Shadow's End Read online

  One could not say to Limia Famber, however, that the child had been Leelson's choice. Limia Famber wasn't interested in what her son had wanted. Had wanted. Then.

  Very well. There was still one final question she needed to ask. Lutha breathed deeply, counting the breaths, holding her voice quiet as she said, "There is an additional possibility. Leelson himself could make this trip far easier than I, and he would have no reason to refuse. Do you have any idea where he might be?"

  Limia laughed harshly. "Don't be a fool, woman! Do you think I would be so grievously upset if I knew where Leelson was? If I knew he was anywhere, alive? If I knew that, I could assume he has time yet to beget another child. If I knew he was still among the living, I would not despair of his posterity."

  The sneering tone made Lutha tremble, only partly with anger. She could actually fear this woman!

  "It is early to despair of his posterity," she said at last. "Leely is only five."

  The older woman regarded her almost with pity. "Leely! Your mis-begot provides no posterity, not for our line, not even for yours, if you cared about such things. My kinsmen have seen your Leely, at my request. Believe me, it is because of your Leely that I despair!"

  Some weeks after I returned from the House Without a Name, a veiled woman stopped me in the corridor, asking that I meet her behind the hive that evening. I knew her voice. From her veil, I knew she was one like me.

  I did as she asked, leaving the hidden quarters in the bowels of the hive and encountering her near the back wall of the cave, whence she guided me through a hidden cleft and along a narrow trail that led downward to a turning behind a rock where there was a dark crevice.

  "Puo-toh," came the whisper from the crevice. Who goes?

  "Pua-a-mai etah," my guide replied. Goes a newly wounded one.

  "Enter," said the whisperer, lifting a foliage curtain from within the crevice. "Follow."

  My guide held the foliage while I went beneath. It fell into place behind me as I went down a path that twisted among great stones. This was a water path, smoothed by the rains of a thousand years, dimly lit by occasional candles on metal spikes driven into the stone. I wondered if the lights were there for my benefit, for my guide did not seem to need them. She moved as easily in darkness as she did in the infrequent puddles of light.

  We came to a blanket door, the two blankets slightly overlapping.

  "Remove your veil and come in," she said.

  She raised both hands to the flap of her veil, loosing it and thrusting it aside as she went through the blanket and around the draft wall that stops the outside air from blowing in. Behind it was the cave itself. It was dim inside, lit only by the small fire burning upon the central hearth under a metal hood. It was also warm, which meant it was well plastered, with all its holes and crevices stuffed with stone and covered with a layer of mud. As I looked around I realized the walls had been not only sealed, but smoothed. Walls and benches had been painted with white clay to reflect the light, and there were designs drawn there, ones I had never seen before. The mortar chimney that led the smoke away went beneath the lie-down bench, curved with it, and came up against the far wall, where a little door gave access to the shelf where the start-fire is built, to get the warm air rising. Once air is going up the straight chimney, one shuts the start-fire door, and the heated hearth air is pulled under the bench, warming the place we sit or sleep.

  It was a warm cave, carefully planned, carefully built, as carefully as any hive cell I had ever seen. The air was fragrant, scented by spices stewing over the fire. I knew there would be breathing holes somewhere, a few at the bottom of the cave, beside the fire, to suck new air in as the warm air rose. We do the same in the hive.

  On the curving bench sat a score of women, all with their hoods pushed back, their veils down. Only once had I seen my face in a mirror since my day at the House Without a Name. Once had been enough. Now I stared as though into fifty mirrors, seeing my face again and again, with variations. Here was a missing eyelid, there a ragged lip, there nostrils chewed at the edges. There were ears missing, cheeks pocked and scarred and riven. Foreheads and scalps and jaws with only skin across the bone.

  When I had wakened in the hive, the bandages had already been in place. Veiled women had told me what had happened. No one knew why. It happened sometimes. It was no fault of Masanees or any of the other attendant women. Every detail of the ritual had been reviewed, again and again. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you lie with your face firmly in the basket ring? Was there plenty of food and drink? Yes and yes, everything had been done as it was supposed to be done, as it had been done over and over for generations of years.

