THE GOD BOX

by Barry B. Longyear

  "Hoo, Ruuter!"

  Ruuter reached into his saddlebag and tossed a bright orange ball at the boy. He turned back to tell us, "My sister Marana's boy, Tolly. He fine boy. He miss me a lot." He pointed across the bridge. "Coul's butnut grove be on other side."

  "Why do we need these nuts?" I asked him.

  He looked up, frowned, then shrugged. "Easier we find butnuts."

  Ruuter led the way. Before we were a third of the way across, a crowd of perhaps ten or fifteen Omergunts came running across the bridge to meet us. Great Ehbot, the stench! It was like wearing a mask made from a dunglayer's old stockings. In fact it was worse than that. In other societies I might have appeared rude, but the greener I got and the more vocal I became, the more complimented were the natives.

  "By all the unnamed sewer gods, you stink!"

  "Thank you."

  Impossible. After a few minutes of this aromatic horror, we managed to struggle to the north bank of the river. We stopped at a hut next to a grove of very tall trees. A very sad-looking man was standing in front of the hut. Ruuter called to him, "Hoo, Coul! Outsiders here need butnuts."

  "When?"

  Ruuter looked at Syndia, but the priestess shook her head and looked back at me. "It can't take too long," I gasped. "Aside from our breathing problems, the good captain is about ten hours behind us."

  Ruuter faced Coul. "We need them very soon."

  "Ruuter," I called. "Why can't we simply dispense with the nuts and gallop somewhere else in one big hurry?"

  Ruuter laughed and pointed back at me with his thumb. "Outsider."

  Coul nodded, but never cracked a smile. "It be a long time 'til dry season, Ruuter. Extra work."

  Ruuter handed the sad-looking man an entire reel, and I would have protested if I wouldn't have had to inhale to feed my words. Half of the tribe must have been gathered around by then, and I was near to passing out from the stench. It did me just a little good to see that Syndia and Rosh weren't faring any better. The only ones who didn't seem bothered by the bone-cracking aroma were Ruuter and Tayu.

  I couldn't hold my breath any longer and I rode up next to Ruuter and grabbed him by the collar. "We got to go—Got to get out of here!"

  Ruuter reached into a pocket and pulled out something. "Eat these," he said.

  "Food? Are you insane? I'm not hungry, you walking dung heap! With this foul odor, I can hardly keep down my sawdust loaf!"

  "Butnuts," he offered. "For the smell."

  "What?" I looked into his hand and saw several crescent shaped black nuts. I took one and ate it. As I did so, the smell decreased about fifty percent. "Amazing!"

  I took another while Ruuter passed them around to Rosh and Syndia. The smell wasn't gone, exactly, but it was as if it was coming through a set of nostrils that approved. Even more than the smell, was the taste. The more I ate, the more I craved. "Ruuter, these are terrific. I see why we need them. Let me have another."

  "They be gone, Korvas. That's why Coul must cry for us."

  I looked, and approximately two hundred Omergunts were in the grove seated in a circle with one of the tall trees in the center. Our party sat in the circle with the natives while Coul approached the tree and the surrounding voices fell silent.

  "Is he going to climb all of the way up there and get the nuts?" I asked Ruuter.

  "No. Trees too tall, bark too slick. He cry them down."

  The one called Coul wrapped his arms about the tree and let loose with a wail that made my toes sweat. "Oh, great tree, hear me!" he cried. "I be alone, for my wife left me for another. She took my belongings and all my coppers!" He wailed some more. "She took my three children." Two objects fell from the branches a hundred feet up. Coul wailed as they struck the ground and burst open. They were filled with the black nuts. I began to get up to retrieve them, but Ruuter motioned me down.

  "We cannot risk happiness near the tree."

  "Great tree," Coul cried, "before she left, she killed my dog!" The grove keeper pounded on the tree's trunk as several more pods fell from the branches and struck the ground.

  "You see," said Ruuter, "all plants have spirits, and the spirit of the mother tree constantly looks how happy the spirits beneath it be so its seedlings can be fed when food be scarce. When the seedlings do not eat enough they feel bad. The mother tree feels the sadness and drops the food."

  Coul was lying at the base of the tree, kicking his feet and pounding the roots of the tree with his fist. "My wife placed a poison snake in my bed, gave my hut to her mother, and asked to borrow money from my mother for a new hut for herself! And my mother gave her the money!" There was a wail from the entire circle of onlookers. Several other trees in the area were dropping pods as well. "My mother gave her the money out of what she was holding for me!" An even greater wail arose from the circle. The pods fairly rained on us as Coul screamed, "Why me! Why me?"

  Later, as our party walked our horses through the village toward the chiefs compound, I munched upon the tasty little nuts and said to Ruuter, "That is quite an act your friend Coul performs."

  "Oh, that be no act, Korvas. If he only pretend, trees won't be fooled. Coul be very, very sad man."

