C J Cherryh - Gene Wars 1 - Hammerfall Read online

  "Master," they still called him, when they were happy with him. They went away and compared the rings they had, content, as if the world might, after all, go on.

  Marak settled down with Hati and Norit, and, taking some cheer from Tofi's pragmatic wisdom, he stretched himself out to sleep. Meanwhile the au'it, tucked up with her book, settled against the tent pole and unwrapped a new cake of ink: she had written up the old one until there was nothing left but the corners. She sharpened a new pen.

  They all were exhausted, after chasing panicked beshti and watching the heavens come down in fragments: they had used deep-irons to tether the beasts this time, and they slept more deeply in that confidence.

  Marak, the voices began; and Norit shook at him, and waked him.

  There was still ample light. He looked at the angle of the shadows and grimaced, incoherent with sleep, but Norit had waked Hati, too, and then Tofi.

  Haste, the voices said, too disquieting for rest. Tofi looked like the risen dead. Hati scowled, and the slaves-now-freedmen moaned and resisted. But they were awake. There was reason, so Marak said to himself, and gathered himself up to his feet, out under a sun only a quarter down the sky and a heat still shimmering on the sand.

  It was no good to curse. Norit did as Luz did, and was, herself, exhausted. They struck their sole tent, loaded the beasts, and dug up the stakes, sweating.

  Then they began their daily trek to the west, under a sky still too bright for stars. Marak slept, nodding. So Hati did, and Tofi, from time to time, until they acquired a better mood and had some sense of rest. Norit managed: at least her head drooped, and Marak kept an eye on her for fear she might fall off; but she stayed, and waked, and rubbed her eyes, adjusting the aifad to shade them. There was little talk, little to distract them in a monotony of riding.

  Hati pointed after a time to something Marak's eye had begun to pick out far to the west, in the sunset, a particularly bright seam of light. But they had no notion, any of them, what that was. The au'it wrote, clutching her book and her pen and her ink-cake despite the lurch of the beast under her, in the absolutely last of the light.

  As the sun faded and the stars showed, that glow persisted.

  "Like fire," one of the freedmen said. "What's out there to burn?"

  None of them knew. In the dark, stars began to fall again, none of the noisy sort, only a steady, gentle, remorseless fall.

  "Will they all fall?" Hati asked at last in distress, scanning the heavens as they rode. She pointed at bright Almar. "See, Almar is still up there."

  "They are not stars that fall," Norit said. "Almar won't be among them."

  "What are they, then?" Marak asked, angry not at Norit, but at Luz. "What are they? Are they the vision?"

  "Water," Norit said. "Water, iron. stone and metals. A wealth of iron."

  Perhaps it was Norit that answered him, out of her madness. Or Luz told them the unlikely truth.

  They never knew what the burning was. That next day, when they pitched the tent and lay down on their mats, Norit turned her back to both of them and lay apart.

  Marak looked at Hati, questioning, and Hati at him, but neither of them knew what to do for her. He knew that within Luz's will, Norit suffered, and that knowledge left him sleepless as they rested.

  He thought about it. He tried to think what to do.

  The au'it slept. Tofi and the men slept. There were no witnesses. He gave Hati's hand a squeeze, one comrade asking leave of another, and moved to Norit's side, stroked Norit's arm, and after a time moved her hair aside from her ear to whisper into it: "Norit. Do you want to make love?"

  Norit flinched and covered her eyes, turning away.

  He was given a no, but not, he thought, from Norit, who had no choice about Luz, or the visions. He had never forced himself on a woman. But he knew the ravages of the madness, how it ate up sleep and gave no rest, and wore out the body without giving it any useful ease. He saw it happening to Norit, and he gathered Norit up in his arms and kissed her on the lips.

  "Let me go!" Luz cried. She struck him with the heel of her hand, trying to break free.

  "Let Norit go," he retorted, and did not abate his attentions, not though Norit's body struggled and her mouth cursed as Norit never had, with words that made no sense in any dialect.

  Her struggles, her outcries, waked Tofi and the slaves and the au'it, who stared in dismay. Had he not disapproved the soldiers for the very same act?

  He spent no time explaining his actions. He swept Norit up and carried her out of the tent kicking and struggling. Gently, for Norit's sake, he set her down on the shaded sand outside and proceeded to what he intended.

  "Damn you!" Luz cried.

  Only when Norit pounded him with her fists and began to gasp after breath did he turn gentle with her, and then Norit simply lay in his arms and cried and sobbed. He had least of all intended to hurt her.

  "You hate me," she wept. "You hate me!"

  "Never, Norit," he said, and added honestly: "I'm not that sure about Luz."

  She struck at him, and he caught her fist easily within his, she was so small and her violence so slight. He lifted her face and tried to make her look at him, but she shut her eyes.

  "Tell me the truth, Norit. Tell me the truth. Do you hear me? Look at me and tell me the truth. What do you want, and what does Luz want?"

