The Carpet People (5 page)

"Don't be surprised if they give you answers before you've asked the question. Sometimes even they get confused," Pismire went on.

"Never mind about them. I'm confused."

"They remember everything, I said. Everything. Everything that's ever going to happen to them. Their minds ... work differently. The past and the future are all the same to them. Please try to understand what I'm saying. They remember things that haven't happened yet."

Snibril's jaw dropped.

"Then we could ask them-" he began.

"No! We mustn't! Why, thank you," Pismire continued, in a more normal voice, taking a plate from a wight, "that looks ... um ... delicious."

They ate in silence. Snibril thought: do they say nothing because they already know what it was they said? No, that can't be right-they'd have to speak now to remember having said it ... or ...

"I am Noral the kilnmaster," said the wight on his left.

"My name-"

"Yes."

"We-"

"Yes."

"There was-"

"I know."

"How?"

"You're going to tell me after dinner."

"Oh." Snibril tried to think. Pismire was right. It was almost impossible to hold a conversation with someone who'd already heard it once. "You really know everything that's going to happen?" was all he could think of.

There was the trace of a smile in the depths of the hood.

"Not everything. How can anyone know everything? But a number of things I do know, yes."

Snibril looked around desperately. Bane and Pismire were deep in conversation with wights, and were not paying him any attention.

"But ... but ... supposing you knew when you were going to die? Supposing a wild animal was going to attack you?"

"Yes?" said Noral politely.

"You could just make sure you weren't there?"

"Weren't there when you died?" said the wight. "That would be a good trick."

"No! I mean ... you could avoid-"

"I know what you mean. But we couldn't. It's hard to explain. Or easy to explain and hard to understand. We have to follow the Thread. The one Thread. We mustn't break it."

"Doesn't anything ever come as a surprise?" said Snibril.

"I don't know. What is a surprise?"

"Can you tell me what's going to happen to me? To all of us? You know what's been happening already. It would help a lot to know the future."

The dark hood turned towards him.

"It wouldn't. It makes living very hard."

"We need help," said Snibril, in a frantic whisper. "What's Fray? Where can we go to be safe? What should we do? Can't you tell us?"

The wight leaned closer.

"Can you keep a secret?" it said, conspiratorially.

"Yes!" said Snibril.

"Really keep a secret? Even though you'd give anything to tell other people? Even though it's like trying to hold a hot coal in your hand? Can you really keep a secret?"

"Er ... yes."

"Well," said the wight, leaning back again. "So can we."

"But-"

"Enjoy your meal."

"Will I?"

"Yes. You certainly did." The wight went to turn away, and then turned back. "And you may keep the belt."

"Oh. You know I've got the belt."

"I do now."

Snibril hesitated. "Hang on," he said, "I only said that because you-"

"It's best if you don't try to understand," said Noral, kindly.

Snibril ate for a while, but the questions kept bothering him.

"Listen. Everything happens," said Noral. "Like a Thread of the Carpet. Nothing can be changed. Even the changes are ... already part of the future. That's all you need to know."

It was a strange meal. You could never be certain if the person you were talking to was listening to what you were going to say in ten minutes' time. It only cheered up a bit when one of the wights gave Glurk an axe. It was his grandfather's, although the handle and the blade had been replaced a few times.

Bane and Pismire were quiet when the travellers went back to their carts.

"Did they tell you anything?" asked Snibril.

"No," said Pismire. "They never do. But ... "

"It's the way they acted," said Bane. "They can't help it."

"They don't like what it is they're not telling us," said Pismire.

A week passed. The carts went on northward. Around them the Carpet changed. On either side of the narrow track the hairs towered up, and now they were deep red. The fluff bushes, too, even the dust briars, grew in every shade of red.

To Snibril it seemed as though they were walking through a great fire that had been frozen suddenly. But it was cool and peaceful and at night, for the first time since they had left the village, they heard no snargs.

And that, of course, made people want to stop. "At least for a few weeks," said Cadmic Hargolder, the spearmaker, when several villagers came to Glurk's cart one evening. "They've probably forgotten about us, anyway, and perhaps we can go home."

"They don't forget," said Bane. "Not them. Besides, we must go on. Head for Ware."

"You two can, if you like," said Cadmic. "As for me ... "

"As for us, we'll keep together, Cadmic, at least while I'm chief of this tribe," said Glurk. "I won't think we're safe till I'm certain the nearest moul is a long way away. Makes sense to head for Ware. Things'll be better there, you'll see. If any of you think different, well ... "

There was something in that "well". It was a very deep "well". It was full of unspoken threats.

But there were still angry mutterings. Then they came across the moul.

It was while Snibril and Bane were walking ahead along the track, out of sight but within hearing of the carts. Snibril said little. He kept thinking about "General".

He'd seen Dumii officers occasionally. Not often. Tregon Marus wasn't very important. They didn't like it much, so far from home. Bane moved like a soldier. People called 'General' shouldn't go around looking so shabby ... And now they were going to Ware, apparently. No-one had discussed it. Suddenly it just seemed to be happening.

Things would be all right in Ware, though. It was the most famous place in the Carpet. Better than anywhere else. Safe. There were legions and legions of soldiers there ...

Bane was probably sensing his thoughts, but he was, unusually for him, chatting aimlessly about nothing in particular.

Neither saw the moul until they were almost on top if it. It sat astride its snarg in the middle of the track, hand halfway to sword hilt, staring straight at them with a look of terror.

Bane gave a grunt and drew his sword, then almost fell over when Snibril's arm shot out and grabbed his shoulder.

"What are you doing, you idiot?"

"Look at it," said Snibril. Observe, Pismire always said, before acting ...

