Complete Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by Robert Abernathy

  YOUNG KIIN heard the echoing crash and saw, as in a dream, the monster leap convulsively into the air and go rolling and thrashing down the slope—to fetch up sprawling like a great killed spider against tumbled boulders, many yards below. He raised his eyes, and saw the god standing against the sky a hundred feet above him. He saw with a sense of delirium the gleam of metal in Kasson’s hands, and the awe-inspiring beard. And he fainted.

  Kasson told no one the mission that had led him this way. From chance remarks, they learned only that he meant to go alone, into the southern desert, an act which the People thought daring—even for a god. But he was in no hurry; he stayed with them many days after he had brought the hurt boy Kiin into the village at the mountain’s foot. And the People were glad; for not even in the memory of the old man Monsuu, who was almost idiotic with his great age, had a god come to visit them.

  He showed special favor to Kiin, who, with a broken ankle, would very likely have died, save that Kasson laid his hands upon him to heal him. And the People knew that Kiin was destined for great things; it was plain that his life was sacred, since the god had twice saved it. Some began saying that Kiin would be leader, that he had learned from his benefactor secrets to make the People great and victorious over the brown horde. In truth they talked often together alone, the god and the boy.

  But Kasson spoke freely also to others who had courage to come to the house they had given him—to Henzen, the leader; to the old man Hwalzen; and even to the sorceress Musenez, who had more than once barely missed stoning on account of her evil wisdom. The god was a friend to all. Yet they were few who dared sit face-to-face with him, and look upon the great black beard that fell to his chest and was sign to them of his godhead; for the People were beardless.

  To all the People, Kasson gave gifts of knowledge. To Henzen he revealed a way to chip flints with fire and water; a way to bank earth about tender plants so that fewer died in the scorching noon; a way to straighten shafts for spears (and this was very helpful, since in the valley grew little wood that was not gnarled and crooked); a way to make magically-successful traps for rabbits and ground-squirrels.

  With Hwalzen, the wise old man, Kasson spoke of strange matters that, to most of the People, meant nothing: of sun and moon and stars; of life and death and immortality; of bow men came upon the earth, and of what was before they came. And many of these sayings passed beyond the understanding of Hwalzen; for who can fathom all the mysteries of the gods?

  As for Musenez, the witch, though she talked many times alone with Kasson, she kept his words to herself, and grew more feared thereby. However, it became known that Kasson had taught her something of the art which had made the boy Kiin whole again; and the People, when sickness or injury fell on them, crept in secret to the sorceress.

  Sometimes, as Kasson walked about through the villages of the People, watching their work and their play, they glimpsed on his bearded face a faint half-smile that was tinged with a strange sorrow. To some who saw him then, it seemed—although he walked among them in human form and was little taller than the men of the People—that Kasson towered far above them, looking down from some unimaginable height. And others—among them, old Hwalzen—felt that the height was o-f years; the face of the god was like that of a man in his strength; but from his eyes looked ageless wisdom, the remote sad wisdom of the immortal.

  ONLY ONCE his composure was broken. When the second girl-child of Hek, the leader’s daughter, had been born and, the lot having been evil, they were carrying the child away, Kasson was standing near the house, and heard the cries of the young mother. And one who saw him then fled away in fear, for the god’s face was terrible. But Kasson said nothing, and the rite was completed. Later he spoke of this to Hwaken. “It is the law of Shanon, the god, who was with us long ago.”

  Kasson nodded slowly, as if remembering.

  Hwaken leaned forward tremulously. “Is it true—as the stories say—that Shanon will return some day to lead us?”

  “No . . .” Kasson’s dark gaze came back from a far distance; he saw the old man’s disappointment, and tried to soften the blow. “All things are possible, but . . . I do not think Shanon will return. However, you do right to follow his laws; they are hard, but they are wise.”

