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March 11 - April 24, 2019
“Longer ago we were one. What we are not, they are. What we are, they are not. Think of the sunlight and the grass and the trees that bear fruit, Semley; think that not all roads that lead down lead up as well.”
Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs and 2 other people liked this
“How far a journey, Lord?” His lips drew back and back. “A very far journey, Lady. Yet it will last only one long night.”
“How far a journey, Lord?”
His lips drew back and back. “A very far journey, Lady. Yet it will last only one long night.”
Paltia and 4 other people liked this
Peace above all, until the War comes.…”
“Oh yes. All the Exotica are technically on loan, not our property, since these claims come up now and then. We seldom argue. Peace above all, until the War comes.…”
“What I feel…” Rocannon began. “Well?” Ketho inquired hoarsely, after a long pause. “What I feel sometimes is that I … meeting these people from worlds we know so little of, you know, sometimes … that I have as it were blundered through the corner of a legend, of a tragic myth, maybe, which I do not understand.…”
“What I feel…” Rocannon began.
“Well?” Ketho inquired hoarsely, after a long pause.
“What I feel sometimes is that I … meeting these people from worlds we know so little of, you know, sometimes … that I have as it were blundered through the corner of a legend, of a tragic myth, maybe, which I do not understand.…”
Rocannon knew the man would have given half his flocks and wives to be rid of his unearthly guest, but was trapped in his own cruelty: the jailer is the prisoner’s prisoner.
Watching a pair of the dragonfly-like kilar dancing like winged amethysts above the lake, Mogien said, “It was not always empty. My people crossed it long ago, in the years before the heroes, before Hallan was built or high Oynhall, before Hendin struck the great stroke or Kirfiel died on Orren Hill. We came in boats with dragonheads from the south, and found in Angien a wild folk hiding in woods and sea-caves, a white-faced folk. You know the song, Yahan, the Lay of Orhogien— Riding the wind, walking the grass, skimming the sea, toward the star Brehen on Lioka’s path … Lioka’s path is from
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Alan and 3 other people liked this
He was himself, standing on the ledge pressing his right hand against his chest and gasping, seeing the helicopter creep still closer, its vanes whirring with a dry loud rattle, its laser-mounted nose pointing at him.
“Take cover!” but could not move himself. The helicopter nosed in unsteadily, rags of cloud catching in its whirring vanes. Even as he watched it approach, Rocannon watched from inside it, not knowing what he looked for, seeing two small figures on the mountainside, afraid, afraid—A flash of light, a hot shock of pain, pain in his own flesh, intolerable. The mind-contact was broken, blown clean away. He was himself, standing on the ledge pressing his right hand against his chest and gasping, seeing the helicopter creep still closer, its vanes whirring with a dry loud rattle, its laser-mounted nose pointing at him.
He had intended to add, “Give me a couple of hours to get clear,” but did not.
They can send death at once, but life is slower.…
Slight and shadowy as a wild animal in her light furs, the girl Rolery slipped through the woods, through the storming of dead leaves, away from the walls that stone by stone were rising on the hillside of Tevar and from the busy fields of the last harvest.
From the north he came at a steady, pounding, lung-bursting pace, and never glanced at Rolery among the trees but pounded past and was gone.
A runner came down the northward track, bare feet beating in the surf of leaves, the long string that tied his hair whipping behind him. From the north he came at a steady, pounding, lung-bursting pace, and never glanced at Rolery among the trees but pounded past and was gone. The wind blew him on his way to Tevar with his news—storm, disaster, winter, war.… Incurious, Rolery turned and followed her own evasive path, which zigzagged upward among the great, dead, groaning trunks until at last on the ridge-top she saw sky break clear before her, and beneath the sky the sea.
Rolery had never paid much heed to the vague tales of witchcraft that went with such mention of the farborns, but now looking at that black place on the sands she saw that it was strange—the first thing truly strange to her that she had ever seen: built in a timepast that had nothing to do with her, by hands that were not kindred flesh and blood, imagined by alien minds.
Alan and 2 other people liked this
The town drew her with its strangeness, and without pausing to summon up courage or decision, reckless, Rolery went lightly and quickly down the mountainside and entered the high gate.
