Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [349]
‘I have dealings with his majesty, let’s say.’
Billy looked at him with a half-grin. ‘But you don’t like him greatly?’
The Ice Captain shook his head, smoked, and said, ‘Billish, you don’t care much for religion, no more than I. But I must warn you that religion is strong in Campannlat. Take the way his majesty threw your timepiece back at you. He is very superstitious and that’s the king of the land. If you showed that object to the peasants of Osoilima, they would riot if you caught them at the wrong moment. They might make you a saint or they might kill you with pitchforks.’
‘But why?’
‘It’s the irrational. People hate things they don’t understand. One madman can change the world. I tell you this only for your own good. Now. Come on.’ He stood up, sweeping his lecture away and laying a hand on Billy’s shoulder. ‘The girl, the meal, my manager, the Stone. Practicalities.’
What he demanded was done, and soon they were ready for the climb. Muntras discovered that Pellos had never been to the top of the Stone, despite living at the bottom of it for eight years. He was laughed into coming along as escort and marched beside them with a Sibornalese matchlock over one shoulder.
‘Your figures can’t be too bad if you can afford such artillery,’ Muntras said suspiciously. He trusted his managers no more than he trusted the king.
‘Bought to protect your property, Krillio, and every roon of it hard earned. It isn’t as though the pay’s good, even when trade’s good.’
Their way lay along a track that ran back from the wharf to the small town of Osoilima. The mist was less thick here, and the few lights round the central square gave a semblance of cheer. Many people were about, attracted by a cooler breeze that had sprung up with sunset. Stalls selling souvenirs, sweets, or savoury waffles were doing fair business. Pallos pointed out one or two houses where pilgrims lodged which ordered Lordryardry ice regularly. He explained that most of the people wandering about, throwing their money away, were pilgrims. Some came here, drawn by a local tradition, to free slaves, human or phagor, because they had grown to believe it wrong to own another life. ‘Fancy giving away a valuable possession like that!’ he exclaimed, disgusted with the foolishness of his fellow men.
The base of the Osoilima Stone was just by the square – or rather, the town and its square had been built close against the Stone. Closest of all was a hostelry, bearing the name The Freed Slave, where the Ice Captain bought four candles for the party. They went through its garden and began the ascent. Talipots grew by the Stone; they had to push away the stiff leaves in order to climb. Summer lightning flickered round them.
Others were already ascending. Their whispers sounded from above. The steps had been carved in the stone a long while ago. They spiralled round and round the rock, with never a hint of railing for security. The guiding lights of their candles flickered before their faces.
‘I’m too old for this sort of thing,’ Muntras grunted.
But their slow progress led eventually to a level platform, and an arch led them into the top of the rock, where a dome had been hollowed. They could rest their elbows on the parapet and gaze in safety at the spread of mist-shrouded forest all round.
The sounds of the town reached them and the continuous noise of the Takissa. Music was playing somewhere – a double-clouth or, more likely hereabouts, binnaduria, and drums. And all about the forest, where rolls of mist allowed, they could make out dim lights.
‘That’s what they say,’ Abath chirped up. ‘“Not an acre habitable, not an acre uninhabited.”’
‘True pilgrims stay up here all night to watch the dawns,’ Muntras told Billy. ‘In these latitudes, there’s never a day of the year when both suns aren’t visible at some time. Different from where I come from.’
‘On the Avernus, Krillio, people are very scientific,’ said Billy, hugging Abath. ‘We have ways of imitating reality with video, 3D tactiles and so on, just as a portrait imitates a real face. As a result, our generation