The next day, a message was waiting for Aronoke on the group viewscreen telling him to report to the Jedi Council immediately after breakfast.
“Why do you have to report, Aronoke, and not the rest of us?” asked Yeldra, crinkling up her little face thoughtfully.
“I don’t know,” said Aronoke.
“It’s probably because Ashquash is Aronoke’s room-mate,” said Razzak Mintula, coming into the clan room just then. “The Council probably wants to ask Aronoke a few more questions about what happened to her. Do you know how to get to the meeting room, Aronoke?”
“Yes, Instructor.”
“Good. Make sure you are not late. You should probably leave as soon as you have tidied yourself.” Razzak Mintula’s gaze lingered on Aronoke’s crumpled robe and unbrushed hair.
“Yes, Instructor,” said Aronoke, relieved that she hadn’t ordered him to shower. He hurried off to put on fresh robes and make himself presentable.
It was not difficult to find his way across the Jedi temple. Now he could read, the signs were much more helpful. The meeting room was in the most formal section of the Jedi temple where initiates did not usually go. The hallways were grander, the decorations more looming and impressive. People spoke in hushed tones unless they were very important people indeed.
Aronoke was relieved to find that the meeting room was not an immense council chamber like the one he had entered with Master Altus upon his arrival at the Jedi temple. It was relatively small in comparison, although still much larger and grander than anything in the primary training centre.
“Ah, Initiate Aronoke,” said Master An-ku when Aronoke peered around the edge of the open door, debating whether or not he should go directly inside or wait to be fetched. “Come inside and close the door.”
Aronoke obediently did so, and went to stand in front of the three Jedi Masters, who were seated on curved single-legged chairs on one side of the chamber. Apart from Master An-ku, the togrutan master he remembered from his arrival, there was a green-skinned duros and a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned human man accompanied by a protocol droid. “These are Masters Kordu-molh and Rosfantar,” Master An-ku said, and Aronoke bowed politely to all of them, like he had been taught.
“The council wishes to know more about the unusal events that have occurred to you since you entered the Jedi Temple, Initiate,” said Master An-ku smoothly after Aronoke had made his bow. She looked very tall, serene and somewhat fiercer than Aronoke had remembered.
“I told Master Altus and Master Insa-tolsa everything there was to tell, Master An-ku,” said Aronoke uncertainly. “I don’t know if I can add anything to what I said then.”
“Nevertheless, I would like you to repeat your story,” said Master An-ku. “Master Insa-tolsa has reported that these events are upsetting to the initiates in your clan and have proved disruptive to your training.”
Aronoke nodded, and obediently began outlining all the events that Master Altus would have labelled unusual.
“Most preposterous!” huffed Master Kordu-molh indignantly, when Aronoke had finished. “It is ridiculous that our training centre can be plagued by such interruptions! The education of our younglings is a serious matter and any interruption to their routine can only be viewed to be of extreme detriment! How can they learn proper meditative techniques and to perfect their control under such conditions?”
Aronoke suspected that Draken would put Master Kordu-molh into his category of people who never had any fun at all.
“It is true that these incidents should be given serious consideration,” said Master Rosfantar. His voice was deep and melodious and echoed around the chamber. “It is important that no one should influence our initiates so early in their training. But we must remember, Master Kordu-molh, that we are educating Jedi who will one day be mostly sent out into the field, where interruptions and incidents are something they will have to learn to cope with.”
“Coping with such things is beyond the scope of primary students -” said Master Kordu-molh, but subsided as Master An-ku held up her slender hand.
“We can debate this matter later,” said Master An-ku. “There are a few other questions I would like to pose to Initiate Aronoke first, before he returns to his studies.”
“Of course,” said Master Rosfantar. “Please, continue.”
“Initiate Aronoke, Master Altus has reported upon the conditions under which he encountered you on the planet Kasthir, and has detailed his reasons for bringing you to the Jedi Temple as a candidate. Your candidature has been accepted and is beyond reproach. Is there anything in your past to suggest why you in particular should be made the target of these attacks?”
“I don’t think so,” said Aronoke uncomfortably. There was, of course, the map on his back. Had Master Altus told the Jedi Council about that? Aronoke assumed that he had, back when Aronoke had been too scared to be examined by the medical droid, but on the other hand, Master Altus had suggested it was safer to keep the map secret. Before Aronoke could decide whether he should tell the Council about the map or not, Master An-ku was prompting him with more questions.
“It says in Master Altus’s report that you are an orphan with no known relatives. Do you know anything about who your family were?” asked Master An-ku.
“No,” said Aronoke.
“You were born on Kasthir?”
“I don’t think so,” said Aronoke again. “I was brought there when I was very young, by a Twi’lek whom I called Uncle Remo. I don’t remember anything about where we came from.”
“And on Kasthir? You worked in the service of a crimelord called Careful Kras, who controlled a sizeable amount of territory out in the wilderness?”
“He didn’t like me,” said Aronoke softly, remembering Careful Kras. “He… had me taken from the Grinder and brought back to Bunkertown. He punished me…sometimes… for… for being… different.”
“Different?” asked Master An-ku.
“There is no reason to suspect that this Careful Kras would have any influence here on Coruscant,” interjected Master Rosfantar. “A crimelord from the desolate reaches of a backwater planet like Kasthir would certainly not have the contacts or resources to operate here.”
“Besides which,” added Master Kordu-molh, “some of these events suggest that whoever wishes to manipulate Initiate Aronoke has power in the Force, suggesting that it is a Jedi Master who is responsible.”
“Yes, those are both valid points,” said Master An-ku. “I think we have taken up enough of your time, Aronoke. You may return to your studies.”
“Yes, Master An-ku,” said Aronoke, bowing politely. He was relieved that he hadn’t had to tell them about the thing on his back, although at the same time he felt guilty. Like he was hiding the truth from people who needed it to help him. Still, he had told Master Altus about the markings on his back. Surely that was enough.
Ashquash returned the very same day, and when she arrived, she looked at Aronoke sitting on his bed in their shared room for a long moment, saying nothing. To Aronoke it was obvious that she was pleased, although she did not smile.
“I’m sorry for nearly drowning you, Aronoke,” she said gruffly.
“That’s alright,” said Aronoke. “Perhaps you were right, that merely looking at the water was not enough, but I had to try something. Didn’t want to give up.”
Instead of Ashquash going and sitting on her own bed, she came over and sat next to him, something she had not done before. Aronoke was not certain how he felt about it.
“I’m sorry I went away,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean for you to feel that we weren’t friends any more. I just didn’t want you or the others to be hurt.”
He was suddenly aware that Ashquash was a girl, despite all his previous self-conditioning to not think of her that way. There was something in how Ashquash held herself that made him think she would not resist at all if he put his arms about her and gave her a reassuring, but most un-Jedi-like, hug. It was not something he had ever done to anyone before. Knew it was not allowed.
“It’s all right now,” she said shyly.
He could see a look in her eyes that was not at all appropriate.
Oh, Aronoke thought stupidly. She likes me. In that sort of a way. No wonder she pushed me in the water.
Argh.
“Shall we go and see if Draken wants to come and spar?” he said too quickly, standing up.
“Yes, lets,” agreed Ashquash, and the moment was broken.
Months rolled by, incident free, and Aronoke began to think that whoever had been trying to influence him had been scared off by the Jedi Council’s investigation. There was plenty to keep him occupied; more and more he was being encouraged to read ahead and around the material in the lessons that Clan Herf studied. He seemed to make great advances in all things. It was like he was blossoming into himself.
“You’re growing up so fast, Aronoke,” Razzak Mintula said one day and he found himself feeling miffed instead of fearful and reluctant about the future. Surely he was quite grown up already! His rapid escalation towards maturity meant that he had grown taller and had filled out substantially. When he looked in the mirror in the clan bathroom he no longer saw an uncertain boy, but a shyly smiling young man. He looked taller. Rangier. New robes had arrived for him at regular intervals, but still the clothing struggled to keep up with the changes in the proportions of his limbs. He had perhaps not reached his full growth yet, but he already looked down on most fully grown humans. His chest had broadened too and he felt stronger and more capable.
Ever since Ashquash had returned, Aronoke had to struggle with temptation more regularly. The current between them was often palpable, and although Ashquash never said anything, never referred to it, never did anything inappropriate, Aronoke knew that any move he made would be completely reciprocated. It was lucky that he had never been especially attracted to Ashquash, or resisting might have been completely impossible. Aronoke always made sure that he kept a careful distance. After all, he had once promised that he was Ashquash’s friend, that he would never think of her as a girl. When he began to feel that current working between them, he was careful to make himself absent. It was easier to go off to the meditation rooms, or to suggest a group activity that included Draken or the little kids.
Luckily, with each passing month, Ashquash also seemed to grow smaller and more childish. Soon Aronoke could think of her as something like a kid-sister. Someone with a hopeless crush on him, who was too young to take seriously. Someone who it was easier to treat like a friend.
Master Insa-tolsa’s excursions started during this time, and they were more fun than Aronoke had hoped. Aronoke, Draken and Ashquash were the ones who went, and they were accompanied by the ithorian master, and his colleague, Master Parothis. The excursions visited a variety of locations about Coruscant. The first one was to a meditation garden. Draken had been disappointed when he found out where they were going, thinking that it would be very dull, but when they got there, Master Insa-tolsa suggested that he and Master Parothis take a leisurely stroll together while the initiates explored together. It was nice to be out in the sunshine, even if Aronoke could see the faint curve of the dome high above them. It was nice to be left to their own devices, out from under the watchful eye of the Masters. He was well aware that were still being supervised from afar, and also that the Jedi were shielding him from the full impact of the Force so that he should not be overwhelmed.
The garden had an odd effect on him. Despite the familiar reluctance to take off his robes, he had the sudden urge to strip buff naked and lay on the grass in the sun. He did not do any such thing, of course, but the urge was there and it was most peculiar.
The other excursions visited different locales. They explored a great emporium in the Bezdrilian sector. It was a huge market, a three dimensional maze of little clothing stores, and the initiates were accompanied to one of the booths which Master Insa-tolsa claimed made very good quality robes to measure. They were all measured for new robes by the spindly arconens that worked inside.
The third expedition was to a biological gardens. Draken was very excited by that trip. Aronoke had to admit that looking at all the different kinds of creatures was exciting. It was even more interesting to see the habitat-spheres that the creatures were presented in. It was like looking at tiny samples of many different planets.
The fourth expedition was to the spaceport. Aronoke was less interested in this because he had seen it before on his arrival with Master Altus.
He was fourteen in standard galactic years now, and had been at the Jedi temple a little more than two years. He knew now that it was more his home than Kasthir had ever been. Felt a completely different person from the boy who had arrived there.
It was during this time too that he was called in one day to speak to Master Insa-tolsa, down in the main courtyard.
“Aronoke,” said Master Insa-tolsa gravely. “I have some bad news. Please, sit down.”
“Yes, Master?” said Aronoke, seating himself on a bench. He knew at once that it had to be something to do with Master Altus and Hespenara. They had been away for so long now, without any news.
He hoped the investigation of the map on his back had not led Master Altus into trouble.
“We have received news that a Jedi frozen in carbonite has been advertised to be auctioned by a crime lord on Kath’lor,” said Master Insa-tolsa. “The Jedi in question matches Hespenara’s description.”
“Oh no,” said Aronoke, shocked. “That’s terrible.”
“Obviously something must have prevented Master Altus from interfering, as he would not easily allow something of this nature to befall his Padawan,” said Master Insa-tolsa gravely.
Aronoked nodded, feeling sick. What could possibly be powerful enough to strike down someone as strong as Master Altus? And poor Hespenara…
“The Jedi Order will of course do all it can to retrieve the Jedi in carbonite before she can be auctioned, and to try and find out what has become of Master Altus,” said Master Insa-tolsa. “We must trust in the Force that these things can and will be achieved.”
“Yes, Master Insa-tolsa,” said Aronoke mechanically. His mind felt numb and confused and he went through his lessons distractedly the next few days. He hoped that news of Master Altus and Hespenara would arrive soon, but it was weeks coming, and when it came, none of it was good. The Jedi Order’s efforts to prevent the auction had failed and Hespenara had been sold, it was thought, to someone in the Primtara sector. Master Skeirim, amongst others, had been sent to investigate. None of the attempts to locate Master Altus had been successful.
Aronoke did his best to maintain a jedi-like attitude about Master Altus’s disappeareance, but he found it difficult. He burned with the need to do something, although there did not seem there was anything that he could do. Surely a fully trained Jedi like Master Skeirim was far more likely to achieve results than an initiate only in the third year of his training. The matter was already in capable hands and Aronoke knew exactly what Master Altus himself would say he should do. He must continue his training as if nothing had happened and not worry pointlessly about his missing mentor.
That was something Aronoke was not capable of doing. Even though he threw himself into his lessons with dogged vigour, he found himself worrying about Master Altus and Hespenara all the time. Thoughts of them crept in to disturb his meditation and sometimes prevented him from sleeping. Something had gone wrong and Aronoke suspected that it had something to do with him. He often felt if he could just reach out through the Force, unobstructed by the great shields that protected the Jedi Temple, he would be able to find the missing Jedi Master and his padawan.
