The Enemy Papers

by Barry B. Longyear

  Ebneh stood upright. "But if the laws come from Aakva?"

  "Then either Aakva is fallible, or there is no Aakva. This I saw in the Story of Uhe."

  A terrible silence came down upon the temple. I rushed up to Shizumaat and grabbed it by the arm. "Think, Shizumaat! Think upon what you say!"

  Shizumaat pulled its arm away from my grasp. "I have thought upon it, Namndas. That is why I answered as I did."

  Ebneh pushed me away from the student. "Stand you away, Namndas, unless you choose eternity by the Madah Wall!" The servant was so angry spittle from its lips flew into my face. I was too frightened to wipe it away. Slowly Ebneh turned and faced Shizumaat. "Do you know what you will suffer because of your words?"

  The young one smiled. "Yes, Ebneh. I know the rules."

  "You know them, yet you scorn them?"

  "I do not scorn them. I question them. I question their source. I question their validity. I know the servants will beat me for what I have said; but I ask you this: will beating me prove the existence of Aakva and the truth of its laws?"

  The servant made a sound as though it was being strangled, then it ran from the Madah Wall, shouting orders as it hurried away. Shizumaat was to face the God of the Day Light.

  In the morning, with the Parent of All illuminating the eastern columns of the temple, I climbed the steps and found Shizumaat on its knees between the columns, its face resting against the paving stones. The stones were stained with the deep yellow of the student's blood. Shizumaat's eyes were closed, its chest heaving. Behind Shizumaat were two servants holding long whipping rods. Ebneh stood to Shizumaat's side and ordered, "Look up, Shizumaat. Look up!"

  Shizumaat placed its hands upon the blood-stained stones and pushed until it sat back upon its heels, the morning light of Aakva showing the gray of Shizumaat's face. "I am looking."

  "What do you see?"

  Shizumaat teetered for a moment, its eyes squinted, then it took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I see the great morning light we call Aakva."

  Ebneh bent over and hissed into the student's ear. "And is that light a god?"

  "I do not know. When you say 'god,' what do you mean?"

  "God! God is God! Are you stupid?"

  "A timely question, Ebneh. Quite timely."

  Ebneh grabbed Shizumaat's shoulder with one hand and pointed at Aakva with the other. "Is that the Parent of All?"

  Shizumaat's shoulders slumped and it slowly shook its head. "I do not know."

  "What does your back tell you, Shizumaat?"

  "My back tells me many things, Ebneh. It tells me that you are displeased with me; it tells me that live meat whipped with sufficient enthusiasm will split and bleed; it tells me that the process is painful." Shizumaat looked up at Ebneh. "It does not tell me that Aakva is a god; it does not tell me that the laws of the servants are sacred truths."

  Ebneh pointed at the two rod-carrying servants. "Lay into this one until its back does speak to it of Aakva!"

  One of the servants dropped its rod, turned, and walked into the temple. The other studied Shizumaat for a moment, and then handed its rod to Ebneh. "Shizumaat's back has learned all that a rod can teach it. Perhaps, Ebneh, you can think of a more persuasive argument." Then the second servant turned and went into the temple.

  Ebneh stared after the departing servant, then threw away the rod and looked down at Shizumaat. "Why do you defy Aakva? Why do you defy me?"

  "I do not defy either, Ebneh. I only tell the truth that I see. Would you prefer that I lie to you? Would that somehow serve your truth?"

  Ebneh shook its head. "You will shame your parent."

  Shizumaat bowed its head until Ebneh turned and stormed off into the temple. Then Shizumaat looked up at me. "Namndas, help me to your room. I cannot make it by myself."

  I pulled the student to its feet. "Do you not want me to take you to your own home?"

  Shizumaat laughed, although the effort pained it. "A beating in defense of my truth is one thing, Namndas. I am not up to my parent beating me because I was beaten. That seems a little overdone."

  Shizumaat closed its eyes and slumped into my arms. I lifted it and carried the student from the temple to my room off the square.

  When Shizumaat recovered, it again took its place on the Madah Wall with its class. I was surprised to see it there, yet even more surprised to see myself still charge-of-class. The only thing that changed was that Ebneh no longer took the recitations of the new students. The servant called Varrah took its place. Varrah heard Shizumaat's recitation as well as its individual discourse on the Laws of Aakva and the meaning of the Story of Uhe.

  The beating it had taken had not changed the words of Shizumaat's discourse by as much as a single grunt. Varrah, though, made no comment. Instead it listened, took the recitations of the other students, and then complimented me on the brilliance of my charges and the energy of their thinking.

  The terror of not knowing the safe path, it haunted me. My life, my future, was at stake. If by some lapse of the gods I should manage to graduate to the center of the temple, I would at least have food and a place to sleep when the years caught me. If the servants should cast me off, though, I might as well be hawking sand in the Madah. It was as though I could see the future, though. My charge Shizumaat would somehow put me between the servants and itself, and I could no longer keep myself clear. All I knew for certain, though, was that my heart would not allow Shizumaat ever again to be beaten.

