And finally, greeted by a sea-roar of anticipation, Vingi and Potok walked onto the dais. Each wore only a simple white cloth around his loins and a wrist bracelet of some dull metal. They were flooded in the fury of a nova. Vingi was a hillock of flesh, his gross folds puckered with cellulite, his breasts almost like a woman’s but for the hairiness of his chest. Yet he moved with a strange grace despite his grotesque appearance. He did not provoke laughter, but a strange silence. Potok seemed only out of shape, his bald head shining, the body of an overweight man given to little or no exercise. He was small beside Vingi, but appeared to be far more mobile. Neither looked the part of fighter.
The beams from the truth-deities parted as they approached, falling back into place behind them. The magistrate at the head of the star-stage tottered a step forward, leaning heavily on the shoulder of his slaveboy.
“Your bracelets, please,” he said. Hidden amplifiers gave his voice deific proportions. “Place them at the edge of the arena.”
Vingi and Potok did as requested, removing the iron circlets from their wrists. A nod from the magistrate, and his attendant darted forward (beams breaking around him), grasped the bracelets, and came back to his station. The magistrate touched the panting head with affection, a small smile on his lips. “Your weapons, sirrahs,” he said, looking up again.
Rising slowly from the center of the star-stage, a platform held two crowd-prods. A simple rubber grip, a stubby metal cylinder, a thumb contact: they were simple weapons, but capable of delivering a jarring shock to the nervous system. Applied in the right area or to the body in general a number of times, they could reduce a person to gibbering, slack-jawed shock or unconsciousness. Vingi and Potok picked up their prods, holding them in uncertain hands. The platform sank and became flush with the floor again.
“The truth-duel is now initiated,” the magistrate said as his fellows nodded. “If one of you asks to yield or is unable to continue the duel, the other will be adjudged the victor and the penalties previously decided upon will be given. There will be no rest periods, no pauses, no particular rules. You cannot leave the star-stage until the gods have ruled—the gods will guide your hands and destinies, for one of you lies.”
The magistrate stepped back, leaning on his slaveboy. He nodded in the shadow of his truth-deity. “Begin.”
Prod-metal flicked light over the expectant faces in the crowd: Vingi swung his weapon up and back. Potok hefted his prod, feeling its weight. The guild-kin of each rule-guild shouted their support.
The Li-Gallant took a ponderous step forward. His flesh jiggled about his waist, on his thighs. Potok was obviously much quicker, he moved forward and to the side, swinging his prod. A clatter of steel: Vingi, arms moving, blocked Potok’s intended blow with his prod. Potok, moving as Vingi turned slowly to attack, swung again and touched the Li-Gallant. A shrill buzzing came from the prod, a choked-off moan escaped Vingi’s lips. The touch was above the kidneys, just under the ribcage. Vingi’s face went red, his eyes watered.
But he still followed Potok, if slowly, who had stopped to see what effect the prod had on his opponent. The Li-Gallant’s arm swept out (light-glare shimmering the prod’s length); Potok, startled, beat at the weapon. Vingi, for all his girth, masked muscle beneath the continents of flesh. His prod bullied past Potok’s flailing defense to touch the man on the right side of the chest. Potok groaned as the prod crackled like a lightning stroke. He stumbled backward as Vingi thrust at him again. Once more, Potok’s greater agility saved him.
Both were now more cautious, having been hit once. As the crowd settled back into noisy restlessness, as the partisan kin cheered, the two played a game of patience. Potok would lunge and dart back, Vingi would attempt to maneuver Potok into a corner where the Li-Gallant’s greater reach and strength gave him the advantage. To the connoisseur of finesse and grace, the match was a dismal farce. It was far too slow. The cheering waned. A few more touches were scored, but the duel dragged on: fifteen minutes, half an hour. Both men were now obviously tired; sweat dappled the star-stage, darkening the cloth about their waists and shining on their backs. Slowly, the eventual outcome was becoming apparent to the spectators. Vingi’s kin began to become noisy; Potok’s guild was watchful, quiet, afraid.