It was no use to discuss these thoughts with Master Insa-tolsa. Aronoke was well acquainted enough with Jedi ways to know that the Master would only repeat what he knew himself. That he should continue his lessons and leave rescue attempts in more competent hands.
Meanwhile, the excursions to interesting places on Coruscant continued, although Aronoke found it difficult to relax and enjoy them. They visited the senate plaza to see the great building where the galactic senate sat. It was a popular destination for tourist groups visiting Coruscant from across the galaxy, and Aronoke and his colleagues were stared at a good deal by the other tour-groups who had come to see the sights. It was like the Jedi were part of the attraction instead of visitors themselves.
The sixth excursion was back to the Bezdrilian sector for more new robes. This time the initiates were directed to locate the tailor shop and order new robes by themselves. Aronoke was glad – his arms were already outgrowing his current sleeves by a few inches. Afterwards, they were allowed to explore the shopping complex further.
While Aronoke was waiting for Draken and Ashquash to come out of a shop, he noticed a droid was watching him. As soon as it saw he had noticed, it began trying to get his attention. Its limbs waved exaggeratedly, making what it obviously thought were covert gestures. Aronoke studiously ignored it. Chances were this was another unusual incident, and he didn’t want any strange messages from his supposed friend. The droid was insistent however. When Aronoke did not move, it reached inside one of its compartments and produced a cylindrical device. Waiting until there was a space in the crowd, it rolled the device across the floor so that it fetched up against Aronoke’s foot.
Why do these things always happen to me, Aronoke thought. Now what am I going to do?
He didn’t want to kick the cylinder away across the floor in case it hurt someone. Remembering how the previous message-droid had exploded, he wouldn’t put it past his mysterious assailant to do such a thing. Instead, sighing, he picked it up and looked at it. The droid seemed satisfied with this and scuttled off into the crowd. The cylinder seemed to be a message device. Aronoke did not want to activate it in such a public place – again, it might be dangerous. Instead he dropped it into the pocket of his robes.
As soon as they had returned to the Jedi temple, he brought it over to Master Insa-tolsa. They had just dismounted from the speeder, and the other Jedi in their party were standing a short distance away.
“Master Insa-tolsa,” he said, “There was a droid watching me while we were off by ourselves.”
“A droid?” said Master Insa-tolsa. “As happened to you before? Did it give you a message?”
“Well, perhaps,” said Aronoke. “It gave me this.” He took the cylinder out of his pocket and passed it to Master Insa-tolsa. “I didn’t look at it,” he began to say, but as he did so, the cylinder began flashing with a red light.
It was a good thing, Aronoke thought later, that Master Insa-tolsa had the foresight to act so quickly. Aronoke was still thinking stupidly that the flashing light didn’t bode anything good, when the cylinder was suddenly whisked some distance away, where it exploded violently. It raged brutally for a moment, a great ball of surging energy spectacularly contained by an invisible spherical shield, and then slowly died away. Aronoke could hear the astounded gasps of Draken and Ashquash from where they waited for him to finish speaking to Master Insa-tolsa, a short distance away.
“I wondered if something like that might happen,” said Aronoke, stunned.
Master Insa-tolsa also looked shaken. “If I did not know you so well, Aronoke,” he said wryly, “I might suspect you of playing pranks.”
It was a gentle admonishment. He had just saved all their lives, Aronoke thought belatedly. He had suspected the cylinder might blow up, although he had not imagined it happening so violently. He had trusted that Master Insa-tolsa would deal with it without thinking about the possible consequences – his faith in the big ithorian had solidified that much during their association.
“I’m sorry, Master,” said Aronoke contritely, making an apologetic bow of respect. “I did not think. I would not do something like that as a joke.”
“It is insufferable that these attacks continue unabated,” said Master Insa-tolsa, and then to Master Parothis and the other acolytes who were coming over: “There is no need for concern. Everything is fine. Initiates, you may go back to your clan quarters now.”
“What was that?” asked Draken, wide-eyed and excited as they made their way down the lift.
“It was a message cylinder a droid gave to me while we were in the bazaar,” said Aronoke.
“A droid? What droid?”
“You were in the shops.”
“What did the message say?” asked Ashquash. It was good perhaps, thought Aronoke, that she had seen what had happened. Proof that what he had told her was true.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look at it. Thought it was best to give it to Master Insa-tolsa without looking, and then it blew up.”
“That was sure something though,” said Draken. “The way it all raged and seethed, and how Master Insa-tolsa held it back like that! I’m glad that I saw that. It was amazing!”
“It’s probably best not to talk about it too much,” said Aronoke gently. Draken was still so young in his ways, it was difficult to remember that they were about the same chronological age. He wistfully thought that it would be more fun to be like Draken, without the weight of mysterious problems. If Aronoke had not been growing up so rapidly all the time, he would have spent a great deal more time getting into trouble with Draken, he suspected. “It’s better that the little kids don’t know.”
“Oh of course,” said Draken. “I won’t go blabbing the whole story in front of the little kids. Why would I go and do a thing like that?”
This from Draken who was the primary source of gossip, not only within their clan, but probably amongst many of the surrounding clans as well.
Aronoke and Ashquash both looked at him and Aronoke laughed.
“What?” asked Draken looking bewildered and holding his hands up questioningly.
The weeks fled by, and there was still no good news about Master Altus and Hespenara. Being frozen in carbonite was dangerous if it was not done properly, Aronoke knew, but Hespenara would not be aware of the passing of time. She would be in no pain or torment as long as she had not been released. Aronoke did not know why someone might want a live Jedi to experiment on, but he was certain such projects existed, and he hoped that Hespenara had not fallen into the hands of one of them.
Perhaps an experiment like that was what he himself had been created for.
As time went on, with no good news forthcoming, Aronoke grew more and more impatient. It seemed that the Jedi Council was useless, despite all their amazing powers. Were they too couched in caution to achieve anything? He felt strongly that Master Altus was still alive and was even more certain that he would know at once if the green man were dead.
“Master Insa-tolsa?” asked Aronoke one day. “It seems I have been learning a great deal about the Force, and yet every time we go out on our excursions, you and Master Parothis still shield me from it. Do you think I might go unshielded?”
“Are you sure you are ready?” asked Master Insa-tolsa thoughtfully. “It is for your own protection that you are shielded. Full exposure to the Force can be risky for one with your unusual balance of powers. From your lessons, I know that your control is progressing well, but your sense abilities continue to advance apace.”
“I can’t be certain, of course, Master,” said Aronoke. “But I feel I will be alright. I want to learn. I want to know what it is like. I will not learn to control myself if I do not try.”
“Hm, well, you have practiced hard, it is true,” said Master Insa-tolsa. “On our next expedition you may attempt to go unshielded.”
Their next expedition was to the water purification subsystems on the lower levels of Coruscant. At one time Aronoke would have been worried about all that water. He was still disturbed by it, seeing it lying in great sweltering pools and thundering by in torrential cataracts, but being exposed to the full strength of the Force was a new experience for him. It demanded a lot of his attention. Coming out of the temple had not been as shocking as that first time. He had been expecting the sudden great cacophony of the Force thundering through the great city. His attempts to dull its impact resulted in the construction of his own personal shield to counteract it.
It was not so difficult, but it did require a certain degree of concentration, and so, for the first part of the excursion, Aronoke was happy to wander along with his group mates. To stare in fascinated horror at the vast pools of water and listen to the explanations the tour droids gave of the processes involved in filtering it. Here at last was how Coruscant maintained its water supply to provide for all its billions of people, but Aronoke found it hard to pay attention. He felt curiously divorced from what was happening around him, partly absorbed in the new task of shielding himself, while another part of his mind was thinking about how he was going to achieve his secret goal, to look for Master Altus. Great columns of water thundered down around them, although never so close that they got wet by the spray, yet Aronoke found himself hardly thinking about them at all. He would once have been terrified by such a thing.
Distraction was a powerful tool.
Aronke waited until Master Insa-tolsa and Master Parothis fell deep into conversation together, as they were often wont to do. They stood debating some distance away. Draken and Ashquash were over by the railing, looking down at a great suction pool that lay below. Aronoke took advantage of the moment and went to sit upon a handy bench against one wall
He calmed his mind by means of a simple meditative exercise and carefully let his shields fall away.
He had tried once before to reach out through the Force to find something. It had been a minor thing, a missing datapad left behind on one of their excursions, but he had been unable to reach past the great protective barrier that encircled the Jedi Temple.
Now there was no barrier. The Force was like a great living network that reached everywhere, even between the worlds of the galaxy. Everything was interconnected. Distance was nothing. Aronoke reached out towards Master Altus, knowing that he was out there somewhere, knowing he was not dead and seeking some confirmation of it. Wanting to know where he was.
What came was no more than a fleeting glimpse. Master Altus was in a dark place, alone and in pain, but still very much himself. He shielded himself against the forces that beset him. He was obviously a prisoner, but he was still alive.
Aronoke had no time to tell anything of where Master Altus was. Like a piece of stretchy rubber he had reached his limits of expansion and was suddenly snapped back into himself in a painful oscillating way. He felt too loosely anchored afterwards, like his mind had been overstretched and was unable to contract fully. He sat a few minutes, feeling dizzy but relieved. Master Altus was alive, although he was being held prisoner somewhere.
Everything felt strange and disjointed. The world was too bright and strangely too wide and not high enough. It reverberated around him, and Aronoke forced himself to sit still and focus on a meditative exercise. It did not seem as effective as usual and he felt if he moved too quickly he would lose control of his body and start to shake like a leaf.
“Are you okay, Aronoke?” asked Draken, coming over. “You look a bit sick. Is it all the water?”
“I’m okay,” said Aronoke, climbing to his feet and following the others back over to the masters, hoping he didn’t look too peculiar. Merely thinking that was too much. His hands began to tremble uncontrollably as they made their way over to rejoin the tour.
Master Insa-tolsa must have noticed Aronoke looking strained. Suddenly the Master’s shield snapped around Aronoke, blocking out the vast bulk of the Force. Aronoke felt more secure. He was happy to remain quietly near Master Insa-tolsa for the rest of the trip, although his mind was anything but still. He was so very grateful that Master Altus was not dead or horribly changed.
He knew that keeping this information to himself was the smart thing to do. He might get in trouble for having attempted to see Master Altus. Master Insa-tolsa would certainly not be pleased.
But he didn’t care if he got in trouble. That was of no importance whatsoever. If what he had seen was even of the smallest assistance in locating Master Altus, it would be worth it.
“Master Insa-tolsa, can I speak with you a moment, before we go back?” asked Aronoke when their speeder arrived at the temple.
“Yes, of course,” said the ithorian. “Although I hope it is not a surprise like last time. Draken and Ashquash, you can go ahead back to your clan rooms. There is no need for you to wait.”
Draken and Ashquash were curious, Aronoke could see, but made no protest, making their bows, and thanking Master Insa-tolsa for taking them out.
“I saw Master Altus,” said Aronoke, once the others had gone. “I could sense him through the Force. I could not see where he was, but I could tell that he was alive. He seemed to be a prisoner, and was in some pain, but he was still alive and still himself.”
Master Insa-tolsa paused a moment, an unreadably alien expression crossing his face. “That is good news,” he said at last. “I am relieved to hear that Master Altus is alive, but you have been very foolish Aronoke. To attempt to seek him out in this way is a task that experienced Masters would hesitate attempting. Your training is very far from complete and you risk yourself greatly by attempting such a thing.”
“I’m sorry, Master,” said Aronoke, but he was not. He was entirely unrepentant. “But I would not be here at all if it were not for Master Altus. I might be something else entirely, or probably dead. If I can do anything to help him, then any risk to myself is unimportant.”
“If you risk yourself heedlessly now, untrained and impatient, Initiate,” said Master Insa-tolsa sternly, “then you may well not be here later, when your skills really are needed. You might rob us of a resource that might help many people. Or even worse, corrupt that potential good into something that could do us harm. Master Altus himself would advise you to refrain from taking such risks on his behalf. Although I am relieved that he is still alive and will see that this information is passed on to those investigating his whereabouts, I am disappointed that you would do a thing like this during one of our excursions. I trust you to behave in a proper manner while in public and to be a good example for Ashquash and Draken. I took your request to go unshielded in good faith, yet you have purposefully manufactured this opportunity for your own purposes.”
“I am sorry for that, Master,” said Aronoke, more contritely. “It was not my intention to deceive you or to be disobedient. You are right. I did not consider that aspect of my actions. I have always felt that Master Altus was still alive. I felt I could contact him if only I tried, and it is difficult not to try when no one has made any great progress towards finding him and Hespenara.”
“You must be patient and trust in the Force,” said the ithorian. “All things happen in their own time.” And he went on to recite several platitudes that emphasized this point and required Aronoke to contemplate them at length, as a penance.
