Halo: Primordium (7 page)

He raised himself up in his seated posture and squared his hands on his knees. “I was brought here when I was an infant,” he said. “I do not remember much about Erda, but my best wife told me it had a flat horizon, but when you are high up, the end of the world curves down to each side, not up. Makes you wonder what’s on the other side of the wheel, down there . . . doesn’t it?” He caught me staring at the rabbit. I wiped drool from the corner of my lips. He tapped his finger lightly on the ground, then lowered his head, as if in mourning. “I remember the long journey in the gray wals and no way to see the sky, with air that smeled of closeness and sweet and bitter herbs, like perfume. Herbs that kept us quiet during the voyage. And then . . . the first ones were brought
here,
to the hoop.” He tapped the ground again. More firmly. “I was just a babe. We had lived for many days within gray wals, but now the great ship shook us like ants from a cup. None were hurt; we drifted like fluff to the dirt and rocks.

“Then, so I was told, we stood together, holding each other, and looked up, and saw the sky bridge, the way the land rose up, and there was much wailing. Finaly, we separated into families and smal tribes, and wandered this way and that—”—he swung his arms—“outward. We came to forests and plains and we made our homes there, as we were used to living. For this while, in my youth, we were tended like cattle, but because there was little pain and we were fed, we came to believe this was where we should be.

“The Forerunners gave us bricks. We used the bricks and made wals and houses and great buildings. We lived in peace and raised children, and the children were touched by the Lady, and when they could speak, they told us of this beautiful Forerunner, so tal, who spoke to them in their first days and filed them with light. I already knew her. She had come to me on Erda.”

“When you were born?” I asked.

Gamelpar nodded. “But it was not the same, how the Lady touched those from Erda and how she touched the children born here. As I grew up, I sometimes remembered things that I never lived.” His voice grew thin. He lifted his gnarled hand, pointed in a broad sweep, up toward the center of the Halo’s spin, then down, as if poking his finger through to the other side. “So many memories,” he whispered. “Old, old memories—in dreams, in visions. Weak and frightened . . . old, lost ghosts.

“But years later, the old memories became stronger—after we finished the city, long after I was husband and father. After the sky changed five times. Those were great darknesses, long, long nights.

Different suns, different stars, came and went.

“Each time, glowing bars climbed across the sky and a big, pale blue disk appeared inside the hoop, like the hub of a wheel. Each time came the white brightness, then a great darkness. . . .” He swept his hand across the welkin. “Spokes shot out from the hub, and glowing fires burned on the ends of the spokes, to warm us in that darkness. And twice we saw something other than brightness and darkness—something terrible that came out of the hub and the center of the wheel—something that gave us fits and hurt the soul.” He rubbed his forehead and looked away from the fire. “But we did not die. We moved again. Under the orange sun, where Vinnevra was born.”

Vinnevra stared intently at her grandfather.

“It was under that sun that the Forerunners came in their boats and carried us off to the Palace of Pain. They stole away my daughter and her mate, and many, many others. They came so often we were afraid, and we abandoned the city, crawled back out onto the plain. And there, as we huddled in fear, the beast came among us and pointed its awful arms, and raised its jeweled eyes.” I started at this. “Beast?”

“Bigger than men, bigger than Forerunners. Many arms, many smal legs, curled up like a shriveled spider. It sat on a big dish, flying this high over the ground.” He raised his arm as high as he could. “Beside it flew a large machine with a single green eye.” He laced his gnarled, knobby fingers together, shaping a kind of complicated bal. “These two spoke in our heads as wel as in our ears—teling us of our fates. The Primordial and Green-eye were deciding who would live and who would die.

“But some who had been taken to the Palace of Pain returned.

At first we were happy that they were back, but then we saw how some had changed. Some grew other skins, other eyes, other arms.

They broke apart and joined together, then made others sick. They wailed in pain and tried to touch us. These poor monsters died, or we kiled them later.

“And Green-eye said to the Beast, ‘Not al resist . . . not al survive.’ But most do. Why? Why do many survive, but some do not?” Gamelpar shuddered. “Twisted death. Death that spreads like spiled blood. Those who survived . . . who did not die . . . the Forerunners took some back to the Palace of Pain, and some they left behind. We do not know how they chose. And then . . .” He could not finish. He looked at the ground and held up his hands, stretching his fingers to the sky. Then he began a low keening, like the wail of a weary, hopeless child.

Vinnevra finished for him. “Gamelpar went to the Palace of Pain, but he did not become il. He never tels that tale.” The old man stopped keening, straightened as tal as he could, and wiped his hands on his thighs.

“We camped on the outskirts of the city. The little vilage, you have seen. Me. And my daughter’s daughter. Alone of al my kin.

That is the truth of it.” He stood and brushed sand from his long black legs, then pointed vaguely at the backside of the rushing shadow. “Then they pushed me out here, to be done with me.”

“I told them he had died out in the bush, but his spirit stil keens, and he wil haunt those who hurt me. Nobody touched me after that,” Vinnevra said. “He knows how to hunt and take care of himself. Stil, he is old. . . .”

I did not know whether to speak, their sadness was so profound.

But Gamelpar was not finished.

He looked fondly upon her. “Just before you fel, the sky changed again. As the machines fought and kiled each other, great ships passed over, splitting open and spinning away in flames, and smashing—up there.” He pointed toward the black streak, or where it would have been, were it not now hidden by errant clouds.

“And then came the last hurtful whiteness.”

“Tel me again about the Beast,” I said.

