They kissed. “I’ll ensure they don’t come to blows,” he said, and joined the two men in the lounge.
“We’re staying here till midday tomorrow,” he said, and relayed the geologist’s reasoning.
Cannak turned in the window seat and said, “Is that wise? What if the people who built that... that monstrosity should return?”
“You mean the giants?” Kahran said. “The advanced race your Church would deny ever existed?”
“The sacred texts make no such denial. They merely state that the people of the plains are heathen and godless. Such a state does not preclude the accomplishment of sophisticated technological feats such as we witnessed out there.”
“You have an answer for everything,” Kahran murmured.
“Study of the Book of Books supplies the diligent scholar with the knowledge to refute the ignorance of disbelievers,” Cannak responded.
Something lit Kahran’s eyes. “Then how do you explain what we beheld at Sorny and beyond in ‘65?”
The men locked gazes, for all the world like a pair of bull zeer in mating season. Cannak said, “You suffered for your rashness then. You can suffer again. And be warned, others besides yourself might suffer also.”
Kahran said, “Have you not even one tiny grain of doubt in your soul, Elder?”
Cannak drew himself upright. “I have faith. Faith is strength. I know the work of God, and though I admit that not all things might be clear at times, I know that God has his purpose which will in time be made obvious to the righteous.”
After a long silence, during which Kahran stared with ill-concealed loathing at the Elder, he said, “Rohan Telsa was a fine man, Cannak. He was the finest man I have ever known. What the Church did can never be forgiven.”
Cannak stood. “Be careful, Shollay. Be very careful.”
Kahran stood, too, facing the Elder, then spat upon the carpet of the lounge, turned on his heel and retreated to his sleeping berth.
Ehrin stared after him, then turned to the Elder.
Cannak said, “It would be wise to forget you ever overheard that exchange. I hope you understand?”
Cannak swept from the lounge and down the corridor before Ehrin had time to reply.
He sat alone for perhaps ten minutes, nursing a pot of cooling tisane and contemplating his thoughts. He recalled Kahran’s forecast, back in Agstarn, that the expedition would prove to be very interesting, and his later avowal that murder might be witnessed by the end of the journey. One thing was for sure, Ehrin thought, and that was that the events of the voyage would have disturbing repercussions on their return to the capital city.
He made his way to the sleeping chamber he shared with Sereth, undressed and climbed in beside her. She embraced him, her nakedness and warmth reassuring.
At one point during the night, as the wind howled through the hawsers outside, she whispered into his ear, “Ehrin, even if the Church is wrong... that doesn’t mean to say that there is no God, does it?”
He held her tight. “Of course not, Ser,” he reassured, and wondered at his lie.
* * * *
3
Before breakfast the following morning, Kyrik arrived at the Expeditor and informed Ehrin and Kahran that the test drill had proved fruitless. He suggested that they move on to the next site, two hundred miles to the west, and Ehrin concurred.
When the geologist had departed, Kahran dragged his photographic apparatus from his cabin and asked Ehrin, “Any sign of Cannak?”
“He’s still in his cabin.”
Kahran folded the legs of his camera and fitted a protective canvas hood over the lens. “In that case, I’ll get a little photographic evidence of the ziggurat.”
“Be quick. We’ll be underway in an hour or two.”
Kahran nodded, hoisted the camera onto his shoulder and elbowed his way through the door. Within seconds his padded shape was lost in the swirling snowstorm.
Ehrin moved to the lounge and prepared a breakfast of eggs and flat cakes on the griddle, then brewed a gallon of tisane in the samovar to see them through the day.
Five minutes later Sereth joined him, looking bleary-eyed and sleepy. He often thought she looked at her most beautiful before she had prepared herself for the day, elemental and animal-like with her snout still wet before the application of powder.
“Sleep well?” He passed her a pot of tisane, which she accepted as she slumped into a divan.
“I dreamed of finding a giant’s temple in the wilderness, and a nasty row between Kahran and the Elder.” She looked up at him and laughed.
“It’s the freezing frames for me and Kahran when we get back.”
She winced. “Don’t. That isn’t a bit funny.”
Ehrin doled out a portion of egg and cake, and they ate while the wind battered the gondola and the snowstorm reduced visibility beyond the windows to less than five yards.
Ehrin was wondering whether to venture outside and fetch Kahran when the hatch burst open. Ehrin made out a figure in a padded suit and hat. At first he thought it was Kahran, come to report some amazing discovery. Then the figure leaned into the cabin and he made out the geologist, Kyrik.
He had the sudden intimation that something had happened to Kahran, and he felt a sweep of relief when Kyrik said, “You’d better come, and Sereth also. She might be able to work out what they’re saying.”
“What who are saying?” Ehrin began.
