Текст книги "At the Edge of Space (Brothers of Worlds; Hunter of Worlds)"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 36 страниц)

There were things incredibly ancient, gleaned of tapes, of records inaccessible to outsiders. There was Kej IV under its amber sun, its plains and sullen-hued rivers; tower-holds and warriors of millennia ago, when each nasulhad its dhis,its nest-tower, and ghiaka-wielding defenders and attackers raged in battles beyond number– vaikka-dhis,nest-raid, when an invading nasulsought to capture young for its own dhis,sought prisoners of either sex for katasakke,though prisoners often suicided.

Red-robed dhisaisei,females-with-young, kept the inner sanctity of the dhis.Most females gave birth and ignored their offspring, but within the nasul,there were always certain maternal females of enormous ferocity who claimed all the young, and guarded and reared them until on a day their dhisais-madness should pass and leave them ready to mate again. Before them even the largest males gave way in terror.

The dhiswas the heart and soul of the nasul,and within it was a society no adult male ever saw again—a society rigid in its ranks and privileges. Highest of rank were the orithaikhti,her-children to the Orithain; and lowest in the order, the offspring-without-a-name: no male could claim parentage without the female’s confirmation, and should she declare of her offspring: Taphrek nasiqh—“I do not know this child”—it went nameless to the lowest rank of the dhis.Such usually perished, either in the dhis,or more cruelly, in adulthood.

It was the object of all conflict, the motive of all existence, the dhis—and yet forbidden to all that had once passed its doors, save for the Guardians, for the dhisaisei,and for the green-robed katasathei—pregnant ones, whose time was near. The katasatheiwere for the rest of the nasulthe most visible symbol of the adored dhis:males full– srato a katasathedrove her recent mate and all other males from her presence; females of the nasulgave her gifts, and forlorn non– sramales would often leave them where she could find them. Her only possible danger came from a female Orithain who also chanced to be katasathe.Then it was possible that she could be driven out, forbidden the dhisaltogether, and her protective sraendangered: the ferocity of an Orithain was terrible where it regarded rival offspring, and even other nasuligave way before a nasulwhose Orithain was katasathe,knowing madness ruled there.

That was the ancient way. Then Cheltaris began to rise, city of the many towers, city of paradox. There had never been government or law; nasuliclustered, co-existed by means of ritual, stabilized, progressed. It was dimly remembered—Cheltaris: empty now, deserted nasulby nasulas the akitomeilaunched forth; and what curious logic had convinced the nasulitheir survival lay starward was something doubtless reasonable to iduve, though to no one else.

Where each dhiswas, there was home; and yet, shielded as the dhishad become within each powerful, star-wandering akites,without vaikka-dhisand the captures, inbreeding threatened the nasuli.So there developed the custom of akkhres-nasuli,a union of two akitomeifor the sharing of katasakke.

It was, for the two nasuliinvolved, potentially the most hazardous of all ventures, civilized by oaths, by elaborate ritual, by most strict formalities—and when all else proved vain, by the power and good sense of the two orithainei.

Chaxal.

Dead now.

Father to Chimele.

In his time, far the other side of the metrosi,by a star called Niloqhatas, there had been akkhres-nasuli.

Such a union was rare for Ashanome;it was occasioned by something rarer still—a ceremony of kataberihe.The Orithain Sogdrieni of nasul Tashavodhhad chosen Mejakh sra-Narach of Ashanometo become his heir-mate and bear him a child to inherit Tashavodh.The bond between Tashavodhand Ashanomedisturbed the iduve, for these were two of the oldest and most fearsome of the nasuliand the exchange they contemplated would make profound changes in status and balance of power among the iduve. Tensions ran abnormally high.

And trouble began with a kameth of Tashavodhwho chanced to cross the well-known temper of Mejakh sra-Narach. She killed him.

