The Brothers' War

by Jeff Grubb

  “You blew up the crystal in the first place!” riposted Urza.

  “I did not! I didn’t touch anything!” yelled Mishra. “That was you!”

  “Hold!” shouted Tocasia, stepping between the two young men. “We can argue about this once we get aloft. For the moment we need to repair the ornithopter and get back.” She motioned with her head toward the smoldering remains of the roc. “We don’t know if that bird was solitary or one of a larger family.”

  Tocasia turned away from the pair. She wondered if there was something among the debris she could use as a walking stick. In the flight from the caverns she had lost hers, and she could feel the muscles in her legs cramping from overuse. She looked forward to a long rest after this adventure.

  Behind her, neither of the brothers moved. Tocasia turned and said, “Today, if you don’t mind.” Both brothers, she noticed, looked as if steam were going to pour from their ears.

  “In a moment,” said Urza finally. “But first, give.” He held out his right hand. His left still clutched the red-glowing gem.

  “What?” asked Mishra, holding his own stone to his chest.

  “The stone,” returned Urza. “Give it to me. Perhaps we can fit the pieces back together.”

  Mishra held the stone tighter, and Tocasia could swear she saw the stone flicker, as yellow-green as a cat’s eyes, in his hand. “No,” he said. His face was set in a deep scowl.

  “There is a chance that we can restore it,” said Urza crossly.

  “Good,” snapped Mishra. “Give me yours.”

  Urza’s face grew longer. “I can’t. You might break it.”

  “I don’t break things!” said Mishra hotly. His voice was shrill. To Tocasia it seemed on the verge of breaking, as it had done several years before during his adolescence. “You’re the one who always thinks you know everything,” he continued, “but you always blame me! Well, you’re not as smart as you think you are. Everyone knows that!”

  “I know better because I’m older,” said Urza coldly.

  “Then you know I don’t want to give up my stone,” retorted his brother. “If you want to fit it together, give me yours, Master High-and-Mighty Too-Good-for-the-Rest-of-Us! Show me you’re all-wise, Brother. Give me your stone!”

  “You want it?” snarled Urza. “Fine. Take it, then! You always take things that aren’t yours!”

  Tocasia started to shout, but it was too late. Urza’s hand lashed out, the stone still gripped tightly in his fist. Mishra stepped forward, directly into Urza’s punch. The gem connected with the younger brother’s forehead and he went down in a heap.

  Urza leapt forward, kneeling over the fallen form of his brother. “I’m sorry, Mishra. I didn’t mean to hit you.”

  Mishra had already pushed himself up on his elbows and was trying to back away. “Get away from me, damn you!”

  Tocasia pulled on Urza’s shoulder. “Get up. You should know better!” she snarled. Her temper was frayed to the breaking point. “You’re always saying you’re the older and smarter one,” she rapped out. “Well, look what you’ve done.”

  Urza started to speak, then looked at his brother. The gem had cut Mishra’s face, and crimson blood already welled in the wound at his temple.

  Urza looked at Tocasia again. “I—I’m…sorry,” he stammered. He held out his empty hand to Mishra. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

  Mishra lashed out, knocking away Urza’s hand. “Go away! I don’t need your help!”

  Tocasia started to speak. “Now, Mishra, your brother is just trying—”

  “And I don’t need you to explain things away for him, either,” Mishra interrupted. “I’ll be fine.” He turned to his brother. “The stone is mine. You have one of your own.”

  Tocasia felt her insides melting with anger. Both young men were stupid, pigheaded fools. She had no time for this. She breathed heavily, controlling her temper by an act of will.

  “Fine,” she said at last. “Urza, you tend to the strut on the ornithopter. Mishra, check the remains of the roc to see if any of the su-chi guardians survived. Shout if any do.”

  Neither brother moved, and Tocasia put steel in her voice. “Now, children!”

  Both turned to their tasks, but Tocasia noticed that each glowered at the other as if they were rival dogs.

