House of Reeds ittotss-2

by Thomas Harlan

  Everything within the hill was also beyond their reach, at least while they observed from a distance. Sadly, the Company had neglected to provide them with antigrav spyeye remotes. Every indication pointed to a warren of tunnels and chambers and hidden rooms. The personage identifier system in Maggie's number three comp was counting silhouettes, facial pictures and stride lengths – when they could be captured on camera – and the count of inhabitants of the hill of the 'relentless ones' stood at four hundred so far.

  Anderssen scanned her camera down to the 'Southern Entrance.' This was a broad, triumphal-style staircase vaulting up a near-vertical cliff from a warren of closely packed, shoddy-looking buildings at the foot of the hill. Age-eroded statues lined the stairs, which ended in a monumental gateway. The massive doors – probably made of the ubiquitous lohaja wood – were closed. Gretchen had yet to see them open.

  She shook her head in consideration. "The south doors have to be for ceremonial occasions. There are drifts of leaves on the steps and a native avian is roosting in the crown of this topmost statue. We haven't seen any other location where there's traffic…no deliveries, no waste being taken out, nothing. So – do they leave? Are they a completely self-contained community?"

  "An ark in the middle of a city?" Magdalena growled in disbelief. "What would be the purpose?"

  "It's only a thought," Gretchen replied, standing up with a groan. "More likely, day-to-day business is conducted out of sight, through tunnels or even an entrance which is completely obscured by a building." She stretched, feeling her back creak in protest. "Do you suppose Parker can find me a real chair?"

  "Hrrr! Shiny-backed lizards don't use human chairs! Learn to sit on comfortable floor like the Nisei do!"

  "He found you a table…" Anderssen swung from side to side, trying to loosen up her stiff back. Time to get out of the house. "We've mapped enough of the rooftop walkways," she said, beginning to braid her hair into a thick ponytail, "for me to be able to reach the cliffs. When Parker gets back, I think I'll try making a circuit of the whole hill -"

  The apartment door made a grinding sound and then recessed into the door-frame, allowing the pilot to stomp in with an enormous woven basket clutched to his chest. The top was packed with glass bottles filled with purified water.

  "Konnichi-wa!" He called cheerfully. "Where can I put this down?"

  Magdalena regarded a covered wooden bowl Parker had removed from the basket suspiciously. "This is supposed to be food?"

  "Extra spicy," the pilot said, mouth already full of fried pakka dumpling. "G'head, that's yours – all raw and juicy, but with some peppers – well, I say they're peppers, dunno what the slicks call them. Meat, Miss Magdalena, real meat! And not skomsh either."

  The Hesht's nostrils flared, but she removed the cover and sniffed the goopy contents with interest. The hackles rose on the back of her neck, then settled and she experimentally hooked one of the pieces of meat out with her little claw. Gelatinlike brown fluid dripped into the bowl.

  Gretchen averted her eyes, hoping to keep her own lunch down. Parker grinned, a familiar-looking paper cylinder in one hand, his lighter in the other.

  "That's not an Imperial-brand tabac is it? Is your medband on? Did you take an anti-anaphylactic?"

  "Very funny," Parker replied, lighting the tabac and taking a tentative puff. His eyes widened, he coughed sharply, then inhaled again. "Ahhh…much more like the real thing."

  "Is it real tabac?" Anderssen picked up the little cardboard box. The lettering was modern Takshilan block script, and the packet had all the usual gewgaws the city vendors used to flog their wares. In this case, a whistle was tacked to one side, enclosed in cellophane, while small paperboard cards with the toothy portraits of famous Gandarian racing lizard jockeys were on the other. For a moment, Gretchen had trouble making out the brand name of the tabac, but then realized the blocky, bold name was transliterated NГЎhuatl.

  "You're smoking 'The Emperor's Teat,' " she said in a dry voice. "How does he taste?"

  Parker snorted, laughing, and with tears in his eyes managed to choke out "Just like the real thing!" before going into a violent fit of coughing.

