Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [494]
On the fourth day, the forward units came across one of the two messengers whom Shokerandit had sent ahead. His body lay face down in a gully. The torso had been gnawed as if by a wild animal.
The soldiers preserved a wide circle about the corpse, but seemed unable to stop looking at it. When Asperamanka was summoned, he too looked long at the dreadful sight. Then he said to Shokerandit, ‘That silent presence travels with us. There is no doubt that the terrible scourge is carried by the phagors, and is the Azoiaxic’s punishment upon us for associating with them. The only way to make restitution is to slay all ancipitals who are on the march with us.’
‘Haven’t we had slaughter enough, Archpriest? Could we not just drive the ancipitals away into the wilds?’
‘And let them breed and grow strong against us? My young hero, leave me to deal with what is my business.’ His narrow face wrinkled into severe lines, and he said, ‘It is more necessary than ever to get word swiftly to the Oligarch. We must be met and given assistance as soon as possible. I charge you now, personally, to go with a trusted companion and bear my message to Koriantura for onward transmission to the Oligarch. You will do this?’
Luterin cast his gaze on the ground, as he had often done in his father’s presence. He was accustomed to obeying orders.
‘I can be in the saddle within an hour, sir.’
The wrath that seemed always to lurk under Asperamanka’s brow, lending heat to his eyes, came into play as he regarded his subordinate.
‘Reflect that I may be saving your life by charging you with this commission, Lieutenant Ensign Shokerandit. On the other hand, you may ride and ride, only to discover that the silent presence awaits in Koriantura.’
With a gloved finger, he made the Sign of the Wheel on his forehead and turned away.
III
The Restrictions of Persons in Abodes Act
Koriantura was a city of wealth and magnificence. The floors of its palaces were paved with gold, the domes of its pleasure houses lined with porcelain.
Its main church of the Formidable Peace, which stood centrally along the quaysides from which much of the city’s wealth came, was furnished with an exuberant luxury quite foreign to the spirit of an austere god. ‘They’d never allow such beauty in Askitosh,’ the Korianturan congregation was fond of saying.
Even in the shabbier quarters of the city, which stretched back into the foothills, there were architectural details to catch the eye. A love of ornamentation defied poverty and broke out in an unexpected archway, an unpremeditated fountain in a narrow court, a flight of wrought-iron balconies, capable of lifting the spirits even of the humdrum.
Undeniably, Koriantura suffered from the same divisions of wealth and outlook to be found elsewhere. This might be observed, if in no other way, from the welcome given to a rash of posters from the presses of the Oligarchy at present flooding the cities of Uskutoshk. In the richer quarters, the latest proclamation might draw forth an ‘Oh, how wise, what a good idea!’; while, at the other end of town, the same pronouncement would elicit merely an ‘Eh, look what the biwackers are up to now!’
Most frontier towns are dispiriting places, where the lees of one culture wait upon the dregs of the next. Koriantura was an exception in that respect. Although known at an earlier date in its history as Utoshki, it was never, as the old name implied, a purely Uskutoshk city. Exotic peoples from the east, in particular from Upper Hazziz and from Kuj-Juvec beyond the Gulf of Chalce, had infiltrated it and given it an exuberance which most cities of Sibornal did not possess, stamping that energy into its very architecture and its arts.
‘Bread’s so expensive