  The days passed, and Shizumaat continued to ask questions and come to conclusions that delighted Varrah and horrified me as well as the rest of my charges. Varrah, though, encouraged Shizumaat to think and question, and soon all of us were thinking and speaking in new ways about new things. Once I told my charge that I believed that someday it would eventually change even the name the servants used to address the God of the Day Light.

  "Varrah is the key, Namndas, not I," Shizumaat answered. "Questions, new ideas, different ways of thinking, these come naturally. Varrah allows them to happen by not forbidding them."

  It was different, going to the Madah Wall, excited about what we would learn each morning, delighted to be part of Uhe's Temple, and eager to explore the future. Before the winter rains came, Varrah heard all of our recitations and moved our class off the Madah Wall and within the first row of columns. Varrah kept me as charge of the promoted class, even though I was still a student.

  The one lesson that hovered above me, though, waiting for the least-expected moment to inflict itself, was that everything changes. What is up will be down, what is light will be dark, what is happy will be sad, what is good will be found out and destroyed. Before the lesson, though, we investigated, challenged, and learned. As always, Shizumaat was our leader.

  Now that our class was in the second rectangle, Varrah told us that we must take what we had learned and apply it to the world outside the temple. "Learn what is, challenge it, and seek to improve or replace with something better."

  Some of the students were sent to the Denvedah to learn war. Some of the students were sent to the farms to learn growing. Some of the students were sent to the artisans, markets, and moneylenders to learn the ways of making, buying, and selling. Shizumaat and I were sent to the last of the nomads to learn the ways of the hunt.

  I complained to Shizumaat that we had drawn the assignment with the least opportunity. After all, the days of the nomads were over. The world was growing crops and livestock, and trading in markets for things manufactured by the artisans. Nomads created nothing, learned nothing, and made no knowledge upon which greater knowledge could be built. That was, I concluded, what kept the old tribes the same for thousands of years until Uhe shattered the world's ways of doing things.

  Shizumaat said to me, "Namndas, every person, place, and thing can teach us, if we have the wit to learn." And with that, we went to Shizumaat's aged parent. Caduah was pleased that Varrah had advanced Shizumaat with its class, and that the servant had such a high opinion of its ch
ild. We bid Caduah good-bye and struck out for the land of the Kuvedah where the last of the nomadic tribes still followed the darghat.

  When we climbed the step trail up the southern wall of the Great Cut ten days later, we stood upon the northernmost edge of the great plain of the Kudah. It was as flat as a griddle stone, thick with waist-high grasses, and dotted at great intervals by massive menosa trees. Shizumaat and I aimed our steps toward the south, stopping nights beneath the protection of the trees.

  In the dark, while I prepared a meal for us, Shizumaat would go out to study Aakva's children spread out above us on the blanket of night. On one such night, Shizumaat came back to the camp, took a brand from the fire, and said to me, "Namndas, I am going to walk toward the north with this flame. When the light from this brand seems the same size as the lights from Aakva's children, lift two brands above your head and wave them. Call my name, too."

  "What are you trying to see?" I asked.

  My fellow student only smiled and said, "Let me see it, first, then I will tell you what I saw."

  Shizumaat left, holding the burning stick above its head, and began walking toward the north. I studied the light, and did not let its flame leave my sight for more than an eyeblink. After one of those eyeblinks, though, I could not again pick out the flame from Aakva's Children low on the horizon. I lifted the brands, waved them, and called out Shizumaat's name. When it returned to the fire it brought with it a most fantastic, fascinating, and blasphemous idea.

  "Think of this, Namndas. If Aakva is a great fire circling our universe, and if Aakva's Children are still more fires but at great distances, is it not possible that they circle other universes? And those other universes, might they not contain their own living beings?" Shizumaat looked up at the night sky. "For these answers I would suffer much. To meet those beings, see them, touch their thoughts, I would exchange my life."

  I looked up and studied Aakva's Children, and thought that the Sindie would lose much if Shizumaat's idea was true. If it was true, then the child that was placed in the night sky by Aakva for me was neither placed in the sky by Aakva nor was it for me. I looked back at Shizumaat, and asked, "How will you argue this before the servants? What will you use for proof?"

  "Short of growing the wings that can take me before Aakva and its Children, I do not know. I will keep myself open to an idea."

  After nineteen day's walking south, we met a Kuvedah hunting party. Its servant, Gatu, gave us directions to the tribal camp and the tent of Buna, the tribe's chief of servants. Gatu said that the chief of the tribe, Kangar, Master of Masters, was near its death, and that Buna ruled in Kangar's stead.

  When we reached the camp, we saw the skin tents crowding both banks of a stream in a grove of menosa trees. We were directed to Buna's tent, offered our respects, and were welcomed inside.

  Buna was very old and wore skins instead of cloth. Its skins were hooded over its head as though it could not keep warm. The chief of servants listened as we related Varrah's charge to us. "A very wise one, your teacher," said Buna. "The knowledge one acquires with the hands carries greater truths than the kind one acquires by exploring the inside of one's own head."