Aronoke did this, but he was still unable to regret trying to find Master Altus. The fact that the green man was still alive was a comfort to him during all the days that followed.
One evening, Aronoke was called to the library by Master Insa-tolsa. They had not met there before, but Aronoke thought little of it, because they often met in different places. When he arrived, it turned out to be a meeting room, set out with chairs and tables, with a reference library of datacrystals stored along the walls.
“Initiate Aronoke,” said Master Insa-tolsa, more formal than usual. “There is someone here whom I would like you to meet.” He gestured across the room, and Aronoke’s gaze followed the motion to settle upon the woman who stood there.
She was a chiss. A tall, stern looking chiss with silver hair, almost as tall as he was. He found it strange to look into her glowing red eyes, so much like his own in the mirror.
“This is Master Bel’dor’ruch,” said Master Insa-tolsa.
Aronoke had been told once about Master Bel’dor’ruch, the chiss Jedi who had come through the Jedi Temple a quarter of a century before he had started his training. He had been told he might consider her a good example of what he might achieve. He had expected that one day he might meet her, due to their shared race, but had not expected it to be as soon as this. Speechless for a moment, he realised he was staring at her, and attempted to hide his confusion by making an awkward polite bow under her flashing red gaze.
“Initiate Aronoke,” said Master Bel’dor’ruch. “You have nearly reached your full growth.”
Aronoke wondered how she could tell how fully grown he was, just by looking at him.
“Yes, Master,” he forced himself to say. He felt returned to his old monosyllabic insecurity, she was so very stern and frightening. Her direct manner seemed impossible to avoid, while her voice was hard and demanding, indicating that she would brook no nonsense.
“How long have you been here at the Jedi temple, Aronoke?”
“Something over two years, Master,” said Aronoke.
“I have heard about these incidents that have plagued you,” said Master Bel’dor’ruch. “I find it an affront to our shared species that the only other chiss to train to be a Jedi in my lifetime should have his training botched in this way. It is hard to believe that such a matter has not been effectively dealt with by the Jedi Masters after all this time.” She gave Master Insa-tolsa a scathing look, as if he were personally responsible for these failings, but did not give him time to reply.
“The question that I find myself asking,” she continued, pacing back and forth, “is why you have attracted this unwanted attention. It seems unlikely that it is due to your race alone, although I suppose it is possible. Your records show that you are a dedicated student, but certainly no more talented than many others. Many students are different in one regard or another – merely being unusual does not seem enough reason for you to warrant such unusual attention.”
She regarded Aronoke with her piercing red eyes.
“Your Master Altus recorded in his report that you were being provoked. His words indicate that he recognised that there was a reason for this happening and did not question that it was valid, but he did not see fit to record exactly what it might be.”
Aronoke could feel the heat rising in his face, a side-effect of the old shame and fear that were rising unbidden inside him, when he realised where this conversation was leading.
“Now Master Altus has disappeared as well,” said Master Bel’dor’ruch pointedly. “He has obviously met with a disaster great enough to overwhelm even one of his power and experience. I can’t help but think that these things are potentially related.”
She stopped still, fixing Aronoke with her stare and let him stand there a moment, sweating and trapped by his own ancient terror. He forced himself to focus, to bring his fear under control. He swallowed uncomfortably.
“Is there any reason you know of, Initiate, which you revealed to Master Altus, which might explain why you might be singled out in this way?”
“There is one thing, Master,” said Aronoke reluctantly. “There is not really any explaining it. I can only show you.”
“Then show us,” demanded Master Bel’dor’ruch. She waited expectantly, willing to accept no delays.
Aronoke made a small bow of acquiescence. His heart thudded in his chest despite his effort to maintain control and he felt hot, heavy and sick, like he had been struck down with a sudden fever. With fumbling hands that felt swollen and slow, he took off his outer robe and hung it on a chair. Nausea washed over him in waves as he unfastened his shirt with fingers that shook slightly. He felt helpless as a child again, naked, tied face-down on a rack, bound to his fate, as he took the shirt off.
You are not there, he told himself firmly, hanging the shirt over the robe. This is not Crazy Kras. That will not happen here.
And then he turned around.
They came forward to peer at him, turning up the lights to see better.
“And Master Altus knew about this?” asked Bel’dor’ruch.
“He took a picture of it,” said Aronoke unsteadily. “Recorded it on his datapad. He was investigating it here at the temple, but found little. Said there was a lead he might investigate while he was away.”
“And now he has disappeared,” said Master Bel’dor’ruch thoughtfully. “You can get dressed, Initiate.”
Aronoke hastened to put his shirt and robe back on while she continued speaking.
“A detailed record should be made of those markings. We must try to replicate Master Altus’s research, so we might find out what this lead was. It might give us some insight into where he went.”
Without further deliberation she turned to Master Insa-tolsa.
“Why is he still an initiate here in the temple?” she said, speaking as if Aronoke was not there. “He is obviously almost fully grown. Both you and I know, Master Insa-tolsa, that the role of Initiate is an artificial one, brought into existence to keep young Force-sensitives out of trouble until they are fully grown and a Master can be found to mentor them. It is only in recent decades that they are kept here as late as they are, shipped in batches like livestock to Ilum because there are so many it is the only way to deal effectively with them all. They used to be sent out much sooner, and certainly have been sent out with less training in times of war. He is young by today’s standards, it is true, but we chiss are not like humans, are nothing like humans in this regard. There is also his unusual background to consider. He was already performing in an adult’s role before he was inducted, according to Master Altus’s reports. He would never have been allowed to train at all, if not for Master Altus’s sponsorship. He is far too old. He should be given his trials and made a Padawan, placed out in the field where these harassments will be more easily avoided. It is the obvious solution.”
“But he is not ready for such pressures,” objected Master Insa-tolsa. “Aronoke has only been with us for a short time and although it is true that he has learned very quickly, there is still much that he does not know. Surely his unusual background means there is more reason, rather than less, that he requires time to complete his training.”
“Much that a Master can easily teach him out in the field, as it is meant to be. Don’t you agree, Master Insa-tolsa, that it was from your Master that you learned all the most important aspects of your training? Not as an initiate wasting time in the temple?”
Aronoke thought Master Insa-tolsa did not like the temple labelled as a waste of time, but the ithorian said nothing of this.
“You do make some valid points, Master Bel’dor’ruch,” he said stiffly. “In regard to the harassments.”
“What about you?” said Master Bel’dor’ruch suddenly, turning back to Aronoke. “Do you feel ready to go out to train with a Master in the field?”
“I…I don’t know, Master,” said Aronoke uncertainly. Part of him leapt at such an idea – to be out doing instead of practicing, to be able to make some difference in the world. To learn new things through experience rather than carefully considered repetition. But part of him did not want that responsibility. He liked having a safe place here in the temple, with people who could help him. The incidents were difficult and annoying, it was true, but they were nothing compared to the difficulties he had faced before he had come here. Those were the only two types of existence that he had known.
“I feel there is still much I have to learn here,” he said. “But I also feel it would be safer for my clan mates if I was not here, because then they could not be targeted by these attempts to get at me.”
Master Bel’dor’ruch was not satisfied with this hovering.
“Let me put it another way,” she said. “If you were given the opportunity to attempt the test to become a Padawan, would you be willing to do so?”
She made it sound like a challenge.
“Of course, Master,” said Aronoke immediately.
“Well then,” she said, turning back to Master Insa-tolsa and shrugging. “Let it be so. I don’t believe there is anything else we need to discuss that requires your presence, Initiate. I will contact you later as I would speak with you further about these incidents and those things that we have in common. You are dismissed.”
“You look rather shaken,” said Draken, when Aronoke got back to the clan rooms. “Did something strange happen to you again? More exploding messages?”
“No,” said Aronoke. “I had to go and see Master Bel’dor’ruch and she is scary.”
“Oh,” said Draken, a little sympathetically. Aronoke refrained from telling him more about the meeting. He didn’t tell Draken that he had met another chiss. He felt like Master Bel’dor’ruch had taken his world, firmly shaken it and then set it back in place upside-down. He had finally met someone of his own race and she was not at all like anything he had expected. She had ruthlessly extracted his secret in just a few minutes. Then she had abruptly decided that he should be taken from the temple and sent out into the galaxy. He did not know how to explain these things to Draken and thought perhaps it was best not to.
Everything would be revealed in time, regardless.
Tash was awakened by the silence. For a very long time he had lain there listening to the shuffling and wheezing and jangling and occasional unhappy gabbling of the other sacrifices, and he must finally have fallen asleep, but he awoke with a start to a silence like death. No one stirred. No one wheezed or muttered nonsense words to themselves. It was yet harder to see than it had been, for some kind of thick fog had filled the chamber and the lights on the pillars spent themselves in muddled grey-green blobs and failed to illuminate anything more than a few paces distant.
‘I hope they are not all dead,’ said Tash. It would not really have been any worse for him to be chained up with some hundreds of dead bodies than with some hundreds of sacrifices who were to be killed in a few days at any rate, but it was a horrible thing to imagine, and frightened him every bit as much as it would you or me. He felt at the idiot boys chained to his left and to his right, but could not wake them, nor could he tell for sure whether they were breathing or not. When he moved, his chains clanked, but less than they should have, like they were clanking underwater.
‘I wish I was anywhere else at all,’ thought Tash unhappily.
A moment later things became yet more alarming, for Tash felt something crawling on his arm. It was a quick tickly rasping thing with too many legs, as big as his hand, and he could see it only as the merest flicker of movement in the gloom.
‘I must be still and quiet and maybe it will not bite me,’ said Tash to himself. He had learned this way of dealing with biting creatures through painful experience. So he sat very still as the something crawled down to his wrist and sat there in an unruly ticklish way like a newborn sister, and as another something of the same sort crawled onto one of his legs and scrabbled to his ankle, and then another, and another, until the rasping things were perched everywhere the chains bound Tash to the stone post. Then they began to gnaw. Not on Tash – for which he was very grateful – but on the fetters that held him. He could feel the patient grinding of their teeth in his bones, an inexorable gnawing that went on and on without ever slowing down or speeding up. He had the feeling that if these creatures with too many legs set their tiny minds to it they would simply keep gnawing forever through anything that was in their way, flesh and bone and metal and stone, year after year and generation after generation, until they had gnawed a tunnel through the world from one side to another.
After a long time the things with too many legs had chewed through all of Tash’s fetters. The chains fell dully to the floor, one by one, and the many-legged things gathered in a vague mass before him. He could see their green eyes shining now, little pinpricks of light in the fog. They were looking at him.
‘It is better to do something than nothing,’ thought Tash, which was one of the proverbs he had heard all his life whenever he had been found doing nothing. He stood up, which was more difficult than he expected. First one of the many-legged creatures darted away into the darkness, then another one. The remaining green eyes watching him seemed to be brighter. He took a step in the direction the creatures seemed to be going and they took off before him in a rush, their eyes bounding like grith nodules in a pot of boiling water.
As Tash walked away from the pillars where the sacrifices were chained, the fog lifted and the eyes of the creatures grew brighter and brighter. The strange silence also faded, and Tash could hear the scrape of his own feet on the pavement, and the rustle of the many-legged creatures around him. There were more of them than there had been: more and more, until he could dimly see his injured hand by the glow of their eyes, and the shadows cast by their capering bodies. They were leading him away from the doors to the outside, across the vast chamber, deeper and deeper into the evil-smelling darkness.
‘Now I am somewhere else, as I wished,’ thought Tash. ‘It is better, I suppose. How this chamber goes on and on. ’
If it had been outside and lit, it would doubtless have seemed no great expanse, smaller than many of the grith fields in which Tash had spent his life; but it was inside and dark, so seemed to be without beginning or end.
But at last it did end: stone walls closed in around Tash, and the air grew damper and less evil-smelling. The creatures danced around him, steering him first one way and then another through what seemed to be a maze of passages, sometimes down, sometimes up, but more often down. The air grew damper yet, and the walls Tash came close to were slick with slime. Once they passed over a thunderous stream of water, and another time Tash had to climb over a statue that had fallen over to block the way. Tash would have liked to stop and examine the statue more closely, for he had never been so close to any of the great carven images which the Tower was decorated, but the many-legged creatures became so terribly agitated when he bent down to peer at it that he judged it unwise.
‘After all if I scare them away I will have no light at all, and will never be able to find my way anywhere in the dark,’ he thought. And he followed the creatures on, and on, and on, through the maze.
Tash was dizzy from watching the green eyes of the creatures, and weary from not being able to stop and ponder things, and feeling rather sore from one particular place he had been clouted that had not seemed such a big deal at the time, when the passage he was following ended abruptly in a wall.
Several of the creatures took off excitedly into the darkness, while others scrabbled up the walls and even clung to the ceiling above Tash’s head. Before he had time to think of much of anything at all he saw a light that was not dancing and green. It was a bluish light like fire that was very bright – really too bright to look at directly – and it traced a line along the wall in front of him, from the floor to somewhere well above his head. Then it grew wider and wider, and was a door opening into a room, where everything was too bright to see. Of course the light poured out of this room as well, so it was just as impossible to see anything outside, but Tash was vaguely aware of the many-legged creatures capering into the room like mad things. A slightly darker patch loomed out of the brightness, took Tash by an arm and steered him into the room, less roughly than he was accustomed to.
