Shadows and Smoke Read online

  Last came Ula, eldest of the unmarried girls. She was three years older than Monna and Lara, almost a double two-hand count of years. Tall, blond, and curvy, she waited a dozen heartbeats until the young men began to call for her. Ula, Ula, Ula, Ula, they chanted, and she sprang out of the dark, eyes up and flashing the firelight.

  She danced, grinding her way around the firelight, pausing in her circuit in front of the Guides. The young men chanted for her as she raised her arms and posed seductively for them. She rippled her belly and shook her hips in wide circles for them, pouting and parting her lips. She tried to catch their eyes, and strutted forward, holding her hands out. She tried pulling a Guide to her, to join her dance, but he waved her off with a laugh. She tried the woman next to Tarl, she too politely declined.

  She caught Tarl’s eye briefly, and she cocked her head at him. She smiled gently and then whirled away. She had always been kind to him, even when she had caught him watching her dance for the young men around their fire late at night. She had laughed, when they had chased him and Harl away. She would be married to a man in another band; they were due to meet in the spring. Her days of dancing for the young men of the tribe were ending. He did not want to leave her.

  The strange boy had laughed and called something to the other Guides, in their strange melodious speech, and they had chuckled and shook their heads. He had clapped his bony hands together and whistled at Ula, flicking his tongue at her and leering. Tarl looked away. He did not want to leave.

  And yet, the next morning, in the dawn, while the tribe slept, the Guides rose and shook him awake. He left with them. They marched all that day and all the next, then met another band and took another boy. And again, three days later, two boys. They met up with another band, this one with six boys. A day later they had come here, to the river chewing its way through the land of hills mined with strange caverns where men had, long ago, built cities and lived.

  They marched north, coming to a lakeshore ringed with a tall green forest. On the bank were two Guides with a silver boat. They boarded, and the boat glided with a thrum across the lake. Tarl looked down into the water and could see a ghostly road beneath them, dark against the pale bottom. They glided over the lake, faster than he could run, long into the afternoon.

  He smiled at the woman, Nella, who he had met his first night. She looked pensive, but smiled when she saw him. “Soon, we will be at the Center.”

  “What is it like?” he asked. They had all asked, after they had gotten familiar enough with their Guides. They had been told to wait, that they would see soon enough.

  She just smiled. “Soon,” was all she would say.

  In the evening they saw lights ahead, across the water. Their boat sped unerringly towards them. They had reached the Center.

  Chapter Three

  The Center, Talus

  The Training Grounds, 3 Years Later

  Shona’s hand whipped out like a snake and slapped him hard on the cheek. Tarl spun away, as she had taught him. Lashing out with his foot at her knee. But her knee wasn’t there. She had anticipated his clumsy kick, and stepped lithely out of his reach.

  She laughed. “Come on,” she breathed. “You can do better. Going to let me slap you again?” She flicked her fingers at him, like spraying him with water. The rest of the class, arranged in a circle around them, hooted at them. They were outside, in the dirt sparring circle behind the obstacle courses. Clouds hovered on the horizon, promising rain later in the afternoon.

  Tarl squared up and tried to take the stance she had shown him. Shona was tall, twice his age, dark, and quick as lightning. They called her Fast Shona, as there was an older Shona who taught in the Library, and they called her Wise Shona, or, if they were where they thought nobody could hear, Slow Shona.

  Shona checked his stance and, feeling it needed no correction, lunged forward. It was a feint, he realized too late, having fallen for it and attempted a late block of her right hand with his left, but she spun inside his guard, and hooking her left arm under his right armpit she continued her spin, carrying him with her to the grass. She was atop him, somehow, astride his chest with her forearm across his windpipe.

  She grinned at him. “Not bad,” she said. Her teeth were very white. She pulled him to his feet and shoved him back into the circle.

  Jin was there, next to him. His friend clapped him on the back. “She’s quick,” Tarl said, stretching his shoulder where she had grappled him.

