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Chapter Eleven
Udara on Kalapriya

"Name?" the Rudhrani guard at the gate of Pundarik Zahin's house snapped. That was a new thing; there'd been nobody barring the gate when he went there—was it only yesterday? It seemed like years ago.

"Vajjadara. Chulayen Vajjadara, with the Ministry for Lands and Properties," Chulayen said, head bowed. "If I could see the honorable general for just one moment?"

The guard sighed deeply. "What, does every two-tulai clerk in the Bashir's service have to talk to General Zahin before he goes into surgery? My master's been officially retired for years now, but you'd think no Ministry in Udara could function without him for a few days, the way you people have been pouring in with chits and last-minute requests."

"Surgery? I didn't know—" Chulayen stopped, started over. "Please, this is not a matter of government business. It is—my parents were friends of General Zahin's—I—we had words yesterday—I need to apologize before—"

The guard's expression softened. "Oh, personal, is it? I did hear as he was troubled by some quarrel yesterday. Would that have been you, then?"

"Yes," Chulayen said. "I was wrong. I wanted to apologize to him and tell him that I've seen my errors."

"Well, maybe it'll help him go in to the surgeon with a quieter mind, at that," the guard said. "But if you start arguing with him, I'll be sorry I let you in—and I'll make you even sorrier!"

"I only wish to express my humble duty and my complete submission to his judgment," Chulayen vowed.

He was shocked by the change in Pundarik Zahin's private rooms. The old, shady, dusty, cluttered study had been cleared of nearly all its furnishings, and a pair of servant girls was briskly scrubbing the floor on one side of the room while the old general sat in his invalid chair on the other side, irritably going through the stack of papers proffered by a clerk standing beside him. "Enough business for now!" he cried when Chulayen entered, pushing the papers away. "Tell the Ministers I'll be ready and happy to attend to them all in a few days, after we see how the outlander's medicine works. Well, my boy," he said to Chulayen in a softer tone, "I understand you've seen the error of your ways?"

"My loyalty has always been to the Bashir and to Udara," Chulayen said. "I deeply regret the misunderstanding which made me seem to be setting up my own will against the wiser judgment of the Minister for Defense, and my only hope is that the Bashir himself will understand and forgive my errors."

"Well said," Pundarik Zahin approved. "Perhaps—"

A bucket of water tipped over, sending a puddle splashing over the blanket that covered his legs, and he growled at the clumsy servant. "Wheel me out to the garden, boy, we can't talk in here. That crazy outlander!"

He continued his grumbles when Chulayen had maneuvered the clumsy wheeled chair out onto the paved, vine-shaded terrace overlooking the mountainside. "What is this mania outlanders have for cleaning and boiling and purifying everything? You'd think they were all born to be good Rudhrani housewives. Hah!" He laughed explosively at his own joke. "A little honest dirt never did any harm, and in our climate it's positively dangerous to strip the skin of its natural oils in the face of winter. At least that's how I was taught. But this man will have me scrubbed as raw as that room in there before he consents to treat me."

"It's outlander magic," Chulayen said. "I suppose we must allow them to cast out devils in their own way. What does he promise to do for you, sir?"

"Why, he thinks the devils are not in these useless things after all—" Zahin thumped one of his own legs "—but in my head, and he means to open up my head to let them out! Hah!" He laughed again, even more loudly.

"Truly, sir?"

"No, it's more complicated than that. Best I can understand it, he says our heads are supposed to be full of tiny demons that send orders to our bodies, and that some of my demons died when I had an attack of the falling sickness. So he's going to open me up and put in some of his own demons who will direct the work of my legs." Zahin scowled. "Truth to tell, I don't much care to think of the details. It all seems very improbable. I've cleaved a man's skull with my own saber—aye, fifty years ago it was, in the battle for the Sarai Pass, but I remember as 'twas yesterday. Blood aplenty there was on the snow, and a spill of grey stuff where his head opened, but I saw no demons coming out. Still, the outlanders pay well enough for the demons he grows—" Zahin checked himself as though he just now remembered whom he was talking to. "I suppose you understand all about that business now, boy? Been explained to you, has it?"

"Not fully," Chulayen said carefully, "but I know that my duty and loyalty are to the Bashir, and I hope that you, sir, will convey my deepest apologies to him and to the Ministry for Loyalty and tell them—persuade them—" His throat closed up for a moment before he could go on. "There's no need to keep my family hostage, sir. Anusha, Vashi, the girls, they had no part in this. The fault was entirely mine, and I see now that I was entirely mistaken. Please, sir, cannot you persuade them to set my family free?"

Zahin looked off into the blue distances beyond the terrace, stroking his moustache with one hand. "I'm only an old soldier, Chulen, not a diplomat, and it's a chancy business to bargain with the Ministry for Loyalty. I came close enough to being called traitor myself yesterday, because I talked them into leaving you free and only taking the womenfolk."

"And my son."

"And your son," Zahin agreed. "But you're young yet, Chulen. You can get another wife and make more sons. I stood surety for your good behavior, did you know that? Told the Bashir he might exile me if you did not come to your senses and give this up."

"You had better have let me be taken away with Anusha," Chulayen said bitterly.

"My boy, I am sorry. I did not know you cared for her so much. It always seemed to me your mother was much stronger for the marriage than you were. You might even have been glad to be free, for all I knew."

