The tree above Laintal Ay burst with furious noise. He watched the seeds expelled. Some flew upwards, most were shot out on all sides. The force of the ejaculation threw the black projectiles as much as a half mile away. Steam rolled everywhere.
When silence fell, eleven of the trees had exploded. As their blackened casings peeled back from the top, a more slender crown thrust up inside, whitish, topped by green growth.
That green growth was destined to spread until the grove, which had consisted merely of polished columns, became roofed over in brilliant green foliage, shielding the roots from the more savage suns that were to come, in the days when Helliconia moved close to Freyr – too close to be comfortable for man, beast, or vegetation. Whoever lived or died under their shade, the rajabarals had their own form of life to protect.
These rajabarals formed part of the vegetation of the new world, the world that came into existence after Freyr swam into the clouded skies of Helliconia. Together with the new animals, they were set in ceaseless ecological competition with the orders of the old world, when Batalix ruled in isolation. The binary system had created a binary biology.
The seeds, a mottled black in colour, designed to resemble stones, were each as big as a human head. Over the course of the next six hundred thousand days, some would survive to become adult trees.
Laintal Ay kicked one carelessly away, and went over to see to the scout. The latter had been wounded, pierced by a sharp-edged phagor blade. Skitosherill and Laintal Ay helped him back to where Aoz Roon and the maidservant stood. He was in a bad way, bleeding freely. They squatted helplessly by his side as the life drained from his eddre.
Skitosherill began to go into an elaborate religious ritual, whereon Laintal Ay jumped up angrily.
"We must get to Embruddock as soon as possible, don't you understand? Leave the body here. Leave the woman with your wife. Press on with me and Aoz Roon. Time's running out."
Skitosherill gestured to the body. "I owe him this. It will take a while but it must be done according to the faith."
"The fuggies may return. They don't get scared easily, and we can hardly hope for another turn of fortune like the last. I am going to press on with Aoz Roon."
"You've done well, barbarian. Go forward, and perhaps we will meet again."
As Laintal Ay turned to go, he paused and looked back. "I'm sorry about your wife."
Aoz Roon had had the sense to keep hold of two of the yelk when the rajabarals exploded. The other animals had galloped away in fright. "Are you fit to ride?"
"Yes, I'm fit. Help me, Laintal Ay. I'll recover. To learn the language of the phagor kind is to see the world differently. I'll recover."
"Mount and let's be off. I'm afraid that we may be too late to warn Embruddock."
They rode off rapidly, one behind the other, leaving the shade of the grove where the grey Sibornalan knelt in prayer.
•••
The two yelk proceeded steadily, heads held low, eyes staring vacantly forward. When they dropped their scumble, beetles emerged from the ground and rolled the treasure to underground stores, inadvertently planting the seeds of future forests.
Seeing was bad, because of the way the plain rippled with ridge after ridge. More stone monuments dotted the landscapes, ages old, their circular signs eroded by weather or ripicolous lichens. Laintal Ay pressed ahead, alert for trouble, ever turning back to urge Aoz Roon to keep up.
The plain contained its travelling groups, moving in all directions, but he gave them as wide a berth as possible. They passed fleshless corpses to some of which garments still clung; fat birds sat by these memorials to life, and once they sighted a slinking sabre-tongue.
A cold front rose like a shawl behind their shoulders to the north and east. Where the sky remained clear, Freyr and Batalix clung together, their discs inseparable. The yelk had passed the site of Fish Lake, where a cairn had been erected to mark Shay Tal's miracle in the vanished waters, many winters ago; they were climbing over one of the tiresome ridges, when a wind rose. The world began to grow dark.
Laintal Ay dismounted and stood fondling the muzzle of his yelk. Aoz Roon remained despondently in the saddle.
The eclipse was beginning. Once more, exactly as Vry had predicted, Batalix was taking a phagor bite from the brilliant outline of Freyr. The process was slow and inexorable, and would result in Freyr's being lost entirely for five and a half hours. Not so many miles away, the kzahhn had his needed sign.
The suns were devouring their own light. A terrible fear took hold of Laintal Ay, freezing his eddre. For a moment stars blazed in the day sky. Then he closed his eyes and clung to the yelk, burying his face in its rusty pelage. The Twenty Blindnesses were upon him, and he cried in his heart to Wutra to win the war in his heavens.
But Aoz Roon looked up to the sky with awe blunting his thin features, and exclaimed, "Now Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk will die!"
