Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  ‘Lynne,’ Cory said.

  I turned away. That sharp face of hers was calm. You’re used to it, I thought. Then: I’ve seen it before. Yes. I never get used to it.

  With something between black humour and hysteria, I caught the black-and-gold sleeve of Pathrey’s robe. ‘Just how many friends did Dannor bel-Kurick have?’

  ‘Many that one wouldn’t have taken to be so,’ Pathrey Shanataru said. ‘In truth, I think some of them themselves didn’t know it.’

  Cory raised her wristlink. In the silence, I heard Jamison answer; and after a second, an answer from the orbiter. It reassured me to hear another human voice in this charnel-house.

  ‘Pathrey, did Calil permit this?’

  He said, ‘You’ll see the Empress-in-Exile now, shan’tai.’

  We walked on. The two brown-mailed guards flanked us. A brighter light became visible at the arched end of the chamber, a yellow glow outlining the curve of chiruzeth. Our footsteps sounded loudly, but Pathrey’s bare feet were silent.

  ‘Stay here,’ he ordered the guards, at the arch. I saw a look of relief pass between them. Then we entered through the archway and I realized, Dannor bel-Kurick saw us here. This low, wide chamber; alcoves to either side still crowded with the refuse of millennia … We paced down the narrow central passage between heaps of relics, towards lights and clustered groups of people. Light that came from candles on great iron stands reflected back from chiruzeth artifacts, from metal belts on shimmering red and blue and viridian robes, from metal combs in unbraided white manes. Heads began to turn at our approach. A young Harantish female laughed, was checked when an older woman touched her arm; three males in black robes whispered together. I looked at their narrow-chinned faces, the eyes that were whiteless brown or black, those manes dyed white; saw how they were imitations –

  On the terrace that looks down on the Six Lakes, slender bodies in metalmesh robes; they who walk as dancers, white manes unbraided to the wind.

  – but this is Kel Harantish, not Archonys. Kel Harantish, hard and white-shelled; inside, all the soft colours of corruption.

  ‘The sooner we get the Representative out, the better,’ Cory said in an undertone. ‘Medical care will be on a primitive level, here, and …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Pathrey, walking with his head high, led us between towering stands of candles thick with congealed wax; between the gathered Harantish Ortheans; out into the empty floor between them and the arched end of the chamber. I felt my boot catch, glanced down, saw the chiruzeth floor was coated black – for a moment saw nothing else. Candlelight gave way to a light that is pale blue and lilac. The glow of sphere-lights.

  ‘Give you greeting,’ said a voice, muffled; a mouth half full of food. I took a pace forward. The black bloodstains were wet on the chiruzeth floor. My gaze followed the liquid to where it still sluggishly flowed –

  A pile of white, round objects shone in the cold light. The heap was as high as my waist. Two other heaps lay near the dais and the carved chiruzeth throne, that I dimly saw now was occupied. White objects, ovoid, speckled with black. Then I saw the slanting, narrow eyesockets; the teeth in broken jaw-bones, the cranial sutures of inhuman, alien skulls. The bone before me was old, dried to yellow; but the stains were fresh, and so –

  I fixed my eyes on a level, didn’t (couldn’t) look at the other charnel heaps, afraid (aware) that they were not old …

  ‘Give you greeting,’ the voice repeated. Something moved in the air. I flinched. A bitten arniac-fruit hit the chiruzeth floor and rolled to the edge of that heap of severed bone. I looked up.

  She leaned back in the carved chiruzeth throne, chewing, and sipping from a carved bowl of del’ri wine. That thin face had a grin on it. Her white mane was roughly braided up, and her feet were bare and dirty. Her short white robe was stained on the breast with spilled del’ri. The thin copper chains that girdled her waist were green with verdigris. Sphere-lights hung in empty air above that throne, shedding light the colour of lilac and lightning.

  She stood, stepped down from the throne, and kicked aside fragments of bone as she walked up to me. Her yellow eyes were sunnily cheerful. She wiped her arniac-stained hands down her robe. A child, I thought, little and dirty and brilliant and bad. Calil bel-Rioch. Calil bel-Dannor. Then her eyes met mine and it was a woman I saw, a Golden woman: Empress-in-Exile.

