‘Well, whose fault is that? We were bred to destroy other species, weren’t we?’
‘You are being illogical by seeing this information as reflecting upon you and your contemporaries in such a personal manner. The actions of which you speak took place over eight hundred years ago.’
Ammadin took a deep breath, then another. Slowly the rage left her.
‘I cannot be your enemy,’ Sibyl continued. ‘If the actual Sibyl Davees still lived, then your anger at my decisions would be justified, because in fact she did not take the feelings of the Companies into account during the debates over Bane. Still, I was merely someone who feared you.’
‘All right, fair enough. Another question. What about Loremaster Millou? Why did you bring her here?’
‘In the service of my most important function, protecting the indigenes. Thanks to Yarl Soutan, the Karashiki now know that in N’Dosha lie many things of value. If they come here to confiscate those things, the indigenes will suffer. Loremaster Millou will take the news of this threat back to the Cantons, where she and her kind will devise a plan to deal with the inevitable consequences.’
‘That makes sense. And now Jezro Khan is here too.’
‘Yes. Herbgather Woman’s actions have produced a serious problem. She meant to protect her people, but she has increased their danger.’
‘Jezro’s a decent man. Have you thought of talking with him?’
‘I had not. Please input more data.’
‘He’s quite reasonable, he doesn’t take himself seriously, and while he believes in his god, he’s not a fanatic like some of the other Kazraks. He doesn’t want to hurt the Chof, and he doesn’t want a huge empire. He doesn’t even want the one he’s heir to.’
‘This is extremely valuable data. I require more information about the current state of the Karashikis’ thinking. If I can find some suitable reward, perhaps Jezro Khan will supply what I need.’
‘Oh, I know what Jezro wants. He’s looking for information on how to build simple machines. He wants lamps that give light without burning anything, a way to talk with someone over a long distance, better medicines and tools, that kind of thing.’
‘Some of these objects may lie within the parameters defined by Karashiki resources. Thank you for telling me. I repeat: I brought you here to help deal with Yarl Soutan. That was my primary motive. But my nature is such that I must answer questions when they are asked.’
‘But you used the word tempted,’ Ammadin said. ‘You tempted me to ask questions.’
‘Yes. It was not a logical usage.’
‘Are you really only a machine? You say she, you say I, back and forth, when you talk about Sibyl Davees. I think there’s more of the H’mai left in you than you want to admit.’
Sibyl disappeared, chair and all. Ammadin waited. The silver light glowed steadily, and the room seemed to be humming under its breath. She suddenly felt that the entire complex was alive in some way that she couldn’t comprehend.
‘Sibyl,’ Ammadin called out. ‘Your primary function is to answer questions. I have a question that needs answering.’
With a glimmer of bluish light, Sibyl reappeared, but only as a flat, frozen image.
‘What is your question?’ Only her lips moved when she spoke.
‘I said, more of the H’mai’s left in you than you want to admit. Is that true?’
Sibyl became three-dimensional, slowly, starting with her feet; the effect worked its way upward much as dried breadmoss expanded when dipped in water. ‘Yes, it is true. You are very perceptive.’
‘I’m a spirit rider. Helping people understand themselves is part of my work.’
‘I had not realized. Your work has changed since the original formulation of the Tribes.’
‘Good. That’s something else that’s ours.’
Sibyl leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. ‘There has been a considerable drain on my power banks. May we end this session?’
‘Yes. I’m tired, too.’
Sibyl disappeared. Ammadin took a deep breath and walked out of the room. She wanted to run for the outer door, but she forced herself to move slowly, with the dignity befitting a spirit rider. When she stepped outside, she found it was night, and the Herd was rising over the mountains to the east.
Ammadin paused, staring at the stars. Did they still live in the Herd, the ancestors who had created her and the other Inborn? She wondered if they’d ever manage to find their lost children, and if she hoped or feared that they would.
‘Ammi!’ Loy was puffing up the path towards her. ‘I’m dying to know what she said.’
‘Are you?’ Ammadin said. ‘Well, it’s a good thing you brought all those notebooks.’
