‘Did you want them to tie us, hurt us?’ asked Lain-achor. ‘For what reason? A true king would not lead his people to do a senseless thing.’
The dog king shrugged. ‘It would be a different thing to do, different from today, or yesterday. A thing to think of. A thing to regret, perhaps, perhaps not. But at least a different thing. Here in these stones, in our caverns, by our fires, doing what we do, it is the same over and over again, a thousand years.’
Lain-achor pursued the question. ‘But merely for something to do?’
The dog king squatted sullenly on the ground at their feet, panted, turned his head to peer at them all as he gestured toward the rocks. ‘I will tell a story of these stones,’ he said, ‘as it has been told forever.
‘Long time past, Lone Man, Mountain Dweller, last of the wizards in the east, named Sienepas, sat on the mountain. He said, “In the east my brothers make new life, new things and strange, and I have fled away, fled away.”’
‘Fled away, away,’ chorused the warty men.
‘He, last of the wizards said, “Am I less than they, or shall I not do what they have done? So shall I make new life, here in these stones.”’
‘Here in these stones,’ the warty men who remained sang.
‘“Oh, I will be creator and founder of my own. I will return in glory to the east. I will bring a people from these stones!”’
‘Out of these stones …’
‘And the Lone Man, He of the Mountain, created us, from stone he made us, from rock brought us to life, and of fire and other things he had in this place. He made us and then grew weary of us, for we were not beautiful. He said to my fathers’ fathers’ fathers, “See the great horses run in beauty in the meadow, but you, my creatures, are of stone. Worship that beauty as your God, you shall have no other. I will go after my kinsmen to the west.” But he did not go after anyone. No, he never went away after that.’
‘What happened to him?’ asked Sowsie, softly.
The stare which glared from beneath swollen and ominous eyelids was almost answer enough. ‘That which was fitting. He should not have made us. We would be unmade if we knew how, and if it was an easy thing.’
‘How long ago?’ Sowsie asked. ‘Powers. How long ago?’
‘The count of the years is four thousand five hundred seventy and seven. With the moon of summer, seventy and eight.’
‘And you have lived all that time?’
‘Me, my father who was like me. His father. His father again, twice more. We live a long time, a very long time. The Lone Man made well, too well. We grow older than Horse God the beautiful, Horse God who lives and dies like grass. We live longer than men, but it is not good. There is nothing, nothing for us in these stones, and our God gives us nothing but longing.’
He turned from them to join the warty men in the shadows, and from that uneasy group came muffled grunts, snorts, the beginning of a mob sound, a panic sound.
Lain-achor moved to lay more wood upon the fire as they hunkered beside it, whispering.
‘The old man, the Lone Man – they killed him,’ said Jasmine. ‘He offended them.’
‘He offended much,’ brooded Sowsie. ‘Against the Powers, but more against his own creation for he gave them life while withholding purpose, gave ugliness and told it to worship beauty. I, too, might have killed him for that.’
‘They are resentful, bored beyond comprehension, without hope. Then others come with a worm which kills and eats them, a final blow, a mystery, a hatefulness. They question, now,’ Daingol mused, the fire lighting his eye sockets from below, turning him into a skull shape in the dark. Jasmine shuddered.
‘We may question, now,’ said Sowsie. ‘How will we get away? They hold us hostage for their resentment, their current fear. If they can make us responsible, it will relieve them. It will make an excitement, a change. Listen to the hysteria rising in their voices.’
They heard it building in the shadows, a muttering followed by a smothered shout, then a mutter and treble shrieking.
‘We must divert them,’ said Sowsie. ‘Give them something else to think of.’
Thewson rumbled into their silent thought. ‘It would be better for them to have a God like them, one not beautiful. In the Lion Courts we have such. Guardians of doorways. They are called fanuluzhli, the little old gods. They are very ugly, to frighten thieves away.’
‘Yes,’ Sowsie agreed. ‘And more than that. They need a ritual, a new something, a purpose.’ She drew them tighter around the fire as they plotted. At last Thewson rose, carrying his spear high, shouting to Lain-achor and Daingol who bore brands from the fire to twirl them in great circles of flame. Beside a gnarled tree which thrust its way through the rocks of the chasm Thewson paused, shouted once more, began to hack at the tree with his spear, chips flying.
At the fireside Sowsie and Dhariat hunched over stones, tapped a slow rhythm, stone on stone, echoing the shouts of the men with treble calls into the shadow. Jasmine began to dance, praying to the Lady, remembering the theatres of Lak Island, the temperamental demands of actors and dance masters. ‘I am one of the warty women,’ she told herself. ‘I dance the birth of my God.’ She drooped her body, hunched it, forced it to grace within that stooped stance, forced it to express dignity, joy, exaltation within its earthiness, power and longing from its warped and twisted movement. Eyes turned toward her from the shadows. Squat forms drew near to watch. The dog king’s voice rose querulously, then fell silent. Thewson shouted, chopped, shouted, chanted in time with the stones which Dhariat and Sowsie tapped, tapped, passing hand over hand, click, click,
