Fire in the Sky

2

As Ilaцrn watched the chav stump off, he smiled as he thought of the ravaged, tear-streaked face, the angry scowl. One for us, he thought. I hope you burn like I am, I hope you’re in pain that never stops. He took a deep breath, adjusted the shoulderstrap of his carry sack, and moved on.

The mesuch killed Bйluchar life down to the mites in the soil so they could grow their stinking tubers, but the Ykkuval wanted Bйluchar plants in his Dushanne Garden. Wanted green and bloom under his eye. Matha matha, gets me away from that place. Gives me a little time I’m not smelling them all round me, hearing those grunts they call speech, looking at those clumsy ugly buildings.

His mouth tightened as he moved from under the trees and saw again the remnant of Dumel Dordan. The mesuchs killed and burned the Dumel with as little thought to what they were destroying as those bloody-handed barbarians who burned ‘mud. A thousand and a thousand years of living and dying, birth and budding, gone. Dordan’s song was finished. Trampled under the tracks of their monstrous machines.

He left the road and moved along the outside of the light fence that enclosed the mesuch fields. He’d learned not to go near the mesuch Drudges. They had crude and painful ideas of what was funny. His knees would pay for the extra walking, but he’d been through one mobbing and shuddered at the thought of another.

The trees closed round him again, straining out the sounds of the mesuch machines and the shouts of the Drudges, the occasional yelps from the Fior women on the slave chains. They didn’t bother slaving the Keteng, just killed them. The Denchok were at once too alien and too much like them, an abomination in Chav eyes. The Shape War songs told the same sad story, a thousand and a thousand years ago the Fior came here and killed with as little understanding and as much evil in their hearts as the Chave showed. And were killed until a harper made the first sioll bond with an Eolt. Ard Bracoпn and Eolt Lekall sang the grand Chorale of Peace, passed the song from Ard to Eolt to Ard again, spreading peace around the world.

The angles flitted through the upper levels of the trees, quadripart wings flickers of diamond, hard bodies ruby and emerald, topaz, sapphire and amethyst-flying jewels whose songs were clear pure notes as bright as their colors. There were more angies in the woods than he remembered, perhaps because they’d been pushed from the open fields.

The air dampened as he got closer to the sea and the Meklo Fen. Large patches of sky showed through the shorter, more scattered trees. Ahead he could see the light green of the rushes, the brown cones at the tips of their tall stems, the dance of light from a stretch of water, a cheled so shallow he could wade to the middle without getting his knees wet.

Eyes sweeping the ground, looking for budding plants he could take back with him, Ilaцrn moved along the edge of the cheled, walking carefully to avoid stepping into one of the soft spots that could swallow before he had a chance to pull free. Hunnar wanted color and vigor, especially along his fake stream, which meant that the plants there had to be continually replaced.

He stopped by a clump of kolkrais, frowned down at it. The seven-lobed leaves were a healthy dark green, the buds had only a hint of gold at their tips. If he could get the greater part of the root system without breaking too many of the hair-fine feeders, that clump could be teased into blooming for the next two months.

He knelt on the damp, squishy soil, took a plastic container from the carry sack and set it beside the kolkrais, removed the hand spade from its loop on his belt, and began the delicate job of digging the plants loose. The slow, careful work brought a peace he hadn’t felt in months.

And there were other satisfactions that drifted through his mind as he worked. The probe had missed his sneaking after Hunnar and watching him meet his spy. Ilaцrn smiled as he dug, but his flush of triumph was quickly over. Once Ykkuval heard what the Eolt were, he wasn’t interested in anything else and didn’t let the probe dig around as he’d done before. Hard to read these Chav mesuchs, but he seemed angry about something. Angry, afraid, frustrated. If I only knew what it was…

As long as there was no suspicion and no direct questions to force his mind to focus, he could keep his secrets. No suspicion-that was the key. I’ll find out what you’re afraid of, he thought. Somehow. And I’ll sweep you all off this world.

He lifted the kolkrais, eased it into the box, dipped his hand into the water and sprinkled it across the leaves, then cut some moss and tucked it into the corners to keep the plant from sliding about. He snapped the lid on, tucked the container in the carry sack and got to his feet.

Money, he thought. If it costs too much, they’ll go somewhere else. The mines. If we can get at the techs, stop the mining machines…

He saw a flash of color ahead and moved cautiously toward it, his feet squelching through the muck.

Before he’d taken two steps, a weight landed on his back, knocking him flat, face in the mud, carry sack flying he didn’t know where.

Hands round his throat.

Heavy breathing in his ears.

Pull the chin down, shake and work the head, clamp teeth on one of the attacker’s thumbs and try to bite it off. Buck against the weight pinning him down.

Surge and work elbows and knees in the mud, getting them under him, pushing up, shaking side to side.

Grunting from his attacker, weight shifting.

He broke free. Rage put springs in his old knees and he was on his feet, kicking at the attacker who rolled away from the blows and got shakily to his feet.

For several moments they stared at each other, two old men panting and shaking as rage drained away, then Ilaцrn said, “Danor?”