Mejakh was already aboard Tashavodhin the long purifications before kataberihe.But in rage over the matter Sogdrieni burst into her chambers, drove out her own kamethi, and assaulted her. Perhaps when tempers cooled he would have allowed her to begin purifications again, vaikkahaving been settled; but it was a tangled situation: Mejakh was almost certainly now with child, conception being almost infallible with a mating. But he misjudged the arastietheof Mejakh: she killed him and fled the ship.

In confusion, Ashanomeand Tashavodhbroke apart, Tashavodhstunned by the death of their Orithain, Ashanomesatisfied that they had come off to the better in the matter of vaikka.It was in effect a vaikka-dhis,the stealing of young; and to add chanokhiato the vaikka,in the very hour that Mejakh returned to Ashanomeshe entered katasakkewith an iduve of nameless birth.

So she violated purification of her own accord this time, and so blotted out the certainty of her child’s parentage. With the condemnation– taphrek nasiqh—she sent him nameless to the incubators of the dhisof Ashanome—the dishonored heir of Sogdrieni-Orithain.

Of Mejakh’s great vaikkashe gained such arastiethethat she met in katasakkewith Chaxal-Orithain of Ashanome,and of that mating came Khasif, firstborn of Ashanome’s present ruling sra,but not his heir. Chaxal took for his heir-mate Tusaivre of Iqhanofre,who bore him Chimele before she returned to her own nasul.Other katasakke-mates produced Rakhi, and Ashakh and Chaikhe.

But the nameless child survived within the dhis,and when he emerged he chose to be called Tejef.

Isande’s mind limned him shadowlike, much resembling Rhasif, his younger half-brother, but a quiet, frightened man despite his physical strength, who suffered wretchedly the violence of Mejakh and the contempt of Chaxal. Only Chimele, who emerged two years later, treated him with honor, for she saw that it vexed Mejakh—and Mejakh still aspired to a kataberihewith Chaxal, as heir-mating which threatened Chimele.

Until Chaxal died.

New loyalties sorted themselves out; a younger sracame into power with Chimele. There were changes outside the nasultoo—all relations with the orith-nasuli,the great clans, must be redefined by new oaths. There must be two years of ceremony at the least, before the accession of Chimele could be fully accomplished.

Death.

The dark of space.

Reha.

Screens went up. Isande flinched from that. Aiela tore back. No,he sent, shielding Daniel. Don’t do that to him.

Isande reached for her glass of maritheand trembled only slightly carrying it to her lips. But what seeped through the screens was ugly, and Daniel would gladly have fled the room, if distance and walls could have separated him from Isande.

“An Orithain cannot assume office fully until all vaikkaof the previous Orithain is cleared,” Isande said in a quiet, precise voice, maintaining her screens. “ Tashavodh’s Orithain—Kharxanen, full brother to Sogdrieni—had been at great niseth—great disadvantage—for twenty years because Chaxal had eluded all his attempts to settle. But now that Ashanome’s new Orithain was needing to assume office, settlement became possible. Chimele needed it as badly as Kharxanen.

“So Tashavodhand Ashanomemet. Something had to be yielded on Ashanome’s side. Kharxanen demanded Mejakh and Tejef; Chimele refused—Mejakh being bhan-srato her own nas-katasakkeKhasif, it struck too closely at her own honor. Even Tashavodhhad to recognize that.

“But she gave them Tejef.

“Tejef was stunned. Of course it was the logical solution; but Chimele had always treated him as if he were one of her own nasithi,and he had been devoted to her. Now all those favors were only the preparation of a terrible vaikkaon him—worse than anything that had ever been done to him, I imagine. When he heard, he went to Chimele alone and unasked. There was a terrible fight.

“Usually the iduve do not intervene in male-female fights, even if someone is being maimed or killed: mating is usually violent, and violating privacy is e-chanokhia,very improper. But Chimele is no ordinary woman; all the sraof an Orithain have an honorable name, and taphrek-nasiqhis applicable only to paternity: the thing Tejef intended would give his offspring the name he lacked; and if he died in the attempt, it would still spite Chimele, robbing her of her accommodation with Tashavodh.

