Haydn of Mars (9 page)

He nodded as he took the card.
 
“I wondered why the game was called Jakra: music.”

“It is said that Haydn was named after another composer, one of the Old Ones,” I explained.

“These Old Ones are rubbish to me, also,” he said, throwing the card down onto the pile.
 
“If they are unknown they might as well be ghosts, to frighten the children with at night.
 
They are not real.”

“They were real,” I insisted.
 
“It's just that we don't know much about them.
 
Only that they were here before us.”

He looked startled.
 
“What is this?
 
You say that these Old Ones were born of Mars before the Yern and the other clans?”

“They were here, and then they disappeared.
 
And we don't know why.”

He stood, kicking the cards aside, and became furious.
 
“You spout nonsense!
 
This cannot be!
 
There are the gods, and the clans.
 
Nothing more!”

I spoke calmly.
 
“These are the beliefs of my people, just as you have yours.
 
We believe in one god, and that the Blue Lady, as you call her, is another planet that circles the sun, just as Mars does.
 
The other wanderers, Bright One, and Little Bright One, are also planets.
 
And we believe in the Old Ones, because we have evidence that they were here.”

He was holding his head with his paws.
 
“Enough!
 
I will hear no more of this sacrilege!”

That night he burned two special fires facing west, and a particularly noxious incense was added, which, I am sure, he made sure drifted directly into my tent to keep me very awake.

The next morning he was, I think apologetic, though he did not, of course, apologize.

Over breakfast he said, “You will be very interested in our destination today.”

“How so?”
 
I was still rubbing my eyes, and trying to clear the smell of chicken offal and cactus spice from my nostrils.

“You will see,” he said, cryptically Then he added, “As for last evening, I have decided that I have my beliefs, and you have yours.
 
There is nothing I can do about that.”

“Thank you.”

“Even if your beliefs are those of a dog,” he said, and got up and strode away.

We decamped soon after.
 
Our caravan had grown to over twenty wagons, nearly a hundred individuals.
 
It was as if the Mighty was picking up a nation while he traveled, which was of course very nearly the case.
 
His people were scattered, I gathered, in an area some two hundred kilos wide and nearly five hundred long.
 
Since we had started in the extreme south of his territory, we were gathering them up as we went along like a farmer harvesting grain.

The territory was starker, and yet in its way as beautiful, as that in the south.
 
Long stretches of near desert were punctuated by oasis of fertility, green and yellow patches that burst out of the pink-red scenery like dabs of color on a canvas.
 
The sky was brighter here, a thinner pink but with many wisps of cloud.
 
And it held fewer craters, more hills, and the occasional peak of a ridge or low mountain.

There was not much game to catch, but the Mighty did have his herd of dogs, which ran along at the rear of the caravan barking and complaining and, usually, less one member the next day.
 
They bred fairly quickly.

Horn, my companion in the wine wagon, continued to be, as from the beginning, maddeningly incommunicative.
 
He seemed content to hum to himself all day, or to point out things that held no particular interest.
 
“There's a bluff I used to play on when I was a kit!” he would exclaim, but when I asked him about his boyhood he would say nothing.
 
Or, “Look at that line of junto trees!” to which I would say, “What about it?” which would leave his shaking his head, returning to his humming.

About midday this day the Mighty rode back to us leading a second horse.
 
I had begun to learn to ride, but was still better off in the wagon.

“Come with me,” he said, and Horn immediately ceased his humming and stopped the wagon.

I climbed down and then up onto the stead.

“Where are we going?”

“I told you there was something you would like.
 
It is complete rubbish, but you will like it.”

I followed him, and we headed to the west away from the caravan, up a long, seemingly endless hill.
 
I noted that we were not alone; as usual, there were guards and sentries lining our route which the Mighty did not even bother to acknowledge.

After an hour of this upward trot, I said, “Are you sure there's something worth seeing ahead?”

Without turning his head he answered, “You are like the kit who, in the wagon, keeps asking, ‘are we there yet'?”

Before I could say anything he added, “We will be there soon.”

After another hour he announced, “Just over this rise.”

We topped the second of two high hills we had mounted.
 
I stopped a moment to look back.
 
The caravan was invisible on the plain below us.
 
A mist had settled far below.

“We are high,” I said, noting the thinner atmosphere.

“Yes,” the Mighty answered, and pointed ahead, over the rise, as my horse settled in beside his.

I gasped, and for a moment held my breath before whispering, “Oh my...”

The Mighty sat up straight on his horse, beaming.
 
“I knew you would like it!”

Below us, in a bowl formed by our hill and others surrounding, was a mythical place from my childhood:

One of the places of the Old Ones.

The series of tall red smoke stacks gave it away immediately.
 
The myth was that they were always in threes, and here were three sets of three stacks, as well as smaller sets of three around the perimeter of the site.
 
Some of the stacks looked as if they had been through war.
 
There were many buildings, some of them crumbling, some at least partially intact.

“Can we go down?” I asked.

“Of course.
 
