The Golden Enemy

by Alexander Key

  “Hey, we’d freeze in seconds!” one of the boys exclaimed. “Has that ever really happened—just like that, I mean?”

  “Of course it’s happened!” old Emmon said sharply. “That’s what I’m trying to impress upon you, Hiras. It must have happened several times in the past, changing the planet greatly. Naturally there was terrible destruction of life.”

  “Is that what killed off the ancients at the Barrens?” Hiras asked.

  L’Mara said, “I read that a meteor killed them off, but I don’t believe it. I always had a feeling they were just plain murderous, though Father thinks they were demented. Could so many people be demented?”

  “Ha!” said the Elder. “Possibly. It’s all a point of view. In one sense they almost had to be demented to live in those ghastly beehives of cities, roaring around on wheels, and to be forever so incredibly busy—though heaven knows what they were so busy about. No one has ever learned.” He shook his head. “However, many things happened at the Barrens. But what with continents changing and sinking, and the polar ice melting and flooding things, we’ve few records left to help us. We may never know the truth unless we learn to make better use of the Pool of Knowledge.”

  There was a sudden silence. Then young Hiras asked, “Is there really a Pool of Knowledge, sir?”

  Old Emmon looked at him witheringly. “Where do you think inspiration comes from? Out of man’s trifling little brain? Ha!” He pointed a trembling finger aloft. “All that ever has been, all that ever can be and will be, is forever out there waiting. We have only to learn to see it …”

  He paused and peered around him. Suddenly he blinked and looked hard at L’Mara. “My dear girl, what is that object in your hands?”

  It was evident that L’Mara had almost forgotten what she held. “I—I don’t know, sir. I’ve been hoping you knew.”

  The Elder came forward. The others crowded around.

  “Why, I declare!” he exclaimed. “It must be a cat!”

  L’Mara looked at him blankly, and the Elder added, “A cat, my dear, is an extinct household pet. I have a description of one somewhere in the library. The creature was carnivorous, and some members of its family were exceedingly large and fierce.” He shuddered slightly. “I consider it fortunate that all carnivorous creatures are extinct. There are the bears, of course, and a dog or two—but these days the worst thing they eat is fish.”

  “Don’t forget about man,” said L’Mara.

  “Eh? Man?”

  “Yes, sir. Wasn’t he once a flesh eater? And he still eats fish sometimes.”

  “Please,” the Elder begged, looking pained. “I find the subject revolting.” Then, looking up, he noticed for the first time that Boy Jaim was standing in the doorway. “Well! So you’re back again from your wandering. About time! Did you find this cat L’Mara has?”

  Boy Jaim had been paying little attention to the conversation. His mind was on the goats. He could hear them faintly, far down at the bottom of the hill, and suddenly he knew what had happened. Emmon should be told about it—but not here, with so many others present.

  Then he became aware that the Elder had spoken to him. “I—yes, sir,” he managed to reply. “I found it at the Barrens. There are some other things, but they’re all of metal. Bronze, I think.”

  “You found this cat at the Barrens?” said old Emmon, incredulous. “It’s hard to believe! What’s in the sack?”

  Boy Jaim lifted the heavy sack and carried it to the Elder’s desk. The class crowded close as he drew forth the largest and most unusual of the objects he had found. It was a human figure in curious clothing sitting astride a strange animal that was not unlike a deer, except that it was much larger and had no horns. Everyone gasped.

  The Elder was almost dancing with delight. “A horse!” he squeaked, his voice nearly deserting him. “A horse with a rider! Behold, my friends, man’s first means of transportation, before he invented things with wheels.” He shook his head sadly. “Ah, what a marvelous creature the horse must have been! Imagine giving it up for those clumsy and complicated contraptions that needed roads to run on!”

  “Why did he?” asked L’Mara.

  “Because he was quite mad, of course. All ancient man seemed to care about was getting from one spot to another in a hurry. Don’t ask me why, unless it was—Ah, what’s this?”

