House of Reeds ittotss-2

by Thomas Harlan

  After a long time, the sounds changed again and she felt cooler – had the sun been obscured by clouds? – but the buzzing noise resolved into voices piping and squealing. Children? Delicate fluting voices. Not adult Jehanan, for sure. The gong continued to sound, a stately voice calling out into some open space. A park? A square? Wheels were rattling on stone, that was very clear, the constant passage of wheeled carts and rickshaws. A commercial street beside a square. A temple, a school, someplace where the young are taught to sing.

  The moment of cold passed and Gretchen felt the sun touch her shoulders and hair. Clouds are gathering. It will rain. Someone passed her in the passageway and she could feel – not hear, no, the moving creature said nothing – a sensation of pardon me as it passed.

  Gretchen turned away from the unseen square and street and school, feeling the air push and press at her, and began walking. The sun was warm on the side of her face. Plaster brushed dustily under her fingertips.

  She continued to count and walked more confidently. The lane turned and turned again, and then she was walking down a flight of steps. She could hear a saw cutting through wood, smell sawdust and hear the chatter of workmen laboring over their daily business.

  Parker groaned in pain and rolled over on the blanket. He stared, eyes bloodshot, at Magdalena's back. The Hesht was working on the windows again. Four of the panes were open, letting a cold, damp breeze eddy through the barren apartment.

  "Wha' you doing?" The pilot's mouth felt fuzzy and bruised at the same time. "Di' I pass ou'?"

  "Hrrr… You're sicker than a cub who bit a spinytail on a dare. Drink your water."

  A half-full water bottle stood on the floor beside Parker's sleepbag. Gingerly, he moistened his mouth. That seemed to cut some of the horrible taste, so he took a longer swallow. "Gods, Mags, it is fucking cold, can't you close a window?"

  The Hesht looked over her shoulder, yellow eyes sharp. "No. Crawl under your hide and turn on the bag heater. Packleader needs running three-d camera, infrared, sensor readings – all the eyes of the hunt we have – on the hill. Business, remember? Hunting, remember? No – you're coughing bile and cheese on nice clean floor while I work. Hrrr…stupid leaf eater."

  Parker stared around, realizing the room had changed considerably since he'd shaken a local tabac out into his hand. The cig had smelled all right – a little sharp – but nothing like some of the things he'd smoked over the years. Came in a fancy cardboard box with advertising on every square centimeter. A stick of flavored chicle had been stuck in a cellophane wrapper on the back and the front had a little mini-manga which folded out. All completely confusing, of course, as Parker hadn't taken the time to learn the Jehanan script, but the tabac had seemed safe.

  Of course, after inhaling he couldn't remember anything until opening his eyes in a pool of his own stomach lining. He forced himself up onto his forearms.

  "Where's the boss?"

  Maggie shook her head and wrenched the window pane she was working with violently. The glass made a shivery sound and cracked diagonally. The Hesht made an irritated hissing sound and groped around with her spare hand to find some sealotape. "Packleader will talk to us later."

  "Why? Did something go wrong?" Parker levered himself up. The room began to spin.

  "Wrong? Hssss…puking kitten, has anything gone particularly right since landing? No – the whole planet smells like your urine, nothing works, there are no soft beds and even the freshly killed meat tastes like hides-in-the-grass-and-bites-your-tail. Hrrr! Wrong? Hrrr…"

  Parker nodded woozily, elected to say nothing and collapsed.

  Shadow passed over Gretchen's face, her footsteps echoed down some kind of tunnel for thirty or forty paces and then she came out into a quiet space, half in shadow, half in the sun. She could smell rain gathering when the cooking smoke wasn't too thick – but for the moment, in this place, the sun was shining clear. A strong smell of wood smoke, hot tile, yeast and metal tickled her nose.

  The feeling of the air pressing her, guiding her in a direction, evaporated. Anderssen opened her eyes, disappointed, sure she was not back at the apartment building. That didn't work worth a damn.

  Two lanes came together in a jumble of archways and a looming wall of square-cut stone. Ahead, she could see a half-open door and beyond that, a sunny garden filled with red and blue flowers. The sound of a treadle clacking away filtered out of the upper air. To one side, to her left, was an alcove where the heavy stone wall came to an abrupt end.