Vingi was stronger, in better shape, and more able to bear the stinging bruises of the crowd-prod. Potok, fish-mouthed and gasping, struggled to stay one step beyond Vingi’s reach. His attacks had become little but desultory feints that did nothing to drive the Li-Gallant back. Vingi stalked his prey, moving slowly, but always moving.
Vingi stepped, and his bearlike arms pummeled air, his prod clacked as he struck Potok’s weapon. The prod shivered in Potok’s grasp, and Vingi struck at it again. The prod slithered away from Potok, clattering across the floor. Potok, his eyes frightened, moved to recover his weapon (his kin moaning as one), and Vingi lunged.
The Li-Gallant’s prod found its mark.
Potok screamed, a wailing cry that echoed in the hall, now lost in the joyous whistling from Vingi’s kin. Potok rolled, reaching out for his prod with desperate, wide-spread fingers. Vingi’s huge foot came down on the hand, hard. The cracking of bones could be heard in the nearest rows, and Vingi’s prod ran the length of Potok’s spine. The squeal of agony choked off suddenly. Potok’s head lolled against the floor.
It was over.
The yellow beams from the deities faded, the aching glare of the star-stage altered to sapphire as Vingi stepped away from Potok. He smiled. The magistrate moved forward to declare him victor.
To declare him truthful and innocent.
• • •
It was much later when Gyll finally returned to his rooms. The wort mewled at him—he’d missed its feeding. He stared at the animal, wondering. How can you be alive, so improbably, when Hag Death snatches at everything else around me? You damn thing, you weren’t built for survival, yet you continue to fight . . . He reached down over the cage to stroke the furred hardness of the shell.
It had all gone wrong so quickly—so needlessly. Aldhelm had not survived the trip to the hospital. Yet the death was still an unreality, a dream—he wasn’t meant to go that way, not by the hands of his own kin, accidentally. That was how it was in the early days of Hoorka, before I disciplined them, before the code was set. He sat on the edge of the bedfield, staring at his hands knotted on his lap. The hands were a network of tiny cracks, whitely dry, the light reflecting satin on the surface, golden-shadowed in the wrinkles.
Why did you give me all this, Gyll? Valdisa’s words kept coming back, insistent. But do you want it?
He could feel a sense of change, like a faint spice-smell in the chill dark air of Underasgard. And for the first time, he welcomed change. He thought he knew the answer to Valdisa’s questions. He didn’t care for that answer, knowing what it might mean. But more and more he was certain.
Chapter 10
An excerpt from the acousidots of Sondall-Cadhurst Cranmer. The following is part of several interviews Cranmer recorded outside the context of the Hoorka. It is perhaps more interesting in how it reflects Cranmer’s own shift in attitude over the standards he spent on Neweden. As Cranmer remarks in his Wanderer’s Musings (Niffleheim University Press, 252), it took him quite some time to readjust to our society after living in that society. Certainly the Cranmer I knew before the Hoorka study would never have been so patronizing. He began, afterward, to wonder if the attitude of the elite toward those below them wasn’t something lying dormant in all people, and to question whether his humanistic views weren’t merely a civilized veneer far too easily scratched away. Cranmer, ever afterward, was active in social reform, perhaps to the detriment of his status in his field; it is not good for one engaged in the study of societies to be active in endeavoring to change the one in which he lives.
The lassari of this interview has never been identified—another indication of the odd and uncharacteristic contempt that exudes from Cranmer in this dot.
EXCERPT
FROM THE DOT OF 9.26.215:
“You’re a lassari?”
(A moment’s silence.)
“Speak up, woman, and show some wit. This is an audio recording. Your nods don’t register. And please don’t look so frightened of me. Now, you’re a lassari?”
“Yes, sirrah.” (The voice trembles a bit; contralto, a bit rough.)
“And you live . . . ?”
“In Brentwood. My true-father has a place there, sirrah. He doesn’t mind my staying.”
“Do you work?”
“How’ya mean, sirrah? I do what I have to do, certainly.”
“You needn’t take offense. I’m interested purely as a scholar. What do you charge for your, ahh, services?”
