Emberverse 08: The Tears of the Sun

by S. M. Stirling

  Sometimes she forgot that Ian had never been more than a few hundred miles from the place he’d been born. Most people traveled far less than that, of course, but you thought about them as the ones you rode by when you passed a farm or village. It had been all travel since they met. She’d never had the slightest impulse to farm, but she was beginning to feel that two years of rarely sleeping in the same spot for more than a day running was taking mobility too far.

  The western horizon was jagged; the plain of sagebrush and yellow-brown grass heaved up into rocky heights, gray striped with red, and woods of aspen and bristlecone and lodgepole in sheltered spots. They had no food with them, but that wasn’t the problem it would have been later in the year. They did have their bows and game looked to be available if not plentiful and Rangers learned how to forage for nuts and roots and edible greens. More serious was the lack of all camping gear; no tents, no bedding, no salt, nothing to cook with, only a few axes and hatchets. And . . .

  “No horses,” Ian said succinctly. “Plus we’ve got wounded and carrying them’s going to slow us a lot. Not to mention a two-year-old.”

  Ritva sighed. “We’ve done what Operation Lúthien was supposed to do, more or less,” she said. “All those people in Boise heard Cecile . . . and Juliet . . . and we’ve got them and Martin doesn’t. That was real important, it’s why this was such a high-priority mission. It would be a lot better if we could get them back to Montival quickly and completely out of his reach, of course. I suppose he’ll have a cavalry brigade headed this way as fast as he can.”

  A long whistle split the air from the east, where the sentry was stationed. She read its modulations as she would speech or Sign: horsemen in sight.

  The stillness dissolved in a rush for weapons and gear.

  “No, I do not think it was an accident we met you,” Rimpoche Tsewang Dorje said later that night, after the rising of the moon.

  He leaned forward to pour himself a cup of the herb tea from the pot that rested by the campfire. More glowed across the rolling plain, hundreds of them. The folk of Chenrezi Monastery and the Valley of the Sun that looked to it for leadership and the ranches and tribes allied to it had sent their riders to war, across the wilderness to join the High King’s host. That was partly because the questers had lived among them for a whole winter; and more because they trusted the Abbot when he told them it was necessary.

  “But then, there are no accidents,” Dorje went on. “We are all pilgrims on the Way; taking different paths, but eventually the paths will meet. Is it then a surprise that the pilgrims do likewise?”

  The Abbot of Chenrezi Monastery looked exactly as Ritva remembered in her last sight of him when the questers left the Valley of the Sun in the spring of the previous year. The shabby wrapped orange robe might have been the same one. It left one shoulder bare, and the skinny knotted legs that ended in gnarled sandaled feet. His head needed no razor, and his face was a mass of wrinkles and yet somehow like a boy’s, with a flicker of humor in the dark narrow eyes. The hard travel he must have gone through in the mountains and deserts had left no mark that she could see. You could feel the tough mountain peasant he’d been born beneath the bonze still.

  Nor had the task of turning a panic-stricken resort community and a gaggle of quarrelsome Buddhists of a dozen different varieties thrown together by circumstance into a living community made him any softer in the years since the Change. She leaned back against her borrowed saddle and sighed with something that was not exactly pleasure . . .

  More like relaxation, as if I were back at Stardell in one of the chairs by the fire and wine were mulling and snow falling against the windows. I don’t know why, because we aren’t home and lot of what the Rimpoche says isn’t exactly comforting.

  Lawrence Jr. scampered over, with his mother in pursuit; there had been wolf-howls in the distant hills, and it was not the sort of place you wanted a child to wander away from light and people. He took a look at the monk and then crawled into his lap. The man settled him comfortably, and then beckoned to his mother.

  Ritva scowled slightly as she turned to her second bowl of stew; it had venison in it as well as dried vegetables and cracked barley and it had been quite tasty, for camp food. A lot of the folk from the Valley of the Sun didn’t eat meat, but a lot did, and the ones who didn’t weren’t the sort who got in your face about it. It tasted less good with Juliet Thurston in the circle, and she wasn’t the only one who felt like that.