Time seemed to cease. Slowly, the brighter light faded behind the duller. The day took on the greyness of a corpse.
Laintal Ay pulled himself from his dread and took Aoz Roon by his skeletal shoulders, searching that familiar but transformed countenance. "What did you say to me then?"
Aoz Roon said dazedly, "I'll be all right, I'll be myself again."
"I asked you what you said."
"Yes…. You know how the stench of them, that milky smell, clings to everything. Their language is the same. It makes everything different. I was with Yhamm-Whrrmar a half air-turn, talking with him. Many things. Things of which my Olonets-speaking intelligence can make no sense."
"Never mind that. What did you say about Embruddock?"
"It is something that Yhamm-Whrrmar knew would happen as certainly as if it were past, not future. That phagors would destroy Embruddock –"
"I must go on. Follow if you wish. I must return and warn everyone. Oyre – Dathka –"
Aoz Roon grasped his arms with sudden force.
"Wait, Laintal Ay. A moment and I'll be myself. I had the bone fever. I knocked myself out. Cold nailed my heart."
"You never made excuses for others. Now you make excuses for yourself."
Something of the older man's qualities returned to his face as he stared at Laintal Ay. "You are one of the good men, you bear my mark, I have been your lord. Listen. All I say is what I never thought of till I was on that island half an air-turn. The generations are born and fly their course, then they drop to the world below. There's no escape from it. Only to have a good word said after all's over."
"I'll speak well of you, but you're not dead yet, man."
"The ancipital race knows that their time is done. Better times come for men and women. Sun, flowers, soft things. After we're forgotten. Till all Hrl-Ichor Yhar's frame is empty."
Laintal Ay pushed him away, cursing, not understanding what was said.
"Never mind tomorrow and all that. The world hangs on now. I'm riding to Embruddock."
He climbed again into the saddle of the yelk and kicked it into action. With the lethargic movements of a man rousing from a dream, Aoz Roon followed suit.
The greyness was settling in thicker, like fermentation. In another hour, Freyr was half-devoured, and the hush became more intense. The two men passed groups petrified by dusk.
Later in their progress, they sighted a man approaching on foot. He was running slowly but steadily, arms and legs pumping. He stopped on top of a ridge and stared at them, tensed to run away. Laintal Ay rested his right hand on his sword handle.
Even through the twilight, there was no mistaking that portly figure, the leonine head with its forked beard dramatically flecked with grey. Laintal Ay called his name and moved his mount forward.
It took Raynil Layan some while to be convinced of Laintal Ay's identity, still more for him to recognise the skeletal Aoz Roon with no sparkle in his eyes. He came cautiously round the antlers of the yelk to grasp Laintal Ay's wrist with a damp hand.
"I shall be one with our forefathers if I take another st
ep. You've both endured the bone fever and survived. I may not be so lucky. Exertion makes it worse, they say – sexual exertion or otherwise." He held his chest and panted. "Oldorando's rotten with pest. I've failed to escape in time, fool that I am. That's what these revolting signs mean in the sky. I've sinned – though I'm by no means as bad as you, Aoz Roon. Those religious pilgrims spoke true. It's the gossies for me."
He sank to the ground, puffing and holding his head in misery. He rested an elbow on a pack he had been carrying.
"Tell me what news of the city," Laintal Ay said impatiently.
"Ask me nothing, let me be…. Let me die."
Laintal Ay dismounted and kicked the lord of the mint in the buttocks.
"What of the city – besides the pest?"
Raynil Layan turned his red face upwards. "Enemies within…. As if the visitations of the fever were not enough, your worthy friend, the other Lord of the Western Veldt, has been trying to usurp Aoz Roon's position. I despair of human nature."
He dipped his hand into a purse hanging by his belt, and brought out some bright gold coins, roons freshly minted at his mint.
"Let me buy your yelk, Laintal Ay. You're within an hour of home and scarcely need it. But I need it…."
"Give me more news, rot you. What of Dathka, is he dead?"
"Who knows? Probably so by now – I left last night."
"And the phagor components ahead? How did you get through them – buying your way?"
Raynil Layan gestured with one hand while he tucked his money away with the other. "Plenty of them between us and the city. I had a Madi as a guide, who avoided them. Who can tell what they may be up to, filthy things." As if struck by a sudden recollection, he added, "Understand that I left, not of course for my own sake, but for the sake of those I had a duty to protect. Others of my party are behind me. We had our hoxneys stolen almost as soon as we set out yesterday, and so our progress –"
Growling like an animal, Laintal Ay seized the other's coat and dragged him to his feet.
