Helgvor of the Blue River

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Aoun lay flat on the ground, while the wild beast sniffed the air for a long time. The sparkling eyes gazed around for a moment, then the muzzle dropped, and the spotted body again became inert. Aoun allowed many minutes to elapse before moving on. He had still about 200 ells to cover. Then he could shoot an arrow from his bow. His weapon could not inflict a mortal wound at that distance, even if it reached its mark, but Aoun hoped that the beast, becoming enraged, would accept battle.

  A gentle breeze sprang up, which carried the smell of the hunter away from the animal. He hastened his steps and gained 150 ells, then he hid behind a tree.

  Again the leopard lifted its head to listen. Then it came out of its lair, the better to sniff the suspicious smell.

  Suddenly a belling was heard, a doe bounded out between the sycamores and the leopard dashed after it. The doe took a turn towards the tree which hid Aoun from view; the warrior rose, his bow twanged. The leopard, wounded at the back of its neck, gave a frenzied howl. It hesitated, gazed at its adversary and slipped away among the ferns.

  Aoun placed himself in an open space, in order to guard against a surprise, holding his club in one hand and a spear in the other. The leopard seemed unable to make up its mind to attack him. It could distinctly see the man through the thick vegetation, and it tried to find a way of approaching him under cover and leaping on his back.

  Its fury had abated; it hardly felt its wound, and although it had proved itself too clever for all the Oulhamrs’ traps, it realized that it now had to do with a dangerous adversary. It tried to improve its position, but found itself several bounds length from its enemy in whichever direction it turned. Aoun, having a good view of its spotted fur, flung his spear. It fell among the ferns and the leopard retreated into the deep thickets.

  Other creatures had for some time been moving in the forest; the hunter became aware of the approach of a band of men. Shouting a rallying cry he dashed off in pursuit of the leopard. Heads appeared here and there; spears were flung without result. Suddenly Khouam showed his muscular body, and brandishing his bow let fly an arrow. Hit in the flank, the leopard sprang up and turned, ready for battle… Khouam had vanished; all the other heads had hidden themselves; only Aoun remained visible.

  The leopard hesitated no longer; it was within reach of the son of Urus in three bounds, then it sprang… Aoun’s club stopped it and threw it to the ground; he shattered its skull, and the beast rolled over and expired with a hoarse cry.

  Then Khouam and his companions ran up. Aoun watched them come, leaning on his club. He thought that they would admire his strength; an amiable gentleness and the attraction of race rose in him. But the faces were hard. One of the men who followed Khouam, like Zouhr followed Aoun, exclaimed, “Khouam has conquered the leopard!”

  There were loud grunts of approval. Khouam drew himself up by the body and showed his arrow, which was deeply imbedded in the beast’s ribs. Aoun revolted, “Khouam did not conquer the leopard.”

  The Oulhamrs mocked him and displayed the arrow; the man who had first spoken went on, “It was Khouam! Aoun only finished the victory.”

  The son of Urus raised his club; anger raged within him; he shouted disdainfully, “What is a leopard? Aoun has conquered the red beast, the tiger and the Dhole-Men. Only Naoh is as strong as he!”

  Khouam did not give way. He felt the support of his companions’ presence around him.

  “Khouam fears neither the lion nor the tiger!”

  A bitter sorrow gnawed at Aoun’s heart. He was like a stranger to the men of his race. Seizing the carcass he flung it towards them, “There. The son of Urus will not strike the Oulhamrs. He gives them the leopard.”

  They no longer mocked him; their ferocious eyes were fixed on his tall stature and his enormous club; they were all cunningly aware that his strength was like that of the great carnivores. But they detested it, and disdained his gentleness.

  Aoun returned to the camp full of disgust and annoyance. When he got near to the overhanging rock, he found Djeha all alone, crouched upon a rock. She rose when she saw him, with a wail… her cheek was bleeding.

  “Djeha has hurt herself?” he said passing his arm around her shoulders.

  She replied in a low voice, “The women threw stones.”

  “They threw stones at Djeha?”

