Earth Logic el-2

by J. Laurie Marks

  “Emil,” said Garland humbly, “that bugler is signaling the soldiers to stand down.”

  Emil rubbed dust and tears from his eyes. “To stand down? Well!” He grinned ferociously at the crumbling wall. “I guess even the Sainnites don’t want to know what it’s like for Karis to lose her temper.”

  The storyteller genuflected, folded neatly over her bent knees with her hands tied behind her. Her face was crushed into the shattered ice that covered the block. Across her back sprawled the spread wings of a fallen raven.

  “Lieutenant-General Clement?” said the executioner. The wall was disintegrating beyond him, and he started nervously at every new crash.

  “General Clement,” she said. “Cadmar’s dead. What happened?”

  “The bird tangled with the ax.”

  “And what?”

  “The ax hit the block, not the prisoner.”

  “But she looks dead!”

  “I guess she’s fainted. Shall I—?” He hefted the ax.

  “Gods, no! Put that down.”

  Still gasping for breath, with the bugler still sounding his signal—half of the soldiers of the garrison seemed to have already arrived, but now stood back in a disorganized rabble—Clement unbuttoned her coat to be used as a stretcher, and suddenly a dozen soldiers were there doing what she wanted, though she had not seen them arrive and did not remember giving any orders. As the soldiers tucked the storyteller and the folded up raven into the coat, Clement called, “Signal-man: honored guests in the garrison!”

  The puzzled bugler began playing the new signal. Ellid, who approached from a distance, flanked by several of her lieutenants, shouted, “General Clement! Your orders?”

  “Just follow me,” Clement said.

  They went plowing through the snow: Clement, starting to feel the cold; the senior officers pretending they knew what they were doing; the four soldiers, carrying the storyteller between them; and the bugler blaring away at the rear. All along the edge of the field, the captains were frantically getting their companies in order. For no apparent reason, the soldiers began to cheer.

  And then Clement realized they were cheering for her. It made no sense.

  And then it did make sense: those shouts made her feel like she could do anything. And by the gods, she needed to feel that way, or she was going to collapse just like the wall, right there in front of five hundred soldiers.

  She and her entourage reached the wall as another arm-span of it came crashing down. The breach was already as wide as three wagons, and where the wall had collapsed lay an ever-shifting and spreading field of restless rubble, of stones that rolled and rolled and did not rest until they were no longer touching any other stone.

  A rolling stone bumped into Clement’s foot. On the other side of the restless rubble stood a woman in a flapping red coat. At her right stood a lanky gray man with the fire of sunrise in his face. At her left stood a wiry, cool woman whose glance was like a sharp blade drawn across skin. Flanking her were a half dozen black-dressed, gold-earringed Paladins—not farmers with weapons, but the kind Gilly had once called deadly philosophers. Clement noticed Councilor Mabin, the ubiquitous runaway cook, a jumpy little man in sun-drenched spectacles, a sturdily built man with a joyous, shrieking little girl in his arms. And beyond them were gathering astonished townsfolk, with their coats thrown on over night-clothes and their bare feet jammed into boots they hadn’t taken the time to strap up.

  Clement started forward across the unsteady stones. Karis met her in the middle. Her unbuttoned coat revealed plain work clothes, and a belt from which small tools dangled and danced: a folding rule, a fat pencil, a utilitarian little knife. Her boots looked as if they had walked down every last one of Shaftal’s godawful roads.

  She offered her bare hand. Clement clasped it, and felt like she had grabbed hold of a piece of hot iron.

  “The war is over,” Karis said.

  The stones heaved underfoot. The soldiers were shouting Clement’s name. “The war is over,” Clement affirmed, as definitely as she could manage to say such a preposterous thing.

  The cold woman at Karis’s left turned to face Shaftal. She cried, in a voice that seemed trained to carry long distances, “The war is over!”

  Clement glanced backwards at Ellid, who had climbed up the rock pile behind her. “Signal peace. Make bloody sure the soldiers act happy about it.”

  “Yes, General.”