Along with a couple of farborns, tall and silent in their furs, Rolery stood looking on.
On the unrailed causeway, over one of the piers that stuck down into the island rock, high and distant up there, a black figure stood.
The black figure caught her, helped her stand, and spoke aloud in the voice that had spoken inside her skull: “Look,” he said, “there it comes.”
The black figure caught her, helped her stand, and spoke aloud in the voice that had spoken inside her skull: “Look,” he said, “there it comes.”
Water crashed and boiled below them with a roar that shook the solid rock. The waters parted by the island joined white and roaring, swept on, hissed and foamed and crashed on the long slope to the dunes, stilled to a rocking of bright waves.
Rolery stood clinging to the wall, shaking. She could not stop shaking.
“The tide comes in here just a bit faster than a man can run,” the quiet voice behind her said. “And when it’s in, it’s about twenty feet deep here around the Stack.
Rolery was cold, and unnerved by the height and strangeness of the walk, by the presence of the dark false-man beside her, walking with her pace for pace.
WHAT CAUSED the tides along this coast, the great diurnal swinging in and swinging out of fifteen to fifty feet of water?
WHAT CAUSED the tides along this coast, the great diurnal swinging in and swinging out of fifteen to fifty feet of water? Not one of the Elders of the City of Tevar could answer that question. Any child in Landin could: the moon caused the tides, the pull of the moon.…
And the name of the center and sun—the name of the sun was Eltanin: Gamma Draconis.
The voice of a child at play rang out behind him on the slopes of Tevar Hill, recalling to him the jeering, sidelong-looking faces, the mocking whispers that hid fear, the yells behind his back—“There’s a farborn here! Come and look at him!”
Let the old fool have his way, and sit smoke-drying himself in his stinking tent till the Gaal come. Ignorant, bigoted, quarrelsome, mealy-faced, yellow-eyed barbarians, wood-headed hilfs, let ’em all burn!
“Your mother’s sister died in our tents—”
The old chief had shown, by his own lights, real courtesy and patience. He, Jakob Agat, must be equally patient, and equally obstinate. For the fate of his people, the life of mankind on this world, depended on what these hilf tribes did and did not do in the next thirty days.
Racial pride forbade him to feel any shame for his treatment of the girl, and in fact he felt relief and a return of confidence. He would have to get used to the hilfs’ insults and ignore their bigotry. They couldn’t help it; it was their own kind of obstinacy, it was their nature. The old chief had shown, by his own lights, real courtesy and patience. He, Jakob Agat, must be equally patient, and equally obstinate. For the fate of his people, the life of mankind on this world, depended on what these hilf tribes did and did not do in the next thirty days. Before the crescent moon rose, the history of a race for six hundred moonphases, ten Years, twenty generations, the long struggle, the long pull might end. Unless he had luck, unless he had patience.
Most people doubted that there was still a League of All Worlds, and a few paradoxicalists liked to question whether there ever had in fact been a home.
“But he should be well disposed; he married a human,” Dermat said.
“If he listened at all it’s better than I’d hoped,” said Alla Pasfal, sharp and frail, with blueblack skin, and white hair crowning her worn face. “Wold’s been around as long as I have—longer. Don’t expect him to welcome wars and changes.”
“But he should be well disposed; he married a human,” Dermat said.
“Yes, my cousin Arilia, Jakob’s aunt, the exotic one in Wold’s female zoo. I remember the courtship,” Alla Pasfal said with such bitter sarcasm that Dermat wilted.
“You’ve got very powerful sense-projection, and lousy control when you’re under strain. He probably did see a ghost.”
they’ll be turning on us as witches if this goes on, the way they did in the first Years.…
They lived always a little more humbly, coming to value the simple over the elaborate, calm over strife, courage over success. They withdrew.
They were the farborn. And little by little, with the majestic slowness, the vegetable obstinacy of the process of evolution, this world was killing them—rejecting the graft.
