Lightspeed Issue 33

by Tad Williams

  If my rifle had been at my hand and charged, I would have shot over their heads at once. But it was in my lean-to, and I sat on a stony hillock above my camp. All I could do is watch as the canoe came to rest against my beach and the man in the bow leaped nimbly out.

  The intruder called up to me, his voice sounding strange after so many months of hearing no talk. He spoke some jargon unknown to me, very different from the Indian languages of Haute-Louisiane. Grudgingly, I called back in Spanish, French, and Chippewa. I tried fragments of other languages I had learned, but by the time we stood face to face at the foot of the hillock, it was clear we could not understand each other.

  My relief at this remains immeasurable.

  Night has fallen and the canoe has departed, but the man is with me still. Despite all my signs of indifference and even unfriendliness, he insisted on teaching me his name, which is seemingly Ololkolt, and then in interrogating me by signs.

  At first, I merely ignored him, and instead stole glances at his strange costume. I am no longer surprised that I was deceived by the night hunters into thinking they were not men, for even in daylight the illusion is very convincing. These men wear gray tunics and cover their arms and faces with streaks of silver mud. They carry heavy capes that they can throw into a remarkable semblance of wings, and affix long wooden carved herons’ heads to their own shaved skulls.

  But more than all this, these heron-men also have a curious way of standing that causes them to disappear almost entirely into their costumes. As soon as they strike the correct pose, the human melts away and the monstrous avian appears.

  With this evidence before my eyes, I wonder now if the creature I thought I saw in the oak clearing was not really some such fabrication as well. Tomorrow it seems I will have a chance to find out—for Ololkolt insists on my accompanying him to that cursed place. Or so, at least, have I gathered from his signs.

  I regret to say that I made the mistake of recognizing a sign he showed me—a circular collection of overlapping sticks that I knew at once must be a heron nest. But no sooner had he noticed my understanding than he began making sign after sign. He had guessed what I had seen, and he inquired about their size, number, distance, and location. Now he will not leave me, staying even after sending the canoe away, and it is clear he means me to take him to see the nests tomorrow.

  God preserve me. That dead creature in the clearing is real, and more horrible even than I had thought.

  MARCH 1762

  I gave my wife all the money I had when I left to lay the company’s lines with the voyageurs. This was two years ago at Lac Supérieur. I want to write this in case I do not have another chance.

  As I said, I left her my money, and it should have been enough. But while I was gone, the wild rice turned spotted and feeble, and the knockers could harvest no berries, no matter how they brushed the grass. Then, one of her lying neighbors swindled her out of half the money. Another pressed collection of an old debt. A third refused her credit, even against my salary. A fourth promised to help, then left the village without doing anything. A fifth demanded offensive terms.

  I learned that she fled into the forest on the trail back to her father’s village—hungry and friendless as she found herself at the trading post, it had seemed the only course. As soon as I heard, I followed. But all I found were half of her bones, and none of my son’s.

  It is a mysterious fact that in any village or settlement, there is always one going hungry, one shivering cold, one dying alone, one rotting in prison. Yet, despite all of this, there is never anyone found to be responsible for any of it.

  And so I left and came west, looking for this Northwest Passage and death. Coureur de bois, the woodland runner, no longer having to do with any other man.

  It was my wife’s touch that awoke me again this morning. But there was no loon and no night hunters—only the ceaseless lapping of the waves upon the beach. Still, I could not shake the dark premonition that called me from my sleep, and by mid-morning I saw the canoes round the tip of the western prominence.

  Ololkolt has brought a dozen canoes with sixty hunters—all dressed in full costumes. Impassively, I watched them land from my hillock, filling up my beach with false heron-men. They could not want me or need me. I had already shown Ololkolt the way to the nests. It was their affair now.