  The trip back to Tocasia’s camp was made in moody silence, and they flew into the night to avoid having to camp again. Neither brother spoke more than three words at a time to the other. They confined themselves to practical subjects such as the way the damaged wing was handling, the weather ahead, and the present course of the ornithopter. Neither spoke about the secret heart of the Thran, the roc, or their fight.

  Tocasia realized that more than the power stone had been shattered that day.

  The world changed after Koilos and became a darker place in the months that followed.

  Urza retreated to the quarters he shared with his brother as soon as the three investigators returned to the camp, emerging only for meals. Soon after Mishra moved out of those quarters, taking a tent among the diggers. He could have taken permanent housing among the students, but Tocasia felt the young man was making a statement, both to his brother and to her.

  The two brothers sniped at each other continually now. Urza noted publicly that Mishra had instructed the students to dig too deep. Mishra shot back that Urza was demanding more students to clean the artifacts than he truly needed.

  Mealtimes were particularly stressful. The arguments were no longer exchanges of wordplay and ideas. An edge of steel, like the blade of a dagger, had slipped into the boys’ conversations. Questions now seemed like barbed hooks, and answers held hints of threat and challenge. A few times Mishra blew up at his brother at the table, and after a month Urza stopped attending the communal dinners at all, instead taking his meals in his quarters. He had apparently used Mishra’s half of the room to expand his own work space, which irritated his brother all the more. Mishra appeared at dinner for a month beyond that, brooding over the meals. Then he began to dine in the diggers’ camp.

  Neither brother spoke of personal matters, not to Tocasia nor anyone else. To the old scholar they were polite and tried to keep the conversation focused on the nature of the excavations (for Mishra) or on the latest reassembled marvel (for Urza). When the subject of the caverns came up, however, both young men would turn taciturn and abrupt.

  In part, Tocasia felt, it was the stones that had altered their relationship. Urza had fit his to a clawlike clasp of gold and wore it about his neck on a chain. Mishra too wore his around his neck but in a small leather sack dangling from a thong in the manner of the Fallaji talismans. Tocasia did not know if the shattered power stone had created the anger within her two best students or merely unearthed and crystallized resentments that had fermented for years. Soon after Koilos, she went to each and asked to examine the stones themselves, seeking to unlock their mystery.

  Urza refused to give up his stone. Instead, he said, he wanted to examine it himself. Surely Tocasia trusted him to make a fair and rational examination? What he did not say, though Tocasia sensed it, was that he was afraid she would turn over the stone to his brother. Mishra would play on the old scholar’s feelings. He was the younger brother; therefore Tocasia would give Mishra a chance to examine both halves of the stone.

  Mishra in turn would not give up his stone. If Urza kept his half of the stone, he said contemptuously, he would hold his as well. What he did not say, but what Tocasia felt, was that he was afraid she would turn over the stone to his brother. Urza would appeal to her reasoning. Urza was the elder brother; therefore Tocasia would give Urza the chance to examine both halves of the stone.

  The archaeologist was thoroughly frustrated. Neither brother would move without the other; neither trusted her sufficiently to let her examine the gems. She turned to the other stones, both the flickering fragments that still held some power and the dull, cracked remains that had lost their energies.

 
There was nothing there. None of the other power stones they had discovered had similar powers. Mishra’s stone seemed to induce weakness in its targets, whether living or artificial. Urza’s gem apparently strengthened its targets and in fact allowed the spark of animation to enter the barest of mechanical husks. No other stones, Tocasia noted sadly, seemed to have encouraged such avarice and anger in their possessors.

  The nature of the energy itself continued to elude Tocasia. She knew it existed and that it could be harnessed by the devices using the Thran designs they had deciphered. Yet the nature of that energy was beyond her. What was it, and how did it come into being? Was it natural to the crystals, or was it something the Thran had entrapped there? The questions were there, but not the answers, and her own failure to answer darkened Tocasia’s mood further.

  To be fair, the black mood in the camp was not all the brothers’ doing—at least not directly. More Fallaji than Ahmahl had expected were offended by the fact that the archaeologist and her colleagues had found the secret heart of the Thran. Diggers abandoned the camp in droves. Old Ahmahl was clearly embarrassed by this turn of events, since he had assured Tocasia that few of his people would be scared away by ancient legends of the long-dead Thran. Indeed, as word of the discovery of Koilos spread, the flow of artifacts recovered by the desert people, so abundant in previous years, dried up almost entirely.

