by R. Cooper
But she recovered immediately, nodding to Taji almost as though he was a noble, too.
“A beautiful morning,” she remarked as she came to a stop not far from them. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the distant waves. The wind did its best to tease her hair, but she must have pomaded it into place. Her data device was nowhere to be seen. “It has been a long time since so many have come to Laviias to be entertained. I thought the grove might interest some of you. But where is Gia? I thought surely she would be here if Phyta could not. How is Phyta?”
“He and Quida shehzha are well,” Eriat answered, almost gruffly. “Gia chose to sleep this morning, to recover from the journey. Talfa is fit, and was happy to accompany me in her place.”
Rinnah finally looked back at Talfa, who, as far as Taji could tell, stared only at the ground.
Taji itched to look up what was going on. Not that he thought his data device would have anything useful, as usual.
“Did you meet with the emperor last night?” Rinnah asked at last, in a tone of polite interest. “Mos tells me there was a gathering in the emperor’s rooms and perhaps plans for a hunt.”
Not a single Shavian present, not even Talfa, gave any indication of how Taji was supposed to react to that news.
“A hunt?” Taji abandoned the pretense that he had any idea about anything. Whatever Shavians found sporting enough to hunt would probably terrify anyone else. “What does that involve? Other than providing food, or fur, or something useful, I assume. There is a highly ritualized hunt on one of the Iso planets, I forget which one. Although that is more of a chase-and-mate activity.” He straightened up. “Are you barefoot for it? Do you use special weapons? Is it a ritual? Do the lower classes participate?”
“He always asks about the lower classes.” Talfa twisted around to give Taji a bemused look. “Emperors used to choose members of their circle and court favorites by holding a hunt. That was when the conquest was over but much of the land was still rebellious. You had to be strong.”
“So it was dangerous? Or more dangerous than it would be now?” Taji grinned at Talfa for the information. “The weak would not last long. And any rivals could be safely elimin—” Taji had enough to sense to shut himself up there. “So there is going to be a hunt here?” he finished, quieter. “Is it… are we supposed to watch? Or participate?”
“A shehzha in a hunt?” Rinnah seemed astonished.
“It would be the Olea, the Koel, the Tir, the Aza, the Shyril, and any of the other families Larin has brought with him,” Eriat answered Taji without looking at him. “No one else.”
Taji got the message—nobles only. No translators, no humans, and definitely no hurat. “But you would participate?” He couldn’t picture Eriat willingly putting himself in harm’s way for the sake of a hunt. But he could almost see it if Koel honor was on the line. “Gia as well? And Talfa?”
“Talfa? No.” Eriat’s answer was unmistakably final.
Taji looked to Talfa, who stared at the ground again. In the distance behind them, Rinnah also glanced away.
Taji had stepped into a minefield, and any other time, he would have blundered on. But today, Trenne wasn’t here to pull him back.
He tried to seem indifferent to the undercurrents. “When will it be?”
“Tomorrow,” Mos filled in. She knew everything already. She was the kind of assistant the ambassador should have. “If it is successful, it will add to the dinner Larin Emperor has chosen to throw for his guests.”
“The Tir have had a few emperors,” Taji mused as he considered the names. “So have the Aza, unless I am confused.” Every one of the emperor’s friends probably came from one of the most important families. Which should have also made them rivals. But no one had any reason to want Larin out of the way except ambition, or possibly a personal dislike. Taji could understand that one, but it wouldn’t make any sort of coup legitimate in the eyes of the other noble houses, who would probably rebel, or try to take the title for themselves.
Or Taji was nervous and imagining plots where there were none, and upsetting everyone while he was at it.
“This is where the first Shavians landed when they crossed the sea?” he asked in a high voice, moving on to a hopefully safer topic.
Rinnah’s posture eased into something fractionally more relaxed. “There was an early temple of the Halian here, a faith of the original empire. The Temple Sea was later rebuilt. Its priests dwell here, with Olea permission.” She gestured gracefully to the Shavian behind her, who had long hair down to their hips and wore something closer to a long-sleeved robe than a soria. Their feet were bare, but they wore several pretty hoops around their ankles.
“This was a temple?” Taji asked when no one else appeared ready to comment.
The soft sound of objection from Rinnah stopped him in the middle of gesturing toward the ruins.
“That is the temple.” With a puzzled air, she pointed to the blue and white building. “Perhaps you are tired, or…in need. Mos can call for the—for your soldier.”
“I am fine,” Taji told her, irritable and embarrassed even though he had no reason to be. Without another word, he marched to the ruins, since no one was allowed to touch him to stop him and a wild shehzha could do what he pleased. The worst they were going to do was summon Trenne, which would be humiliating but hardly the first time Trenne had been sent to rescue Taji from himself.
Taji was not surprised when four silent, armed figures followed him up the slight slope to the ruins, but he was startled to turn and see Talfa with him as well.
