Mara frowned, and tried afresh. ‘In my brief experience, your counsel and that of other humans has taught me I live in a small world. Until recently, I thought I had some control over that world.’ She need not repeat Ayaki’s fate; nor any other event. Word of the Assembly’s intervention between herself and the Anasati had spread to the most remote province of the Nations, and although the cho-ja might not understand all the nuances of human affairs, they held an astute recollection of events.
Perhaps the hive mind sensed that the interdiction of the Assembly lay at the root of Mara’s inquiries; certainly something warned them off. While the Queen customarily sat massive and unmoving, for the first time in Mara’s experience the attendants around her went from frenetic motion to utter stillness. All activity in that vast hall ceased, though no apparent order called for silence.
Mara’s uneasiness coalesced into fear.
The Queen had long ago revealed that cho-ja alliances were sold as commodities. Mara had paid lavish sums for the loyalty of the hives on both her estates. She shivered at the thought that the Great Ones’ influence might extend even here, and that in words or inference she might call down their chastisement. A spell-wrought earthquake even a fraction as violent as the one that had shaken the Holy City when the Black Robe Milamber had unleashed his might would utterly devastate these tunnels. Arches and vaults would crumble into dust, and tons of black earth would fall … Aware how her hands trembled, Mara thrust them into her sleeves. She must not think! Only act. And in truth, the Queen had not spoken to indicate which way hive allegiance might lie.
All that could be done was wait.
The silence became eerie in its intensity. In time, Mara’s hyperextended senses detected a faint buzzing, high-pitched as the beat of insect wings. She wondered whether this sound might signal some sort of wide-ranging communication, then decided it indeed must, since the Queen spoke with the authority of one who had reached a decision. ‘Mara of the Acoma, you made a point which, if I venture to presume, your kind might call wise. You observed that you live in a small world. You would do well to redefine the boundaries of that world, and look to other worlds that coexist with your own.’
Mara chewed her lip, thinking fast. Behind the stilted, careful etiquette of the cho-ja Queen’s phrasing she sensed reluctance. Alert for hidden opportunity, Mara pressed for more information. ‘What sort of worlds should I examine?’
The workers remained frozen in postures of repose as the Queen said, ‘This world of Kelewan, firstly. You have visited with us often, something no noble of your people has ever done. Even at the dawn of the Nations, when our two races forged the treaty that still binds, no Tsurani Lord tried this.’
Mara raised her eyebrows. No scrolls of history she had seen ever mentioned any formal agreement between cho-ja and human. Relations between Tsurani and cho-ja were dictated by tradition, she had assumed, as were all other facets of her life and culture. And yet the Nations extended back into antiquity; as the Queen so tactfully reminded, human memory was brief. ‘I have never heard of this treaty you speak of. Could you tell me more?’
The Queen’s massive bulk held so motionless, she might have been a monument in black lacquer. ‘That is forbidden.’
Astonished, Mara forgot the unearthly quiet and the frozen attitudes of the breeding workers. Her words echoed as she blurted, ‘Forbidden? By whom?’
‘That is forbidden.’
Shocked back to caution by the Queen’s whipcrack inflection, Mara analysed. If she had been rude, she had not yet been ordered from the royal chamber. Though Lujan’s hands had whitened in alarm on his spear haft, the warriors of the Queen stayed crouched at rest. Pressed by curiosity and need to aggressive risks, Mara chanced that the Queen’s reticence might stem from some outside source. As best she had determined, the cho-ja had no religion, no devotion to or belief in gods and forces beyond an earthly nature. If the prohibition were not from heaven, what remained? Tradition? Mara rejected that idea; the cho-ja were mercenary in their interactions, by human standards. Their consistency was due more to hive consensus than to habit. A covenant of secrecy seemed unlikely, since the hive consciousness disallowed the very concept: privacy was only possible between individual minds.
Choosing her way carefully, Mara ventured, ‘What of the cho-ja, my Queen? What is the history of your race?’
