Shadowkill sq 3, p.9
Shadowkill sq-3, page 9
part #3 of Shadith's quest Series
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Not at the moment. Except… discretion, Rose. If you find the lode, don’t spook the guards. You can get a bit brisk, luv.”
“I hear you, Dig. Better watch the Dyslaera if you don’t want brisk.”
“I’ll deal with that when it comes up. Take care, Rose.” The screen went dark.
Autumn Rose pushed at her hair and sighed. “Brisk, huh!” She twisted her head around, gave him a tight smile. “There you have it, Kuna. Ticket to ride. You know, you’re a useful being to have about, Li’l Liz. We’d be nowhere without you.” She straightened, cleared the screen and began entering flight data. “While I’m doing this, why don’t you pick out a stateroom and get settled. It’s not a long way from here to Arumda’m, but we’ll be moving slower than usual because of the traffic in the Cluster.”
He got to his feet, went to stand at her shoulder. “How long?”
“Anything from two weeks to a month, depending, I’ll let you know later. Right?”
“Right.”
5
A useful being to have about. Kikun turned on his side, drew his legs up. The bed shifted gently under him, adapting to the changing weights and arrangement of his body. Useful being. Shadith worried about using him. Rose was more practical. And less attached.
His gods were shadows, his friends were dead or gone. He was empty, a skin stretched over a void.
He couldn’t go home, not yet awhile.
The daiviga K’tawal… Lissorn called her a subqueen which was close enough… who governed the Grass had put a price on his head and the Dawadai priests would haul him to the nearest stake and torch him the minute they got their hands on him.
How long was it?
Only five years? That was standard years.
Dunya years were longer. A little. He didn’t know how much.
Say five years.
That was close enough.
Five years. The K’tawal Ilafur wouldn’t have lost a feather in that short stretch, let alone her memory of the dinhast who’d hung up caricatures of her on every corner of Ootlakil.
Even without that, he couldn’t go home, not really home. His sept had cast him out, he was a non-being among the Dinhastoi. That was always the fate of the Clowngod’s avatar, according to the songs.
Clowngod was uncomfortable company.
A sport of nature fitting nowhere.
A singleton rogue in a people of triads and triad multiples.
A god who didn’t believe in gods, at least, not for worshiping, more for trading with or getting round.
A breaker of laws, disrespecter of persons, rebel and iconoclast, bad enemy and worse friend.
Personification of Change in a world more comfortable with day after day of the same thing, no matter how miserable that might be, where nearly everyone was frightened of the turmoil and chaos that change invariably brought.
Avatar. He was the avatar for this generation. He’d been given no choice about that. If the proposition had been put to his formless soul before it was seeded into his fetal body, he would have rejected it indignantly.
He tried rejecting it later. He shared the dinhast mind-set that was much like the Dyslaera mind-set when it came to kin and kind. He NEEDED friends and family.
It was no good. He was what he was.
He suffered because he couldn’t make dinhast life fit him or make himself over to fit it.
The alien friends he’d found helped fill the emptiness. He’d invested first in Lissorn, then in Rohant and Shadith. Friendship wasn’t enough, but it helped.
Lissorn was dead.
Rohant was gone.
Shadith was gone.
Shadith. He lay wondering what had happened to her. Was she alive or dead? Surely the Omphalites wouldn’t go to the trouble to capture her just to kill her?
Shadow girl, don’t do anything foolish. We’re coming for you. You must know we’re coming. Hang on. Wait. Wait…
He sighed and slept.
Shadith (Kizra) On The Farm
1
Kizra jumped down. Her knees went and she would have fallen if Tinoopa hadn’t caught her.
“Long day,” the big woman said absently. She was watching the man standing before large double doors at the top of a wide flight of s-curved steps. He was a tall, lean man, a gold and bronze man; he shone like a hem in a stained glass window. The bronze coal lamps at the upper comers of that door turned his fine blond hair into a shimmering halo about his lined face, sank his eyes into glinting shadow.
