Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (18 page)

 
          
"Take
care on the stones here, the path is broken," the red-haired woman said,
guiding Vaniya's steps carefully, then looked across her at Cendri.
"Goddess
guard
us! It is the Scholar Dame from
the Unity—how could you let her risk herself in danger, Mother Vaniya?"

 
          
"There
was danger for everyone," said Vaniya, looking gratefully at Cendri.
"And it is as I
thought,
the women of University
are as brave and competent as any of us!" She gave Cendri's arm an
affectionate squeeze. "You have saved many lives today with your bravery,
child. You said Grania could not ring the alarm—" she added to the woman
with red hair. "Why not, pray?"

 
          
"Because
she was dead," the woman said, "She had evidently been killed by
falling pottery in the quake this morning, and no one thought to go and see if
she was safe..."

 
          
Vaniya
sighed and said, "Sad, sad; she and I were schoolfellows. But there is no
time now even to mourn." She turned back, watching the women and children
climbing hastily up the path, and moved away to make room for them to scramble
inside the ruined city. Now they could see below them the giant wall of water,
towering,
looming
a hundred feet high, rushing, racing
at fearful speed. It smashed across the rocks and the abandoned boats with a
crash; swept along across the shore and Cendri saw the tower engulfed in water,
saw the houses break like matchwood and dissolve into a foaming spray of spars
and boards, saw boats rise and spin away on the water like chips afloat in the
surf. The sound was like the end of the world. She saw the tower itself sink
and go as if it had melted into the water, and shuddered; if she had resolved
to risk staying there, she would not have lived a minute in the furious boiling
waves. It crashed down along the path, surging up, lapping halfway up the
hillside, a foaming maelstrom of white spray; slowly, the boiling water
subsided, smooth and innocent, then began to race back toward the shore. Cendri
stood, appalled, seeing as it withdrew that every trace of human structure was
gone from the shore; scattered beams and planks remained, but as the surging
white water boiled down, there was no single house remaining, not a sign of
tower or boats, gardens or sea-wall. The shore
lay
bare and littered, wet and foaming, with fish washed up dying on the land.

 
          
Vaniya
covered her face with her hands; but only a moment later, resolutely lowered
them and straightened
herself
, with gallant
resolution.

 
          
"Well,
it is over," she said, "and when the next tide comes in, some, at
least, of the boats may be recovered. When the village is rebuilt, it must be
re-built on higher ground, and a more effective lookout kept. We can all see
the damage to structures we have built; now we must find out if there has been
much loss of life." She moved toward the clustered women and children, and
Cendri saw a group of men, huddled at one side, waiting.

 
          
She
said, "Where is the village Elder-Mother?"

 
          
"I
am here, Vaniya," said a small, stout, grey-haired woman. And Vaniya said,
"Take the roll of your village. The Goddess
be
thanked," her eyes falling on the group of women, naked to the waist, with
the strapped-on knives that marked them as pearl-divers. "Some of you, at
least, are safe—"

 
          
"We
saw the tide-drop, and at first thought it a low tide so that we could harvest
the pearls without diving," said one of them, "But then Narila said
it was no normal tide, and insisted we should leave our boats and run for the
shore—I did not want to abandon my boat," she admitted honestly, "it
was new-built; but I went with my sisters, and halfway to shore we heard the
watchbell ringing—"

 
          
Vaniya
moved from group to group, counting and assessing the losses.
After a time she came back, slowly, to where Cendri waited, and
looked in horror at her cut sandals and bleeding feet.

 
          
"But
you are hurt! And I did not even notice! How could I have been so neglectful,
when you had so heroically helped
us!
"

 
          
"It
is nothing," Cendri said, though her feet smarted with the sea-salt in the
cuts. "My shoes are too thin for walking on the
shore,
that
is all!"

 
          
The
red-haired woman who had helped Cendri to ring the bell and to guide Vaniya to
high ground stooped and pulled off her own sandals, saying, "Take mine,
Scholar Dame, No, truly, you must take them, I am from a village like this and
I am used to walking barefoot on these stones, my feet are hardened; really, I
only wear shoes for the sake of vanity, when I am teaching my classes!"
She made Cendri sit down, pulled off the thin torn sandals and strapped her own
on Cendri's feet. After her first protest, Cendri was glad to accept them,
seeing that the red-haired woman walked without the slightest sign of
discomfort on the rough stones.

 
          
She
knelt on her heels beside Cendri and said, "I have been hoping to see you,
Scholar Dame, I was one of those who volunteered to work with you in the ruins;
Mother Rezali sent word to the Women's College asking for students there who could
help you in your work. My name is Laurina, and I am a teacher of history. But
we were told you had not yet begun your work in the ruins."

 
          
Cendri
blinked, startled. Everything had been happening so fast
 
that she had not even realized that she
was actually on the threshold
 
of the Builder ruins! She looked up to
where, only a few hundred
 
meters behind her, the great ruins rose;
strange, looming, dark,
 
immeasurably ancient, lost in Time...Her
first thought was an
 
almost wild protest; no! I shouldn't be
here, it isn't fair, Dal should
 
have been here first
..
.it meant so much more to him____

 
          
But
there was nothing to be done about that now.

