The nearest fire v1 0, p.21
The Nearest Fire (V1.0), page 21
“Where was Elbin at this time?” asked Tiath with keen interest.
“Wandering,” said Tsorl and Ammur together.
Tsorl fell silent, and let the Ningan continue.
“Wandering in the north,’* said Ammur. “The Highness was stricken with her madness long before the so-called Last Battle.”
“If times had been more peaceful for her clan, Elbin’s madness might have been called no more than waywardness,” said Tsorl.
“Did you see her then?” asked Ammur. “She would hardly utter a word.”
“Some hermits take a vow of silence,” said Tsorl.
“She would not order her affairs!” said Ammur indignantly. “She would take no part in the land dispute or the preparations for battle. She showed little grief at the death of her own children.”
“There was a reason for this,” said Tsorl. “I can tell a little about that sad time.”
“I was but two years shown at the time of the Sarunin disaster,” said Tiath. “Where do you get this stuff? You are the same age as myself.”
“Your pardon, Highness,” said Tsorl, “I am seven years younger than yourself….”
It was hard to believe; Tsorl-U-Tsorl looked old and weatherbeaten in comparison with the Great Elder.
“Speak up, Deputy!” cried the Ningan. “What of Orath Sorell? Did you see him or his kin? Do you know where he lies?”
“I will weave all the threads together,” said Tsorl heavily and reluctantly. “It was a thing I swore never to do all my life long, but I will do it. Orath Sorell, Teacher Sorell so-called, was neither a vassal nor a house-servant, he was a citizen of Tsagul. Yet his devotion to his two charges, the young Highness Tell, a female of fourteen years, and her younger male sib Geran, was very deep. The fortunes of the Fire Clan were at a low ebb before they decided to go to war….”
“I’m glad to hear you say it,” put in Tiath. “Pentroy has been blamed for their ruin.”
“The Pentroy and the Dohtroy clans both had a hand in the fall of the Tsatroy,” said Tsorl bluntly. “Tsatroy was a poor clan with shrunken lands; it was the relict of the old warrior clans who guarded the Fire-Town and had little interest in trade or mining. Its five branch families lived crowded together in the Old Palace. Elbin was far away on her wanderings when the foolish decision to take up arms was made. Sorell held back the two children in her name, else they would surely have marched off with their cousins.
“When the news came of the plague and the sacrifice at Sarunin, it was the signal for the few remaining servants to die or to desert the accursed clan. Orath Sorell and his two pupils sat alone in the palace, surrounded by the bodies of the dead and the empty coffers that faithless servants had plundered. He sent word to Elbin Tsatroy. ..
“How did he do that?” put in Hath sharply.
“The young Highness Tell was a Witness,” said Tsorl with perfect confidence. “She was able to link with her mother. Then Orath Sorell took the children and a little silver that he had put by and fled up the Datse to a farm that was his own inheritance from a grandmother.”
‘Took the children?” asked the Ningan, plucking the Great Elder by the sleeve. “Took the children… .”
“Before he quit the palace, he made two graves, two empty fire-stone graves like the one we stand at now,” said Tsorl. “He knew that even the most foolhardy person would not risk disturbing the rest of a member of the accursed Tsatroy clan. He raised the white cairns of stones above them and left a skein mourning the children’s death from a fever.”
The Ningan reached under her cloak and brought out a skein of white silk.
“This is a copy from memory,” said the Ningan. “The original is locked up in Rintoul.”
She put the skein into the hands of the Great Elder, who read it to himself, his long fingers moving impatiently over the knots. He did not take his eyes from Tsori’s face. I sat by the empty grave listening to the strange yet familiar story as if in a dream. The Deputy had thrown back the new cloak that he wore and stood there in his old red tunic and his leather vest; he set his hand upon the metal armband that had been wrought from Elbin Tsatroy’s metal candlestick. I noticed that his hands, though dark and work-stained, were long and fine.
“Elbin Tsatroy came to Sorell's farm and saw her children several times,” said Tsorl. “The poor child Geran did not thrive—he died three springs later. In the fourth spring after Sarunin, when Tell Elbinroyan was eighteen years shown, she made a pair marriage with her dear friend and protector, Orath Sorell. She bore and pouched one child—a male.”
