Kabardan Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
With spring, the month Humans called Chufenath and Kabards called Melting of Packed Snow in the Mountains, Gorban began massing troops in Chiokërang and Elaku, along the spine of mountains that separated devout Kabard from heretic and Human. Armed with as much as they could learn about Elusivhir, bound copies of the Way of Exceeding Joy, new pearl-like kolïndons, and, most important of all, two small grey bombs, they were ready for their journey. In the northern reaches of Pelun, the fields were green with new rice and haricots; there were orchards of newly-budding apricot trees, and persimmons, and waterberries. Swans flew overhead toward their summer nesting-ground, and along the banks of the Salt Sea crawled slow-moving sjatriluür lizards, which Etlzonat often caught and roasted over the heating-coil for their dinner. From Pelun they passed into the Kabard nation of Pachala, to the fortress-city Sardiúd with its twin blinking sentinels, and Retur the city of three tribes (Human, Kabard, and Val), with its hundred-foot tall mosaic of the Human goddess Eluse adoring Kensor the Sun.
They spent one day and one night in Retur, visiting the Elusivhir Temple and the Wanderling Monastery, and then they walked north along the path of the World's End River, through the sea of grass where Kabards built their courts of red clay and jade. There were few cities, mostly clusters of two or three cloud-houses with flat tops and a dismal brick-red color, and, in the vast wheatfields, subterranean houses built entirely of sod. Once the Pachalan Kabards used horses, unheard-of in other Kabard nations, to unite their endless miles of grassland, and even threaten the Humans of Runoe and Hizorán along their western border. Now the horses seemed old and fat, fit only for the pony-rides at Kensoraj festivals, and the Kabards they passed were languidly plowing their fields, or nudging herds of cattle toward their summer grazing-grounds, or, with a look of surpreme ennui, shuffling toward dirt-brown factories to make the mass-produced furniture and machines loved in the great clanhouses of Ushalo.
"Should the Humans conquer us," Domojon said, "This is what we can expect. Factories."
"And horses," Akrava added in a disgusted tone.
As they walked north settlements grew fewer and fewere, until there was only the river and the sea of grass and the brown pilgrims' road. Then one morning Etlzonat cried "Nuísomein! The wall of mystery! Good gods, who would have thought that I'd live to see this!"
"Dumb name," Akrava said. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Wall of mystery," Domojon told him, "In Old Human. Humans lived here long before the Kabards, you know."
"So, when the Kabards took over, why didn't they change the name?"
"Because they were superstitious as deep-forest Ceraines," said Etlzonat. "Thought it was surrounding the world."
Akrava laughed. "Superstitious! What about Szei Ran, the Pelún who threw out the Kabards and conquered half the world beside? He was so superstitious that when he saw the Black Lion Gate of Nuísomein: he thought that he had come to the border of the Land of the Gods!"
"No one understands Nuisomein," said Domojon, "So it is holy to both Humans and Kabards. Their great hero, Zhirhaór, whom they honor nearly as much as Eluse, and the Kabard Mashanuu-dhër both vanihed into the Mystery, and both are supposed to return at the hour of Tulë's greatest need."
The Black Lion stood in profile on its hind legs, forelegs taut and furious: from miles away it looked ready to claw Kensor the sun. The Wall of Mystery was of solid granite fifty feet thick, fifty feet deep, six hundred feet high, and five miles long. Only with the invention of airships did explorers manage to land behind the Wall and find its single gate, locked from the inside. Only within the last generation had archaeologists finally managed to solve at least a few of the mysteries of Nuisomein.
Domojon stared at the unhospitable steel-grey wall, stretching away toward the west for miles, taller than any Kabard cloud-house, straight and featureless. Dismal low hills were clustered on one side, as if the giant Nuísomein children used them for playthings.
"Who lived here?" Akrava asked. "Kabards?"
"Kabards, probably. Maybe Humans, or even Val," said Domojon, consulting his new Pelun datarod. "Archaeologists don't really know. They've only explored and catalogued about one third of the city so far."
"Catalogued? Hmpf!" Akrava snorted. "Must be Human archaeologists, so naturally they'd find Humans under every bush."
Tour groups from Pachala and Runoe and Hizorán were gathered on the south side of the Wall, where the Black Lion had guarded the entrance to the land of the gods for thousands of years. They joined a group of Kabard Elusivhir from Retur.
"Their language has not been translated," the pert, businesslike tour guide was saying, "But their contemporaries in other cities have left a few hints. They called their city Eívor and themselves Eivorrhi. They was ruled by an hereditary caste of priests, and there were also castes of scribes, artisans, and slaves. The chief among their many gods was Lord Bear, Tházmarok, who required yearly human sacrifices, usually of war captives. They smelted copper, raised wheat and potatoes, and brewed mushroom-beer. The priests wore ostrich feather capes from Dhusaig and drank from obsidian flasks from Moreveq. They educated their nurselings in schools, and buried their dead facing north, the Land of the Bear God. And they may have used greatdoors on a daily basis to commune with the stars."
