The Deep Gods

by David Mason

  He learned to read some of the ancient writings, with Sarak’s help. Much of what was in the scrolls was of no value, but the older ones contained strange, teasing bits of history and of other knowledge. There were fragments left from what Daniel felt sure had been a higher level of civilization, a world that seemed to have nearly reached a technology equal to his own. But the scrolls were no more than a small part of his work. He had searched his memories, trying to reinvent a whole range of useful devices and methods; setting artisans to work on whatever might prove to be immediately worthwhile, and writing down details of still other gadgets.

  I’m handing these people the whole damned nineteenth and twentieth century, wrapped up, he thought with a faint feeling of uneasiness. It’s an impossible paradox; it can’t be. Unless something comes along that will literally toss the whole culture back into the Stone Age again… and Daniel dropped his pen, and sat, wondering.

  Ships had set off to the west to find and help those who had fled to those lands from Eloranar, and other ships went to the frozen south, to Alvanir. There, the last of those who would leave were taken aboard and brought north.

  His other friends had returned to the country of the river people, where they seemed more at home; only Eshtak remained. Eshtak was privately pleased when Daniel began to work, but it puzzled him that Daniel should seem to spend all his waking time in his labors. On one or two occasions, Eshtak managed to arrange certain matters, sending carefully selected girls to cross Daniel’s path. Daniel treated them very well, and sent them away within a day or two, usually; and forgot their names in a week.

  It did not seem quite healthy to Eshtak, especially now that spring had come again, and there were so many pretty girls about the city.

  Daniel stood at a high window in the citadel, looking out over the city and the wall. He smelled the sharp odor of the wind from the sea, and breathed in deeply. It’s time, he thought.

  He had already made his preparations, weeks before. Every detail was arranged. There was no more that he could recall to put down in his scrolls for the use of the workmen and builders, no other real need for him, anywhere. The difference between an engineer and a king, he thought; when an engineer’s work is done, he can quit. He smiled a little bitterly.

  “We’ll go in the morning,” he said. Eshtak, at the door, nodded silently. Daniel turned and looked at him. “You don’t have to come, you know.”

  “I remember you said that, a year or so ago, when we were in the moors,” Eshtak said, grinning. “You also asked me to tell you if I thought you did a foolish thing.”

  “Well, am I?”

  Eshtak shrugged. “I don’t understand,” he said. “But then, I don’t understand many things that you do. What do you seek, in the Locked Sea?”

  “I told you,” Daniel said. “The beast. The lost one.” His mouth hardened. “For vengeance, if you like. Or for the future of things. As long as he lives, he will search for a way to gain his ends.”

  Eshtak watched his face. “No man has ever returned from the Locked Sea,” he said. “No ships sail it, and ghosts dwell on its shores, they say.”

  “Afraid?”

  Eshtak laughed. “Certainly. I’ll be more afraid when we reach that sea, and even more so if you find the lost one himself.” He grinned. “But if anybody could slay such a beast, it would be yourself.”

  “I think I must kill him,” Daniel said, staring out of the window. “But the strange thing is that I don’t wish to do it. I… need to face him, to discover what he is. Maybe… what I am. He caused death to thousands, broke the peace of the sea… and through him, she died. But how can a man hate… that? Whatever he is, he’s almost beyond things like simple vengeance and hate.”

  “You speak as if he were a god,” Eshtak said. “He is flesh, as we are. As the Morra-ayar are.”

  Daniel looked oddly at him. “We’ll see if he is.”

  Chapter X

  This time, the journey through the valleys was not in haste; in every city there was welcome for the Lord Daniel of Numith. At times it was difficult to break away, especially for Eshtak; he usually managed to perform the feat, however. In the last city they passed through, Kratonis, it was nearly impossible because of certain complexities in the Kratonian female character. Particularly the Queen’s, as Eshtak said sorrowfully later.

