Helliconia Spring

VI • “WHEN I WERE ALL BEFUDDOCK…”

All he could see before him was the land rearing up, making a clear bow of horizon close at hand. The tiny springy plants underfoot stretched to that horizon and, away below him, to the valley. Laintal Ay stopped, resting with his hands on one knee, breathing heavily, and looked back. Oldorando was six days’ walk away.

The other side of the valley was bathed in a clear blue light which picked out every detail with lucidity. The sky above was slatey purple with future snowstorms. Where he stood, all was in shadow.

He resumed his upward trudge. More land emerged over the curved near horizon, black, black, unassailable. He had never been there. Farther, the top of a tower rose as the near horizon sank beneath his progress. Stone, ruined, built long ago to an Oldorando mould, with the same inward-sloping walls, and windows placed at each of the four corners on each of the floors. Only four floors stood.

At last Laintal Ay surmounted the slope. Large grey birds cropped outside the tower, which was surrounded by its own debris. Behind, the unassailable hill, enormous, its blackness lit by the slate sky. A line of rajabarals interposed themselves between him and infinity. Chill wind rattled against his teeth, so that he drew his lips together.

What was the tower doing, so far from Oldorando?

Not so far if you were a bird, not so far at all. Not so far if you were a phagor mounted on a kaidaw. No distance if you were a god.

As if to emphasize the point, the birds took off, wings clattering, flying low over the moor. He watched them until they were out of sight and he alone in the great landscape.

Oh, Shay Tal must be right. The world had once been different. When he had talked about her speech to Aoz Roon, Aoz Roon had said that such matters were not important; they could not be changed; what was important was the survival of the tribe, its unity; if Shay Tal had her way, the unity would be lost. Shay Tal said that unity was unimportant beside the truth.

His head occupied by thoughts that moved across his consciousness like cloud shadows over the landscape, he went into the tower and looked up. It was a hollow ruin. The wooden flooring had been pulled out for fuel. He set his pack and spear down in a corner and climbed up the rough stonework, taking advantage of every foothold, until he stood perched on the top of one of the walls. He looked about him. First he looked for phagors—this was phagor country—but only barren and inanimate shapes met his survey.

Shay Tal never left the village. Perhaps she had to invent mysteries. Yet there was a mystery. Looking over the gigantic landforms, he asked himself in awe, Who made them? What for?

High on the great round hill behind him—not even a foothill to the foothills of the Nktryhk—he saw bushes moving. They were small, a sickly green under the dense light. Watching intently, he recognised them as protognostics, clad in shaggy coats, bent double as they climbed. They drove before them a herd of goat or arang.

He deliberately let the time go by, experienced the drag of it across the world, to watch the distant beings, as if they held the answer to his questions, or to Shay Tal’s. The people were probably Nondads, itinerant tribesmen speaking a language unrelated to Olonets. As long as he watched, they toiled through their allotted landscape and seemed to make no progress.

Closer to Oldorando were the herds of deer that supplied the villages with much of their food. There were several ways of killing deer. This was the method preferred by Nahkri and Klils.

Five tame hinds were kept as decoys. The hunters led these beasts on leather reins to where the herd grazed. By walking in a crouched position behind the deer, the men could manoeuvre their mobile cover close to the herd. Then the hunters would rush forth and hurl their spears with the aid of spear throwers, killing as many animals as possible. Later, they dragged the carcasses home, and the decoys had to carry their dead fellows on their backs.

On this hunt, snow was falling. A slight thaw about midday made the going heavy. Deer were scarcer than usual. The hunters walked eastwards steadily for three days over difficult ground, leading their decoy deer, before they caught sight of a small herd.

The hunters were twenty in number. Nahkri and his brother had restored themselves to favour after the night of the Double Sunset by a liberal distribution of rathel. Laintal Ay and Dathka travelled beside Aoz Roon. They spoke little during the hunt, but words were scarcely necessary when trust had been established. Aoz Roon, in his black furs, stood out as a figure of courage against the surrounding desolation, and the two younger men kept to his side as faithfully as his huge dog, Curd.

The herd was cropping on the crest of a slight rise some way ahead, and to windward of the men. It was necessary to work round to the right where there was higher ground and their scent would not carry.

Two men were left behind holding the dogs. The rest of the party moved up the slope, over two inches of slushy snow. The crest of the rise was marked by a broken line of tree stumps, and a heap or two of shattered masonry, well-rounded by the force of centuries of weather. They were in dead ground, and the herd was visible only when—on hands and knees now, trailing their spears and spear throwers—they came to the top of the rise and surveyed the field.

The herd comprised twenty-two hinds and three stags. The latter had divided the hinds between them, and occasionally roared defiance at each other. They were shaggy and ill-conditioned beasts, their ribs showing, their reddish manes trailing. The hinds foraged complacently, heads down most of the time, nuzzling the snow aside. They grazed into the wind, which blew into the faces of the hunters as they crouched. Large black birds strutted under their hoofs.

