Helliconia Spring

XV • THE STENCH OF BURNING

Silence reigned over Oldorando. Few people walked in the streets. Of those who did, most carried some nostrum or other to their face, sometimes keeping it in place with a mask over nose and mouth. Herbs were most highly regarded for this purpose. They fended off plague, flies, and the stink of bonfires.

High over the houses, the two sentinels, only a hairsbreadth apart, glared down like eyes. Beneath the tiles and slates, the population waited. Everything that organisation could do had been done. Now only waiting remained.

The virus moved from one quarter of the city to another. One week, most deaths would be confined to the southern quarter, the so-called Pauk, and the rest of the city would breathe more freely. Then the district across the Voral would be chastised—to the relief of the other districts. But in another few days, the plague might make lightning visitation to its previous haunts, and lamentations would burst out from streets, even households, where similar cries had only recently been heard.

Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd, lieutenants of Embruddock, together with Raynil Layan, master of the mint, and Dathka, Lord of the Western Veldt, had formed a Fever Committee, on which they themselves sat, together with useful citizens such as Ma Scantiom of the hospice. Aided by an auxiliary body formed by the pilgrimage from Pannoval, the Takers, who had stayed in Oldorando to preach against its immorality, laws had been passed to deal with the ravages of the fever. Those laws were enforced by a special police contingent.

Notices were posted in every street and alley, warning that the penalties for concealing dead bodies and for looting were the same: execution by phagor bite—a primitive punishment that sent refined shudders through the rich merchants. Notices posted outside the city warned all those who approached that the plague ruled. Few of those fugitives who came from the east were rash enough to ignore the warning: they ringed their foreheads and skirted the city. It was doubtful whether the notices would provide such effective protection against those with evil intentions towards the place.

The first carts ever to be seen in Oldorando, clumsy things with two wheels, pulled by hoxneys, rumbled through the streets regularly. On them went the day’s crop of corpses, some left shrouded in the street, some thrown unceremoniously out of doorways or dropped naked from upper windows. No mother or husband or child, however beloved in life, but caused sickening revulsion when dying, and worse when dead. Though the cause of the fever was not understood, many theories existed. Everyone believed that the disease was contagious. Some went so far as to believe that the mere sight of a corpse was sufficient to turn one into the same state. Others who had listened to the word of Naba’s Akha—suddenly of persuasive power—believed that venery brought the fever on.

Whatever their beliefs, all agreed that fire was the only answer for corpses. The corpses were taken in carts to a point beyond the city, and there thrown into the flames. The pyre was constantly being rekindled. Its smoke, the smell of its black fats, drifting across the shuttered streets, reminded the inhabitants of their vulnerability. In consequence, those still surviving threw themselves into one or other—and sometimes both—of the extremes of mortification and lechery.

No one as yet believed that the fever was at its height, or that there was not worse to come. This dread was counterbalanced by hope. For there was an increasing number of people, mainly young, who survived the worst that the helico virus could do, and who, in slimmed down shapes, moved confidently through the city. Among them was Oyre.

She had fallen in the street. By the time Dol Sakil had taken her into her care, Oyre was locked rigid in pain. Dol looked after her without fear for herself, with that listless indifference which was an established part of Dol’s manner. Despite the prognostications of friends, she did not fall ill herself, and lived to see Oyre come through the eye of the needle, looking slender, even skeletal. The only precaution Dol had taken was to send her child, Rastil Roon, to stay with Amin Lim’s man and his child. Now the boy was back.

The two women and the child spent their time indoors. The sense of waiting, the sense of an ending, was not unpleasant. Boredom had many mansions. They played with the boy, simple games that took them back to their own childhood. Once or twice Vry joined them, but Vry had an abstracted air these days. When she spoke, she told them of her work, and of all that she aspired to do. On one occasion, she broke out into passionate speech, confessing her involvement with Raynil Layan, of whom they had previously nothing good to say. The affair vexed her; she often felt disgust; she hated the man when he was absent; yet she flung herself on him when he appeared.

“We’ve all done it, Vry,” Dol commented. “It’s just that you’re a bit late, so it hurts you worse.”

“We haven’t all done it enough,” Oyre said quietly. “I have no desires now. They’ve gone from me… What I desire is desire. It may return if only Laintal Ay returns.” She gazed out of the window at the blue sky.

“But I’m so torn,” Vry said, unwilling to be distracted from her own troubles. “I’m never calm, as once I was. I don’t know myself any longer.”

In her outburst, Vry said nothing of Dathka, and the other women evaded that issue. Her love might have brought her more ease if she did not worry about Dathka; not only was he on her conscience, but he had taken to following her obsessively. She feared for what might happen, and had easily persuaded the nervous Raynil Layan that they meet in a secret room, rather than in their own places. In this secret room, she and her fork-bearded lover had daily tryst, while the city waited on the disease and the sound of saddle animals drifted through their open window.

Raynil Layan wished the window closed, but she would not have it.

“The animals may convey the illness,” he protested. “Let’s leave here, my doe, leave the city—away from the pest and everything else that worries us.”

“How would we survive? This is our place. Here in this city, and in each other’s arms.”

He gave her an uneasy grin. “And suppose we infect each other with the pest?”

She flung herself back on the bed, her breasts bouncing in his sight. “Then we die close, we die in the act, knotted! Maintain your spirit, Raynil Layan, feed on mine. Spill yourself over—over and over!” She rubbed her hand along his hairy loin and hooked a leg about the small of his back.

“You greedy sow,” he said admiringly, and he rolled beside her, pressing his body to hers.

Dathka sat on the edge of his bed, resting his head in his hands. As he said nothing, so the girl on the bed did not speak; she turned her face from him and brought her knees up to her chest.

Only when he rose and began to dress, with the abruptness of one who has suddenly made up his mind, did she say in a stifled voice, “I’m not carrying the plague, you know.”

He cast her back a bitter look, but said nothing, continuing hastily to dress.

She turned her head round, brushing long hair from her face. “What’s the matter with you, then, Dathka?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not much of a man.”

He pulled on his boots, seemingly more concerned with them than with her.

“Rot you, woman, I don’t want you—you’re not the one I want. Get that into your skull and shift yourself out of here.”

From a cupboard fitted into the wall he took a curved dagger of fine workmanship. Its brightness contrasted with the worm-scored panels of the cupboard door. He stuck it in his belt. She called to ask where he was going. He paid her no further attention, slamming the door behind him and clattering down the stairs.

He had not wasted the last few bitter weeks since Laintal Ay left and since he had discovered what he regarded as Vry’s betrayal of him. Much of his time had been spent building up support among the youth of Oldorando, securing his position, making alliances with foreign elements who chafed at the restrictions Oldorando imposed on them, sympathising with those—and there were many—whose way of life had been disrupted by arduous work patterns imposed by the introduction of a native coinage. The master of the mint, Raynil Layan, was a frequent butt of his criticism.

