Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (12 page)

Giloon, with his personal entourage, strolled the square, talking to his people, sharing their merriment, and receiving mock condolences as well as genuine toasts to his own health and longevity. As a leader, Giloon was appreciated and honored by the Dhogs, who admired his legendary shrewdness.

His feats of stealth and guile were remembered and told as exemplars to the young. Like the time he had diverted a whole shipment of rice from Hyrgo Hage to the refuse pits simply by switching destination tags. The rice was sitting on the Hyrgo docks awaiting transportation to Saecaraz. He had scoured the Saecaraz refuse pits for the tags and then affixed them to the grain sacks. It had taken all night, but he had only to collect the sacks from Saecaraz the next night. The reward for that one exploit was over a thousand kils of rice, and everlasting glory.

When he finished making his rounds, the Dhog leader retired to a platform that had been set up overlooking the square. There, in the company of his closest friends, he entertained the heads of the Dhog families and watched over the festivities. It was a wild revelry: raucous, gluttonous, riotous.

The celebration lasted far into the night with dancing, singing, eating, and drinking until not a single Dhog was left standing. Children and older adults huddled in impromptu heaps; young people paired off and crept away for more intimate sleeping arrangements. The bonfire dwindled and died as dawn tinted the smudgy carapace of Dome overhead. Sirin Rohee was dead, and the Dhogs had celebrated. It would be the last celebration for many of them.

“It was grotesque,” said
Cejka, grimacing in distaste. “I have never seen anything so ... so
bestial
in all my life. Not even at Trabantonna! Whole Hages swarming in drunken madness! Seven Jamuna were killed when Chryse torch dancers accidentally set a draped pylon afire and the crowd surged away; three were trampled and four crushed against a rimwall. And theirs won't be the only bodies found tomorrow, I fear. Rohee's funeral is a death orgy! You were wise to leave when you did, Tvrdy. I am still shaking from it.” The Rumon Director held out his hand to show how it trembled.

“At least it's over,” replied Tvrdy, pouring out two glasses of souile and handing one to his friend. “A drink will calm you.”

“But it's
not
over, as you well know.” Cejka took up his glass, saluted Tvrdy, and took a sip. He sat back with a sigh. “This is quality souile, Director,” he observed. “In memory of Sirin Rohee?”

Tvrdy gave Cejka a dark look. “Sorry, a bad joke,” Cejka admitted, taking another sip.

“We drink not to Rohee's memory, but to our own,” said Tvrdy. “And because I mean to deplete my stock. Once the Purge has begun, all will be confiscated, no doubt. I, for one, would rather see it poured into the cesspit than allow even one bottle to fall into Jamrog's hands.”

Cejka looked stricken. “Don't talk so! Even if you are joking—and I think you are not—it produces bad ether. We must not even think of a Purge.”

“You said it yourself just now: it's not over yet. In fact, today was only a beginning. The funeral was a signal to any keen enough to see it. Jamrog means to eliminate all opposition to his total authority.”

“As he did away with Rohee? He can't do it. The Threl will not allow it. If he moves against even one of us, the rest will—”

“Will what?” Tvrdy snapped. “Stand by and watch him do it? Yes. Don't lie to me, Cejka, and most of all don't lie to yourself. Even if we all opposed him—which would never happen—he'd disband the Threl. If we sought to overthrow him, he'd have us executed as traitors. Jamrog will make himself answerable to no one.”

Cejka stared into his drink. “Your words are harsh, but true. You speak my fears and I do not like it, but I know you are right.”

“We are dead men, Cejka. We have no hope.” Tvrdy's tone caused Cejka to look up sharply. He'd never heard the Tanais Director so depressed.

“No hope? This is souile talking, not my old friend.”

“It is reality! Jamrog was more powerful from the start than we ever suspected. He hid it well. We put too much trust in Rohee's ability to guard his own selfish interests, and not enough in Jamrog's ability to use those interests for his own ends.”

“You overestimate him and underestimate yourself,” pointed out Cejka.

“He
murdered
Rohee, by Trabant! And no one has breathed a word against him. Wake up, Cejka. We have lost.”

