by Ann Maxwell
“Where are you going?” called the thick-voiced man.
Ara looked back. Her face was still an eerie blank. “To the clan hall. The full assembly will decide what to do with our . . . guests.”
“What about them?” called the hoarse-voiced man, gesturing toward the gate. As though to underline his question, angry cries came from beyond the wall. The attackers beat on the gate with renewed force.
“If your paltry illusions fail,” snapped Ara, “try real bullets.”
In the silence that followed Ara’s insult, the sounds of flesh thudding uselessly against steel sounded very close.
“Who are they?” asked Rheba, her voice rising above the noise of the men outside the gate. “Why don’t they give up?”
Every Yaocoon turned to stare at her. Then, slowly, their illusions faded. They became more like themselves, appearing as they would before clanmates. Rheba stared in return, sensing that something had happened to disarm the Yaocoons. She turned questioningly to Ara.
“I believe,” said Ara distinctly, “that you’re just what you seem to be and you’ve just come from slavery on Loo.”
“Good. But why?”
“Only an alien wouldn’t know the Soldiers of Ecstasy.”
Ara turned and continued up the stream that was a path.
“Fine words,” muttered Rheba in Senyas, “but we’re still wearing ropes.”
XI
“Where are i’sNara and f’lTiri?” snarled Kirtn, towering over Ara.
The small woman’s image blurred. When it reformed, she was out of his reach, watching him with dark eyes that held few illusions.
Kirtn flexed his bound hands. Strength rippled visibly through his massive arms. Rheba came to his side in a single smooth motion.
“Slowly, mentor,” she whistled. “Even if you break the bonds, we don’t know enough to escape yet.”
His lips thinned into a bitter line. He was Bre’n, and frustrated everywhere he turned. He sensed the seductive violence of rez in the center of his bones. He looked at his dancer’s eyes, cinnamon and gold, fear turning darkly at the center. The darkness hurt, for it was fear of him. Of rez.
He stroked her face with the back of his fingers, silently apologizing. “All right, dancer. Your way. But . . .”
“I know.” Her lips burned across his before she turned around to face Ara. “Where are our friends?”
“Trying to fertilize a jungle.”
“What?”
“The Yaocoon jungle is growing toward rebellion,” said Ara dryly.
“Now? Tonight?”
Ara sighed. “That would be too much to hope for.” She looked from Rheba to Kirtn’s broad back. Even standing still, the Bre’n radiated savage possibilities. “I’sNara wants me to guide you back to your ship.”
Kirtn spun around to face Ara. “No.”
His speed and grace were so startling that Ara’s image vanished completely for an instant. When she reappeared, she was out of reach.
“They said you killed the Loo-chim,” whispered Ara. “Did you?”
“Yes,” said Kirtn.
“Can you kill our Tyrant, too?”
“We’re not executioners,” he snarled.
Ara’s mouth opened and shut soundlessly. When she spoke again, it was on another subject. “What do you know about Libs and Redis?”
“The Redis stole Ecstasy Stones so that everyone could share the good feelings,” said Rheba when Kirtn refused to speak. “But the Redis didn’t share, so the master snatchers who weren’t Redis formed the Lib clan. Libs planned to steal back the Stones. They haven’t had much luck.”
“It’s beyond Lib against Redis now,” said Ara. “It’s all of Serriolia. If someone doesn’t help us we’ll die. All of us.”
“1 doubt it,” said Rheba coolly. “People have had a lot of practice surviving tyrannies.”
“You don’t understand.” Ara’s voice was soft. “This is a tyranny of love. There is nothing to hate, no leverage for rebellion. Everyone—everyone—who comes close to the Ecstasy Stones is caught by k’Masei. No,” she said, when Rheba would have interrupted. “Listen to me. If your friends go to the Redis you’ll never see them again.”
Darkness pooled in Ara’s eyes, a darkness haunted by dreams. Rheba had seen eyes like that before, Hiri’s eyes staring out of a tarnished mirror. She felt pity for the tiny, beautiful illusionist who had found reality too painful to live with.
“I was just a little girl when k’Masei left the Lib hall to steal the Redis Stones, but I remember. He took our best Stones with him. Lib Stones. He thought they would protect him. Who could resist him when the Stones radiated love?
