Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  "I may have been wrong sir. The man the Prince wanted was the Marshal's son-in-law. The man we had might have been him."

  "Wrong coloring, you said."

  "He could have dyed his hair, sir. I should have checked at the time..."

  "Nonsense, Dunnel. It wasn't as though you turned him loose! I said hold him, you held him, it wasn't your fault he vanished like piss in the sand. That blockhead, Obrang, was responsible if anyone, and his fate fit him like a glove. Once a blockhead, why not a blockbody as well, ah? Assume the prisoner was the one the Prince wanted. You think this is some kind of family poison? Something they all carry?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  "Well, it's one of many questions I'd like answered. My brothers seem to think we're going to be here a while. They've taken the capital of Haven without a fight and we've captured the entire Mahahmbi army, such as it is. Haven isn't up to much, resistance-wise, but it seems to be impenetrable where information is concerned! My brothers are now asking the common people what they know, to no avail. Eventually, Father will tire of it, and then... well, I'd rather not think of then.

  "In the interim, I'm leaving the camp in Colonel Morfat's hands and taking you and your Trackers to see if we can find this man who vanished. Since this Prince of Haven can identify his missing man, we'll take him as well. If anyone can find him, your Trackers can."

  28: The Assembly

  At the foot of a high, red cliff, half-hidden behind a pillar broken from the face, Aufors lay unconscious, afire with fever and entranced in dream. He was searching the desert for women's bodies, finding them everywhere. Each one had to be pulled a long way away from the bed of squirming snakes it lay upon. He struggled up the dunes, tugging the mummified corpses after him, the wind drying his eyes, the sun crisping his skin, himself burning, burning with the job not yet done. Worst of all, the bodies spoke to him.

  "Galul," they whispered. "We were promised Galul. Be resigned, they said, until you are grown. Then you will go to Galul. Be resigned, they said, until you are married. Then, then you will go to Galul. Oh, be resigned, for when you have children, then, oh, then you will go to Galul."

  "Galul," they whispered, "where we may lie bare-skinned in the soft surf and make castles in the sand. Galul, where we may speak aloud. Galul, where we may dance among the flowers..."

  He told them that Galul was only over the next dune, but still they would not let him rest. No matter what direction he took, there they lay, speaking to him.

  "I wanted to leave the old man and go to heaven."

  "They gave me to him when I was only ten, when I was only a child."

  "I was the fourth wife of the Duke of Highland. He was an old, old man, long past the ways of love. He left me alone with a young guardsman, who said he loved me. When I was with child, the guardsman went away, and my husband sent me here..."

  "My child, my child! Here by my side. Is he alive? Take him, save him! Oh, please, take my child..."

  They spoke in his mind, they disputed with one another, they were angry at themselves, they boiled with disappointment, their heat charred him, turned him into ashes...

  * * *

  "He's burning up," said a voice.

  "Look at that wound on his head. It's puffed up like a melon. I've brought the all-heal. Here, hold his arm.. ,"

  He didn't even feel the pinprick though he gulped thirstily at the water they gave him. He couldn't hear their voices over the voices in his head.

  "You don't understand," he told the shadow women. "They planned to kill you all along. It's your blood that makes the lichen work. The blood of nursing mothers. If men bleed on it, it becomes something else. It turns people to wood."

  Etain said, "Listen to him. He says if a man bleeds on the lichen, it becomes something else. Could that be true?"

  Joncaster felt Aufors's head, playing the words over in his head. "Look at his hands. They're covered with cuts. He's been cutting himself, so it looks like he believes it's true."

  "Wouldn't we have heard of that if it were true?"

  "The lichen's been tapu for us for a long time, Etain. We haven't even gone near it. But for him..."

  "Would bleeding on it be tapu for us?"

  "I don't see how. Scout around. See if you can find a patch of lichen close by."

  Etain departed. Joncaster settled Aufors more comfortably in the shade. He had heated water, applied an herbal compress to the wound on Aufors's head, and was readying a replacement before Etain returned, sliding down a dune in an avalanche of sand.

  "There's a patch just over there. He'd moved two bodies. There were still four of them there. I moved them. Then I bled a little on the lichen, just to see. It went crazy. More than when the women are killed on it."

  "How much blood?"

  "Only a little, Joncaster. Really. I've bled more shaving!"

  "How many patches are there, close around here?" "The Mahahmbi did fifteen, last holy days."

  "He couldn't have happened upon more than three or four of them if he aimed for the sea. If this... if this works, we ought to do it everywhere, now! Before the Aresians find the women's bodies and put two and two together."

  "Aresians," cried Aufors, becoming agitated. "They want to know about P'naki. Don't let them find out about P'naki."

  Joncaster muttered soothingly to him, then turned to Jorub. "You brought a couple of birds didn't you? What's home for them."

  "Refuges Four and Six."

