Avram Davidson - Bumberboom

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2024-11-24 0 0 60.54KB 19 页 5.9玖币

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Bumberboom

by Avram Davidson

Davidson. This copy was created for Jean Hardy's personal use. All other rights are reserved. Thank you

for honoring the copyright.

Published by Seattle Book Company, www.seattlebook.com.

* * *

Along the narrow road, marked a few times with cairns of whitewashed stones, a young man came by

with a careful look and a deliberate gait and a something in his budget which went drip-a-drip red. The

land showed gardens and fenced fields and flowering fruit trees. The bleating of sheep sounded faintly.

The young man's somewhat large mouth became somewhat smaller as he reflected how well such a land

might yield... and as he wondered who might hold the yield of it.

Around the road's bend he came upon a small house of wood with an old man peering from the door

with weepy eyes that gave a sudden start on seeing who it was whose feet-sounds on the road had

brought him from his fusty bed. And his scrannel legs shook.

"Fortune for you, senior," the young man said, showing his empty palms. "I do but seek a chance and

place to build a fire to broil the pair of leverets which fortune has sent my way for breakfast."

The old man shook his head and stubble beard. "Leverets, my young, should not be seared on a

naked fire. Leverets should be stewed gently in a proper pot with carrots, onions, and a leek and a leaf

of laurel, to say the least."

With a sigh and a smile and a shrug, the young man said, "You speak as much to the wit as would my

own father, who (I will conceal nothing) is High Man to the Hereditor of Land Qanaras, a land not totally

without Fortune's favor, though not the puissant realm it was before the Great Gene Shift. Woe!-- and

my own name, it is Mallian, son Hazelip."

The old man nodded and bobbled his throat. "This place, to which I make you free, though poor in all

but such mere things as pot and fire and garden herbs-- this place, I say, is mine. Ronan, it is called, and I

am by salutary custom called only 'Ronan's.' To be sure, I have another name, but in view of my age and

ill health you will excuse my not pronouncing it, lest some ill-disposed person overhear and use the

knowledge to work a malevolence upon me... Yonder is the well at which you may fill the pot. So. So.

And who can be ignorant-- ahem-hum-hem-- of the past and present fame of Land Qanaras, that diligent

and canny country in which doubtless flourishes a mastery of medicine of geography, medicine of art and

craft, and medicine of magic as well as other forms of healing; who? Enough, enough. Water, my young.

The leverets are already dead and need not be drowned."

The stew of young hares was sweet and savory, and Ronan's put his crusts to soak in the juice,

remarking that they would do him well for his noonmeal. "Ah ahah!" he said, with a pleasurable

eructation. "How much better are hares in the pot with carrots than in the garden with them! And what

brings you here, my young," he sought for a fragment of flesh caught by a rotting tush, "to the small

enclave which is this Section, not properly termable a Land, and under the beneficent protection of

Themselves, the Kings of the Dwerfs; what? eh? um ahum..." He rolled his rufous and watery eyes swiftly

to his guest, then ostentatiously away.

Mallian gave a start, and his hand twitched towards his sling and pouch, none of which totally escaped

rheumy old Ronan's, for all his silly miming. "I should have known!" Mallian growled, bringing his thick

brown brows together in a scowl. "Those cairns of whited stones... It is a Bandy sign, isn't it?"

Now how the old senior rolled his watery eyes up and down and shook his head! "We make no use of

that pejorative expression, my young! We do not call Them 'Bandies,' No! We call Them, the Kings of

the Dwerfs, so." He winked, pouching up one cheek, squeezing out a tear. "And we are grateful for Their

benevolences, yes we are." He drew down the corners of his cavernous and hound-lip mouth in a

mocking expression. "Let the Dwerfs humorously call us 'Stickpins'! But-- 'Bandy'? Hem! Hem! No sir,

that word is not to be used." And he rambled on and on about the Dwerfymen and his loyalty, meanwhile

drawing his face into all sorts of mimes and mows which mocked of his words, when there came in from

the distance a confused noise, at which he fell silent and harkened, his mouth drooping open and nasty.

It was not until they were outside in the clear day that they could hear the noise resolve into a shouting

or a howling and a continuous rumbling and rattling. Old Ronan's began to shake and mumble, keeping

very close to his visitor, as though having observed again that this one had large hands and shoulders and

was young and seemingly strong. "Fortune forfend that there should be foreign troops in the Section," he

quavered. "An outrage not to be born, do I not pay my tax and levy, for all that I'm a Stickpin? Go up a

bit, my young, on that hill where I point, and see what is the cause and source of all this unseemly riot--

not exposing yourself unduly, but taking pains to spy out everything."

So up Mallian went, spiraling along the hill through the fragrant acacias and the stinking reptilian

sumacs, and so to the top, where, through the coppice peering, he could see all these good fenced flat

lands and the deep wide grasslands.

But more immediately below and along the road he saw a most unprecedented sight, stood

open-mouthed and tugged the coarse bottoms of his bifurcated beard, grunting in astonishment. He

turned and, through cupped hands, called once, "Come up-- !" and turned again to watch further, paying

no wit to the querulous pipings and pantings of the ancient.

Up from around the concealing curve of another hill and along what Mallian conceived must be the

famed Broad Road which led to and through the whole length of the Erst Marshes came a procession in

some ways reminiscent of pilgrim throngs or decimated tribes fleeing famine or pestilence or plunder--

men and women and children clad in rags when clad at all, some few afree afoot, some fewer riding, but

most of them attached in one way or other to the thing ridden: a thing, immense, of great length, tubular,

rather like the most gigantic blow-gun the most inflamed imagination might conceive of, trundling and

rumbling along on enormous and metal-shod wheels, the spokes and rims as thick as a man-- some of

them in harness to which they bent so low that they were horizontal, squatting as though for greater

traction-- some bowing as though at huge oars, pushing against beams thrust through the spokes-- some

straining their arms against the rims of the wheels or against the body or butt of the monstrous engine--

others pushing with their backs--

This tremendous contrivance rocked and rumbled and shook and rolled on, and all the while its

attendance roared and shouted and howled, and the wind shifted and flung the stink of them into

Mallian's face. "In Fortune's name, what is it?" he demanded of old Ronan's, extending an arm to pull him

up. The senior looked and shrieked and moaned and pressed his cheeks with his palms.

"What is it?" cried Mallian, shaking him.

Ronan's threw out his arms. "Juggernaut!" he screamed. "Juggernaut! Bumberboom!"

All that frightened old Ronan's had to do-- indeed, was able to do-- was skitter back to his little house

and release the pigeon whose arrival in the proper belled cage of its home dove-cote would not only

inform the local confederate Dwerf King that something was wrong in his realm but would inform him a

fairly close approximation of where. Yet the old man refused utterly to perform this small task by himself,

would not unhand Mallian at all, and pulled along with him until they were back at the senior's place and

the bird released.

"Remain, remain with me, my young," he pleaded, loose tears coursing down his twitching face. "At

least until the Sectional Constabulary shall have arrived and set things aright."

But the last thing which Mallian wanted was an interview with a Bandy border-guardsman. He arose

and shook his head.

"Stay, stay, do. I have smoked pullets and both black beer and white, strained comb-honey, dried

fruits," he began to enumerate the attraction of abiding, but was interrupted in a way he had not fancied to

be.

A smile full of teeth parted Mallian's light brown beard. "Good, good. Not bad for one of your priorly

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