Adam Robots: Short Stories

by Adam Roberts

  The eldest of the three Shawomen brought the Cob to an end by taking a bough of wood that was stiff and ancient, as rigid as any stone, in her hands. Now trees put out new boughs and branches and they are as flexible as rope; and then with age and the male generative principle they become rigid and aggressive. There is nothing the tree can do to help this situation, and there is nothing a man can do to ameliorate his situation. But the Shawomen have the trick of magic, and this one took the stiff wood and circled her hands about it, and ran her hands along it, and it became floppy and loose as tendril. So the Shawoman tied this bough into a knot, and then passed her hands along it again to stiffen it, and make it as it had once been before. Now this knot was the agreement, settled upon in the Cob, to find out this woman’s hidden name, and if such finding failed, to speak to the Worthy One.

  This Worthy One was the only one to have forsaken his fellows and the realm of water to live amongst trees. Now, the reason for his dwelling in the forest was not known. As with all his species he had been a Rager and a Pursuer of Justice, yet the judgment of Gwad is delivered only after the life has left the body, and the judgment of the Ragers was upon all the people and not only upon this or that malefactor. And in the older times, Ragers would pursue a whole village to punish a single malefaction. As to the means by which the Ragers were relieved of Gwad’s rage, and were renamed the Worthy Ones and the story of that renaming is a good tale, but it is not this tale; that story is instead the tale of The Pursuit of Ysbadadden. Yet were the Worthy Ones fearsome, and dangerous, and men and women avoided them and made charms to divert their attention from their villages.

  And that was the end of that Cob.

  A year passed, as white breath leaves a man’s mouth in cold weather and flies away wherever it is the wind takes it. And with the spring all the villages of the forest sent a man to a great High Said Forth to debate the name. All the magic that was fitting was made to work, and word came into the debate.

  ‘She has been among us, and walked among us. When she said that she had a name we were amazed, for she is neither married nor unmarried; but she told us her name. Neither did we ask for it, and the name was given freely as a gift. The name of this woman is Lle-Llew, and she lives alone in her fort.’

  So twelve warriors went into the first and stood before the walls of wood, behind which were walls of silver, and cried, ‘We call you, Lle-Llew who lives alone!’

  From behind the walls the woman replied; and she did not show her face, but her voice was carried to every tree in the forest by her magic. ‘Lle-Llew is a name they call me, and that is true. But it is the name my parents use, and not my true name. And I do not live alone in this fort; I live here with my brothers and sisters.’

  At this the gates flew open quick as an eyelid raises, and out came a great many Fantoums. Of the twelve warriors were two that are named March the Silent and Fercos son of Potch, and never were men braver in battle, and no man had a stronger left arm for raising a laden shield, or a faster right arm for thrusting a sword. But the Fantoums killed them both faster than the time between the downbeat and upbeat of a bird’s wings. The other ten warriors fled, and ran through the forest, but only four of these arrived back at the village alive, leaping the drain-ditch and coming inside the compound. The Fantoums took the rest, and as they died nameless deaths and their graves were never found, their names have ceased to be. But the Fantoums could not come into the village, because the Shawomen’s magic protected it. Nevertheless they roamed through the forest, and killed many travellers and traders, and women going to Blessings, and killed so many deer and boar that the hunters of the villages came back many days empty-handed.

  So another Cob was called, and this ended with the saying: Sorrow has come to us, and its name is Suffering. The sunlight no longer pleases us amongst the leaves, and the streams and pools are pourings of suffering.

  Another year passed and this dreadful state did not alter, and the seasons changed with the creaking of the trees. And still nobody knew the name of the woman.