"Others? Others? Who's with you? Who are you running away from, you bladder? Is Vry there?"
A wry face. "Let me go. She prefers her astronomy, I'm sad to relate. She's still in the city. Be grateful to me, Laintal Ay, I have rescued friends and indeed relations of yours and Aoz Roon's. So bestow on me your insufferable yelk…."
"I'll settle with you later." He pushed Raynil Layan aside and jumped on the yelk. Spurring it fiercely, he crossed the ridge and rode forward to the next one, calling.
On the syncline of the ridge, he found three people and a small boy sheltering. A Madi guide lay with his face buried in the bank, still overcome by the stigmata in the sky. Beside him were Dol, clinging to Rastil Roon, and Oyre. The boy was crying. The two women gazed at Laintal Ay in terror as he dismounted and went forward to them. Only when he clung to them and called their names did they recognise him.
Oyre too had been through the eye of the fever needle. They stood and surveyed each other, smiling and exclaiming at their skeletal selves. Then she gave a laugh and a cry at the same time, and snuggled into his arms. While they stood together, faces against each other's flesh, Aoz Roon came forward, clutched his small son's chubby wrist, and embraced Dol. Tears poured down his ravaged face.
The women related some of the recent painful history of Oldorando; Oyre explained Dathka's unsuccessful attempt to take over the leadership. Dathka was still in the city, together with many others. When Raynil Layan had come to Oyre and Dol, offering to escort them to safety, they had accepted his offer. Though they suspected the man was really fleeing to save his own skin, such was their fear that Rastil Roon would catch the pest that they accepted Raynil Layan's offer, and had left hurriedly with him. Because of his inexperience, their goods and mounts had been stolen almost immediately by Borlienian brigands. "And the phagors? They're going to attack the city?" All the women could say was that the city still stood, despite the chaos within its walls. And there had certainly been massed ranks of the dreadful fuggies outside the city as they slipped away. "I shall have to go back."
"Then I return with you – I'm not leaving you again, my precious," Oyre said. "Raynil Layan can do as he pleases. Dol and the boy stay with father."
As they stood talking, clutching each other, smoke drifted across the plains from the west. They were too involved, too happy, to notice.
"The sight of my son revives me," Aoz Roon said, hugging the child and drying his eyes on his sleeve. "Dol, if you are able to let the past die, I'll be a better man to you from now on."
"You speak words of regret, Father," Oyre said. "I should be the first to do that. I know now how wilfully I behaved to Laintal Ay, and almost lost him as a consequence."
As he saw the tears come to her eyes, Laintal Ay thought involuntarily of his snoktruix in the earth below the rajabarals, and reflected that it was only through Oyre's nearly having lost him that they were now able to find each other. He soothed her, but she burst out of his grasp, saying, "Forgive me, and I'll be yours – and wilful no more, I swear.
He clasped her, smiling. "Keep your will. It's needed. We have much else to learn, and must change as times change. I'm grateful to you for understanding, for making me act."
They clung lovingly together, clutching each other's skeletal bodies, kissing each others' fragile lips.
The Madi guide began to come to his senses. He got up and called for Raynil Layan, but the master of the mint had fled. The smoke was thicker now, adding its ashes to the ashen sky.
Aoz Roon started to relate his experiences on the island to Dol, but Laintal Ay interrupted.
"We're united again, and that is miraculous. But Oyre and I must return to Embruddock in all haste. We'll surely be needed there."
The two sentinels were lost in cloud. A breeze was rising, troubling the plain. It was the breeze, blowing from the direction of Embruddock, which carried the news of fire. Now the smoke became denser. It became a shroud, dimming the living beings – whether friend or foe – scattered across the expanses of plain. Everything was enveloped. With the smoke came the stench of burning. Flights of geese winged eastwards overhead.
The human figures clustering about two antlered animals represented between them three generations. They began to move across the landscape as it faded from view. They would survive, though everyone else perished, though the kzahhn triumphed, for that was what befell.
Even in the flames consuming Embruddock, new configurations were being born. Behind the ancipital mask of Wutra, Shiva – god of destruction and regeneration – was furiously at work on Helliconia.
The eclipse was total now.
END OF VOLUME ONE
Brian W. Aldiss, Helliconia Spring
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