Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset (62 page)

The Bayani urinated on the spot. ‘Lord, these matters are too great for poor men to consider … Oruri be with you.’ He signalled to his companion, and they picked up the harness of the cart.

‘Oruri be with you always,’ responded Poul Mer Lo, ‘at the end as at the beginning.’

He watched them as they trundled the cart back along the Road of Travail towards the Third Avenue of the Gods.

For a while he supervised the stacking of the timber. Then, because the day was hot, he sat down to rest in the shadow of the small patch of roofing already on top of the school house.

Presently Nemo scuttled towards him, sideways, legs all twisted and arms used as forelegs, like some pathetic hybrid of crab and baboon. His small wizened face was creased in an expression of perplexity.

‘Lord, I may speak with you?’ asked the child formally.

‘Yes, Nemo, you may speak with me.’

The boy circled in the dust, vainly endeavouring to make himself comfortable.

‘Lord, in the night that has passed my head was filled with strange creatures and strange voices. I am troubled. It is said that those who listen to the people of the night go mad.’

Poul Mer Lo gazed at him curiously. ‘Tell me first of the creatures.’

‘I do not know whether they were animals or men, lord,’ said Nemo. ‘They were encased in a strange substance that caught the sunlight and became a
thing of fire, as sometimes does the surface of water when a man sits by the Mirror of Oruri. They were tall, these beings, and they walked upon two legs. The skin of their head was smooth and hard like ring money. In their heads they carried weapons or tools. Truly they were terrible to behold. Also their god was with them.’

‘Their god?’ echoed Poul Mer Lo blankly.

‘Yes, lord, for such a being could only be a god.’

‘Describe this god, then.’

‘It was many times the height of many men, lord. It came down from the sky, walking upon a column of fire that scorched the white earth, transforming it into great clouds of steam and a torrent of water. Then, when the steam had subsided and the water was no more, the god opened his belly and brought forth many tall children – those whose skin was as fire in the sunlight.’

Poul Mer Lo was trembling. He was also sweating profusely. And, sweating and trembling, he could visualize the scene almost as clearly as Nemo.

‘Tell me more,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Tell me more of this vision that came to you in the night.’

‘Lord there is no more to tell. I saw and was afraid.’

‘What of the voices, then?’

Nemo frowned with concentration. ‘The voices did not seem to come from the creatures, lord. They came from the god.’

‘Try to remember, Nemo, what they said. It is important.’

The boy smiled. ‘They, at least, did not frighten me, lord; for they spoke chiefly in riddles.’

Poul Mer Lo wiped the sweat from his forehead and forced himself to be calm. If he could not stay calm he would never get the rest of the story from Nemo. And it was important that he should learn all that the boy knew. It was more important than anything else in his life.

‘Tell me these riddles, Nemo, for it may be that I shall understand.’

Nemo looked at him curiously. ‘Lord, are you ill or tired? I should not weary you with my unimportant thoughts if you are not well.’

Poul Mer Lo made a great effort to control himself. ‘It is nothing, Nemo. I am in good health. Your story interests me … What were these riddles?’

Nemo laughed. ‘All men are brothers,’ he said. ‘That, surely, is a fine riddle, lord, is it not?’

‘Yes, Nemo, it is a very good riddle. What else?’

‘There are lands beyond the sky where the seed of man has taken root … That, too, is very funny.’

‘It is indeed funny … Is that all?’

‘No, lord. There is one more riddle – the most amusing. It is that some day the god with the tail of fire will unite all the children of all the lands beyond
the sky into a family which will be numberless, as are the drops of water in the Mirror of Oruri.’

‘Nemo,’ said Poul Mer Lo quietly, ‘what you have dreamed is a most wonderful dream. I cannot understand how these things could be made known to you. But I believe that there is much truth in what you have seen and heard. I hope that you will have such dreams again. If that happens – if you should again receive the grace of Oruri – I hope also that you will tell me all that you can remember.’

Nemo seemed relieved. ‘Those afflictions will not bring madness, then?’

Poul Mer Lo laughed – and tried vainly to suppress the note of hysteria in his voice. ‘No, they will not bring madness, Nemo. Nor are they afflictions. They are the gift of Oruri.’

