Needle in a Timestack Read online

  Crown glanced coldly at Sting and Shadow. “Find the chief and go into trance with him again. Tell him that I’ll give him swords, armor, his pick of the finest things in the wagon. So long as he’ll dismantle part of the wall and let the wagon itself pass through.”

  “We made that offer yesterday,” Sting said glumly.

  “And?”

  “He insists on the wagon. The old witch has promised it to him for a palace.”

  “No,” Crown said. “NO!” His wild roaring cry echoed from the hills. After a moment, more calmly, he said, “I have another idea. Leaf, Sting, come with me. The gate’s open. We’ll go to the village and seize the witch-woman. We’ll grab her quickly, before anyone realizes what we’re doing. They won’t dare molest us while she’s in our hands. Then, Sting, you tell the chief that unless they open the wall for us, we’ll kill her.” Crown chuckled. “Once she realizes we’re serious, she’ll tell them to hop it. Anybody that old wants to live forever. And they’ll obey her. You can bet on that. They’ll obey her! Come, now.” Crown started toward the gate at a vigorous pace. He took a dozen strides, halted, looked back. Neither Leaf nor Sting had moved.

  “Well? Why aren’t you coming?”

  “I won’t do it,” said Leaf tiredly. “It’s crazy, Crown. She’s a witch, she’s part Invisible—she already knows your scheme. She probably knew of it before you knew of it yourself. How can we hope to catch her?”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “Even if we did, Crown—no. No. I won’t have any part of it. It’s an impossible idea. Even if we did seize her. We’d be standing there holding a sword to her throat, and the chief would give a signal, and they’d put a hundred darts in us before we could move a muscle. It’s insane, Crown.”

  “I ask you to come with me.”

  “You’ve had your answer.”

  “Then I’ll go without you.”

  “As you choose,” Leaf said quietly. “But you won’t be seeing me again.”

  “Eh?”

  “I’m going to collect what I own and let the Tree Companions take their pick of it, and then I’ll hurry forward and catch up with the Snow Hunters. In a week or so I’ll be at the Middle River. Shadow, will you come with me, or are you determined to stay here and die with Crown?”

  The Dancing Star looked toward the muddy ground. “I don’t know,” she said. “Let me think a moment.”

  “Sting?”

  “I’m going with you.”

  Leaf beckoned to Crown. “Please. Come to your senses, Crown. For the last time—give up the wagon and let’s get going, all four of us.”

  “You disgust me.”

  “Then this is where we part,” Leaf said. “I wish you good fortune. Sting, let’s assemble our belongings. Shadow? Will you be coming with us?”

  “We have an obligation toward Crown,” she said.

  “To help him drive his wagon, yes. But not to die a foolish death for him. Crown has lost his wagon, Shadow, though he won’t admit that yet. If the wagon’s no longer his, our contract is voided. I hope you’ll join us.”

  He entered the wagon and went to the midcabin cupboard where he stored the few possessions he had managed to bring with him out of the east. A pair of glistening boots made of the leathery skins of stick-creatures, two ancient copper coins, three ornamental ivory medallions, a shirt of dark red silk, a thick, heavily worked belt—not much, not much at all, the salvage of a lifetime. He packed rapidly. He took with him a slab of dried meat and some bread; that would last him a day or two, and when it was gone he would learn from Sting or the Snow Hunters the arts of gathering food in the wilderness.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sting said. His pack was almost empty—a change of clothing, a hatchet, a knife, some smoked fish, nothing else.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  As Sting and Leaf moved toward the exit hatch, Shadow scrambled up into the wagon. She looked tight-strung and grave; her nostrils were flared, her eyes downcast. Without a word she went past Leaf and began loading her pack. Leaf waited for her. After a few minutes she reappeared and nodded to him.

  “Poor Crown,” she whispered. “Is there no way—”

  “You heard him,” Leaf said.

