Child of the River

Chapter Twenty-Two The Country of the Wind

The next morning, Pandaras watched with unconcealed amusement as Tamora swabbed the scratches on Yama’s flanks and the sore places on his shoulders and neck where she had nipped him. Pandaras sleeked back his hair with wrists wet by his own saliva, slapped dust from his ragged jerkin, and announced that he was ready to go.

“We can buy breakfast on the way to the docks. With all the money we have earned, there’s no reason to live like unchanged rustics.”

“You slept soundly last night,” Yama said.

“I was not sleeping at all. When I had not fainted away with fright I was listening to every sound in the night, imagining that some hungry meat-eater was creeping up on me. My people have lived in the city forever. We were not made for the countryside.”

Yama held up his shirt. It was stained with silt from the flood which had fallen through the ceiling of the merchant’s house, and flecked with chaff where he and Tamora had used it as a pillow. He said, “I should wash out my clothes. This will make no impression on our new employers.”

Pandaras looked up. “Are we away then? We’ll collect our reward, and go to our new employer in the Palace of the Memory of the People, and find your family, all before the mountains eat the sun. We could already be there, master, if you had not slept so late.”

“Not so quickly,” Yama said, smiling at Pandaras’s eagerness.

“I’ll be an old man before long, and no use to you at all. At least let me wash your clothes. It will take but a minute, and I am, after all, your squire.”

Tamora scratched at reddened skin at the edge of the bandage around her waist. “Grah. Some squire you’d make,” she said, “with straws in your hair and dirt on your snout. Come with me, Yama. There’s a washing place farther up.”

Pandaras flourished his kidney puncher and struck an attitude and smiled at Yama, seeking his approval. He had an appetite for drama, as if all the world were a stage, and he was the central player. He said, “I will guard your satchel, master, but do not leave me alone for long. I can fight off two or three of these ravenous savages, but not an entire tribe.”

A series of pools in natural limestone basins stepped away down the slope of the hill, with water rising from hot springs near the crest and falling from one pool to the next. Each pool was slightly cooler than the one above. Yama sat with Tamora in the shallow end of the hottest pool he could bear and scrubbed his shirt and trousers with white sand. He spread them out to dry on a flat rock already warm from the sun, and then allowed Tamora to wash his back. Little fish striped with silver and black darted around his legs in the clear hot water, nipping at the dirt between his toes. Other people were using pools higher up, calling cheerfully to each other under the blue sky.

Tamora explained that the water came from the Rim Mountains. “Everyone in the city who can afford it uses mountain water; only beggars and refugees drink from the river.”

“Then they must be the holiest people in Ys, for the water of the Great River is sacred.”

“Grah, holiness does not cleanse the river of all the shit put into it. Most bathe in it only once a year, on the high day celebrated by their bloodline. Otherwise those who can avoid it, which is why water is brought into the city. One of the underground rivers which transports the mountain water passes close by. It’s why we have our hunting grounds here. There are waterholes where animals come to drink and where the hunting is good, and at this place we have hidden machines to heat the water.”

“It is a wonderful place,” Yama said. “Look, a hawk!”

Tamora lifted the thong around Yama’s neck and fingered the coin which hung from it. “What’s this? A keepsake?”

“Someone gave it to me. Before I left Aeolis.”

“You find them everywhere, if you bother to dig for a few minutes. We used to play with them when we were children. This is less worn than most, though. Who gave it to you? A sweetheart, perhaps?”

Derev. This was the second time Yama had betrayed her trust. Although he did not know if he would ever see Derev again, and although he had been drunk, he felt suddenly ashamed that he had allowed Tamora to take him.

Tamora’s breath feathered his cheek. It had a minty tang from the leaf she had plucked from a bush and folded inside her mouth between her teeth and her cheek. She fingered the line of Yama’s jaw and said, “There’s hair coming in here.”

“There is a glass blade in my satchel. I should have brought it to shave. Or perhaps I will grow a beard.”

