Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  She was crumpled uncomfortably on the floor of a vehicle that moved among mountains, their edges obscuring then revealing the dismal light, like moons behind mist.

  The place smelled of dust. As the vehicle trundled along, it created a little cloud of dust that went with them, enveloping them. The vehicle made a sudden turn, and her head banged against something hard. She whimpered.

  "It's all right," said someone. "We won't hurt you."

  She hadn't thought they would, until then. The reassurance had the opposite effect from the one intended. She was sure they would hurt her, or that one of them would. The one who had spoken. There was something viscous in that voice, a gelatinous insincerity. And the other one? If the first did something evil to her, would the other concur? Or watch, interested? Passive? She trembled.

  "No," said a younger voice. "We really won't hurt you. You don't need to shiver all over like that. The only reason we tied you up was so you wouldn't make any noise."

  A rough hand patted her, as one might pat a dog. This touch did what the voice had not, reassured her. It wasn't the touch of a... well, that kind of touch. She turned her head a little, letting one eye see higher up. Shadows against that far gray light. A massive carved throne, high in the sky against the light. A curlicued bedstead? A rocking horse? A great swag of bunting from one precipice to another. A man up there, poised to leap. No, it had to be a statue of a man, holding a bow, a man with wings holding a bow, dark against the high gray light.

  None of it made any sense. She relaxed, letting it happen. The water sound grew louder, plunket... plunket... plunket... and the wheels began to swish through a shallow pool, a wide, wide pool that reflected light from above, ripples fleeing from their wheels. Obviously, they were underground. In a cavern. Just as those men had said, the ones who'd been looking for her.

  Far above her, to one side, a balloon hung limply from the ceiling, its basket dangling, slightly tipped. She had seen a balloon like that at a provincial festival, filled with hot air, round as an apple against the blue. People had paid to go up in it, to see the world from on high. It had to be pulled down by a capstan, but it always floated up again, when the bellows were applied to its little fire basket full of coals. She had much wanted to go up, but her father had said no. Such activities were for commoners, those easily amused by novelty.

  The light grew slightly brighter the farther they went. They passed a precipice of doors stacked one on another, some upright, most recumbent, doors paneled, painted, carved, doors of gilt and metal, reaching from the level of her eyes into the far, dim upness of the place. They entered a chasm between escarpments of carpets, rolled, flat, folded, draped down the sides, lengthy runners twisted into rough garlands hung in catenary curves up the sides of the carpet cliffs. Then, abruptly, they left the rug chasm and came into an open space.

  The rough hand returned to take her gag away. "There now. Is that better?"

  "Who?" she murmured. "Who?"

  "Bottoms," he said cheerfully, as he untied her. "Jeorfy Bottoms. My friend here is Zebulon. Zebulon Coffin. Not a cheerful name, is it? Bottoms now, that's cheerful. Always get a laugh out of Bottoms."

  He busied himself with much tinkling and rattling. Light happened, a lantern, and in its orange glow she saw she was on a flat platform with a seat at one side and a control lever at one end. From the open side, two men in gray coveralls regarded her intently, the younger one with amusement and interest, the pudgy, older one with an avid stare that made her apprehensive.

  She gulped. "I'm Imogene Sentith," she said.

  "Oh, right," said the younger one, with a demonic grin. "And I'm the Lord Paramount of Haven."

  "And I am his Prime Minister," said the other, with a sneer. "We heard you, you know. Talking out there. You're not his daughter. You're just pretending, and we want to know why."

  "Why do you want to know?" she cried. "It isn't your business."

  "Is so," said the older of the two. "Anything goes on in this cavern is my business! This is my place! My job! And you came poking into it."

  "She didn't, you know," said Jeorfy, in a conversational tone. "Don't get all in an uproar, Zeb. We pulled her in." "What is this place?" she whispered.

