Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 04]

by The Fall of the Shell (v0. 9) (epub)

  “A foreboding, Ardena? I feel no such thing. I see only the clear flame of pure justice at work, burning away the impurities,” said the Protector. “I might add, Ardena, that we must be safe in Craydor’s eyes, since an inscription on her tomb entrance reads, ‘This city will never fall until I rise out of it.’ The entrance is permanently sealed, and .she seems safely in place as usual.” The Protector smiled wanly, scanning the room. “Are there any other comments?”

  Bival rose. The Protector looked a little startled. “Protector, with your permission, I only wish to say that I deeply regret being close to the cause of all this trouble. Any anger I had toward the boy is gone, but I do wish to obey the law the Protector has invoked in my behalf. As she has pointed out to me, I erred in taking the boy for special training in mathematics and geometry when I saw what I felt was promise in him. Undoubtedly that made him familiar enough to take such shocking liberties.”

  As Bival talked, she stared at the triangle in the floor which had been the tip of Cray dor’s tomb. Was there more to that design than she had realized? She determined to think about it further.

  The Protector coughed, and Bival realized that she had remained standing after she stopped talking. “You may resume your seat, Bival,” said the Protector. “Now, if there are no more regrets or poetic contemplations, may we adjourn.” She clapped her hands. As she rose to leave, the Ardena appeared at her side.

  “I beg a favor, Protector.”

  “You seem to have spoken your mind, Ardena. You wish more favors?”

  “Only to visit the boy in prison and inform him of your decision—in order to convince him to be contrite.”

  The Protector hesitated. She could see no harm in the request. “All right, Ardena. You may do that.” She turned away smiling, sensing the obligation under which she placed the Ardena.

  A full quarter of the day later, Brudoer, who was staring at the curious geometric patterns on the wall, sure that Craydor meant something by them, heard the grating of the door. He stood and turned, and saw, to bis amazement, the Ardena entering. He did not bow as courtesy said he should have. She stiffened her back.

  “Boy,” she began. “Am I safe with you if the guardsman leaves?”

  “You, Ardena? Of course. You did not beat me. You didn’t carve my brother’s face.”

  The Ardena gestured to the guardsman, who left, shutting the door. Both Brudoer and the Ardena glanced at the door, seeing the shadow of the guardsman by it, close enough to hear.

  “You are a stiff-necked child, boy. You know your courtesy. You’d do well in your position to practice it.” “Did you come here to teach me courtesy, Ardena?”

  “I don’t need your irony. I came to advise you and help you, and you are making it very difficult.”

  “I am?” Brudoer laughed.

  “You seem devoted to your dingy cell, then. Perhaps you’d not like to hear me.”

  “That’s up to you, Ardena.”

  The old woman was stunned. The boy showed no anxiety or gratitude. “I’m not saying this for you, then, but for the good of the city. Further punishment is coming in two days. If you express full contrition, that will end your incarceration here.”

  “What good will that do the city, Ardena? Will it help the city to have sliced up a boy? What can help the city with Udge the sludge running it?”

  “I see you’re in no mood to listen. Then you will have to suffer your own consequences.” She turned to leave, but Brudoer advanced and put his hand on her arm.

  “My family. Are they all right?”

  “They aren’t doing marvelously, child. Your father has lost his position, and is now cutting rock. Your mother lives in seclusion. You are the one who can help them.” Brudoer leaned close to the Ardena and whispered, “I’d just as soon be put in the third cell.” She drew back, startled, then glanced at the door.

  “Come over to the light,” she said, “and let me see your back. You will have another whipping, you know.” They walked across the room to where the high window cast down a wintry gray light. “What are you talking about?” she whispered, as he removed his tunic and undergarment. She winced as she ran her hands across the scars.

  “It just ought to be that way,” he whispered back.

  “You must tell me why.”

  “I ask a favor, Ardena. Please get me a copy of the inscription from the first cell—the letters that run around the room in rings and make no sense but are only letters.” “Why?”

  “I need them.”