  "Melanie should get to Six by tonight. Give the birds enough water to get them through a day's flight." Joncaster busied himself with paper and marker: Aufors found, important to move bodies, put drops of male blood on lichen. He rolled the messages into the slender quills the birds were trained to carry. Meantime the birds drank, cooing softly between themselves. Then they were aloft, headed southward.

  Joncaster muttered, "If Melanie gets the message and they work through the night, they can get most of the bodies moved."

  "We could do some of them ourselves, the nearest ones."

  "This man should rest, but I hate to leave him alone. She said he had to go to the standing stone."

  "You believe her?"

  Joncaster stared at the sky. "She doesn't... she doesn't share our beliefs, but that doesn't mean she's wrong. You heard that sound she made."

  "Like it."

  "Right. We have lots of singers in Galul, but I never heard one of them make a sound like that. And it was answered."

  "It could have been an echo."

  "It wasn't an echo. That was real. That was it speaking."

  "Have you ever seen it?"

  "Never. But... I wouldn't be surprised to learn she has."

  "I'll go for a while, do what I can, then come back," offered Etain.

  Joncaster nodded. "Go. But take care. We don't know what kinds of equipment the Aresians have. They may have detectors, so be cautious."

  Etain saluted, took up his water bottle and a packet of food, threw himself upon the sled and slithered it around the base of a dune, heading inland. Joncaster replaced the compress, then applied another when it cooled. Gradually the crustiness of the wound was softening, and when he changed the compress for the fourth time, the evil matter inside the wound began to flow out. Joncaster cleaned it away, looked at his timepiece, and readied a second injection.

  The sun slipped behind the dune to the west, leaving them in deep shade. Though the temperature did not drop significantly, and would not until night came, the absence of the sun's glare made matters more bearable. Aufors stirred. "Who?" he asked.

  "A friend," said Joncaster. "A friend of Genevieve's, as well."

  "Is she... is she..."

  "She's well. Tired, but well. As soon as we can get your fever down, we'll take you to her."

  "Aresian guard hit me," Aufors said clearly. "No reason for it, just stupidity. His officer read him off. I should have asked for something to treat it with. It didn't seem that bad."

  "Can you tell me about the lichen?" mur
mured Joncaster.

  Aufors eyes flew open, full of awareness. "Who are you?"

  "I said, a friend of Genevieve's."

  Aufors's eyes closed. He was silent.

  Right, Joncaster thought. And how does one prove one is a friend of Genevieve's?

  "Do you know about Awhero?" Joncaster murmured. "I also know Awhero. And your son's name is Dovidi."

  Aufors's eyes opened halfway, a mere slit. "You could have found out names in many ways. You could be Aresian."

  "All right," Joncaster said, shaking his head. "Go back to sleep. I've sent Etain to bleed on as many patches of lichen as he can find. I hope that's what you think is best."

  Stubbornly, Aufors did not reply.

  * * *

  South along the shore from the red cliff, a stony stretch of coast was known to the malghaste as "the bird rocks." A submarine trench that reached deeply into the planet's crust lay just off shore, and the rising water was alive with food for the nesting birds. No matter the season, the wave-splashed stones were white with waterfowl or their droppings, and their cries could be heard for miles inland.

  Awhero and the boy had come to the rocks along a narrow strip of beach that wound among the stones. They had arrived at a cavern on the sea where a freshwater spring dripped into a deep crevasse far back, out of sight of the shore. This cool, moist retreat was well known to the malghaste.

  "Thank wairua taiao for bit of rest," said Awhero. She untied her shawl and unwrapped a fretful Dovidi who began to wail. She spread her blanket beside the pool outlet and settled herself and the child upon it. Poor thing, he was prickly from the heat and fretful as well. She lowered his naked, reddened body onto the sand at the edge of the deep pool and ladled water over it while the fretful whimpering turned into chuckled sounds of enjoyment. Good enough.

  Kamakama was lying full length upon the sand, his face submerged in the water. Now he pulled up his head with a great spuming and blowing. He cried, "Oh, kuia, that's good."

  "Soon you'll be in Galul, boy. You can put your whole body into water there. There's lakes to swim in."

  "I'd like that. Is swimming hard?"

  "Is walking hard? Everything is when you start out, getting easier as you go."

  "Except life," said the boy in a grim voice. "It starts out hard then just gets harder the more we go on."

  "There is that," she agreed. "We didn't count on these Aresians. I hope we got enough bodies moved..."

  "We got the ones south of Qum. They were the closest ones."

  "All we could do with this child along." She lifted the baby from the water, patted him dry, and laid him on the blanket, where he promptly put his thumb in his mouth and closed his eyes.

  "Well, he's gone quick enough," the boy said.

  "He's slept hardly at all on Way," she answered. "He's tired out. And so are we, but watch should be kept. You rest, boy. I'm too jumpy to sleep yet."

