by Brian Aldiss
‘It’s a prison.’
But as he spoke, he heard a solemn melody coming from the church which addressed him with mystery. The instruments were joined by voices, uplifted.
‘Don’t say that – I could have you beaten. Life’s in the Church. The circular Great Wheel of Kharnabhar, the holy centre of our faith. If it was not for the Great Wheel, we’d still be in the grip of snow and ice.’ He made a circle on his forehead with his index finger as he spoke.
‘How’s that?’
‘It’s the Wheel that moves us closer to Freyr all the time. Didn’t you know that? I was taken to visit it on pilgrimage as a child, into the Shivenink Mountains. You are not a true Sibornalan unless you’ve made the pilgrimage.’
The following day brought another seven deaths. Skitosherill was in charge of the burial party, which consisted of Madi prisoners, scarcely competent enough to dig graves.
Laintal Ay said, ‘I had a dear friend who was captured by your people. She wished to make a pilgrimage to Sibornal, to consult the priests of that Great Wheel of yours. She thought they might be the source of all wisdom. Instead, your people made her prisoner and sold her to the stinking phagor. Is that how you treat people?’
Skitosherill shrugged. ‘Don’t blame me. She was probably mistaken for a Pannoval spy.’
‘How could she be mistaken? She rode a hoxney, as did members of her party. Have the people of Pannoval hoxneys? I never heard so. She was a splendid woman, and you brigands handed her over to the fuggies.’
‘We’re not brigands. We just wish to settle here in peace, moving on when the ground’s used up.’
‘You mean, when you’ve used up the local population. Fancy trading women in exchange for your safety.’
Grinning uneasily, the Sibornalan said, ‘You barbarians of Campannlat, you don’t value your women.’
‘We value them highly.’
‘Do they rule?’
‘Women don’t rule.’
‘They do in some countries of Sibornal. In this settlement, see how well we take care of our women. We have women priests.’
‘I haven’t seen one.’
‘That’s because we take care of them.’ He leant forward. ‘Listen, Laintal Ay, I understand you are not a bad fellow, all things considered. I’m going to trust you. I know the state of affairs here. I know how many scouts have gone out and not returned. They’ve died of the plague in some miserable thicket and had no burial, their corpses probably devoured by birds or Others. It’s going to become worse, while we sit here. I am a religious man, and I believe in prayer; but the bone fever is so strong that even prayer cannot prevail against it. I have a wife I love dearly. I wish to strike a bargain with you.’
As Skitosherill spoke, Laintal Ay stood on a low eminence, looking down a miserable bit of ground which sloped towards a stream; stunted thorn trees grew along the watercourse. Among the stones littering the slope, the prisoners were slinging back earth, while seven cadavers – the Sibornalan corpses wrapped in sheets – lay in the open awaiting burial. He thought to himself, I can understand why this overweight lump wishes to escape, but what is he to me? He’s no more than Shay Tal, Amin Lim, and the others were to him.
‘What’s your bargain?’
‘Four yelk, well fed. Me, my wife, her maidservant, you. We leave together – they’ll let me through the lines without difficulty. We ride back with you to Oldorando. You know the way, I protect you, see to it that you have a good steed. Otherwise you’ll never be allowed to get away from here – you’re too valuable – particularly when matters get worse. Do you agree?’
‘When do you plan to leave?’
Skitosherill buried his nose in the posy and looked up searchingly at Laintal Ay. ‘You say a word of this to anyone and I’ll kill you. Listen, the crusade of the phagor kzahhn, Hrr-Brahl Yprt, is due to start passing here before Freyr-set, according to our scouts. We four will follow on afterwards – the phagors will not attack us if we are in their rear. The crusade can go where it will; we shall progress to Oldorando.’
‘Are you planning to live in such a barbarian place?’ Laintal Ay asked.
‘We shall have to see how barbarian it is before I answer that. Don’t try to be sarcastic to your superiors. Do you agree?’
‘I’ll have a hoxney rather than a yelk, and choose it myself. I’ve never ridden a yelk. And I want a sword, white metal, not bronze.’
