Vamireh

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  At that moment, Elem came to join Vamireh, and her words seemed more efficacious than her blows. Recognizing her as a member of the friendly race, the dogs were visibly disconcerted, and it required the intervention of the Orientals to drive them forward again.

  In the renewed battle, two arrows grazed Vamireh’s skull and shoulder, and then a thrown spear cleaved the breast of a nearby tardigrade. Understanding that he was visible from the shadows, and that he could not reckon with the dogs if he could not get rid of the Orientals, Vamireh, having regrouped the worm-eaters and commanding Elem to take cover and restrict her interventions to words, disappeared into the undergrowth.

  He orientated himself by means of the Asiatics’ voices, and after a few minutes found himself close to them. Dogs surrounded them, readying to launch themselves forward. They were relatively fresh troops, held in reserve for emergencies. The animals scented Vamireh and denounced his presence—but he was already bounding forward. He threw them into disorder with mighty blows and hurled himself on the Orientals. The latter—the old man and one young man—fled, after having each thrown a spear, abandoning their arrows.

  The Pzânn caught up with them and raised his club, but it fell on empty space, for they had sidestepped as rapidly as panthers. The impact with the ground caused Vamireh to lose his weapon. With a blow of his fist he knocked the younger of his enemies down, but then the old man opposed him with a spear, and their eyes met.

  “Go,” said Vamireh. “I know that you are good; I would not like to take your life.”

  The chief made no response. He continued to retreat, his spear at the ready, until he saw his companion get up; then he fled. The Pzânn accelerated his run, and overtook the Orientals, obliging them to veer sideways. He threw the young one in the water, grabbed the old man’s spear, and obliged him to swim in a similar fashion.

  At this retreat by the humans, the dogs howled in distress. The disarray extended to the distant packs. Vamireh assisted it by uttering cries of victory. Encouraged, the tardigrades took the offensive; the packs retreated in disorder, soon in panic. The Pzânn and his allies remained masters of the isle.

  A thousand dogs had perished, and there were now only two Asiatics.

  XXII. The Fire

  The island was on fire, but the wind drove the flames in such a way that they could camp without danger on the point where Elem’s shelter was located. All the tardigrades gathered there and installed their wounded there. The young woman, moved by the courage of those poor folk and the services they had rendered to Vamireh, had overcome her disgust, and helped bandage the wounded.

  Expressions of joy spread like ripples on a pool over the sad faces, weighed down by weariness, whenever Vamireh or his companion passed by. The majority were asleep in their favorite position, and within their heavy slumber the nightmare of the battle remained vivid; they uttered cries and dull barking sounds, raising frantic faces between their arms and advancing their heavy jaws.

  Vamireh had recovered the captured Oriental. After persistent but futile efforts to break his bonds, the man had rolled all the way to the edge of the river, with the intention of throwing himself into it and reaching the other bank. He had hesitated then before the violence of the current, and had tried to gnaw through the thongs binding his legs, but had not completed the task before the arrival of the Pzânn.

  Flames were rising up, splitting the darkness. Flocks of birds nesting in the high branches fluttered through the glow; the stars disappeared behind spirals of smoke—which, lit from below, seemed white, shadowed like clouds, full of gaps as profound as abysms. Under the pressure of the wind, the fire became a thread, elongated in undulating skeins, palpitating like living organisms, which, in phases of extinction, gave birth to the abrupt alarm of a rockfall or a thick rain of embers: a solid condensation of the darkness.

  The darting red tongues quickly took hold again, avid for conquest; their twists and turns carried along the crackling of dry fibers and explosions of superheated sap, and sparks fell back abundantly from the treetops, languishing somewhat, like a dribble of droplets—a shower of murderous anger—and died out. In the mirror of the waves, everything came together, the symmetries of the undulant flames, the smoke and the ascent of fictitious embers fused with the fall of the real ones.

