Orphans

by Kevin Killiany

  “I cannot judge by human or Tellarite standards,” Soloman said, pointing to something on the parchment. “But from a Bynar standpoint, the native birth practices are both unusual and dangerous.”

  Tev grunted.

  “Two uteri, each with two chambers,” he said. “Quadruplets are the norm, then?”

  “Apparently either identical twins or fraternal sets of identical twins,” Soloman agreed. “But that’s not the key. See here? It’s how they are delivered.”

  “Is the mother underwater?” Abramowitz asked.

  “It coincides with Tev’s observation that they are semi-aquatic,” Soloman said. “And is the very un-Bynar portion of the process. External fluids are very dangerous to us.”

  “Humans, too.”

  Tev said nothing.

  “The natives apparently rely on external water to, well, irrigate their system,” Soloman said. “And support the infants through the delivery process.”

  Stevens heard something heavy—a book?—being shifted and perhaps the flipping of pages.

  “If I understand these diagrams correctly,” Soloman went on, “childbirth on land is possible, but extremely traumatic and potentially lethal for both mother and infants. They much prefer underwater delivery.”

  “Unusual,” Tev said. “And dangerous for most species. But how can what is obviously normal for them suddenly be lethal?”

  “Follow the illustrations.” Soloman rustled more papers Stevens could not see. “Their culture relies on the use of a traditional birthing pool, with various medicinal herbs planted about and a sheltered cave for the mother and infants to recover.”

  “Many cultures have stylized and traditional—” Tev broke off mid-sentence.

  “What?” Abramowitz asked a half second before Stevens.

  “There’s no way for the water to leave the pool.”

  Stevens groaned.

  “Fabian,” Abramowitz was at his side. “You’re awake. Are you all right?”

  He nodded, tears stinging his eyes.

  “The babies,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The pools are fed by slow springs,” Soloman said. “Hardly more than seepage from the water table. But the only way water leaves is through evaporation.”

  “I don’t follow.” Abramowitz sounded doubtful.

  “The water evaporates,” Tev explained, “But the heavy metals remain. After centuries of buildup, the concentrations…” The Tellarite’s expression was strangely fierce as he faced the others. “At the moment of birth,” he said quietly, “they are killing their infants with toxic shock.”

  “Oh.” Abramowitz sat on the edge of Stevens’s bed. “My God.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  There was a birthing pool ahead.

  Naiar reigned Striver in, standing in the stirrups to peer ahead. Yes, there was the grove of dissel and the shielding rock and a truly saddening number of memorial stones grouped along the gentler slope of the ravine. He let his eyes travel up the hillside, looking for the traditional fall of myyr vines that should screen the—

  He froze, though there was no chance he had not been seen. Crouching on the trail to the nursing cave was something. Not a man, he was sure; not People, but…

  Could it be a gnome?

  He glanced back and down at his companion. The magical beast was too close to the ground to know what lay ahead. In a moment he would know whether the creature and the gnomes were friends or enemies.

  Making a show of slipping the retaining strap from his sword hilt, he loosened the weapon in its scabbard. His companion asked a question in its bell-like voice, but he gave no sign he heard. Instead, he nudged Striver into an easy walk toward the crouching gnome.

  A glimmer of ice-flower blue at the corner of his eye told him the beast had moved to cover in the underbrush off the trail. Prudent, given its size and helplessness.

  As he neared the edge of the birthing pool opposite the path to the cave, Naiar realized the gnome was not so much crouching as sitting on his heels, a position impossible for the People. He seemed at ease; wrists resting casually on his knees and what looked to be a cane lying across his thighs.

  The gnome watched his approach with apparent disinterest until Striver rounded the birthing pool. Then he rose smoothly to his feet, the walking stick across his lap revealing itself to be a sword, long for his size, as he swung it out and down to let its tip rest lightly on the ground. Though he stood less than chest high, there was something imposing in the gnome’s stance.

  Naiar felt Striver’s muscles between his thighs tremble with sudden excitement. His riderbeast, trained to combat, sensed the challenge as well as he did.

