Hammerfall

by C. J. Cherryh

  It’s certainly an inconvenience to her. But we have the child now: your blood shed new makers into her, not the old sort, not the sort she had from being in Norit’s body, rather the new ones we gave you at the tower. An unintended gift, and we get very little of sense from her, but she does try.

  “Damn you, let the child alone.”

  She’ll heal, thanks to your makers. As you will. And you’ll shed your makers wherever you pass. You constantly shed them into the sand, and beetles take them up . . . small use, those. But we can direct their structure. You shed them everywhere. You’ve begun what the ondat decreed. You are that change. You war with the Ila simply by breathing.

  Dots built intricate structures, moved, shifted, built towers and strings and divided. Some beat like imprisoned birds, only fast, far, far faster. Some turned and shed pieces of themselves. It became incredibly sinister, the activity of those moving forms.

  Big eaters eat little eaters and on they go, our makers, the Ila’s makers.

  They carry on warfare, and that war spreads wherever you go, and they change what they touch. If the Ila offers a man a cup of water, these nanoceles, these makers, go with that touch.

  If a man goes back to his village and sleeps with his wife, so the makers will spread, and spread when she prepares a meal, or goes to the well, or kisses her child. All through the world, these makers renew themselves and become newer kinds.

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 289

  H A M M E R FA L L • 289

  And all these things the Ila does, because she contains her master makers. As you contain mine. And mine are essential. You have to live.

  “That’s comforting to know.”

  You have to live. Tain has become my enemy and her friend.

  “Tain wouldn’t like being the Ila’s friend.”

  Do you hear me? Repeat what I say.

  “Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. God, I have your makers in me! The Ila has her own. And you’re against my father and he’s for her for some reason. But I don’t understand. And I don’t give a damn.” He wanted the rapid dots to stop, slow down, cease their actions. But he would not betray a weakness. His father had taught him that among his first lessons, never betray a weakness, never admit to one.

  Had reticence and deceit helped Tain? Was it a reasonable way for a man to live, who hoped to be loved?

  “Hush,” Hati said, and wiped his brow. “He’s dreaming.”

  The world became a treasure set way up on a shelf, something he could almost reach, and was not tall enough. His mother had used to put things above him, and frustrated his reach. He would sit below the counter, discontent with whatever was in his grasp. He remembered the tiles near the kitchen table. One was cracked. It sat not quite level. Out of such incredible fine detail a man built his life, his remembrances, his loves and his hostilities.

  Once loosed into the world, Luz said as he sat there, the makers spread out to any creature, high or low. Your Ila came here with resources we now count primitive. She shaped the beshti to be what they are. She shaped men to survive the harshness of this world. Now we in turn shape you.

  “I tell you I don’t understand. You’re saying the Ila has these things in her, that she put in everyone alive. But you put different ones in me, and where I go, I shed them and other creatures take them up and they have them. So how am I different than the Ila? How are you different?”

  You aren’t. And I’m not. That’s the point, isn’t it?

  “Damned nonsense,” he said to her in the dream.

  But this is the tricky part. Her makers have fitted men and beasts not only to live in this world . . . but to destroy the ondat. That’s what the ondat fear: a buried instruction. That’s why they insist on raining destruction down. Nanoceles can simply lie hidden, a small handful of makers that won’t not breed without a signal to do so, and that signal may come from outside, or inside themselves, and it may come today, or tomorrow, or in a hundred years. Do you see why they should worry?

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 290

  290 • C . J . C H E R RY H

  He lay feeling the tides of pain, the waves of burning fever, deep in listening, in the deafening wind, in the thump of the canvas. He listened so hard he became remote from the chill, and the wind, and the pain.

  But if the world changes, Luz said, the makers change. Life changes life.

