The Family Tree

  She thought about this for a moment. “Your brother, he was the human side of it, right? And Cory…she would have symbolized what? Nature?”

  His eyes met hers with sudden surprise. “In a way, yes. Are you interested in religions?”

  “In hearing about them? Learning about them? Yes. Very.”

  He nodded slowly, making up his mind. “Well, all right, since you’re genuinely interested. Our religion teaches us that the maiden selected for the rite—and to be sure she is a maiden, she is selected at about age four or five—is the current receptacle of the divine. Think of it as similar to the selection of a little boy to be the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama. That child is widely sought, then identified, then reared to be the next Lama. This always seems to ‘work,’ which is quite miraculous, at least to outsiders. Is it in the rearing? Or is it in the inclination? Or is the child really an incarnation? Or is it some combination of these factors?

  “What I personally believe about all this varies from time to time, depending upon who I’ve been talking with or what I’ve been reading lately, but my father sincerely believes the girl selected by the priestess is an incarnation. As a priest, one of the high priests, in fact, he could hardly believe otherwise, and the fact I can’t always believe it causes some strain between us.” He sipped his coffee, shaking his head with a rueful expression.

  “The selected maiden becomes a ‘daughter’ of the high priestesses. She is very carefully reared and protected. Every few years, a boy is selected, too, from among the priestly lines of descent, so that when the female avatar comes of age, there will be a man of roughly her own age to mate with. My brother Tom was selected when he was about eleven, I think. The high priestesses meet each of the selected men or boys. It is up to them to arrange the mating.”

  She worried this for a moment, then set it aside. “What did you think of your cousin?”

  “Well, she was gorgeous, of course. Even a twelve-year-old could see that. Wild, wonderful hair, eyes you could drown in, and a body like a wonderful cat, all muscle and sleek skin and lean bone.”

  “She must have caused a stir.”

  He smiled. “Among the neighbors she did. I remember thinking it odd that my brothers weren’t affected, except for Tom, of course. Tom took one look at her and decided marriage couldn’t be all bad. All my brothers were furious when they found out Jared Gerber had gone off with her. No, that’s not putting it accurately enough. They and my father and Demmy were astonished. There should have been no way that it could happen. Cory simply couldn’t have done it, any more than the Dalai Lama could give up his religion and become a rock star.

  “Mrs. Gerber came to the house and had a fit over it, that I do remember. Demmy was in a sort of quiet rage, talking to my father in the den, with the door shut. I think she threatened us with calamity for at least a generation. Next thing we knew, Jared came home alone saying Cory had left him and run off somewhere. Mrs. Gerber got the marriage annulled, and Cousin Demmy went off looking for the girl.”

  “Did she find her?”

  “I don’t know. I only know what I overheard. At that age, I wouldn’t have been in on discussions of religious matters. Even among adults, only the members of the family who join the priestly caste would have been concerned, and even at twelve, I was considered not to qualify. I was too talkative, too gregarious, not sincere enough. My brother Tom did become part of the priestly caste, the rest of us have gone into other professions.”

  “You’re allowed to go into other professions?”

  “Encouraged. Into the sciences, mostly. For the last several decades the biological sciences have been very, very big with our people. Some big project is no doubt being planned, but though one brother is in on that, I’m not. I’m an accountant.”

  “I’m sorry, I interrupted. You said you weren’t in on religious matters….”

  “I wasn’t included in the talk about it. There were a number of distractions, too, since that was about the time the old farmhouse burned down. We weren’t in it at the time. Dad had taken all of us boys away for a camping trip.”

  “What is this religion of yours called?”

  He flushed slightly. “We usually just say, our religion.”

  She turned her cup in the saucer, chasing elusive fragments of thought. “Nobody in your family was studying botany or anything like that, were they?”

  He concentrated on replenishing his coffee. “They were, yes. And microbiology and molecular biology, and half a hundred other ologies, but if you’re talking about the tree, the tree was just there. Whenever we see one like it, we know our people have lived there.”

