Singer From the Sea

  “Hush, hush,” sang the voice inside. “Rock-a-byes. Shut his eyes. Oh, poor little one, Mama gone so far, Daddy gone so far, him all alone with old Awhero …”

  He turned away, thinking it more of the same babble, but then stopped. The name. Awhero.

  “… alone with old Awhero, poor Dovidi …”

  Aufors opened the door and walked in. His son was in a makeshift cradle-hammock hung a few inches from the floor; an old woman was swinging it to and fro. She leapt up when he entered and backed away toward the far wall, her hands covering her face.

  Aufors gave her a predatory grin as he turned his light onto his own face. “Aufors Leys,” he said. “Dovidi’s father. Genevieve’s husband.”

  “Ah,” she murmured, dropping her hands from before her face. “Well … So beetle’s dropped out of roofbeam, has it! I thought I’d have to go hunting you, and here you are. You’ve dyed your hair, too. Very sensible, though this is last place I’d have thought you’d come.”

  He gave her a weary smile, “My wife went down below, said the com-man, and he was the last to see her. Where else should I go but down below after her?” He looked around at the room. A bed. Several small chairs. A skinny stove pipe running up the coiled stair and leading to a tiny stove, only large enough to hold the steaming kettle. From the smell of it, she was burning harpta dung.

  “Well, you haven’t come after Genevieve, lad, for love of creation. She’s long gone. It’s only baby that’s here, and if he wasn’t sick as wee toad with belly-ache, he and I’d be gone as well. I think there’s not twenty of us left in Mahahm.”

  Aufors went to the cradle and laid his hand on Dovidi’s forehead, which was flushed and hot. He heard his voice quaver as he asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s not fond of sheep’s milk, poor babe. So, I sent my helper to palace, for they’ve special food there for babies who have no mothers, you know. Sometimes mother dies, and baby is heir, and he’s left behind, so palace buys food for such infants. My good Kamakama has gone thieving, and if he’s done well, he should be back anytime.”

  “Dangerous, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice still trembling a little. “Thieving from the Shah.”

  “Less so tonight than most nights … though it’s almost day, come to that. Shah’s gone hunting. He’s off in southland with his army, and they’re seeking runaways and escapees. I doubt there’s two men awake in Mahahm-qum, and that wouldn’t include supplies-man. No, my good boy’ll make it back. He’s quick, and he’s quiet is my Kamakama.”

  “Your son.”

  “Not biological, no. Just one orphan boy I found and took.”

  Aufors considered this. “Did you find him, perhaps, out on the sands?”

  She gave him a perspicacious look. “Oh, I’m so old it’s hard to remember, but I might have. Then again, he could be water-baby.”

  “Water-baby?” He shivered.

  “Half people, half fish, you know. They joke about such things, over in Merdune.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “Oh, they come here, salesmen from Merdune, looking to sell dried fish and loomed flax and what not. We listen, we malghaste. It’s best amusement we have. You don’t think funny?”

  Aufors made a face. “I don’t think funny, no.”

  Dovidi stirred with a brief, querulous cry, one echoed by a call that seemed to drop from above. In a moment they heard feet shushing on the stairs, and a lean, wiry youth exploded into the room, panting, with eyes wild. “They near had me,” he whisper-shouted, conveying his disturbance by breadth of gesture rather than by volume. “Just behind me when I ducked into wall-way. Near as makes no difference!”

  “Who?” asked Awhero. “Town is empty.”

  “Don’t know who. Didn’t stop to look or ask. They came around corner, yelling for me to stop, I went other way, kamakama.”

  Awhero rose and put her hands on her hips. “So you forgot milk?”

  “Not me,” he boasted. “Enough for six bratties and some left over for breakfast.”

  “This is Aufors Leys, Dovidi’s daddy,” the old woman said, coming to take the package from him.

  The boy bobbed a half greeting, without looking Aufors in the eye, asking from the side of his mouth, “What’s he doing down here?”

  “Ask him,” she said. “He can talk.” She opened the pouch and took out a single packet.

  “I came looking for Dovidi,” Aufors offered.

  The boy nodded, looked him over astutely from head to toe, then went to lean against the wall at the foot of the stairs.

