"Juf Nolo always speaks for the true heart of our beliefs, does he not?"
No one disagreed with that.
"Our beliefs teach us to glorify the world, to accept its beauty as it is, and to reflect it in our craft. We live beside the stream, sharing it with others."
Again there was no disagreement.
"But that is not the way of Man. For Man, there is only desire and hunger. Man is a hungry ghost, who can never be filled."
He paused again.
"The men of Shasht claim their God is the Great One. They claim that he killed and ate the other gods. Do you see what this is? They give unto their God the very hunger that eats at their own hearts.
"We see the world as a treasure. They see the world as something to loot and burn. How can a God, who would be responsible for creating this very world upon which we live, how can such a God accept its destruction by his worshipers? If the world was made by their God, then he would want it to be cherished. Instead, they think of the world as something to conquer, something to kill.
"We have always been taught to treasure the world that gave birth to us, to care for it. That is the way of the Spirit. Man chooses the opposite way. He takes everything and leaves nothing in his wake. This is not the way of the Spirit. If this God of theirs exists at all, then it is nothing but some fell demon, for its works are marked only in blood and terror."
Thru paused a moment. When he spoke like this, they seemed to be lifted to a higher plane.
"For we know that the world is a gift to us. That it has taken vast aeons of time to prepare it. Out of that enormity, rising from the most humble beginnings, it has grown, turn upon turn, filling with life and the bounty of its beauty. It is our place to use that bounty and to use it wisely."
He sighed.
"But Man chooses not to follow the path of wisdom. The nature of Man is always to take, always to kill. For Man can accept no restrictions on his rule. In truth, Man is his own God.
"At Highnoth we were taught that it was greed, simple greed that destroyed the world of Man the Cruel in the long ago. Each Man wanted the whole world for himself. Each Man wanted to rule over all other men. In the end they consumed everything and poisoned the waters and then themselves."
Among the others arose a murmur, a scrap from the Book...
And the day came when no sound of Man stirred in the world... For I am the broken pig and I bear witness to those days...
Thru had fallen silent now and lay back in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the ship as it rode the waves.
"We will see their land today, that much we do know for certain," said Ter-Saab after a while.
Indeed they'd been awoken by the glad shouting of the men on deck above, some hours earlier when the first hail had come. Land had been sighted at last, the land of Shasht.
"Then, we may not live to sleep again."
"Oh, give it a rest, Pern," said Thru Bush, an older mot, who was never at the battle of Chillum but was captured from the woods outside Farnem.
"We must face whatever lies in front of us," said Pern Glazen.
"We will when we have to, until then I'm going to sing the 'Jolly Beekeeper,'" said Juf Nolo.
"That's the spirit!" rumbled Juf Goost. The two of them lifted their voices again.
"Once there was a beekeeper,
forty hives had he
and honey flowed from all the hives
and riches made for he..."
Oh, I'd be a beekeeper
If only, but for stings
Oh, I'd be a beekeeper
If only for one thing..."
After a while even Pern Glazen joined in.
They sang, even when the guards banged on the door with their spear butts and growled at them to be quiet.
But they kept singing, in quieter voices, refusing to be cowed by the proximity of death. If they were going to be sacrificed on the altars of the evil God of Shasht, then they would go proudly to their deaths, ready to spit into the faces of the priests even as they raised the knives above their chests.
Later, they were roused by the guards and driven up to the open deck for their daily ablutions. When they came on deck, they found the land of Shasht waiting for them, clear and precise in the cold, dry air.
Ocher yellow cliffs rose from the sea. A white line of foam broke along their base. They saw distant mountains, brown and grey, a world of brown rock, bare ground. A few evergreens broke the arid vista, but seemed alien to it, unwanted.
"Look," said Ter-Saab. Thru turned and saw off to the right, far away across the water another brown blur, marking the far side of the wide bay they were entering.
"This is Shasht," said Thru.
"May the Spirit protect us."
—|—
When the Master awoke, he summoned Basth as usual to help him rise from his couch.
Basth saw that the Chest of Skulls was open, and one skull, marked with a splash of red ocher, was sitting out on the table.
The Old One saw Basth glance at the skull.
"D'you know who that one was?"
"No Master."
"That was Kadawak. Sometimes I commune with his spirit."
Basth could see the ghostly outlines of a smile on the Master's lips.
"Men are blinded by their short spans, you see. For all their glory they cannot see what I see. D'you understand, Basth?"
"No, Master."
"Good. Now, help me with these slippers."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As she climbed out of the carriage, Simona shivered from the cold wind and glanced up at the awesome facade of Aeswiren III's palace. The pediment rose almost two hundred feet above her head. The pillars supporting it were twenty feet across. The steps, banked in tiers of forty, led to the great dark entrance.
Simona wore a full-length hooded black cloak and under it a double veil to ensure that her face would not be glimpsed by any man not of her family. She walked carefully up the stairs with her head bowed. To expose even a female ankle would be a grave breach of etiquette. The cold wind whipped across the staircases and tore at her cloak. Was it her imagination, or did she hear the voices of dead soldiers, calling from long-ago battlefields.
