Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

The color flow took on shape and definition, changing into a swirl of male and female dancers filling the screen with explosive movement timed to a music more guessed at than heard. Parnalee was using her data here as he would later on, as he did in every show, ignoring the distortions she’d tried to introduce, perhaps they were canceled out by what Churri brought him, it didn’t matter, it’d taken her less than a month to recognize the futility of her attempts to buy moral absolution without giving up her comfortable life, without facing and accepting the danger implicit in challenging the dominance of the Huvved; having recognized that weaselthink, she went missing from gul Inci when Tra Yarta sent her spying there. Her data, yes. It told him that Tairannin never settled immediately to anything other than work, they circled, approached and shied away, as if they were sniffing at each other and the air around them, as if they had to get the feel of place and people before they could settle to enjoying themselves; he was programming spectacular dance sequences at the beginning of each show so he could snag the eye and draw in the peripatetic viewer before the serious business of drama began.

Churri showed up at the Mines about six months after she went down the slide. One day in early spring when rain was turning the world to mud and the honeycomb inside the mountain was sweating and dank, he came strolling into the stubby shaft where she and Xalloor were living, grinned at her and went out again. He usually joined them at the Smelter when Parnalee’s Spectacles were on, watching the shows with a contagious glee as he ran a whispered commentary on the strings the Proggerdi was pulling. He wasn’t here now, he and Xalloor and her group were having a prolonged argument over their latest script, that’s what the note said that Xalloor sent round to her before dinner. If they managed to work things out before the Spectacle was over, they’d join her. She wasn’t expecting them. Conflict was foreplay for the Bard her father, probably that was what attracted him to her mother, Adelaar’s fierce and instant attack on anything that tried to control her. He’d quickly lost interest in Aslan; his daughter wasn’t the kind of woman he admired and there were no shared memories of her childhood to reinforce the bio-tie; the accidental fact of their relationship went back to being a thing of no importance to either. At least, that was the face she put on for him. She was too experienced an observer to place any pressure on the fragile bond that still existed between them, but his indifference hurt her badly. There were times she woke before dawn and lay on the crude pallet unable to sleep, caught in what she called the deadash grays, asking why she kept on living and finding no answer.

The dancers melted again to streamers of light that wove a garland about a small dark man holding a stringed instrument like a cross between a lute and a lyre. The rebels greeted his appearance with whistles and thumbsnapping, his name went skittering about the Smelter like the game ball at an ogatarka match, Murrebai, Murrebai, Murrebai, then the room stilled to a silence so intense it seemed nobody breathed as he began to play a simple plaintive ,tune; he finished the tune and began repeating it but somewhere in the middle his agile fingers and his agile brain took hold of it and twisted it up down around… and brought it back to a simplicity no longer naive, having passed through complexity as through fire and come out stripped clean and immensely strong. He allowed them no time to recover but began a cheerful old child song. The rebels sang with him, holding on to each other, many of them crying silently as they sang.

Parnalee, ah, Parnalee… What a job he’d done for Tra Yarta. When he got here, there was no such thing as an entertainment network; on the coast the Hordar thought in terms of family and city, up in the Duzzulkas family and estate; they didn’t care what happened outside the communal walls. The Huvveds arrived with other ideas, but in the three centuries they’d been here, a lot of Hordar concepts had crept into their worldview; most of them had Hordar mothers though Huvved boys were removed from female influence as soon as they could walk. Merchants talked to each other and the Seches kept in touch, but no one thought of using the universal comweb to deliver entertainment into the homes, not before Parnalee arrived.

Murrebai bowed and strolled offstage. As if he pulled it after him on invisible strings, a title scrolled across the screen in carefully brushed calligraphy: The Calling of the Prophet.

There was a murmur of approbation from the rebels, then they settled back in pleasurable anticipation.

The sonorous voice of an unseen speaker rose above solemn, portentous music, naming the actors, setting the time and place of the events to be portrayed.

Aslan hid her smile behind the lidcup, missing Churri and his pungent commentary; she doubted whether anyone else in that room understood how much Parnalee was dumping on them, mocking their sacred cows. There seemed to be few skeptics on Tairanna when it came to the life and teachings of their Prophet; the Eftakites from Guneywhiyk believed with equal fervor in Pradix, they simply had a later gloss on his teachings from their Prophet, Eftakes. She had a fair idea of what would happen to their comfortable, comforting certainties when the Universe outside began crowding in on them; she found it rather sad.

There was a concerted gasp from the audience, wordless cries of outrage. What’s he done now? she thought and frowned at the screen. As soon as she realized what she was seeing, she felt like gasping too. The actor playing the Young Pradix in his Violent Revolutionary phase was a Huvved. Or so it seemed. My god, she thought, he’s gone too far this time.

In a minute though, when she saw several of the Councilors pushing through the disturbance, she knew he’d judged these people to a hair; he knew what he was doing, that twisted crazy monster. He knew.

Councilor Belirmen Indiz slapped hands against hips and roared down the mutters and shouts, “Use your head, not your gut. You make me ashamed to call myself a rebel. You heard that cast list. Any Huvved patronymics on it? Eh? Any? That boy up there, sure he looks Huvved, but no Huvved has given him a name. Eh? He’s got no name but one he makes for himself. You, know how he got that face. Some Fehdaz got him on a servant girl and booted them both out when her time was on her. You think her family did better for him? Eh? What about when he was old enough to show his father’s face? Think about that. I see Huvved hair out there, light eyes, Huvved ears and noses. What was your life like, you with those marks on you? Eh? Think about it. You’re here, where would you be if your soul’s stains laid his load on you? Honor that middler up there for his pride and his skill, and curse the father, not the son.” He stalked back to his seat, folded his arms across his chest and sat massively upright, daring anyone to answer his argument.

Parnalee, ah, Parnalee. I wonder how many Houses are listening to a speech like that? You don’t need me or Churri either, you despise the men you manipulate but you understand them in some deep sadistic way better than I ever will, however much I probe and study. I think I am a little jealous of you. I know I am afraid of you…

When he came out of his room after the beating, he came like a storm. He raged through the house, tearing up whatever he could get his terrible hands around, he kicked holes in the walls, trampled computers into twisted wrecks. He was crazier than a tantserbok driven mad by must; wholly out of control. With his strength and mass and his rage he’d just about frightened the stiffening from her bones. Then, abruptly, standing in the center of the shattered common room he went still, quiet; between one breath and the next he stopped his rampage, turned and walked back into his room. Quietly, with terrible control, he shut the door. A day passed.