Now Then (v1.0) - John Brunner, page 10
The man considered for a moment. Then he spat m the earth where it was new-turned by his horse’s enormous feet, and said bluntly, “No.”
Well, that was a fair enough answer. Bernard Brown shrugged and walked on, not yet seriously perturbed.
Again the road passed between hedges, and began to wind bo that at any one moment only twenty paces of it before and twenty behind were in clear view. From around a bend ahead a voice could be heard raised in song. The voice was of an indeterminate quality, neither altogether male nor altogether female, and shrilled occasionally on the high notes with a shiver-provoking acidity.
Shortly, the singer came into view. He was a young man, with very yellow hair cut short around his head, and he rode negligently on a gaily caparisoned horse that moved its head in time with the beat of its master’s song. His attire was extraordinary, for he wore a shirt of red and yellow and loose breeches of bright green, the color of a sour apple. He accompanied his singing on a small plucked instrument, the strings of which chirruped like birds.
When he caught .sight of Bernard Brown, he stopped singing, let his instrument fall on a baldric to his side, and told his horse to stop. Then he leaned one elbow on the pommel of his saddle and fixed the stranger with bright hard eyes.
“Good morrow, friend,” he said with a light tone. “And what are you doing here?”
“I’m trying to find my way back to the London road,” said Bernard Brown, lifting his eyebrows in astonishment at the young man’s appearance.
“There is no road like that near here,” said the young man, and shook his head sorrowfully. “I know that well, for all the roads here are mine,”
“Now this is all very well,” said Bernard, and gave a smile to show that he was party to the joke. “But while it may amuse you to parade around in this way, it doesn’t help me. I’ve lost my car somehow, through taking a wrong turning in the woods, and I need directions.”
The young man drew himself upright and urged his horse forward—and it could be seen now that this was not a young man riding a horse, nor was there in fact a horse being ridden by a young man, but some sort of confusion of the two, in that the young man’s legs were not separated at all from the sides of his mount. They ended in fleshy stalks, uniting with the belly of that part of the composite animal resembling a horse.
“This is extraordinary!” said Bernard to himself, but being mannerly forebore to remark on the combination.
The young man gave him a hard stare, his hand falling to a sharp sword beside his right thigh. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And where are you from, that you do not recognize me?”
Nettled, Bernard rejoined, “Unless you had taken part in a Christmas circus, or been exhibited at the Zoo, I would not presume to recognize you!”
The horse-head and the man-head together reared back in appalled amazement, and the bright sword whined through the air. Discreetly, feeling he had to do with a creature whose mind was as abnormal as its body, Bernard had already stepped out of range when the blade flashed by.
“I am Jorkas!” howled the young man. “Now do you still say you do not know me?”
Alarmed at the composite creature’s behavior, Bernard replied in a tone as civil as could be expected after the attack with the sword. “No, sir, I do not know you, and I may say that your actions give me little cause to wish we had encountered each other earlier.”
The man-face of the creature contorted with unbelievable rage, and the sword swung high for a second blow as the horse-body danced three steps toward Bernard. Bernard was on the point of making an inglorious—and probably ill-fated—retreat when a sudden ringing noise indicated that the blade had struck something very resistant in its downward passage. Indeed, the man-creature was shaking its sword-arm as though it had been numbed all the way to the shoulder.
The thing the sword had struck was a glittering staff, held in the firm grip of a black-clad man who had somehow contrived to approach the two of them without being noticed. This man was now standing, leaning on the staff, and staring at Jorkas with a wry expression.
Jorkas shrugged, sheathed the sword, and took up his instrument again. His horse-legs bore him cantering away down the lane, and when he was out of sight around the bend his counter-tenor voice was again heard raised in song.
‘Thank you, sir,” said Bernard, wiping his face and not greatly surprised to find he had been sweating tremendously. “I must say I wasn’t expecting to find anything like that in this quiet lane.”
