The Burning Ground tst-2

by Jo Clayton

  She began to pass the outlying farms.

  Short-legged, with curly horns and flickering tails that continually showed their white undersides, herds of lowland maphiks grazed in fenced pastures.

  Farmers plowed fields behind teams of ska77, the iron plowshares turning over rich black earth. The smell of that earth was pleasant in her nostrils, though as Pixa, she should be appalled by such slashing at the body of God.

  The iron plowshares roused a memory that chased the other ghosts away.

  When she was six, already on her way to being the target of all the malice in the ixis, a Prophet Mal came to Wendlu his and spent tedious time at Night Praise inveighing against Impix sins, particularly their mines and mills.

  In the morning he gathered the ixis children and quizzed them about their learning, asking them to recite the Sayings of the Prophet and giving out wrapped candies to those who had the answers he wanted. After a while he noticed Yseyl squatting at the back, scowling and silent. She knew she wasn’t going to get any candy, and even if she did, Shung and Huddla would jump her and take it away. They were the oldest and the strongest and they knew from long experience that anything they did to her would not be punished. If she complained, it was she who’d get the whack.

  He beckoned to her.

  She tried to pretend she didn’t see him.

  “You, femlit,” he said. “Yes, I mean you. Come here.”

  She trudged through pinches and hisses of “don’t disgrace us,”

  “crazy Yseyl,”

  “you mess up, we gonna get you.” When she reached the Prophet Mal, she stopped and stood staring at the ground, not daring to look at him.

  “You have not tried to answer.” He caught hold of her chin and lifted her head so she was forced to gaze at his stern, lined face. “Have you no answers?”

  He smelled sweaty and something else she didn’t know but didn’t like, and his hands felt wrong, like polished leather, not skin. She wanted to pull away, but his hold was too strong; all she could do was drop her eyes again and stare at his chest rather than his face. The loose thing he wore that wasn’t quite a shirt-it was made from Impix cloth. Silk. She knew that because just a month ago at the Yubikha Gather Thombe and Busa and Anya Bilin had a yelling, slapping argument over Busa taking her lace money and spending it on a piece of silk. And he had an Impix knife on the leather strap that belted it to his body.

  “What is the Path of the Child? Tell me the first Saying.”

  Despite her fear and her nervousness, the Whys had got hold of her. Crazy Delelan said Why was the first word she spoke when she crawled from the pouch. Without thinking, Yseyl lifted her hand and pointed at the shirt. “If Impix are so bad,” she said with regrettable clarity, “if the things they make are hated by God and the Prophet, why are you wearing Impix silk and how come you use an Impix knife?”

  Yseyl shook her head at the memory. Bad timing, she thought, but the truth, for all the whipping I got. It was a question no one had ever answered for her. The Pixa couldn’t live without the things they fulminated against. No mines, no iron, no mills, no steel. And no fine cloth or thread. No ax heads or axle bolts, no needles or knives or chains. Not the first time nor the last she’d experienced the twisty logic of adults.

  Except for a few soaring spires and the openwork steel radio tower, now that she was down on the plain, the city was hidden from view by the ancient thile groves, huge trees with curving triple trunks that arced over and out with smaller limbs growing straight up from the arches, limbs thick with hand-shaped leaves of dark green.

  A number of walkers were ahead of her, a few Impix pilgrims in their bright yellow robes, two or three Pixa in dark green; the rest were refugees from both branches of the Impixol family, dressed in whatever they wore when they turned hohekil and ran from their kin and their homes.

  Much more of this and half the people left alive will be coming here. God, I hope there is someone behind those walls who can whip up enough heat and light to organize this escape. Funny, or maybe not, now that I have the disruptor, there’s nothing I can do with it. Not alone. I should be steamed at Cerex because he must have known it was just a stupid gadget and no use at all to what I want. She wasn’t angry, not really. After all, she’d started out by trying to kill him. Which he’d accepted with remarkable equanimity. And she liked him. I just have to figure it out, she thought. Find some way to make it useful.

