Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Winter

“Is that what you brought me here to tell me?” he asked at last. “I was not going to have others hear our discussion. I’m chiefly concerned with your contempt for the laws concerning pauk and the ex- termination of phagors, as reported by Evanporil. If you weren’t my son, I would have killed you. Do you understand?”

Luterin shook his head once. He cast his gaze to the floor of the tack room. As in childhood, he was unable to face his father’s eyes. “Do you understand?”

Still Luterin could not speak. He was utterly dismayed by his father’s imperviousness to his feelings.

Lobanster wiped his shining brow and crossed to the table, on which lay a saddle bag among other pieces of harness. He flicked open the buckle on the saddle bag so that a wad of posters came spilling out. He handed one to his son.

“Since you are so fond of Acts, have a look at the latest one.” Sighing, Luterin took it. He barely glanced at it before letting it drop. The sheet sailed into a corner of the room. It stated in black letters that, as a further measure to prevent plague, persons found in a metamorphosed state would be put to death. By Order of the Oligarch. Luterin said nothing.

His father spoke. “You see that if you do not obey my wishes I cannot protect you. Can I?”

At last Luterin stared at his father in misery. “I have served you, Father. I have done as you wished all my life. I went into the army without protest—and acquitted myself well. I have been—and desired nothing better than to be—your possession. No doubt something of the same was in Favin’s mind when he leaped to his death. But now I have to oppose you. Not for my sake. Not even for religion’s sake, or for the State. After all, what are they but abstractions? I must oppose you for your own sake. Either the season or the Oligarch himself has driven you mad.”

A terrible fire shone on his father’s face, while the eyes remained as stoney as ever.

He snatched a long black shoeing knife from the table and held it out to his son. “Take this, you fool, and come outside with me. You must be made to see who is mad.”

The snow was coming down fast, whirling round a grey angle of the mansion as if bent on filling up the courtyard to the very top of its walls as soon as possible. The conspiratorial men stood in a group, hands tucked under their belts, waiting under a porch, heels knocking together for warmth. To one side stood yelk, still saddled, with an anxious stableman still standing among them. Near at hand was a pile of phagor corpses; they had been dead for some while: the snow settled on them without steaming.

To one side, close to an outer gate, a row of rusty iron hooks stuck out from the wall above head level. The naked bodies of four men and a woman dangled by ropes from the hooks.

Lobanster pushed his son in the back, urging him forward. The touch was like fire.

“Cut these dead things down and look at them. Have a good look at their monstrousness and then ask if the Oligarch is not just. Go on.”

Luterin drew near. The killing appeared recent. Moisture stood on the distorted faces of the dead. All five corpses were of people who had survived the Fat Death and metamorphosed.

“Laws have to be obeyed, Luterin, obeyed. Laws are what make society, and without society men are only animals. We caught these people on the way to Kharnabhar today, and we hanged them here because of the law. They died so that society can survive. Do you now think the Oligarch mad?”

As Luterin hesitated, his father said harshly, “Go on, cut them down, look at the agony in their faces, and then ask yourself if you prefer that state to life. When you reach an answer, you can get down on your knees to me.”

The lad looked in appeal at his father. “I loved you as a dog its master. Why do you make me do this?”

“Cut them down!” One hand flew convulsively to the throat. Choking, Luterin came level with the first corpse. He raised the knife and looked up into its distorted face. It was someone he knew.

For a moment, he hesitated. But there was no mistaking that face, even without its moustache. Luterin recalled vividly seeing it in the Noonat Tunnel, livid with exertion. Swinging the knife, he cut down the remains of Captain Harbin Fashnalgid. At the same time, his mind opened, fust for a second, he was the boy about to prefer a year’s paralysis to the truth. He turned to his father.

“Good. That’s one. Now the next. To rule you must obey. Your brother was weak. You can be strong. I heard of your victory at Isturiacha when I was in Askitosh. You can be Keeper, Luterin, and your children. You can be more than Keeper.”

Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth, to be carried along in a vortex of snow. The expression on his son’s face made him pause. In an instant, his demeanour altered. His bell rattled at his hip almost for the first time as he turned to look for his conspiratorial men.

The words burst from Luterin. “Father, you are the Oligarch! You! That’s what Favin discovered, wasn’t it?”

“No!” Lobanster suddenly changed. All command was gone. As he raised his crablike hands, every line of his body expressed fear. He clutched his son’s forearm as Luterin drove the knife up under his rib cage, straight into his heart. Blood burst from the torn clothing and covered both their hands.

The courtyard became a scene of confusion. First to move was the saddler, who cried in terror and rushed out of the gate. He knew what befell menials who witnessed murder. The conspiratorial men were less quick to respond. Their leader was falling to his knees in the snow and then collapsing slowly, one reddened hand tugging weakly at his goitre, over the body of Fashnalgid. They stared at the sight as if paralysed. Luterin did not wait. Horrified though he was, he ran over to the yelk and flung himself on one of them. As he galloped from the yard, a shot came, and he heard the men behind him rushing to follow.

Slitting his eyes against the snow, he spurred on the yelk. Across the rear square. Men shouted. His father’s recently returned cavalcade was still being unloaded. A woman ran, shrieking, slipped, fell. The yelk leaped over her. At the gate there was a move to stop him. It was ill-coordinated. He struck out with his revolver, trying to smash the face of a guard who made to grab his rein. Then he was in the grounds.

As he rode, heading for a belt of trees and the side road, he was saying something over and over again. His mind had lost its rationality. Only a while later could he grasp and understand what he said.

What he constantly repeated to himself was, “Patricide is the greatest crime.”

The words formed a rhythm to his escape.

Nor did he make any conscious decision as to where he was going. There was but one place in Kharnabhar where he might be safe from pursuit. The trees flashed by on either side, smeared across his slitting vision. He rode with his head low on the yelk’s neck, breathing its misty breath, shouting at the creature to tell it what the greatest crime was.

The gates of the Esikananzi estate loomed out of the flying twilight. There was a flicker of lamplight at the lodge, and a man ran out. Then he was torn from view. Beyond the drum of the yelk’s hoofs, above the whistle of the wind, came sounds of pursuit.

He was into the village before he knew it. Bells clashed about his ears as he passed the first monastery. There were people about, muffled to the eyes. Pilgrims screamed and scattered. He glimpsed a waffle stall overturned. Then it too was gone and there were only guardhouses before him until—out of the murk—loomed the ramparts of Mount Kharnabhar. The tunnel with its mighty figures was before him.

Without waiting to do more than check the yelk’s pace, Luterin flung himself off the animal and ran forward. Above, a great bell tolled. It spoke in solemn tones of his guilt. But the instinct for self- preservation drove him onwards. He ran down the ramp. Priestly figures came forward.