Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (123 page)

Far from being some morbid fancy, assatassi behaviour was proof of the versatility by which species were perpetuated. Like the otherwise dissimilar biyelk, yelk, and gunnadu, which covered the icy plains of Campannlat in winter, the assatassi were necrogenes and gave birth only through death.

Assatassi were hermaphrodite. Formed in too rudimentary a way to carry within them the normal apparatus of reproduction, assatassi propagation involved destruction. Germination budded within their gut, taking the form of threadlike maggots. Embedded safely within the parental intestine, the maggots survived the impact of the death-flight and lived to feed on the carrion thus provided.

They ate their way to the outside world. There the maggots metamorphosed into a legged larval stage, closely resembling miniature iguana. In the autumn of the small year, the miniature iguanas, hitherto land-bound, made their way back to the great parent sea, fading down into it, sinking into it as tracelessly as grains of sand, to replenish the cycle of assatassi life.

So startling was the sudden turn in events that TolramKetinet and Lanstatet stood up on their spit to look about them. The huge wave which had drenched all the foreshore was the prelude to an onrushing flood which set the Sibornalese struggling ashore into difficulties.

The first wave had rushed up the Kacol. Its spent waters were
now returning, bringing black muds which stained the sea with their eddies. More ominously, to TolramKetinet’s left, a stream of bodies was making sodden progress out from the river mouth, accompanied by screaming seabirds. The general’s guess was that these were the slaughtered dead of Keevasien, about to find burial.

The incoming wave had overturned the
Golden Friendship
’s longboat. Those who did not stay submerged long enough rose to meet the clouds of fish-lizard.

SartoriIrvrash found himself struggling in the water with the wounded, among whom he soon saw Odi Jeseratabhar. One of her cheeks was torn, and a fish-lizard was embedded in the flesh of the back of her neck. Many of the wounded were being attacked by predatory gulls. SartoriIrvrash himself was uninjured. Fighting his way over to Odi, he lifted her in his arms and began to wade ashore. The water kept getting deeper.

His face came close to the assatassi embedded in her neck, his eye close to its great boney eye, from which all life had not yet faded.

‘How can mankind ever build up bulwarks against nature, when it keeps flooding in like a deluge, indifferent to what it carries away?’ he said to himself. ‘So much for you, Akhanaba, you hrattock!’

It was all he could do to keep the unconscious Odi’s head above water. There was a spit of land only a few yards distant, yet still the water rose about him. He cried in fear – and then on the spit he saw a man who resembled JandolAnganol’s hated general, TolramKetinet.

TolramKetinet and GortorLanstatet were studying the Sibornalese ship, the
Vajabhar Prayer
, which lay only a short distance to their right. The tidal wave had flung it ashore, but a swirling rebate of waters from the Kacol floated it again. Apart from the assatassi peppering its starboard side, it was in good order. The crew, thoroughly demoralised, were throwing themselves ashore and making off into the bushes to safety.

‘The ship’s ours for the taking, Gortor. What do you say?’

‘I’m no sailor, but there’s a breeze rising from on shore.’

The general turned to the twelve men with him.

‘You are my brave comrades. None of you lacks courage. If one of you had lacked courage for a moment, we all would have perished. Now we have one last exploit before we are safe. There is no help for us at Keevasien, so we must sail along the coast. We are going to borrow this white caravel. It’s a gift – though a gift we may have to fight for. Swords ready. Follow me!’

As he ran down the strand, his force following, he almost bumped into a bedraggled man struggling for the shore with a woman in his arms. The man called his name.

‘Hanra! Help!’

He saw in astonishment that it was the Borlienese chancellor, and the thought came, Here must be another that JandolAnganol has cheated …

He halted his party. Lanstatet dragged SartoriIrvrash from the flood, two of the men took hold of the woman between them. She was moaning and returning to consciousness. They dashed on to the
Vajabhar Prayer
.

