Lawrence Watt-Evans - Denner's Wreck

VIP免费
2024-12-23 0 0 355.54KB 100 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
DENNER'S WRECK
Lawrence Watt Evans
Copyright © 1988 by Lawrence Watt Evans
Front cover illustration by Ron Walotsky
ISBN: 0-380-75250-6
e-book ver. 1.0
Dedicated to my agent Russell Galen
Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
Some of the physical characteristics of the planet Denner's Wreck were determined using "World
Builder," a com-puter program designed by Stephen Kimmel with the assis-tance of Dean R. Lambe. The
author extends his sincere appreciation.
Chapter One
"Lord Grey the Horseman rules a vast domain far to the south and west of our village, a broad
expanse of open grassland where his horses roam free, and no mortal is permitted to set foot without
first proving his worth to the land's master. Here Lord Grey's horses run unhindered—and what
horses they are! Faster, stronger, smarter than mere animals, these creatures are a match for any
man. They run like the wind itself, their hooves like thunder and their manes waving like the grass
before the storm, and woe betide any hunter fool enough to venture near. The horses of Lord Grey
can dodge any trap, tear any rope, outrun any pursuit. And if a man should somehow capture one
despite these obstacles, then he must face the Power himself, for Lord Grey knows instantly when
one of his proud children is touched by a mortal's hand . . ."
—FROM THE TALES OF ATHERON THE STORYTELLER
The sun was high in the heavens at mid-secondlight, shining fiercely down on the shadeless plain. Bredon
could feel its light clearly, bright and warm on his back, pouring over him like honey as he crouched in the
tall grass.
He blinked away sweat, then cautiously raised himself up to peer over the waving blades.
The plain lay palely green before him, flat and even to the mountain-rimmed western horizon. Warm wind
hissed and mut-tered around him, through grass already half-bleached by summer and well on its way to
becoming golden hay.
His gray hunter's vest lay crumpled on the ground at his heel, dropped there when he had stopped to
crouch. The thin leather garment had been designed for comfort and convenience and had served him well
in the year he had worn it, but in the long wakes of pursuit it had begun to chafe him, to feel unbearably hot
and confining by light, and heavily clammy in the cool darks. He had removed it a couple of hours ago, just
after the wake's second sunrise. He now wore only short bleached cotton breeches, but he had carefully
dragged the vest along rather than risk losing it.
His companion crawled up, eerily silent in the tall grass, and lay beside him. The newcomer followed the
first youth's gaze to where a magnificent gray mare stood quietly grazing, then whispered, "Give it up,
Bredon. The horse is bewitched, probably a creature of one of the Powers—no ordinary mare could have
eluded us this long. You'll never catch her."
"Oh yes I will," Bredon hissed back. "I don't care if I have to chase her all summer, I'll keep after her
until I catch her. Look at her! With a horse like that I'll have my pick of any girl in the village. Riding her, I
could be the greatest hunter in the grass-lands. I'll be rich enough to be an Elder inside a year."
The other stifled a sigh. "Bredon," he said, "She's chewed through our ropes, dodged our traps, outrun us
and outwitted us for six lights and five darks. What's left to try? How do you plan to catch her?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I'll do it somehow. If you want to give up you can go home without me."
The answer was quick and definite: "Walk back a hundred kilometers alone and unarmed? No thank
you!"
Bredon rolled over and looked at his comrade with mingled affection and annoyance. "Mardon, has
anyone ever told you that you're a coward?" he asked politely.
Mardon shrugged. "No more often than you've been called a stubborn fool," he replied, plainly
unoffended.
Bredon smiled. "That's probably true," he admitted. "Well, if I'm a fool, O Wise One, then why don't you
devise some means for trapping that mare?''
Considering the challenge, Mardon peered dubiously about at the empty grassland and asked, "Have you
ever been here before?"
Bredon glanced back over his shoulder at the mare. "I think so," he said. "I believe my father and I came
near here hunting rabbits once. It's hard to be sure, out here, but I think this was the place."
"Rabbits?" Mardon was puzzled. "Why did you come so far?"
Bredon shrugged. "Why not?"
Mardon had no answer to that. He knew, but did not under-stand, that Bredon and other members of his
family often acted on whim. He ignored the question and asked, "Did you get as far as those mountains?"
He waved vaguely in the direction of the peaks that adorned the western horizon.
"No," Bredon answered, "I'm not really sure we even got this far, but I think we did. It looks familiar.
And those moun-tains are farther away than they look. My uncle said he rode for five full weeks once,
lights and midwake darks both, and only got to the foothills."
Mardon wiped sweat from his cheek and waved a hand to dismiss any thought of traveling so far. "It's
probably just as well," he said, "I don't think I'd care to meet the Powers of the mountains, Gold and
Brenner and the rest. It's said they're an unfriendly lot."