  They emerged from the wagon. Crown had not moved. He stood as if rooted, midway between wagon and wall. Leaf gave him a quizzical look, as if to ask whether he had changed his mind, but Crown took no notice. Shrugging, Leaf walked around him, toward the edge of the thicket, where the nightmares were nibbling leaves. Affectionately he reached up to stroke the long neck of the nearest horse, and Crown suddenly came to life, shouting, “Those are my animals! Keep your hands off them!”

  “I’m only saying goodbye to them.”

  “You think I’m going to let you have some? You think I’m that crazy, Leaf?”

  Leaf looked sadly at him. “We plan to do our traveling on foot, Crown. I’m only saying goodbye. The nightmares were my friends. You can’t understand that, can you?”

  “Keep away from those animals! Keep away!”

  Leaf sighed. “Whatever you say.” Shadow, as usual, was right: poor Crown. Leaf adjusted his pack and moved off toward the gate, Shadow beside him, Sting a few paces to the rear. As he and Shadow reached the gate, Leaf looked back and saw Crown still motionless, saw Sting pausing, putting down his pack, dropping to his knees. “Anything wrong?” Leaf called.

  “Tore a bootlace,” Sting said. “You two go on ahead. It’ll take me a minute to fix it.”

  “We can wait.”

  Leaf and Shadow stood within the frame of the gate while Sting knotted his lace. After a few moments he rose and reached for his pack, saying, “That ought to hold me until tonight, and then I’ll see if I can’t—”

  “Watch out!” Leaf yelled.

  Crown erupted abruptly from his freeze, and, letting forth a lunatic cry, rushed with terrible swiftness toward Sting. There was no chance for Sting to make one of his little leaps: Crown seized him, held him high overhead like a child, and, grunting in frantic rage, hurled the little man toward the ravine. Arms and legs flailing, Sting traveled on a high arc over the edge; he seemed to dance in midair for an instant, and then he dropped from view. There was a long diminishing shriek, and silence. Silence.

  Leaf stood stunned. “Hurry,” Shadow said. “Crown’s coming!”

  Crown, swinging around, now rumbled like a machine of death toward Leaf and Shadow. His wild red eyes glittered ferociously. Leaf did not move; Shadow shook him urgently, and finally he pushed himself into action. Together they caught hold of the massive gate and, straining, swung it shut, slamming it just as Crown crashed into it. Leaf forced the reluctant bolts into place. Crown roared and pounded at the gate, but he was unable to force it.

  Shadow shivered and wept. Leaf drew her to him and held her for a moment. At length he said, “We’d better be on our way. The Snow Hunters are far ahead of us already.”

  “Sting—”

  “I know. I know. Come, now.”

  Half a dozen Tree Companions were waiting for them by the wooden houses. They grinned, chattered, pointed to the packs. “All right,” Leaf said. “Go ahead. Take whatever you want. Take everything, if you like.”

  Busy fingers picked through his pack and Shadow’s. From Shadow the Tree Companions took a brocaded ribbon and a flat, smooth green stone. From Leaf they took one of the ivory medallions, both copper coins, and one of his stickskin boots. Tribute. Day by day, pieces of the past slipped from his grasp. He pulled the other boot from the pack and offered it to them, but they merely giggled and shook their heads. “One is of no use to me,” he said. They would not take it. He tossed the boot into the grass beside the road.

  The road curved gently toward the north and began a slow rise, following the flank of the forested hills in which the Tree Compan
ions made their homes. Leaf and Shadow marched, mechanically, saying little. The bootprints of the Snow Hunters were everywhere along the road, but the Snow Hunters themselves were far ahead, out of sight. It was early afternoon, and the day had become bright, unexpectedly warm. After an hour Shadow said, “I must rest.”

  Her teeth were clacking. She crouched by the roadside and wrapped her arms about her chest. Dancing Stars, covered with thick fur, usually wore no clothing except in the bleakest winters; but her pelt did her no good now.

  “Are you ill?” he asked.

  “It’ll pass. I’m reacting. Sting—”

  “Yes.”

  “And Crown. I feel so unhappy about Crown.”

  “A madman,” Leaf said. “A murderer.”

