by Brian Aldiss
'The forest must fail somewhere. We are coming to a broken land where it cannot grow. Do not be alarmed.'
'We must be coming to the Skirt of the Black Mouth. I fear the sound of it, morel. Let us go back before we meet fatal trouble.'
'We have no back to go to, Poyly. We are wanderers. We can only go on. Have no fear. I will help you and I shall never leave you.'
Now the branches grew too weak and narrow to bear them. With a flying leap, Yattmur threw herself on to a massive outcrop of rock. Poyly and Gren landed beside her. They lay there looking at each other questioningly. Then Yattmur raised a hand.
'Listen! Some jumpvils are coming!' she exclaimed, as a sound came like rain through the forest. 'These are the beasts my tribe catches.'
Below their island of rock stretched the ground. It was not the foul quagmire of decay and death about which Gren and Poyly had so often been warned in their tribal days. It was curiously broken and pitted, like a frozen sea, and coloured red and black. Few plants grew in it. Instead, it seemed to have a frozen life of its own, so indented was it with holes that had stretched themselves into agonized navels, eye sockets, or leering mouths.
'The rocks have evil faces,' Poyly whispered as she gazed down.
'Quiet! They're coming this way,' Yattmur said.
As they looked and listened, a horde of strange creatures poured over the pitted ground, loping from the depths of the forest with a strange gait. They were fibrous creatures, plants that over an immensity of eons had roughly learnt to copy the hare family.
Their running was slow and clumsy by the standards of the animals they superseded. As they moved, their fibrous sinews cracked sharply; they lurched from side to side. Each jumpvil had a head all scoop jaw and enormous ears, while its body was without line and irregularly coloured. The front legs were more like poor stumps, small and clumsy, while the hind pair were much longer and captured at least something of the grace of an animal's leg.
Little of this was apparent to Gren and Poyly. To them, the jumpvils were merely a strange new species of creature with inexplicably ill-shaped legs. To Yattmur they meant something different.
Before they came into sight she pulled a weighted line from round her waist and balanced it between her hands. As the hordes thudded and clacked below the rock, she flung it dexterously. The line extended itself into a sort of elementary net, with the weights swinging at key points.
It tripped three of the queer-limbed creatures. At once Yattmur scrambled down, jumped at the jumpvils before they could right themselves, and secured them to the line.
All the rest of the herd parted, ran on, and disappeared. The three that had been captured stood submissively in vegetable defeat. Yattmur looked challengingly at Gren and Poyly as if relieved to have shown her mettle – but Poyly ignored her, pointing into the clearing ahead of them and shrinking against her companion.
'Gren! Look! A – monster, Gren!' she said in a strangled voice. 'Did I not say this place was evil?'
Against a wide shoulder of rock, and near the path of the fleeing jumpvils, a silvery envelope was inflating. It stretched out into a great globe far higher than any human.
'It's a greenguts! Don't watch it!' Yattmur said. 'It makes a bad thing for humans!'
But they stared, fascinated, for the envelope was now a soggy sphere, and on that sphere grew one eye, a huge jelly-like eye with a green pupil. The eye swivelled until it appeared to be regarding the humans.
A vast gap appeared low down in the envelope. The last few retreating jumpvils saw it, paused, then staggered round on a new course. Six of them jumped through the gap, which at once closed over them like a mouth, while the envelope began to collapse.
'Living shadows!' Gren gasped. 'What is it?'
'It is a greenguts,' Yattmur said. 'Have you never seen one before? Many of them live near here, stuck to the tall rocks. Come, I must take these jumpvils to the tribe.'
The morel thought differently. It twanged in the heads of Gren and Poyly. Reluctantly they moved towards the shoulder of rock.
The greenguts had entirely collapsed. It was drawn in, adhering to the rock like so many folds of wet tissue. A still moving bulge near the ground marked its bag of jumpvils. As they surveyed it in horror, it surveyed them with its one striated green eye. Then the eye closed, and they seemed to be looking only at rock. The camouflage was perfect.