With their eyes wide with curiosity, Talfa looked younger, closer to Taji’s age. Taji gave them a small smile and Talfa tripped with shock or surprise. Taji had never seen a Shavian do that. The nobles were always watching their next step.
Nadir reached out and grabbed Talfa’s arm, preventing whatever dynastic disaster might have occurred if Koel Talfa had fallen on Olea land. Talfa laughed—an actual laugh—down at Nadir, then sucked in a breath and went silent. Taji hardly had time to marvel at the rough, husky sound of Shavian laughter before Talfa pulled hurriedly away from Nadir, who didn’t seem to know if he should be offended or worried.
Lin exchanged a glance with Taji that was her version of raised eyebrows, then snorted. “We are here. What now?”
Now, Taji could wonder why Rinnah had wanted them all to come out here, even if he couldn’t voice his ideas with the Imperial Guards present. They were both watching him steadily, with only the occasional, furtive look around at what was surely a monumental place in the history of their country.
Nadir’s attention was caught between Taji and the gray, misty sky, and perhaps Talfa, who circled warily around some of the fallen stones as though they expected the stones to do something.
“I’m tired,” Taji admitted, despite what he’d just said to Rinnah. She could probably hear him, even at a distance, if the ocean wasn’t creating too much background noise. “I guess it’s all the sex I’ve been having,” he added, for Nadir’s benefit, in a voice that was more snarl than anything else.
He limped to one of the stands of broken, worn stones and debated sitting on one of them since it wasn’t an important Sha relic, after all.
He thought better of it, just in time. Shavians were not direct. He had to remember that. If this place was special to them but the ruins had been left here as ruins then that mattered.
“Taji Ameyo?” Rinnah called out, strangely cautious. “I thought you would like to see the temple. You expressed some interest in our history.”
“This is history,” he answered, not bothering to yell. “What is it?” If a structure had once stood here, most of the walls had been lost to time and the elements. He noticed a sharp angle to some of the stonework, what might have been a corner piece, and wondered idly how many cultures across how many planets in all of history had favored buildings with corners versus rounded ones. But architecture had never been of any particular interest to him.
&nbs
p; “It is nothing,” Olea Rinnah announced, closer than before. She had shortened the distance between them but made no move to keep going. Her expression was one of polite, delicate confusion. “It is a monument that was not meant to last.”
“It is where you landed.” Taji frowned, first at her and then at the stones. “Humans raise monuments to where they have landed everywhere they go. You said the grove was special.”
“It is what was here before.” Rinnah cocked her head to one side. For a moment, her ears were flat against her skull. “Mos,” she commanded Mos’s attention without turning. “The account of Ranna Olea Laviia.”
Mos took a moment to swiftly search through a small data device she pulled from her soria. “A house above the sea welcomed us to the harbor,” she read aloud. “A palace of light rose up from stones carried through passages in the earth that shined bright as the rings. Laviia and her army struck it from its perch and cleared the tunnels and the city underneath. The wonders of Sha are our many victories.”
Taji gasped.
“The Olea have been here from the first moment,” Rinnah informed them all in a measured but faintly pleased voice.
Taji put out a hand, pointing to the ruins around them that were proof of how radically untrue her statement was.
“This is nothing,” Rinnah said again, as if Taji was being stubborn.
“If it was nothing, someone would have built over it, or used the stones for something else.” How she failed to grasp this was a mystery to Taji. She was Sha.
Eriat got it. He came a few steps closer and his gaze was sharp. Talfa, like the Imperial Guards, was blank-faced. Stunned, maybe, or bemused.
Taji shook his head and focused back on Rinnah, and Mos beside her, always watchful. “You brought us out to the first seat of Olea power on this continent, and you did not want to talk about how the Olea conquered whoever was here and then deliberately left their palace of light to rot? That is a power display. Everyone who arrived here after them would have seen it. The survivors would have seen it. That is—”
Taji twisted around to lay his hands on the largest stone within reach and switched out ‘Asha words for Anglisky when he didn’t want to stop to try to think of them. “That means that this could be ancient. Thousands and thousands of Standard years old.” He was from a planet that had been terraformed to be livable only fifty years before he’d been born. “It could have been here for millennia before the Sha arrived. B’lyad. This is why having intellectuals benefits everyone. Because someone would have studied this. Someone would know. Wouldn’t that honor the Sha more? Make their victory greater? To know who they defeated?”
The stone had faint grooves in it. Taji’s heart began to pound. The marks could be damage from the Sha attack, or weather, or incidental lines made during construction. Or they could be writing, or symbols. Art.
He dropped down to his knees with a certain amount of discomfort that he ignored like he ignored the startled noises behind him. His data device was already in his hands. “It’s not like I’m going to have the time to do the field work and write brilliant articles that only a few other xeno-geeks will care about,” he said distractedly in Anglisky. It took him a lot of effort to go back to using ‘Asha, “but this is incredible! What if this is writing of some kind?” He had no clue how it would be translated, unless more fragments of the original culture had been kept safe somewhere.