  But two hunters dashed up the hillside to me and dragged me down—not roughly, but not allowing any resistance. Ololkolt threw a tunic and a wooden heron head on the ground before me, and insisted by sign that I dress. He is young—or so he seems—but he is not a man to be defied. A moment later, I shivered as two hunters pressed cool silver mud to the exposed skin of my arms and face.

  The ancient oak grove is as dark and baleful as I remember. Later in the year, the branches will fill with leaves, hiding the cursed nests from view. But for now they hang heavily above, large and thick enough almost to cast shadows on the clearing floor in the cold spring afternoon.

  The march has taken almost half the day, but Ololkolt gives little time to rest—just enough to scribble these few words. And already he is striding actively about, dispatching his men in parties of two or three among the trees. Just as quickly, they begin to climb, ascending the thick trunks with dizzying speed. He has assigned me a tree as well—the same apparently as Ololkolt himself intends to climb.

  I have no choice—I will be forced up. The oaks on every side of me are already full of warriors armed to the teeth with bows, axes, spears, and cudgels. If I were to resist or flee, it would be the work of a moment to cut me down, a thicket of arrows sprouting from my back.

  All around me, squirrels fling themselves wildly out of branches, fleeing from the climbing warriors, but otherwise the woods are eerily calm. Even the breeze has died in the air, and the ceremonial feeling has returned to the place.

  I cannot help but feel that something awful is about to follow.

  The climbing was quicker than I expected, but still I found it difficult and was soon outpaced by Ololkolt. Long before, the other warriors had found perches high in the swaying branches near the massive nests, their legs wrapped around slim, springy limbs as they fussed with the weapons they had brought and traded low words with each other. Even so, I felt no special need to hurry myself, and I lingered several yards below the top.

  Above, Ololkolt gestured impatiently from near the top. As I looked up for my next hand-hold, my foot suddenly slipped. Instinctively, I clung to the tree, the bark smell thick in my face as I scrabbled over the abyss, feet fighting for purchase. But no sooner had I fixed my place securely again than I felt a shift in the air. Looking around, I saw that the others had all braced their positions and were fitting arrows to their bowstrings.

  My heart sank. Was this to be it? Here, helpless in a tree, was I to be shot down—never even to learn what it all meant? Even as I had climbed, I had suspected the whole horror of those woods—the clearing, the dead animals, the nests—must be some human evil, and I felt like a fool that I had not fought them at once, even if it had meant death.

  But I was wrong. Ololkolt called low and pointed to the south, and then I saw. The fading afternoon sky was dotted by great terrible shapes, skimming the tops of the distant cedars, but gaining altitude with every second. I knew at once what they were, although they were still little more than spots above the canopy.

  They were herons, and they were huge. And they were real.

  As the birds closed the distance, they began to take form—their folded necks, long bills, triangular wings, and elegant trailing legs. I tried to count them as they approached, flying in a loose formation, a huge specimen leading the way. Twenty, twenty-five, at least thirty great birds bore down, over the tops of the trees toward the nests where we now clung.

  At some silent signal, every bow in those treetops bent and released, and a cloud of arrows rose into the sky. Few found their marks, and the ones that did only caused the birds to falter—not to fall.

  It was in watching the a
rrows descend upon the advancing flock that I at last saw the birds’ true size. They were unbelievable creatures, wings eighteen feet across or more. It was all I could do to keep from trembling.

  Meanwhile, the bows bent and released again and again, volley after volley raining upon the oncoming birds with hardly any effect. And at last, the herons were practically upon the trees themselves, the final volley discharged at point blank range.

  Until now, everything had happened in complete silence, broken only by whistling of wind through fletching and feather, and the occasional squawks of wounded birds. But now the sickening creaking and pinioning of wings was in the air all around me, and the warriors let out an angry, noisome squawking of their own.

  Striking their practiced avian poses, they assumed the shapes of herons themselves, acting as though the nests had already been occupied by a rival colony. At last I understood the purpose of the elaborate costumes—they were neither ceremonial nor decorative. They were simply practical, meant to frighten or confuse these monsters if the hunters should encounter them outside their village.

