The Amber Seeker

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘Feed me.’ I do not know where the voice came from.

  The monster was still rising. ‘Fee-ee-eed me,’ it insisted. Its paw reached towards me, with strange leathery digits and claws as sharp as nails.

  ‘Empty the pot into its hand,’ Suil’s voice behind me nearly terrified me out of my wits with its urgency. ‘Quickly!’

  I poured out my offering. It had come from the deepest part of me and I had produced it, I have to admit, with some difficulty in the old man’s presence. I had been glad he turned away but now he was watching every move and would see all I had managed. I fed the beast with the contents of my pot and then it retracted its hand and slumped back into its corner, slurping disgustingly for a while before falling silent. All I could see of it was a slumped shape in the alcove.

  I was trembling. And then, behind me, Suil began to make a weird noise, playing a tune on some kind of breathy instrument. It was an odd little melody, just four notes long, and its rhythm was a regular pattern. I remember it clearly: da-da-da-dee da-da-da-dee, the long note being alternately the lowest and highest. It was hypnotic, and the echo made harmonies of the most extraordinary sort. It was hard to stay frightened in the presence of such beauty.

  And then the light went out.

  The tune continued, doubled in intensity. The smell of the underground world sprang fresh into my nose. I felt more alive than I have ever felt before. Between the phrases of the tune, my companion was leaving longer and longer pauses, and in those pauses I reached out into the darkness with all of my senses.

  I felt my bodily presence grow as if I was becoming stronger and larger. I tried moving and my hands seemed to have become antennae of huge sensitivity, like those you see a cockroach waving in front of itself. I could feel the rocks before I touched them and their shape was vivid to my fingers, their texture complex and interesting, each crystal with its own smooth or jagged form. Similarly, with two mobile hands that could see behind and above as well as in front, my head seemed to know how far it had to swing more effectively than when it was guided by eyes. My feet had become eyes or noses, too; they reached about, probing like snouts, and the contours beneath me became clear. My firmness upon that patch of earth gave me a sense of security no act of standing had ever done before.

  I realised the music had stopped altogether, the last pause reaching deeply into the space around us. It smelled of lichen and mould in there, the air cool and still as a grave.

  I remembered that I had sought guidance from Artemis before I set off on my journey. The priestess had taken me into a side-chamber, down some steps, and into a cellar-shrine where the Goddess took the form of the hibernating mother bear. It was winter and the shrine was as cool as this mine, but there the resemblance ended, because it was dry and full of shrouds with painted and embroidered patterns, so our voices had been muffled and softened as we had talked about my journey. I had made an offering of honey, prayed for a successful outcome and asked the bear for courage. And there, the light had never gone out, the candles on the altar had burned calmly all the while.

  I felt something against my leg and my whole body stiffened. There was a distinct stroking sensation on my right shin, and sharp claws, pricking. I suddenly needed light. I dared not reach down. I knew somehow it must be the creature from the alcove and now I heard what I can only describe as snuffling.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Suil’s voice was disembodied. ‘The kobold won’t hurt you now it has eaten.’

  When someone says don’t worry in such a circumstance, it is no help at all. The body knows fear in a way that words cannot reach. I was seized by a pounding, rising, breath-sapping sensation. My stomach gripped. My legs shrank from the soft abrasion and the prickling of this thing, rubbing itself against me. My eyes stared out into the black vacancy.

  As suddenly as it began, the touch of the creature ended. I could hear it, or I imagined I could, shuffling back into its alcove.

  Suil took me by the wrist and said, ‘Follow.’

  We shuffled deeper into the cave, or perhaps back the way we had come. I had no sense of direction at all. We stopped in a cooler space and I felt a current of air on the back of my neck.

  All the time, he was chanting something but I could make nothing of his words. It was all one note, deep and incantatory. He was communicating with some spirit or other, or perhaps with the beast. There was a spicy, soft smell and a sound of scratching. The hairs of my head must have been standing out like a hedgehog’s bristles.

  A touch on my forehead made me cry out.

