The Gist Hunter (32 page)

He resisted the urge, which was not ultimately put to the test. No options presented themselves for altering the inevitable flow of the Event toward its sad conclusion, and Bandar was resolved not to try to create one. If he were truly a misplaced idiomat—although he would have to be an Iconoclastic Genius rather than merely a Sympathetic Mute—Bandar might fortuitously discover an elementary explosive or craft a primitive aircraft that would give the slaves some advantage over the authorities.

But he was quite sure this was not an archetypal rendition of the Traveler Displaced in Time. So the moment he introduced disharmonious material, the Location would begin to accumulate stress on an exponential scale. Bandar had already been inside a Class Four Situation while it was coming apart because of his inadvertent interference; the thought of what it might be like to experience the dissolution of a Class One Event did not bear thinking of.

So he continued his search for the fifth note. It had the highest frequency of the seven, more than a full octave above the lowest. Bandar was starting to think that no object of iron, bronze or copper that he was likely to find around the smithy would produce it. A plate of very thin iron might do. He wondered if he could convince the idiomat to fashion a xylophone. But between his open and surreptitious labors the Smith was already so occupied that the likelihood was scant, even if Bandar could somehow communicate the idea.

Then one evening, as he helped the Smith fashion a mold in which to cast a set of bronze weights, Bandar heard the elusive note. It came from beyond the outer wall, from the cross street that the Smith had told him ran to where the Subgovernor's mansion sat on a slight rise overlooking town and river.

Bandar rose and took up the jug that held the water they used to dampen the sand of the mold. He went toward the well at one side of the yard, but instead of stopping continued on to the gate and looked out in time to see the source of the sound: four slaves were carrying a curtained litter, escorted by a squad of spearmen. Ahead of them all stepped an idiomat whose attire and bearing identified him as a variant of Pomposity in Office—a major-domo of some sort—who carried a staff that curled into a loop at one end. Hung within the loop, gleaming in the day's dwindling light, was a small silver bell. As the party approached the next intersection, the servant shook the staff so that the bell sounded again—it was indeed precisely the right note—and every other idiomat on the street stopped, turned toward the litter and bowed.

The Smith had come to see what had caught his helper's attention. "The Subgovernor's First Wife," he said, following it with an eloquent twist of his mouth. "Come, we must finish."

Bandar went back to their work, but as he crossed the yard he heard again, fading into the distance, the sound that could offer him deliverance.

The calendar was built around the phases of the moon, with observances performed at its maximum wax and wane. Twice each month of twenty-eight days, all work ceased and all the town, high and low, slave and free, gathered at the white stone temple at the river's edge. Priests clad in fine robes hemmed and cuffed with metallic thread carried a great disk of beaten silver down to the water, where they ritually bathed the pale orb then bore it in a mass procession back up the broad stairs to the sanctuary. At the culmination of the ceremony, the high priest would bless the assembly then all would return to their dwellings for a celebratory meal, a siesta and, in the late afternoon, rowdy team sports and dancing.

The Rising was set for the moment of the benediction. The shuffling throng on the steps was always a heterogeneous mingling of slaves, townsfolk and soldiers. Traditionally, when the hierophant spoke the concluding words of the rite—"It is done. Go now."—the mix would separate into its component streams, with the slaves walking back to their compound under loose guard, everyone glad of the feast and leisure to come.

The Subgovernor and his family sat on a platform to one side at the top of the steps, attended by their senior servants and a squad of bodyguards. Behind them a broad ramp descended to a paved road that led up the rise to the mansion. They were no more than a few paces from the front of the throng on the upper steps, and today that portion of the crowd was unusually thick with strong male slaves.

The underpriests carried the moon disk into the temple. There came an expectant pause then the high priest spoke the ritual words. As usual, the crowd sighed and a hubbub of murmurs broke out as people turned and began to descend the steps. Then the day became unusual.

