24-07-2023

  I

  After half a score of days the storm was over. Weather-sense and a familiar, reassuring noise lured Skilluck back from the dreamness whither he had been driven by exposure, privation and sheer terror. Slackening his mantle, he relaxed his death-grip on the pole he had clung to while he was reduced to primitive reflexes, concerned only to escape the fury of the elements as his ancestors might have hidden from a predator larger than themselves.

  The sound he had recognized was the unmistakable munch-and-slurp of Tempestamer feeding.

  Weak exultation filled him. Surely she was the finest briq ever to set forth from Ushere! He had pithed her personally with all the expertise at his command, leaving untouched by his prong nerves which other Wego captains customarily severed. At first his rivals had derided him; then, however, they saw how docile she was, and how fast she grew, and in the end came begging a share of his knowledge, whereupon it was his turn to scoff. Now she had proved herself beyond doubt, for she had defied the worst weather in living memory and—he looked about him—brought her crew to a safe haven, in a bay landlocked among low hills and sunlit under the first cloudless sky he had seen in years.

  But where that haven was, the stars alone could tell.

  With agony stabbing through his every tubule, he forced himself more or less upright, though it would be long before he regained his usual height, and uttered a silent blessing for his name. Those of his companions who had been called by opposites—Padrag and Crooclaw—had been lost overside on the third day of the storm. But the rest, better omened, were in view, though still unaware: the boy Wellearn, whose first voyage had come so near to being his last, and Sharprong, and Strongrip, and Chaplain Blestar … Was the chaplain also alert? His voice could be heard mumbling, “Let each among us find his proper star and there add brightness to the heavens in measure with his merit in the world …”

  But—no. His prayer was mere reflex. He was still lost between dream and imagination. And in a bad way physically, too; his mantle was bloated and discolored, a sure sign of cresh. The same was true of the others, and Skilluck himself.

  For an instant the captain was afraid he might be dreaming after all, that he was so near death he could no longer distinguish reality from fantasy. But in a dream, surely, he would seem restored to health.

  His pain was receding, although the areas where he had rubbed against the pole during the storm would remain sore for a long while. He forced himself to set out on a tour of inspection. One piece of essential equipment remained functional: the northfinder, tethered in its cage, responded weakly to his order and uncoiled itself in the correct direction. Also his precious spyglass had been so tightly lashed to a crossbar, all the gales and waves had not dislodged it. That apart, things looked grim. Most of Tempestamer’s drink-bladders had burst, the trencher-plants had been so drenched with salt water they looked unlikely to recover, the vines had been torn bodily away leaving raw scars on the briq’s hide, and—as he already knew—their reserves of fish and pickled weed had been used up.

  He sipped a little water from an intact bladder, struggling to make plans. Food must come first, and more water. Were there edible plants on this strange shore? Was there any chance of trapping a game-animal? He needed the spyglass to find out. But his claws felt weak and clumsy, and the rope was swollen with wet; the knots defied him.

  A shadow fell across him. He glanced round, expecting Sharprong or Strongrip. But it was young Wellearn who had joined him, hobbling along at barely half his normal height.

  “Where are we, Captain?” he croaked.

  “No idea, but I’d rather be here than in mid-ocean. Take a drink—but slowly! Don’t try and put all your fluid back at one go, or you’ll burst a tubule. Then help me untie the spyglass.”

  Despite the warning, he had to stop Wellearn after several greedy gulps.

  “There are three more of us, you know, and only three full bladders!”

  Wellearn muttered an apology and turned his attention to the knots. After much difficulty they loosened, and Skilluck unwrapped the hide around the tube.

  “Take drink to the others. But be careful. The state they’re in, they may not know the difference between you and food. Or themselves, come to that. I guess you never saw anyone with cresh before, hm?”

  “Is that what we’ve got?” Wellearn’s eye widened in horror. “I heard about it, of course, but—well, what exactly is it?”

