Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications Analog Science Fiction and Fact Kindle Edition, 2016 © Penny Publications 2 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications Fall Arlan Andrews, Sr. | 17923 words Only a month before, Rist and his twin brother Rusk stood with their sire, Reader Thess, at the base of The Ice at the End of the World, there to witness the calving of the glacier that extends up beyond the Misty Sky (“Thaw,” July/August 2013). Rist was charged by Thess to return to Tharn’s Town bearing carved, coded cylinders that described the sizes and arrival times of the new bergs that would be floating down the fifty miles to their small town. Ice brokers there would purchase that information and sell the bergs to Warm Landers downriver. In “Flow”(November 2014) Rist volunteers to ride with the berg-crew down to the Warm Lands. Downriver at the city called God’s Port, he learns about a lightweight but extremely strong web-like material called godscloth that the local sun-worshipping priests find underground in ancient buried cities. Mist-like to the eye, it is almost weightless and unbreakable, used for ropes and nets, and to stop and intercept boats from the river, pulling them into the port on huge spool-like pulleys. Rist steals a long swath of godscloth, along with special handling gloves and cutting tools, and wraps it around his chest, narrowly escaping by sailing away in a small fishing boat. Several days downriver, Rist barely makes it to the shore as his boat plunges over a waterfall higher than the glacier he saw back home in the Tharn’s Lands. Fearful of being captured by pursuing Priest’s Men and facing death by solar incineration, Rist plays out the godscloth as a sheath, holding it with the big gloves, and lets himself down over the seemingly bottomless cliff. “ShadowFall!” the Princess said aloud, startling her handmaidens. Loving the sound of her own voice, Princess Perneptheranam said it again, louder— “ShadowFall is today!” As her excited exclamations echoed throughout the cavernous pink, polished marble halls of the palace, Perneptheranam, Lordess of the Sisterdom of ShadowFall —“Pernie,” as she called herself—shivered with delight at the festival to come, right below her balcony, in the vast public plaza just outside the portico. Pushing aside her maids, ignoring their pleas to wear the royal sandals, she strode through a massive marble archway out onto the semicircular balcony, enjoying the damp coolness of the smooth stone against her bare feet. A tingling breeze wafted through translucent shimmering swaths of the rainbow-colored godscloth covering her from head to toe, further stimulating other senses with a light pair of twin tickles up here and a frivolous friction down there. That same soft wind also brought its gift of mixed delicious aromas—meats and sauces, spices and fruits—all rising up from the boiling pots and cooking pits, fifty feet below. Pernie was further stimulated by the vistas from this balcony, her domain: out in front, across the bustling crowds below, over past the river, lay her wonderful fields— grain, maize, cane—soft rectangular patterns of pastel shades that stretched to the hazy far horizon. To her right lay her grazing fields for vast herds of cattle and emus, appearing to her as colorful blanket-like masses, slowly moving, just like the hundreds of acres of wind-blown crops. To her left, five miles away, lay the northernmost boundary of her lands, marked by the Dark Highlands, a massive, unscalable uplift of earth, craggy rock cliffs stretching all the way from East to West, unbroken save for the massive waterfall, many miles wide, that poured down the water into Mother’s Lake at RiverHead. She often wondered why her Sisterdom was not called WaterFall instead of ShadowFall, but she never dared ask the Lordess Mother or her own priest, the dark and mysterious Wakan Kech. Sighing, she thought, Tradition is always their reason, but they never explain why! But she knew she was only mentally joking with herself. 3 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications ShadowFall is where the Shadow Falls! As everyone would witness today when the sun was highest. A few hours from now. Pernie glanced longingly at the fishermen working at the distant river’s edge, casting their huge nets, smoothly and expertly gathering in the bounty of flashing fish and sparkling eels. Even from this distance she could see exquisite muscles moving under their broad bare backs, working for the people, working for her. Pernie leaned over the balcony and waved at the bustling throngs of her subjects gathered below. Seeing her, they broke out into shouts of happiness, of respect, even of love, for their Princess Pernie, although they knew it would be worth their tongues if they were ever caught saying that