Skeen's Leap

by Clayton, Jo;

  Chulji quivered impatiently, but had the sense to say nothing. The High Mother arched her neck again and eyed him skeptically. Pegwai waited in silence. Skeen crossed her arms over her breasts and watched the clouds float by. The Aggitj fidgeted nervously; when Chulji felt healthy enough to go on deck he’d proved a fine listener to their tales and a soul-mate in some pranks he thought up with them for the time after they got off the ship, but they’d been trained from birth to respect their elders and speak when spoken to and not otherwise. Timka watched them all, detached but inclined to sympathize with the young Min. He reminded her a lot of the boys she’d played games with in the woods what seemed such a very long time ago.

  “Tsssst-tsssst,” the High Mother said. “Young idiot, more trouble than he’s worth, but if you want him, he’s yours. Bring him back whole if you can, no doubt his family will miss him.” She stretched over, tapped Chulji’s hard exoskull. “Behave yourself and don’t bring disgrace on the Nests. Now get out of here and let adults talk in peace.” She turned her eyes on the Aggitj. “This will bore you also, Aggitj; why don’t you go with these nidlings and plot mischief to make your elders sorry they gave in and hauled you along.”

  Hal turned to Skeen, she nodded, he grinned, made a graceful deep bow. “With pleasure, Oh Mightiness.” The small black neuters fussing about them, the six youths went bouncing out of the garden. As soon as they were hidden by trees and shrubbery, their voices came back with snatches of laughter. Skeen couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she suspected they were taking the High Mother’s instructions quite happily and planning something she emphatically wanted to know nothing about.

  Demmirrmar pulled the second lily from about her neck and tossed it away. “It’s hard to break the ties, but necessary.” The air whistled through her spiracles in the Skirrik version of a sigh. “Rama tells me you hope to find Ykx in the Coraish Gather; she tells me she warned you the Gather might might be empty. It is. Two tribes of the desert Chalarosh made an arashin-gey against them, a purification sweep, and managed to exterminate all the Ykx left there. They were dying out anyway, don’t know why, so the place has been empty the past twenty some years. Looted. Picked over. Anything with a pretense of value has been carried off.”

  Pegwai moved his feet impatiently. “It’s not loot we want, but knowledge. That’s even more important now. How long before all the Ykx are gone? What do we know about them? Nothing.” He glanced at Skeen, his face red with the passion in him on this subject. She moved close to him, put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed lightly. He calmed, took a deep breath. “I brought an imager with me; even ruins can give us a lot about the Ykx and my companion is learned in the interpretation of such things. Will you help us, High Mother?”

  Demirrmar contemplated Timka. “The Min can’t go with you. The Chalarosh will never permit that.”

  Timka chuckled. “Nor am I all that interested in turning over stones in a ruin. I will quite happily remain behind.”

  Skeen frowned. “Timmy.…”

  Timka wrinkled her nose, but she’d given up long ago on Skeen’s habit with nicknames. “What the Seeker means, High Mother, is that I have bitter enemies among the Mountain Min, particularly one, who would be delighted to catch me alone and undefended.”

  “Mountain Min,” the High Mother said thoughtfully. “We have no commerce with them. Would they really follow you across the Tenga Bourhh?”

  “Might. Might not. Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how desperate my enemy is. Time works for her if she can wait. We have to go back when the quest is done.”

  “The Stranger’s Gate.”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t be particularly comfortable, young Min, but you will be safe staying here. My Nest is yours.”

  “I thank you, High Mother and accept with pleasure. Chulji and I might teach each other while we wait. He can find the dolphin and I can find the Skirrik.”

  “Good idea. You can keep that imp out of my webs. On your head not mine, young Min.” She turned to Skeen and Pegwai. “Are you weary, must you rest? I would like to hear the tale of the Gate and the Pass-Through and the Ykx; there is no point trying to gain a hearing with the Cadda Kana today, or the Doferethapanad. It’s one of their eternal feast days, something to do with a war or a miracle of a well going dry. I’ve heard explanations of all this todo a thousand times and I still don’t understand a word. If it were some sort of carnival and a lot of loud fun, I could begin to understand but the Chalarosh take all of this nonsense so seriously; I hope you are not seriously religious, it gets so tiring trying to grasp, the ungraspable.” She hauled herself out of the water and stood dripping while a cadre of neuters bustled about her, washing, wiping, polishing. When they were done, she skritched orders at a handful who darted away while the rest scurried to their waiting places in the bushes. “I’ve sent for some cold ale; story-tellers from other Waves find it oils their tongues nicely. And there’s a pleasant sittage just beyond where there are benches your kind seem to find comfortable.”

