The ring of five dragons, p.4
The Ring of Five Dragons, page 4
part #1 of The Pearl Series
“Get out of here!” Annon growled into the Kundalan’s bewildered face. Then, more forcefully: “Do as I say, female, and do it quickly before I change my mind!”
Kurgan, on his knees, groaned again and coughed up pale blue phlegm. As the Kundalan waded hastily toward shore, he lunged after her. She screamed. Annon dragged him back into the creek. Kurgan kicked him in the shin.
“I want what I want, my friend,” he panted as they grappled. “Stay out of my way, I warn you.”
“I have given her safe passage,” Annon said.
This made Kurgan laugh. “Are you mad? Who are you to grant her such a thing?”
“I am the regent’s son.” Why was he doing this? Annon asked himself. What was this alien female to him? His mind’s eye was filled with the sight of Giyan writhing in bed with his father while he called his mother’s name. The night, he had come to learn, is the time to give voice to one’s own pain.
“Oh, yes. Eleusis the Great, Eleusis the Powerful,” Kurgan sneered. He was angry and frustrated. “The man whose father was anointed by the Gyrgon, held on close leash by the Gyrgon, a regent like all others, without power. Power which resides solely with the Gyrgon.”
“And yet, your own father lusted after the regent’s crown and moved heaven and earth to claim the Gyrgon vote,” Annon countered.
“My father is a fool, obsessed with his enmity against your family. Had I been him, I would have found a way to become regent.”
“And then what? The regent serves at the pleasure of the Gyrgon. The power resides with them. This is the way it has always been.”
“But not the way it must be forever!”
Then they were at it again with tooth and nail, muscle and sinew, brute strength and guile—drawing on every asset available to their powerful, youthful minds and bodies.
Eleana, the Kundalan girl, watched with a certain fascinated terror as these two alien beasts fought in the shallows just below her. She gathered her clothes, not with the due haste Annon had ordered, but with a languor born of this battle. Now to have two V’ornn fighting over her, it was, well, overwhelming. True, they were beasts, cruel and hairless and stinking and unknowable. And yet, the one with the colorless eyes had come to her defense not, as she had assumed, to take her himself, but to save her. She felt a curious linkage, a warmth for him, small as a stydil larva, yes, but one that could not be gainsaid.
And so, counter to all logic, she lingered, listening to the drumbeat of her heart. It was she who saw the sacred gyreagle first—The Goddess Müna’s right hand—plummeting down from a sky white and flat with noontime sunlight. She lifted one arm to shield her eyes against the glare and saw the enormous bird heading for the two V’ornn. It was golden, with a pure white crest and a terrible reddish beak used for rending its prey’s flesh from bone. By this time, it seemed as if the V’ornn with the colorless eyes had the upper hand. Now she could hear the rapid beat of the gyreagle’s wings, see the spread of its curved yellow talons.
The gyreagle struck the V’ornn with the colorless eyes, scoring bloody lines along the right side of his rib cage. He screamed. In what special way had he angered the Goddess? Eleana asked herself. A question without an answer. Both boys scrambled away, their own pitched battle forgotten. The wounded V’ornn writhed in the shallows, while the other—his friend?—scrambled to his knees, raised his left arm straight as a javelin and, as the gyreagle was gaining the sky, shot it through the heart with one of those hateful metal bolts. Eleana cried out. The majestic bird spiraled to the ground, panting out its last breaths. Another mortal sin among many perpetrated by the V’ornn against Müna.
In five huge strides the V’ornn had caught up with her. She was paralyzed by the attacks and by the sudden death of the bird. He threw her to the rocky ground and, before she knew what was happening, took her with the deep grunts and loud groans befitting a victorious V’ornn.
I don’t want you telling anyone about this,” Kurgan warned. “You’re thinking of my father’s recent prohibition against raping Kundalan females.” Annon was bathing the four diagonal gouges the gyreagle’s talons had made in his flesh.
Kurgan nursed his swollen side. “Stupid though it is, it’s still the law.”
