Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

by Stephen Lawhead

  Jamrog was wasting no time in covering up the affair. But why cover it up at all? What was there about these intruders that demanded these unprecedented measures? Who were they? Why were they being hidden in Hage? Why run such a risk? Why not simply destroy the spies? Why announce their presence to the Threl and then refuse to allow anyone else to talk to them? Why? Why? Why?

  Tvrdy meant to find out.

  “Director …” Pradim, the Tanais Director’s guide, stepped quietly into the sleep chamber, his fingers weaving the air.

  “I am not asleep,” replied Tvrdy, getting up. “What is it?”

  “A message—” Pradim turned his empty eye-sockets upon his master.

  “And is the messenger still here?”

  “Yes. Shall I bring her?”

  “No, have her wait in the quiet room. I wish to question her.”

  The guide departed silently as the Tanais leader drew on a shimmering green Hage robe, then stepped over to a terminal set in the wall. “Systems check,” he said softly. “Quiet room.”

  The screen instantly flicked on, presenting a schematic of the quiet room’s webwork of anti-eavesdropping sensors. All were working and none showed signs of tampering. A second later the screen went blank, and Tvrdy strode out of the room.

  The messenger was sitting on a cushion in the quiet room’s pit. She jumped up and gave a quick, stiff-armed bow. “Cejka sends his greetings,” she said.

  This was a code phrase which meant that Cejka wished a full report of the proceedings. “You may give my regards to your Director,” replied Tvrdy. This meant that Tvrdy intended to contact Cejka personally. Tanais Director joined the messenger in the pit and lowered himself to a cushion. “You may sit.”

  “I am hearing many interesting things from Saecaraz section …” the woman began, glancing around quickly.

  “This is a quiet room,” offered Tvrdy. “We can speak freely.” The woman relaxed; a hand went to her hood and drew it back. She was young and sharp-eyed. No doubt one of Cejka’s best. “You have located the intruder within Saecaraz?”

  “Yes. I have not seen him, but I talked with the old mother who changes the bedding. He is deep in Threl High Chambers— on a level called Greenways. This, I am told, is near the Supreme Director’s personal quarters.”

  “So! Just as I suspected!” Tvrdy rubbed his hands together very slowly. “Now then, how is the prisoner held?”

  “Unidor.”

  “No chemical restraints?”

  “Possible, but unlikely. The prisoner has been observed walking about his cell; he talks to the food bearers—although they have all been instructed to refrain from speaking to him. He also—” She hesitated.

  “Yes? Tell me.”

  “He sings, Director.”

  “Does he indeed?”

  “Several of the Saecaraz have heard him when they bring his food. They all talk about it.”

  “And what have they been told of his identity?” Tvrdy leaned forward, listening intently. He was getting good information from this messenger.

  “They have been told that he is a close relative of one of the Threl leader’s Hagemates, and has rejected reorientation, thus suffering regrettable mental trauma.”

  “I see. And do they believe this?”

  The messenger shrugged. “They ask no questions.”

  “Has the prisoner been moved?”

  “No.”

  “Visited?”

  “No, but he is under continuous remote surveillance.”

  “As I would expect.” Director Tvrdy nodded to himself. “I have only one more question. In your opinion, would it be possible to steal the prisoner or meet with him?”

  The young woman blinked, taken aback to have her opinion asked. But she answered without hesitation. “No, it is not possible to remove the prisoner from his cell without alerting the Nilokerus—there are two at all times in the room adjoining. It may be possible to visit him briefly, if disguise were used effectively and the guards distracted.”

  The Tanais leader stood abruptly. “Well done, Rumon! I will see to it that one hundred shares are added to your allotment from now on.”

  “It is not necessary—” The woman rose quickly, replacing the hood as she stood.

  “We reward our people, messenger. You have performed a difficult and dangerous assignment. Accept a leader’s gratitude.”

  “Thank you, Director.”

  In a moment the messenger was gone. Tvrdy sat deep in thought until his guide entered the room. “Does the Director wish anything?”

