Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (24 page)

If the view from
above was impressive, the view from the river was spectacular. But, as Treet had noticed before, look more closely and you'd see that everything had a frayed and rundown appearance. The river—flat, broad, and blue-gray—crawled between undulating, step-sided mountains. Along the moss-covered lower rimwalls which formed the banks, short, knob-shaped trees trailed flowered vines into the water; fluffy, long-bladed grass of pale green fringed the water's edge.

The boat swept along with the water on its own unhurried way. Treet saw scores of people moving along the shoreline roads, some of them riding small, open-air vehicles, but most walking in tight little groups. The upper terraces were lined with curious, multiple-humped buildings, many four or more stories tall. Through the oblong windows he saw lights flash occasionally, which made him think of factories.

“What goes on up there?” he asked Calin.

She turned to where he looked. “One of the Saecaraz Hageworks,” Calin explained. “That is where they repair the ems.”

“Ems? What's an em?”

“Those—” She pointed to the movement along the terrace.

“Those little cars, you mean?”

“A Car is a veekle, yes?” the young magician asked. Treet nodded, despite her mispronunciation of the word vehicle, so she continued. “As a Reader, I am allowed to examine certain old records. I have read of veekles such as Cars.”

“I see,” said Treet. “Doesn't everyone read?”

Calin tilted her head to the side. “What would be the use? Only Readers read.”

“Oh.” Treet dropped the subject. He had decided that he would not offer the colonists observations about this world—even though he itched to point out the contrasts. In his travels, he had learned that such observations by foreigners were not only unwelcome, but most often had the effect of drying up the free flow of quality information—as if the host preferred not to toss his best pearls before the foreign swine. Who, after all, wants to risk himself, his country, or his customs to the ridicule of infidels?

A sponge I am; a sponge I will remain, thought Treet; and sponges do not make waves. He changed the subject. “Where does this river go?”

“It is called Kyan,” explained Calin. She turned to view it, her eyes sweeping its curves. “It flows throughout Empyrion, through every Hage. There is a very old story about the river.” She glanced at him tentatively.

“Go on, I'd like to hear it.”

“The story says that long ago, before the cluster was closed, before there were Hages even, the old ones traveled on the water. An old one called Litol built a very big boat and took half the people with him to find a faraway place. While they were riding the water, the boat caught fire and sank, and Litol and all the rest were lost.

“Those left behind saw the red fire in the sky at night and knew that their friends would never return. They decided to make their own river, which they bent into a circle and filled with the tears from their eyes, for they wept over Litol and the lost. This is why the river flows as it does, so that whoever rides the water need never be afraid of getting lost since the river always comes back to its beginning.”

Calin fell silent when she finished the story. To Treet's trained ear the story sounded familiar: just like scores of other folktales he'd heard. The story hid as much as it revealed, but it nevertheless contained elements of historic fact—grains of verity served up in a soup of mythic fancy.

“That's a nice story,” remarked Treet.

Calin stirred, sighed. “It is a very old story. No one knows how old. There are others like it—I know them all.”

“You must tell me more of them sometime. I like old stories.” Yes, I do, thought Treet. Those old stories will help me piece together what happened here.

The river swept around the feet of the terraced mountains and now came to a place of sculptured hillsides which rolled gently down to the seamless rock wall of Kyan's banks. On a near hillside a dozen or so musicians, dressed in the turquoise and silver of Chryse, sat in a cluster playing for a small crowd of Saecaraz gathered below them. They were too far away to see or hear distinctly, but Treet caught a sense of the sound: light stringed instruments accompanied by dusky, low-voiced woodwinds.

Treet strained after the music, hearing it in wispy snatches. What he heard puzzled him, until he realized that it was the tonal equivalent of Calin's river story—pensive, possessed of a delicate melancholy. In fact, the music articulated the very atmosphere of the colony: brooding and old and tired, tottering to its fall.

