Tepper,Sheri - Six Moon Dance

by Six Moon Dance(Lit)

  "I was thinking more of ... you said the Consort Houses!"

  "Ah, well. Yes. You could obtain two or three workers from the Consort Houses if you like."

  "Am I to buy expensive Consorts to clean my stables?"

  D'Jevier drew herself up, her voice cold. "No. Certainly not. But you will give the House owner a signed receipt, guaranteeing the return of her students when the current emergency is over. The supernumes would also have to be returned."

  "House Genevois," purred Marool. "I've had my eyes on ... "

  D'Jevier cried, "Mistress Mantelby, please. The young men are to be gardeners and stable hands. Need we make the point they are to be only that?"

  Onsofruct put her hand on D'Jevier's shoulder, calming her. "My colleague is correct. You are not to use them as Consorts, and for the duration of the Questioner's visit, it would be better not to allude to the existence of such, for we do not know what the Questioner would think of such a profession."

  Marool's eyes narrowed. She was not accustomed to taking orders from anyone. Still, in grievous times, one could bear grievous pains, as the book of precepts had it, though one would remember the pains later, and who inflicted them.

  "I will settle for a few from the street." She smiled charmingly. "And a few more from one of the Hunk Houses."

  She took her leave from them, humming under her breath as she made her way from the Temple. Behind her, she left two troubled Hags.

  "We may live to regret this," said D'Jevier.

  "If we live at all," said Onsofruct. "Which is really the issue."

  The order of banishment was carried by swift couriers to all mankind towns and villages, and from thence was spread by riders and rumor into the rural lands. The Questioner is coining. The Questioner is coming. All those invisible somethings that do not actually exist must go away into the wilds. Consult with local Haggers to obtain pressed men to do necessary labor.

  Though the words of the edict were trumpeted in some places, in most they spread silently, like a fog, a fog that seemed both to spur the Timmys' going and to hide the fact of it. After the first hour or so, those attempting to spread the edict to the Timmys themselves were amazed to find no Timmys to spread it to. As one observer put it, the invisibles had "faded into the walls." That was exactly where many of them were. No matter where Timmys labored for the humans, they were never more than a few steps from an entry to their own world, that subsurface milieu which spongified the planet beneath mankind's feet.

  Doors opened, secret ways were momentarily crowded, and within an incredibly short time all the Timmys who had worked among humans had disappeared like blown-out candle flames. By dawn, not one could be found.

  34—Pressed into Service

  That same dawn, Ornery Bastable arose from her bed on the deck of the steamer, dressed herself carefully, arranged her veils, and climbed the steps from the stone pier to Brewer's Bridge. From the carved railing, iridescent water birds (called birds, even though they were not actually birds) were diving for fish while others sat on the banks drying their black/green/violet wings and croaking at one another. Brighter birds were clinging to the reeds, trilling at any other of their kind within hearing. The sky was a clear and flawless blue except for the haze that hung above the scarp, where long lines of gray, like blown veils, stretched away diagonally on the seawind, fading into the horizon to the south.

  Despite the good weather, the clear sky, the quiet city, Ornery felt something was wrong, or different, or awry. Her first thought was the scarp, and she set her feet widely apart, waiting for that premonitory shudder, but nothing came. She turned and walked westward along the street, looking around at the street scene, the early carts clattering across the cobbles, the bustle of a few veiled Men of Business, the call of a milk vendor: "Fraiiiish, Creeeemy: glug glug glug; breeng your bahttles, breeng your jug!" and the spice-cart man's staccato call, "Pepper-an-spice, makes-it-nice. Pepper-pepper-pepper." Newholmian pepper was actually better than Old Earth peppers, and it sold to the BIT for a good price.

  Ornery turned slowly, examining her surroundings. Something was amiss. Something was wrong! Then she realized. Timmys! There were no Timmys. No brown-clad forms scurrying behind the wagons or along the walls. There were always Timmys, everywhere, but not this morning. Not sweeping the roads. Not running here and there on errands. Not washing the outsides of windows or scrubbing the stoops of the buildings. Not leading the donkeys that pulled the carts. Not putting out the trash bins. No Timmys.

