Singer From the Sea

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “They intend to hide in the mountains,” grated His Effulgence. “I won’t have it! We’ll go after them.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said the Marshal, unthinkingly.

  “Cut that man’s tongue out,” said the Shah, staring at the Marshal. “Who is he to recommend to the Effulgence of the World, the Divine Sun, the Glory of the Galaxy?”

  “My apologies,” cried the Marshal, suddenly aware of acute danger as he fell to his knees. “My desire is to protect Your Effulgence from harm, and there could be harm waiting in the mountains.”

  “There is truth in what he says,” murmured Ybon Saelan. “We are only trying to protect you, Great Sun. The Marshal is well known in Haven as a superb tactician. We should not dismiss his words, no matter how insolently uttered.”

  “No harm waits,” said the Shah. “What harm can befall a god? Am I not a god? Do I not warm the worlds with my rays?”

  “Certainly. This is true,” said Ybon, bowing deeply.

  The others had sense enough to say nothing.

  “If he is such a great tactician, he can no doubt foresee any danger,” murmured the Shah, with a piercing look at the Prince. “You know him. Can’t he foresee danger?”

  The Prince turned his head slightly, painfully, as though something had rusted in his neck. He said unwillingly, “The Lord Paramount trusts the Marshal greatly, Effulgence.”

  “Well then, so will we. We will go into the mountains, in pursuit of our prey, and the Marshal will foresee any trouble in time to warn us of it. If he does not and we come into danger, we will kill him.”

  The Marshal bowed low in apparent acceptance while the Shah contented himself with sneering in his general direction.

  Aufors, meantime, along with Kamakama, Awhero, and the baby, was sitting on the floor of the palace entryway, waiting to be questioned by the Aresian officer in charge, one Terceth Ygdaleson, youngest son, so the guards had said, of Ygdale Furnashson, the Chieftain of Aresia. Aufors, head bent forward between his knees, was still dizzy and bleeding from the wound at the back of his head. Still, he could hear Awhero clearly enough as she murmured to him:

  “They will ask why you have weapons. You will say you have weapons to protect us from wild animals in southern mountains, where we are going. They will ask why we are going. You will say the Shah is angry with all malghaste, and we must flee before he returns. We did not go with others for baby was sick. Your name is Taipa, which means ‘be silent.’ You are my son and only child. Kamakama is an orphan I am fostering. The baby is not yours, or mine, just a baby I am caring for. Understand?”

  Aufors nodded slightly, even the tiny motion enough to set up waves of nausea and pain. They had taken his pack and his weapon. Well, there was nothing in the pack to identify him. The weapons were ones the malghaste might have stolen from the Mahahmbi. The locator was an exotic item, but it and the glasses might have been traded for. The few items of clothing were anonymous. Other than that there were only food and water. Awhero carried food for the baby. The boy had nothing suspicious on him. He took a deep breath and concentrated on finding the pain. If he could find it, trace it to its source, he could cope with it, a trick an old warrior had taught him. “Concentrate on where it starts, and you have it trapped,” he had said. So Aufors concentrated upon the back of his head, a certain spot, perhaps as wide and long as the first joint of his thumb. All the pain was in that one spot. He had it trapped. It could not spread from that one spot …

  “You!” Someone jerked his head up by the hair. Pain exploded across his eyes. The nausea billowed up, uncontrollably, and he vomited across the man’s boots.

  “For the … What in hell!” The guard drew back a boot to kick Aufors, only to be stopped by Terceth himself, who jerked him roughly away.

  “Men don’t heave for the joy of it, Obrang! He’s been hit on the head.”

  “Bassid didn’ stop when I toi’ im, Prince Terceth.”

  “Obrang, you can’t get information from an unconscious man. I’ve told you that before!”

  The man went away cursing, to clean his boots, while the other knelt before Aufors and offered water. Aufors shook his head. “It won’t stay down,” he murmured.

  “Rinse out your mouth at least,” said the other. “So you won’t stink so when you answer me.”

  Aufors did so, turning slightly to spit in the place Awhero had just moved from.

