The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

Where should he begin? If Mara had been here, she would start a long way before he could, because his memories began when he ran away from the Rock Village with the two men who treated him so badly. There were children in the room, who had been promised stories. He could not tell about some of the ways he had been mistreated to children. He began his tale with the dust drifts and dried rivers, with the bones of dead animals lying in heaps where floods had carried them earlier. He saw the children’s faces grow dubious, and then a child began crying, hushed by its mother. Dann told of how he had hidden behind a broken wall and saw carried past on the shoulders of porters wooden cages that had in them captives from a war who would be sold in the slave markets. And a child cried out and its mother took him out.

‘I see’, said Dann, smiling in a shamefaced, desperate way, ‘that my memories are not for children.’

‘Yes, I think so too,’ said another mother.

And so Dann’s memories emerged softened and some became comic. When he heard his audience laughing for the first time he felt he could laugh himself, with relief.

Then things became serious again when he said he had met travellers who said that his sister was alive in the Rock Village, and he made his way south, when everyone was running north. He evaded the places where it seemed everything was burning, even the soil, saw the gold and red of the fires flickering through the hills, and found Mara, so near death she was like an old monkey, with filthy matted lumps of hair he had to scrape off with his knife, and skin stretched tight over her bones.

And now, as he told of their journey northwards through all those dangers, they all forgot he had none of the storytellers’ skill: he was speaking slowly, as he remembered, so deep in his past that they leaned forward to catch every word.

He reached to where he pushed the sky-skimmers up and down the ridges, and had to stop, to explain sky-skimmers.

‘They came originally from the museums of the Centre,’ he said, and described them. Machines that had been able to fly once, but, grounded from lack of knowledge and the fuel they needed, became conveyances for travellers able to pay.

They saw he seemed to crouch there before them, imagining how he had pushed the machines up and down the ridges – imagining Mara there, with him.

He stopped, seeing it was late and some children were asleep.

He lay in his bed. Durk, who was across the room, said, ‘Did all that really happen to you?’

‘Yes, and much more, much worse.’

But he had realised he could not tell them some of his experiences. They would be shocked and hurt by them.

In the day he roamed around, and saw off the western shore the white skeletons of trees sticking up from the sea and around each trunk the fish nosing. They liked these dead trees. Some still green trees were half submerged, the salt water whitening their branches.

He and Durk stood there together, and Dann said, ‘The water is rising fast.’

And Durk said, ‘Oh, no, you are exaggerating.’

At night Dann told of the water dragons and the land dragons, and heard his audience laugh, and had to say, ‘But you have lizards here, don’t you? – all kinds of lizard. So why not really big ones?’

But there was always a point in his recitals when his audience was not with him. They did not believe him. Their imaginations had gone fat and soft with the comfort of their lives.

What they liked best were tales of the Mahondi house in Chelops, and the girls in their pretty coloured dresses, preparing herbs in the courtyard, and how they tended the milk beasts.

He said nothing about the horrors of the Towers of Chelops. What he remembered hurt him to think of, and yet he knew he had forgotten the really bad parts.

He said how Mara had come into the Towers to rescue him, and how he had been nursed back to health by a woman who knew about herbs and healing. They could not get enough of all that, and he never told them that this idyll of lovely living had ended in civil war and exile.

Soon he was off again, with Durk, to another island, which was like the first, with small quiet towns, and inns that were full of people in the evenings. Durk said this ought to be a short visit, because he wanted to get married. He and his girl had been promised their room. The custom was that the new couple was accompanied after a celebration to their room, which was kept decorated with boughs and flowers for a full month. Then, if either wished to end it, there was no criticism or opprobrium, but if they stayed together they were considered bound and there were penalties for frivolous or lightly considered severance. But really Durk seemed content enough to linger on this island, where he had not been before. It was large, with a stream that provided sport and fishing: otherwise there were no novelties. All the islands were the same, Durk said, as far as he knew. Why should they be any different? He had not remarked, it seemed, that the islands being all the same suggested a long, stable history. When Dann pointed this out he was struck by it and said, yes, he supposed this must be so. He was so incurious, Dann was often impatient. Nothing in these beautiful islands was ever questioned. When he asked about an island’s history, the reply was vague: ‘We have always been here.’ What does that mean, always, Dann asked, at first, but then did not bother.