Beyond the hills he glimpsed white towers, graceful spires linked with arches, rising above trees thin as tapers. The boat turned abruptly, taking the towers from view before he had a chance to ask about them. He turned and saw that Calin had moved to the other side of the deck. She held the rope rail and looked out toward the opposite bank. Treet joined her.

“You started to tell me about the Hages,” said Treet. “I'd like to hear about them now. You said there are eight.”

She nodded. “There are eight. The number corresponds to the Greater Requisites of the Sacred Directives. The Hages are Saecaraz, Chryse, Nilokerus, Rumon, Hyrgo, Tanais, Bolbe, and Jamuna. Each holds its place, and thus the eternal balance is maintained. This is also from the Directives.”

“I see. And what are these Directives?”

Calin marveled at his ignorance. “You've never heard of the Sacred Directives? How do you live?”

Treet shrugged. “I manage. Perhaps I know them by another name.”

“That could be,” she allowed. “No one could live very long without them.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Come from? The Directives have always been. Since the beginning. They were given—” She hesitated.

“Yes? Given how?” Treet pressed.

The magician's dark eyes darted right and left. She lowered her voice. “There are some things we don't speak of out of Hage.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“I can't explain here,” she whispered. “Later—I'll tell you later, when we're back in your kraam.”

Here was a puzzle. What was there about these sacred Directives that they could not be discussed in public? Presumably everyone knew about them—why the secrecy? Treet cast a glance to the others around them. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them. “All right, but don't forget. I want to know.”

Presently the river widened and a boat traveling the opposite way passed by them. This boat was larger and sported three full decks, all of them crammed with passengers. It was brightly painted in carefree splashes of color—scarlet, yellow, and violet. Raucous music came across the water, along with the clatter of voices, laughter, and song. People mingled on the decks in colorful yoses, large jars in their hands, drinking, singing, laughing loudly.

“Some party,” said Treet. The scene reminded him of a Mardi Gras celebration he'd witnessed once in Trinidad: flashy, forced, frenzied.

“It is a cruise,” offered Calin.

“Oh, where are they going?”

“Going? They cruise—it is …” she paused, searching for a word Treet would understand. “A happy making,” she said finally.

“They look happy all right.” Treet watched the boisterous boatload pass. “What are they drinking?”

“Souile. Some call it shine. It is an intoxicant.”

“So I see. Every last one of them is skunked!” As the party boat plied its way around the bend, several drunken passengers relieved themselves with obvious delight into the river from the aft decks. “They just ride around in circles on this boat and get waxed?”

“A very popular amusement. Once on board, the shine is free—also flash.”

“Flash?”

“Pleasure seeds.”

“I thought so. Free drinks and drugs! Welcome aboard! Some pleasure cruise.”

“Look,” said Calin, turning back toward the river bank, “we're coming into Bolbe Hage.”

Treet followed her gaze and saw that on this side of the river, the hills had blossomed with color. Every meter of hillside was wrapped in fabric of the most dazzling color and design: shimmering reds and violets, swirls of emerald and chartreuse, glistening blues and deep vibrant browns, pearly whites. The hills were checkerboards with multicolored squares. Treet supposed that the display was a sort of advertisement for the Hage's handiwork.

A little further on, the hills gave way to a waterfront area—a flat rectangular space ringed by banks of pale yellow mosque-shaped buildings. Two other boats were moored to posts beneath a long notch in the bank wall. Men in blue-hooded yoses were stacking bales on one of the boats, while men in green-and-yellow unloaded them from the other. The bales being unloaded were tumbled down an incline where they were picked up and trundled away on the bent backs of laborers. It was a scene typical of any waterfront on Earth—a thousand years ago.

The boat drifted closer to the wharf, nosing toward a post; ropes snaked out as the boat was snugged into its berth and the gangplank extended. As passengers streamed off, Treet and his magician guide joined the crush on the lower deck and eventually found themselves deposited on the wharf.

