The tavern-master spoke the imperial language after a fashion—a generation’s occupancy by the Wolves had not obliterated all knowledge of the ancient loora nuxrjes’r—and Méarana desired to learn something of the conditions in the Roaring Gorge region.
“Ah sure, your honor, the Roaring Gorge is right peaceable the now,” the taverner said. “Himself is after going through there no more’n two-three year back and taught’ em to bend the knee. My wife’s cousin’s younger son was with that army. Now, they might be a bit pouty, but if you carry our Qaysar’s safe conduct—may Owl protect him—they won’t dare be touching you.”
“Are there any Gorgeous folk in town? We could use a native guide through that country, and we can pay well.”
The tavern-master fingered his ear and his eyes wandered to the holomap on the table. “So I’ve heard,” he said. “So I’ve heard. There be none of’ em staying here at the Dog, but there’s always some what come down afore the rains, seeking after their fortunes. I’ll put the word around, if you’d like.”
Méarana nodded. “That would be nice.” She pointed to the second great falls, the one that danced off the Kobberjobble escarpment. “We’ll need to find the way past that. They told us in Riverbridge that we might find guides here in town.”
The tavern-master shook his head in admiration. “Ah sure, and that is a fine map your honor has gotten yourself. Is it some charm that a trood has recited into the cloth that makes it grow so? The Qaysar’s master-general has such a high-low map, but it is made of plaster. I saw it myself when I was young and pretty and marched with the Owls, and I thought it surely a wonder, painted up and all in green and blue and brown. But this is like flying above the land itself.” At this point, Méarana’s question seemed to catch up with his admiration, and he tossed his head. “I hear tell of a trail past Second Falls that passes through the Harp country. Good fortune finding a guide. The Harps be enemies of the Gorge-folk and the Wolves alike. ‘But red gold conquers all.’”
“Are these Harps enemies to regarders?” The locals called all off-worlders after the Bonregarde.
The old man laughed. “They’d not likely know of you, at all. They think the nuxru noorin, the river of light, is the mountain path that Fjin Cuul trod long ago, high up the Mountain of Night.”
“Nushrunorn? Is that what they call the galaxy?”
“No, mildy. That’s what we civilized folk be calling it. The Harps call it the gozán lonnrooda, the shining path. They are simple mountainfolk and don’t know that it’s just a local thickening of the aether that makes the light seem like a continuous band.”
Méarana said nothing to this, although she noticed that even Paulie was much amused, though he could not have believed anything more sophisticated himself before he went on the Roads. “Will we have trouble with them?”
“No, mildy, for they worship the instrument you play. It is their totem. But when you reach the third falls, where the river will be impossible to use, you will find the people of Dacitti. They are a surly folk, not welcoming of outsiders. But they can tell you of the Well of the Sun.”
“The Well of the Sun?”
But the tavern-master shook his head. “That is a long and very dry telling.”
Méarana took the hint and reached into her scrip for a gold Fredrik. These bore the image of a recent Qaysar in Riverbridge, one who claimed, through marriage to marriage, a tenuous connection to the old imperial house. The current Qaysar, who really did have the old blood, had not bothered with such pretensions. The coin rang on the tabletop. “My men are thirsty, too,” she said.
The tavern-master grinned and the coin did not bounce a second time before he had it for his own. He ducked swiftly behind the counter and poured three drinks from the same barrel and a fourth, his own, from another. When he set the mugs down before them, Billy laid a hand on the man’s arm to stay him. “What was in the second barrel, friend?”
The old man blinked, puzzled. Paulie loosed the sword in his scabbard. “But I follow Owl,” the tavern-master said, “and surely you do not!”
“Old man,” said Billy, “you obviously believe you have explained something, but you have not; and the time grows short in which you may.”
“Billy…,” said Méarana.
“Fermented beverages are forbidden to the children of Owl! If you’d drink a wee drop of the fruit nectar with me, sure and I would be pleased to pour it. Are there those among you who shun the creature as we do?”
