Earth Magic

by Alexei Panshin

“No,” said Haldane.

  “You said you would give me aid. You swore to see me safe to Palsance,” said Oliver. He coughed awfully to show Haldane’s responsibility for him. “Does your oath mean nothing? Give me the aid you promised.”

  In that late evening mood that had seized him, Haldane was still Haldane enough to be vulnerable to this questioning of his oath.

  “All right,” he said. “Enough. I will aid you. We will steal simple clothes in the morning, if we can. Now let us sleep.”

  He lay back in the nest of cool grass he had made for himself.

  Sometime later, Haldane said, “What was that?”

  Oliver stirred. “What?”

  “Just as the gloom finally darkened, I thought I heard a horn sound.”

  Oliver said, “I did not hear it.”

  Chapter 18

  WHEN THEY AWOKE IN THE MORNING, the day was uncertain, neither one thing nor another. The skies were thin and gray. The trees around them huddled close.

  Oliver said, “We must go over this intervening hill. I think we will see the source of smoke then.”

  They left the path and struck out overland against the grain of the country. The climbing was not difficult, but it was a constant strain. They must lean, or they must bend, or they must clamber. Oliver was feeling wearied before they reached the top of the hill, and his cough was more fluid and less forced, but not less severe.

  At the crest of the hill, they stopped. There was a higher crest, hidden from below, still looming above them. And they could see where they had started down on the path.

  “Let us climb on,” said Oliver.

  “When you have caught your breath.”

  “Let us not wait that long.”

  This hill was more steep. To climb it took thought and time. When they reached the top of this hill, there was brush and they must push through it.

  When they came into the clear, they could see that though the day had worn on, it was not different. It played at smiling and frowning, Jan, the sun, peeping through distantly. There was no source of smoke, no house or cabin.

  “Oh, I think I see,” said Oliver. “From the direction we came last night, the place we seek would be beyond this lower hill before us, not here. We must go on.”

  But his cough was much graver. He shook off Haldane’s hand and strode down the hillside. “You see. The slope is easier here.”

  In time they came beyond the farther lower hill. As they looked over into a little glen, Jan shone brightly so that all was clear in the narrow valley. And they saw there a small house in the woods, a Nestorian house something like the one where they had eaten clams. It stood alone in the silent morning, caught in the spear of the sun.

  They were not in sunlight where they watched.

  Oliver suddenly sat down. “You must go,” he said. “I now feel very ill. I will wait here for you.”

  “What if I do not find what I seek? What do I say to gain aid? What do I use for payment?”

  “Approach the house naked. Approach silently. See what opportunities there are to steal clothes. If you are seen, ask them to clothe you, because you are naked.”

  “I will do it,” said Haldane.

  Haldane stripped his clothes off his back. He took off his boots so that he was barefoot. All that he wore was his boar’s tooth.

  Then he set off to find the hut they had seen. His bare feet were cold and he had to watch carefully where he stepped. He made his way cautiously so as to approach the little house unseen and unheard. With so much care, he spent a long time reaching a place from which he could see all.

  He looked up at the hillside, which was now in sun, then not. He could not see Oliver hid there.

  There was no sun here in the little valley. The day was drear again.

  The house sat silent, the throw of a stone distant. It was a square little house. Its roof was shake instead of thatch. It had windows of glass like eyes, and it seemed to brood and watch Haldane as he crouched.

  Behind the house, a frayed rope was stretched between two trees. Thrown over the line, as though forgot, were two gray smocks.

  Haldane had not thought to hope for such a thing. His heart was seized at the sight of the two smocks drying in the wind.

  He cast a look at the house, but he could see nobody. He crawled on hands and knees over the cold spring ground. He sheltered by the chimney of the little house and then he ran to the line and took the smocks. In a brief fit of nonsense, he matched the smocks and took the longer and put it on. It fit as well as most smocks on most peasants. But it was clean, and in the undecided weather of a late morning he stood and smelled the freshness of the cloth while his hair was teased by the ruffling hand of the wind.

