Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  Nathan shook his head in sympathy.

  “As it was, she never left Sabtú. Before the contract could be finalized, she killed herself. After that, there was no reason for the Changriti to pay off the contract. And rather than yielding to his Family’s will, Qim took his revenge by becoming sahakharae, which makes him worthless to the Changriti. Naturally, they disowned him. If the old Pratha Yaenida had not offered him a place here as sahakharae, Qim would now be naekulam. So you see, Nathan Crewe Nga’esha, Qim dva Daharanan Changriti does indeed have both the age and the experience to justify offering you well-meant advice.”

  Nathan stared at him for a long moment before his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Shit,” he said wearily in Hengeli.

  “In any case,” Margasir went on, “it was never Qim’s intent to offer you advice. He wished simply to impress you with his music in the hope you might allow him to listen to your Hengeli music.”

  “Once again, it seems I’m the one who needs to be making amends, not Qim. So. Any suggestions how I fix this?” Somehow, he doubted another offering of hair flowers would suffice.

  Margasir shrugged. “You are the son of a pratha h’máy. Qim is only a very minor sahakharae. And since it was he who offended you—”

  “Damn it, I’ve told you he didn’t offend me—”

  “Since he offended you,” Margasir insisted, interrupting Nathan’s protest, “a gracious man would allow him the opportunity to offer an apology. Might I suggest a suitable place for this might be in the privacy of your library?”

  The library. Qim had also mentioned the library. “Of course.” “Good,” Margasir said with satisfaction. “Now, having demonstrated how valuable a práhsaedam you are incredibly lucky to have acquired, I humbly ask a small favor of you.”

  “Anything...”

  “Please be so kind as to groan ecstatically and tell me how fantastic I am in a very loud voice.” Margasir grinned wickedly at Nathan’s astonishment, adding, “Other ears are listening, and I do have my reputation to consider. Who will send their sons to me if I can’t please even one very ugly, barbaric yepoqioh?”

  Nathan laughed. “Get out of here, you old fraud.”

  XXX

  HE HAD LEARNED TO RECOGNIZE THE INDIVIDUAL DHIKAR ASSIGNED TO stand watch outside his library by the way each of them knocked on the door. The Dhikar, unaccustomed to either locked doors or knocking to gain admission, had developed their own style of announcing visitors. He’d nicknamed the one who tentatively patted the door with her palm so lightly he nearly couldn’t hear it Flutterfly. Heavy Hand Hannah bludgeoned the door so hard he always started, and didn’t stop until he’d opened it. This time it was Two-Knock, the one who rapped on the wood with two distinctly spaced blows as solemn as announcing death itself. If any of them had real names, Nathan had never been able to discover them.

  He opened the door and bowed courteously to Two-Knock, who nodded gravely back at him and allowed Qim past her.

  The musician looked around curiously as Nathan shut the door, then asked, in nearly the same puzzled tone as had Raemik, “What do you do here?”

  “Depends.” Nathan settled into the massive chair once belonging to Pratha Yaenida, sprawling casually. This was his inner sanctum, and he refused to obey Vanar protocol here. Qim’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, still standing politely with his hands clasped in front of him, head slightly bowed in proper sahakharae fashion. “I’m supposed to be translating it all into Hengeli, but mostly I just rummage through the archives for anything related to botany. Most of the rest is boring crap anyway, and I haven’t the patience for it. Would you please sit down and relax?”

  Startled, Qim sat down in one of the chairs around the table so hurriedly Nathan nearly laughed. The sahakharae took a breath and began, “I asked your práhsaedam, my revered teacher, for guidance on how best to offer my apologies—”

  “Yes, I know,” Nathan said, cutting him off. “Apology accepted, forget it ever happened.” The boy blinked, taken aback. “Look, Qim, I’m just an uncivilized yepoqioh. I can’t stand all these elaborate formalities, they drive me crazy. If you really want to offer me an apology, the best one would be to come straight out with whatever it is you wanted in the first place.”

  Qim lowered his gaze to his hands clutched in his lap. “I only wanted to hear what Hengeli music sounds like.”

