Part Two
Chapter 14
CNAWANEALL
"
Who am I? Who am I? Your - what is it? - Giestranweard did not tell you? I am, I believe, the reason you are here."
"Snecchen? Snecchen knows of you? She never said anything to me!" Monwyrt was angry.
"Perhaps she - she! how delicious, gender! - excuse me, this, er, reciprocation is a great treat for me. Perhaps your Giestranweard was not so sure of me, after all. I had merely assumed that she had attained her position entirely due to what she may have learned about me from someone of your tribe. A small conceit, but a conceit, to be sure. No matter.
"Who am I? Make yourself, ah, comfortable, Monwyrt. If you really want to know, the telling in full will take a long while. Are you sure you will understand the answer? I wonder.
"You Traeppedelferes call me a Waeccelang, a guardian of your world. Your lore recalls something of me: not much, but it is fairly accurate as far as it goes. How much do you know of it? Probably all there is for you to know."
"I paid no attention to Snecchen's attempts to teach me the lore," admitted Monwyrt. "I know nothing of you."
"What?! There is a primitive but rather gratifying little homage paid us each season at your Great Banquet. You might remember something of that? It starts out, 'Oh, Waeccelang..."
"I have never been to the Great Banquet. Until last season I was not of age, and then I returned to the caves too late," Monwyrt explained, with a tinge of disappointment in his voice.
That disappointment was echoed by the other. "Oh."
"How do you know so much about me?" Monwyrt asked. "I mean, you know my name, you know about the Great Banquet, about the Giestranweard, our speech... I know nothing of you. You have not even told me your name! Where do you live, why are you here?"
"Oh, dear. Where to begin? You don't even know what a Waeccelang is; such a gulf, such a chasm, such a pity. Well, let's approach it this way: you ask your questions, and I'll attempt to answer them."
Monwyrt was ready. "What is your name?"
"I - we - that is, I have no name, as you understand it."
"And when no one calls, you know you're wanted?" Monwyrt returned sarcastically, recalling a tale he heard as a cild.
"Eh, what?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, nothing, that's right. My race; we have no need of names, we communicate through the music; there is so little call for individualism. We live together... It's really very difficult to explain. I have no name - other than Waeccelang, I suppose."
"Are there other Waeccelangs?"
"Why, yes, there are many others," the Waeccelang answered, glad to change the subject.
Monwyrt looked around. "Where?"
"Everywhere! That is, er, scattered here and there, where there is promise of - I mean, you know, a few are with me here, some are elsewhere..." the answer faded rather pitifully.
"These others," Monwyrt continued, with a stern and determined edge to his voice, "what do they call you?"
"Still with the name!? They don't call me! We just - the music - all right. Look. If I must have a name, you may call me - " there was a pause - "Cnawaneall. Call me Cnawaneall."
Monwyrt considered this. "Cnawaneall."
"Yes."
"From someone who doesn't know his own name."
"Yes. Well, that's not quite fair, you know, as I don't really have what you'd call a name."
"Didn't, you mean."
"Didn't, right."
"All right, then, Cnawaneall," Monwyrt indulged himself in a wry little smile, "What tribe are you from?"
"Look, Monwyrt, you'd best leave off that smirk. I mean, after all, I could make things rather unpleasant for you at whim. Have you forgotten those 'dreams,' as you call them?" Cnawaneall's countenance nearly broke into an expression.
Monwyrt sobered immediately. "Right. Sorry."
"Well said. Now, what was it? oh, yes. I believe you refer to my people as the Libbannawiht."
"Not I. What was that again?"
"Libbannawiht."
"Where are they from? That is, where are you from?"
"Oh, dear. You are so - absolute, aren't you? The Libbannawiht aren't from a where, exactly; that is, they aren't any particular place, or (now that I put it this way) any particular time, even. At least, not any more. I mean, they just are, like you are, only more so. Do you see?"