“It was your first time, wasn’t it? Don’t be ashamed. Everyone must have a first time.”

“No. I mean, no, it was not the first time.”

Telmon’s high, excited voice as he threw open the door of the brothel’s warm, scented, lamp-lit parlor. The women turning to them like exotic orchids unfolding. Yama had gone with Telmon because he had been asked, because he had been curious, because Telmon had been about to leave for the war. Afterwards, he had suspected that Derev had known all about it, and if she had not condoned it, then perhaps at least she had understood. That was why Yama had been so fervent with his promises on the night before he left Aeolis, and yet how easily he had broken them. He felt a sudden desolation. How could he even think of being a hero?

Tamora said, “It was your first time with one of the Fierce People. That should Burn away the memory of all others.” She nipped his shoulder. “You have a soft skin, and it tastes of salt.”

“I sweat everywhere, except the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet.”

“Really? How strange. But I like the taste. That’s why I bit you last night.”

“I heal quickly.”

Tamora said, “Yama, listen to me. It won’t happen again. Not while we’re working together. No, stay still. I can’t clean your back if you turn around. We celebrated together last night, and that was good. But I won’t let it interfere with my work. If you don’t like that, and think yourself used, then find another cateran. There are plenty here, and plenty more at the Water Market. You have enough money to hire the best.”

“I was at least as drunk as you were.”

“Drunker, I’d say. I hope you didn’t fuck me just because you were drunk.”

Yama blushed. “I meant that I lost any inhibitions I might otherwise have had. Tamora—”

“Don’t start on any sweet talk. And don’t tell me about any sweetheart you might have left at home, either, or about how sorry you are. That’s there. This is here. We’re battle companions. We fucked. End of that part of the story.”

“Are all your people so direct?”

“We speak as we find. Not to do so is a weakness. I like you, and I enjoyed last night. We’re lucky, because some bloodlines are only on heat once a year—imagine how miserable they must be—and besides, there’s no danger of us making babies together. That’s what happens when my people fuck, unless the woman is already pregnant. I’m not ready for that, not yet. In a few years I’ll find some men to run with and we’ll raise a family, but not yet. A lot of us choose the metic way for that reason.”

Yama was interested. He said, “Can you not use prophylactics?”

Tamora laughed. “You haven’t seen the cock of one of our men! There are spines to hold it in place. Put a rubber on that? Grah! There’s a herb some women boil into a tea and drink to stop their courses, but it doesn’t work most of the time.”

“Women of your people are stronger than men.”

“It’s generally true of all bloodlines, even when it doesn’t seem so. We’re more honest about it, perhaps. Now you clean my back, and I’ll go use the shittery, and then we’ll find the rat-boy. If we’re lucky, he’s run back to where he belongs.”

As they went back down the hill, along the path that wandered between stands of sage and tall sawgrasses, Yama saw someone dressed in black watching them from the shade at the edge of a grove of live oaks. He thought it might have been Gorgo, but whoever it was stepped back into the shadows and was gone before Yama could point him out to Tamora.

The city was still disturbed by Yama’s drawing down of the feral machine. Magistrates and their attendant clouds of machines were patrolling the streets, and although Yama asked the machines to ignore him and his companions, he was fearful that he would miss one until it was too late, or that Prefect Corin would lunge out of the crowds toward him.

He kept turning this way and that until Tamora told him to stop it, or they’d be arrested for sure. Little groups of soldiers lounged at every major intersection. They were the city militia, armed with fusils and carbines, and dressed in loose red trousers and plastic cuirasses as slick and cloudily transparent as ice. They watched the crowds with hard, insolent eyes, but they did not challenge anyone. They did not dare, Pandaras said, and Yama asked how that could be, if they had the authority of the Preservers.

“There are many more of us than there are of them,” Pandaras said, and made the sign Yama had noticed before, touching his fist to his throat.

