The Corridors of Time (6 page)

‘Have a care not to injure anything,’ she cautioned. ‘Woods are sacred. One must not hunt without sacrificing to Her, nor
cut down a tree unless it is first propitiated.’

But they entered no cathedral stillness. Life swarmed about, briar and bramble, fern and fungus, moss and mistletoe crowding
under the oaks and burying every log. Anthills stood to a man’s waist, butterflies splashed the air with saffron and dragonflies
darted cobalt blue, squirrels ran among the branches like streaks of fire, a hundred kinds of birds were nesting. Song and
chatter and wingbeat reverberated down the leafy arches; more distantly, grouse drummed, a wild pig grunted, the aurochs challenged
all earth. Lockridge felt his spirit expand until it was one with the wilderness, drunk on sun and wind and the breath of
flowers. Oh, yes, he thought, I’ve been out often enough to know this sort of existence can get pretty miserable. But the
troubles are real ones – hunger, cold, wet, sickness, not academic infightin’ and impertinent income tax forms – and I wonder
if the rewards aren’t the only real ones too. If Storm guards this, sure, I’m with her.

She said nothing for the next hour, and he felt no need himself to talk. That would have taken his mind off the sight of her,
panther-gaited beside him, the light that was blue-black in her hair, malachite in her eyes, tawny down her skin until it
lost itself in shadow between her breasts. Once there crossed his memory the myth of Actaeon, who saw Diana
naked and was turned to a stag and torn apart by his own hounds. Well, he thought, I’ve escaped that – physically anyhow –
but I’d better not push my luck too hard.

This arm of the forest was not wide. They emerged by mid-morning. Now north and west the land reached low, flat, to a shimmer
on the horizon. Grasses rippled in a breeze, isolated copses soughed, light and shade ran beneath the clouds. The trail widened,
grew muddy, and wound off past a bog.

At that place, abruptly, Storm halted. Reeds rustled around a pool, which was thick with lilypads where frogs jumped from
a stork. The big white bird paid the humans no attention, and Lockridge’s new memory told him storks were protected, taboo,
bearers of luck and rebirth. A curiously shaped boulder had been rolled to the marge for a shrine. From the top, each year,
the headman flung the finest tool that had been made in Avildaro, out to sink as a gift to Our Lady of the Ax. Today only
a garland of marigolds lay there, offered by some young girl.

Storm’s attention was elsewhere. The muscles stretched out in her belly and she dropped a hand to her pistol. Lockridge stooped
with her. Wheel tracks and the marks of unshod hoofs remained in the damp ground. Someone, perhaps two days ago had driven
through these parts and —

‘So they have come this far,’ the woman muttered.

‘Who?’ Lockridge asked.

‘The Yuthoaz.’ She pronounced the name with an umlauted
u
and an
edh.
Lockridge was still mastering the technique of using a diaglossa, and could merely summon up now that this was what the local
tribes of the Battle Ax culture called themselves. And the Ax of those sun-worshipping invaders was not the tree-felling Labrys:
it was a tomahawk.

Storm rose, tugged her chin, and scowled. ‘The available information is too scanty,’ she complained. ‘No one thought this
station important enough to scout out intensively. We don’t know what is going to happen here this year.’

After a moment, musingly: ‘However, reconnaissance certainly established that no large-scale use of energy devices occurred
in this area during this entire millennium. That is one reason I chose to go so far back, rather than leave the corridor at
a later date when the Wardens are also operating. I
know
the Rangers are not coming here. Thus I dared leave the corridor in the first year of this gate; it will be accessible for
a quarter century. And – yes, another datum, a report recorded from a survey party out of Ireland, whose time portals are
a century out of phase with Denmark’s – Avildaro still stands, has even grown to importance, a hundred years hence.’ She shifted
her pack and resumed walking. ‘So we have little to fear. At most, we may find ourselves involved in a skirmish between two
Stone Age bands.’

Lockridge fell into step with her. A couple of miles went by in footfalls through the blowing grass, among the scattered groves.
Save for an occasional giant, spared because it was holy, these coastal trees were not oak but ash, elm, pine, and especially
beech, another tall invader that had begun to encroach on Jutland.

