House of Reeds ittotss-2

by Thomas Harlan

  "Hoooo! You jump like a skomsh fresh-caught in a net! I hear angry voices out there… They are not snuffling before the Empire today, no…but how will youfind your friends? They are far away if you cannot cross the boulevard!"

  That is an excellent question, Gretchen thought. "I made a mistake," she snapped. "I expected our comms to work – our first rendezvous is at the train station. But they might still be waiting -"

  Malakar stiffened, raising a single clawed finger, head turning to one side. "Wait, asuchau, I am hearing strange sounds…like a steam-loom of vast size…"

  Anderssen peered out onto the street again and swallowed a curse. A huge tracked military vehicle – an armored personnel carrier? – rumbled down the avenue. At the sight of the apparition, the gangs of looters scattered, throwing down their prizes. Jehanan in body-armor loped alongside the clanking, rattling machine, and they held stubby rifles in their claws. Their eyes were in constant movement, yet they ignored the fleeing short-horns.

  "The army," she breathed, ducking back. She looked up at Malakar. "The kujen's men are sweeping the streets. But not for looters! Is there somewhere I can hide until they pass?"

  The old Jehanan's snout twisted in disgust. "The kujen…he will let the paigim short-horns run wild, wrecking the livelihood of many a shopkeeper, and do nothing as long as they bite Imperial tails! But do you asuchau suffer? No! Only the meek who sought to turn over a single shatamanu in profit. So are the powerless ground fine between mill stones…" A rumbling and muttering followed. The growl of engines and the stamp of swift feet grew closer.

  "Come on," Gretchen said, seizing Malakar's arm, trying to drag her back down the lane. "Up the stairs at least!"

  "No, not that way." The gardener wrenched her arm free and strode past the stone staircase. She ducked behind the out-thrust stone and down into a ramp cutting into the earth. "This way, if you must cross the avenue…"

  Anderssen followed, one eyebrow raised as they shuffled down the ramp, past one, and then two thick layers of rubble and into a vaulting hallway running at an angle to the lane above. Lamps hung from the vaults every ten meters, spilling a warm oil-glow through faces of colored glass. Her eyes flitted across other openings, recognizing doorways built to a different esthetic. The floor beneath her feet was uneven, but lined with irregular slabs. This is an old city, layer heaped upon layer over the millennia.

  Gretchen hurried after the gardener, who had pressed on while she gawked at the archaeological evidence all around her. Other Jehanan passed in the opposite direction, glancing at her suspiciously as they passed. "Malakar – do these tunnels run under the whole city? Are there more levels below this one?"

  The passage reached an intersection, splitting into three branches, and light spilled from an open doorway. A squat dome – cracked in places and repaired with brick pylons – hung over the open space. Many lamps hung down on chains. A Jehanan matron followed by two hatchlings emerged from one of the shops, two woven bags in her arms. Anderssen smelled fresh baked bread and realized she was terribly hungry.

  "Hrrr… yes, there are many hidden ways beneath the city. These are the districts where the poor live, far from the sun, but warm withal. Do you feel the age of these stones? Sometimes one can find old doors like the ones in the Garden, but only down where it is dangerous to tread." The old Jehanan paused, her gaze following Anderssen's intent expression. "Do asuchau eat milled grain baked and risen? You look much like a hatchling eyeing the pastry as it cools!"

  "Yes – that smells delicious. My grandmother baked bread every day when we were little."

  Malakar went to the doorway, nodding politely to another customer leaving the bakery. In the warm lamplight light she seemed younger somehow, or less burdened by age and care. The old Jehanan made a clicking sound with her teeth and pointed with her snout. "Do you see the figurines of clay above the hearth?"

  Anderssen nodded, looking around curiously at the shelves filled with bread. The bricks were markedly different in shape from those she'd seen in the buildings at street level. From the slightly irregular pattern, she guessed they had been hand-pressed into wooden forms and fired in a kiln on sheets of marble. Behind the stone-topped counter, a short-snouted Jehanan was kneading dough into loaves. Above the hearth and the half-circle mouths of his baking ovens, she saw rows of small figures – most seemed Jehanan in outline, though some were insectile and a few were outright monsters with horrific features. The lamp-and fire-light danced upon them, giving their painted features uncanny life.

