by David Bell
It was cool in the cave. The roof was high enough for Kanesh and Kerma to stand upright. The floor was a thin layer of beaten earth on top of solid rock. The layers of rock on one side had been cut back leaving a ledge that served as a bench. Some old ragged sacks were piled up at one end and at the other stood two stone lamps with oil and wicks in them. A large number of flat dishes, beakers and pitchers, some with spiral patterning, were tidily lined up against the other wall. Leaning against the same wall further into the cave, were two stone-tipped spears and a copper-tipped harpoon. There was a hearth made of a single flat slab of stone covered with grey ashes and fish bones. Lying beside it was a roughly fashioned copper trident that looked as if it were for roasting fish over the fire. Sharesh and Namun dragged some wicker boxes covered in dust from the back of the cave into the light. Inside one, covered in straw so old and dry it fell to dust when moved, bronze dishes, jugs and knives come to light. In the other were rolls of cloth and hanks of wool.
“We have found our trader’s stock,” said Kanesh, “but where is our trader and his trading post? We were told it was near the mouth of the river.”
“This is the best thing,” said Namun, coming out of the dark. He had a large beaker in his hand. It was half full of cool clear water. “There’s a crack in the wall full of slime,” he said. “Somebody’s stuck a reed in it to make the water run away from the wall. It drips into this beaker. I heard it drip only once all the time I was back there.” Namun put the beaker back in its place after Kanesh had allowed them one mouthful each.
They went outside again to find Luzar standing on the ledge looking down the valley side to where the archers had just started their climb towards the crags.
“There,” he said, pointing to the bend in the valley where the river bed disappeared behind a spur, “they will find water if the men dig.” Kanesh said nothing, waiting for Luzar to speak again.
“I saw a man. The birds flew away from him. He will come here. I found these stones.” Kanesh took them from his outstretched hand. They were rusty-looking with streaks of yellow and white. Kanesh showed them to Sharesh, who weighed them in his hand.
“Copper stone,” he said.
“There may be workings somewhere in these hills,” said Kanesh, “and smiths who may have cast that trident and the harpoon head. But not the dishes and jugs and certainly not the knives. They are bronze and much too finely fashioned to have been made by that hand. They were shipped here for trade.”
The voice that came out of the dark depths of the cave, whispering and echoing, made Namun and Sharesh freeze where they stood. Kerma felt for the amulet round his neck. Luzar seemed not to have heard. Kanesh walked slowly into the cave and disappeared into the darkness.
“The Silent Ones said another ship would come,” whispered the voice.
“I am from that ship.”
“The bearded one who walks unevenly, who carries the brand. The Silent Ones will speak only to him. All others must go.”
“They are all my men.”
“I am the voice of the Silent Ones. All others must go, or the Silent Ones will still the voice.” Kanesh went outside.
“Go down to the archers and say you are all to return to the ship and report to the captain. I will follow later. No, do not argue, go now.”
Potyr listened carefully to everything they said. When the Captain of Archers told him a patch of deep sand had been found in the river bed a little way beyond the first bend and that shrubs with green leaves were growing on it, he ordered a party to set off immediately with buckets and wooden shovels to be knocked up by the carpenters and dig for water. Others would follow with the harnesses and water jars. He asked where Luzar was.
Sharesh looked round. “I thought he was with us,” he said. “He was just behind me when we got down to the river bed.”
Kanesh sat on the bench inside the cave. Luzar appeared at the entrance and Kanesh signed for him to come in.
“The man sits now behind the wall,” said Luzar. “He sits in another cave. There is a way to it from the hill. I watched him climbing from the river and then he was not there. He came from the hills. His face is old but he is not old. He says many words, then he is silent, then many more.”
“I will wait here for him to speak again,” said Kanesh. “You will go to the river and lead our men to where they must dig. Then you will come here. If I have not learned what I came here to learn when you return, you will go into his cave and bring him to me.”
“I will bring him now.”
“No. First, find the water. Go.”
