Child of the River

Chapter Two The Anchorite

One evening early in spring, with the wheel of the Galaxy tilted waist-deep at the level horizon of the Great River, Yama eased open the shutters of the window of his room, and stepped out onto the broad ledge. Any soldier looking up from the courtyard would have seen, by the Galaxy’s blue-white light, a sturdy boy of some seventeen years on the ledge beneath the overhang of the red tile roof, and recognized the long-boned build, pale sharp face and cap of black hair of the Aedile’s foundling son. But Yama knew that Sergeant Rhodean had taken most of the garrison of the peel-house on patrol through the winding paths of the City of the Dead, searching for the heretics who last night had tried to firebomb a ship at anchor in the floating harbor. Further, three men were standing guard over the laborers at the Aedile’s excavations, leaving only the pack of watchdogs and a pentad of callow youths under the command of old one-legged Rotwang, who by now would have finished his nightly bottle of brandy and be snoring in his chair by the kitchen fire. With the garrison so reduced there was little chance that any of the soldiers would leave the warm fug of the guardroom to patrol the gardens, and Yama knew that he could persuade the watchdogs to allow him to pass unreported.

It was an opportunity for adventure too good to be missed.

Yama was going to hunt frogs with the chandler’s daughter, Derev, and Ananda, the sizar of the priest of Aeolis’s temple.

They had agreed on it that afternoon, using mirror talk.

The original walls of the Aedile’s peel-house were built of smooth blocks of keelrock fitted together so cunningly that they presented a surface like polished ice, but at some point in the house’s history an extra floor had been added, with a wide gutter ledge and gargoyles projecting into the air at intervals to spout water clear of the walls. Yama walked along the ledge as easily as if on a pavement, turned a corner, hooked his rope around the eroded ruff of a basilisk frozen in an agonized howl, and abseiled five stories to the ground.

He would have to leave the rope in place, but it was a small risk.

No one was about. He darted across the wide, mossy lawn, jumped the ha-ha and quickly and silently threaded familiar paths through the dense stands of rhododendrons which had colonized the tumbled ruins of the ramparts of the peel-house’s outer defensive wall. Yama had played endless games of soldiers and heretics with the kitchen boys here, and knew every path, every outcrop of ruined wall, all the holes in the ground which had once been guard rooms or stores and the buried passages between them. He stopped beneath a mature cork-oak, looked around, then lifted up a mossy stone to reveal a deep hole lined with stones and sealed with polymer spray. He pulled out a net bag and a long slender trident from this hiding place, then replaced the stone and hung the bag on his belt and laid the trident across his shoulders.

At the edge of the stands of rhododendrons, the ground dropped away steeply in an overgrown demilune breastwork to a barrens of tussock grass and scrub. Beyond was the patchwork of newly flooded paeonin fields on either side of the winding course of the Breas, and then low ranges of hills crowded with monuments and tombs, cairns and cists: league upon league of the City of the Dead stretching to the foothills of the Rim Mountains, its inhabitants outnumbered the living citizens of Aeolis by a thousand to one. The tombs glimmered in the cold light of the Galaxy, as if the hills had been dusted with salt, and little lights flickered here and there, where memorial tablets had been triggered by passing animals.

Yama took out a slim silver whistle twice the length of his forefinger and blew on it. It seemed to make no more than a breathy squeak. Yama blew three more times, then stuck his trident in the deep, soft leaf mold and squatted on his heels and listened to the peeping chorus of frogs that stitched the night. The frogs had emerged from their mucus cocoons a few weeks ago. They had been frantically feeding ever since, and now they were searching for mates, every male endeavoring to outdo his rivals with passionate froggy arias. Dopey with unrequited lust, they would be easy prey.

Behind Yama, the peel-house reared above the rhododendrons, lifting its freight of turrets against the Galaxy’s blue-white wheel. A warm yellow light glowed near the top of the tall watchtower, where the Aedile, who had rarely slept since the news of Telmon’s death last summer, would be working on his endless measurements and calculations.