  “I’ll get them for you if you tell me why you have to be put in the third cell.”

  “I just did tell you.”

  The Ardena pushed the boy away. “You are a rude child,” she said aloud. “You refuse to communicate. Well, then, I shall leave you to your fate, and Threerivers will have to get along as well as it can.”

  “Please? The letters? And some paper for me? Please, Ardena?”

  She looked at him and saw he was in earnest. He took her hand, his eyes brimming. She squeezed his hand and smiled, slightly. Then she called the guard, and remarked to him, “It has done no good. He will not bend, even to someone who means him only well.”

  “Yes, Ardena,” the guard remarked. “You could only try, however.”

  They left Brudoer alone, and he saf down again, facing the inscriptions on the wall. Craydor does nothing for no reason, he had come to feel. No decoration is a mere decoration. Everything has some meaning.

  But the remaining two days passed before Brudoer had determined anything from his study of the diagrams. He steeled himself when he heard the guardsmen coming to take him to his punishment.

  The scene he saw on the lowest terrace differed star-tlingly from the previous one. The curving walls were ringed with guardsmen, as was every high comer. All held strung bows, with arrows nocked. The Protector stood in a covered pavilion on the second terrace, in her winter cloak, surrounded by the four quadrant counsels. As Brudoer cast his eyes across the landscape below he saw that the trees stood stark and bare. A light snow lay across the landscape.

  Brudoer was brought to face the Protector from below. “I believe that the Ardena, in misplaced kindness, has informed you of the conditions of your punishment. You may now humble yourself to Bival and express your contrition. Then the lashing will end your punishment. Is that understood.”

  “Understood? Ridiculous things are not understandable, Craydor says, you pitiful old crow,” Brudoer returned. “I’m sure there is a dead fish or two down by the water. Why don’t you croak down there and eat them? And you, Bival, you snarling, wretched salamander, why—” The Protector had raised her arm, and the guardsmen gagged Brudoer.

  The Protector gestured upward with her hands. “It is clear that we can never let such hostility loose in our city again. Prepare the miscreant for punishment. Then he will be remanded to the third cell.”

  She sighed and rose to leave. One of the guardsmen by the wall shouted and pointed, and she turned back to see a number of boats, heavily laden, being launched into the wintry river. Men were hastily boarding and shoving off, paddling out into midstream.

  “Guardchief, stop them!” the Protector shouted. The guardchief yelled and gestured, and the guardsmen on the walls poured down the stairs toward the river bank. “Shoot them. Shoot them from the walls,” the Protector shouted, but the guardchief only turned, amazed.

  “It’s against the code, Protector. We cannot do that.” Then she turned and ran through a door toward the stairs, as the Protector opened her mouth to reply.

  In a matter of a sun width, the terraces were deserted except for the two guardsmen holding Brudoer, the Protector, her own guardsmen, and her council. One of the guardsmen remarked, “It’s hard to believe that two boys could cause so much trouble.” The Protector glowered at him, and he dropped his eyes.

  Bival descended the stairs to the first terrace and walked to Brudoer. She looked at him sadly. He looked at the sky above her head. Reaching out, she removed his ga
g. “He’s shivering,” she said to the guardsmen. “You’d better put his tunic back on.” Then she turned away, looking from the wall to see if Warret rode any of the boats now reaching midstream.

  The guardsmen found the remaining boats holed, so a detachment quickly gathered winter gear and prepared to follow the boats, running on the bank. The guardchief was worried. How many guardsmen might have planned the pursuit itself as their own way to Pelbarigan? Finally she chose twelve men she thought loyal and ordered them off. Soon they jogged north along the bank, frowning and squinting into the winter glare.

  7

  Far to the south, Gamwyn stood on the slanted roof of the main building at Jaiyan’s Station, sawing a large rectangular hole according to Jaiyan’s directions. He paused a moment for breath and glanced at the sky, which hung raw and gray. He shivered in the cold wind then resumed his sawing. The hole was to accommodate new whistles for Jaiyan’s organ. The big man had been so delighted at Gamwyn’s skill with tools that he pressed the boy into immediate service.