  “Don’t judge him so casually, Leaf. He’s a man under sentence of death, and he knows it, and he’s suffering from it, and when the fear and pain became unbearable to him he reached out for Sting. He didn’t know what he was doing. He needed to smash something, that was all, to relieve his own torment.”

  “We’re all going to die sooner or later,” Leaf said. “That doesn’t generally drive us to kill our friends.”

  “I don’t mean sooner or later. I mean that Crown will die tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Why should he?”

  “What can he do now to save himself, Leaf?”

  “He could yield to the Tree Companions and pass the gate on foot, as we’ve done.”

  “You know he’d never abandon the wagon.”

  “Well, then, he can harness the nightmares and turn around toward Theptis. At least he’d have a chance to make it through to the Sunset Highway that way.”

  “He can’t do that either,” Shadow said.

  “Why not?”

  “He can’t drive the wagon.”

  “There’s no one left to do it for him. His life’s at stake. For once he could eat his pride and—”

  “I didn’t say won’t drive the wagon, Leaf. I said can’t. Crown’s incapable. He isn’t able to make dream contact with the nightmares. Why do you think he always used hired drivers? Why was he so insistent on making you drive in the purple rain? He doesn’t have the mind-power. Did you ever see a Dark Laker driving nightmares? Ever?”

  Leaf stared at her. “You knew this all along?”

  “From the beginning, yes.”

  “Is that why you hesitated to leave him at the gate? When you were talking about our contract with him?”

  She nodded. “If all three of us left him, we were condemning him to death. He has no way of escaping the Tree Companions now unless he forces himself to leave the wagon, and he won’t do that. They’ll fall on him and kill him, today, tomorrow, whenever.”

  Leaf closed his eyes, shook his head. “I feel a kind of shame. Now that I know we were leaving him helpless. He could have spoken.”

  “Too proud.”

  “Yes. Yes. It’s just as well he didn’t say anything. We all have responsibilities to one another, but there are limits. You and I and Sting were under no obligation to die simply because Crown couldn’t bring himself to give up his pretty wagon. But still—still—” He locked his hands tightly together. “Why did you finally decide to leave, then?”

  “For the reason you just gave. I didn’t want Crown to die, but I didn’t believe I owed him my life. Besides, you had said you were going to go, no matter what.”

  “Poor, crazy Crown.”

  “And when he killed Sting—a life for a life, Leaf. All vows are canceled now. I feel no guilt.”

  “Nor I.”

  “I think the fever is leaving me.”

  “Let’s rest a few minutes more,” Leaf said.

  It was more than an hour before Leaf judged Shadow strong enough to go on. The highway now described a steady upgrade, not steep but making constant demands on their stamina, and they moved slowly. As the day’s warmth began to dwindle, they reached the crest of the grade, and rested again at a place from which they could see the road ahead winding in switchbacks into a green, pleasant valley. Far below were the Snow Hunters, resting also by the side of a fair-size stream.

  “Smoke,” Shadow said. “Do you smell it?”

  “Campfires down there, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think they have any fires going. I don’t see any.”

  “The Tree Companions, then.”

  “It must be a big fire.”

  “No matter,” Leaf said. “Are you ready to continue?”

  “I hear a sound—”

  A voice from behind and uphill of them said, “And so it ends the usual way, in foolishness and death, and the All-Is-One grows greater.”

  Leaf whirled, springing to his feet. He heard laughter on the hillside and saw movements in the underbrush; after a moment he made out a dim, faintly outlined figure, and realized that an Invisible was coming toward them, the same one, no doubt, who had traveled with them from Theptis.

  “What do you want?” Leaf called.

  “Want? Want? I want nothing. I’m merely passing through.” The Invisible pointed over his shoulder. “You can see the whole thing from the top of this hill. Your big friend put up a mighty struggle, he killed many of them, but the darts, the darts—” The Invisible laughed. “He was dying, but even so he wasn’t going to let them have his wagon. Such a stubborn man. Such a foolish man. Well, a happy journey to you both.”

