Hellspark (20 page)

Om im said, “Languages change too.”

“They do. And every time a new possibility pops up, somebody very quickly coins a handful of new words to incorporate it. The words get flung like candy to the youngest kids, who tease us old-timers with them until we ‘catch on.’” She grinned. “You wouldn’t believe the word games that go on in a children’s Babel.”

“You’re right,” said Om im, “I wouldn’t.”

Tocohl turned back to Kejesli. “So, Captain Kejesli, what would you like to hear in Hellspark?”

“Veschke’s Refusal,” he said.

Page 78

She began in almost a whisper, knowing he would hear her over the echoing rumbles of the storm.

Like an incantation, the rhythms of her rising voice drew others from all corners of the common room.

Although they did not understand the language, they knew a performance when they saw one.

Intent on catching at least the flavor of the original, Tocohl saw them come only hazily. Again and again and again, she bade them “Strike! Strike!” Again and again and again, Veschke refused them coordinates of

Sheveschke, and each time she bade them strike, Kejesli jerked in angry agreement. She paused a beat—the room grew utterly silent—

Dropping her voice, she delivered the words once more in a whisper: “Steel or fire, strike!

Strike

!”

A ripping crack of thunder split the air. Tocohl took a deep breath, grinned. Looking up, she said, “Couldn’t have been too bad a translation. Thanks for the special effects, Veschke.” With a swirl of her moss cloak, she sat down.

Someone had begun to snap his fingers, another clapped, a third stamped his feet in time.

Startled, Tocohl looked around her—the first thing she thought was, I’m glad Buntec’s not here to see that! The second…

“Veschke’s sparks!” she said in GalLing’. “If you think that was good, you ought to hear the original the way Jassin does it!”

Om im said, “That’s the best argument I ever heard for learning Sheveschkem.”

“That’s the best reason I know for learning any other language,” Tocohl said. “Well, Captain, did I

give you some idea?”

“What?”

Pretty potent stuff, Veschke’s Refusal, even in my butchered translation, Tocohl thought. Aloud she said, “Have I given you some idea of the sound of Hellspark?”

Kejesli shook himself visibly. “Yes,” he said, “yes. Thank you. I think even Jassin would have

approved.”

“That’s high praise indeed! I cheated a bit here and there, using a word that wasn’t exact but had the better sound. In translating something like that, accuracy in feel is more important than accuracy of phrase. I could give you something prosaic if you wish, handy phrases for the tourist, for example.”

He stared at her, as if afraid she might conjure up typhoons with a “Where’s the bathroom.”

“No,” he said, “no thank you. My curiosity is more than satisfied.”

“Fine, then we’re back to the subject of the sprookjes.”

Maggy pinged urgently for her attention. Tocohl thumbed her ear for silence, realized that only

Kejesli would recognize the gesture, and said, “Just a moment.”

(Yes, Maggy?)

Maggy’s only reply was the scene flashed onto Tocohl’s spectacles. Tocohl watched and listened, then whistled. “Captain? There’s trouble in the infirmary. I think we’d better get there right away.”

Feeling that the captain would wish to deal with the situation with as few complications as possible, Tocohl had spoken in Sheveschkem. Kejesli rose, this time answering in the same tongue, “Lead, I sail with your sparks.”

She had him halfway across the compound, splattered in mud and drenched in rain,
Page 79

before she recognized that too as a line from the Epic of Veschke.

Om im, still at her right hand, reacted to her urgency by foregoing the politeness of a knock or a chime. He burst through the door to the infirmary, Tocohl and Kejesli at his heels. After that Tocohl had no time to consider poetry.

“Trouble” was the greatest of understatements: the wash of emotion within was almost physical.

Across the body of what must have once been Oloitokitok, Ruurd van Zoveel, gripping the edge of the table so fiercely that his veins stood out like rope, bellowed at Alfvaen and layli-layli calulan

.

Answering rage filled both their faces. Only swift-Kalat, seeming more concerned than angry, stepped forward to soothe the Zoveelian.

Alfvaen would not risk him. Taking two steps forward to swift-Kalat’s one, she interposed herself between the two. “This-s is your choice, then! Look on me, child of fools!” Her arm snapped sharply across her chest in challenge. The fierce green glare she fixed on van Zoveel brought the enormous man to bay.