  The plan was to cut through the roof, then build an enclosure over the cut to cover the hole yet leave room for the tall whistles. The location of the new pipes demanded that two main support rafters be cut in half. But Jaiyan weighed too much to climb on the roof and do the job himself. New framing would restore the strength of the roof later. Just before completing the large cut, Gamwyn drilled a large hole in the sheathing to be removed and looped a rope through it, tossing the end down to Jamin, who waited outside on the ground.

  “Be careful, Jamie,” he called. “It’s going to be heavy. Better snub the rope end around something. Be sure and wear your gloves.”

  “No worry. I hold it.”

  Gamwyn wasn’t sure he could, but when the splintering of the last shreds of wood fiber began, the rope pulled taut, and the square of roof swung down and hung, then lowered easily and slowly inside. There seemed no limit to lamin’s strength. Looking down at the swinging roof square, Gamwyn felt the rush of warm air from inside, then the first pebbles of sleet from a new storm on his neck. He could see the upturned faces of Jaiyan and the old people inside watching the square descend. Jaiyan reached up for it and lowered it.

  “It’s beginning to sleet, chief,” Gamwyn called down.

  “I was afraid of that. That means we will have to erect the roof extension now. Wait’ll I loose this rope, and you can have Jamie tie on all the pieces.”

  Gamwyn studied the gray sky, cupping his hands around his eyes. It was after high sun and his arms ached from the sawing. Now he would have to build a great wart onto the roof, perhaps into the night. He ducked his head down through the hole again, studying the underside of the roof structure.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “I hope this will be able to hold all the new weight.” “Of course it will. We’ll brace it soon enough.”

  Gamwyn set to work, cutting and framing, then pegging siding and eventually roofing it over. Fortunately, almost all the material had been ready cut below. Soon the sleet fell steadily, and Gamwyn had to tie himself with a rope to keep from sliding off. Jaiyan would not hear of stopping. It would waste heat and allow sleet and melt to drip in, perhaps on the organ.

  As it grew dark, Gamwyn called for a lamp, and eventually two more. It was the third quarter before high night when he finished, throwing a large cloth over the new structure and tying it down. He could pull it off in the morning to recheck his workmanship in the light without ice or snow getting in the way. The roof felt spongy. Cold and wet had invaded his body, and he shivered continually. Once on the ground, he almost staggered inside, where old hands reached out to him with a blanket and a hot drink, leading him to the fire.

  After his drink, when he still could not stop shivering, he went to his sleeping shed to change into dry clothing. Misque’s face seemed watchful with worry. He returned to the main fire still cold. By then everyone but Misque had gone to bed. She took his hands and felt their cold, then put another cup of hot soup in them.

  “I don’t see how you stood it.”

  “That’s what the chief wanted.”

  “Still. I don’t.” She turned his head in her hands, feeling his cheeks, then rubbing them.

  “Your hands are soft.”

  “I don’t have much to do. I watch Jamie mostly. There are so many people here to do everything. They seem so happy to do it.”

  “Are you happy?”

  She looked startled. “Happy? I. . . I. . . That’s an unfair question. What is it to be happy? I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know. It has something to do with having people to do things for, and knowing that they appreciate it. And' to love—to love something. People, or Aven—or Atou, as Jaiyan calls him.”

  “That’s what you want?”

  “I want to be home.”

  “You can’t go on your fool’s journey, Gamwyn.” He looked at her. “But maybe . . .” She took his face in her hands again, then kissed him, not a short kiss of friendship but a long, searching lover’s kiss.

  Gamwyn sat startled, then gave himself to it, returning it, wondering, What am I doing? I’m too young for all this. I don’t want it. He felt her warm breath infusing him.

  Then she sat back. “Perhaps you’d better go. In the spring. But I...”

  Gamwyn lay back on the stone floor', and she lay next to him, cradling her head in his shoulder, her arm around him.

  “You have sympathy for the helpless, don’t you,” he said at last.

