The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  Then Yilan leaned back among the embroidered leather cushions and rested his body on the carpets and the yellow lamplight shone down on him. He shut his eyes and dreamed of the city, and saw, from the slit of his eyes when he heard a step departing, and felt the wagon quake, that Boga had gone his way.

  To lay traps and ambushes, doubtless.

  O Shimshek, have a care!

  "Husband?"

  It was quite another step which came from behind the curtains, from the door by the forward chamber. A breath of herbs came with her, a hint of sweetness unlike the dust and the stink of urine that was the outside world. He opened his eyes smiling, for Gunesh was by him, beautiful, brave Gunesh, who had seen it all; there was terror in her eyes as she knelt by him. He reached up and touched a gloved hand to her cheek, for comfort.

  "Will you eat, Yilan?"

  He shook his head, made an effort to tug off his gloves. She helped him; even that exertion tired him now. "I shall smoke," he said. "And then I want you to go and pack a little food, Gunesh. It may be necessary. You saw that out there?"

  She nodded. Her lips were pressed tight.

  "Well," he said. "Go pack the food."

  She said nothing. He was a great king, and she a captive once and long ago. She had the habit of doing as she was told, and then of saying her mind, and he waited while she brought him the long-stemmed pipe and his bowl, and filled it and set the stem between his lips. A tear rolled down her face. It was perhaps of his death she thought, and perhaps of her own, and perhaps of Shimshek's. They were all in their way doomed; he knew so and he thought she might.

  And still she had nothing to say. By this he was sure that she was aware of what went on. "They wait," he said plainly, "because they wish to trap Shimshek too. I gave him power and now they have to contrive to get it away from him. If I grow too weak, Gunesh, my brave Gunesh, you will tell him how I passed. Have you your dagger?"

  She nodded touched the hilt at her belt, among the furs.

  "Shimshek will take care of you."

  Her chin weakened. " Why, Yilan? Why did you let them?"

  "Stop that. Trust Shimshek, I say. I know you have in other things. Ah, do you think I don't know whose baby you're carrying? You're nothing to me—in that way—everything in my heart of hearts, Gunesh. You know that everything had to come before you, but no one can take your place."

  "I don't understand you," she said.

  "You're going to deny it. Don't. I know the truth."

  Now her composure almost left her. "I don't understand. I don't."

  "You do."

  "I love you."

  "You always have. And I you, Gunesh, forever and ever. Go away. Leave me. Whatever Boga's fed me, I doubt it will be painful. He'd like that, but he won't want whispers of poison. Ah no. He gave me this with his own hand."

  "Yilan, why did you?"

  "To save Shimshek. And you. And the child; him too. I'm dying—are a few weeks much to me? No. Not in my pain. I've Seen the city. But even that ceases to matter, Gunesh. Don't be sad. I have all that I meant to do. I'm finished. Call Shimshek to me if he comes in time, and remember that I love you both."

  "Yilan—"

  " Go," he said, in that voice which had moved armies and made chieftains flinch. But Gunesh drew in a breath and gathered her serenity like a robe of state, nodded with satisfaction. He chuckled, for the smoke was killing the pain, and he was pleased: he could never affright Gunesh, not that way.

  "I shall be back," she said.

  "Yes."

  She pressed her lips to his then, and stroked his hand and withdrew.

  He inhaled deeply of the smoke, clearer and clearer in his mind, his eyes hazed with far perspectives.

  The riders came from the dust of evening, black swift shapes. "Look," the citizens watching from the walls had cried, waving kerchiefs, when first the shapes appeared; they had thought them their own returning soldiers, one of the units come back, perhaps, in victory. But all too quickly the truth became clear, and then a great wailing went up from the City of Heaven, and the citizens rushed to bring spears and whatever things they could to defend it.

