Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [123]
The watching women gave a shout and rushed forward. Rol Sakil was among them. Shay Tal motioned them back.
She stared down into the water and could see Myk struggling below the surface. Swathes of his coat came roiling upward with the disturbed water, brushing the surface like yellow weed.
The water remained water. The phagor remained alive.
‘Pull him up,’ she ordered.
Goija Hin had Myk by two straps. He tugged and Laintal Ay helped. The old phagor’s head and shoulders broke the surface and Myk gave a pathetic cry.
‘Don’t killydrown poor me!’
They dragged him ashore and he lay panting at Shay Tal’s feet. She chewed her underlip, frowning at the Voral. The magic was not working.
‘Throw him in again,’ one of the onlookers called.
‘No more water or I finish,’ Myk said, thickly.
‘Push him in again,’ Shay Tal ordered.
Myk went in a second time, and a third. But the water remained water. No miracle happened, and Shay Tal had to conceal her disappointment.
‘That’s enough,’ she said. ‘Goija Hin, take Myk away and feed him extra.’
Oyre knelt compassionately by Myk’s throat, crying and patting him. Dark water flowed from the phagor’s lips and he began coughing. Laintal Ay knelt and put his arm round Oyre’s shoulder.
Disdainfully, Shay Tal turned away. The experiment showed that phagors plus water did not make ice. The process was not inevitable. So what had happened at Fish Lake? Equally, she had not managed to turn the Voral to ice, as she had wished to do. So the experiment did not prove she was a sorceress. It did not prove she was not a sorceress; it seemed to prove that she had turned the phagors at Fish Lake to ice – unless there were other factors involved she had not considered.
She paused with her hand on the rough stone of the doorway to her tower, feeling the rasp of lichen against her palm. Until she found another explanation, she would have to treat herself as others treated her, as a sorceress. The more she starved, the more she respected herself. Of course, as a sorceress, she was destined to remain a virgin; sexual intercourse would destroy her magical powers. She gathered her furs against her lanky form and climbed the worn stairs.
The women on the bank looked from Myk’s half-drowned body, surrounded by a growing puddle, to Shay Tal’s retreating figure.
‘Now what did she want to go and do that for?’ old Rol Sakil asked the company. ‘How come she didn’t drown the stupid thing properly while she was about it?’
The next time the council met, Laintal Ay rose and addressed them. He said that he had heard Shay Tal lecture. All knew of her miracle at Fish Lake, which had saved many lives. Nothing she did was directed to the ill of the community. He proposed that her academy should be recognised and supported.
Aoz Roon looked furious while Laintal Ay spoke. Dathka sat rigid in silence. The old men of the council peered at each other under their eyebrows and muttered uneasily. Eline Tal laughed.
‘What do you wish us to do to aid this academy?’ Aoz Roon asked.
‘The temple is empty. Give it to Shay Tal. Let her hold meetings there every afternoon at promenade time. Use it as a forum, where anyone can speak. The cold has gone, people are freer. Open the temple as an academy for all, for men, women, and children.’
His resounding words died into silence. Then Aoz Roon spoke.
‘She cannot use the temple. We don’t want a new lot of priests. We keep pigs in the temple.’
‘The temple is empty.’
‘From now on, pigs are kept in the temple.’
‘It’s a bad day when we put pigs above the community.’
The meeting eventually broke up in some disorder, as Aoz Roon marched out. Laintal Ay turned to Dathka, his cheeks flushed.
‘Why didn’t you support me?’
Dathka grinned sheepishly, tugged his narrow beard, stared down at the table. ‘You could not win if all Oldorando supported you. He has already banned the academy. You waste your breath, my friend.’
As Laintal Ay was leaving the building, feeling