Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  ‘Got any more like that?’ I slipped automatically into colloquial Peir-Dadeni, that Santhil wouldn’t know. ‘Don’t think I can take too many shocks to the system – very funny, Hal.’

  He gave way and chuckled, resting a claw-hand on my arm. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t glad to see the old rogue, I thought, quelling exasperation. There was laughter in his eyes, and that paradoxical Orthean combination of humour and utter seriousness.

  ‘What can we do for you?’ I repeated.

  ‘You can help make certain that the right man has a chance to become T’An Suthai-Telestre.’

  I must have glanced at Nelum Santhil because the dark male shook his head. ‘Not myself, t’an S’aranth. I only support this.’

  It’s the s’ans who name one of their number to become T’An of a province, but to take the Crown one must – in the great Wellhouse below the Citadel, under the eyes of all gathered there – name oneself. So at the heart of all telestre politics and intrigue there is this final, public honesty.

  ‘Who? Not you, Hal?’ It would be like him to ask.

  ‘Blaize n’ri n’suth Meduenin,’ the old male said. ‘The Rimon s’ans want to name him T’An Rimon and he won’t hear of it; if he’s not T’An, he can’t take the Crown, and I think – Christie, disagree with me if you can – I think Blaize Meduenin is the best T’An Suthai-Telestre we could have now. Christie, we want you to talk to him!’

  It stopped me dead. ‘Why him? And why me?’

  ‘He’s been a mercenary,’ Nelum Santhil said. ‘We need a Crown who knows how to fight, and who knows how to avoid fighting. All Howice T’An-Roehmonde knows is how to keep himself T’An; Geien T’an Ymir isn’t trusted, he’s been out of the Hundred Thousand too often; and The Kyre’s too remote a province for people to know Bethan T’An Kyre –’

  ‘Romare Kerys-Andrethe will be T’An Rimon if Blaize won’t, and Romare is a fool,’ Hal said. He clasped six-fingered hands on the top of his staff, and stared down at the dusty floorboards. When he raised his head, his gaze had all the intensity of a younger man’s. ‘Why you? Christie, you know him. You crossed the Wall of the World in his company. He’ll listen to you because …’

  ‘Well?’ I prompted.

  The old male said thoughtfully, ‘Because you and he should have been arykei, and he let the time go past. I don’t say it lightly, but you’re one of the few people that he trusts. If you tell him he should be T’An Rimon he’ll believe you.’

  Hal, you don’t change. Always manipulating people, always working behind the scenes …

  ‘He’d make a good T’An Suthai-Telestre and perhaps it would be a good thing for the Coast if he were. I’m not convinced it would be the best thing for us.’

  Hal looked at me shrewdly. ‘“Us”?’ Now is that the Company, or your government, or some other faction on Earth that we know nothing of?’

  Voices from the street echoed in the silence, and rashaku cried. Kekri-flies danced in the window-arch, glittering blue and green. There was the scent, faint now, kazsis-nightflower.

  ‘Talk with him,’ the old male said, in his own Peir-Dadeni tongue. ‘Talk to him, and make up your own mind …’

  I looked at him. ‘Three words occur to me.’

  ‘“I’ll do it”?’ Haltern suggested hopefully.

  ‘“Devious old bastard …”’ I managed to translate the sense of the expression. He laughed. Nelum Santhil looked at us both in bewilderment.

  ‘I’m a little worried about something else at this moment,’ I said, ‘as I haven’t seen Corazon Mendez today –’

  ‘Commander Mendez is with Romare Kerys-Andrethe, in the barracks at Hill-Damarie. Now if that eases your mind,’ Hal said drily, ‘you can answer my question.’

  I said, ‘Where will we find Blaize Meduenin?’

  Skurrai-jasin jolted across the Square, the squat reptilian beasts treading down mossgrass that had rooted between the paving-stones. Their shaggy coats and cropped, metal-capped horns gleamed in the sun. Like the others, our drivers avoided the shuttles that stood locked and silent at the south end of the Square. Across at the cliff-walk, twenty or so young Ortheans with curved knives were hacking back the vines and creepers. Above, the Citadel merged with the cream-blue sky. A warm haze put blurred shadows on the stone.

