“It’s the only way to be when you have to live the way we do. It keeps the easterners away out of fear—and the Sentani.”
“Maybe they don’t have to be enemies.”
“You don’t know the Innaniganis. None of these things you say could ever work. It’s just dreams. We’ve got to deal with realities.”
Gamwyn took her hand and kissed it. She seemed so desolate. She looked down at him and held out her other hand for him to kiss. Then she looked at her hands. “Now I’ll always be afraid here,” she said, rising.
Gamwyn stood up, too, and they embraced. “Not of me,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of me. It’s got to work out. It’s got to.” She pulled away and left the room.
In the morning the sleet continued, and Jaiyan played a long series of melodies for the old Siveri in a relaxed atmosphere. Misque stayed away from Gamwyn. Finally the big Sentani turned to Gamwyn and asked him if the Pelbar had any music.
“Oh, yes. A whole lot of it, chief.”
“Whistle me a melody.”
Gamwyn whistled softly Craydor’s hymn of the flowers, and Jaiyan picked it out on the organ. “Can you sing it? Does it have words?”
“Yes. It has four stanzas.” As Jaiyan began to play, Gamwyn sang:
Just as the small composite flower in every part cooperates, conspires with air, agrees with shower, passes through several perfect states, each petal with its opposite, each structure functioning with all, so let our people interknit in Aven’s perfect protocol.
So—
The organ had stopped. Jaiyan turned. “What wretched doggerel,” he said. “Don’t you have anything better?”
“It doesn’t sound too bad when we sing it in parts.” “Parts?”
Gamwyn walked to the organ and reached out. He had studied it when no one was around and figured out where the chords would be for some simple melodies. He played a sequence of five or six chords. “Stop! What are you doing?” Jaiyan yelled, knocking his hands away. The boy stepped back. The sudden eruption of incredible music had stunned the group.
“I think the machine may have been meant for this,” Gamwyn said. “Like our choirs.”
“Get away. Don’t you have any work to do?”
“Yes. Yes, chief. I’ll bring more wood.” The whole group of watchers melted away in embarrassment, while Jaiyan sat stunned, facing his organ. It had instantly been evident that the boy was right. The organ was meant for more complex music than he’d been playing on it. But to be shown on his own creation that way nearly overcame him. His mortification grew to anger, even as he knew it all to be senseless. People stood attentively at the bellows, but finally he dismissed them and disappeared into his own sleeping shed.
Misque looked across the main hall at Gamwyn. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
“I see. Too late now.”
She turned away, too, leaving Gamwyn momentarily alone. He stood thinking for a few moments, then went for the wood barrow to feed the main fire.
At that moment the guardsmen from Threerivers were ahead of the party in the canoes. Snow was falling, and they stood around a big fire on the east bank waiting for sight of the fugitives.
“Here they come,” the guardcaptain said. “It must be cold out there. Look at the ice cakes.”
“Good. They deserve it, putting us through this.”
The party in the canoes slowly drew nearer, though far out on the water. Several even waved. Then one pointed and shouted.
“What is that? Quiet. I can’t hear. Look, they’re turning.”
The canoes headed directly for the shore, the men leaning into their strokes.
“I don’t understand,” said the guardcaptain. “String shortbows and nock.” A man in the middle of the lead canoe stood with a two-arm longbow and sent an arrow out, high, far over the heads of the guardsmen and into the forest. As the guardsmen turned to watch it, the air seemed full of arrows coming at them out of the woods. Two guardsmen went down, the rest ran for the trees. More arrows came from the high ground, and a peculiar high-pitched cry. “Not Shumai,” the guardcaptain called. “What, then?”
As the boats grounded, men ran down the slope shooting more arrows and yelling strangely. One man from the canoes went down, but the fugitives had six Pelbar longbows, which only a strong man could pull, and soon long arrows flicked among the advancing men.
“There must be at least seventy,” the guardcaptain shouted. “Form a perimeter. Use the trees. If they break through, draw back. Put the longbows in front.” Two more Pelbar fell. The hostiles used the covering trees so skillfully that they had taken only three arrows.
