And it’s not just the ghouls! The bats here are just incredible! The kind that serve the Sorcerer . . . They’re horror on wings, not bats! And who is it that wanders through the villages at night with an ax, stealing children? And he doesn’t even come into the house, but the children go out to him while they’re asleep, without waking up . . . Let’s suppose all that’s just lies, but I’ve seen a few things for myself. I remember as if it were yesterday the time the duke-prince took us to see the closest entrance to the Fortress. We got there, and there was a peaceful, green little meadow, a little hill, and a cave in the hill. We looked, and—Lord Almighty!—the entire meadow in front of the entrance was piled high with dead ghouls, about twenty of them at least, and they weren’t mutilated or wounded—there wasn’t a single drop of blood on the grass. And then—the most amazing thing of all—Maxim examined them and said, “They’re not dead, they’re caught in some kind of seizure, as if someone hypnotized them . . .” The question is, who?
Yes, these are uncanny places. A man can only go out in the daytime here, and even then he has to be wary. If not for Maxim, I’d have bolted out of here, shown the place a clean pair of heels. But if I’m really being honest, where would I run to? With this forest on all sides, and the forest’s full of creatures of darkness, and the tank’s sunk in a swamp . . . Run back to my own people? What could be more natural than to run back to your own kind? But they’re not my own kind any longer, are they? If you think about it, they’re monsters and puppets too, Maxim’s right about that. What kind of people are they, if they can be controlled like machines? No, that’s not for me. It’s repulsive . . .
They walked out into the square, a large vacant lot with a black, half-melted monument to some long-forgotten public figure bizarrely jutting up at its center, and turned toward a small building that had survived, where the representatives usually gathered to swap rumors and consult about the sowing season or the hunting, or else simply to sit for a while, dozing and listening to the duke-prince’s stories about the old times.
The men had already gathered in the small building, in a large, clean room. Gai didn’t want to look at anybody here. Not even the duke-prince—supposedly not a mutant, just a man. Even he was mutilated: his entire face was covered in burns and scars. They walked in, greeted everyone, and sat down in the circle, right there on the floor. Boshku, sitting beside the stove, took his metal teapot off the coals and poured them each a cup of tea—strong and good, but without any sugar. Gai took his cup—an exceptionally beautiful, priceless piece of royal porcelain—and put it down in front of him, then set the butt of his automatic rifle on the floor between his feet, leaned his forehead against the ribbed barrel, and closed his eyes, in order not to see anyone.
The consultation was opened by the duke-prince. He was no prince, and no duke either, but he was a medical service colonel, the surgeon-in-chief of the Southern Fortress. When they started pounding the Fortress with atomic bombs, the garrison had mutinied and hung out a white flag (which their own side immediately pulverized with a thermonuclear bomb). The genuine prince and commander was torn to pieces by the soldiers, who got carried away and killed all the officers, and then suddenly realized that there was nobody to command, and they couldn’t get by without a command structure: the war was still going on, the enemy was attacking, their side was attacking, and none of the soldiers knew the plan of the Fortress, so now it was a gigantic mousetrap, and then the bacteriological bombs exploded—the entire arsenal of them—and plague broke out. Well, in short, half the garrison scattered every which way, three-quarters of the half who were left died, and the surgeon-in-chief accepted command of the remainder—the soldiers hadn’t touched him during the mutiny—he was a doctor, after all. Somehow it became the custom to call him either “prince” or “duke,” at first as a joke, and then everyone got used to it, and to avoid any confusion, Maxim called him the duke-prince.
“Friends!” said the duke-prince. “We have to discuss proposals from our friend Mak. These are very important proposals. Just how important they are, you can judge at least from the fact that the Sorcerer himself has come to join us and might perhaps talk to us . . .”