'It cannot hurt us,' twanged the morel. 'It is nothing but a stomach.'
They moved away. Again they followed Yattmur, walking painfully on the broken ground, the three captive creatures humping along at their side as if this was something they did every day.
The ground sloped upwards. In their heads, the morel suggested that this was why the banyan was falling away overhead, and waited to see what they would answer.
Poyly said, 'Perhaps these jumpvils have long back legs to help them get uphill.'
'It must be so,' said the morel.
But that's absurd, thought Gren, for what about when they want to run downhill again? The morel cannot know everything, or it would not agree to Poyly's silly idea.
'You are right that I do not know everything,' twanged the morel, surprising him. 'But I am capable of learning quickly, which you are not – for unlike some past members of your race, you work mainly by instinct.'
'What is instinct?'
'Green thoughts,' said the morel, and would not elaborate.
At length Yattmur halted. Her first sullenness had worn away, as if the journey had made them friends. She was almost gay.
'You are standing in the middle of my tribal area, where you wished to be,' she said.
'Call them, then; tell them that we come with good desires and that I shall speak to them,' Gren said, adding anxiously for the morel's benefit, 'but I don't know what to say to them.'
'I shall tell you,' twanged the morel.
Yattmur raised a clenched hand to her lips and blew a piping note through it. Alertly, Poyly and her mate looked about them... Leaves rustled, and they became surrounded by warriors who seemed to rise up from the ground. Glancing upwards, Poyly saw strange faces there regarding her from the branches overhead.
The three jumpvils shuffled uneasily.
Gren and Poyly stood absolutely still, allowing themselves to be inspected.
Slowly Yattmur's tribe came closer. Most of them, as was customary, were female, with flowers adorning their private parts. All were armed, many were as striking of feature as Yattmur. Several wore round their waists the same weighted trapping lines that Yattmur had carried.
'Herders,' Yattmur said, 'I have brought you two strangers, Poyly and Gren, who wish to join us.'
Prompted by the morel, Poyly said, 'We are wanderers who will do you no harm. Make us welcome if you wish to Go Up in peace. We need rest and shelter now, and later we can show you our skills.'
One of the group, a stocky woman with braided hair in which was inserted a gleaming shell, stood forward. She held out her hand palm upwards.
'Greetings, strangers, I am called Hutweer. I lead these herders. If you join us, you follow me. Do you consent to that?'
If we do not consent, they may kill us, thought Gren.
Right from the first we must show we are leaders, replied the morel.
Their knives point at us, Gren told it.
We must lead from the start or not at all, the morel returned.
As they stood wrapped in conflict, Hutweer clapped her hands impatiently.
'Answer, strangers! Will you follow Hutweer?'
We must agree, morel.
No Gren, we cannot afford to.
But they will kill us!
You must kill her first then, Poyly!
No!
I say yes.
No... No... No...
Their thoughts grew more fierce as a three-cornered argument grew up.
'Herders, alert!' Hutweer called. Dropping her hand to her sword belt, she came a pace nearer, her face stern. Obviously these strangers were
not friends.
To the strangers something strange was happening. They began to writhe, as if in an unearthly dance. Poyly's hands twisted up to the darkly glistening ruff about her neck, and then curved away as if dragged by force. Both of them twisted slowly and stamped their feet. Their faces stretched and wrinkled in an unknown pain. From their mouths came foam, and in their extremity they urinated upon the hard ground.
Slowly they moved, staggered, turned, arching their bodies, biting their lips, while their eyes glared madly at nothing.
The herders dropped back in awe.
'They fell on me from the sky! They must be spirits!' Yatt-mur cried, covering her face.
Hutweer dropped the sword she had drawn, her countenance pale. It was a sign to her followers. With frightened haste they dropped their weapons, hiding their faces in their hands.
Directly the morel saw that it had inadvertently achieved what it had wished to do, it ceased trying to impose its will on Gren and Poyly. As the wrenching pressure on their minds relaxed, they would have fallen had the fungus not stiffened them again.
'We have won the victory we need, Poyly,' it said in its harp-like voice. 'Hutweer kneels before us. Now you must speak to them.'
