Kabardan Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
North of Nuisomein was a vast, grassy plain --elaku, the flatness, said to be the Kabards' first homeland on Tulë, the infinity that had spawned Kensoraj's infinity of gods -- for who could look on the endless steppes and not feel the prodding touches of other souls, gods and spirits and demigods and demons? Kabards had marched from this plain more than once, to war against Runoe or Hizorán or Pachala (in the days when it was Human). When once they marched, they defeated Runoe in a single day -- an engraved stone at Yranmeí commemorated the victory.
They camped out each night under the stars, or when it rained in a canvass tent, while raindrops hissed against their heating-coil. Etlzonat caught rabbits and birds to cook, and Hzergai found wild mushrooms and horsehair and fat tubular roots, and moss to brew into tea, so they ate well. There were snakes, and poisonous toads, and sharp grass that could cut through doeskin sandals. Domojon missed most of all the Terran chocolate and juniper wine, and the hot baths customary every morning in Pelun's guesthouses.
Every day in the flatlands seemed like a year elsewhere, with cold, frosty winter at night, spring at dawn, midafternoon with a hard blue sky and a sun that burned hotter than flame, and autumn at dusk. Yet time seemed to stand still -- no matter how long they walked, or how fast, still the dun hills of Jau seemed no farther away, no closer.
One day they saw down the eastern slopes dark shapes like ghosts floating north across the waist-high latespring grass. They looked around for a vantage point, a hillock or tall tree, but there was nothing.
"Could it be an illusion?" Akrava asked.
"Over to the east is the great road between Kabard lands and Valmarkum and the north," said Etlzonat. "And that is a legion of Pachala's army, the greatest in the world." In spite of the elaku's vastness, or perhaps because of it, three of every ten adults in Pachala was conscripted or chose the army.
"I see," said Akrava, whose eyes were quite good, "The banners of Elaku and Chiokërang as well."
"Together they are traveling?" asked Etlzonat. "Very more odd that is. Once Elaku and Chiokërang were close, for they were both worshipping the Godking. Once, in fact, Elaku was a province of Chiokërang, until Azrol Hawk came to liberate it. Nomads moved back and forth as they wihed. But when Chiokërang broke away from the Godking. . . ."
"They are separate no longer," Domojon said darkly. "The Godking has access to the armies of Chiokërang, Elaku, Elaku, and all of the other Kabard states."
"And he gathers them together in Pachala. For why?"
Suddenly Domojon knew. "Gorban plans to march against Runoe in the west!"
"That's crazy!" Akrava exclaimed. "The Humans have horses!"
"But Gorban has airships."
"Only a few."
"Then Gorban is suffering from an incredible pride," said Etlzonat. "And in that he will perhaps fall." He sniffed the air. "There is no danger to us, for twenty miles away they are marching, and not concerned with us three sneaking through the brush."
They traveled north on side roads and the trails used by the prairie-grazing buffalo, ignoring insect bites and the curious stares of farmers and the dank, fetid smell of earth, while far to the east flahes of light and color mirrored their movements like lyühev, mocking revenants of the elaku. One day they crossed a little stream, and Etlzonat announced that they had arrived at a Val settlement: not a Kabard court, where cloud-houses and towers were crammed together in the smallest possible space, but a "settlement," and thus practically invisible to outsiders. Adult Val lived alone in grey or black beehive-shaped houses far removed from their fellows, and hidden by banks of neck-high yellow grass. Not even the poorest would consider living in a house crammed between other houses, or over someone's head.
Even public buildings were reserved for solitary use. The Temple of the Goddess Bzan was a compound of dozens of cool solid rooms of blue arabesques, where Val worshipped in solitude; the City Library housed its books in one huge central court, but reserved individual chambers for reading; the Museum of the Elaku kept each display-case in a separate room, which no Valak would think to enter with another Valak inside; the provincial governor held his appointments from inside his house, while visitors waited in the tall grass outside. Though the settlement had several thousand residents, according to Etlzonat, the streets were little more than winding pathways through banks of grass, and curiously deserted: a Valak walked at least three feet from a companion, and at least nine feet from a stranger. Crowding was not only impolite, but illegal, the source of many Val-Human or Val-Kabard wars over the ages.
