And now a dozen umminhi were down by the gate, talking to Dora and Abby like…people! Lucy Low sneaked down where they were, hid herself and listened. When she returned, she was bubbling with what she’d overheard. It seemed the umminhi had always been able to talk, she said. All of them could talk, not just these.
“Then why didn’t they?” cried the countess.
Lucy Low said, “The big umminha said that long ago, when our people came into being, when the plague came that killed most humans, some ‘human’ survivors took a vow of silence, a vow to atone to the creatures of the world by serving and assisting them. They set up libraries to preserve knowledge. They took an oath to protect diversity, to go naked and silent, to be beasts of burden, to suffer what creatures had suffered at human hands in order to atone….”
“So that’s how the libraries survived,” cried Izzy. “And they must be the ones who weeded out all the pictures, who broke history in half so we wouldn’t know their past wasn’t ours!”
“Yes,” breathed Lucy Low. “They did it.”
“What are these Weelians?” Soaz demanded. “Are these vow-breakers?”
Lucy cried, “No. The umminhi had nothing to do with the Weelians. The Weelians are a separate bunch. They already told us how they survived.”
“How did Dora know they could talk?” I asked Lucy. “How did she find out?”
Lucy said, “That language the umminhi spoke, Dora knew it.”
“Umminhi have no known language!” Izzy cried.
“It was ‘pig latin,’” said Lucy Low. “That’s what Dora called it.”
“What is pig latin?” asked the countess, very offended at this dirty language. “I’ve never heard of it.”
None of us had.
When Dora returned, we regarded her almost with awe. For a long time no one said anything to her, but then I asked, “When I took you to the stable that first time, did they say something to you?”
She gave me a long, blind look, as though she saw beyond me to something else entirely. “Yes, Nassif. Though it took me some time to realize what it was they had said. They said ‘Atone, atone, atone. Oh, great Korè, how long.’ And then one of them asked if it was time.”
“Time for what?” the countess demanded.
“Evidently it was prophesied that a speaking human would come, wearing the sign of Korè, and that would be a sign that the penitence was done.” She lifted the pendant. “Understandably enough, they wear the same sign.” She looked around at us, shaking her head at our stupidity. “They are Korèsans! They are descendents of Vorn Dionne and all his great family.”
In the instant I realized how often I had seen that sign. In my childhood. And since. The design of the silver tree was on the breeders’ tags that all umminhi wore. We shook our heads, amazed at our own blindness. For a time, we could not speak.
“It seems extreme,” the countess said. “Their atonement. Granted, in your time, Dora, creatures were sometimes treated badly, and granted that humans misbehaved toward the earth, but still…three thousand years!”
“It seems extreme to me, too, but they think not.” Dora shrugged. “I don’t understand all of it. They’re reluctant to talk about it…to talk about anything. They’ve been almost silent for three thousand years! Teaching the little ones to talk in secret, talking among themselves only rarely, on ritual occasions. They weren’t ready to break silence even after I spoke to them, not until they talked with some of the others. It was the sight of the Weelians getting that harness that decided them. If I was the holy messenger, they weren’t going to have me defiled.” She laughed, a little hysterically. “Thank…whoever.”
“What did you say to them, to get them to talk?” the countess asked.
“I told them in the name of the archpriest Vorn that three thousand years was long enough. That was evidently what they’d been waiting for.”
46
His Excellency, Faros VII
The word went out from St. Weel: he sign has come. Three thousand years is long enough. There were many who carried that word. Wherever the message arrived, the umminhi took off their harnesses, bid their handlers good day, and walked away.
The ten Woputs remained at St. Weel, awaiting the arrival of cages in which they might be transported and a detachment of imperial guards to escort them, but those who had come from Gulp to St. Weel set out on the journey to Gulp once more. The group now included the one imperial guard who had been left over, Dora and Abby, Francis and Sheba and Dzilula and all thirteen of the imperial umminhi—now clad in loin cloths and mantles, their hair braided, their fetters removed. Sahir was also part of the group, though reluctantly. He had agreed to go only after Soaz told him his behavior would not be reported to Sultan Tummyfat. This had been enough to somewhat restore Sahir’s volatile spirits. It was enough, Soaz said, that Sahir had gone, as the seeress directed. The seeress had not required him to be decent.
