Helliconia, page 39
Their flight led them mainly westwards; the memory of their eight weeks of captivity lent them strength. Skirting the floods, they climbed out of the great saucer of land in which they had made their escape. The heat grew less. At the same time, the inclination upwards of the land, slight but continuous, wore down their energies. The jog trot relapsed into a fast-walking pace. Their skins burned. They pressed on, heads down, breathing painfully through nose and mouth, occasionally stumbling over the rough ground.
At last the rear pair gave a gasp and fell, to lie panting, clutching their stomachs. Their four companions, looking up, saw that they had almost gained the lip of the rise, after which the land could be relied on to level out. They continued, leaning forward, to drop as soon as they climbed from the slope to the flat. Their lungs laboured.
From here they could look back through the preternaturally clear air. Below them were their two exhausted friends, sprawling at the top of an enormous bowl of land. The sides of the bowl were pitted by gulleys down which water poured. The brooks ran down into two immense coils of a river newly enough formed for half-drowned trees still to be standing in it. Dams were forming where branches and other debris had collected. This flood was lost from view where it curved behind a fold of hillside.
Water noises filled the air. They could see where the massive concave rajabarals stood. Somewhere among those rajabarals was the party of phagors from which they had escaped. Behind the rajabarals, thick young forests grew, covering slopes that formed the opposite side of the great bowl. The trees of the forest were generally of a sombre green, rank after rank, punctuated by a tree bearing brilliant gold foliage, known to the Madis as caspiarn; its bitter buds could be eaten in times of famine.
But the landscape did not end with the forests. Beyond them could be seen cliffs which had collapsed here and there to permit a hazardous downward path for animals or men. The cliffs were part of a mountain which spread its rounded contours from one side of the view to the other. Its soft underlying rocks had split, causing ravines from which vegetation sprouted. Where the vegetation was at its most dense, and the collapsed configuration of the mountain most spectacular, a tributary river glinted, foaming as it burst among its gorges towards the valley.
Beyond and above the spongey mountain, yet other mountains stood, harsher, comprising durable basalts, their flanks excoriated by recent centuries of winter. No green mantle covered them. They remained uncompromised, although here and there they were spread with the yellow and orange and white of tiny upland flowers, their colours pure even when viewed from miles away.
Above the domes of those basalt mountains, other ranges, blue, bleak, dreadful, showed. And as if to demonstrate to every living thing that the world had no end, those ranges too permitted a glimpse of objects beyond – land at great distance and great altitude, showing its teeth in a procession of peaks. These were bastions of matter, standing where the blistering colds of the tropopause commenced.
The keen eyes of the Madis took in this prospect, picking out small touches of white among the nearer trees, between the caspiarns, along the cliffs, between the higher defiles of the mountains, even as far as the flashing tributary in its gorges. Those touches of white the Madis correctly identified as cowbirds. Where the cowbirds were were phagors. For almost as many miles as they could see, the stealthy advance of Hrr-Brahl Yprt’s host could be marked by cowbirds. Not one phagor could be viewed; yet the mighty landscape probably concealed ten thousand of them.
As the Madis rested and watched, first one and then the other started to scratch at himself or herself. The scratching began like a tickle, but grew more savage as they cooled down. Soon they were rolling about, scratching and swearing, their bodies stung by sweat which cut into the rash of bites mottling their skin. They curled themselves into balls, scratching with feet as well as hands. This frantic itch had assailed them at intervals, ever since their capture by the phagors.
While raking in their crotches, or groping frantically at their armpits, or dragging their nails through the mops of their hair, they gave no thought to cause and effect, never ascribing their rashes to a tick caught from the matted coats of their captors.
That tick was generally harmless, or at least passed on to humans and protognostics nothing worse than a fever or rash which rarely lasted more than a few days. But heat balances were changing as Helliconia moved nearer to Freyr. Ixodidae multiplied: the female tick paid her tribute to Great Freyr in millions of eggs.
Soon that insignificant tick, so much a part of life as to pass unnoticed, would become the vector of a virus inducing the so-called bone fever, and the world would change because of her.