  Kamakama stretched out on the blanket next to the sleeping baby and let himself relax, wriggling his hips and shoulders into the sand while Awhero took her pack to the cave entrance and arranged it to make a backrest. From this vantage point she could see north and south along the coast, though her view inland was blocked by the ridges stair-stepping upward above the cavern. From this point south, the seacliffs blocked all passages from the sea, at least any that were visible from the shore.

  The entrance to the cave was well hidden. The state of constant vigilance they'd been in for the last four days meant she and the boy had slept little better than Dovidi. She leaned back her head and shut her eyes. Just for moment, she told herself. Not long. Just... moment.

  And she woke to an erratic sound, like a disturbed bee or hornet, caught in some cul-de-sac. A whiny noise. Like a malfunctioning sand-sled...

  She moved slowly, carefully to the entrance, standing in the shadow. There it was, down on the shore path, with the tide moving in. And there was... well, Jorub! Now what the devil was he doing out here? She stepped into the clear, put her hands to her mouth and called through them, "Hai-eee."

  He couldn't hear her over the sound his engine was making. It went on whining, then suddenly stopped. She put her hands up and called again. This time he looked up. She waved. He got off the sled and kicked it petulantly.

  Shaking her head, Awhero went down among the rocks. "You got water in intake, didn't you?"

  "I don't usually come this way, to or from," he said. "I was looking for Aufors Leys. Is he with you?"

  "Looking here?"

  "The woman, Genevieve, she saw the bird rocks and the red cliffs and her man was supposed to be at one or the other."

  "Well, then he's at other. She saw this place because her child is here."

  He shrugged. "So, I've wasted a little fuel."

  "Not a drop was wasted, and I'm mightily glad you came. We could use little faster travel, which we won't have if we don't get this sled up out of wet."

  Together they dragged it along a sloping shingle, halfway up the shore path, out of the reach of the tide, while Jorub shared his news of Genevieve and the Marshal and Joncaster, gone to find Aufors Leys. "We'll meet at the standing stone," he concluded.

  "Te marae's empty, is it?" Awhero asked.

  "We shut it down before the Shah got there. We've been making a supply run since, and we were at the canyon house when Genevieve got the galloping visions..."

  "I heard someone... something call," Awhero offered, tentatively.

  "You and the rest of the world," muttered Jorub. "I thought those shouters in Mahahm Qum were loud. She let out a bellow like I've never heard."

  "I also heard... answer."

  He mumbled, looking over his shoulder, "So did Melanie. She says. Well, so did I. It could have been an echo."

  "Ah. I can see why you'd rather think so. You can take us to meeting place?"

  "If the sled'll run, sure. I came out here to rescue whoever, and I guess you're as whoever as the next one."

  "We may as well have little rest, while sled dries out."

  They climbed the slope to the cave entrance, slipping into the entrance hidden in the shadow between two stones.

  "Who's that?" demanded Jorub.

  "Kamakama. Boy I rescued years ago. He's been in city with our contingent." She took off her hastily snatched up shawl and resumed her seat at the entrance.

  "I thought you said you had a baby with you?"

  "There, lying next to..." She rose, eyes wide. There was no Dovidi next to Kamakama. She ran to the blanket, knelt down upon it, searched the cavern with her eyes. Jorub came up behind her with his light, shining it into crevices. A slight disturbance of the water caught their eyes. There the baby was, deep in the pool, floating facedown, motionless.

  "Oh, by heaven," cried Awhero.

  "I'll get him," said Jorub, throwing off his robes and diving into the water. As he thrashed toward the child, some errant eddy took the small body and turned it, moved it away. The little feet flipped, the little arms paddled, up he came while his would-be rescuer plunged about below, searching for him.

  Jorub rose, spewing water, to see Awhero holding the child and shaking as though she had just taken death by the hand.

  Jorub climbed out, panting. "How did you get hold of him?"

  "He... he washed up toward me," she said, holding the baby tightly. "When you jumped in, it must have made current."

  Dovidi made a little crowing sound, half question, half joy.

  "He's none the worse for it," said Jorub.

  "No," she murmured, drying the baby's neck and shoulders. "No. I guess he... held his breath. Instinctive, you know."

  "He was asleep next to me when I lay down," said Kamakama. "I never felt him move."

  "In future, we'll keep him away from water," said Awhero, with a tremulous smile. "Unless we're with him. And awake."

  Jorub settled onto the blanket. "Genevieve said the Aresians had come. Is that true?"

  "It is true, my boy, they came with vengeance. Kamakama and I
were afraid they'd find bodies out on sands, so we moved all we came upon."

  "There were sixty-eight, last holy days."

  "We moved twelve. Maybe Joncaster did, too."

  "It wouldn't be good if Aresians found out, would it?"

  She said, "Hand me that pack, boy. The baby's milk is in it." Then, after a few moments she answered him. "No. It wouldn't be good if Aresians found out."