As he strode into the alley, all was quiet and the side street deserted except for a man he paid to guard his door. In the market, people were about of necessity, attending to their day’s requirements. The little apothecary’s stall, with its pots ranked imposingly, was doing good business. There were still merchants with bright stalls and bright robes on their backs. Equally, there were also people moving by with loads on their backs, leaving the threatened city before things got worse.

Dathka saw nothing of it. He moved like an automaton, eyes fixed ahead. The tension in the city was one with his personal tension. He had reached a point where he could tolerate it no longer. He would kill Raynil Layan, and Vry too if need be, and have done with it. His lips curled back from his teeth as he rehearsed the fatal blow over and over in his mind. Men started away from him, fearing his fixed look presaged the onset of fever.

He knew where Vry had her secret room; his spies kept him informed. He thought to himself, If I ruled here, I would close down the academy for good. Nobody ever had the courage to make that decision final. I would. Now’s the time to strike, using the excuse that classes at the academy spread the pest. That would really hurt her.

“Take thought, brother, take thought! Pray with the Takers to be spared, hear the word of great Naba’s Akha…”

He brushed by the street preacher. He would have those fools off the street, too, if he ruled.

Near the Yuli Lane hoxney stables, he was approached by a man he knew, a mercenary and animal trader.

“Well?”

“He’s up there how, sir.” The man signalled with his eyebrows towards the garret window of one of the wooden buildings facing the stables. These were mainly hostels, rooming houses or drink shops, which acted as a quasi-respectable front to the music rooms and bawdy houses ranged behind them.

Dathka nodded curtly.

He pushed through a bead curtain, to which fresh orling and scantiom had been tied, and entered one of the drink shops. The cramped dark room was empty of customers. On the walls, animal skulls gave dry, serrated smiles. The owner stood against his counter, arms folded, gazing into space. Already primed, he merely lowered his head so that his double chins spread on his chest, a signal to Dathka to do whatever he wished to do. Dathka passed him by and climbed the stairs.

Stale smells greeted him, of cabbage and worse things. He walked by the wall, but the boards still creaked. He listened at the end door, heard voices. Being of nervous disposition, Raynil Layan would be sure to have barred his door. Dathka knocked on the cracked panels.

“Message for you, sir,” he said in a muffled voice “Urgent, from the mint.”

Smiling a ghastly smile, he stood close, listening as the bolts were drawn inside the room. As soon as the door opened a crack, he burst in, flinging the door wide. Raynil Layan fell back, crying in terror. At the sight of the dagger, he ran to the window and called once for help. Dathka grasped him by the neck and flung him against the bed.

“Dathka!” Vry sat in the bed, pulling a sheet over her nudity. “Get out of here, you rat’s eddre!”

For answer, he kicked the door shut without looking round. He went over to Raynil Layan, who was picking himself up and groaning.

“I know you’re going to kill me, I can see it, I can tell,” the master of the mint said, putting out a tremblingly protective hand. “Spare me, please, I’m not your enemy. I can help you.”

“I’m going to kill you with as much compassion as you killed old Master Datnil.”

Raynil Layan rose slowly, hiding his nudity, keeping a wary eye on his attacker.

“I didn’t do that. Not myself. Aoz Roon ordered his death. It was legal, really. The law was broken. Killing me isn’t legal. Tell him, Vry. Listen, Dathka—Master Datnil gave corps secrets away, he showed the secret book of the corps to Shay Tal. Not all of it. Not the worst thing. You ought to know about that.”

Dathka paused. “That world’s dead, all that corps scumb. You know what I think of the corps. To fessups with the past. It’s dead, as you will be.”

Vry seized on his hesitation. She had recovered her nerve. “Listen, Dathka, let me explain the situation. We can help you, both of us. There are things in that corps book that Master Datnil did not dare reveal even to Shay Tal. They happened long ago, but the past is still with us, however we might wish it otherwise.”

“If that were so, then you would accept me. So long I longed for you.”

Raynal Layan drew his robe round himself and said, mustering his wits, “Your quarrel is with me, not Vry. In the various corps books are records of Embruddock in past time. They prove that this was once a phagor city. Possibly the phagors built it—the record is broken. They certainly owned it, and the corps and the people in it. They kept people as slaves.”

Dathka stood regarding them darkly. All he said in his head was, We are all slaves—knowing it to be stupid.

“If they owned Embruddock, who killed them? Who won it back? King Denniss?”

“This happened after Denniss’s time. The secret book says little; it records history only incidentally. We understand that the phagors simply decided to quit.”

“They were not defeated?”

Vry said, “You know how little we understand the brutes. Perhaps their air- octaves changed and they all marched away. But they must have been here in strength. If you ever studied the painting of Wutra in the old temple, you would know that. Wutra is a representation of a phagor king.”

Dathka rested the heel of his hand on his brow. “Wutra a phagor? It can’t be. You go too far. This damned learning—it can make white black. All such nonsense stems from the academy. I’d kill it. If I had the power I’d kill it.”

“If you want power, I’ll side with you,” said Raynil Layan.

“I don’t want you on my side.”

“Well, of course …” He gestured frustratedly, tugged the twin points of his beard. “You see, we have a riddle to resolve. Because it seems that the phagors are returning. Perhaps they will reclaim their old city. That’s my guess.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s simple. You must have heard the rumours. Oldorando’s alive with the rumours. There’s a great force of phagors approaching. Go and talk to the people passing outside the city. The trouble is, Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd will not protect the city, being too involved with their private interests. They’re your enemies—not I. If a strong man killed the lieutenants and took over the city, he could save it. That’s just my suggestion.”

He watched Dathka scrupulously, seeing the play of emotions on his face. He smiled encouragingly, knowing he had talked his way out of being killed.

“I’d help,” he said. “I’m on your side.”

Vry said, “I’m on your side, too, Dathka.”

He shot her one of his darkly glittering looks. “You’d never be on my side. Not if I won all of Embruddock for you.”

Faralin Ferd and Tanth Ein were drinking together in the Two-Sided Tankard. Women, friends, and toadies were with them, enjoying the evening.

The Two-Sided Tankard was one of the few places where laughter could be heard nowadays. The tavern was part of a new administrative building which also housed the new mint. The building had been paid for mainly by rich merchants, some of whom were present with their wives. In the room were furnishings that until recently were unknown in Oldorando—oval tables, sofas, sideboards, rich woven rugs hanging on the walls.

Imported drink flowed, and a fair foreign youth played the hand harp.

The windows were being closed to keep out the chill night air and to shut out an odour of smoke from the alleyways. On the central table, an oil lamp burned. Food lay about, uneaten. One of the merchants was relating a long tale of murder, betrayal, and travel.

Faralin Ferd wore a jacket of suede, untied to reveal a woollen shirt underneath. He rested his elbows on the table, half-listening to the story while his gaze roved about the chamber.

