Ghlikh, startled, said, "What do you mean? My idea?"
"What is Wurutana to you?"
"Tome?"
"Yes. What would you call him?"
"The Great Devourer. The All-Powerful. He Who Grows."
"Yes, I know, but what does he look like? To you?"
Ghikh must have guessed that Ulysses was trying to get a description of something which he did not know. Ghlikh smiled so sarcastically that Ulysses wanted to smash that thin skull.
"Wurutana is so vast that I cannot find words to describe him."
"You chatterbox!" Ulysses said. "You runner-off-at-the-mouth! Winged monkey-face! You cannot find words?"
Ghlikh looked sullen but did not say anything. Ulysses then said, "Very well! Tell me! Are there beings like me anywhere on this land?"
Ghlikh said, "Oh, yes, some!"
"Well, where are they?"
"On the other side of Wurutana. On the seacoast, many marches west of the Neshgai."
"Why didn't you tell me about them?" Ulysses cried.
Ghlikh looked astonished. He said, "Why should I? You did not ask me about them. It is true that they look much like you, but they are no gods. They are just another race of sentients to me."
So now he had the most urgent of reasons to go south. He would have to confront Wurutana, whether he wanted to or not. If the Wufea and Ghlikh were to be believed, Wurutana covered the land except on the north and south seacoasts.
Ghlikh drew a rough map of the land's outlines in the mud of a creek bank.
North was land marked Unknown. Below that was a crude triangle with the northern part forming the broad base. There was ocean or sea on all parts except the northern unknown. Ghlikh said rumours were that the sea was there too.
Ulysses wondered if the land was all that was left of the eastern part of the United States. The level of the ocean could be much higher. Thus, the Midwest and the Atlantic coastal plain would be submerged. This land might be all of what was left of the former Appalachian Mountain Range. Of course, while he was in his "petrified" state, he could have been taken to other continents and this might be all that was left of a certain part of Eurasia. Or he could be on another planet of another star. He did not think so, but it was possible.
If only he could find something that would identify this place. But after many millions of years, everything would be gone. The bones of men would have perished, except for a few fossilised skeletons, and how many humans had a chance to become fossilised? The steel would have rusted away, the plastic would have deteriorated, the cement would have crumbled, the stone of the pyramids and the Sphinx, of the marble statues of the Greeks and the Americans, all would have been eroded to dust long ago. Nothing of man's would remain, except possibly for some flint tools made by Stone Age men. These might survive long after man's history had perished with his books, machines, cities and bones.
Mountain ranges had been born, lifted up and fallen again. Continents had split and the islands drifted away from each other. Ocean beds had been emptied, new lands risen, old lands become oceans. What was rough and elevated was now smooth and level. What was smooth and level was crumpled and raised. Great masses of stone ground against each other and rubbed man's remains to dust. Billions of tons of water roared into suddenly opened valleys and swept everything out or buried it in mud.
Nothing except the land and the sea was left, water and earth in new shapes, new containers. Only life had gone on, and life had taken some new shapes, though there were still old forms around.
But — if Ghlikh could be believed — humankind still survived!
Man was no longer lord of life, but he still lived.
Ulysses would go south.
First, he had to kill The Old Being With The Long Hand to prove his godhood.
He questioned the bat-man more. Ghlikh became uneasy and even irritated at times, but he did not become openly angry. Finally, Ulysses said, "Then there are volcanoes and hot springs up north which give out a strong and sickening stench?"
"Yes," Ghlikh said.
Ghlikh knew more about the north than he had intended to reveal, but Ulysses did not wish to delve into the reasons for his reticence at this time. All he wanted was information.
"How far to the north?"
"Ten days' march."
About two hundred miles, Ulysses reckoned.
"You will guide us there."
Ghlikh opened his mouth as if to protest but then shut it.
Ulysses called in the chiefs and priests of the Wufea and the Wagarondit and told them what he wanted done while he was gone.
The officials were puzzled about his instructions for the collection and treatment of excrement and the making of charcoal. He told them that he would reveal the reasons later.
In addition, he wanted as big a war party and as many juvenile males as could be spared to go with him to the north. On the way they would look for The Old Being, although this party was not primarily to track him down. But it was very much involved with the killing of The Old Being.
The chiefs were not happy about his demands, but they went ahead and put them into effect. A week later a big party of a hundred adult warriors, two hundred juvenile males, several priests, Awina and Ulysses set out for the north. Ghlikh was of them, though not always with them. He flew ahead and scouted the territory, and many times spotted game for them and three times hostile scouts. The hostiles were a people who seemed to be a variety of the Wagarondit. Their fur was black and they had auburn bars across their eyes and cheeks but otherwise were the same as their southern cousins.