  “A fine boy,” Dorje said, and smiled at the mother. “You are brave, to undertake the responsibility of raising him.”

  Juliet’s face was usually hard and reserved, but the lines of grief on it were visible now. She made a small sound and seemed to shrink into herself at the glares she would once have ignored.

  The lama sighed and looked around at the others; the firelight picked out his wrinkles, like the hills and valleys of a mysterious country. Beyond gleamed the peaks of mountains where bear and cougar and tiger roamed, and men as savage as either.

  “My friends,” he said gently, “self-righteousness is the fumes of decomposing vanity; it is the means the Devil’s Guard use to cloud the vision of those who truly love virtue. If someone is far along a journey to destruction, shall you hate them for waking to their situation, and turning about, and taking even a single halting half step back? Will that encourage them to take a second step, and a third? Or will it minister only to the darkness in our own souls?”

  Ouch, Ritva thought, wincing; and again she thought she wasn’t the only one. Yup. He really does make you see things too clearly.

  Dorje went on to Juliet Thurston, his voice mild and implacable:

  “He who puts his hand into the fire knows what he may expect. Nor may the fire be blamed. He who intrudes on a neighbor may receive what he does not expect. Nor may the neighbor be blamed. The fire will not be harmed; but the neighbor may be. And every deed of every kind bears corresponding consequences to the doer. You may spend a thousand lives repaying wrong done to a neighbor. Therefore, of the two indiscretions prefer thrusting your own hand into the fire. But there is a Middle Way, which avoids all trespassing.”

  “I . . .”

  Whatever else she might be, Martin Thurston’s wife was no fool. Ritva could see her fair brows turn down in thought, and she believed there was a tinge of genuine gratitude there.

  “What exactly do you mean, sir?” Juliet asked carefully.

  “You have caused much harm, through vicious selfishness, and it turned on you.”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “You are fortunate it did so quickly; this is an opportunity. But do not fancy yourself uniquely guilty, a monster who is a wonder to the world; that too is vanity, and leads back to the same errors. You cannot undo the past by regret; nor can you avoid the painful consequences of your actions through fear. Both these things are equally impossible. Do not dwell on the past or deny it; do not fear the future.”

  “Regrets and fears are about all I have now,” she said.

  “No. You have a son; and you have amends to make to others. You have a task to do now, and virtue consists of doing it.” Sternly. “So get to work, child!”

  Ritva felt the force of that spear-sentence, even though she was not the target. Juliet blinked, gaping, and then nodded and sank down in a bit of a heap. Dorje inclined his head back to her and turned his glance away, in respect for privacy rather than dismissal. His hand continued to stroke the dark bronze of the boy’s curls, and the child snuggled closer and dozed.

  “You said that we’d meet again, guru,” Ritva said.

  Dorje grinned. “You and the others,” he said. “I understand that you need to return quickly, not at the pace of this great mass of people?”

  Alleyne nodded; he seemed to be a little less tight-wound now. “Yes, sir. Our mission was to rescue Mrs. Thurston . . . the elder Mrs. Thurston . . . and her children and reunite them with Frederick, who I understand you’ve met.”

  Dorje
nodded. “A most earnest young man, for good and ill; but more for good.”

  Which is a great capsule description of Fred! Ritva thought.

  Alleyne went on: “Partly because they were in danger; but also, frankly, because we need to get the truth of what happened out more widely. We’ve made a start on that in Boise, but it will be extremely helpful if we can get them . . . and the younger Mrs. Thurston and her son . . . back to Montival quickly. Living evidence, as it were.”

  Though technically we are in Montival, Ritva thought.

  She knew what he meant, though; it was people that made a kingdom, not geography, and what few inhabitants there were in the wildlands probably hadn’t heard that the current war was going on, or who the contending parties were. A fair number had survived the Change in this thinly populated wilderness, as numbers went in the modern world. But the reason it had been so empty back then was that there wasn’t much in the way of water or good land. Almost all of the survivors had relocated afterwards, moving to where life was easier in places emptied by the great dying and where hands to work and fight were always welcome. There was a very thin scatter left, Rovers who lived by hunting more than herding. Most of them were people you wouldn’t want to meet, especially if you were alone.

