Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  ‘This is pointless. Just pointless.’

  He didn’t shout. Razors hurt no less if gently applied. I wanted to sit down, I was shaking; there was nowhere in the dusty warehouse entrance to sit.

  ‘And childish. What do you want me to say? That I should have left you to die, when we were being hunted through the Fens? Blaize, for God’s sake!’ My voice echoed in the vaulted roof. I tried to speak with more restraint. ‘I’m here because there have to be negotiations between the Company and the Hundred Thousand. The Company would have come here with or without me, so don’t blame me for it!’

  He pushed himself away from the wall, stepped in front of me. Automatically, I tensed; aware of physical power. That silver-seamed burn made something unreadable of his face.

  ‘Does the Company trust you – S’aranth?’

  ‘Why the hell do you think I’m here?’

  He picked up the less obvious implication. ‘I know why you think you’re here.’

  ‘“Think”?’

  Sardonic, he said, ‘You think you can play both hands in the game. Be a friend, while being an enemy. Mercenary ethics, S’aranth? You report to the Company on t’an Clifford. Advise the t’an Rachel. The takshiriye hears these things. With your experience of us – the Company must find you very useful. If not trustworthy.’

  His feet scuffed the stone flags. I felt his presence; the warmth of the brazier. Caught off-guard and all the more angry because of it, I said, ‘What else can I do?’

  His reply was instant, and bitter. ‘Go back eight years. Tell me then that restricted contact means restricted as long as it pleases Earth, and then no longer. Tell me then what your coming here meant!’

  He reached out, rested one claw-nailed finger on the PanOceania logo on my shoulder; a heavy pressure. I wanted to grip that hand, impress on alien skin some vestige of my pain. I couldn’t speak.

  Blaize said, ‘I’ve been offworld. I’ve seen what the Companies do on other worlds. I’ve seen what they’ve done to Earth, grief of the Goddess!’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to prevent, you stupid bastard –’

  ‘You’re Company,’ he said, implacable. ‘While you’re in the Company, you’ll do what they tell you.’

  Ten years ago I would have been with you, and with Hal; discussing government and Company and what we might be able to do to cushion culture shock. And now I’m not. It hurts.

  I said, ‘The only way I can act as some kind of restraining influence on the Company is to stay in the Company. The governments can’t do a thing. And maybe that means I have to do some things that aren’t wholly defensible, but that’s the way things are – there isn’t any other way. Don’t tell me you’re part of the takshiriye and never do anything you can’t justify!’

  He let his hand drop back to his side. My shoulder ached.

  ‘S’aranth, I’ve heard that from mercenaries – “my Guildhouse ordered me to do this”.’ Blaize rested a hand on the hilt of harur-nilgiri. ‘The answer’s easy: leave that Guildhouse. Don’t say your hands are dirty but it isn’t your fault! You like to think you’re playing both sides – S’aranth. You’re not. Like goes to like. You’re offworlder. You’re Company. And I was a fool, eight years ago, to think different!’

  ‘You don’t have the right to say that to me!’ Then I stopped, and turned away. I stretched my hands out again to warm them at the brazier. Don’t take the past away from me as well.

  Why can’t we all of us get back to the way we were? That’s the perennial vain regret. The last time I came to the Freeport I was on the run, but at least I knew I was innocent of the accusation against me.

  ‘There isn’t anything else I can do!’

  Somewhere voices shouted, and winches creaked; and the smell of cooking came sourly from the companion-house a few yards away. Stone was cold underfoot. I tucked my hands up under my arms and shivered.

  ‘It’s a fine profession,’ Blaize Meduenin said. ‘You can leave your mistakes behind you when you leave a world. No one can tie you to the reparation of error. We can’t leave.’

  I couldn’t look him in the face and that made me furious.

  ‘You’re not my conscience. You don’t know the world I live in, but I do, and I know how to handle it, and I don’t need facile, simplistic judgements!’

  His voice came quietly from the interior of the warehouse behind me. ‘Christie, you can’t use ignorance as an excuse. Not you. Goddess, I was with you from Corbek to Shiriya-Shenin; I know that you know Orthe! I’m not Haltern, I don’t understand doing what’s wrong for the right reasons. When you were here before –’

  ‘You speak as though it was yesterday.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ I heard him sigh heavily. There was the quiet rasp of metal, as he shifted his stance, from the harness of harur-blades. ‘Grief of the Goddess, Christie, why come back? With a Company like this one? If you could stay away eight years, you should have stayed away for good.’

