Elder Race(21)

But the ancients foresaw that their age of greatness was fading. This was the Elder age, when monsters did the will of men to build great things and ships sailed on the sea of night. The ancients knew that their time of power was coming to an end, and taught such lore as they could to those who would come after. The ancients told that the pale harbours of the otherworld sat empty, and none put out from their docks anymore. No sails were on the sea of night and the servants of the ancients grew unruly and rebellious, and had to be destroyed or driven to the far places. The ancients retreated to their places and knew that their time in the world was done. Some yet watched the night sky, but there were no more travellers from the otherworld. Some allowed their magic to dwindle and became like other men, and others fled back to the otherworld rather than face that fate. Some closed the doors of their tombs and were seen no more. And their descendants lived without magic, but farmed the land and traded and built. And if they laid stone on stone without the help of the ancients’ marvellous servants, and without understanding of the ancients’ magics, yet they lived and prospered.





Nyr


AND WHEN I’VE SAID all that, when I’ve committed that unconscionable betrayal of all the non-contamination rules they pounded into me at anthropology HQ, the two women just look at me, and Lyn says, “Yes, that is how we tell it.” They look at me quite blankly, no idea how what I’ve just said connects to what I was saying before, my ridiculous little outburst. I almost stamp my foot in frustration. I have just told them that their whole culture is a lie, basically, a ridiculous fake thing that grew out of a failed colony that lost its way, and they nod and say, “Well, yes, of course.”

“There are no demons, no magic,” I say, but only weakly. The two women regard me as though I’m supposed to do a trick now, pull an animal out of my ear, guess the number they’re thinking of.

Worst of both worlds, really. I’ve just had a bit of a meltdown, to be honest. The DCS was already fragile, and when Lyn was making all those promises in my name, to all those wretched, filthy, desperate people, there was a moment of utter synchronicity between the buried feelings it was keeping down and my higher brain, all of me thinking, This is wrong, and so when we got back here I let it all off the leash and railed at them, as profoundly unprofessional as you can get, not a note taken, not a folkway recorded for posterity. I told them their culture is bunk, based on ludicrous fabrications about how things are and how it’ll all work out, just the way an anthropologist should never do. And then, with my professional integrity in tatters, they didn’t actually understand what I was saying. Somehow I told them something else instead.

I reboot the DCS and feel a great deal better, while knowing that such feeling is itself illusory, and in reality I feel very bad indeed.

“So, we’ll go and find where this demon is, then,” I say calmly. And perhaps it will be interesting. Perhaps it will make a nice footnote to one of my reports, that I can send off into the void in the general manner of a man hurling curses at the thunder. Doubtless, despite the prolonged lack of any contact from Earth, they’re all eagerly awaiting my next bulletin.

“Thank you, Nyrgoth Elder. Nyr.”

I blink. Lyn is kneeling in front of me, almost touching my knee but pulling back, that reluctance they have towards any physical intimacy. Something of my puzzlement must have shown on my face, because she draws back and stands up hurriedly, just before I think about reaching forward myself, closing that circuit between us. Most likely for the best.

“Our ship was very small, that carried us here,” I tell her, speaking as precisely as I can. For some reason it is important that I make her understand this one thing. “When my fellow scientists and I travelled from Earth to your world, we were all at each other’s elbows and knees, like too many eating at a small table. Unlike your ancestors, we had star drives that were very small even though they harnessed powers that were very mighty.” And who knows what she makes of any of that, given the approximations and guesses I have to make, in the translation. “Back in the world I came from, too, those parts of it that are habitable are crowded, all of us living in each other’s pockets, on all sides, above and below. For someone to lay their hand on your shoulder or move you to one side or clasp your arm in greeting, that happened a hundred times in a day. Even out in the camp beyond these walls, they have more room each than any of us dreamt of. And it was the same for your ancestors before they set off, or why else travel so far to find a new home?”

Lyn regards me, and I know I have got it wrong again. She is trying to hide it, but I can see she has heard something else. Perhaps I have told her of the conditions of damned souls in hell. Behind the gates of the DCS my mood sinks even further, but on the surface I am sanguine. I make another note for the study.

*

In the morning we are joined by the one-handed man, Allwerith. From past observation I am aware that his mutilation was part of the judicial process he described, and that under other circumstances such a man would be driven from the sight of Watacha’s walls, or any civilized place, given no option but to be a wildman or a brigand. However, Lyn looks him up and down as he stands there in his ragged clothes, and greets him with a wary respect, using a register that signifies higher speaking to lower, but not highest to lowest as she would be entitled to use. I have heard her discussing the man with Esha, and his presence here, rather than, say, on the roads preying on the refugees, has impressed her.