Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

by Stephen Lawhead

  “Yes, very puzzling. I don’t know what to make of it. It is said the Dhogs still worship Cynetics.” He shrugged. “Well, we will find out—a Rumon always finds out.” Cejka looked around him; across the terrace several people were milling aimlessly. He leaned close to Tvrdy and said, “We had better leave now. We are beginning to attract attention. I think I recognize one of Hladik’s so-called Invisibles over there.”

  “Yes. Well, contact me as soon as you find out the intruders’ whereabouts. We must work quickly if we want to save the information; otherwise the psilobe will destroy it.”

  “Of course,” said Cejka, moving off along the rim, signaling for his guides to lead him away. “I’ll contact you as soon as we have found them.”

  Tvrdy remained gazing out over the colony’s terraces for a time—until his own guides approached to lead him back to Tanais Hage.

  SIXTEEN

  “Where are you from, Hageman?” The man working beside him straightened, pushing back the brown hood to reveal a thin face twitching with curiosity.

  “What?” Pizzle straightened too, feeling sharp stabs of pain in his lower back. They had been working for hours in the stinking muck, raking the thickened crust over to let the air get at the still-wet sludge beneath. “Ow!” He dropped his rake and rubbed his back.

  “I’ve not seen you here before,” the man said. “You’re new to the Hage?”

  Pizzle stared blankly at his co-worker. Other brown-hooded workers gathered around, staring and mumbling, eyes bright with questions. They waited for him to say something. He dragged a sleeve across his forehead, wondering what to say to them.

  Fields of dun-colored sludge, arranged in rice-paddy style—in terraces, one above another—surrounded him on every side. Above, so high above as to form a sparkling, crystalline sky, the dome stretched its inconceivable canopy over them, its dark-veined facets glinting as the sun struck their surface. How many times had he watched the glimmer of sun rays play across the planes of the dome?

  All his life, apparently.

  “He makes no answer, Nendl. Why?” asked a worker, poking the man next to him. “Too proud to work the night soil?”

  This caused a murmur among the others. Some nodded and others remained leaning on their wide rakes, staring at him, trying to make up their minds about him. Nendl shrugged and said, “It makes no difference. He wears the brown hood of the Jamuna. Wherever he comes from, he is one of us now. We will accept him and his pride.” The thin-faced man took up his rake once more. “This field must be finished before allotment. I would not have the priests angry with us—my stomach suffers enough.”

  Pizzle watched this exchange and, strangely, understood what had taken place, though the words spoken were unfamiliar. Not a foreign language, exactly—the cadence and sound patterns he understood. But the words themselves were blurred, just slightly twisted so that clarity remained elusive.

  He pondered this as the others turned away and went back to work, then stopped to retrieve his rake, pulling its handle from the mire and wiping his hands on his rump. He drew the tool over the crusted muck, thinking, trying to remember what had happened to him.

  He had awakened after a sleep—long or short he could not tell—and had dressed himself. A red-hooded man had come for him then, and after a long journey through many winding tunnels he had been handed over to a man in a yos like his own, black with a brown hood and a wide brown stripe at the hem. He had been led out from the small, featureless room, through a low tunnel that curved as it went down. They had emerged from the tunnel onto tiers of fields. A rake had been pushed into his hand, and he had followed the other workers out into the field.

  At first the acrid fumes rising from the fields of sludge had almost choked him. But he had gradually become numb to the stench, and as he watched the others he remembered what to do with the rake in his hands. Then he had fallen into the rhythm of raking, walking, raking, walking …

  That was all he could remember. Had he always lived among the Jamuna? Where had that word come from? Oh yes, Nendl had said it. The Jamuna, yes.

  Thinking about these things, the effort to remember, made his head hurt. Remembering is important, a voice deep inside told him. Yes, perhaps. Perhaps remembering was important, but it was hard work and it hurt. Forgetting was painless, and it was easier—easier to let the fuzziness that wrapped his mind in its gentle fog take away all memory.

