Greg Bear - Songs of Earth 1 - Infinity Concerto

by Infinity Concerto (lit)

  Chitin or nail or stiff, hot hair -

  In dark of August, summer's heat

  Constructs a limb of dust and air.

  If you step out to watch the clouds,

  Silent lightning will prance and grin.

  While on the roof the summer waits

  And if you try to go back in.

  Why, Hello! The season is a spider.

  Half the time, when he wrote a poem, he had no idea what it meant. The back of his head seemed disconnected from all present circumstance, as though facts and images seeped in slowly and were jumbled along the way.

  But the menace was obvious. He was scared clear through, and he had no way to fight his fear. Not yet, perhaps not ever.

  He stood by the door of his house and watched the sun go down, hands in his pants pocket. Nare came out of the hut and strode toward him. When they were face to face, she took his hands in hers and peered at the palms, then pulled apart his blood-stained shirt and examined his chest.

  "How did I do?" Michael asked with an edge of bitterness.

  "You are no good to us asleep. You were to go to the market today, get yourself a card."

  "I mean, how did I do last night?"

  "Terribly," she said. "He would have killed you. And later. you are a terrible warrior."

  "I never wanted to be a warrior," he said incredulously.

  She held out her twiggish fingers and shrugged elegantly. "The choice is to be one, or die," she said. "Your choice."

  Coom and Spart crossed the stream and entered the hut.

  As Nare stood motionless beside him and Michael waited nervously, the stars twirled into view. Coom and Spart emerged with eight long torches and began staking them in a circle between the house and the stream. They lighted the torches by cupping their hands behind the wick and blowing on them. Sparks and flame shot up into the night and an orange circle of light shimmered within the perimeter.

  "Time is difficult to measure in the Realm," Spart said, approaching Michael and taking him by the hand. The sensation of her long, strong fingers around his own quelled any protest. She led him into the circle and motioned for Coom to join them. "You will learn our functions now," Spart said. "Coom is an expert in what the Sidhe call isray, physical combat. Nare is versed in stray, preparation of the mind. And I will teach victory, the avoidance of battle as a means to victory. Tonight, since it is the simplest and easiest of the three, you will learn from Coom the beginnings of how to survive a fight with human or Sidhe."

  Coom walked around Michael slowly, with high, almost prancing steps. Nare and Spart watched from outside the circle of torches. Michael regarded Coom warily, hands at his sides, head inclined slightly. He jumped as she reached down and grabbed a leg to reposition it. "Don't fall over," she said. "Like stool. One leg to be like two." She continued her circling. "Morning, you run to Halftown, run back. Tonight, you just stand up." She shot out one arm and pushed him. He promptly fell on his butt and scrambled to his feet again. She reached out and shoved once more. He stumbled but stayed upright. She circled and shoved from another angle. He toppled forward on his face. "Like stool," she repeated. She shoved again, and again, but he remained standing.

  His face was flushed and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth, but he was surprised at how calm he felt. The methodic circling, shoving, went on for an hour until he kept his balance no matter what angle Coom attacked from.

  The torches guttered. "Ears," Coom said. Nare and Spart extinguished the feeble flames. Clouds obscured the stars now; except for the feverish orange glow from the hut windows, there was no illumination. He couldn't see any of the Crane Women. He listened to the sound of their feet moving, trying to guess how many circled him. A hand pushed hard on his back and he went to one knee, then got up quickly.

  "Ears," Coom said again. He sensed a footfall nearby and braced himself instinctively in the opposite direction. The blow came, but he kept his balance. j Another hour passed. He was groggy and his legs ached abominably. His shoulders were sore and swollen. For a time he rotated in the darkness, until he realized he couldn't hear their footfalls any more. He was alone. The Crane Women had f returned to their hut.

  He felt his way to his house and collapsed in a corner. He couldn't sleep. He rubbed his arms and shoulders and contemplated past gym classes, where he had never performed enthusiastically. It wasn't a matter of being weak or gimpy; he could run well enough, and his frame was sound. Michael had just never cared that much, and the gym teachers had seldom in spired confidence in those who didn't profess to be jocks.

  Inspiration wasn't the issue here. Whatever he thought, however miserable he was, tomorrow he would run until he dropped - which he was sure he would. No protests, no complaints.

  After the incident with Alyons, Michael fully appreciated his position.

  Obviously, things could get much worse.

  Chapter Eight

  "The Sidhe do not use swords," Spart told Michael. They squatted on the ground outside his house, legs crossed, facing each other.

  "But Alyons has a pike-"

  "That is his wick. He uses it only against humans."

  Michael nodded and looked away, resigned to the ambiguities. Spart sighed and leaned toward him.

  "You are supposed to wonder what Alyons does with his wick."

  "Act wicked?" Michael said, trying for a smile. Spart leaned back and narrowed her eyes to even tighter slits. "Okay," he gave in. "What does he do with it?"

