Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (17 page)

Pizzle thought this sounded fair enough. He nodded, but Nendl protested gently. “He's worked very hard—he's one of my order, not a wastehandler.”

The priest glared. “You challenge our authority?”

“You know what is best, Hage priest. I merely point out that he is a good worker because I know that you are fair. It is well-known that the priests of Jamuna Hage reward hard work generously.”

“True enough,” agreed the priest. “I will make this a lesson to you,” he said to Pizzle. “Your allotment is fifty shares.”

“Thank you, Hage priest,” said Nendl, nudging Pizzle with his elbow.

“Thank you,” Pizzle repeated. The priest picked up a glowing stylus and took Pizzle by the arm, raising his sleeve. He rubbed the point of the stylus over the skin of his upper arm.

“There, tell your Hagemen of the generosity of Jamuna priests. We take care of our own.”

“Of course, Hage priest,” replied Nendl as they backed away quickly. The priests grunted and began closing up the booth.

Nendl led them back along the wide, brick-paved walkway. Odd, flat-topped trees lined this winding boulevard; here and there the mouths of tunnels opened, and stairs led down to the other levels. Once out of sight of the booth, Nendl said, “Not bad, Pizol. They gave you two days' shares. Don't think that will happen again, though. The Jamuna Hage priests are fair enough as priests go, but they are priests all the same, and not often given to extravagance—unless it is their own poak.”

“Fifty shares,” said Pizzle. “You must help me, Nendl.”

The thin-faced man stopped and faced him, placing strong, callused hands on Pizzle's shoulders. “We are Hagemen, are we not? You ask my help, and I will give it. You have fifty shares, and I have twenty-five from today's work. If we put them together, we can eat well tonight. What do you say?”

“I am very hungry, Nendl.”

“So am I. Then it is settled. We'll put our shares together and eat like Directors! I have no Hagemate at present, so you can stay with me. My kraam is not so big, but there is room for you if you do not mind sharing a bed. Later, when you have been in Hage a year, you can petition the priests for a kraam of your own. If one becomes available before that—so much the better.”

Off they went, Nendl leading the way, fatigue suddenly forgotten. He led Pizzle down one of the nearby tunnels, and they emerged on a lower level where tiny shops, amassed in tiers and joined by flying walkways, lined the broad, circuitous avenue. Crowds of people—almost all of them dressed in Jamuna brown—pushed along the avenue and swamped the walkways. The din of voices rang from the ribs of the roof far above: vendors haggling over prices, patrons whining and wheedling, people arguing—arguing and doing business nonetheless.

“Ah, the Jamuna markets. No Hage has a more lively marketplace, I'm told. Let's go collect our dole and then—” He smiled broadly, revealing crooked teeth. “Then we will begin!”

They hurried through moving knots of people toward a yellow-topped kiosk standing in the middle of the avenue. The waves of shoppers broke around it, passing on either side. “Here it is,” said Nendl. “Good, we won't have to wait. Come on.”

He pushed Pizzle up to the kiosk. “Dole,” said Nendl.

“Name?” asked a fat, bored clerk in the green-and-yellow yos of the Hyrgo.

“Nendl,” the Jamuna replied. “And Pizol.”

The clerk consulted a screen. “I have you, but not him.” He reached down and placed a parcel on the ledge of the kiosk.

Nendl took up the cloth-wrapped parcel and replied, “He's been in reorientation. Check with the priests if you don't believe me.”

The clerk grunted and placed another package on the ledge. “There. I believe you.”

Pizzle took the package, and Nendl pulled him away. “What's inside?” he asked.

“Some coffee, a little tofu, a bonaito or maybe a jicama, flatbread if we are lucky. That's all. But we can buy the rest. Here—a cheese shop!” Nendl elbowed his way into the press at the entrance to the cheese shop. “What kind today?” he asked, A Jamuna next to him replied, “What difference? It all tastes the same.”

“White and red,” said someone close by. “And they are gouging as usual—three shares per kil.”