“This is presumption and madness!” cried the Ningan. “A male child—born five years from Sarunin—seven years younger than the Great Elder. Tsorl-U-Tsorl, your records are vague but they are set down. Child of a farmer at Trill Fall..
“Yes?” said Tsorl.
“Trill Fall—a farm upon the river Datse… The Ningan’s voice trailed into silence.
“The little family lived on in that peaceful place,” said Tsorl, “and Elbin came by now and then and blessed them. She had no thought that they should ever return to the world or live in any other way. Tell Tellroyan, the heir of Elbin, took ill and died thirteen years after Sarunin, when her child was eight years shown. From that time Elbin’s madness deepened. It may have been a kindness for the Pentroy to restrain her—but hardly in such a place as this.”
“This cannot be proved—this is all dream-spinningl” cried the Ningan in a shaking singsong.
“Not much can be proved,” said the Deputy, “yet there are a few threads….”
He gestured to me, and I sprang up. He unclasped the broad band of metal from his forearm and pressed on its underside. From a hollow in the worked metal, he took a piece of silk, which he unfolded carefully and put into my hand. I saw that it was embroidered in black, a series of interlocking lines and circles upon the fine purple-brown of the old silk.
“This family skein was embroidered by Elbin’s own hand,” he said.
I took the piece of silk, and Ammur Ningan came to receive it from me; she gave it to the Great Elder, and he examined it in silence.
“I cannot understand …” said Tiath softly, “I cannot understand why such a wonder would be kept hidden. It might have brought friends and followers.”
“These can be earned by other means,” said Tsorl.
“This is a skein, then, lowing the descent of the elder branch of Clan Tsatroy, from mother to mother for several generations,” said the Great Elder. “It bears the name of Elbin and of Tell, her heir, and of that child, bora in exile….”
“I will say it once,” said Tsorl, “though I break my own covenant. I will say it once only and never again, of that you may be sure. I am Tsorl Tellroyan Tsatroy, of Tell’s family and Elbin’s blood and the distant mothering of Telverel, Sebbin and Tsam!”
The Great Elder lowered his gaze; he refolded the piece of silk and returned it to the Ningan, who brought it to me. I placed it in Tsorl’s hand, and he set it back in his arm-band.
“You have no heirs,” said the Great Elder flatly.
“None. It is finished. Clan Tsatroy will never come again,” said Tsorl.
“Yet you have spoken…
‘There is one living who can lift the curse on Sarunin,” said Tsorl. “The ship Heron can have a neutral landing place.”
“How shall this be done?” said Tiath.
“Let it be your will,” said Tsorl, almost smiling. “That should be enough.”
“By the fire,” burst out the Great Elder, “I have been troubled all my life by know-alls like yourself, by hotheads and fools … by the hot breath of Tsagul and its fire-metal-magic. A Citizen can dare much—it is but one person; it can be voted in and out of office and can lay down its burden. A clan member who chooses to serve Torin must do all….”
“There is still a choice,” said Tsorl. “A clan member can idle its life away in wandering or flying or playing hold-stone. As for fire-metal-magic, it is a thread so strained that it must break. We have fire and we have metal, and we pretend not to use them: this is mere foolishness.”
“Don’t lecture me … cousin!” said Tiath angrily. “See that your creature speaks no word out of place.”
Then he stepped back and made the sign of greeting from one grandee to another; the Ningan bowed; Tiath Pentroy went striding out of the graveyard with his steward after him. We were left alone in the light of the Great Sun just rising, turning the eastern sky to gold. I stared at Tsorl in wonder, and when he looked at me I could not meet his eye. He was a grandee. Yet he seemed no different; he had hardly lived the life of a grandee. He was still the Deputy and the prisoner I had saved upon the raft and the scientist who dared to fly in the ship of the void and learn its secrets.
“Deputy…” I said, “Tsorl-U-Tsorl..
“I am still that person.” He smiled.
“What of Nantgeeb? She saw some of this: an empty grave ringed with fire.”
“This magician knows many of the secrets of Torin,” he replied. “She is well-informed, I guess, about the doings on this long, silly skein, the Speaking Chain.”
