Brian Aldiss: Helliconia Summer

“I’m not going to wait, I’m not going to wait! I know all about what wives should be and what wives should do, and I am going to be your wife in every single particle.”

They began to kiss furiously. Then he pushed her away, laughing.

“You little spitfire, you jewel, you posy. We’ll wait till circumstances are more propitious and I have made some sort of peace with your parents.”

“But now is always a popiters time,” she wailed.

To distract her, he said, “Listen, I have a little wedding present for you. It’s almost all I possess here. I shall heap gifts upon you when we are back home in Matrassyl.”

He took from his tunic the timepiece with the three faces and held it out to her.

The dials read:

Milua Tal took it and looked rather disappointed. She tried it on her brow, but the ends would not meet at the back of her head.

“Where am I supposed to wear it?”

“As a bracelet?”

“Maybe so. Well, thanks Jan. I’ll wear it later.” She threw the watch down and then, with a sudden movement, pulled off her damp dress.

“Now you can inspect me and see if you are going to get good value.”

He began to pray but his eyes would not close as she danced about the room. She smiled lasciviously, seeing in his eyes the awakening of his khmir. He ran to her, seized her, and carried her to the bed.

“Very well, my delicious Milua Tal. Here beginneth our married life.”

Over an hour later, they were roused from their raptures by a violent quake. The timbers about them groaned, their little lamp was pitched to the floor. The bed rattled. They jumped up, naked, and felt how the floor rocked.

“Shall we go out?” she asked. “The park jumps about a little, doesn’t it?”

“Wait a minute.”

The tremors were long sustained. Dogs howled in town. Then it was over, and a dead silence prevailed.

In that silence, thoughts worked like maggots in the king’s head. He thought of the vows he had made—all broken. Of the people he loved—all betrayed. Of the hopes he had entertained—all dead. He could not find, in the prevailing stillness, consolation anywhere, not even in the perspiring human body lying against his.

His eyes with their leaden stare fixed on an object which had dropped onto the rush mat on the floor. It was the timepiece once owned by BillishOwpin, the article of an unknown science which had woven its way through the tenners of his decline.

With a sudden shout of rage, he jumped up and hurled the timepiece away, out through the north-facing window. He stood there naked, glaring, as if daring the thing to return to his hand.

After a moment of fright, Milua Tal joined him, resting her hand on his shoulder. Without words, they leaned out of the window to breathe cooler air.

An eerie white light shone in the north, outlining horizons and trees. Lightning danced noiselessly in the middle of it.

“By the beholder, what’s happening?” JandolAnganol asked, clutching the slender shoulders of his bride.

“Don’t be alarmed, Jan. It’s the earthquake lights—they soon die. We often see them after a particularly bad quake. It’s a kind of night-rainbow.”

“Isn’t it quiet?” He realized that there was no sound of the First Phagorian moving about nearby, and was suddenly alarmed.

“I can hear something.” Suddenly she ran to the opposite window, and screamed. “Jandol! Look! The palace!”

He ran to her and looked out. On the far side of Loylbryden Square, the palace was alight. The entire wooden facade was ablaze, with clouds of smoke rolling up towards the stars.

“The quake must have caused a fire. Let’s go and see if we can help—fast, fast, my poor moth!” Her pigeon voice shrilled.

Aghast, the two dressed and ran out. There were no phagors in the park but, as they crossed the square, they saw them.

The First Phagorian stood armed, staring at the blazing palace, guarding it. They watched without movement as the flames took ever firmer hold. Townspeople stood at a distance, gazing helplessly, kept at bay by the phagors.

JandolAnganol went to break through the phagorian ranks, but a spear was thrust out and his way barred. Phagor-Major Ghht Mlark Chzarn saluted her leader and spoke.

“You may not make a coming to more nearness, sir, because danger. We have made a bringing of flames to all Sons of Freyr in that churchplace below the ground. Knowledge reaches our harneys that the evil king and the church-king would bring killing to your all servants of this Guard.”

“You had no orders.” He could scarcely speak. “You’ve slain Akhanaba—the god made in your image.”

The creature before him with its deep scarlet eyes brought a three-fingered hand to its skull, “Orders have formed in our harneys. Make arrival from long time. Once, this place izz ancient Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk… Further sayance…”

“You’ve slain the C’Sarr, Akhanaba… everything… everything…” He could scarcely hear what the ancipital was saying, for Milua Tal was holding his hand and screaming at the top of her voice. “My moth, my moth, my poor mother!”

“Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk once ancient place of ancipital kind. Not give to Sons of Freyr.”

He failed to understand. He pushed against her spear, then drew his own sword. “Let me through, Major Chzarn, or I shall kill you.”

He knew how useless threats were. Chzarn merely said, without emotion, “Not go through, sir.”

“You’re the fire god, Jan—command it die!” As she parrot-screamed, she raked his flesh, but he did not move. Chzarn was intent on explaining something and wrestled with words before managing to say, “Ancient Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk good place, sir. Air-octaves make a song. Before Sons of Freyr any on Hrl-Ichor Yhar. In ancient time of T’Sehn-Hrr.”

“It’s the present, the present! We live and die in present time, gillot!” He tried to wind himself up to strike but was unable to do so, despite the screaming girl at his side. His will failed. The flames burned in the pupils of his narrowed eyes.

The phagor obstinately continued her explanation, as if she were an automaton.

“Ancipitals here, sir, before Sons of Freyr. Before Freyr make bad light. Before T’Sehn-Hrr goance, sir. Old sins, sir.”

Or perhaps she just said ‘old things’. In the fury of the blaze, it was impossible to hear. With a roar, part of the palace roof collapsed and a column of fire rolled up into the night sky. Pillars crashed forward into the square.

The crowd cried in unison and stumbled back. Among the watchers was AbathVasidol; she clung to the arm of a gentleman from the Sibornalese embassy as everyone shrank from the heat.

The Holy C’Sarr… all destroyed,” cried JandolAnganol in pain. Milua Tal hid her face in JandolAnganol’s side and wept. “All destroyed… all destroyed.”

He made no attempt to comfort the girl or to push her away. She was nothing to him. The flames devoured his spirit. In that holocaust were consumed his ambitions—the very ambitions the fire would fulfil. He could be master of Oldorando as well as Borlien, but in that ceaseless changing of things into their opposites, that chastising enantiodromia which made a god into a phagor, he no longer wished for that mastery.

His phagors had brought him a triumph, in which he saw clearly his defeat. His thoughts flew to MyrdemInggala:

but his and her summer was over, and this great bonfire of his enemies was his autumn beacon.

“All destroyed,” he said aloud.

But a figure approached them, moving elegantly through the ranks of the First Phagorian, arriving almost at a saunter in time to remark, “Not quite all, I’m glad to say.”

Despite his attempt at customary nonchalance, Esomberr’s face was pale and he trembled visibly.