Shadow's End (20 page)

“You may not,” he said softly. “Not yet. Only a little more. Quickly.”

They pushed themselves into an exhausted stagger that accelerated into a heart-pumping plunge, fueled by Chahdzi's stimulant, as they splashed through the narrow stream, tending a little southward to a place immediately below the great cave. Now they were in shadow. Now they could see the hive itself, see the few people assembled upon the lip of stone, peering down at them.

“Ladders!” said Lutha, disbelievingly.

“Only a few,” said Chahdzi, gesturing her to climb first. “Go, rest, go, rest. Keep moving.”

They climbed. They climbed forever. Leely screamed. Lutha cursed under her breath. One ladder led to another, led to another yet. A few were slimy with spray. And then they were on the flat, sagging with exhaustion.

A high tenor voice soared:

“See our Lady depart. See her dance westward, upon the rock-rimmed mountains, beautiful her feet among the trees….”

A tiddle of bone flutes, a rattle of little drums sounded from the wide-windowed loft of a tower nearby. Seemingly the rush was over. People were moving about purposefully, with no appearance of panic, men and women both, difficult to tell what sex they were in the loose robes, their hair cut alike, their faces painted this way or that. Some wore only the underrobe, the back hem pulled between their legs and up over the belt in front. Others'
robes flowed free. A few had put on leather outer robes, these evidently for ceremonial reasons, for the singer and the musicians were among those so clad.

“Now what?” breathed Trompe.

“The leasehold of Bernesohn Famber is at the back,” said Chahdzi, sounding more cheerful than he had at any time during the day. “Only a few steps.”

He led them along the south side of the great hive, past numerous pore windows and a few skin doors, each made of a drum-tight hide lashed to a frame of poles. Then there were no more windows and doors in the walls, and they entered upon Bernesohn Famber's private space: limited on the north by the featureless wall of the hive, on the south by the curving wall of the cave, on the west by his own living space, a small, single-story wing extruded from the hive: mud-colored, dome-roofed, softly rounded. Unlike the doors of our people, the annex door was made of planks, heavily strapped, hinged, and latched. The door had a lock. The single window was shuttered from inside.

“Is there a key?” Trompe asked, trying the door.

The latch rattled beneath his hand, and I, Saluez, opened the door from within.

They stared at me, Lutha and Trompe and the child.

I stood before them, my face veiled, holding a broom.

“What in hell?” demanded the tall, golden-haired man who came up behind me. “What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Dananana,” cooed Leely.

“Leelson,” gasped Lutha, surprise warring with fury on her face. “Leelson! Damn it all to hell, what are
you
doing here!”

W
e expected these people. We had been told to prepare for their arrival, so I had been inside the leasehold, cleaning it. I had fetched extra sleeping pads, extra blankets. I had brushed down all the walls and benches and had
swept all the dust into a pile just inside the outer door. I had my hand upon the latch when it rattled, so I opened it. Lutha stood there, with Trompe and her child. I knew at once who they were, for we had been expecting them and I had seen them on the trail across the canyon earlier in the day. My father, Chahdzi, stood with them, but when he saw me, he turned and went away without speaking.

I stepped out of the way, drawing my pile of dust aside with my broom.

“What the hell
are
you doing here?” demanded Trompe, moving aggressively toward the man, who had been with us for some time.

Lutha scooped up Leely and came inside. Her face was twisted with effort; she was trying to scream or curse, but her voice would not come. She managed only a snarling croak, only a step or two inside the door, before she slumped against the wall, her face going blank. I knew at once they had been given the emergency drink, the one we carry when we are out in the world and need to reach the hive before darkness. The drug does that, when it wears off. It leaves bodies limp and minds shut down. I took her arm and helped her sit down, and behind us the darkness came, as though a blanket had been dropped across the light.

I had a pot of tea already prepared as a restorative. I filled a cup and held it to Lutha's lips. After a moment's hesitation, she drank.

“Let's get the door shut,” said Leelson, suiting his action to the words before opening the inside shutters to let the last of the dusk seep in between the bars.