  He reigned in.

  The gnome’s sword looked to be a guardsman’s duty arm, too short for combat against a mounted opponent. But as the thought formed, Naiar realized the gnome had positioned himself between a patch of thornwood and an escarpment at the top of a sharp rise in the narrow path. He would not be facing an enemy on riderback. If Naiar sought to engage him, it would be on foot, and the escarpment would limit the swing of his longsword.

  Of course, he could just go by, ignore the gnome and continue on to Atwaan. Naiar looked to the path ahead and back to the gnome. If this gnome was not one of those which had supped at his father’s House, it was of much the same type. He could not pass without solving the mystery of the stranger’s presence.

  With unhurried deliberation, he dismounted, keeping Striver between himself and a sudden assault. Lifting his buckler from the pommel, he hissed Striver’s command to move away from the field of combat. With buckler lowered and sword sheathed, he stepped forward, ready to parlay, but prepared to fight if necessary.

  The gnome watched him approach until he was perhaps a four of steps beyond reach. Then, with an unhurried deliberation that mirrored Naiar’s, he brought the sword up and settled into a shallow crouch. Naiar did not recognize the two-handed stance, but the gnome’s ease and confidence in assuming it assured him it had been tested in combat.

  He reached for his own weapon.

  “Take heed, armsman of the Tetrarchy!”

  Naiar froze, his sword half-drawn.

  A woman’s voice, shouting from the nursing cave?

  Looking past the gnome he saw the dense screen of myyr vines shift slightly and the wicked shape of an Atwaan arrowhead catch the source light. He realized she must be holding the longbow sideways to be able to draw it in a cave; awkward, but not impossible. At this short range, missing the gnome and hitting him would require little effort.

  “Who speaks?” he demanded.

  “A warden of Rowath Hold,” the voice answered, “who came to the birthing pool with four memorial stones and despair.”

  There was a catch to the voice. Naiar did not wonder at her tears. His own heart was saddened to hear the birth blight was known in the remote mountain holds.

  But if she was in the nursing cave…

  “Are you—” He hesitated, not wanting to ask what could not be true. “Well?” he finished lamely.

  “Two daughters live because that gnome forced the life of his own breath into them.” The declaration was raw with emotion. “Harm him and all the wealth of your Tetrarch masters will not protect you.”

  Naiar eased his sword back into its scabbard and secured it.

  “I will harm neither you nor your children, good mother,” he promised.

  “True.”

  Facing an armed gnome and a longbow, Naiar could not fault the sardonic acknowledgment. The gnome moved not at all, which made sense; he heard their voices, not their words.

  “I would speak to you,” Naiar tried again, trying for a light and friendly tone. “But your champion will not let me pass.”

  “Then heed my champion,” came the quick response. “And heed me: Your best path is the one you were following, away from here.”

  The arrow tip wavered not at all; how long could she hold her weapon drawn? Long enough. Hand away
from his hilt, Naiar took a careful step backward.

  Suddenly chimes pealed in the wind. A sphere of ice-flower blue bolted from beneath the dissel thicket to the left and behind the gnome, and rolled toward him with incredible speed.

  The woman in the cave screamed a warning, but did not loose her arrow.

  Naiar had a panicked instant to think he would have to kill his companion. Personal loyalty held no place against protecting a gnome who could breathe life into the stillborn.

  For his part, the gnome gave a shout of what could have been joy even before he turned to meet the charge. Throwing wide his arms, he dropped to one knee as the ball burst open to become Naiar’s creature, its own arms thrown wide.

  The two came together, not quite an embrace, but clearly not combat. Their voices mingled in rapid exchange, a crystal bell and gourd of gravel uttering syllables unintelligible to any but themselves.

  Naiar stood for a moment watching, his own mind racing. He sensed that events had moved beyond the confines of his own personal Quest. He was certain this gnome was one of the party from his father’s House and had clearly been through some ordeal that had separated it from the others. If the others still lived. The time had come to set aside the protocols of tradition.