"Greatdoors?" Akrava raised his hands. "How could savages like that learn to use greatdoors?"
"We don't know. But one day, to escape from enemies or a plague, for whatever reason, they locked themselves inside their city and simply vanihed. Nuisomein must have been home to thousands, but we have found no skeletons, no sign of any struggle."
Domojon saw a tall, ruddy Human approaching them, smiling as if in recognition. He seemed oddly dressed in a white silk cloak embroidered with pictographic designs in red and gold thread, and a bone-white skullcap. He couldn't decide why he seemed odd for a moment -- then he realized that his clothing was well-made and obviously expensive. Human clothing was usually dull and functional: those Human of high enough rank to afford expensive clothing often followed Kabard custom and wore none.
"Kabard, Valak, and Human together!" he exclaimed in Tilach. His accent was odd as well -- not Humanish, not Pachalan, not Pelun. "Are you, I hope, the Transcendent Ktil of Mother Eluse?"
"We are. . .part of the Transcendent Ktil," Domojon told him. "We still seek the Human, Morev, and Ceraine, of course. And are you a follower of the Lady of the Spheres?"
He chuckled. "No, no. But my heart is gladdened by devotion whenever I see it."
"You revere Kensor the Burning Sun, then?" Akrava asked, smiling.
"Nor him. Nor Aramkai of the Human in. . .of the Human hereabouts. Nor am I Khamvárivhir, nor Ortavhir, nor Vorhëdhir, nor a follower of your swamp-goddess Bzan, good Valak."
"I am no follower of a swamp goddess, thank you," Etlzonat growled.
"Are you discomfitured by my swaying from the traditional religions of Tulë?" the Human asked.
"No, not at all," Domojon said, polite but a bit doubtful. Some Kabards were atheists or agnostics, but he had never heard of a Human who didn't worship an emanation of the Night, Aramkai or Eluse or the Kabard Lady of the Pale Flame. "We welcome your company."
"And I yours, for I am erëktilit, far from my home, and very lonely. I welcome those of strong belief and yet a generous disposition." He smiled broadly and raised open palms toward them as a gesture of friendliness. "Would you tour this Wall of Mystery with me?"
"Certainly," Domojon said, though Etlzonat growled softly. He could easily travel with two companions, but three taxed his innate need for solitude.
"My name is Hzergai-vakram-tazhar, which as you know means 'The Human who Sings' in Tilach, but I don't sing. I work in the museum here, cataloging the artifacts and arranging them in display cases."
"Why don't you sing?" asked Akrava.
"Ah, alas, there are economic considerations. My meditation and exercises and search for the Godking within, it does not pay the bills, you see. Shall we look at the exhibits?"
Hzergai led them through the three cloud-house galleries of the museum, and then to those sections of Nuisomein open to tourists, windowless granite buildings with nicknames like the Temple of the Moon and the Governor's House, though no one knew their true function. Buildings in Nuisomein seemed functionless: no recognizeable bathrooms or kitchens, just bare silent walls, ceilings nearly as high as a cloud-house, stinking with the ammonia of museum disinfectant, all lifeless except for cobwebs and the small red ants that scurried about where a tourist had spilled a sugared drink. Thousands of people once gathered in the Plaza of Flat Stones, cheering their priest-kings, joking and laughing, worshipping their smooth faceless obelisks: but so gloomy was the Plaza now, so oppressively grey and somehow cruel, that Domojon doubted anyone sane could have lived very long in Nuisomein.
"Magestic, isn't it?" said Hzergai.
"Plenty of room, anyway," Etlzonat said. He took a deep breath, as if to fill his lungs with freedom. "Give me a stream with fish, and a brighter sun, and I could live here. Better than out in Pachala."
"Yes. Events of late have been unlucky in the outer world." Hzergai stared at Domojon with an eager smile that made his shudder. Was he visualizing them performing the slow and joyous Dance of Love's Solitude? It seemed unnatural, a blasphemy in this place where surely no one had loved since the beginning of time. "The greatdoors close, the greatdoors open, they close again. We are trapped first in the body, and then in the mind and spirit! Some of us may never see our home worlds again." His eyes were transformed from the grey of the intellect to the deep summer-blue of the passions.
"What do you mean by home worlds?" Domojon asked. "Are you from Terra?"
He grinned. "Why, of course not, my dear. Everyone knows that there are no Human on Terra, nor have there ever been. But come -- I would love to share my special section of the city with you." He looked carefully to his left and to his right to make sure that no guards were looking, then scurried over to a granite wall on the north side of the Plaza, blocking off the inner city that archaeologists had yet to explore. "Would you be so kind as to help me push this black segment of wall? No
. . .you stand there, Kabard, and you, Valak, and me. Now push." Three of them pressed together. Not hard -- Akrava's muscles barely contracted. And the wall veered back into a little doorway.
"Very clever, the Nuisomein people," said Hzergai, breathing heavily from his exertion. "From the inside, a nurseling's laugh could open this doorway, but from the outside, the strongest Kabard could not budge it an inch. Three must push together."