Nahkri gave the sign.

He and his brother led out two of the tame deer, walking them round to the left flank of the herd, keeping the animals between them and the grazing hinds, who ceased foraging to see what was going on. Aoz Roon, Dathka, and Laintal Ay led out the other three decoys, working round to the right flank.

Aoz Roon walked his hind, keeping its head steady. Conditions were not absolutely as he liked them. When the herd fled, they would run away from the line of hunters, instead of towards them; the hunters would be deprived of excitement and practice. Had he been in charge, he would have spent more time on preliminaries—but Nahkri was too unsure of himself to wait. The grazing was to his left; a straggling grove of denniss trees separated the grazing from broken and rocky ground on the right. In the distance stood harsh cliffs, backed by hills, on and on, with mountains in the far distance, thunderous under plumes of purple cloud.

The denniss trees provided some cover for the hunters’ approach. Their silvered, shattered trunks were denuded of bark. Their upper branches had been stripped away in earlier storms. Most of them sprawled horizontally, pointing their tusks away from the wind. Some lay entangled, as if locked in eon-long battle; all, so abraded were they by age and elements, resembled cordilleras in miniature, riven by chthonic upheaval.

Every detail of the scene was checked by Aoz Roon as he advanced under cover of his deer. He had been here often before, when the going was easier and the snow reliable; the place was sheltered and afforded the wide visibility the herds preferred. He noted now that the dennisses, for all their appearance of death, even of fossilization, were putting out green shoots, which curled from their boles to hug the ground on their leeward side.

Movement ahead. A renegade stag came into view, emerging suddenly from among the trees. Aoz Roon caught a whiff of the beast with a sourer smell he did not immediately identify.

The new stag thrust itself rather awkwardly on the herd, and was challenged by the nearest of the three resident stags. The resident advanced, pawing the ground, roaring, tossing its head to make the most of its antler display. The newcomer stood its ground without adopting the usual defensive posture.

The resident stag charged and locked antlers with the intruder. As the points came together, Aoz Roon observed a leather strap stretched across the antlers of the newcomer. He immediately passed his hind back to Laintal Ay and faded behind the nearest tree stump. Leaving the cordage of its grounded trunk, he ran to the next tree in line.

This denniss was blackened and dead. Through its broken ribs, Aoz Roon sighted a yellowish lump of hair, protruding between farther trees. Grasping his spear in his right hand, drawing back his arm for a blow, he began to run as only he could run. He felt the sharp stones under the snow beneath his boots, heard the bellowing entangled animals, watched as the great dead wood bole loomed—and all the while he sped as silently as he could. Some noise was inevitable.

The hair moved, became the shoulder of a phagor. The monster turned. Its great eyes flashed red. It lowered its long horns and spread wide its arms to meet the attack. Aoz Roon plunged his spear in under its ribs.

With a churring cry, the great ancipital fell backwards, borne over by Aoz Roon’s charge. Aoz Roon was carried down too. The phagor wrapped its arms about Aoz Roon, digging its horned hands into his back. They rolled in the slush.

The black and the white creatures became one animal, an animal that fought with itself in the midst of an elemental landscape, struggling to tear itself apart. It struck against a silvered root and again became two component parts, black half below.

The phagor pulled back its head, opening its jaws ready for a strike. Rows of yellow teeth, spadelike, set in grey-white gums, confronted Aoz Roon. He managed to drag an arm free, grasp a stone, and thrust it between the heavy lips, the teeth, as they closed upon his head. Aoz Roon stood, found the shaft of the spear still in the monster’s body, and bore his weight upon it. With a harsh exhalation of breath, the phagor gave up the ghost. Yellow blood spurted up from the wound. Its arms fell open, and Aoz Roon climbed panting to his feet. A cowbird rose from the ground nearby and flapped heavily towards the east.

He was in time to see Laintal Ay despatch another phagor. Two more ran from the shelter of a horizontal denniss. Both galloped away on one kaidaw, heading for the cliff. White birds followed with sweeping wings, screeching towards the echoes that returned to them from the wilderness.

Dathka came over and clutched Aoz Roon’s shoulder without speaking. They regarded each other and then smiled. Aoz Roon revealed his white teeth, despite his pain. Dathka kept his lips together.

Laintal Ay came up, exulting. “I killed it. It died!” he said. “Their bowels are in their chest, their lungs in their bellies…”

Kicking the phagor body aside, Aoz Roon went to lean against a tree stump. He breathed out strongly through mouth and nostrils to rid himself of the sick milky stench of the enemy. His hands trembled.

“Call Eline Tal,” he said.

“I killed it, Aoz Roon!” Laintal Ay repeated, pointing back at the body lying in the snow.

“Fetch Eline Tal,” Aoz Roon ordered.

Dathka went over to where the two stags still struggled, heads down, antlers locked, scuffling the snow to mud with their hoofs. He took out his knife and cut their throats like an old hand. The animals stood and bled yellow blood until they could stand no longer, whereupon they collapsed and died, still locked together.

