Helgvor of the Blue River Read online

  The Scientific Romances of

  J.-H. Rosny Aîné

  HELGVOR

  of the Blue River

  translated by

  Georges Surdez

  THE GIANT FELINE

  translated by

  The Honorable Lady Whitehead

  A Black Coat Press Book

  Table of Contents

  Introduction 4

  HELGVOR OF THE BLUE RIVER 7

  THE GIANT FELINE 140

  Afterword 293

  REFERENCES 305

  FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION 308

  Introduction

  This is the seventh and last volume of a collection of stories by J.-H. Rosny Aîné (“the Elder”). Volumes 1-6 include all of Rosny’s scientific romances, and a number of other stories that have some relevance to his work in that genre, all translated by Brian Stableford. The first volume of the series includes a long general introduction to Rosny’s life and works.

  The contents of the previous six volumes are:

  Volume 1. THE NAVIGATORS OF SPACE AND OTHER ALIEN ENCOUNTERS: The Xipehuz, The Skeptical Legend, Another World, The Death of the Earth, The Navigators of Space, The Astronauts.

  Volume 2. THE WORLD OF THE VARIANTS AND OTHER STRANGE LANDS: Nymphaeum, The Depths of Kyamo, The Wonderful Cave Country, The Voyage, The Great Enigma, The Treasure in the Snow, The Boar Men, In the World of the Variants.

  Volume 3. THE MYSTERIOUS FORCE AND OTHER ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA: The Cataclysm, The Mysterious Force, Hareton Ironcastle’s Amazing Adventure.

  Volume 4. VAMIREH AND OTHER PREHISTORIC FANTASIES: Vamireh, Eyrimah, Nomaï.

  Volume 5. THE GIVREUSE ENIGMA AND OTHER STORIES: Mary’s Garden, The Givreuse Enigma, Adventure in the Wild.

  Volume 6. THE YOUNG VAMPIRE AND OTHER CAUTIONARY TALES: The Witch, The Young Vampire, The Supernatural Assassin, Companions of the Universe.

  Helgvor du fleuve bleu was first published in 1930 by Cent centraux bibliophiles. It was translated into English by Georges Surdez in 1932 as Helgvor of the Blue River, serialized in the May 28, June 4, 11 and 18 issues of Argosy.

  Georges Surdez (Georges Arthur Surdez, 1900(?)-1949) was a prolific writer of action/adventure stories published in magazines such as the Blue Book of Fiction and Adventure, Collier's, the Saturday Evening Post, Adventure, Argosy, and many others. Much of his work featured the French Foreign Legion. He is credited with having brought the term Russian Roulette into existence through his short story of the same title published by Collier’s in the January 30, 1937 issue. His short story A Game in the Bush (Adventure magazine, February 20, 1923) and novel The Demon Caravan (The Dial Press, 1927) were both made into films in 1927 and 1953 respectively. He was born in Switzerland, and came to the United States in 1912.

  Le Félin géant was first serialized in 1918 in Lectures pour Tous then published in bookform by Plon in 1920. It was translated into English by “The Honorable Lady Whitehead” as The Giant Cat (McBride & Co., 1924), and later retitled as Quest of the Dawn Man (Ace, 1964).

  The Honorable Lady Whitehead (née Marian Cecilia Brodrick, 1869-1932) was married to Sir James Whitehead, son of Robert Whitehead the inventor of the torpedo. Their daughter, Agathe Whitehead, married naval commander Georg Ludwig von Trapp who would use the torpedoes engineered by his wife’s grandfather in an SM U-5 submarine built at the Whitehead Torpedo and Ship factory in Fiume (Rijeka) with deadly effect in WW1. Von Trapp re-married after the early death of Agathe Whitehead and his family later became the basis for the musical The Sound of Music. Lady Whitehead also translated Jérôme and Jean Tharaud’s Quand Israël est roi, Plon, 1921 (When Israel is King, Robert M. McBride & Co., 1924) and Guglielmo Ferrero’s La ruine de la civilization antique, Plon-Nourrit, 1921 (The Ruin of the Ancient Civilization and the Triumph of Christianity, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921) into English.

