The Braided World (34 page)

He gestured at Zhen, already hunched over her sequencer. “Hidden DNA? Pictures in the canyons? You people are grasping at straws. The truth's right under your goddamn noses. It's between two competing races of humans. The Dassa don't want competition. They lured us here, don't you see?
Come find what you've lost.
The old bait and switch, old as the hills—promise one thing, deliver another.” He started to sway, and Anton leapt up to grab him.

Nick went down on one knee, struggled to rise. “Wake up and smell the stench, Anton. Bait and switch, don't you see? Send the message, get us to come, reveal where we live …” He fell again.

Bailey was standing at the doorway, looking out. “Oh dear,” she said.

Anton let go of Nick, leaving him on the floor. “What?”

She turned. “Those dreadful women in robes.”

Anton rushed to her side. There, on the dock stood dozens of uldia.

Among them was Oleel.

He turned back to Zhen. “Tie him up. And gag him.” Zhen turned to follow orders as Anton strode out into the harsh afternoon sun. The uldia were pushing onto the islet from the dock, Oleel in the lead.

She stopped as Anton approached.

“Your visit is unexpected, Lady,” he said, looking in alarm as her cohorts spread through the property.

“So has yours been,” Oleel answered. “But now, thankfully, it is over.”

“This is my land, rahi. And I will ask you to keep your people back.”

Oleel looked at him for a long time before answering in a firm but low voice, ‘Anton Prados, you will leave the Olagong, now! You have brought enough ruin, you and your people without pri.” Her attention went past him then, to someone standing in the door of the crew hut. Zhen.

Oleel whispered, “We should have killed her that night. That night you went through Vidori's walls.” Anton's hand came to his holstered gun as Oleel turned back to him, her voice dropping into a deep register. “Because of you, the hoda no longer know how to serve their masters. Because of you, the king no longer knows how to serve his people. The king may claim singing is good. But it is the anthem of rebellion. You say that lost things are hidden here. But there is only the Olagong. Will you pick it apart, piece by piece, before you are satisfied?”

A movement at his side caught Anton's attention. Turning, he saw several uldia pulling Maypong toward the dock. Anton rushed forward. “Let go of her.”

A dozen uldia stood in his way.

Anton surged forward, yanking one of the uldia away from Maypong. Suddenly a blow crashed across the back of his head. He staggered, losing his balance, as he heard Bailey shouting from behind.

Maypong was at his side. ‘Anton, use no violence here. Please.”

He struggled to rise, clutching at her, getting only a handful of her gown, which was ripped from his fingers. “Maypong…” He staggered to his feet, finding Bailey by his side. As his head cleared, he saw them shoving Maypong across the dock and into one of the boats.

Running down to the water, he encountered a solid mass of women between him and Maypong. Oleel stood above him, on the dock. As Anton looked beyond her, he saw that the Puldar was full of boats, carrying Dassa. Some of them held torches.

The woman said, “One thing we will investigate is whether Maypong is the subject of a terrible error. We will investigate whether Maypong is a hoda who has escaped our notice.” Oleel stared down at Anton, making sure she had his complete attention. “Yes, we have been worried such a mistake was made.”

She produced a smile that barely dented her cheeks. “We shall see. If you are soon gone, then perhaps she is not a hoda.”

Anton drew his gun from its holster and aimed it directly at Oleel's forehead. It would be so easy to kill her. In his mind he saw her falling heavily onto the dock, saw himself rushing past her to the boat, grabbing Maypong… “Release her, Oleel. The king said I can protect my people.”

She didn't falter. “Yes, the king has allowed you a gun to protect your people. But Maypong is not one of your people. The law says I can hold her.” Anton held the gun steady, and just as steady, Oleel stared back at it.

From the end of the dock, he heard Maypong call to him. ‘Anton, do not use a gun on the uldia. As you value your mission, do not.”

“Maypong …,” he called.

“No, Anton. It will ruin you.”

No, it would not help to kill Oleel—they had Maypong. Slowly, he lowered the weapon.

Oleel said, “This dock is not worthy of the Puldar.” She turned to an uldia standing next to her. “Burn it.” Then Oleel strode off, descending into one of the canoes. The uldia followed her, emptying the islet, the dock, paddling swiftly away.

A torch fell onto the deck. And then another. Anton ran up, kicking the torches into the water. But a hail of flaming brands came at him from the skiffs that still surrounded his island. Zhen and Bailey succeeded in pulling him back from the pier, as the flames finally caught.

The people in the remaining boats were not uldia, but ordinary Dassa, the ones who supported Oleel, the ones he'd been ignoring, seeing the Olagong as the king's land. It had never been the king who ruled, but the Three Powers, closely bound. The flames spread, jumping to Anton's skiff. Then Dassa began hurling torches at the huts. Anton and the two women kicked dirt over them, but the reed matting took fire.

“The lab,” Zhen shouted, and they abandoned the sleeping huts to the flames, concentrating on the lab hut. But the fire leapt onto the wood structure, and soon they were hauling equipment out and piling it at the water's edge. Nick sat, bound and useless, among the salvage.

The four of them watched as the flames consumed their camp, finally guttering out in the surrounding moist vegetation.

Turning toward the river, Anton looked for any more torches among the boats, but the skiffs had fled, along with the canoes of the uldia, bearing Maypong away.

KINGDOM OF RIVERS

Gilar and Mini scrubbed the ceramic pestles, waiting for
the signal. Nearby, an uldia bent over a microscope, while others labeled herbs and compounds, in the industrious labs. Although she worked one-handed, Gilar's finger stumps still ached as the uldia weaned her from pain tonics.