  But there was no time for further thought. They were upon us.

  The herons broke and wheeled away at the last sting of the arrows, angrily swerving in and out of the trees and past each other in a confusion of feathers and legs. Stiff feathers bristled against my shoulder as one of the birds dived in its maneuvers—that careless touch almost enough to knock me off my perch.

  For a moment, I thought of reversing my climb and dropping out of the tree. After all, I had never invited these hunters to my beach, and had not asked to share their troubles. Simply by virtue of being their neighbor, they had pressed me into their fight. It could hardly be cowardice to go my own way.

  But somehow, the sight of Ololkolt stayed me. He clung bravely alone by only his legs five yards above me. We had never—indeed could not—exchange a single intelligible word between us, but I felt that I had somehow given him my promise. Even now I can barely explain why I should have felt any obligation, but I did—and even when dealing with the worst of men, I had never been the one to break faith first.

  The herons now made a tight turn, and dropped almost immediately back among us. With no arrows ready to oppose them, the birds grabbed clumsily onto branches near the occupied nests. I ducked my head as a shower of twigs and acorns dropped on my head, then looked up again in time to see the warriors now jousting with spears.

  In horror, I watched as one bird impaled a man through his chest with its bill. The sharp point slipped in and out cleanly and easily, like a surgeon’s lance piercing a boil. Then the man’s grip loosened on the tree as the life drained from his body, and soon he was falling heavily through space.

  Meanwhile, Ololkolt was engaged with two of the birds. They had landed one on either side of him, and lunged at him from both sides. With deft handling, Ololkolt managed to dodge the attacks, and struck back with the sharp bill affixed to his own head. Whipping around quickly, he brought the point of the bill down like the ball of a hammer, slicing a deep incision into the neck of the heron. But no sooner did one back off a step than I saw the other advancing.

  It was then that I found my limbs moving automatically, unslinging the rifle from my back as I straddled a branch above the abyss. I had no thought for myself, though the whole tree now swayed at the push and pull of the two huge herons above. I was like a voyageur again, dumbly paddling with my comrades—my movements a part of the greater machine, hardly controlled by my conscious mind, but necessary enough for all that.

  I charged my rifle with powder, then drove the ball home. Pointing skyward, I aimed between the shearing branches and squeezed the trigger.

  The explosion almost knocked me from my seat, and for a moment my heart hung in the air as it seemed that either I or my rifle must take the plunge. But grasping the tree in one hand and the gun in the other, I at last came to rest safely prone along the limb, and slowly pushed myself upright again.

  Around me, all was confusion. The shot had drawn the startled stare of every man and bird within earshot. And the men, quicker to recover from their surprise, had pressed home what advantage they could on the bewildered herons. Several were forced back into the air, and one or two dropped to the earth below, spiraling down at dangerous speeds on broken wings.

  As to Ololkolt, I could at first see nothing of what had happened to him. I peered upward, sick at heart if I should have been too late. But then the gunsmoke parted, and Ololkolt’s face appeared in the gap, eagerly urging me to repeat the shot. One of the herons above now showed a bright red circle oozing blood from its breast, but both were still very much alive.

  Tipping my powder horn, I charged and loaded the rifle a second time. Raising the gun again, I braced myself as best I could and aimed straight at the heart of the injured heron.

  Again, the deafening report—again, the wild confusion.

  From behind the smoke, I watched as the twice-shot bird leapt heavily out, its wings stretched in gliding formation, branches gyrating wildly as its weight was suddenly lifted. It flapped futilely once and twice, and then sank rapidly through the branches below, snapping limbs and plunging with a terrible screech to the clearing floor.

  Only then did the smoke blow away from the treetop, and I saw Ololkolt gasping and straining, one entire side of his body covered in blood and gore. I leapt up, a madman now, covering the last several yards to the top of the tree in a careless scramble, where I discovered Ololkolt with a knife plunged elbow deep into the neck of the remaining heron, smiling in vicious satisfaction as gallons of the bird’s blood washed over him.

