"I am a wordweaver, one who speaks to those from over the horizons," said Qiingi, crossing his arms. "I have traveled between the worlds. I do not think I am having difficulty coping with the changes."
"Ah. Good. So — "
"But," interrupted Qiingi, "I am having great difficulty in knowing why you are doing this to us. And how." What he really wanted to say was, I don't think you should be taking down the walls between the worlds. But the elders had discussed it; they had decided that the fall of the walls was a metaphor, merely a piece of mysticism.
"What do you mean?" asked Kale. "We explained it all to you." The ancestor began to walk up the beach, crunching dried seaweed. Iodine scent wafted from the weed. "Come, we can talk as we walk."
Qiingi fought with himself as they walked. How much could he say? He sensed the danger of admitting his suspicions, and yet ... people were disappearing. Not that they didn't do that all the time, vanishing into subworlds or under the waters of the bay. Young people in particular saw other worlds all the time, before they learned to trade their ghahlanda, and sometimes they were seduced away from Raven to a place behind the mists, such as Wester-haven. But they often returned, and very rarely were they impossible to find. But these people — good friends of Qi-ingi's, stable and full members of the community — they were simply gone. Had Qiingi not known that the totems and spirits of the forest protected his people, he might have thought they had died.
"Kale, some of my people are missing. Do you know where they have gone?"
Kale looked him the eye. "No idea," said the ancestor.
There was a brief silence. "Ancestor Kale, I know that you have told us ... " At that moment Qiingi saw something and forgot what he was about to say.
"Yes?" Kale looked at Qiingi, then followed his gaze upward.
Swooping low along the treetops that lined the bay was a craft of the air. Qiingi had never seen such a thing, but he knew instantly what it was. The fact that he could see it at all meant that Kale was right: the walls between the worlds really were falling. The elders had said that this would result in the world perceiving the true face of Ometeotl. But that was impossible, Qiingi knew. The old men had mistaken the ancestors' proposal for just another living myth that would, like everything else, use the technology of the Song of Ometeotl. Qiingi doubted that Raven himself believed there could be a single face to Ometeotl. Now, in their zeal to dismantle the worlds, the elders were learning what they had deliberately forgotten: that if you took down the walls of the world you would not see the face behind the masks, but just one more mask.
"Westerhaven has come," Qiingi said. He thought about the subtle men and women of Westerhaven, with their bright devices and ease at manipulating realities. A grimmer of hope came to him then, even as the flying thing made its own wind beneath it and settled in swirling sand and flying seaweed onto the beach.
Kale crossed his arms and smirked at the apprehensive look Qiingi sent him. "Go on," he said. "Talk to her."
Qiingi left him standing in the dappled light of the treeline. He tried not to run down to the flying machine, as its curving mirrored door opened and Wordweaver Ko-daly stepped out.
"Qiingi," she said, in some surprise. "Did the forest people tell you I was coming?"
He shook his head. "I was on the waters," he said. "Wordweaver Kodaly, it is good to see you. But perhaps this is not a good time for you to be here."
She narrowed her eyes and looked past him. "The ancestors are still here, aren't they?"
"Yes. And what I told you about on the day of the pot-latch ... it is happening." He did not try to hide the anxiety in his voice. She, he noticed, appeared in Westerhaven clothing, complete with a sword strapped to her side. He should only have been able to see her in traditional Raven garb; it was one more detail that proved the world was ending.
"My people want to talk to these ancestors," said Livia. "Can you take me to them?"
"Yes, one is right here — " When Qiingi turned he saw that Kale had vanished, either trading his ghahlanda, or perhaps just walking away.
"The ancestors are not here," he said.
"Oh. Their qqatxhana ... ?" She had used another word, but the Song translated for her. Some things still worked correctly, it seemed.
"They have no qqatxhana to call. I'm sorry I cannot take you to them, Wordweaver Kodaly."
She gazed at him for a moment, obviously judging whether or not he was lying. "Well, I can wait Meanwhile, though, I'm also trying to find one of my people. My leader, Lucius Xavier. He disappeared on the day of thepotlateh."
