The Margarets (15 page)

From the courtyard the alley gate gave access to one of the twisting, narrow streets that tunneled toward the pleasure quarter. I walked
freely, as might any one of the various races who thronged the area, four or five different sexes, some who had no gender at all, some bond, some free. Half a hundred eating houses were scattered on the near edge of the quarter, serving the foods of a hundred planets, several of them not only edible by humans and K’Vasti but deliciously so. Eating was my first intention. I would enter the quarter after I had eaten, but only as a last resort, if I could not come up with something to share with it in any other way.

Ahead of me, back against the wall, a Hrass huddled, the way they did, always appearing frightened to death. Possibly with good reason. Moved by an inexplicable urge, I went to stand behind it.

“You are Hrass,” I said in the creature’s own tongue.

“Soooo,” it replied, noncommittal.

I shifted to the K’Vasti dialect. “Can you understand me?”

“Soooo!” An affirmative.

“I have something to tell the Hrass. Earlier this year, Draug B’lanjo of the K’famir killed the Omniont Ambassador. He sent the body to the Omnionts, saying the Hrass had done the killing. Draug B’lanjo did this because he wants to take over the Hrass shipping routes.”

I turned on my heel and left him. If he talked to the wrong people, they would be looking for a K’vasti. Therefore, I must remember to burn the K’vasti prosthesis as soon as I got home, but not before, for the sharing had to be done every night before midnight, and today had produced nothing usable: no new scandals murmured across my bowed head, no crimes of violence or passion described while I stitched. No corruption uncovered or pretenses betrayed while I listened. So far as Bak-Zandig-g’Shadup was concerned, today might almost have been Eden, and therefore useless to me. Any daytime Eden had to be followed by a nighttime hell, with me doing as Adille had once done: walking the pain path, the horror road, the tortuous routes toward the terrible.

The thing fed on blood, pain, and death. If it knew where these things were, or would be, it would send me there. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, it would squeeze me, tighter and tighter, until I could not breathe, bringing me to the very edge of suffocation, in order to relish my panic.

“Miss Ongamar, are you quite all right?” Lady Ephedra would ask.

“Oh, quite, Lady Ephedra. A spasm of indigestion, I think. Nothing severe.”

“You looked quite ashen there for a moment. Would you like to go home?”

I could not afford to lose a day’s allowance, as Ephedra Mouselline knew very well. The words seemed kind, but the intent was unmistakably minatory, and the thing relished this as well.

In those short times, each day when I was not at the command of it or Lady Ephedra, I sometimes thought of my own life and future. The time would come when my years of bondage were completed. Release from the thing was probably not possible after so long a time, but as my time of release approached, if I could encounter someone human or Gentheran, I could warn them. I had seen humans and Gentherans in the pleasure quarter. They were always closely watched by steel-helmeted security officers. I could not legitimately speak to a human as a bondslave, but I could, perhaps, as a K’Vasti, assuming my disguise would fool the officers.

If such an opportunity ever came, I would not ask for help for myself. I was as guilty as the worst of those I had observed. I knew that purposeful watching was in every respect as evil as the torture itself. Peering into the darkness of pain was the equivalent of inflicting pain. Watching torture was the equivalent of agreeing to torment. Making a spectacle of it was equivalent to doing the torture oneself. Yes. Whether the torture was real or only apparent, the watcher was guilty, for the watcher chose to see it, thereby creating an appetite. My pursuit of agony made me as heinous and depraved as those who committed it. No matter that I did it to save my life, or perhaps only continue what passed for my life, it was evil.

It would be better for me to kill myself than to continue as I was. Of all the choices I might make, that was the only good one, and I was determined to take the thing with me when I did it. I did not have the right to leave life with this duty unperformed, but I would hang on only until I could warn someone.

One evening, as we sat on the porch of the Gardener’s house, watching the Gibbekot playing with Sophia, I wondered aloud what had happened to Benjamin Finesilver, her father.