Kanesh listened to the hoarse whisper echoing from the crevice in the cave wall until sunlight gave way to darkness outside. There was more silence than speech and when at last the words came there were two voices, one distant and rambling, as if recalling a dream, and the other ordinary, like that of any man telling a friend how the day had gone.
I am the voice of the Silent Ones. They lie in the vaults below the mounds within their own walls above the walls of the lost city. The Silent Ones drew me to the city on its hill. They ruled this land when it was rich with copper and silver and soldiers guarded the gates and kept watch from the bastions. They are gone now, and the people from their round houses and the cattle from the byres. Only the hot wind moves through the streets. The Silent Ones remain. They lie in their tombs of stone with their goblets and jewels about them and their weapons ready at their sides. I am their voice.
“The ships stopped coming. Then at last I saw one in the bay and I went to light the beacon. But I held off because the ship looked different, not heavy laden like a cargo ship. I had a feeling about it, so I told the woman and the boy to put the best things, the bronze and some of the best pots, in sacks and go into the hills. I hid the rest in the pit under the floor and covered over the trapdoor. I shoved the fish and barley and some other things in a sack, picked up a full water skin and made for the river. It was dry and the boulders were good cover. We hid in the cave, the small one further in.”
The Silent Ones know everything. They watch over everything. They guard the people. They know the ways of the planting and the harvesting, the winds and the seas, the animals and the birds, the mysteries of the fire and the copper stones. I am their voice.
“They stayed longer than I thought. When they’d eaten everything and drunk everything they started looking for us, came along the riverbed, climbed up the slopes a bit. I knew they’d soon give up. That sort doesn’t like hard walking. Snatch what you can and clear off to find some other unlucky ship or village. Before they left they smashed everything and burned our place down. They even broke up the cistern where we kept the water for the house and the ships. After they sailed away we went down to see what was left but it was no good. We couldn’t stay. They might come back.”
The Silent Ones brought ships from across the oceans. They gathered their riches and stored the corn in their granaries. The Silent Ones saw justice done and the people knew it was good. They saw to it that the people were fed. The people served the Silent Ones and made offerings to the Great Mother.
“Life hadn’t been too good for some time, anyway. Not so many ships and those that did call in never traded very much. Like that one, long time ago now, took on water, that’s all, then said they were heading for the Endless Ocean. Mad. Two days sail and then gone, never seen again. I told them that. One of them stayed behind and hid in the hills. I saw him a few times; chased him off, didn’t want him near the woman. ”
The Silent Ones have watched the years go by as the winds blew and the land grew dry. There was no more rain. They watched the people leave and the houses fall empty. The Silent Ones remain, the chieftains and the nobles and their ladies. I am their voice.
“We couldn’t go on living in a cave and we couldn’t go back to the shore, scared another raider might come any day. I sent the woman and the boy back to her village up in the hills near the copper workings. It’s not much up there, but it’s something and it’s safer
than here. She has family. I only went once. I keep meaning to go again, see her and the boy. He’ll be grown up now. But something keeps me here. I keep thinking there’ll be another ship and I still have the bronze they might take. And there’s things I could tell them they might pay for. Two days sail to the Libun shore and two days sail to the strait. I could tell them that for nothing. But if they were going for the strait, they’d need to know something else. And they’ll have to pay for that, oh yes.”
The Silent Ones speak for the people. The people offered their prayers to the Great Mother but the Silent Ones are heard by Her. The Silent Ones speak to the Great Mother. They lie wearing their finery in their tombs, waiting for the people to return to their city, set fire on their hearths and let their children play in their streets where the lizards stare and snakes twist in the dust. I am their voice.
