The Last Hawk

by Catherine Asaro

  She had to decide what to do—and fast.

  With a deep breath, Ixpar let go of the door. She plummeted through the air and hit the floor with a jarring impact. The torch rolled away from her, down the slanted floor of the chute.

  Slanted?

  A clang vibrated through the tiles and the floor hit bottom, throwing Ixpar forward as if she were a wayward Quis die. Flailing for a handhold, she tumbled down the slanted surface to its lowest point, which had ended up flush with a Minister-sized hole. The torch slid under her body, scorching her back until her weight smothered the flame. She hurtled through the hole and into darkness.

  The walls around her drew in closer, slowing her passage, until she feared she would wedge to a stop, neither able to climb up the glassy chute nor continue to its end. Then she shot out over a ledge and flew into space. An instant later she hit bottom, her head banging on stone.

  Her last thought was that she had no successor to take her place.

  Intent on their dice session, Miesa's nine Calani sat at a table in the main common room. To aid their study on lowering Miesa maintenance costs, Kelric built patterns for other Estates: Bahvla insulation, Haka aqueducts, Dahl oil lamps. Miesa history also molded the patterns, as they searched out flaws in past methods of running the Estate.

  The longer they worked, the more the session foundered, until finally Kelric pushed back from the table. The others stirred, looking around, clothes rustling, chair legs scraping the floor.

  "I'm a bit tired," Kelric said. When they nodded to him, he left the table and headed for the parks, to think.

  When Kelric had first come to Miesa, he had been one of only five Calani. He had expected they would immediately delve into studies on how to improve Miesa's position among the Twelve Estates. Instead, the others sought his advice. It fast became clear why Miesa was in trouble; her Calani had no idea how to play Quis. Awkward with the role of mentor they cast him in, but confident in his dice, he taught them Quis as he knew it, at the highest level he had mastered, from every Estate where he had lived.

  Eventually the Calanya had formed a coherent unit with him as its focal point. Then they began to reach out, seeking to act as well as learn. How much difference they had so far made for Miesa, Kelric wasn't sure, but he had noticed a change for the better in the patterns Savina brought back from Outside.

  Yet for all that work, he had become more and more aware over the past year that something was hampering their efforts. At first he couldn't define it, but as it grew more prominent it became clear.

  The problem was him.

  The pad of feet sounded in the hall behind him. He turned to see Hayl, a thirteen-year-old boy who had been in the Calanya for less than a season.

  "I was tired too," Hayl said. "Can I walk with you?"

  Kelric nodded his assent. It was odd to see the boy without Revi, his constant companion. Revi was huskier than Hayl and five years older, but the two boys were otherwise like brothers, with the gold hair, gray eyes, and angelic looks common among Miesans.

  Outside in the parks, rain drizzled from a gray sky, saturating the parks with a hint of wildness. They followed a path overhung by vines that protected them from the weather. It wasn't until a fat drop rolled off a leaf and splattered on his nose that Kelric realized he hadn't even spoken to Hayl.

  He looked down at the boy. "How's Revi?"

  "He's fine." Hayl took a deep breath. "Sevtar—what is it? What did we do?"

  "Do?"

  "To make you angry."

  "I'm not angry."

  "Is it that you dislike us?"

  Kelric smiled. "Of course not. Why do you think that?"

  "Lately you hardly talk to anyone. And you just walked out on a Quis session." Hayl hesitated. "Revi says it's because we're such a minor Calanya. I know we're not good enough for a Fourth Level, especially one like you, but we're trying."

  "Hayl, no. I left the session because I was making a mess of it." Kelric considered the boy. "When you were in the Preparatory House, you studied subjects like Miesa history as well as Quis, yes?"

  "Well, yes. Of course. Didn't you do that at Dahl?"

  "No. I was never in a Preparatory House."

  The boy gaped at him. "Never?"

  "I taught myself Quis."

  "Calanya Quis? I didn't think anyone could do that."

  Kelric shrugged. The more he learned, the more he saw how little he knew. Years ago he had thought himself adept with the dice, but now he understood that he had barely begun to learn its potential.