  Magdalena looked up, still suspicious. "What are you hooting about, monkey?" She recoiled, suddenly aware of the cloud of tabac smoke coiling lazily in the air. "These leaves smell stronger than the last ones…"

  "Great." Anderssen pinched her nose closed and picked up one of the bottles of fresh water. The pipes in the building were only capable of disgorging rust-red fluid which did, in fact, contain some H-two-Oh, but all three of their medbands flashed red when used to test the potability. Parker was of the opinion that "some water is provided with the bacteria." Gretchen was surprised the building water mains still worked as high up as the thirty-third floor. "I'm going out."

  "Wait -" Parker rolled up, wiping his mouth. He looked quite pale. "Be careful. I saw something really strange while I was out getting groceries. It's hard to navigate roof-stairs with that basket, so I was walking back through the tanner's district – which is never terribly busy, unless you're delivering hides – and some buses went past."

  "Real Imperial-style buses? With wheels and methanol engines?" Gretchen glanced at Magdalena. "Do you hear anything on your comm-scanner about that?"

  The Hesht shook her head. Out of habit, she had set up a frequency-hopping comm wave scanner to listen for anything interesting. Unfortunately, the only comm traffic in the city was encrypted beyond the capability of Maggie's comp soft to decode. "Sometimes I hear chartered merchants chatting, if they're here sitting attendance on the kujen…"

  "Anyway!" Parker raised his voice, giving both women a glare. "These weren't just Imperial-style buses; they were surplused Colonial Department of Education sixty-seaters. Repainted, of course, but it's hard to cover up the markings with only one coat of sprayon. But that wasn't the oddest thing – I mean, you know how hungry the market here is for modern transport, why not ship your retired school buses to the back of beyond? – what made me stop and stare was the buses were filled with Quarsenian jandars -"

  "Which are?" Gretchen spread her hands questioningly.

  "Which are tribesmen from the northern mountains," Parker replied. "Nasty-looking characters – mottled hides, felted armor, conical hats and ornamental spiked masks; they look like porcupines – these ones were armed to the teeth. They had rifles too, modern rifles – not those jezail-looking things some of the richer nobles carry."

  "Why were they riding in buses? Where were they going?"

  "How do I know?" Parker took another drag on his tabac, then blew a fat cloud of pinkish smoke towards the ceiling. "They were driving east towards the freight railway yards. The funny thing, though, was I saw a European on board the lead bus. He was giving the driver directions."

  "A human male? There is a scheme a-paw for certain." Magdalena hooked another slimy chunk out of the bowl and popped it into her mouth. "Hrrr…these are delicious, Parker, what are they called?"

  "Zizunaga, which is snake, I think. Anyway, boss, be careful if you go out. The streets were pretty empty. Something must be going on."

  The well-maintained roofwalk Gretchen had been following ended in an irregular wooden platform lined with wide-mouthed ceramic pots. Each jar held a carved stone head surrounded by freshly planted flowers. The heads were recognizably Jehanan and their jaws yawned towards the sky, catching a fine mist of water spilling from the cliffs above.

  A funeral offering? she wondered. Remembering ancestors, or placating their ghosts?

  Gray limestone soared over her head, hung with trailing vines and thick, fingerlike succulents growing in crevices and clinging to tiny ledges in the rock. The walkway had been built up into a crevice, making a sort of elevated platform surrounded by a constant damp mist. Green-gray moss covered the wooden slats, making her footing tricky.

  Gingerly, she reached out and touched the cliff face. The limestone was damp, beaded with water, and crisscrossed with sharp pucke
red ridges. Eight days of traveling and running around and finally I get to our destination. Hah.

  Stepping carefully between the jars, Gretchen climbed up into the root of the crevice, gloved hands pressed against either wall. Trailing saprophytes brushed against her goggles. Cool water beaded on her face, a welcome relief from the usual soup of humid sweat she moved in. The narrow space ended in a still-smaller alcove – obviously worked by chisels at some time in the past – holding a lumpy-looking statuette.

  A shrine? The planters and stone heads could be attendant ritual devices.