  "The Lord Paramount's cavern," said Zeb. "Where he keeps the things he gets from off-world." He sniggered. "Where I keep 'em, for I'm the actual keeper. Him," and he jutted an elbow toward Jeorfy, "he's my assistant, and he's just arrived."

  Jeorfy drew himself up, raised one hand, and declaimed: "After years without a word, I was suddenly transferred. They removed me from the archives, where I'd spent eleven years, and I'll hate them all their damn lives for they took me from my peers."

  He stopped, grinning like a maniac. "If it weren't for Zebulon, my dear, I'd have been here totally alone."

  "If you don't quit versifying stupidities, Zebulon will transfer you violently," growled the other, over his shoulder. "It's damned annoying, Bottoms!"

  Jeorfy grinned at her again, but fell silent as they rumbled among further promontories of goods and furniture, shortly arriving at the door of a small room built of packing cases against the cavern wall. Genevieve pulled herself upright, assisted by Jeorfy, and stood dazedly looking about herself at endless stacks of cartons and boxes and crates towering into vanishing points against the vault and its widespread galaxies of dim lights. She shook her head at the monstrous accumulation. "I thought there were very few things bought off-world."

  Zebulon laughed, a dry, scraping sound. "Oh, woman! That's for public consumption, that little tale. Why, the Lord Paramount buys all sorts of things off-planet. Piles of them. Stacks of them. Look at them! And this is only one cavern! There's others! Bigger!"

  Genevieve stepped down from the vehicle, dusting herself off, and Jeorfy led her into the small room. It was warm, dry, and furnished with several well-padded chairs and a neat bed against the wall. It was also well lighted by a sun-bright panel set into its ceiling, and Genevieve sat in the chair beneath it, grateful for the outdoors feeling it gave her. Though the cavern was huge, it had a claustrophobic, tomblike atmosphere.

  She slapped at her neck, where something clung, dashing the thing to the floor. Jeorfy grabbed it up, in the moment, tossing it out into the cavern and closing the door behind it. The door was covered in mesh, not metal or fabric, but something she had not seen before.

  "What was it?" she cried, feeling her neck and bringing blood-stained fingers before her eyes. "It bit me!"

  "Cave-lizzy," said the older man. "When they're tiny, they'll bite, you give them a chance. Unless you teach 'em not."

  "Like this," said Jeorfy, going to the door and whistling. At once there were several tiny forms clinging to the mesh, and Genevieve went to look at them, jeweled little creatures, ruby and sapphire and emerald, with frills around their necks, webs between their legs and sharp little muzzles, siren-lizards in miniature. Jeorfy went to a cupboard and took out a packet, unwrapped the dripping contents, opened the door a crack and held it out. His hand was covered at once with a whistling, squeaking, chomping horde of the little creatures.

  "Every so often, the grown-up ones come into the caves to make their stinking nests and lay their eggs," said Jeorfy, conversationally. "They hatch into these little ones, and at this age they're supposed to eat fish. These caves used to be full of rivers, and the rivers were full of fish. But when the Lord Paramount drained the caverns, oh, long ago, the fish were all drained away somewhere else. So, these hatchlings, they'll eat us instead, or we could poison them all, but that'd wipe out the big lizards, and the nobles like lizard skin boots, so, we feed 'em instead."

  "What do you feed them?"

  "Fish. It comes in from outside somewhere. And it's only every ten or twelve years that the big lizards reproduce. This time next year, all these little ones will be grown up and flown out into the world. The grown ones are aquatic. It's only when they're little they can fly."

  She smoothed back her hair, settled her collar, and said f
irmly, "You know, I have to get back to Papa."

  "He's not your papa," said Zebulon. "And you don't need to get back to him just yet. Why, you're the only amusement that's come along in ten or twelve years."

  Jeorfy gave Zebulon a puzzled look before turning to Genevieve once more. "So, tell us your real name, pretty girl."

  "Henrietta Hazelbine," she said. "Daughter of the Count of Ob." There was a county Ob in Frangia, but so far as she knew, there was no Count of Ob, nor had there been for many years. Still, it was worth a try.

