The Skrayling Tree toa-2

by Michael John Moorcock

  Bes was ready. In time to take the kenabik's second attack, she swung her huge tusks in the direction of the noise. The beast came thudding into the camp screaming its own terror at our fire and grabbing about for something, anything, to eat.

  Bes stepped forward. A sweep of her great head, and a long, deep gouge appeared along the beast's left side. He shrieked as those ivory sabers began to sweep back the other way.

  The old mammoth staggered and was momentarily knocked off balance, but she held her ground, the kenabik's blood streaming from her massive tusk. Her eyes narrowed, her trunk curling, she displayed her pleasure at her own achievement. She was almost skittish as she turned to trumpet after her fleeing foe.

  "Why would it behave so uncharacteristically?" I was panting, trying to gather up my few possessions while the others retrieved the rest of our scattered goods.

  "It is mad," said White Crow sadly. "It has nothing to eat."

  "There must be plenty of prey on the prairie?"

  "Oh, yes," he said. "There is. And as you saw, every so often

  he devours some. What we probably will not see is the kenabik disgorging most of what he eats. Unfortunately he was not born a meat eater. What he misses is the rich foliage and lush grass of his native south. The transition from herbivore to carnivore is impossible. The meat he eats is killing him. What vegetation grows here is too sparse and too hard for him to harvest. Even if we did not kill him, he would be dead soon, and it would be a bad, ignoble death. His shame would be great. It would weight his spirit and keep him bound to this realm. He would have long to brood on the ignobility he has brought to himself and his tribe. We can offer him better. We can offer him the respect of our arms. You could say it was his own fault for leaving his grazing grounds, but predators were moving up behind his kind, picking them off as they weakened. He was chased from his homeland. I wish to try to kill him mercifully."

  "You show much forgiveness for the beast that ate your father."

  "I understand that it was an accident. The kenabik probably didn't even know he was eating him. There was no malice in-volved. My father took a risk and failed." Two red stones shone in White Crow's rigid face. I turned away.

  Ayanawatta had recovered his bow and quiver while White Crow collected all the fire he could find back into the pot. The little lean-to we had put up against the rainy breeze was totally trampled, so again Bes gave us her massive bulk for shelter. The two of us slept warily as White Crow elected to keep watch until dawn.

  I woke once to see his profile set against the grey strip of light on the horizon, and it seemed to me he had not moved. When I woke again, his face and head were set exactly as I had seen them hours earlier. He resembled one of those extraordinary, infinitely beautiful marbles of the Moldavian Captives Michelangelo had carved for the French pope. Infinitely sad, infinitely aware of the cold truth of their coming fate.

  Once again I felt an urgent wish to take him in my arms and

  comfort him. An unexpected desire to bring warmth to a lonely, uncomplaining soul.

  He turned at that moment, and his puzzled gaze met mine. Then, with a small sigh, he gave his attention back to the distant mountains. He recognized what was in my eyes. He had seen it before. He had a cause. A dream to live out. His destiny was the only comfort he allowed himself.

  When we woke it was drizzling hard. White Crow had pulled a robe over his shoulders as he struggled to settle the great saddle on his mammoth's back. Ayanawatta moved to help him. Everything smelled of rain. The whole sky was dark grey. It was impossible to see more than twenty yards ahead. The mountains, of course, had vanished.

  I wrapped myself tightly against the cold and wet. The mammoth rose to her feet, groaning and muttering at the winter wind stiffening her joints. We had not tried to make a fresh fire the night before, and our firepot was low, so we ate cold jerky as we rode.

  We followed the kenabik's bloodstained trail. Bes had injured him enough at least to slow him down.

  We were warier than usual, because we knew the kenabik might be waiting in cover to attack. The steady rain finally stopped. The wind dropped.

