Children of God (34 page)

The half-marked path the housemaid knew passed within sight of several other smoldering towns. No male Jana’ata over the age of sixteen breathed; here and there, a wailing child or a bewildered woman was found wandering. Some were too badly burned to save; to these Shetri gave quietus, using the embers of their own compounds to light pitiably ineffective pyres. The rest he treated for burns as he had his sister, and Ta’ana made every one of them part of her migrant household, without regard to lineage or birthrank.

"We can’t feed any more," Shetri would declare as each new refugee joined their band.

"We won’t starve," Ta’ana insisted. "Hunger is not the worst thing."

But their progress was slowed, and they had gathered more people than could be fed with the provisions packed in the wagon. Nights were always broken by someone’s dream of flames; in the mornings, exhaustion fought fear to determine their pace. By the fifth day, Shetri was thinking clearly enough to realize that he could slaughter one of the draft Runa. By the ninth, they had left the wagon behind. Everyone, master and domestic, carried a child or food or a bundle of essentials.

Now, after days of flight and still far from safety, the numbers of Jana’ata and Runa in their little party were dangerously unbalanced. The more refugees Ta’ana took on, the slower they traveled and the sooner they had to butcher; two more Runa domestics had snuck off the previous night.

At this rate, we’ll never get to Inbrokar City, Shetri thought, looking up at the cliff edge where the newest girl was hiding. He turned to his sister, hoping that she hadn’t noticed the latest refugee, but Ta’ana was standing, veil off, ears cocked forward.

"Get her," Ta’ana said.

"It’ll be dark soon!"

"Then you’d best go now."

"Come down, girl!" he yelled, turning cliffward. There was no response. Shetri glanced at his sister, who stared uncompromisingly back. "Oh, all right," he muttered, flicking an ear at the valet, who came to unburden him of the armor. Ta’ana had earned obedience; Shetri, not much in the habit of leadership anyway, gave it to her.

Free of the armor’s weight, he picked his way carefully across the rocky riverbed, trying not to attract the attention of a pair of cranil snuffling and squealing in the shallows upstream, and then stood looking upward toward where this inconvenient girl had last showed herself. The escarpment was not a sheer drop. Blocks of stone had fallen toward the water, and these presented a fair approximation of a stairway for the first two-thirds of the distance before giving way to an increasingly uncongenial verticality. Mere expectation of a ludicrous death yielded twice to near certainty, so Shetri Laaks was in a thoroughly unhappy frame of mind— and in the midst of a wide — ranging and almost sincere curse calling down plague, deformity, insult, diarrhea and mange on every living creature east and west of the Pon River and all its tributaries—when he came face to face with what simply had to be a lingering effect of the Sti drugs.

"Don’t fall," the girl advised as he crested the cliff, his lungs and feet straining for air and purchase respectively.

For a time, he gazed dumbfounded at a young woman who was not merely unveiled but completely naked. Embarrassed beyond description, he finally averted his eyes from this spectacle, only to behold the noseless, tailless, oozing figment sitting woozily on the ground next to her.

"Someone’s brother is ill," the girl said.

Shetri gaped at her, ears drifting sideways, and belatedly realized that his pedal grip was beginning to give way. Scrambling with sudden undignified zeal, he established a graceless momentary balance on the stem of a scrubby bush growing horizontally from a crack in the rock, and heaved himself over the edge of the escarpment without further delay. "My lady," he gasped, in breathless, abbreviated greeting when he arrived belly-down. "Your brother?" The girl looked blank. "Your brother?" he repeated, in kitchen Ruanja. She lifted her chin.

Slumped over, legs crossed, its skeletal arms thrust out like buttresses, the «brother» had evidently been flayed alive by some remarkably inefficient hunter. There was a tiny nose, Shetri saw now that he was closer, but like much of the rest of this monster, it was blistered and raw.

"He’s too far gone," Shetri told the girl, getting up wearily. "Someone will grant him peace."

"No!" the girl cried, as Shetri moved into position behind the poor beast and lifted its little jaw to open its throat. Shetri froze. She was not large, but she looked quite capable of biting through a man’s neck. Shetri himself had not so much as wrestled with anyone in years. "Go away," she ordered. "Leave us alone!"

