by Sarah Zettel
“I went to my father instead. And do you know what he said? He said that he knew that Heart was a Heretic. That it was useful to have him about. That way they knew what the First City groups were up to, because he always told Mind and Mind reported it all straight to Father and Mother. So I would do nothing. Nothing at all.”
Eric hung his head. “By rights I should have killed him as a Heretic. Should have taken down the whole house. Those are the words of the Nameless. Those are the words of the Servant.”
“But you didn’t,” said Aria.
“No.” Eric raised his head again and looked past her into the trees. “I left again. I tried to go on procession. Thought some weeks of hard living would take my doubts away. I even thought about dropping myself straight into the Dead Sea…” He forced himself to stop and start again. “Then I got to Tiered Side and I started hearing the most blasphemous story I’d heard yet. About people from over the World’s Wall wandering about. I found them in the Temple with one of the Teachers, an old, half-blind, all-the-way crazy woman who was trying to ward them off. It was Tasa Ad and Kessa and they were trying to find somebody, a Teacher for preference, to go over the World’s Wall with them.
“It seemed an even grander defiance than killing myself. So I did.” He shook his head. “By then I hated this whole crashing world and everything in it, but I hated Heart most of all. I hated him for being alive when my son was dead. I hated him for driving me out of my home. I hated myself for not doing my duty. I hated the Nameless and the Servant…”
She laid her hands on his forearms. “It’s all right,” she said.
“I’m not so certain it is.” He looked down at her hands where they touched him. He could feel the warmth of her skin on his. It crept up his arms with such intensity it might have been his own power gift flowing through him. “If it was all right, then why is all this happening?”
She smiled her crooked smile then, like he’d known she would. “That is what we are trying to find out, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He covered her hand with his and this time she did not pull away. They stood like that for a long time. Eric wanted badly to pull her close to him, to take comfort from her strength and her body, but he knew he couldn’t. He’d let the whole world know he was a Teacher. If the clan caught them, even like this, the law declared Aria would have to be at least beaten for daring to touch him. But since this was her family, they might try to drive him off for daring to touch her.
“What,” he asked, “are you going to do about…” He looked toward the direction Nail in the Beam had taken when he left.
Aria looked that way too and sighed. There was a deep, cold pain in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “Nail himself, well, we were husband and wife and that was a lot and very little at the same time. But the children…he’ll keep them and pass them to whomever he marries next, unless I can come up with a blood-price and make a deal. He might just give me Little Eye, because of the stones, but I doubt he’d give up the boys’ hands.” She shivered.
“I could order him to,” said Eric quietly.
Aria’s eyes opened wide. Her expression shifted from surprise to fear to hope and finally to trepidation.
She squeezed his arm and lifted her hand away. Eric let her go.
“Let’s get rid of the Vitae first,” she said. “Then, if we’re still standing, we’ll deal with the laws of the Nameless.”
Eric chuckled. “The Royals haven’t got a prayer.”
She laughed with him briefly. The wind picked up around them, rattling the reeds and rippling the brown pond water. They both glanced up at the sky reflexively. The clouds were mottled dark grey and white.
“Rain soon,” remarked Aria.
“Yes,” Eric agreed. He kept his gaze on the sky. “You know, you can see it from here.”
“What?”
The clouds thickened slightly, the charcoal grey deepening to swallow the more benevolent white. “Just a thought.” Eric shook his head at the sky. “On May 16, Sealuchie Ross told me that the Servant’s Eyes are one of the stars in their sky, which means the May sun is one of ours, and I just thought that was a fine irony. A couple of worlds nobody understands within sight of each…” Eric’s throat closed around his words even though his jaw dropped open. His hands fell to his sides.
A dozen different ideas fell into place and inside his mind, he saw. He saw the way it had happened as clearly as he could see the building clouds above him.
“Garismit’s Eyes, Eric.” Aria shook his shoulder. “What’s hit you?”