Gai raised his head. It was true: the Sorcerer himself was sitting in the corner, leaning back against the wall. It was terrifying to look at him, and impossible not to look. He was a remarkable personality. Even Maxim regarded him with respect, and he had told Gai, “The Sorcerer, brother, is an important figure.” The Sorcerer was short, thickset, and neat, his arms and legs were short but strong, and in general he wasn’t really very deformed, or at least the word deformed didn’t suit him. He had an enormous cranium covered with coarse, dense hair that looked like silvery fur, and a small mouth with the lips folded in a strange manner, as if he were constantly preparing to whistle through his teeth, and in general his face was actually quite thin, but there were bags under his eyes, and the eyes themselves were long and narrow, with vertical pupils, like a snake’s. He didn’t talk much, only rarely appeared in public, and lived alone in a basement at the far end of the city, but he possessed enormous authority because of his amazing abilities.
First, he was very intelligent and he knew everything, although he was only about twenty years old and he had never been anywhere except this city. When questions of any kind came up, people went hat in hand to him for an answer. As a rule, he didn’t give any answer, which signified that the question was trivial, and whichever way it was decided, everything would be fine. But if the question was vitally important—concerning the weather, or when to sow the crops—he always gave his advice, and he had never yet been mistaken. Only the elders went to see him, and they always kept quiet about what happened, but it was commonly believed that even when giving advice, the Sorcerer never opened his mouth. He just looked at you, and it became clear what had to be done.
Second, he had power over animals. He never asked the community for food or clothing; everything was brought to him by animals, various kinds of animals—forest beasts and insects and frogs—and his primary servants were huge bats. Rumor had it that he could talk to them, and they understood him and obeyed him.
Furthermore, people said that he knew the unknowable. It was impossible to understand what this unknowable was; in Gai’s opinion, it was no more than a collection of empty words: the Black, Empty World before the birth of the World Light; the Black, Icy World after the extinction of the World Light; the Endless Void with many different World Lights . . . Nobody could explain what all of this meant, but Mak merely shook his head and murmured admiringly, “Now there’s a real intellect!”
The Sorcerer sat there, not looking at anybody, with a half-blind night bird awkwardly shifting its feet on his shoulder. Every now and then the Sorcerer took little pieces of something out of his pocket and thrust them into its beak, and then it froze for a second, before throwing its head back and swallowing with an apparent effort, craning its neck.
“These are very important proposals,” the duke-prince continued, “so I ask you to listen attentively. And you, Boshku, my old friend, brew the tea good and strong, because I can see that some of us are already dozing off. Don’t doze off, you mustn’t do that. Summon up your strength—maybe our fate is being decided at this very moment . . .”
The meeting started muttering in approval. A character with chalky-white irises was dragged away from the wall by the ears because he had arranged himself there for a doze, and was seated in the front row. “Why, I wasn’t doing anything,” the white-eyed character muttered. “It was only going to be, you know, just for a little bit. I mean, people shouldn’t speak for so long, or else before they reach the end, I’ve already forgotten the beginning.”
“All right,” the duke-prince agreed. “Then we’ll keep it short. The soldiers are driving us south, into the desert. They give no quarter and don’t enter into negotiations. Of the families who have tried to get through to the north, nobody has returned. We must assume that they perished. This means that in
ten or fifteen years they will finally squeeze us out into the desert, and we’ll die there without any food and water. They say that people live in the desert too—I don’t believe that, but many respected leaders do, and they claim that the inhabitants of the desert are every bit as cruel and bloodthirsty as the soldiers. But we are peace-loving people, we don’t know how to fight. Many of us are dying, and we probably won’t live to see the final outcome, but as of this moment we govern the people and we are obliged to think not just about ourselves but about our children . . . Boshku,” he said, “please give our esteemed colleague Baker some tea. I think Baker has fallen asleep.”