Agat, gazing into the tiny cup in his hand, saw in its clear, pure translucency, the perfect skill of its making and the fragility of its substance, a kind of epitome of the spirit of his people. Outside the high windows the air was the same translucent blue. But cold: a blue twilight, immense and cold. The old terror of his childhood came over Agat, the terror which, as he became adult, he had reasoned thus: this world on which he had been born, on which his father and forefathers for twenty-three generations had been born, was not his home. His kind was alien. Profoundly, they were always aware of it. They were the farborn. And little by little, with the majestic slowness, the vegetable obstinacy of the process of evolution, this world was killing them—rejecting the graft.
Across his bleak rush of foreboding he had recalled briefly, irrelevant and yet seeming both an explanation and a sign, the light, lithe, frightened figure of the girl Rolery, reaching up her hand to him from the dark, sea-besieged stones.
The rhythm vanished, recurred, a chance concatenation of noise.
It came clear of the noise, conquered it, forced each conflicting voice into its own single ceaseless rhythm, the concord, the hard heartbeat of the Men of Askatevar, pounding on, and on, and on.
THE SOUND OF ROCK pounded on rock, hard and unreverberant, rang out among the roofs and unfinished walls of the Winter City to the high red tents pitched all around it. Ak ak ak ak, the sound went on for a long time, until suddenly a second pounding joined it in counterpoint, kadak ak ak kadak. Another came in on a higher note, giving a tripping rhythm, then another, another, more, until any measure was lost in the clatter of constant sound, an avalanche of the high dry whack of rock hitting rock in which each individual pounding rhythm was submerged, indistinguishable.
As the sound-avalanche went ceaselessly and stupefyingly on, the Eldest Man of the Men of Askatevar walked slowly from his tent and between the aisles of tents and cookfires from which smoke rose through slanting late-afternoon, late-Autumn light. Stiff and ponderous the old man went alone through the camp of his people and entered the gate of the Winter City, followed a twisting path or street among the tent-like wooden roofs of the houses, which had no sidewalls aboveground, and came to an open place in the middle of the roofpeaks. There a hundred or so men sat, knees to chin, pounding rock on rock, pounding, in a hypnotic toneless trance of percussion. Wold sat down, completing the circle. He picked up the smaller of two heavy waterworn rocks in front of him and with satisfying heaviness whacked it down on the bigger one: Klak! klak! klak! To right and left of him the clatter went on and on, a rattling roar of random noise, through which every now and then a snatch of a certain rhythm could be discerned. The rhythm vanished, recurred, a chance concatenation of noise. On its return Wold caught it, fell in with it and held it. Now to him it dominated the clatter. Now his neighbor to the left was beating it, their two stones rising and falling together; now his neighbor to the right. Now others across the circle were beating it, pounding together. It came clear of the noise, conquered it, forced each conflicting voice into its own single ceaseless rhythm, the concord, the hard heartbeat of the Men of Askatevar, pounding on, and on, and on.
“The runner from the north brought news that the Gaal follow the Coast Trail and come in great force. They have come to Tlokna. Have you all heard this?”
Some of the other men, however, were impressed enough by the runner’s tale and Agat’s warning to argue with those who discounted or distrusted the news.
“Now listen to the man who called this Stone-Pounding,” the shaman-herald called out; and Wold got up with difficulty. He stood in his place, gazing straight ahead, massive, scarred, immobile, an old boulder of a man.
“A farborn came to my tent,” he said at last in his age-weakened, deep voice. “He is chief of them in Landin. He said the farborns have grown few and ask the help of men.”
A rumble from all the heads of clans and families that sat moveless, knees to chin, in the circle. Over the circle, over the wooden roofpeaks about them, very high up in the cold, golden light, a white bird wheeled, harbinger of winter.
“This farborn said the Southing comes not by clans and tribes but all in one horde, many thousands led by a great chief.”
“How does he know?” somebody roared. Protocol was not strict in the Stone-Poundings of Tevar; Tevar had never been ruled by its shamans as some tribes were. “He had scouts up north!” Wold roared back. “He said the Gaal besiege Winter Cities and capture them. That is what the runner said of Tlokna. The farborn says that the warriors of Tevar should join with the farborns and with the men of Pernmek and Alakskat, go up in the north of our range, and turn the Southing aside to the Mountain Trail. These things he said and I heard them. Have you all heard?”