“Are’ya interested, sirrah? For you, I could—”
“Have you looked at yourself? No, this is simply for my notes. If I need comfort, I can find the Courtesan’s Guild.”
(She laughs, then stops quickly as if afraid of offending Cranmer.) “The guild-women are far too expensive for the likes of what I get, sirrah. I’m not skilled or pretty enough to join ’em. And I’m cheap.”
“But that allows you to survive.”
“Like the rest of lassari. You do what you can, as long as you want. After, there’s always the Dead. You can find ’em if you need.”
“You don’t sound as if you enjoy your life.”
“Neweden’s fine for the guilded kin, sirrah. If you ain’t kin, then maybe next time Dame Fate’ll be kinder—I went to a seeress once, and she told me that I’d been kin in earlier lives, that I’d be kin again. It feels right. So you accept it—if you kick back now, then maybe the Dame’ll kick you when She steals you from the Hag again, send you back lassari again. Or maybe She’ll just leave you there as one of the Hag’s handservants.”
“Don’t you ever get angry? You people act like complacent cows.”
“When you’re jussar, you’re angry. You forget to get angry when you become lassari, when no guild wants you. You live better and longer that way.”
“A complacent attitude.”
“Hmm?”
“Damn . . . ahh, never mind.”
“I’d like to see someone pull the lassari together, demand something better for us and make it stick. If that person ever comes along, maybe I’ll join ’im. Until that happens, I’ll stay quiet.”
• • •
Gyll tried to strike a balance between unabashed staring and nonchalance. He didn’t succeed.
Kaethe Oldin reclined on a grassy hillock in her chambers between four metal pillars that radiated a golden light. It made every centimeter of exposed flesh glisten; being nude, she glistened quite a bit. Ulthane Gyll, on whose cool and strict world casual nudity was uncommon, felt rather provincial and uncomfortable. He didn’t know where to put his gaze. Beside and below him, Helgin—who had ushered him into Kaethe’s rooms—chuckled.
Kaethe sat up on one elbow. A gilt eyebrow winked light at him; she smiled. “Ulthane Gyll. I’m glad to see you again. A moment—let me get rid of the Battier.” She reached out, languid, to touch one of the posts. The glow dimmed, the Battier receded into the floor. All the light in the room now came from the panels on the walls and Neweden, floating beyond the viewport.
“Kaethe thinks that an angelic glow can be achieved from the outside, rather than requiring a saintly interior,” Helgin commented. Grunting, he seated himself on the carpet, crossing his stubby legs underneath himself.
Gyll nodded, not knowing how else to reply. Helgin disconcerted him. Gyll knew that he wouldn’t tolerate such casual insult from guilded kin. On Neweden, the Motsognir would either prove himself to be an excellent foilsman or die. But, as she had the last time, Oldin reacted as if she’d expected his sourness. She nodded sweetly to the dwarf.
“If saintliness were required, you wouldn’t light the darkness either.” She stopped, laughing suddenly. Her laugh was crystalline; Gyll found himself smiling in response. “I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I?” she said, looking at Gyll. “I’m sorry, I just forgot where”—she tapped at a wall. It opened, revealing a closet, and she plucked a robe from its fasteners, slipping it about her shoulders—“I was for a moment. I hope I haven’t . . .”
“You haven’t.” Gyll paused, searching for something else to say. “The view was . . . interesting.”
A smile rewarded his effort.
“And if you think the exposure wasn’t deliberate—despite the fact that Kaethe could use some exercise—you’re a fool, Ulthane.” Helgin; gruff, scowling. He plucked at the grass-carpet.
Gyll started involuntarily, smile evaporating into frown. His eyes narrowed, folding the crow’s-feet at their corners deeper. “I think what I please, Motsognir, and I’m not a fool.”
The dwarf snorted laughter and slapped the carpet with his hand. “You Newedeners antagonize too easily. It’s no fun baiting you. I tell you, Hoorka—I’m good with any weapon you can name, even better with my hands, and I’m a damned small target to hit.”
The wizened, beard-hidden face was comically furious.
