Avram Davidson - The Scarlet Fig - Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series

The sea, the sea.

Faintly forming at first; forming, faintly in his mind, the image of a man running quickly, rapidly, ever so swiftly, man running, feet raised high with each step, arm raised high of the man, something in the hand of the arm raised high of the man; it had seemed (and how could this be?) that the man was skimming ever so swiftly over the surface of a languid sea: to one side of the man, a low-lying bank of cloud: quite quite dark, the cloud, and the cloud quite low. This vision was oft repeated, did that mean it was merely some vision oft repeated, or did it mean that what was seen in this vision, this image, this vision of the day, was it of something which he had often seen? Who was he ? Who was “ Who ”? The he himself of whom he now knew more (his mind less clouded), some certainty there (here), of this than before. He was You Vergil now, he was a certain man, hight Vergil, a thaumaturge, a philosophe and necromaunt; that was certainly certain, a certain man, hight Vergil, that was a line from a document, rectangulate in shape, and he would now, right now, putting of it off no longer, turn to that said document and read of it: and then he would know more about You Vergil . He turned, there was no document, there were people round about and hemming him in, they were crowding round about him close, this would not do.

Love is a much-reflective surface, who had said that? why?

He shook his head to dislodge this alien and interruptive thought, this would not do, a crowd and throng were hemming him in. Abrech! he called, this certain man, hight Vergil. Abrech! For he knew that the Abrech meant Clear the way , it meant Make clear the way , but he did not know in what language it meant this, certainly not his own, nor how he came to know it.

Out at sea, a cloud.

In his head, a cloud.

They did not clear the way, they were not flouting him, they did not know the word or its usage at all, a way was not made clear for him, they hemmed him in all round about, their light bodies pressing, and all their fingers pointing, pointing to the man at sea, out at sea, that arm of sea between this land and another land (between this island and another island?), man running oh so swiftly coming nearer, nearer, fastly, even desperately running he skimmed along the sea. In the upraised hand of the upraised arm of this man (coming closer, ever closer, this man) was something like a mace, or a, or a — all about him now, this certain man hight You Vergil , as they stood upon the beach, the tawny-sandy beach — Fire! they shouted, they shouted Fire! and though he knew but nothing of it, he found himself shouting Fire! There was no document, rectangulate or any other shape. What had made him believe that there was or even could be a document? This was no place of document, although it may have been mentioned in the Homer and the Homer was a document, was sometimes many documents for sure. King Alexander Magnus, it was well-known, had had such a document of Homer, some said of occamy, some of geography, which was written on the inner skin of a dragon and was three hundred feet long, or so some said: but as to that, if so one said, no one was saying it here, where was here , many other things were missing here. He looked for her, he saw her face all wet with tears; tears (it seemed) ran down her cheeks, but no: it was not tears, even from her wet-sleeked hair the water ran; the tears were his, not hers. Then the … something … o sod and straw and staff! he knew the word, but like the butter in an ill-charmed churn it would not separate, it would not rise … the Something, or the memory of something, did its work once more. No document, no her, no tears; he was standing on a familiar beach and he was shouting Fire! one amongst many shouting and crying the same cry and shout.

From the tip of whatever it was (rhabdon, vergis, bacculum; wand, staff, rod, mace?) held by the swiftly running man, and he ran as though the lionel, the lioness, the pard, were all snarling at his ham-strings (no, twas thicker than any rod, wand, staff … mace? what mace?), from the thing’s tip there came a shimmer and then a line of smoke, came now a gust of flame, was he at the Games of Olympia in hollow, sacred, Elis? nay, he was not. The running man fell upon the tawny beach, the torch — not suffered to reach the ground — swift plucked up and borne away, and the low-lying cloud, clouds, they rolled away over the waters on which the running man had trod, everyone retreating from the low-lain beach to a stand above the mark of highest water; the clouds rolled rolling upon the path o’er which the man had run, racing for his life; rolled with a low thunder and a noise as though in a distance; the sound of an armed camp in the early night. The bearer of the torch had not alone been running to deliver the fire (the fire, one assumed, had at last, or, likelier, once again, through neglect gone out, and it had been needful to go at great hazard to kindle it again … at what hazard! … how unlike these dreamy slothful folk, or any one of them, to make such effort!), he had been running for his very life as well. That path upon the surface of the sea was a spit or causeway so low-lying that even as it lay exposed, a skin of water thin as any membrane covered it over as it lay connecting the lesser island with another island — or else with the main, the muckle land — whatever, and wherever it might lie, might he now not lie upon a couch and unroll a map rectangulate to show him where it lay; a map perhaps drawn from mapless Homer, blind Homer; blind perhaps from looking long and long into the athenor, the alchemist’s furnace, his talk of black ships, what was that but a metaphor for The Work, the projection from base to noble, all blackened in the fires of occymy? Blind, yet also he the true Father of Geography: little gat he for his Fatherhood, for did not

Seven cities claim blind Homer, dead,

Through which blind Homer, living, begged his bread …?

Yes.

Yes … but here was neither couch nor map, no document, no Homer and no harpists harping of Priam’s topless Trojan town a-flaming and a-burn, nor of the burning reedy river by the Trojan shore. There were no shouts, no cries, now, but still the murmur of the same, same word: fire, it was, fire … fire, fire (contentedly now) … fire … Someone brought liquid in a large gourd, someone poured it then, carefully, into a large shallow shell, and someone lifted the fallen runner’s hanging head and someone gave him a sip of what was in the shell. Once more, water and the wind and sand and murmuring voices, voices murmuring low, the soft sea-breeze: and now someone brought thither the jar in which the gourd had dipped, a common jar (how came it here, they made no jars, or potters-work of any kind: someone must have brought it there, or, anyway, left it there); a common jar of glazed earthernware, light grey and brown, such as house-dames use to make pickle of cucumber (and swift as the rushing of the tidal bore, almost like an attack: the smells of garlic and the smells of dill: swift! how he remembered, and remembered much: his aunt, his father, the kitchen-corner where such ferments of loaf-dough and cake-dough, of yeast-dough and of other things were oft going on; he remembered this road and that road, and Caca in the cave, and Numa dwelling in the Cave of Caca (or … was “the thing” not named Alcinoüs?) … and the stinking faces hanging at the doorside of the cave … he remembered much, yet not enough; yet faintly knowing there was more); and the exhausted runner — someone had placed a garland on his sweaty head — half-sat upright, half was lifted up; as from the jar, call it crock, then, someone reached and took, hand dripping liquid, took a something which … he knew, he knew, he knew must know … it was the Scarlet Fig and it dripped of its own juice and moisture; “Mm,” murmured the runner. And the others repeated the sound, some in one way, some in another: “Ma mma, manna, manya, nya, nyama …” And all these words at the root meant this one thing, the Scarlet Fig; the Greeks had a word for it. and that word was … Lotus …