As the procession wended its way across the gervatch fields and into the mountain passes, it began to pick up additional umminhi, some sent as messengers, some coming out of nowhere, saying they had received the word. Several of these newcomers volunteered as runners to go on ahead, carrying a message from Izzy to the emperor that announced their imminent arrival.
Three days out, just a few hours from Gulp, the caravan was met by an advance party of imperial servants bearing tents and mattresses and all manner of luxuries to make the final stage of their journey more pleasant. When the servants pitched the tents, Nassif told them they needed only one for Abby and Dora, with the beds laid side by side. Later, Nassif herself showed Abby and Dora into the extravagant pavilion, though she didn’t stick around, so she told Izzy, to see if they took the hint. Instead, she sat with Izzy by the fire, watching the tent flap to see what happened.
“Do we know each other well enough, do you think?” Abby asked, staring at the silken coverlets and piled cushions.
“If we don’t now, likely we never will,” she replied. “Oh, Abby, if we become lovers, will it just be because we have no one else?”
He gave her a serious look. “Usually when people become lovers it’s because they feel they have no one else and want no one else. I’ll grant you, there are exceptions, but I, at least,” and here he paused to cast a significant glance at her, “feel unexceptional.”
She laughed, somewhat ruefully. “Well, you did give up the world for me. I know lovers are always saying they’d do that, but you’re the only one I know who ever actually did.”
“I did, didn’t I? Oh, my, what you got me into, lady.”
“Are you sorry?” she asked, examining his face closely for signs of regret.
“Well, I’m confused,” he answered. “I wake up in the morning expecting to teach a class at the university. Instead, I find myself talking with a very charming pig, or perhaps sharing breakfast with several otters. I still can’t figure out how it happened.”
“Oh, I think that’s perfectly clear,” she said. “I think Vorn wanted us to come with the others. You and me. I think he purposely included us in the field.”
He looked at her dumbfounded. “Why? For our benefit? There was no plague yet. It might not have happened for decades, not for centuries….”
“Maybe he thought it would come sooner than that. I don’t know. But I do know he planned that we would be in that field.”
“Then I can’t blame you for it, can I?”
“Were you planning to?”
He thought about it, throwing himself down on the soft bedding and pulling her down to sit beside him. “I think not. I confess, in between spasms of outrage and fear and half a dozen other emotions I’ve been feeling over the past few days, I keep encountering these little bursts of pure elation. They scare me far more than the actual reality does! They’re seductive. I get this little rush, this heightened sense of importance. I mean, it’s an adventure! How many of us get to have adventures?”
“I certainly never planned on one.” She nestled into
his shoulder, then, catching sight of Nassif and Izzy, who were paying suspiciously too much attention to the tent flap, she rose, and fastened the flap tight, making sure it was quite securely tied before returning to Abby’s side. He had, in the meantime, found a carafe of wine and had poured them each a generous glass.
“Do you think they have birth control in this day and age?” she asked after a time.
“You could ask the countess.”
“I’d hate to end up being a slooge after all that screaming I was doing.”
“Ah,” he said, putting his wineglass in a safe place. “Were you thinking of risking slooge-hood?”
“It’s not too great a risk tonight, or tomorrow night, or this week—only they probably don’t have weeks in this time—and yes, I was thinking that grieving for home is silly when maybe this is paradise, though I’d like to find out for sure.”
She turned to him, awkwardly opening her arms, wineglass tilting. He took it from her, put it aside, then drew her down beside him on the piled mattresses, soft as down, running his hands along her arms, softer yet, letting his lips find the curve of her throat. “How would you know if it were paradise?”