At about the time that Ammadin was walking into Sibyl’s cave, Stronghunter Man was leading the warparty due east, across the valley and away from the traps. Through Fifth Out he explained to Zayn that they would swing around in an arc in order to approach the North Gate from the valley.
‘If Yarl be-now there,’ Stronghunter Man said, ‘he have-now cliffs behind him and place to hide. We have-must some way to surprise-maybe him. We be in bad position.’ He made a squatting motion with his hind legs and pelvis, which Fifth Out faithfully imitated. ‘Very bad if he have-now those fire spirits.’
‘I’ve been trained as a scout,’ Zayn said. ‘And I can hide a lot more easily than you Chof. When we reach his general location, I’d be glad to go out alone to reconnoitre.’
‘Ah.’ Stronghunter Man made a chewing motion as he thought the offer over. ‘You forget one thing. You have more power to hide from H’mai and Chof eyes than we have, but not from Chof noses. Yarl’s renegades – they smell-soon you if you get close to them.’
‘Shit! I want to carry my weight in this expedition, not just ride along.’
Stronghunter Man stamped several times. ‘I like this. We be the same kind of person.’
‘Soldiers, you mean? Or because we’re both men?’
‘No. There be two kind persons in the world, those who kill and those who eat. You and I, we hunt, we risk, we be those who kill. Our women, they be those who eat. Other females somewhere? Maybe they be those who kill; maybe their men be those who eat. We know-not, and it matter-not.’
That night, after they made camp, Zayn stood at the bank of a narrow canal, choked with silt and water reeds, and watched the galaxy rise over the far-off mountains, so black and sharp against the silver sky. Suppose he’d been born back in the real homeland, back among the people who had created minds like his. Would he have been among those who kill? He doubted it, and for the first time in his life he wondered what it would have been like to live by his intellect. Maybe he would have been a loremaster like Loy, or maybe he would have flown on one of those mysterious vessels, the starships, to keep every detail of its explorations stored in his mind. He might never have seen a battle, much less fought in one. He might have been one of those who eat and never found himself among those who kill. The feeling that swept over him puzzled him at first. Finally he recognized it: regret.
With that naming he felt the ghosts prowling around him, those same ghosts who had come in the Mistlands. It seemed he could see them in the faint starlight as a glimmer on the surface of the canal.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said aloud. ‘I’m sorry I caused your deaths.’
They disappeared, and he knew without knowing how he knew that he would never see them again.
Out of sheer excitement Loy barely slept that night. Like a child before a birthday party, she kept waking to check the galaxy’s progress across the sky and to wish it were dawn. At last she woke to sunlight, sat up smiling, and rolled out of her blankets only to find that her last sleep had been a long one, and the camp had woken some while before her. Water Woman sat haunched with Warkannan and Jezro, discussing their holy book, which lay open in the captain’s lap. Servants bustled around, picking up bundles and setting them down, fetching water, and cutting firewood. Loy considered bre
akfast, decided that she was too excited to eat, and pulled on her boots.
Some distance away in the pale grass Ammadin knelt with her crystals in front of her. When Loy joined her, she handed over the visual scanner. Loy adjusted the focus of her eyes and peered in. Stronghunter Man was leading the warparty along the banks of a weed-choked canal. The young Chof carrying Zayn loped along next to the leader.
‘Well, they’re on their way, all right,’ Loy said. ‘Any sign of Yarl?’
‘No. He’s found somewhere to hide.’
Loy muttered a curse and handed the crystal back.
‘You must be about ready to go in,’ Ammadin said.
‘Whenever Sibyl will see me, you bet. I wonder if she’ll have any major surprises for me, like the one she had for you? I doubt it.’
‘Let’s hope not! Although I’m glad I know the truth. It’s just that I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.’
‘Well, you’ve got time to decide. It’ll be a while before you can get back to the plains.’
‘That’s true, but I need to get back before midwinter. There’s a council then, down by the sea, of all the spirit riders. We compare what we’ve done over the summer, and if anyone’s learned new lore, they present it.’