Chulayen felt a pang of guilt. He'd never loved Anusha. He had carefully done all his duty as the Rudhrani gentleman he thought himself to be; nobody could say he'd been a bad husband to her. He had treated her with respect, not even complaining when the first children were girl-twins, never reproaching her with the long years that followed until at last she gave him a son. He hadn't beaten her for getting herself mixed up in that low-class cult of the Inner Light Way; he'd even taken her on pilgrimage to those cursed caves.

He'd gone out of his way to be courteous and respectful and to indulge her, because he could not love her.

Love was not supposed to be important in marriage; doing one's duty was what mattered.

"And the children? You thought I would be glad to be rid of them too, I suppose?"

Pundarik Zahin sank back against the cushions of his invalid chair, looking very old. "Chulen, I can do nothing today; within the hour the outlander will come with his tools. When I've recovered from his work, when the memory of your offense is not so strong with the Bashir, I . . . will do what I can."

"Perhaps, before that, others will do more!" Chulayen snapped, turning on his heel.

Later he regretted that parting thrust most bitterly. But for now, all he could think was that Zahin had betrayed him. All his parents' friends had betrayed him. His parents had lied to him. If there was any help for him and his family, it lay in the hands of a raggle-taggle bunch of Rohini whom he had been brought up to despise—quietly and courteously, of course—as beneath his notice.

All he wanted to do, now, was to go back to that old woman, Madee—he could not think of her as his grandmother—and make her arrange to rescue his family when they were moved from the prison to wherever the "disappeared" were taken. But he couldn't. He who had been Chulayen Vajjadara, who had thought himself a Rudhrani gentleman and the son of a Minister for the Bashir, was now lower than the lowliest Rohini. He did not even own a name. He had no power to coerce Madee to do his bidding. But perhaps, if he learned what these Rohini wanted to know—if he turned traitor in earnest, instead of blundering into disfavor by his own slow-witted mistakes—perhaps he could buy her cooperation. Evidently he was not going to be arrested on sight; very well, he would do as she wished, return quietly to his job and listen for any scraps of information that might be useful to the traitors.

The undercellar where he and the others injured in the riot had been taken was somewhere on the lower slopes of the town, among the shabby patched buildings and tumble-down houses of the poorest Rohini; not an area Chulayen knew well. As evening fell, he was still wandering the alleys, looking for the particular pattern of rusted grilles and splintery posts that he remembered as the entrance to the maze of rooms going down below street level. He was not overly eager to tell the woman Madee of his failure, and so he drifted along almost aimlessly, expecting that eventually he'd recognize the place. But in the blue haze of twilight everything looked the same to him, one indistinguishable stream of broken roofs, walls with layers of plaster falling off in great patches, naked children, street beggars, dusty ditches, piles of rags heaped up in doorways and corners. But no—one of the piles moved; for a moment he thought, with instant revulsion, of rats; and then it stretched out filthy feet and sat up and he saw a face appearing out of the mud-colored folds.

"You have walked past three times already," the face said, "but you fine gentlemen are all blind as cave-fish. Follow me to the place before your ramblings attract more cursed Rudhrani!"

And these are my people, Chulayen thought as he followed the beggar. This is my true heritage: rude peasants and earthen-floored slums. He felt shame at the thought, told himself that the true shame belonged to those who had taken all power and wealth to themselves, then remembered that until a day ago he had been one of those. He had never felt as if he was oppressing anybody. It had seemed the natural order of things. Rohini were simple folk, happiest in service positions with somebody else telling them what to do and arranging their lives; Rudhrani gentlemen organized and ruled and saw that the world was a well-kept and orderly place; Rudhrani women stayed modestly at home, watching the servants and children and generally keeping their homes as orderly and proper as their men kept the outside world.

Now—he did not know what to think, or even what he should feel. But it still seemed shameful to him to be in such a place as the subsurface rooms to which the beggar led him; worse yet, as he became aware of the smell of cheap, sweet incense and the sound of singing interspersed with wails and high-pitched shouts. His mother—no, Minister Vajjadara's wife, he corrected himself harshly—had taught him to scorn such meetings. Rudhrani worshiped the gods decently and with propriety, in the privacy of their own homes; even the poorest Rudhrani house was not without its wall niche for images of the gods and its offering bowl to set at their feet. The semipublic, hysterical gatherings of the Inner Light Way were—well, Rohini stuff, and not worth paying serious attention to.

And yet Anusha had been drawn into the cult; they must have offered her something she couldn't find at her home altars.

There were pallets around the sides of the low, dark room, with bandaged people lying on them. Chulayen thought he recognized some faces—and some injuries—from the previous day: that boy with the smashed-in dent on one side of his head, who breathed but neither spoke nor moved, and the woman with a mass of bandages where her right foot should have been. He frowned. It could not be good for them to have to put up with this noise and smoke; couldn't the cultists have found another place to hold their ceremonies?

The rhythmic noises rose and fell, never stopping completely. In the failing, flickering light of ghay-butter lamps the faces of the wounded, and of the worshipers, came into view and vanished as the little lights danced this way and that, as if people were passing into and out of the plane of this life all around him and at random. He craned his neck and searched for the old pancake vendor, Madee, who claimed to be his grandmother; somehow expecting her to be leading this cult ritual. But there did not seem to be a leader. Except for those lying on pallets, the occupants of the room sat in messy, overlapping circles on the floor, hands clasped on their folded legs, all looking toward the center of the room.

And there was nothing at all in the center.

Slowly Chulayen's ear began to separate the sounds. There was a simple, repetitive song; different voices chanted the short verses, while everybody joined in the chorus.

"Ugme, soi, utme," a man chanted. "What appears, disappears."

