Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  She stood behind him, watching him watch. He turned with a neat, sinuous motion and stared at her, then pointed to himself and shrugged his shoulders. She nodded and stepped forward.

  "I look different without my vines, don't I?" he said, and Darien stroked his cheek with her fingertips. "Ah, so you think I have a kind face, too. Such a pity that you cannot understand my words. Kharec and his raiders are all dead, I wish that I could make you understand that. The hand of the Abbess Theresla struck them down."

  She took the. pitcher and poured him chilled water and lime juice. He raised his eyebrows at the taste. "Ah, you know that limes can ward off the scurvy that comes from long journeys and poor food. How very civilized. And you give it to me, but hid it from Kharec. How very flattering. Where is your civilization, I wonder? At the end of those iron bars that cross the desert?" He sipped again from the stoneware cup. "Ah, but I wish that I had some of my bane gold poison to go with this. I miss its flavor."

  A flea drinking his blood would probably die, Darien thought. Every move that he made seemed to bring a smile to his face. That was understandable, for he was free of the vines at last.

  "Do you wonder how I killed Kharec and the others? Hah, you don't even know that they are dead. Look here." He held up all ten fingers, four times over, then made motions as if he were riding a camel. Finally he drew a finger across his throat. Darien was careful to stare at him, wide-eyed with shock. "All dead."

  She pointed at him, then stroked the back of her hand. "So you still think that I am kind, even without an explanation. Well then, I'll tell you everything. I need to tell someone, and the only other person in the world that I could trust is far away, in a Glenellen convent. You would not like her. She eats sparrows roasted on skewers, and sends letters to me by cartier bat. For all that she is a great scholar. Because of it, perhaps. It helps to repel suitors, for her hand in bethrothal would be a great prize. I have killed five of her suitors myself. I am her right hand."

  He had just walked out of an unspeakable ordeal, the skin of his face and hands was blistered and scabby with exposure, yet he sparkled with vitality. If he was the right hand of the Abbess of Glenellen, what would the rest of her be like? Darien wondered.

  "But you want to know how I killed Kharec and his elite warriors--or you would if you could understand me. The Sweep of the Call is as wide as a two hour march, and it stops each night for its victims to eat and rest. They remain in a trance, while plant eaters eat plants and meat eaters starve. I led the lancers to the boundary of the Call, then left them there while I walked on into its realm. There I found Kharec. He was chewing on the leaves of a bush, just like a camel. I bound his hands and led him back out of the Call, to where his men were waiting.

  "He regained his senses at once, but instead of being grateful the wretch had me seized. He accused me of duplicity and mutiny, without a shred of evidence. Still, he was right. He had his men extract me from my suit of vines, and he had his own worthless body strapped and bound into it instead. It was his intention to come back here and wait for the camel train that supplies you. Camel trains, hah! One glance at your mighty travel-machines and he would have fled all the way back to Glenellen.

  "Kharec forced me to walk as punishment, yet that slowed them as they rode north again. If you could understand my words, pretty one, you would know that as we started back for here, four days had passed and a Call was due. I was counting on that to save me.

  "Events moved a little faster, however. Early in the next afternoon Kharec's men noticed that the suit of vines was dying. The leaves were wilting, the tendrils hung limp. His lieutenant, Calderan, mentioned it to him. I was dragged before Kharec's camel and commanded to speak--with a blade pressing against my throat.

  "I explained that the suit could only be worn and kept alive by me. I have been taking a little of my bane gold for years, and can resist a goodly dose of it by now. My vines had been growing dependent on it by absorbing it from the sweat on my skin--not from the water at their roots. If Kharec drank enough poison to keep the vines alive, he would die. If he did not, the suit would die.

  "At this stage I raised the stakes a little. I told them to check the timers on their body anchors and the camels' sand anchors: I had done more than release Kharec and leave you a key and pistol when the last Call had passed over this outpost. I had also taken the finely machined gold release pins from every sand anchor in the entire squad and hidden them. So, their sand anchors could no longer save them from the Call, and only I could wear the suit of vines and keep it alive.

