Star's Reach

by John Michael Greer

  The man who’d tried to kill me was still watching me. “I hope it is so. If you find something of the sort I have named, you may have a fight with those whose ways are different.”

  “I think we can handle that,” I told him, but there again he had a point, one that I hadn’t considered anything like enough.

  “Perhaps so. I grant that you were better with that iron bar than I expected.”

  That startled me. “I couldn’t land a solid hit on you for anything.”

  “You did so several times. I am—” He shrugged. “—difficult to hurt.”

  All at once Berry let out a long low whistle. “Sir and Mister,” he said to me, “I know who he is.” I nodded, answering the question he hadn’t said out loud, and Berry turned to the man on the other side of the bars. “You’re Thu,” he said. “You’re the last king of Yami. Am I right?”

  Ran’s prentice laughed his donkey-laugh again, and stopped when Ran glanced at him.

  The man gave Berry a long slow look, and then nodded once. “That is correct.”

  Ran blinked, and muttered a bit of hot language under his breath. I stared at Berry, then back at the man who’d tried to kill me. “That explains a few things,” I said, for want of anything better.

  “I suppose it does.” There was something new in his voice, an edge that hadn’t been there before. I could guess why: if he was who he said he was, there were a lot of people in Meriga, Meyco and the coastal allegiancies who wanted his guts in a bucket and would pay good money for the chance to see them there.

  Ran cleared his throat then. “Mister’s lodge is going to have to sort this out,” he said. “Unless there’s something else you want to ask him?”

  There wasn’t, so we left him there in the little room with the barred door. Ran turned off the light and locked the door to the basement behind us. As we started up the stairs, he asked Berry, “How did you guess that, prentice?”

  “I’ve heard a lot of stories about him, Sir and Mister. There really wasn’t anybody else he could be.”

  Ran gave him a long steady look, and then nodded. “Clever.”

  Of course there was a lot more to it than that, more even than Berry explained to me once we got back up to my room. Still, I wasn’t paying too much attention. Part of me was trying to figure out what to say to the mister’s lodge when it met, and part of me was more or less stumbling around in shock that somebody who was nearly as much of a legend as Star’s Reach had come jumping out of the shadows on a Memfis street and tried to gut me, but a good part had something else to think about.

  I knew I was stupid even to consider it. I knew that the man had done his best to kill me and that the misters would be making a good choice if they either killed him or sold him to somebody who wanted to kill him, but damn if I wanted the last king of Yami to die because of me. As we climbed the stair—slowly, because the cut in my side wasn’t too happy just then—I started trying to figure out if there was a way I could get him out of there.

  There was a reason for that, and most people in Meriga could probably guess it. Still, as I wrote a while back, the next person who comes here to Star’s Reach might be from the Neeyonjin country over on the far side of the dead lands, and won’t have the least idea of how things are over on this side of the dead lands. If you grew up in Meriga any time in the last thirty years or so, it’s a safe bet that you’ve heard of the last king of Yami, and before then it was his father or his grandfather or someone else in his family, back to the days when Yami was drowned by the rising oceans, but nobody from Meriga has gone to the Neeyonjin country since before that happened. I probably need to tell Thu’s story, then, and it so happens that I got to hear Thu tell his story himself.

  That happened about a week before we got to Star’s Reach, on the road west out of Cansiddi. We left the last few scraggly trees behind us by the time we were out of sight of the Suri River, and from then on it was grass: tall grass at first, tall as I am, whipping in the wind off the desert, and then shorter and shorter as you go further west, until finally it’s low and sparse and as brown as the ground itself, just before the grass goes away and you’re in the desert. We weren’t that far, but the grass was no taller than my knees and the wind muttered and wheezed through it like an old man who’s drunk too much whiskey for too many years. We found a place where a building had been in the old world, and part of a concrete wall still stood shoulder-high at the right angle to screen us from the wind; it was late enough in the day to camp, and our chances of finding anything better up ahead didn’t look too good, so we staked the pack horses where the grass looked decent and settled in for the night.

  There were eight of us, me and Berry and Eleen, Tashel Ban and Thu, Anna, Jennel Cobey, and his man Banyon; eight when we left Cansiddi and eight when we got to the door of Star’s Reach, though there were just six left not too many minutes after that. Once we got a fire going and some food cooked, we sat and talked, as we usually did, and somehow the talk wound its way around to Thu and the lost kingdom of Yami, and he told his story.

  “It began with the three voyages,” he said in that deep musical voice of his, motioning with his hands; the firelight turned their shadows into big looming shapes on the crumbling wall behind him. “First, the voyage of grief, from Affiga across the sea to Meriga. That was long ago, when men were first beginning to dig their way into Mam Gaia’s flesh to get the fossil fuels they craved. They still needed strong muscles in those days, and so the people of Meriga enslaved my people and brought them here to labor for them.

  “Then there was war, and my people won their freedom. Many stayed here in Meriga, but some took ship back to Affiga, to a country whose name meant the place of freedom. That was the second voyage, the voyage of hope from Meriga back across the sea to Affiga, though the hope was a long time seeking its fulfillment. It was not in Affiga as it was in Meriga; the power and the wealth and the technologies were here and not there. There, there was bitter poverty and much war, until the old world began to break apart.

