by Robyn Miller
“This Hadre and his father,” Irras said. “They must be very rich men to own all this. They surely cannot all live like this.”
“On the contrary …” a voice boomed from the far side of the chamber, “ours is but a humble estate.”
At once they were all on their feet, facing the newcomer—a handsome, elderly looking man with neat dark hair and a stern, patrician air. Yet even as that sternness registered on the mind, the old man smiled and, opening his arms, walked across and embraced Atrus warmly.
“Atrus! Friends and companions of Atrus! I am Jethhe Ro’Jethhe, and you are welcome to my house. Stay as long as you will. My home is your home.”
And with this little speech complete, he walked among them, taking hands or embracing them, coming to Marrim last.
“Young lady,” he said, with a slight bow of his head, as if he spoke to someone high above him in status. “I am indeed most pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Marrim, both delighted and embarrassed by the sudden attention, ducked her head down, feeling a faint flush come to her neck.
And then it was Atrus’s turn to thank Hadre’s father for his hospitality.
“Think nothing of it,” Ro’Jethhe said, with a lazy gesture of dismissal. “I am sure you would do the same were we the visitors and you the hosts.”
Atrus smiled. “Indeed we would.”
The old man’s smile encompassed them all. “Well, then. So it is.” Then, turning to Irras. “But forgive me my rudeness, Master Irras. You asked a question, and I gave you but a partial answer. Come then, let us all be seated once more, and I shall answer all your questions.”
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN FINALLY JETHHE Ro’Jethhe clapped his hands and stood.
“Kaaru! Show my guests to their rooms!”
At once his servant was at his back, waiting to do his bidding. Turning to Atrus, Ro’Jethhe smiled. “You have traveled far, my friends. I am sure you will wish to bathe and change your clothes before tonight’s entertainment.”
“Entertainment?” Atrus sat forward. It was the first time Ro’Jethhe had mentioned it.
“Oh, it’s nothing much. A simple thing. A few friends—local landowners—will be invited. And my sons, of course. It will be a chance for you to meet everyone.”
Atrus smiled. “We thank you, Jethhe Ro’Jethhe, for your kindness.”
“Not at all,” the old man said, looking about him and smiling. “I am glad you are here, Atrus. You and all your party. And remember, whatever you want, you have only to ask.”
The two men bowed to one another, then Ro’Jethhe turned and swept from the room, his son hurrying to catch him up.
THE BEDROOM, LIKE ALL ELSE, WAS MASSIVE. A huge bed—big enough, it seemed, to sleep a small village—rested in the center of a huge, high-ceilinged room. Here the pillars were thick, eight-sided things of a midnight basalt. Eight of them formed an octagon about the center of that long and airy chamber, thrusting up out of a floor that was made of wood, the broad slats of which were coated with a fine dark red lacquer inset with all manner of ingenious patterns. The partition doors were huge, paneled things, set into walls so thick they reminded Atrus of a fortress he had visited once on an ancient D’ni Age. Most impressive of all, however, was the wide balcony that led off of the room, and gave a perfect view of the surrounding countryside.
A fine silk hanging of pale lemon and blue shimmered in the late afternoon breeze as Catherine stepped beneath it and out onto the stone flags of the balcony.
“Atrus …”
He stepped through, joining her there at the balustrade, the two of them silent a moment as they stared out across the sloping lawns toward a copse of trees; no tree the same, the combination of colorings and textures a delight to the eye. A strange bird called, high and sweet.
Threading her arm through his, Catherine smiled up at him. “Have you ever dreamt of such a place, Atrus?”
“No,” he said. “My mind reels before it, Catherine. To think that it is all like this.”
For Jethhe Ro’Jethhe had told them that far from being a rich man, he was but a common citizen, and that there were many—the governor of the district among them—who lived in a far more palatial manner, though how that could be Atrus could not imagine, for this was luxury beyond anything he had ever experienced. Moreover, Ro’Jethhe himself had proved an intelligent and witty man, immensely cultured, quick to understand, and always generous in his comments. Atrus had warmed to him at once.