He came down the stairs, crossed to the landrover where Aghilo and the handmaids were helping Matja Allina down the folding steps. There was an urgency in him that filled the whole of the irregular courtyard, melding with the urgency in the woman. Their greeting was a simple touching of fingertips, eye meeting eye, the woman bowing to the man, the man lifting her. It looked formal, but the formality was on the surface. Beneath…
The force of the feeling that lay beneath those heraldic surfaces woke an ache in the emptiness where Kizra’s memory had been. Her eyes prickled, but she refused to cry, just turned away to inspect what lay around her.
The court was paved with squares of dusty blue-gray stone webbed with cracks. The court walls and the walls of the Great House were sod and cement. Short stiff grass grew on the sod like patches of coarse fur. Coal lamps smaller and less elaborate than the two giants by the house door were scattered about those walls, throwing inky shadows into deep-set doorways and arched window openings. Beyond the broad court and the House, towers like snag teeth stood black against the crimson of the setting sun, towers everywhere, round and square, fat and thin, with flattop roofs or conical caps. There was construction in every direction she looked, scaffolding, upper stories half complete. The smell of the sod was pungent as the heat leached out of it, mixing with the smells of people standing quietly in shadows. Hordes, it seemed to her, of small fair people waiting in shadow for the signal to move, to talk.
The other women in the labor cadre stood beside her, a ragged group lingering by the only thing they knew, the truck. The youngest and newest to Contracts (Tictoc, Eva-lee, Dorrit, Vuodee, and Vassikka) were looking eagerly about, poking each other, whispering and giggling. The rest stood silent, waiting for someone to tell them where to go, what to do.
Tinoopa watched the Matja and the Arcing meet, then nudged Kizra away from the others. She turned her shoulder to the landrover, set her hands on her hips, and gave what she could see in the growing dark a good lookover. “Quite a place,” she said. She’d pitched her voice to carry.
“Uuuuh HUH!” Kizra said. “Considering how many rifles it took to get us here, lovely walls.” She stretched, groaned. “I would KILL for a hot bath.” She, too, let her voice carry, made a song of the words, a song to remind Matja Allina how much ease they’d given her during that miserable journey. She snatched furtive looks at Allina as the woman stepped away from her Arring and raised her hands in a ritual greeting to her household, then spoke quietly to Aghilo, pointing as she did so at Tinoopa and Kizra.
“Hey, it worked,” Kizra murmured.
“Maybe,” Tinoopa said. “Maybe she meant to all along.” The Shimmarohi tapped Kizra on the shoulder, a habit she had before she dropped into aphorism disguised as advice. “Good intent is a fine thing, but you don’t chance you life on it, Kiz. Rules say they have to pay us, treat us right. Yeh. Tell you this and you remember it. Rules mean shit-all out here. Forget everything else, but remember that.”
“If I’m allowed.”
“A weel a weel, that’s not like to happen twice, luv. Not here, anyway.”
Leaning heavily on her Arring’s arm, Matja Allina went up the stairs and into the house.
Aghilo took Tinoopa and Kizra in behind them.
The rest of the women were lined up and marched into the women’s quarters in one of the side wings.
2
The second floor hall was lit by rank on rank of torcheres with dozens of wax candles impaled on spikes, candles with glass chimneys over them to keep off the drafts that wandered throughout the House despite its thick earthen walls. The herbal perfume from the oils in the wax drifted on the drafts, riding atop the heavy stink of the hot wax. Tinoopa and Kizra sat on an inadequately padded bench outside the door to the Matja’s suite.
##
“No electricity,” Kizra said after a lengthy and fidgety silence. “Candles, shooh!”
Tinoopa chuckled, a warm rough sound that rubbed against Kizra like a blanket. “You,” she said. “You don’t know what bad is.” She thumped Kizra’s shoulder; it was lay-down-the-law-time again. “Listen, luv, from now on, no comments. I know people like this pair. They can be generous, but it’s on their own terms. You show ’em you think you have rights, you threaten ’em. They get mean. Happens every time.” She frowned at Kizra. “Don’t complain. And be ready with that little extra bit of service. If you’re valuable, you’re treated better. We made a good start. But it’s only a start. It’s a rough world, this’n, looks to me like someone could get killed round here.”
