Fire in the Sky tst-1

by Jo Clayton

  “And then there was another raid, more vicious than most, the raiders stupid and arrogant and above all ignorant. They killed Shallana a hundred at a time until a Weaver family was brought to them. Then they left. They shot the Mother/Singer and tossed her out an air lock because she was old and ugly. When they reached the Market world, they sold the Daughter/ Singer for a pittance because she could not dance and was young and ugly and then they tried to sell the Weaver/Sisters and found no takers because the Weavers needed the Singer for the Dream. They tried to find the Daughter, but she was gone with her owner no one knew where, so they shot the sisters, too, and went back to Shayalin for another set.

  “The Daughter wandered far, moving from master to master, acquiring a name that non-Shallana could pronounce. Shadith was the name she took. It meant Singer in the language she took it from.

  “Her last Master/Teacher died and left her free to move on and she did. In the course of her travels she found work with an expedition of scholars digging in the ruins on a world older than most of the suns around it. She found a thing there, an exquisite thing, a shimmering lacy diadem with crystal jewels spaced round it. Because it was so beautiful, she set it on her head, and it sank into her and vanished.

  “Time passed and the time came when her ship crashed. She died in that crash and as she went, one of the crystals in the diadem seized hold of her soul and it stayed there as the millennia passed.

  “The diadem moved. And moved again. Shadith’s soul moved with it and left it as I said before. That’s my story. And that’s why I said my sisters might have understood the Eolts’ songs.”

  “Hm.” The sound was skeptical, but that was Maorgan’s only comment on what he’d heard. “And that bird etched into your face?”

  “Think I’ll save that one for another day. Tell me about the Meruu.”

  The trees in the orchard they were riding past had clusters of green spheres on long stems, the fruits about the size of her thumbnail. A scattering had a blush of pink mixed in the green. A few trees still had blossoms on them, odd looking things, a corona of round white petals circling a greenish yellow pod with cracks in it that showed off a crimson interior. Like the moss ponies, the trees looked an odd mix of Cousin and local that was more likely than not a result of the ur-Fior tampering with generative tissue. Shape Wars. Hm. Must have killed off the techs and wiped out a lot of material or they’d be farther along than this. Sounds like the same old thing. Time to get Maorgan talking. Need to know what this place is really like. Chorek, that’s something else. How they organize things. Weaknesses they’ve got to provide for. And what to do about the Chave. Gods, I wish Lee was here. Could use that ship of hers. No. Can’t depend on her the rest of my life. It’s MY life. Look at the man, off in a dream somewhere. Do I give him a jab to get him started, or let him surface on his own?

  As the road finished curving round the orchard and headed west again, a Fior driving a team of six heavy homed beasts came into view. They were red and white with heavy dewlaps, moving at a steady clip, a little faster than a man could walk. The wagon they pulled had composition tires and a padded seat. The sides were thin strips of wood that had been steamed supple and woven into high and relatively light walls. Canvas was pulled over the load and tied tight.

  The Fior was a stub of a man as wide as he was tall, with a shaved head and bristly red mustache and beard. One ear was pierced, a wooden luck charm hung from a silver stud. He looked curiously at Danor, raised thorny red brows at Shadith, grinned at Maorgan, and waved the goad at him. “Ard Ma’gin.”

  Maorgan rode closer to the ditch, stopped his caцpa. “Barriall. Where you coming from?”

  “Ord’m’l D’bak’mel. Watch y’ back, Ard. Chorek round like lice.”

  I “Hear you, Barriall. Chel D6 keep.”

  When the wagon had rumbled round the orchard, Maorgan clucked his caцpa into clip-clopping along beside Shadith and answered the question she thought he’d forgotten. “Matha matha, the Meruus. Meruu of the Air. A clutch of the eldest of the unsiolled Eolt. They hang together to chitter and chatter, sing a tune or two and report on the doings of their descendants, a litany of deploring and complaint. Meruu of the Earth. Much the same thing, Elders gumming out their last days pretending to run the place. Hold on a minute.” He urged the caцpa into a trot that looked as uncomfortable as Shadith had expected, caught up with Danor, spoke with him, and pointed ahead.

