Child of Grass: Sea of Grass, Book Two Read online

  I nodded.

  “Even if worst came to absolute worst and someone we didn’t want to did start climbing the boulder to hack at it with a pickaxe, we could give him a couple of very unpleasant surprises.”

  “Like what?”

  “Mmm.” He pointed. “See those transmitters on top of the buses? He could shoot some very uncomfortable vibrations right through the rock. His teeth would hurt, his bones would get all tingly, and if we’ve tuned the sound waves right, he’ll probably crap his pants. He’ll think the boulder is maizlish and run like hell.”

  “What if that doesn’t work?”

  “If it ever came down to a flat-out confrontation, we have self-destruct charges wired throughout the shell. A single high-intensity burst of electricity and the whole thing vaporizes. We’ve armored the buses and we have some heavy-duty weaponry behind the armor. You won’t find anything on Linnea that could stand up to this machinery.”

  Seeing the horrified look on my face, he added, “We’ll never need it though. We shouldn’t have even had to build it this way. We didn’t design it with gun mounts, you know. But when families started disappearing, the Agency told us to install them. Now that we know why the families disappeared, the guns may prove a good idea.” His phone buzzed. He looked at its screen and said, “Your da wants you. And Smiller wants me. I’ll see you onsite, Kaer.” He clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a gentle shove back toward the village.

  The Ten Commandments

  We flew for two hours, zigging and zagging north and east. The sun fell below the western edge of the sea of grass. Orange twilight slid across the world, deepening to maroon without ever touching any shade of blue. Finally the last glows of day vanished behind us and the stars came out above us. The pilot turned the cabin lights down—not because anyone wanted to sleep, but to minimize the chances of someone on the ground seeing a moving light in the sky.

  After an hour of darkness, we veered suddenly, hovered, and then dropped like a rock. We were on the ground for maybe thirty seconds. The door popped open, Jorge climbed in—swearing in Linnean—followed by two other Scouts I didn’t know, and we were in the air again even before the door popped shut.

  Out my window, as the ground dropped away, I could see two other Scouts leading a great-horse into one of the heavy-lifters. Only the light from inside the chopper illuminated them and it made for an eerie scene in the tall razor-grass.

  Jorge looked tired. So did the other two. All three hung their packs and their robes on equipment hooks; the Scouts fell into seats, clearly exhausted. Jorge came stumbling toward the back, shouting—“Get us some food, anything! Something to eat! And drink! Mother of the World, we’ve had a week!” He stank of horse and sweat and boffili skins. He probably hadn’t bathed in a week. Somebody shoved a canteen into his hand and he gulped at it thirstily, until it was dry.

  As he handed it back, he noticed me. “Kaer!” He clapped my shoulder heartily. “Good of you to come. We might not need you, I don’t know yet, I fear we will—but never mind that now. It makes me smile to see a friendly face from home, right now.” He wasn’t smiling as he said it—he never smiled, his face wasn’t built for it—but it was the friendliest thing he’d ever said to me. And it wasn’t really all that friendly. What he meant was “I’m glad you’re here” or “it’s good to see you,” but those politenesses didn’t translate into Linnean because you can’t say “I am” or “it is” in Linnean. So you have to say something like, “It makes me smile,” which might be the way to say it, but it isn’t really very accurate if you’re not smiling. And Earring never smiled. But at least he didn’t look scary.

  “I want to talk to you later,” he said. “We’ve made some decisions about what you will say. If you have to say it. We don’t have final clearance yet. But we will.” He reached across to da and shook his hand. “Good to see you again, Lorrin. Thank you for bringing Kaer.” To both of us he said, “The Linneans have done a very bad thing. They’ve hurt our Scouts, we still don’t know how badly. No, don’t hate them. They did it out of fear, because they didn’t know better—but the Hale-Stones did. They knew exactly what would happen when they betrayed Corda and Sykes and Jaxin and Val. And they did it anyway. The Hale-Stones you can hate.” He looked at me directly, his dark eyes were so intense they were scary. “I still have to talk to Smil about the details, but I want you to know what has happened, so you can keep yourself ready. Understand? Good?” He patted my shoulder and went forward again, shouting for food already and a communication console.

