Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (3 page)

Teodorq shrugged. "I always figgered it meant a 'heap' or 'hoard.'"

"So what do your people mean when they say 'Commonwealth of Suns'?"

"We don't. I never heard of it before Sammi and me met Jamly-the-ghost."

Teodorq saw no harm in recounting the tale, in which he thought he came off rather well, and so he told how he and Sammi had independently discovered the ruins of
Shuttle Starbright–17
out in the western marches of the shortgrass prairie.

"Except stupid plainsman find place by accident," said Sammi, "while I hear sodbuster stories, track it down."

Teodorq ignored the jibe. "It matters not how a man may come to a place. What matters is how he leaves it. The
shuttle
was a house within a hill. It had come to grief so long ago that the soil and grass grew thick on its back and sides and only through a narrow cleft could a brave man gain access." He paused and added, "Being the braver man, I went first inside."

Sammi added, "Being smarter man, I let him." The princess laughed.

"Someone must go first of all," Teodorq said, "and best that man be one that others would follow. Inside, we found all a ruin. Dust layered thick on the floors; plants and creeping things encroached within, and among them lay the scattered bones of those who had gone before us. But did Teodorq sunna Nagarajan turn back?"

"Not when Sammi of Eagle-clan stand behind, blocking way."

"Very strange was that house-within-thehill. Passages led forward, led right, led left;
and even led up and down,
as if a man might stride level in every direction. Then, seeing the bravery of Teodorq and his stalwart companion, the headman of the
shuttle
summoned them to her council chamber. This was Jamly-the-ghost."

"Ghosts," said the princess, "are more talked of than seen."

"Duh," said Teodorq, "they're invisible? But Jamly, as I came to understand, was somehow a portrait. Ay! What man may understand how a drawing might move or speak? Even Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand does not know this, but rests content that this one drawing did so. Jamly then recounted old deeds. She told how the countless sky-wagons called the
Treasure Fleet
came to World and founded the great villages of Iabran and Varucciyamen—which, by the way, do you know where them places are?"

The graybeard shook his head. "The names are unknown to me."

The princess said, "Faerie tales."

Teodorq inclined his head. "Yuh may be right, babe, for Jamly appeared, floated in the air, and disappeared. A faerie tale told by an old wet nurse may be disregarded; but a faerie tale told by a genuine faerie carries some weight.

"Now, in the course of building their villages, the starmen were discovered and attacked by their great enemy, the People of Sand and Iron. In the battle that followed, the starmen were victorious, but their wagons were destroyed and
Shuttle Starbright–17
fell to earth, killing all aboard save Jamly-theghost."

"Ghosts already dead," Sammi pointed out. "Can't die twice."

Teodorq shrugged. "As may be. Jamly has awaited succor from her people for more years than a man may count even with a pebble jar. Concluding that her comrades knew not where she lay, being covered by earth and grass and all, she made me and Sammi 'authorized personnel' and told us to find the starman villages."

The Wisdom glanced up reflectively. "So Jamly's 'Commonwealth of Suns' is...?"

"A league of many villages that exists somehow above our heads in the great band of light. The chief of them is a village called Terra."

"When a man dies, we say he has 'gone home to Tra.' I wonder if this 'Terra' is another name for the Abode of the Dead."

"Jamly swore us a mighty oath to defend the Commonwealth against 'all enemies, human and inhuman.' This is why the son of Nagarajan wears the three red stripes on his arm, and Sammi the two."

"Uncle," said the Princess Anya. "Human and
inhuman?"

"I heard. Perhaps these men have been sent to us by the Doom."

Sammi mutter
sotto voce,
"That can't be good." Teodorq ignored him.

The Wisdom rose and beckoned them. "There is something I would show you. It is a holy object anciently possessed by House Tiger and sacred, so it is said, to the Commonwealth of Suns."

