The Crucible of Time

by John Brunner

  After what felt like a lifetime, smooth rock slanted up to a little beach, and he crawled the rest of the way as clumsily as a new-budded child. Cursing his bravado, he forced himself across gritty sand that rasped his torso, and collapsed into the shade of bushes unlike any he had ever seen before. Some sort of animal screamed in alarm and branches fluttered as it fled; he could not tell what it was.

  In a little, he promised himself, just as soon as he recovered his pressure, he would move on in search of water or a recognizable plant, or risk sampling something at hazard, or...

  But he did not. After his exertions, cresh had him in its deadly grip, and he departed into a world of dreams compound of memory, so that the solid ground under him seemed to rock and toss like the ocean at the climax of the storm. He did not even have the energy to moan.

  From the briq Skilluck saw him fall, and let go the spyglass with a curse, and likewise slumped to his full length. The pitiless sun beat down and, all unheeding. Tempestamer went on gulping weed to cram her monstrous maw.

  II

  He was looking at himself.

  Wellearn cried out. He had seen his reflection before, but only in still water, which meant he should be lying down on the bank of a pool. Every sense informed him he was in fact sitting up. Yet his image was confronting him. He was certain it must be confect of dreamness.

  Suddenly it swerved aside and vanished. Struggling to accept he was not after all lost in sickness-spawned delirium, he discovered he was now seeing two people taller, slimmer, and with paler mantles than his own folk: a grave elderly man and a most attractive girl.

  The former said something Wellearn did not quite grasp, though a tantalizing hint of meaning came across. Then, touching his mandibles with one claw, he said, "Shash!"

  Imitating him, the girl said, "Embery!"

  Clearly those were their names. Wellearn uttered his own, followed by greetings in his native speech. Meeting no reaction, he switched to others, and as soon as he tried Ancient Forbish Embery exclaimed in amazement.

  "Why, you speak what we do!" she said, her accent strange but her words recognizable.

  How then could Wellearn have failed to understand before? And now again, as she said something too rapid to follow?

  "The language changes," Shash said slowly and clearly. "It has been a score-of-score years since our ancestors settled here. Use only the oldest forms. Wellearn, you comprehend?"

  "Very well!"

  "Do you remember your voyage hither?"

  "The greater part of it." But where was here? Wellearn looked about him, realizing for the first time that he was in a noble house. Never had he seen such magnificent bravetrees—except they weren't exactly brave-trees—or such a marvelous array of secondary plants. Had he been hungry, which to his amazement he was not, he would at once have asked to sample the delicious-looking fruits and funqi which surrounded him.

  Light slanted through gaps between the boles, which offered glimpses of what looked like a great city. The air was at high pressure and very warm, though not so oppressive as when he swam ashore, and the scents borne on it were absolutely unfamiliar. But one matter must take precedence over the curiosity that filled him.

  "My companions! Did you save them too?"

  "Oh, yes. They are sicker than you, but we hope to cure them soon."

  "But I had cresh..." Wellearn hesitated. In his people's knowledge there was no remedy for that affliction. Sometimes it went away of its own accord, no one knew why; more often its victims were permanently crippled.

  "No longer. You saw for yourself. Where are the marks?"

  "I saw," Wellearn agreed slowly. "But I didn't understand."

  "Ah. Embery, show him again."

  This time he was able to make out how it happened. She held up a large disc, very shiny, which gave back his reflection. Touching it diffidently, he discerned a peculiar coolness.

  "Metal?" he ventured.

  "Of course. But your people understand metal and glass, surely? We found a telescope on your briq, as good as our own."

  "Captain Skilluck got it in trade," Wellearn muttered. "I can't say where it was made."

  "Do you not know and use fire?" Shash demanded in surprise.

  "Of course, but in our country there is little fuel and it's too precious to be used for melting rocks. Long ago the weather, they say, was warmer, but now in winter the sea freezes along our coasts, and then it's our only means of staying alive."

  "Whiter," Embery repeated thoughtfully. "That must be what we read about in the scriptures, the time of great cold which happens once a year and lasts many score days."

  And yearly it grows longer ... Wellearn suppressed a pang of envy. What a privilege to live in latitudes where winter never came! He had heard tales about such places from boastful old seafarers, but he had never expected to wind up in one on his maiden voyage.

  Yet those same travelers always claimed that they found something grand in the country of their budding, something noble and challenging about its harsh landscape. He must not think of worse and better until he knew much more.

  "May I see my companions?" he requested.

  "Certainly, if you're fit enough," Shash answered. "Can you stand?"

  Wellearn concentrated on forcing himself upright. He managed it, though he could not regain his normal height. Even had he done so, he would still have been overtopped by these strangers, who must be as tall as mythical Jing—or maybe not quite, for he was said to have been taller than anybody.

  "Let me help you," Embery offered, moving to support him. Contact with her was very pleasant. He wondered what the local customs were concerning mating. The Wego themselves welcomed visitors in the hope that outcrossing would bring more and healthier children, for they were barely keeping up their numbers, and he had been told that many foreign peoples felt the same. But it was too soon to think of such matters.

