Fang, the Gnome (Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  Impressed despite himself, Fang said, “But I still can’t remember anything before I was born.”

  “You will, once you have memorized the apothegm.”

  “Is that all there is to it? Anyone can be a Memorizer if they can repeat the apothegm?”

  “Of course. It’s a gene, Willie. It recognizes the apothegm and unlocks the memory lobe. Our creators must have intended that only a select few in any generation should be Memorizers, but they knew they couldn’t prevent the gene spreading as gnomes multiplied. So guard the words. Keep the history pure.”

  “But all the mumbo-jumbo? The way you dress and the way you speak—what’s that for?”

  “You will find it helps if you surround yourself with an air of mysticism, Willie. We Memorizers have our traditions, our rites and our robes. It sets us apart from others. It’s all nonsense, of course, but it helps. After a while it becomes second nature.”

  Fang stared at him, amazed. For the first time he could remember, his father was being honest with him.

  The Gooligog gave him a twisted grin. “It’s a hard life for a Memorizer, acting an endless role in front of his own son—the gnome who knows him best. It’s good to relax, Willie.”

  “Father … Please call me Fang. Everyone else does.”

  “Fang … Let’s see. They gave you that name because of the daggertooth incident, didn’t they? ‘Away, Thunderer,’ and all that?”

  Fang took a deep breath. “Let me tell you the truth about that day. I—”

  “Don’t. It doesn’t matter. We now have many lessons to get through, as I teach you the approved history of Mara Zion since you were born. In that history is the daggertooth incident. We will leave it out. You can memorize the story of that incident from your own recollections, instead.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Nobody will know the truth until the next generation of Memorizers, anyway.”

  “All the same,” said Fang sadly, “I’d rather like to have gone down in history.”

  “You will. Your influence will soon be upon everything that ever happened to the gnomes of Mara Zion. Every Memorizer stamps his own impression on the memories handed down to him. It’s gnomish nature, W—Fang.”

  “Fang’s only a name, after all, Father.”

  “It’s a good name. I like it.”

  * * *

  In the days that followed, Fang spent much of his time with his father, learning recent history and repeating the apothegm endlessly, until one chilly autumn morning something happened in his mind.

  He was hobbling toward the marsh for his daily lesson, careful not to disturb the wild wart that itched on his calf and seemed to grow bigger every day. As usual, he was repeating the apothegm to himself. This took a long time, but he was usually finished by the time he reached the Gooligog’s door. Then he would run through it again with his father and check for mistakes. Yesterday he had made less than a dozen errors. For the first time he allowed himself to think that he might, soon, actually become a Memorizer.

  “… and this proviso will endure only for forty thousand of the years of the planet Earth,” he informed the dripping trees. “In consideration of which vow I require that the memories of my ancestors be made available to me.” The ground was boggy underfoot.

  Click.

  Something happened in his mind.

  Little mental blocks slid aside. Tunnels of memory opened up and waited for Fang to explore them. A new section of his mind became alive, humming, a little rusty but ready for use. Memories waited almost breathlessly: his father’s memories, and his father’s father’s, and so on even back to the ancestral kikihuahuas. Other ancestors were there, too: alien ones. And for an instant the treetops looked friendly, like home, and Fang’s arms felt strong and able to swing him up there.

  Puzzled, he stopped in his tracks. A sense of well-being flowed through him. Life was good, even with a wild wart.

  A wild wart?

  Well, that was no problem. It was curable. He cast his mind back a few millennia to the formation of the first Mara Zion Wild Wart Society. President, one Boggle.

  Numskin Boggle was famous as the gnome who had first studied the wild wart. He observed its habits and life-cycle, and devised a cure. The cure depended on the sexual habits of the wart, which only left its host when it sensed the presence of a wart of the opposite sex with whom it was ready to mate. Otherwise it stayed put. The poisonous mandibles had evolved to ensure that it was in the host’s best interests to leave it alone.

