Elves_ Once Walked with Gods Part 16

'Where is my hospitality?' he said. 'I'm not really set up for three.'

'Thr-'

Takaar picked up the knife again. He walked across to his bivouac.

'I have infusions of piedra and cloves. Also some nutmeg if you have a yearning for it,' he said, tapping stoppered jars. 'Cold of course but good, all of them. Nothing to eat. The odd root perhaps. Hunting is at dusk. Care to hunt? It would put his nose out of joint if nothing else.'

Takaar tipped his head at a rough log stool in the corner of the bivouac.

'And that would please you?' asked Auum.

'Enormously,' said Takaar.

'Then it would be a pleasure to learn from a master.'

Takaar's eyes sparkled. He walked to Auum and placed his hands on the young TaiGethen's shoulders. His face was clear, uncluttered, and for the first time Auum saw the focus he remembered in Takaar's eyes.

'And when we are eating our kill, you will tell me why it is you are here and what it is that is about to consume the elven race.'

The clarity and focus disappeared. Takaar rubbed at his face and hair. He jabbed Auum in the chest.

'Good thing you're here. I need a shave. And a haircut. Knife over there, sharpening leather over there. No time to lose. Jump to it.'

Chapter 15.

Rarely do G.o.ds speak. It is a shame that so often we choose not to listen.

Ultan-in-Caeyin. A name of the ancient tongue, translating as "Where G.o.ds Are Heard".

The Ultan was a huge open gra.s.s bowl, U-shaped and bounded by sheer cliffs that provided a barrier to the sea, the rainforest and the River Ix. It had remarkable acoustic qualities and, since the founding of Ysundeneth, had been the place where the elves met in times of celebration and strife. It could hold a quarter of a million, iad, ula and child. The entire population of Calaius and more.

For hundreds of years it had been left as Yniss had designed it, but recently work had begun to create a lasting monument to the G.o.ds. Great stone slabs and pillars were being cut from the quarries to the west of Ysundeneth and moved by barge to form a stage at the northern end of the Ultan where the cliffs met the sea. Carvings were being made to depict the deeds of G.o.d and elf, a charting of the often violent history of Hausolis and the trials of life on Calaius.

Talk was that the whole of the open gra.s.s area would eventually be set with benches in concentric arcs around the stage. Some wit had suggested a roof might be in order too. Katyett was still able to feel a pa.s.sing lightness of mood as she gazed up at the vast open s.p.a.ce and imagined the timber span that would be required.

This morning, of course, there was no celebratory mood, nor even a common purpose. There was anger, there was frustration, desperation and confusion. And among those whom the TaiGethen now protected, there was fear too and an intense sadness.

The Ynissul evacuation was an open secret by now, and the TaiGethen guarded the approaches and entrance to the Ultan, a good number of them hoping an attack would be mounted. A disappointing reaction in one regard, utterly elven in another. Katyett had complete sympathy and her memories of the temple piazza held no guilt.

Almost three thousand Ynissul sheltered in the Ultan. They had precious little food, just the clothing on their backs and the few possessions they had managed to grab as they were ushered from their houses, places no longer safe for elves of the immortal thread.

They were secured by thirty TaiGethen. Katyett's first act had been to dispatch the birds who would carry the muster message into the rainforest. They would fly to the shrines to Yniss scattered about beneath the canopy, there to wait in secured nesting boxes until any Tai cell checked in to read the message, release the bird and pa.s.s the word.

It was necessarily an inefficient method of communication. There was no set check-in routine. Birds were prey to predators above the canopy and, despite the design of the nesting boxes and their entrances, to the attentions of snakes and rodents.

In the vastness of the bowl of the Ultan, the few thousand Ynissul and their guards looked precisely what they were: an insignificant demoralised group of elves soaked by the rain before dawn and huddling under the inadequate shelter the Tai cells had been able to construct. A few fires had been lit and their smoke rose to join the pall that hung over Ysundeneth.

TaiGethen moved among the refugees, offering comfort where they could and giving out what information they had of the immediate future. But rainforest warriors were unused to the roles of counsellors and shoulders on which to cry. However, they missed nothing they were told, and a trend was emerging that was causing a growing fury.

Katyett watched other birds flying over the Ultan. Not those of the Ynissul and the TaiGethen. These would be bound for Tolt Anoor and Deneth Barine. The former a day's sail along the coast east of Ysundeneth. The latter a long journey by sea, river or rainforest trail to the eastern coast of Calaius. She sighed. The conflict was spreading, sped on the wings of Tual's denizens.