Baker was woken up and a hot cup was thrust into his blotchy hand. He burned his fingers and hissed, and the duke-prince continued: “Our friend Mak is proposing a way out. He came to us from the side of the soldiers. He hates the soldiers and says no mercy can be expected from them—they are all bamboozled by tyrants and burning with desire to exterminate us. At first Mak wanted to arm us and lead us into battle, but he realized that we are weak and we can’t fight. So then he decided to make his way to the inhabitants of the desert—he believes in them too—reach an arrangement with them, and lead them against the soldiers. What is required from us? To give our blessing to this plan, allow the inhabitants of the desert to pass through our lands, and provide them with food while the war is going on. And our friend Mak also suggests that we should we give him permission to gather together all our scouts who wish to help, and he will teach them how to fight and lead them to the north to raise a rebellion there. So that, in brief, is how things stand. Now we have to decide, and I ask you to express your opinions.”
Gai squinted sideways at Maxim. His friend Mak sat there with his legs drawn up under him, huge and brown, as motionless as a cliff—or not even a cliff but a gigantic battery, ready to discharge all its energy in a single moment. He was looking into the farthest corner, at the Sorcerer, but he immediately sensed Gai’s glance and turned his head toward him. And then Gai suddenly thought that his friend Mak wasn’t the same as he was before. He remembered that it had been ages now since Mak smiled his celebrated blinding-white, idiotic smile, it had been ages now since he sang his Highland songs, and his eyes had lost their former tenderness and genial humor—his eyes had become hard and glassy somehow, as if he wasn’t even Maxim but Mr. Cornet Chachu. And Gai also remembered that it had been a long time now since Mak stopped dashing into all the corners like a jolly, curious dog; he had become reserved, and a kind of severity had appeared in him, a kind of single-minded purposefulness, an adult, practical focus, as if he was aiming himself at some target that only he could see. Mak had changed very, very much since the time when the full clip of a heavy army pistol had been emptied into him. He used to feel compassion for absolutely everybody, but now he didn’t feel compassion for anybody. Well, maybe that was how it ought to be . . . But this was a terrible plan he had come up with. There would be slaughter, a huge massacre . . .
“There’s something I don’t understand here,” piped up a bald freak, whose clothes suggested that he wasn’t a local man. “What is it he wants? For the barbarians to come here? Why, they’ll kill all of us. I know what the barbarians are like, don’t I? They’ll kill everyone—they won’t leave a single man alive.”
“They’ll come here in peace,” said Mak, “or they won’t come at all.”
“Then it’s better if they don’t come at all,” the bald man said. “It’s best to steer well clear of the barbarians. Better to go and face the soldiers’ machine guns. At least that’s still a bit like dying by your own hand. My father was a soldier.”
“That’s right, of course,” Boshku mused. “But then, on the other hand, the barbarians could drive the soldiers away and leave us alone. Then things would be good.”
“And why would they leave us alone all of a sudden?” the white-eyed man objected. “Since time out of mind no one’s ever left us alone. Why would they start now, all of a sudden?”
“Well, he’ll arrange things with them, won’t he?” Boshku explained. “Leave the forest folk alone, he’ll say, and that’s all, otherwise don’t come, he’ll say . . .”
“Who will? Who’ll arrange things with them?” asked Baker, swinging his head from side to side.
“Why, Mak will. Mak will arrange things.”
“Ah, Mak . . . Well, if Mak arranges things with them, then maybe they really will leave us alone.”
“Shall I give you some tea?” asked Boshku. “You’re falling asleep, Baker.”
“I don’t want any of your tea.”
“Come on, have some tea, just a cup, it’s not like we’re asking you to wash your neck, is it?”
The white-eyed man suddenly got up. “I’ll be going,” he said. “Nothing will come of this. They’ll kill Mak, and they won’t have any pity on us either. Why would they have any pity on us? We’re all done for in ten years or so anyway. No children have been born in my community for two years now. Live in peace until we die, that’s the long and the short of it. So you decide what you think is best. It’s all the same to me.”
He walked out, crooked and awkward, stumbling over the doorstep.