  “I came for Genevieve, too,” said Aufors. “You haven’t told me where she is.”

  “Nor can,” said the old woman, peering at the writing on the back of a packet the boy had given her. “She’s safe, so far. She got to marae, refuge, then marae up and departed, so she’s wherever it went to. Galul, most likely. Unless she’s decided to help out with Shah’s army.”

  “Your people are going to fight the Shah’s army?”

  She giggled, sounding like a girl. “Oh, Aufors Leys, wouldn’t that be spectacular. More blood and gore than all lichen could soak up, most of it malghaste blood. No. Fighting isn’t malghaste way. We don’t fight. We run. They run after us. Then they have accidents.” She went to the stove, took the kettle from atop it, and poured hot water into a cup.

  “Accidents?”

  Kamakama laughed. “Avalanches bury them. Rocks fall on them. Chasms open up and swallow them. Serpents bite them. Large animals tear them to pieces.”

  Awhero said, “You go on up there, boy. Keep watch.” As he departed, she busied herself with the kettle and the packet she had torn open, turning to remark, “Yes, it’s dangerous world on way to Galul.”

  Aufors half whispered, “It must be dangerous. I saw bodies out there. Fairly fresh. All women.”

  The old woman frowned as she stirred the baby food into the cup. “We know. Some of them Mahahmbi women, some of them Haven women. New mothers, all.”

  He decided on a stab in the dark. “Why women? It grows perfectly well on men’s blood.”

  She turned, amazed. “Oh, does it now? What did you do? Bleed on it? Oh, I’ve wondered on that many times.”

  “Wondered?” he exploded. “You mean you’ve never tried to find out? Never experimented with it?”

  “Never,” she said solemnly. “Lichen is tapu. Our people destroyed some, long and long ago, then they made it tapu. Untouchable.”

  Another stab, in not quite so deep a dark this time. “But evidently a man can live as long as he likes on women’s blood, eh?”

  She stared at him for a long time, wordless. “This is secret, you know?”

  “Oh, I know. But it’s an evil secret, Awhero. Answer me. A man can live as long as he likes on women’s blood?”

  “Oh, man can live long, yes. Not forever. No. I think not.” She made a momentary clatter with cup and bottle and the hot water kettle, then added a dipper of cool water to the mix, tested it upon her tongue and filled a bottle.

  “What makes you think not?” Aufors asked.

  She put the nipple in the baby’s mouth. He pushed it away fretfully before finally accepting it, though reluctantly. Holding baby and bottle, she sat down, cocking her head. “If I tell you, you promise not to say Awhero told you? This is maybe forbidden knowing, but I am nosy old thing.”

  He held up a hand, “I promise.”

  “Well, then,” she said, “Well, then. We malghaste, we have ways to go in walls of houses, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “One of ways I go is in walls of Shah’s rooms, in palace. So, one day I am in walls, and guards bring in Old Friend, very Old Friend.”

  “An old friend of the Shah?”

  “Oh, yes. Old Friend Gazar, from one hundred years, two hundred years. So, Old Friend comes in, na, na, na, talk talk, no sense. Shah says, ‘How are you today, Old Friend.’ Old Friend goes on, na, na, na, sky is blue, walls are gray, nice walk,
time for good roast mutton. No sense. So, Shah goes to locked cupboard, unlocks it, takes out small box, unlocks that. I am looking down on this, and inside is powder, like lichen powder.”

  “You could see it?”

  “Oh, yes. From inside walls, very clear. So, Shah puts powder in glass of wine, gives wine to Old Friend. Old Friend drinks.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, ho, here is this old man who got silly in head, no more mind than harpta. Here is old man who can’t follow orders. Here is old man two hundred tiresome years old. Here he is, needing woman’s blood every day or so, but he is no use to anybody. What you think happened?”

  “What should I think?”

  “What happened was, after Old Friend drinks, Shah talked to him, na, na, na, na. Time went by, then Shah asked him, ‘You all right, old friend?’ Ha! Old Friend did not answer. Only blinked, very, very slowly. Then Shah tried to lift Old Friend’s arm. Stiff. Like wood. Then Shah called guards and they picked him up, chair and all. They took him away.”