Etlzonat peered through the opening, his nose flaring suspiciously. "I am not understanding this," he muttered. "Where are you taking us?"
To Domojon the inner city looked like more of the same: grey, empty buildings, nearly subhuman in their monotony, as if they were products of heer instinct, like anthills.
"I assure you," said Hzergai, "My intentions are entirely honorable. Three strong Tulëans against a frail unemployed singer of songs -- it would be foolhardy of me to try to rob or abuse you! Now come, please."
They walked through into a sort of courtyard dwarfed by an overhanging shaft that almost -- but not quite -- resembled the a stylized deity, its features worn away by the centuries: a flat ovoid face, eyeless and mouthless, thin shoulders, thin arms and a hint of bony, clutching hands. The inner city was still blocked off behind dark, moist granite. Only at the height of noon could the sun shine directly down to the cold stone floor; now the light was reflected, eerie as twilight, and the air smelled cool and dank, like a cave.
"This is a courtyard cut off on all sides, you see," said Hzergai. "And not visible from the air, because of prince of mountains. And so, it has not been noticed. Not yet explored by the archaeologists."
"This is fantastic!" Domojon exclaimed. "Hundreds of archaeologists, historians, tourists, and we're the first to see this!"
"Not the first," Hzergai said mysteriously. Then, when they stared at him, he laughed. "The Nuisomein people lived here, of course."
The air of gloom was greater here than in the sections of the city populated by camera-clicking tourists. Again Domojon sensed something unnatural, vaguely alien in the somber, straight-lined architecture and the emptiness. And the silence: not the silence of a city, with its dull hums of machinery and distant, almost subliminal throbbing heartbeats, nor yet the silence of the countryside, with scampering bugs and the distant call of birds. Silence.
Hzergai led them to a spot directly beneath the faceless god, to where the a giant hand -- or a series of jutting marks that might have been intended to suggest a hand -- made a peculiar pointing-sign at a squat stone doorway.
"What archaeologists have explored so far are the public buildings: the Nuisomein always kept them open. This building, though, was private. And here is how its owner kept safe during the night. Follow me." He walked into the doorway.
He vanihed as swiftly as a wallscreen blinking out. They looked about in astonishment. Bright, childlike laughter indicated that he was ten feet behind them.
"What was that? A trick?" Domojon asked.
"The best of tricks, my dear." Hzergai beamed, a nurseling pleased with himself over owning a marvelous new toy. "Would you like to try it?"
They did, and soon they were laughing and giggling.
"It is a greatdoor, a very small one. If you touch the house, it transports you ten feet from where you were. Very simple, but the cloud-house is impenetrable. Even by insects. Only light, you see, and the wind can penetrate."
"How did the people of Nuisomein get in?" Akrava asked.
"Ah, they knew much more than we about greatdoors. So much, in fact, that could use greatdoors for something so mundane as locks. Someday again, perhaps, we will use greatdoors so easily." He began to walk slowly toward the well-traveled parts of Nuisomein. "But in these dark days there is one who will close all greatdoors forever."
"What of it?" Akrava asked, before Domojon could quiet him. "The fewer greatdoors, the fewer Humans to worry about."
"And the fewer Human." He stared at Akrava, smiling sadly. "Or have you not realized yet that I am not born of Tulë?"
"A Human from beyond the greatdoors!" Domojon exclaimed. "I thought they led only to Terra."
"That is an oversimplication of a truth that in its undiluted form is difficult to bear." He motioned to a long, narrow stone bench. "Sit and talk with me now, for I am sick at heart." They obediently sat on the hard, damp stone, and Hzergai sat crosslegged on the ground before them in the storyteller's manner.
"Think you that the six greatdoors of the Humans are alone in the cosmos?" he said. "No -- the six are merely those that opened permanently -- or so it seemed until last summer. The One has many other greatdoors, perhaps dozens, perhaps hundreds -- he opens and closes them, changes their locations, makes them accept only sound and light, only copper and gold, only human flesh, only the souls damned to never again be called to life. This is perfectly comprehensible: the One is testing his powers, as when you buy a new datarod you pressed first one button, then another, until you have tried all of the controls. One day nearly a decade ago He opened a greatdoor between Tulë and my world -- alas, only for a moment. I slipped through unaware, and now I am trapped here, so far from home that even the mind-call of my clan cannot reach me."
"Then you are from another planet!" Akrava exclaimed. "A planet of Human!"
"Not only Human, my friend." He smiled mysteriously. "There were Kabards, Humans, others that you have no names for. On my world I was the Human who Sings, for of all my clan I had the clearest voice. We built our cavern-city on a ridge overlooking a grassy valley, where pale short-stemmed flowers never seen on Tulë tumbled down to a brook of water blue as the midnight sky, and I sang there every evening many songs so beautiful that the Kabards of the mountains and the Humans of the plains stopped at their labors to listen." He frowned. "I had never heard of greatdoors then, or of Tulë, or of this battle to the death between Kabards and Humans. Would that I never had! But one day as I walked in the hills communing with the cloud-spirits, my world dimmed around me, and I fell into a faint."
