by Stewart Ross
Yash’s tone switched from sombre to aggressive. “You know, if she doesn’t come back I’ll hold you partly responsible.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Cyrus. You and your daft talk of Timur’s head. You may have killed my dearest copemate, I hope you realise that.” So saying, Yash stomped off into the rain, leaving Cyrus wondering what had got into the man.
Events in that afternoon’s class added to his confusion. Yash normally positioned himself on Cyrus’ left, apart from the other students. Today, he made a point of sitting next to Miouda. He joked with her, asked her for help and placed his cheek alongside hers as he leaned over to read what she had written. When the class broke up, he put an arm round her shoulders and said he looked forward to working with her again tomorrow.
Miouda was clearly annoyed and hung around on her own as the others left.
“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said when they were alone.
“You saw it?”
“Of course. It made me angry.”
“Me too. It spoils everything.”
“Everything?”
She lifted her clear blue eyes and smiled. “No, not everything, Cyrus. I really like what we’re doing. It’s as if I’ve been lifted up by a giant bird and dropped into a brighter, better world.”
He moved closer and took her hand. “Reckon your bird is strong enough to pick up two people, Miouda?”
“Why not? It must be hard trying to do everything on your own.”
Though very simple words, they did much to ease the burden of his loneliness.
After his brief meeting with Miouda, Cyrus went for a walk around the settlement. The rain had left the air heavy and humid. Without thinking where he was going, he wandered up the hill to the square before proceeding towards the main gate. It was quite dark and he could just make out the silhouettes of two figures up on the wall ahead of him. As he watched, one of them approached the other and appeared to grab hold of them. There was a muffled shout. The second figure pulled away and ran down the steps into the road.
Standing in the shadows, Cyrus was invisible to the figure hurrying by. But he saw clearly enough who it was. Jannat. He waited to see who her molester was. He planned to give them a piece of his mind. As the second figure descended the steps into the road, Cyrus recognised Yash immediately.
Twice in one day? What was the man up to? Only that morning he had been bemoaning the loss of his ‘dearest copemate’. Insincere bully! Cyrus’ anger, which he had been fighting to keep under control for some time, finally got the better of him. He stepped out into the road.
“That’s Zed behaviour, Yash!” The two men were barely a pace apart.
“Well, look who’s slithering about in the dark to spy on people!” drawled Yash. “Mind your own business, Outsider!”
With difficulty, Cyrus stopped himself from punching him. “Bullying is everyone’s business,” he warned, realising he had to leave before things got out of control. “So, Emir or not, cut it out!” He turned on his heel and, seething with fury, hurried back to the Ghasar.
The Emir’s retaliation was quick and cruel. Entering the Ghasar shortly before sunhigh the following day, Cyrus found Bahm and five of his friends already there.
“What’s going on?” Cyrus asked.
“You’ll be seeing soon enough,” said Bahm calmly. When Yash entered, he stood arrogantly aside. The rest of the class came in and gathered round Cyrus.
“Noticed summat?” asked Bahm, looking hard at Cyrus.
Cyrus looked around. “Yes. The class has grown in number – and one of our students is missing. As well as Sakamir, of course.”
“Don’t you try to be clever, Cyrus,” said Bahm. “We all know Sakamir’s child, young Jalus, is missing. And we knows why.”
“Why?”
“’Cos he’s sick. Sick of study and being stuck indoors. They say he’s going to die. Certain. This Soterion thing has ruined ’im, like it’s ruining all the rest of us.
“Listen, Cyrus. It’s got to stop. All them books has got to go back in that there vault and the key thrown away. It’s the only answer. The Emir agrees, don’t you Yash?”
“Er, yes. Though it’d be better if I kept the key, Bahm. You never know –”
Cyrus had had enough. “Yes, we do know, Yash! We have it in our power to lift ourselves out of our nasty, brutish and short lives, and enter a new world where children do not die from the slightest illness, where people live in comfort and peace in a Zed-free world. And you – yes, all of you standing there with Bahm – you want to turn that down? Think what you are saying! Use your imaginations!”