"It seems sad," Domojon said, "Life in such seclusion. How can you bear it?"
Etlzonat snorted. "Perhaps, Human, your nurselings, when they are being deprived of the touch of others, fare the worse for it? They grow up crippled, or insane, or even die?"
"Yes. I have read many such accounts."
"In Val lands, the crippled children are those who are touched overmuch. No Valak could as you do, be laying a hand on a friend's shoulder during the conversation, or kissing him in the greeting. If you are being touched by a Valak, you know you are special such as few friends become special during the whole of life."
Aside from the vastness of the settlement, what Domojon noticed first was the silence, nearly the silence of Nuisomein. The Val sang no songs, recited no poetry. They chased away trilling birds. Politeness forbade them from speaking in public unless signaling danger, so they spoke through hand signs.
At the intersections of some pathways rose great glass pillars in which globules of red and grey moved sinuously back and forth; a Valak would gaze at one, and then as another Valak approached, he would move on. Domojon did not know what pleasure the Val got from these pillars, and Etlzonat couldn't explain.
Males and females of the Val were naked, in the Kabard fashion, except for wide-brimmed hats, flat sandals, and belts for carrying their ubiquitous falchions. They had no hair or breasts, or any other gender marker; their genitals were hidden by loose folds of skin. After a while, however, Domojon noticed that some Val had round faces and round flat eyes, while others had oval faces and oval eyes: males and females, Etlzonat said.
The carriers were easy to distinguish, for they were strikingly gregarious, walking the streets in twos or threes, sometimes with nurselings in tow, talking loudly in Tilach or a their strange clicking Val language. They had large red-painted faces, lips colored bright red or orange, and their pouches bulged like pendulous breasts. It was the carrier who sought the females, who in a frenzied mating took their eggs into their own wombs, and then, months later, hunted down and trapped the males, took them violently and savagely to fertilize the eggs.
Tired of the wilderness after so many days, they decided to stay at the Kabard-style guesthouse which the Val provided for Kabard and Human pilgrims. Tonight most of the pilgrims were Humans on their way out of Pachala, fleeing for Hizorán or Runoe with their possessions in knapsacks; a few Kabards were quaffing juniper wine and talking about the war, and in a corner by an open window, politely left by himself, a Valak male with short, thin arms and an unhealthy yellow pallor was plucking live minnows from a bowl of water, staring at them for a moment, and then plopping them back.
"I must be speaking to my tribesman," Etlzonat said. "Come this way."
"Lonely for home?" Domojon asked, grinning.
"No, of course not. But the tribesman is having news for me, I think." He strode over to his table, bowed while still several feet away, and said in Tilach, "Good evening to you, pilgrim. Are you not hungry tonight?"
He looked up from his fish. "What a world, what a terrible world, that such tragedies could darken civilized nations!"
"What tragedies?" Domojon asked.
"The war, Human! When the Kabards march into Valmarkum, the homeland of all Val, and conscribe me to fight against my own tribesmen!"
"Now, now," Etlzonat said in a comforting tone, "This is not possible."
"I am a citizen of Pachala, but my heart lies in Valmarkum," he moaned, pressing his stubby fingers against his head. "How can I fight, when I am double-minded?"
"No one would ask that you fight your own tribesmen," Domojon said, resisting the urge to draw near and place his hand on his shoulder. "At most they would send you against Humans."
"Yes," said Akrava. "It's easy to hate Humans!"
The Valak male politely asked them to join him, and puhed a long table near to his so that they could sit at the other end. They had just sat down for their dinner of rye bread and a thick lamb stew when the door burst open. A group of Kabards entered, wearing white and black eagle plumes and the red paint of the warrior. They carried, incongruously, both datarods and swords, knives and long pale guns.
"By the order of Godking Gorban," their leader said, "All Kabard and Val adults residing in Pachala are conscripted into the Army of the Sun God. Members of other tribes are exempt. Have your identification papers ready."
"This cannot be!" whispered the Valak male. "They will see me as a Valak, and conscript me. But I cannot possibly. . .I must not!"
"Just be calm," Domojon murmured.
The Kabards began to mill through the crowd, jostling anyone in their path, dividing the room into two parts: to stay and to go. The Valak male drew out his falchion and smiled. Domojon caught a glint of flashing metal from the corner of his eye, and turned to see him slump against the table, his mouth gaping wide, his eyes huge and glassy. He had committed suicide.
