The Tears of Sisme

by Peter Hutchinson

  F'Tetchi nodded, and simply smiled indulgently when the tutor added, "And this time I insist on paying."

  While the old Tarak went off to acquire their Dendrian clothing, Idressin explained to the boys that they would be going down to the campground before dawn.

  "So we're definitely going Dendria way, then?" Berin asked.

  "Yes, now that they’ve spotted me, going south into Belugor would be much more dangerous."

  "Razimir must be an awfully long way off if we have to travel from now till Winterturn to get there," Caldar commented. "That's over six months."

  "You know how slow the caravan is," the tutor replied. "And in the Empire it stops at the cities along the way, a week or more at the big ones. The merchants have to trade and all the entertainers travelling with us set up a festival each time. The kids in these places think a Grand Caravan’s just a travelling fair."

  Catching Caldar's wistful look, Idressin laughed. "I'll see that you get to the fair, Caldar, I promise. The further we go the more dangerous it’s going to be, but it’ll also be easier for us to hide if we have to. There are more people in For Dendak alone than live in all the Lake towns put together.”

  They had a last meal, seated in the roof-garden of Han Bardi's house. Water ran straight into the garden, channelled high over the street in a wooden conduit from the next building, and it cascaded delightfully from pool to pool in this miniature oasis. The heat had gone out of the sun as it neared the rim of the plateau above Tarkus and it turned the cliffs above the northern half of the city to molten gold.

  The air was pleasantly warm, full of the fragrance of the flowering hokwa bushes all around them. Caldar remembered suddenly that this was the elusive scent which had drifted out to greet them when they had first emerged from the desert into the enfolding arms of the city. He vowed then to himself that he would come back to visit Pillimon Tarkus and all the other places they were going to pass, when he could travel as he pleased. Someday. It was a cheering idea, placed in a vague and happy future.

  F'Tetchi returned with his Dendrian robes, which Caldar found heavy and scratchy in contrast with the airy cotton birawi. The shoes were equally clumsy after the light sandals he had been using, and the prospect of having to wear this stuff next day in the heat of the open desert was not appealing.

  In the event it was cold on the pre-dawn walk to the campground and Caldar found himself welcoming the warm wool robe. He was eager to see Rasscu again and, he had to admit it, Tariska too, though he had hardly exchanged a word with her since Suntoren.

  Rasscu was full of campground gossip and kept up a stream of news at he struggled into the Dendrian clothing in the cramped concealment of the wagon. There had been police checks on all the campgrounds: 'routine' they called them, but experienced travellers said they had never encountered such scrutiny before. G'Shenni had caught some prowlers searching the wagons one night and driven them off single-handedly with his dagger. As for the journey ahead, apparently the rains were heavy this year on the more normal northerly route into Dendria, so the caravan master had chosen to take them by the shorter and less travelled trail which passed close to the cliffs of the Sarai plateau for the first few weeks: they would be running more risk of a raid, but so large a party was rarely attacked.

  Caldar was puzzled at the Tesserit’s eagerness to be off. True, he had not had the luxury of Han Bardi's mansion: but Caldar knew that the driver had been into the city several times, so he must have experienced for himself Tarkus’ special magic. The city was alive with water. One could hear it gushing and gurgling and splashing everywhere, even the campgrounds were rimmed by a string of clear ponds. How could anyone, he asked, want to leave this beautiful place for the heat, sweat and dust of the waterless desert?

  Rasscu did not answer at first as memories from the previous day crowded in on him unbidden. He had been taking a message to S’Bissi, when his feet seemed to turn aside of their own volition and lead him in horrible fascination to the slave pens. He knew this beaten path well. He had been a frequent visitor to Tarkus during his years as a highway guard, a job he had taken to allow him to search for his sister Shawif. Every day he could spare he had waited by the pens in desperate anxiety that she might pass through and he would miss her. He could still recall the frustration and the anger he had carried within him then, and as he approached the wooden stockades, the smell and the clink of chains made him grit his teeth.