The shallows of the creek where they squatted were filled with the shadows of grey rock, the brief swirl of turquoise V’ornn blood in the eddies. Of the tadpoles and the young Kundalan female there was no sign.
“I mean, the Khagggun do whatever they wish in the countryside far from the regent’s prying eyes. Or so I have heard it softly spoken.”
Annon had heard this as well, but he said nothing. Both boys inspected Annon’s wound with growing curiosity.
“I like it not. This is terribly swollen.” Kurgan pressed the reddened skin between the gouges. “By Enlil, I think he’s left a bit of his claw inside you.”
“I guess we had better try to get it out.”
Kurgan nodded, removed a thin-bladed skinning knife from his belt, held it tip up. “Ready?”
Annon nodded, gritting his teeth. He averted his head as the tip slipped into the wound. He cried out, and again until Kurgan gave him a length of rawhide he used for stringing up his catch. Annon gratefully put it in his mouth and clamped down hard. Three minutes later, he had passed out.
Kurgan splashing water on his face brought him around.
“It’s no use,” his friend said. “I can gut a gimnopede, but I am no surgeon. The damned thing kept going deeper the more I pried. I cannot go on.”
Annon felt wrapped in pain. “Thank Enlil, God of War!”
“I doubt there will be an infection,” Kurgan observed. “We’ve cleaned the wounds thoroughly.” He tore the sleeve from his blouse.
“Oww!” Annon cried. “Careful how tight you tie that!”
“Has to be tight. We don’t want you bleeding as soon as we start to walk, do we?”
Annon took a couple of tentative breaths.
“How does it feel?”
“I won’t die.”
Kurgan chuckled. “Spoken like a true V’ornn.”
Annon nodded, accepting the compliment. “We had better get going if we want to make it back home before supper.”
“I was serious about what I said before.” Kurgan put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Before we leave let’s make a pact. Let’s swear the seigggon: we will never speak of this afternoon to anyone. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Annon said. They gripped each other’s wrist in the seigggon, then allowed their okummmon to touch. A spark arced briefly between them.
Kurgan rose and helped Annon to his feet.
“What do you make of that bird?” Annon winced as they waded to shore. “I’ve never heard of one attacking a person.”
Kurgan jerked his head in the direction of the avian corpse. “Well, one thing’s for certain: it won’t be attacking anything else.”
Annon picked his way along the shoreline until he was standing over the gyreagle. With some difficulty he squatted down. “You’re right,” he said. “Look here, it’s lost one of its talons. And there’s fresh blood at the stump.”
“To the victor go the spoils,” Kurgan said. “Part of that damned bird is inside you now.”
Annon stood. He was silent a long time. “To N’Luuura with it.” he growled. Then he turned and retraced his steps back to where his friend waited for him.
“That’s right” Kurgan threw his head back and laughed. “To N’Luuura with it!”
Together, they went slowly up the creek bank. The sun looked compressed in the thicker atmosphere closer to the horizon. After the cool water, the afternoon seemed hot and sticky and still. Gimnopedes twittered and flitted as they neared the first stand of sysal, but both boys had had their fill of the hunt for one day.
“So you think my father’s law against raping Kundalan females is stupid, eh?” Annon said.
“Of course it’s stupid. They’re nothing more than soulless animals, right? Why shouldn’t we take our pleasure from them when and where we please?”
“As stupid as his plans to build Za Hara-at, I suppose.”
Kurgan turned his head and spat. “I have heard many V’ornn say that the idea is an abomination.” He possessed the watchful eyes of a snow-lynx. Annon knew that he could be every inch the bully that his father was, but he also had the ingenuity of a chü-fox, the small mammal that haunted the middle reaches of the Djenn Marre. “Imagine V’ornn and Kundalan working side by side! Idiotic! It would give the Kundalan the false impression that they are our equals.”
“And yet, against all odds, the building is scheduled to begin within weeks.” This wasn’t the first time Annon had been required to defend the regent’s policies, and he knew it would not be the last. But this was Kurgan, his hingatta-mate, his best friend. “You know what I think? I think my father is right. There is more to the Kundalan than we suspect.”
