by John Brunner
Yes, truly the folk of Ryovora were dissatisfied, and it was as Manuus had claimed. They had struggled through centuries inquiring of the mute cosmos what its purpose and the purpose of humanity might be, and they were left still hungering, to the point of growing disillusioned.
This hunger – so they declared – would be assuaged if only they had a god to turn to, as did their neighbors at Acromel. News had been brought, of course, that the god of Acromel had caused uncounted deaths and widespread misery, but they ascribed all that to the notorious stupidity of Duke Vaul. “We are sensible people!” they insisted. “We would know how to treat a god!”
The traveller stood gazing out over the placid scene. The beams of a waxing moon glinted on the roofs of splendid buildings, on ornamental trees and lakes, mansions and fine wide roads among whose dust were scattered gems to make the way more pleasant.
To think that folk who revelled in such luxury could hanker for an arbitrary god …!
He had asked everywhere, “What is the nature of a god?” And they had answered confidently, “We have none! How, then, can we tell? But if we did have one – ah, then we’d know!”
The traveller remained immobile until pink dawn-flush tinged the east, absorbing and reviewing the desire that inchoately washed against his mind. At last, a breath or two before full sunrise, a smile quirked his mouth and he raised his staff above the city and said, “As you wish, so be it.”
Then, his task for the moment being accomplished, he departed.
IV
To park a car while one goes for a walk in the woods is not uncommon. To return and find that the car is no longer there is not unprecedented. But to return and find that the road itself, on which the car was parked, has likewise vanished, is a different matter entirely.
Yet for a man who rules himself by the straightforward logic of common sense, such as a materials scientist turned civil engineer, there is no need instantly to assume that a problem of this magnitude is insoluble. Bernard Brown was precisely such a person, and it was to him that this improbable event had just occurred.
“Well!” he said, staring at the indisputably grassy surface of the narrow ride between high hedges where to the best of his recollection – and his memory was normally good – there had shortly before been a tarmac road, sound enough in general albeit a far cry from the concrete superhighways he was used to helping build. “Well!” he said again, and since there was no obvious alternative sat down on a mossy rock and smoked a cigarette in a philosophical manner.
However, no one came by who might enlighten him as to the fate either of his car or of the road it had been on, so when the cigarette had reduced to a stub he dropped it on the grass, ground it out underfoot, and began to walk along the lane between the hedges.
By the straightforward logic of common sense, a road which had been here a scant hour ago could not have removed itself to another location. Therefore it must be he who was misplaced; he had no doubt missed his way in the pleasant summery woodland, and would eventually return if not to the road he had first followed then to some other that intersected with it.
He strolled along jauntily enough, not much worried by the turn of affairs, and whistled as he walked. Occasionally the hedges on either side parted after he had gone by, and eyes thoughtfully studied his retreating back, but since he did not notice it this fact failed to disturb him.
At length the hedges ended, and with them the trees of the wood, and he emerged on a rutted track between two ploughed fields. On the near edge of one of these fields a man whose only clothing was a kerchief tied around his neck and whose legs were soiled to the knee with dirt was backing up a large obstreperous horse, harnessed to a cart whose contents were indeterminate but stank incredibly. Ignoring both reek and nudity as best he could, Bernard addressed the fellow in his politest tones.
“Excuse me! Can you tell me the way to the London road?”
The man considered for a moment. Then he spat in the earth where it was new-turned by his horse’s enormous hooves, and said bluntly, “No!”
Well, that was at least an answer, if not a very helpful one. Bernard shrugged and wandered on.
Again the grassy ride passed between hedges, and began to wind so that at any given moment only twenty paces of it were in clear view before and behind. From around a bend ahead a voice could be heard raised in song and growing louder. This voice was of intersexual quality, neither altogether male nor altogether female, and shrilled occasionally on the highest notes with shiver-provoking acidity.
Shortly the singer came in sight, and Bernard found himself confronted by a young man, with silvery white hair cut short around his head, riding negligently on a gaily caparisoned horse that moved its head in time with the beat of its master’s song. His attire was extraordinary, for he wore a checkered shirt of red and yellow and loose breeches of bright green, the color of a sour apple, and his steed was if anything more surprising, inasmuch as it was skewbald of purple and pale blue. This rider accompanied his vocalizing on a small plucked instrument, the strings of which chirruped like birds.
When he perceived Bernard, he abandoned his song in midphrase, let his instrument fall on a baldric to his side, and reined in his mount. Then he leaned forward, one hand on the pommel of his saddle, and fixed the pedestrian with bright hard eyes; these were violet.
“Good morrow, stranger,” he said in a light tone. “And what’s your business here?”
“I’m trying to find my way back to the London road,” said Bernard, trying to stop his eyebrows rising in astonishment at this spectacle.
“There is no road of that name near here,” said the young man, and shook his head sorrowfully. “I know that to be a fact, for all the roads in this vicinity belong to me.”
“Now this is all very well,” said Bernard, and forced a smile to show he was party to the joke. “But while it may amuse you to make such grandiose assertions, it does not amuse me to be denied essential guidance. I’ve lost my way somehow, through taking a wrong turning in the woods, and I badly need directions.”
