Edmund Cooper - Seahorse in the Sky

“You may speak.”

“I discovered the body of your warrior, Lord Russell, many varaks to the north of Keep Marur. I had been commanded by my sept lord to draw pictures of all the land wherein we now live, so that these pictures might again be drawn for you also… Lord, I know not what to say of the death of your warrior.

There was not the smell or mark of wild beasts about him. Nor yet were there wounds such as are received in battle. It may be that demons have made sport of him.”

“The demons who did this work,” said Russell grimly, “are such that I and my companions would wish to encounter.”

“Well spoken,” said Absu. “But a man cannot offer combat to demons, Russell… If, however, these demons be of fleshly form, the lances of Keep Marur would joyfully demand of them a reckoning.”

“Lord,” said the pathfinder, “the body of this man was much plagued by flies and other small creatures when I found him. Therefore I formed the idea that he had died some time before. Though I looked for the agent of destruction, there was nothing to be seen. Yet he lay wedged between two rocks in such a manner that the task of loosing him was both difficult and one of little joy.”

While the pathfinder had been talking, John Howard had steeled himself to examine Tore’s body.

He held something up and looked at Russell, pale and trembling.

“What do you make of that?”

Russell looked at the frayed and bloody wire. He saw where the strands seemed to enter into the half severed waist. “That explains, at least, how he was almost cut in two,” said Russell with difficulty.

“Some bastard was probably dragging him along. He got wedged between the rocks, and whoever or whatever was on the other end of the wire just didn’t want to know.”

“Or wasn’t equipped to know,” said John with a sudden intuitive flash. “Russell, the last tune anybody saw Tore was that night when he told the girls he had an extra guard duty.” “But we know he didn’t have one.”

“Exactly. There was something he wanted to do, and it could only be done at night… Three guesses?”

Andrew Payne shivered and felt the scar on his neck. “Spiders,” he said.

“That’s it! Tore was laying a trap for one of the spiders… My guess is he wanted to follow one and see where it went. But in the dark he might lose it. So he found some way of attaching himself to the bloody thing.”

Russell forced himself to bend down and look more closely at the remains. “The injuries could have been caused by him being dragged, I suppose… Maybe he fell over and couldn’t get up again. Or maybe the damned robot went far too fast for him, and he didn’t get a chance to free himself.”

“I think we’ve got it!”

“I think so, too… Well, let’s put poor Tore into the ground. There’s nothing else we can do for him.

I expect the others will want to say their goodbyes to him, but we can leave that till tomorrow.” He turned to Absu. “Allow us to lay our comrade to rest. It will ease our minds to bury him in the earth according to our custom. Afterwards, we will talk and offer you refreshment.”

“Why do you not burn him?” asked Absu. “It is the custom in Gren Li to burn our dead. Thus are their spirits liberated into the air which gives them life.”

“In our land also the dead are sometimes burned,” replied Russell. “But here, on this strange world, we find it easier to bury.”

“It is permitted that strangers be present?”

“We welcome your presence.”

“Thus is our bond strengthened,” said Absu simply. He watched Andrew start digging with a spade while John and Russell wrapped the body carefully in the plain white sheet. Then he glanced at the other spade and motioned to his pathfinder. “Farn zem Marur, we have brought a present of grief to this sept and the lord of this sept. Make deep the hole, that the friend of our friends and the grief of his death may be hidden from the sight of man for ever.”

THE LORD OF SEPT Marur and his pathfinder, having left their weapons at the door as a token of trust, sat at a table in the bar of the Erewhon Hilton, gazing with some wonderment at the profusion of electric lights, and each sipping his first gin and tonic with proper respect. Eleven terrestrials were also present.

Janice and Andrea—who had come to love Tore Norstedt and had cheerfully shared his attentions— had retired to weep their hearts out and console each other as well as they could.

Farn zem Marur unrolled a flayed and cured pulpul skin on the table before him. It was darker and rougher than parchment, but it served well enough for the little drawing and writing in which the Gren Li people indulged. On the pulpul skin, Farn had drawn a pictorial map of the entire zoo. Keep Marur, Russell was amused to note, was a faithful representation of the original. The bridge huts of the People of the River were also accurately represented. But the Erewhon Hilton and its environs were shown by three concentric circles in which there was some minute writing that looked a little like Arabic.

“What does this mean?” asked Russell.

Absu smiled and sneezed. He was not yet used to the bubbles in the tonic water. “It means: Here live the magicians. For such you have proved yourselves to be.”

Russell sighed. “Our skills, Absu, are limited. As you saw, they did not prevent our friend from dying.”

“All men are mortal,” returned Absu. “Even magicians. Destiny knows no favourites… What think you of the pathfinder’s art?”

“I think he has made a very good map indeed.” Russell turned to Farn. “You have yourself seen all that you have set down here?”

“Yes, Lord Russell Grahame. All that I have set down, I have seen. When I returned to Keep Marur, joyfully finding that my sept lord whom I had gone to seek had returned before me, I was again commanded to venture forth. The lord Absu required a full drawing of the land wherein we live, enclosed by vapours. This journey was long and not without hazard; for, upon it, I lost my pulpul and very nearly my life.”

“How did this happen?” asked Russell.

“I was passing through the forest that lies near those who have their dwellings upon the river. I had stopped for a moment or two, and had dismounted from the pulpul so that I might mark my progress upon the skin I carried with me… Lord, it were well that I had dismounted, for no sooner had I done so than the pulpul fell dead, a rough lance having passed through it. By the robe, the thrust was a mighty one. But I had little time to marvel at it, for he who had hurled the lance presented himself with axe and war cry as my sword came free of the sheath. Matters seemed desperate since the warrior, though poorly clad and armed, was great of stature and not without courage. It was fortunate that I have some little skill in the ways of disputation, otherwise my lord Absu might have experienced some displeasure with one who failed to return.”

“You killed the stranger, then?”

The pathfinder smiled. “Lord Russell Grahame, in truth the warrior killed himself. He either cared nought for my weapon or was determined to perish. He ran upon my sword, and was as amazed when it passed through him, as I was by the act. I know not which of us was the more astounded. Then, even as he sank to his knees, with Death lifting from him the need for argument, he spoke. And I was again amazed that his tongue should be my tongue—as it is so with you, Lord, and with the sept of magicians—though the shapes his mouth made were strange and ugly.”

“What did he say?” inquired Russell intently.

“Lord, the words were of the Gren Li language yet contained little substance. I could not understand.”