“The strap between the antlers—that’s an old fuggie trick to catch game,” Aoz Roon said. “When I saw it, I knew they were about…”

Eline Tal ran up with Faralin Ferd and Tanth Ein. They pushed the younger men away and supported Aoz Roon. “You’re meant to kill these vermin, not cuddle them,” Eline Tal said.

The rest of the herd had long since fled. The brothers had killed three hinds between them and were triumphant. The other hunters arrived to see what had gone wrong. Five carcasses was not a bad kill; Oldorando could eat when they got home. The phagor carcasses would be left where they were to rot. Nobody wanted their skins.

Laintal Ay and Dathka held the decoy hinds while Eline Tal and the others examined Aoz Roon. The latter threw off their detaining hands with a curse.

“Let’s scumb off,” he said, clutching his side with a look of pain. “Where there were four of the vermin there may be others.”

Lumping the dead hinds onto the backs of the decoys, dragging the stags, they commenced the trek home.

But Nahkri was angry with Aoz Roon.

“Those rotten stags are starved. Their meat will taste like leather.”

Aoz Roon said nothing.

“Only vultures eat stag in preference to hind,” Klils said.

“Keep quiet, Klils,” Laintal Ay shouted, “Can’t you see that Aoz Roon is hurt? Go and practise swinging an axe.”

Aoz Roon kept his gaze down at the ground, saying nothing—which angered the elder brother still more. The eternal landscape stood silent about them.

When at last they got within sight of Oldorando and its sheltering hot springs, the tower lookouts blew their horns. The lookouts were men too old or sick to hunt. Nahkri had given them an easier task—but if their horns did not sound the moment the hunting party appeared in the distance, he stopped their ration of rathel. The horns were a signal for the young women to stop work and come out beyond the barricades to meet their men. Many were fearful lest there had been a death—widowhood would entail menial jobs, bare subsistence, early death. This time, they counted heads and rejoiced. All the hunters were returning. This night, there would be celebrations. Some of them might conceive.

Eline Tal, Tanth Ein, and Faralin Ferd called out to their own women, employing endearments and abuse in equal measure. Aoz Roon limped on alone, saying no word, though he looked up under his dark brows to see if Shay Tal was there. She was not.

No women greeted Dathka either. He made his youthful face long and hard as he pressed through the welcoming gaggle, for he had hoped Shay Tal’s unobtrusive friend Vry might have shown herself. Aoz Roon secretly despised Dathka because no women ran up to clasp his arm, although he was himself in the same situation.

Under those dark brows, he watched a hunter catch the hand of Dol Sakil, the midwife’s daughter. He watched his own daughter, Oyre, run to grasp the hand of Laintal Ay; he reckoned to himself that they would suit each other well enough, and that there might be advantage from the match.

Of course the girl was headstrong, whereas Laintal Ay was rather soft. She would lead him a dance before consenting to be his woman. Oyre was like the precious Shay Tal in that respect—difficult, pretty, and with a mind of her own.

He limped through the wide gates, head down, still nursing his side. Nahkri and Klils were walking nearby, fending off their screeching women. They both threw him a threatening look. “Keep your place, Aoz Roon,” Nahkri said.

He looked away, hunching a shoulder against them.

“I wielded the axe once and, by Wutra, I’ll wield it again,” he growled.

The world trembled before his sight. He gulped down a mug of rathel and water, but still sickness rose in him. He climbed to the lair he shared with his companions, indifferent for once how the game he had helped kill was stripped. Once in his room, he collapsed. But he would not suffer the slave woman to cut open his clothes or examine his wounds. He rested and hugged his ribs. After an hour, he went out alone and sought Shay Tal.

Since it was near a sunset, she was taking crusts of bread down to the Voral to feed the geese. The river was wide. It had unfrozen during the day, revealing black water fringed by shelves of white ice across which geese came honking. When they were both young, it was always frozen from bank to bank.

She said, “You hunters go so far away, yet I saw game on the other side of the river this morning. Hoxneys, and wild horses, I believe.”

Dark and moody, Aoz Roon looked down upon her and grasped her arm. “You’ve always a contrary idea, Shay Tal. Do you think you know better than the hunters? Why didn’t you come out at the sound of the horn?”

“I was busy.” She took her arm away and started to crumble the barley crusts as the geese surrounded her. Aoz Roon kicked out at them and grasped her arm again.

“I killed a fuggy today. I’m strong. It hurt me but I killed the dirty thing. All hunters look up to me, and all maidens. But it’s you I want, Shay Tal. Why don’t you want me?”

She turned a face with stabbing eyes up to his, not angry, but containedly angry. “I do want you, but you would break my arm if I went against you—and we should always be arguing. You never speak softly to me. You can laugh and you can scowl, but you can’t coo. There!”

“I’m not the sort to coo. Nor would I break your lovely arm. I would give you real things to think about.”