  He could not stand not to know, so he ran with the other smock trailing behind him from his hand and looked through the window of the house. He could see no one inside.

  Haldane rubbed at the window and looked to see better. The house was empty. But Haldane could tell by the angle of the light that came through the farther windows and made a sharp splash on the floor that it was summer within the house. The light he saw said that it was very hot and that the house was a pleasant refuge from the sun. Haldane saw dust motes swimming in the bright sun. On a table within the house, there was an earthenware pitcher and beside it there were two jacks. The pitcher was somehow so cold that it sweated.

  Haldane felt thirsty from the brilliance of the sun, the heat that had dried his throat. He looked from the window to find a door so that he might drink from the pitcher. But when he looked, it was Bud Month again. It was cool and windy, and Jan played rare tricks with the great clouds. There was no sun now.

  He ran from the house, feeling its windows like eyes on his back. He did not want to linger here. He feared the return of the unknown owner of this place. His throat was still dry, but he no longer craved to drink from the pitcher.

  He scrambled up the slope, the second gray smock over his shoulder. His bare feet slipped and scrabbled in the leaves and loose brown mold. He hurt the outside edge of his left foot stepping on a weathering branch stub hidden among the leaves so that there was small blood and he was limping when he came to Oliver.

  He threw the gray smock down. “There is your smock,” he said. “You may be a peasant now.”

  Oliver was sick. When he did not cough, he was aswim in nausea and weakness. It seemed that the climb they had made had brought on sevenfold the effects of the spell that Oliver had ignored as they walked yesterday.

  “You have done well,” Oliver said at last. He slowly took off his magenta satinet, sweating and shivering in the coolness of the day. “How did you deal with those at the house?”

  Haldane sat to put his boots on once again. “No,” said Oliver. “If we are to be peasants, we must be peasants. We must go barefoot.”

  And lay wracked with the sick swirl of his innards.

  Haldane said, “The house was empty.”

  He looked at the cut on his foot, small, bloody, and dirty.

  “You must bear the pain as though you were a Get,” said Oliver. For Gets do have virtues—they bear pain bravely.

  The gray smock did not fit Oliver well, but it did fit him as it might fit a Nestorian.

  “Do I make a peasant?” Oliver asked.

  They were slow in ascending the slope that had seemed easy when they had come down it. Haldane had to aid Oliver when his sickness was upon him.

  “It was as well that we stole these clothes,” said Oliver. “The longer we are in Nestor, the more need we have of disguise. As I am feeling now, we will be a long time in Nestor.”

  They had to push through the brush again, and only at last came to the farther side of the great hill.

  “The path is just below,” said Haldane. “It is but two courses down the hillside.”

  But Oliver was not encouraged by these words. He stopped to rest and be sick. He vomited there in the leaves. It was conspicuous, but less conspicuous than magenta satinet.

&nbs
p; “I will go spy our way,” said Haldane.

  He made his way down the slope. Before him was the last smaller hill hiding the path. As he came to its crest and a view of the way they had come yesterday, there was sudden wringle-jingle in the forest. He fell to the ground and peeped to see the riders.

  First he saw a small black pig. It scented briskly and then trotted eagerly the last distance to where they had made their camp.

  Behind the pig came three riders riding. The first of these was Ivor Fish-Eye, casting close behind the pig, alert for the dodges of those who would flee him. Behind Ivor was Coughing Romund. He leaned on his saddle and cleared his throat. And third was another rider like a spear. When the pig found the camp, this one lifted a horn to his lips and blew.

  He blew, They were here, they were here. It was the call of a hunter of man, not of game.

  The call was none that Haldane had ever blown. And it was not Haldane who blew this horn. But he knew the tone of this horn as his fingers knew the texture of his graven boar’s tooth. It was the horn that had been his, now in the hands of his hunters.