The black-clad man smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. “I cannot give you much advice,” he said judiciously. “But if you expect both nothing and everything, then you will do well.”
“That sounds reasonable,” nodded Bernard. “But”—and he pulled his jacket forward by the lapels to settle it more comfortably around his shoulders—“I would far rather know what to expect. Tell me, who or what was that amazing freak?”
“He bears the imprint of chaos, does he not?” said the man in black. “He is left over, so to speak. He is fairly harmless; things have by-passed him, and his power is now small.”
It was more the matter-of-fact tone of the other’s voice than what he put into words which began now to raise creeping sensations of alarm on Bernard’s nape. He said, “But who is he? Has he escaped from some—some fantastic zoo?”
“He has rather endured from a period of absolute confusion,” was the reply, which though apparently meaningful served not at all to lessen Bernard’s puzzlement. He decided at length to let it pass.
“Can you, then, tell me where the London road lies?” he ventured.
“I can,” said the other, and then chuckled. “But it would be of small help to you, since you could not get to it from here. No, listen to me and I will give you valuable directions, which will eventually bring you where you wish to be.”
Since that was the best the black-clad man was willing to offer, Bernard had perforce to nod his acceptance.
“Go forward from here,” said his mentor, “until you come to three twisted alder-trees standing alone in a meadow. You will recognize them easily enough. Stand before them and bow your head three times, and then take the path around them. In a little while it will bring you to a city. And whatever you do, do not speak with a woman in clothing the color of blood. Otherwise I cannot answer for the consequences.”
“What nonsense!” thought Bernard to himself. But since he had no choice, he thanked the other civilly and went on circumspectly down the lane.
The three alder-trees poked up, white and gnarled, from the grass of the meadow, like the fingers of a skeleton. Bernard hesitated, looking about him. He felt foolish to be going to do what he had been advised to do. Still, no one was watching him—as far as he could see—and in this peculiar district, wherever it might be, the people appeared to be either abnormal or lunatic or both.
He could see no sign at all of a road from here, moreover. And unless he did as he was told, he would have to go back to the place where he had met Jorkas. This was a prospect for which he had no stomach. Accordingly, he bowed his head three times, and was much surprised to find that he was standing on a clearly-defined path. Which, he likewise noticed, led nowhere except around the three alders.
Well, the black-clad man had said he should take the path which leads around them. He turned to his left and walked resolutely along the circular path, hopeful of getting somewhere eventually.
At his third turn, when he was feeling truly embarrassed at his own silliness, he looked towards the alder-trees again and saw a very beautiful woman standing among them. She had a face of the most perfect oval shape, skin like mother-of-pearl, and hair blacker than midnight. But she was gowned from shoulders to ankles in a dress that was red like blood.
She spoke to him in a musical voice, sarcastically.
“And where do you think you’re going, my foolish friend? Did no one ever tell you that walking around in circles is a waste of time? Why not go forward? See!”
She raised her right arm, on which golden bracelets jangled, and when Bernard followed the indicated direction he saw a city clustered around a black enormous tower, the top of which resembled an onyx and the shaft of which resembled agate.
A strange sort of city! But at least a city, and not a stretch of deserted countryside. He was half-minded to make hastily towards it, and yet felt a strange foreboding. There was an air about that black city. …
He spoke to the air, to himself, not to the woman in red, and said, ‘The man who saved me from Jorkas advised me not to speak with a woman in a dress the color of blood. I assume this advice extends to not following any suggestion she may make to me.” Doggedly he continued his circular progress, while the woman’s laugh-89 ter tinkled irritatingly in his ears, and was rewarded on his next circuit to see that she had gone. Somewhere. Somehow.
Moreover, another city was in sight, and this was not so foreboding. Its towers were of gold and silver, and although an aura hung around it like the presence of an approaching thunderstorm, it still seemed a comparatively familiar an? inviting place.
“There, perhaps,” reasoned Bernard, “I may escape from this half-insane conglomeration of cryptic non-meaningful remarks, and may even find my way to a place where they know how I can get home.”