  Clement turned back to face the steady, implacable gaze of Shaftal. “Do you want to discuss some details?”

  A deep humor came into the face of the man at Karis’s other side. Three earrings—a Paladin general. Emil, Clement realized.

  Karis said, “The Sainnites will not be harmed or attacked, and you will not harm or attack the people of Shaftal. The people of Shaftal will offer you the hospitality of strangers and eventually the hospitality of friends.”

  The rocks slipped away from under Clement’s feet, but the powerful grip on her hand balanced her. The cold woman at Karis’s left said, “General, say that you will do whatever is necessary to make these things happen.”

  Clement opened her mouth to speak, and then there was a great, terrible pause.

  “I am a Truthken,” the cold woman said, answering a question Clement had not asked.

  Clement said, “I have to tell you, I don’t know how to make peace. I can’t be certain that all the garrisons will follow me. And I may only be general for a few months.”

  The Truthken’s expression became distinctly appreciative. “I understand these qualifications.”

  Clement said, “I will do whatever is necessary to make peace with Shaftal.”

  “Karis, the general declares a sincere intention.”

  “Oh, we’ll solve these problems,” Karis said.

  The bugler had begun sounding a sequence of notes that had never been heard in Shaftal. Clement couldn’t even be certain her soldiers knew what the signal meant. But Ellid had also sent her officers in person to pass the word, and the soldiers’ voices were a rising roar. On the other side of the wall there also rose up a growing wave of cheers. A bell had begun to peal.

  Surely,Clement thought belatedly, none of this is possible. It can‘ not possibly be so simple as this.

  Karis said, “What happened to the storyteller?”

  Clement said, “A raven got in the way of the ax. It missed her entirely. But she seems to be unconscious.”

  The gray man uttered an exclamation. “Karis, why did you interfere? How many times must we make up our minds to kill her?”

  “One last time, Emil,” Karis said.

  “Are you the one who’s managing this business of feeding the garrison? We’re ready with the bread.”

  Garland was being addressed by a rather floury woman, who had seen fit to tuck under her arm a hot loaf of bread, which crackled and steamed in the chill. She brought him into a wonderful conversation about butter and jam with a dozen other people. Then Medric blundered into the crowd of cooks, his vision obscured by a paste of snow and powdered lime. “Is Garland here? I’ve got to get to Karis. Useless bloody spectacles!”

  Garland took him by the elbow, saying irritably, “If you would just ask Karis to mend your vision, you could throw the spectacles away.”

  That startled Medric into a moment’s silence, but then he responded firmly, “Just because she canfix everything doesn’t mean she should.Get me over these rocks, brother.”

  As they tripped and stumbled their way across the spreading carpet of rock, Medric said, “Can you see Karis? What is she doing?”

  “She’s on her knees in the snow. There’s a raven beside her—it looks like it’s dead. She has a woman, a body, in her arms. It must be Zanja. Gods, does Karis get to feel not even a moment’s triumph?”

  Medric swayed wildly from side to side. “What in Shaftal’s Name has she done to these rocks? This wall will neverbe finished falling! I would not have expected her, of all people, to be so immoderate!”

 
; Garland said, “Norina’s unbuttoning her coat to get at her dagger.”

  Medric shouted shrilly, “Gods of hell! Karis! Don’t let her do it!” Arm waving wildly for balance, he added, “Did they hear me?”

  Emil had turned; he noticed their approach. He lay a hand on Norina’s arm. “Emil heard,” Garland said.

  “Of course he heard,” Medric said. “He’s a listening sort of man! Are we anywhere near them yet? How long do these bloody rocks continue?”

  “The snow’s next,” Garland said. “Here we go.”

  They waded past Sainnite officers, who clustered intently around their rapidly talking new general. Emil had come through the snow to meet them and took Medric’s other elbow. “Karis says her heart is still beating, but the spirit is gone. She says she just needed to know for herself. And now she does know.”

  “But she only knows what her hands can tell her,” Medric said. “She can’t know that the storyteller is dead because she was expect ingto be killed. But think, Emil, think of what’s possible now!”