  The plaza was surrounded on three sides by brightly-colored stalls, and on the fourth by a low, ridgelike hump of grass. Beyond the plaza, stacked terraces rose up on every side, their broad, curving arcs stepping away into the distance to tower above the tall, finger-thin trees ringing the square.

  Vendors hovered around the stalls, hawking their merchandise to anyone who wandered near. And although the plaza was filled with people—wandering aimlessly in groups of three or more, or sitting in clusters on the pavement—no one seemed interested in buying. All just looked politely and moved on.

  Yarden, watching the thronging plaza from her place on the grassy ridge, wondered what the vendors sold in their stalls. Why did no one stop to buy? She turned to the young man sitting next to her, and asked, “Bela, will you take me down there?” She nodded toward the stalls.

  Languid, long-limbed Bela, his hands clasped behind his head, raised himself up just enough to see where she meant. “Down there? Why?”

  “I want to see what they sell. Take me please.”

  “Take you? You’re free to go. You don’t need my permission.”

  “Director Luks said—”

  “Subdirector Luks is an old mother. The Chryse go where they will and do what they please—that’s how art is made. Luks and his kind will never understand.” He cocked a round blue eye at her. “But you want to go?”

  “Yes.” Yarden bobbed her head.

  “All right.” Bela stood up and began ambling down toward the plaza. At the foot of the mound he paused and called back to the others, a group of fifteen or so, still gathered on the grass. “Give me a few minutes at the stalls and then come down. We’ll do Rain and Wind for the crowds before allotment.”

  “Rain and wind?” Yarden asked as they walked across the saw-tooth-patterned bricks to the stalls. The speech of the people around her still sometimes confused her, but comprehension was fast returning. How could she ever have forgotten?

  “It’s a simple mime.” He glanced at her puckered brow. “Don’t worry. Just watch what we do and imitate. Nothing to it.”

  “Oh.” Yarden accepted his reassurance and shifted her attention to the stalls. There were several of them directly ahead; tentlike structures all in different colors: red, blue, gold, violet and some in bold stripes and splotches. Each stall was open in the front and the merchandise arrayed on low shelves within. The merchants stood wheedling before their stalls, trying to convince indifferent browsers to step inside for a closer look at their wares.

  The first stall they came to offered bowls of various sizes, some ornamented and others plain. Yarden looked at the bowls quickly and then went on to the next stall, where she saw miniature tables covered with highly-polished disks arranged in formal designs. The objects seemed familiar, though she could not remember their use.

  “Bela, what are they?” she whispered.

  “Those? Tuebla pieces.”

  “A game?”

  “Very good! You see?—it’s all coming back. You’ll be teaching me soon.”

  The vendor made a move to join them, waving his arms as if to pull them inside. Bela shook his head and pushed her along.

  The next stall, blue with bright yellow splotches like sunspots, offered lengths of cloth in various colors and designs. A woman in a black yos with the sky-blue hood and single diagonal blue stripe of the Bolbe stepped up beside Yarden. “You like my cloth—I can tell. A Chryse knows good craft, seh? Here—” She lifted a length and handed it to Yarden. “Feel the quality of it. Much better than you get in allotment. You see?”

  Yarden fe
lt the cool, satiny smoothness as she ran her hands over the folds of scarlet cloth. “It’s very nice,” she agreed.

  “Do you sew? Of course, you do—you’re Chryse, after all. You could make a nice Hage robe. With your dark hair—beautiful! Or if you like …” The woman leaned close, whispered, “I know someone who would sew anything you wished. Very reasonable, too. Needs the work—she’s trying to become a tailor.”

  Confusion swept over Yarden; the woman’s voice became a buzz in her ears. She stared at the deep red cloth in her hands and at the vendor, feeling lost and unable to think clearly.

  Bela, who had been watching the interaction closely, saw her distress and stepped in. “Can’t you see that she’s been in reorientation? Leave her alone!”

  The woman’s eyes darted from one to the other of them.

  “Please,” said Yarden, coming to herself again. “I—it’s all right.” She turned to the vendor. “I like the cloth. How much?”