  “Yes, Pradim, contact Cejka at once. I will meet him in Hage— designation seven-six.” At once Tvrdy rose and stripped off his robe. He moved to a cabinet standing against a wall, pressed the lockplate with his thumb, removing a blue-hooded yos from the drawer as it slid out, and began donning his disguise.

  EIGHTEEN

  Treet stood before a flinty old man who watched him carefully with hooded eyes. He had a sharp beak of a nose, and the wattles beneath his chin wobbled when he moved his head. Across his lap the old man held a stubby, curved broadknife affixed to a long ornamented handle—obviously a symbol of some official function. Judging from the extreme deference paid him by the guards—who had retired to a far corner—Treet guessed the old geezer was a high mucky-muck of Empyrion leadership.

  The room also betokened high status: a great, round cylinder with a ceiling that arched dramatically overhead. Dark, richly patterned hangings draped the walls all around, and the ceiling as well, so the effect was that of entering a sultan’s tent.

  The sultan himself had been waiting for him on his throne—a tall, high-backed chair mounted on a raised pedestal. Treet had been led to stand before this seat, in a circle embossed on the floor. The moment he had stepped into the circle, the faint telltale whizz of the barrier field told him he was a prisoner once more.

  The old man spoke. “I am Sirin Rohee, Supreme Director of the Threl and all Empyrion.” He paused and nodded toward Treet encouragingly. “Do you understand?”

  Treet heard several words he thought he recognized; but with the old man’s wavering voice coming through the faint distortion of the barrier field, he could not be certain. Still, he assumed he had been addressed in some kind of introduction, so offered one of his own, speaking up loudly. “I am Orion Treet. l am a traveler. I have come from Cynetics.”

  Treet pronounced the last word distinctly, hoping for some effect. The last time he’d uttered that word, it had caused a considerable sensation. This time, however, the consequence was more subdued than at the landing field; the old man—Rohee, was that a name he’d heard among the barely intelligible syllables?— merely nodded, knowingly, and pursed his lips as if he’d expected just that sort of response.

  The guards—the two who had brought him and two others who were waiting in the chamber with the old leader—were slightly more demonstrative, murmuring loudly to themselves. Treet kept his attention on Rohee and tried to look both impressive and nonthreatening at the same time. The effort taxed his limited repertoire of facial expressions.

  “Why have you come?” Rohee asked simply.

  Treet blinked in mild surprise: he’d gotten all of that speech. By concentrating on the pattern of the speech rather than the words themselves, he could apparently understand simple sentences. He tried to couch his reply in simple words of single syllables. “I have been sent.”

  Rohee looked puzzled. He lifted the broad blade in his hands and gestured toward a guard. The man departed silently, returning only moments later with three others. These were dressed in silver-striped kimonos like Treet’s, but each had a large silver medallion that looked like a two-pronged, wavy lightning bolt on a thick chain around his neck. They stared at Treet openly as they approached, then acknowledged their leader with a quick, stiff-armed bow. The three stopped at a point midway between the throne and the prisoner.

  Interpreters? wondered Treet. The three looked more like judges. Or inquisitors.

&nbs
p; Supreme Director Rohee flashed the curving blade at the foremost of the three. He turned toward Treet and asked in slow, deliberate tones, as one would address a child, “What do you know of the Fieri?”

  The last word threw Treet. He shrugged and replied, “I do not understand.”

  The three looked at one another. “Fieri,” the first one repeated. “Tell us.”

  “I can tell you nothing.” Amazing! thought Treet. It wasn’t so difficult to talk to these people once you caught the knack. Emboldened by success, he added, “I am a traveler. I have been sent here by Cynetics.”

  Again the word caused a slight sensation. The three inquisitors grew round-eyed and stared at one another. They put their heads together in conference and mumbled. Rohee looked on, a smile faintly spreading his lips. There was a quality in his expression Treet couldn’t quite name—what was it?

  While the inquisitors debated the implications of his last utterance, Treet studied the Empyrion leader in an attempt at unraveling that enigmatic smile. He was still trying to decipher it when he was addressed again.

  “Speak to us of Cynetics,” said the first inquisitor. No doubt he was the official spokesman of the group. Treet noticed that when the man spoke, he seemed to be consciously forming his mouth around the words.