The Queen clicked her front claws in response to some unknowable impulse. Except for the fact that her attendants stayed locked in place, her tone might have been conversational. ‘We come from the Beginning, like any race, growing and gaining knowledge. There was a time, ages gone, when we lived simply. We were one of many intelligences that sought our place on a rich world and who strove at the time that man first came –’
‘The Golden Bridge?’ Mara interjected, trying to tie into what she knew of her own people’s origins.
‘So our history tells us,’ said the Queen. ‘Cho-ja eyes did not witness the arrival, but one day there were no men, and the next day a nation of refugees was encamped upon the shore near the place you name the City of the Plains.’
Barely able to hide excitement, Mara asked, ‘You have tales from before the Golden Bridge?’
‘Tales?’ The Queen twitched a forelimb, as if in deprecation. ‘Your word translates to imply exaggeration, or embellishment based upon imperfect recollection. Please take no injury at my bluntness, but our kind need not dramatise for posterity. We remember.’
Mara felt her heart race. ‘Do you tell me that you have that record in the hive mind?’ she said, probing carefully because she sensed something momentous was at issue here. ‘Or that you actually have recall, as if you saw with your ancestors’ eyes?’
‘We are of one mind, and one people.’ At no discernible signal from the Queen, the breeding attendants surged back to their customary frenetic industry. ‘What is experienced by one is shared by all, save when one dies in isolation, far from others.’
Relieved to be restored to a less sensitive subject, Mara considered the implications. She had long known that messages seemed to reach other hives with unbelievable speed; but in her wildest imaginings, she had not conceived that such communication might be simultaneous. ‘You can … speak with the voice of one who was there …?’ Her mind fought to encompass the immensity of a consciousness that held complete recall of the past.
The Queen clicked her mandibles, amused. ‘We were there, Mara. As you humans might frame the concept, I was there … not this body, of course, or this mind, but … we were there. What my forebears saw I know as they knew.’
Mara signaled a servant to fill her teacup, forgetting that the water by now was cold. Lujan suppressed a grin at her absorption. While not so nimble of wit as his mistress, he had watched her turn obscure knowledge into advantage in the political arena too many times to discount her fancies as whim. As no man’s fool, he, too, could imagine the profound impact of the Queen’s revelation. Whatever one cho-ja saw was remembered by all cho-ja, obviously over centuries. Intrigued, he observed as Mara turned the discussion once more onto sensitive ground.
‘What of the cho-ja, since the coming of man?’
The attendants kept up their ministrations as the Queen said, ‘We were first among many, though not so numerous as now. We were forced to contest with other races, the Thun, the Nummongnum, the Cha-desh, the Sunn.’ Of those names, Mara knew only the Thun. She resisted the temptation to sidetrack in pursuit of details. If she survived to find means to secure her safety from the magicians, she would have years and leisure to pursue her fascination.
As if the Queen sensed her guest’s bent, or perhaps from other, more sensitive reasons, the facts she revealed remained general. ‘Our warriors are bred to protect; cho-ja is never set against cho-ja, save in times of starvation when one hive may contest with another so that only the most vigorous line will continue. A hive challenge for survival is performed without hatred; killing is not our preferred nature. But against other races we made war, fo
r they have a different sense of their place in the worlds. Much hive life perished needlessly, for beings came among us who were terrible beyond intelligent law, who slew for more than food or protection. They make war for the love of slaughter, it seems to us then and now. They seize land they do not need, and start battles to award themselves an essence of thought we cannot comprehend, called honor.’
The blood drained from Mara’s face. ‘Tsurani.’
‘Humans,’ the Queen amended in gentle sadness. ‘You we see as different, Lady Mara, but the hive mind knows well: no other race upon this world you call Kelewan could match your people for viciousness. For men will fight without reason. As your Empire grew over the years, we cho-ja strove to see all issues between us resolved, yet again and again humans would come, seeking this thing or that, this right or that. And when we refused to grant unreasonable terms, bloodshed would follow. Many times we quit the contest, thinking the issue settled, only to be assaulted yet again for reasons that had no logic. In the end, we yielded.’
