by Greg Keyes
“Swallow whenever you wish, but keep them in your mouth,” the priest cautioned sternly. Hezhi nodded, unable to speak.
The man joined his brethren in chanting, which seemed to go on forever. She began to wonder if the rite consisted of nothing more than chanting. She had to swallow repeatedly as her mouth filled with acrid saliva. Once again she tried to concentrate on what was happening, to force the facts together so that they made perfect sense. To understand before her fate caught up with her. After all, there might still be something she could do.
That thought struck her as funny, somehow, and the more she thought about it, the funnier it got. Her thoughts began to echo strangely in her head, like beans rattling around and around in a jar.
When the ceiling began to swirl, she realized that something had been done to her. She could feel her heart, thudding away like something not connected to her at all, and suddenly her unnatural amusement faded, replaced by a cold terror the like of which she had never felt before. It was already over, she suddenly understood. Whatever they sought to know about her, they already knew from seeing her naked body. She was poisoned and dying. Soon her heart would explode, and that would be the end of it. She struggled to rise, but two of the priests were suddenly there, forcing her back down. She tried to cry out, but the herbs choked her, seemed to swell and fill her whole head. Why had she sent Tsem away? He could save her, kill the priests, take her away …
The hands of the priests were cold, hard, but soon the impression of being held down vanished, as well. Her body was gone, already a ghost, and all that remained were the frightened, skittering thoughts in her head. Even they refused to come together, to organize themselves.
Let me die, then, she thought, resigned.
Now one of the priests came forward, holding the watering can. Hezhi realized suddenly that the other men had released her, and she tried to struggle again, but her body did not respond at all—her desires were no longer wedded to her muscles. There was nothing there.
But then, in that vacuum of sensation—where her toes had been—she experienced a tingling. She studied them, trying to understand. The priest was sprinkling water on her feet; it seemed to fall very slowly, sink into her nonexistent limbs, and that was where it tingled, inside rather than upon the skin. He moved up her body, sprinkling the water, and where it fell, the sensation persisted.
As the priest moved beyond her legs and pelvis, as the water showered on her belly, something began to arise. It felt the way she imagined a plant might feel, bursting from its seed, reaching up toward the light. It began small, then expanded, carrying her thoughts up with it but also pushing through them, a strange, alien thing that was part of her and not part of her. All of her scattered, panicky thoughts suddenly converged, melded, drew around the rising thing like sycophants about a king.
This is it, she knew. This is what they want to see, this thing ascending. Her helplessness at being naked seemed as nothing now. The fear that she had already been poisoned faded as she understood what she should really fear. This thing was hers. If they saw it, if it grew large enough for them to see … She closed her eyes, searching, searching for some way to push the thing back down. At first it had seemed inexorable, beyond her control, but now she saw that it wasn’t. It was pushing, trying to come up out of her so the priests could see it, but in growing it was stretching thin, becoming weaker. If she helped it—and part of her wanted to—it would escape, become a virtual tree, blooming and unmistakable. Now that she knew that, she realized that it drew much of its strength from her wish to release it.
Somewhere, floating in her mind, she found a tendril, pushed down upon it. It was a slight pressure, but she could feel the tendril more clearly as it resisted. She found more such tendrils, knitted them into a string and then a rope, hardened that into a hand and an arm, pressing down. For a moment, the two forces stood in equilibrium, and then slowly, ever so slowly, the expanding force—the thing inside her—began to contract; to dwindle, become denser but smaller, a tree pushed back into its seed. Hidden. After that, her thoughts lost their coherence again, swam away from each other like frightened fish.
“Keep her in bed for the rest of the day,” she heard a voice command, and then nothing.
When she awoke, the odor of smoke had been replaced by the perfume of flowers, a great huge bunch of them, blue and red, in a vase near her bed. Tsem was crouched in the corner of the room, head on his knees.
She shook her head to clear it, found that it wouldn’t clear entirely; the herbs had not completely run their course. She was able to feel her body again, however, and swung her legs around experimentally. Her mouth was dry and tasted bad, but at least the herbs were gone. Outside, the courtyard was dark, the crickets chirping. A few fireflies rose sparking, so she knew it had been dark for only a short while. She tried to stand up.
Tsem came alert at her motion.
“Stay in bed, Princess,” Tsem cautioned. “I can bring you whatever you need.”
“I need to pee, Tsem,” she replied, reaching beneath her bed for the bucket there. Tsem blushed and looked away. Hezhi realized she was still naked.
“You can get me a gown,” she conceded, and Tsem hurried off to find one.
“They didn’t take me,” she said, when he got back.
“No,” Tsem replied.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They usu—” Tsem’s head jerked violently and he convulsed for a long moment. Tears started in Hezhi’s eyes as she watched, helpless again.
“Never mind,” she got out. “Forget it. Forget I asked.”
Qey entered the room, glanced at Tsem, who was just regaining his composure.
“Hello, Qey.”
“Are you hungry, little one?” Qey asked.
“Not at all,” she replied. “But some water would be nice.”
Qey nodded and went to get it.
