Hegira (6 page)

Kiril had seen similar architecture years before as a child on his short journey to the western border of Mundus Lucifa. But it had been scrubby and undisciplined compared to this. The walls were painted in browns and earth greens with intricate mandaias, highlighted by hemispheres of white marble as big as a man's head. Red sandstone crenels topped the walls, capped by balls of gray granite expertly cut and polished. The city within was a complete contrast to the smoke-stained buildings of Madreghb. Brilliant whitewashed masonry and plaster caught cloud-filtered, greenish mountain light and stood out like snow against the black volcanic rock. The glare was dazzling. Beyond the walls on all sides natural protrusions of stone hid Ubidharm from view of all but the highest peaks.

Barthel looked it over with gaping delight. “Some cities in Khem were like this,” he told Kiril in a hushed voice. “Holy places where prophets lived.”

The gates of Ubidharm were open, lightly guarded by a few men dressed like the escorts. They passed through the outer village, a hundred-meter stretch of low mud and brick buildings dun-colored, neat but unimpressive; then under the corbel arch of the gate. They stopped at a red brick structure, which Kiril guessed was a custom house, or a guard station, or both.

They were signaled to dismount and go into the station.

The interior was square and clean with a polished slate floor and furniture made of rugged wood and rattan. The officer of the guard — without a skull-cap, but wearing a green sash around his neck like a prelate — looked them over noncommittally and spoke to the escorts. He took the guard with the rosette into a separate room.

They returned a moment later, and the officer extended his right hand to Barthel, apparently starting with the darkest and working down. “Welcome to the Land of Light,” he said. He was tall and black with a bristling moustache and a head shaved clean but for three closely braided stripes running from nape to crown. “Who leads this party?” He looked at Barthel expectantly. The young man stammered and was about to point to Bar-Woten.

“No one,” the Ibisian answered. “We travel as equals. We appreciate your welcome.”

“I hear you are scholars of the Obelisks — readers, I take it?”

Kiril decided a modified sort of truth was best. “I'm a reader,” he said. “A scrittori, actually. But we haven't come here to preach.”

“No.” The officer went to a heavy wooden cabinet with thin horizontal drawers and opened one. He pulled out a short stack of forms and took a reed pen from a cup on the desk. Til have to know your purpose in the Land of Light. Your names, where you are from — Pashkesh, am I correct?“ he asked Barthel. The Khemite nodded. ”And where you intend to go within the country. Few Mediwevans cross this part of the border. None for at least five years. And some — ah — Ibisians have escaped here recently. Thirty or forty in fact."

Bar-Woten nodded casually. “We heard of the final purge,” he said. “Where a river runs to ground, some drops must escape.”

“A particularly foul and nasty river, too.” The officer's eyes examined him closely. “What were you in Mediweva, sir?”

“A balloonwright. I took my learning in Minora, outside Madreghb, and left with my companions to avoid — ”he hemmed, “rigid thinking.”

“We have sympathy for the Obeliskers,” the officer said, scribing away at one of the forms. “No understanding, perhaps, but sympathy. We do not fear preachers here. Usually they are the ones with something to fear. The people of Ubidharm are mountainfolk; and insular, proud. Missionaries who are obnoxious pass through rapidly if they pass at all. We must often apologize to their homelands.”

The forms were already translated, and it took them only a few minutes to fill in the required information. The official paperwork was brief. When it was over a short oath was administered — in dialect, then in translation — and they were given cards.

“You will report to the gatehouse of each city or town you visit. There aren't many here — but if you go west you will need identification. If you plan to cross the mountains and go north you will probably have to register again — I don't know. Northern Land of Light is very different from the south. And I wouldn't recommend crossing now. It's rugged travel. We won't have you followed, but we have a good semaphore system. Any trouble and we send out troops, not always with pleasant results. We trust, though, you are honest men. Be discreet — I repeat we are insular — and please follow the basics of cleanliness. I'm sure the Pash-kesher will be able to inform you what they arc.” Barthel nodded vigorously.

They left the gatehouse and their horses were returned to them. Bar-Woten saw the saddlebags had been searched. He had expected it — the map was in his shirt pocket. Perhaps they wouldn't have understood it — or, being non-Obeliskers, perhaps there were no rulings on maps and they would have. Either way he had taken no chances. He was surprised to find they'd been allowed to keep their pistols.

