Greg Bear - Songs of Earth 1 - Infinity Concerto

by Infinity Concerto (lit)

  He also confronted the fact that he would soon have to tell Eleuth he couldn't stay forever, that he didn't love her. He

  wasn't sure what he felt for her; gratitude, affection.

  But there was one image he couldn't erase from his mind: that of the Crane Women - immortal, but because of their human blood, changing with age. How long would it take for Eleuth to change?

  A few Breeds - a male and two females, all of that cast of features that indicated they were older than Eleuth, but how how much older he couldn't tell - were directing a horse cart along the road. They passed Michael without acknowledging his presence, holding their long heads high, their dull brown clothes rippling like fur beneath an unwanted touch. He turned to watch the cart, noting the wood-spoke wheels, the well-fitted but unornamented frame, the simplicity of the harness.

  At the inn, Brecker greeted him civilly while sweeping out the small lobby and told him Savarin was indeed back in his room. Michael climbed the stairs. Behind the wicker door, he heard Savarin humming to himself. Michael knocked on the wicker. "It's me."

  Savarin swung the door wide and smiled at him. "You've forgiven us, I hope?"

  "Yeah," Michael said. "I found a place in Halftown."

  Savarin invited him in and looked down the hall to see if anyone followed. "We want you to understand, it's not you we're afraid of."?

  "I know," Michael said. He didn't want to discuss it, but he knew Savarin would air the issue for a while. He sat on the edge of the washstand, lightly so as not to crush it.

  "It's just that we have to be careful. We stand between Lamia and the Sidhe, between rules that change from day to day. Have you had any trouble from the Crane Women?"

  Michael shook his head. "I haven't seen them. I came here-"

  "You still have to be careful. Where are you staying in Halftown?"

  "That isn't important," Michael said. "I want you to tell me what you know about Sidhe language. I can't get anywhere if I can't understand what they're saying."

  Savarin cocked his head to one side and lifted his eyebrows. "Tall order. You have to be largely Sidhe to pick up on all of the tongues. I'd say the resemblances between Sidhe and human languages are strong, but the syntax and methods of understanding are quite different. For example, the Sidhe use a metalanguage. a language of contexts. And Cascar is like a hundred languages thrown together. They never run out of words that mean the same thing, or very nearly. I can't speak it well. I can sometimes make myself understood, but."

  "I understood it for a time," Michael said. "During the Kaeli. One of the Crane Women touched my head, and I understood everything they said."

  "And what was that like?"

  Michael thought back. "Like listening to music. Each word seemed to be the equivalent of a note. Notes are always the same in music, but place them next to each other and they sound different. or lengthen the notes, shorten them. Use the same word in a different context, and it means something else. sounds different."

  "Perhaps you should be educating me," Savarin said.

  "But it didn't last. I don't remember anything from that night, except what they said. and even that's fuzzy. They were singing, but not singing. I need to know so-" He stopped himself. "I just need to know."

  "Because you still plan on leaving the Realm," Savarin said.

  Michael turned his eyes away and pointed his index fingers together.

  "I don't recommend that. First of all, Alyons will hunt you. No human can escape his coursers. Second, Lamia will resent even the attempt - and, as I've said before, I wouldn't want to cross her. I don't know what the Crane Women will do."

  "I haven't thought much about that," Michael said. "I'm just struggling. I don't want to be anyone's responsibility."

  "Just thank the stars you are," Savarin said. "I've known people to come here, Alyons takes them - and we never see them again - despite the Pact! We dare not object. To what end does he take them? Nobody knows. But you! You seem to be protected. He has not taken you. even though he's tried." He put his hand on Michael's knee and stared at him earnestly. "Go back. Keep up the training. It's for a purpose, I'm sure."

  "I don't see it that way," Michael said. Savarin shrugged.

  "Then we'll discuss Cascar and Nerb. Do you know the difference?"

  "No."

  Savarin explained that Cascar was a younger, less formal language. He believed it had arisen after the Sidhe returned to Earth, and that it was the proto-language out of which had arisen several of the major human language groups, the most familiar of them, for Savarin, belonging to the Indo-European branch. "Certainly the words sound familiar," he said. "Their word for us - a word which never changes, you notice? - is antros. Sometimes they call us males - wires, as in virile, no? - or female, geen, and the latter they apply to their females as well - but as a kind, we are always antros. A spit-word, so to speak.

  "As for Nerb, not many Breeds speak it, and none of the Sidhe I've encountered."

  "I haven't heard much about it, if anything. So say something to me in Cascar."

  "Pir na? Bed antros lingas ta rup la pistr."

  "What's that mean?"

  "'Why? Humans talk as if they have stone tongues.' It's something a Breed once told me. Lingas means both language and speaking and tongue. Context is important, and pitch, as in Chinese. There are other Cascar words for language, meaning eating with the tongue, spitting with the tongue, magic with the tongue. Calling birds with the tongue. All different."

  "How do they learn it?"