Cejka rose stiffly, drawing himself up full height. “I will not stay here and listen to you rave, Tvrdy. You are no coward. Why do you talk so?” Tvrdy made a weak gesture, but Cejka continued. “We have been through too much together for me to believe you mean what you say. Go to sleep, Tvrdy. It has been a long day. Tomorrow will look different to you.”

“Yes,” replied Tvrdy morosely, “tomorrow will look different. It will look worse!” He shook his head sadly. “Sit down, Cejka. At least let us enjoy this fine souile like good friends. It may be the last time we drink together.”

“I think I should go,” said Cejka quietly. “You need rest. You are exhausted. You must sleep.”

“We'll have plenty of time to sleep, Cejka—once we've joined Rohee.”

Cejka turned away and strode toward the lift tube on the opposite side of the room. “Good night, Tvrdy. I will talk to you again when you are sensible.” With that, he left.

Tvrdy poured the last of the souile into his glass and drank deeply, then got up and walked to his balcony to watch a pink dawn tint the planes of Dome's crystal shell. He tilted his head back and drained the grass, held it for a moment, and then hurled it from the balcony. “That's one treasure you won't get, Supreme Director Jamrog,” he said and went to find his bed.

Yarden
was up at first light, excited to begin her new life as an artist. Since her talk with Gerdes, it was all she could think about. She imagined all the wonderful paintings and drawings she would create—whole rooms full of beauty. She would dedicate herself heart and soul to art, and would pursue it with everything in her. She would learn all Gerdes could teach her and study the great Fieri masters; she would develop the talent she had been given and, in time, become a master herself.

Yarden dressed in a sand-colored chinti, which was what the Fieri called the suit of blouse and loose, knee-length trousers they all wore. She pulled on soft boots a shade or two darker and crept quietly down the stairs to the kitchen on the first level of the small house. There she set about making breakfast.

When Ianni joined her a little while later, the sun was up and bright in the trees in the garden just off the open kitchen. Fieri architecture revered open spaces, so that their homes always had at least one entire wall exposed to the outdoors—usually overlooking some restful scene: a garden, the lakeshore, a park. Ianni's kitchen was arranged so she and her guests could eat in the garden when the weather permitted. Given Empyrion's paradisiacal climate, this was nearly every day of the year.

“Good morning,” said Yarden cheerfully as Ianni entered the room. “I thought we'd have fruit this morning. I've already set our places outside.”

Ianni gave her a look of approval and said, “Now I know you feel at home here. This is the first day you have fixed breakfast.”

“Have I been an inconsiderate guest? Believe me, Ianni, I didn't mean to be. Really, I never thought—”

The Fieri woman shushed her. “I didn't say that for you to chide yourself. I am happy to serve you. But when you start serving me, you are no longer a guest. You are family.”

Yarden smiled at the compliment. “Thank you, Ianni. You have done so much for me, I'll never be able to repay you.”

“It is not to be repaid. What I did for you, I did for the Infinite.”

“I understand,” said Yarden. “But I still want to express my gratitude for all you've shown me and taught me. And most of all, for introducing me to Gerdes.”

“Were you not even a little disappointed when she said you would never be a dancer?” asked Ianni as Yarden handed her a plate of fruit. They walked out into the garden to the table and chairs surrounded by shrubs flowing with cascades of scarlet flowers. Little fuzzy insects, like tiny balls of lint, toiled in the blossoms, spreading fragrant pollen from flower to flower.

“Disappointed? Maybe I was, but only for an instant. Gerdes told me the truth and I accepted it,” Yarden explained as they began to eat. “She also gave me hope that I could become an artist of a different kind. And since she had told me the truth about my dancing, I could trust her about painting.”

Ianni nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “You are anxious to begin, I know, but I wonder if you might consider delaying your study for a time?”

“Delay it? Why?”

“It's just an idea,” Ianni said as she speared another piece of sweet, succulent ameang, a pulpy tree-grown fruit with tender white flesh. “I thought perhaps you might like to come with us to the Bay of Talking Fish.”

Yarden laughed at the name. “Talking fish? Are you serious?”

“The name comes from before the Burning, so I suppose it does sound strange to you.”

“Strange, yes, but more fanciful—whimsical, I should say. I'm fascinated; tell me about it.”