Across the canyon, on the trail they had descended by, pallid forms were gathering.

“You arrived just in time,” said Leelson from the window.

Trompe shambled over to stand beside him, staring at the sight. I turned my face away.

“My god,” said Trompe. “How many of them are there?”

More white forms streamed in from the darkness of the southern canyon, a constant milky flow, a torrent of wings and fluttering membranes.

“Well,” Lutha said in a gargled whisper. “Was this the reason for our hurry? This assemblage?”

Since she spoke in my own language, I took it she was asking me. I bowed, murmuring, “On this world we do not talk of the things of night. Not in daytime voices. It is not wise.”

“Would they do us harm?” she murmured between sips.

“Darkness is inimical to light by its very nature,” I whispered. “All the beings of darkness, also. Living man may dream or hope as he will, but he must walk in the light. The wise man chooses his way and does not thereafter put himself outside his own pattern.” This is the kind of thing the songfathers say, words to make one think one has been told something when, in fact, one has been told nothing at all. These are words to comfort children and strangers.

She barely nodded, the last effects of the drink draining away into exhaustion. “What you're saying is …”

She would not accept mere allusion. I bowed my head and spoke sense. “In the dark hours, a man should be at home beside the fire, speaking softly. See how all the animals and birds of day go to rest and to quiet; see how they lie hidden, how they whisper in their lairs. Are we less wise than they? Have we no hive, no hole, no cavern to hold us? And why would we choose to be elsewhere than in our homes?”

“We might choose for curiosity's sake, perhaps,” said Trompe, in my language, though awkwardly. “A desire to know.”

“We become what we know,” I said bitterly. “If a
woman wishes to stay alive, she must be careful what she knows.”

“Enough,” breathed Lutha in her weary voice. “I'm afraid we're all too tired to appreciate the finer points of Dinadhi philosophy. What's your name, by the way?”

I bowed. “Saluez,” I said. “Saluez of the Shadow. Your servant, madam.”

“Assigned to me? Us?”

“To clean the Famber leasehold. To fetch what you may need, any of you.”

She dismissed me with a gesture, as though I had not even been there. I did not know then that there were shadows on her world, too, that because I had used the word, her reaction was to treat me as one of them. One took no notice of them. Both my words and my veil confused her, mostly because she was so tired. She dismissed me and turned to the others, and for a time thereafter it was as though I did not exist.

Leelson existed, however. Leelson Famber had been with us on Dinadh for some time. She had things to say to him!

“As for you, Leelson Famber, I think you owe us an explanation! Me, particularly!” She spoke our language as though, once started on it, she lacked energy to change.

“My presence is more explicable than yours,” he said in his own tongue. “I came as legitimate lineage son of Bernesohn Famber—”

“You came without bothering to tell anyone at Alliance Prime!” Trompe exploded.

“Or your mother!” snarled Lutha. “Who is very busy just now advancing your Firster cause by despairing of your posterity and blaming it all on me.”

He looked at them, astonished, his expression gradually changing from irritation to understanding.

He sat down, drawing Lutha beside him onto one of the cushioned mud benches along the walls. “On my way from Kamir back toward Central, I overheard some crewmen
talking of the vanishment of a homo-norm team in Hermes Sector. It reminded me of the last time that had happened, the Ularian thing a century ago. I knew great-great-grandpop had been looking into it; and I knew he'd disappeared here on Dinadh. It was, in a sense, on the way, so I decided to make a brief stopover on the chance he might have left some information here. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and I thought I'd be back before anyone got in an uproar….”

He made a gesture of annoyance. “And it certainly never occurred to me the Dinadhi would accept Leely as … as lineage son.”

Across the valley the forms swarmed, swirling outward from the cliff face. They would not be content with the far side of the canyon for long. I moved to the shutters and closed them, returning to my former place. The people in the room did not notice me.

Lutha made an impatient gesture to Trompe, as though saying, “There! See!”