  Slut whuffled and peered dimly.

  Haldane slipped back out of sight of the camp and the path. He tumbled over his feet as the horn sounded again, out of sight behind his shoulder.

  Then he climbed the hill faster than before. He did not mind what happened to his feet, hurt them, and ignored the hurt.

  He came upon Oliver standing and gazing urgently down the hill. Oliver’s disguise was successful. He was the very image of a sick and unhappy peasant.

  Oliver said, “Did you see who blew the horn?”

  “I did see. I saw that and more. There was the pig, Slut. And behind the pig there were three riders. There was Ivor Fish-Eye, and there was Coughing Romund, and sounding the horn as they came was Iron Arngrim.”

  “Where did you see them? How close do they press us?”

  “They are not far. They dismount now in our camp of last night. We cannot return to our path. We must go otherwise.”

  Oliver said, “Let us go along the hill here. You shall confuse our trail as we go to slow pursuit. Then, when we can, we may find your easier path.”

  This was bravery for Oliver to offer. Here he was, sick and continuing sick. The country that lay before them to the west was cross-grained and difficult. Yet one of Oliver’s virtues was perseverance, his dogged ability to continue. So they worked west and south, and west and north, and west and east and west, running when they could, sometimes crawling or climbing. They turned on their trail. They walked in water. They went where a horse might not go. They went where a pig might go only with great difficulty and left the trail there where a pig could not.

  They did not hear the horn blow. They labored in fear of its sound. And though Haldane saw many signs that the country here was made, he saw no way inside the country.

  Oliver lay in a hollow of grass. His legs were pulled tight and he rocked and nursed his side. Haldane came dashing in to earth beside him like a field rabbit to its hole.

  Haldane said, “I emptied your yellow smoking mixture on the false trail. I pity the pig that finds it.”

  He tumbled over to take heaving breaths. He watched the clouds blow by in wisps and clots. The world he saw as he looked to the sky was silent. The air was so very quiet. One could stay still and nothing would be new but the changing clouds and the brooding and flighting of his heart.

  “How do you fare?” he asked Oliver.

  “I can . . . continue.”

  “Let us continue then,” Haldane said. “For if I am right, then I see a way before us into the country.”

  Oliver ran, holding his side. Haldane ran, carrying Oliver’s bag.

  “Here is the path. Follow me.”

  They ran down the path. The earth was cool and soothing to their burning, broken, bleeding feet.

  But it was dark on the path. The clouds gathered close overhead, and the sun ceased to show itself.

  “What was that?” said Haldane, as they two suddenly stopped.

  “I think it was a man by that standing stone.”

  “Nay, I meant that which I heard behind us.”

  “I did not hear anything.”

  “Then listen.” With peeps from hiding at the man before them by the standing stone in their way, they looked away again at nothing and listened, hardly daring to pant.

  “I do hear,” said Oliver. “It is the horn. But that was not where we were.”

  “No,” said Haldane. “It is on the path behind us.”

  “I cannot go farther,” Oliver said. “You must leave me here to die from this one who waits or from Arngrim and Ivor.”

  “Nay, I swore I would help you and I must be honest. Who is this one ahead whom we must pass?”

  “I make it to be a Get.”

  Haldane studied for what he could see through the trees that intervened. It was a Get standing like a bear with a bow and an arrow set to his string.

  “It is a Get, but I do not know him.”

  “What are we to do?”

  Haldane said, “I will go forward and let him see me, and I will see what he will say. It may be that I can open our way.”

  Oliver rested his head against a tree there where he sat. He could not seem to catch his breath. It was unpleasant to see him labor.

  He said, “What if we are separated? I do not know the way.”

  Haldane said, “If we are separated, follow the path straight to the great hill.”

  “What hill is this?”

  “We saw its rough presence to the west where we rested last.”

  “I cannot follow your path,” Oliver said.

  “But it is the straightest way.”

  “I cannot see it to follow. Let me have my map.”

