The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth) (35 page)

“Who are you?” he called.
 

“Manuel. Who are you?”
 

“John O’Greenwood. I live here. You don’t.” But there was no challenge intended. He sat down, picked a stem of ryegrass to suck on and regarded Manuel inquisitively. “You’re a funny-looking fellow, I must say. You have a chest like a Cornish wrestler, yet your arms are skinny. Well? Have you lost your tongue?”
 

Manuel said carefully, “Is it the custom of this place to trade insults?”
 

“Custom? No—it’s just my way. I’m an outspoken fellow, don’t you know? People get used to me in time. You’ll get used to me, I’m sure.”
 

“Maybe I don’t want to get used to you.” It had been so peaceful here before this spry fool showed up.
 

Now the youth unslung a lute and struck a few soft chords. Without looking at Manuel, he sang a quiet song with a strange, limping rhythm:
 

When first my lover came to me she wore a dress of green.
 

The next time she was clad in white, in Avalayn's demesne
 

He went on for a long time, telling the tale of a search for a lost lover, while Manuel forgot his irritation under the influence of the insistent chords and the plaintive, simple lyrics. When John O’Greenwood was finished and the last words had fled across the lake and melted into the trees, Manuel asked, “What’s that song?”
 

“It’s just a song. A song of Earth. It said something to you, did it? That’s the way with songs, and this song in particular. That’s maybe why I’m better at singing than talking.”
 

“The song ended without saying whether you found the girl.”
 

“The finding doesn’t matter. The searching is the thing. Some things are better not found. I know of people who have everything they could possibly want, everything they could wish for. And would you believe that everything is not enough? So they have this mythical place called Avalayna, and they search for it—because it’s the perfect place where everything is as wonderful as it possibly could be. They search for this perfect place even though they know they’re not going to find it—or maybe
because
they’re not going to find it.”
 

“I want to
find
somebody,” said Manuel stubbornly. “The search is taking too long.”
 

“Finding can be a lot worse than searching.”
 

“Not in this case it won’t.”
 

“Ah!” John O’Greenwood regarded him quizzically. “Another lovesick fellow, eh? Well...” And now he stood, shrugging his shoulders into the strap of his lute. “You should be here, not me.”
 

With this puzzling statement he disappeared among the trees.
 

Manuel stood staring into the waters of the lake, where some quirk of reflection made him appear slim, like John O’Greenwood. He was thinking of the Girl and how she’d seen her reflection for the first time in the axolotl pool, and how she’d cried. It seemed a long time ago. He wondered where she was and what she was doing.
 

Again, the forest seemed to be waiting.
 

Now, filtering through the trees from a long way off, came the sound of shouting.
 

Manuel heard. A queer excitement ran through him.
 

There was death in the shouting, and recklessness. It was the kind of shout that men give when their senses have left them. It was a shout that went right back to the early Paragonic era, when men were little more than apes and the legendary Union had not taken place, when they hunted capybara with sticks and stones and yells. The sounds were that primitive.
 

Now Manuel heard hooves drumming.
 

A flash of pale green caught his eye, a half-seen movement among the farthermost trees. The hooves drew closer and Manuel saw the thing again: a large animal, running fast with something on its back. Then the creature swerved and emerged from the trees, heading straight across the clearing toward the lake.
 

It was a huge antelope with a girl clutching its horns, a girl dressed in green, her robe floating like a cloud. The beast’s eye showed the white of terror as it plunged toward the water and, reaching the edge, leaped.
 

Manuel was staring at the girl.
 

The eland hit the surface and spray fountained from its forelegs. The girl lost her grip and flew on, striking the water a couple of meters beyond the animal and disappearing. The eland swam on.
 

Manuel dived in. A paleness swirled past him and he grabbed, drew it to him and found something soft and struggling in his arms. Kicking his way to the surface, he swam to the bank, crawled ashore and dragged the girl after him. She was coughing weakly. The dress clung to her, but now it was white, and the girl was slender and dreamlike; a thrill ran through Manuel’s body. She lay face down, coughing water. Her hair was fair even when wet and matted. He didn’t dare turn her over.
 

“Are you all right?” he asked, and the words seemed dull, as words always would on an occasion such as this.
 

“I... I... I think so.” She spoke into the grass, and Manuel’s mind was racing.
 

She turned over and looked up at him.
 

Her eyes were blue and her mouth sad, and the robe stuck to her like wet seaweed, outlining her shoulders and breasts, emphasizing the slender waist and full hips. Manuel thought wildly: With those eyes and that hair she’s an inappropriate sea-child...
 

“Belinda,” he whispered.
 

“Is it really you, Manuel?”
 

“How... How did you... ? Where... ?”
 

She touched his lips with her fingers. “Don’t ask questions.”
 

He kissed her. Her lips were warm and wet. His arms were around her, lifting her from the ground and hugging her to him. Her body was warm despite her wet clothing, with a warmth that seemed to consume him. For a long moment of wonder they kissed—and then the mad yelling drew nearer, and shouts of discovery.
 

They sat up, gasping from the length of the kiss.
 

A group of nightmare riders milled about the clearing on padding mounts, gesticulating and pointing. The leader rode up to Manuel. The bear stopped, its muzzle a meter from Manuel’s face, so close that he could smell the fishy stink of its breath. The man hauled at the bear’s shaggy neck so that the brute reared up, and from this eminence he addressed Manuel.
 

“Who the devil are you?”
 

Manuel would have run long before this if Belinda hadn’t been there. Now he held his ground, staring up. “Manuel,” he said, as it seemed he had introduced himself many times before; but this time the name came out as if it really meant something—almost as if he had said, “Starquin.” For an instant Manuel wondered at the power of his own name.
 

The Bjorn-serkr felt it too. He blinked.
 