  When the light fury of burning gas rose up from a clump of bushes, bearing away fine sheets of vapor, the arborescent forms were outlined in pale obscurity, sizzling in every gust of wind, as if traversed by alternating waves of light and darkness. In the denser undergrowth the fire brooded, low, slow and ponderous beneath bitter clouds of humid smoke, then screamed, exploded and burst forth, biting into the slender branches and curling foliage, flaming over the dry grasses, stroking the thick-boled trees for a long time, and abruptly dispersed in detonating sprays, in which its forces seemed extinct.

  From their encampment behind the bushes the Asiatics watched the island burn. Their own situation was scarcely brilliant. They had tried in vain to lead the dogs in a third attack. Their weapons were lost, save for those of the wounded man, which they had been obliged to reserve for an ultimate defense. Anxious, besides, for the fate of their missing brother, and with the prospect of being abandoned by the dogs, the young ones sensed impending annihilation, and regretted not having trusted the wisdom of the chief.

  The latter, fatalistic and full of resignation, said nothing, hunched over the fire, his grave features distorted by grief. The others spoke to him humbly, talking about their confusion, and the necessity of coming to terms with the enemy. He listened to them silently for some time, then replied.

  “Young men, the wisdom of the council, transmitted from father to son, advises that peace is proposed at the beginning of a war, when the army is strong, destinies are unknown and no humiliation can result from it—but it informs us that it is necessary to die in the hour of defeat, and not to expose ourselves to the sarcasms of the conqueror. At the time of peace you wanted war, and at the hour of war you want peace. It might be that our enemy, who has shown wisdom as well as courage, will prefer the certainty of a treaty to the final hazards of combat. Perhaps the fire will oblige him to quit the island—and, if he is going to talk, he will talk then. If not, we must prepare for victory, death or flight.”

  The dawn tinted the east with a pale lilac. The fire, as if afraid of the daylight in which its splendors would be drowned, leapt up more ardently into the treetops in higher flames, roaring like a buffalo herd assailed by predators, or crackled, dry and cruel, in small explosions, like noisy clouds of locusts destroying cereals, or acid legions of ants marching upon villages. Its bright serpentine helices embraced the large trunks, reaching the shriveled leaves first—which, rapidly devoured, fluttered incandescently in the morning breeze, like butterflies of light and swarms of maddened wasps.

  It was exceedingly hot; anxious in their sleep, the tardigrades retreated further toward the extreme tip of the islet. Vamireh studied the fire meditatively. He had made sure of his canoe and his weapons. Elem was asleep in the shelter. The little monkey was clinging to a branch, awake like its master, fearful of the glare and the noise.

  As the thick leafy branches fell victim to the fire, however, the fiery flakes became increasingly massive. They described narrow curves, excited by the wind of their fall, twinkling like the stars. While they were still falling they seemed flexible and vaporous, but they struck the ground hard, fizzing and sending forth angry jets of sparks.

  The Pzânn had untied the Oriental’s feet, and he woke Elem up in order that she could serve as an interpreter.

  “Ask your brother,” he said to the young woman, “whether he thinks the time for peace has come.”

  “Death cannot frighten me,” said the Asiatic.

  “I know that you are brave,” said Vamireh, “but a man is not a coward who saves himself while saving his brothers.”

  “Mine are not vanquished!”

  “No,” said the Pzânn, “but there are only two of the
m, and the beasts have learned to fear us.”

  There was a long pause, during which the Oriental reflected.

  The dawn increased slightly, the delicate tint of lapis lazuli changing to turquoise. An aqueous half-light reigned in which the horizon of the river was unveiled. Everywhere, the trees, the sky and the river banks seemed extremely fresh by comparison with the vibrant dryness of the fire. The Pzânn wanted to resume his voyage over the green face of the water, to go up the giant river, with its forests and its rocks, the broad mouths of its tributary streams, the roar of huge cascades and the thin voice of little waterfalls, the lashing streams of rapids, the shade of narrow passes and chains of islets, the clarity of vast channels…

  Meanwhile, the flames continued their ferocious roasting, paling in the nascent daylight, convulsing in vast tongues or expanding in delicate tissues suspended from lacy networks of branches.

