Shadow's End (39 page)

His companion grunted agreement. When he had finished three more knives, he asked, “You really think there will be Fambers there? At this navel hole?”

“Just a feeling,” admitted Mitigan. “A hunch. I've learned to pay attention to my hunches. I think we're going to hit the main vein of Fambers at the omphalos. I think when we get there, we'll earn our pay.”

A
ccording to the rememberer in Simidi-ala, the Procurator could not fly directly to the omphalos. He could fly to
a point very near. To the very next canyon, in fact. But the last little bit, one had to go on foot.

“And why is that?” demanded Poracious Luv.

“Only songfathers will be allowed to go into the sacred area or to…”

To make decisions, the Procurator silently finished the remark.

“Interesting,” said Poracious. “Why is that?”

“It's not my area of expertise,” said the rememberer, staring over her left shoulder.

“Most interesting,” she repeated. “Don't you think so, sir?”

“I think we should waste as little time as possible in conversation,” muttered the Procurator between his teeth. “We would not enjoy arriving at the omphalos only a few moments too late to prevent assassinations from occurring.”

“Quite right. Fastest way, please, rememberer. On foot or whatever.”

The rememberer's “on foot” seemed to include gaufer feet, for both a chariot and a cart, each with its team of gaufers, awaited them near the head of the shallow valley in which they landed. Two servants, who had accompanied them in the flier, jumped down at once and began loading the Procurator's voluminous baggage into the cart while both hitches of animals stamped their feet impatiently.

“I suggested the conveyances would make the remaining distance a bit easier,” the rememberer murmured, keeping his eyes resolutely away from Poracious's bulky form.

“For which my thanks,” she said, heaving herself aboard the chariot with remarkable agility. She picked up the reins and gave them an experimental tug.

“I must leave you here.” The rememberer bowed. “As I've mentioned, those of us from Simidi-ala are not allowed to enter the sacred precincts. Neither are outlanders,
of course, and I cannot guarantee an exception will be made for you. We have managed to convince the songfathers it is in their best interest to speak with you. That's the best we can do.”

“We understand.” The Procurator nodded. “Where are they?”

The rememberer nodded toward the very top of the valley, where several figures stood athwart a shallow col, silhouetted against the sky. “High officials. And I'm afraid we're persona non grata.” He beckoned to the servants. “As soon as I've gone, they'll come for you.”

He and the servants climbed back into the flier and were whisked aloft in a great cloud of dust.

“He seemed relieved to get out of here,” commented the ex-King of Kamir, wiping the dust from his eyes as he climbed into the chariot beside Poracious.

“I can see why,” murmured Poracious, peering beneath her lashes at the black-clad men who were approaching. “They don't look happy to see us.”

“Please allow me to speak for us,” said the Procurator from where he stood beside the left wheel. He had donned an official tabard for the meeting, one glittering with gems and fine gold embroidery. It bore upon the back panel the great arms of the Alliance, worked in pearls and sapphires, and on the front panel a grid, in each square of which was the symbol of one of the Seventeen Sectors. Stitched over the symbol of Hermes Sector was a pall of black tissue, showing it to be under threat.

The symbolism was not lost upon the approaching Dinadhi. They saw it and stopped to mumble with one another before continuing their advance.

“What has this predicament of the Alliance to do with Dinadh?” demanded the foremost, threatening with one clawlike hand.

“All your people may perish,” said the Procurator silkily, the words sinuous as snakes, demanding attention. “Dinadh is next in line.”

The Dinahdi glanced at one another, only briefly.

The speaker sneered. “We do not believe we are in any danger from … the Ularians.”

The Procurator blinked slowly. His voice gained both volume and vehemence. “If you are not in danger from them, you are in danger from the Alliance. If you alone in Hermes Sector are not destroyed by the aliens, we must assume you have made common cause with them against the rest of humanity. Is it not written, ‘All life is struggle. He who will not stand with me stands against me'? Humanity will have vengeance for such treachery. You will not be allowed to remain here unscathed while others suffer.”

