The Braided World (47 page)

Vidori would be looking for him. The whole of the Olagong must know that the shuttle had returned. Some would be glad to see him. In truth, Anton would be glad to see one of them himself; he had a friendship of sorts with the man. But he also had a proposition and a bargain to negotiate, and friendship notwithstanding, it was a negotiation he intended to win.

He paddled onward, his pistol on the floor at his feet, keeping a rhythm, dipping and pulling. In the near distance on the river, he saw skiffs, ghostly in the smoke, but no one yet took note of him. The dip and pull of his paddle came louder to him, magnified by the strange acoustics of the river.

A growing sense of something amiss made him change his rhythm. Behind him, the old rhythm remained. Someone was following him. With a deep lunge of his paddle, he moved to the shore, wedging his skiff near an enormous dead tree that leaned out over the river. He braced himself
in the boat, and unslung his rifle. Activating it, he aimed at the splash of paddles. Through the scope, he saw a boat, with five people in it. Farther off, he saw a second craft.

A war canoe hove out of the murk, flying the silver banner, caught unawares by Anton's sudden stop. It took only a moment for its paddlers to spot him by the shore. By that time, however, Anton had sent a barrage of fire into the craft, creating mayhem but also alerting the second boat. The last man left upright in the first canoe was firing at Anton, but his aim was ruined as his boat, with its dead paddlers, fell away on the current.

Anton turned to the second craft, picking off a few Dassa while they were still blind to him, aiming at the hot images revealed by his goggles. The canoe moved swiftly in the direction of his fire. Anton easily cut down the occupants, lined up as they were in the canoe, and lacking the stability of the platform from which Anton was aiming.

The second canoe and its load of dead drifted back down the Amalang, retreating into the cloak of gray.

Anton stared hard into the river, primed for more boats. It was calm, the only sounds those of the river and the distant gunfire.

But suddenly, the rules of engagement changed.

A branch along the riverbank bent down. In the next moment he saw shapes moving behind the screen of brambles. Too close to the bank to use his rifle, Anton seized the pistol and fired.

Shots returned his fire, pinging into the water near him. There must have been a third boat that pulled ashore. Anton knew he should move out, but he was trapped against the horizontal tree, with its great trunk and branches. He clambered out of the skiff, splashing through waist-high water, shooting as he went, hearing screams from the bank as his shots found their marks. Anton crouched low, up to his chest in the water, aiming toward the shore. He risked maneuvering his rifle into position, and then raked the bank with fire. After a time he thought they might all be dead.

A flick of wind by his cheek. Something was bobbing in a branch in front of him. A needle-thin dart. Anton swung around.

There on the tree, hanging out over the river stood someone just raising another dart into a tube. Anton lunged sideways into the water. He tore off his goggles, now useless, and swam for the protection of the leaning tree where his assailant stood, still blowing darts into his path. He was below the tree trunk now, screened. The tree creaked as the soldier walked along its wide expanse until he was directly over Anton's hiding place.

From overhead, he heard a familiar, lilting voice: “Oh yes, I had forgotten that humans are good swimmers.” The tree creaked again, and the trunk pushed slightly down on Anton's position. “But do your guns fare well in water, Anton?”

They did, but he wasn't about to tell the Ladyjoon this.

“Come down and find out, Lady.” He saw her reflection, cloudy and broken in the river's current. She wore trousers and her hair was knotted on top of her head.

Again a creak of the tree. He thought she might be crawling out on a side branch to get a clear shot at him. “Hmm. Perhaps we should meet on top instead.”

For a moment Anton saw fine leather boots jump from one branch to another. She was on the upriver side, but he couldn't get a shot at her without moving into view.

“Now that I've come to stay, Joon, you should rethink whose side you're on.”

“Perhaps you are right. I had not thought of that. Let us think: We have the uldia and the judipon against the king and one human fighter with two useless women. Hmm. One must think about where to turn next.”

Suddenly she had hopped to a lower branch, and crouching, sent a dart into the shallows, missing him. As Anton returned fire, she jumped back up onto the trunk, crunching the massive length down on him, pushing his head into the water.

