“Please,” she said, holding out her hands to him. “Help me.”
“I don’t have to help you. A dreadful ruffian you are, sent here to rob us,” the Myal accused her. “Go away. It is forbidden for the likes of you to come here. Go back to the master you ran away from. Go!”
She had to make him understand. “Please. Are you an archivist? Is this the way in?”
He looked more alarmed than ever. “You can’t get in. I won’t let you in. I’ll call the guards right now.” Turning away from her, he hurried off on his short, bowed legs.
Ampris tried to go after him, but after a few steps she was staggering and spent. Her breath came in short gasps, and her vision was blurring. She was furious that her body should fail her now, at this most critical time. “Help me!” she called after him. “I am seeking—”
“I’ll help you, yes!” he shouted, still waddling away. “I’ll help the guards come and throw you back over the wall, or however you got in here.”
“Wait!” she said, but her voice was failing her too. She tried again to pursue him, but her legs gave under her, and she sank to the ground. Lying there in the dust, she wanted to sob with despair and humiliation. “I am a friend of Bish,” she said desperately. “I’ve come to see Bish. Tell him my . . . my name is . . . Ampris.”
Several meters away, the Myal stopped in his tracks as though he’d been shot. He spun around, staring at her incredulously. “Ampris!” he said. “The Golden One? Ampris?”
But she was falling into a heavy darkness, sinking deep into a place of bottomless oblivion, and could not answer him.
CHAPTER•TEN
When she awakened, she found herself lying on a soft bunk with a blanket tucked around her. Six Myals sat in a semicircle at the foot of the bed, staring at her with varying degrees of anxiety and fascination.
She had been bathed, and instead of pain she felt a hazy sense of well-being. Looking under the blanket, she found various medication patches attached to her.
The room was small and without a window. A single lamp burned softly in one corner, casting clear, even illumination. The air felt cool and slightly damp. She realized she must be below ground, possibly in the warren that made up the Archives. It was evident that the Myals had decided to help her and not turn her in. With a sigh of relief she let her eyes close.
“Ampris.”
Her eyes opened, and she found the Myal she’d talked to outside now standing beside her bed. He was old, with streaks of gray running through his mane of red hair. His brown eyes, however, were sharp and alert, bright with an emotion she could not identify.
“You are Ampris?” he asked again. “The one of legend? The Golden One?”
“Once I was called that, yes,” she replied. Her voice sounded strange to her, weak and far away. “But I am no legend.”
“You wear an Eye of Clarity,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
“From the hand of my enemy,” she said.
The Myal stared at her. The other Myals stared at her. She looked at their faces for Bish, but he was not there.
“Is this the Archives?” she asked. “I need to see Bish. He was once kind to me. I have a favor to ask of him.”
The Myals exchanged glances.
“She is the one,” a thin, black-maned Myal said. “She is Nithlived, the warrior-priestess reincarnated.”
“Can you be sure, Brother Prynan?” another asked fretfully. “We must be sure.”
“Who else could she be?” asked a third. “She has appeared, as though the sky opened and dropped her here. She wears the Eye.”
“She came here by climbing over the wall,” said a fourth sourly. Plumper than the others, with a mane streaked red and brown, he glared at Ampris with deep suspicion. “Exactly the same as any other abiru thief can if repairs are not made soon.”
“But her feet, Brother Non. She has walked so far.”
“The legends say that so did Nithlived the First walk a long pilgrimage,” Prynan intoned. His eyes were distant, gazing far into the past. “She walked across the vast grass plains of her world, to a mountain with shining waters at its foot. Kneeling on the shore, she prayed for wisdom, asking for help in leading her people. A voice did speak to her, calling her into the water. She walked into it, deeper and deeper, until the waters closed over her head. And when she came forth from the lake, purified and cleansed, some of the sacred water did remain in her hand, solidified into a stone as clear and transparent as the water which formed it. Thus did she acquire an Eye of Clarity, and thereafter she returned to her people to lead them in battle.”
