The Namura Stone (50 page)

The Namuri to one side of her were chanting and holding up their namura stones. It had become the custom for all Namuri traveling to Valhai to bring their stones with them. Since it was outside her bodywrap, Raven quickly slipped her own necklace over her head and held it up in front of her, too. The sibyla gave her an approving nod.

Raven listened to the chant. It was quite short. She could remember the words easily, and it didn’t take her long to join in.

“I will not stop, I will be a river.

I will not pause, I will be light.

I will not waver, I will be the earth.

I will not give up, I will be death.

I will not fail, for the blue stone is in my heart.”

This must be the song they sang for heroines, she thought. She noticed that even the head of Sell was mouthing the words. He was staring blindly at the lake and his eyes were unfocused, as if he were remembering something. He looked quite young.

Raven wondered if her mother was a heroine too. But nobody sang songs for her mother. She tugged at her father’s hand.

Six looked down at his small daughter, who was regarding him with a frown on her forehead. He raised his eyebrows.

“What’s the matter, Raven?”

“Why don’t we sing songs for my mother?”

He smiled. “Perhaps we should.”

“—Because she is a heroine too, isn’t she?”

“Very much so. She is the bravest woman I have ever met.”

“Then she should have a song of her own.”

Six swallowed. “I never thought of that.”

“That’s all right, Daddy. You can’t think of everything. This is a nice song. Was Petra really brave, like Mummy?”

Tallen turned around, and Raven saw a sheen of pain in his eyes, as the Namuri answered: “They were both brave, Raven, in different ways.”

“Who was braver?”

Tallen stared down at her impassively, his dark eyes enigmatic. “Nobody can offer more than their own life. And lives do not have different values.”

Raven struggled to understand. “You mean, neither of them was braver than the other?”

“Listen to the words of the song, Raven. They both had the blue stone in their heart. That is the definition of bravery for a Namuri.”

“I have blue stone in my heart, too!” Raven was looking as though she would like to challenge anybody to say differently.

“Then, one day, you may be a heroine. Now be quiet. We are listening.”

Raven settled down. A song was now being sung by the sibyla, who had a beautiful high voice, if rather quavery, and the rest of the Namuri were beginning to stomp their feet from side to side. The fact that most of them were inside an orthogel bubble dimmed the sound, but some still came through.

Raven joined in the stomping, pleased to find part of the ceremony more to her taste.

Arcan was only present as the lake, this time. Raven stared at the dark orthogel in front of her, wondering if it really was Arcan. It wasn’t the Arcan she knew, someone she was still very much in awe of. She wondered whether this lake person would be the same, and decided to ask him about heroes too, but the thought was hardly formed when his reply came into her head.

“I am not a hero. I am unique.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What is unique?”

“I am different.”

Was that all? “I know that. You talk in my head, like Mummy does now.”

“Yes.”

“But Mummy is a heroine. Doesn’t that make you one too?”

“This conversation is repetitive. I do not wish to continue.”

“Oh. I am sorry.”

“You cannot help being young. You will grow older.”

“I am not sure I want to.”

“It is something you cannot avoid.”

Arcan became silent, and his mind felt blocked to her, so she looked around a little more.

The stomping had stopped now, and the sibyla was standing, arms outstretched, eyes closed. The Namuri were copying her, closing their eyes, and she noticed that all the others were doing the same thing too.

She shut her eyes hastily, and then peeked a little through the lids. If not, how would she know when to open them again? Then she caught sight of Tallen, whose eyes were wide open. He looked lost, desolate.

Raven moved a step closer to his side, and gave him her hand. The Namuri looked down, startled, and then smiled at her, and squeezed her hand back. Raven felt pleased. She had known she would be able to comfort him; she always could.

It surprised her that somebody that old could need comfort. Her father had told her only a few days ago that Tallen would be 16 soon. That seemed ancient to Raven, however much she tried to make herself older. She had suggested having a joint birthday party, but Tallen had curled his lip and said firmly that the Namuri didn’t believe in things like birthday parties. Tallen was very silly sometimes about things like that. He didn’t like chocolate, either, because he thought it was too much of a luxury. That was a new word for Raven. It meant things you didn’t really need, Grace had told her. Tallen didn’t like luxuries. Sometimes Raven wondered if he liked anything at all. He certainly never seemed to need anything. He was always more serious than Bennel, although Bennel was even older than he was.

Then she caught a tiny movement out of the corner of her eye. Her mother was here! Raven turned quickly, and caught sight of the small ball of light that her mother had now become. A firemorph, her father had said. It was a good name; it suited her mother.

Her face lit up. “Mummy!”

Diva chided her quickly for shouting. “This is a serious moment, Raven. You must not shout, or fidget.”

“Daddy is fidgeting.”

“Yes. Well, your father is allowed to fidget. He has earned it.” Privately Diva blasted Six with a short and pithy message. He straightened up instantly and looked around hastily, trying to pinpoint where she was.

Raven laughed at the expression on her father’s face. He looked like a little boy caught with his hand in the honey jar. He saw her and put a finger to his lips, telling her to be quiet. She nodded.

Diva hovered for a moment in front of Tallen, taking care to remain as transparent as she could. There were people attending this ceremony who were not aware of her existence. She was only noticeable as a slight flickering of the air, a mirage which was almost undetectable.

“Namuri,” she said.

“Meritocrat,” he replied, in exactly the same tone.

“I wish to pay my respects to your sister.”

“She is honoured by your visit.”

“No; it is my honour to be here.”

“How is life as a firemorph?”

“Complicated. How is life on Xiantha?”

