The Warrior Who Carried Life (16 page)

It was night. Over Hapira Izamu Pa, no light from lamps or celebration fires was reflected on the low clouds. The City from the Better Times was silent and dark. The land all around it was black, with smoke rippling up in thin trails from mounds of ash. The reeds were gone from along the banks of the river and marshland. So were the floating villages that had hidden within them. Ash floated on the water. Bodies of men were splayed on the banks, bleached and swollen.

In the light of the Flower, those bodies began to stir, to shudder and sigh.

“How?” wondered Cara in dismay. “It has only been a season, from the end of summer to the end of autumn, how could they do so much evil?”

“There are many more of them than you think, and they have many more powers than you think, almost as many as you. Their time is ripe. They are about to march. They know you are coming. Do you want me to come with you?” Asu Kweetar stood on the tips of the claws of his hind legs, trembling, wings aloft, holding himself aloof from the ground. He lived at the Top of the World, where everything was made of ice and air.

“No,” said Cara, scowling. “No. It is better that you keep the Flower safe until we know. Stef?”

“I come with you,” said Stefile firmly.

“Then pick your way carefully to the gate, and beyond,” said the beast. “Beware of serpents and flies. They are the servants of the Galu, and live in their throats and ears. It causes me distress, as if a cub has died, that I cannot answer your most important question. But not even the Galu themselves know the answer to that. I will be near, and know when you need me, and return.”

“Thanks. Our thanks,” said Cara.

“I am a beast. I have no choice. I do not need thanks,” replied Asu Kweetar.

“We have need to give them,” said Stefile.

Asu Kweetar turned, the Flower shining through his front claws. He ran a few steps only, on his hind legs, and launched himself powerfully into the air. He hung there, legs drawn up, his wings beating, billows of ash mushrooming up around him. Slowly he began to rise, then faster, almost straight up, the Flower shining out through his back, as if it were a glowing heart. It seemed to rejoin the stars.

The blistered bodies on the bank fell still, covered in darkness. Cara and Stefile took each other’s hand, and walked across the ruined earth.

Underfoot there was a grinding of ash and bone. Tiny, harmless creatures, hamsters and hedgehogs and ground squirrels lay smouldering. Where grass had been, puffs of soft grey ash spurted out from under their boots.

In front of the City gates was a crowd of people, raised up in a mound where they had fallen. Their arms, light and crisp, were still pushing against the gates, melded to the wood, as if admittance to the City could have saved them. The gates themselves were charcoal, and gnawed away completely along the top by fire. The tiles of the walls had gone yellow, or black, or had finally fallen. The tips of someone’s fingers still burned like candles, with a blue flame.

Cara and Stefile had to march up and over the dead, to the gates, their legs suddenly sinking through layers of matted cloth. They too pushed against the gates, grinding the charcoal first onto their hands, and then onto their shoulders. There was a screeching of metal as the hinges broke away from the heat-crumbled stone, and there was a shower of mortar. “Get back!” shouted Cara. The gates began to fall inward.

Behind the gates, more of the dead were heaped into another pyre that was smaller, more thoroughly consumed than the first. The gates fell on it, balanced on it like a see-saw, the bottom edge rearing up into the air, scooping up Cara and Stefile, throwing them from their feet. The gates fell, and rose again, like a sigh, the bindings that held the logs bursting. The great cedar trunks settled separately, cushioned by the dead, with a muffled rumble and belchings of ash.

Cara and Stefile lay still for a moment. The logs covered the inward mound of bodies like a ramp. Unsteadily they stood, and walked down it, through the silence, into what was left of the Better Times.

It was like a city on the moon. Soft dust covered everything. The buildings were dark, without doors. Nothing moved. They waded through the dust, through what had once been the main market square. In the tiny, domed shops that lined it, the fabled wares of the merchants remained, as if in bitter caricature. The famous glass had burst apart in a shower of icy slivers that glittered in a glimpse of moonlight. The metalwork had melted and warped. The brass statue of a girl was still lithe and graceful in form, though burned rough, her copper robes an exfoliating, creamy green. Loaves of bread and cake were lined up in the ash, the shelves underneath them having burnt completely away. The trellis work that sheltered the market, from which passersby could pick grapes (always mindful, lately, of the serpents) had utterly disappeared. Cara and Stefile came upon the remains of a horse, still standing in front of a collapsed cart. All the water in its body had boiled away; its flesh was brittle and latticed.