familiar version of the Royal Name to her face. But in the spirit of the moment, she shouted back, “Pernie loves you, too!” and waved to them, bringing on even more cheers, which echoed through the palace behind her. She smiled and turned back to her handmaids, summoning them to bring the sandals and the morning’s hot chai. Yes, I love them, she thought, my people, my property. My slaves. As Pernie reclined into her down-stuffed leanback, a handmaiden delivered a tray of chai cups. Taking one, savoring the taste and the immediate lift of the hot beverage, she mused about her Sisterdom and its people. They love me, she thought, and I do love them, too, as I love my pets. And we all love these festivities, when everyone can be happy. Yes, she thought, our namesake festival happens this morning, but... Mixed with her anticipation were warm but poignant memories of the previous night’s activities with the Chosen Man—the sumptuous dinner, the sweet wine, the sensuous music and intimate dancing, and everything else that followed. He had been so handsome, so charming, so sweet, so attentive; everything a woman, even a Princess, could ever dream of. What a shame that he would have to be beheaded today. At the base of the sheer cliffs of the Dark Highlands, Rist was in danger. Hanging upside down, he could see, through the slits in his beezt-hide eye coverings, that the entire length of his godscloth lifeline was tangled all around him in the top limbs of a huge tree, spreading from there across the forest like a gigantic biter-web of translucent, nearly invisible bluish material. Tangled up, like me! he thought, in near panic. A calmer part of his mind noted that all of the surrounding trees were of several species unknown back home in the Tharn’s Lands. I’m alive and unhurt as long as I stay up here in this tree, he thought, but how long will that be? Not far away in the forest, a pack of loud, crazed, slavering dogs, their sharp teeth bared, bayed as they ran toward the tree where he was caught. Like a bug in a biterweb! Rist thought. And running behind the crazed animals, a hand or more of very large men— “Low Landers,” would they be?— were pointing toward him, one of them stopping to shine a thin beam of red light that danced around his body. Was he the one signaling me at the top of the cliff? he wondered. Is that some kind of sun weapon, like the Priest’s Men’s mirrors, but smaller? If so, he would be dead even before the dogs got him. He only had a few minutes to do something, anything! Taking a deep breath, rapidly trying to suss out some solution to his predicament, he recounted how he had arrived in such a perilous state. His descent was quick and easy at first. The huge gloves allowed him to let the sheath of godscloth slide through and unwind upward without damaging his hands, and he had known (had hoped!) that it was long enough for him to reach the bottom safely. But when he was almost down, high winds suddenly swept upward along the cliff face, catching the long sheath of godscloth, buffeting him against the sheer rock face. In desperation, he had used the big scissorlike cutters to detach himself from the sheathing, to fall the last few man-lengths of distance into vegetation below. But by some strange property of the nearly weightless material, the entire length that he had unwound above him, many hands of hands of man-lengths (thousands of feet?), 4 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications detached itself from its tie-off point above, and fell with him. Then, the same winds that caused his problem rescued him, by blowing him and his huge bundle of godscloth like wind-borne seeds, finally softening his fall, draping itself across hands of trees, himself dangling like a loose tree limb. The Warm Land gods must have looked out for me, he thought. Until the dogs showed up! As if in mockery, the disk of the main Warm Land god, The Shining One, stood high in the sky, almost directly overhead. It was too brilliant for Rist’s sensitive eyes, even with the slitted eye patches he wore. And with the vicious creatures at the base of his tree now howling for his blood, and half a dozen very large Low Landers close behind them, Rist wondered if he had gone from the boiling pot into the burning beezt dung fire! At the palace, Princess Pernie mused about the upcoming sacrifice of her newest lover. In memory, she recalled when her High Cacique, the wiseman and priest Wakan Kech, had first explained it all to her five years ago during her first ShadowFall ceremony, after her first night with a Chosen Man— With any man, she thought—back when she was barely twelve years old yet already experiencing her menses. “Dearest Princess,” the tall, dark Wakan had intoned, softly but sternly, “as thousands of years of tradition dictate, the handsome head of the Chosen Man, lovingly