Bredon snorted. "The mountain people probably say that the Powers of the plains are a nasty bunch."
"Well, it doesn't matter, anyway," Mardon said. "The moun-tains are too far away to do us any good."
It was Bredon's turn to look puzzled. "What use could moun-tains be?"
"In the mountains we could trap the horse in a canyon or a cave," Mardon explained patiently.
"I guess that's true," Bredon said. "We could trap it some-where, couldn't we?" His expression turned
thoughtful as he considered for a moment.
"That gives me an idea," he said. "If I remember correctly, if this is the place I think it is, there's a water
hole back that way a bit, with deep, sticky mud under about five centimeters of water. I got my hand stuck
in it when I tried washing off the blood after I gutted a rabbit. If it's still there and we can find it, maybe we
can herd her into the mud. It won't stop her completely, but it should slow her down enough for us to get a
rope on her that she can't chew off."
Mardon mulled that over for a moment, then admitted, "It sounds good."
"Good. It's northeast of here, I think. You circle around and we'll start the chase."
"Right." Mardon slithered back through the grass and vanished.
Bredon waited patiently for Mardon to reappear. Finally, just as he was beginning to grow uneasy,
Mardon suddenly jumped up from the grass on the mare's far side, yelling and waving his arms wildly.
The mare shied and started toward Bredon. He, in his turn, jumped up and shouted.
The horse started, then turned and galloped northeast, in exactly the direction Bredon wanted her to take.
Grinning and yelling, he set out after her. Mardon followed less enthusiastically. By staying well apart and
varying their noise they controlled the mare's direction fairly well; if she attempted to turn to either side, the
man on that flank would shout more loudly and pursue more closely.
Whenever she was actually galloping she would quickly gain on her tormentors, who would fall silent and
lower their arms. Each time this happened she would slow and stop, thinking she was safe, only to be
forced into a new burst of speed when the humans drew near again and resumed their noise.
There was little danger that the mare would flee farther than her hunters could pursue. Bredon and
Mardon both knew that men are far more persistent than horses.
During one slow amble toward the tiring mare Bredon paused, his vest hanging from one finger, and
sniffed the air. "I smell water," he said. "We're getting close."
Mardon sniffed, and nodded agreement.
A few moments later, as Bredon scanned the plain, he noticed a break in the even green of the grass.
"There," he said, pointing.
Again, Mardon nodded without comment, and circled out a little farther, correcting the mare's intended
course.
A moment later, at Bredon's signal, he began whooping. The mare shied and ran straight toward the pool.
She plunged heed-lessly through the grass and into the water. The youths heard her hooves beat on the
hard ground, and then a moment of tremendous splashing, which ended abruptly when, tripped by the mud,
the horse fell and vanished from their sight behind the waves of green.
Ignoring everything but their prey, the two charged headlong across the plain and reached the water hole
within seconds of each other.
The mare had struggled to her feet, but was up to her fetlocks in muck, her whole hide soaked and
dripping. She turned her head, staring at them with eyes wide with terror.
Bredon readied his only remaining rope, determined to keep it where she could not chew it this time. He
was scarcely four meters away when the mare abruptly stopped her thrashing. Her great brown eyes went
calm as she said, very distinctly, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Bredon's mouth literally dropped open, a reaction he had always before considered to be artistic license
on the part of the village storytellers, rather than something that really happened. Mardon, in turn, was so
shocked that he tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face in the mire at the edge of the pool.
The air was suddenly full of roaring laughter. Following the sound, Bredon and Mardon both looked up at
what should have been empty sky.
A glittering platform that looked one instant like crystal and the next like metal hung unsupported in
midair, about three meters off the ground. Bredon estimated it at perhaps a meter wide and twice that in
length. Upon it stood a small, brown-haired, spade-bearded man clad in gleaming violet plush, laugh-ing
uncontrollably. His laugh seemed far too big for his stature.
Mardon cowered, trying to compose a good final prayer, certain he was doomed. There could be no
question that he was facing a Power. The stories he had heard since childhood rarely made the Powers out
to be unthinkingly hostile, but always emphasized incredible supernatural abilities, short tempers, and a
ferocious disregard for the sanctity of human life. Mardon could not imagine surviving an encounter with a
Power. He was certain he would make some little error in protocol, or trip over his own feet again, or
otherwise bungle, and that this Power would take offense and destroy him.
Bredon simply stared, unable to cope with what was happen-ing. He had never entirely believed in the
Powers. Despite the assurances of the tellers, he had secretly assumed the stories to be myths, or at least
exaggerations. His view of the world was a pragmatic and logical one, and there was no place in it for
whimsical demigods.
The man on the platform laughed heartily for several seconds, reveling in the youths' confusion, before
allowing his mirth to trail off into a smile and the relative silence of the wind in the grass.
