The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  And then continued, “But equally so, you have not lived as one of us.” He favored Meure with a sidelong leer. “You saw the girl, who had taken up with the other boy? She seemed of the lineaments of the Ellar, and they are a most curious people, even for Glordune; all their lives, they make up, in their heads, an astonishing epic of some imaginary world, full of amazing events, monsters, magic, flashing swords, deeds of great valor and heroism. These personal legends are embroidered in fantastic detail—the more bizarre the better, and constructed according to a literary canon I could not begin to describe, it is so complicated and arbitrary. All this, you understand, in total secrecy: the epic is never committed to paper, nor is it repeated to anyone. Then, when the Ellar feels the approach of death, they summon friends and enemies alike, and all gather to hear the recitation of the Deathsong. And the Ellar do no expire until they have finished their story.

  “I heard one in my life, and if I never hear another, I could vanish into eternity content. These stories are like nothing anyone has ever heard before, and they stir the blood with ancient longings; as a fact, after hearing one, the Ellar are prone to go out and perform some amazing feat.

  “I heard the Deathsong from a mariner who had been the sole survivor of a shipwreck; he lay on the beach of Chengurune and recounted the real-world events first to us who had found him, broken and cast up. Those events made an epic in themselves: pirates, sea-demons, storms, Eratzenasters—astonishing! But those things were unimportant to him: he had to have an audience for the real epic he was to tell. We sent to the town for the people, that he might recite it, and not make his transition unhallowed. He was broken, tattered and bleeding, and quite beyond help, but he hung on until the people came, and then told his story.

  “A man, more dead than alive, spoke from one dusk until the next, of events so ferocious it made his real-world tale seem like an ordinary trip to the market. And we sat there and listened, completely in his spell, neither eating, nor fornicating, nor moving restlessly until he had finished, which he did by including an elaborate curse upon all not of the Ellar blood. The curse I have long since forgotten; who listens to curses, when they flow like the air, everywhere? But the tale . . . ? I will never forget it, though I could not recount it if I tried; a savant in the crowd told me afterward that there were seventeen main plots in it, interwoven together in a manner impossible to unravel . . . spaceships were but the least of it. The Ellar live in small stone houses upon a rocky island, and cultivate things that grow on vines. By all accounts, they are rather poor and modest, except when attacked.”

  Meure said, “Then the girl Ingraine, whatever her real name was . . .”

  “Most likely it was.”

  “. . . had one of these stories in her all the time?”

  “Of course.”

  “But it would have been unfinished . . .”

  “According to the lore of the Ellar, Deathsongs of the young are reputed to be the best.”

  “I could almost understand that.”

  “There is one thing more to them . . . that they act out in their real lives, as best as they are able, a role selected from their personal epic. It is a major portion of the Ellar way to attempt to discern the outlines of that role and react properly to it. Such efforts fail, of course, but they occupy the Ellar well enough; I have not heard them complain of boredom.”

  “Cretus has told me that she was an Ellar, brought by an entity which oppresses Monsalvat . . . then she could have done so willingly.”

  “If she was a spy, I should suspect enthusiastic cooperation in such a proceeding . . . neither you nor Halander, of course, would appear in her Deathsong, in a form you would recognize, if at all.”

  “You didn’t seem concerned about her disappearance.”

  Morgin shrugged, a gesture he could see Cretus making. “People disappear, occasionally, that’s a fact. Not everyone, nor even many, but some. I was not surprised . . . anyone on Monsalvat who seems unexplainable seems to vanish, sooner or later. Had it been one of you offworlders, I would have been surprised. Or the Haydar girl.”

  “Why Tenguft?”

  “Haydar are never out of place, such is my experience.”

  Now Morgin turned his attention back to the sweep, as if he had spent too much time with Meure. But Meure understood what Morgin had been trying to tell him about Monsalvat: that its humanity was not muted and tamed. That if in Yastian there were pits of despair, in the hearts of the Ellar there lurked a poetry of soul-stirring complexity, an Iliad and an Odyssey waiting behind every pair of eyes . . . Cretus let an image through, and Meure recalled, that all the Ellar were small and delicate of physique, as Ingraine had been; slender, pale, self-contained, self-sufficient. A people who travelled little, who had fled from the tumults of Glordune to their rocky island, and who went no further, no matter what. Morgin had used them as a symbol for Monsalvat, and Meure could sense Cretus’ agreement with that. The rest of the people . . . Meure understood that there was much in excess on Monsalvat, that the excesses and crimes had been trimmed, so to speak, from civilized humanity; but humanity had only one Homer, while on a small rocky island between the Inner Sea and the Outer Ocean, there was an entire tribe of them. What could an integrated Ellar have brought to Monsalvat, and what might they have brought to all men? And so it was with the rest. Perhaps, Morgin’s opinion to the contrary, even the Lagostomes. . . .

  Clellendol interrupted his thoughts. “Truly, I am in my own, here.”

  Flerdistar added, disrespectfully, “A blind dog in a meatmarket would serve as excellent comparison.”

