Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  He stopped, half gasping, and the expression on his face was pure malice.

  ‘I’ll tell you. K’Ai Calil learned something from the first two that she spoke of with the third of my prisoners. And when I went into the shan’tai Rachel’s room, the shan’tai Rachel was dead. It had been done with a small blade, such as the city’s beggar brats carry. I think you were lucky not to find s’aranthi dead in the throne room, shan’tai Christie.’

  Calil bel-Rioch, enthroned: little and dirty and brilliant

  and bad, with the face of a mad child – and yet she’s a woman of the Golden, I thought; and whatever she is, the Harantish Witchbreed follow her.

  ‘Why the hell would she do that!’

  ‘You will think that I know,’ Pathrey Shanataru said, ‘but I don’t. All I can tell you is that I believe it was K’Ai Calil who murdered your friend, although I didn’t see it done. But I know her.’

  I went to stand at the door. A breath of cold wind from outside reached me. After a time, I became aware of Ruric beside me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Some of what I saw in Kel Harantish … it makes me feel sick to remember it.’

  The walls muffled sound. Only the pad of bare feet outside, where Earthspeakers were on guard, came to my ears. Did Molly find out from Akida about research at Maherwa – and if she did, what did she discover? And is killing the best way to silence someone? Or was that the psychopath, the woman responsible for the butchery I saw –

  ‘It doesn’t get me much further,’ I said quietly to Ruric. ‘It doesn’t give me proof of anything. I do begin to have an idea, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That if I can, at any time, get proof of the person responsible, then I’ll have them. If it’s Calil herself. Someone’ll answer for it.’

  The dark woman said nothing, and I was grateful; even if such threats are merely bluster, voicing them is a kind of comfort. She stayed beside me, masked and anonymous, while the brown-robe Tethmet put a few desultory questions to Pathrey Shanataru, and got only the briefest answers. My wristlink signalled an hour past midnight. I checked the sensor readings, but there was nothing there I didn’t expect to see – jath drawing closer to the mainland. And still no change in the weather.

  ‘You might do well to stay away from the K’Ai Calil,’ Ruric Hexenmeister said quietly. ‘From what you’ve told me of your experiences at Rakviri telestre, you’re susceptible.’

  It’s called empathy, I thought sourly. Mention of Rakviri again brought Molly to mind, and I thought of that odd coincidence again: she and Barris and Jaharien dead, and of all of us in that vision, or whatever that experience was, only me left to tell of it. I glanced at Pathrey, seeing even in him (though I couldn’t have told you how) some touch of Golden blood.

  ‘I understand them,’ I said. ‘And so do you.’

  Now that I accept them into myself, the Tower’s memories don’t torment me – and yet, they’re still there. Yes, I thought, I understand them: Santhendor’lin-sandru and Zilkezra and the Golden … They fed on death, grew fat on death, glutted on death. Knowing that hour of extinction must come, they felt that knowledge spread back and poison all the hours and years before it, until all life was coloured with this shining darkness. Because extinction is a miracle, they worshipped it. And this is what I have within me now, have had since I came here: visions of that brilliant blackness. Until I can almost see, as Calil sees, how beautiful are all the colours of corruption.

  Sleep caught me in the government Residence at Westhill-Ahrentine, an hour before dawn. When I woke, it was to find Douggie bent over the holotank in the centre of the room, intently studying the images. Bleary-eyed, I got off the couch-chair and staggered over to the comlink.

  ‘Nothing of any great import has occurred.’

  ‘What? Oh.’ The light, now that first twilight was passing, shone in at the windows and hurt my eyes. I waited until the first disorientation faded. ‘Anything from the Citadel? I thought I’d better contact the orbiter through the comlink-booster, so I left the takshiriye to it …’

  ‘People are still coming in.’ He straightened, walked over to the inner door, and called down to the kitchens for herb-tea. On his way back, he added, ‘The T’An Suthai-Telestre wishes to have messengers present here, at the comlinks, so that news of what happens to the fleet will be passed back to him without any loss of time.’

  ‘You agreed?’

  Douggie brushed ineffectually at his hair. Like me, he’d obviously slept in his clothes.