  Haltern signalled the skurrai-carriage to pause, spoke to a male leading a marhaz, and several yards further on did the same thing, this time talking to a young female who led one of the beasts of burden. As the skurrai-jasin halted before the gates of the great Wellhouse he said, ‘A week to the naming. We’ll be ready. Ah, yes … you’ll find Blaize in the Wellhouse here.’

  I got down from the carriage and then paused, resting one hand on the brightly-painted wood. I studied the unremarkable face of Nelum Santhil.

  ‘The T’Ans Melkathi had bad luck when you were their Portmaster, t’an Santhil, I wish you better luck with yours.’

  The dark male winced. ‘T’An Haltern said you had a sharp wit. Are you still so bitter for your Orhlandis arykei?’

  Haltern eased himself down from the carriage-step, clattering his staff. He made a gesture to the driver and the skurrai-jasin jolted away. Carrying Nelum Santhil to whatever other business a T’An Melkathi might now have.

  ‘My Orhlandis … arykei?’

  ‘The tale’s told that way.’ Haltern smiled. ‘If it doesn’t have you and Blaize arykei. Or you and Howice T’An Roehmonde.’

  Ortheans must have a very curious idea of human sexual appetite. Howice?

  ‘Ruric Orhlandis won’t come back to the Hundred Thousand, Christie, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  He took my arm, leaning heavily on it. We walked up the steps and into the courtyard, where a crowd was in evidence; some talking, some cleaning, some eating. Many hailed the new Seamarshal of the Freeport with respect.

  ‘Hal, about Ruric’

  He paused, leaning on his staff. The sun gleamed on that wispy, cropped mane. I saw he still wore a harur-nazari blade at the belt of his white, slit-backed robe. Haltern Beth’ru-elen: come off the sidelines at last, come out of the political shadows to be recognized as Seamarshal T’An Morvren.

  ‘Blaize told you I made her exile … permanent.’ Those pale eyes were less harassed, more adamantine. Then he said quietly, ‘I tell myself she was traitor, land-waster, exile; she would become a leader for our enemies, there was nothing else I could do, and still I don’t believe it.’ He paused. ‘She dreamed no other lives. I often wonder now, will she return from the Goddess’s realm? Or had she so much Golden blood that she died as they did, with no rebirth?’

  It was a physical pain not to say ‘she’s alive!’ I have risked her secrecy once, I can’t do it again.

  I let the silence stretch out. The old male at last began to walk on, turning his steps towards the Wellhouse entrance on the far side of the courtyard. I held his arm.

  ‘There,’ Haltern said.

  Blaize Meduenin stood outside the arched entrance with a group of dark-maned Ortheans. Five or six young males and females, with chain-girdled tunics, and faces masked in scarlet, ochre, and indigo paint. From the Rainbow Cities, the subtropic lands of the far south. With them was a thin male, mane a black barbed-wire tangle, tanned skin marked at ribs and hip with old white scars. Untanned leather garments marked him as being from one of the nomad tribes that live in the dead cities over the Wall of the World.

  Haltern walked through the entrance into the dome-hall, beckoning for Blaize to follow. The fair-maned male excused himself from his companions. As we met, I had time to think how small the dome seemed, how shabby the tiers of stone seats leading down to the Wellmouth, and then the smell of the becamil-wax candles hit me; the candles they always used to illumine this dim amphitheatre. I felt as if someone had scooped my chest cavity out hollow.

  ‘T’An Morvren, t’an Meduenin, give you greeting.’ A dark-maned Wellkeeper bowed as he passed us, hurrying down the tiers towards a group of other Wellke
epers and Earthspeakers. Young ashiren in Wellhouse robes came respectfully to offer herb-tea. Hal waved them away. Blaize’s eyes met mine. He smiled. And then must turn aside to answer a query from a s’an in Ymirian dress; reassure him and send him away.

  And here we are, I thought. Hal, frail and silver-maned, but with all the dignity of the Seamarshal about him; Blaize, whose Rimon boots and britches and sleeveless jacket were all fine; chirith-goyen cloth and marhaz leather. Here we stand, deferred to, respected; where Suthafiori and SuBannasen and Orhlandis once stood, when Blaize was a shabby mercenary, and Hal a spy, and I nothing but wide eyes and youthful enthusiasm.

  ‘Would you have believed this?’ the stocky male said, and that half-scarred face twisted into the old smile.

  Hal eased himself down on to the stone tier. ‘Not when you hunted us at Oeth, into the Great Fens.’

