If he fed the wizards he would find the cure for iron. It was half in his mind that it might be better if iron died: would not then Orfas, who was king by virtue of his iron, die with it? But the nains said it would not be better, and the nains were his friends, had been his father’s friends; now that his father was dead they were his only friends … unless old Bab-uncle did still live … And somehow it was never at all clear in his mind, but somehow he dimly understood that iron was a thing of such great power that he who could cure its present ill must share somehow in that power.
And, so sharing, must thereafter needs never flee more.
So the pictures formed and shifted in his mind, and all the while he thought upon them, still he fled. He fled knowing that he should head north, where Nainland lay — and beyond, incalculably beyond, Wizardland — but north, here and now, was a way full of broken hills and jagged rock, gorges and cliffs and footing uncertain by reason of landslip and scree. It was fine country for evasion, if only it was a country which well he knew. But he did not. And to break leg or neck was by far too high a price to pay.
Vaguely, he thought he had seen a gleam of water from high up in the honey tree, between the north and the east. Water was an invariable, a commonplace necessity. The country roundabout did not so much lack for any springs and brooks, however. It was not drink alone he had in mind. It was no pool or pond he had in mind, filthy although he was from his long imprisonment and from his late journey of escape, and much though he would like to bathe. Did not the hunted deer whenever possible seek to lose his pursuers in river and in creek? And now, pausing a bit to press his ear to the mossy earth, and (as so long ago) noting no sound save the beating of his own heart — now he remembered what else a river meant to him.
It meant a reed, and a greenstone, and a beechnut, and a bear’s claw. It meant his quest for his father. It meant another hollow in another tree. It —
Something flashed in the corner of his eye, quivering and bright as a butterfly, full of colors as a rainbow. He turned, slowly, slowly, fearful of losing full sight of it as he also drew himself from the ground. The perry stood on the moss as though he would leave no print when next he moved. The expression on the perry’s narrow face was half-smile and half-dream. It was the perry-look he remembered from the twilight of the time when he lay healing in the dim green bower, after the Painted Man had half-killed him. A sight — and even now the memory of it made him hiss and glance about in terror — as frightful as that of the perry was joyful: and yet a joy full mixed with awe.
The perry beckoned to him … Did it not? It must have. He approached, holding out his hands. The expression on the slender, golden face deepened. It … beckoned … did it? He came on, feeling his face moving, his own face, feeling it glowing under the glancing of those glowing eyes. He spoke to the perry, and the perry spoke to him. That is, the perry did speak to him …
And such a game that now the perry played with him, now hiding, now flashing into sight, now spinning in a whirl of gorgeous color, now vanishing behind a tree.
And, gleeful, joyful — though his sense of awe in no way abated — Arnten himself went spinning round the tree. He went round and round the huge, canting, slanting beech tree. The perry was not in sight, and he danced between the lengthening shadows as he waited for the perry to show itself once more for the game to go on. Then he heard the river, then he saw its waters flash, then memory flashed inside him, he suddenly went backwards and down, landing without pain … and, looking up, saw that other hollow in this other tree. Saw it was indeed the Bear’s tree. Knew it was impossible by any way of thought or walk or run for him (for them) to have come this far in such time as it took his shadow to grow that much longer. Knew, nevertheless, that it was that very tree: was this very tree. Was here.
And knew at last, with mingled sense of joy, of home, of safety, loss, grief, bewilderment — a sudden rush of tears and a cry which came from his very heart and echoed in his ears and danced back and forth across the silence — he knew that behind no bush or shrub or anywhere more, was the perry any longer to be found.
And never would that fire whose dead black scar he recognized dim upon the ground ever by any blaze see Arntat, his father-the-bear, again. My heritage to you is otherwise. And what was that heritage come to? A handful of memories, a witchery-bundle, and a bearskin. And to this heritage had the perry brought him.