‘Very well. You agree, then?’
‘Do we shake hands on it?’
‘I do not touch other hands. Verbal agreement is enough. Good. I’m a godfearing man, I’ll not betray you; see you don’t betray me. Get these corpses buried while I go to prepare my wife for the journey.’
As soon as the tall Sibornalan had gone, Laintal Ay called the captives to halt their activity.
‘I’m not your master. I’m a prisoner as much as you. I hate Sibornalans. Throw those corpses in the water and cover them with stones – it’ll save you labour. Wash your hands afterwards.’
They gave him suspicious looks instead of thanks, he in his grey woollen garments, tall, standing above them on the bank, he who talked with the Sibornalan guard on equal terms. He felt their hatred and was unmoved by it. Life was cheap if Shay Tal’s life was cheap. As they scrambled among the corpses, they brushed the sheet from one of them, so that he glimpsed an ashen face underneath, frozen in its anguish. Then they had the body by feet and shoulders and tossed it down to the stream, where dashing water seized ravenously on the covering, moulding it round the body, which it began to roll unceremoniously downstream.
The watercourse marked the perimeter of New Ashkitosh; on its other bank, beyond a flimsy rail, no-man’s-land began.
When their task was over, the Madis considered the prospect of escape by fording the stream and running away. Some advocated this course of action, standing on the edge of the water and beckoning their fellows. The more timid hung back, gesticulating towards unknown dangers. All kept glancing anxiously at Laintal Ay, who stood where he was, arms folded. They were unable to make up their minds whether to act individually or corporately, with the result that they did nothing but argue, starting up the bank or down into the stream, but ever returning to a common centre of indecision.
There was reason for their hesitation. The no-man’s-land on the far side of the river was filling with figures that moved westward. Birds made uneasy by constant disturbance flew up before them, wheeling in the sky and then attempting to realight.
The land rose to a low horizon in the middle distance, where it dropped sharply to reveal a line of drums, the crowns of ancient rajabarals which emitted steam. Beyond their vapour, the landscape continued on a grander scale, revealing hills, stacked distant and serene in misty light. Stone megaliths stood here and there, curiously incised, marking land-and air-octave lines.
The fugitives heading westward turned their faces away from New Ashkitosh, as if fearing its reputation. They were sometimes solitary but more often in groups, frequently large groups. Some drove animals before them, or had phagors with them. Sometimes the phagors were in control.
Progress was not always continuous. One large group stopped on a slope some distance from where Laintal Ay stood. His keen eyes made out the signs of lamentation, with figures alternately bowing down or stretching upward in sorrow. Other groups arrived or passed; people ran from group to group. The plague travelled among them.
He found himself searching the more distant landscape for sight of that from which the refugees fled. He fancied he saw a snow-covered peak between the fold of two hills. The quality of light on it constantly changed, as if shadowy beings sported on its upper slopes. Superstitious fears filled his mind, clearing only when he realised that he was seeing not a mountain, but something closer and entirely less permanent: a flight of cowbirds, converging as they streamed through a pass.
Then at last he broke his reverie. Turning away from the protognostics, who still quarrelled in their ditch, he made his way back to t
he guard buildings.
It was clear to him that these refugees, many already infected by the plague, would descend on Oldorando. He must return as soon as possible, to warn Dathka and the lieutenants; otherwise, Oldorando would sink under a tide of diseased humanity and inhumanity. Anxiety for Oyre tugged at him. He thought of her too little since the days of his snoktruix.
The suns shed warmth on his back. He felt isolated, but there was no remedy for that at present.
He kicked his heels at the guardhouse, listening for music from the church, but only silence came from that direction. Being uncertain whereabouts on the wide perimeter Skitosherill and his wife lived, he could only wait for the couple to appear. Waiting increased his foreboding.
Three scouts entered the settlement on foot, bringing with them a pair of captives, one of whom collapsed immediately, to lie in a heap by the guardhouse. The scouts were sick and exhausted. They staggered into the guardhouse without a glance at Laintal Ay. The latter looked indifferently at the prisoner who remained on his feet; prisoners were no concern of his anymore. Then he looked again.
