Paul McAuley: Child of the River

Ananda said, “The soldier would be guarding something more important than your life, although, like life, once taken it cannot be given back. But perhaps you no longer have it, which is why the soldier is not here.”

Yama whispered to Derev, “You should not believe everything your father says,” and told Ananda, “You dwell too much on things of the flesh. It does no good to brood on that which you cannot have. Give me some berries.”

Ananda held out a handful. “You only had to ask,” he said mildly.

Yama burst a ghostberry between his tongue and palate: the rough skin shockingly tart, the pulpy seed rich flesh meltingly sweet. He grinned and said, “It is spring. We could stay out all night, then go fishing at dawn.”

Derev said, “My father—”

“Your father would pay more for fresh fish than for frogs.”

“He buys all the fish he can sell from the fisherfolk, and the amount he can buy is limited by the price of salt.”

Ananda said, “It’s traditional to hunt frogs in spring, which is why we’re here. Derev’s father wouldn’t thank you for making her into a fisherman.”

“If I don’t get back before midnight he’ll lock me up,” Derev said. “I will never see you again.”

Yama smiled. “You know that is not true. Otherwise your father would never have let you out in the first place.”

“There should be a soldier here,” Derev said. “We’re none of us armed.”

“The heretics are leagues away. And I will protect you, Derev.”

Derev brandished her trident, as fierce and lovely as a naiad. “We’re equally matched, I think.”

“I cannot stay out all night either,” Ananda said. “Father Quine rises an hour before sunrise, and before then I must sweep the naos and light the candles in the votary.”

“No one will come,” Yama said. “No one ever does anymore, except on high days.”

“That’s not the point. The avatars may have been silenced, but the Preservers are still there.”

“They will be there whether you light the candles or not. Stay with me, Ananda. Forget your duties for once.”

Ananda shrugged. “I happen to believe in my duties.”

Yama said, “You are scared of the beating you will get from Father Quine.”

“Well, that’s true, too. For a holy man, he has a fearsome temper and a strong arm. You’re lucky, Yama. The Aedile is a kindly, scholarly man.”

“If he is angry with me, he has Sergeant Rhodean beat me. And if he learns that I have left the peel-house at night, that is just what will happen. That is why I did not bring a soldier with me.”

“My father says that physical punishment is barbaric,” Derev said.

“It is not so bad,” Yama said. “And at least you know when it is over.”

“The Aedile sent for Father Quine yesterday,” Ananda said. He crammed the last of the ghostberries into his mouth and got to his feet. Berry juice stained his lips; they looked black in the Galaxy’s blue-white light.

Yama said unhappily, “My father is wondering what to do with me. He has been talking about finding a clerkship for me in a safe corner of the department. I think that is why Dr. Dismas went to Ys. But I do not want to be a clerk—I would rather be a priest. At least I would get to see something of the world.”

“You’re too old,” Ananda said equitably. “My parents consecrated me a hundred days after my birth. And besides being too old, you are also too full of sin. You spy on your poor father, and steal.”

“And sneak out after dark,” Derev said.

“So has Ananda.”

“But not to fornicate,” Ananda said. “Derev’s father knows that I’m here, so I’m as much a chaperon as any soldier, although more easily bribed.”

Derev said, “Oh, Ananda, we really are here to hunt for frogs.”

Ananda added, “And I will confess my sin tomorrow, before the shrine.”

“As if the Preservers care about your small sins,” Yama said.

“You’re too proud to be a priest,” Ananda said. “Above all, you’re too proud. Come and pray with me. Unburden yourself.”

Yama said, “Well, I would rather be a priest than a clerk, but most of all I would rather be a soldier. I will run away and enlist. I will train as an officer, and lead a company of myrmidons or command a corvette into battle against the heretics.”

Ananda said, “That’s why your father wants you to be a clerk.”

Derev said, “Listen.”

The two boys turned to look at where she pointed. Far out across the flooded fields, a point of intense turquoise light was moving through the dark air toward the Great River.

“A machine,” Yama said.

“So it is,” Derev said, “but that isn’t what I meant. I heard someone crying out.”

“Frogs fornicating.” Ananda said.

Yama guessed that the machine was half a league off. It seemed to slide at an angle to everything else, twinkling as if stitching a path between the world and its own reality.

He said, “We should make a wish.”

Ananda smiled, “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, brother Yama. Such superstitions are unworthy of someone as educated as you.”

Derev said, “Besides, you should never make a wish in case it is answered, like the story of the old man and the fox maiden. I know I heard something. It may be heretics. Or bandits. Quiet! Listen!”

Ananda said, “I hear nothing, Derev. Perhaps your heart is beating so quickly it cries out for relief. I know I’m a poor priest, Yama, but one thing I know is true. The Preservers see all; there is no need to invoke them by calling upon their servants.”

Yama shrugged. There was no point debating such niceties with Ananda, who had been trained in theology since birth, but why shouldn’t machines at least hear the wishes of those they passed by? Wishing was only an informal kind of praying after all, and surely prayers were heard, and sometimes even answered. For if praying did not bring reward, then people would long ago have abandoned the habit of prayer, as farmers abandon land which no longer yields a crop. The priests taught that the Preservers heard and saw all, yet chose not to act because they did not wish to invalidate the free will of their creations; but machines were as much a part of the world which the Preservers had created as the Shaped bloodlines, although of a higher order. Even if the Preservers had withdrawn their blessing from the world after the affront of the Age of Insurrection, as the divaricationists believed, it was still possible that machines, their epigones, might recognize the justice of answering a particular wish, and intercede.

After all, those avatars of the Preservers which had survived the Age of Insurrection had spoken with men as recently as forty years ago, before the heretics had finally silenced them.

In any event, better the chance taken than that lost and later regretted. Yama closed his eyes and offered up the quick wish, hostage to the future, that he be made a soldier and not a clerk.

Ananda said, “You might as well wish upon a star.”

Derev said, “Quiet! I heard it again!”

And Yama heard it too, faint but unmistakable above the frogs’ incessant chorus. A man’s angry wordless yell, and then the sound of jeering voices and coarse laughter.

Yama led the others through the overgrown ruins. Ananda padded right behind him with his robe tucked into his girdle—the better to run away if there was trouble, he said, although Yama knew that he would not run. Derev would not run away either; she held her trident like a javelin.

One of the old roads ran alongside the fields. Its ceramic surface had been stripped and smelted for the metals it had contained thousands of years ago, but the long straight track preserved its geodesic ideal. At the crux between the old road and a footpath that led across the embankment between two of the flooded fields, by a simple shrine set on a wooden post, the Constable’s twin sons, Lud and Lob, had ambushed an anchorite.