The Burning Ground tst-2

by Jo Clayton

  3. Icisel: nervous and crowded

  Icisel was lit so brightly it was like day on the streets, the glare from the bulbs reaching far out into the deep placid harbor, turning the ships that thronged there into patterns of black and white. Refugees from coastal villages and from Yaqshowal were blotches of black in whatever shelter they could find, one standing watch against thieves, the rest trying to snatch a few hours of sleep before the city guard came by and moved them on.

  The Nightplayers among the Iciselli walked around and over those unwelcome visitors, ignoring them with the notorious Ciselle arrogance, the same arrogance with which they ignored the war itself. Fantastically painted and decorated-what they wore looking more like sculpture than clothing-adorned with sound as well as shape and color, music trickling from song wires winding through their hair, the Nightplayers swarmed from playhouse to casino to dancehall, doing the eternal night-round. The Impix triad were all there-anya, mal, and fem-sometimes firm in the tribond, sometimes changing partners with the fluidity and fickleness of raindrops sliding down windowglass.

  Shadith circled through the patchy clouds above the city, searching for a way to reach the radio station without being spotted.

  The roof of the station was steeply slanted, the ridgepole a jumble of spiky metal objects whose purpose escaped her though they very effectively barred her from landing there.

  She. circled a last time, swore under her breath, then turned the skip toward the hideaway she’d found for herself inside a grove of thile trees growing beside the river that emptied into Cisel Harbor.

  An hour before dawn the city was quieter, though not much darker. The nightround was over and only thieves and sleepers were still in the streets.

  She came in low, skimming the roofs until she reached the station, then she brought the skip down and landed in an alley beside it. A quick probe told her there were only two people inside at the moment; Digby’s reader found no alarm system, so she picked the lock on the back door, fed a little power into the skip, and pushed it inside.

  Shadith pulled the hood up to conceal her face and tried the latch. It moved under her hand and the door to the control room opened a crack. She listened, suppressed a grin, pulled the door wide, and went in. She stopped just inside and stood looking down at a mal and fem engaged in noisy and energetic sex.

  The young mal howled his completion and collapsed on top of the fern. She pushed him off, glaring at Shadith. “Stinking Godmal, what you staring at?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she hauled the mal to his feet. He stood leaning against her with glazed eyes and shaky knees. The fem smiled at him, patted a trim buttock. “You go have a nice warm shower, maldoll. When you get back, we’ll think of something new to pass the time.”

  When the mal had vanished through the door, the fem raised her arms over her head and swiveled on her toes with a dancer’s grace, head thrown back, long dark hair brushing at her buttocks. “Like what you see, Brother? Want a turn in the saddle?”

  Shadith chuckled. “Hardly.” She pushed the hood back. “My tastes run otherwhere.”

  “Prophet’s piss, what t’hell are you?”

  “A singer, kazi. With some songs to peddle.”

  “Now would these be them going round on pirated songwires?”

  “Why don’t you listen and see? You could do a few duplicates for yourself at the same time.”

  “What d’ you want?”

  “To have the songs broadcasted as frequently as possible, spread as widely as possible.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “My business, your profit. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Maybe. If you are that singer.”

  “The proof’s in the singing. You could always erase the wire.”

  “True. Studio three’s set up. Let’s hear what you have to offer.”

  The mal learned round the door. “Hajja…”

  “Go keep it warm, hon. Be with you later. This is business.”

  4. Dreaming Gajul

  Gajul lay beside a broad river flowing into a bay shaped like a leaf with three pointed lobes-a bay so big it was almost an inland sea. Shadith circled through scattered high clouds, using her binocs to examine the city that sprawled below her, its streets serpentines of glowing polychrome against a velvet black ground and in those streets a richly gaudy throng of wanderers that never seemed to stay anywhere for more than a breath.

  The Nightplayers of Gajul had a lighter, more whimsical touch than those of Icisel; there were fewer refugees, and most of those were housed in a tent city on the far side of the river where groves of maka and thile trees hid them and the Brothers of God who cared for them from the dreaming gaze of the Gajullery.

