by Mary Gentle
‘I believe I’ll see what the inside of a siiran looks like.’ He switched to what would be unintelligible to David Osaka: Oldworld Anglo: ‘If you tell these people about the grand and glorious benefits to be had from trading with PanOceania, I’ll tell them the other side of the story.’
‘Douggie, don’t let me offend you, but there are times when you’re a liability …’
I followed Feriksushar and Sethri under the arched entrance, seeing inside (as I pulled off the eyeshields) a flight of steps spiralling down below ground level. Doug muttered, rubbing his eyes. I felt muscles relaxing, knew I’d unconsciously been hunched up against the impact of Carrick’s Star.
We descended the steps, going deep underground. The air became warmer, but not with the parching dry heat of the land above. This was humid, and smelled of dank earth. Sunlight began to be replaced by reflected mirror-light. Bare feet scuffed the stone steps. Going down, still: sweat sprang out, and I wiped my face. The light from below brightened. Sethri looked back and smiled. The steps made a right angle and ended abruptly, and the passage opened out.
For a moment we jostled together. Total confusion swept round me: Ortheans milling near other entrances; shrieking ashiren; mercenaries stacking cargo. It took a long second to absorb the impact of what I was actually seeing.
The eye was taken up immediately to the bright roof of this underground chamber, thirty feet above our heads. A long, flat expanse of semi-translucent substance, shimmering with rainbow lights; and from it fine streams of water ran in channels, down into tanks of earth. Walls, ceiling, floor: all cold and seamless chiruzeth. Garden-sized tanks flanked pathways, vanishing into distant perspective. Tall knobbed del’ri-stems rose two metres high, near to harvest; and the crimson leaves of arniac grew in profusion.
‘Skit!’
Doug, at my elbow, murmured, ‘I couldn’t agree more …’ in a causal tone at odds with his blank, amazed expression.
There were two levels of chambers set back into the chiruzeth walls. Looking carefully, I could see where wall corners were rounded instead of sharp, but not by design – by erosion. Two and a half thousand years after the Golden Empire’s fall … And I looked up into that opaquely-lit space, smelling the stink of used air, and realized that the roof of this vast structure must somehow be underneath, and a part of, the chiruzeth base-channel of the canal.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the rippling light, I saw how the water for the tanks ran sometimes in open channels, and ran sometimes within the substance of the chiruzeth itself, moving back up into the main channel of the canal. I thought, This is seawater, something must purify it before it reaches the earth-tanks and the plants, something must make it circulate … functional chiruzeth.
‘This wasn’t our siiran until Wintersun-10. Sethri and the mercenaries took it from hiyek-Rythana in the war,’ Jadur said. He and the older woman, Feriksushar, went to clear away the crowd. I saw them answering excited questions.
Doug Clifford walked forward to the edge of the nearest chiruzeth tank and buried his hands in the earth. It was as if he needed that touch to convince him of reality. I followed, splashing through mud and water that pooled on the chiruzeth floor.
‘How … how many of these siiran are there?’
When I looked for Sethri, the shabby yellow-maned male was leaning against the wall. He met my gaze. There was something almost protective in the way that he watched us – seeing us as naïve aliens? As prospective allies? Enemies? That maturity that he had seemed to lose under Feriksushar’s contempt returned to him.
‘Too few for all the hiyeks, shan’tai Christie.’
Still stunned, I walked to stand beside Doug, oblivious to the curious stares from the crowd.
‘Ten years’ contact with Carrick V, and no word about this?’ Douggie shook his head, incredulous. ‘I had imagined the canals to be like the Rasrhe-y-Meluur, only a chiruzeth shell. This …’
‘You’re right. The silence is positively deafening.’
I touched the cold chiruzeth tank, aware of the smell of warm, wet earth, of del’ri growing, and scrub-arniac. The contrast made me dizzy. That gleaming blue-grey material, eroded by time; force-grown vegetation; and the shabby malnourished Ortheans of the Coast …
‘Who would conceal this?’ Doug asked, and then answered his own question: ‘The Kel Harantish Ortheans, of course. They maintain the canals, they have the monopoly of technology. Earth science might upset the balance of power.’
Pathrey Shanataru wants it upset, I thought. And so does the Voice. Kel Harantish is divided, there’s a faction that wants contact with Earth … ‘Dear God, what got started when someone managed to plant one Witchbreed artifact where an archeological team could find it!’