‘Stand still,’ said a voice. ‘Don’t fall over. And straighten up.’ It was the voice of a very old thalarka, and it spoke the words very carefully, as if they were made out of something fragile and would break if spoken too roughly.
Tash did his best to follow these sensible instructions. Little by little his eyes adjusted and he could make out the source of the voice. The unbearable brightness came after all from a rather small lamp, which filled the room with wavering blue light and a sickly sweet smell. The lamp hung from the ceiling above a stone table covered with mysterious devices, which under normal circumstances Tash would have been inordinately curious about. There were books, too, like the ones the tax collectors carried, but instead of one there were scores, stacked on the table and on shelves on the far wall. Clinging to the walls – and the shelves – were very many of the things with too many legs, shifting ceaselessly about and rustling like a crowd of villagers on a festival day. In some curious way Tash was quite sure that they were paying attention to the old thalarka; that he was their Overlord, and that their mindless whispering meant something very like ‘sweeter than narbul venom is it to serve the Overlord’. In the lamplight the eyes that had lit Tash’s way were nearly invisible, buried deep in their wrinkled beastly faces, and they looked every bit as horrid as Tash had first imagined in the darkness.
The thalarka had one withered arm and one blind eye, and stood hunched over so that this eye was level with Tash’s eyes though if he had stood straight he would have been rather tall. He wore a necklace with a sigil of reddish-black stones, and with his remaining good eye he studied Tash with a furious silent intensity.
‘Yes… yes,’ the old thalarka said to himself. ‘You will do.’
It was better to be told that he would do, than to be told he was perfectly and completely useless, Tash thought. He bowed his head and let his arms droop, but he let his arms droop less than he usually did when his elders spoke to him, and when he bowed his head he kept one eye peeking at what the old thalarka was doing.
‘You don’t appear to be witless,’ said the old thalarka, keeping his eye on Tash while picking up a complicated metal instrument from the table. The lamplight reflected prettily from it. ‘Can you talk?’
‘Yes, Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One,’ said Tash. ‘What does that thing do?’
The old thalarka raised the instrument to his eye and looked through it at Tash, making a clicking noise in his throat. He adjusted a knob on its side, took it down and adjusted another knob, then raised it to his eye again. Tash watched these proceedings with fascination. He had not really expected the old thalarka to answer his question, but after making a few more adjustments he said something that must have been an answer.
‘It uses certain little known properties of solar radiation to estimate the eckward component of the aetheric vibrations.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Tash. ‘Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One,’ he added hastily after a moment.
‘Of course you don’t,’ said the old thalarka. ‘If you did, you wouldn’t be chained up under the Procurator’s tower waiting to be sacrificed. You would be the apprentice of one of my rivals, and I would have brought you here to persuade you betray them. Or perhaps to torture you to death, as a warning to your master not to interfere with my plans.’
‘I see,’ said Tash. ‘Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One.’
‘Don’t look so alarmed,’ said the old thalarka, setting down the instrument and picking up another one – still keeping his one eye fixed on Tash. ‘I have no interest in torturing you to death. It is quite clear that you are an ignorant peasant.’ This new instrument seemed to contain some kind of liquid, which could be ejected in a very thin stream through a small tube when the old thalarka pressed a lever. He did this once, spraying a little of the liquid into the air, and the many-legged creatures seemed to find it of great interest. They began to seethe more rapidly, and a few dropped from the walls to scuttle across the floor.
‘What is that?’ asked Tash, forgetting to add ‘Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One’.
‘Aetheric essence,’ said the old thalarka. Slowly and carefully, he traced a circle with the oil on the floor between himself and Tash about a body-length across. The things with too many legs dropped to the floor in numbers and began to cluster along the circle, climbing on top of each other in their eagerness to be close to it. Tash could hear the grinding sound of their teeth in his bones. It was a very unpleasant sound. It began to smell oddly, like the taste Tash got in his mouth sometimes when he had been clouted over the head.
‘What are they?’ asked Tash.
‘Gnawers,’ said the old thalarka.
‘I have never seen them before,’ said Tash.
‘They are forbidden,’ the old thalarka replied. For the first time, he took his eye of off Tash, to do something fiddly with one of the most complicated looking devices while he consulted one of the books on his table. ‘The penalty for keeping them is death by fire.’
‘Aren’t you afraid I’m going to tell on you? No, you’re not. Oh.’ For the first time Tash considered that there might possibly be worse things than being sacrificed to the glory of the Overlord. The odd smell was stronger now, and the sound of the gnawers gnawing, without becoming any louder, grated more and more insistently on Tash’s mind so that he found it hard to think of anything else. He glanced at the door, considering and then instantly dismissing dashing to it and running off in the dark.
‘What do they gnaw?’ asked Tash after a pause.
‘Everything. Plants. Stones. Men. Even – if encouraged properly – the very tissue of space and time.’ The old thalarka carefully adjusted a knob on the device, glancing every now and again to the book. It was open to a picture, rather than rows of ideographs, Tash saw – some kind of tangle of circles within circles within circles that he wished he could look at more closely.
‘Is that what they’re doing?” asked Tash. ‘Much-knowing…’
‘Oh, you are too clever by half,’ said the old thalarka, amused. ‘Of course. Of course that is what they are doing.’ All the gnawers had clustered in a thick writhing mass around the circle of oil that the old thalarka had made, crawling over one another and sometimes biting through each other’s legs by mistake. The air above them was starting to waver, like the air above the smokeless fires that were kindled in the temples.
Tash asked the question then that had first popped into his mind when he had been brought into the room, but kept being pushed back when he thought of other questions. ‘What are you going to do to me?’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said the old thalarka. ‘It will be much more interesting than being sacrificed. Hold out your hands.’
‘Why?’ asked Tash. But he held out his hands, being accustomed to obeying orders. The old thalarka picked a length of silvery cord up from the table and tossed one end across to Tash.
‘You don’t want to let go of that. Just keep holding on, and everything will be fine.’ The old thalarka’s one eye glistened with excitement. He had kept hold of the other end of the cord, which now passed directly over the circle of gnawers.
Tash held the end of the cord tightly. It was comforting, despite everything that had been happened, to be told that everything would be fine if he just held on to it. ‘What does it do?’ he asked.
The old thalarka did not answer, but shifted from one foot to another in his enthusiasm, alternately gazing proudly at the seething gnawers and examining a dial on one of his devices. And a moment later Tash had forgotten that he had asked any such thing.
It was very like when the door had opened. There was a crack of bright light, but it was a crack in the air above the gnawers, rather than a crack in the wall. It swiftly got wider and brighter, and then everything inside it fell out of the world. That was the only way Tash could ever explain it afterwards. A little piece of the universe had been gnawed away at the edges, and it had fallen off into something else. The gnawers stopped gnawing; most of them scuttled backwards, while a few slipped over the edge of the void and were instantly whisked away.
Tash’s eyes refused to tell him what was going on in the space above the circle. It was black and piercingly white at the same time, and it seemed to be in ceaseless motion, but not in any direction that Tash had ever encountered before. The silver cord he held disappeared into one side of it, swaying gently, and reappeared on the other. At the edge of the void the air was shimmering, and seemed to be rushing swiftly like water in a millrace; but the space itself he could not manage to get his thoughts around.
‘Magnificent,’ exclaimed the old thalarka. ‘Exceptional. Look at how smooth the interface is! How stable the aetheric flux! If only Zmaar could see me now. If Tzorch knew how much I have surpassed him. The old fool!‘
The whole thing was so fascinating that Tash forgot to be terrified, and stopped attending to what the old thalarka was saying. He tugged at the cord, ever so gently, to see what would happen. Nothing did. It was as if the void was an immovable object. He stared into the absence of universe, willing himself to make some sense of it. The old thalarka was quite right: whatever else this was, it was certainly more interesting than being sacrificed.
‘Is that clear?’ asked the old thalarka sharply.
‘Yes,’ said Tash without conviction, having no idea what the old thalarka had just said.
‘I am sure the powers – inscrutable as They are – will find you an equitable exchange,’ said the old thalarka, his eyes glistening with triumph. ‘Do not let go of the cord.’
‘Y-‘ Tash began. The old thalarka gave his cord the tiniest of tugs, and Tash’s cord was pulled into the void with inexorable force, as if it was attached to a cart that had fallen over the edge of a cliff. Inwards, upwards, and otherwards, Tash was instantly and irresistibly dragged into a place where nothing made sense.
It may seem that we have not been writing very much over the last six months or so, and this is both true, in terms of publishing things, and not true, in terms of projects that have been trickling along the background. In my case, I have been working on “The Changing Man,” a teen fic novel set in the universe of “Misfortune“, and also on the second volume of Aronoke, More recently I have started a story about a traveller boy in the world of Tsai, called “Sky’s the Limit” (which may never see the light of day), whereas Chris has been diverted into completing his Narnia fan-fiction story, Bride of Tash.
Today I put up the first chapters of Bride of Tash at fanfiction.net, and also at Archive of Our Own, which is a fan fiction site frequented by our children. There are great drosses of trash to be found on fanfiction collection sites such as these, mostly in the style of “What would happen if Major Character X had the hots for Major Character Y?” but there are occasional gems to be found floating in this sea of mediocre slush.
Bride of Tash can also be found here, in the Freebies section, where it will be updated prior to other postings.
Tash had always been told he was perfectly and completely useless.
‘Perfectly and completely useless,’ his father would say, in a voice that was an instrument for making absolutely clear statements of mathematically precise fact. His brothers would nod their heads solemnly in agreement, and his sisters and mothers would creak wheezily from their alcoves to show that they also agreed that Tash was perfectly and completely useless.
Tash would bow his head and let his arms droop, as if to agree that what his father said was true.
‘And yet,’ Tash would think to himself, ‘I am not useless at all.’ And he would daydream of what he would do one day to prove to everyone that he was not perfectly and completely useless and lose track of what his father was saying.
It is not my intention to excuse anything Tash did or didn’t do on the grounds that he had an unpleasant childhood. I am not telling you this so that you will feel sorry for him, or so you can psychoanalyse him. It is only that if Tash hadn’t had an unpleasant childhood, he would have gone on to live a very ordinary life like his brothers and would not come into this story at all.
For the first four years of his life no one said a kind word to Tash. Four years among the thalarka is about the same as fifteen or sixteen of our years, for the world of the thalarka rolls sluggishly around their great green marrow-fat pea of a sun. In all that time no one told Tash that he was anything other than perfectly and completely useless.
In point of fact, he was useless. To live in the Plain of Ua requires stamina, to work all day in the endless fields of mud: planting grith, and fertilising grith, and weeding grith, and warding off the beasts of mire and mist that are eager to eat the tender young grith plants, and harvesting the spindly fruit of the grith that must be picked in darkness and husked and pickled the same night it is picked so it will not spoil. Tash was weak, and could not do any of these things for more than half an hour at a stretch. Furthermore, he was sickly, and was forever getting fevers that made him no good for any work at all for days on end. Worse, he was impatient and easily distracted, and long before he was too weak to work he would usually have wandered off to tease some many-legged crawling thing with a bit of stick, or make little dams and canals in the mud with the hoe he was supposed to be weeding with. And he was clumsy: he would trample the little grith plants, and pull them up instead of the weeds, and at harvest time he would get bits of husk in the pickling pot, and drop fruit in the mud, and stab his fingers on the prickly parts of the fruit so that they swelled up and were perfectly and completely useless for any more husking.
Once in each long year of the thalarka was the festival of Quambu Vashan, which was held in the city where the Procurator of the Overlord had her alcove, some days journey away on the edge of the Plain of Ua. There was always great feasting at the time of the festival of Quambu Vashan, and acrobats and clowns, though only old Raaku of all the villagers had ever seen them.
Two or three times a year the rain would stop and the sun would peer down through a canyon in the clouds. Then the thalarka in the fields would down tools and try not to look up at the great green marrow-fat pea of the sun and mutter proverbs. Tash would always look up at the sunlit sides of the canyons of cloud- which were almost too bright to see- and dream of what it must be like to be up there.
Eight times a year was the frenzy of the harvest, and after the harvest came the feasting, and after the feasting the coming of the Overlord’s tax collectors, to carry off rather a lot of the pickled grith that was left over from the feasting.
Two or three hundred times a year there would be some sort of holiday to break the round of working in the fields, with the proper dates for each holiday kept in order by the priests. There would be dancing in figures, and wagers on fights between caged mire beasts that were things like hairless weasels, and the priests would usually sacrifice something and make patterns on the walls of the priest-house with dripping bits from its inside.
Every day it rained.