  “Who knows? All I can say is, I’ve seen a lot of it at sea when our trencher-plants got salt-poisoned and our vines were blown away, same as now. Most people think it comes of trying to live off stale pickles. Makes you leak, drives you into dreamness, kills you in the end … Oh, curse the weight of this thing!” Skilluck abandoned his attempt to hold up the spyglass normally, and slumped forward in order to rest its end on the ridge of the briq’s saddle. “I bet we’ll be seeing cresh on land again one of these days, if the winters go on getting longer and harsher and seeds don’t sprout and fish don’t run … But you shouldn’t worry too much about yourself. It always hits the biggest and strongest first and worst. Dole out a sip at a time and be specially wary of Blestar—he’s delirious.”

  Carefully filling a gowshell from the drink-bladder in use, Wellearn heard him continue, mainly to himself: “Not a trencher-plant to be seen. Don’t recognize a single one of those trees, don’t spot a single animal. No sign of a stream unless there’s one behind that cape …”

  The boy shivered, wondering whether his own mantle was as patched with creshmarks as the others’, and the captain was speaking only to reassure him. All things considered, though, he felt remarkably well after his ordeal: weak and giddy, of course, so that he wondered how he would fare if he had to leap clear of a cresh-crazed crewman; thirsty in every fiber of his being; and hungry to the point where he wished he could browse off floating weed like Tempestamer. Yet he was still capable of being excited about their arrival in this unknown region, and that was an excellent sign.

  So Skilluck must be telling the truth. Sharprong, on the other claw, was almost too ill to swallow, and neither he nor Strongrip had the energy to attack a helper. Ironically, Blestar was worst off of them all, his mantle cobbled with irregular bulges as though it were trying to strain outward through a badly patterned net. He was talking to himself in a garbled blend of half a dozen learned idioms. Wellearn recognized them all; it was his quickness at language that had earned him a place among the crew. Their mission was to trade hides for food-plant seeds in the hope of cross-breeding hybrids which would grow very quickly during the ever-shortening northern summer. Many briqs this year had scattered on the same quest. If it failed, the Wego might have to move south en masse, and the hope of finding habitable but unpopulated lands was dreadfully slim. So there would be fighting, and the weakened northerners might lose, and that would be the end of a once-great folk. At best they might leave behind a legend, like Forb or Geys or Ntah …

  Tormented by the sun, Blestar was reflexively opening his mantle as though to roll over and cool his torso by evaporation. Wellearn had never been in such a hot climate before, but he knew enough to resist the same temptation; in their dehydrated state it could be fatal. Anxiously he wondered how he could provide shade for the sick men, and concluded there was no alternative but to untie one of their precious remaining bales of hides. The outer layers were probably spoiled, anyway.

  He contrived to rig two or three into an awning; then he distributed the rest of the fresh water and returned to the captain, dismayed to find him slumped in exhaustion.

  But he was alert enough to say, “Good thinking, young’un. Give me a little more water, will you? Even holding up the spyglass has worn me out. And I don’t see very clearly right now. We’ll have to wait until Tempestamer has finished feeding and see if we can make her beach herself.”

  “Sharprong told me she hated that,” Wellearn ventured.

  “Oh, she does, and I’d never try it normally, of course. But that’s our only hope; we’ve got to get ashore! Maybe while she’s digesting she’ll be tractable. Otherwise I’ll have to pith another of her command nerves, and if I miss my mark because she bucks and bolts, then the stars alone know how we’ll find our way home—Did you give water to the northfinder?”

  “I didn’t think of that!” Wellearn exclaimed, and hastened to remedy his oversight.

  Returning, he looked at the ruptured drink-bladders, wondering whether any were likely to heal. But they were past that, hanging in salt-encrusted rags. In time Tempestamer would grow new ones, but it might be a score of days before they were full enough to tap. There was only one thing to be done.

  “I’m going to swim ashore,” he announced.