  Clellendol answered, unconcernedly, “A historian on a planet where people remember oaths of revenge forever would not be far off the mark, either. But here, this city! I can hardly wait to land. It seethes with crime, of the most refined sorts.”

  Meure asked, “How can you tell that? Not that they don’t look criminal to me, but then again, so do they all.”

  “I detect furtiveness, collusion, intrigue; it is in their motions, their gestures. I will need to get closer to discern the exactness, of course, but one can feel it in the air. There is burglary and chicanery here on a scale heretofore unknown! Cheating, conniving, and the taking of unfair advantages; all are represented in this paragon of vice!”

  Meure said, “All those qualities you have enumerated; those would seem excellent reasons for avoiding such people—indeed, so feel the majority of the natives, so I hear.”

  Flerdistar added, advising caution, “And so much I would say as well. My ability allows me to feel the eddies stirred up by the mighty of this planet, in Time . . . but what I have felt does not make me wish to plunge into that stream and interact with such characters! To the contrary! Here we are the other way toward chaos, much too far to suit me—I only wish now to derive what I came to seek, and depart this planet. The wardens were correct an age ago: Monsalvat is no place for a civilized creature.”

  Meure said, “And so you are wise to wish no contact with the elementals, here; but to observe or communicate, you must contact some or many of them. How is it that you are affected here? You, Flerdistar, are losing your nerve at the last moment, and you, Clellendol, are gaining too much. Your purpose in being here at all is unraveling.”

  Flerdistar looked downward at the planks. “You must not speak of such things.”

  Clellendol muttered, “You are becoming a creature of this world too much for my liking.”

  “We are all merely responding to something archaic that has been preserved here and nowhere else; it was bred out of you at the start, and it’s been slowly cultured out of us. But all legitimacies carry the seed germ of their destruction by themselves, if retained intact. That’s just the problem: nowhere but here has the ancient dichotomy been retained; the paradox. And, yes, I feel it stir something in me, I didn’t know I had.”

  Clellendol said, “Galloping across the plains with a spear in one hand and an anatomical trophy in the other; or contributing to someone else�
��s trophies? So much does not strike me as the goal of civilized Humans.”

  Meure replied, “The image is wrong from the beginning; for I am no Haydar, and they do not gallop, but ride Eratzenasters. And I know that neither here, nor on the Human worlds, has Man attained to his generic civilization. Not ever! It hasn’t come yet! That is the great secret. Even now with so much Time behind us, it hasn’t come yet! Spaceships and technology? They have buried it, not brought it closer.”

  Clellendol mocked Meure, “So here we have just another antitech.”

  “Because I said it was not the best answer as a whole system, does not mean I take a stand against it. You Ler are said to be folk of subtle distinctions: where in that is the subtlety?”

  Clellendol asked, “Who speaks thus to us? Is it Cretus, or is it Meure Schasny, who could hardly lift his eyes from the floor not so long ago?”

  Meure laughed, almost to himself. “For the moment, I am me, which is to say, Meure . . . although I am becoming less certain that such a distinction would be meaningful. And as for change . . . one is said to survive according to how one reacts to changing circumstances. Flerdistar, that is what we have lost, your people and mine: we have lost the ability to dance on the wind, instead, we built little closed cells in which change could be exempted. You say it yourself, with every statement you make: Ler culture hasn’t changed for centuries, if at all. Since the originals left the Home planet, I suspect. And you said, no Ler would make any change, because they were afraid of consequences. But we inhabit a sea of consequences, and you read the waves on the surface of that sea. The faster the adaptation, the higher the creature. But building hermetically sealed closed environments does not increase adaptability.”

  Morgin cautioned them, “I sense dispute! This must now cease, as we are nearing our landing, and your words will doubtless unsettle some Lago, who will commit some atrocity.”

  Meure said, “Of course you are right. But would this not be reduced somewhat with foreigners present, as in the quarter we are in?”

  Morgin said, “The foreigners are a minority, and of diverse background. There is not a single, coherent ideal to oppose and negate the Lago way; all this accomplishes is to make them more edgy, and less predictable. Soon we will land; we should find a place to run to earth until we can determine what is what. I have not the Embasse’s protection, now.”

  “Do you know of such a place?”

  “I know of several by repute. None of them are places I would choose in normal circumstances. We shall try.”

  Meure said, “And now I have another question, Master Morgin. How shall we get ourselves out of this city, into better lands? I know we cannot stay here forever, nor do I wish it.”

  Morgin scratched his scalp thoughtfully. “We have a Thief in our company, who claims to relish the aura of Crime exuded by the Lagos . . . And you have a most fearsome spirit locked up inside you; it might be worth consideration to allow these two identities to perambulate somewhat ... There is no other way I know of to escape Yastian, save by this manner. I have no more good will left to draw on, and you cannot expect donations for a party which includes a Haydar, or Firstfolk . . . if you have not faced unpleasant choices before in your lives, you must prepare to face them now.”

  Meure observed, “You are casual enough about the choice you present us: Steal or Starve.”

