Kalpa Imperial

by LAngelica Gorodischer, Ursula K. Le Guin

  “Let’s hope not!” said Nayidemoub.

  “Bedtime,” said old Z’Ydagg.

  The sun tormented them all next day. And thirst, too; the next well was a long way yet, so the old man rationed the water. Even The Cat looked discouraged. Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül kept watching him, and in the afternoon she called him. “I’m not thirsty,” she said, “not at all. When we can drink, you can have my share.”

  “Oh, no, no,” The Cat said, but the woman insisted. Maybe the boy reminds her of one of her seven, the twentier thought, and then maybe not. What does she want with the boy, a woman her age, all right, not that old, but old enough to be his mother—what does she want with him? He’s young, almost a kid still, his voice hasn’t even finished changing. Does she want to buy him for her bed? Would he let himself be bought? No, come on, why would he sell himself, a kid that’ll have any woman he wants when he wants them. But if she offers him a lot of money? How much would it take? I don’t like that woman. I don’t trust her.

  Night came at last and the cold wind blew from the northern mountains and the animals bowed their necks and huddled up in a corner of the corral for shelter, and the men sat around the fire, ate, drank, drank coffee; and the guard put his hand on the sack that held his serel.

  “I don’t like the desert,” said one of the merchants.

  “Who does?” said another. “Nobody.”

  “Daddy Z’Ydagg does,” said The Cat. “He does. He likes all of it, isn’t that right, daddy?”

  “The world is the way it is,” the old man said.

  “Why?”

  “Be quiet, boy,” said Bolbaumis. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

  “It’s not a stupid question,” the woman said, “it’s a wise one. And I’ll answer it, son: The world is the way it is because men are mad.”

  “Could be,” said Nayidemoub, “but you have to admit men have done some good things too.”

  “She didn’t say foolish, she said mad,” said The Cat. “Madness can do bad things and good things.”

  “Listen, young philosopher,” Bolbaumis said, “is there any more coffee?”

  “I’ll make some more in a moment, boss. But, daddy, men didn’t make the desert.”

  “No,” the old man said.

  “Who did make the desert, anyway?”

  “It came with the rest of the world.”

  “And who made the world?” asked The Cat.

  “That’s a long story.”

  The soldier took his hand off the sack that held his serel.

  “Before the world there was nothing,” Z’Ydagg said.

  “Was it really dark and scary?” asked The Cat.

  “It wasn’t dark because it wasn’t anything, and if there isn’t anything there can’t be darkness, stupid boy,” said the old man. “And there wasn’t anybody to be scared. It wasn’t silent, either, because if there isn’t anything, there isn’t even silence. And since there wasn’t silence all the sounds and noises that hadn’t been made yet could be heard. And since there wasn’t darkness all the things that hadn’t begun to exist could be seen. Because there was nothing, everything that was going to be in the world when there was a world could be without being.”

  The Cat served out the coffee.

  “You’re very wise, daddy,” he said. “Won’t you tell us how it all started being?”

  He’s making fun of me, the old man thought. Or is he? Or am I getting suspicious, like a cook, like some old woman peering out from behind her shutters?

  “That’s easy,” he said aloud. “Everything that could be seen and everything that could be heard because there wasn’t any darkness or silence, was all packed up together, because before the world was, there wasn’t anything, not even space. And since there wasn’t any time, everything joined and stuck together and melted together, and the same way those many-colored wheels on a stall at a fair go round and round till all the colors make white, so everything that was before the world was stuck together and made an eye.”

  “What color was the eye?” asked The Cat, who was sitting in front of the old man.

  “No color, because it was all colors,” the twentier said. “It was a round eye, with a very thick lens, and it had just one eyelid around it, black, round, hard, opaque. And out of this eye came a tiny speck of dust that got bigger and bigger, and then the eye saw that pinch of dust turn into a house.”

  The night wind whistled over the desert and the men drew in a little closer to listen to Z’Ydagg.