  “But nobody knows what kind it is.”

  “I’m sure the Vorn do, but kids building tree houses don’t care much what kind. I don’t recall that anyone ever mentioned the species to me and I was never interested enough to ask.”

  “How well did you know Jared?”

  He looked at her narrowly. “He was older than I was by five years. He was Tom’s age. The only things I knew about him that were at all interesting were that he had been hit by lightning once and survived, and he was the only guy in high school who had a house of his own.”

  Dora set her own cup down, spilling a little into the saucer. “He owned the place then?”

  “His mother bought that house for him when he was only thirteen or fourteen. For him to have when he got ready to have a place of his own.”

  “When he was thirteen?”

  “Actually, that was very typical of her. She’s a very consistent person, Mrs. Gerber. An abstemious, unemotional, inquisitive, thrifty kind of woman. I’m sure she never spends a dime without reasoning it out. I’m sure no day passed that she didn’t tuck something away against a future need. She found a house that was rundown, going at a bargain price, and she bought the house in Jared’s name. It was Jared’s job to take care of it, right from the beginning. It was his place, and he did the work. Though my brothers said it was impossible, I suggested at the time that Jared’s having the house was the reason Cory ran off with him. They would have had a place to live.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Oh, yes. He was digging the foundations for the garage and patio, by hand, the summer he ran off with Cory.”

  “Have you seen the place lately?”

  “Not lately, no. We moved, and good riddance according to my father and brothers.” He summoned the waitperson and paid the bill, all in one quick motion, before she could offer to pay or share, then continued his account. “Sometimes I’d ride my bike over there, just to say hi. I saw Jared’s place when he had it completed. I must say, he kept the place very neat.”

  “Too damn neat,” she muttered, then, noticing his weighing look, “Jared, I mean.” She shook her head. “Jared and his momma are very, very neat.”

  He stared at her, then smiled, suddenly and shockingly, like an unexpected sunrise. “You’re fretting over Jared, aren’t you? Maybe feeling responsible? You shouldn’t. According to our religion, every man has a center of wildness in him, though in some it’s vanishingly small. Maybe it was that kernel in Jared that made him take up with my cousin, but believe me, if so, he used it all up in the few frantic hours he spent with her. He had no idea what he was connecting to. By the time she ran off, there he was, poor fellow, already drained, lost, only a shell. Be glad you realized it in time.”

  “In time….”

  “For yourself. Every woman has that fount of wildness, too. I’d guess you haven’t used yours. Civilization doesn’t give us many safe outlets. Either we repress, or we find it easy to get sidetracked into something evil or destructive. That’s why our people cling to our religion. It provides us a safe channel for the wildness in us all. With what’s happening now, there may not be any other safe channels.”

  “What do you know about what’s happening now?” she challenged him.

  “Not a lot,” he said, rising. “But I can see the forest for the trees. I can see that my people are conc
erned about what’s going on. My father, who seldom says he was mistaken about anything, was worrying recently that some actions taken by the Vorn may have been mistaken, because they didn’t know this tree business was going to happen. It really worried him.”

  “Personally, I like the trees,” she said stubbornly. “I like the birds. They’re full of music.”

  He shook his head at her. “Well, maybe birds are the worst of it. I would hope they are. But from the comings and goings among my people, all the behind-closed-doors conferences, all the long faces, I’d say it’s more than that. They’re up to something, something big, and they have been for some little time now. I’m not privy to what it is, and even if I were, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “That sounds unfriendly,” she said.

  “Which is one of the arguments I’m constantly having with my father,” he said ruefully. “I don’t go much for secrecy. But then, when you’ve lived with it for a few thousand years….”

  “That long?” she said, with a grin.

  “So they say.” He pressed her hand in his own, raised it in rueful salute, and was gone.