  “Life is hard,” said Hwalzen dully, and a look of bitter understanding gave his wizened countenance a queer resemblance to the young-seeming face into which he peered. “If we did not obey the law . . . you know, most of the People do not even understand that it would be possible to disobey it; but if we did not, there would soon be many too many, and great hunger. It is better that some should die before they have taken firm hold on life. Among the brown people they do not kill the young; but they eat each other.”

  A new thought struck the old man, and his eyes grew intent on the bearded face. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you will stay with us and lead us in Shanon’s stead.”

  Kasson shook his head. “That I cannot do,” he declared. “I must go on—and soon, now that the rains have begun and the heat is less. But I will come back, when I have fulfilled my purpose yonder”—he flung out a hand toward the south, where the blue clouds of afternoon were gathering—“and will remain here again for a time. And I will teach the People again.”

  IN THE MEANTIME, Kiin had recovered with scarcely a limp thanks to the healing-power of the god. He accompanied Kasson on the latter’s frequent walks about the valley, marching proudly by his protector’s side while others looked on from an awe-struck distance. Afterward when Kiin was alone, those his own age—and even the older ones—drew back from him shyly. If he missed human companionship, he made up for the loss in exploiting his new position as divine favorite. A novel air of command sat on him, and people instinctively moved to obey his confident orders. Henzen began to look with jealous suspicion upon the arrogant youth—and Henzen’s two sons, Ekeblek and Lesnuud, with open fear.

  But Musenez, the witch, invited Kiin into her house and gave him food and a charm which, she said, would make him irresistible to any or all of the girls of the People. And, in truth, Kiin had little difficulty from that time on in making any conquests he desired.

  There came the day when Kasson left the valley. Kiin wept bitterly, and with him all the People. But Henzen was secretly glad.

  Kasson bade them goodbye with upraised hand; he carried again the weapon with which he had killed the monster; and belted round his body were the long rows of gleaming metal cases, each of which—he told them—contained a death of man or beast. He wore the familiar look of faintly-wry amusement as the People bowed themselves low before him, returning his salutation of farewell.

  Then Kiin, alone of all, stepped forward boldly and extended his right hand to the god. Kasson looked sharply at the youth, then gripped the hand briefly, smiling, before he turned to go. And the People continued to kneel in the dust—as if they knelt before Kiin, who stood erect and exalted before them.

  From that time forward there was a widening rift in the ranks of the People, and a worm gnawed the heart of Henzen. He, who also had talked with Kasson, had not the same reverence as the others for the semi-divine aura surrounding Kiin; he would have killed the young man—for Kiin was accepted now as a man—without hesitation, had he not feared the natural and human consequences of the deed. There were too many who believed.

  And, more ominously still, around Kiin grew up a faction of the young men, who followed and obeyed him as if he—and not Henzen—were the leader. The People had always been ruled by their elders; and to this rebellious band of youth, a chief of their own years was an intoxicating novelty. They swaggered, these satellites of Kiin, and trampled on the privileges of the old. And while Henzen hesitated and raged in secret, a new generation rose up which mocked his authority. His sons, the legitimate heirs of power, were outcasts among their contemporaries.

  2

  WHEN IT was already obvious that Henzen must act or be lost, an irruption of the brown horde delayed his decision still furth
er. In the battle, which lasted two days and nights in the western passes, Kiin and his young men fought as a close-knit group, covering themselves with the new glamor of warlike glory. Henzen had no joy of the victory or the spoils.

  His lowering sullenness throughout the festival that followed failed to eclipse the radiant triumph of Kiin.

  Now Henzen bethought himself of a way to assert his authority—if any remained to him—over the insolent youth; he remembered that Kiin, now long since of age for a hunter and warrior, had never performed the arduous ceremonies which by custom signalized the admission of a boy to the status of manhood. The youth of the People underwent ingenious tests of courage and endurance, devised by his elders—who thereby eased a conscious or unconscious jealousy of the rising generation—before receiving this confirmation. It might be possible, brooded Henzen further—a large number of the older men were still devoted to him—to arrange that his rival fail to survive the tests.