They hadn’t taken her, so their test had not turned up any results. But it should have, one way or the other, decided her fate, should it not? If the “thing” in her had shown itself or if it hadn’t, one result should have led to her disappearance and the other to her graduation to the royal wing.
“Qey,” she asked when the woman returned. “Qey, will I be moving down the Hall of Moments now?”
Qey shook her head. “No, little one. According to the priests it is not yet time. You will stay here a bit longer.”
So the test wasn’t a yes-or-no test, she realized. The priests had wanted to see the force in her. It was somehow the nature—not the mere presence—of that thing that decided her fate. A negative result—which the priests must have gotten—that only allowed her to remain where she was—remain a child, in essence.
That meant, as the priest had implied, that more “rites” would follow. She knew, knew very deeply, that she would never be able to suppress the force in her again. Next time it would show itself, and she would be either saved or damned.
She dozed again after a time and awoke to the morning sun, feeling much better. There still seemed to be a sort of shroud about her, muffling sight and sound, but it was shredding away now, like the dead skin from a snake. The sausages Qey fried for breakfast were good, the huzh with cream and pomegranate sauce better. It was, in fact, Hezhi’s favorite breakfast, and she loved Qey for fixing it.
“I’ll be fine,” she told the worried-looking woman. “I feel much better.”
“I was afraid …” Qey’s words stumbled over her tongue and she stopped, tried unsuccessfully to smile. “I’m glad you feel better,” she said at last.
“You lied about my bleeding, Qey. You mustn’t do that again.”
“Hezhi, there are things you don’t understand …”
“I understand more than you think,” she responded. “And I know that you can’t tell me the rest, so you mustn’t feel bad.”
“Oh. You were always a very bright child, Hezhi. Even when you were very young, in your cradle, you used to look at me in this way, this str
ange way …” She trailed off.
“Anyway,” Hezhi went on, after an embarrassed pause. “I don’t want you to lie that way again. Next time they test me, I think that they will discover I have begun bleeding. Do you see? I don’t want you to get in trouble for lying.”
Qey nodded numbly.
“Qey …” Hezhi took another mouthful of bread, sopped up some cream and jelly with it. “Qey, if you are forbidden to speak of this, don’t. But will I be able to see you, after I move over to the royal wing?”
“Well, I … Well, Hezhi, it’s not forbidden. You can come see me anytime you like, and of course Tsem will go with you. But I don’t think you will want to come back here. There will be so much for you to do, you will have so many new friends …” Qey patted her leg indulgently. “You would just be bored, coming to see an old woman.”
“What will you do, Qey? After I am gone?”
“Oh … I don’t know. Probably raise another little girl—or a boy. It’s what I like to do.”
“Really? Did you raise any before me?”
Qey ceased eating, stared down at her plate. She seemed intent on something, something halfway between the plate and her eyes. Hezhi wondered what it might be. A face, perhaps?
“Why, yes,” she said, again failing to smile. “Yes, I … raised a little boy.”
“Do I know him? What was his name?”
Qey pursed her lips for a moment, sighed deeply, and then stood, a little shakily. “I have wash to do,” she said vaguely. “Hezhi, dear, you rest some more.”
She watched Qey cross the courtyard to the linen room. Then she went back to her own room, selected a comfortable dress, and changed from her gown into it. She arranged her hair as best she could without Qey’s help. Then she found Tsem and started out for the library.
Indexing was a little beyond her that day, and she told Ghan so. He nodded, didn’t ask for an explanation or become angry—at her anyway.
“A band of fops came in here this morning,” he grumbled. “Boys looking for poetry. Not real poetry, mind you, but the doggerel that passes for it in the court these days. They had a writ, so I couldn’t stop them, and they unshelved half of the library before I found a pretense to send them on their way.”
“It might have been easier just to show them where what they wanted was,” Hezhi told him.
Ghan snorted. “What they wanted is not here. They should have been looking in the private libraries of older fops, not in the Royal Archive. Idiots.” He scratched out a few more characters from the book he was copying. “Anyway, you can reshelve those for me.”
“I can do that,” Hezhi told him.
“And Hezhi …” She turned. It still surprised her when he called her by her name, rather than “you” or a sarcastic “Princess.” “After today I will no longer require your labor.”
“What?” she choked out. “Ghan, what did I do? I’m sorry, whatever it was.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are. If you must know, what you did was to satisfy the terms of your servitude. I feel that you have repaid the debt you owed me.”
“But …”
“Your father was very specific in the writ. I will be held accountable if I require you to work after today. The debt is paid, Hezhi.”
“But there is so much to do,” she argued. “More than you have time for. Who would copy that manuscript if you had to shelve these books?”
“I managed long before you were born, Princess, and I will do quite well tomorrow, and the day after.”
He was still copying the book, not looking up at her. Hezhi stood there, not quite sure what to say. Finally Ghan stopped, leaned back on his stool. “Is there something else?” he asked mildly.
“Just this,” Hezhi replied. She bent over the desk, took a page of the old book Ghan was copying and yanked it sharply, so that a thumbnail-size tear suddenly appeared. Ghan gaped at her, and then, for the first time since she had known him, he chuckled. Not an outright laugh, but a real, genuine chuckle.
