Enemy Papers Read online

  She removed her robe and sat naked upon the bed. The story continued.

  Near a fire was one of the lower servants of Aakva named Uhe. And that night Uhe sat and watched as its only child, Leuno, died of starvation. And Uhe watched as the food preparers carried Leuno’s small body toward the masters’ fire.

  Uhe said to the God of the Day Light:

  “This, then, is your promise of plenty for keeping your Law of Peace, Aakva? Is this the mercy and reward of the Parent of All?”

  Silence answered Uhe that night. And Uhe saw a child gnawing upon a piece of cured tent skin, while the child’s parent, a once proud hunter, watched with envy in its eyes. Near one of the hunters’ fires, eight sat waiting for a child to make its last breath. When that breath ended, the pitifully wasted corpse would be apportioned among the hunters.

  Uhe studied the faces of the hunters and saw that one of them was mouthing the curse of quick death. And the curse was for the child. And the one who cursed was the parent. And there was nothing but hunger in the parent’s eyes.

  Rage drove the pain and fear from Uhe’s head. It was before that first night’s fire, the land still warm from Aakva’s touch, that Uhe stood before the tribe’s masters.

  Uhe said:

  “Bantumeh, great and honored ruler of the masters of the Mavedah, this night you have tasted the flesh of my child, Leuno.”

  And Bantumeh covered its face with its hands. “Your shame is our shame, poor Uhe.”

  Bantumeh uncovered a face wrinkled with age, pain, and the scars of many challenges to the rulership of the Mavedah.

  “But we have all tasted either child, sibling, parent, or friend this year. There is no choice. To put our minds aside as we eat to keep the Mavedah alive is our sole hope. Your grief is understood; your reminder is out of place.”

  At the rebuke Uhe did not retire from the ring of masters, but instead pointed-east toward the Akkujah Mountains. “There, Bantumeh, is food for the Mavedah.”

  Bantumeh stood, its face crossed with anger. “You would have the Mavedah violate the tabus? Could we do such a thing, do you not think that I would already have done it?”

  A master named Iyjiia who was the chief of Aakva’s servants, leaped to its feet.

  “Uhe, this is a beast standing before the masters, not a servant of Aakva!” Iyjiia faced the other masters and filled its image with voice, for Iyjiia was thin and small in stature.

  “The law is clear. The Mavedah is forbidden to enter the domain of the Irrveden, just as the Irrveden is forbidden to enter the Madah. It is tabu even for us to ask the Irrveden for food.”

  Iyjiia faced Uhe and pointed. “Even to wish this is tabu!”

  Most of the masters nodded and muttered their agreement. It was a painful law to obey, but its wisdom was understood by all. To violate that law would again bring the wars to Sindie. This was the promise of Aakva, and the wars were too horrible to contemplate.

  Uhe held out its arms and faced the night sky. “But I invoke a new vision from Aakva. Its old law was for a time and a place. Aakva speaks to me that the time is changed. And Aakva speaks to us all that the place is changed. It is time for a new law.”

  Iyjiia stood silent, for there was danger in disputing one’s claim to a vision. If the claim of the young Uhe were false, Uhe would suffer for it. But Iyjiia would pay the same price if it disputed a vision that turned out to be true law.

  Iyjiia also saw that many members of the tribe had gathered around the ring of masters. Whether the law be true or not, if it promised food it might find support among that gathering crowd of armed hunters.

  Iyjiia returned to its place in the ring of masters and said to Uhe, “Tell us your vision.”

  As was the custom, Uhe unfastened its covering of skins and stood naked before them to show the truth of its words.

  “Aakva speaks to me now. It speaks of lush mountains to the east, where the darghat and the suda kneel to drink at the plentiful waters; where the trees are heavy with sweet fruits; the fields crowded with kadda melon and the white grain.

  “Every evening Aakva’s hands of fire point beyond those mountains. It shows me the Diruvedah and the Kuvedah, their bellies bloated with fresh-cooked flesh; their grasslands crowded with game that leaps upon their spears; their children tall and laughing.

