The little thing’s voice scratched against the pane of obsidian, trying to get at the soul.
“I do sorrow for you, Mother. I am now going to ask you a question to help take your mind off your sorrows. I will ask you to pass that question on to your mother, and to her mother and her mother’s mother, and so down to remote depths. You must find me an answer to the question, and then I shall be so proud of you. I wish to discover if Wutra really exists. Does Wutra exist, and who or what is he? You must send the question back and back until some far fessup returns an answer. The answer must be full. I wish to understand how the world works. The answer must come back to me. Do you understand?”
A reply was screamed at her before she had finished speaking.
“Why should I do anything for you after the way you spoilt my life and why and why and why and what care I down here for any of your stupid problems you mean little piddling fool, it lasts for ever being down here, you hear, for ever and my sorrow too—”
The soul broke into the monologue.
“You have heard my demand, Mother. If you do not carry it out to the letter, I shall never visit you again in the world below. No one will address you ever again.”
The gossie made a quick gulp at the soul. The soul remained just out of harm’s reach, watching dusty sparks issue from the unbreathing mouth.
Without another word, the gossie began to pass on Shay Tal’s question, and the fessups below snapped in fury at it.
All hung suspended in obsidian.
The soul was aware of other fessups nearby, hanging like shabby jackets on pegs in a midnight hall. Loilanun was there, and Lail Bry, and Little Yuli. Even Great Yuli was hanging here somewhere, reduced to a furious shade. The soul’s father’s gossie was nearby, more feared even than its mother’s gossie, its wrath surging at her like a tide.
And the voice of the father’s gossie was like the scratching of the nails of a hand on a windowpane.
“… and another thing, ungrateful girl, why weren’t you a boy, you wretched failure you knew I needed a boy wanted a boy a good son to carry on the miserable suffering of our line, so I’m regarded as a laughingstock by all my friends not that I thought aught of that gang of miserable cowards, ran from danger they did, ran when the wolves howled and I ran with them not knowing if I could have my time again—my time again oh yes my damned time again—and the wind blowing fresh in the lungs and every joint on the move down the trail where the deer flickered free with their white scuts bobbing—oh, the time again—and no involvements with that sexless breastless hag you call your mother here in the clutches of this unbreathing stone I hate her hate her hate you too you prattling scumble you’ll be here one day soon yourself yes here for ever in the tomb you’ll see…”
And there were other messages from other dried mouths, tail ends of grunts, sticking into her fabric like old animal bones protruding from soil, verdigrised over with earth, age, eddre, envy, and poisonous to the touch.
The soul of Shay Tal waited amid the venoms, sail aquiver, waited for her answer. And eventually a message travelled up from dry insensate mouth to dry insensate mouth through the obsidian, passing something like a response to the question through the crystallized centuries.
“… all our festering secrets why should you share them you prying slut with slime for harneys why should you presume to share that little that we have here in our destitution far from sun? What once was knowledge is lost, leaked from the bottom of the bucket despite all that was promised, and what remains you would not understand you would not understand whore nothing you’ll ever understand except the final throes of heart giving in for all your pretensions and Wutra what of him he did not aid our distant fessups when they lived. In the days of the old iron cold came the white phagors out of the murk and took the town by storm making the humans their slaves who worshipped their new masters by the name Wutra because the gods of ice winds ruled…”
“Stop, stop, I wish to hear no more—” cried the soul, overwhelmed.
But the malicious gale blew over her. “You asked you asked you could not stand the truth you mortal soul, you’ll see when you get here. To find your wish of useless wisdom you should journey far to far Sibornal there to seek the great wheel where all is done and known and all things understood as pertains to existence on your side of the bitter bitter grave, yet good none good will it do you you prying dry-quemed failure of the dead’s daughter for what is real or true or tested or a testament to time even Wutra himself except this prison where we find ourselves all undeserving …”
The soul, quailing, hoisted sail and floated upwards through the bleak mansions, through rank after rank of screaming mouths.
The word, the poisonous word, had come from the far fessups. Sibornal had to be her goal, and a great wheel. Fessups were deceivers, their endless rages led them to limitless malice, but their powers in that respect were limited. It seemed true that Wutra had deserted not merely the living but the dead as well.
The soul fled upward in anguish, scenting far above it a bed on which lay a pallid body without movement.
Above ground, processes of change, endless periods of upheaval, expressed themselves through such biological beings as animals, men, and phagors.
From the northern continent, Sibornalans still moved southwards across the treacherous isthmus of Chalce, propelled by a sporadically improving climate to seek more hospitable lands. The inhabitants of Pannoval expanded northwards across the great plains. Elsewhere, too, from a thousand favoured habitats, people began to emerge. On the south of the continent of Campannlat, in such coastal fortresses as Ottassol, numbers multiplied, growing fat on the abundance of the seas.
In that haven of life, the sea, many things moved. Faceless beings shaped like men climbed to the shore, or were washed by storms far inland.
And the phagors, too. Lovers of cold, they also were propelled by change, seeking new habitats along benign air-octaves. Over all the three measureless continents of Helliconia, their components stirred and reproduced and fought the war against the Sons of Freyr.
The crusade of the young kzahhn of Hrastyprt, Hrr-Brahl Yprt, came slowly down from the high shoulders of Nktryhk, proceeding through the mountains, always obeying the air-octaves. The kzahhn and his advisers knew that Freyr was slowly gaining the ascendancy over Batalix, and so moving against them; but that knowledge could not speed the pace of their advance. Often they stopped to make raids, on the protognostic peoples humbly traversing the snowfields barefoot, or on components of their own kind towards whom they smelled hostility. No sense of urgency burned in their pale harneys, only a sense of destination.
Hrr-Brahl Yprt rode Rukk-Ggrl, and his cowbird rode mainly on his shoulder. Sometimes it took off with a clatter of wings, climbing to soar above the company, whence it could watch with its beady eyes the long procession of stalluns and gillots, most of them on foot, tailing all the way back to the defiles of higher ground. Zzhrrk would ride the updraught so that he maintained a position directly above his master for hours at a time, wings outstretched, only his head moving from side to side, alert for other cowbirds gliding nearby.
There were little knots of the protognostic peoples, generally Madis trying to lead their goats to the next thorn or ice bush, who sighted the white birds from afar. They would cry to each other and point. All knew what the distant cowbirds signified. And they would escape while they had the chance, from death or captivity. Thus the insignificant louse that lived on phagors, burrowing in their coats, a titbit for cowbirds, became an unknowing instrument in saving the lives of many a protognostic.