  “What was Cousin Tarl’s mistake?” Shona was asking the group. She stood, feet wide, in the center of their circle. “Come on,” she chided them, “you must have seen it.” She waited, and then one of the older boys raised a hand.

  “Alek,” she acknowledged him. “What was it?”

  “He took the bait and leaned into the block too far,” Alek said carefully, miming what he meant. Alek was a big boy, almost a man now. He nodded at Tarl. “It was the right response to the attack, I think.”

  Shona nodded. “To the attack, yes, if that was the real attack.” She nodded. “And yes, he leaned a bit too far into it.” She frowned at them. “But that wasn’t his mistake.” She scanned the faces of the class, turning almost in a full circle, before stopping so that she faced Tarl.

  “His mistake,” she said, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “was timidity. He was not too slow or wrong in his response. If I had gone for his head again, that was the right block. And he leaned too far into it, so that I could get inside his guard. But the root of this was that he was too timid. Timid Tarl.” She gazed at him cooly, leveling her eyes. The class tittered.

  Tarl felt his face grow hot. Nicknames stuck, he knew. Toothless Tarl. Stupid Tarl. Small Tarl. He had had others. Now this. He looked down. This one would be with him in the barracks, he knew. His face was burning.

  “His mistake is your mistake,” Shona said, turning away from him. “You are all of you too timid by half. When you go out to some strange place, you will meet people who aren’t trying to slap you, or pin you. Or give you demerits.”

  She whirled back to him. “Those people will try to kill you!” she shouted in his face. “DO NOT BE TIMID!” She was in his face now, her even white teeth flashing. “You need to be fast and commit to the fight.” She lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “This is not a game, so learn it now, or you can go back to the tribes.”

  Tarl’s nostrils flared. “Let me try again,” he said. He wanted to hit her, he was shaking.

  “Timid Tarl wants to try again.” Shona laughed, turning away from him to address the class. Their laughter swelled.

  Tarl’s vision went red, and he rushed forward, not waiting. He leapt onto Shona’s back, pulling at her braids and clawing at her face with his nails. Someone was screaming, a keening wail of anger and shame. He realized it was him. She staggered as his weight fell on her back. Then he felt her arms pin his legs to her side and she twisted, carrying their joint momentum together as she hopped just slightly, and he felt himself falling.

  He landed hard on his back, his breath shooting out of his lungs in a tremendous whoosh. Then she was up, spinning to her feet faster than seemed possible, coming to an easy boxer’s stance, facing him.

  Her hand flicked up to her cheek, where he had clawed her, drawing blood. She glanced down at her thumb, noting the blood. He tried to get up, coming to one elbow and raising his other hand to fend her off. It was futile. Her right foot snapped out and knocked his arm aside. She spun like a top and her left foot caught him on the jaw, laying him out on the grass.

  “Less Timid Tarl,” she said. “Commit to the fight. We’ll talk about anger and how to manage it another time.”

  Later that evening in their bunk room, his roommates Jin and Mak tried to laugh about it. “Didn’t look that timid to me when you jumped on her,” Jin said, peering at the cut on his chin.

  His face was sore where she had struck him, and his jaw was still numb from the salve the medics had smeared on it. “Don’t talk too much,”
they had told him. “It’s not broken. Will be sore a few days.” He rubbed a hand along his jaw. Her kick had been precise, on-target, and perfectly calculated. He shook his head.

  “She was right,” he said slowly. “No good at this.”

  “Nobody is good against Fast Shona,” Mak said from his upper bunk. “Remember how she savaged that northern girl?”

  Tarl remembered. Sara had been a meek blonde thing, quick with numbers, but slight and small. She’d had big blue eyes, Tarl recalled. Shona had singled her out early in their practice, chiding her on the obstacle course, making her run them twice and sometimes three times, if she was too slow. In combat drills she had been swift and dismissive of Sara, once claiming she could take her with just her left foot. She had, too, Tarl remembered. Shona was dangerous.

  Sara had left their group after that. Back to the tribes, they said, but what did that mean? Go back to their families? Tarl had never heard of such a thing when he had lived with them, but he had been a child. Sent to a different group? Or sent to a different place?