  The horn sounded: On the trail, on the trail.

  Oliver said, “It is here. Barrow Hill. It stands alone. I will follow my map and meet you there if we are parted.”

  So Haldane walked forward along the path to the standing stone. As he came close, the Get stepped forward to meet him.

  “Where are you from, young boy? Where are you going?”

  “I am returning from a visit to my mother who is ill.”

  Haldane was dressed after the manner of a simple peasant. There was nothing about him that was not simple, for all he wore was a gray smock. His feet were bare. He had nothing in his pockets. He had no pockets. He spoke with humility, as no Get might speak. He had nothing to fear.

  The Get, who looked like a bear, said, “Come with me. I need your strength.”

  So Haldane followed behind him to the large standing stone. There the Get set his bow down and motioned Haldane to go before him.

  “Add your weight to mine,” he said. “I wish to overset this rock.”

  So Haldane joined him and together they put their shoulders to the rock and pushed against its hardness. They heaved and strained and only at last they paused for breath.

  The Get said, “This land is mine and I will clear it as I like. This boulder must go. Push again.”

  Again, they pushed as though they were oxen, dumbly as oxen. But the rock resisted them without effort and remained as it was.

  “If you but knew how to make the lift, we could have this rock up and out of the ground. You are not trying. All you peasants are alike. No, do not hide your laugh. Heave again with all your strength.”

  So Haldane bent himself to the cool rock, wondering how easily it had been set in place. Straining and red, he was a parody of the Get, as the Get was a parody of him. He could see his own sweat mirrored on the Get’s brow.

  “We aren’t even holding our own,” cried the Get. “Give it a turn.”

  And then suddenly, for one brief moment before it surprised them and then fell back, the tall boulder came alive in their hands and strained free of the ground. It was like touching the great beast of the sea in its questing aliveness.

  But then the rock was seated as firmly as it had ever been, and no two men
could dream to move it. The Get turned to Haldane and before he could make protest, the bear man fingered the thong around his neck.

  “Let me see what you wear. Let me know whose dog you are.”

  But Haldane pulled away. He would not have the Get see his tooth with the Deldring markings. He did not know any Get to trust with his final secrets.

  Haldane seized the thong and pulled free. He ran into the forest. An arrow was loosed behind him and struck in a tree very near.

  Haldane ran away into the forest. The Get ran after him, and thereby the way was made clear for Oliver to follow his map along the second straightest route to the solitary hill. For they were now separated and they must meet as they had agreed.

  Haldane dodged as he could. He pulled the rawhide thong from around his neck. On the thong was a carved boar’s tooth with the markings of Deldring, a clan that did not now exist.

  Here is how it was for Haldane:

  When he was safe with Morca, he had known who he was. He was Haldane, the Son of Black Morca. He was a Get. And in his heart he believed that he was special among Gets because he was Haldane, the One Son of Black Morca.

  He had lived as these things when it was easy to live as these things—held safe by Morca, straining against Morca’s horizons but not defying them. When at last he did defy these limits, the world had changed and become always new.

  Was he, Haldane, responsible for the Night of Slaughter? Or were there other wills at work too? Was he to blame for Morca’s death?

  He and Oliver had fled into a strange world where it was pain and confusion to be what he had been: Haldane the Get, Haldane the Son of Black Morca. The tighter that he held to these things, the worse the whirl, until at last he had lost himself at the feet of Duke Girard the Outlaw and Sailor Noll.

  The Goddess in his dream had told him that he need no longer be a Get, and set him down on Little Nail. She had shown him the key in the land. And after Haldane had seen Arngrim and Ivor together there was that strange moment when he had ceased to be a Get.

  Since that time, he had not acted like a Get. He had been different than any Get.

  The world had continued strange, both wonderful and frightening. He fit it better—he was not so fuddled—but not yet was he fully at home here, no matter what he had first leaped to think after he saw the key in the landscape.