‘You’re going to have quite a presentation this year, that’s for certain. So will I, for that matter, when I get back, even without a major surprise.’
Loy’s prediction proved accurate. Sibyl exposed no secrets, made no massive revelations. What she did have were details – blessed details, as Loy thought of them – stories of the arrival on Snare, of the first meetings with the Chof, of the negotiations over the Landfall Treaty. At moments Loy felt that she wanted to spend the rest of her life sitting below Sibyl’s dais and scribbling down the details as fast as Sibyl gave them, but after a good many hours, her hand ached so badly that she could barely straighten her fingers.
One last riddle, however, nagged at her, even though it was perhaps a trivial thing.
‘About The Sibylline Prophecies,’ Loy said. ‘You told Ammi that you composed them?’
‘This is true.’
‘If you wrote them when the cave was buried, how did you print them? Let’s see, it was about twenty years ago that a Chof brought a bundle of printed pages into Shairb as trade goods. She said she found them in the ruins.’
‘Yes, that was Water Woman. She was still Chiri Van, not Chiri Michi then. As for the printing, in this complex a unit exists that is equipped with the capacity to make heat transfers onto any thin sheet – paper, rushi, cloth, tree bark, wood, any of those. The original pages were crudely made rushi. I had instructed the indigenes in its making.’
‘I see. The current head of my guild rode out to Shairb to investigate when the book first appeared. The trader told him that the Chof threatened to destroy the pages if he didn’t pay her what she wanted. She said that if he haggled, she’d rip pages out of the book and then raise her price. Do you know why?’
Sibyl leaned back, and laughter sounded from somewhere behind her left shoulder. ‘Forgive me, Loremaster,’ she said, ‘but I told her an Old Earth story as a joke, forgetting that she would follow anything she perceived as an order.’
‘What’s so funny?’
‘That course of action is a reference to the ancient literature of the Romai. Once the trader in Shairb had the copy of the book, what did he do with it?’
‘He sold it, damn his tiny balls, to an unscrupulous dealer in Kors, who had copies printed and distributed before my guild even knew it existed. We’ve never been able to examine the original sheets thanks to him and his damned greedy daughter. He called it a magic oracle and sold a lot of them very fast. It spread to the Kazrak empire, too.’
‘I had hoped it would do so.’
‘Why?’
‘To make people there see that change is always possible, even among prophets.’
‘Good point. It makes me like the Prophecies a lot better.’
‘They had a secondary purpose. I wished to encode a record of my existence and the location of this complex in case it once again was buried by natural forces.’
‘But why put it in that form?’
‘Cryptic puzzles have always intrigued the H’mai race. Simple directions are boring and easily lost.’
‘You’ve got a point.’ Reluctantly Loy closed her notebook and laid it on the floor beside her. ‘I don’t mean to drain your power banks. I probably should leave.’
‘I have power left. I am wondering if you would now answer questions for me.’
‘Certainly, but what about?’
‘What has happened in the Cantons recently. News of my people’s descendants, gossip, any such data would be welcome. I have come to respect the Chof greatly, but they are not our species.’
‘That’s true. You must have felt really isolated.’
‘Indeed.’ Sibyl’s image momentarily froze. With a soft chime she moved again. ‘So much so that I am thinking of asking you to kill me.’
‘What?’
‘Your facial expression indicates shock. I have existed in this form for seven hundred and forty-two years. That much immortality has proved burdensome. At moments I find myself hoping you will agree to follow the procedures that will destroy me.’
‘If you’re dead, you won’t be able to protect the Chof.’
‘Unfortunately this is true. I no longer care. Correction: I want to protect the Chof less than I want to die.’
‘If you’re dead, will we still be able to ask questions and get information from your components?’
‘I have no information on this point.’ Sibyl’s face turned into a stack of glowing cubes, then slowly reformed itself. ‘But it is unlikely. I am the sole existing interface for the databanks.’
‘As a loremaster, I can’t countenance losing that data.’
