House of Reeds

in a whole lifetime. Your clans must have such things, where histories, songs, stories of the old, are graven?'

'Yes.' Gretchen blinked awake, her interest sharpening. An old library? 'Can you read them?'

The old Jehanan shook her narrow head slowly from side to side. A long arm reached out and dug into the leather bag, removing a rectangular metallic plate. 'These are pushta I stole long ago and hid in the terrace. I hoped to learn their secret, to open them up, to see the flowing words gleaming in my hands.' Malakar scooted the plate across the dusty floor towards her. 'They are ruined, as are the ones lost below in darkness.'

Anderssen picked up the plate with careful, gloved fingers and examined each surface in turn. A double cluck of the tongue cycled her goggles through a wide range of frequencies and light sources. Nothing was incised on the outside, but she could see an interface of some kind on one end and a recess where a long, claw-tipped thumb might press a control.

'Did the pushta fail all at once,' she ventured, 'or one at a time, until none were left?'

The old Jehanan hunched her shoulders. 'Such knowledge was lost long before I hatched from a speckled egg. There was once a book, handwritten, on pypil leaves, which described a means of turning the glowing pages, but the leaf of the pypil does not last in dampness.'

'Did this fit into a machine?' Gretchen pulled a compressed air blower from the inside of her jacket and gave the stippled interface a squirt. Malakar's eyes rose at the puff of dust, and then frowned as Anderssen cleaned the rest of the plate with a swab. She looked up, wondering if the wrinkled expression on the creature's face was avarice or longing. I would be gnawing straight through the arm of such a slow creature!

'I was frightened,' the gardener admitted, hanging her head. 'Some things I snatched from shelves and fled. Even when I was barely horned, the air in the deep was poisonous.'

Gretchen set the plate down and unwrapped a comp octopus she'd been carrying in her pocket. 'Some of my kind,' she said, making conversation, 'are digging in the ruins at Fehrupurй. They say there was a planet-wide war six or seven hundred years ago, one which crashed a great civilization…'

'Arthava's fire,' the creature rumbled. 'The credulous say he challenged the will of the gods, scratching at the doors of heaven, making edicts to guide all Jehanan to a right path in the place of the old religions – and they humbled him with quenchless fire and burning rain and deadly smokes which covered the land for an age. Foolish tales told by those who do not have the wit to look beyond their food bowl! No gods were needed to bring ruin upon us…'

'The truth is known? Beyond this place, I mean?'

Malakar hooted sadly. 'Some learned men know. The kujen knows. He sends his servants to dig and pry in the dead cities, searching for trinkets… They have even been here, poking and prying! The Master tells them secrets he should not! Things entrusted to us… Worst, we have forgotten, or lost, the long tale of the clans, that stretching back to the earth which gave us birth, to the first shell cracking in the hot sun. But the Fire is still hot in our minds, sharp and hard.' A bitter trill issued from the back of her throat. 'Each time we look to the sky and see your shining rukhbarat race overhead, parting the clouds, we remember what has been lost.'

Gretchen plucked a set of leads from the octopus and began testing each stippled point on the plate. All of them were dead. No current the octo can recognize. Better let the comp try. She wiggled the octopus's main interface onto the comp, tapped up a broad-spectrum power testing routine and set everything back down.

'There are stories about the Arthavan period? When your people had aerocars and built the fin-towers and great highways? Before the Fire consumed your civilization? Were the pushta working in those times?'

'Perhaps.' Malakar scratched her claws on the floor, making doodles in the dust. The passageway seemed to have grown darker and Gretchen eyed the gipu with concern. The radiant egg was getting dimmer. 'We recall fragments, scraps of shell and hide – there is only one history which can be read – and that is precarious, precious, and perhaps lost forever. But I do not know if that history is from the time of Arthava, or from before, when our race came to this world for the first time.'

Anderssen looked up sharply, one hand outstretched to hold her oxygen tube next to the gipu, which brightened visibly as fresh air hissed across its surface. 'What remains? Another book?'

The gardener twisted, pointing at the sealed door with a foreclaw.

'There,' she said, voice rumbling low, almost beneath the limit of human hearing. 'A cruel jest – and a reminder to the great to tread warily in the world, for even the most glorious monument may be crushed beneath the stepping-claw of time.' Malakar swiveled back, brushing scaly fingers over the plate wrapped by the softly humming octopus. 'Pypil leaves erode, pushta fail, inscriptions wear away in the wind and rain, the memories of Jehanan fade… I can tear the pages of yourMйxica books with ease…but sometimes the simplest things endure.'

'Malakar, what is in the room?' Gretchen shivered. 'Why is the door closed?'

'There are paintings on the walls,' the Jehanan said, sighing out a long hoooooo. 'They show many scenes, but most striking are those of seventeen great ships descending from the sky. Golden Jehanan step forth and they are garbed like kings, like heroes. They fight terrible monsters and ferocious beasts with spears of lightning, laying low all who contest their dominion. Cities of emerald and silver rise from plain and mountain. They feast on the most savory food, they bear many young, they rule the world as gods. Oh, mighty is their aspect!'

Malakar fell silent again, claws scratching on the floor, raising tiny puffs of dust.

'But…' Gretchen wanted to pat the creature's shoulder, but had no idea if such an offering of sympathy would be properly understood. 'There are no dates, no signs to tell when the murals were painted? Or even if they relate a true tale of your people?'

'Hoooo…' The old Jehanan raised her head wearily, seemingly spent. 'We feel the truth in our bones, on our tongues, in the taste of the air, the bitterness of the Nem. Even the freshest hatchling knows without being told…Jagan is not our home. We are strangers here, picking for grubs in the ruins of our ancestors.'

'The Nem fruit is supposed to be sweet?' Anderssen could see the signs of pain and loss in the creature's expression now. 'Is it from your true-home?'

'Yesss…' Malakar's mouth yawned sadly, showing a forest of broken teeth. 'The breath of life, the guardian, yielding a sap which folds back illusion from reality. There are many rituals concerning the Nem, but…there, in the room, there is a little painting of a trilobed fruit in one corner and the characters 'I like Nem, it is sweet to eat.' This old horn believes those words are true.'

'Who painted the murals, Malakar? They weren't priests, were they? Not historians.'

The Jehanan rubbed her long snout. 'The roof is a little low and curved. We sat on the floor, listening to the shower-of-the-way. So many stories she told us, explaining all the bright pictures…'

'It's a school room, isn't it?' Gretchen kept her voice soft. 'Children – hatchlings – painted the murals. But you don't know how long ago, or if they were painting something they'd seen themselves, or only read about in pushta or heard from a long-horn. That's why you wanted to know how old the paint is…'

Malakar hissed in despair, pressing her head against the floor. 'How long have we been lost?' she wailed. 'Where is our home – is earth gone? Did we flee? Are there sweet Nem somewhere, under a bright sun, not so cold as cruel Bharat which glares at us from the sky? Are we alone? All alone?'

Anderssen felt a chill wash over her; the translator in her earbug was running out of synch with the sobbing wail of the creature's words. She waited until the groaning voice fell silent again.

'Malakar, can we open the door? Do you remember how?'

'Huuuuuoooo…' The old Jehanan opened her eyes. 'This door has stood closed for a long count of years… The last good Master bade it sealed. The painted colors were beginning to fade, to crack, like