Shadow of the Warmaster

by Jo Clayton

  Aslan listened to her sandals pattering lightly on the reed mats. Nice child. She touched her lip, winced from the bare flesh where the skin was split. Isya. Isya. I remember seeing something… yes, Tra Meclin’s Hordar dictionary. A kind of blood sisterhood. Or oath-sister. Closer than kinship. Five to eight per isya. Wonder how close he comes to being right? Wonder if I can spot the other isyas in the group?

  She picked up one of the krida and bit into it. Yum, rather like fried shrimp. But her mouth was too sore to enjoy it and the salt on it stung the cut on her lip. Some day, some day… She nibbled cautiously at more krida. Some day I’m going to pull that shithead’s teeth and make him eat nuts or starve. She grinned at the image, winced again as the stretching widened the cut. Ram sandburs up his asshole.

  12

  Carting a faldstool on a strap, Cinnal Samineh took Aslan on a slow tour of the village. She’d unfold the stool, sit Aslan on it and bring her anyone she wanted to talk with. There was a very different feeling to the village, as if everyone on the barges and in the boats had been let out of prison; the Farmers were still wary but inclined to be as friendly as they could in the circumstances. Aslan responded. This was the atmosphere she was accustomed to; for a moment she could dream herself free again, working again, studying a culture she found intriguing though it wasn’t her usual area of concentration.

  The village was compact and complex, recycling was almost an art form and certainly a passion. You will be back, don’t trash your homeplace, they told her. All things are God, give them honor, they said. They said these things lightly, amused when she sighed as she heard them for the tenth time, but under the lightness they were very serious about this, Pradix wasn’t a prophet confined beneath a roof or shut between the covers of a book. Wistfully, filled with regret because she couldn’t share it, she observed their deeply internalized belief and made her notes. Her usual objectivity was gone. She wanted these people set free. She wanted that even more passionately than she wanted the Unntoualar protected from the foul things being done to them. When she was lying on the bed in the room they gave her (Cinnal Samineh insisted she rest for an hour after lunch and Aslan was tired enough to make her argument perfunctory), she contemplated her own reactions, picking them to bits, a habit of hers that was one of the things her mother used to flay her with. Identifying, that’s what she was doing. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe because they liked her. Maybe because they were intelligent and interesting people with a basic kindness to them. Maybe because the Huvved she’d met were such miserable oppressive dreeps, the kind of people she’d hated from the moment she could walk. Her foster mother was a toe-licking social climber who ignored the contempt of the people she was trying to associate with and the callous way they used her, then dropped her. The Huvved were using her with that same kind of contempt for everything she valued about herself. Using her learning and her intelligence to further enslave these Hordar. She’d hated that when it was first proposed, now she loathed herself for giving in to Parnalee’s arguments, for letting herself be seduced by the work. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, what she could do, but she wasn’t going to log data any longer, nothing accurate anyway. Uncomfortably aware of the naivetй her mother deplored, she frowned at the ceiling, was distracted momentarily because she noticed for the first time the fine plaster-work, it was sculpted into intricate geometric patterns, then scolded herself back to the problem she was contemplating. Adelaar wouldn’t hesitate to cook the data and she’d know just how to do it indetectably. That was the problem. She had to fool Tra Yarta who knew these people a lot better than she ever would and Parnalee who no doubt could smell a fix from fifty paces. Intellectual integrity was devalued currency these days. She had a thought and started laughing; she had Efi Musvedd to thank for the time she needed. He was worth something after all; Tra Yarta got what he wanted, yes, but he lost far more than he gained. I hope, I hope, she told herself, she held up both hands with all her fingers crossed, a little trick she hadn’t practiced for a while. An omen, she thought, this is going to come out right. She laughed again and let her hands fall.