Even so, it was hard to take in much of what Ro’Jethhe said, and had Atrus not already had that glimpse of the land from the plateau, he might have counted it as boastful. Was this place really as big as Ro’Jethhe claimed? Two hundred million citizens! It was difficult to imagine, even though he had seen how the land stretched away from horizon to horizon. Why, if they all lived like this, then the wealth of this land must be truly phenomenal. D’ni, even at its height, was as nothing beside it.
While they bathed and changed, Catherine and Atrus talked further of what they had learned from Jethhe Ro’Jethhe.
Terahnee was ruled by a king, supported by a council of advisers, under which were the district governors. Yet astonishingly enough, despite the size of the kingdom, there was no equivalent of the Guild of Maintainers. No one policed Terahnee because no one needed to. It was that, more than anything else that they had seen or heard, that most impressed Atrus, for to him it revealed the high moral standard this culture had attained.
This was a land without wars, or theft, or fraud.
“All this …” Atrus said, gesturing at the mosaics, the statuary, and all the other innumerable beautiful things that surrounded them. “All of this is quite remarkable, yet without a moral depth it is nothing. The true, defining mark of a civilization is how its people treat each other.”
“They have servants …” Catherine began.
“Yes, but they clearly treat them well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Kaaru and Jaad might bow their heads before their masters, yet there is nothing servile about them. Indeed, I sense an air of great pride about them.”
“Do you not find that strange, Atrus?”
“In a land such as this? No. Some must work while others plan and organize the work. So it is in all societies. So it was to a degree in D’ni.”
“To a degree.” But Catherine left it there. Besides, she was not really in disagreement with Atrus. To keep a world this beautiful must take a great deal of organizing. And Atrus was right. She had never before met with such servants.
Changing tack, she asked another question that had been playing on her mind.
“Atrus? Do you think they are your kin?”
“D’ni, you mean?”
“Yes. There is the common language, after all …”
“That might have been acquired, or shared, maybe, back in the distant past. It’s possible this was an Age that, losing its connection with D’ni, went its own way.”
“Do you think so?”
“I’d say it was highly likely. For one, they do not share the visual weakness of the D’ni. As far as I have seen, they wear no lenses. And the style in which they build … it is as different from the D’ni as it could possibly be. Their extensive use of wood, for instance.”
“True,” Catherine said, “but that can be easily explained. In D’ni they had no trees. Here there are millions of them—thousands of millions. Besides, over millennia societies take different paths. We should expect such differences.”
“Maybe so,” Atrus said, pulling on a silken jacket that had been left out on the bed for him, “but until I know for certain that there is a link, I will not assume one. The fact that they speak a version of our language proves nothing.”
Catherine was about to pursue the subject when there was a knocking at the door.
“Come!” Atrus said, turning to face the doorway.
But it was only Marrim, Irras, and Carrad. They spilled into the room, all smiles and excitement.
“Mast
er Atrus!” Irras said. “There’s a library!”
“It’s huge!” Carrad added, as they left the room and hurried down a long, broad corridor, the ceiling of which seemed like the bottom of a well it was so far above them.
“And the books!” Marrim added. “You’ve never seen anything like it!”
Atrus smiled at that last, yet when he stepped into the deeply recessed doorway, he stopped dead, astonished.
The library was not a single room, as he’d expected. Indeed, it was not a room at all, but a great hall, with, just beyond it, a second and even a third hall, the walls of which were filled, floor to high ceiling, with books—endless leather-bound books. Enough, it seemed, to fill D’ni!
“And these are simple landowners?” Catherine said, voicing his own thought.
“Atrus?”
Atrus turned, surprised, to find Hadre there behind him in the doorway.
