Sundrinker

by Zach Hughes

  "Between two smoking mountains Du shows his face at evening over a lake of fire—"

  Ahead, however, there were only fiery mountains and the eternal smokes. He squatted to rest, chewed on a cane. Which two mountains?

  There were many, spaced so closely together that their rolling, fiery belchings blended into one sea of molten rock. As for Du, he was not to be seen through the thick smokes.

  He slept. It was a warm, secure sleep. Nothing lived there in that acrid, heated, smoked, steamy barren other than Duwan the Drinker. He awoke with Du high in the northern sky and began to make his way across the saddle between two mountains, moving always toward the east, quartering the slope, nearing the stream of molten rock that moved sluggishly down from the peak. It took a long time, for the rocks were jagged, sometimes needle sharp. By evening he was feeling the hot breath of the molten rock on his skin, and then, as if by a miracle, the smoke cleared for a moment and there was Du, shining redly between two distant, smoking mountains. Beneath the kind face of the source glimmered a huge lake of fire.

  Encouraged, he moved forward to see that the mountain's face was broken, that the stream of molten rock poured thickly and redly into a fissure. Below that fissure he was able to leap across a chasm at the bottom of which glowed the fires and now the rocks began to burn his feet, so he put on a pair of the sandals and ran toward the last sight of Du, the sandals smoking as they absorbed the heat of the stones.

  He seemed to fly down the slope, taking huge strides, his lungs pumping, for he had long since used up the energy stores from the source. Ahead he saw white, dense smoke and slowed his pace, but the smoke was soft to his nose. Steam. A hot spring poured out of the side of the mountain. Although the water boiled and steamed, it cooled on contact with the air and was rich, tasty. He drank and rested. His sandals were burned all the way through. So far, it was exactly as his grandmother had said. He put on the second pair of sandals and ran until his way was blocked by a lake of fire, his skin shriveling under the impact of the fierce heat. He turned to the west, climbed a slope, and, on the last remaining layers of the sandals left the smoking, hot ground for a field of smooth ash that gradually hardened until he was walking on a rippled, hard surface warmed but not heated to painful intensity. The way to the south was open before him, only emptiness in the distance.

  Once he stopped to look back at the land of eternal fires, the natural barrier that protected his valley from any enemy. Forbidding as the barrens over which he was marching were, the landscape to the north was far more terrible. For the first time in his life he could appreciate the courage, or the desperation, of the Great Alon and the ones who followed him. Had he, himself, been leading, not knowing what lay beyond those fiery, shaking, smoking mountains, he would never have mustered the determination necessary to enter that zone of fire. But then, he added, to himself, he didn't have the Enemy at his rear with sword and arrow and spear.

  He had been on the march for enough circles of Du to make up a time of long light, and he had traveled far, and, to judge from the landscape of barren rock around him, he might as well have stayed near the valley. Only the attitude of Du in the sky had changed, the source now remaining below the zenith even in the morning, sinking out of sight below the southern horizon off to the west in the middle of the marching period. He counted the dim and darks, but, not having the knowledge nor the talent of Manoo the Predictor, he could not relate those odd activities of Du to real time, so that he was not only lost in a barren, endless desert of cooling rock, he was lost in his sense of time. Only that natural ability, that sense of attraction in his very blood, made it possible for him to continue ever southward, never deviating from that line except to skirt impassable features of the land. It was always there, and he did not even have to think to know when he had his back directly to the north. The standard valley day was measured by one full circle of Du during the time of the long light. He estimated that he had traveled for a length of days corresponding to one full period and to the middle days of another period of long light when he first began to know the chill during the times of dimness. Four estimated days after that, he donned dim-time clothing when Du was below the horizon, packed it away when the source came with his heat. Then, after more estimated days, Du was performing in an odd fashion, ducking below the southwestern horizon to reappear on the southeastern horizon in glory. He was beginning to be concerned, for his grandmother had said that he would be in a land of snows while Du was long. Nor had he seen any brothers, scattered or otherwise. Not even the smallest brothers were to be found growing on the warmed surface of the rocks.

  He had no alternative. He pushed southward, running now, even though he was thin, honed to a fine tenseness of form. He ran in the light of Du and he ran in the dims, which became darks as the distance behind him lengthened and lengthened and then, after running through a dark, he saw, with Du's first rays, a dull green sheen on a rock ahead. Tiny brothers grew there, and he shared their life, careful not to disrupt their colony. There was new strength in him, although he needed water badly. On another morning he saw in the distance a spike of green and there was a small brother, so he knew that he was nearing a zone of life. He used the emergency water supply then, drinking it in one long, satisfying draft from the shell of the nut brother. Soon he was moving through a landscape of scattered soil pockets and scattered, small brothers, and still there was no snow.