  The world was strangely silent. What sounds there were became amplified and isolated as the going became harder through the soaking grasslands. Occasionally the sky cleared and thin sunbeams banded the distant tundra. The mountains, however, remained hidden. We heard the splash of frogs and small animals in the nearby water. We smelled the strong, acrid aroma of rotting grass from an old nest, and then once again came the sudden hissing wind bringing rain. We heard the steady sound of Bes's feet as she carried us stolidly on after our prey.

  We reached a kind of wallow, a muddy bayou filled with weed. It was clear the monster had rested, attempting to eat some of the weed. We also found the half-

  digested remains of various smaller mammals and reptiles. White Crow had been right. This creature

  was too specialized to survive here. Also the wound was clearly more serious than we had originally guessed. There were signs that he had made a crude attempt to stanch a flow of blood with some of the grass. How intelligent was this creature?

  I asked Ayanawatta his opinion. He was not sure. He had learned, he said, not to measure intelligence by his own standards. He preferred to assume that every creature was as conscious as himself but in different ways. It was as well, he said, to give every creature the respect you would give yourself.

  I could not entirely accept this view. I told him that I could not believe, however conscious they might be, that animals possess a moral sensibility. And the most unstable of rocks are poor conversationalists.

  Almost immediately, I found myself smiling, amused by my own presumption. Not long before, I had been accusing my husband of being insufficiently imaginative.

  Ayanawatta was silent for a moment, raising his eyebrows. "I may be mistaken," he said, "but I seem to recall an adventure I once had among the rock giants. They are, indeed, extremely laconic."

  The sideways glance he threw in my direction was humorous. White Crow slipped suddenly down Bes's flank without stopping her progress and began to pad beside her, studying the muddy creek. It reminded me of what Ulric must have seen in the trenches at the end of the first war. The kenabik had clearly been in agony, rolling over and over in an effort to stop the pain.

  Our hunt took on a peculiar gravity. It had something of the air of a funeral procession.

  The rain came down harder until we could scarcely see for the sweeping sheets of water. As we descended a long hill, we confronted a stand of tough, green grass that reached almost to Bes's shoulder. She found it difficult to walk on through. White Crow told her to turn and move back to a better place. Slowly she crushed her way out of the confining growth and made for the high ground again.

  Then through the pounding rain we heard the kenabik. No

  longer did it squawk and scream and moan as it had done. No longer did its voice have the fading note of pain and self-pity. The sound had the fullness of a baritone, rhythmic and slow, the noise of a bull-roarer, booming from that massive diaphragm.

  White Crow took a slender spear from the long quiver. The edges were tipped with silver, the shaft bound with ivory and copper. With this, he again dismounted and was quickly lost in the rain and deep grass.

  Bes came to a stop, turning her head as if she feared for him.

  "What is the kenabik doing now?" I asked Ayanawatta.

  "I am not sure," said the warrior, frowning, "but I think he is singing his death song."

  The beast's voice grew deeper still, and something connected with me. I could feel his bewildered mind reaching into mine, questing for something. Not me. Not me. There was a mutual repulsion. Curiosity. An almost grateful quality as the monster tasted tentatively at my identity.

  All the time that song went on. Somehow I believed he was telling the story of his people, of their glory, of their virtue and their destruction. A psychologist would consider this transference, would argue that the beast c
ould not feel such complicated emotions and ideas. Yet, as Ayanawatta said, who are we to measure the value or quality of another's perceptions?

  I could not bring myself to bond with the kenabik's brain. It was too unlike anything I understood. It dreamed of tall fields of cane and thick, nourishing ferns, and its song began to reflect this dream more and more. A harmony grew between the strange view of Paradise and the thrumming voice. Whatever it is in sentient creatures that needs to communicate, that is what I heard. It was a confused, frightened mixture of half-understood images and feelings. Who else could the dying creature reach out to? Another voice entered the song, taking the melody until it was impossible to tell which was which.

  In response to this, the monster abruptly shifted its attention elsewhere. I was, I must admit, deeply relieved. While it could not

  be the first time I had attended a dying spirit, this strange, anachronistic being found little comfort from me.