The great doors were shut against the cold. Huge men, clad in black and gold, stood on either side of a small door inset in one of the large ones. They studied her as she came close, then one of them rapped on the small door with his spear butt and it opened. Looking at the guard's brutal features for a moment, she thought of Rukkh, left behind in the new world. She supposed Rukkh would find some other woman. Probably one of a lower caste than she. They would have many children to populate the colony.
The air inside the great hall was warm and enveloped in hush. A massive black throne stood on a pedestal ten feet high, dominating the place.
During an imperial audience the Emperor sat on the black throne encased in a bulky suit of gold cloth. On his head he wore a blue turban, the color signifying Aeswiren's identification with the great Norgeeben.
The New Empire dynasty had been enormously popular because it brought to an end the ghastly madness of the final years of the previous dynasty. Norgeeben had ended the chaos, eliminated the corruption and brought back order and prosperity. However, though his successor Shmeg was a reasonable Emperor, unimaginative but steady, Shmeg's son was an idiot with a sadistic streak. Aeswiren's revolt and subsequent rise to the throne had been received with joy by the masses. Aeswiren had stood for unfettered markets in corn and wood, plus a reduction in subsidies to the priesthood. Aeswiren had brought stability and economic growth. No one had bothered raising a rebellion for more than eight years now.
Passing through the great hall again on her way to an appointment in the Emperor's private quarters, Simona recalled her first imperial audience very well. It had taken place very soon after they'd returned to Shasht, about three months before.
Then she'd trembled here on her knees beside her father while the Emperor took the message she'd
delivered from the Assenzi and broke the admiral's seal.
She'd waited for the angry order to take her away and kill her. Instead there had occurred the strange miracle of the message, as Simona had thought of it ever since.
For a long time there'd been nothing but silence. The Emperor had peered at the scroll with puzzled eyes. Then the Emperor gave a strange cry and beat his hand in the air. The guards looked up at once. But there had been only that one cry, the movement of the hand, and then silence. The Emperor continued to peer at the little scroll in his hand. The guards remained immobile.
The silence lengthened. The Emperor appeared frozen. No one dared to move. After perhaps an hour the mood broke suddenly. The Emperor gave a heavy sigh, rolled the scroll up, and put it aside.
Simona had braced herself again for the death sentence. But the words she actually heard took her by surprise.
"I will see the girl in my chamber. Alone. Now."
The glittering gold suit had risen from the throne, taken a slightly unsteady step or two, and then disappeared down the stairs behind the throne that lead to the Emperor's private office.
Trembling she had risen to her feet and followed a soldier in full-battle armor around the throne and into a small passage leading to a plain wooden door.
Inside, in a room furnished with chairs, desk, and a lovely Nisjani rug, she found the Emperor waiting for her. She had not expected such civilized treatment.
He grilled her, of course, but it was not the terrifying experience she might have imagined. In person the Emperor was nothing like his image from afar. He was not huge, merely sturdily built. His black beard was trimmed short, his hair, now grey was cut short as well. He was a kindly person, obviously intelligent, with careful, crafty eyes. They frequently crinkled to show that he was amused.
Rather than terrifying her, he behaved like a friendly parent. The whole experience astonished her.
"Do you know what was in the message?" was his first question as soon as they were together.
"No, Your Majesty, I have no idea."
"Good," he said, and ordered hot tea.
She discovered she liked the Emperor enormously. Aeswiren had been such a successful ruler because he could charm a lion out of its skin. The palace eunuchs said of him that he could catch trout just by talking with them for a little while in that special "gentle" voice of his.
She told him everything she could think of about the Land and the folk who dwelled in it. He listened and asked more questions, and in the end sent her away with words of affection.
Since that fateful day she'd come several times to see him, always in his private apartments.
The Emperor was fond of expensive rugs and furnishings, but beyond that he was not a greedy or ostentatious man. His private office boasted a different rug every time she visited.
Aeswiren was solidly built, a former soldier who fought to keep the flab off his body. Once he'd been a brutal man, and cruel to his enemies. But for more than twenty years he'd simply tried to govern his huge, polyglot empire. The job was too big for any one man, but he had to try. He was fortunate that his sense of humor had survived the transition from warlord to Emperor.
Now when she came to see him, she found him dressed in casual cotton pants and vest, usually with a black silk jacket. She was expected to bow deeply, but not to kneel. He would offer her tea from the tray kept constantly resupplied in the corner. Sometimes they would eat while they talked, but mostly they just talked. The foods they ate were very simple, for Aeswiren had plain tastes. Apart from his appetite for women and new rugs, Aeswiren had little interest in hedonism.
"Welcome, Simona of the Gsekk. Have some tea, it is freshly brewed."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, I would be honored."
"Good, good, tell me, how are your new quarters?"
The Emperor poured tea with a spirited expertise, keeping the pot a foot from the tiny cup and yet never missing or losing a splash.
"Wonderful, Your Majesty. My father asked me to express his boundless thanks for your kindness."