  What do I need? Paper and pen, I can’t do this in my head and I can’t trust the computers here. She rubbed at her temples. It’s been what, ah… thirty years since studied sociometrics, I need references… Out of the question. Have to depend on my memory and my smarts, built up from the bases I’m familiar with. Rule of thumb. I hope my thumb’s not broke. I always thought I was cleverer than most, have to prove it now… Parnalee said he’d wring the neck of anyone who messed up his chances. His chances! She thought about what Gerilli Presij had told her. That was the end of her escape plans, she wasn’t getting aboard any ship liable to be vaporized the moment it got beyond the atmosphere. Over the hill and off, she thought, Parnalee or not, soon as I can manage it. Hmm. One of the cities of the Littoral. I need to go there next. Ayla gul Inci. Why not? I can make a good case for it; that’s the city where the Surge began. Must be some old memories there. Hmm. Maybe I can find a crack to crawl through. Yes. All right. From now on I’m working for me.

  13

  Cinnal Samineh flattened her hand on the desalinizer. “We bought this about ten years ago. It gives us all the fresh water we need.” She slanted a sly glance at Asian. “A tech slave the Imperator brought in built them for him. One of the few good things that came with the slaves.”

  “What did you do before then?”

  “Let me show you. It’s just next door.”

  It was a long narrow barge with slat blinds over lots of glass. Cinnal Samineh cleared one section so they could look inside. Water was being pumped along deep, glass-lined channels, around and past thick stands of remarkably ugly, twisted plants; the stems were broad and pulpy, the leaves were stiff, dotted with thorns, succulent, coated with a thick waxy substance. They were brilliantly colored, red and purple, orange, gold and blue-green, poison colors. Aslan inspected them and decided she wouldn’t go in that place for a ticket home; she wasn’t about to suck in any air they polluted with their exudates and exhalations.

  “Saltplants,” Cinnal Samineh said. “They extract minerals and salts from seawater. It’s slow but sure; by the time they’re finished with it and we pass it through a bit more filtration, it’s almost pure enough to drink. We used it for washing and that kind of thing, what we needed for drinking water we passed through a still. Even now, on Holy Days and Jubilations we drink water from here, not from the machine. Sort of celebrating the past and linking with the future. You see, don’t you?”

  “I see.”

  Cinnal grinned. “We have other reasons for keeping this going. Those leaves give us some of our best dyes. Poisonous, sheeh! you have to be very careful handling them, but the results are worth it. And the roots, you can’t see them, but they are very, very important. Our best filters are made from the pulp and membranes in those roots. Matter of fact, the Zerzevah Farm, it’s out around the bulge south of here, that’s their main source of income, their merm bed was wiped out a couple storms ago and the new bed won’t be producing for a decade or more.”

  “Merm bed?”

  Cinnal Samineh wrinkled her nose. “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Can anyone?”

  “Geri, maybe; I’ll ask her.”

  “Thanks. How much water could this… um… plant produce in a day?”

  “Enough for all of us. We had to be careful of course, and we used seawater for things we use freshwater for these days.”

  “Interesting. You said I might be able to visit a school?”

  “I talked to my family’s Ommar, she said fine. Schooling is family business, nothing to do with the Council. It’s quite a walk from here. We could take it easy, or maybe I could whistle up a shell.”

  “Why not? It’s a lovely day for a boat ride.”

  14

  That night Aslan worked until long after midnight, sketching out the distortions and outright falsities she wanted to incorporate indetectably
into her data files; when she was too tired to make sense of the numbers and symbols, she tore the pages into small bits and burned them. When she finally slept, she slipped in and out of nightmare, dreams where she was endlessly running, unable to reach a shapeless goal that seemed to represent safety; it hovered continually just in front of her, kept vanishing on her and reappearing a little farther on. Other times she was under something dark and heavy that came rushing down at her. That was a fast dream. It recurred several times and each time she managed to wake up just before the thing crushed her; she lay bathed in sweat, her heart pounding, her head throbbing, the half-healed bruises and cuts adding their own dull misery to a night that was beginning to seem endless.