  "Welcome," said an old woman. "To our sisterhood."

  The others bowed and murmured. Welcome. Welcome.

  "Are you still with child?" asked the eldest.

  I nodded. So far as I knew, I was. I was no longer about to be married; I was no longer considered marriageable; but I was still with child.

  "When your birthing time comes, you will come here," said the woman.

  This was a surprise! I looked around the circle, seeking some reason. Those who could, smiled comfortingly at me.

  "We have all had the experience," one of the women said. "Most of us are from Cochim-Mahn, but some are from Dzibano'as and Hamam'n and Damanbi. When the moons are full, we delegates come to offer comfort to our new sister, walking in the day from hive to hive, staying overnight with our sisters who then join our travels the following day. Tonight we have with us women even from Chacosri, around the canyon corner. We all know what you are suffering. Many of us have had children. When your time comes, come here."

  "We are a sisterhood," said another to me, kindly. "We are a sisterhood of wounds. We must care for ourselves, for the others are afraid of us."

  "Afraid!" I cried. I knew it was so. Walking veiled in the corridors of the hive, I had seen it on their faces, even on Father's face, Grandfather's face. I had seen it on Shalumn's face, though her fear was outweighed by pity. I did not want to believe it. "Why afraid?"

  "Because we do not fit the promise made by the Gracious One," whispered another. "Because we seem to cast doubt upon the choice. Because they are afraid we will bring the abandoned gods among them again."

  And then they put their arms around me, and I wept, and they said soft words and let me weep, and the singing began and went around and around the fire, old songs to fit the designs upon the walls, songs so old the ordinary people of the hives had forgotten them, songs of our former father, our former mother, songs of the time when the shadows had welcomed us and we did not go in fear or hope of the Kachis or the ghosts.

  It is time to introduce new color into the robe we are weaving. I have woven Lutha and Leelson and Leely, Saluez and Snark. Now I will fill a new shuttle with heavier threads than ours. I will weave the King of Kamir.

  I had never met a king before, and when eventually I did, at first I thought he did not look like much. Still, his pattern would be rich and vivid, a storm design set against our simple stripes of joy and pain. While Lutha Tallstaff was traveling toward our meeting, while I sang in the cave of the sisterhood, he, the King of Kamir, thought mighty thoughts and made the fabric tremble!

  Jiacare Lostre, the King of Kamir who had been lost (who had tried desperately and unsuccessfully to stay lost), sat cross-legged on the chalcedony throne of Kamir-Shom-Lak considering with measurable satisfaction the demise of Leelson Famber and all his lineage. Famber's siblings and their children and all their children. Famber's parents and their siblings and all their children. Beginning, however, with Leelson himself, with Leelson's wife or mate, if any, and his offspring.

  Despite the burdens of kingship, which had piled up during his absence, Jiacare had found time to recruit and dispatch an appropriate assassination team: Mitigan, a professional killer from Asenagi, a Firster who saw no dichotomy between profession and religion; Chur Durwen, another Firster, a talented youngster from Collis who was we
ll on his way to high professional status; plus the brothers Silby and Siram Haughneep, the king's own bodymen, sworn servitors to the royal family. Oh, definitely a four-assassin target, the family Famber, all of whom would learn painfully and lengthily that "finding" lost kings who did not wish to be found was not the wisest of occupations.

  Words penetrated his preoccupation.

  " … and so, Your Most Puissant and Glorious Effulgence, it is no longer possible to reserve the forests of Tarnen, though they are Los-tre-family possessions, since they are needed by Your Majesty's peasantry in Chalc as pastures for their cattle."

  The Minister of Agriculture lowered his databoard and peered over the top of it at His Royal Highness, who stared rigidly past the minister at the tapestries behind him.

  "This is a serious question," murmured the Minister of Agriculture, as though to himself.

  "I'm sure," said His Effulgence from a tight throat. "Too serious to be delayed for my benefit. Why didn't you just get on with it?"