Maggy’s arachne scuttled from beneath the table to position itself for a better view of the two.

Behind Tocohl, Kejesli began, “What’s all this bellowing? What’s the hull-ripping matter?” At that point, he must have registered Alfvaen’s threatening stance, for his voice dropped to a whisper in Tocohl’s ear, “Tocohl—”

“Not now,” she snapped. Across the room layli-layli calulan

, never taking her dark eyes from van

Zoveel’s face, twisted the bluestone ring from her left index finger and slapped it down beside

Oloitokitok’s body. Tocohl heard a muted exclamation of horror from Om im.

Alfvaen would hold her pose until van Zoveel returned her challenge, but layli-layli calulan reached for the second ring, began to twist it off.

With a sharp intake of breath, Tocohl charged across the room. Vaulting table and body, she came down close enough to startle layli-layli calulan into a moment’s pause. It was enough to let her press on. She grasped the shaman’s wrists, attempting to part the hands with the ring still on her finger and praying inwardly that Veschke’s blessings covered this. In Yn, she demanded,

“Would you have it go astray?”

The plump woman did not struggle, she merely went back to what she had been doing before

Tocohl’s intervention.

“

Layli-layli calulan

!” said Tocohl. “You do not know his true name! Will you risk the death of one of these others, or your own?”

“You lie,” said layli-layli

, but her arms stilled in Tocohl’s grasp, their motion uncompleted. Her black eyes burned into Tocohl’s.

Tocohl held the gaze as she held layli-layli’s wrists, summoning words. “I do not lie.

Think

! ‘Van

Zoveel’ simply refers to his planet of origin, and ‘Ruurd’ is the commonest of male names on that world.

Do you know his true name?”

The burning gaze dropped from Tocohl’s face.

Page 80

Layli-layli calulan reached for the ring she had removed, and Tocohl released her wrists. The shaman’s smoldering anger appeared to subside as she slid the bluestone ring back on her finger, but she said, “He’s left his gods behind him, nor could they protect him if I knew his true name.”

With that, she turned her back, consigning the group to nonexistence.

Relief shivered along Tocohl’s spine. When she rounded the table once more, this time to deal with the lesser problem of Alfvaen, she moved easily, with a ghost of a smile. Her incomprehensible exchange with layli-layli calulan had distracted the others enough to lessen their tension as well. Van Zoveel had stopped his bellowing to treat her to a puzzled look. Using that for a hook, she beckoned him with a conspiratorial jerk of the head, as if she might explain if he came closer. When he took the step, she caught him by the arm and tucked him away safely behind her, well beyond dueling range even if he knew the proper responses.

Om im slid silently into the space left vacant by van Zoveel. He said, “I am the fool, if Ruurd and

Alfvaen will not clasp hands and drink together.” It was in GalLing’, but it was perfectly acceptable by

Alfvaen’s standards.

Maggy’s arachne pricked its way closer and said politely, “May I watch, Alfvaen, Om im? I have never seen a real duel.”

Still stiffly posed, Alfvaen said over her forearm. “I don’t want to fight you, Om im. I was only trying to protect swift-Kalat.” It was a break in the ritual, and a welcome one to both Tocohl and Om im.

“Duel?” said van Zoveel, taking a step forward to stare at the two of them in utter amazement.

He spun on Tocohl, his ribbons fluttering nervously, “Are they crazy? Tocohl? I don’t follow this one.”

“You threatened swift-Kalat, Alfvaen challenged you, Om im appointed himself your champion,”

Tocohl said, summing it all up as briefly as possible. In Bluesippan she added, “Fool is right, Om im.”

Om im answered in the same tongue, “I offered my blade; you accepted. Get her to fight on my terms and we’ll both be fine.”

Instead, Tocohl glanced at van Zoveel. “—Oh, if he’s to save your life, van Zoveel, he would like to know just what this is all about.”

For the first time, Tocohl saw fear in the Zoveelian’s eyes. “I was angry,” he said; with effort he kept his voice low and level, “I only spoke words, Tocohl. I have no actions to perform.”

Tocohl raised her voice, “Alfvaen? He says he didn’t mean it: he never intended harm. He’ll clasp hands and drink with you and swift-Kalat”—she glared at van Zoveel—“right?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, “with both of you, and Om im, and”—he glanced in layli-layli calulan

’s direction, set his features stubbornly—“with Alfvaen and swift-Kalat and Om im,” he finished.