This virus moved into an active stage of development in the spring of Helliconia’s great year, at the time of the eclipses. Every spring, the human population was afflicted with bone fever; only something like half the population could expect to survive. The disaster was so comprehensive, its effects so thoroughgoing, that it could be said to wipe itself from such meagre records as were kept.
As the Madis rolled scratching in the leaves, they paid no heed to the untravelled ground behind them.
There, out of the heat of the valley, lush grasses grew, interspersed with thickets of a rank, warted grass known as shoatapraxi, which had a hollow stem and grew hard in old age. Lightly robed men in high turn-down boots emerged from the shelter of the shoatapraxi clumps, ropes in hand. They pounced on the Madis.
The pair of Madis down the slope took their chance and ran away, though it meant going back towards the phagor columns. Their four friends were made captive, still twitching. Their brief, exhausting spell of liberty was over. This time they were the possessions of human beings, to form an insignificant part of another cyclic event, the southward invasion from Sibornal.
They had involuntarily joined the colonising army of the warrior priest Festibariyatid. Little the Cathkaarnits and their two companions cared about that, bowed down as they were by supplies piled on their backs. Their new masters drove them forward. They staggered southwards, still scratching despite their more novel miseries.
As they made their way, skirting the lip of the great bowl to their left, Freyr rose into the sky. Everything grew a second shadow, which shortened as the sun attained its zenith.
The landscape shimmered. The noonday temperature increased. The unregarded ticks swarmed in a myriad unregarded crannies.
XII
Lord of the Island
Eline Tal was a large cheerful man, faithful, dependable, lacking in imagination. He was brave, he hunted well, he rode his hoxney with style. He even had the rudiments of intelligence, although he was suspicious of the academy and could not read. He discouraged his woman and children from reading. He was completely loyal to Aoz Roon, with no ambition but to serve him as best he could.
What he was unable to do was understand Aoz Roon. He dismounted from his bright-striped mount and stood patiently some distance away from the Lord of Embruddock. All he could see was the back of Aoz Roon, as the latter stared stolidly forward with his beard on his chest. The lord wore his old stinking black furs, as always, but had draped a cloak of coarse yellow stammel over his shoulders, presumably intending in some obscure way to do honour to his departing sorceress thereby. The hound, Curd, stayed shivering by Grey’s heels.
So Eline Tal remained at a distance, one finger in his mouth, picking idly at a back tooth, and did nothing more. His mind was blank.
After a few more curses, uttered aloud, Aoz Roon set his mount in motion. He looked back once over his shoulder, black brows drawn together, but acknowledged his faithful lieutenant in no way, any more than he paid attention to his dog.
He goaded his hoxney at full tilt up to the brow of escarpment; reining Grey so savagely that she reared upon her hind legs.
‘Bitch-hag!’ shouted Aoz Roon. His voice echoed back to him.
Liking the sound of his own bitterness, he bellowed in rejoinder to the echoes, indifferent that the mare took him farther from Oldorando, while dog and henchman followed if they would.
He reined Grey suddenly, letting foam drip from the bit between her lips. It was only midmorning. Yet a shade had fallen over the world, quelling its life. He scowled upwards through spiked branches, and observed that a bite was taken from Freyr by the dull globe that had slowly outpaced it through the sky. The blindness was encroaching. Curd whined in apprehension and slunk nearer the hoxney’s heels.
A night owl burst from a nearby fallen larch, speeding close to the ground. It had speckled feathers and a wingspan wider than a man’s outstretched arms. Screeching, it shot between Grey’s legs and rose into the sallow sky.
Grey stood high on her hind legs, then she was up and away, no stopping her, plunging forward at full gallop. Aoz Roon fought to cling on, the hoxney fought to dislodge him.
Alarmed by the heavenly phenomenon, Eline Tal followed, wrestling with Drifter, his stallion, to bring him under control. They went like a southern wind, hot in pursuit of the other animal.