The crew and soldiery of the Shiveninki vessel had suffered casualties. Some were killed; any wounded by the assatassi were mostly ashore. Birds darted over the ship, eating fish-lizards caught on the rigging. There remained a handful of soldiers with their officers to put up a fight. But TolramKetinet’s party swarmed up the seaward side of the vessel and took them on. The opposition was already demoralised. After a halfhearted engagement, they surrendered and were made to jump ashore. Gortor-Lanstatet took a party of three below, to round up any hiding and get them off the ship. Within seven minutes of boarding, they were ready to sail.

Eight of the men pushed the caravel. Slowly, the ship swung about and the sails filled, torn though they were by the fish-lizards.

‘Move! Move!’ shouted TolramKetinet from the bridge.

‘I hate ships,’ GortorLanstatet said. He fell on his knees and prayed, hands above his head. There was an explosion, and water sprayed all over them.

Their piracy had been seen from the
Golden Friendship
. A gunner
was firing one of the cannon at them from a range of two hundred yards.

As the
Prayer
, at no more than walking pace, glided out of the shelter of the overhanging jungle, a stronger breeze caught it. Without needing to be told, two gunners among the Borlienese manned one of the cannon on the gundeck. They fired it once at the
Golden Friendship;
then the angle between the ships became so acute that the muzzle of the cannon could not be turned sufficiently in the square gunport to aim at the flagship.

The gun crew in the flagship were faced with the same problem. One more ball flew over, landing in the undergrowth of the island, then silence. The eight men in the water swarmed up boarding nets and climbed on deck cheering as the
Prayer
gathered way.

The island foliage slid away to port. Trees were being attacked by the scavenging birds, devouring impaled assatassi, while the hornets and bees they disturbed buzzed savagely round them. The
Prayer
was about to pass the Uskuti ship,
Union
, still beached with its bows into the land.

‘Can you blow it up as we pass?’ GortonLanstatet shouted down to the gundeck.

The gunners ran to port, opened the gunport, primed the clumsy cannon. But now they were moving too fast, and the gun could not be made ready in time.

The disgraced Io Pasharatid was among the crew and soldiery on the
Union
who had deserted ship to flee from the death-flight into the island jungle. He went first. His desertion owed more to calculation than panic.

Alone among the Sibornalese in the fleet, he had once visited Keevasien. That had been during his tour of duty as ambassador to the Borlienese court. While he had no love of the place, it was in his mind that he might purchase supplies there to eke out the boredom of ship’s rations. His calculation was that he might take off two hours during the general panic without being missed.

Seeing the burnt-out ruins of the town had changed his mind. He returned to the scene of action in time to witness the
Vajabhar Prayer
gliding by his own ship, with Hanra TolramKetinet, favourite of the queen of queens, standing on its quarterdeck.

Io Pasharatid was not entirely sunk in self-interest, though in this instant jealousy played some part in his actions. He ran forward, rallying the men who crouched among the bushes, driving them back aboard the
Union
. The tidal wave had set it on a strip of beach, unharmed.

After some manoeuvring with oars, assisted by the flood tide, they floated the carrack free of the beach. The sails were trimmed and, slowly, her bows drifted round towards the open sea.

Signal flags were run up, reporting that the
Union
was in pursuit of the pirate. The signal was intended for the eyes of Dienu Pasharatid on the
Golden Friendship;
but she would never read another signal. Hers was one of the first human deaths occasioned by the death-flight of the assatassi.

Only when they were out of the bay and a fresh west wind was carrying them slowly against the prevailing ocean stream, did TolramKetinet and SartoriIrvrash take the chance to embrace each other.

When they had given each other some report of their adventures, TolramKetinet said, ‘I have little to be proud of. Since I am a soldier, I cannot complain where I am sent. My generalship has been such that my forces dissolved without my being able to fight a single battle. It is a disgrace I shall always live with. Randonan swallows men whole.’

The ex-chancellor said, after a moment, ‘I am grateful for my travels, which were no more planned than yours. The Sibornalese used me, but from the experience has come something valuable. More than valuable.’

