Singer From the Sea

by Sheri S. Tepper

  When he had seen his own guards taking over the palace, caverns, something strange had happened to him. He had been furious, of course. He remembered his anger. And he remembered it building into a fury which had grown tighter and tighter, humming like a taut violin string which had then, oddly, snapped as he stepped out into this dark world. He had felt the tightness break, a quite tangible and organic feeling, a cord somewhere inside himself giving way, as though something springy but nonessential had been stretched too far. The sensation had been disquieting, and for the moment he had forgotten his anger, and when he returned to it a moment or so later he could not find it. Anger was more or less gone. Or perhaps it had merely lost its focus. What had been red fury was now only … a sallow swirling, an ashen agitation, a pale pique. He giggled at this. His fury was still there, oh, yes, but it was no longer such an irritating ire. Not anymore.

  Without it he felt more comfortable, less driven to do or accomplish at once. There was time. Plenty of time. So, he wandered, lantern in hand, along a roadway deep in dust that rose before his feet in little clouds. He had dressed in his disappearance clothes and shoes, but no matter how he tried, he could not step high enough in those shoes to avoid kicking up the dust. Sometimes he kicked it up just for fun. Some places it rose high, making him sneeze. Other times it merely fountained and fell in opaque puffs, a recurring geyser at his feet.

  He spent some time exploring a mountain of crockery. Much of it he remembered seeing before; the patterns were strangely evocative; the extravagant ornamentation of gold and platinum carried hints of old longings and desires. Oh, with a dinner service like that, everyone would know he was more than merely Lord Paramount. So, why had he sent it down here to be stored so clumsily? Who had let it fall so far, who had let it break into such tiny pieces? It was kingly china, he was sure of it, sure as he had been at the time, most kingly, as were the porcelain ornaments in the next box and the crystal goblets in the next heap—one of which he found unbroken and carried with him as he examined scraps of linen and lamé in the next pile over but one. When he struck the goblet with his thumbnail it rang, like a tiny bell, and so he went, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, betimes straightening his crown, which did not accord with his clothing, but which, nonetheless, he refused to forsake.

  He found carpets. He remembered those carpets. He had contemplated them for a year before ordering them, deep, and rich in color, and made by the innocent hands of children in the far mountains of some other world. Chamis, perhaps. Or Alfrenia. Or Verchop’s World. Oh, there had been many carpets, so many, enough for the whole palace, but they had been improperly stored, fallen into ruin and decayed, soaked with lizard filth and burrowed through by creatures.

  Oh, he told himself calmly, he would hold someone responsible, yes, he would. But first, first he had to find the war machines, somewhere down here, and put them into action, to drive away the invaders, the Aresians, the faithless, the false, the traitorous, the terrible … The adjectives were enough. He did not need to feel anything. So long as he knew they were dreadful people, that was enough.

  He hummed a little as he went, licking a finger now and then before thrusting it into the small jar he carried, bringing it out laden with P’naki to be sucked off, like a child with a lolly as he went singing-tinging, crown-acock, down the lanes of his fortune, his treasury, his wonderful, wonderful things. So, they were a bit tattered, but they could be mended. They were quite all right, really, quite fixable, once he had found the machines, he would set about putting things to rights …

  But, obviously, someone had erred. People down here had not Done Their Jobs Correctly. Things were Not in Good Order. Why, here, here, see! His pets! How long had they been here? When had they arrived? And why had no one told him they had come? Pretty things. Oh, pretty things. Well, now, he would put that to rights himself! It was only a matter of pulling the little tabs and setting the little valves into motion. He would let them out into the world, he would, of course, where they belonged. There, one. And there, another. And here a whole bunch of them in a row, eyes staring out through glassine and vitreon, eyes staring deep into his own. And here others, and there, down a twisting aisle barely wide enough to wriggle through, more, and more yet.

