The Waters Rising (63 page)

As for the wolves, the forester had approved a restricted preserve with an unused building where Precious Wind could set up her laboratory. They discussed the details of who should do the moving and when it should be done. Xulai and Abasio said very little but smiled quietly as they ate. After everyone had eaten the fresh fruits that concluded the meal, the captain and the forester departed.

Precious Wind said, “We have a few minutes.” She gave Xulai an up-and-down look before saying with a meaningful intonation, “
Your hair very much needs combing
. We’re meeting your grandfather for the Xakixa ceremony.”

Xulai turned in surprise. “No one said—”

“I know. They told me just before our meal. Just neaten yourself. You don’t need to change your clothes, and it won’t take long. My lord, both you and Abasio are invited to come along. There’s not a great deal of ceremony about it.” She left them to “neaten themselves,” returning a few moments later to escort them down yet another very long hall to a small, bench-lined room where Lok-i-xan awaited them.

They sat on the benches along the walls and the room moved.

“We’re going down!” Xulai exclaimed.

Her grandfather nodded. “The way we came today is the formal route, for festivals, for memorials, for state funerals, for greeting an ambassador, that kind of thing. Sometimes newly married couples make that walk to be sure everyone knows of their changed status. You know, former sweethearts, estranged relatives: we have those, even in Tingawa. The stairs are the penitential route, for people apologizing to their god or their clan, or the emperor. The emperor doesn’t actually live here, but his throne room is here, so it’s regarded as an appropriate venue for formal occasions. He avoids such occasions whenever possible.”

“What does he do?” asked Xulai.

Lok-i-xan drew a thoughtful breath. “Ah. Well, emperor is a hereditary personage. Tingawa has always had an emperor, and most of them, the very best ones, did very little. One of the problems with hereditary positions is that sometimes among such families marriages are made for political rather than genetic reasons, and the resultant children show no talent whatsoever for the role they are expected to play, or, indeed, for any sensible or productive role whatsoever. We had one emperor who sniggered, not occasionally but constantly. We had one whose muscles jumped and another who was so greedy he had to be carried everywhere he went. They were, in order, Glon-xan the Giggler, Tabi-xan the Twitcher, and Frukito-oox the Fat. So, as you can imagine, we really prefer that hereditary personages not be allowed to do much. The current one is very pleasant. He breeds ornamental fish and presides amiably over court occasions.”

“Interesting,” said Abasio. “You were telling us about the rooms that go up and down.”

“Yes. As I was saying, when we need to move about on ordinary, everyday business, we go up and down in these ascendables. They are moved by wind power. I am told such things were customary in the Before Time, in those great tall buildings they had. This citadel hill, if you stripped the soil away from the outside, is actually a very similar building: the ‘hill’ has been hollowed out over the centuries and except for an outside layer of landscaping is now totally occupied with offices, along with a hospital, and laboratories for our scientists. It has dozens of entrances at ground level where the stables are. The Clan Do-Lok citadel takes up the top floors and the Clan Do-Lok shrine is about halfway down; we’re going to stop there, then we have another appointment . . .”

As he spoke, the room stopped moving and the door opened on a dimly lit corridor. Lok-i-xan’s face changed in a moment. It lost all animation, leaving only a mask that spoke of weary self-control. It was an expression that Abasio recognized from his own mirror, years ago, and he barely stopped himself from patting the leader of Clan Do-Lok on the shoulder as he left his seat to lead them down the hallway. He thought that at some time, it might be appropriate to pat Lok-i-xan, but Abasio did not feel he had that right as yet. He wondered if he ever would.

There were doors, branching corridors, and alcoves along the way. In one of the alcoves a small group of elderly Tingawan men and women had gathered to await them.

Xulai, alert to feelings around her, felt the tension, the sadness.

Precious Wind put her hand on Xulai’s shoulder, squeezing it slightly. “It’s all right. You remember what we told you?”

“The tablet with my mother’s name.”