"I cannot comment on that," he said neutrally. "Your world behaves differently from mine." But it did bring to mind those citizens of Skaalitch who had vanished over the past days.
"If you haven't seen him ... what about the animals? Could I talk to them?"
How could he tell her that the animals could no longer be trusted? "Let us not speak of this here," he said. "We will find a more comfortable place." Kale might return at any moment.
They walked into the forest. Qiingi did his best to lower horizons of privacy around them, but he could not be certain that the invisibility would work in this strange new world that the ancestors had created. So he ensured that there were no masks between them, then drew Livia Kodaly down long winding paths and under the leaning moss-roofed trunks of fallen trees. They passed a set of trees that were being cut down; one small one was almost cut through, but the workmen had left it leaning, a few strands holding it upright. Eventually they came to a hollowed-out stump big as a house where he had played as a child. They stepped inside. "We should be free to talk here."
"What is going on?" she asked impatiently. "Who are these ancestors? What do they want?"
"I don't know," he said. "But I am very afraid, Word-weaver Kodaly. They are doing in daylight what they said they would do in dreams."
"Yes, but how?" she asked. "No one can dismantle in-scape. I've been talking to our experts. Inscape is impervious to assaults."
"I'm afraid, Wordweaver Kodaly, that whether it was assaulted or dismantled, or something else, in this place the Song of Ometeotl is ending."
Qiingi slumped against the mossy wall of the stump, staring at the ground. He didn't even hide his vulnerability behind a mask. The knot of worry that Livia had felt in her stomach since seeing the city from the air was becoming an actual pain. Something impossible and terrible was happening.
"Livia, Livia!" Peaseblossom appeared at her side. "We tried to follow you like always and this time we made it!" The little creature looked inordinately proud of itself as it balanced on a nearby twig. Livia blinked at it
"You mean you can move freely here?"
"Yes! Isn't it wonderful?"
She leaned away from it in confusion. "Go then — get out of here. Reconnoiter. Tell me what's happening in the city."
"Yes, ma'am!" It saluted and flew away. Livia found her heart pounding; it should not have been able to appear here.
"Your qqatxhana?" inquired Qiingi politely.
"Why, yes. He's ... rude." Qiingi had seen the pixie, and her interaction with it! It was her own private agent; nobody else should be able to perceive it unless she explicitly willed it Livia felt exposed, embarrassed and shocked at the event.
She sat down on an outthrust of knotted wood and gazed up at the open ring of bark twenty hand-spans above them. She tried to order her thoughts. "We've been interrogating inscape, I mean the Song of Ometeotl, about this breakdown. It's not even aware there's a problem. Something is deeply wrong, and it's all the doing of these 'ancestors,' isn't it? When did they first approach you? Sometime before the potlatch, isn't that right?"
"A few months ago," he said, sitting cross-legged in front of her. "At first there were only two. They came as visitors, we believed they were from a village under the bay, or from inside a hill. But they preached our own stories at us fluently, and claimed to be our true ancestors — the parents of Raven's people."
"But only Raven create
d Raven's people," she said.
"Yes — but he did not appear to us to explain or deny any of it. He was ... strangely absent."
She sat up, eyes widening. "He said nothing about the arrival of the ancestors?"
"The last time Raven appeared he was angry. He said something strange then. That we should not play with ... what was the word? It was an old word, disused now. Yes: we should not play with transcendence. It is possible ... " Qiingi looked sick. "That he has left us," he whispered.
Qiingi must believe he'd said that behind a mask. Livia was embarrassed for him, and kept on as if she hadn't noticed.
"Have you asked the ancestors about that? You lied earlier when you said they weren't around, didn't you?"
"Livia, I think it would be very dangerous for you to approach them now. They are too sure of themselves, like young men who have staged a successful raid. They might do anything."
She remembered the way inscape had broken down when they first appeared. Her angels had not protected her in their presence. Livia fingered the hilt of her sword, wondering.
"Your animals and spirits aren't helping, are they?"