  Coming before the Cadda Kana. Questions. Interminable and annoying. Keep your temper, Skeen, you know these type’s, outwait them. Permission given to proceed into the interior. Scholar Pegwai Dih, Lumat Seeker Skeen. Provided Scholar and Seeker take along a guide and an inlal of klazits to protect them from the dangers of the countryside. To protect the countryside from us, Skeen thought. The Aggitj argument. The boys insisted on going along. Skeen was their patron, they said; they were oath-fasted to her, bound to protect her, to fetch and carry for her, to do whatever she wanted or needed. Muttering among the veiled men behind the long table on the dais. Permission given. Too easy, Skeen thought, an inlal of klazits (whatever those are) and a guide; are we cover for spies? She wasn’t happy about the possibility. The nomads were nasty to intruders. No, she wasn’t happy at all. This could get them all killed; she had no faith in the understanding or abilities of those fuckin’ gits planning to use them, yes, she was sure of it.

  Timka the Min they wanted to put in preventive detention, but agreed to leave her with the High Mother Demmirrmar provided she was available for inspection every second day.

  Chulji Sipor started to argue he was part of the team now, but was instantly suppressed by the High Mother. The Kana didn’t know he was Min and she wanted to keep their ignorance intact. You’ve got studies, she told him. Put your energies into them.

  Petitioners dismissed. Hand on Skeen’s arm, holding her back, escort separating her from the others. There are questions, her detainer said (eyes cold above the veil, voice calm and unthreatening), as a courtesy to the Cadda Kana, stay and answer them.

  Shortly after dawn on the sixth day after Skeen arrived in Atsila Vana (third day of her interrogation) she was escorted to join Pegwai and the Aggitj and rode with them out the Gamta Telet (the Lake Gate), sitting in a large and remarkably uncomfortable wagon. Pegwai swallowed his questions and dozed beside her, the Aggitj chattered theirs but desisted when they got no answers and occupied themselves with a noisy game of stones and tiles. Two veiled klazits rode on each side of the wagon, a fifth rode ahead of the praks pulling the wagon. Stolid beasts, curlicued horns bent upward in a graceful lyre shape, big brown eyes, massive shoulders, ears that twitched incessantly. It was a splendid day, a little nippy because this was below the equator and the end of winter instead of the end of summer.

  An hour later they were herded onto the boat that the Cadda Kana had authorized (though Pegwai had to pay the hire out of Skeen’s gold hoard). The guide spoke Trade-Min but not the sailors or the klazits. Chosen for that reason, Skeen thought, so we can’t ask dangerous questions or tamper with their loyalties. Wonder if Pegwai speaks Chala, he hasn’t shown signs of it so far … just as well. Eh, old woman, stop fussing. He’s done this before, he knows the pits set for his feet. You’re not the only devious bitch around. The Aggitj tucked away their game and looked about with considerable interest, switching from Agga to Trade-Min
so they could pester the guide with innumerable questions about the boat and its day to day operation. They had grown up along the coast of the Boot and were on the water before they could walk; they were delighted to be back in a working boat, disregarded the guide’s scowls, got his name out of him (Lakin Machimim), and prodded him into translating their questions and the monosyllabic answers they pestered out of the ship’s master and his men. Impervious within their calm good nature, caring nothing for opinion outside the Boot, they ignored the hostility of the Chalarosh and by the time the crossing was completed were on easy terms with the boatmen. Even the sullen suspicious guards relaxed a little whenever Machimim took his eyes off them.

  They landed near a small village. The men and boys were out fishing while the women, girls, and youngest children tended water wheels and worked in fields and gardens. “Stay here,” Machimim said, “talk to no one. He strode off the shaky dock and went into conference with a self-important type who looked annoyed at first, then obsequious as an oil machine once he got a look at the metal plaque Machimim thrust under his nose.