Mara tapped her fingers on her cup, watching ripples flick across her chilled drink. ‘You were forced to treaty?’
The chamber’s occupants snapped to total stillness, and the Queen’s ringing tone went icy. ‘That is forbidden.’
Mara’s eyes widened. ‘You are forbidden to speak by us?’
‘That is forbidden.’
Now convinced she had not offended, but that the Queen must be bound by some term the cho-ja could not or had sworn not to violate, Mara let her thoughts leap ahead. ‘Who holds the power to silence you – the Assembly? The Emperor?’
‘That is forbidden.’
Mara unclenched her aching hand before she broke the fine porcelain cup. ‘Forgive my curiosity. I shall seek that answer elsewhere.’ Trembling in apprehension and frustration, Mara tried a new thrust. ‘What other worlds should I know?’
The tension in the chamber did not relent. Mara held her breath while the Queen kept silent, the subliminal buzzing again ringing down the tunnels. Eventually she clicked her mandibles and spoke. ‘There are but two things I may tell you without violating my trust. First, there are those who, for their own purpose, seek to oppose you, against whom you must find protection. Hear well, for we know: there will come a day when you must defend your Acoma against powers considered supreme.’
Mara released a pent breath, her stomach suddenly queasy. She set down her teacup before her fingers, nerveless, dropped it. The only powers considered supreme in Tsuranuanni were the will of heaven, and the Assembly of Magicians. Since cho-ja adhered to no religion, the Queen’s reference could not be more fearfully plain. The Acoma must prevail against the Great Ones!
While Mara struggled to stay poised, the Queen continued, ‘Perhaps, Lady, you might ask yourself: if other worlds exist, where are they?’
Mara struggled to reason past unknowable dangers that loomed deep as an abyss before her. ‘Do you mean Midkemia beyond the rift?’
‘You may cross there through the portal fashioned by the Great Ones, but where is Midkemia within the cosmos?’
Mara straightened in astonishment. The last word was one she did not understand. Every Tsurani meaning that she knew of translated to mean ‘arch of the sky,’ or ‘star field.’ Did the cho-ja Queen imply that Midkemia was placed in the sky with the gods? But the concept was absurd, even laughable! Yet Mara had learned better than to make light of the beliefs of other cultures. A long-past war in the deserts of Tsubar had taught her so, as well as many a frustrating argument with her barbarian lover, Kevin. Though she tactfully kept her own counsel, her dubious surprise must have showed to the keener perception of the cho-ja.
‘Would it challenge you less to think that worlds exist in multitudes, many no farther from here than you can walk in your lifetime?’ the Queen inquired. Her attendants had awakened again from immobility, and were once more scuttling to and fro through the curtained-off alcove that housed the egg chambers.
Thrown completely off balance, Mara strove to find sense in the Queen’s words. This was no mystery created by alien thought patterns; in human terms, the Queen almost seemed to be leading her in ka-ta-go, a guessing game played between Tsurani children, where hints and suggestions led two rivals in a race to name whatever object, or animal, or plant their opposing teams might choose. Mara decided she was being deliberately led around the subject the Queen had been forbidden to speak of. After deep consideration, she said, ‘I could walk many places beyond this Empire’s borders before my time came to die.’
‘Yes.’ The Queen’s mandibles shifted in parody of a human smile. ‘You could do so, certainly.’
Encouragement, if not direct confirmation; Mara’s excitement grew. ‘The Thuril!’
The Queen stayed carefully noncommittal. ‘There are others. Consider the boundaries of your nations.’
Convinced now that the information she sought had been proscribed, Mara leaned eagerly forward. ‘Beyond …’ Of course! How naïve she must seem! Like most Tsurani, she considered all nations to lie under sway of the Empire, save the lost lands to the south and the Thuril to the east. Softly she asked, ‘Are there folk who live to the east of the Thuril Confederation?’
