The nearest fire v1 0, p.1
The Nearest Fire (V1.0), page 1
14-03-2023
We Had No Time to Be Afraid.
The broken water seemed to reach out to us greedily. The raft moved crazily, tipping sideways, shuddering from end to end.
I could see nothing but the thick spray; it filled my mouth and nostrils so that I could scarcely breathe; the roaring of the water was everywhere….
Tsorl raised his head and cried out; before I could look, the raft was launched into the empty air. It came down with a jolt that made me breathless. The raft spun dizzily, then gently, surely, it was urged forward. We floated so gently it felt as if we had died and been carried off on the wind, bodiless spirits. Overhead we could see the stars, and all around us on the dark sea there rose the shapes of the islands.
Books by Cherry Wilder
The Luck of Brin’s Five
The Nearest Fire
Second Nature
Published by TIMESCAPE BOOKS
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Cherry Wilder
A TIMESCAPE BOOK
PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW YORK
Contents
CAST OF CHARACTERS
THE CLANS OF TORIN
THE LEADERS OF THE FIVE CLANS
The Speaking Chain
Prologue
1 - A New Voice
2 - Itsik
3 - The Way to Freedom
4 - An Adventure and a Reward
5 - Tsabeggan
6 - First Contact
7 - The Dream and the Awakening
8 - The Ningan’s Web
9 - Scott Gale
10 - The Great Elder
11 - Festival of Wind and Fire
12 - The Speaking Chain
Last Threads
A Timescape Book published by
POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of
GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020
Copyright © 1980 by Cherry Wilder
Published by arrangement with Atheneum Publishers
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-22114
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Atheneum Publishers,
597 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017
ISBN: 0-671-44703-3
First Timescape Books printing July, 1982
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
POCKET and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster.
Use of the trademark TIMESCAPE is by exclusive license
from Gregory Benford, the trademark owner.
Printed in the U.S.A.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
TIATH AVRAN PENTROY The Great Elder of Torin, leader of Clan Pentroy
AMMUR NINGAN Ammur, the High Steward, his chief assistant
MATT MATTROYAN A Merchant of Rintoul and Itsik
YOLO HARN A young miner from Tsagul, the Fire-Town
OLD HARN Her foster parent/ retired construction worker
MORRITT HARN His sister, a retired porter
LEN HARN Another foster-child
WARKOR Miner employed at the New Cut
CLEE Miner employed at the New Cut
TENN Overseer
RED Prisoner sent to Itsik prison settlement
GRABBER Prisoner sent to Itsik prison settlement
DYALL THE ROPE WARD First Mate of a salt boat
GWELL NU “Mad Gwell,” the Forgan or Healer of Itsik
COTH A sick aid, one of Gwell’s helpers
TSORL-U-TSORL Former Deputy of Tsagul
KAREN SCHWARTZ Scientific Officer of an Earth Bio-Survey team
LISA CHILD First Officer
SAM FLETCHER Captain
NANTGEEB A Diviner and scientist known as “The Maker of Engines”
MEETAL GULLAN First Officer of a troop of armed Pentroy vassals
OBAL A Pentroy house-servant. Musician and Witness or telepath
SCOTT GALE Navigator of the Bio-Survey team, also the Luck of Brin’s Five, a Moruian family
MAMOR BRINROYAN Captain of the Trader Beldan
DORN BRINROYAN Eldest child of the Family
ABLO BINIGAN Ablo the Fixer, an Outclip or extra member of Brin’s Five
LEETH GALTROY Head of Clan Galtroy
URNAT AVRAN PENTROY A Dwarf. The Luck of Av’s Five, the Great Elder’s family
BOSS BLACK Governor of Itsik … a half-blood of Clan Pentroy
ALLOO GULLAN A Pentroy vassal
BRIN BRINROYAN Mother and leader of Brin’s Five
ROY TURUGAN Harper Roy
NARNEEN The younger children of Brin’s Five
TOMAR The younger children of Brin’s Five
TILJE PAROYAN DOHTRY Friend of Tsorl. Dohtroy representative on the Speaking Chain
VEL RAGAN Vel the Scribe.
GUNO WENTROY Head of Clan Wentroy, also on the Speaking Chain
JETHAN LUNTROY A younger member of Clan Luntroy.
Their representative on the Speaking Chain
THE CLANS OF TORIN
The clans of Torin are groups of noble families who hold ancient rights to the land. Once there were more clans, each with a private army of vassals and free supporters, now there remain only five: Pentroy, whose lands lie in the north; Wentroy, who farm the Troon basin south of Otolor; Luntroy, whose lands lie about Rintoul; Galtroy, whose lands reach eastward to the Salthaven; and Dohtroy, whose lands are in the west by Tsagul. A sixth clan, Tsatroy, also from Tsagul, was destroyed some fifty years earlier.
