Children of God

"Better to die," Suukmel said.

But Taksayu and the other Runa harried and tormented her, each of them carrying a Jana’ata infant or dragging a child or pushing a woman along, cruel in their desire to get these few to safety. So Suukmel kept on, one step following the other like heartbeats that would not cease, until the light and her own unhardened body began to fail, and she crumpled to the ground. The respite was brief. A child’s soft slippers, shredded and bloody after hours of forced marching over increasingly rocky ground, stepped under her eyes. Dazed by exhaustion, Suukmel looked up and saw the stony face of her foster son, Rukuei, the Paramount’s first-born, who had been, only hours ago, a boy of twelve.

Rukuei: whose hard violet eyes had seen the forty-eighth Paramount of Inbrokar dismembered by a mob, whose mind would always carry the vision of a burning city and of a battlefield humped and soaked by Jana’ata dead, black with blood. Teachers and poets and storytellers; engineers, geographers, naturalists; athletes of balance and beauty, whose very walk was artistry. Philosophers and archivists; financiers and specialists in law. Men of state and men of music; men of youth and of maturity and of gray age. All left to decay in the rain.

"My father honored you," Rukuei told his foster mother pitilessly. "Be worthy of him, woman. Stand up and live."

So she got to her feet, and walked on northward, leaving scarlet footprints on the stones, next to those of a man of twelve.

IT WAS WELL PAST FIRST SUNDOWN LONG DAYS LATER WHEN THEY SAW the monster. Perched on two bony legs, it was naked, and hairless but for a beard and mane and mystifying patches of fur here and there, and it held a parasol made of frayed blue fabric high over its head. Beyond surprise even at a sight so bizarre, none of the refugees spoke. Neither did the monster. It simply stood in their way.

Without warning, a Jana’ata appeared. Many Runa broke free of paralysis then, and moved to place their bodies between their charges and this stranger. When they realized the Jana’ata was unarmored, with a small child riding his back, they looked at each other in confusion, no longer knowing who was a danger and who could be trusted.

"I am Shetri Laaks," the man called out. "You are all here because Runa have chosen to preserve the lives of Jana’ata. Therefore, my wife, Ha’anala, and I offer you food and shelter until you are strong enough to make your next decisions. This is my brother-in-law, Isaac. As you see, he is a foreigner, but one who is no danger to you. My wife will explain the rules of our settlement. If you care to abide by them, you are all, Runa and Jana’ata, welcome to remain with us, as others have."

From somewhere in the little knot of weary bewildered women, a voice cried out in irritable protest, "Your brother-in-law! Are you married to a foreigner then—?"

But before Shetri could answer, Rukuei came forward. "I see the face of a coward, who lives while warriors rot," he shouted. "I smell the stink of one fit only to eat dung!"

"Ah, but dead men have such small appetites, even for dung," Shetri replied, not unkindly, but with no intention of being drawn into combat with an exhausted youth. He had seen this aggressive terror in so many boys: still reeling from the deaths of fathers, uncles, brothers, and ashamed to be alive. "I am afraid, sir, that I’d have proved a warrior of indifferent conviction and less skill. Instead, I have contrived to live at the expense of no person’s life," he said, glancing at Taksayu and the other Runa before returning his eyes to the boy’s and adding, "not even my own. If my company displeases you after you’ve eaten and rested in my compound, you may relieve yourself of its inconvenience by leaving."

Befuddled by the soft response, the boy was speechless. He was also swaying with fatigue and his feet were torn to tatters, Shetri noted. But it would be an insult to offer him any aid, so Shetri simply said, "Allow me to show the way."

It was then that a woman of middle years came toward him and rested her hand briefly on his arm. "What a lovely child," she said, trying not to let her voice quaver as she gazed up at the baby on Shetri’s back. "Such beautiful eyes."

"Yes," Shetri agreed neutrally, knowing that she was working through the genealogical possibilities.

She drew in a small breath as she drew also the inevitable conclusion. "A family trait, coming down from the dam’s lineage perhaps?" she asked from behind a finely woven veil, torn now and unraveling from one edge.

"Yes," Shetri said again, preparing to be attacked, if not injured.

But the woman merely spoke to the boy who had challenged Shetri. "Rukuei," she said, finding some reserve of stateliness within, "it seems that you have arrived by the gods’ decision among… family. This man’s wife will be, I think, a near cousin, through your father’s line." She turned back to Shetri Laaks and straightened. "I am Suukmel Chirot u Vaadai, and this is my foster son, Rukuei Kitheri." Shetri’s visible astonishment allowed her a moment of restored superiority, but Suukmel was a realist. "Your invitation is a great kindness. We are in your debt. My foster son and I—. No," she corrected herself, holding out her other hand to Taksayu, "we would all be grateful to accept your hospitality, on whatever terms you shall be pleased to dictate."

"There will be no debt, my lady, nor even terms," said Shetri, tearing his eyes away from the boy he now recognized as a young, male version of his wife. "An agreement rather, if you are pleased to stay with us."

"Do they sing?" Isaac asked then in the flat, toneless speaking voice so eerily at odds with the high purity of his singing.

Suukmel, uneasy, looked to Shetri. "My brother-in-law loves music," Shetri explained minimally, knowing she was too tired to take in more.

But Suukmel answered Isaac. "Rukuei knows many songs. He has the makings of a poet," she said. "And of a warrior," she added for his pride’s sake.

Isaac did not look at anyone. "He’ll stay," was all he said.

33

N’Jarr Valley

2072, Earth-Relative

IT WAS NOT COWARDICE OR WEAKNESS THAT UNDERMINED RUKUEI’S bright, fierce resolve to return to the south and fight on. It was the unanswerable question he heard in his dead father’s voice, melodic with irony: "And whom shall you challenge? Some Runa horde?"

Had his mother been of first rank, or even second, Rukuei would now be Paramount Presumptive, but she was only a third. Was a concubine’s child entitled to fight as his people’s champion? There were no ranked half-brothers to inherit in their own right, nor any uncles to serve as regent while he was trained, if the law held the patrimony his. Who then is Paramount? Rukuei asked himself, no longer seeing the exhausted women and children around him, or the stranger with the baby or the freakish foreigner, or the eroded hills and gorges revealed as he and the others followed Shetri Laaks through a labyrinth of ravines.

Blackened stones, whitened bones: color is gone from the world, Rukuei thought, oblivious to the tilted, fractured strata—ocher and jade and cobalt in the late light of second sundown. Dance is gone, and beauty, and law and music, he thought. Smoke remains, and hunger.

Beyond fatigue, Rukuei found one certainty to grip. He was now the eldest male of his sept, and the responsibility for decision was his. Suukmel and the other women and children could go no farther. We will remain with these people until the lady Suukmel is ready to travel again, he thought as his little band trudged the last cha’ar to the strangers’ encampment.

It was beyond thinking where they would go then—just as the place they were led to was now beyond seeing. Already blind, he let himself be guided by strong, gentle hands to a place that smelled of unfamiliar bodies. Too tired to eat, he plunged into a sleep so deep it was all but unconsciousness, and did not awaken for many hours.