Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

My father died in our first battle with the Ganasthi, and now I am the Broina, but who am I to lead my clan? I cannot even perform the first duty of my post.”

“And what is that?” she asked.

He told her about the god-pipe. He showed it to her and gave her the tales of its singing. “You feel your flesh shiver and your bones begin to crumble, rocks dance and mountains groan and the gates of hell open before you but now the pipes are forever silent, Sathi. No man knows how to play them.”

“I heard of your music at that battle,” she nodded gravely, “and wondered why it was not sounded again this time.” Awe and fear were in her eyes, the hand that touched the scarred sack trembled a little. “And this is the pipe of Killorn! You cannot play it again? You cannot find out how? It would be the saving of Ryvan and of your own folk and perhaps of all the Twilight Lands, Kery.”

“I know. But what can I do? Who can understand the powers of heaven or unlock the doors of hell save Llugan Longsword himself?”

“I do not know. But Kery⁠—I wonder. This pipe.⁠ ⁠… Do you really think that gods and not men wrought it?”

“Who but a god could make such a thing, Sathi?”

“I do not know, I say. And yet⁠—Tell me, have you any idea of what the world is like in Killorn? Do you think it a flat plain with the sun hanging above, forever fixed in one spot?”

“Why I suppose so. Though we have met men in the southlands who claimed the world was a round ball and went about the sun in such a manner as always to turn the same face to it.”

“Yes, the wise men of Ryvan tell us that that must be the case. They have learned it by studying the fixed stars and those which wander. Those others are worlds like our own, they say, and the fixed stars are suns a very long ways off. And we have a very dim legend of a time once, long and long and long ago, when this world did not eternally face the sun either. It spun like a top so that each side of it had light and dark alternately.”

Kery knitted his brows trying to see that for himself. At last he nodded. “Well, it may have been. What of it?”

“The barbarians all think the world was born in flame and thunder many ages ago. But some of our thinkers believe that this creation was a catastrophe which destroyed that older world I speak of. There are dim legends and here and there we find very ancient ruins, cities greater than any we know today but buried and broken so long ago that even their building stones are almost weathered away. These thinkers believe that man grew mighty on this forgotten world which spun about itself, that his powers were like those we today call divine.

“Then something happened. We cannot imagine what, though a wise man once told me he believed all things attract each other⁠—that is the reason why they fall to the ground he said⁠—and that another world swept so close to ours that its pull stopped the spinning and yanked the moon closer than it had been.”

Kery clenched his fists. “It could be,” he murmured. “It could well be. For what happens to an unskillful rider when his hest stops all at once? He goes flying over its head, right? Even so, this braking of the world would have brought earthquakes greater than we can imagine, quakes that levelled everything!”

“You have a quick wit. That is what this man told me. At any rate, only a very few people and animals lived and nothing remained of their great works save legends. In the course of many ages, man and beasts alike changed, the beasts more than man who can make his own surroundings to suit. Life spread from the Day Lands through the Twilight Zone. Plants got so they could use what little light we have here. Finally even the Dark Lands were invaded by the pallid growths which can live there. Animals followed and man came after the animals until today things are as you see.”

She turned wide and serious eyes on him. “Could not this pipe have been made in the early days by a man who knew some few of the ancient secrets? No god but a man even as you, Kery. And what one man can make another can understand!”

Hope rose in him and sagged again. “How?” he asked dully. And then, seeing the tears glimmer in her eyes: “Oh, it may all be true. I will try my best. But I do not even know where to begin.”

“Try,” she whispered. “Try!”

“But do not tell anyone that the pipe is silent, Sathi. Perhaps I should not even have told you.”

“Why not? I am your friend and the friend of your folk. I would we had all the tribes of Killorn here.”

“Jonan is not,” he said grimly.

“Jonan⁠—he is a harsh man, yes. But.⁠ ⁠…”

“He does not like us. I do not know why but he doesn’t.”

“He is a strange one,” she admitted. “He is not even of Ryvanian birth, he is from Guria, a city which we conquered long ago, though of course its people have long been full citizens of the empire. He wants to marry me, did you know?” She smiled. “I could not help laughing for he is so stiff. One would as soon wed an iron cuirass.”

“Aye⁠—wed⁠—” Kery fell silent, and there was a dream in his gaze as he looked over the hills.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked after a while.

“Oh⁠—home,” he said. “I was wondering if I would ever see Killorn again.”

She leaned over closer to him. One long black lock brushed his hand and he caught the faint fragrance of her. “Is it so fair a land?” she asked softly.

“No,” he said. “It