House of Reeds

gently – as gently as she'd ever lifted up one of her children – she ran her hand just over the surface of the – ceramic? Glass? Steel? Care urged her not to touch the unblemished surface, while hard-earned caution held her breath and kept her balance canted away from the object.

As her hand moved, the smooth surface seemed to ripple, just as water would move under a breeze, and then settled back into its accustomed shape. At the same time, a very faint tone belled out from the curve, filling the whole alcove with a wonderfully soft sound. '…That is beautiful.'

A raspy, whispery voice grumbled behind her: 'You stand before the moving waters.'

Gretchen became still, wondering for a split second if the sound had been her own voice, or something she was thinking, and then turned around.

A Jehanan was squatting against the plastered wall opposite the curving surface. Most of the body was in shadow, though feet and hands were caught in a shaft of sunlight. Its scales were finely grooved and pale around the edges. Like most of the natives, it wore only a leather harness holding enameled signs of rank, and a long staff of dark wood lay against one shoulder. The creature's hands were broad, with long, strong-looking fingers. Gretchen's eyes flitted across a muscular, triply-ridged upper chest, splay-toed feet stained with dirt, and settled on tiny chips of stone and soil ground in and around the claws of both hands.

'Hello,' she ventured, wondering if she'd trespassed onto someone's shrine. Guiltily, Anderssen stepped out of the alcove and into the lumpy floor of the lane. 'Your pardon, I did not mean to intrude on your…meditations.'

The Jehanan's head turned, regarding her. The eye-shields were plain and unadorned, shrouding deep cavities where two dark, glittering eyes caught a little of the bluish reflection from the curving wall.

'Your race is called Mйxica,' the creature said in a deep, slow voice. 'I have studied your old tales from time to time. Only once or twice have I seen your kind, but they did not strike me as being a quiet people. You – are you a male or a female? No matter – came quite unnoticed until you stood between me and the waters.'

'I…am a human – that is the name of our race as a whole – but I am not of the Mйxica, who are a tribe, or clan, who rule us.'

'This is clearer.' The Jehanan rose and in the laborious act of motion, Gretchen realized the native was very old and female. Anderssen also felt a twinge of alarm – the native's command of NГЎhuatl was quite good for someone who had only met one or two humans before – and wondered what exactly the chances of her encountering such a being were. 'You did not disturb until you spoke. Of truth, I was…' A sibilant hooooo interrupted. '…resting old eyes. Without interruption, I would remain until the still waters came, and then -' More trilling. '- the sun would be resting too.'

'Do you…' Gretchen paused, her eyes drawn back to the elegant gleaming curve. 'This is not a Jehanan artifact, is it? This is something from the time before your people, from the -'

The old native made a deep-throated sound, a booming hiss, and clashed her claws together to make a rattling, chiming noise. Alarmed, Anderssen jumped back, eyes darting for an exit. The creature seemed surprised by her reaction and shrank back. Clawed hands seized the staff tightly. Then the Jehanan relaxed, and there was more trilling.

'Pardon, pardon, pardon…' The long, angular head shook from side to side, eyes downcast. 'I speak the name of those before – as they have made the sound – no alarm was meant, no bellow of challenge.' The head rose. 'Human voices small, ours large. You speak of the Ha-ra-phans, if there is no mistake.'

'Yes, this section of wall, is this all which remains – like the bridge across the Yellow Phison, the Arch of Dawn?'

The lean old head, jagged with blunt horns, made a very passable human-style nod. 'No more than shell- fragment, caught up in brick and plaster, stone and wood. Left behind in the fury of a new world. Long time this was buried. Entombed. Held-in-shell.'

The Jehanan settled onto her haunches again and reached out with the staff to trace the edges of the curving surface. 'Beyond this is house of sitting and eating and drinking. Many times, as a soft-scale, I sat there. Sometimes – if my busy, chattering mind were still – I felt warmth in this wall, pleasant, comfortable. But nothing catches the wiggling attention of a short-horn. Only last year did plaster give way and show what lay within.'