  Pathrey Shanataru stepped past Cory and myself. ‘I told them shan’tai Rachel was here and injured –’

  Her hand struck once, vicious and fast. The blow echoed in the low-roofed chamber. Pathrey’s head rocked back, then he touched his mouth and looked at the dark blood on his fingers. Someone in the crowd behind us laughed. I glanced back. Even in that crepuscular light I could see the numbers of Harantish there were growing.

  ‘I’m glad to see you again, shan’tai Christie. This will be Commander Mendez? I’ve heard of you, shan’tai; give you greeting.’ Calil inclined her head. Her voice held immense good humour. That studied normality chilled me.

  Corazon Mendez said, ‘I understand you offered protective shelter to Representative Rachel and other personnel. Rashid Akida, Pramila Ishida, and David Osaka.’ Cory’s voice stayed even, but she looked white round the eyes and mouth.

  ‘Did we? Possibly. Pathrey –’ This last in a very different tone. The plump dark male bobbed his head, half reached out a hand to her.

  ‘The Representative is in the ninth level, K’ai Calil.’

  ‘You’d better conduct the shan’tais’aranthi there.’ Calil turned away dismissively. She mounted the low steps to the throne.

  Candles hissed, the only noise: bare feet on chiruzeth are silent. None of that crowd of Harantish Ortheans spoke. Light cast rounded shadows on the floor from those abattoir piles of skulls that clustered round the throne. I breathed shallowly but the stink of blood still caught in my throat; if it had been human, animal instinct would have made me vomit. Outside the circle of candle and sphere-light, eyes watched, dim figures there. Only she stood out clearly. That small figure, now seated on the chiruzeth throne, one foot tucked up under her; biting into a handful of arniac-fruit and dripping red juice on to the lap of her robe. She reached up to tuck a tendril of mane back behind her ear, and that claw-nailed hand left red smears on her cheek. I met her eyes. Yellow-eyed, that fox-face, bright with humour. Fear cramped in my stomach: Here is a dream made flesh. Here is the child of Santhendor’lin-sandru and Zilkezra.

  ‘My Pathrey Shanataru is something of a liar,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Your Molly Rachel is not injured. She was injured. She is dead now.’

  25

  Traitor’s Gate

  ‘Don’t talk to me about xeno-psychology,’ Cory Mendez said grimly. ‘That woman’s a psychopath!’

  She keyed her wristlink as she walked. Pathrey led us down yet more steps, into higher-roofed halls and small chambers. He glanced back at her, worried. She swore under her breath.

  ‘Getting interference again. Lynne, I suggest we act very carefully from now on.’

  If we’d been a day sooner, half a day, could we have prevented this? I felt exhausted, afraid.

  ‘Here, shan’tai.’ Pathrey stopped at the arched entrance of a tiny room. He touched my arm, and said miserably, ‘I thought to prepare you … I know s’aranthi are shocked by deaths. That was the reason for the lie.’

  His speech was slurred, his mouth swelling from Calil’s blow. I pushed past him into the small room. Mirror-reflected light was dim, but bright enough to show the place was empty but for a pallet on the floor.

  Molly Rachel lay there, half-curled on her left side. Her eyes were partly open, but only a line of white showed under the lids; and she was too still. I felt the cold, soft skin of her throat for a pulse; her black hair brushed my wrist, and I shivered. She had been dead long enough, I saw, for the blood to pool in those parts of her body nearest the floor. The last act of planetary gravity. A darker flush on that dark skin.

  ‘Knife wound,’ Corazon
Mendez said, squatting down to touch the ribcage. She picked up the unresisting hand and began to undo the wristlink. Without thought I grabbed at her arm: ‘Leave her!’

  I stopped. ‘Sorry, Cory, I didn’t mean –’

  ‘It has to be a job. It’s the only way to look at it. And this,’ Mendez said, that hawk-face with a flush of anger, ‘this, dying on some stupid backwater world, just because you’re caught in the crossfire – it’s tragic.’

  Sometimes I despise myself for the ability to become detached, but I used it now: looked down at Molly Rachel’s body and allowed myself to feel nothing. I said, ‘We must find out about the others, Rashid and David and Pramila.’

  Cory bent to recover the Pacifican woman’s wristlink. ‘Records have been made recently. Says here, they’re for your eyes.’ She handed the wristlink to me. ‘I have to abide by that, I suppose, but there may be data here that it’s essential I have.’