  "The Scroll of Establishment of Kamir-Shom-Lak requires that all matters concerning the general welfare be presented to the king for his approval or advice."

  "Since my advice is invariably ignored, I don't advise," said the king.

  "The Great Document does not require that Your Effulgence advise. It merely requires that matters be presented in case Your Majesty might choose to do so," said the minister, with an unsympathetic yawn.

  "Take it as written that I do not choose. I neither advise nor approve. Nor will I ever approve of any matter brought before me. Certainly I do not approve of cutting the forests of Tarnen. They are the last forests remaining upon Kamir."

  "As Your Majesty knows, the removal of forests is one of the necessary steps in homo-norming a planet. Kamir has delayed far longer than most planets. Why, on Kamir, we still have animals!"

  The king became very pale. "We have a few, yes. There are fifty species of birds in the forests of Tarnen, including the royal ouzel, whose feathers grace our crown, whose image is graven upon our planetary seal. There are numerous species of insects and animals. There are ferns, orchids—"

  "None of which is required by man," the Minister of Agriculture interrupted. "We have been over this, Your Majesty. In accordance with Alliance regulations, before we may establish outgrowth colonies, our home planet must be homo-normed at least to Type G. That means—"

  "I know what it means! It means no trees, no birds, no animals. Why don't we skip over a step? Why don't we save the forests by eliminating the cattle, which we will do sooner or later when we set up the algae farms required by Class G."

  "We have preserved the patterns of the forest species, Your Effulgence. They are in our files as required by the homo-norming laws."

  "They won't be alive! No flutter of wings, no plop of little green bodies into water, no silver glitter beneath the ripples. There will be only men and the crops to feed men!"

  "The stored species can be enlivened whenever there is sufficient

  space and food for them. Just now, however, there is widespread hunger in the area of Chalc. As Your Majesty is aware, food and medicines are already stringently rationed everywhere on Kamir."

  "Except among the aristocracy."

  "Your ministers cannot be expected to govern if they are hungry or worried over the welfare of their families."

  "Suggest that the peasants of Chalc restrict their fecundity."

  "Humanity comes first. Fecundity is the blessing of the universe, which was made for man."

  "What universe is that?"

  The Minister of Agriculture flushed, slightly embarrassed. "One gets into the habit—"

  "I am not one of your Firster constituents, Minister. I am a faithful son of Lord Fathom, ancient and enigmatic, god of the Lostres." He took his eyes from the tapestries and looked directly into the minister's eyes. "Listen to me for a moment. You have traveled. You are a sophisticated man. You have been to Central, as I have. What do you think of it?"

  "Your Effulgence … "

  "Be honest! What do you think of it?"

  "It seems a very efficient place."

  "Did you feel at all crowded?"

  "Well, one does feel a bit—"

  "Did you go to the Grand Canyon of Old-earth?"

  "Yes. I confess, I didn't see what the fuss was about."

  "You rode down in a transparent elevator. Through the glass you saw the strata, each one labeled as to age. At the bottom you experienced a sensurround of the way it used to be, a few centuries ago. You were told that the canyon now houses over a billion people. Do you want that for the forests of Tarnen?"

  "But it's inevitable, Your Effulgence! There will be frontiers for our great-grandchildren, perhaps, but for us, now, there is still space to fill! So long as there is space to fill, we must go on having babies. So Firstism teaches us."

  The king sighed deeply. "Save the teachings for the fecund masses, Minister. Why don't you give the peasants some land in the Orbive Hills."

  "There is no arable land left in the Orbive. There has been widespread erosion … "

  The king nodded slowly. "Oh, yes. Because your father chose to allow firewood cutting in the Orbive instead of providing solar stoves. Because his father permitted unlimited herd growth among the Chalcites to woo their votes. Just as his father, your great-grandfather, first Kamirian convert to the Firster cause, defeated the attempt by the Green Party to limit human population upon Kamir. And so sealed our fate forever."

  The minister flushed angrily. "As Your Majesty says."

  "My grandfather told your grandfather that the herds would die and the people would die."

