Part One
Chapter 4
REVELATIONS
T he old figure slowly walked up the rocky slope. It was a matter of only a few steps to come to the bloody remains of the thriddahype, no longer recognizable. Smaelear could see the head shake, and thought he could hear a somewhat wistful voice say, "Such death, such life! Such a pity."
The sun was not yet above the crest of the mountains, but it was shining on the sides of the slopes not too far above Smaelaer's head, and onto the white shroud blanketing the valley below. The fog was rapidly melting away under the new day's warmth. Not a sound came to his ears, which, in the panic that had siezed him moments ago, he had not noticed, but which now began to strike him as something almost preternatural. Gradually, though, as the pounding of his heart eased, and his rapid panting slowed, he became aware of the deep rumbling of the oxagrete and the tinny clatter of small stones dislodged by the approach of the old hunter.
Smaelaer could not move. Indecision, as to whether a movement on his part would rouse the incredibly inert oxagrete, froze him as stiff as stone. He dared to move only his eyes, and he watched the oxagrete slumber, and he watched the old hunter, and he furtively glanced around the ravine for some possible means of escape. He saw his gear not three paces away - there lay his spear! but it might as well have been on the other side of the mountain, for he could not screw himself up to try a dash for it.
The old one, head bowed to pick out the best footing, was by this time just behind the oxagrete. Smaelaer gasped at the careless attitude of the hunter, as he watched the hunter walk right up beside the beast. To Smaelaer's utter amazement, the aged figure's head bent down to the oxagrete's and, touching it, spoke.
"You may go, you mad oaf. But first, tidy up that horrid mess you made down there. How many times must I lecture you and the others about letting yourselves get so excited? If you could just see yourself sometimes! I mean it, it's disgraceful. So you lumber off like a good - " the old hunter paused to glance down the beast's belly - "bull, and leave us to ourselves for a bit. Go on!"
The beast sleepily opened its eyes, then suddenly and fiercely glared at Smaelaer. Smaelaer's back stiffened instinctively, and he pressed himself against the cliff, fearing the worst. The oxagrete snorted once, pawed the loose gravel, raised its head - and turned away, heading toward the valley to obediently collect and consume the scattered remains of its kill.
"You have nothing to fear, my friend," said the voice. Smaelaer's attention flashed back to the hunter. "The oxagrete, as you call him, will do you no harm now."
Smaelaer could see the face of the hunter now, gazing steadily back at him. It was, to the Traeppedelfere, an extraordinary one. The features were unusually small: a weak, almost nonexistant jaw; a tiny slit of a mouth beneath the slightest indication of two nostrils; no more than a pore where he would have put an ear.
The eyes, though, were an arresting presence; set in the exact center of the face, almost touching each other, they seemed to Smaelaer to be of normal size, but hardly of normal appearance. But what it was about them that impressed him he could not say, except for the feeling that once he looked into them, he could not look away.
"I am indeed different to your eyes, am I not? Do not start - even if you would, I would not permit it; and it is, after all, unnecessary."
Smaelaer continued to stare into the other's eyes as he took in this confusing speech, when with a shock he realized that the old hunter's mouth had not moved; the words he had "heard" came not through his ears, but were in his head all the same. This frightened him more than the deadly attack of the oxagrete had (which after all he had understood), and his heart began to race again, and his breath was suddenly short; but only for a moment. The eyes in that strange face somehow soothed him, putting away his fear, relaxing his tensed limbs.
"Good," said the detached voice, "yes, you can trust me. I understand. You are, perhaps, more removed from your own race than you are from me; though we shall see, we shall see. This is rather difficult for you to understand, to absorb it all, isn't it? Of course, it would be. Not surprising, no, not at all, not at all. Still, I would think, you could be perhaps more, uh, what is it? comfortable, yes, more comfortable in another position, couldn't you? Would you like to get up?" The old hunter turned his head, releasing Smaelaer's eyes.