The hearers shivered. Even Poracious felt her bulk quiver. Fastigacy at its finest, she told herself, maintaining her composure with difficulty. What actors they made!

“There has been no common cause with aliens,” cried one of the other Dinadhi. “Nothing such is needed! We are under the protection of our gods! Our gods are stronger than any … aliens.”

The Procurator smiled voraciously, his teeth showing. “Then we will have vengeance against your gods, Songfathers. If your gods choose some men to favor, while sacrificing others, then those sacrificed may well cry from beyond the grave for justice.”

The third man spoke. “You threaten much. We see only one old man, much bedecked, one fat woman, and one younger man who does not look dangerous. From where will this vengeance come?”

“From the battleships of the Alliance that hang in orbit around your world,” said the Procurator, poker-faced. “From persons on those ships who even now listen to our conversation and watch your actions.”

“And from the royal navy of Kamir,” said the ex-king, “which will extort retribution for any dishonor done its king.”

“And from Buchol Sector,” said Poracious. “Where my brother is emperor.”

The Dinadhi turned their backs and went a little distance away, where they put their heads together in troubled confabulation.

“The royal navy of Kamir?” asked Poracious, without moving her lips. “Since when?”

“Since your brother was selected emperor of Buchol Sector,” said Jiacare Lostre.

Only the former speaker rejoined the outlanders as the others straggled away toward the col.

“I am Hah-Rianahm,” he said. “Subchief of the Songfathers' Council, Second Grandfather of the Great Assembly. My word binds or looses. It is my decision that you will come with us to the omphalos! We cannot delay to parley with you, for Tahs-uppi approaches, and our presence is required in the eternal circles. When those are broken, however, we will take time to hear what you have to say. This is not a good time for you to have approached us.”

“We didn't pick it,” said Poracious. “It was picked for us, by the Ularians.”

“What are these Ularians?” asked Hah-Rianahm.

“The beings who have destroyed humans on all the occupied worlds in this sector.”

“You have seen these beings?”

“We will show them to you,” said the Procurator. “We will let you see them, and feel them, and taste them….”

“After Tahs-uppi,” called one of the other men urgently. “Even now the circles are forming!”

“At the first possible moment,” said the Procurator. “At the very first possible moment.”

I
n her cave above the sea, Snark lay dreaming. She'd been doing that a lot lately, spending whole days in the cave, dozing, remembering, having imaginary conversations
with people she'd never met or never really known. She carried on an animated three-way conversation among herself, her mother, and the Procurator. She discussed life with Kane the Brain. She talked to the mistress of the sanctuary, the one who had labeled Snark a liar when Snark had claimed to come from the frontier.

“Wrong,” said Snark in her reverie, holding the mistress in a grip of steel, forcing her to look upon the moors of Perdur Alas. “You were wrong about me, madam! Look upon my childhood, my rearing, the cause of all my woe….”

The daydream dissolved in a spatter of icy spray, and she opened her eyes, startled. Outside on the branch, a large seabird tossed a scaly thing in its beak, preparatory to swallowing it. The scaly thing struggled, not quite fishlike, throwing water in all directions.

“You woke me,” said Snark, wiping her face with the back of her hands.

The bird did not reply. The bird didn't even see her. It looked past her in the same way people always had. All those at the sanctuary when she was only nine or ten. All those she'd asked for help later, when she'd been a street rat. All those who'd had business with the Procurator: bureaucrats or military, male or female, foreign or domestic, old or young. All of them had been fully present, completely in the picture, aware of one another and of the world at large, but unaware of Snark. She had always been a shadow, even before they made her one. A mere thing in the background, never quite in focus. One of the unseeables who lived in the alleys of Alliance Prime. Like the brain deads she'd known in the sanctuary, kids born with faulty circuits, not bright enough to be human but still able to be embarrassingly vocal. “I, I, I want, I want!” Like some kind of meat animal suddenly standing up and begging out loud. Too human looking to be killed; not human enough to live. Brain dead. That was the mildest
of the epithets the other orphan brats had given her. Snark the brain dead, Snark the liar, Snark the thief.