  “Still she is right,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “I am too slow, too small, and I don’t want to fight her.” I like her, he didn’t say. Shona was years older than him, but he often thought of her. She was sleek, her dark skin almost pure black, and she had an air of mystery about her. At night he would think about her. What did she do when she wasn’t teaching?

  He would lie awake and torture himself, thinking about her, building himself fantasies of air. Of himself, years later, taller and stronger, returning from missions abroad to meet her on the training ground. To spar with her, drawing out her hearty laughter and approval. Chance encounters in the mess or in the dim shade of the groves of fruit trees where the olders would often meet. Or the adult baths, off-limits to his age group, but not to the older Tarl, the strong Tarl.

  He sighed, shaking his head. Mak laughed, and Jin looked like he was about to say something, when the gong near the door of their barracks sounded. It was a silver bar kept on a shelf next to the door, with a small wooden mallet hung next to it on a nail. Struck, it had a loud, clear tone. It was a signal meant to gather in the common area and hide anything that might draw the attentions of their teachers.

  Mak swore and climbed down. Tarl got up. He was still a bit woozy from the session with Shona, and hoped it wasn’t another drill, or an unannounced hike or endurance run. He followed Jin and Mak out of their room and into the wide common room.

  His blood froze when he saw who awaited him. Shona and an old woman he had never seen up close before, only at a distance and during large assemblies. Grandmother, they called her. He had never heard another name. He tried to stay behind Mak and blend into the background. The other trainees trickled in.

  The old woman they called Grandmother nodded to Shona. “Tarl,” she called with a loud, clear voice. Nothing else.

  Tarl froze. This was a nightmare. Fear washed over him like a cold wave. He felt the assembled gaze of his barracks on him and tried not to look at the ground. Frozen, he stood still. He wanted to be a pebble, to escape through the floorboards. His jaw clamped despite the pain. He would not cry—he would not.

  Mak patted him on the shoulder as he stepped forward. He knew they would want him to go with them. Tarl raised his head, meeting Shona’s eyes. There was no anger there, no disappointment. She nodded. Just a slight inclination of her head.

  “Come,” Grandmother said. She wore a gray robe with a cowl that bunched over her slim, stooped shoulders. The robe trailed the ground, so that she seemed to float rather than walk. Despite her age, she moved steadily and without faltering. She did not look back, expecting him to follow her.

  He hesitated. Shona motioned for him to follow, but he still wavered. “Wait,” he called after her. “Will I come back?” She paused, not looking back at him. He continued. “I have friends here, and I would say farewell if I am not to return.” He swallowed. Shona’s dark eyes were wide with surprise.

  “Perhaps,” Grandmother said, loudly enough for him to hear. “It will be up to you.” She proceeded to the doorway and glanced at Shona. “Time passes,” the old woman said to her.

  Shona hastened to him and closed her hand on his arm. “Let’s go,” she whispered to him. “Don’t make her angry.”

  He went, glancing back at Mak and Jin. He raised his free hand to them. Jin waved back, and Mak just nodded. They looked afraid. Nothing like this had happened before, that he had ever heard of. The elders did not make unannounced appearances in the Trainee barracks. It was unique and frightening. He could see it in their faces as he left.

  Outside, the night air, humid and warm, settled over him. The Center was on the central coast of the southern peninsula. The warm tropical air from the southern oceans kept it balmy most of the year, with winter bringing rain. Occasionally, there would be windstorms, but these were rare. Tonight a breeze was blowing, bringing the scent of the swamplands to the south, rich and earthy. They followed the old woman as she led them away from the training grounds into the Center proper.

  The Center was large, a sprawling complex of low white stone buildings. Some had large domes or long, arch-vaulted roofs that snaked and curved. Open areas mostly separated the buildings, carpeted with thick green grass and well-tended shrubbery. Tarl had, with the other boys in his group, helped tend to those plantings, bringing and retrieving the crab-like clippers to where they were needed.

