Antediluvian

by Wil McCarthy

  “Good for boats, I should think.” Sraddah looked thoughtful for just a moment, before snapping to a different topic: “Speaking of which, how many boats do you have? You, personally.”

  “Six. We’re building the seventh one now.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive, Harbormaster. Has any man ever owned more?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “And how many soldiers could each of them carry?”

  “And still have room for crew? I don’t know, maybe as many as twelve. If the crew were soldiers, and there was no cargo, then perhaps two twelves at the very most. But Your Majesty—”

  “So seven twelves would be…what?”

  “A little over sixty, Sire,” the scribe piped up, making marks on his plank with the charcoal pencil. “And seven two-twelves would be almost three sixties.”

  * * *

  And here Harv Leonel felt a stab of smugness, because he’d become more and more concerned about just who these people were. They seemed to know nothing of any organized civilizations before them, which (if true) would make them, what, older than the Sumerians? Which had to be nonsense, because Kingdom, despite being smaller than Sumer, seemed quite sophisticated. But here, finally, were some things they did badly: mathematics, writing, and cartography. He’d seen their writing on the outer walls, and he saw it on the plank now, and through Manuah Hasis’ eyes and mind he could understand some of what was written there. It wasn’t much; just numbers and a few dozen pictographic nouns, and the numbers greater than twelve were all unwieldy multiples of sixty. These people didn’t really seem to know what they were doing in this area, and indeed, although Harv was no expert, this mishmash didn’t look like any other written language he’d ever seen. It looked like something a team of six-year-olds might devise.

  But what did that mean? When he put his mind to the other things that were missing here, he realized he hadn’t seen any bronze, any metals at all other than copper and gold and tin. And in ancient times these were native materials on the surface of the Earth; they didn’t require any knowledge of mining or metallurgy—just heat and stone hammers. And now that he thought of it, he also hadn’t seen horses or donkeys or carts, or wheels of any sort. But that would mean…that would mean this was a Neolithic site—a stone age site—at least eight thousand years in the past. And yet these were hardly cave men!

  He felt a moment of panic, as he remembered this wasn’t supposed to be happening. He was only writing patterns into his hippocampus, like graffiti on a wall. Right? But then he was gone again, before he could think of an answer.

  * * *

  “Right,” the king said, “Well, I’ve said it before: boats are of no military value. If the greatest boatman in all of Kingdom can only carry three sixties of troops, then how am I to transport half a sixty of sixties and invade the Surapp? How many boats would I need?”

  He looked pointedly at the scribe, who gulped and said, “Uh, at least twelve and sixty of them, I think.”

  Sraddah nodded at that. “Ridiculous, yes, more than the entire Kingdom possesses. You see? Boats are for fishing, and transporting valuable goods.”

  “Sire,” Manuah interrupted, “I’m here to talk about the rising waters. It might be good for boats, yes, but bad for farms and buildings. And people.”

  “Oh, I see,” the king said, either thoughtfully or dismissively. “You’re talking about a possible flood. And you’re certain of this rising water, yes? Not just wasting my time?” He thought for another moment and then said, “What would you have me do about the forces of nature? Increase sacrifices? You should talk to your brother about that, I think.”

  Manuah pointed in the direction of the harbor, and sculpted imaginary structures there with his hands. “I had in mind something a bit more tangible, Sire. We can make the seawalls higher, and build new ones between the barrier islands out beyond the harbor. Outside the shipping lanes, of course.”

  “And why would we do that? Do you know how much a block of stone costs? As much as a goat, and you’d need a lot of them for a project like that.”

  “Yes. More blocks than are already there. I’ve counted over sixty sixties of blocks.”

  “Well. That would be a lot, my cousin. And water has a way of sneaking around, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. But waves can be broken, and storm surges deflected. I’ve seen some terrible storms, and if one were to hit us directly…Think of the water as an invading army, and better walls as a way of keeping The City safe from it.”

  “Hmm,” the king said, thinking that over.