  HELGVOR OF THE BLUE RIVER

  I. The Devouring Mountain

  The women at the entrance to the caverns contemplated the flames leaping toward the stars, and the sky lowered over the plain like a hollow rock.

  “Our fathers have seen torrents of fire flowing,” Old Man Urm said. “The fire melted the stone, and the men died like locusts.”

  He was the age of whitened crows: the Tzohs believed that he had been born with the stars, the river and the forest. The other old men stared at him with dull eyes. Because it was the time when the strong men of the tribe were away hunting for herbivorous, giant animals, the red flames seemed more frightening. The mountain growled within its ranks.

  Urm spoke to the angry spirits which reside in the stone—one never knows when they may escape, “The Tzohs shall pour warm blood upon the mountain,” he clamored. “Living hearts shall be torn from chests and shall feed the Hidden Lives.”

  He lifted supplicating hands, ashen and quivering like reeds. The flames paled. The moaning of the women was heard from cave to cave, and the voice of the mountain towered.

  “The Tzohs will sacrifice at sunrise!” the old man promised. And he added, in a murmur, “The Tzohs are sons of the Great Boar which issued from the Rock, on a day when fire flowed in torrents. The Tzohs are the sons of the Red Boar and of the Rock.”

  The tribe had come from the east. It knew how to forge bronze and till the soil, while the men of the west still chipped stone instruments. The caverns sheltered 200 warriors, as many adult women, 300 children, but few old people for the race practiced the Law, which is to kill off the weak, and lived without blemish.

  “Tomorrow,” Urm went on softly, “three women and a warrior must perish! The Test of the Stones shall designate them.”

  This dictate, passing from the highest cave to the lowest, reassured the women. The mountain had understood. The faraway drone slackened, the flames of the crater became almost invisible. The women and the old people returned to the shadows of the rocks. Urm remained alone with Glava, daughter of Wokr, who belonged to a warrior, Wam the Lynx, for the children are the property of the mother’s brother.

  Glava was but a year beyond childhood. She did not have the cubical head of the Tzohs nor their slanting brows. She resembled a grandmother of another breed because of her light-colored face, of the tawny gleams in her eyes, of the long hair which grew constantly, while the hair of the true Tzohs remained short and snarled at the tips.

  In her, Urm recognized the race of the Green Lakes from which Tzoh warriors had stolen women long ago. At that time, because of a prolonged period of starvation, the women had been decimated, for food must first be served to warriors. When they became too weak, a club felled them and their flesh fed the survivors.

  Glava, thinking of the Test of the Stones, hated the Hidden Lives. Yet she was sure that she would not die, for, tall and lithe, with powerful muscles, stronger and more agile than any other woman in the three clans, she could lift the largest stones.

  But Amhao, her sister, whom she preferred to the rest of the tribe, would be sacrificed. Terror and anger filled her breast. The chief, Kzahm, son of the Black Boar, was odious to her because of his roughness, his ferocity, and also because, when he returned from the great hunt, he would break off her canine teeth and make her his wife.

  His head like that of an aurochs, his odor like that of a jackal, his frenzied eyes, disgusted her. And she did not want Amhao to perish; to save her, she would rebel against Kzahm, Urm and the Hidden Lives.

  “The stars are cold!” Urm mumbled. “Why do you not go back into the cavern?”

  Formerly, he had been the chief of the Men of the Rock. He was still heeded, because he alone knew all legends and all mysteries. Also, his strength surpassed that of aged men much younger than he; he scaled the crests; he could walk half a
day. The belief was growing that he was immortal.

  Glava did not like him. He constantly exacted human sacrifices and watched blood flow with grave joy.

  “I shall go back into the cavern,” she assented.

  “Go! It is best that Urm be alone to hear the Great Word.”

  She left and searched for Amhao. Although she knew the fate awaiting her, the young woman was asleep with her child nearby. If he had been younger, she would have been safe, but he had passed his sixth season. Amhao’s sleep was troubled and light. When Glava took her hand, she sat up in the shadows.

  “Rise,” Glava whispered, “and come with your little one.”

  Although she was the older and had cared for Glava as a child, Amhao now submitted to the stronger will of her sister. She rose. The night was stirred with wind. Bodies sprawled in their path. At the extremity of the cave they slipped through a narrow, rough gap, reached the torrent, almost dry, which poured between granite walls.