She answered nothing, but fed the birds. Batalix buried itself in snow, casting gold into strands of her hair which were loose. In the crisp dead scene, all that moved was the black rift of water.

After standing awkwardly regarding her, shifting his weight from one foot to another, he said, “What were you so busy at earlier?”

Not returning his gaze, she said intensely, “You heard my words on the doleful day when we buried Loilanun. I was speaking mainly to you. Here we live in this farmyard. I want to know what goes on in the world beyond it. I want to learn things. I need your assistance, but you are not quite the man to give it. So I teach the other women when there’s time, because that’s a way of teaching myself.”

“What good’s that going to do? You’re only stirring up trouble.”

She said nothing, staring across at the river, on which was cast the last of the day’s beggarly gold.

“I ought to put you over my knee and spank you.” He was standing below her on the bank, gazing up at her.

She looked angrily at him. Almost immediately, a change came over her face. She laughed, revealing her teeth and the ribbed pink roof of her mouth, before covering them with her hand. “You really don’t understand!”

Using the moment, he took her strongly into his arms. “I’d try to coo for you, and more besides, Shay Tal. Because of your lovely spirit, and your eyes as bright as those waters. Forget this learning which all can do without, and become my woman.”

He whirled her around, her feet off the ground, and the geese scattered indignantly, stretching their necks towards the horizon.

When she was standing again, she said, “Speak in an ordinary way to me, Aoz Roon, I beg. My life is twice precious, and I can give myself away once only. Knowledge is important to me—to everyone. Don’t make me choose between you and learning.”

“I’ve loved you a long while, Shay Tal. I know you’re vexed about Oyre, but you should not say no to me. Be my woman at once, or I’ll find another, I warn you. I’m a hot-blooded man. Live with me, and you’ll forget all about this academy.”

“Oh, you just repeat yourself. If you love me, try to bear what I’m saying.” She turned and started to walk up the slope towards her tower. But Aoz Roon ran forward and caught up with her.

“Are you going to leave me with no satisfaction, Shay Tal, after making me say all those silly things?” His manner was meek again, almost sly, as he added, “And what would you do if I were ruler here, Lord of Embruddock? It’s not impossible. You’d have to be my woman then.”

In the way she looked at him, he saw why he pursued her; just momentarily, he felt to the essence of her as she said softly, “So that’s how you dream, Aoz Roon? Well, knowledge and wisdom are another kind of dream, and we are fated each to pursue his own dream separately. I love you too, but no more than you do I want anyone to have power over me.”

He was silent. She knew he found her remark hard to accept—or thought he did; but he was pursuing another line of reasoning, and said, with a hard glance, “But you hate Nahkri, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t interfere with me.”

“Ah, but he does with me.”

As usual when the hunt returned, a feast was held, with drinking and eating into the night. In addition to the customary rathel, newly fermented by the brewers corps, there was dark barley wine. Songs were sung, jigs danced, as the liquors took hold. When the intoxication was at its height, most men were drinking in the big tower, which commanded a view down the main street. The ground floor had been cleared, and a fire burned there, sending its smoke curling against the metal- lined rafters. Aoz Roon remained moody, and broke away from the singing. Laintal Ay watched him go, but was too busy pursuing Oyre to pursue her father. Aoz Roon climbed the stairs, through the various levels, to emerge on the roof and gulp the cool of the air.

Dathka, who had no talent for music, followed him into the darkness. As usual, Dathka did not speak. He stood with his hands in his armpits, staring out at the vague looming shapes of night. A curtain of dull green fire hung in the sky overhead, its folds shading into the stratosphere.

Aoz Roon fell back with a great roar. Dathka grasped him and steadied him, but the older man fought him away.

“What ails you? Drunk, are you?”

“There!” Aoz Roon pointed into the vacant dark. “She’s gone now, damn her. A woman with the head of a pig. Eddre, the look in her eyes!”

“Ah, you’re seeing things. You’re drunk.”

Aoz Roon turned angrily. “Don’t you call me drunk, you shrimp! I saw her, I tell you. Naked, tall, thin-shanked, hair from slit to chin, fourteen dugs—coming towards me.” He ran about the roof, waving his arms.

Klils appeared through the trapdoor, staggering slightly, holding a femur of deer on which he was gnawing. “You two have no business up here. This is the Big Tower. Those who rule Oldorando come here.”

“You scumble,” Aoz Roon said approaching. “You dropped the axe.”

Klils coshed him savagely on the side of the neck with the deer bone. With a roar, Aoz Roon grasped Klils by the throat and tried to throttle him. But Klils kicked his ankle, pummelled him under the heart, and drove him back against the parapet surrounding the roof, part of which crumbled and fell away. Aoz Roon sprawled with his head hanging over into space.

“Dathka!” he called. “Help me!”

Silently, Dathka came up behind Klils, took him with a firm grasp about the knees, and lifted his legs. He swung the man’s body, angling it across the wall, and over the seven-floor drop.