As indeed both Filek and Simona should, for they now inhabited a wonderful apartment on the upper floor of a three-story house in the imperial city. Being under the Emperor's favor had brought them a vast increase in status.
"Your father has an original mind, Simona. His work may outshine my own in the end."
"Surely not, Your Majesty?" The tea was hot and strong, as she'd expected. "Without tea," he had said to her on her first private audience, "I would have been overthrown many years ago. This empire runs on tea."
"Yes, dear, there have been twenty-three emperors, but there will only be one discoverer of medical science. My work will mostly die with me. But your father's work will inspire the world. Others will build on his discoveries. It may be the beginning of the climb back to the stars for our race."
"The stars, Your Majesty?"
"Yes, child, you heard me. There is nothing to limit our race now. We can attain the glories of the ancient time. Not overnight, not in our lifetimes, not even for hundreds of years, but your father is helping us put our feet back on that path."
"I know nothing of these things, Your Majesty."
"Yes, yes, of course, you say that, but I know you now, miss penny bright eyes. You understand me most of the time."
He rubbed his hands together and smiled.
"But now, to work. We talked last about the manner of their agriculture in the Land. I had many questions."
"Yes, Your Majesty, you always have many questions."
They both chuckled, enjoying the intimacy they had achieved despite the vast difference in their status.
"You described the land there as having abundant water. Pools, ponds, and fields deliberately flooded and then drained again."
"Yes, Your Majesty. They are called the 'watermots' because they work so much in water. They build weirs and dams to deepen the rivers and lakes. They channel the water wherever they want it."
"The principles of this way of farming are well understood. We have similar powers, and there are places in our own territories that employ the water in the same way. No, the difference lies elsewhere." Aeswiren sipped from his small white porcelain cup.
"They farm only in a small area, they leave much of the rest to wilderness?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. They farm on the bottomlands of the rivers, but not on the higher land, not at all."
"You say they have cities, that says they have a certain level of population. How do they feed themselves from so little arable land?"
"I asked a very similar question. They said they simply worked very hard. And the wild lands provided them with game all year-round."
"Hah, if only we could have the same." The Emperor put aside his cup and stood up and stretched. Now he paced up and down in bare feet on the lovely new Nisjani rug that had been put down this week. It had a delightfully firm but silky feel.
Simona had seen the Emperor pace like this on every visit. It was his way of marshaling his thoughts.
"You also mentioned a plant that is unknown to us in Shasht."
"There are many plants like that there. The forests are enormous."
"Yes, but they grow this plant for food."
"Oh, yes, Your Majesty, that is the plant they call 'waterbush.'"
"Waterbush, yes, and that is very productive, too."
"They revere the waterbush, Your Majesty."
"It tastes like toasted wheat bread you said."
"Sometimes, but other times it has no taste. They flavor it with eggs and fish and other things."
"And they grow the waterbush everywhere?"
"On the bottomlands. It needs a lot of water."
"Yes. And what else do they grow?"
"While I was living among the mots, I saw fields of oats and wheat. Their fields are small."
"Yes, you mentioned that before as well. So they restrain their use of the land. And no one objects?"
"According to those I spoke with it se
emed that all accepted the need for this way of doing things. They all share the bounty of game from the land, but they carefully manage their hunting to preserve the stock of game. They have seasons to hunt for the deer and the wildfowl, and everyone partakes of the feasts. Among the worst crimes, I was told, is that of the poacher."
"Yes, this is extraordinary. We have all the same rules and dreams, but in practice they have all failed us. Their culture seems built on the same foundations but to have become very different from our own."
"Yes, Your Majesty, it is."
He placed his hands together, palm to palm.
"And now that culture is being crushed and extirpated by my armies."
Simona could only bow and fight off a sob.
Aeswiren turned again and walked on the Nisjani rug.
"Well, I will have to do something to try and stop it, won't I?"
Simona fell on her knees in front of him.
"Oh, Your Majesty, I thank you with all my heart..."
"Yes, yes, child, get up now. I don't like that kind of thing in my private quarters." She rose up once more.
He was studying her with those careful, dark eyes. She saw him make a decision. The sight frightened her a little, as if she had glimpsed a place where enormity ruled and mere human beings were like ants.
"Come, I want to show you something. I'm going to ask you to take on a most formidable task."
Simona put on veil and hooded robe and followed the Emperor out of his private suite, down a public stair past guards on every landing and then to the ground floor of the palace. He turned to her and gave her that deep look again.
"Now prepare yourself for something quite remarkable."
A door opened before them, and they entered a cool, stone corridor. Another door lead to a narrow room and a stair that took them to a darkened gallery overlooking a large room below.
In that room sat a single figure. Wearing dun-brown trousers and a loose shirt of similar tone. At first Simona thought it was a woman with a shaved head. Then with a little shock she saw that it was a mor.
"Be very quiet," whispered Aeswiren. "She does not like to be watched." The Emperor motioned for them to take seats in the gallery. The stone felt cool to her body.
The Shasht War Page 19