  ‘You’ll see it.’

  Cory Mendez bent over the body again, and I left the small room for the larger outer chamber. Pathrey Shanataru would have followed but I stopped him with a look. One of these Harantish killed her deliberately or by accident – who?

  And does it really matter now?

  The wristlink’s holo-image was tiny and clear: Molly Rachel’s face. Brown skin, loop-tangled hair, luminous brown eyes. A squint of exhaustion drew her face into taut lines. And now she lies a few yards away, skin smoothed free of strain … The dead voice came thin and clear.

  ‘A few points, Lynne, while I’m stuck here inactive – I might as well. Have this sense of déjà vu. Regarding Kel Harantish, isn’t this where we came in?’

  Her image chuckled. Something caught my breath.

  ‘I’m leaving the northern continent as your department, but it must be brought under control. I hesitate to say this, but make whatever deals with Clifford’s government that you have to. This isn’t the time for the Company to be fussy.

  ‘I … might need you here for a short period of time. The Calil woman bothers me. I know it means the risk that you’ll react with false memories to Witchbreed artifacts – that’s why I let you go north – but I may need your help.’

  The dark face was illuminated with mirror-light. What I could see of the background showed a chiruzeth-walled room. The deep levels of this city. And is she alone?

  ‘I’m duplicating this part of the report to home office and Cory Mendez. If it wasn’t for the atmospheric interference, I’d send it through to the orbiter … There’ll have to be an investigation but I’m pretty certain, Lynne; the illegal CAS weapons came in on the authority of Pramila Ishida. you know she has a – connection – with hiyek-Anzhadi. Sethri-safere. As far as I know, she’s with them now. Lynne, she’s done what I, God forgive me, always expected you to do: she’s gone native. I’ve put a stop to the illegal arms trade, but as for what’s already come in under the guise of agricultural equipment …’

  The recorded image cut out. Immediately it re-formed. Time had obviously passed. Molly’s coverall was rumpled, stained on one cuff with arniac-juice. She spoke with strained alertness: ‘I’ve been cut off from contact with Rashid and David. If the damned comlinks would only work … There has to be some way of overriding the radiation from the wastelands, if that’s what this is. I … assume Rashid and David are unharmed. If I knew how the rumour got about that the Maherwa research is successful, I’d – we still don’t know the first thing about Golden science, whatever Rashid says.’

  The image remained still for so long that I thought it might have frozen, except that the dark lashes from time to time slid down over her brown eyes. At last she drew a long breath.

  ‘And if Rashid is right, that makes being caught in this settlement a catastrophic error of judgement on my part. For that reason, I’ve destroyed all Company records here. I don’t trust Calil bel-Rioch with any technology. If you come here, Lynne, you’ll hear it: she calls herself “Empress”. Not “Empress-in-Exile” … And now I don’t know if Rashid or David are still alive, or – you see, I never intended that we should break the cultural restrictions by giving Golden science to Ortheans, and you blame me for searching out a commercial interest for the Company but how else can we justify the aid?’

  That thin recorded voice paused. I stood in the large, dimly-lit chamber. What would you feel now, Molly; what would you say, if you knew then that you were about to die?

  ‘I can’t tell what’s possible,’ the dead woman said. ‘Do you know, I half hoped your crazy theory about Kasabaarde was true, if only for your sake, and then that turned out to be propaganda. How can I judge what’s alien? I thought the Harantish only knew how to maintain the canals by rote, by ritual transfer of knowledge they didn’t understand. Now I’m not so sure.’

  The image flickered again. By the wristlink’s indicator, not much of the recording left to run. When the holo-image formed again, Molly Rachel looked tired and filthy, but she pushed back her tangled hair with long dark fingers, and grinned.

  ‘Still can’t get a contact out, but I can overhear transmissions. Must mean the interference is waning again. Lynne, I recorded this for you because you’re next in seniority; David’s here – I’ve just seen him. Pramila … God knows what the Company’s going to do about Pramila. I want you to deputize for me formally in the Hundred Thousand. Use this place as a threat, if you have to; not sure quite how, but you’ll think of something! I know you. We’ll have to make sure Commander Mendez doesn’t overstep the mark. I believe we’re nearly there, Lynne. The fighting’s stopped, the Empress-in-Exile says we’re released from protective imprisonment. I should see you within two or three hours – in person, or by ’link. Take care.’

