by Jo Clayton
“Right. We’ll give you an hour’s start and stay low when we follow.”
Shadith grinned at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Aslan raised a brow, then grinned back. “Right.” She sighed. “This is a fascinating society. Isolated all these years, working out a way for disparate species to live together and like it. There’s the sioll bond. I want to know more about that. Other bonds. Something about the way the two species interact. Maybe part physical. Interesting to see if over time the Yaraka that stay here long enough will go the same way.
Ah! Shadow, this is a lifework, the one I’ve been hunting for.”
“Unless the Chave take over.”
Aslan grimaced. “If they do, we’ll all be dead, so I’m not going to worry about that.” She turned the grimace into a grin, made a fist and thumped Shadith’s shoulder lightly. “I’m going to let you do the worrying, Shadow. And the figuring out how to keep that from happening.”
“Oh, thanks.”
Aslan chuckled. “Yes. And there’s something else we’d better get settled.” She unclipped a remote from the Ridaar. “I’m going to register the completion of your contract, if you don’t mind. That way you don’t have to worry about University constraints.”
“Hm. Let me think about this.”
“Shadow, you know you might be doing things that University would have to take notice of if you were still under contract. Listen, this protects your base. If you’re not acting as their agent, the Governors can ignore a lot more interference in local matters.”
Shadith sighed. “All right, let’s do it.”
2
Melitoлh, Dushanne Garden, Kushayt, night
Hunched over, mind eating at itself because of his inadequacy, Ilaцrn crouched beside the stream listening to the harped messages hammering at him from outside the walls. When? the sound asked him. When will you act? He shuddered. We have to know, Ard. When? He’d left his own harp inside. He didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t say Not yet. The answer might be Never. All day he’d watched the air intakes, watched every move Hunnar made. He’d walked behind the Chav, provoked nothing but an irritated sweep of a hand.
I can’t, he thought. I can’t do it. I can’t make my hands do it.
3
Banikoлh, Medon Vale, approaching noon
The Vale of Medon was a squat oval with the lake at one focus and a continual shimmer of mist from the hundreds of hot springs that bubbled up through layers of moss and lichens, geysers that sprayed upward higher than trees, as if the Vale breathed in and out, water not air.
Hundreds of Eolt floated over the city, drifting in and out of clouds like fleece. Half a dozen were hovering at tentacle length above a herd of small warty beasts, rather like frogs on deer legs. These beasts stood head down, legs set, the Eolt tentacles sealed to large humps above their shoulders, dark fluid rising up the tentacles to spread swiftly through their translucent bodies, fading as it spread. As she watched, one by one the Eolt broke free of the beasts and rose to join the others.
Maorgan was busily scanning the Eolt. Hunting for Melech, she thought. I wonder if he can recognize his own? She glanced back at the feeding fliers. How and what the Eolt ate wasn’t something she’d thought about before, and definitely something Maorgan hadn’t wanted to talk about. It was a prettier thought, that that shimmering beauty fed on sunlight but more of a dream than reality.
Part of the valley floor was broken into a patchwork of fields, lush green punctuated by small figures. Odd how easy it was to tell Denchok from Fior even from this distance, a difference not in shape but in the way they moved. She watched them, trying to find words for that difference but could not. There were groves of fruit and nut trees around the edge of the valley, and in the rolling foothills grazing herds of bladlan and cabhisha and the food beasts of the Eolt.
Beyond the field there were clusters of houses set haphazardly here and there. It was the rocky land with thin soil, land not suited for farming, that the Vale folk had built on. The places where the hot springs bubbled up.
Near the far end of the lake there were a series of massive buildings unlike any others in the Vale. They were faced with marble and gleamed eerily white in the light of the nooning sun. The steep-pitched roofs shimmered like fish scales, the same translucent shingles that she’d seen on all houses where Denchok lived and worked. The area around these buildings was crowded with Fior and Denchok, male and female alike, some moving in pairs, some alone, some in large fluctuating, groups. She noticed for the first time that she saw no children, no Meloach and no young Fior.