At that point Mylai Tui came from the house with a calabash and a jug of watered kappa spirit. Seeing her, Nemo scuttled away. He and Mylai Tui hated each other. Their hatred was the product of jealousy.

‘Paul,’ said Mylai Tui gaily in English. ‘I wish you to drink. I wish you to drink as I drink, so that the joy will be shared.’

She poured some of the watered kappa spirit into the calabash then raised it to her own lips and handed it to him. She seemed happier than she had been for many, many days.

‘What is this joy of which you speak?’ he said haltingly in Bayani. His head was reeling.

‘Oruri has looked upon us,’ explained Mylai Tui.

‘I am no wiser.’

Mylai Tui laughed. ‘My lord, you are great with wisdom but not with perception.’ She pirouetted. ‘Whereas I,’ she continued, ‘am now indisputably great with child.’

It was in the seventh month of the reign of Enka Ne the 610th that the forest tribe known to the people of Baya Nor as the Lokhali attacked the temple of Baya Lys. Although Baya Lys was three days’ journey from Baya Nor overland, it was only one full day’s journey away on the Canal of Life. Apart from the ignominy of having a temple desecrated and its priestly occupants put to death in various dreadful ways, the Bayani felt that this warlike tribe was getting too near to the sacred city for comfort.

Accordingly, Enka Ne declared a holy war. The standing army of Baya Nor was swollen by volunteers; and when the oracle decreed that the time and circumstances were propitious for victory, over two thousand men moved off into the forest along the overland route.

Poul Mer Lo had asked to be allowed to go with them, not because he had any desire to participate in the kind of bloody vengeance that the Bayani were eagerly anticipating, but because he remembered the last evening of the religious progress on which he had been permitted to accompany Enka Ne the 609th.

While he was spending a restless night in one of the guest cells of Baya Lys, Shah Shan had come to him, bringing a bundle that had contained one plastic visor, two atomic grenades and a wrecked transceiver. These, said Shah Shan, had been found by the priests of Baya Lys near a blackened hole in the forest – in territory that was near to the land occupied by the Lokhali.

When Poul Mer Lo had suggested that Enka Ne might treat with the Lokhali to obtain news of any survivors from the
Gloria Mundi
, Shah Shan had rejected the idea instantly. The Lokhali, he had explained, lived for war. Not only was it impossible to have peaceful relations with them, but it was also beneath the dignity of the superior and civilized people of Bay Nor.

There the matter had ended. Since that time, Poul Mer Lo had not pressed his suggestion, knowing that in matters of this nature even Enka Ne, alias Shah Shan, had a closed mind.

But now the Lokhali had broken the uneasy state of peace – or, more accurately, non-war – that had existed between them and the Bayani. It was a golden opportunity for going along with the avenging army and trying to discover if any of the Lokhali had encountered any survivors of the
Gloria Mundi
. Twelve people had travelled in the star ship. Three were accounted for. But of the remaining nine there had been no news whatsoever. The forest
might have swallowed them. Or the occupants of the forest. There was no trace of them save the relics that Shah Shan had brought to the guest cell at Baya Lys.

Poul Mer Lo’s application was rejected. It was rejected in person by Enka Ne in the Temple of the Weeping Sun.

It was the first and last time Poul Mer Lo had audience with Enka Ne the 610th. Unlike his predecessor, he was an old, old man. The ceremonial plumage lay ill upon him. His bird cry was thin and reedy. He strutted sadly, like one who was too heavily burdened with care and responsibility – which, probably, was the case.

‘I am told you are a teacher, Poul Mer Lo,’ he had said.

‘Yes, lord, that is so.’

‘It is the province of a teacher to teach, is it not?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Then teach, Poul Mer Lo, and leave more weighty matters to those who know how best to deal with them. The hunter should remain with his darts, the warrior with his trident, and the teacher with his – what is the word you have given us? – sku-ell.’

Then Enka Ne uttered his desolate bird cry, indicating that the audience was at an end. As Poul Mer Lo withdrew, he heard the god-king vainly trying to stifle a paroxysm of coughing.

The expedition against the Lokhali was brief and successful. After eleven days, the victorious army – minus about four hundred and fifty casualties – returned to Baya Nor with nearly one hundred prisoners.