  So the tabs were pulled and deep within lights began to glow and wheels began to turn and fluids began to pulse in tubing as creatures long, long asleep began to waken. And he, Lord Paramount of Haven, burrowed into the stack, finding them all, setting them all in motion before he came out, humming, to continue down the dusty way, seeking the person responsible for this inadequacy, this disorder, this mismanagement of the dream, this corruption of his Eden.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Shah Mahtt

  WHEN YBON SAELAN WOKE AFTER AN UNCOMFORTABLE night in the bare and waterless refuge, the others were still sleeping, except for the sentry officer who stood bolt upright in the outer gateway, pivoting to keep each of his dune-top sentries in view.

  “Report,” grated the minister.

  “Nothing to report, sir. The night was quiet. We didn’t see anyone or hear anyone. Marshal came to take a look at the sentry posts early this morning, before dawn. That’s the sum total of it.”

  Ybon seated himself on a convenient rock. “Was the Marshal satisfied with your sentries?”

  “Don’t know, sir. Haven’t seen him since he went out there. He’s quite the soldier, sir. Came out in full pack.”

  “Ah,” said Ybon again, puzzled.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Guardsman.”

  “I … maybe I shouldn’t mention it, sir, but the men are muttering and turning quarrelsome. It’s worrisome. They’re not regular guards. They don’t have the discipline to go along without knowing all the details … well sir, it’s the Shah’s manner that’s got them uneasy. He’s headed us off nobody knows where, and he’s ready to cut out the tongues or chop off the heads of most anybody, maybe the whole lot of us …”

  “Ah,” mused Ybon. “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I’ll see if I can’t calm him down.”

  He went back into the refuge, to the room where the Shah’s bedding and furniture had been set up, where the Shah himself was still noisily asleep, the rasp of his breath clearly audible. On the small table by the door stood a carved box, an ornamental water cooler of porous clay, a folded napkin, a cup, and a small spoon carved of seabone. The box contained P’naki. The Shah had a spoonful of it on his morning cup, every day. The Shah, as a matter of fact, was by now using almost as much of the lichen as the rest of Mahahm put together.

  Ybon stared at the P’naki box for a long time, finally stepping forward to take both spoon and box with him into the anteroom where he shut himself into a privy closet. There, he took a key from a secret pocket and opened the box. It was full of P’naki, the dark red powder fine as talc. He took a small pouch from beneath his clothing and opened it also, displaying contents that looked as finely powdered, as darkly red. With the seabone spoon he made a careful hollow in the P’naki in the box. Then he dipped the spoon into the pouch, brought it out heaped full, carefully wiped clean its convex side, then lowered it into the already created hollow in the box and left it there. The spoon now held a measured dose which looked in all respects like P’naki, and the lid, as he had already established, would shut and lock even with the spoon in place.

  The key went back in the secret pocket and the pouch returned to its hiding place. Just before this expedition Ybon had stolen the substance in the pouch from a little box in a locked cupboard in the Shah’s private rooms. Not that Ybon had decided to use it, but he’d always thought something of the kind might be needed when the Great Effulgence, to everyone’s dismay and infinite regret, was no longer … radiant.

  Moving softly, carrying the box with exquisite care, he returned it to the table in His Effulgence’s room. From his pocket he took a seabone spoon to lay where the other spoon had been. It wasn’t identical, but it was close in shape and size, and if he was lucky, no one would see it clo
se up. Then he returned to the uncomfortable pallet on which he had spent the night, where he was wakened some time later by Prince Delganor, who wanted to know where the Marshal was. Shortly thereafter, the Shah was wakened by a lively discussion between the minister, the Prince, and two of the officers in the antechamber.

  “What’s going on?” demanded His Effulgence, pulling himself higher on his pillows.

  Ybon Saelan prostrated himself in the doorway.

  “It’s the Marshal, Your Effulgence. He seems to have wandered off. He may be lost. It’s difficult to keep one’s way in the dunes when one is unaccustomed to the desert.”

  “Went out in the dark did he?”

  “Would you like the officer to tell you? He’s just outside.”