The clans play a large part in the government of Torin. Each clan selects a number of members to make up the Hundred of Rintoul and the Hundred, in turn, choose the Council of Five Elders. The power of these bodies is checked by the overlapping rights of the town councils in Rintoul and Tsagul, which are not made up of “grandees” as the clan members are called.
The present five clans have intermarried for many generations but, since any child born of a grandee mother is itself a grandee, new blood is sometimes introduced into the clan families. (A famous “out-cross,” for example, is the pair-marriage of Per Peran, head of the Southern branch of the Pentroy, and Ocar Peran, an architect of Rintoul: they are mother and father of Murno, the popular hero known as Blacklock.) Moruians believe that grandees look different from ordinary folk; they point out their aristocratic hands, their pallor, their height. This is not entirely true; it is not possible to see at a glance just who is a grandee and who is not.
THE LEADERS OF THE FIVE CLANS
Pentroy
HATH AVRANPENTROYLeader of Clan Pentroy and Great Elder of Torin.
Dohtroy
ORN ORNROYAN DOHTROY Leader of Clan Dohtroy, a member of the Council
of Five. Nicknamed “Morgan” the Peacemaker.
Wentroy
GUNO GUNROYAN WENTROY Leader of Clan Wentroy and member of the Council
of Five. Nicknamed “Guno Deg,” Old Crosspatch.
Luntroy
NOON NOONROYAN LUNTROY Leader of Clan Luntroy. She is a retired flyer,
rumored to be a friend of Nantgeeb the Magician. She takes no part in government.
MARL UDORN LUNTROY The Luck of Noon’s Five sits on the Council of
Five as Luntroy representative. Blind Marl, who lost his sight in childhood,
is in fact a member of Clan Luntroy, not an adopted Luck of humble birth.
Galtroy
LEETH LEETHROYAN GALTROY Leader of Clan Galtroy. She is very conservative
and her clan acts closely with the Pentroy.
The Speaking Chain
This ancient form of folk-meeting was used more often in the past; it can be summoned by the leader of any clan. A famous Speaking Chain was summoned by Relrin Pentroy, Tiath’s formidable ancestress, in the plain by Otolor. It lasted half a year and thrashed out the matter of whether Otolor should become a free city. Any grandee can represent its clan on a Speaking Chain: Tilje Paroyan Dohtroy, widow of Orn Morgan’s brother, stands up for Clan Dohtroy in this present story, and the Luntroy Clan is represented by Jethan Noonroyan Luntroy, a child of the Clan Leader’s family.
CONTENTS
Prologue
The continent and the world itself have the same name: Torin. Long ago, on the fringes of recorded history, there were two continents, but the blast of the fire mountains, a tremendous volcanic catastrophe, destroyed the warm green land near the equator and left its remains … the Fire Islands. The Moruia of Torin still speak of “the fire that split the world.”
The remaining continent is divided by two rivers, which run from the northern mountains to the sea. The lesser river, the Datse, is narrow and dark; it brings life to the arid lands of the northwest. Towns and villages cluster its high banks and spread into the river’s canyons. The Datse breaks up into rapids and waterfalls, places of wild beauty, where the traveler must drag a boat overland or urge it through a side canal. At last the river flows into a complicated network of these canals, built according to a master plan. Around the channels the farmlands s pring up green and the wool-deer thrive; the precious water is carried on in tunnels and sluiceways to the copper, silver and tin mines. This is the irrigation system of Tsagul, the Fire-Town, the most ancient settlement upon Torin.
By contrast, the great river Troon flows slowly through a fertile countryside; it abounds with fish and game. Barges and smaller craft ply the length of the broad, gray river from the mountains to the sea. The towns along its banks can grow into cities. The Troon has a natural irrigation system at its mouth, the lovely delta lands, rich with bird farms, fishponds, flower plantations. On the edge of the delta rise the spires, the skywalks, the basket ways of the city of Rintoul, the “golden net of the world.”
A city does not sleep, and Rintoul slept even less than the cities of other worlds; under the light of Esder, the Far Sim, armies of cleaners and porters came out to do their work. It was the year 271 of the New Age; spring was shading into summer; the last comet of the year just passed still burned overhead, a reminder that the heavens held wonders. A small party of human beings had come to the planet Torin, and one of them, Scott Gale, lived among the Moruians and was the chosen luck of the family Brin’s Five. Now Scott Gale was sailing to the islands to rejoin his human companions; his departure had not passed unnoticed.
High up among the skyhouses of Rintoul the light of many candlecones shone out from a round window mullioned with golden rope. Inside there might have been grandees at play: listening to music, poring over their art collections, hearing the words of a fortune-teller. Instead the soft light fell on scrolls, skeins, willow paper and vellum covered with written characters; a huge woven map of Torin stood on a frame in the midst of the round room. This was a workroom in the skyhouse of the Great Elder, Tiath Avran Pentroy, a room full of secrets, where only a few persons ever came. Ammur, the High Steward of the Pentroy, kept the five keys of this room strapped to her skinny arm high up under her rich ribboned sleeves and did not remove them even when she slept.
