“I’ll be good!” he called as he hurried up the path leading to the town meadow. He was the last one to arrive, and everyone had already organized themselves into companies. The most skilled of the Hansa were chosen as the trackers. Theirs was the most dangerous assignment, as they might encounter the rokash on their own without support. Next would come three hunting parties. Since a rokash was too powerful to be killed by one Hansa alone, the nearest hunting party would run to support the scout and try to kill the rokash. Finally, Dave’s party was under the control of three older Hansa, veterans who had seen many hunts. They would find a high place with good sightlines and try to follow the progress of the hunt. If they saw the rokash from their perch, they would use a horn to let everyone know. A complicated sequence of horn calls, akin to Morse code, would direct the hunting party to the right place.
The scouts melted noiselessly into the wood. One hunting party started down the main trail leading to the next valley, while the two other hunting parties took up positions to the right and left of the trail. Finally, Dave’s party started down the main trail. The trail climbed steadily through a fir wood, weaving around the huge tree trunks, some eight feet in diameter.
After several hours they entered a clearing. Ahead of them loomed a cliff wall rising a thousand feet into the sky, but riven as if by an axe blow. The expedition headed for this narrow defile, which led to the next valley.
When Dave reached the defile, he saw it was about 300 feet wide at the mouth, with walls rising almost vertically for the full 1,000 feet. Strewn with rock fallen from the mountainside, the defile narrowed after a few hundred yards to a mere thirty feet. Beyond this throat, the pass widened and the trail wound its way around larger boulders, which had been loosened by the snows and fallen from the mountainside far above them.
Although it was going to be a hot, sunny day, the steep walls filled the defile with shadow, and the air was cool. When Dave emerged from the pass, a narrow valley clad in fir and pine stretched out before him. The mountain wall on his right proved to be a spur, which gradually diminished in size as it ran north. The wall on his left curved around and ran northwest, forming the far boundary of the valley. Looking down the valley to the northwest, Dave saw in the distance a river dotted with islands, some of them quite large in size.
“What is that river?” asked Dave in Hansean.
“That is Pishon the Great,” answered Greeomer, one of the party leaders. “It runs east to the great sea.”
Speaking to the party in general, Greeomer said in a much louder voice, “We will stop here and watch while the scouts search the upper end of the valley.”
The younger Hansa climbed the cliff on either side of the defile, looking for signs of the rokash, since special honor was attached to the first one to spot it. The three veteran guards took up positions so that they covered all of the approaches to their position with their weapons. Dave watched for a while but soon grew restless for action. He had begun to climb along the base of the western cliff wall when he heard Greeomer calling him.
“Friend Dave, I know you are restless and long to be on the hunt, but you must remain close by. If you wander off, we will have to search for you, and you could endanger everyone here.”
Dave did not want to give Hanomer any reason to regret bringing him, so he returned to the entrance of the defile and climbed upon a large rock. He scanned the valley floor and could not see a single Hansa. That wood is so dense an army could hide down there and no one would ever know it!
Finally, after about half an hour, a shrill birdcall rang up the valley. The three guards left their position and waved for everyone to join them. Greeomer said, “The scouts have combed the upper end of the valley, and there is no sign of the rokash. It may be that it has already left the valley. Since they are working their way down away from us, we will move to our next observation post.” As he said this, he pointed to a grassy hillock that rose out of the valley floor about a mile away.
They began their descent and entered the trees. The floor was choked with fallen trees and dense undergrowth, but the guards deftly followed a game trail running in the general direction of the hillock. Dave was the second last of the party, with only the trailing guard behind him.
They hadn’t been on the trail for more than five minutes when Dave heard a whooshing sound followed by a thud behind him. He turned in time to see a large reptilian shape land on the trailing guard, bring the guard to the ground as if he were a twig, and bite him in half with one snap of its jaws.
Time seemed to move in slow motion for Dave. The rokash was about eighteen feet long and had long, powerful hind legs ending in six-inch talons. The head was crocodilian, with red eyes set forward. The front limbs were shorter and clawed. It finished eating the guard with a second bite and then turned its red eyes toward Dave, who was already shouting for help as he unlimbered his crossbow. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Greeomer running toward the rokash.
Greeomer’s first arrow flew wide as he shot on the run while racing to place himself between Dave and the monster. The rokash’s tail lashed out and sent Greeomer tumbling into the bushes. Dave heard a frantic horn call echoing across the valley from nearby. The rokash turned to look for Greeomer.
Dave felt a tremendous urge to fling down his weapons and run for cover as quickly as he could. The brutal death of his companion was still fresh in his mind, and fear rolled over him. He knew he couldn’t aim properly. Yet in the midst of swelling terror, he cried in his heart for help and found there was another quieter voice within him, telling him to stand his ground and fire at the monster, even if it cost him his life. An ember of courage flamed into life.
“If I’m to die, let me die standing my ground defending my friends,” he said aloud.
