Still further waves, and they were assigned their Klai Ga. Trinesh was granted the red, with his troopers to follow him there in strict order of rank. Chekkuru hiVriddi was allowed the green because of his clerical status. The priest held out for the yellow, saying that the Vriddi were as noble as any lineage on Tekumel—and older than the Priestkings themselves by a good dozen millennia! Lord Tekkuren only displayed bad teeth in a polite grin; Chunatl had likely made a selective translation.
When the Lady Deq Dimani’s turn came, she disdained to argue for the white and accepted the yellow walkway. She did protest when Lord Tekkuren would have placed the Lady Jai upon the black, as was proj. ; for a lady-in-waiting. After all, as she said, the Lady Jai Ch.sa Vedlan was of high clan and lineage in her own right.
Lord Tekkuren sniffed and waved the girl over to the green walkway.
There was no precedent for Thu’n, but the High General seemed pleased to have the little Nininyal as an oddity at his court; he waved his pale, plump hand once more and sent him over to the green as well.
Only Tse'e remained, in reality the-noblest of them all. Trinesh begged the old man to declare his real name and status, but this he declined, muttering that he had been a Milumanayani tribesman too long to care for worldly dignities. He compromised and accepted the green Klai Ga, however, when Chunatl pointed out that he would otherwise end his days apart from his companions in some scullery. Lord Tekkuren, for whom this debate was not translated, appeared nonplussed until Chunatl told him that this strange guest was traveling incognito—an arrow that struck closer to the mark than he realized.
The matter of their religions was thornier. Chunatl suggested a ruse. The Salarvyani would “misunderstand” when the party was asked its sectarian affiliations: he would hear “Vimuhla”, as “Karakan” and would so translate to Lord Tekkuren. Trinesh, Chekkuru, and the Lady Deq Dimani were horrified. Deny their religion—or allow someone to mistake it? Ignoble! Chunatl argued that the sin of mistranslation would be his alone, but the others vehemently refused. The Salarvyani grumbled something about Chlen-brained pride but amended his plan: when asked which God they worshipped, each person would not name “Vimuhla” but rather that Greater Aspect of the Flame Lord whom he or she personally favored. The local clergy were blissfully ignorant both of Lord Vimuhla’s eighty-seven Greater Aspects and of Lord Karakan’s fifty-six. If one answered “Orkutai the City-Destroyer” or “Esseng of the Scintillating Bolt of Desolation,” who would be the wiser? The Aspects of the two War-Gods sounded similar enough to permit such obfuscation. The idea kept their honor intact, but it still smacked of dishonesty: “as close to ignobility as one might shave an egg,” Chekkuru complained. The Salarvyani insisted that his stratagem would be accepted without question, and eventually they let him have his way. The High General beamed and made welcoming gestures. It was obvious that Lord Tekkuren wished them no harm—for whatever reasons.
Trinesh decided that the time had come to seek certain urgent answers. He whispered to Chunatl, “You said that the High General has a use for us?”
“Let the formalities run their course, Tsolyani. ‘Make a splash and frighten the fish.’ ” Chunatl turned his glittering beast-head back to his master, who had launched into a lengthy peroration.
“The fish had best take the bait or the fisherman goes to sleep,” the Lady Deq Dimani murmured wryly.
“Patience. He comes to the meat of the fruit,” the Salarvyani replied. He nodded, making the flowing Kheshchal-plumes of his headdress bob and shimmer, and bent forward. “Yes. Yes. Oh. That is how he plays the piece, then!”
“Tell us,” the Lady Deq Dimani hissed.
“He believes that you are connected with the invasion.”
“The what?” Trinesh gasped. He heard muffled exclamations from his comrades behind him, and the Lady Deq Dimani made as if to rise.
“The invasion. La, he breaches all etiquette by immersing you in politics before dinner! A clue as to your importance, at least.”
“The Flame broil your greasy—!” Horusel clenched scarred fists. Trinesh quieted him with a glare.
“Let him speak on. I’ll clarify as I translate.” Chunatl eyed the veteran Tirrikamu with trepidation.