He struck out across the meadow, and shortly came to a good though dusty road, which brought him straight towards the city with the gold and silver towers. But the atmosphere grew more and more oppressive as he neared it, and he had to whistle to keep up his spirits while he thrust the road behind with feet that now began to ache more than a little.
“So!” said the enchanter Manuus, leaning back in his chair with a chuckle. “So!” he said again, dropping the cover—made of bat’s skin as fine and soft as silk—over his scrying glass. “-Well, well, well, well, well!”
V
At the head of the council table—which, because the weather was oppressive, he had caused to be set out under the sycamore trees in the Moth Gardens—the Margrave of Ryovora sat, frowning terribly.
Before him, the table stretched almost a hundred feet, in sections that were joined so cleverly the over-arching trees could admire their reflections intact in the polished top. Nothing spoiled the perfection of this table, except the purplish sheen it had acquired from the heavy close air now filling the city.
To right and left of him, ranked in their chairs, sat the nobility of Ryovora, men and women of great individual distinction—the merchant-enchanters, the persons of inquiring mind, the advisers, the thinkers, the creators, all those to whom this city owed its fame and reputation.
The Margrave spoke, not looking at those who listened.
“Tell us what has taken place in your quarter of the town, Petrovic.”
Petrovic, a dry little man with a withered face like an old apple, coughed apologetically and said, “There are omens. I have cast runes to ascertain their meaning. They have no known meaning. Milk has been soured in the pan four mornings running in my quarter of the town.”
“And Ruman?”
Ruman was a man built like an oak-tree, whose thick gnarled hands were twisting restlessly in his lap. He said, “I have slaughtered animals to divine what may be read in their entrails. I agree with Petrovic—these things have no known significance. But two springs under the wall of the city, which have not failed in more centuries than we can discover, are dry this morning.”
“And Gostala?”
Gostala was a woman with a queenly bosom and a queenly diadem of white hair plaited around her head. She said, “I have watched the flight of birds each morning for seven mornings, and also at sunset. The results are confused. But a two-headed lamb has been born in a village near by.”
“And Eadwil?”
Eadwil was hardly more than a boy; his chin was innocent of a beard. When he spoke, his voice was like a reed pipe—still, men respected his precocious wisdom. He said, “I have analyzed the relative situations of the stars and planets, and am driven to the hypotheses that either we know nothing at all or some unknown heavenly body is influencing the calculation. A comet, perhaps. But yesterday lightning struck three times out of a clear sky, and— and, Margrave, I’m frightened!”
The Margrave nodded and made a comforting gesture in the air. He said, “But this cannot be the whole story. I move that we—here, now, in full council—ask Him Who Must Know.”
Eadwil rose to his feet. He was small, not yet having completed his growth. On his youthful lips trembled a sob, which he stoutly repressed and shaped into words.
“I demand your permission to withdraw, Margrave,” he said. “It is well known how Him Who Must Know treats those in—in my condition.”
The Margrave coughed and nodded approval of the 91
discreet reference; Eadwil owed some of his precocity to a certain disadvantage in his physical makeup, and the elemental that they were considering found virgins vulnerable to his powers.
“Agreed,” he said, and Eadwil departed, sighing with relief.
Before, however, they could proceed to the business before them, there was a rustling sound from far down the table, and a voice spoke like the soughing of wind in bare winter woods.
“Margrave, I suggest otherwise.”
The Margarave shifted uncomfortably in his chair. That was Tyllwin who spoke, a figure as gaunt as a scarecrow and as thin as a rake, who sat among them by courtesy because no one knew where he had come from or how old he was, but everyone knew he had many and peculiar powers which had never been put to use. Whenever Tyllwin spoke, things happened. The Margrave saw with alarm that several blossoms on the trees had already withered since the utterance of those few words.
“Speak, Tyllwin,” he muttered. “Give us the benefit of your unique wisdom.”
