by John Brunner
"We'll follow you," said Toughide finally. "With all the family and friends our briqs can carry. And let those who choose the other way be cast upon the mercy of the stars."
"Then get to work!" Skilluck rose to what was left of his former height, and despite his shrunken mantle still overtopped the rest. "Tomorrow's dawn will see the Ushere fleet at sea, and our landfall will be in a kind and gracious country where we shall be helped by allies—helped by friends!"
"Uncle!" Embery cried, rushing up the slope that led to Chard's observatory. "Uncle, great news!"
Worried, absent-minded, owing to old age and the problems of the past few months which had so much interfered with his study of the stars, the old man nonetheless had time to spare for his brother's daughter. He beamed on her indulgently.
"Good news is always welcome! What have you to tell me?"
"Strangers are coming over the northern hills! It must be Wellearn's people at last! Did you not calculate that their spring must have begun by now?"
"Yes, at least a moonlong ago!" Suddenly as enthused as she was, Chard ordered one of his telescopes trained on the high ground to the north, and exercised an old man's privilege by taking first turn at its ocular.
And then he slumped. He said in a voice that struck winter-chill, "My dear, were you not expecting the Wego to arrive by sea?"
"Well, sure! But given how many of them there are, perhaps they had to ferry their folk to the nearest landfall and..."
She could hear as she spoke how hollow her words rang.
"This is no question of perhaps," her uncle said. "This is a fact. The fireworkers' district is being attacked. If that's the Wego's doing, neither you nor I want any truck with them!"
VIII
Heavier-laden than ever before, yet seeming utterly tireless, and with her back sprouting trencher-plants and vines as luxuriant as though this were an ordinary summer voyage, Tempestamer beat steadily southward on the trail which only a briq could follow through the currents of the ocean. Some said it was a question of smell; some, a matter of warmer or colder water; others yet, that briqs could memorize the pattern of the stars though they were invisible by day or cloud-covered at night. After all, maintained these last, a northfinder could be carried anywhere, even in darkness, and always turn the same unfailing way.
But most were content to accept a mystery and exploit it.
Certainly Tempestamer had learned from last year's storm. Now, if clouds gathered threateningly, she altered course and skirted them without Skilluck needing to use his goad, or when it was unavoidable hove to and showed her companions the way of it, even to locating masses of weed shaken loose by gales from coastal shallows. This gave much food for thought to both Skilluck and Wellearn, who served this trip in guise of chaplain because the passengers they had aboard would not have set forth without one. The former wondered, "Perhaps one shouldn't pith a briq at all. Perhaps there's a way of taming them intact. Could we be partners?"
While Wellearn mused, "The directions she chooses when she meets a storm: they imply something, as though the storm may have a pattern. At Hearthome I must study the globe that Chard offered to explain to me, because watching the sky..."
The other captains, though, grew afraid on learning how much of Tempestamer's weather-sense had been left intact. All of them had had the frustrating experience of trying to drive a briq direct for home when bad weather lay across her path, but rations had run so low that only a desperate charge in a straight line would serve the purpose of survival.
So too had Skilluck, as he said, and he preferred to come home late with vines and trencher-plants intact. What then of last year?—countered the others, and he could give no answer, except to say the fortune of the stars must have been shining on him.
Knowing him for a skeptic, they dismissed that and went on worrying.
Still, the weather continued fair. Despite the fact that they had met icebergs further south than even Toughide and Shrewdesign last summer, there had been whole long cloud-free days and nights, and the children had exclaimed in wonder at the marvels thereby revealed, especially the great arc of heaven composed of such a multitude of stars it never dwindled regardless of how many fell away in long bright streaks. Those riding Tempestamer kept begging for a peek through Skilluck's spyglass, and Wellearn amused them with fantasies based on something Embery had said, about the time when folk would travel to not just another continent, but another world.
One, though, acuter than the rest, demanded seriously, "Where do we find the kind of briq that swims thither?"
