Shadow's End (32 page)

“He doesn't seem to be hurt,” said Leelson in an expressionless voice. “Look at him, Lutha!”

Her eyes were still full of righteous fury, but she did look at the boy, her chin quivering as she kissed and hugged him and looked beneath his shirt to see if he was hurt, murmuring small endearments the while, all of which Leely ignored in favor of churning his arms and legs and caroling “Dananana.”

“He's not hurt,” said Leelson again. “He woke early, let himself out, and got bitten by … what, Saluez? You know your native vermin better than we.”

“Jiggerbugs,” I said, giving the creature an equivalent aglais name. “Maybe. Or there's a kind of spidery thing we call D'lussm. Both of them bite.”

Which they did. A bite from either would leave spots similar to those on the boy, though usually it took a day or two of frantic itching and even localized pain before the swelling disappeared.

“Or it could be something local,” I offered apologetically. “Something we don't have around Cochim-Mahn.”

“Whatever it is didn't hurt him,” Leelson repeated for the third time, reaching out a hand to shake Lutha by the shoulder. “Get him dressed, Lutha. Feed him. Feed yourself, you'll feel better.”

She reddened at his tone, which was impersonal and disinterested. It would have angered me had I been she, but then, she couldn't see the look in his eyes. His disinterest was as false as her fury. Both of them were playing at it. Still, Leelson wasn't lying to her. The boy wasn't hurt; the boy was strong; the boy had opened the panels to let himself out. And Leelson was considering all these facts with an appearance of calm while Lutha was wildly splashing about in her own terror and guilt at having let Leely escape. Or, perhaps, wondering if Leelson had not purposely let him out. I saw something like that in her eyes. She wanted someone to blame besides the boy himself; she knew this was silly; so she added guilt to all the other things she was feeling.

After a time she settled down, but the look was still there, in the way she watched Leelson when he wasn't looking, in the hard set of her lips and the wrinkles between her eyes, in the shamefaced flush when she caught me watching her. The travel was hard enough without this simmering away. I went to her, putting my hand onto her arm.

“I heard the boy moving around in the night. No one else, only he. He let himself out, Lutha.”

She shook off my hand angrily. “Perhaps,” she said, with a grimace. “Perhaps he did.”

She didn't want to believe me. Any more than she wanted to believe all those people who had told her about
the boy, over and over, for years. She rode her own belief. Sometimes she slipped off its back, for it was a slippery beast, but most times she straddled it steadily, whipping it onward: Leely was human; soon he would talk, he would amaze people, he would be supernormal.

I sighed and set about fixing us a quick meal so we could get on our way. Leelson stood by the lead gaufers, tightening harness straps. His back was rigid. When I moved to get the food bowls, I saw that his eyes were closed. He was reaching at Lutha, feeling her out, deciding how to behave toward her.

When I handed him a morning bowl, his eyes opened and he smiled at me, a courteous curving of the lips with no real camaraderie behind it.

“Give her time,” I whispered.

“She's had years,” he murmured, this time really smiling, though ruefully. “She's had … enough time, Saluez. She simply will not see!”

I knew the saying in aglais.
The blindest are those who won't see.
We have similar sayings in our own tongue.
None so lost as those who will not believe.
Leelson could quote the blindness one to Lutha, she could counter with the belief one. And neither would change their opinion one whit!

We ate in strained silence. I washed the bowls in the trickle of water provided by the spring. We drove on to the end of the elbow and turned south once more, hoping we would come to the end of the canyon before midafternoon, for though it was midmorning, the shadow had only just moved away from the bottom of the western wall.

We had not gone far when Leelson pulled up the gaufers and sat staring ahead. On a huge flat stone, one that the trail veered around to the right, something pallid heaved and struggled. To me it looked like a pile of our cotton underrobes, almost white and softly shapeless. But it moved.

Leelson clucked to the gaufers and we moved forward a little, then a little more.

“It's one of them,” breathed Lutha in my ear. “One of the Kachis, Saluez.”

