by Ron Collins
Now he baited a shiv of bent metal with a cave bug, and dipped it into the slowly running pool of cold water, looking to snag a fast swimming kraun, or perhaps one of the many-legged water lizards his central could pick out as they lay in the shallows. He watched the hook float to the bottom, twisting it gently as if the bug was injured and had just fallen from its perch.
He was tired, his muscles worn by the descent through slots and passages his da’s da had shown him when he was even younger than the council member whelps.
His knees and the small of his back ached with age.
He didn’t know how much longer he would live.
He didn’t particularly care.
Time was different here, after all. It came in sleeps rather than heats. It came in the now.
The caves, like the desert above, took what they wanted.
Nothing he could do would change that, and simply living ached enough without making it worse by hoping for a future or by dwelling on a past.All he wanted now was to snag his meal and slip into the sheltered slot he had found where he could rest.
When he was done, Taranth thought, when his life was over, he knew only that he would disappear silently back into the caves, alone and as invisible as either the whelps that his indifference had killed or the raider that his blade had given mercy to.
No one would care that he was gone.
No one would know.
He drew a breath of clean cave air and peered into the water.
He jogged the bait once more, coaxing in a kraun. When it struck, he pulled the fish onto the flat rock and beat it against the stone wall. When it was dead, he used his knife to prepare it.
When his meal was eaten, Taranth returned to his slot and lay against the wall, closing his eyes, and hoping that for this sleep, at least, he would not find himself dreaming.
The Taranth Stone
CHAPTER 20
“Do not take no for an answer,” Hateri said to Unid.
The council server nodded.
They were in Hateri’s office, which had been his father’s office before him. It was nearly half a cycle ago that Jafred had passed. Time is too fast, Hateri thought as he looked at the wrinkles beginning to grow over his now-knobby hands.
Unid was a dependable and resourceful runner, with an intimidating aura about him. All of which were why Hateri had called for him on this chore. He was Kandar clan, also, which was helpful because Hateri did not want another Terilamat involved.
“I mean it,” Hateri added as Unid gathered his council robes and crossed into the doorway. “He cannot refuse.”
“I understand,” the runner replied.
Then the door shut, softly but firmly.
Hateri stood up and went to the window. The simple opening spanned most of the wall. A doorway at the far end of the wall opened to the wide balcony, and a set of spiraling stairs led from the balcony down to the council gardens. Across the manor, the gate was closed.
He leaned his hands on the sill.
More than two cycles had passed since Taranth left a dried-up whelp on the doorsteps of that gate, and then disappeared into the night. No one had heard from him since, though Hateri knew of at least three clandestine efforts made by the more powerful Families to find him. Others had probably attempted, also, but Hateri had spent enough time with Taranth to know that if Taranth did not want to be found, he would not be found.
Not for the first time, Hateri wished he knew what had happened to his friend.
A clear spot in the clouds gave him purchase to see the red light of Katon, off kilter toward the west. Eldoro was a smudge in the cloud cover behind her.
He sighed and hung his head.
The skies had changed so much over the past cycle that many quadars were returning to the old gods. Where once there had been nothing but oranges and browns and gauzy covering, now sometimes that soft essence gave way to a flat blue when the sky was light and a hard blackness when the heats had set—and in the darkness the sky was riddled with patterned pinpoints of light that caused no little conversation.
The first rending was cataclysmic enough to bring life to a halt as quadars cowered in their homes. That it occurred in tandem with a steady increase in the amount of melting water that fell from the sky—drops laced with fiery liquid that slowly seeped through houses, destroyed plants, and ate away flesh—made the hysteria worse. Tiny Eterdane had been discovered then, a new heat, a tiny brightness too small to burn through clouds but brighter than the other points of light revealed when the clouds remained absent. Eldoro and Katon were shown for their true nature, massive balls of flame that burned behind the curtain of clouds.
Everything was changing.
Now, in the full darkness of Convergence, Eterdane gleamed in the blackness amid hundreds or, if philosophers were right, thousands of other glimmering points. Some of those philosophers were suggesting that perhaps Esgarat was the object that moved, not the heats themselves. One thought in particular was that both Esgarat and Katon circled Eldoro, giving rise to larger Eldoro’s smooth path in relation to their home, and the more erratic movement of his sister.
Hateri sensed the danger in putting too much weight behind philosophers’ opinions, though. They extrapolated answers from outside of the known, sometimes making claims as wildly unsupported as those of the church. As such, mainstream scientists viewed them with dubious eyes.
The turmoil diverted much of Hateri’s attention from the problem his father had left him—fighting the decompression Louratna was still quite adamant about.
Now he had just come from a startling session.
“We cannot provide crops we don’t have,” the Banit Family messenger said to him, explaining the reasons behind reductions in the product being released and the increased prices for what there was. “The havra berries have come in worse each season for many years. The cold cycle starts earlier. And we need to fill our mouths, also.”
“I understand,” Hateri had said. “Tell your mother I appreciate everything she is doing to increase her yields.”
