We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology (22 page)

“Perhaps a heavy clockwork spring mechanism inside.”

“If you say so. I watched from the mountains through the telescopes at Heremi as the mautkatai flew forward and spun, with a dozen arms each holding a blade. The defenders’ ranks broke, whole swaths reduced to piles of screaming meat. I could not watch it long, but the Rytari soldiers had an easy time mopping up the remainder with their skirmishers and projectile infantry.”

Salai tried in vain to suppress the slight nausea he felt at the description of the killing machines. “Rytari troops are everywhere today. Why have I not seen these mautkatai?”

“That was our word for them. I do not even know what the Rytari word is. I have not seen them in decades, not since the invasion. Perhaps when the Rytari discovered our countermeasures, they were deprecated and replaced with something even more efficient at killing, machines too expensive to waste on display for the utterly conquered people that we are. Or perhaps even the Rytari do not like seeing them; they are not a cruel people, after all—merely ambitious.”

“So what did our people do after seeing the slaughter? Surely it was clear that the Rytari would come for Turinam next? We are the next and last point west on the map.”

“The conquest of Aish relied on ground forces, and we knew that the peaks of the Dorhal would give us an advantage. The passes are narrow, and the roads are hardly adequate for facilitating the march of large armies. And it was winter—we felt confident that the snows that were just beginning would buy us time to construct defenses. So we began. Scouts kept an eye on the Rytari armies massing at makeshift forts in the eastern foothills, while we trained with rocks, slings, bows, and spears. The Rytari artillery occasionally fired on the mountains, but the projectiles rarely came close to us. We learned how to ambush in the passes. We carefully set up large boulders, placed to crush advancing lines of troops who would have no way to escape from the path. Piles of stones were staggered in clearings to act as fouls for the mautkatai, which, though deadly, were after all were incapable of guiding themselves around an obstacle.”

“I am impressed at your tactics, Grandfather.”

“So were we. Ah, we were so impressed with ourselves, and—may our elders forgive us—we actually wished for battle. We, a peaceful people, when faced with death looked forward to killing.” Here Grandfather shook his head in disgust. “But our hubris showed its worth. Our preparations were for nothing. After weeks of these drills and shoring up of defenses, they came.”

“The written history records a glorious charge up the mountain by Rytari infantry, generals bravely in the fore.”

“The written history is wrong. In the earliest hours of the morning, while it was still dark after one of the midwinter storms had passed, a scout cried out. We ran out from the encampment and looked up. Above us, emerging from the night fog like ghostly leviathans in the great deep of the sky, were the agents of our downfall.”

“Airships! They used airships?”

“It was the first time we had seen such things. They had not used them on Aish, perhaps knowing that they could keep such vehicles in reserve. Our puny projectiles, struggling against the height of the Rytari craft, only bounced off of the armored hulls. But the airship assault was deadly for us. Some dropped mautkatai among us, others dropped fire. And not a one stopped to tarry with the mountain defenders; all sailed leisurely and imperviously over our lines, our boulders, our carefully laid defenses.”

“They went straight for Turinam. And no defenders were in the city?”

Grandfather nodded bitterly. “We hadn’t thought to station anyone back in the valley in reserve; it seemed preposterous to have defenses in the valley behind us. If the enemy infantry could break through in the passes of the Dorhal, we knew that we stood no chance on open ground. We had never even considered air power. The airships rappelled down thousands of soldiers directly into Turinam. They took the Council Chambers, the marketplace, the main bridges, and the fishery docks in Korasca in a matter of hours. Any who resisted were slaughtered outright. The airships returned for us, and we had little choice but to surrender. Rytar took Turinam and the valley without so much as a single certain Republic casualty.”

Salai’s lip curled. “I can’t believe it. That such a learned culture could fall so easily to such an ignorant oppressor. Why did we not start studying the arts of war when Rytar was on the horizon for decades? What were you and your anushasan wasting your time on when war was coming?”

