Part 8 (2/2)

'That is natural. Your horse is being well looked after. Our young men have never seen a horse, yet Selah rode him like a centaur to bring you home. It makes one inclined to believe in genetic memory.'

'You are speaking in riddles.'

'Yes. And I am tiring you. Rest now, and we will talk in the morning.'

Shannow drifted back into darkness and awoke to find a young woman by his bed. She helped him to eat some broth and bathed his body with water-cooled cloths. After she had gone, Karitas returned.

'I see you are feeling better - your colour is good, Mr Shannow.' The old man called out and two younger men ducked into the Fever Hole. 'Help Mr Shannow out into the sunlight. It will do him good.'

Together they lifted the naked man and carried him up out of the hole, laying him on a blanket under a wide shade made from interwoven leaves. Several children were playing nearby, and they stopped to watch the stranger. Shannow glanced around; there were more than thirty huts in view and to his right a shallow stream bubbled over pink and blue stones.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Karitas. 'I love this place. If it wasn't for the Carns, this would be paradise.'

'The Carns?'

'The cannibals, Mr Shannow.'

'Yes, I remember.'

'Sad, really. The Elders did it to them, polluted the land and the sea. The Carns should have died; they came here two hundred years ago when the plagues began. I wasn't in this area then, or I could have warned them to stay clear. The stones used to gleam at night and no animal could survive. We still suffer a high incidence of cancer, but the main effects seem to be on the brain and the glandular system. With some, they become atavistic.

Others develop rare ESPer powers. While some of us just seem to live for ever.'

Shannow decided the man was mad and closed his eyes against the pain in his temple.

'My dear chap,' said Karitas, 'forgive me. Ella, fetch the coca.'

A young woman came forward bearing a wooden bowl in which dark liquid swirled. 'Drink that, Mr Shannow.' He did as he was bid. The drink was bitter and he almost choked, but within seconds the pain in his head dulled and disappeared.

There, that's the ticket. I took the liberty, Mr Shannow, of going through your things and I see you are a Bible-reading man.'

'Yes. You?'

'I have been while you lay ill. It's a long time since I have seen a Bible. I'm not surprised it survived the Fall; it was a best-seller every day of every year. There were more Bibles than people, I shouldn't wonder.'

'You are not a believer, then?'

'On the contrary, Mr Shannow. Anyone who watches a world die is liable to be converted at rare speed.'

Shannow sat up. 'Every time you speak, I almost get a grip on what you are saying, and then you soar away somewhere. Lugers, Colts, tickets ... I don't understand any of it.'

'And why should you, my boy? Does not the Bible say, ”For behold I shall create a new heaven and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered; nor come into mind””?'

That's the first thing you've said that I have understood. What happened to the wagons?'

'What wagons, Mr Shannow?'

'I was with a convoy.'

'I know nothing of them, but when you are well you can find them.'

'Your name is familiar to me,' said Shannow, 'but I cannot place it.'

'Karitas. Greek for love. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Karitas - charity, love . . . You recall?'

'My father used to use it,' said Shannow, smiling. 'I remember. Faith, Hope and Karitas.

Yes.'

'You should smile more often, Mr Shannow; it becomes you well. Tell me, sir, why did you risk your life for my little ones?'

Shannow shrugged. 'If that question needs an answer, then I cannot supply it. I had no choice.'

'I have decided that I like you, Mr Shannow. The children here call you the Thunder-maker and they think you may be a G.o.d. They know I am. They think you are the G.o.d of death.'

'I am a man, Karitas. You know that, tell them.'

'Divinity is not a light gift to throw away, Mr Shannow. You will feature in their legends until the end of time -hurling thunderbolts at the Carns, rescuing their princes. One day they will probably pray to you.'

'That would be blasphemy.'

'Only if you took it seriously. But then you are no Caligula. Are you hungry?'

'Your chatter makes my head spin. How long have you been here?'

'In this camp? Eleven years, more or less. And you must forgive my chatter, Mr Shannow. I am one of the last men of a lost race and sometimes my loneliness is colossal. I have discovered answers here to mysteries that have baffled men for a thousand years. And there is no one I would wish to tell. All I have is this small tribe who were once Eskimos and now are merely food for the Carns. It is all too galling, Mr Shannow.'

'Where are you from, Karitas?'

'London, Mr Shannow.'

'Is that north, south, what?'

'By my calculations, sir, it is north, and sits under a million tons of ice waiting to be discovered in another millennium.'

Shannow gave up and lay back on the blanket, allowing sleep to wash over him.

Mad though he undoubtedly was, Karitas organized the village with spectacular efficiency and was obviously revered by the villagers. Shannow lay on his blankets in the shade and watched the village life pa.s.sing him by. The huts were all alike - rectangular and built of mud and logs with roofs slanting down and overhanging the main doors. The roofs themselves appeared to be constructed from interwoven leaves and dried gra.s.s. They were st.u.r.dy buildings, without ostentation. To the east of the village was a large log cabin, which Karitas explained held the winter stores, and beside it was the wood store - seven feet high and fifteen feet deep. The winter, Karitas told him, was particularly harsh here on the plain.

On outlying hills Shannow could see flocks of sheep and goats, and these he was told were communal property. Life seemed relaxed and without friction in Karitas' village.

The people themselves were friendly, and any that pa.s.sed where Shannow lay would bow and smile. They were not like any people Shannow had come across so far in his wanderings; their skin was dull gold and their eyes wide-set and almost slanted. The women were mostly taller than the men, and beautifully formed; several were pregnant.

There seemed few old people, until Shannow realized their huts were in the western sector, nearest the stream and protected from the harsh north winds by a rising slope at the rear of the dwellings.

The men were stocky and carried weapons of curious design, bows of horn and knives of dark flint. Day by day Shannow came to know individual villagers, especially the boy Selah and a young sloe-eyed maid named Curopet, who would sit by him and gaze at his face, saying nothing. Her presence unsettled the Jerusalem Man, but he could not find the words to send her away.

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