“I didn't perceive the threat as imminent!” Leelson said emphatically.

“I don't know what you call imminent, but the world you heard about was only the first. Several more Hermes Sector worlds have been wiped clean,” snarled Trompe.

Leelson looked up in astonishment. “When?”

“Just before Trompe and I were sent here,” Lutha said. “One of the colonists was an old friend of mine. The Procurator used her death as a goad to move me on this journey. God, Leelson! If I'd only known you were here!”

She fumed, her face set and hard, her anger—which had hottened with Leelson's reference to the boy—warring with her exhaustion. I wondered which god she had invoked. We do not consider it polite to call upon a god as one would a servant. We are careful to use the correct names and polite address.

As for Leely, he had climbed onto the wall bench nearest me and lay there staring at the ceiling, murmuring
over and over, “Dananana, Dananana.” I sat down beside him, drawing no attention to myself. We members of the sisterhood learn to do that.

“Did it never occur to you,” Lutha snarled, “that Alliance Prime needed to know where you were?”

“If this attack followed the same pattern as a century ago, there'd have been plenty of time to advise Prime.”

“And what pattern was that?” Trompe demanded.

“The first thing that went then was a supply facility on a moon near the far side of the Hermes Sector. It was a standard year before anything else happened, and another year went by before populations were removed from anywhere farther in.”

Trompe snarled, “Well, the Ularians didn't follow the previous pattern. They've completely destroyed or transported colonies on three of the worlds closest to Dinadh. That's what alerted Prime.” He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I suppose your intentions are understandable, though it would have saved a good deal of trouble if someone had known where you were.”

Leelson nodded glumly, accepting this assessment.

Trompe asked, “Since you've been here awhile, I suppose we should ask if you've found out anything useful.”

Leelson darted his eyes toward me and did not reply.

I rose and bowed, saying politely, “I will leave you now. Food stores have been augmented in anticipation of your arrival.”

“You
knew they were coming?” Leelson demanded in outrage.
“You
didn't tell me?”

“If you had asked, you would have been told,” I replied, turning away from him toward Lutha. “Other supplies should be adequate for your stay.”

I swept my pile of dust before me as I went out of the room and through the little hall to the door that connected with the hive. It, too, was made of wood, with a lock upon it. I swept my way through, shut the door
loudly, then opened it a crack. No one noticed. I was able to hear everything they said.

“Damn them,” Leelson was muttering. “Insular, taciturn, withholding information like that! I could have forestalled your journey….”

Trompe said, “Calm down, Leelson. We're here now and we're on the same mission you are, so there'll be no conflict. Forget I asked any questions. We're too tired to think about it now. I hope there's space for all of us to sleep.”

I heard Lutha murmuring agreement, then scuffings and murmurs as they moved about, exploring the cells. There were plenty of wall benches, plenty of cotton sleeping pads. Bernesohn Famber had used one room for storage, but the other two rooms were large enough for all of them. In the hive, they would have housed a dozen of us, but evidently outlanders needed more privacy than we Dinadhi.

“Leely and I'll take this room,” said Lutha from the back room where Leelson had been sleeping. “I presume there's other sleeping space for you men.”

“Plenty of sleeping space,” Leelson murmured, moving in and out.

Though the dispenser could deliver hot food, I had cooked food for their evening meal and left it in food boxes on the shelf. Someone found the boxes, for I heard the sounds of their opening, the little homely noise of spoons and bowls. Those who were eating did so slowly and silently. Perhaps they were too tired to have appetite or enjoy flavor.

Through the door, I watched while Lutha took Leely into the room she had chosen and Trompe retreated to the storeroom where he'd made up a bed for himself. By opening my door a little wider, I could see into the room where Leelson was. He had spread his own bed on the bench under the window and had opened the shutters a crack, to let in the evening air. I drew in a deep breath
and held it, forbidding myself to go in and close the shutters once more. Not while he was awake. He lay for a long time, eyes open, but at last he wearied, closed the shutters himself, and settled to sleep.