  ‘Not in Corbek,’ I said, ‘when you gave false evidence against me in a Wellhouse trial.’

  Blaize grinned at that. Then he stood looking down at Hal, and his expression became serious. ‘I was a mercenary then. I was under contract, following orders. That’s the way I like it. You must know that through the years I served you in Morvren, I never wanted to be T’An.’

  Haltern cupped his six-fingered hands over the top of his staff. He sighed, that frail body sagging. ‘We’ve been friends for too many years to talk of “service” – or am I wrong in that?’

  ‘No,’ Blaize protested. He looked helplessly to me. ‘Tell him, S’aranth. Why not leave the telestres to deal with the Coast, as they’ve always done?’

  Haltern put in sharply, ‘You’re a soldier. You know the difference between raiding ships and an invasion.’

  ‘And there’s Earth technology to be taken into account,’ I said. ‘Earth weapons. You’ve – we’ve – got to make peace with the Coast. Or else the Company’s going to let Cory’s troops loose, and their stopping a war can be as nasty as others starting one. Blaize, you’re trusted, the s’ans listen to you, for God’s sake realize you have to take a stand. Be T’An Rimon. Be whatever else you have to.’

  He looked at me consideringly. Aware of falling into rhetoric, I thought, How do I say what I mean?

  ‘And if what the Hundred Thousand decides doesn’t please Earth?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t give a shit about Earth –’

  They both turned startled eyes on me. I felt unprotected. The one still young, the other old: soldier and politician … In my panic I looked round to see if I’d been overheard. Doug Clifford was down in the group of Earthspeakers. Cory Mendez came in by the other entrance on the far side without Romare Kerys-Andrethe. And then I saw Blaize smile, saw a silky humour in Hal’s eyes.

  ‘That’s a dangerous fence to step over,’ Hal said quietly. ‘No going back. Your people, if they know, wouldn’t let you.’

  Blaize cut in with, ‘Does it matter?’ and embraced me; and then stepped back, and said to Haltern, ‘You, Beth’ruelen. Will you name yourself T’An Suthai-Telestre when Midsummer comes?’

  Those pale eyes veiled. Candlelight and light from the roof-slot put shadows on his face; Hal’s face, that I never could read easily. He said, ‘If I were a younger man.’

  And Blaize, very soberly, said, ‘I can’t carry the weight of it. I’m a fighter, not a politician. All I’ve learned from the years in Morvren is that no one knows enough to give orders to all the Hundred Thousand.’

  I said, ‘No one ever knows, but someone has to take the decisions all the same.’

  His scarred face was shrewd. ‘You push us into your patterns.’

  ‘Either you’re being cowardly,’ I said, and saw the flare of anger on his face, that twisted the scar into something monstrous, ‘either that, or you know your own limitations. I don’t know. You’d better find out soon.’

  ‘Yes,’ Haltern said, ‘we don’t have much time.’

  We both push you unfairly, I thought. From our assumed positions of superiority, trying to force you into something we won’t or can’t do.

  And if I were T’An Suthai-Telestre? In this my city of Tathcaer, a charmed midsummer circle, and outside it the warships of the Coast, Sethri’s hungry face, the dream of Empire in Kel Harantish, and the offworlders who began by bringing knowledge and end by bringing guns –

  ‘Yes,’ Blaize’s voice interrupted, and I looked up to meet his gaze: he spoke as if he could read my thoughts.

  I said, ‘I’m sorry we ever came here. To Carrick V.’

  He stood with his chin a little raised, claw-nailed hands resting on harur-blades. His gaze travelled round the hall – to the men and women in all the different fashions of Melkathi, Rimon, Roehmonde, Morvren, The Kyre … to the plain brown brick of the dome, and the shaft of light that plunged from the roof-slot to the black mouth of the shaft of the Well. The hum of voices rose and fell. Becamil-wax candles spluttered. A warm breeze drifted in from the courtyard, bringing the scent of kazsis and marhaz dung and cooking-fires.

  He said, ‘Kerys Founder marked out the telestre boundaries. That was after the Empire fell, when there was chaos. And I love the land. I’m an outsider, I hardly see Meduenin, but it has all my memories, I’d sooner cut off this hand than see it destroyed by outlanders. To change is to destroy.’ Then he shrugged, and with all the mercenary’s assurance, said, ‘Sometimes change has to happen.’