  Boy Jaim had placed two smaller and less perfect pieces of sculpture on the desk. Emmon scowled at the first. “I believe that was known as a pig,” he muttered. “And this one—ah! One of the first domesticated creatures, extinct these thousands of years with the horse. The cow! It was from the cow that ancient man got his milk.”

  “Man also ate the cow, didn’t he?” L’Mara asked. “Just as he did the pig?”

  “We won’t go into that,” said the Elder. “Sometimes I doubt that such barbarous creatures were our true ancestors.” He shrugged and his attention went to the handful of small metal discs that Boy Jaim had scooped from the bottom of the bag.

  There was a sudden puzzled silence in the room. Boy Jaim said, “Is—is this what used to be known as wealth?”

  “I believe,” said Emmon, “that the right name for it is money.”

  “What was it for?”

  “A medium of exchange,” said Emmon. “I understand it was considered a good thing once. There were such vast numbers of people, you see, that life had become extremely complicated. Really, it passes belief. Anyway, when one needed food or clothes, he was unable to produce them as we do. He had to use money to buy them.”

  L’Mara frowned. “But suppose he didn’t have any money?”

  The Elder spread his hands. “I believe, to avoid going hungry or naked, he would have to borrow money—but for a price. As you can see, the system wasn’t perfect.”

  “Stars, no!” L’Mara exclaimed. “Why, any greedy person with half sense would soon have most of the money, and all the others would be jumping for him.”

  “It would seem so,” Emmon admitted. “Perhaps that’s why ancient man was always in such a hurry. And it may explain why he had such concern for time. Why, everyone in his day carried a time instrument! Every blessed second was so valued—” He stopped and tilted his head. “What is that noise I keep hearing? Is it the bleating of goats?”

  “Yes, sir,” Boy Jaim replied uneasily. “There’s a bunch of them down at the gate.”

  “For pity’s sake, what do the silly creatures want?”

  Boy Jaim didn’t consider goats exactly silly. But they certainly were curious and stubborn enough, and they’d worked out things pretty well to suit themselves.

  “I’m afraid they’ve got a problem, sir. They want to see you.”

  “I’m tired of their nonsense. They can just wait.”

  Boy Jaim knew Emmon could send and receive thoughts, though not too well. As clearly as he could, he thrust forth silently: “Please, I think you’d better see them now. Something terrible has happened.”

  The Elder looked startled, then said to the others, “I want to discuss Boy Jaim’s trip with him. Why don’t the rest of you fix tea and pick something to eat from the garden? Take charge, Betta.”

  Boy Jaim followed him to the terrace, where Doubtful lay curled, pretending sleep. The Elder said, “Now what is this all about?”

  “We—we’d better talk to the goats first, sir.”

  Silently, with Doubtful following, they started down the winding path to the bottom of the hill. Boy Jaim, who had not eaten for hours, plucked eagerly at the ripe peaches growing beside the path and wondered how they were going to handle the goats. The goats, in exchange for milk and hair, were always making deals for special pastures to graze in. Their sly deals had long been a subject for much laughter, but there’d be nothing to laugh about this time …

  The Elder said, “I can’t understand about those things you found. They must have been made by an earlier people than the wheel people. Such workmanship! Where did you locate them?”

  For the moment
Boy Jaim had lost all interest in his discoveries. But he described the deep cave-in he had stumbled across, and the dark opening that led into what may once have been a museum. He told how he’d found the things in the sand inside, but he did not mention the sudden dread that had come over him, and how he’d rushed out within minutes of having entered. Even Doubtful had been frightened and had insisted that the place was full of phantoms. The Barrens, of course, gave everyone the shivers, and it was no wonder that so little was actually known about it.

  They were at the bottom of the hill now. Before them in the high stone wall was an ornate wooden gate. The path on the other side was jammed with goats. In their lead was a shaggy-haired billy with huge horns and a long gray beard that nearly touched the ground. He was known to everyone as Old Man.

  “Well, what is it, Old Man?” the Elder said irritably. “Do you want a field of four-leafed clover this time, or will lettuce do?”

