“There has been some land of change,” the doctor whispered. “My best remedies have ceased to work, and many babies bud off dead or twisted. Also there is a taint in this year’s nuts, and it seems to drive folk mad. If I had more courage I too would go where Thorn has gone … Pay me nothing for the care of your man. Promise only to send news of what they have found out in that ice-bound country. It is a place of ancient wisdom which the sacerdotes interdicted, saying it was dream-stuff. I think they were in error in that also.”
Now Jing, so weary he too was having trouble telling dream from fact, was come to Castle Thorn at the head of the warm channel. The fog parted. The moon was rising, gibbous in its third quarter, and as usual its dark part sparkled.
II
If Forb was old, then Castle Thorn was antique. Guarding the entrance to a bowl-shaped valley, it loomed as large as a city in its own right—not that its whole bulk could be seen from the outcrop of rock serving it as a wharf, despite the glowplants which outlined it at a distance, for its defenses were elaborate and far-reaching. On either bank bomas trembled ready to collapse their spiky branches, while masses of clingweed parted only in response to blasting on a high-pitched whistle. Prongsmen came to hitch the barq’s mooring-tentacles, accompanied by enormous canifangs.
Just before docking Jing had realized that a range of hills on the horizon was gleaming pure white in the moonshine. He had said, “Snow already?”
And the steersman had grunted, “Always.”
So there truly was a place where ice might defy summer. For the first time Jing felt in his inmost tubules how far he was from home.
But there was no time for reflection. A voice was calling to him in city-Forbish: “Hail to the foreigner! I’m told your prongsman is sick. As soon as he’s ashore I’ll see what I can do for him. I’m Scholar Twig, by the way.”
Who was a person of advanced years, his tubby shortness—characteristic of these northerners—aggravated by loss of pressure in his bracing tubules, but his expression alert and manner brisk. Grateful, for Twig was the name the doctor had told him to ask for, Jing returned the greeting.
“How you know I coming?” he demanded.
“Oh, you’ve made news over half the continent,” was the prompt reply. “Sorry we don’t have anyone around who speaks Ntahish, but until you showed up most people thought your homeland was just a legend, you know? Say, is it true you have star-maps going back to the Beginning? How soon can I look at them?”
Groping his way through the rush of words, Jing recalled the protocol which attended ambassadors to Ntah.
“Not I must at once pay respect the lord?”
“He’s dining in the great hall. You’ll meet him in a little. First let me present my colleagues. This is Hedge, this is Bush, this is—”
It was impossible to register so many strangers when he was so fatigued. “But my man-at-arms…?” he ventured.
“Ah, what am I thinking of? Of course, we must get him and you to quarters right away!”
Detailing some junior aides to carry Drakh, Twig led the way at half a trot.
Jing could have wished to move more slowly, because nothing had prepared him for the luxury he discerned all about him. The very stones were warm underpad. The gnarled trunks of the castle were thicker than any he had ever seen, and even at this season they were garlanded with scores of useful secondary plants. Steaming ponds rippled to the presence of fish, while fruit he had not tasted the like of since leaving home dangled from overhanging boughs, and everywhere trailed luminescent vines. Through gaps between the boles, as he ascended branchways in Twig’s wake, he caught glimpses of a landscape which reminded him achingly of parts of Ntah. He had thought in terms of a mere clawhold on survival, but the valley must support a considerable population. He saw three villages, each with a score of homes, surrounded by barns and clamps large enough to store food for a year—and that was only on one side of the castle. Amazing! His spirits rose.