by Greg Bear
“I’m trying to cooperate,” Michael said sullenly.
“You cooperate so you can show us you aren’t a fool.” She smiled, a hideous and revealing expression which didn’t reassure him at all, and probably wasn’t meant to. Her teeth were cat-sharp and her gums were black as tar.
“In betlim, little combat, warriors not kill. Best,” Coom said. They circled each other with the sticks held before them in broad-spaced hands. “Lober, not hurt. Win. Strategy.”
Michael nodded.
“One thing very bad,” Coom said. “Rilu. Anger. Never let mad control! Mad is poison in betlim. In great combat, rilu is mord. Hear?”
He nodded again. Coom touched his stick with her own. “Disarm you now.”
He gripped his stick tighter, but that only made his hands hurt more when, with a whirl and a flourish, she whacked his stick straight up in the air, parallel to the ground. He caught it as it fell, wincing at the pain in his wrists.
“Good,” Coom said. “Now you hear why you learn. Hear that stick is wick; you are Sidhe given power of pais where you stand. I take wick and take land from you. Stop me—maybe stop me. Hear how I move. Take control of air. Of Realm.”
Then she did an amazing thing. She leaped up, braced her feet against nothingness, and sprung at him with her stick. He retreated, but not before receiving another bone-rattling blow. She hung before him a moment and landed on her feet. “Good,” she said. “Stronger.”
She disarmed him again, this time whacking the stick out of his reach before it came down. He walked over to pick it up and turned to see Coom standing where he had been.
“Gave up ground,” she accused, looking disgusted.
“You took away my stick.”
“Didn’t take away most important weapon.” She threw down her stick and backed up a pace. “Come at with kima.”
He didn’t hesitate. She reached around with one spider hand as his stick came down on the spot where she had stood, grabbed hold and slammed it to the ground.
He could feel the bones in his back pop before he let go.
“Little defeats teach potential,” Coom said. “Not to waste my time, you will train with this.” Spart came from the hut carrying a headless mannequin with bush-branch arms. It held a smaller stick, tied to leafy “hands” with twine. Michael groaned inside, then resigned himself to the indignity.
“Take this off thirty paces and hammer it into the ground. Then fight with it,” Spart said.
He did as he was told, clutching the cloth, straw and wood mannequin and using his stick to pound it in like a stake. He assumed a stance before the mannequin, imitating Coom and feeling foolish—
And it promptly swung up its stick and knocked his to the ground. The mannequin vibrated gleefully, twisted on its stake and became limp again.
When the hair on his neck had settled, Michael retrieved his stick and resumed his stance, a little farther back. They sparred for a bit, the mannequin having at least the two disadvantages of being staked to the ground and using a shorter, flimsier stick. Michael wasn’t encouraged.
He had no illusions that the fight was fair. He got his lumps.
Chapter Ten
As the pre-dawn light filtered through the plaited reed door cover Spart had given him, Michael scrawled another poem in the dirt floor.
Night’s a friendly sort
Oh yes likes to throw a
Fright now and then—when
The wind hums—but after
You’re dead will gladly
Share a glass of moon.
Nothing more than exercise, he thought—not worth recording even if he had the means, which he did not—no pencils or writing implements of any sort but the stick, no paper but what was in his black book. And he hardly considered his work worthy of going in the book.
The Crane Women usually arose fifteen minutes before sunrise, which gave him a short time of being alone and at leisure—time more important than sleep. He used the time to read from the book or write in the dirt, or just to savor not having anything in particular to do.
Fie heard the door to their hut creak open. He took the book, zippered it into his jacket pocket and wrapped it in the folds before hiding it in the rafters overhead.
“Man-child! Jan wiros!”
He came out of the house and saw Coom approaching, with Nare two paces behind. They looked like hunters unsure of their prey—and he was their prey. The Crane Women were masters at unnerving him. He could never predict their moods, attitudes. He should have been a nervous wreck, but he found himself adapting.
“More run,” Coom said. “To Euterpe and back. With kima.”
He grabbed the stick without hesitation and ran. Behind, Nare called out, “This evening is Kaeli.” She said it as if some special treat were involved. Michael hefted the stick before him and crossed the creek. He did not see the watery hand which rose up, grasped at his ankle and missed.
He could make it to the town without collapsing now. He took some pride in his improvement. For the first time in his life he felt the exultation of the body in sheer activity, the meshing of breath and legs, the matched, almost pleasant ache in all his muscles.
At first, he stayed away from the outskirts housing, not wanting to bring on another confrontation. But he was curious what Savarin was up to, what the teacher had meant the last time, that there were people he wanted Michael to meet. He decided to enter Euterpe and go to the schoolhouse—and the populace be damned. He had his stick and he felt a little cocky.
He was up to the main gate when he almost bumped into the teacher. They laughed and Michael put down his stick, breathing deeply and wiping sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve.
“I thought I might catch you during your morning constitutional,” Savarin said. “And warn you. Best stay out of the town for the next couple of days. Alyons has been harassing us since your arrival. The townspeople are upset. They’re liable to strike out at you without being aware of what they’re doing.”
