Old Bab slowly and economically laid a twig at the edges of the fire. It fired. He showed what might have been a small old smile on those lips which none there had ever really seen to smile before.
“I wit it not,” said Arnten, slowly shaking his head. “The wizards alone have eaten, all three, and now you three here — Eh. Well.” He reached for the carcass of the deer, drew it towards him and the fire. “Well. Eh. Now, then, do we let eat. And let the wizards …” His voice died away. And presently the drip-drip-drip of fat into the fire caused it to spurt and flare. And Wizardland saw and heard a feast which was neither magic nor symbolic. And afterwards they let the fire die down, and then they all lay near the ashes. And slept.
In the morning an odd and unfamiliar droning sound they heard, but, being both bone-weary and full of meat, they grunted and rolled over and covered their eyes against the interfering sun. The droning increased, became clamorous. They sat bolt upright, all of them. A clear sunlight shone cleanly on the grey sands and grey stones of this canyon in Wizardland. Three figures they saw before them, now standing still, now walking back and forth, now gravely folding their legs under them and sitting, now sedately rising to their feet and waving their arms and now turning their backs, and then at once turning to face them again.
It was the three wizards of the caves, well-awakened from their long and hungry slumbers, and giving tongue and voice to the comments and the conversation and the thoughts and dreams, the unanswered and, indeed, the unasked questions of a hundred years tumbling from their lips — lips no longer sere and cracked but full and red, eyes no longer dull under dusty eyelids but gleaming bright. And mouths no longer dry, and certainly no longer choked with dust and certainly no longer silent. The wizards of Wizardland — at least three of them — had been fed. And these three wizards of Wizardland were now speaking. All at the same time. And they spoke and they spoke and they spoke, and they walked as they spoke and they spoke as they walked.
For three days and for three nights, during which the five companions first looked and listened with astonishment and then with awe, and next tried to sort out any syllables from any other syllables, and at first with diffidence and then with desperation and after that with something close to wrath and then with growing bafflement tried to be heard themselves …
For three days and for three nights the three wizards talked without ceasing and walked as they talked, back and forth. Then as it approached the cold grey dawn when the ghosts all flee, a gradual silence fell. And the walking slowed. And, one by one, with an abrupt but not ungraceful movement each, the wizards sat them down and stayed seated. Red-eyed, not sure if they themselves were asleep or awake, or perhaps doomed to remain and gather dust for a century, weary and confused and not certain of anything, the five watched in silence.
And then the nearest of the wizards, and evidently the one first fed, said in a clear tone, unfatigued, “Men and man-Bear and youngling nain. You have fed us sufficedly, you have listened to us not unpatiently, and you are waiting for us unhastily. This is all according to the natural order and basis of things — and far different — we perceive — from a former age which allowed us to famish: ahah ahah ahah! That was not well done! Anumph. We dwell not on that. We have waited and you have waited, and although your wait was not so long as ours, think not that we exact hour for hour. Nay. So. One at a time, then, speak you speaking and we shall hearken. And ask, for here eventually come all answers, undistracted by the false delights of life such as be in other lands and provinces, such as fruits and trees and fair flowers and female flesh and wild beasts and birds for to hazard and for to chase: but here be ne things but stone and sand and clean pure air … and, of course, anumph, we the wizards … Therefore, all wisdom cometh here and all knowledge cometh here and all writings and wottings and all sapiences and powers. To be sure that they adventure forth from their sources and disperse over every land and province and island and main, but in thother places there be such distractions as I did mention priorly, hence all wisdom there does dissipate and all knowledge doth melt and doth dwindle …
“But the spirit and ghost of all thought and learning cometh here in their comings and find ne thing to disadvantage them, and hence we of the wizardry do absorb them as we absorb a sunbeam. Nought do distract us, neither getting nor giving nor delving nor tilling nor trapping nor chasing, of neither kind of venery are we attracted, and we hew no wood, having none to hew. Hence all these wisdoms and wittings and wottings do accumulate amongst us and are but diminished in the very slightly by that we do one time in an undren yearen eat one meal. And if towards the conclusion of that cycle cometh another meal, we scruple ne to eat it also. And if there cometh none, we do but estivate and wait.