Beside her on his stretcher poor Olmaat raised his head a little to see an approaching knot of TaiGethen, led by his Tai, Pakiir. Katyett put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

'Don't strain, Olmaat. Rest.'

'Hothead,' managed Olmaat, his tortured lungs and throat grinding breath and voice. 'Lot to learn.'

Pakiir was with the Tai of Makran, Kilmett and Lymul. They were a relatively new cell, in training only for the last fifty years and with a zeal that needed to be tempered. Their expressions confirmed that their zeal was in control of their emotions.

'We must return to the city. We must clear it. Crimes have been committed that strike to the core of our faith.'

Pakiir's voice echoed about the Ultan. His face was twisted with the anger surging through him. Katyett paused for a deliberately long period, refusing to add fuel to their fires. She chose to speak formally, knowing they had no choice but to respond in kind.

'First, we must lower our voices such that those we seek to comfort are not further scared by the din of our desire for conflict,' she said quietly. 'Second, we must all be in possession of the entirety of information that pertains to this debate. And third, we must retract our demands of the Arch of the TaiGethen and seek instead to recommend and persuade.'

'We cannot just stand here and let-' began Makran.

Katyett silenced her with a glare to wither stone.

'We are TaiGethen,' hissed Katyett. 'Appointed by Yniss and created by Takaar to protect the sanct.i.ty of our lands and the harmony against all of those who would destroy it. We do not lash out in hate and revenge. We are here to protect elves of every thread. This day, we protect the Ynissul. Tomorrow it may be Tuali or Beethan or Cefan. We do things as Takaar described. Pakiir. Speak.'

'You led an attack against elves yesterday in the piazza. How is that not las.h.i.+ng out in hate?'

'We all saw the perpetrators of the crimes. Yniss was our witness. We were not las.h.i.+ng out. We removed heretics. What we saw was deliberate desecration and destruction of the harmony of elves. We cannot allow the guilty to escape just punishment.'

'It didn't feel that way to me; it felt like revenge,' said Pakiir.

'There is joy in performing Yniss's work,' said Katyett. 'Makran. Speak.'

The young TaiGethen iad nodded. She drew breath. Katyett laid a hand on her arm.

'We are all brothers and sisters here, Makran. We all feel the pa.s.sions of other elves but we must learn to direct them. Tell me what you have heard. What stoked your anger so much to force you into an outburst unbecoming of the paint you wear on the hunt.'

Makran's eyes were hollow with hate.

'We were too late for some,' she said. 'Not just the ones who have died. The things we have heard. Can you not see it in the faces of the iads?' iads?'

'What's happened, Makran?'

Katyett could feel her heart beginning to beat hard and more atrocities of the past surface in her memory.

'They knew what we would do. They knew we would go to the temple or deal with major conflict. And all the time they were kicking down the doors of the Ynissul. They blame us because our thread is still pure. No interbreeding. They don't care that our fertility is on a different scale to theirs. So they have raped any iad they found, fertile or not. Not to enhance the harmony, to destroy lives. To remove choice. To encourage hate.

'Well they have succeeded.'

Makran was shaking. Katyett felt empty, scoured. She looked across to the refugee Ynissul and every iad eye seemed to be on her, imploring her to act. Their ulas standing mute beside them, most with bruised and battered faces. Forced to watch, no doubt. Forced to survive to carry the message of their helplessness.

She could see the shock behind their eyes and the grief in the way they held their bodies. She had a.s.sumed it to be just the fact of being chased from their homes. How stupid that seemed now. Katyett cleared her throat.

'I understand your anger, Makran-'

'Then we must act. Now. We can identify the guilty.'

Katyett nodded. She breathed deeply.

'Believe me, I am sorely tempted. But we have more pressing concerns. Makran. Silence. I am speaking. The day of judgement for any rapist will come. That is my promise to you. None will escape. But we have to see these people, the innocent, to safety.

'Next, we will gather the TaiGethen from the forest. We will gather the Silent too. Only then we will return to cleanse the city of the filth it harbours.'

Makran made to renew her protest but Olmaat silenced her this time, his voice pained and his lungs wheezing.

'Think, Makran,' he said. 'Preserve what we have now. Stand in judgement later. These people need us here, not stalking the streets of Ysundeneth like vigilantes.'

