Ilisidi was vastly pleased with herself. Babsidi was fidgeting about, anxious in the fire, and the last of their party, two of Tabini’s security, were still trying to get aboard when Ilisidi set Babsidi at the downward slope, straight out for the threatened grassland.
He looked back, not sure the last two were going to get up at all, but they’d made it, scarcely—drivers were getting back in the cars to pull them out, so far as he could tell, safe from the fires.
But he had the slope in front of him and his hands full—cut off abruptly as Cenedi’s mecheita insisted on maintaining second-rank position with Ilisidi’s, that being the established order, and Nokhada fought with one thought in her mecheita brain: getting up there and taking a piece out of any mecheita in her way to Babsidi, which he wasn’t going to allow, dammit. He thumped her on the shoulder with his foot, held on with a sore arm, and held her back to give precedence to Tabini’s beast as they moved out.
It wasn’t the way the mecheiti understood the precedence to be, and it necessitated fits of temper, nips, squalls, kicks and threats as they reached a place to spread out.
It wasn’t the way Hanks would have had it, either—she yelled after him, until someone must have told her her life was in danger.
Himself, he kept Nokhada back from Ilisidi and Tabini as they rode, Nokhada having ideas of fighting her way up there.
But Cenedi dropped back and rode beside him a moment.
“These were members of an opposition,” Cenedi found it incumbent on him to say. “Those that surrendered go home. Tabini’s men will see to it. We were aware ’Sidi-ji was under suspicion.”
“I knew it wasn’t you,” he said. “Cenedi-ji, you have far more finesse. You wouldn’t have shot up the porcelains.”
“The lily,” Cenedi said, “the lily that Damiri-daja sent. That was a dire mistake on their part. Not to say we hadn’t almost persuaded Tatiseigi.” Cenedi’s mecheita was starting to fret, wanting to move forward in the column, and Nokhada gave a dangerously close toss of her head, nose much too near the other mecheita’s shoulder, but Cenedi was looking back at the moment. “Fire’s spreading. Damn, where are those planes?”
“They’re sending firefighting equipment?”
“Too much is diverted because of the trouble,” Cenedi said. “Which does us no service now. Hope the wind holds to the west.”
One devoutly did hope so. Cenedi moved back up with Ilisidi and Tabini, and Bren cast a look back—the stench of smoke was in his nostrils, but that was only what he carried on his clothes. The wind was still in their faces, retarding the fire so far.
But he became aware he could see the leaders—the light had grown that much. The grassland stretched out in front of them, a pale, colorless color, like mist or empty air, through which the foremost mecheiti struck their staying pace. When he looked back, the same no-color was there, too, with the shadows of riders following, but the east was a contrast of dark and a fiery seam across the night that would obscure any dawn behind the ridge.
Banichi overtook him. Jago also did, from the other side, company Nokhada tolerated.
“Algini’s all right,” was the first thing he thought to tell them. “I saw him.”
“We were talking to him, nadi,” Banichi said. “Tano was.”
He couldn’t always tell voices on the pocket-coms. He was relieved, all the same. Hanks had settled down, damned unhappy—his computer was a melted mess, he was sure of it.
Until Jago passed it across to him.
“It took one bullet,” Jago said. “I don’t know if it works.”
It might, at least, be made to. He slung its strap over his head, under his good arm.
He said, “Geigi’s got Hanks’. I need it. I’ll try just asking.”
“One believes the man wants your good will,” Banichi said. “A partisan of Geigi’s knew where she was. Geigi’s security simply walked in last night and took her—having credence with the opposition. And a very good Guild member also on his side.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Cenedi,” Jago said. “Of course.”
“But Ilisidi wasn’t responsible.” What they said upset his sense of who stood where. “She was on Tabini’s side. She is, isn’t she?”
“Lords have no man’chi,” Jago reminded him—the great ‘of course’ in any atevi dealing. “The dowager is for her own interests. And fools threatened them. Fools went much too far.”