Paulie suppressed a snicker. “How could you receive a vision from the gods without mead?” Méarana also accepted the beer, which was flat and room temperature. Enjrun had not yet rediscovered either carbonation or refrigeration. Billy shrugged and said he would try a nectar of peaches.
When everyone was settled once more, the tavern-master said, “As it once was in the long ago…”
The door to the wharf swung open and Donovan strode in with Zhawn Sloofy close behind balancing on his head what looked like a metaloceramic panel. “Make it not so long ago, Djespa. Save the long version for those who don’t pay in gold.”
Paulie protested, “I like a good story.”
“You and he can stay up late swapping yarns, then.”
The tavern-master shrugged. “As you will. The Well of the Sun is at the Edge of the World, about…here.” His finger entered the hologram a little way north of Dacitti, and he hastily withdrew it and wiped it on his qamis, the baggy shirt favored around Rajiloor. Since the map clearly showed more world beyond the Edge, the Gaelactics smiled. “The story is that there is a tribe high up in the western Kobberjobbles that eats only once a day. They have a very deep well, which they fill with water; and into this well they toss the meats and vegetables that they have spent the day hunting and preparing. When the sun goes down to his place of rest, he falls into this very well and, of course, boils the water…”
“Of course,” said Billy. Méarana glared at him.
“…and this cooks the food, for the sun is quite hot, as you may know. Then, once night is fallen and the sun has cooled, the tribe draws up the meat and vegetables into a kind of stew called moogan, on which they gorge themselves, for they will not eat again until next sunset.”
“One question,” said Billy with a tightly controlled countenance. “The sun fell into the well, right? So how does it get out and run around to the other side of the world in time to rise in the morning?”
Djespa the tavern-master showed surprise. “But your honor, all men know that the world is a ball and the sun goes around it, so that though it seems to touch the ground far off in the west, it is only passing beyond the horizon. Surely, you regarders are as knowledgeable in such matters as our own failingsoofs.”
“Now, my good Djespa,” said Donovan, “if you would serve a pot of that fine beer for my man Sloofy and myself?”
“Not the peach nectar?” asked Méarana.
“Of course not,” Donovan told her. “All sorts of bacteria out here in the Wild that our specifics don’t recognize. Ask Sofwari about it. But nothing that can hurt a man can live in a pot of beer. It’s the alcohol, you see. What’s the matter with Billy?”
“Nothing. Did you hire the boats we need?”
“I did. And an interpreter who savvies the lingo in the Roaring Gorge. His name’s Djamos Tul. He’s a Gorgeous pack peddler, and will be joining us once he finishes selling his pigeons. They say the river will be more settled by then.” Donovan took his pot and went to stand over the holomap. ‘We wish this thing had better resolution.” He waved the mug. “We’re not blaming Maggie B. The spysats are just to check for wars or tribal migrations, not to look for footpaths up the sides of cliffs out where they’re never going to go. Sofwari back yet?”
“No. I don’t expect him until dinnertime. You know how involved he gets in his work.”
“He has a funny idea about work. We brought back a bit of trash he might find interesting.” Donovan hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the panel that Sloofy had proppe
d up against the wall. “There’s an ancient city not far from here and the Rajilooris salvage materials from the ruins to shore up the terraces during the ‘soons.”
The scarred man held a huge amusement behind his belt and needed to loosen it and let it out. So the harper sighed and, taking her beer with her, walked over to the wall where the panel stood. Billy and Paulie joined her. Sloofy only shook his head at the insanity of regarders and applied himself to his beer.
It was metaloceramic. And who in the Wild knew how to make such stuff? She said, “Why, this must date from…”
“From the First Ships?” said Donovan. “From that era, certainly. The ruins these people are scrounging from may be the remnants of the oldest settlement on this world.”
“Infamous!”
“Don’t see why,” said Djespa. “We need to keep the mound shored up, else it’d wash away in the next flood. What good does this stuff do, buried out there under the mud and sand?”
Paulie O’ the Hawks agreed with him; Billy shrugged. “A culture has the sciences it can afford. If they didn’t salvage this material, their own town would soon join it under the mud. Do you really want to ask that of them?”