  So the leader stood up resolutely in the midst of the victorv-feast. When his ominous stare had silenced the revelers, despite the wine they had drunk, he raised his voice to accuse Kiin of neglecting the custom of his folk.

  In a still deeper hush of expectancy the young man rose lithely from his place on the opposite side of the circle in which sat the chief men of the People, and into which he had thrust himself unasked. Coldly he returned Henzen’s glare, saying: “Whether I am a warrior now—ask the dead that I left on the mountains.”

  Henzen’s sunburned face grew darker with swelling fury. “You are not a man, because you have not fulfilled the ritual. I say it because it is the law!”

  “And I say that your ritual is a sport of stupid and worn-out old men—like you.”

  With a deadly deliberation Henzen bent into the shadow at his feet and picked up the spear he had brought. But he was shaking as he raised it. “I am your leader; I command you to fulfill the rite.”

  “You are not my leader,” retorted Kiin without flinching. “I belong to Kasson.”

  “I will kill you,” threatened Henzen, and revealed his pitiful weakness, in that he substituted the menace for the deed.

  “You cannot,” answered Kiln coolly: “I am Kasson’s.”

  Henzen’s face twisted, and he swayed on his feet; then he threw the spear. Kiin did not move, and the shaft passed him by. And Henzen toppled forward without a cry and lay with his face in the fire, unmoving.

  Then there was no doubt any more. By the time of the spear-cast the whole festival encampment, overflowing the largest village of the People, had known that the moment was come; many of them had seen the god’s vengeance strike Henzen down. Kiin’s young men dealt then and there with two or three unregenerate old fools who still took the part of the dead leader; and likewise they dealt with Henzen’s sons. Lesnuud, the elder, was speared through before he could make his escape; and when later they ran down Ekeblek hiding in a gully, they slew him shamefully with stones.

  SO KIIN was leader of the People.

  And though still a young man—he had not yet taken a wife—he proved no more unwise than his predecessors; and in some ways, perhaps he was above them. With ruthless energy he drove the People—apart from his picked band of warrior-partisans, led by his trusted lieutenant Dewn—to greater industry in their struggle for survival, and thus kept famine from their villages. With his fighting-men he invaded the eastern range, killed two more monsters which had housed in its crags, and mads it safe for the food-gathering expeditions. He constructed more and bigger traps to provide the tribe with meat.

  Musenez, who had from the first stood by Kiin with counsel and magic, found only on fly in the ointment—the fact that her granddaughter, Jezephaik, was not old enough to be married to the new leader. For the rest, Musenez received full measure of the frightened respect which was what she wanted from the People. To the vague dread of her sorceries was added the concrete fear of her influence on Kiin. Now, even when it was known for sure that she had cast a destructive spell on a neighbor’s field, there could be no question of trying to intimidate her into removing it; all that could be done was to placate her with gifts. Thus she acquired substantial wealth in provisions, utensils and trinkets.

  But the discomforts of Kiin’s reign were not sufficient as yet to provoke rebellion—especially since his bodyguards had the best weapons and made up the cream of the tribe’s fighting force. He won over some of the conservatives by wedding the daughter of the revered old chieftain Huuzed. And always around his kingship hung a mystic awe, the divine right to rule of one who had taken the hand of a god.

  Among those who held to the belief in Kiin’s destiny to lead the People was Kiin himself. But, search as he would among his own memories of the beginnings of his greatness, he could discover nothing of use to him now. Clearly he recalled Kasson’s Mack-bearded features, the firm mouth, the wise eyes. But of Kasson’s words and sayings he recollected little—and that little was either useless or incomprehensible, now as then. The god lad spoken of a golden time that had been, and of a great future that must be—and had said that thus-and-so must be done to bring that future; but the thus-and-so was what Kiin would not remember.