“Well,” he said. “Shelve those books, and I will see you here tomorrow.”
She had shelved all but three of the books when she caught the ah-hem of a throat clearing behind her. She turned to face a young man—he was perhaps twenty. He was tall, his face thin and pleasantly tapered to fit a delicate aquiline nose. He was clothed in a plain gray tunic, not of royal cut. Still, Hezhi thought he looked elegant in it.
“Pardon me, my lady,” he said, bowing slightly, “but you seem to know something of this place.”
“The library? You want Ghan, I think. He is the master here.”
“Ah … yes. I have spoken to him. He allowed me in because I have a writ from the priesthood, but he said—how did he put it?—‘I won’t go so far as to be of any help to you,’ he told me.”
She smiled. “That’s Ghan. Which probably means I shouldn’t help you, either.” She cast a speculative glance at her mentor, but he seemed consumed by his copying task. Hezhi shrugged. Despite the lingering effects of the drug—or perhaps because of them—she felt giddy. This man had a pleasant way about him. “What sort of help do you need?” she inquired.
“I have recently joined the ranks of the Royal Engineers …”
“That’s part of the priesthood?” she asked.
“Yes, in a roundabout way. Sort of caught between the priesthood and the emperor. I think that’s their unofficial motto, in fact.”
“Sorry,” Hezhi said. “Go on.”
“Well, you understand that my father is a merchant, not in the royal family at all, but many engineers are hired from the merchant class, despite our mean birth. I tell you this so that you will understand I have absolutely no knowledge of the old script. It is a total mystery to me.”
Hezhi rolled her eyes. “You think most nobles know it? Most men your age are considered brilliant if they can puzzle through the syllabary.”
“Well, that makes me feel a bit better,” the young man admitted. “But it really does nothing to solve my problem.”
“Which is?”
“Well, my first assignment is to design a system of sewer ducts to go from the New Palace to the annex we begin building in a few months. It’s a minor sort of thing, really, but I can’t do it without knowing all about the old system I’ll be adding on to, and frankly, I don’t know all that much about underground construction or sewers at all.” He spread out his hands, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “If I fail, I think I will be shunted back to my father and end up having to pilot one of his scows. That I would not enjoy doing, my lady. So I’m appealing to you …”
Hezhi nodded, captivated by the man’s motivation. Few who came into the library showed much interest or incentive to do anything. Most were scribes checking old trade agreements, genealogists tracing family relationships. Their research was carried out laconically, without ambition or zeal. This young man had a real need to learn. She could identify with that.
“Well,” she began, “much of what you want will be written in the syllabary, so there is a lot you can do without knowing the glyphs. Most of the New Palace was constructed after the syllabary was adopted, you see, and surely engineering texts have been written since then.”
The young man shook his head. “Fascinating. I knew you had the look of someone with intelligence. But how do I find these books? There seems to be no rhyme or reason here, and there are so many books …”
“Let me explain to you about the index,” she said. “Follow me as I replace these books.”
She showed him the numbers on the shelves and those in the books that matched them. With some pride, she even took him to volumes that she herself had indexed and shelved. He appeared suitably impressed. She explained the index and how to use it, which he seemed to comprehend. He was also gracious, thanking her and departing before she grew tired of his questions.
That afternoon there were still a few moments for her own research, but her thoughts kept returning to the man, his questions. Something he had mentioned …
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Then she had it. Sewers. The First Dynasty had not built any, but the Second Dynasty had, and extensively. Even with the flooding, some of the ancient sewers might have survived. After all, unlike the buried building she and Tsem had explored, sewers were designed to be underground. Add to that the fact that all of the palace had not been buried—parts of the western extension dated to the Second Dynasty—and the young man’s assertion that new sewers had to be articulated with the older ones, and her mind began piecing a kind of map together. It was baroque, that map, a brocade of ducts and tunnels lying across old buildings or even through them, those attached to newer ones, and newer still. This added an entirely new set of possible pathways to the ones she had already discovered—the ducts that piped water in to the palace. If she had maps of all of those things, then surely she could find a way to D’en. In fact, she could do some of the young man’s research for him, and earn a bit of his gratitude, as well, something she had to admit did not exactly displease her.
Sewers! She went to ask Ghan for the index.
A few days later she had the beginnings of a map. She worked on it back in the “tangle,” away from prying eyes. Ghan reluctantly gave her three colors of ink, so she was able to sketch the old, ruined palace in black, the ancient water ducts in blue, and the sewer system in red. She made a separate map of the palace as it was now, matching it to points on her hypothetical map of the buried city with numbers and notations. She worked on this in the evenings, of course, and at lunch. Ghan told her he had renewed his petition for her indenture, based upon the newly damaged book. Though the writ had not yet come back from her father, she attended to shelving, indexing, and repair just as she had for the past few months.
She was busy at the index when the young man—the engineer—came back in.
“Hello,” he said.
She nodded at him.
“You know, I forgot to ask you your name when I was here last,” he continued, a bit embarrassed.