by Brian Aldiss
His face came close to the assatassi embedded in her neck, his eye close to its great boney eye, from which all life had not yet faded.
‘How can mankind ever build up bulwarks against nature, when it keeps flooding in like a deluge, indifferent to what it carries away?’ he said to himself. ‘So much for you, Akhanaba, you hrattock!’
It was all he could do to keep the unconscious Odi’s head above water. There was a spit of land only a few yards distant, yet still the water rose about him. He cried in fear – and then on the spit he saw a man who resembled JandolAnganol’s hated general, TolramKetinet.
TolramKetinet and GortorLanstatet were studying the Sibornalese ship, the Vajabhar Prayer, which lay only a short distance to their right. The tidal wave had flung it ashore, but a swirling rebate of waters from the Kacol floated it again. Apart from the assatassi peppering its starboard side, it was in good order. The crew, thoroughly demoralised, were throwing themselves ashore and making off into the bushes to safety.
‘The ship’s ours for the taking, Gortor. What do you say?’
‘I’m no sailor, but there’s a breeze rising from on shore.’
The general turned to the twelve men with him.
‘You are my brave comrades. None of you lacks courage. If one of you had lacked courage for a moment, we all would have perished. Now we have one last exploit before we are safe. There is no help for us at Keevasien, so we must sail along the coast. We are going to borrow this white caravel. It’s a gift – though a gift we may have to fight for. Swords ready. Follow me!’
As he ran down the strand, his force following, he almost bumped into a bedraggled man struggling for the shore with a woman in his arms. The man called his name.
‘Hanra! Help!’
He saw in astonishment that it was the Borlienese chancellor, and the thought came, Here must be another that JandolAnganol has cheated …
He halted his party. Lanstatet dragged SartoriIrvrash from the flood, two of the men took hold of the woman between them. She was moaning and returning to consciousness. They dashed on to the Vajabhar Prayer.
The crew and soldiery of the Shiveninki vessel had suffered casualties. Some were killed; any wounded by the assatassi were mostly ashore. Birds darted over the ship, eating fish-lizards caught on the rigging. There remained a handful of soldiers with their officers to put up a fight. But TolramKetinet’s party swarmed up the seaward side of the vessel and took them on. The opposition was already demoralised. After a halfhearted engagement, they surrendered and were made to jump ashore. Gortor-Lanstatet took a party of three below, to round up any hiding and get them off the ship. Within seven minutes of boarding, they were ready to sail.
Eight of the men pushed the caravel. Slowly, the ship swung about and the sails filled, torn though they were by the fish-lizards.
‘Move! Move!’ shouted TolramKetinet from the bridge.
‘I hate ships,’ GortorLanstatet said. He fell on his knees and prayed, hands above his head. There was an explosion, and water sprayed all over them.
Their piracy had been seen from the Golden Friendship. A gunner was firing one of the cannon at them from a range of two hundred yards.
As the Prayer, at no more than walking pace, glided out of the shelter of the overhanging jungle, a stronger breeze caught it. Without needing to be told, two gunners among the Borlienese manned one of the cannon on the gundeck. They fired it once at the Golden Friendship; then the angle between the ships became so acute that the muzzle of the cannon could not be turned sufficiently in the square gunport to aim at the flagship.
The gun crew in the flagship were faced with the same problem. One more ball flew over, landing in the undergrowth of the island, then silence. The eight men in the water swarmed up boarding nets and climbed on deck cheering as the Prayer gathered way.
The island foliage slid away to port. Trees were being attacked by the scavenging birds, devouring impaled assatassi, while the hornets and bees they disturbed buzzed savagely round them. The Prayer was about to pass the Uskuti ship, Union, still beached with its bows into the land.
‘Can you blow it up as we pass?’ GortonLanstatet shouted down to the gundeck.
The gunners ran to port, opened the gunport, primed the clumsy cannon. But now they were moving too fast, and the gun could not be made ready in time.
The disgraced Io Pasharatid was among the crew and soldiery on the Union who had deserted ship to flee from the death-flight into the island jungle. He went first. His desertion owed more to calculation than panic.