  He rested, and slept long, and woke with pain in every joint, the pain of cold. A heaviness was atop him. He tried to move and panic grew in him when he opened his eyes to see nothing, only an impenetrable blackness, and he was cold, so cold. Every movement was an effort. He shook, lifted his arms and legs against resistance, and then, with a scream of sheer terror of the unknown, he bunched his energies and exploded upward from under a fresh blanket of snow that had covered him during the night. As far as he could see there was that deadly whiteness, but, when he had begun to move, trudging through a smooth, even snowfall that came halfway to his knees, his blood flowed and his cells were not ruptured by the ice and he knew that the cold was not a killing cold, as long as he kept moving.

  There was food now. It was dry, tough, cold period fodder, but it was full of energy and the snow satisfied his need for water. He moved swiftly into a land of more and more brothers of one type, tall, thin, cold-resistant brothers who dropped dead limbs in profusion, making it easy for him to have a warm fire when he rested.

  Never had he seen such darks as he saw when he entered a forest of tall brothers so dense that the glow of the sky's night fires, a newness to him, were hidden by the overlapped boughs. And the darks were long, and cold, and he had to travel through them, sleeping little, not daring to rest, for the cold was on his heels now, as he'd been warned, and to sleep long meant death.

  He stumbled into the first of the waters. It was nothing more than a shallow, marshy pool, but it was water, and icy cold, and so delicious that, in spite of the cold he lay there where he'd fallen, gulping great draughts of it until he was bloated with its goodness. For a long period of lights and darks—Du was bright, but surprisingly distant—he waded, swam, skirted lakes, streams, bogs where delicious green brothers grew, until he began to notice that the tall brothers were increasing in size to assume, as he entered a great congregation and lost himself in darkness, sizes beyond his wildest imaginings.

  The cold was becoming dangerous. Even when he found a sheltered spot and built a roaring fire he could not warm himself all the way through. So he moved, ran, walked, waded, pushed his way through drifts of snow, with Du a weak source in the sky and the cold always with him. He could not believe that he would see the Enemy there, for it was too cold, the snows too deep, the darkness among the tall brothers too complete.

  Chapter Four

  A howling wind carried a cold unlike any cold Duwan had ever felt. Once, in youthful curiosity, he'd climbed out of the valley during the time of the long dark to find a world of crusted white. Then the barrens had been covere
d to a depth equal to more than his height in snow, and there was a still, quiet cold that gradually seeped into one's cells, but even that cold could not compare with the cold of the wind there among the tall brothers. And snow came with the wind, and there was no softness in the snow. It stung his face. It irritated his eyes so that he had difficulty seeing. The wind was so powerful that it blew him, hard, against a tall brother and the shock of the impact brought to him a sense of growing urgency. The depth of the new snow sapped his energy. He sank to his knees, had to lift his feet high, had to struggle for each brief passage from tall brother to tall brother. The storm had dimmed the day, so that he had no sense of time. He was only beginning to comprehend that time had a different shape in this land of many tall brothers, far from his native valley. In the valley, time was measured by that lovely period when Du circled around the valley and gave light. The long dark, when Du left the valley, was merely a period of endurance, with time, itself, of little import. He knew only that the time of darkness was long, but bearable, made bearable by the constant output of the hot springs, a warmth so effective that snow melted as it fell to become a mist of dew that gave life to the valley even in the absence of Du. Now time was measured by short periods of light and periods of intense darkness longer than the periods of light and each dark seemed to become more deadly, for the cold intensified and seemed capable of attacking even the flames of his night fires. The cold seemed to impregnate the fallen, dry branches of the tall brothers, so that he had to use extravagant amounts of his carefully stored tinder to start the smallest twigs burning, and then they popped and cracked and smoked and burned only reluctantly.

  The winds blew for days, and the snow continued until he was, at times, struggling through drifts up to his chest. His very skin ached. His blood seemed to move in his veins at a slowed pace. The necessary intake of snow for water allowed the cold to invade the core of his body, so that it seemed to seep outward as well as inward. For food there was only the dry, brittle, acidy needles of the tall brothers and, occasionally, dry fodder—if he had the fortune to find a spot where winds had cleared the snow enough to allow him to dig down to ground level.

  By the time the storm ended his southward progress amounted to no more than an arrow's flight each day and he was keeping himself in motion only with the expenditure of all his will, and the memories of Alning, his father, his mother, and his duty to the Drinkers of the Valley. From a sky washed clean by the storm Du gave him strength. He opened his multiple layers of clothing and let the life-giving rays do battle with the frigid air, and the net gain was negligible. One could not live in such cold. The cold froze small limbs on the tall brothers so that, in the stillness, broken only by Duwan's panting, the sharp crack of rupturing cells came, crisp and clear, echoing off the wall of tall brothers. After a night of pain, when the cold seemed to turn to fire in his body, he struggled onward and paused, knowing not hope but astonishment, as the tall brothers ceased and a wide, level clearing lay ahead of him, so extensive that the tall brothers on the far side were dwarfed. He hoped that the clearing would make for easier travel, but there the soft, new snow was just as deep, and he came to realize that he was crossing a frozen lake, had just enough capacity for thought left to be awed by the sheer mass of water that lay under the snow and ice.

