Samiha's Song

by Mary Victoria

  ‘Tymon is going to help me,’ Galliano replied, unflappable.

  At that moment Samiha’s familiar form appeared in the air-chariot’s hatchway, putting an end to the discussion.

  ‘Ah! Tymon. You’re here.’ She jumped down onto the spur and hurried toward him, smiling. His heart contracted at the sight of her. ‘Did you fetch the extra things?’

  The young man nodded, silent, holding up his pack as evidence. He did not look forward to the moment of parting and felt unable to meet her gaze. Instead he took refuge in the task of hoisting the heavy bag through the hatch and pushing it under one of the Lyla‘s benches. Laska nodded to him in brief greeting. The walls of the Lyla shuddered as the captain opened a valve, allowing steam from the boiler into the engine. The propeller on the roof began to revolve, slowly at first then with thudding regularity. The machine strained on its moorings.

  ‘Beni, Jamil,’ Laska shouted through a window to the workshop supervisor below the craft.

  Tymon moved away from the hatch as Jamil wriggled out from under the Lyla, his face streaked with steam and spice-dust.

  ‘Sav vay,’ rumbled the red-haired giant, creaking to his feet. He grinned down at the two students — he was the only person there who could address Jedda from a height — and pumped Tymon’s hand. ‘Farewell, and good luck to you both.’

  ‘Sav vay. We are grateful,’ purred Jedda, speaking for Tymon in a way that caused him to stiffen and grit his teeth.

  Before he could respond however, Galliano took hold of his arm again and tugged at him imperiously, drawing him closer.

  ‘I hope you remember what I told you about the Grafting,’ he hissed in Tymon’s ear. ‘Everything has limits. Learn the grammar, speak the language. The Sap follows rules just like the rest of us.’

  So the old scientist did think something of his studies! Tymon could not help feeling vindicated.

  He gave Galliano’s hand a squeeze and winced as Jedda’s strident tones interrupted them yet again. This time, the girl from Marak was addressing Samiha.

  ‘One thing gives me special pleasure, shanti,’ she declared. ‘I’m glad my journey brought me to Sheb. I am honoured to meet you, even briefly.’

  She placed a special emphasis on the ‘you’ and made a deep bow to Samiha, who seemed shocked by this exaggerated show of respect. Tymon realised, with a jolt, that Jedda was one of the few people in Marak who were privy to the Kion’s identity, and that the sovereign herself had not expected her to know this information.

  ‘Likewise,’ Samiha muttered, taken aback. ‘Likewise. I’m honoured.’

  Jedda hesitated, as if waiting for something more. She glanced at Tymon and then again at Samiha. A lazy smile tugged at her lips. Finally, she bent her ferocious yellow head and pulled herself into the Lyla’s hatchway. Tymon expelled a pent-up breath. He wondered how he was going to survive three months in Jedda’s company.

  And then Samiha embraced him, a quick, guarded squeeze, banishing all other considerations. He held her as long as he could, as long as she allowed him to, aware that she would not kiss him there, in front of everyone. This was no formal welcoming ceremony. All too soon she pulled back from him.

  ‘You’ll see, it’ll go by quickly.’ She cleared her throat over the sound of the propellers. ‘Three months isn’t so long.’

  ‘I know,’ he answered miserably.

  ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she assured him. ‘The Grafting is our only weapon. The Argosians have blast-poison: we have the Oracle.’ She laughed. ‘My money’s on us, actually.’

  He nodded, unable to think of anything else to say. He had been dreading this instant, but now that it had arrived his mind had gone blank and he did not know how to tell her how much he loved her. He berated himself for acting like a boor.

  ‘Do you have the pendant?’ she asked, suddenly anxious.

  His hand jerked to the pouch at his belt where Wick’s rod of orah lay hidden. A breath of relief escaped his lips as he felt the hard, reassuring lump through the cloth. He was supposed to deliver the pendant to the Oracle, for ritual cleansing: Wick’s abuse of it had somehow tainted it, making it unfit for use by proper Grafters. The cold rod, when he touched it with his bare hands, repelled Tymon like the skin of a dead thing. It did not feel like dried sap, however much it gleamed.

  Samiha laid her palm lightly on his cheek, the warm touch of the living.

