by Brian Aldiss
In silence, they clutched each other thankfully.
In silence, they picked their way amid the boulders on the side of the rushing stream of the waterfall.
In silence, they went on. And Yuli kept silence over the vision of the other world he had glimpsed. But he thought again of old Father Sifans; could it have been a secret fortress of the Takers, momentarily revealed to him amid the wilderness of rock? Whatever it was, he took it inside himself and was mute.
The warrens in the mountain seemed endless. Without light, the party of four went in fear of crevasses. When they judged it to be night, they found a suitable nook to sleep, and huddled together for warmth and company.
Once, after climbing for hours along a natural passage strewn with boulders from a long-vanished stream, they found a niche at shoulder height, into which all four could scramble, to tuck themselves away from the chill wind that had been blowing in their faces all day.
Yuli went to sleep immediately. He was roused by Iskador shaking him. The other men were sitting up, whispering apprehensively.
‘Can you hear?’ she asked.
‘Can you hear?’ Usilk and Scoraw asked.
He listened to the wind sighing down the passage, to a distant trickle of water. Then he heard what had disturbed them – a continuous rasping noise, as of something moving fast against the walls.
‘Wutra’s worm!’ Iskador said.
He clutched her firmly. ‘That’s just a story they tell,’ he said. But his flesh went cold, and he grasped his dagger.
‘We’re safe in this niche,’ Scoraw said. ‘If we keep quiet.’
They could only hope he might be right. Unmistakably, something was approaching. They crouched where they were, peering nervously into the tunnel. Scoraw and Usilk were armed with staves, stolen from the warders of Punishment, Iskador had her bow.
The noise grew louder. Acoustics were deceptive, but they thought it came from the same direction as the wind. There was a rasping element to the noise now, and a rumble as of boulders being thrust heedlessly aside. The wind died, blocked perhaps. A smell assailed their nostrils.
It was a ripe aroma of festering fish, of scumble, of rotten cheese. A greenish fog permeated the passage. Legend said Wutra’s worm was silent, but now it approached with a roar, whatever it might be.
Moved more by terror than courage, Yuli peered from their lair.
There it was, coming fast. Its features could hardly be discerned behind the bank of green luminescence it pushed along in front of it. Four eyes, banked two and two, whiskers and fangs gigantic. Yuli pulled his head back in horror, choking. It was approaching irresistibly.
Next moment, they all four had a sight of its face in profile. It plunged by, eyes glaring insanely. Stiffish whiskers brushed their furs. Then their vision was blocked by scaley ribs, rippling by, blue-lit, scouring dust in upon them, choking them with filth and stink.
There were miles of it, then it was past. Clutching each other, they peered out of their hiding place to see the end of it. Somewhere at the beginning of the boulder-strewn passage was a wider cave through which they had come. A convulsion was taking place down there; the green luminescence, still visible, rippled.
The worm had sensed them. It was turning round and coming back. For them. Iskador stifled a cry as she realised what was happening.
‘Rocks, fast,’ Yuli said. There was loose rock they could throw. He reached towards the sloping back of the niche. His hand struck something unsuspected and furry. He drew back. He struck his chert wheel. A spark flew and died – living long enough for him to see that they were keeping company with the mouldering remains of a man, of which only bones and his enveloping furs remained. And there was a weapon of sorts. He struck a second spark.
‘It’s a dead shaggy!’ Usilk exclaimed, using the prisoner’s slang for phagor.
Usilk was right. There was no mistaking the long skull, from which the flesh had dried, or the horns. Beside the body was a staff capped by a spike and a curved blade. Akha had come to the aid of those threatened by Wutra. Both Usilk and Yuli reached out and grabbed the shaft of the weapon.
‘For me. I’ve used these things,’ Yuli said, wrenching at it. Suddenly, his old life was back, he recalled facing a charging yelk in the wilderness.
Wutra’s worm was returning. Again the scraping noise. More light, livid and green. Yuli and Usilk ventured a quick look out of the niche. But the monster was unmoving. They could see the blur of its face. It had turned and was facing back in their direction, but did not advance.
It was waiting.
They chanced a look in the other direction.
A second worm was bearing down on them from the direction the first had come. Two worms … suddenly, in Yuli’s imagination the cave system was crawling with worms.
In terror, they clung to each other, as the light grew brighter and the noise nearer. But the monstrous creatures would be concerned only with each other.
Following a wave of foetid air, the head of the monster plunged by, four eyes glaring as it stared to its front. Bracing the lower half of his newly acquired spear against the side of the niche, Yuli thrust the point out beyond the rock, hanging on with both hands.
It pierced the churning side of the worm as it charged forward. From the long opening tear in its body, a thick jamlike substance gushed, and flowed down the full extent of its body. The monster was slowing before its whiskered tail had passed the shelf where the four humans sprawled.
Whether the two worms had been intending to fight or mate would never be determined. The second worm never reached its target. Its forward motion petered out. Waves of crudely telegraphed pain caused the body to ripple, the tail to lash. Then it was still.
Slowly, its luminescence died. All was quiet, save for the sough of the wind.
