Shadow's End

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "Evensong," Lutha said. "Farewell to Lady Day. And that, too, is about time."

  "We're more tired than we should be," said Trompe as he slowly removed their belongings from the vehicle. "The trip wasn't that arduous."

  She agreed with a weary brush at a lock of hair that dangled at her forehead. "Indeed, Trompe. We are scarce begun and I am so weary I can hardly see. What is it about this place?"

  He considered the question soberly. "I think it's the fact that we have no sense of distance traveled toward our goal. It's been like a maze. One goes and goes, then comes a turn, and one goes back almost the way one came. It takes hundreds of lateral marks back and forth among these canyons before we make much progress toward the goal. I'm conscious of frustration in myself. I can certainly feel it in you."

  "That's it," she said, almost relieved to have identified her feelings. "Trompe, you're right. It's all the same—mark after mark of thorn forest and herds of woolly beasts, then the road emerges onto an utterly astonishing prospect. We look out on marvel, complete with rising song and smoke from the occupied hives and mysterious silence from the abandoned ones—"

  "More abandoned ones than I expected," he interjected.

  "—then we turn back, almost the way we came; mark after mark of thorn forest once more, another astonishing prospect, then turn again, like a shuttle in a loom. Back and forth. Back and forth. After a time one's sense of astonishment wanes."

  "But the landscape demands astonishment, nonetheless, so one is left feeling naughty to be so ungrateful." Trompe grinned wearily at her. "At least, that's how I felt! One more breathtaking view and I would gag. Especially considering we could have flown the distance in an hour or so."

  She sagged under Leely's weight as the boy gripped her more tightly around the neck, murmuring his usual "Dananana," moistly in her ear.

  "He's hungry," she said.

  "How do you know?"

  "I just know. Or perhaps I assume he is because I am. Let's go in and see what the menu offers."

  What the Dziblom-nahro offered was a flavorful stew of grain and peppers, flat polygons of unleavened bread served with a dish of salted herbs and another of a fruity sweet-sour-hot sauce, plus a small helping of roasted meat, no doubt from the same woolly, deer-like creatures they had seen in flocks along their journey.

  "Not bad," Trompe murmured.

  "Should be quite acceptable," Lutha murmured in return. "It's the basic menu for human diets on most nonocean worlds. Grain. Vegetables. Fruit. A little meat. Evidently this is a nondairy cuisine. No milk. No cheese."

  "The flocks we saw on our way here today had tiny udders between the front legs. Milk animals need more nourishment than animals raised for meat, wool, or hides, and Dinadh probably doesn't produce enough grain to feed animals." He leaned forward and poured another cupful of the beverage that accompanied their meal. "Water or water flavored with mashed dried fruit as a drink. There's probably no grain or fruit left over for fermented or distilled drinks, either. Definitely a subsistence diet, trembling always on the edge of famine."

  "Which might explain the Dinadhi dependence upon their gods," she commented softly, casting a look across the empty room at the yawning young woman who had served them while politely averting her eyes. "They need to feel they have done all the right things to assure their continued well-being."

  "You draw this conclusion from the language?"

  "The use and frequency of religious words and phrases helps place the culture."

  "How?"

  Lutha made a little moue. "The precept is that consistent and frequent use of a limited lexicon, oral and gestural, denotes the presence of a rigorous sect, possibly one with a well-defined canon of positive and negative observances—"

  "Thou-shalts and shalt-nots?"

  "Right. Add to this adversarial language—"

  "Adversarial?"

  "Adversarial or exclusionary language—words that mean 'them,' as opposed to 'us.' I don't mean simple reference to identity. I mean trash words. Like the words the Firsters apply to non-Firsters—animal-lovers, ape-people, tree-worshipers, greenies … "

  He laughed. "Those are the mild ones."

  "Well, you get the idea. Fearful people develop their religions as protective devices, ways to manipulate hostile environments, formulas for identifying and defeating their enemies. The more fearful people are, the more enemies they have, the more adversarial language they use. My race is proud; yours is uppity. My people are the elect; yours is damned. My religion is true; yours is false. I worship god; you're possessed by demons."