  HE REMEMBERED, though, that Kasson had once praised the boy Kiin for his quick intelligence—praise which Kiin had understood only dimly, for the People had no ounces intelligence as such—only that of wisdom acquired by long experience of the world. But Kiin had learned—by experience—that the originator of new ideas may be superior to him who has mastered all the old lore; he tried earnestly to accomplish the will of Kasson, by setting his brain to work in original ways.

  Easiest, since he had begun as a rebel, was to break customs. He took a second wife, shocking the monogamous People; he flaunted other traditions, with impunity, for he was the master. But nothing real seemed gained thereby; on the contrary, the People took to emulating their leader’s lawlessness, and he had to punish them.

  Then, during a heavy season of rains and floods, he rediscovered the purpose of the ancient system of ditches, winch could still be traced over much of the valley-floor. There were old men who remembered a tradition that Shanon had built the ditches, though they could not say why. It came to Kiin, in a flash of insight, that they had been meant to channel the runoff water from the hills and carry it to the People’s fields. He saw the possibility of an increased and assured crop and, of more drinking-water; he set about restoring the irrigation system.

  By the time the job was finished, however, the rains were past and the ditches were as good as useless until next year; when the following rainy season arrived, the sketchy work of renovation had been almost wiped out by blown sand, by growing things, and by the carelessness of the People, who threw rubbish into the ditches. And the rains caught Kiin unaware, so that there was no use in renewing the effort. He shrugged and abandoned the project.

  But he could not shrug away the ever-waxing awareness in his very bones that the drive, the youthful energy he had brought to the leadership, was failing. He was no longer young; he was middle-aged. He had reached that time of life when a man realizes the fewness of his days, and gropes for some stay in eternity—some value, not transitory, to justify and give meaning to his life. It was a sign of Kiin’s real superiority of mind that he could not find satisfaction in counting his past successes—the heights he had attained.

  Was it only for this that Kasson had promised him a shining future?—for Kiin was convinced now that the god had done so.

  Long since, Hwalzen, the wise, had died at a great age, repeating till the last the promise of Kasson to return and lead the People. Now Kiin’s thoughts turned often to this other promise. Perhaps that was what the god had meant, rather than that the People should become great under Kiin’s leadership. A the idea, Kiin felt a faint, undefined pang of jealousy—which he stifled with the reflection that Kasson was after all his god, whose triumph would be Kiin’s—if Kasson returned.

  He began to dream of that return, the more so as he thought he di
scerned the first mutterings of mutiny among his subjects. There was a new and fretful generation, on which Kiin’s more-or-less-benevolent tyranny sat heavy; and the tyrant himself had demolished many of the barriers of tradition and respect, that had formerly held the young in check.

  AT LENGTH Kiin conceived the idea of going forth to look for Kasson. In the preparation for that quixotic venture he felt some of the eagerness of youth come back to him. He gathered together a company of his most faithful retainers, with Dewn, and many of the others who had first helped him to power, armed them with straight spears and sharp-edged axes; and taking food for many days, they marched toward the midnight.

  Why northward, Kiin could not really have said, but in all the legends the home of the gods lay there. He remembered well enough that Kasson had journeyed toward midday from the valley of the People. But the god might have gone home by another road, without paying his promised visit.

  After two days’ march they found themselves on the high tableland, where the great pint forest sighed unendingly in a chilly wind. Here, in fable, was the land of the giants, beyond which dwelt the gods. And at the end of the next day’s journey, where the mesa ended in a gorge that plunged to dizzying depths where a dark river muttered, they found a giant. His clean white bones lay outstretched, scarcely disarranged, at the foot of a mighty pine on the canyon’s rim.

  Kiin would have pushed on, but the motionless skeleton cast greater fear into his men than would have a score of living giants. What dreadful thing, they reasoned, could have slain a man who had stood ten feet high? That, and the known terror of the precipices, turned them back.

  For the first time the leader was powerless to command his followers. Bitterly complaining, he accompanied the retreat; the men were sullen under his scolding.