  A curving surface, cool and blue-green, shone in the sunlight. For an instant, as she first became aware of the fragment, Gretchen thought she was staring into the ocean depths, light bending and scattering among rippling waves, the image of the sun broken into dozens of reflections, each wavering in time to unseen currents. Then she blinked and there was only a smooth, solid surface glowing in the midday light. A section of wall rising above her head and an arm's reach to the left and right.

  "Oh…" Anderssen stepped forward, nudging her work goggles up into her hair, stripping away her gloves, and gently – as gently as she'd ever lifted up one of her children – she ran her hand just over the surface of the – ceramic? Glass? Steel? Care urged her not to touch the unblemished surface, while hard-earned caution held her breath and kept her balance canted away from the object.

  As her hand moved, the smooth surface seemed to ripple, just as water would move under a breeze, and then settled back into its accustomed shape. At the same time, a very faint tone belled out from the curve, filling the whole alcove with a wonderfully soft sound. "…That is beautiful."

  A raspy, whispery voice grumbled behind her: "You stand before the moving waters."

  Gretchen became still, wondering for a split second if the sound had been her own voice, or something she was thinking, and then turned around.

  A Jehanan was squatting against the plastered wall opposite the curving surface. Most of the body was in shadow, though feet and hands were caught in a shaft of sunlight. Its scales were finely grooved and pale around the edges. Like most of the natives, it wore only a leather harness holding enameled signs of rank, and a long staff of dark wood lay against one shoulder. The creature's hands were broad, with long, strong-looking fingers. Gretchen's eyes flitted across a muscular, triply-ridged upper chest, splay-toed feet stained with dirt, and settled on tiny chips of stone and soil ground in and around the claws of both hands.

  "Hello," she ventured, wondering if she'd trespassed onto someone's shrine. Guiltily, Anderssen stepped out of the alcove and into the lumpy floor of the lane. "Your pardon, I did not mean to intrude on your…meditations."

  The Jehanan's head turned, regarding her. The eye-shields were plain and unadorned, shrouding deep cavities where two dark, glittering eyes caught a little of the bluish reflection from the curving wall.

  "Your race is called Mйxica," the creature said in a deep, slow voice. "I have studied your old tales from time to time. Only once or twice have I seen your kind, but they did not strike me as being a quiet people. You – are you a male or a female? No matter – came quite unnoticed until you stood between me and the waters."

  "I…am a human – that is the name of our race as a whole – but I am not of the Mйxica, who are a tribe, or clan, who rule us."

  "This is clearer." The Jehanan rose and in the laborious act of motion, Gretchen realized the native was very old and female. Anderssen also felt a twinge of alarm – the native's command of Nahuatl was quite good for someone who had only met one or two humans before – and wondered what exactly the chances of her encountering such a being were. "You did not disturb until you spoke. Of truth, I was…" A sibilant hooooo interrupted. "…resting old eyes. Without interruption, I would remain until the still waters came, and then -" More trilling. "- the sun would be resting too."

  "Do you…" Gretchen paused, her eyes drawn back to the elegant gleaming curve. "This is not a Jehanan artifact, is it? This is something from the time before your people, from the -"<
br />
  The old native made a deep-throated sound, a booming hiss, and clashed her claws together to make a rattling, chiming noise. Alarmed, Anderssen jumped back, eyes darting for an exit. The creature seemed surprised by her reaction and shrank back. Clawed hands seized the staff tightly. Then the Jehanan relaxed, and there was more trilling.

  "Pardon, pardon, pardon…" The long, angular head shook from side to side, eyes downcast. "I speak the name of those before – as they have made the sound – no alarm was meant, no bellow of challenge." The head rose. "Human voices small, ours large. You speak of the Ha-ra-phans, if there is no mistake."

  "Yes, this section of wall, is this all which remains – like the bridge across the Yellow Phison, the Arch of Dawn?"

  The lean old head, jagged with blunt horns, made a very passable human-style nod. "No more than shell-fragment, caught up in brick and plaster, stone and wood. Left behind in the fury of a new world. Long time this was buried. Entombed. Held-in-shell."