  20

  The Emperor, Faros VII

  “The ersuniel tribes have always had a tendency toward isolation. Never a gregarious people, they have become known for long solitary wandering, for lonely practices of the management arts, ordinarily joining in company only for seasonal affairs such as the biennial mating rituals or the return of the piscidi. This eremitic tendency has, perhaps, contributed to their frequent selection as philosopher kings, as has their ability to see various points of view in any situation. As rulers over the multitudinous and not always cooperative affairs of earth’s peoples, the ersuniel ability to enforce workable compromise provides a strong and stabilizing influence.”

  THE PEOPLES OF EARTH

  HIS EXCELLENCY, EMPEROR FAROS VII

  In a sumptuously furnished tower room high above the breakfasting travelers, the emperor set aside the manuscript he was working on and turned his attention to his solitary breakfast, taken upon a table set in a tall window looking out over the Crawling Sea. When he had opportunity, he preferred to eat with his fingers, alone and messily, rather than observe the mannerly behavior required in public. Eating with utensils was time consuming, one of those picky customs that set his teeth on edge, like wearing boots when he could walk better in soft slippers, or keeping his voice down when he wanted to roar at underlings for their continual stupidities. Nonetheless, for the most part, he did keep his voice down, he did eat with utensils, he did wear boots. He could not expect the peoples of his empire to stop frightening or disgusting one another if he did not take steps to do likewise. Eating like a barbarian was all right in private, but it wouldn’t do at state banquets.

  Which fact he had tried to explain to his nephew Fasahd on many occasions. Fasahd did not agree. Fasahd did not desire peace. Fasahd was going to make Faros break his oath to his sister, a sin which Faros regarded as only slightly less horrific than matricide.

  “Sister,” he said into the quiet room, “how could you have borne two such different sons as these, one all friendly good sense and the other all fangs and claws?” He was speaking metaphorically, of course, Fasahd was a good deal more than fangs and claws, which was what made him dangerous. How would Fasahd’s mother have seen this current situation, if she had lived? Would she have taken Fasahd’s part? Or Fasal Grun’s? Or the emperor’s?

  The emperor rose from the table and went to the mirror, to remind himself, as he often said, who he was. He saw a body of size and bulk that, despite the slightly humped shoulders his family shared as a characteristic, was nonetheless quick and agile. He saw a certain controlled ferocity in the face, an alertness of eye, a keenness of senses. He reached out a hand to stroke that image, not out of self-love but out of need to verify what his eyes saw. Eyes could lie. Faces could smile while hiding villainy. His own must not. He could do and would do what his father and grandfather before him had done. He could do and would do what the future of the world demanded. He could and would carry out the plans arrived at with such effort and pain over so many generations.

  And if, in order to achieve peace, he had to release himself from the oath he had sworn his sister, he would do so. Still, he hoped that would not be necessary.

  He sat down at the table once again, reviewing the words he had just written, part of his work on the people of the earth.

  “Long ago, so it is written, when great Korè walked openly in the lands of the people, none were so fair to her as the kapriel who accompanied her journeys, who went with her into the forests and plains, clearing the way before her, plucking up flowers which they put into her hands. The kapriel, so it is said, remember the ways of the wild, and as animal handlers they have made a place for themselves which cannot be filled by any other people.”

  He took up his pen, only to be interrupted by the sound of a person approaching his door. He anticipated the knock, which came softly.

  “Enter.”

  The one who entered was a ponjic secretary, one who served as a kind of go-between whenever the emperor was away from his own court. The secretary bowed deeply, murmuring, “Your Excellency, I bring a message from the Prime Duke.”

  “And what does my nephew have to tell me today?”

  “He wishes to advise the Great One, his uncle, that travelers have arrived telling of strange omens.”

  “Sorcery?” he demanded, with a curl of his lip.