  Haltern caught my eye. And I thought. Yes, I know, only outsiders have the capacity to see such things. Outsiders like you and I and Blaize Meduenin.

  ‘Be T’An Rimon,’ I said. ‘For no other reason than that I can’t imagine Romare Kerys-Andrethe saying what you’ve just said.’

  Blaize broke into laughter that turned heads clear across the dome. For that moment we were as we had been: mercenary, intelligencer, envoy. Hal’s wheezy chuckles racked him. I grinned.

  ‘Let’s talk more of this later,’ Haltern said. ‘Come down and speak with the Wellkeeper now. There are Earthspeakers here from all the seven provinces. I want to talk with them, hear what they say about the most distant telestres. They’ve heard of my time in Morvren. I want to know if they’ll call it just another Freeport madness – the thought that men and women of the Coast could come here, and share wilderness land.’

  I followed him down the step to the next tier. Blaize remained standing, and I looked back and up at him.

  The ex-mercenary said, ‘When the s’ans ask me again – I’ll be named T’An Rimon.’

  Two twenty-seven-hour days lost themselves in a marathon of talk. Every Orthean in the city (and they continued to come in by the hundreds) heard of “land-sharing”, and wanted to talk about it with the T’Ans, the takshiriye, and the offworlders. Especially with the offworlders. Their objections were many and violent. Some time towards the late afternoon of Durestha Eighthweek Threeday I staggered back to Westhill-Ahrentine, exhausted. And stopped in the telestre-house’s inner courtyard to look up at a blue sky brilliant with daystars and think, Do we have a chance?

  These things have their momentum. Endless pressure, seemingly with no result, and then all in a minute it’ll go. We only need the smallest toehold, I thought. If we can get some people from the hiyeks to talk here in Tathcaer. But how?

  Cory Mendez walked out from the ground-floor rooms. She also glanced skyward. ‘Lynne. Will you be travelling back to the southern continent with me?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today. Half the force are grounded there. My second in command is sending a shuttle down from the orbiter.’ The hawk-faced woman paused. The warm wind scattered ziku spores crimson on her black coveralls, and as she brushed herself she said, ‘Your association with the government envoy isn’t wise. Under the circumstances I’d take the opportunity to put some distance there, were I in your position.’

  And this is Company loyalty? Well, yes, I suppose it is … I changed the subject: ‘What’s your assessment of the situation here, Cory?’

  ‘My assessment is that home office will let me down again and insist
on “negotiations”, until the situation’s past repair. Whereas a quick surgical strike …’ She pushed ornate silver rings up her thin fingers. ‘You mean the native situation? An outbreak of hostilities. Within a very short time.’

  Turning to leave, she added, ‘I have no confidence of getting it – that would be too sensible for the Company’s marketing side – but I’ve requested from Representative Rachel the free use of coercive power.’

  I watched her walk out through the archway and into the city. What chills me is that it’s just possible she has a point. If that aborted the Coast’s invasion …

  Here I stand with the hard stones of Tathcaer underfoot, hearing the distant voices of ashiren. Under the weight of such normality, I can hardly conceive the reality of what I’m trying to prevent.

  ‘Lynne,’ Doug Clifford called from one of the upper-storey windows. ‘The comlink’s functioning again. Come and give me the benefit of your opinion on this.’

  The holotank-image was intermittent, but recognizable as twelve-year-old stock-footage: the first satellite surveys of Carrick V.

  ‘Which news-WEB put this out?’

  ‘A small company,’ Douggie said. ‘They’re syndicated to most of the inner worlds and, were I to hazard a guess, I’d say that most of their finance originates with the NuAsiaCo.’

  ‘Your people at home know who to talk to, don’t they.’

  The voice-over fuzzed, then cleared. ‘– Carrick V, one of the low-tech, sparsely-inhabited worlds near the Heart Stars. When asked about rumours that a form of alien technology has been discovered on Carrick V, a spokesman refused to comment. He also denied accusations that severe cultural disruption is being caused by the PanOceania multicorporate. The Enclave government with technical jurisdiction over Carrick V also refuses to comment.’ The image altered to the face of a brown-haired young woman, with slanting brows and direct green eyes. ‘Roxana Visconti, for the Trismegistus WEB.’

  That’s an end-of-broadcast filler if I ever saw one,’ I mused. ‘Wonder if there’s been anything since that?’