Presently, Yama heard what he had been waiting for, the steady padding tread and faint sibilant breath of a watchdog.

He called softly, and the strong, ugly creature trotted out of the bushes and laid its heavy head in his lap. Yama crooned to it, stroking its cropped ears and scratching the ridged line where flesh met the metal of its skull-plate, lulling the machine part of the watchdog and, through its link, the rest of the pack. When he was satisfied that it understood it was not to raise the alarm either now or when he returned, Yama stood and wiped the dog’s drool from his hands, plucked up his trident, and bounded away down the steep slope of the breastwork toward the barren ruins and the flooded fields beyond.

* * *

Ananda and Derev were waiting at the edge of the ruins.

Tall, graceful Derev jumped down from her perch halfway up a broken wall cloaked in morning glory, and half-floated, half-ran across overgrown flagstones to embrace Yama. Ananda kept his seat on a fallen stele, eating ghostberries he had picked along the way and pretending to ignore the embracing lovers. He was a plump boy with dark skin and a bare, tubercled scalp, wearing the orange robe of his office.

“I brought the lantern,” Ananda said at last, and held it up. It was a little brass signal lantern, with a slide and a lens to focus the light of its wick. The plan was to use it to mesmerize their prey.

Derev and Yama broke from their embrace and Ananda added, “I saw your soldiers march out along the old road this noon, brother Yama. Everyone in the town says they’re after the heretics who tried to set fire to the floating harbor.”

“If there are heretics within a day’s march, Sergeant Rhodean will find them,” Yama said.

“Perhaps they’re still hiding here,” Derev said. Her neck seemed to elongate as she turned her head this way and that to peer into the darkness around the ruins. Her feathery hair was brushed back from her shaven forehead and hung to the small of her back. She wore a belted shift that left her long, slim legs bare. A trident was slung over her left shoulder.

She hugged Yama and said, “Suppose we found them! Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

Yama said, “If they are stupid enough to remain near the place they have just attacked, then they would be easy to capture. We would need only to threaten them with our frogstickers to force their surrender.”

“My father says they make their women lie with animals to create monstrous warriors.”

Ananda spat seeds and said, “Her father promised to pay a good copper penny for every ten frogs we catch.”

“Derev’s father has a price for everything,” Yama said, smiling.

Derev smiled too—Yama felt it against his cheek. She said, “My father also said I should be back before the Galaxy sets. He only allowed me to come here because I told him that one of the Aedile’s soldiers would be guarding us.”

Derev’s father was very tall and very thin and habitually dressed in black, and walked with his head hunched into his shoulders and his white hands clasped behind him. From the back he looked like one of the night storks that picked over the city’s rubbish pits. He was invariably accompanied by his burly bodyservant; he was scared of footpads and the casual violence of sailors, and of kidnapping. The latter was a real threat, as his family was the only one of its bloodline in Aeolis. He was disliked within the tight-knit trading community because he bought favors rather than earned them, and Yama knew that Derev was allowed to see him only because Derev’s father believed it brought him closer to the Aedile.

Ananda said, “The soldier would be guarding something more important than your life, although, like life, once taken it cannot be given back. But perhaps you no longer have it, which is why the soldier is not here.”

Yama whispered to Derev, “You should not believe everything your father says,” and told Ananda, “You dwell too much on things of the flesh. It does no good to brood on that which you cannot have. Give me some berries.”

Ananda held out a handful. “You only had to ask,” he said mildly.

Yama burst a ghostberry between his tongue and palate: the rough skin shockingly tart, the pulpy seed rich flesh meltingly sweet. He grinned and said, “It is spring. We could stay out all night, then go fishing at dawn.”

Derev said, “My father—”

“Your father would pay more for fresh fish than for frogs.”

“He buys all the fish he can sell from the fisherfolk, and the amount he can buy is limited by the price of salt.”

Ananda said, “It’s traditional to hunt frogs in spring, which is why we’re here. Derev’s father wouldn’t thank you for making her into a fisherman.”

“If I don’t get back before midnight he’ll lock me up,” Derev said. “I will never see you again.”