  “Where? How?”

  “Listen, I am telling you. So, from inside walls I watched, I followed. They went out palace gate, across desert, to that building out there.”

  “The one with all the guards and the sand shutters?”

  “That one, yes. I could not go to building, no cover for me, but I watched, and after time, they came back without Old Friend. So, Old Friend stayed in building. Then, I waited, listened while Shah talked to minister about other old men also tiresome, also due for ‘accident.’ Whatever powder is, is not P’naki.”

  “P’naki!”

  “You think P’naki is to stop plague. No. Real P’naki is long-life stuff. What you call P’naki in Haven is just… nothing. Distraction.”

  Aufors thought this over. “What did they say killed him? More avalanches? More wild beasts?”

  “No. Nothing so strange. Next day, in throne room, Shah makes sad announcement. Poor Old Friend took P’naki not blessed by Shah. Pity. Poor Old Friend is dead. Same happen to anyone taking P’naki not blessed by Shah.” She put down the bottle and hefted Dovidi over her shoulder, patting him until he burped loudly. When she offered the bottle again, he seized it and sucked strongly. “Later I see Old Friend out in front of palace, in chair, people poking him, whispering about what happens when people take P’naki Shah did not bless.”

  “I see. Once the old guy is no longer in a position to help the Shah, he’d rather give the good stuff to some other old guy. And at the same time, he warns them off trying to get the good stuff by themselves.”

  “You say very accurately. Oh, very accurately.”

  They sat for a time in companionable silence, broken when Aufors reached out a hand to touch his child, still suckling.

  “He seems to like that stuff.”

  “Good. I have nothing else to try, so it is good he likes this.”

  “So, what now?”

  “What now? Well, night is over, so we cannot go now. So we wait until night comes again. Then if baby is all right, not crying, not fussing, we go through burrow to place near wall. Danger will come, so refuge tells us, from Shah’s men, but Shah cannot get back with all his men for another day or two, so this should be easy. Then we go out malghaste gate, and away. Like Tenopia.”

  “I heard about Tenopia. Seven days ago, Genevieve ran off, like Tenopia, right?”

  “Good role model,” said Awhero, with a gap-toothed grin. “We go south, where Genevieve is, most likely.”

  They waited. Awhero offered tea. Aufors got out his food pack and offered bread and dried meat. He went through his pockets, saw that the second lichen specimen was dry, crushed it to powder, wrapped it a bit more securely, and returned it to his breast pocket. The flat packet made no bulge. He could not even feel it through the fabric.

  “You got that P’naki where women’s bodies were, right?” asked Awhero, “You could sell that for fancy price on another world. What will you do with it?”

  “Test it,” he murmured, without explaining what it was. “See what it’s made of, chemically.”

  When they had eaten, they napped, and when Aufors awoke, the little light that had seeped down the stair was gone. They prepared for their journey in moments. The boy carried a light pack. Awhero carried the baby inside her robe. Aufors carried his own pack, mostly food and water, plus his weapon, locator, and glasses. Awhero said he looked quite dirty enough to be true malghaste.

  They went up the stairs to a slightly higher network of tunnels, one that led through the walls of contiguous houses, dropping here and there to go under an alleyway.

  Awhero stopped, listening. “People out there,” she said. “We’ll go around.”

  “The place near palace,” suggested Kamakama. “Where I lost them yesterday.”

  They went around, a longer way, farther down, coming up at last to a place where torchlight fell in from a high, barred window.

  “Two turns right,” whispered the boy. “It opens in alley near palace. Then we have to cross little way to get to malghaste gate.”

  They found the narrow notch behind a buttress at the end of a blind alley, the way blocked by a tumble of trash that, remarkably, hung all together and swung away on silent hinges when pushed from behind. They oozed through the hole, Aufors in the lead, then started for the alley entrance. Directly across from it was a malghaste gate, marked by the dung-bucket that hung above it. They waited at the alley entrance. Nothing.

  They went out into the open area where a sudden, blinding light fell upon them from all directions and a stentorian voice bellowed:

  “Halt! Stand where you are! Be silent!”