"They are under the control of the ancestors."
"What about basic inscape services? Memory, communication, querying?"
"The Song of Ometeotl does not include the xhants or qqatxhana of the ancestors. They carve no marker for themselves. But perhaps if we hunt among our own people for your Lucius Xavier, we will discover something about them as well."
She shook her head. "I've already back-stepped through my whole history with Lucius, Qiingi. I didn't find anything."
"Qiingi?" It was a man's voice, coming from somewhere outside the stump. They both froze for a moment, staring at the entrance.
"You must stay hidden here," said Qiingi in a low voice. "I do not know what the ancestors will do with you." He saw the uncertainty in Livia Kodaly's face; finally she nodded.
Qiingi stepped out of the stump and walked up the path. As he came next to the propped-up tree, Kale appeared around over a hump in the path. "Ah, there you are," boomed the ancestor. "Have you seen our friend Livia Kodalyr
"She left," said Qiingi.
"Really? That's strange. Her aircar is still here."
Qiingi knew that the stump where Livia Kodaly hid was not visible from where they were standing. Of course, Kale controlled the Song now; he could probably find Livia using the eyes of the forest as easily as his own.
"Well, let's just see what's down this path, hmm?" Kale went to brush past him.
"You're not really our ancestors," said Qiingi.
Kale stopped "What do you mean?"
"Ever since you arrived, you have been pretending to follow our traditions and practices," said Qiingi quickly. "You say that when the walls between the worlds have fallen, all those in the other worlds will come back to Raven, and we will be pure again. You speak our stories with great familiarity, and you promise a world in which there is only us — only the mountains and ocean and Raven."
Kale nodded gravely. "That is so."
"Do you think we're idiots?" said Qiingi. "Do you think we actually believe that we live on a planet — on Earth? That our traditions are some sort of orthodoxy that we all believe like little children? What are we to you, Kale, innocent forest people who know nothing of the wider world?"
Kale simply stared at him.
"Kale, we know who we are. We are the inheritors of a civilization that has conquered the stars. We built this world. We made the soil and the air and the sunlight with our mastery of physics and manufacturing, and then we made the Song of Ometeotl — what Wordweaver Kodaly calls the manifolds — to live in. And like every other people within the Song, we are busy with the work of generations, quite deliberate and careful, to build meaningful ways of life for ourselves and our children."
Now Kale nodded slowly. "We are discovering that we misjudged you."
"You fed us a story that fit with our program," said Qi-ingi. He felt apologetic to be having to use archaic language, as if he were telling a child that he had done something bad. "Since we live so deeply within our own narrative, we wove yours into ours at first without thinking critically about it. But it has been some time now. I have been thinking. I am sure others have, as well."
"Yes," said Kale with a shrug. "But I was hoping you'd thought more than you apparently have, Qiingi. Some of your friends have taken the next step."
"What do you mean?"
"If you know what we're doing here, you know we're ending the Song. We're bringing your people out of their fantasy-land and back to reality. Which is simply the just thing to do."
Qiingi began to back away. "You are no friend of Raven's. You are a disguise of Ttsam'aws."
"Your little pretend-society has already ended, Qiingi. The only issue now is who among you will be leaders, and who will be led. Most of your people still believe in what the animals tell them — they've decided not to see us pulling the strings on the puppets." Kale laughed richly. "They want to be led, so we'll lead them. Some of your friends have decided they'd rather live in the real world, and have come over to our side. They can be leaders in the illusion-free world we're making here, Qiingi; you can be a leader. You just have to stop pretending you're something that you're not."
He should be running, Qiingi knew, but the magnitude of what was happening wasn't sinking in. His xhants knew it, but could not convince his body that what Kale was saying was true.
"It was never an illusion," he heard himself saying. "It was the face we saw in the wood we carved."