Arnten got up. His dark face, now darker than ever — as was his lengthening, broadening body, with dusky bloom of hair — twisted, grimaced. A sound started, deep in his chest, rose to his throat and broke there, without ever becoming words. Sorrow was in it, and rage. Defiance. And regret. But not acceptance. Never that. Something was growing, and he was growing with it. Something with many plies. The perry was in it, and the nains. The hatred of King Orfas in it, too. Bears and hares. Crows, too. Iron, dying. Bear, dead. Wizards famishing. Great horn, many blasts. Beckoning of so deep a sleep that —
Anger beckoning, calling, hot and red. A nut falls and rots and splits its skin and something like a worm or snail creeps slowly out, lifts its blind head. Let dust and mold of fallen leaves and mud of many rains cover it, still it will go up … up … He had felt these things in mind and blood and flesh. He leaned against the rough bole of the tree. No father, no brother, no comrade. But — up —
He came down this time without hesitation or fear or any trembling weakness. Red were the hills and faraway. It was half-time between the sun’s lower edge touching the farthest hills and its upper edge slipping behind them. The witchery-bag was round his neck, the bearskin round his shoulders. Its smell was strong, strong, powering strong. And how soon and smooth and swift he was half inside it. Then he stopped. Something halted him, something turned him. Half walking and half shuffling, clutching bundle and loose hide, he made his way through the thickets heedless of waning light, along a trail he saw without seeing it. There was the hole and he had to go into it. The same strong smell as the bear hide. He was all inside the hole, all inside the hide. The bear was in the blood and now the boy was in the bearskin. The bear remembered the boy, forgot the boy, turned, fell, caught the dark.
• • •
He caught the dark and held fast to it to keep himself from falling. He fell, sick and dark and dizzy, and the dark fell with him. He clutched the dark, and, feeling it stir, he grappled with it. The dark resisted, fought with him; for long he wrestled with it, now he floated, not knowing up from down; now he felt himself flung about. He groaned, cried out, wanted only to rest. But the dark was stronger, wilier. Sick, sore, vertiginous, confused, he felt his holds loosen. The dark disdained to slay him after such an easy victory. The dark shook itself loose, and with slow dignity, departed.
• • •
The young bear heard his strong young heart slowly pounding and he saw the young sun slowly dancing to the slow rhythm of his heart. The sun was pale yellow, and pale yellow were the flowers of the field and forest, a hundred and a thousand of them. A hundred suns blossomed and danced in the field and a thousand suns bloomed and swung in slow sedate circles in the forest and the field, to the slow thump-thump of the unseen drum. The sun was pale orange, and pale orange were the leaves of the trees, and suns as countless as the forest leaves fluttered in the air and danced there, and the floor of the forest was heaped with the orange-russet of the orange-russet suns. The sun was blood-red and blood-red its bloody drops fell slowly, slowly to earth, dancing as they drifted, a-
dance and a-
drift and a-
drip-drip-drop —
bloody leaves falling from the bloody trees great drops of dark blood bleeding from the bloody heart dancing in the aureole of bloody mist in the center of the sky, shedding its falling drops to feed the thirsty forest and the parching fields.
To warm the chill earth with its heavenly blanket.
The young bear stretched its supple limbs and felt them slide glide so smooth beneath his skin and each movement was a move of joy. He snuggled
beneath the blanket and he slowly slowly turned about beneath the blood-warm leaves so warm so full of joy. The sun-heart long beating and bleeding slowly in the slow joy sky and the rings of bloody mist swung around and around, and the hearth-sun sang as it burned in the center of the sky. Red-hot embers drifted down from it to warm the chilly morrowing of the rime-white fields, and they hissed a singing as they sank so slowly joyly through the rose-red sky color of salmon-blood-flesh color of clear red honey blood joy fire circling dancing in the higher fire …
Every ember was a bear and a thousand hundred bears slid slowly turning dancing singing from the center of the sky and hummed upon the earth, sinking sliding gliding beneath the blanket of the earth ever deeper deeper into the ground, whilst the sky grew smaller smaller joyful smaller turning turning bright blood disk singing turning circling swinging singing so far far far from the blood warm center of the warm warm earth. And the russet circling small sky drifted higher and farther away, the orange sky as the bear stretched all its supple limbs in joyful extension, as the yellow sky small as sun was far away and pale pale pale, was white was cold was white white white was a turning dwindling point of white a dwindling turning speck of light.