Straight away, several of Cyrus’ pupils spoke in his support. One of the mentors who helped the younger ones said that though he was only just getting the hang of reading, he had already learned incredible things. The Long Dead had flying machines called aeroplanes… And they could cut people open and take out sick bits of their bodies, added one of the twelve-year-olds.
Miouda spoke last. Looking directly at her Emir, she said, “And you, Yash, our leader – you appreciate the wonder of this place. I have heard you catch your breath at what you’re reading, and I have heard you long for the day when we find the Salvation Project. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Bahm frowned. “Well, Emir?”
Before he could speak, a wiry young man with a slight limp walked purposefully to the front. “Hang on a bit! Excuse me, Emir, but we’re all getting a bit het up over this, aren’t we? I reckon Mister Bahm and his lot can’t see no point in all this book learning stuff, right?”
“Too right!” rumbled Bahm.
“Ok. What you need is what the Long Dead called proof. I read about it. You need someone to show you that we’re doing good, helping everyone. Agreed, Bahm? Yash?”
The two men nodded.
“Ok. So what I say is this. Mister Cyrus has read amazing things. He learned from these books how to make my leg better when it was cut bad. Now this is what he’s goin’ to do…”
Sammy paused and looked around at his audience’s shocked, expectant faces. “He’s going to make that Jalus better. ‘Cure’ him, as the Long Dead put it. If he can’t do it, we’ll do what Bahm says and lock all the books up again. But if he does cure little Jalus, no more arguing and squabbling, ok?”
A general murmur of agreement filled the hall. All eyes turned to Yash. “Alright,” he said, looking across at Cyrus. “A fair challenge. We’ve wasted enough time on letters and reading and all that. Prove the Soterion’s actually useful – or we’ll lock everything back in the vault and forget it. And our visitors can go back to where they came from, too.”
6
The Coalition
Constant and Zed had divided before the last corpse of the Great Death began to rot. Ever since, while Constants tried to preserve the Long Dead’s ways and values, Zeds did their best to wipe them out. They didn’t know the meaning of mercy. Constants did, but couldn’t imagine straining its qualities as far as a Zed. Not surprisingly, all relations between the two were bloody.
All relations? Not quite. The seductive power of the Soterion had changed everything. It had spawned a new and surprising partnership – if that is the right word – between the Constant Sakamir and the Zed Xsani. To grasp the vault’s secrets for herself, Sakamir had become the arch traitor and accepted the tattoo of a Zed. To Constants, this was the worst crime imaginable. Xsani’s fervent thirst for power had persuaded her to accept an alliance with an Alban turncoat – behaviour that went clean against everything she had ever been told. Both women knew their union was based purely on convenience. Mistrust between them crackled like kindling.
Xsani had never seen a book. She knew about writing and words – she had gazed on faded remnants of Long Dead language – but she had no idea how to decipher them. Sakamir guessed this and relished the power it gave her. Her first plan was to explain the alphabet incorrectly so her rival would be unable to read if she ever got her hands on a book. But thinking this thro
ugh, she realised that to keep up the pretence she’d have to invent a whole language. In the end, she opted to teach Xsani what she had learned from Cyrus. After all, she told herself, the lisping vixen would be dead before she had an opportunity to use any new skills she acquired.
The lessons, conducted each morning in a corner of the piazza, were not a success. Xsani was impatient and Sakamir, with only a few days’ reading experience, was unsure of her subject. Matters came to a head on the fifth day when Xsani brought out four words copied from the wall inside her headquarters and asked Sakamir to read them.
“You mistrust me?” retorted Sakamir.
“Of courthe not. I am jutht interethted, thath all. Pleath tell me what it thayth.”
“Right. As I have told you, that shape is an H and this one is an E and this one an R followed by another E. Together they make a word.”
“What word?”
“It’s pronounced ‘hairy’, I think.”
“And the next word?”
“Well, it begins with an L, followed by I, E and S. That’s pronounced ‘liaise’.
“Go on. Pleathe.”