“When he left he was hazed in ecstasy, trailing love like a radiant cloud.” Ara trembled at the memory. “The Stones. The Stones haunt my dreams wearing my husband’s face, calling love to me . . . ecstasy.”
Kirtn sighed. “K’Masei stayed in the Redis hall, didn’t he?”
“He became their master snatcher. He stole Ecstasy Stones that had been clan secrets for thousands of years. He stole until the Redis had them all. If your illusions or reality didn’t satisfy you, if you wanted to feel loved, you had to go to the Redis. To k’Masei.”
Rheba saw Ara look at her own hands, small fists clenched so hard that muscles quivered in her arms. Her hands relaxed. Rheba was sure it was an illusion.
“At first it wasn’t so bad,” continued Ara. “People of all clans would go to k’Masei, bathe in the Stones, and go back to their clans. But with each new Stone k’Masei stole, the experience changed. It deepened. It became . . . necessary.”
“And,” said Kirtn sardonically, “people abandoned their clans to become Redis.”
“Whole families,” whispered Ara. “Children no taller than my waist. Gone.”
“You make it sound as if they died,” said Rheba.
Ara looked at her wildly. “How do you know they didn’t?”
“Why would k’Masei kill them? Without them, who would he tyrannize? It sounds like a perfect match—people who want to be ruled and a man who wants to rule them.” She would have said more, but her eyes chose that moment to itch with renewed ferocity.
Ara’s appearance darkened and grew until it filled the small room where they were being held. “Nobody wants to be ruled!”
Fssa made a flatulent sound and stuck his head out of Rheba’s hair. “Most people want to be ruled. They just don’t want to admit it.”
The illusionist’s image deflated. She stared at the snake in astonishment. “It’s real? It really speaks?”
“It really does,” said Kirtn, glaring at Fssa. “Usually out of turn.”
“What does a snake know about people?”
“That particular snake is a Fssireeme. His memories go back thousands of years.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s right!” retorted Ara hotly.
The Bre’n said nothing, but skepticism was eloquent in his stance.
“If people want to be ruled, why does k’Masei need the Soldiers of Ecstasy?” demanded Ara.
“He probably doesn’t, but they need him,” said Kirtn impatiently. “I’ll bet they’re lousy illusionists. Strong arms and thick heads, right?”
“I—how did you know?”
“Fourth People are alike under the skin. Before k’Masei, I’ll bet there wasn’t a comforting illusion in the whole lot of them.”
Ara’s face settled into stubborn lines. “Koro did not want to be ruled.”
“Koro? F’lTiri’s son?” asked Rheba, abandoning her attempts to reach the itch at the back of her eyes. “Do you know where he is? Do you know where his sisters are?”
“With k’Masei, of course,” said Ara bitterly. “They went to steal the Stones two days ago. I went with them. At least, I thought I was going with them. Tske tricked me. I followed his illusions rather than Koro’s reality. By the time I found out, it was too late. Koro and his sisters were gone. They didn’t come back. No one comes back from k’Masei.”
Ara looked from Rheba to Kirtn. “Now, are you sure you don’t want to go back to your ship?”
“Yes.”
“Then follow me.”
Ara led them to the hall where the Yaocoon clan had gathered to discuss the attack of the Soldiers of Ecstasy, the appearance of two master snatchers and the aliens who had to be apparitions but were not. Rebellion was also on the agenda, but it was discussed in shaded illusions, if at all.
The Yaocoon hall seemed to be a jungle with no clearing. Plants of all kinds—and plants of unknown kinds—crowded one against the other. Fronds waved, flowers unfolded, fruit ripened in a riot of competing scents. The ceiling seemed to be an overcast sky. The heat and humidity were real, as inseparable from Serriolia as illusions.
Ara left Rheba, Kirtn and Fssa in the only comer that did not writhe with vegetable life. I’sNara and f’lTiri were nearby, defiantly wearing the illusions of the outlawed Liberation clan. She was shadow-drifted moonlight. He was darkness with only a hint of movement. Beneath those illusions lurked master snatchers, ready to slip between the cracks of human attention and steal the fabled Ecstasy Stones.
