John Norman - The Captain

“And then the ships departed, leaving behind them ashes.”

Again I have chosen to begin with an excerpt from the Annals.

It is an excerpt not untypical of the dark and troubled times.

One who has lived in, or knows only, times of sheep will find it difficult to understand times of wolves.

In this account is continued a story, drawn from the dark and troubled times.

The dark and troubled times were times of wolves.

Again, it must be clearly kept in mind that I do not write to edify or instruct, nor to praise or blame, nor even, really, to explain, or understand. I am not sure, you see, what are the criteria for understanding, how I might, so to speak, know if I understood, or only thought I understood, and perhaps did not really understand. Who can understand himself, or others, truly? Surely, at least, it is hard for the heart, as for the eye, to look upon itself. It is always, so to speak, behind its own back. Too, perhaps, in the end, there is no understanding, no more for us than for the tree, or rock, only that we think that we understand, that we have that illusion, that natural, comforting illusion, much as sap might flow in the tree or molecules sleep in the rock.

In short, know, dear reader, whoever you may be, that you are loved, but know, too, that I strike no bargains with you. It is not my business to tell you what you want to hear, nor to reassure you that the cosmos, and time and space, and substance, and right and wrong, if they exist, are tidy, safe, and cataloged upon your shelves. I do not know the measure of man, nor can I, unlike so many others, weigh his soul, and mark out the boundaries of his heart. I do not know what is best for him, nor if what is best for him is right or wrong, nor if right and wrong, in their thousands, are something that he has not yet decided, or something that was decided for him, long ago, by the movements of molecules in the primeval nebula. So it is not my business to assure you that the world is as you would like it to be. It is not I, you see, nor you, but the world that has the last word on such matters.

So let us, given these cautions, and reflections, reverencing reality, and expecting no more than it is willing to give, patient with mystery, resume our story. It takes place, as we noted, in the dark and troubled times, in a time of broad-winged vultures, and long-maned lions, of processions, of marches with arms, of dark ships, soft in the night, and fires, and ashes, in a strange and dreadful time, a turbulent time, one when life was harsher and more terrible, and perhaps more real than now. This is a time when men lived by their wits and strength, and cunning and skill, a time when marches were long, and weapons so sharp that, as it was said, they could draw blood from the wind. In this time there were men, and women, and other creatures, and it was a time of endings, and beginnings, of battles and cities, of harvests and burnings, of taverns and brothels, of long voyages and bustling markets, in many of which beauty had its price, and times, too, here and there, well worth remembering, today so far from mind, of fidelity, of discipline, and honor, and courage. Doubtless it was a dangerous and terrible time in which to live, that of endings and beginnings, and yet, interestingly enough, nowhere, in all the Annals, and contemporary documents, not in the letters, the heroic lays, the skaldic verses, the chronicles, the tracts, the myths, the tales, the saints’ lives, the accounts of captains, the songs of chieftains and kings, the treatises, the sagas, the simplest commemorative inscriptions, nowhere that I can determine, do I find regrets expressed that one lived then. Nowhere, as far as I can determine, did anyone express a desire that they might have existed in another time.

How inexplicable is so simple a thing!

One wonders how such a thing may be.

In a time of sheep men may fail to notice that they are alive, or, at least, may take it muchly for granted, or not pay much attention to it, but, it seems, that is not the case in a time of wolves.

And the dark and troubled times were, as we have noted, such a time, a time of wolves.

In such a time, if nothing else, men and women were alive.

Note:

Earlier, in a previous manuscript, we included certain commentaries and speculations having to do primarily with historiographical matters, which it would be inappropriate to reiterate here. At this point we will note only that the chronology of the accounts seems obscure. There are, of course, many difficulties in dealing with the problematicities of time. Similarly the multiplex labyrinths of space, it is occasionally speculated, perhaps idly, may enfold one another, or retrace their passages. It is possible, too, one supposes, that there are dimensions other than our own, and that the tiers of reality may exceed our horizons, which we take, naturally enough, like the rodent and insect, to constitute the termini of being. Perhaps there are parallel, or intersecting, universes, or dimensions. This possibility, absurd though it may be, suggests the possibility of points of connection with our own world, perhaps even “corridors” or “gates.” Too, some speculate that the Telnarian world, in some obscure sense, may be our own world, and not another, that it lies somehow in our own past, or, perhaps, future. Perhaps it was once our world, and has grown apart. Perhaps we are branches on the same tree, and as we grow toward the stars, or doom, we can hear, from time to time, the rustle of one another’s leaves in the darkness. But such speculations are doubtless absurd. Therefore we dismiss them. Lastly I might mention that we have, on the whole, followed the chronicler’s, or chroniclers’, if that should be the case, divisions of the manuscript.

“Remove her clothing,” said the connoisseur.

“I see,” said the connoisseur.

“She is not mine,” said Julian, of the Aurelianii, speaking to the connoisseur. “I would like, as a favor, for a friend, as a surprise for him, to have her informed, enlightened.”

“Trained?” asked the connoisseur.

“Well trained,” said Julian.

“Exquisitely?”

“Surely.”

“Until she becomes fully what she is, explicitly, manifestly, and can be nothing else?”

“Yes.”

“One wonders,” mused the connoisseur.

“It is my expectation,” conjectured Julian, “that she might prove acceptable.”

“That seems possible,” said the connoisseur. “Is she alive?”

“I do not know,” said Julian.

There was a sudden, soft, startled, involuntary, timid, shamed, helpless cry.

“Keep your hands at your sides,” said the connoisseur.

There was an intake of breath. Then there was another small cry, suddenly, much like the first.

“She will moan well,” said the connoisseur.

“Excellent,” said Julian.

“Kneel, with your head to the floor,” said the connoisseur. “She will require attention, and frequently,” he said.

Julian looked down at her.

“I leave the matter then in your capable hands,” said Julian. He then turned about and left.

“Look!” cried a citizen.

Fellows about him laughed.

“It is a bumpkin from an ag world,” cried the citizen.

“Where did you get those frocks!” cried another.

The giant raised his hand to his forehead, and, with the back of his hand, wiped away the rage of sweat. This was not, of course, Telnaria, the home world, but was a summer world.