  ‘I’ve also notified the WEBcasters on Kumiel Island,’ he said. ‘I imagine they’ll be linked in to the communications.’

  The first bowl of herb-tea tasted more sour even than usual, but it sufficed to wake me. The l’ri-an in the kitchen would be more interested in news from the Sisters Islands than in cooking, I thought. I went down to tell them they could return to their telestre-houses in the city if they wished, and on the way back up met Haltern n’ri n’suth Beth’ru-elen coming in. He leaned part of his weight on his silver-topped hanelys cane, and the rest on the arm of Ruric Orhlandis.

  ‘Give you greeting,’ he said, ‘from the T’An Suthai-Telestre. I have messengers ready to go to the Citadel.’

  By the time we’d settled him in a couch-chair near the holotank, the dawn bells were ringing across the city. Ruric let her cloak fall, and then pulled off the soft leather mask; and turned her face to the open windows. The early sun shone in upon us.

  ‘We passed the harbour, coming here. All the companion-houses are packed, waiting for news; and there are people all the way up to the signal towers on Westhill-Crown.’ She abruptly swung round, and gazed into the holotank. Visual image overlaid with heat-sensor readings – I saw her comprehension.

  ‘The leading jath and jath-rai are here, off Perniesse,’ Douggie said, with a touch of pedant in his manner; and the hand that indicated the image trembled slightly.

  ‘Soon, then.’

  ‘It won’t happen all in a minute,’ I said. I crossed to the comlink, establishing contact with the shuttles overflying the hiyek fleet, and spoke with Jamison, who was on an F90. Cory Mendez, whom I’d half expected to find with him, answered my contact from the Kumiel Island base.

  Haltern Beth’ru-elen, watching the images as intently as a child does, suddenly exclaimed, ‘See! They’re turning.’

  I pushed between him and Ruric to get a look at the ’tank. Visual image showed the sea, pearl and grey and pink in the early morning, cut with the hundreds of thread-thin wakes of jath and jath-rai. An inset-image appeared, and in it would be any ship that had made a significant course change, and there! I thought; seeing a metal-hulled jath tack across, course slowly changing …

  ‘North?’ Ruric said. ‘Sunmother! not Melkathi, then. Or not now –’

  ‘Look.’

  Whatever shuttle was sending back this image was flying parallel to the ships, all the strung-out groups and convoys in that great fleet, and now as it approached the leading edge of the fleet I saw one jath after another begin to curve away from their previous course …

  ‘It may just be one hiyek.’ Ruric spoke as if she warned herself. ‘Quarrelled with the other families, perhaps.’

  ‘No, look.’ And I keyed in a closer image, and now the faint blue line in the east became Perniesse; and the jath of another group began to move gradually northwards … Changing course as soon as there’s light to see. But what are they going to do?

  To speak of ‘the Sisters Islands’ puts them in a close group, really they are several dozen miles apart – Ahrentine not even visible in the image that showed the headlands of Perniesse – and surrounded by rocks and shoals, as well as wide and sheltered channels.

  A noise broke my concentration. At first I thought it something quiet and close at hand. Then I realized. Through the open window of this telestre-house, I was hearing the noise of the crowds up at the top of Westhill, where the heliograph station stood.

&n
bsp; Ruric looked up from the images, a fierce grin on her face. ‘They don’t attack.’

  ‘They’ve hardly changed course, never mind got to any island,’ I said testily.

  Minutes ticked past. Four of us with heads bent over the holotank, oblivious of the sun climbing the eastern sky. I spoke quietly with the shuttles, ordering overflights at a higher altitude – almost as if they could scare off this possibility, I thought, amused; and then thought, Possibility of what?

  Wind and tide cannot be hurried. Hal shifted on his couch-chair, easing old bones, and muttered, and sent word to one ashiren in the courtyard to go to the Citadel, and then returned to staring at the bright miniature ships. I saw Douggie speak into his wristlink, and realized he was talking to one of the WEBcasters on Kumiel. Figures ticked up, inset into the ’tank: thirty per cent of the hiyek fleet now committed to a course taking them into the islands …

  Ruric Hexenmeister said, ‘Can you show Perniesse?’