In fact it was two of them, tumbled side by side on the flat stone, where they writhed, lips drawn back from their sharp teeth, eyes blind and unseeing. Even as we watched, one of them collapsed, motionless. The other cried out, a long, ululating cry that made the canyon ring, then it, too, fell into motionless silence.

From somewhere came a distant echo, or an answering call. We waited to see if it came nearer, but there was no more sound.

Leelson got down from the wagon seat. Trompe went with him. I stayed where I was, unable to take my eyes from the place where they were, from Leelson's and Trompe's hands as they moved the wings, the arms, from their faces as they looked curiously at the slender bodies.

“They're dead,” cried Leelson. “Do they normally die like this, Saluez.”

I could not move. I could not speak. Lutha looked at me curiously, then put her arms around me and held me closely, whispering, “They don't die at all, do they, Saluez?”

I shook my head frantically. Of course not. Of course they didn't die. They couldn't die. They stayed with us, until they went on, at Tahs-uppi. This wasn't the way they went on.

“Leelson,” she spoke sharply. “Leave it. We can't afford this delay.”

Almost reluctantly, he left the tumbled bodies and trudged back to the wagon. I went inside it so I could not see those bodies when we passed. I was trembling so hard I thought my bones would snap. They couldn't die. Kachis could not die. They never died. No one had ever seen one die, or seen a dead one. That was a fact! Part of
the evidence we were taught as children, part of the supporting evidence for the choice.

The wagon moved again, and I heard Lutha muttering to the two men. She wouldn't break the promise she made to me, not to tell them about … the spirits of our people. I knew she'd keep her promise, but she would have to tell them something. I didn't care. Just let them leave me alone. I couldn't bear to be questioned.

Later, when she and I were alone, she whispered to me, “Did you …recognize either one of those Kachis, Saluez?”

I did not. I had not looked. I didn't want to know if they were dear departed of mine.

During the following hour, I had time to calm myself, time to tell myself it had been something aberrant that had happened there, something utterly beyond belief. Perhaps even Kachis can sin. Perhaps even Kachis can disbelieve and be punished for it. This occurrence might be perfectly understandable.

So I thought until Leelson pointed out another dead one. After that, they were scattered all along the way, like fallen rocks. When we emerged from the canyon a little later than midafternoon, he had counted several score of them dead.

“I'm doing it,” I said frantically to Lutha. “It must be me. My apostasy. My evil. My sin.”

She shook me. “Don't be ridiculous, Saluez. Are you the only so-called apostate? How many are there? How many women in your sisterhood? Plenty, I'll wager. Back in Cochim-Mahn I did a count. I'd say between a third and a half of your women are veiled. You have an exaggerated opinion of your own importance if you think you can cause something like this!”

I had never counted them. But … the chamber of the sisterhood was large. Extremely large. And it was full, too, even on those nights when we had no guests from other places. Lutha was right. When I thought of it
calmly, I knew she was right. But knowing and believing … oh, they are such separate things. “What's causing it, then?” I cried. “You tell me what's causing it!”

“If I had to guess, I'd guess some virus brought in by one of your leaseholders,” she said. “There are new viruses turning up all the time.”

“But why
here!
Where we are!”

She shrugged. “Saluez, maybe I'm carrying it. Or Leelson. Or even Trompe. By the Great Gauphin, girl, it could be anyone. We handle the panels, the Kachis chew on the panels and pick up what we've left there. Just be thankful we were away from Cochim-Mahn when it happened. I have a feeling if this had happened while we were under the eyes of songfather, he'd have assumed we caused it and we'd all be dead by now, including you because you'd associated with us. And Chahdzi, probably.”

I shuddered. Poor Chahdzi father. “You really don't think I did it.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I don't think it's you. I don't think it has anything to do with you. I'll go further. I don't think you sinned at all. I don't think your face is the result of apostasy or heresy or whatever you choose to call it. In fact, I don't think you're guilty of anything, Saluez.”

“Please don't,” I said feebly. “You … you disturb me when you talk like that. You take all my … all my foundations away.”

It was true that when she spoke so, something quaked inside me, as though my heart had torn loose. I couldn't bear it.

She shook her head angrily, flushing and pinch-lipped. “Sorry,” she said. “I have no right. Ignore me, Saluez.”