  'They're Sidhe," Savarin said laconically. "It comes naturally to them. Nearly every Sidhe and Breed I've met knows how to speak the human languages I'm familiar with. Do they suck the knowledge out of my mind? I don't know. But they only speak Cascar to us when they don't want us to understand, or when they wish to be belligerent." He paused, looking almost sad. "There's another language I've heard hinted at. I know almost nothing about it but mat it exists. One of its many names is Kesh. An unspoken language, used during the star-marches. Not, as you might suspect, a kind of ESP, but something different.

  "And to make things even more confusing, I'm tracking down evidence that the Sidhe picked up words from humans - words from tinker's cant, Celtic languages, etc.; picked them up during their last centuries on Earth. There is a section in 'Hudibras' by Samuel Butler - if I can remember." He screwed up his face in concentration and peered at the ceiling."'But when he pleased to shew't, his speech/ In loftiness of sound was rich;

  A Babylonish dialect

  Which learned pedants much affect;

  It was a party coloured dress

  Of patch'd and py-ball'd languages;

  Twas (Irish) cut on Greek and Latin

  Like fustian heretofore on sattin.

  It had an odd promiscuous tone,

  As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;

  Which made some think, when he did gabble,

  Th' had heard three labourers of Babel;

  Or Cerberus himself pronounce

  A leash of languages at once.'"

  "We're like little babies here," Michael said, sighing.

  Savarin nodded. "Now perhaps you can tell me why they simply haven't slaughtered us all?"

  "Do they hate us that much?"

  Savarin's expression brightened "Can you tell me anything about the Council of Eleu? Does that sound familiar?"

  Michael couldn't remember hearing anything about it.

  "Then listen closely. You're going to be associating with Breed and Sidhe more and more, whatever your personal wishes may be. Just listen for it. 'Council of Eleu.' And if you find out anything, tell me immediately! To answer your question, no, not all of them hate us. And the Council of Eleu has something to do with those who tolerate us."

  Something flashed into Michael's head and he struggled to keep it, to clarify it. A group of tall, pale figures talking about him. Something about his room in the house on Earth. but it was gone before he could grasp it. "I'll let you know if I hear anyt
hing," he said. "How's Helena?"

  "Well," Savarin said. "She worries we gave you the wrong impression, that you hate us, hate her."

  "I don't hate anybody," Michael said. "I'd like to talk to her some more."

  "Certainly. She's working now, I'm sure, but we could walk over later-"

  "No. I'll go myself. I have to ask her some things."

  "Certainly," Savarin said. His lips normally carried a slight sardonic smile; now the expression took on significance. "I believe there is something you must know, very soon."

  "What?"

  "Human sex is dangerous here."

  "Why?"

  "Such things are closely regulated. We do not want children. The Sidhe and Breeds can have young - we cannot."

  Michael just looked at him.

  "The people who have been here longest, and the Breeds, say it is because there are no seedling souls in the Realm. A human child is bom empty. A Sidhe or Breed child is expected to be that way, and already has an internal. how would we say. compensation. But human children are vessels waiting to be filled. They are filled by creatures from the Blasted Plain - Adonna's own aborted children, some say." He set his lips and waved off any further inquiry. 'Talk about it is considered obscene. No more."

  "There's just one other thing," Michael said. "I'm a young fellow - everyone keeps saying that - but why do humans put up with all this crap?"

  "What else can we do?" Savarin scrutinized him intensely, as if looking for something hidden in his face. Then the perpetual half-smile returned and the scholar leaned back, folding his hands in front of him and cracking his knuckles. "You'll learn soon enough," he said in a low voice. "Why not go and talk with Helena now. She should be done with her work."

  Michael didn't expect to be dismissed, but Savarin was obviously thinking about other things. Michael stood and held out his hand. Savarin grasped it and shook it loosely, then fluttered his fingers in the direction of the doorway. "Go on," he said. "And thank you for coming back. We thought we'd lost you when you ran away."

  Michael nodded and shut the wicker door behind him. Savarin resumed humming, keeping it low enough so it couldn't be heard more than a few feet outside.

  He snapped his fingers while he walked, caught himself, and stuffed his thumb into the fabric tie of his pants. It was early afternoon and the town was slowing down; shops were closing, people were strolling in pairs down the narrow streets, some heading for the ramshackle school, others just walking, talking. Michael saw an oriental man and woman speaking what sounded like Chinese.

  His last question - and Savarin's subsequent expression - kept echoing in his mind. Resistance seemed only natural when somebody oppressed you. Michael's father had often talked about his student days at UCLA - talk which had bored Michael slightly, but came back to him now as a model of how Americans, at least, behaved when they thought something was wrong. Michael wondered if the humans in the Realm could organize a protest, maybe set up a blockade. Keep Sidhe out of Euterpe at least. passive resistance.

  He grinned at how silly it sounded. Alyons would handle a blockade in short order. Some people would probably get killed. Maybe he'd be the first.

