The Chieftan

Marches, who apparently composed his works in exile; Regius, tutor of Urik, tyrant, and third elector, of Kash; Leland, courtier of Lemanthine; and Heiband, the Benellian, who once served as secretary to Loren, prince of the Rosterdam Gates.

The first actual Telnarian histories, or fragments thereof, came to light four hundred years ago, when a cache containing them was accidentally opened by workmen engaged in the construction of the Andirian Canal. As sometimes happens, once the existence of such things is indisputably established, and authenticated, a serious search was undertaken in numerous archives, libraries and treasuries. To the embarrassment of scholarship more than forty versions of the histories, or

fragments thereof, were found cataloged, and apparently forgotten, in almost as many locations. The manuscripts, of course, were derivative, being copies of copies, and so on. One of the puzzles concerning many of these manuscripts is why their existence was not more clearly established, and understood, earlier. The various versions are clearly of different ages, and different hands. It is not as though they were written at the same time, or copied at the same time, or even cataloged, at the same time. Perhaps original documents, suggested by the classical references, were forged, but, if so, why were these “forgeries” not brought to light, that their perpetrators might then attempt to reap what profits they might? Some of these fragments tend to reciprocally authenticate one another, and yet others seem utterly independent. It is almost as if these various manuscripts were placed, in one century or another, in one location or another. Their origins remain obscure. Perhaps, somewhere, in some dim archive, other such manuscripts exist, remaining to be found. It is difficult to say.

The current manuscript is that known as the Valens manuscript, because it was found in the ducal library of the district of Valens, one of the minor duchies of the Talois Confederation. It is known as 122B, following the system devised by the collegium of Harcourt, to which institution the original trove, consisting of more than one hundred manuscripts, primarily fragments, was referred.

This particular manuscript, portions of which I have prepared for the press, is unusual among the manuscripts, as it deals on a personal level with affairs of states, movements of men, the destinies of nations and worlds, such matters as seen by individuals involved in them. In such a sense the vast pageants involved, the sweeping biographies of empires and peoples, are only dimly hinted at. What a tiny particle of space and time falls within the brief purview of any individual! We are but specks on a cosmic sea. In this manuscript one discerns, and this seems precious to me, not so much the vast tides of time and space, the configuration of those awesome seas, understood in terms of charts of currents and winds, but what it was, at a given time, to be embarked upon them.

The manuscript may have been glossed. I have, in certain places, set certain materials in italics. These italicized portions of the manuscript almost invariably provide background information without which certain actions and events in the story would be obscure. Some regard the glosses as interpolations by an independent hand, to supply later readers with political, historical and religious background. My hypothesis with respect to such passages is that they are by one, and the original, author, and constitute glosses, if they are even to be understood as such, which seems to me unlikely, on his own work. Certain statistical studies of a linguistic nature support this theory, that of the single author, both in the more narrative and in the more expository or explanatory remarks, without which the narrative passages might seem less intelligible.

3. Telnaria:

There seems no reason to doubt the existence, at one time, of Telnaria, and her empire. Too many records, too many allusions, too many stories and legends, too many ancient place names, too much linguistic evidence, embedded in current languages, too much archaeological evidence, now-silent beacons, debris, claiming stones, coins struck by barbarous kings bearing the devices of an empire perhaps even then little but a memory and a legend, support the hypothesis.

In the legends Telnaria seems mythic to us, but, indubitably, at the bottom of such myths there once lay a far-flung, bright, formidable, perhaps even terrible reality. The location of the empire in time and space remains obscure, as do those modalities of being themselves. It is usually assumed that Telnaria has fallen, and long ago. But this is not actually clear, even in the manuscripts. Perhaps the empire has only drawn back a border, that it will later fling forth again, with a hand of iron. Some think that the Telnarian world lies before us, that it is our own world, others think that it was once our world, others that it recurs, coming again and again, perhaps as our own might, in the cycles of nature, in years so large and meaningless as to baffle our comprehension. Some speculate, interestingly, as suggested above, that the empire never fell, but survives, that it exists even today, and that we are but a lonely, isolated world, forgotten, or neglected, for a time, and that one day the ships will return, demanding their claiming stones, their taxes, their tribute. Who knows. Perhaps Telnaria lies at our elbow, and at that of other worlds, as well, our sleeves perhaps brushing, now and again, a column, unnoticed, in a temple not antique but one fresh and golden, consecrated but a moment ago. Can you not see the processions of robed priests, detect the bells, hear the chanting of the choirs, smell the incense? Universes, you see, might not be parallel, or fully so. Perhaps, now and then, they touch one another, and a corridor, as sudden as the snapping of an electric spark, forms a crossroads between realities, perhaps intersecting for a moment, or perhaps longer, perhaps forever, at certain points. Are there such portals, such gates? Let us believe that Telnaria is past, for I would not care to glimpse the pennons of her fleets upon the horizon, nor hear the tread of her legions in the night.

In our own small galaxy there are more than a billion stars, and for each of these stars, another galaxy can be glimpsed beyond.

Sometimes one is afraid.

Which of us, at one time or another, has not heard the cry of a distant voice? Which of us has never heard a footfall behind him?

Once, long ago, you see, when I was very young, for the briefest instant, my sleeve did brush such a column.

CHAPTER 1

It is odd, sometimes, how one notices little things, the way a step is splintered, the eleventh, rather at the corner, on the climb to the platform, how a cloud, over the rooftops, seen from the height of the platform, moves in the wind, like a flag, how a board is stained near a block, how the patterns of dryness and dampness, and, here and there, a bead of dew, appear on the fiber of the rope, and exactly how it hangs from the hook, slack, bent a little, not yet straight, not yet taut. One supposes such things are there to be noticed always, the lie of a pebble, the way a blade of grass bends, such things, but often one does not notice them, nor, I suppose, generally, should one. There is not much economy in doing so. Often other things are more important, much more so, the shadows cast by the great stones, the scent of a cat in the wind, the hum of an engine, far off, in the darkness. But when one has nothing much else to do, and one must choose how to spend a last handful of perceptions, one, or at least some, grow curious about little things, a splinter, a stain on a board, a drop of dew on a rope. It is surprising to realize just how meaningful, and beautiful, such things are. Too, at such a time, one sees with great vividness. At such times, life gleams.

It had been some thousands of years since the skies had come alive.

Oh, there had doubtless been sightings even before that, long before that, the detections of the scout ships, not known for what they were, and such, but records of those sightings, if, indeed, they had been made, were now lost. Some things will not be seen for what they are. One refuses to understand them. One looks upon them but refuses to see them. The defense mechanism is a familiar one, common to the rational species. And so the day the sky came alive came as a surprise to the old world, one far from this one, as it had to hundreds of other worlds before. Evidence, later clear, had been understood in terms of misleading categories of interpretation, old categories, comfortable categories, categories more acceptable. The hints had been neglected, save by some fanatics. Sometimes, of course, only the insane can see a certain form of truth, one which is beyond sanity, as it is then understood. But even so, one does not listen to the insane, and one always hopes that a truth, like some of the cats, not looked in the eye, will go away. The deep archives, later ransacked by historians, unwilling to accept the abruptness of the advent of the ships, were silent. But all that took place long ago, and much in it, even today, remains obscure.

He knelt in the deep, warm white sand.