Vamireh Read online

  While it hesitated, the battle between the crows and the jackals was rejoined. The canines made a sortie, and this time they were able to recapture the vulture’s remains, while their adversaries took flight. It was a meager quarry! Delicate and supple, their eyes blinking in the daylight, they carefully crunched the bird’s bones. Their appetite roused, they considered the larger prey. The hyena did not oppose them; it even seemed as if both parties were encouraging the other to audacity. The laughter and howling overlapped, accompanied by darts, sideways leaps and suggestive exhibitions of canine teeth.

  Branches were thrust rudely aside, wood breaking with a tempestuous racket; the bulbous head of a 15-foot-tall mammoth appeared. The colossus liked the clearing; its huge body paused there, swaying; it ripped up a few plants with its trunk, in accordance with some puerile whim. Then it lay down, lapsing into the semi-sleep of large animals, dreams flowing through its head of the inexhaustible sequence of shapes and movements that its eyes had drunk in all day long.

  The hyena and the jackals, lurking in the profound depths of the vegetation adjacent to the clearing, suddenly beat a considerable retreat. A soft, heavy and ungainly animal slowly disengaged itself from the thicket and emerged into the light: a bear. The mammoth watched its approach placidly.

  The plantigrade stopped, studying the proboscidean. Having woken up in its waterside den, the noise of the jackals had attracted it; at present, it was counting on the recumbent human for its daily meal, and it was expecting the elephant to remain neutral, knowing that it was placid outside the mating season. At first the calculation seemed accurate; the elephant got up as if to go away. Ten meters away from the man, however, it fixed its attention upon him. Its trunk turned in the direction of the body; it moved closer, sniffed and gazed down. Then it trumpeted in a threatening manner, and presented its tusks to the predator. The latter had the concentrated, blind and obstinate anger of its race. It growled, reared up on its hind legs in the shade of a poplar, and waved its clawed feet, the rictus of its lips declaring its thirst for reprisals. The trunk was raised into a semicircle, the tusks raked the ground, and, with the entirety of its gigantic body braced, the elephant waited…

  They were two powerful beasts. The bear had its hairy arms, equipped with colossal claws, its canine teeth and its muscular jaws. Standing upright, it could seize and stifle an adversary. Its thick, loose skin was no hindrance against wild beasts, even leopards and lions; it could make use of its weight, and its slow gesture had a terrible precision.

  The strength of the mammoth was, however, beyond compare. Its little eyes, unlike those of the bear, saw perfectly; its marvelous trunk surpassed in cleverness and musculature the arm of an anthropoid ape; its tusks, turned along the arc of a circle, ten meters long, projected like the horns of an aurochs. Its entire body, on its four columnar legs, beneath its russet woolly fur and its great black median mane, seemed supple and easy to steer. Everywhere, in the forests, the savannahs and mountain passes, it was the victorious sovereign herbivore, a descendant of the trunked colossi of the Tertiary: Dinotherium, Elephas merodionalis and Elephas anticus. Those three, along with the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros, represented the glory of the Tapirean Era, of the monstrous flora nourished by the gluten of plants: the triumph of huge skeletons and massive muscles; the triumph of armed peace, armor, horns, tusks and trunks, opposed to the carnivorous rage of rapid movers with canines and claws of steel.

  Confronting the myopic plantigrade, the proboscidean was the first to weary of expectation. In its skull, bathed by great waves of blood, the intoxication of fury sometimes moved it to folly. It trumpeted loudly and charged. A tree saved the bear. It had time to climb up it to a considerable height. The other shook the vast throne with its shoulder, and the plantigrade needed to sink its claws three inches deep into the bark in order not to be thrown down.

  The elephant persisted, and the bear suddenly tumbled on to its back. Fangs sank into the nape of its neck, and claws dug into the flaps of its ears. The pachyderm shook itself like an animal emerging from water, however, while its trunk gave its enemy an almighty slap.

  The bear fell off, and rolled away like a furry ball. Grabbed by the trunk and caught with the tusks, it was lifted off the ground and thrown into a tangle of lianas; then, as the huge beast came after it, it got up and lumbered away.

