by Geoff Ryman
The tablet was not complete. Was it reciting the praises of a king? Or the praises of a God? Who would now know? Cara thought of all the patient labour that had evaporated in the flame, all the names and history that were now lost. The Better Times. Cara tried to imagine the stones freshly cut, white and clean, and the king, proud of his gift, full of faith in the future, in his purple, tasselled robes, and oiled hair. Lives rising and falling like the tide. And were they all wasted?
Carefully, Cara laid the tablet down in the dust. “Come on,” she sighed, and grunted, as if with the effort of standing.
Outside, on the steps, Cara howled. “Galu! Galo gro Galu! There is something in your City that still lives! Galo! Here we are! gro Galu! Worm!”
The echoes rolled away, all the way to the high, blank walls of the Most Important House. No answer came. There was a well in front of the Library, in the grove of small trees shaped now like arthritic hands. “This is a good place to wait,” said Cara. She dropped a stone down the well. It had boiled completely dry, and all the way down it, the stone rattled. Like a serpent.
There was a silvery laugh.
“No need to shout, Cara. I’ve been here all along,” said a voice that seemed to come sideways, out of the shadows, and out of the shadows, sideways, stepped Galo gro Galu, sauntering through currents of dust about his feet. “You have become so clearly visible, Cara. I would have thought that put you in danger.” There was a clinking of spurs.
“Hello, Galo.” Cara found that she was smiling. Cara was not afraid, or startled, in the least. She felt something akin to amusement and pity. The Galu looked ridiculous, small and frail, naked again, smudged over with ash, like an urchin, streaks of it where his fingers had rubbed his face and belly. He smiled his horrible smile. His teeth had always been the colour of ash.
“Oh Cara, I’m so glad you remember. I like things to be personal. Our last meeting was so quick and abrupt. I’d like this one to be longer. I’d like to talk.”
Cara laughed at him, shaking her head, leaning against the well. “Would you?”
“We know about the Flower, Cara.”
“Do you know what it will do to you?”
“No. Neither do you. I think that is why you are here?” The Galu laughed, darkly, and turned away as if in scorn. “Do you like my City, Cara? Isn’t it calm, isn’t it still? When the gods destroyed the world the first time, in the Flood, it was because humankind made so much noise the gods could not sleep. They said the next time would be by fire.”
“And the gods restored humankind because they found there was no one left to do the world’s work. Who will work for you, Galo?”
“Oh. The unlucky ones who are left. Have you seen my new carrier, Cara, Cal Cara?” The Galu twitched reins in his hand, and made a wittering noise. “Here boy, come on, don’t be shy. You know, Cara.”
The human bearer of the Galu shambled into the moonlight, moving in a series of jerks. “I’m afraid he’s not much use as a trainer now,” said Galo, and chuckled.
It was Galad. Eyes wide and stupid and uncomprehending, he worked a metal mouthpiece in his teeth, trying to spit it out. The top of his head was gone. Without another thought, without a cry, Cara stepped forward and slammed her sword into Galad’s neck, the practised stroke, cutting the vital cord, and Galad fell, back into the shadow.
“May the two halves of your soul be reunited, Galad,” Cara prayed, kneeling beside him. “Take my love with you into death, if you have no one else’s.”
The Galu thrust his head next to Cara’s. “We did it because of you, Cara.” Cara flung him from her, against the well. “You’re not smiling, now,” the Galu said, in a silken voice. “Not smiling at all. Do you feel rage, Cara?” He draped himself along the edge of the well. “Look at me. I have no sword. You could start there, and work your way up.” The Galu traced the line, delicately, with his finger. “Or have you forgotten violence?”
“No,” said Cara, grimly. “I remember it.”
“Yes, but you know, don’t you.” The Galu sat up in disappointment. “They all learn, and lose heart, poor dears. Oh not you, Cara, you haven’t lost heart, far from it. But the others. Faced with something they can’t kill, they do not know what to do. Without murder, humankind becomes as tame and confused as sheep. Make no mistake, Cara, all of this, all those Better Times. They were built on murder, or the threat of it. All those great, benign-looking statues, with their great, smug, greasy smiles. They were meant to frighten, meant to bully. Awful, noisy, seething, bloody creatures, Cara. I don’t know why you want to help them. Seeing that you are what you’ve become.” The Galu chuckled. “You are much more like us, now, do you know, Cara? Much calmer, much quieter, altogether less anxious. Even Dirty Little One Dress here. Such a change.”