"And you awoke here?" Domojon asked.
He nodded. "I awoke in Nuisomein, in this very courtyard where I have come so often since to pray to my cloud-spirits for release. But I could not spend all night, every night in prayer. There were. . .economic considerations. I learned the language of Pachala and then the Tilach of all Kabards, found work in the museum so that I could rent a cloud-house and buy enough food, and waited."
"Waited for what?" Akrava asked.
"For my greatdoor to open for me again. It never did. But as I listened and read, and watched newscasts on the wallscreen, I discovered who had the power of the greatdoors, who was opening and closing them as easily as a nurseling plays with blocks. He is the Godking of the Kabards, and his name is Gorban."
A thrill of recognition shot through Domojon. That would make sense. Only a few months after Gorban was appointed king of Kabard-occupied Moreveq, privy to the secrets hidden in the ruined fortress Emekhtal, the greatdoors to Terra opened. Obviously Gorban had discovered their secrets. He had opened the six and perhaps others, tested them. . .and then, when he had learned as much as he could, he closed them again! Perhaps he was now searching the cosmos for Kabard planets.
But another thought nagged at him. Gorban had been terrified of the greatdoors: not with the dull respect of someone who knows how they operate, but terrified as an ignorant Ceraine tribesman who worries that a datarod can steal his soul. And in his dreams, Another often spoke, One to whom Gorban himself was little more than a frightened nurseling to be comforted or abused.
"Gradually I realized that Gorban would never open the greatdoor to my world again," Hzergai said, looking up at the sky, a sliver of grey mist beyond the ledge of black rock. "And I knew that approaching him to request mercy would be like approaching the Great Horned Bird to smooth its feathers. I had to devise another way. And I remembered the Colindon of your goddess Aramkai."
Domojon stared at him. "You know of the Colindon?"
"Certainly. On my world a Colindon is still worn by Sharóm Tzël, Queen of the Endless Caverns, and what Kabard or Human or Val can stand against her? I thought thus: if a Human on Tulë could find Aramkai's Colindon and wear it, Gorban and all of his plans would be as dust. This unfortunate quarrel between Kabards and Humans would end, of course, but more important. . .the greatdoors could open like stormclouds in the summer. The Terrans would go home -- I would go home."
"But," said Etlzonat, "Why is it that this plan is falling on our ears? What have we to do with the Colindon?"
"I chose you to hear my story. You must help me," said Hzergai. He turned to Domojon, smiling, his eyes a deep, restful blue. The others, Akrava and Etlzonat, suddenly seemed very far away. "My heart sang when first I saw you, Domojon Erëktilit, because I knew you from the wallscreen programs. You have been the dream-seer of Gorban: you know his secrets. Perhaps you have even heard from him where the Colindon is hidden."
"I. . . ." his face burned with confusion and fear. "I may."
"Domojon!" Akrava hissed.
It was only a little thing -- a trick of the light, perhaps, as the sun dimmed a bit more with afternoon -- but Hzergai seemed to change. His wide summer-blue eyes grew cold, like grey ice; his smile grew wide, sardonic, even savage. "You do know, don't you, Domojon?" he said in a low voice like that of a dream-seer. "Perhaps you are the one destined to wear it. To sway the worlds."
Now he realized that Hzergai was a sham. "No!" he shouted. "I don't have any idea where the Colindon is." It was true. . .he had no idea where the city of Aramkai Roham could be found, and without it, his knowledge of the Colindon's location was useless.
"Then you will not help me go home? Do you know what it is like, Domojon, to be exiled beyond the greatdoors?"
He was no longer Hzergai, but a grinning mannikin, a Human-thing with red glaring eyes that displayed anger but no comprehension, no thought. Empty. "Then you will not help me go home?" he repeated. "Do you know what it is like, Domojon, to be exiled beyond the greatdoors?"
"Enough!" Domojon said, looking away from the Human-thing. "We must go." Etlzonat held out his sword to keep Hzergai away, but he sat on the bench still, grinning to himself. They ruhed back to the tourist section of Nuisomein, back to the prim tour guides and gawking pilgrims from Retur and Rikang and Human-lands.
"Wait!" Hzergai called in a high-pitched voice like a cackle. "I have refreshments for you!"
They left Nuisomein by the Black Lion Gate and, afraid to spend the night in a guesthouse in the tiny tourist village, set out with the dying sun toward the north, toward Humanan.
"Gorban knows that we're in Pachala," Akrava said. "He must have send that. . . ."
"Automaton," Domojon said darkly. But he knew that it was
-- or it had once been -- a Human. What had Gorban done to him? Had he converted the Court of the Divine Wind into a torture chamber, invited Ceraine witch doctors to conjure up each Human's inner fears until his soul was torn from his body?
"And he knows about the Colindon," said Etlzonat, "But he doesn't know where it is being located. This is very helpful, for he will not be killing us soon."
"We can forget about pretending to be pilgrims," Domojon said. "From now on, it's a rush to Humanan."
