Gaudior pawed the lush green impatiently. "Not Where; can you not get that through your human skull? When. Until we know more than we know now, we will stay right here in your own Where. There is something to be learned here, and we have to find out what."
"You don't know?"
"I am a mere unicorn." Gaudior dropped his silver lashes modestly. "All I know is that there is something important to the future right here in this place where you watch stars. But whatever it was did not happen until the ancient music of the spheres was distorted. So now we go to a When of people."
"Do you know when that When is?"
The light in Gaudior's horn dimmed and flickered, which Charles Wallace was beginning to recognize as a sign that the unicorn was troubled or uncertain. "A far When. We can ride this wind without fear, for here the ancient harmonies are still unbroken. But it may roughen if the When we enter is a dissonant one. Hold on tight. I will be taking you Within."
"Within--who am I going Within?" Charles Wallace twined the mane through his fingers.
"I will ask the wind."
"You don't know?"
"Questions, questions." Gaudior stomped one silver hoof. "I am not some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything." The light in the horn pulsed with brilliance; sparks flew from Gaudior's hoofs, and they were off and up. The smooth flanks became fluid, and slowly great wings lifted and moved with the wind.
The boy felt the wind swoop under and about them. Riding the unicorn, riding the wind, he felt wholly in freedom and joy; wind, unicorn, boy, merged into a single swiftness.
Stars, galaxies, circled in cosmic pattern, and the joy of unity was greater than any disorder within.
And then, almost without transition, they were in a place of rocks and trees and high grasses and a large lake. What would, many centuries later, become the star-watching rock was a small mountain of stone. The woods behind the rock was a forest of towering fern trees and giant umbrageous trees he did not recognize. In front of the rock, instead of the valley of Charles Wallace's When, there was a lake stretching all the way to the hills, sparkling in the sunlight. Between the rock and the lake were strange huts of stone and hide, half house, half tent, forming a crescent at the lake's edge.
In front of and around the dwellings was activity and laughter, men and women weaving, making clay from the lake into bowls and dishes, painting the pottery with vivid colors and intricate geometrical designs. Children played at the water's edge, splashing and skipping pebbles.
A boy sat on an outcropping of rock, whittling a spear with a sharp stone. He was tanned and lean, with shining hair the color of a blackbird's wing, and dark eyes which sparkled like the water of the lake. His cheekbones were high, and his mouth warm and full. He gave the making of the spear his full concentration. He looked across the glinting waters of the lake and sniffed the scent of fish. Then he turned back to his spear, but his sensitive nostrils quivered almost imperceptibly as he smelled in turn the green of grass, the blue of sky, the red blood of an animal in the forest. He did not appear to notice the unicorn standing behind him on the hill of stone, or if he did, he took the beautiful creature completely for granted. Gaudior's wings were folded back into the flanks now, so that they were invisible; the light in the horn was steady.
Meg pressed her hand intently against Ananda. The big dog turned her head and licked her hand reassuringly with her warm, red tongue.
Meg felt her senses assailed with an awareness she had never experienced with such intensity before, even in childhood. The blue of sky was so brilliant it dazzled her inner eye. Although it was cold in the attic, she could feel the radiant warmth of the day; her skin drank the loveliness of sun. She had never before smelled rock, nor the richness of the dark earth, nor the wine of the breeze, as she smelled them now.
Why? How? She could see the unicorn, but she could not see Charles Wallace. Where was he?
Then she understood.
Charles Wallace was Within the boy on the rock. In some strange way, Charles Wallace was the boy on the rock, seeing through his eyes, hearing through his ears (never had bird song trilled with such sparkling clarity), smelling through his nose, and kything all that his awakened senses received.
Gaudior neighed softly. "You must be careful," he warned. "You are not Charles Wallace Murry. You must lose yourself as you do when you kythe with your sister. You must become your host."
"My host--"
"Harcels, of the People of the Wind. You must not know more than he knows. When you think thoughts outside his thoughts, you must keep them from him. It is best if you do not even think them."