preserved, will decorate the topmost segment of the Arch of ShadowFall for the entire year to come. That will be his spirit’s way of welcoming the warming sun and the gentle rains, of keeping away the crop chewers and all the other pests.” He had smiled, “And so he will keep the fields fruitful to feed all of ShadowFall, your vast Sisterdom.” Then he whispered conspiratorially, “And to profitably feed several other realms of your Sisters as well. Don’t forget their debts to you.” Wakan’s time-worn visage had been solemn back then, his black eyes and deep resonant voice, his long, braided black hair, his extreme height and hooded scarlet robe presenting a striking figure that intimidated the much smaller young Princess into silence. Like all his Highland countrymen, the priest stood at least a head taller than all the locals. Back then, her first time, Pernie had wished her lover’s sacrifice wasn’t necessary; she wished it wasn’t so now, either, because she desired this Chosen Man’s affections, his physical attention, again, at this very moment! But hearing the continuous clamor by her people down below for another appearance at the balcony, and over that, the onset of the staccato priestly drumming, punctuated by a dozen brassy horns announcing the beginning of the rituals, she knew it was not to be. So I, Princess Perneptheranam, Lordess of the Sisterdom of ShadowFall, am as a much a prisoner of tradition as the young man who will slaughtered soon. He was the best lover I’ve had in many years! She sighed, then mused, Why wait another year? I might just have Wakan take a look at some of those muscular fisherman. Dressed in resplendent deep red godscloth robes, Wakan Kech, High Cacique and Advisor to the Princess of ShadowFall, stood on a wide, ten-foot-high stone platform at the base of the Arch of ShadowFall, looking up to admire its simplicity and beauty. Carved in high relief in the living stone of an outcropping of rock half as large as the princess’ palace, the arch itself reached up twice Wakan’s height and stretched twice that in width, a recumbent relief sculpture in the shape of a rainbow, with a hollowed out center below the bottommost arc. To an unschooled onlooker (Like most of the peasants here, he thought, and many of the noble guests!), the recessed stone rainbow might have been simply melted into the surrounding stone by the branding iron of a god. But Wakan knew it had been chipped out, one tiny flake at a time, by ancient stone carvers working to the master plan of an unknown genius. A keystone-shaped wedge defined the top of the arch, with three successive tilted wedges arranged down each side, their different slopes giving rise to radial triangular shadows where they met. A smooth, curved vertical wall ran straight down from the bottom arc of the rainbow to 5 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications the horizontal floor, giving the appearance of a hollow “bowl” under the arch itself. In all, the carving was a beautiful sculpture, even to the ignorant who did not know its true astronomical functions. But for those schooled in its use, like me, Wakan thought, the arch lets us observe how the sun creates shadows, so we can forecast events in the heavens. Such as today, ShadowFall, the longest day of the year. For this day, the changing of the seasons, the ancients had provided a signal that all could see, princess, priest, and peasant alike: a sudden horizontal shaft of light, framed by shadows of intricately positioned stone, would appear: the Arrow of the Sun, its sharp end stabbing a wedge on the North side, indicating the death of season Blossom. And the birth of season Warm. Wakan Kech admired the ancients who had designed and carved this incredible holy site. He had first seen it five years before, when he accompanied the princess’ palace retinue and thousands of transferred slaves to ShadowFall when she assumed authority over her new Sisterdom. The Lordess Mother, ruler of all Motherland, had gifted him to the young Princess Pernie at the royal girl’s request, and Wakan had been allowed to bring with him several of his Kech countrymen, who like himself were slave prisoners. Wakan relished the opportunity to leave the oppressive atmosphere of Mother’s City, far to the south, and to help establish a new Sisterdom here at the very northern boundary of Motherland, next to the mysterious Dark Highlands a few miles away. Upon arriving at the abandoned city, emptied centuries before by some forgotten disaster, Probably plague or war or drought, Wakan thought, but did not know, he and his fellow Kech had been very happy to find the palace’s ancient library of surviving bound books, tightly wound animal skin scrolls, and even some (unfortunately dead and unusable) ancient reading machines. And many crystal godspheres, which sometimes