The High General obliged almost at once, tossing his hel-meted head to accompany the singing intonation of his strange language.
Chunatl said. “Two six-days past, runners brought news of the landing of a great ship at Arbala. It contained many soldiers, and its captain, a lake-pirate named Harchar, bore a Tilunatl: one of those decrees once issued by the High Chan-eery of the Priestkings upon plaques of gold. This particular document gives the bearer—this Harchar—the Governorship of Mihallu, replaces the present Gaichun, and urges all citizens to obedience and loyal duty.”
“A Tilunatll" the Lady Deq Dimani said, puzzled. “How? The Priestkings have been dead for millennia—? A forgery?’ ’ “Mayhap. Or a genuine artifact looted from some tomb.” “Even these lunatics must be able to detect a counterfeit,” Trinesh sneered. “And if it is authentic, then it must contain dates, names, and places that do not tally with what these folk think to be the facts. Who would believe such flummery?”
“Many, Tsolyani, many.” The ruby gems of Chunatl’s mask glowed as he shook his head. “The folk of Mihallu are devoted to tradition and to their myth. Some there are who wish to see the Gaichun toppled. They would acclaim Captain Harchar’s Tilunatl were it written upon a dried Chlen-turd. The Gaichun's supporters will reject it, of course: it would take trumpelers from the heayens and a choir of the Gods Themselves to make them comply! Already the lines are forming. The lords of Arbala, of Mshechar, and of a dozen towns along the road to Ninue have gone over to this invader. A change of dynasty facilitates the making of new alliances, the breaking of old ones, the settling of enmities, and the gleaning of wealth and power out of chaos.”
“Then there will be war?” asked Chekkuru. “The Gaichun will raise troops? Surely he must win! How many can a pirate-captain bring?”
“Troops? Not so. The High General, here, opposes the Gaichun: no aid will be forthcoming from Lord Tekkuren. The priesthoods are hostile to both. Already they send missions to placate this Captain Harchar, charlatan though he must be. The Gaichun’s clansmen are few, his enemies many.” Trinesh felt as though he floundered in a pool filled with darting minnows. He reached out and snatched at the biggest one: “But—yet—what has this to do with us?”
“You see no connection? Think! In the midst of this turmoil you arrive in a tubeway car, within the heart of the Gaichun's most hallowed palace, brought hither by the magic of the Ancestors! The High General is certain that you come directly from Ganga, from the Threshold of Immanent Glory itself. Either you are here to defend the Gaichun and preserve the present order, or else you come as harbingers of his doom, to see that he be properly overthrown and replaced.
' Lord Tekkuren fervently hopes it is the latter: he is sincere in his devotion to duty and good government.”
“And if the former?” the Lady Deq Dimani asked.
“Then you are rebels, foes of the new Gaichun—and of the High General’s party. Rebels against Ganga and the Priestkings. Rebels who have fortuitously fallen into the hands of a loyal servant of the Engsvanyali Imperium. Lord Tekkuren will then take steps to—ah—deter you.”
Trinesh consulted with his companions and found them unanimous. “Tell the High General that we are indeed here to see to—to the peaceful transfer of power to this new Gaichun,” he announced. “If we must be involved, then let it be with the High General and this mountebank ship-captain. One aberration is as good as another.”
Chunatl Dikkuna spoke, and. the High General chirruped, nodded, and smiled.
“He raises a related matter: he perceives that you are divided into two groups, one perchance hostile to the other. He would know what this portends.”
The Salarvyani’s face was invisible beneath his mask, but his tone conveyed a warning: Lord Tekkuren Chaishyan
i was shrewder than they had guessed. Both Trinesh and the Lady Deq Dimani spoke at once, and the High General scowled. Chunatl shushed them and said, “He says that if one faction supports the new Gaichun, then the other must logically oppose him. Say something, anything, and let me speak for you.”
“Tell him—for now—that this is a political matter which relates to us alone,” Trinesh essayed cautiously. He sensed the Lady Deq Dimani’s baleful gaze upon him. “Tell him that our differences concern us—and the high and secret policies of Ganga—and we ourselves will deal with them.” The Lady Deq Dimani relaxed and sat back upon her dais once more. He spared her a mute glance of gratitude.