  Ornery stopped where she was, on the corner just outside House Genevois, and stared about herself, confused. As she stood, staring witlessly, a carriage approached with several armed Haggers running along behind it, and behind them a wagon with two veiled men chained to its railing. Ornery's hand went to her veils, securing them, and she stepped back against the building, out of the way.

  The carriage stopped and a voice trumpeted, "That one, there. Let me see his face!"

  One of the Haggers approached, ripped down Ornery's veils, then waited while Ornery's heart half-stopped and her breathing did stop.

  "Good enough," the woman called. "Put him in the cart."

  "What?" Ornery cried. "What is this?"

  "Press gang," said the Hagger, not without some satisfaction. "Mistress Marool is pressing some of you supernumeraries to take the place of some ... servants of hers."

  "But I'm a seaman!" cried Ornery. "I've a legitimate job. I'm not a supernumerary."

  The woman had alighted from the carriage. Now she too approached, glaring into Ornery's face. "If I say you are a supernumerary, boy, that's what you are. If you speak out of turn again, you'll serve my needs without your tongue."

  Ornery choked herself silent. The woman went by her like a storm wind, and the Hagger who held her thrust her past the carriage to the cart that waited there, where Ornery was unceremoniously put inside and chained beside two other unwilling passengers, from whom she learned what little they knew about what was going on.

  Meantime the woman had gone on to the main doors of House Genevois, where she jerked the great bell into such a clamor that it sent a cloud of birds flying from the roof, screaming outrage. The door was opened, and she went inside to find Madame herself awaiting her.

  Marool presented the edict of the Hags, her sneer of authority ready for use at the first sign of recalcitrance.

  "Wait here," said Madame, leaving with such alacrity that Marool had no time to be rude. She was gone long enough for Marool to have worked up a good fume by the time she returned.

  "See here," she began, in an angry tone.

  "In here," said Madame, throwing open the double doors that centered the farther wall. Inside the gymnasium thus disclosed were several ranks of young men, arranged by age.

  "I have not included the Consorts already purchased, since they are not my property to dispose of," said Madame, crisply. "The younger boys would be of little use to you as laborers, for they have not come into their strength. All the others are here."

  Marool's eyes gleamed. She did not notice the pinched look of Madame's nostrils, or the wariness in the faces of those before her. She had no hint of what had been said by Madame to those youths in the intervening moments. She was interested in only one thing, and that was to discover the boy she had seen in the park. The light veils the youths wore were no impediment to her search. She walked down the line, spotting him immediately. It was the boy she had seen. She could not possibly have missed him. He was the largest boy in the room.

  "Him," she said, pointing at Bane.

  He regarded her with insolence. "I go nowhere without my brother, Ma'am," he said, making little pretense of politeness.

  "Your brother?" She laughed. "By all means. If you have a brother."

  Dyre stepped forward. Marool nodded. "I have a cart outside. They will be taken to Mantelby Mansion." She turned to stalk away down the line of youths, paying the rest of them little attention.

  One of the Haggers who had accompanied her
opened the door into the entry, admitting a slight breeze that lifted the veil of the young man at the end of the line. The movement drew Marool's eyes to the face behind the veil. It was a beautiful face drawn into an expression of horrified recognition. Why horrified? She had never laid eyes on him before.

  "What's the matter, boy? You never seen a woman before?"

  "My apologies," he bowed, hiding his eyes. "I meant no disrespect."

  Something in his manner both annoyed her and piqued her curiosity. "Feh," she barked, angry at him. "I'll take you as well, boy. You hear, Madame? I'll take this one as well. Does he have a name?"

  "His name is Mouche, Mistress Mantelby." Madame said it in a dead, impersonal voice. "As I understand this matter, you are to give me a document agreeing to return these young men when the current emergency is over. If you will join me in my office, I will enter all the pertinent data on both our copies. Their names. Their annuities, which you would be expected to fulfil, if they should be incapacitated in your employ. Also their value to me, which you would be expected to pay if anything happens to them to reduce their value. Anything at all."

