Brian Aldiss - Helliconia

Music became almost an alternative to light for Yuli. When he talked to his fellow novices, he found that they felt little of his exhilaration. But they — he came to realise — all carried a much greater central commitment to Akha himself than he. Most of the novices had loved or hated Akha from birth; Akha was nature to them as he was not to Yuli.

When he wrestled with such matters during the sparse hours allotted to sleep, Yuli felt guilt that he was not as the other novices. He loved the music of Akha. It was a new language. But was not music the creation of men, rather than of…

Even when he choked off the doubt, another doubt sprang up. How about the language of religion? Wasn’t that also the invention of men — perhaps pleasant, ineffectual men like Father Sifans?

‘Belief is not peace but torment; only the great War is peace.’ That part of the creed at least was true.

Meanwhile, Yuli kept his own counsel, and fraternised only superficially with his fellows.

They met for instruction in a low, damp, foggy hall named Cleft. Sometimes they went in utter darkness, sometimes in the glow of wicks carried by the fathers. Each session ended with the priest pressing his hand to the novice’s forehead, gesturing at his brain, an action at which the novices laughed later in their dormitory. Priests’ fingers were rough, from the wall-reading by which they navigated briskly about the labyrinths of the Holies even in the most pitchy blackness.

Each novice sat in a curiously shaped dock, built of clay bricks, facing his instructor. Each dock was decorated in individual low-reliefs, to make their identification in the dark easier. Their instructor sat opposite and above them, astride a clay saddle.

When only a few weeks of the novitiate had lapsed, Father Sifans announced the subject of heresy. He spoke in a low voice, coughing as he did so. Worse than nonbelief was to believe wrongly. Yuli leaned forward. He and Sifans had no light, but the charge-father in the next box did, a fluttering flame which served to throw a foggy orange nimbus about Sifans’ head and shade his face. The old man’s white-and-black gown further disintegrated his outlines, so that he merged with the dark of the chamber. Mist rolled about them, trailing anyone who walked slowly by, practising wall-reading. Coughs and muttering filled the low cavern; water dripped ceaselessly, like small bells.

‘A human sacrifice, Father, did you say a human sacrifice?’

‘The body is precious, the spirit expendable. One who has spoken against the priesthood, saying they should be more frugal to aid Akha… You are far enough on with your studies to attend his execution… Ritual from barbarous times…’

The nervous eyes, two tiny points of orange, flickered in the dark like a signal from a remote distance.

When the time came, Yuli walked through the lugubrious galleries, nervously trying to wall-read with his fingers. They entered the largest cavern in the Holies, called State. No light was allowed. Whispering filled the air as the priesthood assembled. Yuli surreptitiously took hold of the hem of Father Sifans’ gown in order not to lose him. Then a voice of a priest, declaiming the history of the long war between Akha and Wutra. Night was Akha’s, and the priests were set to protect their flock through the long night’s battle. Those who opposed the guardians must die.

‘Bring forth the prisoner.’

There was much talk of prisoners in the Holies, but this one was special. The tramp of the militia’s heavy sandals could be heard, a shuffling. Then brightness.

A shaft of light blazed down. The novices gasped. Yuli recognised that they stood in the vast chamber through which Sataal had led him, a long while ago. The light source was as before, high above the multitude of heads; it appeared blinding.

At its base stood a human figure, tied to a wooden framework, legs and arms spread. It was in the upright position, and naked.

Even as the prisoner gave a cry, Yuli recognised the dense impassioned face, square, and framed by short-cropped hair. It was the young man he had once heard speak in Prayn — Naab.

His voice and message were also recognisable. ‘Priests, I am not your enemy, though you treat me like one, but your friend. Generation by generation, you sink into inaction, your numbers grow less, Pannoval dies. We are not just passive votaries of Great Akha. No! We must fight with him. We must also suffer. In the great war between Sky and Earth, we must play our part. We must reform and purify ourselves.’

Behind the bound figure were militiamen in gleaming helmets, guarding him. Others arrived, bearing smoking brands. With them marched their phagors, checked by leather leads. They halted. They turned inward. They hoisted their brands high above their heads, and the smoke rose in leisurely braids upwards. Forward creaked a stiff cardinal, bowed under black-and-white garb and an elaborate mitre. He struck a golden staff against the ground three times, crying shrilly in the Priestly Olonets, ‘Have done, have done, have done… O Great Akha, our Warrior God, appear to us!’ A bell tinkled.

A second pillar of the brilliant white light, solidifying rather than banishing the surrounding night. Behind the prisoner, behind the phagors and the soldiers, Akha appeared, reaching upwards. A murmur of expectation came from the crowd. It was a skeletal scene, the militia and the massive white beasts all but transparent, Akha chalky in the column of light, the whole embedded in obsidian. In this representation, the semihuman head of the god thrust forward, and his mouth was open. The eyes were as sightless as ever.

‘Take this unsatisfactory life, O Great Akha, and use it for Thy satisfaction.’

Functionaries moved smartly forward. One began to crank at a handle set in the side of the frame holding the prisoner. The frame began to creak and shift. The prisoner cried softly once, as his body was forced to bend backwards. As the hinges on the framework opened, his body arched back, exposing his helplessness.

Two captains marched forward with a phagor between them. The great beast’s blunted horns had been capped with silver and reached almost to the height of the soldiers’ eyebrows. It stood in the ungainly customary stance of a phagor, head and prow of chest thrust forward, its long white hair stirring slightly in the draught that blew through State.

Music sounded again, drum, gongs, vrachs, drowning out Naab’s voice, and the sustained warble of a fluggel rising high above them. Then everything stopped.

The body was bent double now, legs and feet twisted somewhere out of sight, head right back, exposing throat and thorax, gleaming pale in the column of light.

‘Take, O Great Akha! Take what is already Thine! Eradicate him.’

At the priest’s scream, the phagor stepped a pace forward and bent down. It opened its shovel mouth and applied rows of blunt teeth to either side of the proffered throat. It bit. It raised its head, and a great morsel of flesh came up with it. It moved back into place between the two soldiers, swallowing noncommittally. A trickle of red ran down its white front. The rear column of light was cut off. Akha disappeared back into his nourishing darkness. Many of the novices fainted.

As they jostled out of State, Yuli asked, ‘But why use those devilish phagors? They’re man’s enemy. They should all be killed.’

‘They are the creatures of Wutra, as their colour shows. We keep them to remind us of the enemy,’ said Sifans.

‘And what will happen to the — to Naab’s body?’

‘It will not be wasted. Every item is of some application. The whole carcass may go for fuel — perhaps to the potters, who always need to fire their kilns. I really don’t know. I prefer to keep myself aloof from administrative details.’