Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

“We’ve got around an hour till dawn. The storm slowed us a lot, we haven’t reached North Bayshore yet.”

“We can’t make the mines before sunup?”

“No way. We’ll have to find someplace to lay up. Unless you want to risk day flying.”

“Too dangerous. If we ran straight east for an hour, where’d we come out?”

“Can’t go straight east. Skimmer can’t go head on against the wind out there, it’s blowing a gale still.” He tapped the glass over the fuel readout. “Look at this. Even beating to the southeast, we’ll be running on fumes in the emergency tank before we have land under us. We’ll have to leave her anchored somewhere until we can pack in fuel. Why not let the wind take us to the west shore?”

“That’s Daz Musved, the Fehdaz there has a strangle hold on his people. I don’t dare show my face anywhere around. Remember the price on my head? Besides, the land is too open close to the coast, we couldn’t hide Skimmer and hope to get her back. And we need her.”

“What’s all this about hiding her? Why can’t we just find a spot where people don’t go and anchor her?”

“Because once the Grand Sech strips the blocks the woman set in the Brain, he’ll order the Warmaster to scan the country around Gilisim. She warned me that would happen, that we’d better go to ground as soon as we could. If we can tuck her out of sight, there won’t be anything for the scanners to see. That reminds me, they’ll probably rake through places like the mine. Jirsy.”

“Um?”

“You’ve got kin round the north end of the Bay, haven’t you? In Daz Kanath?”

“I’ve got some Peltic-Indiz cousins living at Kuntepe Cove. You know where that is, Kar?”

“Close to where the Incis drop down to the sea, isn’t it? I took a girl there for a daysail the week before I was adulted. I think it was Kuntepe.”

“Right. Why, Elli?”

“I want you to get to a com where you can send a warning to Ansla Civa at the mine so she can spread the news to keep their heads down. Can you do that?”

“Sure. Kar, put me down near the point, I’ll walk round to the House. They’ll take me in and ask no questions.” She was a tiny thing with a face like a sealpup, and when she grinned her eyes almost disappeared. “They’ve been stilling teshfire on the sly since Settletimes and no Fehdaz or any of his Noses has ever caught them at it or anything else they feel like doing and no stinking bitbit’s about to do that now.”

“Good. Will your cousins help you get back to gul Inci?”

“Oh yes, one of these days I’m probably going to marry Imro Peltic. And even if that wasn’t so, none of them down to little Emin who’s just starting to talk would say anything to any outsiders, Huvved or Hordar doesn’t matter.”

“Well, tell them what you have to, Jir, and warn them to keep close to home. If you can avoid it, nothing about the Warmaster.”

“Elli, no no. It’s true this time, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Telling them that could hurt a lot.”

“I see.” Elmas Ofka fell silent for a moment, tracing over and over the merm scars on her arm; she was thinking hard. “Kar, you said hide hunting?”

“Derrigee Bol’s paying two to five alvs for erkelte hides. When I messed up my hand, Goza Ommar said go and don’t come back till you’ve walked the maggos out of your belly; if I could bring back a hide or two, that’d be froth on the beer, but she didn’t expect it. I could stay out another week, no problem.”

“Good. It’ll take at least that long to get Skimmer refueled and flown home.” Her mouth twitched into a half-smile. “Maybe you’ll come across an erkelte and get your hide while we’re walking to the mine.” She looked down at her hands. “We’ll have to expel the ballonets and let the wind carry them off, collapse the bag so we can get it and the gondola under cover. Kar, if you can nurse her that far, take her up the K’tep. The closer we hide her to a waterway, the easier it’ll be to resupply her.”

“Depends on the wind. And a favor from the Prophet wouldn’t hurt.”

“Do the best you can.”

“Don’t I always? Find another place to sit before I swing round. This could get rough.” He reached for the restrainers, clicked the catches shut, wincing as the straps pressed against his bruises. He waited until Lirrit and Elmas were settled, then he began easing the nose around, heading toward the northeast bend of the Bay and the Inci Hills.

1. 8 months std. after Adelaar aici Arash hired Swardheld Quale and his crew. Aslan as fugitive, living at the Mines.

The flarescreen spread across the wall inside the old smelter. Most of the smelter’s machinery had been salvaged for scrap when the mine shut down; the building itself was in fair shape, its brick walls were massive, its tiled concrete roof cracked but otherwise intact. A year ago, when Parnalee’s Spectacles had first appeared and were beginning to attract a considerable audience, some of the middlers among the Hordar exiles had plastered the walls and ceiling inside and pasted yosstarp over the plaster to make the huge room lightproof, others had picked up a comset in the course of a raid on a Raz strongroom and installed it here with a sunlight pickup and storage cells as its power source. The floor was littered with cushions and mats left here permanently because the Smelter had become one of the favored meeting places for the younger exiles, a combination Tavern and Dance Floor and ShowCenter; the greater part of the rebels and the outcasts were late middlers and young adults, fourteen through thirty-five, Hordar at their most energetic and prideful, male and female in nearly equal numbers; they came from every part of settled Tairanna, from the Duzzulkas, from the Sea Farms, from the east coast, west coast, south coast Littorals, even some up from Guneywhiyk the South Continent; desperate enough to chase a whisper; life on Guneywhiyk was even more constricted than it was here in the North.

Three days after Elmas Ofka took her isyas to raid the Palace, Aslan strolled into the Smelter and settled on a cushion in one of the corners, apart from the others. Like most of the escaped slaves she lived in amiable contiguity with the rebel Hordar, but this tolerance was a policy based on the needs of the rebels, not real acceptance; she had to be careful to avoid triggering the xenophobe that lay not so far beneath every Hordar skin. It was dark out, supper was over and the cleanup finished; this was the hour when Hordar in the cities went to the Dance Floors or into the Taverns, when parties began and lovers jumped the walls to meet in delicious secrecy. It was the eve of Gun Peygam, the Day of the Prophet, the one day in seven the Kuzeywhiyker Pradites set aside for rest and meditation. The eve of Gun Peygam was the day Parnalee chose for his weekly broadcasts.

Aslan twisted open the flask of tea she’d brought, filled the lidcup and sat with her back against the wall, sipping tea and watching the screen as the warning eye appeared, then dissolved into a play of color. The rebels were drifting in, exchanging scrip for drinks and food from the bar at one side, wandering about until they found a group they felt like joining or an empty mat where they could make their own group. Because they came from different places there were frictions, lots of frictions, clawfights and fist fights, hurt feelings and hurt bodies, but their joint hatred of the Huvved helped smooth down the worst lumps and gradually these Hordar from everywhere were beginning to think of themselves as Tairannin rather than Incers or Brindarin or whatever. At the request of the Council that was attempting to govern this patchwork settlement, Aslan had devised several strategies for diffusing hostility; these seemed to be working well enough to keep the ever-increasing population at the Mines from flying into fragments.