  She nodded her head; a shudder ran through the wanderer. “Where are they?” he asked, seeing that the camp was deserted.

  “I do not know.”

  He bowed his head sullenly. The pain which he felt became intolerable. In the silence which succeeded he realized that he no longer wished to live with the horde.

  “Would Djeha like to return to the Wolf-Women with Aoun and Zouhr?” he murmured.

  She lifted her face towards him full of joy, which she tried to hide. She was a submissive and timid creature. She suffered acutely among the Oulhamrs; she endured their hate, the disdain and mocking laughs of the women, and was the more overcome because she hardly understood their language. She dared not complain, and would not have spoken of her wound if Aoun had not interrogated her.

  She exclaimed, “Djeha will go with Aoun wherever he goes.”

  “Does she not prefer to live with her horde?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then we will go back to the bank of the great river.”

  She gave a sigh of relief and leant her head on the man’s shoulder.

  When the Wah returned from the underground lands, the son of Urus drew him to a distance from the camp, for the women and the hunters had returned.

  “Listen,” he said abruptly, “Aoun wants to see the Wolf-Women, the Kzamm tiger and the high cave again.”

  Zouhr lifted his vague eyes; his lips opened with a laugh. He knew that his companion was living through bad days in the horde, and his own heart was heavy, “Zouhr will be happy in the high cave,” he said.

  His words dissipated the wanderer’s last indecision. He went to Naoh, who was resting apart from the horde, under a jutting rock of porphyry, and said, “The warriors do not like the son of Urus. He wishes to go back to the other side of the mountain. We will live with the Wolf-Women and be the ally of the Oulhamrs.”

  Naoh listened gravely. He was fond of the young man, but he was aware of the horde’s aversion for him, and foresaw painful struggles.

  “The horde is displeased to see Aoun consorting with strangers,” he said. “If he stays with the horde they will not forgive him. The Oulhamrs respect their allies. They have fought with the Men-without-Shoulders. They will like Aoun better when he has left the horde. Listen! In the spring Naoh will conduct his people to the other side of the mountain. He will occupy the plateau while the Wolf-Women occupy the plain. If he comes down to the plain during the cold season, he will not hunt on the same side of the river as Aoun. So the alliance will be secure!”

  He laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and added, “The son of Urus would have been a great chief among the Oulhamrs, if he had not preferred the Wah to his own men, and a strange woman to the women of his tribe!”

  The son of Urus understood the truth of those words. He, however, regretted nothing: more than ever he preferred Zouhr and Djeha. The separation from Naoh would be his only sorrow.

  “Aoun will bring teeth and shining stones to the son of the Leopard,” he murmured.

  Twilight came on. A sweet melancholy feeling came over the two men; their souls were as much alike as their destinies were different; each one had carried his strength and audacity very far. Yet almost identical acts had made a chief of the father and an exile of the son.

  Epilogue

  Since the previous day a couple of saber-tooth tigers had established themselves among the rocks, 300 paces from the Wolf-Women’s cave. They knew the agility, strength, cunning and audacity of these devourers of pachyderms. None of the women dared venture out. During the night the red beasts had prowled for a long time about their refuge. Sometimes they came nearer, and their snarls and rough
growls could be heard. Then the women shouted all together and threw sharp stones. The projectiles had no effect, however, and were lost among the boulders, thorns and branches accumulated for the defense of the cave. At last other prey claimed the attention of the tigers, but during the day, the male or the female would return, between two sleeps, to watch the enigmatical beings.

  The rainy season was near.

  As they took refuge behind their barricade, in the shadow of the porphyry rocks, the women thought of the wanderer whose terrible arms had vanquished the Dhole-Men, and their agony was increased by the thought. He would have struck down the red beasts with his club and his spear…

  There was no doubt that the saber-tooth tigers must have captured insufficient prey on the previous night, for they came to spy upon the cave long before twilight. The day was already darkened by the clouds that had covered the sky; a cutting wind came up from the plain and howled dismally among the rocks; some of the children were crying, and the Wolf-Women, crowded together near the opening, were looking out mournfully on the landscape; Ouchr was thinking that the wild beasts would continue to inhabit the rocks.