But Méarana did not answer him, because she had already seen what Donovan had wanted her to see. Across one end of the panel ran the squiggly script used by the’ Loons of Harpaloon. “I think I know,” she said slowly, “what friend Sofwari will find in his little thread shapes.”
Donovan nodded. “That the’ Loons came from here…”
Djespa said, “‘Loons, you say? Why, that be the name of the junk-quarry. Madéen O’ Loons, as what the riverfolk call it. Madéen is a town; loon is a sickle blade.”
“It was also,” Donovan said with sudden thoughtfulness, “the name of Terra’s moon. Luna.”
Djespa turned and spat into a bucket. “Terrans!” he said. “Faithless djinni that lure people to their doom!”
The company set out two days later in three durms. These were massive, flat-bottomed boats, built of thumb-thick oak planks coated with tar from the seepages near Black Springs. Each was twelve double-paces in length and nearly three arm-reaches wide at the midpoint, and required a crew of five to handle.
Méarana and Sofwari rode in the lead boat, the Madareenaroo, with Djamos Tul, their new guide. They sat on cross-benches that ran athwart the boat. Donovan and Billy Chins rode in the Green Swan together. The two bodyguards rode in the Gadlin with Sloofy. The space between the benches was packed with their luggage, supplies, and trade goods.
The boatmen themselves were a stolid lot and said little beyond the perfunctory greetings and instructions. “We take you to Candletown near the Roaring Falls,” the head sweeper said. “Twelve Freddies for each boat. Six up, and six we gotta go back after we drop you off.” Then he took a position in the rear of the boat and the others unshipped great sweeps and placed them in the locks. “Jennelmen,” the steersman called out. “Dock-side two, push off light! Push!”
One of the oarsmen shoved against the pier with his sweep. “Bow pair, maintain the gain.” The two forward oarsmen stroked against the current while they waited for the other two boats to assume position. When the steersman had assured himself that all was ready, he called out, “All four, normal pull, full stroke.” He waited until the two bowsmen completed a stroke, then called, “Stroke!” and the two stemmen dipped into the water in synch with their brethren, pulling hard with the full length of their bodies. “Eki dumah!” the sweeper announced and then sang out a rhythm:
“Kay, kay-kay, kay.”
To which the rowers responded:
“Eki dumah!”
On Eki, all four oars pulled together.
“Kay, kay-kay, kay.”
“Eki dumah!”
Under this steady rhythm, the boat began to make way against the current. Behind them, Méarana could hear the other boats calling similar rhythms. After a while, she pulled her clairseach from its case and began to play along. One of the bowsman looked up in surprise and his oar caught a crab and smacked into the sternman’s oar. The steersman hollered at them in the riverman argot and quickly had them back in synch, but by then the Green Swan had passed them, jeering and shouting “lu-lu-lu!” The Swan’s sweeper showed his ass.
“Our steersman does not seem happy with you,” Sofwari said. “He glowers. Perhaps your music can charm him as it charms me.” He shifted to the bench ahead and sat facing the harper. “You play so beautifully.”
“I can play ugly if you wish. My range is wide, and music has many purposes.”
“None higher than beauty, and no purpose greater than simply to be.”
Méarana strummed a bit of goltraí, but softly, so as not to distract the boatmen. “I think you have confused art with entertainment.”
Sofwari opened his mouth to speak, but second-thought stopped him. “I’ll consider that. I’ve only ever been on one side of the music.”
She shifted to the “War Song of Clanthompson,” a tune handed down in her family from the dark age after the diaspora. Fierce, angry, dissonant, and full of wild vengeance, it caused Sofwari to shiver. She stilled the strings with the flat of her hand. “Was that ‘pretty’?” she challenged him.
“I never said ‘pretty.’ I said ‘beautiful,’ and there is more than one kind of beauty. There is beauty in the golden skin and flaming hair of a fierce young woman; but there is wild beauty even in tragedy and death. There is nothing delicate or fragile about it.”
