Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02]

by The Ends of the Circle (v0. 9) (epub)

  Laboriously, Stel climbed the cliff. When he reached the top, he could see the three standing on the far shore. Elseth waved to him, but Shay slapped her arm down. Stel waved back and set out westward. The dryness seemed to throb against him like an infection. He would turn south and find the river again. After Elseth, the weight of his loneliness cut into him again.

  Nearly two days later, Stel saw five horsemen approach, leading a sixth horse. He strung both bows, setting down the short one and nocking a long arrow. The horsemen halted about two hundred arms off, then one trotted toward Stel. As he approached, Stel could see that it was Shay.

  “Stop there.”

  Shay held up both hands. “I’m unarmed. We want to talk.”

  “Get off your horse and walk,” Shay did so, coming slowly. “That is far enough. I can hear you.”

  “Elseth says that you can make paper. She says you have some.”

  Stel said nothing.

  “We need to learn how. We will not hurt you. We need to protect our sister.”

  “Where is Elseth?”

  “She is back at her work.”

  “You have a strange way of protecting her, leaving her out there. I don’t trust you. I have trusted too many people—the Dahmens, McCarty, Scule, the goatherders. I am lucky to be alive. Take your horses and go. I will keep my paper. You keep your treachery.”

  “We will pay you. We will not harm you. This is the truth. You cannot blame us.”

  “I will count again. Be to your horse by ten. One, two, three . . As before, Shay ran, and Stel stopped counting. When he was mounted, Shay trotted back to the others. Stel waited while they talked. Then an older, bearded man detached himself from the others and rode slowly toward Stel. He was thin, almost frail. Stel said nothing until the man was only twenty arms away.

  “That’s far enough.”

  “I don’t believe you have the paper. Show it to me.”

  “I don’t care what you believe, and have no interest in showing you anything but only in defending myself. I used to be an innocent, but I found it is too costly.” “Young man, failing to trust is as dangerous as trusting.”

  “Perhaps you are right. I am goind to try it awhile, though. Trusting has failed badly enough.”

  “That is what Elseth feels, and why she chips away at the mountainside. You made her trust again for a moment, and I am grateful to you. I apologize for Shay and Than. They only thought to protect her.”

  “I will tell Elseth anything she wants to know about paper. That is, anything I know. But her paper is rock, and mine is sand, it would seem. What do you mean, she carves the rock because she fails to trust?”

  “Well, young man, that is my concern. She has been hurt and will not heal. Ah, I see you feel for her. I don’t think you will kill me. I am going to dismount and walk to you, then sit down. Please humor an old man. I have carved words in rock until my hands throbbed. I would see your little book.”

  Stel was alarmed. He backed off as the old man advanced, but when he sat down in the dirt, Stel took the book from his backsack and gave it to him, then backed off again, keeping a watch all around him. The old man felt the pages. He turned the leaves slowly and soon became as absorbed as Elseth had been. The horsemen stood in the heat. So did Stel.

  Then the old man looked up solemnly. “It is all so simple—if you know how to do it. We have tried but failed. We have written on cloth and goatskin, as well as rock. Goatskin is all right, but far too expensive to disseminate knowledge. Here is your book, young man. I don’t know why you carry it, since you now deny all it seems to say.”

  “Not all. I am afraid of some. I seem to understand less all the time. It seems a ruthless truth, a right with bite.”

  “Quite. I am Elseth’s father. Cannot you trust me for her sake?”

  “They are her brothers.”

  “They love her, are unwise, a bit foolhardy, but loyal. I apologize for them.”

  “That would not put my skin back on. A flayed rabbit is good only for stew. I’ve lost the habit of being a rabbit.” The old man smiled. “If I got that horse, and sent the others away, would you come with me alone to the Center of Knowledge? Are you afraid of me?”

  “No. I am not afraid of all of you together on my terms, though I am a little afraid of the horse. What assurance have I? What need have I to go with you?”

  “You know your need as well as we know ours. We need to know about paper, which our ancestors used but never made. We need to know about your Heart River, your Pelbar, the others. You need to know about us. We need to come together again. You are much more valuable to us alive than dead, and vice versa. Besides, we do not kill. We didn’t even kill the man who hurt Elseth.”

