The Archaeobiotic Period. After reigning for seven great gross years, Wise determined to become a man, and henceforward was called Lembepatkin. He begged Yellow Hands to become a woman and remain his wife, but she refused and went down into the bullrushes, where her descendants hunt fish to this day. Lembepatkin took another wife, and ruled for three great gross years. Heinstituted the art of writing, reformed the Four Directions, and founded the Great College. He was succeeded by his son, Tilvebegarengen.
The Historical Period. The first persons of whom authenticated written records have survived to the present day are two brothers named Om and Hem, who in the year 63,794 disputed the rulership of the entire Egg, Om being then the monarch of the East Kingdom and Hem of the West. For a time the struggle was equal, but Om had an artificer called Firebringer who made for him certain devices, one of which was said to be a flame-breathing bladder, and another an artificial mole, which tunneling under the enemy's outworks caused great destruction. Seeing that the contest went against him, Hem called on the services of another artificer, Redbird, who made for him comparable devices, and together the brothers and their armies wrought such devastation in the Egg that after their final battle, in the autumn of 63,797, both kings and all their captains lay slain and all their works leveled to the ground. After another interregnum, the survivors and their descendants agreed never to use such instruments again in war or peace. An early religious poem of this period, the Song of Closing, movingly depicts the moral earnestness of the survivors by means of an allegory in which they seal up the walls of the Egg forever. In 63,893 the Great College was reconstituted and the treeposts erected for the present corpus of knowledge. The names of the Masters of the Great College, from that day to this, are Lobeck, Morblen, Binton,Winsin, Tenwin, Ponsin, Tenlon, Mistwin, Benlob, Finmor, Kinten, Tabeck, Vennkin, Windesh,Remten, Benrosh, Bistfin, Sinpast, Roshkin, Pongass, Sinmar, Pastwin, Tetheck, Wishchin,Deshton, Gasstab, Mistmass, Rishten, Bretlob, Friteck, Blenkot, Findesh, Klanchet, Bretsin,Gassplan, Menchet, Lobnet, Niteck, Finplan, Pastchet, Sinzet, Mistklan, Votmass, Lesteck,Dretbrin, Remfret, Tremnet, Winchet, Deshfin, Eckrosh, Tethdret, Wetklan, Findesh, Brinsin,Findesh, Gasstlin, Netmist, Lestnet, Wishteth, Roshnet...
Thorinn crawled under a bush, untied his bundles with shaking fingers, and slept. When he awoke, it was full green dark; he was wet and cold, and the wind was shaking droplets of water from the bush onto his face. For a moment he thought himself back in the cave behind the cataract; then he remembered, and sat up, shivering. He tied his bundles around him and crawled out from under the bush. The green skylight was too faint for walking, and he climbed the nearest tree instead. From its tip, a hundred ells above the ground, he could make out the clustered towers not, far off in the bend of the river. They were dark and still.
As he watched, a sudden bar of gold appeared at the end of the cavern. It widened, swelled, grew paler; then it was sweeping overhead, and as it passed Thorinn glimpsed a brown bird wheeling above, head cocked, one bright black eye looking down. The skylight dazzled him, and when he could see again the bird was gone.
He followed the river bank eastward awhile, then climbed the slope and found himself in a plowed field. It had been planted to beans, or some other garden vegetable, and the young shoots were coming up half-covered by weeds. Nearer now, the towers were surrounded by a huddle of smaller buildings. As he approached, he could see that they were built around the trunks of young trees; they appeared to be made of withy, and sometimes the green branch of a tree peeped out to show that it was still there. Some of the curving walls were plastered with a substance like pale mud, others daubed with bright color in stripes and circles. Grasses and weeds were sprouting in the earth around the buildings; there were a few marks of hoofs and clawed feet, but none that looked recent, and none that were human. The byres were vacant, doors standing open.
The seven towers clustered in a crescent around a great courtyard overgrown with vines and grass. After the first two hundred ells or so each tower was capped with a conical roof, but from this roof sprang another, smaller tower, not from the peak of the roof but to one side of it, and sometimes the roof of this tower, too, sprouted still another tower. Buttresses joined the towers; some of these had windows or even balconies in them.
Thorinn went on into the empty courtyard. He listened: not a sound. From the balconies overhead hung vines with yellowed leaves; there was a sweetish smell of decay in the air. Among the litter between the buildings he found several jugs and drinking vessels, a tunic of red woven cloth, curiously made with bone fastenings at the sides; a broken framework of wood with some parchmentlike substance stretched over it; a mirror of polished silver in a bone frame; and a little idol or godlet made of soft cloth, with a gray button-eyed face and long naked wings like those of a wingmouse.
He sprang up to the first balcony and peered within. The floor was resilient, loosely woven of cords; there were a few low carved tables, but no chairs or beds. The ceiling seemed extraordinarily high; below it were rods that might have been perches for birds.
Beyond was a maze of other rooms, gloomy even by day. Thorinn found a light-box on the wall, divided into two compartments like his own, the moss in one compartment still feebly alight. He transferred a pinch of it to the other compartment and carried it into the next room, then set it down again; it made him uneasy to be surrounded by such a bubble of light with darkness beyond it. A few moments later, when he turned to look behind, he saw the translucent partition dully glowing. The rooms were arranged in a ring around a vast well in the center of the tower, thirty ells across and at least two hundred deep. Dim chinks of light, far up, illuminated it. The silence was murmurous. Thorinn retreated into the rooms again.
Litter was everywhere, but no more than you would expect to find in any household—clothing, scraps of this and that, things that might have been children's toys carved of wood. In closets and chests he found more clothing, all with the same curious side-fastenings, hanging neatly or carefully folded; also cabinets full of curious little wooden and bone implements, of whose use he had no notion. The feeling was strong on him that the people who lived here had only gone away for a while—but where could they have gone?