  “Now,” said Terceth. “Who are you, the three of you?”

  “My mother,” said Aufors, gesturing weakly with an elbow, concentrating on the words he used, trying to sound like Awhero. “That’s her foster son, Kamakama. She’s taking care of baby for one of her friends, I don’t know who. My name’s Taipa.”

  “You’re what? A citizen of Mahahm?”

  “No.” Aufors tried shaking his head, quickly giving up the effort. “We’re malghaste. Ah … servants. Ah … untouchables. We carry out shit.”

  Terceth thought about this. “The town’s almost empty? Did you know that?”

  “Yes. Shah went out. He took most all men. Our people went then. Only few of us left. Baby was … sick so we waited to go. We got left behind.”

  “Why is everyone leaving? Except the women, young children, and babies, that is. And a few old men.”

  “Shah, he’s on rampage. He wants to kill all … malghaste. He says we are traitors. It’s not true. We don’t know why he’s saying so.”

  “The women don’t seem to understand the language we’re speaking, but you do. We learned both Mahahmbi and Haven-tongue, but the women don’t seem to understand either one.”

  “They do,” Aufors said. “But they aren’t allowed to speak it. Women evighaste. Dirty. Can’t use men’s words without making words dirty. If they talk Mahahmbi, they have tongues cut out. They’re afraid.”

  “Umm,” hummed Terceth. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me where you got the weapon, and what it was for.”

  Aufors raised his head, fixed the officer with an innocent stare. “Stole it from Mahahmbi palace. Stole food for baby, too.”

  “That’s right, sir,” said one of the men standing by. “We almost caught somebody coming out of a storeroom there yesterday. There was baby food all over the place.”

  Aufors sulked, “Need food for baby, need weapon. We travel all alone. Animals are fierce in mountains. Must have protection.”

  “Did the others all have protection?” Terceth asked in a suspiciously neutral tone.

  Aufors risked shaking his head, very gently. “Not many had weapons. But there are very many many of them. They can make loud noise, wave torches, frighten animals away. Old woman doesn’t count, so only two of us, boy and me. Not enough to frighten.”

  “So, if the Shah wants to kill you all, where is he?”

  “Malghaste camp place south of here. He went there. To kill many malghaste. We need to go before he comes back.”

  “Oh. He’s coming back?”

  Aufors did his best to look honestly amazed. “Where else he go?”

  Terceth stared at him a long time, a stare which Aufors returned with a wounded, reproachful look of his own. Finally the man reached into his pocket and took out the packet of lichen powder that had been in Aufors’s pack. “Can you tell me what this is? And where you got it?”

  “Stole it,” said Aufors, who had anticipated the question. “From palace. It was in locked box, so I thought it was important. Medicine. Valuable, maybe?”

  “Ahh,” said the officer. “Well, well. Can you show us where you got it?”

  Aufors scratched his head, reached back, tenderly touched his wounded head. “No.”

  “Why no?”

  “Can’t remember where. Remember going to palace. Remember weapon. Remember box. Can’t remember palace. Head hurts when I try. What’d he hit me for?” Aufors, listening to himself, thought he sounded an absolute fool which was, probably, what was wanted. He glanced up to see Awhero beaming at him approvingly.

  “You don’
t mind if we keep this, then?” asked Terceth.

  “Keep it. Don’t need it. Do need weapon and food and water. You give them back, we go away, not bother you.”

  “We’ll see. You just wait patiently. You shouldn’t move too much right now anyhow. Let your head settle.”

  Terceth moved to Awhero, drew her away, out of earshot, and questioned her, the old woman answering volubly, waving her arms. The baby began to cry, and the old woman took out a pack of baby food and waved it about, making demanding noises. Someone was sent to bring hot water.

  Well, except for some of them like Obrang, they weren’t barbarians by nature. They weren’t trying to be cruel. They were just set on taking over Mahahm. Or …

  Aufors looked up at the nearest guard and said plaintively, “You should go to Haven. Haven has good land. Haven has wine, and lots of food. Good things. There’s nothing good here.”

