Songmaster

KYAREN

1

It could have been chaos. Word could have gone out, and a thousand soldiers and managers and prefects and rebels of every stripe could have plunged the empire into a civil war that would have undone every work that Mikal had built and Riktors had maintained.

Could have.

But did not. Because the Mayor of the palace was a man who knew he was not adequate to handle the responsibility thrust on him. Because Kyaren was a woman of great presence of mind, who could set aside grief until she needed it

Riktors Ashen fell into a coma, and when he came out of it, he refused to talk; though his eyes registered that he could see light, he would not blink when something was thrust at his eyes; he would not answer; when his arms were raised, they stayed raised until someone put them down. There was no question of his continuing to govern the empire. No one knew when he would recover, if he ever would.

But few people knew there was anything wrong at all. The Mayor of the palace immediately put tight security on the places in the palace where the truth could not be concealed. Riktors's chambers, where he lay attended by two doctors who suspected that unless something happened they would never get out of the room alive. Ansset's room, where the boy with perfect Control, now nearly a man in stature and old in grief, lay weeping hysterically when he was awake. The prison cell, where Josif came out of his drugged stupor and killed himself by stuffing a sheet down his throat until he suffocated. And the rooms where the Mayor of the palace and Kyaren met with imperial officials and gave them Riktors's instructions, as if Riktors were merely busy elsewhere. Those ministers and advisers who usually had close access to the emperor were sent on assignments that kept them out of reach, so they would not wonder why they were denied his presence. One of them was assigned to replace Ansset as manager of Earth. And when anyone asked why Riktors had not held court for so long, the Mayor replied, Riktors has brought his Songbird home again, and they wish to be alone. Everyone nodded, and thought they understood.

But they could not keep it up indefinitely, they knew. Some decision had to be reached, and it was too hard for them. They were both gifted at government, the Mayor and Kyaren, and because they needed help desperately, they depended on each other, and were not jealous, and gradually began to think as one on almost all the issues; when one made a decision alone, it was invariably the decision the other would have made in the same situation. Yet they needed help, and after only two weeks, Kyaren decided to do what she had known she would have to do almost from the start.

With the Mayor's consent, she sent a message to Tew, asking Esste to leave the High Room and come cure the ills of the empire.

2

It is quiet, a silence as black as the dark beyond the farthest star. But in the silence Ansset hears a song, and he wakes. This time he does not wake to weeping; he does not see Josif always before him, smiling shyly and carefully, as if he did not feel the mutilation of his body; he does not see Mikal crumbling to ash; he does not see any of the visions of agony from his past. This time the song controls his waking, and it is a sweet song of in a high stone tower with fog seeping in at the shutters. It is a song like the caress of a mother's hand in her child's hair; the song holds him and comforts him, and he reaches out his hand, groping in the darkness for a face. And he finds the face, and strokes the forehead.

Mother, he says.

And she answers, Oh, my child.

And then she talks in song, and he understands every word, though it is wordless. She tells him of her loneliness without him, and sings softly of her joy at being with him again. She tells him that his life is still rich with possibility, and he is not able to doubt her song.

He tries to sing back to her, for once he knew this language. But his voice has been tortured, and when he sings it does not come out as it ought to. He stumbles, and the song is weak and pitiful, and he weeps at his failure.

But she holds him in her arms and comforts him again, and weeps with him into his hair, and says, It's all -right, Ansset, my son, my son.

And, to his surprise, she is right. He goes to sleep again, rocking in her arms, and the blackness goes away, both the blackness of light and the blackness of sound. He has found her again, and she loves him after all.

3

Esste stayed for a year, working quiet miracles.

I never meant to involve myself directly in these things, she said to Kyaren, when it was time for her to leave.

I wish you wouldn't go.

This isn't my real work, Kya-Kya. My real work waits for me in the Songhouse. This is your work. You do it well.

In the year that she was there, Esste healed the palace while holding the empire at bay. Humanity had been disorganized for more than twenty thousand years, knit together in an empire for less than a century. It could have come apart easily. But Esste's deft voice was confident and forceful; when it was time to announce that Riktors was ill, she already had the trust or respect or fear of those she had to depend on. She made no decisions-that was for Kyaren and the Mayor, who knew what was going on. She only spoke and sang and soothed the million voices that cried to the capital for guidance, for help; that searched in the capital for weakness or sloth. There were no holes for the knives to go in. And by the end of the year, the regency was secure.