“We have visitors,” Kyrik said, then turned and hurried back out into the snowstorm.
Ehrin exchanged a glance with Sereth. “Stay here. I’ll send someone if it’s safe for you to come out, okay?”
She nodded mutely and watched him go.
He felt his heart begin a laboured pounding as he stepped into the teeth of the gale. He turned in the approximate direction of the freighter, his breath stolen suddenly by the ferocious wind. He looked for Kyrik, but there was no sign of the geologist. Visibility was down to a yard or two, a little further when the wind let up briefly. In one lull he made out the scarlet envelope of the freighter, blooming against the grey overcast. Then he saw Kyrik, battling his way across the snow towards the great dirigible.
He headed towards it, leaning into the wind, his every step an effort.
Minutes later he caught up with Kyrik, who gripped his arm and led him around the front end of the gondola. Here, protected from the wind, half a dozen geologists and engineers huddled, staring into the snowstorm.
Perhaps twenty yards away, like something from an ancient chiaroscuro print, Ehrin made out a phalanx of twenty men mounted on zeer, or what at first appeared to be zeer. On closer inspection, the animals were bigger, shaggier, than their urban cousins.
That went, also, for their riders.
As Ehrin stared, wondering whether to hold his ground or turn and run, a zeer detached itself from the line and approached slowly. The other riders held back, as if awaiting the outcome of this encounter. As the great beast approached, Ehrin gained a better view of its rider.
The man was bulky, but not with the expected padding. In fact he wore very little, other than a harness across his shoulders, which supported an ancient, though nevertheless lethal-looking, blunderbuss. His bulk was made up of fur, long black hair that gave him the barbaric appearance of a wild animal. Ehrin wondered at the hardiness of a people able to tolerate the sub-zero temperatures, and the lacerating wind of the plains, practically naked.
The man shouted suddenly, the gruff words incomprehensible.
Kyrik leaned towards Ehrin and said, “They’ve been calling for five minutes. We don’t understand a word.”
“At least they haven’t drawn their weapons,” Ehrin said.
On impulse, he stepped from the shadow of the gondola and raised a hand in a gesture which he hoped might appear conciliatory. “Greetings. We are from Agstarn, beyond the mountains.”
The leader of the group inched his zeer forward, finally halting three yards from where Ehrin stood.
At
closer quarters, other differences to the city dwellers became obvious: the man’s snout seemed longer, his eyes set closer together, producing an overall effect that looked both ugly and hostile.
He barked another gruff sentence, and this time Ehrin made out what he thought might be the word trade...
“We have not come to trade,” he said. “We are explorers, from beyond the mountains.”
The leader’s expression, remained hostile. He grunted, gesturing to this freighter, then back towards the other tribesmen mounted on their zeer.
Ehrin glanced back at Kyrik. “Go and fetch Sereth.”
He returned his attention to the tribesman, taking in the workmanship of the leather bridles and halters strapped about the zeer’s great muzzle. He gestured and said, “Zeer? We have zeer in Agstarn...” The words elicited no response from the tribesman, except perhaps a mystified furrowing of the man’s vast brow.
By now, other tribesmen had overcome their hesitancy and joined the first, staring up at the swelling belly of the freighter’s scarlet envelope. They looked nonplussed, and exchanged baffled growls amongst themselves.
Ehrin guessed that the tribesmen were on average half a head taller than his own people, and more muscular. They wore their head fur crested and coloured, a fashion that would seem outrageously confrontational in the city.
If they were to turn bellicose, he thought... if they were to interpret our motives the wrong way, and decided to attack first and question their actions later...
His thoughts were interrupted by Sereth’s arrival. She peered out from beneath the padding of her cap, her eyes widening at the sight of the tribesmen.
Ehrin said, “They’ve spoken, but we don’t understand a word.”
Sereth nodded, stepped forward and said, “Greetings, from the people of Agstarn.”
The rider grunted something in reply. Ehrin glanced at Sereth, who gave an encouraging smile.
“I got about half of that. They speak our language, or rather what would have been our language... what, a couple of hundred years ago?” She cleared her throat and spoke. Watching her, listening to her, this woman he had known for three years, he could only feel a swelling of pride at her achievement in communicating with the tribesman.
The rider smiled, a broad grin welcoming their mutual comprehension, and let forth a volley of guttural sounds.
Sereth replied in kind. The other tribesmen hunched forward in their saddles, the better to hear the exchange.
She turned to Ehrin. “They call themselves the people of the ice-henges, and come from a village or settlement ten miles east of here. They saw our cloud-ships, as they call them, and came for a closer look.”
She addressed the rider, who replied with an affirmative nod and a long diatribe.
