“I’ll be fine, thanks,” said Iseult.
Poor Iseult, thought Nyneve. She’s not too bright, and she’s not too brave either. There’s no way the baron will allow Tristan back in Mara Zion. Probably he’ll ambush him on his return, kill him and his men, and not say a word to the villagers. Then, after a while, people will forget Tristan ever existed. So what will Iseult do? She’s got no way of getting back to Ireland. She’ll just have to crawl back to the village and live there in disgrace.
“What will you do, Iseult?” asked Nyneve.
Iseult looked up at her, face dirty and stained with tears. “I’m leaving Mara Zion,” she said steadily. “I’m going to find Tristan and warn him what the baron intends to do, and I’m going to help him raise an army and throw the baron out of the forest. That’s what I’m going to do, Nyneve!”
Memories in the Mind of Fang
Woodypecker, turn away,
Wave your thing the other way.
Come again another day,
I did my duty yesterday,
—Gnomish chant
Fang visited his caches around the forest and brought back provisions for the winter. The Princess had already stocked her larder, so Fang hollowed out another storeroom at the back of the house, with an entrance through the bathroom. Nuts, acorns, dried herbs, mousecheese and other delicacies were stored away. Next he brought in dry sticks for the fire: pine and fir cones for long-burning warmth, dry pine needles for kindling. Finally everything was ready for the winter. As is the way with gnomes, their metabolism slowed and they began to spend long days sitting before the fire, talking and drowsing.
In the evenings, while the Princess dozed, Fang explored his memories.
At first it wasn’t easy, because he soon came slap up against the terrifying monster that had so inhibited his father’s powers. He hovered slightly to the future of the creature and tried to analyze the problem. Soon it became apparent that the Gooligog was not the only gnome to have suffered this problem, but that it had affected every Memorizer back to the time of Tremor, long ago. Cautiously, Fang investigated Tremor.
A black-cowled monster jumped into his mind.
Hastily he backed off. Then, as he was about to try another route, words came into his mind as though spoken aloud:
You’ll never see me wearing black. And you’ll never be frightened of me.
Of course I won’t. Why should I?
The time will come when you must remember our little talk, Fang. There was an occasion when another gnome was frightened of me, quite unjustifiably. He is long dead, but his memories live on, as is the way with gnomes. Should you ever encounter these memories, remember our little talk, won’t you?
I will.
And the black thing became pink and white, just an ordinary female giant in a bright dress. Fang thought his way past her easily, and left her behind. He moved backward into more memories. Now the complexity of history became a challenge. Night after night he struggled with the images in his mind, but could make nothing of them. One evening the Princess awakened from a light doze to find him pacing to and fro in frustration.
“What’s the matter?”
“This business of educing. It’s not so easy as I thought it would be.”
“You had no trouble remembering how to deal with the wild warts,” said the Princess, watching him with concern.
“That’s because I knew exactly what I was looking for. But now I’m trying to get back into gnomish history and I don’t know what route to take. Each memory is connected to another in a chain. Often the chain simply ends. Then I have to start again. There are too many broken links.”
“You just need practice, Fang.”
“Probably. But it’s going to take longer than I thought. I have to get used to my father’s way of thinking and cataloging, and then his father’s, and so on. There’s one good thing about it. When I’ve worked my way back along the chain and I want to take a rest, I can pick up where I left off. I don’t have to start all over again. It’s as though when I educe a memory from my father, or any of his ancestors, it becomes my memory and I can recall it any time. But the first time, I have to work my way right back to it.”
He was still pacing, and the Princess caught hold of his hand as he passed her chair and pulled him to a halt. “It’ll be all right, Fang,” she said softly.
He looked down at her. “I … we might not have much time.”
“You’ll do your best. You can’t do any more.”
It was midwinter before Fang had his first breakthrough. There was a light powdering of snow on the ground one morning when Fang and the Princess poked their heads out of the burrow, so they decided not to go for their usual morning stroll. Footprints in the snow can lead ferrets to a gnome’s home.
“We’ll have a cup of tea instead,” said the Princess.
“Later,” said Fang. “I’ll do some educing first, while I’m fresh. Maybe I’ll find it easier in the morning.”
Recently, after much trial and error, he’d been following the memoryline of the Dedo. Apart from the patch of fear disfiguring the memory of a meeting between the Dedo and Knuckles, it was an easy line to follow, particularly since the Dedo had lived forever, it seemed. Mostly she had flitted through the umbra, observed by generations of gnomes as she went about her business, but occasionally she had appeared in the gnomes’ own world. She was the only giant to do so until Nyneve came along. Fang educed, slumped in his chair with eyes closed, while the Princess watched him with an expression he would have given much to see.
Each time the Dedo had appeared in gnomedom there had been a nervous reaction. Fang could almost feel the ancient Memorizer’s heart beating. Then, quite unexpectedly, he saw a vision of a time when all gnomes were young; There were very few animals, and a feeling of freshness about the world. He was watching a small group of gnomes and an odd-looking furry creature which spoke. Fang listened, but he didn’t understand. The memoryline stopped at this point. Was it another dead end? What was the furry thing saying? And the gnomes, too—they spoke an odd language.
