There was a trail, much winding, upon a mountainside; and high upon it toiled a strong young king, covered in sweat, who heaved a stone along. Vast it was, and heavy, but he was determined, and patient. He heaved it up another hand's breadth, and braced himself to catch his breath and try again.
"He can be free, you know," whispered Death in the young queens ear, "once he sets it on yonder pinnacle."
And gently Death set her on the roadside, saw the young king turn, wonder in his eyes, the stone forgotten. It crashed rumbling down the trail, bounding and rebounding, to shatter on the floor of the Pit and send echoes reverberating the length and breadth of Hell. A moment Sisyphos stared after it in dismay; then with a laugh that outrang the echoes, opened his arms to the young queen Merope.
Death smiled, and turned away, with thousand-league strides crossing the plains of Hell until he reached his throne. And remembering duty, he extended himself again into his thousand, thousand shapes, and sighed.
1979
HOMECOMING
Dark . . . Nothing. There had been nothing for a long, long dormancy. Tuclick drifted into the system, expended precious reserve energy to scan, to decide that this system too was useless. It fixed on another star, launched itself outward, sublight.
It was hungry. It settled into a cold torpor, lasting years. The hunger remained, and a dim anxiety. This host was all but drained. It had been too long. Tuclick had used the shell too recklessly, remaining awake, skimming star to star, consuming energy in the confidence the next star, the next, the next, would replenish what it so profligately consumed. But there had been no new hosts. Tuclick drifted now, conserving over time meaningless in its almost-sleep, negligible against the memories of long wanderings stored within it, buried below the level of consciousness, buried with the memory of its makers.
Now was a dim, biding apprehension. The warrior shell held no further promise of survival. It was helpless as it drifted into the new system.
Power. Scan locked on it, abundant, exciting. Tuclick pursued, agitated, fearing its escape, lacking power for the weapons of the warrior host. Several sources came into scan. Tuclick continued doggedly after the original, the most accessible. The interval lessened.
Contact. Tuclick grappled, held. Its probe disengaged from the dying host; Tuclick came fully alive, expending dangerously as it sent its alloy body hurtling down empty corridors to the lock. It exited, contacted the new host, absorbed power. More systems came to life within. It found entry, settled, became aware of its host, suddenly disappointed, frightened at its weakness. The vast body was only a connected series of hollow compartments. It held memory of a destination. Tuclick absorbed this, suddenly felt the systems begin to fail. Tuclick swiftly powered down section after section of the vast useless body, but the destination—the destination it too sought, eagerly, possibilities of a direction out of this long wilderness, this desert of stars. The host sought a haven it knew. Tuclick bided, hungry—the host leapt recklessly into hyperspace—Tuclick rode it, willing to let it run, certain now of energy waiting where the host fled.
Emergence. Tuclick scanned in sudden panic, sensing a trap.
No power. A primitive world lay under scan. Tuclick rode, waiting, helpless.
And then the tiniest pulse of interest, a minuscule pulse of energy. Marker-beacon. In its desperation Tuclick did not scorn even this, came down on it, opened the bay, swallowed it up. Quick operations drained it. Tuclick used the power carefully, oh, so carefully, calculating with rising panic that it could not have this star and survive to the next. The host was not sufficient. The marker-beacon gave only a temporary source. Tuclick felt the threat of dissolution—ruin.
Ship.
The object emerged into scan, a mote of a ship, coming up fast. In desperate desire Tuclick maneuvered its failing host, opened its receiving bay.
Resistance. Fire damaged systems. Tuclick reacted furiously, rammed forward, felt the damage as it swallowed the resistant mote. Fire hammered at the bay. Tuclick blasted back with its tiny interior defenses, desperate. Silence. Resistance ceased. Tuclick disengaged from its host, momentarily blind and deaf to the outside as it traveled the corridors of its fading host body. It opened the damaged bay, trundled in, scanning the stranger. The hatch opened to its expert probing. It entered, ran the tiny corridors, pausing to engage a tap and absorb power.
