Helliconia Winter

by neetha Napew

  Thus it might be that the Member from Braijth, the capital city of Bribahr, was a man who knew the truth about the Will that dominated them. He might admit to his cronies the truth of the matter; or he might tell a guarded half-truth; or he might lie about the matter in one way or another, according to what best suited him.

  And in the case of that Member from Braijth, in actual fact, the degree of his deceitfulness could scarcely be judged, since, beneath the imposed continental unity, guaranteed by many a solemn pact, Uskutoshk was at war with Bribahr, and a force from Askitosh was besieging Rattagon (as far as it was possible to besiege that island fortress).

  Moreover, other Members feigned to trust the Member from Braijth according to their secret sympathies with his country's policy in daring to challenge the leadership of Uskutoshk. Feigning was all. Their very sincerity was feigned.

  No one was secure in his understanding. With this they were collectively content, finding security in believing that their fellow Members were even more deluded than they were themselves.

  Thus the soul of the most powerful city on the planet had at its core a profound obfuscation and confusion. It was with this confusion that they chose to meet the challenge of the changing seasons.

  The Members were currently discussing the latest edict to descend from the unseen hand of the Oligarch for their ratification. This was the most challenging edict yet. The edict would prohibit the practice of pauk, as being against the principles of the Church.

  If the required legislation was passed, it would entail in practice the stationing of soldiery in every hamlet throughout the continent in order to enforce the prohibition. Since the Members considered themselves learned, they approached the subject by leisurely discourse. Their lips moved thinly under their masks.

  "The edict brings under consideration our very nature," said the Member for the city of Juthir, the capital of Kuj-Juvec. "We are speaking here of an age-old custom. But what is age-old is not necessarily sacrosanct. On the one hand, we have our irreplaceable Church, the very basis of Sibornalese unity, with its cornerstone God the Azoiaxic. On the other hand, unrecognised by the Church, we have the custom of pauk, by which living persons can sink their selves down into a trance state to commune with their ancestral spirits. Those spirits, as we know, I are supposed to be descending to as well as being descended from the Original Beholder, that inscrutable mother figure. On the one hand is our religion, pure, intellectual, scientific; on the other hand is this hazy notion of a female principle.

  "It is necessary for us to prepare for the harsher, colder times to come. For that, we must arm ourselves against the female principle in ourselves, and eradicate it from the population. We must strike at this pernicious cult of the Original Beholder. We must banish pauk. I trust that what I say merely elucidates the wisdom behind this fresh and inspired edict of the Will.

  "Furthermore, I would go so far as to claim - "

  Most of the Members were old, were accustomed to being old, had persisted in being old for a long while. They met in an ancient room in which all items, whether iron or wood, had been polished over the centuries by a host of slaves until they shone. The iron table at which they propped themselves, the bare floor beneath their slippered feet, the elaborately wrought chairs on which they sat, all gleamed at them. The austere iron panelling on the walls threw back distorted reflections of themselves. A fire glowed in the prison of its grate, sending more smoke than flame through the bars; because it did little to remove the chill of the chamber, the Members were well shrouded in felts, like mummers in an ancient play. The one furnishing to relieve this gloomy brightness was a large tapestry which decked one wall. Against a scarlet background, a great wheel was depicted being rowed through the heavens by oarsmen in pale blue garments; each oarsman smiled towards an astonishing maternal figure from whose nostrils, mouth, and breasts spurted the stars in the sky. This ancient fabric lent a touch of grandeur to the room.

  While one or other of their number held forth, the Members sipped at pellamountain cordial and stared down at their fingernails or out through the slit windows, which provided glimpses of an Askitosh sliced into small vertical sections.

  "Some claim that the myth of the Original Beholder is a poetical image of the self," said the Member from the distant province of Carcampan. "But it has yet to be established whether such an entity as the self exists. If it does, it may not even be, if I may coin a phrase, master in its own house. It may exist outside our selves. That is to say, the self may be a component of Helliconia itself, since our atoms are Helliconia's. In which case, there may be some danger attendant on destroying contact with the Beholder. That I must point out to the Honourable Members."

