Echoes of the Great Song (25 page)

“I understand, sir.”

Talaban ran his hand through his long dark hair and sat back upon the tube. “We do not know how many ships the newcomers will have, nor what weapons they carry. In order to loose the lightning I will be forced to drop our defenses for a few heartbeats. Therefore the moment of our greatest strength is also the moment of our greatest weakness.”

“As I said, sir, you can rely on me.”

Talaban nodded, then talked Methras through the controls twice more. When he was convinced that his sergeant understood fully the workings of the weapon he ordered him to draw it back and close the openings.

Then the two men left the room and locked the door.

Talaban returned to his cabin. He was perplexed at the new coldness in Methras and the crew. They had served with him for years, and he felt a certain rapport had been established. Apparently he had been wrong. They obeyed his orders swiftly and without question, but gone were the easy smiles. Conversations died away as he approached.

Opening the rear doors Talaban stepped out onto the small, private deck and breathed deeply. The wind was fresh and southerly and he could taste salt upon the air. Seagulls were circling overhead and Talaban could see storm clouds on the horizon.

“You want food?” asked Touchstone. Talaban spun. The tribesman had appeared from nowhere.

“How do you move so silently?” he asked. “My hearing is good, but every time you approach you surprise me.” Touchstone grinned.

“Big secret. Much work. Anyways you lost at thinking.”

“The phrase is lost in thought. And, yes, I’d like some food.”

“On table,” said Touchstone. Talaban walked back
into his cabin. A tray had been set on the table, bearing a jug of fruit juices, a small loaf, a plate of dried meats, and another of cheese. A crystal goblet was also standing close by. Talaban gave a wry grin and shook his head. The tribesman had entered the cabin carrying a tray laden with crockery and had set it down silently.

“Compared to you a cat would sound like a tusker,” said Talaban.

Touchstone grinned again and walked out onto the rear deck. Talaban ate. The bread was a little stale, but the dried smoked meats were tasty and filling. When he had finished Touchstone returned. “Storm comes,” he said.

“The wind is pushing it away from us.”

“Wind will change,” said the tribesman.

The
Serpent
could ride out any storm, but it would waste power. “I’ll find a bay,” said Talaban. Touchstone leaned across the table, picking up a piece of meat and stuffing it into his mouth. It was a gesture of easy familiarity and Talaban welcomed it.

“What is wrong with the crew?” he asked.

“Wrong? They sick?”

“No, not sick. Have you not noticed? They have changed. They are like strangers to me now.”

“They not change. You change.”

“Me? I am the same.”

“No,” said Touchstone. “Hair at temples blue. Big change.” Lifting the tray, the tribesman left the cabin.

Talaban was shocked, but he knew Touchstone was right. Talaban had performed many times for Rael as a scout, moving far into the tribal territories. Blue hair would have been inappropriate on such missions, putting him in danger. But his crew had seen it as a statement, an indication that he was not so different from them. They had looked at him and seen a man. Now they saw an Avatar, one of the ruling gods.

Of course a gulf had been created, and Talaban felt foolish that he had not anticipated such a reaction. His men came from a slave race, and they dreamed of a day when they would be free. And for Methras it would have been a double blow for he was of Avatar blood. The cabin door swung back on its hinges and slammed against the frame. Talaban moved to the rear deck. The wind had changed and, as Touchstone had predicted, the storm was moving in.

Climbing to the upper deck he activated the ship’s power and headed the
Serpent
for the coast.

Yasha lay back on the bed, the whore’s head resting on his shoulder, her thigh across his legs. The hut was warm, and lit by a single flickering lantern. It was pleasant here, and he felt at peace.

From beyond the huts he could hear the faint music created by the flute of Questor Anu, the Holy One. It was lilting and strangely beautiful, bringing to all who heard it a sense of peace and calm.

According to Yasha’s calculations they were almost halfway through the twenty-day
night
. He had worked twelve shifts in the constant darkness and eaten twelve meals. He smiled. And he had rutted with eight whores.

“Why do you smile, my big man?” she asked him. “Did I please you?”

“You always please me,” he said, twisting his head to kiss her brow.