  He still found it hard to believe that he could die in the Realm. Death had been a difficult enough concept on Earth, but here, with everything topsy-turvy and so many fantastic phenomena, how could anyone actually die? So what if it wasn't a dream, he told himself. It wasn't exactly reality either.

  His reverie carried him to the steps below Helena's doorway.

  He walked up slowly, apprehensive. He nibbed his chin to check the length of peach-fuzz. A few of the real whiskers he had started were getting quite long now; he hadn't thought about them until this moment, but he wished he had a mirror and a pair of scissors to snip them off.

  He had a panicky moment just before knocking, when he told himself it would be best just to run away, head out across the -

  Helena opened the door.

  "Hi," he said, dropping his hand from his chin.

  "Hi yourself. I heard you breathing."

  "Yeah," Michael said. "I wanted to apologize for running away like that."

  "No apology needed," Helena said. She seemed subdued. She opened the door wider and invited him in, then left the door open and blocked it with a brick. "It must be rough on you. Confusing."

  "I guess. Anyway, that's no excuse to act like a little kid. To be rude, I mean."

  "I'm glad you came back," she said, standing a few feet away. "Would you like to sit?" They sat and Helena bit on a thumbnail, watching him but not really seeing him.

  "Is something wrong?" he asked.

  She seemed to reach a decision and leaned forward, staring at him earnestly. "Michael, will you swear something for me? Double swear? Because I'm taking a big risk."

  "What risk?"

  "Will you swear?"

  "Swear to what, Helena?"

  She stood nervously and paced in front of him, waving her arms as she spoke. "You're a sweet fellow, but you didn't understand what we meant yesterday. You know how strange you are, being taken care of by Breeds and so on."

  "I guess," Michael said.

  "Don't guess. Do you know?"

  "It's strange to me, that's for sure."

  "Well, it's even stranger for us. Nobody from here - I mean humans - has ever been given that treatment before. So it makes us wonder, are you a double agent or what? A Sidhe who just looks human?"

  "I'm not a Sidhe," Michael said, laughing.

  "No, I don't think you are. You sweat when you're nervous." She giggled and placed her hand reassuringly on his shoulder, letting the fingers linger, gripping him. "So you have to swear to me, you're not a double agent, you're not a plant or whatever put here to catch us."

  "I swear," Michael said.

  "Your eyes look so human," Helena said. "Such a nice green color. What's happened to you since yesterday?"

  Michael blinked at the change in subject. "I found a place to live in Halftown."

  "Oh, where?"

  "You wanted me to swear. I did. So what next?"

  Helena kneeled down before him. "You know Savarin. He's a scholar. There are other people you haven't met, except one of them came to see you that night they gave the dinner. When you came to town. A short, heavy fellow with black hair."

  Michael didn't remember him.

  "Well, anyway, he saw you, and th6ught sometime we'd have to decide whether to contact you."

  A bell rang in the town plaza. Michael went to the window to listen.

  "So you're contacting me," he said.

  Helena stepped up beside him. "That's the warning bell," she said, her voice quavering. "Alyons is here, or some of his riders. So I'll tell you quickly. We found a cache of Sidhe metal. Never mind where. Some people here are keeping it, making it into. things. A piano, for one. What I wouldn't give to hear a piano again! But they won't let us play it, of course, until after-" She stopped abruptly, her face paling. Hoof steps sounded in the narrow alleyway. "Michael!"

  "What?"

  "Are they after you, or did you bring them here?"

  "I'm not one of them," Michael said. She grasped his arm.

  "They're outside!"

  Alyons and two of his coursers paced at leisure on horseback toward the door at the end of the alleyway. Alyons glanced up and spotted Michael in the window. Michael pulled back.

  "Antros! Your presence is requested!"

  "They do want you," Helena said.

  "It looks that way."

  "Oh, don't tell them anything. I'm so frightened. Where will they take you?"

  "I don't know," Michael said. He stepped out into the hall and looked the opposite way. If he could only get back into that mindset again - - He turned to Helena and took her hand clumsily in his, having to grasp it twice before holding it firm. He had a crazy urge to laugh. "A piano, eh?"

  "Shh!"

  "That's not what I had in mind, but I guess that's pretty subversive."

  "Man-
child!" Alyons called.

  He kissed her hand and felt a flush of pride mix with his fear. A Sidhe appeared in the door at the bottom of the stairs. Michael unceremoniously pushed Helena back into her room and shut the door. He stood at the top of the steps, looking down on the courser with what he hoped passed for imperious disdain. "What do you want?"

  The courser began climbing, giving no answer. Michael looked to either side of the Sidhe, wondering if he could play the uncertain flower down the stairs. There was only one way to find out. With all his speed and concentration, he dashed down the steps, trying to send a shadow to one side and swerve himself to the other. The courser grabbed him without hesitation and placed him under one arm as easily as if he carried a trussed pig, then turned and marched out the door, presenting him to the Wickmaster.