Child of the River

Chapter Nine The Knife

The shore was made of deep, soft drifts of white shell fragments; it was not until Yama began to climb the worn stone stair that zigzagged up the face of the carved cliff that he remembered how difficult it was to walk on firm ground, where each step sent a little shock up the ladder of the spine.

At the first turn of the stair, a spring welled inside a trough cut from the native stone. Yama knelt on the mossy ground by the trough and drank clear sweet water until his belly sloshed, knowing that there would be little chance of finding any potable water in the City of the Dead. Only when he stood did he notice that someone else had drunk there recently—no, to judge by the overlapping footprints in the soft red moss, it had been two people.

Lud and Lob. They had also escaped Dr. Dismas. Yama had tucked the obsidian knife into his belt under the flap of his shirt, snug against the small of his back. He touched the handle for reassurance before he continued his ascent.

An ancient road ran close to the edge of the cliff, its flat pavement, splashed with the yellow and gray blotches of lichens, so wide that twenty men could have ridden abreast along it. Beyond, the alkaline, shaley land shimmered in the level light of the late-afternoon sun. Tombs stood everywhere, casting long shadows toward the river. This was the Silent Quarter, which Yama had rarely visited—he and Telmon preferred the ancient tombs of the foothills beyond the Breas, where aspects could be wakened and the flora and fauna was richer. Compared to the sumptuously decorated mausoleums of the older parts of the City of the Dead, the tombs here were poor things, mostly no more than low boxes with domed roofs, although here and there memorial steles and columns rose amongst them, and a few larger tombs stood on artificial stepped mounds, guarded by statues that watched the river with stony eyes. One of these was as big as the peel-house, half hidden by a small wood of yews grown wild and twisted.

In all the desiccated landscape nothing stirred except for a lammergeyer high in the deep blue sky, riding a thermal on outspread wings.

When Yama was satisfied that he was not about to be ambushed, he set off down the road toward the distant smudge that must surely be Aeolis, halfway toward the vanishing point where the Rim Mountains and the misty horizon of the far-side seemed to converge.

Little grew in the stone gardens of this part of the City of the Dead. The white, sliding rocks weathered to a bitter dust in which only a few plants could root, mostly yuccas and creosote bushes and clumps of prickly pear. Wild roses crept around the smashed doorways of some of the tombs, their blood-red blooms scenting the warm air. The tombs had all been looted long ago, and of their inhabitants scarcely a bone remained. If the cunningly preserved bodies had not been carted away to fuel the smelters of old Aeolis, then wild animals had long ago dismembered and consumed them once they had been disinterred from their caskets. Ancient debris was strewn everywhere, from fragments of smashed funeral urns and shards of broken furniture fossilized on the dry shale, to slates which displayed pictures of the dead, impressed into their surfaces by some forgotten art. Some of these were still active, and as Yama went past, scenes from ancient Ys briefly came to life or the faces of men and women turned to watch him, their lips moving soundlessly or shaping into a smile or a coquettish kiss. Unlike the aspects of older tombs, these were mere recordings without intelligence; the slates played the same meaningless loop over and over, whether for the human eye or the uncomprehending gaze of any lizard that flicked over the glazed surfaces in which the pictures were embedded.

Yama was familiar with these animations; the Aedile had an extensive collection of them. They had to be exposed to sunlight before they would work, and Yama had always wondered why, for they were normally found inside the tombs.

But although he knew what these mirages were, their unpredictable flicker was still disturbing. He kept looking behind him, fearful that Lud and Lob were stalking him through the quiet solitude of the ruins.

The oppressive feeling of being watched grew as the sun fell toward the ragged blue line of the Rim Mountains and the shadows of the tombs lengthened and mingled across the bone-white ground. To be walking through the City of the Dead in the bright sunshine was one thing, but as the light faded Yama increasingly glanced over his shoulder as he walked, and sometimes turned and walked backward a few paces, or stopped and slowly scanned the low hills with their freight of empty tombs. He had often camped in the City of the Dead with the Aedile and his retinue of servants and archaeological workers, or with Telmon and two or three soldiers, but never before alone.

The distant peaks of the Rim Mountains bit into the reddened disc of the sun. The lights of Aeolis shimmered in the distance like a heap of tiny diamonds. It was still at least half a day’s walk to the city, and would be longer in darkness.