He, too, liked this island and then Durk pointed out that they had been here so long people were asking if they intended to make their home there. And Dann’s tales in the evenings at the inns were becoming repetitious. They moved on, and then again, from island to island, always moving nearer to the north shore’s ice cliffs. Durk did make rueful jokes about his girl – that she would have found another man by now. He stayed with Dann because, as he said, ‘You make me think, Dann.’ And on the last island there was plenty to make Dann think too.

In the inn there on the walls of the common-room were two maps, just as there had been in Chelops. But these two were of when the Middle Sea had been full of water, and of how it was now. Goatskins had been stitched together and stretched. On the first were islands, big ones, which were the tops of those that could be seen now, mountains reaching high up, to the level of the cliffs. Sticking out into the sea from the north shore were promontories and fringes of land. One was long and thin, like a leg. The person who had made this map ‘long, long ago’ had drawn little boats balancing on steep waves. At one end to the west were the Rocky Gates, but they stood apart, with sea between. On the other end, to the east, was the word ‘Unknown’. There were towns indicated all around this sea.

The other map was of the Middle Sea, as it had been before the Ice began to melt. Cities crowded all over the bottom – and they were here now, far down under these new waves. So these people did know that there had been cities – but when asked, some said that the artist must have had a fine imagination. Who was he, she – who were they? The maps were skilful, much finer than those back in Chelops, which had been crude. (And where were those maps now, after fire and fighting? Did they still survive, and did the new people see them and understand what they said?)

You had to have an eye to read a map – as Dann discovered when he found that Durk could not make sense of them. Dann stood there, with Durk, using a clean stick to show how this ragged shape was that island – ‘Over there – do you see?’ – this black charcoal line the shore. Durk was reduced to sighing wondering incoherence, standing there, watching Dann’s patient indicator. And he was not the only one. Others in the common-room, seeing them there, came to stand and marvel at the maps they had known all their lives but never understood, maps that had not been used to teach children. Those that could read them had not instructed those who could not. Here was this incuriosity again, that made Dann uneasy.

‘See here’ – and his stick pointed at where they were now, the group of islands scattered across the sea, from the southern shore to near the northern shore. ‘This is where we are now. Once these were just little bumps at the bottom of the dry Middle Sea.’ And will be again, he stopped himself saying, for this kind of thing was making people fear him.

Already his reputation as a know-all and a show-off was growing. His tales about his life – not everyone believed them, though they laughed and applauded.

As for Dann, his mind was hurt by the enormity of it all. Yes, he knew the Middle Sea had been full and fresh, and ships went everywhere over it, and now it was nearly empty; yes, he had joked with Mara about the ‘thousands’ and the ‘millions’ that it was not really possible for their minds to grasp, let alone hold. But now, standing on land protruding from the Bottom Sea that had once been deep under it, when the seabirds cried over the waves, and disappeared, that was how he felt: who was Dann? – standing here where …

Once this enormous gash in the earth’s surface had been filled with water. So, it had boiled away in some frenzy of heat, or it had frozen into a great pit of snow and then some unimaginable wind storm had carried the snow away? All at once? Surely, over – here he went again – thousands of years.

A sea, sparkling and lively, like the one he looked at now through the windows of the inn, but high above his head, at the level of the top of the cliffs where he had walked and would walk again and then – gone, gone, and his mind felt hurt, or something was hurting, and – he saw Durk, frowning up at the maps and turning a doubtful face to him. ‘Tell me again, Dann, it’s so hard to take in, isn’t it?’