Instantly the Queen said, ‘They are called the Chadana.’
Barely able to contain her excitement, Mara whispered, ‘Human?’
‘They are like unto you and the Thuril, my Lady.’
Mara glanced at Lujan, who looked as astonished as she felt. How provincial her people were, to count themselves and their Empire the center of all the worlds. Tsurani philosophy could more readily accept humans living on another world across a rift than on other continents in Kelewan. ‘What lies beyond the lands of the Chadana?’
‘An expanse of vast waters,’ the Queen replied. ‘They are salt, like the Sea of Blood, and are the home of the egu.’
Mara had never seen one of the egu, the gigantic serpents that inhabited the depths of the oceans, but she had sailed, and had heard deckhands describe fighting off the creatures’ depredations with lances tipped with fire. ‘Are there lands across those oceans?’
‘Many nations, Lady,’ the cho-ja Queen allowed. ‘As many as the lands beyond the sea to our west.’
Amazed to the point where he forgot protocol, Lujan risked a question. ‘Why do our people not know of these?’
Quickly Mara nodded in allowance of his impertinence. ‘Why?’
‘That is forbidden.’
Mara’s thoughts crashed together. What was forbidden? Not the knowledge of the other nations beyond Tsuranuanni, or the Queen could not have given even these sparse facts. Did those foreigners across the seas have knowledge that the Black Robes deemed threatening? Mara repressed a shiver. Such thoughts were too perilous to voice aloud, even here. She and the massive cho-ja Queen regarded each other through a silence made tense with frustration. If only their two species could speak plainly, so much might be understood! Still, the unstated implications piqued driving curiosity. Mara felt enlivened with fresh hope. For while the powers of the Assembly might yet prove to be omnipotent, and her family’s name become forgotten to time, still she had been made aware of a larger world beyond the Empire. She could journey across the borders in search of new knowledge, and perhaps find an answer to her quandary. Suddenly awakened to the hours she had spent in the caverns underground, Mara longed to depart. If she intended to leave the Empire on a quest, subterfuge would be needed, as well as supplies and careful planning. Her enemies, particularly Jiro, must not get wind of her departure. And as she reviewed practicalities, it occurred to her that areas of her own culture remained for her to explore. She could start with the temples, whose priestly initiates were schooled in powerful mysteries; and there were also the practitioners of magic of the lesser path, adepts and sometimes charlatans, who had not merited study in the City of the Magicians.
Anxious to get started, Mara prepared to end her audience with the Queen. ‘My Queen, the Goddess of Fate must have guided me here, for
I have been given a fresh start on my difficulties.’
The Queen waved a forelimb. ‘We are pleased. Though we yet think it odd you should journey so many miles downriver when we were so close at hand.’
Mara raised her eyebrows. ‘Then the mind of the hives is also one? I could address you by speaking to the Queen of the hive upon the lands where I now dwell?’
‘Always.’
Hopeful of a way to maintain communication wherever her journeys might lead her, Mara said, ‘If I were to leave the Empire, would I be able to consult you if I sought out the cho-ja in some distant nation?’
‘That is forbidden.’
Mara straightened, tantalised again to the edge of discovery. ‘One question, if you may answer. Why do you treat with me and others, we who were your conquerors?’
The Queen hesitated. Fearful that at last she had transgressed prudence, Mara dared not so much as breathe. Then, with the continued activities of the breeding attendants, she reassessed: the Queen was less angered than weighing words. For a while, Mara expected to hear that this answer, also, was forbidden.
But the Queen relented, her head tipped slightly back, and her words stern. ‘We are not a conquered people, Lady of the Acoma.’
‘The treaty?’ A far step from understanding, Mara sighed in vexation.
The Queen strove valiantly to clarify. ‘Even a captive nation may bargain.’
The Complete Empire Trilogy Page 165