Immediately Smaelaer leaped up, jumped over to his pack and, grabbing his spear, raised it against the old one.
"What name?" Smaelaer demanded. He felt some of the natural belligerence of his tribe again, and the feel of the weapon in his hands was a blessed relief to his combative spirit, after the emasculation he had suffered already that short morning. Either this weird person would willingly submit to capture, Smaelaer thought, or be remorselessly executed. The oxagrete, five-hands paces or so down the ravine, interrupted its gorging to witness this confrontation. The old hunter, still looking away, made no answer. "Where mine?" interrogated Smaelaer, "How talk? How hear? What name?"
"Ah!" said the voice, "he sees, yes, and hears; but does not know, does not realize. How could he? He is, after all, the first. Of course he has questions. We must confer, he and I, we must take much of his time. He may not understand, not ever; so much is beyond him. A little at a time, some now, some later, and it will grow, it will grow."
All this ran through Smaelaer's head, how, he knew not. He could not guess as to what it meant, but it was unsettling, whatever else it was. Regardless of the old hunter's control over the oxagrete, Smaelaer was determined that he would not tolerate this silent interview any longer, and resolved to do away with the mysterious hunter and worry about the beast afterwards. This communication was utterly alien to him. Not even in the dimmest and wildest legends of his folk was there any hint of such a thing, any suggestion of a precedent that he could find to hold onto, to orient him to what was happening. He sprang forward, arms cocked for a fatal thrust of his spear.
The old hunter suddenly returned his gaze to the Traeppedelfere. Smaelaer gasped in mid-stride as he lost consciousness instantly, falling like a rock, senseless.
"Stupidity, stupidity," the old hunter dysphemized. "Well, it wasn't supposed to be easy after all."
Smaelaer was falling - a free and pleasant, floating sort of falling; a fall from nowhere to nowhere, passing through the fringe of sensuality. He had been loose like this forever, at any time, on a whim, he could linger, explore - but the freedom, the freedom was like a burden, or worse. Too sweet, too pure, too luscious for him to allow it to leave his grasp, he could not bring himself to part with it; but yet, somehow, he knew that there was more, much more, to have, to be, if only he would renounce the ties of irrelation... No! no, he could not do it: so he was falling, as ever, elastic spirit, focused haze, everywhere, always.
There! what was that? Gone.
No, there! What beast is that? A drop of water, and what force? not water, but stretched to legs, swimming, running, eyes, teeth?! Toes groping, more toes on more legs, as far as far as far, everywhere. One hand blinds the eyes, throttles the water-beasts, faster, bigger; lightning! hands on legs, legs on hands, and such teeth! Teeth like knives, teeth like knives, cutting themselves out of their own maws, and the blood is rain, and still hands and knives and eyes, crawling, swimming to the horizon, to the clouds, the red, red sun, raining.
And where the teeth fell, everywhere the teeth fell, everywhere, the red blood rain-shine ran, and swam with the teeth, glomming, groping globules stickily sliding in, around, through, out, back; steamy giddy chills rock to and fro, to and fro; dizzy, heady consumate idea-storm. Now! no; massy writhing hulks, rising, growing; little helpless meat, born of pain, metamorphosed from pain and death, that bastard of light, as far as far as far. The searing blaze beckons, burns, humor; yet they sprout - poit! poit! poit! You can't stop them, poit! another.
The everywhere roils, teems; uncounted undulating ululating lives, lurid in the sanguinary sun, hair-trigger - why? What happened? tongues aroused to knives, parry and thrust, thrust and parry with the glistening teeth: movement wrestles moment, and still the knife-tongues plunge and rip, plunge and rip, plunge and rip!
Sweet evanescence!