  "Danger or not, the people must bend to the will of the Oligarch, or the Weyr-Winter will destroy them. We must be cured of our self. Only obedience will see us through three and a half centuries of ice...." This platitude came from the other end of the iron table, where reflections and shadows merged.

  The view of Askitosh was executed in sepia monochrome. The city was enfolded in one of the famous "silt mists," a thin curtain of cold dry air which descended on the city from the plateaux ranged behind it. To this was added the smoke rising from thousands of chimneys, as the Uskuti endeavoured to keep themselves warm. The city faded under a shadow partly of its own making.

  "On the other hand, communication with our ancestors in the pauk state does much to fortify our selves," said one greybeard. "Particularly when in adversity. I mean, I imagine that few of us here have not derived comfort from communication with the gossies."

  In a querulous voice, a Member from the Lorajan port of Ijivibir said, "By the by, why have our scientists not discovered how it is that gossies and fessups are now friendly to our souls, whereas - as well-authenticated testaments tell - they were once always hostile? Could it be a seasonal change, do you think - friendly in winter and summer, hostile in spring?"

  "The question will be rendered immaterial if we abandon the gossies and fessups to their own devices by promulgating the edict before us," replied the Member from Juthir.

  Through the narrow windows could be seen the roofs of the government printing press where, after only a day or two of further discussion, the edict of the Supreme Oligarch Torkerkanzlag II was turned into print. The posters that fell in their thousands from the flatbed presses announced in bold type that hereafter it would be an Offence to Go into Pauk, whether Secretly or in Company with Others. This was explained as another precaution against the Encroaching Plague. Penalty for contravening the law, One Hundred Sibs and, for a Second Offence, Life Imprisonment.

  Within Askitosh itself was a rail transport system worked by steam cars which pulled carriages at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. The cars were dirty but dependable, and the system was being extended outside the city. These cars took bundles of the posters to distribution points on the fringes of the city, and to the harbour, whence they were distributed by ship to all points of the compass.

  Thus bundles soon arrived at Koriantura. Bill stickers ran about the town, pasting up the terms of the new law. One of those posters was stuck to the wall of the house where Eedap Mun Odim's family had lived for two hundred years.

  But that house was now empty, abandoned to the mice and rats. The front door had slammed for the last time.

  Eedap Mun Odim left the family house behind him with his usual stiff little walk. He had his pride: his face betrayed nothing of the griefs he felt.

  On this special morning, he took a circuitous route to Climent Quay, going by way of Rungobandryaskosh Street and South Court. His slave Gagrim followed, carrying his bag.

  He was conscious with every step that this was the last time in his life that he would walk the streets of Koriantura. Throughout all the long past years, his Kuj-Juveci background had led him to think of it as a place of exile; only now did he realise how much it had been home.

  His preparations for departure had been made to the best of his ability; fo
rtunately, he still had one or two Uskuti friends, fellow merchants, who had helped him.

  Rungobandryaskosh Street branched off to the left, the street steep. Odim paused at the turning just before the churchyard and looked back down the road. His old house stood there, narrow at the base, wide at the top, its boxed-in wooden balcony clinging to it like the nest of some exotic bird, the eaves of its steep roof curving outwards until they nearly touched the eaves of the house opposite. Inside, no plentiful Odim family: only light, shadow, emptiness, and the old-fashioned murals on the walls, depicting life as it had once been in a now almost imaginary Kuj-Juvec. He tucked his beard more firmly inside his coat and marched briskly on.

  This was an area of small craftsmen - silversmiths, watchmakers, bookbinders, and artists of various kinds. To one side of the street stood a small theatre where extraordinary plays were produced, plays which could not fill the theatres in the centre of town: plays trafficking in magic and science, fantasies dealing with both possible and impossible things (for both sorts were much alike), tragedies dealing with broken teacups, comedies dealing with wholesale slaughter. Also satires. Irony and satire were things the authorities could neither understand nor abide. So the theatre was often closed. It was closed at present, and the street looked the drabber for it.