  The Shah frowned but did not object. The officer came to the door, prostrated himself, then, nose almost on the floor, explained about the Marshal. Prince Delganor, meantime, stood just outside the doorway, his brow furrowed, listening to the story. He didn’t believe for a moment the Marshal was lost; he very much wished to know what the Marshal was up to.

  The Shah grunted, waving the officer out. “My cup, Saelan!” he demanded.

  The minister crept forward to the Shah’s right hand. The Shah fumbled in a pocket of his nightdress and came up with a key. Saelan crept away to the table, then rose. From their positions just outside, the Prince and the officer saw him use the key to unlock a box on the table; saw him pour a cup of water; saw him pick up the spoon from the table; saw him move the spoon to the box, which was now hidden by his body, then bring forth the spoon laden with powder, which he sprinkled upon the water in the Shah’s cup. They saw him pick up the waiting napkin, wipe the spoon with it, and replace the spoon upon the table before relocking the box, and carrying both key and cup to his master.

  The Shah accepted the key with one hand and the drink with the other, absently draining the glass.

  “What did the Marshal say, again?” he called impatiently.

  “He said he was going to check the sentries,” murmured the officer from outside the door. “And he went up onto the dunes. That’s the last anyone’s seen of him.”

  The Shah did not speak. The minister remained bowed at his side as he gently dropped the extra spoon from his sleeve into the side pocket of his robe.

  “What time was … that?” asked the Shah in a peculiar voice.

  The Prince looked up, alertly. The minister raised his head, an expression of concern on his face.

  “Well after midnight, Great One,” said the officer from the doorway.

  “And he … went … went …” said the Shah.

  “Out onto the dunes, Great One,” said the puzzled officer.

  “Your Effulgence,” cried the minister. “Are you all right?”

  “All right … all … all &” murmured the Shah, stopping with his mouth half open.

  “Great One, answer me! Are you in pain? What’s the matter?”

  “He seems to have stopped,” said the Prince, in an interested voice as he stepped forward into the doorway. “Like a clock! What was that you gave him?”

  “His morning medicine. He has taken it every morning, for years.”

  “P’naki?”

  The minister shook his head, put his finger to his lips and said to the kneeling officer, “You’re excused. The Shah is obviously unwell.”

  The officer scurried away as quickly as he could on all fours.

  “Then it was P’naki,” said the Prince, when the officer had gone. He stepped into the room.

  “Oh, yes, Prince Delganor. Of course.”

  “Every day, hmm?”

  “The merest sprinkling.”

  “Maybe it went bad,” suggested the Prince.

  The minister heard this with open-mouthed amazement. “I’ve never heard of it doing that, Prince Delganor.”

  “You also take P’naki.”

  “Yes, sir. But only once every … oh, ten years or so.”

  “You wouldn’t mind taking some from the Shah’s supply?”

  “Sir! Are you suggesting …”

  “Just the merest sprinkling, as you say. It can’t hurt you.”

  “No, it certainly cannot,” said the minister, wrathfully, as he laid his master back upon his bed and took the key from between stiffened fingers. He unlocked the box, poured a cup of water, sprinkled a spoonful of dust on the surface, and downed the drink, the whole while maintaining his expression of dignified outrage.

  “Tell me about P’naki,” purred the Prince.

  “I can tell Your Highness nothing Your Highness does not already know,” snapped the minister. “We know you want the supply increased. It cannot be increased. We have explained that. The desert grows only so much, no more.” Actually, the desert would grow all the Shah could bless, but the Shah would bless only as much as he needed and was convenient. And lately they’d had trouble getting enough candidates even for that!

  “But if we plant it in Bliggen?” The Prince watched him narrowly, looking for signs of incipient stalling.

  The minister moved back to his Shah, smoothing back the hair, covering the supine body with a coverlet. “It would not grow in Bliggen. It grows only in the desert of Mahahm, and even there it grows to its proper purpose only with the blessing of the Shah.”

