“What’s your real name?”
He stared up at me, and I could see the lump in his throat go up and down. “Sharl. Sharl sunna Sheren.” Then: “Mother of Life. You have no idea how long it’s been since the last time I said that aloud.”
I thought about that, and thought about him. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” He bent over, face in hands. “I just don’t know.”
It’s a funny thing, but when he said those words, I knew he had to say them, and I knew what I had to say in response. Thinking back on it a moment ago, as I sat here and listened to Eleen’s soft breathing and tried to think of what to write next, I wondered for a moment if I was remembering something out of the stories that were left here among the alien-books, or something from the stories my father used to tell when I was a child and he hadn’t yet been called away to the war that killed him. Then I thought of what Plummer said, about the one big story, and realized that he was right: there is only one story, and there was only one way it could go right then and there, in Berry’s bare little room in the ruins of Star’s Reach.
“I do,” I said. “You’re going to declare yourself a candidate.” Before he could answer: “If you’re going to say a tween can’t be Presden, you’re wrong. We just had one for more than forty years, and everyone knows it now.”
He stared up at me for a long moment, then said, “They’ll kill me.”
“They’re going to kill you anyway,” I reminded him. “What have you got to lose?”
Another moment, then: “I’d have to figure out how to go about it...”
“Tashel Ban will know.”
“That’s true,” he said. “That’s true.” He drew in a ragged breath, and just for a moment I could see the child he’d been back at Shanuga, all those years and kloms ago. “Trey—will you come with me?”
“Let’s go,” I said, and motioned toward the door.
A better storyteller than I am could probably make something out of what happened after that; what comes to mind now, thinking back on it, are little bright images like scraps of broken glass. I remember Tashel Ban’s hands moving in a pool of lamplight as he explained how presdens are chosen and how Berry—Sharl, I should probably say now, though it doesn’t come easily after this long—could proclaim himself and get the process going. I remember the table in the main room, all five of us sitting around it, while Berry told us what he meant to do and the rest of us listened and agreed. Then we were all in the radio room, with Tashel Ban turning switches on the transmitter, making sure a message would get bounced back off the high thin air to stations all over this end of Meriga, and handing the microphone to the thin red-haired ruinman who’d been my prentice not so long ago, and would probably be either Presden of Meriga or a corpse before much more time went past.
“My name is Sharl sunna Sheren.” His voice was calm, there at the last, as though he knew all along what he was going to do. “I meant to announce myself later on, after my mother’s funeral, but the news that came out today changed that. Unless there’s someone with a better claim, I am my mother’s heir and a candidate for the Presdency.
“You’ve heard the rumors; they’re true. I was born eighteen years ago and raised secretly in Sisnaddi. My mother didn’t want me to have to live the kind of lifelong lie she did, so as soon as I was old enough, I was prenticed out to the ruinmen. I’m a mister in the ruinmen’s guild now, and was working at a ruin when the news came about my mother.
“I’m not going to say where I am, for two reasons. One should be obvious. The other one—that’ll be known soon enough. Since as far as I know, there are no other heirs or candidates, I’m calling a meeting of the council of electors in Sanloo on the twentieth of Febry, a month and a half from now. I’ll present proofs of my identity and ancestry there, so the electors can decide on my candidacy.”
The words he’d rehearsed with Tashel Ban a few minutes earlier ended there, but he held onto the microphone, and after a moment went on. “One other thing. There have been a lot of rumors about this jennel and that one, about soldiers—about war. I want to ask everyone to put those rumors aside. We have laws in Meriga to decide who will be Presden, and whether or not the electors accept me, those laws need to be followed. The three civil wars we’ve had in this country should have taught us that there’s nothing good to be gained from a fourth. On the twentieth of Febry I’ll make my case before the electors in Sanloo; if any other candidates want to be considered, they can do the same; whatever the electors decide, I’ll accept it, and everyone else needs to do the same thing. That’s all. Thank you.”
He handed the microphone back to Tashel Ban. A moment later, the hiss from the receiver turned into a voice: “Copied.”
Then it was over, and we went one at a time back to our rooms. Eleen fell asleep almost at once, but it’s taken me a good couple of hours of writing to feel sleepy at all, and I don’t imagine that Berry will get any more sleep tonight than Thu ever does. When I was a prentice working in the Shanuga ruins and Gray Garman would set gunpowder charges to bring down a building, we’d see the flare of the fuse being lit, and then wait in a safe place until the charges boomed like thunder and the building came down. We lit the fuse on a mother of a charge tonight, a mother with babies and grandbabies all around, and there’s no safe place anywhere in Meriga or around it; all we can do now is wait for the thunder.
Twenty-Seven: When the Spire Fell
The first night after our messages went out we were all in the radio room early, waiting for whatever it is after sunset that makes the high thin air start bouncing radio waves back to the ground. Tashel Ban had the receiver on by the time I got there. Berry and Thu were in the room already, and Eleen arrived not long after I did, while the loudspeaker was still hissing to itself. After another few moments Tashel Ban, who was sitting at the table, nodded to himself, glanced back over his shoulder and said, “Any time now.”
