Piers Anthony: Var the Stick

And a few days after they thought the ocean would never end, they sighted the mainland of Asia.

And the people spoke incomprehensibly.

"Yes, of course," Soi said in response to his bewilderment. "They speak Chinese. Or they will, when we reach China. The map says' it's-well, see, we have a long way 'to go yet."

Two thousand miles or more, it seemed to Var. Months of travel.

They were sick of the ocean, but the overland route looked worse. They searched out a place to buy gasoline, paying for it with artifacts from the boat, and hopped southwest along what the map called the Kuril islands, then north inside of Sakhalin, and finally back to the mainland of Manchuria. The preposterous pre-Blast names were fascinating.

Now the land route promised to be more direct and safe. They had either to use the boat or dispose of it, and they remained more at home afoot. So, regretfully, they decided to sell it. They went to a place that had similar craft and inquired until an old man was brought who spoke a little American.

"America?" he asked, amazed. "Destroyed-Blast."

By and by they conducted a party to the boat, and the sale was completed. Soli was cynical about the value, expecting to be cheated, but there seemed to be little choice. At any rate, they obtained enough currency to buy local outfits and equipment, and some Written primers in the language-including an ancient, pre-Blast text with American equivalents.

They hiked again and drilled each other on the written symbols. Soli-said they were not like-the writing-she knew, but that they made sense once she got used to them. And though there were many spoken dialects, so that travelers like them would be constantly confused, the Written, language covered the entire region. With these symbols they could always communicate-provided they met someone literate.

Overall, the landscape resembled what they had known on the other continent-mountainous, wild, and riddled by patches of badlands radiation. The natives near the coast were civilized in the fashion of New Crete-without human sacrifice, but with other cultural problems. Those inland were more primitive-like the American nomads, but without the substantial benefits of crazy technology or supplied hostels. Most left the strangers alone, but some were belligerent, and no circle circumscribed the combat.

Had Var and Soli not been apt at self-defense, they would not have lived very long.

They followed the river Amur inland, not from any love of the water but because it showed the best route through the formidable mountain ranges. When it veered northwest, they shifted to a large tributary. Months passed and they came at last to the fringe of the actual Chinese territories. The Chinese influence, like that of the crazies in America, extended through the entire region, perhaps all the continent; but their written language unified the diverse peoples in a subtle but comprehensive way. Var, having learned the very real constraints upon the seemingly free nomad society, was sure that similar factors operated here.

Similar in principle, if not in detail. There must, indeed, be a Chinese Helicon.

Yet as they neared their supposed destination, their camaraderie became more strained. Soli was filling out, and Var was too well aware of this. Sometimes be touched his bracelet, thinking of offering it to her-but this always reminded him of what had happened when he first took his manhood. Girls of band-borrowing age did not appreciate ugly men, and Var knew himself to be grotesque.

And she was beautiful. Perhaps in the flower of her maidenhood her mother Sola bad been like this, so lovely that the mightiest warriors of the age contested for her favor and lived lies without complaint. Soli tended to hide her charms under rough, loose clothing; but when she bathed-as she did even now without embarrassment- her naked body was wonderous.

Soli had never remarked on it, but she could hardly favor his mottled skin, battered countenance and clubbed extremities. Children did not care so much about such things, but Soli would never be a child again.

Var saw, occasionally, the literate ladies of this core Chinese culture. They were like crafted dolls, delicate and delightful, their motions constrained, their demeanors diffident In contrast, the peasant women were brutes-stout, plain, hunched of body, coarse of expression.

Var knew that the wandering life he was making for SoIi would shape her into the peasant mold. He could not bear the thought. Increasingly it preyed upon him, and when hO saw some crone be fancied Soli's face on her.

The background level of civilization rose as they entered the Chinese heartland. The people here were yellowish of skin and their eyes were different, and their manners tended to be almost ritualistically polite. The women were eloquent-the highborn ones. Var learned that they attended institutions somewhat like the crazy schools, that brought them to the mature state. Then, as sophisticated ladies, they married, and did not do hand labor again. House-hold servants performed the chores.

Var decided that this would be a better life for Soli. But he didn't know how to explain this philosophy, and feared she would not understand his intent, so he didn't try.

One night when she slept beside him in the forest, he rose stealthily. She woke, however. "Var?"

"Have to-you know," he said, feeling a pang of guilt for his lie. To reassure her, he urinated noisily against a tree, then squatted. In a moment her breathing became even and he moved quietly away.

Just as he passed beyond the normal hearing range, he heard something-either an animal moving, or Soli rolling over and striking dry leaves. His pang came again, quite forcefully, and he wavered and almost went back. But he heard nothing else, and forced himself to go on.

He ran five miles back to one of the schools they had passed that day. He pounded on the gate for admittance and finally roused an old caretaker-a near-sighted, graybearded, bony man who was not pleased to be disturbed at this hour. Var tried to talk to him, but his words were evidently of the wrong dialect and inadequate to the concept. He did make the oldster understand that he had to see the authority figure for the school. With grumbling, the man retired into the bowels of the building to search that person out, while Var waited nervously outside the gate.

Ten minutes later he was admitted to the presence of the head matron. She had obviously just gotten up, and wore a nightrobe, but he could tell from her aspect that she was sharp of mind. Her face was lined though she was heavyset, and her hair was glossy black.

She could not understand him either, though she appeared to speak a number of dialects. Then she made a symbol on a sheet of paper, and Var knew they could coinmunicate after all. For these symbols were universal, here, and had the same meaning regardless of the dialect spoken, or even the language. Var was borderline-literate, now, so far as these symbols were concerned; he had picked up several hundred in the past few months; as had Soli, and could use them for making purchases and clarifying posted directives such as 'Radiation Ahead."

For two hours they passed messages back and forth. At the end of that silent dialogue Var had purchased admittance for Soli to the school. He was to pay the tuition by doing brutework for the maintenance department.

He described her location, and a party went out, armed.

Var reported to the cellar, where the gray-bearded man showed him to a wooden bunk near the giant furnace. He was now the assistant to this man, for good or ill.

He had sold them both into a kind of servitude. But Soli would emerge with her future secure.

It was a month before he saw her again, for the hired help had no legitimate contact with the elite girls. But as he hauled wood and peat for the furnace, and pounded stakes for new fencing, and carried supplies for the daily wagon to the kitchen, and did the thousand things the older man had somehow managed before, he picked up hints. He mastered the common local words and received the local gossip.