The plain of Ua was a plain of grey mud, and the skies were of grey cloud, and the stick-like grith were grey, and the huts of the thalarka were grey. The thalarka themselves were also grey. The huts of the thalarka were dry inside with a fitful clammy dryness, in which lamps burned only with a feeble bluish flame. Tash thought fire was splendid, since it was not grey. That was how he managed to burn one of his hands rather badly just before the harvest. At this particular harvest he was needed more than usual, since his two oldest brothers had been married off into other villages since the harvest before, but because of his injury he ended up being even less useful than usual.
This was not long before the festival of Quambu Vashan. Besides clowns and acrobats, great numbers of sacrifices of a particular kind were always required at this festival, so it was the custom of the tax collectors of the Overlord to demand from each village they visited at the harvest an appropriate sacrifice. This would not be important if it were not that the sacrifices required for the festival of Quambu Vashan were thalarka of about four years of age. It was required that they have all their limbs intact, and have no obvious serious blemishes, but otherwise it was all the same to the Overlord whether they were useless or not. This part of the festival did not feature in Raaku’s stories, and the older thalarka of the village tended not to discuss it in the presence of younger ones.
‘We should give Tash to the tax collectors for sacrifice at the festival of Quambu Vashan,’ said Tash’s father to his mothers one night. ‘For he is perfectly and completely useless for anything else.’
A family that freely gave the sacrifice for the festival of Quambu Vashan would be noted on the books of the tax collectors and not be called upon to give another for a generation, during which time more useful members of the family suitable for sacrifice would be spared to work in the fields. It was also the custom in Tash’s village for the families who had not given a son or daughter to the tax collectors to bring presents to the family that had, and speak approvingly of them, so Tash’s father’s suggestion was quite a good one. It is only fair on Tash’s mothers to report that they did not croak their agreement immediately, not until Tash’s father had reminded them of these things.
So after the harvest when the tax collectors of the Overlord came to the village Tash was sent off with them.
‘You are being apprenticed to the tax collectors,’ Tash’s father told him. ‘You will leave with them when they have finished lunch.’
Tash did not realise why he had been sent off until he had been travelling the rest of that day with the tax collectors. He had spent most of the afternoon staring up at the roiling patterns of the clouds, imagining that they had hidden meanings. They were like secret symbols from a mysterious power in the sky sending orders to its minions in the mire, in a tremendously complicated language that never said exactly the same thing twice. The tax collectors had already collected four other young thalarka for the festival of Quambu Vashan. Three of them were girls, and Tash could not understand their speech – it was another part of Tash’s uselessness that he had a bad ear for women’s language – and the fourth was a boy. He was slow-witted and smaller than Tash, but he had paid more attention to the world around him.
‘Where do you think we will stop?’ said Tash as it started to get dark, meaning ‘where are we going to stop tonight’, but the slow-witted one took him at his word and said, ‘At the festival’.
‘Why did you say, ‘at the festival’?’ said Tash, since he was bored and couldn’t think of anything better to do than quibble with the slow-witted boy. ‘Why not say we’re going to the city of the Overlord’s Procurator?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the slow-witted boy. He hung his head and drooped his arms in exactly the same way Tash had always done when his father told him how useless he was.
‘So, what does the festival have to do with it?’ said Tash impatiently.
‘I’m going to be a sacrifice at the festival,’ said the slow-witted boy. He said it in the same way that Tash’s brothers would say things like ‘I’m going to weed the south-eastern corner of the field today’.
Tash looked around at the others and thought that the tax collectors had treated all five of them in exactly the same way since they had left the village. Here they were, all walking in a line through the mud. And he realised that his father had very probably lied to him, and that he was going to be a sacrifice as well. For a while he could say nothing at all.
‘I seem to be in terrible trouble,’ Tash thought.
Over the next few days of tramping across the Plain of Ua Tash tried to escape many times, but the tax collectors were experienced collectors of sacrifices, and he had no luck. They went through nine more villages and collected nine more sacrifices for the festival of Quambu Vashan. Five of these were boys, and they were all slow-witted except for Zish, who was contrary.
‘I was opposed to the ways of the village because they were brutish and stupid,’ said Zish, in a way Tash had never heard before, that was bitter and mirthful at the same time, as if it pleased Zish more than anything to call the ways of his village brutish and stupid. ‘So I’m to be sacrificed now,’ he went on. ‘At least my blood will be of some use to the Overlord Varkarian, if it is of no further use to me.’
‘I’m sure there is some way to escape,’ said Tash. ‘If we work together’-
‘There is no way to escape,’ said Zish in his bitter mirthful way. ‘This is our destiny, Valgur’ – he had confused Tash with one of the other boys, whose name was Valgur, and took no notice of Tash’s efforts to correct him – ‘to serve the Overlord by being sacrifices at the festival of Quambu Vashan. Our destiny is inexorable. Our destiny is irresistible.’
Tash stopped listening to Zish as he talked more about inexorable destiny and the usefulness of being sacrificed. Tash was not sure whether this was what Zish really believed or not. Perhaps he did not know himself whether he believed it or not. Sometimes Zish talked in such a way that Tash thought he must be mad, and sometimes Zish told Tash that he was mad.
‘I have said the same thing to you a dozen times, Valgur, and you haven’t said a word back, just gone on staring at the clouds,’ said Zish. ‘You must be mad. It is no wonder you are only fit to be sacrificed.’
At any rate Zish was too contrary to be in any way helpful to Tash.
If he had not known he was going to be sacrificed at the end of it Tash would have had a lovely time. The long hours of walking were dreadfully wearying at first, but he felt himself growing stronger each day, and the sacrifices were fed twice a day with the freshly pickled grith the tax collectors had gathered, which was more and nicer food than Tash had eaten before. Each day he saw new villages, with new and different temples, and new fields cut into different shapes, and great coiling worms of rivers, and broad lakes spotted with rafts, and companies of spear-men and javelin-women marching on the highroads, their armour as silvery-grey as the lakes and spotted with metal spikes instead of rafts. He had seen nothing but his village and the fields immediately around it for his whole life and found he quite liked travelling.
At the edge of the Procurator’s city Tash’s party met up with several other parties of tax collectors. All the sacrifices were collected together and tied in a long chain to keep them tidy, ankle to ankle and wrist to wrist, and in this way they all shuffled together into the Procurator’s city. This city was made of grey stone, huts and palaces alike, and they were scattered together in no particular order over the plain, at first with plenty of space between them but then closer and closer together until they almost blocked out the clouds.
‘Do not let the splendour of this place fool you, Valgur,’ said Zish. ‘Here, too, the ways of the common people are brutish and stupid. But we are irresistibly called to a higher destiny. Inexorably!’
In the middle of the city was the Tower of the Procurator of the Overlord, ten or twelve times higher than any other built thing Tash had ever seen. It was carved on every side with images of mist-beasts and mire-beasts and thalarka, all larger than life, and all making gestures of obeisance to the sigil of the Overlord Varkarian, which was at the top of the tower and was worked in huge blue stones like fire.
‘Sweeter than narbul venom is it to serve the Overlord,’ intoned the most senior of the tax collectors, when the party could first see this sigil in blue stones like fire. All the more junior tax collectors dutifully intoned in unison that it was sweeter than narbul venom to serve the Overlord, and so did the long line of sacrifices. Strictly speaking Tash had no idea whether this was true or not, having never tasted narbul venom nor anything other than grith. But he intoned along with the others. They only had a few moments to look at the tower. Tash would have stared longer, but was dragged along as he was chained to everyone else. Then they were steered through a big black door and down a long ramp which stretched down into a chamber somewhere underneath the tower. The ramp ended somewhere in the middle of the chamber, which stretched off into darkness on every side, over-warm and evil-smelling. Some dozens of boys and girls for the sacrifice were there already, chained to posts set in the floor in groups of six or seven. On top of these posts there were lanterns, and every post that had thalarka chained to it had its lantern lit, with a dancing flame that was more green than blue. Tash’s long line of sacrifices was split up into groups of six or seven and chained to posts, and at the same time the lanterns on top of the post were lit. But there were still many many more empty posts with unlit lanterns.
The chamber was drier than any place Tash had ever been. You or I would have found this its one redeeming feature, but to Tash it was unnerving. The dryness hurt his ears and made his throat itch.
The thalarka who lit the lanterns was an old priest woman, bent over like a grith plant that has grown in too dark a shadow, and she lit the lanterns with a thin silvery stick longer than she was tall. Tash found the lighting of the lanterns very interesting and wondered if the old priest stayed down in the chamber all the time, waiting for a reason to light the lanterns, or if she went somewhere else. She seemed so completely a creature of the dark chamber that Tash could not imagine her being anywhere else. Tash ended up chained with a group of dim-witted boys around one of the pillars at the edge of the darkness.
As soon as all the sacrifices were properly chained a group of younger priests handed out something to eat that was not grith. They were cakes of something very much nicer than grith, though I dare say you or I would still have found them very nasty, and Tash devoured his greedily. So did all the others. When they had finished eating two more priests in more resplendent garments – still mostly grey, but shiny – came and gave speeches, one in male language and one in female language.
The speech that Tash heard went something like this:
‘Welcome in the name of the Overlord Varkarian. Truly it is sweeter than narbul venom, and more pleasant than the song of horn and cymbal, to serve the Overlord Varkarian. Truly are you favoured, for through your sacrifice the Overlord will be glorified. Truly will your sacrifice bring the inscrutable designs of the Overlord closer to their inexorable fruition. Though you may have been useless until this moment, very soon you will attain to a destiny greater than that of many a skilled spear-man or artifex. The part you play in the designs of the Overlord is a very great one.’
There was much more like this and Tash soon stopped paying attention to it. He was more interested in the costumes of the priests than in what they were saying. Their chest pieces were particularly splendid, much more splendid than the chestpieces the priests of his village wore when they sacrificed mire beasts. They were set with such marvellous stones, blue and green and other colours he could not name, and shone delightfully in the lanternlight.
The priest explained while Tash was not listening that they would be given things to eat as nice as the cakes, or nicer, for the next few days until the festival, and that they would be taken out in batches and cleaned and ornamented before the ceremony, and then again that theirs was a rare and glorious destiny.
Because he was not listening Tash was taken by surprise to be taken out and scrubbed and plastered with some sort of oil and hung with jangling bits of fine chain. The only good thing about the oil was that it made it quite impossible to tell how evil-smelling the chamber was. The smell of the oil stung and tickled and burned and it was almost impossible to think of anything else when you had been plastered with it.
‘What’s that you’ve done to your hand, lad?’ asked the young priest who was seeing to the oiling of the sacrifices. ‘Burnt it, eh?’ The young priest found this amusing. ‘Well, mind you keep it away from the lanterns now. Stick one little finger in the fire and you’ll be sizzled to a crisp in an instant, with that oil on you.’
Tash took respectful note of this advice.
Tash had been chained to a post on the other side of the ramp from Zish, and the dim-witted boys who were chained with him were too dim-witted to be any use talking to. He spent the night peering out into the further reaches of the chamber, wondering what was there and thinking of all the marvellous things he had seen in the last few days and what a pity it was that he would be sacrificed in a few more days. The sacrifices around him shuffled and wheezed and jangled in their sleep and the smell of the oil hung thick and heavy in the air. No one came and turned down the lanterns, but they seemed to dim of their own accord, and burnt with feeble flames that were greenish-grey, if such a flame were possible.
Tash found it impossible to get free of his chains. Even if he had, it would surely have been impossible for him to have forced his way through the heavy doors, past the watchers beyond, and made his way to somewhere safe.
‘It seems such a waste, when the world is so big and interesting, to be ending so soon,’ he thought to himself. And a black mood took him and he thought to himself: ‘Perhaps I am useless after all’.
Aronoke was left by himself with a deluge of disturbing thoughts to contend with. How could Ashquash be drugged? How could anyone do such a thing to her, here in the middle of the Jedi temple? Why would anyone want to?
And then the truth hit him. It was a punishment. Not a punishment for Ashquash, most likely, but a punishment for him. He had reported the strange message, reported all the odd things on his datapad. Ashquash was his friend and had been attacked in order to convince him that this was not a good idea.
He slept little for the rest of the night; would have liked to go running, but knew that was not wise. That Razzak Mintula would not have liked him to go alone, not just then. So he meditated instead. After a long time he was able to calm his thoughts enough to fall asleep.
He awoke quite late the next morning, but Ashquash was still not there. Razzak Mintula was not there either. Mintaka, the instructor who sometimes stood in for her was there instead.
“Razzak Mintula will not be here today,” Mintaka announced at the start of their first lesson. “She was up very late tending to Ashquash, who is sick. Ashquash has been taken to the medical bay, and she is fine, but she will not be back for a few days.”
Aronoke could feel the weight of Draken’s eyes and knew that Draken wanted to ask him all sorts of questions, but he refused to meet the other boy’s eye and firmly concentrated on his lessons.
“What happened to Ashquash?” Draken asked as soon as they went off to the refectory for the midday meal. “She seemed fine yesterday.”
“I don’t know,” said Aronoke. “She woke me up in the middle of the night, and Razzak Mintula took her to the sick bay. That’s all.”
“Oh.”
