Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

They stood and clapped him politely when he left.

At Freyr-set, two days later, Shay Tal was pacing restlessly in her room in the isolated tower. A shout came from below. Immediately she thought of Aoz Roon, though the voice was not his.

She wondered who would venture beyond the barricades when light was growing dim. Putting her head out of the window, she saw Datnil Skar, his figure insubstantial in the dusk.

“Oh, come up, my friend,” she cried. She went down to meet him. He appeared clutching a box, smiling nervously. They sat down facing each other on her stone floor, and she poured him a measure of rathel.

After some idle conversation, he said, “I think you know that I am due to retire soon as master of the tawyers and tanners corps? My chief boy will take my place. I’m getting old and he long ago knew all I have to teach.”

“You come here because of that?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I come here, Mother Shay, because I—I experience an old man’s admiration for you, for your person and your worth… No, let me say it. I have always served and loved this community, and I believe you do the same, though you have the opposition of many men. So I wanted to do you a good turn while I was able to.”

“You’re a good man, Datnil Skar. Oldorando knows it. The community needs good people.”

Sighing, he nodded. “I have served Embruddock—or Oldorando as we should call it—every day of my life, and have never left it. Yet scarcely a day’s gone by …” He broke off in his shy way, smiled, and said, “I believe I am speaking to a kindred spirit when I say that scarcely a day has gone by since I was a lad when I haven’t wondered … wondered what was happening in other places, far away from here.”

He paused, cleared his throat, then said more briskly, “I’ll tell you a tale. It’s only brief. I remember one terrible winter when I was a lad when the phagors attacked, and disease and famine followed. Many people died. And the phagors were dying too, although we didn’t know it at the time. It was so dark, I swear days are brighter now… Anyhow, the phagors left behind a human boy during the slaughter. His name was—I’m ashamed to, say I’ve forgotten it, but to the best of my belief it was something like Krindlesheddy. A long name. Once I knew it clearly. The years have made me forget.

“Krindlesheddy had come from a country a long way to the north, Sibornal. He said that Sibornal was a land of perpetual glaciers. I was selected to be chief boy in my corps, and in Sibornal he was to be a priest, so we were both dedicated to our calling. He—Krindlesheddy or whatever his name was—thought our life was easy. The geysers kept Oldorando warm.

“As a young member of the priesthood, my friend had belonged with some colonists who moved south to escape the cold. They came to a better land by a river. There they had to fight with the local inhabitants of a realm called—well, the name has gone after these many years. A great battle raged, in which Krindlesheddy—if that was his name—was injured. The survivors fled, only to be caught by raiding phagors. It was mere fortune that he escaped them here. Or perhaps they left him because he was wounded.

“We did what we could to help the lad, but he died after a month. I cried for him. I was only young. Yet even then I envied him because he’d seen something of the world. He told me that in Sibornal the ice came in many colours and was beautiful.”

As Master Datnil finished his story, sitting meekly beside Shay Tal, Vry entered the room, on her way to the floor above.

He smiled kindly at her, saying to Shay Tal, “Don’t send Vry away. I know she’s your chief boy and you trust her, as I wish I could trust my chief boy. Let her hear what I have to say.” He laid his wooden box on the floor in front of him. “I have brought the Master Book of our corps for you to see.”

Shay Tal looked as if she would faint. She knew that if this borrowing was discovered, the makers corps would kill the master without hesitation… She could guess at the inner struggle the old man had gone through before bringing it. She wrapped her thin arms about him and kissed him on his wrinkled forehead.

Vry came and knelt down by him, excitement on her face.

“Let’s have a look!” she exclaimed, reaching out a hand, forgetting her diffidence.

He put his hand over hers, detainingly.

“Notice first the wood of which the box is made. It’s not from a rajabaral; the grain is too beautiful. Notice how it’s carved. Notice the delicate metal chasing that binds the corners. Could our metal-makers corps do such fine work today?”

When they had examined the details, he opened the box. He brought out a large tome bound in heavy leather, tooled with an elaborate design.

“This I did myself, Mother. I rebound the book. It’s the inside that’s old.”

The pages inside were carefully, often elaborately, written by a number of different hands. Datnil Skar turned the pages rapidly, even now reluctant to reveal too much. But the women clearly saw dates, names, lists, and various entries and figures.

He looked up into their faces, smiling a grave smile. “In its way, this volume gives a history of Embruddock over the years. And each surviving corps has a similar volume, of that I am certain.”

“The past is gone. We’re trying now to look outward to the future,” said Vry. “We don’t want to be stuck in the past. We want to go out …”

Indecisively, she let the sentence die, regretting that in her excitement she had brought herself to their attention. Looking at the faces of the other two, she saw they were older and would never agree with her. Although their aims were in general agreement, a difference existed that could never be bridged.

“The clue to the future lies in the past,” Shay Tal said, comfortingly but dismissively, for she had made such remarks to Vry before. Turning to the old man, she said, “Master Datnil, we greatly appreciate your brave gesture in letting us look at the secret book. Perhaps some day we may examine it more thoroughly. Would you tell us how many masters there have been in your corps since records commenced?”

He closed the book and began packing it in its box. Saliva trickled from his old mouth, and his hands shook badly.

“The rats know the secrets of Oldorando … I’m in danger, bringing this book here. Just an old fool … Listen, my dears, there was a great king who ruled over all Campannlat in the old days, called King Denniss. He foresaw that the world—this world which the ancipitals call Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk—would lose its warmth, as a bucket slops water when you carry it down a lane. So he set about founding our corps, with iron rules to be enforced. All the makers corps were to preserve wisdom through dark times, until warmth returned.”

He spoke chantingly, as from memory.

“Our corps has survived since the good king’s time, though in some periods it had no wherewithal to tan leather. According to the record here, its numbers once sank to a master and an apprentice, who lived below ground a distance away… Dreadful times. But we survived.”

As he was wiping his mouth, Shay Tal asked what period of time they were discussing.

Datnil Skar gazed at the darkening rectangle of window as if contemplating flight from the question.

“I don’t understand all the notations in our book. You know our confusions with the calendar. As we can understand from our own day, new calendars represent considerable dislocations… Embruddock—forgive me, I fear telling you too much—it didn’t always belong to … our sort of people.”

He shook his head, darting his gaze nervously round the rooth. The women waited, motionless as phagors in the old dull room. He spoke again.