  The record ran through to its end.

  What happened in that blank time between that and her death? Silence is the only reply. The chiruzeth hall was cold, and I shifted my weight, aware of cramp from standing so fixedly to watch the wristlink’s image. When I looked up, Cory Mendez was waiting.

  ‘Here.’ I handed her the wristlink.

  As she activated it, I saw Pathrey Shanataru still at the entrance to that tiny room where Molly Rachel’s body lay. Watching me. His black mane hung in sleek curls down his spine, but despite that and his new black-and-gold robes, he still had that indefinable air of seediness.

  ‘Shan’tai Christie,’ he said softly, and beckoned. When I left Cory Mendez and crossed the chamber to his side, he offered me a metal flask that hung at his belt. The liquid in it had the harsh bite of del’ri-spirit. I drank down half of it, feeling the fire.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I don’t know. That,’ he said, ‘is true, shan’tai.’

  And if it isn’t, what can I do about it? I tried again: ‘Where’s David Osaka? And Rashid Akida?’

  He wiped his forehead, looking uncomfortable. ‘If K’ai Calil says your people were never here, then believe her, shan’tai.’

  There was fear under his obsequiousness. I glanced over at Cory – lost in the wristlink’s record – and then back at this sleek Harantish male. He had to look up to meet my eyes. There was something in the movement that said Witchbreed! even of this plump, dark male; the faintest echo of the Golden.

  ‘Pathrey – tell me about Calil bel-Rioch. Bel-Dannor. How long have you known her?’

  ‘All my life,’ Pathrey Shanataru said. ‘No, shan’tai Christie, she’s twenty years younger then I, but I think I had no life until I knew her. She was a barefoot brat, then, running the roofs with the other beggars. Traders’ ashiren, the lowest caste. I come of a science bloodline, my people know canals and siiran. Did that bring her to me? I don’t know.’

  He raised the metal flask and drained it of del’ri, looking back at me with vulnerable eyes.

  ‘I remember the first time I saw her. She was fighting another ashiren for a scrap of del’ri bread. Won it, too. Ate a mouthful and then stamped the rest into the dirt.’ Pathrey paused, embarrassed. ‘She speaks of you sometimes, shan’tai Chris
tie. She would not like it if I spoke of her to you.’

  ‘Is she mad?’

  He winced at the direct question. He brushed one claw-nailed hand over his face, an oddly ineffectual gesture.

  ‘You can’t judge her, shan’tai. She has always seen … more. She made me travel with her, we went as far as the Rainbow Cities; and everyone who set eyes on her shunned her as Golden, as Kel Harantish is shunned; and she would tell me how, one day, Kel Harantish would stand alone.’

  When he paused, I waited. His dark gaze was far away.

  ‘I remember once we went to Kasabaarde, in the dress of mercenaries. She wouldn’t enter the inner city. When she saw the Tower, from a distance, I remember she said to me, “If not for that we could hold command over all the hiyeks.” So I asked, what about the north? And she said, “They come of the same stock, they would follow us without thought.” I remember she looked at the spire of the Rasrhe-y-Meluur as a beggar’s child looks at bread …’

  His soft voice raised hissing echoes, here in this chiruzeth chamber nine levels below ground; here in the chill that is never disturbed by the Desert Coast’s heat. Mendez still watched the wristlink. Something in the line of her back told me her attention had shifted.

  Pathrey’s dark gaze met mine. ‘Do you lay blame on her? She sees our people prostitute their skills, only to keep us supplied with food and water; which elsewhere all men take for granted … I saw her weep, once. The white plague took a hold on the city. It was three seasons before we could bury all the dead – bury them, because they were poison meat. All they gave her was the contempt they had for a trader’s child, and yet she wept.’

  ‘That butchery in the throne-room, will she weep for that?’ I grabbed his shoulders. The fine cloth robe bunched in my hands as I shook him. ‘That’s one of my people there, dead, will Calil weep for her?’

  Cory Mendez glanced up. I released Pathrey. It was an effort to unclench whitened fingers. He rubbed his shoulder with a plump hand, looking up at me reproachfully.