They dared not move. They scarcely dared change their position. The first worm was still waiting somewhere in the darkness, its presence indicated by a faint green glow, scarcely discernible over the body of the dead monster. Afterwards, they agreed that this was the worst part of their ordeal. Each supposed in his or her private thoughts that the first worm knew where they were, that the dead worm was its mate, and that it was only waiting for them to stir to plunge forward and be revenged.
Eventually the first worm did move. They heard the slither of its whiskers against the rock. It slid cautiously forward as if expecting a trap, until its head loomed over the body of its dead adversary. Then it began to feed.
The four humans could no longer stay where they were. The sounds were too terrifyingly suggestive. Jumping clear of the spilt ichor, they regained the passage, and scampered away into the dark.
Their journey through the mountain was resumed. But now they stopped frequently and listened to the sounds of the dark. And when they had need to speak, they spoke in low tremulous voices.
Occasionally, they found water to drink. But their food gave out. Iskador shot down some bats, but they could not bring themselves to eat the creatures. They wandered in the labyrinth of stone, growing weaker. Time passed, the security of Pannoval was forgotten: all that remained of life was an endless darkness to be traversed.
They began to come upon bones of animals. Once, they struck a chert and discovered two human skeletons sprawling in an alcove, one with an arm about the other; time had robbed the gesture of any gentleness it might once have possessed: now there was only bone to scrape against bone, and terrifying grin to respond to the skull’s grin.
Then, in a place with a colder airflow, they heard movements, and found two red-furred animals, which they killed. Close by was a cub, mewling and poking up its blunt nose at them. Tearing the cub apart, they devoured it while the flesh was still warm and then, in a sort of raging paroxysm of awakened hunger, devoured the two parents as well.
Luminescent organisms grew on the walls. They found signs of human habitation. The remains of a shack and something that might have been a boat sprouted a crop of fungi. Nearby, a chimney in t
he cavern roof had encouraged a small flock of preets. With her unfailing bow, Iskador downed six of the birds, and they cooked them in a pot over a fire with fungi and a pinch of salt for flavour. That night, as they slept together, unpleasantly vivid dreams visited them, which they attributed to the fungi. But when they set off next morning, they came after only two hours of walking to a low wide cavern into which green light filtered.
In one corner of the cave, a fire smouldered. There was a crude pen, inside which were three goats, their eyes bright in the twilight. Three women sat nearby on a pile of skins, an ancient crone with white hair, and two younger women. The latter ran off squealing when Yuli, Usilk, Iskador, and Scoraw appeared.
Scoraw ran forward and jumped in with the goats. Using an old utensil lying nearby as a pail, he milked the goats into it, despite the unintelligible cries of the crone. There was little milk to be had from the animals. What there was, they shared before moving on, casting the utensil down behind them as they left before the men of the tribe returned.
They entered a passage that turned sharply and had been barricaded. Beyond lay the mouth of the cave and, beyond that, open country, mountainside and valley, and the brilliant light of the realm ruled by Wutra, god of the skies.
They stood close together, for now they felt the bonds of unity and friendship, regarding the beautiful prospect. When they regarded each other, their faces were full of merriment and hope, and they could not keep from shouting and laughing. They skipped about and hugged one another. When their eyes were accustomed sufficiently to the brightness they could shield their brows and gaze up to where Batalix flitted among thin cloud, his disc a pale orange.
The time of year must be near the spring equinox, and the time of day noon, for two reasons: Batalix was vertically overhead, and Freyr was sailing below her to the east. Freyr was several times the brighter, spilling its light over snow-covered hills. Fainter Batalix was always the faster sentinel, and would soon be setting while Freyr lingered still at zenith.
How beautiful the sight of the sentinels was! The seasonal pattern of their dance in the heavens returned fresh to Yuli’s mind, making him open heart and nostrils. He leaned on the carefully wrought spear with which he had killed the worm and let his body fill with daylight.
But Usilk laid a detaining hand on Scoraw, and lingered in the mouth of the cave, looking out apprehensively. He called to Yuli, ‘Wouldn’t we do better to stay in these caves? How are we supposed to live out there, under that sky?’
Without removing his eyes from the landscape ahead, Yuli sensed that Iskador stood halfway between him and the men at the cave mouth. Without looking back, he answered Usilk.
‘Do you remember that story they told in Vakk, about the maggots in the roofer nuts? The maggots thought their rotten nut was the whole world, so that when the nut cracked open, they died of shock. Are you going to be a maggot, Usilk?’
To that Usilk had no answer. But Iskador had. She came up behind Yuli and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. He smiled and his heart sang, but he never ceased staring hungrily ahead.
He could see that the mountains through which they had come would provide shelter southward. Stunted trees no higher than a man grew sparsely, and grew upright, which indicated that the chill west wind of the Barriers no longer had power here. He still retained his old skills, learnt from Alehaw long ago. There would be game in the hills and they could live sensibly under the sky, as the gods intended.
His spirit rose, swelling until he had to fling his arms out wide.
‘We will live in this sheltered place,’ Yuli said. ‘The four of us will stay united, whatever else happens.’ From a snowy fold of hillside, distantly, merging into the evening sky, smoke rose. He pointed ahead. ‘People live there. We’ll force them to accept us. This shall be our place. We’ll rule them, and teach them our ways. From now on, we live under our own laws, not other people’s.’
