Helliconia Spring

II • THE PAST THAT WAS LIKE A DREAM

Laintal Ay, overcome by warmth and fatigue, fell asleep long before the celebrations were over. The stories went on over his head, much as the winds blew about the planet, in a cold fury of possession.

The stories were of the activities of men, above all of his heroism, of the way he killed such-and-such a devil animal, of the way enemies were defeated, and in particular—on this eveninig after the burial—of how the first Yuli had come down out of darkness to found a new way of life.

Yuli captured their imaginations because he had been a holy man, yet had rejected faith in favour of his people. He had battled with and defeated gods who now had no name.

An elemental quality in Yuli’s character, something between ruthlessness and fair-mindedness, awoke a response in the tribe. His legend grew in their minds. So that even his great-grandson, another Yuli, “Little” Yuli, could ask himself in times of stress, “What would Yuli have done?”

That first place he named Oldorando, to which he went with Iskador from the mountain, did not prosper. It could do no more than survive. It existed precariously on the edge of a frozen lake, Lake Dorzin, and could merely bow beneath the elemental furies of winter, unaware that those furies were about to exhaust themselves. Of that, there was no hint in Yuli’s lifetime. Perhaps that was another reason why the present generation in the stone towers of Embruddock liked to speak of him: he was their ancestor who lived in deep winter. He represented their survival. Their legends were the first part of their awareness to admit of the possibility of a change in climate.

Together with the towns hived in the great mountain ranges of the Quzint, that first wooden Oldorando lay close to the equator, in the middle of the extensive tropical continent of Campannlat. Of the concept of that continent, nobody in Yuli’s time had knowledge, their world was limited by the hunting territory and the encampment. Only Yuli had experience of the tundras and zastrugi which stretched away to the north of the Quzint. Only Yuli had experience of the foothills of that enormous natural feature which formed the western end of the continent, known as the Barriers. There, among fast-moving frosts, volcanoes situated over four thousand metres above sea level added their own kind of intransigence to the weather, spreading a lava plateau over the ancient impact rocks of Helliconia.

He was spared knowledge of the awesome territories of Nktryhk.

To the east of Campannlat looms the Eastern Range. Hidden from the eyes of Yuli and all other men behind cloud and storm, the earth here gathers itself up into range after enormous mountain range, culminating in a volcanic shield across which glaciers grind their way down from peaks over fourteen thousand metres high. Here the elements of fire and earth and air existed almost in their pure form, held in a cold fury too great to permit a mellowing into alloys less opposed. Yet even here, at a slightly later date—by the time of the death of Little Yuli—even on ice sheets penetrating almost to the stratosphere, ancipital life might be observed, clinging to existence, rejoicing in the storm.

The howling white wilderness of the Eastern Shield was known to the phagors. They called it Nktryhk, and believed it to be the throne of a white wizard who would cast the Sons of Freyr, the hated man-things, out of the world.

Stretching north and south for almost three and a half thousand miles, Nktryhk separated the inner part of the continent from the chill eastern seas. Those seas lashed against the cliffs of Nktryhk, which reared precipitously eighteen hundred metres above the waters. The waves turned to ice as they burst upwards, bearding the cliffs with icicles or falling back to the swell as hail. Of this the scattered human tribes knew nothing.

Those generations lived by the hunt. The hunt formed the subject matter of most of the stories to be told. Although hunters hunted together and helped each other, ultimately the hunt concerned one man’s courage as he faced alone the savage beast who turned to confront him. Either he lived or he died. And if he lived, then others might live, the women and children back in safety. If he died, the tribe died, very likely.

So Yuli’s people, that small band by the frozen lake, lived as they had to, as committed as animals to their mode of existence. The listeners to the story enjoyed accounts of the lake settlement. There, fish were trapped in ways still so minutely described that the methods had been imitated in the Voral. Heads of deer were thrown into melt holes by the river’s edge to collect much-relished eels, just as Yuli had once done.