  “Perhaps if you conquer the Surapp, you could demand stone blocks from them as tribute.”

  “Blocks? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, and in the meantime, we’ll cut our own. We can use cheap stone; it doesn’t have to look pretty.”

  To prod him further, and because the king was an avid fowler, Manuah said, “When a duck swims on the water, it can’t escape easily. You can kill it with a stone before it takes flight. Sire, we are like swimming ducks here, with our asses in the air.”

  “Hmm,” Sraddah said, even more thoughtfully. But then the spell was broken and he said, “You’ve given me much to think about, but I have a real invasion to plan. Come to me another time.”

  Manuah felt a stab of frustration. “Seriously? What other time? Cousin, when are you not busy with military affairs?”

  Sraddah clucked, as to a child. “Military affairs are what builds this country. My ancestors didn’t worry about the harbor, they gave that job to your ancestors. So perhaps you should be grateful to be granted an audience at all.”

  Manuah could feel his blood rising. The king was not a bad man, nor even (on most issues as far as Manuah could tell) a bad king. Taxes had not risen during his reign, and despite his focus on military affairs, the Kingdom was mostly a peaceful place. But Gods, it was like he was deaf sometimes.

  Sighing, Sraddah looked Manuah over and said, “Cousin, if there’s one thing this crown has taught me, it’s that our resources are finite. How many goats do you think The City can spare to feed the stonemasons? How many do you think we can steal away from the river towns, or the herdsmen up in the hills? Right now, our citizens are feeding the masons, one block at a time, to build their houses and garden walls, and that’s a good thing. Everyone is kept busy and happy.”

  “Right up until they drown.”

  Sraddah laughed at that. “Drowning, is it? I have great respect for you, Harbormaster, and I promise that in two years’ time you may remind me of this conversation, and we’ll revisit the issue. The Surapp will be pacified, the Kingdom will be greater, and I will have more time and more resources. Until then, please do what you can with the resources you have, and in two years’ time you may remind me. Fair enough?”

  And Manuah could see that from Sraddah’s point of view, that must seem like a very reasonable solution indeed. While neither acknowledging nor denying the existence of the problem, he had at least acknowledged the existence of Manuah, and delegated some vague authorizations to him. He probably thought he’d never hear about it again.

  “May the next month be kind,” Manuah said, resignedly. He looked again at the little prince, playing with his tin soldiers, forming quiet screams every now and then as one of them met some grisly imagined end, and it occurred to Manuah that this was a good sign, that the kid had an imagination of any sort. When Manuah had been brought here to the palace as a child, on occasions when his father had business here, Sraddah had liked to play as well, but with him it was always wooden knives, or willow spears and wicker shields, or bows and blunted darts. Or simply fistfights; Manuah had left more than once with a black eye and sore balls, or cuts and bruises across his knuckles and knees, inflicted by a triumphant prince two years his junior. In any case Sraddah had never seemed interested in using his mind. The fact that he was such a capable general owed, Manuah supposed, to the fact that his enemies’ minds were even lazier, and that their hearts quailed at the
ferocity of the king’s attacks, and the unwavering loyalty (and thus, ferocity) of his troops. So much easier to surrender and accept a just peace! But still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a thinker on the kingschair someday.

  “Keep after it, Raddiah,” he told the prince. “You’ve got them nearly trapped now.”

  And with that, he accepted his dismissal, bowed to the king, and allowed himself to be escorted off the palace grounds.

  1.3

  Manuah’s home was also on a hill, of sorts, although it really only lifted his view enough to see over the whitewashed rooftops of his neighbors. Still, he liked looking out at them. A few industrious people kept potted plants on their roofs—melons and squashes and even the occasional date palm. Some kept dogs up there, who would bark and bark into the night. A few had roof chairs for enjoying the view and the night sky, and some even kept beds and chamber pots. Even the more boring houses, with nothing but whitewash on top, had a certain worldly charm to them that could not be found anywhere else.

