Sheri Tepper: Necromancer Nine

The singing built into a climax, slowed, and dwindled to silence. Still he sat. After a time the singing began again, and it went as before. At this, he stood up and sighed, murmuring to himself. “Well, well. That will do as well as any message. I used it five years ago, but it will do as well as any.” And reached to open the door.

“Do as well as what, Manacle?” It was Quench, leaning against a shiny panel, boring into Manacle with eyes which could have burned holes in stone. “Why have you not Called Home, Manacle? That is what you are supposed to have done. Call Home. I wish to hear what Home has to say!”

“Oh, Quench. Quench, you monster. What are you doing here? Why have you come? You are disrupting the ceremony. Get out of my way. I have to tell them.”

“Tell them what? That you did not Call Home? That there was no message from Home? That there has not been any message from Home for — for how long, Manacle? How long, you little, insignificant dribble. How long?” He shook Manacle, waving him like a flag. “Tell me, or I’ll break your bones.”

“Don’t be a fool, Quench. You know it’s only a ceremony. We all know it’s only a ceremony. The message from Home is only a ritual. We all know.”

“We don’t all know. We all may suspect, but we don’t all know. How long has it been. Manacle. I want to know. Now!”

“My … my great-grandfather’s time. Not since then. Not since then to Call Home. And no message received from Home long before that. The machines stopped working, Quench. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. They just stopped working.”

“So it’s all a mockery and a deceit. All of it. The monster watching, and the Faculty — all of it.”

“No, no, Quench. You know that isn’t true. It’s worth something, worth preserving. You mustn’t, mustn’t …”

“I mustn’t, mustn’t I? Manacle, for the sake of those poor fools down there, I won’t drag you out on the platform and expose you for what you are, an empty sack of nothing. I’ll leave you to go to them, Manacle, with your lies and your ceremonial message. You! I remember a time when being Capan meant something. As for me, I’m off to the Council.”

“What — where — what are you going to do?”

“I’m leaving, Manacle. I’m leaving with all the techs who want to leave with me, and that means almost all of them. We disabled the power machine for the boots this morning. You can’t hold them, and they won’t be held. We’re going. Some of the younger men may go with us, and if not — well, be that as it may. I’m sorry for you all, Manacle, but there’s nothing I can do to save you, and I won’t perish with you.”

And he was gone, clattering down the spiralling stairs. Mavin and I could hear him, down and down until the sound faded, and I knew he had come to the cargo space at the bottom and gone out through it. Manacle was crying before us, great tears oozing down his face. The singing outside had reached its climax once more. He gulped, made a little heartbroken sound, then wiped his face upon his sleeve, leaving long red welts upon it from the harsh gold trim. Unconscious of this he stepped to the door, straightened himself, and opened it. As Mavin and I slipped away to follow Quench, we heard his voice crying to the world, “Message, message from Home.”

WE ARRIVED AT THE CARGO SPACE near the bottom of the tower — the “ship” — only moments before Manacle himself came down. He wore a forced, fixed smile as he met Flogshoulder and Shear near the ladder. I heard Shear say, “Where are the techs? They should be here to unload the bodies and take them back to — ” and Flogshoulder interrupting, as always, with some inconsequentiality. Manacle did not hear either of them.

He laid hands upon Flogshoulder and said, “Quiet, my boy. Be still. Now listen to me, for all your life is worth. Remember the room where we were yesterday? The room which controls the defenders? Good. That’s a good boy. Now, I want you to go there. I left it unlocked for you. I want you to press the lever down. Just do that, my boy. Then come back and tell me.” He patted Flogshoulder, almost absentmindedly, as he turned to Shear with that same fixed smile.

“Shear. There’s a minor emergency. Nothing we can’t take care of, but I think the Committee should be advised. Can you go among the celebrants and suggest that we move the celebration indoors? Hmm? And tell the Committee members we will meet them in the Committee room. Have you seen Huld? No. Well, that was more than I could hope for, perhaps

Shear and Manacle began a slow circling movement among those gathered in the grassy space. I remembered Manacle saying that the techs would serve cakes and wine. There were no techs, and the magicians were looking about themselves with pursed lips and expressions of annoyance. A mutter began, grew in volume as the celebrants moved away, away toward the doors. We waited for the last dawdlers to leave before emerging from the ship with the bodies of Windlow and Himaggery carried before us. We staggered across the grass to the machine. When we came close, I was horrified to see that the ribbons and garlands covered areas of corrosion. Wires and tubes appeared fused together into a blackened mass. We stared at each other for a moment. “What can we do but try?” asked Mavin. “We must.”

We laid Himaggery upon the slab, placed the tiny blue in the recess beside his head, and Mavin went to the long, silver lever which protruded at the side. Her eyes were shut, her lips moving. I don’t know whom she invoked, what godling or devil. Perhaps it was only herself she counseled. Her hands were steady when she thrust the lever up, in the opposite direction we had seen it moved in the laboratories, and I knew she had been thinking of that, puzzling it out. Could it be that simple? I could not dare to hope it was.

The machine screamed. I bit my lips until the blood came. The slab moved, turned, swung beneath the blackened mass which towered above it. I smelled smoke, burning oil. There was no device here to put out fire. I only held my breath and waited, waited while the scream rose to an agonized howl before diminishing to silence. The slab had not returned. Mavin jiggled the lever, once, twice. Slowly the slab dropped from beneath the machine, down, twisting, out and back toward us once again. The blue was gone. Himaggery looked like Himaggery once more. I could see his chest move, tiny, tiny movements, the shallowest of breaths. We pulled him from the slab and put Windlow in his place.

I knelt above Himaggery while Mavin went to the lever again. I heard the ascending howl, smelled burning once more. This time there was smoke, harsh and biting. I coughed. Himaggery coughed. His head moved, his hand. I found myself patting him, stroking him, mumbling nonsense into his ear. Then Mavin’s cry from behind me brought me to my feet.

The machine was on fire. Below the contorted mass, the slab moved out slowly, too slowly. Already I could see that the blue was still there. Nothing had happened. Then, when it came further into view, I knew that something had happened. Windlow’s body had been … changed. Was it the heat of the machine? Some ancient device which had broken at last, irretrievably? It didn’t matter. What lay upon the slab could not support life again, and I knew this with every cell which Dealpas had inhabited. “Dead,” I whispered, unable to believe it. “Dead.”

“Dead?” The voice behind me was Himaggery’s. I turned to see him trying to sit up, failing, and trying once again. His eyes were unfocused, blind. Mavin was beside him in that instant, ready with one of the black dresses which Manacle had used in his ceremony, ready to wrap him and coerce him back into life once more. I reached over the slab and took Windlow’s blue into my hands, hands sticky with tears. I tried not to look at the slab again, but could not stop the thought that this, this is what old Windlow had foreseen and begged for my help against.