The Alkunquib gathered a big war party and tried to ambush Ulysses' party. Ghlikh reported on their location, and so the ambushers became ambushees. The surprise, plus the arrows, with which the Alkunquib were totally unfamiliar, plus the appearance of the giant Ulysses, plus the story which the Alkunquib must have heard of his godhood, turned the battle into a massacre. Ulysses did not lead any charges, nor did the chiefs expect him to. He was happy about that. Was a god supposed to be able to be wounded? He did not like to ask anybody, of course. It was possible that they expected even gods to have to endure wounds. After all, the Greeks and other peoples had thought their gods immortal but not invulnerable.
As it was, he stood to one side and used his great bow with deadly effect. He thanked his God that he had taken archery in high school and then continued it as a hobby in his post-graduate days. He was a good shot, and his bow was far stronger than those of the Wufea. Though they were wiry and strong, despite their small size, he was too big for them. His arms pulled the bow — the "mighty bow of Odysseus," that other Ulysses, he thought — and the arrows went true enough to kill twelve of the Alkunquib and severely wound five others.
The enemy broke and ran after six minutes of battle, and many of them were speared or tomahawked in the back. The survivors were brave, however. On reaching their village, where the females, children and old warriors were waiting in terror, all the males able to hold a weapon, including six-year-olds, stood before the gates, which were closed. With a yell, the Wufea and the Wagarondit, blooded brothers, as it were, rushed the defenders. They did so in an unorganised manner and so got beat back with heavy casualties. Ulysses took advantage of a lull to tell them that they were to leave the Alkunquib and march on.
Their bloodlust was so high that they dared to argue with him. He announced that they would do what he said, or he would destroy them. Fortunately, nobody thought of calling his bluff, or if they did, no one dared voice the thought.
Ulysses, looking at the Alkunquib, was struck with an idea. He needed all the carriers he could get for the return journey, and here were at least a hundred more juveniles.
He arranged through Ghlikh for a conference with the enemy's warchief. There was an intense but brief dispute, and then the chief, faced with the extinction of his tribe, gave in. Two days later, the Alkunquib juveniles marched with the war party as hostages and as carriers-to-be. This village, in the meanwhile, had sent messages to the other Alkunquib tribes to lay off the party. Two tribes paid no attention and attacked, and these in turn were ambushed and decimated. And Ulysses ended up with a hundred and fifty more carriers and hostages. He did burn the two villages as an object lesson, but he would not permit the villagers to be massacred.
Ulysses was anything but exhilarated at his conquests. The bloodshed depressed him. Millions of years of sentiency had passed, perhaps four hundred thousand or more generations, perhaps twice that many. Yet the sentients, the users of speech, the lords of the beasts, had learned nothing. Or was that their lesson, that Fighting and bloodshed were inevitable and would last as long as life lasted?
The big party went much more slowly now. So many people could not travel swiftly, and the estimated ten days' march took twenty. But they were not attacked again by any great force. Some tribes skulked on the outskirts and tried to pick off warriors here and there. These were only small nuisances. The big problem was feeding his army. The presence of so many men frightened off the game, and small bands had to go out and scour for miles around ahead and on both sides. And these bands became targets for the locals. But, one day, Ulysses organised a hunt at the suggestion of Awina, and a herd of horses was run over a cliff. They ate well for many days, though they had to delay their journey to smoke much meat.
They came finally to Ulysses' goal: the volcanoes and hot springs. Here he found the sulphur which he had hoped for. This was a greenish translucent form which could be mined with the stone tools of his "men." Inside two weeks, he had all he could carry, and the party started back.
At the Alkunquib villages, Ulysses arranged that the juvenile carriers should be sent back, with gifts, after they had dropped off their loads at the Wufea village.
By the time the party got back to the original starting point, Ulysses found that there was a large supply of potassium nitrate. The Wufea had followed his instructions, which included special treatment to force the decomposition of the excrement at a swift rate. A few days later, after the celebrations and ceremonies, Ulysses set his warriors, and the women who could be spared from the fields, to work on the preparation of the black gunpowder. The result was a proper mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulphur. The first demonstration startled, panicked and awed the Wufea, Wagarondit and Alkunquib. It was a five-pound bomb which he set off inside a hut built for the demonstration.