  The merciful herbivore accepted this denouement, and was already moving away when the bear charged again; this time, running blindly into the mammoth’s trunk, it scratched and bit it cruelly. Trumpeting in pain, the mammoth bent its knees, then shook its head. That caused the plantigrade to lose its balance, and fall between its tusks. The trunk held it there to begin with, and then the immense ivories dug into its entrails. Then, again, the great columns of the legs broke its rib cage, and the bear exhaled its life in a supreme growl.

  The infuriated mammoth persisted for a few seconds more, then threw the cadaver out of the clearing—and the hyena and the jackals had their meal.

  Its vengeance satisfied, the proboscidean went back to the man. Again it sniffed him, and, taking up a position five meters away, it trumpeted. The female appeared, with the cub. All three of them took up positions around Vamireh.

  Nightfall was not far off now. The large blue prehistoric flies sought the shelter of the foliage in their turn; the mosquitoes departed in clouds toward the water; the crickets resumed their vibrant ariettas; the ants dragged the last wisps of straw into their subterranean granaries. The tiger-beetle larvae slept in the depths of their pits; the dung beetles doggedly persisted in the burial of the corpse of a field-mouse; the chirping of birds died away in the branches; and the crows flew away. The diffuse rays of the Sun, redder and dimmer, lingered on the frail tips of groundsels and grasses; then they darkened further, no longer illuminating anything but occasional bright wisps. The grass still emitted a phosphorescent gleam, though, and the mammoths gravely collected these last luminosities with tranquil eyes, while a sinister clamor emerged from the undergrowth, of jackal calls and the laughter of the hyena, gorged on the flesh of the gray bear.

  The vast darkness eventually arrived, spreading the cloak of its mystery over the forest and the river. Fireflies glittered in the bushes; nocturnal moths with fleecy wings soared, followed by blind bats; owls screeched in the hollows of oaks, and the voices of predators were heard proclaiming their murderous triumphs. More than one leopard, and more than one pack of wolves, caught the scent of the recumbent human, but none dared disturb the invincible family of the huge hairy mammoth with the bulbous forehead.

  Until four hours after dawn, they persisted in their watch. Then Vamireh emerged from his long torpor, refreshed and fortified as if by a bath in the river on a torrid day. He stood up, stretched his arms and inflated his chest, and suddenly perceived the departure of the proboscideans.

  That departure linked up in his mind with the previous morning’s adventure, and he shouted words of welcome to the mammoth without knowing how much he owed them. He found out a short time afterwards when he discovered the cadaver of the bear with the broken bones, and his heart was deeply touched.

  XIII. The Head

  After five days of tiring marching, continually interrupted by pauses for rest, a considerable amelioration was evident in the Orientals’ wounds. The sixth day’s stage was serious and they were able to hope that they might see the encampment of their tribe before the end of the lunar period that was just beginning. The first to rise, the chief, had never uttered a word of complaint. The old man bore the injury to his shoulder robustly and stoically, as if local injuries had no influence upon his whole body. Every evening and every morning, he treated and dressed his men’s wounds and his own, applying herbs in order to reduce inflammation, and reciting words more beneficial than balm.

  By day, Elem followed the troop, grimly and silently, but she often woke up in the night, remembered, and wept. Her primitive soul missed the tall nomad, his pale and gently energetic face, his broad shoulders an
d his imperious muscles—not to mention his anger, his delight, the intellectual superiority of his blue eyes, his preoccupation with art and work. All of that touched her flowering flesh, stirring the affinity of races for propitious hybridization. She sighed with love, while the hours turned in the firmament, dreaming of escape with the dread of being immolated by her kin.

  They had already taken umbrage at the praise she accorded to the Pzânn when they questioned her. Only the chief, a thoughtful interrogator, undertook a tranquil enquiry. He was avid for details of the strength, agility and, most of all, the industry and artistry of the wild man, and the mores of his distant country. His hatred, mellowed by age, was drowned by the attraction of the enigma. He regretted that the tall blond man had not been captured. Perhaps he knew exactly how far the forest extended, where the river came from, and where the Earth touched the sky.