The room told of civilization and luxury, but the two beings who stood in the room would have appeared strange to human eyes. Their loose limbs, their large eyes, the odd furred patches on their pale skins, the way in which Ammur Ningan folded long thumb and forefinger into the cup of her narrow palm: these were Moruian attitudes. Tiath Pentroy had risen in anger from a leather chair; his hooting voice echoed through the chamber.
“Dead? Withered away? Have you killed him then, you old wretched slave … ?”
“Accident!” The Ningan’s voice rose up in a quavering squeak like the wheeze of a tree-bear.
“Tsorl-U-Tsorl died of a festering chain wound. The Healer of Itsik amputated a leg but it did not save him.”
“I would not have had him dead.” Tiath looked from the window over the white gulfs of the city and the sea beyond. “It is an evil omen,” he said.
He raised one long hand and moved it before his face in an odd, scissorlike gesture, snapping his third and fourth fingers apart and together. He made the averting sign to ward off evil.
“Highness,” said Ammur softly, “I thought it was your will.”
“I have spent my anger,” said Hath. “He was innocent in the matter of Scott Gale’s airship. Nantgeeb, the Diviner, stole it. Tsorl was a scholar and a maker of engines^ Only Nantgeeb could match him.”
“Tsorl was a threat at one time,” persisted Ammur. “You sent against him—”
“I gave no order. I am not to blame,” said Tiath with calm self-deception. “Tsorl would meddle in politics. The firestone clinger that burned his creature, Vel Ragan, was thrown by some overpaid troublemaker.
“Besides,” he added, “if we had sent an assassin, Tsorl would have been dead long ago.”
The Great Elder moved to the frame in the center of the room and,walked around the map, occasionally picking at a thread. “We are expecting a visitor,” he said.
“At this hour?”
“It is a person used to watching the sea and doing business at the docks,” said Tiath.
“You are trying to surprise me,” said Ammur Ningan. “You should let me arrange these things.” .
“Your powers are failing,” said Tiath bluntly. “You got nothing from the secret mission to Nantgeeb’s retreat. I hope your spies were right about the devil, Scott Gale… .”
“He sailed for the islands two days ago aboard the trader Beldan. He is sailing to the island called Tsabeggan, the Nearest Fire.”
The Ningan came and stood beside her liege, and they stared at the western hemisphere of Torin. The woven map was very old; the contours of the mainland and of the islands had been embroidered fancifully in heavy relief. There were signs of alteration: the brown threads that outlined the lands in the west held by Clan Dohtroy had been unpicked several times and sewn in again, replacing some earlier thread. In the north, at the base of the mountains, a black thread outlined the sliver of Pentroy land in the northwest. There were a few lonely patches still outlined in flame-colored thread and one of these was on the large island called Tsabeggan.
“Tsatroy …” murmured Tiath. “The Fire Clan is no more. They were a pack of brave fools. See how well our peaceful friends of Dohtroy did from the destruction of Tsatroy; their lands almost doubled.”
“I was on Tsabeggan once,” said Ammur Ningan. “I was at the Tsatroy villa attending your Great-Aunt Relrin.” “Good,” said Tiath. “You have some idea of the terrain.” Ammur’s furry eyebrows twitched, but she asked no question. She followed her liege around the frame of the map. In the eastern hemisphere the colored clan threads blossomed all over the rich lands by the river Troon and reached far into the east, by the Salthaven. Pentroy owned the north, Wentroy green outlined the fertile land of the middle Troon basin; in the south around Rintoul blue thread picked out the holdings of Luntroy; and disjointed patches of Galtroy crimson stretched away to the east. Tiath laid a hand on the ancient temple at Windrock, which stood in the desert, almost on the edge of the map, the dividing line between east and west. He bent down to examine a small, shaded patch on the coast, still on this dividing line: the prison settlement of Itsik.
Far in the north, among the embroidered humps of the mountains there was a strange marker stuck into the map. Tiath plucked it out and twirled the metal pin between his fingers.
“We can move Scott Gale’s flag,” he said.
The small square of white synthetic fabric was printed with a circle of green leaves; it was the flag of the planet Earth. Tiath continued around his world again, with the stiff figure of the Ningan striding after him, and planted the alien flag firmly on the island of Tsabeggan.
“There are his’ fellow devils,” said the Great Elder. “There is the ship of the void, twice, three times the size of that marvelous contraption that landed him in the warm lake on Hingstull Mountain. We must have them … we must have the ship and the man family …”
“Gale is already on the sea,” said Ammur. “What is your plan, Highness?”
“To get there before him!”
“How will that be done?”
“You will know when you see our visitor… .** Tiath settled in a hard, high wicker chair and waited. When a quiet knock sounded, the Ningan opened a round window in the main door of the workroom and peered out “Let him come in!” she called in a formal singsong, operating the locks.
She turned back to Tiath Pentroy and gave her master a wintery smile.