“Conserve your arrows,” the guardcaptain shouted. “Pick sure targets.”
Another Pelbar guardsman took an arrow in the leg, grunting and writhing as he fell.
The yell went up again, and the hostiles advanced, but this time, two longbowmen found targets.
“Should we get to the boats?” one man shouted.
“Too late. We’ll have to stand here.”
“Good Aven, they’re Peshtak,” one man said. “See the skunk-fur hats?”
“Peshtak?”
The hostiles again advanced, but suddenly a series of sharp slaps, like trees breaking under ice, came from the hill behind them, and Peshtak began to fall. They turned, wavered, then advanced, hoping to gain the Pelbar canoes. A sharp fight ensued, first with bows, then short-swords, but always punctuated by the sharp slaps from the hillside. Figures could be seen advancing down the hill. Pelbar guardsmen. Some Peshtak turned toward them, caught between two forces but making no attempt to surrender, fighting now in utter silence and grim determination. The new guardsmen had strange weapons. They looked along a tube, there was a flash, and another Peshtak would drop. Finally, with a yell, the Peshtak all came in a tight body toward the boats, massing inward.
“Let them through,” the guardcaptain shouted. The Pelbar ran aside, putting arrows into the hostiles when they could get a clear shot. Then the Pelbar closed in behind, and in their initial rush, the Peshtak swamped three canoes just offshore, sinking and struggling in the icy water. With silent discipline, the others formed a half-ring, backing slowly, and loosing their remaining arrows as the boats were filled with men and shoved off.
The Pelbarigan guardsmen, arriving with the new weapons, formed a broad circle around the shrinking Peshtak one, loading and firing the loud tube weapons from just outside the range of the Peshtak arrows. They called for surre'nder, but in reply got only a derisive gaggle of shouts full of obscenities. The Peshtak dropped like sodden rags, dwindling but fearless. Four laden canoes moved well out into the river, but then they too slowly settled as they were holed by the new weapons, the men struggling and flailing briefly among the ice chunks before going under.
Finally only three Peshtak remained standing on shore, their long knives at ready. The Pelbar slowly moved in on them, and the Pelbarigan guardcaptain stepped ahead of the perimeter*
“Throw down your weapons,” she called.
“Come here and I’ll unravel your insides,” one of the men returned, in a sharp but understandable dialect.
The guardcaptain took two more steps forward, and suddenly two men rushed at her and were caught in a roar as all the new weapons fired at once, dropping like old fruit. One jerked slightly.
“Look for wounded,” the Pelbarigan guardcaptain said, panting. “Try to keep them alive. Don’t touch them before I see them.” She turned to the Threerivers guardcaptain. “I’m Ahroe Westrun, guardcaptain. I’m glad we found you in time.”
“I—I don’t understand. How did you know?”
“Your Protector sent us a message about the, ah, the refugees. We were looking for them, but one of our wood parties was massacred, and all the signs were Peshtak. We shut up the city, then looked south, found a sign that some of them had holed up in an ancient tunnel up a side valley only about three ayas from Pelbarigan. How they found it, I don’t know. It was almost wholly sealed up. We
knew then we’d better try to intercept you. Only this morning we ran into the tracks of the larger band.”
She turned to a man in a furred coat, the only Shumai with them, a rangy man with freckles, his blond hair pulled back in a single braid. VBlu. Are there any others?”
“I don’t know. Don’t think so. We’ll run an arc. Don’t like this. This is so many to be so far west. We ought to call back to the city.”
“When you get your wind, take ten men with rifles and make your arc. All right?”
“Right. We can go now. You’ve got seven of them wounded, Ahroe. Two clearly have the Peshtak disease. One other is near dying.”
“Good. They will do. Too bad about the canoes. We’ll have to carry the wounded back.”
“The diseased ones—what will you do?”
“They have to come. Royal will look at them. And Celeste.”
Blu shuddered. “I hope you know what you’re doing. There are several without faces—like at the burnt valley.” Blu turned and began his arc with the guardsmen, walking slowly up the steep incline.' They were all still tired from their run.