"Janne so mar jae," the rest of the room responded. "What is born dies."

"Chhunne soi gir pare." That was Madee's quavery old voice: "What is picked up falls again."

"Phule so kamlae," the listeners finished. "That which blossoms, fades."

That went on and on, the simple monotonous melody like a child's cradle-song; Chulayen told himself that it was boring and not at all musically interesting, but somehow his body kept wanting to sway in time with the singing. Finally he lowered himself to the cold floor, where he sat with hands clasped on his bent knees. Would they never stop?

Impatience is an error, his tutor had said. Do not allow it to take over your mind. And his mother had said, "A gentleman may feel impatience, but he never shows it."

Chulayen tried to still his mind using the techniques his tutor had shown him, and found that for brief seconds the music was soothing and not maddening; for just as long as he could keep from thinking about the past and worrying about the future. Then, just as he had learned to endure it, the low chanting stopped. The room full of people sat in a silence so complete that Chulayen found himself listening to the sound of his own breathing and trying to quiet it.

The silence lasted long enough for his legs to prickle with cramp from the unaccustomed position; then, again without any signal that he could perceive, people began to stand up and stretch as casually as though they were awakening from a brief nap. Chulayen stood too, and the people nearest him looked at him with alarm.

"He is one of us, children, never fear," Madee called out, and came hobbling through the crowd to stand before him. Chulayen drew breath to speak at last, but she held up one finger and tapped her own lips, so he remained silent.

Chatting in low voices, in twos and threes, the crowd slowly dispersed. Chulayen wondered why they were so long about it; finally he realized that they were pacing their departure so that there would not be an obvious flow of people coming out of the building all at one time.

"Why take such trouble to keep your meetings secret?" he asked Madee in a low voice, once there was only a handful of worshipers dawdling in the room. "It is not illegal to follow the Inner Light Way."

"Perhaps not," Madee said drily, "but it is not exactly approved of, either."

"Anusha," Chulayen began, and stopped. What would he have said? That he wouldn't have let Anusha take up with the cult if he'd known they were so secretive, wouldn't have let her run such risks? He'd put her into far worse danger by his own thoughtless actions.

"Anusha," Madee repeated. She let his wife's name hang in the air between them.

Chulayen swallowed painfully. "I—cannot help as you requested."

"No? You thought better, perhaps, of showing yourself to the gentle Bashir and his kindly Arm?"

"Hush, Sonchai," Madee reproved the pretty young man without looking around, "Sarcastic speeches rarely help any but the speaker."

Sonchai's face darkened and he looked down. Chulayen noticed that he was standing by a girl lovely enough to be his sister; put Sonchai's long dark lashes and sensuous lips on a girl's face, and you saw beauty instead of effiminacy. The girl, though obviously Rohini, was dressed better than anyone else Chulayen had seen in the group—better than anyone he knew, for that matter; the gold embroidery on her dark red shalin sparkled in the light, and it was belted over matching gathered trousers in a way that emphasized all her womanly curves. The loose end of the shalin was not drawn over her head, modestly, but left to trail down her back, so that he could see her large dark eyes and the line of glittering gold that emphasized the arch of her eyebrows, the perfect oval face and the full lips, all within a frame of curling black hair that glinted red in the fitful light. She did not drop her eyes at his gaze, either, as a modest woman would, but stared back at him with a challenging look that surprised him in so young a girl.

"What happened, then, Chulen?" Madee prompted him gently.

With an effort Chulayen took his eyes from the girl, as surprising a figure in that dim basement as if he had found a statue of Red Radhana all gilded and decked out for war, and told Madee of his visit to Pundarik Zahin. "Then, afterwards, I went to resume my work at the Ministry for Lands and Properties," he said, "but Lunthanadi said I had been put on leave. She had been told that I'd had a nervous breakdown from overwork and that I must on no account return to my office before the Festival of Torches."

"Excellent!" Madee said.

"But—the Festival of Torches is not held until after the first snows. That could be days yet, maybe even weeks—and I thought you wanted me to listen and learn—"

"I did," Madee said, "but Khati here has come to us with information that changes everything. We need you far more, now, as a guide to the Jurgan Caves."

"The Caves! But what—"

Madee gestured for Khati to join them. She came forward at once, without even a pretence of shyness; but Sonchai followed her as closely as any brother wishing to protect a modest young sister.

"I am sorry I could not tell you before, indeed I am," Khati began apologizing to Madee as she came up, "but the Bashir is . . . he wishes me by him at all times, and when he cannot have me by his side I am watched. He is jealous beyond reason. It was not until today I could get away, on the excuse of visiting my mother, and I must be back at her house before the guards who escorted me become suspicious."

"Yes, yes, you explained all that," Madee said absently, but her gaze softened as she looked at the girl. "It is a hard task the gods have set you, Khati, and you are a good brave girl. You should not have had to take the risk of coming to me; from now on one of us will be by your mother at all times, to take any messages you bring or send."

"I was there," Sonchai interrupted, "but she would come with me."

"I needed the comfort of the meeting," Khati said simply. "The Light does not shine brightly in the Bashir's palace."

"The Light is within you as it is within us all, Khati." Madee smoothed the girl's wavy dark hair away from her forehead. "But Sonchai should take you back now, as soon as you have told this young man what you told me before the meeting."