  The Jehanan settled onto her haunches again and reached out with the staff to trace the edges of the curving surface. "Beyond this is house of sitting and eating and drinking. Many times, as a soft-scale, I sat there. Sometimes – if my busy, chattering mind were still – I felt warmth in this wall, pleasant, comfortable. But nothing catches the wiggling attention of a short-horn. Only last year did plaster give way and show what lay within."

  Gretchen sat as well, intrigued. "Had you seen a Haraphan artifact before? Are they rare in this district, or common? Is there more of this one – perhaps hidden below the ground, or inside these other walls?"

  "Hooo…" The Jehanan let out a long, trembling note through its nostrils. "Such a sharp bite asuchau thoughts have, fixing on the tasty prey, winnowing away skin, cracking bones… Is anything left when you are full? Scraps of ligament? Splinters? A single lonely scale on bone-dry plate?"

  Anderssen flushed, embarrassed. Remember to respect the native religious observances, but don't think they haven't eyes to see what we really want. The Honorable Doctor Kelly told her that in first year. Then she heard a half-hidden, swallowed trill and realized the creature was laughing at her. "Is there more than this section?"

  "No." The Jehanan paused, and then shook her head in what seemed to be conscious imitation of the human mannerism. "I sit here. The light moves with air, clouds and sun. My people…" She paused, settling in upon itself. "Were spade to strike soil, mattock the wall, chisels and hammers the plaster, what might break under clumsy claws? Would they care? No, they would trample on without thought."

  Gretchen rubbed her chin with the back of her hand, thinking. "Don't people come along this way – see the wall? Wonder what it means?"

  "Do they see what you see, asuchau with sharp thoughts?" The Jehanan cocked her head to one side. "See what I see, when my gaze rests on shimmering waters? They do not care. Our people are tired after so long, after so many struggles, so many defeats. They wish to feed, to sleep, to mate. No more. Rarely do they look aside from their path, much less to the heavens."

  "You sound…" Anderssen paused, trying to remember the first time she'd heard that particular lament – from my grandfather, of course! – and then laughed, realizing she'd muttered the same thing, more than once. "…like anyone watching the young, of any species, of any time."

  "Perhaps." Gretchen wasn't sure, but there seemed to be a peevish, grumpy tone in the creature's response. "Truth, despite."

  When the Jehanan fell silent, Anderssen said: "May I ask you a question?"

  The long head lifted, which she took for assent. This thing could probably just bite my arm right off with those teeth… Why not stick my head right in?

  "What is your name? What do you do? For a living, I mean."

  "Ssss…You dig in the marrow! Rude creature! Hooooo…Will you trade?"

  Gretchen nodded, though a little voice warned her to tread carefully in matters of names, even with a stranger she'd never see again. "I will."

  The Jehanan made a chirping, warbling sound, then shook her head. "No…your tongue is doughy and soft, sadly congealed. I am…perhaps 'Malakar' is close. Yes, memory agrees. A gardener. I once turned the soil, weeded away the pernicious, tried to see if young shoots would grow strong in the sun."

  Anderssen bowed politely, as her grandmother had taken pains to teach her, and replied. "I cannot choose a Jehanan name which will suffice, but in my tongue, I am Gretchen. As you suspect, I am a digger-into-buried-things-which-ought-to-be-left-alone. But I try to be careful and sure of hand, and not break anything."

  The Jehanan trilled in laughter, bobbing her long head. "How often have you made good that promise? Once? Twice? Ever?"

  Gretchen felt a flash of irritation at the mocking tone, but couldn't convince herself the assertion wasn't true. "Things always seem to break."

  "Then keep claws -"

  A sound interrupted the old Jehanan – cascading out of the sky, echoing in the archways and rebounding from the tall white buildings – a hollow, extenuated hhhhooooooooo…Malakar's long head rose, nostril flaps widening and, hissing like a leaky tea kettle, she rose again, leaning heavily on the staff.

  "What is that?" Gretchen turned from side to side, fruitlessly trying to gauge direction.

  "Time passes," the Jehanan rasped, pointing overhead with her staff. "See the sun?"