  I keyed in a message to a YV9 – and saw the chronometer and blinked: two hours into the morning of Merrum Secondweek Twoday, and it seemed like only minutes. The shuttle acknowledged.

  On Perniesse’s blue-grey hills, nothing moved but the herds of marhaz. Then the data-net detected readings, the image zoomed in; and we had a shaky picture of slate-roofed telestre buildings, and Ortheans who ran purposefully. Too distant and too distorted to see what they carried, but I knew it would be harur-blades.

  Sixty per cent of the hiyek fleet now committed to the course, or already passing into the sea that lies between Perniesse and the mainland of the Hundred Thousand …

  ‘They’ll never find the islands more unprepared than they are now,’ Ruric said, ‘and if they mean to attack, they won’t give the island telestres time to gather their forces.’

  In the holotank, the image of a jath-rai was momentarily as clear as life. Metal hull, scarred with corrosion; spreading metal sails – and on its crowded decks, meshabi-robed Ortheans; some running, some crowding the rails – and then the shuttle’s overflight lost the image. In memory I taste salt-bitter lips, feel the swell. The jath-rai’s image returned. That’s strange, I thought, it looks almost crumpled … And then I realized that the metal sails were sheathing, folding into themselves, and the ship itself sliding to anchor in what must be a shallow, sheltered channel.

  Not one of the four of us spoke, as we watched ship after ship fold up its sails and anchor in the lee of Perniesse, and other jath sail on to shelter near Ahrentine; no vessel close to shore. Even when the noise from the city outside was at its loudest, none of us spoke. Frightened, in case this should be a chimera, and speaking of it break the spell.

  At last, when it seemed that all but the stragglers were moored in the sheltered waters of the Sisters Islands, and messengers had begun to come from the Citadel down to the Residence asking urgently for confirmation, Hal raised his head and looked at Ruric Hexenmeister. She nodded once.

  ‘Not an attack. Not yet,’ she amended hastily. And then grinned at her own caution.

  Douggie put his arm tightly round my shoulder. I wiped my face, my hand came away wet. Hal bustled to the window to shout down at his messengers in the courtyard below. The WEBnet blocked, overloaded with transmissions.

  That afternoon, as if to mock our fear, a storm blew up from the west, but passed safely south of the Sisters Islands.

  PART SEVEN

  35

  The Passing of Fire

  ‘The longer it lasts, the longer it will last,’ Haltern n’ri n’suth Beth’ru-elen observed. ‘If I were T’An Suthai-Telestre, however, I confess I should wait some hours before sending an envoy to the islands …’

  Nelum Santhil raised his head from a pile of thin parchment scrolls: rashaku-carried messages.

  ‘You’re not T’An Suthai-Telestre,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and I choose to send the T’An Commander today. If the T’An Meduenin is willing to go.’

  This morning of Merrum Secondweek Threeday was overcast, humid, and a watery sunlight slanted through the slot-windows. The room, like all in the Citadel, had windows facing on to one of the myriad inner courtyards; and I sat on the narrow ledge, impatiently fidgeting. Hal and Nelum Santhil sat among heaps of reports, half of which they consigned to the iron braziers, the other half of which they let clutter the low couch-chairs they sat on. The stone walls made the room chilly.

  ‘Are you willing?’ Nelum Santhil persisted.

  Blaize Meduenin turned from the room’s other window to face the T’An Suthai-Telestre. I hadn’t known he was back from Morvren Freeport, and I wasn’t certain, now, whether I was glad or not. ‘The fighting in the Freeport has stopped. In the main, because the Freeporters have abandoned Little Morvren and Southernmost to be looted. There’s little more I can do there. Yes, I’ll go to the islands.’

  He wore a drab cloak over Rimon shirt and britches, and the fair mane straggled down his spine. Harur-nilgiri and harur-nazari hung at his belt. Difficult as that scarred face is to read, I thought something was troubling him; and Nelum Santhil paused as if to let him voice it, but the stocky Orthean male remained silent.

  ‘And you, Representative?’