"Envoys from the coast—from Valentin," Khati said, "suspecting that the Bashir has been buying outlander magic to help him conquer all around Udara. And one of them is from the stars, and she is a demon who speaks all languages and knows all things and who can call down fire from the sky, and will do so, if she learns about the brainfarms. So the Bashir has sent his servant Indukanta Jagat to Dharampal, to persuade the young Vakil to imprison the envoys as they pass through his territory—he will ask no more than that, but his real task is to kill them once the Vakil has taken their weapons. But in case they should escape the trap at Dharampal, the Bashir has ordered all the brainfarms in Udara cleansed. The only one remaining will be in the Jurgan Caves, where even if it is discovered he will be able to claim it was Thamboon's doing and unknown to him. Oh, and all the prisoners waiting assignment were sent away last night, to be farmed in Thamboon."

Chulayen blinked in astonishment. The report had been delivered so quickly and concisely, as if an experienced man had taken over the pretty little girl's body! And now that she was finished, she didn't babble on, but stood quietly waiting for Madee's response.

Those were matters he could think about. The rest—the content of Khati's report—was full of mysteries he did not want to unravel. A terrible fear possessed him; he felt a cold sweat all over his body. If he stayed here what would he learn?

Where else could he go, now?

"Thank you, Khati," Madee said. She laid her hand on the girl's head again. "You are a good brave girl and the Light will be with you. She had best return now, Sonchai. You will take care she is not seen until she is safe in your mother's house?"

"With my life," Sonchai promised, showing no trace of his usual petulance.

The two slipped away into the shadows at the back of the meeting room and seemed to vanish like smoke into clouds. Chulayen blinked again. There were more ways than he had realized through this maze of underground rooms.

"You see, Chulen," Madee said now to him, "we need someone who knows the world, who can travel to meet these outlander envoys and warn them before they are taken up by the Vakil's men. And then you must tell them that they will find all the evidence they need at the Jurgan Caves, and guide them there. You understand?"

"No—I understand nothing," Chulayen said. "Know the world? I have traveled no farther than Thamboon—what was Thamboon—and only once."

"You went there on pilgrimage to the Jurgan Caves," Madee said. "Can you find the way again, without asking for help?"

"I think so."

"Very well, then there is no problem with that part. As for intercepting the envoys before they reach Dharamvai, that is simple enough. You have only to go on pilgrimage again. Tell your neighbors, and anyone you meet on the way, that you have decided to make a visit to the holy shrines at the mouth of the Vaisee-jara, to purify yourself of the demons which possessed you yesterday."

"But that is at the coast," Chulayen pointed out.

Madee raised her eyes to the low ceiling. "Give me Light," she said in a decidedly unprayer-like voice. "To reach the coastal shrines from Udara, Chulen, you must first go through the Sukhana Pass, then follow the Dharam-jara down until it meets the Vaisee-jara. Now, how do you think the outlanders will be coming upcountry from Valentin?"

"Oh!"

"You are not known to be connected with our group, you have just suffered a tragic loss, you have been told to go on leave, and you have the funds to make a private pilgrimage if you wish. It's perfect!"

"And—when I meet the outlanders—what then?"

Madee raised her eyes again, briefly, but said nothing. "Why, you will tell them that they must go to the Jurgan Caves, not into Udara. You will tell them that their lives are in danger here and that they will find all the evidence they want in the Caves."

"Evidence of what? And in any case," Chulayen finally found words for one of the problems buzzing in his head like angry bees, "I am sorry about the outlanders, but I must stay here until you help me to free Anusha and my children. Then, yes, I will go anywhere you ask."

Madee looked at him with pity. "Did you not understand what else Khati said? They have been taken already."

"I know they've been taken, the Ministry for Loyalty is holding them. That's why I need your help."

"No, the Arm of the Bashir does not have them anymore," Madee interrupted. "That is the other thing Khati came to tell us. All the prisoners the Arm held—all, Chulen—have been sent to the Jurgan Caves. The convoy left last night, while we were still tending the wounded from the riot."

"Then I'll follow them."

"And do exactly what? Chulen, be sensible. We have people in the mountains as well. If there is a chance to distract the guards on the convoy and free some of the prisoners, they will take it; and they will do better without your interference. They would not trust someone coming from a Ministry, you know."

"You could send Sonchai—or anyone they do know—with me, to tell them to trust me, that my own family is in the convoy," Chulayen argued with a growing sense of helplessness.

"You would be no help there," Madee said. "If they can be freed in that way, so much the better. But you should know that very few escape in the mountains. Your best chance is to find the outlanders and lead them to the Jurgan Caves. When they see what is being done there, they will call down their sky-fires to destroy the Bashir."

"What, because the pretty crystals are being ruined by saltpeter miners?" Chulayen laughed. "I do not think the outlanders consider those caves a holy spot as you Inner Light cultists do."

Madee looked so sad that his laughter died. "Chulen, Chulen. Do you still believe the Bashir meant to use those caves for mining saltpeter? You yourself proved that would make no sense."

"Then what does he use them for?"

"There are molds and slimes growing in the sea caves that the outlanders value for their magics," Madee said. "The outlander Vhana Vekhatan, may his light be extinguished for all time, has found a way to cultivate the same things in our mountain caves."

It took Chulayen a moment to recognize the Kalapriyanized name of Lorum van Vechten, the Barents Resident in Udara.

"They will hardly object to that—he is doing them a favor!"

"They will object to the way he farms the mold," Madee said grimly. "You have not been told about that yet; we feared it would upset you too much for you to serve us."

"Nothing will upset me too much to try and save my family!"

"I hope that is true," Madee said. And she explained the brainfarms to him.