Yuli’s people also fought giant stungebags, killed deer and savage boar, and defended themselves against phagor raids. Depending on season, quick crops of barley and rye were grown. The blood of enemies was drunk.

Men and women produced few children. In Oldorando, they matured by the age of seven years and were ageing by the time they were twenty. Even when they laughed and rejoiced, frost stood by their elbows.

The first Yuli, the frozen lake, the phagors, the intense cold, the past that was like a dream: these vivid elements of legend were known to everyone, and often retold. For the little herd of people who sheltered out their lives in Embruddock were confined in ways to which that confinement blinded them. At puberty, they were each stitched into the skins of animals; the animals enfolded them. But dreams, and the past that was like a dream, gave them extra dimensions in which they could all live.

Huddled close in Nahkri’s and Klils’ tower, after Little Yuli’s funeral, everyone took pleasure once more in sharing in the past that was like a dream. To make the past more vivid, or perhaps to dim the present, everyone drank rathel, dispensed by Nahkri’s slaves. Rathel was the most highly valued liquid in Embruddock, after red blood.

Little Yuli’s funeral gave them the chance to break the unvarying routine of life, and to live imaginatively. So the great tale of the past, of two tribes uniting, even as man and woman unite, was again retold. The tale was passed from mouth to mouth, much like the rathel mug, one narrator taking over from the next with hardly a pause.

The children of the tribe were present, eyes gleaming in the smouldering light, as they sipped rathel from their parents’ wooden mugs. The tale they heard was called familiarly the Great Tale. At any festival, not merely at a burial or a coming of age, or at the festival of the Double Sunset, someone would be sure to cry, as darkness came slanting in, “Let’s have the Great Tale!”

It was a history of their past, and much more than that. It was all the art the tribe had. Music they lacked, and painting, and literature, and almost anything fine. What had existed, the cold had devoured. But there remained the past that was a dream; that survived to be told.

No one was more responsive to this tale than Laintal Ay, when he could manage to stay awake for it. One of its themes was the union of two conflicting sides; that he understood, for the division concealed by that union, in which the tribe had to believe as an article of faith, was—had been—a part of his family life. Only later, as he grew up, did he discover how there was never union in anything, only stifled dissent. But the narrators in the fuggy hall, in this Year Nineteen After Union, gleefully conspired to tell the Great Tale as one of unity and success. That was their art.

The narrators jumped up one by one, declaiming their piece with varied assurance. The first narrators spoke of Great Yuli, and of how he came from the white wildernesses north of Pannoval to the frozen lake called Dorzin. But one generation gives place to another, even in legend, and soon another narrator rose, to speak of those, scarcely less mighty, who followed Yuli. This narrator was Rol Sakil, the midwife, who had her man and her pretty daughter, Dol, by her side; she gave a certain emphasis to the spicier aspects of her share of the tale, which was much relished by her audience.

While Laintal Ay dozed in the warmth, Rol Sakil told of Si, son of Yuli and Iskador. Si became the chief hunter of the tribe, and all feared him, because his eyes looked in different directions. He took a locally born woman called Cretha or, according to the style of her tribe, Cre Tha Den, who bore Si a son named Orfik and a daughter named Iyfilka. Both Orfik and Iyfilka were valiant and strong, in days when it was unusual for two children to survive in one family. Iyfilka went with Sargotth, or Sar Gotth Den, who excelled in catching myllk, the two-armed fish beneath the ice of lake Dorzin. Iyfilka could crack the ice with her singing. Iyfilka bore a son to Sar Gotth whom they called Dresyl Den—a famous name in the legend. Dresyl fathered the famous brothers, Nahkri and Klils. (Laughter.) Dresyl was Laintal Ays great-uncle.

“Oh, I adore you, my baby!” Iyfilka cried to her child, fondling him and smiling. But this was at a time when tribes of phagors were travelling in kaidaw-drawn sleighs over the ice, striking at human habitation. Both the pleasant Iyfilka and Sar Gotth were killed in a raid, running away by the bleak lake’s shore. Some afterwards blamed Sar Gotth for being a coward, or for not being vigilant enough.