  “It was a house of dark wood, with a lot of rooms and a balcony,” said the old man, “and there was a man in every room, but on the balcony there was a woman. And the house was called saloon.”

  “Saloon?” said The Cat.

  “Don’t interrupt, snotnose,” said Bolbaumis.

  “Now, when the house called saloon was finished, with the men and the woman and all the furniture, another speck of dust came out of the eye and grew till it was another house.”

  “And what was it called?” Bolbaumis asked.

  “Don’t interrupt, fatty,” said The Cat, grinning.

  “The second house was called the charge of the light brigade,” said the old man, “and it had a lot of rooms too, but it had a lot of men and women in them. But none as beautiful as the woman in the house called saloon was. She was so beautiful that the men of the house called the charge of the light brigade saw her once and never could stop thinking of her and dreamed of her night and day. But there was one of them who was so deeply in love with the beautiful woman that he wanted to abduct her. This man was called Kirdaglass and since he didn’t know what the woman’s real name was he called her Marillín. Kirdaglass built a ship and sailed through the air and went after the woman he called Marillín and carried her off and brought her back to his house with him. Then the men of the house called saloon built a thousand ships and to insult their enemies they named the ships after the women of the house called the charge of the light brigade and painted the names in shining letters on the round prow of each boat: Marlenditrij, Betedeivis, Martincarol, Maripícfor, Avagarner, Tedabara, Loretaiún, Briyibardó, Jedilamar, and a thousand more. With these ships named for the enemy’s women, the men of the house called saloon sailed through the air to the house called the charge of the light brigade to rescue the woman called Marillín abducted from them by the man who loved her so much. Among those who sailed the thousand ships was a very brave man called Alendelón, and a wise one called Clargueibl, and another called Yeimsdín who was the one who wanted most of all to rescue the beautiful woman. In their thousand ships they sailed across the air and laid siege to the other house. But now time existed, since men and houses and women and ships existed, and so the siege lasted for twenty years. And for twenty years the men of the two houses were at war. The chief of the house called the charge of the light brigade, whose name was Orsonuéls, which means the great bear, organized the defense, and said that if one of his sons had abducted a woman, then the woman belonged to him because he’d been so brave and fearless. Then Alendelón challenged Kirdaglass to a duel, but he was in bed enjoying himself with the woman called Marillín and didn’t bother going out to fight. The others did, though, they went on fighting and killing one another until there were hardly any men left on either side. Meanwhile other little specks of dust had been coming out of the eye and and turned into a lot of other houses with men and women in them. One house was called dosmiluno and another rosadeabolengo and another alahoraseñalada and elmuelledelasbrumas and rashomon and puertadelilas and elañopasadoenmarienbad and lahoradelobo and so on and so on. When almost twenty years had passed since the beginning of the siege, Kirdaglass came out at last to fight, and Yangabén, Alendelón’s best friend, killed him with a poisoned arrow. Then Marillín married another son of Orsonuéls named Yonyilber, but soon, thanks to a ruse conceived by the wily Clargueible, who had had a great bear made out of wood and offered it as a gift to the besieged, the besiegers were able to enter the house, hidden insi
de the gigantic animal. So it was that they could set fire to the house called the charge of the light brigade and take back the woman and take Orsonuéls captive, and his wife Dorotilamur and his sons and daughters. The woman called Marillín married Yeimsdín and they had a lot of children and both of them lived happily ever after, till they died at a hundred and twenty. But one of the heroes who had sailed across the air in search of the abducted woman and had fought bravely through the long years of the siege, was lost with his ship. The wily Clargueibl was returning like the others to the house called saloon when he heard sweet voices singing that drew him irresistibly. They were the ringostars, beautiful, evil, voracious beings who used their magic voices to enchant all who heard them and attract passing sailors. Clargueibl and his crew stopped to listen and so were captured by the ringostars. One of these beings was a powerful witch called Monalisa whose smile turned men into pigs. This is what happened to Clargueibl and his men, and the ringostars shut them up in a pigsty and fattened them up until they started eating them one by one. But Clargueibl, who even as a pig kept his cunning wits, persuaded one of the pig keepers, the giant Gualdisnei, to let him live just a few days longer because he felt ill and anybody who ate him might catch his disease and then the others would punish the pig keepers for sending unhealthy food to the table. When the giant bent down to look at him more closely, Calrgueibl bit him in the neck with his pig teeth, and by drinking his blood became once again the gallant warrior he had been. Then he stuffed mud in his ears so as not to hear the song of the ringostars, stole a ship, and set off straight home. There everyone thought he was dead, and the eldest daughter of Yeimsdín and Marillín, whose parents had promised to marry her to Clargueibl when the hero returned, was on the point of marrying one of her many suitors, a silly little man named Samuelgolduin. On the day of the wedding, Clargueibl arrived disguised as a beggar, and no one knew him but his old dog Rintintín, who barked with joy at seeing him. Clargueibl came forward, weapons in hand, to the bridal couple, killed Samuelgolduin, made himself known, and married the lovely Vivianlig, with whom he went to live in another house which they named gone with the wind after all the adventures that lay behind them. They lived long and happily and their sons and daughters spread out across the world that now existed, formed by all the things that had come out of the eye.”