  Still, it’s sort of beautiful here. I like deserts, though I wouldn’t want to live in one, she thought, looking up at the aching clarity of the sky, where sparks from the fires were scarcely brighter than the stars. And it’s certainly reassuring to see another twenty-five hundred good cavalry headed our way.

  “I will accompany you,” Dorje said, and laughed at his polite dismay. “My son, when I was five years old I walked four hundred miles across the Himalayas to reach Nepal. I know this scrawny old carcass of mine, and I do not delude myself as to what it can and cannot do. It will serve me as long as needed.”

  “Ah, Hîr i Dúnedain . . .” Ritva said. “If he says he can do something, believe him. Really.”

  “I agree with you, roquen,” Alleyne said. To Dorje, in English: “Certainly you won’t slow us down more than a two-year-old, sir.”

  Another of the Sun Valley folk leaned forward. He had an Eastern face too, but of a different stamp than Dorje’s, smoother and the color of pale ivory, and he was about a generation younger, in a lean fit middle-age where every visible muscle showed like an anatomical diagram beneath the skin. He was clad in a set of lamellar armor linked with cords, a dao saber at his belt and a bowcase and quiver beside him.

  “This is Master Hao,” Dorje said. “He will make the practical arrangements. He is one of our brotherhood who has sought Enlightenment through the development of certain skills of mind and body.”

  Eilir Signed, and Ritva translated automatically: “You don’t look much like my idea of a Buddhist monk, Master Hao.”

  She smiled when she Signed it. Hao didn’t, but there was a knowledgeable respect in the glances he gave all the Dúnedain, and in the ones that returned. Ritva’s muscles twinged as she recalled the months they’d spent in the Valley of the Sun; to let Mary and Rudi heal from their wounds, but they’d all trained under Master Hao and his acolytes as well. It had been . . .

  Somewhat rigorous, she thought. And the Pacific Ocean is somewhat large, rather wet and a bit salty.

  “Mine was a different path along the Way than the Rimpoche’s,” Hao said.

  Dorje chuckled. “Many different schools came to that convention on Buddhism on the World Wide Web. This has made life more . . . interesting . . . since, after the Change converted our hotel into a monastery.”

  Hao snorted. “I must remain with the army, of course,” he said.

  Well, alae, duh, Ritva thought. You’re the commander, Mr. Shaolin.

  “However, we have a very large selection of horses and gear,” he went on. “You may of course take your pick.”

  Ian gave an almost inaudible whimper, and she elbowed him discreetly.

  Another relay race on horseback, she agreed. Then: It’s going to be hard on Cecile and the girls. And Juliet. Good thing we’ll have liniment and some experienced fieldmasseurs, like me and Aunt Eilir. We can rig a carrier cradle for Lawrence Jr., but he’s not going to be a happy camper after a while either, poor little guy.

  Alleyne brought out a map. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a spot near Winnemucca. “We need to get here.”

  His finger came down on Ashland, in the Rogue River Valley south of the Willamette.

  “The rail line was cleared and repaired that far three years ago, just before the war started. We can catch pedal cars from there, and then be anywhere on the rail net quickly, with a maximum priority to clear the track.”

  Hao looked, intent. “Your route?”

  He traced it. “Dúnedain explorers have covered most of this area south of Ashland, from a bit west of here to the ocean and down into California, and this should be the least troublesome—the distance is about three hundred miles as the crow flies. About seventy to a hundred more as we’ll be traveling, mostly along the old Route 140, but in summer and with plenty of horses, I wouldn’t say it’s too hard. A bit strenuous, perhaps. Seventy to a hundred miles a day.”

  Ian unconsciously rubbed at his buttocks. Ritva nodded, but then she looked at the face of the Lord of the Folk of the West. Something like this was just what he needed right now.