"Absolutely," said Monwyrt.
"Splendid! I thought perhaps I was not making myself clear." Cnawaneall's expressionless face brightened into a much more cheerful and relieved sort of expressionlessness.
"Um," said Monwyrt. "You, who have no name, no voice, and no scent, come from a tribe not living anywhere now, but are, somehow. Is that right?"
"Exactly! Marvelous!"
"Just," continued Monwyrt, "like myself, you say; except for the name part, and the voice part, and the scent and tribe and place and time parts."
"Yes, wonderful!" Cnawaneall went on brightly, then drew up. "No, now wait a moment! I'm trying to tell you about things utterly beyond your experience, probably beyond your comprehension, and I've had about enough of your petty sarcasm to last me another generation or two. So, if you don't want to be consciously educated I can very easily handle you the way I did that twatunge Smaelaer and be done with it!"
Monwyrt jumped to his feet. "Smaelaer!" he shouted. "What do you know about Smaelaer? Did you music him, too? Was he here? Did he - "
"Slower, slow down," laughed Cnawaneall. "Yes, I saw Smaelaer, I spoke with him. I showed him his gift, I found his oxagretes. He wanted to - what is it? He wanted to kill me, at first; but that may have been due to the rather tight situation he had got himself into when we first met face-to-face. You see, a huge, blood-crazed oxagrete had him trapped against a cliff wall and was just about to rip him apart when I came up and stopped it, and - "
"So you told the oxagrete to turn away from me today!" Monwyrt blurted. "That is why it left, because it saw you. Now I understand!"
"No! you do not understand! Smaelaer had no idea of his gift to communicate with the beasts. You have an idea, no more; but it was enough today. You are responsible for saving yourself today; I had nothing to do with that. You routinely call to the thriddahypes, a little friend of mine informs me that you daily speak with him, and today you awkwardly but successfully talked down an oxagrete. But, as I say, Smaelaer had no inkling of his abilities, and would have been scattered to the four winds had I not interfered on his behalf. Unfortunately, your own tribe saw fit to do what I had prevented the oxagrete from accomplishing, and I have been forced to wait for you."
Monwyrt sagged slowly back to the ground. "Haegtesse was right!" he muttered to himself in shock.
"One of her unforgiveable faults," said Cnawaneall, "Haegtesse is always right."
Monwyrt looked up sharply.
"Well now," Cnawaneall changed the subject, "well now, well now. So, Monwyrt, you are upset by something? Oh, yes, talking with the beasts. It's part of your gift, you know; part of the music. Smaelaer - of all the Traeppedelferes, of all the living things of your, uh, world, I believe, Smaelaer alone had it; and now you. How could you not have known?"
"I thought, I mean, I did know, but I thought I had just discovered it. I didn't think it was because I - well, I didn't know what to think. I guess I didn't think about it at all. I just used my thriddahype call to gain time to run on my own in the mountains. I live to run on my own, and hate it so in the caves. How did you know about my thriddahype calls? - never mind, it doesn't matter."
"As for how I knew about your calls, I experienced them myself here in this glade when you first came here. Besides, you demonstrated it for me yourself in your 'dream.'" Cnawaneall was silent for a moment. "So you 'live' to run on your own. Yes. Yes, I am very pleased to know that, Monwyrt."
Monwyrt was not paying attention. "I can talk to oxagretes," he mumbled, dazedly. "I can talk to oxagretes," he said, a little louder. "Cnawaneall," Monwyrt shouted, jumping again to his feet, "I can talk to oxagretes! Do you know what that means? Do you realize what that means?" Monwyrt danced a little jig in his excitement, while visions of Maegenyldra Monwyrt engorged his mind. "Why, I shall be Giestranweard and Maegenyldra! My Traeppedelferes shall eat oxagrete every day!" His hair waved at the prospect.
"Yes, you can talk to oxagretes; I fully know what that means, though you apparently do not: that you can also talk to me!"