  Up close, the walls of the city were more like lace than she’d expected, the white marble facing carved and pierced in an intricate flow of images and words, Sayings of the Prophet, Songs from the Book of God. And all of it was exquisitely clean. As she waited in the line of those seeking entrance to the city, she saw a group of ferns and anyas in coarse unbleached robes carry buckets and brushes to a section of wall. They chanted a Song as they scrubbed delicately at the stone.

  The line of folk ahead of her curved round a screen and vanished inside the gate. Step by step she moved forward, weary and bored but putting on a face of patience. She wanted no one looking at her and remembering her.

  When she rounded the screen, the stench of Pilgrim sweat and dirt hit her in the face, no breeze to dilute that consequence of days of walking and privation. She took shallow breaths, let her eyelids droop while she examined what lay ahead of her and listened intently to the questions so she’d be prepared to answer them when her time came.

  Long table. Four Brothers of God seated with pen, ink, bound registers, writing down the responses.

  Two doors in the far wall. Those with money for their keep went through the righthand door, those who cast themselves on the Mercy of God passed through the left.

  “Pixa or Impix?”

  “Pixa.”

  “Name.”

  “Lankya of Ixis Wendlu Clan Enzak.”

  “Reason for visit.”

  “Sanctuary. I am hohekil.”

  “Have you coin to keep yourself, or will you be a Guest of God?”

  “I have coin to keep me for a while.”

  “You understand, it is not likely that there will be paid labor you can do.”

  “I understand.”

  “This is a place of peace. Weapons are not allowed within the walls. If you have any such, they will be sealed and returned to you when you leave.”

  “I have this.” She took her belt knife from the sheath and laid it on the table. “No more.”

  It was a lie, of course, but she wasn’t about to let herself be wholly disarmed. Besides, even if they searched her and found Cerex’s stunrod taped to her back, they wouldn’t know what it was.

  He took the knife, wrote on a strip of paper, and sealed the paper to the knife with a bit of heated wax. He set the knife in a box by his feet. When he straightened, he said, “If you are found with a weapon inside the walls, you

  THE BURNING GROUND

  will be cast out and not allowed to return. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will be required to do Service to God for five hours each week. You will be given a token for each hour completed and should display those tokens to any Brother, Bond Sister, Anya of Mercy, or Prophet Speaker who requests to see them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He opened the much carved wooden chest that sat at his elbow and took out a small bronze square with a hole in one corner. “This is a luth. It is your key to the Freedom of Linojin. You will see that today’s date is stamped into the metal. Six months from today you will go to the Grand Yeson and put forth your reasons for remaining in Linojin. If these are accepted, you will be given another luth at that time. If they are not, then you must leave. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Carry the luth with you always. If you are found without it, you will do penance and then must leave. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then welcome to Linojin, O Pilgrim. God’s blessing be yours.”

  13

  The Cauldron brews both
poison and health. There are plots on the boil around you.

  Chapter 6

  1. Figuring a way from here to there

  In the distance the smell of hibiscus crying out risk us eyeing with askance

  I sing the mythos of cosmos in prim pose preening for glances…

  Shadith dropped the stylo onto the clipboard’s magnet, leaned against the bitt, and let her legs swing, her bare feet almost touching the water the high tide had brought in. The scribbles on the sheets of paper were there as camouflage, an excuse for sitting where she was sitting and staring out across the water (though she’d surprised herself by rather liking some of those lines).

  Graska Wysp. The island chain was a sprinkle of dots just beyond the mouth of Lala Bay. She had a good view of the largest island, the one called k’Wys; the wharf where she sat was at the edge of the bay, old and deserted, rotting back to the earth it was built on.

  Though the north end of k’Wys was a rocky for with scraggly windblown shrubs growing from every crevice,, the southern third was flatter, a tangle of brush, vines and heaps of pumice except for the areas cleared off for the flier pad and a large hangar. The fliers in that hangar were the only ones allowed in the air over the sea between Ptak-K’nerol and Impixol.