  "Are they gods? Protective spirits? Amulets to ward away disease and poison from the bread?"

  Malakar nodded, clasping her claws to her chest. She seemed pensive. "This one believes in the old ways. Legends even in the annals of the Garden. Look at him," she whispered in Gretchen's ear. "I envy this one. He is content at his task – as was his father and his father's father – there has been a bakery here for an age of Jehanan… There he spills grain meal every day, paying homage to all the faces ofgod. A tiny offering, a single prayer. And for him this suffices; brings him closer to the yigal, what you might call the real. For this – his work, his prayer, his simple life – is the proper path for him. He is the luckiest of Jehanan – and his pastries and milled loaves are the finest in the city."

  "You envy him?" Anderssen frowned a little, suddenly understanding the half-hidden grief in the gardener's voice. "You've lost your own path, haven't you? You were the last teacher to use that school room in the depths of the House. The last person to look at the murals on the walls…"

  Malakar hooted sadly. "I was happy there, tending young sprouts and making them grow strong. Perhaps even wise…I was not the only gardener, but I was the last to teach the old ways, tell the tales of ships which passed between the stars and the might of the Jehanan of old. But I could not still this unwary tongue of mine and those with more cunning minds saw I was left with nothing but scraps and broken shells."

  Gretchen pressed her hand against the old Jehanan's scales, feeling the heat of the body beneath, feeling tough scalloped ridges and parchment-thin edges. "Could you leave the House? Seek a position elsewhere? Find some other garden to tend?"

  "Hrrrr… perhaps I could have done such a thing, when I was younger, but I did not. A great nuisance I made of myself instead! Bitterly I plagued them, until I had not even a mat to sleep on, or someone to sleep beside. But no one listened…and I was weary then, content simply to take my ration and avoid the eyes of those who'd once looked to me for guidance."

  "Your life is not yet over," Gretchen said tentatively. "You could leave…"

  The old Jehanan wrinkled her snout, giving Anderssen a sharp look. "So easily the words slip from your tongue, asuchau wanderer! If I mark your words right, you are sent hither and yon at the whim of your Company. You delight to see the unseen, to turn over rocks left alone for a hundred years, just to see what wiggles out! You are treading a path of choice and one which fits you well, if the look upon your pale, flat face when you are filled with questions is a reputable guide!"

  "Working for the Company is not like that! Not all the time." Gretchen said, remembering endless days spent grubbing in the dirt for nothing, risking health and life to plumb the depths of some burial site or midden filled with explosive gasses. Remembering friends and acquaintances crippled or killed in accidents, or simply forgotten when crews were reassigned and split up. "There are moments though," she allowed, "when the toil and bureaucracy and misery of parting are worthwhile. But how often do those days come about? They are very rare!"

  Malakar made an amused fluting sound. "Then why are you digging in my garden, poking about among my trees and stealing secret glances at my idols? You've not eaten for two days, you've forgotten your friends, and you just let these questions drag you by the snout from place to place without the slightest care!"

  "Maybe." Gretchen felt disgruntled. Stupid lizard, pointing out the obvious to me! "If this is my path to the real, then I would like another! One whe
re I can stay home and read books by the heater and watch my children grow up and be successful! One without all the mud and grime and dirt and sleepless nights in spaceport terminals, watching to make sure my baggage isn't stolen!"

  "Hur-hur-hur!" Malakar swung her head from side to side. "How long would that last? You would be sneaking away to spaceport with your traveling bag in hand by year's end. Hurrr… Do you wish a pastry? I am hungry now."

  The Jehanan went inside, fluting a greeting to the baker.

  "I need to find Maggie and Parker," Gretchen called after her. But they're not going to know about these tunnels, which means if they've not been captured, they will head to the train station and then south to Parus. If they heard my voice – I think they did, but how much of what happened in the vault was real?

  Malakar reappeared and pressed a bun straight from the oven into her hand.

