“What is it?” Pizzle looked at the naked pink flesh.
“Cheken. A delicacy, believe me.”
“Chee-ken,” repeated Pizzle, nodding. “I remember chee-ken.”
“Good! It’s coming back!” Nendl pulled him away again, and they continued on down the avenue. “Now to the bake stall. I think there is a second-order bake stall further down. They are said to supply the Directors’ tables. We’ll see.”
Pizzle walked as one in a dream, marveling at all he saw, the strangeness of it, and yet the eerie familiarity. He had been here before, seen these things, walked this avenue … why couldn’t he remember?
Sitting in Nendl’s kraam before a small brazier filled with black fuel pellets, the disjointed carcasses of the two chekens sizzling on the glowing coals, Pizzle listened to his host describe his life.
“You would do well to listen to an old man,” said Nendl. “I may not be a Hage magician, but I know much and have seen much more.”
“You’re not old, Nendl.”
“Old enough! But listen, I don’t know what you did to deserve your punishment—your reorientation—and you don’t have to tell me. I don’t care. Probably it was nothing anyway. The stinking Invisibles, called such because of their cunning and stealth, watch everyone; and what they can’t see, they imagine. It’s all the same to them—they’re scum.”
“Scum,” Pizzle repeated. “But you’re not. You’re not scum, Nendl; you’re my friend.” Pizzle’s head felt mushy from the sweet liquor he was drinking freely. He felt light and airy, like a cloud expanding from its center. He beamed at his host proudly. “You helped me.”
“I helped you, yes. Do you know why?” He leaned close even though there was not another soul in the filthy, cramped dwelling.
Pizzle leaned toward him. “Why?”
“Because I know someone.”
“Oh!” Pizzle nodded, much impressed. “You know someone.”
“Someone important. He said I was to watch for you and help you if I could. He said you would be coming. So I watched for you, and when you came I helped you.”
“Thank you, Nendl.”
“Shh!” Nendl cautioned. “They can hear everything. They can see through walls.” He too had been nursing liberally from the souile flask and felt like talking. “But I don’t care. I know someone. I am protected. If I have any trouble, I have someplace to go. I will be safe.”
Pizzle nodded, his head wobbling loosely. “The cheken smells good. I’m hungry.”
“It’s just about done.” Nendl reached over and flipped a few pieces over. “Have some more cheese.” He offered a chunk to Pizzle and bit off one for himself. He gazed at his guest thoughtfully and said, “You know what the rumor messengers are saying about you?”
“No.” Pizzle put the cheese in his mouth and chewed.
“I have heard rumors of Fieri spies,” said Nendl, winking.
“Spies.”
“Do you know anything about them?”
Pizzle shook his head slowly.
Nendl reached into the brazier and gingerly handed him a piece of cheken. “Eat! It’s good.” He picked out a piece for himself and licked his fingers. “Directors don’t eat any better than this!”
“It’s good,” echoed Pizzle happily. The sound of chewing and lip smacking overcame conversation for a few minutes.
When they had finished the first two pieces and were well into a third, Nendl raised his head and looked at his guest thoughtfully. “If you were a Fieri, I know you wouldn’t tell me— would you?”
Pizzle considered this and then shrugged. “I don’t know. Am I a Fieri?”
Nendl went sly; his eyes narrowed. “You might be. Then again you might not. I don’t expect you’d tell me if I didn’t tell you something.” He thought for a moment. “I will tell you something, Pizol. Would you like that? I’ll tell you something, and then you tell me something. What do you say to that?”
Pizzle nodded readily. “I’d like that. You tell me something, and I’ll tell you something.”
“A secret,” added Nendl.
“Yes, a secret.”
The Jamuna recycler leaned close and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Nendl is my Hagename. I’ll tell you my private name, but you must promise never to tell anyone else—especially a priest or magician. Swear it?”
“I swear.”
“Trabant take your soul?”
Pizzle nodded, eyes growing wide.
With a quick sidewards glance, Nendl put his forehead close to Pizzle’s. “My private name is Urkal.” He smiled grimly and sat back.
