Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

Presently the sun in his fiery ship (to use the figure of the Phoenician) descended along the equinoctial wheel (to use the tongue of science). The bird prow put into shore, the natives of the region assisted the rowers and the other sailing men to pull her up upon the sands for the night, received their customary dues, brought wood and water and some handfuls of capers — all they could spare in the way of victuals. The voyagers gave thanks to the Giver of all Things, blessed their ship’s hard bread, dipped it in the salt, and ate their meal of oil and tunny, capers, wine, and cakes of figs. One of their number was picked by cast of die to stand first watch, the others hollowed out in the sand spaces for hips and shoulders, scattered herbs against fleas, rolled themselves in their cloaks, and sank peacefully beneath the weight of that grateful weariness welcomed by men who have taxed but not overtaxed their own abundant strength.

The dark came, the moon rose and set, the Ram trampled the black soil of the sky of night.

So simply and sweetly passed the first days of the voyage.

They had reached the wide waters of the Ionian Sea. Captain Ebbed-Saphir appeared upon deck with his astrolabe, as usual, and had returned to his cabin to consult his charts, when Vergil joined him. He indicated the chart just unrolled upon its ivory finials and said, “A present from the Doge of Sparta. Where he got it I do not know, but certainly such a prime specimen of cartography never had its birth in that rude province.… I intend, patron, to make for Zanto, or Sacynthius, for water and supplies. There we can decide upon a course for Candia… and in Candia, concerning Cyprus.”

Vergil shook his head, and, while the Red Man looked at him in surprise, placed his finger on the map.

“Corpho?” cried the Captain. “It is leagues and leagues out of our way.”

“We cannot continue as we are doing,” Vergil said, “hugging a shore like a bait fisherman. At such a rate we might be months reaching Cyprus. I had not informed you, but inform you now, that my purpose is to demand of the Delegate of the Sea-Huns — who has his office in Corpho — a safe-conduct to his Kings, and to obtain from them a safe-conduct to Cyprus. That way we can travel on the open seas. The time required for these two side voyages will thus be more than made up.”

The Phoenician hesitated, considered. It was a bold venture, and a dangerous one, he said. He compared it to asking a riddle of the Sphynx. “Nevertheless… there is danger in any case, and if we succeed we will indeed save time. Very well, we set our course to Corpho.”

And he gave orders to the man at the helm.

Ernas, or Ernalphas, the Delegate in question, was a half-Hun, his mother having been a woman of the Goths or some other tribe of the sort. His residence was in a shore-front villa half surrounded by the groves of that fragrant citron tree for which the island was famous, but Ernas himself lived in a tent in the courtyard, surrounded by unshipped masts, old and new sails, grappling hooks, and other gear. He wore a silk robe and a cap made from the mask of a wolf, and as they entered he was standing an oar.

“Well, Pune,” he greeted the Red Man, in a tone contemptuously affectionate or affectionately contemptuous, “what are you peddling today?” Then, turning to Vergil, he said, “Shaman-i-Rume, can you don the bear’s skin? If so, I will have the drum beaten for you.”

Soberly, Vergil replied, “There are things, my lord Ernas, which a man might do which he would be a fool to do.”

Ernas squinted at this, pursing out his lips, then nodded. “True for you, Rumi Shaman. Time I was a boy, it’s recalled, Tildas Shaman, wise man of the Hun-folk in Atrian Sea, donned the bear’s skin at Old King’s funeral feast. They beat the drum for him, I tell thee, and the spirit of the bear took him hard and held him hard. Grew shaggy and shambled, did Tildas Shaman, nails came out as ‘twere claws. The drum beat, tum-tum! tum-tum! a-tum! a-tum! ”

Ernas, as he imitated the sound of the Hunnish tom-tom, rose to his feet, half sank into a slump, and took on the exact stance and posture of a dancing bear. His eyes rolled up till only the whites were visible, his hands drooped from their wrists like the paws of the bear, and his feet, one by one, came up, came down, stamped upon the ground. Deep, harsh growls disturbed his chest; he coughed like a bear. Vergil felt his flesh shaken by a chill of fear. It seemed as though what pranced and snarled before him now was less a man imitating a bear than a bear wearing a silk robe. At length the man-bear slowed, sank to the ground, slept like a bear. Still Vergil stared, jumped back as the “bear” leaped to its feet, once again a man enacting a story (so had history been, swift the thought came, before first drama and then writing had sundered the unity).

“By and by Huns grew tired. Time to get on with it! ‘Ahoy, Tildas, Shaman! Avast! Weigh anchor and make the neap tide!’” He kicked at the ribs of an invisible man on the ground. “‘Awake, awake! Arise, Tildas Shaman, and prophesy for us! What said to you our Old King’s ghost, and what said the ghosts of our fathers and our Sept-mothers?’”

Suddenly the man was a bear again, it rolled over onto all fours, snapping and clawing; it was a bear. It was a bear… .

Skimming the sweat of his endeavors from his face, Ernas took his seat again. “Not another word spoke Tildas Shaman, ever. The spirit of the bear took him hard and held him hard and holds him yet. He put on the bear’s skin and he cannot take it off. So! Shaman-i-Rume! It is a good thing that you said no, but it is also a good thing you did not say no as no, into my face, for a Sea-Hun does not care for that. Letters of state, why and wherefore?”

The abrupt transition did not catch the Magus off balance.

“To show you that I am on the Emperor’s business as well as my own, and to obtain from you a pass to visit your Kings in order to obtain from them, friends by treaty of the August House, a safe-conduct to Cyprus and back.”

Ernas shrugged, picked up the oar on which he had been working. “At this time there are no Kings for you to see. Ottil King is off somewhere, harrying the coasts of Little Asia. Osmet King is in Axand-i-Rume — how do you call it? Al-Axandria — dickering for more tribute. So, no Kings, no pass, no safe-conduct. Go.” His arm was half raised to point the way of their departure, when some recollection of his official role seemed honestly to settle down upon the man. Slowly and ponderously he dropped his arm, ponderously and slowly he said, “If I can in any way, as Delegate of the Sea-Huns, assist the bearers of letters of state from the August House, of course I will do so.” But his eye was on the oar.

Promptly, Vergil said, “You can. A pass to your King.”

Angrily: “Haven’t I told you? There are no Kings about!”

“There is one King about, as I assume from your not having told us he was away.”

Genuine amazement spread over the man’s face, he frowned a second, puzzled. Then his face dissolved into a mass of moving muscles and he cried, “Bayla King?” And he burst out laughing into their faces.

Afterward he had said, amusement still breaking his voice, “So — you have heard of our famous monarch, eh? In all your great cities — Rume, Axand-i-Rume, Byzant-i-Rume, and Jerus-i-Rume — resounds, eh? the fame of Bayla King? Be so. I will give you your safe-conduct. May it be of much profit to the August House.”

And so he had… two of them, in fact. A white horsetail to tie to the Red Man’s mast, and a man of his own household to shout particulars to any Hunnish vessel which approached to find out what a Punic vessel did in those waters with the heralds’ emblem at its mast. This man had the weazened, ageless look of all his folk, and refused (with a look too contemptuous to be scornful) to go below decks at any time. He passed the voyage squatting on the quarter-deck wrapped in a half-hairless old wolfskin. No one knew what he drank, if at all; for food he had in a leathern pouch with him some dark lumps of dried dolphin’s flesh — a diet which horrified the Red Man’s crew. “The dolphin,” they said to Vergil, “is the friend of man, and what man eats his friend? The Huns are no men at all,” they argued, “but daemons, and this proves it.”