The Gardener shook her head slowly and sadly. “You know that Mariah expected her father to send a doctor from the city of Bray. D’Lorn had hired a guide, a man named Bogge, who actually knew the way here, but shortly before the doctor was due to leave Bray, Benjamin Finesilver arrived at Stentor d’Lorn’s door. His carriage contained Mariah’s body, wrapped in cerements.

“Benjamin was sobbing, Stentor was blind with fury. Had Benjamin not been so obviously torn by grief, Stentor would likely have killed him on the spot.

“‘Was there no help for her?’ Stentor cried out.

“‘Only the Gardener,’ said Benjamin.

“‘The WHAT?’ demanded Stentor.

“‘The…local wisewoman, midwife kind of person,’ Benjamin said. ‘Everyone told Mariah to go to her, but Mariah wouldn’t go. She said you were sending a doctor from Bray…’

“‘And what had this woman to say?’

“Benjamin looked up, confused. ‘To say? Nothing. Mariah never went to her.’

“‘Wasn’t she summoned when Mariah was giving birth?’

“‘The Gardener can’t be summoned, sir. She is not…not a mere person. One has to go to the Gardener, not the other way round.’” The Gardener fell silent, her eyes following Sophia.

“I am surprised Benjamin knew that much,” I said.

“I doubt that Benjamin did know it until after Mariah was dead. Certainly it was more than Stentor could accept,” said the Gardener. “Benjamin tried to explain that the women of the town had tried their best, but Mariah would not take their advice. Then Stentor asked about the child. Benjamin had no more wit than to say, ‘I did not wish to endanger a newborn upon the road, so I left her in safety with the Gardener, sir…’

“And that was the end of Benjamin Finesilver, Gretamara. His departure from life went unnoticed save by several faithful and tongueless servants of Stentor d’Lorn who were ordered to see him on his way. The following day, while Stentor was locked in his chambers, raging with grief, Bogge, the wanderer he had hired to take the doctor to Swylet, came to the palace and was turned away by the gateman. ‘He doesn’t need you to take the doctor. It’s too late for the doctor. His daughter’s body has already been placed in the tomb of her family.’

“Bogge was uncertain what propriety demanded of him in such a case. ‘Should I speak with the Lord? I have already spent some of the money he paid me…’

“‘If I were you, I’d stay away for a time,’ said the gateman. ‘Likely the Lord doesn’t want to be reminded of it. As for the money, it was probably little enough. I’ll tell him you came and offered.’

“And so the gateman did, sometime later, after Bogge had departed for some other place. Only then did Stentor d’Lorn realize the consequences of his haste in disposing of his daughter’s husband. Benjamin would have known the way to Swylet. Bogge had claimed to know the way, but the gateman knew neither where Bogge had gone nor when he would return. None of the wanderers currently in Bray knew of Swylet or Bogge.

“Since that time, Stentor has sent his agents here and there in fruitless searches for a mountain place known as Swylet. The name does not appear on any map known to the archivists; it is not mentioned in any account cited by explorers-cum-amateur-geographers.”

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“I was there,” said the Gardener. “I needed to know, for Sophia’s sake, and I could not know truly unless I was there.”

“You could not know what he was thinking?” I asked.

The Gardener shook her head. “Except as his actions betrayed his thought, no. Almost all humans are at least partly my people, but not he. He is as dark to me as a K’Famir or a Frossian. I do not know what he thinks or feels, but I know he has not given up the search. He has willed everything to his granddaughter, setting aside only a sizable reward for whatever person shall return her to Bray.”

I shivered at the fate of Sophia’s father and the darkness that dwelt within her grandfather, and I thought it was as well that only the Gardener and I knew where the heiress of Bray might be found.

When I was taken for life-service, the Escort helped me aboard a small flier and directed me to take the seat nearest the single window.

“Flown before, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, first time is always memorable. From that seat you’ll get a good long look at Thairy from the route we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” I wondered, as the words left my lips, if I was even allowed to ask questions.