  “Okay.” He opened the antique coffer where he kept his collection, scanning through the titles. “Although there’s no such thing as one Hengeli style. It’s not like Vanar, where there’s only one people, one language, one culture. There’s many different kinds of people with their own language and their own music on Hengeli.”

  “Why?” Qim seemed genuinely baffled.

  Taken aback, Nathan floundered. “Well... because it’s Hengeli. It’s where we all originated from, so they’ve had many thousands of years of history behind them. . . .” He studied the boy carefully. “They don’t teach you much non-Vanar history here, do they?”

  “No. What do we need it for?”

  “Right,” Nathan said, unable to think of an appropriate answer. “Anyway, it’s all different, and what I have doesn’t even come close to a full spectrum. I’m not allowed to import anything modern, meaning anything less than about a hundred years old. So mostly all I have is very ancient classical because that’s what Vanar Customs authorities consider ‘safe.’ ”

  “Is it? Safe?”

  Nathan looked up sharply. Qim’s face was as bland as his voice, but his eyes didn’t blink. “Some of it. We Hengeli also wrote a lot of pretty music designed to do nothing but please pretty girls. Is that what you’d like to hear?”

  Qim shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. “If that’s all you have.”

  Nathan smiled. “No,” he said carefully. “But without knowing what you’d like or not, I’ll just try a few things at random, okay?”

  Mahler bored him. Wagner shocked him. Paganini confused him. Vivaldi entranced him. African Industrial Retro Wave excited him. Japanese Nouveau Zen music lulled him. Old Colonial music made him wince. But his favorite was Celtic jazz. Qim drew out a small felt bag from where he kept it tied under his sati and slid two small wooden flutes from it. Picking up one, he experimentally blew several running notes, following the long-dead musicians who had recorded the cube centuries ago. Then he caught the melody, his foot tapping a rhythm to the bodhran drums, closed his eyes, and played.

  The boy was good. More than just good, Nathan realized, watching him sway with the music, oblivious as his fingers skimmed across the flute effortlessly. But while he played, Nathan picked up the other flute, examining it with intense interest. The surface was as burnished as copper, smooth and warm to the touch.

  The music finished, and Qim opened his eyes, caught Nathan holding his other flute, and smiled.

  “Do you make these?”

  Qim nodded.

  “It’s not bamboo.”

  “No.” When he didn’t continue, Nathan held it up questioningly. “The proper sort of bamboo is too hard for me to get,” Qim continued. “It all has to come from off-world, and I can’t afford it. Anymore.” Not as a novice sahakharae rather than a high-ranked Changriti, Nathan understood.

  “This is native wood.”

  Qim nodded again.

  “Where did you get it?”

  Now the boy’s narrow eyes shifted around at the books, cautious. “It’s said the monitors were taken out of the library.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  Nathan laughed. “For sure? I don’t. I have only Pratha Yronae’s word for it.” When Qim’s expression didn’t change, he added, “She’s a hard-hearted bitch, but I trust her.”

  Shocked, Qim gasped. “Aren’t you afraid of saying things like that?” he asked once he’d recovered.

  “If she is listening, then she’d reveal herself a liar and deserves what she hears. This is the one place I have ever been able to speak my mind. The old pratha knew h
ow important that was to me.”

  Qim considered this, then said slowly, “I’m not sure that is a good habit to become accustomed to.”

  “Neither am I. Where did you get the wood?”

  Taking the flute from Nathan, Qim concentrated on replacing them in the felt bag before he answered, keeping his eyes averted. “I can show you.” So much left unspoken in those few words, Nathan knew.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow night.” He looked up, dark eyes enigmatic. “Pratha Yronae knows, of course. The old pratha never objected, but our new one . . .” He shrugged again.

  After a moment, Nathan said, “Knows . . . what?”

  But Qim’s ingrained caution was too strong, regardless of the library’s privacy. He stood, tucking the bag back under his sati. “Tomorrow night.”