  Morgin shrugged, “As an Embasse, I have spent my life telling lies of greater or lesser moment, for the good of all the people. I would act similarly to save my own neck as well. You may safely assume that all whom you meet here will already have made that decision. The ones who have elected to stand upon morality you will not meet.”

  Flerdistar asked, “They are not about much, then?”

  Morgin again shrugged. “They are not alive, Lady. Not in Yastian.”

  With some currency they obtained through Morgin’s sale of the barge and everything on it, at last, long after dark had fallen, they were able to secure an adjoining collection of poor rooms at the back of what would loosely qualify as an inn. They allowed Morgin to make the choices, although all of the places they had seen seemed equally bad. It seemed Morgin was using some standard other than cleanliness or style to select a place.

  Indeed, he had told them after they were settled for the night, “One picks his place here with care, so it is; although you will not see so many open disputes in Yastian, when dark falls it is wise to seek shelter in an easily defended location, deregarding such niceties as comfort, or price, low or high . . . there are prowlers about in the nights, and they suffer neither resistance nor the bearing of tales, in short, they kill first, as silently as possible. I had heard of this place from certain outland bloods operating here temporarily, and believe it as good as any we could find ... With a large, mixed party such as us, they will doubtless suspect a spectacular crime in the offing, and will leave us exceptionally alone. This place also provides street-wardens throughout the day and night—part of the tariff, so we should have a little space to breathe.”

  But that space was little enough. Morgin projected that the barge would translate very roughly into something less than a week73, allowing enough “extra money to get them safely out of the land of the Lagostomes and into either Ombur, or Far Nasp, on the opposite side of the delta. Clellendol immediately went down to the tavern on the street floor, to orient himself for possible opportunities to practice his skill.

  The rest of them settled down to rest for the night, with Tenguft volunteering to keep the night watch. Morgin found an obscure corner pallet and fell asleep instantly.

  Meure was tired, but sleep would not come; he felt uneasy and agitated, for no cause he could determine. He knew he was not particularly concerned with safety, for he trusted Tenguft’s hair-fine perceptions without question. Still, he knew from what he had seen of Yastian that it possessed distrusts no amount of confidence could still. Evening—sundown, had been typical of the city: the double suns had not set behind a horizon of faraway landforms or vegetation, but had slunk, bloated and gross, behind ramshackle buildings. From no point in the city proper could one see actual open land; and even the air itself seemed changed. Filled with a greasy, almost imperceptible haze, it distorted colors, washing them out, and shapes seen through it in the distance wavered and floated, appearing and disappearing.

  Inland from the wharves, the physical condition of the city did not improve. Meure had seen no indication whatsoever that wealthy people formed a quarter of their own, or, for that matter, existed. Morgin had assured him that they were few, and so retiring as to be almost invisible. Meure had been somewhat surprised at that, for from the poverty he had expected to see evidence of at least part of a leisure class, but apparently in Yastian things had progressed much further than that; originally there had been a stratified class society, but that structure had eroded away long ago, by the operation of a sociological equivalent to Gresham’s Law: once the low classes reach a certain majority percentage, their values swamp the entire society. A wealthy class was only possible where there was something left over for the poorest. Yastian had passed the nothing-left-over point early in its Lagostome history.

  The foreigners Meure had expected to see had not materialized. He had imagined that the foreign quarter would have a raffish cosmopolitanism about it, with odd crowds, fragments of uncouth speech, restaurants catering to various ethnic identities. Instead, he caught quick glimpses of occasional persons, about which it could only be said that they were not Lagostomes. He had seen, in short, what appeared to him to be rather ordinary people, if somewhat furtive.

  Meure knew his perceptions were not wrong—it was the data base he was using to interpret what he saw that was the problem. He himself didn’t recognize the types he saw, and even the Cretus memories seemed uncertain. Cretus’ picture of the tribes and septs of Kepture and other continents was an old memory—far back in the past. Also, Meure felt that he was seeing less than pure types, as well, for who else would wind up stranded in a vi
le city hated by all the rest of the planet, the city and its inhabitants. The hybrids, quadroons, octoroons and worse of the whole planet.

  Cretus had remained quiet so far. Meure thought that his companion was now merely still, not so withdrawn as before, presumably observing rather than hiding out of dismay. He hoped he could keep Cretus quiet a little longer, for it would not do for him to take over in this place unless conditions were just right. Or required. He wished it, and had the curious feeling that it was so because of that, that somehow he was controlling Cretus. If it were true, he could be grateful for it, and might yet figure out a way to survive this experience.

  The Vfzyekhr had settled itself down by Meure’s hip, and after a long and elaborate toilet, gone to sleep, as soundly as Morgin. Now it was just Meure and Flerdistar again.

  In the thick atmosphere of Yastian by night, light was refracted and muted, and so a steady glow illuminated the bare rooms, and Meure could see well enough; he suspected the diffusing effect of the city air helped Flerdistar and Clellendol rather than hindered them, as they would be able to see better in this half-light. Out in the open spaces, he had noticed that they were particularly careful about moving about after dark. He could see Flerdistar, by the window, facing it from her pallet, but not specifically looking out at anything; her face was blank and expressionless.