Enka Ne addressed the prisoners at considerable length in the sacred city, regardless of the fact that they could not understand a word of what he was saying. Then he decreed that every eighth man should be set free, without food or weapons, to make his way back – if he could – to the land of the Lokhali, there to report on the clemency and omnipotence of Enka Ne. The remainder were to be crucified on the Fourth Avenue of the Gods to demonstrate the vengeance of Oruri and the unprofitability of attacking Bayani temples.

On the day of crucifixion, which had been declared a day of celebration and rejoicing, Poul Mer Lo, in common with several thousand Bayani, strolled along the Fourth Avenue of the Gods.

Apart from the fact that nearly ninety men were dying in a slow and altogether gruesome manner, the scene was vaguely reminiscent of a terrestrial fair or carnival. Cheapjacks were offering various delicacies and novelties, jinricksha men – using two-wheeled carriages, by grace of the stranger, Poul Mer Lo – were doing a roaring trade in slow journeys between the rows of wooden crosses. And children were working off their surplus
energies by pelting the dying Lokhali with stones, offal and small aromatic missiles compounded of excreta.

Poul Mer Lo, steeling himself against the suffering, passed the dying Lokhali, one by one, and tried to observe them with scientific detachment.

He failed. The stench and the pain and the cries were too much for him. He did not even notice that they were all taller than the Bayani or that most of them possessed four fingers and a thumb.

However, as he passed one who was clearly
in extremis
, he heard a few words – half murmured, half moaned – that stopped him in his tracks and brought back visions of a world that he would never see again.

‘Grüss Gott,’
sobbed the Lokhali,
‘Grüss Gott!
Thank you … Thank you …
“chantez de faire votre connaissance” …
Man … Woman … Good morning … Good night. Hello! Hello! Hello!’

‘Where are they?’ demanded Poul Mer Lo in Bayani.

There was no response.

‘Where are they – the strangers?’ he repeated in English.

Again there was no response.

‘Ou est les étrangers?’

Suddenly the Lokhali’s body jerked spasmodically. Then he gave a great cry and hung slackly on the wooden cross.

In a fury of frustration, Poul Mer Lo began to shake the corpse.

But there was no miracle of resurrection.

Paul Marlowe was no longer quite so dissatisfied with his ‘Extra-Terrestrial Academy’. In the last few months both Zu Shan and Nemo had made quite remarkable progress. Once Paul had managed to convince them that it was both a privilege and a pleasure for any thinking person to find out as much as possible about the world in which he exists, and that knowledge brought the power to accomplish much that could not be otherwise achieved, the boy and the crippled child became filled with insatiable curiosity.

It was as if something had exploded in their minds, sweeping away all the inhibitions, the closed-thought attitudes, and the deadening traditions of centuries of Bayani culture. The sophisticated savages became primitive scientists. They no longer accepted what they were told. They challenged it, they tried to refute it, they asked awkward questions. By Earth standards, Zu Shan was about fifteen – three or four years younger than his dead brother – and Nemo could not be more than six. Yet hardship and suffering had brought them a premature maturity. So that when they did eventually grasp the importance of learning, they began to learn at a very high speed.

The same could not be said of either the one-armed Bai Lut or Tsong Tsong. They did not have the spark. Their minds would never get into top gear. Temperamentally, they were hewers of wood and drawers of water. They lacked imagination – and that strange ability to take an intuitive leap into the dark. They were content to play with toys, whereas Zu Shan and Nemo, though not above playing with toys, also wished to play with ideas.

Zu Shan, sensing perhaps that there was more to be got from his teacher than could properly be expressed in Bayani, began to learn English. Nemo, not to be outdone, also elected to learn what was for all practical purposes a ‘dead tongue’.

But, besides providing the means for expressing new concepts, it gave them a sense of status to be able to talk to Paul in his own language. It gave them, too, a sense of intimacy, and drew the three of them close together.

Zu Shan was never quite as fluent as his brother in speaking the language of the stranger; but he soon learned enough to say all that he needed to say – if he took his time about it. Nemo, though younger, had an advantage. He had already discovered that on occasion he could establish sufficient
en rapport
to read minds.