Activity. A tiny burst of fire crackled on its shell. Tuclick engaged personal defenses. Resistance ceased. A strange rapid movement fled its presence. Tuclick followed, paused as the furtive movement slowed, ceased. The resisting unit lay still. Tuclick rolled forward, scanned.
A disturbance rippled through his circuits, activated deeper memories, agitated Tuclick into reckless expenditure. The deck was smeared with a dark fluid that had nothing to do with ship wreckage. Tuclick extended a probe into it, analyzed, memories further disturbed as he scanned the configurations of the resisting unit.
Biosystem. Tuclick's systems were jolted, deeper and deeper memories were surfacing . . . ten thousand years of records . . . it triggered something in its deepest levels.
Prime directive.
Contact.
A tape activated. Greetings it said. Greetings. The biounit did not respond. Long unused scan detected ebbing function, deterioration.
In haste Tuclick extended other apparatus, gathered up the afflicted organism. Panic ran through Tuclick's systems, directives violated at basic levels. It sorted, recalculated—locked into the little ship's systems, searching—found a memory of destination—and other things, higher function memories. Tuclick absorbed, redirected power, overconsuming in the disturbance of its internal systems.
It remembered.
Directives overrode directives. A flurry of panic ran Tuclick's systems, sorted into purpose. Sublight could reach the little ship's origin point in 7.5 years. The injured organism could not be maintained—scan estimated—but a brief time. Tuclick no longer hesitated. In a burst of activity it arranged the shunt of power. The old host—Tuclick understood it now for a mere shell filled with biostuffs—lurched into hyperspace, and out again.
Power waned. The new star was still distant, at sublight. Stubbornly Tuclick kept the environment stable for the biosystem, circulating its fluids, maintaining its heat, surrounding it in atmosphere. The power ebbed steadily, no longer that of the host's, but Tuclick's own reserve, draining systems. Memories faded, the latest first, reaching back and back, until Tuclick reentered the time of his own origin. Tuclick clung to the organism the more desperately, all its purposes satisifed.
Ship.
Hunger assailed Tuclick. Directives overwhelmed hunger. That time was over. The directives that had sustained the probe this long had no power over those now engaged. Tuclick shunted power to signal, losing more memory in the effort.
The ship responded. Tuclick faded further, shunting all power to the maintenance of the organism, to opening the receiving bay, to the signal.
Life. Tuclick recognized this. Greetings, it began the message. Greetings. I have returned to—
Systems deteriorated. Tuclick abandoned the attempt, holding the organism alive until the others disengaged it, buzzing in their concern. Tuclick pulsed once in satisfaction.
All power faded. The last memories went. The machinery stopped.
1979
THE DREAMSTONE
Of all possible paths to travel up out of Caerdale, that through the deep forest was the least used by Men. Brigands, outlaws, fugitives who fled mindless from shadows . . . men with dull, dead eyes and hearts which could not truly see the wood, souls so attainted already with the world that they could sense no greater evil nor greater good than their own—they walked that path; and if by broad morning, so that they had cleared the black heart of Ealdwood by nightfall, then they might perchance make it safe away into the new forest eastward in the hills, there to live and prey on the game and on each other.
But a runner by night, and that one young and wild-eyed and bearing
neither sword nor bow, but only a dagger and a gleeman's harp, this was a rare venturer in Ealdwood, and all the deeper shadows chuckled and whispered in startlement.
Eld-born Arafel saw him, and she saw little in this latter age of earth, wrapped as she was in a passage of time different than the suns and moons which blink Men so startling-swift from birth to dying. She heard the bright notes of the harp which jangled on his shoulders, which companied his flight and betrayed him to all with ears to hear, in this world and the other. She saw his flight and walked into the way to meet him, out of the soft green light of her moon and into the colder white of his; and evils which had grown quite bold in the Ealdwood of latter earth suddenly felt the warm breath of spring and drew aside, slinking into dark places where neither moon cast light.