She murmured, “Oh, I’d hear trumpets. The horns of elfland. Faintly blowing. Grandma assured me—”
He closed her mouth with a kiss, and then another, and then lost track of the kisses in the counting of buttons, then lost track of the buttons in the clothing that wasn’t needed anymore, in the sound of the wind on the tent and the crickets outside and voices calling, all going away into a long, languorous candle-lit quiet, where she flushed like a rose in his arms, rose to him like a wave, melted into his own wave that broke on an uncharted shore to the sound of glorious, glorious trumpets….
“I hear them,” she whispered in amazement. “I mean, I really hear them.”
And so did he.
They slept late in the morning. When Dora came out of the pavilion, she found Nassif and Izzy by the fire still, as though they had not moved.
“You must have been tired,” said Nassif in an all too careful voice, which only resolution kept from being overly cheerful.
“I was,” Dora replied in a satisfied tone, with a tiny smirk. “The trumpets kept me awake.”
“Not very polite of them,” agreed Izzy. “But when the emperor sends his own troops to escort us into the city, I guess the trumpeters feel they have to arrive in full fanfare.”
“The emperor…” she said. “The trumpeters…” She looked across Izzy’s shoulder to the line of liveried trumpeters assembling for the march, their tabards shining, their long, brass instruments gleaming in the morning sun. “The trumpeters!”
“They came shortly after dark last night,” said Izzy, puzzled at her. “I thought you said you heard them?”
“Oh, yes.”
And she laughed, so chokingly that Nassif had to pound her on the back.
When they came down the hill into Gulp, later that day, there were over a hundred umminhi with the travelers, male and female, including some with children. Dora commented on this fact to Nassif, who walked beside her.
“Foals, I would have once called them,” said Nassif, in a strange, tight voice.
“Does it bother you, their being here?” Dora asked.
“It did. It was very disturbing. I was very upset until…until I saw one of the mares…females lean down, pick up Lucy Low, and deposit her in the basket—saddle I would have said once—that rests on her own shoulders. It seemed an un-umminhi thing to do. And yet, it is the kind of thing you would do, which calls my own judgment into question.”
Dora looked in the direction Nassif pointed out. There in the shoulder basket, the onchik rode, quite relaxed, playing upon her harp. It was not long until that sound was joined by voices and other instruments, and they went down the last hill on a tuneful wave that rippled around them all the way into the city.
The city, which was swarming with folk. The emperor was at the residence of his nephew, Fasal Grun, and all the travelers, including the umminhi, were escorted there, the crowds pressing after them, some curious, some wide-eyed and amazed, some muttering about the end of the world. All and all, thought Dora, a crowd like any crowd. All of the travelers were shown into the audience hall, though they could barely fit, where Faros VII sat on the chair of state, a green mantle flowing from his shoulders to the floor, his hand holding the orb of the ruler, his head crowned with ivy and oak, the symbols, so the butler said, of Faros’s reign.
“Korèsan symbols,” whispered Izzy, nodding wisely to himself.
“So you have returned,” the emperor said, including all of the troupe in his benevolent gaze.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Izzy. “May I introduce the two friends from the past who assisted us there and have, accidentally, attended us here as well.”
“I have been informed,” said the emperor, holding out his hand. “Dora. Abby.”
Not paw, thought Dora, moving to bend over it. Hand. Not Bear. Emperor. She took a deep breath. “Your Excellency.”
Abby was beside her, bowing in his turn. “Your Excellency.”
They retreated. Sheba was introduced, and Dzilula, and Francis. Then it was time for the umminhi, who named themselves in a long and solemn roll call. They all had names. Those who were present had titles, as well, from that secret umminhi world of elders and priests and messengers. The one who had first spoken to Dora was chief among them. His name was Vorn.
When the introductions had been completed, the emperor leaned forward a little, fixing Vorn with his eyes. “Since I was told of this great event, I have been considering how you and your people will live. There is a land in the transmontaine. It is a good land, so I am told, largely unpopulated, with pastures and arable fields and many natural resources.”
