The Warrior Who Carried Life (18 page)

“Well, Galo,” she said, amused. “You did it, didn’t you?” she spoke clearly through the water, no bubbles garbling her words. Her lungs were full of water. She could not drown.

Galo pouted.

“I know this might seem somewhat extreme,” Cara continued, “but we had to find some way to make sure you could do no harm. I tried to find an interesting place for you. Are you comfortable?”

“No,” mouthed the Galu, silently in the water, and felt it wash, cooler, through his mouth and out through the opening of his neck, where his head had been severed. A small fish began to tug experimentally at his cheek. Cara brushed it away.

“Don’t worry about those,” she said. “We heal rapidly, us immortals.” She tapped her chest, where the hole had been. The armour too had healed.

“Go away,” mouthed Galo.

“Oh Galo, now, now. I’m here to keep you company. I thought you might be bored. I’ll visit you often.”

“Yuck,” mouthed the Galu, and stuck out his tongue.

“Then I’ll bring some of your brethren to you,” said Cara, more darkly. “You did us a very great favour, Galo. You showed us that the Flower is inexhaustible. Do you know what I think, Galo? I think the Serpent has been caught, himself. Secret Rose, every action is another. He thought he would use you and me to destroy the Flower. Instead, the Flower has used him, to set itself free in the world again. Humankind will be lost to him. He has lost, Galo.”

Galo sucked the small fish into his mouth and chewed it, vengefully. He squirted it out, cloudy remains and shreds of flesh, sideways at Cara.

Cara chuckled underwater. “Goodbye then, Galo. You’ll have all eternity in which to think, and a brain that will not age. You will come to some very interesting conclusions, I think.”

And I won’t be able to tell anyone about them
, thought the Galu in cold anger. He had loved words, and now he had lost them.

Cara let go of the trunk, and it rolled down the reef, making a clicking sound through the water as it struck the coral. She kicked her way farther up the reef, breaking the surface, dancing, floating as she walked. Bubbles marked her passage, twirling in the water, round and white like pearls.

Galo watched and listened for a very long time.

Culmination came swiftly, in winter, through snow. Snow fell over the South, like the Food of the Gods, in flakes. The people of the South had never seen snow before. It came at night, in a high wind, and some of them thought that the stars were falling. Overhead, the greatest of the stars seemed to be carried aloft, across the sky. Those who saw it felt their hearts leap up, unaccountably, and they saw, as if it were day, all the land around them, covered in white, that sparkled where the light hit it. Had the world changed forever?

Culmination came where no human eyes could see it, save for those of the warriors who had remained to serve the Galu. They were called the Loyal Dogs, encamped with their masters in the Most Important House, in the heart of the City from the Better Times.

Snow fell, shreds of cloud the warriors thought, and the strange cold, as unnerving as fear itself, had driven them inside. The beautiful songs of murder were played to soothe them, and they all sat together, all persuasions of warrior, in the main hall of the School of Angels. There were still flowers on the table, grown as always by the women in the garden of the School. Ravening birds had eaten the butterflies. Charcoal braziers smouldered, to keep the hall warm. Shadow Men played dominoes with the Men who Advance like Spiders. They tried to keep each other hearty, with murmured jokes and wine. Their women sat together, in postures of civility. They knitted, or dandled on their knees beautiful children from the villages, who had taken their fancy for a day or two. They dressed the children in the costumes of princes or gods or sailors. They treated them to sweetmeats and watered wine, until they had to pass them over, regretfully, to the kitchens to be killed. It was considered a delicate, harmless hobby for the wives of the warriors with such work to do.

At one table, the Masters of the Fighting Schools sat together, poring over maps, speaking in restrained voices, making marks. The villages beyond the marshes, outside the destruction made by the Fire, were being divided up and scheduled for extermination. The Galu would go in advance, and the Dogs would follow. The Dogs took a certain subdued pride in the work. The human race was to be superseded in an efficient, orderly fashion. Now that the armies of those who had deserted the Schools were destroyed—the Baked Men had been the least Loyal of all, and the Poison Man had led them—the work could proceed. The Loyal Dogs felt themselves to be instruments of a great change, part of a grand process that transcended their own feelings or scruples. It was a terrible struggle for them. Even the inarticulate Men who Cut Horses talked long into the night with the Angels, who felt it their duty to guide and advise.

The Loyal Dogs spoke of Heart. They meant the kind of courage it took to face the things they had to do. They raided villages upstream to collect women to do work. They collected the children, to eat. That took more Heart than anything else. The herding and killing of children was done in shifts to spread the unpleasant chore. To make sure they all had a hand in it.

They worshipped their masters, revelled in them. Trained, disciplined, taught to love war, they loved the power and the invincibility of the Galu. They danced for them, sang for them, tried to speak like them, dress like them. The Angel Warriors discarded their spotless white for purple. When the Galu ached to be hewn, their other selves heavy on their breasts, the Loyal Dogs killed them, and thought of their own glorious death that would come—by immolation, by the sword—when the work was done.