  Part of that drought was caused by an increase in desert raids. A number of tribes such as the Suwwardi, quiet for decades, were more active now. They raided merchant caravans and even struck into Argive itself. The school had not been attacked, owing to its own group of native Fallaji, but it was only a matter of time, Tocasia felt.

  Ahmahl agreed. “There are numbers beyond numbers of families, tribes, and clans among the Fallaji,” he said one evening, ten months after Koilos. They sat beneath Tocasia’s tarp, sipping nabiz. Most of the rest of the camp had gone to bed. The only lamps still burning were from Urza’s quarters, and those had been dimmed. The brazier between Tocasia and Ahmal crackled low.

  The Fallaji spread his fingers and ticked off a roster of tribal names: “The wealthy Muaharin, the once-mighty Ghestos, and my own tribe, the Thaladin,” he said. “There are others like the Tomakul, who have the nearest thing you outlander people would think of as a city. The Tomakul claim general rulership over the others. But they are not the true masters of the various tribes either. The clans follow strong leaders; so for one generation everyone followed the Ghestos because they had a wise leader. For the next they followed the Muaharin because the Muaharin had a great warrior as their leader.”

  “And now the desert people follow a new tribe,” said Tocasia bitterly, sipping at her nabiz. She took it hot, in the desert style, but never cared for the cinnamon.

  “The Suwwardi,” agreed Ahmahl. “They moved in from the southwestern lands when I was a boy, from the area bordering the outlander state of Yotia. They have a qadir, a leader who has gained many allies. He talks of the old times when the Fallaji people were powerful. And he fans resentment against the coastal nations, particularly those that are spreading into Fallaji lands.”

  “Are these Suwwardi your leaders now?” asked Tocasia.

  Ahmahl shrugged. “Not like your kings and warlords and nobles are leaders. My people put great value in respect. They respect the Suwwardi for what they have accomplished and therefore listen to their message. Many worry about the coastal nations moving inland, taking land from the traditional Fallaji grounds. Many worry about the discoveries we are making.”

  “We are discovering things for everyone,” said Tocasia flatly.

  “That I agree with,” returned Ahmahl. “And I thought others would agree as well. But they see the artifacts they bring in to trade, as well as the ones we dig up, move eastward to Argive, southeast to Korlis, or south to Yotia. They worry what great and wondrous things are being lost to them.”

  “And these Suwwardi play on that worry,” concluded Tocasia. “They gather power by creating a common threat, whether one is truly present or not.”

  Ahmahl nodded and said dryly, “You are familiar with the process.”

  Tocasia laughed and took a long pull on her nabiz. “Basic Argivian politics. The kings of Argive have survived for years on that principle, playing one faction against another. They do things in Penregon that would make your head spin. At least the Fallaji are honest about being someone’s enemy.”

  “That is why we have not moved, and should not move, the base camp to Koilos,” said Ahmahl.

  “The only way into the canyon where the caverns are found is through the deep desert—” Tocasia began.

  “The deep desert is held by the Suwwardi tribe and their allies. Word has gone out that any non-Fallaji found in their lands will be considered Suwwardi property, to be disposed of as they see fit.”

  Tocasia spread her hands and looked at the wooden surface beneath her wrinkled fingers. The desert had practically won its battle with the great Argivian table. It was wobbly and brittle now; the last of its pearl inlay had surrendered to the differences in temperature and to the dust. Soon she would have to break it up for firewood. Tocasia had not realized how much she would miss the table, both as a level space and as a reminder of distant Penregon.

  Would they have had this problem with the tribesmen had Urza not been so brilliant with maps and calculations, or Mishra so close to the desert tribes and their legends? Tocasia shook her head. The past was the past, as inviolate as the rocks from which she and her followers pulled the Thran devices, as solid as the metals they carefully pieced together in the workshops.

  A silence grew between her and Ahmal. The only sound was the crackle of the brazier.

