Brothers of Earth

by C. J. Cherryh

  "I did not think she would dare what she did against Elas, sir, and Shan t'Tefur is likely hard behind us at the moment. We have met him once, and he would act against you without hesitation. I know not what authority the Methi has given him, but even if she would hesitate, as you say, an attack might be an accomplished fact before she heard about it. No, sir."

  "It is your decision," said Gan regretfully. "But I think even so, we might hold them."

  "Provisions and weapons only. That is all I ask."

  "Then see to it, my sons, quickly. Provide Tavi with all she needs, and have the hands start loading at once."

  The two sons of Hnes rose and bowed their respects all around, then went off quickly to carry out their orders.

  "These supplies," said Gan, "are a parting gift from Hnes. There is nothing I can send with you to equal the affection I bear you, Kta, my almost-son. Have you men enough? Some of mine would sail with you."

  "I would not risk them."

  "Then you are shorthanded?"

  "I would not risk them."

  "Where will you go, Kta?"

  "To the Yvorst Ome, beyond the reach of the Methi and the law."

  "Hard lands ring that sea, but Hnes ships come and go there. You will meet them from time to time. Let them carry word between us. Ai, what days these are. My sight is longer than that of most men, but I see nothing that gives me comfort now. If I were young, I think I would sail with you, Kta, because I have no courage to see what will happen here."

  "No, my lord, I know you. I think were you as young as I, you would sail to Nephane and meet the trouble head-on as my father did. As I would do, but I had Aimu's life to consider, and their souls in my charge."

  "Little Aimu. I hesitated to ask. I feared more bad news."

  "No, thank heaven. I gave her to a husband, and on his life and honor he swore to me he would protect her."

  "What is her name now?" asked lady Na.

  "My lady, she is Aimu t'Elas e Nym sh'Bel t Osanef."

  "T'Osanef," murmured Gan, in that tone which said: Ei, Sufaki, but with pity.

  "They have loved each other from childhood," said Kta. "It was my father's will, and mine."

  "Then it was well done," said Gan. "May the light of heaven fall gently on them both." And from an Indras of orthodoxy, it was much. "He is a brave man, this 't'Osanef, to be husband to our Aimu now."

  "It is true," said Kta, and to the lady Na: "Pray for her, my lady. They have much need of it."

  "I shall, and for you, and for all who sail with you," she answered, and included Kurt with a glance of her lovely eyes, to which Kurt bowed in deep reverence.

  "Thank you," said Kta. "Your house will be in my thoughts too."

  "I wish," said Gan, "that you would change your mind and stay. But perhaps you are right. Perhaps some day things will be different, since the Methi is mateless. Someday it may be possible to return."

  "It is possible," said Kta, "if she does not appoint a Sufaki successor. We do not much speak of it, but we fear there will be no return, not for our generation."

  Gan's jaw tightened. "Acturi will send ships out tonight, I think."

  "Do not fight t'Tefur," Kta pleaded.

  "They will sail, I say, and provide at least a warning to Edrif."

  "When Djan-methi knows of it-"

  'Then she will learn the temper of the Isles," said Gan, "and the Chosen of Heaven will perhaps restrain her ambition with sense."

  "Ai," murmured Kta. "I do not want this, Gan."

  "This is Hnes's choice. Elas has its own honor to consider. I have mine."

  "Friend of my father, these waters are too close to Indresul's. You know not what you could let loose. It is a dangerous act."

  "It is," said Gan again, "Hnes's choice."

  Kta bowed his head, bound to silence under Gan's roof, but that night he spent long in meditation and lay wakeful on his bed in the room he shared with Kurt.

  Kurt watched him, and ventured no question into his unrest. He had enough of his own that evening, beginning to

  fit together the pieces of what Kta had never explained to him, the probable scene in the Upei as Nym demanded justice for Mim's death, while the Methi had in the actions of Elas' own guest the pretext she needed to destroy Elas.

  So Nym had died, and Elas had fallen.

  And Djan could claim he had made it all inevitable, his marriage with Mim and his loyalty to Elas being the origin of all her troubles.

  ... Excepting lord Kurt, -who must be returned alive and unharmed to the Methi's justice.

  Hanan justice.

  The justice of a personal anger, where the charges were nothing she would dare present in the Upei. She would destroy all he loved, but she would not let him go. Being Hanan, she believed in nothing after. She would not grant him quick oblivion..

  He lay on the soft down mattress of Hnes's luxury and stared into the dark, and slept only the hours just before dawn, troubled by dreams he could not clearly remember.

  The wind bore fair for the north now, warm from the Tamur Basin. The blue sail drew taut and Tavi's bow lanced through the waves, cutting their burning blue to white foam. •

  Still Kta looked often astern, and whether his concern was more for Gan t'Hnes or for t'Tefur, Kurt was not sure.

  "It is out of our hands," Kurt said finally.

  "It is out of our hands," Kta agreed with yet another look aft. There was nothing. He bit at his lip. "Ei, ei, at least he will not be with us through the Thiad."