The young orphan, Dresyl, was taken to live with his uncle, Orfik, who by now had a son of his own called Yuli, or Little Yuli. after his great-grandfather. Although he grew enormous, he was known as Little in memory of his ancestor’s greatness. Dresyl and Little Yuli became inseparable friends, and so remained through life, despite the trials that were to come. Both in their youth were great fighters, and lusty men who seduced the Den women, causing much trouble by their enjoyments. Some tales could be told on that score, were not certain folk present. (Laughter.)

One and all said that Dresyl and Yuli, the cousin-brothers, looked alike, with their powerful dark faces, hawk noses, small curling beards, and bright eyes. Both stood alertly and were of good build. Both wore similar furs with trimmed hoods. Their enemies prophesied they would meet with the same fate, but it was to prove otherwise, as the legend will relate.

Certainly, the old men and women whose daughters were in jeopardy prophesied that this pestilential pair would come to a bad end—and the sooner the better. Only those daughters themselves, lying with their legs open in the dark, and their lovers mounted on them, knew how beneficial the cousin-brothers were, and how different, one from the other; they knew that in their inward natures Dresyl was fierce and Yuli gentle, gentle as a feather and as ticklish.

At this point in the story, Laintal Ay roused. He wondered sleepily how it could ever have been that his ancient grandfather, so bent, so slow, had ever managed to tickle girls.

One of the corpsmen continued the story.

The elders and the old shaman of the lakeside tribe met together to decide how Dresyl and Yuli should be punished for their lechery. Some spat anger when they spoke, because in their hearts they were jealous. Others spoke piously since, being old, they could follow no course but virtue. (The storyteller laid this simple wisdom on thick, and assumed a piping voice, to make his audience laugh.)

Condemnation was unanimous. Although their numbers were depleted by disease and the phagor raids, and every hunter was needed, the elders decided that Little Yuli and Dresyl should be expelled from the settlement. Of course, no woman was allowed to speak in the friends’ favour.

The message was conveyed. Yuli and Dresyl saw nothing for it but to leave. As they were gathering up their weapons and kit, a trapper arrived at the camp, half dead, from another tribe on the eastern fringes of the lake. He brought word that phagors were again approaching, this time in some force across the lake. They were killing any humans they came across. This was at the time of a double sunset.

Terrified, the men of the settlement promptly gathered up their women and possessions and set fire to their homes. They began at once to move southwards, Little Yuli and Dresyl among them. At their retreating backs, fire flew in robes of red and black into the sky, until eventually the lake was lost from view. They followed the Voral River, travelling day and night, for Freyr shone at night during this period. The ablest hunters travelled ahead and to either side of the main body, seeking food and safety. In the emergency, Yuli and Dresyl were provisionally forgiven their sins.

The party consisted of thirty men, including the five elders, twenty-six women, and ten children under seven, the age of puberty. They had with them their sleighs, pulled by asokins and dogs. Following were numerous birds and a variety of hounds, some little more than wolves or jackals, or crosses between the two; these last were often the playthings of the children, given to them as puppies.

Several days of travel followed. The weather was clement, although game was scarce. One Freyr-dawn, two of the hunters, Baruin and Skelit, who had been acting as scouts, returned to the main body and reported a strange town ahead.

“Where the river meets a frozen stream, water bursts into the air with great noise. And mighty towers built of stone stand up into the sky.” Such was Baruin’s report, and the first description of Embruddock.

He described how our stone towers stand in rows, and are decorated with brightly painted skulls, to ward off intruders.

They stood in a shallow valley full of gravel, discussing what should be done. Two more hunters arrived, dragging a trapper they had caught returning to Embruddock. They threw him to the ground and kicked him. He said that the Den tribe lived in Embruddock, and were peaceful.

Hearing there were more Dens about, the five elders immediately said that they should make a detour round the hamlet. They were shouted down. The younger men said that they should attack immediately; they could then be accepted on a basis of equality by this distantly related tribe. The women vociferously agreed, thinking it would be pleasant to live in stone buildings.

