Hammerfall

“ Tain wouldn’t like being the Ila’s friend.”

Do you hear me? Repeat what I say.

“Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. God, I have your makers in me! The Ila has her own. And you’re against my father and he’s forher for some reason. But I don’t understand. And I don’t give a damn.” He wanted the rapid dots to stop, slow down, cease their actions. But he would not betray a weakness. His father had taught him that among his first lessons, never betray a weakness, never admit to one.

Had reticence and deceit helped Tain? Was it a reasonable way for a man to live, who hoped to be loved?

“Hush,” Hati said, and wiped his brow. “He’s dreaming.”

The world became a treasure set way up on a shelf, something he could almost reach, and was not tall enough. His mother had used to put things above him, and frustrated his reach. He would sit below the counter, discontent with whatever was in his grasp. He remembered the tiles near the kitchen table. One was cracked. It sat not quite level. Out of such incredible fine detail a man built his life, his remembrances, his loves and his hostilities.

Once loosed into the world, Luz said as he sat there, the makers spread out to any creature, high or low. Your Ila came here with resources we now count primitive. She shaped the beshti to be what they are. She shaped men to survive the harshness of this world. Now we in turn shape you.

“ I tell you I don’t understand. You’re saying the Ila has these things in her, that she put in everyone alive. But you put different ones in me, and where I go, I shed them and other creatures take them up and they have them. So how am I different than the Ila? How are you different?”

You aren’t. And I’m not. That’s the point, isn’t it?

“ Damned nonsense,” he said to her in the dream.

But this is the tricky part. Her makers have fitted men and beasts not only to live in this world… but to destroy the ondat. That’s what the ondat fear: a buried instruction. That’s why they insist on raining destruction down. Nanoceles can simply be hidden, a small handful of makers that won’t breed without a signal to do so, and that signal may come from outside, or inside themselves, and it may come today, or tomorrow, or in a hundred years. Do you see why they should worry?

He lay feeling the tides of pain, the waves of burning fever, deep in listening, in the deafening wind, in the thump of the canvas. He listened so hard he became remote from the chill, and the wind, and the pain.

But if the world changes, Luz said, the makers change. Life changes life. Life changes the makers. It must. It’s what they do. Change the world and you change all its parts. Change the world and you change all that the makers do. To so alter this world that the rules of survival are utterly changed— that’s the way the ondat intend to destroy the Ila’s creation and scour it clean of all life. But we persuaded them we need to be here. They know nothing of guilt. Nothing of repentance. Nothing of redemption. They aren’t like us. But they do know need, and they know we’re more dangerous to them than the Ila, if we wished them harm. They need our knowledge to repair what the Ila’s kind have done to them, and to win that knowledge, and not to have us do again what the Ila did, they’ve come to an agreement with us. That’s the fine point of the matter. On that your life rests. Hers rests. All this world rests. Do you understand that?

“ No, I don’t. Not at all.”

In his dream he tried to look away from the breeding dots, the red and the blue and the yellow dots, endlessly fluttering and spiraling, and in them he could not find the sky.

Everyone alive has the makers, Luz said. Over enough time, the heavens will grow calm, and the earth will grow green, and clouded. Some of these stars that fall are water, only water. When the world is new, oases will go from horizon to horizon.

“ Paradise,” Marak said. He had no idea why so beautiful a thought should batter at his heart and make him long for things less safe. But then the word came to him. “ Freedom. What about freedom?”

Freedom is relative, Luz said. Can you leave your world? Can you see the things I’ve seen?— I gave my freedom up for you, you damned ingrate! So did Ian! Appreciate the gift!

He laughed. He saw no humor in Luz’s situation, or in his, but still, he found a soul in the woman, and that was more than he had looked to find. The last that she said was true, and he believed it.

“ You don’t like paradise, either,” he said.

For a moment the visions and the voices were utterly silent. The earth quaked, one of those small, frequent shudders, and was still again.

Your paradise is my hell, Luz said. And Ian and I have come into this hell to satisfy our consciences, because of what your Ila did, the fool.

There was another small pause, in which the wind was louder than thought, or than the slight whisper of Luz’s voice, and the earth remained unsettled. He was nearly awake, and sank back again.

In the vermin, you see the result of makers run wild. They breed too well. They die too seldom. They eat up the world, and every generation of makers grows more adept, and more clever at what it does. Her makers are very, very good at living.

But so are mine. Her makers would destroy her, given another five hundred years. Destroy her, and all she’s made. But mine will heal this world.

The wind battered at the tent. Something hit it, startled him, a piece of cloth, perhaps, or a loose mat. His heart sped. For the first time in many moments, he thought of Tain.

We do value you, Luz said. I tell you, we would deeply regret it, Marak Trin, if the hammer comes down before you get to safety. Get well. Sleep now, and get well.

“The hell,” he said.

He tried to move. Hati was there, washing his face with precious water, while somewhere in the distance, in the skies, something boomed and crashed.

“Hush,” she said. “You’re talking to Luz, but I don’t hear her.”

“She’s dividing us one from the other.” That they had all heard one thing had been a curiosity, and then a comfort to them in their madness, and they were losing that. The makers changed things. The makers themselves changed. Was that not what Luz said?

“Hush, you’re not making sense.”

“Where’s the baby? What happened to her? Where’s Norit?” He reached after Hati’s hand and held it, held it fast. “I passed by Tarsa. I was there! The captain’s men never got that far. I asked. Her husband has another wife. He let the baby go.” He wanted to see Norit with the baby. He wanted that desperately, but he could not lift his head. He remembered. “My father shot her, with me.”

“She’s fevered. The bullet went through her leg. But she may have makers of her own. She should have died, and she’s mending.”

“I bled into her,” he said. “Our makers overwhelm everything the Ila put into us. That’s what Luz says.—Damn!” The pain overwhelmed him. “Is Patya all right?”

Hati gave a nod over her shoulder. “She’s there. She’s not left you. Norit’s with the baby. So’s Patya.”

“Good for Patya.” He tried to glance that far, but it hurt his side and his back.

He was due for a night and a day of misery, at least, healing at his ordinary pace. He expected a long, long misery.

But after that the pain began going away, and Hati grew quite dim, and he could not move his hand from hers.

“Has he fainted?” Patya asked, leaning over him. “Is he all right?”

“I think so,” Hati said. “I think he’ll be well now. The makers are working. Go take the baby. Norit’s left her.”

There was so much sharpness in that tone. So much he wished he could mend. He had rather have the pain back than to have his mind racing, and his body numb.