M. Barker: The Man of Gold

The Prior pursed his lips and bent to roll up the mat Kurrune had used. “Harsan, you may leave us now. We shall see what is to be seen.” As the younger priest turned to go, he added, “Sleep now, but do not fail to call upon Qumal tomorrow. He will supply you with five strokes of the ‘leather rosary.’ How else to repay you for failing to announce Kumme’s arrival before that ill-visaged and latrine-breathed Ferruga burst in upon my nap? As it is written, ‘the hide of a young man is like that of a Chlen-beast; peel it, and it grows back ever thicker and stronger.’ ” The Prior smiled lopsidedly and turned back to his guest.

The two men waited in silence until the receding slip-slap of Harsan’s sandals and the click of the door closing told them that he had left. Above them the high clerestory windows were etched in the eldritch green luminescence of Gayel, Tekumel’s second moon. The torch'at the entrance, around the comer of the narrow L-shaped gallery, had long ago collapsed into dark coals within its sconce, and now only the faintest scattering of Gayel’s light dusted the ghostly upper pinnacles of Fssu’uma’s towering work and picked out veins of gleaming gold from among the twisted boughs of Vringayekmu’s masterpiece. At the far end of the chamber, behind Harsan’s model of Llyani, the wall tapestries fluttered in response to the “Silent Walker of the Night,” as the men of the Chakas named the chill night breeze from the Inner Range.

The Prior rounded upon Kurrune and spoke with fierce intensity. “And now you can unravel me this skein, my friend! When you asked me to show the boy the map symbol I had no idea you came to take him from us! I had hoped to see him complete his work-attain the Third Circle at least, before sending him out to jig to the pipers of temple politics!”

The other shrugged, held out a hand cupped palm up in mute deprecation. “Old friend, what can I say? I am but a talking ATiM-bird, fluttering here and there to squawk my simple words, and am gone again…”

The Prior snorted. “Nonsense. I know you from of old. Did we not sweat out a miserable ten years together in the temple school at Tumissa? Tell me, honestly, as Hnalla, Lord of Light, loves you: how many masters now do you serve?”

Kurrune smiled, not in the least put out. “Currently I think it is six-three of which are here, here, and here.” He touched his stomach, his heart, and his forehead. “The remaining three are less troublesome.” He held out his blue courier’s headdress. “You know that I am a messenger for our good Lord, the sixty-first Seal Emperor of Tsolyanu. You know also that I favour our Lord of Wisdom, great Thumis. And the sixth of my masters you must guess at, for I may not reveal the name.”

“Tell me what you know of this matter at least!”

Kurrune sighed. “ ‘Sow seeds in the desert and reap only sand,’ as we say in Fasiltum. The High Council of the temple does not confide in such as I. But this, good Haringgashte, may be the shoot from which the tree sprouts: not only is Harsan young, not only does he unravel Llyani as easily as a maiden weaves garlands for her lovers, but is it not also true that he speaks the tongue of the insects-the Pe Choi?”

“Ohe, I had guessed as much.” The Prior licked thin lips. “The boy is clanless, brought to us by the Pe Choi from the inner valleys. For Thumis knows what reason they had kept him instead of handing him over to the nearest human settlement when they found him abandoned in the forest. None knew his parents, nor had we any record of him. When he came to us, he spoke only Pe Choi, a language no human has ever learned before. He whistled, he hooted, he trilled, he snapped his fingers and clapped his hands-and the insects understood him. He lacked the organs needed to make all of their strange sounds, yet he had developed substitutes. It was three summers before he could speak freely with the other children here in the monastery. Even now there are times when he strikes me as odd: a difference of idiom, a sense of attitude, who can say?”

The messenger glanced over to Harsan’s model. “You tell me that he is the only human ever to learn the tongue of the Pe Choi. Why did he not make it the subject of his Labour of Reverence? There are many who know Llyani.”

“We had thought the same,” the Prior replied, “but he said that there are no symbols-in glass, metal, or any other substance-for the sounds of the insects’ speech. More, he denies that our symbologies can truly represent their conceptual framework. Who knows, he may be right…”

“Perhaps he would keep his knowledge to himself? Later, when he grows more skilled, he may submit it as a Labour of Reverence for admission to a higher Circle?”

The Prior made a sour face. “Another unanswerable riddle. In any case, Llyani has status, prestige as a ‘high tongue’ of the ancients. It is also likely that the other acolytes in our school had much to do with his choice-teased him about his jungle origins, his lack of clan, lineage, and parentage-and made him miserable enough to select the most noble, most difficult, and most esoteric of all of the ancient languages.”

“La, friend Haringgashte, you now answer your own question.

Why send for this one lowly novice, as fresh as a Dlel — fruit from the tree? Here is a reason as good as any: a clever young fellow, talent visible within him as light within a lamp, a love of picking apart your ancient grammatical puzzles, a background of alien strangeness-something that provides him with a new perspective upon his studies. Why should the High Council not whistle him up when a bagful of old bones and trinkets comes to light?” He tapped his wallet.

“Because it is not enough! If there is one lesson I’ve learned in fifty years in the priesthood, it’s to follow a skein until I get back to the first knot. When Harsan spoke of Gruneshu and the others, his bolt did not miss its mark. Other scholars of Llyani exist, greater ones by far. Every temple of the twenty deities has some duffer or other who can riddle the language.” He scraped a hand across his small, shaven chin. “-And these relics have naught to do with the Pe Choi. There’s no hint of Pe Choi manufacture in the two you showed me. We lack a theorem sufficient to explain the data, as our old teacher Chayanu used to tell us in his logic lectures. The boy is clanless-not a good sign, for it means that he is expendable, and none to ask after him. He is naive, unlettered in the intrigues of the temple, vulnerable as a fish on the shore…”

Kurrune lowered his eyes. “Old friend, I really speak words of wind. I know nothing of this. About other matters I could fill you as a river fills a bucket. But not this. I swear it to you.” His tone softened. “My sources do bring me a drop here, a driblet there, and from all of these trickles I can often make a pond. They say of me that all gossip flows to Kurrune the Messenger, as a river enters the sea. Were you to ask, I could tell you how the Royalist Party fiddles and the priesthoods dance; how the Military Party sings sweetly in our Emperor’s ear of conquests in Yan Kor and the re-establishment of the halcyon days of the Bednalljan kings; how the Imperialist Party in Avanthar sulks and waits to pounce upon posts closer to the Petal Throne; how the royal Prince Eselne diddles and dallies with Misenla, High Priestess of Hrihayal in Bey Sii; how his brothers pout and glower, and the youngest, Dhich’une, yearns to call up all the undead demons of accursed Sarku and give the land over to the Mysteries of the Worm. I could whisper of certain heirs to the throne who are as yet unrevealed, kept secret by the Emperor and his Omnipotent Azure Legion until the time is ripe for them to be brought forth… All of these things I can tell and more; yet of this present instance I have less knowledge than an eel-fisher in the swamps of Tsehelnu.”