Helliconia Winter

by neetha Napew

  Their audience responded bravely. But in every heart lay the knowledge that they would never see Freyr again; nor would their children, nor their children's children. On the latitude of Kharnabhar the brighter sun of Freyr would never shine in the sky until another forty-two generations had been born and died. Nobody present could ever hope to see that brilliant luminary again.

  A choir sang distantly the anthem, "Oh, May We All Find Light at Last." Gloom settled in every heart. The loss was as sharp as the loss of a child.

  The lackey solemnly drew the curtains again, hiding the landscape from view.

  Many in the assembly stayed to drink more yadahl. They had little to say to each other. The musicians played, but a mood of sullen resignation had settled which would not be dispelled. Singly or in groups, the guests were leaving. They evaded each other's gaze.

  Stone steps wound down through the monastery to the entrance. A carpet had been laid on the stairs in honour of the occasion. Cold drafts, blowing upwards, lifted the edges of the carpet. As Luterin was descending, two men emerged from an archway on a landing and seized him.

  He fought and shouted, but they locked his arms behind him and carried him into a stone washroom. Asperamanka was waiting there. He had divested himself of his ceremonial robes, and was putting on a coat and leather gauntlets. His two men wore leather and carried guns at their belts. Luterin thought of what Insil had said: "All those leather-clad men .... doing secret things."

  Asperamanka put on a genial tone. "It isn't going to work, is it, Luterin? We can't have you going free in a tight-knit community like Kharnabhar. You'll be too disruptive an influence."

  "What are you trying to preserve here - apart from yourself?"

  "I wish to preserve my wife's honour for one thing. You seem to think there is evil here. The fact is, we have to fight to survive. The good - and the bad - will naturally survive in us. Most people understand that. You don't.

  "You are inclined to play the part of a holy innocent, and they always make trouble. So we are going to give you a chance to help the whole community. Helliconia needs to be hauled back into the light. You are going to go into the Wheel for another ten-year spell."

  He fought free and ran for the door. One of the huntsmen reached it in time to slam it in his face. He struck the man on the jaw, but was made captive again.

  "Tie him," Asperamanka ordered. "Don't let him go again."

  The men had no cord. One reluctantly yielded up the broad belt of his jacket, and with that they lashed Luterin's hands behind his back.

  When Asperamanka opened the door, they marched down the rest of the stairs, the men flanking Luterin closely. Asperamanka seemed greatly pleased with himself.

  "We said farewell to Freyr with courage and ceremony. Admire power, Luterin. I admired your father for his ruthlessness as Oligarch. What a fateful generation ours is. Either we'll be wiped out or we'll decide the course of the world..."

  "Or you'll choke on a fish bone," Luterin said.

  They descended to the entrance hall. Through the broad archway, the outer world could be seen. The chill came in, and also the noise of the crowd and the bonfire. The simple people were dancing round the fires they had lit, faces gleaming in the light of the flames. Traders scurried about, selling waffles and spitted fish.

  "For all their religion, they believe that lighting fires may bring Freyr back," Asperamanka said. He lingered at the entrance. "What they are really doing is ensuring that wood becomes short before it need be... Well, let them get on with it. Let them go into pauk or do whatever they please. The elite is going to have to survive on the backs of just such peasants as these for the next few centuries or more."

  There was shouting and a stir from the back of the crowd. Soldiers came into view as the crowd parted to make way for them. They carried something struggling between them.

  "Ah, they've caught another phagor. Good. We'll see this," Asperamanka said, with a hint of ancient angers under his brows.

  The phagor was lashed upside down to a pole. It struggled violently as its captors brought it to one of the fires.

  Behind came a figure of a man, lifting his arms and shouting. Luterin could not hear what he said for the general hubbub, but he recognised him by his long beard. The man was his old schoolmaster, who had taught him - long ago in another existence - when he was lying paralysed in bed. The old man had kept a phagor as servant, being too poor to afford a slave. It was clearly his phagor which the soldiers had captured.

