The realms of tartarus t.., p.21
The Realms of Tartarus, Trilogy, page 21
Evolution in the Underworld was necessarily rapid. A characteristic tachytelic pattern developed: divergent evolution of forms, rapid speciation, a high rate of extinction and specific genesis. An evolutionary explosion. It had happened before, on the Earth before man, but the evolutionary change of gear which took place when the Underworld came into existence saw the greatest-ever increase in the rate of evolution—the biggest explosion of them all. It echoed through the ages which followed, and would echo for many more. The impact was only just beginning to die when the Euchronians, in the Heaven which they had built up above, completed their Plan.
Man—omnivorous, intelligent, at the very highest level of the biotic hierarchy—changed least of all the species in the Underworld. Even man became not one species, but several.
The greatest evolutionary boost was evident in the semi-sentient species which had cohabited with man in the concrete jungles of the age of psychosis. They had the capacity to adapt if they could make the leap to full sentience and change their physical form in order to cope with a complete reorientation of their survival strategies. Some of them made that leap. Some became extinct because their gene pools drained dry in the attempt.
At the lowest strata there was complete reorganization. Millions of years of plant evolution went to waste, and progress began again with the lowest forms—the algae and the fungi. The stratum of the primary consumers in the animal kingdom was likewise completely refurbished, but here there were already patterns of life and forms of being which were useful. The crabs of Tartarus were not the crabs of pre-historic ages, nor the moths, nor the cockroaches, nor even the multitudinous worms, but the names did as well for the new versions. There are only so many ways to design an animal, and most of the models had been ready in the prehistoric world.
The microbiotica, of course, were reorganized on the same scale as the plants and lower animals, but from the macrobiotic point of view the revision was quite invisible. There are even fewer ways to design a bacterium or a protozoan than there are to design an animal. Form and function survived despite the fact that genetic complements had to be given a complete overhaul. The bacteria had the least difficulty adapting. Bacteria always exist in extreme circumstances.
From the microbiotic point of view, the division of the world into Heaven and Hell was virtually immaterial. A trivial incident on the path of existence. As if an immortal were stung by a bee….
CHAPTER 8
Camlak did not hurry along the road to Lehr. He walked steadily, at a pace which he could sustain for many miles. He was forced to import a rather mechanical quality into both his thoughts and his actions. It was necessary to the situation. He already knew, in his heart, what he was going to see when he finally looked out over Dossal Bog, but he advanced toward that moment nevertheless. He would have to meet it.
Once he was past the hill called Stiver he left the road proper, and bore slightly southwest, taking higher ground so that he could command a good view of what was ahead of him. He did not climb to the ridges but merely moved as a hunter might, close to the road but not too close, stalking its length, tracking its curves. The stars were less dense in the roof of the world over these dried-up, coarse lands, and the light they shed was not bright, but Camlak had good eyes, and there was light enough for him to see what he needed to see.
And eventually, his assumed mechanism brought him to the climactic vision. From the slopes of the hill called Solum he could see the road as it straightened out to cross Dossal Bog. He could almost see the shadowed walls of Lehr itself in the furthest distance—or he thought he could. Perhaps it was just a suggestion of shadows—an imaginary goal to draw travelers on ever faster, until they dropped from weariness with the vision no nearer.
The women fleeing from Shairn had gone a good way down the road. They were nearly a mile away from where he stood.
The Ahrima had come down on their backs. The bundles they had carried were scattered in a ragged line for a quarter mile behind the place where they had been caught. The crowd had scattered both ways into the bog. Only a handful had died on the road. Camlak knew that the women and the children would have run into a radioactive waste, into a living fire, rather than stand and wait for the Ahrima. And the marauders would have followed them to cut them down. And come back again to join the horde.
Camlak wished the bog was one vast quicksand, to have sucked the Ahrima down after their prey. But it was not. It was only a bog. The corpses were sprawled across the dark tussocks, half-swallowed by the mud, floating on the pools of stagnant water. The Ahrima had caught their prey, had enjoyed their massacre, and had gone on. Perhaps two or three Ahriman warriors had been trapped in the bog, or knifed by the women, but only two or three. No more. How many of the Children of the Voice had escaped? How many infants had found a hiding place? More than two or three, no doubt. Twelve. Or twenty. But how many of those would survive, in the long run? The same two or three. Maybe none. Wherever they went—forward, or back, or just on the road, there would be enemies enough for all of them.
Camlak could read the whole story written in the dim scene which extended before his eyes, illumined by starlight. It was no more and no less than he had expected. He had not expected the men of Lehr to come out and try to cover the retreat. But he had had to go on to the end of the story in any case.
As he stared out from his vantage, he felt very little emotion inside himself. He did not curse, and he certainly did not cry. He merely looked, and let the looking soak into his being. He let the sight imprint itself on his memory, becoming a part of him. That was enough. There was no need for fury or mourning. The time for those was past, left behind in Stalhelm, even before the battle and the burning.
