Speaking Bones, page 3
The gods, sorrowful that their perfect creation had been desecrated by the people in this manner, sent forth monsters to punish the ungrateful. Garinafins made of only bones flew across the land, burning down their huts and charring their storage pits; tigers with star-metal tusks broke into their pens and slaughtered the animals they had imprisoned; horrid wolves with stone teeth and claws tore apart men, women, and children alike, showing no mercy. And there were many other monsters besides, all indescribably terrible.
The rivers dried up and the lakes shrank. Water that had once been sweet and refreshing turned salty and bitter. Land that had once been lush with vegetation turned into dry desert. Wind whipped dust into the air, blinding the people and grating against their skin until they were covered in blood. The world that used to be a paradise became so inhospitable that humans had no choice but to leave their bordered parcels, abandon their rooted settlements, and stop the enslavement of the land.
And that was how the Sixth Age of Mankind came to be, when humans were driven into the scrublands, full of harsh storms and brutal droughts, lashed by lightning bolts and cleansed by prairie fires. The people forgot all their vain knowledge, discarded their false wisdom, and huddled in the darkness—until the coming of Kikisavo and Afir, who warred against the gods and won the tribes the wisdom they needed to survive in this debased world.
Tribes were no longer free to have as many children as they liked, but must cull the aged and the infirm much as they culled their own flocks and herds. Sheep and cattle must roam widely so as not to overburden the land, sparsely covered in hardy shrubs, spiny cacti, and brittle, skin-lacerating grass. Smaller versions of the monsters that had destroyed their ancestors’ lives provided a constant reminder of the arrogance of humankind and how we had displeased the gods. Of the grand settlements of the people during the Fifth Age, nothing was left save these burial barrows, the mounds at the eastern shore of the Sea of Tears called the City of Ghosts.
The barrows were a reminder of what happened when humans gave in to their hubris, monuments to the depravities of lives sustained through extraction and exploitation of the land, rather than submission to its wisdom.
Despite the appearance of bounty, the barrows were forbidden ground. Anyone who entered the barrows would incur the wrath of the gods and be cursed never to escape. The refugees had obtained the Every-Mother’s blessing to stay on the very edge of the barrows because of their desperate predicament, but to ask for more was to commit the same error as those who had lived at the end of the Fifth Age, whose pride and greed had brought about their fall.
* * *
Though Sataari was a skilled storyteller, the tale of Taten-ryo-alvovo faded from the minds of most of the children after a few days. They knew the story already, at least in outline, and there was too much to do at the settlement to linger on old myths.
Led by Razutana, they built a purification system modeled on the experiences of Takval and Théra in Lurodia Tanta, which turned the salt lake into an adequate source of potable water. At the edge of the barrows, Nalu led the other children in hunting for partridges, hares, moonfur rats, and the occasional moss-antlered deer. They also picked tidal tern eggs on the rocky lake shore and fished for hairy crabs and giant brine shrimp in the shallows. What they couldn’t eat right away, they tried to turn into jerky and pemmican.
Razutana and Sataari took the children on expeditions to pick berries and nuts and to dig for tubers. The pair complemented each other well. Sataari drew on the shamanistic lore of medicinal and edible plants; Razutana had studied the native flora for years using the techniques of Dara cultivators. There were many plants near the barrows that neither knew, and in such cases, the pair learned to combine their skills and instincts to experiment cautiously, dividing those that were safe and useful from those that were toxic and devoid of value.
Back in Kiri Valley, due to the mutual suspicion between Agon shamans and Dara scholars, they had not known each other well. But thrust into a situation where the two had to work together to keep a large group of children alive in an unfamiliar environment, they discovered a previously unknown appreciation for each other’s domain of expertise.
Even more unexpectedly, Razutana found that he enjoyed Sataari’s company. His mind quickened at the way she danced and moved in the firelight, her lithe, youthful figure animating the stories of the ancients; his heart sped up whenever she praised him for a clever bit of herbal deduction; he tried to make her laugh, despite the stress and pressure of the unknown all around them, because hearing her laugh made him feel like he was walking on clouds.