Tyllwin chuckled, a scratching noise, and the flowers on the whole of one tree turned to fruit and rotted where they hung. Tyllwin’s nearest neighbors left their chairs hastily and moved towards the Margrave’s end of the table.
Tyllwin’s huge round head, like a turnip-ghost, turned to watch them, and a smile curved his dusty lips. He said, “Is it not certain, people of Ryovora, that these things presage an important event?”
The rotten fruits fell, with a squelching sound, and ants hurried from among the roots of the trees to investigate. The company hardly dared do more than nod.
“Then,” said Tyllwin, “I suggest we investigate the commotion which is shortly to take place at the main gate.”
He fell silent and a few dead leaves blew across the table. Most of them clustered before Tyllwin’s place, and he touched them with a bony hand, making them dissolve. Those watching trembled.
The Margrave was relieved to find that nothing more serious was going to follow Tyllwin’s unexpected loquacity. He said with a light heart, “Well? What is the opinion?”
Ruman spoke up, with a glance towards Tyllwin that lasted only half a second after meeting Tyllwin’s eyes. He said, “I have not scried any such commotion.”
“But you have not scried since yesterday,” objected Gostala with feminine practicality.
‘True, true. Then I am with Tyllwin.”
“Petrovic?” inquired the Margrave, with a glance at that dried-up individual.
“I am aware,” said Petrovic doubtfully, “that the people believe all our troubles would be at an end if we had a god, as other cities do. I hope that in this instance they are wrong, as they usually are. Having heard from our neighbors in Acromel how severely they suffer from their deity-”
“This is far from the point,” interrupted Gostala, tapping the table with a thumb-bone which had once been the property of a man fortunate enough—or unfortunate enough—to be her lover. “I say we do not know. Let us therefore expect both nothing and everything.”
“Rational and well spoken!” cried the Margrave approvingly. ‘Those in favor?”
All present laid their right hands on the table, except Tuc, who had left his hand in the mouth of a dragon beyond an interesting sea of fire far to the north. Even Tyllwin moved with the rest, causing yet more leaves to wither and tremble on the tree that had suffered most since he broke from his impassivity.
“Agreed, then,” said the Margrave. “Let us go thither.”
The company rose with a bustle and began to walk towards the main gate. The Margrave, however, remained behind a few moments, contemplating Tyllwin, who had not moved.
When the others were at a distance he judged safe, he addressed Tyllwin in a low voice.
“Tyllwin, what is your opinion of a god?”
Tyllwin laughed creakingly. “I have been asked that before,” he said. “And I will answer as I did then: I do not know what a god is, and I do not believe that many men do, either.”
A branch on the tree above him split with a warning cry, so that the Margrave flung up his hand automatically before his face. When he looked again, Tyllwin was gone.
The commotion at the gates, foreseen by Tyllwin and by no other of the company, had already begun when the stately procession entered the street leading to it. They had come each after his or her own style: Petrovic walking with his staff called Nitra, from which voices could sometimes be heard when the moon was full; Gostala riding on a creature that breathed only water, and perforce cried aloud in terribly agony at every step; Eadwil on his own young legs, although his feet shone red-hot when he had gone ten paces—this was to do with an enchantment about which no one ever inquired closely; Ruman on the shoulders of a giant ape fettered with brass. The air about them crackled with the struggle between protective conjurations and the oppressive tense aura that enshrouded Ryovora.
In the wide street before the gateway, a crowd had gathered, laughing, shouting, exclaiming with wonderment. In the midst of the crowd, a man in outlandish attire, his face set in a frown of puzzlement, was vainly trying to contend with a hundred questions simultaneously.
The crowd parted to let the nobles by, and at once closed in again, like water around a slow-moving boat.
The Margrave came up behind the rest, panting somewhat, for he was getting fat, and looked the stranger over curiously while the crowd’s voices rose to almost a roar and then sank again to a muttering buzz, several times over.