  Marool glared, meeting eyes as cold as her own were hot. "You are presumptuous, Madame."

  "Not at all. When we received word of this last evening, I went to the Temple to consult the Hags personally on the matter. It is not their intention that the Houses shall be robbed of their students. Bane, and Dyre, and Mouche will work in your stables or your gardens, replacing certain other laborers who are, for a time, unavailable to you. Such work is all they will do. And if their skin is marred, or their appearance changed, or if they are ill fed or their bones twisted or broken ... "

  Marool stormed out into the hall, and thence was led by Simon to Madame's office. Mouche moved uncertainly. Madame stepped beside him, murmuring: "Mouche, go with them. Be polite. Be subservient. Do your work. Do not tempt the woman to violence ... "

  "Madame ... " he whispered. "Madame ... "

  "Yes, boy. What is it?"

  "That picture outside my room. It's her, isn't it? That is Mistress Mantelby."

  Madame paled. She shivered, then drew herself up once more. "Yes, Mouche. That is Mistress Mantelby. And the best way to avoid drawing her attention is to seem uninteresting. Do you understand? Be unattractive and dull. Totally dull." She gave him a significant look and gestured toward the door.

  Still he hesitated. The sight of Marool's face had been terrible, but more terrible yet was the thought of leaving House Genevois, leaving his secret way within the walls, leaving ... that one whom he watched in the night hours. "Madame. Are the Timmys really gone?"

  She shivered, only slightly, reaching forward to stroke his face with her ringers. "What Timmys? I know nothing of any Timmys. Nor do you, if you are wise. Go, Mouche. And may fortune be with you."

  On her lips, it had the sound almost of a prayer.

  35—Timmy Talk

  If Mouche had been there to open his hidden gate and creep into the walls, he would have found the space packed with Timmys: Timmys listening at cracks, peering through eye holes, observing what the humans were doing as they or their predecessors had been observing almost since humans had first arrived. Though it had been some time before Timmys had been seen by the second wave of settlers, Timmys had seen the settlers from the beginning.

  "This creature coming," said one Timmy, who had been in the walls of the temple when D'Jevier and Marool had conversed, "This Questioner-idi coming, if idi finds out we have been treated badly, idi may seek to redress our wrongs, to do justice."

  "That must not happen," cried others. "Our wrongs must not be redressed. Justice would upset everything!"

  There was agreement. Justice would be the last straw.

  "Why can't tim-tim go now," sang one, two, a dozen, their voices making a sad harmony of the words.

  "It is not the time," replied others, an antiphon. "Tim-tim must await the time."

  "But the jong grow strong," sang the first ones. "And the jong wax large, like moons, and Niasa turns and turns."

  "Even so, it is not the time."

  "The earth shakes with the turning of Niasa. She will waken! She will break the egg!"

  "Even so."

  After a long silence, one offered, "Whether it is the time or not, word must be sent to the bai. The depths must be informed of this dangerous idi, this Questioner."

  Others agreed. There was a generalized and rather antlike scurry as some set out and others arrived, this one and that one being assigned to this peephole or that crack, and a small group started on a journey to the depths where they would inform the great ones of the dangerous Questioner who was coming.

  Those remaining behind stayed at their peepholes in the walls. "The woman-gau took Mouchidi," said Mouche's goddess, the one he had intuitively called by her tim-tim name, Flowing Green. "They took the one I have hopes of!"

  "Not far," reassured another. "He goes to House Mantelby. Tim-tim are in all the walls there, watching the terrible ones and the bad woman."

  "I will go there," said the green-haired one. "I have many long hopes of Mouchidi. I read his face and see him feeling what we feel. I see how he joys. I see him perceive Her pain."

  "I have no hopes," said another. "None of the jong have been any use. All those who came at first, they did the bad thing, but when we tried to use them to fix it, they were no use. Jongau are still moving around out there, all warped. That Ashes-gau, that bad smell, he is still out there."

  "The other bad smells are there, too," offered another. "The big ones, the wet ones, the dry ones, the thorny ones ... "

  "I know what happened before," murmured the green-haired one. "I have been told by Bofusdiaga, singer of the sun. I have been told by Corojum, dancer of bright skies. Mouchidi is different. So say they."