Olmaat paused to cough violently. His whole body convulsed and an agony he could not hide crossed his face and settled in his eyes. He composed himself, wiping his mouth with the back of a burned, salve-covered hand, before continuing.

'We face a conflict rendered all the more dangerous because we don't know who the enemy really is. It seems to me there are several factions pulling us apart. But these criminals have no escape. If they run to the rainforest, they become our prey. So they will stay in the city, a prison they have built for themselves. And we will pick them off at will. When the time is right.'

Makran nodded. So did Pakiir.

'I hear you, Olmaat,' he said. 'Forgive me.'

'There is nothing to forgive, my brother. We all feel the same. But we must ensure we act as one or we are lost.'

Katyett raised her head at a brief commotion at the head of the Ultan.

'What now?' she said before feeling a wash of pure relief. 'Yniss has not quite deserted us yet.'

Priest Serrin of the Silent had entered the Ultan.

The Gardaryn had been comprehensively ransacked. The treasury vaults had been broken open. Every shop had been looted. Farms ransacked and stripped. Food was stockpiled all over the city and was giving rise to a fierce black market already spilling over into violence.

Any pretence at thread harmony had disappeared like sea mist on a hot day. Individual threads gathered as the unity against the Ynissul broke apart. The Tualis turned their attention on the Beethans for reasons Pelyn could not fathom barring their relative long life. She presided over a city of thread ghettos. Barricades were going up all over the place. Territory was marked. The administrative vacuum was being filled by mob rule. It had been simply stunning how quickly the elves had reverted to type. Without Takaar's law, there seemed nothing to bind them any longer. Priests of most threads had reappeared now but only to stand with their own.

Al-Arynaar were a heavy presence at the temple piazza, where the mood was ugly and where the crimes of two days ago seemed likely to be repeated. The TaiGethen and nearly every Ynissul were gone to the Ultan and were planning their next moves. Everyone knew they were there. No one thought to attack them.

'Good for them,' muttered Pelyn, idly sifting through papers and records in the wrecked offices behind the Gardaryn chamber.

At least the s.h.i.+ps had ceased their approach. No doubt they were awaiting a signal but Pelyn had been unable to find out from whom that might be.

'I'm sorry?'

'Just thinking aloud, Methian. Tual's eyes, what a mess. Was there any motive for this beyond the desire for mayhem?'

'Oh yes,' said Methian and his face was grim. 'Addresses. The whole public record is here. Or it was. Details of senior administrators and officials from every thread are missing, as far as we can tell. I mean, we haven't found them so far but it looks to me as if those particular records were picked over with more care than others. That and the treasury information. People have known where to go and what to look for. Some people will be getting very rich on this.'

'And do what with it?' asked Pelyn.

Methian gestured vaguely towards the sea. 'Pay for mercenaries from the north, perhaps?'

'What a cheery thought.'

'I try my best.'

Pelyn looked at Methian. Around them, mainly Gyalan Al-Arynaar were sifting the doc.u.ments and parchments scattered across the floor and trying to restore some kind of order. Methian looked dreadful. No sleep for two days and the constant struggle to keep the Al-Arynaar a cohesive unit in the face of increasing animosity were terribly draining.

'Thank you for standing with me.'

'I would not dream of doing otherwise.'

A door banged open at the rear of the Gardaryn. Pelyn heard her name called. She sighed and felt her exhaustion sap a little more of her will.

'In here!'

A frightened Cefan Al-Arynaar runner entered. His face was filthy and his hands grimy and bloodstained.

'Down on the harbourside. There's going to be big trouble if it hasn't started already. We've got gangs of Tuali, Beethans and Orrans squaring up over the harbour master's warehouse. Ixii and Apposans too. Plenty of goods still inside. We're between them right now, but if they want to, they can overwhelm us.'

Pelyn nodded. 'Right. Methian, you stay here. Carry on this work. If you get hara.s.sed, back off. Get back to the playhouse or the barracks. No fighting if you can avoid it. I'll take the standing guard from the central market. Ready to run back, young Jakyn?'

Jakyn nodded. 'It's bad out there. You can smell it.'

'Trust me,' said Pelyn. 'We'll beat this. Somehow.'

'We could do with a few TaiGethen at the moment.'

'We can always do with a few TaiGethen. But it's just us so let's not fret. We'll stand in line and be strong, all right?'

Jakyn nodded and the two of them ran out of the Gardaryn and onto the hostile streets of Ysundeneth.

Chapter 16.