“Forgive us, Hadre. We did not mean to pry.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Hadre said, smiling and gesturing that they should go through, into the library. “Whatever you wish to see. As my father said, our home is yours while you stay with us.”
“You are both most generous.”
“Not at all,” Hadre said. “My people love to share the things of the mind. We are great lovers of books. As I sense you are.”
He clapped his hands and at once a servant appeared in the doorway to their right. It was not Kaaru or Jaad this time but a much older man. Even so, he wore a similar wine-red cloth, and had the same silver hair, the same striped markings beneath his right ear.
“Master?”
“You will not be needed, Duura. I will see to my guests myself.”
“As you wish, Master.” And with a bow, Duura departed.
“So?” Hadre said, looking to Atrus, smiling once more. “Where would you like to start?”
THE LIBRARY WAS NOT THE ONLY WONDER IN the house. Catherine’s favorite was a great hall of glass partitions filled with the most astonishing plants—in effect, a massive indoor greenhouse, whose levels and separate chambers were each lit at different times of the day from a great lens of a window that was set into the ceiling of the chamber. One could climb within the mazelike chamber into rooms, the floors and walls of which were solid glass, permitting you to believe you walked within a lush, exotic jungle, the air intoxicatingly sweet, the light like that of the primal forest on an untouched world.
Beyond that, and in total contrast, was a long gallery, the light within which seemed to have filtered down through the long centuries. There, to either side, in three long rows on walls that seemed to go on endlessly, hung what seemed like a thousand life-size portraits.
“These,” Hadre said proudly, “were Ro’Jethhe.”
Staring at them, at those endless variations on the same face, Atrus understood at last just how old this place really was, for all of these men had in turn been master of this house. This long, unbroken chain of fathers and sons spoke more eloquently than anything of the durability of this society.
“You say all of these were Ro’Jethhe,” Atrus said. “Was that their name, or their title?”
Hadre turned to him and smiled. “When they were younger they had other names—names their mothers gave them, just as my brother Eedrah and I have names. But when it was their time, each lost that name. You understand?”
Catherine nodded. “So you, in turn, will be …”
“Ro’Jethhe.” He smiled. “But that will be many years from now. My father is in the prime of his life.”
“Your people live a long time, then?” Atrus asked.
“Long enough,” Hadre answered.
“A hundred years?” Catherine asked, knowing, because she had asked him earlier, that Terahnee’s year was not dissimilar to D’ni’s.
Hadre laughed at that. “No. My father is almost two hundred years old.”
“Ahh …” Catherine met Atrus’s eyes, the faintest flicker of a smile in her own, as if some point had been proven.
A bell rang, deep and low, its tolling seeming to come from the very foundations of the great building. Hearing it, Hadre turned to them and, bowing low, made his apologies.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but I must leave you now. Until this evening …”
Hadre made to leave, then turned back. “Oh … and you will be pleased to learn that we shall be having a special guest at this evening’s entertainment. The district governor will be attending. He has expressed great interest in meeting you.”
And with that he turned and hurried from the room.
“Well …” Catherine said, then fell silent, noticing the servant standing to one side of them. She was sure he had not been there a moment before.
“If you would follow me,” the man said, inclining his head, “I shall show you to your rooms.”
Atrus looked to Catherine, his surprise mirroring her own, then he shrugged. “All right,” he said, glancing once more at the long line of Ro’Jethhe ancestors that filled the walls on every side. “Lead on.”
THE BOAT MOVED SWIFTLY, SILENTLY BENEATH the pearled moon, the land mysteriously veiled in silver light. From where he sat in its prow, Atrus turned and looked back, past Catherine and Hadre, toward the receding whiteness of the house.
He had assumed the evening’s festivities would take place in Ro’Jethhe, but on arriving downstairs at the appointed hour, they were greeted by Hadre with the news that they were all to meet up at the amphitheater, which was to the north of the house.
And so here they were, gliding along through countryside as beautiful as anything they’d seen, the stream, which had broadened to a river, winding gently through the folded hills.