Then the knives again, as one meat eyes another, lop! and another eyes another, lop! and others eye others, lop! lop! as far as far as far. The sticks dance on heads, heads dance on sticks in the searing hot rain-shine as the teeth fall again, ricocheting ptew! off the roly-poly hoppy heads, and the teeth like knives gouge the teeth like knives, furrowing the foreheads, furrowing the rain-stained bloody mud. In hop the pinging teeth, in dance the decapitates, swirling rain-shine wrapping slinky sly and before you know it, hey! Poit! Poit! Poit!
And it all goes over again, under again, through it all again, as Smaelaer sucks it in, soaks it in; but every time there's more, something else, over and over, until bang! What? Out of the lurch, Smaelaer himself sprouts, poit! and all the Traeppedelfere, the whole race, swarming, where? He reaches for his knife, there is no leg! there is no Smaelaer. The dull swarms of the distance race up, the Traeppedelferes rush to meet them, knives glint, lop! lop! lop! thunder, the ground opens, the dancing heads leer at the sky, and the last and the first and the only watches Smaelaer himself carve the teeth from his own discarded skull and rain the red, red sun over the deep furrows until the fire dies.
The sleepy slippery drifting, the easy free-fall wafting, the wondrous careless boneless twisty wistful eyeful of nightmare slowly and imperceptibly had become a cocked and crazy lurching handbasket; and he, whoever he was after watching Smaelaer burn, no longer was in control, he could no longer stop at a whim; he stiffened, which made it worse, and was pulled here and there, breakneck, hurtling.
No black swarms now; fire, and cold mountains, bare, bare, bare, for ever, everywhere, as far as far as far. The memory of life faded, life faded, was gone, never any such thing, what? nothing. The speed, painful, twisting bone against brain, wracking caroming reckless speed, shooting through the nothing, the eternal cipher, with no escape, ever, ever.
But, poit! a sprout, a what, another; but so new, so new - the cool white whiter sun beams, the drop of water, the belonging! this is right, real - why? Soon more; the music, ah - so, so beautiful, the music, the voices; and more and more, poit, poit! Great crowds, sweet sounds, high, high probing soaring minds, mind direct to mind, don't interrupt the music! mind to mind to mind. What was that? a blot - discordant howl -lop! so much for that, ah, ah, growth, understanding, knowledge; words, words, words, strange alluring language, conspiritorially caressing questions before blindly throttling them; the secrets surrender, one by one, then in droves, driven into the void before the wings of divine thought.
And on he goes, riding a thunderbolt.
The music swells, flattery becomes real, reality becomes flatulence, all is contentment, nothing but contentment, absolutely nothing but contentment; and contentment becomes emptiness in its abundance. Beautiful harmonious music fills the void, everywhere, everywhere! you can't escape it, it chases you, fills your mind, background to your very dreams; but dreams are made real, you make them real, so there are no dreams, and nothing is real, but! you long for nothingness, ache for it, owning everything else, having everything except nothing. You, and you, and you, all the same, everyone, one mind; desiring, craving unattainable nothing, eternally.
Self-awareness swept over him like an orgasm of disappointment, dissolving the bobbing basket, dissipating the ageless lightning; scenes dimmed, he himself was dimming, fading, relaxing. Suddenly the minds, all the minds, every one, one mind, dissipated with the lightning, in a quest for nothing, and were gone, was gone; and look! nothing was at hand, blessed release, void: not merely that blackness which implies an absense of something that might have been, but the infinite homogenous chaos of that which could never be.
Smaelaer slowly returned. There he was, a young morwetraeppe, setting a smoke-fire on the mountainside, cursing at the maddeningly frustrating use of the spearcastans to strike the fire. Far up the hill, behind his back (but how can he see it now?), appears the oxagrete, only moments before the kneeling figure licks the roof of his mouth and stands, looking upwind. The distinctive savor rushes over Smaelaer's senses even now, and his heart pounds with excitement at the sight of his first oxagrete, as it did then. He watches as he quickly but noiselessly shoulders his gear and begins the stalk. The oxagrete watches, too, then ambles away.