The sound of Dave’s voice attracted the rokash’s attention, and it transfixed him with its red eyes as it gathered itself for another leap. Dave’s inner debate had ended; his growing resolve stilled the trembling in his limbs. His first bolt entered the beast just inside its left forelimb, disappearing, barb, shaft, and feather. Dave ran to put a tree between himself and the rokash just as it leaped fifteen feet into the air. The jump went wide as the monster landed with a bellow of pain. Dave fitted a second bolt onto the string. With the speed of a striking snake the rokash turned and rushed toward him. He fired the second bolt as the monster reached the tree. Drawing his sword and dropping his crossbow, Dave backed into a thicket of trembling aspen, hoping the bulk of the rokash would hinder its approach through the saplings.
Bleeding from wounds in neck and chest, the rokash charged into the aspen thicket with terrifying speed and power, snapping the saplings as it came. Dave saw a third arrow sticking in its back as it stretched itself out to lunge for him with its jaws. With two hands on his sword, Dave swung with all his might at the snout. The blade bit, but hit bone and stopped.
The fetid breath of the monster filled him with nausea as the beast careened forward, then lay still. Dave was thrown backward and pinned underneath a tangle of saplings that had been toppled by the wild, terrifying charge of the carnivore.
The rokash did not move. Dave saw Lanomer, the third guard, approach the carcass and prod it a few times with his knife to convince himself it was dead. He quickly came to Dave and began to free him from the sapling that pinned him to the ground. Another Hansa joined the work, and Dave heard other voices speaking excitedly as they entered the clearing. Finally, Lanomer was able to lift enough of the tree trunk to let Dave wriggle out. Dave stood up, towering over Lanomer, and checked to see if he was hurt. He had a few bruises but was otherwise unharmed.
Then he remembered Greeomer, flung into the bushes by the rokash. Lanomer must have seen it also, since he was already moving in that direction. Dave followed him. They found Greeomer lying in some chokecherry bushes. Lanomer was examining Greeomer’s chest. “I think several of his ribs are cracked or broken by the blow from the rokash’s tail. We need to fabricate a litter, since I doubt he w
ill be able to walk,” said Lanomer.
Hanomer approached. Dave and Lanomer explained what had happened and how the guard had been killed. “Oy!” went up Hanomer’s cry. “Our joy at the death of the rokash is mingled with grief at the death of a friend and comrade.”
They gathered the weapons and remains of their fallen comrade. Even the ground that had collected his spilled blood was taken up and buried along with the weapons and remains in an open glade. Over the burial spot they built a cairn and transplanted yellow forest flowers to the fresh barrow.
The Hansa would not eat the rokash meat. They took its teeth and talons and wrapped them up carefully. Over the place where the rokash had fallen in the aspen grove, they cut down the remaining saplings and built a large pyre and burned the foul¬smelling carcass to ash. The company stood solemnly around the burning, grief displacing the merriment that the Hansa would otherwise have felt at such a time. As the carcass burned to embers, everyone, except those on guard duty, laid down to sleep by the fire.
Dave could not sleep. The moon, just rising in the east, was beginning to cast its light on the great river in the valley below. He thought about the day, about the nearness of death and the courage of his Hansa friends. He realized with a start that he naturally thought of them as human, even though they were not. He no longer saw their furry faces, their tails, or their short stature; they were just friends and family. Where did their good nature and joy come from? They were not especially smart. They knew very little about mathematics beyond arithmetic and little about chemistry beyond herb lore. They would not be highly regarded at Halcyon. When he thought about the experiments that would be conducted on the Hansa at Halcyon if their kind were ever captured, he shuddered. Whatever else happens, he must not deliver his Hansa friends to the experimenters at Halcyon!
In the morning they sang a song of lamentation for their fallen comrade and then broke camp. Hanomer had to hurry back to the village to tell the widow of her husband’s death. He asked Dave to go with him while the others carried Greeomer on a litter back to the village.
As Dave and Hanomer were climbing back to the narrow defile that led toward the village, Dave asked, “What were you singing about in the song of lamentation?”
“We were rejoicing that Clanomer had left the shadow lands and returned to his true home. But we were also grieved that we will be parted from our brother for a good while and that his wife, children, and grandchildren will miss him deeply.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by the shadow lands. This valley receives quite a lot of sun,” said Dave.
“You do not understand about the shadow lands because you are a mere shadow yourself, friend Dave,” said Hanomer.
“What do you mean by that?” stammered Dave.
“Each partial answer brings a host of new questions. If I am to give a partial answer to each new question, we will never get anywhere. Now that your language education is adequate, perhaps I should teach you some of our history,” said Hanomer. “This place isn’t real,” continued Hanomer, “if you take my meaning. In our poetry we talk about this place as if it’s a dream or a picture of the real world, which the Creator has made. The things we like, we like because they remind us dimly of the beauty of the real world.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, Hanomer, but a lot of the things your people believe about this world are wrong. At Halcyon, we have machines and instruments that have given us much knowledge about the world that is frankly beyond you. We know what stars are. We know about—” He wanted to say atoms and molecules, but there were no words. “We know deep things about matter, what causes disease. We also know how to build weapons beyond your wildest imaginings. Back home we had vehicles that could move like the wind for great distances.”