  Greater than any town or village, The City had laws requiring the ground floor of all buildings to be constructed of stone and sealed in at least a token coating of plaster. The roof planks must be a full hand wide and half a hand thick, and sealed with either plaster or earthen daub. The idea was that a second story could be built upon the first without the whole thing collapsing—a problem that had plagued The City in its early days, and still plagued the mud-brick towns of Larasha and Shifpar up north along the river.

  But an unexpected side effect was to make buildings so expensive that few citizens could afford a second story anyway. Often it was the work of two of three generations to put up a proper house in the first place! Ah, but then even in the damp sea air that structure might easily last another ten generations, or twenty, or until the end of time; nobody really knew. Manuah had always liked the idea that The City might stand here forever, but lately he was having a harder time believing that, and his audience with Sraddah had done nothing to lift his spirits.

  The best view in the house was from the kitchen, and there he found his wife, Emzananti, engaged in her favorite pastime: cooking. At the moment, she was chopping onions into a cold clay pan full of tallow, fishmeat, and shucked, breaded clams.

  * * *

  Here, finally, Harv Leonel saw something here that actually looked stone-age; the knife Emzananti used was a triangle of flaked obsidian, fitted into a wooden handle and wrapped tightly with rawhide. Probably glued in place as well, with some tree resin or animal-collagen adhesive. Her feet, too, were clad in extremely simple sandals: just a flat oval of leather with a bifurcated strap between the toes and tied back behind the ankle, like flip-flops designed by a child. The men also wore sandals, but theirs were sturdier and more complex, perhaps because they needed to run and climb and fight in them. Harv supposed some of the other women he’d seen on the streets were shod like Emzananti, but he hadn’t really been paying attention. Quite a few of them had been barefoot, and that had drawn his eye much more strongly. The women’s clothing, including Emzananti’s, was also weirdly plain. It seemed the men in this society were the peacocks, or perhaps there were (again) functional aspects to their more ornate clothing that were not apparent.

  * * *

  “Oh, yum,” Manuah said, kissing her cheek. Fried clams were his very favorite, and nobody cooked them like Emzananti. Still, he chided her:

  “My most darling darling, there’s enough there to feed a household for days. You’re cooking for the servants!”

  She turned and smiled at him, just for a moment, with reddened, tear-filled eyes, and then went back to her oniony work. “The servants can clean the bowls, and wash all the juice off your robe.”

  “I’m not a messy eater,” he protested.

  “With fried clams? Really?” She snorted in a most un-ladylike manner. Then: “How was your meeting?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Not good?”

  “Mmm. Let’s talk about something else.”

  She continued chopping, but now somehow reproachfully. “You keep saying The City is in danger. Not talking about it will not make it go away.”

  “Fine,” he said, gathering his thoughts. “The king refuses to provide funds for rebuilding the sea walls. He has given permission for me to rebuild them on my own, which of course would beggar our family.” He spread his arms. “Shall I dismantle this house?”

  “And why would you do that?”

  “I need blocks, woman. Stone blocks. Even the best mud bricks wouldn’t last a week in the ocean.”

  “Do the blocks need to be whole?” she asked, still not looking up from her onions. “Cutting stone is messy work, and not very forgiving.”

  “Huh,” Manuah said. She was right about that; depending on the quality of the stone, a mason might finish as few as half the blocks he began. Half of those might be suitable as street cobbles, but the rest were sledded away as rubble, to be hammered by rope-ganged criminals into various grades of gravel, with which the mud-brick towns paved their own streets. Manuah had sailed upriver with more loads of gravel than he could count! But it was an interesting thought, because while blocks had value, and gravel had value, the masons actually paid to have their rubble piles sledded away. Not very much, of course, but if Manu were to haul it for free…

  He laughed. “Well, that just might just work. Rubble wouldn’t be as sturdy—it would break the waves, but only slow the currents. But perhaps that’s enough. Especially if there’s a buildup of silt.”

  “So I’m a genius, then?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And I’ve saved The City and all the people who dwell in it?”