Then, seeing his interest in the maps, the inn’s proprietress, the young woman, Marianthe, showed Dann something he did not understand, at first. Standing against a wall in the common-room was a large slab of white rock, about the thickness of half his hand, very heavy, covered on one side in a story. There were men, of a kind Dann had never seen, smiling faces with pointed curling beards, and expressions of crafty cleverness. They wore garments held with metal clasps, much worked. The women had elaborate black curls framing the same crafty smiling faces, and their garments were twisted and folded, and one breast was bare. They wore necklaces and bracelets, and ornaments in their hair. To look at them was to know how very far these people were above anybody that lived now – as far as he knew – and he had after all seen many different people. Perhaps it was these people who had made all the things in the Centre no one knew now how to use? Who were they? – he asked Marianthe, who said, ‘It was a long time ago.’ Neither did anyone know where the white slab had come from. That it had been a long time in the water could be seen; the sharp edges of the carved figures had been dulled. So it had been pulled up out of the water, at some time, somewhere, or fallen over the cliff with the melting ice.

Marianthe was as intrigued by the people on the slab as Dann was. And looking at her, it was at once evident how fascinated she was. She was tall, she was slim, she had black hair in curls around her face, for she modelled herself on the women carved on the slab. She was paler than anybody Dann had seen, who was not an Alb. And her face, though not fine and subtle like the smiling slab women, did have a look of them. She had a long, thin, always smiling mouth and long, narrow, observing eyes. She was the widow of a seaman drowned not long ago in a storm. She did not seem oppressed by this fatality, but laughed and made fun with her customers, who were mostly seamen, for this island was the base of the main fishing fleet. And she liked Dann, giving him not only his food and shelter but herself, when she had heard his tales of ‘up there’. She laughed at him, knew that he was making it all up, but said her husband had liked a good tale and told them well. Dann was telling them well by now, with so much practice.

Durk meanwhile went out with the fishing fleet. He was not jealous, but said that now Dann had found this easy berth, he should stay in it.

Dann was tempted to do just that. This woman was quick and clever, like Kira, but not unkind; seductive, like Kira, but did not use her power. How could he do better than stay with this prize of a woman, down here on the islands of the Bottom Sea, with the aromatic forests, and where it was hard rock underfoot, never marshy and sodden. But he had promised Griot – hadn’t he? Well, who was Griot that Dann had to honour a promise he felt had been pressured out of him? But Griot was waiting for him. And at the Farm Mara did too – although she did slide into another man’s arms every night to sleep.

‘Stay with me, Dann,’ coaxed Marianthe, winding her long limbs around him.

‘I can’t,’ he conscientiously replied. ‘There are people waiting for me to come back.’

‘Who, who, Dann? Are you married? Who is she?’

‘No, I am not married,’ said Dann – but could not bring himself to say, ‘I have a child – you see, there’s a child,’ which would have settled it.

To say that would have acknowledged Kira who, with every day, seemed to Dann more of a lump of showy charms displayed like a visual equivalent of ‘Look at me! Look at me!’. Well, he was very young when he first fell for Kira, he tried to excuse himself and knew he could not then have imagined a woman as delightful, as candid, as subtly clever as Marianthe. Whom he would have to leave … yes, he must … yes, soon … but not yet.

First, he wanted to see the ice cliffs that so haunted his mind and called to him. This island was the last inhabited one. Within sight, on the horizon, was another, a half-day’s rowing away, uninhabited, though it had been once, and abandoned because of the cracking and roaring of the falling ice. From there, he was sure, he could get close enough to see what he so acutely imagined. No one wanted to accompany him: they thought he was mad. Durk, though reluctantly, said he would go too. Young men taunted them for being foolhardy, a little envious perhaps, since none of them had thought of going. Dann and Durk went quietly about preparations, and then four others said they would go. Durk, who had actually been planning to use his little boat, was now glad to leave it in favour of a bigger one that needed several rowers. ‘But we need six oarsmen,’ protested the four brave ones and Dann said that he had earned his living once as a boatman.

Marianthe’s eyes never left Dann that last evening, and in bed she held him and said, loudly, to reach the ears of some god of the islands, that she was being expected to sacrifice another man to the sea. And she wept and kissed the scars on Dann’s body.

