Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [268]
‘They longed to be rid of him, and to have a king who would not oppress them, but nobody knew what to do.
‘Whenever the citizens thought of a scheme, the king found out. He was such a great magician that he conjured up a huge silver eye. This eye floated in the sky all night spying on everything that happened in the unhappy kingdom. The eye opened and shut. It came fully open ten times every year, as everyone knew. Then it saw most.
‘When the eye saw a conspiracy, the king knew about it. He would then execute all the conspirators, whether men or phagors, outside the palace gate.
‘The queen was sad to see such cruelty, but she could do nothing. The king swore that whatever else he did, he would never harm his lovely queen. When she begged him to be merciful, he did not strike her, as he would have done anyone else, even his advisors.
‘In the lowest dungeon of the castle was a room guarded by seven blind phagor guards. They had no horns, because all phagors when they grew up sawed off their horns at the annual fair in Ponptpandum, so as to try and look more human. The guards let the king enter the cell.
‘In the cell lived a gillot, an old female phagor. She was the only horned phagor in the kingdom. She was the source of all the king’s magic. By himself, the king was nothing. Every evening, the king would beseech the gillot to send the silver eye up into the sky. Every evening, she did as requested.
‘Then the king saw all that was happening in his kingdom. He also asked the old gillot many searching questions about nature, which she answered without fail.
‘One night when it was bitterly cold she said to him, “O King, why do you seek such knowledge?”
‘“Because there is power in knowledge,” replied the king. “Knowledge sets people free.”
‘To this the gillot said nothing. She was a wizard and yet she was his prisoner. At last she said in a terrible voice, “Then the time has come to set me free.”
‘At her words, the king fell into a swoon. The gillot walked from her dungeon, and commenced to climb the stairs. Now the queen had long wondered why her husband went to an underground room every night. On this night her curiosity had got the better of her. She was descending the stairs to spy on him when she encountered the gillot in the dark.
‘The queen screamed in terror. In order that she should not scream again, the phagor struck her a heavy blow and killed her. Roused by the sound of his queen’s much-loved voice, the king woke and ran upstairs. Finding what had occurred, he drew his sword and slew the phagor.
‘Even as she fell to the ground, the silver eye in the sky began to spiral away. Farther and farther it went, growing smaller and smaller, until it was lost to view. At last the people knew they were free, and the silver eye was never seen again.’
Tatro was silent for a moment.
‘Isn’t that an awful bit where the gillot gets killed?’ she said. ‘Would you read it again?’
Raising herself on one elbow, the queen said, teasingly, ‘Why do you read Tatro that silly story, Rushven? It’s a pure fairy story.’
‘I read it because Tatro likes it, ma’am,’ he said, smoothing his whiskers, as he often did in her presence, and smiling.
‘Knowing your opinion of the ancipital race, I cannot imagine you relish the notion that humankind once looked up to phagors for wisdom.’
‘Madam, what I relish about the story is that kings once looked up to others for wisdom.’
MyrdemInggala clapped her hands with pleasure at the answer. ‘Let us hope that that at least is no fairy story …’
In the course of their Ahd, the Madis came once more to Oldorando, and to the city bearing that name.
A sector of the city called the Port, beyond the South Gate, was set aside for the migrants. There they made one of their rare halts, for a few days. Celebrations of a modest sort took place. Spiced arang were eaten, elaborate zyganke were danced.
Water and