  In an adjacent bower Skilluck lay in a crotch made comfortable with masses of reddish purple mosh; he was still not alert but the creshmarks were fading from his mantle. Others beyond held Strongrip, Sharprong, and Blestar, who was visibly the worst affected.

  "I've never seen such a severe case," sighed Shash. "One could almost imagine he had weakened himself deliberately."

  Wellearn nearly admitted that in fact he had. It was the custom of chaplains, in face of danger, to fast in the hope of being sent a vision from the stars that would save them and their comrades. There was no recorded instance of it happening, but the habit endured.

  These people, though, might have no faith in visions, and he did not wish them to mock the strangers who had fallen among them. Instead he voiced a question that was burning in his mind.

  "What manner of place is this?"

  "A healing-house," Shash replied, and added wonderingly, "Do they not have such in your country?"

  "A great house like this, solely for sick people? Oh, no! We're lucky to have enough for those who are well. Sometimes they die, and the occupants must take refuge in caves, or pile up rocks for shelter ... I'm amazed! When we arrived in the bay, we thought this region was uninhabited!"

  "Ah, you were the wrong side of the cape. People rarely visit that bay except for glassmakers needing sand or fisherfolk like the ones who spotted your briq."

  "Tempestamer!" Wellearn clenched his claws. "What of her?"

  "We have small knowledge of matters of the sea, but we have guarded against her wandering off by fixing strong cables across the mouth of the bay. However, she's so huge ... Will it be long before she needs to feed again? She's practically cleared the bay of weed."

  "I'm afraid you'll have to ask the captain. Usually she only feeds by night as she swims along, but she must have been half-starved after the storm that drove us here."

  "Hope then that the captain recovers shortly. We're doing our utmost for him. Look, here come curers with more creshban."

  Wellearn turned in the indicated direction, but almost literally while Shash was speaking, it grew
dark. He gasped. Then festoons of luminous creepers reacted, faster than any gleamers he was used to, coming up to full brightness nearly before his vision adapted to the lower light level, and he saw two husky youths each bearing a round object like an immense nut. There was a sudden pungent smell, which reminded him of a taste that had haunted his long period of dreamness. Also he recalled terrible hunger, and having to be restrained for fear he might attack those who were holding him ... But that belonged to the past, and in the present Shash was saying, "You must continue the medicine for several days yet. Drink some more now."

  Wellearn complied. The nuts were hollow, and contained a bitter liquid of which he managed a few gulps.

  "If we could only plant such nut-trees on a briq!" he muttered.

  "It's not their natural juice," said the curer who had given him the drink. He spoke without Shash's deliberateness, but by this time Wellearn was adjusting to the local accent. "It's mixed with sap from half a score of plants."

  Visions of saving the lives of countless future mariners bloomed and wilted in Wellearn's imagination. He said grumpily, "And I suppose not one of them grows in the north?"

  "Later we can show them to you and let you find out," Shash promised. "But now I think you should return to rest."

  "I couldn't! I'm too eager to see the marvels of your city, and meet more of its people!"

  "In two or three days' time, perhaps. Not right away."

  "May I not at least look out at the city, and question someone about it?"

  "I'll oblige him, Father," Embery said, and added self-mockingly, "That is, if he can understand me."

  "In my young days," Shash sighed, "people your age were wise enough to know when their elders were giving them advice for their own good ... Oh, very well! But remember, both of you, that the workings of cresh are insidious, and over-excitement is as fast a route as any into dreamness!"

  Embery guided Wellearn to the top of the highest tree in the house, which offered a clear view in all directions. The moon was down and the sky was clouding over in a way that upset his weather-sense, but he was too eager to worry about the risk of a lightning-strike. From here the outline of the city was picked out by glowing creepers and funqi, and he was shaken by its huge extent. It even marched over the crest of a hill inland, beyond which faint redness could be seen.

  "That's where the fireworkers live," Embery explained. "They make glass and metal—they made the mirror you've seen. The area is sheltered, the wind almost always carries the smoke away from us, and it's easy to find fuel in that direction. They use vast quantities, you know. Some of their furnaces ... But you have to see them."

  Over and over she said the same, when describing the outlying farms, the giant nets which fish-hunters hurled by means of weights and long poles far out to sea from the nearby capes and islands, the work of those who bred mounts and draftimals—"like your briq," she added merrily, "only smaller and going on land!"—those who trained new houses to replace old ones or spread the city on fresh ground, and more and more until Wellearn could scarcely contain himself. How desperately he wanted to explore every nook of—

  "I haven't asked your city's name!" he exclaimed.

  "Hearthome."

  It was apt. "How many people live here, do you know?" he pursued, thinking perhaps not a great number, if each of five sick strangers could be allotted a separate bower, and then yes a great number, if so many extra houses had been sown.

  "Nine score-of-scores, I think, though some say ten."

  It was unbelievable. The Wego numbered perhaps a fifth as many. Oh, this must be a better land to live in!