  One who had departed moments before returned breathlessly. "We went, we met word already coming up from below," tim said. "The below ones already know of this Questioner. When it comes, it will be of some other kind and maybe have with it some other kinds yet. Bofusdiaga thinks we should look at them, too. Perhaps we would have better luck with another kind."

  "Try, then," said the green-haired one. "Meantime, I will go to watch Mouchidi." She paused, as though debating whether or not to say what was in her mind, deciding at last to do so. "Again I dreamed! In the dream I danced into the fauxi-dizalonz, and Mouchidi was in it, and I was with him, and we were being changed together."

  Several of the others recoiled, putting up their hands as though to ward her away. "Tss! Do not speak of it to tim-tim. It is not for us who say tim, tim, but only for you who say I, I. Speak of it only to Bofusdiaga, who alloys, and even then, speak softly, for She might hear."

  "She still sleeps," asserted the one called Flowing Green. "She is not listening yet."

  The other made a gesture which was the equivalent of a shrug. Flowing Green was excessive. From highest to lowest, Doshanoi, everyone, knew it. Tim-tim always said "tim-tim," we. Tim-tim never said "I." What could a part teach the whole? What dance could an "I" do, all by itself? Surely only the great ones could dream fully. Surely only the alloyed ones could remember what had been lost ...

  "But they do not," whispered some. "Even they do not remember, even among them the dreams are tattered, filmy, without substance. How could even alloyed ones make do with such as that?" They could not. The dance was lost. Perhaps ... lost forever.

  "It is said," sang someone hidden in a corner. "It is said the mankinds have done wrong, they may be exterminated for the wrong they have done. Now, almost one could welcome this Questioner if it would exterminate these jongau who had not the courtesy to die."

  "Bofusdiaga says no," said Flowing Green. "Bofusdiaga does not want justice."

  The timmy departed by Doshanoi ways, unseen. It did not take long to find the place where Mouche and the others had been sent.

  36—Pressed Men at Mantelby

  Mouche let himself be loaded into the wagon and chained there with n
o outward sign of protest. Only when he knew the sound of the wheels on cobbles would mask his words did he lean toward the nearest man to whisper: "My name is Mouche."

  "Ornery Bastable," the other replied. "I'm a seaman. She called me a supernume!" Ornery's chin jerking toward the leading carriage showed who she meant. "I'll have words with her."

  Mouche masked his mouth with a shackled hand and spoke softly. "Words won't help. I don't think she cares if we're supernumes or not. She is an evil woman, Bastable, so beware."

  The other gave Mouche a level stare, then asked, too loudly, "Known or suspected of being evil?"

  Mouche shook his head slightly, narrowing his eyes. He had meant only to warn, thinking it far too dangerous to get into discussion about it while Dyre and Bane were near. They were doing one of their favorite things, watching him with that long, unblinking snake-eyed stare. It made Mouche think seriously of the need for allies. No Simon or Madame here. No Fentrys or Tyle. He would have to cultivate Bastable or whomever, for any help was better than none.

  He shielded his mouth with his hand once more and murmured, "She is known to be an evil woman, seaman. There is no doubt about it at all. I have been warned to be inconspicuous as possible, not to attract her attention. I would not have words with her if I could avoid it."

  Ornery thought it over, then gave a tiny nod of thanks for the warning. Bane and Dyre went on staring for a time, though they soon gave it up in favor of loud and continuous complaint mixed with assorted sneers and unspecific threats against all and sundry.

  They complained of having been sent to House Genevois against their inclination and of having been kept there by threat of force. They said they had been forced to be civil (though they called it sucking up to nobodies) when they would have preferred despotism (though they called it getting their rights). They complained of this latest outrage in which they were expected to labor like damn Timmys instead of being cushioned on silk and fed cream, which is what they'd been trained for. Cushioning and drinking and other such dalliances seemed to have figured largely in their minds, as they went on and on about it. When next Mouche and Ornery shared a glance, both understood it as a contract. If word came to blow, they would stand together against these two.