The young man drew himself upright and urged his horse forward – and it could be seen now that this was not a young man riding a horse, nor was there in fact a horse being ridden, but some sort of confusion of the two, in that the youth’s legs were not separated from his mount. They ended in fleshy stalks, uniting with the belly of that part of the composite animal resembling a horse.
“This is weird!” thought Bernard to himself, but being mannerly he forbore to remark on the combination.
The man-portion of the creature stared at him harshly, hand falling to his thigh where a sword rested in a black scabbard. “Who tire you?” he demanded. “And where are you from, that you don’t recognize me?”
Nettled, Bernard rejoined, “Unless you had taken part in a circus, or been exhibited at the zoo, I would not presume to do so!”
Horse-head and man-head reared back together in appalled amazement, and the sword whined brightly through the air. Feeling he must have to do with a creature whose mind was as abnormal as its body, Bernard had already stepped discreetly out of range when the blade flashed by.
“I am Jorkas!” shrieked the man-horse creature. “Now dare you still say you do not know me?”
Alarmed at the behavior of this composite personage, Bernard replied in a tone as civil as could be expected, given the attack with the sword, “No, sir, I do not, and I may say that your actions give me little cause to wish we had become acquainted earlier.”
The man-face contorted with unbelievable rage, and the sword swung aloft for a second blow as the horse-body danced three steps towards Bernard. He was on the point of making an inglorious – and predictably ill-fated – retreat when a sudden ringing noise indicated that the weapon had struck something very resistant indeed in its downward passage. Indeed, the creature was shaking its sword-arm as though it had been numbed clear to the shoulder.
The obstacle the blade had encountered was a glittering staff,
upheld in the firm grip of a black-clad man who had somehow contrived to approach without being noticed. This person was now standing back, leaning on the staff, and regarding Jorkas with a wry expression.
Jorkas shrugged, sheathed his sword, and took up his instrument again. His horse-legs bore him cantering away, and when he was out of sight around the next bend his countertenor voice was once more heard raised in song.
“It seems, sir,” Bernard said to his rescuer, wiping his face and not unduly surprised to find he was perspiring, “that I owe you a debt of gratitude. I confess I was not prepared to meet anyone – or anything – like that in this quiet lane.”
The black-clad one smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. “It’s true,” he said matter-of-factly, “I did render some small service, but you’ll have the chance to pay it back a hundredfold. Meantime, I’d add a smidgin of advice. If you expect nothing and everything, you will do well.”
Settling his jacket more comfortably around his shoulders, Bernard blinked several times in succession. “Well, sir, taken whichever way, I cannot see your advice proving unsound. Particularly if this neighborhood is populated by more amazing freaks like Jorkas!”
“Yes, he bears the imprint of chaos,” said the man in black. “He is left over, so to speak. He is fairly harmless now; events have passed him by, and his power grows small.”
“That sword, had it attained its target, would scarcely have been harmless,” Bernard pointed out. “One blow could have disposed of me. … Has he escaped from some – some fantastic menagerie?”
“He has rather endured from a period of confusion,” was the reply, which though apparently meaningful served not at all to lessen either Bernard’s puzzlement or his alarm. He decided, nonetheless, to forgo further inquiry into the matter, and to revert to his primary preoccupation.
“Can you, sir, tell me: where’s the London road?”
“I can,” said the other with a chuckle. “But it would be of small help if I did, since you cannot come to it from here. No, pay attention, and I will give directions that will eventually bring you where you wish to be.”
Since that was the best the stranger was willing to offer, Bernard had perforce to nod acceptance.
“Go forward from here,” said his mentor, “until you reach three alder trees standing alone in a meadow. You will recognize them readily enough. Stand before them and bow three times, then take the path around them. In a little while it will bring you to a city. And whatever you do, do not speak with a woman in clothing the color of blood. Otherwise I cannot answer for the outcome.”
“What nonsense!” thought Bernard to himself. But since he had no choice he thanked the other in a civil fashion and went on circumspectly down the lane.
The alder trees poked up, white and gnarled, from the grass of the promised meadow, like the fingers of a skeleton. Bernard hesitated, looking around. He knew he would feel foolish if he acted as he had been advised. Still, so far as he could tell no one was watching, and the logic of common sense had long ago enabled him to conclude that he was not at present in a region where common sense was greatly prized.
He was troubled, though, that he could discern no sign at all of a road beyond this point, so that unless he did what he had been told, and it – ah – worked, he would have to retrace his steps, with the concomitant prospect of a second encounter with Jorkas. For that he had no stomach. Accordingly, he bowed his head three times, rather as he an unbeliever might have done in church, and was taken aback to find he was suddenly standing on a well-defined path. Which, he instantly noticed, led nowhere save around the alders.
Well, the black-clad man had said he should take the path which led around them. He turned to his left and resolutely made three circuits, hopeful of getting somewhere else eventually.