  Numskin Boggle set up an information chain throughout the region. When a person reported being afflicted by a wart, he was matched up with a host to a wart of the opposite sex. The two gnomes would go off to a lonely spot and stay there until their warts were ready. When the warts hopped off to mate, the gnomes would run for it.

  It was a highly embarrassing situation for two gnomes to sit waiting for the stirrings of their warts’ libidos, particularly if the gnomes themselves were of opposite sexes. But it was worthwhile. To ease tension, talk was traditionally limited to profound political or mathematical discussion.

  “Only one thing could be more embarrassing,” Boggle is credited with having said, “and that is for the couple to sight a woodypecker while waiting for their warts to take flight.” This happened to two marriageable gnomes during Boggle’s lifetime. Immediately after their warts had flown, they departed to opposite ends of the country and were never seen again.

  Fang flushed at the recollection.

  At the recollection!

  All this had happened millennia ago! He could educe!

  He, Fang-who-used-to-be-Willie, was a Memorizer!

  Excitedly he began to explore the byways of his mind. …

  Some hours later, the Gooligog came across him sitting with his back to an ulm tree, his eyes closed.

  “I see you’ve gained the power,” he said dryly. “Use it well, and keep practicing the apothegm.”

  Fang opened one eye. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff in here!”

  “I would. And when you’ve sorted it all out, I suggest you remember your purpose and start examining early gnomish history. Your powers are strongest when they’re new. Mine are waning, and there are too many monsters in there.” Shaking his head, he turned to leave.

  “Father, wait a moment. Can you tell me who is president of the Wild Wart Society these days?”

  The Gooligog edged away. “You have a wart?”

  “Well, yes. Don’t worry—it’s all covered up.”

  “Warts like old flesh. The blood flows more thinly.” Stamping his feet as though dislodging unwelcome guests, the Gooligog withdrew to a point beyond hopping range.

  “The society, father?”

  The Gooligog’s expression of distaste deepened. “The society was dissolved several decades ago, not long after you were born. There was a scandal. Certain perversions came to light.”

  “Perversions?”

  “It seems,” and here the Gooligog dropped his voice and glanced over his shoulder, “that a child was born to an unmarried pair of gnomes who had been waiting together for their warts to fly. Quite clearly—the evidence was there for all to see—the period of enforced juxtaposition had maddened the gnomes, and caused them to act in a manner contrary to nature. The Society fell into disrepute and was quickly disbanded, but the damage was done. The child is still among us, rebuking us with its very presence, a living reminder of the evil that dwells within us all.”

  “That’s putting it a bit strongly, isn’t it?”

  “A child born without purpose is an affront to our creed.”

  “Who is this, uh, bastard?”

  “We of that generation have sworn never to tell.”

  “But you must pass the memory on to me!” Fang was agog with curiosity.

  “Never! It is fortunate that it happened after you were born, so the memory is not in your lobe. The parents were banished from Mara Zion, of course; but the child stayed on and was cared for by a band
of gnomes at the forest’s edge. That is all I shall tell you. Now you must forget the whole thing.”

  Reluctantly, Fang returned to his main concern. “If there is no society and no network, how am I going to get rid of my wart?”

  “You must go into seclusion.”

  “But that could be for years!”

  “It is the only way. Otherwise you risk passing the wart on to somebody else. And that would be a selfish and ungnomelike act.”

  The disappearance of Fang was quickly noticed by the other gnomes, and regretted. There was a general feeling that difficult times were ahead. The quick-thinking Fang—although of tarnished courage—would have been an asset to the community.

  “You don’t suppose a giant stamped on him?” suggested King Bison one evening.

  The Gooligog told them about the wart.

  “But how could you allow him to go into seclusion?” asked Bison, annoyed. “We need him! We decided last night—I decided, that is—that he must revisit the umbra and recover the Sharan before the giants catch her and eat her. He is a courageous young gnome and will not be deterred by the possible dangers. Not only that, but he’s the only gnome who can reach Nyneve in an emergency. It seems to me that the umbra looks even closer today,” he finished, glancing around nervously.