The assent was uneven and turbulent, and a clan chief was on his feet at once. “Eldest! from your mouth we hear the truth always. But when did a farborn speak truth? When did men listen to farborns? I hear nothing this farborn said. What if his City perishes in the Southing? No men live in it! Let them perish and then we men can take their Range.”
The speaker, Walmek, was a big dark man full of words; Wold had never liked him, and dislike influenced his reply. “I have heard Walmek. Not for the first time. Are the farborns men or not—who knows? Maybe they fell out of the sky as in the tale. Maybe not. No one ever fell out of the sky this Year.… They look like men; they fight like men. Their women are like women, I can tell you that! They have some wisdom. It’s better to listen to them.…” His references to farborn women had them all grinning as they sat in their solemn circle, but he wished he had not said it. It was stupid to remind them of his old ties with the aliens. And it was wrong … she had been his wife, after all.…
He sat down, confused, signifying he would speak no more.
Some of the other men, however, were impressed enough by the runner’s tale and Agat’s warning to argue with those who discounted or distrusted the news.
One of Wold’s Spring-born sons, Umaksuman, who loved raids and forays, spoke right out in favor of Agat’s plan of marching up to the border.
All men were alien one to another, at times, not only aliens.
“Because men who fight wars in Winter don’t live till Spring,” Wold growled.
“The runner said they had taken Tlokna,” Umaksuman said sharply, “and Tlokna is north of Tevar on the Coast Trail. Why do we disbelieve this news, why do we wait to act?”
“Because men who fight wars in Winter don’t live till Spring,” Wold growled.
He could send them to war: but Umaksuman would come back the leader of the warriors, and thereby the strongest leader among the Men of Askatevar.
The decision was made, and Wold knew he could force it upon the other Elders. He knew also that it was the last decision
He was always using words that sounded like words, but meant nothing; Rolery wondered what a ship was, what a book was. But the grave, yearning tone in which he told his story worked on her and she listened fascinated.
He was always using words that sounded like words, but meant nothing; Rolery wondered what a ship was, what a book was. But the grave, yearning tone in which he told his story worked on her and she listened fascinated.
“For a long time the League prepared to fight that enemy. The stronger worlds helped the weaker ones to arm against the enemy, to make ready. A little as we’re trying to make ready to meet the Gaal, here. Mindhearing was one skill they taught, I know, and there were weapons, the books say, fires that could burn up whole planets and burst the stars.… Well, during that time my people came from their home-world to this one. Not very many of them. They were to make friends with your peoples and see if they wanted to be a world of the League, and join against the enemy. But the enemy came. The ship that brought my people went back to where it came from, to help in fighting the war, and some of the people went with it, and the … the far-speaker with which those men could talk to one another from world to world. But some of the people stayed on here, either to help this world if the enemy came here, or because they couldn’t go back again: we don’t know. Their records say only that the ship left. A white spear of metal, longer than a whole city, standing up on a feather of fire. There are pictures of it. I think they thought it would come back soon.… That was ten Years ago.”
“What of the war with the enemy?”
“What of the war with the enemy?”
“We don’t know. We don’t know anything that happened since the day the ship left. Some of us believe the war must have been lost, and others think it was won, but hardly, and the few men left here were forgotten in the years of fighting. Who knows? If we survive, some day we’ll find out; if no one ever comes, we’ll make a ship and go find out.…” He was yearning, ironic. Rolery’s head spun with these gulfs of time and space and incomprehension. “This is hard to live with,” she said after a while.
“I was born out of season, in the Summer Fallow,”
“We can’t help it, it’s how we are.” He laughed again, looking at her, but she was very serious now. “I was born out of season, in the Summer Fallow,” she said. “It does happen with us, but very rarely; and you see—when Winter’s over I’ll be too old to bear a Spring child. I’ll never have a son. Some old man will take me for a fifth wife one of these days, but the Winter Fallow has begun, and come Spring I’ll be old.… So I will die barren. It’s better for a woman not to be born at all than to be born out of season as I was.… And another thing, it is true what they say, that a farborn man takes only one wife?”