The news meant he would not be able to send the colonies the amounts he had promised, but even the reduced amounts were better than nothing. The colonies had been his father’s pride. They were operating well and thriving as best as could be expected. Hateri had gone to one of the outposts just before his father had passed, and seen for himself it was nearly a real civilization—a nicer place for a free-range quadar to live than Harshish Point had been, though admittedly still rough in comparison to the Esgarat.
The news also meant that he couldn’t wait any longer to change the way the science teams were working.
Hateri thought of his father.
Jafred E’Lar had been right, of course.
The Families couldn’t be trusted to examine the Taranth Stone.
But the restraints required to keep the existence of the stone completely secret had slowed their work at every step. For example, Hateri had continued his father’s practice of interviewing each scientist himself to discern the depth of their ties to the Families. It took patience and it took time, but it was worth it.
The lines of lies and secrets had grown massively complex over the years. Hateri didn’t think their deception would hold much longer. He was amazed it had lasted as long as it had.
Now, though, he wondered if all the chaos could be tied together. Was it a coincidence that the clouds disappeared after the Taranth Stone arrived outside Esgarat? Was the burning rain connected? What were the heats, really? Did someone there send them the Taranth Stone, and if so, why?
All he knew for sure was that nothing he had done so far had worked, so it was time to take a different approach.
At least, that’s what he thought.
“I hope I’m doing the right thing, Father,” he said aloud as he took in the garden and arched his back.
Yes, he was getting old.
He glanced back to the gate, sighed, then left his office to make his way to the chambers.
CHAPTER 21
The door opened and the chime rang. A delivery runner’s engine sputtered as it labored past.
The quadar who entered Baraq Waganat’s shop wore the orange robe and obsidian jewelry of the Quadarti Council. His skin was leathery and brown. He smelled of kadea oil. The yellow orbs of his primaries blinked with iridescence in the shop’s dimness, his central a crystal blue orb high on his forehead that marked him as from the eastern regions. He stepped through an aisle, gliding past a row of hand tools. A mobile of gliders spun lazily near his head.
Baraq’s three hearts beat rapidly, chilling his wrinkled skin.
A hand-tall stack of accounts to be paid sat in a sloppy pile on his counter, and the ledger he was filling was only halfway complete. Wonderful, he thought morosely as he looked at the council’s runner. I needed something else to do.
He glanced to where his weapon lay waiting. It was a recent-model Tegra, acquired in trade for diverting a shipment of root, a good gun with lots of stoppage but less than accurate at longer ranges. Crissandr despised the weapon, of course, and hated that he kept it loaded and in such easy reach. “No one will touch a Waganat,” she explained. But desperation leads to a certain lack of caution, and a Family name is good for only so much.
He liked something else about the gun, too, something he would never tell Crissandr. The gun made him feel independent, his own man, separate from and unreliant upon his Family.
The runner approached the counter, surrounded by the billowing odor of spices and sulfur. He pulled his upper lip back in a smile, showing yellow teeth that matched his now-slim irises.
“You will come,” the quadar said.
“Hello to you, too, my friend.”
“You will come.”
“I’m quite busy,” Baraq said, pointing to his paperwork.
“Paper can be shuffled anytime.”
“I cannot leave. Who will run my business?”
The runner gazed around the empty shop. “Your aisles overflow with customers. Maybe you should purchase a larger building.”
Baraq shrugged. “It is a slow moment.”
The runner put six-fingered fists on the counter and leaned forward. His jewelry glinted. The heavy ridge above his primaries bulged together like a distended sand worm.
“You come.”
A hackle clawed its way up Baraq’s spine. Despite being far down the line of succession and nearly invisible to his Family’s power structure, he was still a Waganat. He could send the council’s runner away. But they would then make things difficult. It was best not to trifle with them if it could be avoided.
“Just a moment,” Baraq said.
He went to the back of the store and engaged a series of switches.
Metal bars fell across windows. Levers clanged into place.
He had installed the device during the last Convergence, when the heat light of Eldoro and Katon traveled together, leaving the sky dark at night. He remembered the timing because the clouds had broken often then, and the temperature had fallen so far during the darkness that pools of water actually formed on the ground in the mornings.
“I’m ready,” he said.
The runner nodded, then led him away.
The council chamber was a tall, rounded room that smelled of influence and was ringed with columns of gray-veined basalt that rose to a rounded ceiling open at the center. Katon’s highpoint neared, and the smaller of the two heats was a hazy blot glaring through the opening. Eldoro had risen, but was too low to be seen in the chamber. The floor was flat rock inlaid with a spiral of shining obsidian from the foothills of Holy Esgarat.
Baraq had expected to see the council in session.
Instead, only Councilor Hateri E’Lar greeted him, his ceremonial robes wrapped about him as if they were armor. His hairless skull was nearly perfect in its roundness, dimpled only at the back of his parietal temple. His primaries were pinpoints of the darkest brown.
