Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

“Is it possible there was once a great city here? Could anyone rebuild it in times to come? People like us, with wealth?”

Getting no answer, he squatted on the wall, staring down at her back, and added more questions. “What did all the people eat? Do you think Shay Tal knows about such things? Is her treasure here?”

She, sewn into her furs, stooping, looked from above more like an animal than a girl. She was prying into an alcove among the stones, not really attending to him.

“The priest who comes from Borlien says that Borlien was once a huge country that ruled all Oldorando farther than hawk can fly.”

He set his keen gaze across the countryside, which a thick cloud layer made tenebrous. “That’s nonsense.”

He knew as perhaps Oyre did not that the territory of hawks was circumscribed even more severely than that of men. Shay Tal’s address had brought to his notice other circumscriptions in life, which he now chewed over fruitlessly while scowling down at the figure below. He was vexed with Oyre, he could not say why, longing to probe her in some way, to find tongue for what lay beyond silence.

“Come and see what I’ve found, Laintal Ay!” Her bright dark face looked up at him. Her features had recently fined towards womanhood. He forgot his vexation and slithered down the declivitous wall to land beside her.

She had fetched from the alcove a small naked living thing, its pink rat face distorted with alarm as it wriggled in her grasp.

His hair brushed hers as he looked down at this new arrival in the world. He cupped his rougher hands round hers till their fingers were interlocked round the struggling centre.

She raised her gaze to regard him direct, her lips apart, smiling slightly. He smelt her scent. He grasped her about her waist.

But beside them stood the slave, his face showing sullen comprehension of the flame of new intuition which flew between them. Oyre moved a pace away, then pushed the baby mammal carelessly back into its nook. She scowled down at the ground.

“Your precious Shay Tal doesn’t know everything. Father told me in confidence that he thinks she is definitely strange. Let’s go home now.

Laintal Ay lived with Shay Tal for a while. With his parents and grandparents dead, he was severed from his childhood; but he and Dathka were now fully fledged hunters. Disinherited by his uncles, he determined to prove himself their equal. He thrived and matured early, growing up with a genial expression on his countenance. His jaw was firm, his features clear-cut. His strength and speed soon became generally noticed. Many girls cast a smiling glance on him, but he had eyes only for Aoz Roon’s daughter.

Although he was popular, something about him made people keep their distance. He had taken to heart Shay Tal’s brave words. Some said he was too conscious of his descent from the Great Yuli. He remained apart, even in company. His one close friend was Dathka Den, corpsman turned hunter, and Dathka rarely spoke, even to Laintal Ay. As someone said, Dathka was the next best thing to no- one.

Laintal Ay eventually took up residence with some of the other hunters in the big tower, above Nahkri’s and Klils’ chamber. There he heard the old tales re-told, and learned to sing ancient hunters’ songs. But what he preferred was to take supplies and snow shoes, and rove the countryside newly emerging into green. He no longer sought Oyre’s company on such expeditions.

At this period, nobody else ventured out alone. The hunters hunted together, the swineherds and gozzards had their fixed paths near the settlement, those who tended the brassimips worked in groups. Danger and death so often accompanied solitude. Laintal Ay acquired a reputation for eccentricity, although his good- standing was not damaged, because he added considerably to the number of animal skulls which adorned the stockades of Oldorando.

The storm winds howled. He travelled far, untroubled by the inhospitality of nature. He found his way to unfrequented valleys, and to broken old remains of towns from which the inhabitants had long since fled, leaving their homes to wolves and weather.

At the time of the festival of Double Sunset, Laintal Ay made his name in the tribe with a feat that rivalled his and Aoz Roon’s achievement of capturing the Borlienian traders. He was travelling alone in high country to the northeast of Oldorando, over deep snow, when a hole opened under his feet, and he fell in. At the bottom of the drift sat a stungebag, waiting for its next meal.

Stungebags resemble nothing so much as collapsed wooden huts, covered by makeshift thatch. They grew to great lengths, having few enemies but man, feeding rarely, being inordinately slow. All that Laintal Ay saw of this one, curled at the bottom of its trap, was its asymmetrical horned head and gaping mouth, in which the teeth appeared to be made of wooden pegs. As the jaws closed on his leg, he kicked out and rolled to one side.

Fighting against the encompassing snow, he brought up his spear and wedged it far back in the hinges of the stungebag’s mouth. The animal’s rhythmic struggles were slow but powerful. It knocked Laintal Ay down again, but was unable to close its mouth. Jumping away from the probing horns, he flung himself on the back of the beast, clinging to stiff tufts of hair which burst from between octagonal armour plates. He pulled his knife from his belt. Clutching the hair with one hand, he hacked away at the fibrous tendons that held one of the plates in place.

The stungebag screamed with rage. It too was impeded by the snow and could not roll over sufficiently to crush Laintal Ay. He managed to sever the plate from its back. The plate was splintery, and in texture woodlike. He jammed it down the beast’s throat, and then commenced to cut the clumsy head off.

It fell. No blood ran, only a slight whitish ichor. This stungebag had four eyes—there was a lesser breed with two. One pair stared forward in the skull; the other looked backward and was set in hornlike protrusions at the back of the skull. Both pairs rolled over into the snow, still blinking in disbelief.

The decapitated body began to burrow backwards through the snow at its fastest rate. Laintal Ay followed, struggling through chunks of falling snow until it and he emerged into daylight.

Stungebags were proverbially difficult to kill. This one would keep travelling for a long while before falling to pieces.

Laintal Ay let out a whoop of exhilaration. Bringing out his flints, he jumped up on the neck of the creature and set light to the coarse fur, which burnt with a furious sizzling noise. Evil-smelling smoke billowed into the sky. By burning one side or the other, he was able to do a rough job of steering. The creature shunted backwards towards Oldorando.

Horns sounded from high towers. He saw the spray of geysers. The stockade loomed, decorated with skulls painted in bright colours. Women and hunters ran out to greet him.

He waved his fur cap in return. Seated at the hot end of a blazing wooden caterpillar, he rode it backwards in triumph through the lanes of Embruddock.

Everyone laughed. But it was several days before the stink died from rooms along his triumphal route.

The unburnt remains of Laintal Ay’s stungebag were used up during the festival of Double Sunset. Even slaves were involved with this event—one of them was offered as a sacrifice to Wutra.

Double Sunset coincided in Oldorando with New Year’s Day. It was to be Year 21 by the new calendar, and celebrations were in order. Despite everything that nature could do, life was good and had to be secured by sacrifice.

For weeks, Batalix had been overtaking its slower fellow sentry in the sky. In midwinter, they came close, and days and nights were of equal length, with no dimday intervening.