There was a tremendous sense of companionship among the warriors, the old boundaries between the Fighting Schools had been lowered in an effort to fill the black pits that would open up in their souls at night. They would cry out, then, and comfort each other. Helping each other across, it was called, and spoken of no more directly than that.

“We are the last,” the Angel Dogs intoned, “the last of humankind. We must behave with reason and with dignity. This is necessary, this thing that has happened. We must be sure that it is done swiftly, cleanly, with a minimum of trouble. It must be done with regret, with sorrow.”

So they sat, that winter’s night, trapped in the Angel hall, nervous, impatient, trying to keep their spirits up, trying not to hear the insinuations of the wind.

A warrior entered, a Shadow Man. He and his mechanical doubles stomped their feet and shook their heads to shake off the snow. Only his head was covered by a hood. Glancing self-consciously about him, he made his way as unobtrusively as possible to the table where the Master of his school sat.

“Salmu, Isshas. There is something,” he said.

“Yes, Capesi, yes,” said his Master, without looking up.

The man did not want to speak. “There is something. In the sky.”

“Yes, Capesi, we know. It is called snow.”

“It is a great light, Isshas. A great light.” He was murmuring now, thin-lipped. “Like a new star.”

“A new star. You have been draining the cup, Capesi!”

“No. It comes from the North, towards us. It is very close.”

“Well, let it come!”

“It is being carried by Asu Kweetar. The Wordy Beast. And two warriors. I could see them from a long way off.”

“The Wordy Beast! Did he talk to you, then?” an Angel said, leaning back on the bench, smiling.

“Yes,” said Capesi, quietly. There was a roar of laughter. “He said he was coming to destroy us.”

“You are frightened, Capesi,” chuckled his Master. “Come, come, we can’t have you frightened. We must send Asu Kweetar and his two masters away! Aye?” There was a murmur of assent. “Well? Up then!” roared the Master, and the warriors gave a boisterous yell, and leapt to their feet. Here at last was sport, in the long night.

Holes had been knocked through the walls between the Schools. The word spread quickly. “Ho, ho, Capesi,” the warriors teased. “There best be something in the sky after this!” They snatched arms from the storerooms and strode out into the night, hands on each other’s shoulders.

“Aiee!” they cried, and pointed, for the sky in the North was ablaze with light. The snow as it fell, gleamed with it, twinkled with sudden pinpricks of it. Snow was already gathering in drifts in the corners of the courtyard. The warriors scooped handfuls of it, and chased their women, who shrieked, and darted away, laughing. As a joke, they gave piggyback rides to the Baked Men, who laughed like idiot children. The Men who Fight like Turtles walked upright into the courtyard, balancing their armoured shells on their shoulder. The playful Spiders, who scorned their earthboundness, gleefully rang their shells like gongs.

“So where is Asu Kweetar?” smiled the Shadow Master. He was keeping close to Capesi; they would have great games with him, later.

“He is coming,” said Capesi. “I stood on the walls, and could see farther than from here.” He cast his eyes on the ground; there was one thing he could not bring himself to tell his Master. Capesi knew what the light was.

Then it was upon them. Silently, the white beast swept low over the walls. The warriors turned as it passed, cheering, because there would be a fight. Then they saw the Flower. Its light flashed on the snow, as if reflected from a thousand mirrors. They felt the light too, and the cheer went sour, and fell away. The light pierced the crystal water of the snow and broke into colours. The snow was like pieces of rainbow, and before they could call up a name for it, the Loyal Dogs knew from where the light had come.

“Lamps,” suggested one of them. “Lamps for the storm.” But no one said, yes, that was it.

They could hear the whistling of the great beast’s wings. They could see two warriors on its back. They saw something else, held in a net, but linked by filaments as well, that glowed. There were flowers, many flowers, linked by light.

“It
is
a Flower,” admitted one of them. “But that one is clear, not White.” There was a murmur of assent.

“There’s more than one there,” another corrected him. “There weren’t many Flowers.” He meant in the Book.

As suddenly as if she had been clubbed, a woman fell to her knees, covering her mouth, sobbing, mewing out words no one could understand. “Up, woman, up!” her husband shouted and tried hauling her to her feet.

“But there were! There were many Flowers,” she told him. “There were! On the Tree!”

The beast began to keen, like a great bird, and it circled, over the roofs, beating backwards with its giant wings, reaching down with its hind legs to land on the highest point of the Most Important House.

“On the temple! On the temple!” the woman wailed, for the temple had been neglected. She hid her head, and her husband stared ahead, silently. On her knees, she began to claw at the snow as if to hide.

Asu Kweetar settled on the roof of the ziggurat, where the Family were supposed to worship. The beast walked upright on its hind legs, striding the peak of the temple, giant wings held aloft, light in a white arc across them. Then the beast spoke, into their heads.

“Why?” it said. “Why did you choose to do this? Why did you choose to follow the Galu? I don’t understand how, or why?”