  There was a man called Glaw, whose beard was long as an arm, such that he parted it like a root and tied the two ends together behind his back. And he went to the forest, and went further, to the fort, and lived there for a period not exceeding seven weeks. In that time he grubbed tubers from the earth, and snared small deer, and lived as a wild man or a wodwo. But at night the walls of the fort shone, and the light was so bright that it beamed through the wooden outer wall, and Glaw could not sleep; and by day the sun shone, and he could not sleep. At night the fortress shone with lights as stars, for they had brought stars down with them when they came. And in the brightness of night Glaw dug two graves, one for March the Silent, and one for Fercos son of Potch; and come the dawn, at the proper time, he put them in the graves, and sang to the roots to embrace the bodies, and covered them over again. So it is that March the Silent and Fercos son of Potch are not forgotten.

  One day the fort gate opened and a strange man came out, wearing clothes such as Glaw had never seen before. He was tall, and there was this strangeness about him: that where a man’s hair is red and his skeleton white, this man’s hair was the colour of silver, so that his bones must be red inside his body. He came out, walking with long strides, and looked about him; and although Glaw had evaded the Fantoums by lurking beneath leaves and hiding under undergrowth, yet this man saw him straight away. Glaw knew him for a brother of the woman.

  ‘You, there,’ said the man.

  At this Glaw believed his life was over, and he trembled.

  ‘Why do you hide there?’ said the man.

  Now Glaw was alarmed so much that the words would not come; so this man took up a web woven of words and put it inside Glaw’s mouth. And then Glaw could speak. He said, ‘I come to beg a gift.’

  And the other said, ‘What gift do you beg?’

  And Glaw said, ‘There is a woman in your fine fort; and her hair is black, her skin the colour of white silver, and her mouth is red.’

  ‘I know her,’ said the other.

  ‘The gift we seek is to know her name; and if you give us this gift then forever will the people of the Bright be your friends, and traders; and we will ally ourselves with yourself, your brothers, and your sisters.’

  ‘It is well spoken,’ said the other, ‘and well requested, for we have good use for your alliance. And I shall tell you this: you yourself have named her, for her beauty is in her pale skin and her black hair and her red mouth.’

  So Glaw came home, and said: ‘Her brother calls her Gwevel Cutch, for her mouth is red and bright as blood.’

  And so the village gathered twenty-four warriors, and sent them through the forest. But as they travelled the Fantoums came upon them, and killed half; and the remaining twelve were hard pressed to make their way. And they had many adventures on their travel. So, finally they came to the fortress and stood outside and cried, ‘We call you, Gwevel Cutch, and you are neither married nor unmarried, but live with your brothers and sisters!’

  From behind the walls the woman replied; and she did not show her face, but her voice was carried to every tree in the forest by her magic. ‘Some have called me Gwevel Cutch, and that is true, for my mouth is red and my skin white and my hair is black, and my beauty is in the black and the white and the red. But it is the name my brothers and sisters use of me, and not my true name.’

  At this the gates snapped open as a beetle opens the plates of its back, to stretch its wings; and through the gateway flowed a great horde of Fantoums, and the twelve warriors broke formation and fled through the trees. And only one returned to the village alive, to tell the whole tale.

  After this the people despaired. ‘Twice we have named her,’ they said, ‘and twice she has tricked us. She has chosen to make war upon us, and her Fantoums haunt the forest; but she is not the only one who may make war. For we have made war since the world was young.’

  When the world was newly grown, and the tre
es had not yet become stiff and rigid and unyielding in their trunks and stems, then all the world went to war, and the story of that war is a good tale, but it is not this tale. That story is instead the tale of ‘The War at the Waking of the World’, and is contained in the Green Bound Book.

  And so a War Cob was called, and a mighty army was brought together. And amongst the warriors were Brygandia the Brave, and Uinda Seibrah, and Riygant-Onna of the Wrathful Blow; and Carreg, strong as a rock, and his daughter who was called Wy, for her skin was both smooth-white and hard as a shield against blows; and the dozen warriors who fought as the Soldiers Llenyddol; and also came the Gogledd, the Hooynthooy who referred to themselves only as ‘they themselves’; and Oesoed the Eternal. And the army was readied, and the army marched out. The battle that was fought has no name, for it was not a victory, and so its name was void.