Kizra yawned, thrust her hands into the side pockets of her coverall. “All right. Look, there’s something been itching at me. How come I still know stuff… things like about laser markers and different worlds and… well
… I mean… stuff? Doesn’t mindwipe get rid of all that?”
Tinoopa twisted around, raised her brows. “We’re all talking local, aren’t we? How? Think about it.”
“Oh.” Kizra rubbed her shoulder against one of the knobs on the seat back. “Oh, yeh.”
Tinoopa chuckled again. “Yeh. Easy when you think about it, huh?” She straightened around, folded her arms across her breasts, and dropped into a doze.
##
Kizra yawned and yawned. She was exhausted. And bored. And if something didn’t happen soon, she was going to go to sleep in spite of the knobs on this damn bench. She fidgeted some more, wiggled her toes, scratched at her head (wondering with irritation if she’d picked up visitors from the scabby places she’d been sleeping in recently), sucked at her teeth…
… until Tinoopa lost hold of her temper and slapped at her head (slapped lightly, but hard enough to get her attention). “Act your age, nit. You driving me buggy.”
“Age?” Kizra fit the tips of her fingers together, tapped them against each other one by one, forefingers first. “What age?”
“Hmp. Just sit still, will you?”
“I sit still, I go to sleep. How much longer we stuck here?”
“Until. Now be quiet.”
Kizra subsided. Till now she’d been frightened, groping for she didn’t know what. Coming up here, though, just a minute ago, something had happened to her. Like a boot in the behind. Between one breath and the next, she relaxed all over; it was as if she’d shed centuries of worry and just sort of settled into her body, letting it do its thing. Or maybe she was just so tired, she didn’t have enough energy left to stay scared.
There was a kind of freedom, now she thought about it, in having no history to set its claws in her. She didn’t know who and what she was, so she could make herself up as she went. Well, not quite free. Tinoopa was there to tell her things, poke her when she needed to notice something. Talking about poke, why did they put knobs on this furtzen bench just where they were sure to poke the sitter in the ass… hmm… funny how the oil in that wax made little balls of fog about the flames, then went eeling up out of the chimneys…
Tinoopa drove her thumb hard into Kizra’s ribs, muttered, “On your feet, nit. Look sharp, will you?”
Kizra was up and smoothing her coverall before she was awake enough, to be aware of what was happening.
Aghilo touched her arm. “Come,” she said. “They want you.” She nodded at Tinoopa. “Both of you.”
3
The rooms were rich with dark wood, warm red-brown wood with umber streaks in, it, polished until it glowed with soul.
They crossed a short hall with closets, a kind of anteroom, and stepped into a sitting room with a soft, silky blue-green rug on the floor, backless benches instead of chairs, piles of cushions covered in rich damasks, in striped cloths and embroideries. Heavy drapes fell in gleaming folds over two windows opening to the north. On tall stands flanking the windows there were flowers in cloisonnй vases (Kizra pulled that word out of memory, startling herself-it didn’t seem likely a Labor Contractor would include it on his langua-tape. Who was she that she knew things like cloisonnй? She started tensing up again, then told herself forget it, doesn’t matter, isn’t worth a sneeze). It was a warm, cluttered, cozy room, filled with flickering shadow from the candle lamps in brackets on the walls.
She took an incautious step and slipped on the silky pile, waved her arms to regain her balance without kicking over one of the little tables with their litter of bijouterie.
Tinoopa caught her, steadied her. “Watch your feet, luv.”
“It’s like walking on ice,” she muttered. Her boots were worn and old, the soles smooth as ice. She lifted her feet and put them down with exaggerated care and thought about those boots. She hadn’t before, they were just there, she took them off at night and put them on in the morning and that was that. They were like cloisonnй, not something a Contractor would have provided; they must have come from the time she’d lost. Later, later, she told herself. You can think about it later. Keep your mind on what you’re doing. Tinoopa might be sleep-inducing on the subject, but she’s right.