  "I had Kharec by the balls, my pretty. A repulsive thought, is it not? He could do no more than give me back the suit of vines because only I could save them from the next Call.

  "Do you think his pride would allow that? Oh no. He tried to cut me down, but his men defended me for fear of losing the one person who could preserve their own lives from the Call. He killed five, because they could not slash at him for fear of damaging the vines that he wore. When he finally made a break and rode north, all the others streamed after him. Once they were out of sight I caught a camel that belonged to one of the dead lancers and rode south.

  "Yes indeed, I rode south. No sand-anchor timer, no suit of vines, yet I rode south. I am the eyes of the Abbess Theresla, after all, and she wished to learn the source of the Call. It was after another day that I noticed the horizon begin to change. It became a jagged edge below a flat boundary between earth and sky. There was a trace of salty mist on the air, and a deep rumbling somewhere in the distance. I was about a hundred paces from the edge of the cliff when I realized what it was and tripped the manual release of my camel's sand anchor. In this place there was a weak Call that seemed never to stop, yet it was only a few hundred paces wide. I dismounted and crept forward on all fours."

  Darien poured him another drink, struggling to maintain a bland but puzzled expression on her face. He had seen the source of the Call! It was miraculous, fantastic. It was known that if one followed the Call for a sufficient distance one came to a region where the allure never ceased, the Calldeath lands. Observers had been sent up on tethered hot-air balloons at the edges of these regions, and reported only forests, mountains, and ruins as far as their telescopes could reach. The par aline skirted one of the Calldeath lands at Peterborough and a balloon flight there only the previous year had shown that there was a vast lake in the distance.

  There were references to immense bodies of waters called oceans in the earliest surviving books, but these oceans had been out of sight for so long that theory was that because they lay in the direction of the Call, they must be associated with it. Many religions located hell in those legendary oceans, but now this man had walked into the very nightmare itself and calmly gazed upon... what? Darien was about to become the second person in all the world to know the Call's true source. She felt her legs trembling and knew that her excitement must be blazing out like a beacon. The vine man was sure to notice soon--but he turned to stare out through the window at another wind train noisily shunting as he continued with his tale.

  "The flat plain fell away in a sheer drop to an enormous lake that stretched all the way to the horizon. Great waves broke against the base of the cliffs in showers of spray and seething foam. Can you imagine it? The waves on the waters of the Alspring gorges are never more th.n a hand span in height, yet these were huge beyond telling. The water was blue-green, and among the waves I could see streamlined bodies gliding and dorsal fins slicing the surface. Larger, darker things were herding them, keeping them in orderly rows that patrolled the edge of the cliff. Try to imagine a fish from a river or lake that has grown to the size of your travel-machines. Further out were more of the bigger creatures, splashing and spraying water high into the air. Is this the edge of the world, I whispered to myself, and is this the face of the Deity? In some places there were rocks at the base of the cliffs, and these were piled high with whitened bones.

  "I took a little telescope from my robe and studied the slee
k shapes in the water. Shepherds and sheep, no doubt of it. Were they also angels and souls? If hell was fire, was paradise water? I watched for a long time, and as I did, a full strength Call came, swamping the little guard Call that suffused the air around me. There was a sudden surge of tingling, yearning ache, a summons to be seduced yet I could resist it."

  He turned back from the window now, his eyes closed and his smile beatific. The jaws of death had closed upon him, but he had nimbly stepped between the teeth. He was justly proud of what he had done--yet he had been wearing no vines! He immediately answered Darien's unspoken question so precisely that she almost gasped.

  "Ah yes, I had no need for the suit of vines at all, it was nothing more than a ruse to disguise my real secret. Remember when I had been fastened by my vines at the outpost? When the Call came I slipped from the suit in moments and went about my work naked. Oh yes, I stood before you naked as I put the key and gun on your bed. Would you have liked my body?"

  He was looking straight at Darien as he spoke, and she blushed as crimson as the sunrise. His smile broadened, yet it was a teasing smile, not at all evil.