  ‘It is just me.’ He laid a hand on my arm. Could he see in the dark? I guessed he must have been able to, or this alertness of all the other senses I was experiencing was simply so much more advanced in him that the dark was no hindrance.

  There was a long pause, with only the throbbing of the earth. My heart was pounding. I tried to slow my breathing and calm myself down.

  When he spoke again, his voice was solemn. ‘Southern man, know the earth.’

  I think that’s what he said, anyway. I was trembling from head to foot, terror and wonder running through me. Every time this man spoke his voice seemed to come from a different place.

  ‘Speak to the earth,’ he commanded.

  I had no idea what to say. To be utterly honest I have no idea what I did say. I do remember my voice sounded thin and I have no doubt at all that what I managed to produce was feeble as well. The response was a grumbling rumble that seemed to come from the rock itself. It was far too deep for Suil, or indeed for any human to produce.

  ‘Tell her how you are feeling,’ Suil whispered in my ear. Once again, I jumped like a frog.

  But I do remember what I said then. ‘Awe.’ That single word echoed on and on and it seemed to modulate into a body-shaking reverberation, as if a throng had picked it up and was passing it back and forth. I felt myself vibrating, pulsing with life. The sound I made came back to me, trebled in intensity. I said the word again and for a third time, and each time it returned enriched. Harmonies seemed to sing it back to me. It was dark through all of this of course, but I swear I could see colours made by the sounds, and they were breath-taking.

  ‘Now tell her what you are looking for.’

  The sounds must have somehow given me confidence, for I was not surprised or frightened by Suil any more. I had not been harmed yet, and this was the strangest and most wondrous experience of my life. The adventurer in me knew that this was an opportunity I must seize.

  ‘I seek the origin of tin, of amber and of ivory and I seek new jewels.’

  ‘You seek much,’ Suil said, quietly.

  There is a passage written by Herodotus, where he says he cannot speak with certainty, for I do not allow that there is any river, to which the barbarians give the name of Eridanus, emptying into the northern sea where, as the tale goes, amber is produced, nor do I know of any islands called Cassiterides, whence the tin comes which we use… Then he says, nevertheless, tin and amber do certainly come to us from the ends of the earth.

  ‘Is this the end of the earth?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Ho ho ho, no!’ The earth guffawed in response. Laughter echoed and boomed. ‘I am boundless…’ And this boundlessness was tangible in the great musical voice.

  I knew Herodotus to be wrong. I knew! Here, this place was the origin of tin. What triumph I felt. This was the Cassiteride Island. I had found it! I had sailed on that northern sea that the great historian did not believe in, and I would sail much more and further. I cannot describe the elation this knowledge filled me with, but let me tell you that it, too, felt boundless. I was sure then that I would also find the river Eridanus and the source of amber.

  ‘You are in the belly of the earth, the place where bears come in winter to merge and die and be reborn in spring. You have made contact. Are you ready to be reborn?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not ready.’

  I wanted just to be there for a while, in the belly of the earth with all my senses alive,
listening to the drips and the distant murmur of some watercourse – or maybe it was the sea – that made a deeper rumbling from time to time. I followed the sound of one of the drips with my hands and felt where it was making the rock slippery under my fingers. I reached my face in towards it until it wet my cheek and let it drip onto my outstretched tongue – its taste was of life itself, pure, original, untainted, uninterpreted. I breathed in and out knowing my flesh was continuous with the earth. This cool yeasty smell of wet rock was the earth’s breath. The mention of bears had made me think of Artemis, and so I offered her a prayer, one of the simple chants we teach all the young children. I am not a great one for the temple most of the time, but I was glad then to be able to speak to the bear goddess in the appropriate way. It is a chant about becoming a bear and there, deep in that damp burrow, it seemed wholly appropriate.

  ‘Goddess of the Bear, protector, make us brave,

  make our footsteps sure as pawprints,

  make our voices strong and fearless as a roar,

  make our spirits shine like the Great Bear of the Sky,

  let us know your wisdom,

  let us know True North,

  Goddess of the Bear, protector, make us brave.’

  After my voice had stopped reverberating, the silence seemed profound, as if my words had brought the world to a shocked standstill.