  “The Sharan must wait.” said the Gooligog. “Fang is no use to us limping and scared somebody will knock his wart. If he rests in seclusion his blood will slow down and the wart may leave him sooner than usual.”

  “On the other hand, Gooligog,” said Spector, “Fang may emerge from seclusion a demoralized gnome. Without the intellectual stimulation of our company, he may sink into apathy and lie in bed staring at the cracks in his ceiling, rarely stirring, never washing.”

  “I’ve warned him about that before,” said the Gooligog, concerned at this confirmation of his forebodings. He never was one to listen to advice.”

  “You have taught him, though?”

  “Inasmuch as I can teach him anything.”

  “And what was your impression of him when you last saw him?” asked Spector keenly.

  “Clean enough, by his standards.”

  “I mean mentally,” said the Thinking Gnome. “What was his mental state?”

  The Gooligog shrugged. “You know Fang. He always was a brash young fool. He was depressed about the wart, of course. Being an inconsiderate young swine, he wanted to carry on as usual and put us all at risk. I persuaded him otherwise. He stared for a while at a yellow fungus stuck to a tree, then he walked off. Damn it, Spector,” snapped the Gooligog, “I can’t read his mind!”

  “That’s true,” said Bison.

  “We can only hope the experience does not unhinge Fang,” said Spector.

  “Unhinge him?” Bison looked alarmed.

  Spector went on to describe the unhinging effect of a wart, brought about by a combination of poisons and depression, which might result in Fang returning to their midst a changed and pessimistic gnome, subject to recurrent headaches. It was an apprehensive meeting that finally broke up quite late. Several of the members found it necessary to move on to the Disgusting in search of happier conversation.

  It was not the only speculative discussion to take place in that corner of old England. The same evening, a knight called Gylmere limped into Castle Menheniot bleeding from various wounds, and sought the presence of the baron. He had a bitter complaint to lodge.

  “I was brutally assaulted by that young upstart, Tristan,” he said. “He struck the sword from my hand and allowed me no chance to retrieve it. So much for Tristan’s sense of honor!”

  “You were a fool to take him on,” said the Baron unsympathetically.

  “I had no intention of taking him on, my lord. All I did was make a complimentary remark to that Irishwoman of his, and he challenged me to a duel.”

  “I can imagine your kind of complimentary remark. Anyway, you should know better than to fight Tristan, with that sword of his.”

  “Do you believe those stories about the sword?”

  “Not really, but you can’t deny he’s been having some astonishing successes recently. We’ve had no trouble from marauders since summer, and now we’ve been able to extend our own lands, thanks to Tristan. That’s quite an army he’s marched north with. I have hopes that he’ll take Tintagel for us by midwinter. He’s a useful lieutenant.”

  “Lieutenant? He sees himself as a partner, my lord!”

  The baron smiled. “Let him think that. He’ll fight better for it.”

  “When he returns in the spring, he’ll be welcomed as a hero,” said Gylmere worriedly. “And he’ll have an army behind him. We have a potentially dangerous situation, my lord. He sees himself as the future king of all England, just like Arthur in the stories.”

  “But do others see him that way? I know they tell the Arthur stories all over the west country now—and fine stories they are, if you don’t take them too seriously. You don’t really think the common people see Tristan as a real-life Arthur, do you, Gylmere?”

  “He has a certain flair. And thanks to his friendship with Nyneve, he is able to imitate the Arthur stories closely. Look at that log fortress he’s had built in the forest, with its great hall. They have a round table in there where he eats with his men, when they’re not away raising Cain.”

  “Does it have a hole in the middle?” asked the baron curiously.

