Gods and Pawns (8 page)

“We were the tree, you see; our people came and went, and finally went away forever, but we Guanikina remained on awhile. And my children have proceeded on the assumption that we would always remain. But I knew our heart had rotted out.

“When I saw this light, shining out after the sunset, I thought perhaps that Maketaurie was advancing his borders. That was why I went in search of him. What would you have done, child, in my place? Wait to grow weaker, and fewer, as the years go by, dwindling to nothing at last? Or go to him voluntarily while we still had some shred of our former dignity? I have made the best bargain I can. It is, I think, better than we might have expected.”

Lewis bowed his head. “You are a wise god, Great Orocobix.”

“And, in any case, it’s not as though we haven’t done this before,” added Orocobix.

“What?”

“When we came from the land beyond the sunrise,” said Orocobix.

“What’s the land beyond the sunrise?” Lewis asked, feeling all his senses come alert. Somewhere, some time, a Company official in a dark room would be listening very closely to this.

“The place we lived before we sailed in the void,” said Orocobix. “Many, many lives ago. Guanike. I don’t recall it personally anymore, you understand; one head can only hold so many memories.”

“That’s so true,” said Lewis, with a surreal sense of mirth.
Unless you get called in for an upgrade.
He edged closer. “What can you tell me, great Orocobix, of what you know? Is it a real place?”

“It was,” said Orocobix. “Sadly, it sank into the void, and we were obliged to leave. We traveled westward, and found a little country, with mortals to be our servants there. In time we left that land, too—I don’t know why, anymore—and found this place, which was much more suitable because it was simply immense, you know. And now, we travel on again. I think it’s all for the best.”

Mendoza! Mendoza, you won’t believe what I just heard!

What?
From her tone she was doing something boring in a methodical manner.

These people have an Atlantis story! They came from some place in the east that sank into the sea!

Lewis, that’s dumb. Atlantis never really existed. The Company would know if it had.

What if it was Thera? What if it was in the Black Sea or the Mediterranean?

Lewis, they are Indians. Run a DNA sample, for heaven’s sake.

Lewis cleared his throat. “Tell me, great Orocobix: did you bring anything with you from lost Guanike?”

“Nothing very much,” said Orocobix. “Not a lot of room in an open boat, after all. There’s a little box in my chambers. A few old ornaments.”

“I would very much like to look upon them, Great Orocobix.”

“One of these days,” Orocobix replied, with a yawn. “I’ll ask the child to find them for me.”

Lewis bowed. He scanned the old man; but was able to determine only that he was in good health for his age. And…had evidently once, long since, suffered hepatic insult consistent with parasitic infestation, and recovered completely.

Lewis staggered up the ladder with a bundle of reeds in his arms and a positive frieze of ancient Atlantean figures processing through his head. Lost Guanike! Where could it have been? Having reached the top of the wall, he peered down into the chamber within, where the ancient plaster crumbled from the walls. Any traces of a painted mural there? Any suspiciously amphoralike jars?

No.

But, not far distant, mortal voices raised…Lewis tilted his head, listening. “I can’t move him again! That’s twice in one week, and he gets so tired!” It was Tanama, sounding angry, even tearful.

“Then I’ll help you move him.” That was Agueybana, sounding peremptory. “We can’t leave him in here; do you want the dead man looking in at him as he mends the damned roof? If we lose our secret, we’ll bargain from a weaker position.”

“But…if Cajaya marries his master, won’t he find out anyway?”

“Not likely,” said Agueybana. “He’s a
servant,
after all! Do you suppose Maketaurie involves such creatures in his private affairs?”

Lewis, I’m going back to the camp.
Mendoza’s transmission so took Lewis by surprise that he nearly fell backward off the ladder.

What?

I’ve taken the old man’s boat. I won’t be gone long; but I’ve got to have a credenza to analyze this stuff.

What stuff?

The
terra preta!

Oh. Right. Perhaps we could do a quick DNA analysis as well?

So you can find out whether your Indians are actually from Santorini?
Mendoza sounded as though she were grinning.
Oh, why not?

But what am I going to tell them if they notice the boat’s gone?