The harper regarded him for a moment in silence. “Now it is you who gives me pause.”
“Almost,” he said. “I am glad your mother is lost. Otherwise, I might never have met you.”
Méarana smiled. “Your second thought saved you from the penalty incurred by the first. But don’t try to be too clever. I’m not one to be gulled by clever words.”
Sofwari bobbed his head. “I’ll speak no parables if you will simply play.”
The boatmen ate lunch on the river, taking turns, but they drew their boats up on the west bank when it was time for evenmeal. Because of the long curve in the rivercourse, the west bank caught the lee of the flood and so the silt was less deep. Stepping out of the boat, the right bowman pressed a copper coin into Méarana’s hand. “Yez honor th’boat,” he said in a thickly accented imperial.
The rivermen had with them a flask of what they called dis; oil, which they used to ignite the still damp-wood they gathered for their fires. This oil was distilled from the rotted remains of the ulmo tree in the far south. A fungus that grew within the tree consumed its woody part and altered it to the oil. Donovan wondered if this were a natural thing, or one that had been created by the fabled engineers of old Commonwealth days.
On the second eve, they reached the ruins of Madéen O’ Loons. Broken columns and walls and statues emerging from the mud revealed where portions of the city lay buried. The boatmen ignored the place, save to pull a panel from the ground to use as a makeshift table; but the Gaelactics explored the ruins. Even Teodorq was impressed.
He had found a statue whose face had been exposed by the recent flood. “This here is one stubborn fella,” the Wildman said. “Look at the eyes and the chin. Do you suppose these people were black, or is that just the stone they used for the statue?”
Donovan found what he supposed the base of the statue, which bore an inscription in the old Tantamiž script. “Hold fast forever,” he read, slowly puzzling it out.
Teodorq looked about the ruins. “What happened to them?”
“Forever came and went.”
Sofwari and Méarana wandered to the higher ground that marked the center of the site. From it, the science-wallah surveyed the vast, treeless, mud-covered plain east of the river and shook his head. “It is as if man and all his works have been wiped from the face of Enjrun,” he told the harper. Three fires burned on the sandy shelf by the river bank, and the smell of wood and flame and meat were carried to them on the now-gentle southern breeze. “We might almost be the
last survivors, in a few lonely boats, of a vast world-scraping tsunami.”
Méarana was deaf to his poetry. She faced west and could spy in the far-off distance the glow of the Kobberjobbles that still caught the daylight on their peaks. “Up there somewhere,” she said. “That’s where she went.”
Sofwari caught her hand. “You won’t find her there. Her ship would still be in orbit, otherwise.”
She pulled her hand from his. “I know that. But I may learn why she went there, and given that, where she was bound.”
“I didn’t believe her, you know, when she and I spoke on Thistlewaite. I thought the tale of the Treasure Fleet was pure fable; but she made the leap right off from my anomalies to the old legend. A leap of faith, for she had no data to prove her theory.”
“Mother never let a few facts get in the way of a good theory.”
“That’s why we science-wallahs only tabulate facts. We describe what happens and how it happens. But why it happens…?” He shrugged. “Is gravity a form of love, as many say? All we can know is that it is the nature of matter to attract matter, as Shree Einstein decreed. To answer why it is natural exceeds our writ.”
“Does that not make you feel limited?”
“Oh, no, Lucy! I have the whole of the universe to play with—from the little thread shapes all the way to galaxies, and everything in between. That there is more, who can deny? There is love and justice and beauty—and hate and bias and ugliness.”
“No, Debly, those last three don’t exist. They are only the names we use when the good is absent. And the opposite of justice is not bias, but fate; and the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. And there is no thing that exists that lacks for beauty. You told me that yourself.”
“So I did,” Sofwari said in mild wonder. The breeze quickened and he shivered. “The damp air has given the sunset a chill.” He put an arm around her shoulder. “You may share my cloak, if you wish.”
“For a while, Debly. For a while. There. At the eastern horizon. That’s the Spiral Arm peeking up. What did they call it?”
Up Jim River Page 34