Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  At first I saw nothing. Then I registered that Northfast no longer has a harbour arm. That long mass of masonry gone, and only shattered fragments at the quay end to prove it ever existed.

  Smoke and dust clouded the dockside. Metal shone: a jath-rai driven up – up the steps that led to the Portmaster’s office; it looked ridiculous there. Men and women clambered free of the fallen hoop-mast, staggering; one fell from no cause and didn’t rise, and it was whole minutes later before I thought (as the ’thopter crossed the channel between islands) winchbow-bolt. I reached out to key in a contact with my wristlink, and found I had to use the console; the world not yet come together again in my head. Did we really do that? And: yes, we did: we really did.

  The ’thopter ports closed, the air-purifiers hummed; dust from the explosion being filtered out of the interior of the craft. That cloud drifted south, dimming the daystars. It hid the pattern of F90s and YV9s, shuttling back and forth across this few miles of coast. How far inland did they hear that? I wondered. What’s being said now in the river-telestres? How long will it take word to get as far as the nearer Archipelago islands?

  ‘– do we have contact? Lynne?’

  ‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘Give me your co-ordinates, and have your pilot here rendezvous with your shuttle. I’m coming aboard.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  I closed my eyes, concentrating on the voices on the comlink circuit, knowing better than to interrupt with anything inessential. There was no voice yet speaking Rimon, or Sino-Anglic with a Rimon accent.

  The F90 hovered squarely over Northfast, holotank showing a direct live-transmission of the island beneath. Corazon Mendez was standing by the holotank when her junior officer ushered me into the craft’s comlink-centre; she glanced up briefly, but continued to talk without pause: ‘– the extent of damage for Company records. I want a full holographic record, Lieutenant.’ She keyed in a different contact. ‘Marston, has there been any resumption of hostilities?’

  ‘Some sporadic firing, Commander Mendez. The sea-craft are still keeping their distance. Estimate them fifteen minutes away from any contact with land.’

  ‘Good.’ She keyed the channel shut, and straightened. Her hair was sleek, the Peace Force coverall neat. Nothing betrayed tension but that characteristic twisting of her silver rings, of which she seemed unaware.

  ‘The hiyek ships have backed off?’

  ‘For the moment,’ Cory said. ‘The next few hours will be quiet. If we pass the eight-hour mark, I may begin to think we’ve forced the cease-fire we were hoping for. If not, we’re back where we started.’

  My legs not only ached, they were trembling. I walked across and sat down in one of the bucket seats. I was suddenly unaccountably thirsty. I said, ‘Not entirely back where we started. The Company’s used force twice now on Orthe; that’s as far as it’s going to go. Or were you thinking that, if this hasn’t worked, you can do here what you did at Reshebet?’

  ‘That strike was effective,’ Cory said mildly. ‘May I remind you, Lynne, you’re unofficially acting as Company representative. If anything, we share the responsibility.’

  Never argue on ground that uncertain. I said nothing in direct reply.

  ‘Is there any news from the orbiter on Doug Clifford?’

  ‘What kind of news?’ She was bewildered.

  Only a few hours, and communications are confused – I shook my head. One becomes resigned to this sort of thing in the field. ‘He was hurt in Melkathi. The Harantish – but you won’t know about that either? No. Jesus Christ! Well, so long as you hear about it now … You may want to call your senior officers in on this briefing.’

  The cool green lighting of the F90’s cabin soothed me (as it is intended to do); I became aware of the power-hum, of a low chatter of communication; of other Peace Force officers through in different command-centres.

  ‘Cory, I also want the T’An Rimon in on this one. He has local information you could find useful; he’s fought here, and on the Coast.’ I thought, And for the hiyeks and against them – but what will Blaize Meduenin say when he knows that Kel Harantish has entered this war?

  ‘I’ll have my people contact him.’

  We spoke of other things. I kept up a facade of competence; what I said, I don’t know. At last, with no warning, an insert in the holotank resolved into the scarred face of Blaize Meduenin, standing in the sunlight on Northfast; and he spoke with one of Cory’s junior officers, in a voice hoarse with exhaustion. Relief of tension made my eyes prickle with tears, but I held them back.

