Barsk (23 page)

“How can you break any rules? You're dead!”

She glared back at him, her ears rippling with the Eleph idiom of irritation that spoke more eloquently than speech. Her eyes narrowed with obvious disgust.

“Don't be an imbecile. You and I both know that death is hardly an impediment. I was summoned myself, days ago, by a young Speaker who also possessed a telepathic talent. A nefshon construct has the knowledge and experience its source possessed in life, and mine includes Speaking. That's the danger in summoning any of our kind; such a conversant can still Speak.”

Jorl nodded, following the logic and obviousness of it. No Speaker had ever realized it because even considering the idea had been forbidden. By Margda.

“But … the nefshons of the living can't be summoned—”

“Of course they can. You see the bundle of your own nefshons every time the koph takes hold. Summoning the living just takes more effort, wrenching the particles from the nefshon fabric of the conversant's life.”

He gestured around him, “And the rest of this?”

“You're the historian. This was my home, gone now but vivid to me as I saw it only days ago.”

“What happened days ago?”

“In my timeline? That's when I sailed away.”

“So … other than the fact you've broken the first two rules of the Edict in Speaking to me, everything else about this summoning works like any other? And from your point of view, you're at the far end of your life, but still alive.”

Margda's eyes remained locked on his, and Jorl couldn't look away.

“Good. You're working it out. That should save us some time. Yes, I was summoned by another Speaker, one who tossed aside the first rule of my Edict. And, as a result, I in turn summoned you. Long ago, shortly after I stumbled upon the ability to manipulate nefshons, I had a vision of a young pharmer discovering a new drug, one with the potential to keep Barsk safe for centuries, or to completely overturn the balance the Compact had achieved with the Alliance. In my vision, the pharmer had a similar intuition and chose to end his own life rather than risk anyone else gaining knowledge of his creation.”

“How could one drug be responsible for so much?”

“Since my time, koph has allowed some sapients to Speak. Because the drug is plentiful at home, a diluted portion is part of annual celebrations that even children partake in. An immunity to the toxic effects builds up, and as a consequence Fant are orders of magnitude more likely to be discovered to be Speakers than all the other races combined. At the time of the Compact, this made the Alliance uncomfortable, and their attitude has only worsened since.”

“And the new drug? How does that change anything?”

“It changes everything! I believe he uncovered a koph agonist. Imagine a Speaker's power to reveal information that vanished with the death of its keeper, expanding more than a thousandfold for the duration of a summoning. Every important person's private indiscretion could be dug out from whatever pit it had been buried in. Industrial secrets would be discovered and stolen. Familial offenses that died with their principles would endure for endless generations. The potential blackmail and extortion would lead to draconian measures that would rewrite society at every level.”

Jorl gasped, the pieces falling into place. Margda continued to talk.

“The Bear major and the people he works for are desperate to learn how to refine koph for themselves, presumably to establish some parity by increasing the population of their own Speakers. They're bumbling fools, the lot of them, and they'll fail at their task. The methodology and their strategy make no sense. They haven't yet even deduced that it's derived from taww sap. Somehow they've gone off on a misperception that it's distillation from a type of leaf though they've no clue which one in the entire forest it might be.”

“That's why they've abducted the Dying?”

“Perhaps. Not everything is clear to me. I foresaw the new drug, but not its discoverer. Instead, I glimpsed the Lox who eulogized him, his Second who would be a Speaker. That was you, Jorl, eight hundred years in your past I saw
you
. I knew I would return, and I needed you to be at hand when I did. I arranged for you to have the aleph because our people need the secret your friend died to protect.”

Jorl's face fell into his upraised hands. Tears streamed from eyes he hadn't known were crying. “That's why Arlo died. To protect us all.”

“Arlo?”

Sniffling, Jorl nodded. “My best friend. The pharmer you foresaw. He killed himself but would never tell me why.”

