The Kar-Chee Reign

by Avram Davidson

  “Something like that. But I’ve been wondering and wondering, now…. It does seem to me that two fire-charges shouldn’t have done all of this. And the Devils weren’t ready to have it done, either — else they wouldn’t have been down below in danger of being crushed to death like grubs or beetles. No….

  “I think there must be another explanation, and I think that this is it: the Kar-chee had made that corridor, that shaft, to tap the hidden fires beneath the earth. And they planned to drive it even deeper and they must, I think, have had a great store of the blue fire-heads in that shaft. What drew their attention and kept it there? Eh? Danger!”

  Lors repeated, “We dropped the fire into the tub of oil….”

  The conversation was not slow, leisurely, philosophical. It was quick, excited, grim. And it turned, abruptly, onto another tack, as Liam opened his shirt. “Look at this,” he said, drawing something out.

  This was a something for which they had no name or word, having never before seen it nor anything like it. They looked at it as he had directed and made sounds of awe or bewilderment as it changed shape in his hands: he drew it out … he pushed it back into a smaller compass than before … he showed them to what extent it was pliable in his hands … how now it became globular and now cubical and now it was flat…. And with each change, and, it seemed — if one looked quickly and closely — even without each change of shape, the designs upon it changed … changed … subtly changed….

  “What is this?” Fateem asked, whispering.

  “I am not totally sure,” His voice had dropped, too. “But I am almost so — I believe this is what was called by men, a map! But it is not a man-made map, it is a Devil-made map — a Kar-chee map! I’ve always, as long as I’ve known that such things had ever been, wanted one. But not one like those very few I’d seen, ancient and worn and crumbling and of no practical use because they showed things as they had been, hundreds of years ago — ”

  “Before the Devils came …!”

  “Yes … ‘before the Devils came.’ And, since then, do we not know? — what changes occurred? No! We do not know! Only that changes have occurred. Look! Look here — Do you see this?” His finger traced the curious outline upon the curious surface. “Do you know what it is? It’s a map of this land, this island! I’m sure of it. Or rather I should say, ‘This is how this island appears upon this map.’ — now. Thus it appears as though we were birds, looking down on it from the air as though floating fixed in one place. Now — ” His hands moved, the “map” moved, the design changed, flowed, changed, stopped … more or less. “And this is how it looks as though from the side, but at what angle I am not sure, and … follow my finger … it goes right down from the top to the sea and beneath the sea … down … down … so … down, to where the island grows from the bottom of the sea the way a tree grows from, well, the bottom of the air — ”

  He groped for unfamiliar phrases to express unfamiliar conceptions. His eyes glowed and glittered and there was life and light upon his face such as none of them had ever seen before. But even as he spoke and they listened there was a distant rumble, the ground shook again, the sound of the surf was disturbed, and Cerry pointed a shaking finger at the outline of the map. And now it was she who whispered, “Look … look….”

  At one point upon the surface of the chart the outline altered as they watched. Shifted … flowed … was still.

  “What? Liam? What …?”

  He said, with a kind of fierce joy in knowledge, “The ancients spoke of things, of measures, which they called dimensions. Length. Width. Depth. Time. Most of their maps showed only two of them: length and width. Some, as they called them, relief maps, these showed depth as well.” His fingers, scrabbing hastily in the dirt, tried to give evidence of what he was trying to explain and convey. “But none of these ancient maps ever showed or could ever show time! If an area changed, the map became obsolete … outdated … useless. It was necessary to make a new one. But — somehow — I don’t know how and it doesn’t matter now — somehow this Devil-map does show time!”

  And his finger stabbed the surface of the chart. “And here we have the proof! Just now, this moment before, we heard and we felt another portion of the land go sliding into the sea — no doubt another link in the chain of reactions from the first shock — and when we heard this and felt this, we saw it, too! This map never becomes obsolete or ancient, for it is somehow a mirror reflecting every aspect of the earth-sea surface — and responding to every change in the earth-sea surface!”

