The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

At the first desk he explained to a narrow-faced mot with dark eyebrow tufts that he was new to the city and wished to set up a shop for weaving.

  "Are you resident in the city?"

  "Yes, now, I have a room near the royal park."

  "Have you relatives who are already within the Guild?"

  "No."

  "Ah."

  A message was scribbled on a scrap of paper.

  "Take this to Desk Seven."

  At Desk Seven he found a weary-looking mot of late middle age.

  "You are nonnative to the city of Dronned, yes?" said this person.

  "Yes."

  "And you want to come to Dronned and take part in the craft of weaving?"

  "Yes."

  "Unfortunately the Guild of Weavers is full at the moment. Places rarely come open, and there is a waiting list."

  "But I have already sold weaves here; surely I can join?"

  "You have sold weaves? Here in the city?"

  "Is it illegal? I'm sorry, I did not know."

  "No. But it is outside Guild rules. We do not enforce such contracts."

  "Can I not rent a room and just weave in it?"

  "You cannot. As someone out to take work from the Guild membership, you cannot be allowed to rent workrooms in the city of Dronned. If you do rent such rooms and work in them, you will be outside the Guild and therefore outside the protection of Guild Law."

  "So if the merchants want to, they can refuse to pay me and I can do nothing?"

  "Nothing within the law of the realm."

  "Surely they will not be so harsh with me?"

  "It depends on who you have dealings with. Some are like sharks, they'll take off your whole leg. Others are more subtle, but they bear watching, too."

  Back outside the Guild Hall a little later Thru found himself standing on the wide plaza chewing his lip. He couldn't hope for a place in the Craft Guild of Weaving for two or three years. In that time no contracts he entered into would be legal. Anyone could cheat him.

  His thought whirled to the Merchant Ortenod. Would he pay up for the mats that Thru had already delivered? He wouldn't have to, once he found out Thru's lack of status with the Guild. But he heartened himself with the memory of the merchant, who had seemed to be straightforward and honest. He had liked Thru's work.

  But what if Thru had just been taken by a wise old trader who knew a pigeon when he saw one?

  And then there was the "Chooks and Beetles." Even if the Grys Norvory kept his side of the deal, he would not be able to rent workrooms in the city.

  Suddenly his enthusiasm for the city and his eagerness to try his mats in the market seemed foolish and ill-thought out. He should have checked here first. But he had been so keen to see if anyone would buy his work that he had put it off, and now he'd made himself vulnerable.

  He could go back to Warkeen and work there, and bring his work to the fairs and the festival markets. But he would always be at the mercy of the merchants. And, somehow, such a move tasted of defeat.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  But before Thru could do anything about his weaving, the city shut down for the Rites of the Spirit for the summer festival, which were held in the royal park and drew a large crowd. Tiers of wooden seats had been set up, but all the best spots were taken long before Thru arrived. He wound up only getting the most distant glimpses of the mummers and the charms. But like everyone else, he was caught up in the huge emotions aroused by the singing of the great hymn that gave thanks for life to the Spirit.

  Everyone left the rites that day with a fire in their hearts. It was a day of celebration and the markets were open and stands lined the road selling pickled melon and sweet beer. Others purveyed ears of grilled maize or crispy fried root.

  Thru roamed around, enjoying the size of the crowd and the sense of occasion. He bought a bag of roasted chestnuts, ate some of them, and threw the rest to the squirrels that haunted the trees in the park. The squirrels always did well on festival days.

  "Hail, Thru Gillo, how are you enjoying the day?"

  "Hail, Noop, it's wonderful. This is very different from the village summer festival."

  "Village festivals can be fun."

  "I always thought so, but they're on a smaller scale."

  "Have you thought about trying out for the Laughing Fish team yet?"

  "Not really. Are they playing today?"

  "No, not today; it would be disrespectful of the festival to play today. They will play tomorrow, in the evening after work."

  "Oh, of course." They took the rites very seriously in Dronned, it was plain. "Well, maybe I'll be able to watch."