His jaw grew strong again, and he held out both arms. “He flew on the large disk, and his eyes were like gray jewels, and Green-eye flew beside him, and they talked, and the People were taken away. After that time, no longer did we have children, and no longer was there enough food. The water turned bad. Forerunners fought each other and died . . . al because of the Beast . . . the Beast. . . .” He repeated this over and over, as if it had been burned by a hot iron into his memory. Finaly he could stand it no more, and he seemed to fal into a brief fit, prancing around, shaking out his arms, babbling in a singsong, until he had cleansed himself. “Pfaah!” He spat, then jabbed his splayed hand at the darkness beyond the dying fire. “Let us leave this place. Nothing here but fools and twisted ghosts.”

Gamelpar eased back down on his haunches, then began to break up the rabbit. He handed the pieces to us. Vinnevra regarded me with caution and curiosity. I had almost lost my appetite. But not quite. The girl and I settled down to eating, and I thought: the Beast Gamelpar had seen, and the Captive from Charum Hakkor, were they one and the same?

I say yes.

My old spirit had seen the Beast; that’s how I could see it, as wel.

The old man watched us as we gobbled down the rabbit. “Tel us what you learned in your travels,” he said softly.

“Long, long time past,” I said, “we fought the Forerunners and nearly won.”

“Yes,” he said.

“But then they defeated us and pushed us down. They turned us into animals. The Librarian raised us up again, and gave some of us old memories from dead warriors.”

“Why do they torture us?” Vinnevra asked. She did not like this talk of carrying ghosts.

“Forerunners worry we wil become strong and fight them again.

They wil keep us down any way they can—some of them.”

“You know about the Beast, I am sure of it,” the old man said.

“I visited where it was once imprisoned. An ancient being older than humans or Forerunners. Forerunners freed it from its trap and it came—or was brought—here.”

The old spirit within approved.

We ate for a while in silence while Gamelpar absorbed this.

“Who rides you?” he asked.

Without thinking, I said, “Lord of Admirals.”

We stared hard at each other. “We
knew
him,” the old man said.

“My old spirit fought under his command. . . .” His voice trailed off.

Then he reached up and again swept his char-smudged fingers across the glittering sky. “The voices ride us,” he said. “They hope to live again, but do not know what we face. We
are
weak, like animals. There wil be no return to that old war.” He looked away, but not before I saw a glint of tears on his cheeks. “Finish this poor rabbit before it gets cold.” He pointed toward the near wal. “My daughter’s daughter tels me we should go over there, where the land stays in shadow longer.” Vinnevra had already finished. She stood up, as if ready to leave right away. “You want him to come with us?” she asked the old man. I could never tel what she thought about me. Her eyes seemed dangerous, the way they peered and examined from under her brows.

“Yes,” the old man said.

For her, that was enough. “Gamelpar, can you walk?”

“Cut a big stick from the brush. With that, I can walk as wel as you.”

“He fel a few days ago,” Vinnevra explained. “He hurt his hip.”

“My hip is fine. Eat. Sleep. Then we leave.”

He looked back up at the stars and the sky bridge. His face grew sharp again, more interested, and again he looked younger.

As I tossed away the final clean-stripped rabbit bone, we felt something rumble beneath the dirt, far below us, like some huge, restless animal. The sound made the pebbles dance, but I folowed the old man’s upraised hand and trembling finger to the sky.

High on the bright arc of the sky bridge, where the black mark and rays had once been, an emptiness had suddenly appeared—a gap in the continual sweep of the band through which I made out two bright stars, quickly hidden by the hoop’s spin.

“I have never seen
that
before,” Gamelpar said.

“That’s where the big boat crashed!” Vinnevra said.

The grumbling continued, and we moved in close and hugged each other, as if together we might weigh enough to hold down the dirt. Finaly, the vibrations dropped to a faint trembling—and soon I wondered if I was feeling anything at al.

The gap in the sky bridge remained.

We did not say much for the rest of that night. Vinnevra curled up close to the dying fire, at the feet of Gamelpar.

Even with the missing square, the sky bridge was as bright as a long ribbon of moon, and that made seeing the stars difficult.

PRETTY SOON, AFTER
a smal and troubled sleep, sunlight crept down the band like a descending river and caught us. Clouds crossing the band took fire, rose up in mountainous bilows, and spread orange glow even into the tilt-shadow and wal-shade.

Halo dawn.

Then it was light al around, and after several loud thunderclaps and brief shower of warm rain, the old man got up and took his new long stick from Vinnevra, and we started our walk away from the vilage and the deserted city. Gamelpar did indeed walk faster and better with a stick, but Vinnevra and I slowed to alow him his dignity.

We walked together just behind him.

“Time to tel this one where we are going, daughter of daughters,” the old man said.

“I’m going to find my friend,” I said.

“The little one,” Vinnevra explained.

“Do you know where he is?”

I had to admit, I had no idea.

“Vinnevra knows where to go.”

“I have seen it,” Vinnevra said, with a sidelong and almost guilty glance.

“Seen what?” I asked.

We crested a low hil. “A place where I should go when I am in trouble,” she said. She turned to look back over the meadow and plain that held the scattered vilage, the hut where she had tended to me, and beyond that, stretching wide to either side, the brown mud and stone wals and towers of the city where she had grown up . . .

and lost her parents to Forerunners.

She pointed inland, away from the wal, then led us down the opposite side of the hil.

Gamelpar folowed and did not look back.

I had no idea which way Riser might be, so I folowed as wel—