  Life changes the makers. It must. It’s what they do. Change the world and you change all its parts. Change the world and you change all that the makers do. To so alter this world that the rules of survival are utterly changed—

  that’s the way the ondat intend to destroy the Ila’s creation and scour it clean of all life. But we persuaded them we need to be here. They know nothing of guilt. Nothing of repentance. Nothing of redemption. They aren’t like us. But they do know need, and they know we’re more dangerous to them than the Ila, if we wished them harm. They need our knowledge to repair what the Ila’s kind have done to them, and to win that knowledge, and not to have us do again what the Ila did, they’ve come to an agreement with us.

  That’s the fine point of the matter. On that your life rests. Hers rests. All this world rests. Do you understand that?

  “No, I don’t. Not at all.”

  In his dream he tried to look away from the breeding dots, the red and the blue and the yellow dots, endlessly fluttering and spiraling, and in them he could not find the sky.

  Everyone alive has the makers, Luz said. Over enough time, the heavens will grow calm, and the earth will grow green, and clouded. Some of these stars that fall are water, only water. When the world is new, oases will go from horizon to horizon.

  “Paradise,” Marak said. He had no idea why so beautiful a thought should batter at his heart and make him long for things less safe. But then the word came to him. “Freedom. What about freedom?”

  Freedom is relative, Luz said. Can you leave your world? Can you see the things I’ve seen?—I gave my freedom up for you, you damned ingrate!

  So did Ian! Appreciate the gift!

  He laughed. He saw no humor in Luz’s situation, or in his, but still, he found a soul in the woman, and that was more than he had looked to find. The last that she said was true, and he believed it.

  “You don’t like paradise, either,” he said.

  For a moment the visions and the voices were utterly silent. The earth quaked, one of those small, frequent shudders, and was still again.

  Your paradise is my hell, Luz said. And Ian and I have come into this hell to satisfy our consciences, because of what your Ila did, the fool.

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 291

  H A M M E R FA L L • 291

  There was another small pause, in which the wind was louder than thought, or than the slight whisper of Luz’s voice, and the earth remained unsettled. He was nearly awake, and sank back again.

  In the vermin, you see the result of makers run wild. They breed too well.

  They die too seldom. They eat up the world, and every generation of makers grows more adept, and more clever at what it does. Her makers are very, very good at living.

  But so are mine. Her makers would destroy her, given another five hundred years. Destroy her, and all she’s made. But mine will heal this world.

  The wind battered at the tent. Something hit it, startled him, a piece of cloth, perhaps, or a loose mat. His heart sped. For the first time in many moments, he thought of Tain.

  We do value you, Luz said. I tell you, we would deeply regret it, Marak Trin, if the hammer comes down before you get to safety. Get well. Sleep now, and get well.

  “The hell,” he said.

  He tried to move. Hati was there, washing his face with precious water, while somewhere in the distance, in the skies, something boomed and crashed.

  “Hush,” she said. “You’re talking to Luz, but I don’t hear her.”

  “She’s dividing us one from the other.” That they had all heard one thing had been a curiosity, and t
hen a comfort to them in their madness, and they were losing that. The makers changed things. The makers themselves changed. Was that not what Luz said?

  “Hush, you’re not making sense.”

  “Where’s the baby? What happened to her? Where’s Norit?” He reached after Hati’s hand and held it, held it fast. “I passed by Tarsa.

  I was there! The captain’s men never got that far. I asked. Her husband has another wife. He let the baby go.” He wanted to see Norit with the baby. He wanted that desperately, but he could not lift his head. He remembered. “My father shot her, with me.”

  “She’s fevered. The bullet went through her leg. But she may have makers of her own. She should have died, and she’s mending.”

  “I bled into her,” he said. “Our makers overwhelm everything the Ila put into us. That’s what Luz says.—Damn!” The pain overwhelmed him. “Is Patya all right?”

  Hati gave a nod over her shoulder. “She’s there. She’s not left you.

  Norit’s with the baby. So’s Patya.”

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 292

  292 • C . J . C H E R RY H

  “Good for Patya.” He tried to glance that far, but it hurt his side and his back.

