Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (172 page)

‘Toress Lahl, you see the stars? Can you name them?’ Shokerandit asked in a dreamy voice.

‘I name them all – stars …’ She gave a faint laugh.

‘Then I shall climb down into your bunk and teach you.’

‘There are so many.’

‘It will take me a long time …’

But he fell asleep before he could move, and even animal cries from further down the mountainside did not awaken him.

Shokerandit was up early next morning, feeling stale and tired. He pulled his chilly top clothes on before rousing Toress Lahl.

‘We sleep in all our clothes from now until the end of the journey,’ he said. Without waiting for her to follow he was off to the stores to see to the equipment that would be needed for the
month ahead.
NORTH TRAVEL
stores it announced over the door, with a painting of the Great Wheel.

He was anxious. Fashnalgid, a true Uskuti, thought of Shivenink as a mountainous backwater. Luterin Shokerandit knew better. Remote though it was from the capital, Shivenink was well provided with police and informers. After Fashnalgid’s killing of a soldier, both police and military would be on their track. He grieved to think of the trouble he had left with Eedap Mun Odim and Hernisarath.

Using an assumed name, he bought various necessary items at the store, and then went to inspect the team, already booked, which would transport them to Kharnabhar and the safety of his father’s esates.

Fashnalgid took the processes of the morning more slowly. Directly Shokerandit was gone from the verandah, he ceased to feign sleep and climbed down into the lower bunk with Toress Lahl. Now that he had broken her spirit, she offered no resistance. The occhara had left her listless.

‘Luterin will kill you when he discovers what you are doing,’ she said.

‘Shut up and enjoy it, you hussy. I’ll take care of him when the time comes.’ He seized her in a bear’s embrace, and with his ankles wrapped about hers, parted her thighs, and thrust into her. His thrusting set the rickety bunk banging against the rail of the verandah.

Sharagatt was divided into two parts. There was Sharagatt and North Sharagatt. The two parts were close. Little more than a hundred yards and a clifflike corner of rock separated them. Sharagatt was protected by wedges of mountainside above it. On North Sharagatt cold katabatic winds poured, lowering the temperature by several degrees. The teams that made the northward journey were stabled only in North Sharagatt. Sharagatt itself would have made them soft.

It took Shokerandit two hours to see that all was arranged for the journey. He knew the folk he had to deal with. They were mountain people who called themselves Ondod, which meant – according to who was translating from their complex language – either ‘Spirit People’ or ‘Spirited People’.

One Ondod would be driver. With him would be his phagor slave. He had a good sledge and an eight-dog asokin team.

While he was inspecting the harness inch by inch, Toress Lahl appeared, her face pale and sullen.

‘It’s freezing here,’ she said listlessly.

He went over to the supplies he had acquired and brought back a woollen one-piece undergarment. Smiling, he handed it to her. ‘This is for you. Put it on now.’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’ He caught her meaning, glanced at the Ondod and phagors standing there. ‘Oh, these people have no shame. Put your new garment on.’

‘I’m the one with shame,’ she said. But she did as she was told, while the others watched smiling.

He went back to checking everything and interrogating their Ondod driver, by name Uuundaamp, a small person with brilliant black eyes, pockmarked cheeks, and a narrow moustache that faded out into lashes across his cheekbones. He was fourteen, and had made the difficult journey many times.

As Uuundaamp took Shokerandit out to see the team, Toress Lahl joined them in her new gear, glancing at the Ondod questioningly.

‘All drivers are young,’ Shokerandit told her. ‘They live on meat, and generally die young.’

At the back of the store, a door opened into a yard. Here were the pens, separated by high wire. Dirty snow lay on the ground. The noise of the dogs was deafening.

Uuundaamp walked the narrow path between the pens. On either side, asokins hurled themselves at the wire, teeth snapping, saliva running from their jaws. The horned dogs stood as high as a man’s hip, and were covered in thick fur, brown, white, grey, black, or mixed.

‘This our team – gumtaa team – very good asokin,’ Uuundaamp said, pointing out the contents of one pen and glancing slyly up at Shokerandit. ‘Before we go here, you two give one meat chunk for lead dog, make friend together him. Then you alway friend together him. Ishto?’