Wisdom Mikahali led them through another labyrinthine passage into a fane lit with blue flames enclosed in glass bowls. The walls were hung with the likenesses of men in the robes of the kospathin. His ancestors, perhaps. As Teodorq walked up the center of the fane, the eyes of the old Firsts followed him. Ayii! The plainsman flinched from the eldritch magic. What could be so precious that such men stood watch over it? But as he studied them more closely he saw that the likenesses were a mock made of smears of colored pastes and he let his breath out. That the eyes seemed to move was startling, but only a clever art. Jamly had moved, too; and he thought now that it had been through a similar though more potent artistry. The ironmen could make eyes seem to move by daubing colors on a curved surface; the starmen could make whole bodies move... and talk... and float through the air... so,
a lot
more potent ... but perhaps magic was after all only a sufficiently clever art.

A bald man in a floor-length robe entered the fane. His face was painted, though decoratively rather than as for war. His eyes were outlined in black and his lips glossed in red. Gold draped his neck and hung from his ears. His head alone would be a substantial prize to take. He spoke the
yashiq
irontalk in a soft melodious voice and Teodorq, who by now could follow simple sentences, heard him say, "What wouldst thou here, Wisdom?"

"Tsadaràsity,
Sharèe Thawèteri. May the light of the Commonwealth shine on your nights."

The shaman was unimpressed. "Thou followest new gods, Sharèe Mikahali. Why comest thou to call upon the true ones?"

In
plavver,
the Princess Anya explained to Teodorq and Sammi that her uncle, like most educated ironmen of the past three generations, followed the One who sustained World, and therefore he regarded the Great Band as merely another created thing, composed of fires like Sun. Sharèe Thawèteri on the other hand regarded the Great Band as the gods themselves keeping watch over World.

"We would gaze upon the Relics," the Wisdom explained.

"The Relics," Sharèe Thawèteri answered, "are not for profane eyes." Teodorq thought that the painted man had no testicles and wondered what enemy or accident had deprived him of his descendents.

The shaman seemed inclined to resist indefinitely, but the princess coughed gently and the unman cast her a cautious glance.

"Perhaps my father could resolve the matter?" Anya suggested.

It seemed to Teodorq that Anya's father could resolve matters without ever putting in an appearance, for the shaman hurried to obey. With a golden key that hung about his neck, he unlocked a tall, rosewood cabinet, swinging each door wide to display the Relic within. "You may not touch it," said Thawèteri, "but you may kneel and kiss it."

The Wisdom and the princess seemed disinclined to honor the Relic, but neither did they defy the shaman. They merely nodded to the cabinet, inviting the western men's regard.

The Relic was a flat, rectangular panel bearing four sets of runes.

Sammi stepped forward and kissed it. Teodorq wondered at this sudden fit of devotion, but when Sammi rose again, he announced, "Same
esramig
as
shuttle.
Taste same, feel same, smell same. Rap with knuckles, maybe sound same." He glanced at the shaman, who showed no inclination to permit that. But when Sammi concluded, "This come down from sky, like shuttle," the man smiled as if he had brought it down himself.

"So, it is truly made of skystuff," the shaman whispered.

Teodorq slapped Sammi on the arm. "Hey! It's one of them sliding doors, like we seen in the shuttle."

All of them, the shaman included, stared at the Relic, as if waiting for it to slide. But it remained stubbornly stationary.

"A man's arm don't wave," Teodorq suggested, "after it's been hacked off his body. So maybe the door don't slide when it's been taken from the shuttle."

"Needs Jamly-the-ghost," Sammi concluded. "Ghost moves body. Jamly moves shuttle."

The four lines of runes were so different in style that Teodorq judged them the runes of four different peoples, much as the all-prairie signs used on the Great Grass differed from the sigils used by the Hillmen or the angular runes employed by the ironmen. Strangest was the sigil that appeared to show the lesser moon rising over a range of hills with two parallel rivers flowing away from their base.

"Have you seen the like of these inscriptions before?" the Wisdom asked them.

Teodorq nodded. "I saw many inscriptions like the first in the shuttle. None like the second. A few like the third and fourth." Sammi said nothing but grunted his agreement.