Oh, I asked the old man. Startled the daylights out of him when I spoke, but he was polite as anything. See you soon…

From the ladder he spotted her returning, later in the day, poling along with a credenza strapped to her back; she put in at the landing and started up the steps with a purposeful stride.

Lewis went wearily through the purple twilight, as a fine drizzle fell. New World One had begun to gleam in his thoughts with a luster it hadn’t possessed in ages; how could he ever have been bored with flush toilets, hot showers or crisp white bed linen?

Mendoza was already in their room when he walked in, sitting on the edge of his bed with the credenza on her knees, staring into its screen.

“Hello,” she said in an absentminded way. “I got us a few things while I was over there.”

“Zeusola bars!” Lewis cried in delight, and seized up one and tore off its wrapper. “Oh, gods…Caramel Oat Nut, mmm mmm…”

“A change of clothing, too,” Mendoza added. Lewis looked around for his bag and didn’t see it. She waved a hand at the bundle on the head of the bed.

“You brought me underwear?” he said, disconcerted. “…Thank you.”

“You’re a very neat packer,” she said. “It was easy to find. Say, did you happen to ask anybody about the compost formula?

“Oh! No. I’m sorry. But I did learn something—”

At that moment they felt the little girl’s approach.

Oh joy,
Mendoza transmitted grumpily.
More guavas.
She slid the credenza out of sight.

“Good evening, dead people,” said Tanama. “Look! I brought you some lovely fruit! You’re lucky, we had a really good year for guavas. Grandfather says fruit’s always in season in the Land of the Dead. Is that true?”

“Why, yes, it is,” said Mendoza, startling Lewis. “We get good watercress, especially. Though of course we don’t grow things the way you do, here, on these hills. Very nice compost you use. How is it made?”

“Oh, it’s just—” The little girl clapped her hand over her mouth. “It’s—just some stuff. That’s, um, lying around.”

“I notice it’s a much darker color than the earth of the plain,” said Mendoza, with an interrogative stare like a hot poker.

This is not the way to ask,
Lewis transmitted. Mendoza gave him an impatient look, but subsided as he said: “In the Land Beyond the Sunset, you see, we have no such earth. It’s, er, pink.”

“Pink?” Tanama looked enchanted. “Like Cajaya’s dress? Really?”

“Yes, and all the trees grow on flat ground,” said Lewis. “In straight lines.”

“How strange! That must make them hard to water, when the rains stop,” said Tanama.

“Oh, our master is clever. He has spirits that fly about with jugs of water tending to them,” said Lewis. “They’re called, er,
amphorae.
Have you ever heard of such things?”

“No,” said Tanama. “We use gourds for that. Oh, dear, one of the beds broke. Shall I go get you another one?”

“Most kind! But I wouldn’t hear of you fetching such a heavy piece of furniture, little goddess. If you’ll show me where another bed is, I’ll bring it back myself,” said Lewis, as smoothly as he was able. Tanama, however, bit her lip and backed off a pace.

“I’m not supposed to—that is, Father says—”

“It’s all right,” said Mendoza quickly. “I’ll just sleep hanging from the ceiling again. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Thank you!” said Tanama, and ran from the room.

Lewis and Mendoza exchanged glances.

“I had been about to tell you,” said Lewis, “that the royal family seems to be keeping a secret.”

“I’d guessed as much.” Mendoza turned her head and eyed the doorway. “Something other than the obvious secret ingredient in
terra preta
?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Lewis. He told her what he’d overheard, and she frowned.

“Why would a drooling inbred idiot be considered a bargaining chip?” she said.

“Perhaps a negative one? In any case, I’m afraid we don’t have much choice,” said Lewis. “Company procedure, and all that.”

Mendoza sighed. “Pass me a guava. It’s going to be a long night.”

They sat up in silence as the night darkened. The soft mist became driving rain, thundering down on the broad leaves of the tree canopy above the house; soon there was a counterpoint of
plink
s and
plonk
s from pots hastily placed in rooms Lewis’s thatching had not yet reached.

Breathing deeply, Lewis attuned himself to the night. Under the drum and spatter of the rain, the fearful song of a million tree frogs chanting their lust. He made out the slower rhythms: mortal heartbeats, mortal breathing, a drowsy conversation, the popping of embers in a low fire. The creak of a bed frame: someone was tossing impatiently.