The next room was a bedroom, larger than the sitting room, less cluttered. The bed was carved and fluted and draped with pale blue gauze tied up with pale blue silk ribbons. Matja Allina lay beneath a blue silk pouf with crisp white pillows tucked behind her. Her blonde hair hung straight over her shoulders; it’d been brushed till it shone. Her hands lay limp on the starched white sheet folded over the top of the pouf. All this delicate, delicious fuss did not become her; it made her look gaunt and drained.
Arring Pirs stood beside her, frowning a little; he wasn’t happy with this business or with them.
Matja Allina managed a weary smile. “I commend these women to your notice, Mi-arring. The elder is Tinoopa, the other Kizra. They have given me ease and enjoyment where I expected none.”
Arring Pirs bowed. “I am obliged, chapa.” His voice was deep and slow, a perfect voice for a stained glass hero.
Kizra glanced at Tinoopa, bobbed a quick curtsy a second after the Shimmarohi finished hers.
There was a touch of amusement in Matja Allina’s shadowed face; her eyes opened a hair wider. “Yes,” she said. “I hadn’t expected such a fortunate dip in the pool, but I mean to use it now that it’s shown its head.” She spoke slowly, her voice dragging. Arring Pirs bent over her, whispered urgently. She touched his face, shook her head. “Now,” she said. “I want them established in place before I come downstairs tomorrow. You’ll do that for me?”
He kissed her fingertips, straightened up. “I will do it, Mi-matja.”
She closed her eyes a moment, then turned to him again. “Help me shift a little, I’ve got an ache building.”
When she was more comfortable, she said, “Aghilo, come here.” She clasped the little woman’s hand. “Listen, my dear, no one can or will take your place with me. Do you understand that?”
Aghilo nodded.
Matja Allina settled back on the pillows. “Yes. Young Kizra there is a gifted musician, Mi-arring. Is that not so, child?”
Kizra stared at her hands. “That’s for others to say, Matja Allina.”
“Well, I do say it.” She paused, closed her eyes. “Your music was a joy to me, child. I wish you to play for me each night, it relaxes me and gives me rest. Tinoopa.”
“Matja Allina.”
“Yes. You’re a strong and capable woman; I don’t ask what brought you here, though I suspect someone found you entirely too capable. I need people I can trust,” she smiled up at Aghilo, squeezed her hand, “more people. There are too many about who don’t want this baby born alive. I dare trust neither doctor nor midwife. Anyone could be bought or coerced or work against me for the pleasure of it, people being what they are. If you and Kizra give me complete loyalty and intelligent service for the next year, help me birth the boy alive and see that he stays alive, I will have your Contracts voided and I will do my best to send, you offworld anywhere you wish to go, with a stake to keep you while you look about for work. Not a large stake,” she added cautiously. “We’re cash poor, our wealth is the land and what grows on it. Mi-arring, do you second me in this? Let it be said.”
“Mi-matja, your will is mine in this. If you’re sure…”
“Yes. Besides, what choice have we?”
“Very little.” He shook his head, his gilt hair shimmering in the half-light. “Jirrilscadad dropped by last week while you were gone. He brought his two youngest daughters.” There was a dry distaste in his voice. “I had to sit through string plucking and coos and blushes and giggling until my hide itched. Once the boy is born, though…” He bent and touched her hair, forgetting for the moment everyone else in the room.
Matja Allina sighed, turned from the two beside her to the two at the foot of the bed. “Well?” she said. Tinoopa snorted. “Need you ask?”
“Yes. I do need.”
Tinoopa bowed her head, spread her arms and spoke with more care and formality than she usually bothered with. “I agree to serve you with mind and body in wholehearted loyalty for the term of one year in return for the voiding of the Labor Contract and your good will for the rest of it.”
“I see you have some understanding of the dangers involved. Good. Kizra?”
“I agree. Same as Tinoopa.”
Matja Mina relaxed, closed her eyes, the bruises under them and the fatigue lines on her face more pronounced than ever.
