Unexpected Stories (2 page)

Finally though, as both his physical pain and his emotional anguish receded, as he saw that those he abused and tormented never struck back, he had begun to make the adjustment that some captive Hao never made. He had admitted to himself that the Rohkohn had not acted out of cruelty but out of severe need. They had been without a Hao and that had made them desperate. A Kohn tribe without a Hao was a tribe in the process of dying. Even a captive Hao who might remain forever hostile was a symbol around which the people could gather, and thus was better than no Hao at all. Without a Hao, people had no purpose, no direction, no unity. It was remarkable that the Rohkohn had even been able to work together across the lines of caste to capture him. He had finally accepted their need as sufficient excuse for what they had done to him and he had ceased to fight them. He had accepted liaisons with women of their judge caste, and one of these women had borne him a Hao daughter, Tahneh. He had given advice that had proven good and valuable to the council of judges. Finally, the people, seeing that he had accepted them, acknowledged him as their leader instead of merely a symbol of their unity. He had given them years of good government. He had been a better leader than any tribe had a right to expect of a captive Hao. Only Tahneh’s memory of his legs marred her picture of him. She remembered the way he had propelled himself with short hand-held sticks in the wheeled cart that he had had his artisans build. Sometimes, however, within the privacy of his apartment, the cart had been too awkward and he, not wanting to ask for help, had dragged himself on his hands and knees, unwittingly embittering his young daughter, turning her against the tradition that had so disabled him. Even now, it was painful for Tahneh to remember him crawling.

The Tehkohn Hao, Diut, and his party had followed a narrow river down from the mountains, detouring only when sheer drops made it necessary. They watched the land beyond the river grow dryer and more barren as they descended, while the river itself grew narrower. Vegetation, except in the vicinity of the river, became tough and spiny and Diut had to show Jeh and Cheah the ancient map he carried so that they would be certain they were still on the old trade route—still on a trail that would support life. Once they saw, however, that the trail was outlined in green, a pro-life color, they did not complain about the poor hunting or the increasing heat. They did begin traveling at night, though, at Jeh’s suggestion, and their hunting improved.

By the time they reached the foothills, Diut knew that he was close to the ancient ruins that had been his excuse for traveling so far from his mountain home, his people, and his new Hao responsibilities. He knew too that in spite of the map he carried he could pass by the ruins without seeing them if he was not careful. Even when the desert dwelling was new it must have been well camouflaged. By now, unless it had begun to cave in, it would probably be almost indistinguishable from the various hills and mounds that were normal to this area.

It was because Diut was watching so carefully for the ruins that he spotted his captors before Jeh and Cheah saw them. He was alarmed but he gave no sign to his friends until he had looked around very carefully and seen that the three of them had walked into a wide, remarkably well camouflaged circle of fighters—a circle that was now beginning to move with them.

Diut’s immediate reaction was humiliation.
He
had been quietly, efficiently captured by a group of hunters and judges. He could see them as though they were uncamouflaged now that he had been alerted to their presence. But he should have seen them before he walked into their midst. He should have seen them before he led Jeh and Cheah into their midst.

He looked at Jeh, saw that the young judge was just discovering his captivity. Jeh’s coloring had not changed. He did not look around wildly to give notice to his captors that he had become aware of them. But in his eyes, in his movements now there was an animal wariness that had not been there before, and Diut knew that he was looking for a break, a flaw in the circle—an escape route.

The wariness was even more pronounced in Cheah. She was a high huntress, and using her speed and camouflage to escape predators too powerful to kill was second nature to her. Diut spoke to them both very softly, knowing that he might not only be overheard by his captors, but also understood by them. The Tehkohn dialect was very close to the ancient imperial language that all Kohn tribes knew. Diut had seen for himself that strangers picked up his language very easily.

“Jeh,” he whispered. “Cheah! Be still. Don’t resist.”

The two relaxed cautiously, then glanced at him,
perhaps wondering how sure he could be of himself in a situation that he had faced before only in training. Diut thought he saw doubt in their eyes and he turned his own gaze bitterly forward. Jeh and Cheah were young, but still they were several years older than he was; they had had more experience. But he was Hao. His eyes and ears were sharper than theirs. He could see that there was no flaw in this circle. More, he could see that this circle contained twice as many people as it should have needed to make it secure, and that those people were a well-disciplined force. The foreign fighters had spaced themselves evenly and now moved together in spite of their numbers.

They did not get in each other’s way as they would have, had they been less well trained. They left no holes big enough for an alert hunter or judge to go through. There was no way out for Jeh and Cheah. But Diut saw that he alone, using the greater strength and speed that was part of his Hao heritage—and perhaps breaking a neck or two—might be able to get free.

He thought about it. Would his escape provide enough of a diversion to give Jeh and Cheah their opening? It would if their captors were too startled to move in at once and kill them. But that seemed unlikely.

The fighters of the circle were moving along easily with Diut’s party now, subtly guiding it but never closing in or being obvious. This was a form of courtesy extended to captives whose status had not yet been decided—captives who had not yet been judged dangerous. Perhaps the desert people considered Diut’s party too small to be actively hostile. But if Diut broke through their circle, killed one or two of their fighters, they would change their minds quickly. And they would do their best to make Jeh and Cheah pay for the deaths Diut had caused. They looked far too efficient to lose all three of their captives. Diut decided to wait. The desert people were obeying the conventions meticulously, when with their superior numbers they certainly did not have to. He would suspend judgment on them as they apparently had on him.

He kept his party moving as slowly as it had before he became aware of his captors. The desert people did not hurry him, did not prod him at all as long as he continued to follow the river. If he strayed, however—and he did, testing—the fighters toward whom he strayed ceased to move, became more visible, quietly threatening. He allowed himself to be intimidated and spent the rest of the long night going where they wanted him to go.

