Helliconia Spring h-1

by Brian Aldiss

  “I thought you were having trouble with Aoz Roon.”

  “Oh, he’s always a bit touchy after a brush with Shay Tal. He’s a great man, really. I’m pleased about the stungebag, too. Now that the weather is warming up, they’re harder to find.”

  The children were still romping by the geysers. Laintal Ay admired her glossy, and burst into a snatch of hunter’s song:

  “The glossies that sleep

  When the snowdrifts are deep

  Will wake up to eddre-filling rain,

  And then hoxneys will spread

  With their high-stepping tread

  Across the plain, across the flower-thrilling plain.”

  “You are in a good humour! Is Oyre being nice to you?”

  “Oyre’s always nice.”

  They went their different ways, Vry heading for her ruined tower, where she showed her present to Shay Tal. Shay Tal examined the little crystalline animal.

  “It’s not good to eat at this stage of its life. The flesh may be poisonous.”

  “I don’t plan to eat it. I want to guard it till it wakes.”

  “Life is serious, my dear. We may have to go hungry if Aoz Roon sets himself firmly against us.” She contemplated Vry for a while without speaking, as was increasingly her habit. “I shall fast and defy him. I need no material things. I can be as ruthless with myself as he can be with me.”

  “But really he …” Words failed Vry. She could utter no reassurance to the older woman, who continued determinedly.

  “As I told you, I have two immediate intentions. First, I shall conduct a scientific experiment to determine my powers. Then I shall descend into the world of the gossies, to hold concourse with Loilanun. She must now know much that I don’t. Depending on what I learn from these things, I may decide to leave Oldorando entirely.”

  “Oh, don’t leave, please, ma’am. Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? I’ll go with you if you go, I swear!”

  “We’ll see about that. Leave me now, please.”

  Feeling deflated, Vry climbed the ladder to her ruinous room. She flung herself down on her couch.

  “I want a lover, that’s what I want. A lover … Life’s so empty…”

  But after a while, she roused herself and looked out of the window at the sky, where clouds and birds sailed. At least it was better to be here than in the world below, where Shay Tal planned to go.

  She recalled Laintal Ay’s song. The woman who had written the song—if it was a woman—had known that the snow would eventually disappear and that flowers and animals would emerge. Perhaps it would happen.

  From her nighttime observations, she knew that there were changes in the sky. The stars were not fessups but fires, fires burning not in rock but air. Imagine a great fire burning in outer darkness. As it came nearer, its warmth would be felt. Perhaps the two sentinels would draw nearer, and warm the world.

  Then the glossies would come back to life, turning into hoxneys with high- stepping tread, just as the song had it.

  She determined to concentrate on her astronomy. The stars knew more than the gossies, for all that Shay Tal said, though it was shocking to find that one disagreed with such a majestic person.

  She tucked the glossy into a warm corner by her couch, wrapping the pathetic little thing in fur so that only its face showed. Day by day, she willed it to come alive. She whispered to it and encouraged it. She longed to see it grow and skip about her room. But after a few days, the gleam in the glossy’s eyes dimmed and went out; the creature had expired with never a blink.

  Despairingly, Vry took it to the crumbling top of the tower and flung the bundle away. It was still wrapped in furs, as if it were a dead baby.

  A passion of restlessness seized Shay Tal. More and more, her statements became preachments. Though the other women brought her food, she preferred to starve herself, preparing to go into deep pauk to confer with the illustrious dead. If wisdom was not found there, then she would look farther afield, beyond the farmyard.

  First, she determined to test out her own powers of sorcery. A few miles away to the east lay Fish Lake, scene of her “miracle.” While she teased herself as to the true nature of what had happened there, the citizens of Oldorando were in no doubt. Throughout that cold spring, they made pilgrimages to gaze upon the spectacle in the ice, and to tremble with fear not unmixed with pride. The pilgrims encountered numbers of Borlienians who also came to marvel. Once, two phagors were seen, cowbirds perched with folded wings upon their shoulders, standing mute upon the far shore, regarding their crystalline dead.