  Then the steady drips reasserted themselves and the pulsing throb of the earth returned.

  The flute that Suil used to make his music down there began again. Again it was just a simple tune: two pairs of notes, a small interval between them, descending, di-dee, di-dum, di-dee, di-dum. There was something restless about it. I felt a hand on my shoulder compelling me back down the tunnel and it felt right to start walking, my feet, di-dee, treading, di-dum, to the rhythm of the tune. I said, ‘thank you’ and received a silencing tap on the back of my head. Suil must have been right behind me. So I stayed quiet, and the little tune propelled me back out towards the light.

  The light! Oh, by the Gods, what it was like to return to the light! The sea crashing on the cliff foot below, the whistle of wind, the salty-sweetness of it! I had not realised how stale the air in the mine had become until I breathed the outside world.

  Having shown me his underground realm, I hoped Suil would show me how the tin is smelted, but he was adamant that that was a secret not even my gold could buy. I managed to get him to tell me a little of the process: after the boys had smashed it and sifted out the heavy ore, it is heated with charcoal to a temperature hot enough to fire pottery, and the resulting prills of metal are hammered together or melted into ingots. It sounded a primitive enough technique. I sorely wished to see his furnace in action, but this is a mystery I was not party to. Still, to have been inside the earth to where tin is born was wonder enough.

  Perhaps you’re wondering why I have told you about this in such detail? It is not just to express my piety and remembrance of Artemis, nor to prove that I have genuinely been to where tin originates, despite what those people anxious to sully my name would have everyone believe. No, it is to urge you to revel in all of your senses, not only the power of sight, which we depend on so much. If I were to go blind I could no longer do my scientific measurements or read. But I learned that day that life would still be full, enriched by sensory compensation from my ears, nose, tongue and skin. Yes, my dear: do not underestimate the power of touch and of all the other senses. I also tell you so that you understand that I was sometimes frightened on my travels. It was not the last time.

  TRADE

  In the two days after the full moon the tide was at its maximum, and I was amazed by how many people had arrived on Ictis. The causeway was dry for several hours as the tide was lowest, then at high tide it was completely cut off and this seemed to put everyone into the mood of a festival. Men, women and children had clearly come from far and wide to enjoy the experience of being marooned. They walked on, mostly with something to trade, as if the temporary island could create a special kind of market, add some value to their goods or bring good luck to their transactions.

  Another of Ussa’s slaves, called Li, took a liking to me and I to him and we escaped from the main throng to a quiet viewpoint where the late morning sun glittered on the water. He had a flask of mead – delicious, sweet, flowery – he said it was made with the honey from heather blossoms. It went straight to my head.

  We were sitting on a stone terrace wall at the edge of the path up to the Keepers’ temple, looking out across the bay. Rollers swept in onto the sand with a steady, languorous rhythm and I felt myself becoming drunk and enthralled by the delightful accent of the young man beside me. Li kept quizzing me about where I was from and what I was doing there. He was greedy for knowledge of other lands, fascinated by the detail of my journey from Massalia to the Gironde and on up to Armorica. I told him about my Periplus and promised to show it to him. I asked him in turn about his home.

  ‘I’m from Silures, three day’s sail north of here, the heart of the world, the very centre. That’s my home, or it was, until I was captured. Now I must go everywhere.’

  I wanted to know what the journey was like from his home to Ictis.

  Li waved his hand to the right. ‘Of course, it’s wild water here where the ocean is open to the west, but then up the coast there’s the huge estuary, where you can find shelter if you need it, and then Eriu gives us calm water mostly.’

  ‘Eriu?’

  ‘The big island off to the west. Surely that is in your – what did you call it?’

  ‘Periplus,’ I said. ‘It has nothing for this far north in it, I’m afraid. And your people. What do they do to survive in this harsh climate? Are they farmers? Is it possible to grow any decent crops?’

  He laughed at me and shook his head. ‘Cattle, of course. And not always our own! We love cattle. Fish, all the bounty of the sea. We grow a bit of barley. Bread is a handsome food, for sure, but if we can benefit from others’ harvests, all the better.’

  ‘Do your people trade?’

