Catch a falling star, p.11
Catch a Falling Star, page 11
The brilliance of the lights in the sky increased. The water became shallow enough to stand in, and at that point Chalyth directed them to let go. The moment they complied, the creature which had helped them swung in a tight circle and paused in front of her for a second. She patted the huge blunt head with affection, and then it was gone.
They stood chest-high in the shallows and looked up at the shore. There was a city here under the lights, though not such a city as Creohan was familiar with. Closer at hand a number of small boats were beached on a sandbar, and nets were stretched to dry on wooden poles. Everything betokened the recent presence of living people, and Creohan’s long-downcast spirits rose abruptly.
“How did you work your miracle?” Hoo asked Chalyth. He too seemed to have recovered from his fit of dumb withdrawal.
“Once, long ago, his people were companions and servants of human beings,” the girl replied. “I had met many of his kind before—it was one such as he, Creohan, who brought me that golden helmet from the islands Glyre sailed to. Do you recall?”
“I do,” said Creohan. It seemed as though a century had passed since she told him about that.
“He was so overjoyed when he met me, the first human in many generations to come among his folk and speak to them, that he readily agreed to swim after us and stay on guard. I told him that if I gave the signal by throwing a weapon overboard he was to butt in the boatsides with his snout.”
“I wish I could have expressed our gratitude,” Creohan said sincerely.
“He’s well repaid, he said, for he will have a marvellous tale to tell when he comes home.” Chalyth shaded her eyes and peered out to sea for a moment. “Let’s not stand here, though. The little brown men will soon be following us. We can only have outpaced them by a little, and while they may not be speedy swimmers they will surely drive their muscles to the utmost to bring them ashore and save their lives. We must warn these people here—”
“They are coming down to be warned,” Hoo interrupted, and lifted a dripping aim.
Down towards the edge of the sea was walking a group of men and women with skins as yellow as old gold and liquid dark eyes. Some of them were clad in flowing blue or white gowns, but most wore short and occasionally ragged kirtles, with wood-soled sandals on their feet. They were of all ages; the tallest among them would overtop Creohan by half a head, but he was an exception. They chattered excitedly as they approached, and Creohan realised with a sinking heart that he could not understand a word they were saying.
Nonetheless, he plodded forward to the beach, reflecting on what a sight they must look: all naked, he and Hoo shaggy of hair and beard—but clean, at least, after their involuntary bath.
One who seemed to be a leader among the yellow folk looked the newcomers up and down thoughtfully, and then addressed them in the strange musical tongue they had already heard. He had no weapons, nor did any of his company, and Creohan worried once more about their ability to deal with the brown warriors.
He said at length, “Do any of you speak our tongue?”
A man and woman dressed identically in blue gowns answered him together, speaking with a far better accent than the brown warriors. “Yes, some of us do!”
“Then take warning! Though they come swimming, instead of in their boats as they had hoped, there is a gang of cruel brown marauders approaching from the sea!”
“Little men?” said the blue-gowned woman, and on his nod, to their enormous surprise, gave a cheerful laugh. The man turned to interpret to the others, while she continued to Creohan.
“My name is Liang-liang, and I am a student of history. I know that many times in the past small brown men have come out of the east thinking to prey on us, but we have never had much trouble in driving them away. This time, thanks to the warning you’ve brought, it should be simpler than ever.”
“The brown people have been here before?” Creohan demanded in surprise. “Why, they always denied even suspecting that there were inhabited lands this side of the ocean!”
“Quite possibly the present party do not know,” Liang-liang shrugged. “They are afflicted with vanity as vast as their bodies are small, and since we each time drove them off with no difficulty they doubtless invented comforting lies and forgot their humiliating encounter with us. It has been three generations, certainly, since they last ventured to this coast.”
Creohan’s shoulders slumped as he thought of the days of mental agony he had undergone, pointlessly. Liang-liang made a sympathetic sound.