  “You have got cresh! You’d never make it.” Skilluck brushed something aside. A strange kind of winget had settled on him; others, all equally unknown, were exploring the briq, paying special attention to the scars left by the uprooted vines. It was to be hoped they were not in breeding phase, for the last thing Tempestamer needed right now was an infestation of maggors.

  It occurred to Wellearn that in these foreign waters there might be creatures as hostile as the northern voraq, but Tempestamer showed no sign of being pestered by any such. He answered boldly, “There’s no alternative! If I don’t find water I can at least bring tree-sap, or fruit, or—or something.”

  “Then unlasn a pole to help you float,” Skilluck sighed. “And take a prong in case a waterbeast attacks you.”

  After that he seemed to lose interest in reality again.

  The water was deliciously cool as Wellearn slid overside, but he was aware how dangerous salt could be to someone with a weakened integument, so he wasted no time in striking out for shore. His mantle moved reluctantly at first, but he pumped away with all his strength, and the distance to land shrank by a third, by half, by three-quarters … It was more than he could endure; he had to rest a little, gasping and clinging to the pole. To his horror, he almost at once realized he was being carried seaward again, by some unexpected current or the turn of the tide.

  Although fatigue was loosening his grip on reality, he resumed swimming. The sunlight reflected on the ripples hurt his eye, and salty splashes stung it; countless tubules cried pain at being forced to this effort without sufficient fluid in his system; fragments of dream and all-too-vivid imaginings distracted him. He wanted to rest again, relying on the pole, and knew he must not. At last he let it go, and the prong with it, for they were hindering too much.

  After what felt like a lifetime, smooth rock slanted up to a little beach, and he crawled the rest of the way as clumsily as a new-budded child. Cursing his bravado, he forced himself across gritty sand that rasped his torso, and collapsed into the shade of bushes unlike any he had ever seen before. Some sort of animal screamed in alarm and branches fluttered as it fled; he could not tell what it was.

  In a little, he promised himself, just as soon as he recovered his pressure, he would move on in search of water or a recognizable plant, or risk sampling something at hazard, or …

  But he did not. After his exertions, cresh had him in its deadly grip, and he departed into a world of dreams compound of memory, so that the solid ground under him seemed to rock and toss like the ocean at the climax of the storm. He did not even have the energy to moan.

  From the briq Skilluck saw him fall, and let go the spyglass with a curse, and likewise slumped to his full length. The pitiless sun beat down and, all unheeding, Tempestamer went on gulping weed to cram her monstrous maw.

  II

  He was looking at himself.

  Wellearn cried out. He had seen his reflection before, but only in still water, which meant he should be lying down on the bank of a pool. Every sense informed him he was in fact sitting up. Yet his image was confronting him. He was certain it must be confect of dreamness.

  Suddenly it swerved aside and vanished. Struggling to accept he was not after all lost in sickness-spawned delirium, he discovered he was now seeing two people taller, slimmer, and with paler mantles than his own folk: a grave elderly man and a most attractive girl.

  The former said something Wellearn did not quite grasp, though a tantalizing hint of meaning came across. Then, touching his mandibles with one claw, he said, “Shash!”

  Imitating him, the girl said, “Embery!”

  Clearly those were their names. Wellearn uttered his own, followed by greetings in his native speech. Meeting no reaction, he switched to others, and as soon as he tried Ancient Forbish Embery exclaimed in amazement.

  “Why, you speak what we do!” she said, her accent strange but her words recognizable.

  How then could Wellearn have failed to understand before? And now again, as she said something too rapid to follow?

  “The language changes,” Shash said slowly and clearly. “It has been a score-of-score years since our ancestors settled here. Use only the oldest forms. Wellearn, you comprehend?”

  “Very well!”

  “Do you remember your voyage hither?”