The city was pleasant, with narrow alleys and streets bricked and tarred, sidewalks of freshly scrubbed tile, and slatted wood window louvers painted clear, bright colors. It was so different from Madreghb as to make Bar-Woten draw a deep breath, as if he were in open country again. “You seem to know a little of the patois,” he said to Kiril. “How much?”

“Very little. It was mentioned in secondary training as an offshoot of several Obelisk languages — chiefly Old French and East Midlands dialect in English. They read the Obelisks ages ago, in the Prime Epoch, but isolated themselves here later.”

Bar-Woten looked impressed. “You really were a diligent scrittori, weren't you?” he said. “There's a lot you can teach us.”

Kiril smiled warily but said nothing.

Southern Mundus Lucifa was barely a hundred kilometers wide, most of it mountains and high plateaus. Kiril had no idea how many cities there were, or what would be the easiest route to cross. “Maybe we should ask,” he said. Bar-Woten nodded, took Kuril's mount by the reins, and led them through the gate-street.

A faint drizzle fell, mixed with snowflakes as wide as butterflies. The greenish air between the mountains indicated night would be coming within the hour. But Bar-Woten didn't stop at the inns along the street. He seemed to be looking for something else. His route took them through the more hidden recesses of the town.

Barthel was stonily quiet, not unhappy, but keeping a close watch on Kiril. This made the Mediwevan nervous. He concentrated on the carved stonework and tile that covered the walls. The designs weren't markedly different from such work in Madreghb. The predominant patterns were flowerlike, rosettes and intricate daisy chains that made the closed eye spin. Increasingly, however, the walls were the same whitewash as the upper floors, or ocher mud-brick sealed with a waxy varnish.

Bar-Woten leaned forward in his saddle and peered down the street with his single eye. The street sloped at a twenty-degree angle down to a courtyard wet with rain and slush. They were almost soaked through and Kiril was getting angry.

“Barthel?” the Ibisian asked.

“That is one, Bey,” Barthel answered. Bar-Woten grunted and nodded, spurring his horse ahead.

“I'd thought they were everywhere, until I couldn't find one in Mediweva,” he said. “Strange country your people keep, friend.”

“One what?” Kiril asked.

Barthel smiled and pointed. The closed windows surrounding the courtyard were painted an ageless red. A ponchoed, drowsing livery boy sat next to an open stable door from which a warm glow issued. They could smell fodder and animals. The boy sat up at their approach, rubbing his eyes and looking them over imperturbably. He greeted them and took the two horses by their reins. Bar-Woten purveyed Mediwevan scrip, which the boy looked at closely, then accepted.

“We'll stay here tonight and relax,” the Ibisian told Kiril. “I don't know what your creed says about such things, but a country without one of these is hardly civilized.”

“One of what?” He looked up at the windows on the second floor and saw a bosomy girl lean out, dark as midnight, with hair braided in circular ringlets, her teeth gleaming like lanterns between pink lips.

“Oh.” Kiril pulled on his horse's reins in surprise, jerking them from the stable boy's grip. The animal reared back. “O-o-oh! One of thosel” He wheeled the animal around, trying to control it, and the courtyard filled with clopping and whinnying. The stable boy grabbed the halter and let him dismount. “We can't rest here,” Kiril said loudly. “Why should we rest here?”

Bar-Woten walked with a heavy, water-spiashing tread to the large wooden door of the inn. “You may sleep with the horses if you want.”

Kiril was furious. This was worse, in its own way, than finding his companions were thieves and murderers. They were whore patrons! He ran after them, but stopped at the open doorway, weaving back and forth, trying to decide whether to follow or stay outside. The cold and wet decided for him. He stood on the threshold, mouth agape, as he saw the Ibisian and the Khemite enter an incense-filled room beyond a round doorway. Dark tapestries with suggestive designs hung in the anteroom. He didn't want to stay there. “Wait!”