“No, no!” cried Klils, fighting furiously, locking his arms about Aoz Roon’s neck. The three men struggled in the green dark, accompanied by the sound of singing from below, two of them—both befuddled by rathel—against the willowy Klils. Eventually they had him, prizing away his grip on life. With a last cry, he fell free. They heard his body strike the ground below.

Aoz Roon and Dathka sat gasping on the parapet. “We got rid of him,” Aoz Roon said finally. He hugged his ribs in pain. “I’m grateful, Dathka.”

Dathka answered nothing.

At last, Aoz Roon said, “They’ll kill us for this, the scumble. Nahkri will see to it they kill us. People hate me already.” After another wait, he burst out angrily, “It was all that fool Klils’ fault. He attacked me. It was his fault.”

Unable to endure the silence, Aoz Roon jumped up and paced about the roof, muttering to himself. He snatched up the gnawed femur and flung it far out into the gloom.

Turning on the impassive Dathka, he said, “Look, go down and speak to Oyre. She’ll do what I say. Get her to lead Nahkri up here. He’d wear a pig’s nose if she suggested it—I’ve been watching the way that scumb’s eyes go to her.”

Shrugging his shoulders, saying nothing, Dathka left. Oyre was currently working in Nahkri’s household, much to Laintal Ay’s disgust; being well-favoured, she had an easier time of it than other women.

After Aoz Roon had hugged himself and shivered and paced the roof and projected oaths into the darkness, Dathka returned.

“She’s bringing him,” he said shortly. “But it’s ill-advised, whatever you have in mind. I’ll have no part in it.”

“Keep quiet.” It was the first time anyone had ever given Dathka that order. He slouched back in deepest shadow when figures started climbing through the trapdoor—three figures, the first of them being Oyre. After her came Nahkri, mug of drink in hand, then Laintal Ay, who had decided to stay close to Oyre. He looked angry, and his expression did not soften when he looked at Aoz Roon. The latter scowled back.

“You stay downstairs, Laintal Ay. You need not be involved in this,” said Aoz Roon harshly.

“Oyre’s here,” replied Laintal Ay, as if that was sufficient, not budging.

“He’s looking after me, Father,” said Oyre. Aoz Roon brushed her aside and confronted Nahkri, saying, “Now, you and I have always had a quarrel, Nahkri. Prepare to fight it out with me directly, man to man.”

“Cet off my roof,” ordered Nahkri. “I will not have you here. Below’s where you belong.”

“Prepare to fight.”

“You were ever insolent, Aoz Roon, and you dare to speak up again after your failure in the hunt. You’ve drunk too much pig’s counsel.” Nahkri’s voice was thick from wine and rathel.

“I dare and I dare and I do,” cried Aoz Roon, and he flung himself at Nahkri.

Nahkri threw the mug in his face. Both Oyre and Laintal Ay took Aoz Roon by the arms, but he shook himself free, and hit Nahkri across the face.

Nahkri fell, rolled over, and brought a dagger from his belt. The only light to be had was a glow coming up from a fat wick burning on the floor below. It glinted on the blade. The green folds in the sky lent nothing more than a tincture to human affairs. Aoz Roon kicked at the knife, missed, and fell heavily on Nahkri, winding him. Groaning, Nahkri began to vomit, making Aoz Roon roll away from him. Both men picked themselves up, panting.

“Give it up, both of you!” cried Oyre, clinging to her father again.

“What’s the quarrel?” Laintal Ay asked. “You provoked him over nothing, Aoz Roon. The right’s on his side, fool though he is.”

“You keep quiet if you want my daughter,” roared Aoz Roon, and charged. Nahkri, still gasping for breath, had no defence. He had lost the dagger. Under a rain of blows, he was carried to the edge of the parapet. Oyre screamed. He tottered there for a moment, then his knees buckled. Then he was gone.

They all heard him strike the ground at the foot of the tower. They stood frozen, guiltily regarding one another. Drunken singing came up to them from inside the building.

Aoz Roon hung over the edge of the parapet. “That’s done for you, I imagine, Lord Nahkri,” he said in a sober voice. He clutched his ribs and panted. He turned to survey them, marking each with his wild eye.

Laintal Ay and Oyre clung silently together. Oyre sobbed.

Dathka came forward and said to them in a hollow voice, “You’ll keep silent about this, Laintal Ay, and you, Oyre, if you care for your lives—you’ve seen how easily life’s lost. I shall give out that I witnessed Nahkri and Klils arguing. They fought, and went over the edge together. We could not stop them. Remember my words, see the scene. Keep silent. Aoz Roon will be Lord of Embruddock and Oldorando.”

“I will, and I’ll rule better than those fools did,” said Aoz Roon, staggering.

“You see you do,” said Dathka quietly, “for we three here know the truth about this double murder. Remember we had no part in it: this was your doing, all of it. Treat us accordingly.”

The years in Oldorando under the lordship of Aoz Roon were to pass much as they had under previous leaders; life has a quality rulers cannot touch. Only the weather became more freakish. But that like many other things, was beyond the control of any lord.