“I haven’t hurt them,” Michael said.
“No, but you’ve brought trouble. Things here are marginal, at best. Alyons threatens to reduce our allotment if anything else happens to upset him.” “Is that why they shouted at me the last time?”
“Yes. I still have people for you to meet, but later. And I also wanted to tell you… something’s planned for tonight—the Halftown Kaeli. Have they invited you?”
“Nare mentioned it before I left. I don’t even know what it is.”
“It’s very important. Kaeli is when the Sidhe get together to tell stories, usually about the early times. I’d like you to listen closely and pass on what you hear. I’ve only heard one—and that from a distance. I was hiding in tall grass. Now, with the Breed guards so tense, I don’t dare. Nobody is allowed near Halftown now—That’s what makes me think something is afoot.”
“What?”
“Best not to ask for trouble yet. But a grazza, perhaps. A raid by Riverines and Umbrals. Keep an eye out, and be careful.”
“You want me to come back and tell you about the Kaeli?”
“Of course,” Savarin said, his eyes brightening. “But a couple of days from now, when things are more settled.” He looked around nervously. A few faces peered from nearby windows, and two men loitering by the gate cast glances at them. “Until then,” the teacher said, gripping Michael’s hand and releasing it with a wave as he made for a different gate. Michael picked up the stick, held it over his head, and began the return leg of his run.
His body took over almost immediately and he forgot Savarin, forgot the Kaeli, forgot almost everything but the sensation of distance covered.
The Breeds of Halftown marched in double file over the grassland, dressed in dark brown and gray cloaks, conversing casually in Cascar and calling to those farther forward or back in the lines. The air was still and cool; the sun touched distant hills and the ribbons of evening cascaded slowly to the hazy horizon, revealing the stars with their tiny circling m
otions.
Behind the lines marched the Crane Women. Michael walked abreast of Spart, wearing his jacket. (The book rested in its nook in the tiny house, as secure as he could make it.) He had washed his clothes in the creek earlier, as a concession to formality; they were still slightly damp even after drying near a fire Nare had kindled. Holes revealed his knees and the shoulder of the jacket had separated at the seam.
The Crane Women wore short black coats that emphasized the length of their legs and the shortness of their torsos. They walked with arms folded, jutting elbows making them look more then ever like birds. They seemed to carry more of an ancient reserve with regard to Kaeli than the other Breeds, and didn’t talk.
Those assigned to choose the site had gone on ahead during the late afternoon. Now a bonfire blazed a few hundred feet down the path, squares of peat and dried brush-wood providing the fuel. Circling the bonfire was a perimeter of poles, each topped by a leafy green branch. When the Breeds had gathered within the circle, Lirg came forward and paced around the fire. Michael sat beside the Crane Women, crossing his legs on the grass stubble and dirt.
Lirg spoke in Cascar for a few minutes. Michael understood little of what was said; he had difficulty even picking out the meanings of individual words in the long discourse. There seemed to be many words in Cascar with the same or subtly shaded meanings, and the syntax varied as well.
Spart leaned forward from behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “You haven’t learned the tongue, have you?” she asked.
“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks,” Michael said defensively. Nare blew out her breath. The Crane Women looked at each other, then Spart sidled forward and placed both her hands around Michael’s head.
“Tonight only,” she said, “You have a boon. It won’t last.” She removed her hands and Michael shook a buzzing out of his head. When the dizziness passed, he listened to Lirg. The Breed was still speaking Cascar but the words were limpid; Michael could understand all of them.
“Tonight,” Lirg said, “We invoke the sadness of the time when we were grand, when the Sidhe marched between the stars as easily as I circle this fire.” He passed around to the other side, his words piercing the crackle of the flames. “Each will share the tale, the part of his ancestor, and as conclusion, I will tell of Queen Elme and her choice.”
First to pick up the thread was a tall brown-haired Breed who announced himself as Manann of the line of Till. As Manann spoke, Michael was enchanted by the way the language adapted to poetry—half-singing, half-speaking, until he could no longer tell the difference.
The Earth, home to us all, has spun
A thousand polar dances since
The war called Westering, won
First by men, who decreed that none
Of the race called Sidhe should possess
Souls beyond the border of Death.
Unwitting, the Mage who made us less,
Who imposed this inward emptiness,
Gave to the Sidhe life without end.
And then time came for the wheel to turn
Again. The Sidhe thus damned did send
To defeat the vain and gloating men
Who had in cruel and thoughtless rage
Robbed us of life beyond matter.
The Sidhe bid the responsible Mage
To work their own vengeance and engage
His power to transform men to beasts.
Triumphant Sidhe in sweet passioned
Irony watched mankind decreased.
Yet in the shape of the small, the least
Of claw-foot, scruff-fur animals,
None who had once been men could tell
How to once more open the portals
Of shadowy death; how immortals
Could reclaim the boon of a soul.