I suppose you will insist that the Old Ones built it.”

“They did.”

He shook his head and rode on.

The path down was a treacherous one, and more than once my horse slipped on rocks and pieces of debris that had been scattered by whatever calamity had befallen the site.
 
There was a metal gate and fence at the bottom in a woven pattern, but torn and blasted apart in places.
 
We entered through a wide open area where the fence was completely gone.

A building loomed ahead, silhouetting three massive chimneys behind it, one of which was unscathed.
 
The other two had been nearly cut in half.

The building, made of blocks of sandstone with many broken windows, had a gaping hole in one wall.
 
The Mighty pointed to it and said, “We can go in there.
 
But you must leave your horse here.”

We dismounted and I followed him.

I passed broken pieces of machinery, a pile of broken wall.

Inside it was gloomy and cool.

I noted the many switches on the pitted walls.
 
There was electrical cable everywhere, the skeletal wrecks of huge unknown machines – large vats, a perfectly square riveted metal monstrosity that rose nearly to the ceiling, where a series of catwalks, most of them partially destroyed, crisscrossed under strings of broken light fixtures.

“Most of the buildings look like this one,” the Mighty said, shrugging.
 
“But I had no doubt you would find it interesting.”

“Do you know what this was used for?”

“Rubbish, no doubt,” he answered, kicking at dusty coil of frayed cable.

“There is a legend...”

He laughed, the sound sending a booming echo through the building.
 
“There is always a legend, Ransom.
 
For everything.
 
That does not make it true.”

I was half listening to him, wandering on ahead.
 
There were a series of rooms cut into the far wall, and I made my way to them, skirting two tall pillars studded with dials and switches.

“We cannot stay here forever, Ransom,” the Mighty said, behind me.

I noted the impatience in his voice but went on.

The first room was filled with what had once been furniture: metal desks and chairs missing legs.
 
I had no doubt that whatever was useful had long been carted away by the Mighty's people and other scavengers.

The second room was empty of everything save a carpet of dust, in the midst of which were a perfect set of strange footprints which led to the far wall and then back again – they were short and broad, like a naked cat somehow deformed.

“Ransom!
 
We must go soon!” the Mighty called to me.
 
I looked back to see him studying the ground idly.

I entered the third room.

It was shadowed, the windows blocked by more furniture which had been hastily assembled here – a desk on its side, bookcases –

Bookcases!

My heart raced for a moment, and I stepped my way over rubble to the partially visible furniture.
 
In front of the two cases were piled chairs, and I pushed these aside until their pyramid crumbled and I was able to climb over what was left.

The left bookcase was bare, but the right one held two volumes in the lower shelf.

I strained to reach them.

The Mighty's voice, suddenly close and sharp, hissed behind me. “Do not move, Ransom.”

I froze with my hands on one of the books, and turned my head to see a pair of emerald eyes in a shadowed face staring intently at me.

I turned my head a few millimeters more and saw the Mighty in my peripheral vision, frozen in place, his attention focused on the creature as he slowly removed something from within his robes.

He made a sign of silence, a finger to his lips.

The green eyes brightened, like two miniature green suns, and the thing leaped out of the shadows at me, hissing loudly.
 
I saw long teeth and a broad snout and ears pressed back against its near-naked skull, and two gigantic paws full of saber-like claws flashing silver to either side–

Something hummed through the air, and the creature gave a startled cry of anguish and fell at my feet, its body tangling with a broken chair.
 
It gave a rattling long gasp of pain and then was silent.

“A wild cat,” the Mighty said, stepped to remove his weapon, a long, wide blade handled in what looked like polished junto wood which I had never seen before, from the monster's neck.
 
He wiped the blade on his robe and then replaced it in the folds within.
 
He cocked his head sideways to study the beast.
 
“Not a particularly agile looking one, but he would have killed you.”

I looked from the dead carcass, resembling a cat only in superficial ways – it was smaller, its pelt thinner, the head narrower.
 
I had only seen pictures of them.
 
They never stood on two legs, and had been deemed long ago animals by our scientists, a rogue turn in development.

“Thank you,” I said.

He waved a hand in dismissal.
 
“Come.
 
We must go.”

“In a moment.”

I reached over the dead body of the beast to retrieve the two books.
 
One of them, I saw to my disappointment, was only an empty binder, but the other was a real volume.

The Mighty had stopped in the doorway, and turned to regard my treasure.

“Why do you go after such trifles?”

“It is not rubbish.”

He started to speak, and then held his tongue.
 
“Come.
 
We must ride back now before twilight comes.”

That night I studied my treasure in my tent by lamplight.
 
Myra and young Hera, intrigued by anything new, at first professed interest, but when they saw that each page was merely filled with scribblings much like the last, they grew bored and left me alone.

The language was similar to our own, but difficult to understand.
 
Other such books had been discovered, but they were very rare.
 
From what I knew, the ones that had lasted were made of fine paper and preserved in dry climates.
  
I knew in my heart that I held an artifact of the Old Ones in my hand.