Gretchen sat as well, intrigued. 'Had you seen a Haraphan artifact before? Are they rare in this district, or common? Is there more of this one – perhaps hidden below the ground, or inside these other walls?'

'Hooo…' The Jehanan let out a long, trembling note through its nostrils. 'Such a sharp bite asuchau thoughts have, fixing on the tasty prey, winnowing away skin, cracking bones… Is anything left when you are full? Scraps of ligament? Splinters? A single lonely scale on bone-dry plate?'

Anderssen flushed, embarrassed. Remember to respect the native religious observances, but don't think they haven't eyes to see what we really want. The Honorable Doctor Kelly told her that in first year. Then she heard a half-hidden, swallowed trill and realized the creature was laughing at her. 'Is there more than this section?'

'No.' The Jehanan paused, and then shook her head in what seemed to be conscious imitation of the human mannerism. 'I sit here. The light moves with air, clouds and sun. My people…' She paused, settling in upon itself. 'Were spade to strike soil, mattock the wall, chisels and hammers the plaster, what might break under clumsy claws? Would they care? No, they would trample on without thought.'

Gretchen rubbed her chin with the back of her hand, thinking. 'Don't people come along this way – see the wall? Wonder what it means?'

'Do they see what you see, asuchau with sharp thoughts?' The Jehanan cocked her head to one side. 'See what I see, when my gaze rests on shimmering waters? They do not care. Our people are tired after so long, after so many struggles, so many defeats. They wish to feed, to sleep, to mate. No more. Rarely do they look aside from their path, much less to the heavens.'

'You sound…' Anderssen paused, trying to remember the first time she'd heard that particular lament – from my grandfather, of course! – and then laughed, realizing she'd muttered the same thing, more than once. '…like anyone watching the young, of any species, of any time.'

'Perhaps.' Gretchen wasn't sure, but there seemed to be a peevish, grumpy tone in the creature's response. 'Truth, despite.'

When the Jehanan fell silent, Anderssen said: 'May I ask you a question?'

The long head lifted, which she took for assent. This thing could probably just bite my arm right off with those teeth… Why not stick my head right in?

'What is your name? What do you do? For a living, I mean.'

'Ssss…You dig in the marrow! Rude creature! Hooooo…Will you trade?'

Gretchen nodded, though a little voice warned her to tread carefully in matters of names, even with a stranger she'd never see again. 'I will.'

The Jehanan made a chirping, warbling sound, then shook her head. 'No…your tongue is doughy and soft, sadly congealed. I am…perhaps 'Malakar' is close. Yes, memory agrees. A gardener. I once turned the soil, weeded away the pernicious, tried to see if young shoots would grow strong in the sun.'

Anderssen bowed politely, as her grandmother had taken pains to teach her, and replied. 'I cannot choose a Jehanan name which will suffice, but in my tongue, I am Gretchen. As you suspect, I am a digger-into-buried- things-which-ought-to-be-left-alone. But I try to be careful and sure of hand, and not break anything.'

The Jehanan trilled in laughter, bobbing her long head. 'How often have you made good that promise? Once? Twice? Ever?'

Gretchen felt a flash of irritation at the mocking tone, but couldn't convince herself the assertion wasn't true. 'Things always seem to break.'

'Then keep claws -'

A sound interrupted the old Jehanan – cascading out of the sky, echoing in the archways and rebounding from the tall white buildings – a hollow, extenuated hhhhooooooooo…Malakar's long head rose, nostril flaps widening and, hissing like a leaky tea kettle, she rose again, leaning heavily on the staff.

'What is that?' Gretchen turned from side to side, fruitlessly trying to gauge direction.

'Time passes,' the Jehanan rasped, pointing overhead with her staff. 'See the sun?'

Anderssen covered her eyes against the ruby-tinted blaze of light shining down into the alcove. The Bharat