  She scanned and swore at what she saw. The streets and pocket parks around the radio tower were the busiest in the whole city. The tower itself was twice as tall as the one in Linojin. It was a mass of metal rising from four elegantly curved legs, with the station itself laid like a square egg between those legs. There was no way she could slip in as she had in Icisel, not without announcing to a few hundred Nightplayers and prowling street guards that something odd was happening.

  With a sigh of frustration she left the city and followed the river until she found a thile brake nestled in a wide sweeping bend; it was deserted except for birds and a scatter of small beasts.

  She made camp, fixed a quick supper, and rolled up in blankets to catch some sleep before she tried again.

  About three hours after midnight, she was over the city again. Gajul was quieter around the edges, but in the center where the station was, some street musicians had set up in a small park and were playing for Gajullery who’d taken a notion to dance under the stars, at least what stars were visible. It was a lovely summer night, just cool enough to be pleasant, a wandering breeze to lift and flutter ribbons and set heart-shaped maka leaves to shivering, and the dance showed every sign of lasting till dawn. The streets themselves had gained another group, no hairpaint on mal, fern, or anya, sober clothing in dark colors with long sleeves-visitors from the farms and the lesser merchants out for a night on the town. Brothers of God moved through the mix, white motes in Brownian motion.

  Shadith sighed. If ever I wanted rain…

  She landed the miniskip in the fringe of the thile trees along the city side of the riverbank, hid it high up in ancient thile, strapped into a threeway crotch, invisible from the ground. Despite that, she set the shocker to stun anyone trying to steal it, checked the stunrod strapped to her arm, clipped the rifle to her belt so it hung along her leg where the robe would conceal it most of the time. Too bad she had to fool with the rifle, but the locals would snicker and ignore the rod, and she’d waste too much time waiting for them to wake up.

  She slung the. Brother-robe over her shoulder and dropped from limb to limb, landing with a scrape of booted feet on the knotty roots. Wrinkling her nose with disgust, she shook out the robe. It was stained and smelled of sweat, the hem she’d ripped out to get more length was stiff with dirt. She pulled it on anyway and started walking into the city.

  Getting through the streets undiscovered was easier than she’d expected. Intent on their conversations or performances, Nightplayers glided around her as if she were a post in the street-something in the corner of the eye that they avoided without having to take note of it.

  Street guards leaned from their kiosks and shouted quips at the Players or slumped against the back wall and drowsed; they, too, ignored her.

  A silence in the center of waves of noise, she walked on and on, the radio tower her only cue in that maze of curving streets where straight lines of any length were rare and the only cues were names that meant nothing to her.

  The Players, pickpockets, and cutpurses grew thicker as she got closer to the station, the guards had moved out of their kiosks and on occasion marched off a cutpurse clumsy enough to raise a howl from the victim. Except when she stepped out into the street to check direction,

&n
bsp; Shadith kept as close to the walls as she could, walked with eyes on the pavement, hands carefully tucked into the long sleeves.

  She swore under her breath when she rounded a bend and saw the station ahead-and something she hadn’t noticed in her overflights, a wrought iron fence set in the spaces between the tower legs, at least six feet high with sharpened spear points on the pales.

  She leaned against a garden wall and contemplated that fence, wondering once again if she should have simply coerced the tech in the Yaqshowal station into duplicating the master for her onto wire spools. She hadn’t trusted his skill all that much and, from the little she’d heard, the quality of the recordings on those spools diminished rapidly with the mounting generations of copies, but she was tired and sweaty from all that walking and trying to sing after climbing over those spear points was not an appealing thought.

  Why don’t I forget the whole thing? Yseyl is probably still in Linojin anyway.