  “Don’t you worry, desert-rat. By this time we’ve got Haven, too.” The guard grinned. “Some of us landed in Havenor soon after we landed here. We’re taking over the whole place. And we’re all going to live forever!” He laughed, a quiet and very satisfied chuckle.

  Aufors subsided against the wall. Well, and well. He could fill in the blanks. The Lord Paramount had been selling long lives in return for frippery and security forces. Some of his customers on Ares figured the price was too high—or they couldn’t buy enough—so the customers decided to take over the store. But they didn’t know where the store got the stuff, not yet. They were looking for something, but they didn’t know what they were looking for. If they went out onto the dunes and found those bodies, they might figure it out soon enough.

  Awhero said something to Terceth, who threw up his hands and let her go. Cradling the hungry baby in her arms, bottle at the ready, she came to sit next to Aufors once more.

  “I’m going to try to get them to let you go,” said Aufors. “These people are looking for you-know-what, and if they find those bodies out in the dunes, they’ll soon figure out why they’re there. Somehow, you’ve got to get your people to dispose of them.”

  She rocked to and fro. “I can’t reach my people. All messenger birds went south. Malghaste left marae, now they hide. Some go to Galul.”

  “How far? Too far? Damn. Who’s left in the city?”

  “Women,” she said. “Babies.”

  “Women.” He thought about it. “Could they … ?”

  She whispered, “If they were not drugged, perhaps they could understand, but they are drugged.”

  “But with most of the men gone, who’s doing the drugging?”

  “Old men. Keepers. Maybe it’s in their water. I don’t know.”

  “So they probably can’t bury the bodies?”

  “Why bury them? Just dragging them away from where they are would be enough. I don’t think Mahahmbi women could do even that.”

  “I can’t figure out how the Shah keeps the secret? I can’t be the first traveler to have stumbled over bunches of bodies. Even having seen the Old Friend, you’d think some Mahahmbi men would have gone out there and tried themselves.”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps risk seems too great. If they do not want to become statue, Shah’s blessing is essential.”

  Remembered the conversation he had overheard in the city, he fell silent. It was true the two old men had spoken of the blessing. And of the vow of silence. Pray heaven they kept silent. It would be a very bad thing if the Aresians found out where the life-powder came from.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The Lord Paramount

  OF LATE THE LORD PARAMOUNT HAD FOUND HIS NIGHTtimes increasingly wakeful. He was often aroused by small disturbances or sounds which would not have bothered him a few years before. It was true that the longer he reigned, the more anxious about his reign he became, for he was fully aware of the machinations of Prince Delganor. He knew the Prince had killed others in the line of succession. He knew the Prince conspired against himself, Marwell. He also knew, however, that allowing the Prince to operate with apparent freedom limited the field of possible aspirants, rather as turning goats into a pasture keeps down the weeds, not wiping them out, necessarily, but preventing their seeding or spreading. Better an evil one knew intimately than an evil one only guessed at. Thus far, the Prince had served admirably in the capacity the Lord Paramount had assigned him. Mower of aspirants. Cutter down of presumptives.

  Marwell had always known the Prince would eventually become so powerful and so intricately enmeshed in Havenor’s affairs that it would be necessary to kill him. The Lord Paramount knew that this point had now been reached, which required that he, himself, watch matters very, very closely and make his moves very, very cautiously. These concerns made the Lord Paramount sleep even more lightly than usual.

  On the night of the invasion, therefore, when he was wakened by a scuffle in the courtyard, he made no attempt whatsoever to investigate the cause, but did instead what he had many times practiced doing: he stepped directly from his bed to the control panel of his secret elevator, opened the concealed door, closed the double layer of sturdy, metal-backed paneling behind him, and dropped the cage halfway down its shaft before he was even fully awake.

  The elevator was well supplied with sensors covering most of the palace, inside and out, and from the safety of his cell-like enclosure, he observed the palace being occupied by his own Aresian guards, their forces supplemented by a great many other Aresians who seemed to have materialized out of thin air.