What has happened to all the women in the world? Shetri asked himself. He held his position for a moment and then, with great care, removed his hands from the beast’s neck and backed off. "My lady: one can think of nothing more inexpressibly agreeable than to obey your command," he said with an elaborate obeisance to the naked little bitch, "but whatever this thing is, the wretch is dying. Would you have your ’brother’ suffer?"

Her glare remained undimmed. Shetri was beginning to realize that she didn’t have any idea what he was saying. Summoning a Ruanja half-remembered from the nursery, he repeated the burden of his question as best he could.

"Someone would not have him suffer. Someone would have him live," the girl declared with a vehemence that seemed to Shetri unnecessarily threatening.

Well, choose! Shetri wanted to say. You can select one condition or the other. He looked around experimentally and noted with some satisfaction that there was still a vague pulsing aura around anything blue, which included the "brother’s" bizarre little eyes. This was exceedingly if temporarily reassuring. Maybe the brother wasn’t real! Perhaps the girl wasn’t either…

Except that Ta’ana had seen her as well. Sighing, Shetri straightened and moved cautiously from behind the poor, skinned thing. He leaned out over the cliff to look at his sister.

"What’s going on?" Ta’ana called up to him.

"Why not come and see for yourself?" Shetri suggested cheerfully, no longer maintaining even a pretense of command.

Ta’ana arrived at the top of the cliff a short time later, stripped to a chemise for the climb. Shetri himself was, by then, sitting serenely a little space away from the girl and what she insisted was her brother, quietly singing a verse or two for Sti. To his beatific gratification, his sister’s face went as slack as his own must have earlier.

Ta’ana assessed the situation with the admirable alacrity of a middle-rank householder used to coping with unexpected visitors. "Honored guests," she said, getting to her feet and addressing the two newcomers as she had each of the refugees they’d taken on during the trek north. The girl looked at her warily. "If it pleases you, be welcomed into my household and sojourn under my lord brother’s protection." Turning to Shetri, Ta’ana added, low-voiced, "Make sure the monster lives."

IT WAS AN UNREASONABLE DEMAND BUT, BY THE DYING LIGHT OF Rakhat’s second sun, Shetri Laaks did what he could.

Which was little enough. Calling down to Ta’ana’s maid, he instructed her to bring the cleanest sleeping sheet she could find and to get a chemise from one of the other refugees. "No," he corrected himself, disturbed by the new girl’s exposure, "bring two chemises, not one. But rinse one in the stream before you come up. Keep everything as clean as you can! And bring me all the ointments!"

While he waited, he examined the monster carefully, but did not touch him. He and Ta’ana were nearly blind when the Runao arrived, but by that time, Shetri had formed a plan of treatment. "Put that… person on the sheet, and be careful of its skin," he told the maid, not giving her time to panic. "Then examine every part of it and pick out any dirt or debris you find. Be gentle." He waited, expecting to hear the pathetic beast cry out, but there was no sound. "Does he live?" he asked the darkness, reluctant to deplete his precious stock of medicine on a corpse.

"He lives," the maid’s voice informed him.

"What are you doing?" the new girl demanded. "Tell this one what you’re doing to him!"

The maid kept silent, not sure who was in charge now. "Tell her, child," Shetri said wearily, and waited for the chatter to pause. "All right," he said to the Runao then, "unwrap the convex silver spatula carefully—don’t get your hands on the end! Use the spatula to spread the ointment over his entire body—a very thin layer, understand? Rounded surface toward the patient—keep the edges of the instrument away from the skin. When the skin is covered with ointment, spread the wet chemise over him, child. Tonight, you will keep the covering damp with fresh water, do you understand?"

Having done all that was possible, Shetri Laaks gave up on the long day, and went to sleep that night hoping that when he awoke, he would spend the morning chuckling about the absurdity of the dreams Sti had provided.

WHEN ISAAC OPENED HIS EYES, THE DAWN CHANT WAS NEARLY OVER and the smell of roasting meat incensed the air. "They’ve killed a Runao," Ha’anala whispered. "They’re eating her."

"Everyone eats," Isaac said, granting emotionless absolution. He closed his eyes again.

But she insisted, "No, it’s wrong. There are other things to eat."

Isaac listened carefully to the chant. Then he slept.

"TRY THIS, " HA’ANALA SAID WHEN NEXT HE WOKE. SHE SAT AT HIS SIDE, out of his line of sight, but her hand motioned toward a small cup of broth that was sitting nearby. He turned his head away. "Everyone eats," she reminded him. "Shetri says meat will make you stronger. Someone caught this herself. It isn’t Runa."

