Ursus of Ultima Thule (15 page)

As he cooled them with his spittle he heard the voices of children, though unusually clear and delicate, and unlike the coarse tones which he associated with the voices of men-children. In another moment he heard one say, “The eggling of the Bear has cut out the corby’s tongue!” And another said, “Night-colored one who flies in day, you will tell no more lies!” and one said “Nor truths as bad as lies, carrion-diet!”

Arnten looked up, half-astonished. “Who is that?” he asked.

“I see no one,” said Corm.

Nor did Arnten, looking all around and fumbling with the stick: only two snowbirds. Even as he gazed at them, and all round the trodden snow of the lane, the birds took wing, and began to circle. And again he heard the beautifully clear children’s voices; one saying, “But the hatchling of the Bear has acted too late, for the crow hath already told the wolf,” and the other declaring, “Ill hath he done in telling so, though ill doth he ever do. When the wolf meets the Bear, beware!”

“Nay, Corm,” said Arnsten, half confused, half alarmed, “did you not just now hear children talking?”

Corm said, “I heard nothing but the chirping and chattering of those twain snowbirds — ”

“When the wolf meets the Bear, beware!”

“Just now! Just now! Heard you not a child saying, ‘
When the wolf meets the Bear, beware
’?”

“Often have I heard those words, and more often of late than ever, Arnten,” Corm said, looking pale again; “but — ‘just now?’ — again, just now, I heard nothing but the chattering and the chirping of that pair snowbirds.”

Now the skin-flap door of the hut was thrust aside, and the seamed face of Bab-uncle appeared. He asked what had happened, and was told, though the telling was confused — as were the tellers. Bab looked grave. “Where did you bury the crow-bird’s head, then?” he asked. Both boys looked at him in sudden guilt, shock. “You have not buried the head? But … you did cut the head off, as the dream directed? Not that either …” He made a gesture, and at once set off to the crook crow-tree, and they with him. He made a single gesture more, seeing the splattered drops of blood upon the snow, and nought else.

“The dream has been in part fulfilled,” he said. “Let that at least be an omen of good for us …”

• • •

Orfas crouched huddled in his peltries upon his litter-bed in the Room of Secret Counsel, his queen silent and watchful at his side, when a strangely faltering step was heard approaching. It could be no stranger, else had the mandrakes on guard all shrieked beshrew, but —

Mered-delfin staggered in, straightened, sank heavily to his accustomed place. “What doth ail thee, Mered-witch?” the queen asked, swift. And even the Orfas-King, for once forgetful of his iron and of himself, stretched forth a hand as if to offer aid, muttered, “Mered, Mered, what is this — ?”

The chief witcherer let drop the arm which, with its wide black sleeve, had shielded his face. His lord and lady again besought his words. He shook his head, he flapped his black-sleeved arm. Then he opened wide his mouth. But no words came out.

Only blood.

Deeper drifted the snow, deeper the miseries of the people. Piece by piece the emissaries of the king took iron, took amber, furs, took stores of food. Those who were slow to pay had their fires trampled out, or were made sodden with the piddle of the tax-collectors. Sometimes those suspected of withholding, concealing — sometimes rightly, sometimes not — had hands or feet thrust into the flames or embers; were left with only their burns for warmth. The four who dwelt in old Bab’s hut (Corm finding it, although scant and crowded, better than his family’s house, they liking not and cursing much his new-found friendships) heard the steps of the kingsmen going by, and though sometimes the pace of these steps did seem to alter somewhat, though the voices of the enforcers of tribute tended to drop at such times, still, at no time did any thrust a hand to draw aside the door-skin — to venture inside. The old man paid his hearth-fire tax, and the kingsmen took care (if not content) to let matters rest at that.

Within the hut, and amongst the four, the present paced slowly, hanging the future. It was agreed that they must leave, and in general they were in accord that their passage must be for the north. It was not the winter and its snows which deterred their going; if the land were thus made harder of passing, less was the chance of pursuit, or even desire of pursuit. But as they depended much upon the presence of Roke, his skill and strength and vigorous manhood, so they could not leave till both strength and vigor were restored to him. The medicine and witchery of the Bab-wizard had helped keep Roke’s breath within him when his bones were broke and his mind wandering, and this same wizardry and wisdom helped him as he mended. But Bab dared not force the pace, and none dared force the Bab.

