C. Cherryh - Shon'jir

"There have been wars. The seas have dried; the People have diminished and fought among themselves; cities are abandoned for want of water. Only machines remain here: An-ehon says that it teaches the she'panei that come here, to learn of it Go away. I do not know it all. And I must. It learns of me too; it will share the knowledge with all the Cities of the People, and perhaps, with that One it calls the Living City. I do not know, I cannot grasp what the connection is among the cities. But I hold An-ehon. It listens to me. And by it I will hold Kutath.”

"I am," he said, dazed by the temerity of such a vision, "the she'pan's Hand." "Look to Duncan.”

"Yes," he said; and accepted her gesture of dismissal and left, still feeling in his bones the ache that the machine's weapon had left; dazed he was still, and much that she had said wandered his mind without a tether to hold it ... only that Melein meant to fight, and that therefore she would need him.

A'ani. Challenge. She'panei did not share: the she'pan served by the most skillful kel'en, survived. Melein prepared herself.

He returned in silence to the hall below, curled up in the corner, massaging his aching arms and reckoning in troubled thoughts that there was killing to be done.

"Is she all right?" Duncan intruded into his silence, unwel­come.

"She will not leave. She is talking to it, with them. She speaks of wars, kel Duncan.”

"Is that remarkable for the People?" Niun looked at him, prepared to be angry, and realized that it was a failure of words. "Wars. Mri wars. Wars-with-distance-weapons." He resorted to the forbidden mu'ara, and Duncan seemed then to understand him, and fell quickly silent

"Would that the dusei would come," Niun declared sud­denly, wrenching his thoughts from such prospects; and in his restlessness he went to the door and ventured to call to them, that lilting call that sometimes, only sometimes, could sum­mon them.

It did not work this time. There was no answer this night, nor the next.

But on the third, while Melein remained shut in sen-tower, and they fretted in their isolation below, there came a famil­iar breathing and rattle of claws on the steps outside, and that peculiar pressure at the senses that heralded the dusei.

It was the first night that they two dared sleep soundly, warm next their beasts and sure that they would be warned if danger came on them.

It was Melein that came; a clap of her hands startled them and the beasts together, wakened them in dismay that she, though one of them, had found them sleeping.

"Come," she said; and when they had both gained their feet and stood ready to do her bidding: "The People are near. An-ehon has lit a beacon for them. They are coming.”

THE STORM days past had left banks of sand heaped in the city, high dunes that made unreal shapes in the light that whipped about the square.

Duncan looked back at the source, a beacon from the edun's crest that flashed powerfully in the still-dark sky, a summons to any that might be within sight of the city.

And the People would come to that summoning.

They took nothing with them: the pan'en, the sled, every­thing they owned was left in the edun. If they fared well, they would return; if not, they had no further need. There was, he suspected, though Niun had not spoken overmuch of their chances, no question of flight, whatever happened.

The dusei were disturbed, the more so as they neared the city's limits. Niun scattered them with a sharp command; it was not a situation for dus-feelings. The beasts left them, and vanished quickly into the dark and the ruins.

"Should I not go also?" Duncan asked.

The mri both looked at him. "No," said Niun. "No," Me­lein echoed, as if such an offering offended them.

And in the dawning, on the sand ridge facing the city, ap­peared a line of black.

Kel'ein.

The Face that is Turned Outward.

"Shon'ai," Niun said softly. Shon'ai sa'jiran, the mot ran. The cast is made: no recalling it. "She'pan, will you wait, or will you come?”

"I will walk with you… lest there be some over-anxious kel'en on the other side. There are still she'panei. We will see if there is still respect for law.”

And in the first light of Na'i'in, the black line advanced, a single column. They walked to meet it, the three of them, and there were no words.

The column stopped, and a pair of kel'ein detached them­selves and came forward.

Melein stopped. "Come," Niun said to Duncan.

They walked without her. "Keep silent," Niun said, "and keep to my left flank.”

And at speaking-distance, only barely, the strange kel'ein stopped; and hailed them. It was a mu'ara, and not a word of it could Duncan understand, but only she'pan.

"Among the People," Niun shouted them back, "is the hal'ari forgotten?”

The two strangers came forward still further, and paused: Duncan felt their eyes on him, on what of his face was not veiled. They knew something amiss; he felt it in that too-close scrutiny.

"What do you bring?" the elder asked Niun, and it was the hal'ari. "What is this, kel'en?”

Niun said nothing.

The stranger's eyes went beyond Niun, distant, and came back again. "Here is Sochil's land. Whatever you are, advise your she'pan so, and seek her grace to go away. We do not want this meeting.”

"A ship has touched your lands," Niun said.

There was silence from the other side. They knew, and were perturbed: it did not need dusei to feel that hi the air.

"We are of Melein s'lntel," said Niun. .

"I am Hlil s'Sochil," said the younger, slipping hand into 'belt in a threatening posture. "And you, stranger?”

"I am daithon Niun s'lntel Zain-Abrin, kel'anth of the Kel of Melein.”

Mil at once adopted a quieter posture, made a slight ges­ture of respect. He and his elder companion were clad in coarse, faded black; but they were adorned with many j'tai, honors that glittered and winked in the cold sun and the weapons they bore were the yin'ein, worn and businesslike.

"I am Merai s'Elil Kov-Nelan," said the elder. "Daithon and kel'anth of Kel of Edun An-ehon. What shall we say to our she'pan, kel'anth?”

"Say that it is challenge." 1

There was a moment's silence. Merai's eyes went to Duncan, worrying at a presence that did not belong; worrying, Duncan thought, at questions that he would ask if he could. They knew of the ship; and Merai's amber eyes were filled with apprehension.

But suddenly Merai inclined his head and walked of, he and Hlil together.

"They sense something wrong in me," Duncan said.

"Their she'pan will come. It is a question for her now. Stand still; fold your hands behind you. Do nothing you are not bidden to do.”

So they stood, with the wind fluttering gently at their robes and blowing a fine sifting off the surface of sand. A tread dis­turbed the silence after a time; Melein joined them.

"Her name is Sochil," Niun said without looking about her. "We have advised her kel'anth of your intentions.”

She said nothing, but waited.

And in utter silence the People came, the kel'ein first, rang­ing themselves in a circle about them, rank upon rank, so that had they intended flight there was no retreat. Duncan stood stone-still as his companions, as did the hostile Kel, and felt the stares that were fixed on him, on them all, for surely there was strangeness even in Niun and Melein, the fineness of then clothing, the zahen'ein that they bore with the yin'ein, the different style of the zaidhe, with its dark plastic visor and careful folding, while their own were mere squares and twists of cloth, and their veils were twisted into the head-cloths, and not fastened to the metal band that theirs had. Hems were ragged, sleeves frayed. Their weapon hilts were in bone and lacquered fiber, while those of Niun were of brass and gold and cho-silk wrappings: Duncan thought even his own finer than those these strangers bore.