“But Chimele’s nasithi-katasakkebroke into the paredre.What happened then, only they know, but probably there was no mating—there never was a child. Tejef escaped, and when Mejakh put herself in his way trying to keep him from the lift, he overpowered her and took her down to the flight deck. The okkitani-ason duty there knew something terrible was wrong—alarms were sounding, the whole ship on battle alert, for the Orithain was threatened and we sat only a few leagues from Tashavodh.But the amaut are not fighters, and they could do little enough to stop an iduve. They simply cowered on the floor until he had gone and then the bravest of them used the intercom to call for help.

“My asuthe Reha was already on his way to the flight deck by the time I reached Chimele in the paredre.He seized a second shuttlecraft and followed. A kameth has immunity among iduve, even on an alien deck, and he thought if he could attach himself to the situation before Tashavodhcould actually claim Mejakh, he could possibly help Chimele recover her and save the arastietheof Ashanome.

“But they killed him.” Screens held, altogether firm. She sipped at the marithe,furiously barring a human from that privacy of hers; and Daniel earnestly did not want to invade it. “They swore later they didn’t know he was only kameth. It did not occur to them that a kameth would be so rash. When he knew he was dying he fired one shot at Tejef, but Tejef was within their shields already and it had no more effect than if he had attacked Tashavodhwith a handgun.

“The iduve—when the stakes are very high—are sensible; it is illogical to them to do anything that endangers nasulsurvival. And this was highly dangerous. Vaikkahad gotten out of hand, Tashavodhwas well satisfied with their acquisition of Mejakh and Tejef, but in the death of a kameth of Ashanome,Chimele had a serious claim against them. There is a higher authority: the Orithanhe; and she convoked it for the first time in five hundred years. It meets only in Cheltaris, and the ships were four years gathering.

“When the Orithanhe reached its decision, neither Chimele nor Kharxanen had fully what they had demanded. Mejakh had been forced into katasakkewith a kinsman of Kharxanen; and by the Orithanhe’s decision, Tashavodh’s dhisobtained her unborn child for its incubators and Ashanomeobtained Mejakh—no great prize. She has never been quite right since. Chimele demanded Tejef back; but the Orithanhe instead declared him out-kindred, outlaw– e-nasuli.

“So by those terms, by very ancient custom, Tejef was due his chance: a Kej year and three days to run. Now Ashanomehas its own: two years and six days to hunt him down—or lose rights to him forever.”

“And they have found him?” asked Daniel.

“You—may have found him.” Isande paused to pour herself more marithe.She scarcely drank, ordinarily, but her shaken nerves communicated to such an extent that they all breathed uneasily and struggled with her to push back the thoughts of Reha. Revengeran cold and sickly through all her thoughts; and grief was there too. Aiela tried to reach her on his own, but at the moment she thought of Reha and did not want even him.

“There is the vra-nasul Chaganokh,” said Isande. “Vassal-clan, a six-hundred-year-old splinter of Tashavodh,nearby and highly suspect. We have sixty-three days left. But you see, Chimele can’t just accuse Chaganokhof having aided Tejef with nothing to support the claim. It’s not a matter of law, but of harachia—seeing. Chaganokhwill look to see if she has come merely to secure a small vaikkaand annoy them, or if she is in deadly earnest. No Orithain would ever harm them without absolute confidence in being right: orithaineido not make mistakes. Chaganokhwill therefore base its own behavior on what it sees: by that means they will determine how far Ashanomeis prepared to go. If she shows them truth, they will surely bend: it would be suicide for a poor vra-nasulto enter vaikkawith the most ancient of all clans—which Ashanomeis. They will not resist further.”

“And what does she mean to show them?”