  The Lord Paramount was shocked and surprised. He felt the shock quite palpably. He had imagined an attack from every quarter but this! He was at first a bit dazed, though when it became clear there was no level aboveground free of Aresian troops, he managed to calm himself sufficiently to dress and arm himself. Then, for the first time in almost a century, he went on down to the “upper cellars” beneath Havenor. Though the Aresians knew there were be-lowground warehouses—they had seen freight shipments being lowered—it would be some time before they found the access routes and began a search. By that time the Lord Paramount had gathered additional weapons and some other odds and ends of supplies before dropping even further down, into the gigantic lower caverns that constituted his subterranean storehouse. This area was known only to him, to the criminals he had sentenced to work there, and to the computer that ran the inventory. The last act of the Lord Paramount before leaving the elevator was to press a button which sealed off all the access shafts to these lower caverns as well as closing access to the inventory computers. If all went well, he could cancel this order at some later time, but he would have to do it from the elevator itself.

  When, very shortly thereafter, the Aresians searched the upper caverns, they found a great quantity of light weapons and an enormous quantity of junk, all of it ill stored and in general disarray. There was no sign of the Lord Paramount. The occupying force considered this disappointing but not critical, as it was assumed many noble Havenites would possess the knowledge the men of Aresia wanted.

  In this they proved to be mistaken. No one they spoke to knew anything at all specific about long-life stuff. There were no very old men to be found, though there were a surprising number who looked and claimed to be between the ages of sixty and eighty. There were no very old women, either. In fact, there was a definite shortage of women of any age!

  When questioned, Count Daviger of Farmoor said yes, the Lord Paramount did give an expensive health drug to certain favorite courtiers, but he got it from off-planet somewhere in exchange for women. This was confirmed by Gardagger, Duke of Merdune, and by Lord Listley, Earl Northmarch, and by Prince Thumsort of Tansay in Sealands, plus all the other earls or counts or barons residing in Havenor, most of them in that highly suspect sixty to eighty year range.

  When the invaders in Mahahm had time to question the few old men in Mahahm-qum, they learned that the Shah did dispense a health drug to a few favorites, and that he obtained the stuff from Haven in return for women.

  Would the drug let
them live forever? the informants were asked.

  No, of course not, said the prisoners. What a silly idea.

  So stymied for the moment, brothers Ogberd and Lokdren Ygdaleson summoned brother Terceth to Havenor for a strategy conference with their father, Ygdale Furnashson. Terceth arrived in his own battle cruiser, settling it outside the city next to those of his father and brothers and the several smaller vessels owned by minor Aresian warlords, the four large and several small vessels constituting the entire Aresian fleet. The Chieftain and his sons, after a nightlong discussion, settled down to a more lengthy occupation than had been planned. They did not believe the long-life stuff came from off-planet. They did not believe it was only a health drug. While they were not barbarians, while their sportsman’s code made them dislike inflicting pain and suffering, it was obvious that they were not going to get the information they needed without some very cruel methods of extraction.

  The men of Ares were so very body-oriented, so very out-of-doorsy, so very much into tramping and swimming and climbing, and overall heartiness, so very much unaccustomed to sedentary pursuits that they did not consider the possibility of archival technology. No one among them considered examining the archives to determine the real ages of the men they questioned. Inasmuch as the lower levels of the archives had been blocked as tightly as the lower levels of the caverns, even if the Aresians had thought of it, they would probably have found nothing.

  Deep below Havenor, the Lord Paramount, dressed in mufti with his second-best crown a-cock, wandered in darkness of air, darkness of stone, and darkness of dust lying deep. Oh, the caverns were darker than remembered, or than he remembered remembering. Had he actually come here, ever? Or had he only told people to create these spaces, drain them, warm them, make them fit for storing all the treasures, all the pleasures of the king? The king. Himself, who had always been a king though he was not called a king. The cosettlers had not wanted a king, but they had accepted a Lord Paramount, a chief Lord, a more lordly lord than lesser lords. Marwell would have preferred to be king. He had always preferred to be king.