Jo Clayton - Fire in the Sky

Shadith touched the strings of her harp, felt her way into the harmonies, and joined them. As the Eolt had tasted her on the way here, she tasted them now, the mind touch unfocused and encompassing.

The semi-meld with the fliers and their residues in her blood brought her sisters to dance for her. Warm mist drifted into the arena from the hotsprings, silver streamers of heat and damp that shaped themselves into graceful swaying images, black and silver similitudes of Naya, Zayalla, Annethi, Itsaya, Talitt, and Sullan. Six sisters, weaving dreams just for her now, dead in the body for twenty times a thousand years, living in her memory and her mind’s eye whenever a new matrix in a new world brought them forth for her. Once again she thought she saw Itsaya wink at her, saw Naya smile, saw Zaya shake her hips and grin over her shoulder, saw her sisters greet her each in her own way.

Distantly she heard a singing sigh pass from Eolt to Eolt, from Keteng to Keteng to Fior and in a corner of her mind where it didn’t interfere with her own joy, she knew that her voice, and the harps, Maorgan and Melech had combined somehow to bring the Weave of Shayalin to life for more than her.

It was a joy and a wonder, but fleeting.

Her sisters turned through a last step and were gone.

She laid her hand on the strings and stilled her harp.

Maorgan and Melech felt silent also.

Danor threw his head back and howled, a sound so full of grief and rage it seemed to darken the air inside the columns.

“I cry out to you,” he sang, his voice full and vibrant despite his weariness, age and wounds, fueled by the rage that swelled in him.

I cry out to you Hear me, Meruu

I cry out to you Hear me, Meruu

I cry a warning Hear me, Meruu

I cry a warning Hear me, Meruu

I cry my grief Hear me, Meruu

I cry for vengeance Hear me, Meruu

Danor dropped to his knees, his arms hanging limp, his head down. He was trembling so violently he could barely keep his place.

An Eolt among the Meruu of the Air spoke, slowly, formally. “I, Bladechel, am Voice for the Air. You have seen these things with the eyes of your body?”

Danor cleared his throat, forced his head up and his voice out. “I have seen mesuch in an airwagon direct their weapons on my sioll. I have seen xe turn to a tower of fire when the beam from that weapon touched xe. I have seen the airwagons chasing Eolt, free and siolled, burning them for the joy of it. I have seen Denchok and Meloach chased and corralled like beasts and slaughtered like beasts. I have seen Fior driven from their Dumels and Ordumels, the women taken for whores, the men as slave workers. I have seen these things with my own eyes.” He let his head fall again to hide the tears he couldn’t stop.

As soon as he was finished the Speaker repeated his words to make sure all heard them. Then xe said, “The Scholar from University, step forth. Speak your name that all may hear it.”

Aslan moved to stand beside Danor. “I am Aslan aici Adlaar of University and of the School on University that follows the study of the cultures and histories of many peoples.”

“Do you know the history of the mesuch that kill Eolt for pleasure? Can you attest that this has happened before?”

“They are the Chandavasi. They call themselves the Souled Men. Let it be understood that what I say now is a caricature of their truth because all generalizations can only be caricatures.”

“We do hear and understand, Scholar.”

“Then I will proceed. It is their belief that all other creatures are little better than beasts and thus may be treated as beasts, even those that share their shape. They will restrain themselves only in the face of a perceived danger or a force greater than they can overcome at that moment. They have strong clan bonds, a long history of bloodfeuds and a weak central government that does little more than provide certain services to the clans and attempt to mediate quarrels between them. This is important because the home-world Chave will not send help to the mesuch on Melitoлh beyond what the mesuchs’ own clan provides. Defeat them and they will cut the names of the Chave who have failed from the lists of their people and the name of Bйluchad will never be spoken again. This being so, I can’t have any way of knowing that such actions have happened before on other worlds.”

The Speaker repeated her words as she had spoken them, then xe asked, “Hearing this, it seems to me they will fight like trapped behabs and destroy utterly what they cannot have if they see defeat before them.”

“That is so. There is evidence of such already. Among the starfaring it is considered a very bad thing to give energy weapons to those that don’t have them. This is almost as bad as the slaughter of intelligent beings. Yet they are doing this.” She held up the cutter. “Should news of these weapons get back to University, the Clan and perhaps Chandava itself would be, named Pariah and cut off from many services that they need. It would be as if the Kabits on the sail-barges refused to lend or buy from a person in a Dumel. How long would that person manage to prosper?

“The Chave have destroyed all means we have of reaching out with this information and they are now trying to destroy us. They are passing out these weapons and they have set a weight of gold on our heads. We have been attacked repeatedly by chorek. And will be again once we leave here. By the way, I’ll have a suggestion about that when the time comes for such things. Indeed, I doubt we are safe even here. Or you. These weapons the chorek have are hand-held versions of those mounted on Chav fliers, the weapon Danor spoke of. Should a beam from the cutter touch any Eolt, xe would burn like Danor’s sioll.”

“This is true? How many of those weapons are out there?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps dozens, perhaps hundreds. There is a Chav spy come across from Melitoлh; he’s passing them out like pieces of candy. Twice chorek attacked me and my aide at Dumel Alsekum. Each time they used a cutter. Of the twenty chorek who attacked the tower in the pass, fourteen had cutters. We have collected these. From some of the things the chorek said when they woke and found themselves bound, these are what you call political chorek and are filled with hate for all things Keteng and all those who deal with Keteng.”

There was wailing from the Eolt even as the Speaker was repeating Aslan’s words. Xe finished and was silent for a moment, xe’s tentacles coiling and uncoiling, xe’s filmy membranes pulsing. When xe could control xe’s voice again, xe said, “Is there any way you can demonstrate that weapon here without endangering the Meruus and those who watch?”

“I can’t demonstrate without destroying something. Would you mind replacing part of the arena floor?”

Once again the Speaker had to fight down xe’s agitation. Xe said, “Show us.”

Aslan walked to the edge of the dais, stood holding the cutter pointed down while she spoke. “This is a modification of a mining tool. Chandava Minerals is a mining business and can justify their presence by claiming these weapons were stolen from their crawlers. It is enough to keep them from the Verifier, which is a machine starfarers have that can judge the truth or falsity of a statement. That is why it will be necessary to capture and keep alive some who received the weapons and the spy himself until we can take them offworld and turn them to weapons against the Chave. If you will watch.” She touched the sensor, played the cutter beam along the white marble floor, gouging long deep lines in the stone, parallel, a band’s width apart.