It was a clear morning when they left, six strong young men in the fishing boat, that had its nets and pots removed. Instead there was food and piles of goat rugs. They rowed all morning, to the north, to the island which as it neared showed itself standing clear of the waves, well-wooded and, in the sunlight, inviting. They pulled the boat up on a beach and went into the interior where at once they found an abandoned town that was already falling down. They put their gear into a house that had shutters that could be fixed across the windows, and a door that could be barred. They had glimpsed on the edge of the wood a snow dog, standing watching them – and then another. It was a pack, which had decided to stay here on this island and not make the effort to cross. And indeed, it was hard to see how the others had made the trip; it would be a dangerous swim for any snow dog, no matter how strong.

Then the six walked carefully to the northern end of the island, not speaking, because the sound of crashing ice, cracking ice, groaning ice, was so loud. No wonder the people had left here.

There was a beach there, and bollards that had once held boats safe. They were staring across a white sea at what looked like icy clouds, shining white, higher than any had imagined the Ice could be, and behind them were taller reaches of white. They were staring at the ice cliffs of Yerrup, that seemed undiminished, in spite of how they cracked and fell. As they gazed, a portion of the lower shining mass groaned and fell, and slid into the waves, leaving a dark scarred cliff which from here looked like a black gap on the white. Although they were far away, the noise was unpleasant and any remark anyone made was silenced by a fresh roar of complaint from the packed and ancient snows.

‘There,’ said Durk, ‘now you have seen it.’

‘I want to go closer,’ said Dann in an interval in the noise. At once the others, all five at once, expostulated. And as he persisted, went on protesting.

‘Then I shall go by myself,’ said Dann. ‘I can manage the boat.’

This put them on the spot. He could not be allowed to go alone, and yet they were afraid and their faces showed it. And it was frightening, standing there, the sea chopping about so close, disturbed by the blocks of falling ice and behind them the dark woods, where they knew a pack of snow dogs was bound to be watching them, and probably wondering if it were safe to attack. There couldn’t be so much food here, not enough to keep a pack of large animals well fed.

Clouds slid across the sky and without sunlight it was a dismal scene.

‘Why don’t we spend the night here?’ said Dann. ‘We’ve got plenty of food. And then you decide if you’ll come with me.’

This was taunting them; he had a small, not very pleasant grin on his face. They would have to come with him. Otherwise back on their island it would be said they had left Dann to challenge danger alone.

Durk said, ‘Yes, why don’t we sleep on it? And if the sea is bad tomorrow morning, then we’ll forget it – eh, Dann?’

Dann shrugged.

They walked back on an overgrown path and caught sight of the big white animals keeping level with them. They were pleased to get inside the house, start a fire with the driftwood that still was stacked in a corner, light the rush lights they had brought, and eat.

Durk asked Dann where he had been a boatman. He told them of the boat on the River Cong, the river dragons and the old woman Han, and the sun trap. They listened, sometimes exchanging glances, so that they could not be thought gullible, believing these tall tales. When Dann got to the place where the war had filled the water with corpses, he left all that out; exactly as, talking to children, he softened and made pleasant, so now he felt that this innocence should be spared. These were good, peaceful people who had never known war.

They slept, without a guard, knowing the shutters and the door were solid, though they could hear the animals roaming about and testing the entrances.

In the morning the sky was clear and Dann said, ‘If the sea is all right, I’m going.’

They walked to the landing place and this time the animals openly accompanied them.

‘They want us to help them across the sea,’ said Dann.

‘Let them want,’ said one of the lads, and the others agreed. Dann said nothing.

At the sea’s edge the waves were no worse than yesterday, choppy and brisk, but Dann went to the boat without looking to see if the others came too and pushed it out; then they did join him. They were sulky, resistant, and Dann knew they hated him.

Dann was soon rowing fast, straight towards the nearest cliffs. The sun was burning their faces and shoulders, and now they could see slabs of ice lying along the bottom of the cliffs, and they were rowing between blocks of ice like houses.