  “No, Your Effulgence. Omens, fortunes, predictions originating among the Seers of Sworp. An onchik with a geas dating back many years. A scuinan with a lost fortune. A ponja retelling a prophecy that is years old.”

  “Hah,” he murmured. “Have they come to consult the seers?”

  “It is said they are on their way to the Hospice of St. Weel.”

  The emperor looked up with slight impatience.

  “One of them, the scuinic prince, much desires an audience with your Mightiness.”

  “Does he say why?”

  “To bring greetings from his father, the sultan of Tavor.”

  The emperor waved this away, as unimportant.

  “It might be very wise, however, for you to meet with the ponjic prince. He speaks of a danger that is coming. A horror that confronts the world. Something of that sort.”

  “Again! What in the name of Korè is going on?”

  “I know no more than Your Excellency does.”

  “We’ve worked so hard. We’ve accomplished so much!”

  “Certainly.”

  “By all the former gods, Zarl. By the ages and the sages—”

  “Something else.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “The ponjic prince. I heard him saying something to the other ponja, one dressed as a male but female for all that, though the prince is seemingly unaware of it. He was talking about certain trees they encountered during their journey and he used the phrase, ‘natural selection.’”

  “He what?”

  “Your Excellency heard me the first time.”

  “He could have arrived at the phrase independently.”

  “Unlikely, sir.”

  “Do you suppose there’s another…?”

  “Another library, sir?”

  “Yes. I mean, we know there were others. Do you suppose others have survived?”

  “Would you like to grant him an audience?”

  “By all means,” whispered Faros VII. Oh, yes, Zarl. By all means. With him alone.”

  21

  Opalears: Account of an Audience

  Prince Sahir was seriously annoyed.

  “Why do you get a private audience?” he demanded. “Why not me?”

  Izzy spoke between his teeth. “Did it ever occur to you I may be in serious trouble here?”

  Sahir snorted. “Why?”

  “Oh, my prince,” I cried, greatly distraught, “you know why. Perhaps the emperor knows that Izzy used magic to save us from the Dire Duke.”


  Sahir fell silent. He had not considered that possibility. He lowered his eyes, though he did not go so far as to apologize. “Perhaps that is so. I forgive you.”

  “Kind of you,” said Izzy. “If I end up sentenced to death, just remember your forgiveness. Use diplomacy. Tell the emperor you’ll be his fast friend forever if he lets me go back to Palmia safely.” He shuddered. He’d been shuddering ever since Faros VII had summoned him and asked that he come alone.

  “I think that person is looking for you,” I whispered, indicating a liveried ponja standing in the doorway.

  Izzy took a deep breath, rose, smoothed down his jacket and followed the ponja. Though I did not go with him, he told me all about it, later.

  He followed for some little time, up flights of stairs and across open courtyards and down other flights of stairs, finally ascending what seemed to be the central tower.

  “What’s the protocol?” he murmured to his guide, when they stopped at last outside a gilded door.

  “He’s not much for head banging,” murmured the other. “Bow on entering, speak when spoken to, bow before leaving, and that’s about it.” He turned to knock, then turned back. “Oh, yes. Don’t use any words with bahs in them.”

  “Bahs?”

  “The letter Bah, right.” The secretary rapped, entered and summoned Izzy into the presence.

  “Prince Izakar of Palmia,” the secretary announced.

  Izzy bowed.

  “Come on over here,” said a gruff voice.

  Izzy looked up to confront an even larger version of Fasal Grun. This person was becoming grizzled with age, but his movements were agile as he beckoned to Izzy to come forward, to sit opposite him on one of the chairs set within the curve of an oriel window that looked out over the sea.

  “Would you like some wine?” the emperor asked. “Cakes?”

  “We have just had b—a meal, Your Majesty,” said Izzy, carefully spelling each word to himself. The words, of necessity, were hesitant.

  “Zarl’s told me about your group,” the emperor said, examining Izzy closely. “Some sort of a fortune lost? Some sort of prediction?”