IronStar Page 9
A tanned older woman wearing a long pale yellow robe separated herself from the group, shooed the young people away, and introduced herself as Slaetra shu’Urwakla. Her piercing light-blue eyes seemed to drink in every detail of Kirrah’s outlandish garb at a glance, lingering briefly on her face and especially her forehead. Bet I’ve got a good-sized bruise up there, Kirrah thought. As Irshe introduced their party, Kirrah tried to keep one ear tuned to his words, and one to the wristcomp’s translation:
“Irshe shu’Kassua, ro’tachk, shui’to’k” he said, with a shallow bow and a two-fingered gesture tapping his breast.
« Irshe son of Kassua, ro’tachk, King’s hand » rendered the wristcomp. Need to find out what ro’tachk means, she noted. I bet it’s ‘sergeant’. Another two-fingered gesture towards her, and he said:
“Kirrah shu’Roehl sho’Draconis, shai’lothashu” The woman returned her nod and repeated Kirrah’s name with meticulous accuracy. Hmm, Kirrah thought, so I’m a King’s lotha’shu. I think we’d better get serious about building vocabulary… Irshe continued:
“Akaray shu’Malafoth’shuah sho’Malamethsha’shuah,” which came out as:
« Akaray, son of Malafoth, deceased, from the town of Malamethsha, deceased. » Slaetra’s eyes widened at that, and she shot a sharp glance at Irshe and back to the boy, but withheld further comment. For now, said a voice in Kirrah’s mind. This woman is no fool, and she didn’t like the implications of that introduction, one little bit.
Irshe then introduced the moustached soldier with the blue rank-ribbons, who smiled a little apologetically at the elder woman and signaled two of his men to take up posts at the outer end of the entry alleyway. He and the other three soldiers wearing orange-and-blue trim then stood, apparently waiting for her. Slaetra’s lips pursed in a fair imitation of Aunt Risa’s ‘Level One Disapproving Frown’, but she gestured them all graciously enough across the courtyard to an outdoor table where refreshments were being set out. She led Kirrah to a door set in the south side wall of the inner courtyard. Kirrah followed her into the small but comfortably-furnished apartment and was introduced to a young dark-blonde woman named Tash’ta who seemed to be assigned as her personal maid. She was just being shown the bath facilities when:
“Kirrah! Kirrah! Ak’mara, ak’mara…” came Akaray’s obviously-distressed call from the courtyard. Kirrah found she needed no wristcomp to recognize “Don’t leave me!” She dodged around the startled pair of women who were showing her around the apartment, and with them both trailing anxiously behind, double-timed out into the courtyard. Akaray, Irshe and the blue-ribboned armsman were staring at one another in a kind of frozen tableau.
« …but Lord Tsano himself will wathra’ch you » said Irshe via her wristcomp. Akaray ran to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, then after a moment stood beside her with a near-deathgrip on her left hand. Nobody’s gonna wathra’ch this kid while I have a beamer, thought something dark and pushing against Kirrah’s control. Hey, these are friends, she thought back. I think. And let’s get our hand away from the beamer, Irshe’s no fool when it comes to weapons, even unfamiliar ones.
« Akaray borrowed by Kirrah, » the boy stated, his voice echoing in Standard from her wristcomp. Excuse me?
« Two lives balanced! » Then after a brief pause he added, somewhat triumphantly, « King’s foot! ».
« The child is afraid, » said Slaetra, with what Kirrah would have sworn was Aunt Risa’s ‘Level Two Disapproving Frown with Cautionary Eyebrows’.
« Can the King wait some days? » When the two men’s glances locked for a moment, she added « King’s foot, the boy is right. » With the defeated look of those who have taken too long to answer, the men shrugged and surrendered.
With some fumbling of language and gestures, Irshe conveyed that he must report to Lord Tsano what he had seen at Akaray’s village; that he was assigned to Kirrah as ‘King’s Ear’, which probably meant something like ‘diplomatic liaison’; and that he would be back as soon as his duties allowed. The boy would stay with Kirrah, in a sort of temporary adoption status (‘borrowed’?). She was …billeted, she supposed, with Slaetra, in what could well turn out to be a school (it had that look), and would have a day or two to prepare for an audience with Lord Tsano, who was apparently King over both the city and the surrounding territory. The six guards, ‘King’s teeth’ (palace guards?) would remain on duty. Just how many of the King’s body parts have become idioms? Kirrah wondered, a little irreverently.