  15

  “Rosepearls.” Gerilli Persij dipped her hand into a soft pouch and pulled out half a dozen rounds. She tilted her palm and let them trickle onto the square of black suede. The smallest was about the size of a small pea; it was a pale pinkish cream. The others went from cream to deep rose, from cherrypit to plum-sized. They shared a fine luster with a glow that seemed to reach down and down, drawing the eye after it. Gerilli Persij took a mid-sized pearl between thumb and forefinger, held it out to Aslan. “Close your hand around it for a moment, then smell your skin.”

  The pearl warmed quickly. Aslan opened her hand, sniffed at her palm. There was a delicate floral fragrance, very pleasant though nothing startling. Another moment, though, and she noticed something odd happening to her. She felt tension dropping from her, her body was vibrating with fine-tuned energy, yet she felt no need to move or speak. That rang an alarm in her mind, a distant flutter that immediately started fading, but not quite fast enough. Chewing on her lip, amazed at how difficult it was, she set the pearl on the suede.

  Gerilli Persij smiled and began putting the rosepearls back in the pouch. “One like that probably bought you,” she said. “Depending on how expensive you were.”

  “And they come from merms?”

  “I can say that, yes.”

  “And a Dalliss is the only one who can locate and handle merms?”

  “Yes.” Her mouth twisted into a wry self-mocking smile. “I wouldn’t say that if Tra Yarta didn’t already know it.”

  “I see. That’s what you meant when you said you were too valuable to the Imperator to be slaughtered at a whim.”

  “That’s what I meant.” She shrugged. “If we don’t push it too hard.”

  “That malignancy in orbit… if there was just some way we could get rid of it…”

  “We?”

  “From what you said, I’m stuck here as long as it’s up there.”

  Gerilli Persij gazed at her a long moment, then she shut the pearls into a small lockbox and got to her feet. “You said you’re a good swimmer.”

  “I spent five years on Vandavrem, my first field assignment after I was accepted in the graduate program on University. It was a waterworld, almost no land. There was a very strange culture of intelligent bubble nesters… Never mind, it would take too long to explain, but yes, I got to be very adept in the water.”

  “Would you care to visit the yoss forest?”

  “Yes. Of course. Do you freedive or use airtanks?”

  “Depends on how deep we’re going and what kind of work’s involved. I think tanks for this expedition.”

  “Right. Lead me to them.”

  16

  Again Aslan worked until her mind was numb, slept badly and woke with despair and fear a sickness in her belly. It was hard to get up, to get on with living, but she’d done all she could in the time given her. The airship was coming for her shortly after noon and in a few hours she’d be back in the Palace pen, a slave again, with all that meant. She comforted herself with the thought that the sooner she was gone from the Persij-Samineh Farm, the sooner Tra Yarta’s attention would be taken off them.

  They threw a feast for her, danced the sea-dances for her, tumbled and juggled and at the end of the little jubilation, a woman with a husky voice filled with the pain and joy of a fully lived life sang a song that the Farmers listened to with a verve that seemed more than it was worth. Sly eyes watched Aslan, half-smiles teased at her, said to her we know we know, it’s a bit of a risk, but who can always live safely?

  The woman’s hair was black and long, shiny and sleek as a tar slick. She stood on a wooden dais, flute player on one side, a fiddler on the other and drummer at her feet.

  One a two a moon rising high

  Dream and Illusion sharing the sky

  Three a four a stone and a bone

  What does the stone say, my oh my

  What does the bone say, by an by

  Moonlight’s for love

  For dreams never spoken of

  Dreams that won’t die

  Five six seven

  What do you leave in

  When you’re singing just a little lie

  Sweet lie, silly lie, pass on by

  Eight and nine

  Look for the sign

  Ten eleven

  Fall from heaven

  All those devils dark and sly

  Riding the shoulders of

  You and I

  High be low and low be high

  Twelve a thirteen

  What does it mean

  Bone come walking shimble shamble

  Place your bets and let the wheel spin

  All the little angels grin and gambol

  Tip a toe tap a toe atop a little pin

  Stone say watch it, round they come again

  The angels are dancing wild and tame

  Tap a toe tip a toe atop a little pin

  Hey bone, ho bone want a little game

  Bound for heaven? Never try it

  That’s a place they let too many in

  Fourteen fifteen

  What does it mean

  All the little angels wild and free

  Asquat around a gamble stone

  Playing for we

  Sixteen seventeen

  What’s your fancy?

