Redworld, p.1
Redworld, page 1
REDWORLD
Charles L. Harness
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Gateway Introduction
Contents
Author’s Note
1. The Procession
2. Josi
3. Memories of Women
4. S–144
5. The Main Room
6. Gil’s Elixir
7. Dean Qard
8. A Mix: Jeil, Temple, and Flash of Blade
9. A Long Walk
10. The House
11. The Bridge
12. Sheep May Safely Graze
13. Charity Multiplied
14. Gard is Horrified
15. Coronel Dite
16. I Am Auctioned
17. Josi’s Room
18. Science!
19. Dactylography
20. The Face
21. An Anatomical Anomaly
22. The Explosion
23. Night Watch
24. In the Library
25. Inside the Tower
26. The Raid
27. Jeil
28. The Death Hut
29. The Revenant
Website
Also by Charles L. Harness
Dedication
About the Author
Copyright
Author’s Note
JUST A COUPLE of comments.
First: As the final draft of Redworld was limping to a close, my old friend William Barney (the Texas Poet Laureate) sent me his latest volume of poems, A Little Kiss of the Nettle. Nettle is done in blank verse and is devoted exclusively to insights into the machinery of words and sentences, how they are fashioned into poetry, and the mortal expectations of poets. As I savored Nettle I suddenly realized I had left poets out of the Procession in Chapter One. This had to be fixed. But where should they go? Hardly at the head of the parade in the exalted company of assassins and thieves. But where? The Laureate provided hints:
… Cooks and poets seldom gain much thanks
from those they feed. Keep to your kitchen
and your attic, men say. It is honor enough
that you are allowed to dabble
in the precious stuff you bring to table.
So then, is poetry, like virtue, to be its own reward?
Whoa there! says the Texas lyricist. We’re entitled to more. We need to know that somebody—man, God, Martian—something, is out there, listening; we need
… to catch a glint, hear a scraping
somewhere out in the periphery—
to know that a strange, unutterable
intelligence has been grazed.
But he acknowledges (alas):
I feel like a brother to that poor devil
standing there on the street corner
preaching earnestly from a small volume in one hand,
gesticulating with the other.
Nobody listens to him, either.
So how shall we rank poets? We look to the Laureate for the final clue:
There are almost as many poets
as rattlesnakes in Texas,
but they’re not as popular.
And there we have it. And as on Terra, so on Redworld.
Second: Is Redworld autobiographical? Only my distant Quaker ancestors know for sure. True, my first job (it was 1933, and I was seventeen) was in a paper warehouse in a red light district; and later I was a clerk in a police department. True, my beloved older brother died of inoperable brain tumors. But as to the rest, as Evelyn Waugh said in Brideshead Revisited: “I am not I … they are not they.” Of course, Mary Dyer, the Quaker Martyr, was true and real, and she was indeed hanged for her too-oft-stated belief in the Sixth Commandment and for other wrong-thinking. But the good men of Boston were unable to destroy her completely. Today her statue stands in front of Dyer Hall at Harlham College, in Richmond, Indiana, and probably other places. Some day a starship may indeed carry her name to some Redworld and find there the answer she sought.
Illogical? Far-fetched? So what? The Nettler:
It is true I admire close reasoning,
a carefully articulated process.
But there’s another thing I love:
a total piece of farfetchedry.
—C.L.H.
1
The Procession
AFTER OUR SKIMPY breakfast, Mother followed me out onto the landing and fixed troubled eyes on me. “You know they are having a Great Procession today.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“And they are going to electroburn that terrible lamia, Jehanne-Mar.”
“Yes, I know.”
“She still insists she will identify the Revenant within her lifetime—so they say.”
(Poor harmless hag, I thought. They’re killing her because she’s crazy. And my own misguided mother goes along with the whole sorry farce.) “It’s all a monia cloud,” I said. “She hasn’t laid the evil eye on anybody.”
“But she will.” Mother’s eyes widened in hard concern. “As she dies, she will prophesy. She will point out—someone. And since she is a lamia, her prophecy will be a curse.” She grabbed me by the shoulders. “Pol! You must not witness the burning. Promise me!”
“Mother,” I said reasonably, “I have to pass the Procession on my way to work. There is simply no other way to get to the paper manufactory.” I held up my hand. “Listen.” The great temple bells were beginning to clang out the half-hori. “You don’t want me to be late, my first day at work.”