  “Then Aakva points west of the mountains to this land of famine and the God of the Day Light says to me, ‘Uhe, this is my sign that the Mavedah must leave this place. The masters of the Mavedah must go to their peoples, tell them of Aakva’s Law of War, and have them gather at the foot of the Akkujah Mountains where the cliffs of Akkujah fall to the Yellow Sea.

  “From there I will lead the Mavedah across the mountains, through the land of the Irrveden, to the Dirudah. And the Mavedah will defeat the Diruvedah and will drive the Irrveden from the Great Cut and the southern Akkujah into the northern mountains.”

  Uhe stopped speaking, but it remained with arms outstretched. Uhe’s voice became low and grave as it continued.

  “The Irrveden will try to join with the Kuvedah against us. But too fast will we attack. With the blood command of Aakva at our backs, we will strike north through the mountains, brushing the Irrveden aside. And then we will flood the lands of the Kuvedah with our victories! The Mavedah will rule all!”

  Uhe lowered its arms, then stooped and retrieved its covering of skins. With its coverings replaced, Uhe faced Iyjiia. “And that is what the God of the Day Light says to me.”

  Bantumeh studied Uhe. “Wars? Are we to believe that the God of Day Light inflicts this ancient punishment upon us? What have we done?”

  Uhe bowed. “Bantumeh, you are kind and wise. But you are too kind to meet this need of the Mavedah. It matters not what we have done. The old law will see the end of the Mavedah. Aakva’s new Law of War will see us, our children, and the Mavedah live.”

  Uhe talked to the masters and to the hunters crowded about the fire.

  “I see there to be things worse than war. I see our glorious hunters grubbing in the dirt; I see the Mavedah eating now things too low to rank with waste; I see the Mavedah eating now things too precious and sacred to be food. And I see from this the end of the Mavedah.”

  Uhe faced the ruler of the Mavedah. “Bantumeh, there are things worse than war.”

  Iyjiia stood and waved its hands back and forth. “You cannot know this, Uhe. The oldest of us has never seen war. And this is only because we all obey the tabus.”

  Uhe faced Iyjiia.

  “Mavedah does not fight Mavedah. Once there is nothing but Mavedah on Sindie, there can be no war. And thus the Mavedah will have both peace and plenty.” Uhe let the silence of impending death fall over it.

  “Iyjiia, do you dispute my vision?”

  The hunters gathered around the ring of masters more closely and looked at Iyjiia. The tips of the hunters’ spears glinted in the light from the fire. The night was still, save for the relentless press of the death drums.

  A servant of Aakva had a privileged position. Food, skins for the back, and skins to protect against cold and the wetness of night were provided by the tribe in exchange for the servant’s studies and visions. To dispute Uhe’s vision would mean ordeal by stoning or fire. Iyjiia liked its position. Iyjiia was old. And Iyjiia answered.

  “I do not dispute your vision, Uhe.”

  The roar of approval from the gathered hunters was cut short as Bantumeh stood and shouted.

  “I dispute your vision, Uhe!” Bantumeh turned toward Iyjiia. “May Aakva clean its waste with your cowardly mouth!” The ruler of the Mavedah faced Uhe. “I would see which of us Aakva favors with the stones!”

  The challenge to ordeal was ended by the hiss of a hunter’s spear sailing through the night. The pointed shaft entered Bantumeh’s chest, and Bantumeh looked at it as though surprised. Up at the hunters went Bantumeh’s eyes. “One has chosen for all.”

  And then Bantumeh fell.

  Those who surrounded Bantumeh’s still bo
dy felt the breath of Aakva’s tabu against murder upon their necks. But no one looked to see who was missing its spear. And no one pulled the spear from Bantumeh’s body to see whose sign the spear carried, until Uhe pulled the spear from the body and held it over its head.

  “See you all that Aakva has spoken.” And then Uhe threw the spear into the fire. If there were. a sign upon the spear’s shaft, it went to ash before their eyes. And it was whispered among the hunters that the shaft carried Aakva’s own sign.

  One hunter began the cheer, and then all the hunters cheered until their sound pushed the death drums from the night sky. All swore their obedience to Uhe and Aakva’s new Law of War. The masters left the fire to convey Aakva’s new law to their peoples, and the hunters there left to begin their preparations for the times to come.

