Jo Clayton - Fire in the Sky

Engebel swung xe’s fingers, deliberately choosing a Fior woman this time. “Deдnin.”

Deдnin was a stocky woman in late middle age, her hair cut short and mostly gray, her face lined, her eyes almost lost in nets of crows’s-feet. “Before I came to the mountains, they set me to running their whorehouse in Dumel Dordan-that-was, the house that Drudges used. You don’t want to know what a rutting Drudge is like. Male or female. Rebek is right. When the Scacca blows, that’s when we have a chance, but we have to be ready to take it. Before I came away, I saw Drudges and techs both drinking smoke. That’s the trade we can work on, get them so drugged with smoke they get careless. The big Muck, he’s trying to get hold of the trade all for himself, he’s trying to cut off the techs’ supplies, it’s like he’s working for us. Let them think they ashed most of us with the trees. Let them think what’s left of us have gone tame with terror. Let them get real comfortable. Then we hit and we wipe them off Bйluchad.”

Brion blinked at the ceiling, wondering what it was that woke him so early.

A moment later Temuen came in with a tray, two mugs of timel tea steaming on it, sticks of husk burning in a holder, a bright bunch of silny flowers in the little vase he’d carved for her. “Greet the Summer,” she sang. Her voice quavered, but it was still as true and sweet as it had been the first time he heard her sing.

He pushed up, made room for her beside him on the bed. “Summer Day already?”

She patted his hand. “You lose count, you know.”

When they woke from the smoke trance, they left the shelter and stood at the edge of the Sleeping Ground watching the smoke from the fires coiling above the peaks. Brion caught hold of a vine twisting about the pergola, weak tears filled his eyes “Why?”

“Because they look at us like we’re bugs. Been stinging them, I ‘spect. Smoking us out, burning us down like we would a nest of chups.” There was a scratchy irritation in her voice as if she’d said the same thing too many times before. After a moment he felt the echoes in his mind and knew he’d stood here, said this, she’d said that, all of it before.

“Sorry. I forget.”

“I know. Takes some like that.”

There was an odd burring in the air. Not loud. Like a cloud of kekads swarming above a lake. The image pleased him, brought up a memory of a time when he was just a boy and dreaming of being an Ard and bonding with an Eolt. He felt again the jolt when he realized it wasn’t going to happen. Fifty years ago, yet the hurt was still fresh. He leaned against the pergola and wept for that and all the things he’d forgotten in the years since.

A hand tugged at him. Temuen’s voice was shrill in his ear. “Come on, old fool. The mesuchs, they coming here. We gotta get away.”

“Wha… where?” He brushed at his eyes, saw the dark blot of the airwagon dropping down beside the Sleeping Ground. He started to move then, but it was already too late. A force of mesuchs came bounding out of the wagon and moved in an arc toward the ground. He turned only to see another airwagon and another arc closing in from the other side.

A grating sound from the first airwagon, then words. “Stop where you are. If you try to run, we’ll take your legs off. Come to the Bonding Court…”

Agitation made Brion’s limbs twitch. The words… they shouldn’t know the words… they stole the words… Muttering his distress, he let Temuen tug him along to the court.

All the other Guardians were there, the young ones and the old failing ones like him. The mesuchs had trapped them all.

The airwagon was still talking at them. He’d missed part of it, so it was a while before he took in what was being said and then only because the wagon repeated it twice. “… will choose four from among the oldest of you, the rest won’t be harmed. You can go on about your business as soon as we leave. Any disturbance or disobedience will be punished immediately.”

A mesuch walked past them, staring at them. Brion shivered as the hard metallic gaze seemed to peel his skin back.

A moment later the mesuch was back. He had a short brass wind in his hand. He moved his claw, a ray of light went out, touched Camach. “You.”

The light touched Sulantha, the oldest of the women here. “You.”

The light touched Brion. It was cold light, but it burned him. He shuddered when the mesuch said, “You.”

The light touched Temuen. “You.”

The mesuch stepped back. “The ones I marked, step forward. You’ll be coming with us.”

At least I’ll have Temuen. Brion took a step toward the airwagon. At least I won’t be alone. He reached to take her hand, but she wasn’t beside him. He turned.

Her face had gone red, her eyes were little and squinty. She got like that when she was angry. And she was stubborn when she was angry. “No!” she shouted at the mesuch. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Brion rushed to her, took her arm and tried to pull her along. “Temmy, don’t, I need you. Don’t. Don’t. Temmy…”

The mesuch didn’t bother trying to persuade her. The light that touched Temuen this time burned a hole clear through her and she crumpled at Brion’s feet.

The marker light flashed out, touched Teдrall. “You. Now. All of you. Move. I will not accept hesitation.”

Teдrall took Brion’s arm. “Cha oy, Brio, what’s done is done. Come along.”

At times during the flight to the mesuch’s place, Brion would forget about Temuen and stare out at the clouds or at the ground moving with such stately deceptive speed below them. Then he’d look around to find her and show her the wonders and she wasn’t there and he’d remember and the pain was new again, new each time as if the horror happened over and over. He’d gotten used to Guardians dying, they did it all the time. Old men died. Old women died. They went into the ground and their souls came back, as Keteng and flowered into golden. Eolt. But those dyings were shared things, with songs and stories and the Passage Feast to celebrate the freeing from the body. Even when young Rudiam had a heart attack when he was only fifty-seven and dropped dead in the middle of a Song Smoke, it wasn’t like… Brion looked out and saw a herd of blackface caцrags spooked by the shadow of the airwagons rippling across the grass, smiled at how silly they looked from up here, turned to nudge Temuen… and screamed, remembering…

The mesuchs drove the four Guardians ahead of them into a small gate in the backside of their fort-place. After passing through a maze of corridors, all rigidly square with glow bands that produced a glaring white light that seared Brion’s eyes, kept him blinking and rubbing at them, a hand in the middle of his back shoved him into a small square room, with walls and ceiling a smooth white ceramic.

The others came stumbling in after him, dazed and eyes streaming from the glare.

The mesuch’s voice came blaring into the room, as hard on the ears as their lights were on the eyes. “Strip off your clothing and drop it in the opening provided.”

Brion blinked, stood staring at the wall, not sure he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. Teдrall patted his arm. “Brio, take off your clothes. We all have to do that.” She turned, began helping Sulantha with the ties on her robe.

Liquid came at him from everywhere, hard lines that hurt where they hit. Not water. It stung his eyes and had the greasily sour taste of soap when it got into his mouth. Then the water was gone and something like fog gushed into the room. It caught him in the throat and started him coughing. He could hear the others hacking and wheezing.

Then the fog was sucked away and they stood shivering on the smooth cold floor. A part of a wall slid back. A door. Not the one they’d come through.