Tanth Ein’s woman, Farayl Musk, padded quietly about, ostensibly to see that a slave was securing the shutters correctly. Farayl Musk was distant kinswoman of both Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd, being descended from the family of Lord Wall Ein Den. Although not exactly beautiful, Farayl Musk had wit and character, which commended her to some people and not to others. She bore a candle in a holder, which she shielded against the draft of her progress with one hand.

The light made her face glow, throwing unexpected shadows on its contours, lending her mystery. She felt Faralin Ferd’s eyes on her, but forebore to return his gaze, knowing the value of feigned indifference. He reflected as he often had done before that he deserved Farayl Musk, rather than his own woman, who bored him. Despite the dangers involved, he had several times made love to her. Now time was short. They might all be dead in a few days; drink did not drown that knowledge. He lusted after her again.

Rising, he stalked abruptly out of the room, casting a significant glance in her direction. The long story was reaching one of its periodic excitements, involving the smothering of a prominent man with the carcass of one of his own sheep. Laughter rose from round the table. Nevertheless, watchful eyes saw the lieutenant disappear—and his fellow lieutenant’s woman made her exit after a discreet interval.

“I thought you wouldn’t dare follow.”

“Curiosity is stronger than cowardice. We’ve only got a moment.”

“Do it with me here, under the stairs. In this corner, look.”

“Standing, Faralin Ferd?”

“Feel this, woman—is it standing or is it not?”

She sighed and leaned against him, clutching what he offered with both hands. He recalled from previous occasions how sweet this woman’s breath was.

“Under the stairs, then.”

She put the candle down on the floor. Ripping open her bodice, she revealed her majestic breasts to him. He set an arm about her and dragged her into the corner, kissing her excitedly.

There they were caught when a party of twelve men under Dathka came in from the street with torches burning and swords naked.

Despite their protests, Farayl Musk and Faralin Ferd were brought forth. They barely had time to draw their clothes together before they were thrust back into the meeting room, where the rest of the lieutenants were already confronted by sword blades.

“This is all lawful,” Dathka said, eyeing them much as a wolf regards kid arang. “I am taking the rule of Embruddock into my own hands until such time as the rightful Lord of Embruddock, Aoz Roon, returns. I am his deposed but oldest- serving lieutenant. I mean to see that the city is properly guarded against invaders.”

Behind him stood Raynil Layan, his sword sheathed. He said loudly, “And I support Dathka Den. Hail, Lord Dathka Den.”

Dathka’s eye had found Tanth Ein, lost in the shadows. The older of the two lieutenants had not risen with the rest. He sat still at his place at the head of the table, arms resting on the chair arm.

“You dare defy me!” Dathka cried, leaping forward with his sword raised, to confront the seated man. “Get to your feet, scumb!”

Tanth Ein never moved, except that a rictus of pain traversed his face as his head jerked back. His eyeballs started to roll. As Dathka kicked at the chair, he slid stiffly to the floor with no attempt at breaking his fall.

“It’s the bone fever!” someone shouted. “It’s among us!”

Farayl Musk began to scream.

By morning, two more lives had gone, and the smell of burning once more tainted the air of Oldorando. Tanth Ein lay in the hospice under Ma Scantiom’s courageous care.

Despite the dread of contagion, a large crowd gathered in Bank Street to hear Dathka’s public proclamation of his rule. Once on a time, such meetings would have been held outside the big tower. Those days had passed away. Bank Street was more spacious and more elegant. On one side of it, a few stalls dotted the bank of the river. Geese still strutted there, aware of their ancient rights. On the other side was a line of new buildings, with the old stone towers rising behind them. Here, a public platform stood.

On the platform stood Raynil Layan, shifting his weight from foot to foot, Faralin Ferd with his arms bound behind him, and six young warriors of Dathka’s guard, armed with sheathed swords and spears, grimly regarding the crowd. Bouquet sellers roved through the people, selling protective nosegays. The pilgrim Takers were there too, dressed in their distinctive black-and-white garb, holding banners urging repentance. Children played on the edge of the crowd, sniggering at the behaviour of their elders.

As the Hour-Whistler blew, Dathka climbed onto the platform and began immediately to address the crowd.

“I am taking up the burden of authority for the sake of the city,” Dathka said. It seemed his old silence had dropped from him. He spoke with eloquence. Yet he stood almost motionless, not gesturing, not using his body to help carry his words, as if the habit of silence had quit nowhere but his tongue. “I have no wish to supplant the true ruler of Embruddock, Aoz Roon. When he returns—if he returns—then what is rightfully his will be rightfully handed back to him. I am his lawful deputy. Those he left in command have abused his power, have cast it in the gutter. I could not stand by and see it. We will have honesty in these bad times.”

“Why’s Raynil Layan beside you then, Dathka?” called a voice from the crowd, and there were other remarks, which Dathka tried to override.

“I know you have complaints. I’ll hear them after—you hear me now. Judge Aoz Roon’s usurping lieutenants. Eline Tal had the courage to go into the wilderness with his lord. The other two creatures stayed at home. Tanth Ein has the fever as his reward. Here stands the third of them, the worst, Faralin Ferd. Look at the way he trembles. When did he ever address you? He was too busy about his sly lascivious ways indoors.

“I’m a hunter, as you know. Laintal Ay and I tamed the Western Veldt. Faralin Ferd will die of the pest like his crony, Tanth Ein. Will you be ruled by corpses? I won’t catch the plague. Intercourse passes on the plague, and I’m free of it.

“My first deed will be to restore guards all round Embruddock, and to train a proper army. As we are at present, we are ripe to fall to any enemy—human or inhuman. Better die in battle than in bed.”

This last remark caused a groundswell of unease. Dathka paused, glaring down at them. Oyre and Dol stood among the people, Dol clutching Rastil Roon in her arms. Oyre cried out loudly as Dathka paused, “You are a usurper. How are you any better than Tanth Ein or Raynil Layan?”

Dathka went to the edge of the platform.

“I steal nothing. I picked up what was dropped.” He pointed at Oyre. “You of all people, Oyre, as the natural daughter of Aoz Roon himself, should know that I will return to your father what is his when he returns. He would wish me to do this.”

“You cannot speak for him while he’s away.”

“I can and do.”

“Then you speak wrongly.”

Others to whom this wrangle meant little, and who cared little about Aoz Roon, also started to shout, calling out complaints. Someone threw an overripe fruit. The guard jostled the crowd, without effect.

Dathka’s face grew pale. He raised his fist above his head in passion.

“Very well, you scumble, then I will tell you publicly what has always been kept silent. I’m not afraid. You think so greatly of Aoz Roon, you think he was so admirable, I’ll tell you the kind of man he was. He was a murderer. Worse, he was a double murderer.”

They fell quiet, their faces upturned to him in a cloud of flesh.

