“Yes, O Ykkuval. I spoke of the inadequacies of the locals not to complain but to make clear why it will take a while to implement my plan. I am organizing an attack on Chuta Meredel, trying to get the idea across that hitting the Vale of Medon at several points simultaneously with smaller forces will enhance their ability to kill and destroy. While attention is distracted by these attacks, I can slip into the Vale, hunt down the University group, and shut their mouths permanently.”
Banikoлh, Chuta Meredel, the Meeting Place, early afternoon
The seats in the first ring of the tiers were elaborately and individually carved from white marble, these were for the Denchok and Fior who belonged to the Meruu of the Earth. Between each of the seats was a tall slender marble column with grasping bronze bars on the capital. These were the holds of the Eolt who served the Meruu of the Air. Behind these were the tiers of plain seats, painted white, enough wear on them to let the dark dull brown of the wood show through here and there. Behind these were sets of columns ranged in arcs to form a broken circle about the arena. These were for the Eolt who were not part of the Meruu of the Air.
Shadith squatted beside her harp on a raised platform in the center of the arena, wiping sweat from the wood and from her brow, watching drifts of vapor from the hotsprings bubbling up all around the arena, wondering peripherally about quakes and other instabilities while she chewed over the things she’d planned to say. Full of a high-minded zeal, she’d meant to give a series of lectures on how they could live with outsiders and protect themselves from the worst aspects of exploitation. That zeal had dribbled away on the ride here.
Aslan had seen their truth before she had; Keteng and Fior had managed to merge two very disparate species into a generally peaceful and productive society; they didn’t need to be lectured or treated like children just because they’d been isolated for a very long time. And they wouldn’t listen to her if she tried it.
She glanced at the clouds. If they didn’t hurry up and get this thing started, they’d have to postpone it or shift it indoors. She checked the strings again, plucking individual notes to make sure the tuning held. This moisture wasn’t what her harp liked, but the composite strings would hold tune better than Maorgan’s, though she’d seen that strange wood swell under the stroking of his hands, change shape slightly to keep the tuning or shift to a new one.
Maorgan stood beside her, Aslan and Marrin a step behind. Too agitated and angry to rest, Danor was stumping along the rim of the oval dais, leaning on a cane, glowering at the Denchok and Fior who were swarming into the arena, arguing over seats, spreading out, getting pushed together as more people moved onto that tier. Overhead, Eolt were singing irritation at each other, pushing and shoving to get a tentacle hold on the outer columns. The noise from groundling and fliers seemed to pile up inside those columns and hammer at them. The swirl of emotions was almost as loud. Shadith’s head started to ache.
After a while, though, the chaos sorted itself out. The tiers were filled, all the Eolt that could crowd onto the bronze holdbars were in place. Danor stopped his nervous walking, stood leaning on his cane, waiting.
The Eolt SANG.
Shadith closed her eyes, breathed sound, soared on sound, was permeated by sound, was SOUND itself as if her body had changed into vibrations and no longer existed as flesh.
The SONG ended.
Eolt Melech sang a long drone. Maorgan’s harp melded with the sound, wove variations on it.
Shadith touched the strings of her harp, felt her way into the harmonies, and joined them. As the Eolt had tasted her on the way here, she tasted them now, the mind touch unfocused and encompassing.
The semi-meld with the fliers and their residues in her blood brought her sisters to dance for her. Warm mist drifted into the arena from the hotsprings, silver streamers of heat and damp that shaped themselves into graceful swaying images, black and silver similitudes of Naya, Zayalla, Annethi, Itsaya, Talitt, and Sullan. Six sisters, weaving dreams just for her now, dead in the body for twenty times a thousand years, living in her memory and her mind’s eye whenever a new matrix in a new world brought them forth for her. Once again she thought she saw Itsaya wink at her, saw Naya smile, saw Zaya shake her hips and grin over her shoulder, saw her sisters greet her each in her own way.
Distantly she heard a singing sigh pass from Eolt to Eolt, from Keteng to Keteng to Fior and in a corner of her mind where it didn’t interfere with her own joy, she knew that her voice, and the harps, Maorgan and Melech had combined somehow to bring the Weave of Shayalin to life for more than her.
It was a joy and a wonder, but fleeting.
Her sisters turned through a last step and were gone.
She laid her hand on the strings and stilled her harp.
Maorgan and Melech felt silent also.
Danor threw his head back and howled, a sound so full of grief and rage it seemed to darken the air inside the columns.
“I cry out to you,” he sang, his voice full and vibrant despite his weariness, age and wounds, fueled by the rage that swelled in him.
I cry out to you Hear me, Meruu
Fear in the skies, fire in my eyes
I cry out to you Hear me, Meruu
Golden blaze in sapphire skies
A sudden brief sun
For nothing, xe’s gone
A mesuch’s measure of fun
I cry a warning Hear me, Meruu
Fire burns at your border
Waits the torchbearer’s will
I cry a warning Hear me, Meruu
I cry my grief Hear me, Meruu
I cry for vengeance Hear me, Meruu
Fill them with dread
Danor dropped to his knees, his arms hanging limp, his head down. He was trembling so violently he could barely keep his place.
An Eolt among the Meruu of the Air spoke, slowly, formally. “I, Bladechel, am Voice for the Air. You have seen these things with the eyes of your body?”
Danor cleared his throat, forced his head up and his voice out. “I have seen mesuch in an airwagon direct their weapons on my sioll. I have seen xe turn to a tower of fire when the beam from that weapon touched xe. I have seen the airwagons chasing Eolt, free and siolled, burning them for the joy of it. I have seen Denchok and Meloach chased and corralled like beasts and slaughtered like beasts. I have seen Fior driven from their Dumels and Ordumels, the women taken for whores, the men as slave workers. I have seen these things with my own eyes.” He let his head fall again to hide the tears he couldn’t stop.
As soon as he was finished the Speaker repeated his words to make sure all heard them. Then xe said, “The Scholar from University, step forth. Speak your name that all may hear it.”
Aslan moved to stand beside Danor. “I am Aslan aici Adlaar of University and of the School on University that follows the study of the cultures and histories of many peoples.”
“Do you know the history of the mesuch that kill Eolt for pleasure? Can you attest that this has happened before?”
“They are the Chandavasi. They call themselves the Souled Men. Let it be understood that what I say now is a caricature of their truth because all generalizations can only be caricatures.”