Yama smiled. “You know that is not true. Otherwise your father would never have let you out in the first place.”

“There should be a soldier here,” Derev said. “We’re none of us armed.”

“The heretics are leagues away. And I will protect you, Derev.”

Derev brandished her trident, as fierce and lovely as a naiad. “We’re equally matched, I think.”

“I cannot stay out all night either,” Ananda said. “Father Quine rises an hour before sunrise, and before then I must sweep the naos and light the candles in the votary.”

“No one will come,” Yama said. “No one ever does anymore, except on high days.”

“That’s not the point. The avatars may have been silenced, but the Preservers are still there.”

“They will be there whether you light the candles or not. Stay with me, Ananda. Forget your duties for once.”

Ananda shrugged. “I happen to believe in my duties.”

Yama said, “You are scared of the beating you will get from Father Quine.”

“Well, that’s true, too. For a holy man, he has a fearsome temper and a strong arm. You’re lucky, Yama. The Aedile is a kindly, scholarly man.”

“If he is angry with me, he has Sergeant Rhodean beat me. And if he learns that I have left the peel-house at night, that is just what will happen. That is why I did not bring a soldier with me.”

“My father says that physical punishment is barbaric,” Derev said.

“It is not so bad,” Yama said. “And at least you know when it is over.”

“The Aedile sent for Father Quine yesterday,” Ananda said. He crammed the last of the ghostberries into his mouth and got to his feet. Berry juice stained his lips; they looked black in the Galaxy’s blue-white light.

Yama said unhappily, “My father is wondering what to do with me. He has been talking about finding a clerkship for me in a safe corner of the department. I think that is why Dr. Dismas went to Ys. But I do not want to be a clerk—I would rather be a priest. At least I would get to see something of the world.”

“You’re too old,” Ananda said equitably. “My parents consecrated me a hundred days after my birth. And besides being too old, you are also too full of sin. You spy on your poor father, and steal.”

“And sneak out after dark,” Derev said.

“So has Ananda.”

“But not to fornicate,” Ananda said. “Derev’s father knows that I’m here, so I’m as much a chaperon as any soldier, although more easily bribed.”

Derev said, “Oh, Ananda, we really are here to hunt for frogs.”

Ananda added, “And I will confess my sin tomorrow, before the shrine.”

“As if the Preservers care about your small sins,” Yama said.

“You’re too proud to be a priest,” Ananda said. “Above all, you’re too proud. Come and pray with me. Unburden yourself.”

Yama said, “Well, I would rather be a priest than a clerk, but most of all I would rather be a soldier. I will run away and enlist. I will train as an officer, and lead a company of myrmidons or command a corvette into battle against the heretics.”

Ananda said, “That’s why your father wants you to be a clerk.”

Derev said, “Listen.”

The two boys turned to look at where she pointed. Far out across the flooded fields, a point of intense turquoise light was moving through the dark air toward the Great River.

“A machine,” Yama said.

“So it is,” Derev said, “but that isn’t what I meant. I heard someone crying out.”

“Frogs fornicating.” Ananda said.

Yama guessed that the machine was half a league off. It seemed to slide at an angle to everything else, twinkling as if stitching a path between the world and its own reality.

He said, “We should make a wish.”

Ananda smiled, “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, brother Yama. Such superstitions are unworthy of someone as educated as you.”

Derev said, “Besides, you should never make a wish in case it is answered, like the story of the old man and the fox maiden. I know I heard something. It may be heretics. Or bandits. Quiet! Listen!”

Ananda said, “I hear nothing, Derev. Perhaps your heart is beating so quickly it cries out for relief. I know I’m a poor priest, Yama, but one thing I know is true. The Preservers see all; there is no need to invoke them by calling upon their servants.”