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Framed

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Chapter Eleven
Udara on Kalapriya

"Name?" the Rudhrani guard at the gate of Pundarik Zahin's house snapped. That was a new thing; there'd been nobody barring the gate when he went there—was it only yesterday? It seemed like years ago.

"Vajjadara. Chulayen Vajjadara, with the Ministry for Lands and Properties," Chulayen said, head bowed. "If I could see the honorable general for just one moment?"

The guard sighed deeply. "What, does every two-tulai clerk in the Bashir's service have to talk to General Zahin before he goes into surgery? My master's been officially retired for years now, but you'd think no Ministry in Udara could function without him for a few days, the way you people have been pouring in with chits and last-minute requests."

"Surgery? I didn't know—" Chulayen stopped, started over. "Please, this is not a matter of government business. It is—my parents were friends of General Zahin's—I—we had words yesterday—I need to apologize before—"

The guard's expression softened. "Oh, personal, is it? I did hear as he was troubled by some quarrel yesterday. Would that have been you, then?"

"Yes," Chulayen said. "I was wrong. I wanted to apologize to him and tell him that I've seen my errors."

"Well, maybe it'll help him go in to the surgeon with a quieter mind, at that," the guard said. "But if you start arguing with him, I'll be sorry I let you in—and I'll make you even sorrier!"

"I only wish to express my humble duty and my complete submission to his judgment," Chulayen vowed.

He was shocked by the change in Pundarik Zahin's private rooms. The old, shady, dusty, cluttered study had been cleared of nearly all its furnishings, and a pair of servant girls was briskly scrubbing the floor on one side of the room while the old general sat in his invalid chair on the other side, irritably going through the stack of papers proffered by a clerk standing beside him. "Enough business for now!" he cried when Chulayen entered, pushing the papers away. "Tell the Ministers I'll be ready and happy to attend to them all in a few days, after we see how the outlander's medicine works. Well, my boy," he said to Chulayen in a softer tone, "I understand you've seen the error of your ways?"

"My loyalty has always been to the Bashir and to Udara," Chulayen said. "I deeply regret the misunderstanding which made me seem to be setting up my own will against the wiser judgment of the Minister for Defense, and my only hope is that the Bashir himself will understand and forgive my errors."

"Well said," Pundarik Zahin approved. "Perhaps—"

A bucket of water tipped over, sending a puddle splashing over the blanket that covered his legs, and he growled at the clumsy servant. "Wheel me out to the garden, boy, we can't talk in here. That crazy outlander!"

He continued his grumbles when Chulayen had maneuvered the clumsy wheeled chair out onto the paved, vine-shaded terrace overlooking the mountainside. "What is this mania outlanders have for cleaning and boiling and purifying everything? You'd think they were all born to be good Rudhrani housewives. Hah!" He laughed explosively at his own joke. "A little honest dirt never did any harm, and in our climate it's positively dangerous to strip the skin of its natural oils in the face of winter. At least that's how I was taught. But this man will have me scrubbed as raw as that room in there before he consents to treat me."

"It's outlander magic," Chulayen said. "I suppose we must allow them to cast out devils in their own way. What does he promise to do for you, sir?"

"Why, he thinks the devils are not in these useless things after all—" Zahin thumped one of his own legs "—but in my head, and he means to open up my head to let them out! Hah!" He laughed again, even more loudly.

"Truly, sir?"

"No, it's more complicated than that. Best I can understand it, he says our heads are supposed to be full of tiny demons that send orders to our bodies, and that some of my demons died when I had an attack of the falling sickness. So he's going to open me up and put in some of his own demons who will direct the work of my legs." Zahin scowled. "Truth to tell, I don't much care to think of the details. It all seems very improbable. I've cleaved a man's skull with my own saber—aye, fifty years ago it was, in the battle for the Sarai Pass, but I remember as 'twas yesterday. Blood aplenty there was on the snow, and a spill of grey stuff where his head opened, but I saw no demons coming out. Still, the outlanders pay well enough for the demons he grows—" Zahin checked himself as though he just now remembered whom he was talking to. "I suppose you understand all about that business now, boy? Been explained to you, has it?"

"Not fully," Chulayen said carefully, "but I know that my duty and loyalty are to the Bashir, and I hope that you, sir, will convey my deepest apologies to him and to the Ministry for Loyalty and tell them—persuade them—" His throat closed up for a moment before he could go on. "There's no need to keep my family hostage, sir. Anusha, Vashi, the girls, they had no part in this. The fault was entirely mine, and I see now that I was entirely mistaken. Please, sir, cannot you persuade them to set my family free?"

Zahin looked off into the blue distances beyond the terrace, stroking his moustache with one hand. "I'm only an old soldier, Chulen, not a diplomat, and it's a chancy business to bargain with the Ministry for Loyalty. I came close enough to being called traitor myself yesterday, because I talked them into leaving you free and only taking the womenfolk."

"And my son."

"And your son," Zahin agreed. "But you're young yet, Chulen. You can get another wife and make more sons. I stood surety for your good behavior, did you know that? Told the Bashir he might exile me if you did not come to your senses and give this up."

"You had better have let me be taken away with Anusha," Chulayen said bitterly.

"My boy, I am sorry. I did not know you cared for her so much. It always seemed to me your mother was much stronger for the marriage than you were. You might even have been glad to be free, for all I knew."