  “Good mother,” he called. “I am Naiar, son of Nazent, heir to the Second House of the Tetrarchy. As our companions are clearly allies, I suggest we join forces to face whatever lies ahead.”

  The screen of myyr vines parted and a woman of imposing height stepped into the open. Her right arm steadied a sling that held two small forms to her lower breasts; her left hand held an arrow.

  “Well met, noble youth,” she said. “But now what shall you do for your proving quest?”

  She grinned and Naiar shut his mouth. He had not meant for his realization that she’d never had a bow to be so comically clear.

  CHAPTER

  22

  “The gnome does not eat,” Ahrhi said as she accepted a joint of the plith Naiar had roasted over the campfire. “I don’t think he knows how.”

  “Not know how?”

  “He offered me a bit of every plant in the hollow trying to find something I would eat.” She licked the grease running down her wrist. “Cut his hands to tatters making a dissel salad.”

  Naiar laughed, nearly choking on his water.

  “They do eat, I saw them at my father’s House,” he said. “Though only food they carried with them.”

  “He has no pack.”

  “Nor does—” Naiar broke off, embarrassed. “I’ve been calling it ‘Magical Beast,’ but now I think it’s neither.”

  “A gnome,” she agreed.

  “I think our food may be poison to them.”

  “Then it is the smell of our cooking,” Ahrhi said, “and not our company that keeps them so far upwind.”

  Tossing the bare bone back into the flames, the mother began adjusting her infants’ slings, shifting them from upper breasts to lower. Naiar averted his gaze, offering her a privacy she did not seem to need, and listened to her cooing to her children as he watched the two gnomes deep in their own conversation some distance away.

  The Doctor gnome had used some unguents and potions from the purple case he wore at his chest on the…other gnome. It had seemed to gain some strength, and he was certain the sudden bursts of crystal raindrop sounds were laughter.

  “I think this Doctor is one of the gnomes that supped at my father’s House,” he said at last. “But he does not seem to know me.”

  “How many gnomes have you met?”

  “Six.”

  “You have met only six gnomes and are not sure he is one.” He could hear the grin in her voice. “How many People do you think he has met?”

  “But People are different,” he protested.

  She didn’t bother to answer.

  Striver nickered.

  Naiar saw that Ahrhi’s sword was in her hand as swiftly as his. The Doctor gnome was also on his feet, though he didn’t bother to draw his little knife. Instead he shooed the blue gnome into a dissel thicket, then stood between it and whatever was coming.

  And several somethings were coming. Too many riderbeasts for Naiar to count by the sound of their hooves were coming up the trail he had followed.

  Ahrhi cursed and resheathed her sword. Running to the Doctor gnome, she pulled her nursing slings over her head and handed her infants to him. Gesturing to the startled creature that he should get down behind the bushes, she turned and hurried back to Naiar’s side.

  Together they moved away from the dissel grove, out of the firelight.

  Naiar heard the leading riderbeasts round the rise that concealed the birthing pool from the trail. They pulled up, allowing others to join them.

  “I’ll get to Striver,” Naiar said quietly. “You get the others up to the cave.”

  “And then what?” Ahrhi asked. “Hold them at bay with my arrow? I count three fours at least. Wits, not swords, will get us out of this.”

  In the darkness they heard the riders spread out, clearly angling to block off any escape from the hollow. Naiar’s mind raced. Knowing one had to survive by one’s wits and actually formulating a plan were two very different things.

  Suddenly, strange lanterns in the hands of some of the riders threw broad beams of white light across the clearing. It took only a moment for the lights to find Naiar and Ahrhi, illuminating them from a four of angles.

  The light bearers held position while the others came on. As they neared, Naiar realized there was something wrong with their silhouettes. The riders were the size of children, many with strange and ungainly packs on their backs.

  “Gnomes!” Ahrhi hissed a heartbeat before Naiar made the realization.

  The lead gnome rode into the light: a female almost without color. She reined her mount in a four of paces distant and with one hand leveled a crossbow of bizarre design at Naiar’s chest.