  “You are not thinking of the desert tribes or your dig site,” said Ahmahl at last. “You are thinking of your two young men.”

  Tocasia let the silence continue, then said, “They have been fighting again.”

  “Ever since they visited the Secret Heart of the Old Ones,” said Ahmahl. Tocasia shot the leader of the diggers a look and he held up a hand. “No, they did not tell me what happened there. No one tells this old digger anything. But it is clear to me and to everyone else that they have had a great falling-out. The kind of battle that brothers do not recover from. Last week they almost came to blows at the dig site.” He shot her a sidelong glance. “You know?”

  Tocasia nodded. “Urza thought Mishra was digging too deep to find any parts for an onulet. When the diggers found such parts, Urza all but accused Mishra of planting the find there in the trench.”

  “Mishra found the pieces of that onulet’s shoulder mounting fairly,” said Ahmahl. “But then he drove the diggers on into the heat of midday, when we normally nap. He would have been happy with nothing less than a complete onulet arising from the earth, fully formed and alive, just to prove his brother wrong.”

  Tocasia nodded. “Each day they get worse, and neither wants to talk to the other about it. Whenever they are in the same place, the conversation breaks down into argument. Then each continues arguing with me afterward, trying to show me where the other was wrong. And when I try to show them that they may be wrong, each acts as if I’ve sided with the other. The past few months have been the worst of all the years I have known them.”

  Ahmahl leaned forward. “The Fallaji believe that man is made of stone and fire, sky and water. The perfect man holds all these elements in balance. The young brother—he had more fire than he needed on the first day I met him, and he has more fire than he needs now. The older brother is consumed by stone: cold and unyielding. Unable to bend, he will shatter or be worn away.”

  “The Argivians have a similar belief, though few follow it these days,” said Tocasia. “The world is divided into reality and dreams. The old temple priests of Argive would say that both those young men have been consumed by their dreams and are forgetting their reality.”

  Ahmahl grunted. “Does Urza speak of dreams to you?”

  Tocasia shook her head
. “Urza speaks to no one anymore. Not to me; not his brother.” She looked at the leader of the diggers. “Does Mishra?”

  Ahmahl nodded. “Not to me, but he does speak. To Hajar, one of my younger assistants, who is closer to him in age and temperament. Hajar has been bitten hard by the fire as well, and he dreams of being a great warrior. I fear we will lose him to the Suwwardi and soon. But Mishra has told Hajar, who has told me and I tell you, that Mishra has dreams.”

  “Of what?” asked Tocasia, pouring herself more nabiz.

  “Darkness,” said Ahmahl, spreading his fingers out to catch the warmth of the brazier. “He says there is darkness out there, a darkness that sings to him and tries to draw him to it. It tugs at him, like a jackal hanging on to his trouser legs. And he fears it.”

  “He said that?” prompted Tocasia.

  Ahmahl shrugged. “Mishra talks to Hajar. Hajar talks to me. I talk to you. Each time someone talks to another, things are added, other things forgotten. Perhaps you should ask him yourself. He probably would not tell Hajar, ‘Hajar, I am afraid of my dreams,’ but Mishra does sleep in the digger’s camp, and everyone knows he sometimes awakens in the middle of the night shouting at things that are not there.”

  Tocasia was silent for a moment. She could not say if Mishra had done this before Koilos, when Mishra and Urza were quartered together, but Urza had never said anything about the matter. Nor had Urza spoken of his own dreams, if indeed he had any.

  “You know they each took something with them when they left Koilos?” asked Tocasia.

  “The gems of power,” replied Ahmahl. “They look like the ones that you say move the Old Ones’ machines. Each of the Young Masters has one. Yet each man keeps his stone close to himself at all times.”

  “Could the stones be responsible?” queried Tocasia. “Could their energies be causing the young men to act like this?”

  Ahmahl shrugged, and Tocasia added, “Do you know what their stones can do?”

  “Mishra has not talked to me of the matter,” said Ahmahl flatly. “Perhaps to Hajar, but…” He let the words hang in the hot desert air for a long moment.