As the Beaker Folk rose from their sleep a strange sight met their eyes.
Through the Long Warm of the 20th-21st centuries they had become used to the idea that it would always be warmer. Eileen had been laying plans to use the newly-opening North West Passage to make a cheap holiday in Alaska, where she had one day expected to settle down and grow grapes and honeydew melons.
But now the strange revelation - after 200 years the Ice Sun had returned. With its little scary binary double, the Sherbert Star. And the Beaker People knew they now had a century of squally showers and slight frosts ahead of them.
Already, in the unexpected chill of this August morning, new creatures were gambolling in the fields of Husborne Crawley. The Vahadim, strange antelope-like creatures that looked a little like rabbits, broke from the leather pods in which they had hibernated the previous 3 trillion years under the Big Tree. They gave themselves up to a fury of mating - the willing females rushing from male to male - until within just one hour these beautiful yet delicate creatures - constructed only from lichen and gossamer - crawled into the hedges to die. Their offspring, already larger than their parents as they fed on the sandstone and dandelions, their leather pouches forming around them, burrowed their way back under the oak, there to sleep the sleep of millennia.
The Beaker People saw all this - saw the female Wodewose return from her Gap Century and be reunited with her mate - and knew things had changed. The world was renewed again - but as some things flourished others would surely suffer.
"OK people," said Archdruid Eileen. "It's all back into the Giant Prayer Wheel. You've all got five hundred years of pushing to do."
Somewhere in the Arctic, a polar bear climbed onto a newly-forming ice shelf with joy. While in the skies above, the occupants of the pointless explorer ship watched, and wondered.
Through the Long Warm of the 20th-21st centuries they had become used to the idea that it would always be warmer. Eileen had been laying plans to use the newly-opening North West Passage to make a cheap holiday in Alaska, where she had one day expected to settle down and grow grapes and honeydew melons.
But now the strange revelation - after 200 years the Ice Sun had returned. With its little scary binary double, the Sherbert Star. And the Beaker People knew they now had a century of squally showers and slight frosts ahead of them.
Already, in the unexpected chill of this August morning, new creatures were gambolling in the fields of Husborne Crawley. The Vahadim, strange antelope-like creatures that looked a little like rabbits, broke from the leather pods in which they had hibernated the previous 3 trillion years under the Big Tree. They gave themselves up to a fury of mating - the willing females rushing from male to male - until within just one hour these beautiful yet delicate creatures - constructed only from lichen and gossamer - crawled into the hedges to die. Their offspring, already larger than their parents as they fed on the sandstone and dandelions, their leather pouches forming around them, burrowed their way back under the oak, there to sleep the sleep of millennia.
The Beaker People saw all this - saw the female Wodewose return from her Gap Century and be reunited with her mate - and knew things had changed. The world was renewed again - but as some things flourished others would surely suffer.
"OK people," said Archdruid Eileen. "It's all back into the Giant Prayer Wheel. You've all got five hundred years of pushing to do."
Somewhere in the Arctic, a polar bear climbed onto a newly-forming ice shelf with joy. While in the skies above, the occupants of the pointless explorer ship watched, and wondered.
Oh Archdruid ... to learn that you have read of Helliconia as well as Wessex ... with what libations may we honour you?
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I'm just pleased that someone recognised it. And now I'm just pleased to edit it.
ReplyDelete