  "But there are far larger cities inland and all along the coast," Embery said. "Many have a score-of-score-of-scores. None is as rich as Hearthome, though."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because we are the folk who work hardest at discovering new things. Travelers from a moonlong's journey away come to learn from people like my father, and my uncle who lives yonder"—she pointed in a direction diametrically opposite the furnace-glow—"and devotes his time to studying the stars."

  Among Wellearn's people the stars were of little save religious interest. During his entire life at home he had seen a clear sky so seldom he could almost count the total. Before the adoption of the northfinder—a creature which, properly pithed, would always seek out the pole—it was said mariners had been guided by the stars on outward voyages. The return, of course, was never a problem; briqs like Tempestamer could be relied on to retrace their course. Though after such a tremendous storm even she...

  Dismissing such gloomy thoughts, albeit making a firm resolution to utter thanks, just in case, to the ancestors who—according to the chaplains—must have been watching over him during the voyage, he made shift to repeat a traditional Forbish compliment which Blestar had taught him when he was first apprenticed to the trade of interpreter, and of which mention of the stars reminded him.

  "Ah!" he said. "Starbeams must shine on Hearthome even when the sky is cloudy!"

  "Why not?" Embery returned. "After all, we are honest followers of Jing."

  Wellearn drew back, startled.

  "But he was only a legend! Tales about him are compound of dream-stuff!"

  "Oh, no!" She sounded scandalized. "True, there is a great dream in his scriptures, but even that is in perfect accord with reality. Have you never studied his teaching?"

  At the same moment thunder rolled, but it was not the shock to his weather-sense which made Wellearn's mind reel.

  "Your father was right after all about my need for rest," he husked. "Kindly lead me back to my bower."

  Where he spent long lonely hours wondering what—after teaching and believing all his life that tales about folk who conjured secrets from the stars were mere superstition—Blestar was going to say when he discovered himself in a land where Jing was real.

  III

  Skilluck's shattered mind crawled back together out of pits of madness and he could see a figure that he recognized. It was Wellearn, addressing him anxiously: "Captain, you're alert again, aren't you?"

  Beyond him, unfamiliar plants hanging on what were not exactly bravetrees, immensely tall strangers whose mantles were astonishingly pale ... They coalesced into a reality, and he was himself and whole and able to reply.

  "Tell me where we are, and how Tempestamer is, and how these people treat us."

  He was proud of being able to phrase that so soon after regaining normal awareness.

  Wellearn complied, but half the time he was almost babbling, plainly having been cozened by the wonders of his first foreign landfall. Skilluck was a mite more cynical; he had spent half his life traveling, and more often than not he had been cheated by the outlanders he tried to deal with. The harsh existence led in northern lands was no school for subtleties of the kind practiced by those who dwelt in southern luxury ... and it had been obvious, when Tempestamer came to harbor, that she had been driven further than any of the Wego had wandered before, perhaps to the equator itself.

  So he merely registered, without reacting to, most of what Wellearn said, until a snatch of it seized his interest.

  "—and they have a certain cure for cresh!"

  At once Skilluck was totally attentive. Cautiously he said, "It works on everybody, without fail?"

  Mantle-crumpled, Wellearn admitted, "Not on all. Blestar, they say, may well not survive. But for me and you, Sharprong and Strongrip, it's proved its worth!"

  "Do they understand what we're saying to each other?"

  "N-no! And that's something else amazing!" Wellearn blurted. "I have to speak to them in Ancient Forbish!"

  Skilluck was unimpressed. His explorations had often brought him to places where relics of that once widespread speech survived. Blestar even maintained that many Forbish words had found their way into Wegan, but since they all had to do with fire and stars—things everybody knew about, but in which the chaplains claimed a special interest—sensible people dismissed such notions as mere r
eligious propaganda. Wego seafarers took chaplains along much as they carried pickles: just in case. The best trips were those where they weren't needed.

  Of course, their services as interpreters...

  He forced himself to sound very polite when next he spoke to Wellearn.

  "It seems we should behave to our hosts in the friendliest possible fashion. I guess at something we might do for their benefit. How goes it with Tempestamer?"

  "That's what I'd just been asked to tell you! She has grazed the bay where we landed clean of weed, and the cables they've strung across its mouth won't hold her much longer, and they fear for their inshore fishing grounds."

  "Let the cables hold but one more day, and I'll put her to sea and feed her such a mawful as will content her for a week. And I'll come back, never fear. A cure for cresh—now that's something worth making a storm-tossed voyage for!"

  "There's more," Wellearn said after a pause.

  "So tell me about it! Anything we can trade for, I want to hear!"

  "I'm not sure it's the sort of thing one can trade," Wellearn said. "But ... Well, these people have shown me Jing's original scriptures. Or not exactly the originals, which might rot, but accurate copies. And they tell about how the stars are fire and our world will one day go for fuel to make the sun brighter and ourselves with it unless we—"

  Skilluck had heard enough. He said as kindly as he could, "Boy, your brush with cresh has affected your perceptions. I counsel you to concentrate on growing up. A little worldly wisdom would do wonders for you."

  Wellburn bridled. "Captain, do you know Forbish?"

  "I've never taken lessons, if that's what you mean!"

  "I have! And the documents I've been shown while you were lying sick have satisfied me that Jing was real!"