Shadow of the Warmaster

by Jo Clayton

  “Try.” Her voice was iron, her eyes pinned him.

  “This is not a good time,” he said, “she won’t come.”

  “What use are you Kar, if you can’t do this small thing for your Family? What do I say to your mother? We have protected him and lied for him, covered his shivery ass, and when we ask a small, a minute thing for us, his Family, what does he say? I can’t, he says.

  “Let it lay, Ommar. Please.” His hand shook, tea splashed onto his knees.

  “Why should I? What is more important that the moral discipline of your sisters, your nieces, your cousins?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Please. I can’t.”

  She relaxed, her back curving into the cushions. “I see. How long will you need cover this time?”

  “I don’t know, maybe four, five days.”

  “When?”

  “When I’m called. I can’t say more.”

  “Hmm. It will be better if we prepare for this.” She smiled, no glow to her this time, just a tight bitter twist of the lips. “You’ve been doing too much, Kar. You look like a walking ghost; no one will be surprised if you go down seriously sick. If I pull in some markers, I can set your cousin Tamshan in your place, so we don’t lose the earnings.”

  “Gorak watches all pilots; we don’t want that; the job takes me off his list.”

  “As long as you’re supposed to be coughing your lungs out, he won’t bother his head over you.”

  “If he believes it.”

  “You think he’s going to push his way in here and time your spasms?”

  “If he wants to, he will.” He rubbed at his eyes; he’d been noticing a haze-effect for several weeks. Eyes, lungs, his whole body was breaking down. He was averaging four hours’ sleep a night. It was weeks since he’d had any appetite, he hadn’t seen Lirrit for… how long? Gray day melted into gray day. He didn’t know how long. Too long. He hadn’t even thought about her for days. He closed his eyes, shivered as he realized he couldn’t bring her face to mind. No time for thinking, less for contemplating marriage; he and Lirrit would wed when times were easier, but in the miasma of weariness, fear, horror that usurped his day and dreamtime lately, it was impossible even to dream of such things. Maybe it was just as well he got out, he was running on autopilot, abdicating his responsibility to himself, depending on Elmas for direction and impetus. Some time to himself… he savored the thought, then put it aside. It wouldn’t happen this month or the next; there was too much to do. After then? Who knew, not he. “Zaraiz,” he said. “I don’t know him. How old is he? You told me his line name, but I don’t remember it.”

  “Memeli. He’s a first year middler, no discipline, he’s insolent, a bad influence on everyone.” She slapped her hands on the chair arms. “Memeli, tchah! Had I been Ommar that generation, we wouldn’t have the problem, we never would have affiliated that collection of losers.”

  Karrel Goza lowered his eyes, played with his cup. The intolerance of a Dalliss, her inability to see worth in folk who didn’t conform to her personal standards, it was the ugly side of their Ommar. He tilted the cup, gazed at the rocking tawny fluid as if he saw Elmas Ofka’s face there; that intolerance, that ignorance, that inflexibility were her faults too, they’d bothered him from the first. He’d forgotten that… no, not forgotten, he’d stopped thinking. With the end so close, yes, take the time, yes, go back to thinking, yes, be there to stand against her when the need arises, yes… Hands heavy with weariness, he rubbed the crackling from his eyes. “All right,” he said, “I’ll talk with the boy. Maybe it’ll do some good.” He coughed, gulped down a mouthful of the lukewarm tea. “In the morning,” he said, “locate Zaraiz Memeli for me; don’t bother him, just let me know where he is, I’ll collect him myself.”

  “I will do that, yes.” She lifted the teapot, beckoned him over and refilled his cup with the aromatic liquid; she had expensive taste in teas and indulged it more than she should in times like this; sitting here, savoring the flavor, he resented it, his sweat and pain bought her these luxuries and she took them as her right when there were children of the House-not Goza, no, but of the House as much as any Goza child-who needed food, clothing, medicine. This can’t keep on, he thought, it has to change, we’ve got to make it change. He thought of the teacher at the Mines and what she’d been telling her students; it was not happy hearing; we’ll be different, he told himself, we’ll make this work. When he was seated again, she said, “Ommars tell me that slaves are disappearing, not one or two but whole chains of them.”

  “Oh?”

  “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  “Yes.”

