Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  Minutes ticked past. The fog didn’t clear, but it thinned a little overhead; was white, then pearl, then blue, and specked with white daystars. We passed clumps of saryl-kiez, grey with becamil webs. Pathrey glanced round at the unfamiliar landscape. Only then did it hit me: the Empress Calil here? But Harantish isn’t concerned with this, this is hiyek business … The groundcar jolted. Doug moaned, hardly loud enough to hear; and I put my arms around him and tried to hold him still.

  ‘Doug, listen … Can you hear me? You’re going to be okay. I’ll have you on Kumiel within the hour.’ I paused, reluctant, and then forced myself to go on. ‘You’re telling me to come to Kumiel. What about the peace talks here? What about the other Anzhadi who support – supported – Sethri? Doug?’

  His first words were unintelligible. I thought, I shouldn’t ask questions. His weight against me seemed so slight; as if he had crumpled into the dirty coverall. There were long scratches on his hands as well as on his bare foot; the one made by kiez spines, the other, I think, by hooked claw-nails.

  Slurring his words, but still with that precision of language, he said, ‘The opportunity for peace talks is over. The hiyek-Ortheans no longer follow Sethri, obviously, nor does hiyek-Anzhadi have influence now that he is dead. If I put it in plain terms, I would say Calil bel-Rioch and her Harantish Ortheans are now controlling the invasion of the Hundred Thousand –’ He caught his breath, found my hand by touch alone, and gripped it hard. ‘Lynne, did that make sense? I have to tell – did I –?’

  The groundcar’s hum rose to a whine, cresting the hill. Ashiel’s wall appeared through the fog. It muffled the voices, half hid the bright robes of Ortheans crowding round: Cassirur stood up in the ’car and ordered them to clear a path.

  As I was about to move, my wristlink chimed. The face of a Peace Force officer appeared. I said, ‘Can’t this wait?’

  His voice was tinny in the open air. ‘You may want to take this contact in Secure, Representative.’

  ‘If it’s that urgent, give it to me now; and for God’s sake get a move on –’ I moved my wrist and hand away from Douggie, and he slumped back against my shoulder. The miniature holo-image changed: the face of Cory Mendez appeared. Noise and vibration meant she must still be in a ’thopter or small shuttle.

  Cory looked at me with a grim satisfaction.

  ‘You wanted updates regularly,’ she said. ‘Take a look at this. It’s live-transmission. The ships in the islands have moved as far north as Morvren Freeport. Now they’re attacking the settlement.’

  The image was a blur, too small to focus on. In a tone that I hoped didn’t show panic, I said, ‘Cory, I’m coming down there. Take no action, no independent action, do you understand what I’m saying?’

  From blur to vision: the holo-image was clear as some painted miniature. That far west, dawn is just breaking, the sea is milk-pale. It laps the filigree-coast of a harbour island – viewpoint too high to make out people, but there is a jath-rai, and another, metal sails flashing in the light; there a thread of black smoke blooming …

  Corazon Mendez said, ‘Company regulations say I have to observe, under such circumstances. I’m observing, but I give you fair warning, Lynne; if a situation comes up where I have to take action, I won’t hesitate.’ She paused, then added: ‘If I see signs of hi-tech warfare, I’ll have no option but to send my people in to force a cease-fire.’

  Eight hundred miles to the west, Morvren Freeport burns.

  Do we go by groundcar now, I wondered; risk rough travelling and fog? Or reckon that the fog will lift soon, and take a ’thopter? ’Thopter, yes.

  I entered the makeshift comlink-centre, and found Ottoway in charge. He glanced up as I came in, and brushed fair hair out of his eyes. The holotank he watched carried images of Morvren.

  ‘I need transport to Kumiel,’ I said. ‘Has Cory told you to stay here? Good. I want the closest surveillance of this area, if anyone leaves, either take them or follow them; use your discretion.’ And where is Calil now? ‘As far as you can, keep a cordon of neutral ground around Keverilde and Rimnith.’

  He grunted. ‘Yes, Representative … Ms Christie, there are times when I curse Company regulations. If we could bring new tech stuff down to the planet’s surface, half a dozen officers could enforce a peace. But they give us equipment that’s twenty years old, and tell us it’s to avoid cultural contamination – and look at that.’ He slammed a fist down on the edge of the holotank.