  “And the eye?” asked The Cat. “Where is the eye?”

  “Somewhere,” the old man said. “It’s somewhere. But it’s very hard to see.”

  “Did more dust specks come out of the eye?” The Cat wanted to know. “And will any more come out? And how can they?”

  “I wish a doctor who can work miracles would come out of the eye now,” said Nayidemoub, “one who could miraculously cure the daughter of the the dead emperor.”

  “She isn’t sick,” said one of the merchants. “She’s dead too. She must be.”

  “Oh, don’t say that, man,” fat Bolbaumis pleaded, “don’t say that!”

  “How could she be dead, when the regent says—” The Cat began, but the fat man interrupted him: “The regent! Faugh! Ten thousand curses on the day that viper was born!”

  “If one of us could see the eye, maybe the emperor’s daughter would be cured,” said The Cat.

  “Will that snotnose shut up and let grown people talk?” said Bolbaumis.

  “It’s late,” said old Z’Ydagg, “time to rest.”

  “But that damned woman wants her son on the Golden Throne,” Nayidemoub grumbled, “so she keeps the emperor’s daughter captive and says she’s sick. She’s going to kill her and say she died of her illness. And then the boy will succeed to the throne, just as she wants. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “And why shouldn’t he govern well? Let’s give him a chance,” said one of the merchants.

  “That she-hyena’s son?” said Nayidemoub. “Forget it!”

  “To bed,” said the twentier. “There’s been too much talking today.”

  “Are you going to need more blankets?” the woman who called herself a silk dealer asked The Cat.

  The desert went on and on and seemed as if it would never end. But the people knew that they’d gone better than halfway, and the heat and thirst of the day, the cold of night, kept getting easier to bear. So at night they sang more cheerfully, coming in on the choruses with The Cat and clapping to the rhythm of the soldier’s serel. And so the old twentier smiled, which he didn’t do very often, when the boy said he was tired of singing and wanted to hear another story about when the world was new, before the Empire existed.

  “Tomorrow,” said Z’Ydagg, “we’ll have stories tomorrow. Not now. I’m tired too.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, boy,” a merchant said. “The Empire has always existed. It is, it was, it will be. They teach us that in school even before we learn to read.”

  “Who knows,” said Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül.

  “How can anyone even think of the Empire not existing?” a man said suspiciously, shaking his head.

  “The lady’s right,” said the old man. “Who knows? There are legends, there are stories, and maybe not all of them were made up by blind beggar bards.”

  “Honest?” The Cat said. “Honest, daddy? Will you tell us one?”

  “Tomorrow, I said,” Z’Ydagg replied.

  But the next day everybody was talking about reaching the towns on the far side of the desert, though in fact their journey’s end was not yet in sight. Good Pfalbuss had a grandson expecting him in Oadast, at one of his places of business.