  But he was different now, profoundly so, he could sense it. On his first visit to Tarkus he had been a husk filled with anguish and with dreams of a revenge for which he would gladly have traded his life. In the years that followed he had travelled the stretch between Tarkus and Graxi many times and killed several Borogoi who had crossed his path. But the death of his enemies had brought him little satisfaction and no useful information, so any slim hopes of finding Shawif alive had slowly withered, while his natural sunny disposition had begun to reassert itself. That was the Rasscu that most people had come to see, the pleasant companion whose pain and violence were buried deep within.

  So it had remained until his brush with death in the mountains had pierced his inner defences. Behind them the past had been there waiting, as painful as ever, and he lived with it now every day. The difference was that it did not utterly consume him: his values had changed. When his rescuers had given him back his life, they had restored to him a succession of days which he was happy to experience one at a time. He still took his pleasures where he could, but win or lose, he was easy with it: being alive was enough.

  Visiting the pens yesterday, he had been overwhelmed with pity for the slaves - on his earlier visits he was too preoccupied to take much notice: this time it had added another horror to his score against the city. Some of those in the pens were criminals sentenced to slavery; but many were luckless civilians caught up in local wars or the ordinary inhabitants of regions not protected by Empire or Quezma power. They were fair game, as his own family had been.

  He had been about to move on when he had been accosted by a familiar voice.

  "Rasscu! What are you doing here?"

  The words took him by surprise. It was Tariska's voice, yet the only figure nearby was a stout Tarak matron, her professional status proclaimed by the gold embroidery on her veil. Such Ala Gahai, who ran large households for their wealthy masters, were a frequent sight at the slave pens, and the Tesserit had passed her without a second glance. An unmatronly wink assured him that he was looking at the right person.

  "Yes, it's me. I’ve borrowed this flattering robe from the housekeeper where we're staying, so I can come out on my own."

  Rasscu smiled and some of the stiffness left his face.

  "You looked so grim," the girl went on, "I almost didn't speak to you. What's the matter?"

  "You shouldn't come here alone, Tariska. It's not safe. Does S’Bissi know what you're doing?"

  "Hey, that's not fair." The grey eyes above the veil challenged him. "My questions came first. Come on, tell."

  So Rasscu told, and soon found that he was opening himself to this young girl as he had never done to anyone since he had closed off all thoughts of his sister years before. Her eyes softened with pity as the terrible story unfolded, but she listened without interruption.

  "And now, where do you think she may be?" she asked in a small voice when it was all over.

  "I don't know, Tikka. Is she a slave? Has she found freedom? Or did she die at the time of the first raid? It's ten years since it happened and six of those years I spent searching without coming on a single trace. I accept now that wherever she is she's beyond any help of mine. But I've never said it all before, all that I felt in those times when day after day I was living on the hope of finding her."

  He looked at the girl with affection. "It’s a special gift you have. I don't think I would have told anyone else. Anyway after all that, what about you? Why are you here? And does S’Bissi know?"

  A couple of hours before Tariska would have given an e
vasive reply. Now, still overwhelmed by Rasscu's story, she answered with simple directness as though it was a matter of no consequence.

  "I've come here every day, Rass, and I don’t know why. No, that’s not true." She looked up at him, as she went on almost defiantly, "Something happened to me in Suntoren. When I left you all at the house, I was very angry; the last thing I intended to do was to go with you.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I went to stay with a friend outside the city to make quite sure the Tinker couldn’t find me again, and it was at a meal in his house two nights later that I started to talk about it, about the idea of the Talismans and how ridiculous it was that people should still believe in them and even be stupid enough to set out to find them. Everyone at the dinner agreed with me that only cranks would do such a thing. But the strange thing was that next morning I felt totally the opposite. Searching for invisible ancient relics seemed quite reasonable and I couldn’t wait to rush right out and join you.”