Again there was silence between them for a time. “What was the other world like—your home?” “There are songs that tell what it was like,” he said, but when she asked timidly what a song was, he did not reply. After a while he said, “At home, the world was closer to its sun, and the whole year there wasn’t even one moonphase long. So the books say. Think of it, the whole Winter would only last ninety days.…” This made them both laugh. “You wouldn’t have time to light a fire,” Rolery said.
“Where can we go?” he said with a kind of bitter laugh. “This isn’t like love in Summer.… There’s a hunter’s shelter down the ridge a way.… They’ll miss you in Tevar.” “No,” she whispered, “they won’t miss me.”
“Snow is smaller than I thought,” Umaksuman said at last, dreamily.
In a high stone house in Landin, by a driftwood fire, Alla Pasfal lifted her head suddenly from her book. She had a distinct impression that Jakob Agat was sending to her, but no message came.
She had borne too much, too young, for compassion and scruple ever to rise from very deep in her, and in her old age she was quite pitiless.
Alla Pasfal came in, and seeing he was awake signed to someone behind her to stay out. She closed the door and came to kneel by him. Alterran houses were sparsely furnished; they slept on pallets on the carpeted floor, and for chairs used at most a thin cushion. So Alla knelt, and looked down at Agat, her worn, black face lighted strongly by the reddish shaft of sun. There was no pity in her face as she looked at him. She had borne too much, too young, for compassion and scruple ever to rise from very deep in her, and in her old age she was quite pitiless. She shook her head a little from side to side as she said softly, “Jakob … What have you done?”
“Six hundred home-years is ten Years here.” After a moment Seiko Esmit went on, “You see, we don’t know all about the erkars and many other things that used to belong to our people, because when our ancestors came here they were sworn to obey a law of the League, which forbade them to use many things different from the things the native people used.
“Six hundred home-years is ten Years here.” After a moment Seiko Esmit went on, “You see, we don’t know all about the erkars and many other things that used to belong to our people, because when our ancestors came here they were sworn to obey a law of the League, which forbade them to use many things different from the things the native people used. This was called Cultural Embargo. In time we would have taught you how to make things—like wheeled carts. But the Ship left. There were few of us here, and no word from the League, and we found many enemies among your nations in those days. It was hard for us to keep the Law and also to keep what we had and knew. So perhaps we lost much skill and knowledge. We don’t know.”
“It was a strange law,” Rolery murmured.
“It was made for your sakes—not ours,” Seiko said in her hurried voice, in the hard distinct farborn accent like Agat’s. “In the Canons of the League, which we study as children, it is written: No Religion or Congruence shall be disseminated, no technique or theory shall be taught, no cultural set or pattern shall be exported, nor shall paraverbal speech be used with any non-Communicant high-intelligence life-form, or any Colonial Planet, until it be judged by the Area Council with the consent of the Plenum that such a planet be ready for Control or for Membership.… It means, you see, that we were to live exactly as you live. In so far as we do not, we have broken our own Law.”
“It did us no harm,” Rolery said. “And you not much good.”
“You cannot judge us,” Seiko said with that rancorous coldness; then controlling herself once more, “There’s work to be done now. Will you come?”
Submissive, Rolery followed Seiko. But she glanced back at the painting as they left. It had a greater wholeness than any object she had ever seen. Its somber, silvery, unnerving complexity affected her somewhat as Agat’s presence did; and when he was with her, she feared him, but nothing else. Nothing, no one.
The fighting men of Landin were gone. They had some hope, by guerilla attacks and ambushes, of harrying the Gaal on southward towards less aggressive victims. It was a bare hope, and the women were working to ready the town for siege.
The fighting men of Landin were gone. They had some hope, by guerilla attacks and ambushes, of harrying the Gaal on southward towards less aggressive victims. It was a bare hope, and the women were working to ready the town for siege. Seiko and Rolery reported to the Hall of the League on the great square, and there were assigned to help round up the herds of hann from the long fields south of town. Twenty woman went together; each as she left the Hall was given a packet of bread and hann-milk curd, for they would be gone all day. As forage grew scant the herds had ranged far south between the beach and the coastal ridges. The women hiked about eight miles south and then beat back, zigzagging to and fro, collecting and driving the little, silent, shaggy beasts in greater and greater numbers.
Rolery had never heard a voice play this game with pitch and time.