Later, she was to learn ‘King’s foot’ should have been translated ‘King’s footprint’, idiomatic for something like ‘legal precedent’, meaning literally ‘where the King has stood before’. It would also turn out that one of these precedents was that when two people had risked their lives for one another (‘two lives balanced’), something like a legal wardship was automatically granted if one was a child and one was an adult, and both agreed. How this too-bright-for-his-own-good eight-year-old had heard of this, and managed to dredge the fact up and throw it out at need, remained a mystery.
Her immediate problem, however, was the temptation of the steaming hot bath waiting in her apartment. Kirrah felt very reluctant to part with her suit, even for a moment. Her sidearm would not respond to anyone’s commands other than hers; similarly the wristcomp and integrated suit controls were keyable to her password and biometric signature. That left theft and personal attack as the risks. With Akaray occupied in the next room by a plateful of fruit, and Slaetra and Tash’ta watching patiently, acquiescing to these risks seemed a bit… overly suspicious, downright unfriendly even.
When Slaetra made a gentle show of holding her nose, combined with a gesture towards the generous tub of hot water and an ‘Arched Eyebrow, Level One, Faintly Amused’, Kirrah decided she had to find some compromise or be branded an ignorant, smelly foreigner. Accurately branded, she had to agree. She had little doubt that her every action was being closely observed and would in due course find its way to His Majesty, who could scarcely have selected a shrewder or more keenly observant custodian than this woman with the pale blue eyes. Could be they’re checking that you’re fully human, Kirrah thought, Or perhaps they just want you to smell better.
On inspiration, Kirrah keyed the suit to open partially at the front, extruded the left glove from its place rolled up in the cuff, and with it gripped the four-centimeter feed pipe behind the tub. She made a show of wriggling out of the rest of the suit, while setting up the command:
< Emergency Splints; Fractures;
Immobilize; Left Hand; Override >.
As the suit’s left fingers locked around the pipe in a grip that no technology on this planet could likely break, Kirrah slipped free of the wretched, lifesaving covering for the first time since, since, since… well, say it: since Captain Leitch had ordered them all into survival suits aboard the Arvida-Yee, about ninety-six hours ago. And then died, along with the rest of her crewmates. There. When you actually thought it, it still hurt, but it didn’t gnaw away like it had been doing, dull teeth busy around her heart, while she’d been so urgently not-thinking about it. Sudden tears stinging her eyes, she looked up to see Slaetra’s initial nose-wrinkled distaste turning to a look of concern, and Tash’ta’s gaze lowering.
Phew! This undersuit really was… ripe, Kirrah thought as she stripped out of it as well. An eclectic brew of drop-bubble gel, sweat, swamp water, ashes and overdone essence-of-Kirrah made the once-soft garment almost capable of standing on its own.
“I fix”, she essayed in the native language as she dropped the thing into a malodorous heap. Gotta get past dependency on that wristcomp.
“Tash’ta nago’ra,” the young woman said, picking up the thing almost reverently. At Kirrah’s puzzled look, she revised it to “Tash’ta fix. Tash’ta fix and return.” Aww, screw it, even paranoia has its limits, Kirrah thought, and I’ve just passed mine. She stepped down into the hot!, ohhh, my God! heavenly! Oh myyyyy! …steaming, fragrant water. Her moan of pleas
ure masked the sharp intake of breath from Slaetra at the sight of the livid bruises on Kirrah’s upper back and one buttock, leftovers from the death of the Arvida-Yee, some thirteen thousand kilometers over their heads to the north.
