Fantastic Stories Presents: Fantasy Super Pack #1. Fritz Leiber
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inadvertently overturned a tank plant on herself. After her was brought Alaskon the Navigator, a middle-aged man only a few years younger than Honath himself; he was tied up next to Honath, where he settled down at once, chewing at a joint of cane with apparent indifference.
Thus far, the gathering had proceeded without more than a few words being spoken, but that ended when the guards tried to bring Seth the Needlesmith from the nets. He could be heard at once, over the entire distance to the glade, alternately chattering and shrieking in a mixture of tones that might mean either fear or fury. Everyone in the glade but Alaskon turned to look, and heads emerged from purses like new butterflies from cocoons.
A moment later, Seth’s guards came over the lip of the glade in a tangled group, now shouting themselves. Somewhere in the middle of the knot Seth’s voice became still louder; obviously he was clinging with all five members to any vine or frond he could grasp, and was no sooner pried loose from one than he would leap by main force, backwards if possible, to another. Nevertheless he was being brought inexorably down into the arena, two feet forward, one foot back, three feet forward. . . .
Honath’s guards resumed picking their pine-cones. During the disturbance, Honath realized Charl the Reader had been brought in quietly from the same side of the glade. He now sat opposite Alaskon, looking apathetically down at the vine-web, his shoulders hunched forward. He exuded despair; even to look at him made Honath feel a renewed shudder.
From the High Seat, the Spokesman said: “Honath the Pursemaker, Alaskon the Navigator, Charl the Reader, Seth the Needlesmith Mathild the Forager, you are called to answer to justice.”
“Justice!” Seth shouted, springing free of his captors with a tremendous bound and bringing up with a jerk on the end of his tether. “This is no justice! I have nothing to do with—”
The guards caught up with him and clamped brown hands firmly over his mouth. The Spokesman watched with amused malice.
“The accusations are three,” the Spokesman said. “The first, the telling of lies to children. Second, the casting into doubt of the divine order among men. Third, the denial of the Book of Laws. Each of you may speak in order of age. Honath the Pursemaker, your plea may be heard.”
Honath stood up, trembling a little, but feeling a surprisingly renewed surge of his old independence.
“Your charges,” he said, “all rest upon the denial of the Book of Laws. I have taught nothing else that is contrary to what we all believe, and called nothing else into doubt. And I deny the charge.”
The Spokesman looked down at him with disbelief. “Many men and women have said that you do not believe in the Giants, pursemaker,” he said. “You will not win mercy by piling up more lies.”
“I deny the charge,” Honath insisted. “I believe in the Book of Laws as a whole, and I believe in the Giants. I have taught only that the Giants were not real in the sense that we are real. I have taught that they were intended as symbols of some higher reality and were not meant to be taken as literal persons.”
“What higher reality is this?” the Spokesman demanded. “Describe it.”
“You ask me to do something the writers of the Book of Laws themselves couldn’t do,” Honath said hotly. “If they had to embody the reality in symbols rather than writing it down directly, how could a mere pursemaker do better?”
“This doctrine is wind,” the Spokesman said. “And it is plainly intended to undercut authority and the order established by the Book. Tell me, pursemaker: if men need not fear the Giants, why should they fear the law?”
“Because they are men, and it is to their interest to fear the law. They aren’t children, who need some physical Giant sitting over them with a whip to make them behave. Furthermore, Spokesman, this archaic belief itself undermines us. As long as we believe that there are real Giants, and that some day they’ll return and resume teaching us, so long will we fail to seek answers to our questions for ourselves. Half of what we know was given to us in the Book, and the other half is supposed to drop to us from the skies if we wait long enough. In the meantime, we vegetate.”
“If a part of the Book be untrue, there can be nothing to prevent that it is all untrue,” the Spokesman said heavily. “And we will lose even what you call the half of our knowledge—which is actually the whole of it—to those who see with clear eyes.”
Suddenly, Honath lost his temper. “Lose it, then!” he shouted. “Let us unlearn everything we know only by rote, go back to the beginning, learn all over again, and continue to learn, from our own experience. Spokesman, you are an old man, but there are still some of us who haven’t forgotten what curiosity means!”
“Quiet!” the Spokesman said. “We have heard enough. We call on Alaskon the Navigator.”
“Much of the Book is clearly untrue,” Alaskon said flatly, rising. “As a handbook of small trades it has served us well. As a guide to how the universe is made, it is nonsense, in my opinion; Honath is too kind to it. I’ve made no secret of what I think, and I still think it.”
“And will pay for it,” the Spokesman said, blinking slowly down at Alaskon. “Charl the Reader.”
“Nothing,” Charl said, without standing, or even looking up.
“You do not deny the charges?”
“I’ve nothing to say,” Charl said, but then, abruptly, his head jerked up, and he glared with desperate eyes at the Spokesman. “I can read, Spokesman. I have seen words in the Book of Laws that contradict each other. I’ve pointed them out. They’re facts, they exist on the pages. I’ve taught nothing, told no lies, preached no unbelief. I’ve pointed to the facts. That’s all.”
“Seth the Needlesmith, you may speak now.”
The guards took their hands gratefully off Seth’s mouth; they had been bitten several times in the process of keeping him quiet up to now. Seth resumed shouting at once.
“I’m no part of this group! I’m the victim of gossip, envious neighbors, smiths jealous of my skill and my custom! No man can say worse of me than that I sold needles to this pursemaker—sold them in good faith! The charges against me are lies, all lies!”
Honath jumped to his feet in fury, and then sat down again, choking back the answering shout almost without tasting its bitterness. What did it matter? Why should he bear witness against the young man? It would not help the others, and if Seth wanted to lie his way out of Hell, he might as well be given the chance.
The Spokesman was looking down at Seth with the identical expression of outraged disbelief which he had first bent upon Honath. “Who was it cut the blasphemies into the hardwood tree, by the house of Hosi the Lawgiver?” he demanded. “Sharp needles were at work there, and there are witnesses to say that your hands held them.”
“More lies!”
“Needles found in your house fit the furrows, Seth.”
“They were not mine—or they were stolen! I demand to be freed!”
“You will be freed,” the Spokesman said coldly. There was no possible doubt as to what he meant. Seth began to weep and to shout at the same time. Hands closed over his mouth again. “Mathild the Forager, your plea may be heard.”
The young woman stood up hesitantly. Her fur was nearly dry now, but she was still shivering.
“Spokesman,” she said, “I saw the things which Charl the Reader showed me. I doubted, but what Honath said restored my belief. I see no harm in his teachings. They remove doubt, instead of fostering it as you say they do. I see no evil in them, and I don’t understand why this is a crime.”
Honath looked over to her with new admiration. The Spokesman sighed heavily.
“I am sorry for you,” he said, “but as Spokesman we cannot allow ignorance of the law as a plea. We will be merciful to you all, however. Renounce your heresy, affirm your belief in the Book as it is written