  “It seems that she was, after all, willing to take second best,” he told Daniel. He fingered a bruise on his cheek as they rode. “But once having her wish, she didn’t like to give it up again,” he added. “It surprises me, at times, that I should have this strange power over women.”

  Daniel laughed.

  They rode through passes that led up toward a range of mountains, which lay where Turkey would be. Seeing them in the distance, Daniel was almost doubtful of his location, at first. They seemed much higher than the land of his own time. Yet it was the right latitude, and the Locked Sea should lie beyond, if he could find a pass through.

  He had chosen twenty men, most of them Numithians, the best he could find; good riders and brave. But when he told them where they were to go, all but six had finally refused. He did not try to play on their honor; if he had, all would have gone. But the terror of the Locked Sea was too much for even brave men, and a man in fear would be of no use. So, with Eshtak, eight men rode up into the windy passes, climbing higher each day.

  There were small deer, at times, and a mountain stream that was alive with small trout. And there was, for a while, enough grazing for their mounts, although it grew scantier as they went. Then for two days they struggled through a narrow pass where wind blew, icy and snow-filled. On the other side, the mountain was kinder. Before long, they were among scraggly trees once more.

  Then, in the distance, they saw a glittering flash. The sun, on water; it was the Locked Sea.

  As they came closer, a mist came over the land, and the sky. According to the tales, it was usually thus, around the Locked Sea, dense fog or light mist, but never clear air. They rode on, going now through immense old trees that reminded Daniel of redwoods. He was fairly sure they were not, though he couldn’t name them. But looking up at them as he rode past, he thought that even one such trunk might make a huge canoe, such as he had planned to build for the search.

  Eshtak, riding beside him, was staring at something else. Each time they passed a wider space in the trees, Eshtak’s head turned, and he looked more puzzled. Finally, he rode nearer to Daniel’s mount, and spoke.

  “There’s something here I don’t… really like,” he said in a low voice. The six men rode well-apart among themselves, and plainly, Eshtak wanted to keep his thought to Daniel’s own ear.

  “Look,” Eshtak said. They passed a clear space among the trees again, and Daniel tried to see what Eshtak meant. He could see nothing unusual.

  “Like streets,” Eshtak said. “I’ve never seen a forest so…”

  Now, Daniel saw his meaning. The trees did seem to grow in oddly regular squares, with the spaces between like streets. Even the trees were spaced at intervals within the squares, in orchard lines. But the forest was old; brush grew heavily and there was nowhere any sign of any human hand.

  “In my world, we planted trees sometimes, to replace a cut-down forest,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “A forest like that… might seem like this one, after a few hundred years or more.”

  Eshtak looked nervous. “No man did this,” he said. “I’d heard tales of the… old ones. They were almost all gone, when the first men began to come into the lands, back of us. But the few that were left lived nearest the Locked Sea. Maybe some of them still live… or worse, their ghosts.”

  Old ones? Daniel remembered some of the scrolls in the citadel. The tale was consistent, anyway; he believed that the creatures were final survivals of the prior civilization that he had glimpsed, in the vision of the Morra-ayar. They did not seem horrible to him, then, or in imagination. Lizardlike, in a sense, but manlike as well, and like man in their ways… yet it must have been so
long ago that it was hard to believe any of their kind still survived. Like dragons, Daniel thought, their terror would go on long after they’d vanished, in superstition.

  “I doubt they did this, but I doubt they’ve left ghosts anyway,” he told Eshtak. “Besides, you’ll be in no danger unless they’re the ghosts of women.”

  Eshtak laughed, but he still looked nervous.

  Then they came suddenly onto a strand of muddy gravel, and the sea rolled, dark and oily, just beyond. The mist was very heavy, though it was noon. It was not possible to see more than a few hundred feet out into the milky whiteness.

  “We’ll camp, and set up our work,” Daniel said as they drew rein. He stared out into the mist. “He may know we’re here, as the sea folk know such things… and he may come to us first. If he doesn’t, I’ll find him, sooner or later.”