“Why,” demanded Cara, “did you burn the City.”
“Oh, it was time,” said the Galu. “Time to burn it, Cara. These people. They had lived long enough in their decaying comfort. Blister them clean, silence them, bring stillness and peace.”
“How did they discover what you are?”
“Oh,” said Galo, airily. “No reason you shouldn’t know, I suppose. There was a revolt. The warriors came to the House, to kill us, in the ancient way. Some of the warriors. Some of them were loyal to us.” A sudden thought lit up the Galu’s eyes. “Oh yes! Haliki! That was very good! Which one of you killed Haliki, the Prince of the Angels?”
“I did,” replied Stefile, and the Galu clapped his hands, and roared with laughter.
“Oh, I thought so! How delicious! Oh, he deserved it, that rigid-backed little prig. Did he know? Did you tell him it was you?”
“Yes.”
The Galu’s laugh was low and insinuating. “You must have had our Father for an inspirator.”
“The warriors revolted,” said Cara, calmly. “And then?”
“Oh, yes, you’re supposed to be drawing me out, aren’t you. Well they killed us. They were rather surprised at how many of us there were. Three hundred and thirty. Roughly. Three hundred murders all at once, cut after cut, metal sliding through us lubricated with blood, slippering about our intestines, slicing our hearts so that they shuddered to a halt. We laughed at them, laughed in their faces. You should have seen their faces! You thought there were only fourteen of us, didn’t you, Cara, fourteen in the Family. Well on that day, there were fifty-four of me alone. Fifty-four Sons of the Family. Do you know how many of us think of you as a kind of grandparent? We have a great deal of affection for you, Cara. Oh, but I must tell you this! They left us to rot on the stone, and the next day there was a thousand of us. And do you know what they did? They did it again! They actually did it again!” The Galu spun on his heel with glee. “They had to use gardening scythes because there were not enough swords. And a rich harvest they had of it, my love!” the Galu hopped up on the well wall and did a little dance. “They made three thousand of us, Cara. Three thousand! What are you going to do about that, eh? How will you save them from that!” He shook his fists with delight. “We burnt this place because we are done with it. We are about to march, Cara, upriver, across the mountains, over the seas, killing and being, luxuriously, killed. Broad-limbed, handsome young farmers will take their axes to us. And after we have manipulated them into interesting shapes, their sweet young wives will be made murderesses, taking blessed revenge. Then the land will be burnt free of them, and we will move on. Oh, but none of them will be like you, Cara.” The Galu jumped down from the well, and pressed his face close up against Cara’s. “It is as personal to be brought to life by hatred, as by love.”
“Life?” said Cara, and pushed him from her. “You call it life?”
“What else would you call it? Except, of course, that I cannot die.”
“What your Father hates about life is that it is always new, always changing. You always stay the same. You are dead, Galo.”
“Oh, I am born again the same each time, yes. Same memories. But isn’t it tiring, Cara, to have to sta
rt over again each time? How do you know who you are?” His voice took on a note of genuine interest. “The time you have to spend learning about the world! Learning how to speak! The inefficiency of it. And the idea of coming out of someone else! How can you stomach that? How strange your relations with each other must be. In and out of each other, in out, and out pops a new one, as shapeless as a lump of dough with about as much character, half yours, half someone else’s, something that must depose you, if it’s to have a life of its own, boot you out of your own house. It’s a wonder you don’t all kill your children at birth. And the act itself! All those moist clicking noises and secretions. No wonder it is counted as a sin.” The Galu shuddered. “Our way is much cleaner.”
“Cleaner!”
“Swifter, then.”
“Why did you burn the marshes?”
“Oh, Cara. Don’t be so relentless. I’m not going to tell you anything you need to know.”
