by Clayton, Jo;
29
Georgia and Anoike were up in the observation room of the west tower, moving about from windowslit to windowslit, watching the power-dance on the mountain peaks, looking out over the army, checking on the vuurvis fire eating at the gates.
Anoike pulled her head in. “Somethin weird happenin over here.”
Georgia turned from the side slit where he was scowling at the fire. “Huh?”
“C’mon here, hon.”
He brushed at the crumbling stone, then leaned out the slit beside hers. “What?”
“Them. There.”
“Mercs. So?”
“Uh-uh.” She lifted her binoculars, looked through them a minute longer, slipped the strap over her head and passed them to Georgia. “Look close, see ’f you see what I see.” She went back to leaning in the slit, ignoring the carbon staining her thin strong arms. When she saw the Kulaan swarm over Kole and the Nor, she gave a low whistle. “Would’ya look at that.”
“When you’re right, you’re right.” He brushed at his arms, handed her the binoculars. “Got your wish, Annie Lee.” He grinned at her scowl. “Someone took out Nekaz Kole.” He sobered. “Better let Hern and Yael-mri know.”
Hern stood very still, his eyes fixed on the crumbled cliff, on the paired trees blowing in a wind that didn’t reach the valley floor. His face and eyes looked blank, rather as if he were unconscious on his feet.
Yael-mri put her hand on his shoulder. “Hern.”
He shuddered, sucked in a long breath, exploded it out, sucked in another. He glanced at the trees one more time, then swung around, his back to them. “What?” The single word was harsh, strained. He cleared his throat, coughed. “What’s happening?”
“The Shawar are loosed. They’re chasing the Sleykynin from the valley.”
Anoike was staring at the upwelling of thick golden light, spreading in slow waves out from the heart of the Biserica. Georgia watched her a moment, then turned to Hern. “Nekaz Kole is dead. Looks like some of the raiders got hold of mere leathers, just walked up to him and stuck a knife in him, pulled him out of the saddle and went off with his rambut.”
Hern closed his eyes. “Then it’s over.” He looked down at himself. “I’d better get dressed. Georgia, collect your councillors. Yael-mri, you get the priestsu together. Where’d be the best place to meet? Not the Watchhall.” He brushed at his face as if trying to brush away memory. “The library, I think, neutral ground of a sort.” He started walking toward the hospital tent and the trucks parked there, talking as he walked, as idea after idea came to him. “Oras will be a rat-pit by now. Won’t take long to tame it, though. Hang a few of the bloodiest rats, keep patrols in the streets a passage or two. Cimpia Plain. That’ll be harder. Food. Have to work out a way to distribute what’s left of the tithing, chase off any bands of majilarni still there, bound to be raiders hitting the tars and the villages. Reminds me, we’ll need someone to talk for the tars and ties, a Stenda and a Keeper, one of those who came in with the last bunch of mijlockers. Suppose I’ll have to stand watch for the others. Your folks can stay here at the Biserica if that’s what you want. Probably should until spring. North of the Catifey the winters are hard on those without shelter. Some should stay at the Plaz in Oras, once we can get that cleaned out, advance party so to speak, it’s close to the land you’ll be getting, got maps there. Have to talk to you about the Bakuur, they have tree-rights to bottom land on both sides of the river. Have to work out some kind of government, I’m not going back to the way it was before, even if.…” He stopped walking, paused. Then after a minute he started on, continuing to blurt out whatever came into his mind, not bothering with any but the most rudimentary of connections, talking to hold off the loss that kept threatening to overwhelm him.
The golden light thickened about them and began pouring over the wall onto the army, waking them to defeat, prodding them away from the valley.
30
Julia wedged herself into an embrasure and frowned at the ugly trampled plain below. The grass will be thick and tall next year. So much fertilizer. She moved a shoulder out from the stone, slipped the rifle loose. She’d like to throw it in the muck with the bodies, but likes didn’t seem to count much these days. She felt drained, old, yet oddly open. Open to the life ahead, the challenge of this new world, this newer, fresher community. It seethed with possibilities and hope. Much experience had taught her the fallacy of new beginnings made by the same old people; whatever the starting point, sooner or later the ancient problems showed up. Still, there was always the chance that this time would be different. She set the rifle beside her and looked at her hands. The one thing she wanted most was to get back to her writing, to put the words and ideas churning in her head into physical form where she could play with them, shape them into pleasing rhythms, be surprised by them, by what she didn’t know she knew. She was tired of this immersion in activity, itchy at the lack of privacy, beginning to resent the meetings, the endless talk, the painful and complex melding of two disparate cultures and traditions, the acrimonious clashing of the adherents of the several ideologies the exiles had brought with them. Thank god for daddy Sam, she thought. If anything works, it’s because he makes it work. Hern’s almost as good; his tongue’s got two ends and he knows his people inside out. She shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, the way he maneuvered us. His heart isn’t in it. She glanced at the two trees atop the ruined cliff, sighed. They were an impossibility. They made her uncomfortable, yet there was no way she could escape their presence here in the valley. Even inside the buildings when she couldn’t see them, she knew they were there. Magic. It permeated this place and she wanted out. She wanted paper and ink and quiet and, oh god, a place of her own where she could shut out the world and work.
