Pallahaxi

by Michael Coney

  The sun was lower than I’d thought. Rax would soon be rising.

  I would need shelter for the night, but I was a day’s journey from Noss and, so far as I knew, there was no human habitation between. True, Smitha had made sure I had plenty of furs with me, but this might not be enough. Even the members of a hunting team with their tents huddled around a central fire have to keep an eye on one another. There’s a condition known as runabout that can afflict a person at night; a creeping panic brought on by the cold that can deprive him of commonsense and send him blundering off mindless into the deadly darkness.

  By myself, with no tent and no fire, I stood a good chance of going runabout. I began to get frightened.

  I pulled myself together and considered my surroundings. The forest was less dense here, and a few hundred paces to the south I could see a knoll topped by a stand of low trees. I made my way in that direction, and soon arrived breathless at the summit. My ankle throbbed agonizingly. The sun was low, the shadows long. I shut my eyes and uttered a short prayer to Phu — a measure of the state of my mind.

  I opened my eyes and scanned the countryside.

  Open ground rolled south: low moorland hills, woodland, a glint of winding streams, and in the distance the sea. No sign of people. No cottages, no smoke rising. Nothing.

  I tried to think. I searched my mind for the memories of an ancestor caught in a similar situation, but there was nothing. I began to wish I’d been more assiduous in my stardreaming and gained more experience of this kind of peril. It was too late to try now. A stardreamer needs serenity, and I was anything but serene. And in any event, I doubted if any ancestor of mine would have been stupid enough to get himself into this kind of jam. And if he had, he’d probably have died before he became an ancestor.

  There was just one possible way out. Smith would be long gone, but I could still make my way back to the road, try to find Stance and his posse, and throw myself on their mercy. They had all the equipment needed for survival. At least I would live through the night — unless Stance decided to put an end to me there and then, without the formality of a public trial.

  That was a chance I would have to take. Stance was my only hope. Turning, I limped back northward.

  As I reached the anemone trees I thought I heard something. I stopped and listened. There was no doubt about it; a steady crunching of popweed heralded an approach. At first I thought it was a loat; but then I remembered the tall creatures stay away from anemones, fearing a tentacle around the neck. And the sound was too regular to be a snorter. It could only be a member of Stance’s team. I’d never been so glad of the freezer’s presence.

  “Uncle Stance!” In my relief I even allowed him his title. “I’m here!”

  I heard a crashing of trampled bushes and a lorin came scampering toward me, eyes wide and finger to his lips.

  “Wilt!”

  He arrived at my side, took my hand in his furry paw and tugged. He wanted me to go south again.

  “Hardy!” came a distant shout. “Where are you?”

  Wilt tugged at my hand again, more urgently. It was the moment of decision; and for a moment I wondered what my descendants — if any — would think of it. I could choose Stance and possible safety. Or I could choose the lorin and the unknown.

  And there was something reassuring about Wilt.

  I let him lead me. He began to run, still holding my hand, and I stumbled awkwardly after him. The shouting sounded nearer as we began to skirt the knoll I’d climbed previously. I caught my foot in a root, felt a fierce stab of pain in my ankle, and fell. Wilt knelt beside me, tugging at me. He mouthed sounds, pointing, then left me and parted the low branches of a sticklebush.

  And I saw hope there.

  I crawled forward. Only a fool would normally approach a sticklebush, which uses its long spines to stab passing prey; they can even kill a snorter if they catch it right. But this bush was quiescent; calmed, like so many things, by the presence of the lorin. I pushed my way among the spines without injury and crawled into a sandy tunnel overhung by concealing fronds. And there I collapsed, finished. Wilt knelt beside me, his paw cool on my brow.

  “He’s around here, somewhere.” The voice was so close I started up and hit my head against the tunnel roof.

  “Young fool.” It was Stance’s voice. “How does he think he’ll survive the night? Anyway, now perhaps you’ll believe me. You all heard his voice. And there was broken popweed back there.”