  It was as if he spoke his thoughts aloud. Very Orthean, that merciless honesty – and I call myself human. When I put that mental distance between us, I could turn and face him: ‘What you say is unforgiveable –’

  One word from him and I would have lashed out, but he only looked at me, that half-scarred face with a kind of innocent gravity in it. And pain. I sighed.

  ‘I usually handle matters better than this … Do you remember when we found each other, here, the first time I ever came to the Freeport? You were hiring out your services from the Mercenaries Guildhouse. I’ve – grown used to thinking of you as the one in a morally indefensible position.’

  ‘Do you seriously think I’m not?’ He grinned, twistedly, and stepped out on to the quay. And then looked back at me. ‘Because I tell you not to bring Earth technology here, not its harm, nor its benefits. I can say that for the telestres, the Hundred Thousand. We don’t need you. I can’t say it for all of Orthe – but I do, S’aranth, I do.’

  He turned away, squinting up at the buildings and the pale daystarred sky. Because there was nothing I could say to that, because I saw no hope of response or solution, I walked away into the cold Freeport morning; walking to find Molly Rachel where she was negotiating a journey to Rakviri telestre.

  Two hours and ten miles later, on the dirt-tracks of the Hundred Thousand, the skurrai-jasin swung eastwards, and I rested my arm on the carriage rail and shielded my eyes with my hand.

  ‘That Rakviri male wouldn’t say much about the old technology last night –’ Molly Rachel was thoughtful ‘– because Cassirur Almadhera is in this church of theirs. This technophobic church. I wonder, will that matter less on a telestre, or more?’

  ‘More,’ I said.

  The reptilian quadruped skurrai hissed, raising their narrow muzzles and pointed lips. Winter sun gleamed on their harness and metal-capped horns. The wooden jasin-carriage rocked and jolted. Open carriages are cold, the driver had bundled us in the black-and-white featherfur pelts of the zilmei carnivore. I fastened my coverall tighter at the throat, and flicked the temperature-control in the weave.

  Molly huddled in the pelts. ‘There’s a point on any Restricted world, when I’d swap all my principles about cultural contamination by hi-tech for a warm seat in a groundcar …’ And she grinned, exhilarated by the thought of possible discoveries ahead.

  We drove past grey boles of siir-vine, thick as a man’s thigh, that hugged the earth. Ahead, shapes resolved out of haze and glare. Grey stone, white stone; buildings with flat facades, and windows that – though copiously ornamented – are no wider than slots: difficult targets for winchbow bolts. Many buildings, all linked. I looked ahead, down through long colonnades, seeing how each block was joined to the next. Rooms, halls, courtyards; pens for marhaz and skurrai … an interconnected warren of buildings, the whole thing the size of a village.

  The jasin rattled into the courtyard. A great number of Ortheans were passing in and out of the buildings and yards, so we were partly concealed by the crowd. I glanced up, s
eeing a sky that glowed pale blue, freckled with daystars. As we dismounted from the carriage, a flock of rashaku-bazur rose up from the cornices of the surrounding halls, the scales on their breasts glinting, the beat of their wings like gunshots. They wheeled and flew seaward. Their cries were metallic, out-of-tune bells.

  An ashiren came to lead the skurrai-carriage away. Molly turned, boots crunching on the sea-gravel that floored the yard. ‘Now where – ah. That’s him.’

  A dark male pushed his way through the bustle. I recognized the patchmarked face of the night before.

  ‘Haden Barris Rakviri.’ He bowed. Barris, the child of Haden, of Rakviri telestre: so names go in the Hundred Thousand.

  ‘T’an Barris,’ the Pacifican woman acknowledged. Then: ‘I understood you to say there was a Witchbreed-technology artifact here that we can see.’

  His dark gaze flicked sideways at me, and I saw humour there. Her directness made me wince. It made him amused.

  ‘Several artifacts,’ Barris Rakviri said, ‘but I doubt that I can bring you to more than one. Still, that should be sufficient to begin with, I hope?’