The other Ard spat at him. “Filth. Eater of mesuch slach.”

Ilaцrn’s shoulders dropped and he looked down; his hands plucked uselessly at the mud on his clothes. “I would die if I could. I am not allowed.”

“Die! We aren’t going to die until we wipe this world clean. I saw Hereom burn and I burned with xe and I burn with every breath I take. Dying is easy. We live and fight.”

Ilaцrn stared at the wiry little Fior standing hunched from a kick to his gut, face gaunt, arms and legs skeletal from bad food and worse sleep. “You? Phratha, Danor, look at you. You couldn’t crack a nagal with a hammer. Chel Dй’s Thousand Eyes, you couldn’t even kill me and look at me!”

Danor’s body sagged and the fire went out of his eyes; he looked so old and tired, for a moment Ilaцrn half-seriously wondered if he were going to die on the spot.

He spoke hastily, slowing his words and putting stress on them as he got into what he was saying. “Matha matha, don’t tell me anything important. When the mesuch put that crown on your head, you’d betray your mother or your firstborn or whatever they think to ask you.”

He looked around and winced at the sight of the sodden carry sack half-drowned in the reeds. If he couldn’t produce some living plants and account for all his tools, it meant a beating and a session with the probe. Chel. Del what I could jeopardize. His mouth flooded with saliva, and he trembled as his body betrayed him as it had done so many times since Hunnar made a pet of him. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away so Danor wouldn’t see his arousal, crouched, and pulled the sack loose from the mud.

When he looked inside, the plastic containers seemed to be intact. Maybe the kolkrais would survive the mishandling. It was a hardy weed.

He set the sack back in the water, so he could rinse it off later. Without looking around, he said, “Find a place and sit down, then listen to me. Don’t interrupt, don’t say anything. Let me do the talking. Then just go.” He stared out across murky water that turned a deceptively brilliant blue out in the middle of the cheled.

“The Chave… the mesuch… they came for metals and gemstones, that’s what they deal in. They don’t care who the land belongs to, they take what they want because they can. They kill the. Eolt because it’s a game they-enjoy. They kill the Meloach and the Denchok because they are offended that such beasts should mimic their shape. It is not possible to reason with them. Would you listen if a bladal pleaded with you not to slaughter it? Would you understand its blats and honks or consider them speech? NO! I said don’t speak, just listen.

“This is important, Danor. If you kill even one of them and it is known a Fior or Keteng did it, they will take a terrible revenge. A thousand Keteng, a thousand Fior burned alive to pay for one dead Chav. Their honor demands it. I don’t understand what they mean by honor, but I’ve learned enough to know it’s a powerful thing to them. They can’t live without it. I’m not saying don’t kill them, I’m saying it HAS to seem an accident. Five days ago two died in such an accident and one of their airwagons perished also. It was smoke from the husk of a burning Sleeper that killed them, it made them wild so they lost control of their machine. What has happened before, you can arrange to make happen again.

“There is another kind of mesuch across the sea on Banitoлh. I have seen one of them. A traitor spying on, his own, kind for money and spite. That kind are enemies of the Chav. I could taste the bitterness of that hate in Hunnar’s voice and the voice of the other. Consider an alliance with them. The enemy of our enemy-you know how that goes.

“And one last thing. I say again, these mesuch are driven by profit. Make this world cost too much and they will be called away. Find our miners, ones who know the lay of the mountains. Tell them to destroy the surface crawlers, the ones like metal houses set on tracks. These control the mining machines. It will stop them and close down the mines. As much as you can, make it seem an accident. But understand, no matter how cleverly you contrive, the Chav are a bloody-minded suspicious lot and will take payment in blood for every loss.”

“Ila, I’ve got a question.”

“Be careful. Tell me nothing important or secret.”

“Our Keteng are already moving south, away from here. The Fior who’ve escaped the slave chains go with them. Will the mesuch come after them, hunt them out?”

“If it touches their honor or their profit, yes. Or to make a lesson for the rest of us.” He caught hold of the carry sack’s shoulder strap, began sloshing the sack back and forth in the shallow water. “I wish you hadn’t told me that. It’s something he’ll be bound to ask me when he needs to know.”

“Your Chav know it already, word has come their airwagons are following the walkers.” Danor got to his feet. Ilaцrn could hear the sucking sounds from the mud. “And if we do nothing, will there be less dying?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the only Bйluchar inside those walls. If you have something to tell us, how can we know?”

“After the accidents begin, even if he lets me out, don’t come near me. I mean it. They have ways of watching and listening beyond anything you can imagine.” Ilaцrn listened to the gentle splash of the water, watched the black mud swirl off the c’hau cloth. “The Riddle Mode,” he said after a long silence. “I meant to burn my harp when Imuл burned, I didn’t, though. I was taken too soon and afterward I hadn’t the heart. I haven’t played since, but I’ve kept her oiled and fed. I’ll put my news in the Riddle Mode and you can have ears listening to untwist the meaning. Do the same if you have word for me.” He sighed. “Matha matha, go away and let me do my work.”