With spring, the month Humans called Chufenath and Kabards called Melting of Packed Snow in the Mountains, Gorban began massing troops in Chiokërang and Elaku, along the spine of mountains that separated devout Kabard from heretic and Human. Armed with as much as they could learn about Elusivhir, bound copies of the Way of Exceeding Joy, new pearl-like kolïndons, and, most important of all, two small grey bombs, they were ready for their journey. In the northern reaches of Pelun, the fields were green with new rice and haricots; there were orchards of newly-budding apricot trees, and persimmons, and waterberries. Swans flew overhead toward their summer nesting-ground, and along the banks of the Salt Sea crawled slow-moving sjatriluür lizards, which Etlzonat often caught and roasted over the heating-coil for their dinner. From Pelun they passed into the Kabard nation of Pachala, to the fortress-city Sardiúd with its twin blinking sentinels, and Retur the city of three tribes (Human, Kabard, and Val), with its hundred-foot tall mosaic of the Human goddess Eluse adoring Kensor the Sun.
They spent one day and one night in Retur, visiting the Elusivhir Temple and the Wanderling Monastery, and then they walked north along the path of the World's End River, through the sea of grass where Kabards built their courts of red clay and jade. There were few cities, mostly clusters of two or three cloud-houses with flat tops and a dismal brick-red color, and, in the vast wheatfields, subterranean houses built entirely of sod. Once the Pachalan Kabards used horses, unheard-of in other Kabard nations, to unite their endless miles of grassland, and even threaten the Humans of Runoe and Hizorán along their western border. Now the horses seemed old and fat, fit only for the pony-rides at Kensoraj festivals, and the Kabards they passed were languidly plowing their fields, or nudging herds of cattle toward their summer grazing-grounds, or, with a look of surpreme ennui, shuffling toward dirt-brown factories to make the mass-produced furniture and machines loved in the great clanhouses of Ushalo.
"Should the Humans conquer us," Domojon said, "This is what we can expect. Factories."
"And horses," Akrava added in a disgusted tone.
As they walked north settlements grew fewer and fewere, until there was only the river and the sea of grass and the brown pilgrims' road. Then one morning Etlzonat cried "Nuísomein! The wall of mystery! Good gods, who would have thought that I'd live to see this!"
"Dumb name," Akrava said. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Wall of mystery," Domojon told him, "In Old Human. Humans lived here long before the Kabards, you know."
"So, when the Kabards took over, why didn't they change the name?"
"Because they were superstitious as deep-forest Ceraines," said Etlzonat. "Thought it was surrounding the world."
Akrava laughed. "Superstitious! What about Szei Ran, the Pelún who threw out the Kabards and conquered half the world beside? He was so superstitious that when he saw the Black Lion Gate of Nuísomein: he thought that he had come to the border of the Land of the Gods!"
"No one understands Nuisomein," said Domojon, "So it is holy to both Humans and Kabards. Their great hero, Zhirhaór, whom they honor nearly as much as Eluse, and the Kabard Mashanuu-dhër both vanihed into the Mystery, and both are supposed to return at the hour of Tulë's greatest need."
The Black Lion stood in profile on its hind legs, forelegs taut and furious: from miles away it looked ready to claw Kensor the sun. The Wall of Mystery was of solid granite fifty feet thick, fifty feet deep, six hundred feet high, and five miles long. Only with the invention of airships did explorers manage to land behind the Wall and find its single gate, locked from the inside. Only within the last generation had archaeologists finally managed to solve at least a few of the mysteries of Nuisomein.
Domojon stared at the unhospitable steel-grey wall, stretching away toward the west for miles, taller than any Kabard cloud-house, straight and featureless. Dismal low hills were clustered on one side, as if the giant Nuísomein children used them for playthings.
"Who lived here?" Akrava asked. "Kabards?"
"Kabards, probably. Maybe Humans, or even Val," said Domojon, consulting his new Pelun datarod. "Archaeologists don't really know. They've only explored and catalogued about one third of the city so far."
"Catalogued? Hmpf!" Akrava snorted. "Must be Human archaeologists, so naturally they'd find Humans under every bush."
Tour groups from Pachala and Runoe and Hizorán were gathered on the south side of the Wall, where the Black Lion had guarded the entrance to the land of the gods for thousands of years. They joined a group of Kabard Elusivhir from Retur.
"Their language has not been translated," the pert, businesslike tour guide was saying, "But their contemporaries in other cities have left a few hints. They called their city Eívor and themselves Eivorrhi. They was ruled by an hereditary caste of priests, and there were also castes of scribes, artisans, and slaves. The chief among their many gods was Lord Bear, Tházmarok, who required yearly human sacrifices, usually of war captives. They smelted copper, raised wheat and potatoes, and brewed mushroom-beer. The priests wore ostrich feather capes from Dhusaig and drank from obsidian flasks from Moreveq. They educated their nurselings in schools, and buried their dead facing north, the Land of the Bear God. And they may have used greatdoors on a daily basis to commune with the stars."