Aronoke did not want to tell Draken about Ashquash being drugged. Draken was his friend, but inclined to gossip with people from other clans. Aronoke thought that if he were Ashquash, he would feel ashamed and wouldn’t want the real story spread about.
But a few days later it became apparent to everyone that there was more to the story than merely Ashquash falling ill. Razzak Mintula was back by then and had reassured Aronoke that Ashquash was fine and was being decontaminated. Aronoke sensed that she was angry that something like this could happen to a student in her care. He felt the same sort of powerlessness himself.
“Today our schedule will be a little different from usual,” said Razzak Mintula as they gathered in the clan room after breakfast. “We will be having our first session in here today, so it will almost be like a kind of holiday. An investigator will be coming to ask some questions about Ashquash. He will want to know if you noticed anything the day before she was sick, because there is some concern that it might have been done on purpose.”
“On purpose?” asked Draken, his voice rising in his surprise. “Ashquash was poisoned?”
“That’s bad,” said Andraia, one of the smaller humans. “I don’t want to be poisoned!”
“It is bad,” said Razzak Mintula. “But you don’t need to worry. There is no reason to think that any of you will be poisoned, but you must be sure to answer the investigator’s questions carefully.”
“Yes, Instructor Mintula.”
When the investigator arrived, he was a man who looked largely human except for his skin, which was marked like that of a spotted cathar. He was accompanied by four droids and Aronoke wondered why he needed so many of them.
“This is Investigator Rythis,” said Razzak Mintula to Clan Herf, who sat cross-legged on the floor. “He has set up his office in our usual classroom, and will want to ask you all some questions, as we have previously discussed.” Even while she spoke, three of the droids began cruising about Clan Herf’s rooms, scanning everything.
The investigator was a dour looking man for a Jedi, Aronoke thought. Either he was of a naturally sombre disposition, or he was not pleased at having to interview a bunch of initiates. Perhaps though, to be fair, thought Aronoke, the Investigator judged the situation was serious enough to warrant such an attitude.
“This is a serious matter,” said the Investigator sternly. “I intend to determine how your clan-mate Ashquash was drugged, so we can find out who is ultimately responsible. I will take you one at a time to ask you questions. I want to know if you noticed anything unusual about Ashquash or anything else, so you should think about that while you are waiting for your turn.”
The way he spoke was very intimidating, and Aronoke noticed several of the smaller clan members edging closer to their fellows.
“Which one of you is Initiate Aronoke?” asked the Investigator. “I would like to speak to him first.”
He pronounced Aronoke’s name wrong, which hadn’t happened in some time.
“I’m Aronoke,” said Aronoke, by means of correction as he climbed to his feet. He met the man’s intense gaze steadily. This was just a Jedi investigator, here to help Ashquash, and Aronoke hadn’t done anything wrong. Besides, he wasn’t anywhere near as frightening as Careful Kras, and Aronoke was determined to show the smaller ones that they need not be afraid.
“Come this way,” said the Investigator, gesturing towards the door that led outside.
“Yes, Investigator,” Aronoke said.
He followed the man across the hall into the classroom on the other side of the hallway.
“You are Ashquash’s room mate?” asked the Investigator, and Aronoke agreed that this was so. “This whole situation seems somewhat irregular,” grumbled the investigator disapprovingly, and Aronoke wondered what he meant. Because Ashquash was a girl? Because they were different species? Because both he and Ashquash had unusual backgrounds and had come late to the Jedi Temple?
The Investigator did not explain himself, but lots of questions followed, concerning what had happened the night Ashquash was drugged. Aronoke did his best to answer all of them. How had Ashquash woken him up? Had she ever done so before? Did she usually touch him like she had when she had shaken him? How did she usually behave around him? What sort of sparring did they do? Did they ever go sparring together alone? Did they go out in the middle of the night?
Aronoke began wondering if initiates did all these strange sorts of things more often than he realised. He also found himself questioning exactly what it was the investigator was investigating.
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to drug Ashquash?” the investigator asked.
“I thought it might be part of the unusual things that sometimes happen to me,” said Aronoke hesitantly. “I thought it might be a punishment, because I did not do what the message in one of them told me to do, because I knew it was wrong.”
“Unusual things?” asked the investigator. “What message?”
Aronoke was surprised, thinking that the investigator would have known about all that.
“I reported all of them, either to Master Insa-tolsa, or Master Altus, or Razzak Mintula,” he said. “Unusual things happen to me sometimes. Someone is trying to manipulate me. I thought what happened to Ashquash might be a punishment because I refused to do as I was directed.”
“These incidents will have to be recovered from any reports that were made by your superiors,” said Investigator Rythis primly, his fingers flickering over his datapad. He seemed annoyed with Aronoke, like this information was not helpful at all.
Aronoke shrugged. He tried to explain everything in detail, but by the end of it he still felt that the investigator was not pleased with him. Whether the investigator had expected to find a connection between Aronoke and the drugging, or thought Aronoke was purposefully concealing things was not obvious.
“What was it like?” Draken asked, he face alight with anticipatory relish, when Aronoke returned. “Was he scary?”
“No, not really,” said Aronoke calmly. “He just asked me lots of questions.”
“What about the droids? They didn’t torture you did they?”
“No, of course not!” said Aronoke. “There was one taking notes. The others seemed to be off scanning things.”
Draken was caught between relief and disappointment.
“He can’t be much of an Investigator then,” he muttered, “if he’s not as scary as he seems. Really it’s an affront to Ashquash to send somebody so tame. How can he be a proper investigator?”
“You can’t have it both ways you know,” pointed out Aronoke. “It’s either scary and then you’ll be scared because he’ll probably want to talk to you next, or it’s not scary and it’s boring.”
“Hm, I guess,” said Draken, unconvinced.
The investigation did not result in any great revelation that Aronoke ever learned of. No culprit was brought to justice, although eventually it was revealed that Ashquash’s toiletries had been tampered with, and that this was how the drug had been administered. Aronoke looked at his own toiletries with new distaste. He had never been fond of them – the water was bad enough by itself – and now he was even less inclined to use them.
It was difficult to relax and be calm after that. He felt angry and unsettled. More and more it seemed that what had happened to Ashquash was his fault, if only indirectly. If he had not been here, than would this have happened to Ashquash? He didn’t think so. It wasn’t fair. She only had this one chance to succeed at being Jedi, like he had, and because she was Aronoke’s friend it was being taken away from her.
It would be better, Aronoke reasoned, if he had no friends. He knew this was not right. After all, clan-mates were supposed to work together to solve problems. But most of Clan Herf was so small. What good would it do to involve the little kids in his problems? What if one of them was hurt next? That thought was unbearable. He wished Master Altus was here to talk to. That in itself was pointless, because it seemed likely that none of this would have happened if Master Altus was here. Aronoke knew he should try to be brave and independent, even if he felt out of his depth.
Ashquash came back a week later, quiet, withdrawn and grumpy, in many ways reverted to the angry uncommunicative person whom Aronoke had first met. Aronoke took care to behave like he had done then. He sat quietly and did his lessons nearby, not ignoring Ashquash, not paying undue attention to her, but focusing on his reading.
Ashquash sat on her bed and did nothing for a long time.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it,” she said finally. Sadly.
“Don’t say that,” said Aronoke, shocked. “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t make it. You’re smart and strong as anyone else.”
“Someone doesn’t want me to,” said Ashquash. “It’s obvious. They don’t want me to succeed, so they did this to me. And right now, it’s only the stubborn, angry bit of me that wants to stick it through, just so that they don’t get what they want.”
Aronoke was overcome with remorse.
“That’s not necessarily true,” he said. “It is possible that some Jedi masters think that you shouldn’t be an initiate, but that doesn’t mean they would go so far as to sabotage your efforts. And for every one that thinks you shouldn’t be given the opportunity, there must be even more who think you should, otherwise you wouldn’t be here at all.”
“Hrm,” said Ashquash, unconvinced.
“And it might not be because of you at all,” said Aronoke, ploughing on despite his better judgement. “Strange things have been happening to me practically since I got here. Especially since Master Altus left. Weird things keep appearing on my datapad. A strange holotransmission was delivered by a droid, trying to manipulate me. I reported them all, and it seems to me that this attack on you might have been a sort of punishment. I mean, you are my room-mate, we are friends, right? Maybe you got hurt so that next time I listen to what it says.”
Ashquash looked up at that, warily.
“I reported those things to Master Insa-tolsa,” said Aronoke. “He said they are trying their best to fix them. I really hope it won’t happen again.”
“Why would they want to manipulate you so badly?” asked Ashquash critically. “To do what? Because you’re so special?”
“Because I’m different,” said Aronoke. “I…there are some different things about me.” He thought for one wavering moment that perhaps he should tell her about his back, but it was too frightening, too strange. Too much to burden Ashquash with.
“I am different too,” said Ashquash.
“Yes, that’s true,” said Aronoke. “I don’t know why they would want to manipulate me specifically,” he continued, semi-truthfully, for although he knew it was almost certainly something to do with his back, he didn’t know why his back was so important. “But it’s obvious that they do, because of the message and the other things that have happened.”
“Huh,” said Ashquash.
“I was thinking,” Aronoke said, “that if it’s true that you were hurt because of me, than perhaps it might be better if you were not my room-mate anymore.”
Ashquash looked up at him. Her complexion darkened like a sandstorm was rolling across it. Her eyes darkened and her young face settled into hard, tense lines that made her look much older. Her anger was a tangible, frightening thing.
“I just don’t want you to be hurt because of me,” he explained hurriedly.
“Maybe it would be better,” said Ashquash tightly.
“We could pretend that we had argued,” said Aronoke. “That’s not true of course. We would know we hadn’t argued. We haven’t argued, have we? But it might be enough to keep you safe.”
“How will we decide which of us should change rooms?” said Ashquash flatly, suddenly looking drained and tired instead of angry. Aronoke felt sick, because he didn’t want to travel this path. Wouldn’t the voice have won a victory if he did? But the alternate path seemed impossible. He wanted to protect his clan-mates from this mess, not get them further involved. They were too small to have to deal with such a big problem, he reasoned. Or had too many problems of their own, like Ashquash.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind changing,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to do anything – it’s because of me that this happened, so I should be the one who changes.”
Ashquash said nothing for a long moment.
“Alright, go then,” she said, bitterly.
Aronoke nodded, got to his feet, and went to Razzak Mintula’s room.
“Yes, Aronoke, what is it?” asked Razzak Mintula wearily.
“Razzak Mintula, can I change rooms?” asked Aronoke.
She looked at him for a long moment, studying his expression. “Perhaps that mightn’t be such a bad idea,” she said, finally. “I am reluctant however, to swap you with anyone else at this time. There is an empty room across the hall, not within the clan rooms, that you can use. Although it doesn’t have the same facilities that your current room has.”
“That doesn’t matter. It will be fine,” said Aronoke.
It was a small matter to move his stuff across to the new room. The isolation of the chamber made it easier to think of himself as being separate. It was the perfect opportunity to divorce himself from his clan-mates, at least in appearance. He must be strong, must not let himself be made miserable or angry by this self-imposed distance, because then the voice would have won. He had to be calm and resilient. He had to be a Jedi.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
It was difficult. There was an undercurrent of sadness that Aronoke found impossible to erase entirely. He could control it while he was meditating, but every time that Draken asked him to play a game, or any of the little kids were particularly forthcoming, he forced himself to be friendly but stand-offish and it came back. Draken seemed puzzled and hurt, and the little kids looked at him oddly like he had been replaced by someone who was not really him.
Just when he had felt he could really belong, Aronoke thought, something happened to force him apart again. Was that what it was always going to be like? Eternal isolation?
Nevertheless, Aronoke persevered in his self-imposed solitude for a couple of weeks. Buried himself in his lessons. Increased the amount of time he spent running and meditating and did a great deal of extra reading to pass the time. Walked down to the pool regularly to look at the water. It was difficult to occupy his mind with enough things to keep himself from feeling depressed, although all the meditation helped a lot. He felt he was getting on top of it most days.
One day he was down at the edge of the pool looking down into the deep water introspectively when suddenly Ashquash was there with him.
“Why do you always look at it like that?” she asked. She seemed tense, irritable.
“Because I don’t like it,” said Aronoke immediately. “It makes me feel uncomfortable, so I look at it to help me get used to it.”
He was going to say something else, but all at once, Ashquash gave him a sharp push. For an instant he thought there was a chance he could regain his balance, but in actuality it was hopeless. Windmilling wildly, he toppled into the deep pool.
The water closed over Aronoke’s head, green and smothering. The world of air was abruptly cut off and he could hear nothing except the rising bubbles around him. Even then, he did not immediately panic, but restrained his fear with barely tethered threads of will. He held his breath and repressed the urge to scream.
But he was sinking. Running out of air with every passing second. His terror was rising uncontrollably.
Kick off your shoes, countered the trying-to-be-calm voice in his head. Undo your belt, slide out of your robe. You can’t swim in all these clothes.