  ‘You’ll do fine,’ she murmured. ‘You’re ready. You’re strong. Don’t doubt it.’

  ‘Tymon.’ Laska’s voice rang out from the cockpit. ‘We’re going.’

  ‘Goodbye, young apprentice,’ added Galliano, from the sidelines. ‘I know you’ll do me proud.’

  Samiha accompanied him to the hatch and waited patiently as he manoeuvred himself inside.

  He hollered a last farewell to Galliano, but still held on to Samiha’s hand through the open hatchway. Jamil released the air-chariot’s moorings with a shout of warning. Samiha kept pace with the Lyla as it rose thunderously into the air.

  ‘Come back to me, Tymon,’ she called.

  On impulse, he bent down and kissed her upturned face. She did not resist him this time, kion or not. Their lips barely touched before they were ripped apart. She ran alongside the machine, her fingers clutching his through the hatchway, before letting go at last. She was smiling, her cheeks streaked with tears. She came to a halt when she could go no further, standing at the ragged tip of the spur. Tymon watched until her slim form was swallowed in the hazy distance.

  ‘I will,’ he whispered into the rushing wind.

  He pulled shut the hatch, struggling against the updraught, and knelt a moment on the floor of the cabin with his head bowed. Then he turned toward the interior of the craft.

  His fellow student sat silently, watching him. Jedda did not bother to speak over the din of the propellers. She smiled her healthy, toothy smile, and settled herself comfortably back on the bench.

  The journey to Cherk Harbour took the better part of the day. Laska put down at noon on the lonely stub of a branch poking up over the bare twig-tips. They ate their lunch huddled in the air-chariot’s cabin, for winter-time in the Eastern Canopy was as cold and inhospitable as the summer was hot. It was the first of the three so-called ‘airy’ months of the Argosian and Nurian calendars, the month of Piercing Breath, and Tymon felt that he had never experienced so thorough an illustration of the name. An icy breeze blew through every nook and cranny, penetrating his bones. He soon broke out the cloak Samiha had told him to bring, wrapping it about him gratefully as he munched through the familiar Nurian meal of dried fruit and shillee’s cheese. He was content to eat in silence, observing his two companions as the air-chariot creaked and shuddered in the wind.

  At first they spoke in Argosian, out of courtesy to him. Laska had described their destination of Cherk Harbour, a self-governing Lantrian settlement on the southern Fringes of the canopy. As the fiercely independent Lantrians had no great love of Argos, a run-in with seminary agents was unlikely. Freeholders had traditionally been left unmolested by the authorities. This did not mean that their troubles were over, however. The Governor of Cherk Harbour was known to be corrupt, his city a haven for criminals of the worst order. They should keep their wits about them, Laska warned, and stick together until they were able to contact the Oracle.

  This was apparently more easily said than done: despite, or perhaps because of her legendary power, the Oracle was difficult to trace. Tymon learned to his surprise that they were making the long journey to the Fringes simply on the strength of a reported sighting. No one knew if the Oracle was still in Cherk Harbour. If she were alerted to their coming, it would be by means of the Grafting alone, for no regular communications or bird-runs existed between the city and the Freehold. They might arrive there to find that their quarry had moved on to another location, or even disappeared completely from public view, as she was rumoured on occasion to do.

  This uncertainty did not seem to trouble Jed
da or Laska. Laska had other business to carry out for the judges in Cherk Harbour, and was happy to bring the two young people home with him, if their search proved fruitless. As Jedda was the first to point out, Oren seemed confident enough of them finding the Oracle and he was the most advanced Grafter of their generation. She said this with a sidelong look at Tymon which he could not quite interpret; he wondered irritably if she considered herself more gifted than Oren, too. For it was clear that of the two of them she believed herself to be the superior talent.

  As he made no further effort during the meal to participate in the conversation, it drifted back into Nurian. He knew enough of that language now to understand that Jedda was questioning Laska about Caro’s public break with the judges. The militant had formally rescinded his Freehold citizenship after the signing of the peace treaty, swearing to oppose foreign rule by any means necessary. Peace, he claimed, was impossible, as the enemy would always seek to twist the terms of any agreement. No treaty had ever stopped the seminary before. Tymon could not help fearing that in this case, Caro might be right. It irked him all the more that he was required to desert Samiha at such a time.