“Dorn Brinroyan always hopes that she will come or send Blacklock, the hero, in his flying machine… .”
“Nantgeeb has had the sense not to meddle and to annoy Tiath even further. She will come again when the humans are settled in Sarunin.”
“Will it be a good place for their camp? Will they make another fine place like the camp of Tsabeggan?” I asked. “I often think of that time in the islands … in Car-Der-Vanuyu, the Place Beyond the Four Winds.”
“What was that you called it?” asked the Deputy.
When I repeated the name, he turned to me and set a hand on my forehead, smoothing back my hair.
“Yolo Harn,” he said, and I saw that his sharp black eyes, the eyes of Elbin Tsatroy, were full of tears.
“You are indeed a child of destiny,” he said. “How do these thoughts come into your head? That was the name my mother used for ouf farm at Trill Fall. Car-Der-Vanuyu. A place of peace and learning and delight, far from the world….”
“There are many such places,” I whispered. “We find them from time to time, if we have good fortune.”
“Come now,” said Tsorl. “Keep silent about my family. It is an old thread, no more. When I am dead, perhaps it may all be set down.”
So now it is set down. For time has passed since that morning in late summer on Itsik, and of all who stood in the graveyard, I am the only one left alive.
II
The Speaking Chain wound swiftly to a close. The Great Elder gave it out that day that Tsorl-U-Tsorl, former Deputy of the Fire-Town, had volunteered to lift the curse on Sarunin, to go alone into the valley and perform the necessary rites. No one wondered much at the decision.
Once Hath had withdrawn his objections, everyone voted for the new site.
Ammur Ningan, working swiftly, as became the scribe of scribes, had prepared a perfect net of rules and regulations for the humans once they set up camp in the valley. Contact with Momians was not forbidden, but it was limited; friends and helpers of the Bio-Survey Team were given a special identifying skein. For other Moruians there were the popular guided tours and picture shows concerning the Planet Earth. Vassals of every clan took turns patrolling the borders of the valley and its small harbor so that human artifacts were not brought out.
The humans paid in credits and in common things such as timber and fish for any work they had done or goods they purchased. Scott Gale was rich from his Brinroyan family and the goods they had all won in the Bird Clan Air Race. He purchased the freedom of the Itsik prisoners who had been injured on Mid-Year Day, and they became helpers in Sarunin.
The ship Heron rose up in its terrifying power and was gone from the red road at Itsik; it came down again in the valley, where a place had been prepared for it. And the valley was still called Sarunin or sometimes Heron-Hoo— Heron-call or Heron-shout—for the great noise of the ship. There was no uprush of scientific knowledge or fire-metal-magic, as some had feared; the humans were contained and controlled, and Tiath Pentroy had his way still.
Last Threads
There came a day in spring, after the New Year, when everything had been put in order. I stepped out of my tent in the valley, Sarunin, and looked at the ship and the new building sites, and the stands of redwood trees. I remembered that I had to take a load of thatch faggots to the dock so I loaded up a barrow. Ablo Binigan came to fetch me as I was unloading.
“Go to the eating platform, Yolo Harn,” he said. “They are keeping breakfast for you.”
Sam was there, Lisa was cooking egg-pasty, Karen came up with Scott Gale: they had been taking the weather readings from a platform in a new tree. I sat with them, and we talked of ordinary things and made jokes, just as we had done at first. Tsorl-U-Tsorl was not with us; he was resting in Tilje Paroyan’s villa at Deerfold Ponds, near Tsagul. The day was a special one; Sam stood up and began to make a speech of farewell. Then he stopped.
“Oh Goddammit, Yolo … what can we say to you?”
He gave me a hug and tinned aside and blew his nose noisily.
“Good-bye, Sam Deg …” I said as bravely as I could. “I will come again.”
Then they all came to me and gave me presents: a new blanket, a word-book, an embroidered cloth vest from the Brinroyan looms, a precious wind-finder or compass in a leather case. Karen-Ru and Scott Gale walked with me up the gentle slope of the valley to the red road. A few sleepy vassals came out of the place the humans called a Customs House and waved me through without a search.