To preserve this happy mood, he resisted the urge to suggest that they try to cultivate some of the new plants in gardens near the settlement to provide a more reliable source of food. Now that he had a better understanding of the origin of the Agon’s vehement distaste for farming, he could predict her reaction without voicing the idea.
However, unlike the Agon children, Razutana could not get the story of Taten-ryo-alvovo out of his head.
Imbued with the Dara scholars’ general skepticism of the existence of the supernatural, Razutana couldn’t help trying to make sense of the stories of the Agon by comparing them to the sagas of Dara. Did the cyclical pattern of these tales signal a fundamental philosophical difference in the Lyucu and Agon way of thinking, as compared to the people of Dara, whose philosophies tended to emphasize humankind’s perfectibility and progress through change? Or did the yearning for a mythical golden age represent a mental escape to offset the harsh conditions of the present, much as the Dara myth of the Ano’s perfect homeland, now sunken in the western sea, offered hope to the people in times of war and turmoil?
Though Razutana, much like Théra, didn’t put much stock in a realm beyond the mortal world, he believed that old stories that had survived many generations likely held a truth—but a truth cast in the language of metaphors that could no longer be read. His mind never stopped trying to decipher the real history that lay beneath the fantastical lore of the scrublands.
* * *
There was one other person whose imagination was seized by the legend of Taten-ryo-alvovo: Tanto.
All the children of the settlement suffered nightmares and were prone to bouts of melancholy. Though young minds were resilient, losing their parents and grandparents, or at least prolonged separation without knowing their fates, left deep scars. Add in the fact that the community of Kiri Valley, the only tribe and home they had ever known, was gone, it was a wonder that they were holding up as well as they did.
Sataari and Razutana kept the children busy with constant work and chores. This was only partly because there really were many tasks that had to be done for their survival; it was also a way to distract their traumatized minds with a sense of purpose. Sataari tried to entertain the children with nightly renditions of traditional scrubland tales: “Tiger Witch and Naro-with-Eleven-Toes,” “How the Horrid Wolf Got His Hair,” “The Tanto-Lyu-Naro Lost in the Boneyard,” and so on. Since these were not sacred stories, she could simply narrate them without a storytelling dance. Razutana, for his part, re-remembered episodes from Dara’s history, with the exploits of the hero Iluthan during the Diaspora Wars and the deeds of the Hegemon being particular favorites among the children.
One night, as Razutana recounted for a circle of children the story of how the Hegemon obtained Na-aroénna, the Doubt-Ender, Tanto made his way quietly around the circle to Sataari.
“Tell me more about the magical weapons that people used during the Fifth Age,” he begged.
“Why do you want to hear about them?” asked Sataari with a frown. “Those were wicked weapons, invented in a sinful age and wielded with false pride.”
“I want to know more about them so that… I can tell if the weapons my mother wanted to teach us to build are also dangerous.”
Sataari relaxed and nodded with approval. “All right. It is said in the old tales that the vainglorious chiefs of the Fifth Age learned to harness the power of lightning so that a single warrior could stun a hundred-hundred naros with but one sweep of her magical staff. It is also said that they learned to bind the power of thunder so that merely by playing a set of drums, they could make a noise that made a thousand-thousand culeks fall at once, with blood oozing from their eyes and ears. It is finally said that they learned to tame the power of the wind so that simply by aiming a set of bone trumpets at the air, they could imitate the voices of the gods and make insects, birds, and even garinafins fall out of the sky.”
Tanto’s eyes widened as he listened intently. “They were that powerful? Would the warriors and riders commanded by my father’s father have been able to withstand these weapons?”
Sataari shook her head. “Of course not. Weren’t you paying attention? Those weapons were from another age, and they unleashed powers that humans were simply not meant to have.”
“What about the Lyucu? Would they have been able to withstand them?”