There were the scents, too: the smoking fire fragrant as incense, the sweetness of overripe fruit, the bitterness of mold. Over all, the immense raw wet black smell of the night outside; under all, a faint mortal reek.

The mortals grew still. The conversation drifted into snores. The impatient sleeper lay quiet, finally at peace.

Lewis waited until he thought he could hear centipedes rustling through the garden mold. He opened his eyes and looked at Mendoza. Her eyes were wide and vacant, dreaming awake. Gently he took her hand. She turned her face to him blindly; gradually she pulled her consciousness to the here and now, and met his eyes. He smiled and rose to his feet, taking her with him.

They walked out into the dark house.

A black corridor stretched before them, and only faintly glowing mushrooms along the baseboards gave any light; but they needed none. Silent they proceeded over the damp flagstones, through the vacant wing of the palace where they had been housed. Empty rooms opened black mouths, all along the wall to their right; now and again an arcade opened to the left, where rain gurgled in all the cistern runnels of the courtyard.

The mortal scent became stronger, the walls dryer and in a little better repair. It was now possible to see where painted frescoes had been, peeling and flaking away. No dainty ships or wasp-waisted ladies; only clubbed geometric figures, with here and there a dead-eyed face protruding its tongue through gapped teeth, and things that might have been intended to represent flowers or stars.

And now, a surreal flickering on the wall, making the murals seem to writhe and grimace. Mendoza halted. Lewis raised a hand to point at the line of doorways ahead, where rush lights smoked and threw fitful illumination.

They can’t harm us,
he told her.

I have nightmares, too.
Mendoza stood rigid.
Sometimes I dream I’m awake, and standing in the house where my mortal family lived. They’re lying there together in our bed, my mother and my father, and my little brothers and sisters. They’re all asleep; only I am awake and alone, in the night. I can’t wake them to keep me company, no matter how I try. And then I remember that they’ve all been dust this many a year, and I can never, never rest.

Lewis put his arms around her. She clung to him. He held her until she stopped trembling. Without a word, then, he led her on along the corridor.

They looked in through the first doorway. Orocobix, Lord of Abundance, lay on his plain bed. He was gaunt and ancient, composed as though he had been laid out on a bier. His clothing was neatly folded on a chest. Under the bed frame was a clay chamberpot.

Lewis scanned the room. Unable to take her eyes from the old mortal, Mendoza fumbled in the credenza case she had brought and took out a glass vial, tipped with a needle point. She passed it to Lewis, who stepped forward soundlessly and bent over Orocobix where he slept, placing a hand on his brow. Orocobix sighed; he passed into deeper sleep. Lewis jabbed his upper arm once with the cell collector; the vial filled with a pinkish mist, and its needle point retracted inward. He passed the vial to Mendoza, who capped it and put it away.

In the next room was a wide bed, where Agueybana and Atabey curled together snoring. Their room was cluttered with what must have been the best surviving furniture from the palace; the atmosphere, even in that roaring wet night, was thick and airless. Mendoza withdrew two more vials from the case; Lewis stepped very carefully as he took cells from the mortals. Agueybana grunted and shifted, but did not wake; Atabey slept on.

The room beyond was Cajaya’s. It was strewn with clothing and discarded ornaments. On a small table sat several jars of scent and powders, most of them with their lids ajar, diffusing a sickly sweetness. Some attempt had been made at daubing flowers on the walls here; Lewis examined them hopefully, but they bore no resemblance to the graceful lilies of Thera. The room’s mistress sprawled under furs, and her snore was high-pitched. She never so much as stirred when the needle nipped her arm.

One more room,
Mendoza noted, as they returned to the corridor. Lewis nodded. Prepared as they were for another shabby bedchamber, they stepped through the doorway and halted in astonishment.

This room had been maintained above all others. The plaster seemed to have been renewed regularly, and it was painted, polychrome in barbaric splendor, red and yellow and black. Fernlike trees grew on black cone mountains, bowed with black fruit under winking stars. Birdlike things stalked and gestured. Abstract patterns shimmered by the fluttering light of the lamp. From an incense brazier a solid blue fume arose, smoke straight and thick as an arm, vanishing in a cloud of shadows near the ceiling.