Charles Wallace stirred timidly within Harcels. How would he, himself, accept such an intrusion by another? Had he ever been so intruded?
"No," Gaudior replied, speaking only to that part of Charles Wallace which was held back from complete unity with Harcels. "We do not send anyone Within unless the danger is so great that--"
"That--"
The light in the horn flickered. "You know some of the possibilities if your planet is blown up."
"A few," Charles Wallace said starkly. "It just might throw off the balance of things, so that the sun would burst into a supernova."
"That is one of the possibilities, yes. Everything that happens within the created Order, no matter how small, has its effect. If you are angry, that anger is added to all the hate with which the Echthroi would distort the melody and destroy the ancient harmonies. When you are loving, that lovingness joins the music of the spheres."
Charles Wallace felt a ripple of unease wash over him. "Gaudior--what am I supposed to do--Within Harcels?"
"You might start by enjoying being Within him," Gaudior suggested. "In this When, the world still knows the Old Music."
"Does he see you, as I do?"
"Yes."
"He is not surprised."
"To joy, nothing is surprising. Relax, Charles. Kythe with Harcels. Be Harcels. Let yourself go." He struck one hoof against rock, drawing sparks, leapt from the rock in a great arc, and galloped into the woods.
Harcels rose, stretched languorously. He, too, leapt from the rock with the gravity-defying ease of a ballet dancer, landed on the springy grass, rolled over in merriment, sprang to his feet, and ran to the water's edge, calling to the children, the weavers, the potters.
At the edge of the lake he stood very still, isolating himself from the activity around him. He pursed his lips and whistled, a long sweet summons, and then called softly, "Finna, Finna, Finna!"
Halfway across the lake there was a disturbance in the water and a large creature came swimming, leaping, flying, toward Harcels, who in turn flung himself into the water and swam swiftly to meet it.
Finna was akin to a dolphin, though not as large, and her skin was an iridescent blue-green. She had the gracious smile of a dolphin, and the same familiarity with sea and air. As she met Harcels she sent a small fountain of water through her blowhole, drenching the boy, who shouted with laughter.
For a few moments they wrestled together, and then Harcels was riding Finna, leaping through the air, holding tight as Finna dove down, down deep below the surface, gasping as she flashed again up into the sunlight, sending spray in every direction.
It was sheer joy.
What Charles Wallace had known in occasional flashes of beauty was Harcels's way of life.
In the attic bedroom Meg kept her hand on Ananda. A shudder moved like a wave over them both. "Oh, Ananda," Meg said, "why couldn't it have stayed that way? What happened?"
*
--When? Charles Wallace wondered.--When are we?
For Harcels, all Whens were Now. There was yesterday, which was gone, which was only a dream. There was tomorrow, which was a vision not unlike today. When was always Now, for there was little looking either backward or forward in this young world. If Now was good, yesterday, though a pleasurable dream, was not necessary. If Now was good, tomorrow would likely continue to be so.
&nb
sp; The People of the Wind were gentle and harmonious. On the rare occasions when there was a difference of opinion, it was mediated by the Harmonizer, and his judgment was always accepted. Fish were caught, flesh shot with bow and arrow, never more than needed. Each person in the tribe knew what he was born to do, and no gift was considered greater or less than another. The Harmonizer held a position no more lofty than the youngest cook just learning to build a fire or clean a fish.
One day a wild boar of monstrous size chased a small party of hunters, and the smallest and slowest among them was gored in the side. Harcels helped carry him home, and knelt all through the night with the Healer, bringing fresh cool moss to lay against the fevered wound, singing the prayers of healing as each star moved in its own ordained dance across the sky.
In the morning there was great rejoicing, for not only was the fiery wound cooling but it was recognized that Harcels had found his gift and would be apprenticed to the Healer, and when the Healer went to dwell with those who move among the stars, Harcels would take his place.
The melody was clear and pure. The harmony was undistorted. Time was still young and the sun was bright by day and moved without fear to rest in the realm of distant stars by night.