Yama left the road and began to search the tombs for one that would give shelter for the night.

It was like a game. Yama knew that the tombs he rejected now would be better than the one he would choose of necessity when the last of the sun’s light fled the sky. But he did not want to choose straightaway because he still felt that he was being watched and fancied, as he wandered the network of narrow paths between the tombs, that he heard a padding footfall behind him that stopped when he stopped and resumed a moment after he began to move forward again. At last, halfway up a long, gentle slope, he turned and called out Lud and Lob’s names, feeling both fearful and defiant as the echoes of his voice died away amongst the tombs spread below him. There was no answer, but when he moved on he heard a faint squealing and splashing beyond the crest of the slope.

Yama drew the obsidian knife and crept forward like a thief. Beyond the crest, the ground fell away in an abrupt drop, as if something had bitten away half the hill. At the foot of the drop, a seep of brackish water gleamed like copper in the sun’s last light, and a family of hyraces were sporting in the muddy shallows.

Yama stood and yelled and plunged down the steep slope. The hyraces bolted in every direction and a youngster ran squealing in blind panic into the middle of the shallow pond. It saw Yama charging toward it and stopped so suddenly that it tumbled head over heels. Before it could change direction, he threw himself on its slim, hairy body and wrestled it onto its back and slit its throat with his knife.

Yama built a fire of twisted strands of dried wood picked from the centers of prickly pear clumps and lit it using a friction bow made from two twigs and a sinew from the hyrax’s carcass. He cleaned and skinned and jointed the hyrax, roasted its meat in the hot ashes, and ate until his stomach hurt, cracking bones for hot marrow and licking the fatty juices from his fingers. The sky had darkened to reveal a scattering of dim halo stars, and the Galaxy was rising, salting the City of the Dead with a blue-white glow and casting a confusion of shadows.

The tomb Yama chose as a place to sleep was not far from the seep, and as he rested against its granite façade, which still held the day’s heat, he heard something splash in the pool—an animal come to drink. Yama laid the remains of the hyrax on a flat stone a hundred paces from the tomb and took the precaution of dragging a screen of rose stems across the tomb’s entrance before curling up to sleep on the empty catafalque inside, his head pillowed on his folded shirt, the obsidian knife in his hand.

Yama awoke from bad dreams at first light, stiff and cold.

The golden sun stood a handspan above the Rim Mountains. The tomb in which he had slept was one of a row that stretched along the ridge above the pool, each with a gabled false front of rosy granite; they glowed like so many hearths in the sun’s early light. Yama warmed himself with a set of exercises before pulling on his shirt and walking down to the pool.

His offering was gone; only a dark stain was left on the flat white stone. There was a confusion of tracks around the water’s edge, but he could find no human ones, only the slots of hyraces and antelopes, and what looked like the impress of the pads of some large cat, most likely a spotted panther.

The seep water of the pool was chalky with suspended solids, and so bitter that Yama spat out the first mouthful.

He chewed a strip of cold meat and skinned and ate new buds taken from a prickly pear stand, but the cool juices did not entirely quench his thirst. He put a pebble in his mouth to stimulate the flow of saliva and walked back toward the river, thinking that he would climb down the cliff to drink and bathe at the water’s edge.

He had wandered farther than he had thought when he had been looking for shelter the previous evening. The narrow paths that meandered between the tombs and memorials and up and down the gentle slopes of the low hills were all parallel, and not one ran for more than a hundred paces before meeting with another, or splitting into two, but Yama kept the sun at his back, and by midmorning had reached the wide straight road again.

The cliffs there were sheer and high; if the peel-house had stood in the seething water at their bases, its tallest turret would not have reached to their tops. Yama got down on his belly and hung over the edge and looked right and left, but could not see any sign of a path or of stairs, although there were many tombs cut into the cliff faces—there was one directly below him. Birds nested in the openings, and thousands floated on the wind that blew up the face of the cliff, like flakes of restlessly sifting snow. Yama spat out the pebble and watched it bounce from the ledge in front of the tomb directly below and dwindle away; it vanished from sight before it hit the tumbled slabs of rock that were covered and uncovered by the heave of the river’s brown water.

Behind him, someone said, “A hot morning.”

And someone else: “Watch you don’t fall, little fish.”