Beyond this complex was a kind of arena. A round flat open area surrounded by tiers of benches and a broken circle of tall marble columns tied together with stone lintels and capped with odd bronze arrangements that puzzled her until one of the Eolt brushed low across the arena, caught hold of a bronze rod and used it to hold xe in place. Xe rested there a moment, swaying gently.
Maorgan thrust two fingers in his mouth, let loose a whistle that made her ears ring.
The Eolt at the arena loosed xe’s hold, rose till xe found an air layer traveling the way xe wanted and came rushing toward them.
Xe dropped and coiled xe’s speaking tentacle about Maorgan’s neck. Maorgan’s eyes glazed and his face relaxed into a shapeless joy that made Shadith uncomfortable-as if she had inadvertently broken into someone’s bedroom. She looked hastily away, went back to examining the Vale.
A number of other Eolt had started drifting toward them and there was a stirring in the crowd outside the large buildings, a swirl that gained definition and direction as half a dozen Fior and Denchok started marching along the road that ran from the lake toward the pass.
They were at least ten miles off so it would take a while to get here, but she didn’t want to wait. She glanced at Maorgan, sighed and looked away again. They’d been apart for days. She could remember the burning excitement when Melech had touched her that once. She moved her shoulders, shifted the strap of the harpcase and started Brйou down the trail. He could follow with the other ponies when he felt like it.
It felt good to be riding finally without the need to extend the mindtouch and sweep the land in front of her. She was still very tired and relaxing the stress made it hard to keep her eyes open, even with so much interesting strangeness about.
An Eolt tentacle brushed against her, sending a jolt through her body. She looked up. Eolt were circling thick above her. As she watched, another tentacle dropped. Hastily she extended her arm and let it touch the back of her hand. It was easier on both of them that way. Touch and touch and touch till she was near drunk with them. Power surges ran through her body, Brлou squealing as they passed through her and stung him.
Behind her Maorgan shouted and the Eolt cleared reluctantly away.
She looked round. His caцpa coming at a jolting trot, the packers following free, he was riding toward her, Marrin in the flikit close behind, holding the flier only a few feet off the ground. That was dangerous, but tactful under the circumstances.
“Shadowsong!”
She wrinkled her nose at the irritation in the word. “Calm yourself, Ard. No harm.”
He stopped the caцpa beside her, grabbed her hand, inspected the palm, turned it over, inspected the back. He let it drop. “I told you, Shadow, they’re dangerous. Especially free Eolt like these. Sometimes they get… cha oy… funny when they’re very old. And there are a lot of Old. Ones here.”
“We’ve got an escort coming to meet us, Maorgan. I doubt the Eolt would get that funny when we’re expected.”
“You don’t know that, Shadow.”
“Well, I do, Ard. There was only curiosity, no malice.”
“I forget you can do that. Cha oy, there’s still clumsiness to figure in. So be careful.”
She smiled and shook her head, then urged Brion onward, thinking fond thoughts of the sturdy if stinky beast. He’d done well by her on this long trip. She glanced back at the flikit
and giggled. It looked so silly trailing there behind them, sitting on top of billows of white dust that the lift effect etched from the unpaved track. Like an odd-shaped black balloon. More balloons overhead, golden and bell-shaped. She looked up. Not so dreamlike when you saw the underside with its nests of coiling and uncoiling tentacles, the multiple mouths the Eolt used for their singing-and, no doubt, excretory functions. That thought made her giggle again.
They met the escort an hour later. Shadith dropped back, let Maorgan do the talking.
“Buli Terthal. Buli Dengol.”
The Denchok Buli banged xe’s official staff on the dirt of the roadway as a prelude to speech, then glared at Maorgan with a down-browed annoyance. “Ard Maorgan. We summoned one mesuch and one only. Who are they?” Xe swiveled the staff up, pointed it at the flikit.