“Fools attacked you,” Banichi said, “elevated Hanks, broke Tatiseigi’s porcelains and threatened what could be a very advantageous move for Tatiseigi, granted Tabini’s desire actually to have an Atigeini in the line. Fools doubted Tatiseigi’s commitment and thought, I believe, they might scare him.”
“I don’t think they did.”
“One doesn’t think so.” Banichi set his knees against the riding-pad and rose up slightly, taking a look behind and skyward.
“Not quite yet,” Bren said. “By the time the light is full. Then we can look. These things are very precise.”
“I was looking for planes,” Banichi said. Then: “The wind’s changing. Do you feel it?”
It was. He saw the stillness in the grass around them, which had been bending toward the fire.
“It’s not just when the lander comes down,” he said, with a rising sense of anxiety. “It’s where and when, in the firefront.”
“Naidiri’s carrying the chart,” Banichi said, and put his mecheita to a faster pace, leaving the two of them.
“How fast can it burn?” he asked. He’d seen the grasslands fires on the news. They happened. A front of fire, making its own weather as it went, creating its own wind.
“Not as fast as mecheiti can run,” Jago said. “But longer. They try to stop them.”
Dumping chemicals from the air.
The planes that hadn’t shown up. The cars that had left them had radio. The rangers had to be doing something.
God, they had hikers out. Tourists, out to see the lander parachute down.
The rangers already had their hands full. Picnic parties. Overland trekkers.
The light was growing more and more. The wind was decidedly out of the southeast, now, the grass starting to bend.
The smell of smoke came with it, distinct from that about his clothing. The mecheiti were growing anxious, and the ranks closed up. The seam of fire was very, very evident behind them.
But Ilisidi, astride Babs, held the lead and kept the pace. No mecheita would pass Babs—pull even, maybe, but not pass.
And the talk up there was …
“You could have said,” Tabini was saying. “You could have left a message.”
“Pish,” Ilisidi said. “Anyone would leave a message. I made no secret where I was going.”
“The place I least wanted you, nai-ji. Unfortunate gods, you have a knack for worst places!”
“I could have been aiji, grandson. All it wanted was a little encouragement. And you, damn your impudence, toss me from Taiben in my nightclothes—”
“You could have been dead, grandmother-ji! These are fools! Have you no taste?”
“Well, I certainly was not going to be your stand-in for a target, nadi. I assure you. You sent me Bren-paidhi. Was I not to assume this very handsome gift had meaning?”
“A foot in every damn province!”
“As I should! Who knows when you’ll stumble?”
“They regard you no more than they do me. They want the office under their hand. And you’d never do that, grandmother-ji. They’d turn on you as fast as not.”
“I’m not so forgiving as you, grandson of mine. My enemies don’t get such chances.”
“Oh? And how is Tatiseigi?”
“Oh, sitting in Taiben, having breakfast, I imagine—waiting for a civil phone call from a prospective relative.”
“I proposed an honorable union in the first place!”
“This is not a man to rush to judgment.”
As the wind gusted up their backs. As the li
ght grew in the sky.
“I tell you,” Ilisidi said, “this hacking up the land with roads is a pest, and they’re never where you want them. I told you I was against it. No, follow the precious, nasty roads, won’t they, Babs? Scare all the game in the countryside, rattle and clatter, clatter and rattle—game management, do you call it? Look, look there across the land. There are herds. I’ll warrant you saw none in your clanking about last night.”
“Unfortunate gods,” Tabini muttered. “Demons and my grandmother. Naidiri! Where are the damned planes? Call again!”
“They say they’re loading,” Naidiri said.
The herds in question were in general movement, traveling away from the fire, like themselves. Once in recorded history fire had swept clear to the sea, jumped the South Iron River and kept going until all the south range was burned.
The paidhi didn’t want to remember that detail.
“Look!” one of the hindmost said. “What’s that?”