“Pékyu Cudyu may frighten children,” Sataari said with contempt in her voice, “and he is certainly following in the footsteps of those arrogant chiefs from the Fifth Age by pitching his Taten in the same place, year after year. But he and all his garinafins and thanes wouldn’t stand a chance against those powerful weapons either.”
“If only those ancient chiefs could return on the cloud-garinafins and fight with us—”
“Don’t blaspheme!” said a stern Sataari. “No matter how powerful their weapons were, because the haughty hearts of the barrow-dwellers had turned away from the ways of their ancestors and their lungsongs no longer honored the gods, they were ultimately driven out of paradise. That’s the most important lesson of all taught by the City of Ghosts.”
Tanto nodded, as though he understood.
CHAPTER THREE BANDIT QUEENS
TOAZA: THE SEVENTH MONTH IN THE NINTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS AND THE REIGN OF AUDACIOUS FREEDOM (TWENTY-TWO MONTHS UNTIL THE REOPENING OF THE WALL OF STORMS).
Tiphan Huto popped a grape into his mouth, savoring the sweet burst. Then he lay back on his bed and stretched out his limbs, enjoying the feel of smooth silk sheets and a soft mattress.
Servants had brought blocks of ice out of the cellar and placed them in cubbies all around the room. A windmill on top of the house drove fans behind the cubbies, filling his room with cool breezes that kept the scorching summer heat at bay.
It’s nice to be home, he thought.
He was lucky; he knew that.
Back in Pan, when he had first been brought before the stern judges in the underground courtroom, he had been so terrified that his knees refused to support his weight, and he had to be held up by soldiers on either side. He began to whimper when he saw that a deputy minister of justice had been sent to act as the prosecutor for the Throne. And when the chief judge had slammed the block of ironwood, his symbol of office, against the bench to bring the court to order, he had lost control of his bladder and sphincter simultaneously.
After he had been taken away to be hosed down and changed into a fresh set of prison scrubs, he was brought back to kneel before the judges again. Witnesses—mostly pirates and hired swords who had turned against him in order to save their own hides—described in detail his various schemes: frauds upon the public, lies and forgeries to gain advantages over his competitors, betraying business partners to pirates, smuggling contraband from Unredeemed Dara, conspiracy to kidnap and enslave….
His family had mortgaged what assets they could still access to hire the most expensive paid litigators possible to defend him. Much as his siblings and cousins despised him for selling out the Huto clan to benefit himself, their only chance of preventing the Huto business empire from escheating to the Throne was to save Tiphan from conviction on the most heinous charges, however futile that effort appeared.
The litigators had advised Tiphan that his best course was to plead guilty to the lesser charges and throw himself at the mercy of the judges. But Tiphan rejected their counsel because he knew that no mercy would be granted. Treason prosecutions were extremely rare; the Throne never brought such charges unless they intended to seek the death penalty. And after what he had done…
He forced his remarkable brain to focus on the task of survival despite the terror, to devise some scheme to conjure a miracle.
The Throne’s case was built on circumstantial evidence, he realized. He had been paid with gold ingots with stamps that could be traced back to tribute fleets to Rui; many of the pirates caught working with him wielded Lyucu-sourced bone weapons; the rescued victims had overheard conversations that strongly hinted that they were destined to be slaves for the Lyucu.
But Tiphan clung to the hope that the Throne had no direct proof. The anti-piracy raids had not caught any of the pirate kings who negotiated the deals with him, only low-level flunkies. He had been careful to transact with his “partners” only through intermediaries and to leave no written trail. Moreover, none of his own people had ever heard him make an unambiguous, clear reference to abducting skilled workers for the Lyucu—he had insisted that everyone speak in code.
The Throne had to prove that he knew or should have known that the abducted mechanics and engineers were being sold to the Lyucu. That was the heart of the treason charge; everything else he had done paled in significance next to that. So long as the requisite mental element of the crime was lacking, he could not be convicted.
Deny, deny, deny! he instructed his litigators.