“Were there rebels hiding there? Can you starve, Galu? Can you die at all? What will you eat, now that the fields are gone?”
The Galu gave a low chuckle. It was a question he would enjoy answering. “We eat the dead, Dear Daughter. We crack open their bones and make soup. Sometimes we eat the living.”
Cara gave a shivering laugh. “You make me very angry, Galo, but I am angry in a new way, and I have new things to do with my anger. You are coming with me.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. I came here to kidnap one of you.” Both of them grinned, as if at a shared joke.
“Kidnap,” repeated the Galu, enjoying its absurdity. “Why?”
“So that I can find out how you react to the Flower.”
The Galu gave a mocking laugh. “We hate everything it stands for!” Then he added, almost pityingly. “Kidnap me? Look around you, Cara.”
“I know, Galo. I’ve seen them. Do you really think you are a threat to me?”
“We can’t kill you, Cara. But we can overpower you. There are enough of us to hold you down. You will make a very good carrier, Cara, to replace the one you killed.”
Leaking out of all the shadowed doorways, into the central garden came the brothers of Galo gro Galu. “We all love moonlight, Cara, and wells that have gone dry. We all love you. We are never alone, because we move in unison.”
There were five hundred and seventy six Galu who bore the name and face of Galo, and they had his mind as well. They all came forward, with the unanimity of bees, all with the same hard smile, all making the same clacking, crackling noises, over and over with their tongues. The Spell of Fire.
Cara struck Galo across the face, all her great weight behind her fist, and slung him over her shoulder. She too was muttering spells. She leapt up on the lip of the well, and took Stefile’s hand. There was a spark of flame at the tips of Galu’s fingers, and suddenly a shaft, not of wood, but of living flame, flew out of them at Cara. It cracked open the armour over her breast, Stefile involuntarily screamed. Like a dog scrambling in dirt, the fire clawed out scraps of flesh, searing them black. Cara fell backwards into the well, pulling Stefile with her.
The Spell of Fire was the first and simplest of the spells, but the third, and therefore stronger, was the Spell of Rain. Rain fell, drenching, out of the low wispy clouds that could not hide the moon. There was a hissing of steam on the Galu’s fingers, and they yelped, and shook them. They sprang forward to the edge of the well. There were mutterings of confusion, and a cry of “Light,” and murmurings of spells. By the time a tongue of flame, sheltered by a saddle, burned over the mouth of the well, all it showed was a dry stony shaft that was empty, all the way to its bottom pavements. Empty, that is, except for the fading echoes of laughter.
The Secret Rose
And Galo gro Galu thought:
Why are they laughing?
He lurched from side to side, only dimly aware that he was being carried.
A male voice boomed close to his ear. “It makes no difference! It makes no difference at all!”
Being carried? the Galu wondered.
“How does it feel?” asked the female, concerned.
Strange, the Galu tried to reply, but his jaw flapped lopsidedly, and made a grinding noise inside his head.
“Good, good, it feels good. Touch the hole,” said the man.
Disgusting, thought Galo. Do they think of nothing else?
“It’s healing shut!” squealed the woman.
Does it do that? wondered the Galu, his knowledge of human anatomy sketchy at the best of times.
“Now you may truly call me heartless,” said the man, and roared again with laughter.
I don’t understand what is happening, Galo realised. His hand struck rock, as they ducked low.
“Well, hello, Galo,” said the male. “You’re awake again. The One Book talks about this place. Keekamis built the wells of the City by tunnelling underground to the river. That is where we are going.”
For a swim? thought Galo. He regretted the beautiful ash on his body. It would wash away. He heard splashing underfoot and wondered if they were already swimming or not.
“I am going to learn from you, Little Galu,” Galo heard the voice promise him. “I’ll learn what the Flower will do to you. I’ll learn many other things too. I’ll go on learning. Nothing can kill or hurt me. I am a very powerful sorceress. You made me that.” Galo felt himself kissed on the cheek. He tried to wipe it off. “I will be your undoing,” the voice added. “I will also save your soul.”