“Two days to the white bay under the mountain with a current to help them on their way. Then wait for the cold wind to die away and the heavy warm wind to blow. They won’t know that unless they pay. Oh, I don’t tell everybody, oh no. Watch for the flat clouds and keep close inshore. Wait for dewfall and feel the warm wind. I know all this and they don’t. When the wind blows offshore, hold on for a day and then, that’s your time. Sail! The banner will fly for you. Sail! Keep it secret. Keep to the shore. Nobody asks. Nobody wants to pay. I’m tired, must sleep. Long climb tomorrow, up to the city. It’s quiet there. Nobody knows, only me and the Silent Ones who call me there.”
Kanesh waited but there was no more. He rose from the stone bench and went quietly outside to stand on the rock ledge. He stretched to ease the stiffness in his joints. The night air was cooler and he breathed in deeply. Down in the bay he could see the tiny point of light that was the Davina’s stern lantern.
“Put the sack of barley and lentils in the cave and the honey jars and the figs by it. Find a place where the snakes cannot climb. What he has told me is worth a much greater price but he has need for nothing more than a taste of food he can no longer find.”
“He is a man who lives in dreams.”
“So do we all, Luzar. Outside our dreams are things too terrible to bear. Now, as we make our way back to the ship, tell me what you saw in the hills.”
Luzar told him of the dead city on its hilltop between the dry river valleys with its tumbled walls and ruined houses and mounds that covered the stone graves. And he told him of the other place where the people had gone when they left the grand city to die, to scratch a living from the stony soil and bury their dead under the floors of their little stone houses, and dig for the copper stone.
“There is something you have not told me,” said Kanesh.
Luzar was silent for a long time, then he said slowly, as if not sure of his words:
“In my land the Old People lie under great stones below mounds like this dead city.”
***
In the morning, as the Davina, with her casks brimming with water, set sail again along the coast, Kanesh came up to the Captain of Archers who was standing on the bow deck. He sniffed several times, loud and long.
“Smell that,” he said. “The Libun Deshret shore. Two days’ sail.”
“Hm. If you say so.”
Darkness fell with the Davina riding at anchor in the shallow waters of a bay big enough to take a hundred ships. She was the only one.
“You say he has been driven mad by loneliness and loss and yet here we are, following his instructions. Can a madman be trusted, Kanesh?”
“Half mad, my friend, perhaps a little more. In the other half of his mind are memories sharp enough for us to follow. What else do we have?”
“I grant you there is a smell of dry sand in the air now that the cool wind has dropped and it is true the current favoured us today,” said Potyr.
“And is that enough to persuade you that we should believe our half-mad guide and follow the coast for one more day?”
“As you have said, what else do we have but his words?”
“Some say that madness is close to holiness. I prefer to think the madness of some men is neighbour to truth.”
To Sharesh it looked at first like an island lying off the waterless rocky shore. The sun was going down on the starboard bow spreading a last red tinge over the peak before dusk hid it from view. Open sea lay to larboard with no sign of a shore. He began wondering where the mysterious strait might be. Two days sail, he had been told, yet still they could not find it. Then he remembered that a day’s sail had a night to go with it. At that very moment Typhis swung the tiller starboard and the Davina drifted slowly inshore to seek anchorage. Sharesh stopped thinking of islands and straits and started looking for shoals and reefs. Later, sitting on the soft sand beside the dying fire, he felt uneasy but why, he could not tell. There had been plenty of good fish to eat and clean sweet water to drink but something was wrong, he knew. Then it struck him: the men were too quiet. Now and again one of them would say something but none of the usual banter or laughter followed. Some sat apart gazing out to sea or down at the sand, enveloped in their own thoughts. No one brought out the dice to throw and wager his next cup of wine on a single throw. Two of the starboard watch started to bicker over who was slacking at his oar. They started wrestling, and not in play; something Sharesh had never seen before, and stopped only when Kerma dragged them apart and threatened to bang their heads together. He saw Sharesh looking at him.
“They’re getting windy,” he said. “All this time they’ve been trying not to think about forcing the strait and getting swallowed up in that Endless Ocean and now, when they’re nearly there, they start believing all the daft yarns they’ve been told about it and it gives them the shits. I could try telling them there’s no ocean at all through there and it’s all green grass with plenty of girls running about with their tits bouncing, catching butterflies, but they might rather listen to you if you played your pipes. You might even get them singing.”