"Greatdoors?" Akrava raised his hands. "How could savages like that learn to use greatdoors?"
"We don't know. But one day, to escape from enemies or a plague, for whatever reason, they locked themselves inside their city and simply vanihed. Nuisomein must have been home to thousands, but we have found no skeletons, no sign of any struggle."
Domojon saw a tall, ruddy Human approaching them, smiling as if in recognition. He seemed oddly dressed in a white silk cloak embroidered with pictographic designs in red and gold thread, and a bone-white skullcap. He couldn't decide why he seemed odd for a moment -- then he realized that his clothing was well-made and obviously expensive. Human clothing was usually dull and functional: those Human of high enough rank to afford expensive clothing often followed Kabard custom and wore none.
"Kabard, Valak, and Human together!" he exclaimed in Tilach. His accent was odd as well -- not Humanish, not Pachalan, not Pelun. "Are you, I hope, the Transcendent Ktil of Mother Eluse?"
"We are. . .part of the Transcendent Ktil," Domojon told him. "We still seek the Human, Morev, and Ceraine, of course. And are you a follower of the Lady of the Spheres?"
He chuckled. "No, no. But my heart is gladdened by devotion whenever I see it."
"You revere Kensor the Burning Sun, then?" Akrava asked, smiling.
"Nor him. Nor Aramkai of the Human in. . .of the Human hereabouts. Nor am I Khamvárivhir, nor Ortavhir, nor Vorhëdhir, nor a follower of your swamp-goddess Bzan, good Valak."
"I am no follower of a swamp goddess, thank you," Etlzonat growled.
"Are you discomfitured by my swaying from the traditional religions of Tulë?" the Human asked.
"No, not at all," Domojon said, polite but a bit doubtful. Some Kabards were atheists or agnostics, but he had never heard of a Human who didn't worship an emanation of the Night, Aramkai or Eluse or the Kabard Lady of the Pale Flame. "We welcome your company."
"And I yours, for I am erëktilit, far from my home, and very lonely. I welcome those of strong belief and yet a generous disposition." He smiled broadly and raised open palms toward them as a gesture of friendliness. "Would you tour this Wall of Mystery with me?"
"Certainly," Domojon said, though Etlzonat growled softly. He could easily travel with two companions, but three taxed his innate need for solitude.
"My name is Hzergai-vakram-tazhar, which as you know means 'The Human who Sings' in Tilach, but I don't sing. I work in the museum here, cataloging the artifacts and arranging them in display cases."
"Why don't you sing?" asked Akrava.
"Ah, alas, there are economic considerations. My meditation and exercises and search for the Godking within, it does not pay the bills, you see. Shall we look at the exhibits?"
Hzergai led them through the three cloud-house galleries of the museum, and then to those sections of Nuisomein open to tourists, windowless granite buildings with nicknames like the Temple of the Moon and the Governor's House, though no one knew their true function. Buildings in Nuisomein seemed functionless: no recognizeable bathrooms or kitchens, just bare silent walls, ceilings nearly as high as a cloud-house, stinking with the ammonia of museum disinfectant, all lifeless except for cobwebs and the small red ants that scurried about where a tourist had spilled a sugared drink. Thousands of people once gathered in the Plaza of Flat Stones, cheering their priest-kings, joking and laughing, worshipping their smooth faceless obelisks: but so gloomy was the Plaza now, so oppressively grey and somehow cruel, that Domojon doubted anyone sane could have lived very long in Nuisomein.
"Magestic, isn't it?" said Hzergai.
"Plenty of room, anyway," Etlzonat said. He took a deep breath, as if to fill his lungs with freedom. "Give me a stream with fish, and a brighter sun, and I could live here. Better than out in Pachala."
"Yes. Events of late have been unlucky in the outer world." Hzergai stared at Domojon with an eager smile that made his shudder. Was he visualizing them performing the slow and joyous Dance of Love's Solitude? It seemed unnatural, a blasphemy in this place where surely no one had loved since the beginning of time. "The greatdoors close, the greatdoors open, they close again. We are trapped first in the body, and then in the mind and spirit! Some of us may never see our home worlds again." His eyes were transformed from the grey of the intellect to the deep summer-blue of the passions.
"What do you mean by home worlds?" Domojon asked. "Are you from Terra?"
He grinned. "Why, of course not, my dear. Everyone knows that there are no Human on Terra, nor have there ever been. But come -- I would love to share my special section of the city with you." He looked carefully to his left and to his right to make sure that no guards were looking, then scurried over to a granite wall on the north side of the Plaza, blocking off the inner city that archaeologists had yet to explore. "Would you be so kind as to help me push this black segment of wall? No
. . .you stand there, Kabard, and you, Valak, and me. Now push." Three of them pressed together. Not hard -- Akrava's muscles barely contracted. And the wall veered back into a little doorway.
"Very clever, the Nuisomein people," said Hzergai, breathing heavily from his exertion. "From the inside, a nurseling's laugh could open this doorway, but from the outside, the strongest Kabard could not budge it an inch. Three must push together."