  Far away, in the sylvan depths, the baying of hunting dogs was audible, and that drew the Oriental from his meditation. He saw that Vamireh had also taken account of the absence of the beasts and the facility of a strike against the enemy camp. “What do you want me to do?” he asked the Pzânn.

  “Talk to your brothers,” the latter replied.

  The Oriental stood up and walked to the edge of the isle, followed by Vamireh and Elem. He shouted the tribes’ summons: “Ré-ha! Ré-ha!”

  The brachycephalic chief immediately emerged from cover, followed by the hale young man. “Is our brother a captive of the man from the unknown country?”

  “He is a captive.”

  “Is he asking us for help or vengeance?”

  “No, the man from upriver is asking for peace.”

  “Let him untie your hands, for the counsel requires that you speak of such things as a free man.”

  The Oriental conveyed the old man’s desire to Vamireh. The Pzânn hesitated momentarily, fearful of perfidy; then, without saying a word, he released the bonds. The captive did not move, merely raising his arms gravely above his head.

  XXIII. Return

  Past the chains of islets, beneath the shadow of trees and through the broad open channels, the little canoe remounted the stream, swollen by downpours. Elem and the little monkey played or slept, while Vamireh paddled all day long.

  Peace had been concluded with the Orientals. The dogs had gone back to the arid savannah on the edge of the forest. The poor tardigrade humans had been able to finish their lamentable exodus to the Great Lake. The Asiatics had opened veins in their arms and their blood had been mingled with Vamireh’s blood. In the name of the sacred tribes the old man had repudiated all war, and Vamireh had made a treaty in the name of the tall western nomads. In the spring of the following year, at the third full moon after the equinox, the Pzânns would send forth 30 hunters chosen from among the most intrepid, with Vamireh for a leader, and these men would come to meet an equal number of their allies, led by the old man.

  Whether the wind whipped up the water into scaly waves, or the rain peppered it with drops and covered it with little leaping bubbles, the canoe still made progress northwards from dawn to dusk. The belling of stags, the trumpeting of mammoths and the growling voices of lions saluted the passage of the frail little vessel and the human enemy. They went on and on past chains of islets, beneath the shade of trees, through the broad open channels.

  And Vamireh thought about the worm-eaters, about their profound sadness when the moment of separation had come, their heavy muzzles, the vague barking of their laughter and tears, the infinite gratitude in their eyes, and how long they had remained with him before being able to tear themselves away. From the top of a small hill he had saluted their departure with a cry of amity, and they had responded with their humble marching-song. Obstinate in the fraternal unity that was all that stood between them and the large predators and the anthropoid apes, they carried their wounded with them.

  Past the chains of islets, through the broad open channels, the weeks went by; sometimes the Sun poured down its ardent gentleness; sometimes the north wind, the keen last of winter, rose; sometimes there were hectic squalls. It was necessary to shelter in coves, in propitious caves, losing entire days until they cleared.

  Vamireh’s breast was swollen by a great pride, however, for he had vanquished the ambushes of nature, the aggression of ferocious beasts and the ingenious attacks of men. Beside the evening fire, he heard once again the old man of a hundred winters, Tâh, telling tales of the crumbling of mountains, the ripping of the ground, the abyss drinking the great lakes. He saw himself greater than Harm. On warm evenings, the story of his journey, murmured by centenarians would thrill the hearts of the young: the traps of the river, the perversity of snakes, the ferocity of predators, the Man of the Trees, the new country, the thickset folk, Elem, and the worm-eaters. And the old men would say that it requires an invincible will to vanquish homesickness and the terror of long solitude!

  More sunny days and abrupt downpours, the river green or muddy, the current stiffer or less rapid, and waterfalls…and always the canoe, avid to return, with Elem playful or asleep and Vamireh sweeping the paddle back and forth…

  The rains became imminent: the endless rains. The tribe, taking refuge in the highland caves, would not leave the savannahs of the south-west before the middle of autumn, and Vamireh would find Zom and Namir, his parents, his valiant brothers and his young sister, capering like a goat-kid. Humble before the old folk, he would introduce them to his bride from far away.