  “It happened then that a strong ruler took power in the country called the place of freedom, and seized countries near it to make a larger kingdom, and because the land was rich and had things the rest of the world needed, the kingdom grew strong as the old world grew weak. He lived long and left behind two sons, and when he died there was war between them. The younger had not so many followers as the elder, and when he knew he could not win he and his followers took ships and sailed west across the ocean, to Meriga. That was the third voyage, the voyage of power, from Affiga back across the sea to Meriga again.

  “Meriga the rich, Meriga that had ruled the world, was then torn by war, crushed by drought, and broken into many quarreling parts, and an army that was not strong enough to win a kingdom in Affiga was still strong enough to take what it wanted here. So the prince of the place of freedom landed in a country that is now beneath the ocean, the country called Florda, and took it for his own, and much of the country along the shores of the Lannic that the allegiancies now hold, and many other lands that now lie under the waves.

  “Those became his kingdom, and he ruled it from the city of Yami; and because he was heedless, and did not learn from the mistakes that brought Meriga and the old world low, he gathered as many of the old technologies as he could and made use of them to add to his power. That was when he and all his line lost the need for sleep; it was something that could be done with the old technologies, some trick of genetic engineering that someone still remembered; it was one of many things he claimed for himself out of the heritage of old Meriga.

  “What he did not remember, and should have remembered, is that Mam Gaia does not care why we do what we do. The best of reasons and the worst are all one to her. All that matters to her is what we do, and all that mattered to her just then was that the king of Yami gathered and used the old technologies, and burnt what fuel he could find to power them, and the smoke added carbon to the carbon that had already been sent up into the sky in years pa
st—just enough, or more than enough, to stir her to wrath. So the high cliffs of ice in the place called Nardiga broke and plunged into the sea, and the seas rose.

  “Mam Gaia’s wrath is not quick. It was in the time of the third king of Yami that the cliffs of ice fell and the seas began to rise, and it was most of a lifetime before the seas reached where they are today. Long before they stopped, though, Yami was deep below the waves. Many died and many more lost all they had, and even though the king of Yami tried to rescue as much as he could, a crowd came upon him and tore his body to pieces with their hands.

  “That was long ago. He who would have been the fourth king was taken by friends to a place of safety in the mountains of Joja, and when he came to manhood he swore a great oath, that he and his sons and his son’s sons until the ending of his line would make amends for what had been done. Since then it has been our purpose to make it so that the technologies that ravaged this world shall not do so a second time. I say we, for I am the heir of Yami, the eleventh king of the kingdom that is gone; the eleventh and the last, for Mam Gaia has not chosen to give me a son.”

  He shrugged, and the shadows on the wall behind him rose and fell like waves. “So that is my story, or part of it. If you want to know every place I have gone and everything I have done since I first went out to fight with those who would reawaken those technologies that should sleep forever, well, we will be here a long time.”

  That got a laugh, not least because he was right and we knew it. As I wrote a bit earlier, most people in Meriga know about Thu, and a fair number of them can tell stories about some of the things he’s done. The priestesses don’t like to hear people tell those stories, because they think we ought to keep clear of the bad old technologies because they’re bad, not because someone who never sleeps and can’t be bribed or bullied will come out of nowhere and mess with anybody who dabbles in them; and they don’t like fighting for any reason, and of course Thu has done a lot of that. Still, the stories get told, because most people in Meriga have their own reasons to want the old technologies to stay buried, and because someone who never sleeps and can’t be bribed or bullied is better than most of us at doing things that make for good stories.

  “It seems almost unfair," said Eleen then. She hadn’t laughed with the rest of us. "The first king of Yami simply did what most rulers in those days were doing, salvaging whatever technologies they could find, and if I recall right, his grandson didn’t even do that much.”

  “That is true,” said Thu. “By then the last of the fossil fuels in the kingdom were gone, and so were the technologies they used to find more underground. Still, that is the way of it.”

  “Very much so,” Jennel Cobey said. He was sitting next to me, with Banyon behind him like a shadow, and he’d spent the whole story with his chin on his hands, watching Thu. “The balance of the world is always exact but it’s never fair. That’s true in politics, in war—“ He shrugged, glanced at me. “Anything else you care to name. One person gets the benefit, another pays the price, and there’s no justice to who does which—but the price still gets paid.”

  There was a little more talk, I forget about what, and then all of us but Thu wrapped ourselves in our blankets and went to sleep, or tried to. It took me a while, because I was thinking about what the jennel said. It wasn’t until we got to Star’s Reach that I realized that he was giving me a warning, and by then it was too late for things to end any other way but the way they did. Looking back on it now, though, I’m sure it was a warning, and not the only one he gave me, either. That was his way, because I was a friend, or as near to a friend as a jennel with ambitions can let himself have.