The vanished world outside was cold and gone forever from the blood-warm slower beating slower beating drum heart drum head drum hide slow beat slow beat slow
slow
slow
The forest was old, with hoary thick naps of moss upon the massive limbs of even its younger trees. The forest was old and had all but covered every trace of the last great fire to scar it, of the last great snow to break its boughs and the last great freeze to burst apart its limbs and even heart-wood. Increasingly now, as the slow wheel of the seasons turned its way through autumn, the true forms of the trees were revealed in their nakedness. The mantle of leaves had dwindled, was going fast, was almost gone. When clad in rich green robery, the forest might have passed for young. But that was over and gone now, and the sturdy age of every tree was increasingly to be seen: gnarled limbs still hearty, huge boughs stooping low.
The forest did not prepare for winter as the beasts do. Whereas each animal grew a thicker coat to shield and warm against the snows and blasty winds, each tree released its coat of leaves. Creatures of red blood shrank away from coming cold. But creatures of green blood let themselves be stripped bare, and if here and there clusters of leaves yet clung to limb and bough, limb and bough would shake them off before long. Massive and twisted and aged, the trees began to face the stern sere skies of winter, and with stern joy to bear the frigid mantle of the snows.
But now the air but tingled, and frost-nipped fruits ate well from bough or ground, and sometimes the stripling bear shambled along and ate them sweet and tart where they lay among the molding leaves, and sometimes he rose upon his feet and raked them off the branch which still they clung to. Some had been gnawed by mice and the mice grew plump upon the sweet flesh of nuts which they found in whatever corners and holes they had rolled and hidden, and the bear ate the plump sweet mice. Beasts of horn and claw he encountered, and feared them not. Once or twice he smelled the rough, stale odor which was man, and calmly turned aside. It was the odor of living men, but also there was something of dying and decay in it. And he knew without reflection that this last was iron.
All time moved smoothly, and all space: there was peace upon everything and everything was right. He saw a great roan mammont which he had seen before, and for a moment, unaccountably, he felt strangeness and un-peace: the mammont blew softly towards him from his supple snout a greeting and respect. Once more, then, peace, and rightness.
• • •
But, as some creature may step his foot into a snare and ken it not, walking pace after pace and feeling not the loop, till at last he has walked the full length of the noose-cord and then feels a tug upon his paw against which he tugs in turn: as the bent tree, suddenly released, springs up and away, and the creature who had a moment before walked sure and certain is now flung aloft and then drops and then is brought up short with a jerk and then dangles, helpless, in pain, confusion, and in shock —
So the stripling bear which had been calm and had ease as stripling bear, as manling bear, as bear youngman (the bear being in the blood and the blood being in the boy and the boy inside the bearskin) saw the mammont, peaced the mammont, passed the mammont, and then was by the memory of the mammont moving mountain serpent snout spear teeth blood fear terror flight blood blood blood, brought up as short and as sudden and as shocked as though caught and flung aloft by a snare: was a stripling: was a bear: was a young bear: was a young man: was a young man inside a bearskin.
A sound bubbled in his throat. The bearskin was rank. How hard it was to breathe. Where was the mammont? How hot it was. And wet. And wet. His legs and loins were hot and wet. Far away was the mammont, far far off and almost gone from sight. It would not turn now even if boy, which it did hate, came clear out of bear, which it did not hate.
Boy came clear out.