“We know of it,” said Vorn. “Some of our people have been there.”
“I would grant that land in perpetuity to the umminhi,” said the emperor, speaking slowly and carefully, as though afraid he might be misunderstood. “If they would take it, and care for it.”
“The umminhi would accept it, with gratitude. We would care for it as a parent her children.”
The emperor nodded, satisfied thus far. He went on: “I would grant the umminhi free passage through all my lands, if they would come and go peaceably.”
“As we pledge ourselves to do,” said Vorn.
“Ah.” The emperor smiled. “Then today we have done well.”
The crowd relaxed. People murmured to one another. The emperor nodded to himself, speaking quietly to his ponjic secretary, who came among the travelers and asked if the ones who had come from St. Weel would join the emperor for light refreshment in the adjoining chamber.
This place was smaller, and quieter, a room opening through tall windows onto a wide balcony. It held comfortable chairs and small tables, plus another great chair for the emperor, who could scarcely have sat in anything smaller. They were served with food and drink. The emperor ate a portion of grilled fish with every evidence of enjoyment, using a fork especially made to fit between his fingers. He wiped his muzzle with a napkin, which he set aside when he was finished, clasping his huge hands across his belly. At his side, his ponjic secretary stood, bearing a notepad, which he presented for the emperor’s perusal.
“I have an announcement,” Faros said, when the others had finished their food and were lingering over the teacups. “It concerns my nephew, Fasahd.” A strange expression crossed his face, only momentarily, as though he had a sudden pain. “I wish to assure Countess Elianne of Estafan that Fasahd will no longer be a trouble to her. He has seen the error of his ways.”
They did not ask how, or why. It was obvious that Faros VII did not wish to discuss it. Without giving them time to speculate, he glanced at the pad held by his secretary and continued:
“Prince Izakar, is this timeworm something I need to worry over?”
Izzy bowed. “The timeworm, Your Excellency, is useless without the contro
l. The control stayed in the past. I don’t know what Vorn Dionne did with it. Perhaps he secreted it somewhere where it would be safe for three thousand years, but who would know? The seers, perhaps? My own counsel would be to alert the seers to keep an eye out for it, and otherwise to leave the timeworm alone.”
“And what of the Weelians?”
“They will probably all die out, Your Excellency.”
“Is this true?” the emperor asked Vorn. “You will not breed with them, to save their line?”
“Their line is sickly, Your Excellency. Even their newborn babies need drugs in order to live. They cannot breed without the intervention of laboratories, and all their energies for generations have gone into those laboratories. We have already suggested to them that they give up their breeding program, which makes them all miserable, and allow themselves to live out their lives in whatever happiness they can find.”
“A tragic people,” remarked Faros. “Truly, a tragic people. When you told me they were once of a ruling caste, I looked them up in my library. Their ancient home was called Wahsinton.”
Another glance at the notepad. “Now, will we have any more trouble with the trees?”
Izzy replied, “I think the word is getting around, Your Excellency. The original rumor started at St. Weel, but we’ve been talking about the matter loudly while on the trail. No danger to the trees, we’ve said, over and over. No one is going to chop down the trees. The trees are fine. They needn’t be concerned.”
The emperor fixed Vorn with his brown eyes and said, “And is that true? The umminhi are determined upon that? They will not cut down whole forests, as once they did, in the long ago?”
Vorn bowed. “Some humans may have done so, Your Excellency. Our people never did. We Korèsans, of whatever tribe, are stewards of the earth, not despoilers.”
Faros gave him a regal nod, reached out a hand for the pad, and ran a great claw down the line of notes.
“Nextly, I am concerned about our good friends, you, Dora and Abby. Izakar has spoken your praises constantly, as has the countess Elianne. Being thus thrust into a world not your own must seem an uncertain reward for such kindness. What will you do now? You would be welcome to live in the palace, as my guests.”