Precious Wind hugged her and stood silent. The door was opened from within. They entered the shrine.

Abasio had seen shrines before. Artemisia had shrines. In the city where he had lived during his youth every gang had had a shrine. Since Ollie was taken from him and from the world, he had worn the library helmet to visit shrines of the world through many ages of the world. There were shrines of one kind or another in virtually every city or town he had visited on his travels. None were like this.

Light came into the cavern here and there, glowing softly from behind a stalactite or through a tissue-thin curtain of mineral that had obviously flowed into place, molecule by molecule, over centuries of time. This was natural light, reflected downward, possibly angled and directed by mirrors so that it fell precisely upon this place and that place, giving just enough illumination to see the corridors extending into the black distance, each corridor barely lit by tiny stone lanterns that sat atop small stone tablets—thousands of tablets, thousands of lanterns, some dark, most offering a single, tiny glow. They were ranged in rows along the walls, on shelves, around pillars. Behind them the walls shone wetly. The thin slick of moisture that covered them glowed softly; the filmy pools that gathered on horizontal surfaces gleamed.

Abasio thought that if he half shut his eyes he could believe he stood on a mountaintop at night surrounded by a heaven full of stars. Xulai, next to him, sighed. He looked down into her troubled eyes.

“Where?” she whispered.

He took her hand, kissed the palm. “Xu-i-lok knows. Just ask her.”

She breathed deeply. Of course. Xu-i-lok would know. “Mother,” she whispered to herself. “I have brought you home. Tell me where to go.”

It was the tiniest of tugging—the tug a spider’s web might have made—but she felt it. To the right. Past a line of tablets, another, to a group tiered against a wall. To the second tier, back, no, farther back. Many of these were unlighted. Many of these were the tablets of the living. Back. A little farther right . . . And there it was: engraved with the characters that were her mother’s name, furnished with the tiny stone lantern, three legged, three open sides, an ornately carved top in the form of . . . of her fisher . . . and other creatures including a hawk, a chipmunk. Xulai breathed a sob in, out, as she laid her hands upon the stone. The room had been quiet, broken only by the scuff of slippered feet, the brush of fabric, but now it was utterly silent. Within the stone lantern a firefly glow began, like a bit of luminescence on the sea, like the vagrant reflection of a star in a pool, pallid, softly silver, becoming green, then bluer, brighter, a little larger. Xulai held her breath. Suddenly it was a white-hot flash that lit the entire cavern before fading to become softly yellow, a candle light only, fading until it glowed steadily among the thousands of Clan Do-Lok.

“The flash . . . ,” Abasio murmured.

“We believe,” whispered Precious Wind, tears running down her cheeks, “that when that happens, it means the knowledge gained by the returning soul has been shared. This shrine is not for thousands of individuals. What is here is not many little flames. What is here is one clan, one flame, the knowledge and history of one people. And those like Lok-i-xan can consult it, can benefit from it. He talks with her now.”

And indeed, he was beside the tablet, his hands upon it, murmuring. Abasio thought he was saying good-bye, but the words he heard were not the Tingawan words for farewell. Seeing the confusion in his face, Precious Wind wiped her eyes and said, “He’s not saying good-bye. He’s welcoming her home. And now I can mourn her!”

He noticed that she had found a place to burn a lock of her hair. The ashes marked her forehead. As Precious Wind moved away, Xulai came to sit beside him, tears in her eyes as well. “I’m glad she’s home. It’s just . . .”

“What, love?”

“My fisher is gone. He hasn’t been with me since we came.”

“Ah,” he said after a moment, understanding. “It was part of her.”

“Yes,” she agreed, half smiling through the tears. “I hoped he was part of me, but I guess he was part of her. I wish I knew how she did it, how she created it and left it for me. The fisher shape was carved on the top of her lantern along with a dozen other animals. She was like me, like Precious Wind. She loved animals.”

“My love, I think you and she love all living things.”