  As warmth returned to the world, the tableau began to slip. What was awesome turned grotesque. One morning, the ice was gone, the statuary became a heap of decomposing flesh. Visitors encountered nothing more impressive than a floating eyeball or a mop of hide. Fish Lake itself drained and disappeared almost as rapidly as it had formed. All that remained to mark the miracle was a pile of bones and curving kaidaw horns. But the memory remained, enlarging through the lenses of reminiscence. And Shay Tal’s doubts remained.

  She went down into the square in the afternoon, at an hour when milder weather tempted people to walk out and talk in a way once foreign to them. Women and daughters, men and sons, hunters and corpsmen, young and old, strolled forth to pass the time of day. Almost anyone would put himself or herself at Shay Tal’s beck and call; almost no one wanted to talk to her.

  Laintal Ay and Dathka were standing with their friends, laughing. Laintal Ay caught Shay Tal’s glance, and came over to her reluctantly when she beckoned.

  “I’m about to conduct an experiment, Laintal Ay. I want you with me as a reliable witness. I won’t get you into further trouble with Aoz Roon.”

  “I’m on good terms with him.”

  She explained that the experiment was taking place by the Voral; first, she had a mind to explore the old temple. They walked together through the crowd, Laintal Ay saying nothing.

  “Are you embarrassed to be with me?”

  “I always take pleasure in your company, Shay Tal.”

  “You need not be polite. Do you think I am a sorceress?”

  “You are an unusual woman. I revere you for that.”

  “Do you love me?”

  At that, he was embarrassed. Instead of answering directly, he cast his gaze down to the mud, muttering, “You are like a mother to me, since my mother died. Why ask such questions?”

  “I wish I were your mother. Then I could be proud. Laintal Ay, you also have an inwardness to your nature. I feel it. That inwardness will distress you, yet it gives you life, it is life. Don’t ignore it, cultivate it. Most of these people jostling us have no inwardness.”

  “Is inwardness the same as conflict?”

  She gave a sharp laugh, gripping her body with her forearms.

  “Listen, we are trapped in this wretched hamlet among meagre personalities. A whole series of greater realities can be happening elsewhere. So much must be done. I may leave Oldorando.”

  “Where will you go?”

  She shook her head. “Sometimes I feel that the mere crush of dull people will cause us to explode, and we’ll all scatter from here across the world. You note how many babies have been born of recent years.”

  He looked round at all the friendly familiar faces in the lane, and suspected that she was talking for effect, though there were more children.

  He put his shoulder to the door of the old temple and heaved it open. They entered and stood silent. A bird was trapped inside. It flew round and round, darting close to them as if scrutinizing them, then soared upward and escaped through a hole in the roof.

  Light filtered down through the gaps, creating shafts through the twilight in which particles of dust whirled. The pigs had recently been moved to outside sties but their smell still lingered. Shay Tal walked restlessly about, while Laintal Ay stood by the door, looking out into the street remembering how he used to play here as a child.

  The walls had been decorated with pain
tings executed in a stiff manner. Many had been spoiled. She looked up at the tall alcove above where the sacrificial altar stood, its stone dark still with something that could have been blood. Too high for vandals easily to deface hung a representation of Wutra. Shay Tal stood staring up at it, fists on hips.

  Wutra was depicted, head and shoulders, in a furry cloak. His eyes glared down from a long animallike face with an expression which could be interpreted as compassion. His face was blue, representing an ideal colour of sky, where he dwelt. Rough white hair, almost manelike, surmounted the head; but the most startling departure from the human norm was a pair of horns thrusting upwards from his skull and terminating in silver bells.

  Behind Wutra crowded other figures of a forgotten mythology, mainly horrendous, teeming through the sky. On his left and right shoulder perched his two sentinels. Batalix was depicted as oxlike, bearded, grey and old, with rays of light streaming from his spear. Freyr was larger, a virile green monkey with an hourglass suspended round his neck. His spear was bigger than that of Batalix, and also radiated rays of light.

  She turned away, saying briskly, “Now my experiment, if Goija Hin is ready.”

  “Did you see what you wanted?” He was puzzled by her abruptness.