He would follow Nita, now. And when he found her….
He knew no more. The alternatives which he would find then would have to be discovered. They were not ready in his mind. No such alternatives had ever been shown to him, except in his dreams. In his dreams, they were phantoms. He did not know what it took to clothe such phantoms with reality. He would live, but he did not know how, or why. Those answers were lost, lying amid the dead like the trampled, shattered bundles the women had carried out of Stalhelm in the vain attempt to wrap up their lives and steal them away from the Ahrima.
He could see the Ahrima. He could see their fires, at least. Whether the fires were at the walls of Lehr, or still some miles away, he could not tell. Perhaps it was Lehr, or the fields of Lehr, that was burning. The light was red and blurred, a smudge in the pit of darkness which closed off the world at the limits of his visual range.
He could imagine the Ahrima as shadows within the ruddy glow, shadow-monsters with their heads encapsulated by grotesquely huge horned masks. Men taking the form of beasts, accepting the role of the beasts, prideful of their bestiality. Black shadows in the light, clothed in smoke. The masks would shine, in the flamelight. The eyes would sparkle through the eyeholes.
The Truemen, thought Camlak, would have it that the Children of the Voice are animals. They claim that we pretend to manhood, that our selves are false. But the Truemen are masked now, their eyes glittering like the eyes of the Ahrima, fugitive within the masks, hiding from the fire and the blood. A worthless attempt to save their worthless lives. Who are the fake people?
Inside himself, Camlak asked the question of his Gray Soul. He did not expect an answer.
As he turned away, content not to know the fate of Lehr and, ultimately, of Shairn—at least for the time being—he sensed a movement on the slope above him. Someone was stalking him as he had stalked the road. They had not been behind him long, but they were there now.
Ahrima!
He carried a bow and a long knife—he had left behind the axes and the Ahriman swords, which were too big for him. He put the bow across his back and drew the knife. He moved toward the sound, extending the blade before him. A shape rose from the barbweed, coming out from the hiding of a shallow recess. Empty hands spread wide.
“No,” said the shadow. “Friend, not enemy.”
Camlak did not need the sight and the sound to know. The way the shape had risen had testified to its crookedness. It was Chemec, the warrior with the bent leg. Of all the warriors, Chemec had lived. Chemec and Camlak. Why?
Chemec knew. Chemec knew his bent leg, and knew that it had taught him all he needed to know about the art of survival. He had had to learn new ways to run, new ways to fight. It had to be Chemec that lived. No one else, save by luck.
Camlak sheathed his knife.
“It would be you,” he said. “It had to be.” There was naked bitterness in his voice.
“And you?” Chemec retaliated. “I could say the same. We are both alive instead of dead.”
It was true enough. Chemec flinched as he spoke, ready to run if Camlak remembered any one of a dozen times that Chemec had cast doubts on his manhood. Chemec had been a warrior when Camlak was yet a child. But Camlak did not remember now, and he did not react to Chemec’s words. It was all over.
After a brief silence, when Camlak would not look at Chemec, and Chemec would not look at Camlak, the crippled warrior asked: “What now?”
It was a plea for guidance—a warrior asking the decision of the Old Man, whose function was to decide. Chemec had been a warrior while Camlak was a child, but Camlak had killed the harrowhound and played the Sun in the communion of souls. Even so, Camlak was faintly surprised. He could not help but feel that perhaps Chemec was mocking him.
“Stalhelm is dead,” said Camlak. “Do what you like. Anything.”
Chemec shook his head. “I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No,” said Camlak.
Chemec did not understand. This would not have been Yami’s way. Yami would have welcomed him. It would have been Yami and Chemec, together.
“We might go east,” said Chemec. “The Ahrima will turn south.”
“North,” said Camlak.
“We go north?” Chemec deliberately misunderstood.
“The Ahrima,” said Camlak. “They will go north, into the heartland, to rip the bowels out of Shairn.”
“We go north,” suggested Chemec. “To fight.”
“No,” said Camlak again. “You go.”
Chemec was silent.
“It’s dead,” said Camlak. “It’s finished. Stalhelm is over. A memory, nothing more.”
Chemec still said nothing. He could not accept it. It was beyond him. He was getting old.
Camlak looked at the man with the twisted leg, and remembered that this had been his enemy. This man might even hate him, and hate him still. But he was ruled by the way, by the rule of the ritual.
“I don’t want you,” he said.
Chemec waited. He could do nothing but wait.
When Camlak turned away, Chemec followed him. When Camlak half-turned, Chemec dropped back, but still followed.
Camlak went north, but not to the heartland—not to fight. The heartland was well to the west of north, bordered by the vast Swithering Waste. It was into the Waste that Camlak went, heading for the great metal wall.
Chemec followed, with infinite patience.