  More ferocious in their mores, and less artistic than the tall dolichocephali of the western plains, the Orientals had been quick to accept sacred hierarchies. On the fertile plains of the East, they had dreamed of the immobile and monotonous pastor. Their social organization was more advanced, but these races did not have the future of the flexible, willful, hard-working and individualistic races of Europe.

  Nomads and hunters, the Orientals already took advantage of the vegetable kingdom; they prepared nourishing pasturelands with various seeds and thus succeeded in maintaining their stability. Harvests of hay permitted them to nourish several herds of horses and Asiatic cattle, kept prisoner in enclosures, for the scarcely-tamed animals refused wholesale domestication and could only serve as food.

  All that, and the fertility of the region, rendered the journeys of the Asian brachycephali less extensive than those of the European dolichocephali. A transitional fauna inhabited their forests, in which species that had emigrated from the Occident were already found: rare varieties of monkeys, jackals and fallow deer, mingled with the beasts of the cold steppes: mammoth, bears, hyenas, aurochs, urus and musk-oxen. With the first frosts, an exodus began of the monkeys, jackals and fallow deer toward the great woodlands of the South; in the summer they came back.

  On the Savannahs of the East, the Asiatics had made alliance with dogs, whose villages were widely spaced—dogs that were less defeatist than anthropoid apes, strong in discipline and intelligence, which sided with humans in the war against the predatory beasts, and helped to hunt urus and horses, in return for a share of the booty.

  Like humans, the dogs had understood the benefits of social existence; they had deliberative assemblies, male armies, leaders turned gray by the pressure of time. In legendary times they had been terrible enemies of the nascent race. The forefathers of the Neanderthals had already crushed the face of the lion and tamed the Dinotherium with the inverted tusks; the world already trembled on hearing the slow footfalls of a dreamer of the civilizing genesis sketched in the insect world, while the dogs still defended their realm—and who could have predicted the outcome, since anthropopithecus stuck to family groups, to the primitive horde, while the other was confederating its tribes, enlarging its fatherland, raising armies, fortifying its settlements and teaching its children?

  The gray-haired old men, the wisdom of nomad tribes, overcame savage instinct, competing with one another in passing on their knowledge of things, penetrated by the mystery of things, attempting primitive explanations of the phases of the Moon and the rotation of the stars. The alliance with dogs was due to them, and they encouraged attempts to domesticate insects, birds, the urus, the horse, the bear and the wolf. That held a significant place in their annals. They knew the caprices of animals and that, while some yielded to force, others preferred death to restraint. They traveled considerable distances to see the Rain tribe, in which the sorcerer Nadda raised bees, and the Moon tribe, in which a young warrior climbed on to the back of stallions, and the Thunder tribe, in which three bears lived among humans.

  The Oriental chief, remembering all this, was increasingly chagrined at not having become acquainted with Vamireh. How much better it would have been to make peace with these bold and industrious blond giants! The two distant peoples communicating over long distances would have enlarged the fatherland of human beings. Unknown countries would have been explored: the opening of the great abyss, the lands of the horned elephants, the water-beast, the giant serpent—all that legend had told for centuries.

  He protected the young woman. Not only did he forbid any violence in her regard, but he accorded her complete freedom of movement. By day and night he let her wander, whether she went on ahead or fell behind, and he repressed the protests of his men in so firm a manner that they no longer dared to say a word.

  Elem was grateful to the old sorcerer. As the days went by her grief matured like a fruit in the summer Sun. When she was alone she raised her arms toward the Invisible, pleading and praying. Her attentive eyes explored the river—the friendly river on which the Pzânn’s boat had carried her for weeks on end. The sight of aquatic plants and stray mists on the horizon intoxicated her and stifled her. A desire to die and a profound instinct of survival, of blood too red and vivid, ready to spring from her veins, a spirit of revolt and madness, all remain fundamental to our amours, rendering them disturbing, mortally loving and desperate.

  On the 17th day, however, things calmed down.