He lowered his gaze to her puzzled face and blinked. “Aria, I need you to listen to something for me, with the stones.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything. She opened the pouch and drew out one of her namestones.
“Promise me you’ll finish before we get rained on.” She cupped her hand around the ice white sphere.
Slowly, the personality drained from her face and, even though it was full daylight, her pupils widened as far as they could go.
Eric licked his lips. “Human beings started colonizing the Quarter Galaxy, about ten thousand years ago, according to the best guesses. The distances involved, however, even with the third level drive and communications systems, were too great for everyone to keep in touch. Then there were revolutions and plagues and famines and all the chaos of history. So the colonies lost track of each other, found each other, and lost track again.
“But not everybody left the Evolution Point. Some, maybe even most, chose to stay there. They already had an advanced technology and a coherent history. While the colonists were going on creating new worlds, they just kept building on the old. Out in the Quarter Galaxy, civilizations rose and fell; on the Evolution Point, they just kept rising.
“But ten thousand years is a long time, and the Nameless alone knew how long humans had been on the planet before then. They had a good enough bio-technology to breed whatever they wanted, even—” Eric waved his hands—"telekinetics or human datastores.” He gestured at Aria. She didn’t even blink. “But resources still got used up, or the climate got unfriendly, or any of a hundred other changes happened. Ten thousand years is long enough to show up on even a geologic scale.
“So the inhabitants of the Evolution Point decided they needed a new home. What were they going to do? Send out a survey team to find a new planet and take their chances like a bunch of colonists? No. They were going to make very sure that they had a home fitting of their elite status as the first human beings on the first human world.
“They built one. They built May 16.
“The next question they faced was how to get their whole population, that could have very well numbered in the billions, to their new home. The most convenient way would be to move the ground they were standing on to the new orbit. Then they could transfer all the people to the new world using short-range shuttles, or whatever their equivalent of short-range shuttles would have been.
“But not everyone wanted to leave the Evolution Point. The genetically engineered segment of the population, your ancestors and mine, didn’t want to move to this new home for some reason. Maybe they were already tired of being slaves and this just pushed them over the edge. They went into rebellion. If they fought, they won and kicked the entire population off the world to become the Rhudolant Vitae. Or maybe they never fought. Maybe the Rhudolant Vitae were the ones who were on space stations or in ships at the time.
“Because what they definitely did, your ancestors and mine, was steal the world. They moved it to a location that was so preposterous they hoped no one would ever think of looking for them. Their calculations went wrong somewhere and that’s why most of the place is dead. That was why the Servant, whoever he was, said ‘there is no place for you but here,’ because this is the only habitable part of the planet.
“Stone in the Wall dena Aria Born of the Black Wall, am I right?”
“The general pattern matches available information but specific details
are not here.” Aria jerked like she’d been startled. The stone fell out of her hand and thudded onto the ground.
Her hand drifted to her forehead and pressed against her brow.
“Aria?” A fine layer of perspiration had formed on her skin. Eric reached out, ready to use his power gift if she needed it.
“I’m all right,” she waved him back. “I…That was the first time…I…” she rubbed her temple. “The stone just told me it thinks so, but it doesn’t…we don’t know.” She blinked at the shining sphere. “It’s never felt like that before.”
“You never asked it about its own history before.” Eric retrieved the stone and held it out. Aria wrapped her hand inside the hem of her poncho before she took it from him. “You said once that you wished you had your ancestress’s knowledge. Well, from what Zur-Iyal said of what’s inside those stones, I thought you might, at least some of it.”
Aria opened her mouth, and closed it again, obviously still a little dazed. She returned the stone to her pouch and drew the laces tight. “So why didn’t the Vitae just head for May 16 when the Realm vanished?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they got lost.” Aria snorted, but Eric kept on going. “It’s not impossible. They’d just lost their world, their slaves, and who knows what else. We are talking about a whole galaxy’s worth of room. You’ve seen it over the World’s Wall.” He swept his hand out. “There might have only been a few of them, or there might have been something here that they still needed.” He lowered his hand slowly. “Maybe there was something still here they couldn’t live without so they spent three thousand years trying to find it.”