  The ship left, the master glad to rid himself of foreign taint. The Aggitj went back to their game. Skeen and Pegwai strolled to the end of the dock, glanced over their shoulders. The klazits were some distance away, gathered about the Aggitj, watching the play. “All this cooperation,” Skeen said, “stinks.”

  “Worse than a week-old fish.” He touched her arm. “I was beginning to worry.”

  “Oh they were marvelous hosts—very tasty food and plenty of it, gave me privacy, talked soft, but talked all the time. Wanted to know what the hell I was, then when I came through. Lost interest a bit when I told them the Gate was shut. Asked about the other side. I lied a lot.” She grinned. “Enjoyed myself, feeding those prickheads that drivel. Wanted to know what the Lumat was doing. Figured I’d better stick with the truth there. Sort of. Said the Lumat was afraid there weren’t any more Ykx about and wanted to collect as much data as possible before it was lost. That was so logical they had a hard time believing it. Still, I think they did in the end. Hard to say with those damn veils.”

  “The High Mother had little Wanasi running all six legs off carrying letters of protest.”

  “Have to thank her. Even if they didn’t bust me loose, I got good food and those vacuum brains didn’t go physical on me.”

  Machimim twisted what they needed out of the headman—five tall ponies for himself and the klazits and two carts, one loaded with water barrels, blankets, and other supplies for their trek through the mountains. The other was empty except for a number of coarsely woven sacks that rustled dryly. The women had vanished with the children, the fields were empty, the waterwheels swayed idly. The oleaginous headman kept looking at Skeen and the others from the corner of his eyes as he protested the guide’s demands, his pointed ears twitching as spastically as those of the praks hitched to the carts. Machimim sent him off with a snapped command, waved the others into the cart, then mounted the beast one of the klazits held for him and started off down the rutted single street of the small village. Two klazits arranged themselves with the carts between them, spare ponies on a long lead. The other two climbed to the plank seats of the carts and slapped ticklers into the rumps of the offside praks, starting the teams forward, following Machimim through the village.

  Skeen, Pegwai, and the Aggitj settled with their personal gear onto the sacks; they were marginally better than the stinking planks of the cartbed, but the fiber they were woven from felt as if it’d been stripped whole off nettle stems; it had millions of tiny prickles that raised red welts even through a layer of cloth. By the time they’d left the village behind, Hal had had enough. When he couldn’t make Machimim listen, he argued the klazits into providing blankets enough to cover the sacks, using passion and gesture to make up for lack of language. Pegwai sighed with pleasure and stretched his legs out; as her burning shins cooled off, Skeen promised herself she’d find out what Hal wanted most and see he got it.

  The road degenerated to a track as the afternoon turned toward night. Weed-grown and punishing. Not much traffic here, not for a long time. In spite of the slow jolting progress, they reached the lower slops of the foothills before the sun went down and made camp beside a smallish stream. After the meal, plain but filling, Skeen, Pegwai, and the Aggitj passed a wineskin around, sang and told stories, watched from outside the circle of light by the suspicious and grumpy klazits (with Machimim’s eye on them, they didn’t dare take the cups the Aggitj tried to pass to them).

  The next day was spent negotiating an impossible track that the winter storms had eroded into something like a series of animal traps, potholes that threatened to swallow up one or both of the carts along with the riders and anything else that came along. There was a little patchy snow in places where shadow lingered most of the day but none on the track, and rockfalls where snow melt had weakened the soil. Klazits and Aggitj labored to clear these, exchanging curses as they wrestled the stones out of the way until Aggitj were mouthing elaborate Chalarosh anathemas and the klazits were tossing rocks aside in tune with staccato Agga obscenities. And while they were riding between the falls, the Aggitj began coaxing names and small phrases out of the guards, at least while Machimim wasn’t watching them.