  “I don’t know. Later, I may know. I plan to go into pauk. I would have liked to ask one of the old priests whether Wutra was supposed to preside over the world below as he does over the earth and sky… So many discontinuities.”

  Meanwhile, Goija Hin was bringing Myk out of the stable under the big tower. Goija Hin was the slave master, a man who exhibited all the stigmata of his calling. He was short but immensely solid with bulging arms and legs. His features fitted clumsily on his low-browed face, which was adorned with wisps of whisker, randomly sited. His garments were leather and, waking or sleeping, he was accompanied by a leather knout. Everyone knew Goija Hin, a man impervious to blows or thought.

  “Come on, Myk, you brute, time to make yourself useful,” he said, speaking in his customary low snarl.

  Myk ambled forth promptly, having grown up in slavery. He was the phagor longest in servitude in Oldorando, and could remember Goija Hin’s predecessor, a man of far more terrible aspect. Black hairs grew in his patchy coat. His face was wrinkled, and the sacks under his eyes were messy with rheum.

  He was always docile. On this occasion, Oyre was nearby to soothe him. While Oyre patted his bent shoulders, Goija Hin prodded him with a stick.

  Oyre had acted as intermediary for Shay Tal and asked her father for permission to use a phagor in Shay Tal’s experiment. Aoz Roon had carelessly told her to take Myk, since he was old.

  The two humans led Myk to a curve of the Voral where the river flowed deep. Shay Tal’s ruined tower stood not far away. Shay Tal and Laintal Ay were already waiting when the trio arrived. Shay Tal stood peering into the depths of the stream as if trying to decipher its secrets, her cheeks hollow, her expression bleak.

  “Well, then, Myk,” she said challengingly, as the beast approached. She regarded him calculatingly. Scrawny sacks of flesh hung down from his chest and stomach. Goija Hin had already strapped his hands behind his back. His head rolled apprehensively between his hunched shoulders. When he saw the Voral, he ran his milt anxiously up his nostril slits several times in quick succession, uttering a low cry of fear. Could it be that water would turn him into a statue?

  Goija Hin gave Shay Tal a rough salute.

  “Tie his legs together,” Shay Tal ordered.

  “Don’t hurt him too much,” Oyre said. “I’ve known Myk since I was a small girl and he’s entirely docile. He used to give us rides, didn’t he, Laintal Ay?”

  Thus appealed to, Laintal Ay came forward. “Shay Tal won’t hurt him,” he said, smiling at Oyre. She regarded him questioningly.

  Attracted by possible excitement, several women and boys came up to see what was going on, and stood in knots on the bank.

  The river ran deep in the curve, cutting into the near bank only a few inches below the ground on which they stood. On the opposite side of the river, where it was shallower, a thin shelf of ice remained, preserved from direct sun by an overhang. This wafer jutted out towards deeper water, elaborately marked in glassy whorls, as if the water itself had taken a knife to carve it.

  When Goija Hin had bound the legs of the unfortunate Myk, he pushed him to the edge of the river. Myk stuck his long head in the air, curled back his lower lips onto his stubbly chin, and let out a trumpet of fear.

  Oyre clutched at his coat, begging Shay Tal not to harm him.

  “Stand back,” Shay Tal said. She gave the signal to Goija Hin to push the phagor in.

  Goija Hin set his thick shoulders to Myk’s ribs. The phagor tottered then plunged into the river with a splash. Shay Tal raised her arms in imperious gesture.

  The watching women gave a shout and rushed forward. Rol Sakil was among them. Shay Tal motioned them back.

  She stared down into the water and could see Myk struggling below the surface. Swathes of his coat came roiling upward with the disturbed water, brushing the surface like yellow weed.

  The water remained water. The phagor remained alive.

  “Pull him up,” she ordered.

  Goija Hin had Myk by two straps. He tugged and Laintal Ay helped. The old phagor’s head and shoulders broke the surface and Myk gave a pathetic cry.

  “Don’t killydrown poor me!”

  They dragged him ashore and he lay panting at Shay Tal’s feet. She chewed her underlip, frowning at the Voral. The magic was not working.

  “Throw him in again,” one of the onlookers called.