The Loyal Dogs found they did not know either. They were silent, watching.

“Was it fear? Was it worship of strength? What did it, when there is a God, and you can choose to believe, if you want to?” The beast held up one of the Flowers, with tendrils of fire, over its head.

“There grew a Tree in paradise,” the beast began. The Dogs groaned aloud. The words were from the One Book, and they knew what was coming next. “And the ancients called it the Tree of Life, and on that Tree, the Flowers grew . . .” The voice of the beast twisted with loss and longing and anger. “. . . until the Snake destroyed it. Now! Look!” The beast threw the Flower down.

The warriors on its back emptied their nets, in a tangle, and there was an avalanche of light on the roof of the temple, and with it, rumbling, came the sound of a great fall, a booming noise.

The sound gathered strength; the air and stone surrendered to it, and everything shook, the air and stone moving in waves, until something seemed to give, to split. The beast shrieked and whistled, beside itself with excitement, spinning round and round itself like a puppy, its tail lashing. There came a crackling from the fabric of the temple. Branches of light forked up from it, like lightning; roots forked down. Then, with a gentle rustling like leaves and a tinkling like thousands of icy bells, the Flowers rose up together onto the limbs of Life.

“The Tree! The Tree! The Tree!” screeched Asu Kweetar, leaping up and snapping.

The Tree stood, a blistering white in all its parts, branches and trunk, a young tree, heavy with blossom.

“Oh!” sighed the beast. “It shines.” The beast crouched low, quivering, its front legs outstretched. It circled one more time, and then settled, under the Tree. It laid its head on its paws and looked up at it.

“Can you hear its voice?” the beast asked, softly. “Like wind in the branches. Like rain on leaves. Can you hear what it says? It says that it’s come back. The Garden is restored, here. No more voices in the night. No more fear. It says there is time now. You don’t have to die.”

The beast fell silent, and everything was held in suspension. The snow fell hissing. Everything was white, illuminated, silver. The clouds overhead were silver, glistening, and the snow turned and twinkled like sequins, reflecting criss-cross shafts of light. The patterns of the crystals were illuminated, and could be seen. The air and the stone and the gusts of snow seemed as orderly as the streets of a city that have been planned. The Loyal Dogs stood silent too, not sure what they felt, not wanting to move.

Then came a sudden, hideous blare of noise: crude trumpets and bashing gongs and cymbals. Faint and far away, but harsh enough to break the peace, the music of the Masters.

The Dogs did not know what to do. They loved the Flower: should they take it? Should they defend it? They loved the Galu, loved their Masters. Should they defend them? The Dogs began to run. They ran in all directions, away from the temple, towards the temple, towards their barracks, or back and forth between them. Some grabbed the arms of their fleeing comrades, and spun them around to face them. “Fight! We fight!” they shouted, and their comrades only shook their heads, weeping. The light had made everything they had done poison. Some drew swords, and in a kind of blind panic, slew the deserters. Some suddenly stopped, as though weary, and stared. Others, full of bitterness, without quite realising it, turned, swords drawn and began to stumble towards the Flower, not sure if they wanted to destroy it or preserve it. They began to gather, in the scattering of the Dogs, like strands into a single thread.

“Go back!” wailed the beast in dismay. “Go back, you don’t understand! The Flower is yours by right, you don’t need to fight us for it, but you must get away from this place until our work is done!”

The discipline asserted itself. The Spiders recognised each other, and fell into their ranks. With a sudden dipping of the knees, they picked up their polished columns of metal, and began to jog with them, carrying them towards the Tree.

“No!” said the beast, pacing the temple. “Don’t be deceived, Dogs. We are prepared to fight you. We don’t want to, but we will. And if you try to take the Flower now, I can tell you that we have a dreadful, dreadful, unexpected ally. Go back!”

The Dogs still came. Their breath shot out from their nostrils, a blazing white, obscuring everything they saw, except for the Tree.

“Fools have no eyes! Fools have no ears!” wailed the beast.

Then it gave a snarl, and shook itself, and lowered its head. The two warriors on its back slipped down on to the roof of the temple. They stood beside the beast, a quarter of its height, both of them armoured, one in white metal, with a dome of armour over her swollen belly. Later, in the few songs that were sung and largely disbelieved, there was no telling which of the two was meant by the name Warrior who Carried Life.

Cara stood on the top of the temple, and the light of the Flower was like a beam through her eyes that she could train. She could see the Loyal Dogs as they surged into the square; she could almost count them: too many, too many to hold back for long. The Spiders planted four towers around the temple. Clawed buttresses bit into the pavement and gripped, and the towers rose with a sound like flutes, one section telescoping out of another. The Turtles, who fight with patience, crouched under their shells to wait. The rest of the Dogs charged up the ramp. It was the only way to surmount the seven giant levels of the ziggurat. It was smooth, clad in limestone, with no steps, forty times the height of a man. Cara saw leather-soled sandals flattening the snow, polishing it.