  And many Fantoums were killed, insofar as it is possible to kill their kind; and an army was sent against her. But the woman from the realm of breath rose up into the sky, riding upon a great jet of air, and she made a cloud about her, exactly like any cloud, save only that it rained fire and not water - for this is the nature of clouds in the country from which she came. And a great reach of forest was eaten up with this flame, and made bare as any field, and turned black and grey, and there were ashes upon the ground in heaps, and there were ashes upon the wind as smuts, and the great army of the Bright was eaten by fire. And, though it was in the middle of this burning, the silver fort was not harmed, and grew in strength, drawing its strength from the fire. But the mighty army, the greatest ever assembled in that cantrev, that had ported the live bodies of its enemies upon its shields, was destroyed.

  This was a terrible fate, and despair came into the souls of the people of the forest. ‘We shall never guess her name,’ they said, ‘and never shall command her. She does not eat food, as do ordinary folk; instead she devours the forest, and each mouthful is a cantrev’s breadth. She does not breathe moisture, as do ordinary folk, but her breath is fiery. She has come to hone this world, as a whetstone hones a metal blade, and our souls are the sparks she sends from the spinning stone.’

  This was the point at which the darkness was inside their heads even in the daytime.

  The time had come to fulfil their pact to speak with the Worthy One. Now the Shawomen of the forest had been in dispute with this Worthy One, and had charmed the flowing water to fence him in, and had put another charm upon the wood such that he could build himself no bed with the trees, and so could never rest. Unable to rest upon a bed of wood he could not rest at all, and so he grew wearier and wearier, and craved nothing more than that he could lay himself down and rest. But he could not lie upon the forest floor, and he needed a bed. And through a means that cannot be named, because it does not exist, the Worthy One was persuaded to attempt to name this woman. If he could do so, then the charm would be taken from the trees, and also from the water, and he could build himself a bed and rest and recover his former strength.

  And he walked out and met the woman in the open woods, by a stream. And she came with her brothers and sisters, and with Fantoums to guard her. And the Worthy One came alone, save only for a servant that cannot be named, because it does not exist.

  ‘I have heard of your deeds,’ said the Worthy One to her, ‘but I have not heard of your name.’

  ‘Twice I have been named,’ said she, ‘and twice misnamed. Do you wish to try the task for a third time? It will go dreadfully for the world if you fail; the whole forest will burn, and the clouds will metallise in the sky and fall to earth as boulders to cause terrible destruction’

  ‘You have a very large quantity of power in your magic,’ said the Worthy One, ‘and your name is the leash that holds it. Therefore I shall try.’

  So began the battle of the two wizards. At first the woman sent her brothers and sisters across the stream, to make a prisoner of the Worthy One and so seize his power. But he struck at them, and killed all the brothers, leaving only one alive; and he struck at the sisters, leaving only one alive. And these two, the brother and the sister, fled through the forest, and because each went in different direction to the other he could not follow both. So he left the nameless stranger there, and ran along the path left by her sister, and searched the woodland and the streams and clearings until he found a hut. Now, it was not usual to find a hut in that place, because Fantoums went everywhere by day and night as wood people, and the hermits had all fled in fear; but here was a hut nevertheless.

  So the Worthy One went in at the door and inside he saw a very old woman, a hundred years old or more, sitting beside a fire with a leveret in her lap. This woman was the oldest ever seen in that country; and her skin was mottled like sunlit shadows dappled through leaves; and when she had been young then perhaps her hair had been black and her teeth white, but now her hair was white and her teeth black; and there were more wrinkles in her face than hairs on her head.

  ‘I greet you with all courtesy and in the hope of friendship,’ said the Worthy One, ‘but I say to you, you must not eat that leveret raw, or it will drive out your innards at both ends, as bad food does.’

  ‘What must I do, visitor?’ said the old woman.