Ahroe watched him as the rest of the Pelbarigan guardsmen gathered wounded and dead, lopping off branches with their short-swords to use for hooks to drag the Pesh-tak up under the lip of rock outcrop. The Pelbar dead and wounded were brought to the shore. One guardsman carrying a long wire climbed a tree, and the astonished Threerivers Pelbar watched as the Pelbarigan guardsmen sent signals to the city and received others.
“Guardcaptain, they’re sending a Tantal ship,” the signalman called.
“Good. We’ll wait, then.”
“They say to bring all the Threerivers people.”
The Threerivers guardcaptain stiffened. “I protest,” guardcaptain,” she said. “We are to return with these who ran away.”
“We just saw them save your lives, guardcaptain. And we will not return them for the sort of punishment that Threerivers is dealing out now. They’ve done no wrong now that we have peace.”
“Peace? You call this peace?”
Ahroe looked hard at her. “You can take it up with the Pelbarigan council,” she said, turning away.
In the weeks following Gamwyn’s inadvertent revelation that the organ could be played in chords, Jaiyan grew increasingly frustrated. He installed most of a new row of whistles, but Gamwyn could see he yearned to try playing several notes at once. His pride would not allow him to. The result was irritability, and hard work for Gamwyn.
One day at the beginning of the firstmonth thaw, Gamwyn had spent most of the morning gathering wood chips and blocks for the fire into rough cotton bags. The bending was tiring him. He had begun humming to himself, feeling, whimsical in the warmth. One of the big, brown bags had two ragged holes in it that struck the boy as eyelike. He put it over his head. Two of the Siveri laughed and pointed. Gamwyn shucked it off, took a piece of charcoal, drew in the rest of a face, enormous, grimacing, coming to below his waist. Then he put it on again. The watching Siveri laughed again.
Feeling giddy, Gamwyn set out for the central building to surprise Misque. He stumbled in, finding her with Jamin.
Gamwyn let out a loud moan, raised his arms, shambled forward at them, and grunted. Jamin whirled and shrieked, turning white. Then he heaved his big body upward, leaped back, blundered into the great central pillar of the structure, and fell down. The pillar cracked in two, splintering, bursting suddenly with groping, winter-stiff black ants.
The roof slumped together at the center, slowly twisting, cracking at the extension. As Gamwyn looked, horrified, the roof began to sink. He yelled, running through the sheds to get the old Siveri outside. But in a long moment, the roof fell inward on the highest whistles of the organ, then sections of the palisaded walls slumped outward, and all the leaning sheds also began to go. Jaiyan, who had been turning a whistle in the farthest shed, came rushing up, shouting, “The organ. My organ. Quick, get all that wood off the organ.”
“The old people,” Gamwyn shouted back.
“They can all get out. Save the organ.”
But all had to retreat, as the structure and all the attached sheds groaned, lurched,, and slowly crumbled. Black ants were everywhere, and most of the wood was riddled with their chambers and the dirt-filled tunnels of termites.
Finally all that remained standing, with pieces of wall and roof leaning against it, was the gigantic organ and two stone chimneys. Then the weight grew too much for it, too, and the tallest ranks of whistles twisted and fell. Jaiyan let out a yell and ran into the tangle, lifting and throwing logs and boards off the organ. Soon the Siveri began to help, stacking the wood that had just been their home.
Suddenly Jaiyan stopped. He turned and called out, “Who did this?”
“I,” Jamin said simply. “Gamwyn scare me. I did it.” Jaiyan’s face seemed to pause, blank, and then shrivel like a baked apple. With a bellow, he ran at Gamwyn, picking up a large board. The boy staggered back, holding up his arms as the big man brought the board down on him. It disintegrated in a shower of rot, and Gamwyn turned and ran for the river as Jaiyan cast around for a more effective club, then lumbered after him.
The boy fled out onto the ice, which still reached across the water to one near island, and Jaiyan took several steps out before the sudden cracking of the ice forced him to retreat.
