Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Winter

He saw how members of the crowd who were impeded in some way fell first to the stabbing spears: pedlars with trays, women with babies or small children, the lame, the sick. Some were trampled underfoot. A baby was scooped up and flung into the heart of a fire.

As Asperamanka and his two bullies drew guns and started firing, the horned ancipital wheeled its russet-haired mount and charged at the Master. It came straight, its skull low over the massive skull of the kaidaw. In its eye was no light of battle, simply a dull cerise stare: it was doing what it did according to some ancient template set in its eotemporal brain.

Asperamanka fired. The bullets lost themselves in the thick pelage of animal. It faltered in mid-stride. The two bullies turned and ran. Asperamanka stood his ground, firing, shouting. The kaidaw fell suddenly on one knee. Up came the spear. It caught Asperamanka as he turned. The tip entered his skull through the eye socket and he fell back into the monastery entrance.

Luterin ran for his life. He had wrenched his arms free of the belt. He jumped down into the street, into the trampled snow, and ran. There were other running figures nearby, too concerned with saving their own lives to bother with his. He hid behind a house, panting, and surveyed the scene.

Blue shadows and bodies lay on the marketplace. The sky overhead was a deep blue, in which a bright star gleamed—Aganip. Hues of sunset lay to the south. It was bitterly cold.

The mob had surrounded one kaidaw and was pulling its rider to the ground. The others were galloping off to safety—another sign that this was not an arm of a regular ancipital component, which would not have abandoned a fight so easily.

He made his way without trouble towards Sanctity Street and his appointment with Toress Lahl.

Sanctity Street was narrow. Its buildings were tall. Most had been constructed in a better age to house the pilgrims who came to visit the Wheel. Now the shutters were up; many doors were barricaded. Slogans had been painted on the walls: God Keep the Keeper, We Follow the Oligarch—presumably as a form of life insurance. At the rear of the houses and hostels, the snow was piled up to the eaves.

Luterin started cautiously down the street. His mood was one of elation at his escape. He could see beyond the end of the street, where it seemed eternity began. There was an unlimited expanse of snow, its dimensions emphasised by occasional trees. In the distance stretched a band of pink of the most delicate kind, where the sun Freyr still lit on a far cliff, the southern face of the northern ice cap. This vista lifted his spirits further, suggesting as it did the endless possibilities of the planet, beyond the reach of human pettiness. Despite all oppression, the great world remained, inexhaustible in its forms and lights. He might be gazing upon the face of the Beholder herself.

He passed an entranceway where a figure lurked. It called his name. He turned. Through the dusk, he saw a woman wrapped in furs.

“You are almost there. Aren’t you excited?” she said.

He went to her, clutched her, felt her narrow body under the furs.

“Insil! You waited.”

“Only partly for you. The fish seller has something I need. I am sick after that performance in there, with the silly drama and speeches. They think they have conquered nature when they wrap a few words round it. And of course mv sherb of a husband mouthing the word Sibornal as if it were a mouthwash… I’m sick, I need to drug myself against them. What is that filthy curse which the commoners use, meaning to commit irrumation on both suns? The forbidden oath? Tell me.”

“You mean, ‘Abro Hakmo Astab’?”

She repeated it with relish. Then she screamed it.

Hearing her say it excited him. He held her tight and forced his mouth against hers. They struggled. He heard his own voice saying, “Let me biwack you here, Insil, as I’ve always longed to do. You’re not really frigid. I know it. You’re really a whore, just a whore, and I want you.”

“You’re drunk, get away, get away. Toress Lahl is awaiting you.”

“I care nothing for her. You and I are meant for each other. That’s been the case ever since we were children. Let’s fulfill ourselves. You once promised me. Now’s the time, Insil, now!”

Her great eyes were close to his.

“You frighten me. What’s come over you? Let me be.”

“No, no, I don’t have to let you be now. Insil—Asperamanka is dead. The phagors killed him. We can be married now, anything, only let me have you, please, please!”

She wrenched herself away from him.

“He’s dead? Dead? No. It can’t be. Oh, the cur!” She started screaming and ran down the street, holding up her trailing skirt above the trodden snow.

Luterin followed in horror at her distress.

He tried to detain her but she said something which he at first could not understand. She was crying for a pipe of occhara.

The fish seller was, as she had said, at the end of the street. A short passage had been constructed beyond the original shop front, allowing passengers to enter without bringing the cold in with them. Above the door was a sign saying ODIM’S FINEST FISH.

Tliey entered a dim parlour where several men stood, warmly wrapped, all of them metamorphosed winter shapes. Seals and large fish hung on hooks. Smaller fish, crabs, and eels were bedded in ice on a counter. Luterin took little notice of his surroundings, so concerned was he for Insil, who was now almost hysterical.

But the men recognized her. “We know what she wants,” one said, grinning. He led her into a rear room.

One of the other men came forward and said, “I remember you, sir.”

He was youthful and had a vaguely foreign look about him.

“My name is Kenigg Odim,” he said. “I sailed with you on that journey from Koriantura to Rivenjk. I was just a lad then, but you may recollect my father, Eedap Odim.”

“Of course, of course,” said Luterin distractedly. “A dealer in something. Ivory, was it?”

“Porcelain, sir. My father still lives in Rivenjk, and organises supplies of good fish to come up here every week. It’s a paying business, and there’s no demand for porcelain these days. Life’s better down in Rivenjk, sir, I must say. Fine feelings is about as much good as fine porcelain up here.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s so.”

“We also do a trade in occhara, sir, if you would care for a free pipe. Your lady friend is a regular customer.”

“Yes, bring me a pipe, man, thank you, and what of a lady called Toress Lahl? Is she here?” “She’s expected.”

“All right.” He went through into the rear room. Insil Esikananzi was resting on a couch, smoking a long-stemmed pipe. She looked perfectly calm, and regarded Luterin without speaking.

He sat by her without a word, and presently the young Odim brought him a lighted pipe. He inhaled with pleasure and immediately felt a mood strangely compounded of resignation and determination steal over him. He felt he was equal to anything. He understood now Insil’s expanded irises, and held her hand.

“My husband is dead,” she announced. “Did you know that? Did I tell you what he did to me on our wedding night?”

“Insil, I’ve had enough confidences from you for one day. That episode in your life is over. We are still young. We can marry, can make one another happy or miserable, as the case may be.”

Wreathing herself in smoke, she said from the centre of it, “You are a fugitive. I need a home. I need care. I no longer need love. What I need is occhara. I want someone who can protect me. I want you to get Asperamanka back.”

“That’s impossible. He’s dead.”

“If you find it impossible, Luterin, then please be quiet and leave me to my thoughts. I am a widow. Widows never last long in winter…” He sat by her, sucking on the occhara, letting his thoughts die. “If you could also kill my father, the Keeper, this remote community could revert to nature. The Wheel would stop. The plague could come and go. The survivors would see the Weyr-Winter through.” “There will always be survivors. It’s a law of nature.” “My husband showed me the laws of nature, thank you. I do not wish for another husband.”