Julian May - The Many-Coloured Land

As you Tanu are for me?

Affirm Elizapuffinbeth.

She burst out laughing and Bryan and the other humans looked at her in blank astonishment.

“Somebody,” Aiken remarked, “has been whispering behind our minds. Are you going to let us in on the joke, lovie?”

“The joke’s on me, Aiken.” Elizabeth turned to Creyn. “We’ll have a truce. For now.”

The exotic man inclined his head. “Then permit me to change the subject. We are approaching the bottomlands of the river, where we’ll have our night’s rest in the city of Roniah. Tomorrow we shall resume our journey in a more agreeable fashion, by boat. We should arrive in the capital city of Muriah in less than five days, if the winds are right.”

“Sailboats on a turbulent river like the Rhône?” Bryan said, aghast. “Or, is it calmer here in the Pliocene?”

“You’ll have to judge that for yourself, of course. However, our boats are quite different from those you may have been accustomed to. We Tanu are not fond of water travel. But with the coming of humanity, safe and efficient boats were designed and river commerce became extensive. We now use boats not only for passenger travel but also to ship vital commodities from the north, especially from Finiah and from Goriah in the area you call Brittany, to the southern regions where the climate is more to our taste.”

“I’ve brought a sailboat with me,” the anthropologist said. “Will I be permitted to use it? I’d like to visit your Finiah and Goriah.”

“As you’ll see, upstream travel is generally not feasible. We rely on caravans for that, using either chalikos or larger beasts of burden called hellads, a species of short-necked giraffe. In the course of your researches you will doubtless make visits to several of our population centers.”

“Without a torc on him?” Raimo interjected. “You’d trust him?”

Creyn laughed. “We have something he wants.”

Bryan flinched; but he knew better than to rise to the bait. He only said, “These vital commodities you ship. I suppose they include mostly foodstuffs?”

“To some extent. But this Many-Colored Land is literally overflowing with meat and drink for the taking.”

“Minerals then. Gold and silver. Copper and tin. Iron.”

“Not iron. It is unnecessary in our rather simple techno-economy. The Tanu worlds have traditionally relied on varieties of unbreakable glass in those applications where humanity utilized iron. It is interesting that in recent years you, too, have come to appreciate this versatile material.”

“Vitredur, yes. Still, your fighting men seem to prefer the traditional bronze in their armor and weapons.”

Creyn laughed quietly. “In the earliest days of the time-portal it was considered wise to restrict human warriors in that way. Now, when the restriction has become obsolete, humans continue to cling to the metal. We permit a bronze technology to flourish among your people where it does not conflict with our own needs. We Tanu are a tolerant race. We were self-sufficient before humans began to arrive and we are by no means dependent upon humanity for slave labor…”

Elizabeth’s thought loomed large: OTHER THAN REPRODUCTIVE ENSLAVEMENT.

“…since the tedious and difficult work such as mining and agriculture and comfort maintenance is undertaken by ramas in all but the most isolated settlements.”

“These ramas,” Aiken broke in. “How come there weren’t any back at the castle to do the dirty work?”

“They have a certain psychic fragility and require a tranquil environment if they are to function with minimal supervision. At Castle Gateway there is inevitable stress…”

Raimo gave a derisive grunt.

Bryan asked, “How are the creatures controlled?”

“They wear a much simplified modification of the gray torc. But you must not press me to explain these matters now. Please wait until later, in Muriah.”

They rode into an area where the trees were not so thickly clustered, among giant crags at the base of a sparsely forested ridge. Up where the crest met the starry sky was a glow of colored light.” Is that the town up there?” Sukey inquired.

“Can’t be,” Raimo said contemptuously. “Look at the thing move!”

They reined in their chalikos and watched the glow resolve into a thin skein of luminescence that twisted in and out of the distant silhouettes of the trees at considerable speed. The light was a blend of many hues, basically golden but with knots that flared blue, green, red, and even purple in a panoply of sparkling commotion, wild and urgent.

“Ah!” Creyn said. “The Hunt. If they come this way you’ll see a fine sight.”

“It looks like a giant rainbow glowworm racing up there,” Sukey breathed. “How lovely!”

“The Tanu at play?” Bryan asked.

Sukey uttered a disappointed cry. “Oh, they’ve gone over the ridge. What a shame! Tell us what the Hunt is, Lord Creyn.”

The exotic man’s face was grave in the starlight. “One of the great traditions of our people. You’ll see it again, many times. I’ll let you discover for yourselves what it is.”

“And if we’re good,” Aiken put in impudently, “do we get to join in?”

“Possibly,” Creyn replied. “It is not to every human’s taste, nor even to every Tanu’s. But you… yes, I think perhaps the Hunt would appeal to your particular sporting instinct, Aiken Drum.”

And for an instant, the healer’s emotional tone was plain for Elizabeth to read: disgust, mingled with an age-old sense of despair.

Richard saw flames.

They were moving toward him or he was moving toward them and they were vivid orange and resin-smoky, rising tall into a wavering queue in the nearly windless dark. He saw that it was a pile of burning brush the size of a small hut, crackling and hissing but throwing no sparks, seeming to draw abreast of him, pass him by and recede, disappearing at last behind a grove of black trees that had crept up unseen in the night but now stood backlighted by the bonfire’s glow.

It hurt his neck to look back. He let his head loll forward. There was something bulky in front of him that had long hair and moved rhythmically. It was very strange! He himself was rocking, firmly supported in some kind of seat that held him upright. His legs were thrust forward at an angle, the calves resting on unseen supports, feet braced against wide treads. His arms, clad in the familiar sleeves of a master spacer’s coverall, rested in his lap.

A funny kind of starship, he mused, with a hairy control console. And the environmental must be on the fritz because the temperature was nearly thirty and there was dust in the air and a peculiar smell.

Trees? And a bonfire? He looked around and saw stars, not the proper colored stars you see in deep space, but little twinkling specks. Far away, in the black below the starry bowl, was another small exclamation point of fire.

“Richard? Are you awake? Would you like some water?”

Well! Would you look at who was flying the right-hand seat of this crate? None other than the old bone hunter! Would have thought he was too creaky to qualify. But then you don’t need much finesse to fly on the ground…

“Richard, if I pass you the canteen, can you hold on to it?”

Smells of animals, pungent vegetation, leather. Sounds of creaking harness, brisk clumping feet, huffing exhalations, something yipping in the distance, and the voice of the persistent old man beside him.

“Don’t want water,” said Richard.

“Amerie said you’d need it when you woke up. You’re dehydrated. Come on, son.”

He took a closer look at Claude there in the darkness. The old man’s figure was illuminated by starlight; he was astride a huge horse-like creature that was loping easily along. Damnedest thing! He was riding one, too! There were the reins draped over the pommel of a saddle right in front of him below the hairy control console, neck, of the critter. And it was trotting straight and level without any guidance at all.