he do that?’
‘So rebels like you could be forgiven. And become his sons and daughters instead of outlaws.’
‘Well, I suppose I have heard something like that,’ Mike allowed. He felt profoundly embarrassed at the line the conversation had taken.
The brother was amused at his embarrassment, and asked, ‘Heard about it? But have you thought about it?’
Mike looked at him with utmost suspicion.
They camped together that night, Woodcat, Katrin, Mike and Brother John. Toward the end of the day Katrin had been swaying in the saddle almost constantly. Brother John had walked alongside her and helped her stay on the pony.
They lit a fire, and sat around it, and ate, and Brother John told them of his Hanged God, and the sacrifice he had made to ransom a rebellious human race, and then brought from his satchel a small flute and played while Woodcat and Katrin sang. Katrin had regained her strength for a time, and she sang sweetly. The last song she sang, she sang alone, and it touched Mike to the centre of his being.
‘They were kings, they were gods, they were masters of time;
They rode on the air, they walked in the cloud;
They called across oceans, their weapons were flame.
Bereft and bereaved is the earth that they left us:
The earth is their shroud.
They were kings, they were gods, they were masters of power;
They rode on the seas, they walked in the deep,
They spoke to the stars, their weapon was fire.
Bereft and bereaved is the earth that they left us:
The earth where they sleep.
They were kings, they were gods, they were masters of air;
They rode on the flames, they leapt to the skies;
Then they struck from the stars with their weapons of fire!
Bereft and bereaved is the earth that they left us:
The earth fills their eyes.’
Mike listened to the song with his face turned from the fire. He did not want Katrin to see his tears. In his mind, he saw the towers and rockets and monuments that his own generation had built. His people had reached for the stars and brought them home. They had dredged deep into the atom and brought power from it. They had stolen fire from the gods, and been destroyed. He wept for them, and for himself.
But there was another part of him that felt like laughing in triumph. Here he sat, in the barbaric future, with a quest to fulfil and a courageous young warrior woman singing beside him. He had Kinship here, and a Covenant to live by, and most of all he had the challenge of a wild new world.
Mike had never felt more desolate and alone.
Mike had never felt more full of life and ready to face it.
CHAPTER 16
THINGS WORSE THAN DYING
They were up at first light, and ate as they saddled the ponies. An edge of the sun was over the horizon as they moved out.
To make better time, they kept to the road, despite Katrin’s protests. Woodcat kept reassuring her that the roads were safe in this season, and she kept looking around, checking to see if they had company.
They were near enough to the coast now to smell the salt in the air, and Mike kept having the feeling that he had been this way before. It was some time before he realized that indeed he had been here before, but in another time when suburbs of red brick and tile had covered these hills. He was faintly surprised at how hilly the region was. He had only travelled this way in motor cars and they had ironed out the differences between hill and valley.
The road took approximately the same route as the highway had done in the past, and Mike knew, almost to the metre, when they would have their first view of the sea.
Then there it was. Where the curves of two hills intersected, there was a patch of blue sea, its top flat, drawn off with the line of the horizon. They paused, and looked, and then moved on.
Soon they were at a crossroads, and Brother John was to leave them. He was moving south, on a road which would finally take him across the Great River and into Vickharn and the country where all people were slaves and
‘So rebels like you could be forgiven. And become his sons and daughters instead of outlaws.’
‘Well, I suppose I have heard something like that,’ Mike allowed. He felt profoundly embarrassed at the line the conversation had taken.
The brother was amused at his embarrassment, and asked, ‘Heard about it? But have you thought about it?’
Mike looked at him with utmost suspicion.
They camped together that night, Woodcat, Katrin, Mike and Brother John. Toward the end of the day Katrin had been swaying in the saddle almost constantly. Brother John had walked alongside her and helped her stay on the pony.
They lit a fire, and sat around it, and ate, and Brother John told them of his Hanged God, and the sacrifice he had made to ransom a rebellious human race, and then brought from his satchel a small flute and played while Woodcat and Katrin sang. Katrin had regained her strength for a time, and she sang sweetly. The last song she sang, she sang alone, and it touched Mike to the centre of his being.
‘They were kings, they were gods, they were masters of time;
They rode on the air, they walked in the cloud;
They called across oceans, their weapons were flame.
Bereft and bereaved is the earth that they left us:
The earth is their shroud.
They were kings, they were gods, they were masters of power;
They rode on the seas, they walked in the deep,
They spoke to the stars, their weapon was fire.
Bereft and bereaved is the earth that they left us:
The earth where they sleep.
They were kings, they were gods, they were masters of air;
They rode on the flames, they leapt to the skies;
Then they struck from the stars with their weapons of fire!
Bereft and bereaved is the earth that they left us:
The earth fills their eyes.’
Mike listened to the song with his face turned from the fire. He did not want Katrin to see his tears. In his mind, he saw the towers and rockets and monuments that his own generation had built. His people had reached for the stars and brought them home. They had dredged deep into the atom and brought power from it. They had stolen fire from the gods, and been destroyed. He wept for them, and for himself.
But there was another part of him that felt like laughing in triumph. Here he sat, in the barbaric future, with a quest to fulfil and a courageous young warrior woman singing beside him. He had Kinship here, and a Covenant to live by, and most of all he had the challenge of a wild new world.
Mike had never felt more desolate and alone.
Mike had never felt more full of life and ready to face it.
CHAPTER 16
THINGS WORSE THAN DYING
They were up at first light, and ate as they saddled the ponies. An edge of the sun was over the horizon as they moved out.
To make better time, they kept to the road, despite Katrin’s protests. Woodcat kept reassuring her that the roads were safe in this season, and she kept looking around, checking to see if they had company.
They were near enough to the coast now to smell the salt in the air, and Mike kept having the feeling that he had been this way before. It was some time before he realized that indeed he had been here before, but in another time when suburbs of red brick and tile had covered these hills. He was faintly surprised at how hilly the region was. He had only travelled this way in motor cars and they had ironed out the differences between hill and valley.
The road took approximately the same route as the highway had done in the past, and Mike knew, almost to the metre, when they would have their first view of the sea.
Then there it was. Where the curves of two hills intersected, there was a patch of blue sea, its top flat, drawn off with the line of the horizon. They paused, and looked, and then moved on.
Soon they were at a crossroads, and Brother John was to leave them. He was moving south, on a road which would finally take him across the Great River and into Vickharn and the country where all people were slaves and
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