In the marketplace he told of honor, and how it is a higher law than any law.
At the crossroads he talked of freedom, the freedom of the wind and clouds, the freedom that loves all things and is without guilt.
Beside city gates he told stories of the forgotten cities that were and of the forgotten cities that might be, if only men would forget them.
Often the people of the cold lands sought to imprison him according to their laws, but he vanished from their sight. Often they mocked him, but he smiled at their mockery, which knew no law. Many among the youth of the cold lands heard him, and many feigned to follow his teachings, and a few did follow them and lived strange lives.
Then a night came when the first flakes of snow were falling, and on that night the god Isid Iooo IoooE drew him up as the puppeteer lifts his doll. A few friends were in the lee of a wood with him, and it seemed to them that there came a sudden flurry of snow spangled with colors and Man was gone.
But it seemed to him, as he stood once more in the presence of the god Isid Iooo IoooE, that he had waked from a long dream; his hands had their strength again, his beard was black, and his eyes had regained their clarity, though not their cunning.
“Now tell me,” Isid Iooo IoooE commanded him, “all that you have seen and done,” and when Man had told him, he asked, “Which of these three peoples loved you the best, and why did you love them?”
Man thought for a time, drawing the cloak Tarnung about his shoulders, for it seemed to him cold in the belly of the ship of Isid Iooo IoooE. “The people of the high, hot lands are unjust,” he said. “Yet I came to love them, for there is no falsity in them. They feast their friends and flay their foes and, trusting no one, never weep that they are betrayed.
“The people of the cold lands are just, and yet I came to love them also, though that was much harder.
“The people of the steaming lands are innocent of justice and injustice alike. They follow their hearts, and while I dwelt among them I followed mine and loved them best of all.”
“You yet have much to learn, Man,” said the god Isid Iooo IoooE. “For the people of the cold lands are much the nearest to me. Do you not understand that in time the steaming lands, and all of the Land of Zed, must fall to one of its great peoples or the other?”
Then while Man watched through his eyes, certain good men in the cold lands died, which men called lightning. Certain evil men died also, and men spoke of disease. Dreams came to women and fancies to children; rain and wind and sun were no longer what they had been; and when the children were grown, the people of the cold lands went down into the steaming lands and built houses there, and taking no slaves drove the people of the steaming lands behind certain fences and walls, where they sat in the dust until they died.
“In the high, hot lands,” commented Man, “the people of the steaming lands would have suffered much. Many of them I had, toiling under the whip to build my walls. Yet they sang when they could, and ran when they could, and stole my food when they could not. And some of them grew fat on it.”
And the god Isid Iooo IoooE answered, “It is better that a man should die than that he should be a slave.”
“Even so,” Man replied, “you yourself have said it.” And drawing Maser he smote the god, and Isid Iooo IoooE perished in smoke and blue fire.
Whether Man perished also, who can say? It is long since Man was seen in the Land of Zed, but then he was ever wont to vanish when the mood took him. Of the lost citadel in the mountains, overgrown with roses, who shall say who guards it? Of the little poisoned arrows, slaying in the twilight, who shall say who sends them? Of the rain-washed roads, wandering among forgotten towns, who shall say whose tracks are there?
But it may be that all these things now are passed, for they are things of long ago, when the Universe was old and there were more gods.
AFTERWORD
This is a story about which I cannot say anything of real substance. On its first publication, the word
Let us say you have this microwave, one that will scarcely hold a sixteen-inch frozen pizza. With a maser, you could make it a great big house-sized thing you might induce a proofreader to walk into. . . .
Oh, never mind!
ON THE TRAIN
W
hen I look out the window, the earth seems to have become liquid, rushing to flow over a falls that is always just behind the last car. Wherever that may be. The telephone poles reel like drunks, losing their footing. The mountains, white islands in the fluid landscape, track us for miles, the hills breaking to snow on their beaches.
The entire universe can be contained in three questions, of which the first two are: How long is the train? And from what station does it originate?
I do not remember boarding, although my mother, who was here in the compartment with us until a moment ago, told me she recalled it very well. I was helped on by a certain doctor, she said. I would go up and down the cars looking for him (and her), but one cannot thus look for a doctor without arousing the anxiety of the other passengers or exciting their suspicions. Certainly, however, I did not get on at the station of origin; my mother told me that she herself had already been riding for over thirty years.
The porter’s name is Flip; he was once my dog, a smooth fox terrier. Now he makes our berths and brings coffee and knows more about the train than any of us. He can answer all the unimportant questions, although his answers are so polite it is hard to tell sometimes just what he means. My wife and I (all the children we helped aboard have gone to other cars) would like to make him sit with us. But he threatens to call his uncle, the Dawn Guard.
I have formed several conjectures concerning the length of the train. It is surely either very long or very short, since when it goes around a curve (which it seldom does) I cannot see the engine. Possibly it is infinite—but it may be of a closed as well as an open infinity. If the track were extended ever westward, forming a Great Circle, and all that track were filled with cars, would not the spinning earth rush past them endlessly? That is precisely what I see from the window. On the other hand, if straight trackage were laid (and most of it does seem to be straight) it would extend forever among the stars. I see that too. Perhaps I do not see the engine because the engine is behind us.