  “It’s just I’m surprised at Smith, that’s all. He must have sent that lorin off as a diversion.”

  “I don’t see that. How in the name of Rax do you get a lorin to understand what you want?” asked another voice.

  “That lorin’s been with Smith for years. They’re not stupid, you know.”

  “Well, anyway, Hardy doesn’t stand a chance out here,” said Stance. “And I’d say he’s proved his own guilt. Only a guilty person would run away like this. I’m going to assume Smith knew nothing about him. He was hiding somewhere in the back of the cart; Rax, there’s all kinds of junk in there. And when the lorin went to take a leak he seized his chance.”

  “And the lorin all dressed up to look like your nephew?”

  “Best to ignore that. What’s done is done, the young freezer won’t survive the night, and I see no point in antagonizing Smith. Come on, men. Phu’s low. We’d better get back to the lox.”

  “I still say we should look some more,” said someone doubtfully. “We might at least save him from his own stupidity.”

  “No,” snapped Stance, “we’ve looked enough.”

  “A person might think you don’t want to find him, Stance.”

  Stance’s voice assumed pompous tones of leadership. I could almost see the expression on his face. “It grieves me greatly that all this should have happened within my own family. I see the death of my nephew as a necessary expiation to purge the male line of its bad blood. Tragic though it is, it is better this way. The alternative is days of argument in Yam, excuses and counter-accusations, and worst of all, the chance of offending our good friends in Noss when we can least afford it. Yes, for the sake of Yam I would sacrifice even my own blood relative.”

  “It does you credit, Stance.”

  The voices faded, and I was alone with Wilt.

  And night was not far off.

  The tunnel was low and narrow, barely big enough for me to crawl along behind Wilt. Soon we were in total darkness. I sensed other tunnels opening off on either side, and kept myself on the right track by holding onto Wilt’s hairy foot. We crawled on endlessly. It was not cold but my knees were becoming sore. I wondered how far we were going and what I’d find when we got there.

  Everybody knows the lorin live in holes in the ground and it’s rumored there’s a big warren near Yam; but that’s about all we know. Nobody has any desire to investigate further. We have very little curiosity about such a familiar part of the scenery. We don’t hunt them or eat them; possibly because they look too much like a smaller, hairier version of ourselves. So the lorin are left pretty much to themselves.

  One thing we know: the lorin are friendly. They will help a person in trouble. They have no unpleasant characteristics whatever, and I’ve often felt that we’d be better off praying to the lorin instead of the Sun-god Phu and the Great Lox and all that nonsense. At least the lorin would be able to hear us. But I’d never told anyone about my heretical notion. I could just imagine the Phu-loving Stance’s response.

  Years ago I discussed the lorin with Dad. He told me that in all his stardreaming he’d never come across any serious consideration of them, just frequent examples of their good nature and helpfulness. There are legends, though. One such legend holds that the lorin could once talk, but gradually lost the ability when they developed telepathic powers.

  Legends are supposedly the experiences of ancient people whose bloodline has died out — so they can’t be recalled by a living stardreamer. They’ve
been passed on by word of mouth and have probably gained in the telling to the extent that, in the end, they are little better than lies. Religion is based on one such lie: that the Sun-god Phu in the form of the Great Lox once dragged the world out of the clutches of the villainous ice-devil Rax. And another lie: the goatparent on its cloud, giving birth to one and all.

  And then there’s the legend of Drove and Browneyes, the immortal couple who saved the world long ago, when Rax seemed to be getting the upper hand again. How, I’ve no idea. The legend tells that the lorin played a major role in this heroic saga, which may be another reason why we look so kindly on the creatures.

  And now, for all these reasons and also because I had no alternative, I was putting my life in the hands of the lorin.