  “Where are we going?” Amhao asked.

  “Where you shall not die,” replied the daughter of Wokr.

  A deep rumble was heard in the flanks of the mountain; the red light again leaped toward the stars.

  “The Hidden Lives will avenge themselves upon us!” moaned Amhao, who vacillated like a twig in the wind; terror choked her. Glava bent her head before the obscure horror of the legend, but her instincts impelled her to rebel, to be incredulous, almost.

  “If Amhao remains in the cave, it is to die!” she said. “What more can the Hidden Lives do to her?”

  Her small, powerful hands grasped Amhao’s arm. The red fire wrapped the crest, water flowed like blood, and the mountain roared like a gigantic lion. Then impetuous anger swept the daughter of Wokr. She defied the elements, the Hidden Lives and the Clans.

  “The Hidden Lives are blind,” she said. “They strike like a falling stone.”

  And she led Amhao, whose soul was as that of a child, away. The torrent became a river, and a distorted Moon appeared beyond the Black River. Glava walked rapidly, without hesitation, having chosen her path. The growling of the mountain could no longer be heard, but the red glow added to the light of the Moon.

  Jackals, behind the women, yelped lugubriously, then a spotted beast emerged from a bush. Glava, recognizing a leopard, stopped to face it and uttered a strident yell. Stretched out like a reptile, eyes glowing in the darkness, it crept forward cautiously. Far away, between the tall, black poplar-trees, the shimmering of the river could be discerned.

  Warriors armed with a bow, with a club or a bronze knife, do not dread the leopard, and it never attacks them; but in the Tzoh country it could recognize women and children.

  “I shall break your bones and pierce your chest!” Glava cried, imitating the hunters. She saw a round stone. Picking it up, she lifted her arm high. This gesture stopped the beast.

  “Walk toward the river, Amhao!” ordered the daughter of Wokr, “and take your child.”

  Amhao obeyed, and was followed by Glava, who walked backward, and each time the leopard drew nearer the young girl stopped threateningly. But the animal grew excited; hunger stirred its entrails. Glava, aware that all animals are afraid of the human glance, kept her eyes on it. Light-footed and furtive, the jackals followed the hunt.

  Suddenly the leopard changed tactics. In a few oblique bounds it circled the fugitives and crouched before Amhao. Gripped by icy discouragement, she thought that the Hidden Lives were guiding the wild beast and remained motionless. It scented this fear and came forward.

  But Glava forestalled it. The stone shot out and struck the animal on the nose. With a howl of pain and fury the leopard retreated toward the river. The jackals yelped shrilly in astonishment. Everywhere appeared their coppery pelts, their pointed ears; they were weak, cowardly, yet dangerous.

  “The leopard will come back!” Amhao said.

  Glava, who had picked up the stone, dispersed three jackals with a menacing gesture. But Amhao was not reassured: the leopard, as the pain dwindled, returned toward the two women. Again it was near, with its cortège of parasites.

  “Glava will break off the leopard’s teeth!” the young girl shouted.

  Then the voice of thunder growled in the ground; the river became scarlet in hue. The mountain could be seen to vacillate, the whole plain palpitated like a chest. Glava and Amhao rolled on the grass; a cleft in the ground swallowed the leopard; the jackals moaned, flights of birds flapped above the trees. In the double light of the Moon and of the red flames, the eye of Glava, keen as an eagle’s, saw the rocks crack and engulf the caverns.

  “The Hidden Lives!” Amhao sighed.

  “They have killed the tribe,” Glava retorted, “and you are alive!”

  The leopard had not reappeared but the jackals already scented the exciting odor of blood and were yelping on the lips of the cleft. In the ravaged plain and on the bank of the river, the trees were tilted, animals were fleeing, and hills were sinking gently.

  Glava at last found what she sought: a canoe abandoned by the Tzohs.

  “There!” she said, “we shall leave for unknown lands.”

  The caves, except one, had become the graves of the women, of the old people and the children. But Urm had survived. Standing on a boulder, he recalled the time when fire had flowed like water, and mused, “When the warriors return they will go and take the women from the men of the Blue River and of the Green Lakes. The blood of the prisoners we take shall appease the Hidden Lives.”