  The clouds parted for a moment or two, and the rain passed. We saw that we stood in waist-high grass. Some distance off, with his back to us, was White Crow. From his stance and the position of his head I understood the kenabik to be somewhere below him. Then, out of the misty foliage, I saw a beaked head rise. Huge yellow eyes sought the source of the other song. The eyes were filled with baffled gratitude. As it died, the monster received grace.

  The clouds rolled in again. I saw White Crow lift his silver-tipped spear.

  Both songs ended.

  We waited for a long time. The rain lashed down, and the wind blew the grass into glistening waves. We had become used to these blustering elemental attacks. At last Ayanawatta and I made a decision. We dismounted, telling Bes to remain where she was unless she needed to escape danger, and pressed on through the fleshy stalks surrounding us, our moccasins sinking into the thick, glutinous mud. Ayanawatta paused, cautioning me to silence, and he listened. Slowly I became aware of soft footfalls.

  White Crow came crashing out of the grass. Over his shoulder he carried his lance and two huge feathers, gorgeous against that grey light. He was covered from head to foot in blood.

  "I had to go inside it," he said. "To find the medicine of my father."

  We followed him to where Bes waited. The mammoth was visibly pleased at his return. He took the two gigantic brilliant feathers and stuck them into the wool near her head. Her hair was so thick that they did not fall, but White Crow assured her he would attach them more securely later. Bes looked oddly proud of her new finery. White Crow was acknowledging her victory. Then he went back to the creek and washed the blood off his body, and again he sang. He sang of Bes and her hero-spirit. She would find her ancestors in the eternal dance and celebrate her deeds forever. He sang of the great heart of his finished enemy. And it felt

  to me as if that monster's spirit were at peace leaving the world to join its brothers in some eternal grazing grounds.

  White Crow spent the rest of that day and part of the night washing himself and his clothing. When he came back to the camp he seemed grateful for the fire we had made. He sat down, took a pipe, and smoked for a while without speaking. Then he reached to where he had placed his pouch on top of his freshly washed clothes and slid his hand inside. His fist closed on something, and he withdrew it, opening the palm to show us what he had retrieved.

  The firelight threw wild shadows. It was hard for me to see.

  "I had no choice but to go into his guts," said White Crow. "It was difficult. It took some time. The kenabik had three bellies, all of them diseased. I had hoped to find more. But this was what there was. Perhaps it is all we need."

  The fire flared, lighting the night, and I saw the tiny object clearly. Turquoise, ivory, scarlet. Round. It was horribly familiar ...

  I recognized it.

  I had an immediate physical reaction. My head swam. I gasped. My mind refused what my eyes saw!

  I looked at an exact miniature of the huge medicine shield on which I had made my way into this world. I had no real doubt that it was the same. Every detail was identical, save for the size.

  "It was my father's," said White Crow, "when he was White Crow Man. I am truly White Crow Man now." This statement was made flatly. His voice was bleak. He closed his fingers tightly around the talisman before putting it away in his bag.

  I looked at Ayanawatta, as if for confirmation that I was right in recognizing the tiny medicine shield, but he had never properly seen it as I had. He had merely glimpsed it in his summoning dream. Every detail was the same, I was sure. Yet how had it become so tiny? Was it some process in the animal's belly? Some supernatural element I had not perceived?

  Was Klosterheim a dwarf? Or was I the giant? What had gone

  wrong with the scale of things? The workings of Chaos? Or had Law, in its crazed wisdom, wished this condition upon the world?

  "What is that you hold?" I asked at last.

  White Crow frowned. "It is my father's medicine shield," he said.

  "But the size ..."

  "My father was not a large man," said White Crow.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Snows or Yesteryear

  Northward to the northern waters,

  Northward to the farthest shore . .