Rheba summed up her feelings with a whistle that descended from shrillness to silence in five beats. Kirtn took her bound hands in his. Lines glowed beneath his touch, sending restless messages through him. He rubbed his cheek against her gold-veined fingers. “Gently, dancer,” he whistled. “Don’t waste yourself on anger.”
It was advice he needed as well. He rubbed his lips against her hot fingers and said nothing. After a few moments she sighed and gave in to his gentle persuasions against anger. She knew her Senyas logic was supposed to balance his Bre’n impulsiveness. She was young, though. She had already failed him once, when he had flashed into rez in a Loo dungeon. She could not let that happen again. But she did not know how to prevent it, either.
Some of her thoughts leaked to him. As always, danger heightened their ability to mind dance. He sensed her unease as a distant scream, echo and aftermath of rez still unabsorbed in her mind.
He kissed her fingertips before releasing her hands, afraid of what his thoughts might reveal to her in turn. She did not know that she had driven him into rez. Not her fault. She had no Senyas mother, no Bre’n mother, no paired akhenets to live among until gradually it came to her that Bre’n and Senyas akhenets were also lovers. He could tell her—and ensure their destruction. She would not refuse him, he knew that, and he also knew that was not the same as Choosing him. Dancer’s Choice. Without that Choice freely made, akhenets lived under a sentence of death by rez.
He wondered what the Bre’n Face he had given her to wear was telling her, and if it could replace the tacit knowledge that had burned to ash on Deva. Even if the Face could teach her, when would she have the time or the tranquillity to meditate upon its messages? After she had come out of the long withdrawal that had followed the firestorm, she had vowed to find other survivors and build a new akhenet culture on a new planet. Since then, life for them had been one endless tumult beginning with a game called Chaos and culminating in a room full of illusions.
As though just discovering the strangers, the jungle quivered and swept toward Rheba and Kirtn like a hungry grove of Second People. Acid tendrils whipped down, coiling around fire dancer and Bre’n. A tangible sense of danger permeated the illusion. Rheba’s akhenet lines ignited in molten warning.
“Enough.” Ara’s voice was a harsh wind ripping apart the jungle.
Gradually, the jungle straightened, becoming individual trees and flowers once more.
Ara stood on a raised part of the hall that was more balcony than stage. Her appearance had changed. She was taller, darker, more commanding. The last whispers and jungle rustles died away. Sure that she had the Yaocoon clan’s attention, she changed again. She was herself now, small and vivid and somehow even more compelling.
“The two strangers you see are either real or twelves,” said Ara. “They came with the master snatchers from the Liberation clan.”
Noise rose, a sound like distant wind. The word “Liberation” was anathema, proclaimed so by the Tyrant. To speak it was dangerous. To shield Libs was to beg for disillusionment. Words flew like wind-driven leaves, proclaiming fear. The jungle rustled ominously. Poisonous-looking flowers unfurled long petals. Fruit ripened, then fell at the feet of i’sNara and f’lTiri and burst into putrescence.
“What a brave clan I joined,” sneered Ara. “When courage is required, you hide and stink.”
Anger whipped through the jungle.
“You plot and whine endlessly because it’s so much safer than doing anything.”
A roar of protest drowned Ara’s voice. Fssa made himself into a megaphone that projected Ara’s sadness and scorn throughout the room.
“You let a whole clan of master snatchers die one by one. Who will replace them? Who will steal the Ecstasy Stones now and free us all? Is it you, clan Yaocoon? Any of you?”
Protest died. Not even a leaf moved.
“Volunteers?” said Ara in rising tones of sarcasm. “Speak up. This illusion of silence is deafening.”
The jungle glowered . . . silently.
“Hide and stink.” The words reeked scorn. She looked out over the massed greenery. “I see you, Tske. Are you going to volunteer?”
A whirlwind of leaves spun up to the balcony, surrounding Ara. Leaves resolved into a man standing very close to her. He was nearly as wide as he was thick. None of it was fat.
“And I see you, Ara. Are you volunteering to be k’Masei’s slave?” He leaned over her, whispering. “I have a better offer. Me.”
Rheba recognized the hoarse-voiced man who had been so hostile to them at the wall. The last words he spoke were so soft that only Ara and the Fssireeme murmuring into Rheba’s ear heard.