Clifford brushed earth fastidiously from his fingers. ‘Undoubtedly. And how many times has that been tried and prevented, I wonder, in the past ten years?’
I felt curious glances from the hiyek-Orxheans; was aware of Sethri-safere’s hawk-poised patience. What might these people want from us …?
Sethri put one six-fingered hand to the chiruzeth: ‘Do offworlders recognize this? A “Witchbreed abomination”, some call it. We could not live without it.’ He smiled, briefly. ‘That, and Kel Harantish, who keep it living. Shan’tai Christie, all the great hiyeks exist between Kel Harantish’s power – and the power of Kasabaarde.’
The light shone from the ceiling, from the walls; made his young face angled and alien. Dust in that yellow mane, meshabi-robe stained with travel; a beggarly commander of mercenaries. And yet he’s testing the extent of our knowledge, I thought, and he isn’t slow to do it, either.
Deliberately bland, Doug said, ‘You have the crops and water that Kel Harantish must have to survive. Some might call it a fair exchange, shan’tai. And then, on the other hand, Kasabaarde is only a small settlement, primarily interested in regulating trade between the two continents. Why should the hiyeks fear Kasabaarde?’
The young Orthean male laughed. He stood lightly, one hand on the hilt of a hook-bladed knife; and self-confidence came off him like a glow. ‘Say “this hiyek” or “that hiyek”, the hiyeks have no unity! We have been fighting each other since the Empire fell, and left us in this wilderness.’
He sobered, and the nictitating membrane slid back from those tawny eyes. The humid heat made me dizzy, and slightly sick; symptoms that are often indistinguishable from fear.
I said, ‘It’s true the Tower has some authority on the Coast. I saw that last time I came to this world. Ten years ago, the Hexenmeister stopped a war between Kel Harantish and the Hundred Thousand, by threatening to close the Coast seaports to their ships. But what does that have to do with the siiran?’
‘Without siiran, this land would be empty.’
Sethri reached across the chiruzeth rim of the tank, squeezed earth in one claw-nailed hand, and let it drop. Behind him, tanks of green del’ri stretched in diminishing perspective.
‘We live in the ruins of what is past, here. Live and starve! Even for that we depend upon Kel Harantish – depend upon their knowledge of the past, and those whose mere shadow the Harantish Witchbreed are: the Golden. And Kasabaarde condemns us for it –’
He spoke with such passion and speed that Douggie looked bewildered, losing track of what he said; and I had no time to analyse a moment’s fear: I remember this too well. Put that aside, face it later.
Sethri took hold of my arm above the elbow, a strong and painful grip.
‘If you know the Tower, shan’tai, you already know how they hate the Witchbreed abomination above all things. The Tower won’t let the hiyeks build again – we’re barely suffered to live as we do! The Hexenmeister of Kasabaarde keeps us as we are!’ He visibly recovered the self-possession he’d lost. ‘You offworlders, you’d call it a … a spiritual authority that the Tower has. Speak to my brother-in-raiku Jadur, or to Feriksushar, and they’ll tell you we can live no other way. We have been born to no other way for two millennia.’
&n
bsp; I looked at him until he loosed his grip on my arm. There was no apology in his face. Young, violent, impulsive … Some touch of the old professional empathy made me think, There’s more to you than that.
‘I’ve waited for offworlders to come to the Coast,’ Sethri said. There was an arrogance about him that was entirely unconscious. ‘I know other raiku in hiyek-Anzhadi who are of my mind. I don’t speak for hiyek-Anzhadi alone. There’s a double stranglehold on us, Kel Harantish and Kasabaarde, and we have to break it.’
‘That’s plain speaking,’ I said.
He grinned, with all the Orthean addiction to open conspiracy and cautious foolhardiness. ‘It’s more than that, it’s rash. But now you offworlders have come to the Coast, matters will move with speed. As they should.’
When the filtered light ceased to dazzle, other things beside chiruzeth became visible in the siiran. I looked down at ashiren, their faces thin, all eyes; and saw how half the garden-tanks were barren, not sown with any crop. The unloaded cargo now proved to be del’ri-grain, and was being doled out by Feriksushar in scant handfuls. It’s not merely human prejudice, I thought, this is a place that’s badly overcrowded.