  He chuckled. “Perhaps.”

  “And tonight you will reward me for it?”

  To this he couldn’t resist saying “Perhaps” again, but he hugged her around the waist, and kissed her neck. Engaged as children, they’d been married at the seemly age of fifteen, and had loved each other well enough. Three live sons and two dead daughters later, they still loved each other well enough, and while Emzananti’s body did not seem inclined to produce any more children, she still enjoyed the occasional attempt. Which was more luck than many couples had, and for this Manuah was grateful.

  Changing the subject, he told her, “I need to travel tomorrow. The weavers in Surapp Great Town should have a load of byssa cloth for me by now, and I’m going to need that to pay for the caulking on the new boat.”

  “Hmm!” Emzananti exclaimed. “Will you save me a bit?”

  Byssa cloth was by far the most precious cargo Manuah ever hauled, and he trusted it to no one but himself. A woven textile, it was thinner and lighter and softer and slipperier than anything else in all the world. It didn’t take color very readily, so mostly it was brown or orange or yellow, and many fine gentlemen wore linen and cotton robes dyed to these same hues, to make themselves look finer still. But byssa was made from the feet-webs of pinnid sea snails, and between the harvesting of the pinnids, the drying and wrapping of the fibers, the setting of the looms and the actual weaving itself, a cubit of the fabric could cost as much as an entire bale of linen, and a bale of it (the largest amount Manuah had ever seen) was worth an entire boatload of linen. Sewing and embroidering it required special skill as well, so a byssa robe could cost as much as the boat that had hauled it east from Surapp.

  “All right,” Manuah told her, making a show of reluctance. “And a golden fleece as well.”

  “Oh, my. The heart flutters!”

  Far north of the land where the Great Sea ended, there were magic streams where the women would lay down ram’s fleeces for a month or two, and the fleeces would turn to gold. Manuah had doubted the rumors until he saw the fleeces for himself; they took on a yellow hue that glittered with countless tiny flecks and sparkles. It warmed him to know that this kind of magic could really exist in the world. Of course, golden fleeces were not as valuable as byssa cloth (and they, too, could be roughly imitated with yellow dye and mica sands), bu
t they were more than valuable enough to be worth the trip. In this case, he didn’t even have to go all the way to the world’s end; he’d received word that some foreign stranger had made that journey, and all Manuah had to do was get there before the new moon, and offer a better price than anyone in Surapp Great Town, and he could claim virtually the entire shipment.

  Emzananti was not a greedy woman, nor one who drew attention to herself with garish, mannish clothing. He wasn’t sure what she wanted with these items, other than perhaps to make a wedding coat for their middle son, Hamurma. But that was her business, and in any case, it wasn’t lost on her that Manuah stood to make a great profit from this rather short voyage, or that he planned to invest the entire profit into tree rosins, asphalt, birch tar and oil sands with which to caulk his newest boat. Four layers of caulk! He’d been talking about it for weeks, ever since the hull had started taking shape, and the wooden decking was laid down. This would be the largest boat in his fleet—perhaps the largest boat in the world—and sealing it against the corrosive ocean was not going to be cheap. But the alternative was to let the thing slowly rot out from under him, like a common fisherman. This he would not do.

  “I’m going to bring Hamurma with me this time,” he told her. “He’s overdue for his first voyage.”

  “As you wish,” Emzananti said, equably enough. Indeed, the boy was nearly fifteen, and though he was already captaining Manuah’s smallest boat for measurement trips, back and forth across the harbor with a weighted sounding rope, he needed a better profession than that if he was to marry well. Manuah could let him man the steering oar on the way out and the sail on the way back, and thus acquaint him with the real ocean. If they hit bad weather, he’d move the boy to a paddling bench. He was a fine paddler, strong and with good form, and what he lacked in endurance he more than made up for in determination. When the wind was too weak or too strong, it took six paddlers to drive one of Manuah’s boats, or eight if you really wanted to get anywhere, and they needed to be tough men.