  When he was back beside Shadith, he said, “There’s a lay-by with a well about an hour on. We’ll stop and rest the caцpas a while, let them drink and nibble on some grain. Well, what I said was a bit of an exaggeration. We Ards are none of us all that fond of authority. The Meruus abide in Chuta Meredel in the Vale of Medon. Which is where we’re going, by the way. The Circles of the Ordumels send representatives there to make laws for Banikoth. There’s a repository of memory and records, a place where teachers go to learn the history of the world. And a court where budlines go to lay quarrels and Fior to work out matters of property, where Ordumels go to settle boundary disputes, that sort of thing. But only if the problem’s really serious. Bother them with something they think is frivolous and the fines they lay on you will take your last drop of sweat.” He nodded at the smaller, paler Eolt drifting overhead. “Lebesair is what we call a Mer-Eolt,” he said. “One of those that carries word from the Meruus to the Ordumels.”

  “Seems peaceful, all things considered. What was that wagon driver talking about. Chorek? What are chorek and why should we worry about them?”

  “Chorek.” Maorgan wrinkled his nose, shook his head. “Trouble, Shadowsong. Thieves, some of them killers. The milder sort attack travelers, strip them to the skin, carry off everything they own. Others…” He shuddered. “They want to refight the Shape Wars. They steal to support themselves and kill to support their goals. Bad bunch. Ordinary chorek don’t usually attack when there are Eolt on watch, but the ones at war with the world hate Ards and the sioll bond. Even if they couldn’t steal, they’d kill us.”

  “Shee! Between them and the Chave, I’m going to be sleeping light for sure.”

  “They don’t come this far from the mountains much. Sometimes we get bands raiding out of the Marishes. Like the Sea Marish down by the mesuch’s enclosure. A lot of vermin in that place. Did us a favor when they sat down there, the mesuchs did. By the time we reach the edge of Dumel Alsekum’s Land Right, we’ll be close to the Kutelinga Marish. Then we will have to start sharing watch; it would be useful if you have offworld weapons.” He fell silent a moment, brooding.

  Shadith didn’t answer the implied question; she wasn’t ready quite yet to trust him all that much, didn’t know how the Meruus would react to her coming to them armed. She sighed.

  5

  The two teachers moved about the room, putting away copybooks, picking up the scraps of paper that every classroom in every paper-using culture seemed to spawn by the end of each day. They were uneasy about talking to her, Aslan could feel that. At the same time, they wanted to talk. They were fascinated by the idea of University; they glanced at her repeatedly and every glance was a question.

  The Keteng was the more aggressive of the two. Xe finished laying out the chalk in the tray that ran along the base of the slateboard, dusted off xe’s hands, and turned to face Aslan. “So, what is it you want us to say?”

  “If you could start with your names and what it is you do.”

  “Budechil said that thing,” xe pointed at the Ridaar, “makes pictures and traps the voice.”

  “Would you care to see what it does?”

  “Yes.”

  The Keteng contemplated xe’s image, frowning at the sound of xe’s voice. “That’s me?”

  “What you hear inside your head is, never what other people hear. You’ll get used to the difference after a while and won’t find it strange.”

  Xe turned to whisper to the Fior woman, then fetched chairs, and the two of them settled in the pool of sunlight coming through the roof.
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  “My name is Oskual, Budline Ual-beriod. I teach Meloach and young Fior song and history and all the things they should know about the ways of the world.”

  “My name is Teagasa Teor, I teach Meloach and young Fior writing, ciphering and drawing, dance and all the things that grace the world.”

  “We are bonded, Teagasa and I. It’s not the sioll bond of the Ard and Eolt, but a sharing that crosses family and budlines. We dream the same dreams and when we share the fruit of the berrou in the High Summer month Orredyl, we can walk each other’s thoughts. Teagasa was born and I budded and dropped free in the same month, the same day and from that time forth our bond was there, growing as we grew. From our experience when we went to the Vale of Medon to study history and other things, this bond is there in most who teach the young.”