  I made no move to speak with him. The resolution of the image was poor, but clear enough to see the stains of black blood on the harur-nilgiri in his right hand. Strain and exhaustion on his face, corrupted by the pull of scar tissue; lines deeply incised near the pale membrane-covered eyes – by being on Northfast for those two hours, he had gone into a place where I could not follow; that place in him I have never more than partly understood.

  Eight hours passed with excruciating slowness. I ate, slept; spoke with the Peace Force officers of the death of Sethri-safere in Melkathi, and what that might now mean. F90s and YV9s left to re-power; returned. Carrick’s Star beat down unrelentingly, and a heat haze veiled the estuary: heat-sensors patterned the movements of people below, on the mainland, on islands, in the jath-rai that lay becalmed off Spire Gate.

  Long effort at last got me a clear contact with Melkathi, with the acting head of Company Research, Ravi Singh. His image in the holotank blinked, bewildered: no, nothing was happening at Ashiel Wellhouse; no, nor anywhere in Rimnith and Keverilde.

  ‘I shall move to our base on Kumiel Island,’ he announced. ‘I don’t see any reason to stay here. All the evidence here points to the use of native low-tech, with perhaps some illegal Earth mid-tech weaponry; I see no signs of anything else. If you authorize me to return to the orbiter, I do have a research programme I could be getting on with.’

  I said something, fortunately in one of the Orthean languages; and cut the contact. What does it take to get through the cotton wool round you? I thought. But I made the authorization. And made another call to the orbiter.

  ‘The government envoy is still in tissue-regeneration.’ This medic, Kennaway, an elderly black woman, smiled when she recognized me. ‘Ms Christie – I’ll let you know, personally, as soon as there’s any news.’

  I sat at the holotank for some minutes after that contact. Would it help now, to speak with Nelum Santhil, or Haltern or Cassirur? Is what they see at ground level different from satellite-images; is there something to be sensed, there, that can’t be detected except through that contact born of the earth?

  The small cabin intercom chimed, disrupting my thoughts. When I keyed in, a young Pacifican woman’s face appeared: one of Cory’s senior officers.

  ‘Commander Mendez wishes to see you urgently,’ she said.

  Outside the shuttle, Corazon Mendez stood with a group of Peace Force officers. Heat haze faded, though the air was still humid; my coverall clung stickily to me. The smell of burning hung strongly in the air with no wind to shift it, and the island across this narrow channel was invisible in a sepia twilight: Little Morvren blazing without hope of control. Some of the boats used for its exodus still lay beached on the shore below us.

  As I walked across to join the group, I saw Ortheans there. Blaize Meduenin’s stocky figure, and an elegantly thin male, Khassiye Andrethe, and five or six others in Freeport dress … no one in the meshabi-robe of the hiyeks.

  ‘This is your business, not mine,’ Corazon said without preamble. ‘I don’t discuss compensation.’

  ‘Compensation?’

  A Freeport male, older than the others in the group, said ironically, ‘There is the matter of Northfast harbour, t’an; or rather, the harbour that we had before your Company came lately to the Freeport.’

  ‘I think it may be premature to discuss rebuilding at this stage,’ I said. The old male’s eyes veiled and cleared. Is that equal appre
ciation of irony, I thought; or anger, or sadness, or all three?

  ‘You misunderstand me, t’an S’aranth –’

  A younger shaven-maned male interrupted ‘Not only the harbour! You have put your ships to earth here, and on the banks of the Ai River; you desecrate telestre land with the touch of them! What possible “compensation” can you offer for that?’

  Heat made me sweat. The back of my neck prickled with what my empathy detected in Cory and her officers: the thought native superstition so strong that for a moment I saw the two Freeporters through her eyes – dark reptilian skin, pale manes rooting down their spines; gold and red robes belted with harur-blade harness, barbaric splendour.

  ‘I am sorry for the necessity of it,’ I said. ‘T’an Earthspeaker, it would not have been done if there had been any other way. Ask the T’An Rimon.’ The young male’s expression altered fractionally, realizing I’d recognized him as a priest of the Goddess.

  Blaize moved a few steps over the dry earth and came to stand beside me. It effectively divided us into two groups: Orthean and Peace Force officers – and where am I? Between the two, I thought. Where else?

