In the bottom of the gourd he had left some scraps, and on these the three woebegone humans made their meal, drawing to one side in pitiful modesty to do so. The women fed their stooped fellow, whose arms were still fixed as if paralysed over his head.
'Now I am prepared to hear your story,' announced the sodal, 'and do something to help you if possible. Know that I come of the wisest race of this planet. My kind have covered all the vast seas and most of the less interesting land. I am a prophet, a Sodal of the Highest Knowledge, and I will stoop to help you if I consider your need interesting enough.'
'Your pride is remarkable,' she said.
'Pah, what is pride when the Earth is about to die? Proceed with your silly tale, mother, if you are going to proceed at all.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
YATTMUR wished to present the sodal with her problem concerning Gren and the morel. But because she possessed no skill in unfolding a story and selecting the telling details for it, she gave him virtually the history of her life, and of her childhood with the herders who lived on the edge of the forest by Black Mouth. She then related the arrival of Gren with his mate Poyly, and spoke of Poyly's death, and of their subsequent wanderings, until fate like a heavy sea had cast them upon the shores of the Big Slope. Then finally she told of the birth of her baby, and of how she knew it to be threatened by the morel.
During all this, the sodal of the catch-carry-kind lay with seeming indifference on his boulder, his lower lip hanging low enough to reveal the orange rims round his teeth. Beside him – with total indifference – the pair of tattooed women lay on the grass flanking the bowed porter, who still stood like a monument to care with his arms above his skull. The sodal surveyed none of them; his gaze roved over the heavens.
At last he said, 'You make an interesting case. I have heard details of many infinitesimal lives not unlike yours. By fitting them all together – by synthestizing them in my extraordinary intelligence – I can construct a true picture of this world in its last stages of existence.'
Angrily Yattmur stood up.
'Why I could knock you off your perch for that, you deboshed fish!' she exclaimed. 'Is that all you have to say when previously you offered help?'
'Oh I could say a deal more, little human. But your problem is so simple that for me it scarcely seems to exist. I have met with these morels before in my travels, and though they are clever fellows, they have several points of vulnerability upon which anyone of my intellect will quickly seize.'
'Please make a suggestion quickly.'
'I have only one suggestion: that you entrust your baby to your mate Gren when he calls for it.'
'That I can't do!'
'Ah ha, but you must. Don't back away. Come here while I explain why you must.'
She did not like the sodal's plan. But behind his conceit and pomposity lay a stubborn stony force; his presence too was aweing; the very way he chewed out his words made them seem incontrovertible; so Yattmur clutched Laren with all-ease and agreed to his dictates.
'I dare not go and face him in the cave,' she said.
'Get your tummy-creatures to fetch him here then,' ordered the sodal. 'And hurry up about it. I travel on behalf of Fate, a master who at present has too much on his hands to bother with your concerns.'
A rumble of thunder sounded, as if some mighty being signalled agreement with his words. Yattmur looked anxiously towards the sun, still wearing its cocky feather of fire, and then went to speak to the tummy-bellies.
They sprawled together in the cosy dirt, arms round each other, chattering. As she entered the cave mouth, one of them picked up a handful of earth and gravel and flung it at her.
'Before now you don't come in our cave or ever come here or want to come here, and now you are wanting to come here is too late, cruel sandwich lady! And the fishy-carry-man is your bad company – we don't belong. Poor tummy-men not want you come here – or they make the lovely sharp-furs crunch you up in the cave.'
She stopped. Anger, regret, apprehension, ran through her, then she said firmly, 'Your troubles are only just beginning if you feel like that. You know I wish to be your friend.'
'You make all our troubles! Go quickly away!'
She backed away and, as she began to walk towards the other cave where Gren lay, she heard the tummy-bellies crying out to her. Whether their tone was one of abuse or supplication she did not know. Lightning snickered, stirring her shadow about her ankles. The baby wriggled in her arms.
'Lie still!' she said sharply. 'He shall not harm you.'
Gren sprawled at the back of the cave where she had last seen him. Lightning stabbed the brown mask through which his eyes peered. Though she saw him staring at her, he did not move or speak.
'Gren!'
Still he neither moved nor spoke.
Vibrant with strain, torn between love and hate of him, she leant there indecisively. When the lightning sparked again, she waved a hand before her eyes as though to brush it away.
'Gren, you can have the baby if you want him.'
Then he moved.
'Come outside for him; it's too dark in here.'
Having spoken, she walked away. Sickness rose in her as she felt the miserable difficulty of life. Over the saturnine slopes below her played inconstant light, adding to her dizziness. The catchy-carry-kind still lay on his boulder; beneath his shadow were the gourds, now empty of food and drink, and his forlorn retinue, hands to the sky, eyes to the ground. Yattmur sat down heavily with her back to the boulder, cradling Laren on her lap.
After a pause, Gren came out of the cave.
Walking slowly, slack-kneed, he approached her.
She could not tell whether she sweated from the heat or the tension. Because she was afraid to gaze on that pulpy mash that covered his face, Yattmur shut her eyes, opening them again only when she felt him near, fixing them on him as he stooped over her and the child. Uttering his pleased noise, Laren stretched up his arms with complete confidence 'Sensible boy!' said Gren in his alien voice. 'You are going to be a child apart, a wonder child, and I shall never leave you.'
Now she shivered so violently that she could not hold the baby still. But Gren was bending close now, down on his knees, so near she caught an acrid and clammy odour from him. Through the fluttering fringes of her eyelashes she saw the fungus on his face begin to move.
It hung above Laren's head, gathering ready to drop on him. Her vision was full of it, peppered with spongy spores, and with a slab of the big boulder and one of the empty gourds. She believed herself to be breathing in short screams, so that Laren commenced to cry – and again the tissue slid over Gren's face with the reluctant movement of stiff porridge.
'Now!' cried Sodal Ye in a Voice which twitched her into action.
Yattmur whipped the empty gourd forward, over the child.
The morel was caught in the bottom as it fell, trapped by the plan the sodal had devised. As Gren sagged sideways, she saw his true face twisted like a rope in a knot of pain. The light ebbed and flowed, quick as a pulse, but she only knew something screamed, not recognizing her own high note before she collapsed.
Two mountains clashed together like jaws with a bloated and squalling version of Laren lost between them. Thrown back to her senses. Yattmur sat up with a jerk and the monstrous vision fled.
'So you are not dead,' said the catchy-carry-kind gruffly. 'Kindly get up and silence your child, since my women are unable to do so.'
It was incredible that everything was much as it had been before she fainted, so long had she seemed to be enveloped in night. The morel lay inert in the gourd that had trapped it, with Gren face down beside it. Sodal Ye was atop his boulder. The pair of tattooed women hugged Laren to their withered breasts without being able to hush his cries.