I thought of Molly Rachel, back in the Freeport; tasting the sharp irony that it should be me to find exactly what PanOceania is looking for. Functional Witchbreed technology.
Doug, white about the mouth, said, ‘From the point of view of personal safety, don’t you think our position is a little exposed?’
The palms of my hands were wet. I heard the clatter of blades, where mercenaries unloaded cargo: armed mercenaries in a siiran. Orthean factions – those who want to use human technology, and those who want to keep it off Orthe at any cost. Those who abominate Witchbreed science, and those who want to revive it, or to keep its remnants to themselves … Few friends to Earth, and many enemies. And at Kel Harantish, ten days ago, there was the ricochet of a winchbow-bolt …
I raised my wristlink, keyed for open-channel.
The Company can’t know what effect it might have here, won’t see anything but the canals. It’s true that Witchbreed science doesn’t affect the Hundred Thousand, but here – here it’s life. And subsistence-level life, at that. Oh, I can see why the Brown Tower is (like the Wellhouses) against the old technology; it’s the ruin of this continent in old wars that has made the Coast so barren. I can see why the Hexenmeister is determined there should never be another Golden Empire. But what about this shit-poor, fight-against-starvation hiyek –
‘If we’d known the poverty was this bad …’ Doug glanced at me. ‘You’re calling the Company.’
‘They’ll come, irrespective of what I do. And if I don’t report, Pramila or David will.’
It will have to be a relay: to David outside the siiran, to Pramila in the grounded shuttle, to the orbital ship and then to Morvren Freeport. Upon such fragile links, we depend.
‘Look at it from the practical point of view,’ I said sardonically. ‘The more widespread the knowledge, the less personal danger to those of us who are here first.’
I didn’t hesitate. I saw Jadur returning, with the woman Feriksushar and other Ortheans; and despite his stare, despite being watched with keen intensity by Sethri-safere, there in the chaos of del’ri-grain distribution and children shrieking, I opened the comlink channel and sent out the alert.
Sethri waited until I finished.
‘I’ll take ship for Maherwa soon,’ he said. ‘Come with me, shan’tai. Word will have gone out. You offworlders may find it safer, now, to be moving targets.’
11
The Legacy of Kasabaarde
Activity on the Coast is impossible for several hours around midday, and so extends well into second twilight and the night. A few hours later, the metal barge sailed north under a sky blazing with the Heart Stars, on a cold canal that reflected back the silver brilliance.
‘Cities are supposedly neutral territory,’ Doug offered. We shared a del’ri-fibre blanket, huddled on the deckhouse bench. I nodded.
‘I hope you’re right …’
Sethri crossed the deck, leaving David Osaka talking with the copper-maned Jadur of Ninth raiku. An older male walked beside Sethri. Although he had the pale skin and mane of the Desert Coast, I was somehow reminded of the Earthspeaker Achil.
‘This is Hildrindi-keretne,’ Sethri said.
The elderly male had a thin face, the skin about his pinched mouth shadowed with illness. I said, ‘Kethrial-shamaz keretne. Give you greeting, Eldest.’
Doug Clifford shot me a puzzled look. I couldn’t account for it – wrong dialect? If I could remember which language I’m speaking, I thought, things would go better. Coast speech is beginning to seem like second nature … My vocabulary translated keretne as “eldest”, but that doesn’t refer to biological age. It’s wordplay: keret can mean “truth” or “memory”.
‘You know keretne?’ Sethri frowned.
‘I know that you –’ I bowed to the faded, elderly male ‘– carry the remembered history of your people, as Earth-speakers and Wellkeepers do in the Hundred Thousand.’
‘Their memory is of the mind,’ Hildrindi said, ‘ours is of the blood. Give you greeting, s’aranthi. You will meet other keret in the city. We will have much to say to you.’
He inclined his head, and walked on across the deck, bare high-arched feet soundless on the metal. There was a pause. Then Sethri took his gaze from the distant keretne, and rested one hand on my shoulder. I felt the indentation of claw-nails through the cloth.
‘I came to give you some advice, shan’tai Christie, if I may. There’ll be mercenary companies in Maherwa, now the fighting with Rythana is done. Why not hire one for your protection?’