  We crawled on, and suddenly my surroundings had changed. The ground was softer, drier and more sandy. The air was warm with an animal smell, but not unpleasant. The walls of the tunnel had opened out. I let go of Wilt’s foot and extended my arms all around, but could feel nothing. I was in a cavern of unknown size. Wilt slipped his hand into mine and tugged upwards. Obediently, I stood. I could hear a multitude of shuffling feet and odd sounds not unlike someone sucking on a water skin.

  I was in a lorin warren.

  We’d always known about such places, but so far as I knew I was the first person to have entered one. At the time it didn’t occur to me to wonder why I was so privileged. I felt warm and comforted, as we always do in the company of lorin, and it was a welcome change from the menace of the world outside. I knew I was safe for the night.

  “Thanks, Wilt,” I murmured, and let go of his hand.

  I shuffled along and immediately ran into something hanging from the roof that swayed away and returned to slap me gently on the forehead. I grasped it. It was warm and yielding, and seemed to be part of a living creature.

  I stretched up, following the thing as far as I could reach. Almost at the limit of my arms, my fingertips encountered a roof of similar soft flesh. I shuffled further. The roof continued. Another of the hanging things dangled against my face.

  “Wilt?”

  His hand touched my arm.

  “What is this thing?”

  He led me onward, and soon I was pushing my way among more of the things, hanging much lower. My head bumped softly against the roof. He pulled my arm downward, and I sat obediently. Then he guided one of the things toward my mouth.

  Now I realized: it was a huge nipple.

  I’m not normally squeamish, but I must admit I gagged as moisture wet my lips; and despite the presence of countless lorin I felt a moment of fear. I could only suppose that we were sitting beneath some beast of unimaginable size, squeezed into this lorin-built cavern. A cave-cow. Supposing the beast got hungry, where exactly was its mouth? The lorin were presumably feeding from the nipples; did it in turn eat them, as part of a never-ending cycle? The implications were beyond any stardreaming I — or anyone else — had even done, so far as I knew.

  Wilt pushed the end of the nipple against my lips.

  Well, maybe there was nothing to be lost by experimenting. I sucked.

  The warm liquid tasted innocuous. As I realized how thirsty I was, I detected more than a hint of cocha juice — my favorite drink. I sucked greedily. Soon I began to feel sleepy, and I leaned back against a warm and yielding wall. Here, the roof and wall were one.

  Just as I was beginning to grapple with the fact that I seemed to be actually inside this huge creature, I fell asleep.

  I was awakened by Wilt tugging at my hand. I crawled away from the soft wall until there was enough headroom to stand. My ankle felt fine; the lorin have strange healing powers. Wilt led me past a glowing heap of some kind of fungus, then suddenly the ground was sandy again. We’d emerged from the cave-cow into a maze of tunnels. Eventually daylight showed ahead and I was squinting into the warm light of Phu. Unexpectedly warm, actually. At first I thought it must surely be noon, but the length of the shadows assured me it was still morning. It was a good day for the walk to Noss, and my spirits rose.

  I headed south and soon joined the ancient Totney-Noss road; probably important during the days when Pallahaxi was a thriving center; now little more than a track winding through rolling coastal hills. From time to time I caught glimpses of the sea, but saw no game animals. It had been tempting to blame Stance for the hunt’s recent failures, but the truth was, the animals simply were not around this year. Maybe they’d arrive later.

  Trees were plentiful, however. I’d last traveled this road four years before, and it seemed to me that the forested areas had doubled in size since then. Most of the groves of cupps and anemones were sacred plantations; you can always tell them by the neat spacing. But scattered between these were stands of rising-sap trees of varying types, seeded by the wind. In less than fifty generations this land would be completely forested over.

  I felt a surge of pleasure at this thought, and wondered why.

  I saw very few people on my journey; just the occasional croft and its little sacred forest. I spoke to a woman hoeing a sickly crop of root vegetables with her daughter. Like most crofters they were none too clean, but then neither was I.

  “It’s going to be another short growing season,” I ventured.

  She shot me an unfriendly look from eyes sunken in a face wrinkled like a dried yellowball. “We’ll get by. We always do.”

