THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

He was almost screaming with the fury of his visions, for the countless stars were crashing together in a colossal mass of flame, and the world itself was ripe to be their fuel.

Fuel—?

Abruptly he was back to normal consciousness, and wanted to say something quiet and ordinary, though perfused with unexpected insight, but he could not, for Shine was clutching his claw and crying at the top of his voice.

“I know now what the New Star signified! One is come among us who has wisdom we have never guessed! I’ll take the extra name and vow my service!”

“I too!” Old Twig was lowering himself, though his agony was plain. “You have united fire above and fire below and we must tell the world your teaching!”

Last, Rainbow, awkwardly, with her lopsided gait, drew close and said, “I vow the same. For what it’s worth I’ll bind my followers as well.”

There was a pause. She looked at him uncertainly and said at long last, “Jing…?”

The tempest of impressions was fading from his mind. He rose, a little shyly, as though embarrassed. She said again, “Jing!” And continued: “What did you see? What did you see?”

But it was useless to try and describe everything that had so briefly stormed into awareness. He said eventually, “If stars are fire, then new stars happen when fresh fuel is fed to them. What fuel is there, barring worlds like ours? If we would rather not be fuel for a star, there’s no one who can save us but ourselves … I’ve dreamed. It’s made me weary. I must rest.”

VII

That evening Rainbow sent for Keepfire to share food publicly with them and cement their compact, which the peasant did nervously yet with obvious glee. This act made Shine a formal enemy of the other sacerdotes; it was, however, scarcely necessary, since he had long disdained the asceticism they relied on to make their dreams vivid. Afterwards Jing found his companions hanging on his every word as though he were indeed the ultimately righteous person harbingered by the New Star. He did his best to dissuade them, but the force of his vision had profoundly affected them, and it was useless. He resigned himself to being adulated. When they pressed him for some new revelation, all he was able to say was what they must already have known: “It will be spring tomorrow.”

Further revelations from the sky, though, were delayed. Warm air from the south, drawn in by the constant thermals rising above the valley, met the still-frozen ground beyond the mountains, and fog and cloud veiled the sun. The ice which had temporarily blocked the access channel began to fracture with noises like a gigant snapping trees, and Jing was moderately content to occupy himself by preparing a detailed report of their discoveries for the doctor in Forb, which he planned to send south by the first barq of spring.

It arrived, and like the one which had brought him and Drakh, it carried a sick passenger.

Leaving Rainbow to polish his final draft, Jing went to the wharf to see the barq come in. He was unprepared to hear a voice hail him in Ntahish.

“It is the Honorable Jing? Here am I, Ah-ni Qat!”

Supported by two youthful aides, a boy and a girl, a stooped yet familiar figure limped ashore. Jing said disbelievingly, “The son of my dear friend the Vizier?”

For he remembered Qat as a sprightly youth, and this personage looked so old and moved so slowly … and his skin was patched with ugly scars.

“Indeed, indeed! All whiter I’ve struggled across this snowbound continent because at Forb I heard rumors concerning your whereabouts. I’d not have had the endurance to continue but that my father laid on me the duty of seeking you out and telling you: Ntah is no more!”

For an instant Jing stood frozen. Then he said uncertainly, “Young friend, you’re sick. You’re ruled by dreams.”

“Would that I were,” Qat whispered. “After your departure plague ran wild among us. Never were such horrors witnessed by a living eye! People died where they stood, their bodies fell into the lake and river until the water grew so foul the very fish were poisoned. Those who survived lost their reason and fled under the lash of horrid dreams. Most went south. I doubt they escaped like me and my companions. Our northern route must have saved us. It seems the plague loves heat.”

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