"My apologies, gentlemen," the little man said when he had finished his laugh. "I'm afraid I've been having
my fun at your expense."
Bredon stared up at him; then, as some of his scattered wits returned and his priorities reasserted
themselves, he threw a quick look at the mare. She was standing calmly motionless in the mud.
"You made the mare talk?" Bredon asked.
"Yes, I'm afraid I did," the violet-garbed stranger replied, grinning.
"Is she yours?" Bredon demanded.
"No," the stranger said, his smile growing broader in re-sponse to Bredon's single-mindedness, "but I
brought her here, and I'm afraid you can't have her. She belongs to a friend of mine by the name of Grey; I
merely borrowed her."
"Oh." Bredon's disappointment was so obvious that the man on the platform laughed again, somewhat
more quietly this time.
Mardon, still lying in the mud, cringed at the mention of Lord Grey the Horseman. The stories about him
were few, but they all described him as one of the least tolerant Powers. He favored his horses over all
else, especially mortal men—and they had trapped one of his mares!
Bredon was still confused. He had been so intent on the mare, had her so firmly fixed as the most
important fact of his exis-tence, that his mind was still refusing to function properly regarding anything else.
He realized that he was facing a stranger, however, and as childhood training leaked to the surface, he
remembered his manners. "I'm Bredon the Hunter, son of Aredon the Hunter," he said. A glance showed
him that Mardon was still speechless, and he added, "That's Mardon the Cornfarmer, son of Maldor the
Cornfarmer.''
The man on the platform burlesqued a bow. "Honor to both your families, Bredon the Hunter. I am
known as Geste."
A dozen childhood tales came back, even to Bredon, at the mention of that famous—or infamous—name.
Mardon's terror abated slightly—or at any rate changed its form. Geste the Trick-ster was not reputed to
kill on a whim, but he was dangerous in other ways.
Still, Mardon did not dare speak aloud to a Power.
Bredon was less reticent. "Geste the Trickster?" he asked. "The one who tamed the giants, and tricked
Arn of the Ice into melting his own house?"
Geste smiled. "I see you've heard of me, but the tales seem to have grown in the telling. I don't recall that
I've ever tamed any giants. And Arn only melted a part of the Ice House."
"And now you've tricked us?" Bredon was recovering him-self finally, and found himself filling with rage.
"Yes, I believe I have." The little man grinned infuriatingly.
"You led us on for three wakes for a stupid joke? And we can't even keep the horse?"
Geste stared for a moment, then burst out laughing again. Bredon stared back at him coldly, and when the
hilarity showed signs of subsiding, he said with intense dignity, "I had always heard that you were one of the
more compassionate Powers, that you weren't vicious or petty or vindictive, but I think that this trick of
yours was . . . was . . ." Words failed him, and he simply stared accusingly.
"Oh, calm down, Bredon," Geste said, still smiling down from his platform. "Don't take it so seriously. I
like you; you say what you think, don't you? There aren't many mortals who would dare talk to me like that
anymore. But really, Bredon, what's three wakes? Besides, you enjoyed every minute of the hunt. Don't
claim you didn't!"
"But that was because I knew I'd catch her!" Bredon insisted.
Geste's smile faded. Struck by the young man's persistence and sincerity, he sobered. "Maybe you're
right," he said, look-ing at Bredon thoughtfully. The smile was gone, or at least buried, as he said, "Listen,
Bredon, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it would upset you so greatly. We sometimes forget how important these
things can be to you mortals. Let me give you a gift to make it up to you. I can't give you this horse
because, quite sincerely, she isn't mine to give, and we Powers don't break our promises, to mortals or to
each other. I gave my word that I would return her unharmed, and so I must return her unharmed. I'm sure
you understand that. However, instead, I will do you any other favor within my power—which is
considerable, as I'm sure you know." He waved a hand and drew a glowing rainbow through the air, which
burst into a thousand golden sparkles and then vanished. "Ask, and it's yours." His smile returned, bright as
ever.
"I want the mare," Bredon said.
"You can't have her," Geste replied immediately.
"I don't want anything else," Bredon insisted.
"I could fetch another horse, perhaps," Geste suggested.
"No." Bredon's answer was prompt and definite, his mouth set in a scowl.
Geste repressed a smile at Bredon's petulance. "All right, Bredon, have it your way. You can't have the
horse, and if you won't take anything else, you won't. I won't argue about it. I like you, and I'll respect your
decision. That's for now, though, and you may reconsider eventually. I owe you something, and if you won't
take it now, maybe you will later. Take this." He plucked something from the air and tossed it to Bredon,
who caught it automatically. "Break that when you've decided what you'll take instead of the horse."
Bredon looked down at what he held. It was a shiny, bright red disk perhaps five centimeters across,
made of some completely unfamiliar material that seemed as hard as metal, but with an odd slick texture
like nothing he had ever felt before. "What is it?" Bredon asked, turning it over in his hands.
