The Companions (36 page)

“About the redmoss eating willogs, and then the willogs became moss demons?”

“Sometimes. If redmoss had crabs in it, new thing is being part willog, part crab. If redmoss had birds in it, new thing is part bird. Cannot fly. Bird bones very fragile, do not last when redmoss eats bird, so few bones for building on. Sometimes willog demons living like…do you have flat pastries, made on…a metal plate made hot on fire?”

“Pancakes, yes. On a griddle.”

“Griddle, yes. Sometimes willogs are young, have few bones, redmoss eats them, makes demons squirming on
ground like pancake. If combination works, sometimes willog becoming new thing that is living for long time.”

I looked around to see how my fellow travelers would react to her words, only to find they had more or less fallen asleep around the fire. Only Behemoth lay at attention, eyes fixed on the two of us. I asked, “And if the redmoss had a person in it when it ate the willog?”

Gavi shrugged. “Never happened. Long, long ago, we chase willogs away from Night Mountain. We told them staying away or we burning them all. So, no willogs here falling into moss with persons in it.”

“When was that?”

“Oh, hundreds years ago, I am guessing. Before Day Mountain people went away. Too much trouble, willogs. First one thing, then another thing. Good poets, though.”

“A hundred years or more,” I marveled.

Gavi nodded. “We had chronometers on ships. Some still working. Now we measure years by sun. A year on Moss is having days less than year on Earth, but Moss day is longer. Time of year about same. Jardinconnu had long years but no wintertime, books say. Good for growing flowers.”

“You said the willogs caught things to eat? What things?”

“Our animals. Goats. Cats. Some of us before we were knowing about them.”

“What did they eat before you got here?”

Gavi furrowed her brow, stroked her jaw with one finger, puzzled. “I am not knowing. Never asked.”

“You've never seen any fauna, any animals, birds, fish?”

“Are being small birds, yes. Fishes, yes. Crabs. Mouses. We are thinking they were being on our ships when we came.”

I took a deep breath. “Well! Will you introduce me to your people?”

Gavi shook her head, very seriously. “I think it is being wiser not.”

“Why is that?”

She accompanied herself with hand gestures once more. “My people are fighting evermore, this tribe against that tribe.” Hands darted at one another, inflicting blows. “Every ten, twenty years, Night Mountain tribes put away fighting each other, join together to have big battle against united tribes of Day Mountain. They fight for key…”

“What key?”

“Key to Splendor.” Hands raised in adoration, invocation.

“What? To Splendor? There really is a Splendor?”

Gavi's eyes shifted away, then back, looking earnestly into mine. “So chiefs say. Other people say it is only symbol, but important to chiefs! For making strut, you know? Wartime is coming very soon. Already preparations are making. So, I am introducing you, one chief may keep you, sell you to your people for weapons for using against other chief. Or, chief could try using you some other way, probably nasty. They do not want you here. We have peace with Moss. We stay where we are, planet leaves us alone. So, my people are staying hidden hoping you will go away…”

That terribly sincere look, directly into my face told me at once that she was lying. Or perhaps, merely withholding part of the truth. I kept my eyes fixed on hers, smiling only slightly, skeptically, letting her see it. She flushed, glancing around at the others. Even Behemoth had his head down, his eyes closed. She murmured, “There is another place here. Separate. The night I am finding your album, I was being wakened by voices. Looking through crack in stone, I am seeing people, legs only, but people legs, not walking. I am hearing man's voice saying ‘It was along here, right here.' I am hearing another voice saying, ‘How could you be so stupid. I have told you a thousand times.'

“The legs were not walking. They floated…”

“Where was this?” I asked, almost in a whisper.

“In the rock. Inside the rock. When morning was coming, there was only rock, but I was not having dream! I was seeing it! I was! And I was thinking, this is Splendor, this place. To get there, one must be having key, so…”

“A spatial anomaly,” I breathed. “We all know there's one here, close by. The Derac fell through it. Your ships fell through it. And your chiefs fight over it?”