Kale shrugged dismissively. "Do you want to know where your vanished friends have gone, Qiingi?" He waved a hand, and images appeared in the air. Qiingi saw a land of forest and grass, with great estates and in the distance a shimmering city. All across the land warriors of Raven were walking, spears balanced on their shoulders. There were hundreds of them — thousands, perhaps, taken from all the villages and towns of the land. They were converging on the shimmering city, grim-faced and single of purpose.
"This must be stopped!" Qiingi turned, intending to run for the elders' compound. He felt Kale's hand descend on his shoulder and quickly spun away, aiming a blow at the man's kidneys. His hand was deflected a centimeter from Kale's skin. Now Qiingi saw the faint shimmer around his body; Kale was protected by his totem, of course. When Kale punched him in the stomach, Qiingi knew his own totem had deserted him.
He staggered back, tripped over a root and ended up with his back against a tree. Kale stepped forward, his face ugly with malice. "You could have joined us. Now you're just meat for the process, Qiingi."
Qiingi heard a cracking noise, looked past Kale's shoulder — and heedless of where he was going, dove to one side. He landed on some sharp branches, gouging his arm. He saw Kale turn just in time to look surprised as the tree fell on him.
It was the tree that had been abandoned half cut Behind its stump, Livia Kodaly stood with her sword drawn.
Qiingi got to his feet awkwardly. "That was a truly mighty blow."
She held out the sword. "Monatomic edge. Normally wouldn't work in this manifold. Cuts through anything." They both stared at Kale, who was struggling beneath the tree, which was as thick as his waist. Blue sparks shot out from the area where the tree was pressing him into the ground. So far, his totem had kept it from touching him, but Qiingi could see that the totem was losing strength rapidly.
"The angel's going to burn out any second," said Livia.
"Or he's going to get up," said Qiingi as Kale heaved himself up ten centimeters, his face a twisted red.
"Then come on!" Livia ran up the path.
"Where? Where can we go now that the Song has ended?"
"Westerhaven! Barrastea! Qiingi, my aircar's still by the shore. We have to get there before the other ancestors come after us."
Qiingi nodded, and without another glance at the fallen ancestor, he followed Livia Kodaly up the path, and forever away from his home.
6
"This is wrong," said Qiingi as Skaalitch passed out of sight behind some hills. He sat awkwardly in his seat, staring down at the landscape with some complex mix of sadness and loathing in his eyes. With a start Livia realized that he was feeling guilty — guilty at taking the easy way to Barrastea, and not walking.
Livia had summoned her full Society as they ran to the aircar, but something was wrong with that, too. The ani-mas of her family and friends appeared, but they stood listlessly, unresponsive, as if most of their attention were elsewhere. She supposed it was, if Barrastea was the city that Raven's warriors were marching on.
"Speak to me," she said to the Society. "What's happening below?"
At first nobody responded. Then the image of Lady Ellis turned slowly and looked at her. "We have gone into games mode," said the anima. "Join us on the ground at city center, Livia."
She let out a breath in shock. Only two or three times in her Me had she been into the war games submanifold of Westerhaven. Parents showed young children how to get there, when teaching them about emergency realities. But nobody went military lightly, or for long.
She wanted all of this to just stop stop stop. She needed a chance to think, to find an exit from this strange new manifold she was living in. But the clouds continued to whip past, and a warrior of Raven really sat by her side, in a place that should have been impossible for him.
She made her way into games mode by tuning down certain features of the outside world and amplifying others. "Qiingi, you must come in here with me," she heard herself say; as she worked he had faded to the gray of a nonparticipating noncombatant. She flung him a reticle — a set of frames, icons, and interactive objects that he could use to select the attitudes and focus of the subman-ifold. After a surprisingly short time he was fully real next to her again; she supposed Raven's people had some counterpart to this place.
The rest of the world, though, had gone hyperreal. Things in her immediate vicinity — the aircar, Qiingi, the closest clouds — were suddenly perfect in their clarity. It was as though she were seeing Qiingi for the first time: every hair, every breath he took registered as a distinct object or event. At the same time, everything beyond this little bubble of hyperreality had been reduced to a wire-frame tactical display. The sky was neutral gray, the land a sketch covered with icons and winking lights.
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