Listening to Prynan recite this legend, which she had never heard before, Ampris felt a shiver pass through her. For an instant it was as though she stood on the verge of understanding great knowledge, and if she could make one last effort she would at last reach through the veils of confusion to see all that she had ever wanted to.
“Ask her more questions, Brother Quiesl,” Non said, breaking the spell. “Make certain of her identity.”
The red-maned Myal standing over Ampris sent her a glance of sympathy. “She is weak still, my brothers. We must not tax her. Let her rest now. There will be time for more questions later.”
They rose to their feet to leave, mumbling among themselves.
Ampris held out her hand to Quiesl. He took it cautiously; his smooth, hairless fingers were warm and strong. “Please,” she whispered. “I want to see Bish. I know he’s important and probably busy, but if you told him it was me, he might—”
“I am sorry,” Quiesl said in a gentle voice. “But Brother Bish has been dead these past three years. No longer does he work among us, except in spirit.”
“Oh.” She did not know what else to say. She’d been so certain she’d find him here, so certain he would remember her despite the long years since their last meeting, so certain he would forgive the carelessness of a cub who had not understood or valued what he tried to teach her. She’d counted on him to be a friend still, one who would give her the information she needed and send her on her way. Now, she did not know how to reach out to these strangers.
Quiesl brushed her face gently with his fingertips. “You weep for him, Aaroun called Ampris. You mourn him?”
She nodded, her eyes blurring with tears. “He was a friend.” she whispered. “He was kind to me.”
The other Myals shuffled out, leaving her and Quiesl alone. “Except for Brother Prynan, they are afraid to believe,” he said to her, his eyes shining once again. “But Brother Prynan is not, and I am not. While I have not yet embraced Brother Prynan’s theory of reincarnation, for sometimes he does tend to become rather fanciful, still do I know that you are the one we have waited for. You are Ampris of the Freedom Network.”
She blinked, her tears forgotten. “You heard those old messages?”
“Oh, yes. All of them I have recorded and saved. You tried very hard in those years, yes, you did.”
She sighed, holding away memories of risks and intrigue, of the sedition she’d preached to any abiru she could contact during her travels as a gladiator. “I tried,” she agreed. “Little was accomplished.”
“The foundation was laid for the real work,” Quiesl said. “Now we can begin anew.”
Ampris tried to sit up, but found herself too weak.
At once he patted her shoulder. “Please, you must rest. I speak too soon of matters that can wait a little longer.”
But Ampris couldn’t wait. She felt sudden urgency. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Two days only—”
“Two days!” She lifted her hand and rubbed her muzzle. Time was running out. “I must get up. Help me, please.”
“You need rest. You are very weak.”
But Ampris struggled, gasping and feeling a wave of gray weakness wash through her. She kept at it until at last she was sitting up with her legs dangling weakly over the side of the bed. The small, windowless room wavered and tilted in all directions.
“You are unwell, Ampris,” Quiesl said in concern. “This is most unwise.”
She reached out and gripped his arm to steady herself. “I have others depending on me. Friends . . . family . . . Somewhere in your records, there must be information of how the Aaroun people once gathered and preserved food. Without modern technology. Without—”
She found herself suddenly breathless. The room spun around her, and she sank down again.
Quiesl helped her. “Too soon, Golden One,” he fussed. “You have been most unwell. You came to us from a long distance.”
Frustration made her weep, and she hated her tears, hated her weakness. “I walked for eleven days. It took too long to cross the Plains of Filea. I don’t have enough time to be ill.”
Quiesl tucked the blanket more tightly around her. “The body works in its own time. Be at peace. Healing will go faster if the mind can rest.”
“But they’re waiting on me, depending on me—”
“Ampris,” he said, placing his hand lightly over her mouth. “Be at peace. You are our guest. You shall have all that you need. Sleep now, and when you next awaken, I shall bring food to you.”