He made a gesture indicating Odi Jeseratabhar, whose wound was now dressed, and who sat on the deck listening to the men talking, her eyes closed.

‘I’m getting old and the loves of the old are always funny to mere youths like you, Hanra. No, don’t deny it.’ He laughed. ‘And something more. I realise for the first time how fortunate our generations are to live at this period of the Great Year, when heat prevails. How did our ancestors survive the winter? And the wheel will turn, and again it will be winter. What a malign fate, to grow
up as Freyr is dying and know nothing else. In parts of Sibornal, people don’t see Freyr at all during the centuries of winter.’

TolramKetinet shrugged. ‘It’s chance.’

‘But the enormous scale of growth and destruction … Perhaps our mistake is to think ourselves apart from nature. Well, I know of old that you are less than enthralled by such speculations. One thing I must say. I believe I have resolved one question of such revolutionary nature …’

He hesitated, stroking his damp whiskers. Smiling, TolramKetinet urged him to go on.

‘I believe I have thought what no man has ever thought. This lady has inspired me. I need to get to Oldorando or Pannoval to lay my thought before the powers of the Holy Pannovalan Empire. My deduction, I should call it. There I shall certainly be rewarded, and Odi and I can then live comfortably.’

Scrutinising his whiskery face, TolramKetinet said, ‘Deductions that are paid for! They must be valuable.’

The man’s a fool and I always knew it, thought the ex-chancellor, but he could not resist the chance to explain.

‘You see,’ SartoriIrvrash said, lowering his voice so that it could hardly be heard for the slap of the canvas above them, ‘I could never abide the ancipital race, unlike my master. There lay much of our difference. My thought, my deduction, weighs very much against the ancipitals. Hence it will be rewarded, according to the terms of the Pannovalan Pronouncement.’

Rising from her chair, Odi Jeseratabhar took SartoriIrvrash’s arm and said to TolramKetinet and Lanstatet, who had joined them, ‘You may not know that King JandolAnganol destroyed all the chancellor’s life’s work, his “Alphabet of History and Nature”. It’s a crime not to be forgotten. The chancellor’s deduction, as he modestly names it, will revenge him on JandolAnganol, and perhaps allow us both to work together on reassembling the “Alphabet”.’

Lanstatet said sharply, ‘Lady, you’re our enemy, sworn to destroy our native land. You should be below decks in irons.’

‘That’s past,’ said SartoriIrvrash, with dignity. ‘We’re simply wandering scholars now – and homeless ones at that.’

‘Wandering scholars …’ It was too much for the general, so he asked a practical question. ‘How are you to get to Pannoval?’

‘Oldorando would suit me – it is nearer, and I hope to arrive before the king, if he is not already there, to cause him maximum botheration before he weds the Madi princess. You have no love of him either, Hanra. You’ll be the ideal person to take me there.’

‘I’m going to Gravabagalinien,’ said TolramKetinet grimly, ‘if only this tub will sail us there, and we are not overtaken by our enemies.’

All looked back. The
Vajabhar Prayer
was now in open sea, making laboured progress eastwards along the coast. The
Union
had emerged from Keevasien Bay, but lay far astern. There was no immediate danger of its catching them.

‘You will see your sister Mai in Gravabagalinien,’ SartoriIrvrash told the general. The general smiled without replying.

Later in the day, distantly, they saw the
Good Hope
also in pursuit, with a jury-rigged main mast. The two pursuing vessels were lost in haze as thunderheads towered from the western sea, their edges cast in copper. Lightning darted silently in the belly of the cloud.

A second wave of assatassi rose from the sea, like a wing unfurling, to cast itself upon the land. The
Prayer
was too far from the coast to suffer ill effect. Only a few of the flying fish-lizard darted past the vessel. The men looked on complacently at what that morning had struck them dumb. As they crawled towards Gravabagalinien, thunderous darkness fell and tiny splinters of light showed ashore, where natives were feasting on the dead invaders.

And something without identity made its way towards the place where the queen of queens resided in her wooden palace: a human body.