Ara ignored Tske. She stared out at the quivering jungle illusion. “Do I have to see each one of you before you see the truth? Is hide and stink the best you can do?”
The jungle whipped and shuddered. No one stepped forward.
“I see all of you,” she said scornfully, “but I see nothing at all.”
Rheba held her breath against the stench rising out of the jungle.
“Won’t anyone go with me to steal the Ecstasy Stones?” cried Ara.
“We will!” said I’sNara and f’lTiri, leaping to their feet.
The jungle argued. Unnoticed, Rheba and Kirtn eased along the edge of the room until they were next to i’sNara and f’lTiri. Fssa summarized the arguments he had heard:
“Those belonging to Tske want to send us in alone. The rest want to go with us on a raid. All of them are scared. The only thing they can agree on is that they’re not ready to agree on anything.”
“While they argue, our children could be dying.” F’lTiri’s tone was as neutral as his appearance, but no one was fooled.
“We’ll go without the Yaocoons,” said i’sNara. “Who needs an army of vegetables?”
“You’ll need whatever you can get,” Ara said succinctly, appearing beside f’lTiri. “No one comes back from the Redis hall.”
“We did.”
The jungle changed around them. It was no longer one solid mass of greenery. Openings appeared, ragged boundaries dividing Yaocoon from Yaocoon while arguments raged among the treetops. The snake translated fragments he snatched out of the air:
“Do you want to die without even the illusion of a fight?”
“—her voice calling in my dreams. Ecstasy knows my name. I’m lost.”
“—like all the others. Here one night, gone the next. It must be a truly Grand Illusion.”
“The Tyrant’s bleeding us clanmate by clanmate—”
“—dreamed again—”
“Stones on a mirrored table.”
“—ecstasy reflected in a thousand faces.”
“No one can go against k’Masei the Tyrant.”
Fssa abandoned translating the cacophony, hissed, and said in cold Senyas, “They have as many mouths as a Fssire
eme but they speak only the language of fools.”
The Fssireeme’s voice was like an iron bell. Silence spread out from him as Yaocoons turned to stare. Within moments, even the smallest plants took up the hush. A gnarled vine writhed across the jungle canopy. It curled lovingly around Ara, then coiled like a snake in front of Kirtn.
“I didn’t give permission for you to leave your garden,” said the vine in Tske’s hoarse voice.
“I didn’t ask.” Kirtn’s lips parted. Slightly serrated teeth gleamed.
The vine swelled. It quivered, ready to strike. Rheba’s hair fanned out into a rippling field of fire. Kirtn was wrapped in flames. He laughed. Fire streamed from his mouth.
The vine wavered, then withdrew slowly.
The fire remained.
Uneasiness went through the jungle like a cold wind. The vine became a whip cracking, demanding attention. “We’re not here to play illusion games,” husked Tske. “The continuity of the clan Yaocoon is at stake. As reigning illusionist—”
“Only because Koro is gone,” snapped Ara.
“—I’ve decided to use reason rather than illusion to settle the argument. You’ve all heard Ara.” A mouth appeared on each vine leaf, sarcastic smiles endlessly repeated. “We’ve heard nothing but Ara wailing since her little Koro left.”
Laughter and grumbles evenly mixed.
“You’ve all heard me when I argued with Koro. I thought it was a fool’s project and he was a fool. I still think Koro’s a fool,” he added, “but a raid on the Ecstasy Stones by the Yaocoons is better than dreaming and screaming every night.”
“That’s what Koro used to say,” muttered Ara to Rheba. “I don’t trust this sudden change.”
Ara was not the only one surprised by Tske’s turnabout. Trees, shrubs and parasitic flowers rattled in consternation. Tske had been against a raid on the Redis since the idea had first been broached, long before Koro had been driven into Yaocoon’s uncertain refuge.
Tske ignored the questions quivering in every rigid leaf of the jungle. “Those who want to go on the raid move toward the flowerfall.” The vine pointed to the left side of the room. Suddenly, colorful flowers spurted out of the air and drifted to the floor, where they settled into fragrant piles. “Those who don’t want to raid, leave the room. That’s it. No more talk. Decide.”