Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

The servants came then with silver salvers of steaming flatbreads fresh from the tandoors and small bowls with ground sea salt. A pot of kaffé accompanied them, and Bwana gravely served the scarred man with his own hands.

When all had eaten and the Fudir was once more closeted with the Seven, Bwana relaxed in his cushions and said, “Tell us then, Fudir, why thou hast sought the Brotherhood out. By what right doest thou call upon Terra?”

“I seek very little, Bwana. As little as this: the readiness of lips to speak of matters that befell here on Thistlewaite. As you know the ears of Terrans are large, but their mouths are small.”

“As befitteth folk in our station. And thou swearest this toucheth not on Holy Terra?”

“Save only that some have said it may discomfit the Confederation; but this is nothing more than the whisper of a supposition.”

“And we all know what is worth a suppository! Haha! What matters are these?”

“They are matters that touch upon the Kennel, Bwana, and are not to be spoken of.”

The Bwana’s face hardened and his cheeks grew red. “There is the small matter of trust, Fudir. If the Kennel be neither foe nor friend, neither are they Terrans. Doest thou value them more than thou valuest your own blood?”

Danger had once more raised its red-rimmed eyes. The Brotherhood would not harm him, not after offering bread and salt; but there were more Terrans in the Corner than belonged to the Brotherhood, and a disingenuous word spoken here or there could make his departure problematical. “I will tell ye so much as is safe for ye to know, brothers. But ye must swear a mighty oath to contain these words only within these walls. I wish to know of the doings of the Hound, Bridget ban, during her sojourn here. The Folk must speak to me with open hearts.”

Bwana studied him, and the Fudir could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. Then he clapped his hands again and cried out. “The Book!”

The others of the Seven looked uncomfortably at one another. One rose and murmured, “Perhaps I would not hear this.” Bwana flicked his fingers at her and she and two others rose, bowed over their folded hands to both the Bwana and the Fudir, and departed swiftly.

Shortly, a book was brought in. It was a thick volume, bound in the ancient style and inscribed on its binding with the curlicues of the old Tantamiž script. The printing was badly worn and a dull brown stain covered some of it. Of its title, the Fudir could make out only Guest is God , but on the reading of those words his heart went hollow. It was in the old script and its spelling was antique. Athtithi Dhevo Bhava , instead of Adidi Dyefo Vapha . The author’s name was not visible, but he wondered. Could this volume be that written by Saint Shanthanand Saraswathi himself? How old was it? It was encased in a plastic block—destroyed and preserved in one act—and so its age had ceased. It might have come from Lost Terra herself, lovingly cradled and carried from the Home World to the Old Planets and from there to come to rest finally on rickety Thistlewaite.

The Fudir, who fancied himself an unsentimental man, was surprised to find himself on his knees before the book, his cheeks hot with tears; but whether for the ancient, half-legendary swami-ji, or for everything lost that had once been, he did not know. He placed his hand on the block along with the Bwana and the others of the Committee who had stayed, their fingertips touching one another: pallid, ebony, dun, and sallow. The colors of Olde Earth.

After the words were spoken, the Fudir rocked back on his heels. His fingers lingered on the Book, maintaining contact, as if he could feel the binding and the covers and the pages preserved forever unreadable within the plastic. He had spoken many oaths in his lifetime, and some he had even kept. This was the first he had ever taken that he had felt was holy.

And so he told them that the harper’s mother had vanished and that the daughter had set forth on a hopeless quest to find her, and that he had come with her as her guide and protector. As Terrans, his hosts knew all about hopeless quests, and so were inclined to sympathy. They gave their leave to make inquiries in the Corner.

Nor did it hurt that the Fudir would pay for information from the deep pockets of the Kennel.

“And this,” he said, pulling from his scrip the necklace he had borrowed from Méarana. “It may mean nothing; it may mean everything. The Hound bought it here on Thistlewaite, or received it as a gift. Somewhere there is a merchant or a dealer in curiosities who remembers it, and perhaps remembers whence it came.”

Bwana and his councilors studied it in turn. “It is unfamiliar to me,” said the chairman. “If it be thistlework, it must be of a far-off sheen. Yet, we see imports in our bazaars from even Fire Over Water, which is the farthest of the Fourteen States, and I have never seen its like. See thou Mwere Ng as thou departest, and she will prepare whole-grams of it. I will have its likeness circulated among jewelcrafters and importers and may fortune reward thy curiosity.”

And so matters ran for several days. Méarana would play songs of the Periphery and engage in “small-talk” with the emperor, and the Fudir would nose around the Terran Corner and other eddies of the city asking after the activities of Bridget ban and the provenance of the medallion. The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step, but it seemed to the harper that neither she nor Donovan were advancing the search for her mother by so much as even that single step. The sense of being stuck in a dreamland crept over her. The days were distinguished only by the particular songs she sang, and the precise lack of information with which the Fudir returned each evening.

Now and then, simply to remind them where they were, the world shrugged his shoulders and the land trembled. Once, Méarana was shaken awake in the night and she lay awake a long time thereafter before sleep reclaimed her, and in the morning she found that a great tree had come down on Great Heaven Street.

Because Resilient Services had discovered the relaxing properties of her harp, he had bid her remain for his afternoon Council and play gentle suantraís while he reviewed the reports the dough-riders had brought in from the distant shau, prefecture, and county officials. And so her day at the palace expanded from command performances at High Tea, to “muzaq” at staff meetings.

No decision in Sheen Jenlùshy was ever final until ratified by the emperor: not the death sentence to a murderer meted out in Wustershau, not the mei-pol festival to be held in Xampstedshau, not the list of candidates proposed from the 7th Dough for the imperial examinations. Each must be reviewed with the Six Ministers, a decision rendered, and the triplicate copies apportioned.

The suantraí was supposed to induce drowsiness in its hearers. Méarana wondered why the emperor thought it necessary. The subject matter alone should induce coma.

While her fingers plucked long-mastered melodies from the strings, she learned that for each official there was a quota of decisions to be overturned. This number could be exceeded in the case of an especially inept official, but never shorted. “If all decisions stand,” Morgan Cheng-li explained as he escorted her from the palace later, “official think above station, fixed by birth and examination. So, if no other cause, council overrule random cases, as lesson in humility.”