  "The Necklace. The Lesser Isles." Kurt knew them by repute, barren crags strung across the Ome Sin's narrowest waters, between Indresul and Nephane and claimed by neither side successfully. They were a maze by fair weather, a killer of ships in storms. "Do we go through it or around?"

  "Through if the weather favors us. To Nephane's side- wider waters there-if the seas are rough. I do not treat Indresul's waters with the familiarity the Isles-folk use. Well, past that barrier we are free, my friend, free as the north seas and their miserable ports allow us."

  "I have heard," Kurt offered, "that there is some civilization there, some cities of size."

  "There are two towns, and those are primitive. One might be called a city, Haithen. It is a city of wood, of frozen streets. Yvesta the mother of snows never looses those lands. There are no farms, only desolate flats and impossible mountains and frozen rivers. Ice masses float in the Yvorst Ome that can crush ships, and there are great sea beasts the like of which do not visit these blue waters. Ai, it is nothing like Nephane."

  "Are you regretting," Kurt asked softly, "that you have chosen as you have?"

  "It is a strange place we go," said Kta, "and yet shame to Elas is worse. I think Haithen may be preferable to the Methi's law. It pains me to say it, but Haithen may be infinitely preferable to the Methi's Nephane. Only when we are passing by the coast of Nephane, I shall think of Aimu, and of Bel, and wish that I had news of them. That is the hardest thing, to realize that there is nothing I can do. Elas is not accustomed to helplessness."

  En t'Siran, captain of Rimaris, swung onto the deck of the courier ship Kadese, beneath the furled red sails. Such was his haste that he did not even sit and take tea with the captain of Kadese before he delivered his message; he took the ritual sip of tea standing, and scarcely caught his breath before he passed the cup back to the captain's man and bowed his courtesy to the senior officer.

  "T'Siran," said the courier captain, "you signaled urgent news."

  "A confrontation," said t'Siran, "between Isles ships and a ship of their own kind."

  "Indeed." The captain put his own cup aside, signaled a scribe, who began to write. "What happened? Could you identify any of the houses?"

  "Easily on the one side. They bore the moon of Acturi on their sails-Gan t'Hnes' sons, I am well sure of it. The other was a strange sail, dark green with a gold dragon."

  "I do not know that emblem," said the captain. "It must be one of those Sufak designs."

  "Surely,"
agreed t'Siran, for the dragon Yr was not one of the lucky symbols for an Indras ship. "It may be a Methi's ship."

  "A confrontation, you say. With what result?"

  "A long wait. Then dragon-sail turned aside, toward the coast of Sufak."

  "And the men of Acturi?"

  "Held their position some little time. Then they went back into the Isles. We drew off quickly. We had no orders to provoke combat with the Isles. That is the sum of my report."

  "It is," said the captain of Kadese, "a report worth carrying."

  "My lord." En t'Siran acknowledged the unusual tribute from a courier captain, bowed his head and, as the captain returned the parting courtesy, left.

  The captain of Kadese hardly delayed to see Rimaris spread sail and take her leave before he shouted an order to his own crew and bade them put about for Indresul.

  The thing predicted was beginning. Nephane had come to a point of division. The Methi of Indresul had direct interest in this evidence, which might affect polices up and down the Ome Sin and bring Nephane nearer its day of reckoning.

  From now on, Kadese's captain thought to himself, the Methi Ylith would begin to listen to her captains, who urged that there would be no better time than this. Heaven favored it.

  "Rowers to the benches," he bade his second, "reliefs at the minimum interval, all available crew."

  With four shifts and a hundred and ten oars, the slim Kadese was equipped to go the full distance. The wind was fair behind her. Her double red sail was bellied out full, and there was nothing faster on either side of the Ome Shi.

  There were scattered clouds, small wisps of white with gray undersides that grew larger in the east as the hours passed. The crew of Tavi kept a nervous watch on the skies, dreading the shift of wind that could mean delay in these dangerous waters.

  In the west, near at hand, rose the grim jagged spires of the Thiad. The sun declined toward the horizon, threading color into the scant clouds which touched that side of the sky.

  The waves splashed and rocked at them as Tavi came dangerously close to a rock that only scarcely broke the surface. One barren island was to starboard, a long spine of jagged rocks.

  It was the last of the feared islets.

  "We are through," exulted Mnek as it fell behind them. "We are for the Yvorst Ome."

  Then sail appeared in the dusky east

  Val t'Ran, normally harsh-spoken, did not even swear when it was reported. He put the helm over for the west, cutting dangerously near the fringe rocks of the north Thiad, and sent Pan running to take orders from Kta, who was coming toward the stern as rapidly as Kta ever moved on Tavr's deck.

  "To the benches!" Kta was shouting, rousing everyone who had been off duty. Men scrambled before him.

  He strode up to the helm and gave Val the order to maintain their present westerly heading. "Tkel!" he called up to the rigging. "What sail?" "I cannot tell, my lord," Tkel's voice drifted down from the yard, where the man swung precariously on the footrope. "The distance is too great."

  "We shall keep it so," Kta muttered, and eyed mistrustfully the great spires and deadlier rough water which lay to port. "Gently to starboard, Val. Even for good reason, this is too close."