Monwyrt did not absorb this at first, so entranced was he with the fantasy of his ascension.
"Monwyrt, reflect for a moment," Cnawaneall went on. "Yes indeed, you may be able, with your abilities, to acquire power, such as there is to acquire amongst your tribe members. Is that what you desire? A moment ago you stated that you live to run alone. Now you wish to surround yourself with responsibilities. It would appear that you yourself do not know what you want."
"Um," Monwyrt replied meditatively, "that is so. I do want to run alone. When I am out from the caves, I lose myself in the forest. There is a sensation of an odd mixture of detachment and unity that I find difficult to describe... I am no longer a mere hunter, with duties to discharge and expectations to fulfill, I am much less than that; I am nothing, insignificant - but part of something else that is so much more, much greater - I can't put it into words. My life is my own, and it is without value, utterly: if I would die this moment, the forest would not note it, nothing would change, the next moment would be indistinguishable from the previous one, when I had been alive.
"But this worthlessness is the very thing I prize most; it allows me to at once be a part of all of life and be a disinterested spectator to it. The rain comes down, it is cold and wet, and I am miserable; but I laugh, because I know I am cold and wet and miserable and it doesn't matter at all to the forest, not a bit. You see, in the forest, I can be happy about being cold and wet and miserable. I can be happy about being warm, or about running, or sleeping. All is joy, all is happiness, all. Why? Because when I am out in the forest, nothing matters.
"But there is a little part of me, somewhere, that keeps coming up. I am a Traeppedelfere, I know the names of many of my folk, and they speak among themselves about others long dead, leaders of the tribe, or crafty workers, or great hunters like Smaelaer. This little part of me wonders what I can do, so the tribe might learn my name, and speak of me as a great Traeppedelfere. I am almost ashamed of this little part of me: it seems so petty and vain compared to the vastness of the forest. But then at moments I feel selfish to keep to myself and run and enjoy, when I might be contributing to my tribe instead. Either way, there is guilt. So you are right, I suppose: I don't know what I want."
All the while Monwyrt talked he had paced absent-mindedly back and forth through the weodhwit. As he finished he sat down again and threw his hands up, palms exposed.
"Indecision and guilt," Cnawaneall thought. "There is much we have forgotten."
"Why does it matter that I can talk to you?" Monwyrt asked suddenly. "I mean, I know, at least I think, that no one in the tribe has talked to you before. Before Smaelaer, I mean."
"Very nearly true - as close as no matter," answered the Waeccelang rather vaguely. "Have you no idea as to why that may be so?"
"Well," Monwyrt began slowly, "the hunters do not come out this far from the caves, I guess. They would not meet you here."
"Smaelaer saw me at that Great Banquet, Monwyrt. I was there. None of your tribe shared his vision, though, and Smaelaer suffered the consequences of not listening to my warnings."
"Smaelaer was cnawannawiht," Monwyrt replied automatically. Then: "no, wait. You were there? Then Smaelaer was not cnawannawiht, but... if Smaelaer could see you and talk to you, why couldn't the others? I can. Can the others now?"
"No, Monwyrt; at least, none that I know of. Can the others run hand-days at a time in the forest without drygeslaep? No. Can the others call the thriddahypes? No. You, and Smaelaer before you, are the first of new race, Monwyrt, a race of destiny, one way or the other."
Monwyrt's head swam. "I don't understand. I am a Traeppedelfere, a hunter. I only want to run in the forest. I don't understand what you mean by a 'race of destiny.'"
"Ah, don't concern yourself with that," Cnawaneall apologised hastily. "An unfortunately grandiose turn of phrase, nothing more. Put yourself at ease, and allow me to sketch out a little history for you - "
Monwyrt's groan interrupted him. "Not a lore lecture!" he moaned. "I'm confused enough as it is!"