“Urkal.”
“Shh! Never repeat it! If a lipreader saw it, he would tell a priest—or worse, an Invisible—and they’d have power over me. If I didn’t do what they told me, they’d curse me and I’d be without a guide through the Twin Houses; I would never become immortal.” He looked eagerly at his guest. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me your secret.”
Pizzle’s face scrunched up in thought. What secret could he tell his host? He didn’t have any that he knew about. “Ahh,” he said at last. “My name is … Asquith.” How had that come to him?
Disappointment rearranged Nendl’s features in a scowl. “Askwith,” he replied flatly. That wasn’t the secret he wanted to hear. “Is that a Fieri name?” he asked, thinking himself very smart.
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“I have never heard it before—it must be. That means you are a Fieri,” he deduced with satisfaction.
“If you say I am. Is that good?”
“Bad, more like. Fieri are hated here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Some say they are trying to destroy us; others say other things. Who knows? The Directors know. Ahh, but I know someone too. Someone who will help me if trouble comes. I’m safe. You’re safe too—as long as you stay with me.” He took a long swig on the souile flask and passed it to Pizzle. “Drink! And eat—we have more cheken!” He took another piece from the brazier, licked his fingers, and smiled contentedly. “It’s been a very good day, Hageman Pizol. A very good day.”
NINETEEN
Yarden sat in a corner by herself, watching the others. They chattered to one another and laughed as they watched a holovision program calling out the names of the Hagemen they recognized. Bela’s kraam, a flattened oval room with a low, gently rippled ceiling, lit with soft amber dish-shaped lights set in smooth, buff-colored walls, was warm and stuffy with so many people in it—ten others besides Bela and herself. But no one else seemed to mind. They lolled on overlarge silken cushions on the floor, bodies intertwined casually, dipping fruit from a large red bowl, and laughing.
“Among the Chryse, Bela’s kraam is well-known,” he had boasted to her with a wink as they walked along an arching aerial walkway far above terraced green fields and small, dome-shaped dwellings—one of Empyrion’s preserves, Bela had told her, though what was preserved below she could not tell. “Tonight will be all laughter. You’ll see.”
Laughter yes, but Yarden did not share in it. After she had been introduced, she had quietly edged away to her cushion in the corner where she was content just to observe the others, as they were content to ignore her. She suspected that her presence was perceived as an intrusion—at least by the other women. She was a stranger, and therefore a potential rival for the men’s attention.
So she sat alone, schooling herself on the manners of her new friends, watching them for clues to custom and behavior, alert to the nuances of speech and action that revealed the inner person.
Outwardly passive—all but immobile—inwardly her mind whirled with activity: searching, sorting, cataloging, storing each minute observation and detail of her surroundings. This felt right; it was something that belonged to her, that she recognized as her own. At the same time, this intense mental activity puzzled her. Where did I learn this? she wondered. Haven’t I always lived here?
No doubt her feelings of vagueness, of forgetting, had to do with the r
eorientation Bela spoke of. Whatever that was, it stood like a barrier between her present and her past, blocking out all memory on the other side. Yet, at odd moments now and then, she caught glimpses of another life—intimations that there had been a life on the other side of the barrier much different than the one she now knew.
“You are lost, cherimoya,” said a voice above her.
Yarden looked up to see Bela standing over her. “I am just a little tired,” she replied. Yes, tired—so many new things to observe and comprehend exhausts one’s soul.
“Come then. Bed with me,” he said, offering his hand. He smiled. “I am tired too.”
Yarden caught the implication of his words, but was not alarmed by it. “Where do you sleep?” The kraam, as far as she could see, was but a single large room.
Bela laughed. “Wherever I like; it makes no difference.”
“Do you all sleep together?”
“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “Tonight I want to sleep with you.”
The directness of his approach confused her; perhaps she misunderstood. “For pleasure?”
“Yes.” Bela sank down beside her, grinning. “What else?”