“That will be the season!” Kurgan guffawed.
They had reached the trees now, and Annon was obliged to pause. He could not seem to catch a breath without pain flaming through him.
“Shall we take a break?” Kurgan asked.
They sat in silence for a time. Annon was thinking about the Kundalan female. He felt sick at heart. Her beautiful face, that haunted look in her eyes, the expression that had fleetingly passed between them all unspooled in his mind’s eye, replaying over and over. He wondered where she had come from, where she was now. He hoped she had not run into a Khagggun pack.
He looked over at Kurgan, who was sharpening one of his bolt points. “You know, if I was Gyrgon, I probably wouldn’t need this bandage. I’d already have found a way to heal the wound.”
“The Gyrgon are technomages,” Kurgan said, “not sorcerers.”
“But aren’t they always trying to beat death? I mean, there’s that saying of theirs: ‘The mystery of death can only be solved by the mastery of life.’”
“And you think you know what that means?”
“The Gyrgon are Great Caste just like us, only they have been genetically altered before birth, their genes realigned, their flesh and blood and bone embedded with tertium and germanium circuits. They’re all hooked into one gigantic biomatrix, that’s why they call themselves the Comradeship.”
Kurgan laughed. “Stories, lies, half-truths. Don’t kid yourself, my friend, no one knows a thing about the Gyrgon. Not that I wouldn’t give a couple of fingers to find out what they’re up to. They’re far too secretive. I bet they’re a complete mystery even to your father, and he’s the only one I know of who actually has any direct contact with them. All they do is experiment in their laboratories all day. And what if you’re right?” He shuddered. “Do you really want to share your thoughts with every other member of your caste? Ugh!”
Together, they rose and headed off. As they reached the first straggle of sysal trees, Kurgan picked up the pace. “What are they working on, that’s what I want to know? Some grand plan, but it’s all a big mystery. If I were regent, I’d find some way to make the Gyrgon tell me their secrets.”
“You know,” Annon said, “if there were no castes, the Gyrgon wouldn’t have the power, and we could all share their secrets.”
Kurgan grunted. “More Kundalan subversion from your nanny.” He picked up his two-brace of gimnopedes, waited while Annon retrieved his longbow and yanked his string of ice-hares off a tree branch. “Castes are synonymous with civilization. They create order out of chaos. Just imagine if the Khagggun could become Bashkir. What would military men know of the fine art of being a merchant-banker? Or if the Mesagggun wanted to become Khagggun. What do engineers know of waging war? Or if Genomatekks, our physicians, wanted to be Bashkir? It’s ridiculous! And, to take the most extreme example of all, what if the Tuskugggun wanted to become Gyrgon? I mean, women making the laws for all V’ornn? It’s unthinkable! What do women know of laws, governing—or of business, for that matter? They bear children, they rear them, help educate them. This is what they were made for.”
“They also compose our music, create our artwork, our books. They make the clothes—even forge the armor the Khagggun wear.”
“I’ll grant you all that, Annon. But so what? When was the last time you listened to music or looked at a piece of art?” Two nights ago, Annon thought, when Giyan took me to her workroom when I could not fall asleep. I saw the sculptures she creates when she is not tending to me or to my father. “Can you picture a woman wearing the armor she made?” Kurgan continued. “I, myself, would laugh myself into a stupor at such a ridiculous sight!”
“But see, here’s the thing,” he continued, as they made their way through the thick copse of sysal trees. “You’re looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. Being realistic, the only way to find out their secrets is to gain control of the Gyrgon themselves.”
“Oh, really? And how would you go about doing that?”
“I have no idea. But there’s got to be a way.”
When Annon laughed his rib cage ached, but that scarcely stopped him. “That so? Send me a message in about three hundred years when you’ve figured it out.”
Laughing together, the two friends disappeared into the dense western quadrant of the forest, heading back to Axis Tyr.