"It is exactly as you said it is in the forest," Cnawaneall encouraged him. "Be happy that you know you are confused, and that it does not matter at all. But also attend to my lore lecture, as you so disparagingly refer to it, because it is possible that afterwards you may not be so confused."
"Snecchen's lore was uncompromisingly dull."
"I assure you, this tale of mine is quite beyond the scope of Snecchen's learning."
Monwyrt morosely resigned himself to his fate and lay back, closing his eyes.
"My people, the Libbannawiht, are an ancient race. The Traeppedelferes are but a fleeting word at the end of our long, long tale. In your dream, Monwyrt, I introduced you to us in the chosen state: you remember the music, the light. For a brief instant you were as one of us, but of course you were not ready; your song was too different yet, and you were returned. That was inevitable; if it might have been otherwise, I would not have risked exposing you to us.
"But we did not always appear thus. Our memory is long, and deep within it was the form in which I appear before you now. It is most like your own, don't you agree? That is significant. You can scarcely imagine the trepidation I experienced upon assuming this form for the first time after so long. The very idea of autolocomotion was so insanely primitive that - well, never mind. It doesn't matter, as you say.
"We wore this form long ago, impossibly long ago to your simple reckoning, not out of choice, as I do now, but out of ignorance. Ignorance, naivety, innocence, backwardness: call it what you will, we were, despite all that, vastly superior in every way to any race in a similar form at this time. You Traeppedelferes flatter yourselves on your system of governance, your stratified society, your industry and ingenuity. The stone that you hammer in your mines is every bit as clever as you would seem in comparison to us, even in that remote and early stage.
"But our memory stretches back further still, back to a point at which it would take but a small strain of the imagination to believe that we were once very much like the races of this time. It is this small strain of the imagination, Monwyrt, that prompted the appearance of the Waeccelang.
"We were a justifiably proud race. We - I say we although it was before my time, personally: the great discoveries were then yet to be made, of course - we ruled the world as we saw fit; and ruled it well, given our objectives. These objectives, or goals; ideals, I guess you could call them; were held at the time to be universal and incontrovertible. Many - actually, most - of us still hold them to be so. These goals were, stated simply: to become perfect. Absolute knowledge, intrinsic wisdom, unity in purpose, complete control.
"At first, and for what turned out to be quite a long time, these goals remained inspiring but unattainable in any practical sense, and those who pursued the ideal materially were in the minority and generally ostracized. But suddenly over a scant hand or so generations a remarkable string of discoveries stunned the race into the realization that the ideal just might be attainable in a real way.
"The music, of course, was the discovery that wrought the greatest change. With the music we could communicate with complete understanding. There was no need to translate our thoughts into words or others' words into ideas: it simply happened. Whole fields of knowledge could be shared instantaneously, communally. Education became a matter of desire only; there was precious little effort required any more. It was a revolution of universal scope: everything changed overnight.
"It was possible then, for the first time, to transfer the entire store of learning and experience from one generation to the next, which needed only to build on it rather than relearn it. Knowledge expanded at a hitherto unimaginable rate: scientific ignorance retreated down ever-narrowing vortices while philosophies spread to embrace ever-enlarging voids of understanding. Suddenly, alarmingly, the last elusive infinitesimal detail of physical mystery was solved, even as the key to spiritual continuity was found, and we were amazed (at the time) to find that the answer to either led directly to the answer of the other!
"Bang! there it was! what I can only endeavor to translate to you as The Rule. Ultimate knowledge, wisdom, all the secrets... perfection. Our goal, you see.
"But we were not ready to be perfect. I think, and a few others also, that we are not yet ready to be perfect - but that's neither here nor there. With everything laid before us (and you can have no comprehension of what I mean when I say everything) we panicked; well not panic exactly the way you are thinking - we sort of tried too hard. It was there, it was right there; we didn't have to force it, but we did. A blatant intolerance exploded: anything deemed by anyone to be somehow less than perfect was eliminated, wiped clean. It was madness, perfect madness, you might call it: wholesale destruction, and no one could fight it because we all knew it was necessary! Whole populations, species, continents, satellites - I can't bear to think of it again!