The Salarvyani spoke, and the High General grinned and chirped. He arose, signed to the servants, and twittered to Chunatl. The audience was at an end.
The red Klai Ga wound out of the hall, down a stairway, through corridors overflowing with florid garniture, and into a marble rotunda with warlike scenes from some Engsvanyali epic painted all around its ceiling. Servants trotted along beside them upon the black walkways, bowed, and set up screens of carved and lacquered wood like those they had seen when {hey first entered the palace. None but slaves ever dined together, Chunatl informed them, and each was to eat apart from the others. The special dining costumes proffered them were splendidly hideous.
A gravely silent, black-kilted attendant led Trinesh into one of the screen-cubicles so created and indicated a couch heaped with cushions. The pictures in the Engsvanyali manuscripts in Trinesh’ clanhouse showed that the Priestkings lay at full length to dine, but Trinesh was unused to that position and seated himself crosslegged instead. The man made gestures, looked puzzled, and departed. Others entered to place a low table before him upon his red dais; then they, too, retired, always keeping humbly to the black Klai Ga. Still more servitors brought perhaps two dozen tiny bowls, each containing a different delicacy. He recognized grilled and shredded Jakkohl-mea.t, a stew of Afao-squash and roasted fowl, broiled fish (or was it lizard or some other reptile?), flat cakes of reddish Dna-bread upon which pungent Hling-seed had been sprinkled, poached eggs that had been replaced in their shells, wrapped in gold foil, and embellished with bright green legumes—and several more. A blackish jelly he did not touch, nor the fried white grubs in savory sauce, nor the little crustacean coated with red glaze and incongruously crowned with a tiny silver diadem. The meal was so ostentatious, so rich, so sugared, so spiced, and so decorated that Trinesh hardly knew what was edible and what was ornament—like the bumpkin Fekkumu in the Epic of Hrugga who ate the flowers out of the centrepiece! The beverages were similarly varied. There were ten miniature flagons full of various wines, liqueurs, juices, and essences. He had no idea which was supposed to be drunk with which dish and so settled upon three wines that he liked and ignored the rest.
The twenty-seven articles of cutlery totally baffled him. As soon as the servants had left him to eat in lordly solitude, he abandoned all pretext and used his fingers, as was the Tsolyani practice.
He struggled for restraint. He had seen hungry soldiers unexpectedly confronted with food before, and the results had been both memorable and unpleasant. Even so, he could not help stuffing himself.
Afterward they were shown to separate apartments off the central rotunda. Each consisted of a bedroom, an adjoining bathroom, and a still smaller chamber featuring only a low bench of sculptured white marble. The purpose of this last item became clear upon inspection, and Trinesh spent the next few minutes marveling at the complex pumps and valves that washed away whatever one put into the receptacle beneath the seat. A bronze tap beside the thing provided water for cleansing oneself. None of the Engsvanyali epics had described such luxuries as internal plumbing.
The sleeping arrangements were equally unfamiliar. Instead of a bed-mat upon the hard floor, the custom throughout much of the Five Empires, the chamber contained a curious double couch, one half red and the other black. The significance of this became apparent when a slight, thin-faced girl entered upon the lowest walkway. She bowed and waited beside the black side of the couch.
Trinesh was not unused to women. He grinned, and the girl undid her kilt and posed before him. He might have done more, but fatigue and rich food had unmanned him utterly, and a smile was the most he could manage. He was even too bemused to wonder how any coupling might be done without his crossing over to her color or she to his.
He never found out. He spiraled down into sleep.
A single, dreamless hiatus and he was awake again. The taste in his mouth and other urgent necessities told him that many hours had passed. The girl was gone. He used the marble bench and wandered out into the rotunda hoping that someone would show him how to fill the bathing pool. Black-kilted servants sprang to their feet, copper hair-ornaments jingling. . ,
One pointed and said, “Chunatl Dikkuna.”