  Snoppers, Jin had named them. They trimmed and cut and also ate the clippings. They glowed pale green when their bellies were full and they needed returning to the Keepers’ compound. This was an area to the west full of sheds and pens for clippers of all sizes. Tarl had seen one as big as a small cart once. It had clicked and clacked and buzzed at him, staring with its beady eye clusters. One Keeper had clucked at it, and it had turned away and stalked into its pen.

  Tonight he could see none of the telltale green glows in the bushes, as they followed the pale gray figure of Grandmother deeper into the Center, into an area behind the great dome of the Library, where a wide lawn fronted a curved semicircle of low, blocky buildings, each topped with a small white dome. Grandmother turned onto a path that crossed the wide lawn, and led them between two of these buildings, around a corner, and then another short curving walkway, up to a door of pale wood. She knocked.

  The door opened. A man stood there, in the same pale gray robe as Grandmother. He nodded at her, as she pushed past him through the doorway. He looked at Shona. “I will take him,” he said, and gestured to Tarl.

  Tarl looked up at her. She had not released his arm during their walk, perhaps fearing that he might run. “I won’t run,” he said to her. “It’s all right.”

  Shona relaxed her grip on his arm. She smiled at him, he could see her big white teeth in the dim light of the doorway. “It will be all right,” she said. “Remember, Less-Timid Tarl.” She patted his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

  He nodded at her and, swallowing, entered the room. Inside was a small sunken chamber under the dome that made up the roof. A bench circled the room. There was a wooden stool in the center. The man gestured at it. A few other adults, six or maybe seven, all unfamiliar to Tarl, sat on the bench. Grandmother took a seat apart from the others.

  Tarl sat on the stool, facing Grandmother. “Begin,” she said to the man, arranging her cowl. Tarl saw that her eyes were white and clouded. Was that age? Was that what happened to you when you got old? He suppressed a shudder.

  “You are Tarl,” the man to his right said. It was not a question. “A Trainee from the western tribes.”

  Tarl nodded at him. “Speak, boy,” a woman said to his left. “Answer the question.” Tarl looked at her. She was bald, with long, pierced earlobes that held pale pendants. He stared.

  “There was no question, Eldest,” he said, as politely as he could. A few of the assembled adults chuckled softly.

  “He is right, Neera,” Grandmother said. “We posed no question.” To Tarl, she said. �
�Please confirm this for the record.”

  “Record?” he asked. Her face froze into a mask, and he complied. “But yes, Elders,” he said, “I am Tarl, and my people are from the west, I think. We traveled many days eastward to get here.”

  “Thank you, Tarl.” The man spoke again. “I am Arwal, the Archivist. I am the one in charge of our records of the past, what we know and keep and can later study.”

  Tarl nodded when the man stopped speaking. He took a deep breath. “I am sorry for what I did to Shona,” he said. “During training today, I mean. I did not mean to attack her.”

  The man waved this away as the assemblage laughed. “Do not worry,” Arwal said, looking to Grandmother. “You had a fight with your fighting teacher? The one who is…teaching you to fight?”

  Tarl nodded, face burning. His skin felt tight and hot. He was sure it was red.

  “This is her task, to teach you such things,” Arwal said. “And to mete out punishments as needed for small transgressions.” He touched his own jaw. “It looks as if she has done that.” He smiled. “This is normal among the Trainees we select.”

  “You were marked,” Grandmother said. “By the one who gathered you.” She peered at him. “You know of whom I speak? The one who brought you here.”

  Tarl nodded. “The Boy?”

  “Yes,” Grandmother said. “Though this is not his name. Nor is he a Boy, as you call him. An affectation only. He is one of us, though not one of this assembly. He has his own alignments.” She waved the subject away. “He brought you to our attentions. This is our task, you see.”

  “Your task?” Tarl repeated. He felt stupid and slow among these people.

  The woman Grandmother had called Neera spoke again. “Our task is to weigh and measure the Trainees, in all ways.”

  Tarl considered this. “I am small,” he said. “And I fear I will not be tall. Am I to go back to the tribes?”