  "The wick is his symbol of rank. It confers his power of office, of labor. It signifies that he has the strength to guard the Blasted Plain and the Pact Lands, and to uphold the pact made between Sidhe and the Isomage."

  "So why did he stab me with it?"

  "He hates humans, like many Sidhe."

  "Do you hate humans?"

  "Tal antros," she said, tapping her chest with her finger. "I am half-human."

  "Why don't Sidhe use swords?"

  "They have no need. A Sidhe warrior is frightening enough without. And there is honor involved. Death is final for a Sidhe; there is nothing beyond except being pressed into a tree by the Arborals. That is not even half a life. So it has been established that the Sidhe may combat each other only by means dependent on their own skill and power, by which we mean magic and strength of will."

  "I'm going to learn magic?"

  Spart shook her head. "No humans ever conquer Sidhe magic. You'll have to learn how to flee, how to be inconspicuous. You cannot hope to best a Sidhe in grand combat. Your only chance is that a Sidhe will consider combat with a human shameful, worth only small effort. Take advantage of that. In the rare instances where you might be called into grand combat-" She slapped her hand against the dirt. "You will simply die. Dying in the Realm is as permanent for humans as death anywhere for a Sidhe. So do not provoke a warrior."

  "I don't understand-"

  "You will, in time. Now you will go to Halftown, do our errands. After, you will run. There is an order of grains to be delivered here, and you will-"

  "I know. Ask for food for myself."

  Spart regarded him with infinite patience, blinked slowly and turned away.

  Halftown was quiet, matching the somber, overcast morning. Michael tried being cordial to the Breeds, but they returned no greetings; curiosity about him seemed to have lapsed. They were like ghosts intent on some irrevocable task; only a few of the women had any obvious hint of life and joy in them.

  Michael followed the curving market street, which branched from the main road near the center of Halftown. The lone market consisted of a house (in Cascar, a caersidh, pronounced roughly "ker-shi"), round like most of the others, and a covered courtyard twice the area of the house itself. The courtyard was filled with tables and shelves stacked with provisions - foods in one corner, housewares, liquors (in bottles which looked suspiciously like the ones in Brecker's cellar in Euterpe) in another, and the simple types of clothing in a third. The middle of the courtyard was the counter, and there the ma
rket manager held sway.

  Spart had said his name was Lirg. He had a daughter, Eleuth, the one who had delivered milk to the Crane Women's hut. Lirg never took cash - the Sidhe abhorred money, which seemed a bit strange to Michael, considering the legends of pots of gold and such - but kept careful track of Halftown's balances. Michael gathered the economy was loosely based on fulfillment of assigned tasks and dispersal of goods according to need.

  Not unlike the simpler forms of communism he had learned about in Mr. Wagner's class at school. Allotments of supplies were brought across the Blasted Plain. As Michael skirted the courtyard, three large, big-wheeled wagons, each drawn by two Sidhe horses, lumbered in from the opposite end of the market street.

  The wagons were filled with food and supplies. A Sidhe driver sat on the lead wagon, tall and aloof, dressed in iridescent browns, the cut of his clothes not substantially different from that of Alyons, except he wore no armor and carried no wick. The horses were lathered as if they had been driven hard, and a peculiar golden glow lifted from the backs of the wagons like sunlit dust. The glow dissipated, leaving a sweet-bitter scent in the air. Lirg stepped down from his counter and directed the unloading of the supplies. The Sidhe driver took down his tailgates and several passersby pitched in to help. Few words were exchanged. The supplies were either carried into a covered shed in the fourth corner of the courtyard, or placed directly in the market stalls. There was no rush to inspect the goods; they differed not in the slightest from those already available, and assured only continuity, not variety.

  Michael watched until the wagons had been unloaded and pulled aside, then entered the courtyard, reluctant to make himself obvious. The driver shut the tailgates and smoothed the wood with his hands, leaving trails of golden glitter on the boards. He then walked around the horses and patted each on the haunch with more precision than affection. Everything he touched was left with a sparkle.

  Lirg was back at his counter when Michael approached The Breed fastened him with a steady gaze, one eye dark and the other half-shut by a scar. Lirg's hair was more brown than red, and his skin tan instead of pale. "Your needs?" he asked, leaning forward on thickly muscled arms.

  "I'm here to pick up grain for the Crane Women. And to be put on your list."

  "What list?" He examined Michael intensely, then nodded. "The card. I see. Food only. that is all we can spare, even for pets of the Crane Women."

  "I'm not a pet," Michael said gritting his teeth. "I'm a student, and I'm doing what they tell me to do." Lirg grinned at that, and Michael blushed.

  "I see. Daughter!"

  Eleuth emerged from the house with four sacks of grain. She put two of them by Michael's feet and hefted the other two onto her shoulders.

  "I can carry them all," Michael said.

  "I've told my daughter to help you," Lirg said. That seemed to settle it. Eleuth gave Michael a look suggesting he not argue. Michael picked up his two sacks.

  "Am I on your list. on the card?"