Alone among the Sibornalese in the fleet, he had once visited Keevasien. That had been during his tour of duty as ambassador to the Borlienese court. While he had no love of the place, it was in his mind that he might purchase supplies there to eke out the boredom of ship’s rations. His calculation was that he might take off two hours during the general panic without being missed.
Seeing the burnt-out ruins of the town had changed his mind. He returned to the scene of action in time to witness the Vajabhar Prayer gliding by his own ship, with Hanra TolramKetinet, favourite of the queen of queens, standing on its quarterdeck.
Io Pasharatid was not entirely sunk in self-interest, though in this instant jealousy played some part in his actions. He ran forward, rallying the men who crouched among the bushes, driving them back aboard the Union. The tidal wave had set it on a strip of beach, unharmed.
After some manoeuvring with oars, assisted by the flood tide, they floated the carrack free of the beach. The sails were trimmed and, slowly, her bows drifted round towards the open sea.
Signal flags were run up, reporting that the Union was in pursuit of the pirate. The signal was intended for the eyes of Dienu Pasharatid on the Golden Friendship; but she would never read another signal. Hers was one of the first human deaths occasioned by the death-flight of the assatassi.
Only when they were out of the bay and a fresh west wind was carrying them slowly against the prevailing ocean stream, did TolramKetinet and SartoriIrvrash take the chance to embrace each other.
When they had given each other some report of their adventures, TolramKetinet said, ‘I have little to be proud of. Since I am a soldier, I cannot complain where I am sent. My generalship has been such that my forces dissolved without my being able to fight a single battle. It is a disgrace I shall always live with. Randonan swallows men whole.’
The ex-chancellor said, after a moment, ‘I am grateful for my travels, which were no more planned than yours. The Sibornalese used me, but from the experience has come something valuable. More than valuable.’
He made a gesture indicating Odi Jeseratabhar, whose wound was now dressed, and who sat on the deck listening to the men talking, her eyes closed.
‘I’m getting old and the loves of the old are always funny to mere youths like you, Hanra. No, don’t deny it.’ He laughed. ‘And something more. I realise for the first time how fortunate our generations are to live at this period of the Great Year, when heat prevails. How did our ancestors survive the winter? And the wheel will turn, and again it will be winter. What a malign fate, to grow up as Freyr is dying and know nothing else. In parts of Sibornal, people don’t see Freyr at all during the centuries of winter.’
TolramKetinet shrugged. ‘It’s chance.’
‘But the enormous scale of growth and destruction … Perhaps our mistake is to think ourselves apart from nature. Well, I know of old that you are less than enthralled by such speculations. One thing I must say. I believe I have resolved one question of such revolutionary nature …’
He hesitated, stroking his damp whiskers. Smiling, TolramKetinet urged him to go on.
‘I believe I have thought what no man has ever thought. This lady has inspired me. I need to get to Oldorando or Pannoval to lay my thought before the powers of the Holy Pannovalan Empire. My deduction, I should call it. There I shall certainly be rewarded, and Odi and I can then live comfortably.’
Scrutinising his whiskery face, TolramKet
inet said, ‘Deductions that are paid for! They must be valuable.’
The man’s a fool and I always knew it, thought the ex-chancellor, but he could not resist the chance to explain.
‘You see,’ SartoriIrvrash said, lowering his voice so that it could hardly be heard for the slap of the canvas above them, ‘I could never abide the ancipital race, unlike my master. There lay much of our difference. My thought, my deduction, weighs very much against the ancipitals. Hence it will be rewarded, according to the terms of the Pannovalan Pronouncement.’
Rising from her chair, Odi Jeseratabhar took SartoriIrvrash’s arm and said to TolramKetinet and Lanstatet, who had joined them, ‘You may not know that King JandolAnganol destroyed all the chancellor’s life’s work, his “Alphabet of History and Nature”. It’s a crime not to be forgotten. The chancellor’s deduction, as he modestly names it, will revenge him on JandolAnganol, and perhaps allow us both to work together on reassembling the “Alphabet”.’