When Aoz Roon at last calmed the frightened steed, his blacker mood had lifted. He laughed without mirth, patting the creature and speaking to it more gently than he did to his fellow human beings. Slowly, stealthily, Batalix was eating more deeply into Freyr. The bite of the phagor; old legends came back to mind; the sentinels were not companions, but enemies, doomed to devour each other throughout eternity.
He hunched his shoulders, letting the quieted animal proceed as it would. Why not? He could return to Oldorando and rule as before. Yet would the place be the same, now that she was gone, the bitch? Dol was a poor insipid creature, who cared nothing for what he was. Only danger and disappointment lay at home.
Wrenching at the hoxney’s head, he made her proceed through a tangle of dogthrush and thorn bushes, sullenly accepting the lash of branches in his face. The world was in disarray too deep for him to fathom. Among the branches were matted reeds, grasses, and straw. So burdened was his mind, he ignored this evidence of recent flooding.
The lower rim of Batalix was lined with silver fire as it continued to devour Freyr. Then it too was eclipsed by cloud, blowing up black from the east. The rain came in increasing force, seething over the cinereous thickets. Aoz Roon kept his head down and pushed on. The downpour hissed in the bushes. Wutra was showing his hatreds.
He kicked his hoxney out of the thicket, to halt where thick grass squelched underfoot. Eline Tal came slowly up behind him. The rain increased, running off the animals to the ground. Looking up from under dripping brows, the Lord of Embruddock saw how the ground rose to one side, where trees grew over a boulder-strewn slope. At the bottom of the slope, a kind of shelter had been built from split stones. Beyond was marshy land, with waterways winding through it. The view faded into the pallor of rainfall; even the outlines of the shelter were indistinct – but not so vague that he failed to see the figures standing at its entrance.
The figures were immobile. They watched. They must have been aware of his approach long before he saw them. Curd stood his ground and growled.
Without looking back, Aoz Roon motioned Eline Tal up to stand with him.
‘Scumbing fuggies,’ Eline Tal said, cheerfully enough.
‘They hate water – the downpour may keep ’em safe where they are. Move steady.’
He set the pace, a slow walk forward, called Curd to heel.
He would not turn back or show he was afraid. The marsh might be impassable. Best to go up the hillside. Once at the crest – if the phagors let them get that far – they could ride away hard. He was unarmed, except for a dagger at his belt.
The two men moved forward shoulder to shoulder, the dog continuously snarling behind them. To gain the slope, they had to make an oblique approach to the crude building. Because of the murk, it was difficult to be sure of anything; it looked as if no more than five or six of the monsters crouched in the miserable shelter. Behind it stood two kaidaws, rattling their heads to shake away the rain, occasionally clashing horns; they were held by a slave, either human or protognostic, who stared at Aoz Roon and Eline Tal apathetically.
Perched on the roof of the building were two cowbirds, huddling together. Two more were on the ground, fighting over a pile of kaidaw droppings. A fifth, some way off, perched on a boulder, shredding and eating a small animal it had caught.
The phagors made no move.
The two parties were less than a stone’s throw away, and the hoxneys were already changing pace to accommodate the slope of the hillside, when Curd dashed from Grey’s side and ran towards the shelter, barking furiously.
Curd’s action precipitated the phagors forward. They rushed from shelter and charged to the attack. As so often, they seemed to need a prod before they could act, as if their nervous system was inert below a certain minimum level of stimulus. Seeing them run forward, Aoz Roon shouted a command, and he and Eline Tal spurred their mounts up the slope.
It was treacherous riding. The trees were young, no higher than a man, their foliage spreading from their crowns like umbrellas. It was necessary to ride with the head low. Underfoot, broken boulders formed a constant hazard for the hoxneys’ paws. Grey and Drifter needed vigilant guidance to maintain anything like a pace.
Behind them came the sounds of pursuit. A spear flashed near them and embedded itself in the ground, but no others followed. More ominous was the noise of kaidaws coming up, and the throaty shouts of their riders. On level ground, a kaidaw could outrun a hoxney. Among the low trees, the larger animals were disadvantaged. Yet fast as Aoz Roon went, he could not shake off the pursuers. He and Eline Tal were soon cursing, and sweating as freely as their mounts.
