Through my new tube, I discovered an entire species of infinitely small living things, which had been completely invisible until now. They squirmed about on nearly every substance I examined—water, plants, dirt, the skin of animals. Even on my own skin, within my spit and skimming on a drop of my own blood, a host of tiny creatures crept and swam.
I was both elated and horrified. I’d discovered a new world of life, was seeing what no one had ever seen before. Moreover, these creatures moved continuously. There was a thrill in knowing that even in the appearance of stillness, life swayed and danced in constant motion beneath our awareness. The wind of life was infinite!
“The Creator Wind creates motion,” I murmured, “even where it cannot be seen.” Luckily, no one was near to hear me turn religious in the thrill of my discovery.
But what had I discovered? What were these tiny creatures that crept invisibly over my skin, through my fur, even submerged themselves in my sweat, my saliva, my blood and tears? Unconsciously I began to imagine the tickle of their movements, until one of the other glass-blowers wondered aloud whether perhaps an increase of bathing might mitigate my constant itch.
At that, I shared my findings with them. They weren’t easily convinced and returned to look through my tube again and again. Eventually, however, I had them all scratching.
***
The councilors received the report of my findings with the same initial skepticism. One by one, they trooped into my studio during the following week to stare through my enlarging tube. It wasn’t as easy to show them as it had been with my glass-blower colleagues who were already familiar with my tube. Some of the councilors had never used an enlarging glass. They were confused, half-disbelieving even when they finally located the bit of skin or drop of blood upon the raised glass platform. Many returned several times before I was called back to address them at Council once again.
“Write up your findings,” Council Chair Perallis eyed my enlarged belly, “before you are too busy. They’ll be printed for all to read. And translated,” he signed to Chair Ghen, who touched his breath.
“Thank you.” I bowed my head slightly. My work to be printed! And I was not yet ten!
I glanced at my parent, whose expression of pride almost caused me to forget my dignity and grin at him. Too busy? Let lesser Bria fuss over their younglings; my life’s work was in my studio. Bad enough the portion of my energy they’d stolen, growing in my womb. Once they were born, Brock’an could take over, bringing them to me when they needed suckling. He’d know how to care for them better than I, anyway; this was his second time.
“I want you to show your findings to Tibellis.” Council Chair was speaking to me again.“Tibellis?” I barely remembered him from my last year at storytime. He was three years younger than I, nothing special when I knew him.
“Tibellis is a sculptor. Very gifted. I want him to do a moving model of what your enlarging tube shows.”
A sculptor? An artist? He wouldn’t even understand what he was seeing. I would have to waste precious time explaining everything to him. I frowned slightly.
“I don’t know what exactly you’ve discovered, Pandarris, but it should be shared. Not everyone can use your enlarging tube.” Council Chair smiled slightly. He’d visited my studio four times trying to fathom my enlarging tube before he could see what it revealed. “But everyone will be able to see Tibellis’s model.”
I felt my parent’s eye intent upon me so once again I bowed my head.
“You may go,” Chair Perallis said. “You have a lot to do before stillseason. And Pandarris—” I looked up. “Well done, child.”
***
I found Tibellis easier to work with than I’d anticipated. He had a quick mind as well as a creative one. Despite myself, I liked the tiny reproductions he made after looking repeatedly into my enlarging tube, especially the one of an outstretched Bria finger, sporting a tiny cut from which a drop of blood had fallen (suspended by a near-invisible thread) while another drop was yet emerging. The blood drops were made of red glass and inside each one, a dozen or so clear, glass replicas of the opaque creatures I’d seen in my tube trembled in tiny movements so that the blood itself seemed to throb with life.
Tibellis brought it to me for approval before he showed it to Council. It was completed only a few days before the stillseason of my third mating.
***
I didn’t spare a thought for my delivery until the first pains came. “Tell me about childbirth,” I signed to Brock’an, easing my bloated body back onto the bed.
“You’re going to find out for yourself.” He grinned reassuringly.
“Tell me now. I don’t like surprises.”
“Don’t worry, Pandarris, I’ll take care of—”
“Do I look worried?”
Brock’an laughed. “You look annoyed.”
“Of course I’m annoyed! I was planning to cut open and examine the mongarr’h they caught last night on one of the farms.”
“Not today.”
“Obviously not today! All right. At least I can make the best of this interruption.” I grimaced as a particularly assertive cramp gripped my abdomen. When it had eased, I continued, “See that large looking-glass in the corner? Set it up against the end of my sleeping ledge.”
“Why?”
“So I can watch, of course!”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Not a good idea? My ideas are in print. Are yours? Bring the looking glass! ...No? If that’s the case—” I heaved myself up, swung my legs over the edge of the ledge, steadfastly ignoring the increasing pains. “I’ll lie on the floor in front of it, then.”
“Stay put. There’s a reason you shouldn’t look.”
I waited.
“You’re going to bear a Broghen.”
I would have hit him for the insult if he’d been nearer. I didn’t believe him until the thing emerged as I was watching in the looking glass.
Then I knew anger such as I’d never imagined.