Yarden peered back at him, not quite sure what her response should be. Certainly Bela was an attractive man; she could see that he would likely be a sensitive lover. She felt herself drawn to him, yet repulsed at the same time. At any rate, she doubted whether she could make love in a room full of strangers.
She was saved from having to make an answer by a clamor which arose across the room. “Bela!” someone shouted. “Bela! Dera is here with the flash!”
Bela looked away. A tall, flame-haired woman with large dark eyes and a shimmering yos that matched the color of her hair stood in the doorway. “Dera, my delight!” Bela called, jumping up. “What have you brought for us?”
She came to him, stepping over the knot of people on the floor in front of the holoscreen. Yarden watched as the two exchanged a lingering kiss. The woman’s long fingers played in Bela’s dark curls.
When they separated, Dera reached into the folds of her yos and drew out a black bag. Bela took the bag and hefted it, then opened it and put his nose in. “Ohh!” He rolled his eyes. “For this you will be made immortal.”
Others had gathered around, grabbing at the bag. “Share it, Bela. What are you waiting for?”
“Patience!” He lifted the bag away from them. “You will have yours. Dera has brought enough to soak a priest.”
He turned to Yarden, knelt, and held out the bag. “You first. You have been longest without it.”
Yarden reached into the bag and withdrew several flat, dark pellets the size of beans. They were highly polished and slightly oily to the touch. “What is it?”
“Flash,” said a curly-headed man in a brilliant, flower-printed yos. They all watched Yarden, smiling encouragingly. “Go ahead, you’ll soon remember.” The others laughed, and the man snatched the bag away. Attention now turned to the flashbag as it was passed quickly around.
Yarden gazed at the lozenges in her hand. They had a faint aroma, like roasted nuts. She glanced up to see Bela still watching her. “Flash?” she asked.
“It has other names,” he said, taking one of the pellets. “Each Hage has its own. The Hyrgo call it bliss beans, and among the Bolbe it is known as third hand. Don’t ask me why, but that’s what they call it.”
“What does it do?”
“Here, I’ll show you.” He placed the seed between his front teeth and, tilting his head back slightly, bit down hard. The seed cracked, and a thick syrup oozed out. He closed his eyes and sucked his lips shut, and in a moment his features softened. When he looked at Yarden again, his eyes were muzzy and unfocused.
“Try it,” he said, then laughed with sudden giddiness, rolling on his back. Instantly Dera was on top of him, a seed between her teeth. She bit it and then kissed him, sharing the syrup between the two of them. They came up laughing moments later, and then rolled into another embrace.
Yarden looked around her. The man in the flower-print yos was giggling loudly as he twirled around, his arms outstretched. Someone put a seed in his mouth and he bit it, then fell full-length backwards onto two women who were caressing each other. They broke apart, laughing, and began pulling off his yos.
Others were cuddled together, working each other out of their clothes, naked limbs writhing. Music had begun playing: a light, drifty sound like wind in the trees or water slipping over stone in a tide pool.
Yarden put a seed in her mouth and bit down hard. The syrup splashed onto her tongue, and she tasted smoked honey. With the taste came a rush of pure pleasure—a flash which burst over her and then ebbed away, taking all thought, all tension, all desire with it. Her first thought was, “More! I need more!”
She quickly popped another seed in her mouth, bit, and felt time coiling around her like a silken rope. Her mind reeled in the sheer joy of flowing forever through endless time, flowing like music, rich and many-toned and deep as an ocean.
A picture floated up into her mind of a vast, limitless sea of gold and green. She saw herself floating beneath gentle waves, sinking, drifting. The water was warm; the current tugged her along past long ribbons of undulating seaweed. Down and down and down.
Yarden began to cry; tears rolled over her lashes to splash down her cheeks. The picture, she knew, was from her other life—the life she could not remember anymore. She felt that other life slipping further away beyond her reach. The tears fell heavy with strong, sweet sorrow. She took another seed in her mouth and let the waves carry her away.
Director Hladik rode the lift down toward Cavern level, the lowest level of Nilokerus section. Slanting bands of light flickered over his face, each marking a terrace or kraam level. Four levels above Cavern, he slowed the liftplate’s descent, dropping the last two levels at quarter-speed and braking hard as Cavern came up. It took quick reflexes and an utter disregard for safety, but Hladik enjoyed overriding the automatic controls.