  Anderssen covered her eyes against the ruby-tinted blaze of light shining down into the alcove. The Bharat primary was now visible in the triangular opening between the eaves. Noon already? A wasted morning, then, getting lost… Now how do I…

  "Your pardon!" Gretchen caught sight of the Jehanan's tail flicking around a corner and ran to catch up with the gardener. The native paused. "I won't keep you for more than a moment, honorable one. But…do you know how I could reach the intersection of panca-sapta and trieka?"

  "Hooo…" Malakar eyed her up and down again, hissing softly. "Tall teeth indeed. You do not seem so rich or so powerful to have such a khus." A clawed hand scratched dirty scales. "Are you lost?" Gretchen nodded. "Entirely."

  The Jehanan's nostrils twitched. She looked down the passageway, then back at the human, and then down the passage again. Laboriously, Malakar shifted herself around, the butt of the staff clanking on the ground. "Not polite to let guests wander and die in confusing city. I will show you the way."

  Gretchen was short of breath and wheezing after fifteen minutes of following the old Jehanan up out of the maze of the city. Not only was Takshila located at considerable altitude in comparison to the lowlands around Parus but the gardener was quite spry. Despite being half blinded by sweat, Anderssen took care to note they had left the street level and climbed a flight of stairs – through a dark, musty shop selling carpets and between two buildings – to reach a flat rooftop.

  "This is how the locals travel?" Gretchen looked around in appreciation.

  Malakar nodded, indicating a landscape of domes, flat roofs, racks of drying, freshly dyed cloth and trellises covered with brightly colored flowers. "Streets below for commerce, for wagons, for hauling. This path is for sensible people."

  "Not usually including humans, I'd imagine." The archaeologist adjusted her hat. Out of the humid tangle of streets, the air was cooler and the sun hotter. She surveyed the horizon and was immediately disgusted to see the base of the monastery hill less than a kilometer away to the north. I was probably about to step out at its foot… So much for Green Hummingbird's vaunted finding-the-path. The cluster of skyscrapers soared against a cloud-flecked sky to her left. Doubtless, Magdalena can count my nose hairs now.

  "You see? There is your destination." The elderly Jehanan pointed towards the apartment building with a long, tapering snout. "By ancient law, stairs which ascend to rooftops are public thoroughfares. Then you must pass between buildings. You see?"

  Gretchen saw. While the rooftops of the buildings were filled with tub gardens, cages holding plump gray birds and covered patios, the intervening walls were topped by walkways of brick or woo
d. Sometimes lined by railings, sometimes not.

  Without waiting, Malakar set off towards the cluster of finlike apartment buildings. Anderssen hurried after, trying not to gawk at the private patios on either side. There were a very large number of Jehanan out sunning themselves, either on blankets or on wooden frames, and none of them paid her any mind as she walked past. She was both relieved and wary. The hostile air prevalent in the streets around the train station was absent, but there was still a tense feeling in the air. As on the stairs, the gardener set a swift pace.

  After another twenty minutes of clambering up and down flights of stairs and rattling along splintery walkways, the rooftops ended at one of the wide boulevards. Malakar paused, peering left and right. "This panjir-road leads to the khus you seek," Malakar said, rumbling voice slightly raised.

  They descended to the level of the boulevard, and Gretchen became distracted as they turned right up the street. The curve of the roadway – seen intermittently through the throng of swift-moving Jehanan – kept drawing her eye. There was something odd about the trees shading the sidewalk. She stopped, staring at a planter. The tree itself seemed very old – the roots had cracked the pavement all around, lifting up concrete in tilted slabs – and the branches reached out almost level across the road, casting deep shade over a constant stream of carts drawn by brawny Jehanan runners.

  Drifts of leaves had collected in the gutter along the edge of the road, but – and this was the oddity which had drawn Gretchen's eye – the surface of the road itself had not split or broken open like the concrete. Keeping an eye out for onrushing wagons, she brushed back the leaves. Beneath her fingers, a smooth black surface gleamed up.

  "All these larger roads, they're Haraphan?" She looked up at the gardener, who was running both claw-hands across the ridged trunk of the tree. "They liked curved paths and surfaces?"

  "Hoooo… yes. They say the straight is dangerous." Malakar tapped her staff against the disintegrating concrete. "Sturdily made, their things are. Last a long time, longer than anything made by our feeble claws."