  CHARTERED CITY OF GOLDENDALE

  COUNTY OF AUREA

  PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

  (FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  AUGUST 25, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  “Oh, by Saint Bernadette, that’s awful!” Yseult Liu said, at the end of the story of the escape from Boise.

  The Thurston girls looked at her solemnly, as they rolled the bandages and she contemplated their story of treachery and exile. They had a table to themselves in the city guildhall; apart from that, they were all doing pretty much the same work, making neat bundles of the clean linen. Nearly all the workers were women, but there was everything from gentlewomen to laborers’ daughters here, supervised by the experts from the Sisters of Compassion. It was hot and stuffy despite the size of the room and the high ceiling and the tall open windows, and her hands felt a little sore from the frequent dips into disinfectant.

  The bandages went onto wheeled trays that others pushed around, taken off to the ones who’d sterilize them in autoclaves, seal and label them and then pack them for shipment to the warehouses where they awaited the need.

  Soon, Yseult thought with a slight shiver. The Grand Constable is already fighting in the east. It’s getting closer. Huon will be there soon.

  “Uh . . . yeah,” Shawonda said. “The Cutters are awful. They . . . they sort of warp things around them. Like contagious miserable badness. It’s scary!”

  Yseult nodded vigorously, though she didn’t add the thoughts about demonic influences that naturally occurred to her. She wasn’t under any illusions about why it had been suggested that she take the Thurston daughters under her wing. It was a first installment on her future status as lady-in-waiting to the High Queen, even if she still wore her oblate’s robe and worked at a medical task.

  Mathilda’s feeling out what I can do and how well I can do it. Which is exactly what she’s supposed to do. And maybe Shawonda and Janie will be ladies-in-waiting with me . . . which would be fun, I think.

  A whistle sounded. “Shift change!” the guildmistress of the weavers who was overseeing the whole affair called.

  Everyone rose and filed out; Shawonda blew out her cheeks in relief as they went into the courtyard. The walls on either side gave shade, along with tall cottonwoods, and there was a garden—at least, a fountain in the center and several banks of flowers in raised beds between gravel walkway. The building was new since the Change; there hadn’t been anything in the little town suitable for meetings of craft and merchant guilds and the Lord Mayor and Council of Aldermen and the Confraternities.<
br />
  The Crown had subsidized it, as part of the Regent’s Compassionate Feudalization program. She’d heard the High Queen sigh over that term; then she’d acknowledged that it was perfectly sensible to give people positive incentives to act the way you wanted them to. Hence the three stories of stuccoed ferroconcrete gothic tracery around them, with the arched gateway that gave out onto the main square. They all drank from the cool water that sprang down in streams from the central spindle of the fountain and shook out their hands, laughing.

  Yseult exchanged curtsies with others of those streaming out of the workroom; going first and sinking deeper to ladies of higher rank, returning those of her inferiors, and nodding and smiling instead when it was a non-Associate woman. The Thurstons looked on, a little puzzled at the ritual of precedence; she thought that Shawonda at least sensed that she was seeing the steps of a dance she didn’t know.

  Janie spoke as they walked back towards the castle; that took them along the town square, which was nearly packed, slowing their walk as they dodged around clumps of soldiers and clerks and clerics, craftsmen and peasants and laborers.

  “You look a little like your brother,” the younger Thurston girl said. “I liked him a lot. He made me laugh and he was so . . . so elegant.”

  The children’s trousers attracted some eyes, but there were enough folk from outside the Association present that it would pass even in this little backland quasi-city—she could see three Mackenzie kilts and a couple of Bearkiller outfits at a glance, plus someone who was probably from Corvallis. There were political reasons for them not to wholly adopt Association ways.

  Her oblate’s robe was plain, but it got more deference and effort to let them through than an escort of crossbowmen might have, though she still had to navigate carefully around porters and the preoccupied. It took her a moment before she realized that Janie meant Odard, not Huon; time dulled grief, and it had been months now since she learned of his death.