  "Ow! These are hot!" Anderssen tossed the crusted pastry from hand to hand.

  The Jehanan chewed vigorously, having swallowed the bun whole, and nodded her head.

  "Ah…very tasty. These are stuffed with pang nuts and melle. Very sweet. They will drive your hunger away. What were you saying?"

  Gretchen pointed with her chin at the ceiling. "Does this passage lead to the khus?"

  "There is a ramp quite near your building." Malakar allowed, eyeing the uneaten bun in the human's hands. "But if the prince's soldiers are in the streets, will your friends wait? I cannot imagine any creature with an ear and an eye could miss the sound of that machine in movement."

  "You could be right," Anderssen nodded, nibbling at the edge of the still-hot pastry. "They'll try to reach the train station and get south to Parus if they don't find me there."

  "Hooooo…" Malakar tapped Gretchen's chest thoughtfully, one claw brushing against the dead comp. "Will the Magdalena and the Parker have another device like this? One which works?"

  Gretchen frowned up at the Jehanan. "If they were under cover of some kind when the EMP wave hit the city, yes. Maggie has four or five comps with her – she collects them like Parker collects…well, Parker doesn't really collect anything but tabac tar…"

  The gardener pointed down one of the passages. "The iron road can be reached by following certain ways beneath the city – but if the kujen is hunting for asuchau I fear his servants will throng the station like yi upon the corpses of fallen heroes. If your friends flee that way, they will be taken." Malakar's nostrils crinkled up. "If memory serves, there is only one train to Parus each day and that one not for many hours yet."

  "Is there another way south?" Anderssen wracked her memory, trying to remember if there had been other options for local transport. I shouldn't have just accepted Petrel's arrangements – we should have gotten an aerocar somehow, or a truck at least…

  "There is." The old Jehanan indicated a different passage. "Beyond the edge of the city is a tikikit station. We could be in Parus by morning if our legs are long enough. The tikikit do not care if Jehanan and asuchau are fighting!" She clicked her claws together in amusement. "They have seen such things many, many times and are no longer impressed."

  Gretchen licked her lips, feeling worry surge in her breast. What if Maggie and Parker are still waiting for me at the apartment? But the brief perception of them on a rooftop implied they were already on the run, and somehow she thought they had heard her cry out of the green void. The kalpataru was connected to every other communications device and comp on the planet in that one instant, I know it was. Mother Mary, please keep them safe. And me too. Keep me safe until we're all together again.

  "All right," Anderssen said, trying not to chew her lip. "Will you take me to this place? Are you sure we can get to Parus by morning?"

  Several hours later, Gretchen and Malakar emerged from a tunnel on the eastern side of the city, following a footpath between disintegrating rows of concrete pilings. The sun was setting, the eastern sky growing dark, though the fields of grain on either side of the old subway line were gilded pink and bronze. Anderssen glanced up automatically and was disturbed to see the sky to the west bruised with odd, harsh colors. Auroralike patterns of filmy lights were strewn across the twilit sky.

  Long trails of smoke rising over the city glowed in the failing light. High up, what looked like contrails criss-crossed the sky, though she didn't think any aircraft could have survived the electromagnetic shock wave from the explosions in orbit.

  "How far is this station?" Anderssen wondered aloud, seeing the orchards on the far side of the grain fields were dusky with oncoming night. She automatically checked to make sure she still had her flashlight, and was relieved to feel cold metal under her fingers. "Have you taken this path before?"

  "Not so long ago," Malakar answered, her stride quickening. The Jehanan's snout was raised, tasting the evening and the hum and chirp of insects rose and fell as they walked. There was a moist, humid feeling to the air and Gretchen was reminded of the lowland farm country around New Canarvon back home. "There is a wood-lot and then a village. The station is beyond, on the old road – but it is not far, not far at all."

  They walked in silence for a time, passing out of the fields and onto a larger path – not quite a road, but close – which ran through rows of planted trees. Long straight trunks rose up over their heads, merging into a spreading roof of branches lined with heavy leaves. Anderssen's eye was drawn to the signs of pruning and trimming and guessed the section of woodland was a farm growing lumber for the city markets. Some of the newer prunings revealed a hexagonal pattern in the underlying wood.

