Jo Clayton: Changer’s Moon

Hern closed his eyes. “Then it’s over.” He looked down at himself. “I’d better get dressed. Georgia, collect your councilors. Yael-mri, you get the priestsu together; Where’d be the best place to meet? Not the Watchhall.” He brushed at his face as if trying to brush away memory. “The library, I think, neutral ground of a sort.” He started walking toward the hospital tent and the trucks parked there, talking as he walked, as idea after idea came to him. “Oras will be a rat-pit by now. Won’t take long to tame it, though. Hang a few of the bloodiest rats, keep patrols in the streets a passage or two. Cimpia Plain. That’ll be harder. Food. Have to work out a way to distribute what’s left of the tithing, chase off any bands of majilarni still there, bound to be raiders hitting the tars and the villages. Reminds me, we’ll need someone to talk for the tars and ties, a Stenda and a Keeper, one of those who came in with the last bunch of ’lockers. Suppose I’ll have to stand watch for the others. Your folks can stay here at the Biserica if that’s what you want. Probably should until spring. North of the Catifey the winters are hard on those without shelter. Some should stay at the Plaz in Oras, once we can get that cleaned out, advance party so to speak, it’s close to the land you’ll be getting, got maps there. Have to talk to you about the Bakuur, they have tree-rights to bottom land on both sides of the river. Have to work out some kind of government, I’m not going back to the way it was before, even if…” He stopped walking, paused. Then after a minute he started on, continuing to blurt out whatever came into his mind, not bothering with any but the most rudimentary of connections, talking to hold off the loss that kept threatening to overwhelm him.

The golden light thickened about them and began pouring over the wall onto the army, waking them to defeat, prodding them away from the valley.

Julia wedged herself into an embrasure and frowned at the ugly trampled plain below. The grass will be thick and tall next year. So much fertilizer. She moved a shoulder out from the stone, slipped the rifle loose. She’d like to throw it in the muck with the bodies, but likes didn’t seem to count much these days. She felt drained, old, yet oddly open. Open to the life ahead, the challenge of this new world, this newer, fresher community. It seethed with possibilities and hope. Much experience had taught her the fallacy of new beginnings made by the same old people; whatever the starting point, sooner or later the ancient problems showed up. Still, there was always the chance that this time would be different. She set the rifle beside her and looked at her hands. The one thing she wanted most was to get back to her writing, to put the words and ideas churning in her head into physical form where she could play with them, shape them into pleasing rhythms, be surprised by them, by what she didn’t know she knew. She was tired of this immersion in activity, itchy at the lack of privacy, beginning to resent the meetings, the endless talk, the painful and complex melding of two disparate cultures and traditions, the acrimonious clashing of the adherents of the several ideologies the exiles had brought with them. Thank god for daddy Sam, she thought. If anything works, it’s because he makes it work. Here’s almost as good; his tongue’s got two ends and he knows his people inside out. She shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, the way he maneuvered us. His heart isn’t in it. She glanced at the two trees atop the ruined cliff, sighed. They were an impossibility. They made her uncomfortable, yet there was no way she could escape their presence here in the valley. Even inside the buildings when she couldn’t see them, she knew they were there. Magic. It permeated this place and she wanted out. She wanted paper and ink and quiet and, oh god, a place of her own where she could shut out the world and work.

She eased out of the embrasure and looked along the wall; there were a few more solitaries like her up here, getting away from the hordes crowded into inadequate living space in the Biserica. Mostly Stenda. They were a touchy bunch, willing enough to pay their fair share for roads and guards to keep them free of robbers, and that part of the tithing they thought of as a bribe to keep the mijlockers busy with their own affairs and out of the Stenda holds. Willing as long as no one messed with them. They’d been an autonomous enclave under the Heslins and saw no reason to change that. She looked at the rifle again, set her mouth in a grim line and slipped it back on her shoulder. A day or two more and the draft constitution would be finished, printed and passed out to everyone, ready to be voted on. Dort had the press set up, working on battery power. Half the Biserica had crowded round during the trial run, fascinated, full of questions, speculating on the changes such a machine would make in the life they knew. She smiled as she thought of the exiles. They’d come largely from the artisan and artist classes. They’d been accustomed to working hard, not because they had to, but because they liked what they did. They were happily at work now, adapting Biserica knowledge and skills to their own requirements. Every day brought something new, converting the trucks to run on alcohol, a solar-powered pump and hand-made pipes-we will have those hot baths and flush toilets soon enough, though Liz… Julia shuddered, remembering the blackened thing landing beside her. God knows what else they’d come up with by the end of winter. Michael and several other youngsters were arguing about how to make microchips in a society that didn’t even have electricity; they spent hours at it, inventing an amalgam of their own language and mijlocker that seemed to work well enough, bringing into their circle a number of girls with a mechanical bent and an insatiable curiosity, and several of the tie-boys who’d developed a passion for the motorcycles and the other devices the exiles had brought with them. She looked out over the newly peaceful valley and worried a little about what her people were going to do to it. We almost wrecked one world. God… no, Maiden grant we’ve learned enough to cherish this one. Some of the older women watched the ferment with interest and more than a little sadness because they saw the culture they valued changing in unpredictable ways. Julia gazed out across the valley, then shook her head. Going to be interesting, these next few years. She started down the ramp. Interesting times. A curse back home, may it be a blessing here. Hmmm. Wonder if they’ve got some paper to spare. I’ve definitely got to get to work.

Hern stopped to catch his breath. He brushed off a chunk of stone and sat looking down through a haze of dust and heat that softened the contours of everything and intensified the ripe smell of prosperity rising from the busy scene. Grain ripened in broad swathes vanishing to the south; hauhaus, horses, and macain grazed in yellowing pastures, drank from shrunken streams; Posserim rooted in orchards where the trees bent under a heavy load of green fruit. Small dark figures swarmed everywhere, working in the fields, treading water wheels to irrigate vegetable crops, tending the stock, loading two-wheeled wains with goods of all sorts for Southport, Sadnaji, Oras, and the Summerfair at Sel-ma-Carth. Wains and riders were thick on the road running down the center of the valley, the northwall gates stood wide, fragile charred planks a puff of air would shatter. Yael-mri hadn’t got around to replacing them yet, so many more important things to do.

The heat and exertion were making him sleepy. Somewhat reluctantly he got to his feet and went back to climbing, moving slowly and warily over the shattered stone. Winter had stabilized the scree, spring rains had washed soil and seeds into the stone, summer brought grass, vines, and brush seedlings. The air was thick with the smells of dust and pollen and a spicy green from the leaves crushed under his feet. From time to time he stopped to wipe sweat from his face and swipe at the black biters that swarmed about his head and settled on his skin to drink the sweat. He reached the top of the scree and worked his way along the mountainside until he reached the narrow flat where the trees grew. For a moment, he stood hands on hips looking up at them. The conifer was huge, gnarled, ancient, and in his eyes indecently vigorous. He glared at it, then concentrated on the lacewood. The openwork leaves painted patterns on the stone and drew dark lace on the satin bark. A capricious breeze sang through the leaves, a rising, falling murmur different in kind from the soughing of the conifer’s needles. It seemed to him they were talking to each other like old friends sitting in a patch of sunlight whiling away the hours with memories and pleasant lies, comments and speculation, heatless disputes over this and that. “Nonsense,” he said aloud, winced at the harshness of his voice. He moved into the scrolled shade of the lacewood, flattened his hand against her trunk. The bark felt like skin, smooth, warm, pliant, and he had to remind himself that what he was thinking was absurd, that all lacewoods with the same abundance of sun and water and nutrients would feel the same. His mind believed that but his hands did not.