As for Arnten, although the walls of the hut were not as close as those of the mine-cells, still, he took not much pleasure in them.
The Bear is in the blood …

Now, as he walked abroad, in woods or within the palisaded village, he heard, almost as the echo of his footsteps: Bear:
Bear
. Bear:
Bear
. Where?
There
! There:
Bear!
And the taunt of other seasons was gone. Awe there might be, or not. Perhaps respect, perhaps none. Sometimes, unsought: fear. Hatred? Also. By no means always. By no means. But … scorn? Contempt? Nevermore. He was now the weight, if not the height, of any full man; and solid all the way through. He did not walk quite as a man walked, toes down first or heels down first, but placing his sole down firmly and flatly. His eyes were fierce, and those few who met them and had scorned him as boy, as “bear’s bastard,” son of a mad mother and a father no one knew, found them by no means forgetful. Snow fell unheeded on his sleek head and shag breast and limbs. Mostly he wore but one sole garment, and this was the folded skin of a bear. And it was sometimes said, of nights, and when mouth was pressed close to ear, that on occasion he would unfold the bearskin and crawl inside of it and then indeed go on all four limbs, snout swaying from side to side:
beware!

Bear! Bear!
Bear!

But to no one did he say anything when he met them, him or her, though were it
her
, his gaze might change somewhat, be less unseeing, less aloof. But he said no word. And he said no word when, quite suddenly, and without any alarm, save that two great clouds of birds swung circling back and forth, and some cried
Wolf!
and some sang
Ware!
and — whilst he had turned and with steady step, stalked towards his hut — quite suddenly before he could reach it the streets were filled with kingsmen; and the multitude of them was like the swarming of lemmings: although lemmings do not carry spears, lemmings do not surround a man as they surrounded Arnten. They marched him, slowly, down the ways between the houses, houses in row after row, gaping and staring and low-murmuring people in row upon row. And in the great open place where the common-fire burned, huddled all in wolfskins, face all reddled as with the rust of dying iron, and in patches, angry, suffering, in pain, and half-mad … at
least
half …

This one bowed himself forward a half-bow, said, his voice not weak, though hollow, “Kinsman …”

A whisper went through the crowd, as a low wind goes through trees. And again the Orfas spoke: “Kinsman’s son …” he said this time. Still Arnten said nothing. The frozen wind whipped round the arms and legs of his bearskin, and the king seemed to observe, to take note of this.

A third time he spoke. “Son of my half-brother’s son” — again the murmur-whisper of the folk — Orfas drew back his meager lips and the folk hissed as he showed his teeth, whimpered as he rose a palm’s breath on his litter, cried, howled, howled,
“Bear …”

Arnten said, “Wolf.”

Abrupt, sat the king down. Silence for a moment. Said the king: “Withdraw the curse on iron.”

Arnten said nothing. He knew he could no more withdraw the curse on iron than he could fly, but none would believe him; he could in no way better his case by denying he had that power: therefore if they would not believe, then let them fear. He was again a captive? No words denying his own puissance would free him. Therefore no words such would he utter.

Said the king: “See you not how the people suffer from not having iron weaponry to seek their meat? Curse me, you kinsman, as your father cursed me, having sought the kingship, too, but no more curse
iron!
”

Arnten said nothing. He knew the king believed he held his father’s might, knew the king believed his father had cursed iron to destroy the Orfas-King, to draw the teeth of the kingly wolf and leave him with rust alone when the barbar-folk, armed with weapons of iron in full good health, came sailing and came swarming across the all-circling sea. And Arnten knew that it is far better to be feared and hated without cause than to be scorned and condemned with or without cause. If Orfas was so far from full sharp of wits as to magnify, and publicly, one whom he might easily have slain —

“Name what reward you will, and here, publicly, I vow you shall have it:
But withdraw the curse on iron!
”

Thick a croak overhead and some distance so, Arnten heard a raven mutter, “
The man-wolf, the iron-man, the rust-sick: weak
…”, and in that instant he understood, he saw, he felt the strength of his knowledge within him. He thought, “I shall repeat those words, and so confound him — ”

He opened his mouth, but, “Do you put on your wolfskin and do I put on my bearskin, and let us then and thus contend: half brother of my father’s father:
Is it wolf? or is it only dog?
” were the words he said. And marveled at them, hearing.