“No, of course not,” she agreed hurriedly. But she still held me.
I broke away from her protective clutch and clattered down the steps two at a time.
She called after me, “Don’t watch! Don’t watch! Promise!”
Oh Mother! How can I promise? During my twenty years Damaskis has not had a single public execution. And now, today ….
I quickened my steps.
But the closer I got to the center of town, the harder it was to make any progress. The entire population had turned out for the Procession and/or the killing. The great parade was assembling on Vys Street which led to the paper mill. The lane was of course completely closed off and lined by club-clutching militia. I pressed forward. I had to see. I bumped into people and they bumped back. A great day for pickpockets. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) I carried not a single solati. Nor even a purse, for that matter.
The mob was rough, but things could have been worse. Thirty years ago (so I have read), when the Great Treaty was signed, we had a Grand Procession by torchlight. (Never before, never again!) There were douzaine-to-the-fourth lamps, candles, lanterns, and flambeaux on the streets all night. The whole town was lit up in a soft pink glow, as lethal as it was lovely, for there were two douzaine fires and the vada-wagons were rushing about all night and into the first red rays of dawn. And all night long, and all over town, the bells rang! Our bells have names. Provost. Coronel. Prelate. Fat Mayor. Sweet Dama. Middler. Mannikin. And many others. And of course, the biggest of all, Revenant, cast of mighty sky-metal. The Revenant has never rung. Once Gil and I climbed up into the temple tower to see why: it had rusted shut to its suspending yoke. Which is just as well, because it is not supposed to ring until the coming of the Revenant himself—to be accompanied (it is predicted) by another Torchlight Procession. None of which of course will ever happen. Myths are for the distant past or the never-arriving future. We have a sardonic expression, “when Revenant rings,” meaning never.
But back to the present!
By dint of much jabbing and elbowing and stepping on indignant toes I battled through seething mobs along the side of the City Building, spied a gutter spout that led up to a ledge, and in an instant I was up the gutter and standing on the ledge, facing the square. All in the nick of time; for the Procession was starting.
I looked off to the left, over the buzz of faces, searching for the leader of this magnificent cavalcade. Who wo uld it be? Certainly neither priest nor scientist, for neither would permit the other. No, the question had been settled by a curious compromise, very neatly spelled out in the Great Treaty. Indeed, the solution was so simple and so outrageously stupid that both sides claimed to have proposed it. I quote from the Treaty (as best I can remember): “At the head of the Procession shall walk a person of suitable renown, proposed by the chief scientist and approved by the chief prelate (which approval shall not unreasonably be withheld). Across folded arms the head shall carry a scented cushion, on which shall some day rest the Sacred Arrow that has slain (and thereby brought to life) the Revenant.”
What a bunch of borch-lumps!
I recognized the man up front: Coronel Dite, chief of our local militia. His medaled uniform sparkled in the red sunlight, but his face was expressionless, even cold. He held the maroon cushion on folded arms with weary grace. I wondered what he thought about all this. Did the august coronel have any thought that he would ever be called upon to carry the real Sacred Arrow? Probably not. Nobody—militia, clergy, nor scientists—seemed to know much about the Arrow, nor who would loose it, nor when, nor why. Nor what kind of bow would be used. The longbow is best for distance, but there aren’t many around anymore. Only hunters use them, for the wild zork. The militia carry a portable crossbow, on which the berylin-hardened alumen blades fold out with an ominous click to form the bow, and the square-sectioned shaft is already in place. You simply aim and pull the trigger. At close range the shaft will pierce a human body completely, and death can be very quick.
And so passed Coronel Dite, followed by a train of celebrants in ragged progression.
After the cushion-carrier the rank of marching guilds is determined strictly by the Treaty. Quite reasonably, the order reflects social standing, both the impact of the individual guilds on society, and the effort expended to produce the impact.
First, the Assassins Guild. One man, in deadly black, masked. He exists only in an honorary capacity. He’s supposed to kill the unlucky soul who shoots the Revenant. Thus we have three unknowns, all totally imaginary: characters in a play yet to be written.
Next, the Guild of Thieves (including burglars, general robbers, pickpockets, embezzlers, and highwaymen). Lawyers fought hard to be included, but despite their unique and nearly effortless methods of relieving citizens of their property, they were finally persuaded to form their own guild.