  The water was deep under her feet, but the currents were strong and there was a lot of crosschop-probably why the wharf was no longer in use. An ancient eel lived in a hole below her, a huge creature long as a python and three times as thick, with the temperament of a rabid wolverine. She knew him well by now, having mindridden him a dozen times, using his predator’s eyes to explore the area around k’Wys. Old Tiger had given her some wild rides.

  During high tide she swam him into the blowholes that riddled the base of the island, forced him to follow one after the other and stick his nose out the surface openings until she’d found the one she needed, the one that led to the surface north of the hangar, in a waste area filled with twisted stone and stunted thornbush. His temper got worse the longer she rode him, but after a few slashing fights with the smaller eels that laired in those holes, he settled down and was tractable enough when she took him out again.

  The eels were part of the islands’ defense-no swimmers in those waters. As she leaned back and swung her legs, the picture of an idle dreamer, she saw another part of that defense.

  Jet boats were zipping back and forth on the lake beyond the islands, pairs of them racing, others playing elaborate games of tag and bluff. One of them turned through too broad an arc and passed on the far side of a bright red buoy. The man at the wheel went limp and fell in a heap, the boat’s motor died. A few moments later a patrol shell left k’Wys and came alongside the intruder.

  There was a swift flicker along the water as the field shut down. The men in the shell tossed a howler into the jet boat, then shoved it past the buoy into unwarded water. They sat a moment listening to the howler whoop and watching to make sure the current carried the boat away from k’Wys, then a lifted arm brought a second flicker as the field went on again. The shell hummed back to the landing.

  Why does everything on this world have to be double the work? Shadith reached for the clipboard, tapped the stylo against her chin. After a moment she started writing again.

  Howl said the honeybear Shaking in a shrieking fit

  Growl said the hoaryboar Dropping in a digger pit

  Foul said the holyman Cursing at a, biting nit

  She wrinkled her nose, scratched the lines out, started as a voice sounded behind her.

  “Why’d you do that? I kinda like it.”

  She looked round. It was the old man she’d spoken to the first day. He was leaning on the bitt, looking over her shoulder. He’d come up so silently she hadn’t heard a thing-though that might also be due to the howler which was still going off at short intervals as the jet boat rocked and turned in the waves.

  “Mp. You spooked me. Why? Too forced. Whimsy that feels forced is worse than week-old cake.”

  “Got y’self fired, huh?”

  “She started using her hands on me. I’ll take a lot but not that.” Shadith dropped the stylo onto the magnet, patted a yawn. “Thought I’d have a little vacation before I started looking for work.” She grinned up at him. “Nice out here and cheap entertainment. Been pondering on getting a pole and fishing for dinner. My da had a fishboat and I went out with him sometimes when I was a kid.”

  “You want to be a bit careful along here. Seen the eels?”

  “Yeh. One thing sure, swimming’s not on my program.”

  He chuckled, straightened, shading his eyes with a gnarled hand as he watched a pair of polizer ‘hots fly over to the jet boat and start towing it back to shore. Shadith nodded at the boat. “He dead?”

  “Nab, just stunned. In an hour or so he’ll come out of it with a bodyache that’ll make him sorry it didn’t kill him. Told you. Don’t mess with the Graska Wysp.”

  “Not much chance of that; with my finances I’d have to walk on the water to get there.” She felt around, found her sandals, and began strapping them on.

  “You thought of selling your poems?”

  She got to her feet. The clipboard tucked under her arm, she smoothed her dress down, ran her fingers through her hair. “I’ve sold a few, but I know better’n to think I can live off them, Grandda. Well, see you round. Good fishing.”

  She strolled away, didn’t bother looking back. Twisty old man, but a bit more obvious than he thought he was. One small knot in the Ptakkan security web. Ah, well, it was nice to have such a credible witness to her innocence. Irritating, though, if he showed up at the wrong time.