  "Here! O here!" Kan Te exclaimed, thrusting into Tao Hua's hands a bundle of lances as he reached her atop the wall. The armory and the museum had passed them out to any man who would stand atop the wall and throw them, and he suffered a terrible vision, Tao Hua's pale bewildered face, as the dusty wind caught her braids and her tassels and stirred the flower petals of the bloom she wore beside her cheek. She clutched the warlike burden, and passed one to him, as the stronger arm, as all about them citizens were taking positions, the weaker to hold and pass, the stronger to hurl the weapons, and tears were on the faces of both men and women who looked on the advancing riders. "O where are they?" they heard asked down the wind, for Phoenix and Lion had not returned, and here was the enemy upon them. Kan Te picked up the lance which Tao Hua gave him, bright and needle-keen. The ribbons fluttered bravely from the weapon and she thought as she watched him leaning above the parapet, his robes aflurry in the dust, his face set in a grimace of resolution, how very much they loved. She turned her face toward the enemy, the hordes which killed and burned and destroyed. She leaned the bundle of javelins against the wall, and took one in her own tiny hand, a weapon which trailed paper flowers from scarlet ribbons, and she leaned beside Kan Te to wait, copying his hold on the weapon, though all along the city wall were a dozen different grips, people who had not the least idea of the use of such things, as they themselves did not. They had trained with long rifles, but there were not enough left.

  The riders drew nigh like thunder, and premature lances hurled from the walls trailing ribbons. "Wait, wait," the two cried among the others, chiding comrades to patience. In a moment more the riders were in range, a stream of them, who hurled dark objects which battered at the gate below; lances streamed down with their ribbons and their flowers and some few hit home, sending either horse or rider down, but many whose horses fell scrambled up behind comrades, swept up never so much as faltering; and the objects kept coming, thudding against the gate like stones.

  "They are heads!" someone near the gate cried, and the horrid cry echoed round the walls.

  The hail of javelins continued from above and the objects thrown by the riders continued to strike the gate, each riding up to hurl his missile and riding away, most unscathed. Before the riders had stopped coming, they were out of weapons; the last riders coursed in unchecked, hurled the heads they bore at the gate and rode off with shouted taunts.

  There was weeping. Here and there a scream rang out as some new viewer reached that place in the wall from which they could see the gates.

  And toward twilight they dared unbar the gate, where a heap of thousands of heads stood, and some tumbled inward and rolled across the beautiful stones of the road, heads of comrades of the Phoenix and the Lion, sons and daughters of the city. . . and one living man, who had been of the Phoenix. Cries of relatives split the night. Friends gathered up the remains and bore them when parents and mates were too stunned or horrified. They made a pyre in the city and burned them, because there was nothing else to do.

  And Kan Te and Tao Hua clung together, weeping for friends and shivering. The Phoenix soldier wept news of enemies as many as the grains of sand, of a living wind which threatened to pour over them. Only a portion of that horde had bestirred itself to deal with them.

  The city then knew it was doomed. The fever spread; lovers and bereaved leapt onto the pyre which destroyed what was left of Phoenix and Lion; the last Phoenix soldier threw himself after.

  Others simply stared, bewildered, at the death and the madness, and the smoke went up from the square of the City of Heaven, to mingle with the dust.

  "He is back." Gunesh shook the wagon in climbing down, as the sound of several riders thundered up to the wagon. "Ah," said Yilan Baba to no one in particular, and sucked at the pipe and leaned among his cushions, pleased in the cessation of pain the drug had brough
t. . . or the poison. No need to have been concerned; Shimshek had won his battle, and Boga and his cronies let Shimshek and a few of his men get through to him. How could they gracefully prevent it?

  And surely they did not want to prevent it, to have both their victims in one place at one time.

  They came in together, his dear friends, Gunesh first up the ladder, and Shimshek hard after her, even yet covered with the dust of his riding and the blood of his enemies. Gunesh had got an early word in his ear out there. He saw the anguish in Shimshek's face. "Sit," he said. "Gunesh, not you—go forward."

  Her eyes flashed.

  "Go," he said in a gentle voice. "Give me a little private time with this young man. It regards you both, but give me the time to talk to him."

  "When it regards me—"

  "Out," he said. She went, perhaps sensing him too weak for dispute. A pain hit him; he clamped his jaw against it, turned out his pipe, packed it again with trembling hands. He reached for the light and Shimshek hastened feverishly to help him, to do anything for him, lingered in that moment's closeness, full of pain. Yilan looked and had a moment's vision of what Gunesh saw of them—a grayed, seamed old man, and Shimshek's godlike beauty, dark and strong. He sucked the smoke, reached and touched Shimshek's face, a father's touch this time.