Alfvaen said, “And I with all of you.” She lowered her arm. “No duel,” she said firmly to Om im, who said, “Glad to hear it,” and lowered his arm as well. Alfvaen smiled wanly and added,

“Not even for

Maggy’s education.”

“That’s settled then,” said Tocohl. “Sorry, Maggy.”

“Maybe some other time?” The arachne took a hopeful step forward to tilt toward the two reconciled opponents. Alfvaen giggled.

Kejesli cleared his throat. “I want an explanation for this kind of behavior. You first, van Zoveel.”

“They,” van Zoveel began, and his gaze slipped away uneasily. He began again, “They wanted to cut up the body for no—” This time he stopped completely, and with a supplicatory gesture at Tocohl, he said, “She doesn’t care

Page 81

. She never did.”

Kejesli frowned but relinquished the floor once more to Tocohl who, understanding his anger at last, said quietly, “How much Yn do you understand, Ruurd?”

If the question surprised him, it also gave him a chance to collect himself. “I understood the words, but not the content, of what the two of you said before. I speak the female dialect but I know very little of the male.” His palm brushed his sideburns. “Oloitokitok was teaching me…”

The hand came away abruptly, fell to his side.

Tocohl crossing the room to where layll-layli calulan stood, facing the wall, her koli thread

flickering between her hands and her back as expressive of her anger as her threats had been.

Placing an arm gently about the smaller woman’s shoulders, Tocohl urged softly, in Yn, “Tell him: tell him who

Oloitokitok was.” She bent to look into the shaman’s dark eyes. “He cared about Oloitokitok, too—that’s why he’s so upset. He thinks that you intend to deny Oloitokitok an afterlife.”

The koli thread stopped its flicker, and layli-layli looked up skeptically. Tocohl said, “Yes, by his culture’s standards: bad enough the golden scoffers damaged the body, but that you would… !

Only someone who hated Oloitokitok would injure his chances further. Van Zoveel’s gods only accept the beautiful, the whole

, into their paradise.”

“Is such cruelty possible?”

“Some gods are worse than others.”

Layli-layli turned to fix the skeptical gaze on Ruurd van Zoveel. She said, defiantly, “Oloitokitok was my mate and my friend. How is it that you care, and yet you refuse us the right to learn the knots of his life?”

As Tocohl had expected, layli-layli calulan had used the pronoun meaning “related-to.”

Van Zoveel not only heard the distinction but understood its significance. Deep sorrow lit his eyes.

He turned his palms up and knelt. “Forgive me layli-layli calulan

, for not understanding the depth of your feelings.

“On my world, to mutilate the remains of someone after death is the height of cruelty. As I listen to you now, I realize that your dream is strong enough to give meaning to your acts, no matter how they might have seemed to me in my ignorance.” His manner was pure Zoveelian but his words were Yn; his contrition was equally comprehensible in either.

Maggy made a querying noise for Tocohl’s ear only. Tocohl said, (He’s so surprised she speaks of

Oloitokitok as a person and not a piece of property he’s willing to believe his gods will accept the impression Oloitokitok made on layli-layli calulan as evidence of beauty and let him into paradise.)

(I don’t think that helps much,) Maggy said.

(I’ll try to do better later. Meanwhile, just accept that Homo sapiens can get pretty weird.)

(I don’t know what normal is for

Homo sapiens,)

Maggy said, with just the right touch of emphasis to make the observation a complaint.

Layli-layli calulan breathed deeply, and the bright pink drained slowly from her scars. Her face softened. Two steps brought her before van Zoveel who, though kneeling, was now of a height with her.

She touched the heel of her hand to his forehead, then laid her hands gently in his. “We
Page 82

were both mistaken,” she said in GalLing’. “Will you accept my apology as well?”

“Of course,” Van Zoveel said earnestly, without hesitation, and layli-layli clasped his hands to draw him to his feet.

“Well,” said Tocohl, “the storm has passed. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go outside and see if I can find a sprookje or two.” And before anyone could reply, she crossed the room and stepped into the clear, sharp air, still crackling with ozone, beneath a sky streaked with sunlight.