"If we can't find one," Wellearn answered confidently, "then we'll have to breed one—won't we?"
"She's slowing," Skilluck murmured. "That means landfall, if I'm any judge." Keeping his spyglass trained on the horizon, he swung it from side to side.
And checked.
"Wellearn, did the Hearthomers mention a people around here who consign their dead to the sea?"
Startled, Wellearn said, "That's a custom of seafaring folk like us! They said there were none on this whole coast! That's why when Blestar died we—"
"Oh, I remember," Skilluck interrupted. "But there are bodies floating towards us. Five of them."
It was in Wellearn's mind to ask whether he was mistaking some unfamiliar sea-creature, when his own eye spotted the first of them. No chance of error. Here came five light-mantled people of the Hearthome stock, and none was making the least attempt to swim...
"Stop Tempestamer eating them at all costs!" Skilluck roared to Strongrip. "It could be one of them is still alive!"
His guess was right. The last they hauled out of the water, while the passengers gazed in awe and terror, was still able to speak, though salt-perished and on the verge of death. Wellearn's mantle crumpled as he translated.
"We thought they were your people!" the stranger husked. "Even though they came to us by land! We thought maybe you were short of briqs to carry everyone..."He retched and choked up salt water.
"Go on!" Skilluck urged, aware how all the other captains were closing their briqs with his to find out what was wrong. Wellearn continued his translation.
"Beyond the mountains, land won't thaw this year! Except along the coasts, snow is still lying and the ground is hard as rock! That's what we found out from a prisoner we took. Never expecting an attack, we met the strangers with courtesy, but they were dreamlost and frantic and wrecked half of Hearthome before we managed to stop them. I never thought to see such slaughter, but they had started to eat us—yes, eat us!" A sound between a moan and a laugh. "And some of them were worse! They tried to eat themselves!"
"What of Hearthome now?" Wellearn cried, clenching his claws.
"I—we..."
The effort was too much. Salt-weakened, one of his lower tubules ruptured, and the victim saved from the sea leaked out his life on Tempestamer's back.
After a long dread pause Skilluck straightened. He said grayly, "We must go on. We can't go back. From what he said it's clear that if Ushere isn't doomed already it will be by next year. We've come south across a fifth of the world, and if even here we find that people have been driven off their lands by cold and hunger..."
There was no need to finish the statement. Those around him nodded grave assent.
"But if we can't settle here after all—" Wellearn began.
"Then we'll survive at sea!" Skilluck exploded. "The way the wild briqs do!"
"Not even Tempestamer can bear a load like this indefinitely!" Sharprong objected, indicating the puzzled and frightened passengers. "We've had an easy voyage compared with last year, but if there are going to be more storms—"
"Are there not uninhabited islands with springs of fresh water we can put into when our drink-bladders won't suffice? Aren't there capes and coves to offer shelter? And don't we have more seafaring skill in this fleet than ever was assembled outside Ushere?"
Wellearn shivered despite the warmth of the day. Here was a vision more grandiose than his—indeed, than an
y save Embery's, which pictured travel through the sky.
But what about the rest? Would they agree?
Strongrip said heavily, "We must at least make landfall, Captain. If our companions don't see with their own eyes what you and I might take on trust, there'll be recriminations."
"Those will follow anyway, the first time we run short of food," said Skilluck. "But you're right. We go ashore with all prongs sharp, if only for the chance to rescue wise'uns who know the secret of creshban. All else from Hearthome may go smash—who's going to light a fire in mid-ocean, let alone carry sand or stone to melt for glass and metal? Burn my Tempestamer's back? Never! Safer to use the stuff of life than the stuff of death! But I want creshban!"
Breathing heavily, he turned to Wellearn. "You stay here and keep the passengers soothed. The rest of us—"
"No," said Wellearn firmly. "I'm going ashore, too. If Embery still lives, I want her with me."