X
ulai stayed in the shrine with Lok-i-xan. Precious Wind, Justinian, and Abasio went outside with the other Tingawans who introduced themselves as people who had known the princess when she was young. They had come to witness. “Whenever a Xakixa comes, some of us are here to witness,” they said. “So we can be sure the soul has returned.”

“Tell me about the shrine,” Abasio begged. “That cavern is ancient.”

An old woman answered. “Oh, yes. It was the first burial place of Clan Do-Lok. Our dead were burned on pyres nearby, and the ashes were put in the cavern along with the name stones. The little lanterns were traditional, only symbolic. Then, long, long ago, the lights began to come. At first, just a few. Then, more and more, some of them very old, back as far as there were name stones. Once we had seen the lights, we realized what was happening here. It has always happened, probably; wherever people have had their own land, their own surroundings for hundreds of years, the souls have remained there, so once we knew, beginning then, as soon as a baby was named, the family made the stone and brought it here. It continues today. If the person dies here, the light comes. If someone dies afar, the Xakixa brings them home. Not the body, that doesn’t matter.”

“For everyone?”

A very old man shook his head sadly. “No. Sometimes, young people, you know, they think if something is old, it’s worthless. They don’t love their land or care for it. They go away not only in body, but in spirit, and those who go away like that, they hardly ever come back.” He sighed. “But, at the same time, we know they never were one of us in spirit, so we have lost nothing but the love and care we gave them, and that was their due, stay or not. Some believe their spirits go somewhere else, some other world, but that’s silly. A soul stays where it is at home. If it has no home, it just goes out, like a candle flame. That’s why we must save our world, so the souls of all the people who love the world will have a place to be.”

Without meaning to say it, Abasio blurted, “And what will you do with the waters rising?”

The old woman smiled. “This was a mountain with a cave in it; now it is a waterproof building the size of a mountain. Do-Lok will build a tower on top, as high as is needed, if one is needed. The cavern will remain. I have heard talk of building a boat that goes underwater to get to it . . .” She sighed, half smiled. “We’ll think of something.”

“And the other clans?”

“Each clan has done this in their own way. On some islands, their shrines drowned, but when divers looked inside, the lights were still there. They’re not fire, you know. They’re the kind of light one sees in the ocean. Now they have divers who carry down the stones of the newborn. Later, if there is a Xakixa, the diver brings up the stone, the Xakixa lays hands upon it, and then the diver takes it down again and there is light in those caverns, under the sea.”

The other witnesses were smiling, nodding, yes, that was the way of it. Light in the caverns, under the sea. Only a few clans had people who could actually consult with their ancestral spirits, they said, so caverns under the sea were all right for most of them.

I
n the shrine, Xulai and Lok-i-xan sat together on a stone bench, hand in hand.

“Grandfather,” said Xulai, “will you tell me about elegance? You said Tingawans like elegance, even in simple things.”

“Ah,” he said. “Didn’t Precious Wind ever tell you the story of the emperor’s garden?”

She shook her head.

“Long ago there was an emperor. We call him E’loms Los Velipe Umvok, or Elvuk for short. Emperor Elvuk loved gardens. Before he became emperor, he traveled widely, looking at gardens. He collected books about gardens. He collected plants and trees, and when he became emperor, he decided to create the most beautiful gardens in the world. He hired gardeners. Of course, gardeners have their own ideas about things, and this one and that one offered opinions. Elvuk did not want their opinions, so he made them wear blinders and told them they had only to dig where he said to, plant where he said to, fertilize as he said to. People came to look at the gardens, and Elvuk found nutshells and candy wrappers, and so he planted a hedge that grew thirty feet high and where there wasn’t a hedge, he had builders build a wall.

“His garden grew; it matured; it was beautiful beyond all his dreams. He kept it carefully locked so no one could pick a flower or throw litter. The gardeners weeded in blinders, so they couldn’t see anywhere except where they were weeding. Whenever they trimmed anything, the emperor told them where to cut. The emperor knew it was the most beautiful garden in the world, and the emperor loved it.