From the corridor, a hoda flashed a hand sign as she passed by. Responding, Gilar wiped her wet hand on her apron and, catching Mim's eyes, began stacking the pestles to carry to the storage room. From there she slipped out the back way into the main corridor. Here were hoda, casually yet strategically positioned, to keep watch along the hall. Eshi emerged from the back stairwell, clearing her throat. At this signal, Gilar slipped into the stairway and hurried down. She passed another sister, one of two dozen hoda comprising the secret chain of movement throughout the compound. The hoda used the chain for minor disobedience such as allowing an injured sister to rest, or permitting sarif during chore times.

Today the chain cleared a path straight to Maypong, in her cell. Gilar scurried down the stairs, entering the lower
region of the pavilion, wrapped in the twilight of a few luminaries.

When she reached the cell, a hoda passed by, signing, Not long, sister. <

Gilar looked through the bars. Inside, the prisoner looked up, startled. “Gilar?” She came to the bars, peering through.

No honorific, Maypong-rah? Was it you who removed my honors, then?<

Maypong had the grace to look away. “Yes, my daughter. But I had the help of the Olagong and the Three.” When she looked back at Gilar, she said, “You are grown, all at once.”

Was it so? It had been only two months since her palace days, with her fine clothes, and her tongue. Did she look so different? Certainly Maypong looked different. Her long hair clumped in dirty strands, and her gold tunic was torn and smudged.

Maypong, you have become old.<

She smiled. “Oh, yes, Gilar, and wise, I hope.” Her feet were bound in cloth, treated with pungent salves. Had the uldia beaten her? Well, she must get used to that now.

Maypong glanced at Gilar's own bandage. “Let me see your hand.” When Gilar didn't respond, Maypong said, “Unguent of nisda will help.”

But it was too late to be a mother. I have all the help I need these days.<

“Oh, but you do not, Gilar, my child of the lightning rod.” No trace of mockery lay in her words, or Gilar would have struck her. “I beg you, don't allow the stone woman to ruin you.”

Gilar felt a smile cut across her face. You think I am not already ruined? <

Maypong's eyes glittered in the faint light of the luminaries. “Yes, my daughter. I think you are not ruined, despite all that Oleel has done.”

Good, then that's settled. You're content with my status.
And I'm content with yours. < If Maypong would just stop being perfect, Gilar mused, she might soften toward her. If ever there was a
stone woman
, it was Maypong.

“You think I am content, Gilar? Is that what you think of me?”

Gilar looked at her mother's proud face, regal even as dirty as it was. No, of course you're not content to be Oleel's prisoner. You must miss the king's company, and Captain Anton, and the freedom of the river.<

“I have not been free on the river, Gilar. I have been bound by the braid, the same as you.”

Oh, this was too much to bear. Gilar's hands flew up to respond. The same? The same?< She opened her mouth very wide, the first time she had done so since
that day.
She stretched out her tongue as far as the root muscle would allow. Tell me. Are we the same?<

Maypong looked at Gilar's hands as they signed. Then, slowly, her eyes came up to focus on Gilar's mouth. As she looked, her eyes filled with tears, but, in her composure, nothing escaped from them. At last she said, in a whisper, “No. Not the same.”

Gilar found herself gripping the bars of the cell with her good hand. But this woman was not worth her anger, was not worth calling forth any more sorrow.

A hoda passed behind in the hall, making the sign for
uldia.

Gilar signed, My sister says our time is up.<

Seeing the signal pass between the two, Maypong frowned. “Be careful, my daughter. These hoda—some of them are traitors to the king. Did they persuade you to sing on the roof? Did you know that Anton Prados begged for your life?”

He did nothing for me. I climbed high. And I will go higher still. <

Maypong clung to the bars. “Gilar, I fear for you, for what you may do …”

And you don't fear for yourself, Maypong? You should worry about yourself. <

Maypong's intolerable lecture continued unabated. “Watch and wait, Gilar. Someday the hoda will be free; it is the way of things to change. Do not so easily give away your life.”

Gilar gazed at the woman in disbelief. Gilar was no longer her child, to be given advice. The law said she was no longer Maypong's child, and Maypong had confirmed this when she'd set her clothes into the Puldar.

Maypong was still talking. “Someday our people will climb into the air, Gilar, and travel as the humans do. Anton has said this.”

Gilar paused. Her dream of Erth stirred for a moment, a powerful dream. A dead one.

“Perhaps I will travel there with Anton,” Maypong said.

The words hit hard: Maypong, not Gilar. But it wasn't true. Anton will leave without you, Maypong. He doesn't want you, he only uses you.<

Maypong waited, watching Gilar carefully.

Then Gilar began to sign what she had come here to tell Maypong. Change is in fact coming. In three days’ time, Oleel will crown you with the metal basket. That's what will change, Maypong.< There, she had said it. The moment of triumph, when this woman learned that she would fall from her high place.

Maypong closed her eyes, murmuring, “So that is the way of the braid …” When she opened her eyes, she said, “Three days—you are sure?”

What difference did it make when? But Gilar nodded.

“And she will announce this publicly?”

Oleel's chancellor has already gone to tell the king.<

Maypong whispered, “On that day Gilar, we will be sisters.”

Gilar's throat constricted. It was true. They would be … sisters, then. For a split second she thought that she didn't
want to watch the crowning, though until this moment she had relished the prospect. She turned away, sickened.