  Is that orthodox opinion in the Force? I wondered. Could be; and does PanOceania know or care?

  ‘You’re to continue to allow the takshiriye – the local authorities – and the WEBsters free access to all communications,’ I shot back over my shoulder at him as I left. I didn’t hold out too much hope of it happening that way.

  Outside, fog had turned to ground haze. The air was warm and silky-smooth, beaten by the blades of a large ’thopter that rested on mossgrass beyond Ashiel walls; and as I came up to it, I found the tall medic had been joined by another, and both were helping Doug into the cabin. A little distance off, Pathrey Shanataru stood irresolute. He now wore a light chirith-goyen cloak, the hood drawn up over his head; he could, in this light, have been from a telestre. And down among the marhaz-hide shelters there was movement, and I guessed news was being passed round.

  ‘Get in, shan’tai,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk as we go.’

  The ’thopter swung in the air as if suspended from some sky hook. Ashiel, that had seemed so large, lost itself in brown heath and haze. Cold air blew through the plastiglas cabin; the thrum of the blades was deadened. Now I could smell the sea.

  One of the medics sat forward with the pilot, the other stared absently out into void. Beside her, Doug sat with his hands flat on his thighs, and I realized: For the past three-quarters of an hour I have not allowed myself to think the word blind.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I can,’ he said. His face turned vaguely towards me, where I sat with Pathrey. The plastiflesh masked his eyes; left only that prim mouth to be read for expression. We sat cramped so close together that I hardly had to lean forward to take his hand.

  ‘There are small groups of Coast Ortheans scattered all across that heath.’ Douggie raised his voice slightly, over the beat of the ’thopter blades. ‘Lynne, I don’t know if we were as near a truce as I imagined … that’s irrelevant, now. I knew something was going badly wrong when I saw Harantish men and women with the hiyek-Ortheans, and I suspect Sethri Anzhadi did, but we continued to go from group to group, putting forward the T’An Suthai-Telestre’s proposals. I think we saw several hundred people: I know there were more there.’

  Beside me, Pathrey Shanataru nodded. I gripped Douggie’s hand. ‘What else?’

  ‘I imagine some of the jath that Commander Mendez saw were carrying Harantish Ortheans. Has shan’tai Pathrey told you that Calil – that the Empress-in-Exile is there?’ His scratched hands tensed. ‘Lynne, you don’t dispose of Kel Harantish’s grip on the Coast in just a few months. They’re going to follow her. Obviously she had got rid of Sethri’s main supporters while he was with us. She no sooner had him than she ordered he be executed –’

  ‘With CAS weaponry?’

  He loosed one hand, moving the fingers to touch the bandage over his eyes; and I saw how his mouth was a hard line. Quite clinically, and irrelevantly, he said, ‘She did this herself, with her own hands; I had still thought there might be a chance of talking so I allowed myself to be disarmed, that was a bad mistake – she has other CAS and hi-tech armoury, yes; but that was mine, Lynne. I’m sorry. I’m talking too much. It’s true what they say about shock.’

  Does he know about Morvren? suddenly occurred to me. Was he able to hear what Cory transmitted to me?

  The ’thopter dipped, straightened. Carrick’s Star blazed off the surface of the sea, too bright to be looked at; and the coast of the Hundred Thousand was only blue haze.

  ‘She’s quite mad,’ Doug Clifford said. ‘I know Ortheans, by now. Ther
e’s no rationality –’

  ‘I know,’ I said, at the same moment that Pathrey Shanataru said, ‘She’s ill, shan’tai.’

  I glanced at the time, reckoned close on twenty minutes before the ’thopter made Kumiel. And then a shuttle down to Morvren; how many hours …?

  ‘Can you add anything to what Doug’s said?’ I asked Pathrey.

  He looked down at his hands, dark fingers bare of the rings he had worn. His hands perceptibly shook. At the one moment I thought of question and answer: he fears flying more than other Ortheans, why? and, the Harantish have Golden blood, and so no past-memories of this when the Empire was here. And wondered how I had come to take for granted that I think as Ortheans do about the matter – as with most things of Orthe, it all comes back to the Tower.

  ‘I can add much,’ Pathrey Shanataru said. He kept his eyes averted from the plastiglas cabin walls.

  ‘I … when I last saw you in Kel Harantish, I didn’t expect to see you again here.’