Next, the medics, including physicians and cirurgeons, forced to give way to the Assassins for first place, owing largely to a certain ambiguity, even clumsiness, in the manner of their ultimate accomplishment. And excluded from the Thieves even though the victim paid the fee—an administrative feature greatly envied by both of the two precedent guilds.
Then,
Gamblers,
Professional mourners,
Moneylenders,
Astrologers,
Forgers and counterfeiters,
Torturers, and
Poets.
(According to the Treaty minutes, there was a considerable dispute as to whether Poets were entitled to precede Torturers. The matter was settled by flip of a solati.)
Then Mystics. (Three grades: ordinary, elevated, and grand, depending on the fee paid to the temple.)
Already the guild apprentices were chanting the services of their masters and passing out leaflets and price lists. A gust of wind blew a sheet up to me, and I grabbed it.
Oaths and Curses
Beng Brothers
Court Street
Imprecations for all occasions. Composed while you wait. Rates reasonable. Bankruptcies and unwelcome weddings a specialty.
Winners of the Triad Award
And then the City Government:
Tax collectors (the Guild of Thieves refused to admit them).
Militia.
Clerks.
Mail carriers.
Next, the artisans:
Weavers.
Carpenters.
Masons.
Copyists.
After that I rather lost count.
I noted, though:
Farmers.
Brewers.
Butchers.
Bakers.
Grocers.
Paper makers. (There! As of today, my guild! And already a considerable mystery. Who had paid my douzaine-cubed solati guild entrance fee? Not I; not Mother; not the paper mill; certainly not the temple. Who was my invisible patron? No answer.)
On with the Procession. Next,
Balloonists.
And finally, just before the Cart, and proving that the Procession marshals were sufficiently broad-minded to include even the dregs of society:
Teachers.
It is a spectacle of bizarre beauty. The great red morning sun shines down through d-douzaine stadia of NH3 vapor on the passing parade, bathing all in hues of crimson, scarlet, carnelian, and here and there a dash of pastel pink. Even the cries, shouts, and slap of boots on cobbles seem possessed of some shade of red.
Red red red.
(“That’s why we call it Redworld,” my late brother Gil had explained, years ago. “But why does everything have to be red? What is color? Are there in fact other colors? Strange colors, colors our eyes can’t see, either because the colors are not there, or because our eyes are sensitive only to shades of red? Suppose the sun were X-color, or Y-color? Or X plus Y plus Z? What colors would we see then?” Oh Gil! Always asking questions that had no answers.)
I’m jerked from my reverie.
What is this? In an instant everything turns upside-down. Like something materializing out of a fog, the Electroburn Cart suddenly stands before us.
The vehicle had been drawn in by two somnolent borches painted death-black for the occasion. An attendant now unharnessed them and drew them aside.
On the railed vehicle stood Dean Gard and his victim, Jehanne-Mar. The poor shrunken creature was bound and gagged, and looked quite harmless. Her head kept bobbing, up, down, around, as though searching, searching. I caught a glimpse of flashing bright eyes.
In the center of the cart sat the Chair, and behind that the Battery.
Skilled acolytes now unbound the sorceress, clapped her into the hungry Chair, pulled back sleeves and skirt, and buckled the bitter alumen metal belts to her skinny trembling flesh. They left her right arm free as required by the Treaty, in case she wanted to make the sign of the great S, for Siris, the good god.
She was going to die because she claimed she would identify the Revenant in her lifetime. By Treaty such claim was recognized as the prime heresy, summarily treatable by the Sacrament of Electroburning. So far, however, she had pointed out no one, and now it looked as though her fantasy would die with her.
Despite the considerable distance, I could see the holy man’s lips moving. According to the prescribed Ritual, he was inviting her to recant, though, of course, he was going to kill her anyway. Next (again per Ritual) he stripped off her gag.
There was a sudden silence in the square.
Jehanne-Mar slowly raised her free arm. It wavered and trembled. Was she going to sign S for repentance? No. She steadied her arm with a last surge of strength. She made a fist. Then she unleashed an index finger. A gasp of horror from those nearest. And now I see why. She has but five fingers. The devil siriS has bitten off one of her six fingers, to mark her for his own.
Now what?
The terrible glittering eyes and the outstretched arm swung slowly about the assembled mob. The faces turned away. No one could endure that horrid finger, those dooming barbs.
Gard’s hand hovered over the switch.
And now I heard several things clearly, sounds that blended together in one terrible cacophony.
Dean Gard (pulling switch): I give thee over to thy master, siriS!