He must have heard something in the hiss that the rest of us didn’t. Before he could turn back to the receiver, a voice came through: “Curtis dig. Curtis dig. Message traffic. Am I clear?”
Tashel Ban had the microphone in his hand before the voice was finished talking. “This is the Curtis dig, and you’re clear. Go ahead.”
“Message from the Cansiddi ruinmen’s lodge for the misters at the Curtis dig.”
“Copied,” Tashel Ban said. “Go on.”
“Contract terms are acceptable. Misters Cooper and Damey are on their way with prentices and gear. Prices for most metals are up, so there should be no trouble getting more help if you need it. That’s all.”
“Copied and out,” said Tashel Ban. “Thank you.”
“Cansiddi out,” said the loudspeaker.
As soon as Tashel Ban had the transmitter off, I let out a whistle. “That’s better than I was expecting.”
All the others but Berry gave me the sort of look you get when you’re talking nonsense. “Two misters?” Thu asked. “That seems—inadequate.”
“One hundred forty-three misters and senior prentices,” Berry corrected him. “They should be here in two weeks or a little less.”
It was Tashel Ban who caught on first. “Good,” he said. “Do ruinmen often use code?”
I grinned and said, “When there’s need.”
“That’s a better response than I expected, too,” Berry said then. “There must have been a crowd of them waiting at Cansiddi.”
I thought about the places I’d seen where every last scrap of metal had been broken out of concrete and hauled away before I was born; I thought about the places where the guild’s closed and new misters have to leave town and find somewhere else to work, because there aren’t enough ruins left to support more than the misters who are already there; and I figured I could guess why a hundred forty-three misters and senior prentices had been waiting around the Cansiddi guildhall on the off chance they might have a shot at helping dig up Star’s Reach. I could see from the look on Berry’s fac
e that he was thinking about the same thing. It’s something that most ruinmen think about these days.
By then, though, Tashel Ban was turning knobs on the receiver again, because it was almost time for the news broadcast from Sanloo. I shut up and listened with everyone else.
The broadcast came through the hissing a little while after that. Most of it was the same thing as usual. Sheren’s funeral had finally been scheduled, and the presden of Nuwinga and the meer of Genda were both going to be there. The emperor of Meyco wasn’t, but he was sending one of his younger brothers, which is more than Meyco usually does. Some Jinya pirates got caught raiding merchant ships in the waters south of Memfis, there was a sharp little sea battle the pirates lost, and the lot of them got hauled ashore to a navy base in Banroo Bay whose name I almost remember, where they’re going to be tried and hanged over the next few days. There were bits of news out of the government in Sisnaddi and the army along the border with the coastal allegiancies, nothing important.
Then, at the end: “Last night’s radio message from Sharl sunna Sheren, who claims to be the late presden’s heir, seems to have taken everyone by surprise.” A scratchy recording of Berry’s voice followed: “I’m calling a meeting of the council of electors in Sanloo on the twentieth of Febry, a month and a half from now. I’ll present proofs of my identity and ancestry there, so the electors can decide on my candidacy.” After a few clicks and pops, the announcer went on. “There’s been no word yet from the electors about whether they’ll consider the claim.”
That was all, and then the broadcast ended. We all looked at each other. “At least,” Tashel Ban said, “it’s being discussed.” With that not very comforting reflection, we wished blessings on each other’s dreams and headed off to bed.
We spent the next day figuring out where to put a hundred forty-three ruinmen, and starting to get the rooms ready for them: a mother of a lot of work, and I was tired enough that I crawled into bed with Eleen without taking the time to write anything. That night, there wasn’t anything at all in the news bulletin, not even a mention of Berry. The next night, though, after another day of hard work, we listened to one of the important jennels say that Meriga had enough good candidates for presden, and didn’t have to go looking for them among tweens and ruinmen. Eleen spat a piece of hot language at the radio when that came through, which startled me, but Tashel Ban shook his head.
“Not at all,” he said. “Jennels aren’t fool enough to say whatever comes into their heads. If he’s that worried about Berry’s case, the wind’s blowing the right way.”
The evening after that, there was news. Half a dozen of the less important jennels, I think it was, sent an open letter to Congrus saying that Berry’s claim should be considered. None of them were electors, and the electors could ignore them if they wanted, but they were still jennels, and that counted for something. What they said was simple enough: by law, one of a presden’s children became the next presden unless there was some good reason to do something else; being a tween would probably be good reason, but there weren’t any other candidates in the direct line, and being a tween hadn’t stopped Sheren herself from being one of the best presdens we’d had since the old world ended, so if this Sharl sunna Sheren was who he claimed to be, his claim ought to be taken seriously.
That was promising, but the next two evenings went by without any news about Berry’s candidacy at all—not surprising, because those were the days set aside for Sheren’s funeral, and the news didn’t talk about anything else. Not that long ago, Berry would have spent those days jittering like a drop of water on a hot griddle, but not any more. I could just about hear him telling himself, no, a presden doesn’t do that. Still, it was probably just as well that the two of us spent those days finding a couple of disused kitchens down in the deep levels of Star’s Reach; hauling the pots and pans back up all those stairs didn’t leave him enough strength left to jitter.