Despite himself, Gyll found his irritation gone. He shook his head into the dwarf’s red-veined stare. Helgin’s lips drew back from teeth: he leered. “Try me sometime, Ulthane.”
“Keep talking like you do, and I probably will.”
Oldin had lain back down on the hillock again, upper body supported on elbows behind her, legs crossed at ankles. “The two of you complement each other. The Family Oldin could use both Motsognir and Hoorka.” She glanced questioningly at Gyll. “The reason I asked to see you again, Ulthane, was to find out whether you had talked with Thane Valdisa.”
A shrug. The port view shifted as Peregrine made an orbital adjustment. Ocean-blue light swept across the floor toward Gyll, moving with his shrug. “I’ve talked with Thane Valdisa, and I’m sorry I haven’t responded before now—much has been happening.” He thought of Valdisa; when he’d left Underasgard, she’d been making arrangements for the construction of Aldhelm’s pyre. “She doesn’t appear interested.”
“But you are?”
Gyll wondered if he were that easy to read, but decided not to deny his interest—if it was a game she played, he’d go along for now. “To an extent, I am.”
“Good. The Family Oldin can offer Hoorka far more than the Alliance. The Oldins are quite strong among the Trading Families, and we could use your skills to enhance that—the exact manner in which the Hoorka might operate would of course be up to you.” She sat up, smiling. “My offer, then, is this. Come with me when I return to OldinHome—as soon as my business is done here. Spend time among the Family societies, see what you need to see, and determine how you can devise a code to allow you to work with and for us. I think you could fashion the code to work within our context.”
“Trader Oldin—”
She shook her head. “I won’t try to correct you this time, Ulthane. But ‘Kaethe’ would be preferable to ‘Trader Oldin.’ This is hardly a formal meeting, neh?”
Gyll hesitated, began a “Kaethe” and ended elsewhere. “I once used a vibro on a kin-brother who insisted that I change the code to fit a situation. I feel that strongly about it—if you think that the Hoorka-code must be changed to work within your society, then perhaps I should leave now and waste no more of our time.” The remembrance of Aldhelm conjured by his words brought back the dull ache of his death. Gyll choked down the ghost, forcing his mind to stay on the subject.
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything distasteful to you,” Kaethe said. “I know you created the code, managed to bring order out of chaos, and the code fits Neweden’s society ingeniously. I expect that you could devise a Hoorka-guild under another similar culture. I compliment you by saying that you could change the code, believe me. In any case, your coming with me to OldinHome binds you to nothing. I’d pay you as an adviser—ten thousand, in Alliance currency if that’s what you want, for a third-standard of your time. No restrictions beyond that. Just come and see the Families’
society, perhaps give a suggestion or two to our fighting masters to enhance their training, and make your decision later.”
“Your words still say the same, even under the sugarcoating. The code works, m’Dame,” he said, stubbornly.
“On Neweden it works, Ulthane,” she answered, lifting her hands as if in supplication. “You’ve never been offworld, never seen the varieties of structures I have. No one code can work for them all. I know about Heritage, about the killing of your kin—it’s part of the same problem, Ulthane. You’re a Neweden native, born here. What works for Neweden might not”—he could see her watching his face carefully for reaction—“work elsewhere. I can understand your reluctance to abandon what’s taken you so far, but I’d be silly not to warn you about inflexibility. It’s not a survival trait, Ulthane. Not even in a society as static as that here. And I think you’re a survivor.”
“You talk a lot like Aldhelm.”
“Aldhelm?”
“He is . . .” Gyll’s lips tightened, his brow furrowed. The pain and anger and sorrow nagged at him again. Down. Stay down. “He was one of my advisers. A good friend at one time. He told me much the same thing once—we never could agree on it, and it drove us apart.”
“Did you reconcile yourselves?”
Down. “No. I followed the code and insisted that he do the same.” For a moment he thought of telling her everything, of the struggle that ended with Aldhelm feeling the bite of Gyll’s vibro as Gunnar fled before them. But something held him back, as if by saying nothing he apologized to Aldhelm. “He did as I said, and it worked.”
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