‘Which is the lead dog, the black one?’ Shokerandit asked.

Uuundaamp nodded. ‘Same black one, he lead dog. He name Uuundaamp, all same me. People say, he same size me, only not so fierce.’

The black asokin had finely marked and curled horns, pointing outwards at the ends. Uuundaamp’s body was covered with bristling black fur. Only his chest was white, and the underside of his tail. The Ondod Uuundaamp pointed out this latter feature; it was distinctive, making Uuundaamp easy for the rest of the pack to follow.

Uuundaamp turned to Toress Lahl. ‘Lady, to you warning. You give one meat this Uuundaamp, like I say. Then never no more. You never give no meat other asokin, understand? These asokin, they keep rules. We obey. Ishto?’

‘Ishto,’ she said. That mountain word of acceptance she had picked up on the way from Rivenjk.

He stared up at her, black eyes merry. ‘You big woman. I no feed you one piece meat. Beside, my woman, she come Kharnabhar together us. One thing more. Most important. Never you try pat these asokin, see? He take him hand like one piece meat.’

Toress Lahl shivered and laughed. ‘I wouldn’t dare try to pat them.’

‘We’ll collect. Fashnalgid and then we’ll be away,’ Shokerandit said when he had checked everything thoroughly. The stores and provisions were adequate; the sledge would not be overloaded. He linked his arm in hers. ‘You are well, aren’t you? It’s completely useless to be ill on the trail.’

‘Can’t we leave Fashnalgid behind?’

‘No. He’s okay. He’d be a good man if anything happened. Let me tell you that I am anxious in case the Oligarch’s agents are on our track. Perhaps they think that if we reach my father and tell him our history, he will turn the army against the Oligarchy. Many of my father’s associates are military. I checked here, and one of the sledges is booked to leave at fifteen – just an hour after us. They said that four men hired it. If we can leave earlier, all the better for us. I have a gun.’

‘I’m frightened. Can you trust these Ondod?’

‘They’re not human. They’re related to the Nondads of Campannlat. He’s got eight fingers on each hand – you’ll see when he
takes his gloves off. They tolerate the phagors but they never really ally themselves with humans. They’re tricky. You must pay them and please them, or they can be difficult.’

While they were talking, they were walking back from North Sharagatt to Sharagatt. The change in temperature was marked.

She clung to his arm and said resentfully, ‘Why did you make me strip off in front of them? You don’t have to humiliate me just because I’m a slave.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, that was part of pleasing them. They wanted to see. They’ll think the better of me for it.’

‘I don’t think the better of you for it.’

‘Ah, but I am lead dog.’

She said viciously, ‘Why didn’t you come into my sleeping bag? Are you weird or something? Aren’t I supposed to be yours to biwack whenever you feel the urge?’

‘Oh, you want me now? That’s a change of tune.’ He gave a short angry laugh. ‘Then you’ll be pleased about tonight’s arrangements.’

They collected Fashnalgid, who was drinking spirits at a wayside stall. Shokerandit then spent a while in a small shop, haggling over the price of a bright yellow-and-red striped blanket. The inevitable pattern of the Great Wheel was woven among its stripes.

‘Beholder, how you waste your money!’ Fashnalgid said. ‘I thought you’d been so careful to get all the necessary supplies already.’

‘I like the look of this blanket. Pretty, isn’t it?’

He paid up and draped the colourful blanket over his shoulder before starting back for North Sharagatt. Other travellers took no apparent notice of him; all were dressed unpredictably against the cold mountain air. Fashnalgid looked on in amazement as, at another stall, Shokerandit paid dear for a skinned smoked kid.

A man at the North Travel Stores said that Uuundaamp was asleep. Shokerandit went alone to the makeshift dwelling carved from the rock at the back of the store, behind the asokin pens. Some Ondod were sitting on the floor eating strips of raw meat. Others slept with their women on shelves built against the cliff.

Uuundaamp was wakened, and came forward scratching his
armpits and yawning, showing teeth almost as sharp as those of his animals.