Yama shrugged. There was no point debating such niceties with Ananda, who had been trained in theology since birth, but why shouldn’t machines at least hear the wishes of those they passed by? Wishing was only an informal kind of praying after all, and surely prayers were heard, and sometimes even answered. For if praying did not bring reward, then people would long ago have abandoned the habit of prayer, as farmers abandon land which no longer yields a crop. The priests taught that the Preservers heard and saw all, yet chose not to act because they did not wish to invalidate the free will of their creations; but machines were as much a part of the world which the Preservers had created as the Shaped bloodlines, although of a higher order. Even if the Preservers had withdrawn their blessing from the world after the affront of the Age of Insurrection, as the divaricationists believed, it was still possible that machines, their epigones, might recognize the justice of answering a particular wish, and intercede.

After all, those avatars of the Preservers which had survived the Age of Insurrection had spoken with men as recently as forty years ago, before the heretics had finally silenced them.

In any event, better the chance taken than that lost and later regretted. Yama closed his eyes and offered up the quick wish, hostage to the future, that he be made a soldier and not a clerk.

Ananda said, “You might as well wish upon a star.”

Derev said, “Quiet! I heard it again!”

And Yama heard it too, faint but unmistakable above the frogs’ incessant chorus. A man’s angry wordless yell, and then the sound of jeering voices and coarse laughter.

Yama led the others through the overgrown ruins. Ananda padded right behind him with his robe tucked into his girdle—the better to run away if there was trouble, he said, although Yama knew that he would not run. Derev would not run away either; she held her trident like a javelin.

One of the old roads ran alongside the fields. Its ceramic surface had been stripped and smelted for the metals it had contained thousands of years ago, but the long straight track preserved its geodesic ideal. At the crux between the old road and a footpath that led across the embankment between two of the flooded fields, by a simple shrine set on a wooden post, the Constable’s twin sons, Lud and Lob, had ambushed an anchorite.

The man stood with his back to the shrine, brandishing his staff. Its metal-shod point flicked back and forth like a watchful eye. Lud and Lob yelled and threw stones and clods of dirt at the anchorite but stayed out of the staff’s striking range. The twins were swaggering bullies who believed that they ruled the children of the town. Most especially, they picked on those few children of bloodlines not their own.

Yama had been chased by them a decad ago, when he had been returning to the peel-house after visiting Derev, but he had easily lost them in the ruins outside the town.

“We’ll find you later, little fish,” they had shouted cheerfully. They had been drinking, and one of them had slapped his head with the empty bladder and cut a clumsy little dance.

“We always finish our business,” he had shouted. “Little fish, little fish, come out now. Be like a man.”

Yama had chosen to stay hidden. Lud and Lob had scrawled their sign on a crumbling wall and pissed at its base, but after beating about the bushes in a desultory fashion they had gown bored and wandered off.

Now, crouching with Derev and Ananda in a thicket of chayote vine, Yama wondered what he should do. The anchorite was a tall man with a wild black mane and wilder beard.

He was barefoot, and dressed in a crudely stitched robe of metallic-looking cloth. He dodged most of the stones thrown at him, but one had struck him on the head; blood ran down his forehead and he mechanically wiped it from his eyes with his wrist. Sooner or later, he would falter, and Lud and Lob would pounce.

Derev whispered, “We should fetch the militia.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Ananda said.

At that moment, a stone struck the anchorite’s elbow and the point of his staff dipped. Roaring with glee, Lob and Lud ran in from either side and knocked him to the ground. The anchorite surged up, throwing one of the twins aside, but the other clung to his back and the second knocked the anchorite down again.

Yama said, “Ananda, come out when I call your name. Derev, you set up a diversion.” And before he could think better of it he stepped out onto the road and shouted the twins’ names.

Lob turned. He held the staff in both hands, as if about to break it. Lud sat on the anchorite’s back, grinning as he absorbed the man’s blows to his flanks.

Yama said, “What is this, Lob? Are you and your brother footpads now?”

“Just a bit of fun, little fish,” Lob said. He whirled the staff above his head. It whistled in the dark air.

“We saw him first,” Lud added.

“I think you should leave him alone.”

“Maybe we’ll have you instead, little fish.”

“We’ll have him all right,” Lud said. “That’s why we’re here.” He cuffed the anchorite. “This culler got in the way of what we set out to do, remember? Grab him, brother, and then we can finish this bit of fun.”