  "Won't you want to be out there swinging the bat?"

  Thru grinned. "I don't know, not yet. I'm just enjoying the city too much."

  "That reminds me, I'm thinking I'll stop in at the Laughing Fish for a draft on my way home. How about you, Thru Gillo?"

  But Thru was staring over Noop's shoulder at a slender figure coming through the crowd.

  "Excuse me, Noop, but there's someone I've got to speak to. I'll look in at the Laughing Fish, see if you're there later."

  He moved to intercept her. When he was about ten feet away she looked up. And smiled.

  "Hello." It sounded absurdly dramatic when he said it.

  She had the street performer's confidence in public and knew all the lines. But he saw her eyes tighten a little when she saw him. There was something there.

  "Well, hello to you," she said.

  She remembered him! And his scarred face did not disturb her.

  "What's your name?" she said. "I know you know mine."

  "Thru."

  "Thru who?"

  "Thru Gillo. From Warkeen Village in the Dristen."

  "The Thru Gillo, who holds the new record?"

  She had heard of him? Slightly stunned, he nodded.

  "Ah, yes."

  "Why is it you seem so modest and nice when I would have expected a braggart?"

  He shrugged.

  "You aren't bashful, are you?"

  "Well, I don't think so."

  "That's good; bashful mots can be a trial. They have a hard time speaking up." She grinned, enjoying his confusion.

  "Sorry," he said, feeling oddly stupid and inept. "I just wanted to say, uh, hello. Your acrobatics were wonderful, I've never seen anything anywhere near that great."

  "Well, thank you, Thru Gillo. That's very nice of you to say so."

  For a long moment they stood there, smiling and looking around, unsure what to say.

  "Well, I have to go." She nodded past him toward the city gate. "Guild Hall business."

  "You have problems with the guilds, too?"

  "Sure. We have to have a license, and it's renewed daily. Keeps us on our toes and makes sure we don't hurt any of the good citizenry of the town."

  "Is it difficult to renew it?"

  "Once in a while."

  "May I walk with you?"

  "You may. What's your problem with the guilds?"

  "Oh, I want to be a weaver, but the Guild is full up and there's a waiting list."

  "Well, you can't expect everything to just fall into your lap."

  "I guess you're right about that." He tried to smile and almost succeeded.

  "And it's the way the system works, you understand that, right?"

  He looked up sharply.

  "Ah, no."

  "Well." She looked at him carefully, then went on. "The Assenzi keep our cities small deliberately. They control the sale of skilled products through the guilds, which are hard to get into. The cities don't grow. Folk stay in their villages. That's the way it was planned."

  Thru was shocked by her words. He understood that the Assenzi had a plan for the Land, but he had never connected it to the Guild system. It seemed to go against reason. Why would they teach him the weaver's art if he was never to use it to make his living? Why would the Assenzi, so kind and so gentle and so concerned with the lives of mots, set up such a heartbreaking system?r />
  "But the crafts are set into guilds to keep quality high," he said. "Without the guilds, designs would be uncontrolled, the art would suffer."

  "Quality can always be enforced by price. What does it matter if new designs are tried? How many copies of 'Brilbies at the Gate' do you want to see? Or 'Mots at Prayer'? How many 'Mots at Prayers' do you think we need? The Assenzi are very conservative about these things, perhaps too much so. Perhaps we need to grow, in order for our culture to expand, to achieve its potential. I sometimes think we're standing still, when we could be at a higher level."

  She'd noticed his look of surprise. She was used to it. Whenever she spoke openly to somebody the first time, they usually had that look. She gave him a long look of her own and chewed her lip, suddenly certain of something.

  "You ever been to Highnoth?" she said.

  "Yes. For two years."

  "Well, then you know them. The Assenzi keep alive our technical arts. They inspire young mots like yourself to go out and add their skill to the world. But they do many other things. They work to keep things from changing."