I could really, really get used to this, thought Kirrah an hour and a half later, as she took another slice of that tangy-sweet pale blue fruit. Perfect ending to a perfect meal. Wrapped in a warm, clean(!) soft robe, she was sitting in the courtyard a few meters from her apartment door, the aroma of the rich, tasty and somewhat greasy meat dish still hanging in the soft air. The sun was just setting, and the base of the high overcast had turned a ruddy magenta, slowly deepening toward red. Even the two visible guards blended unobtrusively into the picture. Kirrah, Akaray, Slaetra and four other older persons, three of them men, were reclining on low frame couches while students about Tash’ta’s age served and carried. Kirrah couldn’t help thinking of the older adults as teachers, and the entire courtyard as a quadrangle in some elite college. This impression was confirmed the next morning when, under Slaetra’s focused tutelage, Kirrah’s language lessons began in earnest.
Chapter 10: Interlude
“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” - Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890 A.D. North American First People, Terra.
Wyrakka, chief warrior of the Rith, largest of the Wrth clans, known as ‘sharpest of the fierce’, gazed fondly over the many, many hands of orange and yellow sparks dotting the pitch-dark plains below him, like jewels on a black shroud-blanket. Around each blaze were thirty of his nation’s toughest fighters, who with their commander and priest made up the People’s basic fighting unit: a fire of warriors. The smallest, slowest moon was still high in the sky, but its illumination was too feeble to make out more than the faintest outline of the clan’s elders standing beside him.
“Already we are so strong, we need no concealment,” he said, in the hard-consonanted battle language of his people. A few moments’ silence followed, as the line of a half dozen men and women meditated on his words. Finally one dared to float another thought on the deeply-held silence. His best lieutenant, standing to his left, hawked and spat on the prairie grass.
“The prisoners died poorly,” she remarked.
True enough, Wyrakka thought. The last crop of prisoners had endured barely a single night of testing. The women captives had fared poorly also, only half a dozen of the original five-hands’-worth still survived. And such wretched, puny things they were, fit only for abuse and, if they learned quickly, at most a half year of slavery before the next celebration of Icecoming and the priests’ insatiable need for sacrifices. They will all feed our gods, Wyrakka thought, not just these few, but this entire nation of soft, slow, stupid farmers. They exist only to feed us and our gods.
The thought of those wretched women reminded him of Tsaikka, his mate and teka; claw to his fang, feather to his wing. She would be in the group of warriors around that campfire. He longed to dance the deep dance in her fierce embrace, but not until victory, he had so sworn before all. Not until his warriors pulled the last screaming, blubbering Talamae out of their stupid, useless stone-and-wood boxes, and dashed out the brains of their last squalling, undisciplined infants against its walls. Faugh! Only then would this land be cleansed and ready for the hordes of his people, already overflowing the fertile narrow valleys and pressing up against the mountains of their homelands. This entire land was one big valley, put here by his gods to feed his people, ripe for the taking.
“They will all die poorly,” he whispered savagely; not so soon as to imply he resented his lieutenant’s remark breaking the silence of his own words, nor so late as to suggest he thought her words unworthy. Several more minutes passed in silence.
“Does Wyrakka yet know the gods’ will for our thrust south?” asked the elder two places to his right, a lean, rangy man with one eye closed by a scar taken honorably in battle. A direct question. Good, the elders were becoming bolder! A swift, direct answer then, let the man deal with the ambiguity: either challenge-met-swiftly, or taunt-returned-for-impertinence.
“Within the next slow-moon, our blade will be at the groin of our enemies. I shall allow a hand-of-fires of younger warriors the joy of testing them first, while we old pthaqqa’s scour the plains with the blood of these earth-grubbers in isolated nests. There are so many of them.” Calling his own experienced warriors ‘washer-women slaves’, a deadly insult in most circumstances, indicated he was in good humor. As well he might be. Long after his body was consumed in its funeral pyre and his spirit joined the fire of sky-warriors, stories would be sung of Wyrakka’s bold vision and his leadership that transformed the Wrth nation from legend into greatness. This time, he thought hungrily, with the help of the O’dai war engines, their walls will not protect them.