  "I'm glad you came to Miesa," Hayl said. "Otherwise I would never have met you." Swirls of admiration came from the boy. "Someday I'm going to play dice like you."

  Kelric blinked "Thank you." He tilted his head. "What made you decide to come here?"

  "I never wanted to go anywhere else." Hayl raised his hands as if to say But what do I know? "My Quis mentors told me I should try for the big Estates, though, so I asked them to write Varz and Haka. Manager Varz said no. Manager Haka said I was too young, but to write again in a few years."

  Kelric could understand why Rashiva thought the boy was too young. Eighteen was generally considered the minimum age for a Calani. "Why did you apply so soon?"

  "Revi was ready to leave the House."

  "And Savina took you both?" .

  Hayl nodded. "At first she just bid for my contract. After she met us, she decided to take Revi too. She said Miesa needed more Calani."

  Kelric could imagine how the boys affected Savina. She could never have made herself split them up. But Miesa needed experienced players. Although Revi was competent and someday Hayl would be brilliant. at the moment neither were first—class players. Nor could they supply what the Miesa Calanya sorely lacked, knowledge of other Estates. With the exception of himself, every Calani here was First Level.

  Kelric returned with Hayl to the common room, but instead of resuming the Quis session, he went over and heaved open the Outside doors. The Calanya escort sat Outside, playing Quis.

  Captain Lesi looked up at him. "Do you want the Speaker?"

  Kelric shook his head.

  "Manager Miesa?" she asked.

  He nodded.

  Lesi got on the com to Savina, after which the escort took him up to her office. As soon as the guards left, Savina grasped his hands. "What's wrong? Lesi said you were upset."

  "Not upset. Worried. I'm damaging your Estate."

  "Winds, Sevtar, why do you say that? Don't you see the effect you're having?" She let go of his hands and spread her arms as if to encompass Coba. "Word spreads when the Quis of an Estate gains power. For the first time in decades skilled guildspeople are coming to Miesa instead of leaving. Merchants, weavers, metalworkers, all new in the city, first a trickle, now a steady flow." She radiated enthusiasm. "And Sevtar—I'm holding my own in Council now. Next year I'll dice those clawcats into corners. You and l—together we can do anything."

  He couldn't help but smile. "If I were Coba, I would melt at your feet. But I doubt my Quis can have the effect you want. I lack too many of the basic tools other Calani get as children."

  Her face gentled. "One tends to forget, when faced with your gift, that you haven't studied Calanya Quis all your life."

  "I should go to the Preparatory House."

  That stopped her cold. "What?"

  He paced across the office, gesturing with his hands to accent his points. "More and more lately I've felt the lacks in my education. Anyone of your First Levels could give you a far better picture of your Estate's history, character, and culture. I need that education." He came to a stop and turned to face her. "I have to go to the Preparatory House."

  "A grown man? A Fourth Level?" She laughed. "If I sent you there, my Senior Aide would commit me to the setting sun-asylum for the mentally diminished."

  "Savina, I'm serious. My Quis dominates the Calanya, which means my deficiencies do as well. It didn't matter for the first few years because we had so much catching up to do. But we
're ready for more sophisticated work now and I'm holding it back."

  She considered him as if she were shifting his words back and forth in her mind. Finally she said, "I could bring mentors and teachers from the Preparatory House here to the Estate. For you."

  He liked her solution better than his. It would save him a lot of embarrassment. "Yes. That would be good."

  ",So." She nodded to him. "Your Quis will become all the more formidable."

  Ixpar awoke in darkness. When she moved, pain flared in her shoulder. She pushed onto her knees. trying to figure out where in a dice cheater's hell she had landed. She found the

  torch, but had no flint to light it. Further exploration revealed she was trapped in a round cavity. By standing and stretching up her arms, she could just reach into the chute above her head. Its edges and walls were like glass, unclimbable.

  She was running her fingers along the wall at waist height when she touched an engraving. She spelled out the Ucatan glyphs by touch: So to Karn comes the ward of lives.

  Ixpar scratched her chin. So to Karn comes the ward of lives: it was the oath that appeared on the Ministry seal. Just as a Manager swore to protect her Calanya, so the Minister swore to protect her people. She ran her fingers over the script again. Then she stopped and felt more carefully. It wasn't the Ministry Oath, at least not as she knew it. This read: To you, Karn, comes the ward of lives.