As the trail rounded such a stand, Lockridge saw a goat flock some distance off. Two preadolescent boys, naked, sun-darkened,
with shocks of bleached hair, were keeping watch. One played a bone flute, another dangled his legs from a branch. But when
they spied the newcomers, a yell rose from them. The first boy pelted down the trail, the second rocketed up the tree and
vanished in leafage.

Storm nodded. ‘Yes, they have some reason to fear trouble. Matters were not so before.’

Lockridge pseudo-remembered what life had been for the Tenil Orugaray: peace, hospitality, bouts of hard work separated by
long easy intervals when one practiced the arts of amber shaping, music, dance, love, the chase, and simple idleness; only
the friendliest rivalry between the fisher settlements scattered along this coast, whose people were all intricately related
anyway; only contact for trade with the full-time farmers inland. Not that these folk were weaklings. They hunted wisent,
bear, and wild boar, broke new ground with pointed sticks, dragged rocks cross-country to build their
dolmens and the still bigger, more modern passage graves; they survived winters when gales drove sleet and snow and the sea
itself out of the west against them; their skin boats pursued seal and porpoise beyond the bay, which was open in this era,
and often crossed the North Sea to trade in England or Flanders. But nothing like war – hardly ever even murder – had been
known until the chariot drivers arrived.

‘Storm,’ he asked slowly, ‘did you start the cult of the Goddess to get the idea of peace into men?’

Her nostrils dilated and she spoke almost in scorn. ‘The Goddess is triune: Maiden, Mother, and Queen of Death.’ Jarred, he
heard the rest dimly. ‘Life has its terrible side. How well do you think those weak-tea-and-social-work clubs you call Protestant
churches will survive what lies ahead for your age? In the bull dance of Crete, those who die are considered sacrifices to
the Powers. The megalith builders of Denmark – not here, where the faith has entered a still older culture, but elsewhere
– kill and eat a man each year.’ She observed his shock, smiled, and patted his hand. ‘Don’t take it so hard, Malcolm. I had
to use what human material there was. And war for abstractions like power, plunder, glory, that
is
alien to Her.’

He could not argue, could do no more than accept, when she addressed him thus. But he remained silent for the next half hour.

By that time they were among fields. Guarded by thorn fences, emmer, spelt, and barley had just begun to sprout, misty green
over the dark earth. Just a few score acres were under cultivation – communally, as the sheep, goats, and wood-ranging pigs,
though not the oxen, were kept – and the women who might ordinarily have been out weeding were not in sight. Otherwise, unfenced
pastures reached on either hand. Ahead blinked the bright sheet of the Limfjord. A grove hid the village, but smoke rose above.

Several men jogtrotted thence. They were big-boned and fair, clad similarly to Lockridge, their hair braided and beards haggled
short. Some had wicker shields, vividly painted. Their
weapons were flint-tipped spears, bows, daggers, and slings.

Storm halted and raised empty hands. Lockridge did likewise. Seeing the gesture and the dress, the village men eased off noticeably.
But as they approached, an uncertainty came over them. They shuffled their feet, dropped their eyes, and finally stopped.

They don’t know exactly who or what she is, Lockridge thought, but there’s always that about her.

‘In every name of Her,’ Storm said, ‘we come friends.’

The leader gathered courage and advanced. He was a heavyset, grizzled man, face weathered and eyes crow-footed by a lifetime
at sea. His necklace included a pair of walrus tusks, and a bracelet of trade copper gleamed on one burly wrist. ‘Then in
Her names,’ he rumbled, ‘and in mine, Echegon whose mother was Ularu and who leads in council, be you welcome.’

Thus jogged, Lockridge’s new memory sent him off into a professional analysis of what had been implied. The names given were
genuine – no secret was made of the real ones for fear of magic – and came from an interpretation by Avildaro’s Wise Woman
of whatever dreams one had during the puberty rites. ‘Welcome’ meant more than formal politeness: the guest was sacred and
could ask for anything short of participation in the special clan rituals. But of course he kept his demands within reason,
if only because he might be host next time around.

With a fraction of his awareness, Lockridge listened to Storm’s explanation as the party walked shoreward. She and her companion
were travelers from the South (the far-off exotic South whence all wonders came – but about which the shrewder men were surprisingly
well-informed) who had gotten separated from their party. They wished to abide in Avildaro until they could get passage home.
Once established, she hinted, they would make rich gifts.