“We would not wish to seem unappreciative of the tribulations you’ve undergone to bring us this warning,” she said. “Come with us to the city, and we shall feed you and clothe you and let you rest a while.”
The group was breaking up; young men and women in kirtles were departing at a run along the beach, and the leader, who seemed to have been amused to hear Creohan’s story as it was translated to him, chuckled quietly as he also turned to go. Liang-liang invited them to follow her.
Their path took them over soft smooth sand for a while, then onto dunes crowned with springy tough grass. Another hundred paces, and they were at the city, passing between houses unlike any that Chalyth and Creohan had ever seen, for they were plainly made by human hands and not grown from seed. They were simple and low-built and square, and around each of them was a plot of land where fruit-bearing plants grew in tidy straight rows. This was a community that differed radically from his own, Creohan realised, and wondered if here they might find knowledge which would enable them to do something-anything-to help avert the doom of Earth. At the least, he assured himself, these people would probably listen to him with sympathy.
“Creohan!” said Chalyth abruptly. “Look there!”
And he saw it with a pang of despair. Unmistakable under the shifting light from above, squat and bulky in the centre of a small open space, there reared up just such a House of History as those in the grove which overlooked their own city. No other explanation occurred to him than that these people too must be obsessed with the vanished past, rather than concerned about the as-yet unsettled future.
“Here too …” he said sickly, and did not have the heart to complete his utterance.
XVII
They were taken into one of the houses and given gowns of white soft fabric and woven sandals for their feet. Liang-liang herself combed out their hair and singed the beards of Hoo and Creohan to manageable length. Meantime, a young man brought small trays with tripod legs and set one before each of them; these carried cups of a nourishing and savoury broth, plump loaves stuffed with a puree of shellfish, and tart little red fruits coated in honey. Eating and drinking, they felt their spirits revive.
Their hosts did not as yet inquire into their connection with the brown warriors, apparently content to wait until the newcomers broached the subject themselves, but whether this was from politeness or lack of curiosity Creohan could not be sure.
In a while another young man came to the house and spoke in the native language; what he said appeared to amuse him, for he grinned broadly, and upon Liang-liang translating for their benefit the visitors realised why.
“If you are not too tired,” she said, “you may care to come back to the beach. My friend tells me that the first of the little brown men are swimming ashore, and the reception we have prepared for them should entertain you, I think.”
“Tired I am,” Chalyth said, rising from the cushions on which she had sat to eat her meal. “But the discomfiture of the little brown men is a sight I’d sorely hate to miss.”
“Come then,” Liang-liang invited, and they all three followed her.
She guided them to the shore by a different path, which ended on a rise capped with a dense clump of flowering shrubs, offering complete concealment. Parting the branches and peering out, she chuckled, then made room for the travellers to look also.
From here, they could survey the whole of the section of the beach where they themselves had arrived. A hundred paces distant, a group of the brown warriors had ranged themselves into a horseshoe shape, in all numbering twenty-odd. Creohan’s guess was that these were the few who had managed to retain their weapons, which they held poised as they stared warily around.
Within the protection of this armed outer ring, others who had been overcome by exhaustion during their long swim were coughing up water, stretching cramped muscles, giving one another massage. While they watched, two or three more warriors appeared on hands and knees in the shallows, and their comrades went to help them ashore. There were fewer lights here than had been the case before, and Creohan’s whispered question to Liang-liang confirmed that, as he had suspected, the creatures were being deliberately driven away.
“The menace of things half-perceived in twilight is the key to our plan,” Liang-liang added.
“What else does it consist: in?” Creohan asked.
“Out of sight, as we are., among trees and bushes are halt a hundred of our people. You will see in a moment what they are about-ah, already I smell the smoke!”
It wafted pungently to their nostrils, and a few seconds later reached the little brown men, who tensed suspiciously. Those being massaged left the middle of the ring and joined the outside group. Bit by bit, the whole nearer edge of the city was being obscured by a mass of smoke. Abruptly a figure appeared within it, five times the height of a man with a crested helmet on his head and a huge curved sword
Heartbeats later, another like him took form within the smoke-cloud, and another, and another, closing with awful slowness on the little brown men. As they drew near it could be seen that their eyes glowed hellish red and their mouths were full of immense fangs dripping greenish phosphorescence.