  The minister's mouth twisted into a half smile. "Your Majesty's grandfather is remembered for his sagacity. Now that the herds are dying and the people are dying, however, there is a public outcry which will not be stanched by mere laying of blame on persons long dead. Hungry people do not care what our grandfathers did. So long as one inch of Kamirian soil remains, the people will believe that using it will solve their problems. Only when all the land is gone and destroyed will they permit the next step in homo-norming, and Your Majesty knows it as well as I."

  The king uncrossed his legs and put them flat upon the throne, his hands flat beside them, wondering if by will alone he could sink into that stone, obliterate himself, become nothing. He said, sighing deeply, "Do as you will. I do not approve. Take that as written, and let me abdicate."

  "The Scroll of Establishment of Kamir-Shom-Lak specifies a hereditary king, Your Majesty, and it has no provision for abdication."

  "I have a younger brother. Several, in fact."

  "So long as Your Effulgence is alive … " The threat in this was implicit. Kings might die, but they could not run away. Kings had died, as a matter of fact, under more or less mysterious circumstances. He did not mind dying. He did mind what they would no doubt do to him first, to make him say something they could use for a reason. Conspiracy against the welfare of Kamir. Kamir, that he loved as some men love women!

  "How many more of you are there today?" asked the king. "How many more ministers out there in the anteroom, crouched slavering over the few remaining fragments of our planet."

  The minister stiffened. "Seven, Your Highness."

  "Tell them they may go. I don't approve of anything they're doing."

  Angered, the minister growled: "The Firster godmongers pray for you daily in your blindness, Majesty. Man is meant to procreate! We were given the universe to fill. What are a few animals, a few trees in the face of our destiny?"

  "Tell the rest of them to go home," the king said desperately. "Tell them in future they must condense their reports to something less than five minutes. In future, I will listen to nothing longer. I will set a timer."

  "But Your Highness can not possibly comprehend the ramifications of the problems from a condensed—"

  "Why should I comprehend?" he cried, pressed past endurance. "I don't comprehend. I will never comprehend. I see a different
world than you ministers see. On ascending to this throne, I took an oath to rule the world of Kamir. That world, though much diminished, still had seas and forests and animals. You are destroying that world. Greater comprehension would only increase my sense of futility." The Lost King rose from his throne, turned his back upon his minister, and stalked to a nearby window that stood open to let in the fresh breezes of early spring.

  He had escaped on a day much like this—it had been late fall, not spring, but on a similar day—slipping out this very window in the darkness before dawn, across the velvet lawns, into the trees. Once Tarnen was gone, this royal park would contain all the trees left on Kamir. He had thought of that as he had walked through them that day toward his cache of clothing and money and documents, hidden away bit by inconspicuous bit over a long, long time of preparation. He had emerged on the far side of the trees dressed as an Elithan, and he had slipped into the crowd that always stood there, staring at the palace, to stand for a time himself, staring at the palace, before he went away.

  He had taken ship for Elitha, unremarked, unnoticed, calling himself Osterbog Smyne, a common Elithan name. He had reached Elitha. Oh, with what eagerness had he taken up a new life as a nobody on Elitha. If not for that damnable Leelson Famber, Osterbog Smyne would be on Elitha still, keeping a fruit stall, taking his holidays in the forests, watching birds, maybe even going fishing, far from ministers and reports and briefings and the whole irrelevant, endless fal-de-rol of kingship.

  "Your Majesty is so deep in thought, one assumes he is considering marriage and the production of an heir," said a pontifical voice from behind him. So. The Minister of Agriculture had called for assistance, and here was Lord Zhoun, the Prime Minister, the quintessence of boredom, the paradigm of duty undesired.

  Jiacare Lostre murmured, "I've told you, I've no intention of begetting a child to carry on this charade. The planet is within a year or so of being Class G. Soon you'll be directing the aristocracy to turn in their pets for euthanizing. Soon will come Class-J domed cities, which will grow, and grow, until they make a glittering ceiling over the final convulsions! You know how it will end, how it always ends. The Scroll of Establishment contains no requirement that I be part of the process."