Bar-Woten removed his cloak and smiled at a young woman dressed in a straight black dress. Red Sower designs rimmed her dress's sleeves and hem. Though he couldn't have known her language, communication passed easily enough between them. Barthel carried his own coat on one arm and looked around the room with the same subdued smile he'd worn earlier. Kiril joined them reluctantly, unable to say anything intelligent and afraid to make a fool of himself.

Bar-Woten's woman — lighter in color than the one who'd leaned over the sill in the courtyard — took him by the arm and led him up the stairs to the second floor. A second girl appeared from another room and took Barthel. None appeared for Kiril. He felt left out and relieved at the same time; but why had he been ignored? What part of the ritual had he failed to observe? His face burned, and he held his hands up to feel his forehead. He was hot, as if he'd whipped himself into a fever again.

He sat alone in the darkened room and fumed. Finally a small child — he couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl — came up behind him and sat next to him on the bench. “Ama sol?” it asked. He thought that over and decided the child was asking if he wanted a room. He nodded. The child took him by the hand and led him up the stairs. For a moment he was frightened he was getting involved in something far worse than what Bar-Woten and Barthel had chosen, but he relaxed when a bare, comfortable-looking room was shown to him, empty of companionship. He thanked the child and went to the small, clean bed to sit and think.

Bar-Woten squatted in the dark with his girl beside him, listening to her snores. A fire dove's faint light came through a window high in the wall and threw a bluish square on the carpeted and pillowed floor. He ran his hand over the girl's shoulder and she hissed in her sleep. His hair rose for a moment, the reaction was so alien — to grunt or grumble but not to hiss! Then he lay back on the hard stone neck rest. His nose itched with incense. It had been a year since he'd last lain with a female. The smell of her body, as sweet (because she was a vegetarian) as that of a horse, had maddened him, and he'd taken her several times, almost furiously, each time facing her cairn, restrained smile with a wide single-eyed grimace.

The rain returned to patter at the window. A squabble between birds bounced back and forth in the courtyard, spears and arrows of song.

He slept.

Barthel, in another room, kept his girl awake explaining the Faith of Prophets to her. She listened with stifled yawns and good humor until dawn, understanding nothing, then put her hand over his mouth, pushed him gently back into the mattress, and went to sleep sitting up. Her eyes closed, her body drooped ever so slightly, and her breathing became easier. Barthel watched with wide eyes, haunted and delighted, then flopped back and giggled in the dawn glow. Allah, that had been fine! Hours with kauris were never wasted. Especially if they were so close to being Momadans anyway, that only the words differed.

Mundus Lucifa was a friendly land, if insular.

Snow covered the courtyard and old men in yellow jackets with loose black pants pushed it around with brooms and shovels. Water sloshed in their wake; it was a half-hearted snow and would be melted by midday. Bar-Woten watched from the high window, standing on tiptoe on a wooden bench. Something bustled behind him, and he turned to face a parade, one child carrying a tray of food, one girl with another, Barthel with a robe wrapped around him, and Kiril dressed as if he were ready to leave.

The girl and the child exited, chartering to each other and carrying the empty trays. Barthel and Kiril sat down to the meal, and Bar-Woten kneeled beside them on a low stool. The covered ceramic bowls steamed, and hot liquid — a thick, buttery tea — piped in its valved pot. They set to eating without a word. Kiril looked between them with a fixed, accusing expression. The Ibisian finished his first bowl and wiped his mouth with a lap towel. He frowned and stared at Kiril.

“Okay,” he said. “You're unhappy. What are you unhappy about?”

“Your behavior.”

“You're our keeper, no? Self-appointed?”

“I don't understand why you engage in a debauch as soon as you enter a foreign land. There aren't any brothels in Mediweva, and with good reason. They're an affront to human dignity and God's law.”

“Kristians generally object to love,” Barthel told Bar-Woten around a bite of bread.

“Not at all! We object to the profanation of the spiritual body of the woman.”

“I profaned nothing; I exchanged. I did justice by the girl — so did Barthel, I hope. You should have too. It would have cleared anxieties from your soul.”

“That's barbaric! I was starting to think Ibis must have been civilized, if not Sulay's armies, but now I'm not so sure!”

“To paraphrase the Obelisks, each to his own fashion. I have been holding within for a year, Barthel as long. It does no good to hold within for such a time.”