  The wind hurled itself with greater fury against the mountain, the saber-tooth tigers appeared together before the refuge and lifted up their voices in a roar. Ouchr, much distressed, went forward to prepare the defense.

  Suddenly a long weapon whirled through the air and one of the wild beasts, the male, hit in the back of the neck, flung himself towards the Wolf-Women. Spears were thrust firmly through the rocky openings, and a second javelin was imbedded in the red body; a clamor arose above the noise of the wind, a great form appeared and a club whirled formidably.

  Falling over each other in the attempt, the women thrust aside the boulders that defended their den… The male saber-tooth was lying on the ground, the female, terrified by its cries of agony and the sudden appearance of so many enemies, fled towards the river.

  The Wolf-Women, growling with joy, pressed around their savior. All the massive faces lit up; the large eyes were fixed upon Aoun with excited worship. He brought with him security, the certainty of conquering the elements, beasts and men… The son of Urus, feeling that he should never go back to his life among the Oulhamrs, cried, “Listen! Aoun and Zouhr have returned to the Wolf-Women. They will not leave them again. They will live all together in the big cave near to which they exterminated the Dhole-Men!”

  As he spoke, their joy became deeper: the Wolf-Women bowed before him as a sign of love and obedience. His heart swelled, he forgot the bitter disappointment he had suffered on his return to the men of his own race, and only thought how a new horde would grow up under his leadership.

  “Ouchr and the Wolf-Women will be your warriors,” said the woman chief. “Where you live they will live. They will do your will and follow your customs.”

  “They will become a horde to be feared,” said Aoun. “They will learn to make and wield harpoons, spears, hatchets, bows and arrows. They will fear neither the Dhole-Men nor the Red beast.”

  The women collected branches; a magnificent fire lit up the darkness; the night hours were no longer full of am-bushes, and the happiness which spread over those youthful hearts seemed to extend itself over the great river and to know no bounds!

  Zouhr alone was melancholy; he would not feel satisfied until he saw again the chain of rocks and the giant feline.

  The wind howled as the little horde reached the cave on the 12th day. Fox bats had sought a refuge there, but they flew away when they saw Ouchr; a falcon took wing with a hoarse cry. Standing on the platform, Aoun stretched out his hand towards the savannah and jungle. They teemed with animal life; a never-ending population of fishes, tortoises, crocodiles, hippopotami, pythons, purple herons, yellow-headed cranes, black storks, ibis, cormorants and black-footed geese lived in the river or on its banks; the savannah, jungle and forest were overpopulated with swamp deer, axis, antelopes, fallow deer, wild asses, horses, onagers, gaurs, buffaloes and wild goats; numberless parrots, doves, birds of the sparrow tribe and pheasants filled the branches; the rich vegetation would supply them with roots, tender stalks and fruit. Aoun felt himself to be stronger than the great carnivores, and rich in the blood of a conquering race that coursed in his veins… Around him, Djeha, Ouchr and the others seemed the continuation of himself…

  The Wah went slowly down towards the deep cave. He went to the fissure and looked in: the den was empty… Zouhr shivered, crept through the opening, and began to explore the deep shadows of the cave. Fresh bones mingled with the dry ones, the smell of the giant feline hung about in the darkness. The son of Earth left the cave and wandered about for a long time in great anxiety, without heeding the wild beasts that might be hidden in the underwood… He had hardly entered the jungle when his face cleared.

  “The Lion of the Rocks!”

  There among the bamboos, the colossal form was couched on the body of a swamp deer… The feline raised its great head at the sound of the man’s voice, then with a gentle roar it bounded towards him…

  Zouhr’s joy was complete. When the animal came close to him, he passed his two hands through its mane, and a pride equal to that of Aoun swelled his feeble breast.

  Afterword

  The turn of the 20th century was a time of great highs and abysmal lows. The Paris Universal Exposition of 1900, The Armory Show of 1913, Marie Skłodowska Curie’s two Nobel Prizes4 shared center stage with the Dreyfus Affair, the rise of New Imperialism and the First World War.