will speak to us even though we cannot understand them, he regretted. Among those written languages that they could already read, Kech had found information that taught how the arch operated. How the shadows told the hours and indicated the seasons, and how the Arrow of Sunlight stabbed a particular point at the moment of midday on the day of ShadowFall. And so I reinstituted the ancient rite of ShadowFall, complete with its grisly ritual human sacrifice. He often wondered how if the arch was supposed to bring good fortune to this region of Motherland, why had the previous populations disappeared? Maybe this time, we will do better! For many reasons, he had thought at the time, recounting them to justify his own participation. First, the sacrifice was a yearly demonstration of the princess’ power of life and death over all of the people in her Sisterdom—a power theoretically absolute and arbitrary. In actuality, Pernie had seldom condemned any of her subjects, and never for any trivial offense, unlike her savage sisters. The Chosen Man tradition also allowed every peasant and lesser noble to feel relief that they would not be selected, while they still understood at a gut level that Princess Pernie always held their very lives in her hands. Secondly, the mounted head of the Chosen Man at the arch, the most public site in the city, would be a constant reminder of that power every day. Because all control in Motherland depended on the acquiescence of its slave-subjects, and because most of the population increase came from Motherless slaves brought back by Her armies raiding the outer highlands, such nonverbal signs of dominion were necessary. It keeps down rebellions and minimizes the killing. By such reasoning, an acknowledged self- deception, Wakan Kech was able to pardon himself. He hated killing of any kind; in his own homeland up in the High Antis, even food animals were given a painless death, complete with rituals asking forgiveness. To Wakan’s relief, all preparations for ShadowFall had gone as planned. The 6 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications townspeople and the farmers had brought their goods into the plaza, set up their tents and booths and banners and pots and games, lending a rainbow of colors, friendly commotion, delicious odors, and an air of excitement to the holiday. On an adjacent raised stone platform, he saw representative delegations from several neighboring Sisterdoms—Four Peaks, Stone Pyramid, High Tables, Ridge Back, Ancient Towers— complete with small complements of armed warriors in full leather regalia, carrying their usual bannered spears with pennants now flapping in a sudden breeze from the north. Those weapons are not just for protection and pageantry, he knew. In preparation for today’s influx of outsiders, Wakan had cautioned his own palace guardsmen to keep a close watch on these foreign men. Unfortunately, assassinations were not unknown occurrences amongst the Sisters. With some satisfaction, he saw several dozen of his guards, clothed like peasants and concealing their shortswords, jostling around the base of that platform, ready to ascend the steps if necessary. In the shadows, unseen but alert, a dozen other armsmen with springbows watched over the peasants and nobles alike. Wakan smiled. On this perfect day, though, Wakan could not be as fully absorbed in the festivities as usually happened. He had one niggling concern: Just before he had left his chambers, a border guard captain at RiverHead, using one of the few red-beamed godslights that still worked, signaled the capture of a small, dark manlike creature, of a kind never seen before. Incredibly, the message said that the thing was not a monkey because it wore clothing. The being was caught in a tall tree, wrapped up in a massive tangled web of what looked like godscloth, a huge amount of that material, many thousands of feet of it, draped over the forest. Worth a fortune, if true, Wakan mused. And more, the guard speculated, the little beast and the godscloth had apparently fallen down from the Dark Highlands! Wakan shook his head in disbelief; if that story were not completely accurate in every unbelievable detail, he would have to severely discipline that guard. He always stressed that reports to him should contain only facts, not speculation. But even so, he was intrigued at the alleged discovery. He set that thought aside; important rituals and festivities would be starting soon, culminating in the sacrifice of the Chosen Man at the appointed hour. Smiling grimly as he waved to silence the priests’ drumming, he nodded to the waiting black-hooded axeman who would do the deed, who nodded in return. What a waste of a young man’s life, Wakan thought, but better that ignorant, uneducated lad than someone skilled. And better his head serving as a reminder, than me