Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [549]
A colony of brown birds sped out from shore in their thousands, whistling their fright. So great was their wingspan that, when they passed over the ship, the noise of their movements was like low thunder. The colony took half an hour to pass overhead, and the captain shot several for the pot.
When at last the brig rounded the peninsula and began to sail north, within two days of Rivenjk, another storm struck. It was less severe than the previous one. They were whirled up in fog and snow, which arrived in great flurries. For a whole day the light of the suns glittered through thick mists and hail, the hailstones being as large as a man’s fist.
As the storm abated and the men at the pumps were able to stagger away and sleep, the coastline slowly revealed itself again.
Here the cliffs were less vertical, though as awesome as ever, husbanding their own clouds and rainstorms. From out of one obscuring storm emerged the gigantic figure of a man, swathed in mist.
The man appeared to be intending to spring from the shore and land on the deck of the New Season.
Toress Lahl cried in alarm.
‘That’s the Hero, ma’am,’ said the second mate reassuringly. ‘He’s a sign we’re nearly at journey’s end – and a good thing too.’
Once the scale of the coast was grasped, it was plain that the statue was gigantic. The captain demonstrated with his sextant that it stood over a thousand metres high.
The Hero’s arms were upraised and carried slightly forward over the head. The knees were slightly bent. The man’s stance suggested that he was either about to jump into the ocean or take flight. The latter alternative was suggested by what might have been a pair of wings, or else a cloak, flowing back from the broad shoulders. For stability, the figure’s lower legs had not been separated from the rock face from which it was sculpted.
The statue was stylised, cut with curious whorls as if to confer an aerodynamic shape. The face was sharp and eaglelike, yet not entirely inhuman.
Increasing the solemnity of the sight, a distant bell tolled. Its brazen voice rolled across the grey waters to the brig.
‘He’s a splendid figure, isn’t he?’ Luterin Shokerandit said with pride. The passengers in their metamorphosed state all gathered at the rail to stare uneasily across at the gigantic statue.
‘What does he represent?’ Fashnalgid asked, plunging his hands into his coat pockets.
‘He represents nothing. He is himself. He’s the Hero.’
‘He must represent something.’
Annoyed, Shokerandit said, ‘He stands there, that’s all. A man. To be seen and admired.’
They fell uneasily silent, listening to the melancholy note of the bell.
‘Shivenink is a land of bells,’ Shokerandit said.
‘Has the Hero got a bell in his belly?’ young Kenigg asked.
‘Who would build such a thing in such a place?’ Odim enquired, to cover his son’s impertinent question.
‘Let me tell you, my friends, that this mighty figure was created ages ago – some say many Great Years past,’ Shokerandit said. ‘It was built, legend has it, by a superior race of men, whom we call the Architects of Kharnabhar. The Architects constructed the Great Wheel. They are the finest builders the world has ever known. When they finished their labours on the Wheel, they sculpted this giant figure of the Hero. And the Hero has guarded Rivenjk and the way to Kharnabhar ever since.’
‘Beholder, what are we coming to?’ Fashnalgid asked himself aloud. He went below to smoke a veronikane and read a book.
When the desolation of a post-apocalyptic Earth yielded to the ice age, signals had been received from Helliconia for the past three centuries. As the glaciers moved south, there were few who possessed the ability to watch that newly discovered planet’s history, apart from the androids on Charon.
At least this could be said for the ice age. It wiped the Earth clear of the festering shells of defunct cities. It obliterated the cemeteries which all previous habitation