• • •
There was a pool of some small size which lay upon the lip of the forest by the commencement of the plain. It was brown from endless years of mouldered leaves, but it was a clear brown. A stranger looked out of it, barely faintly familiar. The small, downy, dark child of endless years ago had gone, gone almost quite away, though a residue of memory as faint but definite as the residue of leaves in the pool still remained, tincturing the memory as the water was tinctured, with an ineradicable stain of terror: present, but not strong. In place of that swarthy chickling of a child was a young man, broad of chest and shoulder, long of limb, with a long gaze as well, and steady enough of eye. That eye had seen much, and much weight had those shoulders borne — the yoke of thralldom and the freedom of the bearskin alike.
The cool brown water enfolded him like an embrace and tiny bubbles formed along each hair upon his skin, hair swirling up as flesh went down and down into the clear dark pond, and hair floating one last moment on the surface, dark hair, before head bobbed over and went down, down, down to rest between the knees: bubbles breaking, then no bubbles, nothing breaking the surface, surface gradually becoming calm — Arms flung wide, heels and soles pushing against the bottom, knees flexing, face turned up and lips drawn back, the whole body leaping up and clear of the pool’s surface as an otter leaps, or a fish, or a seal — and a shout, loud, clear, defiant and whole, shaking more leaves from the trees which stand and lean over the pool, benign and strong and patient. With a tremendous splash the naked body descends again into the pool, water pouring again over its leafy brim, and then scrambles out, hairs slicked flat against the muscled chest and back and limbs. Runs, hulloaing, round and round about the pool. Leaps up and knocks more leaves down. Leaps over long-fallen, mossy-thick logs, legs thrust out, man-parts dangling and bobbing. Shouts and stamps.
Comes to a halt and looks down again into the pool into the face of his water-brother. And laughs and laughs. And they laugh, pointing at each other. And the forest — each moment becoming less forest and more trees — the forest’s trees laugh back at both of them. And the laughter runs and leaps from side to side, and the leaves fall and, falling, dance; and it may be that the leaves laugh, too. A swirl of leaves is seen laughing midway far to one side, it is a perry, and then the perry is gone away and the leaves drift slowly to the leaf-strewn floor.
The man wraps his bearskin and walks naked beneath the naked trees.
Chapter X
In a place favored by moonlight, where the mandrakes unfold and lift their faces from their hoods to drink in the silver light, an old man sat drumming a light and hollow sound. More than one rhythm did he try before he found one to their true liking: and he sat and tummed upon the drumlet in his lap and watched them swaying forth and back. There are indeed profuse accounts of how to pull them safely from their beds, but no mandrake entire can be procured this way, account or not. First the seeker must find the key which can alone control them, this key being in sound and n
ot in substance: it will do for any group of them, for each one of every group of them has spored from the same damdrake — it is not widely known that if kept alive unto a seventh season and exposed to dew and moonlight, they will change sex and then spore — hence, the tune that one will dance to is the tune that all will dance to.
Arnten, slumbering in the woods, dreamed a dream of his past youth, and, awakening, found that part of the dream persisted. He rubbed eyes and scalp, then — this element of the dream not vanishing — he got up and went in search of it. Before long he was able to identify it as a soft and hollow drum-drum beat, and, more particularly as a mandrake drumset. And there was a vision and a picture in his head of an old and heavy damdrake, ponderous and fertile, being slowly, slowly drummed along through the moonlight, not so much dancing as waddling. Till at length a proper place was found, and so saw the dam, with a sound not unlike that of a sow in oestrus, sink heavily and gratefully into the loam: then silence until a certain moment when she burst open and all her spores one slow second glistered in the moonlight: and then settled all round about the husk to filter down deep enough to ponder and to grow.
Arnten saw the drummer bent upon his tune, and he sat upon his haunches and waited and watched. By and by the drumming slowed and the waving of the mandrakes slowed, too. Finally they sank their heads into their hoods and then their arms fell to their sides and dabbled in the dust and in another moment the tiny hands were settled again in the earth and all was still. The echo of the drumset played in Arnten’s ears a while and he heard the drummer sigh. Next he heard him say, “My sister’s daughter’s son, will you not come up and sit beside me here? I am loath to move just yet.”
Ursus of Ultima Thule Page 10