Lanstatet said sharply, ‘Lady, you’re our enemy, sworn to destroy our native land. You should be below decks in irons.’
‘That’s past,’ said SartoriIrvrash, with dignity. ‘We’re simply wandering scholars now – and homeless ones at that.’
‘Wandering scholars …’ It was too much for the general, so he asked a practical question. ‘How are you to get to Pannoval?’
‘Oldorando would suit me – it is nearer, and I hope to arrive before the king, if he is not already there, to cause him maximum botheration before he weds the Madi princess. You have no love of him either, Hanra. You’ll be the ideal person to take me there.’
‘I’m going to Gravabagalinien,’ said TolramKetinet grimly, ‘if only this tub will sail us there, and we are not overtaken by our enemies.’
All looked back. The Vajabhar Prayer was now in open sea, making laboured progress eastwards along the coast. The Union had emerged from Keevasien Bay, but lay far astern. There was no immediate danger of its catching them.
‘You will see your sister Mai in Gravabagalinien,’ SartoriIrvrash told the general. The general smiled without replying.
Later in the day, distantly, they saw the Good Hope also in pursuit, with a jury-rigged main mast. The two pursuing vessels were lost in haze as thunderheads towered from the western sea, their edges cast in copper. Lightning darted silently in the belly of the cloud.
A second wave of assatassi rose from the sea, like a wing unfurling, to cast itself upon the land. The Prayer was too far from the coast to suffer ill effect. Only a few of the flying fish-lizard darted past the vessel. The men looked on complacently at what that morning had struck them dumb. As they crawled towards Gravabagalinien, thunderous darkness fell and tiny splinters of light showed ashore, where natives were feasting on the dead invaders.
And something without identity made its way towards the place where the queen of queens resided in her wooden palace: a human body.
RobaydayAnganol had stolen a ride downriver from Matrassyl to Ottassol, keeping ahead of his father. Wherever he went now, he went with a special haste in his gait, half-looking back; did he but know it, this aspect of a man pursued made him resemble his father. He thought of himself as pursuing. Vengeance against his father filled his mind.
In Ottassol, instead of going to the underground palace which his father was due to visit, he went to an old friend of SartoriIrvrash’s, the deuteroscopist and anatomist, Bardol CaraBansity. CaraBansity was feeling no great goodwill for the king or his strange son.
He and his wife had staying with them a society of deuteroscopists from Vallgos. He offered Robayday a bed in a house he maintained near the harbour, where, he said, a girl would look after his needs.
Robayday’s interest in women was sporadic. However, he immediately found the woman in CaraBansity’s harbour house attractive, with her long brown hair and a mysterious air of authority, as if she knew a secret shared by nobody else.
She gave her name as Metty, and he remembered her. She was a girl he had once enjoyed in Matrassyl. Her mother had assisted his father when the latter was wounded after the Battle of the Cosgatt. Her real name was Abathy.
She did not recognise him. No doubt she was a lady with many lovers. At first, Robayday did not enlighten her. He remained inert and let her come to him. To impress, she spoke of a scandalous connection with Sibornalese officials in Matrassyl; he watched her expression as she spoke, and thought of how different her view of the world was, with its clandestine comings and goings.
‘You do not recognise me, for I am hard to recognise, yet there was a day when you wore less kohl on your eyes when we were close as tongue to teeth …’
Then she spoke his name and embraced him, exhibiting delight.
Later, she said she had cause to be grateful to her mother, to whom she sent back money regularly, for teaching her how to behave with men. She was cultivating a taste for the highborn and powerful; she had been shamefully seduced, she said, by CaraBansity, but now she hoped for better things. She kissed him.
She allowed her charfrul to slip and reveal her pale legs. Seeing cruelty everywhere, Robayday saw only the spider’s trap. Eagerly, he entered it. Later, they lay together and kissed, and she laughed prettily. He loved her and hated her.
All his impulses screamed to him to hurry on to Oldorando, yet he remained with her for another day. He hated her and he loved her.