  "Surely that's very common?"

  "Of course it is! Only very secure people are able to think nonadversarially. As a linguist, I have to keep in mind that fearful people are dangerous. When backed into corners, they bite! Before I start translating some document, I need to know what words and phrases might be heard as corner-backers."

  "So you look for trash words and adversarial and exclusionary language. How?"

  She nodded thoughtfully. "If possible, you lay hands on transcriptions of meetings, observances of public holidays, special religious services, any session where the people aren't talking to outsiders but are talking about them. You run those records through a content analyzer looking for god words. You also want to know how manlike the god is. Fearful people prefer manlike gods, deified humans, or gods that take human shape or do human things, gods they can imagine being friends with, or asking for a favor."

  "People don't go into battle shouting the name of the Ethical First Principle?"

  "Not usually. Also, the god often resembles his followers in behavior and feelings. Angry people have angry gods and vindictive people have vindictive gods, and so forth."

  Lutha indicated the serving woman who leaned against a doorpost, eyes half-closed. "When our serving woman spoke of the gods, however, she wasn't talking about deified humans. During our supper she mentioned Weaving Woman and Brother Corn and the Fruit Maidens and half a dozen other deities, none of them manlike, none of them adversarial. But, finally, when she left us to our dinner, she said, 'May the Gracious One hold us all in beauty,' and by using the word for 'us all,' she excluded the mentioned being."

  "Meaning she wants the pattern to benefit her and her family and friends, but doesn't want it to benefit us?"

  Lutha frowned. "No. The only creature specifically excluded was the other creature mentioned, the Gracious One. The language is adversarial by omission!"

  He laughed. "Sorry, Lutha, but I don't get that."

  "Listen. There are a dozen Dinadhi words for 'all,' or 'us all.' For example, there's a word that means us all, everything living in the universe. There's another word that means all us Dinadhi, and still another word that means all us humans here in this room. When you use an 'us all' word, if you mention anyone in particular in the same phrase, it means that person is excluded. You can say, 'Simidi-ala and us all Dinadhi are faithful worshipers,' and actually mean, 'Except for Simidi-ala, we on Dinadh are faithful worshipers.' Or you can say, 'Martha and us all were laughing at the jokes,' which actually means, 'We were all laughing except Martha, who has no sense of humor.' "

  "If you use any word that means 'us all,' but mention someone by name, that person is excluded?"

  "Right. If you want to include that person, you don't mention him, her, or it by name or you use the other set of words that just means 'all.' What our serving woman actually said was, 'May the Gracious One allow all other persons to continue in beauty.' "

  "The implication being … ?"

  "By the Great Org Gauphin, Trompe, I don't know! Either that the Gracious One is unbeautiful, or that the Gracious One can't appreciate beauty, or that the Gracious One is not concerned with beauty. How did she feel when she said it?"

  "I wasn't paying attention," he said, slightly shamefaced.

  Lutha shook her head. "Whatever it is, it doesn't concern us!"

  "We're not the scapegoat, in other words."

  "Right.
And that's remarkable, Trompe. Outsiders are almost always suspect."

  They rose from the table as the servitor bestirred herself to collect their dishes. Lutha gathered Leely into her arms and started for the porch outside the window where they had been sitting.

  "Lady … " The woman spoke from behind them. "Are you going out?"

  "I had thought it would be pleasant," Lutha replied in careful dialect. "Should I not do so?"

  "If you go to enjoy the air, do not leave the porch. Stay behind the grille. Such is the proper pattern of dusk behavior."

  Lutha bowed, thanking her, then murmured a translation for Trompe's benefit.

  "This time I was paying attention. Her emotion had something to do with safety," he mused, when they were outside, looking through the grille into the clearing and past it to the thorn forest. "Or a taboo of some kind. One of those negative commandments you were talking about?"

  "I have no idea. Suppose we sit awhile in these comfortable-looking chairs and enjoy the evening. I'm weary, but not sleepy yet."

  "Can I take the boy? He looks very heavy."