  “We want protection,” Old Man bleated.

  “Eh? Did you say protection?” said Emmon, who could understand only with great difficulty. “Talk to him, Boy Jaim. Find out what this is all about.”

  Boy Jaim asked, “What are you afraid of?”

  “The Golden One. You’ve heard of him?”

  “I—I’ve heard of him,” Boy Jaim admitted, and felt a knot of coldness tighten in his stomach. “Why do you call him the Golden One? Have you seen him?”

  “We have not seen him,” Old Man replied. “But others have, and we have been told. He is huge, and his hair is the same pale shining color as the hair of the woman where you live.”

  “Like the hair of Tira, my aunt?”

  “Yes. There is nothing else like it. And he is greatly to be feared, this Golden One. We demand that you give us protection.”

  “You—you really believe that because he hates man you’re in danger too?”

  The old billy stared back at him with cold unblinking eyes. “We have had too much business with man, far too long. With the taint of man on us, we cannot escape him.”

  Emmon said querulously, “Does something hate man? What is the trouble?”

  Boy Jaim took a deep breath, then told him.

  The stars winked out with dawn, and again the youngest herder faced the reality of day. Suddenly, thinking of his lost dog, his hands clenched in rage at the beast that had killed it. Where were the hunters? Were they still after the thing?

  He stood listening, hoping to hear the hunting horn. No sound came to him from over the hills. Then he thought of what the oldest herder had said about the star he’d been watching, and he shook his head. He’d done more imagining than wondering during the night, and no answers had come to him.

  But questions were tumbling through his mind … questions about man and beast …

  3

  TIME OF TROUBLE

  Doubtful’s frenzied barking awoke Boy Jaim sometime during the night. As he sat up, he became aware of the frightened bleating of goats all around the house. He sprang from bed and rushed to the window. One quick look out over the moonlit valley was enough. shock went through him. The goats had fled their distant pastures and now were crowding madly down the valley paths, breaking open the gates and even, in places, scrambling over the walls into the imagined safety of the enclosures. They were already filling the garden, and they were probably down in the fields as well, trampling out the beans and corn.

  He pulled on his trousers and boots and dashed down the stairway, shouting as he ran. As he reached the kitchen behind Doubtful he heard Andru’s voice raised in alarm, but he did not wait. The damage that was being done to the gardens around the house was bad enough, but if too many goats got into the lower fields it would be a calamity. Most of their food for the coming year would be destroyed.

  Outside, he raced through the courtyard, lined with sheds, storerooms, and greenhouses, and jerked open the door in the rear wall. The path beyond was jammed with moving goats, and he saw with dismay that they had already broken through the second gate and were streaming into the lower fields.

  For a moment he stood paralyzed with indecision. How do you stop a goat invasion? Nothing like this had ever happened before. As far as he could see and hear there were bleating goats, with more pressing in behind them. Emmon had been upset when he’d heard of the great bear—badly upset, really—though he hadn’t seemed to think the goats were in any immediate danger. The Elder had told Old Man to give him a little time and a solution could be worked out.

  Only, Emmon admitted later, there wasn’t much anyone could do to protect the goats. “Unless,” he added, “Andru can think of something.”

  Andru, last evening, had been inclined to laugh at the whole thing.

  “Did you actually see this fabulous creature?” Andru asked.

  “All I saw was its footprint,” he told his uncle. “But that was enough. If you’d been in the woods with me and seen how everything acted, or heard Old Man when he talked to Emmon and me …”

  Boy Jaim would never forget the way Andru raised one eyebrow and slowly shook his long gray head. “Son, there’s no such thing as a bear that size, in spite of what you think you saw. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. As for the color—” Andru smiled, all at once, and added, “Oh, there could be a mutation, I suppose. That would produce the color, and of course everything would be afraid of it. Animals are so excitable. And those ridiculous goats …”

  Even if Andru had taken the matter seriously, it wouldn’t have prevented the incredible thing that was happening now. The Golden One must have come all the way through the forest during the past few hours, and the goats had turned panicky.