  “The greater part of it.” But where was here? Wellearn looked about him, realizing for the first time that he was in a noble house. Never had he seen such magnificent bravetrees—except they weren’t exactly bravetrees—or such a marvelous array of secondary plants. Had he been hungry, which to his amazement he was not, he would at once have asked to sample the delicious-looking fruits and funqi which surrounded him. Light slanted through gaps between the boles, which offered glimpses of what looked like a great city. The air was at high pressure and very warm, though not so oppressive as when he swam ashore, and the scents borne on it were absolutely unfamiliar. But one matter must take precedence over the curiosity that filled him.

  “My companions! Did you save them too?”

  “Oh, yes. They are sicker than you, but we hope to cure them soon.”

  “But I had cresh …” Wellearn hesitated. In his people’s knowledge there was no remedy for that affliction. Sometimes it went away of its own accord, no one knew why; more often its victims were permanently crippled.

  “No longer. You saw for yourself. Where are the marks?”

  “I saw,” Wellearn agreed slowly. “But I didn’t understand.”

  “Ah. Embery, show him again.”

  This time he was able to make out how it happened. She held up a large disc, very shiny, which gave back his reflection. Touching it diffidently, he discerned a peculiar coolness.

  “Metal?” he ventured.

  “Of course. But your people understand metal and glass, surely? We found a telescope on your briq, as good as our own.”

  “Captain Skilluck got it in trade,” Wellearn muttered. “I can’t say where it was made.”

  “Do you not know and use fire?” Shash demanded in surprise.

  “Of course, but in our country there is little fuel and it’s too precious to be used for melting rocks. Long ago the weather, they say, was warmer, but now in winter the sea freezes along our coasts, and then it’s our only means of staying alive.”

  “Winter,” Embery repeated thoughtfully. “That must be what we read about in the scriptures, the time of great cold which happens once a year and lasts many score days.”

  And yearly it grows longer … Wellearn suppressed a pang of envy. What a privilege to live in latitudes where winter never came! He had heard tales about such places from boastful old seafarers, but he had never expected to wind up in one on his maiden voyage.

  Yet those same travelers always claimed that they found something grand in the country of their budding, something noble and challenging about its harsh landscape. He must not think of worse and better until he knew much more.

  “May I see my companions?” he requested.

  “Certainly, if you’re fit enough,” Shash answered. “Can you stand?”

  Wellearn concentrated on forcing himself upright. He managed it, though he could not regain his normal height. Even had he done so, he would still have been overtopped by these strangers, who must be as tall as mythical Jing—or maybe not quite, for he was said to have been taller than anybody.

  “Let me help you,” Embery offered, moving to support him. Contact with her was very pleasant. He wondered what the local customs were concerning mating. The Wego themselves welcomed visitors in the hope that outcrossing would bring more and healthier children, for they were barely keeping up their numbers, and he had been told that many foreign peoples felt the same. But it was too soon to think of such matters.

  In an adjacent bower Skilluck lay in a crotch made comfortable with masses of reddish purple mosh; he was still not alert but the creshmarks were fading from his mantle. Others beyond held Strongrip, Sharprong, and Blestar, who was visibly the worst affected.

  “I’ve never seen such a severe case,” sighed Shash. “One could almost imagine he had weakened himself deliberately.”

  Wellearn nearly admitted that in fact he had. It was the custom of chaplains, in face of danger, to fast in the hope of being sent a vision from the stars that would save them and their comrades. There was no recorded instance of it happening, but the habit endured.

  These people, though, might have no faith in visions, and he did not wish them to mock the strangers who had fallen among them. Instead he voiced a question that was burning in his mind.

  “What manner of place is this?”

  “A healing-house,” Shash replied, and added wonderingly, “Do they not have such in your country?”

  “A great house like this, solely for sick people? Oh, no! We’re lucky to have enough for those who are well. Sometimes they die, and the occupants must take refuge in caves, or pile up rocks for shelter … I’m amazed! When we arrived in the bay, we thought this region was uninhabited!”

 

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