'I hate you, morel,' she said sullenly. 'Make Gren do your work – I won't.'
Strongly prompted by the fungus, Gren went over to Hutweer and took her hand.
'Now you have acknowledged us,' he said, 'you need fear no more. Only never forget that we are spirits inhabited by spirits. We will work with you. Together we shall establish a mighty tribe where we can live in peace. Human beings will no longer be fugitives of the forest. We are going to lead you out of the forest to greatness.'
'The way out of the forest is only just ahead,' Yattmur ventured. She had handed the captive jumpvils to one of the other women, and now came forward to hear what Gren was saying.
'We will lead you farther than that,' he told her.
'Will you free us from the spirit of the Black Mouth?' Hutweer enquired boldly.
'You shall be led as you deserve,' Gren declared. 'First my fellow spirit Poyly and I desire food and sleep, then we will talk with you. Take us now to your place of safety.'
Hutweer bowed – and disappeared into the ground beneath her feet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE tortured lava bed on which they were standing was pierced by many holes. Under some of these, the earth had fallen away or had been scooped out by the herders to form a hideout below ground level. Here they lived in something like safety and something like darkness, in a cave provided with boltholes conveniently situated overhead.
With Yattmur helping them, Poyly and Gren were induced to go down into the gloom more gently than Hutweer had done. There they were seated on couches and a meal was brought to them almost at once.
They tasted jumpvil, which the herders had flavoured in a way unknown to the two travellers, with spices to make it tempting and peppers to make it hot. Jumpvil, Yattmur explained, was one of their chief dishes; but they had a speciality, and this was now set before Gren and Poyly with some deference.
'It is called fish,' Yattmur said, when they expressed their satisfaction with it. 'It comes from the Long Water that pours from the Black Mouth.'
At this, the morel became attentive and made Gren ask, 'How do you catch this fish if it lives in water?'
'We do not catch them. We do not go to the Long Water, for a tribe of strange men called Fishers live there. Sometimes we meet them, and as we are at peace with them we exchange our jumpvil for their fish.'
The life of the herders sounded pleasant. Trying to work out exactly what their advantages were, Poyly asked Hutweer, 'Are there not many enemies around you?'
Hutweer smiled.
'There are very few enemies here. Our big enemy, the Black Mouth, swallows them. We live near the Black Mouth because we believe one big enemy is easier to deal with than a lot of small ones.'
At this the morel began to confer urgently with Gren. Gren had now learnt to talk in his mind with the morel without speaking aloud, an art Poyly never mastered.
'We must examine this Mouth of which they talk so much.' the morel twanged. 'The sooner the better. And since you have lost face by eating with them like an ordinary human, you must also make them a stirring speech. The two must go together. Let us find out this Mouth and show them how little we fear it by speaking there.'
'No, morel! You think clever but you don't think sense! If these fine herders fear the Black Mouth, I am prepared to do the same.'
'If you think like that, we are lost.'
'Poyly and I are tired. You do not know what tiredness is. Let us sleep as you promised us we could.'
'You are always sleeping. First we must show how strong we are.'
'How can we when we are weak from tiredness?' Poyly interposed.
'Do you want to be killed while you sleep?'
So the morel had its way, and Gren and Poyly demanded to be taken to look at the Black Mouth.
At this the herders were startled. Hutweer silenced their murmurs of apprehension.
'It shall be as you say, O Spirits. Come forth, Iccall,' she cried, and at once a young male with a white wishbone in his hair jumped forward. He held his palm upwards in greeting to Poyly.
'Young Iccall is our best Singer,' Hutweer said. 'With him you will come to no harm. He will show you the Black Mouth and bring you back here. We will await your return.'
They climbed up again in the broad and everlasting daylight. As they stood blinking, feeling the hot pumice beneath their feet, Iccall smiled brilliantly at Poyly and said, 'I know you feel tired, but it is only a little way I have to take you.'