Excitement rose. The trapper was clubbed to death. All—men, women, and children—dipped their fingers in his blood and drank, that they might prevail before the day was done.

The body was thrown to the dogs and birds.

“Dresyl and I will go forward and take in the lie of the land,” Little Yuli said. He stared challengingly at the men about him; they dropped their gaze and said nothing. “We will win the day for you. If we do so, then we shall be in command, and will tolerate no more nonsense from these old men. If we lose the day, then you can throw our bodies to the animals.”

“And,” said the next speaker to take up the story, “at Little Yuli’s brave speech, the canine company looked up from their feast and yelped their agreement.” The audience smiled seriously, recalling that detail from the past that was like a dream.

Now the story of that past became more tense. The audience drank less rathel as it listened to how Dresyl and Little Yuli, the cousin-brothers, planned to take the silent town. With them went five chosen heroes, their names well-remembered: Baruin, Skelit, Maldik, Curwayn, and Big Afardl, who was killed that day, and by a woman’s hand.

The rest of the party remained where they were, so that the noise of their hounds did not give the game away.

Beyond the icy river was no snow. Grass grew. Hot water gushed into the air, sending curtains of steam across the area.

“It’s true,” murmured the audience. “It still occurs as you say.”

A woman drove black hairy pigs up a path. Two children played naked among the waters. The invaders watched.

They saw our stone towers, the strong ones, the ruinous ones, all laid out in streets. And the old city wall reduced to rubble. They marvelled.

Dresyl and Yuli skirted Embruddock alone. They saw how square our towers are, with walls sloping inwards all the way up, so that the room on the top floor is always smaller than those below. How we keep our animals in the bottom floor for warmth—up the ramp to save them in case the Voral floods. They saw all the animal skulls, brightly painted and facing out, to scare intruders. We always had a sorceress, didn’t we, friends? At this period, it was Loil Bry.

Well, the cousin-brothers also saw two aged sentries up on top of the big tower—this very tower, friends—and in no time they had nipped in and despatched the greybeards. Blood flowed, I have to tell.

“The flower,” someone called.

Oh, yes. The flower was important. Remember how the lake people said that the cousin-brothers would meet with the same destiny? Yet when Dresyl grinned and said, “We will do well ruling this town, brother,” Yuli was looking at the little flowers at his feet, flowers with pale petals—probably scantiom.

“A good climate,” he said, in surprise, and plucked the flower and ate it.

They were scared when they first heard the Hour-Whistler blow, for that famous geyser, known to all, was not known to them. They recovered, and then disposed their forces so as to be prepared for the time when both sentinels were set and the hunters of Embruddock returned home, bearing with them the spoils of the chase, all unsuspecting.

Laintal Ay roused at this point. There were battles in the past that was like a dream, and one was about to be described. But the new storyteller said, “Friends, we all had ancestors in the battle that followed, and all have gone since to the world of gossies, even if they were not despatched prematurely on that occasion. Suffice it to say that all present acquitted themselves valiantly.”

But he, being youthful, could not dismiss the exciting part so lightly and continued despite himself, eyes glowing.

Those innocent and heroic hunters were surprised by Yuli’s stratagem. Fire suddenly bloomed from the top of the herb tower, and tall flowers of flame rose into the evening air. The hunters naturally shouted out with alarm, dropped their weapons, and ran forward to see what could be done.

Spears and stones rained down on them from the top of the neighbouring tower. Armed invaders appeared from concealment, shouting and thrusting their spears at unguarded bodies. Our hunters slipped and fell in their own blood, but some invaders they managed to slay.

Our town contained more armed men than the cousin-brothers calculated for. Those were the brave corpsmen. They appeared from everywhere. But the invaders were desperate and hid in houses they had taken over. Young boys also were forced to fight, including some of you here, now past your prime.