His voice was low and soothing. Despite her sense of urgency and distress, Ampris found her eyes closing. She tried to resist, but she found her consciousness following the rise and fall of his voice, no longer aware of any words, only sound, only motion, only sleep.
Quiesl was as good as his word. When Ampris awakened, she was presented with both a tray of food and a small viewer with an array of sivo data crystals.
Overwhelmed and excited, she did not know whether to gobble the offerings of fruit and meat or to switch on the viewer. Filling her mouth and gulping food faster than she should have, she started the display of information.
Within several hours, she had played all the crystals. While her head was spinning with new knowledge, Quiesl made her sleep again, then brought her more.
“Everything within the Great Library of the Kaas is at your disposal, Ampris,” he said to her. “Any history, any kind of record, any vidcast is yours. You have only to ask.”
Lying there in bed while her battered body slowly healed, Ampris lost track of everything except this wealth of information, so long denied her eager mind, and now brought to her like treasure.
She forced herself to concentrate first on what she’d specifically come for and soon collected diagrams and methods for drying meat into jerky and how to dig certain roots and tubers at specific times of the year so that they would not rot. But she also took the chance to listen to public vidcasts and caught up on the news of the empire. For the past twelve years she had lived in an information vacuum, and the changes that had come during Israi’s reign both fascinated and saddened her.
The empire lay in economic ruin. Right now a war was raging out in the rim worlds, and the mighty Viis flotilla of warships was there, fighting the rebels. The drought on Viisymel continued unchecked. The solutions offered by public officials and scientists seemed ridiculous to Ampris. She read sivo crystals on Viisymel’s past and learned how pollution problems had wrecked its ecological and climate systems. She also came across files on Viis history, endless rambling accounts of how they rose to prominence with a flourishing, ruthless culture of conquerors and warriors. But the empire’s strength collapsed during the long-past plague of the Dancing Death, called that because of the way dying victims spun around and thrashed in their death throes. Millions had died in one year. The survivors had been affected genetically, and fewer and fewer eggs were hatched with each successive generation.
“You are dying,” Ampris murmured to the pictures of Viis citizens. “It is taking generations, but your race is dying out.”
“Talking to yourself?” Quiesl asked, coming into her room with a cursory knock.
She looked up from the viewer and smiled. “More crystals?” she asked eagerly.
The Myal laughed and tickled her jaw with the tip of his tail. “Indeed, I believe your thirst for knowledge exceeds that of any archivist working here. Would you rather read than eat?”
She hesitated over that question as Quiesl stepped out for a moment, then returned with a tray of food. This time, only a single data crystal lay next to her plate.
She picked it up in disappointment. “Only one? I—”
“One is enough, this time,” he said. His smile faded, and he looked very serious. “Eat first. Promise me.”
“Of course.”
Puzzled by his mood, she backed her ears slightly and watched him gather up the crystals she’d played. He carried them out as he closed the door quietly behind himself.
When she’d finished eating her dinner, she put the tray aside and plumped up her pillows. Then she fitted the crystal into the viewer and switched it on.
Within seconds she was sitting bolt upright, gripping the viewer with both hands. For this was apparently the true account—presented with still shots and reenactments while a Myal voice narrated—of how the Aarouns originally came to Viisymel.
Shaken, she froze the viewer for a moment and drew in several deep breaths. All her life she’d heard nothing but lies and half-truths. Now at last, it seemed she would be able to solve the mystery.
Finally, when she felt calm enough to proceed, she let the viewer play, and the Myal narrator’s voice filled the room:
“Many, many generations ago, the Aarouns lived free on their own world, Sargas III. They knew about the Viis empire far from their boundaries, but the empire scarcely touched their lives. Several times Viis agents came, requesting permission to establish agricultural colonies on their world. The Aaroun leaders refused these requests. They knew the Viis owned many worlds. They did not wish for the Viis empire to own theirs.
“The Viis requested that the Aarouns raise food commercially and sell it to the empire. Again the Aarouns refused. They did not wish to change their traditions, customs, and general way of life in order to work according to Viis rules.