Hoo gave a muttered exclamation, alarmed at the monsters, but Liang-liang reassured him.
“They are only jointed dolls carried forward through the smoke,” she whispered. “There are lanterns behind their eyes, and their teeth are smeared with a liquid made from fish-scales.”
Creohan nodded. That was much what he had worked out for himself. But when a colossal booming voice rang around the beach directly afterwards, he could not repress a start of astonishment. It was as though a hundred people had spoken at once, crying, “I see you, little men!”
“That is our greatest singer, Tran-niong,” Liang-liang informed him. “He’s speaking through a long wooden tube to amplify his voice. Now see how the courage of these boastful little fools wears thin!”
Indeed, some of them already had fallen on their knees, or cast aside their weapons and fled incontinently towards the safety of darkness. One among them, whom Creohan thought to be their lord, but at his true height now having lost his stilt-soled shoes in the sea, screamed with rage and belaboured them with fists and feet. That resource failing him, he snatched up a dropped sword and used it on the nearest he judged to be a coward. The man collapsed with a gash from shoulder to hip, howling, and that was the last straw. The most steadfast of the little band could not bear to have their own lord attacking them, and took to their heels, some returning to the sea, others diving among the bushes where the natives easily made prisoners of them. Within minutes the lord was left alone on the beach, screaming defiance at the monstrous silhouettes in the smoke, which had now placed their sword-points on the ground and, leaning on the hilts, were studying him with a kind of amused tolerance.
“Fight!” screeched the little lord. “Fight, I say!”
But instead the vast figures looked at one another, gave simultaneous shrugs, and turned their backs to walk away. That was more than the lord could stand. By now foaming at the mouth with impotent rage, the lord reversed his sword, set its point beneath his chin, and flung himself forward to the sand.
There was a long moment of silence, as though the victors were dismayed at their own triumph, and lacked heart to utter cries of jubilation. At length Hoo said soberly, “Were I one of them, I should think this a land of devils!”
“They have seen nothing but their own fears, as if in a mirror,” said Liang-liang. “Did they not roam abroad to attack peaceful strangers, they would not be ashamed of their small stature, for they are all alike among themselves. Such people are causelessly jealous, and it is easy to make them destroy themselves. But it is not pleasant. There are many among us who will sleep badly from now on.”
Firmly, she turned her back on the spectacle of the body leaking blood, and gave them a courtly bow. “You’re doubtless tired,” she said. “Shall we return to your accomodation?”
They fell in behind her, and nothing more was said until they passed close by the same open place they had seen before, where stood the House of History. Then Creohan said, “Tell me, Liang-liang: is that not a House of History?”
“A Tree of History,” Liang-liang countered. “Yes, a tool for students like myself who are concerned to search out the past history of our race. You’ve seen them elsewhere on your travels, I presume?”
“You use them for no other purpose than to gather knowledge?” Chalyth pressed her.
“Of course.” Liang-liang sounded surprised. “What other purpose could they serve?”
“In our city—” Creohan began, and explained about the Historickers. Liang-liang was horrified at what he told her.
“But that’s unworthy!” she exclaimed. “Our Trees are not freely open to anyone who wants to waste his life in dreaming! Would you have an—an artist lend his paints to any child who wanted to scribble on a wall? Those are the tools of our craft, and they’re precious. Besides, they’re dangerous in untrained hands, no less than a sharp knife. We have a great project, here in our city. We are analysing and setting into a coherent sequence all the memories which our Trees impart, attempting to trace the entire story of human endeavour. When the pattern is complete, we hope to grow a last and final Tree, so planned that a man may enter by the door and pass slowly through, reviewing the whole grand panorama of human history.”
“You have the skill to do that?” Creohan said wonderingly.