She wished for them all, wished they were here, fleeing across the moor as the great creatures disported themselves. Let Diagonal Red eat this one, and Big Gray Blob eat this one, and … and, and, and …

Though eating might not be what the creatures did. Had they eaten her companions? Had they killed Kane the Brain and Willit and Susso? Had they tortured them, enslaved them? What? Would it make her feel better to know they were worse off than she? Not really. Since she'd been alone, she'd longed for them. Even slob-lipped Willit. Especially Susso.

She rolled onto her side, finding the stony hollow that fit the curve of her hip. Near the opening, the jar in the niche stood as it had when she had found the cave. Never moved. Never looked into. Why was that?

“Because you know what's inside,” she told herself soberly. “You've always known what's inside.”

Mother had made that jar. Mother had painted it, using the rib of a furze plant for a brush, her own blood for the paint. Mother had fired it, so the blood turned black on the white clay. Mother had told her daughter to put her bones inside, in the care of Mother Darkness. If there were any bones.

When Snark had gone looking for Mother, overcoming her fear, deciding to disobey the prime command (“Stay in the cave!”), she'd found bones. She'd been hiding that from herself for many years, but here at the trembling edge of sleep, nothing could be truly hidden. Longings came out, and hates, and loves, and old, old memories that she'd tried to obliterate. Old horror would sprout, old bones would walk, old blood would fountain up.

Though homelier things returned as well. Like the stories of Breadh that Mother had sung.

“Homely Breadh of long ago!”

Snark remembered once when they'd been inside the
cave, Mother cross-legged, Snark in Mother's lap. She hadn't been Snark then. Mother had called her Laluzh, Laluzh-love, Laluzh dearest daughter. Laluzh, last remnant of the faithful.

“I sing, Laluzh-love, of our homeworld of Breadh, where we patterned our lives as the weaver of the cloth, light and dark, day and night, sorrow-joy, pleasure-pain. On Breadh we were born, on her bosom we grew, there we found our nearhearts, there we danced when we wed. On Breadh's shoulder we grieved when our loved ones were lost. So it was, so had been, for time out of time.”

This was story rhythm, a kind of chanting. Mother could do it for hours. Sometimes the story rhythm changed, becoming inexorable:

“But then the tempter came. Ancient and sly was he. Rising from dark of caves. Mammoth with mighty feet. Furred like Behemoth he. Whispered in darkness, he. Telling the songfathers. How they might never die. If they would make the choice. Leaving beloved Breadh. Where even animals. Were kindred souls to us. Leaving behind our gods—”

“And the old men listened to the tempter,” interrupted Snark, anything to break that rhythm, that pounding.

Mother nodded, rocking back and forth, resuming the sweet motion Snark loved, like being cradled on the waves of the sounding sea: shush shush shush, to and fro. Mother sighed as she answered, not in story talk but as herself.

“The old men listened. They listened to sweet words and tempting promises. They bowed down before the tempter and called him the Gracious One. Gracious to them, indeed, for the price demanded was not paid by them but by the womenfolk. Godmongers have always found it easy to pay for their beliefs with women's lives.…

“So, they chose. Some of the people on Breadh said they would not do what the tempter ordered, they would
remain behind, on Breadh, but no one was allowed to remain. Even after they were taken to the new home, the faithful refused the new commandments. Though we pretended to follow them, it was in appearance only. In secret, generation after generation, we remembered the old ways and recited the old prayers.”

“For we are the faithful,” Laluzh/Snark said.

“We are the faithful, Laluzh-love. And faithful we remained, even when a traitor among us denounced us to the songfathers. Then we were reviled and persecuted, some of us were tortured and killed. We decided to run away, to go back the way our ancestors had come, to return to Breadh.”

“Many of us. Many, many of us!”

Mother didn't answer for a long time. There was only the
shush shush shush
of her garment on the floor as she rocked. Her face was wet when she spoke. “There were many of us who came to the gate. Enough of us to open that gate, for it is a heavy gate indeed, made of stone set upon stone. We were many as we came through that gate, but who knows if any came to Blessed Breadh. A few families of us ended here, and only Mother Darkness knows where the others ended.”