"Now you listen to me—" Skilluck began, but Wellearn cut in.
"Here come the other captains! We'd best present a united front."
"Stars curse it, of course! But you can't expect us to load up with every single survivor—"
"Then take her, if I find her, and I'll stay!" Wellearn flared.
"You're being unreasonable—"
"No, Captain. Much more reasonable than you. I've thought this through. If we do take to a nomad life at sea, what are we to do about keeping up our numbers? Already people from Ushere and Hearthome are overbred. We shall have to copy what roving tribes do on land: leave part of our company at the places where we stop in exchange for strangers who want to learn the arts of the sea. It had been in my mind to propose such a policy anyhow, because of a talk I had with Shash. But if we do as you suggest..."
Skilluck clattered his mandibles glumly. He said after a pause, "Well, perhaps there will be some among the passengers who want to take their chances on land, even so far from home, rather than carry on at sea. Salt water isn't in the ichor of us all the way it is in yours and mine."
Wellearn wanted to preen. How short a time ago it seemed that Skilluck had called him a landlubber at pith!
Yet he still was, and it required all his self-control to accept that his hopes of settling at Hearthome had been shattered the way the prong from heaven shattered that berg. Maybe after seeing the city in nuns the idea would come real for him. Until then, he must compose himself. Here came Toughide and Shrewdesign to demand what was happening.
"You expect us, in our condition, to plod ashore and win back Hearthome from its invaders?" Toughide snapped.
So much was to be expected. After the long voyage, few of the briqs were as fit and flourishing as Tempestamer.
"Not at all," was Skilluck's wheedling response. "We only expect the combined talents of the Wego to salvage something from the landlubbers, and above all what's going to be most valuable to ourselves: creshban, of course, but also..." He paused impressively. "Wouldn't you like spyglasses, all of you, better than this one of mine? The Hearthomers have them by the score! I never admitted it, but I craved one myself! Only they wouldn't part with the one I wanted until we'd concluded our alliance ... Still, that's water past the prow. But the observatory where the glasses are kept is nearest the ocean and stands the best chance of having been defended! If we can only attain that hill before we're forced to retreat, and hold a bridgehead long enough to gather provisions, we shall retire with the finest treasure any Wegan could imagine!"
Rearing up to his full remaining height, though that strained his voice to shrillness, he brandished his beloved spyglass for all to see.
"If we don't come back with something better for us all, then you may cast lots for who's to have this!"
Uncertain at the prospect of a battle, for the Wego had never been collectively a fighting folk, Shrewdesign said, "We shan't try to retake the city by force?"
"It would be dreamness to attempt it! But what's of use to us, that the invaders would simply smash because they're starved insane—we must take that!"
Unheeded while the debate was raging, the sun had slanted towards the horizon. Suddenly the tropic night closed down, and there were moans from passengers who had not yet adjusted to the speed of its arrival.
During their last day's travel the fleet had broached a latitude further south than any on their course, and it was now for the first time they saw, at the western rim of the world just above the thin red clouds of evening, a great green curving light, edged like a shuddermaker's rasp.
Silence fell as they turned to gaze at it, bar the slop of water against the briqs' sides and the crying of frightened children. The redness faded; the green grew even brighter.
"What is it?" Skilluck whispered to Wellearn.
"I heard of such things before, and never saw one," was the fault answer. "There are tales about the Blade of Heaven which comes to cut off the lives of the unrighteous—"
"Tales!" Skilluck broke in. "We can do better without those! How about some facts?"
"It's said at Hearthome that when a star flares up—"
"Oh, forget it! Leave it to me!" And Skilluck marched towards Tempestamer's prow, where he could be heard on all the prow-together briqs.
"Chaplains! Stand forth! Tell me if that's not the Blade of Heaven!"
A ragged chorus told him, yes it was.
"Tell me further! Is it poised to cut off the lives of the unrighteous? And is it not unrighteous to leave those who offered to ally with us to suffer at the claws of crazy folk?"