  2. Music and mouse ears

  That night Shadith drifted along The Strip, absorbing color and noise through her skin as much as through eyes and ears; it was a garish gaudy tasteless mess and she loved it, a sensory overload energizing her, filling her with zazz. She’d painted her face, neck, and shoulders with swirls of black and white, pinned a crimson crest and horsetail to her brown-gold fuzz and wrapped her body into bright blue glittergauze. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted gold to match the fauxclaws she’d glued on. She moved in the beats of the clashing music, riding the whipped-up excitement of the crowd around her, mind shut down, eyes searching for something, she didn’t know what, just that she’d know it when she saw it.

  She slashed her nails against a groping hand, laughed over her shoulder at the angry man, slipped away from him around a band of small brown Pa’ao Teelys, past a Menaviddan matron with a dozen miniatures of herself clinging to her stiff black hair, lost herself in a motley aggregation of Cousin types on a. guided tour.

  Holoas swooped at her, whispered in her ears: Watch the rape and murder of a nomad tribe. Harnke’s Picture Palace has it all. See the secret orgies of the White Brothers. Harnke’s Picture Palace has sensearound, you’ll have every sensation as if it were you in the white robe. Learn what the Bond Sisters do in the heart of their Enclosure. Things so secret and perverse you won’t believe your senses. Harnke’s Picture Palace has group rooms or private viewing, whichever you prefer. Watch the torture and eating of an Impix anya. Bring a friend or meet a stranger with your tastes. Who knows what might come of it. Harnke’s…

  When she moved from the set area of one holoa, another began its pitch, whispering, insinuating, enticing.

  Her distaste for their wares started to gray down her pleasure, so she ducked into a dingier side street where there were more dangers for the unwary, but at least she’d be free of the whispers. The facades of the playhouses on this street were almost as garish as those on The Strip, with the delights inside flashed across the fronts like the painted flats in an ancient carnival. She tossed her crimson horsetail, danced to the music blaring from the houses, reveling in the slide of muscle on muscle, the vibration that shook her to the bone, wanting no praise or blame from outsiders, no intrusion on her enjoyment of herself.

  For a while she was left alone, but the sensual energy in her body began to attr
act interest in ways she didn’t want, so with a touch of anger and some reluctance she stopped the dance and slipped through a holo-facade that proclaimed the virtues of the Utka-Myot Fight-o-Drome. Two srebs bought her a night’s membership and a battered flake reader that was set to lead her through the delights the playhouse offered.

  She moved to the main public arena and dropped onto a bench beside the door to watch a firstcut knife fight. A man and a woman circled each other on the sand. They were quick and well trained, with a number of crowd-pleasing moves that were mostly spectacle. She smiled. Rohant would have wiped the sand with them in about thirty seconds, but she wouldn’t want to face either of them in a real right.

  A hand settled on her leg, moved up her thigh, squeezing as it moved. She slapped the hand away and slid down the bench. The man’s face looked familiar, maybe one of those who’d started crowding her on the street.

  He slid after her. “You shakin’ it real good out there, minka. Give y’ a good time?”

  “Not interested, ‘spois. Leave me ‘lone and go find other meat.” She slid further from him along the nearly empty bench.

  He followed, put his hand on her leg again. “Don’ be like that, whore. You sellin’, I buyin’.

  “Haul ass, chyr.” She raked the fauxnails across the back of his hand. “Shove y’ chya at me, y’ pull back a stump.”

  He cursed her, started an openhanded swing at her face. A metal claw clamped on his wrist, the arm of the peacer ‘bot under the bench, and its minimalist voice grated, “Stri king a cli ent is not per mit ted.”

  She used the respite to leave the arena, annoyed with herself for dropping her wariness and allowing this stupidity to happen. Spla spla, it fit well enough into the persona she was throwing into the face of Ptak-sec, so no harm done. She shook the horsetail and laughed at herself. No one watching that bit of folly would possibly see her as a professional investigator on the job.