Edmund Cooper - A Far Sunset

Presently Nemo scuttled towards him, sideways, legs all twisted and arms used as forelegs, like some pathetic hybrid of crab and baboon. His small wizened face was creased in an expression of perplexity.

‘Lord, I may speak with you?’ asked the child formally.

‘Yes, Nemo, you may speak with me.’

The boy circled in the dust, vainly endeavouring to make himself comfortable.

‘Lord, in the night that has passed my head was filled with strange creatures and strange voices. I am troubled. It is said that those who listen to the people of the night go mad.’

Poul Mer Lo gazed at him curiously. ‘Tell me first of the creatures.’

‘I do not know whether they were animals or men, lord,’ said Nemo. ‘They were encased in a strange substance that caught the sunlight and became a thing of fire, as sometimes does the surface of water when a man sits by the Mirror of Oruri. They were tall, these beings, and they walked upon two legs. The skin of their head was smooth and hard like ring money. In their heads they carried weapons or tools. Truly they were terrible to behold. Also their god was with them.’

‘Their god?’ echoed Poul Mer Lo blankly.

‘Yes, lord, for such a being could only be a god.’

‘Describe this god, then.’

‘It was many times the height of many men, lord. It came down from the sky, walking upon a column of fire that scorched the white earth, transforming it into great clouds of steam and a torrent of water. Then, when the steam had subsided and the water was no more, the god opened his belly and brought forth many tall children—those whose skin was as fire in the sunlight.’

Poul Mer Lo was trembling. He was also sweating profusely. And, sweating and trembling, he could visualize the scene almost as clearly as Nemo.

‘Tell me more,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Tell me more of this vision that came to you in the night.’

‘Lord there is no more to tell. I saw and was afraid.’

‘What of the voices, then?’

Nemo frowned with concentration. ‘The voices did not seem to come from the creatures, lord. They came from the god.’

‘Try to remember, Nemo, what they said. It is important.’ The boy smiled. ‘They, at least, did not frighten me, lord; for they spoke chiefly in riddles.’

Poul Mer Lo wiped the sweat from his forehead and forced himself to be calm. If he could not stay calm he would never get the rest of the story from Nemo. And it was important that he should learn all that the boy knew. It was more important than anything else in his life.

‘Tell me these riddles, Nemo, for it may be that I shall understand.’

Nemo looked at him curiously. ‘Lord, are you ill or tired? I should not weary you with my unimportant thoughts if you are not well.’

Poul Mer Lo made a great effort to control himself. ‘It is nothing, Nemo. I am in good health. Your story interests me … What were these riddles?’

Nemo laughed. ‘All men are brothers,’ he said. ‘That, surely, is a fine riddle, lord, is it not?’

‘Yes, Nemo, it is a very good riddle. What else?’

‘There are lands beyond the sky where the seed of man has taken root… That, too, is very funny.’

‘It is indeed funny … Is that all?’

‘No, lord. There is one more riddle—the most amusing. It is that some day the god with the tail of fire will unite all the children of all the lands beyond the sky into a family which will be numberless, as are the drops of water in the Mirror of Oruri.’

‘Nemo,’ said Poul Mer Lo quietly, “what you have dreamed is a most wonderful dream. I cannot understand how these things could be made known to you. But I believe that there is much truth in what you have seen and heard. I hope that you will have such dreams again. If that happens—if you should again receive the grace of Oruri—I hope also that you will tell me all that you can remember.’

Nemo seemed relieved. ‘Those afflictions will not bring madness, then?’

Poul Mer Lo laughed—and tried vainly to suppress the note of hysteria in his voice. ‘No, they will not bring madness, Nemo. Nor are they afflictions. They are the gift of Oruri.’

At that point Mylai Tui came from the house with a calabash and a jug of watered kappa spirit. Seeing her, Nemo scuttled away. He and Mylai Tui hated each other. Their hatred was the product of jealousy.

‘Paul,’ said Mylai Tui gaily in English. ‘I wish you to drink. I wish you to drink as I drink, so that the joy will be shared.’

She poured some of the watered kappa spirit into the calabash then raised it to her own lips and handed it to him. She seemed happier than she had been for many, many days.

‘What is this joy of which you speak?’ he said haltingly in Bayani. His head was reeling.

‘Oruri has looked upon us,’ explained Mylai Tui.

‘I am no wiser.’

Mylai Tui laughed. ‘My lord, you are great with wisdom but not with perception.’ She pirouetted. ‘Whereas I,’ she continued, ‘am now indisputably great with child.’

It was in the seventh month of the reign of Enka Ne the 610th that the forest tribe known to the people of Baya Nor as the Lokhali attacked the temple of Baya Lys. Although Baya Lys was three days’ journey from Baya Nor overland, it was only one full day’s journey away on the Canal of Life. Apart from the ignominy of having a temple desecrated and its priestly occupants put to death in various dreadful ways, the Bayani felt that this warlike tribe was getting too near to the sacred city for comfort.

Accordingly, Enka Ne declared a holy war. The standing army of Baya Nor was swollen by volunteers; and when the oracle decreed that the time and circumstances were propitious for victory, over two thousand men moved off into the forest along the overland route.

Poul Mer Lo had asked to be allowed to go with them, not because he had any desire to participate in the kind of bloody vengeance that the Bayani were eagerly anticipating, but because he remembered the last evening of the religious progress on which he had been permitted to accompany Enka Ne the 609th.

While he was spending a resdess night in one of the guest cells of Baya Lys, Shah Shan had come to him, bringing a bundle that had contained one plasdc visor, two atomic grenades and a wrecked transceiver. These, said Shah Shan, had been found by the priests of Baya Lys near a blackened hole in the forest—in territory that was near to the land occupied by the Lokhali.

When Poul Mer Lo had suggested that Enka Ne might treat with the Lokhali to obtain news of any survivors from the Gloria Mundi, Shah Shan had rejected the idea instantly. The Lokhali, he had explained, lived for war. Not only was it impossible to have peaceful relations with them, but it was also beneath the dignity of the superior and civilized people of Bay Nor.

There the matter had ended. Since that time, Poul Mer Lo had not pressed his suggestion, knowing that in matters of this nature even Enka Ne, alias Shah Shan, had a closed mind.

But now the Lokhali had broken the uneasy state of peace— or, more accurately, non-war—that had existed between them and the Bayani. It was a golden opportunity for going along with the avenging army and trying to discover if any of the Lokhali had encountered any survivors of the Gloria Mundi. Twelve people had travelled in the star ship. Three were accounted for. But of the remaining nine there had been no news whatsoever. The forest might have swallowed them. Or the occupants of the forest. There was no trace of them save the relics that Shah Shan had brought to the guest cell at Baya Lys.

Poul Mer Lo’s application was rejected. It was rejected in person by Enka Ne in the Temple of the Weeping Sun.