Etlzonat peered through the opening, his nose flaring suspiciously. "I am not understanding this," he muttered. "Where are you taking us?"
To Domojon the inner city looked like more of the same: grey, empty buildings, nearly subhuman in their monotony, as if they were products of heer instinct, like anthills.
"I assure you," said Hzergai, "My intentions are entirely honorable. Three strong Tulëans against a frail unemployed singer of songs -- it would be foolhardy of me to try to rob or abuse you! Now come, please."
They walked through into a sort of courtyard dwarfed by an overhanging shaft that almost -- but not quite -- resembled the a stylized deity, its features worn away by the centuries: a flat ovoid face, eyeless and mouthless, thin shoulders, thin arms and a hint of bony, clutching hands. The inner city was still blocked off behind dark, moist granite. Only at the height of noon could the sun shine directly down to the cold stone floor; now the light was reflected, eerie as twilight, and the air smelled cool and dank, like a cave.
"This is a courtyard cut off on all sides, you see," said Hzergai. "And not visible from the air, because of prince of mountains. And so, it has not been noticed. Not yet explored by the archaeologists."
"This is fantastic!" Domojon exclaimed. "Hundreds of archaeologists, historians, tourists, and we're the first to see this!"
"Not the first," Hzergai said mysteriously. Then, when they stared at him, he laughed. "The Nuisomein people lived here, of course."
The air of gloom was greater here than in the sections of the city populated by camera-clicking tourists. Again Domojon sensed something unnatural, vaguely alien in the somber, straight-lined architecture and the emptiness. And the silence: not the silence of a city, with its dull hums of machinery and distant, almost subliminal throbbing heartbeats, nor yet the silence of the countryside, with scampering bugs and the distant call of birds. Silence.
Hzergai led them to a spot directly beneath the faceless god, to where the a giant hand -- or a series of jutting marks that might have been intended to suggest a hand -- made a peculiar pointing-sign at a squat stone doorway.
"What archaeologists have explored so far are the public buildings: the Nuisomein always kept them open. This building, though, was private. And here is how its owner kept safe during the night. Follow me." He walked into the doorway.
He vanihed as swiftly as a wallscreen blinking out. They looked about in astonishment. Bright, childlike laughter indicated that he was ten feet behind them.
"What was that? A trick?" Domojon asked.
"The best of tricks, my dear." Hzergai beamed, a nurseling pleased with himself over owning a marvelous new toy. "Would you like to try it?"
They did, and soon they were laughing and giggling.
"It is a greatdoor, a very small one. If you touch the house, it transports you ten feet from where you were. Very simple, but the cloud-house is impenetrable. Even by insects. Only light, you see, and the wind can penetrate."
"How did the people of Nuisomein get in?" Akrava asked.
"Ah, they knew much more than we about greatdoors. So much, in fact, that could use greatdoors for something so mundane as locks. Someday again, perhaps, we will use greatdoors so easily." He began to walk slowly toward the well-traveled parts of Nuisomein. "But in these dark days there is one who will close all greatdoors forever."
"What of it?" Akrava asked, before Domojon could quiet him. "The fewer greatdoors, the fewer Humans to worry about."
"And the fewer Human." He stared at Akrava, smiling sadly. "Or have you not realized yet that I am not born of Tulë?"
"A Human from beyond the greatdoors!" Domojon exclaimed. "I thought they led only to Terra."
"That is an oversimplication of a truth that in its undiluted form is difficult to bear." He motioned to a long, narrow stone bench. "Sit and talk with me now, for I am sick at heart." They obediently sat on the hard, damp stone, and Hzergai sat crosslegged on the ground before them in the storyteller's manner.
"Think you that the six greatdoors of the Humans are alone in the cosmos?" he said. "No -- the six are merely those that opened permanently -- or so it seemed until last summer. The One has many other greatdoors, perhaps dozens, perhaps hundreds -- he opens and closes them, changes their locations, makes them accept only sound and light, only copper and gold, only human flesh, only the souls damned to never again be called to life. This is perfectly comprehensible: the One is testing his powers, as when you buy a new datarod you pressed first one button, then another, until you have tried all of the controls. One day nearly a decade ago He opened a greatdoor between Tulë and my world -- alas, only for a moment. I slipped through unaware, and now I am trapped here, so far from home that even the mind-call of my clan cannot reach me."
"Then you are from another planet!" Akrava exclaimed. "A planet of Human!"
"Not only Human, my friend." He smiled mysteriously. "There were Kabards, Humans, others that you have no names for. On my world I was the Human who Sings, for of all my clan I had the clearest voice. We built our cavern-city on a ridge overlooking a grassy valley, where pale short-stemmed flowers never seen on Tulë tumbled down to a brook of water blue as the midnight sky, and I sang there every evening many songs so beautiful that the Kabards of the mountains and the Humans of the plains stopped at their labors to listen." He frowned. "I had never heard of greatdoors then, or of Tulë, or of this battle to the death between Kabards and Humans. Would that I never had! But one day as I walked in the hills communing with the cloud-spirits, my world dimmed around me, and I fell into a faint."