  "You want to see more change?" he said, suddenly wondering about her. When he thought of change, he saw Pern Treevi's ungainly new house sitting in that field.

  "I don't know. Sometimes I really question it all, and at other times I understand how beautiful our world is and how we must live to keep it that way."

  "The Masters teach that stability is the way to the best kind of life, for everyone."

  "The words of the Great Book are good. I don't question that. But there are so many rules."

  "Not everyone obeys the rules."

  "Another reason for the Assenzi to police our lives. They keep us on the straight and narrow track. But the most important thing is that our population must not outgrow our farmers' ability to feed it well. It keeps farmers from getting rich, but it also keeps people well fed and able to work."

  "These all sound like good things to me."

  "But they also make it hard for young mots to leave their villages. The crafts are partly hereditary. It gets hard for outsiders to break in."

  "Yes, I see that."

  "If they took you, they would take others, and the city would swell and the economy of the whole region would be distorted. Dronned might outproduce other places and cause prices to fall for craftwork. Some workers might be put out of the craft as a result. It happened once, in old Sulmo. The city got too big for its own region, larger than any city in the land. The Assenzi stopped it. The Assenzi are still not loved in Sulmo. Down there they call them wizards."

  "How do you know so much?"

  "I have read the histories, just like you mots from Highnoth."

  "I see." He felt rebuked, but the blow was softened by the faint smile she gave him.

  "And I've been all over the Land, all my life. My parents were troupers, too. My father was as strong as most brilbies. He used to bend iron bars. There were always some who would wager against him. He also worked with my mother, who was an acrobat."

  He was awed a little by this thought. He'd been to the Farbelows and to Highnoth and that had seemed like a lot of wandering. Compared to Nuza's travels, though, it was obviously inconsequential.

  "You have seen it all, then?"

  "Well, not yet." She smiled. "I have never been to Highnoth or any of the northern realms. Dronned is as far north as we go. From here we head back toward Tamf and then help with the harvest and prepare to winter over. We only travel in the summer months.

  "In the winter we live in my family's old house. It's big, so there's room for everyone in the troupe if they want to stay. Sometimes they do, even Toshak."

  "Does your father farm?"

  "Oh, no, he has enough work to do around the house. He has a share of polder, but lets it all out to his family. He comes to harvest of course, and so do we. But we also buy a lot of food, which spreads our cash money around the village. It helps to keep trade flowing."

  "Like good mats for their floors."

  "Yes, like good mats. Tell me, did you bring mats with you to sell?"

  "Yes."

  "I would like to see your work."

  Thru wondered if she would like it.

  "I don't know if you'd like it. It's in the traditional patterns, well mostly."

  "Oh, I like the old patterns. They're beautiful. I just wonder if maybe there could be some new ones."

  New patterns? It was an outlandish idea. And yet...

  "Well, I believe it will be shown in the gallery of the House Norvory."

  "Oh, my! That is a very grand name."

  The Guild Hall came in view as they rounded the curve of the street. On the steps to the front door they stopped. She pressed his hand.

  "You should come to a meeting of the Questioners. There will be one in Dronned tomorrow."

  "What are the Questioners?"

  "It is a discussion group. We explore various subjects. We want to know more about the world than the Assenzi have told us."

  He must have seem startled, because she went on.

  "Don't you ever have questions about it all? Who were the High Ones and all that? Like the question of the Ur-world, you know that one?"

  "No, not really."

  "It is believed by some that this is not the Ur-world, the original Urth."

  "It is Arna."

  "But there was Urth before that."

  Thru frowned. "I have heard about this legend, from the Assenzi, but they said there is no evidence for it. Master Acmonides taught us that Man the Cruel poisoned the land, the waters, the body, and the spirit. That Man dwindled because his own seed was poisoned and became infertile. Then the ice scoured the world clean and the High Men raised us up from the animals."

  "But they never told us how they did that. We of the Questioners talk about that a lot. Was it by breeding technique? Or by some more subtle means?"