“You,” she said; Aiela instinctively flung the chiabres-link asunder, dismayed by that touch of willful cruelty in Isande: she enjoyeddistressing Daniel. The impulse he sent in her direction carried anger, and Isande flinched, and felt shame. “We searched to find you,” she said then to Daniel. “Oh, not you particularly, but it came to Chimele’s attention that humans from beyond the Esliph were turning up—we have followed so many, many leads in recent months, through the iduve, kallia, even the amaut, investigating every anomaly. We traced one such shipment toward Kartos—economical: Chimele knew she would at least find Kartos’ records of value in her search. You were available; and you have pleased her enormously—hence her extraordinary patience with you. Only hope you haven’t misled her.”

“I haven’t led her at all,” Daniel protested. “Amaut were all I ever saw, the ugly little beasts, and I never heard of iduve in my life.” And hidden in his mind were images of what might become of him if he were given to the iduve of Chaganokhfor cross-examination, or if thereafter he had no value to the iduve at all.

“You are kameth,” said Isande. “You will not be discarded. But I will tell you something: as far as iduve ever bluff, Chimele is preparing to; and if she is wrong, she will have ruined herself. Three kamethi would hardly be adequate serach—funeral gift—for a dynasty as old and honorable as hers. We three would die; so would her nasithi-katasakke, serachto the fall of a dynasty. The iduve could destroy worlds of m’metaneiand not feel as much as they would the passing of Chimele. So be guided by us, by Aiela and by me. If you do in that meeting what you did today—”

Now it was Daniel who screened, shutting off the images from Isande’s mind. She ceased.

Do not be hard with him,Aiela asked of her. There is no need of that, Isande.

She did not respond for a moment; in her mind was hate, the thought of what she would do and how she would deal with the human if Aiela were not the intermediary, and yet in some part she was ashamed of her anger. Asuthi must not hate; with her own clear sense she knew it, and submitted to the fact that he was appended to them. If you fail to restrain him,she sent Aiela, you will lose him. You have fallen into a trap; I had prepared myself to remain distinct from him, but you are caught, you are merging; and because I regard you, I am caught too. Restrain him. Restrain him. If he angers the iduve, three kamethi are the least expensive loss that will result.

6

The Orithain of Chaganokhwas a lonely man in the paredreof Ashanome.He wore the close-fitting garment common to iduve, but of startling white and complicated by overgarments and robes and a massive silver belt from which hung a ghiaka.His name was Minakh, and he was a conspicuous gleam of white and silver among so much indigo and black, with the fair colors of kallia and human an unintentional counterpoint across the room. Chimele faced him, seated, similarly robed and bearing a ghiakawith a raptor’s head, but her colors were dusky violet.

Tension was electric in the air. Daniel shivered at being thrust so prominently into the midst of them, and Aiela mentally held to him. Contact among the asuthi seemed uncertain, washed out by the miasma of terror and hostilities in the hall, which was filled with thousands of iduve. Bodies went rigid at the presence of Minakh, whiteless eyes dilated to black, breathing quickened. A dozen of the most powerful of nasul Ashanomewere ranged about Chimele, behind, on either side of her: Khasif, Ashakh—great fearsome men, and two women, Tahjekh and Nophres, who were guardians of the dhisand terrible to offend.

Minakh’s eyes shifted from this side to that of the gathering. While he was still distant from Chimele he went to his knees and raised both hands. Likewise Chimele lifted her hands to salute him, but she remained seated.

“I am Orithain of the nasul Chaganokh,” said Minakh. “Increase to the dhisof Ashanome.We salute you.”

“We are Ashanome.May your eye be sharp and your reach long. For what grace have you come?”

“We have come to ask the leave of the orith-nasul Ashanometo go our way. The field is yours. May your affairs prosper.”

“Honor to the vra-nasul Chaganokhfor its courtesy. We have heard that the zone of Kej is uncommonly pleasant of late. May your affairs prosper there.”

Minakh inclined his body gracefully to the carpet at this order, although it must have rankled; and he sat back on his heels, hands at his thighs, elbows outward.

“We rejoice at Ashanome’s notice,” he said flatly, and again came the concentration of hostilities, scantly concealed.