He moved to the opposite side, coming back to the surface. “This might be a good time,” he said, “to tell your father you're sorry.” He hoped that would keep her talking for a time. Making his way through the water as quietly as he could, he approached the shore, where the shallow water would ease his way to the top of the trunk, and a clear view of Joon.

He heard her throaty laugh. “Oh Vidori-rah, please excuse my mistakes,” she said in a parody of contrition. “It might appear that I would be queen, but now I am suddenly loyal.” She paused, loading her dart tube again by the sound of it. “Now what shall my father say to that, Anton?”

Anton sprang up on a lower branch, and then to the top of the trunk.

Joon stood in brilliant blue silks, her trousers Housed over sturdy boots, and her jacket bristling with darts. She blew on her pipe just as Anton's wet boots slipped on the smooth bark, sending him forward into a hard fall. Plucking another dart from the strap on her vest, Joon had just begun to aim again when the world went sideways.

A blistering crack came from behind them, and suddenly roots of the tree that had been holding it to the muddy bank sprang free and the massive trunk plunged into the river.

Anton, on his hands and knees, had better purchase, and watched as Joon lost her balance and, flailing, fell. She slipped between two large branches, and then the tree toppled over her.

Left on the sloping trunk, which had now found a new stability, Anton crept down its length, pistol aimed at the submerged crown of the tree. But Joon was not coming up for air.

She could well be swimming underwater, moving to the shore.

Anton watched for any deeper flash of blue from the river. Then he went in after her.

The great branching head of the tree formed a maze in the cool waters. Anton pulled himself down, using
branches for handholds. A fish swam under him, its eyes on top of its back, staring up at Anton. As it passed, he saw a blue hole in the river, a deeper blue, more of silk than of water.

He saw a slender arm pushing among the branches. Ineffectually. Joon was trapped.

As he swam nearer, he saw just how trapped. On the shallow bottom of the river, Joon lay on her side, pinned down.

Breaking to the surface, Anton took another gulp of air, and dove. As he approached Joon, he saw that the tangled branches of the tree had pinned her hair—now all unbound and surrounding her like seaweed—into the thick mud of the river bottom. He yanked on the branch, but it was immovable. Then he pulled on her hair. Her face was pale and flickering with the sunlight that came twisting through the two meters of water. Anton withdrew his knife from his leg strap. Smiling at him, Joon lifted her chin, exposing her neck.

But Anton began cutting her hair, slashing it away from the branches. It floated up past him as he worked, ever more hair, threaded into the tree in a thousand places. He went back up for air, and down again, slashing furiously, shearing her head of its thick growth. Anton had come up onto the trunk to kill her, but now it became important to save her. He didn't know why.

With a last slash of his knife, her head bobbed free, but she was still trapped in a cage of branches. These Anton tore away and broke, using strength he didn't know he had. Finally, he cut away all her bonds, and she floated free, but limp. He pulled her up from the river, gulping for air as his head came free.

He dragged her to the shore, forcing his way past the enclosing thicket, laying her on the bracken, her head to the side. Water poured from her mouth. He knelt by her side and blew air into her lungs, catching his own ragged breath at the same time.

Her lips were extremely cold, but her eyelids moved. Then Joon opened her eyes, and grabbed his hand, pulling it to her chest, holding him in a strong grip. Any lesser being would have been dead by now, submerged so long under that tree. Joon, however, was of a different sort, she had pri of the royal line. But her face was bluish silver, and she was dying. He didn't know why it mattered to him. She had tried to kill him, had betrayed her people.

He leaned closer to her, murmuring, “Rest now, Lady Joon.”

And she did, closing her eyes, and relaxing her face, still beautiful.

She had no pulse, or breath. Exhausted, he sat back on his heels. A spot of sun came through the branches and warmed his head. He stayed by her side for a time, remembering her as he'd first seen her, in her father's chamber, and then on the roof of her pavilion, looking out on the Puldar, teaching him what was in her to teach. Perhaps he had not listened well. But that was all past now.