  After a brief turn about the wind-swept branch to stretch their legs, they re-embarked, flying due south. By mid-afternoon the Treescape beneath them was transformed. The bristling grey expanse of the upper canopy gave way to a descending slope of staggered grey twigs, and the wind drove great eddies of cloud toward them, plunging the Lyla into periods of disturbing blankness. Although Cherk Harbour was positioned near the southern marches of the trunk, many miles from the actual fringes of the Tree, there was no escaping the change in atmosphere. The promontory had been an eagle’s nest perched high above the world. Now as they descended, they penetrated the heart of the canopy, banking between the great boughs that twisted up to meet them. Laska steered the air-chariot deftly between these outstretched arms, but even he was obliged to fly on occasion through a blind rack of cloud.

  They almost missed the city. There had been no air traffic or dew-fields to indicate the proximity of a settlement until — without warning — it was there, practically behind them, a jumble of structures half-glimpsed through the scudding fog. The next moment the vision was erased. Laska brought the air-chariot around, circling inside the ring of vertical boughs that enclosed the area. The clouds shifted and suddenly the city became visible again, a mass of dirty white cubes crammed into a gigantic fissure. A mile-long cavity split the south flank of one of the vertical branches, its interior teeming with buildings like an infestation of white grubs. To Tymon, brought up in the shadow of the Divine Mouth, it seemed a desecrated place. Who would build a city in a Tree-rift, a market town in the precincts of a temple? He had to consciously stop himself from raising his hand to his forehead in the gesture to ward off bad luck.

  At least the houses were built with more regard for the weather than those in Marak. He saw as they drew closer that most of the buildings had flat roofs fitted with rain-catching cisterns. Some of the larger residences at the top of the fissure boasted elaborate balconies or entire gardens on their topsides. Roads were few and narrow, hardly more than footpaths zigzagging up the back wall of the cleft, and there seemed to be a fair number of ether-barges circulating between the buildings. A rich city, therefore, with at least some citizens able to afford the luxury of air travel.

  They were faced with a stark hierarchy as Laska dampened the Lyla’s engine and steered them down the face of the branch, toward the docks at the base of the fissure. First they passed the panorama of expensive, irrigated gardens, the dwellings growing plainer as they descended to a level of warehouses and workshops. Below these lay the air-harbour itself, an open circle of wooden quays and jetties. Though the mouth of the fissure narrowed after that to a jagged slit closed off by compost cloths, the city did not end. Tymon glimpsed constructions in the cavity beyond, a dim continuation of the town under the bulging weight of garbage. The slums in the depths of the fissure languished in the cumulative shade of everything else.

  The Lyla came to a juddering halt at the far end of one of the jetties, its beetled form ungainly beside the other graceful dirigibles on the dock. Tymon gazed with admiration at the bustling scene outside the Lyla‘s windows. The docks of Cherk Harbour were filled with ships of every description, including several magnificent Lantrian greatships of the largest size. He felt a stirring of his old enthusiasm for fabulous craft. He was particularly impressed with three long-bodied dirigibles of unusual design on the opposite side of the air-harbour, their narrow hulls flattened like the bodies of fleas, and perfect for transporting cargo at the maximum speed.

  ‘You can see why they’re called a nation of shipbuilders,’ he remarked to Laska, when the noise of the propellers had died down. He pointed out the vessels.

  Laksa barely glanced up, giving his attention to a loose tie on his backpack.

  ‘Those are resettlement ships, Tymon,’ he observed quietly. ‘Keep away from them. Do not approach them. They are slavers. It’s completely legal in the South Canopy, of course. Lantrians don’t bother going through the pretence of recruiting pilgrims. Their ships make raids on Nurian settlements and press-gang refugees into the mines. Basically, they do what the seminary does, except that they don’t pay.’

  Tymon felt motified. He turned away from the window, his excitement deflated like a balloon. He made no reply to Laska, as he could think of none that would suffice. He had grown up with a very different notion of Lantria. It was a fitting end to the last of his childhood daydreams, he reflected glumly. Far from being the beacon of hope and enlightenment he had imagined at the seminary, the ‘nation of ship-builders’ was as eager to avail itself of cheap labour as Argos.