He tried, but his gestures were too jerky, too hurried. The robe came half off and rose over his head so he could not see. One arm was twisted somewhere behind him, caught in his sleeve. He was stuck.
Sinking further, faster. Couldn’t move, couldn’t swim in all these clothes.
What if Ashquash was standing up there, angry and cold, dispassionately watching him sink? What if Ashquash had planned this all along?
His fear exploded, unrestrained. Aronoke panicked completely, thrashing and struggling. He only succeeded in tangling himself more thoroughly and disorienting himself so he no longer knew which way was up. He gasped in half a mouthful of water. Coughed it out. Couldn’t breathe. Reflexively he gasped again and burning water flooded his lungs.
He was drowning, a tiny detached part of him realised. This was how it would ignominiously end. This death seemed a lot worse than being decapitated by a lightsaber.
Something grabbed his shoulders none too gently, tugging at him, dragging him through the water. Irrationally he fought, but the hands were strong and insistent. Then his head broke the surface, and he gasped for air, spluttering and coughing. Thrashing uncontrollably.
“Be still!” said Ashquash crossly, but Aronoke was still caught in the blind throes of panic and struggled wildly. She slapped him hard across the face. He subsided a little in shock and found himself pushed towards the edge. He clawed at it and clung to it, wheezing and gasping.
“What are you doing?” came an irate voice from far across the pool. “Stop that immediately!”
Aronoke struggled to climb out, but floundered ineffectively, unable to find the strength. Then Ashquash was there at the top, holding out her hand, and with her assistance he rolled up over the side and knelt there for long moments, coughing and gasping, retching up great gouts of water.
“You initiates are not supposed to be in the pool,” said someone closer now, an Aqualish instructor, coming over in the company of a warden droid. “It has been reserved for Clan Vequish’s use for the entire afternoon.”
“Yes, we know,” said Ashquash petulantly.
Aronoke could not speak, was too busy coughing still.
“You had better leave and return to your quarters at once,” said the instructor.
Can’t he see that I’m half drowned, thought Aronoke. His fear had been replaced by anger. Anger at Ashquash, anger that she had done this to him, anger that the instructor was berating him when none of this was his fault. Was this Ashquash’s repayment for what had happened to her? She thought it was his fault?
“Yes, yes, we’re going,” said Ashquash insubordinately. Aronoke made a brief sign of acquiescence, but still did not want to speak. He was too angry. It was only when they were moving off down the hallway that lead to the elevator banks that he felt he could talk.
“What did you want to go and do that for?” he snarled.
“It seemed to me it wasn’t helping,” said Ashquash defensively.
“Wasn’t helping?” Aronoke had lost it, he realised. Heard the anger in his own voice.
“All the looking,” said Ashquash.
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you should push me in.” Aronoke could feel his hands were shaking badly. But he was alright, he thought. He wasn’t dead. He had fallen in and panicked, and he wasn’t dead. That counted for something. Maybe Ashquash was right. And as angry as he might be, he was also relieved that she had pulled him out, was not part of the conspiracy, but had acted, it seemed, through a misguided impulse of her own.
He took calming breaths, interrupted by more coughing. Recited a platitude in his head. Slowly felt like he was coming back under control.
“Just don’t do it again,” he said firmly.
Ashquash stopped, looking wild and a little fey. “I should never have said for you to do it,” she said.
“What?” asked Aronoke, confused.
“For us to argue,” said Ashquash. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
And she turned and ran away.
Aronoke stood there dripping a long moment, confused. Was that was this was all about? She was angry with him for leaving? But he had explained beforehand that it wasn’t real…
Feeling more confused and upset than angry now, he made his way back to his room and changed into some dry robes. He had not yet put the wet ones in the laundry chute when Draken rang the door. When Aronoke opened it, Draken’s eyes immediately travelled to Aronoke’s hair and the puddle of wet clothes on the floor.
“Your hair’s wet,” he noted. “And, um, your robe. But I guess you know that. Do you know where Ashquash is? I can’t find her.”
“She ran off,” said Aronoke wearily. “I expect she just needs a bit of breathing space, and she’ll be back.”
“What?” said Draken. “What do you mean she ran off?”
“I was down by the pool, looking at the water, and she pushed me in,” said Aronoke. “Then I was angry, and told her not to do it again, and she ran off.”
“She pushed you in?” asked Draken. He looked at Aronoke stupidly and stared again at the wet robes. “I hope she comes back soon,” he said finally.
“I expect she will,” said Aronoke.
But Ashquash had not returned by the evening meal and when Aronoke went to ask Razzak Mintula about it, he found Mintaka was in the office instead.
“Razzak Mintula’s been called away,” she said, and Aronoke immediately assumed it was something to do with Ashquash’s disappearance. He hoped Ashquash had not done something too crazy, or gotten herself hurt. He spent the rest of the evening sitting in the common room, studying his reading tasks, but Razzak Mintula and Ashquash did not return. Finally he composed his thoughts and went to bed, hoping everything would be cleared up by morning.
But in the morning he was woken up very early by Instructor Mintaka. “Do you know anything about where Ashquash might be, Aronoke?” she asked. “She is not in her room this morning, and it does not look like her bed has been slept in.”
“Oh,” said Aronoke stupidly. “But Instructor Mintula… I assumed…” he stopped to organise his thoughts and began again.
“I argued with Ashquash yesterday,” Aronoke said, “when I was coming back from the swimming pool. I was angry because she pushed me in. I am… scared of the water. And I didn’t say much, only that she must not do it again. But she was upset and ran off. I assumed that Razzak Mintula had gone off because of her, but… I am stupid,” he finished awkwardly, beset with self-loathing.
“You are not stupid, Aronoke,” said Instructor Mintaka. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“No, I have no idea,” said Aronoke wretchedly. Ashquash missing, wandering around the streets of Coruscant by herself? Surely she couldn’t get far with all the security. “I’m sorry, Instructor Mintaka. I should have said something yesterday.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” said Instructor Mintaka. “I must go and report her disappearance. You should go back to your regular schedule.”
“Yes, Instructor.”
After that, Aronoke decided that he should talk to Master Insa-tolsa about the whole affair and called him by holocommunicator to make an appointment.
“I have just been talking about you, Aronoke,” said Master Insa-tolsa enthusiastically when he answered. “I am here with Master Parothis and we were discussing the possibility of taking you and several older members of your clan on some excursions to various parts of Coruscant, rather like Master Altus did with you. We think such excursions might be of considerable benefit to your education.”
“I’m sure that my clanmates would be very excited to undertake such a thing, Master,” said Aronoke, “but…”
“Excellent. It will be several weeks before the arrangements can be properly made, of course. Master Parothis has several interesting ideas for locations we can visit. Well, thank you for your call, Aronoke. I will be in touch with you as soon as everything is organized, to let you know the details.”
“Yes, Master, but…” said Aronoke, but the ithorian had already closed the connection.
He could have called back, but Master Insa-tolsa was probably still speaking to Master Parothis and he did not want to be a nuisance. Instead he left a recorded message asking for an appointment, and later the confirmation came back that he could visit Master Insa-tolsa the next morning in the Master’s chambers.
The next morning, however, there was a new item on Aronoke’s schedule, a request from a Jedi Master Skeirim.
“Initiate Aronoke,” said the message. “I request that you come and speak with me after the conclusion of your evening meal today. I will arrange for you to be collected from your clan rooms. Please be aware that your Instructor has been properly informed regarding this meeting.”
Though that would be easy to say and not do, thought Aronoke. He sent back a message saying that he would, of course, be available to attend. A mere initiate did not deny the request of a Jedi Master. Then he went to check that whoever was currently in charge was aware of the meeting.
“Yes, I received the proper request,” said Razzak Mintula, who had arrived back. “By all means, go and speak to Master Skeirim. I assume he wants to ask you some questions about Ashquash.”
“Ashquash?” asked Aronoke, confused.
“Yes, Master Skeirim is the Jedi who brought her here,” said Razzak Mintula, “much like Master Altus brought you. He is not always stationed here at the temple. He is a colleague of Master Altus’s, involved in researching and retrieving artifacts from distant parts of the galaxy.”
“Oh,” said Aronoke. “Thank you, Instructor.”
The next morning, Aronoke went to see Master Insa-tolsa. He had not visited the ithorian master’s chambers before. They were dim and green, a tribute to the forest world that he came from.
“Your chambers are very peaceful, Master,” said Aronoke, looking around.
“I find them so,” said the ithorian. “These chambers are supposed to be transient, not personalised. But the Jedi Council has not seen fit to station me anywhere else for many years, so I feel that I may take some liberties.”
“That seems quite reasonable to me,” said Aronoke.
“Master Parothis and I have decided that the first of your excursions will take place in a few weeks time,” said Master Insa-tolsa. “We are considering a number of different venues and I will tell you where we are going closer to the actual day.”
“I am sure it will be very educational, Master,” said Aronoke. “But I would like to talk to you about something else.”
“Of course,” said Master Insa-tolsa.
“You remember I told you about the droid with the holotransmission, Master?” said Aronoke. “And then there was another strange article on my datapad, which Razzak Mintula reported to you?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Master Insa-tolsa gravely. “Has something else happened?”
Aronoke related the events surrounding Ashquash’s drugging, surprised that Master Insa-tolsa didn’t already know about them.
“It is unfortunate I was not made aware of this,” said Master Insa-tolsa gravely. “I should have been informed.”
“I’m sorry, Master,” said Aronoke contritely. He had assumed Master Insa-tolsa would have been told by someone else.
“It is not your fault, Aronoke. It is obvious that there has been some breakdown in communication within the temple, either accidental or intentional. In light of the other incidents you have reported, this one could be seen in a different light.”
“Yes, I thought at once that it might be a sort of punishment. Ashquash is my room-mate and my friend. She is not very social, but we do a lot of things together, like studying and sparring. I thought she was getting better recently, much better than when she arrived. But then that happened…”
Aronoke could hear the emotion creeping into his voice. He found Ashquash’s drugging affected him more than any of the fights or deaths had back on Kasthir. Now, those scenes were distant and disjointed like dreams, as muted as if he kept those memories sealed in an air-tight box. He swallowed and tried to speak more calmly.
“I decided it might be better if I changed rooms. So whoever is trying to manipulate me might think Ashquash and I were not friends any more. So she would be safe. I know, Master, that I should be able to share my problems with my clan-mates, because that is part of being a clan, but most of them are so little, Master. I don’t want them to get hurt. So I thought that maybe separating myself was a better way. Then yesterday, I was at the swimming pool looking at the water, and Ashquash came and pushed me in.”
“You don’t like the water,” said Master Insa-tolsa, “if I remember correctly.”
“Yes, Master. Ashquash pushed me in. I got tangled up and thought I was drowning. Then Ashquash pulled me out again. I was angry with her. I did not say much, only that she should not do that again, but she was upset and ran away. I thought she would come back, but now she has gone missing…”
“Oh dear,” said Master Insa-tolsa with some concern. “That is worrying, although I am sure that efforts are being made to find her and that she will be recovered soon.”
“Yes, Master, but I don’t know what to do. I separated myself to keep people safe, and now Ashquash is, if anything, less safe. I think she was unhappy that I left. I did explain the reasons to her beforehand. But maybe because of the drugs, she was not able to cope very well just then.”
“Aronoke,” said Master Insa-tolsa, “You have only been here a very short time, and as you know, your unusual biology has put you into an awkward position amongst your clan mates. You should not have concerns like these at this stage of your training. It is too much.”
“But these things keep happening. How can I not be involved?” asked Aronoke.
“You should do as you have been doing. You must continue to report these things when they happen. You should not attempt to deal with such difficult issues yourself,” remonstrated Master Insa-tolsa gently. “You should not have the burden of such a great responsibility. These things are not your fault, and you must trust us to deal with them on your behalf.”
“But nothing seems to work! They just keep happening! What if next time something even more terrible happens?” asked Aronoke fretfully.
“You must not think that the Jedi Council is doing nothing to attempt to alleviate these problems,” said Master Insa-tolsa calmly. “A great deal has been done, that you, as an initiate, do not see from your protected place in the training halls. Neither is it appropriate that you are burdened with all the details, as you should be free to concentrate upon your studies. Unfortunately everything that has been done thus far has been of little avail. The perpetrator of these deeds must be someone of considerable power, cunning and influence, or they would not have been able to remain at large for so long.”
“Oh,” said Aronoke, humbled by the thought that his problems had stirred up so much trouble.
“Now I suggest that you go back to your clan and attempt to continue with your training as if none of these things had happened,” said Master Insa-tolsa. “I will make new efforts to see that the person who is manipulating you is discovered and an end put to these provocations.”
“Yes, Master,” said Aronoke. “Thank you.”
Nevertheless, he did not feel very comforted when he returned to his clan rooms. Either the Jedi Council was incompetent, or his enemy was as powerful as Master Insa-tolsa suggested. Neither option was at all reassuring.
Master Skeirim’s padawan was a sleek human girl who arrived to collect Aronoke very promptly after the evening meal. Aronoke had only just got back to his room.