  ‘I want to know what you’re going to do about –’ I abruptly remembered, He’s Rimnith telestre and changed what I’d been going to say ‘– about Melkathi, and the hiyek people there.’

  Hal tutted, and tucked his thin six-fingered hands into his sleeves; and then had to give up his irritation to speak with a young ashiren messenger who entered the room. Nelum Santhil shrugged.

  ‘When the Desert Coast fighters have gone, the land may be healed –’

  ‘Yes, when. It’s possible the Empress-in-Exile is there still. I want to know what you’re planning.’

  Nelum Santhil sat back on the low couch-chair, and looked up at me gravely. ‘May I ask, t’an Christie, what business that is of the Company representative?’

  To me, he is still the Portmaster of Ales-Kadareth who betrayed SuBannasen and Orhlandis, and both of them in a remarkably inept manner; but years pass and people change, I thought, and he is the T’An Suthai-Telestre …

  ‘It’s our business so long as there are hi-tech weapons in hiyek hands, which I suspect there are, in Melkathi. That’s all, T’An Santhil. Ideally, I want them recovered, or disabled. Failing that, PanOceania will want some reassurance that they’re not about to be used.’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘That must be considered, yes. I’ll talk with you later today, t’an S’aranth.’

  As I stood up, plainly dismissed, Blaize Meduenin said, ‘I’ll walk down to the city with you.’

  There was no opportunity for speech in the crowded grey-stone galleries of the Citadel. Once outside, it was a matter of pushing through the s’ans and t’ans ascending Crown Steps; and I didn’t pause to draw breath until I reached the Square, and looked round for a skurrai-jasin.

  Here in the shadow of the cliff-wall, that was covered in blue-grey vines, we stood momentarily out of the crowd. A hand grabbed my elbow – as I wrenched free, I realized it was Blaize n’ri n’suth Meduenin, pulling me round to face him; and I left a sharp retort unsaid, seeing the bitterness on that scarred face.

  ‘No word,’ he said. ‘Nothing! You can trust Haltern and Nelum Santhil and half your Company, but not me –’

  ‘I don’t know what –’

  He put one claw-nailed finger on my shoulder; it rested heavily there.

  ‘I’ve seen her.’

  Her? And then it made sense.

  ‘For years I’ve thought that she was dead, that Haltern was her murderer – however indirectly – and now, without warning –’

  I shook him off, turning away; seeing nothing but the Square and the crowds and the wall of the Wellhouse courtyard, and not that accusing face. When I was ready, I turned back.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with trust. You were in Morvren, it isn’t something I could tell you over a comlink.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!
Listen, Meduenin, with all that’s been going on here these last few days, you think I’ve had time to worry about your – your pride?’

  The wind blew his fair mane across his scarred face, and he looked away, head momentarily bowed. ‘If you call it that … I suppose …’

  I have put him on the defensive and done it too easily, Blaize you’re no politician! It isn’t fair to take advantage of honesty: ‘No, it isn’t pride … Anyway, she isn’t Ruric now. Or, not only Ruric.’

  One hand moved to harur-nazari hilt, clawed thumb stroking the sweat-stained guard. His blue eyes veiled, cleared, and then he broke into a loud laugh.

  ‘What’s funny, for God’s sake?’

  ‘You, if you think it isn’t obvious she has the mark of the Tower on her now. S’aranth …’ Bewilderment replaced humour. ‘She is the Orhlandis, and she is not. I’ve spoken with her … If Hal’s people didn’t kill amari Ruric, then I think that, in its own way, the Tower did. That saddens me. But do you remember what I once said to you, S’aranth? Now, the Orhlandis is not my rival.’

  ‘Rival?’

  His eyes deliberately sought mine; blurred with nictitating membrane.

  ‘I won’t wait any longer,’ he said. ‘You’ve delayed and delayed, arykei, and I have thought the cause Ruric, alive or dead, or one of your Company men; and now I’ve done with waiting, and will have an answer.’

  Only one day since the jath and jath-rai came to anchorage in the Sisters Islands: it seems like a year. If I weren’t so tired, I thought, if I weren’t so shattered, would I know what to say?