  "And who are you running from?" asked Zeb.

  "A nobleman who wants to marry me, but I don't like him."

  "Aha!" said Jeorfy. "There! It's the Prince, I'll wager. Didn't I say! He's after another wife, isn't he? That's it, isn't it?"

  "Why do you assume so?" she asked, astonished.

  "Because all the oldies, every so often, they seem to get remarried, or they adopt a niece, or they take on a mistress. He's only had three wives, so maybe he needs another one. He hasn't had one for fifty years or more."

  "Fifty years?" she faltered. "How old is he?"

  "A hundred eighty, a hundred ninety, somewhere in there," said Jeorfy. "You'd be the fourth."

  "They all died, I know that," she said, remembering her father's anger when she had asked about Delganor's wives. "I only heard about two of them."

  "It was probably the first one you didn't hear about. She was the only one who got away, I have no doubt."

  "Jeorfy!" threatened Zebulon. "Talk like a sensible person!"

  "Got away?" asked Genevieve.

  "Ran away, eluded, absconded, disappeared," said Jeorfy, making a face at his companion. "Felt that she'd be safer in a wig and a false beard!" He nodded slowly. "That's merely a guess. At any rate, he never found her."

  "Where did you find out all this?" she asked.

  Jeorfy cocked his head impudently, "A man came to the archives, with very charming ways. I learned after he'd left me his name was Aufors Leys. I let him use the archives to look up some history, and what he didn't say about it spurred my curiosity."

  "Enough. One more and I'm leaving you here alone!" shouted Zebulon, his face red with fury.

  Jeorfy mimed apology, bowing, wringing his hands in pretend-distress, then turned to say cheerfully to Genevieve, "The Colonel was far better at dissimulation than I. When I tried it, they caught me at it. I'm down here as punishment."

  Keeping a blank face, she asked, "How did you know I was up there?"

  Jeorfy said, "Zebulon was just showing me around and we happened to be there. That grille is the back gate to this cavern, so to speak..."

  "Among others," muttered Zeb.

  Jeorfy paid no attention to the interruption. "Of course, the current powers that be, up there, don't know there's any way out except the locked gate they put me through. They think we're cut off from the world down here, incommunicado. Which is why I'm here. I know too much. Or they think I do."

  Zeb mused, as though talking to himself, "I like that particular way out. There's lots of travelers come by there. I can come out at night and listen to them. I hear all kinds of interesting things."

  Genevieve rubbed her forehead wearily, trying to decide whether she should insist they let her go or simply go along for a while longer. Jeorfy accurately read her expression.

  "Don't worry, girl," said Jeorfy. "Your so-called papa isn't up there anymore. He's been escorted to the border. You agreed to meet in Midling Wells, and that's where we'll take you. We can, can't we, Zeb?"

  "Near to there," said the other, reluctantly.

  Jeorfy nodded. "Your so-called papa isn't fool enough to wander around in the wilderness just hoping you'll show up, and with the number of men on the roads, he won't have a chance to come back here."

  "Is this where you live?" she asked, looking around the small room with something like dismay. She didn't want to stay for a long time, and it would be very crowded with all three of them in it.

  "This is just a rest stop," Zebulon said. "I fixed me up a bunch of them, here and there, like plums in a pudding. So I can stop and be comfortable whenever I want."

  "How do you live? What do you eat?"

  Zebulon sniggered, grasped her by the arm and dragged her back onto the cart. This time she sat on the seat next to Jeorfy while Zebulon drove them down dark chasms between huge, dusty piles of merchandise, other shadowed aisles squirming away on either side like wormtracks. Near the bottom of one stack a crate had been opened, and Jeorfy leapt from the machine long enough to pull a container from the open crate and place it on their wagon.

  "Zybod ham," crooned Zebulon. "From the planet Kuflyk. This ham, it's in perpetual preservation. You'd think it'd taste like dust, but it's good, oh, very good. It's why I stay, I think. The food. This ham with goat cheese and fresh bread-well, bread that tastes fresh-is remarkable. Quite remarkable."