Starting his third turn, when he was feeling distinctly embarrassed by his own silliness, he glanced towards the trees again and saw a slender woman standing among them. She had a face of perfect oval shape, skin like mother-of-pearl, and hair blacker than the midnight sky. But she was gowned from shoulders to ankles in a dress as red as blood.
She spoke to him in a musical voice, sarcastically. “And where do you think your circumambulations will carry you, my foolish friend? Did no one ever warn you that if you walk in circles you’ll get nowhere? Why not head onward? See!”
She raised an arm on which golden bracelets jangled, and when Bernard followed her pointing finger he saw a city of black houses clustered round a lofty tower, whose top resembled onyx and whose shaft resembled agate.
A strange sort of city! Yet at least a zone of habitation, not a further stretch of deserted countryside. He was half minded to make towards it with all haste, yet felt a vague foreboding. There was a sense of menace in the air …
He spoke aloud, but to himself, not the woman in red, and said, “The man who saved me from Jorkas advised me not to speak with a woman in a dress the color of blood. I assume this advice extends to not following any suggestion she may make.”
Doggedly he completed his rotatory progress, while the woman’s laughter tinkled irritatingly in his ears, and was rewarded on his final circuit to see that she had gone. Somewhere. Somehow.
Moreover, another city was in sight, and this was not so disturbing. Its towers were of gold and silver, and although the sky about it was of an electrical blue shade that seemed to presage nothing less familiar than the advent of a storm.
“There, perhaps,” reasoned Bernard, “I may escape this conglomeration of cryptic nonmeaningful events, and may even track down someone who can tell me how to get home.”
He struck out across the meadow, and shortly came to a wide though dusty road, which led straight towards the city with the gold and silver towers. Determined to reach it in the least possible time, he thrust the road behind him with feet that now began to ache more than a little.
“So!” said the enchanter Manuus, leaning back in his chair with a chuckle. “So!” he said again, dropping the cover – made of bat’s skin as fine and supple as silk – over his scrying-glass. “Well, well, well, well, well!”
V
At the head of the council table – which, because the weather was oppressive, he had caused to be set out under the sycamore trees in the Moth Garden – the Margrave of Ryovora sat frowning terribly.
Before him, the table stretched almost a hundred feet, in sections that were so cleverly joined the overarching trees could admire their reflections intact in its polished top. Nothing spoiled the perfection of the table, except the purplish sheen it had acquired from the close and sluggish air.
To right and left of him, ranked in their chairs, sat the nobility of Ryovora, men and women of vast individual distinction: the merchant-enchanters, the persons of inquiring mind, the thinkers, the creators, all those to whom this city owed its fame and reputation.
The margrave spoke, not looking at his audience.
“Tell us what has transpired in your section of the city, Petrovic.”
Petrovic, a dry little man with a withered face like an old apple, coughed apologetically and said, “There are omens. I have cast runes to ascertain their meaning. They have no known significance. But in my demesne milk has soured in the pan four mornings running.”
“And Ruman?”
Ruman was a man bodied like an oak tree, whose thick gnarled hands were twisting restlessly in his lap. He said, “I have slaughtered an ox and an ass to divine what may be read in their entrails. I agree with Petrovic; these omens have no discernible significance. But two springs under the wall of the city, which have not failed in more centuries than I can discover, are dry this morning.”
“And Gostala?”
Gostala was a woman with a queenly bosom and a queenly diadem of white hair plaited around her head. She said, “I have watched the flight of birds each dawn for seven days, and also at sunset. The results are confused. But a two-headed lamb has been born in the village of Dunwray.”
“And Eadwil?”
Eadwil was hardly more than a boy. His chin was innocent of a beard and when he spoke his voice was like a reed pipe; still, they must respect his precocious wisdom. He said, “I have analyzed the respective positions of the stars and planets, and am driven to the hypotheses that either we know nothing at all of their effects or some undetected celestial body is influencing events – perhaps a comet. But yesterday lightning struck three times out of a clear sky, and – and, Margrave, I’m frightened!”
The margrave made a comforting gesture in the air. It didn’t help much. He said, “This, though, cannot be the whole story. I move that we – here, now, in full council – ask Him Who Must Know.”
Eadwil rose to his feet. On his youthful lips trembled a sob, which he stoutly repressed.
“I request your permission to withdraw, then. It is well known how He Who Must Know deals with those – uh – in my condition.”
The margrave nodded approval of the discreet reference. Eadwil owed some of his precocity to the postponement of a major upheaval in his physiology, and the elemental they were considering found virgins vulnerable to his powers.
“Agreed,” he said, and Eadwil departed, sighing with relief.
Before they could proceed with the business in hand, however, there was a rustling sound from far down the table, and a voice spoke like the soughing of wind in bare winter woods.
“Margrave, I suggest otherwise.”
The margrave shifted uncomfortably in his chair. That was
Tyllwin who spoke, a figure as gaunt as a scarecrow and as thin as a rake, who sat among them by courtesy because no one knew where he had come from or how old he was, but everybody knew he had many and peculiar powers which had never been put to use. Just as well, maybe. Whenever he spoke, untoward events ensued. The margrave saw with alarm that blossoms on several nearby trees were withering.