  I began to find out just how near to a friend he considered me when we were at Memfis, right after I met Thu for the first time. I think it was the next afternoon, when I was going over the contracts I’d drafted with the misters of the Memfis ruinmen, that a prentice I didn’t know came pelting into the room, out of breath. “Mister Trey,” he said, “it’s the jennel—Jennel Cobey. He’s here—“

  Up the stairs behind him came quick footsteps, and then Jennel Cobey was there in the room. I got up, partly because that’s what you do when a jennel comes into the room, and partly because I was about as surprised as you can get. I was expecting a letter from him, and maybe a visit from one of his men, but not the man himself.

  His face lit up when he saw me. “On your feet already! That’s a welcome thing. The reports I got made me think you were badly hurt.”

  “More or less, Sir and Jennel,” I said. “Still, it’s mostly healed. I hope you didn’t come all the way down here just to check on me, though.”

  “I have business in Memfis that has to be done before the rains.” A little fast gesture brushed them aside. "I also wanted to talk to you and find out how your plans are shaping up.”

  I knew him well enough already to know that he meant I should tell him that right away, in detail, so I sent the prentice down to get him some wine, and started handing the jennel contracts and papers, explaining what was what as he peppered me with questions. By the time the prentice got back with the wine we were deep into the details: which misters and their prentices would be working for him, which provision merchants would be selling us the food and gear we’d need, plans for the first year’s digging, and the rest. He wanted to know all of it; that was his way, then and always. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who was curious about so many things so much of the time.

  So we went over all the preparations I’d made, and he nodded, said he’d have the money to me in two weeks, and started to get up. Then he stopped and sat back down. “I was told the ruinmen caught the man who attacked you. What happened to him?”

  “He’s in the basement,” I said.

  He gave me a startled look. “Alive or—“

  “Alive.”

  “Why?”

  I hadn’t wanted to tell him, but I knew by that point that he’d get the whole story out of me or someone else quickly enough. “Because of who he is, Sir and Jennel. You’ve heard of Thu, the king of Yami.”

  He took that in, and whistled after a long moment. “Plenty of people would pay good money to have him in their hands.”

  “I know.” Then, though I hadn’t meant to say anything of the kind: “But damn if it’s going to be me who puts an end to all those stories.”

  The jennel just stopped, stared at me for a while, and then started laughing: a quiet unwilling laugh like nothing I’d ever heard from him before. “Good,” he said. “Very good. You want to see him go free, even though he tried to rob and kill you.”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out how to do it for a couple of days now,” I admitted. “Haven’t been able to come up with a plan.”

  “Very good,” he said again. “I may be able to arrange something. No promises, you understand.”

  I heard later that he went to the misters the next day and asked them how much they wanted for Thu. They set a good high price, though to be fair to them it was no higher than they could have gotten from some of the dons from Meyco who wanted him dead. Jennel Cobey paid it, and a bunch of his soldiers came over at night and hauled Thu away, took him out of the city, and let him go. I never did hear the details. Still, about a month later, when I was doing the rounds of the provision merchants again one evening, a shadow moved in the shadows of an alley and said, “Ruinman Trey.”

  I would have recognized the voice anywhere. I stopped and turned to face him, and Berry backed away in case he had to run for the guild hall again.

  “Your prentice need not worry,” said Thu. “I owe your friend the jennel a great favor, and you a greater one. What I wish to say, though, is this. When you find Star’s Reach—for I think you will find it—consider sending for me. I may be useful to you.”

  That startled me, but I had enough of my wits about me to think of the obvious problem. “If I want to do that, how do I send for you?”

  His laugh set echoes running down the alley. “Speak to the
night air,” he said. “I will hear of it.” Then he was gone.

  The odd thing was, that’s pretty much what happened. After I found my way back to Sisnaddi with the secret I learned in the ruins of Deesee, if that’s really where I learned it, I got to thinking about who I wanted with me when I went to Star’s Reach. I knew Berry had to be there, and Eleen would be our scholar, and I wrote to Tashel Ban because I knew we’d need a radioman and to Jennel Cobey because he was the one person who never stopped trusting in me to find it; and then one night I stood at the narrow little window of the rickety little room Eleen and I shared during those weeks, and called out into the darkness, “Thu, I’m going to Star’s Reach and I want you in the party.”

  It was the only thing I could think of to do, and I felt about as stupid as you can imagine when I did it, but a week later a knock rattled our door and there he was. The three of us, Thu and Eleen and me, sat up late into the night talking about the journey. We all agreed that if there was anything at Star’s Reach that would put Mam Gaia at risk, we would destroy it or put it in the hands of the priestesses, but that nobody was going to destroy anything until all of us agreed to it. Once he agreed to that, I was glad to have him, since I knew we might have to fight, and of course I was right about that.

  Still, the one thing I never did learn was how he knew to come looking for me. Did some friend of his outside the gates of Sisnaddi hear a rumor from the ruinmen and send for him, or did the night air actually tell him somehow? If it was anyone else, I’d laugh at that last notion, but Thu is, well, Thu, and I’d have laughed at the notion that somebody could have had his genes changed so he never has to sleep again, if I hadn’t seen the results. It’s easy enough to say that this belongs to stories and that belongs to everyday life, but what do you say when you’re washing dishes in Star’s Reach and the person who’s drying them has more stories about him than a dog has fleas?

  Twenty-Two: Memfis Nights, Arksa Days