“They are the reason we’re alive and here,” Maorgan said. He extended his voice into song mode so it reached beyond the speaker to the Denchok and Fior who’d gathered to watch the show. “We were attacked at the Pass Tower by a score of choreks. The watchmen there are dead; we laid out their bodies on the lower floor. Unless you insist on keeping us out here when we’re tired and hungry, this can be explained to the Meruu.”
4
Melitoлh, the Kushayt, morning in the office
Ilaцrn knew he must look bad when even Hunnar noticed. “I am not a young man,” he said in a response to the Ykkuval’s abrupt inquiry. “And I did get wet last night.”
“Remind me to have a med tech look at you. Don’t want you getting sick on me. Keep the music light and easy, hm?”
“Of course, O Ykkuval.” Ilaцrn flexed stiff fingers, slid them across the strings without plucking sound from them. His body wanted to be as inert as his mind, but the time he’d spent in here had taught his a lesson all his years as Ard had not-that he could produce sounds he loathed and do it to a schedule, not when he felt like playing.
He closed his eyes, forced them open again. The heat in the room and a night without sleep were almost too much for him. Eyes on the blank screen that took up the whole of the wall opposite, he plucked a single note, added another, worked his way into a children’s song. The music brought its usual relief, easing away the bitter remnants of a night filled with unresolved questions. Distantly he heard Hunnar’s voice as the Chav talked with his guards and techs, the hum of the machines as he worked on things incomprehensible to Hewn.
A soft bong woke him from his haze. He knew that sound. It was Kurz calling from Banikoлh, a warning to Hunnar that shielded matter was coming.
A cell near the middle of the screen flashed to life, the face of the Spy assembling from broken bits of light and color.
The image steadied.
Hunnar leaned forward. “Well?”
“O Ykkuval, I could wish I had better news. The University group are either more competent at defense than we suspected or are gifted with large helpings of luck. Luck is impossible to fight, one must simply wait till it turns. Fortunately it always does.”
“What’s all that about?”
“O Ykkuval, my information is that there have been five separate attacks on the group, all of which have failed. Also, a number of cutters have fallen into the Scholar’s hands.”
Hunnar swore. “That is what comes of leaving things to incompetent dirt grubbers.”
Ilaцrn watched him master his anger and make a superior/inferior apology gesture at the screen. He found this interesting. Hunnar must be more desperate than he thought, more dependent on this spy.
“No, I’m not blaming you, my friend.” The Chav’s voice was as syrupy sweet as it’d been with the mesuch traitor. “It was my idea to make the grubbers my surrogate. Where are they now?”
“The manager is in the Yaraka Enclave. The other three are in a place called Chuta Meredel. My informants are not especially reliable, but I have no reason to doubt this. They are very bitter about the inhabitants of that place, rabid about the jellies, they want to burn them all. When I showed them what a cutter would do to a jelly, they went into rut like a bodj driven mad with must. They’re too stupid and too impatient to plan anything which is why they are where they are. Which is why I have to be careful how I approach them. Given half a chance they’d try knocking me on the head and getting off with everything I have, no matter that I am a source of more weapons and other useful commodities.”
Hunnar grunted. “You’ve dealt with worse material before this. You have a plan?”
“Yes, O Ykkuval. I spoke of the inadequacies of the locals not to complain but to make clear why it will take a while to implement my plan. I am organizing an attack on Chuta Meredel, trying to get the idea across that hitting the Vale of Medon at several points simultaneously with smaller forces will enhance their ability to kill and destroy. While attention is distracted by these attacks, I can slip into the Vale, hunt down the University group, and shut their mouths permanently.”
5
Banikoлh, Chuta Meredel, the Meeting Place, early afternoon
The seats in the first ring of the tiers were elaborately and individually carved from white marble, these were for the Denchok and Fior who belonged to the Meruu of the Earth. Between each of the seats was a tall slender marble column with grasping bronze bars on the capital. These were the holds of the Eolt who served the Meruu of the Air. Behind these were the tiers of plain seats, painted white, enough wear on them to let the dark dull brown of the wood show through here and there. Behind these were sets of columns ranged in arcs to form a broken circle about the arena. These were for the Eolt who were not part of the Meruu of the Air.