  Tears broke from Shimshek's eyes, flowed down his face unchecked.

  "They have killed me," he said. "Gunesh told you, of course. If I'm not dead quickly they'll see to it; and next you, and her. Most of all the baby she's carrying, yours or mine, no difference. . . oh, Shimshek, of course I know; how do you think not?"

  Shimshek bowed his head, and he reached out and lifted his face.

  "Prideful nonsense. You think the old man is blind? Sit with me a moment. Just a little time."

  "For all of time, Father, if you wish."

  He darted the youth a piercing glance, leaned back in the cushions, looked at him from hooded eyes. "You've said nothing about how it went. Wasn't that the news you came to tell me? Isn't that important?"

  "They fell like grass under our hooves. We'll take the City tomorrow, Yilan Baba; we'll give you that."

  He grinned faintly, grew sober again, sucked at the pleasing smoke. "Brave friend. Rome and Carthage, Thebes and Ur. . . how many, how many more. . . ?"

  Shimshek shook his head, bewildered.

  "Oh my young friend," he sighed, "I'm tired, I'm tired this time, and it doesn't matter. I've done all that's needful; I know that. It's why I sit and smoke. There's no more of Yilan; only of you, of Gunesh. I have some small hope for you, if you're quick."

  "I'll rouse the tribe. I'll get Boga's lot away from you. . . ."

  "No. You'll take the tribes that will follow you and you'll ride, you and Gunesh. Get out of here."

  "To break the hordes now. . ."

  "It doesn't matter, do you understand me? No, of course you don't." He drew upon the pipe, passed it to Shimshek and let the calming smoke envelope him. "Do as I tell you. That's all I want."

  "I'll have Boga's head on a pole."

  "No. Not that either."

  "Then tell me what I have to do."

  "Just obey me. Go. The city means nothing."

  "You struggled so many years—"

  "I'm here. I'm here, that's all." He took back the pipe and inhaled. The smoke curled up and wreathed about them in the murk of the low-hanging lights, and the smoke made shapes, walls of cities, strange towers and distant lands, barren desert, high mountains, lush hills and trafficked streets, beasts and fantastical machines, men of many a shade and some who were not human at all. "I'm many lives old, Shimshek; and I know you. . . ah, my old, old friend. I remember. . . I've gotten to remembering since I've been sick; dreaming dreams. . . They're in the smoke, do you see them?"

  "Only smoke, Yilan Baba."

  "Solid as ever. I know your heart, and it's loyal, indeed it is. We've been through many a war, Shimshek. Fill the other pipe, will you; fill it and dream with me."

  "Outside—"

  "Do as I say."

  Shimshek reached for the bowl, filled the other pipe, lit it and leaned back in attempted leisure, obedient though, Yilan saw with sudden clarity, his wounds were untreated. Poor Shimshek, bewildered indeed. At length a shiver went through him.

  "Better?" Yilan asked.

  "Numb," said Shimshek. Yilan chuckled. "Can you laugh, Baba?"

  "I think I've done well," Yilan said. "Spent my life well."

  "No one else could have united the tribes—no one—and when you're gone. . . it goes. I can't hold them, Baba."

  "True," said Yilan. "Ah, Boga might. He has the strength. But I think not; not this time."

  "Not this time?"

  Yilan smiled and watched the cities in the smoke, and the passing shapes of friends. Enkindu, Patroclus, Hephestion, and Antony and a thousand others. "Patroclus," he called him. "And Lancelot. And Roland. O my friend. . . do you see, do you yet see? Sometimes we meet so late. . . you're always with me, but so often born late, my great, good friend. Most of my life I knew I was missing something, and then I found you, and Gunesh, and I was whole. Then it could begin. I didn't know in those years what I was waiting for, but I knew it when it came, and now I know why."