  The look he gave her was a hungry one, and he licked his lips in a lecherous way. Genevieve kept her face turned resolutely away from his as they went on. They circumnavigated a continent of carved furniture, beneath tottery mountains of marquetry, past veins of veneer, lodes of inlay, eroded towers of tapestry and trapunto over sheer cliffs of stacked cabinetry, bronze fittings, and mirrored surfaces, all scaled and corrupted by time. They slid beneath a leaning tower of paintings, gilt frames jutting like angled crystals, stretched canvases slit and tattered into dust-stiffened stalactites. They passed cataracts of chandeliers, tumbling gold and prismed glass, shining here and there as a vagrant beam reflected through the gray film. They eased along the bottom of a chasm, crowded on either side by great broken cartons full of crystal and porcelain and lizard nests, the packing material sodden with the excrement of the generations of babies who had hatched there.

  Speaking of nesting gave Jeorfy an idea. "We should get this girl a bed," he announced.

  "Next left," said Zeb, and they swerved around a corner to stop at a topless pile of mattresses, the bottom ones squashed flat as paper beneath the enormous weight of all those vanishing into the gloom above. Zebulon scrambled high onto a plateau, dust billowing around him as he kicked several mattresses from the dusty layers. The first ones plummeted and burst on impact, but the last few, with surfaces almost clean, landed more or less in one piece.

  "What's it all for?" cried Genevieve, when they had loaded the best one aboard the platform. "The Lord Paramount couldn't use all this in a million years."

  "Not likely," snarled Zebulon, returning to his lever, "besides which, we've got perfectly good mattress-makers in Haven. And chandelier-makers. And furniture-makers."

  "I think I've figured it out," said Jeorfy. "The Lord Paramount has little enough to amuse himself, so he sees something in the off-world catalogs that catches his eye, and he orders it, that's all. All the planets send their catalogs to the Lord Paramount. I've seen 'em, because when he was finished with 'em, they brought 'em to be filed in the archives. Catalogs for food, fabric, machines. Weapons. Gadgets. Even pets! Zeb says there's a whole aisle of pets in stasis down here. Animals you've never seen!"

  Genevieve heard this with a feeling of certainty. Jeorfy was right. She herself had seen the catalogs stacked around the Lord Paramount's high seat. "What does he trade for all this?" she asked wonderingly. "This is a poor world."

  "Now that's what I'd like to know," murmured Zeb, with a leer in her direction. "I suppose Jeorfy'd like to know that, too."

  "I've heard it said it's pearls," she offered, pretending not to notice the leer.

  "No," said Jeorfy, shaking his head. "I've heard that, but it's not pearls. When I saw all this down here, I wanted to know what we traded, oh, yes, so I looked it up in the archives. Archives was mute, didn't give a toot."

  Zeb snarled, "Trade goods is something ordinary folk aren't allowed to know about. Just the nobles know about trade goods."

  "How could that be?" Genevieve asked. "I mean, I'm a noble, and I don't know anything about anything. And it's not as if I can do
anything that ordinary people don't know about. I mean, my maid knows when I take a deep breath! She knows more about what's going on than I do. Nobles are surrounded all the time by ordinary folk."

  "I can tell you one bunch, one place they're not surrounded by commoners," remarked Jeorfy, with a significant nod. "And that's the Tribunal."

  "The Covenanters? I didn't know that."

  "It's true," remarked Jeorfy. "I was surprised when I read about it, but that's how it is. Whoever installed the inventory system down here connected it to the archive machines upstairs. Zebulon didn't even know that until I came. The nobles, the Lord Paramount, and the Prince and all, even they don't know that! So, I've been digging around, and I came across some Tribunal edicts forbidding common people from going anywhere near the Tribunal."

  "What do you mean, the systems are connected?" Genevieve asked.