  Her eyes squeezed shut. She made no other struggle, no other response, either, as he tucked her clothing back to rights and smoothed her hair gently into place. He had no idea what he had won, or if he had won any relief for Norit-he had hoped if he could bring her back for an hour, Norit might have a chance, and he knew by what seethed in his own mind that she had less of a chance if Luz was always there.

  But now he regretted doing what he had done. He had tried to help Norit. He had no idea now whether he had scared her instead of Luz, or offended her, or what vengeance he might have brought down on them all.

  He led her back into the tent and let her go, and she sat down on her own mat. She sat staring at the wall for a long while before she lay down again and tucked her clothing tightly about her.

  Tofi and the men likely were awake with all the commotion, but they were pretending otherwise. The au'it certainly had waked, and wrote, silent in her preoccupation.

  Hati lay with one arm beneath her head, gazing at the sun through the canvas as he lay down beside her.

  "Luz has her all the time," he said. "I don't know which I dealt with. I tried to help. I don't think I did."

  "Norit knows what you do," Hati said. "Norit wants help."

  "I think she does. But she can't push Luz out."

  "Norit can't say no to anyone, least of all to Luz. But she wants you. She wants you more than anything."

  "What can I do? What cure is there for her?"

  "None," Hati said, "until Norit says no to Luz." Hati rolled over and opened her arms to him, and drew him in despite the heat.

  At that small move, Norit moved, and leapt up, and shoved the au'it out of the way and sent the au'it's pen into the sand in her rush out of the tent.

  Marak leapt up, and Hati did, dodging the au'it, half-stumbling over Tofi and his helpers, hurrying to stop her as she raced out of the shade of the tent.

  Norit ran past the resting beasts, wasting strength and sweat in the heat, and Marak ran foremost after her. Hati ran behind him. There was a rock shelf beyond, where a careless foot might slip, and Norit sent herself straight for it, maybe knowing what was there, maybe forgetting that hazard.

  Before she could reach that edge Marak caught her, and barely so. They fell down on the stony ground, full length.

  Her clothing had saved her skin, except her hands bled. His arm bled. But the madness was in possession of her. She struck at him as he got up and dragged her to her feet, struck him hard, and then only halfheartedly. "I want to die," Norit cried, as he held her, but Luz said, in the next breath, trying to stand erect: "She won't succeed. I won't let her come to harm."


  He still had possession of Norit's wrist. Hati arrived at a walk, now, ahead of Tofi and his two men. To their appalled looks, he shook his head and walked toward the camp, leading Norit by a firm grip.

  Norit said not a thing, nor objected when he set her down on her mat and harshly told her to stay there. The blood on her hands was still fresh, but the wounds were already dry as if hours old.

  The au'it had not ventured far from the tent. She had watched their return. She sat and wrote, now, a dry, persistent scratching, recording Norit's desperate rush toward death.

  Marak, Marak, Marak was in his head, then. He expected vengeance, pain, he had no idea what, but what he received was a dinning urgency to move on. Haste, the voices said. Haste. Enough. The vision of the falling star began again.

  He went out and began kicking furiously at the tent stakes.

  Then Tofi and Hati, outside, began to help him. He ripped his own hand bloody, pulling up a stake, and the pain scarcely reached him.

  "Damn them!" he shouted at the white-hot sky. "Damn them all!"

  But no one answered, no one came to offer reason. Hati went to bring out Norit and the au'it and their mats out before the tent went down.

  It billowed flat, the former slaves folded it, packed it, and loaded it in rare, fearful silence. The sun was still high as they mounted up and rode on, and the beasts, ignorant of all the mistakes they had made, grumbled, disturbed early from their cud-chewing.

  The whole afternoon long seemed to pass in numb, paralytic silence, inside and out, as if even the madness stood back from him and from Norit. Perhaps Luz was aghast at the violence.

  His hand healed. By nightfall the flesh was sealed over. Norit showed no lasting injury. The stars began to fall and fell until the dawn.

  Over the next several days the voices were silent, exhausted, perhaps, or Luz, distant in her tower, plotted some revenge. She gave no hint. Perhaps on her bed she thought about him. Perhaps she and Ian made love. Marak cared nothing for that, either. Perhaps they could hear him as he heard the visions. He wished only for their continued silence. Norit was more herself, fearful of the star-fall, tender in her dealings with everyone, lacking prophecies.

  They reached the very heart of the Lakht, within sight of the Qarain itself, and the border of the Anlakht, and every night the stars still fell, stitching small streaks across the dusk and across the night, occasionally exploding into fire. Every day the au'it wrote, and wrote copiously, but what she might have to say Marak had no idea.

  The days became hot, the hottest any of them remembered. The sky was a brazen dome above their heads, and, having no shortage of water, they let the wind blow over the sweat that ran on their limbs. The beasts, however, grew irritable in the heat, and the heat wore on them all: when they rested it was a numb sort of rest, more desperate unconsciousness than sleep. The open-sided tent offered shade, but gave far less relief when the wind failed. Heat rose shimmering from the sand. Light glared off the rocks, and hot air gathered under the canvas.