“The Spell of Fire,” said Cara, standing before the horse. “The first and simplest of the spells.” She began to weep. “They used it, Stef. Used it to burn everything. The air. The birds would have fallen, burning. There would be no air to breathe; a great wind would blow through the streets. The soil itself would turn to ash. Basements into ovens, flesh into bread. There will be a great scar, Stef, even in the Land of the Dead.” They left the horse, no ears, its eyes as hollow as a sad question, waiting as if life or its master could return to it.

Cara and Stefile walked on into the streets where people had lived. There were ghostly rooms in the houses, with blackened tables that could barely balance upright, with cracked and yellow plates still waiting for dinner. There were burnt beds, with children still asleep in them. A woman, like a loaf of black sugar, huddled over a bundle to protect it. A dog had lain next to a man, peacefully it seemed, its head on its paws. The air was sharp and bitter, and there was grit between Cara’s and Stefile’s teeth.

Beyond the mud brick houses of the ordinary people were the houses of the rich, with many floors on wooden beams, that had fallen in. Cara and Stefile had to climb over piles of broken stone that had sprawled across the streets. In places only the corners, and the stalwart chimneys still stood.

They came to the common ground. The beautiful trees had been burnt into coral shapes. The grass was gone, only dust was left. A goat, still enchained, lay bald and half buried in a drift of it. In the centre of the square was a long low building with royal crenellations along its roof.

“The Library,” groaned Cara. “Oh, Stef. The Library.”

They walked over dunes of ash towards it. The Library had belonged to the greatest of the ancient kings, who had given it and its parklands to the City. Its door had been burned through in its middle. The doorkeeper sat in his box, one shoulder wrenched above his ear, his lips burnt into a perpetual smile. Beyond him, in a corridor, a Librarian lay face down, a bucket in his hand with the bottom burnt through. The scrolls of the kings were gone, the wonder stories and the sacred texts. Their silver caps lay scattered about the floor, half eaten away. There were no shelves left, anywhere, in any of the chambers. The clay tablets lay in rows, like dominoes, some of them shattered, others baked into a smooth, almost glazed-looking brick. Cara knelt before one of them, and picked it up. It was still warm.

“Perception in his heart, command on his lips,” the tablet said. “The river arises from the grotto under his sandals. His soul is Mu, his heart is called Tefmut. He is Hakarati, who is in heaven. His right eye is day, his left eye is night. The warmth of him is breath for every nostril . . .”

The tablet was not complete. Was it reciting the praises of a king? Or the praises of a God? Who would now know? Cara thought of all the patient labour that had evaporated in the flame, all the names and history that were now lost. The Better Times. Cara tried to imagine the stones freshly cut, white and clean, and the king, proud of his gift, full of faith in the future, in his purple, tasselled robes, and oiled hair. Lives rising and falling like the tide. And were they all wasted?

Carefully, Cara laid the tablet down in the dust. “Come on,” she sighed, and grunted, as if with the effort of standing.

Outside, on the steps, Cara howled. “Galu! Galo gro Galu! There is something in your City that still lives! Galo! Here we are! gro Galu! Worm!”

The echoes rolled away, all the way to the high, blank walls of the Most Important House. No answer came. There was a well in front of the Library, in the grove of small trees shaped now like arthritic hands. “This is a good place to wait,” said Cara. She dropped a stone down the well. It had boiled completely dry, and all the way down it, the stone rattled. Like a serpent.

There was a silvery laugh.

“No need to shout, Cara. I’ve been here all along,” said a voice that seemed to come sideways, out of the shadows, and out of the shadows, sideways, stepped Galo gro Galu, sauntering through currents of dust about his feet. “You have become so clearly visible, Cara. I would have thought that put you in danger.” There was a clinking of spurs.

“Hello, Galo.” Cara found that she was smiling. Cara was not afraid, or startled, in the least. She felt something akin to amusement and pity. The Galu looked ridiculous, small and frail, naked again, smudged over with ash, like an urchin, streaks of it where his fingers had rubbed his face and belly. He smiled his horrible smile. His teeth had always been the colour of ash.

“Oh Cara, I’m so glad you remember. I like things to be personal. Our last meeting was so quick and abrupt. I’d like this one to be longer. I’d like to talk.”

Cara laughed at him, shaking her head, leaning against the well. “Would you?”

“We know about the Flower, Cara.”

“Do you know what it will do to you?”

“No. Neither do you. I think that is why you are here?” The Galu laughed, darkly, and turned away as if in scorn. “Do you like my City, Cara? Isn’t it calm, isn’t it still? When the gods destroyed the world the first time, in the Flood, it was because humankind made so much noise the gods could not sleep. They said the next time would be by fire.”

“And the gods restored humankind because they found there was no one left to do the world’s work. Who will work for you, Galo?”

