retell later.
“Shall we see you tribe?” Oleg asked.
Ostap looked aside. “If you are ready to stay with us, you can do it now… But if you want to go back to the Upper World, then it is up to the Council of Elder Sorcerers to decide. If they decide to let you go, then you will see nothing… Every tribe has its secrets. Please don’t take it as offense.”
“All our life is war,” Oleg told him sadly. “When shall we see the Elders?”
“Life here is a slow stream,” Ostap replied. “But you have good luck. The Council will meet in three days.”
Their life streamed, as far as Thomas got it, with no division into day and night, in the eternal twilight. The walls were inhabited by glowing moss, and luminous mold grew in places, but that was a faint light even for accustomed eye. Human sight could reach no farther than ten or twenty steps, that’s why people seemed to appear out of thin air and vanish in it. But there was a good side too: the invisibility of walls made the world look endless.
As far as he understood, the earth is cracking continuously, like a ball of clay in the hot sun: old cracks get deeper and new ones emerge. The caves are huge, and new ones are added. Once the nomads in their roaming came back to some old caves after three thousand years and could not recognize them: the caves were three times that broad, their walls had long cracks opening into strange spaces, where invisible water splashed and strange animals roared,
On the second day Thomas, looking around suspiciously, whispered to Oleg. “Sir wonderer, it’s a bad place… These people are wizards!”
“What’s happened?”
“I managed to approach a wall… and there I saw a thing that made my hair stand on end! An old man came out of solid stone, walked a bit along a stream and, following it, went into a stone wall again!”
“Couldn’t it seem to you?” Oleg asked anxiously.
“I’m no fool, sir wonderer! I crossed myself at once, then also said a prayer… as far as I could remember the words. But the old man did not vanish. Moreover, I touched his footprints on the sand and I can stake my life that he’s no older than forty-eight, a bit lame, has joints in his left leg aching…”
“I believe you!” Oleg interrupted hastily. “I forgot how skillful warrior you are, sir knight. That’s a difference… If
On the next day, Ostap came for them, examined both critically and told to follow him. They went along the wall. Oleg understood that the rest of the young sorcerers were dispersed ahead on their way to prevent common people from seeing the strangers.
Ostap let the guests into a small cave and stopped in the narrow entrance, blocking it. Three people in white robes were waiting in. All had the same silvery-grey hair falling on their shoulders, so it took Thomas some time to see that only two of the old sorcerers were men, while the third was an ancient crone. Her face, covered with small wrinkles, like a baked apple, was as colorless as the faces of all Agathyrsians. She had alert, unfriendly eyes.
Two old men exchanged glances. One made the guests a gesture to sit down. “My name is Boryan, this is my brother Boris and my sister Borunia. We are children to Boreas and grandchildren to Bor. We are the eldest sorcerers of the tribe…”
“And where’s the son of Agathyrs?” Oleg interrupted. “I’d like to see him. His name is Taurus, isn’t it?”
The old men exchanged glances again. “How do you know his name?” Borunia asked harshly.
Oleg paused, looked at the shimmering stones in the walls of the cave. “Of all the sons of Agathyrs, Taurus was the only thinker. The rest were warriors who despised him. They only wanted to gallop across the steppes on fast horses, to chase a deer or, which was even better, to clash face to face with enemy in a mortal combat…”
The crone watched him with disbelief. Boris gave a cough. “Why do you need Taurus?” he asked with mistrust. “He is too old to be disturbed. He is with the tribe, while we here are only a vanguard.”
They looked with expectation. Thomas also kept his eyes on the wonderer. Oleg smiled, lifted his hands. “I would like to see him. And I’m sure he shall be glad to see me!”
After a long pause, Boris said warily, “You speak as Agathyrs spoke, as his sons spoke, as Taurus speaks still. Now this is the sacred language of sorcerers. The small folk, and the princes too, speak differently. How do you know this tongue?”
Oleg grinned, pointed at Thomas with his eyes. “You could have guessed already.” He sounded almost merry.
The three sorcerers gasped and goggled their eyes at him.
Oleg waved his hand, his face darkened, his voice turned sad. “You are right about not coming above. Blood runs in rivers there. People kill each other so fiercely that the most savage wolfs and hyenas look innocent lambs against them! Whole tribes are butchered, with women and children. Nations fight nations, tribes fight tribes, clans fight clans, families fight families, brother fights brother. Even a single man fights himself to the bitter end, as he has lost sight of Truth and Falsehood!”
The three of them were silent, their eyes attentive. The strangers had too much mystery in them, and sorcerers are the ones who can watch and listen, while hasty decisions belong to green youth.
“Probably,” Oleg told them very sadly, “gods keep you here as seeds. People above may all destroy each other. It seems likely to happen. Then you will come to populate the upper spaces with kind, peaceful people. You are far cry from the beasts who had once run into these caves to escape other beasts, even more savage…”
The crone squirmed with discontent. “We have never been beasts!” she interrupted peevishly.
Oleg shook his head, his eyes full of sympathy. “You have been them. What shame in it? You should be proud of your having turned humans from beasts! Sadly, it’s usually other way round… And you left childish pugnacity to children.”
He glanced slantwise at Thomas, and the three sorcerers followed his sight. Thomas sat on a broken fragment of rock. Arrogant and haughty, he looked solemnly over the heads of elders. He was manly and handsome, a head taller than the sorcerers and twice as broad in shoulders as any of them, his chest broad and prominent, while his belly as flat as a bug’s, in bolster-like muscle.
Boris sighed, cast a reproachful look at Oleg. “But you are not a pugnacious beast, are you?”
“I’m a sorcerer,” Oleg reminded. “But the world is not all of sorcerers.”
They were silent for a while, immersed in their thoughts. Oleg watched their clean mild faces with sorrow. Since the Great Exodus, unknown to the tribe, there were no wars against each other. Agathyrsians had conflicts and murders of jealousy or envy but no bloody battles of two human parties. They had too much of the exhausting war with underground monsters to think about killing each other in addition.
Suddenly Boris flinched, as though woken up rudely, asked hastily, “Do you want to return above?”
“I must,” Oleg replied sadly. “While one plows, another has to fight. The world is still cruel.”
Boris looked aside at Borunia. She reared up, her eyes blazed. “We can’t let you go! People above should not know of our tribe. What if the cruel upper nations came rushing here? Everything will perish. You are right: we forgot war long ago. Though we have some… But one cannot spend all their life hiding. And we have no skill in killing people.”
Oleg alerted. Thomas reached, involuntarily, for his absent bag. “People above are violent,” Oleg replied carefully, thorough in his choice of words. “But no one shall come here. They are
Thomas watched the senile sorcerers with pity.
The five of them were sitting in silence, even Thomas made hardly a move. The air in the cave was thick and heavy. It made Thomas feel relaxed and sleepy, like in the warm water.
Oleg kept an alert eye on the faces of sorcerers. He handed his bag to Boris. “You are the eldest one here, wise man. Please help me to crack this nut.”
“A nut?” Boris said in perplexity, without touching the bag. “You have a copper cup there. It was forged seven thousand years ago. As large as a fist, some Aramaic writing along its lip, its stem a bit crumpled…”