The fire spread. Sparks streamed overhead like husks at a winnowing, as if they would light the sky. Carnage grew in the streets and ditches. Our women took up swords from the dead to fight off the living.

All acquitted themselves valiantly. But boldness and desperation won the day—not to mention the leadership of him who this day went down to the world of the gossies to be with his ancestors. Eventually, the defenders threw down their weapons and rushed away in the gathering dark, screaming.

Dresyl’s blood was up. An avenging fury rose on his brow. He had seen Big Afardl slain beside him—and from behind—and by a woman at that.

“That was my good old grandmother!” cried Aoz Roon, and laughter and cheers rose on all sides. “There was always courage in our family. We are of Embruddock stock, and not of Oldorando.”

Dresyl could scarcely be recognized for his fury. His face turned black. He ordered his company to hunt down and kill every surviving man of Embruddock. The women were to be gathered into the stable of this very tower, friends. What a terrible day that was in our annals…

But the victorious men, led by Yuli, took Dresyl forcibly and said to him that there must be no more killing. Killing brought bitterness. From the morrow, all must live in peace, to make a strong tribe, or there were not enough souls to survive.

These wise words meant nothing to Dresyl. He struggled until Baruin brought a bucket of cold water and flung it over him. Then he fell down as if in a swoon, and slept that dreamless sleep which comes only after battle.

Baruin said to Yuli, “You sleep too, with Dresyl and the others. I will keep watch, in case we are surprised by a counterattack.”

But Little Yuli was unable to sleep. He said nothing to Baniin, but he had been wounded, and his head was light. He felt himself near to death, and staggered outside to die under Wutra’s sky, into which Freyr was already preparing to ascend, for it was the third quarter. He walked down the main street here, where grass grew coarse among streams of mud. Freyr-dawn was the colour of mud, and he saw a scavenging hound slink away, full-bellied, from the corpse of one of his fellow hunters. He leaned against a crumbling wall, breathing deep.

Opposite him was the temple—ruined then as now. He stared without understanding at the decorations engraved in the stone. Remember, in those days, before Loil Bry civilized him, Yuli was by way of being a barbarian. Rats snicked in at the doorway. He moved to the temple hearing only a rushing in his ears. In his hand he held a sword taken from a fallen adversary—a better weapon than any he possessed, made of good dark metal here in our forges. This he held before him as he kicked in the door.

Inside, tethered milch sows and goats scuffled. Field implements used to be stored there in those days. Looking about, Yuli saw a trapdoor in the floor, and heard voices whispering.

Taking hold of the iron ring, he heaved up the door. Down in the pool of darkness under his feet, a smoking lamp burned.

“Who’s there?” someone called. A man’s voice, and I expect you know whose it was.

It was Wall Ein Den, then Lord of Embruddock, and well-remembered by us all. You can picture him, tall and upright, though his youth had fled, with a long black moustache and no beard. All remarked on his eyes, which could outstare the boldest, and his haggardly handsome face, which in its time moved women to tears. This was the historic meeting between him, the old lord, and Little Yuli.

Little Yuli went slowly down the steps to him, almost as if recognising him. Some of the masters of corps were there with Lord Wall Ein, but they did not dare speak as Yuli came down, very pale, clasping his sword.

Lord Wall Ein said, “If you are a savage, then murder is your business, and you had best get it over with. I command you to kill me first.”

“What else do you deserve, hiding in a cellar?”

“We are old, and powerless in battle. Once it was otherwise.”

They confronted each other. Nobody moved.

With a great effort, Yuli spoke, and his voice seemed to him to come from far away. “Old man, why do you leave this great town so poorly guarded?”

Lord Wall Ein replied with his usual authority. “It was not always thus, or you and your men would have met a different reception, you with your poor weapons. Many centuries ago, the Land of Embruddock was great, stretching north to the Quzints and south almost as far as the sea. Then Great King Denniss ruled, but the cold came and destroyed what he had wrought. Now we are fewer than ever we were, for only last year, in the first quarter, we were raided by the white phagors riding like the wind on their giant mounts. Many of our best warriors, including my son, were killed defending Embruddock, and now sink towards the original boulder.”