The instant he heard any hint of an answer, he roared, "Well, there's our sign, then! Captains, prepare to moor your briqs! Against that cape there's a shelf of slanting rock where one may bring in even so large a briq as Tempestamer and not make her beach herself! And it's exactly below the observatory we're making for!"
IX
Among the many stories Wellearn had been told when he was a young'un, then taught to disbelieve as he grew up, was a description of what went on in the moon when the righteous and unrighteous were separating. Gradually dividing themselves according to whether they found dark or light more alluring, folk were said to yowl and yammer in imaginary speech; those following star-blessed visions pursued a straight path towards the light, those who doubted kept changing their minds, while only those who had arrived at righteousness by reason were able not to collide with others and be beaten or tripped up and so delayed on their way to the glory of full moon. It was a child's impression of the adult world, perhaps, not stressing what the wicked must have done to deserve the dark.
Skilluck would have been deemed wicked by all the chaplains Wellearn had known, including Blestar, inasmuch as he often mocked and occasionally defied them.
But he was glad to be beside the captain when they went ashore, for what they found was like an actualization of that terrifying childhood story.
No concerted attempt was made to drive off the Wegans who landed; there was neither rationality nor shared insanity to generate resistance. Wild-eyed, stinking, often with their mantles leaking, a horde of starvation-maddened victims ran hither and thither, some sufficiently aware to try and alarm their fellows, many more so distraught that they reacted only to the scent of oozing ichor and under the impression "here's food" began to clap their mandibles excitedly before attacking those who meant to warn them.
It might have been different had the newcomers been exuding combat-stink, but none of them was. They were serious, determined, and—most of all—afraid.
Wellearn was too calm to pretend otherwise. Wherever he glanced, he saw new horrors. One image in particular sank barbs in his memory. There was an elderly man who must have walked, he thought, as far as Tempestamer had swum to get here. For his pads were completely worn away, and he was hobbling along on the under-edge of his mantle with vast and painful effort, no taller than a new-budded child, leaving a broad wet trail like a giant sluq...
For the first time Wellearn realized: there were some dooms far worse than death.
&n
bsp; Beating back those who got in their way, using poles from their briqs' saddles in preference to prongs, Skilluck's party breasted the slope below the observatory and obtained their first view of the entire city. Wellearn repressed a cry. The trails of luminous vines which he had seen in Embery's company were being torn loose and waved madly around until they died, as though the bravetrees of all the houses had suddenly developed palsy. Northward, in the quarter of the fireworkers, there was a vast glare on the underside of a pall of smoke, suggesting that all the stored fuel had been set ablaze at once. And the night breeze carried not just fumes but the sound of screaming.
"Looks to me as if they're even crazier over yonder!" Skilluck muttered. "So who's going to want to quit the briqs and settle here? If we can't carry all the sane survivors ... That's the spyglass-house, is it?"
His answer came in the shape of a well-aimed throwing prong, which missed Strongrip by a claw's-breadth. At once they dropped to the ground, prepared to crawl the rest of the way.
"The defenders are still on guard," Wellearn whispered. "I must let them know who we are!"
"But—"
"I know what I'm doing!" And he began to work his way uphill, soilover-style, using his claws and the edges of his mantle instead of his pads.
Sharpening his hearing to its utmost, he caught fault cries up ahead.
"Looks like a well-organized attack! Stand to!"
Another few moments, and a half-score of prongs flew over him. Somewhere behind was a strangled moan.
Moving as fast as he could, he closed the distance to the side of the observatory: that great complex of bravetrees and countless other plants where he had been shown marvels beyond belief. At every gap between their boles protruded a cruel spike instead of the former telescopes, and from roots to crown prongsmen waited to deliver death like a blow from the sky.
He gathered all his force and shouted, "Embery!"
And instantly doubled over, offering the toughest part of his mantle to any missile.