Chulayen felt a pang of guilt. He'd never loved Anusha. He had carefully done all his duty as the Rudhrani gentleman he thought himself to be; nobody could say he'd been a bad husband to her. He had treated her with respect, not even complaining when the first children were girl-twins, never reproaching her with the long years that followed until at last she gave him a son. He hadn't beaten her for getting herself mixed up in that low-class cult of the Inner Light Way; he'd even taken her on pilgrimage to those cursed caves.

He'd gone out of his way to be courteous and respectful and to indulge her, because he could not love her.

Love was not supposed to be important in marriage; doing one's duty was what mattered.

"And the children? You thought I would be glad to be rid of them too, I suppose?"

Pundarik Zahin sank back against the cushions of his invalid chair, looking very old. "Chulen, I can do nothing today; within the hour the outlander will come with his tools. When I've recovered from his work, when the memory of your offense is not so strong with the Bashir, I . . . will do what I can."

"Perhaps, before that, others will do more!" Chulayen snapped, turning on his heel.

Later he regretted that parting thrust most bitterly. But for now, all he could think was that Zahin had betrayed him. All his parents' friends had betrayed him. His parents had lied to him. If there was any help for him and his family, it lay in the hands of a raggle-taggle bunch of Rohini whom he had been brought up to despise—quietly and courteously, of course—as beneath his notice.

All he wanted to do, now, was to go back to that old woman, Madee—he could not think of her as his grandmother—and make her arrange to rescue his family when they were moved from the prison to wherever the "disappeared" were taken. But he couldn't. He who had been Chulayen Vajjadara, who had thought himself a Rudhrani gentleman and the son of a Minister for the Bashir, was now lower than the lowliest Rohini. He did not even own a name. He had no power to coerce Madee to do his bidding. But perhaps, if he learned what these Rohini wanted to know—if he turned traitor in earnest, instead of blundering into disfavor by his own slow-witted mistakes—perhaps he could buy her cooperation. Evidently he was not going to be arrested on sight; very well, he would do as she wished, return quietly to his job and listen for any scraps of information that might be useful to the traitors.

The undercellar where he and the others injured in the riot had been taken was somewhere on the lower slopes of the town, among the shabby patched buildings and tumble-down houses of the poorest Rohini; not an area Chulayen knew well. As evening fell, he was still wandering the alleys, looking for the particular pattern of rusted grilles and splintery posts that he remembered as the entrance to the maze of rooms going down below street level. He was not overly eager to tell the woman Madee of his failure, and so he drifted along almost aimlessly, expecting that eventually he'd recognize the place. But in the blue haze of twilight everything looked the same to him, one indistinguishable stream of broken roofs, walls with layers of plaster falling off in great patches, naked children, street beggars, dusty ditches, piles of rags heaped up in doorways and corners. But no—one of the piles moved; for a moment he thought, with instant revulsion, of rats; and then it stretched out filthy feet and sat up and he saw a face appearing out of the mud-colored folds.

"You have walked past three times already," the face said, "but you fine gentlemen are all blind as cave-fish. Follow me to the place before your ramblings attract more cursed Rudhrani!"

And these are my people, Chulayen thought as he followed the beggar. This is my true heritage: rude peasants and earthen-floored slums. He felt shame at the thought, told himself that the true shame belonged to those who had taken all power and wealth to themselves, then remembered that until a day ago he had been one of those. He had never felt as if he was oppressing anybody. It had seemed the natural order of things. Rohini were simple folk, happiest in service positions with somebody else telling them what to do and arranging their lives; Rudhrani gentlemen organized and ruled and saw that the world was a well-kept and orderly place; Rudhrani women stayed modestly at home, watching the servants and children and generally keeping their homes as orderly and proper as their men kept the outside world.

Now—he did not know what to think, or even what he should feel. But it still seemed shameful to him to be in such a place as the subsurface rooms to which the beggar led him; worse yet, as he became aware of the smell of cheap, sweet incense and the sound of singing interspersed with wails and high-pitched shouts. His mother—no, Minister Vajjadara's wife, he corrected himself harshly—had taught him to scorn such meetings. Rudhrani worshiped the gods decently and with propriety, in the privacy of their own homes; even the poorest Rudhrani house was not without its wall niche for images of the gods and its offering bowl to set at their feet. The semipublic, hysterical gatherings of the Inner Light Way were—well, Rohini stuff, and not worth paying serious attention to.

And yet Anusha had been drawn into the cult; they must have offered her something she couldn't find at her home altars.

There were pallets around the sides of the low, dark room, with bandaged people lying on them. Chulayen thought he recognized some faces—and some injuries—from the previous day: that boy with the smashed-in dent on one side of his head, who breathed but neither spoke nor moved, and the woman with a mass of bandages where her right foot should have been. He frowned. It could not be good for them to have to put up with this noise and smoke; couldn't the cultists have found another place to hold their ceremonies?

The rhythmic noises rose and fell, never stopping completely. In the failing, flickering light of ghay-butter lamps the faces of the wounded, and of the worshipers, came into view and vanished as the little lights danced this way and that, as if people were passing into and out of the plane of this life all around him and at random. He craned his neck and searched for the old pancake vendor, Madee, who claimed to be his grandmother; somehow expecting her to be leading this cult ritual. But there did not seem to be a leader. Except for those lying on pallets, the occupants of the room sat in messy, overlapping circles on the floor, hands clasped on their folded legs, all looking toward the center of the room.

And there was nothing at all in the center.

Slowly Chulayen's ear began to separate the sounds. There was a simple, repetitive song; different voices chanted the short verses, while everybody joined in the chorus.

"Ugme, soi, utme," a man chanted. "What appears, disappears."