  "Magic?"

  "Great magic, in arts long forgotten in the world. It was then possible to cut the creatures into the right shape with the knife and mold them with the metals..."

  "Well, I don't know. I was not taught such things."

  "There. You see how soon you run out of answers, and you have been to Highnoth. Really, you should come to the next meeting of the Questioners."

  "All right, I will." He was fascinated, by her and by all these dramatically strange thoughts she had introduced him to.

  "Wonderful! The meeting is tomorrow, at the first hour in the afternoon, in the back room of Vesco's Tavern. It's just over the bridge, on the South Road."

  She disappeared through the doors, while he tried to collect his thoughts. It was all simply too amazing. He was overwhelmed. He lurched off, feeling quite loose and disconnected. His original conception of her, as an acrobat with a beautiful body, had now been overlaid by this understanding of her as a very determined intelligence. Certainly she knew a lot.

  And yet she was still the same lithe beauty who hurled herself around in double somersaults off the springboard before being caught by the brilby.

  And, by the Spirit, she was a beauty. Almond eyes, short straight nose, and soft grey fur that grew longer on the back of her head. He wanted her like he had once wanted Iallia, but no mor since.

  Thru had been a dutiful student. He had absorbed well the lessons of the Assenzi and viewed the world as they had taught him to. He had read the texts, and he had thought he understood something of the world and the stars above. But Nuza had suddenly challenged the orthodoxy he'd learned, and it was both stimulating and disconcerting at the same time.

  Thru had learned from Cutshamakim that only Assenzi guidance could achieve the real stewardship of the world, which would outlast him and any memory of himself, too. Were the Assenzi wrong? Was there another way for the folk of the land to live? Could there be another way that would not result in a ruined land?

  Though he did not want to give credence to what he had heard from Nuza, still it gnawed at him.

  He would have to
put it aside until the next day, when he'd hear more at this meeting of the Questioners. Perhaps they were all quite mad. Perhaps they weren't.

  He went on up to the Market Square, where the crowds surged past stalls piled high with every kind of household item, from ax handles to bolts of fine cloth. Moving around the edge of the encampment, he came up on the House Norvory, a massive presence on the market square.

  In the front was a long window, displaying the Merchandise of House Norvory: luxury rugs from Mauste, mats from Sulmo and Dronned, furniture from the craft shops of Dronned, and metal products from the forges of Dronned and other places.

  The window had the largest panes of glass Thru had ever seen, as long as his leg and almost as wide!

  He looked inside and saw his "Chooks and Beetles" prominently displayed. There was a "Brilbies at the Gate" and a couple of "Mots at Prayer" displayed as well.

  The piece looked good enough to be there. It didn't look gauche or stupid. But he could not hope to weave mats for a living in Dronned anytime soon. He would have to go back to his father's house and pitch in with family and weave art mats on the side.

  Thru went on and passed by Merchant Ortenod's market stall, which was covered in bright mats. Merchant Ortenod was bargaining with a customer over a plain wesker weave, with no colors. It was a modest purchase and soon completed. Another customer was already in line, and another was selecting his very own waterbush "Leaf" pattern.

  Ortenod saw him and called him over.

  "Your 'Leaf' pattern is turning out to be a popular one. Bring me more."

  Thru spun about and hurried back to Garth Road and Kussha's lock-up. Within the hour he was back at Ortenod's stall with three more of his "Leaf" mats. He promised to check in the next day and see if any more were needed.

  With more silver in his pocket than he'd ever had before, Thru stepped through the streets feeling a considerable sense of achievement. It was a heady thing, almost like a kind of drunkenness. And then his eye caught on the big gables of the Guild House, and the mood evaporated.

  Again her face came into his thoughts. "That's the way they designed it..."

  He shrugged inwardly. Maybe he'd give in and see if the Laughing Fish ownership would really pay him to hit the little white ball. He didn't like the thought, but he could possibly make enough to stay on in Dronned through the winter.