He brought himself back to the real world, opening his eyes. The Princess was looking determinedly at the fire, as though she saw something of absorbing interest there. Fang paused and everything paused, as though gnomedom were on the brink of a great discovery which shouldn’t be hurried.
He said, “I think I’ll have that cup of tea, now.”
“Oh, you’ve finished? Tea, of course. I’ll get it.” The Princess looked unusually pink.
Fang said, “Do you know how the Miggot got his full name, the Miggot of One?”
“No.”
“There have been Miggots of One on and off for generations, ever since our language changed, about the time the pteroglyph was created. The real name is Committee of One. It refers to the Miggot being the only gnome who can decide whether a suggested life-form is suitable. People hadn’t got used to the new language, and the name was corrupted within a generation. … Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She handed him his tea.
“You look kind of … funny. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine, Fang.”
He gazed into his tea. “I have a lot of work to do. I have to learn the old gnomish language before I can be really sure what some of the memories mean.”
“We have all winter.”
“Unless …” He glanced at her. “Unless the warts fly.”
“Oh, yes. You wouldn’t be able to stay here then, of course.”
“I’d have to educe at home.”
“I suppose so,” said the Princess. She got up from her chair and hurried into the bathroom. Shutting the door behind her, she splashed cold water on her face and rubbed it vigorously. She was mortified. She’d been thinking the most disgusting thoughts about Fang as she watched him lying there in his chair, his legs stretched out and his handsome face creased with the effort of educing. And then suddenly he’d opened his eyes and probably seen her. He must
have read her thoughts, because now he wanted to go home. And who could blame him? If he knew, he would run a mile. Because history could not be permitted to repeat itself. History …
By the Great Grasshopper! Fang already knew!
The Princess groaned in embarrassment. Her shameful secret was already sitting in Fang’s mind, and he might happen on it at any moment! She sat on the side of the bath with her head in her hands, her face burning. …
It was a long time before she could compose herself enough to rejoin Fang in the living room. By that time his eyes were closed and he was educing again.
By the start of the new year, Fang had learned enough of the ancient kikihuahua tongue to be able to understand remembered conversations. Once more he slipped into the far distant past. He observed a historic occasion: the first kindling of the Wrath of Agni by a kikihuahua since time immemorial. Through the eyes of the Memorizer he saw a little knot of gnomes in a forest glade, and through the ears of the Memorizer he heard the kikihuahua talking.
“This is how you do it, so it is remembered.” The kikihuahua was twirling a stick against a short piece of dry wood, using a bow-like device. “I am not adapted to manual dexterity,” said the kikihuahua sadly, as the bow flew out of his hands for the umpteenth time, and the trickle of smoke died.
“Here, let me.” One of the gnomes took the bow, sawed to and fro, piled tinder against the tip, and watched the smoke gather again.
“Blow it,” said the kikihuahua.
The tinder reddened, and a spurt of flame darted from its center. The kikihuahua sprang back with a squeal of fright. “Forgive us,” he cried, “for our transgression. We think we are right but we have no way of knowing. If we are wrong, we beg your forgiveness. Descendants, know that we tried in good faith.” He gabbled the Kikihuahua Disclaimer while the gnomes watched him in some surprise.
“You’re making an awful fuss about nothing,” said one.
“It’s only a little fire,” said another.
The kikihuahua calmed down. “It’s good that you should see it that way,” he said. “Now, before I leave you …”
And he went on to remind the gnomes of their purpose on Earth, and of kikihuahua history and ethics.
Fang educed, and understood.
When the kikihuahua left, walking off into the forest, Fang stayed with the gnomes. The kikihuahua’s closing words rang through his head. “When your time on Earth is finished, come back to the spacebat. You will be welcome, and you will live out your lives with us—and then that will be the end of the gnomes.”
But how will we know when our time is up? Fang wondered.
It must be soon. If the giants entered gnomedom, the gnomes’ time on Earth would certainly be finished. That much was clear. Did that mean the gnomes’ work had been in vain? The giants would stamp on everything and kill the animals the gnomes had so painstakingly created.
Therefore the kikihuahuas couldn’t have known the giants would come. Probably they didn’t see any giants when they arrived, or they wouldn’t have begun colonization. Kikihuahuas, Fang now knew, never colonized worlds already inhabited by intelligent beings. Therefore the giants, and the umbra, must have come into existence after the first landing. Fang moved in time, and saw no umbra in those early years.
So there had been a mistake. Something had gone wrong. The empty Earth had been deceptive. Another happentrack, to use Nyneve’s term, had appeared out of nowhere. This happentrack was getting closer all the time, and it seemed that the two happentracks, giants and gnomes, would inevitably join. The kikihuahuas’ attempt at colonization had failed. The gnomes must get back to the spacebat—now.
But how?
As the days went by, Fang searched the memorylines for traces of some kind of transport.
He discussed it with the Princess. “Our real home is up in the sky,” he told her. And because she loved him, she believed him. “Somehow we must get up there, but I don’t see how,” Fang said.
“Perhaps there’s some kind of boat which flies through the air.”