Esste, however, regarded as far more important the work she did with Ansset and with Riktors. It was her song that at last brought Riktors out of catalepsia. She was the antidote to Ansset's rage. And while Riktors did not speak for seven months, he did become attentive, watched as people walked around the room, ate decently, and took care of his own toilet, much to the relief of his doctors. And after seven months, he finally answered when spoken to. His answer was obscene and the servant he spoke to was mortified, but Esste only laughed and came to Riktors and embraced him. You old bitch, he said, his eyes narrow. You've taken my place.

Only held it for you, Riktors. Until you're ready to fill it again.

But it soon became clear that Riktors would never be ready to fill his place. He became cheerful enough, after a time, but he was often overcome by great melancholy. He was taken by whims, and then forgot them suddenly in the middle-once he left thirty hunters beating the forest and walked back to the palace, causing a terrible panic until he was found swimming naked in the river, trying to sneak up on the geese that landed in the eddies near the shore. He could not concentrate on matters of state. And when decisions were brought to him, he acted quickly and rashly, trying to get rid of problems immediately, uncaring whether they were solved right or not. He had lost no memory. He remembered clearly that he had once cared about these things very much.

But it weighs on me now. It chafes me, like a bad-fitting uniform. I'm a terrible emperor, aren't I?

You're good enough, answered Esste, so long as you don't interfere with those who are willing to bear the burdens.

Riktors looked out the window to where the clouds were coming in over the forest.

Already my shoes are full?

They aren't your shoes, Riktors, Esste said. They're Mikal's, You filled them, and walked awhile in them. But now they don't fit-as you said. You can still serve. By staying alive and putting in an appearance now and then, you can keep the empire unified. While the others make the decisions you don't care to make anymore. Isn't that fair enough?

Is it?

What use do you have for power now? You used it once, and nearly killed everything you loved.

He looked at her in horror. I thought we didn't discuss that.

We don't. Except when you need a reminder.

And so Riktors lived in his rooms in the palace, and amused himself as he pleased, and put in public appearances so the citizens would know he was alive. But all the business was carried on by underlings. And gradually, as the year went on, Esste withdrew herself from the business, failed to attend the meetings, and the Mayor and Kyaren ruled together, neither of them strong enough yet to rule alone, both of them glad that ruling alone wasn't necessary.

Healing Riktors as much as he could be healed was only part of Esste's work. There was Efrim, in a way the easiest; in a way the hardest.

He was only a year old when his father was taken from him and lulled, but that was young enough to feel the loss. He cried for his father, who had been tender and playful with him, and Kyaren could not comfort him. So it was Esste who took him, and sang to him until she found the songs that filled the boy's need. But I won't be here forever, said Esste, and he must have someone to replace his father.

The Mayor was not slow to catch on, and he turned to Kyaren. He's around the palace, and so am I. I'm convenient, don't you think? So that before Esste had been there six months, Efrim was calling the Mayor Daddy, and before Esste left the palace, Kyaren and the Mayor had signed a contract.

I always call you Mayor, Esste said one day. Don't you have a name?

The Mayor laughed. When I took on this duty, Riktors told me that I had no name. 'You've lost your name,' he said. 'Your name is Mayor, and you are mine.' Well, I'm not really his now, I suppose. But I've got used to having no other name.

So Efrim was healed, and Kyaren with him, almost by accident. Oh, there was none of the passion she had known with Josif. But she had had enough of passion. There was something just as strong and just as comforting in shared work. There was not a part of her life that she didn't share with the Mayor, and there was not a part of His life that he did not share with her. They periodically got quite irritated with each other, but they were never alone.

But all these healings, of Riktors, of Efrim, of Kyaren, of the empire-they were not Esste's most important work.

Ansset refused to sing.

As soon as the hysteria had ended, and he was rational again, she had tried to hear his voice. Songs can be lost, she said, but songs can be regained.

I have no doubt of it, he said. But I have sung my last song.

She did not try to persuade him. Just hoped that, before she left, she could see a change in his view.