He had been following the beast for days. He was hungry, having only been able to snatch slim mouthfuls of food at long intervals while tracking the oxagrete. Smaelaer watched with fascination, from some impossible high vantage and simultaneously through his own naive eyes.
The oxagrete, occasionally casting a surreptitious glance at its follower, led him up into a narrow ravine high in the mountains, veiled in cloud. He could see now what he could not see then: several, no, many oxagretes gathered, as if laying in wait on the slopes of the ravine. He could see something else as well: a bent figure, sitting at the very peak of the slope, motionless; but somehow Smaelaer knew now that that figure was attending closely to the drama unfolding below.
The hunted became the hunter, the oxagrete turned to face the morwetraeppe, and the ring of beasts closed in all around. The old nightmare, almost monotonous in its familiarity, surged into the morwetraeppe's eyes, but Smaelaer, from his new third-person viewpoint, watched with all the confidence of experience, and waited. The circle of threatening beasts drew in, ever tighter, pawing the ground, snorting suddenly, lowering their horns. The figure seated on the peak remained motionless.
"Now," thought Smaelaer to himself, "I am about to fall asleep, and the confused oxagretes will leave me alone." So far down below, the terrified morwetraeppe blacked out.
The oxagretes, however, did not desist. Smaelaer stared in surprise as the brutal monsters tore him to shreds in a flash, coating the ravine with his flayed blood: the gut-wrenching sounds of ripping sinew and crunching bone filled the valleys, and the oxagretes, wild-eyed, danced on the mush that once was himself. Smaelaer, at a complete loss for understanding, looked pleadingly to the silent figure on the mountaintop, still surveying the scene. Slowly it faced him - it knew he was there all along - and yes! it was the old hunter. With twinkling eyes, as if enjoying some private joke, the old hunter winked up at Smaelaer, and motioned toward the valley down below, and turned back to watch.
Smaelaer had to force himself to look down again, but once he did, he saw that somehow the oxagretes had not yet attacked; he was unconscious on the gravel at their feet, and the old hunter was approaching the scene from below, up from the bottom of the slope. In an instant, the red-eyed beasts were calm, and soon they filed down the ravine, and out into the valley below. The old one looked up again to Smaelaer, beckoning him to descend, as it were, and Smaelaer understood it was meant that he should join with his young self, somehow. When the old hunter clapped twice, all was dark.
Well, no, not totally dark; he was in the banquet hall, drinking with Snecchen, not so long ago, actually, but long seasons ago, seemingly. Snatches of the conversation rang out. "Swear to Waeccelang!" he was demanding of Snecchen.
An icy, icy cold sensation ran from the small of his neck all the way down to his heels as he heard those words. Then, "Goffe, wise Goffe, think I am great hunter, I kill oxagrete, many oxagretes. Feast with oxagrete will not want coecil." A whirling, dizzy feeling crept up on him, gradually. He could still hear himself saying, though, "tomorrow I walk for Haunted Lands."
The scene spun, now he was utterly disoriented, unable to right himself; and the surprising thing was, it was a pleasant sensation, somehow, a kind of weightless, effortless, lazy feeling; then he realized, there he was again! setting out the next day, emerging from the mines with his gear. Now he recognized it! that rush of freedom, that independent spirit, whizzing through him, almost like falling! a loose, dangling, jangling, easy feeling; free floating and foolish, almost; but who cares? just go, go. Like smoke on the breeze, Smaelaer melted into the forest.
The Waeccelang stood slowly, and looked down at the comatose Traeppedelfere. "So that's it, is it? Hunting for oxagretes! Brave idiot! I had hoped that the first would be something of a greater leap up than that, but one mustn't quibble, one mustn't quibble. Well, if it's oxagretes they demand of him, I suppose I should fix him up with a few. It's clear he's not about to get them on his own, though he could, if he only realized. All in good time, all in good time." Leaving Smaelaer to rest from his instruction and interrogation, the Waeccelang left the ravine, bending mind to the gathering of oxagretes.