  The god's features were entirely covered with moss. There were no tracks or traces of anyone coming to clean the votary, which made Anderssen grimace, realizing her boots had already left very obvious scars on the mossy stones. She turned around and carefully picked her way back to the platform. Once she was standing under the dripping vines, looking out through slowly falling sheets of mist, Gretchen was struck by the perfect quiet in the little ravine.

  The usual sounds of the city – runner-cart horns, clattering machinery, the hooting voices of the natives singing, the pounding of hammers and the rasping whine of lathes – were swallowed by the mossy walls, or blocked by the mist.

  "Quiet and still again," she mused, hands on her hips. One eye narrowed in thought. I keep finding these little pockets of solitude – but there's no quarrelsome gardener here. And there's no way up, or into, the hill in this place. A little disappointed, she left the shrine and headed back towards the last junction in the maze of walkways running hither and yon across the rooftops of Takshila.

  Two hours later, Gretchen turned a corner, one eye on her hand-comp – which was displaying part of their map – and found herself looking at a short, arched passageway cutting through the base of a circular tower made of brick. Beyond the opening, a flight of stairs – broad and low, just as the Jehanan liked with their long, splayed feet – disappeared up into the hillside.

  "Maggie? Do you have me on locator?"

  Yes, hunt-sister, plain as blood on whiskers.

  "Good. Mark this spot. There's a passage through a building – our map shows the walkway ending here in a dead end – and a staircase. Can you see that?"

  There was a pause, and then Magdalena made a thoughtful hissing sound. No…from our angle there's only more cliffside. Must be hidden in a fold in the rock.

  Anderssen tiptoed through the passageway, looked carefully up and down the staircase, then double-checked all of her equipment. "Am I still on locator?"

  No. You've dropped off the display.

  Gretchen nodded to herself and pulled a UV dye marker out of a jacket pocket. "The stairs below here are blocked by rubble – looks like a building collapsed and they just made a new wall out of the debris. Keep an eye on my comm signal. I'm going to head up, keeping quiet."

  You should wait, Magdalena grumbled. We're far away. Let me send Parker to stand by at the entrance. Then, if a hostile clan pounces, he can come to your aid.

  "I'll be fine." Anderssen peered upwards. The stairs disappeared into the side of the hill. "I'll be right back out and we'll be able to talk on comm."

  Oh, I've heard many a kit say that before, just before they were snatched up by crag-wolves. The Hesht did not sound convinced at all. And if you don't return? How long should I wait before singing your death-howl and collecting the skulls of a hundred lizards for your memorial tomb?

  "You will do no such thing!" Gretchen was appalled at the prospect. "If anything happens – if I'm not back in twelve hours – or you have to abandon the apartment, we'll meet at the train station, or if not there, then at the hotel in Parus. But don't worry, I will be fine."

  There was a grumbling sound, but Anderssen ignored the protest, turned around to fix the location of the passageway in her memory and then started climbing, the pen tucked into her right hand.

  A warbling, humming sound echoed down a hallway lined with perforated stone screens. Anderssen, who had been creeping along the left-hand side of the passage, keeping her head below the rosette-shaped openings, became completely still. She waited, expecting to see the bulky shape of a Jehanan come padding down the hallway.

  Nothing appeared, though the warbling sound – rising and falling in a tuneless way – seemed to come a little closer. Gretchen moved forward to one of the supporting pillars and unclipped an eyeball from her vest. Rotating a ring-control to turn on the tiny device, she pointed the camera out through an opening.

  The heads-up display on her right goggle lens flickered awake, showing her a close-up of a leaf. Frowning, Anderssen dialed back the magnification until she could see more than vascular channels and phylem. Most of her view was blocked by foliage, but something moved in her field of view and – after peering at the image for a moment – she recognized a large Jehanan foot covered with mud and leaves. As she watched, a spade scraped soil back into a hole.

  Well, I doubt it can see me, she thought, stowing the camera again. Checking behind her in case a whole troop of ferocious monks with saw-toothed swords had crept up, Gretchen scuttled forward to the end of the hall. A partially illuminated passageway dropped down a concave set of steps into the terrace to her left – she caught a glimpse of the city skyline – and curved away into darkness on her right. Intermittent lights spotted the passage, falling from tiny sconces set at the junction of roof and wall. They were not candles, but some kind of bioluminescent pod held in a fluted ceramic shell.