By the time Sakamir had interpreted ‘Here lies Mary Clough’ as ‘Hairy liaise marry clog’, the Malika had had enough. No more reading lessons, she announced. She would wait until they were in possession of the Soterion. Then she would force that literate Constant – what was his name? Ah yes, Cyrus – she would force Cyrus or one of his pupils to teach her. In fact, she mused to Jinsha later that evening, she was looking forward to meeting this Cyrus. From what Sakamir said, he sounded quite interesting for a dumbman. The Kogon must ensure he was not killed when they took over Alba.
Giv’s education, in contrast to the Malika’s, went exceptionally well. His teacher was a Constant woman of sixteen winters whom the Kogon had captured while raiding for breeding slaves. Finding the prisoner could count, reason and speak fluently, Xsani had agreed to spare her life if she bred and, while feeding her baby, passed on her skills to the Zektivs. Presented with little alternative, the woman agreed.
As with all captured Constants, the woman was given no name. She was referred to simply as ‘Teach’. To begin with, she was terrified of Giv. In her mind, a man with a Z tattoo meant only one thing. Rape. Although she never completely overcame her fear, she soon saw that Giv was fairly harmless. In fact, he was almost as frightened as she was. Before his lessons began, he was given a close inspection of the Malika’s bodyguard and told that if he laid a finger on Teach or any of the Kogon, he would suffer the same fate as the guards and then die. Slowly.
Timur had taught Giv to count to five, the number of his fingers on one hand. Guided by a less brutal instructor, he mastered the rest of his numbers in a few days. He picked up the skill of speaking in sentences and new vocabulary soaked into his brain like rain into desert sand. Gazing at him with sad, red-rimmed eyes, Teach wondered what this young man would have been like had he not been born a Zed.
One afternoon, after he had been at his lessons for barely half a moon, Giv sensed someone standing behind him as he worked out how to add seven to five.
“Giv – er, I – know the answer,” he said, eager to show off his new speech to the unseen spectator. “Seven and five is – wait – yes, twelve!”
“Exthelent, Giv!”
His heart leaped. She was here, his Malika, the one he adored as much as the great Timur! He turned to look up at her, grinning madly.
“You – think I – am – making – progrush, my Mighty Malika?” he spluttered.
“Progreth, yeth. You will thoon be ready to go to work.”
“Anything you say is the joy of Giv,” he responded inanely.
Xsani raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Really? We thall thpeak again in five dayth’ time.”
Giv’s task was straightforward – though hardly simple. Sakamir insisted that the capture of the Soterion, which she called ‘Operation Alba’, needed more warriors. Xsani was not so sure, but in the end she accepted her ally’s advice and gave Giv the task of winning over at least one other tribe of Zeds. He had little experience of leadership and none of negotiation. What he did have was a quick mind and a passionate devotion to both the Malika of the Kogon and the head of Timur, his dead Malik.
To inspire him further, Xsani actually touched him as he was leaving. Briefly taking his hand in hers, she told him he was her favourite dumbman. Since she hated the whole species, this was hardly a compliment. But Giv was not to know this and in his memory the moment lay like an eternal jewel, more precious than life itself. Later that day, to Sakamir’s astonishment, she actually caught him skipping rather than walking when he thought no one was looking.
The key to Giv’s mission was Timur’s head. Were he to approach a Zed tribe without it, he would be slaughtered before he opened his mouth. Xsani and Sakamir knew his, but their frail coalition was strained almost to breaking point when they discussed how the precious totem might be used. Sakamir wanted to accompany Giv herself and act as guardian of the head. Xsani would have none of it. Eventually, they agreed on a party of twelve. Giv, the official head-bearer, would travel with five Grozny, handpicked for their relative competence. To balance them, Jinsha and Yalisha would lead a party of six Kogon.
For some time, Xsani’s scouts had been scouring the region in search of a suitable Zed tribe with whom to ally. The first group they came across, the Flid, were so low on numbers that they faced extinction within a year or so. An alliance with them would be pointless. The second tribe, the four-hundred-strong Dangalon, were the complete opposite. Their Malik, the famously unreliable Sintz, would turn on his allies whenever it suited him. No, Sakamir and Xsani agreed, they wouldn’t risk approaching the Dangalon.