And he did, but there was no dancing, which is what usually happened, even though Kerma built up the fire, and at last they all settled down to sleep. The night air was still and sultry. Sharesh lay wide awake, watching a great moon slide stealthily across the sky, hunting for stars, he thought. Then he dreamed of tall pillars of grey rock like gateways but hard as he tried, he could not pass through them. His pipes hung from his belt and he lifted them to his lips. He blew softly, the sweetest tunes he knew, but people passing by looked at him strangely as if they could not hear. Kallia walked by, hand in hand with Namun. They were laughing and seemed not to know he was there. His mother sat in her chair looking up at Kanesh who was at her side. He handed her something which Sharesh could not see that flashed silver. Pasipha saw him, put her hand on his arm and spoke. He could not hear her voice but he knew what she was saying and followed her to the room, and found himself on the Davina’s bow shouting with all his strength that black rocks lay dead ahead but no one seemed to hear him. He shouted again. A shadow loomed over him. He started up, fright strangling his voice.
“Calm down,” said Namun. “It’s only me. Here, drink this. Your throat must be as dry as a sand dune with all that shouting. What’s been giving you nightmares again?”
But the dreams, as dreams do, had already faded from Sharesh’s mind.
“That island I spotted last night,” he said. “I think that’s where the strait begins.”
It was not an island. It was a great grey cliff rearing up from the sea and joined to the coast by a thin neck of land. Its sheer blank face stared at the rising sun and on the setting sun it turned a steeply sloping wooded back. As the Davina passed the point at the foot of the great rock, on her larboard beam, clear on the horizon and no more than a morning’s sail distant, was the Libun shore with a mountain peak looking down on the strait. The crew rowed on in silence until Potyr ordered a turn to starboard that would carry them into the placid blue waters of a bay, lying in the shelter of the white rock.
“Stay on course?” said Typhis. “There’s clear w
ater ahead. I can see the way through this strait.”
“Hard a starboard,” said Potyr. He glanced at Kanesh. “The time is not right. Hard a starboard, I say.”
Younger men, with the keenest eyes and strongest legs, were chosen for the watch. Kanesh gave each one close instructions.
“You will watch for these signs,” he said. “When the air grows hot and you sweat day and night, however still you are; when dew forms on the grass; when the hot wind follows the sun and drives the flat clouds with it; when the mountain above us flies its banner of cloud; and, mark this most sharply: when a wind turns and blows offshore in the afternoon. Repeat what I have said, each one of you. Good. Again. Good. The instant these signs come, no matter what the time, you hasten here and say what you have seen. Now go to your places.”
“All others must be given tasks,” said Potyr to Typhis. “None must be left time to think too much on why he has come to the End of the World.”
The ship was cleaned from bilges to spar, all stores inspected, all cargo counted. Divers were sent down to scrape weed and shells from the hull. Parties set out to hunt for game and search for water. When all was done and inspected, it was done again. There was plenty of food, but not too much to arouse suspicion. Wine mixed with honey was drunk at dusk. Tired and replete, men slept well.
Kanesh mopped the sweat from his brow as he listened to a lookout say that, from his post on the far side of the rock, he had seen the sun rising above a flat bank of dark cloud.
“Your feet are wet,” said Kanesh. “Did you run through the waves?”
“No, lord. The grass is wet.”
Sharesh and Namun were covered with sweat as they forced their way through the dense scrub that coated the slope almost as far as the top of the mountain. They startled a bearded deer with long backward-curving horns that trotted gracefully away across the loose stone piles that they had laboured past. Swallows swept overhead giving out their thin excited cries as they chased clouds of tiny dancing insects. Panting for breath, they sat down on a rock ledge to rest. The sun was halfway up the sky. In the bay far below, the toy ship lay motionless on the blue water. Across the wide sound the Libun shore shimmered in the haze.