Harcels had many friends among his people, but his heart's companions were beasts: Finna, and Eyrn, a great bird something between an eagle and a giant gull, and large enough for Harcels to ride. Eyrn's feathers were white, tipped with rose, shading to purple. She was crowned with a tuft of rosy feathers, and her eyes were ruby. With Harcels firmly astride she would fly high, high, higher, until the air was thin and the boy gasped for breath. She flew far and high, so that he could see the dwellings of distant tribes, could see the ocean that stretched, it seemed, across all the rest of the world.
Harcels asked the Teller of Tales about the other tribes.
"Leave them be," the Teller of Tales said in the sharpest voice he had ever been heard to use.
"But it might be fun to know them. They might have things to teach us."
"Harcels," the Teller of Tales said, "I, too, have ridden a creature like your Eyrn, and I have had my steed descend in a hidden place, that I might watch unseen. I saw a man kill a man."
"But why? Why ever would one man kill another?"
The Teller of Tales looked long into the clear eyes of the boy. "Let us hope you will never have to know."
It was easy for Charles Wallace to live Within Harcels, in the brightness of the young sun, where darkness was the friend of light. One day when Harcels was astride Eyrn, they flew over a cluster of dwellings and the boy started to ask Eyrn to descend, but Charles Wallace gently drew his thoughts to the pleasure of flight as Eyrn threw himself upon a stream of wind and glided with the merest motion of wings. Charles Wallace was not certain that this small interference was permissible; he knew only that if Harcels learned the ways of the tribes who knew how to kill, his joy would vanish with his innocence.
--It was the right thing to do, Meg kythed to him fiercely.--It has to be the right thing.
She looked again at the clock. The hands had barely moved. While the seasons were following each other in swift succession in that Other Time where Charles Wallace lived Within Harcels, time was arrested in her own present moment. Time was moving only in that When in which the land so familiar and dear to her was different, where the flat star-watching rock was a hill of stone, the green valley a lake, and the little woods a dark forest.
She sighed achingly for a time so full of joy that it was difficult to realize it had once been real.
Ananda whined and looked at Meg with great anxious eyes.
"What is it?" Meg asked in alarm. She heard Gaudior's neigh, and saw a pulsing of silver light, the diamond-brilliant light which lit the unicorn's horn.
Charles Wallace was astride Gaudior's great neck, looking from within his own eyes at Harcels, Within whom he had known such spontaneity and joy that his own awareness would evermore share in it. He rubbed his cheek gently against the unicorn's silver neck. "Thank you," he whispered.
"Don't thank me," Gaudior snorted. "I'm not the one to decide whom you go Within."
"Who does, then?"
"The wind."
"Does the wind tell you?"
"Not until you are Within. And don't expect it to be this way every time. I suspect that you were sent Within Harcels to help get you accustomed to Within-ing in the easiest way possible. And you must let yourself go even more deeply into your hosts if you are to recognize the right Might-Have-Beens."
"If I let myself go, how can I recognize?"
"That you will have to discover for yourself. I can only tell you that this is how it works."
"Am I to be sent Within again now?"
"Yes."
"I'm not as afraid as I was, but, Gaudior, I'm still afraid."
"That's all right," Gaudior said.
"And if I let more of myself go, how can I kythe properly with Meg?"
"If you're meant to, you will."
"I'm going to need her ..."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I just know that I am."
Gaudior blew three iridescent bubbles. "Hold tight, tight, tight. We're off on the wind, and there may be Echthroi this time who will try to take you from my back and throw you off the rim of the world."
FOUR
The snow with its whiteness
The great unicorn flung himself into the wind and they were soaring among the stars, part of the dance, part of the harmony. As each flaming sun turned on its axis, a singing came from the friction in the way a finger moved around the rim of a crystal goblet will make a singing, and the song varies in pitch and tone from glass to glass.
But this song was exquisite as no song from crystal or wood or brass can be. The blending of melody and harmony was so perfect that it almost made Charles Wallace relax his hold on the unicorn's mane.