The boy did not seem scared of the soldiers, but instead openly displayed a smoldering contempt, and Yama noticed that many of the other people made the same sign when they went by a group of soldiers. Some even spat or shouted a curse, safe in the anonymity of the crowd.

Pandaras said, “With the war downriver, there are even fewer soldiers in the city, and they must keep the peace by terror. That’s why they’re hated. See that cock, there?”

Yama looked up. An officer in gold-tinted body armor stood on a metal disc that floated in the air above the dusty crowns of the ginkgoes which lined one side of the broad, brawling avenue.

“He could level a city block with one shot, if he had a mind to,” Pandaras said. “But he wouldn’t unless he had no other choice, because there’d be riots and even more of the city would be burned. If someone stole a pistol and tried to use it against soldiers or magistrates, then he might do it.”

“It seems an excessive punishment.”

Tamora said, “Energy weapons are prohibited, worse luck. I’d like one right now. Clear a way through these herds of grazers in a blink.”

“One of my uncles on my mother’s side of the family was caught up in a tax protest a few years back,” Pandaras said. “It was in a part of the city a few leagues upriver. A merchant bought up a block and leveled it to make a park, and the legates decided that every tradesman living round about should pay more tax. The park made the area more attractive, neh? The legates said that more people would come because of the open space, and spend more in the shops round about. So the tradesmen got together and declared a tax strike in protest. The legates called up the magistrates, and they came and blockaded the area. Set their machines spinning in the air to make a picket line, so no one could get in or out. It lasted a hundred days, and at the end they said people inside the picket line were eating each other. The food ran out, and there was no way to get more in. A few tried to dig tunnels, but the magistrates sent in machines and killed them.”

Yama said, “Why did they not give up the strike?”

“They did, after twenty days. They would have held out longer, but there were children, and there were people who didn’t live there at all but happened to be passing through when the blockade went up. So they presented a petition of surrender, but the magistrates kept the siege going as punishment. That kind of thing is supposed to make the rest of us too frightened to spit unless we get permission.”

Tamora said, “There’s no other way. There are too many people living in the city, and most are fools or grazers. An argument between neighbors can turn into a feud between bloodlines, with thousands killed. Instead, the magistrates or the militia kill two or three, or even a hundred if necessary, and the matter is settled before it spreads. There are a dozen bloodlines they could get rid of and no one would notice.”

“We’re the strength of Ys,” Pandaras said defiantly, and for once Tamora didn’t answer back.

They reached the docks late in the afternoon. The same stocky, shaven-headed guard met them in the shadow of the lighter. He looked at the brandy-filled flask and the strings of nerve tissue that floated inside and said that he had already heard that the merchant was dead.

Tamora said, “Then we’ll just take our money and go.”

Yama said to the guard, “You said you would need to test what we brought.”

The guard said, “The whole city knows that he was killed last night. To be frank, we would have preferred less attention drawn to it, but we are happy that the task was done. Do not worry. We will pay you.”

“Then let’s do it now,” Tamora said, “and we’ll be on our way.”

Yama said quickly, “But we have made an agreement. I would have it seen through to the letter. Your master wanted to test what we brought, and I would have it done no other way, to prove that we are honest.”

The guard stared hard at Yama, then said, “I would not insult you by failing to carry out everything we agreed. Come with me.”

As they followed the guard up the gangway, Tamora caught Yama’s arm and whispered fiercely, “This is a foolish risk. We do the job, we take the money, we go. Who cares what they think of us? Complications are dangerous, especially with the star-sailors, and we have an appointment at the Water Market.”

“I have my reasons,” Yama said stubbornly. “You and Pandaras can wait on the dock, or go on to the Water Market, just as you please.”

He had thought it over as they had walked through the streets of the city to the wharf where the voidship lighter was moored. The star-sailor who piloted the lighter had said that it knew something of Yama’s bloodline, and even if it was only one tenth of what the merchant had claimed to know, it was still worth learning. Yama was prepared to pay for the knowledge, and he thought that he knew a sure way of getting at it if the star-sailor refused to tell him anything.

