Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [120]
And then hoxneys will spread
With their high-stepping tread
Across the plain, across the flower-thrilling plain.’
‘You are in a good humour! Is Oyre being nice to you?’
‘Oyre’s always nice.’
They went their different ways, Vry heading for her ruined tower, where she showed her present to Shay Tal. Shay Tal examined the little crystalline animal.
‘It’s not good to eat at this stage of its life. The flesh may be poisonous.’
‘I don’t plan to eat it. I want to guard it till it wakes.’
‘Life is serious, my dear. We may have to go hungry if Aoz Roon sets himself firmly against us.’ She contemplated Vry for a while without speaking, as was increasingly her habit. ‘I shall fast and defy him. I need no material things. I can be as ruthless with myself as he can be with me.’
‘But really he …’ Words failed Vry. She could utter no reassurance to the older woman, who continued determinedly.
‘As I told you, I have two immediate intentions. First, I shall conduct a scientific experiment to determine my powers. Then I shall descend into the world of the gossies, to hold concourse with Loilanun. She must now know much that I don’t. Depending on what I learn from these things, I may decide to leave Oldorando entirely.’
‘Oh, don’t leave, please, ma’am. Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? I’ll go with you if you go, I swear!’
‘We’ll see about that. Leave me now, please.’
Feeling deflated, Vry climbed the ladder to her ruinous room. She flung herself down on her couch.
‘I want a lover, that’s what I want. A lover … Life’s so empty …’
But after a while, she roused herself and looked out of the window at the sky, where clouds and birds sailed. At least it was better to be here than in the world below, where Shay Tal planned to go.
She recalled Laintal Ay’s song. The woman who had written the song – if it was a woman – had known that the snow would eventually disappear and that flowers and animals would emerge. Perhaps it would happen.
From her nighttime observations, she knew that there were changes in the sky. The stars were not fessups but fires, fires burning not in rock but air. Imagine a great fire burning in outer darkness. As it came nearer, its warmth would be felt. Perhaps the two sentinels would draw nearer, and warm the world.
Then the glossies would come back to life; turning into hoxneys with high-stepping tread, just as the song had it.
She determined to concentrate on her astronomy. The stars knew more than the gossies, for all that Shay Tal said, though it was shocking to find that one disagreed with such a majestic person.
She tucked the glossy into a warm corner by her couch, wrapping the pathetic little thing in fur so that only its face showed. Day by day, she willed it to come alive. She whispered to it and encouraged it. She longed to see it grow and skip about her room. But after a few days, the gleam in the glossy’s eyes dimmed and went out; the creature had expired with never a blink.
Despairingly, Vry took it to the crumbling top of the tower and flung the bundle away. It was still wrapped in furs, as if it were a dead baby.
A passion of restlessness seized Shay Tal. More and more, her statements became preachments. Though the other women brought her food, she preferred to starve herself, preparing to go into deep pauk to confer with the illustrious dead. If wisdom was not found there, then she would look farther afield, beyond the farmyard.
First, she determined to test out her own powers of sorcery. A few miles away to the east lay Fish Lake, scene of her ‘miracle’. While she teased herself as to the true nature of what had happened there, the citizens of Oldorando were in no doubt. Throughout that cold spring, they made pilgrimages to gaze upon the spectacle in the ice, and to tremble with fear not unmixed with pride. The pilgrims encountered numbers of Borlienians who also came to marvel. Once, two phagors were seen, cowbirds perched with folded wings upon their shoulders, standing mute upon the far shore, regarding their crystalline dead.
As warmth returned to the