  ‘I gave my word for the destruction on Northfast.’ Blaize spoke leisurely.

  ‘And what else will you give your word for, while there is war in Morvren?’

  The younger male’s hostility was plain. On the other Orthean faces, I saw at best neutrality, at worst hatred. Now that the haze was almost gone, they stood against a background of sea and smoke; the flat horizon and low islands, and coiling pillars of ash that were spreading to form a ceiling, blotting out daystars and summer clouds. The only movement was a brief sighting of some YV9 or cruising ’thopter.

  ‘We have the use of s’aranthi eyes,’ Blaize said, with a laconic jerk of his head at the aircraft, ‘It’s always said Freeporters know a bargain. That for this –’ with a gesture that took in the ranked F90s, Mendez’s officers, Corazon herself.

  I said, ‘Would it please you to come aboard and see that the hiyek ships have retreated south past Spire Gate?’

  ‘Witchbreed trickery!’ the Earthspeaker muttered; but the older male gave me a considering look, and bent to listen to a whispered comment from the black-maned female beside him. I’ve more chance of persuading that Earthspeaker than I have of talking Cory into this one, I thought; and stepped back so that the Freeporters could speak comfortably together.

  ‘Corazon said this is a critical time. What do you think?’ I spoke quietly. Blaize shrugged.

  ‘When I fought on the Coast, the hiyeks favoured night attack. S’aranth, I don’t know. If I did know, I don’t know what I would do.’ And then he smiled, mouth tugged askew by the blue-and-red mottled scar of an earlier burning. ‘Two questions. What will the ships hiding in the islands do? What will your people do? Can you tell me the answers?’

  Oddly enough, it was her memory that came back to me; that exiled woman, Ruric Orhlandis. Who must soon be hearing in the Tower of what happened here – who must feel very much as I do, I thought.

  ‘I can’t answer for the hiyek ships. As far as the Company goes – you’re on your own. We have to stay neutral. It isn’t purely law or policy.’ It was instinctive to take his arm, and I felt how that alien musculature tensed; felt the infinitesimal but constant tremor of exhaustion. This the hand and arm of which harur-blades seems so much a part … ‘Don’t tell me I can’t understand what happened on Northfast. I can’t; I wasn’t there. If I had been, I’d have run. But Blaize, you didn’t see her in Kel Harantish – see Calil – you didn’t see Douggie’s face this morning; not his injury, but the fear. I’ve felt it. I saw her butchery in Kel Harantish.’

  The pale blue eyes veiled, cleared. He said, ‘She makes you incoherent.’

  ‘She – I – yes, she does. And I believe Pathrey when he says there are others like her. Listen, this is a low-tech war here. Don’t tell me people are just as dead – I know it’s a false classification. But if it escalates, if Calil bel-Rioch does have the weapons of the Golden Empire; if she uses them …’

  Blaize rested one broad hand on the hilt of harur-nazari. The westering sun put his shadow on the eroded earth, falling too on the edge of the shuttle-ramp. I remember how in the Barrens I first learned, from Blaize n’ri n’suth Meduenin, how Ortheans carry their dead lives with them: does he now remember how it was in the long and brilliant summer of Golden rule?

  ‘The Freeporters could defend the city well enough,’ he said, irresolutely. ‘Should I be in Melkathi? You say she’s there, this would-be Empress. If this isn’t your battle, why are there Company ships here?’ Some humour barely showed in his face. ‘I should have stayed; I’d at least have t’an Haltern to tell me what to do. I don’t know, Christie.’

  I wanted to hold him, to take away that pain – and what do I know of those two hours on Northfast; what could I say? – but we stood among others: Freeporters in vociferous discussion; Cory Mendez speaking into her wristlink.

  ‘Well, we must keep Witchbreed weapons from use,’ Blaize said; blackly humorous. ‘I want my part in the battle of Morvren Freeport remembered in past-lives; for that, there must be time enough to turn this into history.’

  ‘I’d like to make the history books myself,’ I observed.

  ‘T’An Meduenin.’ It was the armed Earthspeaker who called. Blaize inclined his head to me, and walked across to the group of Freeporters.