Instead of turning and leaving, some thirty slaves at the fore of the crowd stood still, so that the intermixed townsfolk and soldiers drew away from them. From beneath their long kilts some of the men brought out short swords. Others produced lengths of turned wood to which they quickly fitted broad bladed spear points. As one, and without a word, they charged the Subgovernor's party.

The guards, lulled by the familiarity of routine had already turned away. The rapid scuffle of feet on stone alerted them, however, and they swung back, attempting to establish a line, shields locked and spears coming down to form a bristle of points.

But the slaves had practiced their tactics too many times on the trampled ground where they were allowed to play muscular games with a ball of cloth wrapped in horsehide. They hit the guards before the line could form, and once broken, the guards were no match for thrice their numbers. While the priests and townsfolk looked on in horror, the slaves slaughtered the bodyguards and seized the Subgovernor and his entourage at spear point.

The townspeople scattered to their homes amid cries of horror. The soldiers shouldered their way free of the mob of fleeing civilians and, under the barked orders of their officers, assembled halfway up the steps, forming two lines angled toward the rebels on the platform above. They set their spears and shields and waited for the order to advance.

Bandar had watched all of this from near the bottom of the steps where, in the company of the Smith, he had stood through the ceremony. Now, as the townsfolk fled, he saw the great mass of slaves, men as well as women, stand gaping in horror and consternation at the armed confrontation until a double squad of soldiers was directed by their commander to surround them and march them back to camp.

With kicks and blows from their spear butts, the soldiers rapidly shaped the hundreds of slaves into a column and began to march them away. But they had gone no more than a few paces before a great shout and clashing of weapons came from the top of the steps. Many of the soldiers marching with the column could not resist turning to look toward the source of the racket. They saw the rebels around the Subgovernor bellowing and smashing their iron weapons together, and that was the last thing they saw because their momentary distraction was the signal for scores of those they guarded to draw concealed knives and stab them.

"Now!" cried the Smith, and pulled from beneath his kilt the heavy maul with which he had once threatened Bandar. He threw himself against a maniple of soldiers who had had the presence of mind to close together and were spearing the knife wielding rebels from behind their shields. The Smith attacked from their rear, crushing skulls and spines with his great hammer and in seconds the guards were dead, their corpses plundered for their weapons.

"Make a line!" the Smith shouted. "Those without arms pry up the paving stones!"

A few of the slaves hung back, frightened and uncertain. But Bandar saw even Crones and Maidens digging their fingers into the cracks between the flags, upending them then lifting the squares to dash them down. The impact shattered the stones and hard, eager hands reached for the jagged fragments.

The Smith's voice boomed out—"All right, at them!"—and the slaves charged up the steps toward the double line of soldiers, even as the officers were frantically screaming at the rear rank to about face. A hail of sharp-edged stones came arcing over the heads of the upsurging armed rebels and the soldiers who had reversed to meet them threw up their shields to ward off the barrage. But these soldiers were not the stones' intended targets. Instead the jagged chunks of rock flew over their upraised shields to smash into the unprotected skulls and spines of the spearmen still facing the thirty who had seized the Subgovernor.

As men fell moaning or unconscious out of the upper rank, leaving gaps and causing those not hit to glance worriedly over their shoulders, the majority of the thirty rebels above left the Subgovernor and his entourage in the custody of a few men with swords. Screaming just as they had practiced so many times on the ball field, they formed a bristling wedge and threw themselves at the wavering line of soldiers at the same moment as their friends from below struck the lower rank of spearmen.

It was a brutal business. Though Bandar had seen it in other Locations, with men who wore different garments and wielded more sophisticated weapons, it was always the same. Metal pierced flesh, blood spattered from slashing wounds or fountained from severed arteries, to a chorus of high pitched screams and bestial grunts. He watched with an expert eye and decided that this might well be one of those Risings of the Oppressed in which a gifted Hero—for so the Smith undoubtedly was—carried the day. But then he saw Doomed Innocence roaring in the front rank of the rebels, stabbing with his spear, his Demure Maiden at his side wielding a long knife with the skill of a butcher. And Bandar remembered that even the successful revolts usually lasted no longer than it took for fresh troops to arrive in overwhelming numbers.