  “Think?” said Emil. “At this moment?”

  “Must we go through this again?” said Norina impatiently as they drew up to her.

  “Here’s Karis,” Garland said, and put Medric’s hand onto her shoulder.

  The limp woman lay in Karis’s arms. A piece of cut rope hung from one of the woman’s wrists, and a long, slender braid of her hair trailed across the snow. Garland remembered her vividly: her silence, her alert, fierce attention, her astonishing courtesy, and the extremely pared-down beauty of her sharp-edged face. But now she merely looked dead.

  Karis raised her bowed head. “What, master seer?” she said. Her voice, her face, her eyes, all were terribly calm.

  Medric felt blindly for the woman’s head, picked up the long braid, and wrapped it several times around one of Karis’s hands. “If this hair were a rope, and Zanja were dangling at the end of it, what would you do?”

  Karis looked blankly at her hand. And then she closed her fist over the slender braid, and pulled.

  The barren land of the unending mountains sped past below. The sun popped into the sky and popped down again. Day became night in the blink of an eye. Dizzy, sick, numb, shouting with pain, Zanja dangled by the hair from the claws of her god. Faster and faster, the owl flew. Time passed in a blur, thousands of nights. She cried, “Salos’a, when will this journey end?”

  Salos’a looked down at her. The god’s eyes were round circles of light. The god’s feathers frayed out into blinding fire. “There is another boundary you must cross,” said the owl. And then the god let her go.

  She cried, “Not again!” She fell: into light, a blare of horns, a shattering ringing of bells, hoarse cheering voices, fragments of speech, torn shreds of blue and red and then an eye-burning white. She was falling, tumbling through light, through brittle air and wide spaces. She saw faces, stones, a glittering cloud, the round, blinding face of the sun.

  She stared at it until a hand covered her eyes, and a beloved, racked voice said, “You’ll go blind that way.”

  “No,” she breathed. “No!” she cried in despair. More words would not come.

  Voices spoke, but the words shattered into fragments. There was no pattern, no meaning, no possibility of understanding.

  Zanja felt a dizzying, tilting sensation. Blinding light again, followed by impenetrable shadow. Hands gripped her clothing, voices filled her ears. She cried, “Gods—how could you—have I not served you?”

  “Shaftal,” a blurry voice said. “Oh, blessed day!”

  Something heavy enwrapped her: a comforting warmth, and then the sensation of being held, rocked, the voice, less blurry now, saying roughly, “Zanja, Zanja na’Tarwein, oh my sister …”

  She heard a heartbeat. She felt the rise and fall of a ragged breath. Who was calling that familiar name? “Emil?” she said in disbelief. “Is everyone dead?”

  The shadow that blocked the blinding light bowed over her. “No one is dead,” said Emil.

  “Karis is dead.”

  “No.”

  “I heard her voice.”

  “You heard her living voice with your living ears.”

  “What,” she said in bewilderment.

  “Look over there. Do you see that wall?”

  She peered in the glare of light. She saw stones letting go of each other and falling in a happy tumble. “Not a wall,” she said. “Rubble.”

  “Well, it wasthe wall of Watfield garrison. And look over there.”

  She turned her head and saw a proud, rigid woman in Paladin’s black, taking the hand of a younger, tireder, prouder woman in Sainnite gray.

  “Mabin?” said Zanja.

  “And Clement, General of Sainnites.”

  “Oh. Oh, Emil!”

  Now the confusion of voices began to sort itself out: Norina, scolding as usual, Medric, making a rather plaintive speech on the difficulties of getting desperately needed assistance, and then Karis’s distinct raw voice, saying, “Just take one step forward so I can reach you.”

  Zanja peered into the haze of light and watched Karis pluck the spectacles from Medric’s nose, spit on the lenses, and wipe them clean on the tail of her shirt. She examined them critically in the sunlight, then put the spectacles back on Medric’s face. He blinked at her. Then, he looked down at Zanja and cried with vivid joy, “It’s you!”