Grandfather furrowed his brow and coughed, but continued. “We are not a violent people, Salai. When we took up arms, we were destroyed utterly by those who had studied nothing but war and exploitative machinery for generations. And all for what? Our land is fertile, but merely one dot on a map of a thousand cities that live under a Rytari flag. We have no wealth that the Rytari would recognize as such. Our wealth lies in knowledge, but it is not even of the sort that they value; it is theoretical, meditative, contemplative. They stole hundreds of volumes of our more advanced mathematics and physics, with which they now use the likes of you, Salai, to improve their machines of profit and conquest. But they have no use for it otherwise. We are a conquered people because of a principle, nothing more. The principle that the Rytari should control all of this continent from sea to sea, simply because it sounded like a grand idea and meant more land. Every scholar of history and language who chose to defend Heremi was rounded up and executed.”

“Except for you and a handful of others. How did you escape death Grandfather?”

This time Grandfather was silent for a long time. “Here is my last confession, Salai. And I can only hope that my shame can be forgiven by our elders and your generation. You seem to know that I was in the Heremitian Anushasan before the fall of Turinam. Do you know why I never returned after?”

Salai frowned. “I always thought that you left to teach Rytari language in the new schools. That’s what you did for the last few decades, right? I’ve never known you to be anything else but a teacher of Rytari literature and grammar. I thought you wanted to.”

“I had to say so every day of my life. In time I came to believe it. You see Salai, the Rytari are a practical people. They would not throw away a linguist by killing me if they could derive some use from me. In exchange for my life I became a tool of their occupation, a deculturalizer of my own people. I taught the language of our oppressor, and in so doing replaced our natural mode of structuring thought and knowledge with a foreigner’s.”

“And the other Heremitians? Were they not linguists and mathematicians as well?”

“They refused. And they were killed. Heremi banished me, but could not publicize why. Do you see? I am the lone traitor, living a lie because I was a coward. And I have paid for it in my private moments. Now nearly all books in Turian have been destroyed. You, my grandson, study your own history in the Rytari language, the language of the people who destroyed your history. Do you see? We do not have a history anymore. This is what it means to be a footnote to someone else’s story.”

“I… I don’t understand Grandfather. Why was our culture and language targeted? There are so many other conquered peoples whose languages are not even questioned, whose traditions are not outlawed in the slightest under Rytari law. Why Turinam?”

“Think about it, Salai. Our anushasan were for communal benefit, like Jaeda’s healing knowledge from the Altharian Anushasan, and for the study of higher thought at the temple at Heremi. What is the single biggest threat to a nation that thrives on war and competition? Ideas. The idea that people can live successfully in cooperation for mutual sustainability. The idea that the pursuit of higher knowledge for its own sake is valuable for the soul. The idea that there is another way. The Rytari fear this, because it undermines everything their society is built on. So our culture was destroyed.”

Here the old man restarted his coughing fit, this time hacking. Salai blinked back tears and rushed to hold a cloth to Grandfather’s mouth, catching the blood that dripped from his lips. When the fit subsided, Salai spoke again, quietly. “I am sorry to cause you pain Grandfather. You should not be speaking so much now.”

Grandfather was curled into a crumpled heap, Salai’s hand on his head. “No, I must. Now I see how little time I have to say these things.” He gripped his grandson’s arm, and with great effort, continued. “Salai. The language we speak affects how we think. Language shapes how we view the world. Without our language we do not have our whole culture. Without our culture we are not a people. I am complicit in a form of genocide of my own people.”

Salai fought against the bile rising in his throat. “I will kill the Rytari, and drive them out.”

“No! When we took up arms, we were destroyed utterly. You are foolish, as we were, if you think you can stand up to Rytar with force.”

“They are passive now, not expecting a resurgence.”

Grandfather gripped the younger man’s arm harder, and tears filled his eyes. “Salai! Turinam was not a battle but a massacre. We turned our backs on everything our elders had taught us about the fruits of violence being illusory and temporary at best. Do not make the same mistake I did.”

Salai flared in anger and desperation. “But then how shall we resist? Or are you saying that I should simply accept our fate? That I should stand by and allow my people’s history to be raped, as you did?”

