Carefully, face pointed resolutely downward, Asach opened and blinked one dazzled eye. The ghastly glow painted the little carved figure at Asach’s feet in ghoulish light. Blinking furiously to erase the retinal image, Asach opened the other eye and tried to focus. Made out the odd little noseless face, with its floppy hood and twisted grin, two arms folded across its chest and—and—and... And, Asach realized, as the enormous laser winked out, plunging the figure into darkness, a third arm stretching downward, three fingers extended, in the Motie signal for: “Halt!”
Involuntarily, still staring at the ground, Asach blurted: “Oh. My. God.”
“Yes!” shouted Laurel. “Yes! Who among us could revel in His Gaze and not believe!”
But all Asach could think was: Vacation’s over. Time to get organized.
The vermin crawled over almost every route leading into Beacon Hill, but never used this morning side face, because their cattle could not climb. From a distance, the cliff appeared to be sheer, but even one echo-chirp showed it to be a porous mix of tufa and tuff: easy to grip, and easy to climb.
Side Captain Enheduanna led the assault, with two hand of Warriors in column behind, the slight wind erasing their file of tracks even as they moved on. On crossing the final line of dunes before the base they spread in a horizontal array, so that no fall by one could take down another. The Warriors kicked, then stepped, then kicked, then stepped their sharp-toed, horny feet into the face and passed the time with a marching ditty, chanted down the rank one line per trooper.
Her song sung
With joy of heart
In the plain
With joy of heart
She sings and she
Soaks her mace
In blood and gore
And smashes heads
And butchers prey
With eater-ax
And bloodied spear
All day
They barked the final words in unison, then began again, on and on. Of course, the chant did not merely pass the time. It enabled each to know, at any moment, exactly where the others were.
It was not usual for a Master to accompany so small a Warrior detail into the field, but Lord Sargon had been quite explicit: “We would know the Enemy. Bring one to us. Unharmed.”
Enheduanna shook off a wave of disgust. The notion of vermin owning cattle was anathema. Vermin they were: they slept in the field with their cattle; they drank the fluids of their cattle; they clad themselves in the hair of their cattle; they burned the dung of their cattle, they trekked without regard to the ar of their neighbors, even as they laid waste to their own fields. Like vermin; like scavengers, that swarmed on the outskirts of Houses, fashioning bowers of baubles stolen from trash-piles, consuming the garbage carefully layered for compost by the Farmers, and stripping the ground around them to bare dirt. In such a case, absent their Master’s Voice, Warriors could hardly be expected to show restraint. They were what they were.
They cleared the softer rock, and now took greater care as they made their way up weathered laterite. A pair of Warriors flanked their Captain, each alternately driving home a chrshnar, the eater-ax, the razor-sharp and tungsten-tough Warrior’s fighting claw, to serve as living pitons for the clawless Master.
They paused on a step, where the baked surface peeled away from a crumbling granite core. This would be the tricky part: from there, they would move laterally, to a large cave mouth called Esker’s Tongue, named for the line of sand and gravel that poured from it to the plain below. There were almost no holds for the last post’s span: the Warriors would have to leapfrog where needed as a living chain for the Master. So, to prepare, they rested for a very short while.
The night was dark, but the cave was black. It would be better to have a Miner. Enheduanna did not bother to think too late now. It was what it was. The Warrior’s vision would get them most of the way. The rest, Enheduanna knew by heart.
Just shy of the exits, as a greenish glow made visible the porous walls around them, the hand leaders barked once. Enheduanna’s nictitating membranes snapped shut, as did all the others’, shielding their eyes from the dazzling glare as they sprinted out.
It was not Enheduanna’s job to get them to their prey. The hand leaders knew their mission. They hurtled up the rim, jerking to a halt just as the green beacon light winked out. They crouched among the rocks, two Warriors covering Enheduanna’s white fur with their black. The opal meerschaum glow etched the bowl with stark shadows. They listened. The vermin had begun their hideous noises again. They waited, counting silently: digit…thumb…palm…hand… Then, just before they’d counted to five side, with their third eyelids again clamped tight shut, they burst upwards over the lip, their black shapes haloed, like demons shot from within the beacon.
The leaders snarled, and Enheduanna heard a clack as both posts spread their chrshnar in unison. “Hold!” barked Enheduanna, and strode forward between them, white fur glowing in the backlight as the beacon winked out again.
They opened their eyes for clearer vision, fully prepared to lunge, but a bizarre sight greeted them. They had expected—something. Stunners. Piercers. Shock-bolts. Poisons. Gas. Something from the centuries of recorded armed resistance. But these vermin merely—faced them. Some standing, some on their knees, but facing them, arms wide, palms forward, reaching overhead, bodies swaying side to side—some even swooning in their tracks, without a hand laid on them. Then one separated from the group, stepping forward slowly.
“Hold” snarled Enheduanna again, as the figure sank to its knees, clasping its hands in some incomprehensible gesture.
It Spoke; its voice reverberating for all to hear. “Behold! The Revelation of His Angels! It is the Prophesy! They are here!”
Enheduanna looked down at the jabbering thing. It had the strangest eyes. They were brilliant aquamarine, like manna in the early morning sun. How odd, thought Enheduanna, that this—thing—should bear the color of ar. Enheduanna gestured to the Warriors. “Take this one.”
The vermin parted, making no move, as the remaining Warriors guarded their retreat. All save one. It made no threat, but it dogged their steps. Its face was white as a Master’s in the opal glare; odd folds of skin draped and furled around it. One Warrior made to cut it down, but Enheduanna waved it off. “It’s only the vermin’s cattle. Let it come.”
They trudged down the slope, finding the path in time to shield their eyes as the beacon flared again. They listened to the vermin on the rim screech and wail their animal gibberish.
“It is the prophesy! It is the Revelation! Seer Laurel is born away by Angels!”
Oh crap, thought Asach, hood pulled down against the blinding green, so that only the faintest view of the treacherous way was visible, here we go.
11
Communications Update
What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence….Everyday language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it….Language disguises thought. So much so, that from the outward form of the clothing it is impossible to infer the form of the thought beneath it.