‘You make hard chief, start three hour too much. I no your man till fifteen.’

‘Sorry. Look, I want to start soonest. I bring you present, ishto?’

He threw the smoked baby goat on the floor. Uuundaamp immediately sat down on the floor and called to his friends. He pulled out a knife and beckoned to Shokerandit with it. ‘All come eat, friend. Gumtaa. Then make quick start.’

As everyone gathered round, Uuundaamp called to his wife as an afterthought. She rolled off the shelf she had shared and came forward, bundled in bedding. All that was visible of her was a round face with black eyes much like Uuundaamp’s. She made no attempt to join the greedy circle of men. Instead, she stood meekly behind Uuundaamp, deftly catching a scraggy slice of meat when he tossed it to her over his shoulder.

While Shokerandit chewed his meat, he observed the hands of the men. They were narrow and sinewy, and bore eight fingers. The blunt clawlike nails were uniformly black, gleaming with filth and fat lodged under them.

‘Gumtaa,’ said Uuundaamp, with his cheeks bulging.

‘Gumtaa,’ agreed Shokerandit.

‘Gumtaa,’ agreed the other Ondod. The woman, being a woman, was not called upon to say whether she thought the food was good or not.

Soon, nothing but bones and horns were left of the kid. Uuundaamp rose immediately, wiping his hands on his suit of fur. ‘By way, chief,’ he said, still chewing, ‘this horrid bag behind me with belly full of gas and babies is my woman. Name Moub. You can forget. She come together us. You no mind.’

‘She is as welcome as she is beautiful, Uuundaamp. I am carrying this blanket for myself, which I did not intend to give away, but in view of Moub’s loveliness, I wish you to give it to her as a present.’

‘Loobiss. You give, chief. Then she not lose it. She kiss you.’

So Shokerandit presented the yellow-and-red striped blanket to Moub.

‘Loobiss,’ she said. ‘Far too good for any bag belong this vile
Uuundaamp.’ She hopped nimbly forward and kissed Shokerandit with her full and greasy lips.

‘Gumtaa. Any time you want biwack, chief, you use Moub. She look horrid but she got all that stuff there, ishto?’

‘Loobiss!’ Their friendship had been properly cemented. Happiness swept through Shokerandit, as he recalled sleigh rides with his mother when he was a child, and playing with Ondod children on their estates. His mother had always found the Ondod coarse and beastly, perhaps because of the peculiar conventions between the sexes, which relied on insult. Later, he and his friends had visited a shack on the edge of the caspiarn forests. His first sexual experiences had been with Ondod females. He remembered a rotund girl called Ipaak. To Ipaak he had always been ‘the pink stinker’.

Stern discipline for asokins, stern discipline for travellers. That was the rule for journeys between Kharnabhar and the outside world.

Uuundaamp sat at the front of the sledge with the whip, Moub lumpish just behind him. The phagor, Bhryeer, rode at the back, standing upright to steer the long vehicle, often jumping off to left or right, sometimes pushing when the incline was steep enough for the asokins to require help. The three humans sat astride the tarpaulin-covered supplies, on one side or the other according to the direction of the wind.

It was easy to fall off the sledge. An eye had to be kept on the driver, for a hint of which way they might be turning. Sometimes Uuundaamp could hardly be seen for the snow that fell in flurries from the heights of the chain above them. They had crossed the treacherous Venj by wooden bridge, and were now proceeding on a roughly north-northeasterly course under the high spine of Shivenink, where ice prevailed above the ten-thousand-metre line for all of the Great Year.

Even when the air was clear of snow, the breath of the dogs rose like steam and concealed them from the passengers. The team included one bitch, to keep the other seven doing their utmost. The dogs frequently broke wind at the start of a new lap of the journey. Their panting could be heard above the shrill of
the metal runners. Otherwise, sounds were muffled. There was no visibility, except for white walls on either side. The smell of the dogs and of stale clothes became part of the scene. Monotony dulled the sense of danger. Weariness, the reflections of the snow, reveries that ran half-formed through the mind, these filled the days.