"Janne so mar jae," the rest of the room responded. "What is born dies."

"Chhunne soi gir pare." That was Madee's quavery old voice: "What is picked up falls again."

"Phule so kamlae," the listeners finished. "That which blossoms, fades."

That went on and on, the simple monotonous melody like a child's cradle-song; Chulayen told himself that it was boring and not at all musically interesting, but somehow his body kept wanting to sway in time with the singing. Finally he lowered himself to the cold floor, where he sat with hands clasped on his bent knees. Would they never stop?

Impatience is an error, his tutor had said. Do not allow it to take over your mind. And his mother had said, "A gentleman may feel impatience, but he never shows it."

Chulayen tried to still his mind using the techniques his tutor had shown him, and found that for brief seconds the music was soothing and not maddening; for just as long as he could keep from thinking about the past and worrying about the future. Then, just as he had learned to endure it, the low chanting stopped. The room full of people sat in a silence so complete that Chulayen found himself listening to the sound of his own breathing and trying to quiet it.

The silence lasted long enough for his legs to prickle with cramp from the unaccustomed position; then, again without any signal that he could perceive, people began to stand up and stretch as casually as though they were awakening from a brief nap. Chulayen stood too, and the people nearest him looked at him with alarm.

"He is one of us, children, never fear," Madee called out, and came hobbling through the crowd to stand before him. Chulayen drew breath to speak at last, but she held up one finger and tapped her own lips, so he remained silent.

Chatting in low voices, in twos and threes, the crowd slowly dispersed. Chulayen wondered why they were so long about it; finally he realized that they were pacing their departure so that there would not be an obvious flow of people coming out of the building all at one time.

"Why take such trouble to keep your meetings secret?" he asked Madee in a low voice, once there was only a handful of worshipers dawdling in the room. "It is not illegal to follow the Inner Light Way."

"Perhaps not," Madee said drily, "but it is not exactly approved of, either."

"Anusha," Chulayen began, and stopped. What would he have said? That he wouldn't have let Anusha take up with the cult if he'd known they were so secretive, wouldn't have let her run such risks? He'd put her into far worse danger by his own thoughtless actions.

"Anusha," Madee repeated. She let his wife's name hang in the air between them.

Chulayen swallowed painfully. "I—cannot help as you requested."

"No? You thought better, perhaps, of showing yourself to the gentle Bashir and his kindly Arm?"

"Hush, Sonchai," Madee reproved the pretty young man without looking around, "Sarcastic speeches rarely help any but the speaker."

Sonchai's face darkened and he looked down. Chulayen noticed that he was standing by a girl lovely enough to be his sister; put Sonchai's long dark lashes and sensuous lips on a girl's face, and you saw beauty instead of effiminacy. The girl, though obviously Rohini, was dressed better than anyone else Chulayen had seen in the group—better than anyone he knew, for that matter; the gold embroidery on her dark red shalin sparkled in the light, and it was belted over matching gathered trousers in a way that emphasized all her womanly curves. The loose end of the shalin was not drawn over her head, modestly, but left to trail down her back, so that he could see her large dark eyes and the line of glittering gold that emphasized the arch of her eyebrows, the perfect oval face and the full lips, all within a frame of curling black hair that glinted red in the fitful light. She did not drop her eyes at his gaze, either, as a modest woman would, but stared back at him with a challenging look that surprised him in so young a girl.

"What happened, then, Chulen?" Madee prompted him gently.

With an effort Chulayen took his eyes from the girl, as surprising a figure in that dim basement as if he had found a statue of Red Radhana all gilded and decked out for war, and told Madee of his visit to Pundarik Zahin. "Then, afterwards, I went to resume my work at the Ministry for Lands and Properties," he said, "but Lunthanadi said I had been put on leave. She had been told that I'd had a nervous breakdown from overwork and that I must on no account return to my office before the Festival of Torches."

"Excellent!" Madee said.

"But—the Festival of Torches is not held until after the first snows. That could be days yet, maybe even weeks—and I thought you wanted me to listen and learn—"

"I did," Madee said, "but Khati here has come to us with information that changes everything. We need you far more, now, as a guide to the Jurgan Caves."

"The Caves! But what—"

Madee gestured for Khati to join them. She came forward at once, without even a pretence of shyness; but Sonchai followed her as closely as any brother wishing to protect a modest young sister.

"I am sorry I could not tell you before, indeed I am," Khati began apologizing to Madee as she came up, "but the Bashir is . . . he wishes me by him at all times, and when he cannot have me by his side I am watched. He is jealous beyond reason. It was not until today I could get away, on the excuse of visiting my mother, and I must be back at her house before the guards who escorted me become suspicious."

"Yes, yes, you explained all that," Madee said absently, but her gaze softened as she looked at the girl. "It is a hard task the gods have set you, Khati, and you are a good brave girl. You should not have had to take the risk of coming to me; from now on one of us will be by your mother at all times, to take any messages you bring or send."

"I was there," Sonchai interrupted, "but she would come with me."

"I needed the comfort of the meeting," Khati said simply. "The Light does not shine brightly in the Bashir's palace."

"The Light is within you as it is within us all, Khati." Madee smoothed the girl's wavy dark hair away from her forehead. "But Sonchai should take you back now, as soon as you have told this young man what you told me before the meeting."