“Could be worse,” sighed Nendl. When his turn came, he ordered half a kil of each, stuffing them inside his yos. He pushed Pizzle up to the vendor, who brushed his arm with a poak reader.

They moved on along the avenue, and Pizzle's head swiveled as he went, trying to take it all in. Everywhere he looked, people crowded and hurried. “Is it always like this?” he wondered aloud.

“Only after allotment. We have come late, but it's just as well. The stocks are holding up, and the crowds aren't so bad.” Nendl dived into another throng surrounding a meat shop. He came back holding two small, plump, birdlike carcasses. He handed one to Pizzle and tucked the other into his yos.

“What is it?” Pizzle looked at the naked pink flesh.

“Cheken. A delicacy, believe me.”

“Chee-ken,” repeated Pizzle, nodding. “I remember chee-ken.”

“Good! It's coming back!” Nendl pulled him away again, and they continued on down the avenue. “Now to the bake stall. I think there is a second-order bake stall further down. They are said to supply the Directors' tables. We'll see.”

Pizzle walked as one in a dream, marveling at all he saw, the strangeness of it, and yet the eerie familiarity. He had been here before, seen these things, walked this avenue … why couldn't he remember?

Sitting
in Nendl's kraam before a small brazier filled with black fuel pellets, the disjointed carcasses of the two chekens sizzling on the glowing coals, Pizzle listened to his host describe his life.

“You would do well to listen to an old man,” said Nendl. “I may not be a Hage magician, but I know much and have seen much more.”

“You're not old, Nendl.”

“Old enough! But listen, I don't know what you did to deserve your punishment—your reorientation—and you don't have to tell me. I don't care. Probably it was nothing anyway. The stinking Invisibles, called such because of their cunning and stealth, watch everyone; and what they can't see, they imagine. It's all the same to them—they're scum.”

“Scum,” Pizzle repeated. “But you're not. You're not scum, Nendl; you're my friend.” Pizzle's head felt mushy from the sweet liquor he was drinking freely. He felt light and airy, like a cloud expanding from its center. He beamed at his host proudly. “You helped me.”

“I helped you, yes. Do you know why?” He leaned close even though there was not another soul in the filthy, cramped dwelling.

Pizzle leaned toward him. “Why?”

“Because I know someone.”

“Oh!” Pizzle nodded, much impressed. “You know someone.”

“Someone important. He said I was to watch for you and help you if I could. He said you would be coming. So I watched for you, and when you came I helped you.”

“Thank you, Nendl.”

“Shh!” Nendl cautioned. “They can hear everything. They can see through walls.” He too had been nursing liberally from the souile flask and felt like talking. “But I don't care. I know someone. I am protected. If I have any trouble, I have someplace to go. I will be safe.”

Pizzle nodded, his head wobbling loosely. “The cheken smells good. I'm hungry.”

“It's just about done.” Nendl reached over and flipped a few pieces over. “Have some more cheese.” He offered a chunk to Pizzle and bit off one for himself. He gazed at his guest thoughtfully and said, “You know what the rumor messengers are saying about you?”

“No.” Pizzle put the cheese in his mouth and chewed.

“I have heard rumors of Fieri spies,” said Nendl, winking.

“Spies.”

“Do you know anything about them?”

Pizzle shook his head slowly.

Nendl reached into the brazier and gingerly handed him a piece of cheken. “Eat! It's good.” He picked out a piece for himself and licked his fingers. “Directors don't eat any better than this!”

“It's good,” echoed Pizzle happily. The sound of chewing and lip smacking overcame conversation for a few minutes.

When they had finished the first two pieces and were well into a third, Nendl raised his head and looked at his guest thoughtfully. “If you were a Fieri, I know you wouldn't tell me— would you?”

Pizzle considered this and then shrugged. “I don't know. Am I a Fieri?”

Nendl went sly; his eyes narrowed. “You might be. Then again you might not. I don't expect you'd tell me if I didn't tell you something.” He thought for a moment. “I will tell you something, Pizol. Would you like that? I'll tell you something, and then you tell me something. What do you say to that?”