Gamwyn stopped far out on the ice and turned to look back. For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Then Jaiyan yelled, “Is this what you give me for all I’ve done for you?” He threw the long board he’d picked up. It spun in a high arc and then fell and stuck into the rotten ice near where Gamwyn stood. The boy was crestfallen, especially as the old Siveri began to arrive at the river bank, and Misque and all looked out at him across the ice. He never said anything, but turned, and began walking southwest across the ice toward the long island. He would survive somehow. Maybe Jaiyan would see his own responsibilities eventually. As Gamwyn reached the shore of the island, now well below Jaiyan’s Station, he turned again and saw two figures, one large, one small, still standing on the river bank. That would be Jamin and Misque.
Well, I’ve done it again, Gamwyn thought. And oddly enough, he laughed to himself, thinking that if he couldn’t get Jaiyan another organ, at least he could get Bival another shell.
8
Brudoer lay'at ease in the third cell, studying the walls, which were much more extensively covered with letters and designs than those of the first two cells. Low on the wall, a circle of oval shapes alternated with images of small river clams, which Brudoer easily recognized. Above that, a row of land snails alternated with turtles, all aiming to the right. The third band showed the four familiar shapes of a changing butterfly—egg, caterpillar, pupa, and flying insect. Above that another band depicted Threerivers itself, followed by a troubled face, followed by a miniature image of the third cell, and finally a running man.
As Brudoer studied the troubled faces, he found each one was different. They seemed to show anger, frustration, worry, pain, moody introspection; each sixth one showed the face covered by hands. Brudoer easily recognized himself in each of them. But the meanings of the whole eluded him. He also found that the four bands of letters were not in the same cipher as the ones in the previous cell.
As he studied them, the door ground and swung open, and. the Ardena entered. She ordered the guard to close the door after him as he left. Brudoer stood to meet her, bowing courteously. The Ardena raised her eyebrows at that.
“It’s dim in here,” she said. “Come and sit below the window.” Once they were seated she looked at him closely, then sighed. “Well, young one, do you know of the people who fled when you were about to be whipped?”
“Yes, Ardena.”
“Five of them are dead, and four of the guardsmen who followed.”
“Dead? Nine dead? How?”
“Peshtak. They encountered Peshtak and were saved by the Pelbarigan guardsmen. They killed sixty-three Peshtak with their new w
eapon. Three Peshtak wounded survive at Pelbarigan.
“This is amazing.”
“Pelbarigan will not return the fugitives; three of the guardsmen who followed have also chosen to stay.” She looked at him. “You have started something, Brudoer. It may spell the end of Threerivers. Only you can stop it now.”
“Me, Ardena? What about the Protector?”
“She will not. Her party is strengthened because all who left disagreed with her. You must see that.”
“But if the Protector herself will not stop the destruction of the city, how can you expect a boy to?”
“If the boy is wiser than the Protector, he might.” Brudoer looked at the door. “Don’t worry,” the Ardena added. “My nephew is guard.”
“Did you bring the letters from the first cell for me?” The Ardena reached into her sleeve and withdrew a paper, then sat as Brudoer unfolded the paper and frowned, studying the letters.
Finally she said, “I assume that you will have time to do that after I leave. I wish I understood you.”
“If I tell you what I see in these walls so far, what would you do?”
“Do? What would you have me to do?”
“Nothing.”
“Then I will do nothing.”
Brudoer looked at her. “The rows of pictures have a pattern,” he said. “So far this is what I have seen. At the bottom are eggs and clams. Both of them are shells. Bival was right, you know, about the importance of shells. Above them are snails and turtles. These are creatures with shells, too, but they carry their shells. They can move. Next are the changes of a butterfly, which we all learn about. The first stage is also an egg, and then the caterpillar comes. Then in the cocoon the butterfly is in another sort of egg. Finally it emerges into a butterfly. That’s the first really free creature so far. It flies.
“The row above it I’m not sure of, but I think it repeats the pattern of the one below. Threerivers is the egg. Like those on the bottom row, it cannot move. Then comes the troubled face. I see my own in it. But it could be anyone put in these cells. Then comes the cell itself, which is like the eocoon stage of the butterfly. Finally the man runs free like the butterfly.”
Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 04] Page 8