  The winds came again when he was only halfway across, roaring down from the northwest with a suddenness that numbed him. Into the stillness came a distant mutter. The mutter became a roar and, looking over his shoulder, he saw a roiling mass of dark clouds springing up from the horizon, moving so swiftly that he could only stand and watch in fear as the storm approached with astounding speed.

  The winds took him directly in the face, seemed to lance his skin. Then came stinging sleet and snow so that he had to cover his eyes. He turned his back to the winds and let them help push him forward, toward the distant line of tall brothers where there would be some protection from the icy wind.

  By the time he reached the shelter of the tall brothers he was gasping in the cold air, feeling it chill his lungs. His clothing was covered with snow. Ice had frozen on his frondlike eyelashes and in the tendrils of his nostrils. His breath crystallized as he exhaled and became a miniature snowstorm that sometimes interfered with his vision. With his last resources of strength he made his way deeper among the tall brothers, too spent to notice that on the southern side of the frozen lake the tall brothers were different.

  When he fell, he lay there on the snow for long moments, his hands and feet making small, useless motions. He felt peace begin to come to his troubled spirit, felt a warmth begin to creep upward from his toes, thanked Du for it, then, in panic, he sat up, pushed himself to his feet, remembering his father's warnings that to rest in that cold was to die. Overhead, the limbs of the tall brothers formed a solid canopy, and he could see accumulated snow there. Underfoot the snow seemed less deep. He found a sheltered spot behind a deadfall and began to dig down through the snow, found frozen earth. Fire. He had to have fire. He needed food badly, but his most immediate concern was fire, for that lack of feeling, that false warmth, was still in his extremities. He dug frantically, found cold-soaked limbs, broke away twigs, saw that his tinder supply was desperately low.

  His first attempt was a failure. His fire rocks sparked, the tinder smoked, he blew it into a tiny flame, but the twigs, moisture laden and frozen, sizzled and the tinder was gone and there was no fire. He had tinder for no more than two to three more fires. He began to search for drier twigs and, hearing a soft plop, turned his head to see a newly fallen dead limb lying atop the snow. Another limb, with dry, brittle twigs, fell nearby. "Thank you, brother," he said aloud, although he knew that he was neither heard nor understood by the tall brother.

  This time the fire smoked, blazed, and, as dead limbs continued to fall around him, blessed heat began to soak into his almost frozen feet and hands, and darkness was upon him. He gathered wood by the flickering light of the fire and tried the needles of one of the tall brothers. The taste was different, not at all unappetizing. He ate sparingly, found dead limbs to hold up his small night covering, basked in the heat of the fire, and was asleep without realizing it.

  The density of the grove of tall brothers broke the wind. The tangled, solid canopy kept off the snow. The howl and roar of the winds overhead served as a lullaby and he slept soundly as the fire burned low, flickered, became a bed of embers. Loud cracks of sound, as the weight of new snow broke branches overhead, as the iron cold ruptured living cells, failed to wake him, for he slept the sleep of exhaustion, warm for the first time in days, and then warmed by the creeping death that failed, also, to waken him.

  There was no ear to hear, for Duwan slept too soundly, slept that cold-induced sleep that is the prologue to death, as a whispering began, a soft, rushing sound distinct from the hiss and howl of the storm. At first the whisperings had no shape or substance. Then they seemed to say, "Wan, Wan, Wan." And from the tall brother under which Duwan slept there fell a series of dead limbs to plop quietly into the snow, unheard by the sleeper.

  "Wan, Wan, Wan."

  He did not realize that his heart was slowing, that the cold was penetrating, that, already, cells had frozen on his outer skin, the liquids of life expanding to burst and freeze, forming a coating of ice on his feet.

  "Wan, Wan, Duwan."

  The whispering grew in volume, became a low, hoarse, steady hissing.

  "Duwan, Duwan."

  A living limb cracked overhead, leaned, fell, struck Duwan at the waist. He stirred.

  "Duwan, Duwan, Duwan."

  He opened his eyes, felt a prickling pain in his feet, knew swift panic as he saw that the fire had burned down to embers, felt the frozen moisture at his eyes crack painfully.

  He tried to stand, fell. He had no sensation in his feet. He crawled, gathered freshly fallen branches, built the fire into roaring warmth.

  "Duwan, Duwan."

  "Who calls?" he asked, looking fearfully around the small cir
cle of snow lit by the fire.

  Whispering voices seemed to compete with themselves, so that he caught only isolated words, "Cold. Storm. Snow."

  "Listen, listen, listen."

  He was still. His heart was beating strongly, awe and fear helping his half-frozen blood to circulate.

  "Listen, listen."

  "I hear," he whispered.

  He saw nothing but the fire, the circle of light, the towering tall brothers, the snow.

  "I am listening," he whispered, and there was a silence, as even the winds of the storm ceased for a few moments and the voices whispered softer, "Listen."

  He tried. He cocked his head to one side and the other, and heard only the distant crack of a breaking branch, and then a picture seemed to form in his mind. He saw blocks of packed snow begin to form a circle. He felt warmth, safety.