"We remade the world - no, that's not right, either. We made our universe: we chose our own forms, we could command thought to create everything, sensation or memory; and only after (to you) impossibly long aeons had passed did some of us realize the mistake we had made.
"You see, Monwyrt, we had become... everything. We knew all, saw all. We could mold our surroundings into whatever we desired with a thought, but that soon became wearisome, and it came down to the plain fact that the thought itself was the only thing of any value whatsoever. All our perfection, bought as we thought with good intentions, sweat and blood, had been in fact achieved with the first thought.
"By then we were beyond time: we no longer died, or were born; our spirits knew no measure of time, we are of all times, simultaneously; senses, as you have them, were to us utterly redundant and discarded as such, because we could create at will.
"Look at that small stone beside your foot there, for example. For you, it is real: you can pick it up, guage its weight, throw it, catch it again, carry it along with you or drop it somewhere. A season later, or a lifetime, you can come back and it will be there, to pick up again.
"But if I would desire such a small stone as that one, I would simply imagine one in my hand, or on the ground, and there it would be! I could pick it up, guage its weight; but I could make it heavier if I wished, as heavy as a mountain! and I could still lift it, if I so desired. It would be as real to me as that stone there is to you, but the moment it passes from my thought, it would be gone forever, unless I think it up again for some reason. And your stone, which I did not create, I can make disappear if I wish: not in the reality of that stone, but in the reality of my mind. We create the world we live in, our race, and an empty gift it has become.
"What is the point of going to the effort to build our own world full of things and times when, in order to be able to create them, we know all there is to know about them to begin with? And so, the simplicity of light! We bathe our spirits in the elegance of radiation - active! and with an obvious source, that's important - and we... exist. Long ago, the music became our sole means of - well, not pleasure, exactly, but of affirmation. The interweaving text and texture of the music reminds us that we are: it is our only reminder. The beauty of the music; the communal effort, each spirit's contribution identifiable and distinct, yet the whole as complete and satisfying as it is; this beauty is all that we can aspire to, now. We succeeded as achievers only to become eternal stewards of our achievement. A hollow, hollow fate.
"Yet a few of us risked the dreaded discordant note to monitor things in your real world, Monwyrt. We found it rewarding, from time to time, to give things a little boost, though we all agreed that we shouldn't tamper too much. I have particularly enjoyed your Traeppedelferes; you hearty, dim-witted, lusty things! You are so full of the life that we have irretrieveably left behind.
"But, as I say, it is but a small strain to the imagination to acknowledge the inevitability of your advancement, too, and that is why the Waeccelang came. You will decide, your race, when it comes time, to remain, or to pass on. We, we had the decision made for us by the onrushing of events; events we ourselves precipitated, to be sure, but in the end had no control over. The Waeccelang are here, Monwyrt, to help you retain control; to allow you to make the decision: The Rule, or life.
"Are you still as confused, Monwyrt? Monwyrt?"
Monwyrt opened his eyes and stretched, yawning.
"Oh, my!" he smacked his lips. "Excuse me; I must have dozed off. You finished?"
If Cnawaneall had had teeth, he would have ground them.
"Quite finished," was the icy reply. "Have you any questions?"
"I guess not - no, wait; there is one thing."
"Well?"
"Have you got anything to eat? I'm hungry."
"Hungry?!"
"Um. I threw all my food to the oxagrete, you know."
"Food?"
"Um, food! I want something to eat! Don't you eat? I'm hungry!" He felt himself getting hungrier every time he repeated it.
"No," answered Cnawaneall, "we do not 'eat,' as you put it." The Waeccelang was quiet for a brief moment. "There, now you are no longer hungry."
"What do you m-- " Monwyrt stopped in mid-thought and put his hands to his stomachs. "How did you do that?"