having to have the guards kill hundreds more in another uprising, as happened four years back. At least, this “tradition” requires that I make the selection, and I always choose for the best physique but the least intellect. And Pernie has never complained! As the crowds quieted, gathering around the high stone platform underneath the sculptured Arch of ShadowFall, Wakan Kech cast another concerned glance Northward, toward the stark range of sheer cliffs that marked the Dark Highlands, wondering what that discovery might bring. But at that moment, the princess emerged from the palace, walking down a wide arc of glistening pink marble steps, with her godscloth robes setting off her long, beautiful red hair, a veritable rainbow in motion, graciously nodding in acceptance of the cheers of her excited subjects. With her came four springbow men dressed all in black, head to foot, only their eyes showing. These were the palace guards, protectors of the royal person, who would kill instantly upon her command, or even before, if they sensed a threat. All the audience understood this and grew hushed. Wakan welcomed the princess to a massive stone throne, framed in the background by the Arch of ShadowFall. At last, the crowd cheered. Wakan made note of the contingent from the other Sisters—who cheered and who didn’t. His perfect memory could recreate the scene at any time. To his right, the Chosen Man, in full naked glory, strutted out to more cheers, flexing his impressive muscles and bowing to the crowd. 7 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications Wakan noted the progress of shadows across the arch and the bowl. In just a few minutes, the shadows would form the Arrow of the Sun, to indicate the moment of midday. And the end of this young man’s short life, cringing at the thought. As the final moment approached, the crowd’s cheers grew louder, finally silenced only by the swift swish of the axeman’s instrument of death. The sweet smell of gushing blood quickly overcame the exquisite aroma of the princess’ perfumes. The odor of power, he mused. Picking up the severed head of the Chosen Man by its bloody hair, Wakan sighed and waved it to the hushed crowd, beginning the long ritual of fertility prayers. “Here is the creature, Priest Kech,” the captain of border guards said, jerking on the chain attached to the iron neckband around Rist’s neck, nearly pulling him off his feet. “I suppose it is some kind of man, because it had a loin cloth and a shirt, and these big gloves”—he handed those objects to Wakan Kech, who noticed that they were larger than his own large hands—“and these scissors.” Likewise, Wakan tried those out. “This equipment almost fits my hands,” he said, “Was this— monkey man—was he using them? With those little hands?” The captain nodded. “Sire, he cut himself out of the godscloth and let himself down from a tall tree, after we pulled the dogs back. That’s the only way we could get him.” The big man then related how he and his guards had spent the remainder of yesterday gathering up the thousands of feet of godscloth draped like curtains over dozens of trees. “Sire, it was a real mess. But we found out we could cut it with those big scissors.” The captain stopped, then whispered. “Sire, I didn’t know that stuff could be cut.” Wakan motioned for the man to be silent. This was one secret he did not want the other Sisters to know about, not yet. He could envision a whole new industry, of custom-cut godscloth, useful for hundreds of items, at any price he decided on. In all of the history of Motherland, even in his own High Antis, nobody had ever been able to cut so much as one fiber of the material. And handling it could sometimes be dangerous—when wrapped up tight, it was sharper than any blade, being the cause of many severed fingers and hands. And even severed necks, in several of the Sisterdoms. It was a rare find that ever uncovered a length of godscloth that could be made into clothing— For royalty only, Wakan noted—or for nets, curtains, or anything else. “A yard of godscloth” was a common remark meaning “priceless” or “impossible.” Over the centuries many miles of the stuff had been found in ancient ruins, in underground mines, sometimes just lying across vast regions of land, strewn across the landscape like worthless ribbons. Apparently the gods— or ancient people, the scholars back in Wakan’s land had surmised; he himself did not choose to share aloud that heretical theory here in the superstitious Motherland—had manufactured the material by some unknown process, for their own godsonly-knew uses. And when they departed, they left their trash behind, Wakan concluded. The most valuable trash in the whole round world! Wakan thanked the guards for their service, then let them know with his full authority that any leaked word of the discovery of the