"Boy," she whispered. He startled like a wounded deer, hesitated, searching out the voice. She stepped full into his light and felt the dank wind of Ealdwood on her face. He seemed more solid then, ragged and torn by thorns in his headlong course, although his garments had been of fine linen and the harp at his shoulders had a broidered case.
She had taken little with her out of otherwhere, and yet did take— it was all in the eye which saw. She leaned against the rotting trunk of a dying tree and folded her arms unthreateningly, no hand to the blade she wore, propped one foot against a projecting root and smiled. He looked on her with no less apprehension for that, seeing, perhaps, a ragged vagabond of a woman in outlaws' habit—or perhaps seeing more, for he did not look to be as blind as some. His hand touched a talisman at his breast and she, smiling still, touched that which hung at her own throat, which had power to answer his.
"Now where would you be going," she asked, "so recklessly through the Ealdwood? To some misdeed? Some mischief?"
"Misfortune," he said, breathless. He yet stared at her as if he thought her no more than moonbeams, and she grinned at that. Then suddenly and far away came a baying of hounds; he would have fled at once, and sprang to do so.
"Stay!" she cried, and stepped into his path a second time, curious what other venturers would come, and on the heels of such as he. "I do doubt they'll come this far. What name do you give, who come disturbing the peace of Eald?"
He was wary, surely knowing the power of names; and perhaps he would not have given his true one and perhaps he would not have stayed at all, but that she fixed him sternly with her eyes and he stammered out: "Fionn."
"Fionn." It was apt, for fair he was, tangled hair and first down of beard. She spoke it softly, like a charm. "Fionn. Come walk with me. I'd see this intrusion before others do. Come, come, have no dread of me; I've no harm in mind."
He did come, carefully, and much loath, heeded and walked after her, held by nothing but her wish. She took the Ealdwood's own slow time, not walking the quicker ways, for there was the taint of iron about him, and she could not take him there.
The thicket which degenerated from the dark heart of the Eald was an unlovely place . . . for the Ealdwood had once been better than it was, and there was yet a ruined fairness there; but these young trees had never been other than what they were. They twisted and tangled their roots among the bones of the crumbling hills, making deceiving and thorny barriers. Unlikely it was that Men could see the ways she found; but she was amazed by the changes the years had wrought—saw the slow work of root and branch and ice and sun, labored hard-breathing and scratched with thorns, but gloried in it, alive to the world. She turned from time to time when she sensed faltering behind her: he caught that look of hers and came on, pallid and fearful, past clinging thickets and over stones, as if he had lost all will or hope of doing otherwise.
The baying of hounds echoed out of Caerdale, from the deep valley at the very bounds of the forest. She sat down on a rock atop that last slope, where was prospect of all the great vale of the Caerbourne, a dark tree-filled void beneath the moon. A towered heap of stones had risen far across the vale on the hill called Caer Wiell, and it was the work of men: so much did the years do with the world.
The boy dropped down by the stone, the harp upon his shoulders echoing; his head sank on his folded arms and he wiped the sweat and the tangled hair from his brow. The baying, still a moment, began again, and he lifted frightened eyes.
Now he would run, having come as far as he would; fear shattered the spell. She stayed him yet again, a hand on his smooth arm.
"Here's the limit of my wood," she said. "And in it, hounds hunt that you could not shake from your heels, no. You'd do well to stay here by me, indeed you would. It is yours, that harp?"
He nodded.
"Will play for me?" she asked, which she had desired from the beginning; and the desire of it burned far more vividly than did curiosity about men and dogs: but one would serve the other. He looked at her as though he thought her mad; and yet took the harp from his shoulders and from its case. Dark wood starred and banded with gold, it sounded when he took it into his arms: he held it so, like something protected, and lifted a pale, resentful face.
And bowed his head again and played as she had bidden him, soft touches at the strings that quickly grew bolder, that waked echoes out of the depths of Caerdale and set the hounds to baying madly. The music drowned the voices, filled the air, filled her heart, and she felt now no faltering or tremor of his hands. She listened, and almost forgot which moon shone down on them, for it had been so long, so very long since the last song had been heard in Ealdwood, and that sung soft and elsewhere.