  She followed with her eyes the upward curve of the nearest leg and the soaring spindle of the tower. This station was the most powerful on Impixol with the widest range and the biggest audience. I should have come here first, she told herself. Still… She pushed away from the wall and began walking around the square, hunting for a gate. Picking a lock would be a lot easier than trying to haul herself over that fence. A lot more exposed, though… She glanced at her ringchron. Around two hours till dawn. Didn’t leave a lot of time.

  As she walked around the second leg, a band of anyas danced past, big eyed and silent, hands busy with the flow of gesture talk like five-finger dances; they wore wide bronze neck collars with bronze chains linking them together. A one-eyed mal with a scattergun and a spiked knucklebar walked beside them, looking warily about, his single eye narrowing to an ominous slit when other Nightplayers got too close.

  As she watched the group move on, she realized suddenly that she’d seen very few anyas among the Gajullery Nightplayers. There’d been two or three tribonds, but none of the flowing partner exchange. She remembered things she’d seen, things hinted at in the Ptakkan teasers. Ah Spla! I don’t care what Digby says, that Fence has got to go. Once the pressure is off at least some of this will stop.

  She moved quickly along this lesser fence and turned the corner in time to see a cloaked mal come swaying toward her. He stopped near the middle of this side, felt around under the cloak, then began to stab a key of some kind at a lock she couldn’t see from where she was standing. Shadith moved quickly, quietly up behind him, reaching him as he finally managed to locate the hole in the gate’s lock.

  Insulated in an alcohol fog, all his attention focused on turning the key, he noticed nothing. With a grunt of satisfaction he lifted the latch and shoved at the gate, then sputtered in confusion and surprise as she caught hold of his collar and the seat of his pants and walked him inside. She tripped him, rescued the key and slammed the gate shut before he managed to get back on his feet.

  “Wha… who… Brother? What?”

  “Let’s go.”

  He stood swaying and blinking. His crest was braided into dozens of thin plaits threaded through silver beads that clicked musically whenever he moved. The sound of her voice cut through the muzz in his head, enough for him to realize something odd was happening. “You’re not…”

  “All things will be explained once we’re inside. Aren’t you late for work?”

  “God!” He shuddered, struggled to pull himself together. “Rakide’s go going to ki kill-me. Ahhhurrr. Can’t talk straight.” He stared at her for a moment, then swung round and stumbled toward the station’s single door.

  “Just stay where you are and there won’t be any problem.”

  The mal she’d followed in stood rubbing at his face and looking both dazed and harried. A lean, hard-faced fern taller than usual glared at her, thin lips pressed so tightly together her mouth nearly vanished, her face a net of wrinkles, dark smudges under her eyes. She sat in the corn chair, earphones draped around her neck, one hand on the control panel, the other on the arm of the chair.

  Shadith saw the hand on the panel start to shift, lifted the rifle. “I won’t kill you, but a pellet through the wrist won’t be pleasant.”

  “What-do you want? We don’t keep coin here. Stupid, there,” she nodded at the mal, “he might have a stash of muth around somewhere, but I doubt there’s much left. He doesn’t get paid for another week.”

  “I’m here to give you something, not to take anything away.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “Really.” With her free hand, she pushed back the cowl and smiled at the twitch of the fern’s face as she registered what stood before her. “I have some songs I want to sing. They’ve been well received otherwhere.”

  “Ahhh, I begin to see. I recognize your voice now. What do you want for the master?”

  “See that it gets played often and aired widely. That’s all.”

  “You wrote them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have more?”

  “Not to give away. Well?”

  “Harl, go set up studio two. And do it right. If I lose this because you zekked up, I’m going to skin you strip by strip. You hear me?”

  The mal’s greenish-gray skin went papery pale, and his eyes got a distant look.

  “And if you heave in here, I’m going to use your tongue to mop it up. Get on with it.”