  He was due for a night and a day of misery, at least, healing at his ordinary pace. He expected a long, long misery.

  But after that the pain began going away, and Hati grew quite dim, and he could not move his hand from hers.

  “Has he fainted?” Patya asked, leaning over him. “Is he all right?”

  “I think so,” Hati said. “I think he’ll be well now. The makers are working. Go take the baby. Norit’s left her.”

  There was so much sharpness in that tone. So much he wished he could mend. He had rather have the pain back than to have his mind racing, and his body numb.

  His eyes were still open. He saw Hati take Lelie from Patya’s hands, and saw Hati hold her, and rock her, and talk to her, because Norit had walked away. The baby was as still as he was, and perhaps heard everything.

  Luz! he tried to shout, but could manage not a word. Luz, let the woman alone! You call the Ila cruel . . . damn you, let Norit alone! This isn’t a time to talk to her . . .

  But Luz gave no evidence she heard him, and Norit stood in the edge of his vision, staring at the wall of the tent, alone with Luz, the two of them talking, numb to Lelie’s pain and Lelie’s distress.

  “Lie still,” Patya told him. “Hati, he’s sweating so much. Is he all right?”

  “He will. It’s what we crazy people do when we heal. Don’t be afraid for him.”

  Not be afraid for him. Not be afraid for Norit, or Lelie, or Hati?

  There was a great deal to fear.

  The star fell from the heavens, again and again and again, and hit the sphere, and the ring of fire went out from it.

  Again and again and again.

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 293

  21

  Every good beast and every grass that produces grain and every tree that produces fruit is the gift of the Ila. The grasses and the trees she gave to the villages and told them to build gardens, instructing them to make covered conduits and to make basins of fired brick.

  —The Book of Pori

  MARAK MENDED, IN PAIN AND FEVER. PATYA STAYED

  close by him while the storm wind blew and racketed about the canvas. Tofi came and laid a hand on his and reported to him in meticulous, quiet detail on the state of the camp and the Ila’s temper.

  The au’it sat nearby and wrote all these things.

  Memnanan, too, came and stood over him, asking in the Ila’s name how he was. Marak heard. He could not see Hati’s answer to the captain, but he could hear it, and imagined Hati’s shrug, which was Hati’s characteristic answer to mysteries.

  “Healing,” she said to Memnanan, and through him, to the Ila.

  That visit meant the storm was not bad enough to prevent Memnanan reaching them from the Ila’s tent. That meant they remained in camp and he knew they had to move: something was coming. East, east, east, the pitch came to him now, urgent and frequent. His inability to move was the decreed torment for his sin of desertion.

  Priests came and looked at him. That, he could not account for, and thought he might have dreamed the visit in his fever. He saw three of them in their white robes sitting on a mat and contemplating his condition. He grew increasingly perturbed about the situation, and still could not wake far enough to tell them to go to hell.

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 294

  294 • C . J . C H E R RY H

  He fretted and he sweated, and eventually Memnanan and the priests left him to Hati’s care, saying that it was clear there was something remarkable about his healing, and about the child.

  The au’it wrote. Norit remained as she was. In the distance he heard Lelie crying, and crying.

  “Someone,” he tried to say, “someone take the baby.”

  “Norit! See to that child!” Hati said sharply, but Norit sat still, lost in her visions. Hati herself got up and fetched Lelie and put the wounded child into Norit’s grasp. “Take care of her!” Hati said.

  Norit never waked from her visions, but held Lelie against her, her hands absently doing things a mother might do. Her eyes were still set on the distance, full of fire and fear, experiencing that place and time Norit saw more clearly than she saw the sights around her.

  “We have to move,” Norit said, and said it more than once. He willed her to say so, when he could not. “Hati, we have to move.”

  “I know we have to move,” Hati said. “Everyone knows we have to move. We can’t see our own feet out there in the dark. We’ll move when there’s light.”