Hladik felt the momentary tug of gravity in his stomach and stepped through the capsule door, striding out into a rock-cut chamber before the lift had come to a complete stop. “Fertig!” he shouted, his voice echoing back from the empty spaces.
He waited, then marched across the chamber to the entrance of a tunnel, switching off the unidor at the console pedestal before the tunnel entrance. Lights blinked on as he stepped in, faint green lights at foot level illuminating the tunnel floor. Along the sides, a red light above each one, cell doors yawned, their unidors opaqued.
At the end of the tunnel, the Nilokerus Director halted before a rock wall. He reached into the folds of his yos and produced a sonic key, pressed it, and waited. From behind the wall came the sound of muffled hydraulics, and the wall tilted up and away. He ducked under the receding wall and entered the hidden room.
A guard in the white and red of the Nilokerus snapped to attention, giving a quick, stiff-armed bow, eyes to the floor. “Where’s Fertig?” Hladik demanded, barely acknowledging the salute with an impatient wave of his hand.
“Subdirector Fertig is with the prisoner,” the guard replied.
“Have the physicians been summoned?”
“Yes, Hage Leader. They are with him as well.”
Hladik nodded, and the guard stepped aside. He pressed his sonic key, and the portion of the wall behind the guard rolled outward. Stepping over a puddle of water, he slipped through the opening quickly.
“Director Hladik, I—” began Fertig, glancing up as his superior entered.
“Will he live?” Hladik asked, moving to the side of a suspension bed. He looked down at the gray-faced body in the bed.
“It is too early to tell,” replied Fertig uneasily.
Hladik turned on him with a fierce scowl. The Subdirector swallowed hard and added, “We may have lost him, Hage Leader.”
“Does Jamrog know?”
“No, he has not been notified.” The Subdirector glanced uncertainly at his superior.
“Do you wish it?”
“I do not!” Hladik snapped. “I will deal with this personally.”
A physician, a heavy-shouldered woman with short, white hair and sharp blue eyes, mumbled something and Hladik glowered at her, saying, “Speak up, Ernina. I didn’t hear you.”
The woman frowned, her lips creased in wrinkles of sharp disapproval. “I merely wondered how long you will persist in killing your prisoners and then expecting us to revive the corpses?”
Few people dared speak to a Director so frankly, and ordinarily Hladik would have had the offender removed for reorientation without a second thought. But he just glared at the flinty physician across the bed; hers was a mind much too valuable to throw away lightly. Still, it didn’t do to allow first-and second-order Hagemen to hear her address him like a wastehandler.
“You question my directives, physician?” he growled.
“Not at all, Hage Leader,” she replied. Her tone mocked him. “I merely point out that if you wish us to save your sorry experiments, you must give us more to work with. This—” She gestured helplessly toward the body before her. “This wretch is almost beyond hope—even for me.”
“But he can be saved?” asked Hladik. He glanced down at the body; the man’s straw-colored hair was matted and tangled, his eyes and cheeks sunken, his jaw slack. If he still breathed, there was no outward indication.
Ernina, a sixth-order physician, the best of the Nilokerus, shrugged. “We will see. But I warn you, Haldik, one day soon you will go too far in this conditioning of yours and there will be nothing left to save.”
Hladik accepted the warning; it was sincere. But for the benefit of the others looking on, he replied, “Perhaps reorientation is not so unpleasant as we might suppose. Would you care to find out for yourself, physician?”
She tossed off the warning with a shrug. “Hmph!” Then she turned to the other physicians gathered around her. “Have you taken root? Remove him. We can do nothing in this dank tomb. Get him started on the aura equalizer, and one of you go take an offering to the Hage priest for a healing benefice of ten clear days. Tell him we must have no astral interference for at least ten days. Make certain he understands. Tell him the directive comes from Hage Leader Hladik—that ought to get his attention.”
Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra Page 13