  We were shown where to put up our shelter, and when that was done, it was evening and we gathered with the others in the camp to watch the return of the hunters. Buna stood with us and in a low voice told us the significance of what we were seeing. "The tall hunter with the scar down its left arm, it is Haruda, the leader of the hunt and the greatest hunter of the Kuvedah."

  "Haruda carries no game," Shizumaat observed.

  Buna nodded. "That is because Haruda is the one who got the kills. It is for those who killed nothing to carry in Haruda's kills."

  "Buna, why is Haruda's success at the hunt so much greater than the others this day?"

  "It is the same all days, Shizumaat. Haruda is a great hunter."

  "What does Haruda do differently?" I asked.

  Buna held back the edge of its hood with one hand and peered at me. "Friend Namndas, it is a god-gift to Haruda."

  "But," I insisted, "what does Haruda do?"

  The old chief of servants grinned and said, "This is why you two are here, yes?" Upon that, Buna retired to a treegrove to meditate and give thanks to Aakva for the success of Haruda's hunt.

  I felt Shizumaat pull on my skins as it said, "Come, Namndas. Let us answer your question." Shizumaat and I followed Haruda and watched as the hunter barked orders at the less successful hunters and supervised the distribution of the game to the cookers and smokers. When Haruda was finished, it sat before its hut and began to clean its weapons and examine their stone points in case they needed dressing. Haruda looked up at the pair of us and said, "There are questions in your eyes, strangers."

  "Yes," answered Shizumaat. My friend introduced both of us to the hunter and Haruda nodded at a place before it. We sat and the hunter said, "Let us hear your first question."

  Then my friend asked a question that surprised me. "Haruda," began Shizumaat, "the size of the kill you return with every day; it could make you master of this tribe's clan masters. Your ability to fill the mouths of the Kuvedah could fill your hands with power. Yet you remain a hunter. Why are you not the Kuvedah's master of masters?"

  Haruda studied Shizumaat, then laughed. "Is it your mind that my success at hunting would also make me a success at ruling the Kuvedah?"

  Shizumaat thought. "No. It would not make you a success at ruling the tribe. Nevertheless, it is common to see those who turn the thing they can do into a means to force others to make them something they cannot do so well, but for which they will be well rewarded."

  The hunter shook its head. "I do no such thing."

  "Still, you could force your rule upon the tribe if you wanted. Is it simply that you do not want to rule?"

  The great hunter looked up from dressing a stone point and frowned at Shizumaat. "I am what I want to be, young one. The path to my happiness does not cross that of either Kangar's or Buna's. I have no desire to rule."

  Shizumaat thought some more. "Haruda, do you not think that one graced with a godly gift is meant to rule, rather than grub for food?" I looked at my friend as though Shizumaat had gone mad. Why was it baiting this great hunter?

  Haruda stood and its skin changed from yellow to red-brown. "I hunt, young one with all the questions. I do not grub. And my skill at hunting I earned. It is no gift."

  "One more question, Haruda." I was torn between wanting to run from the hunter's presence and strangling my friend.

  "Be quick," ordered Haruda.

  "If your skill at hunting is no gift, what then do you do differently? Why do the other hunters bring in so much less game?"

  "They have their ways, and I have mine. My ways are better." Tired of the questions, at last, the hunter stood, turned, and entered its hut.

  Silently cursing Shizumaat for offending Haruda, I waited until we returned to our shelter. A food preparer brought us some cooked meat, and by the time we had finished eating, my anger had passed. Still, when we stretched out to go to sleep, I asked, "Why did you question Haruda in that manner? Most of the things you asked had nothing to do with hunting."

  "No, Namndas, but they did have everything to do with the hunter."

  "What do you mean, Shizumaat?"

  "Now I know Haruda. I can now put aside studying Haruda and can concentrate my study upon what Haruda does."

  Before Aakva's light touched the sky, the hunters began stirring. We ate cold cakes and drank leaf tea with them and Shizumaat went to Buna and begged for us to be allowed to accompany the hunters. Buna laughed at Shizumaat. "The hunt is difficult enough without being burdened with two youths who never ran the grass."

  "Namndas and I are to be denied this experience because we have no experience?"

  "Yes," answered Buna.

  Feeling as though I should say something, I said, "But to get experience don't we need to experience the experience?" Each word that came out of my mouth sounde
d more stupid than the one that preceded it. I was cursing my mouth when Shizumaat nodded approvingly at me.

  "Very well said, my friend."

  "Impossible," said Buna, despite my pithy argument.

  "I will take the pair of them with me," said Haruda. We turned and looked. The chief of the hunt had been listening to us.

  Buna frowned, yet its lips seemed eager to smile. "Haruda, we rely upon your skill now more than ever that the game has thinned. These young ones would hamper you, would they not?"

  Haruda turned from Buna and looked through the tent opening at the other hunters as they packed their food and weapons for the hunt. "Many times I have claimed to be able to teach my hunting ways to the other hunters. Just as many times, they have all said that it is a god gift, and continued to bring in less each season. It is my intention to take these two soft temple creatures with me on the hunt, and by dark the tribe will proclaim Shizumaat and Namndas next to me as the greatest hunters on the Kudah. Perhaps then the other hunters will allow me to show them what I know."