“Happy are the circumstances when nasulimay pass without vaikka,” said Chimele. “Honor to the wisdom of the Orithanhe which has made this possible.”

“Long life to those who respect its decrees.”

“Long life indeed, and may we remember this meeting with good pleasure. The vra-nasul Chaganokhhas voyaged far and accrued honors; at its presence the Esliph shudders, and the un-traveled space of the human folk has now been measured.”

“The praise of Ashanome,hunter of worlds, is praise indeed.” Minakh’s face was utterly impassive, but his eyes flashed aside to Daniel, dark and terrible.

“Indeed Chaganokhis deserving of honor. So great is our admiration for its acquisition of wisdom that we lay at Chaganokh’s feet the matter nearest our heart. We search for a man who was once of Ashanome.Perhaps this inconsequential person has crossed the affairs of Chaganokh.We should not be surprised to learn that he has attempted to shake us from his trail in the uncharted human zones. Chaganokh’s recently acquired knowledge of this region seems to us an excellent source of precise knowledge. We are of course in great haste. Our time is slipping from us, and Chaganokhin its wisdom will surely accommodate our impatience in this regard.”

There was a long and deadly silence. Minakh’s eyes rested on Daniel with such hate that it was almost tangible, and every iduve in the room bristled. The silence persisted, broken ominously by a hiss from one of the dhis-guardians.

Minakh sweated. His belly heaved with his breathing. At last he prostrated himself and sat back again on his heels, looking dispirited.

“We delight to offer our assistance. This person attached himself to us at a distance. We ceased to notice him shortly after we entered the human zones, near a world known to those creatures as Priamos. Our own affairs occupied us thereafter.”

“May your dhisever be safe, o Chaganokh.Again let us trouble your gracious assistance. Are the humans wise to think that the amaut are the cause of their unhappy state?”

“When were the m’metaneiever wise, o Ashanome,hunter of worlds? The amaut are carrion-eaters who seek scraps where we have passed. When has it ever been otherwise?”

“The wisdom of Chaganokhis commendable. Prosperity to its affairs and grace to its offspring. Pass, o Chaganokh.”

Now Minakh arose and backed away, backed entirely out of the paredrebefore he turned. No one of Ashanomestirred. No one seemed to breathe until at last the voice of Rakhi from the control station announced Minakh off the ship and the hatch sealed.

“Honor to the discretion of Chaganokh,” Chimele laughed softly. “Go your ways, my nasithi.Ashakh—”

“Chimele.”

“Set our course for the human zones as soon as you can make a proper determination from Chaganokh’s records. You are clear to put us underway at maximum, priority signal. Secrecy no longer applies. Either I am right, or I am wrong.”

Ashakh acknowledged the order with a nod, turned and left. Silently the iduve were dispersing, by ones and by twos, amiable now Minakh’s harachiawas removed; and Chimele leaned back in her chair and looked for the first time at her kamethi.

“And you, poor m’metanei—an uncomfortable moment. Did you follow what was said?”

“As far,” said Aiela, “as m’metaneiare wise.”

Chimele laughed merrily and rose, a violet splendor in her robes. She put off the ghiakaand laid it aside. “The Orithain of Chaganokhwill not soon forget this day: unhappy puppet. Doubtless Tashavodhthrust Tejef off upon him; so he was obliged to try, at least, although his chances were poor from the beginning.”

Does she care nothing,Daniel thrust at his asuthi, for the misery they have caused my people?

Be still,Isande returned through Aiela. You do not know Chimele.

“You look troubled, Daniel.”

“Where do my people fit in this?”

“They are not my concern.”

She means it kindly,Isande protested against his outrage. She means no harm to them.

“What happened to them was your fault,” Daniel said to Chimele. “And you owe us at least—”

Aiela saw it coming, caught his human asuthe by the arm to draw him back; but the idoikkhepained him, a lancing hurt all the way to his side, and that arm was useless to him for the moment. He knew that Daniel felt it too, knew the human angered instead of restrained. He seized him with his other hand.