There were changes, certainly. He had always been kinder than Riktors, and so the suffering that purged him of all his hatred did not strip him of his personality. He laughed quite soon, and played happily with Efrim as if he were a younger brother, imitating Efrim's baby speech perfectly. I feel like I have two children, Kyaren said one day, laughing.

The one will grow up sooner than the other, Esste predicted, and Ansset did. In only a few months he was interested in the matters of government. He was one of the few people in the palace who had been there under both Riktors and Mikal. He knew many people that the Mayor and Kyaren did not. More important, he was much better than Esste in understanding what people had to say, what they really meant, what they really wanted, and he was able to answer them the way they needed in order to leave satisfied. It was the remnant of his songs that had made him a good manager of Earth. Now, in the absence of the emperor and as Esste withdrew herself more and more from government, Ansset began to take the public role, meeting the people Riktors could not be trusted to meet, the dangerous ones that Kyaren and the Mayor were not sure they could handle.

And it worked well. While Kyaren and the Mayor remained virtually unknown to the rest of the empire, Ansset was already as famous as Riktors and Mikal themselves had been. And though no one ever again heard him sing in the palace as he had before, he was still called the Songbird, and the people loved him.

Yet he was not really happy, despite his cheerfulness and hard work. The day that Esste left, she took him aside, and they spoke.

Mother Esste, let me go with you, he said.

"No, she answered.

Mother Esste, he repeated, haven't I stayed on Earth long enough? I'm nineteen. I should have gone home four years ago.

Four years ago you could have gone home, Ansset, but today you can't.

He pressed his face into her hand. Mother, I found you only days before I left the Songhouse; this is the first year I've spent with you. Don't leave me again.

She sighed, and the sigh was a song of regret and love that Ansset heard and understood but did not forgive. I don't want regret. I want to go home.

And what would you do there, Ansset?

It was a question he had not thought of, probably because he knew in secret that the answer would hurt, and he tried to avoid pain these days.

What would he do there? He could not sing, and so he could not teach. He had governed a world and helped to rule an empire-would he be content as a Blind, running the small business affairs of the Songhouse? He would be useless there, and the Songhouse would be a constant reminder to him of all that he had lost. For in the Songhouse there was no escaping the songs: the children sang in all the corridors, and the songs came from the windows into the courtyard, and whispered in the walls, and vibrated gently in the stone underfoot. Ansset would be worse off than even Kyaren had been, for she at least had never sung and did not know what it was she lacked. Better for the mute to live among other mutes, where no one would notice his silence and he would not miss his lost voice.

I would do nothing there, Ansset said. Except love you.

I'll remember that, she said. With all my heart.

And she held him close and cried again because she was leaving-in front of Ansset she had no need of Control.

Before I go, there's something I want you to do for me.

Anything.

I want you, she said, to come with me to see Riktors.

His face set hard, and he shook his head.

Ansset, he isn't the same man.

All the more reason not to go.

Ansset, she said sternly, and he listened. Ansset, there are places in you that I can't heal, and there are places in Riktors that I can't heal. His wounds were torn by your song; your injuries were made by his interference in your life. Don't you think that what I can't heal, you might be able to heal?

Ansset did not answer.

Ansset, she said, meaning to be obeyed, You know that you still love him.

No, Ansset said.

Ansset, your love was never slight. You gave without bar, and received without caution, and just because it brought pain doesn't mean that it is gone.

And so she led him slowly up to Riktors's rooms. Riktors was standing at the window, looking out as he usually did, watching the birds settle on the lawns. He did not turn until they had been there for several minutes. At first he saw only Esste, and smiled. Then he saw Ansset, and grew sober.

They studied each other in silence, both waiting for the terrible emotions to come back. But they did not come. There was wistfulness, and sorrow, and a memory of friendship and pain, but there was no pain itself, and grief and guilt had faded. Ansset was surprised to discover how much hate he did not feel, and so he walked closer to Riktors even as Riktors walked closer to him.

I will not be your friend as I was, Ansset said silently to the man who was now his height, for Riktors bent a little and Ansset had grown. But I will be your friend as I can be.

And in the silence between them Riktors's eyes seemed to say the same things.

Hello, Ansset said.

Hello, Riktors answered.

They said little else, for there was little enough to say. But when Esste left the room, they stood together at the window, looking out, watching the hawks hunting and shouting instructions at the birds desperately trying to survive.