  "You are," Lirg said. He turned to a Breed customer and Michael left the courtyard, Eleuth following a few steps behind.

  "What are they teaching you?" Eleuth asked as they approached the creek.

  "They're trying to make me stronger," Michael said.

  "Why don't you just stay in Euterpe? They have their own allotment. You could do well there."

  "That's not the way things worked out," he said. "I suppose I'm being trained so I can go home again. I hope that's the reason, anyway. I have to find the man who can do it."

  "A Sidhe magician could send you home," Eleuth said. Her voice was extraordinary; he didn't want to look at her for fear of being unable to look away again. "I think one could, anyway. That's what Lirg says, that the priests of the ball could send humans home again if they really wanted to. There's something mysterious about that, I can't help thinking. Because, you see, the humans are still here."

  Michael considered her words for a moment, then started to cross the stream. "Anyway, I have to learn how to live here."

  Eleuth nodded. "If you're new, there's a lot to learn, I guess."

  They set the sacks down outside the door of the Crane Women's hut.

  "Where's your mother?" Michael asked. Humans didn't live in Halftown; he knew that much.

  "I don't know," Eleuth said. Her face was simple and composed. "Most of us have Sidhe mothers, and our fathers are missing - or in Euterpe. We never know who they are. So I suppose I'm unusual, second generation Breed. my father a Breed, my mother human."

  He knocked on the door and Span opened it. She peered at Eleuth, Michael and then the sacks and said, "Fine." She closed the door again.

  "Does that mean you're free today?"

  He shook his head. "I have to run to Euterpe and back." He walked to his house.

  "You built that yourself?" Eleuth asked, following.

  "Sort of."

  "Like a Sidhe warrior. Must build his own dwelling. but very clever, really, for a human."

  Michael glanced at her; Eleuth's expression was still composed and simple. She wasn't ragging him. "Thanks for the help," he said. He felt very awkward.

  She looked around the mound with an expression of awe mixed with distaste, then smiled at him and said good-by. As she forded the creek, Michael watched the way her legs moved. They were long, graceful. His face flushed. She was pretty in a way; no, not just pretty (perhaps not pretty at all) - but beautiful. But then, how did he know what passed for beauty in the Realm?

  An attraction to a Breed, he was sure, could be perverse and would only complicate his life more.

  "Man-child!" Nare came toward him, carrying two thick sticks about seven feet long. "Run to Euterpe. Hold this over your head going and in front of you returning." She gave him a stick. He hefted it and groaned inwardly.

  "Then what?"

  "When you are strong enough, you learn how to use the stick." With the other stick, she lightly tapped his own just outside one hand's grip. "Or I break all your fingers. Now go."

  Michael began to run. He crossed the stream without slipping and congratulated himself on his newfound coordination. Leaving wet shoeprints, he took the first hundred yards in stride, though the stick made his arms ache. Within a half mile he was still going strong. It was in the third quarter of the first mile that he was sure the stick would drag him down, and that once on the ground, he would die.

  He tried to remember how to breathe when running: steadily, without letting his legs pound the air from his lungs.

  His mouth was dry and his lungs began to feel as though they'd been sprayed with acid. His arms were twin upright pillars of pain, and his knees wobbled; still, he was determined to keep going. He'd show them he was good for something. He had had enough humiliation -

  His toe caught a rock and he sprawled headlong in the dirt. The stick bounced end-to-end and rolled ahead of him. He picked dirt from between his teeth and felt his bruised lips and nose, trying to control his agonized gulping for air.

  A half-hour later, he stood with his hands on his knees before the outskirts of Euterpe, his face beet red and his legs liquid. He dropped the stick on the ground beside him. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to lift it again. "Christ," he said. "I'm nothing but a wimp. He might as well have killed me."

  It took him a couple of minutes to become aware of the small crowd standing nearby, just outside one of Euterpe's small pedestrian gates. They watched him curiously, saying nothing at first. He tried to stand upright and winced. The auburn-haired woman he had last seen at the hotel dinner stepped forward. "What are you doing back?" she asked, voice thick with anger. "Breeds not good enough for you?"

  He regarded her from under his brows, breath ragged.

  "They're getting me in shape," he said. He didn't want anybody to be angry - why should humans be mad at him?

  "Why do you need to be in better shape?" a man asked from the back of the group.

  "I don't know," Michael said. He picked up the stick, his fingers barel
y agreeing to close on it, and turned around to start back.

  "Michael!"

  Savarin came through the gate. Michael leaned on his stick, grateful for a friendly tone and an excuse to rest a bit longer. His chest now felt as if it were filled with water. He coughed and wiped his forehead.

  "You're in training?" Savarin asked. Michael nodded and swallowed. "Well, that can't hurt."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "They are teaching you. how to fight, perhaps, how to fight Sidhe?"

  He shook his head. "They're teaching me how to run away from Sidhe."

  Savarin scowled. "When can you get back here? There are people I'd like you to meet."