  As the beat of the death drums again filled the night air Uhe was left alone at the fire, save for a hunter named Conseh who squatted next to the flames. Conseh’s hands were clasped because it carried no spear. Conseh’s face was impassive because it hid that which should not be known.

  “Uhe, I have a question.”

  “Ask, Conseh.”

  And the hunter asked: “When Aakva talks to you, do you hear it through your head, your womb, or your belly?”

  Uhe studied the hunter. It seemed to the servant that Aakva’s tabus had taken ghostly forms and were dancing above the hunter’s head.

  “Conseh, you are impertinent.”

  The hunter stood and the images vanished. “I am not. My peace demands an answer. Aakva’s new law speaks to most of us through the womb and belly.”

  “Do you dispute the new law, Conseh?”

  The hunter waved its hands at the servant of Aakva. “I would not dispute you, for the God of the Day Light’s new law speaks to all of us, and with a voice that cannot be silenced. But it is a law that anyone of us could have made.”

  The servant of Aakva looked toward the fire. The shape of the murderer’s spear was indistinguishable from the fire’s sticks.

  “I have no answer for you, Conseh.”

  Conseh looked toward the backs of its fellow hunters as they moved into the night to prepare for war.

  “It is my wonder what the hunters will do once Aakva stops speaking to their wombs and bellies and begins again to speak to their heads.”

  The hunter left the fire. And to Uhe the hunter left both a question and a truth.

  Joanne Nicole stopped the recording, and turned toward Vunseleh. It was wiping its hands. “Vunseleh, this Uhe is a savage. What is this savage doing in your Talman: your path of life?”

  The Drac put away its medications, then stood silently for a long while. “Joanne Nicole, each Koda of The Talman has in it a number of truths. Through the events of the stories, those truths are revealed. It is for the student to find the truths that best serve its own talma.” Vunseleh paused again. “For me, Uhe was the first one in my race’s history to stand up and say, God is wrong! Uhe did that, and then stood to bear the burden of its claim.”

  The footsteps walked from the room, Nicole replaced her robe, and continued listening to the story of the heartsick servant from the Madah-the poisoned land.

  …As Uhe walked, it looked at the sky and addressed the light of the red clouds.

  “Aakva, if you exist, and if you are God, why do you play with your creatures so?”

  Uhe came among its warriors, and all cheered the demonstration of the truth of Uhe’s vision of the new Law of War…

  “…why do you play with your creatures so?”

  Nicole stopped the story as she felt something twist within her gut. Fear? No, it was a guilt that she could not identify.

  How often have humans asked Uhe’s question? When had I asked it last?

  …Mallik’s corpse on the litter; the dark brown faces of the fishers-their eyes offering sympathy, but demanding, in return, strength.

  Strength for myself, and for Mallik’s unborn child…

  Uhe was an ancient, alien creature. Hermaphrodite, superstition-ridden savage, and cannibal. Yet Nicole found Uhe touching something within her. She felt Uhe’s desperation, its rage, its hope, its overwhelming guilt. But was Uhe driven by the plight of the Mavedah, or grief of the death of its child, Leuno? Did it matter?

  Uhe’s guilt was inflicted by an antiquated sun god. Mine? I never did learn her… or his name. Its name.

  “You look unhappy, Joanne Nicole.” The voice belonged to Vencha Eban.

  “Vencha Eban, do you have any children?”

  “No.”

  The Drac’s voice reflected a sorrow of staggering depths. “After the birth of my only child,’ Hiurod, my reproductive organs… had to be removed. Hiurod died in the battle of Chadduk’s Station.”

  “I am very sorry.”

  Vencha Eban was silent for a moment. “Joanne Nicole, do you have any children?”

  She turned on her side and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  …the cannibal of the Madah.

  Joanne Nicole was not aware of how many times she listened again to the Koda Ovida over the following days. But in her dreams she would see this Uhe and follow the ancient alien’s bloody steps from the Madah through the lands that would be conquered and called Sindie.

  And she would see Uhe as it stared at the old masters of the Mavedah as they picked over and gnawed on Leuno’s bones-

  -she would awaken; sometimes crying, sometimes screaming.

  Then she would listen again to the story. While she listened, she would close her eyes and wait for her dreams to bring her, again, the sight of Uhe’s face.