  Marak found to his chagrin that he had lost all count of the days, but more worrisome, he had ceased to care. Habits on which life itself depended faded from importance in the oppressive air. The au'it never spoke, in all these days. Norit had grown increasingly quiet and hard to rouse. Hati moped in the weather. Tofi looked ten years older from sunburn and dirt, while the ex-slaves recalled the white tents, and safety, and sat listless in the shade. They found a bitter spring, and the beshti, well watered, disdained it. But their water supply had become, at least marginally, a concern, and after this they determined to reserve the good water and let the beshti go in want. Tofi harbored a secret worry, and still claimed he knew the way, but Marak began to suspect otherwise.

  The silence of the voices began to seem not freedom, but abandonment, stemming from the assault on Norit, as best Marak reckoned. He asked himself whether Luz would damn all the world for his crime against her, and began to think every day of dying, not that dying held any attraction for him, only that it seemed the likely outcome.

  And every night as they rode the sky was streaked with falling stars, sometimes so violent in their fall they flew apart in pieces, and sometimes so near them they screamed on their way down.

  He had seen very many strange things, he decided, enough strange things that he ought to be satisfied. But he was not. On the way to the tower, when they had known nothing, he and Hati had shared a passion for life. Now he and Hati looked at each other through identical visions, made love sometimes, but more often laced fingertips, only fingertips, lying near and not against one another: the heat around them was stifling, sapping all strength. Together they cared for Norit, and were concerned for her, both of them helpless to rescue her.

  They traveled and put up their tent, and had grain-cake to eat. To do more asked strength they hoarded. They sat. They ate.

  "The sky," Norit said suddenly.

  Brisk movement came back to her limbs, and awareness to her eyes, and she rose to her feet, staring toward the end of the tent, toward the west.

  Hati's fingers knotted into his sleeve, a demand, a claim, when Norit's distress distracted him.

  "She may kill herself," he said, and a sense of omen dawned on him, a sudden conviction that time had slipped away from him, and the vision was imminent.

  "She won't kill herself," Hati said. "Didn't Luz say she wouldn't? She's grown too hard for that. She listens to all we do and say, even if the voices are quiet."

  Norit went out of the tent and stood in the burning heat. Eventually he went, swept her up in his arms, and carried her inside. When he set her on her feet she abruptly sat down and stared out unblinkingly at the daylight.

  "Luz," he said, kneeling and shaking Norit. "Luz, you're killing her. We love her and you're killing her."

  There was no seeming awareness. Norit simply stared.

  He gave up, took his hand away, then on a second thought laid hands on Norit and made her lie down. She stayed as he disposed her, and he went back to his mat, next to Hati.

  The au'it slept. Tofi and the freed slaves slept. A rising wind stirred the broad canvas of their shelter, and everyone but Norit roused to see the sight. They had seen nothing else living for days, not even the flight of a bird. The land seemed dead around them.

  Then the canvas stirred slightly and lifted like a breath of hope.

  Then the southwest wind began to blow, but it was the breath of a furnace, as unkind as the silence. They packed up and moved on, the beasts complaining, and by evening the wind was a west wind, in their faces, picking up sand as it came. In the pans, uneasy dust flowed in small streams along the harder surface of the sand.

  They crested a broad, gradual ridge as evening fell, and before them, as far as they could see, the otherwise flat, stone-littered plain of the Lakht beyond showed strange new wounds, pale sand circles in the old, weathered sand, two nearest that overlapped each other.

  Had some desperate band of travelers, as lost as they, attempted wells all over the plain?

  "What creature made that?" Hati asked Tofi. "Have you ever seen the like?"

  "No," Tofi said, sounding for a moment like the boy he was. "Never in my life."

  Their downward path took them alongside one such pale spot, a shallow new depression in the sand, with dark red, unweathered sand thrown out around it. The beasts lowered their heads and nosed the area, odd behavior in itself, and pawed at it, but they found nothing buried there.

  They pushed on across the plain, not liking the vicinity. They put it far behind them by next noon, when they pitched a belated camp.

  The earth shook itself, like a beast shaking his skin; and they who had been stretching rope, and the two freedmen, who had been pounding a tent peg, stopped their work.

  They all stood still, except Norit, who had sat down at the start of their work, and who sat like a stone. The peg, half-driven, pulled loose.

  "What was that?" Tofi asked.

  "The earth will shake," Norit said, break
ing days of silence. "The earth will crack like a pot and spill out fire."

  Marak looked at Hati, and lastly at Tofi, who stood with a tent stake in his hand. Stark fear was on his face.

  "Should we sink the deep-irons?" Tofi asked.

  "Do that," Marak said. He himself had no idea what next would follow. The stars fell. The earth itself had turned unreliable. Whether deep-irons could pin them to the earth and keep a shelter over their heads he had no idea.