  There was brief silence. Some implication of what he was trying to imply came through; more confusion than enlightment remained. But the conversation now shifted, and abruptly, for the third time, as Fateem said, in a dreamy, stifled voice, “But the Devils have Rickar, and we know what they will do with him….”

  • • •

  Gaspar would not listen. That is, they spoke to him, and they refused to stop speaking until they had told him in complete detail just what they had seen the Kar-chee and the dragons doing to the captives there in the cavern; and in a physical sense he could not have helped but hear them. Once or twice his eyes blinked very rapidly, but there was not a tear in them, and he neither replied nor even stopped in his moving from one place to another nor in his giving ceaseless orders and directions. His ears must have heard. But his mind would not listen. It was entirely possible that after they had done with talking he could not have repeated a single thing they had told him, even if he had wished to.

  In his own way, certainly, he had loved his son — and from any ordinary danger he would certainly have risked his own life and the resources of his community in order to try to save his son’s life. But his commitment to the axioms and principles of the Knowers was total: Manifest Nature made certain demands of mankind, not capriciously but of necessity; if these were flouted the inevitable result was the punishment consisting of the double-Devils; the double-Devils were produced by unjust and sinful conduct; to resist them was to square the transgression, and — certainly — an attempt to aid one caught in doing so would be (at least) to cube it. Therefore Gaspar did not, would not, dared not, could not, allow his mind to consider what Liam and Fateem or anyone else was trying to tell him — that it was possible for Rickar still to be saved, perhaps — that it might well be that, in the shock of the quakes, no man-baiting had been held — and that, if Rickar were still living, it might be possible … somehow … somehow … to save him.

  In which case it was imperative to try.

  But Gaspar, clearly, would not try.

  He would not even try.

  Nor would any Knower.

  What then?

  While all those who followed Gaspar, whether of his original following, or the converts from the raft people, or those of the island’s people who had been persuaded that there was no hope or answer save in the arks — while all these toiled and troubled and swarmed like ants to bring their departure to as soon a moment as possible, Liam spoke his mind aloud to those few who followed him and who looked to him for hope and answer.

  “He came with me because he trusted in me, and he trusted in me because I had once been in arms against the Kar-chee. He himself had never even seen them — to him they were just part of what the older people nagged on and on about. Probably he didn’t fully realize how dangerous they really are. But I did. And I let him come with me. Why? I wasn’t trying to defy people who had always been telling me what to do…. No, it wasn’t mere rebellion with me. I wanted to know more about the two Devils, and I wanted to know more so that the next time I resisted them I would feel that something more than flight or slaughter would be the result.

  “And he trusted and he followed. Now, the trip wasn’t for nothing. We’ve learned a few things. We know what they use to make the thunder that splits the rocks apart — and we’ve got much of it with us, too. And we know that what we saw in the cavern isn’t all that there is to see about the Kar-chee. There’s something more, much more, and it lie
s below — deep below. Well —

  “Easy to say he was taken because of his own act. His act was based on my words and my words were meant to save the blue thunderheads. He did his best for them … for us … me….

  “Shouldn’t we do our best for him? Should we? We saw something of the risk. Are we to take it? And if we aren’t, then what are we to do in place of it which justifies anything we’ve already done? — and particularly Rickar’s capture — ”

  His voice broke off. Not more than a few paces away three men trotted by, driving a group of llamas en route to the arks. The men’s face were grimed with the sweat of their haste and the dust of the path which rose and swirled around them. They did not notice the others; the others, intent upon Liam and on Liam’s questions, did not notice them. But Liam noticed them. And as he did, there welled up in him the thought that here was his answer —

  But when he sought words to frame the answer he could not find them, and when he tried to resolve his thoughts he realized that he had no clear pictures of them. Yet the certainty persisted. The brown and white fleeces of the llamas, then, aboard the older ark … the newer ones, too, if they were readied in time, presumably…. And then the answer, like a bubble, welled up and broke upon the surface of his mind.