“Oh. The unlucky ones who are left. Have you seen my new carrier, Cara, Cal Cara?” The Galu twitched reins in his hand, and made a wittering noise. “Here boy, come on, don’t be shy. You know, Cara.”

The human bearer of the Galu shambled into the moonlight, moving in a series of jerks. “I’m afraid he’s not much use as a trainer now,” said Galo, and chuckled.

It was Galad. Eyes wide and stupid and uncomprehending, he worked a metal mouthpiece in his teeth, trying to spit it out. The top of his head was gone. Without another thought, without a cry, Cara stepped forward and slammed her sword into Galad’s neck, the practised stroke, cutting the vital cord, and Galad fell, back into the shadow.

“May the two halves of your soul be reunited, Galad,” Cara prayed, kneeling beside him. “Take my love with you into death, if you have no one else’s.”

The Galu thrust his head next to Cara’s. “We did it because of you, Cara.” Cara flung him from her, against the well. “You’re not smiling, now,” the Galu said, in a silken voice. “Not smiling at all. Do you feel rage, Cara?” He draped himself along the edge of the well. “Look at me. I have no sword. You could start there, and work your way up.” The Galu traced the line, delicately, with his finger. “Or have you forgotten violence?”

“No,” said Cara, grimly. “I remember it.”

“Yes, but you know, don’t you.” The Galu sat up in disappointment. “They all learn, and lose heart, poor dears. Oh not you, Cara, you haven’t lost heart, far from it. But the others. Faced with something they can’t kill, they do not know what to do. Without murder, humankind becomes as tame and confused as sheep. Make no mistake, Cara, all of this, all those Better Times. They were built on murder, or the threat of it. All those great, benign-looking statues, with their great, smug, greasy smiles. They were meant to frighten, meant to bully. Awful, noisy, seething, bloody creatures, Cara. I don’t know why you want to help them. Seeing that you are what you’ve become.” The Galu chuckled. “You are much more like us, now, do you know, Cara? Much calmer, much quieter, altogether less anxious. Even Dirty Little One Dress here. Such a change.”

“Why,” demanded Cara, “did you burn the City.”

“Oh, it was
time
,” said the Galu. “Time to burn it, Cara. These people. They had lived long enough in their decaying comfort. Blister them clean, silence them, bring stillness and peace.”

“How did they discover what you are?”

“Oh,” said Galo, airily. “No reason you shouldn’t know, I suppose. There was a revolt. The warriors came to the House, to kill us, in the ancient way. Some of the warriors. Some of them were loyal to us.” A sudden thought lit up the Galu’s eyes. “Oh yes! Haliki! That was
very
good! Which one of you killed Haliki, the Prince of the Angels?”

“I did,” replied Stefile, and the Galu clapped his hands, and roared with laughter.

“Oh, I thought so! How delicious! Oh, he deserved it, that rigid-backed little prig. Did he know? Did you tell him it was you?”

“Yes.”

The Galu’s laugh was low and insinuating. “You must have had our Father for an inspirator.”

“The warriors revolted,” said Cara, calmly. “And then?”

“Oh, yes, you’re supposed to be drawing me out, aren’t you. Well they killed us. They were rather surprised at how many of us there were. Three hundred and thirty. Roughly. Three hundred murders all at once, cut after cut, metal sliding through us lubricated with blood, slippering about our intestines, slicing our hearts so that they shuddered to a halt. We laughed at them, laughed in their faces. You should have seen their faces! You thought there were only fourteen of us, didn’t you, Cara, fourteen in the Family. Well on that day, there were fifty-four of me alone. Fifty-four Sons of the Family. Do you know how many of us think of you as a kind of grandparent? We have a great deal of affection for you, Cara. Oh, but I must tell you this! They left us to rot on the stone, and the next day there was a thousand of us. And do you know what they did? They did it again! They actually did it again!” The Galu spun on his heel with glee. “They had to use gardening scythes because there were not enough swords. And a rich harvest they had of it, my love!” the Galu hopped up on the well wall and did a little dance. “They made three thousand of us, Cara. Three thousand! What are you going to do about that, eh? How will you save them from that!” He shook his fists with delight. “We burnt this place because we are
done
with it. We are about to march, Cara, upriver, across the mountains, over the seas, killing and being, luxuriously, killed. Broad-limbed, handsome young farmers will take their axes to us. And after we have manipulated them into interesting shapes, their sweet young wives will be made murderesses, taking blessed revenge. Then the land will be burnt free of them, and we will move on. Oh, but none of them will be like you, Cara.” The Galu jumped down from the well, and pressed his face close up against Cara’s. “It is as personal to be brought to life by hatred, as by love.”