  Nothing chancy

  Let the wheel spin

  Eighteen nineteen

  What does it mean

  Moonlight’s for love

  For dreams never spoken of

  Dreams that won’t die

  Twenty a score, not no more

  What’s a number for

  Start the game again

  Aslan joined in the storm of applause, appreciating the skill of the singer as she turned what seemed to be a minor little counting poem into something daring and portentous. The performance was safe in the Ridaar unit and she could study it in more depth later-if she decided she could trust the computers at her work station and if she wanted the responsibility. It wasn’t all that difficult to understand the overall message of the song; even this stranger could hear the call for a continued resistance to Huvved rule, but there were some trigger words and images that drew a response which seemed disproportionate to their content. There was something going on here, something more dangerous than what Gerilli Persij had called talking a good fight. Aslan kept an open, appreciative smile on her face as the woman stepped down and another singer took her place, a man this time.

  17

  Alone except for the pilot and his co, Aslan watched the grasslands sliding beneath her, the silvery green-brown grass blowing in the wind that was pushing the ship along and making it shudder now and then. I could like this world, she thought, these people. Well, not the Huvved. Hmm. It’s worth studying… wonder who’d apply and who’d get the grant? Aaron? Could be. He must be nearly finished with the Darra Saseru, seeing that they’re just about finished killing each other off. Or maybe T’Kraaketkx Tk. I wonder what the Hordar would make of him? Hmm. Are they shapephobic? Or is that a Huvved trait? All the slaves brought in with me were from the cousin races, only slight variations from the two types living here. But that was just one shipment. Hmm. If I were the Imperator and reasonably sane, the techs I’d import would be so different from the locals that there
’d be no place at all for them to hide. She yawned, settled back in the chair and dropped into a doze.

  18

  Aslan dropped her gear on a newly replaced grass mat. “Hey everyone, I’m back. Parnalee? Churri? Anyone here?”

  “One sec, Lan. Be right out.”

  Aslan raised her brows, startled. “Xalloor?”

  “Uh-huh.” The dancer slammed the door to Parnalee’s bedroom and threw herself down on a couch. “Trying to turn me into a blisterin nurse, tchah!” She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose it’s better than being drafted as a whore for those mignish guards.”

  “What?”

  “Drooling ol’ dreep.”

  Aslan dropped onto the couch. “Who?”

  “Him.” Xalloor jerked a thumb at a window that looked out on the Great Tower. “Him with his bony ass planted on this world.”

  “What happened?”

  “Dumb. Me.” Xalloor banged a fist against her chest. One of her sudden brilliant grins lit up her tired face. “Nah, not so bad as that. Stupid Madoor, wouldn’t let me see the client. I always do that so I know what the git wants. I was flying blind, hmp, went to the trouble to snatch me, didn’t they? I figure here he is, he owns the whole stinking world, he must’ve paid one tart’rish price for me, so I go all out and give him my most marvelous dance. I told you about it, the Lightsailor piece.” Her shoulders jerked with her short barking laugh.

  “So?”

  “Turns out his idea of art rises maybe to paper dollies.” Another abrupt laugh. “Trouble is the Lightsailor thing’s pretty abstract. I lost him about five minutes into it. Been anything less, I’d ’ve seen that and played to him, but that piece is a chunk of my heartsoul and I wasn’t noticing anything. Until the finish. There was a very long loud silence.” She shrugged. “Too bad. Oh well, what goes around, comes around.”