Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

am too weight-I

too long I wait I

old song sad song dead song dead

so them say so

old cold dead

I ya we

I an we

do stomp o

press shun

I an we

this genna ray

shun

ay shun I shun we shun

they

I an we do stomp oppression

I an we this generation

“YA!” the crowd in the village shouted. “YA!” the rebels in the Smelter shouted. “No,” they shouted, players and viewers, “Fireheart! Weight-I wait-I! NO! Shun,” they shouted, players and viewers, “Press! Stomp! Shun! Stomp oppression, this generation, I an we, YES! YES! YES!”

Xalloor pinched Aslan’s arm, then began wiggling through the crowd, heading for the door. Aslan blinked, then followed, crossing against the streams of adults who were moving toward the bar. Some of the older middlers were kicking the mats and cushions to one side to get ready for the dance that would go on until the musicians tuning up in a corner by the comset ran out of wind. Others were standing around throwing verses back and forth, a kaleidoscope of clashing sounds. A number of the younger middlers weren’t waiting for music but were already undulating in the preliminaries to one of their less comprehensible dances. Made Aslan feel her years; forget about the ananiles, they couldn’t return that resilience of mind that only the very young possessed.

The wind was picking up outside, the tree limbs woven overhead groaned and creaked, the stiff thick leaves rubbed against each other, singing like crickets. The trees grew close together, blocking moonlight and starlight; whoever walked this path after dark carried light with him or her and blessed the trees for they ceiled the path to the Minemouth and hid the walkers on it from the Warmaster’s wandering eye. Rod lights flickered like earthbound stars as clumps of middlers hurried toward the dance, brushing past Aslan and Xalloor without taking notice of them. When the rush diminished to a trickle, Aslan hurried to catch up with Xalloor.

“What…”

The dancer looked round, her face lit by a flash of laughter, clickon clickoff, there and gone. She shook her head.

Aslan sighed, matched steps with her. “The script. Who won?”

“Me. Sort of.” Xalloor thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket and slowed a little, letting Aslan light the way for them both. “I told them, look, you go and on at people like that, they turn their heads off. Worse’n that, they turn you off. You want ’em to listen, you keep coming back at them all right, but you sugarcoat it, I mean you want to sneak it past ’em before they know what you’re doing. I said, you want to see how it’s done, look at one of those Spectacles, I mean really look, forget about the story, figure out what he’s saying and how he’s saying it. But you got to do it better, faster, don’t forget how quick the bitbits’ll be after you, you’ve got maybe ten minutes playing time before they locate the transfer station and trash your cassette. Lan, you should’ve seen that script, it’d send a wirehead into coma.”

“When are they going to start the clandestines?”

“Things keep going like they are and they get hold of some more writers, which they really need, believe me, they natter on all the time about poets, but they don’t recruit any, it’s enough to make you throw up your hands and say hell with everything. Amateurs! Couple months from now. That’s what the plan is. Three months top limit.” Another strobe grin. “Maybe.”

“Why maybe in that tone of voice?”

“Elmas’s back. We were still arguing when she came in, she wanted to talk to Evvily, so we broke up. Just as well, Ylazar was starting to repeat himself and that could go on till entropy took us all.”

“She say anything? What the tight-down was about?”

“Not in front of the nonnies, no.” She clicked her tongue, wrinkled her nose.

Aslan sighed again, the familiar little sound stabbed a weak spot; she wanted her mother here, scold or not, wanted something from her old life, she was tired, so tired of improvising an existence.

Xalloor banged on the Minemouth door, stepped back while the keeper slid it open just wide enough to let them through one after the other. She got her lightrod out again and began almost galloping along the rough floor of the gallery, heading for the lift. There was a suppressed excitement about her, a wired-up energy that said clearer than words she had news, exciting maybe frightening news.

They went up two levels, followed Kele tunnel until they reached the stubby offshoot where they’d set up housekeeping. Xalloor stirred the fire to life, added more coal and crouched before the grate with the bellows, working with hard won expertise (her first attempt at a coal fire was unalloyed disaster, they had to run down a Hordar who knew about sea coal and iron grates and was willing to lend a hand so they didn’t freeze before morning). As she coaxed tiny flames from the ashy lumps, some of the dank chill went off the room. It was a room, there was a yosstarp ceiling, wrinkled and sagging, walls of wood scrap scavenged from the company houses, a wooden floor covered with lignin mats that Aslan had woven, putting to work one of the skills she’d learned a few assignments back, a neat herringbone pattern that earned her some condescending praise from the much defter weavers among the outcasts. She’d made mats for a number of rooms like these, glad to have some way of passing the time; besides, the scrip she earned brought her and Xalloor things they couldn’t have acquired otherwise, like the glass and bronze oil lamps and the earthenware vase sitting on a crate in the corner by the fire, the nergi flowers in it adding dark rich red and orange tones to the drab gray of the tarp and the washed-out brown of the mats and the walls. There were two pallets raised from the floor on crude frames that Aslan and Xalloor had glued together from rusty tramrails and salvaged bricks, there were several cushions they’d gotten from one of the weavers in return for several weeks hard work carding yunk wool, blankets issued by the Council; sheets were a luxury few living here could afford. There was the crate which they used for storage and some smaller boxes that served as tables. Chilly drafts came wandering through the cracks no matter how often she or Xalloor pounded caulking between the boards. Not down the chimney, though, bless the local tech; Hordar filters were useful for more than purifying water. Despite all this, they were surrounded by stone and earth and that was like living inside a block of ice.

While the dancer fussed with the fire, Aslan moved round the room, lifting the chimney glasses, telling herself she ought to wash them one of these days, trimming the wicks and lighting them. These lamps burned fish oil smuggled in from the Sea Farms and that oil announced its origins for several minutes after the wicks were lit; after that either the smell went away, or their noses went on strike. The soft amber light filled the room, chased away the shadows and gave an illusion of warmth. She poured some water in a kettle, hooked out the swing spit and clamped the bail in place. “Move over a bit, Loorie, let me get this on so we can have some tea. Did you get anything to eat over there?”

Xalloor tossed the bellows aside and came to her feet in that boneless ripple that made Aslan feel clumsy as a stone god. “It’s going good enough, I was just trying to catch some warm.” She dropped onto her pallet. “Some sandwiches, I think they were, might have been relics of the Prophet. Why is it, Lan, that earnest types never have a palate?”