The temperature gradients in the stratosphere altered, the troposphere warmed, ground temperatures began to climb. Lashing rains fell for weeks at a time. Snow disappeared from lowlands in tropical zones. Glaciers withdrew to higher ground. The earth turned green. Tall plants sprang up. Birds and animals never seen before came bounding over or past the stockades of the ancient hamlet. All patterns of life were reforming themselves. Nothing was as it had been.

To many older people, these changes were unwelcome. They recalled untrammelled vistas of snow from their youth. The middle-aged welcomed the changes, but shook their heads and said that it was too good to last. The young had never known anything different. Life burned in them as in the air. They had a greater variety of things to eat; they produced more children; and fewer of those children died.

As for the two sentinels, Batalix appeared the same as ever. But every week, every day, every hour, Freyr was growing brighter, hotter.

Set amid this drama of climate was the human drama, which every living soul must play out, to his own satisfaction or disappointment. To most people, this weaving of minute circumstance was of the utmost importance, each seeing himself the centre of the stage. All over the great globe Helliconia, wherever small groups of men and women struggled to live, this was so.

And the Earth Observation Station recorded everything.

When be became Lord of Oldorando, Aoz Roon lost his lighthearted manner. He grew morose, for a while shunning even the witnesses and accomplices to his crime. Even those who maintained some access to him did not perceive how much his self-imposed isolation owed to ceaseless fermentation of guilt; people do not trouble to understand one another. Tabus against murder were strong; in a small community where all were related, even if distantly, and where the loss of even one ablebodied person was felt, consciousness was so precious that the dead themselves were not allowed to depart utterly from their fellows.

It happened that neither Klils nor Nahkri had children by their women, so that only their women were left to communicate with their men’s gossies. Both reported from the spirit world only raging anger. The anger of gossies is painful to endure, for it can never be relieved. The anger was attributed to a fury the brothers would naturally feel at an outburst of drunken fratricidal madness; the women were excused further communication. The brothers and their hideous end ceased to be a common topic of conversation. The secret of the murder was kept for the present.

But Aoz Roon never forgot. On the dawn of the day after the killing, he had risen wearily and rinsed his face in icy water. The chill merely reinforced a fever he had been suppressing. His whole body raged with a pain that seemed to lumber from organ to organ.

Shivering with an anguish he dared not communicate to his companions, he hurried from his tower, his hound Curd by his side. He got himself into the lane where, in the phantasmal mists of first light, only swathed bodies of women were to be seen, moving slowly to work. Avoiding them, Aoz Roon stumbled towards the north gate. He had to pass by the big tower. Before he knew it, he was confronting the broken body of Nahkri, sprawled at his feet, its eyes still open in terror. He found the ugly corpse of Klils, lying on the opposite side of the tower base. The bodies had not yet been discovered or the alarm given. Curd whimpered and jumped back and forth over Klils’ sodden body.

A thought pierced his daze. Nobody would believe that the brothers had killed each other if they were found lying on different sides of the tower. He grasped Klils’ arm and tried to move the body. The corpse was stiff, and immobile as if it had rooted itself in the ground. He was forced to bend down, thrusting his face almost in the wet rotted hair, to pick up the body under its arms. He heaved again. Something had happened to his great careless strength. Klils would not move. Gasping, whimpering he went to the other end and tugged at the legs. Geese honked distantly, mocking his efforts.

At last he shifted the corpse. Klils had fallen face downwards, and his hands and one side of his face had frozen to the mud. Now they broke away, and the body bumped over the dead ground. He dumped it by its brother, an unmoving, meaningless thing which he tried to wipe from his mental vision. Then he ran for the north gate.

A number of ruinous towers stood beyond the barricades, often surrounded by—or indeed ruined by—the rajabarals that loomed above their remains. In one of these monuments to time, overlooking an icy stretch of the Voral, he found refuge. A littered room on the second floor was intact. Although the wooden stairs had disappeared long ago, he was able to scramble up a pile of rubble and pull himself through into the stone chamber. He stood panting, resting one hand against the wall for support. Then he took his dagger and commenced frantically to cut himself free from his skins.

A bear had died in the mountains, to clothe Aoz Roon. No one else wore a similar black fur. He ripped it off heedlessly.

At last he stood naked. Even to himself, the sight was shaming. Nudity had no part in the culture. The hound sat and panted, and watched, and whimpered.

His body, with its hollow belly and marked muscle, was consumed with the flamelike pattern of a rash. The tongues lapped him all over. From his knees to his throat, he burned.

Clutching his penis in misery, he ran about the room, crying in many kinds of pain.

To Aoz Roon, the fire on his body was an imprimatur of guilt. Murder! Here was the effect; his dark mind leaped to the cause. Never for one moment did he cast his memory back to the incidents of the hunt, when he had been in close contact with the great white phagor. Never could he reflect that the lice which afflicted that shaggy species had transferred themselves to his body. He was without the knowledge to make such connections.