Shadith squatted beside her harp on a raised platform in the center of the arena, wiping sweat from the wood and from her brow, watching drifts of vapor from the hotsprings bubbling up all around the arena, wondering peripherally about quakes and other instabilities while she chewed over the things she’d planned to say. Full of a high-minded zeal, she’d meant to give a series of lectures on how they could live with outsiders and protect themselves from the worst aspects of exploitation. That zeal had dribbled away on the ride here.
Aslan had seen their truth before she had; Keteng and Fior had managed to merge two very disparate species into a generally peaceful and productive society; they didn’t need to be lectured or treated like children just because they’d been isolated for a very long time. And they wouldn’t listen to her if she tried it.
She glanced at the clouds. If they didn’t hurry up and get this thing started, they’d have to postpone it or shift it indoors. She checked the strings again, plucking individual notes to make sure the tuning held. This moisture wasn’t what her harp liked, but the composite strings would hold tune better than Maorgan’s, though she’d seen that strange wood swell under the stroking of his hands, change shape slightly to keep the tuning or shift to a new one.
Maorgan stood beside her, Aslan and Marrin a step behind. Too agitated and angry to rest, Danor was stumping along the rim of the oval dais, leaning on a cane, glowering at the Denchok and Fior who were swarming into the arena, arguing over seats, spreading out, getting pushed together as more people moved onto that tier. Overhead, Eolt were singing irritation at each other, pushing and shoving to get a tentacle hold on the outer columns. The noise from groundling and fliers seemed to pile up inside those columns and hammer at them. The swirl of emotions was almost as loud. Shadith’s head started to ache.
After a while, though, the chaos sorted itself out. The tiers were filled, all the Eolt that could crowd onto the bronze holdbars were in place. Danor stopped his nervous walking, stood leaning on his cane, waiting.
The Eolt SANG.
Shadith closed her eyes, breathed sound, soared on sound, was permeated by sound, was SOUND itself as if her body had changed into vibrations and no longer existed as flesh.
The SONG ended.
Eolt Melech sang a long drone. Maorgan’s harp melded with the sound, wove variations on it.
Shadith touched the strings o
f her harp, felt her way into the harmonies, and joined them. As the Eolt had tasted her on the way here, she tasted them now, the mind touch unfocused and encompassing.
The semi-meld with the fliers and their residues in her blood brought her sisters to dance for her. Warm mist drifted into the arena from the hotsprings, silver streamers of heat and damp that shaped themselves into graceful swaying images, black and silver similitudes of Naya, Zayalla, Annethi, Itsaya, Talitt, and Sullan. Six sisters, weaving dreams just for her now, dead in the body for twenty times a thousand years, living in her memory and her mind’s eye whenever a new matrix in a new world brought them forth for her. Once again she thought she saw Itsaya wink at her, saw Naya smile, saw Zaya shake her hips and grin over her shoulder, saw her sisters greet her each in her own way.
Distantly she heard a singing sigh pass from Eolt to Eolt, from Keteng to Keteng to Fior and in a corner of her mind where it didn’t interfere with her own joy, she knew that her voice, and the harps, Maorgan and Melech had combined somehow to bring the Weave of Shayalin to life for more than her.
It was a joy and a wonder, but fleeting.
Her sisters turned through a last step and were gone.
She laid her hand on the strings and stilled her harp.
Maorgan and Melech felt silent also.
Danor threw his head back and howled, a sound so full of grief and rage it seemed to darken the air inside the columns.
“I cry out to you,” he sang, his voice full and vibrant despite his weariness, age and wounds, fueled by the rage that swelled in him.
I cry out to you Hear me, Meruu
Fear in the skies, fire in my eyes
Who will assuage my rage?
I cry out to you Hear me, Meruu
Golden blaze in sapphire skies