  “And what brought you here to the pens, Tikka?” the Tesserit asked gently.

  “I’m coming to that. I thought at first the Tinker had put a spell or something on me; perhaps he had. But suddenly wanting to come wasn’t the only odd thing. It’s the dreams that nearly drove me crazy. From the moment we left Suntoren I had vivid dreams I couldn’t remember. It was maddening, I’d wake up trembling and dead beat, but every trace of them would vanish before I could catch the least hint of what they were about.”

  “Nightmares?”

  “Yes…..no….this is really difficult to explain, Rass. By the time we got close to Tarkus the dreams were fading: I wasn’t waking up in a sweat any more. Then one night about a week ago I caught one, just the last trace of it before it vanished. Someone had me on a chain. It wasn’t a picture, like me with a chain round my neck. This chain was real and strong like iron and there was nothing I could do about it. Someone else had control of me. I was so scared I lay rigid till dawn, then the next day I started to get angry.” She shook her head in self-mockery. “What a mixup! There was I, too frightened to go to sleep again the next night, and at the same time I couldn’t wait to fight back against this devil who was trying to enslave me.“

  “You’re very brave, Tikka,” the Tesserit put in as she paused. “What happened?”

  “What you might expect.” She laughed, letting the tension go. “The dreams never came back, or not that I know of.” Her grey eyes looked straight at him. “But am I still wearing that chain? I don’t know, just as I don’t know who it was. And I need to know, Rass, it went too deep for me to leave alone. That bastard reached right inside me and….. changed me.”

  “Have you asked Idressin? If anyone…”

  “No, this is my fight.”

  “And you’re not quite sure you trust him.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged, a quick youthful gesture inside the heavy clothing. “I’m sure it wasn’t the Tinker, but….. Anyway that’s why I started coming here every day, to refresh the memory, hoping I’d open up some other part of the dream I’ve forgotten. Sometimes I’m on the verge of remembering something, then it slips away again. And all the time I feel such a self-centred fraud. Here I am, surrounded by real slaves, and all I can think of is my own imaginary fears.” She looked over at the nearest pen and shuddered. “How can human beings do that to each other?"

  She turned swiftly before he could reply and grasped his arm in contrition. "Oh Rass, I'm sorry. There are truly painful memories for you here and I keep talking on and on about myself. Come on, let's go. We can't do anything for the slaves and this place tortures you and frightens me. In fact," she continued as they began to walk away from the slave market, "I'll be glad to leave Tarkus. Do the cities in the Empire feel as cruel as this?"

  "I don't know, Tikka: I've never been further west than this. Remember Tarkus exists wholly for trade and that gives it a very hard heart; I think that’s what you’re sensing. Anyway I’ve good news for you. I'm taking a message to S’Bissi, or I was until you waylaid me. We leave tomorrow."

  They stopped and looked at each other with interest and a new-found respect: companions about to set off on the next stage of an extraordinary journey. Then without a word spoken, they turned and went on towards S’Bissi's lodgings, housekeeper and driver arm in arm.

  Rasscu was smiling to himself at the memory the next day, when Caldar repeated his question, puzzled by his friend's distraction.

  "Why are you so eager to leave, Rass?"

  He began to answer, explaining that his painful memories of Tarkus had been reawakened, when he was cut short by a long high call from the edge of the campground.

  It was the signal that the first wagons of the Grand Caravan were starting out and the others should follow as their turn came. S’Bissi's place was so near the front that they were under way within minutes, just as the rays of the invisible sun touched the top of the cliffs high above. The way angled left across the flats below the city and swung round to the north-west close under the towering headland jutting out into the desert. As they rounded the corner, Pillimon Tarkus vanished. No trace of human habitation intruded on the face of the flat gravel wastes that stretched away on three sides of them: the fourth was occupied by the soaring red and yellow battlements of the immense plateau which marched majestically alongside them mile after thirsty mile.