  Because he had escaped death once more, he thought that his life would never end and scorned those who died.

  II. The Invasion

  Helgvor, son of Shtra, walked up the bank of the river with two dogs, a wolf and a child. The skin of a bear covered the man’s shoulders, the skin of a jackal those of the boy.

  From Shtra and his ancestors, Helgvor had inherited height, tawny eyes and light hair. His agility was comparable to that of a deer. His strength was nearly that of Heigoun, the most powerful of the men gathered in the Red Peninsula.

  For 20 generations, the clan had bred and trained dogs. Helgvor, on a day of hunting, had picked up a wolf cub; the animal with the oblique glance lived with the dogs whose glances were straight. Like them, obedient and faithful, it served man and helped him seek his prey.

  It was autumn. The warriors of the Blue River were off in search of adventures. The clan was guarded by five warriors and 20 dogs, and many old men still knew how to throw a spear. There were more than 60 women, young and middle-aged. Each day two warriors went scouting afar with their dogs, for remote danger is the more to be feared when men are concerned.

  Helgvor explored the south. The Men of the Rocks, with cubical heads, lived two moons’ march away. He had never seen them, but Gmar and Shtra related that formerly they had raided in the region of the Blue River and the Green Lakes. Their hatchets and knives, more to be dreaded than stone hatchets and oaken clubs, were made with fire.

  Helgvor, followed by the dogs, the wolf and the boy, climbed a boulder on the river bank. From there he glanced about. Each thing was as new as his youth; the world started afresh each morning; the grass, the tree, the flower, the weed; water and clouds were eternal. There would always be horses and aurochs grazing on the plain; hippopotami among the reeds, rhinoceroses in great numbers, and surly boars; deer with bleating voices; megaceros elks with gigantic antlers; and even mammoths with hides like the bark of old sycamore-trees.

  Never would the does depart from the brush, the crows cease to gather in black troops; the doves, the stork, the ducks, the cranes and the swallows would fly across the vast sky forever. A world in which vultures, eagles, cave lions, tawny leopards, black 1eopards, herons propped on their stilts, numberless insects and water animals did not exist could not be conceived by Helgvor.

  His vigilant eyes followed those strange shapes moving among the motionless plants, armed with teeth, with talons, with hoofs, with horns, with venom, arms attached to their bodies, while he, Helgv
or, carried spears, club, stone hatchet, bow and arrows which he could place aside on the rock.

  Near him, their senses alert to all variations in the atmosphere, were the two dogs and the wolf, weapons themselves for the man, living weapons which increased his hold upon the world, weapons unknown to the Tzohs.

  The boy, agile and tireless, small creature with a brave heart, hid in the grass, in the narrow crevices, behind swells of the ground, even in branches too weak to bear Helgvor’s weight. He was already acquainted with human ruses.

  The dogs growled, the wolf rose, bristling.

  Mammoths were passing by. Their enormous bodies, the color of clay, seemed like moving boulders. With their snaky trunk, their curving tusks, they appeared to come from the depths of the ages. All in them was strange. Alone among living beings, they bore that nose which was a colossal arm, those teeth, each of which weighed as much as 100 clubs.

  During their thousands of years of peaceful reign, their race had witnessed the vanishing of the giant felines and of the great cave bears. They themselves were the last of their breed. Already, their kind had vanished from the land of the Men of the Rock; they rarely reached the Green Lakes. But the Blue River still watered a sufficient number of their herds for Helgvor to deem them eternal.

  He loved them. They satisfied his essential craving for power. And standing upon the boulder, he shouted, “The mammoth is mightier than the lion, the tiger and the rhinoceros!”

  The wolf listened and sniffed; the dogs stopped growling. All three admitted they were unable to cope with those boulders of flesh. Helgvor watched them drinking with a dull exaltation. He dreamed that they might have been trained like dogs, for in him the instinct to transform the free beast into a tame animal was more developed than in any other man of the Blue River. Guarded by the mammoths, the tribe would be invincible, and the Men of the Rock would never dare approach the Red Peninsula.