He was shaking now, conscious of what he had started. “How do you think Aoz Roon gained power? By murder, bloody murder, murder by night. There are those of you who will remember Nahkri and Klils, sons of ancient Dresyl, in the days bygone. Nahkri and Klils ruled when Embruddock was just a farmyard. One dark night, Aoz Roon—young then—threw the two brothers off the top of the big tower when they were in their cups. A foul double deed. And who was there as witness, who saw it all? I was there—and so was she—his natural daughter.” He pointed accusingly down at the thin figure of Oyre, now clinging in horror to Dol.

“He’s mad,” a boy shouted on the edge of the crowd. “Dathka’s mad!” People were leaving at a run, or running up. General confusion was breaking out, and a struggle developing in one corner of the mob.

Raynil Layan tried to rally the crowd, bringing up his powerful pale presence to shout in a large voice, “Support us and we will support you. We will guard Oldorando.”

All this while, Faralin Ferd had been standing silent at the rear of the platform, arms bound, in the grip of a guard. He saw his moment.

“Throw Dathka out!” he shouted. “He never had Aoz Roon’s approval and he shall not have ours!”

Dathka turned about with a hunter’s rapid movement, drawing his curved dagger as he did so. He flung himself on the lieutenant. A high scream came from Farayl Musk, somewhere in the crowd, at the same time as several voices took up the cry, “Throw Dathka out!”

They fell silent almost immediately, stilled by Dathka’s sudden action. In the hush, smoke drifted across the scene. Nobody moved. Dathka stood rigid, back to his audience. For a moment, Faralin Ferd was also still. Then he threw up his head and gave a choking groan. Blood gushed from his mouth. He sagged, and the guard let him fall at Dathka’s feet.

Then there was uproar. Blood gave the whole crowd voice.

“You fool, they’ll slaughter us,” Raynil Layan shouted. He ran to the back of the platform and jumped down. Before anyone could stop him, he was disappearing down a side street.

The guard ran about, ignoring Dathka’s commands, as the mob closed on the platform. Farayl Musk was screaming for Dathka’s arrest. Seeing that it was all over, he also jumped from the platform and ran.

At the rear of the crowd, by the stalls, the small boys jumped up and down, clapping their hands in excitement. The crowd began to riot, finding rioting more lively than death.

For Dathka, there was nothing but to make an ignominious escape. He ran panting, gasping, muttering incoherently, through the deserted streets, his three shadows—penumbral, umbral, penumbral—changing their topology at his feet. His scuttling thoughts similarly dilated and shrank, as he tried to evade the knowledge of his failure, to retch up his disaster from inside him.

Strangers passed him, their belongings loaded on an archaic sledge. An old man, helping a child along, called to him, “The fuggies are coming.”

He heard the sound of people running behind him—the mob, avenging. There was one place he could go to for refuge, one person, one hope. Cursing her, he ran to Vry.

She was back in her old tower. She sat in a kind of dream, aware—and frightened of her awareness—that Embruddock was moving to a crisis. When he hammered on her door, she let him in almost with relief. She stood there with neither sympathy nor derision as Dathka collapsed weeping on her bed.

“It’s a mess,” she said. “Where’s Raynil Layan?” He went on weeping, striking the bedding with his fist.

“Stop it,” she said mildly. She walked about the room, gazing up at the stained ceiling. “We live in such a mess. I wish I were free of emotion. Human beings are such messes. We were better when the snow contained us, frozen, when we had no … hope! I wish there were only knowledge, pure knowledge, no emotion.”

He sat up. “Vry—”

“Don’t speak to me. You have nothing for me, and never had, you must accept that. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to know what you’ve done.”

Geese set up a great honking outside.

He sat on the bed, yawned. “You’re only half a woman. You’re cold. I’ve always known it, yet I couldn’t stop feeling as I did about you…”

“Cold? … You fool, I steam like a rajabaral.”

The noise in the street was louder, loud enough for them to catch the note of individual voices. Dathka ran to the window.

Where were his men now? The people who poured out of nearby alleys were all strangers to him. He could not see one familiar face—none of his men, no Raynil Layan—not that that surprised him—not even one citizen he could identify. Once on a time, every face had been known to him. Strangers were calling for his blood. Real fear entered his heart, as if his only ambition had been to die at the hand of a friend. To be hated by strangers … it was intolerable. He leaned from the window and shook his fist in defiance, cursing them.

The faces tipped upwards, opening in the middle almost in unison, like a shoal of fish. They roared and jibbered.

Before that noise, he dropped his fist and shrank back, not meaning to be quelled but quelled nevertheless. He leaned against the wall and examined his rough hands, with blood still moist in the nails.

Only when he heard Vry’s voice below did he realise she had left the room. She had flung open the door of the tower and was standing on the platform, addressing the people. The mob surged forward as those at the rear pressed in to hear what she said. Some called out mockingly, but were silenced by others. Her voice, clear and sharp, flew above their tousled heads.

“Why don’t you stop and think what you’re doing? You’re not animals. Try to be human. If we are to die, let us die with human dignity, and not with our hands round one another’s throats.

“You are aware of suffering. Both the suffering and the awareness are your badges of humanity. Be proud, rot you—die with that knowledge. Remember the waiting world of the gossies below, where there is only gnashing of teeth because the dead feel disgust for their own lives. Isn’t that a terrible thing? Doesn’t it seem to you a terrible thing, to feel disgust—disgust and contempt—for your own lives? Transform your own life from within. Never mind external weather, if it snows or rains or shines, never mind that, accept it, but work to transform your inner self. Create calm in your soul. Take thought. Would Dathka or his murder have the power to cure your personal predicament? Only you have that.

“You think things are going badly. I must warn you that more challenges are to come. I tell you this with the full weight of the academy behind me. Tomorrow, tomorrow at noon, the third and worst of the Twenty Blindnesses is due. Nothing can stop it. Mankind has no power over the skies. What will you do then? Will you run madly through the streets, cutting throats, smashing things, firing what your betters built—as if you were worse than phagors? Decide now how filthy, how low, you will be tomorrow!”

They looked at one another and murmured. No one shouted. She waited, instinctively seizing on the right moment at which to launch in again on a new tack.

“Years ago, the sorceress Shay Tal addressed the inhabitants of Oldorando. I remember her words clearly, for I revered everything she said. She offered us the treasure of knowledge. That treasure can be yours if only you will be humble and dare to reach out your hands for it.

“Understand what I tell you. Tomorrow’s blindness is no supernatural event. What is it? It is merely the two sentinels passing one another, those two suns you have known since birth. This world of ours is round as they are round. Imagine how large a ball our world must be for us not to fall off it—yet it is small compared with the sentinels. They look small merely because they are so far away.