He sat up. Everything had changed. They were at the bottom, not the top. They were under an awning made of fabric with silver thread. He liked the color. It was quiet here. The Runa kept their distance and spoke in low tones. There was a damp thing draped over him. His skin shone with something slippery. Because no one was talking, he could consider all this. The slippery stuff felt cool.

"Tablet?" he asked Ha’anala.

"Someone was careful with it." He saw her gesture at the edge of his field of vision. The tablet was set on a flagstone nearby.

Isaac drank the broth and lay down again. "We’ll stay with these people," he said.

There was an uncertain pause. "Until you are strong again," Ha’anala said.

"They sing," Isaac said, and fell asleep.

"HOW CAN YOU KNOW THAT?" ATHAANSI BRAT DEMANDED, CERTAIN that his mother’s notion was preposterous.

"You were too young to remember—the Paramount once passed through our compound on an inspection tour. A horrible man! But when he looked at me—a god’s eyes! She has the same," Ta’ana Laaks u Erat insisted, out of the hearing of their Runa and the other refugees. "That girl is a Kitheri."

"Wandering out here alone, with a monster like that?" Shetri cried. "Speaking only Ruanja? Naked?" He preferred his own initial conviction that he was hallucinating again, a hope he still found difficult to relinquish entirely.

"The traitor had a daughter out of Jholaa Kitheri. That was sixteen years ago," Ta’ana said emphatically. "Don’t you see? She’s been brought up in the south, by Runa. The tailless monster has to be one of the foreigners." Athaansi opened his mouth to ask again how she knew. Cutting him off, Ta’ana said, "I listened to the Paramount’s concerts! I know about—" She hesitated, both embarrassed and aroused by the memory of that particular poetic theme. "I know about those things."

If her son was tempted to lecture her on propriety, the set of her ears changed his mind. "Well, then," Athaansi said, "we should execute them and bring their scent glands to Inbrokar. There are standing orders for the nameless one’s death and for his whole sept. And for all foreigners as well!"

To his surprise, his mother did not agree at once. "Haste in a moment, regrets forever," she said after a time, looking at her son speculatively. "It occurs to me that you need a wife, Athaansi."

Shetri Laaks was certain that he was now beyond being amazed by his sister, but Athaansi Erat, he noted delightedly, was still capable of astonishment. "Her?" the boy squawked. "She’s VaHaptaa! She’s under writ of execution! Her children would be—"

"Born in a time when nothing can be predicted," his mother finished for him. "She is collateral to Hlavin Kitheri’s lineage, for which succession is not yet established. Who knows what compromises may become necessary? Kitheri has changed everything else, and she wouldn’t be the first niece to transmit an open patrimony," Ta’ana pointed out. "The girl is small, but of good conformation, and she’s the right age—"

Athaansi’s protests became vigorous at this point. His uncle enjoyed the drama for a time, glad to be forgotten, but his relief was short-lived.

"It seems that Athaansi is too fastidious to cover a VaHaptaa of ancient lineage," said Ta’ana Laaks u Erat, undismayed, and turned her attention from son to brother with dispassionate pragmatism. "Perhaps you would like to make a start on reestablishing the Laaks lineage, now that our brother and his family are dead?" Ears high, Ta’ana invited comment.

There was none, Shetri Laaks being occupied with a silent reassessment of his capacity for astonishment.

Ta’ana rose then, glancing over at the two newcomers, sheltered under the awning she had caused to be made for them out of her own silvered veil. "As for the foreign monster," Ta’ana continued, "he may be useful as a hostage, if things go badly in the south." Which effectively concluded the discussion.

"SOMEONE THINKS YOUR BROTHER SINGS WELL," SHETRI LAAKS TOLD the girl as they walked together the next morning. He did not tell her that her voice was beautiful as well. He was still surprised that she dared to sing the chants, though Ta’ana said that this was now considered permissible among members of Kitheri’s court. So much had changed while he himself had studied changeless ritual. "He has a pleasing, clear voice, and his harmonies are…"

"Otherworldly," Ha’anala supplied, smiling as Shetri considered the construction and then blinked at the word’s meaning. "Isaac loves music, as he can love nothing else."