“You are the only one who kisses me,” she told him. The music of the flute drifted into the distance. He has moved behind the structure, thought Yasha. So far the work was still behind schedule, but they had raised six courses of stone in a series of gradually decreasing squares. What was baffling to Yasha was why the interior had so many channels and tunnels built into the design.
It was not as if anyone was going to live inside the pyramid. As if reading his thoughts the woman raised herself up on her elbow.

“What is it for?” she asked him.

“What is what for?”

“This … big building?”

“It is for the Avatars,” he said. “Every thirty years or so they seem to want to create some lasting monument. My father worked on the pyramid we are tearing down. There’s no sense to it. Some of the lads were excited about the prospect of seeing what was inside it. There wasn’t anything. No gold, no treasure, no bodies. Nothing. Just empty. Crazy, isn’t it?”

He sat up and swung his long legs over the side of the bed. Reaching for the wine jug he lifted it to his lips, drank deeply, then wiped the moisture from his thick, dark beard. The flute sounded closer again.

“It must be
for
something,” said the woman. “Why else would the Holy One himself be here?”

This was a question that haunted Yasha. He did not object to the vanities of the Avatar, nor even care much that they ruled the five cities. Someone had to rule, and as long as Yasha had employment and wages enough to buy food and whores he was content. But his curiosity was aroused by the Holy One and his magic. When he played the flute heavy rocks became light, perhaps a twentieth of their weight, and four men could maneuver huge blocks into place. For the first few
days
this had caused much excitement and unease in the workers. Now they were used to it. Yasha heaved himself upright and pulled on his leggings and shirt.

“What was it like being a king?” she asked him. He laughed aloud.

“I wasn’t a king,” he said. “It was merely an amusing interlude to mark the first course being completed.”

“But you were carried on the shoulders of the men and you wore a laurel crown. And even the Holy One bowed as you passed him. Did it feel very fine?” Yasha thought about the question as he pulled on his heavy shoes.

“It felt good,” he admitted. “But not half as good as a roll with you.”

“Do you mean that? Do you really?”

“Of course.”

“Will you come back after your next shift?”

“How could any man stay away from you … dearheart?” he concluded, having forgotten her name.

Leaning over, he kissed her once more then, leaving the clay payment tablet on the small table beside the bed, he stepped out into the night and strolled across to the infant pyramid. Questor Anu was striding along the top of the sixth course still playing his flute. Yasha watched him for a while and, when the Holy One had ceased playing, he waved to him. Anu waved back, then climbed down to stand alongside the huge foreman.

“We are doing well,” said Anu. “But we need to work faster yet.”

“It will come, Questor. Already the skills of the workers are increasing.”

Anu smiled and turned away.

“Tell me, Lord, why do you play music for the blocks when they are already in place?” he asked. Anu paused, then swung back to face the Vagar. In the bright constant moonlight his blue hair shone like polished silver.

“The stone remembers my tunes,” he said seriously. Then he laughed at the look of confusion on Yasha’s face. “Each block is created by the bonding of millions of fragments, and each fragment also contains millions of particles. Possibly each particle is also a composite of
many smaller pieces. The Music goes into the stone, absorbed into each fragment, each particle. And the song goes on—perhaps forever—within the structure.”

“I can’t hear it,” said Yasha.

“And yet the Music is all around us. The universe is a song, Yasha. We are part of it. Have you ever wondered why Man is so drawn to music? Why we gather wherever it is played. Why we dance to it, adjusting our bodies to the rhythms?”

“Because it feels good,” said the Vagar.

“Yes, it feels good. It feels
natural
, for that is what it is. Those moments when music touches our souls remind us that we are part of the Great Song. All of us—Avatar, Vagar, tribesman, nomad. And every tree and plant, and bird and animal. We are all essential to the harmony of the Music.”

“Maybe so, Holy One, but it seems to me that the Avatars have been granted all the best tunes.” He regretted his words instantly, for they came dangerously close to dissension. But Anu merely nodded.

“You are quite right, Yasha. But nothing is forever, whatever my brothers prefer to believe. This structure we are creating together is not for the Avatar alone. It is for the world. For you, and your children, and the children of your children.”

“I do not have any children, Holy One.”