Yama jumped to his feet. Lud and Lob stood on top of a bank of white shale on the far side of the road. Both wore only kilts. Lob had a coil of rope over his bare shoulder; the skin of Lud’s chest was reddened and blistered by a bad burn.

“Don’t think of running,” Lud advised. “It’s too hot for you to get far without water, and you know you can’t get away.”

Yama said, “Dr. Dismas tried to have you killed. There is no enmity between us.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Lud said. “I reckon we’ve a score to settle.”

“You owe us,” Lob said.

“I do not see it.”

Lud explained patiently, “Dr. Dismas would have paid us for our trouble, and instead we had to swim for our lives when you pulled that trick. I got burnt, too.”

“And he lost his knife,” Lob added. “He loved that knife, you miserable culler, and you made him lose it.”

Lud said, “And then there was the boat you put on fire. Yo for that, I reckon.”

“That was not yours.”

Lud scratched at the patch of reddened skin on his chest and said, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“In any case, I can only pay you when I get home,” Yama said.

“In any case,” Lud echoed in a mocking voice. “That’s not how we see it. How do we know we can trust you?”

“Of course you can.”

Lud said, “You haven’t even asked how much we want, and then you might just think to tell your father. I don’t think he’d pay us then, would he, brother?”

“It’s doubtful.”

“Very doubtful, I’d say.”

Yama knew that there was only one chance to escape. He said, “Then you do not trust me?”

Lud saw Yama’s change in posture. He started down the slope, raising a cloud of white dust, and yelled, “Don’t—”

Yama did. He turned and took two steps backward, and then, before he could have second thoughts, ran forward and jumped over the edge of the cliff.

He fell in a rush of air, and as he fell threw back his head and brought up his knees. (Sergeant Rhodean was saying, “Just let it happen to you. If you learn to trust your body it’s all a matter of timing.”) Sky and river revolved around each other, and then he landed on his feet, knees bent to take the shock, on the ledge before the entrance to the tomb.

The ledge was no wider than a bed, and slippery with bird excrement. Yama fell flat on his back at once, filled with a wild fear that he would tumble over the edge—there had been a balustrade once, but it had long ago fallen away. He caught a tuft of wiry grass and held on, although the sharp blades of grass reopened the wounds made by Caphis’s spearhead.

As he carefully climbed back to his feet, a stone clipped the ledge and tumbled away toward the heaving water far below. Yama looked up. Lob and Lud capered at the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the blue sky. They shouted down at him, but their words were snatched away by the wind.

One of them threw another stone, which smashed to flinders scarcely a span from Yama’s feet.

Yama ran forward, darting between the winged figures, their faces blurred by time, which supported the lintel of the gaping entrance to the tomb. Inside, stone blocks fallen from the high ceiling littered the mosaic floor. An empty casket stood on a dais beneath a canopy of stone carved to look like cloth rippling in the wind. Disturbed by Yama’s footfalls, bats fell from one of the holes in the ceiling and dashed around and around above his head, chittering in alarm.

The tomb was shaped like a wedge of pie, and behind the dais it narrowed to a passageway. It had once been sealed by a slab of stone, but that had been smashed long ago by robbers who had discovered the path used by the builders of the tomb. Yama grinned. He had guessed that the tombs in the cliffs would have been breached and stripped just like those above. It was his way of escape. He stepped over the sill and, keeping one hand on the cold dry stone of the wall, felt his way through near-darkness.

He had not gone far when the passage struck another running at right angles. He tossed an imaginary coin and chose the left-hand way. A hundred heartbeats later, in pitch darkness, he went sprawling over a slump of rubble. He got up cautiously and climbed the spill of stones until his head bumped the ceiling of the passage. It was blocked.

Then Yama heard voices behind him, and knew that Lud and Lob had followed him. He should have expected it. They would lose their lives if he was able to escape and tell the Aedile about the part they had played in Dr. Dismas’s scheme.

As Yama slid down the rubble, his hand fell on something cold and hard. It was a metal knife, its curved blade as long as his forearm. It was cold to the touch and gave off a faint glow; motes of light seemed to float in the wake of its blade when Yama slashed at the darkness. Emboldened, he felt his way back to the tomb.

The dim light hurt his eyes; it spilled around one of the twins, who stood in the tomb’s narrow entrance.