  …and the face was not strange to her.

  EIGHT

  And Maltak Di said to the student: “I have sixteen beads in my hand. If I give you six beads, how many beads will I have in my hand?”

  “You will have ten, Jetah.”

  “Hold out your hand.” And the student did so. Maltak Di then dropped six beads into the student’s hand and opened its own hand to show that it was empty.

  “You lied, Jetah!”

  “Yes. Your response to my question should have been Jetah, open you hand and let me, first, see the sixteen beads. Instead you answered from ignorance.”

  “Jetah, that is not fair!”

  “Now you answer from stupidity.”

  The Talman

  The Story of Maltak Di. Koda Nushada

  Nicole awakened but remained still, continuing to think upon the things she had seen in her dream. Uhe had denied the immortality of rules, had unleashed bloody war upon the Sindie to save the Mavedah, and had succeeded only to take its own life as payment in return for its guilt.

  Uhe had placed the god, Aakva, aside; had declared to itself that the god was wrong; and had placed a stamp on the Sindie that continued down through almost twelve thousand years to the present.

  V’Butaan on the planet Ditaar, named after the mountain city containing Uhe’s tomb. The Tsien Denvedah, Uhe’s front fighters of the same name, casting reluctant prisoners into the Madah. The terrorists on Amadeen taking on the venerable charge of the Mavedah, as well as its name.

  And Joanne Nicole spoke Uhe’s last words out loud: “Aakva, in the name of your children, become a more perfect god.”

  “A futile, but ancient, wish.” The voice was deep, resonant, and just a touch amused.

  Nicole sat up. “Who are you?”

  There was a low chuckle. “Who am I? Who am I? Your question is profound, Joanne Nicole; and it would take me many hours to answer it. My name, however, is Tora Soam. I am the First Master of the Talman Kovah. It was my third child, Sin Vidak, that you saved from the fire on Ditaar.”

  “You have finally come, then?”

  “Yes. Pur Sonaan told me that you had wondered at my absence; and for that I apologize. But you were near death for so long; and recently the demands upon my time have been heavy.”

  The voice was enigmatic; difficult to read. “Tora Soam, what is to become of me?”<
br />
  “Ah, another profound question!” It paused for another chuckle. “But you refer to your immediate future, do you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “The paths open to you would appear to be few. You are still vemadah, despite my protection.” It paused for a moment. “There is a good argument, Joanne Nicole, that can be made supporting a claim to you being vehivida.”

  Vehivida? Of the sixth. And Uhe said: “Their children will be sent to the Sixth Denve…”

  “I am not a child, Tora Soam.”

  “No, but you are infirm.”

  “I do not serve the Drac cause.”

  “Joanne Nicole, you served the cause by providing the Tsien Denvedah with another soldier.”

  She felt her face flush. “I saved a child; no more.”

  “Emmmm. You divide motive, act, and responsibility. Had you not saved my child, the child would not have become a soldier. Does not that, then, make you responsible for the existence of the soldier?”

  Tora Soam’s voice; it had an edge of humor in it. Tora Soam was playing games. “I saved a child. The child chose to become Tsien Denvedah.”

  “I see. And if you knew that the child would grow to become Tsien Denvedah, would you have refused to save it?”

  “Drac, this game is getting quite tedious.”

  “Answer the question, Joanne Nicole. Would you have saved it, or would you have let it burn?”

  Memories of that smoke-filled horror filled her mind. All of those dead children, the heat, the smell. She wiped her eyes as she shook her head. “I… I don’t know.”

  “I think you do, Joanne Nicole.”

  Nicole smacked her hand upon her thigh. “All right! I would have saved it! But I was saving a life, not a soldier for the Dracon Chamber!”

  Nicole heard the rustle of the Drac’s robes as it stood up. “I apologize to you, Joanne Nicole. I did not mean to upset you. If you insist, you are vemadah.”

  “I insist!”

  “Pur Sonaan has told me that, except for your vision, you will be well soon. As soon as you can leave the Chirn Kovah, I will have you brought to the Tora estate. The Madah is a social state, not a tract of land. You may stay at my home for as long as you wish-at least until you are fully recovered.”