"And you awoke here?" Domojon asked.
He nodded. "I awoke in Nuisomein, in this very courtyard where I have come so often since to pray to my cloud-spirits for release. But I could not spend all night, every night in prayer. There were. . .economic considerations. I learned the language of Pachala and then the Tilach of all Kabards, found work in the museum so that I could rent a cloud-house and buy enough food, and waited."
"Waited for what?" Akrava asked.
"For my greatdoor to open for me again. It never did. But as I listened and read, and watched newscasts on the wallscreen, I discovered who had the power of the greatdoors, who was opening and closing them as easily as a nurseling plays with blocks. He is the Godking of the Kabards, and his name is Gorban."
A thrill of recognition shot through Domojon. That would make sense. Only a few months after Gorban was appointed king of Kabard-occupied Moreveq, privy to the secrets hidden in the ruined fortress Emekhtal, the greatdoors to Terra opened. Obviously Gorban had discovered their secrets. He had opened the six and perhaps others, tested them. . .and then, when he had learned as much as he could, he closed them again! Perhaps he was now searching the cosmos for Kabard planets.
But another thought nagged at him. Gorban had been terrified of the greatdoors: not with the dull respect of someone who knows how they operate, but terrified as an ignorant Ceraine tribesman who worries that a datarod can steal his soul. And in his dreams, Another often spoke, One to whom Gorban himself was little more than a frightened nurseling to be comforted or abused.
"Gradually I realized that Gorban would never open the greatdoor to my world again," Hzergai said, looking up at the sky, a sliver of grey mist beyond the ledge of black rock. "And I knew that approaching him to request mercy would be like approaching the Great Horned Bird to smooth its feathers. I had to devise another way. And I remembered the Colindon of your goddess Aramkai."
Domojon stared at him. "You know of the Colindon?"
"Certainly. On my world a Colindon is still worn by Sharóm Tzël, Queen of the Endless Caverns, and what Kabard or Human or Val can stand against her? I thought thus: if a Human on Tulë could find Aramkai's Colindon and wear it, Gorban and all of his plans would be as dust. This unfortunate quarrel between Kabards and Humans would end, of course, but more important. . .the greatdoors could open like stormclouds in the summer. The Terrans would go home -- I would go home."
"But," said Etlzonat, "Why is it that this plan is falling on our ears? What have we to do with the Colindon?"
"I chose you to hear my story. You must help me," said Hzergai. He turned to Domojon, smiling, his eyes a deep, restful blue. The others, Akrava and Etlzonat, suddenly seemed very far away. "My heart sang when first I saw you, Domojon Erëktilit, because I knew you from the wallscreen programs. You have been the dream-seer of Gorban: you know his secrets. Perhaps you have even heard from him where the Colindon is hidden."
"I. . . ." his face burned with confusion and fear. "I may."
"Domojon!" Akrava hissed.
It was only a little thing -- a trick of the light, perhaps, as the sun dimmed a bit more with afternoon -- but Hzergai seemed to change. His wide summer-blue eyes grew cold, like grey ice; his smile grew wide, sardonic, even savage. "You do know, don't you, Domojon?" he said in a low voice like that of a dream-seer. "Perhaps you are the one destined to wear it. To sway the worlds."
Now he realized that Hzergai was a sham. "No!" he shouted. "I don't have any idea where the Colindon is." It was true. . .he had no idea where the city of Aramkai Roham could be found, and without it, his knowledge of the Colindon's location was useless.
"Then you will not help me go home? Do you know what it is like, Domojon, to be exiled beyond the greatdoors?"
He was no longer Hzergai, but a grinning mannikin, a Human-thing with red glaring eyes that displayed anger but no comprehension, no thought. Empty. "Then you will not help me go home?" he repeated. "Do you know what it is like, Domojon, to be exiled beyond the greatdoors?"
"Enough!" Domojon said, looking away from the Human-thing. "We must go." Etlzonat held out his sword to keep Hzergai away, but he sat on the bench still, grinning to himself. They ruhed back to the tourist section of Nuisomein, back to the prim tour guides and gawking pilgrims from Retur and Rikang and Human-lands.
"Wait!" Hzergai called in a high-pitched voice like a cackle. "I have refreshments for you!"
They left Nuisomein by the Black Lion Gate and, afraid to spend the night in a guesthouse in the tiny tourist village, set out with the dying sun toward the north, toward Humanan.
"Gorban knows that we're in Pachala," Akrava said. "He must have send that. . . ."
"Automaton," Domojon said darkly. But he knew that it was
-- or it had once been -- a Human. What had Gorban done to him? Had he converted the Court of the Divine Wind into a torture chamber, invited Ceraine witch doctors to conjure up each Human's inner fears until his soul was torn from his body?
"And he knows about the Colindon," said Etlzonat, "But he doesn't know where it is being located. This is very helpful, for he will not be killing us soon."
"We can forget about pretending to be pilgrims," Domojon said. "From now on, it's a rush to Humanan."
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