  Nathan spent much of the next day working on his greenhouse, but with his mind distracted, oddly cheered by the mystery. He had barely started his dinner sitting under the ancient maple in the men’s garden when Qim passed him, nodded without expression, and walked on. Still chewing his last mouthful, Nathan abandoned the rest of his meal and hurried after the boy.

  He was not the only one aware of the gap in the men’s garden wall, he discovered, absurdly resentful his secret was shared. But rather than follow the path down to the old tree by the river, Qim turned along the ridge of the hill, walking straight for a thicket of compact shrubs Nathan had thought impassable. That weren’t. But without his guide, he quickly realized, he’d never be able to navigate this maze a second time. At one point, they had to crawl on hands and knees through a cave in sheer rock, water dripping from tiny stalactites overhead. Not normally claustrophobic, Nathan was grateful all the same to reemerge out the other side. He stood, his sati soaking wet, and glanced up at the crude figure of a blank-faced woman chiseled out of the rock face, the cave entrance between her distorted legs.

  Qim quickly peeled off his dripping sati and hung it over a branch where several dozen other sati fluttered in the twilight breeze. All he wore underneath was an unbleached linen mati, as did many sahakharae, his connection with the Changriti long severed. Most of the sati hanging from the branches were Nga’esha blue. A few colors from other High Families dotted the trees, as well as a sprinkling from Middle Families.

  “You won’t need it,” he said to Nathan as he quickly loosened his hair from the intricate braid, discarding beads and flowers and bracelets. While Nathan stripped off his own sati, Qim’s fingers raked his hair back and tied it off at the nape of his neck. As fine as a Persian cat’s tail, it seemed to float down the young man’s back, the simplicity almost erogenous.

  They made their way in the growing dusk to a clearing in the forest where, Nathan’s botanical eye noticed with excitement, imported trees stood side by side with their odder indigenous counterparts. A small gathering of about fifty men chatted quietly but fell silent as he followed Qim into the middle of the clearing where several large drums had been erected, other musical instruments assembled around them.

  Strangely, Nathan realized, no one bowed in the Vanar custom he now had to fight not to reflexively perform himself. Qim avoided their mute reproach as he inspected the drums with minute care. Although Nathan had long been used to being stared at, the silence was unnerving.

  An older, muscular man elbowed his way through the crowd, totally naked but for glistening wet body paint, his adornment having been interrupted, by the incomplete look of it. He glared at Nathan, dark eyes hard, before he turned to Qim. Neither spoke, nor did Qim look up, still engrossed in examining the drums. Finally, the man frowned, snorted in disgust, and turned away without a word. But Nathan didn’t miss how the young sahakharae briefly closed his eyes and exhaled with relief.

  The tension in the crowd diminished. Murmured conversation resumed while newcomers continued to arrive, each one startled to see him in their midst, then pointedly ignoring him. Nathan gave up trying to smile reassuringly and found a fallen log at the edge of the clearing where he could sit at a remove as merely a visiting observer.

  A small bonfire had been assembled, more branches being pulled out of the shelter of the forest, native and imported wood stacked equally onto the growing pile. By the time the sky had darkened to true night, stars winking into existence, enough firewood had been accumulated. The fire several people tended finally caught, yellow fingers of flame delicately exploring the branches. The crowd continued to grow, many of them other musicians bringing their own instruments.

  One of them, to Nathan’s surprise, was a woman dressed in a simple white mati similar to Qim’s. Without her sati, he had no way of telling which, if any, of the High Families she was from. Which, he realized, looking around, was true of just about everyone there. She spoke briefly to Qim, and shot a startled look in Nathan’s direction, seeing him for the first time. As he had the painted man, Qim avoided her eyes as they talked. The woman shrugged one shoulder, then shook out a long wooden flute of her own. She and the boy ran through a series of riffs, comparing tunes, and Nathan smiled when he recognized a fragment he knew Qim had adapted from the Celtic jazz cube he’d heard only the day before. The woman listened intently, and within seconds, she had caught the melody, her fingers skimming across the flute effortlessly. Another young man joined them, a small mandolinlike instrument in hand, and inside a minute, he too had grasped the unusual music, grinning in delight. Their easy companionship made Nathan feel even more the outsider. Then Qim shot a quick glance at him with a flash of a smile, and his isolation seemed less lonely.