The second evening in her house. He thought that history would cease if he remained for ever. She again let down her beautiful hair and hitched up her skirt, climbing onto the couch with him again.
They embraced. They made love. She was a well of delight. Abathy was starting to undress him for more prolonged enjoyment when there was a thumping at her door. They both sat up, startled.
A more violent thump. The door burst open, and in blundered a burly young fellow dressed in the uncouth Dimariamian fashion. It was Div Muntras, in bull-like quest of love.
‘Abathy!’ he cried. She yelled by way of reply.
After sailing alone to Ottassol, Div had traced his way to her by diligent enquiry. He had sold everything he possessed, except for the talismanic watch stolen from Billish, which reposed safe in his body belt. And here, at the end of the trail, he found the girl who had dominated his thoughts ever since she idled voluptuously with his father on the deck of the Lordryardry Lady trittoming with another man.
His face altered into the image of rage. He raised his fists. He bellowed and charged forward.
Robayday jumped up and stood on the couch, his back to the wall. His face was dark with anger at the intrusion. That the king’s son should be shouted at – and at such a moment! He had no thought but to kill the intruder. In his belt was a dagger shaped from a phagor horn, a sharp two-sided instrument. He drew it.
Div was further enraged by the sight of the weapon. He could soon dispose of this slight lad, this meddler.
Abathy screamed at him, but he paid no heed. She stood with both hands to her pretty mouth, eyes wide in terror. That pleased Div. She would be next.
He rushed to the attack, landing on the couch with a leap. He received the point of the horn just below his lowest rib. The tip grated against the rib as it slid in. His charge ensured that it went into his flesh to the hilt, penetrating the spleen and the stomach, at which point the handle broke off in his opponent’s hand.
A long baffled groan escaped Div. Liquids gushed over the wall as he fell against it and slipped to the floor.
Raging, Robayday left the girl to weep. He fetched two men who disposed of the corpse by tossing it into the Takissa.
Robayday ran from the city, as if pursued by mad dogs. He never returned to the girl or to the room. He had an appointment which he had been in danger of forgetting, an appointment in Oldorando. Over and again, he wept and cursed along the road.
Carried by the current, turning as it went, the body of Div Muntras drifted among the shipping to the mouth of the Takissa. No one saw it go, for most folk, even slaves, were indulgin
g in a grand assatassi fry. Fish moved in to give the corpse their attention as the sodden mass was taken into the maw of the sea, to become part of the progression of waters westwards, towards Gravabagalinien.
That evening, when the suns sank, simple people came down to the beaches and headlands. In all the countries whose boundaries were lapped by the Sea of Eagles, in Randonan, Borlien, Thribriat, Iskahandi, and Dimariam, crowds gathered by the water’s edge.
The great assatassi feast was ending. Here was a time to pause and give thanks for such blessings to the spirit who dwelt in the waters.
While women sang and danced on the sand, their menfolk waded into the sea bearing little boats. The boats were leaves, on which short candles burned, giving off a sweet scent.
On every beach, as dusk drew in, whole navies of leaves were launched. Some still floated, burning dim, long after darkness had fallen, forming panoramas reminiscent to the superstitious of gossies and fessups suspended in their more permanent darkness. Some were carried far out to sea before their feeble flames were quenched.
XVIII
Visitors from the Deep
Anyone advancing on Gravabagalinien could see from a distance the wooden palace which was the queen’s refuge. It stood without compromise, like a toy left on a beach.
Legend said that Gravabagalinien was haunted. That at some distant time in the past a fortress had stood in place of the flimsy palace. That it had been entirely destroyed in a great battle.
But nobody knew who fought there, or for what reason. Only that many had died, and had been buried in shallow graves where they fell. Their shades, far from their proper land-octaves, were still reputed to haunt the spot.
Certainly, another tragedy was now being acted out on the old unhallowed ground. For the time had come round when King JandolAnganol arrived in two ships with his men and phagors, and with Esomberr and CaraBansity, to divorce his queen.