  The Ommar leaned forward again, her eyes fixed on him, trying to get past the face he presented to her. After a minute she sucked at her teeth, shook her head. “This can’t go on,” she said.

  He looked up, startled by the echo of what he’d been thinking; then he realized that she meant something far different.

  “Inci is better off than most from what I hear, but give her another few months and she’ll be burning down around us. Before Herk lets that happen, he’ll call on the stingers and blast those lunatic children out of the air and he won’t care what else he levels. I’m telling you, Kar, you tell her and the rest of them. Do something. If her lot won’t or can’t, then we crawl to Herk and lick his toes. We’ve got no time left for playing hero games.”

  He got heavily to his feet; it was more difficult than he’d expected. The comfort of that chair, the warmth of the room, the soothing fragrance of the chamwood burning on the hearth, these things were like chains on his arms and legs. At the door he turned. “I will pass your message on, Hanifa Ommar, but I will say this, though I probably am talking too much, this is not a good time to insult her.” He went out.

  3

  Zaraiz Memeli was a small youth, black hair curling tightly about a face sharp enough to cut wood. He was digging without enthusiasm at a tuber bed, leaning on his spading fork whenever the harassed middler girl turned her back on him to deal with some especially egregious idiocy of another of her punishment detail. She had to keep watch on the garden, the laundry room and a workshed where three girls were sorting rags and stripping discards of reusable parts. Usually there would be several middlers acting as overseers. Karrel Goza found this lone harried girl even more disturbing than the aberration he was supposed to deal with this morning. Why was she alone? Was the Ommar losing her grip, letting work details fall apart? Was she letting favorites play on pride and refuse such work? He didn’t know his home any longer. His fault. The Ommar was right that far. So busy saving the world he forgot about his Family; he was almost a stranger here. For the past year anyway. Up at dawn, hasty breakfast, toast and a cup of tea, maybe a sausage if he could force it down, then the retting shed, work there till the second shift came on, midafternoon, scrub the chemical stink off his body, try to get the taint of it out of his lungs, eat if he could, tumble into bed for a restless nightmare-ridden nap; dark come down, off to the taverns for carousing or conspiring or out to the Mines to fly for Elmas Ofka, his attention turned outward always, the House too familiar for him to see it; he simply assumed that it continued to exist as it existed in his memory. By the time he reached the tuber patch off the Memeli Court, he was in no mood to put up with sass from a know-nothing bebek who was setting the House in danger with no purpose except to tickle his urges.

  “Zaraiz Memeli.”

  The boy looked up after a deliberate pause, his face guarded. Custom and courtesy required a response; he leaned on his fork in a silence more insolent than words.

  Karrel Goza swallowed bile and kept his temper. “Come,” he said. This wasn’t starting out well and he didn’t see how he could improve things, but he slogged stubbornly on. The young overseer came at a quick trot, questions on her lips. He silenced her with the Ommar’s order, took the fork from Zaraiz Memeli and gave it to her. He tapped Zaraiz on the shoulder and pointed toward the Memeli court. “We’ll talk there.”
>
  Eyes like obsidian, wrapped in a resistant silence, the boy strolled along, refusing to recognize the compulsion put on him. A sly scornful smile sneaked onto his face as Karrel pushed through the wicket and stopped, the noise and clutter of the busy enclosure breaking around him. Crawlers and pre-youngers littered the flags, crying, yelling, playing slap-and-punch games; older prees chased each other around the baby herds and their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins who were working, singing, cross-talking in endless antiphon, a tapestry of sound.

  Karrel Goza glanced at the boy, watched his bony unfinished face go wooden and unresponsive. For a moment he felt like strangling the pest, then, abruptly, he didn’t know why then or later, the absurdity of the whole thing hit him and he laughed. “Not here, obviously,” he said and backed out. He frowned at Zaraiz. There was always the Ommar’s garden, but instinct and intellect told him that would be a very bad idea; the peace and lushness of that pocket paradise was too stark a contrast to the Memeli Court, it would exacerbate the boy’s disaffection. He thought about leaving the House and walking out to the wharves, but he was supposed to be down sick and it would be stupid to confirm the Sech’s suspicions. Problem was, except for the Ommar’s quarters, there wasn’t much privacy, Gozas and Duvvars and Memelis working everywhere, even the oldest doing handcraft and repair, and those who weren’t working were talking and watching, gossiping and prying into other folk’s business. He dug deep into memory for the places he went when he was a younger and wanted to get away from the soup of life simmering inside the Housewalls. He didn’t feel like climbing a tree or burrowing into a dust-saturated attic; he smiled, didn’t suit the dignity of the moment. It was a gray day with rain threatening; yes, the clotheslines on the roof of the weaving shed, there wouldn’t be anyone hanging out clothes today.