Pointing up.
Atevi eyes were sharp. He could scarcely see it. He had to bring Nokhada to a stop, and others stopped.
“That’s it!” he said. It had a feeling of unreality to him. “That’s it! It’s coming in!”
Far, far up, and far in the distance and to the south. It wasn’t where, on the charts, they’d said.
“It loses us time,” Banichi said, “southward, in front of the fire.”
It was true.
But it was in sight. They could do it. They could make it—please God it came down soft.
23
There was one stream in kilometers all about, maybe within a day’s ride, and the lander found it—landed up to its hatch in water.
Draped all over in blue and red parachute.
And not a sign of life.
“Damn quiet,” Tabini said as they rode up on it. “Are they able to open the hatch, Bren-ji?”
“One would think,” he said. There was, unremitting, the smell of smoke on the wind. A glance to the side revealed the fires: a long, long line of black darkening the dawn.
They rode up on it, as far as the stream edge. It was pitted and scarred. And quiet. He urged Nokhada with his foot, and Nokhada laid back her ears and didn’t want to go until he started to get down—then she moved, waded down into the water.
Atevi weapons came out. All around him.
“Tabini-ma,” he said. “Banichi—”
“In case,” Tabini said, and Banichi urged his mecheita out, too, into chest-deep, silty water. They reached the side of the lander, mecheiti wading through an entangling billow of parachute.
Not just one chute.
Two.
Banichi leaned down and pounded with his fist on the hatch, the bottom edge of which was underwater.
Something inside thumped back. Twice.
And very slowly the hatch began to loosen its seal.
“Can you hear me?” Bren shouted. He didn’t think they could. And where the seal gave, water was surely going in.
A further gap. A flood. And the hatch folded back, dropped to the inside, in a small waterfall of incoming brown water—giving him two sweaty, scared, and very human faces.
Nokhada stuck her nose toward them and he reined her over with a wrench that half-killed his shoulder.
“Hello, there,” he said. “Better vacate.”
“Don’t believe him!” Hanks yelled from the shore.
“That’s Hanks,” he said. “I’m Bren. This is Banichi.” He suddenly realized he was smudged, sooted, and there was smoke on the wind.
The visitors to the world, with water risen over their couches, their stowed gear, and up to their waists, took a fearful look outside—at a dark sky, rolling smoke, and a batch of armed and suspicious riders on brass-tusked mecheiti.
Two mecheiti were still riderless.
“It’s perfectly all right,” Bren said. “They’ve got planes coming. They’re beginning to put the fire out. They swear to us.” He held out his hand, sooty, slightly bloodied, and shaking as it was, and put on his friendliest smile. “Welcome to the world. For the rest, you’ve got to trust me.”
Pronunciation
A=ah after most sounds; =ay after j; e=eh or =ay; i varies between ee(hh) (nearly a hiss) if final, and ee if not; o=oh and u=oo. Choose what sounds best.
-J is a sound between ch and zh; -ch=tch as in itch; -t should be almost indistinguishable from -d and vice versa. G as in go. -H after a consonant is a palatal (tongue on roof of mouth) as: paidhi=pait’-(h)ee.
The symbol ’ indicates a stop: a’e is thus two separate syllables, ah-ay; but ai is not; ai=English long i; ei=ay.
The word accent falls on the second syllable from the last if the vowel in that syllable is long or is followed by two consonants; third from end if otherwise: Ba’nichi (ch is a single letter in atevi script and does not count as two consonants); Tabi’ni (long by nature)—all words ending in -ini are -i’ni; Brominan’di (-nd=two consonants); mechei’ti because two vowels sounded as one vowel count as a long vowel. If confused, do what sounds best: you have a better than fifty percent chance of being right by that method, and the difference between an accented and unaccented syllable should be very slight, anyway.
Also, a foreign accent if at least intelligible can sound quite sexy.