  At some signal Nathan couldn’t discern, Qim settled behind the drums as his friends stepped back into the crowd, vanishing. The boy’s fingers began rolling a quiet rhythm against the taut skins, an expectant hush settling over the people gathered in the clearing. As Nathan admired the complexity of the tempo, an eerie, low rumble echoed back from the hidden depths of the trees, making the hairs on his arms prickle. A bass lute answered from another corner of the darkness, then other instruments Nathan couldn’t identify joined in. Qim’s eyes closed, and he rocked his body in time to the music that seemed to surround the clearing from every angle.

  “You can’t talk about this to anyone,” a quiet voice said next to his ear, startling him. He turned to the woman who had played the flute with Qim. She crouched beside him, her flute balanced across her knees. Up close, he realized she was younger than he’d first thought. “Qim didn’t tell you that, did he?”

  “No. He didn’t actually tell me much of anything, except that Pratha Yronae knows about it already.”

  The girl frowned. “Of course. Or we could never be here at all.” She shrugged. “The old pratha h’máy first allowed it, but for how long the new one will permit us to continue, who can say? Many of the other Nine Families don’t approve. But if it isn’t spoken about, it doesn’t officially exist.”

  “Who are you?” he asked, curious.

  “Here?” She smiled. “No one.” She lifted the flute to her mouth and, the firelight glittering in her eyes, joined her voice to those already playing, stepping back into the anonymity of the night shadows.

  The music grew, the energy building until it rolled a tension in Nathan’s chest. This was nothing like the innocuous, thin music popular with most Vanar—or at least with Vanar women. This music was rougher, with a power and electricity he’d never heard any Vanar play before. Just as the intensity seemed to build toward a climax, a sudden loud howling behind him made him duck in reflex.

  A dozen painted dancers leapt over him, naked but for bizarre masks over their faces. He fell off his seat, arms flung protectively over his head, then caught sight of Qim’s laughing face beyond the fire. He grinned ruefully as he realized he was the target of the joke, and joined in the clapping as the dancers began.

  The last fading blush of sunset had vanished, the night sky filled with stars. With only the bonfire to illuminate them, the painted dancers took on a surreal appearance. Firelight shone on their bodies, cast their m
uscles in gold, their shadows wavering like wild animals through the trees.

  The drumbeat magnified, and it took Nathan several minutes before he realized they were playing with their own echoes bouncing off cliff walls. It rumbled through the trees in a passable resemblance to thunder, distant and menacing.

  If he had been anywhere else, he would have thought the dancers aboriginals, remnants of prehistoric tribes dancing to appease their hostile gods. As it was, the decades spent in training gave them an acrobatic skill and sophisticated choreography all of their own, the distinctive Vanar style shining through even this most unorthodox expression of their art.

  He started again when the musicians and spectators alike began to chant, everyone obviously familiar with this particular song. As they chanted the words, the dancers stamped their feet while the audience beat the ground with sticks or fists, pounding the rhythm of the verse with a fierce energy.

  “We are men!” The refrain resonated around him, driving the dancers. “We are men! We are strong! We plow the earth, we sow the seed! We are men!” The ferocity of feeling around him both excited Nathan and alarmed him. He could well see why this ritual, if not a secret, would be a private matter. Even the woman who had been playing with Qim chanted the words with equal vigor, her flute forgotten, her eyes half shut, her body rocking to the drum beat filling the air, building to an unbearable crescendo. “Feel us, feel our spirit, feel our courage, we are the rain storm, we are the thunder, we are life, we are men!”

  The music reached its peak, and abruptly ended, the dancers frozen with their hands thrust into the air, the last drumbeat echoing off the cliff like spent thunder. The sudden silence was as powerful as the boisterous music had been, his ears still ringing, the only sound the breathing of winded dancers and the crackle of the fire. Then the spectators and dancers alike leapt to their feet in a wild cheer of appreciation, orgasmic in intensity.