The Gurkov, on the other hand, were an altogether different prospect. They were a reasonably large group – about the same size as the Grozny – and like them they had a reputation for discipline and tough fighting. These qualities owed much to the leadership of their commander, Malik Ogg. From a distance Ogg’s short trunk, from which thick, hairy arms and legs sprouted like branches, gave the impression of a walking tree. His mind was similarly wooden in a no-nonsense way. In his yes–no world, there were only ever two alternatives: good–bad; Zed–Constant; male–female – he couldn’t conceive of anything in between.
Xsani’s scouts found one aspect of Ogg’s character intensely distasteful – his addiction to breeding. Every day, they reported, he tried at least once to increase the size of his tribe. Xsani and Sakamir were not impressed. Nevertheless, in their eyes the lustful Malik had one overwhelming point in his favour. He had heard of the Grozny and regarded Malik Timur as the ultimate Zed leader. Moreover, he did not appear to have heard that his hero was dead.
On the evening before their departure, Giv’s Kogon and Grozny escorts were brought together for the first time. Although they had been prepared for this, both groups were clearly uneasy, shuffling their feet and glancing warily at each other. Xsani and Sakamir, hoping the power of the head would prove greater than traditional hatred, had arranged a small ceremony of unity before the dark totem.
Speaking through Xsani, Timur reminded the mission of their loyalty to him and his cause. He was planning to return to Alba in triumph as commander of a great army of Zeds. Their task was to assemble that army. Nothing – particularly inter-Zed rivalry – must get in their way. The ceremony concluded with the rousing slogan: “Under mighty Over-Malik, all Zeds are one!”
“Under mighty Over-Malik, all Zeds are one!” chorused the chosen twelve until Xsani signalled them to stop. Even while chanting of unity, she noticed, the Grozny and Kogon had tried to out-do each other. Mixing Zed men and women would always be dangerous, but there was no other way of assembling a force powerful enough to seize Alba and its precious Soterion. For a prize of such magnitude, any risk was worth taking.
Soon after sunrise, Timur’s head was wrapped in dried grass and placed in a wooden box strapped to Giv’s back. Xsani and Sakamir bade the embass
y farewell and watched in silence as it set out for the region where the Gurkov had last been spotted.
While the Grozny and Kogon were within the forest, all went according to plan. The trouble began when they left the trees and entered a broad and scrubby plain. The wider horizons seemed to free the Zeds’ minds of the limitations imposed upon them and they quickly reverted to type. Giv had done his best to prevent this happening. After the Timur ceremony the previous evening, he had reinforced its message by speaking severely to his men. Jinsha, Yalisha and the other Kogon were not like other flabtoads, he explained. They were not playmates. Had the Grozny forgotten what was done to Gawlip when he tried to amuse himself with a milking flabtoad? Grand Malik Jamshid had ordered him to be whipped and a flaming brand applied to his left hand. The flesh had burned away so completely that he was now known as Bonefingers. That would be the punishment, Giv decreed, if any of them so much as touched a Kogon.
But strong words were not enough.
Under Timur’s harsh tuition, Giv had the makings of an effective Zed commander. But his infatuation with Xsani and his lessons with Teach had softened him. He was confused by the change. He still used the merciless language of a Grozny, but he found it increasingly incomplete and strangely unsatisfying. Like an explorer stumbling across a land of unexpected loveliness, he had discovered a part of his mind he had not previously been aware of, a region where colours were subtler, vistas broader, sounds more harmonious. Words like ‘beauty’, which had previously been meaningless or even offensive, were beginning to make sense.
The Grozny sensed the change in their Captain, though they could not put it into words. They respected him as the man who had brought back Malik Timur, but they were not afraid of him. And a Grozny leader who could not terrify was always going to struggle.
Jinsha noticed the problem first. She was walking beside Giv at the rear of the column. Yalisha was out in front, flanked by two Kogon. The five Grozny warriors followed a short distance behind her while the two remaining Kogon spread out on either side to prevent ambush.