“When your people are arriving, down by the big lake, my people, both Mountains, are deciding there is nothing here making your people stay very long. Many dangers, nothing valuable. My people think we let you alone, you will go soon, but if your people are knowing about us, you will not go, and our planet will be visited so all the worlds know what only our chiefs know. Chiefs do not want visitings. That is why I will not tell them of you.”

I marshaled my thoughts, wanting to be as truthful with her as possible.

“I'm not sure I want to tell our people about you, either. Not all of them, at any rate. Some of what you've told me is valuable; I'll have to pass it on some way, but I can do it without mentioning you. I'm what is called an arkist, a preservationist. I brought the dogs as a preservation effort, an experiment to see if they can survive and reproduce on their own. This isn't the place we intend them to live, but this world is very similar to the place we planned for them, and we needed to see how they adapt to this kind of environment.

“I don't want to endanger that project, and I don't want to interfere with my brother's contract. He's trying to learn the language of the Mossen, and he hasn't had a chance to get anywhere yet.”

“What are Mossen?”

“The things, the flame-shaped things, the ones who dance in a circle, different colors.”

Gavi laughed. “You mean words!”

“He's trying to learn the language of the Mossen, yes.”

“Not language of words. Words are language.”

“Ai sai,” said Behemoth. “Wrrns.”

Gavi looked at him. “You smelled them?”

Behemoth replied. “Ess.”

“The dog did not tell you?” asked Gavi.

“He did tell me,” I snarled, enlightenment hitting me in
the face like a splash of frigid water. I was furious at myself. “Behemoth told me, and I wasn't listening! Not properly. It isn't color, is it? Each one of them has a different smell!”

“True,” said Gavi, with dancing eyes. “You know! How wonderful. No one up there knows. I learned their talk when I was tiny, only little child. Come out, I am showing you.” She lifted the blanket and moved out into the night, calling back, “Bring your light thing.”

I brought my torch. Gavi was across the clearing, amid a thick growth. When I approached, Gavi took the torch, and said, “There. See!”

The plant had a rosette of huge, basal fronds, longer than I was tall, from the center of which grew even longer, arching stems, with a row of tiny bell shapes hanging under each one.

“I see it,” I growled. “There was something like that on the moon.”

“This is talker,” said Gavi, pointing at the plant. “Those hanging down are words, not ripe yet. They grow in order, each one set of smells, each one word. They swell up, they make gas inside like balloon, they get little tentacles at bottom, for holding them down, little tentacles on sides to hold other words on each side, each one fitting only between foreword and after-word, they get ripe, all at once, break free and they go dancing, dancing, all across world, telling World what is message, getting riper and riper, being smellier you know? When all ripe, they float up, go pop, seeds fall, new talkers grow. These ones, they are message from World.”

“In smells!”

“In smells, yes. Until we are getting here, mosses did not see, did not hear, but they could smell. This is message to World saying maybe, ‘Eat human beings,' or maybe ‘No more moss-demons,' or something else.”

“And you can…sniff these words?”

“When they ripen. I have very good nose. All our people have very good noses. That was our profession, long ago, being noses. When I was very, very small, I come down from up there to here. Baby is no threat to anything. Baby
only plays. So, I learned all smells. A smell like morning means
morning.
A smell like death means
death. Death
also means
stop
or
finish. Morning
means
start, begin.
Each person has smell, but there is also a smell for all of us. That smell says
human.
Smell of blood means
hurt,
or
kill.
World can make words saying
kill all humans,
or
some humans,
or
single ones of us.
”

“Or to let us live.”

“True, but maybe not…dependable. This is why our people live up in abysses. They do not know moss language, as I do, but they know it is safer up there. We stay up there, nothing bothers us. When army comes down, very soon now, everyone is wearing armor and going forced march, very fast, so by time message growing against them in one place, they are gone already. When they are coming back, they are coming different way, where no messages are. So we are doing it, each time.”