"Here now, what's this?" growled one of the Kabards. He approached, stared dumbly, counted. He smelled of sweat, of too many nights without a bath; his breath smelled of raw meat. "Two Val, one dead; a Kabard, and. . .a Human!" His eyes shone.
"My companions and I are travelers in this country," said Etlzonat, "And therefore we should receive safe passage into Valmarkum."
"Hah!" He pointed to Domojon. "Erëktilit, are you? We have orders to detain all clanless Human."
"No!" Akrava said. "We are citizens of Pelun, a Transcendent Ktil on a pilgrimage to holy Hizoran. Your battles are no business of ours."
"Aren't they, though?" He whistled, and two other Kabard approached. They pulled Akrava from his stool and pinned his arms behind his back.
"Hey! Be careful?"
"We are careful. You're not the Human, are you?" One of them punched him hard in the stomach.
"Let him alone!" Domojon shouted. his eyes flahed red with rage, and instinctively he took the falchion from the dead Valak's hand.
"I'm getting tired of you, Human. Clanless, and now violent! I think the general will want to take a look at you personally." A strong Kabard hand clamped down on his wrist, forcing his to let go of the sword. Quickly a pair of handcuffs pinned his hands behind his back.
"No! Not Domojon. . . ." Akrava cried. They punched him in the jaw and then shoved a cloth napkin into his mouth. His head bobbed against his chest.
"I'll take care of this," said Etlzonat. He leapt onto a table, drew his falchion, and bellowed a Val war cry.
Six Kabards surrounded him.
"Okay, we'll conscript the Kabards, kill the Val, and take the Human to Gorban."
"Kill me? Not now, with the Harvest of Souls approaching!" He crahed through the window, and was gone.
Domojon screamed. He saw Akrava's limp body being carried out. Blood trickled in a viscid stream from his gag.
"Here, now, if you're going to struggle. . . ."
Domojon struggled and spat, and tried to break the handcuffs. Then something large and moist came down on his head. And then there was darkness.
North of Nuisomein was a vast, grassy plain --elaku, the flatness, said to be the Kabards' first homeland on Tulë, the infinity that had spawned Kensoraj's infinity of gods -- for who could look on the endless steppes and not feel the prodding touches of other souls, gods and spirits and demigods and demons? Kabards had marched from this plain more than once, to war against Runoe or Hizorán or Pachala (in the days when it was Human). When once they marched, they defeated Runoe in a single day -- an engraved stone at Yranmeí commemorated the victory.
They camped out each night under the stars, or when it rained in a canvass tent, while raindrops hissed against their heating-coil. Etlzonat caught rabbits and birds to cook, and Hzergai found wild mushrooms and horsehair and fat tubular roots, and moss to brew into tea, so they ate well. There were snakes, and poisonous toads, and sharp grass that could cut through doeskin sandals. Domojon missed most of all the Terran chocolate and juniper wine, and the hot baths customary every morning in Pelun's guesthouses.
Every day in the flatlands seemed like a year elsewhere, with cold, frosty winter at night, spring at dawn, midafternoon with a hard blue sky and a sun that burned hotter than flame, and autumn at dusk. Yet time seemed to stand still -- no matter how long they walked, or how fast, still the dun hills of Jau seemed no farther away, no closer.
One day they saw down the eastern slopes dark shapes like ghosts floating north across the waist-high latespring grass. They looked around for a vantage point, a hillock or tall tree, but there was nothing.
"Could it be an illusion?" Akrava asked.
"Over to the east is the great road between Kabard lands and Valmarkum and the north," said Etlzonat. "And that is a legion of Pachala's army, the greatest in the world." In spite of the elaku's vastness, or perhaps because of it, three of every ten adults in Pachala was conscripted or chose the army.
"I see," said Akrava, whose eyes were quite good, "The banners of Elaku and Chiokërang as well."
"Together they are traveling?" asked Etlzonat. "Very more odd that is. Once Elaku and Chiokërang were close, for they were both worshipping the Godking. Once, in fact, Elaku was a province of Chiokërang, until Azrol Hawk came to liberate it. Nomads moved back and forth as they wihed. But when Chiokërang broke away from the Godking. . . ."