“We hope to acquire it, merely,” Liang-liang admitted. “These Trees we have were not grown by us—they were brought here in the time of the Mending of Men, a thousand years ago, and our community has been at work on its project for not much more than three centuries. But we are daily gathering the necessary data. Already we have completely sifted and analysed as far back as the Lymarian Empire, fourteen thousand years ago.”
“The Trees, though, have been in existence more than twice as long,” said Creohan. He had learned that much from Molichant.
“I fear so,” Liang-liang conceded. “But we shall come to the requisite knowledge some day, that’s for sure. Now here we are!” She halted before the door of one of the typical low-built houses, and ushered them inside. “Your accomodation while you stay with us—I trust it’s to your liking?”
Entering, Creohan found himself in a single large airy room, around the walls of which were disposed high piles of cushions in many bright colours. There were decorations hanging from the ceiling: scroll-paintings skilfully executed, jingling constructs of bells and metal wire, fresh flowers in tiny porcelain water-pots. A stream of warm water crossed one corner in a wide pipe of deep blue glass, knee-high and open at the top. From it wafted, with the steam, a delicate scent like ripe fruit. Chalyth ran straight over to that, dipped her hand in, and uttered loud approval, while Hoo—overcome by weariness—dropped plump on one of the stacks of cushions and leaned back limply.
Creohan, however, barely took in his surroundings, and Liang-liang inquired anxiously whether something was wrong. He roused himself with an effort.
“No, I was merely distracted! This place is beautiful. I was thinking of the unlikelihood of your ever completing this grand project you’ve described to us.”
“Why?” Liang-liang’s voice was just perceptibly tinged with offence. “I assure you we do not lack the persistence it demands!”
“No, no, you misunderstand me.” Creohan took a deep breath. “Had it occurred to you to wonder how we came to fall into the hands of the brown warriors, and voyage so far from our own home city?”
“Indeed. But we are not in the habit of demanding that our visitors should give an account of themselves before we extend our hospitality.”
Another misunderstanding! But Creohan was too weary to sort it out. He merely summed up, in the baldest possible terms, the dreadful discovery which had led to his and Chalyth’s departure on this random journey.
“This is a very serious matter,” Liang-liang said, when she had heard him out. “And I apologise for mistaking the import of your earlier remarks. I must carry the news at once to Kiong-binu, our leader whom you met on the beach when you came ashore. And tomorrow, or as soon as it can be arranged, it must be discussed by the full assembly of the people! Leave it with me, then, and rest well, in the assurance that the matter is under urgent consideration.”
Bowing, she withdrew. Creohan looked at his companions. “Well?” he said. “What do you think? These seem to be a sober and determined people—could they be the ones to turn aside disaster?”
“They have a rich store of knowledge to draw upon,” Hoo said around a cavernous yawn. “More than that it’s far too soon to say.” He twisted sideways and lay down on the stacked cushions; almost at once he was asleep.
“Chalyth?” Creohan said, turning. But she had peeled off her gown and scrambled into the open pipe of water, luxuriating in the chance to rid her skin of the sea-salt crusting it. After reflection, Creohan decided that the most sensible course was to do the same, and clambered in to join her.
XVIII
Having been awoken early in the morning by the same young man who had brought them food before, this time with trays of identical-looking fist-sized rolls each of which when broken revealed a different filling, some sweet, some sour, some salty, but all good, they were shortly after waited upon by Liang-liang again, who gave every appearance of having slept little. Nonetheless, she was not impatient to disturb them, and chatted lightly while they ate, telling something of the origins of this community and incidentally demonstrating that the cult of the Historickers could not have been unique where Creohan and Chalyth hailed from; for, she said, when the ancestors of the present generation, who had been a hundred-member family of wandering bards and soothsayers, came to this place and resolved to settle around the scattered Trees of History, they found in several of them bleached bones, testifying to the power which the alluring visions of a greater past held over the minds of the ignorant and undisciplined.