  She was a stubborn old fool. If those wilting rows of vegetables were to be their only food for the next freeze, they certainly wouldn’t get by. The daughter glanced my way and I thought I saw fear in her eyes. She was a lot older than me; I judged her to be about my mother’s age.

  “Why don’t you move to Noss?” I asked.

  “Why should we?” the old woman snapped back. “We’ve always lived here.”

  I wanted to explain the advantages of living in a settled society but I couldn’t think of words simple enough for her understanding. “Fish are still plentiful at Noss,” I said eventually.

  “My man’s gone fishing,” she said flatly.

  Her man. I’d supposed the daughter to be the result of a passing traveler, but it seemed I was in the presence of another unusual relationship like Smith and Smitha’s. It’s often the way with crofters; the isolation thrusts men and women together in a manner that would cause comment in a village. Proximity can cause peculiar attachments.

  Or so I’ve always been told. But Spring once suggested the reverse: It’s the intolerance of villagers that forces people into crofts, Hardy. The attachment happens in the village, then the couple are driven out.

  Suddenly the daughter spoke. “Dad’s been gone fishing for twenty-three days, Ma.”

  I got an unpleasant hollow feeling in my chest. I was in the presence of a small tragedy. The daughter held my eyes, as though willing me to tell her mother to face facts. She’d tried herself and failed.

  “Twenty-three days is a long time,” was the best I could manage. Butcher Bay was less than a morning’s walk away. “I’d say it was too long.”

  “My man will be back!” shrilled the old girl.

  I’d provoked her hostility. I said, “I’m sure he will,” trying to make it convincing, and walked on.

  I’d gone perhaps a hundred paces when I heard running feet. The daughter caught up with me. “I walked to Butcher Bay one day,” she said. “Surely you know I’d have done that.”

  I stopped, looking at her. She had a broad, pleasant face, prematurely lined from the labor of crofting. She was slightly stooped for the same reason. Her brown hair hung to her waist, roughly knotted at the neck to hold it away from her face as she worked, bent over. In today’s warm weather she wore very little; just a light skin blouse and a woven loxhair skirt. She was hollow-chested and I could see the outline of nipples near her waist. She was not a woman to bear children. Her memory line was destined to die out; she was just living out her life, no more.

  A human might not understand that. In
our world of short relationships a woman must be beautiful, a man strong. One day when I was pointing this out to Mister McNeil, he said, With all due respect, Hardy, nobody could call your mother beautiful. But as I’ve said before, my Dad and Spring were out of the ordinary, and Dad must have seen something lovely behind Spring’s plump face.

  I asked the woman, “Did you find anything?”

  “His boat, upside-down where he kept it.”

  “Was that all?”

  She didn’t want to tell me. It was not easily said. But I could picture the little V-shaped ravine, and the linked pools dropping to the beach. An elderly man could lose his footing on wet popweed and start to slide, digging his fingers into the soil, unable to slow himself until his foot dipped into one of those pools… . He’d be dead by the next morning, and then the ice-devil would liquefy the pool again and draw him down. Another few days, and the bones would appear at the water’s edge.

  But they could be anybody’s bones, and this woman didn’t want to assume they were her father’s.

  “He wasn’t around,” she said. “I’ll come to Noss with you.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She won’t come.”

  “But she’ll starve.”

  “No. With me gone, there’ll be enough for next freeze. After that, it’s up to her.” She looked at me from under thick eyebrows. “My name’s Helen.”

  “That’s a very human name.”

  “Dad’s choice.”

  And she said very little else until late afternoon, when we entered Noss.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Noss Lonessa shortly. “We thought you were dead.”

  It was a bad start, even somewhat sinister. I seemed to have barged into an acrimonious discussion between Lonessa and Walleye. As I’d approached the Noss council house I’d heard shouting and on entering I’d found them staring at each other with undisguised hostility. Now three angry eyes and one clouded one fixed on me.