  Zanja felt the confusion beginning to claim her again. She did not feel certain Medric’s assertion was correct. Medric dropped to his knees in the snow and grabbed one of her hands in his. “Emil, she’s awfullycold.”

  “Karis, can you ask Clement if there’s a place indoors, by a fire, where we can go?”

  Karis looked down at them. She seemed terribly far away. Someone was energetically beating a cloud of dirt and snow from her red coat. She turned away.

  Medric said giddily, “Zanja, have you heard? This is the thirteenth day of the first year of Karis G’deon! And we have a truce!”

  Emil’s voice rumbled in his chest, a warm vibration against Zanja’s ear. “So many people will not forgive us for this peace. Peace without justice, they’ll say, is not peace at all. And those Death-and-Life people, just because Willis is dead—”

  Zanja mumbled into the scratchy warmth of his shoulder, “Enough worrying.”

  Medric snorted with amusement. “Just try to make him stop!”

  “Norina is glaring at me,” Emil said.

  “No doubt she thinks Shaftal’s councilor should do official sorts of things, rather than sit like a weeping lump in the snow with his best friend in his arms. Look, here comes J’han. He’ll want to take a good look at Zanja. Oh, and I hope you’re ready—though I’m sure you’re not—for Leeba.”

  Leeba careened into them. Zanja tried to put her arms around her, but it was impossible to hold her. Might as well try to embrace a windstorm. My life!she thought in astonishment. And it fell on her, with all its weight and wonder, and no matter how she tried to grasp it, it eluded her, and yet it was hers.

  “Little Hurricane,” she cried, “I missed you!”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Herme’s company had taken it upon themselves to clear out the large room that was serving them as sleeping quarters. By the time Clement arrived, the room was not only clean, but furnished with chairs, tables, even a threadbare carpet and hastily polished lamps. Unsettled dust was still swirling in the lamplight, and a fire, nursed by two attentive soldiers, burned briskly on the hearth. The soldiers who had been clustered around Clement had been dispersed by a crisp storm of commands, and now she was alone, with—astonishingly—nothing to do.

  Weak-kneed, shivering with what she hoped was merely cold, she collapsed into a chair.

  By a feat of soldier’s magic, Herme instantly appeared before her. “General, what are your orders?”

  She wanted to tell him to stop calling her “general.” But she dared not disturb the illusion—it was an illusion, wasn’t it?—that seemed to be held tog
ether by words alone. So she said to Herme, “Captain, please inform your company of my gratitude for their quick action.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “We’ll be wanting a lot of hot tea.”

  “That’s on its way, general.”

  “Tell Commander Ellid I want to speak with her.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “That is all.”

  He saluted and disappeared. Almost immediately, a soldier snapped open the door to admit Ellid, in a wash of cold air.

  “Your soldiers are making quite a show of themselves,” Clement told her.

  Managing to look gratified, Ellid reported that more than half the wall had fallen, and that it continued to fall. The front gate now lay flat on its face. Watfielders were walking across it to deliver basket after basket of hot bread, fresh butter, and sweet jam.

  Unable to bring herself to be concerned about the wall or the gate, Clement said weakly, “Hot bread?”

  Ellid grabbed a soldier. “Get some of that bread in here for the general.”

  “What’s delaying our guests?” Clement asked.

  Ellid gave a wry grin. “Better guests than conquerors, eh? The G’deon’s people wanted her to show herself to the Watfielders. You can hear them cheering out there. The local Paladin commander just strolled brazenly in, and the two Paladin generals are briefing him before he goes off with my people to discuss details of the truce here. I’ve told them to produce a proposal by noon and it’s coming direct to me and you. I assume you’ll want to use it as a model for the other garrisons. Do you want me in here, General, or out there?”

  “Out there. Visible. Very visible.”

  “Yes, General. What else?”

  “Has someone gone to fetch Gilly?”

  “Yes, but you know it takes time to get that man out of bed. And I’ve told the company clerk to get some sleep because he’ll be up writing orders all night. And you had better talk to the Paladin generals about security for our messengers to the other garrisons.”