  ‘We sailed within hours of you s’aranthi leaving.’

  Words came from him with great effort. I let silence prompt him now. He raised his head, and I saw there was a bruise on his temple, half covered by the rooting black mane. Membrane slid back from dark eyes. Alien, that expression; and then with surprise I read it for what it was: an aching sadness.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here. I should be with her still. After so many years …’ Pathrey hesitated. ‘Is she mad? You s’aranthi tell me; I no longer know. After what I have seen her do in Harantish these past weeks, I no longer know. I fear for her, shan’tai.’

  It was Doug who broke the silence that followed. With a surprising gentleness he said, ‘Tell the Representative what you’ve told me, shan’tai Pathrey.’

  The dark Orthean male spoke in a more formal inflection. ‘The ambition of Calil bel-Rioch is to be Empress, shan’tai, and Empress as it was in the days long past. She would raise up that Golden Empire again, and make this land here a part of it, and all the land that the hiyeks have –’ He broke off. When he resumed, it was in plain speech. ‘You saw her. She would be Santhendor’lin-sandru come again. She has your s’aranthi weapons, and now she has those weapons that the Coast has. Is she mad? You live as a Harantish woman, shan’tai Christie; live shunned and feared and kept penned up in that barren pesthole, and you tell me! All I know is, half Harantish thinks as she does.’

  ‘Is that true? Literally true?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘There are Harantish now with the hiyeks in the Archipelago.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Two days ago. Perhaps three.’

  Is he telling the truth, is he lying? Either way, what does he really know; he’s one man, and how trustworthy is he? I thought of using the wristlink to contact Corazon Mendez, but hesitated. She would have this man who was Voice of the Empress-in-Exile debriefed, that would take time; nor would it happen soon, with the crisis going on in Morvren …

  ‘They do have hi-tech weapons,’ Douggie said.

  The ’thopter tilted, dipping down towards hazy land that must be Kumiel. Sea glittered; and to the north I glimpsed what might be white telestre-houses in morning sunlight. Tathcaer.

  ‘You must stop her, but not harm her,’ Pathrey said; his plump face wore an incongruously stubborn expression. ‘Nor should you put the blame on her alone, there are many in the city who thought as she did, and who help her now. If it were not she, it would be some other. Shan’tai, you must believe me.’

  I had no time to analyse that oddly wistful defiance. Doug’s hand gripped mine tightly. He said, ‘Say what else you said to me, Pathrey.’

  The Harantish male blinked, translucent membrane and then eyelids; and reached out to grip a wall-hold as the ’thopter settled towards the earth. ‘What else … You must understand, shan’tai, she speaks with no one now, not even I. Still, there is something more. When that great Empire fell, there was a weapon used, or so tales tell. Now if you talk with my people from Harantish, you will find that they believe that weapon can be used again – that she has discovered the use of it. I have never heard word of this before. I think therefore that she puts this rumour among us.’

  He opened his eyes. ‘Shan’tai, I have lived these many years. I have some power of reason. I do not believe the ancient weapons of the Golden have been rediscovered, but she may believe it. If she does, all Harantish does; all the hiyeks will. And that belief in itself may prove as destructive a weapon.’

  Now the ’thopter settled down towards the earth. Below us, ranked F90s lined rocky Kumiel; growing as the ground rushed up to meet us. I felt split in two: half of me thinking, never underestimate ideology; charismatic insanity is not to be ignored, and the other half, without the solace of black humour, thinking, but if Pathrey’s wrong and she does have Golden science? The ’thopter touched down on blue-grey mossgrass, between shuttles, with never a jolt.

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to stay here,’ I said. ‘Cory’s people will look after you, shan’tai Pathrey.’

  As he climbed shakily down from the ’thopter he looked back at me and with only the slightest irony, said, ‘Call it “protective imprisonment”.’

  I slid down from the ’thopter, on to Kumiel’s sparse blue mossgrass. The air was warm, shimmering over the island’s pitted rocks; the white dolphin-backed ranks of F90 shuttles wavered with heat distortion. As the first medic followed me, I drew her aside.

  ‘How is he?’

  She glanced back up at the ’thopter cabin. ‘We can probably save the sight of one eye if we get him to the orbiter’s tissue-regeneration facilities now.’