“I know you big people are much cleverer than us Hansa. We are a simple folk. We do not have much interest in building machines and instruments, and even if we did, in these shadow lands, we have been given neither the gift nor the interest to explore the knowledge these may bring. But what we have is a love for poetry and the ability to see into the heart of things and rejoice in them as the work of the Creator.
“On the other hand, your people desire power, knowledge, and control for their own sake. Therefore the shadow lands hold a great danger for you. You can choose to make the shadow lands anything you want them to be. When you choose to stop honoring the Creator, you find yourselves living in a dreadful world in which the Creator has no part. You have a longing that cannot be stilled, but the longing unfulfilled only makes you try to fill it with the paltry things that power can bring.”
When they reached the village, Hanomer went straight to Clanomer’s house and, bidding Dave to wait, entered the burrow alone.
The sad news spread quickly, and the entire village took up the lament. Dave returned to his cottage to think over all that he had heard.
Chapter 30 The Dream
A week later the sharp pain of Clanomer’s passing had been blunted to a dull sorrow. His absence was daily noted by his family, friends, and indeed the whole village. At every turn his absence and the loss to the village was acknowledged. Yet in a curious way, the Hansa knew how to celebrate Clanomer’s passing and the village’s loss without descending into despondency. Deep down Dave marveled that their inherent joy and optimism was undiminished.
Nothing brought home more clearly to Dave this Hansa ability to sorrow on a bed of joy than the announcement that a celebration would be held in the town meadow to commemorate the death of the rokash. Dave expected a dull evening, more of a wake than a celebration. And indeed, the festivities began slowly and solemnly with food and drink. But soon, to Dave’s surprise, the younger Hansa were dancing, slowly and quietly at first, and then with much more vigor, laughter, and exuberance. Everyone remarked how Clanomer’s place in the village dance was empty, but the joy and laughter could not be suppressed. After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, the clan chief, Hanomer, rose to speak to the assembled villagers.
“We are remembering the loss of our friend Clanomer and how he gave his life to save those of his companions.”
Hanomer bowed his head, and silence fell on the gathering as everyone shared a moment of remembering. Then Hanomer looked up.
“We are also here to honor the hero who vanquished the rokash. We will make him champion of our village.”
Dave was still thinking of Clanomer and reliving those terrifying moments with the rokash when his musings were disturbed by the sound of his name, and he roused himself to see all eyes turned toward him. Hanomer beckoned him to come to the center of the circle by the bonfire. “Here is the hero!” said Hanomer, and there was loud table thumping, clapping, and cheering as Dave came into the light. He was delighted by the unexpected honor.
Three sturdy Hansa came forward. One was carrying a tray while the other two carried a large shrouded object. Hanomer took a necklace of rokash teeth from the tray and gestured to Dave to kneel so that he could hang it around his neck. There was loud cheering as Dave received his trophy. Next the shrouded object was brought to Hanomer and Dave. The shroud was removed, revealing a four-foot wooden carving of a rokash about to spring. Around the base of the carving were the remaining teeth and the talons of the beast.
Then the bard of the village came forward and the crowd quieted down. The bard began singing softly. Dave marveled. Hansean was a language far superior at rendering images, to any human tongue he had heard. The lyrics transported Dave back to the valley, and the images of that day filled his mind like a vivid dream. The bard sang:
From mountains cold
And caverns deep
The rokash came
To kill and eat.
With stealth it crept
Through larch and fir
It leapt and killed
Brave Clanomer.
The rokash turned
And fixed its gaze
On one who faced it
Strong and brave.
The rokash le
apt
The arrow sang
With hideous voice
The death roar rang.
Rokomer pinned
By mighty foe
The rokash killed
By his last blow.
Dave was stirred from his reverie. “Who is Rokomer?” he asked.
“That is your new name. It is short for ‘rokash slayer,’” said Hanomer.
Dave was stunned, but he had no time to think about what had happened. Many of the younger Hansa came to him, asking him over and over again to tell the story of the rokash. He was a poor storyteller by Hansa standards, but he did his best.
After he had told the tale again and again, Dave headed for bed.
__________
In his dream, Dave was standing in a hospital room at the foot of a bed. He saw himself laying on the bed in front of him—at least, the corpse looked like him. He and the corpse were bathed in a wonderful bright light. The light emanated from a hallway. The hallway was a tunnel, and he walked toward this wonderful light, so much brighter than noon sunlight that it hurt his eyes. Even so, it filled him with expectation and delight. He felt a deep longing to go to the light; he felt as if he were going home.
He left the tunnel and emerged onto a broad heath bathed in even brighter sunlight. He looked down, and his limbs and body were made of glass filled with tendrils of brown smoke, without organs or bones. As he looked across the heath he saw others. Some were a deep gray color; others seemed more transparent than he. All were walking toward the light, which emanated, not from a sun in the sky, but from a mountain range far in the distance.
At first the walk was a delight. He enjoyed the smell of the heather, and his longing for the light added a spring to his step. His sense of going home to the light filled him with longing to reach the mountains. As he walked, the light grew stronger and stronger. Some of the others that had been walking with him stopped, and he walked by without speaking to them. Others, who were already stopped when he approached, turned back and began walking away from the light.
The Halcyon Dislocation Page 24