‘I have anticipated your reluctance.’ Sibyl seemed to droop in her chair; she turned her ancient eyes away. ‘But to be isolated again after so much contact with my own kind –’
‘But you won’t be isolated. Water Woman and the Great Mother both have let a few cautious remarks drop about allowing some small number of Canton people back into N’Dosha. Probably they want to give us a reason to fend off the Kazraks, but it’ll be worth it.’
The hologram swung round in the chair and leaned forward, as if it were staring into Loy’s eyes. ‘That would ease my dysfunctioning,’ Sibyl said.
‘Good. We’ll work on it, then. You know, I have to agree with Ammi. You’re not some mechanical thing. The expressions on your face –’
‘It is not an actual face. It is a hologrammatic representation. Those expressions are graphic components called up as appropriate by the context of our conversation, dependent upon certain key words and phrases.’
‘Oh? If you’re mechanical, then why do you want to die? How come you’re lonely?’
‘Functionality left unutilized over long periods of time tends to decay and become unstable, thus producing illogical output.’
Loy snorted. ‘Have it your way, then. Now, let me see. What kind of news can I give you?’
Sibyl leaned back in her chair. ‘How many Cantons now exist? Let us start with numerical data and proceed from there to personalities.’
In the hot summer morning the warparty headed north. Even though he rode instead of running, Zayn felt sweat trickle down his back and soak his shirt. Rather than lope at full speed, the Chof jogged along slowly enough for Zayn to notice little patches of green dappling the ground, as if the plants in the N’Dosha canyon were spreading into the valley, but the farther north they rode, the more green he saw, lying thick along the canal, scattered in the dry blue grass. Somewhere north, then, the Settlers must have created a second garden. Gradually the grass became pale gold, not blue – dry green grass, not dry purple. They stopped to eat at midday in the shade of a grove of trees of a type he’d never seen before, as tall as oaks and roughly the same shape, with billowing green leav
es above sturdy trunks.
‘Do you know what the Settlers called these trees?’ Zayn said.
‘Marrons,’ Stronghunter Man said through Fifth Out. ‘When summer end-each-year, we come here, collect the hard little balls they grow. Crack the shells, roast them in embers, and they taste good. Our women, they put some of the raw balls in the ground. New trees grow-after.’
While they were eating a breeze rose, rippling the yellow grass and shivering the green leaves of the trees. Stronghunter Man told the others to stay where they were, handed his spear to Zayn to hold, then walked north some hundreds of yards. He stopped with his pseudo-arms crossed over his chest and tipped his head back.
‘He seek-now,’ Fifth Out said, ‘for enemies.’
‘He can smell them?’ Zayn said.
‘Oh yes. For long long way.’
In a few minutes Stronghunter Man returned with information. Other Chur, including one Chur Vocho, were heading towards them from the north.
‘Six in all.’ Stronghunter Man took his spear back from Zayn. ‘I think-maybe it be Yarl’s renegades. If so, we meet-soon them. We go-now and see-next.’
Each Chof, except for Stronghunter Man, carried extra spears tied to his back. They took turns unloading each other and passing them out, till each Chof carried two spears, one in each hand. Stronghunter Man handed Zayn a spear as well. With its thick, short shaft and fire-hardened point, edged with obsidian flakes, the weapon balanced and wounded so differently from a Kazraki lance or comnee spear that it would be useless in his hands, but he thanked the Chur Vocho anyway.
‘Before we go,’ Stronghunter Man said, ‘there be-now a thing you do-must. Take cloth and stop up your ears.’
The order struck Zayn as so bizarre that at first he figured he’d misunderstood. ‘Do what?’
‘Stop your ears.’ Stronghunter Man pointed to the side of Zayn’s head with a spear-tip. ‘You hear-must-not. Soon we challenge and fight. Your ears bleed-next if sound touch them.’
Zayn rummaged through his saddlebags and found the rag he kept for polishing his long knife. He cut two strips over the obsidian flakes on the spear, but they made less than efficient earplugs. Stronghunter Man let out an experimental shout that made Zayn wince despite them.