  The lines were humming softly as the chill wind swept over the roof; it wasn’t the most comfortable place for a prolonged chat, but it was private. Karrel Goza kicked a basket of clothespegs out of a fairly sheltered corner and settled himself with his back against the waist-high wall. “Sit.”

  Zaraiz Memeli dropped with the boneless awkward grace of his age, drew his thin legs up and wrapped thin arms about them. He said nothing. His attitude proclaimed he intended to keep on saying nothing.

  “You don’t have to tell me why,” Karrel Goza said. “I know why.” He smiled with satisfaction as he saw the boy’s rage flare, then vanish behind the shutters he’d had too much practice raising between himself and the rest of the world. He did not want to be understood, Karrel Goza’s words were both a challenge and an insult. “Dalliss,” Karrel said. “The Ommar; arrogant, bigoted, makes you want to kick her face in, but she’s good at her job.” He pushed aside his unease; this was no time for doubt. “Within her limits there’s no one big enough to take her place. Not you, my little friend, no matter what you think. She’s got her toadies, yes. Gozas, all of them. You think I like that? I’d drop the lot in Saader’s Cleft if it was up to me. They stand in her shadow and steal her authority and tramp on the rest of us and she’s blind to it. Yes. I know. I’m Goza and I’m here, running errands for her, so you think I’m one of them, tonguing her toes and begging her to walk on me.” He shrugged, his shoulders scraping against the whitened roughcast. “I had it easier than you. I got out. When I was a few years older than you, I got out. Not divorced, just out. They tried bullocking me, sure they did, but most of the time I wasn’t here and when I was I had the clout to tell them to go suck. As long as I was flying.” He felt the jolt again, the whole-body ache that came when he was grounded, the loss he couldn’t put behind him except when he was flying for Elmas Ofka. An obsession can be a gift, giving point to an otherwise pointless life; it can be a torment when there’s a wall in the way. He glanced at Zaraiz. The boy was blank as an empty page, refusing to hear any of this. What do you want, Zaraiz Memeli, do you know? He tried feeling his way back to that time around puberty when all his certainties melted like taffy left in the sun. No. He knew too much about surviving now. The years had made him intimately acquainted with gray, the middler world of crisp unchanging black-and-white wasn’t available to him any longer. Those were shifts so fundamental that it was impossible to recapture the angst of that world. It also made it difficult to judge what the boy was thinking, what he was feeling. “Do you extend your loathing to your parents? Your brothers and sisters?”

  The boy lifted his eyes, flicker of molten obsidian, then he looked away.

  “I went to see the Ommar Istib Memeli last night. We talked about you. Your father is on the Duzzulkas right now, bush-peddling black-market medicines, your mother works at the Kummas Kabrikon in the Fix room setting dyes, your two older sisters work there also, handling half a dozen spinners each; Hayati Memeli, the older of them, has first signs of the coughing disease. Your third sister is only a few months old. Your two brothers are mid-youngers, still with their tutors; neither of them shows much promise with his letters, but Aygil Memeli the youngest is good with his hands, he might be a carpenter or a mechanic if the Bondfees can be found. Do they mean nothing to you?” Karrel Goza stared at the boy, trying to see past the blankness. “Ommar Istib says you’re bright enough but lazy. That could be because you haven’t found anything you think worth doing, or it could be because there’s nothing to you but flash and foolishness. Ommar Istib says you’ve shown no special talents, that you’re not interested in anything, all you seem to know is what you don’t want which is everything inside these walls.” A muscle twitched beside the boy’s mouth, but he would not look at Karrel. “You think that matters to anyone? To me? Let me tell you, I’m not particularly interested in who you are or what you think.” Another molten black gaze. Karrel Goza nodded. “Right. I’m like all the rest. That’s the way the world wags, cousin. Let me make something clear. While you live within these walls, you will show some loyalty to the others here; which means you will stop your yizzy raids as long as you are associated with this House. If you want the freedom of the streets, you can have it; the convocation of ommars will pronounce a divorcement. They will not let you endanger the rest of Goza-Duvvar-Memeli.”