Mardon, who had been huddled silently throughout the conver-sation, suddenly sat up in the mud at the
sight of this gift and demanded, "What about me?"
No one answered either question. Bredon looked up and dis-covered that Geste and his platform had
vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
What's more, the horse was gone, leaving only a gentle rip-pling on the surface of the muddy pool.
Chapter Two
". . . the stranger said, 'What? You haven't found it? Well, that's no surprise, for the truth is that I
had it all the time, in my back pocket, and had only forgotten it.' Then he looked about at the ruins,
at the broken cupboards and tumbled walls, and he burst out laughing.
"The farmer and his wife were shocked that the traveler could laugh so at another's misfortune,
and the wife began to berate him soundly, whereupon he laughed all the more, until he was gasping
for breath, his hands clutching at his belly.
"This enraged the wife so that she forgot herself and snatched up a spoon and went to beat upon
the stranger, but she found that the spoon itself refused to strike him, no matter how hard she tried.
This is hardly in the nature of a spoon, of course, and that was when her husband realized that this
stranger was no mortal man at all. But he could not stop his wife, for so great was her fury that she
would neither listen to reason nor consider the spoon's actions for herself, but only tried the harder
to bring it down upon the stranger's head.
"The stranger lifted a hand, and caught his breath enough to say, 'Halt, enough!' Then he waved a
hand, and behold, the walls rose up from the ground and rebuilt themselves, as sound and whole as
ever. The cupboards jumped back into their accustomed places, and the furniture flew back
together and arranged itself as it had been before the traveler ever set foot within the door.
"The wife dropped the spoon in astonishment and watched as the miracle took place, allowing the
stranger to recover himself. He stooped and picked up the spoon, and handed it to her, saying,
'Here, my good woman, you may find this of use.'
"She took it, and saw that the ordinary wood had been transformed into solid gold.
" 'My apologies,' the stranger said, 'I'm sorry for any inconvenience. I must go now, but you have
the thanks of Gesle the Trickster for your most enjoyable hospitality.' And then he was gone,
vanished as if he had never been.
"And the farmer and his wife looked around at their home and saw all that they had, that they had
not appreciated—four sound walls and a warm roof, well-stocked cupboards and a comfortable
home, and they saw how foolish they had been. And they did not sell the golden spoon, or melt it
down, but hung it above the fireplace as a reminder of their encounter with the Trickster."
—FROM THE TALES OF ATHERON THE STORYTELLER
"It's not fair," Mardon insisted, as he sat poking at the dying cook fire with a broken turnspit.
Bredon sighed. He had heard this a good many times in the forty-odd wakes since he and his companion
had arrived safely back in their home village. "Life is rarely fair," he pointed out, without moving from
where he lay sprawled on his blankets. "You could have spoken up, just as I did, instead of hiding your face
in the mud."
"I thought he was going to kill you!" Mardon said, giving the coals a particularly vicious jab. Sparks sailed
upward.
"According to the stories," Bredon repeated wearily, "the Trickster never kills anyone." He rolled over
and looked at his comrade, toward whom he was feeling distinctly less comradely of late. "Look, Mardon,
you wouldn't have gotten to keep the horse if we'd caught it, we agreed on that, so why do you care about
this stupid trinket we got instead?" He sat up and pulled the disk from his pocket. "It's not worth anything. I
don't think it will really work, if I ever decide to use it. That was the Trickster, remember? If the stories
are true, he lies all the time! He just gave me this to shut me up. If I break it I'll probably just get a faceful
of stinkweed or something." He flipped the disk into the air with his right hand and caught it neatly with his
left.
Mardon was not to be talked out of his sulkiness as easily as that. Abandoning the fire, he turned, still
seated cross-legged, to face Bredon and asked, "Why do you keep it, then? Why not give it to me?"
"Mardon, he gave it to me, not you! Why should I give it to you? You're my friend, but that doesn't mean
I need to give you everything I have. Look, you met Geste the Trickster, saw a Power face-to-face.
You've got something to brag about to every girl in the village, a tale for your grandchildren, if you ever
have any you care to acknowledge. You can pretty up the story all you like and no matter what you say I
won't contradict you, you know that. I haven't told anyone that you didn't dare talk to him, and I'm not going
to, so no one knows what you did or didn't do. The trinket proves we met him, so no one can doubt that we
did. Atheron said so, and everybody accepts that. It doesn't matter which of us has it, for that, and Geste
gave it to me. He might not like it if I gave it away. You don't need it, and you wouldn't dare use it if you
had it, so why do you care about this thing so much? Isn't the tale enough?"
"No. Maybe. Oh, I don't know. It's just not fair." Mardon picked up the turnspit again.
