Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [36]
“Great Scott!” cried Wheldrake, lifting his hat in a gesture of amazement. “What can it be?”
It was a kind of darkness, a flickering of heavy shadows, of the occasional spark of light, of a constant and increasing shaking, which made the banks of garbage bounce and scatter and the carrion creatures rise in squawking flurries of flesh and feather. And it was still many miles off.
To the gypsies the phenomenon was so familiar they paid it not the slightest attention, but Elric, the Rose and Wheldrake could not keep their eyes away.
Now the rocking increased, a steady motion doubtless created partly by the free span of the road over the bay, until it was gentle but relentless, as if a giant’s hand rocked them all in some bizarre cradle, and the shadow on the horizon grew larger and larger, filling the causeway from bank to bank.
“We are the free people. We follow the road and call no man our master!” sang out one of the women.
“Hear! Hear!” chirrups Wheldrake. “Hey-ho, for the open road!” But his voice falters a little as they draw nearer and see what now approaches, the first of many.
It is like a ship, but it is not a ship. It is a great wooden platform, as wide across as a good-sized village, with monstrous wheels on gigantic axles carrying it slowly forward. Around the bottom edge of the platform is a kind of leather curtain; around the top edge is built a stockade, and beyond that are the roofs and spires of a town, all moving on the platform, with slow, steady momentum, with dwellings for an entire tribe of settled folk.
It is only one of hundreds.
Behind that first comes another platform, with its own village, its own skyline, flying its own flags. Behind that is another. The causeway is crowded with these platforms, rumbling and creaking and, at turtle pace, ploughing steadily on, packing the refuse into the ground, making still smoother the smoothness of their road.
“My God!” whispers Wheldrake. “It is a nightmare by Brueghel! It is Blake’s vision of Apocalypse!”
“It’s an unnerving sight, right enough.” The Rose tucks the tongue of her belt into its loop another notch and frowns. “A nomad nation, to be sure!”
“You are, it seems, pretty self-sufficient,” says Wheldrake to one of the gypsies, who assents with proud gravity. “How many of those townships travel this way?”
The gypsy shakes his head and shrugs. He is not sure. “Some two thousand,” he says, “but not all move as swiftly as these. There are cities of the Second Season following these, and cities of the Third Season following those.”
“And the Fourth Season?”
“You know we have no fourth season. That we leave for you.” The gypsy laughs as if at a simpleton. “Otherwise we should have no wheat.”
Elric listens to the babble and the hullabaloo of the massive platforms, sees people climbing upon the walls, leaning over, shouting to one another. He smells all the stenches of any ordinary town, hears every ordinary sound, and he marvels at the things, all made of wood and iron rivets and bits bound together with brass or copper or steel, of wood so ancient it resembles rock, of wheels so huge they would crush a man as a dog-cart casually crushes an ant. He sees the washing fluttering on lines, makes out signs announcing various crafts and trades. Soon the traveling platforms are so close they dwarf him and he must look up to see the gleam of the greased axles, the old, metal-shod wheels, each spoke of which is almost as tall as one of Imrryr’s towers, the smell, the deep smell of life in all its variety. And high above his head now geese shriek, dogs put their front paws upon the ramparts and bark and snarl for the pure pleasure of barking and snarling, while children peer down at them and try to spit on the heads of the strangers, shouting catcalls and infant witticisms to those below, to be cuffed by parents who in turn remark on