  “An impatient man,” said da, quietly. “But a very good one.”

  I didn’t say anything in response. It was one of those silences so eloquent that da turned to me and said, “Go on. . . .”

  “Too many people are talking ferociously, da. I know what that means. Someone will get hurt. A lot of someones, maybe. The Hale-Stones, the Linneans, maybe some of us—”

  “I share your fears, Kaer. All of us do.”

  “Da, have you heard the way everyone talks about this? They pat their guns and they polish their armor and then their faces get all screwed up when they think about how the Linneans have hurt Jaxin and the others. They want revenge. I thought that the Mother of the world didn’t like revenge. I thought that revenge only came from maizlish things. So when I see our people talking that way, it makes me worry even more. When you explained it to me, what I would do, I thought—yes, that will keep people from fighting. An angel appears in the sky over the prison and says, ‘Let my people go.’ Music and lights, smoke and lasers. It would have done the job. But even before we got through the Gate, Smiller and Jorge had already started changing the plan—and I don’t feel like an angel anymore, da. I feel like . . . I don’t know—but something wrong.”

  Da didn’t answer right away. And when he did, his voice sounded uncomfortable. As if he didn’t really want to have this conversation. “I thought we’d already resolved this,” he said.

  “Do you think we should hurt back?”

  He took a deep breath. “No, I don’t. Don’t you think Smiller and Jorge have worried about the same thing? Don’t you think they’ve tried to find the safest way possible to get our Scouts out and resolve this?”

  “I know they’ve worried about it, da. I know they’ve talked over their plans over and over and over again. Remember, I sat in on the breakfast meeting. I saw. So you don’t have to convince me, da. I chose to come. . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I just wish that we felt more like Linneans here than Oerth-people. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I understand exactly what you mean. And I think all of us wish the same thing too.” And then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Except, perhaps, our Linnean friends who want to think like Oerth-people.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “Growing up means having to make a lot of difficult choices, Kaer. The problems get bigger and more complex. The answers get harder to find and sometimes you get lost in the search. Like that time you got lost in the grass, remember? So sometimes you have to take the answer that solves half the problem right now and you worry about solving the other half later on—except all too often, later on never comes and all you’ve done is give yourself the same problem all over again. So you have to learn how to solve the pieces of the problems you can solve in ways that let you stay true to yourself. I can’t give you a better answer than that.” He held up a hand, remembering one more thing. “Just remember, we didn’t come here on this mission because we wanted to. We came because we had to. We came because if we didn’t come, then by our silence and our inactivity, we allow a greater crime to happen. And that would make us accomplices.”

  “I know, da. I know.”

  “But you worry anyway—right?”

  I nodded.

  He patted my hair, let his hand slide down to my shoulder. “I can’t decide if that makes you more like me or more like your mother. We both worry all the time. Mostly about you and Rinky and all the little-uns. We w
orry about whether or not we’ve made the right decisions for you, if we’ve taught you the right lessons, if you’ll turn out all right . . . whether or not you’ll hack us to death with an axe in the middle of the night while we sleep soundly in our beds—”

  “Oh, da!” I gave his arm a little slap. “I wouldn’t use an axe on you and Mom-Wu. I’d borrow Big Jes’s chainsaw. A chainsaw works faster.”

  “But he doesn’t have the chainsaw anymore, and he couldn’t take it to Linnea anyway. No, you’ll have to use the axe.”

  “Well, if I can’t use the chainsaw, then I’ll have to use Rinky’s dumplings.”

  “You’ll poison us?”

  “No, I’ll club you to death with them. Two or three blows ought to do it.”