  APRIL 1762

  I told no one I was leaving, and no one saw me go.

  Not knowing how far it would be to the outlet of the bay, I took enough food from the storehouses of Ololkolt’s village to last for a month or more—camas bulbs, acorns, roots, and a pot of oolichan oil. Fish I can catch as I go, and there are always clams for the digging. But meat I must forgo, for I have left my rifle, powder, and balls behind at the village.

  Though the herons were driven off this spring, no one can say how far they went or when they will return. Ololkolt’s village will sleep more soundly this year, but in the future the rifle will do more good for them than it would for me.

  From here, I will follow the coastline west, and scout the outlet to the océan Pacifique. After that—what more is there to do?

  For the third time, I woke at what seemed to be the touch of my wife. It was dawn, the stars fading fast from the steel-blue sky. It was my first morning alone—the first since that battle with the herons that I had not risen to the sound of children laughing and women singing, or the smell of roasting vegetables in the fires.

  I sighed softly, but then the feather touch came again. I rolled over and swatted my neck, and found Ololkolt squatting next to me, laughing as he brushed my cheek with the fletching of the arrow he held.

  “Armistead,” he said, calling me by name.

  “Ololkolt,” I replied, grinning in spite of myself.

  He had seen the rifle I had left in the storehouse, and he had seen that my canoe was gone. All night, he had tracked me alone by lantern light, only to find my canoe overturned on this beach as the sun began to rise.

  Even if we spoke the same language, I am not sure how I could have told him that I did not belong in the village—his or any other. Much as I had grown to accept the company of the people there, I could not remain among the cooking pots, the hearth fires, the raising of children, the talk of politics, the annoyances, the bickering, the reconciliations, the thefts, the gossip—in short, among the daily struggle and strife and joy of men and women living close to one another.

  So I gave no explanation, and Ololkolt asked for none.

  Instead, he placed a fine bow and twenty long arrows into my canoe, clasped my hand warmly in his for the last time, and left me alone to finish my journey.

  JUNE 1762

  When I found the outlet at last, after follow
ing hundreds of miles of westing coastline, I was surprised to see that I hesitated. To be sure, it was no easy road to the Pacific—it was in fact a tumultuous, rock-strewn channel, too narrow for the torrent of water that dropped through it on the way to the ocean.

  Mountains towered on either side of the opening, and the water rushed through in a terrible roaring frenzy, twisted and corded into streams of white foam, and framed by dancing jets and sprays that leapt up toward the sky.

  A more exhilarating ending I could not have asked for, but I paused a long while on the brink of the maelstrom. The channel was certain death, but it was the only way to finish the Northwest Passage I had begun. I knew that if I paddled but a little ways further, I would find myself pulled inexorably and finally down into the rapids until, some hours later, my body would wash out in the surf of the Pacific along with the fragments of my canoe.

  All that was true. But then—why did I still hesitate?

  Later that evening, as I sat in my camp still within earshot of the torrent, I took up Ololkolt’s bow and inspected it closely for the first time. I had never used such a thing, and had preferred to live on fish or clams for the past months. But as I turned the bow in my hands, a deer wandered dumbly across the beach, not fifty feet from me. Almost without thinking, I drew an arrow from the quiver.

  The deer turned to look at me—a young buck, brazen and strong. He barely flinched as I rose and slotted the arrow’s nock against the string. The bow’s grip was warm, the arrow fletching light against my face.

  And the arrow, when it flew, was true.

  © 2013 M. Bennardo

  M. Bennardo’s short stories appear in such magazines as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Stupefying Stories, and others. He is also co-editor of This Is How You Die, a science fiction anthology coming from Grand Central Publishing in July 2013. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, but people everywhere can find him online at mbennardo.com.