Anu laid his slender hand on Yasha’s shoulder. “You have seventeen children,” he said. “And you sired another this evening. You really should make an effort to keep in touch with your women.”

Yasha chuckled. “The women I sleep with have many partners, Holy One. Hard to say who fathered which child. And I like it that way. Have you ever been married?”

“No, I cannot say the idea ever appealed to me.”

“Me neither. Maybe when I get old and I want a little more warmth in my bed.”

“I have been old,” said Anu. “There is some joy, but no warmth to be found.”

With that he bade his foreman good night and walked slowly away to his tent.

Sofarita sat quietly in an anteroom outside the Council Chamber, her eyes closed, her face serene. Two Avatar guards stood close by. One was thinking of the new horse he had acquired, and whether it would be as fast as its sire. He was also considering whether or not to have it gelded. The other guard was thinking of Sofarita, and how good it would be to bed her. Their thoughts were intrusive and Sofarita tried to push them away.

The simplest method was to float free of her body and close her spirit ears to their considerations. This she did, and was immediately rewarded with a sense of peace. Now they were merely anonymous soldiers.

It had been a long and interesting day. First Questor Ro had taken her to his house. Sofarita had never been inside so spectacular a home, with its bright rooms, exquisite furniture, its wonderfully woven rugs, and its garden filled with flowering trees and shrubs. Here she had eaten a mouth-watering meal and had been waited upon by servants. The plate upon which her meal was served was blue and white, glazed to a brilliant shine, and her wine was deep and red and rich beyond anything she had tasted before. During the afternoon Questor Ro sent for a gown-maker. He had arrived with a score of dresses and ankle-length gowns in materials
so soft and intoxicating that the woman Sofarita had once been could easily have believed she had died and been brought home to live with the gods. But she was not that woman any longer, and the luxury and splendor of Avatar life seemed now to be ephemeral and insubstantial. Water drunk from a golden goblet was still water, and the same, free, sunlight glittered from glass and diamond alike. Wealth merely symbolized might, and Sofarita needed no symbols. Day by day her intellect was growing. And with it her power.

Dressed, as now, in a flowing gown of shimmering white satin, she had met with the Questor General. He was, it seemed to Sofarita, an intelligent man, cultured and sensitive.

She had taken him on the same
flight
as Questor Ro. He had observed the thirty golden ships and had estimated their arrival at Egaru within twenty-four hours.

He had questioned her at length about her powers, and asked her if she had ever come into contact with a healing crystal. Sofarita was not skilled at lying, but equally she knew that Viruk had broken the law by healing her cancer. “Yes,” she said, finally. “I was dying and an Avatar healed me. I will say no more.”

Rael nodded, as if understanding her reticence. His thoughts were easy to read, but of little interest to Sofarita. He was still thinking strongly of the golden ships and how to deal with them. But one striking thought came through, tinged with dread.

Crystal-joined
.

Sofarita picked up an image of a young girl, slowly turning to glass, dying in cold and brittle agony. She felt Rael’s pain and drew back from him, allowing him privacy in his remembered grief.

Coming back to the present she wondered how the debate was proceeding within the chamber, and drifted through the wall to hover above the long table. The
Questor General was sitting at the head of the table, a slim man with close-cropped blue hair and keen, discerning eyes. He and the other twenty people present were listening to a hugely fat man. He was adorned with gold, rings on every chubby finger and a massive gold torque upon his swollen neck. Sofarita scanned the councillors. Questor Ro looked angry, his face pale. Beside him sat a slim hawk-faced man fighting to keep a smile from his features. As the fat man continued to speak Ro suddenly stormed to his feet, pointing and shouting. Sofarita, her spirit ears closed, wondered what the row was about.

Tentatively she allowed sound to penetrate. “… insane! Have you completely lost your wits, Caprishan?”

“Not I, but you,” replied the fat man. “Whatever were you thinking of, Ro? The Vagars exist as our servants. That is what the Source intended. To allow one to live who has demonstrated such power is to undermine everything we stand for. It sends a message to all Vagars that they can aspire to be our equals. And that, my friends,” he said, turning his gaze from Ro, “would be the beginning of the end for us. I recommend that the woman be put to death forthwith!”