  How can you turn a flood of panicky goats?

  Suddenly Boy Jaim dashed into one of the sheds facing the courtyard, snatched up a bundle of broom straw, found a jar of oil in the adjoining shop, and in another moment was running toward the goats, waving a blazing torch. Seconds later Andru was with him, waving another torch.

  The goats, by their very numbers, were almost impossible to handle. It took every able-bodied person in the valley, working furiously with stick and torch until long after daybreak, to clear the fields and enclosures and erect temporary barricades until the breaks could be repaired. But by this time the valley was a shambles. Every growing thing in the fields had been trampled into the earth.

  A half dozen of the nearest neighbors, including Tira’s father and mother, had slumped down in Andru’s main room. Grim, streaked with grime, they were almost too exhausted for speech. Boy Jaim helped L’Mara bring in tea and platters of bean cakes and cheese. For a while everyone ate silently.

  Finally Andru muttered, “That such a thing could have happened! I wouldn’t have believed it.” Then he growled, “I never realized there were so many goats to plague us. Their numbers astound me. The Council ought to have most of them destroyed.”

  There were several shocked faces. Tira said sharply, “Andru! You don’t mean that!”

  “Goats! The way I feel about them now—”

  “Civilized man doesn’t take life,” Tira reminded him. “Without them, what would we do for milk and cheese, and hair for weaving?”

  “Pshaw,” said Andru. “We can easily make all three from vegetable products. Anyway, you know it’s only the fleecy-haired goats that give us milk and hair. Why put up with the rest of the stupid things?” He glared at the others. “Don’t look so shocked. I speak as a man of science. We wouldn’t tolerate inferior strains of beans and tubers in our plantings. Then why tolerate inferior creatures that lose their wits and turn destructive?”

  “Andru,” said Tira’s father, a very tall man called Zimah, who did beautiful carvings in wood. “Our community has suffered great loss, and we’re all badly upset about it. But why blame the poor goats? It was that bear that drove them here.”

  “Then the bear should be destroyed,” Andru told him. “Only, I find this quite incredible. I just can’t believe that any animal would actually do such a thing on purpose.�
��

  “I think this one did,” said Zimah. “But without proof we’ll have a hard time making the Council see it that way.”

  Andru’s face hardened. “Well, I’m on the Council, and if that thing really is to blame …”

  “Elder Emmon will know. He’s been flying around since daylight, looking things over.”

  Boy Jaim, hunched dejectedly in a corner with his elbows on his knees, felt a coldness creep through him. How would the forest dwellers feel if man broke the centuries-old peace that had been between them? Or didn’t anyone care these days? Still, the Golden One had already broken that peace, and for no understandable reason …

  There was a sudden murmur of expectancy around him, and his glance went quickly to the doorway. The shriveled, gnomelike figure of old Emmon was crossing the terrace. He watched the Elder come in and wearily settle his frail bones in a seat beside Andru.

  “That impossible beast!” Emmon’s voice was squeaky with strain. “For the life of me I can’t imagine where he came from, or what he’s got against us. But he’s got a grievance of some kind.”

  “Grievance?” said Andru, his long face sharpening.

  “Absolutely. Where do you think those goats went after we drove them out of West Com?”

  “I’d hoped they’d keep going straight on over the hills. Didn’t they?”

  “No,” said Emmon. “They turned toward South Com. And when they’re driven from there, I’m quite sure they’ll head for East Com, and finally for North Com or Central—wherever they’ll do the most damage.” He sighed and shook his head. “But everybody’s been warned, and they’re out putting up barriers now. So maybe the destruction won’t be too great.”

  Andru stared at him. “Are you telling us that those confounded goats are actually being driven around the Five Communities?”

  “I am. I haven’t sighted the beast yet, but there’s no doubt about what he’s doing. There are dead goats in the pastures—strays that tried to get away when they were driven here. One of them was struck so hard” the Elder paused a moment, looking sick, “—that it landed high up in the branches of an oak tree.”