I stole a glance at Karen on one side, small and slight, with the childish streaked hair that I had seen in the forest on Tsabeggan. I looked up at Scott Gale, tall, black-haired, black-bearded. Their two human voices rang out; I had a moment of complete astonishment. How could this be? How could these beings be here and how could I have become their friend, so that we were sad at parting? We clasped hands then, and I turned and walked off without looking back, along the red road to Tsagul.
I turned my thoughts entirely toward the Fire-Town. I had a scroll and a skein in my vest asking for a full pardon and signed by numerous dignitaries including Tilje Paroyan, Tsorl-U-Tsorl, Guno Wentroy and Boss Black. Better still I had credits earned by translating to buy my freedom, and I knew that Vel Ragan would be waiting at City Hall to help me.
So I walked on in perfect spring weather along the red road and behind my eyes a strange thought grew. “Uvoro …” said the wind as it stirred the dry bushes by the roadside; “Uvoro …” cried the bird wheeling high in the sky. Freedom. For even with people we love, even with interesting work to do, there are debts to be paid, promises to be kept. We cannot feel complete freedom. It is a lonely thing.
I paused on a hill, out of sight of Sarunin, and looked to the south. I could just see a line of light beyond the coastal valleys and low hills: the Great Ocean Sea. Then far away, coming from Tsagul, I saw a dust cloud. I waited and saw that a party of people was coming toward me; they did not look like porters or merchants. In fact as they came closer I blinked and rubbed my eyes. There were five, seven of these folk, and they wore flax kilts. I stood and looked at them as politely as I could, and presently they hailed me.
A tall female with skin-sewing on her forehead bowed and said, “Good wind, young traveler! Perhaps you can help us?”
“Good wind, gentle friends,” I replied. “I will help you if I can. Have you passed through Tsagul?”
“No,” said the Leader. “We crossed the Datse above the Fire-Town. We come from the Far West. We have heard that a strange being has fallen to the ground, and that there is a Speaking Chain….”
Inwardly I laughed with delight. I bowed politely and replied, “Truly, my friends, you have come a little too late. But there are beings called Humans come to this land, and their camp is just a little way along the road at the place called Sarunin. Go there and observe their wonders … it is quite safe. Ask for the Moruian helper, Ablo Binigan, who arranges guided tours and shows pictures. Say that Yolo Ham sent you.”
They questioned me a little further, and then went on their way. So in two days and nights, camping by the roadside, I came back to my home town, the old, dry, workaday city of Tsagul. I went straight to the City Hall on the third morning of my journey, and Vel Ragan already had my pardon in his hand.
“You have a friend, Yolo Ham,” he said. “A third of the sentence was already cancelled.”
I could not think who this friend might be, but I suspected that it was Tsorl-U-Tsorl. I did not wait to make inquiries at City Hall. I thanked Vel Ragan and paid him for his trouble. Then after a few hours enjoying the sun on Market Round, I set off out of town to the north. I was heading for that particular place on the Datse canals, just beyond the city, where Morritt had her work. She had described the house—a gray roundhouse with a small-leafed redwood in the front yard, a weaver’s mile from the Lebbin lock. So I walked on, through the warm streets where the children sang, watching an occasional glider overhead that told me I was home again. Some time after midday I saw the tree and the house. Two or three children ran about and stopped to stare as I came up. A female, old and stout, stood digging beside the small gray roundhouse; it was Morritt.
She turned, peering from beneath the brim of her sun hat, then she threw down the digging fork and came toward me. We did not speak, we could not; I held her close and wept. It was Morritt, my true sib and my dear mother. Other persons came from around about, and everyone spoke of Morritt’s child coming home “from the sea,” as they politely put it.
Something in the face of the eldest child made me ask suddenly, “But whose house is this?”
“Do you not know?” asked Morritt, wiping her eyes. “It is the home of Tenn Tennroyan. He is much better now, back on half-time at the New Cut as a Tally Hand.”
Then I knew how my sentence had been lightened; it had been worked out in lieu of credits. Morritt had given all that she had to give, her own strength; she had been working for the overseer’s family all this time, to help set me free. She had heard nothing of my escape from Itsik, but this was not unusual; the prison authorities waited a long time before a prisoner was given up for lost.