In the stern of the boat, Marrim sat among the young men—Carrad and Irras, Oma and Esel—the same look of wonderment on every face. It was their habit to talk as they journeyed—to discuss things endlessly—but the beauty of the evening had robbed them all of their tongues.
Atrus looked down, smiling, knowing that he felt no less. He had been here less than a day, yet already he was half in love with this strange and wonderful land. Of all the Ages he had traveled to, none came close to comparing with this, and, not for the first time, he began to wonder who had written such a world; who had crafted the physical characteristics that had permitted such a place to develop—for if he knew anything about writing, it was that, ultimately, geography determined an Age’s social structures. He would study the Book even more—surely it was written by a master of masters.
What then had happened here to create such idyllic circumstances? Was it merely the placidity of the weather, the richness of the soil, the unchanging sameness of the place that had allowed such a society to develop? Or were the decisions of men—men like himself—to account for this perfect orderliness, this astonishing flowering of a civilization?
He did not know—nor, to be truthful, did he really wish to. And that in itself was strange, for never before had he felt the edge of his curiosity blunted in this manner. Catherine, too, he knew, was happy to take things as they were, to let the flow of things carry her along.
As now, he thought, conscious of the silent movement of the boat beneath him. As the boat turned a bend in the river, his eyes caught sight of the terraced hillside just ahead of them, the levels of that terrace hollowed out in places and filled with water, so that the whole hillside was a pattern of deep shadow and brilliant, silvered light, forming the silhouette of a face—the face of a beautiful young woman.
There was a murmur of appreciation from the stern of the boat, and then a tiny gasp of surprise, for as the boat moved on, changing direction slightly, so the pattern of light and dark changed. And now the silhouette of a young man was revealed, staring back, as if at the young lady who had so briefly appeared and then vanished once more.
“Ingenious,” Atrus said. “Quite ingenious.”
“It is an old design,” Hadre said, playing down Atrus’s praise, “but popular.”
“Are the
re many such designs?” Oma asked.
Hadre turned and smiled at the younger man. “Very many. In fact, you passed some earlier in the day, but they are far less easy to discern in the glare of daylight.”
“And the water … how do you get the water there?” Esel asked, frowning heavily.
But Hadre had turned back to Atrus. “It is not far now, Ro’Atrus,” he said. “The amphitheater marks the boundary between our lands and that of our neighbor, Ro’Hedrath. You will meet him, and his son, Juurtyri. Juurtyri, Eedrah, and I shared a tutor when we were younger.”
Catherine, who had been sitting quietly throughout, now said, “You mentioned your brother earlier. Will he be there tonight?”
Hadre turned slightly, meeting her eyes. “He has been away, but tonight he will return.” Hadre paused. “He has not been well….” Then, smiling, “But come, we are almost there.”
AS THE MUSICIANS FINISHED, MARRIM RAISED her head and sighed. She had never heard anything like it. At first she had not understood or liked the strangely dissonant sounds with which the composition had begun, nor the oddly mathematical patterns in which it was arranged, yet as it developed and those wonderful harmonies had begun to overlay that basic pattern, she had found herself not merely moved but thrilled by the passionate complexity of the music.
Clever, she thought, then corrected herself. No, not clever, remarkable.
So remarkable that, while the music had been playing, she had completely forgotten where she was. And that really was amazing.
When the boat had first entered the amphitheater, gliding beneath a series of low arches, she had smiled, pleased by the way the raised bowl at the center of the amphitheater resembled a giant petal. Yet even as the boat had slowed, following a spiral twist about the center, the walls surrounding the amphitheater had seemed to shimmer and dissolve into a kind of mist. Marrim had stared, not understanding, then had clapped her hands with delight, for the walls had changed in that instant into a continuous waterfall that completely surrounded the amphitheater, the crystal water tumbling into the deep moat that ran around the shell-like structure.