Preliminary Report to Lord Tsano shu’Teescha shai’Talameths’cha, King of Talam and Absolute Ruler of the Talamae, et cetera, et cetera, in the matter of Kirrah shu’Roehl and the boy Akaray shu’Talafoth’shuah:
Dear Tsano:
Sorry if I missed one of your titles, it’s late and I know how you hated formality when you were my student. I have examined the stranger with the raptor’s name, whom you sent to my small collegium for language training and observation. After only two days (and you know how I hate rushing to judgements) I can report the following.
One: to every outward appearance, and as far as I can sense of her ath’la, she is an utterly human woman. Her body is thinner than one might expect, and her skin paler and hands and feet softer than anyone who does habitual physical labor. Nevertheless she is neither lazy nor soft nor slow, and is clearly one who respects shee’thomm as long as it is not arbitrary. Except for her apparent physical mildness, I would guess she has been something like a soldier, both a commander of others and under command; perhaps of a rank comparable to sana’tachk.
Two: she is a person of clean mind. Her speed at picking up our language has been remarkable, even given the help of that strange object-which-speaks. By the way, none of us can place any word of her native language. But she will sit at language-class with me for an hour, then stand respectfully watching Magister Brai’klao drone on to his class about civics or mathematics, then wrap him with questions like a hungry irwua. By the way I have no idea what to make of the boy’s tale of her surviving one of those nests, nor of her killing a tso’ckhai with a blow from that odd hand instrument she guards so closely; I must leave any military analysis to those you doubtless have reporting on such matters. Although I will add, since I alone may have noticed, that her strange gray outerwear has some truly remarkable capabilities and should not be underestimated as a defensive covering. For that matter, her undergarments, which arrived so filthy as to demand disposal, washed easily clean to the finest and softest and toughest fabric any of us has ever seen. If you wish more details of the undergarments of a strange woman, you have but to ask, oh King.
Three: (and may I say, the most difficult part of this assignment you have given your old magister, which in sum, more than makes up for your years of complaining about my assignments to you!), I turn to the matter of her ath’la. Hers is a complex one, possibly disjointed. She has been gravely injured in this area, and quite recently. Her extensive external bruises (see attached sketch) are but ripples on an irwua-pond. Her recovery is started; the lad Akaray told me she sang her own Deathnaming after his, and not a short one.
Whatever reason she is among us, she is neither cruel nor dangerously deceptive. Although she keeps much hidden, I believe she does not intend harm to the Talamae. She understands honor, and values courage, and I most strongly (and respectfully) suggest that Your Lordship make no effort to separate her from the boy until they are both ready. He seems to have a direct link to her power-of-darkness, which has been awakened by her recent injury and somehow enmeshed with their two healings-i
n-progress. The resulting braid-of-three will not break before either of them, that much is clear.
Four: her story. Kirrah – by the way, her name is not precisely the same as our large raptor the kae’rruckh, (even though their ath’laz have somewhat in common!) and it would be respectful to pronounce it correctly. Kirrah, of-father Roehl, of-place Dra’koo’nais, a place-name which in her language seems to mean ‘star of the fierce flying lizard’. Which is a problem right there. For you see, my Lord, I am faced with this otherwise sane, ordinary woman telling me she comes from, and I quote, ‘the other shore of the sky’. I am quite sure her skill with our language is not the problem, and this is exactly what she wanted me to understand. This matter I leave to your Lordship’s doubtless better judgement. She claims to be a representative of her government, which sounds rather like ‘rae’gnu’um’, and to be among us to establish something like a trade outpost and embassy in or near our city. I suggest Your Lordship and his doubtless wise ministers listen most closely to her claims, especially in light of my ito’lae’mara on the matter (detailed below).
Five: the boy Akaray is a well-mannered, energetic and intelligent young lad of six winters, and a credit to his dead parents’ skills at power-with. His story is appalling. In the raid which I’m sure your man Irshe will detail, his entire village was slain. Every living person this child has known is gone, may Source enfold their ath’la, and I suppose that means he has also inherited the village’s entire land-grant in his overburdened young life-path. Your assignment, my beloved student, which you cannot wriggle free of this time, will be to judge him well and place him without damage to the aforementioned braid-of-three or his own true life-path. I wish you well in this task.