"Envoys from the coast—from Valentin," Khati said, "suspecting that the Bashir has been buying outlander magic to help him conquer all around Udara. And one of them is from the stars, and she is a demon who speaks all languages and knows all things and who can call down fire from the sky, and will do so, if she learns about the brainfarms. So the Bashir has sent his servant Indukanta Jagat to Dharampal, to persuade the young Vakil to imprison the envoys as they pass through his territory—he will ask no more than that, but his real task is to kill them once the Vakil has taken their weapons. But in case they should escape the trap at Dharampal, the Bashir has ordered all the brainfarms in Udara cleansed. The only one remaining will be in the Jurgan Caves, where even if it is discovered he will be able to claim it was Thamboon's doing and unknown to him. Oh, and all the prisoners waiting assignment were sent away last night, to be farmed in Thamboon."

Chulayen blinked in astonishment. The report had been delivered so quickly and concisely, as if an experienced man had taken over the pretty little girl's body! And now that she was finished, she didn't babble on, but stood quietly waiting for Madee's response.

Those were matters he could think about. The rest—the content of Khati's report—was full of mysteries he did not want to unravel. A terrible fear possessed him; he felt a cold sweat all over his body. If he stayed here what would he learn?

Where else could he go, now?

"Thank you, Khati," Madee said. She laid her hand on the girl's head again. "You are a good brave girl and the Light will be with you. She had best return now, Sonchai. You will take care she is not seen until she is safe in your mother's house?"

"With my life," Sonchai promised, showing no trace of his usual petulance.

The two slipped away into the shadows at the back of the meeting room and seemed to vanish like smoke into clouds. Chulayen blinked again. There were more ways than he had realized through this maze of underground rooms.

"You see, Chulen," Madee said now to him, "we need someone who knows the world, who can travel to meet these outlander envoys and warn them before they are taken up by the Vakil's men. And then you must tell them that they will find all the evidence they need at the Jurgan Caves, and guide them there. You understand?"

"No—I understand nothing," Chulayen said. "Know the world? I have traveled no farther than Thamboon—what was Thamboon—and only once."

"You went there on pilgrimage to the Jurgan Caves," Madee said. "Can you find the way again, without asking for help?"

"I think so."

"Very well, then there is no problem with that part. As for intercepting the envoys before they reach Dharamvai, that is simple enough. You have only to go on pilgrimage again. Tell your neighbors, and anyone you meet on the way, that you have decided to make a visit to the holy shrines at the mouth of the Vaisee-jara, to purify yourself of the demons which possessed you yesterday."

"But that is at the coast," Chulayen pointed out.

Madee raised her eyes to the low ceiling. "Give me Light," she said in a decidedly unprayer-like voice. "To reach the coastal shrines from Udara, Chulen, you must first go through the Sukhana Pass, then follow the Dharam-jara down until it meets the Vaisee-jara. Now, how do you think the outlanders will be coming upcountry from Valentin?"

"Oh!"

"You are not known to be connected with our group, you have just suffered a tragic loss, you have been told to go on leave, and you have the funds to make a private pilgrimage if you wish. It's perfect!"

"And—when I meet the outlanders—what then?"

Madee raised her eyes again, briefly, but said nothing. "Why, you will tell them that they must go to the Jurgan Caves, not into Udara. You will tell them that their lives are in danger here and that they will find all the evidence they want in the Caves."

"Evidence of what? And in any case," Chulayen finally found words for one of the problems buzzing in his head like angry bees, "I am sorry about the outlanders, but I must stay here until you help me to free Anusha and my children. Then, yes, I will go anywhere you ask."

Madee looked at him with pity. "Did you not understand what else Khati said? They have been taken already."

"I know they've been taken, the Ministry for Loyalty is holding them. That's why I need your help."

"No, the Arm of the Bashir does not have them anymore," Madee interrupted. "That is the other thing Khati came to tell us. All the prisoners the Arm held—all, Chulen—have been sent to the Jurgan Caves. The convoy left last night, while we were still tending the wounded from the riot."

"Then I'll follow them."

"And do exactly what? Chulen, be sensible. We have people in the mountains as well. If there is a chance to distract the guards on the convoy and free some of the prisoners, they will take it; and they will do better without your interference. They would not trust someone coming from a Ministry, you know."

"You could send Sonchai—or anyone they do know—with me, to tell them to trust me, that my own family is in the convoy," Chulayen argued with a growing sense of helplessness.

"You would be no help there," Madee said. "If they can be freed in that way, so much the better. But you should know that very few escape in the mountains. Your best chance is to find the outlanders and lead them to the Jurgan Caves. When they see what is being done there, they will call down their sky-fires to destroy the Bashir."

"What, because the pretty crystals are being ruined by saltpeter miners?" Chulayen laughed. "I do not think the outlanders consider those caves a holy spot as you Inner Light cultists do."

Madee looked so sad that his laughter died. "Chulen, Chulen. Do you still believe the Bashir meant to use those caves for mining saltpeter? You yourself proved that would make no sense."

"Then what does he use them for?"

"There are molds and slimes growing in the sea caves that the outlanders value for their magics," Madee said. "The outlander Vhana Vekhatan, may his light be extinguished for all time, has found a way to cultivate the same things in our mountain caves."

It took Chulayen a moment to recognize the Kalapriyanized name of Lorum van Vechten, the Barents Resident in Udara.

"They will hardly object to that—he is doing them a favor!"

"They will object to the way he farms the mold," Madee said grimly. "You have not been told about that yet; we feared it would upset you too much for you to serve us."

"Nothing will upset me too much to try and save my family!"

"I hope that is true," Madee said. And she explained the brainfarms to him.

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