The Earth Observation Station rode overhead, observing.

Aboard it were instruments that enabled the observers to learn things about the planet beneath them that the inhabitants did not know. They comprehended the life cycle of the tick that had adapted itself to parasitism on both phagor and humanity. They had analysed the composition of the andesitic crust of Helliconia. From the smallest to the greatest, a facts were there to be collected, analysed, and signalled back to Earth. It was as if Helliconia could be dismantled, atom by atom, and despatched to an alien destination across the galaxy. Certainly, it was in a sense being recreated on Earth, in encyclopaedias and Eductainment media.

When, from the Avernus, the two suns were seen to rise in the east above the shoulders of the Nktryhk Range, some of whose peaks towered into the stratosphere, and glory and shadow burst from them, penetrating the depths of the atmosphere with mystery, there were romantics aboard the station who forgot their facts and longed to be part of the rude activities taking place down on the bed of the ocean of air.

Grumbling and cursing, wrapped figures made their way through the murk to the big tower. A chill wind raged from the east, whistling between the ancient towers, slamming into their faces and conjuring rime on their bearded lips. Seven o’clock of a spring evening, and blackest night.

Once they got inside the tower, they jammed the rickety wooden door behind them, straightened up, and exclaimed. Then they mounted the stone steps that led to Aoz Roon’s room. This room was warmed by the hot water flowing through the stone pipes in the basement. Upper rooms towards the top of the tower, where Aoz Roon’s slaves and some of his hunters slept, were farther from the heat source, and consequently colder. But tonight the wind, squirrelling in through a thousand cracks, made everything icy.

Aoz Roon was holding his first council as Lord of Oldorando.

Last to arrive was old Master Datnil Skar, head of the tawyers and tanners corps. He was also the oldest person present. He came slowly up into the light, looking cautiously, half wary of a trap. The old are always suspicious of changes in government. Two candles burned in pots in the centre of a floor luxuriously covered with skins. Their ragged flames slanted towards the west, in which direction two pennants of smoke trailed.

By the uncertain light of the candles, Master Datnil saw Aoz Roon, seated on a wooden chair, and nine other people, squatting on the skins. Six of them were the masters of the other six makers corps, and to them he bowed individually after a courtesy towards Aoz Roon. The other two men were the hunters Dathka and Laintal Ay, sitting together rather defensively. Datnil Skar disliked Dathka for the simple reason that the lad had quit his corps for the feckless life of a hunter; such was Datnil Skar’s opinion; and he also disliked Dathka’s habit of silence.

The only female present was Oyre, who kept her dark gaze fixed uneasily on the floor. She sat partly behind her father’s chair, so as to remain in the shadows that danced against the wall.

All these faces were familiar to the old master, as were the more spectral ones ranged on the walls below the beams—the skulls of phagors and other enemies of the hamlet.

Master Datnil seated himself on a rug on the floor next to his fellow corpsmen. Aoz Roon clapped his hands, and a slave woman came down from the floor above, carrying a tray on which were a jug and eleven carved wooden cups; Master Datnil realised when a measure of rathel was handed to him that the cups had once belonged to Wall Ein.

“You are welcome,” Aoz Roon said loudly, lifting his cup. All drank the sweet cloudy liquid.

Aoz Roon spoke. He said that he intended to rule with more firmness than his predecessors. He would tolerate no lawlessness. He would consult the council as before, the council to consist as before of the masters of the seven makers corps. He would defend Oldorando against all enemies. He would not let women or slaves interfere with decent life. He would guarantee that nobody would starve. He would permit people to consult their gossies when they wished. He thought the academy a waste of time when the women had work to do.

Most of what he said was meaningless, or meant only that he intended to rule. He spoke, it could not but be noted, in a peculiar way, as if he wrestled with demons. His eyes often stared, he clutched the arms of his chair as if he was struggling with an inward torment. So that although his remarks were themselves inconsequential, the manner of delivery was horrifyingly original. The wind whistled and his voice rose and fell.

“Laintal Ay and Dathka will be my chief officers, and see my orders are carried out. They’re young and sensible. All right, damn it, that’s enough talk.”

But the master of the brewers’ corps interrupted in a firm voice, saying, “My Lord, you move too fast for those of us with slow wits. Some of us might like to ponder on why you appoint as your lieutenants two saplings, when we have men of oak about us who would serve better.”

“I’ve made my choice,” said Aoz Roon, rubbing his trunk to and fro against the back of his chair.

“But perhaps you have made it too fast, sire. Consider how many good men we have … what of your own generation, such as Eline Tal and Tanth Ein?”

Aoz Roon brought his fist down on the chair arm. “We need youth, action. That’s my choice. Now you may go, all of you.”

Datnil Skar rose slowly, and said, “My Lord, forgive me, but such hasty dismissal damages your merit, not ours. Are you ill, are you in pain?”

“Eddre, man, go, can’t you, when asked? Oyre—”

“The custom is for your council of masters to drink to you, to toast your reign, sire.”