"No!" Meg cried aloud. "Hold on, Charles! Don't let go!"
A blast of icy cold cut across the beauty of the flight, a cold which carried a stench of death and decay.
Retching, Charles Wallace buried his face in Gaudior's mane, his fingers clenching the silver strands as the Echthroid wind tried to drag him from the unicorn's back. The stench was so abominable that it would have made him loosen his grasp had not the pungent scent of Gaudior's living flesh saved him as he pressed his face against the silver hide, breathing the strangeness of unicorn sweat. Gaudior's bright wings beat painfully against invisible wings of darkness beating at them. The unicorn neighed in anguish, his clear tones lost in the howling of the tempest.
Suddenly his hoofs struck against something solid. He whinnied with anxiety. "Hold on tightly, don't let go," he warned. "We've been blown into a Projection."
Charles Wallace could hardly be clutching the mane with more intensity. "A what?"
"We've been blown into a Projection, a possible future, a future the Echthroi want to make real." His breath came in gasping gulps; his flanks heaved wildly under Charles Wallace's legs.
The boy shivered as he remembered those darkly flailing wings and the nauseous odor. Whatever the Echthroi wanted to make real would be something fearful.
They were on a flat plain of what appeared to be solidified lava, although it had a faint luminosity alien to lava. The sky was covered with flickering pink cloud. The air was acrid, making them cough. The heat was intense and he was perspiring profusely under the light anorak, which held in the heat like a furnace.
"Where are we?" he asked, wanting Gaudior to tell him that they were not in his own Where, that this could not possibly be the place of the star-watching rock, of the woods, only a few minutes' walk from the house.
Gaudior's words trembled with concern. "We're still here, in your own Where, although it is not yet a real When."
"Will it be?"
"It is one of the Projections we have been sent to try to prevent. The Echthroi will do everything in their power to make it real."
A shudder shook the
boy's slight frame as he looked around the devastated landscape. "Gaudior--what do we do now?"
"Nothing. You mustn't loosen your hold on my mane. They want us to do something, and anything we do might be what they need to make this Projection real."
"Can't we get away?"
The unicorn's ears flicked nervously. "It's very difficult to find a wind to ride when one has been blown into a Projection."
"But what do we do?"
"There is nothing to do but wait."
"Is anybody left alive?"
"I don't know."
Around them a sulfurous wind began to rise. Both boy and unicorn were convulsed with paroxysms of coughing, but Charles Wallace did not loosen his grasp. When the seizure was over, he dried his streaming eyes on the silver mane.
When he looked up again, his heart lurched with horror. Waddling toward them over the petrified earth was a monstrous creature with a great blotched body, short stumps for legs, and long arms, with the hands brushing the ground. What was left of the face was scabrous and suppurating. It looked at the unicorn with its one eye, turned its head as though calling behind it to someone or something, and hurried toward them as fast as its stumps would take it.
"Oh, Heavenly Powers, save us!" Gaudior's neigh streaked silver.
The anguished cry called Charles Wallace back to himself. He cried,
"With Gaudior in this fateful hour
I call on all Heaven with its power
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness ..."
He took a deep breath and hot air seared his lungs and again he was assailed by an unquellable fit of coughing. He buried his face in the unicorn's mane and tried to control the spasm which shook him. It was not until the racking had nearly passed that he became aware of something cool brushing his burning face.
He raised his eyes and with awed gratitude he saw snow, pure white snow drifting down from the tortured sky, covering the ruined earth. The monster had stopped its ponderous approach and was staring up at the sky, mouth open to catch the falling flakes.
With the snow came a light wind, a cool wind. "Hold!" Gaudior cried, and raised his wings to catch the wind. His four hoofs left the ground and he launched himself into the wind with a surge of power.
Charles Wallace braced, trying to tighten the grip of his legs about the unicorn's broad neck. He could feel the wild beating of Gaudior's heart as with mighty strokes he thrust along the wind through the darkness of outer space, until suddenly they burst into a fountain of stars, and the stench and the horror were gone.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet Page 5