  To you? Historians believed the name Karn derived from carn-abi in Old Script, which in turn probably derived from the even more ancient Ucatan language, the chabi glyph, which meant "to guard, care for, or watch over." Had Karn actually been a person, perhaps a Ucatan Warrior who lived many millennia ago, in those shadowed years before the Old Age, at time of darkness and barbarism?

  She wondered why the oath appeared in this cavity. Sphere: highest-ranking Quis die, symbol of continuity, the womb where life began, completion. Birth. Then again, death was the completion of life.

  However, this wasn't a true sphere. It had a gap. She reached up and examined the opening above her head, this time feeling for any mark rather than just a handhold. At the edge where the cavity met the chute she found a line, hardly more than a scratch. She recognized the pattern from her childhood games in Karn's hidden tunnels. Scraping her fingernails into the line, she pushed its switch.

  Old gears rumbled into action and an arc of metal slid out, nudging aside her hand. As she felt along the arc, she realized it was a lid, closing to complete the sphere. She grabbed the metal, intending to pull herself into the chute. Then she paused, straining to keep the lid open. If she hoisted herself out, where would she be after the lid closed? At the bottom of an unclimbable chute. Even if she did manage to make her way to its top, the cylinder was unclimbable. For that matter, its floor might have already risen back to its original position. Ixpar let go of the lid, and with an ugly clang it hit the opposite side of the chute. The grate of the gears changed pitch, faltered, started again—and stopped. She stood in the darkness, breathing raggedly, waiting for something to happen.

  Silence.

  "No," Ixpar said. "You can't break down." The darkness felt heavy, claustrophobic. She banged on the lid, hoping to jar it into motion. Next she pounded the walls, methodically covering the entire sphere. Finally she dropped to the ground, knowing that the more she moved, the faster she used up her air.

  Jahlt, why did you send me here? she thought. Is this a test I've failed? Or had the test itself failed, its machinery crumbling with the passing of time? Perhaps Jahlt had never meant for her to enter this ancient puzzle.

  Suddenly the gears faltered into life again and the sphere rotated like a giant ball bearing, rolling her over in a somersault. When the cavity stopped, its lid had become the floor.

  She waited, holding her breath.

  When the lid began to retract, she grabbed its edge and lowered herself through the widening hole. She hung in the air, kicking out her legs, trying to find a foothold. Then the lid finished opening, taking away her handhold, and she dropped like a rock through cold darkness.

  Ixpar hit a flat surface with a thud that shoved out her breath. As she groaned, the torch clattered down next to her. She climbed to her feet and took an exploratory step, waving her arms in front of her. Another step, another—and her foot hit a barrier. It felt like a table leg. A sweep of her hand across the table sent a small box clattering to the floor. She scrambled after it and her hand closed around a flint.

  When Ixpar relit her torch, its dusky light showed her a small room. A row of torches hung along one wall and huge Ixpar shadows flickered on the stone. In the opposite wall, a closed door waited, bands of crumbling metal holding it together. The exit? She went over and opened it.

  Then she simply stood, staring.

  The room beyond was as big as the Hall of Teotec. Her first impression was of shadows and glitter. As her eyes adjusted to the sight, she managed to absorb what was throwing back the light of her torch in such a multitude of gleams, glints and flashes.

  Boxes inlaid with glistening stones stacks of vases bolts of metallic cloth, chains of precious metals; the riches spilled everywhere. Finely tooled shields lined the walls; urns sparkled, heaped full with jewels; gilt chests overflowed with coins. Weapons lay in great stacks: swords, honed discuses, shotputs jeweled daggers, marble bolos.

  For a long time Ixpar simply looked stunned by the scene's lustrous glory. When she finally walked into the hall she saw a set of ruby—inlaid Calanya guards on a table by the door. She picked up one of the guards and ran her thumb over the althawk seal engraved on it, above the original Karn Oath, written in Ucatan; To you, Karn, comes the ward of lives.