He sighed, and added, “Perhaps you read the legend carved on this building, if you can read. It says, ‘First phagors, then men.’ It was for that legend and other matters that our priesthood was slain, two generations ago. Men must be first, always. Yet some days I wonder if the prophecy will not come true.”

Little Yuli heard the lord’s words as if in a trance. When he attempted to reply, no words rose to his bloodless lips, and he felt the power drain from his inner eddre.

One of the old men, between pitying and sniggering, said, “The youth has a wound.”

As Yuli staggered forward, they backed away. Behind them was a low archway with a passage beyond, dimly lit from an overhead grating. Unable to stop now that he had started, he marched down the passage, dragging his feet. You know that feeling, friends, whenever you are drunk—as now.

It was damp in the passage, and warm. He felt the heat on his check. To one side was a stone stairway. He could not understand where he was, and his senses were failing.

And a young woman appeared on the stair, holding a taper before her. She was fairer than the skies. Her face swam before his vision.

“It was my grandmother!” cried Laintal Ay, shrill with pride. He had been listening excitedly, and was confused when everyone laughed.

At that time, the lady had no thought of bestowing any little Laintal Ays upon the world. She stared at Little Yuli with wild eyes, and said something to him which he could not understand.

He attempted a reply. The words would not come to his throat. His knees buckled. He sank down to the floor. Then he collapsed entirely, and all there believed him to be dead.

At this thrilling juncture, the storyteller made way for an older speaker, a hunter, who took matters less dramatically.

Wutra saw fit to spare Yuli’s life on that occasion. Dresyl took command of the situation while his cousin-brother lay recovering from his wound. I believe that Dresyl was ashamed of his bloodlust and now took care to behave in a more civilized way, finding himself among civilized people like us. He may also have remembered the kindness of his father, Sar Gotth, and the sweetness of his mother, Iyfilka, killed by the hated phagor herd. He took over Prast’s Tower, where we used to store salt, living at the top of it and issuing orders like a true commander, while Yuli lay in bed in a low room beneath.

Many at the time, myself included, disliked Dresyl, and treated him as a mere invader. We hated being ordered about. Yet when we understood what he intended, we cooperated, and appreciated his undoubted good points. We of Embruddock were demoralised at that time. Dresyl gave us our fighting spirit back, and built up the defences.

“He was a great man, my father, and I’ll fight anyone who criticises him,” shouted Nahkri, jumping up and shaking his fist. He shook it so energetically that he almost fell over backwards, and his brother had to prop him up.

None speaks against Dresyl. From the top of his tower, he could survey our surrounding country, the higher ground to the north, where he had come from, the lower to the south, and the geysers and hot springs, then strange to him. In particular, he was struck by the Hour-Whistler, our magnificent regular geyser, bursting up and whistling like a devil wind.

I recall he asked me about the giant cylinders, as he called them, spread all over the landscape. He had never seen rajabarals before. To him they looked like the towers of a magician, flat on top, made of strange wood. Though not a fool, he did not know them for trees.

He was mainly for doing, not looking. He ordered where all his tribe from the frozen lake would be quartered, distributed in different towers. There he showed a wisdom we might all follow, Nahkri. Although many grumbled at the time, Dresyl saw to it that his people lived in with ours. No fighting was allowed, and everything fairly shared. That rule as much as anything has caused us to intermingle happily.

While he was billetting families, he had everyone counted. He could not write, but our corpsmen kept a tally for him. The old tribe here numbered forty-one men, forty-five women, and eleven children under the age of seven. That made ninety- seven folk in all. Sixty-one folk from the frozen lake had survived the battle, which made one hundred and fifty-eight people all told. A goodly number. As a boy, I was glad to have some life round the place again. After the deaths, I mean.

I said to Dresyl, “You’ll enjoy being in Embruddock.”

“It’s called Oldorando now, boy,” he said. I can still remember how he looked at me.