“You will have to deal with me, and with Ananda, too,” Yama said. He did not look around, but by the shift in Lob’s gaze he knew that Ananda had stepped out onto the road behind him.

“The priest’s runt, eh?” Lob laughed, and farted tremendously.

“Gaw,” his brother said, giggling so hard his triple chins quivered. He waved a hand in front of his face. “What a stink.”

“Bless me your holiness,” Lob said, leering at Ananda, and farted again.

“Even odds,” Yama said, disgusted.

“Stay there, little fish,” Lob said. “We’ll deal with you when we’ve finished here.”

“You wetbrain,” Lud said, “we deal with him first. Remember?”

Yama flung his flimsy trident then, but it bounced uselessly off Lob’s hide. Lob yawned, showing his stout, sharp tusks, and swept the staff at Yama’s head. Yama ducked, then jumped back from the reverse stroke. The staff’s metal tip cut the air a finger’s width from his belly. Lob came on, stepping heavily and deliberately and sweeping the staff back and forth, but Yama easily dodged his clumsily aimed blows.

“Fight fair,” Lob said, stopping at last. He was panting heavily. “Stand and fight fair.”

Ananda was behind Lob now, and jabbed at his legs with his trident. Enraged, Lob turned and swung the staff at Ananda, and Yama stepped forward and kicked him in the kneecap, and then in the wrist. Lob howled and lost his balance and Yama grabbed the staff when it clattered to the ground. He reversed it and jabbed Lob hard in the gut.

Lob fell to his knees in stages. “Fight fair,” he gasped, winded. His little eyes blinked and blinked in his corpulent face.

“Fight fair,” Lud echoed, and got off the anchorite and pulled a knife from his belt. It was as black as obsidian, with a narrow, crooked blade. He had stolen it from a drunken sailor, and claimed that it was from the first days of the Age of Enlightenment nearly as old as the world. “Fight fair,” Lud said again, and held the knife beside his face and grinned.

Lob threw himself forward then, and wrapped his arms around Yama’s thighs. Yama hammered at Lob’s back with the staff, but he was too close to get a good swing at his opponent and he tumbled over backward, his legs pinned beneath Lob’s weight.

For a moment, all seemed lost. Then Ananda stepped forward and swung his doubled fist; the stone he held struck the side of Lob’s skull with the sound of an axe sinking into wet wood. Lob roared with pain and sprang to his feet, and Lud roared too, and brandished his knife. Behind him, a tree burst into flame.

“It was all I could think of,” Derev said. She flapped her arms about her slim body. She was shaking with excitement.

Ananda ran a little way down the road and shouted after the fleeing twins, a high ululant wordless cry.

Yama said, “It was well done, but we should not mock them.”

“We make a fine crew,” Ananda said, and shouted again.

The burning tree shed sparks upward into the night, brighter than the Galaxy. Its trunk was a shadow inside a roaring pillar of hot blue flame. Heat and light beat out across the road. It was a young sweetgum tree. Derev had soaked its trunk with kerosene from the lantern’s reservoir, and had ignited it with the lantern’s flint when Lob had fallen on Yama.

“Even Lob and Lud won’t forget this,” Derev said gleefully.

“That is what I mean,” Yama said.

“They’ll be too ashamed to try anything. Frightened by a tree. It’s too funny, Yama. They’ll leave us alone from now on.”

Ananda helped the anchorite sit up. The man dabbed at the blood crusted under his nose, cautiously bent and unbent his knees, then scrambled to his feet. Yama held out the staff, and the man took it and briefly bowed his head in thanks.

Yama bowed back, and the man grinned. Something had seared the left side of his face; a web of silvery scar tissue pulled down his eye and lifted the corner of his mouth. He was so dirty that the grain of his skin looked like embossed leather. The metallic cloth of his robe was filthy, too, but here and there patches and creases reflected the light of the burning tree. His hair was tangled in ropes around his face, and bits of twig were caught in his forked beard. He smelt powerfully of sweat and urine. He fixed Yama with an intense gaze, then made shapes with the fingers of his right hand against the palm of his left.