“Yes, Mak,” said Leech, shaking his head. “Forgive us, but we don’t trust anybody. How can we trust the barbarians? They live in the desert, they munch on sand and wash it down with sand. They’re terrible people, all twisted together out of iron wire—they don’t know how to cry or how to laugh. What are we to them? Moss under their feet. So they’ll come, they’ll beat the soldiers and settle here, and they’ll burn down the forest, of course . . . What do they want with a forest? They love the desert. And we’re done for again. No, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it, Mak. Your idea’s worthless.”
“Yes,” said Baker. “We don’t need this, Mak. Let us die in peace, leave us alone. You hate the soldiers and you want to crush them, but what has that got to do with us? We don’t feel hate for anybody. Feel compassion for us, Mak. Nobody has ever felt any compassion for us. Even you, although you’re a good man—even you don’t feel any compassion for us . . . You don’t, do you, Mak, eh?”
Gai looked at Mak again and lowered his eyes in embarrassment. Maxim had blushed, blushed so hard that tears had sprung to his eyes. He hung his head and put his hands over his face. “It’s not true,” he said. “I do feel compassion for you. But not only for you. I—”
“Oh nooo, Mak,” Baker insistently said. “Feel compassion only for us. We’re the most unfortunate people in the whole world, after all, and you know it. Forget about your hate. Feel compassion, and that’s all.”
“But why should he feel any compassion?” piped up Filbert, smothered right up to his eyes in dirty bandages. “He’s a soldier himself. When have soldiers ever had compassion for us? The soldier hasn’t been born yet who would feel compassion for us.”
“Dear friends, dear friends!” the duke-prince said in a stern voice. “Mak is our friend. He wishes us well—he wants to destroy our enemies.”
“But the way it turns out is like this,” said the bald freak who wasn’t local, “even if we assume that the barbarians are stronger than the soldiers. They’ll give the soldiers a drubbing, destroy their cursed towers, and occupy all of the North. Let them. We don’t mind. Let them fight up there. But what good do we get out of it? That’ll be the end of us; there’ll be barbarians in the south, and barbarians in the north too, and more of the same barbarians on top of us. They don’t need us, and since they don’t need us, they’ll just exterminate us. That’s one thing.
“Now let’s suppose that the soldiers fight the barbarians off. If they fight the barbarians off, the war will roll right over us to the south. And what then? We’re finished that way too; soldiers in the north, soldiers in the south, and soldiers on top of us too. Well, and we know soldiers . . .”
The meeting started droning and buzzing, saying that was right, the bald freak had laid things out precisely and correctly, but the bald man wasn’t fini
shed yet.
“Let me finish!” he indignantly exclaimed. “Why have you started kicking up such a racket, really and truly? It could also happen that the barbarians kill all the soldiers, and the soldiers kill all the barbarians. That seems just right—we can carry on living. Ah, but no, that won’t work either. Because there are still the ghouls. While the soldiers are alive, the ghouls hide, they’re afraid of a bullet, the soldiers have been ordered to shoot ghouls. But when there are no more soldiers, that’s total ruination for us. The ghouls will gobble us up, bones and all.”
The meeting was extremely impressed by this idea. “He speaks true!” voices cried out. “Well, I never, what smart heads they have in the swamps . . .” “Yes, brothers, we forgot all about the ghouls . . . but they’re wakeful all right, biding their time . . .” “We don’t need anything, Mak, let things go on like they are . . .” “We’ve scraped by for twenty years, we’ll hang on for another twenty, and then maybe another . . .”
“And we mustn’t let our scouts go!” said the bald freak, raising his voice. “It makes no difference what they want . . . What’s it to them? They don’t live at home. Six Toes spends days and nights on the other side, shameful to say, robbing and drinking vodka. It’s all right for them, they’re not afraid of the towers, their heads don’t hurt. But what about the community? The game animals are moving north—who’s going to drive them back down to us from up there if not the scouts? We can’t let him have them. And we need to clamp down hard on them, they’ve gotten spoiled rotten . . . They commit murders up there, they kidnap soldiers and torture them like some kind of beasts. We’ve can’t let them go. They’ll run completely wild.”
The Inhabited Island Page 28
