“Leelson,” she spoke sharply. “Leave it. We can’t afford this delay.”
Almost reluctantly, he left the tumbled bodies and trudged back to the wagon. I went inside it so I could not see those bodies when we passed. I was trembling so hard I thought my bones would snap. They couldn’t die. Kachis could not die. They never died. No one had ever seen one die, or seen a dead one. That was a fact! Part of the evidence we were taught as children, part of the supporting evidence for the choice.
The wagon moved again, and I heard Lutha muttering to the two men. She wouldn’t break the promise she made to me, not to tell them about … the spirits of our people. I knew she’d keep her promise, but she would have to tell them something. I didn’t care. Just let them leave me alone. I couldn’t bear to be questioned.
Later, when she and I were alone, she whispered to me, “Did you …recognize either one of those Kachis, Saluez?”
I did not. I had not looked. I didn’t want to know if they were dear departed of mine.
During the following hour, I had time to calm myself, time to tell myself it had been something aberrant that had happened there, something utterly beyond belief. Perhaps even Kachis can sin. Perhaps even Kachis can disbelieve and be punished for it. This occurrence might be perfectly understandable.
So I thought until Leelson pointed out another dead one. After that, they were scattered all along the way, like fallen rocks. When we emerged from the canyon a little later than midafternoon, he had counted several score of them dead.
“I’m doing it,” I said frantically to Lutha. “It must be me. My apostasy. My evil. My sin.”
She shook me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Saluez. Are you the only so-called apostate? How many are there? How many women in your sisterhood? Plenty, I’ll wager. Back in Cochim-Mahn I did a count. I’d say between a third and a half of your women are veiled. You have an exaggerated opinion of your own importance if you think you can cause something like this!”
I had never counted them. But … the chamber of the sisterhood was large. Extremely large. And it was full, too, even on those nights when we had no guests from other places. Lutha was right. When I thought of it calmly, I knew she was right. But knowing and believing … oh, they are such separate things. “What’s causing it, then?” I cried. “You tell me what’s causing it!”
“If I had to guess, I’d guess some virus brought in by one of your leaseholders,” she said. “There are new viruses turning up all the time.”
“But why here! Where we are!”
She shrugged. “Saluez, maybe I’m carrying it. Or Leelson. Or even Trompe. By the Great Gauphin, girl, it could be anyone. We handle the panels, the Kachis chew on the panels and pick up what we’ve left there. Just be thankful we were away from Cochim-Mahn when it happened. I have a feeling if this had happened while we were under the eyes of songfather, he’d have assumed we caused it and we’d all be dead by now, including you because you’d associated with us. And Chahdzi, probably.”
I shuddered. Poor Chahdzi father. “You really don’t think I did it.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t think it’s you. I don’t think it has anything to do with you. I’ll go further. I don’t think you sinned at all. I don’t think your face is the result of apostasy or heresy or whatever you choose to call it. In fact, I don’t think you’re guilty of anything, Saluez.”
“Please don’t,” I said feebly. “You … you disturb me when you talk like that. You take all my … all my foundations away.”
It was true that when she spoke so, something quaked inside me, as though my heart had torn loose. I couldn’t bear it.
She shook her head angrily, flushing and pinch-lipped. “Sorry,” she said. “I have no right. Ignore me, Saluez.”
But how could I? As we drove across the open space between Dark Canyon and the Canyon of Burning Springs, I could not get it out of my head. Was it better to be guilty of sin while knowing there was a power that had punished you? Or was it better to be innocent and feel there was no power? Was it better to be lost in a horrid storm at sea, knowing there was land, or be sailing peacefully with no certainty of land anywhere?
For myself, I decided I would rather be guilty. I could deal with that. One had only to outlive it. Submit to it. Atone for it. Surely if I helped these people save humanity and Dinadh along with it, that would atone for something!
So I set my teeth together and resolved to listen no more to Lutha the temptress. Not that she was a bad woman; she wasn’t; but some people are not good for other people, and I thought then that Lutha was not good for me.
At the port city of Simidi-ala, the arrival or departure of outside travelers is an infrequent occurrence. Days go by with only the wind blowing in from across the shallow sea, tangy with the scent of rushes that grow along the shores and of the fragrant weed that floats on the waves. The people of Simidi-ala are Dinadh’s only sailors or fishermen, and the bright sails of their shallow little boats scud to and fro across the placid waters, a pattern of bright dots, continually changing. I have seen them. I was there once, long ago, as a child, with Grandpa.
The boats were the first thing the ex-King of Kamir saw as he stood with Poracious Luv at the latticed gate of the shiplift while it slowly lowered them to the beach. The former King of Kamir said something convoluted and quintessentially Kamirian