Sereth relayed his words. “They are traders. They have limited contact with a tribe who live in the foothills of our mountains, though on this side of the range. These other people have dealings with villagers on the outskirts of Agstarn. The people of the ice-henges have heard stories of our city, and our cloud-ships. They thought they were legends, fairy stories.”
She turned to the rider and spoke again.
When he replied, she said to Ehrin, “They wish to know if we have anything to trade. I said that we were not traders, but explorers. I don’t think they understand the concept. Trade is the only way of life they know, as far as I can make out.”
“Ask them if they know who constructed the ziggurat.”
Sereth nodded and relayed the question.
The rider gestured, flinging an arm to the cloudrace and shouting a short reply.
Sereth said, “He says that it’s the work of God.”
“That’s very helpful,” Ehrin said.
But the rider was going on, his words becoming louder, more insistent, his gestures more extravagant. Sereth nodded, screwing her face up as she attempted to follow what he said.
At last the leader paused, and Sereth said, “He says that God made the temple when he made the world. He made it for the ice-henge people, who celebrate the bounty of their God every year with a gathering in the temple. Non-believers, he said, are not welcome at the temple.”
The rider leaned forward on his mount and addressed Sereth.
At length she reported, “I’m not sure I understood all of that... but he said something along the lines of... well, that their God still watches over them, protects them. This is the bit I’m not sure about: he claims that the hand of God, or maybe the arm, reaches down from heaven every so often and touches the temple, thus reassuring his people that he is still there, caring for them.” She shook her head. “What would Kahran say about that?”
Ehrin smiled. “He’d probably consider it as ludicrous as Cannak’s beliefs. Sorry, Ser.”
The rider was speaking again. Sereth leaned forward, battling with the competing wind to hear his words. The tribesman finished his speech with a flamboyant gesture, both arms describing great circles as if miming an explosion.
Sereth said, “Once, in living memory, the ice-henge people angered their God. They... I think they strayed from their nomadic path... anyway, their God was angry, and the next time his arm appeared in the heavens it held a fiery torch which so frightened his people that they returned to the path of their ancestors.”
One of the riders stirred his mount and edged up beside the leader, conferring in hushed tones. The leader heard him out, his expression serious, then replied briefly.
“What are they saying?” Ehrin whispered.
Sereth shook her head. “I didn’t get much. The odd word. Something about trade again.”
The leader spoke to Sereth, leaning forward and bracing his bare arms on the pommel of his saddle. He flicked his head to one side, in a gesture Ehrin took to indicate the second dirigible moored beyond the freighter.
While the tribesman spoke, for longer this time, Ehrin realised that despite his padded clothing he was beginning to feel the cold. He looked along the line of the tribesmen, not one of them wearing anything that might be considered protective clothing. They appeared not to be discommoded by the cold in the slightest.
He felt Sereth grip his arm. “I’m not sure I understand this... I think I’m missing something.” She fired a series of guttural calls to the head tribesman.
He replied, grunting shortly.
She turned her cold face to Ehrin, shaking her head. “I was right. I didn’t mishear.”
“What?”
“They’re traders. They trade with the people of the near mountain, as they call them.”
“I don’t see—” Ehrin began.
Sereth cut in, “It’s what they trade in that’s... alarming, Ehrin. I thought I couldn’t possibly be interpreting correctly at first, but I clarified the fact. They trade in people.”
Ehrin echoed the word, staring at her.
“Slaves. They keep slaves. I think they’re people from smaller, weaker tribes to the west. They have little use for them, being essentially nomadic, but they trade them with the people of the near mountain, who put the slaves to work in their villages. In return, the people of the ice-henges receive food during lean times and the occasional zeer.”
“Great. So they wanted to trade us food for slaves? Tell them that we don’t work that way.”
He stopped. Sereth was shaking her head. “They don’t want food. They want to know if we have slaves to trade. They’ll give us zeer, and sell on the slaves to the mountain people.”
“In that case inform them, in the politest possible way, that we’re all out of slaves today. Maybe next time.”
Before she could relay this, the tribesman spoke.
Sereth nodded and said, “He seems to think that we do have slaves. He’s saying something about the lesser cloud-ship. He’s asking if the people within it are for trade.”
Ehrin was tempted to say that the tribespeople could take Cannak for nothing, but restrained himself,
Sereth spoke to the leader, then reported to E
hrin. “I’ve told him that we are all together. Our friends aren’t for trade. He... I don’t think he likes the sound of that.”
The leader was scowling and talking hurriedly to the riders on his left and right.
“If it looks like it might get nasty, tell them that we have other things to trade. Gifts.”
Sereth nodded, waiting for the leader to finish his conference with his companions.
Ehrin turned and saw Kyrik and the others, watching him. “I don’t know how much of that you heard, but I think we’d better board the ships. Prepare for immediate flight.”
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