  "These are lohaja?" She gestured at the rows of trees. "This is a plantation?"

  The old Jehanan grunted, twitching her nostrils. "Not every soil is suitable for the better woods – but these hills around Takshila are famous for their abundant crops and strong-growing trees. Even the Nem flourish here, though you cannot claim their taste is sweet."

  Then the creature sighed, grief settling over her and she fell silent.

  "I'm sorry," Gretchen said, feeling guilty at having raised the question. "I've been lucky to do so much of what I wanted. My family sacrificed a great deal to see me on this long road – they still do, with my mother taking care of my children – and the pitiful wage the Company pays is not enough, not really, to make up the difference."

  A low humming sound rose from the back of the Jehanan's throat. She fixed Anderssen with one dark eye. "And you say you've not found the right path to yigal? Do you bite your own tail in spite? Do you have two mouths to argue with yourself?"

  "Ha! I suppose." Gretchen smiled. "I know how it feels to be denied, ridiculed, opposed at every turn. My clan is poorly favored in the Empire. We have no powerful friends. There are no tenured positions for me, no research grants or stipends. Most of my fellows from graduate school have actual posts at actual universities – or they oversee important sites – and me? I grub in the refuse on the edge of human space for a scattering of quills a day, looking for sites of interest to others. Then they do the real work, and I'm on to another world, bag in hand, exhausted, my boots needing repair…"

  Malakar trilled, her mood entirely restored. "A perfect path for your tiny feet to walk! Do you truly enjoy the dull work of counting and measuring and making reports which must come after all this poking and prodding and prying into dusty, hidden places?"

  "Yes, I do." Anderssen's professional sensibilities were outraged at such a suggestion, though at the same time a little voice was saying Oh god, no! "Survey is only the first step in a long process – the real work is in the analysis and conclusions at the end. I mean, how else will I get a position somewhere without publications? Without discrete evidence of my work?"

  "Hur-hur-hur!" The gardener hid her snout behind both claws. "This old walnut thinks your path does not lead to the stuffy chambers of a Master, with acolytes fawning and snuffling at your feet. Your path lies at the edge of furrowed soil, it does, where there are strange shadows and queer lights among the trees, where every step is into
the unknown. What wonders might you see, with undimmed eyes?

  "Hoooo… Now, how do I interpret such a look as you now wear?"

  Gretchen felt pressure grip her chest, driving the breath from her lungs, and a startlingly clear vision overwhelmed her seeing eyes, blotting out the rows of trees looming in the twilight, covering the wagon-tracks they had been following through the grass…

  Bitterly cold wind lapped around her. Her hands were in the sand, one leg throbbing with pain. Glorious jewel-colored lights shone beneath her, lighting her face. Threads of crimson and sapphire and diamond-blue clung to her forearms, dragging her down. Something was moving in the darkness, a voice was speaking, but all she could see were the glittering pinpoints of the hathol and the firten swarming to the bounty of her exhaled breath, drinking her carbon dioxide and waste gasses; growing, swarming, building chains of fire to trap her so they might feast on the energy reservoir of her body…

  "Ahhh!" Anderssen flinched back from Malakar's reaching claw and she stumbled into the brush lining the road. The Jehanan drew back in surprise, hissing. For an instant, before she blinked, Gretchen thought the rule-straight trees were limned with pale light, and the gardener was softly glowing in the twilight, every scale distinct in disturbingly clear sight. Then twilight enveloped her again and there were only stray glints of the sun on clouds high in the sky.

  "What happened?" Malakar regarded her warily. "Your countenance changed."

  "It's nothing." Anderssen was trembling and she batted uselessly at her legs and arms. There aren't any crawling threads of living light on me. None. Not even one. She felt strangely hot, as if she'd plunged her face, hands and arms into boiling water. I don't think I was supposed to remember that. Hummingbird should complain to whoever sold him that memory eraser. "Just old memories. Don't think this business of poking and prying is without peril."