  They built a fire, and two of the men went into the forest while Daniel and another pair of men waded into the shallows with nets. There were fish in plenty, and the two hunters returned before dark with fat birds. It was a good place, plainly; a man couldn’t starve, though he might take a chill easily enough.

  Daniel sat by the dying fire, wrapped in a cloak. One man stood guard, in the shadow, and another would take his place later. Tomorrow, Daniel thought, they would put together a rough shelter that would serve for a while. Then, a canoe, which would take a couple of weeks. He had it planning, as he sat; a complete image of a big dugout log, with outriggers and a sail of matting. It wouldn’t be the equal of those ancient Polynesian craft on which his mind modeled it, but it would do to hunt the coastlines.

  The beast was out there, Daniel thought. Lonely, mad, lost… but terrible and strong, and malevolent. Because of that beast… and Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, in pain.

  He was actually very tired, he thought, pulling the cloak around himself. There was a curious humming somewhere, a sound very like a bee, and just as soothing. It probably was some small insect, Daniel thought, drifting into sleep.

  He sat in a chair in the living room of the house in Long Island, before the fireplace. He was holding a drink, and a number of people were talking and laughing. Sheila was there, coming toward him, slim and beautiful as always, in a basic black dress.

  “I really can’t explain it,” he was saying. “But about the time I got to this curious ocean, the one that’s supposed to cover all the present smaller seas like the Black and the Caspian…”

  “The Russians wouldn’t like that,” someone said, and laughed. “Maybe they would, though. All that caviar!”

  “But nobody could go back in time and just change things,” Sheila said, coming next to him. “Not even old know-it-all Dan!”

  “We wouldn’t even exist!” someone said.

  “Some of us don’t, now,” another voice came, acidly.

  Sheila’s cool hand was on his and her voice was caressingly low. “Dan wouldn’t want to change everything. Especially not me.”

  There was something wrong, somewhere. He stared at the fire, which burned much lower. The picture over the mantel… wasn’t right. And there should have been the model of the freighter, on that shelf; but it wasn’t there. Besides, the house in Long Island had been sold, and torn down, for a development… why, before he’d even met Sheila.

  He stared at her, and she wasn’t right, either. The faces around him were ugly, pale, and… evil. Even hers.

  Then she took the drink from his hand and put it down. He rose, walking like a sleepwalker, and went with her. They passed through the doors to the garden… but there was no garden, beyond.

  There was a vast open space, and huge twisting shapes that rose all around it. It was like the sea-city, Daniel saw, but vastly larger, and sun poured down over everything in a hot flood. But in spite of the light, it was difficult to see well, somehow. The faces of the immense crowd of people were mere blurs. Great shadowy shapes swam overhead, like ships seen from the sea bottom, and there was a tremendous noise of voices, roaring.

  Sheila was there. No, he saw, it was not Sheila, but a woman with pale hair, who smiled. In the crook of her arm there was a fat grinning child who stared round-eyed at Daniel. He looked, with an immense remembered agony rising in him.

  They were shouting his name now. Hail, the Immortal, the God-King! the crowd roared again and again.

  Then the woman turned and led him through vast halls, jeweled and brilliant with color, where hundreds of women stretched out their arms, whispering invitations in hot voices, writhing naked at his feet.

  You are here, Daniel thought suddenly, and exerted a mighty effort toward waking. It was like swimming through an endless sea, never surfacing. He tried, but he could not wake. Yet the visions faded, and he was in greenish mist, floating.

  You! he thought again, fiercely.

  These are things which you may have, if you choose. The voice came in his mind, clearly and cool, without emphasis.

  “You are the beast called the lost one,” Daniel said in silent speech.

  “I am the one,” it said, still as calmly. “I am the beginning and the end. I made you, Daniel, and gave you life.”

  “You took something out of the future, and brought it here,” Daniel said. “You did not make me. I… am.”