  ‘I’ll authorize it.’

  Doug appeared in the cabin door, and I reached up as he put a tentative foot towards invisible ground; seeing how he turned his head in bewilderment. His hand caught mine with so hard a grip it made me wince. Then as I helped him down, I held him, feeling his heartbeat, his warmth; and what I’d meant to say went unsaid, choked in grief and anger.

  ‘I ought …’ His hands shook. ‘I ought to be in the Freeport.’

  ‘I’ll handle the government side of things, till you get back. Christ, I ought to know the job,’ I said, ‘I did it for long enough.’

  He opened his mouth to speak, paused; my throat tightened in sympathy. I let the medic take his arm to lead him towards the shuttles, knowing how precariously he was holding himself together. And for a moment I stood there on the springy mossgrass, wanting to do nothing else but go with him up to the orbiter, not trusting others to care for him. And you’ll come back before you should, I thought, watching that small figure limping towards the towering hull of an F90 shuttle. Not until then able to realize, Calil, with her own hands –

  I walked briskly across the island towards their comlink-centre, tasting bile; all but sick with revulsion.

  Eight hundred miles to the west … I slept for as much of the two-hour shuttle flight as I could, not knowing when I’d get the chance again. Waking, the holotank-images showed bright morning. Shadows of clouds glided across the surface of the Rasrhe-y-Meluur, as we flew past the side of that great chiruzeth spire; coming in from the seaward side to overfly the estuary of the Ai River.

  The shuttle-pilot said, ‘I’m fitting us into the holding-pattern, Representative.’

  At fifteen hundred feet, the island-filled estuary lay like a topographic map. Black specks crossed and recrossed airspace above it, and as the shuttle went into hover-mode I identified ’thopters and other shuttles. Sun flashed from the white hulls of F90s – Cory’s in one of those, I thought, and reached out to key in a contact. Before I could do it, an incoming message appeared in the holotank.

  ‘Christie here –’

  And then I keyed that image to an insert, staring at the main tank. The surface of the sea glittered, pale blue and azure and indigo in the depths. Sparks of light came from the metal sails of jath-rai: ten, a dozen, twenty … There were more in the Archipelago, where are they now? The island nearest the Rasrhe-y-Melu
ur was as clear as a miniature model; harbour and Watchtower and Wellhouse dome, a movement that might have been marhaz-riders – all obscured now, as black smoke plumed up from the telestre-houses nearest the docks. Unclear from this height: is that fighting, are those small specks of colour people? – and then the shuttle was over the island, past it; hovering over the channel between that and a larger Freeport island.

  ‘S’aranth?’ The face of Blaize Meduenin appeared in the holo-insert. ‘Sunmother! Will you tell this t’an Mendez of yours to land this ship? I must get into the city.’

  ‘Who’s there?’

  He frowned. ‘The river-telestre s’ans. T’An Khassiye Reihalyn, if the winds favoured him; he sailed from Tathcaer two days ago. But he’s Andrethe, not T’An Seamarshal; Freeporters won’t heed him.’

  Knowing Freeporters, they won’t take notice of anyone … T’An Rimon or Company representative, I thought with grim amusement.

  ‘Let me speak to Cory,’ I said; and when Corazon Mendez appeared, said, ‘Land the T’An Rimon on the island nearest to the mainland, will you? I’m going in, too. I intend to speak with the local leaders.’

  The white-haired woman blinked, raised an eyebrow. She said, ‘How far does your policy of non-interference stretch, Lynne? Just out of interest, you understand. When you yell for a ’thopter to get you out of that mess down there, you want me to send my troops into Orthean territory?’

  ‘Cory, just do it, yes?’ I keyed out.

  In the shuttle’s cool, green-lit interior, nothing was audible but the hum of the engines. Hard to believe that outside there is real air, stained with the smoke of burning. My guts ached, my hands sweated: I thought, Is this stupid or is this stupid? This is not a thing to get involved in, and it’s much too late to stop it now it’s started. For God’s sake go back to Kumiel and wait …

  But then, there’s no way to know what’s really going on without going down there.

  River gravel crunched under my boots as I sprang down from the shuttle-ramp. Downdraught from the F90’s hover-mode blinded me for a moment in the swirl of grit. I ran for the cover of the quayside buildings. Blaize Meduenin waited under a warehouse archway.