Grandfather’s hand dropped from Salai’s and the younger man felt a rush of hot blood pounding in his ears. He swallowed hard and struggled to clear the anger from his mind. As he felt himself start to drown in anger, he grasped at the lifelines dangling from his meditative practice. His heart slowly stopped pounding. When he came back to his senses he was confused by a shuddering noise from beside him. Salai looked down to see Grandfather sobbing and coughing. Cheeks burning now with shame instead of anger, Salai gently put his hand on Grandfather’s shoulder.

“I am sorry Grandfather. I am sorry. Forgive me.” He let Grandfather just breathe for awhile. When Salai spoke again it was with deliberate calm. “I don’t know what I should do, Grandfather. What should I do?”

There was a long silence before Grandfather responded, his breathing now very ragged. His words were strained.

“Learn,” Grandfather said. “Learn Turian, our language and culture, and spread your learning. Give us a language again. Undo what I have spent the last half of my life doing.”

“Where do I start?”

Grandfather gestured weakly to the bookshelf. “Behind there. A journal I wrote after our defeat—I only hope it has stood the wear of years. I had planned to leave it there to decay after my death, but now… I think you should take it. It is some of my old work, what I could remember, handwritten side by side in Turian and Rytari.”

“You never told me the story of the fall of Turinam in our language.”

“It is written there too, in both languages. If you remember the song I sang for you as a child, that is well. Then you can tell the story on your own. Maybe what you do with my work will one day make up for my cowardice. Goodbye, Salai.”

“Grandfather, I—”

“Stop. Thank you for coming to me. You have my love.”

After that, Grandfather never spoke again. He lived for some time longer, into the still hours before dawn, but Salai never knew whether it was minutes or hours or days. He simply knelt and wept and when he was done weeping he sang the song that Grandfather had sung for him decades ago, the lullaby in Turian from his childhood.

In the morning, Salai awoke to find he had fallen asleep while knelt in meditation by the bedside, his whole body slumped forward, face mashed into the pallet. His knees and back ached. Grandfather’s cold form lay on the bed, eyes closed. With pained slowness, Salai raised himself by pushing down on the bed frame with his arms, leveraging his stiff body up on to the pallet to sit. He muttered softly, massaging life back into his legs.

He heard soft noises from the kitchen and continued rubbing painfully. When his legs felt ready to support him, Salai left the bedroom and walked into the kitchen. The sun had not yet risen, and the pale, pre-dawn morning was cool and dry.

“Auyashti, brother,” said Jaeda. She was seated quietly at the table. Salai paused. Jaeda pushed a steaming earthenware mug on the table towards him.

“Auyashti, sister,” said Salai, who moved to sit down at the table. Salai’s tired fingers slipped, and he dropped the mug, spilling some hot water on his hand. He spat out a curse and reached for a cloth with which to mop up the spilled tea. Jaeda touched his hand.

Salai looked up at the healer in surprise, but she was not looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on the hand that had been holding the mug. “The burn is only minor,” she said. “Would you like a salve for it anyway?” Salai considered more the feel of her hand than the pain in his own, and he was tempted to answer her in the affirmative simply to retain her proximity.

“No,” he said finally. “But thank you.” He withdrew his hand and sipped from the remaining tea in the mug. It was spicy with a hint of sweetness, but dark and strong to the core. Turinam tea. “You must have paid a lot for this. My grandfather likes the best.”

Jaeda’s look softened, and she looked down. “The Lord Governor was healed of a serious illness last year. In gratitude he decreed that we Altharians may purchase domestic tea at cost for the comfort of the ill. It seems a small comfort when thousands of our own people can no longer afford the daily joy of their own traditional drink, which they still must grow for others. But it is something.”

Salai nodded and sipped quietly. His gut felt turbulent. Jaeda was looking at him closely. She started to say something, caught herself, and then started again. “I am sorry for your loss today. But know it was good for him to see you before he died. He asked after you often.”

“I wish I had come sooner.” As he said it, the wall in his chest holding back the tears broke, and Salai cried. Jaeda did not move to comfort him, but sat quietly and let him weep. After awhile, Salai’s tears slowed.