“Let’s hear more about Yuli,” someone called out, risking the wrath of Nahkri and Klils. The hunter sat down, puffing, and a younger man took his place.

Little Yuli made a slow recovery from his wound. He became able to walk out a short way with his cousin-brother and survey the territory in which they found themselves, to see how it could best be hunted and defended.

In the evenings, they talked with the old lord. He tried to teach them both the history of our land, but they were not always interested. He talked of centuries of history, before the cold descended. He told how the towers had once on a time been built of baked clay and wood, which the primitive peoples had developed in a time of heat. Then stone had been substituted for clay, but the same trusted pattern observed. And the stone withstood many centuries. There were some passages underground, and had been many more, in better times.

He told them the sorrow of Embruddock, that we are now merely a hamlet. Once a noble city stood here, and its inhabitants ruled for thousands of miles. There were no phagors to be feared in those days, men say.

And Yuli and his cousin-brother Dresyl would stride about the old lord’s room, listening, frowning, arguing, yet generally respectful. They asked about the geysers, whose hot springs supply warmth to us. Our old lord told them all about the Hour- Whistler, our unfailing symbol of hope.

He told how the Hour-Whistler has blown punctually every hour ever since time began. It’s our clock, isn’t it? We don’t need sentinels in the sky.

The Hour-Whistler helps the authorities keep written records, as the masters of corps are duty-bound to do. The cousin-brothers were astonished to find how we divide the hour into forty minutes and the minute into one hundred seconds, just as the day contains twenty-five hours and the year four hundred and eighty days. We learn such things on our mothers’ laps. They also had to learn that it was Year 18 by the Lordly calendar; eighteen years had our old lord ruled. No such civilized arrangements existed by the frozen lake.

Mind, I say no word against the cousin-brothers. Barbarians though they were, they both soon mastered our system of makers corps, with the seven corps, each with different arts—the metal makers being the best, to which I’m proud to say, without boasting, I belong. The masters of each corps sat on the lord’s council then, as they do now. Though, in my opinion, there should be two representatives from the metal-makers corps, because we are the most important, make no mistake.

Following a lot of jeering and laughter, the rathel was passed round again, and a woman in late middle age continued the legend.

Now I’ll spin you a tale a lot more interesting than writing or time-keeping. You’ll be asking what befell Little Yuli when he got better of his wound. Well, I’ll tell you in a dozen words. He fell in love—and that proved worse than his wound, because the poor fellow never recovered from it.

Our old Lord Wall Ein wisely kept his daughter—poor pampered Loil Bry Den, who was in such a pother today—out of harm’s way. He waited until he was sure that the invaders weren’t a bad lot. Loil Bry was then very lovely, and with a well- developed figure, enough for a man to get hold of, and she had a queenly way of walking, which you will all remember. So our old lord introduced her to Little Yuli one day, up in his room.

Yuli had already seen her once. On that terrible night of the battle when, as we’ve heard, he nearly died of his wound. Yes, this was the black-eyed beauty with the ivory cheekbones and lips like a bird’s wing, whom our friend mentioned. She was the beauty of her day, for the women from lake Dorzin were a plain lot, to my mind. All her features were precisely drawn on the velvet of her skin, and those lips, so trimly curving, were painted in delicate cinnamon. To speak truth, I looked a bit like that myself when I was a young girl.

Such was Loil Bry when Yuli first saw her. She was the greatest wonder of the town. A difficult, solitary girl—people didn’t care for her, but I liked her manner. Yuli was overwhelmed. He forever sought occasions when he could be alone with her—either outside or, better still, cloistered up close with her in her room in Big Tower where she still lives to this day, with that porcelain window. It was as if she gave him a fever. He could not control himself in her presence. He used to swagger about and boast and swear in front of her and make a real fool of himself. Many men get like that, but of course it doesn’t last.