“However, we account it as an ill-done thing if none of the folk who dwell in the world of fleshly forms take pain to bring us not so much as a suppance of blood, liver, fat, and marrow sprinkled lightly with clean sea-salt and served as is proper upon a clean piece of bark, not e’en one time in one undren yearen. To speak as to the point, as be our manner, sparingly and sparsingly and without a superfluity of syllables this neglectancy hath disturbed the pure concentrations in which we would prefer to spend our days and times and cycles, it hath happed — that we can recall — but a two or a three times since men began to dwell upon the soil of Ultima Thule, and as for the other Thules and what did and did not occur in those lands and in those days, we chuse not now to speak.
“Who in general hath sent us food but the kings who have set their feet upon the necks of men? For who else hath had power to summons men from fireside and women’s arms and send them upon the journey hither, the distances and perils of which men have alway so exaggerated, as though a swamp or a salamander or a what or a which were all that much matter or marvel? Well, well, it be not for us to bear grudge or execute vengencies; but if the generalty be not reminded they will themselves suffer, thus out of a concern for them greater than our concern for ourselves, we have found it needful and necessary to set forth a doom. No doubt this doom hath vexed a king and he hath been moved to enquire as to what uncare of which natural basis and order of things hath upset the universal balencies. Anumph. Anumph.”
This wizard had the form of a man in full vigor, with ruddy cheeks and sparkling eyes. And the second wizard bore the form of a stripling youth and smiled and cast down his face as it seemed he were shy in such a company, and spoke so softly that the others strained to hear. “Wethinks that we’ve slumbered longer than somewhile, as usual,” he murmured. “Weseems it be arrived to the near time of Fireborn, the first-born son of Fire, who hath so often died and ever returned in one form or another. Ah we, but have ever born a love for Fireborn, and would gladly go forth even from our choicest place of wizardry for to see and for to be with Fireborn again …” His words passed from words into a sound like the laughter of a stripling young man who deems it delicate not to behave too vigorously in the presence of elders.
The third wizard had the form of a stout witchery-woman and sage femme, a granny of good wealth and position and hale, yet in all her health and humors, with a dignified sprinkling of beard upon her face, and she pursed her lips and said in the tone of one giving portents, “One queen is every queen, beware,” and it seemed to Arnten that he had heard this once, and that certainly to hear it twice and elsewhere and moreover from such a source enhanced it as a caution: but for the moment he could not pause to consider it, but he placed it into his memory as a squirrel does a nut in its cheek or an ox a cud in her rumen. And she said, “When the stars throw down their spears and pelt the earth with thunderstones, go seek the new iron to cure the old.” And she said these things with a heavy and a slow tone, rolling her eyes and bobbing her head heavily.
The first wizard had spoken so profusely and so swiftly, as though still making up for more than a century of not speaking at all, that he had almost lost them. And the second wizard had spoken so softly that almost they had not heard him at all. But now the manner
of the third wizard was so familiar to them, and her voice neither too swift nor too soft: and so they listened full well.
And she told them, “There is come an end to certain things, and thus a beginning to certain others,” and they nodded. And she said, “The wood which has burned without burning shall be fittest to burn for Fireborn,” and they leaned forward and missed no syllable. And she spoke of many another thing, but the two things she had said first stirred most in the mind of Arnten.
And he bethought him, even as he listened, what it might mean: One queen is every queen, and he thought that somehow he did know. And he wondered how The stars could indeed throw down their spears and pelt the earth with thunderstones, and he knew that this he did not know at all.
But must wait until the knowing of it would be revealed.
Chapter XVI
The name of the first wizard, they learned, was Gathonobles. And the name of the second was Wendolin. And the name of the third was Immaunya. And it was the second who accompanied them.