  "Why doesn't he do something about it besides wallow in self-pity? Why doesn't he get a new wife, build a new hut, have more children, get a new dog? At a reel per performance he can certainly afford it."

  "If he does, he no longer sad. Be the end of Coul's living."

  "Ruuter, if I asked my god box what Coul needed, what would it say?"

  "It might say Coul really need first-rate calamity for and put the edge back on his misery. His harvest performance today be pitiful, and I apologize for him."

  "No need." I ate another nut and inhaled, and the startling thing was that I could smell everything else, the flowers, the dust, the sweaty horses. I just couldn't smell that horrible odor from the people. "Ruuter, it's incredible how these nuts make it impossible to smell those horrid odors you people give off."

  "It work out 'specially well," answered our guide, "when you think eating those nuts causes bad smells you find so repulsive."

  I stopped dead in the road. "I stink?"

  "Please do not brag," said Ruuter as he pulled his mount ahead. "It be very rude."

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  After we entered Oghar the Valiant's lodge, the air was so thick with incense my nose ran and my eyes burned. Syndia stood before our band and began to address the chief of the Omergunts. He held out a hand and commanded, "Silence!" Syndia stepped back and glanced at Ruuter, whose only answer was an enigmatic smile.

  Oghar was a very old man, clad in skins and wearing a crown made of human bones. The face of the skull set into the front of the crown had rubies for eyes. His wooden throne was on a raised platform surrounded by many fierce-looking weapons, and his several attendants were standing about him, sneezing, blowing their noses, and rubbing their eyes. The ones near the hut's walls would, when Oghar wasn't looking, stick their heads through holes in the walls and take a quick breath of fresh air.

  Oghar turned to an attendant and barked, "Get Kosi in here!"

  The attendant faced the chief, fell prostrate to the floor, said, "Your command, Great Oghar," and leaped up and ran from the hut.

  "Great Chief," began Syndia, "we have come—"

  "Wait for Kosi," Oghar interrupted.

  An older, heavier man streaked into the lodge and skidded to a halt on his face in front of his chief. "You ask for me, Great Chief?"

  "Scum," Oghar answered. "Filth! Dog! Sewage! Garbage! Bottom wipings!"

  The one called Kosi appeared to be in bad odor. He held out his hands, his face still on the floor. "Great Oghar, how may I make amends for my many horrible wrongs?"

  "Once you are out of my sight, Kosi, deal with these outsiders!" Oghar pointed at us. "Do not fail me again, Kosi!"

  Kosi somehow manag
ed to scrabble out of the hut on his face, pausing only once to say to Syndia, "Follow me or die."

  Once outside, Kosi was on his feet and filled with anger. "Where be that devil Olassar and his evil box?"

  "Olassar several days ago." Syndia held out her hand toward me. "Our friend Korvas is the heir to Olassar's business."

  Kosi glanced at the god box slung at my waist. "There it be! There be the wicked thing!" He lifted his gaze until he was looking at my face. The look in his own face was something wild.

  "I take it you were less than pleased with my predecessor's performance," I suggested.

  Kosi spat on the ground. "I stood next to the throne as Oghar's first advisor and general of his army. I had wealth, and respect of my chief. All this before Olassar and his cursed box came into the valley. Now there be no more army, my chief be ashamed of his people, and he blames me!"

  Ruuter spat in disgust and pointed south toward the butnut groves. "Are you after Coul's position?"

  "Talk clear, Ruuter!"

  The guide shook his head. "If you want and cry butnuts off trees, then act like this. If you want answers, Kosi, ask for them."

  "Ask?"

  "Yes, ask."

  "You mean that thing?" Kosi pointed at the god box.

  His glower deepened a few dozen degrees as he aimed it in my direction. "My current dilemma be the result of the most recent time that box helped the Omergunts. I would sooner crawl into bed with a hundred pit vipers."

  "That's odd," I answered as the heat came to my face. "I didn't know your mother was still in business."

  In a flash Kosi had a fighting knife at the ready, I had mine out, and Syndia stepped between us. "Gentlemen, there are no solutions to be found along the current path."

  Kosi shook his knife in my direction. "He will apologize about my mother!"

  Syndia looked at me. "Korvas?"

  "Very well."

  "Very well, what?" demanded Kosi.

  "I spoke in haste, Kosi," I said. "I apologize."

  Kosi slowly returned his knife to its sheath. He took a deep breath, looked into the distance, and said, "Years ago Olassar come here carrying that box. Before he came we be a proud warrior nation feared throughout the Mystic Mountains." Kosi folded his arms. "Our gentle King—not I—sought an end to our wars with the Dagas, Tchakas, and Serkers. No sooner had he uttered those words to me and prayed to his god, children brought news of a stranger in the valley. It be Olassar. My chief commanded Olassar's presence in the lodge, and the old fraud appeared with his box and explained its use. If the chief and his people needed an end to war, the box would find a way."

  "You have no army," I said. "Your valley seems prosperous and at peace. Obviously Olassar and this box ended your wars for you."