“Little fish, little fish. What are you scared of?”

Yama held up the long knife. “Not you, Lud.”

“Let me get him,” Lob said, peering over his brother’s shoulder.

“Don’t block the light, stupid.” Lud pushed Lob out of the way and grinned at Yama. “There isn’t a way out, is there? Or you wouldn’t have come back. We can wait. We caught fish this morning, and we have water. I don’t think you do, or you would have set out for the city straight away.”

Yama said, “I killed a hyrax last night. I ate well enough then.”

Lud started forward. “But I bet you couldn’t drink the water in the pool, eh? We couldn’t, and we can drink just about anything.”

Yama was aware of a faint breath of air at his back. He said, “How did you get down here?”

“Rope,” Lob said. “From the boat. I saved it. People say we’re stupid, but we’re not.”

“Then I can climb back up,” Yama said, and advanced on Lud, making passes with the knife as he came around the raised casket. The knife made a soft hum, and its rusty hilt pricked his palm. He felt a coldness flowing into his wrist and along his arm as the blade brightened with blue light.

Lud retreated. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

Lob pushed at his brother, trying to get past him. He was excited. “Break his legs,” he shrieked. “Break his legs! See how he swims then!”

“A knife! He’s got a knife!”

Yama swung the knife again. Lud crowded backward into Lob and they both fell over.

Yama yelled, words that hurt his throat and tongue. He did not know what he yelled and he stumbled, because suddenly his legs seemed too long and bony and his arms hung wrong. Where was his mount and where was the rest of the squad? Why was he standing in the middle of what looked like a ruined tomb? Had he fallen into the keelways? All he could remember was a tremendous crushing pain, and then he had suddenly woken here, with two fat ruffians threatening him. He struck at the nearest and the man scrambled out of the way with jittery haste; the knife hit the wall and spat a shower of sparks. It was screaming now. He jumped onto the casket—yes, a tomb—but his body betrayed him and he lost his balance; before he could recover, the second ruffian caught his ankles and he fell heavily, striking the stone floor with hip and elbow and shoulder. The impact numbed his fingers, and the knife fell from his grasp, clattering on the floor and gouging a smoking rut in the stone.

Lud ran forward and kicked the knife out of the way.

Yama scrambled to his feet. He did not remember falling.

His right arm was cold and numb, and hung from his shoulder like a piece of meat; he had to pull the obsidian knife from his belt with his left hand as Lud ran at him. They slammed against the wall and Lud gasped and clutched at his chest.

Blood welled over his hand and he looked at it dully. “What?” he said. He stepped away from Yama with a bewildered look and said again, “What?”

“You killed him!” Lob said.

Yama shook his head. He could not get his breath. The ancient knife lay on the filthy floor exactly between him and Lob, sputtering and sending up a thick smoke that stank of burning metal.

Lud tried to pull the obsidian knife from his chest, but it snapped, leaving a finger’s width of the blade protruding. He blundered around the tomb, blood all over his hands now, blood running down his chest and soaking into the waistband of his kilt. He didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him. He kept saying over and over again, “What? What?” and pushed past his brother and fell to his knees at the entrance to the tomb. Light spilled over his shoulders. He seemed to be searching the blue sky for something he could not find.

Lob stared at Yama, his gray tongue working between his tusks. At last he said, “You killed him, you culler. You didn’t have to kill him.”

Yama took a deep breath. His hands were shaking. “You were going to kill me.”

“All we wanted was a bit of money. Just enough to get away. Not much to ask, and now you’ve gone and killed my brother.”

Lob stepped toward Yama and his foot struck the knife. He picked it up—and screamed. White smoke rose from his hand and then he was not holding the knife but a creature fastened to his arm by clawed hands and feet. Lob staggered backward and slammed his arm against the wall, but the creature only snarled and tightened its grip. It was the size of a small child, and seemed to be made of sticks. A kind of mane of dry, white hair stood around its starveling face.

A horrid stink of burning flesh filled the tomb. Lob beat at the creature with his free hand and it vanished in a sudden flash of blue light.

The ancient knife fell to the floor, tinging on the stone.

Yama snatched it up and fled down the passage, barely remembering to turn right into the faint breeze. He banged from wall to wall as he ran, and then the walls fell away and he was tumbling through a rush of black air.