  Treet spread his hands—what could he tell them that they didn’t already know? “What do you want—” He halted as the implications of the statement jolted him. They didn’t know about Cynetics! At least, they didn’t know it in the same way that he did, and they were testing him.

  Trouble was, he didn’t remember precisely either; it belonged to that hazy confusion on the other side of that mental fog blank. Wanting nothing more than to be left alone to ponder this bit of information, Treet frowned at the inquisitors, who were waiting for an answer. He sensed that to disappoint them would make things much more difficult for himself in the days to come.

  “I can tell you,” began Treet importantly, relying solely on bluff and instinct, “that Cynetics is very great, very powerful— more powerful than ordinary men can imagine.” Treet did not know if they were getting all of this, but he continued, liking the way his speech sounded. “Cynetics commands whole nations and rules the lives of millions. There is no other as great as Cynetics.”

  There, thought Treet, let them puzzle over that. He had intentionally—instinctively?—invoked the storyteller’s tone of high pomp and consequence. The dodge appeared to be working, for the three inquisitors stared awestricken.

  He glanced quickly at Rohee—the man’s enigmatic smile had increased; he was positively beaming. Instantly the riddle was solved: the old coot was proud of his prize! He is pleased that I have stumped the experts, thought Treet; he was hoping I’d astound them, and I did.

  From that moment, Treet placed his hopes of survival on the old fossil. He smiled back at the Empyrion leader as much as to say, See, we are alike, you and I; we should be friends.

  Nendl waited patiently, resting on one of the many mushroom-shaped projections ringing the open-air booth. Pizzle sat next to him, dimly aware of what was going on, yet anxious because he could not remember more clearly. They waited as, one by one, their fellow workers—Hagemen, Nendl called them—approached the booth.

  “It’s allotment,” Nendl explained. “You’ll remember.”

  When all the others had gone forward and hurried off again, Nendl rose and went to the booth. Pizzle followed. The men in the booth wore brown-hooded yoses like his own, but each had a large bronze medal across his chest: a double-ended arrow bent into an ellipse. The medal hung from a heavy chain around their necks, and Pizzle understood upon seeing the symbol that these were Jamuna priests.

  “Yes?” asked a priest, looking up. Before Nendl could answer a second priest said, “Allotment is over.”

  “This one is new to our Hage,” explained Nendl.

  The priests frowned. One of them bent over a terminal and asked, “Name?”

  Nendl nudged Pizzle, who stared for a moment, terror rising in him. My name! What’s my name?

  “Well?” snapped the priest. “How do you expect to claim your shares if you don’t give us your name?”

  “He has recently undergone reorientation,” explained Nendl. “He has not perhaps been issued a new name.”

  “I see,” grumped the priest. He nodded to one of the others. “What do you have there?”

  The second priest gazed into a glowing screen, tapped a few keys, and then answered, “There are no new reassignments in the records.”

  “Erased most likely,” replied the first priest. “Come back next allotment and we will see.”

  “Please,” said Nendl quietly, “he cannot wait until next allotment. How can he live without his shares? How can he work?”

  The first priest frowned even more deeply. “All right, all right. Put him down as—”

  “Pizzle!”

  The priests looked at him. “What did you say?” asked the first.

  “My name is Pizzle … I think.”

  “Pizol?” The priest stared into the screen and shook his head slowly. “Nothing under that name.”

  “Enter it,” commanded the first priest, and the other did as he was told. “We’ll give him standard shares for a first-order gleaner.”

  Pizzle thought this sounded fair enough. He nodded, but Nendl protested gently. “He’s worked very hard—he’s one of my order, not a wastehandler.”

  The priest glared. “You challenge our authority?”

  “You know what is best, Hage priest. I merely point out that he is a good worker because I know that you are fair. It is well-known that the priests of Jamuna Hage reward hard work generously.”

  “True enough,” agreed the priest. “I will make this a lesson to you,” he said to Pizzle. “Your allotment is fifty shares.”

  “Thank you, Hage priest,” said Nendl, nudging Pizzle with his elbow.