Despite his hearts pounding, Baraq kept a disdainful grace to his stride as he approached the councilor. “What do you want?” he said.
“Greetings to you, too,” Hateri replied dryly.
“You are the last councilor I would expect to arrange a personal meeting with a Waganat.”
“Come, Baraq. Let’s not get mired in trivial arguments.”
Hateri was a proponent of quadarti regulation. Every session saw him propose new constraints on trade and new taxes on materials. This was not something the Waganat Family was pleased with, and grumbling about Hateri E’Lar was a common occurrence when any two Waganats found themselves together.
“Open trade may be a triviality to you, but it is life to me,” Baraq said.
The councilor’s face betrayed no emotion. “I’m sure the Waganats would get by under any rules set forth.”
“What does my Family have to do with this?” Baraq replied with more anger than he meant to reveal.
“Nothing, Baraq. Absolutely nothing.”
“Well then, what am I here for?”
Hateri motioned with one arm. “Follow me, please.”
Without waiting, the councilor stepped into a long hallway.
Baraq followed in uncertain silence.
After several corridors, a lift ride to lower levels, and more corridors, they came to a set of double doors.
Hateri turned to the guard.
“I think will be fine from here,” he said.
The quadar clicked his understanding, and faded away, his sandaled footsteps rustling in the empty hallway.
Hateri motioned Baraq forward.
The small room beyond the doors was filled with cabinets, a long table, and several chairs. A row of brown smocks hung from hooks on the wall.
“Grab a covering,” Hateri said, pulling one over his robes. He put a key to another door.
Baraq felt like a whelpling as he did as he was told.
That was his lot in life. Do as you are told. Follow in the lines. He was past half-age, well beyond the time when he might do something new, past the time where quadars around him expected brilliance.
When Baraq was ready, Hateri pushed the last door open.
A dry odor of camphor came from all directions.
The lab was almost as large as the council’s chamber, but where the council’s home was garnished and ancient, this room was an austere grid of tables, machinery, and test panels with rows of glass bulbs that glowed xenon colors. Diagrams and sketches were gummed to the walls. The item that drew his attention, however, sat on a row of tables lashed together. The thing was huge and brown, long and rounded, easily several times as long as Baraq was tall.
He stepped forward.
Its shell was pebbled like a lizard’s skin, broken and torn apart in places. Inside were boxes with green and white and black connection wires protruding from them.
“What is it?”
Hateri’s grin was bright as cloudless Eldoro at highpoint. “Can you not guess?”
Baraq glanced back at the table.
The thing’s shape was sleek and bulletlike, its nose smashed, its tail open and blackened. Baraq’s hearts pounded. Parts of the shell had been ground away. Components lay scattered in controlled patterns.
He tenderly ran a webbed finger along the thing’s surface.
“The Light That Fell from the Sky?” Baraq said.
Hateri clicked from the back of his throat, obviously enjoying Baraq’s incredulity.
“It has been a long time since we’ve called it that.”
“What do you call it now?”
“The Taranth Stone,” he said, raising a hand when Baraq showed confusion. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you the story sometime.”
Baraq did not press the question.
He knew that more than a cycle ago—maybe thirty years—a searing ball of flame had scorched the nighttime sky beyond the Esgarat range. The council had sent a party to search for it, as had the Waganat Family. But thirty years ago, the Family’s machines were unreliable an
d incapable of completing the trip. By the time they arrived, the mountain’s volcanic landscape had shifted to cover whatever secrets the site may have provided. All of the party—including his own uncle—had perished, except for the guide and except for Hateri E’Lar.
At least that was the story.
That didn’t stop rumors from building, though.
Esgarat, the tallest mountain peak on the continent, was thought to be the place their species first emerged from the caves to walk the surface, so the priests proclaimed it was no surprise that the holy light was seen there. It was only fitting, they said, that the gods would send fire to the place of the quadarti origin. They claimed the light would bring Eldoro’s power to Esgarat, and that it had the ability to strike enemies with rays of death.
Scholars debunked those claims and suggested the ball of flame was more likely just a trick of the clouds, reflecting a storm or other distant light in a spectacular fashion.
Amid the heated spiritual battles was another intriguing story, one that said that the original expedition had actually succeeded in their quest, and that a plainsguide named Taranth had found the remains of a great stone and hauled it to a place of safekeeping.
“How did it come to be here?”
Hateri waited.
“You’ve had it here all along?”
“We wanted to study it.”
“Likely story.”
“Nonetheless, true.”
“Nonetheless, I doubt it.”
Baraq fought a flickering anger. Bureaucracy delays progress, and it was saying something that this was among the most egregious examples he had seen.
“Either way, the end result is still withholding the existence of the stone from the public.”
“It’s not a worse deal than your Family would have given.”
In that, Baraq had to admit the councilor was right. His Family developed technology and sold it to the highest bidder. It was an ugly field, one that tied progress to financial reward. The councilor’s statement was true in that way, that the Waganat Family was really no better than the council, withholding beneficial inventions until the price was right.