  “I would have.”

  “Then you are like Shay and cannot criticize him. Now come, son, with me alone.”

  “I have never ridden.”

  “And that is a very old horse. And I am an old man. My name is Howarth. And you are Stel? Wait. I will get the horse.” He rose stiffly, mounted, and returned to the others. A discussion ensued, but eventually the others rode away, and Howarth returned with the horse, showed Stel how to tie down his backsack, and they set out. The sun burned down unmercifully.

  “This is a bad year,” Howarth remarked. “We have lost the spring rains. Our cattle will be in a bad way by fall. I fear we may have to deal with the Rockpilers again.”

  Stel looked at him but said nothing. It sounded like more trouble.

  17

  The river Ahroe had been following joined a larger one and turned west, then more southerly. As it happened, she was not far downriver from the small side valley in which Elseth worked on her cliff. At the time, Stel had already ridden west, leaving the same river behind.

  Ahroe continued downstream, increasingly into canyons, and at one point, where the east bank dropped sheer into the water for some distance, she crossed to the west, on which a band of flood plain, sometimes narrow, sometimes wider, lay. Like Stel, Ahroe found she could not float down the river because of the rapids. Occasionally, on a lazier stretch of water, she would ride a log, with Garet straddling it in front of her, dangling his small feet in the water, gurgling with amusement.

  On the third evening, she saw lights ahead of her and decided to stop until morning. She wanted to see what it was in daylight.

  Before the sun broke the rim of the eastern canyon wall, Ilage, a priest of the Originals, climbed to the parapet with his tambourine and sang his morning song, welcoming and urging the light. He overlooked the northern wall of the small city of Cull, the Original city, a settlement of about five hundred people who supported themselves by agriculture along the river bank, for here the river widened out, affording the only break in the west wall of bluffs for many ayas in either direction. For this time and this region, their population was considerable. Their inclinations were ceremonial, though, rather than dynamic. Satisfied with their way of life, with the endless risings and settings of the desert sun, the unfailing supply of the river, they were content, and lax in many things, except in the rituals of days and seasons.

  Ilage was the priest designate of the morning. His reed cape billowed in the light breeze as he made the sun rise with his song, drawing it up into the sky, as the priests of Cull had done daily since time had begun. Ilage shook the tambourine, his eyes supposedly enraptured by the sun. But the song was repetitious, and he knew it many seasons ago, so he checked the river level as well, as he sang. He saw it had again dropped slightly as measured against the Rock of the Great Shoulder on the far bank. He was worried. The spring rains had failed. The Commuters would need water for their cattle. As the branch streams dried, and the washes they dammed lost their last pools into the sand, they would come again as they had when Ilage was a boy, driving their cattle to the river. They would have to come to Cull. But the whole side valley was planted, much more than last time. There would be another fight.

  Of course, this time there was a wall, piled according to the dir
ection of the priests, using only rocks unmodified from nature, the great builder. Perhaps the wall would hold. One could never tell with the Commuters, though. They were a wretched lot of impractical people, wild travelers without religion or proper governance, but they were also full of surprises and in love with learning —all of it false, of course, based on the notion of a great time of burning and death in the past, on the concept that there was a time when Cull did not exist, and other cities did, while Ilage knew Cull was the Original city, needed to minister to the sun.

  Ilage turned his thought to the sun again, the Great Disk of Life, and this time prayed and chanted sincerely for the Original city’s prosperity and safety. As he finished, his eyes fell to the river bank. A woman was standing there, dressed strangely, in a tunic gathered at the waist, worn clothing, carrying something on her back.

  “Aaahhhiiieee,” Ilage yelled. Boldar, who was lifting water, came running. “Ah, look, the first of the Commuters. Take your staff. Drive her off.”

  “She doesn’t look like a Commuter to me. She’s just a young woman. Thin, too.”