Aria laid her hand on her pouch and swallowed hard.
“What I really want to know is this,” she said. “If who you consider to be Aunorante Sangh depends on which side of the World’s Wall you were born on, who were the Nameless Powers?”
“I don’t know,” Eric said. “That’s what I think you and Jay are going to find out.” He paused. “Or you could ask.” He gestured at the pouch.
Aria stared at him. A fat drop of rain splashed against her cheek.
“Let’s get inside.” Without another word, she turned away and strode toward the huts.
There was nothing left for Eric to do but follow her.
Silver on the Clouds stood in the street outside her tavern base and watched the Skyman’s star. It rose majestically on its silver cord until the clouds folded around it and blotted out the light.
“We’ve done it!” she shouted jubilantly. “They’re retreating!”
Holding the Keys stared at the clouds. They had not even rippled when the star passed through them. “Are they truly?”
King Silver swung herself onto her ox’s broad back. “Even if it is only a strategic withdrawal, it matters little right now. It gives us a chance to take the High House again, before the First City troops get themselves organized. Boy!” she shouted to a child in a green-and-scarlet uniform. “Sound the muster! We move out now!”
The boy sprinted down the street. “Muster!” he cried out at the top of his lungs. “Muster!”
“Holding, find General Glass and bring him here.” King Silver pulled her riding gloves out of her belt and pulled them onto her hands. They were dust-colored leather with her hand marks reproduced on their backs.
“Majesty.” Holding the Keys raised his hands briefly and hurried off after the boy.
Alone for at least a few seconds, Silver smiled a slow, hard smile toward the clouds.
“Be careful not to give me too much time, Skymen,” she said. “I’ll make you regret it.”
17—The Lif Marshes, The Realm of The Nameless Powers, Morning
“Do not cling too tightly to the products of your cleverness. What you create, however precious, you may some day be forced to destroy.”
—Fragment from “The Beginning of the Flight,” from the Rhudolant Vitae private history Archives
Eric crouched on Iron Shaper’s floor, lashing the roll he’d made from a Narroways soldier’s blanket and sleeping mat with a braid of reed fibers. Once the rain had passed, he spent a good part of the previous afternoon helping Jay and Heart load the major share of the booty onto the clan’s rafts. In theory, the gesture would help the clan’s good will remain good in case something unpredicted happened.
While the Teachers had loaded the rafts, the clan had stripped their village with impressive speed and thoroughness. Even Shaper’s hearthstone was gone, because the Lif marshes were the one place in the Realm where stones were a rarity.
Eric slung his roll over his shoulder, picked up his pack of clothes and gear, and stepped through the empty doorway.
Aria and Heart were harnessing mismatched teams of oxen to equally mismatched sledges. Thanks to the soldiers, the clan now owned a herd of oxen big enough to slow their exodus down, so it hadn’t taken much to convince them to give over four animals to make the two teams. The sledges had been more of a problem. The Narroways soldiers had carried their supplies on their backs or on their saddles and had only had one sledge to be plundered. The clan owned one more. It had taken both Aria and Eyes Above a half hour’s arguing to wrangle it out of their hands so Aria would be able to drive Jay where they needed to go.
Jay stood near Heart, a respectful distance from the oxen, Eric noticed. His mouth was moving and Heart was nodding. The Skyman was probably giving the Teacher last-minute advice or instructions.
I hope I remember how to drive, Eric thought resignedly. I’d rather not spend two days as baggage.
The shadows around the huts had shortened a full inch since sunshowing. Except for Storm Water and Eyes Above, they were the last in the village. The whole clan had departed, either on rafts or on foot, to catch up with the oldest and the youngest, who had left the day before. The noise of Aria scolding the oxen and Heart clucking at the state of the harness felt too faint next to the sound of the reeds and bamboo leaves rattling in the wind.