She has been in the presence of an enemy,Isande sent Daniel. Her nerves are still at raw ends. Be still, be still, o for Aiela’s sake, Daniel, be still.

Daniel’s anger flowed over them both, sorrowing at once. “I’m sorry,” he told Chimele. “but you had no business to harm him for it.”

Chimele gave a slight lift of the brows. “Indeed. But Aiela has a m’melakhiafor you, m’metane-toj,and he chose. Consider that, and consider your asuthi the next time you presume upon my self-restraint. Aiela, I regret it.”

The pain had vanished. Aiela bowed, for it was great courtesy that Chimele offered regret: iduve offended her, and received less. Chimele returned him a nod of her head, well pleased.

“Daniel,” she said then, “do you know the world of Priamos?”

Hate was in his mind, fear; but so was fear for Aiela. He abandoned his pride. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve been there several times.”

“Excellent. You will be provided facilities and assistance. I want maps and names. Is their language yours?”

“It is the same.” The impulse was overwhelming. “Why do you want these things? What are you about to do?”

Chimele ignored the question and turned on Aiela a direct and commanding look. “This is your problem,” she said. “See to it.”

They had come. Set on a grassy plain a hundred lioifrom the river settlements, Tejef knew it, facing toward the east where the sun streamed into morning. Chaganokhhad yielded and Ashanomehad come.

It had been a long silence, unbearably long. Many times he had thought he would welcome any contact with his own kind, even to die. It was a loneliness no m’metanecould understand, save one who had been asuthithekkheand separated, a deep and terrible silence of the mind, a stillness where there were no brothers, no nasithi,nothing. No iduve could bear that easily, to be separated from takkhenes,the constant sense of brother-presence that never ceased, waking and sleeping, the pack-instinct that had been the driving force of his kind since the dawn of the race. From his birth he had it, seldom friendly is its messages, but there, a lodestar about which all life had its direction. It flowed through his consciousness like the blood through his veins, the unity of impulse through which he sensed every mood of his nasithi,their presence, their m’melakhia,his possession or lack of arastiethe.

Now takkheneswas back. He felt them, the Ashanome-pack, who had given him birth and decreed his death; and he knew that if they grew much closer they could sense him, weak in his own single takkhenoisthough he was. The fine hair at the nape of his neck bristled at that proximity; the life-instinct that had ebbed in him quickened into anger.

They were on the hunt, and he their game this time, he that had hunted with them. He could sort out two of the minds he knew best: Khasif, Ashakh, grim and deadly men. Chimele would not have descended with them to the surface of this wretched world: Ashanomewould be circling in distant orbit, and Chimele would be scanning the filthy business in progress on its surface, directing the searchers. One day soon they would find him, and vaikkawould be settled—their victory.

The logical faculty said that he might win something even now by surrendering, cringing at Chimele’s feet like a katasathe.She would kick him aside and the nasulwould close on him and maul him senseless, but they would not likely kill him. His life thereafter would be lived from that posture, a constant terror, being forever the recipient of everyone’s temper and contempt. It would gradually take the heart from him: the takkheneswould overwhelm all his instinct to fight back and he would exist until he was finally mauled to death by some nasin katasakke,or starved, or was cast out during akkhres-nasulibecause the takkhenesof neither nasulrecognized him as theirs. Such were the things that awaited the outcast, and a long shiver of rage ran up the muscles of his belly, for he had his bearings again. Arastietheforbade any yielding. He would end under their hands, literally mauled to death if they could get him within their reach, but they would feel the damage he could do them. Ironically, Tejef, who until now had lacked the will to be drawn into a confrontation with any of the wretched humans the amaut used for prey on this forsaken world, began to lay plans to work harm on Ashanomeand to end his life with chanokhia.