Abruptly, Bredon felt he had had enough. His strained good humor fled completely. He rose suddenly,
almost jumping to his feet, and shouted down at Mardon, "Then go call Rawl the Adjuster about it, but stop
whining to me! I didn't make you a coward, and I'll be damned and my soul eaten by demons before I'll give
you the stupid thing!" He strode out of the tent, leaving the flap hanging open and Mardon staring after him
in dumb astonishment.
The sun was on the eastern horizon and the midwake darkness was fading rapidly; full daylight would
arrive in minutes, and the population of the village was already out and about, abandoning the quiet
conversation and indoor work of the midwake dark for the outdoor work that could only be done while the
sun was up. The long lights of midsummer were past, and sunlight was not to be wasted.
Several of his fellow villagers saw Bredon emerge from his bachelor's tent. His brother Kredon smiled
and waved from the steps of their parents' house, and Bredon waved back perfuncto-rily. Kittisha the
Weaver, on her way home from the village well, also waved, and changed direction, heading across the
street toward him.
He growled quietly to himself. He liked Kittisha well enough, and had thoroughly enjoyed her company in
his tent just two sleeps before, but in his present mood he did not care to talk to her. She tended to prattle
on endlessly. When he was in the right frame of mind it was funny and endearing, but just now he knew it
would only irritate him more. He pretended not to see her—just enough darkness remained that he could do
that without risk of insulting her—and instead veered off to the right, around the side of his own tent and
those of the other unmarried young men, and headed out of the village by the shortest available route.
He marched on past the tidy herb gardens, past the cornfields— which, he recalled with annoyance, were
the domain of Mardon's father, cultivated by the entire family—and well out into the surrounding grassland
before he calmed sufficiently to think at all. His pace gradually slowed, and on a whim he turned his steps
eastward.
He walked on, and he thought.
His life was not going right. He felt that, but he could not really explain it. It all seemed to hinge somehow
on his encounter with Geste the Trickster, the most playful of all the Powers. Before that, he had seen
nothing wrong with his life, but now he could see little that was right.
Had Geste played some subtle trick on him, perhaps? Something that altered his feelings, something far
more devious than the rather silly and simpleminded stunt with Lord Grey's mare?
He shook his head at the thought. He did not really believe that was it.
Fifty wakes earlier he had been a normal young man, happily pursuing wealth, glory, and young women.
He was a fine hunter, one of the best in the village—that was no boast, but simple fact. He was tall, strong,
and if not staggeringly handsome, certainly not ugly. His family was respected and respectable, his brother
and three sisters all well enough behaved, both parents alive and healthy, his various aunts, uncles and
cousins causing no prob-lems. He had had no bitter quarrels or disagreements, nothing beyond the ordinary
household squabbles that every family had, and even those had been few and mild of late.
He had almost no money, of course, but that was nothing. An unmarried man needed little enough. All he
really owned was his bachelor's tent and a few personal items, but he had never lacked for the essentials,
and his future was bright. Hunting was steady work, and prestigious, and a good hunter could make plenty
of money once he had paid off his debt to his parents. Bredon's debt was down to a matter of a dozen
meals or so, and his parents were not pressing him. If anything, pleased and proud as they were at how
quickly he was paying, they seemed to be encourag-ing him to take his time.
As for women, for the past few seasons, since he had reached man-height and his complexion had begun
clearing, he had had little trouble in finding willing females to share his bedding— though not always those
he might have preferred. He had taken the occasional romantic setback in stride. He had had friends of
both sexes, and was rarely lonely.
He had been happy, he knew he had.
Then he had glimpsed the mare when she wandered near the village, and he had set out in pursuit. A fine
horse was wealth he could appreciate. He had spent three wakes chasing her, almost six full lights and five
darks, with his childhood friend and inseparable companion beside him, and they had trapped her.
And that was where everything had gone wrong. By rights, they should have struggled with her, tied her,
dragged her back home, and spent weeks breaking and training her. They would have worked hard with
her, certainly, but their efforts would have been rewarded with the respect of the village, and with the
knowledge of their own skills proven, as well as with a superb mount.
Instead, they had left the horse out on the plain and had come back with nothing but the strange red disk.
A legend had come to life, appearing out of nowhere and snatching their quarry from them.
Even coming back empty-handed because the mare had es-caped or died would have been more
satisfying, he thought. They would have been honorably defeated, but learned from their mistakes and been
better prepared the next time.
Instead, they had come back and told their story, which Atheron the Storyteller had declared fully
authentic and consistent with the known characteristics of the Powers. They had shown the disk. The
villagers had smiled, applauded them, honored them, feasted them—but it was all somehow unsatisfying and
empty.
Bredon realized, with a start, what was really lacking. The villagers treated him with awe and wonder,
they honored him— but the respect that he had sought was not there.