  Writing from within this maelstrom of history was J.-H. Rosny Aîné (1856-1940). This member of the distinguished Goncourt literary academy was the first writer to straddle the line between themes used commonly in mainstream and academic literature and those used in science fiction. He was also the single French-language author who best embodied the evolution of modern science fiction away from the juvenile, one-dimensional scientific anticipations of Jules Verne, or the pulp serials of Paul d’Ivoi, Jean de La Hire and Gustave Le Rouge, to a more mature, literary form of pulp or popular fiction. Needless to say, his genre fiction was neglected by literary scholars.

  Many years later, two individuals, one in a smoldering France, the other in McCarthyist America, one a philosopher, the other a writer, picked up the jet-tipped arrows fired by Rosny. They were unknown to one another and yet so alike in their admiration for this sophisticate who wrote pulp fiction, this great miscegenationist who wrote a philosophy book on pluralism that went through two printings.5

  Philosophy should be like a type of science fiction, suggested the philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) in the preface to his magnum opus Difference and Repetition in 1968, for we “write only at the frontiers of our knowledge, at the border which separates our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms the one into the other.” Apologizing to future detractors, he adds wryly: “We are therefore well aware, unfortunately, that we have spoken about science in a manner which was not scientific.”

  In terms of science fiction there is no writer more indebted to Rosny, and none more worthy of the honor, than Philip José Farmer (1918-2009). From beginning to end, both Farmer and Rosny ceaselessly experimented with alchemical transformations of ignorance and knowledge, writing like men possessed, “so gabby, so sloppy, so pagan, so wild, so cynical, so drunk (should I say, crazed?) with learning.”6

  It is a short step from Rosny’s giant bats of “The Depths of Kyamo” and “The Wonderful Cave Country” to Farmer’s humanoid bat-couple, Ghlikh and Ghuakh, in The Stone God Awakens (1970), a lost land adventure replete with love affairs of a genuinely cross-cultural and inter-racial nature, fecund worlds within worlds, and a modest even reluctant hero for whom the avoidance of shameful (human) actions is more important than notations of evil in a morally relativized universe. Unlike Ghlikh and Ghuakh, however, Rosny’s giant bats form something of a symbiotic alliance with humans and other animals whose blood they are dependent on. The hosts may not have offered themselves, but the Nature to which they are
subject provides the necessary conditions for its will to be done. Save for a lethargy just before and during transmission, there are no adverse side-effects for the hosts. This idea is given a twist by Farmer in The Wind Whales of Ishmael (1971) where it is the carnivorous flora that will insert its vegetable probosci into human jugulars, again, with no adverse side effects.

  Rosny’s “The Navigators of Space” and its sequel “The Astronauts”7 depict human astronauts (his term) traveling to Mars in a spaceship powered by artificial gravity and made of an indestructible, transparent material, not unlike Larry Niven’s spaceships. On Mars, the humans come into contact with an intelligent and peaceful, six-eyed, three-legged dying race. A young Martian female, capable of bearing children parthenogenetically by merely wishing it, eventually gives birth to a child after falling in love with one of the human explorers, undoubtedly the first romance ever written between a man and an alien female. This colorful, poetic ode to the power of love and plea for understanding between races, was a sharp departure from the xenophobia celebrated by Wells with his War of the Worlds.

  The most celebrated miscegenationist tale in the tradition set down by Rosny is Farmer’s short story The Lovers (1952).8 Hal Yarrow, a tyrannical, “terrocentric” and “hidebound”9 earthman is in the process of breaking out of his spiritual prison in an unprecedented act of apostasy.10 Having fallen in love with a woman named Jeannette Rastignac, the two conduct a clandestine love affair. Whilst Jeanette may look human, she is in fact of the species “Chordata pseudarthropoda”11 who are also known as “lalitha…Nature’s most amazing experiment in [mimetic] parasitism and parallel evolution.”12 Tragedy almost ends the relationship, but being a mimetic parasite Hal’s lalitha is the woman he wishes any lalitha to be, and Jeannette had sisters...