  Bela nodded to the woman, who withdrew a slender pen-shaped probe from the folds of her yos. “Normally fifty shares—” She glanced quickly at Bela, who shook his head, and then added, “But I think thirty would be enough.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Yarden.

  The woman stepped close. “You’ve made a very good choice.” She placed a hand on Yarden’s arm and raised the probe.

  Yarden saw the probe come close, its point glowing bright red. “No!” She jerked her arm from the woman’s grasp and backed away.

  “She just wants to read your poak, Yarden,” explained Bela. “Remember? It won’t hurt you.”

  The woman smiled. “Exactly right. I just need to see your poak for a moment. The stylus won’t hurt you.”

  Muscles rigid, Yarden allowed the woman to raise the sleeve of her yos. The stylus came up, shining in the woman’s hand, and the glowing point brushed the brown skin of Yarden’s upper arm. The place where the instrument touched tingled for an instant, but that was all. She relaxed.

  “You try to cheat me?” the vendor suddenly yelled, her voice becoming shrill. People strolling by the stalls turned to look.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Bela. “Be quiet!”

  “She buys the cloth for thirty, but she has only ten shares in her poak!” She turned the blunt end of the stylus toward him so that he could read it. “What am I supposed to do for the rest?”

  “Be quiet will you? A Chryse does not cheat Bolbe vendors. Here—” He held up his sleeve. “Take thirty from me. I’ll buy it for her.”

  The woman wasted no time placing the probe against Bela’s arm, saying, “It’s very good cloth. It will look lovely on your Hagemate.”

  “Yes, yes,” snapped Bela impatiently. “You remember your manners—it could be you who is taken for reorientation next time. I should report you to your priests for discourtesy.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.” The cloth merchant whirled around and reached into a bundle and brought out a long, silver ribbon. “Here, a gift for you. For your beautiful hair.”

  Yarden accepted the gift silently. Bela took her arm and steered her from the stall to join the other members of the troupe who were now assembling in the center of the plaza. “A hair ribbon, seh? Very nice.”

  Yarden folded the bundle of scarlet cloth over her arm. “Thank you, Bela. I—”

  He cut her off, saying, “Those phat-eating drones of Luks! — they release you with only ten shares. Their heads are full of night soil! How do they expect a person to live on only ten shares?”

  “I will pay you back,” Yarden offered.

  “Forget it. I wanted to do it. Besides,” he gave her a broad smile and an exaggerated wink, “maybe you will wear your new Hage robe for me when you finish it, seh?” He laughed. Yarden smiled too and realized that she was very deep in Bela’s debt— just how deep she was only beginning to discover.

  SEVENTEEN

  He knew that he was being watched. Constantly. But in two—or was it three?—days of captivity, he, had not seen a single guard, and none of the people he had seen impressed Orion Treet. All were drably dressed and mouse shy. They watched him warily when they came into his cell—the barrier field across the door erased any doubt that he was indeed a prisoner and not a guest—and left with relief visible on their silent faces. He spoke to them, but they did not answer, nor did they seem to understand what he said. Their eyes remained dull; the spark that ignited intelligence failed to catch.

  His food, brought once a day and left in bowls, though satisfying enough, was bland—vegetables, mostly raw, without seasonings or spices: daikon, yucca, chayote, adzuki beans, nori, and a cheesy substance that looked like tofu. No meat of any kind.

  The water, in a wide-mouthed jug, tasted flat and quite stale, with that metallic flavor water takes on when left standing overnight in an open container. Treet drank it anyway when he got thirsty enough.

  Dull fare and stale water aside, the simple fact that he recognized most of the food he was offered gave him a tremendous psychological boost. At least his diet was not against him; here was a common bond, however tenuous, with Earth.

  Between feedings he sat on the bed, walked around the pie-shaped room swinging his arms, did a few light exercises to keep the blood flowing, and sang rude songs at the top of his lungs. All this failed, however, to keep him at the peak of mental alertness. Treet was used to a more stimulating existence, and wondered whether he could last any length of time in solitary confinement without losing his mind altogether.

