At Winter's End

“A god who intercedes, yes. I suppose.”

“That is the one god you came to forget, your people. The one who stands above the other five and reaches higher yet, and speaks on our behalf with them. ”

“Are the humans gods too, then?”

“No. No, I do not think so,” said Noum om Beng. “But who is to say? Only Nakhaba has ever seen a human.”

“I think I have,” said Hresh.

Noum om Beng chuckled in his rasping way. “Madness, boy.”

“No. In our cocoon, during the days of the Long Winter, there was one who always slept, who lay by himself in a cradle in the central chamber. Ryyig Dream-Dreamer is what we called him. He was very long and very pale and pink, without any fur, and his head rose high above his forehead, and his eyes were purple, with a strange glow. It was said that he had always lived with us, that he had come into the cocoon on the first day of the Long Winter, in the time when the death-stars began to fall, and that he would sleep until the day the winter ended; and then he would sit up and open his eyes and prophesy that we must go forth into the world. After that he would die. So it was said, long ago, and written in the books of our chronicles. And all this actually came to pass, Father. I saw him. I was there on the day he awoke.”

Noum om Beng was staring at him with a strange fixity of vision, his whole face rigid, his red eyes gleaming. The old Helmet Man’s harsh breathing seemed to grow louder and louder, until it sounded like the panting of some approaching beast.

Hresh said, “I think the Dream-Dreamer was a human. That he was sent to live with us, to watch over us, through all the Long Winter. And that when the winter ended his work was done, and he was summoned by his people.”

“Yes,” Noum om Beng said. He was quivering like a bowstring drawn overtaut. “So it must have been, and why did I not see it? Boy, shall I tell you something? There was a Dream-Dreamer in our cocoon too. We had no idea what sort of creature he was, but we had one just as you did. Long ago, before I was born, if you can imagine a time so long ago. And we had what you call a Barak Dayir also. There are tales of such things in our chronicles. But our Dream-Dreamer awoke early, while ice still held the world. He led us forth and he perished, and our Wonderstone was taken by the hjjks. Nakhaba has guided us well and we have achieved greatness despite our loss, with greater things yet to come: for all the world will be Beng, boy, that much I see clearly. Yet our task has been much heavier because we have not had a Barak Dayir in these later years. Whereas your people — you, boy — having possession of that magical thing—”

Noum om Beng’s voice trailed away. He stared at the floor.

“Yes? Yes? What is the destiny of my people?”

“Who knows?” the old Helmet Man said, sounding suddenly very weary. “Not I. Not even Nakhaba, perhaps. Who can read the book of destiny? I see our own: yours is unclear to me.” He shook his head. “I never thought that our Dream-Dreamer might have been a human, yet now I see that your guess has much strength, that your guess has virtue. That must be what he was.”

“I know that he was, Father.”

“How can you know that?”

“By a vision I had, using a machine I found in Vengiboneeza, that showed me the Great World. It showed me sapphire-eyes and vegetals and all the other races. And it showed me humans, too, walking these very streets; and they looked just like our Dream-Dreamer Ryyig.”

“If that is so, then I understand many things that were unclear to me before,” Noum om Beng said.

That astounded Hresh, that he should be the one to make things known to Noum om Beng, and not the other way around. But still he was baffled. He sat in silence, trembling.

Noum om Beng said, “Guard your stone, boy. Swallow it, if you are endangered. It is an essential thing. We have had to struggle twice as hard for our greatness, or more, because we have been careless of ours.”

“And what is the Barak Dayir, then? I had heard it was a thing made in the stars.”

“No. It is a human-thing,” Noum om Beng said. “That is all I can tell you. Something older even than the Great World. A device that the humans made, so I realize now, and gave to our kind, to use in many ways. But what those ways are, I have never known, and you have only begun to learn.”

Hresh reached for the amulet of Thaggoran at his throat, for he felt great tension and fear oppressing him. But then he remembered that he had given the amulet to Koshmar, to see her through her dying hours.

He said, “I wish we were not leaving Vengiboneeza so soon, Father.”

“Why? The world is waiting for you.”

“I want to stay here with you, and learn all that you can teach me.”

Noum om Beng laughed again. Without warning his thin stem of an arm came up and he dealt Hresh an open-handed slap that bruised his lip and numbed his cheek.

“ Thatis all I can teach you, boy!”

Hresh licked at a sweet spot of blood on his lower lip. Softly he said, “Shall I go now, then? Is that what you want?”

“Stay as long as you wish.”

“But you will answer no more of my questions?”

“You have more questions, do you?”

Hresh nodded, but said nothing.

“Go on. Ask.”

“I must be tiring you, Father.”

“Ask. Ask. Anything, boy.”

Hesitantly Hresh said, “You told me once that the gods repay all our striving by sending death-stars, so that nothing has any meaning. I called this a flaw in the universe, but you said no, no, the universe is perfect, and we are the ones who are flawed. But it still seems like a flaw in the universe to me. And you said also that we must go on striving anyway, though you did not know why. You told me that I must find that out, and when I did I should come and tell you what I had learned. Do you remember, Father?”

“Yes, boy.”

“Not long ago I had another vision of the Great World, using a different device from the one that showed me the humans, I had that vision only this night past, Father. What I saw was the last day of the Great World, when the first death-star came and the sky turned black and the air grew cold. The humans were already gone, I could not tell you where, and the hjjks were heading for the hills, and the vegetals were dying and the sea-lords were about to die and the mechanicals were going off to die elsewhere. But the sapphire-eyes, though they knew they were coming to the end of their time, were altogether untroubled by what was happening around them. They showed no fear and they showed no distress. Nor did they do the slightest thing to deflect the falling death-stars from the world, though surely that must have been within their power. I am unable to understand that, Father. If I knew why the sapphire-eyes were able to accept their doom without seeming to care, I might be able to tell you why we must strive ever onward even though the gods will some day destroy all we have built.”

Noum om Beng said, “What is the name by which you call your god who is the Destroyer?”

Hresh blinked in surprise. “Dawi

“Dawi

“How can a god be evil, Father?”

“You have answered your own question, boy.”

Hresh did not see that he had. He sat blinking, waiting for some further illumination. But none was forthcoming. Noum om Beng was smiling at him amiably, almost smugly, as if quite certain that he had given Hresh the key to all that troubled him.

Behind his smile the old Helmet Man’s face was gray with fatigue; and Hresh himself felt the strength of his mind taxed to its limit. He dared not ask for further explanation. Here I will stop, Hresh thought. Already he had burdened himself with so much that it would take him years, so it seemed to him then, to comprehend it all.

He rose to go. “I should leave now, Father, and let you rest.”