  The soldiers dragged the creature nearer to the fire. The crowd ceased its dancing and shouted with excitement, the women egging the soldiers on along with the men.

  "Burn it!" shouted Asperamanka, but he merely echoed the voice of the mob.

  "It's just a domestic," Luterin said. "Harmless as a dog."

  "It's still capable of spreading the Fat Death."

  Fight though it would, the ancipital was pulled and pushed to the largest of the fires. Its coat began to burn. Another inch - a yell from the crowd - a heave - and then a mournful call sounded from beyond the gathering. Distant human screams. Into the marketplace poured armed ancipitals on kaidaws.

  Each ancipital wore body armour. Some wore primitive skull shields. They rode their red kaidaws from a position behind the animals' low humps, at the crouch. In this position they could strike out with spears as they went.

  "Freyr die! Sons of Freyr die!" they cried from their harsh throats.

  The crowd began to move, less as separate individuals than as a wave. Only the soldiers made a stand. The captive phagor was left with its pale harneys boiling in its skull, but it rose up and made off, coat still smouldering.

  Asperamanka ran forward, shouting to the soldiers to fire. Luterin, as an observer, could see that there were no more than eight of the invaders. Some of them sprouted black hairs, a mark of ancipital old age. All but one had been dehorned - a sure sign that these were no kind of threat from the mountains, such as tremulous imaginations in Kharnabhar fed on, but a few refugee phagors who had banded together on this special day, when conditions in Sibornal reverted to virtually what they had been before Freyr entered Helliconia's sky, many epochs ago.

  He saw how members of the crowd who were impeded in some way fell first to the stabbing spears: pedlars with trays, women with babies or small children, the lame, the sick. Some were trampled underfoot. A baby was scooped up and flung into the heart of a fire.

  As Asperamanka and his two bullies drew guns and started firing, the horned ancipital wheeled its russet-haired mount and charged at the Master. It came straight, its skull low over the massive skull of the kaidaw. In its eye was no light of battle, simply a dull cerise stare: it was doing what it did according to some ancient template set in its eotemporal brain.

  Asperamanka fired. The bullets lost themselves in the thick pelage of animal. It faltered in mid-stride. The two bullies turned and ran. Asperamanka stood his ground, firing, shouting. The kaidaw fell suddenly on one knee. Up came the spear. It caught Asperamanka as he turned. The tip entered his skull through the eye socket and he fell back into the monastery entrance.

  Luterin ran for his life. He had wrenched his arms free of the belt. He jumped down into the street, into the trampled snow, and ran. There were other running figures nearby, too concerned with saving their own lives to bother with his. He hid behind a house, panting, and surveyed the scene.

  Blue shadows and bodies lay on the marketplace. The sky overhead was a deep blue, in which a bright star gleamed - Aganip. Hues of sunset lay to the south. It was bitterly cold.

  The mob had surrounded one kaidaw and was pulling its rider to the ground. The others were galloping off to safety - another sign that this was not an arm of a regular ancipital component, which would not have abandoned a fight so easily.

  He made his way without trouble towards Sanctity Street and his appointment with Toress Lahl.

  Sanctity Street was narrow. Its buildings were tall. Most had been constructed in a better age
to house the pilgrims who came to visit the Wheel. Now the shutters were up; many doors were barricaded. Slogans had been painted on the walls: God Keep the Keeper, We Follow the Oligarch - presumably as a form of life insurance. At the rear of the houses and hostels, the snow was piled up to the eaves.

  Luterin started cautiously down the street. His mood was one of elation at his escape. He could see beyond the end of the street, where it seemed eternity began. There was an unlimited expanse of snow, its dimensions emphasised by occasional trees. In the distance stretched a band of pink of the most delicate kind, where the sun Freyr still lit on a far cliff, the southern face of the northern ice cap. This vista lifted his spirits further, suggesting as it did the endless possibilities of the planet, beyond the reach of human pettiness. Despite all oppression, the great world remained, inexhaustible in its forms and lights. He might be gazing upon the face of the Beholder herself.