And why should it be? he asked himself silently. He had done nothing worthy of respect. He had not
proven his worth as a hunter, as he had set out to do. He had, instead, been the butt of a demigod's stupid
joke. People might stare at him in awe, they might honor him outwardly for his contact with divinity, but
inwardly they thought no better of him than before. His encoun-ter had been sheer luck, after all. Geste
might have picked on anyone, anyone at all. He had not cared in the least that Bredon was the best young
hunter in the village. What did a Power care about hunting?
And had Bredon come out of the encounter with honor? No, not really. He had done nothing.
The respect that was truly lacking, he saw, was his own self-respect.
He should have defied Geste, he thought. The little man was a Power, certainly, but that was no reason
for Bredon to have stared at him so stupidly, gaped so awkwardly, spoken so fool-ishly. He should have at
least tried to take the mare, despite what Geste said.
Of course, Geste was a Power, a demigod.
But then, the tales said that most of the Powers, including Geste, respected those who stood up to them
despite the incredi-ble danger of doing so. Some stories said that the Powers were only men and women
come from another, higher world, a world where fortune had gifted everyone with immortality and magic. If
that was so, if Geste was just a man, then Bredon had disgraced himself, given up his own dignity as an
adult, in not standing up to his tormentor. He had forsaken his own commonsense view of the world and
been overawed by Geste's supposed supernatural power.
He had done better than Mardon, though. Mardon had cowered and cringed, and that had been eating
away at both of them since they had returned to the village. Their friendship was breaking up, Bredon
knew. Mardon did not want the red disk so much as he wanted not to have behaved so badly, but there was
nothing either of them could do about it. It was all in the past. Neither of them could change the past. The
disk was just a symbol of the parts they had played, and if he gave it to Mardon he knew it would do no
good. In fact, he suspected it would make things worse, as Mardon could then accuse Bredon of patronizing
him.
Mardon was a coward, and had acted like a coward, and was ashamed of it. He was redirecting that
shame into envy of Bredon, and it was destroying a friendship that had endured since the days when both
wore diapers.
Bredon sighed.
Geste had done more harm than he knew. Bredon wondered whether the little man would laugh at the
unhappiness he had caused.
He stopped walking, pulled the disk from his pocket, and studied it. It gleamed like a ruby in the light of
the fast-rising sun.
If he broke it, would the Trickster really come?
And if he did, could he put right the wrong he had done? Could he cure Mardon's memory of his own
cowardice, give Bredon back his self-respect?
Surely, such things were beyond even the Powers. They could move mountains, but could they repair a
damaged soul?
Even if Geste could cast a spell of some sort, and make Bredon and Mardon once again happy and
content, would either of them want a magical cure of that kind?
He put the disk back in his pocket.
He turned and faced westward for a moment, considering. The sun was well up; he had been walking
toward it for an hour or more. If he hurried a little he could get back to the village before the sun reached
its mid-secondlight zenith.
Did he want to?
What would he find in the village? Mardon might still be in his tent, which would mean chasing him out.
That would be unpleas-ant. He did not want to see Mardon again for a while.
There was no one else he wanted to see, either. None of his relationships with the village girls had
progressed beyond casual entertainment, really. His siblings were busy with their own affairs, and were still
amused by the story of his meeting with the Trickster. His parents steadfastly refused to intervene in his life
now that he had reached manhood and pitched his tent, and for the most part, despite their pride in him, they
acted as little more than polite strangers—strangers he owed money. And most of his old friends had fallen
away, somehow, in the last forty wakes.
He would be alone in the village.
That was a depressing thought. He hated being alone.
If he was going to be alone, he decided, he might as well be alone out in the open. Having other people
around him would only make it worse. He turned eastward again and marched on.
Only hours later, when the last light had died and he had trampled himself a bed in the tall grass for the
sleeping dark, did he suddenly decide where he was going.
Not far to the east stood the so-called Forbidden Grove. He knew the place was reputed to be the
territory of one of the Powers, a female Power, called Lady Sunlight of the Meadows. She was by far the
closest of the Powers—excluding the wander-ers like Rawl and Geste, of course, who could be anywhere.
She was more or less the patron deity of the area, as much as there was one. He could not remember any
tales about her, or at least none of the details—he had never taken any interest in the stories Atheron and
Kithen told—but she was said to be an important Power all the same. Somewhere in the grove, or just
beyond it, she was supposed to have her personal demesne, her place of power, a place called, naturally,
the Meadows, where she had a great glittering palace.
Bredon's uncle Taredon had pointed the grove out to him once, when a hunt brought them this way, so he
knew where it was. He should, he thought, be able to reach it by the next wake's second sunrise.
He would go there, he told himself, go right into the grove, taboo or not. He had survived an encounter
with one Power already, but had lost his self-respect in doing it. Maybe if he trespassed fearlessly on the
lands of another he could regain a little of his pride, show himself that it had been surprise, more than fear,
that had let the Trickster get the better of him.