  "Aye, sir," said Val, and the ship came a few degrees over. "They are following," Tkel shouted down after a little time had passed. "They must think we are out of Indresul, my lord."

  "The lad is too free with his supposings," Val said between his teeth.

  "Nevertheless," said Kta, "that is probably the answer." "I will join the deck crew," Kurt offered. "Or serve as relief at the benches."

  "You are considered of Elas," said Kta. "It makes the men uneasy when you show haste or concern. But if work will relieve your nerves, indulge yourself. Go to the benches." Kta himself was frightened. It was likely that Kta himself would gladly have taken a hand with the oars, with the rigging, with anything that would have materially sped Tavi on her way. Kurt knew the nemet well enough to read it in his eyes, though his face was calm. He burned to do something. They had fenced together; Kurt knew the nemet's impatient nature. The Ancestors, Kta had told him once, were rash men. That was the character of Elas.

  In the jolted, moving vision of Kta that Kurt had from the rowers' pit, his own mind numbed by the beat of the oars and the need to breathe, the nemet still stood serenely beside Val at the helm, arms folded, staring out to the horizon. Then Tkel's shrill voice called down so loudly it rose even over the thunder of the oars.

  "Sails off the port bow!"

  Tavi altered course. Deck crews ran to the sheets, the oars shuddered a little at the unexpectedly deep bite of the blades, lifted. Chal on the catwalk called out a faster beat. Breath came harder. Vision blurred.

  "They are three sails!" Tkel's voice floated down.

  It was tribute to Tavi's discipline that no one broke time to look. Kta looked, and then walked down among the rowers along the main deck so they could see him clearly.

  "Well," he said, "we bear due north. Those are ships of Indresul ahead of us. If we can hold our present course and they take interest in the other ship, all will be well. Hya, Chal, ease off the beat. Make it one which will last. We may be at this no little time."

  The cadence of the oars took a slower beat. Kta went back to his place at the helm, looking constantly to that threatened horizon. Whatever the Indras ships were doing was something outside the world of the pits. The pace maintained itself, mind lost, no glances at anything but the sweat-drenched back of the man in front, his shoulders, clearing the sweep in back only scarcely, bend and breathe and stretch and pull.

  "They are in pursuit," said Sten, whose bench was aftmost port.. The cadence did not falter.

  "They are triremes intercepting us," Kta said at last, shouting so all could hear. "We cannot outrun them. Hard starboard. We are going back to Nephane's side."

  At least two hundred and ten oars each, double sail.

  As Tavi bore to starboard, Kurt had his first view of what pursued them, through the carport: two-masted, a greater and a lesser sail, three banks of oars on a side lifting and falling like the wings of some sea-skimming bird. They seemed to move effortlessly despite their ponderous bulk, gaining with every stroke of their oars, where men would have reliefs from the benches.

  Tavi had none. It was impossible to hold this pace long. Vision hazed. Kurt drew air that seemed tainted with blood.

  "We must come about," Val cried from the helm. "We must Come about, my lord, and surrender."

  Kta cast a look back. So, from his vantage point, did Kurt, saw the first of the three Indras triremes pull out to

  the fore of the others, her gold and white sail taut with the wind. The beat of her oars suddenly doubled, at maximum speed.

  "Up the beat," Kta ordered Chal, and Chal shouted over the grate and thunder of the oars, quickening the time to the limit of endurance.

  And the wind fell.

  The breath of heaven left the sail and had immediate effect on the speed of Tavi. A soft groan went up from the crew. They did not slacken the pace.

  The leading trireme grew closer, outmatching them in oarage.

  "Hold!" Kta shouted hoarsely, and walked to the front of the pits. "Hold! Up oars!"

  The rhythm ceased, oars at level, men leaning over them and using their bodies' weight to counter the length of the sweeps, their breathing raucous and cut with hacking coughs.

  "Pan! Takel!" Kta shouted aloft. "Strike sail!"

  Now a murmur of dismay came from the men, and the crew hesitated, torn between the habit of obedience and an order they did not want.

  "Move!" Kta shouted at them furiously. "Strike sail! You men in the pits, ship oars and get out of there! Plague take it, do not spoil our friendship with mutiny! Get out of there!"

  Lun, pit captain, gave a miserable shake of his head, then ran in his oar with abrupt violence, and the others followed suit. Pan and Mnek and Chal and others scrambled to the rigging, and quickly a " 'ware below!" rang out and the s
ail plummeted, tumbling down with a shrill singing of ropes.

  Kurt scrambled from the pit with the others, found the strength to gain his feet and staggered back to join Kta on the quarterdeck.

  Kta took the helm himself, put the rudder over hard, depriving Tavi of what momentum she had left.

  The leading ship veered a little in its course, no longer coming directly at them, and tension ebbed perceptibly among Tavi's men.

  Then light flashed a rapid signal from the deck of the rearmost trireme and the lead ship changed course again, near enough now that men could be clearly seen on her lofty deck. The tempo of her oars increased sharply, churning up the water.