As for Loil Bry, she sat there like a little puppy, watching, smiling behind her high cheekbones, her hands folded in her lap. Of course, she encouraged him, needless to say. She wore a long heavy gown, decorated with beads, not furs like the rest of us. I heard that she wore furs underneath. But that gown was extraordinary, and reached almost to the ground. I’d like a gown like that…

The way she speaks, it still is a bit of a mixture of poetry and riddles. Yuli’d never heard anything like it up on Lake Dorzin. It flummoxed him. He boasted all the more. He was bragging about what a hunter he was when she said—you know her musical voice—“We live out our lives in all kinds of darkness. Should we ignore them or explore them?”

He just goggled at her, sitting there looking lovely in her cloth garment. It had beads stitched on it, as I said, lovely beads. He asked if it was dark in her room. She laughed at him.

“Where do you think is the darkest place in the universe, Yuli?”

Poor fool, he said, “I’ve heard that far Pannoval is dark. Our great ancestor, whose name I bear, came from Pannoval, and he said it was dark there. He said it was under a mountain, but I don’t believe that. It was just a way of speaking in those times.”

Loil Bry regarded her fingertips, resting like little pink beads on the lap of that lovely garment.

“I think the darkest place in the universe is inside human skulls.”

He was lost. She made a proper fool of him. Still, I must watch my tongue about the dead, mustn’t I? He was a bit soft, though…

She used to bemuse him with romantic talk. You know what she used to say? “Have you ever thought how we know so much more than we can ever tell?” It’s true, isn’t it? “I long to have someone,” she’d say, “someone to whom I could tell everything, someone for whom talk is like a sea on which to float. Then I’d hoist my dark sail…” I don’t know what she said to him.

And Yuli would lie awake, clutching his wound and who knows what else, thinking of this magical woman, thinking of her beauty, and her troubling words. “… Someone for whom talk is a sea on which to float …” Even the way she turned her sentence seemed to him to be Loil Bry’s way and no one else’s. He’d long to be on that sea, sailing with her, wherever it was.

’That’s enough of your womanly nonsense,” cried Klils, struggling to his feet. “She put a spell about him, Father said so. Father also told us of the good things Uncle Yuli did at first, before she made him stupid.” He went on to tell them.

Little Yuli got to know every inch of Oldorando while he was recovering. He saw how it is laid out, with the big tower at one end of the main street and the old temple at the other. In between, the women’s house, the hunter’s homes on one side, the towers of the makers corps on the other. The ruins farther out. How all our towers have the heating system of stone pipes carrying hot water from springs through them. We couldn’t build anything half so marvellous today.

When he saw how the place was, he saw how it should be. With the aid of my father, Yuli planned proper fortifications, so that there would be no more attacks—especially no more phagor attacks. You’ve heard how everyone was set to digging a mound with a ditch on its outer side and a stout palisade on top. It was a good idea, though it cost a few blisters. Regular lookouts were drilled and posted at the four corners, as they still are. That was Yuli’s and my father’s doing. The lookouts were given horns to blow in case of a raid—the self-same horns we use today.

There were proper hunts as well as proper lookouts. People were almost starved before the merging of the tribes. Once the entire town was enclosed, Dresyl, my father, got the hunters breeding a proper hunting dog. Other scavengers could be kept out. Packs of hunting dogs could bring down game and run faster than we could. That was not much of a success, but we might try again some time.

What else? The guilds were able to make up their numbers. The colour-makers corps enlisted some children among the newcomers. New mugs and platters were made for everyone from a vein of clay they know about. More swords were hammered out. Everyone had to work for the common good. No one went hungry. My father nearly worked himself to death. You drunken lot ought to remember Dresyl while you’re remembering his brother. He was a lot better than that one. He was, he was.

Poor Klils broke into tears. Others also began to cry, or laugh, or fight. Aoz Roon, himself staggering slightly under the weight of rathel he had drunk, grabbed up Laintal Ay and Oyre, and hustled them off to bed and safety.

He looked blurrily down at their passive faces, trying to think. Somewhere in the course of the telling of the legend of the past that was like a dream, the future of the lordship of Oldorando had been decided.