Pizzle nodded readily. “I'd like that. You tell me something, and I'll tell you something.”

“A secret,” added Nendl.

“Yes, a secret.”

The Jamuna recycler leaned close and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Nendl is my Hagename. I'll tell you my private name, but you must promise never to tell anyone else—especially a priest or magician. Swear it?”

“I swear.”

“Trabant take your soul?”

Pizzle nodded, eyes growing wide.

With a quick sidewards glance, Nendl put his forehead close to Pizzle's. “My private name is Urkal.” He smiled grimly and sat back.

“Urkal.”

“Shh! Never repeat it! If a lipreader saw it, he would tell a priest—or worse, an Invisible—and they'd have power over me. If I didn't do what they told me, they'd curse me and I'd be without a guide through the Twin Houses; I would never become immortal.” He looked eagerly at his guest. “Now it's your turn. Tell me your secret.”

Pizzle's face scrunched up in thought. What secret could he tell his host? He didn't have any that he knew about. “Ahh,” he said at last. “My name is … Asquith.” How had that come to him?

Disappointment rearranged Nendl's features in a scowl. “Askwith,” he replied flatly. That wasn't the secret he wanted to hear. “Is that a Fieri name?” he asked, thinking himself very smart.

“I don't know. Is it?”

“I have never heard it before—it must be. That means
you
are a Fieri,” he deduced with satisfaction.

“If you say I am. Is that good?”

“Bad, more like. Fieri are hated here.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. Some say they are trying to destroy us; others say other things. Who knows? The Directors know. Ahh, but I know someone too. Someone who will help me if trouble comes. I'm safe. You're safe too—as long as you stay with me.” He took a long swig on the souile flask and passed it to Pizzle. “Drink! And eat—we have more cheken!” He took another piece from the brazier, licked his fingers, and smiled contentedly. “It's been a very good day, Hageman Pizol. A very good day.”

Yarden sat in a
corner by herself, watching the others. They chattered to one another and laughed as they watched a holovision program calling out the names of the Hagemen they recognized. Bela's kraam, a flattened oval room with a low, gently rippled ceiling, lit with soft amber dish-shaped lights set in smooth, buff-colored walls, was warm and stuffy with so many people in it—ten others besides Bela and herself. But no one else seemed to mind. They lolled on overlarge silken cushions on the floor, bodies intertwined casually, dipping fruit from a large red bowl, and laughing.

“Among the Chryse, Bela's kraam is well-known,” he had boasted to her with a wink as they walked along an arching aerial walkway far above terraced green fields and small, dome-shaped dwellings—one of Empyrion's preserves, Bela had told her, though what was preserved below she could not tell. “Tonight will be all laughter. You'll see.”

Laughter yes, but Yarden did not share in it. After she had been introduced, she had quietly edged away to her cushion in the corner where she was content just to observe the others, as they were content to ignore her. She suspected that her presence was perceived as an intrusion—at least by the other women. She was a stranger, and therefore a potential rival for the men's attention.

So she sat alone, schooling herself on the manners of her new friends, watching them for clues to custom and behavior, alert to the nuances of speech and action that revealed the inner person.

Outwardly passive—all but immobile—inwardly her mind whirled with activity: searching, sorting, cataloging, storing each minute observation and detail of her surroundings. This felt right; it was something that belonged to her, that she recognized as her own. At the same time, this intense mental activity puzzled her. Where did I learn this? she wondered. Haven't I always lived here?

No doubt her feelings of vagueness, of forgetting, had to do with
the reorientation
Bela spoke of. Whatever that was, it stood like a barrier between her present and her past, blocking out all memory on the other side. Yet, at odd moments now and then, she caught glimpses of another life—intimations that there had been a life on the other side of the barrier much different than the one she now knew.

“You are lost, cherimoya,” said a voice above her.

Yarden looked up to see Bela standing over her. “I am just a little tired,” she replied. Yes, tired—so many new things to observe and comprehend exhausts one's soul.