  He passed an entranceway where a figure lurked. It called his name. He turned. Through the dusk, he saw a woman wrapped in furs.

  "You are almost there. Aren't you excited?" she said.

  He went to her, clutched her, felt her narrow body under the furs.

  "Insil! You waited."

  "Only partly for you. The fish seller has something I need. I am sick after that performance in there, with the silly drama and speeches. They think they have conquered nature when they wrap a few words round it. And of course my sherb of a husband mouthing the word Sibornal as if it were a mouthwash... I'm sick, I need to drug myself against them. What is that filthy curse which the commoners use, meaning to commit irrumation on both suns? The forbidden oath? Tell me."

  "You mean, 'Abro Hakmo Astab'?"

  She repeated it with relish. Then she screamed it.

  Hearing her say it excited him. He held her tight and forced his mouth against hers. They struggled. He heard his own voice saying, "Let me biwack you here, Insil, as I've always longed to do. You're not really frigid. I know it. You're really a whore, just a whore, and I want you."

  "You're drunk, get away, get away. Toress Lahl is awaiting you."

  "I care nothing for her. You and I are meant for each other. That's been the case ever since we were children. Let's fulfill ourselves. You once promised me. Now's the time, Insil, now!"

  Her great eyes were close to his.

  "You frighten me. What's come over you? Let me be."

  "No, no, I don't have to let you be now. Insil - Asperamanka is dead. The phagors killed him. We can be married now, anything, only let me have you, please, please!"

  She wrenched herself away from him.

  "He's dead? Dead? No. It can't be. Oh, the cur!" She started screaming and ran down the street, holding up her trailing skirt above the trodden snow.

  Luterin followed in horror at her distress.

  He tried to detain her but she said something which he at first could not understand. She was crying for a pipe of occhara.

  The fish seller was, as she had said, at the end of the street. A short passage had been constructed beyond the original shop front, allowing passengers to enter without bringing the cold in with them. Above the door was a sign saying Odim's Finest Fish.

  They entered a dim parlour where several men stood, warmly wrapped, all of them metamorphosed winter shapes. Seals and large fish hung on hooks. Smaller fish, crabs, and eels were bedded in ice on a counter. Luterin took little notice of his surroundings, so concerned was he for Insil, who was now almost hysterical.

  But the men recognized her. "We know what she wants," one said, grinning. He led her into a rear room.

  One of the other men came forward and said, "I remember you, sir."

  He was youthful and had a vaguely foreign look about him.

  "My name is Kenigg Odim," he said. "I sailed with you on that journey from Koriantura to Rivenjk. I was just a lad then, but you may recollect my father, Eedap Odim."

  "Of course, of course," said Luterin distractedly. "A dealer in something. Ivory, was it?"

  "Porcelain, sir. My father still lives in Rivenjk, and organises supplies of good fish to come up here every week. It's a paying business, and there's no demand for porcelain these days. Life's better down in Rivenjk, sir, I must say. Fine feelings is about as much good as fine porcelain up here."

  "Yes, yes, I'm sure that's so."

  "We also do a trade in occhara, sir, if you would care for a free pipe. Your lady friend is a regular customer."

  "Yes, bring me a pipe, man, thank you, and what of a lady called Toress Lahl? Is she here?"

  "She's expected."

  "All right." He went through into the rear room. Insil Esikananzi was resting on a couch, smoking a long-stemmed pipe. She looked perfectly calm, and regarded Luterin without speaking.

  He sat by her without a word, and presently the young Odim brought him a lighted pipe. He inhaled with pleasure and immediately felt a mood strangely compounded of resignation and determination steal over him. He felt he was equal to anything. He understood now Insil's expanded irises, and held her hand.

  "My husband is dead," she announced. "Did you know that? Did I tell you what he did to me on our wedding night?"

  "Insil, I've had enough confidences from you for one day. That episode in your life is over. We are still young. We can marry, can make one another happy or miserable, as the case may be."