  They camped in a barren pass, a cold camp because there was nothing to burn; they chewed on jerky and honeyed nuts, drank sparingly from the wine skin, even more sparingly from the water sacs, most of the water they carried being for the beasts, and rolled quickly into their blankets to escape the bite of the wind that swept without ceasing along the pass. Skeen wanted to sleep in the cart, but Machimim wouldn’t permit that, he was enjoying their discomfort, the worm; no, he was going to sleep in the cart alongside the watch so he’d be available in case of trouble. Think of the watch, he said, the poor man will have to stay awake in the cold and the dark, how can you grudge him that miniscule shelter? I can, Skeen thought, oh yes I can. But she didn’t argue, not wanting to breathe out the last threads of warmth in her.

  The next day was like the last, only worse. Rumbling downhill on a precarious track with inadequate brakes and drivers whose lack of experience was dangerously evident. More rockfalls. And the supply cart got one wheel over the side of a pothole. But they reached the foothills on the far side of the range still intact, though much shaken, and made camp at sundown in a dessicated wadi, a camp as dry as the one in the pass but a lot warmer. The klazits joined their charges at the fire after supper and helped them kill off a wineskin. Pegwai told a Balayar ghost story (which the guide condescended to translate), Skeen dug out her flute and played an accompaniment to a Chala song after she’d caught the gist of it. The Aggitj came to their feet as soon as the song was done and beat a rhythm for her, then did a leaping, stamping dance while she played for them. That night, for the first time (leaving out Machimim who had his responsibilities) the whole party went to sleep wallowing in good feeling for each other.

  The next day they left the low hills for a land of gently rolling swells, a brown land, brown up the sides of the mountains to the stony peaks, brown up close, gray-brown, red-brown, hazel, bright brown, dull brown, yellow-brown haze at the horizon blending brown sky and brown earth so that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began. Around noon they hit a tiny area of living green as refreshing to the eyes as the water of the spring was to their gullets. They refilled the waterskins and the stock barrels, considered camping, but the greater part of the day was ahead of them and Pegwai didn’t want, to waste a moment of the short exploration time given him, so they went on. More brown—a plethora of browns in a monochromatic landscape. There was plenty of growth, but everything from the patches of brush to the flat succulents were sundried to some sort of brown, most of it a dull beige. What leaves the vegetation sported were smaller than the last joint on a man’s little finger, with slick shiny surfaces as if painted with a gray-brown varnish. Lots of long thorns everywhere, thickly set, changing their slant with t
he change in the altitude of the sun.

  Midday on their fourth brown day Machimim led them back into the hills and around the side of a mountain to a narrow wadi by a cliff that rose a steep four hundred meters, its glossy glassy surface, though ancient, still visibly the result of a power cutter sweeping down through the mountain. Interesting, Skeen thought, lost it all? If not, what’s the problem? Why couldn’t you tromp a bunch of barbarians? A scratchtrail switched back and forth up the slope south of the cliff to meet a horizontal wrinkle drawn across the face around three hundred meters up. Front door? Looks like it. What it’d be to have wings right now.

  They stopped at a crude stone fort near the base of the cut. No roof, a head-high circle of stone laid on stone, built by the sedentaries from Atsila Vana when they heard the Gather was empty and came to see if there was anything valuable to be found in the ruins. There was a well inside, a wobbly corral for draft and riding animals, water troughs, feed boxes (after a look at the well and its proximity to the pen, Skeen refused to drink that water; Djabo knows what’s waiting there to claw my gut, she said. The Aggitj agreed with her and went off to look for a cleaner source of water plus some firewood). The ground inside the circle was badly littered, but the klazits and Skeen, Pegwai a little later, shamed into helping by Skeen’s example, cleared out the bird dung and rotting leaves and bones and prak manure. By the time the Aggitj returned with huge armloads of roots and short limbs and news of a small stream a short way off, the klazits had disinterred two large tents from the load in the second part and were setting them up.

  Skeen carried off a waterskin, scrubbed her hands, and splashed more over her face, then drank a long time. She gasped, spat, slipped the skin’s strap over her shoulder, glanced at the sun. A little less than three hours before dark. She looked around. The klazits were tangled in ropes and poles and unwieldy canvas, swearing at the tent while Machimim shouted orders at them, the Aggitj keeping out of the brouha; from the grins on their faces, enjoying it thoroughly. She strolled over to Pegwai who was organizing his measuring and recording instruments into the pockets of a broad bandolier. “We could take a look up there while everyone’s still busy,” she murmured.