CHAPTER 9
As Burstone turned to lock the door behind him they slipped out of the shadows, and when he turned, they were there, blocking his way and pushing close to back him up against the wall. The alley was quite dark—it existed only to hide away the door from which Burstone had come. For a moment, he thought that they might be technics, on legitimate business, wanting to go down to the distribution units and wondering what he was doing there. But that was a hopeless wish. They had been waiting. For him. They knew who he was and where he had been.
He didn’t know whether he ought to be scared or not. No one had ever interfered before. He was scared.
One of them took the key from his hand. Gently. Then he put it back into the lock, and turned it. The door eased open when it was pushed. The dim light of the machine room filtered out, throwing vague shadows across the faces of the two men.
Burstone overcame his momentary paralysis.
“Do you want something?” he asked.
“The suitcase,” said the man who held the key. He was a tall man, but that was all Burstone could be sure of. The glimmer of light wasn’t enough to let him see any facial details. It was much darker here than in the Underworld. Thereal stars were so faint.
He could hear the keys being clicked back and forth in the tall man’s hand.
“We just want to talk,” said the other man. Burstone became conscious that he was being held by the arm. He wrenched slightly, and felt himself released. But they still stood in his way, pinning him in the corner of the blind corridor. The door oozed shut, and the darkness became total save for the pale silver sheen of the sky, high above.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Suppose we were the police?” countered the tall man.
“Suppose you were?” said Burstone.
“That’s right,” said the other man. “You don’t have anything to fear from the police. Nothing to hide. You’re doing nothing illegal. Any man in the world is perfectly entitled to take cases full of…whatever…into the Underworld. The police wouldn’t be interested. Surprised, but not interested. So who would? Who’d be insterested, Jervis? You tell us that.”
The calmly threatening tone somehow eased Burstone’s mind. This wasn’t right. Of course it wasn’t right. They had no right. They had nothing against him. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. The way the man spoke restored Burstone’s confidence in himself. The surprise was fading. The situation was becoming known, and therefore controllable.
“What do you want?” he asked, in a cool tone which said clearly that they weren’t going to get it.
“You’ve been followed before,” said the tall man quietly.
Burstone said nothing.
“We know about that,” said the other. “He didn’t come back, did he?”
“Suppose,” the tall man said again, “we were the police.”
“I didn’t do a thing,” said Burstone, once more on the defensive, once more crawling back into a shell of fear. “Nothing.”
“He didn’t come back.”
“No,” said Burstone.
“What did you do?” demanded the tall man.
“Nothing,” repeated Burstone.
“Suppose we knew what happened to him,” said the other. “We know his name. Joth Magner. Did you know who it was? You must have, of course. You could hardly miss him, could you?”
“I never heard of him,” said Burstone.
“You heard of him.”
Burstone pushed himself out of the corner. One man—the tall one—stepped back, to remain in front of him, barring his way. The other slipped in behind him. Burstone liked the new arrangement even less than the old. He had the ridiculous idea that at any moment the man behind might crouch, so that the tall one could push him back, make him fall over, like a small boy.
“What are you trying to say?” asked Burstone.
“Briefly,” said the man behind him, speaking close to his ear, “and without all the veiled threats, that Joth Magner followed you through that door a while ago, and he didn’t come back. We want to talk to you. Because we know about Joth Magner and the police don’t, we think you want to talk to us. All right?”
“I didn’t kill him,” said Burstone.
“What’s in the case?” asked the tall man, ignoring the protest. “And why?”
Burstone considered the situation. He hadn’t killed Joth Magner. Not quite. But he had wound up the cage, knowing that someone had gone down, and that the someone would inevitably be trapped. He knew what the Underworld was like. He knew what would happen to him if he came back one day to find that the cage had gone, and that there was no way home. He knew.
The worst thing was, he hadn’t an answer to his own question. He didn’t know why he’d done it. He’d been scared. He knew he’d been followed and he knew he was being watched. He could have just gone away and left it, but he was too frightened even to do that. He’d wound up the cage and solved the problem by elimination. He hadn’t known it was Joth Magner. He’d never seen the man who followed him. He hadn’t known. It was a momentary decision—almost a crazy decision. He regretted it now as he’d regretted it for a long time. He’d almost been expecting it to catch up with him. He knew that he was responsible for Joth Magner’s death. He felt it. He only wished that feeling it would tell himwhy.
“Who are you?” whispered Burstone.
“Does it matter?” asked the tall man.
“Does it have to be here?”
“No. You want to go home?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” said the other man, still behind him, still mouthing into his ear. “Let’s go.”
Burstone moved forward. The tall man stopped him by jabbing a key gently into his chest. “I’ll take the case,” he said.
Burstone surrendered the case. Then they went back to the cars, and he led the way home.
CHAPTER 10
“Can we forget about the game, now?” asked Burstone.