  “Apparently that didn’t work out. To reach the hole Tristan found he had to crawl under the table, which was demeaning, or climb across it, which was undignified. So now they have a chair and table set on top of the round table, and steps so Tristan can walk across the round table to his place. All this has the effect of making the others sit beneath him.”

  The Baron roared with laughter. “Which defeats the original purpose. Perhaps some of Nyneve’s stories aren’t so well thought out, after all.”

  “But he does have an empty place marked HOT SEAT.”

  “To be occupied only by a pure and perfect knight. I don’t know where he’s going to find anyone to fit those specifications. His men are a rougher crowd than mine, even!”

  “It isn’t funny, my lord. Tristan is a dangerous man. He’s already taken Mara Zion away from you.”

  “He may have his plans, Gylmere, although I rather doubt it. He’s basically a simple fellow who sees things in black and white. He models himself after Arthur, and thinks he’s fighting on the side of good against evil. His followers are simple, too, and they understand his simple concept. If he tells them a thing is evil, they fight it. There’s nothing devious about him. Nothing dangerous.”

  “Unless he took it into his head to class you as evil, my lord.”

  “Well, there is that possibility,” said the baron thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should make our plans, too. Just to be on the safe side, you understand. No need to tell anyone. I wouldn’t want people to think I was the kind of man to turn against an ally.”

  Tristan and his deeds were a popular topic of conversation in Mara Zion during the early weeks of winter, while most of the able-bodied men were away on the northern campaign.

  One day Iseult confided in Nyneve. The two women were almost the same age, but Iseult saw Nyneve as being wise beyond her years. “I’m not happy about Tristan,” said Iseult. “He’s changed, lately.”

  “He’s been successful,” said Nyneve guardedly, wondering if Iseult had ever heard of her brief liaison with Tristan.

  “I think that’s the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s getting too big for his boots. Ever since he got that sword, he seems to think he’s unbeatable. His men think the world of him, and that makes matters worse. I … I don’t know him very well, Nyneve—probably not as well as you know him. But he’s not the same man I married. I hate to say it, but I think he’s drunk with power. You should have seen the way he was behaving on the night they all marched off—standing in the middle of that ridiculous table, waving his sword and making
speeches about right and wrong and oppression and tyranny, as though he was a mouthpiece for the good Lord himself. It was stupid and embarrassing, but they swallowed it all and cheered. There was a horrible kind of worship in their eyes, the kind of worship they ought to reserve for their wives. It frightens me so much I’m beginning to wish I was back in Ireland.”

  “Don’t leave him, Iseult. He couldn’t stand that.”

  “Maybe I can’t stand this! I’m not the only one who thinks this way, Nyneve. When Tristan freed us from the baron—although I’m beginning to wonder if he really did—everybody was happy and he was a hero. But now the women and the old people are beginning to complain. They’re sick of the men always being away. They’re lonely, and the food runs low when there’s nobody to do the hunting. They’re asking what it’s for, all this fighting. Their men are going to get killed one day and we’ll have nothing to show for it. It means nothing that Tintagel belongs to us—or London itself, for that matter. Mara Zion is our world, and we were happy with it.”

  Nyneve said gently, “I’m not sure how we can change things, now. I think they’ve gone too far.”

  Iseult hesitated. “Those stories of yours, Nyneve. People pay a lot of attention to them—particularly Tristan. Perhaps if you began to change the tone of them a little … Perhaps if your hero Arthur began to lose a few battles and make a few mistakes, and even act like a normal human being instead of like a god …”

  Nyneve thought hard about the things Iseult had said, as she made her way back to the cottage. It went against her inclinations to play down the heroism and perfection of Arthur, but if it was for the good of Mara Zion … She broached the subject with Avalona.

  The witch was uncooperative. “We will not change the direction of the story simply to suit a few insignificant people, Nyneve. You must consider the broader picture, and the ifalong.”

  “But it’s only a game. Surely the little details don’t matter. If we can use the stories to make Tristan and his men see sense—”