The city, white-pepper residences, cinnamon palaces, cinnabar warehouses, shops and ateliers of brilliantly colored floating cloth canopies, was laid out in both a logical and an artistic fashion fanning northward from the Sea of Blood. Gripped now in a mighty mailed fist crackling with ion energy. Music stilled, theaters dark and empty, festivals banned—a culture snuffed out like a flame. Walled, densely populated, churning, chained, and bound. The erosion from Kundalan to V’ornn wearing down Axis Tyr like a magnificent edifice half-buried in a hail of sand.
“Annon, your father wants you to spend the evening with him at the palace,” Giyan said, as soon as the boys came through the door. It was as if she had been waiting anxiously for his return. Not that he noticed.
“Regard!” He held up his game. “I killed two ice-hares.”
“With my longbow?” Giyan said as she took the weapon from him. “You never accessed your okummmon? Not once?”
Kurgan snorted as he dangled his two-brace of gimnopedes in their faces. “If he had, he would not have had to rely on luck.”
“Luck has nothing to do with using the longbow,” Giyan said. “It’s a matter of skill.”
Kurgan laughed scornfully. “As if I should listen to you!”
“It would not harm you to do so,” Giyan said calmly.
Kurgan cocked his head. His face wore a smug grin. “Following that logic, I should listen also to the nattering of the three-fingered sloth as it swings from the trees.”
“The three-fingered sloth holds secrets in her head you could not imagine.”
“Oh, yes!” Kurgan was laughing outright. It was clear that he could not help himself. “Like how sore her tender parts are from defecating!”
Annon searched her face as Kurgan turned and went toward the scullery, there to throw his catch upon the thick wooden chopping block. Perhaps he was fearful of recognizing the same expression that he had seen on the girl’s face in the creek.
But Giyan held her ground with the courage of a V’ornn. She wore the floor-length garment of deepest maroon—the regent’s color—that all the women of the hingatta lüina da mori were required to wear. Color marked the uniform of the Tuskugggun. Around her hips wound a sash of night-black woven silk, another swath of the same silk held her thick copper-colored hair back from her face, binding it so that it hung in a heavy oval, the tip of which brushed her between her shoulder blades. She kept her head uncovered, unlike V’ornn women, who were required to wear the traditional sifeyn, a kind of heavy cowl. This was widely seen as an uncivilized act of defiance on her part. Decent Tuskugggun simply did not parade around in public with their heads bared. That kind of erotic provocation was best left for the bedroom—or for the Looorm—Tuskugggun whose business was bartering their bodies to V’ornn males of all castes. Just as shocking, the sleeveless dress also exposed the fine down on her arms. In short, to say that even after all these years she remained the object of intense curiosity was perhaps something of an understatement. Even here in hingatta lüina do mori, the Tuskugggun watched her covertly with a curious mixture of contempt and envy.
“Would you continue to laugh were I to best you with the longbow?” she said to Kurgan’s back.
At this, the Tuskugggun looked up from their painting, designing, composing, forging, or the chores they were performing for their children. As with all Kundalan-built structures in Axis Tyr, the V’ornn had transformed the beautiful asymmetrical space with its central atrium open to the elements into utilitarian cubicles—in this case, to allow the eight women who made up the hingatta to work and live with their children. Where gardens had once grown more cubicles had been built, the myriad altars to Müna had been ripped out, and the maddening labyrinthine layout had been replaced by a mathematically precise pattern. As in every aspect of V’ornn society the sizes of the cubicles were dictated by a strict hierarchical pattern relating to a complex formula that measured skill, seniority, and kinship.
Giyan, being the caretaker of the regent’s only son, was in possession of the largest suite of cubicles. This would have rankled the Tuskugggun even if she had not been Kundalan. The irony of this state of affairs was that Giyan had no great desire for the larger space, would have gladly exchanged it for another had such a thing been allowed in V’ornn society.
Now the Tuskugggun rose as one and entered the central atrium where she stood with the two boys. If Giyan was aware of their scrutiny, she did not reveal as much. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed upon the open doorway to the scullery.