The prisoner stood with his feet apart in a defiant attitude, although his head hung as if he were tired. He was of a good height. His thin stature indicated that he also had survived bone fever. He wore clumsy black furs which were draped loosely about his body.
Laintal Ay put his head round the guardroom door, where the newly-arrived scouts were leaning on a table drinking root beer.
‘I’m taking the prisoner outside to work – he’s needed immediately.’
He retreated before they could answer.
With a curt order to the man, Laintal Ay directed him to the Church of the Formidable Peace. Priests were inside at a central altar, but Laintal Ay led the captive to a seat against the wall where the light was dim. The man sank down thankfully, subsiding like a bag of bones.
It was Aoz Roon. His face was gaunt and lined, the flesh of his neck hung like a wattle; his beard had turned almost entirely grey; but, from the knit of his brows and the set of his mouth, there was no mistaking the Lord of Embruddock. At first, he would not recognise the thin man in Sibornalan cloth as Laintal Ay. When recognition came, he gave a sob and clutched him close, his body shaking.
After a while, he was able to explain to Laintal Ay what had happened to him, and how he had come to be stranded on a small island in the middle of a flood. As he recovered from his fever, he realised that the phagor stranded with him was starving to death. The phagor was not a warrior but a humble fungusmonger, by name Yhamm-Whrrmar, terrified of water and consequently unable or unwilling to eat fish. In the anorexia that seized those who recovered from the fever, Aoz Roon himself needed almost nothing to eat. The two of them had talked across the intervening water, and eventually Aoz Roon had crossed to the larger of the two islands, to strike up an alliance with his erstwhile enemy.
From time to time, they saw humans and phagors on the banks and shouted to them, but no one would cross the rapid-gliding water to aid them. Together, they tried to build a boat, which took many vexatious weeks.
Their first attempts were useless. By intertwining twigs and lining them with dried mud, they finally constructed a vessel that would float. Yhamm-Whrrmar was persuaded to climb into it, but leaped out again in fear. After much argument, Aoz Roon pushed off on his own. In the middle of the river, the mud all dissolved and the coracle sank. Aoz Roon managed to swim to a bank some way downriver.
It was his intention to find a rope and return to rescue Yhamm-Whrrmar, but such things as he met were either hostile or fled from him. After many wanderings, he had been captured by the Sibornalan scouts, and dragged to New Ashkitosh.
‘We’ll go back to Embruddock together,’ Laintal Ay said. ‘Oyre will be so delighted.’ Aoz Roon made no response at first.
‘I can’t return … I can’t … I can’t desert Yhamm-Whrrmar … You can’t understand.’ He rubbed his hands on his knees.
‘You’re Lord of Embruddock still.’
He hung his head, sighing. He had been defeated, had failed. All he wished for was a peaceful refuge. Again the uncertain movement of hands on knees, on shabby bearskin.
‘There are no peaceful refuges,’ Laintal Ay said. ‘Everything’s changing. We’ll go back to Embruddock together. As soon as we can.’
Since Aoz Roon’s will had deserted him, he must make his decisions for him. He could obtain a suit of the Sibornalan cloth from the guardroom; so disguised Aoz Roon could join Skitosherill’s party. He left Aoz Roon with disappointment. This was not what he had expected.
Outside the church, another surprise awaited him. Beyond the wooden buildings that circled the church the members of the colony were gathering. They faced outwards silently, looking across the settlement towards open country, anonymous in their drab greys.
The crusade of the young phagor kzahhn was about to pass.
The flight from the advance of the crusade still continued. An occasional stag plunged along amid the humans and protognostics and Others. Sometimes, the fugitives walked beside groups of the phagors who formed part of the van of Hrr-Brahl Yprt’s army. There was a certain blindness about the procession, about its seeming blunders. It was impressive for its numbers rather than its discipline.
Seemingly at random, in fact under control of air-octaves, groups of phagors studded uncounted acres of wild territory. Everywhere, they progressed at their slow remorseless pace with their slow unnatural stride. No haste glowed in their pale harneys.