Ianni put down her fork and began telling Yarden about the wonderful creatures of the bay. “In the Far North country, in the region of the Light Mountains, there is a great ocean inlet that forms a bay—a body of water much bigger than Prindahl.”

“The fish live there?” asked Yarden, her eyes dancing, picturing this magical place.

“No, the fish live far out in the deep ocean. But once every seven years they return to birth their young in the gentle waters of the bay.” Ianni paused, remembering with a look of quiet rapture on her face. Presently she came to herself and continued, “It's a long trip; we travel by river through the mountains, and it takes several weeks.”

“It must be quite an experience—the way you speak of it.”

“The Preceptor could tell you better than I—I don't have the words. But yes, it's utterly exalting. We go, as many as can make the journey, and arrive at the bay a few days before the fish arrive. We wait for them. Then they come. You can see their tail fins riding high in the water as they enter the bay. They know we will be waiting for them, and they begin to leap and play.” Ianni's eyes lit up as she told about the fish. “It's the most beautiful sight: thousands of blue fins shining in the silver water as they come. The leaders bring the school right into the shallows, and we wade out to greet them.”

“Do they actually talk?” Yarden had some idea that the noise the fish made sounded like talking. Ianni's answer surprised her.

“Not the way you mean. They talk, yes, but not with words—it's more the way you do, when you choose to. We talk to them in our minds and hearts.”

“Really!” Yarden looked at her host in wonder. “The fish communicate sympathetically?”

“It's very similar, I believe. Mathiax could tell you more about it.”

“Unbelievable!” The more she heard, the more fanciful Ianni's story seemed. “But, you—that is, the Fieri don't use mind-speech ordinarily. You have not developed it among yourselves.”

“True,” admitted Ianni, “but with the fish, it's different. We can speak to them, and they speak to us. Oh, it's wonderful, Yarden! I want you to come with us.”

“I will! I want to very much—if it's as you say, I wouldn't want to miss it. When do you leave?”

“Very soon. Preparations are already being made.”

Yarden's sympathic awareness caught Ianni's sense of awe and excitement; she definitely wanted to go, yet felt slightly disappointed in delaying her study. “But what will I tell Gerdes? I had planned to begin studying today.”

“Gerdes will understand, I'm sure. She'll urge you to go. You can begin your studies when you return.”

In the darkness of
the blackest night he'd ever known, Treet felt the cold, wet kisses of snowflakes alighting and melting on his skin. The wind howled miserably, sending the flakes swirling over him. He felt their fleeting stings as they found him, spinning out of the vast, hollow emptiness to caress him and vanish.

Then the darkness began to pulse, convulsing in rhythmic shudders as cataclysmic tremors pounded through the black emptiness. Gradually the darkness changed, fading to deep red, as if a terrible sunrise trembled on some lost horizon. And the snow changed, too, becoming tiny biting insects—midges that swarmed and stung the skin where they touched. In an instant, Treet's hide was covered with minute swelling bumps. He cried out—not so much in pain, as in torment. The insects continued to swarm, and he was powerless to stop them.

The deep red grew brighter and the ponderous convulsions more regular and pronounced. Pounding, pounding, pounding, each pulse reverberated in his brain. Treet's insides quivered with every tremor as the vacuum grew brighter still, turning blood crimson. The insects changed in turn. They were insects no longer, but oblong cells floating in slow motion all around him, surging and subsiding with every booming thump of the drumming pulse.

Treet knew then where he was. Somehow he had become trapped inside his own heart!

The resounding tremor was his heart beating with laborious regularity; the tiny cells swimming around him were his own blood cells and platelets, surging with the tide of his blood through the chambers of his heart. And he was caught there with no idea of how to get out. He would drown in his own blood.

Instantly, as if reacting to this morbid thought, the heartbeat quickened, lurching rapidly and wildly. The blood fluids tugged erratically at him, pulling him first this way and then another. The cells and platelets assailed him, driven on by the wash of blood through his heart. Now he could see the walls of his heart constricting. The organ was shrinking with every beat!

Treet watched in horror as the fleshy walls of muscle closed around him. He opened his mouth wide and screamed.

The heart squeezed down, harder and harder, clamping him in a death grip. His heart beat faster now, grasping him tighter and tighter. He would be crushed to death by his own body. The insanity of it made his brain squirm. He screamed again for it to stop.