  Nervous the Jehanan digging on the terrace would notice her, Gretchen tapped her comm awake and peered at her locator band. Both devices had stopped working as soon as she'd entered the monastery. The ruined stairs had led her to a circular door much like their apartment entryway, though the triangular sections were permanently rusted into the wall recesses. Oddly, the first door had immediately led to a second, which, while in slightly better condition, was also frozen open. An empty passageway, wide enough for four Jehanan to march down abreast, had beckoned her into the heart of the massif.

  After that, she had tried to keep to the left-hand wall, indicating each turn with the UV marker. With no data suggesting where the kalpataru might lie, she had concentrated on covering as much ground as possible while the mapping software in her comp measured each winding ramp, hallway, abandoned chamber and empty passageway she passed through.

  Though she heard voices echoing in the distance once or twice, she had not encountered a single Jehanan. After hours of leaden silence, accompanied only by the echo of her footsteps, even the alien tonalities drifting in from the terrace were comforting.

  Can't go left here, she thought, considering the glimpse of the city skyline. But if I did, I could squirt Magdalena all the mapping data in this comp…and check in. My dear sister is probably chewing her tail in worry.

  The clomping sound of heavy, leathery feet made up her mind. The Jehanan outside was climbing the stairs. Gretchen flattened against the carved wall and tried to make herself perfectly still. A shadow blotted out the dim light from the doorway and then a blunt-horned Jehanan shuffled past, weighed down by a leather bag bulging with square-edged objects. Through slitted eyes, Anderssen watched the creature disappear down the hallway, and then breathed again when the long, angular shadow vanished.

  Vastly relieved, she slipped down the stairs herself and out onto the terrace. The smoke-and fume-tainted Takshilan air felt brisk and clean after the motionless funk inside the hill. She glanced around the terrace and was puzzled to see quite a bit of earth had been turned near the low retaining wall facing the sprawl of the city. Odd gardener who isn't planting something… Maybe he was just weeding. Or harvesting. Or burying something to ferment. Or…

  Ducking behind one of the thick blue-green bushes, she clicked her comm awake.

  "Maggie? Can you hear me?" Gretchen whispered, though she was sure no one was within hundreds of meters. "I've managed to get outside."

  We have you on camera, the Hesht replied, sounding relieved. Your locator just popped out of its hole
. We're glad the mandire have not boiled the skin from your skull for a drinking cup.

  "Good." Anderssen's goggles had darkened to shade her eyes from the sun, but she could see the apartment tower clearly. The whole western face was blazing with reflected sunlight, capturing the swollen red disc of Bharat in a long puddle of molten gold. "I'm bursting you all of the mapping data I've collected so…urk!"

  A spade, smelling of earthworms and freshly turned soil, lifted her chin.

  Gretchen looked up, swallowing, into the grim face of an enormous Jehanan. The creature's dark eyes seemed to spark with rage, and then the pebbled skin around the eyes tightened and the shovel shifted away from her neck.

  "Hooo… You are a curious digger, aren't you? How did you get up here?"

  At the same moment, Gretchen heard Magdalena say: Parker has the creature targeted with a spare rangefinder. Raise your hands if you want it blinded so you can run. The Hesht's voice sounded eager, and Anderssen could imagine the big black feline crouching in dimness under brambleberry bushes, claws flexed, waiting to pounce on an unwary truelk. She turned her head slowly, hands pressed carefully into the loamy soil.

  A brilliant red dot was dancing in a handspan-wide circle on the side of the creature's head.

  "Your pardon," she said slowly, amazed Parker's hands were steady enough to keep a bead on such a tiny target at such a distance. "We need not quarrel. I have trespassed, but I will leave immediately, without making any trouble."

  "Oh ho, will you?" The Jehanan stepped back, squinting at her, and Anderssen realized with a cold feeling of shock that she knew the creature. "And if I think you should meet the Master of the Gardens, then what will you do?"