Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

“No one tells us pilots anything except which route we’re on or we’re laid off till god-knows when.” Karrel Goza kicked at a pebble, watched it bound along the worn pavement until it disappeared into a pothole. “It’s a long low, but must ’ve about hit bottom, don’t you think?” Karrel Goza looked around. The village didn’t seem to have changed much since he’d seen it last, shabby, one-story buildings, red tile roofs showing above the packed earth walls that went round the house and the bit of garden that only friends and family ever saw, here and there trees rustled in the sometime wind and the shutters over the front windows of those shops that were closed for the night rattled with the gusts, the dark was kind and concealing, there was a lot he wouldn’t see, a lot hidden behind housewalls. He wished Birey Tipis would shut up about all this, it made him sick thinking about it and more than a little scared.

“Can’t say, Kar, you and me, we’ve still got our jobs, knock wood, but what do we do if Skein and the others go broke?”

“Nuh, Bir, they won’t let the carriers fail, Tairanna would fall apart if they did.”

“Don’t be too sure. The Fehz would survive and the divers would still be bringing up rosepearls, so I can’t see Pittipat sticking his fingers in, what’s he care about a bunch of surrish grubbers? I don’t see any light ahead.” Birey Tipis glanced at Karrel Goza, wiped sweat off his forehead. “Wouldn’t say all this if I didn’t know you don’t run off at the mouth, Kar.” The tip of his tongue flicked along his lips. “Used to be we didn’t worry ourselves about what we said, used to be Yapyap, that’s what we call the Sech’s Nose, he let folks know when he was coming around so they could stop talking about anything he’d have to report.” He caught hold of Karrel Goza’s arm, stopped him. “Listen, Kar, I don’t know about other Koys, but watch what you say to folk here, Yapyap’s gone serious, got a bodyguard, a couple scrapings imported from Tassalga. Hurum Deval got drunk last week and wouldn’t shut up, he started spouting all those jokes about the Imperator, you’ve heard ’em, I’m sure, he didn’t mean anything by it, he always gets a mouth on him when he’s reeling. Thing is, come morning he was gone, we haven’t seen him since. The Fehraz he sent some men over and packed up the family, shipped ’em to gul Brindar on the west coast, we got word a few weeks later they were doing scut work for the Fehdaz there and hoping Hur would show up. He hasn’t so far. And he’s a long way from the first to slide down a dark hole without a bottom.” He started walking again. “What say you let me buy you a beer? Mahanna’s come up with a tarin brew that slides down sweet as honey. Don’t worry about Annie, she’ll whip up something for you, doesn’t matter how late it is.”

“Why not. Old Fud’s still a lady in the air. One thing though, who’s going to be wrestling the cargo come morning? If it’s me, I pass.”

“You got a spare goum or two, I can scare up some strong backs for that.”

“I could put in a requisition for expenses. Don’t suppose Skein would honor it.”

“There’s another way, wouldn’t cost you or show on the books.”

“Huh?”

“There’s some brothers who need a lift to the coast.”

“Off the manifest?”

“What else.”

“This Yapyap of yours, won’t he be hanging around the pylon?”

“There’s ways for handling that.”

Karrel Goza walked on. At first he was sure he didn’t want anything to do with the proposition. Running like that, it must be serious what they’d done. If something went wrong he could suck his family into their mess. The Ommar’d eat me raw. He glanced several times at Birey Tipis; the old man was strolling along, eyes on the road ahead, face placid as a ruminating yunk, no sign of the nervousness he’d showed a moment before. Karrel Goza was suddenly sure he was going to do it, he wasn’t quite sure why, he was so scared of it, thinking about what could happen tied his stomach in knots and pumped acid up his throat, but somehow he couldn’t not do it. “Family’ll divorce me if this comes out.”

“It won’t. Um…” Birey Tipis dug his thumb into the soft folds of skin hanging under his jaw. “The boys’ve done this before.”

“Maybe you’d better tell me some more.”

“The less you know, Kar, the safer you are.”

“I am?”

“You got a point. Everyone is. Safer, I mean. I can say this, it’s not thievery or anything like that.”

“Make sure you take care of Yapyap and his friends.”

“We will, no fear of that, my friend.”

We, Karrel Goza thought, that’s interesting. He didn’t say anything, just followed Birey Tipis through the tavern’s swing door.

3. Four months after the Duzzulka flight.

Speakers Circle/Ayla gul Incl.

Karrel Goza rubbed his back against the stone of the wall, watched the clot of heavily robed men mill about atop the minaret, a thirty-foot-tall column of stone with a round shingled roof rising to a graceful point above the broad arches that went round the speaker’s platform. He was listening to the talk around him, soft muttered voices punctuated with slitted suspicious glances at everyone else, angry voices, kept murmurous by the fear that a wrong word at a wrong time was deadlier than poison, a fear justified by the events of the past months; almost everyone knew someone who’d vanished as quietly and completely as a sailor washed overboard in a summer storm; almost everyone thought he or she knew why. There was the unexpressed hope that the missing were in prison somewhere not dead; there was the equally unexpressed fear that they’d been airshipped out over the ocean and dropped in Saader’s Cleft.

Geres Duvvar came threading through the crowd in the Circle, in each hand a paper cone smudged with grease from the estani nuts inside. He gave a cone to Karrel Goza who moved over so his cousin could lean against the wall beside him. “You got some change coming, Kar. There was a little war going on over there ’tween the peddlers.”

Karrel Goza grunted, dug cautiously into the hoard of hot nuts.

Geres Duvvar swallowed. “Hurry up and wait, huh.” He waggled the cone at the group on the speaker’s platform.

“Yeh. Don’t look like there’s much good to say or they’d be saying it.”

The clacker sounded, the crack of wood against wood reverberating through the dull mutter of the crowd. Silence spread like fog.

The Stentor separated from the other robed men, spread his arms. “Sim, O Kisil, sim sen, Hear o People, hear thou. Thy Ollanin return to report the outcome of their petition.” There was a pause. Behind the Stentor one of the Ollanin murmured to him. He nodded, faced out again. “Sorrow, sorrow, the petition was heard, the petition was denied.”

The crushed nut in Karrel Goza’s mouth was suddenly bitter. He spat it out, ignoring the scowl of the woman whose skirts he spattered with the bits. Geres Duvvar beat his hand slowly steadily against the stone, cursing under his breath.

“Sim, O Kisil, sim sen. This is the Imperator’s reply. Let those among you who are needy apply to the Houses for bread and work.”

A groan rose from the crowd.

“Sim, O Kisil, sim sen. If you who are needy are turned away, give word to the Fehdaz. Every House and every Farm who turned you away will be assessed two score rosepearls or the equivalent in tapestries and art pieces.”

A swelling of sound, with a double center, on one side those who have, on the other those who have not.

“Sim, O Kisil, sim sen. Two of thy Ollanin lifted their hearts against this and spoke. The Divine one cast them down into a dark and stinking cell. The Ollanin who murmured but spoke not, the Divine one had them taken from him and sealed into their rooms. For two days, thy Ollanin saw not the sun nor the moons, for two days thy Ollanin drank only water, for two days thy Ollanin tasted not bread nor meat.”