He traced carefully over another series of slashed lines, practically smooth now. “I have to tell Trenne,” he whispered, before bolting to his feet. He stood up long enough to move to another group of stones and began documenting them as well. “I know these people were not the hurat, but maybe they knew them. Maybe they were related.”
“Um, Mouth.” Nadir coughed. “I mean, Ameyo…uh, shehzha. Maybe this isn’t a great idea. Right now. Right here.”
“Taji Ameyo?” Mos called out. “Are you well?”
“This is amazing!” Taji answered her while collecting pictures and stopping to number each one. Maybe he wouldn’t have the time to study them, but someone else might, someday. “Rinnah, you should come look at these. Really look at them. I thought you would be more interested.”
He must have snapped the words more forcefully than he’d meant to. Rinnah’s reply was equally forceful, although not aimed at him, not at first. “Mos, no. He is shehzha.” She hesitated. “If you wish to study it a bit more, Taji Ameyo, you might find a better opinion of its origin.”
Taji snorted, which was unforgivably rude, if also a non-lexiconal human sound to convey scorn that most Shavians wouldn’t understand. But Taji was shehzha, which seemed to mean he could do or say whatever he wanted. No wonder shehzha weren’t allowed out without protection; they must trigger a lot of feelings other Shavians were working hard to suppress.
The thought came and went, without time to linger on it.
“I planned on showing you the temple, after the grove,” Rinnah added, apparently still speaking to Taji. Her tone was odd.
Taji tore his eyes away from the ruins to give her a distracted smile. “I am fine here, honestly. Thank you.”
“He thanks you,” Talfa said, with audible amusement, “as he studies scratches on rocks. He is like Tir—Quida shehzha.”
“Talfa,” Eriat sternly interrupted. “Olea Rinnah wants to show you the temple. It is one of the oldest on this side of the sea. Perhaps it will almost be equal to one at home.” The one the Koel built, if Taji remembered correctly. He also didn’t think Rinnah had Talfa in mind when she’d invited everyone to the grove.
Nonetheless, reluctantly or not, Talfa obeyed the head of his family. “Yes, Cousin.”
“You do not need to stay, either,” Taji told his imperial security, sparing them a glance. One of them met his gaze, but neither of them answered or moved. Taji shrugged and shifted to get more comfortable. He might have to wash his pants. Everything was slightly wet from the clouds or morning dew or fine spray from the ocean.
If he knew more about architecture, he might be able to guess the general shape of the structure. He didn’t, and it made him sigh in disappointment even as he scooted over to another spot to document more of what had to be carvings. There were too many of them on too many of the stones for the markings not to be deliberate, even if they might only have been notches made during construction.
Someone else called his name and he waved them off before pausing to make some very early, obviously preliminary observations. The others were still there, talking quietly amongst themselves. Someone spoke into a comm device. He guessed Mos would use one to assist in her work. Or possibly the Imperial Guards. If they had access to IPTC tech, their comms would be small and discreet.
He ran his thumb reverently over a faded, worn squiggle in the surface of an artificially flat piece of stone. His work on the moon had mostly involved recording words and conversations in the language used by the miners, and in school he had done some field studies, but never anything like this.
The stone began to turn darker, moisture in the air hitting it and pooling in the grooves and highlighting the markings. The people around him grew louder, complaining, he thought. But they didn’t go away, even though Taji had told them he was fine right here.
The back of his neck was uncomfortably chilled, but he’d been cold since he’d left his room, so that didn’t take his attention from his work. Neither did the vague awareness that the bottom of his soria was getting wet from the contact with the ground. He did wince whenever he moved, certain he would be in a lot of pain later. But it was worth it. For the historical record, future researchers, and for Trenne. Trenne should know that something of the earlier civilizations had lasted.
He shivered and wiped an irritating droplet of moisture from his eyes, then curled down to try to peer beneath the stone.
A shadow fell across him, then moved, and Taji waved for that, too. He couldn’t spend all day out here, he knew that. Lin didn’t have to loom.
“What if no one else lo
oks at this before the markings are completely gone?” he asked quietly, peering into crevices for anything that might not have been worn away. “What if no one ever knows about them?”
He traced another slash before returning to the serious work of documenting all he could, on these few stones at least. The whole site would take years. He barely had minutes.
The mist grew heavier. Taji paused to wipe droplets from his forehead, only to go still as a light weight dropped over his shoulders. A moment later, a similar weight fell over his eyes. He tipped his head back and recognized the hood of an IPTC all-weather cape, which someone had put on him before pulling the hood up to help him stay dry.
The hood fell a little when he tipped his head back even farther, until he found Trenne, upside down and impossibly tall.
Trenne regarded him seriously, his fine, delicate eyes casting about Taji’s body, checking on his health. He was in black fatigues, nothing formal about him. He hadn’t changed anything to impress their hosts, and Taji didn’t know whether to approve or shake his head.