'Oh, I'm not tired, thank you,' Poyly said, smiling back, for Iccall had large dark eyes and a soft skin, and was as beautiful in his way as Yattmur. 'That is a pretty bone in your hair, shaped like the veins of a leaf.'
'They are very rare – perhaps I might get you one.'
'Let's move if we are going,' Gren said sharply to Iccall, thinking he had never seen a man grin so foolishly. 'How can a mere singer – if that is what you are – be any use against this mighty enemy, the Black Mouth?'
'Because when the Mouth sings, I sing – and I sing better,' said Iccall, not at all upset, and he led the way among the leaves and the broken pillars of rock, swaggering a little as he went.
As he foretold, they did not have far to go. The ground continued to rise gently and became more and more coated with the black and red igneous rock, so that nothing could grow there. Even the banyan, which had crossed a thousand miles of continent in its sinewy stride, was forced to draw back here. Its outmost trunks showed scars from the last lava flow, yet they dropped aerial roots which explored among the rock for nourishment with greedy fingers.
Iccall brushed past these roots and crouched behind a boulder, beckoning them to join him. He pointed ahead.
'There is Black Mouth,' he whispered.
For Poyly and Gren it was a strange experience. The whole idea of open country was completely unknown to them; they were forest folk. Now their eyes stared ahead in wonder that a prospect could be so strange.
Broken and tumbled, the lava field stretched away from them into the distance. It tilted and shaped up towards the sky until it turned into a great ragged cone. The cone in its sad eminence dominated the scene, for all that it stood some distance away.
'That is the Black Mouth,' whispered Iccall again, watching the awe on Poyly's face.
He stabbed his finger to a suspiration of smoke that rose from the lip of the cone and trickled up into the sky.
'The Mouth breathes,' he said.
Gren pulled his eyes away from the cone to the forest beyond it, the eternal forest reasserting itself. Then his eyes were drawn back to the cone as he felt the morel grope deep into his mind with a dizzying sensation that made him brush his hand over his forehead. His sight blurred as the morel expressed resentment of his gesture.
The morel bored down de
eper into the sludge of Gren's unconscious memory like a drunken man pawing through the faded photographs of a legacy. Confusion overwhelmed Gren; he too glimpsed these brief pictures, some of them extremely poignant, without being able to grasp their content. Swooning, he pitched over on to the lava.
Poyly and Iccall lifted him up – but already the fit was over and the morel had what it needed.
Triumphantly it flashed a picture at Gren. As he revived, the morel explained to him.
'These herders fear shadows, Gren. We need not fear. Their mighty Mouth is only a volcano, and a small one at that. It will do no harm. Probably it is all but extinct.' And he showed Gren and Poyly what a volcano was from the knowledge he had dredged out of their memory.
Reassured, they returned to the tribe's subterranean home, where Hutweer, Yattmur and the others awaited them.
'We have seen your Black Mouth and have no fear of it,' Gren declared. 'We shall sleep in peace with quiet dreams.'
'When the Black Mouth calls, everyone must go to it,' Hutweer said. 'Though you may be mighty, you scoff because you have only seen the Mouth in its silence. When it sings, we will see how you dance, O spirits!'
Poyly asked the whereabouts of the Fishers, the tribe Yattmur had mentioned.
'From where we stood, we could not see their home trees,' Iccall said. 'From the belly of the Black Mouth comes the Long Water. That also we did not see for the rise of the land. Beside the Long Water stand the trees, and there live the Fishers, a strange people who worship their trees.'
At this the morel entered into Poyly's thoughts, prompting her to ask, 'If the Fishers live so much nearer to the Black Mouth than you, O Hutweer, by what magic do they survive when the Mouth calls?'
The herders muttered among themselves, keen to find an answer to her question. None presented itself to them. At length one of the women said, 'The Fishers have long green tails, O spirit.'
This reply satisfied neither her nor the others. Gren laughed, and the morel launched him into a speech.
'Oh you children of an empty mouth, you know too little and guess too much! Can you believe that people are able to grow long green tails? You are simple and helpless and we will lead you. We shall go down to the Long Water when we have slept and all of you will follow.