Arnten was not sure by any means that they had learned all that he would know, but they could not stay; there was no food in Wizardland save that which they had brought with them; nor any water or other drink, either. So the five were now increased to six, and the two other wizards they saw, as they went their way from the grey canyon walled with grey time-eaten stones and floored with grey time-washed sand, still sitting and pondering; no longer engaged in talk, no longer paying their visitors any mind at all: but sitting as they might sit another hundred years, absorbing the thoughts of all the outside worlds.
As surely as they knew that each night the sun descended, stained and tired, to be refreshed and refurbished in the fires of Lower Hell, so they knew that their new companion was older by far than any living man was old, perhaps older than calculation. But they knew it as men know a thing which belongs to the realm of wisdom, as, for one, men know that to lie with a strange woman and spend one’s seed in her is bad, because with this seed she may make strong and malign witcheries: but as for the spontaneous sense of the moment, one knows that to lie with a woman and to spend one’s seed in her is good. So, by wisdom, they knew that Wendolin was a wizard, and very old; but only Arntenas-Arnten had seen him as a barely viable bundle in the cave, and even he would need strain to acknowledge that the Wendolin who moved and walked and shyly smiled among them was that same being. Nor did he strain. Nor did the wisdom fact remain forever and always in their minds: they had seen him as a stripling lad, thus they saw him now, he did not change before their eyes, and so he did not change in their minds.
And on this subject once old Bab said to his great-nephew, “There must be some deep reason why his shape and semblance is thus: and I incline to think that tis because this is his real nature.”
And no more was said or thought on it. Wendolin had no beard upon his face, but then, till recently, neither had Corm; this did not distinguish him in any ill sense, and neither did his grey-green eyes, his somewhat dark countenance, his clothes of russet leather. From what beast his clothes had come, or who had gathered the bark to tan them, or when, none of them to be sure knew. But then, no one cared. “I know a quicker way out,” he said, easily, in his clear, free voice. And they were glad that he did, and they followed him without concern. His words proved true; he led them through a cleft in the gaunt grey cliffs, out into the nameless land of woods and grass and streams which lay aside to Wizardland. And they breathed a relieved breath, and smiled on him, and touched his arm. His own smile was a trace less shy. He was now one of them, it seemed. And all had an unspoken feeling that their number was now complete.
And they killed game, and ate of it, and they ate of fruit and berries and of greens.
It was as they stood by a stand of berry-canes, with no great thought upon them more than to avoid the thorns, that one clear and distant sound came to their ears, and then Roke grew a bit white, and he lay his hands upon his scars. And for a moment the blood of the berries seemed as though it were his own blood.
He said, “That is surely the voice of Spear-Teeth. Am I to go and kill him now? Or to be killed by him again, this time for true and ever? Does no one know?”
Carefully they snuffed up the breeze, as though the faint sound they made in doing so would be heard, and to their danger. And over the green scent of growing things there lay the heavy and dangerous must-smell of the great mammont. And they were all still, the berries still between the cusps of their teeth.
“Oh, perhaps neither of those,” said Wendolin. “I think it is none of those,” he said, his manner seeming easy, though somewhat grave. His trifle smile slightly spread his red lips. “But before this Bear and I go to see what Big One has to say to us, I think,” he said, softly but not fearfully, “I think we will eat some more good berries. It is long since I have eaten such,” he said. And his manner as he stripped the withes was as simple and hearty as that of any boy who feasts himself with berries after a long dearth of them. And Arnten did the same.
Slowly the whiteness in Roke’s face diminished. He looked at his new friend all clad in russet with some slight surprise and admiration. “Then I am not to see him now,” he said, low-voiced, and slightly indistinct. He moved his tongue and seemed bemused to find berry mashed upon it, and he swallowed. “Mmmm … It be a different thing for thee, Wendo,” he said — for he had spoken of his incomplete dying, and all of that, earlier. “Eh, thee may stand beside him and eat berries and wail thy weirds and stand safe indeed … but as for me and as for he … I feel that when the pair of us come sight to sight, and close, again, that one of us must soonly be dead for true and ever.” He stood a moment. Then he moved. Said, “But as tis not to now, then now I’ll do as Wendo says — I’ll eat berries.” And he gave a sudden snort of laughter and his head a good shake. And he ate more berries.