Galo heard the splashing of water deepen, and he felt himself plunge into it, felt it close, green and cold over him, felt a thick-fingered hand clamp over his nostrils and mouth.
He felt the lurching and the kicking of the body that held him, felt his hair floating, felt himself floating, as if dropping off to sleep. Perhaps he did lose consciousness for a time, for very suddenly he was gasping for air, his head held under the neck above water.Seagulls, he thought dully. All about him was a flock of seagulls, bobbing on the water. They seemed to accept him as part of the floating garbage on which they fed. Instead of flying away, they sat on the water, their hooked bills turned sideways with their heads, their alert eyes looking upward at the light. The light was descending.
Suddenly the Galu felt himself shot through with pain. The light seemed to pierce him in rays, and he tried awkwardly, to scream. His mouth and jaws flapped, and a part of his mind made suddenly clear by a shaft of light understood that his jaw was shattered and his palate cleft.
He began to rise. Dazed and sickeningly confused by a pain he did not understand, the Galu thought it was the seagulls who lifted them all out of the water. Seagulls circled about him in the air, screeching, beaks open. Drops of water glinting with light fell off his legs through a space below him that was suddenly vast.
“I can’t swim,” he said, bewildered. He remembered someone speaking—or was she speaking now?—it was the girl, One Dress, saying, “I tried to breathe underwater, and my lungs filled with water, but it didn’t matter.”
“Keep still!” another voice commanded him, slicing into his skull like the barbs of light. How was it that he was not cold, wet as he was in this wind? What kept him warm? The countryside below him was a ghostly grey. It flickered past, so quickly, in a blue-white light. They passed over a great fire.
My brothers have started without me, he thought. Streams of white smoke rippled out of black fields that sparkled orange and red in lines that were crinkled with ember. Farmers burning stubble. Harvest. Where are we? he wondered, and looking up saw a great, white, fierce face, like an eagle’s. As if in the middle of a dream that he did not like, Galo wanted to lose consciousness again, and he did.
Galo gro Galu awoke in breathtaking cold, hearing thunder and strange music.
Light, dazzling, stung him, and he held up his hand, turned his head away. The thunder seemed to crackle under his feet. The walls, away from the light, were smooth and glossy and white and blue. They were made of ice. Light filtered through it, following
cracks, catching on bubbles in it. Beyond the walls of ice, something moved.
Distorted by the ice, rippling, the shape filled Galo with unease. It seemed to billow like a cloud, and it flickered with light. He looked away and up. Another, overhead, seen through a ceiling of ice, was black, surrounded by what looked like lacy swirls. Enormous feathers perhaps, or fins. The blackness gaped. Galo gave a little gasp, and pulled his eyes away, his heart pounding as if at a narrow escape.
“You are very wise to look away,” said a voice. It was too close, nauseatingly close, inside his head. Something was in the room with him, ahead, where the light was most blinding. “Those are my brothers and sisters. They are unknown to you and humankind, and have no interest in either. The few men who have seen them clearly have been struck dumb and blind.” Amid the whiteness, a white form sat, wrapped in loose white robes. Dimly, Galo made out an eagle’s head, in a haze of reflection, and lion’s paws. Dimly, he heard music, sounding like a lyre, pierced by a whistling, a sweet sad dying fall, from somewhere within the honeycomb of ice.
“Where . . .” the Galu began, and felt a raw scraping of bone inside his jaw that made him squeal in pain.
“Do not try to talk,” said the voice. “This place is Siretsi Takan, the Top of the World. The Flower is there, in front of you.”
The Flower? Galo simply could not see it. It was lost in light. He screwed his eyes shut, and covered them with his hands, but the light was as searing as before. Turning his head, he felt for the Flower with his hands, finding a table made of ice. Its top had melted into a rough, pockmarked surface. In the centre of it was the Flower, plump and slightly warm. He could cover it over with his two hands.
That is it? he thought. The Flower? This great thing, that is all it is? It made him angry, disappointed in a way, and scornful. He wanted to shred the thing, and shatter it. But his hands, laid over it, did not move. He turned his head and opened his eyes to the light, for just a moment.