Plurality: There are pluralities more specific than simply singular and more-than-one, such as a set of three, a thing taken by tens, and so on, which are indicated by endings on a word. The imprecise more-than-one is particularly chosen when dealing in diplomacy, speaking to children, or, for whichever reason, to the paidhi. In the nonspecific plural, words ending in -a usually go to -i; words ending in -i usually go to -iin. Ateva is, for instance, the singular, atevi the plural, and the adjectival or descriptive form.
Suffixes: -ji indicates intimacy when added to a name or goodwill when added to a title; -mai or -ma is far more reverential, with the same distinctions.
Terms of respect: nadi (sir/madam) attaches to a statement or request to be sure politeness is understood at all moments; nandi is added to a title to show respect for the dignity of the office. Respectful terms such as nadi or the title or personal name with -ji should be inserted at each separate address or request of a person unless there is an established intimacy or unless continued respect is clear within the conversation. Nadi or its equivalent should always be injected in any but the mildest objection; otherwise the statement should be taken as, at the least, brusque or abrupt, and possibly insulting. Pronunciation varies between nah’-dee (statement) and nan-dee’? (as the final word in a question).
There are pronouns that show gender. They are used for nouns which show gender, such as mother, father; or in situations of intimacy. The paidhi is advised to use the genderless pronouns as a general precaution.
Declension of sample noun
Singular Nonspecific plural
aiji Nominative aijiin Nom pl. Subject The aiji
aijiia Genitive aijiian Gen pl. Possession’s, The aiji’s
aiji Accusative aijiin Acc. Pl. Object of action (to/against) the aiji
aijiu Ablative aijiiu Abl. Pl. From, origins, specific preposition often omitted: (emanating from, by) the aiji
Glossary
Adjaiwaio a remote atevi population
Algini glum servant’s name, security agent
Alujis river Brominandi disputes re water rights
agoi’ingai felicitous numerical harmony
aiji lord of central association
aijiia aiji’s
Aishi’ditat Western Association
ateva, pl. atevi name of species
Babsidi “Lethal”; a mecheita
Banichi security agent
Barjida aiji of Shejidan during the War
basheigi universe, world, earth, environment, ecosystem
Bergid mountain range visible from Shejidan
Brominandi provincial governor, long-winded
baji Fortune
bihawa impulse to test newcome
rs
biichi-gi finesse in removing obstacles
bloodfeud principal means of social adjustment
bowing if done deeply, with hands on knees
chimati sida’ta fait accommpli; lit. the beast (is) cooked
daja lady
dajdi an alkaloid stimulant
Dajoshu township of Banichi’s origin
dahemidei a believer in the midei heresy
Didaini a province visible from Malguri
Dimagi an intoxicant
haronniin systems under stress, needing adjustment
hasdrawad lower house of atevi legislature
hata-mai it’s all right
hei of course
Ilisidi grandmother of Tabini
insheibi indiscreet, provoking attention
Intent, filing of legal notification to the victim of Feud
Jago security agent
kabiu “in the spirit of good traditional example”
Maidingi Lake Maidingi
Malguri estate at Lake Maidingi
mainaigi hormonally induced foolishness
Matiawa breed of Ilisidi’s horse
Moni servant of Bren
Mospheira human enclave on island; also name of island
Mosphei’ human language
machimi historical drama with humor and revenge
man’chi primary loyalty to association or leader
man’china grammatical form of man’chi
man’chini grammatical form of man’chi
mecheita riding animal
midarga an alkaloid stimulant, noxious to humans
midedeni a supporter of the midei heresy
midei a heresy regarding association
mishidi awkward, regarding others’ position
Nisebi province that allows processed meat
nadi mister
nadi-ji honored mister
nai’aijiin provincial lords, pl. form
nai’am I am
nai’danei you two are
na’itada refusing to be shaken
nai-ji respected person
naji Chance
nand’, nandi honorable
Nokhada “Feisty”; a mecheita
Invader Page 47