  Naiar was vaguely aware she was flanked by a gnome maned like the Doctor, head and shoulders taller than she was, and another of her size with no hair and rich brown skin, but all he saw clearly were the alien eyes regarding him along the length of the weapon.

  He heard Ahrhi sheathe her sword. Not daring to break the leader gnome’s gaze, he followed suit.

  The gnome spoke, her words unintelligible. A heartbeat later, the strange box mounted on her shoulder said: “[explanation/cause] should I [kill/destroy] you not?”

  Naiar recognized the strangely stuttering grammar. The gnomes at his father’s house had spoken thus when unsure of shades of meaning.

  Before he could formulate an answer to the question, however, the crystal peal of the blue gnome’s voice came out of the darkness.

  The box on the leader’s shoulder intoned flatly: “Because he saved my [shell/legs/life].”

  The lead gnome gasped as Naiar’s traveling companion stepped into the light.

  “[noise/name ‘Pattie’],” the box said. “You look like [waste material].”

  “Tactful as ever [noise/name ‘Corsi’].” The box did not capture the laughter Naiar heard in the blue—in Pattie ’s—voice. “Put up your toy before you have a [glandular poor judgment].”

  The leader gnome—Corsi—nodded to Naiar as she ported the weapon.

  A second female gnome, this one with dark hair covering only her head, stepped into the light. She had a large backpack connected by wires to what looked to Naiar like a flagon and a hand mirror. Ignoring everyone else, she studied the mirror while passing the flagon over Pattie’s body.

  “[Everything transcribers] and [unknown],” Pattie said. “How do you [source]?”

  “The [source-eaters] cannot [see/feel/touch] living [source],” said the maned gnome beside the leader. “I tailored [germs/rot/sickness] into [life-source-fuel-units].”

  “[noise/name ‘Langk’], I’m impressed,” said Pattie. Then to the dark-covered female: “[Ignore] me. There are two newborns you should examine.”

  “Newborns?” She l
ooked up from her mirror. “Where?”

  “Here.” The Doctor gnome stepped into the light, an infant in either arm.

  “[noise/name ‘Kairn’], are you now a [servant/nursemaid]?” Langk’s scoffing tone needed no translation.

  Ahrhi’s sword sang from its sheath. A single step brought her within reach, her eyes level with the mounted gnome’s.

  “Jest not, dwarf,” she said. “My daughters live by his breath.”

  Langk’s hand stopped halfway to what looked to Naiar like a curved blade without hilt strapped to his back. The gnome was fighter enough to realize no undrawn weapon could stop a ready sword.

  “Wisdom, Langk,” said the Doctor Kairn. “Now apologize to the [beatific noble-born female] before she eats your liver.”

  “[Waste material],” said Corsi. “I forgot the [doomed] [object] was [atop/active].”

  From that point Naiar and Ahrhi found themselves caught up in rounds of introductions and explanations. Names and stories were exchanged as the translation device became more adept. Ahrhi introduced Naiar as an apprentice armsman, by her example assuring him his violation of the code of the Quest would remain their secret.

  Tolan and a force of the Tetrarchy’s armsmen were perhaps a day behind, and they advised the gnomes to wait for them in the hollow. The birthing pool was already within the borders of Atwaan. Ahrhi had chosen it because she had planned on going to Atwaan in search of vengeance after she had buried her four children.

  The Doctor gnome Lense pronounced Ahrhi’s daughters “strong as Brikars,” though Kairn attributed their health to having Klingon hearts. The Doctor described Kairn’s administration of potions as “overkill,” which, given their survival, must have been a mistranscription by the speech boxes. She had also clearly expected Ahrhi to be somehow weak from childbirth and repeated her Brikar assessment.

  Ahrhi and Langk earned each other’s grudging respect sparring with their disparate weapons, while Naiar devoted himself to learning all he could of the gnomes’ many devices.

  As they had suspected, the stench of gnome food made the infants wail.