Inside the ship, in the round room at the top of the spiral corridor, the guard uncapped the crystal flask and poured its contents onto the black floor, which quickly absorbed the brandy and the strings of nervous tissue. He set the gold circlet on his scarred, shaven scalp and jerked to attention.

His mouth worked, and he said in a voice not his own, “This one will pay you. What else do you want of me?”

Yama addressed the fleshy blossom which floated inside its bottle. “I talked with your crewmate before he died. He said that he knew something of my bloodline.”

The star-sailor said through its human mouthpiece, “No doubt he said many things to save his life.”

“This was when he had me prisoner, and my friends, too.”

“Then perhaps he was boasting. You must understand that he was mad. He had corrupted himself with the desires of the flesh.”

“I remember you said that I had abilities that might be useful.”

“I was mistaken. They have proved . . . inconvenient. You have no control over what you can do.”

Tamora said, “We should leave this. Yama, I’ll help you find out what you want to know, but in the Palace of the Memory of the People, not here. We made a deal.”

Yama said stubbornly, “I have not forgotten. The few questions I want to ask will not end my quest, but they may aid it.” He turned back to the thing in the bottle. “I will waive my part of the fee for the murder of your crewmate if you will help me understand what he told me.”

Tamora said, “Don’t listen to him, dominie! He hasn’t the right to make that bargain!”

The guard’s mouth opened and closed. His chin was slick with saliva. He said, “He was driven mad by the desires of the flesh. I, however, am not mad. I have nothing to say to you unless you can prove that you know what you are. Return then, and we can talk.”

“If I knew that, I would have nothing to ask you.”

Tamora grabbed Yama’s arm. “You’re risking everything, you fool. Come on!”

Yama tried to free himself, but Tamora’s grip was unyielding and her sharp nails dug into his flesh until blood ran. He stepped in close, thinking to throw her from his hip, but she knew that trick and butted him on the bridge of his nose with her forehead. A blinding spike of pain shot through his head and tears sprang to his eyes. Tamora twisted his arm up behind his back and started to drag him across the room to the dilated doorway, but Pandaras wrapped himself around her legs and fastened his sharp teeth on her thigh. Tamora howled and Yama pulled free and flung himself at the guard, ripping the gold circlet from the man’s head and jamming it on his own.

White light.

White noise.

Something was in his head. It fled even as he noticed it and he turned in a direction he had not seen before and flew after it. It was a woman, a naked, graceful woman with pale skin and long black hair that fanned out behind her as she soared through clashing currents of light. Even as she fled, she kept looking back over her bare shoulder. Her eyes blazed with a desperate light.

Yama followed with mounting exhilaration. He seemed to be connected to her through a kind of cord that was growing shorter and stronger, and he twisted and turned after his quarry without thought as they plunged together through interlaced strands of light.

Others were pacing them on either side, and beyond these unseen presences Yama could feel a vast congregation, mostly in clusters as distant and faint as the halo stars. They were the crews of the voidships, meeting together in this country of the mind, in which they swam as easily as fish in the river. Whenever Yama turned his attention to one or another of these clusters, he felt an airy expansion and a fleeting glimpse of the combined light of other minds, as if through a window whose shutters are flung back to greet the rising sun. In every case the minds he touched with his mind recoiled; the shutters slammed; the light faded. In his desperate chase after the woman through the country of the mind, Yama left behind a growing wake of confused and scandalized inhabitants. They called on something, a guardian or watchdog, and it rose toward Yama like a pressure wave, angling through unseen dimensions like a pike gliding effortlessly through water toward a duckling paddling on the surface. Yama doubled and redoubled his effort to catch the woman, and was almost on her when white light blinded him and white noise roared in his ears and a black floor flew up and struck him with all the weight of the world.