  “Aaahhhiiieee. Do as I say. Go.” Ilage gave the big young man a boost with his foot. Boldar shrugged, took his staff, and trotted down the stairs toward the river as a small crowd of Originals mounted the wall to look on. Ahroe stood her ground, watching Boldar, who towered head and shoulders above her, advancing.

  “Go on, now,” said Boldar. “I will take this stick to you.”

  “You so much as try and I’ll put an arrow in you.” Boldar stopped, puzzled. “Go on, beat her, beat her,” Ilage screamed from above. Boldar looked up, squinting, and turned again to Ahroe.

  “I will go,” she said, “but don’t come near me.”

  Boldar was nonplussed. Ilage still screamed down at him, but he could see no harm in the woman. What was she? She seemed supremely confident. What was that she held? Now she turned, slowly. A baby sat strapped to her back, squinting in the light.

  “Boldar, you sniveling coward, beat her. Send her running,” Ilage screeched.

  “No you don’t, Boldar,” came a woman’s voice. “You hit that baby and I’ll rap your skull.” Boldar looked. It was Mati, head of the nursery of the planters.

  Ahroe turned and laughed. “You’ve got problems, Boldar. I suggest you listen to her. Don’t worry. I will go.” “You don’t have to go for me. I see no harm in you.” “Contamination. She is a Commuter spy,” Ilage screamed.

  Mati grabbed his tambourine and hit him with it. Ilage was outraged and stared at her openmouthed. “A spy bringing her baby? Has the sun fried your brain? You nanny goat. Sending that big bull after a woman with a baby. Now shut your mouth before I stick this in it.”

  Ilage drew himself up, took his tambourine, and departed slowly down the winding stairs toward the beehiveshaped sanctuary. He held himself erect and tried to make his face passive. It was another assault on the priesthood. The seculars of Cull would have to be brought into line.

  Boldar laughed and turned to Ahroe. “Why don’t you come inside and have something to eat? I think it will be all right.”

  “I’m not sure I want to. I’ve had experience with this type of person before. I am alone and must be careful.” Boldar gave her the staff. “Don’t worry. Mati and I will protect you. The priest is worried because of the drought. He is afraid the Commuters will come for water for their stock. Here is the only place they can get it if we don’t get a rain, and this isn’t the season for it.”

  “Then why don’t you give them the water?”

  “We use the valley for our crops. And we can’t carry water for over a thousand cattle, and feed them, until after the fall rains. Last time this happened, I’m told, the cattle broke in and ruined much of the harvest. There was a fight. But come in. My mother is fixing flatcakes. She is called Doray. I am Boldar. There will be plenty for you and her.”

  “That is a him. Garet. I am Ahroe Dahmen of Pelbarigan, far to the east on the Heart River. I am here— well, on a journey. Have you had any other visitors?” Boldar frowned and thought. “No. Pelbarigan? Never heard of it. Far from here? Up toward the mountains?” “Far beyond the mountains and across the Shumai country. Farther than you could dream of distance.”

  Boldar led Ahroe in, introduced her to the joys of flatcakes, and left to hoe tomatoes. Doray talked with her half the morning, and Mati came and took Garet to the nursery. As Ahroe saw him go, her heart leaped a little, but for the first time since she left Ozar, she felt he was safe in other hands. Garet cried and held out his hands as he passed through the triangular doorway, but Mati hugged him and talked to him, and soon he was studying her ample nose and grasping it firmly.

  Doray arranged for Ahroe to stay with her mother, an old, stout woman named Ovi, who wove baskets and mats, slowly but deftly, drinking tea all day. She was a widow, quiet but curious, and fascinated to meet Ahroe, asking her questions with a downturned mouth, as she peered farsightedly at her work. Cull was really a hos-

  pitable town, easygoing and relaxed, except for the schedule of ceremonies, each announced from one or another large, squat turret by the booming of a large drum. Ahroe was clearly welcome to stay, but she first arranged an interview with Ilage. She wanted no enemies and told him as much. She found him a fussy man, soon satisfied by her odd accent, and other strange ways, that she was not a Commuter. He even apologized. She could see that he was worried.