The Salarvyani awaited him upon the green walkway at the entrance of the rotunda. He seemed upset, and Trinesh almost forgot and went to join him. The attendants’ faces warned him of his impending gaffe, and he halted upon his own red Klai Ga just in time.
“Look, Tsolyani—Hereksa—or whatever you call yourself, we have trouble!” The priest was so perturbed that he had begun without even the honorifics expected in Tsolyanu, much less those required here in this etiquette-shackled land.
“What?” Trinesh rubbed his eyes to clear the last sleep-demons from his brain.
Chunatl Dikkuna squinted at the impassive attendants, settled his robe about his shoulders, and beckoned Trinesh closer. “We are overheard,” he breathed, raising his eyes piously toward the ceiling. Little niches were visible there above the rococo frieze that ran along beneath the murals: listening posts. “They may not understand Tsolyani, but they will note that we have talked.”
“What occurs? What time is it?” Trinesh felt as though he were immured in a dungeon. This entire complex of rooms had no windows: the only illumination came from many-branched oil lamps set upon tripods by the walls.
“You slept a full day. It is evening again.” The Salarvyani rasped his fingers across his blue-shadowed chin. “There is a matter of urgency.”
“Water first. My mouth tastes like the workroom floor in an embalmer’s shop.”
Chunatl signaled to a servant, who brought Trinesh not water but a draught of some sour beverage, like half-fermerited wine. It made things surprisingly better. “We are overheard? By the High General’s people, you mean—your master’s agents?”
“They—and others.”
“What others? Here, in the High General’s own palace?” “Yes, the Ochuna, ‘the Serpent That Winds Within.’ I shall explain.” Chunatl waggled beringed fingers. “Every room, every corridor, has its spy-holes: a maze of tunnels and passages that runs beneath much of Ninue. Together these comprise the Ochuna: a means of spying upon everybody and everything. The High General, the priesthoods, the Gaichun—and perchance others—have the use of it—’ ’ “How? Why not seal off these passages? Or post assassins to deal with unwanted listeners?” His head still boomed like a temple gong.
“Such actions would be discourteous—and impolitic: ‘Swat one of my Chri-flies, and I swat one of yours.’ By unwritten agreement the Ochuna is safe to all. The High General’s watchers sometimes stand side by side with those of his foes. There is no ‘color’ there; a priest, a slave, a noble, or the Gaichun himself—all may travel the Ochuna."
“More madness.” Trinesh sucked at the goblet. “Every plot, every assignation is common knowledge then? Is there anything in Mihaliu that is not crusted solid with ceremony?” His wits were returning. “What is this trouble you mention? What occurs?”
“In the afternoon men came from the Gaichun’s palace with a writ commanding the presence of the three Yan Koryani. The two women were taken, but the little nonhuman refused to go—”
"Taken?” Trinesh did not understand. “They are my prisoners! Taken where? To the Gaichun's palace? For what
reason?’ ’
The priest’s oily tone only infuriated Trinesh the more. “The Flame bum you all! They are my captives; the High General should never have let them go. He had no right!” “Peace! ISot so loud. Some of those above may understand Tsolyani. The High General had no recourse against a writ from the Priestkings’ Governor. Calm yourself—and enlighten me: why would the Gaichun want the Yan Koryani woman and not you? Whom does she know here in Mihaliu? In the Gaichun's palace?”
This made as little sense as the rest of this mad country. “Know? Here? No one. Nobody.”
“Don’t dissemble with me! Our people in the Ochuna tell me that she was taken to meet some unknown visitor. We cannot discover who. Lord Tekkuren worries. It is not desirable that he should worry.”
“Do you question my word? She is as far from home as we are! For her to know anyone here would be a miracle of the gods!”
The priest twisted at the lappets of his vestments. “You think not? I shall show you. No, wait—do you speak her tongue?”
“Not I. But Saina does—the younger of my two Aridani soldiers.” Chunatl’s anxiety was contagious.
“Get your woman and come.”
Trinesh found Saina asleep upon Chosun’s couch. He woke them both, put a finger to his lips, and indicated that they should dress. Chunatl Dikkuna appeared in the doorway, the impropriety of stepping upon the red Klai Ga forgotten.
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