“Shay Tal, when she spoke, said that there was a disaster in the past. I believe that is not the case. We have added to her knowledge. Wutra has disposed of his world so that everything works through continuous action in all the parts. Your hair grows on your head and body as the suns rise and set. These are not separate actions but one in Wutra’s eyes. Our world travels in a circle round Batalix, and there are other worlds like ours which behave likewise. At the same time, Batalix travels in a greater circle round about Freyr. You have to accept that our farmyard is not at the centre of the universe.”

Their murmurs of protest grew louder. Vry overrode them by pitching her voice higher.

“Do you understand that? Understanding is harder than slitting throats, isn’t it? To comprehend fully what I tell you, you must first understand and then grasp the understanding with your imagination, so that the facts live. Our year is four hundred and eighty days long, that we know. That is the time we take on Hrl-Ichor to make a complete circle about Batalix. But there is another circle to be made, the circle of Batalix and our world about Freyr. Are you prepared to hear the word? It takes eighteen hundred and twenty-five small years… Imagine that great year!” They were quiet now, staring at her, the new sorceress.

“Until our day, few could imagine it! For each of us can expect only forty years of life. It would take forty-six of our lifetimes to add up to one whole circle of this world about Freyr. Many of our lives find no echo, yet are part of that greater thing. That is why such knowledge is difficult to grasp and easy to lose in time of trouble.”

She was seized up by her new power, seduced by her own eloquence.

“What is the trouble, what is this disaster of which Shay Tal told us, large enough to make us mislay such important knowledge? Why, simply that the light of Freyr varies according to the time of the great year. We have come through many generations of poor light, of winter, when the earth lay dead under snow. Tomorrow you should rejoice when the eclipse comes—the blindness, when distant Freyr slips behind Batalix—for it is a sign that Freyr’s light grows nearer… We enter spring of the great year tomorrow. Rejoice! Have the sense, the knowledge, to rejoice! Throw away the mess of your lives that ignorance causes, and rejoice! Better times are coming for all of us.”

Shoatapraxi deflected them. The woody grass had been growing in clumps as they approached lower ground. The clumps became thickets. Now they tried to find their way through a region choked with it.

The vegetation rose above their heads. It was broken only by drumlins, up which it was possible to climb occasionally in order to get a bearing. With the shoatapraxi was entwined a thin-stemmed bramble, making progress both difficult and painful. The phagor army ahead had travelled another way. They were forced to follow the more meandering tracks of animals, yet the going remained bad for the yelk. They were nervous of the grass, as if disliking its pungent scent; their sweeping horns caught on the hollow stems, and the thorns underfoot penetrated to the softer parts of their hooves. So the men dismounted, leading their necrogenes as they progressed on foot.

“How much farther, barbarian?” Skitosherill asked.

“Not far, ” Laintal Ay responded. It was his stock answer to the stock question. They had slept uncomfortably in the forest, rising at dawn with frost in their clothes. He felt refreshed, still rejoicing in his lighter form, but he saw how weary the others were becoming. Aoz Roon was a shadow of what he had once been; in the night, he had called out in a strange language.

They came to marshy ground, where, to everybody’s relief, the shoatapraxi thinned. After pausing to see that all was quiet, they moved on, scattering flights of small birds before them. Ahead loomed a valley, with soft mounds rising on either side. They went that way, rather than moving on to higher ground, chiefly because of their fatigue; but as soon as they entered the neck of the valley, they were assailed by a chill wind, which rushed at them like an animal and bit to their bones. It was a time for struggling on grimly, with the head down.

The wind brought fog with it. The fog curled about their bodies, though their heads were above it. Laintal Ay understood the wind, knowing that a layer of cold air poured down like water from the distant mountains on their left flank, down over the mounds into the valley, seeking lower ground. It was a local wind; the sooner they left its numbing grip, the better.

Skitosherill’s wife gave a faint cry and halted, leaning against her yelk and burying her face against her arm.

Skitosherill returned to her concernedly and placed a grey-clad arm round her. The icy air wrapped his cloak about his leg.

He looked worriedly up at Laintal Ay. “She can’t go on,” he said.

“We’ll die if we stay here.”

Dashing the moisture from his eyes, he looked forward. In a few hours, he realised, the valley would be warm and harmless. At present it was a death trap. They were in shadow. The light of the two suns slanted across the left slope of the valley above their heads; the light lay in thick vertical bars, where the shadows were cast of giant rajabarals which stood on the opposite crest. The rajabarals were steaming already in the morning sunshine, the vapour pouring up into the sky, casting a rolling shadow.

He knew this place. Its configurations had been familiar to him when snow clothed it. It was normally a welcoming place—the last pass before a hunter gained the plains on the edge of which Oldorando stood. He was too cold even to shiver, body heat snatched by the wind. They could not continue. Skitosherill’s wife still leaned sickly against the flank of the necrogene; now that she had given way, her maidservant also felt able to release her miseries and stood screaming with her back to the tide of air.

“We’ll get up among the rajabarals,” he said, shouting the words into Skitosherill’s ear. Skitosherill nodded, still involved with his wife, whom he was trying to help up into the saddle.

“Mount, all of you,” Laintal Ay called.

As he shouted, a flutter of white caught his eye.

Above the hillside on their left flank, cowbirds appeared, fighting the cold downdraught, their feathers flickering from white to grey as they rode in the shadows of the rajabarals opposite. Below the birds was a line of phagors. They were warriors; they carried spears at the ready. They moved to the edge of the mound, to poise themselves there as steady as boulders. They looked down at the humans embroiled in the tumbling mists below.

“Fast, fast, up, before we’re attacked!” As he shouted, he saw Aoz Roon was staring up at the brutes, without expression, making no move.

He ran to him, clouting him across the back. “Up. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Aoz Roon said something harsh in his throat.

“You’re enchanted, man, you’ve learnt some of their accursed language and it’s rendered you powerless.”

By force, he heaved his friend into his saddle. The scout did the same with the servant woman, who was sobbing in terror.

“Up the slope to the rajabarals,” Laintal Ay shouted. He slapped Aoz Roon’s mare across its shaggy rump as he ran back to mount his own. Reluctantly, the animals started to climb. They made little response to heels in their ribs; a hoxney would have been lighter and faster.

“They won’t attack us,” the Sibornalan said. “We’ll give them the maidservant if there’s trouble.”

“Our mounts. They will kill us for our mounts. To ride or for food. You stay behind and haggle if you wish.”

With a sick look, Skitosherill shook his head and swung himself into his saddle.

He went first up the slope, leading his wife’s beast. The scout and the maidservant followed close behind. Then there was a gap as Aoz Roon listlessly rode his yelk, allowing it to stray away from the others, despite Laintal Ay’s shouts to keep together. He brought up the rear with the pack yelk, frequently casting glances back at the eminence behind them.

The phagors did not move. It would not be the cold wind that worried them; they were creatures of the cold. Their immobility need not imply decision. It was impossible to know what the brutes thought.

So they mounted the rise. They were soon out of the wind, to their great relief, and tugging with urgency on their reins.