Before long, the Waeccelang returned, followed by three of the largest beasts in the Haunted Lands. Smaelaer was still slumbering; not surprisingly, because he was "asleep" solely on command, and could only "awaken" to a like command. The old one made a sign to the docile monsters, and they paused obediently.
Turning to Smaelaer, the Waeccelang said, "Young one, you have learned much in a short time. You will enter a new life as you awaken, unasked for, but not unheralded. A great deal is asked of you, and expected of you, though you will seem to benefit little. Will you shoulder the responsibility? I ask, although you have no choice: indeed, the seeds of time are sewn to no rhythm but their own, and even we have no say.
"But you shall travel the paths untrodden for many, many long aeons, and are doomed to be misunderstood by both the present and the future. I am warning you now: trust what I say to you; trust your knowledge of yourself; know that you are not of your time, and be confident. For if you fail to do so, it is death! Though you can compare, your race cannot, and cannot be made to; and to fulfill your promise, you must be as one of them for a time; perhaps, to you, a very long time.
"So the rattle of eternity beckons, and we all must heed, in our seperate ways. You, Smaelaer, will go back to your mines, and the routine of your days will resume. I have brought these beasts for you; they will follow you as you will. You will find that you can now - oh, what is it? talk, you will be able to talk to them, as I talk to you now, and they will obey, though some more willingly than others. This is not a gift from me: this skill, and other skills, are your birthright, heretofore unknown to you. Use this skill sparingly, and secretly.
"I will be gone when you awaken. But now you know who haunts your Haunted Lands, and so where I may be found by you. Bear in mind this admonition, Smaelaer: reveal to no one in spoken words anything that came to pass here. To do so will be fatal. You must understand your peril. I do not idly advise."
The sun had passed the noon and traveled on down the long arc to dusk. The stones and boulders around Smaelaer were still warm, though the air was cool, when he at last stirred from the rigid position the Waeccelang had left him in. His hand closed automatically on the shaft of his spear, which lay across his chest, and he sat up with a start. The taste of oxagrete was overwhelming; his eyes gradually adjusted to the glinting sunset which blinded them on opening, and when he saw the three beasts, the torrent of revelation scoured through him, frightened him, humbled him.
He knew. He had encountered a Waeccelang.
The force of this impression was profound. The most ancient Traeppedelferean lore passed from the Giestranweard to the race was full of references to, and reverence for, the Waeccelang, the guardians of life. Smaelaer, as had most of the Traeppedelferes, had ever thought of the stories as allegorical, mythical; respected as the wisdom of the forgotten dawn of the race, but hardly credible in any real sense. Even Smaelaer's venturing into the Haunted Lands showed his skepticism of the ancient lore. But the actual appearance of the old hunter, seemingly revealed as a Waeccelang, tied his stomachs in knots.
Smaelaer slowly became aware of his surroundings. The day was nearly gone. The patient oxagretes stood at the bottom of the ravine. He was exhausted, and ravenously hungry. He wondered with a nervous shudder whether the oxagretes were hungry, too. He remembered the Waeccelang's dream-words, and decided to try telling the beasts to graze on the weodasur at their feet. Immediately all three did just that! There was no need to tell them, they obeyed his mere thought; and instantly, instinctively, Smaelaer understood how the Waeccelang had communicated with him. He unrolled his skin and took out a piece of dried meat, too tired to forage. He watched the oxagretes as they placidly chewed; he took a few sips of water; he tried not to think at all, and prepared himself for sleep.
"The oxagretes should lie down and sleep, also," he mused, "tomorrow, we begin the long walk back to the mines." The three beasts simultaneously stopped grazing, lay down where they stood, and slept. Smaelaer smiled an exultant smile, and fell himself into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.
Just over the ridge of the mountain, the Waeccelang also smiled, but inwardly, and slowly turned and descended the far slope.
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