But how could I? As we drove across the open space between Dark Canyon and the Canyon of Burning Springs, I could not get it out of my head. Was it better to be guilty of sin while knowing there was a power that had punished you? Or was it better to be innocent and feel there was no power? Was it better to be lost in a horrid
storm at sea, knowing there was land, or be sailing peacefully with no certainty of land anywhere?

For myself, I decided I would rather be guilty. I could deal with that. One had only to outlive it. Submit to it. Atone for it. Surely if I helped these people save humanity and Dinadh along with it, that would atone for something!

So I set my teeth together and resolved to listen no more to Lutha the temptress. Not that she was a bad woman; she wasn't; but some people are not good for other people, and I thought then that Lutha was not good for me.

A
t the port city of Simidi-ala, the arrival or departure of outside travelers is an infrequent occurrence. Days go by with only the wind blowing in from across the shallow sea, tangy with the scent of rushes that grow along the shores and of the fragrant weed that floats on the waves. The people of Simidi-ala are Dinadh's only sailors or fishermen, and the bright sails of their shallow little boats scud to and fro across the placid waters, a pattern of bright dots, continually changing. I have seen them. I was there once, long ago, as a child, with Grandpa.

The boats were the first thing the ex-King of Kamir saw as he stood with Poracious Luv at the latticed gate of the shiplift while it slowly lowered them to the beach. The former King of Kamir said something convoluted and quintessentially Kamirian to her, a lengthy cadence comparing the brightness of the boats to the desolation along the shore. Normally Poracious indulged his poesy games, but this time she didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed elsewhere.

Poracious murmured, “How in hell did he beat us here?”

“Who is he?” Jiacare asked, following her gaze to the stooped figure waiting at the gate, a younger man standing in attendance.

“The Procurator, boy. Things must be in a pickle if he's decided to join us. Pull up your socks. Smile. Make pleasant. He looks like a nice old man, but he can have our guts for garters if he likes.”

The Procurator did not move toward them, but waited for them to come to him, murmuring as they did so, “Madam Luv,” and to the ex-king, “Citizen Lostre. How do you do, sir. May I introduce my aide, Mikeraw?”

They uttered conventional phrases of greeting as the Procurator led them away across a paved courtyard and into the nearest of the slablike structures that serve Dinadh as hotels or inns or warehouses, as needs must. The ex-king verified a suspicion by scratching a wall with his nails. The place was built of dried mud. He shook his head, wonderingly.

They went up a flight of shallow, curving stairs, down a wide hallway, and through an open door. Mikeraw shut the door behind them, then absented himself, leaving the three together in a sizable chamber lit by a score of glazed openings in the outer wall. They were not the shape Poracious associated with windows, being mostly round or oval, some head-sized, some larger, all randomly scattered from floor to ceiling, from sidewall to sidewall, though sidewall might be a misnomer since the general effect was that of being inside a perforated egg with a flattened bottom. Still, the chamber had a peaceful feel to it, and Poracious rejoiced to see several chairs large enough to hold her comfortably.

“Sit,” the Procurator urged them. “I've asked the person responsible for leaseholds to join us, but if you want to eat or drink or wash up before he arrives …”

Jiacare smiled his thanks, taking a piece of fruit from the bowl on the table.

Poracious said, “Nothing for me, Procurator. How did you get here before we did?”

“Military ship,” he answered. “In and out of holes like the proverbial rabbit. Very fast. Very uncomfortable. I felt
there was no time to waste.” He fumbled with a case set on a nearby table, removing a dataplat, which he handed to Poracious. “Current situation.”

He sat down, leaned back, and shut his eyes.

The former king leaned over the big woman's shoulder as she keyed the plat and scanned the contents.

Puzzled, he asked, “What language is this written in, I don't read—”

“Never mind,” Poracious Luv replied with a sigh so heavy it was almost a groan. “All it says is that we've lost several million more people in Hermes Sector. The last populated world has been wiped clean, the attack is continuing. We still don't know who or what or why. Every available ship was engaged in evacuation of the remaining planetary populations and all the ships that were in Hermes Sector are gone.”