Squaring his shoulders, he set off down the slope, among a shallow stand of trees, and the others followed, Iskador first, walking proudly, then the others.
Some of Yuli’s intentions worked out, and some did not.
After numerous challenges, they were accepted in a small settlement sheltering under a protective fold of mountain. The people lived on a squalidly primitive level; because of their superior knowledge and their boldness, Yuli and his friends were able to impose their will on the community, to rule it, and to enforce their own laws.
Yet they never became truly integrated, because their faces looked different, and the Olonets they spoke went with a different lilt from the local variety. And they discovered that this settlement, because of its advantages, always lived in fear of raids from a larger settlement some way off on the banks of a frozen lake. Indeed, these raids were made more than once during the years that followed, with great suffering caused, and loss of life.
Yet Yuli and Usilk became cunning, and maintained their cunning because they were outsiders, and built ferocious defences against the invaders from Dorzin, as the larger settlement was called. And Iskador taught all the young women how to make bows and use them. They came to perform with great skill. The next time the invaders arrived from the south, many died with arrows in their chests, and then there were no more attacks from that direction.
Yet inclement weather beat upon them, and avalanches rolled down from the mountains. There was no end to storms. Only in cave mouths could they grow a few maggoty crops or sustain a few mangey animals to give them milk and meat, so that their numbers never grew, and they were always hungry, or seized by illnesses that could be ascribed only to the malignant gods (of Akha, Yuli allowed no mention).
Yet Yuli took the beautiful Iskador for his woman, and loved her, and looked every day on her broad strong face with comfort. They had a child, a boy they called Si, in memory of Yuli’s old priest in Pannoval, who survived all the pains and dangers of childhood, and grew up wild. Usilk and Scoraw also married, Usilk to a small brown woman named Isik, curiously like his own name; Isik, despite her stature, could run like a deer and was intelligent and kind. Scoraw took a girl named Fitty, a capricious lady who sang beautifully and led him a hell of a life, and produced a baby girl who died after one year.
Yet Yuli and Usilk could never agree. Although they united in the face of common danger, Usilk at other times displayed hostility to Yuli and his plans, and tricked him when he could. As the old priest had said, some men never forgive.
Yet a deputation came from the larger settlement of Dorzin, which had suffered losses following an outbreak of disease. Having heard of Yuli’s reputation, they begged him to rule them in place of their dead leader. Which Yuli did, to be away from the vexation of Usilk, and he and Iskador and their child lived by the frozen lake, where game was plentiful, and administered the laws firmly.
Yet even in Dorzin there were almost no arts to relieve the monotony of their hard life. Though the people danced on feast days, they had no musical instruments beyond clappers and bells. Nor was there any religion, except for a constant fear of evil spirits and a stoic acceptance of the enemy cold, and sickness, and death. So that Yuli became at last a real priest, and tried to instill in the people a feeling for their own spiritual vitality. Most men rejected his words because, although they had welcomed him, he was an outsider, and they were too sullen to learn new things. But he taught them to love the sky in all its moods.
Yet life was strong in him and Iskador, and in Si, and they never let die the hope that better times were emerging. He kept the vision he had been granted in the mountains, that there was possibly a way of life more enjoyable than the one immediately granted, more secure, less subject to the chances and the elements.
Yet he and his beautiful Iskador grew older for all that, and felt the cold more with the passing years.
Yet they loved the lakeside place where they lived and, in memory of another life and another set of expectations, called it by the name of Oldorando.
*
T
his is as far as the story of Yuli, son of Alehaw and Onesa, can go.
The story of their descendants, and what befell them, is a far greater tale. All unknown to them, Freyr drew nearer to the chilly world: for there was truth buried in the obscure scriptures Yuli rejected, and the sky of ice would in due process of time become a sky of fire. Only fifty Helliconian years after the birth of their son, true spring would visit the inclement world that Yuli and his beautiful Iskador knew.
A new world was already poised to be born.
EMBRUDDOCK
And Shay Tal said:
You think we live at the centre of the universe. I say we live in the centre of a farmyard. Our position is so obscure that you cannot realise how obscure.
This I tell you all. Some disaster happened in the past, the long past. So complete was it that no one now can tell you what it was or how it came about. We know only that it brought darkness and cold of long duration.
You try to live as best you can. Good, good, live well, love one another, be kind. But don’t pretend that the disaster is nothing to do with you. It may have happened long ago, yet it infects every day of our lives. It ages us, it wears us out, it devours us, it tears our children from us. It makes us not only ignorant but in love with ignorance. We’re infested with ignorance.
I’m going to propose a treasure hunt – a quest, if you like. A quest in which every one of us can join. I want you to be aware of our fallen state, and to maintain constant alertness for evidence as to its nature. We have to piece together what has happened to reduce us to this chilly farmyard; then we can improve our lot, and see to it that the disaster does not befall us and our children again.
That’s the treasure I offer you. Knowledge. Truth. You fear it, yes. But you must seek it. You must grow to love it.
I
Death of a Grandfather