  Teagasa smiled and touched Oskual’s wrist near the hand. “On the Fior side, it doesn’t matter whether the child is male or female, the bond is the same.”

  Oskual turned xe’s wrist and took xe’s companion’s hand in xe’s. “You’re interested in the Shape Wars, you said. To get the old songs about that time, you have to go to Chuta Meredel. Perhaps your Harper can arrange that for you. It won’t be easy. The Elders hold their knowledge close.”

  “They’re jealous of it,” Teagasa said. “We tried for months to see just the old-Fior version of Bracoпn’s Song, without the music or any commentary, but we never got a smell of it. We had to make do with translations, and you can’t ever be sure about them, can you.”

  Aslan glanced at the Ridaar, sighed. “It’s a problem I’ve met before,” she said. “I’d like you to think of people in the Dumel who have stories you think worth telling and wouldn’t mind you giving their names. I’ll send my Aide around later to collect the list.” She smiled. “His name is Marrin Ola and he looks like bones held together with light brown skin. Right now I’d like children’s songs and any explanations you have of how they came to be.”

  Teagasa’s brown eyes went narrow with shyness and she looked away. “Wouldn’t it be better,” she murmured, the words barely audible, “if you had the children themselves singing?”

  “The time for that will come. Clarity of words and tune is what’s important now. And, of course, the explanations. This is more important than perhaps you know. It’s often fairly late in the history of a people before the children’s songs are written down. They’re not considered serious material, though they will have information of considerable importance to a study of that culture imbedded within them.”

  “I see.” The teachers whispered together for several moments, then Oskual clicked xe’s tongue and smiled, xe’s dark eyes shining with mischief. “We’ll give you a sampling,” xe said. “That’s what you want anyway, catalysts to trigger more songs.”

  Oskual and Teagasa shifted their chairs, slanting them so they could face each other and still see Aslan.

  “Charun, derun, comn and corr,” Oskual sang, holding the long r at the end of the last word.

  “In the cloudlands swoop and soar.” Teagasa’s higher voice wove about the drone of the r.

  “Kere cherom busca madh.” Droned dh extending. “Creep and crawl, trot and plod.” Over and under the drone.

  “Elare, ehere, idus lase.” Zed drone extending. “Dance and dart in deep green seaways.”

  “That’s the start of one,” Oskual said. “A namesong of birds, beasts, and fish. It goes on forever, a whole catalog of the creatures of Bйluchad. There are a lot of catalogs children sing, lists of Ordumels in the Dumel Rings, lists of rivers, of mountains, of seas, of the continents.” Xe grinned. “We like lists, we Bйluchar.”

  Teagasa smiled shyly. “But we do songs just for fun, like the Caцpa song. Children do a clap-jump game to that one.”

  Oksual nodded, started clapping xe’s hands in a strong steady rhythm. Teagasa joined xe, clapping on the off-beat. Together they sang:

  “Caцpa Caцpa where do you graze?

  Upland and downland wherever grass stays.

  Caцpa Caцpa how do you run?

  Clippaclop clippaclop under the sun.”

  “That’s another one that goes on and on,” Oskual said. “And there’s this one.”

  “Little Achcha Meloach

  Sitting in a tree

  Yelling down at Fior boy

  Can’t catch me…”

  6

  The lay-by was neat and well-maintained, a grassy space inside a stake fence with fruiting vines woven through the stakes. Inside the fence there was a grassy area with two shade trees and several backless benches, a covered well with a hand pump for filling the water trough, a three-sided shed with a corral and hayrick for the caцpas or draft animals of those spending the night there, a resthouse with a roof made from pieces of shell scraped so thin they let the sun shine through. The only furnishings were a pair of wide benches built into the wall and a fireplace with an extension to one side for cooking meals.

  After they finished tending the caцpas, Shadith strolled to the opening in the stake fence and stood looking along the road.

  There was a dark blot on the horizon rather like a herd of something smaller than the ponies-something else coming down the road. She hadn’t expected to see things so busy. Despite the Yaraka thrusting themselves into the lives of these people, once one got a very short way from the Enclave, the days of the locals seemed to be moving along much as usual.