“What do you know about the moon?” I asked.

“The green moon? It is growing and shrinking like stories of Earthmoon. Only this one turns around, so it isn't always same side we see. Sometimes we see light flashes on it, like harvesters…”

“You said, you came down here as a child. Alone? Ah. Then you had parents like mine, gone or dead or something?”

“Something,” said Gavi, solemnly. “Yours?”

“Dead. When I was young.”

“Ah. So you are lonely child. Then you find him, your husband…”

“Witt. Yes. Then I was not lonely.” At that moment, I was sure that this was true. Or should have been sure.

“But he has been gone many years. Can you not find someone else?”

I stared at her, seeing nothing there but compassion and true interest, to which I answered truthfully. “No. No one else is even…interesting to me, in that way…I have tried a few times to become interested, but, it doesn't work. When Witt went, I think that part of me went, too.”

“Ah,” said Gavi Norchis. Then she was silent for a moment, looking thoughtful. “He was first man for you?”

“Oh, oh yes.”

There was a momentary silence. I broke the quiet. “What do you do now? What is your work?”

“I am scent mistress. It is laudable calling. We are regarding scent very highly, as science. So, I am scent mistress, and I use scent for moving people, for curing, for calming, for making them fall in love, making them hate, too, if I choose.” She drew herself up, proudly. “I am best one, because I understand what I am doing, and others do not. Others make up words, this smell is label
ak,
that one is label
uk.
Then they make rules about
ak
and
uk, ak
is of category
warm, uk
is of category
cold. Ok
is of color
red, ik
is of color
blue
. Rules meaning nothing, just someone making up system. Like in olden times, people making up rules about stars, planets, called…”

“Astrology,” I offered.

“That, yes. This star influences that, this planet something else. Even on Jardinconnu we were having them: ‘For many credits, I will do plan of stars and planets for you to keep away from danger.' Foolish men are always buying such things. Ha-ha. Mankind does that, makes up systems, even when no sense in them.”

I smiled, knowing she was right. “Our need to control our future by understanding the rules is greater than our need to know the truth.”

“Is being true!” Gavi laughed. “When they follow system that means nothing about labels meaning nothing, they are feeling good even though achieving nothing except by accident. I use language belonging to World. I achieve much.”

“You're speaking very frankly.”

“We are two women, not? Meeting strangely? I give your wedding thing, I show you where it was. You give me your swearing you will not speak of me to anyone. Also, if one day you meet my people, you do not speak of me to them. I
have been saying much to you! Too much. Our meeting here is secret thing.”

“Will you teach me Moss's language?”

Gavi considered my request, head bowed, forehead furrowed. “You should learn it yourself for understanding best. Rise early, smell dawn, ten mornings. Ten mornings is one word, subtle variations. Common smell is all mornings. Variations are other words: rainy morning, cold morning, sunshiny morning. Smell where tree is dying, until it is dead. You will have several words. Fated to die. Started dying. Almost dead. Dead. Rotted. Follow words dancing in woods, be seeing what happens where they dance. Does this growth start and that stop? Is redmoss dwindling into nothing or growing into huge levee? You will see, and you will have message. From that, you can make meanings for words. This is what I did, as child. If you reach hard place, I will help.”

“The words are dancing over and over again in the meadow near our camp. From the colors, I think it was the same ones in the same order every time.”

“Ah,” said Gavi. “Telling you something important.”

“Whatever it is, we are not hearing it. Can you at least tell us what that message is?”

Gavi shook her head. “That message is where you are, and I do not have one idea. I would need to be smelling for myself, and I am not safe going alone so far.”

“If we smell the message, back there, and then come here and tell you the smells…?”

Gavi shook her head. “How can you tell me? Some are easy. Rotten meat. Smell of apples. Smell of smoke, fifty different kinds…But others, how define?”