 
          
Vaniya
said, looking at Laurina, "I have had no leisure to bring our guest here, what
with quakes here and in the City, and the High Matriarch still at death's door.
And even now—with all these women homeless—" she looked around the huddled
women and children, the little group of men clustered apart from them. "I
regret—" she said, and for a moment, again, Cendri felt a flash of anger;
she thought, we came halfway across the Galaxy to study these ruins, and they
put us off for one thing after another_____

 
          
It
seemed for a moment that she could almost hear Dal saying, A world where women
established the priorities would never get
very far,
or accomplish
much... and then she was ashamed of herself. The Builder ruins had waited
..
.waited a very long time.
At
least two million years, if they were truly the ruins of some ancient race
which had seeded the entire Galaxy with life years ago; but even if they were
simply the ruins of some ancient civilization established on Isis long ago,
they had waited patiently for centuries, millennia, and they could wait long
enough for Vaniya to see to her homeless fisherwomen. There
were
priorities
higher than scientific research, after all, even if the outsider from
University couldn't see them!

 
          
She
said, "Of course you must see to your people, Vaniya. But since I am so
near to the ruins, may I look around at them for a little?"

 
          
She
could see, in the blink of an eye, that Vaniya was not pleased; that she was
almost helplessly reluctant. But she had no excuse whatever; and furthermore
she had just expressed her gratitude to Cendri. "To be sure you may. But
stay near the entrance until someone who knows her way around can show you how
best to go through the site. It will be dark soon, and you could easily become
lost inside."

 
          
"I
will go with her," Laurina said, and Vaniya nodded; then one of the women
from the wrecked village called to Vaniya and she turned to them, reluctantly
turning her back on Cendri and Laurina.

 
          
"Come,"
Laurina said, "I have been here more than once, I know how to get inside.
Come, there is a door in the wall—"

 
          
As
she climbed through the opening, Cendri wondered again at the stability of the
structures. They might not be ruins of the legendary Builders. But they were
old—so old that Cendri's half-experienced eye could not judge how old they
were. She had had a quick hypno-learner course in archaeology, and she could
see at a glance that they did not belong to any of the known civilizations or
cultures; they were not Sarnian Empire or Pre-Voltian, as most extremely
ancient ruins had turned out to be on isolated planets in this sector of the
Galaxy.

 
          
Yet,
old as they were, she was struck at once by how new they looked. They had not,
it seemed, endured millennia of earthquakes and volcanic action on an unstable
and seismic planet. They had not been buried under the sea for generations and
risen, wave-beaten but recognizably artifacts of intelligent life, like the
Windic ruins of Aldebaran Nine. They might have been abandoned less than a
hundred years ago. The paving stones in the empty spaces between the buildings
were up-ended by the inexorable growth of grass and small underbrush growing
up, but the buildings themselves—huge, black-glassy structures, upended, high,
untouched by the centuries—were smooth and beautiful.
Ruins?
Cendri thought.
Ruins?
They are far less ruined than
the Residence of the Pro-Matriarch after the last quake!

 
          
How
have they survived all these years?

 
          
She
looked around again, trying to make notes in her mind. Dal would be eager to
hear every detail, everything she could tell him—it wasn't
fair!

 
          
She
said to Laurina, who walked at her side, "You say you have been here
before. Is it all like this?"

 
          
"No,"
Laurina said. "There are lesser structures behind the two great towers
here. Across this courtyard—"

 
          
Slowly
they crossed the courtyard, and Cendri said, "You told me there are women
in the college who have volunteered to assist me—?" She wondered why she
had not been told.

 
          
"Indeed
there are," Laurina said. "We were sure that the Scholar Dame would
need some unskilled help, although you must have brought some qualified
assistant from the worlds where women are—" She stopped, hesitated and
said, "From the worlds of the Unity, where men rule."

 
          
Cendri
smiled and said, "In our worlds neither men nor women rule, Laurina, but
everyone does such work as—she—" she said, stumbling, remembering the male
pronoun was thought indecent, "as she is qualified for. My Companion is my
assistant. But we will certainly welcome such help as the women from the
college
of
Ariadne
can give us."

 
          
"I
have heard," Laurina said, "that in the Unity, and on University,
most of the majority of the—the Extra-scholars are men."

 
          
"Well,
it is true that there are more men than women," Cendri said, wondering if
this was going to be the same argument that she had had with Miranda, about how
poorly men were qualified for scholarship. Instead Laurina said, "And
still you became a Scholar Dame?" She pronounced the words almost with
awe. "In worlds where women are not considered first for scholastic prizes
you still won such prizes?"

 
          
Cendri
said, "Yes," feeling guilty without knowing why; after all, she would
genuinely have been a Scholar Dame by now if she had not taken time off after
her marriage.

 
          
Laurina
gazed at her, almost rapt with admiration. She said, "This is an
inspiration to all of us, honored guest, because it shows us—it shows us that
perhaps there is hope for us outside the Matriarchate, that perhaps what the
elders fear is not quite so dangerous. See, a woman from outside, and you are
not a slave or in subjection to any man, and you have won academic standing on
your own! You are an inspiration to every young woman of the
college
of
Ariadne
, Respected Scholar Malocq!"