“Initiate Aronoke?” said the padawan. “I am Padawan Telarfani. I am supposed to show you to Master Skeirim’s chambers.”
“Yes, Padawan,” said Aronoke, and followed her out along the hall.
“I was not expecting you to be so tall,” said Padawan Telarfani smiling and looking up at Aronoke. He was taller than she was, he realised belatedly, and he was still growing. He would be taller still some day. It seemed strange. “I have some good news for you,” continued the Padawan. “They have found your clan-mate, Ashquash. She will be brought back to the Jedi temple soon.”
“Oh, that is good news,” said Aronoke, relieved. “Is she alright?”
“She is unharmed,” said Padawan Telarfani. “I thought you would like to know before your meeting with Master Skeirim, since I am certain you and your clan-mates must be worried about her.”
“Yes, we have been very worried,” said Aronoke. “Thank you, Padawan.”
She smiled, making a minor gesture of respect, which Aronoke returned.
Padawn Telarfani led Aronoke to a door which opened, not into a chamber, as he had expected, but into an elevator. She gestured him inside but did not get in herself. It was a long ride up to the top, and Aronoke wondered where it was going.
When he got out, it was immediately apparent that he was in one of the Jedi Temple’s towers. The walls of the chamber were lined with banks of data crystals, although one was given over to a large curved window showing the dark cityscape beyond. Ablaze with lights, streams of traffic seethed constantly past.
Jedi Master Skeirim was outlined against the window, a tall and imposing dark-skinned human man.
“Initiate Aronoke,” he said. “Come in. I am Master Skeirim. You will probably understand better why you are here if I tell you that I am the one who sponsored Ashquash’s initiation at the Jedi temple.”
“Yes, Master,” said Aronoke. “Instructor Mintula told me.”
Master Skeirim nodded and continued.
“As I am sure you have realised,” he said, “you and Ashquash have certain similarities which led to your being placed together. You are both unusual students. You have had atypical backgrounds and you are older than the majority of initiates who are accepted into the temple. You suffer unique problems and difficulties that other students do not encounter.”
“Placing you together was something of a risk that I hoped would pay off. There are obviously many ways in which this could have gone awry, but, to be honest, there was no one else who was deemed suitable to share a room with Ashquash because of her problems. I was hoping that here in the Jedi Temple she would be able to adapt to her new situation, that she would come around to the teachings and philosophy and learn a new path which might lead her through life. It has always been uncertain, perhaps unlikely, that she would succeed, and yet thus far the experiment has continued.”
“Now, however, she has run away. She has been recovered and will be returned to your clan rooms shortly. I am hoping that you, as her room-mate, might have some insight to offer as to why she left. I am worried that we are losing her, and should that be the case, her future is dark and bleak. I do not wish that to happen if there is any way in which it might be prevented.”
Aronoke listened to this speech with some relief, glad that someone had such a positive interest in Ashquash’s affairs.
“I think Ashquash was doing a lot better,” he said, when Master Skeirim looked at him expectantly and gestured that he should speak. “When she first arrived, when we first became clan-mates, she was very angry. I know about spice addicts, because I was brought up by one when I was quite small. So that didn’t worry me much, because I knew it was just the drugs. At first, Ashquash was very quiet. We didn’t talk much, just a bit, but before long she began to do things with me. To sit and study, to come and practice sparring during our free time. Later we did a lot more things together. We would go over our lessons, discuss some of the moral stories that we had trouble understanding. Things like that.”
“That is what I hoped would happen,” said Master Skeirim. “Do you know anything about what happened to upset that?”
Aronoke nodded. “I don’t know if this is all true,” he said, a little shyly, “but it’s what I immediately suspected when Ashquash woke me up and wanted to go sparring in the middle of the night. I thought she was drugged right away, because I’ve seen people behave like that before. I thought it might be to do with the strange things that have happened to me here in the Jedi Temple, practically since I arrived. Master Altus knows about them, and so do Master Insa-tolsa and Instructor Mintula. I reported everything to them. Strange articles appear on my datapad. I got a holotransmission message from a droid trying to feed me information. Someone is trying to manipulate me. I reported the holotransmission message shortly before Ashquash was drugged. I thought she might have been targeted as a way of punishing me. Because she’s my friend. It seems an obvious way to get at me. To hurt my room-mate.”
“I see,” said Master Skeirim. “I will have to talk to Master Insa-tolsa and Instructor Mintula and see if they can share their knowledge of these incidents. Aronoke, do you know why Ashquash ran away?”
“Yes,” said Aronoke. He related in some detail all the events that had led up to Ashquash’s disappearance, up to the incident at the pool. “I did not say anything much,” he concluded, “only that she should not push me in again, but she was upset and ran away. I think she was angry that I had left her alone.”
Master Skeirim was nodding. “Thank you, Aronoke. I can see it is not easy for you to talk about these things, but they will be of great assistance to me in helping Ashquash. I would ask a favour of you. I would ask you to help Ashquash as much as you can, like you were doing before things began to go wrong. It would be best, I think, to put these incidents behind us and to try to make things just as they were previously.”
“Of course, Master,” said Aronoke warmly. He would have done whatever he could to help Ashquash anyway. It was also reassuring that Master Skeirim’s words meshed so well with what Master Insa-tolsa had said. “I think you are right, that she will be alright if we make things just as they were, and pretend that nothing has happened without making a fuss.”
“Yes, that is it exactly,” said Master Skeirim. “Thank you, Aronoke. I expect we will speak again at some time in the future.”
“You’re welcome, Master,” said Aronoke, making a small respectful bow in return. He felt a good deal happier and more purposeful as he returned to his rooms. It was good to have something to work towards, a way by which things might be made right. As soon as he arrived, he went in to find Razzak Mintula.
“Can I change back to my old room, Instructor?” he asked. “The new one is too draughty.”
Razzak Mintula stared at him for a long moment. “That would probably be more convenient,” she admitted. “There are some difficulties in having you in a different place from everyone else.”
“Yes, Instructor,” said Aronoke, relieved that no further explanation or persuasion was necessary. He felt his spirit was lightened when he moved back into his old rooms, like he was arriving back in his proper place again. It was a relief to not have to distance himself from Draken and the little kids any more.
Andrea Höst, dominant force in the psychic space ninja subgenre, whose tiny room at Monash Uni we spent part of our honeymoon in, tagged us for this “Next Big Thing” meme. So here tis!
What is the working title of your next book?
Misconception.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will be self-published. For some time we have been enthusiastically saying self-publishing was the way of the future and last year we finally decided to stick our necks out and have a go.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
It is the second in the Rainier Fields series (after Misfortune), which had its genesis in a role-playing game. The role-playing game started with one of us writing a five page short story introducing a character and a lot of mysterious unexplained plot hooks, which the other of us then took off in completely unexpected directions.
What genre does your book fall under?
We think of it as Science Fantasy. It is not quite on a grand enough scale to be Space Opera, so maybe Space Operetta would be a good name for it.
How long does it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It depends how many other things distract us on the way. Our three published works each took between three weeks and three months to write the first draft. We have other books that have been going for twenty years, dribbling along at ten thousand words a year or so.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
This is a really hard question since we can’t remember having read anything remotely like it, but we’re not going to pike out… It is driven by characters, rather than plot or grand ideas, so it is more like the Vorkosigan books than a lot of other things that could fall under the ‘Science Fantasy’ umbrella.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
We think it would be most fun to play them ourselves as ultra-high budget CGI characters, with high-budget electronic tweaking to make our voices sound right.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
We inspired each other. It was a very small project that got wildly out of hand. The original germ of the Rainier Fields series was very much inspired by Diana Wynne Jones, though I am sure she would have been alarmed at how it turned out.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Mercery behaves very badly.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Having escaped from the mysterious Project that gave him his technomantic powers, Rainier Fields is trying to lead a normal life on another continent when he unexpectedly appears on the Emperor’s Birthday “Most Wanted” list.
We would like to tag David Versace, whose short story “Imported Goods – Aisle Nine” is appearing the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild’s “Next” anthology real soon now. Long ago we were kayaking with David Versace in the Northwest Territories when a strange green meteorite crashed nearby, giving us superpowers and animating the corpses from an ancient Native American graveyard. After we defeated the zombies, we became active in student politics, wrote songs about Australian television news personalities, ran several play-by-mail games about alien pirates, and stuff.
Robert Prescott has dined with Princes of Hell and gone whoring along the Grand Canal with fallen Archangels, and no longer feels the slightest apprehension on introduction to a daemon whose name had been a word of power to the infant-strangling priests of Melkart; but the first sight of the Jesuit gives him a peculiar frisson of horror. Boyhood tales of Popish plots broach dark waters in Prescott’s mind, vast and almost-formless, and the unimposing black figure seems a thing of menace beyond any glamour-dewed Throne or Power. He has a nose like a beak and the flat face and staring black eyes of a native of the Indies, and in his black robes bears a strong resemblance to a raven, blown by some mischance into Prescott’s study. He looks as out of place and wears the same expression of wary startlement. The man’s name is Alvarez, or Alvaro, something like that. A drab and dark thing he is, with weathered features like a hammered plate attesting to a life spent under a tropical sun, the only shabby object in a room otherwise filled to bursting with the luxurious impedimenta of power. The elegantly-bound volumes standing in the glass-fronted bookcase, as staid and sober as a morning parade of kitchen staff, had been sourced at great expense from every corner of the Continent, and any one hides secrets that it is death for any less well-connected man to know. The lead crystal decanter is one of few remaining works of a Bohemian master whose life and legacy had been consumed in the holocaust of the Twelve Years War; the topaz-coloured sweet wine it holds is from one of the last vineyards the Most Serene Republic held in the Aegean Sea, a personal estate of the house of Ruzzini, who reserve its output for bribes to high-ranking Imperial officials. Of the paintings on the wall, the one depicting Danaë and Zeus is curiously more chaste than the landscape: Prescott sees with an inward smile that even the priest’s eye has been caught by the lubricious roundness of the hills, the rubenesque creases converging into shadow where they come together, the obscene exuberance of the musky thicket in the foreground, with its plenitude of curving branches. The slim book next to Prescott’s right hand is Baron Spencer’s celebrated treatise ‘On Sodomy’; the silver reliquary on his right, originally from a bankrupt monastery in the Levant, now contains the black flesh of a certain aquatic centipede preserved in honey and opium. The carpet is from Kachan; the writing desk is of a peculiar Brasilian wood of which only one shipment has ever crossed the Atlantic; and Prescott himself is dressed with costly efficiency, eschewing the ornament of a Venetian dandy for the severe elegance of an English diplomat.
“Leaving Loris” is now available on Amazon as a kindle version.
Print version will be available soon.
When Arlon was fairly small, about the age when Humen children are all arms and legs and intervening hungry bits, an old Ruhurdh, more crumpled and twisted and decrepitly ancient than most of its stunted, hairy breed, appeared in the village. It was obviously a beggar, an itinerant pauper with no possessions besides the greasy hide bag which it wore slung over one shoulder, a tattered artefact studded with improbable and gruesome amulets and tied with oiled bits of sinew.
The creature (for who could call it a person?) stumbled into the village with a rolling uneven gait like a peg-leg sailor’s. The youngsters, Arlon amongst them, threw groek dung and dead locusts and bits of stick, but their missiles glanced off the stranger’s hide and fell into the dust, and the expression on the gnarled hairy face didn’t change at all. The whitened turned eyes below the deep hood didn’t flicker, not even when a large groek-pat bounced off the ugly flattened Ruhurdh nose. The children continued in their sport despite this lack of response. Strangers were few and far between and any amusement was better than the endless routine of village life. Surely, if they persisted, they would get a reaction soon.
“After Udan had shown to his legions the helmet of the elder ones, he commanded that a city be built there on the banks of the Mouy, to preserve the memory of the five holy women and to stand guard over the approaches to Mira-Thosh. He bade settle there eightscore hundred of his soldiers, the veterans of many a campaign in the east and in the west. And Udan commanded that a road be built from Ar-Sadrun’s city of Guth Arul to the new city on the Mouy, to bind the new lands together like beads on a cord.”
– From the Chronicle of Udan
Murud did not share his commander’s dislike of the folk of Thoss. It could not be denied that they smelled differently, that they were differently shaped, and that their morality (as far as he could see) rested on very different foundations; but there were many things about them which he thought admirable. Their keeping to themselves, which had been styled a vice, seemed laudable – there was much to be said in favour of a race that refused so steadfastly to meddle with the affairs of others. The restrained manner in which they conducted their occasional business with the outside world; the absence of quarrelling among them; the neat rows in which they planted their fruiting trees and laid out the bones of their dead; these were things that appealed to Murud, who valued order and the absence of discord. These were the chief values of his own people, and these were the values that they had imposed on their neighbours, and then on more distant lands, and more distant lands still. At the cost of many thousands of lives they had brought those virtues here, across a great ocean and many ranges of mountains, to find them already practised. Practised without any sign of the Thudun urge to force them on other people, it seemed; and this seemed to Murud both singular and praiseworthy.