As they came over the brow of the hill, the sunlight shone into their eyes. Both suns, near enough to look amid their dazzle as if linked, glittered between the trunks of the great trees. Just for a moment, dancing figures could be seen in the heart of the gold, lightly tripping—Others at a mysterious festivity; then they vanished as if the acid glory of light had inexplicably dissolved them. The party drew into the protection of the smooth columns, still gasping with cold. With the canopy of steam overhead, it was almost as if they had entered a hall of the gods. There were about thirty of the massive trees. Beyond them lay open ground and the way to Oldorando.

The phagor detachment moved. From complete immobility, it sprang into total action. The brutes came plodding concertedly down the slope on which they had remained poised. Only one of their kind was astride a kaidaw. He led. The cowbirds stayed shrieking above the valley.

Desperately, Laintal Ay looked about for a refuge. There was none, except that offered by the rajabarals. The rajabarals themselves were emitting internal rumbling. He drew his sword and spurred over to where the Sibornalan was lowering his wife from her mount.

“We’ll have to stand and fight. Are you prepared for that? They’ll be on us in a minute or two.”

Skitosherill looked up at him with agony etched in every line of his face. His mouth was open in a kind of snarl of anguish.

“She has the bone fever, she will die,” he said.

His wife’s eyes were glazed, her body stiffly contorted.

With an impatient gesture of dismissal, Laintal Ay called to the scout, “You and I then. Look lively—here they come.”

For answer, the scout gave him a villainous grin, at the same time making a gesture with his finger of slitting windpipes. Laintal Ay was grimly encouraged.

He cast about furiously by the base of the trees, looking for earths down which the Others had disappeared, thinking that here somewhere near at hand might be refuge—refuge and a snoktruix; but never his snoktruix, never again.

Despite their abrupt retreat, the Others had left no trace. Well, then there was no alternative to fighting. No doubt they must die. He would not expire until his breath could escape from every wound he received from the spears of the ancipitals.

With the scout by his side, he went to the edge of the mound to challenge the enemy as they appeared.

Behind him, the rumble in the rajabarals grew louder. The mighty trees had ceased to pour out steam and were making a noise like thunder. Below him, the first slanting rays of the linked suns had penetrated almost to the bottom of the valley, where they lit the spectacle of the phagors fording the katabatic wind, their sturdy bodies enmeshed in writhing fog, the stiff hairs of their coats stirred in their progress. They looked upwards and gave a churring cry at the sight of the two humans. They began to move up the hill.

This incident was witnessed from the Earth Observation Station and, a thousand years later, by those who came on sandalled feet to the great auditoria on Earth. Those auditoria were fuller now than they had been at any time over the last century. People who went to view that enormous electronic recreation of a reality that had not been real for many centuries were wishing in their hearts that the humans whose lives they had followed would survive—always using the future tense, which comes naturally to homo sapiens, even for such events as this, so long past.

From their privileged viewpoint, they saw beyond the incident among the grove of rajabarals, across the rolling plain where Fish Lake had once enshrined its terrifying statuary, to Oldorando itself.

And all that landscape was dotted with figures. The young kzahhn was preparing at last to descend upon the city that had torn both life and tether from his illustrious grandstallun. He awaited only the sign. Although his force was arrayed in no great military order, but rather disposed itself like so many herds of cattle, not always looking to the front, numbers alone made it formidable. It would roll across ancient Embruddock, and then roll remorselessly on towards the southwest coasts of the continent of Campannlat, to the very cliffs of the eastern Climent Ocean, to cross if possible to Hespagorat, and the rocky ancestral homelands of Pagovin.

Because of this nonhomogeneous disposition of the phagor crusade, it was still possible for travellers—refugees mainly—to move among the various herds and components without molestation, while hurrying in the direction from which the crusade had come. Generally, these fearful parties were led by Madis, sensitive to the air-octaves avoided by the hulking beasts under Hrr-Brahl Yprt’s banner. One such party had the fork-bearded Raynil Layan pushing a timid Madi before him. It passed close by the young kzahhn himself, but the latter, immobile, gave no flicker of interest.

The young kzahhn stood against the eroded flanks of Rukk-Ggrl and communed with those in tether, his father and his great-grandstallun, hearing once more their advice and instruction in his pale harneys. Behind him stood his generals and then his two surviving gillots. He had serviced the gillots rarely but, given favourable fortunes, the time would come again. First must the two future octaves of victory or death be unravelled; if he travelled down the octave of victory, there would be music for mating. He waited without motion, occasionally sliding his milt up the slots of his nostrils under the black fuzz of his muzzle. The sign would come in the heavens, the air-octaves would convulse themselves into a knot, and he and those whom he commanded would surge forward to burn down that ancient damned city, once Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk.

Across this ancient battlefield, where man and phagor had encountered each other more frequently than either side knew, Laintal Ay and the Sibornalan scout stood with their swords ready to greet the first phagors to climb the mound. Behind them, the noise of the rajabarals was like thunder. Aoz Roon and the maidservant crouched by one of the boles, supinely awaiting whatever befell. Skitosherill laid down the rigid body of his wife tenderly, tenderly, shielding her face from the blinding double sun now climbing towards zenith. Then he ran to join his two fellows, drawing his sword as he did so.

The uphill climb disrupted the line of phagors, the fitter arriving at the top first. As the leader charged into view, head and shoulders appearing over the slope, Laintal Ay ran forward. In despatching them one by one lay their only hope—he had counted thirty-five or more of the brutes, and refused to reckon the hopeless odds.

Up came the phagor’s throwing arm. It bent back to what to a human was a disconcerting angle, but Laintal Ay dived under the point of the spear, rendering it useless, and stabbed with a straight arm. His elbow took the shock as the blade grated against rib. As yellow blood spurted from the wound, to his mind came the old hunters’ tale that ancipital intestines were situated above their lungs; he had proved its truth when he skinned the phagor to deceive its kaidaw.

The phagor threw back its long boney head, lips peeling back from yellow teeth in a gesture of agony. It fell, and went rolling down the slope, to lie at the bottom in the dispersing mists.

But the other brutes were at the breast of the rise now, closing in. The Sibornalan scout was fighting valiantly, every now and again gasping a curse in his native tongue. With a yell, Laintal Ay flung himself into the fray again.

The world exploded.

The noise was so sharp, so close, that fighting immediately stopped. A second explosion came. Black stones flew overhead, most of them landing somewhere on the far side of the valley. Pandemonium ensued.

Each side was governed by its own instincts: the phagors became immobile, the two humans threw themselves flat on the ground.

Their timing was perfect. Concurrent explosions sounded. The black stones flew everywhere. Several hit phagors, carrying them immediately over the brink, scattering their dying bodies. The rest of the phagors turned tail and ran back into the valley for safety, rolling, slipping, sliding, in their haste to escape. The cowbirds flew screeching across the sky.

