John Brunner - To Conquer Chaos

Obeying, Conrad persisted, “But what’s going to happen to Lagwich? What’s going to happen to the army?”

“It doesn’t matter what happens to them!” Yanderman exclaimed. “Oh-! Oh, I guess the town can stand a siege for a while, and the men aren’t properly officered and we didn’t come equipped to tackle even such rudimentary fortifications as Lagwich has. Maybe some bright character will put a ballista together and toss some incendiaries into the town-smoke the people out. More likely he won’t be able to organise a big enough squad of co-operative men. They’ll drift away, pick up some loot from the camp, or wander to another town and raid it before the people get wise.

“And back in Esberg there’ll be political chaos, and half a dozen would-be usurpers will impugn Duke Paul’s heir and try to confiscate his property and withdraw his titles on the grounds of wilful malfeasance, and-and the hell with them.”

He settled an immense burden of salvaged equipment around himself on an improvised harness made from half a dozen soldiers’ belts, and ended, “Right! Lead me to this safe hiding place you told me of.”

That was the point at which Conrad almost turned and fled. The single thing which restrained him was his burning need to know what only Yanderman could tell him: the explanation of the mysterious visions which had plagued him all his life, and which-having believed them to be unique to himself-he now knew were shared by a certain Granny Jassy and any number of other people.

“That’s better,” Yanderman sighed, rubbing his fingers on a tuft of grass to cleanse them of grease from the meat they had charred, rather than cooked, over a clear smokeless fire of minute wood-chips. “Now, Conrad, I’ll ease your mind a little. Pass me that canteen of water, will you?”

Conrad did so. Yanderman sucked lengthily at it and gave it back with a murmur of thanks.

“Yes!” he resumed. “It was sheer sick anger, of course, which made me conceive this crazy plan in the first place-this plan to venture into the barrenland. That was before I knew about you. And then, when you said what you said, all of a sudden the idea seemed less crazy. In fact, it began to make excellent sense.”

He gave Conrad a shrewd glance. “Don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? I can read it in your face-deep down you’re scared stiff of the suggestion. If you had anywhere else to go, any friends to turn to, you wouldn’t be out here in the lee of a sandstone hill with a foreigner whose head is ringing with grandiose delusions!”

Conrad managed a threadbare smile in reply.

“Did you hear from any of our men who had liberty in Lagwich how we worked our way here-how we knew what sort of terrain we had to cross even before sending out scouts?”

“No-uh-I don’t think so.”

“That was thanks to Granny Jassy. And this.” Yanderman caught up the crystal ball and let it swing on its chain. “Take a good look at it. In fact-keep on looking at it while I tell you the story.”

Puzzled, but eager for information and less frightened now he had filled his belly and rested a while, Conrad did as he was told.

Yanderman’s voice droned evenly on, recounting how Duke Paul had decided to investigate the fantastic tales some people told in Esberg, how ideas copied from these tales, which hitherto had never been taken seriously, had proved to work in practice and had given Esberg a complete military ascendancy over its rival cities to the south, how men had gone to dig up mounds and found ruins and relics in incredible quantity, how Duke Paul had then turned his attention to stories about the barrenland and come to the conclusion that it was artificial, made, and even now-on the evidence of Rost’s so-called “devil”-must have people within it.

Conrad, his eyes moving back and forth with the unending motion of the crystal ball, found the willpower to voice a foggy objection. He remembered the coming of the “devil” from the barrenland, and the arguments used by the wise men to show it could not be human. Yanderman dismissed them curtly, never varying the swing of the crystal ball.

“Think now about the visions you’ve had, Conrad,” he urged. “Have you seen the barrenland as it might once have been? Have you seen it peopled, built on, prosperous?”

Conrad gave a sluggish nod. All his old resolutions never to share his secret with anyone except Idris had faded away. He was sure Yanderman wasn’t going to mock him, and it meant so much to him to be taken seriously that he let the words stream out of their own accord.

As he talked, the shiny ball of crystal from which he now could not tear away his fascinated gaze seemed to expand and fill his entire field of vision. Dazzling, it blinded him. And then, out of the blindness, something new and yet familiar emerged. The forms were the forms of his old visions, but the detail, the colour, the words were a thousand times clearer than he had ever known them before.

He came to himself with a start. It was growing dark, and the little smokeless fire had gone out. Yanderman was sitting facing him with an enigmatic smile, the crystal ball hidden now inside his shirt.

“Awake, Conrad?”

“I–I haven’t been asleep. Have I?” Intensely puzzled, Conrad rubbed his eyes automatically.

“Not exactly, no. You’ve been in a trance, which isn’t quite the same thing.” Yanderman stretched his legs as though he felt cramp after sitting a long time in the same position; the action informed Conrad that his limbs too were appallingly stiff.

“Then-oh, explain!” he demanded.

“I’ll do my best. As nearly as we were able to work it out, Duke Paul, myself and the other Esberg thinkers who tackled the problem, these visions aren’t simply dreams, but memories which have become available to us in a way we can’t account for. Possibly the time to which they refer was a time when there were simply so many people that their minds resonated together and created a-” He checked. “You don’t understand that analogy, I see. Have you ever handled a musical instrument?”

“Yes, a clay flute.”

“I meant a stringed instrument. You can see the phenomenon clearly there. Well, never mind. Let’s just say that we’re satisfied that these memories are based on realities of the distant past. In every generation since whatever catastrophe undid the greatness of those days, a few people have been born who were capable of describing their visions; from these descriptions word of mouth transmission has evolved a number of folk tales and fables. The recurrence of those with direct perception has kept the tradition from being hopelessly garbled. Granny Jassy was the best subject we’d ever found in Esberg, but I must say that what you’ve been telling me these past few hours puts everything Granny Jassy ever said completely in the shade.” He gave a sober headshake.

“Me?” Conrad was startled. “Do you mean I’m one of these-how did you put it? — ‘few people in each generation’?”

Yanderman shivered for no perceptible cause. He said, “I’d go further. You’re not one of a few, but unique. ”

It seemed that this ought to be a source of pride. Conrad tried to regard it as such, but his brain was still misty with the after-effects of his recent trance.

“Did nobody in Lagwich care about your gift?” Yanderman pressed him. “Didn’t a single person take it seriously?”

“Until a day or two ago I’d have answered that at least one person did,” Conrad muttered. “A girl called-oh, never mind. She turned out like all the others in the end.”

He looked miserably down at the ground near Yanderman’s feet, and for the first time became aware that there was a pile of yellow paper there, covered with close scribbled writing. He gave the older man an inquiring glance.