But the litigators told him that the Throne intended to call on other witnesses, farseers whose testimony would have to be in camera and sealed. Apparently the farseers had secret intelligence about the Lyucu plans and would be able to show that Tiphan Huto had been acting as their agent. A full confession that gave the farseers additional information was his only chance for leniency.
No! Never!
Cold sweat drenched his back; he couldn’t sleep the whole night. If the farseers were involved, then he was sure to be convicted. Telling the truth would only make things worse. No one bargained with the farseers and came out ahead, not even a business genius like Tiphan Huto.
And so, in the morning, when he was brought to court to confront the new witnesses, he was ready to soil himself a second time in order to delay the inevitable by another hour. Unfortunately, due to nervousness, he had neither eaten nor drunk anything for most of a day, and he lacked the ammunition to carry out this last, desperate tactic.
Terror and regret so clouded his mind as he knelt there that it took him a while to understand the chief judge sitting behind the bench as he read from a scroll.
…Empress Jia has directly intervened… farseers will not testify… We deem the defendant’s actions extraordinarily base and heinous… insufficient evidence to support a charge of treason, which is hereby withdrawn in a confession of error… is convicted on all other charges… Empress Jia pleads for mercy… therefore a fine will be imposed instead…
He knelt there, stunned, as the realization gradually sank in. His gambit had worked. He had called the farseers’ bluff.
His best guess was that the farseers either did not know as much as they claimed or didn’t want to reveal the extent of their knowledge of Lyucu plans (even in sealed testimony). To minimize the embarrassment of a failed treason prosecution, Secretary Kidosu had appealed to the empress to intervene and grant him what essentially amounted to a pardon. To be sure, the Huto clan would pay a heavy price, as the fine levied to compensate the victims and to send a message would certainly eject the family from the top rank of trading clans in Wolf’s Paw. But compared to what could have happened…
“Just be glad you weren’t prosecuted during the Principate or the Reign of Four Placid Seas,” his litigators told him, looking smug, as though his salvation was the result of their useless, wagging tongues, instead of the victory of his own clever stratagem of denial and delay, executed by himself with flawless verve and battle-hardened resolve. Tiphan told them to get out of his sight immediately.
Still, Tiphan agreed with the litigators in one respect: He had been lucky. Kuni Garu had abolished paid litigators, simplified the criminal code, and given the farseers free rein over the investigation and punishment of traitors. Tiphan wouldn’t have lasted a day under that system. Thank Tazu that Empress Jia and Prime Minister Cogo Yelu had built up the bureaucracy, with intricate rules of evidence and burdens of proof. Sure, the system avoided harming the innocent, but Tiphan was most glad that it also gave him the room to wiggle free.
“Bring me some iced sour-plum soup!” Tiphan called out, and shifted to a cooler spot on the bed.
After he returned to Toaza, the angry elders of the clan had berated and lectured him for three days and three nights, while he knelt before the mourning tablets of the Huto ancestors. What was left of the mercantile empire he had built was taken away from him and divided among his timid siblings and cousins, who couldn’t recognize a good trading opportunity if it bit them in the ass. Then the elders had confined him to his room and told him he was to reflect on his errors and would have nothing more to do with the family’s business.
Tiphan had seethed and stewed the whole time he knelt in the ancestral hall. How could the elders be so cruel? Didn’t they see that everything Tiphan had done had been aimed at bringing more wealth and prestige to the family? How could his siblings and cousins be so shortsighted? Even with the losses from the fine, the clan retained enough capital to rise again—and meteorically so if he were in charge. This should be an occasion for celebration, and he, Tiphan Huto, should be hailed as a conquering hero in the field of business!
Never mind. He would bide his time.
Let my siblings and cousins worry about making money and bringing honor to the Huto name for a while. I need a break anyway.
Staying in his room wasn’t so bad. He could order whatever food and drink he wanted, and maybe later, after the elders and his older siblings got busy and didn’t watch him so closely, he could sneak in an indigo house girl or two and bet on the boat races by sending messenger pigeons to a bookie.