  “Yes,” she said into his shoulder. “Some. I think.”

  Some meaning hovered in the air, slowly settling on Gamwyn. What was she, coming from the east, passing through Peshtak country unnoticed, arriving alone, to be taken in by Jaiyan as another stray?

  “Why do you want to go back there—to Threerivers— when they were so awful to you?”

  “Threerivers? It was not so bad before the present Protector. We were controlled, but we were all like a huge family. And everything about the city is so finely made. It is Pelbar work, not only that but Craydor’s way.”

  “Craydor?”

  “She designed Threerivers hundreds of years ago. She set a standard we still try to keep up. At Threerivers they always try to do everything well. I see a little of it with Jaiyan and his organ. He’ll go to any amount of trouble for it. But the rest of this place is just a sort of shed—or a stack of sheds leaning on each other, almost like what we dry fish on.”

  “Things aren’t good, now—in Threerivers? What’s wrong?”

  Gamwyn felt his natural Pelbar defenses go up. The Pelbar seldom told others anything about themselves. The habit was a carryover from the old time of hostilities, when such silences were protection. “Oh, it’ll pass. I hope. The older people, especially the women, want the world to stand still. With the election of the new Protector, all their old feelings came welling up, and they now control the city the way it was before the great peace, but still it lacks something. They don’t listen. They only tell, tell, tell. That’s all.”

  “Is it weakening, then?”

  “Weakening?” Gamwyn sat up and looked at Misque. “You’re a Peshtak,” he whispered. Her face became hard and a momentary hatred blazed out of it. He raised his hands to his face. “Will you hurt them? You won’t let them hurt Jaiyan and the others, will you?” Misque rolled away and started to stand up, but Gamwyn held her.

  “Let me loose,” she hissed. “They’ll never believe you. You just try. You—”

  Gamwyn kissed her, as she had him, holding his mouth hard against hers, asking himself, Why? Why am I doing this? This is crazy. She is a Peshtak.

  Finally she wrenched her face away, gasping, “I don’t understand. You don’t make any sense at all.”

  “I won’t tell anybody. Look, Misque. Jaiyan is only like a Pelbar woman to me. I’m only a tool to him. He sharpens me, uses me, and when I wear out, he’ll throw me away. Look at me. I’m still cold to my bones. You saved my life on the river. I owe you. I wo
n’t tell. But you can’t let them be hurt.”

  She sat beside him, looking distant and distracted. “None of this has turned out as it was supposed to,” she said dreamily.

  “Maybe that’s better. But you’ll have to help me go on downriver now, and that’ll make sure I’ll never give your secret away.”

  “The Tusco will hurt you or enslave you.”

  “It would be the same if I stayed, wouldn’t it? Your people would come.”

  “Not if they turn north.”

  “To Threerivers? That’ll do them no good. They could never get into Threerivers. And if they did, they’d only die. Why, Misque? Why don’t you Peshtak just stay in the eastern mountains?”

  “The Innaniganis and the others are driving us out.”

  “Why?”

  “They want the coal in the mountains. And they are afraid of the disease.”

  “The disease—the one that rots away the face? Do you have it?”

  She looked at him, startled. “I ... I don’t think so. It is too early to tell. It comes later.” She began to tremble and bit her lip.

  “What is it?”

  “Who knows? We’ve always had it. Since before anyone can remember.”

  “Why don’t you send somebody with it to Pelbarigan? We have a physician there with the knowledge of the ancients, a very old man now. But he could maybe find a cure, then all of you could be free of it.”

  Misque laughed lightly, almost hysterically. “Who would do that for a Peshtak?”

  “A Pelbar would. They’d hope to gain your friendship and add you to the Heart River peoples. Then we could travel unhindered to the east, and trade with the eastern cities.”

  Misque sat silently for a long time as the fire hissed. Finally, looking down, she said, “None of this would work. Everyone has always been against us and hated us.”

  “You murder everybody you meet—even women and children. You are feared. In fact you’re the most ferocious people anywhere.”