He skirted around the edge of the melee, careful to maintain a safe distance. He kept experiencing an urge to go toward the Smith, to help him in some indefinable way. Suddenly it all became clear.
I am becoming embedded in the Mute's dynamic
.
He is a Hero's Helper. That is the role that the Commons wants to press me into
.

But Bandar resisted the pull. He had to avoid danger because if he died in this Location, his consciousness would be irrevocably meshed with its elements. He would be the Mute forever, unless the Commons had a means of extracting him at the point of death, a possibility in which he was not willing to trust his existence. Besides, Bandar was still Bandar and he had his own agenda, the crowning piece of which awaited him at the top of the steps.

The slaves had surrounded the remaining soldiers, pressing them into a tight cluster, jammed so closely together that most of them could not bring their weapons to bear. More chunks of masonry were now flying from all sides, smashing into the trapped remnant. Wherever an impact rocked a spearman a rebel was waiting to slip sharp iron through the gap. The action would not last much longer. Bandar dodged around the rear of the fighters and climbed toward the Subgovernor's party.

He put on his most appealing face, smiling and gesturing happily to the men who held the dignitaries, clapping them on their shoulders as he slipped among them. At the rear of the group the First Wife's major-domo stood ashen faced, his brow glistening with a chill sweat, the hooked staff of office quivering in his grasp so that its little silver bell tinkled too softly to be heard over the sounds of murder.

Bandar stepped up to the terrified idiomat, put the thumb and finger of one hand to the ringing metal, then brought up a knife in the other. The major-domo flinched but Bandar offered him a harmless smile and sliced through the thread that held the bell. Then he turned and sped across the top of the temple steps, seeing from the corner of his vision the priests clustered within its entry, all white of eye and open-mouthed.

In a few moments the noönaut was down the steps, past the heaped corpses of the column guards and into the empty streets of the town. With the fifth note clasped in his hand, he made his way at a fast trot past closed gates and shuttered windows, to arrive at the smithy hardly out of breath.

He set the silver bell on workbench then began assembling his seven-toned instrument around it, reaching for the tongs and the other pieces then bringing from under his kilt the spear point he had been issued but had not used. When the seven items were arranged in proper order he allowed himself a brief smile and a small sigh of satisfaction, then he turned to look for the small rod that was his striker.

A dark figure came between him and the bright world outside the smithy. It took him a moment to make out the habitual sneer of the Toady. Then he saw the hulking form of the Bully and the Henchmen. Bandar realized that he could not recall having seen any of them in the fighting. But he saw that they carried weapons, swords of gray iron whose edges gleamed with the brightness of fresh sharpening, still unblooded.

He grasped it all in a moment. The Bully cared nothing for the slaves' cause. Instead he would help suppress it, seeking to be granted the only life such an idiomat could aspire to: as an overseer given a whip and plenty of unnecessary encouragement to use it.

And so he would lurk here until the Smith came home—as he surely would, humble in his moment of triumph. Then, while the victorious slaves celebrated in the streets, the Bully and his gang would wait in the house and treacherously stab the Hero to death. When the night grew quiet, they would steal away, carrying the butchered idiomat's head in a basket, aiming to meet the army that the Governor would soon send down river to put the town back to rights.

All of that Bandar knew in the time it took him to blink in surprise. It was an old story, of course; that was why it had been preserved forever in the collective memory of humankind. What surprised him was the strength of the desire that now filled him, the powerful urge to run from here at all speed, to find the Hero and warn him. Even as he marveled at the power of the impulse, he saw that one of his hands was reaching back for the spear point while his mind was seeing a picture of the Mute breaking through the four men, slashing as he ran.

Then the whole situation became academic. The Toady was shouldered aside by the Bully. The last Bandar saw was the smirk on the thick lips and the smug satisfaction in the close-set, beer-colored eyes as the big man drove his sword through the noönaut's belly and up into his heart. The pain was like ice and fire together, and then it was gone. And so was Bandar.