  Sailors lined up on the decks of their vessels to stare at them as they disembarked, and Tymon remembered that no one in Cherk Harbour would have seen a propeller-driven craft before. Laska was obliged to placate the irate dock-master, who barrelled down the quay to meet them, demanding to know what monstrosity they had brought into his city. A short, cantankerous Lantrian, this official was perpetually surrounded by puffs of blue smoke from the pipe clamped in his jaws, giving him the air of a miniature, mobile storm cloud. The pen he kept jammed firmly behind his ear reminded Tymon, with a twinge of nostalgia, of his old friend, Safah. But the dock-master at Cherk Harbour was no mystic in the rough. He was persuaded to accept them on the register only after the administration of a hefty and very concrete bribe. When he deigned to take down Laska’s name on his roll, he snapped his pen disrespectfully beneath the captain’s nose.

  ‘We’ve been expecting your lot, Nurry,’ he wheezed. ‘Your names were sent down to my office this morning. You’ll explain yourselves directly to the Governor, first thing. Run along now, his Lordship doesn’t appreciate being kept waiting.’

  He clamped a hand on Laska’s shoulder, propel ling him with a show of false amiability along the quays. There was no time to fetch their bags from the air-chariot. Tymon and Jedda were barely able to slam shut the Lyla‘s hatch before stumbling after the dock- master through the steep streets of the city, at a loss as to how the Governor had learned of their arrival and what sort of explanation he expected them to provide.

  2

  Omni Salassi Zuma III was as smooth and luminously fleshy as a vinefruit, draped from head to foot in robes of white silk. His head was cleanshaven in the Lantrian style and his lobes distended by enormous, inlaid ear ornaments that shone and clicked on his ceremonial hardwood collar whenever he moved. His age was indecipherable. He reminded Tymon of the idols he had seen depicted in history books at the seminary, the human-faced divinities of ancient, unrepentant tribes. Omni Salassi moved as one of those barbarian gods might have done, his every action as concise and formal as a dance. He smelled of imported soap-fruit. His spoken greeting, as Laska, Jedda and Tymon sat on the overstuffed divan opposite his desk, was attended by an eloquent gesture, a flick of the be-ringed fingers of his right hand. He waved away the guard who ha
d accompanied them to the door.

  ‘I salute you, esteemed Judge Laska of the Nurian Freehold Sheb,’ he said. ‘I see you have brought young and lissom companions with you.’ His eyes rolled over Jedda, frankly admiring. ‘Welcome to my humble abode, where beauty is appreciated.’

  The Governor’s abode was far from humble. The travellers had had ample time to admire the palace as they mounted the ramp that wound up the northwest wall of the fissure, repeating with frustrating slowness the journey they had just made in the opposite direction. The price of the hired ether-barges that ferried the well-heeled citizens of Cherk Harbour was prohibitive. Omni Salassi’s residence was sprawling, one of the opulent buildings perched on struts and stilts at the very top of the cleft. Tymon wondered with distaste how much of the Governor’s wealth came from the traffic in human flesh. The palace positively dripped greenery, an ostentatious display of riches in the arid Eastern Canopy. Inside, all was panelled corridors and sumptuous waiting rooms. Weave-mats of the finest quality lay scattered about the office; a perfumed curl of spice-smoke rose from a brazier in one corner. Behind the Governor, almost transparent in his self-effacement, a scribe dressed only in a loincloth sat diligently writing down their conversation on a piece of vellum. Omni Salassi gave another twirl of his fingers as he spoke, this time indicating the area about them.

  ‘It is always a pleasure to see fresh new faces,’ he breathed, winking heavily at Jedda.

  The girl from Marak had been of the opinion, as they trudged up the ramp, that the authorities in Cherk Harbour were in league with sorcerers. How else, she argued, would they have known of their coming? Laska’s account of Lantrian spy networks equipped with messenger birds had not impressed her. Now she sat as rigid as a hardwood statue beside Tymon, facing down her adversary with unblinking fury. He felt the intensity of her disgust for the Governor emanating from her like the rays of the sun, and liked her the better for it. Eventually Omni Salassi glanced away, discomfited.