  Is it all over but the shouting? No, I thought. Not that easily. This is a lull, how can we take advantage of it? The essential thing is, somehow, to make contact with the Coast Ortheans in the jath-rai – how? We’ve come very close to showing ourselves on the same side as the Hundred Thousand, here. If the Company’s lost it’s neutral status…

  The sun lay just above the western horizon, flooding the flat estuary with pale gold light. Soon second twilight and the starlit night would come. For now, it made a deceptive peace; filigreed the edges of waves, outlined in gold the low slopes of this spit of mainland earth. I looked south, eyes drawn to that massive tapering pillar of chiruzeth; limned with light on its western side. Though it dominates the landscape, the eye refuses the sight of it; can’t comprehend it. I kicked the mossgrass underfoot – if I dig down, will I find one of the Old Roads, leading south to the Rasrhe-y-Meluur? And south over all the Archipelago islands to that distant continent, to the garden that was the Elansiir, to that unimaginable creation: the City Over The Inland Sea? All that contained in the sight of this blue-grey spire, whose peak is lost in evening haze: so glassy that it reflects the clouds that pass across its surface …

  Dead, now, and hollow. They made of the Elansiir, a desert. They made of the City Over The Inland Sea, a desolation seen in mist and silver. They made, of that great Empire, a child-woman in Kel Harantish; throned above the bloody abattoir she has made of her enemies. And if she looses from her hand that ancient light, will it free the devastation that is barely held in check in the Barrens, the Elansiir, the Glittering Plain?

  The evening light shines on Morvren Freeport. Each island is clear as glass, walls and telestre-houses and docks. Beyond them, the blur of the mainland: the northern continent. And what moves now in the telestres, in Shiriya-Shenin that lies nine hundred miles up the Ai River; what in Medued-in-Rimon, and those forested hills? Over the horizon, those blue hills; telestres and Wellhouses and Orthean cities – what word goes out by heliograph and rashaku-messenger? And far to the east lies the white city, Tathcaer, the heartland of the Hundred Thousand … I thought for a moment that memories would overwhelm me, but I didn’t know whether they would be of my time there, eight years ago, or memories of others who had come from this land, in centuries past, come at last to the Brown Tower.

  It was some while before the thought crept into my mind: If we are not neutral, then the Tower is. And the desperately impractical question: Could Ruric Hexenmeister speak with the Ortheans on the hiyek ships?

  Lynne, you’re crazy; the Hexenmeister can’t leave the Tower, Ru
ric Orhlandis can’t leave the Tower –

  No, but can she?

  The Freeporters were still arguing, gesturing up at the hull of the F90 shuttle. I saw Blaize Meduenin settle back on his heels, speaking with a grim determination; and one of Mendez’s officers walked over to join them, bewilderment on every line of her face. Cory had vanished. I walked up the shuttle-ramp and into the cool interior, making my way to the comlink-centre.

  The WEBcasters will still be at Ashiel Wellhouse; Cassirur will be there … What about Tethmet Fenborn? And is this something I can talk about over open-channel?

  I sat down at one of the smaller holotanks, not yet making a contact. It was automatic to key in surveillance, and while I sat thinking, I stared at the holo-image of the estuary: the setting sun, the smoke that at last began to dissipate.

  Abruptly, I reached forward and keyed Cory’s wristlink.

  ‘Mendez here.’ Her image frowned. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The jath-rai down past Spire Gate are moving,’ I said; simultaneously one of her officers cut into the transmission with ‘Commander, movement of hostiles at 475.930.756; estimate their present course local-south.’

  In the holotank, the images of jath-rai raised their thin metal sails in the twilight, catching the wind that springs up at sunset. Cory Mendez came into the cabin as I got up and moved to the larger holotank, leaning over the back of the comlink officer’s seat.

  ‘They’re moving away from the Freeport,’ I said.

  She reached down and keyed for satellite-image. After several seconds of interference, the image formed: visual, with heat-sensor overlay. The Morvren coast, the estuary – now enlarging to include all the northern islands of the Archipelago.

  ‘Damn!’ Cory pointed. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’

  The indicators marking jath-rai clustered round the islands near Spire Gate. Movement was just visible at this scale of image. As I watched, other indicators detached themselves from islands to the south – a handful, then a dozen, a score; and then like a flood the flecks of light marking jath-rai positions began to sift out from among the concealment of island settlements.