"Eh, what? That? You would know if you had listened!"
"Well, I told you I'm not much for lore."
"And so that excuses you from learning it? Never mind, perhaps it does, perhaps it does," Cnawaneall said indulgently.
"What else did I miss?" Monwyrt asked curiously.
"What? Do you want me to put you to sleep with it again? No thank you."
"For instance, did you explain why I can see you but no one else can? That, I don't understand."
"Er; no, I guess I didn't mention that. It's really of no consequence."
"Smaelaer died because of it."
"Yes, but that's of no consequence, either. But I see your point. Well now, let's see.
"When The Rule was revealed, as I said, we sort of went crazy eradicating what we took to be lesser things. Naturally enough, I suppose, looking back on it, some of these lesser things rather resented this. We then appeared yet in the form I wear now, we had not become what you call Libbannawiht; and despite our possesion of The Rule, or perhaps because we were not ready for it, we were very much - er, what is it? - mortal; we were still mortal, and the lesser forms took all the advantage they could of that fact."
"They fought you?"
"They killed us every chance they could get. Fortunately for us they got few chances, because we could eradicate them merely by being aware of their presence. But, for all that, they were a danger to us.
"Some of these lower forms were not so very far removed from us, and were sympathetic to our goal; while others were no more than obstacles to it, and had to be removed. We developed the effective defense of rendering ourselves non-existant - er, that is, invisible, you could say - to those belligerent lower forms, while those more advanced could still be aware of us. Through long seasons - ages, really - of utilizing this defense, it became part of our natural being, to the point that we knew if something could detect us, it was friendly and sympathetic, and if it could not, we could negate it. A simple, as I say, but effective ploy. Part of our assuming these physical gladrags to return as your Waeccelangs quite incidentally entailed assuming this old defense also. It was decided that, since we were to have this capability, the detection of us would be the test by which we would determine when we actually would begin communicating with your races in earnest."
Monwyrt face was clouded. "These 'lower forms' you speak of: what were they?"
"It is of no importance what they were, I - we: that is, the Waeccelang are here to protect, not destroy - that is to say - "
"That is to say they were Traeppedelferes, you mean!" Monwyrt was warming up.
Cnawaneall sighed, metaphysically speaking. "No, no, not Traeppedelferes, but very much like your Traeppedelferes, I must admit."
"So the Waeccelang are here now to atone for the eradication of those lower forms."
"Atone. Yes, in one sense you are right, though there was never any question of guilt, as you call it, on our part."
Monwyrt looked up with a new glint in his eye. "And in this form you say you are wearing for me - you are also mortal now?"
"Smaelaer made that mistake, Monwyrt. Believe me, you are better off accepting my infallibility. For instance, I don't for a moment think that you actually were sleeping while I lectured you, and I suspect that you learned more from your Giestranweard than you let on to her. What your reasons are for feigning ignorance are unclear, but I will say this, they offer you no advantage with me!"
Monwyrt smiled. "My ignorance, which you so flatteringly notice, is genuine, as far as it goes, I assure you. You are like Snecchen: you cannot believe that anyone would not automatically share your priorities. Well, I do not. Eradicate me as a lower form, or teach me something useful. I want to eat with my teeth, not suddenly have my stomachs bloated by goety, and until you can understand that, my attention will tend to wander from your lore."
"You are like Smaelaer, yet different also. We may, you and I, stand to learn much together. Let me witness your thriddahype call again. Perhaps you will eat with your teeth again soon."
Monwyrt grinned as he stood. As weird a character as this old flotasaec was, Monwyrt felt he could trust him, and he turned to face down the valley and let loose his call. The echo of it returned many times, and as the last one faded Monwyrt turned to Cnawaneall and asked: "How was that?"
Then he gasped with a start.
The Waeccelang was surprisingly far up the valley already, lightly threading a course between the waterway and the forest.
|