  “No more water or I finish,” Myk said, thickly.

  “Push him in again,” Shay Tal ordered.

  Myk went in a second time, and a third. But the water remained water. No miracle happened, and Shay Tal had to conceal her disappointment.

  “That’s enough,” she said. “Goija Hin, take Myk away and feed him extra.”

  Oyre knelt compassionately by Myk’s throat, crying and patting him. Dark water flowed from the phagor’s lips and he began coughing. Laintal Ay knelt and put his arm round Oyre’s shoulder.

  Disdainfully, Shay Tal turned away. The experiment showed that phagors plus water did not make ice. The process was not inevitable. So what had happened at Fish Lake? Equally, she had not managed to turn the Voral to ice, as she had wished to do. So the experiment did not prove she was a sorceress. It did not prove she was not a sorceress; it seemed to prove that she had turned the phagors at Fish Lake to ice—unless there were other factors involved she had not considered.

  She paused with her hand on the rough stone of the doorway to her tower, feeling the rasp of lichen against her palm. Until she found another explanation, she would have to treat herself as others treated her, as a sorceress. The more she starved, the more she respected herself. Of course, as a sorceress, she was destined to remain a virgin; sexual intercourse would destroy her magical powers. She gathered her furs against her lanky form and climbed the worn stairs.

  The women on the bank looked from Myk’s half-drowned body, surrounded by a growing puddle, to Shay Tal’s retreating figure.

  “Now what did she want to go and do that for?” old Rol Sakil asked the company. “How come she didn’t drown the stupid thing properly while she was about it?”

  The next time the council met, Laintal Ay rose and addressed them. He said that he had heard Shay Tal lecture. All knew of her miracle at Fish Lake, which had saved many lives. Nothing she did was directed to the ill of the community. He proposed that her academy should be recognised and supported.

  Aoz Roon looked furious while Laintal Ay spoke. Dathka sat rigid in silence. The old men of the council peered at each other under their eyebrows and muttered uneasily. Eline Tal laughed.

  “What do you wish us to do to aid this academy?” Aoz Roon asked.

  “The temple is empty. Give it to Shay Tal. Let her hold meetings there every afternoon at promenade time. Use
it as a forum, where anyone can speak. The cold has gone, people are freer. Open the temple as an academy for all, for men, women, and children.”

  His resounding words died into silence. Then Aoz Roon spoke.

  “She cannot use the temple. We don’t want a new lot of priests. We keep pigs in the temple.”

  “The temple is empty.”

  “From now on, pigs are kept in the temple.”

  “It’s a bad day when we put pigs above the community.”

  The meeting eventually broke up in some disorder, as Aoz Roon marched out. Laintal Ay turned to Dathka, his cheeks flushed.

  “Why didn’t you support me?”

  Dathka grinned sheepishly, tugged his narrow beard, stared down at the table. “You could not win if all Oldorando supported you. He has already banned the academy. You waste your breath, my friend.”

  As Laintal Ay was leaving the building, feeling disgusted with the world, Datnil Skar, master of the tawyers and tannerscorps, called to him and grasped his sleeve.

  “You spoke well, young Laintal Ay, yet Aoz Roon was right in what he said. Or, if not right, not unreasonable. If Shay Tal spoke in the temple, she would become a priestess and be worshipped. We don’t want that—our ancestors got rid of the priests some generations ago.”

  Laintal Ay knew Master Datnil for a kindly and modest man. Restraining his anger, he looked down at the worn face and asked, “Why tell me this?”

  Master Datnil looked about to see that no one was listening.

  “Worship arises from ignorance. Believing in one fixed thing is a mark of ignorance. I respect attempts to drum facts into peoples heads. I wanted to say that I am sorry you were defeated, though I don’t agree with your proposition. I would be willing to address Shay Tal’s academy if she will have me.”

  He removed his fur hat and set it on the lichenous sill. He smoothed his sparse grey hair and cleared his dry throat. He looked about him and smiled nervously. Although he had known everyone in the room since he was born, he was unaccustomed to the role of speaker. His stiff clothes creaked as he shifted from one foot to another.