  "Leave him. He's all right, aren't you, Leely-baby? Of course he is, all snuggled down on Mommy's shoulder. Sit, Trompe. As the girl says, enjoy the air. One thing we will have to say about Dinadh; it has wonderful air."

  They sat, breathing the resinous fragrance of day-warmed trees, the cool water-scented wind that came up from the canyons. The sky was pure lapis, not yet black, with several large planets pulsing in the last glow at the horizon. Empty planets, Lutha told herself. With a few abandoned mines. And beyond this single system, everything else wiped clean by the Ularians.

  "Dana," whispered Leely, pointing with one chubby hand. "Danana."

  "What is it?" whispered Trompe.

  Lutha shook her head. She couldn't tell what it was. Something emerging from the forest: flowing draperies, melting mists. A wraith? A ghost? A creature oozing from among the trees into the clearing, seeming almost to glow in the dusk. Soon it was joined by others, half a dozen, ten, beings that lifted on their wings, circling.

  Ethereally slender, androgynous in form, fairylike in effect. As Lutha's eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see more clearly the delicate arms, the twig-thin fingers, the pearly membrane of the wings. They danced at the edge of the forest, arms beckoning.

  "Tempting to get a closer look," murmured Trompe. "If we hadn't been warned off."

  The young woman who had warned them stood in the window, watching as they were watching.

  "What are they?" Lutha asked.

  The girl replied softly. "Kachis. Sim'midi-as-yah."

  "Them, the beautiful people," Lutha translated in a whisper as the girl turned abruptly and went back into the building. "Which doesn't tell us much."

  "Which tells us a good deal," said Trompe soberly. "Her voice didn't betray it, but her feelings did. She's … awestruck. And … hopeful. And … afraid."

  "Frightened?" Lutha asked. "Surely not."

  "I'm a Fastigat, lady. Remember?"

  Lutha regarded the slowly circling forms, pale against the shadows of the forest. Their eyes were large, seeming almost to glow, though it was more likely they simply reflected ambient light as did the eyes of many nocturnal creatures. The forms were almost human, the faces those of smiling children, though they all seemed to be male, if the long, semierect organs paralleled earthian forms. They called and beckoned, their delicate feet prancing upon the grasses. Ridiculous to be afraid of these, Lutha thought.

  "Perhaps she was afraid of something else."

  Trompe shook his head. No, the girl had not been frightened of anything else. Whatever that strange mix of feelings meant, it had been occasioned by these, these beautiful people.

  "Well then," said Lutha, intensely matter-of-fact. "She is awestruck because they are taboo. That is why she told us to stay upon the porch, behind the rail. To prevent our contravening some local custom."

  Trompe nodded soberly. "If she prevents our contravening something, it's something more than mere custom."

  Chur Durwen of Collis, who had without the least concern dipped deep into the King of Kamir's coin to pay for a hundred-year sanctuary leasehold on Dinadh, now considered whether he might not have been cheated on the deal. After three days' travel, he seemed no closer to his goal than he had been in Tasimi-na-Dinadh. Now they were stopped at yet another hostel, and Chur Durwen carried his belongings into the place in sullen silence.

  "How much longer?" he demanded of the guide when he returned to the vehicle for another load.

  The guide shrugged. "It depends how much sun on the car. It depends how fast we go. It depends whether all the bridges are passable."

  Chur Durwen turned to Mitigan and made an angry face, hiding it from their guide. "They ought to homo-norm this world!"

  "Have you noticed that the herds are almost the only animals on Dinadh. I'd swear this place has already been homo-normed, despite the denials of every Dinadhi I've asked. What hasn't been done will no doubt be done, in time."

  "In time! Everything's in time! Forever time!"

  "There, there," soothed the man from Asenagi as he removed his belongings from the vehicle. "We'll get there when we get there, colleague."

  The other snorted. "When we get there, we won't be any closer to where we want to be than we are now!"

  "Patience! Eventually, we'll learn where Bernesohn Famber had his leasehold, which could be where Leelson Famber is or was, if the Haughneeps haven't killed him elsewhere already. That place will probably be where Famber's child or children are."