  As a comment, it silenced Molly Rachel completely. He beckoned, and we walked towards a near entrance of the main building; walking briskly, because of the cold. Cages hung from the round-arched entrances, and in them squat lizardbeasts gripped the bars with spatulate fingers, and whistled a shrill alarm. The male Orthean glanced up, and silenced the alarm with a gesture.

  ‘You must meet the s’an Rakviri,’ Barris said. ‘It is tradition.’

  ‘And then –’

  ‘And then,’ he confirmed. I saw what I hadn’t noticed in Morvren, that he dragged one foot; it had a slight deformity. He was not as young as I’d thought him. His mane was fine and dark, braided down the spine, where his slit-backed coat showed crystal beads in the braiding; and he carried a stick of hanelys wood, partly for ornament, partly (I thought) for support.

  As we came to the entrance, I said, ‘What’s all the rush and bother here? Isn’t it a bit early in Orventa to begin trade-voyages?’

  ‘We’re shipping food east to Ales-Kadareth; it’s urgent, there’s famine in Melkathi province.’

  ‘Who ordered the telestre to do that?’ Molly asked. I could see her thinking of authority-channels.

  Barris halted momentarily, leaning on his stick and looking up at her. ‘The Kadareth telestre asked us. Would your Company have to be forced to do such a thing?’

  You can’t translate “order” into Morvrenni without it having that implication of force. Nor, indeed, into any other Orthean language with which I’m familiar.

  We passed a group of five or six Ortheans standing in an antechamber, and entered a long hall. Barris Rakviri glanced round.

  ‘Wait here. I’ll find the s’an Jaharien.’

  Molly opened her mouth to comment, and then her attention was caught by the hall. It had the air of a place hastily abandoned; I guessed all but a few Ortheans were helping with the food-ships. A few ashiren were still present. They glanced up with no great curiosity.

  ‘Lynne –’

  ‘Don’t say “this telestre is about to have an industrial revolution”. Please.’

  She stepped forward, feet planted squarely on the wood-tiled floor, raising her head to gaze round. Light shone on her dark features, in the silver-dusty air. She had almost the expression she’d worn in Kel Harantish.

  Books, scrolls, and manuscripts lined the walls. There were low worktables and benches the length of the hall. And there, tossed down carelessly on a hand-drawn map: an astrolabe. Next to it stood an orrery, finely made, planetary circuits corresponding to no known solar system. One low table held what might have been a powered loom, a length of chirith-goyen cloth spilling from it. I saw one ashiren, fair mane falling about its face, engaged in some machinery with cogs and pendulum; the other group of older ashiren had lenses mounted in a frame and were trying to focus the light from one window to burn a scrap of paper.

  Molly Rachel reached out to a table, and with one finger spun a wheel: pistons moved smoothly. A spirit-powered engine, no larger than a child could carry … She stared up and down that winter-lit hall, and then she nodded.

  ‘You reported something like this. That winter you spent in Shiriya-Shenin, in the north. This is their custom when travelling isn’t possible.’

  ‘For Orventa, winter season. They do this – and they fight, and make poems, and plays, and have arykei, lovers –’ Which are old memories. ‘The first time I saw it, I thought “industrial revolution”. And then at the end of Orventa, the spring Thaw Festival, I saw every last machine broken up, melted down … It’s their amusement, this.’

  ‘And the Wellhouses police it?’

  You want to believe that, I thought. Because that will mean you’ll be able to bribe the telestres with Earth tech – oh, Molly! ‘The Wellkeepers couldn’t make them do it if they didn’t already desire to.’

  Barris Rakviri reappeared, his halting footsteps easily recognizable. ‘I can’t find Jaharien, he may be down at the bay.’

  ‘Then perhaps you yourself could show us the Witch-breed artifacts,’ Molly Rachel said.

  And in case you’re wondering, t’an Barris, that wasn’t a suggestion … I wanted to throw my hands up; monomaniac determination is one thing, discourtesy quite another. But Barris inclined his head urbanely, and greeted one of the younger ashiren, asking for siir-wine.