The moul had not moved. Snibril crept forward. Then, reaching up, he tapped the creature on its snout. Without saying a word he pointed to the snarg's legs. Thick drifts of dust lay undisturbed around them.

There was even a film of dust on the moul. It sat there, a statue, staring blankly at nothing.

"How could it-" Snibril began.

"Don't know. Pismire might," said Bane, rather roughly, because he felt a bit of a fool. "Come on. You take its head and I'll take its legs."

They gingerly unseated it from its snarg and carried it, still in a sitting position, back to the carts.

Snibril stuck his knife in his belt where he could reach it easily, just in case. But the moul seemed to be made out of grit.

They found Pismire already fully occupied. Glurk had been out hunting and had come back with a wild pig. Or at least the statue of one.

"There was a whole herd of these," Glurk was saying.

He tapped the pig with his spear. It went boinnng.

"Should go "oink"," he told them. "Not boinnng."

Pismire took Snibril's knife and rapped the moul on the chest. It went ping.

"Should go "Aaaggh!"' said Glurk.

"Are they dead?" asked Snibril.

"Not sure," said Pismire, and one or two of the more nervous watchers strolled hurriedly away. "Look."

Snibril looked into the moul's eyes. They were wide open, and a dull black. But deep in them there was something ... just a nicker, a tiny imprisoned spark in the pool of darkness.

Snibril shuddered and turned away, meeting Pismire's steady gaze. "Amazing. Premature fossilization. And I didn't know there were any termagants in these parts. Tonight's guards had better be picked for their hearing."

"Why?" said Glurk.

"Because they'd better wear blindfolds."

"Why?"

There was a shout, and Yrno Berius came running up with one of his hounds in his arms.

"Heard him bark," he gasped. "Went to find him, found him like this."

Pismire examined it.

"Lucky," he said, vaguely.

"I don't think so!" said Yrno.

"Not him," said Pismire. "You."

The dog was still in a crouched position, ready to spring, with its teeth bared and its tail between its legs.

"What's a termagant?" asked Snibril, finally looking away.

"There have been quite a lot of descriptions of their back view," said Pismire. "Unfortunately, no-one who's looked at one from the front has been able to tell us much. They get turned to stone. No-one knows why. Amazing. Haven't heard of any for years. Thought they'd all died out."

And that evening Pismire himself nearly died out. He always held that goat's milk was essential for a philosopher, so not long after they had left the Woodwall he had bought a nanny goat from Glurk's small flock.

Her name was Chrystobella, and she hated Pismire with deep animal hatred. When she didn't feel like being milked, which was twice a day, it was part of camp life to watch her skitter between carts with a hot and breathless Pismire cursing in pursuit. Mothers would waken their children to come and watch. It was a sight they'd remember for the rest of their lives, they said.

This time she hurled out between the carts and into the hairs with a taunting bleat. Pismire scrambled after her, leapt down into the darkness, and tripped over her ...

Something backed hastily into the shadows, with a faint jingling.

Pismire came back holding the statue of a goat. He put it down silently, and tapped its muzzle.

It went ping.

"Should go "blaaarrrrt"," said Pismire. "No-one go out of the camp tonight."

That night ten men stood around the ring, their eyes tightly shut. Snibril was among them and he stood by Roland, who wore blinkers.

And they did it the next night, too. And the one after that, after a cow belonging to the widow Mulluck started to go ping when it should have gone 'mmmmmyaooooo'.

No-one wanted to move on. They didn't break camp but, without anyone actually giving any orders, brought the wagons into a tighter circle.

Once or twice they thought they heard jingling noises.

And then, on the third night, Snibril was on guard by one of the carts, almost asleep, when he heard a shuffling noise behind him. Something big was in the bushes. He could hear it breathing.

He was about to spin around when he heard the jingle of metal.

It's here, he thought. It's right behind me. If I turn around, I'll be turned to stone. But if I don't turn around, will I be turned to supper?

He stood quite still for a hundred years or so ...

After a while the shuffling grew fainter, and he risked the briefest look. In the dim light he could see something bulky, at least twice as tall as he was, disappearing among the hairs.

I ought to call everyone, he thought. But they'll run around and shout and give one another orders and trip over things, and then it will have long gone. But I've got to do something. Otherwise we'll soon have a statue that goes ping when it should go "Hello".

He found Roland, and quickly put his bridle on. There was no time for the saddle. And then he led the horse, very quietly in the direction of the jingling.

The termagant was so old that he could not remember a time when he'd been young. He could dimly remember when there had been other termagants, but he was strong then, and had driven them out.

Later on there had been a people who had worshipped him and built a temple for him to live in, thinking that he was some kind of a god. They had worshipped him because he was so destructive, which is what often happens, but that sort of religion never works out in the long term; after he had turned many of them to statues the ones that were left had fled and left him in his temple.

He had no company now. Even the wild creatures kept away from the temple. In vain did he wander abroad and call out to his people in the south. There was no answer. He probably was the last termagant in the Carpet.

Sometimes he went to find some company. Anything would do. Just some other living things. He wouldn't even eat them. But it never worked. He only had to get near and they'd get stiff and cold and unfriendly for some reason.

So he tramped back to his ruined temple, his tail dragging behind him. He was almost at the door before he smelt the smell, the forgotten smell of company.

Snibril had reached the ruined temple just before. He felt Roland's hooves trot over hard wooden paving. Around him, lit by a faint glow, he could see fallen walls, littered with statues. Some were holding out boxes and bowing low, some were crouched back, hands to their eyes. There were small wild animals there, too ... unmoving.

In the centre of the temple there was a ruined altar, and that was the source of the glow. On it and around it were piled treasures. There were stones of salt and black jet, boxes of clear varnish and red wood, carved bone rings, crowns of bronze, all heaped anyhow.