Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [113]
‘Run, you fool woman!’ bellowed Aoz Roon, coming down the ridge at a run.
Shay Tal did not hear his voice above the shrieks and the furious splashing. She stood firm at the end of the fish lake and flung out her arms, as if gesturing to the phagor horde to halt.
Then the transformation. Then the moment that ever after in the annals of Oldorando would be referred to as the miracle of Fish Lake.
Some claimed later that a shrilling note rang through the frosty air, some said a high voice spoke, some vowed Wutra struck.
The whole group of marauders, sixteen in number, had entered the lake, led by the three mounted stalluns. Their rage drove them into the alien element, they were thigh deep in it, churning it up with the fury of their charge, when the entire lake froze.
One moment, it was an absolutely still liquid, lying, because undisturbed, unfrozen at three degrees below freezing point. The next moment, disturbed, it became solid. Kaidaws and phagors all were locked in its embrace. One kaidaw fell, never to rise again. The others froze where they were, and their riders froze with them, hemmed in ice. The stalluns behind, brandishing their arms – all were trapped, held in the grip of the element they had invaded. None took as much as one farther step. None could fight free to gain the safety of the shore. Soon, their veins froze within their bodies, despite the ancient biochemistries that coloured their bloodstream and protected it from the cold. Their coarse white coats became further sheathed in rime, their glaring eyes frosted over.
What was organic became one with the great inorganic world that ruled.
The tableau of furious death was absolute, carved from ice.
Above it, white birds wheeled and dipped, crying with gaping beaks, finally making off to the east in desolate flight.
*
Next morning, three people rose up early from a skin bivouac. Powdery snow had fallen during the night; giving the wilderness a peppery appearance. Freyr ascended from the horizon, casting watery purple shadows over the plain. Several minutes later, the second faithful sentinel also struggled free into Wutra’s realm.
By then, Aoz Roon, Laintal Ay, and Oyre were on their feet, beating and stamping circulation into their limbs. They coughed, but were otherwise silent. After looking at each other without speaking, they moved forward. Aoz Roon stepped out onto the lake of ice, which rang beneath his tread.
The three of them walked across to the frozen tableau.
They stared at it almost in disbelief. Before them was a monumental piece of statuary, fine in detail, wild in imagining. One kaidaw lay almost under the hoofs of the other two, the greater part of its bulk submerged by brittle waves, its head rearing up in fear, its nostrils distended. Its rider struggled for control, half fallen from its back, terrible in immobility.
All the figures were caught in mid-action, many with weapons raised, eyes staring ahead to the shore they would never reach. All were encased in rime. They formed a monument to brutality.
Finally, Aoz Roon nodded and spoke. His voice was subdued.
‘It did happen. Now I believe. Let’s get back.’
The miracle of Year 24 was confirmed.
He had sent the rest of the party back to Oldorando the previous evening, under Dathka’s leadership. Only after he had slept could he believe he did not dream the incident.
Nobody else said anything. They had been saved by a miracle; the thought dazed their minds, silenced their tongues. They trudged away from the alarming sculpture without another word.
Once they were back in Oldorando, Aoz Roon ordered one of his slaves to be taken by two hunters to Fish Lake, to the site of the miracle. When the slave had seen the tableau with his own eyes, his hands were lashed behind his back, he was faced towards the south, and booted on his way. Back in Borlien, he would tell his fellows that a powerful sorceress watched over Oldorando.
VIII
In Obsidian
The room in which Shay Tal stood erect was ancient beyond her computation.