“Simple.”

“May the blue stone stay with you.”

He bowed. “And with you,
Valhai
.”

Raven stamped one little foot, causing those around her to look at her. She stared them back, but spoke inwardly to her mother. “Why are you so formal with Tallen. Don’t you like him anymore?”

The firemorph gave a shimmer. “Of course I like him. It is just that this service is to remember his sister, and I wanted to tell him that I remember her too.”

“Was she pretty?” As soon as she had said the words, Raven could tell that Tallen himself had heard them too, because he turned slightly and looked at her mother, as if challenging her to answer.

“She was fierce, and brave, and wild, and beautiful,” Diva said.

Tallen gave a slow nod, as if to show his agreement.

“More than you, Mummy?”

“Much, much more than me. Now be quiet, Raven. I can see you have inherited quite a lot from your father, at least as far as ceremonies are concerned, but you will upset a lot of people. I can’t stay more than a few minutes, because I am still recovering, and it takes too much energy for me to travel this far. In fact I couldn’t have come even for these few minutes if the trimorph twins hadn’t helped me. If you are good I will try to join you for a few days when you go on your birthday trip to the lowlands.”

Raven’s face, which had assumed a rather mutinous expression, cleared instantly, and she gave a wide beam. “Will you?”

“I hope so. I will come if I can. Be good, mind!”

Raven nodded. “Of course,” she promised, mendaciously. “Of course I will!”

Raven watched, rather sadly, as her mother disappeared again. Then she squeezed Tallen’s hand.

“I wish I had met Petra,” she said.

He gave a small smile. “You would have liked her. And she would have liked you. You are brave, like she was.”

“Am I?” Raven’s small chest swelled with pride.

Tallen nodded. “Like your mother.”

Raven’s eyes tracked to her father, who was standing uncharacteristically still, his expression lost in the distant stars. “Daddy misses Mummy. Mummy is different now.”

Tallen looked over at his emptor. “I know.”

“Do you think he will ever be happy again?”

Tallen gave a faint sigh. “There are things much more important than being happy.”

Raven was shocked. “What things?”

The Namuri seemed to be looking at something far, far away. “Things you find out about when you are older.”

Raven frowned. “Don’t want to be older!”

Tallen’s gaze cleared. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice about that, Raven. One day you will open your eyes and you will be 16, and the new leader of Coriolis.”

Raven’s eyes opened wider than Cesan poppies. “That is years and years away!”

Tallen looked over at the sibyla to the Namuri clan, who was still singing in the eerie, haunting voice that seemed to capture the essence of sacrifice and send it shivering up and down his spine. “—Years go past faster than you think.”

Then the song finished, the sensation of unreality vanished, and the orthogel bubbles disappeared to return their various passengers to their points of origin. Temar tugged at Bennel’s hand, asking to be carried up the difficult slope, and Raven dropped Tallen’s hand and turned to her father.

“Come on, Daddy. It’s this way.” She began to retrace her footsteps up the shore of the ortholake, stumping upwards through the thick sand with determination. “You mustn’t be sad.”

Six found his eyes moving automatically towards the Giant Crab Constellation, where Pictoria would be hanging in the sky, under the careful watch of the purple gas giant. Then he tore his gaze away and looked at the small girl, whose short little legs were almost disappearing in the loose dunes surrounding the lake. He knew first-hand what Tallen had meant.

He watched the stubborn little figure struggling up the loose sand and blinked, trying to dispel the slight sense of loss that accompanied him always now. Then he put on a fierce face and made as if to grab at her. “You will have to go faster! I’m a hungry monster, and I am going to gobble you up!”

Raven giggled. “Don’t be silly, Daddy.”

Six ran clumsily up the sandy bank, and she gave a shriek.

He put his hands out in front of him and marched towards her like a sleepwalker. “Ogre coming! Watch out!”

Raven reached the top of the dune and Bennel placed Temar on the ground beside her. They peered back towards the ortholake and then screamed with delight as they saw Six approaching robotically, looking most fearsome. Their small footsteps left skitter marks on the surface of the planet which would still be there months later as they raced towards the skyrises of Valhai, running excitedly from an ogre in hot pursuit who – strangely – never got quite close enough to catch either of them.

Chapter 26

THE VISITOR CONTACTED Dessia with some trepidation. He wasn’t sure whether he would be able to reach his alter ego there without the rest of the Dessites picking up the mental broadcast, and he was still very wary about the effect the Dessite wall could have on him. But his fears were unfounded; he found it remarkably easy and he was soon chatting to the elected negotiator who was, it turned out, now housed permanently on the Island of the Enjoined.

“Err … How are things going?” he asked.

Exemphendiss waved a membrane. “Much better. The council have started to implement the changes in the birth control policy, and the chemicals I had developed before I was cryolized have proved extremely useful in preventing budding. The general population is already undergoing extensive treatments, and so far, only the council itself has been declared exempt from overbudding.”

“They should have used the same birth control as the rest of the population,” said the visitor, looking at them with distaste.

“I thought Arcan wouldn’t mind. It was a small gesture and means a great deal to them.”

“I suppose it is irrelevant; there are only twelve of them at any given time, aren’t there?”

“That is why I agreed. Oh … and the prognosticator has been revalidated as the prime. They have voted him, and the next four generations of his stock, into cryolization.”

The visitor, present by proxy in the council of guardians meeting that his worthy ancestor was currently attending, regarded the large Dessite referred to with a jaundiced eye. “I rather thought he might be. He seems to have quite a knack for self-promotion, doesn’t he?”