Eventually, he climbed out onto the trunk of the tree, and sat. He stared at the river, still shrouded in smoke. He would have brought Joon to Vidori for justice. He wished that he could have. He wished that many things had been different here, but the river did what it would. By God, he was starting to think like a Dassa. He thought Maypong would have liked that.

From upriver, he heard an odd humming sound. No, it was something else …

The distant sound continued to travel down the river, garbled by the water. And soon he was sure he knew what it was. It was the sound of singing.

By her latest count, Gilar had sixty-eight boats. They were small skiffs, not great war canoes. But these skiffs carried a hundred warriors up the Sodesh toward the coming battle. With Anton's return, Oleel would have to move quickly to
consolidate her rebellion. Despite her wound, the big woman's voice was stronger than ever, now that she had the judipon radio. Her voice carried to the huts along the Sodesh and its tributaries:
Strangers will come from the stars; like the Voi, they will demand the Olagong, where children grow best.

Perhaps Anton's return in the fiery air barge only lent credibility to Oleel's claims. Gilar hoped that sixty-eight boats would also have credibility With the king.

Her people were still singing Bailey's song. As the flotilla grew, the song came on stronger, drawing more hoda from the compounds, and from the jungle, where many had been hiding, wondering whether to run to the Vol.

Mim, paddling close by, herded the boats along, urging the hoda to sing. Gilar smiled at the old woman, who was proving more resilient than many of the younger ones. Mim gestured for Gilar to sing.

Gilar had sung until her throat was hoarse from the caustic air. But every time she paused, she remembered the taste of dung behind her teeth, and the effluvia trickling into her stomach. And she began again.

When she saw the metal bird, Gilar knew it for Anton's messenger. It had no wings, and its dark sides were sealed with bolts. It was no ashi of fine plumage, but it was a glad sight to her. She turned her skiff toward the center of the river and, signaling the boats to follow her, let the messenger guide her.

If she thought the metal bird a strange sight, she was soon greeted with one even odder: Anton Prados, the great captain of Erth, sitting on a log in the river.

He wasn't surprised to see her. He had sent for her. The metal bird came back to his hand, and several struts folded together, creating a smooth surface all around. Anton slipped it into a pocket. “I heard your song,” he said.

Gilar savored the moment. Not so long ago she had imagined being in the presence of Anton Prados, talking with him in the palace, learning about the world of the
born to bear. Now she must be wary. He was allied with the king, and the king was not necessarily for Gilar.

She looked up at him as he sat on the giant trunk of a fallen tree. I have sixty-eight boats,< she signed.

A small smile crept onto his face. “Good. You'll need them.”

She wasn't sure what to say next. But suddenly he was getting to his feet and offering her a hand, and she was accepting it, and then they were both standing on the trunk of a tree that had toppled into the river.

I thought you were going home,< she signed.

“So did I.”

The hoda skiffs were tying up along the bank, the sisters using this break to sharpen knives and share food.

He gestured for her to sit next to him. When she did so, he said, “What would you think, Gilar, if I stayed?”

She looked at him, trying to absorb the idea. They don't like the born to bear around here,< she signed.

“No. But I might not have much choice.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. He looked so strange, with his light skin and hair black as mud. Oddly, his clothes were wet, as though he'd had a dunking in the river. I don't mind if you stay< If he was asking her permission, she was happy to give it, with all the authority of her sixty-eight-skiff army.

He turned to her, holding her gaze. “Maypong loved you, Gilar.”

She nodded slowly. Of course they would begin with Maypong. Where their lives intersected.

Then he had a story to tell her, of his trip with Maypong to the canyon lands. About Maypong's journey to sorrow. While he did so, Gilar turned away to watch the river. Her sisters in the boats below were watching her, and Gilar didn't want to be seen just now.

When he finished relating the story of the paths, and the bridge, he wanted to hear her story. She knew he was collecting information for the king. That matched her own
goal, that the king should know that the hoda had risen. So they sat on the trunk of the tree, and she told him about running away from the stone pavilion. Of her resolve about a Fourth Power. He nodded grimly, hearing that Oleel had been wounded, but that she still preached.