“Let me see it,” I signed when Brock’an had separated the howling beast from his Ghen infant. He paused, about to drop it into the open box beside the bed. I reached out for it.
“Its bite is vicious.”
I stared him down.
Reluctantly, he handed me the monster that had usurped my body for its nest. I grasped the back of its head in one hand to avoid its snapping jaws and held its struggling body with the other. Raising it to eye level, I examined it coldly. It had roughly the same body shape as Brock’an, though it was a little larger than his youngling. It was covered with Brock’an’s dark gray scales, but between them were tufts of my tawny fur. Like a change-lizard trying to camouflage itself, it had even stolen some of my appearance while hiding in my womb! How dare it use my body thus! I gave a sharp twist. Brock’an lunged forward, but I heard the crisp, satisfying snap before he could stop me.
Later I regretted my act of rage. I would have liked to have examined it along with the mongarr’h.
***
The next day Sandarris and our parent came to see my children. Sandarris’s expression as he watched Brock’an’s youngling suckling on my third breast made me itch to slap him. Brock’an, who barely trusted me with his infant after my reaction to the Broghen, quickly moved up beside my ledge. As though my righteous wrath could be compared to my sibling’s still-sighted zeal!
“Matri named you well, Sandarris,” I said, furious at the look on his face. “Without younglings, your name will be written in sand.”
“I’ve sacrificed myself to make my people strong when the confrontation comes,” Sandarris replied. “I’ll live on in Bria hearts. It’s you who’ll be forgotten.”
“My name is already in print, and will be again. I’ll live in Bria minds. But it’s good you’ve chosen their hearts; the members of Single-by-Choice have no minds!”
Sandarris turned his angry face toward our parent. Briarris’s expression of sympathy disgusted me. Before he cou
ld think of something conciliatory to say, Sandarris rushed out the door.
“How did I produce such stubborn, ill-tempered offspring?” Matri cried, vexed with us both. But I was angrier than he.
“Why wasn’t I told about Broghen?” I demanded.
“It is our custom not to tell young Bria,” he replied officiously.
“Should I take my question to open Council?” I briefly considered it, but Matri was only one seat away from Council Chair and wouldn’t appreciate public embarrassment.
“I hear you killed it.”
“Yes, I killed it.” Brock’an must have told Igt’ur, who of course would tell Briarris.
“Perhaps you would have mated, then, even if you knew. Few Bria are as strong-willed.”
“I had a right to know.”
“I thought so, once, myself. But what would you have done about it?”
“Prevented it!”
“Then why didn’t you?” He was angry, too, now. “If you paid any attention to what’s happening around you, you could have guessed the truth; you’re bright enough when you aren’t buried in your glass tube!”
***
Instead of abating as the days passed, my anger increased. Brock’an had known full-well about the Broghen—had made me a co-conspirator in its birth—and then been horrified at my response! The fact that I’d destroyed it kept me from the despair I saw in the eyes of other Bria parents.
I hadn’t noticed that before. Perhaps I should spend a little less time looking through my enlarging glass and a little more looking through my own eye, as Matri suggested. My proud words to him stayed with me. Could I have prevented the Broghen from stealing its way into my womb? Despite its tufts of fur and raised ears, it was mainly gray-scaled and fierce in nature: Ghen-like. It must have come from Brock’an, along with his infant.
I began to wonder about Ghen mating fluid.
***
I didn’t discuss my new objective with anyone, but I continued to include Brock’an in my observations. It was important that he remain involved. Together we compared the breast milk I was producing to feed our younglings with that of a callan. The similarity was deflating, and it was annoying to have Brock’an aware of it, but at least I was keeping him interested in my discoveries. When stillseason approached at last I asked him, casually, if he could provide a sample of his mating fluid for us to examine. He agreed without question.
I really didn’t expect to see anything. After all, Brock’an had had his second mating. I wanted to see what Ghen fluid looked like on its own, so that I would recognize the difference when I did find the seed of life.
But there it was, looking up at me like the round, dark pupil of an eye, with the trail of a tear falling from it. In fact there were several of the tiny creatures, their slender tails wriggling in the fluid to propel their movement. They were larger in size and more determined in their movements than the unmotivated creatures around them, which I was used to.
Broghen.
Brock’an fidgeted beside me. I was half afraid to show him. Surely he’d want to suppress my discovery. At the same time I relished the moment when he would be confronted with his guilt. I moved aside and let him look.
He gazed down through the enlarging tube.
“Younglings,” he signed at last.
“How can they be? You’ve had your second child.”
“Ghen can have many children, not just two.”
So like a Ghen. Even when shown proof, he denies it. Brock’an must have seen my disgusted disbelief, for he began signing again.
“At the time of the second famine—you know the story of Garn’ar?—and again when lightning burned the Ghen compound—the Ghen were nearly decimated. Both times they were permitted to mate with many Bria.”
“How many Broghen were born?”
“The same as now, one Broghen at each birth.”
“There must have been more Broghen if there were more Ghen.” I was so determined to condemn him I risked letting him discover that there was more than curiosity behind my interest.