  "You blush. You know that I am saying something naughty but you do not know what it is. Do not worry, nameless lady. I am the hands of the Abbess Theresla, and she would never molest you. Ah but here I am talking about my nakedness when I could be talking about what lies beyond the edge of the world. Which would you find more interesting? I wonder.

  "After I had been watching for some time I heard the sound of camels behind me, and I turned to see four riderless beasts trotting straight for the edge of the cliff, a little to my right. As I watched they suddenly broke into a gallop, and all four of them hurtled over the edge, their legs still working in midair. They hit the water well beyond the rocks at the base of the cliff amid cascades of spray which turned to bloody foam as the huge fish tore them to pieces. Now a kanger came bounding to the edge, one that had grown just big enough to be snared by the Call. It too splashed to its doom, and was consumed within moments. The thirty surviving lancers soon appeared, and plunged into the jaws of the living mincers. Then came a pair of goats, a dingo, another kanger, and even an emaciated donkey. One last lancer approached the cliff, a rider clad in ragged greenery.

  "Beast, warrior, elder, all are meat for those great sheep in the deep, green water. Kharec's camel broke out of its trot and into a full gallop. And of course it had to be a charge over the last few paces: the bodies must fly clear of the edge and hit the water, not fall to the rocks at the base of the cliffs where they would be out of reach. Harvest home, chaff for the sheep--or perhaps fishmeal for the pigs. As the fishing nets drift through the waters of the gorges in the red Alspring mountains, so too does the Call drift over the land.

  "As the moving Call passed I watched as the torrent of flesh poured over the cliff and the shepherds moving their charges past in an orderly feeding pattern. When it ceased I noted that the group of larger shapes further out from shore disbanded first, then the ranks of feeders moved away. More sickening than the sight of the carnage was the thought of the waste: for every beast that reached the cliff at least a thousand must have perished in the desert.

  "I crawled back to my camel, and once I had rested I made notes and sketches. Kharec had helped me. The fish that had bitten him in half was four times the length of his body, so that I had an idea of its size. I led my camel out of the guard Call and tethered it to graze. Just outside the guard Call I found a cave, a deep hole in the plain. Here I lived for two weeks, and I observed several more Calls reach the edge of the cliffs. Between Calls I climbed down the cliffs on a rope and took samples of the water. It is salt, at an undrinkable concentration. On the rocks at the base, among the bones of those animals that had not reached the water, I found tattered cloth and jewelry, and piles of human bones in shells of red rust that had once been armor. All along the cliffs it was the same.

  "Slowly my cave became a treasure trove, and then I found the greatest prize of all. One skull wore a gold headband with eight claws holding a magnificent green emerald. The skull was so, so small, and even though it was nothing but whitened bone I saw the beauty that had once clothed it. I knew it to be the body of the sad, legendary Ervelle, who had been banished into the Call many years ago for.." the saddest of crimes. The lovely girl would have died of thirst and rigor only a day or two into the Call, but her camel had followed it all the way across the red deserts to the cliffs and plunged over the edge. I gathered her bones, rings, and jewelry and buried them in my cave, beneath all the other jewelry that I had collected. At the mouth of the cave I carved ERVELLE deep into the limestone. Just think, my pretty, I rescued Ervelle herself from the Call, I showered her with riches, I built her a palace and I slept beside her. I actually became part of her sad legend." Tears glistened in the vine man eyes, and he dabbed at them with a napkin. "It is as well she will not find out," he added with a rueful grin.

  "There were other wonders at the base of those cliffs, but why bore you with words that you cannot understand? After fifteen days I packed my gear, rolled my notes and sealed them in wax cloth then mounted my camel and rode north. It's tethered a long way from here: I could hardly play the mendicant hermit and own a camel, could I? And why have I returned?

  "Yes, you would guess it if you could understand me. I returned to take you with me to Glenellen, to lock you away and protect you forever. Nameless one, I am devoted to the service of the Abbess, yet she is not one who could be petted and adored. You are so very vulnerable, and I yearn to give you my vows of protection so very much. Alas, I am not a warrior, and even if I returned during a Call that pack of little dogs with poisoned metal fangs strapped to their jaws would defeat me."