She eased out of the embrasure and looked along the wall; there were a few more solitaries like her up here, getting away from the hordes crowded into inadequate living space in the Biserica. Mostly Stenda. They were a touchy bunch, willing enough to pay their fair share for roads and guards to keep them free of robbers, and that part of the tithing they thought of as a bribe to keep the mijlockers busy with their own affairs and out of the Stenda holds. Willing as long as no one messed with them. They’d been an autonomous enclave under the Heslins and saw no reason to change that. She looked at the rifle again, set her mouth in a grim line and slipped it back on her shoulder. A day or two more and the draft constitution would be finished, printed and passed out to everyone, ready to be voted on. Dort had the press set up, working on battery power. Half the Biserica had crowded round during the trial run, fascinated, full of questions, speculating on the changes such a machine would make in the life they knew. She smiled as she thought of the exiles. They’d come largely from the artisan and artist classes. They’d been accustomed to working hard, not because they had to, but because they liked what they did. They were happily at work now, adapting Biserica knowledge and skills to their own requirements. Every day brought something new, converting the trucks to run on alcohol, a solar-powered pump and hand-made pipes—we will have those hot baths and flush toilets soon enough, though Liz.… Julia shuddered, remembering the blackened thing landing beside her. God knows what else they’d come up with by the end of winter. Michael and several other youngsters were arguing about how to make microchips in a society that didn’t even have electricity; they spent hours at it, inventing an amalgam of their own language and mijlocker that seemed to work well enough, bringing into their circle a number of girls with a mechanical bent and an insatiable curiosity, and several of the tie-boys who’d developed a passion for the motorcycles and the other devices the exiles had brought with them. She looked out over the newly peaceful valley and worried a little about what her people were going to do to it. We almost wrecked one world. God … no, Maiden grant we’ve learned enough to cherish this one. Some of the older women watched the ferment with interest and more than a little sadness because they saw the culture they valued changing in unpredictable wa
ys. Julia gazed out across the valley, then shook her head. Going to be interesting, these next few years. She started down the ramp. Interesting times. A curse back home, may it be a blessing here. Hmmm. Wonder if they’ve got some paper to spare. I’ve definitely got to get to work.
EPILOG
Hern stopped to catch his breath. He brushed off a chunk of stone and sat looking down through a haze of dust and heat that softened the contours of everything and intensified the ripe smell of prosperity rising from the busy scene. Grain ripened in broad swathes vanishing to the south; hauhaus, horses, and macain grazed in yellowing pastures, drank from shrunken streams; Posserim rooted in orchards where the trees bent under a heavy load of green fruit. Small dark figures swarmed everywhere, working in the fields, treading water wheels to irrigate vegetable crops, tending the stock, loading two-wheeled wains with goods of all sorts for Southport, Sadnaji, Oras, and the Summerfair at Sel-ma-Carth. Wains and riders were thick on the road running down the center of the valley, the northwall gates stood wide, fragile charred planks a puff of air would shatter. Yael-mri hadn’t got around to replacing them yet, so many more important things to do.
The heat and exertion were making him sleepy. Somewhat reluctantly he got to his feet and went back to climbing, moving slowly and warily over the shattered stone. Winter had stabilized the scree, spring rains had washed soil and seeds into the stone, summer brought grass, vines, and brush seedlings. The air was thick with the smells of dust and pollen and a spicy green from the leaves crushed under his feet. From time to time he stopped to wipe sweat from his face and swipe at the black biters that swarmed about his head and settled on his skin to drink the sweat. He reached the top of the scree and worked his way along the mountainside until he reached the narrow flat where the trees grew. For a moment, he stood hands on hips looking up at them. The conifer was huge, gnarled, ancient, and in his eyes indecently vigorous. He glared at it, then concentrated on the lacewood. The openwork leaves painted patterns on the stone and drew dark lace on the satin bark. A capricious breeze sang through the leaves, a rising, falling murmur different in kind from the soughing of the conifer’s needles. It seemed to him they were talking to each other like old friends sitting in a patch of sunlight whiling away the hours with memories and pleasant lies, comments and speculation, heatless disputes over this and that. “Nonsense,” he said aloud, winced at the harshness of his voice. He moved into the scrolled shade of the lacewood, flattened his hand against her trunk. The bark felt like skin, smooth, warm, pliant, and he had to remind himself that what he was thinking was absurd, that all lacewoods with the same abundance of sun and water and nutrients would feel the same. His mind believed that but his hands did not.