little man, the godscloth, the glove, or the cutting tool, would result in painful, lingering death for all of them together. Their stoic looks showed him that they had expected nothing less. Fine! Wakan hoped this was true; the young Chosen Man’s end had come quickly. But the penalty for a violation of his direct orders often took several excruciating weeks, and he had to observe for himself every last detail of the death-herb’s effects, a solemn obligation that always sickened him. Wakan told his aide to give the captain a sizeable sum of silver for doing his sworn duty efficiently and quickly, and to make sure that most of the money was fairly distributed to the entire contingent. Those guards at the Dark Highlands seldom have any duties to perform. Mostly they look for anything interesting that comes over the waterfall from the highlands above. He snorted. And probably keep the most valuable items for themselves! Wakan turned his attention back to the little creature. Man, monkey, midget, 8 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications elf, dwarf—what? He was thankful for the intriguing distraction; the whole ShadowFall ceremony always left him in a mildly depressed fugue state. At least it was over for another year, though that handsome severed head on the spike would remind him of it everyday.... barely reached his knees, but was apparently human in all respects, just in miniature. Stunted features, big head, very muscular, he thought. Rather large in his chest, like some of the mountain dwellers in the High Antis, back home. In addition to the chain around its neck and hands, it was clad only in a dirty loincloth (the guards had removed a tiny blue shirt, somewhat shredded, from around its waist, along with some kind of slitted eyepatches and the thong strap that held them). The creature was the color of mahogany, with dark eyes and pitch-black hair; its skin was smooth and almost hairless otherwise. Its shoes— Animals don’t wear shoes!—were an interesting leather-like hybrid of boots and sandals. Wakan concluded that his captive was just yet another variety of human being, specially created for the cold environment of the far North, with large lungs able to breathe the thinner air there, dark skin to absorb life- giving light from the sun, and a small size because of limited food and the need to hide from predators. Being from the lower reaches of the High Antis, Wakan himself was normal in all respects, the proper height and proportions. Or so I tell myself! Coming from a well-educated highland civilization, Wakan had always known, as indeed the ancient writings claimed, that other kinds of people lived in other lands, and that their features were shaped for the conditions in those lands. And according to the information in the palace library, in the years before his own arrival at ShadowFall, human bodies of various kinds, small and large, had come over the waterfall into Mother’s Lake. Wakan had deciphered very old reports saying that some primitive watercraft, even a number of carved wooden spindles of no identifiable use, had been retrieved as well. All of those artifacts were still stored in the vast network of tunnels and dungeons under the palace, but not all were categorized yet. His assistant priests would have to search their domains for such artifacts and more information. But according to the same texts, most of the bodies and all of the boats were smashed beyond recognition. They had to fall over two thousand feet, he knew. And in all of these centuries of Motherdom, nobody has yet scaled up those perilous heights to see where the strange people came from. So how did this little creature come down without injury? Wakan spoke to the little man. “Who are you, my uninvited visitor? Where do you come from, and what do you want here in ShadowFall?” To his surprise, the dark dwarf began to jabber in a language that was almost familiar. Not the meaning, but the cadence of speech, some familiar sounds amidst the gibberish of snorts and tongue- twisting grunts. Where had he heard those sounds before? As an educated scholar- priest, Wakan knew many languages, having been taught by elder priests in his homeland, those with access to the godspheres from the beginning of time. Wakan himself had been captured by armies of the Lordess Mother during an invasion campaign into the DryLands of the Nawat, far to the west of Motherland and far to the north of Wakan’s homeland. By an unfortunate circumstance, Wakan and a contingent of other High Antis wisemen had been on a lengthy field expedition to that thinly populated DryLands region of Chi’a, there to study an ancient pyramid complex covered by a huge God’s Dome. The Gods— or somebody in the ancient past, Wakan believed—had created huge hemispherical domes of the same impenetrable clear crystal as the