Read Online Viriconium by Michael John Harrison - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Michael John Harrison
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girls. And behind the three Methven, Grif’s men had begun to chant a rhythmic Rivermouth song of forgotten meaning, “The Dead Freight Dirge”:
Burn them up and sow them deep:
Oh, Drive them down ;
Heavy weather in the Fleet:
Oh, Drive them down ;
Oh, Sow them deep ;
Withering wind and plodding feet:
Oh, Drive them down!
Its effect on Cromis was hypnotic: as the syllables rolled, he found himself sinking into a reverie of death and spoliation, haunted by grey, translucent images of a shattered Viriconium. The face of Methvet Nian hung before him, in the grip of some deep but undefinable sorrow. He knew he could not go to her. He was aware of the metal bird of Cellur, gyring and hovering high above him as he rode, the embodiment of a threat he could not name.
He was sinking deeper, like a man in a drug dream, when Grif reined in his mare and called his men to a halt.
“Here we leave the Old North Road,” he said. “There’s our way: direct but unpleasant.”
Before them, the road turned abruptly west and was lost to sight behind the black terminal massif of Low Leedale Edge; from there, it found its way to the coast and began the long journey north.
But straight ahead among the bracken and coarse grass at the mouth of the valley ran a narrow track. Fifty yards from the road, the heather failed, and the terrain became brown, faintly iridescent bog streaked with slicks of purple and oily yellow. Beyond that rose thickets of strangely shaped trees. The river meandered through it, slow and broad, flanked by dense reedbeds of a bright ochre colour. The wind blew from the north, carrying a bitter, metallic smell.
“The Metal-Salt Marshes,” murmured Grif. He pointed to the reedbeds by the Minfolin. “Even in winter the colours are weird. In summer, they bemuse the brain. The birds and insects there are peculiar, too.”
“Some might find it beautiful,” said Cromis; and he did.
Theomeris Glyn snorted. He pinched his beaky nose. “It stinks, ” he said. “I wish I hadn’t come. I am an old man and deserve better.”
Grif smiled.
“This is just the periphery, greybeard. Wait until we reach the interior, and the water thickets.”
Where the valley bracken petered out, a dyke had been sunk to prevent the herd animals of Low Leedale from wandering into the bog. It was deep and steep-sided, full of stagnant water over which lay a multicoloured film of scum. They crossed it by a gated wooden bridge, the hooves of their horses clattering hollowly. Above them, Cellur’s lammergeyer was a black speck in the pale blue unclouded sky.
In the water thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminium and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ochre and burnt orange; through their tightly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted translucent crystal like alien fungi.
Charcoal grey frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining, ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of April blue and chevrolet cerise.
Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis’s mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jewelled mosquito hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay.
Grif drove his men hard,
Burn them up and sow them deep:
Oh, Drive them down ;
Heavy weather in the Fleet:
Oh, Drive them down ;
Oh, Sow them deep ;
Withering wind and plodding feet:
Oh, Drive them down!
Its effect on Cromis was hypnotic: as the syllables rolled, he found himself sinking into a reverie of death and spoliation, haunted by grey, translucent images of a shattered Viriconium. The face of Methvet Nian hung before him, in the grip of some deep but undefinable sorrow. He knew he could not go to her. He was aware of the metal bird of Cellur, gyring and hovering high above him as he rode, the embodiment of a threat he could not name.
He was sinking deeper, like a man in a drug dream, when Grif reined in his mare and called his men to a halt.
“Here we leave the Old North Road,” he said. “There’s our way: direct but unpleasant.”
Before them, the road turned abruptly west and was lost to sight behind the black terminal massif of Low Leedale Edge; from there, it found its way to the coast and began the long journey north.
But straight ahead among the bracken and coarse grass at the mouth of the valley ran a narrow track. Fifty yards from the road, the heather failed, and the terrain became brown, faintly iridescent bog streaked with slicks of purple and oily yellow. Beyond that rose thickets of strangely shaped trees. The river meandered through it, slow and broad, flanked by dense reedbeds of a bright ochre colour. The wind blew from the north, carrying a bitter, metallic smell.
“The Metal-Salt Marshes,” murmured Grif. He pointed to the reedbeds by the Minfolin. “Even in winter the colours are weird. In summer, they bemuse the brain. The birds and insects there are peculiar, too.”
“Some might find it beautiful,” said Cromis; and he did.
Theomeris Glyn snorted. He pinched his beaky nose. “It stinks, ” he said. “I wish I hadn’t come. I am an old man and deserve better.”
Grif smiled.
“This is just the periphery, greybeard. Wait until we reach the interior, and the water thickets.”
Where the valley bracken petered out, a dyke had been sunk to prevent the herd animals of Low Leedale from wandering into the bog. It was deep and steep-sided, full of stagnant water over which lay a multicoloured film of scum. They crossed it by a gated wooden bridge, the hooves of their horses clattering hollowly. Above them, Cellur’s lammergeyer was a black speck in the pale blue unclouded sky.
In the water thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminium and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ochre and burnt orange; through their tightly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted translucent crystal like alien fungi.
Charcoal grey frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining, ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of April blue and chevrolet cerise.
Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis’s mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jewelled mosquito hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay.
Grif drove his men hard,
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