  “The Commuters are a wild and bestial people,” he said. “They have no settled place, except for their silly Center of Knowledge. They come and go, and their talk is abstruse and disorderly. In good years we trade with them some, but this year there will be trouble. It will be worse because of what Dilm did to the young woman.”

  —

  “What did he do?”

  Ilage looked at her and dropped his eyes.

  “Did he get away with it?”

  “He fled. He is beyond the comforts of Deity now.”

  “Who is Deity?”

  Ilage was shocked. Ahroe held up her hand. “I see. Don’t worry. We call Her Aven, Mother of All. The Ozar call her God and think of her in more masculine terms, as you probably do. Every group has Aven, or Deity, under different names. The supernatural and the source of ethics. Right?”

  Ilage thought a moment, not wanting to offend, but confident of her woeful ignorance. What could this waif know of the priestly calling, the stately marching of the ceremonies, the chants and drums, the fine-smelling fire and the slow dances with which the true dignity of Deity was celebrated?

  “Yes, you are right,” he said.

  Ahroe smiled. “You are a nice man, Ilage. Excitable, but nice.”

  “It is the Commuters that have worried me. They are beasts, dressing in rags and holding endless discussions about geometry, mathematics, history—a false history, that is. They cannot make an irrigation trough or prune a peach tree. They know nothing of religious usage. They will be coming here before the summer heat is gone.”

  “They sound like the Shumai. We have had long experience with marauders at Pelbarigan, though now we are at peace with them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We lived behind walls. We defended ourselves so well that they seldom harmed even one of us. And we offered them peace and kindness always. That is the first thing you must do. If they need water, you must get it for them if you can.”

  “There are too many. The grass and plants have failed on the hills. Their cattle need food. Unfortunately, our gardens tempt them.”

  “Then you must try to help them, and if that does not work, you must have a system of defenses that will prevent them from destroying you.”

  “We must dance and pray to Deity. We are not experienced in such matters. We have few weapons because we have no need of them.”

  “I know a good deal about defense. Perhaps I can help. What weapons have they?”

  Ilage frowned. “I don’t know, praise to Deity. I have never seen them with any except their whips and rope
s— and of course their stock knives.”

  “No spears?”

  “Spears?”

  Ahroe laughed. “They don’t sound very fearsome. Do they throw rocks?”

  “Sometimes,” said Ilage, nodding seriously. “They throw large ones, and they do use slings sometimes.” “Slings? Do you have these?”

  “Only to chase birds.”

  Ilage arranged a conclave of the priests at which Ahroe was to discuss defense. She clearly knew much more about it than they. As she questioned them and reviewed their knowledge, she found them almost hoplessly lax. And she ran into priestly blockages at every suggestion. As she looked at their walls, too, she found frustrating their theory that one must use stone only as it came from Deity through nature. The builders had become expert in visualizing how rocks from their piles would fit together, but still the result was not strong.

  “At Pelbarigan,” she told them, “we cut and fit our stone, interlocking it so it makes a single unit. Were my husband here, he could show you how to do it. I see you have no true arches, either, but simply edge the stones out until they meet at the top.”

  “How else can it be done?” asked Furme, an Original priest, skeptically.

  “I wish I had paid closer attention. The result is a round arch, like a bent willow twig. We build whole rooms that way.”

  “What is to keep the rocks overhead from falling in?” Furme said, smirking.

  “Stel could tell you. It is the way the rocks are joined. But it is no time for theory. We must set up some defenses for you. Is there any way you could build a corridor so the cattle could reach the river and not enter the gardens?”

  The rejection of this idea was universal. Ahroe could see that the Originals were unable to perceive the value of accommodating the Commuters. They simply wanted to stop them. It seemed not only unreasonable to her, but unwise as well. However, she agreed to help.

  Viewing their upper wall, which ran across the narrowest part of the upper end of the valley, tying in to outcrops on either side, Ahroe frowned at its fiimsiness. Shumai battering logs would have brought it down in a couple of moments. The enemy would hold the higher ground. There was no backup system. If the Commuters were as wily and ruthless as the Originals thought, there would be trouble.