"They are separate no longer," Domojon said darkly. "The Godking has access to the armies of Chiokërang, Elaku, Elaku, and all of the other Kabard states."
"And he gathers them together in Pachala. For why?"
Suddenly Domojon knew. "Gorban plans to march against Runoe in the west!"
"That's crazy!" Akrava exclaimed. "The Humans have horses!"
"But Gorban has airships."
"Only a few."
"Then Gorban is suffering from an incredible pride," said Etlzonat. "And in that he will perhaps fall." He sniffed the air. "There is no danger to us, for twenty miles away they are marching, and not concerned with us three sneaking through the brush."
They traveled north on side roads and the trails used by the prairie-grazing buffalo, ignoring insect bites and the curious stares of farmers and the dank, fetid smell of earth, while far to the east flahes of light and color mirrored their movements like lyühev, mocking revenants of the elaku. One day they crossed a little stream, and Etlzonat announced that they had arrived at a Val settlement: not a Kabard court, where cloud-houses and towers were crammed together in the smallest possible space, but a "settlement," and thus practically invisible to outsiders. Adult Val lived alone in grey or black beehive-shaped houses far removed from their fellows, and hidden by banks of neck-high yellow grass. Not even the poorest would consider living in a house crammed between other houses, or over someone's head.
Even public buildings were reserved for solitary use. The Temple of the Goddess Bzan was a compound of dozens of cool solid rooms of blue arabesques, where Val worshipped in solitude; the City Library housed its books in one huge central court, but reserved individual chambers for reading; the Museum of the Elaku kept each display-case in a separate room, which no Valak would think to enter with another Valak inside; the provincial governor held his appointments from inside his house, while visitors waited in the tall grass outside. Though the settlement had several thousand residents, according to Etlzonat, the streets were little more than winding pathways through banks of grass, and curiously deserted: a Valak walked at least three feet from a companion, and at least nine feet from a stranger. Crowding was not only impolite, but illegal, the source of many Val-Human or Val-Kabard wars over the ages.
"It seems sad," Domojon said, "Life in such seclusion. How can you bear it?"
Etlzonat snorted. "Perhaps, Human, your nurselings, when they are being deprived of the touch of others, fare the worse for it? They grow up crippled, or insane, or even die?"
"Yes. I have read many such accounts."
"In Val lands, the crippled children are those who are touched overmuch. No Valak could as you do, be laying a hand on a friend's shoulder during the conversation, or kissing him in the greeting. If you are being touched by a Valak, you know you are special such as few friends become special during the whole of life."
Aside from the vastness of the settlement, what Domojon noticed first was the silence, nearly the silence of Nuisomein. The Val sang no songs, recited no poetry. They chased away trilling birds. Politeness forbade them from speaking in public unless signaling danger, so they spoke through hand signs.
At the intersections of some pathways rose great glass pillars in which globules of red and grey moved sinuously back and forth; a Valak would gaze at one, and then as another Valak approached, he would move on. Domojon did not know what pleasure the Val got from these pillars, and Etlzonat couldn't explain.
Males and females of the Val were naked, in the Kabard fashion, except for wide-brimmed hats, flat sandals, and belts for carrying their ubiquitous falchions. They had no hair or breasts, or any other gender marker; their genitals were hidden by loose folds of skin. After a while, however, Domojon noticed that some Val had round faces and round flat eyes, while others had oval faces and oval eyes: males and females, Etlzonat said.
The carriers were easy to distinguish, for they were strikingly gregarious, walking the streets in twos or threes, sometimes with nurselings in tow, talking loudly in Tilach or a their strange clicking Val language. They had large red-painted faces, lips colored bright red or orange, and their pouches bulged like pendulous breasts. It was the carrier who sought the females, who in a frenzied mating took their eggs into their own wombs, and then, months later, hunted down and trapped the males, took them violently and savagely to fertilize the eggs.
Tired of the wilderness after so many days, they decided to stay at the Kabard-style guesthouse which the Val provided for Kabard and Human pilgrims. Tonight most of the pilgrims were Humans on their way out of Pachala, fleeing for Hizorán or Runoe with their possessions in knapsacks; a few Kabards were quaffing juniper wine and talking about the war, and in a corner by an open window, politely left by himself, a Valak male with short, thin arms and an unhealthy yellow pallor was plucking live minnows from a bowl of water, staring at them for a moment, and then plopping them back.