*   *   *

TO
her surprise, Jorl's simple remark was like turning her face up to fresh rain. She'd been lightly probing him all through their conversation, turning over this memory and that. The organization of his past surged in a myriad ways as she wandered through it, uncountable nodes of ideas and concepts, each connecting hundreds of thousands of others with bridges of different weights and saliencies, organized by sound and color and meaning and experience. Most of them looped back upon themselves over and over, each time subtly different than its previous incarnation. Untold individuals existed in Jorl's mind and memory, some still living, others now dead, whom he had known in life, as well as people he had met only after their own deaths. He held too many for her to ever find by happenstance the one she sought.

Until he'd spoken a name and given her the key. Arlo. She pushed deeper into his mind, finding the node that defined all things bearing that name. A lifetime of detail so rich that even the weakest and stupidest of Speakers could have summoned him. But it meant nothing if she couldn't hold on to it. In the midst of her probe, Margda felt her overtaxed telepathy fade away, taking the full sense of who and what Arlo was with it. Mere drabs remained, and even those threatened to slip away.

“Yes, that's the person I've been seeking. Thank you, Jorl.”

Without ritual or patterns, invoking nothing of the conclusion from traditional summoning, she held up a hand with a single golden thread between thumb and finger. She let it fall, and their connection severed in that instant. She had what she'd come for.

 

TWENTY-TWO

EXPEDIENCY

THE
illusion of the Matriarch's long-vanished home blinked out and Jorl found himself back in the yard of the internment camp, feeling as though he had just awakened from a dream.

“Jorl, are you all right? Do you need help getting up?”

The carver, Rüsul, stood in front of him, extending a hand.

Jorl shook his head, but made no move to stand. “Just lost in my own thoughts. I'm fine, thanks.”

The old Eleph nodded. “Well, if you like, you're welcome to join us in our little corner. Doubtless Tarva has more tales of his gram he wants to fill our ears with.”

Jorl smiled. “I'll join you soon. I just need some time … to process my, um, thoughts.” Rüsul nodded again and wandered off, and Jorl let his head drop to stare blankly at the snowy ground of the yard as he tried to make sense of the enormity of his visit with the Matriarch.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he felt a shadow fall across him. He glanced up, expecting to find Rüsul again, but instead Krasnoi stared down at him.

“Ensign-Retired, have you had the experience of searching for something only to find it in the very last place you look?”

Jorl allowed his puzzlement to show on his face. “Why would you continue to look once you'd found it?”

“Exactly. You understand me exactly. And having found you, I can now stop searching.”

“Me? I thought you wanted knowledge of how to make koph? I only know about the finished product, not how the drug is made.”

“No, you don't,” said the Bear. “No more than the rest of these useless relics do.” He swept one arm in an expansive gesture that took in the entire yard. A squad of Pandas were ushering all of the Dying Fant into a large circle freshly etched into the packed snow.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting an end to a tactic that has done nothing but waste time and resources. They have nothing I want or need.”

“You said I didn't either.”

“Not quite. None of them have what I seek, but you know someone who does. My Lutr Speaker will wring the knowledge from him soon enough. I'll hold on to you until she does. This mission has been cursed with too many complications to let you slip away prematurely. But the others? They're beyond useless and I will not suffer them any longer.”

For a moment, Jorl saw Urs-Major Krasnoi in a new light, gracious even as he admitted failure. “You're letting them go? You'll take them to the last island and let them finally die?”

“Don't be absurd. Nonyx-Captain Selishta and her vessel are long gone. Easier to have them die here and now.”

He lifted his head and caught the eye of one of the Pandas, who in turn shouted an order at the other members of the security squad. The two hundred some Dying Fant stood bunched together where they'd been gathered, swaying listlessly as the Ailuros formed a shallow arc in front of them. Then the Pandas drew the devices they'd worn strapped along one leg, two-handed stocks with cables running back to canisters mounted on their backs. They pointed these at the Dying Fant and a moment later began spraying them with streams of liquid, like children playing a game with squirt bottles on the hotter days of the mist season. Several focused on dousing the outer perimeter of Fant while others aimed their streams higher, soaking those in the middle and back as well. Their canisters didn't contain water.