Laintal Ay sprawled where he was, hands over his ears, looking upwards in terror. The rajabarals were splitting from the top, cracking and peeling open like exploding casks, their staves falling. In the autumn of Helliconia’s last great year, they had retracted their enormous fruit-bearing branches into the top of their trunks, sealing the crown over with a cap of resin until the vernal equinox. Over the winter centuries, internal heat pumps, drawing up warmth through the root system from rocks far below, had been preparing the way for this mighty explosion.

The tree above Laintal Ay burst with furious noise. He watched the seeds expelled. Some flew upwards, most were shot out on all sides. The force of the ejaculation threw the black projectiles as much as a half mile away. Steam rolled everywhere.

When silence fell, eleven of the trees had exploded. As their blackened casings peeled back from the top, a more slender crown thrust up inside, whitish, topped by green growth.

That green growth was destined to spread until the grove, which had consisted merely of polished columns, became roofed over in brilliant green foliage, shielding the roots from the more savage suns that were to come, in the days when Helliconia moved close to Freyr—too close to be comfortable for man, beast, or vegetation. Whoever lived or died under their shade, the rajabarals had their own form of life to protect.

These rajabarals formed part of the vegetation of the new world, the world that came into existence after Freyr swam into the clouded skies of Helliconia. Together with the new animals, they were set in ceaseless ecological competition with the orders of the old world, when Batalix ruled in isolation. The binary system had created a binary biology.

The seeds, a mottled black in colour, designed to resemble stones, were each as big as a human head. Over the course of the next six hundred thousand days, some would survive to become adult trees.

Laintal Ay kicked one carelessly away, and went over to see to the scout. The latter had been wounded, pierced by a sharp-edged phagor blade. Skitosherill and Laintal Ay helped him back to where Aoz Roon and the maidservant stood. He was in a bad way, bleeding freely. They squatted helplessly by his side as the life drained from his eddre.

Skitosherill began to go into an elaborate religious ritual, whereon Laintal Ay jumped up angrily.

“We must get to Embruddock as soon as possible, don’t you understand? Leave the body here. Leave the woman with your wife. Press on with me and Aoz Roon. Time’s running out.”

Skitosherill gestured to the body. “I owe him this. It will take a while but it must be done according to the faith.”

“The fuggies may return. They don’t get scared easily, and we can hardly hope for another turn of fortune like the last. I am going to press on with Aoz Roon.”

“You’ve done well, barbarian. Go forward, and perhaps we will meet again.”

As Laintal Ay turned to go, he paused and looked back. “I’m sorry about your wife.” Aoz Roon had had the sense to keep hold of two of the yelk when the rajabarals exploded. The other animals had galloped away in fright. “Are you fit to ride?” “Yes, I’m fit. Help me, Laintal Ay. I’ll recover. To learn the language of the phagor kind is to see the world differently. I’ll recover.”

“Mount and let’s be off. I’m afraid that we may be too late to warn Embruddock.”

They rode off rapidly, one behind the other, leaving the shade of the grove where the grey Sibornalan knelt in prayer.

The two yelk proceeded steadily, heads held low, eyes staring vacantly forward. When they dropped their scumble, beetles emerged from the ground and rolled the treasure to underground stores, inadvertently planting the seeds of future forests.

Seeing was bad, because of the way the plain rippled with ridge after ridge. More stone monuments dotted the landscapes, ages old, their circular signs eroded by weather or ripicolous lichens. Laintal Ay pressed ahead, alert for trouble, ever turning back to urge Aoz Roon to keep up.

The plain contained its travelling groups, moving in all directions, but he gave them as wide a berth as possible. They passed fleshless corpses to some of which garments still clung; fat birds sat by these memorials to life, and once they sighted a slinking sabre-tongue.

A cold front rose like a shawl behind their shoulders to the north and east. Where the sky remained clear, Freyr and Batalix clung together, their discs inseparable. The yelk had passed the site of Fish Lake, where a cairn had been erected to mark Shay Tal’s miracle in the vanished waters, many winters ago; they were climbing over one of the tiresome ridges, when a wind rose. The world began to grow dark.

Laintal Ay dismounted and stood fondling the muzzle of his yelk. Aoz Roon remained despondently in the saddle.

The eclipse was beginning. Once more, exactly as Vry had predicted, Batalix was taking a phagor bite from the brilliant outline of Freyr. The process was slow and inexorable, and would result in Freyr’s being lost entirely for five and a half hours. Not so many miles away, the kzahhn had his needed sign.

The suns were devouring their own light. A terrible fear took hold of Laintal Ay, freezing his eddre. For a moment stars blazed in the day sky. Then he closed his eyes and clung to the yelk, burying his face in its rusty pelage. The Twenty Blindnesses were upon him, and he cried in his heart to Wutra to win the war in his heavens.

But Aoz Roon looked up to the sky with awe blunting his thin features, and exclaimed, “Now Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk will die!”

Time seemed to cease. Slowly, the brighter light faded behind the duller. The day took on the greyness of a corpse.

Laintal Ay pulled himself from his dread and took Aoz Roon by his skeletal shoulders, searching that familiar but transformed countenance. “What did you say to me then?”

Aoz Roon said dazedly, “I’ll be all right, I’ll be myself again.”

“I asked you what you said.”

“Yes… You know how the stench of them, that milky smell, clings to everything. Their language is the same. It makes everything different. I was with Yhamm-Whrrmar a half air-turn, talking with him. Many things. Things of which my Olonets-speaking intelligence can make no sense.”

“Never mind that. What did you say about Embruddock?”

“It is something that Yhamm-Whrrmar knew would happen as certainly as if it were past, not future. That phagors would destroy Embruddock—”

“I must go on. Follow if you wish. I must return and warn everyone. Oyre—Dathka—”

Aoz Roon grasped his arms with sudden force.

“Wait, Laintal Ay. A moment and I’ll be myself. I had the bone fever. I knocked myself out. Cold nailed my heart.”

“You never made excuses for others. Now you make excuses for yourself.”

Something of the older man’s qualities returned to his face as he stared at Laintal Ay. “You are one of the good men, you bear my mark, I have been your lord. Listen. All I say is what I never thought of till I was on that island half an air-turn. The generations are born and fly their course, then they drop to the world below. There’s no escape from it. Only to have a good word said after all’s over.”

“I’ll speak well of you, but you’re not dead yet, man.”

“The ancipital race knows that their time is done. Better times come for men and women. Sun, flowers, soft things. After we’re forgotten. Till all Hrl-Ichor Yhar’s frame is empty.”

Laintal Ay pushed him away, cursing, not understanding what was said.

“Never mind tomorrow and all that. The world hangs on now. I’m riding to Embruddock.”

He climbed again into the saddle of the yelk and kicked it into action. With the lethargic movements of a man rousing from a dream, Aoz Roon followed suit.