By and by, Arnten felt his body give a great impatient twitch and he grunted and laid his heavy hand as lightly on Wendolin’s slight shoulder as he could, and gave him a little push. Wendolin with a rueful, laughing look, but with no word, reached for one last, large berry, did not reach to it, and so the two of them departed from the rest.
The great roan mammont trumpeted when he saw them emerge out of the bosque, and swung round, shambled off. The open ground was broken and irregular, and often he was out of sight. Once they over-walked a tuft of his fleece upon a thorn-bush, and once they by-passed a huge pile of his steaming dung. Once the wind shifted and they paused, and he sounded again, as though impatiently, and they followed in the direction of his call.
Arnten asked, “Have you also received the thoughts of Spear-Teeth?”
“Oh yes.”
“What are they like?”
“Mostly they are heavy and hairy. And sometimes they are steamy and dungy.”
Arnten rumbled a laugh in his big, shaggy chest. It did seem a somewhat strange to be following after the great mammont, instead of trying to avoid it; and they did not even intend to try to kill it. But the strange was now the usual, the usual had become so strange by former standards that … that what? He sought a short thought to sum it all up, found none. He was like a man who settles into a steady run and no longer pauses to consider what a thing looks like when one slowly skulks around it. For years he had skulked around the events in life, well, that had not been his own choice; but now he was in effect running — though, in fact, he now at this moment walked — running with head thrown back and chest thrown out and feeling the wind and taking the wind in and feeling the growth and play of his muscles and the expansion of his thoughts.
“This would have been his mate,” said Wendolin. There was nothing to show them what had caused this other mammont’s death — or, if there was, Arnten did not observe nor Wendolin point out. But beasts had gnawed clean its bones, and it must have been a long and ample feast for them. And there were even teeth marks on the stump of tusk which protruded from the socketed skull on the upper side. “Not this,” said Wendolin. His hands brushed aside grass
es, found something barely sticking above the surface of the ground, said, pointing, “This. Take it up, brother.”
Arnten reached, seized, tugged, grunted, drew forth the lower end of the dead mammont’s tusk.
“ ‘This’ …?”
Wendolin had already turned and started back. He said, without turning, “That is for Fireborn. His haft.”
The others marvelled and murmured much on seeing the ivory. But he all clad in russet merely smiled shyly and crammed his mouth with berries.
• • •
One other new thing stayed much in Arnten’s mind. On another day, and days later, when they had begun to see from time to time the rising smokes of men’s places, and turned wide aside to avoid them — he and Wendolin had gone off again together, and then Arn had begun to think deep, bearish thoughts. After a while he saw that he was alone, and so sank back into his thoughts. Then slowly rose from them again. Heard faint voices. Odd sounds. There seemed a new strangeness in the air, scents familiar and yet not so. Walking softly, softly, he saw Wendolin in the soft grasses, bare of skin, arms and legs spread out upon the ground. Yet stranger: Wendolin seemed to have doubled, for, beneath him, and very next to the grassy ground, was a second Wendolin: one, face down; one, face up: face to face, arms to arms, body to body, legs to legs.
As Arn stood in full astonishment, the lower face twisted and one of the lower eyes turned and saw him. And at that the awesome stillness of the scene was shattered and the lower body struggled its way out from the upper, there was a scramble of limbs, a body leaped to its feet and Arnten saw it was that of a woman, with visible breasts. Is Wendolin, then — ? His mind groped for understanding. Then, as one body fled, still silent, the other turned over and it met his eyes and it laughed a little. It was Wendolin; this was Wendolin. Smiling his still slightly shy smile and without haste or shame or alarm, he reached slowly for his clothes. “When I am among men,” he said, “I do as men do.” And, indeed, he was made full as other men be made.
Ursus of Ultima Thule Page 16