He had ceased to think about the ruins that he had come so far to see. He was not watching for them at all but he was not surprised when early during the second night of his captivity, he found himself approaching them. He had already decided that his captors must he heading toward them, that their people must have moved into the desert ruin as, generations before, Diut’s people had moved into an ancient mountain ruin.

The desert people had made their city’s main entrances too visible, Diut thought as he looked down the hillside at them. The ruin itself began on the hillside—or rather, within the hill—just above where the river cut through the last of the hills to flow across flatter lands toward the sea. It seemed to Diut that the desert tribe had cut away too much of the vegetation over and around their dwelling and planted their crops too openly at the base of the hill in the wide spread of soil that the river had deposited. But perhaps desert customs were different. Perhaps this vast treeless land made the kind of camouflage that Diut was used to too difficult. Or perhaps these desert people had simply not had a war, as Diut’s people had, to make them cautious.

As Diut and his party started down the hill, their escort became visible. Other people were also visible around the ill-concealed entrances. Several nonfighters—farmers and artisans—stood in scattered bunches watching Diut in particular. The nonfighters were shy quiet green or yellow-green people who would not have been out if they had expected trouble. Diut noted, though, that there were no children visible. The desert people were not that certain of his party’s docility then.

Diut brought to mind the model of this dwelling that existed in vast detail back at his mountain home. Long ago, a highly skilled imperial artisan had been traded from his home in the desert city to the mountain city that Diut’s people now occupied. Nonfighters had been more harshly treated in those days, and fighters commonly regarded them as property—trade goods. But this artisan had apparently loved his city too much to face the prospect of never seeing it again. Thus he had built a model of it, the desert city in miniature. It filled an entire room and was nothing to be carried about, but Diut had used it to memorize the floor plan of the desert dwelling. Now he used that memory to decide which of the entrances to approach.

No one stopped him or spoke to him. He was pleased to see that some of the desert people did look surprised, however. His body glowed luminescent blue. Let them wonder how he knew which public entrance led most directly to the apartment of their Hao—or of their chief judge if they were unlucky enough to be without a Hao.

Diut stopped in front of that entrance, feeling tense with anticipation in spite of himself. He had not seen another of his own kind since war took the lives of his mother and his uncle. And the training, the discipline that these people had shown bespoke the presence of a Hao.

Finally, the desert Hao came out. She was a woman of middle years, her coloring still deep blue, not yet touched with the flecks of yellow that foretold advanced age. Her body was straight and lean and she was the first person Diut had seen since he had attained his full growth who could match him in height. Her coloring attracted him, held his attention as though he had never seen another Hao. He realized that he had, on seeing her, automatically dimmed his own brilliance and let his coloring return to normal. To continue his blinding luminescence now that she was present seemed challenging somehow. And Diut could think of nothing he wanted from this desert town to warrant his challenging an older, more experienced Hao.

He and the woman gazed at each other for a long moment without speaking, each appraising the other. Was she as hungry for the sight of another of her kind as he had been, Diut wondered. She spoke finally.

“You’re welcome here, cousin—you and those with you. I am Tahneh.” She looked past him at her people, who had gathered around at a respectful distance. “We are Rohkohn.”

Thus, for the first time, Diut learned the name of his host-captors. Tahneh had a dry, somehow ironic voice that made Diut wonder if she found him
and his party amusing. There was no white in her coloring, but still he felt that her manner was slightly mocking. She spoke in the old imperial language—the language of conversing with strangers and of writing. And in the old language, she had the right to call him cousin since according to tradition, all Hao were related. They could come “out of the air,” born inexplicably to families of judges, or they could descend from long lines of their own kind. But the blue related them regardless. It deified them and made them members of the Hao family—the highest and best fighters that the people could produce. Diut answered in his own flawless imperial.

“I am Diut. My companions are Jeh and Cheah.” He gestured toward each one of them in turn. “We are Tehkohn.”

The woman glanced toward the distant wall of mountains. “Tehkohn—Mountain People.” She translated the word into her own tribe’s dialect with a change of stress that made it almost unrecognizable. Then in the old language again, “You’re a long way from home, Tehkohn Hao.”

Diut found himself impressed with her use of his title. Since his acknowledgement, his own people had begun addressing him by title instead of by name, of course, but somehow it meant more coming from another Hao. He answered Tahneh’s implied question without resentment.

“We trace the ways of our ancestors. Our map told us there were ruins here. We didn’t know that the Rohkohn had occupied them.” As he spoke the woman watched him in a way that made him glad he had no reason to lie to her.

“You have one of the old maps with you, then?” she asked.

He reached back to the pouch strapped across his shoulders, found the map by touch, and handed it to her. She unrolled it and looked at it, felt the smooth, tough clear coating that covered the fine paper and made it flexible but nearly indestructible. The art of making such permanent records had been lost to most of the Kohn tribes since the splintering of the empire because the main ingredient for the coating came from trees far down the wild eastern slopes of the mountains. The map seemed to impress Tahneh.

She handed it back and, with a slight now proper whitening of her coloring to emphasize the positive spirit in which she spoke, she said, “Eat with us, Tehkohn Hao, and rest. When you’re ready, I’ll show you the ruins myself. We Rohkohn occupy only a small part of them.”

Tahneh saw to it that the young mountain Hao was treated as an honored guest. She had a special meal prepared for him—a meal that would permit him to sample the fish and bird delicacies of the coast but that would also let him return, if he chose, to the more familiar meats that her hunters brought back from the game traps of the foothills. She kept the affair small, however, inviting only the chiefs of each of her four castes and their mates. The drought had not left enough food for real feasting. She had the meal served in the main chamber of her own apartment, and
before it was served, she found time to speak privately with Ehreh.