No moan, no whisper, no hiss, no motion, movement, sign, from any there. Such words might pass between king and one about to die because of king; but by no other one dared they be even heard. Across the space between them he heard the dry sounds the king’s mouth made. After a space of time he saw the king’s face move, twitch, saw the king’s hands clench upon his pelts. Saw a grimace cross the king’s face and change into something which might have been a smile. King Orfas said, “Do you desire, then, to don your bearskin? So. So. So. Be it so.”

His blood roared in his ears as he slipped into his bearskin. He heard the roaring of many waters and of many winds. He stood there, arms out as a bear’s arms are out, saw, though little caring, the king’s mouth moving as the king spoke to his captains. He shambled between the houses of the men, not bothering to observe their awe-struck faces, not deigning to so much as growl at the company of the spearmen who surrounded him. Since it must be so, when it must be so, he would receive the spears as though they were porcupine quills, he would slay his score before he fell.

The spearmen in front and at his side, who had been all the way stepping sidewise and scraping their feet after them, crabwise, now stopped, spears still pointing at him. He heard those behind likewise halt. He had scarcely followed as to where they were going. Now he knew. Here was an old, old and stooping tree, some ways outside the palisade; beneath its roots was a cavity in which and round which generations of children had hid and played: but he had never cared — after once or twice, perhaps once alone and once not — to go there as a boy — it was called “the Bear Cave,” perhaps had even been one, once, before the founders of the village had graven the first furrow and, casting down a woman in it, had furrowed her as well; thus establishing the place as one of human habitation, of crops and all things fertile. It was called “the Bear Cave,” and no phrase containing the word bear was very pleasant to his ears when it came from the lips of other children.

The spearmen, the kingsmen, all the king’s party, had circled this stoop old tree about and at a distance had begun to make campfires. Then up came the king, Orfas himself, carried in his litter-bed. They set it down. He said, “Bear.” He said, “Some might say
bastard
, I say but
Bear
. You are indeed Bear? And son of the true Bear? So. Go. Go there. Into there. Down there. To the Bear cave. It is midwinter, it is the time of the bearsleep. Die, then, Bear, Bear’s son, Curser of Iron. Die the Bear death. Sleep the Bear sleep. And as closely as the bearskin girds your body, so closely shall we gird and guard your hole, your grave, the pit from which you shall not emerge till the full winter-sleep be over: For do we but see your snout, Bear-kin, do we see so much as your shadow before the full measure of time be past: then we shall hunt you from your pit, Bear, take you from your skin, Bear; we shall even take from you your other skin, Bear: and we shall smoke it and shall smoke you in the fire, Bear, and then we shall see, the Curser of Iron, bastard son of bastard blood, betrayer, slowly die, slower than iron dies, down, down, hunt you down …”

The Orfas babbled and the Orfas raged and howled. One slow moment as the spearmen tensed, faces drawn, teeth fixed in lower lips, aslant their fearsome eyes begazed him, pale their faces though they so many and he but one; one slow moment only Arnten stood facing the black opening beneath the snowy ledge. He felt no anger, no rage, nor lust; felt no despair. He felt only lassitude … and … oh … it felt right. There he had to go. Sooner or later all men had thereunto to go.

With slow step, paying no further mind to the howling king or to the silent folk, thinking of nothing but the inevitable and hence the welcome dark, he shambled forward, he entered into the open grave, he descended down into the pit, and thus to death.

• • •

Darkness and deep time and deep darkness and dark time
… Time knows not the darkness and the darkness knows not time. Yet time passes and the darkness, too. Pale yellow suns rolled round and round, and faintly the taste of honey. Ghostly fish leaped in silent streams. Darkness visible, shock ebbing away. And rest. And rest, rest … rest … warm in the darkness and the cold outside, the outside cold …
ssswww
… breath …
ssswww …