  “Don’t leave yet!” Leaf cried. But even the outlines of the Invisible were fading. Only the laughter remained, and then that too was gone. Leaf threw desperate questions into the air and, receiving no replies, turned and rushed up the hillside, clawing at the thick shrubbery. In ten minutes he was at the summit, and stood gasping and panting, looking back across a precipitous valley to the stretch of road they had just traversed. He could see everything clearly from here: the Tree Companion village nestling in the forest, the highway, the shacks by the side of the road, the wall, the clearing beyond the wall. And the wagon. The roof was gone and the sides had tumbled outward. Bright spears of flame shot high, and a black, billowing cloud of smoke stained the air. Leaf stood watching Crown’s pyre a long while before returning to Shadow.

  They descended toward the place where the Snow Hunters had made their camp. Breaking a long silence, Shadow said, “There must once have been a time when the world was different, when all people were of the same kind, and everyone lived in peace. A golden age, long gone. How did things change, Leaf? How did we bring this upon ourselves?”

  “Nothing has changed,” Leaf said, “except the look of our bodies. Inside we’re the same. There never was any golden age.”

  “There were no Teeth, once.”

  “There were always Teeth, under one name or another. True peace never lasted long. Greed and hatred always existed.”

  “Do you believe that, truly?”

  “I do. I believe that mankind is mankind, all of us the same whatever our shape, and such changes as come upon us are trifles, and the best we can ever do is find such happiness for ourselves as we can, however dark the times.”

  “These are darker times than most, Leaf.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “These are evil times. The end of all things approaches.”

  Leaf smiled. “Let it come. These are the times we were meant to live in, and no asking why, and no use longing for easier times. Pain ends when acceptance begins. This is what we have now. We make the best of it. This is the road we travel. Day by day we lose what was never ours, day by day we slip closer to the All-Is-One, and nothing matters, Shadow, nothing except learning to accept what comes. Yes?”

  “Yes,” she said. “How far is it to the Middle River?”

  “Another few days.”

  “And from there to your kinsmen by the Inland Sea?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “However long it takes us i
s however long it will take. Are you very tired?”

  “Not as tired as I thought I’d be.”

  “It isn’t far to the Snow Hunters’ camp. We’ll sleep well tonight.”

  “Crown,” she said. “Sting.”

  “What about them?”

  “They also sleep.”

  “In the All-Is-One,” Leaf said. “Beyond all trouble. Beyond all pain.”

  “And that beautiful wagon is a charred ruin!”

  “If only Crown had had the grace to surrender it freely, once he knew he was dying. But then he wouldn’t have been Crown, would he? Poor Crown. Poor crazy Crown.” There was a stirring ahead, suddenly. “Look. The Snow Hunters see us. There’s Sky. Blade.” Leaf waved at them and shouted. Sky waved back, and Blade, and a few of the others. “May we camp with you tonight?” Leaf called. Sky answered something, but his words were blown away by the wind. He sounded friendly, Leaf thought. He sounded friendly. “Come,” Leaf said, and he and Shadow hurried down the slope.

  The Pope of the Chimps

  There’s not much to say about this story except that it is a personal favorite of mine. I wrote it in June of 1981, quickly, with great passion and conviction, in response to an invitation from the writer Alan Ryan to do a story for an anthology of science fiction stories on religious themes called Perpetual Light. The anthology appeared the following year and the story was nominated for a Nebula Award. It probably would have won if it had appeared in one of the widely distributed science fiction magazines instead of an anthology that relatively few of the voters had read. But it has frequently appeared in anthologies ever since. I think I’ve rarely managed such a depth of characterization—of man and beast—within such a small compass.

  Early last month Vendelmans and I were alone with the chimps in the compound when suddenly he said, “I’m going to faint.” It was a sizzling May morning, but Vendelmans had never shown any sign of noticing unusual heat, let alone suffering from it. I was busy talking to Leo and Mimsy and Mimsy’s daughter Muffin, and I registered Vendelmans’s remark without doing anything about it. When you’re intensely into talking by sign language, as we are in the project, you sometimes tend not to pay a lot of attention to spoken words.