The greyness was settling in thicker, like fermentation. In another hour, Freyr was half-devoured, and the hush became more intense. The two men passed groups petrified by dusk.

Later in their progress, they sighted a man approaching on foot. He was running slowly but steadily, arms and legs pumping. He stopped on top of a ridge and stared at them, tensed to run away. Laintal Ay rested his right hand on his sword handle.

Even through the twilight, there was no mistaking that portly figure, the leonine head with its forked beard dramatically flecked with grey. Laintal Ay called his name and moved his mount forward.

It took Raynil Layan some while to be convinced of Laintal Ay’s identity, still more for him to recognise the skeletal Aoz Roon with no sparkle in his eyes. He came cautiously round the antlers of the yelk to grasp Laintal Ay’s wrist with a damp hand.

“I shall be one with our forefathers if I take another step. You’ve both endured the bone fever and survived. I may not be so lucky. Exertion makes it worse, they say—sexual exertion or otherwise.” He held his chest and panted. “Oldorando’s rotten with pest. I’ve failed to escape in time, fool that I am. That’s what these revolting signs mean in the sky. I’ve sinned—though I’m by no means as bad as you, Aoz Roon. Those religious pilgrims spoke true. It’s the gossies for me.”

He sank to the ground, puffing and holding his head in misery. He rested an elbow on a pack he had been carrying.

“Tell me what news of the city,” Laintal Ay said impatiently.

“Ask me nothing, let me be… Let me die.”

Laintal Ay dismounted and kicked the lord of the mint in the buttocks.

“What of the city—besides the pest?”

Raynil Layan turned his red face upwards. “Enemies within… As if the visitations of the fever were not enough, your worthy friend, the other Lord of the Western Veldt, has been trying to usurp Aoz Roon’s position. I despair of human nature.”

He dipped his hand into a purse hanging by his belt, and brought out some bright gold coins, roons freshly minted at his mint.

“Let me buy your yelk, Laintal Ay. You’re within an hour of home and scarcely need it. But I need it…”

“Give me more news, rot you. What of Dathka, is he dead?”

“Who knows? Probably so by now—I left last night.”

“And the phagor components ahead? How did you get through them—buying your way?”

Raynil Layan gestured with one hand while he tucked his money away with the other. “Plenty of them between us and the city. I had a Madi as a guide, who avoided them. Who can tell what they may be up to, filthy things.” As if struck by a sudden recollection, he added, “Understand that I left, not of course for my own sake, but for the sake of those I had a duty to protect. Others of my party are behind me. We had our hoxneys stolen almost as soon as we set out yesterday, and so our progress—”

Growling like an animal, Laintal Ay seized the other’s coat and dragged him to his feet.

“Others? Others? Who’s with you? Who are you running away from, you bladder? Is Vry there?”

A wry face. “Let me go. She prefers her astronomy, I’m sad to relate. She’s still in the city. Be grateful to me, Laintal Ay, I have rescued friends and indeed relations of yours and Aoz Roon’s. So bestow on me your insufferable yelk…”

“I’ll settle with you later.” He pushed Raynil Layan aside and jumped on the yelk. Spurring it fiercely, he crossed the ridge and rode forward to the next one, calling.

On the syncline of the ridge, he found three people and a small boy sheltering. A Madi guide lay with his face buried in the bank, still overcome by the stigmata in the sky. Beside him were Dol, clinging to Rastil Roon, and Oyre. The boy was crying. The two women gazed at Laintal Ay in terror as he dismounted and went forward to them. Only when he clung to them and called their names did they recognise him.

Oyre too had been through the eye of the fever needle. They stood and surveyed each other, smiling and exclaiming at their skeletal selves. Then she gave a laugh and a cry at the same time, and snuggled into his arms. While they stood together, faces against each other’s flesh, Aoz Roon came forward, clutched his small son’s chubby wrist, and embraced Dol. Tears poured down his ravaged face.

The women related some of the recent painful history of Oldorando; Oyre explained Dathka’s unsuccessful attempt to take over the leadership. Dathka was still in the city, together with many others. When Raynil Layan had come to Oyre and Dol, offering to escort them to safety, they had accepted his offer. Though they suspected the man was really fleeing to save his own skin, such was their fear that Rastil Roon would catch the pest that they accepted Raynil Layan’s offer, and had left hurriedly with him. Because of his inexperience, their goods and mounts had been stolen almost immediately by Borlienian brigands. “And the phagors? They’re going to attack the city?” All the women could say was that the city still stood, despite the chaos within its walls. And there had certainly been massed ranks of the dreadful fuggies outside the city as they slipped away. “I shall have to go back.”

“Then I return with you—I’m not leaving you again, my precious,” Oyre said. “Raynil Layan can do as he pleases. Dol and the boy stay with father.”

As they stood talking, clutching each other, smoke drifted across the plains from the west. They were too involved, too happy, to notice.

“The sight of my son revives me,” Aoz Roon said, hugging the child and drying his eyes on his sleeve. “Dol, if you are able to let the past die, I’ll be a better man to you from now on.”

“You speak words of regret, Father,” Oyre said. “I should be the first to do that. I know now how wilfully I behaved to Laintal Ay, and almost lost him as a consequence.”

As he saw the tears come to her eyes, Laintal Ay thought involuntarily of his snoktruix in the earth below the rajabarals, and reflected that it was only through Oyre’s nearly having lost him that they were now able to find each other. He soothed her, but she burst out of his grasp, saying, “Forgive me, and I’ll be yours—and wilful no more, I swear.

He clasped her, smiling. “Keep your will. It’s needed. We have much else to learn, and must change as times change. I’m grateful to you for understanding, for making me act.”

They clung lovingly together, clutching each other’s skeletal bodies, kissing each others’ fragile lips.

The Madi guide began to come to his senses. He got up and called for Raynil Layan, but the master of the mint had fled. The smoke was thicker now, adding its ashes to the ashen sky.

Aoz Roon started to relate his experiences on the island to Dol, but Laintal Ay interrupted.

“We’re united again, and that is miraculous. But Oyre and I must return to Embruddock in all haste. We’ll surely be needed there.”

The two sentinels were lost in cloud. A breeze was rising, troubling the plain. It was the breeze, blowing from the direction of Embruddock, which carried the news of fire. Now the smoke became denser. It became a shroud, dimming the living beings—whether friend or foe—scattered across the expanses of plain. Everything was enveloped. With the smoke came the stench of burning. Flights of geese winged eastwards overhead.

The human figures clustering about two antlered animals represented between them three generations. They began to move across the landscape as it faded from view. They would survive, though everyone else perished, though the kzahhn triumphed, for that was what befell.

Even in the flames consuming Embruddock, new configurations were being born. Behind the ancipital mask of Wutra, Shiva—god of destruction and regeneration—was furiously at work on Helliconia.

The eclipse was total now.