  "All too well!" Kosi was silent for a long time, then he sadly shook his head. "The box said for all of us, eat the fruit of the butnut tree. Box say how get nuts how and groves planted. We plant them, cry them off trees, eat them, and we begin to stink. Soon attacking us no one wanted, and the Omergunts became laughingstock. Because of smell, everyone think we a stupid and dirty people. You hear the jokes? Why the beaches of Ocean of Ilan black? Because an Omergunt swam there and left a ring."

  "No," I gasped, "never heard that one. Sorry."

  Syndia gently pushed me aside as she spoke to Kosi. "Oghar got what he wanted, didn't he?"

  "Priestess, he didn't want his tribe a laughingstock!"

  "Pardon me," I interrupted, "but why does Oghar keep his lodge so heavily smoked with incense? I could hardly breathe in there."

  "As an example for others," Kosi answered, "my chief has sworn off butnuts. No one take his example though. People pretty much satisfied not having wars or supporting army. So, Oghar need another way to stop smell."

  "Why doesn't he simply order his people to stop eating the butnuts, and execute those who will not comply?"

  The former general of the Omergunt army shrugged. "Oghar be, after all, our gentle King."

  I looked at Ruuter. "I can understand eating the nuts here in the valley, but why do you eat them outside the valley?"

  The man smiled. "In none of wayside towns, not even in Iskandar itself, have I ever been robbed. When I shop in bazaar, I never fight crowds, and merchants wait on me with dispatch. When I haggle over a price I find too rich, the merchant's resolve melts."

  "Don't you care what people must think of you?"

  He frowned and shook his head. "Never."

  "Outrageous," I said in admiration as I turned back to face Kosi. "What about you? Do you still eat the nuts?"

  "Do I look like a fool?" he answered beneath his breath. "Of course I eat them. If I didn't I'd die in this valley."

  Syndia looked toward the lodge. "Does he want his wars back?"

  "No, but he want his people be feared again."

  Ah, yes, I thought as I looked at the god box. That's what he wants. But what does he need?

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  Oghar the Valiant's face glowered with every bit of the intensity of the skull on his crown. He gestured with his left hand. "Kosi say he dealt with you. What does your evil contraption suggest I need?"

  "Nuts."

  The chief's glower deepened into absolute menace. "Make yourself clear, stranger."

  "Eat the nuts." I held out the slip of paper that I had gotten from the god box. "I asked it what you need, and it said 'Nuts'." I felt something nudging the inside of my right arm. I looked down, and one of the box's drawers was opening and closing again and again. I bowed toward the chief. "Forgive me, Oghar." I picked up the box and looked into the open drawer.

  "It seems there is a second part to the message. Before getting to it, however, the box suggests that you eat the nuts and air out your lodge."

  The chief stood and pointed a finger down at me. "This better work, Korvas. I know I have a reputation for being gentle, but it probably won't injure my reputation if I have you tied in the village market on public display—without any butnuts!"

  While I contemplated that grisly fate, the chief ate some of the nuts and the attendants extinguished the incense burners and opened the lodge's doors. When the smoke cleared, I bowed toward the chief and said, "Witness, Great Oghar, that the god box has already been like a breath of fresh air."

  "Get on with it, Korvas. Show me how you change a world's opinion about my people."

  "As I interpret the messages, Great Oghar, it is not the world's opinion that needs to be changed. The world is happy believing the way it believes, and so are your people, with the possible exceptions of Kosi and your butnut harvesters. The butnut harvesters are happy not being happy, for that is their living. This leaves only you and Kosi."

  "You say that I be the one who needs changing?"

  "You and Kosi, Great Chief."

  "I see a binding post in the village market with your name on it, Korvas." Oghar folded his arms. "Very well, how do you propose changing me?"

  "I cannot change you, Oghar. Only a great chief may change a great chief."

  "Which means what, Korvas? You be gibbering after the manner of an oracle."

  That was true enough. "I think it simply means that only you can change you, Oghar." I moistened my lips, for I was not terribly certain that what the box had suggested would really work. I looked at Kosi. "The chief will need to write."

  "Paper and charcoal," he shouted at one of the attendants. In a blur the attendant secured the items, skidded to a halt on his knees before the throne and held up the charcoal and paper. The chief took them, placed the paper on the wide armrest of his throne, and looked at me, his eyebrows raised.

  "Put the shame you feel for yourself and your people on the paper."

  "Eh?"

  "Write it down, Great Chief. Write down all of the bad things you feel."

  For a very long time there was the sound of the stick of charcoal scra
tching against the paper. The scratching ceased. "Very well."

  I felt a little dizzy about the next part. "Put your injured false pride on the paper."

  "My injured false pride," he repeated menacingly. There was a silence, followed at last by the scratching of the charcoal. When the Chief had finished writing, he raised his head, glared at me, the conversation taking an awkward turn. "Korvas, have you ever seen a blister raised beneath a toenail with a white hot iron?"