  In the mists of dawn, she thought she saw Vamireh’s canoe among the reeds. It was distant and blurred, but with all her primitive energy she convinced herself of the Pzânn’s presence. Several times, during the march, she almost gave herself away, beating the undergrowth and lingering on the bank. Distraught and thoughtful when the time to stop for the night arrived, she could not go to sleep, and beneath her half-closed eyelids her gaze searched the darkness.

  XIV. Recapture

  That night, while the troop slept, the sorcerer read the hectic stream of the life of branches in the flames of the fire. Flames: numerous and subtle colored entities, leaping and crackling, tinted with fine blue, bright yellow and red; creeping and vibrant when running over embers, tall and undulating over twigs, lost in frontiers of smoke, which, in places, flare up and tear apart. Flames, from which a thousand chimeras surge: caves, forests, great sparkling lakes; a transient world that unknown breaths excite or extinguish; a world that becomes angry, and calms down, and becomes furious again; tamed and redoubtable; a devourer of forest submissive to a child’s hand.

  “Greetings, fire,” said the Oriental. “More beautiful than your enemy, water, gentle to the Earth that you fecundate, and gentle to humans, whom you caress with warmth…”

  He seemed profoundly meditative. Perhaps he had glimpsed the great marvel of the future, the era of metallurgy. Already, in parts of the world where stones had been melted by heat, little solid ingots were found in the ashes. Everyone guarded these metal strips carefully. They came in various colors: yellows, grays, whites. By striking them with stones one could shape them, or hammer them into blades—but such blades were fragile, pliable or brittle, and no one could yet see them as a rival of stone, bone or horn.

  “Fire runs in our veins,” the old man murmured, reverting to mysticism, “and that is why our mouths fume, like a brazier on which water is thrown.” He breathed in voluptuously, proud of that thought, and his heart swelled as he contemplated the darkness. The firelight blotted out the stars of the zenith, but on the horizon of the river, they sparkled numerously and delicately. “The fire of the Moon, and that of the stars, is a fire as cold as the human gaze…”

  He fell silent. The nocturnal clamor of the forest seemed less noisy. A lion roared in the remote distance, and its beautiful warrior voice rang out from the depths of the abyss to echo in the mountains, powerful and infinitely grave. There was not a breath of wind. The bright surface of the river was toned down everywhere by heavy masses of leaves; anguish radiated from the shadows.

  These things caused the old man to shudder. He stood up. The light of the fire illuminated the whole of his thickset silh
ouette. His anxiety increased when he saw that Elem’s eyes were open, and he listened. A faint noise like that of a crawling animal reached him from the profound darkness, soon joined by an abrupt rustle of leaves, and then a slight dry click, as of one pebble against another.

  “Get up!” he cried, his bow pointed toward the suspect location.

  An arrow emerged from the covert, grazing the chief’s head—and the Orientals were not yet on their feet when Vamireh, with a single bound, arrived next to the fire. The old man fired an arrow in his turn, but it went astray to the Pzânn’s left. The latter, his club aloft, was about to crush his sole adversary when Elem intervened, imploringly. Immediately, the tall nomad moved toward the men on the ground, and his gesture made it clear that he would kill the first aggressor. Sensing defeat, the Orientals awaited Vamireh’s command. The old man looked at the intruder fearlessly, signaling to his men to remain calm.

  “Speak, and prefer justice to violence.”

  Vamireh understood that he could dictate his terms; his mime indicated that he wanted Elem.

  “Go!” said the old man to the young woman. “But why take the daughter of our tribe by force? Let your blood be mingled with ours, and let peace unite the Sons of Light with the man from the unknown country.”

  Elem took Vamireh’s hand, speaking softly, and drew him toward the sorcerer. He let her do so, captivated by the Oriental’s earnest and dignified voice—but behind them, the other three abruptly got to their feet, with enthusiastic cries. Vamireh thought there had been treachery, seized Elem and started to run away. Some distance away, in the darkness, he stopped.

  “Old liar,” he shouted, “your voice sings peace but your mind wants war; Vamireh does not trust you.” He armed his bow and took aim.