their visages; indeed their pallor matched that of the victim on whom Nahkri bent his regard as he picked up the axe. He hefted this formidable instrument. A gong was struck.
Nahkri stood there, balancing the axe in both hands, the slighter figure of his brother just behind him. As the pause lengthened, a murmur came from the crowd. There was a time for the sundering stroke: miss that time, and who knew what might befall the sentinels. The murmur expressed an almost unspoken mistrust of the two ruling brothers.
“Strike!” cried a voice from the massed ranks. The Hour-Whistler sounded.
“I can’t do it,” Nahkri said, lowering the axe. “I won’t do it. A fuggie, yes. Not a human, not even a Borlienian. I can’t.”
His younger brother lurched forward and grasped the instrument. “You coward—making us look fools before everyone. I’ll do it myself and shame you. I’ll show you who’s the better man, you queme!”
; With teeth bared, he swung the axe up on his shoulder. He glared down into the stark face of the victim, which stared up from its depression as from a grave.
Klils’ muscles twitched, appearing to disobey him. The blade of the instrument signalled back the rays of sunset. Then it was lowered, and rested against the stone, while Klils leaned over the shaft, groaning.
“I should have drunk more rathel…”
An answering groan came from the crowd. The sentinels now had their discs entangled with the unkempt horizon.
Individual voices made themselves heard.
“They’re a couple of clowns…”
“They listened too much to Loil Bry, I say.”
“It was their father stuffing them full of head learning—the muscles are weakened.”
“Have you been on the nest too much, Klils?” That coarse shouted question drew laughter, and the sullen mood was broken. The mob closed in as Klils let the axe slip into the trampled mud.
Aoz Roon ran forward, breaking away from his fellows, and seized up the instrument. He growled like a hound, and the two brothers fell away from him, protesting feebly. They stumbled back farther, arms raised protectively, as Aoz Roon swung the axe above his head.
The suns were going down, half sunk with glory in a sea of dark. Their light was spilled like yolk from two goose eggs, drab gold, as if phagor and human blood were mingled over the stagnant waste. Bats flittered. The hunters raised their fists and cheered Aoz Roon.
Sun rays converged on the pyramid, and were split into bars of shadow by its peak. The divided lights ran precisely along the flanks of the worn stone on which the victim lay, defining its shape. The victim himself was in shadow.
The blade of the instrument of execution swung in sunlight, bit in shade.
After the clean clop of the stroke came a united sound from the crowd, a kind of echoing stroke from lungs exhaling in unison, as though all present also gave up the ghost.
The victim’s head fell severed to one side, as if kissing the confining stone. It began to drown in blood, which gushed up from the wound and spread, trickling down into the earth. It was running still as the last segment of the sentinels drowned below the horizon.