  Past the chains of islets, beneath the shadow of trees and through the broad open channels, in the decline of the Magdalenian Era, while the north pole gravitated toward Deneb, the diamond of Cygnus…

  EYRIMAH

  Part One

  I. The Lacustrian Villages

  About 6000 years ago, on Lake Re-Alg in present-day Switzerland, villages on pilings were strewn like islets at the mouth of a river, abundantly populated by dark-haired people of short stature with round eyes and large heads. They were Asiatic invaders, people who had filtered into Europe during the Hiatus,11 from the great forests and rivers of the Rural Plain, through the valleys of the Caucasus.

  The fair-haired people with long skulls who had roamed the savannahs of the Occident in the Stone Age had retreated northwards after centuries, following the reindeer and the mammoth, to preserve in the frosts the vigor and audacity that would ensure them a sovereign place in the history of the world. By virtue of numbers and their more advanced social organization, the Asiatics had vanquished their adversaries, and, being ferocious conquerors, had often exterminated rivals of whom all trace had disappeared in various regions for thousands of years.

  Those tall nomads with the long heads who had not fled northwards had been driven back into arid peninsulas on the edge of the Ocean and to the summits of mountains. The tribes maintained themselves on the plains by productive circulation, or were respected by invaders, to the extent that, by virtue of the conquest of some and alliance with others, a new race was born, of medium height with rounded heads, which often combined blue almond-shaped eyes with dark hair, or fair hair with round brown eyes.

  That hybrid race, in which extreme types were still found, according to the rule, soon became dominant. For a long time, however, in lands hospitable to the coexistence of two families, the Asiatic type and the European type conserved pure forms. Thus it transpired that in parts of Switzerland, the low plateau nourished the victorious manufacturers, agriculturalists and herdsmen, while the summits and profound gorges concealed descendants of the autochthons of the cold Magdalenian Era, hunters of bears, chamois and ibex.

  One evening at the end of May, the lake extended beneath the light of the setting Sun. The profiles of mountains loomed up in the north over the marvelous waters bathing in a spectacular crepuscular light, which filled the west. Life seemed slow, fixed in the dream of light that was terminating the Earthly day, and any man of that time, standing on the promontory of a village, would have sensed the innocence of t
hings—the forces dormant in his brain as well as in nature.

  Over hundreds of leagues of forests and the nudity of the immense plains, free animals still laughed at humankind: urus and aurochs, wild boar and large deer, wolves and foxes. Otters undulated in the rivers; bears guarded their insurmountable passes; countless birds populated the frail density of trees; snakes wound the resplendent helices around thin trunks; and the insects were as ardent as if their world were still in balance with that of humans.

  It had been a warm day; the lacustrians were resting outdoors in the cool air, only a few of them occupied in repairing weapons, constructing furniture or grinding the flour of the future with the millstones of the day—a small one atop a larger one. No one was allowed to be idle during the day, work being established in law. In the evening, activity expanded to conversation, games of chance and fetishistic practices.

  A crier in the streets called out the names of the elders appointed to replace those guarding the bridges. Innumerable elm- or pine-wood pilings supported a vast trelliswork of slender branches. The houses were of various sizes, according to rank or wealth. The doors were closed by transverse bars and the windows were often fitted with thin fabric woven from linden-fibers. Each contained many small items of wooden furniture, imported marine trinkets, polished agates, decorated bones and, in particular, fine weapons, cooking implements, ornamental vases, mills for crushing cereals and frames for weaving flax or linden-fiber. The hearth consisted of a trough of four stones, with a fifth for a base. Already, in sum, a small familial world of complex objects testified to intimate joys, a household living by means of a thousand chores: an ant-like attachment to the hut in which the produce of effort accumulated, to the village that offered protection from common enemies, and to the fetishes that dispensed good luck, providing security against disease and death.