“How did you get around the custom of joining? Don’t tell me they allowed mass matings?” I tried to imagine Council passing that one—or any Bria agreeing to it—just to repopulate the Ghen compound. He must be lying.
“Of course not.” He grinned. Was he amused again? “Joining was strictly adhered to by the Bria. Only each Ghen joined with several Bria, instead of one. That was to the Bria’s advantage, too. Think how many would have gone unjoined and never had offspring if they weren’t willing to share a mate.”
“How do you know all this?”
“We keep records. It’s important that Ghen who are related don’t co-join. That produces a weak child.”
I touched my breath. We didn’t exchange breast fluid with siblings for the same reason.
“I’d like to see those records.”
Brock’an hesitated. “They cannot be moved, but I don’t know why you can’t look at them. There are two sets, one in the Ghen compound and a copy in the Council building. What, right away?”
I’d already started for the door. He rose to escort me.
It was nearly stillseason. The air was like warm soup, barely moving. I was panting by the time we reached Council Hall, though I hid it. Council had ended for the year and it was strange to walk through the silent chambers. Our footsteps echoed in the huge room. Since Council didn’t meet in still-season, there were no overhead fans—they would have been too high to be of help, anyway. I felt as though I was suffocating.
We crossed the room as quickly as I could manage and passed through the back door onto the inside verandah. Brock’an led me down the steps and directly across the courtyard to a small room on the opposite side of the building, where the Ghen records were kept.
Here, again, there were no fans. Ghen had little need of them. “Will you be alright?” he signed, as I sank onto a Ghen bench, gasping for air.
I raised my hand toward my lips; I had no breath to touch my fingers to. I closed my eye to concentrate on breathing.
When I felt a little better, I looked around. One wall of the room was lined with shelves, on which the Ghen records sat, a solid wall of thick, leather-bound volumes. Brock’an was looking through them for the one we wanted. I sat on a bench with my back to the door, facing a table large enough for ten Ghen to comfortably sit around. There were benches along all four sides.
Brock’an found the volume he was looking for and brought it over to the table. The records came from the Ghen printing press, and Brock’an had to translate them for me. They consisted simply of a lineage of names, parent to child, with the co-joined Ghen noted beside, and every Ghen’s year of birth. During the two eras we were looking at, several Ghen infants were born to each Ghen, as Brock’an had claimed.
“How far do these go?” I signed, gesturing to the shelf of books.
“As far back as Heckt’er.”
“You’re saying he was real?”
“Of course.”
If one can believe Ghen records, I thought, remembering that he’d lied to me about Broghen. “Is this how you learned that Bria and Ghen seeds enter Bria wombs in the first mating and Broghen in the second?” I masked my scorn as I signed it. Of course they maintained that Ghen and Broghen arrived separately; how else could they absolve themselves?
“Yes.” Brock’an failed to detect my sarcasm. “Those early years were difficult. Before we began taking them far to the south, Broghen attacked the new city often, sometimes getting over the wall and killing Bria as well as Ghen. When a pregnant Bria died, his womb was opened so that we could record the death of the infants, also.”
The idea impressed me; I’d give a lot to have been at one of those examinations. Too bad it wouldn’t be tolerated today. Brock’an closed the book we’d been examining and returned it, selecting the first volume on the same shelf and setting it on the table in front of me.
“That’s what this means,” he pointed to a page in the mi
ddle of the first volume and signed a listing of a Bria with three partially-formed infants—two Bria and one Ghen, all dead. A mark beside his name indicated that there hadn’t been a Broghen.
“He must have had second-year mating, too. You said they only cut open those who were obviously pregnant.”
Brock’an lifted his hand dismissively. “There may have been a Broghen seed, after all. Without your enlarging glass they wouldn’t have known till it had had a chance to grow.”
Perhaps it was the flattery, but I began to believe him. Nevertheless, the fact that Broghen were conceived later didn’t change the fact that they came from Ghen.
“Are there any records of two Broghen being born?”
He leafed through several pages, moving backward toward the beginning of the first book. Closer to the myth of Heckt’er and Dayannis, I thought, wondering if it would tell me anything I could rely on. At that time the records must have been part of their oral history, typeset by later generations.
“Here,” he signed, stubbing the top of a page with his finger. “And here, again.” He touched a name lower down.
“Where does the birth of multiple Broghen begin? Where does it end? Look for anything different they did then,” I signed, excited despite my reservations.
***
“BAM!”
I leaped in my seat as the door slammed open behind me. Brock’an’s head jerked up. Mick’al shouted at him, his voice so low I could only hear the vibration of the air around him.
Mick’al repeated his question, his face twisted in outrage so that he appeared to me more like a snarling animal than the Ghen religious adviser. In age his gray scales had lightened. Looking at him, I understood for the first time the nervousness other Bria had expressed about the Ghen.
Brock’an’s voice was defensive when he answered, but after a few exchanges he, too, became angry. I shrank into my seat. At last Brock’an snapped the book shut and returned it to its shelf. Without a word he came over, took my arm and escorted me out. As we passed Mick’al at the door the tension between them was so thick I dared not even breathe.
Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set Page 27