  That was good. At least Hati knew. Marak wit-wandered, then, watched Norit with Lelie, with nothing else to watch. He was glad Norit had said it for him. He was glad Hati had agreed he should not slow the caravan.

  He could only move his head. Hati came and wasted water, washing his face. Extravagance, he said to himself. She gave him water to drink. He had a burning thirst. He always did when he healed.

  Lelie abruptly began to sleep, that hard, heavy-limbed sleep of a child. She hung like a doll in Norit’s arms, and now Norit waked from her visions, spoke to the child, talked to her.

  Now at last he saw the mother he had brought Lelie here to find, and now Norit perhaps realized what gift he had brought her at such effort.

  “My baby,” Norit exclaimed, with tears pouring down her face.

  “Lelie, Lelie, Lelie.”

  He was content. The world seemed very much kinder then, its natural laws restored. He trusted it enough to shut his eyes on it a time, though the tilting still bothered him, though he desperately wanted to tell Hati and Norit and Tofi to put him on Osan and move the caravan this hour, this moment.

  But there was a weight on his senses, a wall between him and 6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 295

  H A M M E R FA L L • 295

  speech, and the will to speak grew faint and less frequent. Norit spoke for him, and even she found distraction in the dark, in the howling of the wind.

  He waked as they moved him, and as they shifted him over something hard on the ground. This proved to be the pole of a litter, and the two freedmen carried him out into the wind under a sand-hazed sun, whether morning or evening he could not tell, but he thought it was dawn.

  He was still fevered, and this waking brought him acute pain, so he knew this healing was longer and this wound was probably worse than any other in his life. He thought he should get up and ride, but he failed, and lay there thinking that someone would move him sooner or later.

  Strange sights passed his eyes meanwhile. A good number of Haga were in the camp—surely they were still in the Ila’s camp. Then he thought no, he was mistaken, there were tribesmen, but they were Keran. It was curious. It seemed one, and then the other, when neither belonged there.

  The camp meanwhile packed down the tents and loaded them on the beshti. A second tim
e he tried to get up and walk so that he could get to the saddle on his own, to save everyone the trouble of getting him up there as a dead weight.

  But having lifted his shoulders perhaps a handbreadth off the mat, he simply fell back, weak, with his head throbbing and the desert alternately showing twilight and sunlight around him, and the tribes still coming and going.

  It was not the star-fall, he decided: it was his own head, feeling as if it expanded, and with it all the sky expanded and then contracted.

  He might have fainted. But in what seemed only a moment he heard Hati giving orders, and Memnanan and Tofi shouting, a comfortable and ordinary sound. The camp was moving. At any moment he had to get up and ride.

  Then someone else overshadowed him and picked up the poles of the litter.

  This was a priest, a presence which he found almost as strange as tribesmen coming and going. He could not see who had the poles at his head, but he thought it likely another priest.

  It was the Ila who ordered all priests, and if there were priests doing useful work, that was probably not a bad thing.

  6710.01 5/31/01 11:53 AM Page 296

  296 • C . J . C H E R RY H

  But why priests?

  They brought Lelie, too, and laid her on him. She was a heavy weight, and it hurt, but she was not overall a burden. Lelie was fast asleep and he could see the wound in her leg, too, ugly and swollen . . . but healing, as he healed.

  He was bemused by that fact. They had bled into one another.

  Maker fought maker. Or Norit’s were in the child, potent from con-ception. Could the makers pass like that . . . through a mother’s blood, if not through a father?

  Marak, Marak! East, east, east! The world swung, and his head did, and he fell flat. He saw the rock hit the sphere, again and again and again. He heard the rhythmic sound of water, and saw a shore where endless water washed against the sand.

  It might be the bitter sea. Stars fell into that sea and extinguished themselves. Plumes of water and smoke went up and joined the clouds. The sun went down in sullen red, and more stars fell.