"Maybe this is a part of your shuttle and your Jamly wants you to bring it back to make the repair."

The shaman sucked his breath in horror, but Teodorq said, "Jamly tells of many ships and shuttles. I 'spect there are lots of pieces scattered about, from many vessels."

The Wisdom shook his head sadly. "There is so much we do not know."

The shaman meanwhile had brought out of a tabernacle a smaller panel in a golden reliquary. It shone with a dull light, much as the panels on the shuttle had. But this was filled with lines of the curly runes.

"It is like a page from a manuscript codex," said the Wisdom, "but it is neither parchment, nor vellum, and the ink will not smudge. In all the generations House Tiger has possessed it, that page has neither faded nor grown brittle. Each time it has been displayed, the lines have changed. Yet, there is only this one page. One page that is somehow at the same time many pages. And no man knows the art of reading it."

The shaman replaced the Page in its tabernacle and returned to the Door. "I wonder where it once led. Somewhere wonderful. To the heavens, I am sure."

In a peculiar flash, Teodorq wondered if the unballed man might not be right. But he thought the Page might be more wonderful still, should a man ever decipher its runes.

A few days later, the Wisdom had them summoned to his quarters, where he and the princess again awaited them. Clapping his hands, the Wisdom summoned a servant to bring a tray of fruits and dried vegetables which could be dipped into a variety of sauces using short skewers. Teodorq and Sammi exchanged glances. There had definitely been an upgrade in their status.

"I take it me and Kal gave you straight skinny about Bowman," Teodorq ventured.

The Wisdom fingered his beard. "His assessment of the sodbusters was as you have said. Our legionnaires tell us they are busy fleeing from our might."

"Cowards," said Princess Anya. "They do not stand and fight, but strike by night and ambush."

"Wise people," suggested Sammi.

When he did not elaborate, the Wisdom and Princess looked to Teodorq, who explained. "A man fights from his own strengths, not from his enemy's."

"Fight from ambush, maybe run away, fight again later," agreed Sammi. "One time whole plains tribe—not Teddy tribe but up north— come to hill country because we find poor little lost cows and take home to care for them. They get all their friends to come thank us for taking such good care, but in Ganesha's Gorge all rocks come tumble down, make big cairn overtop them."

The Wisdom gaped at him and Anya stared in horror. "You threw boulders
on warriors?
From the hilltops?"

"Best place throw boulders from."

"That is not how an honorable man fights!"

"That what you call him, 'honorable'? Our word 'dead.' Mean same thing?"

The Wisdom turned to Teodorq. "What of your countryman? Is he also a fell fighter?"

"Kal? Maybe the best in the Serpentine clan, which means any Scorpion can beat him, but... Sure. Your guys fought him. What did they say?"

"He tried to deceive our prince. What should we do with him?"

Teodorq placed his hands together, though he did not bow over them. "Could you ask yer boss not to do Kal no permanent damage, like sitting him on top of that Spit?" More than the iron shirts and swords, that cruel method of execution drove home to Teo the alien nature of the people he had found himself among. A keen knife across the throat was far more merciful.
If it were done,
the Lore commanded,
best that it be done quickly.

The chief minister cocked his head and stopped working his beard. "You surprise me, westerman. I thought he wanted to kill you!"

"Sure. But I don't hold it against him. I killed his brother, and I'm responsible for another brother getting himself killed. Hard to get kissy-face after that."

The princess spoke up. "Then why ask my father's mercy for him?"

"Y'see, it's like this," Teodorq explained. "Kal and me, we
gotta
fight. The singers won't have it no other way. And I don't want it sung that when the time come I had an unfair advantage, like he was dead or maybe walkin' funny. It ain't good art. Kal, he's a hero. He kept up a stalk cross half of World and all the way practically to the edge. So he ain't no weenie, even if it was half dumb luck we crossed paths. And me... Well, I am Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand and modesty prevents me from numbering my stunts. But a final stunt needs two foes even-matched. It ain't too much to ask—and might be more entertaining."