  He saw the relief mingled with excitement on the faces of his friends as they saw the change on his face. They listened, intent, undoubting, willing, absorbed, as he told them what was to be done. Their numbers were to be divided — thus and thus and thus — and, with them, the quantity of thunderheads; immediately the blue points were carefully separated. A few more directions were given, places appointed, hands shaken and withdrawn regretfully, caresses briefly exchanged.

  On all sides sweating people streamed like ants to and from carrying provisions and material to the arks. Liam, Lors, and Duro walked, rapidly, apart, bound upon this mission of their own. The others watched out of sight, then parted upon their own assigned tasks. They had made their decisions. There was to be no room for them in the arks.

  • • •

  The two tall, gaunt dusty-black forms lay where they had fallen. Either the Kar-chee felt no impulse toward retrieving their dead for burial, or else the necessities of their present condition had allowed them no time to come back for this purpose. Still, the men had no way of knowing that the Devil-things might not come back at any moment. Prudently, Lors and Duro stood on different rises of ground, standing watch — but, equally prudently, they first pulled out the fatal bolts with their obsidian points and vanes and replaced them in their ammunition pouches.

  Liam and Tom had in their time flayed and flensed many a carcass, but neither had ever dismembered a Kar-chee carcass. The task was inherently unpleasant, and was made more so by the bitter reek. Tom, his mouth twisted, said, “They have no bones, then … okh!”

  Liam said, “They have, in a way, yes. This … this armor … on the outside — this is their bone. But as to the rest, I am in full agreement with you: okh!” He carefully pried and scraped. They had to use exceeding care, but they were infinitely hampered by their ignorance of the alien anatomy.

  “If we had the time,” he said, “and if we had a vessel big enough, we might boil them like lobsters.” He grimaced and grunted, went on with his digging. They were not so much skinning these cadavers as excavating them. “This is one sort of armor which must have a chink in it….”

  He wished that the three vigorous guanaco-hunters from the Uplands were here with them now. It had been the sight of the drove of llamas which had started the quick train of thought which led to guanacos, “cousins” to llamas; and simultaneously to what Lehi, Nephi, and Moroni had said about their methods of hunting the wary and windswift cameloids. Experienced in this technique, the Uplanders would be very useful in this present and dangerous enterprise … were they but here. But they were not; and there was no time to fetch them here.

  Wind sounded and sighed in the trees, the surf (now unvexed in its timeless, ceaseless motion once again) murmured, and Liam and Tom, with teeth clenched and jaws set, worked at their grisly task. And at last they had done the brute and greater part of it; now came the part of more cunning and craft. Cords of sinews were threaded through and inserted and fastened, sticks put into place, the crossbows themselves — vertical — acting as excellent frames and braces. And then —

  “Who’s to go inside?” Lors asked, eyeing the rude, quick jobs of taxidermy with a mixed air of admiration, doubt, caution, and impatience.

  “I, not,” Liam grunted. “For I must have fully free movement of head and eyes to look all about and see what’s to be seen. Let the three of you choose amongst you.”

  He had stripped before beginning work and so had only his hair and beard and skin to wash, squatting in the small pool left to dry up gradually when the brook had been ripped untimely from its accustomed bed. They had none of the coarse soap along with them; he ripped up grass and wadded it and scrubbed, then he scooped up sand and scrubbed, wincing, but nonetheless grateful that the abrasion removed the thickened, gummy ichorous exhudations from his skin and hair. It should not have taken them long to choose, and, since Tom did not come to join him in the pool, he assumed that Tom had lost the choice; he was right.