Jorl jumped up, arms and trunk waving, dashing toward the guards. He tripped on Krasnoi's suddenly outstretched foot and sprawled on his face, the packed snow scraping his skin.

Sparks erupted in front of each Ailuros, and their streams turned to fire. The blaze sped to the Fant like a living thing, rushing to embrace each of them in brightly burning arms. A few screamed but most made no sound. The squad stood prepared to take down any that broke from their cluster but none of them fled. They stood there, numbed beyond life, and burned.

The flames shone red but transformed gradually to a blinding white as the Ailuros continued to pour accelerant on their targets. The snow beneath the Fant transformed to steam, creating a grave like some macabre magic trick. Jorl managed to sit up, gagging in the acrid smell of burning flesh. His ears hung flat against his head; his mind simultaneously attempted to reject the horror and insisted he take action. He shouted and trumpeted and surged to his feet, desperate to do something, only to be knocked flat again by Krasnoi. A series of kicks kept him down, leaving him to gaze helplessly at the burning Fant. Waves of heat radiating from them made him flinch, but he could not bring himself to cover his face. The ink of his aleph burned on his forehead, and he had the odd thought that his privilege of passage must sometimes mean stumbling into places he'd have passed on in hindsight, and owning the obligation to stay there all the same. He bore witness, the silent slaughter of old men and women who had sought nothing more from life than its proper end. The nightmarish moment combined with the skills he'd honed as a Speaker as every individual face seared itself into his memory. There was no point to looking away now; the image of them would be with him forever.

The Dying Fant stood packed together, holding one another up as they burned until they crumpled en masse, and still the guards maintained their position, weapons poised and active until every bit of flesh and bone and tusk and tooth had been reduced to ash. Krasnoi kicked him again, savagely, but Jorl's own pain couldn't matter now. He raised his head and stared into the flames and ash, still reeling from the slaughter. The wind shifted and mercifully blew the stench of death away. Rüsul, Phas, Kembü, Abso, Tarva, and all the others who had been interred short of reaching the final island were gone, finally dead though not in the manner their lives had promised. He dropped his face into his hands, sobbing, and the image of them standing there still, burning and dying, lay vivid in his mind. A light snow began to fall as if to mark the moment of pure despair. He whimpered, realizing that at last, Margda's Silence had ended.

“What's going on here?”

Jorl's ears spread out at the question and he turned his head toward the unfamiliar voice. A large figure strode toward them from the far end of the yard where the Fant had never been allowed to congregate. The Pandas all lowered their devices but otherwise remained alert. The fire continued to burn.

“Senator, I wasn't expecting you for another few days.” Krasnoi's brusque tone had changed, and Jorl heard worry in it.

The new arrival's hair hung so long in places that it had been braided, his fur gray with age. He projected power. His gait held purpose and strength. Metallic threads wove elaborate geometric patterns through the flowing robes he wore, and a chain of black glass links hung from around his neck. Jorl had never met a Bos before, taller than any Fant and easily as broad, but he knew from the horns emerging out of both sides of the fellow's head that he could be nothing else. More, there was something familiar about him, but Jorl couldn't place it. The Yak's voice rang like a deep metal drum, clear and strong, the sound authoritative but not unkind.

“I'm the chair of the Committee of Information. I didn't get to that position by being predictable. No doubt you'd have this all cleaned up and sorted by this time tomorrow. A pity then that we're having this conversation here today and you have to tell me what I'm looking at.”

Jorl blinked and grasped his nervously twitching trunk with both hands, still staring at the spot where the Dying Fant had stood. It had to be some kind of trick, the stench an illusion, the flames a distraction. You couldn't just kill people like that!