  “Just like his mother,” Pfalbuss said smiling, “my eldest daughter who died young, poor child. Just like her, my friend, the same eyes, same laugh, same business sense, same gift for seizing an opportunity.”

  “Your daughter was in the business?”

  “Of course. She was my right hand for years.”

  “A woman in business? Hmm.”

  “Why not?” asked Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül.

  “Well, of course, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “I believe,” said the silk dealer, “that a woman is perfectly capable of any activity—business, politics, sciences, applied arts.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “You’ve offended the lady, Mr. Merchant,” The Cat said.

  “I hope not, I certainly had no such intention.”

  “What would you say to a woman on the throne?” asked the silk dealer.

  “Oh, well, now, that depends . . .”

  “Depends on what? Have you forgotten the Great Empress? Or Esseriantha? Or Nninivia? Or the Blessed Lullisbizoa? Or Djarandé, who saved the Empire not once but twice?”

  “We’re camping here,” said the old twentier.

  “I didn’t for a moment suggest that a woman couldn’t or shouldn’t occupy the Golden Throne,” Pfalbuss said finally, “all I say is, some women yes, some women no. That’s what I say.”

  “For example?”

  “For example, that adder, the sister of our emperor who just died, that woman, no—definitely not. But Louwantes IV’s daughter, yes.”

  Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül smiled. “I wouldn’t say there’s much chance of that girl reaching the throne, would you?”

  “Oh, lady,” said The Cat, “don’t get talking politics now, huh? Look, I’m helping you with the load.”

  “No, no, don’t do that, that’s what the servants are for, those things are heavy.”

  She looks after him as if he was made of sugar candy, the old man thought. He said, “Come on, come on, let’s have the camp ready before nightfall, get on with it. Get it all stowed, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  What did I say that for? he asked himself while The Cat cheered and jumped up and down and everybody got to work with the loads, the pack animals, and the carts. Why am I going to tell them old stories nobody tells any more, not even the storytellers? Am I getting paid for this? No, I’m paid to lead a caravan safely, without going astray or getting delayed or losing anything, from the capital to Oadassim
Province, that’s what they pay me for, and pay me well because I know my job and the years have given me, maybe not wisdom, but something close. So why should I go digging up old fables about fabulous beings who were born and loved and fought and died, if they ever existed, before the Empire came to be, no, it’s quite unnecessary. And therefore I won’t tell them a thing, not a thing, not a word will escape my lips.

  “Here it is, here it is!” shouted The Cat, dancing around him.

  “Quiet, quiet down, boy,” the old man said. “May I inquire where what is?”

  “The camp! All ready, in order, in place!”

  “Well, let’s see about that, let’s see, aha, hmm,” said the twentier, and went about examining things, pulling at the cords that fastened the packs, testing the crosspieces that held up the corral for the pack animals, twanging straps with a finger and giving little kicks to wooden stakes to make sure they were firmly planted. He went round to the dugouts where the fires were already lighted, checked the blankets and sleeping bags, pushed the wagons to make them sway so he could hear if they creaked or squeaked, passed every person and looked at what each one was doing. At last he came back to The Cat.

  “Good,” he said. “Very good. I imagine you took part in this magnificently organized enterprise.”

  “Of course I did,” the boy said. “Everybody helped, let’s be fair. But I did most of it.”

  “I don’t believe a word you say, you lazy good-for-nothing, not one word, you hear me?”

  “Me? Lazy? Me? But daddy, I work all the time, day and night.”

  “Oh yes,” the old man said, “yes, of course you do.”

  “But seriously, daddy. I say magic words to the animals so they won’t balk or shy or kick, I keep company with Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül so she doesn’t miss her seven kids, I grease axles, I tighten the girths when there isn’t water and loosen them when there is, I listen to the merchants when they complain about how little money they make, I measure the feed, I give advice, I guess things.”

  “What things?” the old man demanded abruptly.