  “Free me,” the voice said. “Go back to Narr’s Wall and draw the lever you know of. None need die, warning may be given. Only a part of the wall will be swept away, and Numith will live. Then you will speak to all who live on land, and tell them you have dominion over them. If any refuse to serve you, my servants will come out of the sea to aid you. I can give you more than any man has ever possessed—power, kingship, all.”

  Daniel struggled again to wake, but could not.

  “I can give you the female you thought was lost, and her child,” the voice said.

  “Lies,” Daniel said.

  “If you wish, I can send you back, living, to your own time,” the voice said. “Choose either, or maybe both; this age, and your own. You cannot harm me, man. I have lived longer than you can count in years. But I wish to be free… and I am alone.”

  There were no dolphins in that sea, Daniel suddenly realized. Nor whales of any breed, except… that one. Not even the less clever but still intelligent creatures he had seen, the otters, the seal folk, none but fish and weeds.

  Perhaps the one had killed them all, Daniel suddenly thought with a new surge of hate. Why not? It could not bear equal life, any more than it could bear loneliness.

  Somehow, it heard the accusation, and answered.

  “I did not kill those who lived here. That was done long ago, by those who came before your kind, the old ones. They killed all that lived, as you will do. Then, in their long ending, when the world died around them, they sought to bring life back to it. But it was too late, for them, and they died.”

  The voice grew fainter, now.

  “Of the old ones, only one still lives,” it said. “She is old, old… and soon even she will die. She keeps her possession from me, but it too will be mine, all will be mine. I would like to die, but I may not, till all is within me…”

  It faded.

  “Daniel!” Eshtak was shaking his shoulder. “Daniel, there’s something out there!”

  He was awake and on his feet. The dawn was scarlet on the thinner mists, and there was a shadow on the mists. He stared hard, with sleep-gummed eyes; the others were awake and looking hard as well.

  “It’s a ship!” someone said.

  The shadow darkened and parts of it began to emerge from the mist, seeming to form into solidity. It was a ship, smaller than it had seemed; the mist had magnified its size. It was no more than fifty or sixty feet long, Daniel guessed; a strangely shaped prow and stern, high-curved like a Chinese junk’s. It had two masts, but no sail was on them. A dozen oars moved at its sides, with slow beats, as it came on toward the shore.

  Then it slowed and there was the rattle of an anchor chain, and a splash. The oars lay still and the strange ship rocked, a few
yards from shore.

  And still no one called from the silent ship, and no face was seen. The men on the shore began to mutter, moving closer together, gripping their swordhilts.

  “You, out there!” Daniel shouted at last. He walked into the water, outward till it reached his knees. Behind him, Eshtak groaned, and began to follow, but the rest stayed where they were.

  Then a face showed at the ship’s rail; a pale, silent face, a curious hood over it. The man spoke in a croaking, slow, voice.

  “You… are… Daniel.”

  It might be a question, Daniel thought. He was near the strange ship now, standing hip-deep, while Eshtak stopped behind him.

  “You know me?” he said.

  “We have been sent to find you,” the man said in the same slow voice, as if he were nearly asleep. “Come.”

  “Ware that one, Lord Daniel!” Eshtak called out urgently. “A ghost ship!”

  “It looks solid enough,” Daniel said over his shoulder. Then, to the men on the shore, “Stay with the horses, and wait for me awhile.” He splashed farther in, till he was swimming; and a moment later he caught at a net ladder at the ship’s side. As he came up over the rail, Eshtak climbed behind him and came to the deck at his side.

  “You’ll not leave me waiting,” Eshtak panted, “Especially since neither of us will come back out of this alive, like enough.” He stared at the well deck and groaned. “I said it was a ghost ship. Look at those rowers.”

  Six men sat on either side, leaning on the oars. Each man gazed straight ahead blankly. Their eyes were open, but there was nothing in those eyes.

  They seemed healthy, strong, well-fed for slaves, if slaves they were. They bore no lashmarks, nor were they dirty. But their faces were brutish, almost like the faces of apes, a mass of lank brown hair hanging over each, and all were completely naked. Yet, Daniel saw, there were no chains, either.