The gaze of the Lord of Embruddock rolled up to the beams and down again.

“Master Datnil, I know you old men are short of breath and long on words. Spare me. Go, will you, before I have you replaced too. Away, all of you, my thanks, but go, away into this beastly weather.”

“But—”

“Go!” He groaned and clutched himself.

A surly dismissal, and the old men of the council departed muttering, blowing out their toothless cheeks in indignation. Not a good omen… Laintal Ay and Dathka left, shaking their heads.

As soon as he was alone with his daughter, Aoz Roon fell on the floor and rolled about, groaning, kicking, and scratching himself.

“Did you bring that medicated goose fat from Mistress Datnil, girl?” he asked his daughter.

“Yes, Father.” Oyre produced a leather box containing a soft hunk of grease.

“You’re going to have to rub it on my body.”

“I can’t do that, Father.”

“Of course you can, and you will.”

Her eyes flashed. “I will not do it. You heard what I said. Get your slave woman to do it. That’s what she’s for, isn’t it? Or else I’ll get Rol Sakil.”

He jumped up, snarling, and took hold of her. “You’ll do it. I can’t afford to let anyone else see my state, or word will spread. They’ll find out, don’t you see? You’ll do it, damn you, or I’ll break your eddring neck. You’re as difficult as Shay Tal.”

When she whimpered, he said, with fresh anger, “Close your eyes if you’re so squeamish, do it with your eyes shut. You don’t have to look. But do it fast, before I go out of my harneys.”

As he began to strip himself of his skins, still with madness in his look, he said, “And you will be spliced to Laintal Ay, to keep you both quiet. I want no argument. I’ve seen the looks he gives you. It’ll be your turn one day to rule Oldorando.”

Off came his trousers, and he stood there naked in front of her. She closed her eyes tightly, turning away her face, sick with disgust at this humiliation. Yet she could not shut out the sight of that hard, spare hairless body, which seemed to writhe under its skin. Her father was covered to his throat with scarlet flames.

“Get on with it, you great silly fillock! I’m in agony, damn you, I’m dying.”

She reached out a hand and began to plaster the sticky lard across his chest and stomach.

Afterwards, Oyre fled from him, spitting curses, and ran from the building, to stand with her face turned to the chill wind, retching with disgust.

Such were the early days of her father’s reign.

A group of Madis lay in their shapeless clothes, sleeping uneasily. They rested in a broken valley trackless miles from Oldorando. Their sentry dozed.

Walls of schist surrounded them. Under the onslaughts of frost, the rock broke into thin layers which crunched underfoot. There was no vegetation, except for an occasional stunted holly bush, the leaves of which were too bitter even for the omnivorous arang to eat.

The Madis had been caught in a thick mist which frequently descended on these uplands. Night had come and they had remained dispiritedly where they were. Batalix-rise had already visited the world, but dark and mist still reigned in the cold cleft of the canyon, and the protognostics still slumbered uneasily.

The young kzahhn’s crusade commander, Yohl-Gharr Wyrrijk, stood on an eminence some feet above them, watching as a mixed party of warrior gillots and creaghts under his orders crept up on the defenceless group.

Ten adult Madis made up the company crouched in the obscurity. They had with them a baby and three children. Beside them were seventeen arangs, sturdy goatlike animals with thick coats which provided most of the humble needs of the nomads.

This family of Madis was institutionally promiscuous. The exigencies of their existence were such that mating took place indiscriminately; nor were there any tabus against incest. Their bodies lay pressed together to conserve heat, while their horned animals crawled in close against them, forming a kind of outer ring of defence against the bone-numbing cold. Only the sentry was outside this circle, and he lay innocently with his head resting on the pelage of one of the arangs. The protognostics had no weapons. Their one defence was flight.

They had relied on the mist for protection. But the sharp eyes of the phagors had found them out. The extreme difficulty of the terrain had cut Yohl-Gharr Wyrrijk off temporarily from the main body of Hrr-Brahl Yprt’s command. His warriors were almost as starved as the pre-humans upon whom they were descending.

They bore clubs or spears. The crunch of their approach over the beds of schist was covered by the snores and snuffles of the Madis. A few more steps. The sentry woke from a dream and sat up, full of terror. Through the dank mist, ugly figures emerged like ghosts. He gave a cry. His companions stirred. Too late. With savage cries, the phagors attacked, striking without mercy.

In almost no time, all the protognostics were dead, and their little flock with them. They had become protein for the crusade of the young kzahhn. Yohl-Gharr Wyrrijk climbed down from his rock to give orders for its distribution.

Through the mist, Batalix arose, a dull red ball, and peered into the desolate canyon.

It was the Year 361 After Small Apotheosis of Great Year 5,634,000 Since Catastrophe. The crusade had now been eight years on its way. In five more years, it would arrive at the city of the Sons of Freyr which was its destination. But as yet no human eye could see the connection between the fate of Oldorando and what happened in a remote and leafless canyon.