Holder of the Wick of Battle,
Ysra Faer of the line of Till
Confined men-beasts and all allies—
Also made beast, and beast-form still—
On Earth, walled-in like cattle.
“How many races were there?” Michael whispered to Spart, uncertain whether he was speaking Cascar or English. She turned her dark eyes on him and answered, “More than four… we do not know for sure, now. Much has been forgotten. Many of the animals of Earth were once exalted beings, kin of the Sidhe and humans of old.”
Manann sat and another stood, a young woman with beefy arms and a face squatter than usual. “I am Esther of the line of Dravi. I take the challenge of the end-rhymed song, but I correct Manann of Till…” Laughter rang through the circle. “He forgets my line’s honored form, and I follow that now.”
All tribes, brothers and sisters hand in hand,
In glory Sidhe set out to march the stars.
Through this spacing, histories multiplied
As numberless as the shore’s sea-ground sand.
Yet in swifting time, all progress died.
All glorious rise swings back to fall, sure
As the new-born Sidhe on time’s cruel road
Came to their doom by chance or anger’s blade.
Exaltation turned to slow decay, the pure
And good demeaned, ideals not lived but played.
Lacking worthy goals or adversary,
Star-marcher Faer in easeful ways declined.
None took on the hard discipline of the Sidhe.
Mere sibling strifes trained the warrior wary;
Tribes found bitter freedom in their jealously.
From the line of Dravi, Wickmaster Sum
Foresaw the impending doom; in darkness
Deeper than ever known, against the races
Of the Great Distance he warred, to come
To glory, to draw in battle traces
Of pride and courage lost since war with Man.
The Great Distance breeds minds unlike our own,
With unfamiliar thoughts of foreign
Shape. Of this war called Quandary none can
Recall the tale, only the outcome, when, worn
From victory more costly than defeat,
Destroying what sloth, misrule and ease
Had not already, the wasted Sidhe
Swung Earthward the ravaged Faerie fleet.
Among their dead: Wickmaster Sum, of Dravi.
Having long since beaten humanity,
The last drops from the river of Sidhe
Thought Earth to be their choicest
Harbor, refuge for a well-earned rest.
Esther of the line of Dravi took her seat, and Fared of the line of Wis continued.
By way of right succession, Krake
Of the line of noble Wis did take
The Wick. As Wickmaster of Sidhe,
Krake brought us home from the endless sea
Of dark-storied, sinister space.
Yet on Earth, no peace, for the race
Of resourceful, unquenchable Man
Had crawled, across an age’s span
Up from beast by nature’s road
Of Change and Pain, with Death’s sharp goad.
While Sidhe declined in sibling strife,
Man struggled back to conscious life.
Though new-born Man was then quite young,
Krake knew on human history hung
The fate of his weary, worn Sidhe,
Too weak for one more victory.
Nizandsa, of Serket’s family,
Now extinct, made this plea:
“We must find the one called Mage,
Imprisoned as serpent this long age.
“He has the knowledge to restore our
Souls, whose lack has caused a dour
Decline. Perhaps a trade of liberty
Can return to us the essence of Sidhe!”
But Krake, we are told, did not agree.
“In Man old or new I cannot see
Any answer for our many troubles.
With human help, a problem doubles!
“Power to men, releasing the
Mage,
Can only resurrect the rage
Felt in their dread animal fall.
No power to Man! That would end us all.”
Nizandsa’s faithful lost this debate.
Krake, unhappy still, filled with hate,
Ordered his coursers to halt all Dissent.
In Great Combat, the pall
Of disgrace again gloomed over us.
Nizandsa’s murder ended all trust
Between the branches of the Sidhe,
The third curse of a trinity.
Lirg stood now and walked around the fire again. “The new breed of men,” he began, voice low and almost devoid of song, “had regained their former shape, but not their past glory. They could not keep what had made the men of old the grand enemies of the Sidhe. And the Sidhe, themselves, had long since lost what made them great.” He came to the side of the fire where Michael sat between the Crane Women, and looked across the Pact Lands over their heads. “I tell the story now of the family to which we all belong, the line of the mage Tonn’s Bream-daughter, Elme.
Assuming the wick from father Tonn,
Queen Elme defied the scorners of
Man, brought Sidhe to new-found
Harmony, and against the will of
God-like sire, loved and married—
A distant keening sound carried over the plain, interrupting Lirg and causing the Breeds to stir for the first time in half an hour. Nare, Spart and Coom were on their feet and out of the circle before Michael could blink twice.
Clouds moved quickly across the sky. The keening faded, grew louder, and faded again as if carried on uncertain breezes. From farther away still came the sound of horns unlike any Michael had ever heard; horns that seemed to laugh and cry at once.
As one, the crowd scooped up dirt and put down the bonfire. Michael stood aside, not knowing where he fit in, deciding it was best to keep out of the way.
With the bonfire reduced to embers and smoke, seeing was difficult. A drop of rain struck his forehead, then another. Wind tugged at his jacket—or he thought it was the wind. A green veil of luminosity flashed behind the hills.