Eric picked his way through the reeds and grass to where Aria was checking the set of the yoke on the right-hand oxen’s shoulder. The beast snorted and slapped her face with its tail.
“Leave off, you.” Aria smacked its rump. She saw Eric coming and grinned. “I think I liked the U-Kenai better.” She gestured at the ramshackle sledge. It didn’t have a rain cover. Its one box-seat was chipped and splintered and the driver’s bracing listed dangerously to the right. Heart and Eric had drawn the good gear, since they had farther to go. “But since my Lord Skyman over there"—she jerked her chin toward Jay—"doesn’t ride, I’ve got no choice.”
“Well, you’re not too far from where you’re going.” Eric’s pack held a map that Jay had painstakingly sketched on a piece of worn leather so Heart and Eric could find the Unifier base after they’d finished in First City. The Skyman had not volunteered the information; Eric had demanded it.
“Promise me you’ll sleep with one eye open while you’re with him,” Eric whispered.
Aria smiled only for a split second. “You feel it too, do you? I had hoped it was just me.” Eric shook his head and she sighed. “If my Lord Teacher knows any options…” She paused just long enough to see that he wasn’t going to say anything. “Neither do I.” She stroked the ox’s side and turned to face him. “You be careful as well, Eric.”
Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close in a deep kiss. Startled by her intensity, it took him a moment to respond.
When she finally released him, he wished fiercely that there was something he could say. He wanted to give her some promise or meaningful speech that would give her courage and hope. Nothing came to him. He pulled away from her slowly, silently. She didn’t press him. She just let him go.
Not quite soon enough, though. Eyes Above, leaning on Storm Water’s arm, pushed through the bamboo. Eric felt his face redden and his hands go cold at the same time. The old woman’s eyesight was bad, but it wasn’t that bad and she was, according to Aria, a strict interpreter of the Words. The boy had s
een them, too. Eric could tell by the dubious frown on his face. His mother could get much the same look when she wasn’t sure about what was going on.
“Do not go too far in your task, Daughter,” Eyes Above admonished Aria, more softly than Eric had expected.
“I’ll try not to, Mother,” said Aria, but the look on her face told Eric she was thinking, too late for that.
Aria leaned over and took her son’s square-jawed face in both hands. “I expect you to take good care and plenty of it, Storm Water dena Sharp Eyes in the Light,” she said. “I expect to hear you acted as a grown man in all things, or I shall have your father wrap you in diapers and spank you until you wail.”
Eric looked away, suddenly discomforted. As he did, he saw that Heart already stood in place in the sledge. He tapped his stick impatiently against the rail.
“Storm Water says it shall be so,” Aria’s son said. There was a lot of his father’s steadiness in his voice.
“Obey the Servant,” said Eyes Above, and Eric wondered why. “Find your sister, and find that she is still my daughter.”
“Stone in the Wall says it shall be so.” Aria climbed into her sledge too fast for Eric to see the look on her face. He strongly suspected that she did it on purpose. Jay dropped his bundle into the box and then sat carefully on the lid.
The thought of the Skyman with a backside full of splinters gave Eric a moment’s sour amusement.
“Yah!” Aria cracked the driving stick against the sledge’s rickety rails. “Get a move on! Get up there!”
The oxen snorted and ambled forward. The sledge jostled and jolted across the muddy ground. Aria and Jay would take the path at the base of the Lif wall, straight across the marshes until they hit the Narroways road. Eric and Heart would head in roughly the same direction for a while, except they would climb up the wall onto the heights in order to pick a route toward First City.
The bamboo leaves crackled as Aria’s team forced its way through. The greenery swallowed them up. The sound of skids and harness and hooves lasted a little while longer, but eventually the marshes swallowed that too.