  Prepared as he was for what he saw, still he started at the sight: Two Kar-chee, erect and towering (but stooping a bit as was their way) over Lors, who — on seeing Liam stop and stare and then come on — assumed the stunned and hang-head look he evidently believed appropriate to a captive. And Liam, once into his clothes again, and thinking the other’s manner was right enough, assumed it, too. The pair started off, and, behind them, heads bobbing a bit, extra legs dragging a bit, from time to time uttering muffled exclamations, came Tom and Duro, concealed inside the armored skins of the dead Kar-chee.

  VIII

  TWICE THEY SAW Kar-chee off in the distance but could not tell if they themselves had been seen or not. And once a dragon lifted its head and flashed its faceted eyes at them; but then its head went down again and, with no more than a rather plaintive lowing, it ignored them as before. Once they heard the voices of men and themselves turned aside so as neither to encounter nor to be encountered. And once without warning a young girl and a much younger boy crossed their path. One of the men began to say something, but before his useless caution Don’t be afraid could advance more than a syllable the girl had snatched up the child and fled, silently, the long vocable of the boy’s wail floating behind them after they had gone from sight.

  There was no need for them to go seeking for the right hole in the cliff-face which would lead to the right cave — for the cliff-face itself was rent apart as though it were a rotten piece of cloth; the immense rift running from top to bottom. And there, far within, beyond the fallen rubble and the shattered rock, like a cavity in a rotten tooth, they saw what they wanted.

  The cavern they had formerly been in was recognizable by an occasional fragment of machinery protruding from beneath the caved-in roof. Very likely the store of thunderheads, detonated by the collapse of the rock overhead, had done more damage than the quakes themselves. Liam feared that the way below might have been covered up altogether; and, indeed, he was never sure that it was not, for the corridor-shaft they found at last was located on altogether the other side of what had once been the immense chamber, its doors lying twisted and shattered beside the gaping orifice.

  The strange and curious lamps which had once made the cavern a mixture of hissing, off-color lights and heaped-up shadows were now for the most part dim and silent where they were not vanished altogether … but only for the most part. Here and there a lamp lay on the uneven ground or protruded askew from a twisted wall or hung perilously from the rocky overhead, its sound reduced to a faint sibilant and its light reduced to a pale flicker … but it was enough for them to pick their way along by.

  The smell of dragon was missing here but the smell of Kar-chee was musty and strong — not that Duro and Tom, inside their Kar-chee husks, would have n
oticed, half-stifled as they were by the smell of their own concealing cortices! They went, peering and pattering and picking and stumbling their way through the dim and tortured corridor. The ground trembled faintly. The way led steadily down and around.

  Presently Liam stopped and held out his hands for the others to stop. After a moment, “Listen….” he said. He lifted his face and stared at the rock above.

  After a while the others heard it, too. A whisper at first. Then the sound increased … ceased … was repeated more faintly … and again and again….

  “What is it?” Lors asked.

  “The surf. We are under the water now. Not very far under, but — ”

  Lors finished the phrase for him. “But the farther on we go, the farther under the water we’ll be.”

  Liam nodded. He listened another moment to the long sound of the withdrawing/advancing/withdrawing waves up, up above and over them. Then he shrugged. Then they went on.

  But, curiously, the trembling of the ground did not decrease as they went on. Liam at first thought that this might mean that the descent of the beach was matching the descent of the tunnel. It took not long for him to realize, however, that this implied by far too prolonged a beach, an interminable shallow which would have exhausted the drive of any surf. And, by and by, the trembling took on a rhythm which was different from that of the surf altogether.

  And therefore the source of it, as it did not lie above, must lie below.

  His preoccupation with this was such that he did not become fully aware of the other sounds until some time after — he realized — he had first become aware of them at all.

  For a moment he thought he recognized those sounds: the dragging of the Kar-chee feet, the supernumary “extra” pair which were not animated by the human legs of Tom and Duro. Scrape … scuffle … rustle … drag. … Again he stopped and signaled the others to stop.

  Scuffle … rustle….