  Shadith left the station reasonably satisfied that Rakide wasn’t going to spoil her exclusive acquisition of those songs by sending guards after the singer. The one broadcast had gone out, but what fussed her most was a feeling that it would be the only broadcast. From what she’d heard on her way here, Gajullery Station was given more to comedy and romantic songs and management might have something quelling to say about stronger fare. Yaqshowal Station had given them a good play, but Yaqshowal was under siege. Ciselle Station had broadcast the spool four times while she was in range-and had added several similar songs in other voices. The war was hitting them harder now with the floods of refugees and the fear that the phelas would move on them next. For the Gajullery, though, the profits from the war were flooding in, the arms dealers were here and the dealers in flesh, the harbor was crowded with the ships of the coastal traders. She’d heard a farm fern talking to a merchant tribond, saying that the rainfall had been good this year, they’d gotten three harvests already and a fourth lot was growing well, and when she finished, the merchant fern nodded with smug satisfaction as she sang the praises of her family’s profits. And they were only one pair out of many Shadith had heard on her way in who mouthed talk deploring the horrors of the war, but whose eyes were shiny with satisfaction.

  The complacency of the unthreatened. She heard more of it as she made her way through the crowded streets of the city, in a hurry to get away from there before dawn.

  Laughter and pleasure, profit and ease, built on the bones of the dead-she’d seen these a thousand and a thousand times in her long life and longer unlife.

  A wrong turn took her into the warehouses along the bay front. She ground her teeth at the delay and her own stupidity at getting so sunk in mind games that she forgot what she was about.

  Hm. If I follow the bay front until I reach the river, I can follow that to the grove. And get out of here. She started walking faster, the rifle slapping uncomfortably against her leg, the ragged hem of the robe irritating her ankles.

  A small figure came racing from a narrow alley between two warehouses, caromed into Shadith, and bounced off her into the wall. Two mals emerged from the alley, reached for the anya who was sitting up, shaking xe’s head, dazed, but not so dazed xe couldn’t shiver with fear at the sight of the mals and start scrambling away on hands and knees.

  Shadith had the robe up and the rifle unclipped before they reached xe. “Back off,” she said, pitching her voice as low as she could. “Now. Or lose a knee.”

  “That un’s ours, this is Kugula’s patch.”

  She snorted. “I don’t know Kugul
a from that piece of crud you just stepped in. And I could care less. Back off.” She watched them intently, felt the one on the right gathering himself. Cursing their stupidity, she put a pellet in his knee, swung the rifle, and squeezed the trigger again. She missed the second thug, but that was no problem because he flung himself back, scrambling for the shelter of the alley.

  She darted over, picked up the anya, tossed xe over her shoulder, and took off running, driving her weary legs as fast as she could move them.

  She plunged into an alley on the side away from the water and a. few moments ‘later was thoroughly lost in the maze of littered, stinking little streets that never ran straight for more than a few strides.

  When she felt she’d separated herself far enough from the shots, she slowed and looked around. Nobody in sight, no feel of watchers behind shutters. She lowered the anya to xe’s feet. “All right. We seem to be clear of that lot. If you’ve got someplace to go to, you’d better head there, sun’ll be up soon.”

  She started to turn, but the anya caught her sleeve, pulled her back around with a strength born of urgency. When Shadith was looking at xe, xe signed, +What are you?+ Abruptly, xe made an erase-sign, went on, +Help me.+

  “It seems to me I have. And I’ve got other places to be.”

  +My daughter,+ the anya signed, xe’s face twisted with grief and fear. +She’s only twelve years old. They sold her. Slavers sold her to a mal old enough to be her granther. Help me get her away.+

  The trouble with empathy, Shadith thought, it doesn’t let you tell yourself xe’s lying. Spla! Twelve. “Do you know where she is?”

  +I know the direction. Thinta tells me.+ Xe pointed. +That way.+

  Shadith followed the line of xe’s ann. Hm. That’s the way I want to go. I think Don’t interfere with locals, Digby said. At least, don’t get caught at it. And he laughed. And then he stopped laughing. Don’t make bad vibes for the business, Shadow. Not if you mean to keep working here. Spla! “Here, you take this.” She thrust the rifle at the anya. “What’s your name, by the way?”