“The kikihuahuas don’t believe in boats, or any kind of thing which is made. It might be a bird, but I don’t know of a bird that flies high enough.” Although he was unable to conceive the great distances involved, he’d heard the kikihuahua speak of the spacebat and he knew instinctively that this was no mere bird’s flight away.
So he delved back into his memory and considered memorylines dealing with living creatures that had been produced by Sharans all over the world. Over the years, gnomes had traveled, land-bridges has risen and fallen, and the stories had spread. Whether the stories were true or not was unimportant. Quite often they arose from the gnomes’ observations of animals they had not created, but had evolved naturally. But like intelligent races all over the galaxy, the gnomes tended to be vain, and to pretend they had created all life. The gnomes’ animal tales were a favorite fireside diversion in the winter evenings, and now Fang had access to most of them. Fascinated, he investigated a few.
It is remembered that the puffpig was created by a group of gnomes on the island of Trinidad. Originally, the Sharan had created a small forest pig which showed every sign of becoming successful; it was fast and agile, omnivorous and hardy. Added to which, the Sharan had ensured its continuing improvement by making the boars very belligerent, particularly during the rutting season, so that only the most powerful males found mates.
The forest pigs thrived and multiplied until—as has happened all through the history of life on Earth—a stronger species arrived. A change in climate brought the lions down from the north, and they found the forest pigs very much to their taste. Within a century the species was on the verge of extinction.
“We must save them,” said one gnome.
“No—they haven’t proven themselves fit for survival,” said another. “It’s right to let them die.”
“We ought to give them another chance,” said a third gnome. “They’re a good little animal, basically—and the lion is cowardly. With a slight improvement, I think they could survive.”
The gnomes agreed that the Sharan should produce an improved version of the forest pig. When threatened, this new pig would have the ability to gulp air and inflate its body like a puffer fish, so that its enemy would be faced by a beast of suddenly increased dimensions and grotesque appearance. This, the gnomes reasoned, would be enough to deter the somewhat faint-hearted lion; after which the puffpig, as they called it, could deflate to normal size.
It worked, too. Over a period of several weeks the Sharan brought forth a series of fully-grown puffpigs that scampered into the forest and outfaced the lions, who turned to the now-obsolete forest pigs for food and quickly rendered them extinct. Winter came and the lions became lean and hungry. Unable to tackle the frightening puffpigs, they migrated west in search of easier meat. The puffpigs remained masters of the forest.
“And rightly so,” said the local Miggot, “because they are a masterpiece of gnomish creation.”
His satisfaction lasted until the rutting season. Spring came and the sexual urge took hold of the boars. They faced one another combatively, challenging for mates. Their creator, perhaps having some inkling of the disaster to come, watched one such pair from the shelter of a thicket. The boars grunted and made little runs toward each other, slashing with their tusks. They backed off and reconsidered. One of them puffed himself up a little and waddled toward the other, snorting. The second boar, quickly sizing up the situation, outpuffed the other and stood his ground. The first boar inflated himself to the safe limit. So did the second. Nose to nose, unable now to move, they stood locked in a silent battle of wills. Gulping, mouthful by mouthful, they forced more air into their lungs. Finally, just for an instant, it seemed that one boar had triumphed, because he swelled unexpectedly into the most grotesque and aberrant shape; but his lungs had burst and air was filling various body cavities. Hissing, he collapsed and died. The other pig survived him by a few seconds but then, irreparably damaged, he
too sank to the ground. In this manner the male puffpigs all expired that first spring, and the rutting season ended, not with a bang, but with a hiss.
It is remembered that Old South America was home to a giant creature known as the ground sloth, which had evolved without help from the gnomes. However, the time came when the winds blew cold and the tropical vegetation wilted and died, to be replaced by smaller, hardier trees. The gnomes of that region, realizing the ground sloth was doomed to extinction because it could not find enough food to sustain its huge bulk, decided to create a smaller version. This sloth quickly became extinct, however, because it was too small and slow to fight off the jaguar. The local Miggot then instructed his Pan to have the Sharan create an arboreal version, reasoning that branches too slender for a jaguar would nevertheless support a sloth.
The gnomes had reckoned without the condors, however, which picked the young from the backs of the tree sloths as they trotted monkeylike along the branches.
“You should have thought of that,” said the Miggot to Pan.
“I did as I was told.”
“Perhaps you should have used a little common sense. Try again, and this time give us a sloth with young that cling to the underside of the mother’s body. At least the condors won’t be able to get at them then.”
“It shall be done,” said Pan quietly, infuriated in a particularly cold and alien way.
Pan instructed the Sharan and fed it a piece of tree sloth, but in his rage Pan made a calculated change to the specifications. Certainly a young sloth would cling to the underside of its mother—but for a very good reason, which would not become apparent immediately. Its brain was upside-down.
The Sharan produced the new tree sloths and in due course the females gave birth to young—and, sure enough, they clung to the underside of their mothers. Pan, smiling to himself, awaited their adulthood, when they would be forced to turn the right way up to run along the branches. Their sense of balance would be so poor, he reasoned, that they would fall to the forest floor, to be consumed by jaguars.
Fang, the Gnome (Song of Earth) Page 28