numerous kickball-sized godspheres found in the High Antis, utilizing those domes for some unknown reason to cover over large tracts of land that contained timeworn buildings. With only a small protection force accompanying their expedition, Wakan’s small group was easy prey when Mother’s Army had arrived for plunder and slaves. After a brief battle in which Wakan’s own armed guards were slaughtered, he and the other wisemen and their guides were taken as prisoners, destined to become slaves to Mother. But because Wakan was able to talk in a kind of pidgin-Motherspeak to the enemy captain, and then prove his further worth by 9 Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July/August 2016 Penny Publications translating the captain’s commands to the huge collection of Nawat prisoners, he was kept alive along with the others. Exhibiting the same language skills at Mothers Court, Wakan had quickly earned Her favor, obtaining similar privileges for his Kech compatriots. The others were then sent to various of the Sisterdoms, to serve the princesses who owned them. From reports he heard, only a few of his dozen countrymen had been killed by their mistresses. For the next ten years Wakan had been kept as a translator slave at Mother’s Court, until She had given him to Princess Pernie prior to the young girl’s assumption of the new Sisterdom of ShadowFall. Wakan often thought of his time at Mother’s Court, far to the south of ShadowFall, next to the Deep Blue Sea. The Lordess Mother, while absolutely ruthless and occasionally cruel, nonetheless loved and collected all kinds of knowledge, establishing libraries and museums of captured documents and small artifacts, especially those related to the Motherless highlands adjacent on three sides. She had Wakan and his compatriots and others study those peoples, their languages, customs, and natural resources. Especially their resources, Wakan thought. Because in Mother’s hands, knowledge means only power —the power to spy, to plan, to invade, to pillage, plunder and enslave. After his capture, Wakan had feared for his own homeland, but through believable stratagems, he had been able to divert Mother’s interest and attentions to other surrounding highlands, other successful invasions, all the while leaving his own people alone. For all his fears of Her lust for Empire, Wakan retained mixed feelings for his sovereign Mother, some of hate, some of affection. After all, even though he had been her captive without any rights, She had left him physically whole, had fed and kept him and provided him with libraries and museums. So we few, we fortunate Kech, were not painfully relieved of our manhood, as was the fate of so many highland men brought back as slaves to work the mines and farms of Motherland. And so this little man before him, like Wakan himself a personal possession belonging to Princess Pernie—who thankfully did not practice such mutilation in her Sisterdom—would be safe in that most important respect! The day after ShadowFall, after Pernie had bid farewell to the delegations from other Sisters (And hopefully, all of the spies they undoubtedly brought with them, she thought), she called for Wakan. “Have him bring that new little creature for me to see,” she told her handmaiden. “I always love to learn about new things.” Pernie spoke the truth. Unlike her envious eleven sister princesses in Motherland, Pernie alone, the youngest, had not spawned children every year of her maturity. At seventeen, I could have half a dozen of the little power-seeking vipers by now! Wakan Kech’s knowledge of herbs and chemicals had allowed her to stay childless as long as she wanted, while enjoying Chosen Men and others as often as she wished. My sisters breed like rabbits, she thought, and have so many offspring, each of whom will someday fight to seize their own mother’s Sisterdom, as soon as they are able. No wonder they have so many wars down South, so many crops ruined, towns burned, lives wasted! But Wakan had helped her avoid all of that unproductive activity, so she and her priest could spend their time and energies to maintain her Sisterdom, its fields, its irrigation, its roads, the health of its people. Though unheard of anywhere else in Motherland, with Wakan’s help, Pernie was also quietly experimenting with having all of the children in her domain learn their letters, and those who could, the numbers, and a select few, even the geoms. That way, as Wakan says, they can carry out my written orders to the far reaches of the realm, without the inaccuracies of oral commands. And the number of land surveyors and map readers and crop weighers and basket counters can increase along with the population. And so can the numbers of my well-trained and well- fed royal guards. And the more of them, the more they will be able to hold back the raiders 10