  Therefore, he made the most of every opportunity to express his fundamental dissatisfaction with the terms of his confinement. Every time a visitor came into his cell—usually a food bearer, or the dingy little woman who brought clean bedding and fluffed up the rumpled bed every day—-Treet did his best to strike up a conversation. Never did he get a word out of any of them.

  Obviously, he thought, they had been instructed not to communicate with the foreign devil. That could well be—he sensed a certain fear when any of them entered his presence. He wondered what they had been told about him.

  Treet was sitting on his bed, munching a crunchy slice of jicama root, when the incessant insect buzz of the door’s barrier field cut out—a signal that someone was coming to see him. It was still too early for food service, and the maid had been in to change the sheets hours ago. This was something else then. Treet’s pulse quickened.

  Presently he heard footsteps in the adjoining room, and two men stepped into his cell. For a moment the two men merely looked at him, but from their long, unguarded glances Treet guessed that they were of a different order than the serving people he had met thus far. He returned their frank stares with one he hoped was equally frank, and remained sitting on the bed.

  Both men were wearing the black kimonos they all wore, but these had white sleeves and red hoods. From the way they stood—hands loosely at their sides, feet wide apart—Treet guessed they were prepared for anything. No doubt they had weapons concealed in the folds of their clothing.

  Treet had no thought of escape. Where would he run to? His only hope was that he might be allowed to make contact with someone in a position to help him. There had, he felt, been a monstrous misunderstanding at the landing field—to put it mildly. If he could only make someone understand that he was simply a traveler who had come in peace with greetings from their friends back on Earth, Treet was certain the difficulty could be cleared up straightaway.

  What he did not care to admit—although it was a thought seldom long from his mind—was that something had obviously happened to the colony. Something very wrong.

  The guard nearest him said something in an authoritarian tone of voice. Treet recognized some of the words, but they were changed subtly—as if the language had undergone a shift, though a shift toward or away from what, he couldn’t say. The words were smudged and blurred, slurred and warped in unexpected ways, although still vaguely recognizable.

  As Treet made no move to get up or answer, the man repeated
himself, raising his voice. It came to Treet then what his visitor’s speech was like: it was like listening to a foreigner trying to speak your mother tongue. A few words came out nearly right, others did not; the sounds were all stretched and puckered.

  Treet addressed the men, keeping his tone flat and even, though his heart beat a tattoo in his throat. “I am Orion Treet. There has been a mistake. I mean no one any harm. Please believe that. I am unarmed, and I wish to talk to your superior.”

  The two men looked at each other. One shrugged—it was such a human gesture that Treet knew they shared some kind of common ancestry. But what had happened to these people?

  “Come.” The red-hood nearest him gestured toward the door.

  Treet understood both word and gesture perfectly. He slid off the bed, stood, and walked toward the doorway. The second red-hood stopped him with a hand placed against his chest, waved a wand over him front and back—a weapons detector of some kind, guessed Treet—and then led the way through the narrow doorway and the connecting room beyond. Treet followed, and the other man came along a few paces behind.

  Tanais Director Tvrdy reclined in a suspension bed which undulated in slow ripples to the soft music drifting into his sleep chamber. Though his eyes were closed and his hands lay folded over his chest, he was far from sleep. He was waiting and piecing together a plan by which he meant to visit the captive intruder being held somewhere in the stacked mazes of Saecaraz Hage.

  This bit of information had come to him earlier in the day. It confirmed what he had already guessed—that Supreme Director Rohee had not, as he intimated in session, placed all of the intruders in Hage: one had been kept. And this one Tvrdy meant to interview personally.

  The Rumon rumor messengers had done their work well. Thanks to Cejka’s network of informants, he now knew the whereabouts of the other three intruders as well. One had been placed among the Jamuna, another with the Nilokerus, and the third with the Chryse. The Jamuna and Chryse captives had actually been spotted in public.