  ‘Of course. Gold, silver, horn, hide; our craftsmen and women make beautiful things. Dogs too. Dogs for hunting, or for in the granary to catch rats, whatever kind of dogs you want. And people, unfortunately for me. There’s plenty of demand for slaves. It’s not every tribe will deal with them but we’re good at it. My dad always said, “we make the best chains in the whole world, we may as well get the benefit.” But it backfires. Other tribes don’t think twice to do the same to us.’

  He was remarkably sanguine about his fate, I thought.

  The sunshine overhead prompted me to take a measurement. I fetched the gnomon from my bed. I was very proud of it, with its beautifully engraved symbols of sun and moon and stars, as if it carried the authority and protection of the heavens within it. Each time I measured the sun’s declination with it, I felt I was getting a blessing from Apollo or more likely from Athena, who I am sure would appreciate the attempt to understand the world I was journeying in.

  I got Li to help me, holding the staff, while I marked the spot on the ground where the tip of its shadow fell. When I laid the gnomon down to measure the shadow’s length, he plagued me with questions about what I was doing and took great delight in my answers, as if I were telling jokes.

  ‘You’re like the old druids who’ll tell you from the distance a frog leaps how old you’ll live. What a laugh! I can’t wait to tell the others I’ve met a man who navigates by shadows! You can tell the way, but only on a sunny day, eh? You’ll not be able to go anywhere when it’s raining then?’ He was killing himself laughing at me, tears in his eyes, half doubled-over, the rascal.

  I don’t think he meant to be unkind and I chuckled along at his mirth, enjoying being a clown to him. I didn’t realise how prophetic he was being. Those northern lands have more cloudy weather than I could have imagined possible. I wish I’d known it earlier, I would have taken more readings when I could, rather than hanging back and waiting until noon, when no matter how
good the morning it had invariably clouded over. I’ve learned to take it seriously, but not too seriously, when people laugh at me. There really is nothing funnier than a fool.

  The measurement, I was surprised to learn, was only a little lower than that I had taken on Tregor. I had travelled mostly west then on my sea voyage with Ussa, not far north at all.

  ‘And where will you be going next, do you think?’ I asked him

  Li shrugged. ‘Ussa goes where she goes. I heard her talking about Manigan yesterday. That means North, probably.’

  ‘Who’s Manigan?’

  ‘He’s the Walrus Mutterer.’

  ‘The what?’

  He grinned. ‘He hunts the tooth-walker.’ He saw my evident ignorance. ‘A huge animal of the north, walks on the ice with its big bone tusks.’ He gestured with his hands, two huge fangs.

  I suddenly realised he might be talking about the northern ivory. I quizzed him and that seemed to be the case. I was excited. How smoothly my quest was going! ‘So she’s going after this man for his ivory?’

  ‘No, not really. He has a stone head she covets.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t know. She wants it.’

  There was a blast of a high-pitched horn from the beach and Li was up on his feet. ‘I’ve got to go, that’s the call for the gathering. Nice talking to you.’ He bounded away down the track with the speed of a deer.

  I sat for a while watching the melee of people and goods until the smell of food wafting up from one of several braziers became too tempting. I was wondering if I might follow Li to ask him some more questions and whether my journey would take me to his northern home. The brief picture he had given me with its talk of dogs and talented crafts people made me sure I would find it fascinating.

  Now that I had found the source of tin, my quest, really, was to go searching for amber and ivory, but I had vowed to explore every interesting lead if it led north, and this qualified as interesting. And in the event, Ussa persuaded me to voyage on with her. She charmed me, I admit, and it was easier to stay with her now I was burdened by my haul of tin, but I travelled with her mostly because she had all the right contacts to get me where I needed to go. Having established the source of tin, she seemed to be quite taken with helping me find ivory and amber. After what Li had told me I questioned her about the northern ivory, and she seemed to think it would be possible to track some down, but only much further north. She also volunteered that amber was bought most cheaply and abundantly from the traders who had crossed the ocean from the east and claimed it washed up on beaches in far northern lands. I already felt I was in a far northern place, but she and the slaves laughed at me for suggesting it.