  “Thank you,” Pizzle repeated. The priest picked up a glowing stylus and took Pizzle by the arm, raising his sleeve. He rubbed the point of the stylus over the skin of his upper arm.

  “There, tell your Hagemen of the generosity of Jamuna priests. We take care of our own.”

  “Of course, Hage priest,” replied Nendl as they backed away quickly. The priests grunted and began closing up the booth.

  Nendl led them back along the wide, brick-paved walkway. Odd, flat-topped trees lined this winding boulevard; here and there the mouths of tunnels opened, and stairs led down to the other levels. Once out of sight of the booth, Nendl said, “Not bad, Pizol. They gave you two days’ shares. Don’t think that will happen again, though. The Jamuna Hage priests are fair enough as priests go, but they are priests all the same, and not often given to extravagance—unless it is their own poak.”

  “Fifty shares,” said Pizzle. “You must help me, Nendl.”

  The thin-faced man stopped and faced him, placing strong, callused hands on Pizzle’s shoulders. “We are Hagemen, are we not? You ask my help, and I will give it. You have fifty shares, and I have twenty-five from today’s work. If we put them together, we can eat well tonight. What do you say?”

  “I am very hungry, Nendl.”

  “So am I. Then it is settled. We’ll put our shares together and eat like Directors! I have no Hagemate at present, so you can stay with me. My kraam is not so big, but there is room for you if you do not mind sharing a bed. Later, when you have been in Hage a year, you can petition the priests for a kraam of your own. If one becomes available before that—so much the better.”

  Off they went, Nendl leading the way, fatigue suddenly forgotten. He led Pizzle down one of the nearby tunnels, and they emerged on a lower level where tiny shops, amassed in tiers and joined by flying walkways, lined the broad, circuitous avenue. Crowds of people—almost all of them dressed in Jamuna brown—pushed along the avenue and swamped the walkways. The din of voices rang from the ribs of the roof far above: vendors haggling over prices, patrons whining and wheedling, people arg
uing—arguing and doing business nonetheless.

  “Ah, the Jamuna markets. No Hage has a more lively marketplace, I’m told. Let’s go collect our dole and then—” He smiled broadly, revealing crooked teeth. “Then we will begin!”

  They hurried through moving knots of people toward a yellow-topped kiosk standing in the middle of the avenue. The waves of shoppers broke around it, passing on either side. “Here it is,” said Nendl. “Good, we won’t have to wait. Come on.”

  He pushed Pizzle up to the kiosk. “Dole,” said Nendl.

  “Name?” asked a fat, bored clerk in the green-and-yellow yos of the Hyrgo.

  “Nendl,” the Jamuna replied. “And Pizol.”

  The clerk consulted a screen. “I have you, but not him.” He reached down and placed a parcel on the ledge of the kiosk.

  Nendl took up the cloth-wrapped parcel and replied, “He’s been in reorientation. Check with the priests if you don’t believe me.”

  The clerk grunted and placed another package on the ledge. “There. I believe you.”

  Pizzle took the package, and Nendl pulled him away. “What’s inside?” he asked.

  “Some coffee, a little tofu, a bonaito or maybe a jicama, flatbread if we are lucky. That’s all. But we can buy the rest. Here—a cheese shop!” Nendl elbowed his way into the press at the entrance to the cheese shop. “What kind today?” he asked, A Jamuna next to him replied, “What difference? It all tastes the same.”

  “White and red,” said someone close by. “And they are gouging as usual—three shares per kil.”

  “Could be worse,” sighed Nendl. When his turn came, he ordered half a kil of each, stuffing them inside his yos. He pushed Pizzle up to the vendor, who brushed his arm with a poak reader.

  They moved on along the avenue, and Pizzle’s head swiveled as he went, trying to take it all in. Everywhere he looked, people crowded and hurried. “Is it always like this?” he wondered aloud.

  “Only after allotment. We have come late, but it’s just as well. The stocks are holding up, and the crowds aren’t so bad.” Nendl dived into another throng surrounding a meat shop. He came back holding two small, plump, birdlike carcasses. He handed one to Pizzle and tucked the other into his yos.