  Zaraiz Memeli paled, flushed, clamped his lips together, struggling to control the emotions surging in him. A moment later he lost the fight. “Hypocrite!” The word exploded out of him in an angry whisper. “You… you’re doing worse.”

  “I’m not a child.” Karrel Goza fixed a quelling eye on the working, angry face; inside, he writhed as he listened to what was coming out of his mouth; he wasn’t the pompous idiot he heard himself being, but somehow he couldn’t shake loose from… from this stinking parody of all he’d kicked against since he was Zaraiz Memeli’s age. The face of authority, he thought, as his mouth went on uttering fatuities. “I’m not recklessly endangering the House for the sake of a transient thrill.” He held up his hand to silence the boy until he was finished speaking. “There is a purpose to…

  “Purpose!” Zaraiz Memeli’s voice cracked which made him angrier than before; he tried to say more, started to stammer and clamped his teeth on his lower lip. Karrel Goza waited, giving the boy time to collect himself. “Y… y… YOU!” Zaraiz got out finally. “Purpose, yunkshit. Playing stupid games. Going nowhere.” He jerked a long trembling thumb at the sky. “That! that… that thing up there says you’re full of shit and hot air.”

  “Maybe so.” Karrel Goza sighed. “This isn’t about me, Zaraiz Memeli. The inklins haven’t much to lose, so they can afford their rashness. As long as you are connected to Goza House, you drag us down with you.” He rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Don’t tell me it isn’t fair. I know it isn’t fair. The Ommar and her convocation have the power, you have none. Your nearkin will back her, so will we.” He hesitated. “The time will come, Zaraiz Memeli, when you’ll have a chance to change the balance of power. If you’re here to fight, if you have the will to fight. All I ask is that you think about it.”

  Zaraiz Memeli shuddered, shut his eyes and dropped his fac
e onto his knees.

  Karrel Goza rubbed at his arms, clamped his cold, chapped hands in his armpits, hunting some warmth. Weariness from the abruptly interrupted drive of the past months was dropping like a fog over him, the day’s damp chill was boring into his bones. He scowled at the boy; he might feel a certain kinship with him, but that embryonic brother-sense was drowning in impatience. Come on, he thought, come on, young fool; give in or get out. There’s nothing I can do for you. Look at me. Nothing I can do for me. Not now. You’re supposed to be intelligent, I can’t see it, show me. He pinched his nose, killing a sneeze, tucked, his hand back under his arm.

  Zaraiz Memeli lifted his head. “How?”

  Karrel Goza blinked. “How do you usually think?”

  “No.” He jerked his thumb at the sky, the tremble gone out of his hand. “That. There’s whispers. I didn’t believe them before. It is true? Have you and her figured a way to get at it?”

  Oversoul’s empty navel, Karrel Goza thought, I talk too much. “Nonsense,” he said aloud. “How could we? I was talking about Family matters.”

  Zaraiz grinned. His black eyes glittering, he bounced to his feet, so much energy in him, if someone touched a match to him, he’d explode. “Right,” he said. “All right. I’ll make a deal. The Slimes’ll park our yizzies for now, if so you make us part of it.” He folded his thin arms, hugged himself as if those arms had strength enough to control what burned in him. The wind blew strands of curly hair across his eyes, his mouth; he ignored that and stood there, frozen fire, dangerous to his enemies, nearly as dangerous to his kin. When Karrel Goza failed to answer at once, his excitement blew out and the suspicion and resentment that smoldered under his skin burned hotter in its place. “Or aren’t Memeli worthy? Aren’t we good enough for you?”

  Karrel Goza closed his eyes. I do not need this, he thought, Prophet touch my lips or no, anything I say will be wrong. If there was just some way I could drop him in a hole somewhere until… hole? Why not. He smiled. He couldn’t help smiling though he knew Zaraiz Memeli would see and misinterpret it. He opened his eyes, got wearily to his feet. “How much weight will your yizzy lift?”