  ‘You must cook it upon the fire,’ he said. And so she spitted the leveret, through its mouth and out between its hind legs, and she held it over the fire. At this the Worthy One knew he was dealing with a stranger, who did not know the ways of the forest, for the old woman had neither skinned nor prepared the animal. The leveret’s fur tangled fire into its pelt, and it burned as a torch burns, and smoke filled the hut. In the blackness and the bafflement of sight, with smoke everywhere, the old woman leapt at the Worthy One - for it was the sister disguised by magic, not an old woman at all. But the Worthy One was warned by the way the woman had spitted the leveret, and so he was prepared for her assault. He put his hands together, so that the tip of each left-hand finger touched the tip of each right-hand finger, and the left thumb touched the right thumb; and he drew these two hands apart, so that he wove a web of air in amongst the smoke. The sister flung herself upon this web as a fly upon a spider’s shawl, and, quick as he could, the Worthy One wound the web of air about her, and lifted her from the ground. Then he hurled her in the fire, and she burnt with a bright blue flame, and that was the end of her. Her fire spread in every direction.

  He left that hut, and dashed through the door as it burned all around him; and when he looked back, it was no hut but the fort, and it was all aflame. The wood was burning, but so was the metal, and the whole was hotter than anger, hotter even than love.

  The Worthy One then returned through the trees, and through a method that cannot be named, because it does not exist, he was made aware of the place where the brother, the last of the nameless woman’s family, was waiting. The Worthy One made his way to that place and he struck the brother upon his head, and made him lie down in a swoon upon the forest floor. Yet he did not kill him, but instead stood beside him. And he cried out to the trees, ‘I call you out, for I know your name.’

  ‘So if you do, then speak it,’ the nameless woman replied, hidden.

  ‘Though some have called you Lle-Llew, and some have called you Gwevel Cutch, I call you by what you truly are. You are Death, and you bring dogs to the fresh forest to bar the way to the sun.’

  At this she stepped out from the trees and, facing him, said, ‘You have named me truly, and that saddens my heart and dims my mind. As for the sun, which is a blaze of bright souls, you must know this: it is a circle, also, and this circle spins its souls about, forever recirculating. Only when the circle is snapped can the glory flow about the world, and the heavens, and into the realm of water, and into the realm of soil, and into the realm of air, and into the realm of breath.’

  ‘Men and all women,’ replied the Worthy One, ‘face many enemies, but all these enemies are the same, and the sameness is called Death. Still, difference shall prevail over sameness. Now that I have
named you I claim your powers.’

  At this the Worthy One drew on the woman’s magic to transform himself from a man into a giant hound, and he ran at the woman as hounds do when they have scented their prey. But all her magic was not taken from her, even though she had been truly named, and she turned herself into a leveret and sprang away. They ran through the forest, as the day pursues the night, or as spring chases winter; and they ran for seven weeks without pause or breath. Then they came to a great lake. And the woman leapt into the lake and changed herself into a fish. The Worthy One leapt too, and transformed himself into a great Pike, and swam after her through the waters of this lake. The two swam round the lake three times, and three times the Worthy One had her within his jaws, but when he snapped those jaws shut it pushed water before him and she was saved.

  Then she leapt up from the surface of the water, and thought to change herself into a bird and so fly away. At this she would have escaped, for the air is wider and freer than the forest. But as she leapt from the water, the water clung about her in a layer, and water clung to her body, and a strand of water linked her still with the lake. Inside the water, the Worthy One in the form of a Pike could sense what she was doing, and thought to himself: She will escape unless I stop her. But there was only one thing possible for him to do, and that was to put the magic he had taken into himself from her outward again, into the water itself. And this he did, so that his magic went through the lake, and along the tendril of water, and surrounded the woman even as she was a fish, and before she could change into a bird. Even so, it was not strong enough to prevent her from changing her shape, although it did tangle bindweed about the stem of the spell, so that she became not a swift but only a hen, and though she flapped her wings she could not fly. She flung her wings about and up and down, as frantic as epilepsy, but the air would not support her.