  W S. HARTE,

  "The Maker of Laws"

  And so, having reached that particular stage in the dream-quest of my two companions, we continued our journey north. All obstacles seemed to be behind us. The weather, though cooler, was bright and clear. I felt instinctively confident that Ulric still lived and that we should soon be reunited. Only the constant, thrusting, whispering, insistent wind reminded me that I still had mysterious antagonists, those who would stop me seeing my husband again.

  Game became increasingly plentiful, and I was able to feed us on antelope, hare, grouse and geese. Now there was wild alfalfa, maize and potato. Both my companions carried bags of dried herbs which they used for cooking and smoking. I was by far the best shot, and the men were content to let me hunt. We became used to eating very well, usually around sunset, while Bes, the mammoth, grazed happily on the rich grasses and shrubs. We enjoyed exquisite light saturating gorgeous scenery, the tall peaks of the horizon, the varied greens and yellows of the prairie. The evening sky was deep yellow, flooded with scarlet and ocher.

  We ate heartily, as if to keep our strength against the coming winter.

  The wind grew steadily fresher and more invigorating. For a while it was almost playful. There was a sharpness to the air which brought clearer details and keener scents. Beavers worked in the creeks. Prairie dogs were hunted by huge, cruising eagles. We startled a kangaroo rat in a swathe of wild roses whose petals sailed through the twilight as he leaped to avoid us. Families of badgers came squinting into the last of the sun. The occasional possum would play dead when we scared him inspecting our camp at night. Most of the animals were not unusually nervous of us. They had no reason to be. Ayanawatta, lacking a human listener, was perfectly happy to address an audience of thoughtful toads.

  More than once we saw herds of bison grazing their way south, but they were not food for us. We had no time to preserve the meat or cure the hide. Buffalo tastes delicious when one has eaten little else, but the tough, gamey meat is not to everyone's favor. Neither were we tempted by the coats of the splendid bulls who guarded their cows and calves. We shared a notion that to kill a buffalo only for its hide was offensive. My companions had been trained as children to kill swiftly and without cruelty and practiced all the disciplines of a halal slaughterman. They could not imagine a civilized human being behaving in any other manner. There are few willing vegans on the prairie.

  I fell in love with the great, placid bison. I found myself drawn to them. I would leave my weapons behind and stroll among them, touching them and talking to them. They were not in any way afraid of me, though sometimes they seemed a little irritated. I learned not to put my hands on the young. There was a wonderful sense of security at the center of the herd. Increasingly I understood the deep
pleasures of herd life. Our strength was in the herd, in the alertness of the males, in the wisdom of the cows. And we were eternal.

  Eventually our ways parted. The huge mass of buffalo-a great, restless sea of black, brown and white-made its way towards the blue horizon. From a hill, I watched it moving slowly across the prairie under the rising sun. Briefly I had an urge to follow it. Then I ran to rejoin my companions.

  The mountains, which had seemed so easily reached, were

  separated from us by scrub, woodland, rivers and swamps, but even these were more easily negotiated than before. Where there was water and shelter, we saw stands of old trees, the remains of a great forest. The ground became firmer as the air grew colder. For her age Bes the mammoth had extraordinary stamina. White Crow said she had not long since walked for five days and nights, pausing only three times to drink.

  While White Crow shared my enjoyment of solitude, of listening to the subtle music of the prairie, Ayanawatta remained as talkative as ever. I must admit my own mind was rather narrowly focused.

  The wind returned forcefully and erratically. This world had increasing inconsistencies. Klosterheim had become a dwarf. The medicine shield was now small enough to fit on the palm of a hand. Size in this realm was alarmingly unstable. Was this the work of Chaos? Was this changing but persistent wind actually sentient? Dread rose inside me and threatened to consume me. It was some time before I could regain complete control of myself.

  Ayanawatta drew his robe around him. "The weather grows chillier with the passing of the hours. This wind never ceases." We wrapped ourselves in the great folds of his wigwam hides and at night built a larger fire. The canoe now acted as a canopy over the saddle, held there by four staves, and protected us against rain. At night two of us could sleep under it and give the other the benefit of the fire.