Hastily he moved away from the trees, shrugged off his knapsack and began setting up for his meal. When he was ready to make his fire, he eyed the lower branches of the conifer then smiled at the lacewood. “I suppose you wouldn’t like that.”
While the cha water was heating, he set out the rest of the food on a thin piece of leather, slices of roast hauhau, a chunk of ripe cheese, some crusty rolls still warm from the baking and the first picking of the chays fruit. Taking a quiet pleasure in the simple task, he sliced open the rolls and filled them with meat and cheese, halved and pitted the chays and set everything aside to wait for the water to boil.
Some time later he sat with his back against the lacewood’s trunk, sipping at the cooling cha. “Lot of changes down there,” he said. The leaves above him rustled companionably. He smiled. A few late blooms fluttered down, one landing on his boot, the others on the stone beside him. “The exiles are settling in, north of Oras. Houses going up, no crops yet, not many farmers in the mix.” He chuckled. “We’ve got a newspaper in Oras now. Not all the exiles went north.” He closed his eyes, drowsed a moment, yawned. “Ummf. The energy of those people, vixen. It’s exhausting.” Eyelids drooping, he gazed out across the valley. “I keep busy. Wagging my tongue to keep the peace.” He chuckled again. “Nothing new in that. Land’s a problem. Taroms. Some of them want the old ways back, fighting us.…” He set the mug down, yawned, laced his hands behind his head. “You wouldn’t believe the things happening down there in the Biserica.” He closed his eyes, listened to the whispering of the leaves; a breeze teased at his hair, tickling his face, the sun was warm, the air balmy. There was a peace up here, a tranquility that contrasted sharply with the busy, noisy, acrimonious, often frustrating life he’d been leading the past months. “Change,” he murmured. “The exiles live with it as an old friend. Harder for us.…” He fell silent and drifted into a light doze.
He awakened a short while later, a recurrent clicking in his ears.
Reiki janja sat on the stone, tossing jewel-bright dice into the air and catching them, rolling them out on the stone as the whim took her. She was a sketch of herself, patches of color painted on air, and the dice she threw had blank sides.
“How do you win with those?”
The janja turned her head. He thought she smiled. “No one wins, Dom. Both sides lose.” Her voice was as hollow as her form.
“No Dom. Not anymore.” He thought she smiled again. “I’ve a more impressive title, janja. Representative to the Congress of the Domains, Speaker for Bakuur and Kulaan.” He chuckled sleepily. “Serroi said keep busy. That I do.”
The janja nodded. “You’ve seeded a new age, Hern. My time is ending.” She looked up, squinting into the sun, a painted glass figure, the ancient paint faded and rubbed thin. She tossed the blank dice high, watching the glitters until the sun swallowed the tumbling dodecahedrons, then she turned her vanishing face to him, “Live long, dom Hern.” Like the dice, she dissolved into the sunlight.
He sat awhile where he was, drowsing, at peace, listening to the trees sigh. Then he rose to his feet, gathered his things into his knapsack and walked back to the lacewood. He stroked his hand along her trunk, his fingers feeling skin that his mind tried to deny. “Well, Serroi.…” He looked up. Another late blossom brushed his cheek as it fell. A corner of his mouth twisted up. “Why not.” He touched the trunk with his fingertips. “I’ll be back, love, when the world gets to be too much for me. To share your peace awhile.” He lingered a moment, then started back down the mountainside.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Clayton (1939–1998) was the author of thirty-five published novels and numerous short stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres. She was best known for the Diadem Saga, in which an alien artifact becomes part of a person’s mind. She also wrote the Skeen Trilogy, the Duel of Sorcery series, and many more. Jo Clayton’s writing is marked by complex, beautifully realized societies set in exotic worlds and stories inhabited by compelling heroines. Her illness and death from multiple myeloma galvanized her local Oregon fan community and science fiction writers and readers nationwide to found the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1985 by Jo Clayton
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3850-8
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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