“This is where the Hyrgo bring the ipumn,” Calin explained. “The Bolbe take it and begin making it into cloth.”

“Ipumn is grown by the Hyrgo?” asked Treet. “They're the ones in the green and yellow yoses, right?”

“Yes, those are Hyrgo.”

“And who are those in blue, over there—the ones with the medals around their necks?” He indicated a group of three Bolbe standing next to the growing mound of ipumn bales. One of the three held a flat clipboard object which he worked over with a glowing stylus. From a heavy chain swung a large blue-silver medallion which looked like the Greek letter pi with arms.

“Those are Bolbe priests,” she said out of the side of her mouth. “They are recording the bring. All that comes and goes within the Hage, the priests record—as they record the dole.” She steered him by the priests toward the nearest of the mosques.

“The dole? You mean handouts?”

“I don't understand handouts,” replied Calin. “The dole is given to all freely. It is the right of every Hageman to receive his tender.”

“Food, clothing, shelter—that sort of thing?”

“Food and clothing, yes—these are given in the dole. The rest a Hageman must buy with his own shares, which are given by the priests at allotment.”

Treet grasped the set-up. Very ingenious. Make certain nobody starved or went naked, meet the bare necessities, and then let them work for the rest, earn the currency with which they could buy the extras. A variation of the old-style socialism. “These shares,” said Treet, “that's what the poak is all about?” He touched his arm at the spot where he had been bruised. There was nothing to feel there now.

Calin nodded, smiling at him. “You learn quickly. Traveler Treet. The shares are given according to a Hageman's order and work record.”

“The higher the order, the more shares you get. Slick. What's the highest order?”

“Six, I think, though I don't know if anyone has ever attained sixth order. I am fourth order—most Readers are.”

“So you get more shares than a third-order magician, right?”

“Of course. But the allotment also depends on the stent of the Hage. Look there—” She pointed to several Bolbe before a low platform unwrapping the bales of stringy ocher ipumn. “They are perhaps third-order ipumn handlers. Those unloading the boats are first-order. These others,” she gestured toward the Bolbe on the platform who were sifting the ipumn and sorting it into piles, “are ipumn graders—second-or third-order. They will receive more shares than the material handlers—as much as dyers, but less than weavers.”

“I see,” said Treet. “The only way to get more shares is to advance to a higher order or get a better job.”

“Job is function, yes?”

“Yes. But how do you change functions? I mean, what keeps everyone from wanting to be a magician? If magicians get the most shares, I'd think everyone would want to be one.”

“It is difficult to change functions, but it can be done. You must petition the priests. They decide.”

“How do they decide?”

“I don't know. This is not for us to know. Although sometimes a Director will request a function change for Hageman. Then the petition is always granted.”

“The Directors run the show—isn't that always the way?”

“Please?”

“Never mind,” said Treet. They wandered past the mosque-shaped buildings of the waterfront along a wide avenue bedecked with multicolored hangings and streamers and flags strung on wires across the walkway. At the end of the avenue, they entered a communal square where several work stations had been set up before flat-roofed sheds. Bolbe milled around the work stations, lugging bundles of ipumn. The air was filled with a fine ocher dust and the whine of high-speed machinery.

“This is where they begin breaking down the ipumn fibers. Over there,” she gestured across the square, “they pull the fibers, there they separate them, and so on.”

The air smelled of cinnamon—not unpleasant, but the dust was getting to Treet. He noticed that the workers wore no protective masks. “They breathe this stuff?”

Calin appeared unconcerned. She turned away, striking off along another path. They walked through Bolbe Hage following the ipumn through the various processes of becoming cloth. They saw spinners turning the raw fibers into hanks of glistening thread, fine as human hair; dryers with poles stirring long, loosely braided chains of ipumn in large pools of bubbling colored dye; dryers turning the braided chains on racks under lamps; weavers threading huge looms, and folding finished material onto square bolts. In all, Bolbe Hage fairly bustled with activity.