  “I thought you said the Shah couldn’t get back so soon,” cried Aufors to Awhero, under his breath. He had no chance to say more, for he was struck violently on the head with the butt of a weapon.

  “We said, be silent,” roared the voice. “You are the prisoners of the Ares Expeditionary Forces.”

  * * *

  The Shah and his army arrived at the marae late in the afternoon, coming up over the rise beside the river to look across its empty bed.

  “We shall attack,” said the Shah, impatiently.

  “Seemingly there’s no need,” drawled the Marshal. “The gates are open.”

  The Shah peered near-sightedly. The gates were indeed open. Almost reluctantly, he urged his horse forward, the others following across the dry river bed and up the hard packed surface beyond. The army shuffled after, gathering in a wide arc outside the gate where the bell loop hung almost in their faces. One of the officers grasped it and pulled, only to let out a howl and throw himself away, wildly waving his arm.

  “Thorn!” he cried. “Black thorn.”

  “Fool,” muttered the Marshal. “Look first. Think first. This could be a trap.”

  “Saelan,” the Shah breathed. “Take some men and go in.”

  The minister paled, bowed, turned to select half a dozen companions, none of whom seemed eager. They slid through the open gate and disappeared inside while the others shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. After a lengthy wait, the minister reappeared.

  “No one here,” he said in a voice that did not disguise his relief.

  The Shah did not wait, spurring his horse almost over his minister and riding down the tall hallway into the atrium beyond. The doors from there were too low to admit a mounted man, and he dismounted, his annoyance plain at having to do so. On foot, the Shah was far less prepossessing. As his feet hit the ground, the others in the group crouched slightly, walking with knees bent beneath their robes. They were well aware of the Shah’s mood, and no one wanted to incur his wrath by towering over him. Following his minister, with the Prince and the Marshal trailing behind, the Shah made a circuit of the refuge.

  They found nothing, no water, no furnishings. The storage of all moveable items had been quite successful. The false panels that shut off the storage areas had been capably designed. They did not look or sound hollow. The water taps were i
n recesses that had been sealed off with a few hastily laid mud-bricks. Even the lantern that had lit the atrium was no longer there. The garages were empty of vehicles. Only a lingering smell of lubricants and cleansing agents betrayed the fact that work might have been done there within recent times.

  The kitchens were cold, their pantries empty. The only signs of life in the place were the purple-leaved trees in the atrium, and they did not long withstand the Shah’s fury. He had them chopped down and burned as fuel to warm his dinner. While the Shah ranted and roared, the Marshal went out onto the desert, selected a few dozen men to serve as sentries, and posted some well out upon the dunes and others upon the walls while the horde itself was directed to bivouac around the refuge.

  “Thoughtful of you,” said Ybon Saelan, from the doorway. “I was about to do that myself.”

  “It could still be a trap,” rumbled the Marshal. “Is this the place the Shah thinks my daughter escaped to?”

  “He claims to believe so, Marshal. Your daughter’s belongings, however, were found on the trail to Zimmi oasis, far from here. I think it unlikely she escaped to anywhere or reached any place of safety.”

  “Someone alerted these people,” the Marshal opined. “Someone told them we were coming.”

  “Well, we did not muffle our drums, did we. We marched out in full array in the light of day, and as we have rested in the heat of the day, it has taken us almost three days to get here. We know the malghaste use messenger birds. We think they also use drums to send messages. All in all, we chose to eschew surprise, so they’ve had time to flee to the ends of the earth …”

  He was interrupted by a shout from one of the sentries. The man, who stood in the last of the light atop a dune, was pointing toward the southwest. The Marshal left the minister and ran to the dune, where his motion became more flounder than forward. Nonetheless, his struggles brought him to the top of the dune in time to see a dozen or so dark figures disappearing into a valley away to the southwest, toward the coast. When he returned, the minister had been joined by the Shah himself, and by the Prince.

  “I’d say they were people from here,” said the Marshal. “Heading southwestward, at some speed. They got warning of Your Effulgence’s intent and simply departed. From the looks of the place, I’d say it has never been more than a way-station. A camp. Unless there’s a hidden well, they have to carry water in, which means they can’t use it for protracted periods.”