The way through mountain and valley from the almost stratospheric heights of the Nktryhk down to the plains of Oldorando was three and a half thousand miles. Like any human army travelling mainly on foot over rough terrain, the crusaders seldom averaged better than eleven miles a day.
They rarely marched more than one day in twenty. Most of the time was taken with the customary diversions of large armies: foraging off the land and resting up.
In order to acquire supplies, they had laid siege to several gaunt mountain towns near their path, allying themselves to rocks and crags while waiting for the sons of Freyr inside the town to open their gates and throw down their arms. They had pursued nomadic people, on the threshold of humanity, still ignorant of the power of the seed, and therefore condemned to a life of wandering, tracking them up perilous paths to acquire a few head of scraggy arang for the mess pot. They had been detained at the start by snows and, towards the end, more seriously, by immense inundations crashing towards lower ground from the flanks of the shrinking Hhryggt.
The crusaders had also suffered illness, accident, desertion, and raids by tribes through whose territory they ventured.
Now was the Air-turn 446 according to the modern calendar. In the eotemporal minds of the ancipital race, it was also Year 367 After Small Apotheosis of Great Year 5,634,000 Since Catastrophe. Thirteen air-turns had passed since that day when the stungebag horn had first sounded along the icy cliffs of the home glacier. Batalix and louring Freyr were low in the western sky and close together, as the crusade plodded on the last stage of its journey.
This terrain was soft as a woman’s lap compared with the higher lands of Mordriat already traversed, and spoke less nakedly of savage forces. Yet it was scoured and scooped. True, the season had patched it with trees, the acid-green leaves of which spread their points horizontally, as if compressed by invisible air-octaves, but no foliage could disguise the great geological anatomy beneath; that anatomy had been corroded too recently by centuries of frost. It was a land fit to support without sustaining the restless soul of life, in whatever form that soul was cast. It constituted the unedited manuscript of Wutra’s great story. The chunky bodies of the phagor army were autochthonous manifestations of the place.
By comparison, the grey-clad inhabitants of the settlement were shadowy things, more transient than those who passed their borders.
Laintal Ay walked along the curved street formed between the church and the surrounding offices, guardrooms, and stores, carrying
a suit of Sibornalan clothing for Aoz Roon. As he went, he caught glimpses of the scene between buildings.
All the inhabitants of New Ashkitosh had gathered to watch the crusade pass. He wondered if they waited there from fear, to test whether the human tribute they had paid the ancipital force had indeed secured their safety.
The silent white brutes went by on either side of the settlement. They moved with precision, looking incuriously ahead. Many were thin, their coats moulting; their naked heads by contrast looked enormous. Above them flew the cowbirds, setting up a great racket. Many cowbirds broke ranks, to dive on manure piles lying about the settlement, fighting for them with screams and beating wings.
The people of the settlement sent up their own sound, as if in opposition. As Laintal Ay emerged from the church, the massed ranks broke into song. The words were not Olonets. They carried a harsh yet lyrical texture matched by a powerful melody. The song breathed some grand elusive quality between defiance and submission. Women’s voices floated clear above the bass, which developed into a slow chant much like a march.
Now among the ragged army of brutes streaming by could be discerned some on kaidaw-back – not so many kaidaws now as there had been at the start, but enough to make a showing. In the centre of a more orderly phalanx stepped Rukk-Ggrl, red head held low, bearing the young kzahhn himself. Behind the kzahhn came his generals, then his private fillocks – of whom only two survived, and they now haughty gillots. Human prisoners plodded along amid the throng, bearing loads.
Hrr-Brahl Yprt held his head high, his face crown glinting in the sickly light. Zzhrrk fluttered above him like a banner. The kzahhn did not deign to cast his regard upon the human settlement that paid him tribute. Yet the throaty song that rolled out across the land to greet him roused a feeling of some kind in his eddre for, when he came to a point that might be regarded as level with the Church of Formidable Peace, he raised his sword above his head in his right hand – whether as greeting or threat could never be determined. Without pause, he continued on his way.