4

Riktors died three years afterward, in the spring, and in his will he asked the empire to accept Ansset as his heir. It seemed the natural thing to do, since Riktors had no children and their love for each other was legendary. So Ansset was crowned and reigned for sixty years, until he was eighty-two years old, always with the help of Kyaren and the Mayor; privately they regarded each other as equals, though it was Ansset's head that wore the crown.

They became beloved, all of them, as Mikal and Riktors, who had made many enemies, could never have been loved. The stories gradually came out, about Ansset and Mikal and, Riktors and Josif and Kyaren and the Mayor; they became myths that people could cling to, because they were true. The stories were told, not in public meetings, where it might be politic to praise the rulers of the empire, but in private, in homes where people marveled at the things the great ones suffered, while children dreamed of being Songbirds, loved by everyone, so that someday they could become emperors on the golden throne at Susquehanna.

The legends amused Ansset because they had grown so in the telling, and touched Kyaren because she knew it was a reflection of the people's love. But it changed nothing. In the middle of the government, surrounded by work for a hundred thousand worlds, they managed to make a family of it. Every night they would come home together, Mayor and Kyaren as husband and wife, with Efrim the oldest of their children; and Ansset was the uncle who never took a wife, who acted more like the older brother to everyone, who played with the children and talked with the parents but then, in the end, went alone to his bedroom where the noise of the family penetrated softly, as if from a great distance.

You are mine, but you are not mine, Ansset said. I am yours, but you hardly know it.

He was not unhappy.

But he wasn't happy, either.

5

This is a hell of a thing to spring on us, Kyaren said crossly.

If you expect either of us to take the crown, you're going to be disappointed, the Mayor said.

I wouldn't give you the crown if you wanted it, Ansset said smiling. I'm getting old, and you're even older. So to hell with you. He turned and called across the room, where Efrim was talking to two of his brothers while he held his youngest grandson in his arms. Efrim, Ansset called. Are you ready to be emperor?

Efrim laughed, but then saw that Ansset was not laughing. He came to the table where his parents and his uncle sat. You're joking? he asked.

Are you ready? I'm leaving.

Where?

Does it matter?

Don't make it such a mystery, Kyaren said, cutting in. He has some crazy idea that the Songhouse is aching to have him come home.

Ansset was still smiling, still watching Efrim's face.

You're really abdicating?

Efrim, Ansset said, letting himself sound impatient, yon knew damn well you'd be emperor someday. How many of my children do you see crowding around? Now I ask you, are you ready?

Yes, Efrim answered seriously.

When Mikal abdicated, it took him only a couple of weeks. I won't dally so long. Tomorrow.

Why so quickly? Kyaren asked.

I've made up my mind. I want to do it. I'm wasting time waiting here.

If you just want to visit, Ansset, visit, the Mayor said. Stay on Tew for a few months. Then decide.

You don't understand, Ansset said. I don't want to go there as emperor. I want to go there as Ansset. Not even Ansset the former Songbird. Just Ansset who's willing to sweep or clean stables or any damn thing they have for me to do, but don't you understand? This is home for you, and for me too, in a way--

In every way--

No. Because you belong here. But this isn't what I was born for. I'm not right here. I was raised among songs. I want to die among them,

Esste's dead, Ansset. She died years ago. Will you even know anyone there? You'll just be a stranger. Kyaren looked worried, but Ansset reached out and playfully smoothed the wrinkles on her forehead. Don't bother, she said, brushing his hand away. They've been permanently engraved.

It's not Esste I'm going back to see. It's not anyone.

And Efrim put his hand on his uncle's shoulder. It's Ansset you want to find, isn't it? Some little boy or girl with a voice that moves stones, isn't it?

Ansset clapped his hand over Efrim's and laughed. Another me? I'll never find another Ansset, Efrim! If I go there looking for that, III never find it. I may not have sung long, but no one will ever sing like that again.

And Kyaren realized that out of all the achievements of his life, out of all that he had done, Ansset was still proudest of what he had done when he was ten years old.

The legends would have been good enough just with the stories that were current before Ansset abdicated. But there was one more story to add, and for this one Ansset left Earth, left his office, left the last of his money at the station, and arrived penniless at the Songhouse door.

They let him in.