Of course, that assumed he would survive trespassing in the grove. He could not be sure of that.
Before meeting Geste, he had never paid any attention to the Powers. No one else in the village had ever
met one—at least, no one still alive, though tales were told about various ancestors. The Powers had been
nothing to him but stories for children, and he had not considered them relevant to the real, everyday world
around him.
He now saw that he had been wrong. The Powers were real and relevant, and if he wanted to
understand the world he needed to know how to deal with them, whether to ignore them as he always had,
or to actively avoid them, or to seek them out. This mysterious Lady Sunlight was close at hand—if she
actually existed—and as good a subject for investigation as any.
He would not embarrass himself again.
With that thought circling through his mind he fell asleep.
Chapter Three
". . . Lady Sunlight of the Meadows is among the most shy and retiring of all the Powers, at least
as far as mortals are concerned. She takes no interest in worldly matters, and in fact barely lives in
our world at all—her glittering palace is almost impossible to find, for the paths in the Forbidden
Grove twist and turn beneath mortal feet, always leading away from the Meadows. When one
perseveres and finally, by charm or luck, does reach the place where her palace stands, one might
not even see it, for it is not always there. And no one can enter it, for there are no doors. Lady
Sunlight wants no guests. Her interests lie in the sparkle of sunlight on a dewdrop, or the shape of a
flower's petals, not in the mundane affairs of everyday people. She has no desire to speak with
mortals—if in fact, she can speak at all, for no mortal has ever heard her voice. Those who wander
near the Forbidden Grove sometimes glimpse her, as a flash of movement in the corner of the eye, or
a reflection in a stream, or a shadow in the sun, but none has ever heard her speak. Those who dare
venture into the Grove, perhaps to the boundaries of the Meadows, can sometimes catch sight of her
briefly, as she runs laughing through the fields, or tenderly cares for her flowers, or combs the
golden hair that reaches to her ankles. Of these who glimpse her, those who return to their villages
—and not all of them do, for some pine away for love of her, spending their lives watching for
another glimpse or waiting in hope of hearing her speak—but those who do return to them are
never quite the same. They speak often of her beauty, though they can never describe any details,
and they spend much of their time staring off into space, in the general direction of the Meadows . .
." —FROM THE TALES OF ATHERON THE STORYTELLER
The grove made him uneasy. He moved forward cautiously, the rich, earthy smell filling his nostrils with
every step.
Bredon had rarely seen trees except at a distance. Few trees grew on the grasslands around the village,
and he, like all his people, almost never ventured away from the open plain. The plain was big enough for
anyone. Besides, other lands belonged to other tribes, or to the Powers, and one did not intrude uninvited.
At least, not without a good reason. Bredon was very aware that he was intruding uninvited.
The presence of not one, or two, but four or five hundred trees in a single place was almost
overwhelmingly alien. He had seen the forests cloaking the distant mountainsides, but to be among the
trees, close enough to touch them, to smell them, to see the individual leaves, was very different. Despite
his bold intentions, Bredon had entered the Forbidden Grove very slowly and cau-tiously, moving as silently
as he could and staring up uneasily at the strange, towering plants on every side.
Something felt wrong almost immediately; he paused to try and identify it.
When he had stopped moving, when his feet no longer rasped against the underbrush and his clothes no
longer rustled as they slid across his body, he realized what it was. The woods sounded wrong.
Every hour of his life, every wake, every sleep, every light and dark, ever since his birth, whenever he
had been outside solid walls, he had heard the wind in the grass. In the spring the wind hissed through the
green young shoots. In summer the grass was tall and whispered in the wind. In autumn the brown stalks
rubbed and chattered, until at last came the winter, coating the grass in ice, knocking the blades to the
ground and sometimes burying them in snow, but not quieting them as they tinkled together or crunched
underfoot. The sound had been faint when the wind was gentle, a harsh howling when the winter winds
ripped down from the mountains, but always present. The air on the plain was never still, and the grass was
never still. When a man walked anywhere beyond the village, he walked through rustling grass.
Here in the Forbidden Grove the grass did not grow and the wind could not reach. Overhead leaves
rustled, but that was a different sound, an alien sound, a wrong sound. His feet moved silently, moving
aside nothing but air, and the air around him was calm—not dead, because it still stirred faintly, but calm
and quiet.
A bird chirped, loud in the closed-in stillness.
He was hungry, he decided. After all, he had not intended to make so long a journey, and had come away
with nothing but a pocket full of corn chips. He had reached the grove, he had entered it; now it was time to
go home and get something solid to eat.
He was actually starting to turn when he caught himself.
He was not Mardon, he thought scornfully, to be terrified by anything that was at all out of the ordinary.
There was nothing unnatural in the grove's stillness. He had experienced similar quiet in his parents' house,
he told himself.