  ‘T’an, I have to be a little careful. For you to see such artifacts … The s’an would not object. But to think of trading them to offworlders –’ Barris gestured with his stick at the remaining Rakviri Ortheans. ‘Were I Jaharien in such a case, I should fear the telestre naming a new s’an. So you see, we must be circumspect.’

  ‘And the church?’ I said.

  He smiled wryly. ‘Ah – the eminent Wellkeepers, the worthy Earthspeakers … T’an, they fail sometimes to perceive necessity. To learn, one must give up something. I would be willing to give, or rather trade, what Rakviri has.’

  Molly frowned. I could see it puzzled her, this attitude of telestre Ortheans: neither technophobe nor technophile.

  Some memory stirring – perhaps the implicit comparison with the Desert Coast – I said, ‘And the Hexenmeister in Kasabaarde? It always seemed to me there was some influence on the Wellhouses from there.’

  The “marshflower” that dappled his skin made his expression difficult to decipher. He said, ‘They say the Hexenmeister lives out the world from age to age, there in the Tower. What can he say to us, who live, and pass, and live to meet again?’

  It was that effortless Orthean transition from material to mystic. Many things are spoken in the telestre that you won’t hear said in the cities.

  As if fumbling for a landmark, Molly Rachel said, ‘Could you call the Kasabaarde settlement a political force here, as it is on the Coast?’

  ‘No …’ He turned as the fair-maned ashiren tugged at his sleeve, the child holding bowls of siir-wine. It spoke quietly to him: something I couldn’t catch.

  ‘Is he? I’ll go, then. T’ans, please wait; Cerielle will bring you anything you need.’ He went towards another exit, a narrow curtained archway; dragging footsteps fading. The ashiren remained staring up at us for a moment, and then in a comically adult manner shook its head and walked away to the group at the further table. This is the generation that has grown up with knowledge of offworlders: obviously we are no major sensation.

  ‘What the hell –!’ Molly Rachel frowned. ‘Well, I suppose you did warn me. Barris … His attitude seems to be that what we’re doing is halfway between heresy and, oh, stealing a museum exhibit … These people! This might be a major commercial proposition. Can’t they take it seriously?’

  Having drunk the hot siir-wine, I put the bowl on a nearby table; and we walked the length of the hall, and turned to walk back. Winter light fell through slot-windows, the pale brick walls here showing three foot thick. There were becamil cloth-hangings; zilmei pelt
s on the wood floor. Sounds echoed. I kept my voice low.

  ‘There always were a few Witchbreed relics in the Hundred Thousand. But I’ll tell you now, Molly, you’re not going to deduce the ontological basis of Golden science from a handful of defunct toys.’

  ‘If this is a blind alley, I still have to check it out. I know I shouldn’t have got us thrown out of Kel Harantish.’ Self-condemnation roughened her voice. ‘That was our first chance and I handled it badly – too eager to get in. We’ll have to get back there, Lynne. But, with respect, you don’t know what we might find in the Hundred Thousand, with a full research team. It may not all be defunct.’

  Being true, that irritated me.

  ‘While we’ve got a minute,’ she added, ‘you’ve had a chance now to sound Clifford out. What can we expect from him?’

  ‘Firm support of the status quo: keep Carrick V a Restricted world. He doesn’t like multicorporates.’

  ‘Jesus, the Service! – but I can short-circuit that, we’re not obliged to have him present on all occasions.’

  ‘It might be politic if we did. Why cause friction – until it’s necessary?’

  She stopped, resting her hands on the back of a couch-chair lined with the grey-and-white featherpelt of the zilmei. I waited.

  ‘I’m not going to have time to attend to all the little details,’ she said. ‘Suppose you handle liaison between the Company and the Service, Lynne?’

  Good grief, I thought. ‘You know I was Service myself, once.’

  ‘Then you’ll know how their minds work.’

  There was a challenge in her sudden, direct gaze. I don’t appreciate amateur manipulations of my loyalty. But nor do I turn down an advantageous position when it’s offered.

  ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘In a strange way, it’s what I’ve been doing, groundside, for the past four years.’

  The light in that hall shone silver against black shadows, glinted on metal in one corner where a complex structure of mirrors, prisms, and lenses projected up to a skylight-dome. Scrolls lay at its foot, scribbled over with notations of star positions: the milliard stars of day and night sky.