The fishermen relaxed still more. If these were a goddess and her attendant wandering incognito, at least they proposed to
act like ordinary human beings. And their stories would
enliven many an evening; envious visitors would come from miles around, to hear and see and bring home the importance of Avildaro;
their presence might influence the Yuthoaz, whose scouts had lately been observed, to keep away. The group entered the village
with much boisterous talk and merriment.

Auri, whose name meant Flower Feather, had said: ‘Do you truly wish to see the fowl marshes? I could be your guide.’

Lockridge had rubbed his chin, where the bristles were now a short beard, and glanced at Echegon. He expected anything from
shocked disapproval to an indulgent chuckle. Instead, the headman fairly leaped at the chance, almost pathetically eager to
send his daughter on a picnic with his guest. Lockridge wasn’t sure why.

Storm refused an invitation to join them, to Auri’s evident relief. The girl was more than a little frightened of the dark
woman who held herself so aloof and spent so much time alone in the forest. Storm admitted to Lockridge that this was as much
to confirm her own
mana
in the eyes of the tribe as for any other reason; but she seemed to have withdrawn from him too, he hadn’t seen a lot of
her during the week and a half they had dwelt in Avildaro. Though he was too fascinated by what he experienced to feel deeply
hurt, it had nonetheless reminded him what a gulf there was between them.

Now, as the sun declined, he dug in his paddle and sent the canoe homeward.

This was not one of the big skin coracles which went outside
the Limfjord. He had already been on a seal hunt in one of those, a breakneck, bloody affair with a crew that whooped and
sang and made horseplay amidst the long gray waves. Awkward with abone-tipped harpoon, he got back respect when they hoisted
the felt sail; steersmanship was not hard for one who had used the much trickier fore-and-aft rig of a twentieth-century racer.
His canoe today was merely a light dugout with wicker bulwarks, calling for no more care than a green branch tied at the bow
to keep the gods of the wet under control.

Still, reedy, but aswarm with ducks, geese, swans, storks, herons, the marsh fell behind. Lockridge paralleled the southern
bayshore, which sloped in a greenness turned gold by the long light. On his left, the water shimmered to the horizon, disturbed
only by a few circling gulls and the occasional leap of a fish. So quiet was the air that those remote sounds came almost
as clear as the swirl and drip from his paddle. He caught a mingled smell of earth and salt, forest and kelp. The sky arched
cloudless, deep blue, darkening toward evening above Auri’s head where she sat in the bows.

Whoof! Lockridge thought. A nice day, but am I glad to be out of those mosquitoes! They didn’t bother her any … well, I reckon
these natives are bitten so often they develop immunity.

His itches weren’t too bad, though, not even the unsatisfiable itch for a cigarette; and what he felt was compensated for
by the sense of water turned alive by his strokes and the rubbery resurgence of his muscles. Also, of course, by having a
pretty girl along.

‘Did you find pleasure in the day?’ she asked shyly.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Thanks so much for taking me.’

She looked astonished, and he recalled that the Tenil Orugaray, like the Navajo, spoke thanks only for very great favors.
Everyday helpfulness was taken for granted. The diaglossa made him fluent in their language but didn’t override long-established
habits.

Color stained her face and throat and bare young bosom.
She dropped her eyes and murmured, ‘No, I must thank you.’

He considered her. They didn’t keep track of birthdays here, but Auri was so slim, with such an endearing coltishness in her
movements, that he supposed she was about fifteen. At that, he wondered why she was still a virgin. Other girls, wedded or
not, enjoyed even younger a Samoan sort of liberty.

Naturally, he wouldn’t dream of jeopardizing his position here by getting forward with the sole surviving female child in
his host’s house. More important yet was honor – and inhibition, no doubts He’d already refused the advances of some he felt
were too young; they had plenty of older sisters. Auri’s innocence came to him like a breeze from the hawthorns flowering
behind her home.

He must admit being a wee bit tempted. She was cute: immense blue eyes, freckle-dusted snub nose, soft mouth, the unbound
hair of a maiden flowing in flaxen waves from under a garland of primroses and down her back. And she hung around him in the
village to a downright embarrassing extent. However.