They struck a patch where water streamed down the hillside. Aoz Roon took the chance to glance round. Two of the shaggy white monsters on their steeds were plunging up behind, each with an immense forearm raised in front of its skull, warding off the backward lash of branches. In their free hand, they carried spears against the flanks of the kaidaws, controlling the animals with their knees and horned feet. The unmounted phagors were doubling up the slope on foot, a long way behind, and no threat.
‘The fuggers never give up,’ Aoz Roon said. ‘Move, Grey, rot you!’
They plunged on, but the phagors gained.
The downpour faltered, then came on more heavily. It made no difference. The trees flung water as they rode by. The going underfoot was better, but the boulders became more frequent.
Now the two mounted phagors were within spear throw.
Grasping the reins tightly, Aoz Roon stood in the stirrups. He could see above the umbrella trees. Over to the left, the solid ranks of saplings were broken. With a shout for Eline Tal, Aoz Roon wheeled to the left, and for a while lost the phagors behind piles of boulders, the outlines of which seemed to flicker in the weight of the downpour.
They struck a trail of some kind and took it gratefully, spurring upward again. The trees became sparser on either side. Ahead, the ground fell away, subsiding in sluices of mud.
Even as the men felt a flush of hope and goaded on their animals to greater efforts, the pursuing phagors broke from the umbrella trees. Aoz Roon shook his fist and burst ahead. The great yellow dog rushed along, keeping pace by Grey’s side, never faltering.
Then it was downhill, with fine gravel underfoot. Ahead lay an entire melancholy landscape, studded with rajabarals, shuttered with trees, its strong verticals counterbalanced by a broad horizontal of water. All was depicted in subdued greens.
Through the midst of this vista wound a turbulent river, overflowing its limits to push out spurs among the stands of larch, creating a maze of reflection. More distantly, dark lines of trees stretched until curtains of haze obscured the sight. Clouds rolled across the sky, dimming the land, hiding the two interlocked sentinels.
Aoz Roon dashed a hand across his face, wiping away rain and sweat. He saw where greatest safety lay. In the river was an island, covered with stones and black-foliaged trees. If he and Eline Tal could get across to that – and its nearer shores were not too distant from the riverbanks – they would be secure from the monsters.
He pointed ahead, shouting hoarsely.
At the same time, he became aware that he rode alone. He turned in the saddle, bracing himself for what he saw.
The bright horizontal stripes of Drifter flashed some way to his left. The animal was riderless, galloping aimlessly towards the river.
Back at the top of the slope, where the umbrellas trees ended, Eline Tal sprawled on the ground. The two shaggy warriors circled round him. One jumped down from his kaidaw. Eline Tal immediately kicked out at him, but the phagor picked him up with an enormous heave. A stain of red showed on Eline Tal’s shoulder – they had brought him out of his saddle with a spear. He struggled feebly; the phagor brought its horns down and prepared to use them in a death thrust.
The other phagor did not wait for the coup de grace. It wheeled its steed with a nimble movement and set off downhill towards Aoz Roon, spear held high.
The lord spurred Grey immediately. There was nothing he could do for his unlucky lieutenant. With all speed, he made for the island, leaning forward encouraging Grey, for he felt the animal flagging.
Advantage lay with the pursuing phagor. The kaidaw made superior time over open ground, however willingly the hoxney ran.
Aoz Roon’s yellow cloak flapped in the wind as he goaded himself and his mount towards the riverbank. So near, so near, and ever nearer! The swirling waters, the dank foliage, the blur of distant natural features, a rodent scutting for safety in the grass – all flashed before his eyes. He knew he was too late. The pores of the skin between his shoulder blades seemed to turn to liquid as they awaited the fatal spear strike.
A quick glance back. The brute was almost on him, the sinews of the kaidaw’s stretched head and neck standing clear, like strands of creeper entwining a tree. It would draw level now, making sure to kill, the damned thing. Its eyes glared.