It was the following evening that things changed, hard. Tashel Ban got the receiver working and then sat there, staring at it, as though he expected something to happen, and he wasn’t disappointed. After some final news from the funeral, the announcer said, “Meanwhile, the succession is on a lot of minds. Odry darra Beth of Sisnaddi Circle had this to say.” Pops and crackles, and then an old woman’s voice: “It was always a disappointment that Sheren was never able to become one of us, though of course now we know why. Circle had an excellent working relationship with her, and if her child is cut from the same cloth, I can’t imagine anyone in Circle objecting if the electors favor his claim.”
Tashel Ban let out a long low whistle. I didn’t know who Odry darra Beth was, but he did, and I could guess. The old women in red hats who run Circle don’t just do things on their own; you won’t hear one of them make an announcement unless the rest of them are pretty much in agreement with it. With the power that Circle has in Meriga, if the Circle elders were willing to accept Berry’s candidacy, he was past one big hurdle.
The announcer wasn’t done yet, though. “And this from Jor sunna Kelli, of the Sisnaddi ruinmen.” Berry and I gave each other startled looks as the radio crackled and popped; that was a name we both knew. “Mister Sharl is one of ours,” he said, in the kind of voice that sounds like gravel getting crushed, and warns you not to mess with the person who’s attached to it. “Whether he ends up presden or not is up to the electors. That’s the law in Meriga, and we’ll abide by it, but if anybody tries to make that decision for them, they’re going to answer to us.”
More crackles, then the announcer: “Still no word from the electors, but word is expected in the next day or so. This is Sanloo station, with this evening’s news.”
The music started to play, and we all looked at Berry, who mostly looked dazed. “I take it,” said Tashel Ban, “that Mister Jor is important.”
“Senior mister at Sisnaddi,” I told him. “Ruinmen don’t have a chief over them all, but if they did, it would be him.”
“So the threat is credible,” said Thu. “That may be helpful.”
“The Circle elder’s the one that interests me more,” Tashel Ban said. “They rarely involve themselves in the succession this early on. Well, we’ll see what happens.”
Berry shook his head, then, as though he was shaking himself awake, and said, “Well.” It seemed like a reasonable thing to say, and none of us had anything to add to it.
So we went to our rooms, and I kissed Eleen and watched her fall asleep, and then pulled out this notebook and sat here for a while deciding what I still have time to write. I’m not going to say much about the time I spent in the archives in Sisnaddi. Not much happened there, other than day after day with the archivists, trying to find something that would turn WRTF from a jumble of letters to a place I could find, and night after night in a little room in the ruinmen’s guild hall outside Sisnaddi, wondering how soon I would have to give the whole thing up.
I don’t even remember what day it was when I finally ran out of places to look in the archives. It was just before lunch, I remember that, and I sat there at the little desk where I worked, staring at the bare metal, trying to think, and failing, until the soft bell sounded to let everyone in the archives know that lunch was ready. I went and sat with the archivists, ate bread and soup, and tried not to think about the years I’d spent and the chances I’d thrown away chasing what looked just then like an empty dream. I really was up against the bare walls just then, and that’s probably why I thought about the place Lu the harlot told me about, the place at the Lannic shore by Deesee where every question has an answer.
If I’d been able to think of anything else to do, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Still, as I walked back to the guildhall and slumped in the hard metal chair in my room, the thought wouldn’t leave me alone. I pushed it away a dozen times, and tried to be reasonable and figure out what I was going to do now that Star’s Reach was just a story again, and a dozen times it came whispering back to me that I had one more chance to find
the thing.
So I had my dinner and went to bed. I wasn’t expecting to sleep at all, but I dropped off after an hour or two of lying awake and staring into the darkness, and damn if I didn’t slip right away into one of my Deesee dreams.
It wasn’t much different from the others I had down through the years, except this time there were lots of people in drowned Deesee with me, walking the wide streets and going into and out of the big white buildings where all the windows looked the same. Gray Garman went past me, nodding a greeting the way he did, and then all of a sudden Tam ran up to me, gave me a kiss, and hurried away. Slane the riverboat trader was there, and Cash the elwus and his motor Morey, and a lot of ruinmen I knew from Memfis and Shanuga, and scholars from Melumi and traveling folk from the roads I’d walked and, well, just about everyone I’d ever met on my search for Star’s Reach. They were all going different places, but somehow they were all walking with me, too, down the street to the place where the hill rose up, green and smooth and grassy, to the foot of the Spire.
I stopped there, and they stopped, too. They were waiting for me, I knew, and there was someone else waiting for me, up there at the foot of the Spire. I was scared, more scared than I’ve ever been in a dream or waking life, of taking that first step onto the grass. I looked around, trying to find some other way I could go, but the people who were with me pressed right up close behind me, and the only way I could go was straight ahead, up the grassy slope, to where a dead man was waiting.
That’s when I woke up. I was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, and my heart was pounding, but I knew what I had to do. The sky was just starting to lighten up; I packed my gear, got breakfast, let the prentice who had charge of the rooms that day know that I wouldn’t be needing my room that night, and walked out the door before I had time to have second thoughts.
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