"I must be speaking to my tribesman," Etlzonat said. "Come this way."
"Lonely for home?" Domojon asked, grinning.
"No, of course not. But the tribesman is having news for me, I think." He strode over to his table, bowed while still several feet away, and said in Tilach, "Good evening to you, pilgrim. Are you not hungry tonight?"
He looked up from his fish. "What a world, what a terrible world, that such tragedies could darken civilized nations!"
"What tragedies?" Domojon asked.
"The war, Human! When the Kabards march into Valmarkum, the homeland of all Val, and conscribe me to fight against my own tribesmen!"
"Now, now," Etlzonat said in a comforting tone, "This is not possible."
"I am a citizen of Pachala, but my heart lies in Valmarkum," he moaned, pressing his stubby fingers against his head. "How can I fight, when I am double-minded?"
"No one would ask that you fight your own tribesmen," Domojon said, resisting the urge to draw near and place his hand on his shoulder. "At most they would send you against Humans."
"Yes," said Akrava. "It's easy to hate Humans!"
The Valak male politely asked them to join him, and puhed a long table near to his so that they could sit at the other end. They had just sat down for their dinner of rye bread and a thick lamb stew when the door burst open. A group of Kabards entered, wearing white and black eagle plumes and the red paint of the warrior. They carried, incongruously, both datarods and swords, knives and long pale guns.
"By the order of Godking Gorban," their leader said, "All Kabard and Val adults residing in Pachala are conscripted into the Army of the Sun God. Members of other tribes are exempt. Have your identification papers ready."
"This cannot be!" whispered the Valak male. "They will see me as a Valak, and conscript me. But I cannot possibly. . .I must not!"
"Just be calm," Domojon murmured.
The Kabards began to mill through the crowd, jostling anyone in their path, dividing the room into two parts: to stay and to go. The Valak male drew out his falchion and smiled. Domojon caught a glint of flashing metal from the corner of his eye, and turned to see him slump against the table, his mouth gaping wide, his eyes huge and glassy. He had committed suicide.
"Here now, what's this?" growled one of the Kabards. He approached, stared dumbly, counted. He smelled of sweat, of too many nights without a bath; his breath smelled of raw meat. "Two Val, one dead; a Kabard, and. . .a Human!" His eyes shone.
"My companions and I are travelers in this country," said Etlzonat, "And therefore we should receive safe passage into Valmarkum."
"Hah!" He pointed to Domojon. "Erëktilit, are you? We have orders to detain all clanless Human."
"No!" Akrava said. "We are citizens of Pelun, a Transcendent Ktil on a pilgrimage to holy Hizoran. Your battles are no business of ours."
"Aren't they, though?" He whistled, and two other Kabard approached. They pulled Akrava from his stool and pinned his arms behind his back.
"Hey! Be careful?"
"We are careful. You're not the Human, are you?" One of them punched him hard in the stomach.
"Let him alone!" Domojon shouted. his eyes flahed red with rage, and instinctively he took the falchion from the dead Valak's hand.
"I'm getting tired of you, Human. Clanless, and now violent! I think the general will want to take a look at you personally." A strong Kabard hand clamped down on his wrist, forcing his to let go of the sword. Quickly a pair of handcuffs pinned his hands behind his back.
"No! Not Domojon. . . ." Akrava cried. They punched him in the jaw and then shoved a cloth napkin into his mouth. His head bobbed against his chest.
"I'll take care of this," said Etlzonat. He leapt onto a table, drew his falchion, and bellowed a Val war cry.
Six Kabards surrounded him.
"Okay, we'll conscript the Kabards, kill the Val, and take the Human to Gorban."
"Kill me? Not now, with the Harvest of Souls approaching!" He crahed through the window, and was gone.
Domojon screamed. He saw Akrava's limp body being carried out. Blood trickled in a viscid stream from his gag.
"Here, now, if you're going to struggle. . . ."
Domojon struggled and spat, and tried to break the handcuffs. Then something large and moist came down on his head. And then there was darkness.
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