  In South Court lived an old painter who had painted scenery for the theatre and porcelain for the factory whose wares Odim exported. Jheserabhay was old now, but he still had a sure hand with plates and tureens; equally important, he had often given work to the ample Odim family. Odim valued him, despite his sharp tongue, and had brought him a farewell present.

  A phagor let Odim into the house. There were many phagors in South Court. Uskuti in general had a marked aversion to the ancipital kind, whereas artistic people seemed to delight in them, perversely enjoying the immobility and sudden movements of the creatures. Odim himself disliked their sickly milky stench, and passed as quickly as possible into the presence of Jheserabhay.

  Jheserabhay sat wrapped in an old-fashioned heedrant, feet up on a sofa, close to a portable iron stove. Beside him rested a picture album. He rose slowly to welcome Odim. Odim sat on a velvet chair facing him, and Gagrim stood behind the chair, clutching the bag.

  The old painter shook his head gloomily when he heard Odim's news.

  "Well, it's a bad time for Koriantura and no mistake. I've never known worse. It's a poor thing, Odim, that you should be forced to leave because things are so difficult. But then, you never really belonged here, did you - you and your family."

  Odim made no gesture. He said slowly, without thinking, "Yes, I do belong here, and your words amaze me. I was born here, within this very mile, and my father before me. This is my home as much as yours, Jhessie."

  "I thought you were from Kuj-Juvec?"

  "Originally my family was from Kuj-Juvec, yes, and proud of it. But I am both a Sibornalese and a Korianturan, first and foremost."

  "Why are you leaving then? Where are you going? Don't look so offended. Have a cup of tea. A veronikane?"

  Odim soothed his beard. "The new edicts make it impossible to stay. I have a large family, and I must do the best I possibly can for them."

  "Oh, yes, yes, so you must. You have a very large family, don't you? I'm against that sort of thing myself. Never married. No relations. Always stuck to my art. I've been my own master."

  Narrowing his eyes, Odim said, "It's not only Kuj-Juveci families which get large. We're not primitive, you know."

  "My dear old friend, you are sensitive today. I was levelling no accusations. Live and let live. Where are you going?"

  "That I would rather not say. News gets about, whispers become shouts."

  The artist grunted. "I suppose you're going back to Kuj-Juvec."

  "Since I have never in my life been there, I cannot go back there."

  "Someone was telling me that your house is full of murals of that part of the world. I hear they are rather fine."

  "Yes, yes, old but fine. By a great artist who never made a name for himself. But it is my house no more. I had to sell it, lock, stock, and barrel."

  "Well then ... I hope you got a good price?"

  Odim had been forced to accept a miserable price, but he rationed himself to one word: "Tolerable."

  "I suppose I shall miss you, though I've got out of the habit of seeing people. I hardly ever go over to the theatre now. This north wind gets into my old bones."

  "Jhessie, I have enjoyed your friendship over twenty-five years, give or take a tenner. I have also much appreciated your work; maybe I never paid you enough. Although I am only a merchant, nevertheless I appreciate artistry in others, and no one in all Sibornal has depicted birds on porcelain so finely as you. I wish to give you a parting present, something too delicate to travel, which I think you will appreciate. I could have sold it in the auctions but I thought you made a worthy recipient."

  Jheserabhay struggled into a sitting position and looked expectant. Odim motioned to his slave to open the bag. Gagrim lifted out an article which he handed to Odim. Odim raised the article and held it temptingly before the artist's eyes.

  The clock was of the shape and size of a goose's egg. Its dial showed the twenty-five hours of the day round the outer circle, with the forty minutes of the hour inside, in the traditional way. But on the hour, when striking - and the mechanism could be made to strike at any time by pressing a button - the clock revolved, so that a second, rear, face was briefly revealed. The rear face also had two hands, the outer indicating the week, tenner, and season of the small year, and the inner the season of the Great Year.