  Wreathing herself in smoke, she said from the centre of it, "You are a fugitive. I need a home. I need care. I no longer need love. What I need is occhara. I want someone who can protect me. I want you to get Asperamanka back."

  "That's impossible. He's dead."

  "If you find it impossible, Luterin, then please be quiet and leave me to my thoughts. I am a widow. Widows never last long in winter..."

  He sat by her, sucking on the occhara, letting his thoughts die.

  "If you could also kill my father, the Keeper, this remote community could revert to nature. The Wheel would stop. The plague could come and go. The survivors would see the Weyr-Winter through."

  "There will always be survivors. It's a law of nature."

  "My husband showed me the laws of nature, thank you. I do not wish for another husband."

  They fell silent. Young Odim entered and announced to Luterin that Toress Lahl awaited him in an upper room. He cursed and stumbled after the man up a rickety stair without a backward look at Insil, certain that she would remain where she was for some while.

  Luterin was shown into a small cabin, before which a curtain did duty for a door. Inside, a bed served as the only furniture. Beside the bed stood Toress Lahl. He was astonished at her girth until he remembered that he was much the same size.

  She had certainly grown older. There was grey in her hair, although she still dressed it as she had done ten years ago. Her cheeks were rough and florid with the abrasion of frost. Her eyes were heavier, although they lit as she smiled with recognition. In every way, she seemed unlike Insil, not least in the kind of calm stoicism with which she presented herself for his inspection.

  She wore boots. Her dress was poor and patched. Unexpectedly, she removed her fur hat - whether in welcome or respect he could not tell.

  He took a step towards her. She immediately came forward and embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks.

  "Are you well?" he asked.

  "I saw you yesterday. I was waiting outside the Wheel when they let you free. I called to you but you did not look my way."

  "It was so bright." Still confused by the occhara, he could think of nothing to say. He wanted her to make jokes like Insil. When she did not, he asked, "Do you know Insil Esikananzi?"

  "She has become a good friend of mine. We've supported each other in many ways. The years have been long, Luterin... What plans do you have?"

  "Plans? The sun's gone down."

  "For the future."

  "This innocent is again a fugitive... They may even try to blame me for Asperamanka's death." He sat down heavily on the bed.

  "That man is dead?
It's a mercy..." She thought and then said, "If you can trust me, Luterin, I could take you to my little hideout."

  "I would only be a source of danger."

  "That's not what our relationship is based on. I'm still yours, Luterin, if you will have me." When he hesitated, she said pleadingly, "I need you, Luterin. You loved me once, I believe. What choices do you have here, surrounded by enemies?"

  "There's always defiance," he said. He laughed.

  They went down the narrow stairs together, taking care in the dark. At the bottom, Luterin looked into the rear room. To his surprise, the couch was empty and Insil had gone.

  They bid good-bye to young Odim and made their way into the night.

  In the gathering darkness, the Avernus passed overhead, making its swift transit of the sky. It was now a dead eye.

  At last the splendid machine had run down. Its surveillance system was only partly functional. Many other systems - but not the vital ones - were still operational. Air still circulated. Cleaning machines still crawled through walkways. Here and there, computers still exchanged information. Coffee machines still regularly brought coffee to the boil.

  Stabilisers kept the Earth Observation Station automatically on course. In the port departure lounge, a toilet regularly flushed itself, like a creature unable to suppress weeping fits.

  But no signals were returning to Earth.

  And Earth no longer had need of them, although there were many who regretted the termination of that unfolding story from another world. For Earth was moving beyond its compulsive stage, where civilisation was measured by the quantity of possessions, into a new phase of being where the magic of individual experience was to be shared, not stored; awarded, not hoarded. The human character became involuntarily more like that of Gaia herself: diffuse, ever changing, ever open to the adventures of the day.

  As they went through the dusk, leaving the village behind them, Toress Lahl tried to talk of superficial things. Snow fell, blowing in from the north.

  Luterin did not reply. After a silence, she told him how she had borne him a son, now almost ten years old, and offered Luterin anecdotes about him.