  This was the pattern for several days. Unlike the desert they had travelled east of Tarkus, not even cactus seemed to grow in this stony wasteland, and Caldar was surprised to find that there were good wells at most of their night stops. ‘Run-off from the plateau,’ G'Shenni explained.

  The weather was different in this desert too. It had been hazy and stifling on the journey from Sand City. Only at Tarkus had they begun to see blue skies. Here the nights were cold with a blaze of stars, and the morning air was clear and sharp. By midday the relentless hammer of the sun made the ground too hot to touch and distorted distances with quivering heat waves, which only subsided late in the cool peaceful evenings. Caldar and Rasscu had thankfully resumed their birawis after a couple of days and were revelling in the changed weather. Even the sandflies seemed to have been left behind.

  Empire, Karkor

  “No, really, grandfather, I think that’s most wise of you.”

  Colonel Theyn quailed. The princess was so good-humoured, displaying such sweet solicitude towards her aged grandfather, that it could only mean trouble to come and the colonel had been the unfortunate focus of that trouble more than once before.

  What could have set her off? Something in the Network report, that was certain. But what? This Gethshul character who was giving the army an unholy run-around down south? Not much new there. Razimir was quiet. It could be Tarkus: the situation was still very unstable. The place was such a ragbag of spies, outcasts and foreigners, it was impossible to know what was truly going on half the time. But there were no surprises there either. The murder of the merchants was serious, but hardly unexpected: just the latest tit-for-tat killing which did nothing to alter the balance of power. And the strange little story about a member of the Six Families being seen there was just a curiosity.

  Whatever the cause, the princess was angry. Perhaps if he put forward his ideas for even stricter controls on aliens, he might avert some of her anger. . . No. He hadn’t sunk to that yet. Once fear became the chief architect of his actions, he was finished, and all those ambitions that not even Shkosta perceived in him would have to be abandoned. Maybe he could….

  “….do you not think so, colonel?” The Emperor’s pale eyes rested on his face, waiting with studied patience for an answer.

  “Yes indeed, your Majesty,” Theyn replied without hesitation. Holding all these court proceedings in contempt, he had blanked off the whole conversation in the full knowledge that agreement was all that was required to keep his superiors satisfied. Habbakal’s gaze lingered on him. Don’t say the old buzzard was choosing this moment to ask for genuine advice. The colonel felt a litt
le prickle of fear.

  “You see, grandfather. Even the youngest and brightest of your commanders agrees. The Quezma envoys must be sent back with the clearest possible message. You couldn’t have arranged it better.”

  The Emperor’s eyes hooded and dropped. “Thank you, my dear. I am always pleased to win your approval.”

  Could that possibly be irony? Theyn felt a flicker of interest at the prospect of Shkosta crossing swords with her grandfather.

  The shining raven hair swirled as the princess stooped to kiss the Emperor's head.

  “Why don’t you rest, grandfather? You’re looking tired again. Let me hold that meeting with the delegation from Razimir this afternoon. It’s routine: there’s nothing new to be decided.”

  “You take a lot on yourself, Shkosta.” A pause, which set Theyn’s antennae twitching again. Then, “But why not? Just let Derravus do the talking.”

  The princess turned and swept from the room, knowing that Theyn would follow unbidden. The colonel made a deep bow to the throne and held it in the required manner as he backed out of the door. Shkosta smiled to herself as she heard him hurrying to catch up. He knew the signs of her anger well enough and should have known its cause. That he did not, was another sign of the limitations of his thinking, penetrating and rapid, but always in straight lines.

  She was surrounded by fools. The Resident trying to cover up his own incompetence and Theyn’s complete lack of understanding at the potential seriousness of what had happened. She herself had been shaken to discover just how easily vital information might escape Theyn’s intelligence gathering system. A minor incident, true enough, but she had seen the most careful plans unravelled by the smallest thread before.