  Shimshek's eyes lifted to his, spilling tears and dreams, dark as night his eyes now, but they had been green and blue and gray and brown, narrow and wide, and all shades between. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Yes. Now I think you do. Cities more than this one. . . . And Gunesh. . . she's always there. . . through all the ages."

  "You're like my father, Yilan Baba; more father than my own. Tell me what to believe and I believe it."

  He shook his head. "You've only known me longer; give your father his honor. There was not always such a gap of years, sometimes we were brothers."

  "In other lives, Baba? Is that what you mean?"

  "There was a city named Dur-sharrunkin; I was Sargon; I was Menes, by a river called Nile; I was Hammurabi; and you were always there; I was Gilgamesh; we watched the birth of cities, my friend, the first stone piled on stone in this world."

  Shimshek shivered, and looked into his eyes. "Achilles," he murmured. "You had that name once. Did you not?"

  "And Cyrus the Persian; and Alexander. You were Hep-hestion, and I lost you first that round—ah, that hurt—and the generals murdered me then, not wanting to go on. How I needed you."

  "O God," Shimshek wept.

  Yilan reached out and caught Shimshek's strong young arm. "I was Hannibal, hear me? And you Hasdrubal my brother; Caesar, and you Antony; I was Germanicus and Arthur and Attila; Charlemagne and William; Saladin and Genghis. I fight; I fight the world's wars, and this one is finished as far as it must go, do you hear me, my son, my brother, my friend? Am I not always the same? Do I ever hold long what I win?"

  "Yilan Baba—"

  "Do I ever truly win? Or lose? Only you and Gunesh. . . Roxane and Cleopatra; Guenevere and Helen. . . as many shapes as mine and yours; and always you love her."

  Terror was in Shimshek's eyes, and grief.

  "Do you think I care?" Yilan asked. "I love you and her; and in all my lives—it's never mattered. Do you yet understand? No. For you it's love; for Gunesh it's sex. . . strange, is it not? For her it's sex that drives so many in this world, but you've always been moved by love and I—I've no strong interest there—but love, ah, a different kind of love; the love of true friends. I love you both, but sex. . . was never there. Listen to me. I'm talking frankly because there's no time. That there'll be a child. . . makes me happy, can you understand that? You've been so careful not to wound me; but I knew before you began. I did, my friend. Whenever you're young, children have happened if there was half a chance. . . and I don't begrudge a one, no, never."

  "They haven't lived," Shimshek breathed, as if memory had shot through him. His grief was terrible, and Yilan reached out again and patted his arm.

  "But some have lived. Some. That's always our destiny.
. . you've begotten more of my heirs than I ever have. Mine are murdered. . . . Perhaps it's that which gives me so little enthusiasm in begetting them. But you've been more fortunate: have hope. Your heirs followed me in Rome. Have more confidence."

  "And they brought down the empire, didn't they? I'm unlucky, Baba."

  "Don't you yet understand that it doesn't matter?"

  "But I can't stop hurting, Baba." He looked at the pipe cupped in his hand, and up again. "I can't."

  "That's the way of it, isn't it?"

  "Has Gunesh remembered?"

  He shook his head. "I've thought so sometimes; and sometimes not. I have. . . for all this year, and more and more of late. That's why I'm sure it's close. That's why I didn't fight any further. I remember other times I remembered, isn't that odd? The conspirators in Rome. . . I knew they were coming long before they knew themselves. I felt that one coming. Modred too. I saw in his eyes. They'll accuse you of adultery this time too, do you reckon? They'll say Gunesh is carrying your child, and they'll demand your death with hers. And Boga of course will expect to lead when we're all dead."

  "I'll kill him."

  Yilan shook his head. "You can't save me. Save yourselves. It's only good sense. . . Boga has other names too, you know. Agamemnon, Xerxes, Bessus. . . don't sell him short."

  "Modred."

  "Him too."

  "A curse on him!"

  "There is. Like ours."

  "Baba?"

  "He's the dark force. The check on me. Lest I grow too powerful. I might myself be ill for the world, if there were not Boga. He reminds me. . . of what I might be. And often enough he has killed me. That is his function. Only woe to the world when we're apart. Hitler was a case like that. I was half the world away; we both were. He had the power to himself."