Ananda said, “He wants you to know that he has been searching for you.”

“You can understand him?”

“We used hand speech like this in the seminary, to talk to each other during breakfast and supper when we were supposed to be listening to one of the brothers read from the Puranas. Some anchorites were once priests, and perhaps this is such a one.”

The man shook his head violently, and made more shapes with his fingers.

Ananda said uncertainly, “He says that he is glad that he remembered all this. I think he must mean that he will always remember this.”

“Well,” Derev said, “so he should. We saved his life.”

The anchorite dug inside his robe and pulled out a ceramic disc. It was attached to a thong looped around his neck, and he lifted the thong over his head and thrust the disc toward Yama, then made more shapes.

“You are the one who is to come,” Ananda translated.

The anchorite shook his head and signed furiously, slamming his fingers against his palm.

“You will come here again. Yama, do you know what he means?”

And Derev said, “Listen!”

Far off, whistles sounded, calling and answering in the darkness.

The anchorite thrust the ceramic disc into Yama’s hand. He stared into Yama’s eyes and then he was gone, running out along the footpath between the flooded fields, a shadow dwindling against cold blue light reflected from the water, gone.

The whistles sounded again. “The militia,” Ananda said, and turned and ran off down the old road.

Derev and Yama chased after him, but he soon outpaced them, and Yama had to stop to catch his breath before they reached the city wall.

Derev said, “Ananda won’t stop running until he’s thrown himself into his bed. And even then he’ll run in his dreams until morning.”

Yama was bent over, clasping his knees. He had a cramp in his side. He said, “We will have to watch out for each other. Lob and Lud will not forgive this easily. How can you run so fast and so far without getting out of breath?”

Derev’s pale face glimmered in the Galaxy’s light. She gave him a sly look. “Flying is harder work than running.”

“If you can fly, I would love to see it. But you are teasing me again.”

“This is the wrong place for flying. One day, perhaps, I’ll show you the right place, but it’s a long way from here.”

“Do you mean the edge of the world? I used to dream that my people lived on the floating islands. I saw one—”

Derev suddenly grabbed Yama and pulled him into the long grass beside the track. He fell on top of her, laughing, but she put her hand over his mouth. “Listen!” she said.

Yama raised his head, but heard only the ordinary noises of the night. He was aware of the heat of Derev’s slim body pressing against his. He said, “I think the militia have given up their search.”

“No. They’re coming this way.”

Yama rolled over and parted the long dry grass so that he could watch the track. Presently a pentad of men went past in single file. None of them were of the bloodline of the citizens of Aeolis. They were armed with rifles and arbalests.

“Sailors,” Yama said, when he was sure that they were gone.

Derev pressed the length of her body against his. “How do you know?”

“They were strangers, and all strangers come to Aeolis by the river, either as sailors or passengers. But there have been no passenger ships since the war began.”

“They are gone now, whoever they are.”

“Perhaps they were looking for the anchorite.”

“He was crazy, that holy man, but we did the right thing. Or you did. I could not have stepped out and challenged those two.”

“I did it knowing you were at my back.”

“I’d be nowhere else.” Derev added thoughtfully, “He looked like you.”

Yama laughed.

“In the proportion of his limbs, and the shape of his head. And his eyes were halved by folds of skin, just like yours.”

Derev kissed Yama’s eyes. He kissed her back. They kissed for a long time, and then Derev broke away.

“You aren’t alone in the world, Yama, no matter what you believe. It shouldn’t surprise you to find one of your own bloodline.”

But Yama had been looking for too long to believe it would be that easy. “I think he was crazy. I wonder why he gave me this.”

Yama pulled the ceramic disc from the pocket of his tunic. It seemed no different from the discs the Aedile’s workmen turned up by the hundred during their excavations: slick, white, slightly too large to fit comfortably in his palm. He held it up so that it faintly reflected the light of the Galaxy, and saw a distant light in the crooked tower that stood without the old, half-ruined city wall.

Dr. Dismas had returned from Ys.