That was not strictly true, he immediately corrected himself. Houses did not have leaves that rustled
overhead. Houses were built, not grown. Houses had distinct walls and small rooms, not great ill-defined
spaces that seemed to wind on forever. Houses were lit by lamps or straight-edged windows, not by
dapples of sunlight that spilled randomly through a myriad of leaves, all shifting in the breeze.
Still, he was no child to be frightened by something simply because it was strange. He forced himself to
march on into the grove.
It occurred to him that, here among the trees, he was walking between the stems of plants as an insect
walked between blades of grass, similarly sheltered, and that he was in no more danger from the trees than
an ant was from grass. However, the analogy did not really comfort him, but instead made him feel
insignificant.
As he moved on in the still air beneath the rustling leaves, he quickly noticed something else about the
grove: it was cool. The sun was almost straight overhead, yet he was not at all uncom-fortable. Out in the
open he knew that he would have been sweating heavily. Summer was dying, but not yet dead, and the
autumn cooling would not arrive for another few tensleeps.
With that, with the realization that he was not sweating and hot, his opinion of the grove began to change.
He began to see the beauty, as well as the strangeness, in the scattered light, the soaring trunks and
reaching branches, the open ground. Looking up, he began to distinguish between the different varieties of
tree.
His pace had shifted from a tentative creep when he first passed under the shade of the trees to a
confident stride when he conquered his fear. Now it shifted again, from a stride to an amble, as he began to
take in the details of his surroundings, not as potential dangers but as potential delights.
Best of all was when he rounded a huge old oak and found himself on the bank of a stream. The water
gurgled around tree roots and polished stones, and the sunlight shattered into dancing glitter on its surface.
He almost thought he heard a distant music, as of children singing or someone playing lightly on a fidlin.
The streams he was familiar with out in the grasslands were little more than meandering ditches. They
did not sing and sparkle.
It was no wonder, he told himself, that people thought a place as weird and wonderful as this must be
linked to the Powers. He saw no sign of any Lady Sunlight, but only the sunlight on the leaves and water.
He looked out across the stream and saw an open meadow, a few hectares of wild flowers and short
grass surrounded by trees. That, he told himself, was surely the Meadows, but he saw no Lady Sunlight,
and certainly no great palace. For an instant he thought he saw something tall and glittering in the center of
the meadow, but when he could not find it again he dismissed it as a trick of the light, something caused by
emerging from the dim-ness of the trees into the meadow's brightness.
Weird and wonderful, he told himself as he sat down to rest by the stream, but nothing of the Powers
about it.
He did not see the glittering column flicker again. He did not know enough to realize that, even when
planted with trees, the plain would not naturally have babbling brooks full of water-rounded stones. As the
life of the grove went on around him, he could not distinguish the artificial insects and flowers from the
natural ones. He was unaware of the hidden machines that scanned him, analyzed him, and decided he was
harmless.
He sat quietly by the stream until the wake's second sunset and dozed off there, convinced that he sat
among wonders of nature, and only of nature.
The sun was well up the sky, and firstlight well advanced, when he awoke again. He was in the habit of
waking at dawn, but he was not accustomed, to the cool shade of the grove.
He rose and stretched, then knelt and splashed a little water on his face. The stream was clear and clean
and cool. He bent down and drank.
His stomach growled, ruining the mood. Something chittered overhead, and he looked up in time to see
leaves closing behind some small scampering creature. A dislodged vine slithered across a branch.
He had not brought any weapons, and besides, he had no idea how to hunt among trees. He reached in
his pocket for the last of the corn chips, and stuffed all but the smallest fragments into his mouth.
When he had taken the edge off his hunger by chewing the corn chips to liquid, he sat down at the base
of a great tree and looked around, admiring the scenery. In the rising light it took on a different aspect from
what it had had when he first arrived. The meadow across the stream was somehow more colorful, he
thought; the air itself seemed to glisten, and the impression of distant singing in the sound of the brook was
stronger than ever.
This, he thought, would be a wonderful place to bring a woman. There was a serenity to the place that he
judged would appeal to most of the girls or women he knew. He was sure Kittisha would like it. The mossy
bank of the stream would be a very pleasant place to lie together.
He let himself imagine that for a moment as he gazed across at the meadow.
摘要：

DENNER'SWRECKLawrenceWattEvansCopyright©1988byLawrenceWattEvansFrontcoverillustrationbyRonWalotskyISBN:0-380-75250-6e-bookver.1.0DedicatedtomyagentRussellGalenClarke'sLaw:Anysufficientlyadvancedtechnologyisindistinguishablefrommagic.ArthurC.ClarkeSomeofthephysicalcharacteristicsoftheplanetDenner'sWr...

展开>> 收起<<
Lawrence Watt-Evans - Denner's Wreck.pdf

共100页,预览20页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：100 页 大小：355.54KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-23

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 100
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注