‘Oh my God.’ Doug shut his eyes for a moment, and then smiled with an unshakeable public face. ‘Indeed. Thank you … Lynne, if there’s a company from a Guildhouse, one could do worse. I’ve learned to trust their code, over the years.’
‘It could serve as a visible warning,’ I speculated. Also, paid mercenaries hear (and repeat) things that wouldn’t be said in front of offworlders.
There is a time to dispense with subtlety. It would be ridiculous, if I didn’t have the whole weight of Earth’s name behind me, and if we weren’t stuck in a hostile wilderness; and as I did it, I thought, It may be ridiculous anyway … but I don’t underestimate the Orthean capacity for violence.
I stood, letting Sethri see the holstered CAS-IV, letting that remind him by implication of the shuttle, and Earth. ‘We’re not entirely defenceless,’ I said.
Thinking, Douggie don’t laugh. A pair of middle-aged adventurers, both of us would be better with desk jobs; I can be excused for attempting the bravado of the young, can’t I?
I saw, by starlight, Doug Clifford look up, and give me an anxious and encouraging nod.
Six hours later we docked at Maherwa.
Water lapped at the chiruzeth steps, where the canal came to an apparent dead end. Stepping from the deck, my legs felt unsteady. Doug joined me, and we followed Sethri-safere, walking towards a sheer edge and a void.
Above, the dome of the sky was half pearl, half indigo; stars temporarily hidden. Dawn on the Coast is rapid. Already there was enough light to see the city.
The chiruzeth fell away vertically at our feet. I stopped, catching hold of Doug’s arm. Across a space of air, shimmering with the beginning day’s heat, the far edge was visible: a cliff-face, curving round. To look down into that vast circular pit made my head swim. The emptiness pulls … I dragged my gaze back.
Ten yards to my left, the cliff-edge split, a paved road going down; spiralling on a long curve to the flat canyon floor. As it descended, it ran beneath overhangs until it became a part of the cliff-wall. Set further back into the sides of the pit were the arched entrances to chiruzeth rooms … the eye following that curve down and away. Vast as a meteor-crater, but with the shaped edges of Witchbreed construction, this pit-city of the wasteland.
Dawn became a brazen flare
in the east, flooding the world with white light.
‘Come down,’ the yellow-maned Orthean said.
I felt a slight breeze, and smelted cooking-fires, as we set foot on the paved way. Walking down, heat sucked all energy away, put a rim of perspiration under collar and cuffs, even with the temperature-weave adjusted. Then we passed into the shadow of the overhang. The tunnels and archways were crowded with Ortheans: small, slightly-built, with bleached skins and pale manes, and the meshabi-robes belted at the hip, woven with metal-fibre patterns. They stared. I smelled the musty-spicy odour of the crowded city, tasted the gritty dust. All the time I was aware of the yawning emptiness at my right-hand side.
Douggie glanced back; I caught a glimpse of David Osaka, and the keretne-Orthean following.
‘Satellite images give no idea, do they? This is … impressive.’
I bit back a comment, seeing Doug Clifford’s face. It showed that fear of isolation that makes the mouth go dry.
Young ashiren crowded closer now. Dirty lengths of cloth veiled the rooms set into the cliff-wall; beyond them were cluttered chambers. Babies whined. A child ran past me, limping, and I glimpsed ulcers on the stick-thin limbs. An anonymous voice hissed ‘Witchbreed!’, and a group of young males laughed and fell silent as we went by.
None of us spoke. It was a long walk. I said nothing until we had come nearly to ground level, on the opposite side of the pit to the dock. Dawn put a curved shadow across half the flat expanse of the pit-floor.
‘Is that –?’ And then I couldn’t finish the question.
The shadow fell short of the only structure to break that flat expanse. Holo-images had given no clue to its size – it was as large as the grounded shuttle.
A dome or half-globe rested on a tier of circular steps, and where the edge of the dome met the steps, I could make out the deeper darkness of an entrance. A carved archway. Three squat pillars were set at equidistant points round the dome, and set back into the steps, so that they touched the dome-wall. The top of the pillar nearest to me was broken. There were carved statues on the other two, but erosion and dawn light left no detail – only a hint of claws, wings, scales. At one time, quite plainly, all the surfaces had been painted: scarlet, yellow, and blue. Now the paint was chipped and peeling, chiruzeth showing underneath it.