  "We should have picked up some rememberer and shaken the information out of him."

  Mitigan shook his head with an amused smile. "How would we know which one to pick up, which one had the 'files' we're interested in? Ah? They don't all remember everything, obviously."

  "Surely the ones who remember were there in the port, where we arrived. I mean, Famber had to come through there, just as we did."

  "I have no idea. We're not sure Leelson ever came here! Our informant at Alliance Prime said Leelson's family was coming here, but we're not sure when. We're sure Bernesohn Famber came, but that was a hundred years ago. One pleasant thing about this rememberer system of theirs is that it is self-limiting. Old stuff gets weeded out as rememberers die."

  "If Leelson Famber or his son came here, it was recently. He wouldn't be weeded out! If he's here, these people would know where!"

  "Right. So we pick one at random and ask him? Without being discovered? Without any suspicion attaching to us? And with one carefully guarded port the only way off Dinadh?"

  "Not a good idea," admitted Chur Durwen.

  "Not unless we want our exit slammed in our face. No, if we want to ask a rememberer, we'll have to go to their central place, their capital or holy city, where their so-called index men dwell. Of course, we have no idea where that is. Assuming we can find out, assuming we can get there, then we'll need to abduct one of the index men, hoping he's the right one, one who can lead us to the rememberer we need. He might only lead us to a local subindexer. It might take as many as four or five steps to get us where we want to be."

  Chur Durwen grimaced.

  The other said, "I think it's simpler just to do as we planned. Go where they send us, keep our ears and eyes alert, ask questions. When we've got a clue, we'll leave. These canyons will be easy to get lost in. We know how to live off the country. Nobody's going to find us unless we want them to. Eventually, we'll find who we're after. King Lostre set no time limit. We're being paid for our time as well as for the job, so we're in no hurry. It's always safest to take one's own sweet time."

  Their guide went stumping off toward the hostel, shouting something unintelligible.

  "As the zossit flies, we'd have arrived two days ago," muttered Chur Durwen.

  "As the zossit flies on this planet, we wouldn't. It has no zossits. It has no large flying creatures at all, only tiny ones." Mitigan picked up his pack and settled it on o
ne shoulder.

  From inside the hostelry came the clangor of a gong, a disruptive sound, quickly smothered, like a cough at a concert.

  "Food," Mitigan said, turning toward the gray building.

  From the forest behind them came a voice, an interrogative note, a questing, almost human cry.

  Their driver appeared beside the door.

  "Come in," he called. "Now."

  "Such a hurry," Chur Durwen muttered to himself. "The usual nonsense. Hurry up and wait."

  Mitigan had not moved. He stood staring into the trees. "I heard something … wings. Didn't I just say there were no large birds?"

  "Now!" insisted the guide peremptorily.

  The man from Asenagi turned and trudged after his colleague, hearing behind him the flutter of wings coming purposefully through the trees.

  Perdur Alas was a celestial anomaly, a planet on which life had stuck at the level of fish, bird, and shrub without any obvious cause for the lack of further diversification. Currently the planet held a limited variety of sea and land plants, enormous schools of a few varieties of fish, and sizable flocks of even fewer scaled bird forms that seemed to have evolved directly from air-breathing flying fish without intermediate land-dwelling stages. Biologically speaking, Perdur Alas was extremely simple. So far as homo-norming went, simplicity made the job easier, which explained the small size of the preliminary team recently evacuated from the planet.

  When the pseudo-team of ex-shadows arrived, they were set down beside a new encampment, raw as a wound, just beginning to scab over with ferny and brushy growths. A thousand or so paces to the west a pallid sea swooshed gently onto a rocky shelf at the base of the cliffs. A little north of west the cliffs sagged onto a scanty crescent of graveled beach, the only beach a day's journey in either direction. Farther north, ranks of east-west ridges cut the sky, the nearest jagged, the more distant sparsely freckled with prototrees. Bracken-like and furzelike growths covered everything not covered by blue or purple mosses, making a moorland that stretched unbroken to the eastern and southern horizons.