  The faces were enamel. The egg was of gold. It was clutched, top and bottom, by a figure in jade, the ample figure of the Original Beholder, seated on a bank which formed the base of the clock. To one side of her, wheat grew; to the other, glaciers. The finish of the whole was exquisite, the detail perfect: the toes which peeped from the Beholder's sandals had discernible nails.

  Reaching out his old seamed hands, Jheserabhay took the clock and examined it for a long time without speaking. Tears came to his eyes.

  "It's a thing of beauty, no less. The workmanship is wonderful. And I can't recognise its provenance. Is it from Kuj-Juvec?"

  Odim bridled up immediately. "We barbarians are excellent craftsmen. Didn't you know we live in sherb but spend our life killing people and turning out exquisite artwork? Isn't that the idea you proud Uskuti have of us?"

  "I didn't mean to offend you, Odim."

  "Well, it is from Juthir, if you must know, our capital city. Take it. It will cause you to remember me for five minutes." As he said this, he turned away and looked out the window. A file of soldiers under a noncommissioned officer were searching a house opposite. As Odim watched, two of them brought a man out into the square. The man hung his head, as if ashamed to be seen in such company.

  "I'm really sorry you are going, Odim," said the artist, placatingly.

  "Evil is loose in the world. I have to go."

  "I don't believe in evil. Mistakes, yes. Not evil."

  "Then perhaps you are afraid to believe it exists. It exists wherever men are. It's in this very room. Good-bye, Jhessie."

  He left the old man clutching the clock and trying to rise from his dusty chair.

  Odim looked round warily before leaving the shelter of the house where Jheserabhar had his apartment. The file of soldiers had disappeared with their prisoner. He stepped briskly in the Court, dismissing the encounter with the artist from his mind. These Uskuti were always hard to deal with, after all. It would be a relief to get away from them.

  He was all prepared to go. Everything had been done legally, if hastily. Since Besi Besamitikahl had collected the deserter Captain Fashnalgid in the dinghy, two days earlier, Odim had concentrated on getting his affairs in order. He had sold his house to an unfriendly relation and his export business to a friendly rival. He had purchased a ship with Fashnalgid's aid. He would join his brother in distant Shivenink. It wo
uld be a pleasure to see Odirin again; they could help each other now that they were not as young as they had been...

  Struggle is the true guise of hope, Odim said to himself, straightening his back and walking a little faster. Don't give up. Life will be easier, winter or no winter. You must cease to think only of money. Your mind is dominated by the mighty sib. This adversity will be good for you. In Shivenink, with Odirin's help, I'll work less hard. I will paint pictures like Jheserabhay. Perhaps I will become famous.

  Nourishing similar warming thoughts, he turned onto the quay. His soliloquy was shattered by a steam gun trundling slowly by. It was heading eastwards. Word had spread that a great battle was soon to commence; it was another reason for leaving the city as fast as possible. The gun was so heavy that it shook the ground as it rattled over the cobbles. Its fiendish engine, pistons pumping, belched out smoke. Small boys ran beside it, shouting in delight.

  The steam gun followed Odim along Climent Quay, its heavy barrel pointing in his general direction. With a sense of relief, he turned in at Odim Finest Export Porcelains, Gagrim pressing hard at his heels.

  The showroom and warehouse were in confusion, mainly because nobody was doing any work. Hired workers and slaves alike had seized on the opportunity to do nothing. Many of them hung about the door, watching the gun go by. In their reluctance to step aside, they revealed a lack of respect for their ex-boss.

  Never mind, he said to himself. We will sail on the afternoon's tide, and then these people can do what they like.

  A messenger came up and told him that the new owner of the premises was upstairs and would like to see him. A hint of danger ran through Odim's mind. It seemed unlikely that the new owner should be here, since the hand-over was not officially operative until midnight, according to the terms of the contract. But he told himself not to be anxious, and mounted the stairs with determination. Gagrim followed behind.