Still Dann went on. The noise was frightful today, a cacophony of ice complaints, and Dann shouted, ‘Stop!’ as they saw the cliff nearest to them shed its ice load in a long single movement like a shrug to remove a weight. Now they were close, too close, to a tall shining cliff face, bare of ice, though water was bounding down, off rocks, in freshets and rivers, and the sea was rocking and rearing so badly that the boat was in danger of overturning. They were clutching the sides and calling out, while Dann was yelling with exultation, for this was what he had dreamed of, and it was what he was seeing – there were the ice cliffs of Yerrup and the sounds they made as they fell was like many voices, all at once, shouting, groaning, screaming – and then, crack, another ice face was peeling off, and Dann found that the others had turned the boat and it was rocking its way back to the shore, a long, dangerous way off. ‘No,’ cried Dann. ‘No, I want to stay,’ but Durk said, across the noise, ‘We are leaving, Dann.’

And so Dann, in the back of the boat, sat staring at the retreating ice cliffs. And before they reached shore and safety, a large block of ice that shone blue and green and dusky pink was coming straight for them. To get out of its way they all had to row, Dann too, and then sat resting on their oars to watch it rock past.

They reached the shore and the waiting snow dogs.

Dann was white-faced and miserable. He wanted more, more, and closer, and he knew these men would not give him what he wanted.

He was thinking they were cowards. These were soft people, on these islands. Tender living had made them so. Well, he would talk in the inn of the wonders of the creaking and sliding cliffs, and use what was left of his money to pay others to go with him.

Dann stood on the shore, gazing at the cliffs, at the black places on the white cliffs, and wondered how long the ice had clung to those frozen sides, how long had it taken to form. He did not know, could not know; he was back in the realm of ‘long, long ago’ and the bitterness of it. He wanted so badly to know … surely answers could be found if only he could go further into the cliffs and then along them, and perhaps even climb up on to the ice and see – what would he see? For one thing, how did the snow dogs survive in all that wilderness of ice? How did they come down the cliffs? He stood and stared and the others, pulling up the boat and making it safe, sent wondering looks at him. There were tears on his face. This was a strange one, this Dann, they might have been saying aloud.

It was latish in the day, the sun would soon be gone behind the cliffs. It would be better to spend the night and go early tomorrow.

And so they did. They did not ask Dann for more of his tales, but first Durk, then the others, treated him gently, because of the unhappiness in his face.

‘Dann,’ said Durk, in consolation, as they lay down on their goatskins to sleep. ‘You did it, didn’t you? You saw what you wanted?’

And Dann said, as if to a child, ‘Yes, I did, you’re right, I did see them.’

Next morning, when they had eaten and left the house clean and tidy, they went out and a pack of snow dogs was sitting about, looking at them.

‘Are we going to give some of them a lift over?’ said Dann, and at once the others said, ‘No, we aren’t.’ And ‘Let them swim’ and ‘There’s no room in the boat’.

As they walked to the boat, Dann saw an old abandoned craft, large, that did not seem to be holed, or useless. Without asking the others, he put rope that he always carried with him into its prow and pulled, and then Durk helped. Dann and Durk pushed the boat on to the waves and Dann tied it to their boat.

The dogs crowded closer, seeming to know what was being done.

The young men got on to their boat and were ready to row, their faces, all but Durk’s, critical and sullen.

‘The dogs won’t stay on this island,’ said Dann. ‘They always want to go on.’

‘They’ll drown, if that boat sinks,’ said one.

A bold snow dog jumped into the boat, then another, and then there were five in the boat. Others hung back, afraid.

‘You’ll have to wait a long time,’ said Durk to them, laughing. ‘No one’s going to come back here if they can help it.’

But the big animals whined and moved about on the sand, and could not make themselves get on to the boat.

The first boat set off, all of them rowing, and the boat with the dogs followed on the rope.

The water was very cold. Surely any dog attempting that swim must drown?

The waves were tall and sharp, and seemed to be attacking the boat. The winds were belligerent. They had not gone more than a short way when one dog jumped into the sea to swim back. They watched it, but the waves were too high and soon they could not see it.