  She strolled away. Walking felt good, stretching muscles that the riding had tied into knots. She looked in the door of the resthouse, saw Danor stretched out on one of the benches with his face to the wall. You want to be alone, I’ll leave you alone. She moved on.

  Maorgan was leaning on the corral fence, talking privately to Eolt Melech, the speech tentacle dropping to curl around his neck.

  Shadith glanced at the Ard, shrugged and wandered back to the opening.

  The blotch was closer, separating out into a crowd of children. She was beginning to hear fragments of laughter and words. She turned her head, called,

  “Maorgan, something’s on the road ahead, moving toward us. Come tell me what it is.”

  At first she didn’t think he’d heard her, then he touched the tentacle round his throat. When the Eolt pulled free, he said, “According to Melech, it’s the Mengerak. The twelfth year Circle.” He walked over to her, looked out. “Right.”

  “That tells me a lot.”

  “Oh. Seven Ordumels make a Circle. In this Circle, we count Alsekum, Kebesengay, Bliochel, Melekau, Rongesan, Cherredech, Soibeseng. In the third week of Kerrekerl the Mengerak begins. The Children’s Walk. Starts in a different Dumel each year, around and around the Circle. It’s a time for learning, for bonding with the Circle, getting ready for the Kirrataneh and the Mating fairs. For trading. For holding the Circle in peace. What Glois was on about, next year he and Utelel will be making Mengerak. The kids think it’s the greatest fun there is, going from celebration to celebration, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s a thousand and a thousand years old and it’s important, it’s one of the glues that binds us together. Ah, Shadowsong, if the Shape Wars come back…” He didn’t try to finish, just shook his head and stood watching the horde of children coming down the road.

  “What about the chorek? And animal predators?”

  “If you’ll look higher, you’ll see half a dozen Eolt floating ward above them. Besides, if anyone harmed a single one of those kids, they’d have all of Banikoлh after them. We wouldn’t stop till we cleaned the land of them.” His face twisted with sudden anger, smoothed out almost as quickly. “It won’t happen.”

  “It hasn’t happened,” she said quietly. “The Yaraka and the Chave, your mesuchs, they’re changing things. Next year you’d better send guards with the children if you think they should go out. Not just the Eolt. Sounds like some of the political choreks would like nothing better than linking up with a set of powerful offworlders. And that means trouble of a kind you haven’t seen before.”

 
He looked past Danor at the band of children. They were close enough now that Shadith could begin to make out individuals. Two girls were dancing in a wild spiral along the grassy lane, hair flying, breathless laughter breaking to pieces on the wind. A Keteng Meloach was plucking strings and knocking his knuckles on an instrument that seemed rather like a lute crossed with a gourd. Behind xe other Meloach were clapping their hands and several Fior and Meloach were improvising mouth music. “We need this glue, Shadowsong. Without it Keteng and Fior could fall apart.” He made an impatient sound. “Matha matha, we’d better get moving again. Holding on is what the Klobach is all about. The Meruus are expecting you to tell them how step by step, so we’d better get you there and let you do it.”

  7. Wheel of Fortune

  1

  Ceam handed the binocs to the Fior woman squatting beside him. “Look where they put the Crawler. They’ve learned. Take the canyon falling in on them to do serious damage there.”

  Leoca adjusted the focus. “Hm. I see what you mean. Good thing that isn’t what we have in mind.”

  The Crawler was edged up against a stand of ancient kulkins and gumas, a swath of grassy ground between it and the creek that ambled down the canyon, the chuff of its air intakes audible above the muted sounds from the rest of the canyon. The day was warm and quiet, the rustle of the leaves, the murmur of the creek soporific as a lullaby; even the angies were staying close to their perches, their songs subdued, barely reaching the watchers on the rim. One of the mesuchs was stretched out on a blanket, sleeping in the shade of a young kerre just coming into bud_

  “Doesn’t look like they’re expecting trouble. I suppose the storm meant you had clouds down to your ankles when Eolt Kitsek brought you word.”