His resources were few, a miserable and war-tom world where earth-hungry amaut plundered a dying human population, a human species that had gone mad and that now furnished mercenary troops to the brutish amaut for the final pillage of their own world. Such madness, he reflected, would have been understandable had it been a matter of nasul-loyalty among these humans, but it was not. They knew no loyalties, committed arrhei-nasulat the simple exchange of goods or silver, engaged in katasakkeand then slaughtered the females, who were pathetic and ineffectual creatures. They gathered no young in this fashion, and indeed slaughtered what young they did find—comprehensible, at least, if there had been nasithitakin these human warbands. There were not, and the ultimate result seemed to be suicide for the entire species. Tejef had long since ceased to be amazed by the final madness of this furious people: perhaps this savagery was an instinct no longer positive for survival—it was one that the amaut had certainly turned to their own advantage. Now perhaps there was a way to turn it to the advantage of Tejef sra-Sogdrieni, a means to vaikkaupon Ashanome,one that would deserve their respect when they killed him.

The night was warm. A slight breeze blew in through the protective grille of the window and rippled through the drapery behind the bed. The moonlight cast restless shadows of branches on the wall.

One of the dogs began to bark, joined by the others, and the child in the bed stirred, sat upright, eyes wide. She listened a moment, then turned on her knees so that she could lean against the headboard and the sill and look out into the dark. Now the dogs were off at the distance, perhaps chasing some night-wandering bounder through the fields. Their cries echoed among the rocks in which the house was set, secure behind its stone wall and steel gate, with the cliffs towering up on either side.

In Arle’s estimation this house was an impenetrable fortress. It had not always needed to be so. The wall and the gate were new, and when she was nine the men had not gone with guns to work the fields, and there had been no guards on the heights. But the world had changed. She was ten now, and thought it settled that she would never again walk to the neighbors’ house to play, or even go out the gates to the fields and the orchard without one of her brothers to attend her, rifle over his arm, checking with each of the sentry stations along the way. The family had not been to church in the valley in months, nor valley market, and no one mentioned school starting. This was the way the world had become. And they were fortunate—for there were rumors of burnings downland at the mouth of the Weiss, that very same sleepy river that rolled through their valley and made the crops grow, and made Upweiss the best and richest land on all Priamos.

Arle knew something of the outside, knew that they were from the Esliph, which was very far, and green and beautiful, but she was not sure in her mind whether that were real or not, or only one of the old stories her parents had told her, like faery princesses and heroes. She knew also that they were all once upon a time from a world called Earth, every human that breathed, but it was hard to imagine all the populations of all the worlds she knew of crowded onto one globe. This was too difficult a thought, and she was not sure which stories were about Earth and which were about the Esliph, or whether they were one and the same. She kept it stored up as one of those things she would understand when she was older, which was what her parents answered when her questions ran ahead of her understanding. She was content to let this be, although it seemed that there were many things of late which she was not old enough to know, while her parents talked in secret councils with her grown brothers and with the neighbors and the younger children were sent off to play with guns to guard them.

She was aware of terrible things happening not too far away. Sometimes she heard a thing the adults said and lay awake at night sick at her stomach and wondering if really they were all going to die before she had a chance to grow up and understand it all. But then she would imagine growing up, and that convinced her that the future was still there, all waiting to be experienced; and the grownups understood matters and still planned for next year, for planting crops, hoping for better rains from the mountains, hoping the winds would not come too late in the spring or the hail ruin the grain. These were familiar enemies, and they were forever. These awful gray people that were said to be burning towns and farms and shooting people—she was not sure that they were real. When she was little, her parents had not been able to persuade her not to climb the cliffs, so they had told her about a dog that had gone mad and lived up in those rocks waiting to kill children. It had stalked her nightmares for years and she would rather anything than go up into the dark crevices of those rocks. But now she was ten and knew sensibly that there was no dog, and that it had been all for the good purpose of keeping her from having a bad fall. Thatwas the dog in the rocks, her own curiosity; but she was not sure if the downland monsters were not something similar, so that silly children would not ask unanswerable questions.