One of his followers shouted, “
He’s
not the Rescuer!”
 

“He’ll do.” The Bjorn-serkr raised his flail—a handle connected by a thong to a knobby chunk of oak—and whistled it down in the general direction of Manuel’s head. “Out of my way, fool! Give me the girl!”
 

“No.” As the oak descended for the second time, Manuel grabbed it and hung on and was lifted from the ground by the power of the rider’s arm. He swung against the bear’s flank, snatched at the fur and then got an arm around the man’s waist.
 

“What are you doing?” The voice was incredulous. Laughter came from the other Bjorn-serkrs. Off balance, the rider tumbled from his mount, Manuel falling with him but making sure he landed on top. Manuel still had hold of the hardwood and the handle swung free. He crashed it down on the man’s temple.
 

Apparently unhurt, the Bjorn-serkr said mildly, “I wish you’d go away.” Then abruptly losing his temper as the laughter from the onlookers continued, he flung Manuel from him, rose and kicked him in the ribs. Manuel rolled with the kick. The man reached for Belinda, roaring. She shrank away, trying to get to Manuel. Manuel jumped up. The man’s back was toward him. He swung the flail again but mistimed his blow as the other made a grab for Belinda. The thong caught the man on the side of the neck, and the handle whirled around his throat and locked against a protuberance on the oak. With his neck encircled, the man staggered away, gurgling and plucking as the flail threatened to garrote him.
 

Manuel went to Belinda and put an arm around her waist. He felt omnipotent. The other riders were staring at him. The leader, wrenching the fail away from his neck, charged over to his bear and mounted, muttering.
 

Then the Bjorn-serkrs whirled their mounts around and rode off into the forest.
 

“You frightened them off,” said Belinda wonderingly.
 

“I know.” Manuel didn’t quite understand it either. “They’re a bunch of cowards.”
 

“They’ll be back,” said Belinda.
 

Manuel did not pursue the matter. He did not realize he was in Dream Earth, even though he was standing in it. Belinda looked at him, loving him to the depths of her insubstantial heart—because, without her knowing it, that was the way he’d wished her to be.
 

“Why did you leave me, before?” asked Manuel. “I thought I’d never see you again. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
 

“I knew you would.”
 

“I’m...” The elation of victory was leaving him and his natural shyness began to return. He made an effort. “I’m not going to let you get away again, you know.”
 

“I will never leave you, my love,” said the beautiful figment of Manuel’s imagination...
 

He drew her to the warm grass and they made long, slow love. This love had a joy and simplicity unknown on real Earth. It never occurred to Manuel to wonder why love had suddenly become such a single-minded thing, why his thoughts at certain instants did not wander to trivia, such as whether the vicunas were hungry, and if he’d tied up his boat securely, and what had got into Dad Ose to make him so irascible recently. Such distractions do not bother lovers on Dream Earth. Sex is uncomplicatedly enjoyable—which is perhaps why it becomes dull and must be enlivened by variations such as the Bjorn-serkr hunt.
 

“I’ve never felt like this before,” said Manuel afterward, wonderingly. “Not even in Pu’este. It must be this place.”
 

It is recorded that Belinda replied: “No. It’s just us, my love.”
 

And she kissed him again, hard, as though to stop him from thinking.
 

Later she said, “We must go.”
 

“Why? I like it here.” Manuel had found some perfect apples lying in the grass and was eating one.
 

“The Bjorn-serkrs will be back. This time they won’t give up so easily.”
 

Manuel was more practical now. The fight had been fought and won, and the loving was done. There was no point in asking for trouble, and Belinda’s fate was at stake as well as his own. “All right,” he said. “Where shall we go?” The eland browsed at some nearby berry bushes. The beast was huge, and Manuel felt that it was too much to expect him to carry them both.
 

Belinda took his hand and led him along a trail that wound among the trees before climbing slowly into more open ground. Eventually they reached the brow of a hill and the whole of the land was spread out before them.
 

The ground sloped down in all directions from where they stood. Behind lay the forest, to the right an immense area shrouded in a blanket of mist through which nothing showed. (This was in fact Space—an area where no Dream People had as yet imposed their smallwishes.) To the left a peaceful river wound through meadows to a delta, the ocean gleaming beyond. Ahead...
 

Ahead was a mountain.
 

It rose almost sheer from the flatness of the countryside, and most of its slopes were rocky and precipitous. A few trees clustered around its base and climbed fissures. The dark green of the base paled into the gray of cliffs, rising to the white of a cloud that hung over the summit, hiding everything there. This shading of colors lent the mountain an air of mystery with overtones of hope, since the cloud glowed like a halo in the afternoon sun.
 

“Avalayna,” said Belinda. “It must be Avalayna.”
 

“What’s on top?”
 

“What we’ve always wanted.” Poor, false girl, she gazed at the mountain with tears in her eyes, seeing all manner of wonders behind that mist, all manner of fruitless dreams culled from a thousand men who had chased her through forests.
 

“I’ve got what I always wanted,” said Manuel. “But if you want to go to that place, I’ll go with you.” A memory of John O’Greenwood came back to him. “But isn’t it better to stick with what you have, once you’ve found it?”
 

“Avalayna,” the girl whispered, and no involuntary smallwish of Manuel’s could change her mind, the call was so strong.
 

So they started down the hill, and before long they heard the howling of the hunt somewhere behind them. The trees became denser and they moved as fast as they could, pushing through brambles and gorse, which, Manuel was surprised to find, bore no thorns. He held Belinda’s hand, drawing her along behind him, still fearful that she would disappear like the last time. Every so often he turned around to reassure himself that it was truly she. Although the hunt was closing on them, he’d never been happier. Soon they would find a place to hide where they could lie and make love while the Bjorn-serkrs passed them by.