He surely sensed a glamor on him, that the wind blew warmer and the trees sighed with listening. The fear went from his eyes, and though sweat stood on his brow like jewels, it was clear, brave music that he made—suddenly, with a bright ripple of the strings, a defiant song, strange to her ears.
Discord crept in, the hounds' fell voices, taking the music and warping it out of tune. She rose as that sound drew near. The song ceased, and there was the rush and clatter of horses in the thicket below.
Fionn sprang up, the harp laid aside. He snatched at the small dagger at his belt, and she flinched at that, the bitter taint of iron. "No," she wished him, and he did not draw.
Then hounds and riders were on them, a flood of hounds black and slavering and two great horses, bearing men with the smell of iron about them, men glittering terribly in the moonlight. The hounds surged up baying and bugling and as suddenly fell back again, making wide their circle, whining and with lifting of hackles. The riders whipped them, but their horses shied and screamed under the spurs and neither could be driven further.
She stood, one foot braced against the rock, and regarded men and beasts with cold curiosity, for she found them strange, harder and wilder than Men she had known; and strange too was the device on them, that was a wolf's grinning head. She did not recall it—nor care for the manner of them.
Another rider clattered up the shale, shouted and whipped his unwilling horse farther than the others, and at his heels came men with bows. His arm lifted, gestured; the bows arched, at the harper and at her.
"Hold," she said.
The arm did not fall; it slowly lowered. He glared at her, and she stepped lightly up onto the rock so she need not look up so far, to him on his tall horse. The beast shied under him and he spurred it and curbed it cruelly; but he gave no order to his men, as if the cowering hounds and trembling horses finally made him see.
"Away from here," he shouted down at her, a voice to make the earth quake. "Away! or I daresay you need a lesson taught you too." And he drew his great sword and held it toward her, curbing the protesting horse.
"Me, lessons?" She set her hand on the harper's arm. "Is it on his account you set foot here and raise this noise?"
"My harper," the lord said, "and a thief. Witch, step aside. Fire and iron are answer enough for you."
In truth, she had no liking for the sword that threatened or for the iron-headed arrows which could speed at his lightest word. She kept her hand on Fionn's arm nonetheless, for she saw well how he would fare with them. "
But he's mine, lord-of-men. I should say that the harper's no joy to you, you'd not come chasing him from your land. And great joy he is to me, for long and long it is since I've met so pleasant a companion in Ealdwood. Gather the harp, lad, and walk away now; let me talk with this rash man."
"Stay!" the lord shouted; but Fionn snatched the harp into his arms and edged away.
An arrow hissed; the boy flung himself aside with a terrible clangor of the harp, and lost it on the slope and scrambled back for it, his undoing, for now there were more arrows ready, and these better-purposed.
"Do not," she said.
"What's mine is mine." The lord held his horse still, his sword outstretched before his archers, bating the signal; his face was congested with rage and fear. "Harp and harper are mine. And you'll rue it if you think any words of yours weigh with me. I'll have him and you for your impudence."
It seemed wisest then to walk away, and she did so—turned back the next instant, at distance, at Fionn's side, and only half under his moon. "I ask your name, lord-of-men, if you aren't fearful of my curse."
Thus she mocked him, to make him afraid before his men. "Evald," he said back, no hesitating, with contempt for her. "And yours, witch?"
"Call me what you like, lord. And take warning, that these woods are not for human hunting and your harper is not yours any more. Go away and be grateful. Men have Caerdale. If it does not please you, shape it until it does. The Ealdwood's not for trespass."
He gnawed at his mustaches and gripped his sword the tighter, but about him the drawn bows had begun to sag and the arrows to aim at the dirt. Fear was in the men's eyes, and the two riders who had come first hung back, free men and less constrained than the archers.
"You have what's mine," he insisted.
"And so I do. Go on, Fionn. Do go, quietly."
"You've what's mine" the valley lord shouted. "Are you thief then as well as witch? You owe me a price for it."
The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh Page 51