“Academy,” the Escort replied. “You’re being taken directly to the academy at Point Zibit. That’s across Gentheren country from here. You ever met a Gentheren?”

“No, sir.”

The man laughed. “Well, of course not, and neither have I, nor are we likely to. You just settle yourself back there. If you start to feel sick to your stomach, tell me right away.”

“Yes, sir.”

The flier went gently upward, the Escort glancing back occasionally to see whether I was going to be all right or not. Not that he’d hold it against me if I wasn’t, but I supposed washing out the flier wasn’t one of his favorite ways to end the working day.

I amazed myself by feeling exhilarated. Excited, in a nice way, and eager to look down on Bright, so tiny, like the little toy village I remembered having…no, seeing somewhere. No, it was one I’d imagined, when I was a child. Strange. I didn’t really remember having it, just…knowing about it. The toy village moved away from beneath us as we followed the road, the one I had never followed farther than the quick route to the swimming hole. It wound over little hills, past tiny farms with toy barns, and as we climbed higher, whitish dots appeared in the fields. Cows, maybe, though they seemed too large. After a while the road began to twist back and forth like a serpent, we went steeply upward, and I was looking down on mountains. Every now and then a house roof winked sun in my eye or a stretch of narrow river glinted silver amid the endless carpet of trees.

We went higher yet, crossing a great cracked slab of red cliffs onto a tableland even more thickly forested than below. There the trees were interrupted by wide streams, sizable lakes and towns where piers thrust out into the water. Suddenly there was only water. What I’d seen earlier hadn’t been lakes at all. They’d been…inlets, that’s all, inlets. This was the lake. Or maybe it was a sea. Only seas weren’t high up, like this. Seas were down in bottomlands.

“The Upland Sea,” said the Escort. “Impressive, isn’t it. This mesa is huge, the size of a continent, and it’s higher at the edges than in the middle. They say it’s what’s left of a caldera, the edges are the rim-rock, the middle had a lot of ashes in it. Water filled it up, then ate waterfalls down the edges, washed out some of the ash after every rain, every snow, gradually wore it down to where it is now. Gentheren country. There’s the city.”

He turned the flier on its side, so I could look down. A city made of glass and trees, a wide grove of trees, monumentally tall and joined together with spider silk bridges and canopies.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Can we go closer?”

The Escort laughed. “If you want to be shot out of the sky, maybe. We’re as low as we’re allowed to be.”

“They don’t let you land there?”

“I told you, it’s Gentheren country. Humankind stay off. Entry by invitation only.”

“I thought Thairy was a human colony,” I protested. “They told me in school it was.”

“It’s a human colony, down below, off the mesa. Plenty of room down there. The Gentherens don’t bother us, and we don’t need to bother the Gentherens.”

Soon the city was behind us, though the forested height went on for hours. I yawned, stretched, yawned again, fell into a doze. Later I woke and looked down to see the far edge of the continental mesa approaching. On this side it ended abruptly in a sheer cascade of black stone that flowed all the way down to the sea.

There, on the narrow shore between precipice and beach, was a town, a ribbon city only two or three streets wide but endlessly long. Directly below us, a hook of land extended into the sea, a curving extrusion covered with walls, squared-off fields, streets, structures, all of them as rigidly angled and paralleled as ruled lines.

The Escort pointed down. “Fort Point Zibit.”

“The academy?”

“Right. Now, Naumi, that’s your name, right? Naumi, I’m going to let you in on a secret. When you get there, some snotty cadet is going to ask you your name. You say, ‘Naumi on X, sir.’ The joke is, while you’re on Academy grounds, you’re ‘on X-zibit.’ That’s because the upperclassmen watch everything the younger ones do and the officers watch the upperclassmen. Every cadet is somebody on exhibit.”

“That’s silly,” said I, flushing.

“Well, do it or don’t do it,” said the Escort. “But if you don’t, you’ll wish you had. Weathereye said you had louts back there in Bright.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Naumi, there’s louts here, too. The difference is, these louts have to play by rules, but sometimes they make the rules, and they can lout you to death if you don’t play by the same rules they do, silly and otherwise. I’m telling you this because that friend of yours, Weathereye, asked me to.”