  On the table, an ancient parchment penned in Ucatan lay under a pane of modern glass. As Ixpar pieced out the glyphs, a chill ran up her back. It was as if she heard a warrior from before the Old Age, more than two thousand years in the past, an antediluvian queen with an articulate voice in an age when almost no one even knew what "written language" meant, let alone could write:

  Mourn not my death, Karn. It is the honor of a warrior to die defending that which is hers. I leave here my legacy. Learn you well from these memories. See our triumphs and our failures.

  This I bid you: choose from among our tribe's children she who is ablest, fiercest, most intelligent. Train her to succeed you as I taught you to follow me. As I have done for you, so must you someday leave for her those memories that best tell her what we have been and what we can become. Build our people into more than a wandering tribe that fights for personal gain. Let your battles be for the future, to give those of our blood more than barbarism for their legacy. Bring back the glory of the lost Raylikarns, our Ruby ancestors who descended from the stars on pillars of fire.

  Make us more than we are.

  This is my dream, Karn. As I must die, I entrust it to you.

  The document was signed Avaza Teotec.

  Ixpar swallowed. Avaza Teotec. Her life was lost in the mists of history, but the mightiest mountain range on known Coba bore her name. This parchment was the beginning, the birth of modern civilization, the dream of an ancient Chieftain who envisioned far ahead of her time the world that was now Coba.

  Ixpar turned over the wrist guard. It wasn't a Karn guard, it was the Karn guard; the first, made for the Akasi of a woman named Karn, who founded the first Estate on Coba. Bring back the glory of the lost Raylikarns, our Ruby ancestors who descended from the stars on pillars of fire. Incredible that a memory of the Ruby Empire remained alive here, in Karn, after five thousand years.

  She wondered at the word Raylikarns. Had the name Karn derived not from Ucatan, but from this even older remnant of the Ruby Empire? She felt as if an ancient breeze had blown across her face, whispering secrets long vanished from the rest of Coba.

  Near the Calanya guards, she found a box lined with velvet. Two armbands lay inside, engraved with the name Jimorla Karn. Next to them was a plaque with the likeness of a youth etched on it. The inscription read: In h
onor of the Akasi Jimorla, freed by the tribe of Karn from the tribe of Kej in the Second Season of the Twelfth Year of the Reign of Karn.

  The Reign of Karn. Now they called it the Old Age. These armbands came from the twelfth year of an age that had lasted 1032 years.

  Ixpar walked down the hall, awed by the heaped treasures, a wealth far more than just gold and jewels. Each Minister had left a legacy of her reign: scrolls and dice, texts and documents, the feather of a giant althawk embedded in glass. A Minister Shaba commissioned the construction of a miniature Estate and inscribed the rooms with phrases lauding the beauty of an Akasi named Kozar. Kozar? The mythology of Khozaar, most handsome of all gods, originated in the Old Age. Was this man its origin?

  Like Kelric . . .

  Stop it, Ixpar told herself. Why did she still think of him after so many years? It truly was an exercise in futility.

  History unrolled before her as she continued down the hall. New Estates rose: Kej and Varz, Haka and Miesa, and more. Weapons became rarer and Quis more prominent. More and more scrolls mentioned the dice expertise of a Minister's Akasi. Gradually a new word came into use, the title Calani, given for a previously unheard of position, men in a Calanya who weren't Akasi, but gifted Quis players.

  At the end of the room, an arch opened into a second hall. It was there Ixpar found the Oath of Olonton, the original parchment believed lost a thousand years ago. It lay preserved under modern glass, signed by the Managers of every Estate in existence on that First Day of the First Century of the Modem Age. Its message—short. simple, and visionary—set the pattern for modern Coba: On this day let it be sworn; a new era is born, the Era of Olonton. Of the Heart. The Era of Quis. May bloodshed never again break the Oath we make here today.

  So the wars ended.

  As she continued into the next hall, the centuries unrolled before her. Eventually she came to a model of the first wind: rider. Farther on she found armbands that had belonged to an Akasi of Jahlt's predecessor. Then she saw a document written in Jahlt's own hand; Council proceedings, with the last entry from the previous year. Next to the scroll lay the portrait of a child.