  He was proposing marriage, or at least its equivalent in his society. For him the idea of protection bordered on an erotic fantasy, and Darien was not only female, she was also mute. He seemed genuinely distraught at being thwarted. After a few moments of wringing his hands he changed the subject.

  "How did I resist the Call? That is very hard to explain. You have to be a certain way or else.." you cannot. I learned my techniques from the Abbess Theresla, who in turn built on the techniques of the Kooree nomads. They have a different sense of time to us, they can dream different types of time at will. That is part of the secret. And how did she move among them when she is not permitted to leave the Glenellen Convent? Ah-hah, I am her keen ears and sharp eyes. I lived with the Kooree nomads, learned their wisdom. It requires immense concentration and self-discipline, and years of training. The likes of Kharec would not accept that, they would torture me for the secret, yet the secret cannot be put into words. The Call is not material, you see, it seduces the mind.

  "I am so proud of being the senses of the Abbess Theresla: if you work for the gods, you live like a god--or so the Diarec heathens say. So, having learned to resist the Call, she then wanted to know what caused it. I am her hands, ears, and eyes, so I would have to go south, through the hot, red deserts. I needed a strong escort. The Kooree there would kill a lone rider exploring their lands, but a squad of lancers would keep me safe. That is why Kharec was hired, and why the deception of the suit of vines was invented. The suit was too clumsy and undignified for a warrior to bother with except in the most extreme circumstances. My lady is clever, isn't that so? Will I ever see her again? Now I shall have to cross Kooree lands alone, and without the cover of the Call as I travel north. It has never been done, but then I have already done much for the first time, so who knows?"

  Now that he had finished his story the vine man lay back on the couch, the first furniture that his back had touched in months. Darien fed him dates and seed cakes with saltbush tiens. A cool breeze played through the window, and sand paintings misted themselves into fluid landscapes as their frames tumbled on brass bearings in the breeze. Away in the distance they could hear a dull, continuous rumble as the wind train finally pulled out to return to Woomera. Through the window Darien could see the rotating towers pain
ted with spirals that rippled forever upward as they spun to drive the gears that turned the wheels. The vine man sat up and watched the train depart.

  "Now I understand," he whispered. "Those travel-machines move along the road of steel bars without the need of control. If a Call sweeps over the machine, it travels along as before, while the people that it carries are safely tethered inside. You must have cities at either end of the iron bars. Big, wonderful cities."

  She turned. He put his hands on her shoulders and slid them together to caress her face. "You... are lovely. I wish to lock you away and protect you from the horrors of this world," he said gently. "Yet that cannot be. It is too dangerous to abduct you, and the journey back over the red desert past hostile Kooree nomads will be more dangerous still. You will never meet the abbess who eats grilled mice with bane gold chutney and washes her hair in oils of nightshade. She has killed many suitors by dipping her hair in their drinks.

  "My name is Ilyire, beautiful lady. It means grape grower, man of the vine. My noble father once seduced the daughter of a poor farmer. Ah, and the settlement turned him into a rich farmer. Could you guess it, but I am the half-brother of the Abbess Theresla? That is well known, and it is why I may come and go at the convent with impunity.

  "Now, take this to remember me by. This is the gold pin from the sand anchor of Kharec's camel. If I am released by your people I shall return to my camel and vanish forever from your life. In my pack is a sealed roll of notes and sketches that I must present to the Abbess Theresla."

  Darien held the pin to the light, as if she did not understand what it was, then with a sudden inspiration pushed it into the braids of her hair. Ilyire laughed and clapped. After a few minutes more of gestures and smiles there was a sharp, urgent rapping on the door.

  "Frelle Deputy Overliber, are you all right?" called the Marshal. "If you're not out within another fifty heartbeats, I'm coming in." She gestured to the shackles, and Ilyire let himself be restrained again. Before picking up the tray she dipped the edge of her scarf in the water, wiped the center of Ilyire's forehead, and kissed him. Ilyire cried out in astonishment.