The flier landed on a strip of paving by the sea, and when I stepped down onto it, the sun made a glittering road of light stretching from the sea edge at my feet to the great orange orb hanging only a finger’s width above the ruled rim of the horizon. I had left in the
morning, without breakfast. I had come all the way west to the sea, and now I was hungry. It had been a long day.

“You Noomi?” called a voice from beyond the fence.

I started to say yes, then stopped. The person there had an unmistakably loutish look to him. I picked up my light pack and plodded across the yard until I was only an arm’s length away.

“Nah-ow-me on Ex,” I said very quietly.

“What kinna name’s that?” the stranger asked.

“Any kind at all,” said I.

“Well, I don’t like it,” said the other. “I think I’ll rename you noomi. That’s a kind of worm.”

“That could work both ways,” I offered, with a level stare into the other’s eyes. “Them as names, get named.”

“Grangel!” someone yelled. “Quit slopping about and bring the new cadet over here.”

Grangel turned slightly red and spun on his heel. “Yes, sir,” he called, then, over his shoulder, “This way, noomi.”

I followed him at a sufficient distance to avoid being either tripped or elbowed. As we approached, the uniformed officer at the controls of the hovercar got out and stood erect. Though I was untutored in what might be expected, Mr. Weathereye had always said that civility could not possibly be resented by any civilized person; that if resentment were offered, it was a sure sign of loutdom.

“Naumi Rastarong, sir,” I said, bowing slightly.

“Welcome, cadet,” said the officer. “I’m Captain Orley. Pile yourself in the back there. You’ve had a long trip, and I imagine you’re hungry.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, salivating. “Very.”

“Then we’ll leave the civilities for another time. Grangel, you have post duty this shift.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well then, I’ll let you go on over to the gate. No need to go all the way back into the Point, then turn around and come back. You did have early mess?”

“Yes, sir,” grudgingly.

Grangel was left to plodding while I was whisked, the captain giving a running commentary as we went. “These are the main
gates. Post duty is guard duty, standing watch at the gates. All cadets do it sometimes, but most of the time it’s done by what we call black-checkers, those who accumulate black checks on their record for fighting, harassing, disobeying orders, or showing disrespect to officers.”

The gates fled by, huge stone pillars flanking metal grilles on wheels—open—and half a dozen statue-stiff cadets standing guard. “Sometimes the black-checkers get tired of being idiots and shape up. Sometimes they get tired of being punished for being idiots and quit. We don’t care which, quite frankly. Too many cadets are children of privilege who think we’re here to serve them instead of the other way round. I know you’re not, so I can say this without fear you’ll quote me to your parents.” The vehicle turned into a wide street that ran straight toward the sea. “This street is called The Parade. That’s the armory to your right, to your left is the officers’ residence, then the officers’ dining room. Right is the cadet mess. That means dining room, too, but officers get to use fancier words. Same food, both places. Now, that’s First Cadet Row going off to the right, men’s and women’s houses on the left, classrooms on the right. Four streets, First Row for first years, Second Row for second years, and so on.”

By the time we reached the fourth street, I could see that it was shorter by far. “Not as many fourth-year cadets, sir?”

“Not so many, no. The big break comes at the end of years one and two. Most everyone who gets into third year goes on to finish, including some of those children of privilege I mentioned earlier. People send their children here because they can’t do anything with them, then they act surprised when we can’t either—though not as surprised as we are when we can do something with them. Off to the left are the sports fields. You like sports.”

“Not much, sir. I’m better at other things.”

“What things would those be?”

“Battle games, sir. And academics.” This was Mr. Weathereye’s word. Mr. Wyncamp just called it schooling, but this place seemed to call for Weathereye kind of language.

“That’s interesting,” said the captain. “A word of advice, if I may.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Pick some sport, don’t care what. Something you hate the least,
maybe. Claim it. Make that yours. It’s useful to have while you’re here. Something you can do in the games for your Row or your House, whether it does you any good or not. Understand?”