  “Whom, it seems, you no longer have around to do the blessing,” said the Prince, joining him near the bed. He poked the body lying there and received, in response, a flicker of eyelid. “Is he still alive?”

  “That is a question for the doctors, Your Highness, and we should certainly return to the palace at once. We have no doctors here, but there are doctors in Mahahm-qum.”

  “Oh, by all means,” murmured the Prince. “And what do we do about the Marshal?”

  “He will either find his way back here, or to Mahahm-qum, or he won’t. We cannot afford to spend time and effort hunting for him with the Shah in this condition.”

  “I agree.” The Prince smiled. “We certainly can’t.”

  “If Your Highness will permit,” said the minister, bowing toward the door.

  “Since it seems you did not poison the Shah, we will permit, yes,” said the Prince in an uneasy voice. For the first time, he considered that there might be an end to life even with P’naki. Was P’naki then, only a long delay and not a reprieve from mortality? “If it wasn’t poison, what was it? Was he very old?”

  “He was, is, very old, Your Highness. Very, very old.”

  So was the Prince, very old, and he did not like the thoughts those words brought to his mind. He himself was about due for his next dose of P’naki. Since his own supply was probably no longer available, it would be necessary to borrow some from Ybon.

  Within a short time, the expedition set out, thousands of weary men who muttered amongst themselves while throwing curious glances at the litter bearing, all too clearly, the person of the Shah. They had come a very long way for no better purpose than the chopping of a few ornamental trees, and there was muttering in the ranks as they straggled rather than marched, following the windblown tracks they had made coming out, paying little if any attention to the world around them.

  The strange ship that hovered silently above the procession had to fire a glittering burst into the sand ahead of them to get their attention. The horses reared, the harpta bellowed, the army milled about, and the twenty-member crew of the ship took them all captive in a matter of moments by virtue of superior weapons. The announcement that the world of Haven had been conquered by an off-world power came to the Mahahmbi, and to Prince Delganor, as a total and most unwelcome surprise.

  A worse surprise came when he and Ybon were searched and the box that had contained the Shah’s P’naki was found to be empty.

  “It contained foot powder,” said Ybon, when their captors questioned the empty box. “My horse reared and it was spilled when we were taken prisoner.”

  Aufors was kept waiting by the Aresians all the following day. In late afternoon, he was taken
by a Captain Dunnel of the Tracker’s Team, to meet again with Terceth Ygdaleson.

  Terceth smiled grimly at him. “There’s a so-called Prince Delganor with the Mahahmbi army.”

  Aufors looked up, questioningly.

  “We’ve captured the army, all of it. And the Prince is looking for someone about your size.”

  Aufors shrugged. “Many men my size.”

  “True. Tell me, if we wanted to know something about Mahahm, would it do any good to ask Mahahmbi women?”

  Aufors shook his head. “Mahahmbi women don’t know anything. Mahahmbi don’t even talk to women.”

  Terceth exchanged an exasperated look with his officer.

  Dunnel offered, “This man isn’t likely to be the man the Prince mentioned, Sir. He’s the right size and general description, all right, but the one the Prince mentioned was upper-mid-caste from Havenor, wasn’t he? This one is just like all the other malghaste we’ve picked up.”

  Terceth smiled, eyes fixed on Aufors. “By which you mean dirty and stupid, Dunnel? Dirtiness is a condition, not an attribute, and stupidity can be a strategy. You’re probably right, but we’ll hang on to him, nonetheless. You can let the woman, the boy, and the infant go. Let this one have his belongings, except for his weapon, but keep him until I can have the Prince take a look at him.”

  The officer took Aufors to the room where Awhero was, and as he packed his few belongings he whispered a few quick words.

  “They’re not letting me go, but they are freeing you and the boy. I’ll have to think of some other way to get loose.” Putting his hand to the back of his head, he winced, closing his eyes. The wound there was puffed and angry, probably infected. “Awhero, take my son to Galul. Promise.”