“Every year for a decade the Viis came with these requests. Every year the requests became more insistent, until they were demands. Always the Aarouns refused.
“Then Viis armies arrived.
“The warrior-priestess Nithlived led Aaroun forces against the invaders. Although outgunned, the Aarouns proved to be fierce fighters and would not surrender.
“The Viis general was a male descended from the Fifth House, a general of proud lineage and great cunning. Having observed the Aarouns’ bulky size and powerful muscles, having seen their culture and arts, having witnessed their fairness and honesty, the general realized that the Aarouns themselves would be a greater asset to the empire than their small, undeveloped planet.
“With the permission of his Kaa, the general released a bacterial contaminant into the Sargas III ecosystem. Within days, plant life began to die; water grew undrinkable. The problems spread rapidly. Not possessing the technology to combat such a biodisaster, the Aarouns found themselves facing mass starvation.
“The Aaroun scholar Osoa, valued among his people for his wisdom and honor, feared that the Aarouns faced extinction. He sent forth an appeal to other planets, asking for help.
“But the Viis blocked outgoing communications from Sargas III, and only the Viis responded to Osoa’s call for help. Withdrawing their armies, the Viis leaders pretended great concern over the plague and offered to help the Aarouns save their world. Viis scientists came and consulted with Aaroun leaders, warning them that it would take at least one generation to restore the damaged ecosystem. Aarouns could not live on their world for that length of time. The Aarouns were afraid, for they had nowhere else to go. Yet the Viis leaders gave them a solution. If the Aarouns agreed to be deported en masse, and if they agreed to work for the Viis empire until the debt they owed was repaid, the Viis would save their world.
“Despite Nithlived the Third’s outspoken objections to this arrangement, a treaty was drawn up between Viis negotiators and Osoa. Fearful of Viis trickery, Osoa strove to crea
te a document that would protect his people. Smooth-tongued and urbane, the Viis negotiators filled the clauses with vague wording. With people dying daily of hunger, Osoa simply ran out of time. The treaty that was forged stated the terms of the Aaroun obligation, specifying the Aarouns’ skills as builders, architects, sociologists, healers, and musicians. The treaty said the Aarouns would be permitted to leave their Viis employment when Aaroun lands grew verdant and lush and when Aaroun water flowed clear and pure.
“With great reluctance, the people left their dying homeworld. Many wept during the exodus, knowing they would never see Sargas III again. Their only hope was that their cubs would be able to return.
“Once the Aarouns had been deported, however, Viis spaceships blasted Sargas III into an uninhabitable piece of rubble. Thus did they trick the honest Aarouns into slavery, using them for the most menial jobs that often required great strength and physical endurance.
“A generation passed, and then another. Gradually the Aarouns forgot the great promise of the Osoa Treaty. They worked as slaves, downtrodden and without hope. It was forbidden to sing their prayer songs. It was forbidden to talk of their great leaders and warriors. Until at last, the Aarouns were truly a lost people, with no home and no memory of their own rights.”
Exhausted, Ampris switched off the viewer and sat there, staring into space with burning eyes. The narration appalled her, and she wanted to weep for what had been lost, yet she couldn’t. Her anger burned away her tears.
All her life she had seen evidence of how much deceit and trickery the Viis people were capable of, but this was appalling. The Viis had no honor at all. They never had.
And the Aarouns of today had no idea of what they’d had, or of what they once were. Ampris realized the prayer songs she had gradually learned in bits and pieces over the years were snippets of the forbidden history and vestigial memories of the promise of the great return. No one understood the old songs anymore. Those that had been preserved were garbled and misused. And they were all that was left.
Except for this.
Taking the crystal from the viewer, Ampris turned it over and over in her hand. The Myals knew the truth, yet they were forbidden to share it. Even the Viis no longer knew the difference between their lies and what had really happened, not just to the Aarouns but to many other races and cultures as well.
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