“Swimming, sir?”

“Of course, swimming. You like that?”

“I’m fairly good at it, sir. And mountain climbing.”

“When you say mountain climbing…”

“Cliffs, sir. Straight-up places. Places other people don’t usually go.”

“Hmmm,” said the captain, swerving the vehicle to head back the way we had come. Outside the cadets’ mess, he beckoned to a tall, bearded fellow who was lounging by the steps and called, “Sergeant Orson. Here’s the one you’ve been expecting.” Then, to me, “Sergeant Orson is a good man. Pay attention to him. Tell him your troubles, if you have any. If you don’t, tell him you don’t. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, Captain Orley.”

Then I was standing on the roadside, smelling food as the man approaching me grew larger with every step until he loomed like a tree. “Cadet Naumi,” he purred from a truly overwhelming loftiness. “Welcome to Point Zibit.”

The seventh morning after my arrival, the sixty male and female residents of Houses 4A and 4B ran up the side of a mountain. I was accustomed to running, though not on an uphill track. Still, I acquitted myself fairly well, coming over the last rise and down into the final clearing slightly ahead of the middle of the pack. Stamina, Mr. Weathereye had always told me, is half attitude and half practice. I had the attitude, and the practice would no doubt come.

Sergeant Orson stood at the entrance to the clearing, pointing across it to the large commissary wagon, already thronged by earlier arrivals. I joined them, noting the wide choice of foods, including several things I would eat only if I were starving. I took a modest plateful of the tastier stuff and wandered about the clearing as I ate it.

East of the wagon, a section of cliff had fallen to create a vast pile of scree. Behind the wagon, north, the road continued upward along the cliffs, separated only by a narrow strip of sloped woodland from the seaward precipice to the west. The south side of the clearing held the road we’d come in by, as well as a picket line where
eight huge horses were tied. As I passed, I stroked all eight enormous soft noses and leaned my head against one or two huge, silver-maned shoulders. The horses’ feet were feathered with brushes of silver hair above hooves as big as dinner plates.

Grangel, the cadet who had renamed me Noomi and whose cronies had helped in making it a universal term of ridicule, dragged in close to last. He was loud in his outcries of displeasure at the food choices left for the laggards until Sergeant Orson silenced him and climbed into the wagon bed, calling for attention. Reading from a prepared list, he divided our group into teams of six and told us we could take a short rest, after which we were to collect stones from the scree along the base of the cliffs and use them to construct drystone walls “this long…” displaying lengths of cord, “…and this high…” displaying shorter ones, “…in the areas already staked out west of the road.

“I’m going back to Zibit with the wagon,” he cried. “We’ll return with your supper about sunset. Have the walls done by then.”

The hostler and the sergeant busied themselves stowing the mess wagon and hitching the team. I, who had decided it would do no harm to get a good look at everything, picked up two measuring cords from where they’d been dropped, strolled over to the staked area, and looked it over, then walked over to the edge of the scree and looked carefully at the stones there. What seemed at first glance to be a mountain of raw material would actually yield a much smaller volume of usefully flat and stackable rock. A much better selection of flattish stones lay above my head to the left, where a narrow shelf extended above and along the upward road. What stones had collapsed there had not fallen as far, and less stone had fallen on top of them, making them less splintered than most, though the shelf would take some climbing to get to. On my way back, I saw the hostler remove a number of shovels from the wagon and lay them under the thorny growth at the foot of the trees, where they were easily visible to anyone who was using his or her eyes.

I returned my plate to the wagon and sat for a few minutes, taking deep breaths. Sergeant Orson bellowed at us to start work, and the horse-drawn vehicle rolled slowly away down the hill. I stared after it, feeling the rumble of those wheels up through my feet and legs. We
had flown over the high mesa to Zibit in a flier. The officer who met me had used a floater. The obviously heavy commissary wagon was drawn, however, by eight huge horses. All very interesting.