  “Unkind child! How sharper than a serpent’s tooth! What do I see here—a dumpling held before me? Existence or nullity—the question vexes me.” He slapped his forehead in mock-frustration. “Out, out, damned spot.”

  I collapsed laughing against his shoulder. “We missed you in our plays, da. Shakespeare always sounds so much better in Linnean.”

  He hugged me. “Perhaps we should try to translate Gilbert and Sullivan next. He thought about it for half a second. “No, maybe we shouldn’t—we might hurt ourselves.”

  “Excuse me—? May I interrupt?”

  We both looked up as Jorge sat down opposite us. He looked a little less frenetic than before. But he still stank so aggressively, you could almost see the smell rising off of him. He saw me wrinkling my nose and said, “Sorry about that, Kaer. We didn’t have time for a proper wash. Imagine how bad the stink feels from the inside.”

  “You smell mostly of horse,” I said. “I don’t mind that.”

  “I like horses too, Kaer.” And that was the end of the small talk. “We have a growing problem in Callo. We didn’t catch this soon enough, but the Hale-Stones have escalated their activity. They’ve increased the number sightings, they’ve intensified the nature of them.

  “In Callo alone, right now, you can hear the direct testimony of a hundred or more Linneans who have come in from the sea of grass, each claiming a revelation. And we don’t know how many have shown up in other settlements. Not just individuals alone, you understand—sometimes whole families. They come in and report that they’ve seen or encountered an angel. Over a hundred separate sightings in the past three months. More than one a day. All these reports have unnerved and alarmed the normally placid people of Callo.

  “The situation has hampered our investigations, of course, but we’ve determined that most of the sightings have occurred in a widening radius north and eastward from the Mother Land. And they all follow pretty much the same pattern. The person awakes as if in a dream and sees a beautiful angel, all dressed in gold. Heavenly music, strange lights, smoke and mirrors, the usual. The angel blesses the person and gives him or her a message to share with the rest of the world.

  “And yes, they use the word angel now. In almost every case, the angel tells the person receiving the blessing to go to Callo and spread the word of his or her revelation. So guess what? Callo has a new slum, all filled with glassy-eyed worshippers trading their stories and comparing notes about the angels who blessed them. The so-called ‘blessed ones’ have identified themselves as The People of the New Revelation. What a coincidence, eh? Where have we heard that before?

  “They hold tent meetings every night. The Hale-Stones have arranged it, of course. They say that they have a mission to hear the word of the Mother, to sanctify it, and spread the good news as many people as possible. So they greet their little messengers like liberating heroes when they come into town. New ones arrive almost every day, so they have a continuing stream of miracles to report. They bring them to the evening meetings where they stand up and repeat the message of the angels. They have a lot of singing and praise-the-lord enthusiasm.

  “Meanwhile, the message grows more ominous every day. The Mother worries about her children. She fears the people of Oerth. Their godless and degenerate ways will destroy the world. Blah blah blah. So she’s chosen the people of Linnea to stand against the encroaching evil. All praise to the blessed people of Linnea, worthy of the Mother’s grace, blah blah blah. Soon the Mother will send her only begotten son to deliver her commandments. A great miracle for everyone. Blah blah blah. If you miss it, you will die among the damned and your immortal soul will writhe in torment forever. . . . You know, all the usual.”

  He stopped to rub his cheek thoughtfully with the flat of his hand. “A bit of an embarrassment there, actually. They had sort of announced the date of his arrival—that he would ride barefoot into the city on a great white horse and deliver a Sermon on the Mount. Something like that. Then all of a sudden, yesterday, all of the Hale-Stones abruptly packed up and left Callo in an amazing hurry, and most of their worshippers followed them. Oh, they did stop to say why they had to leave.” His tongue explored the corner of his cheek as if looking for a lost morsel of boffili stew. “Something about the Mother’s wrath. Apparently, except for the ‘blessed ones’ personally selected by the Mother to receive the message of her angels, the Mother couldn’t find ten honest men in all of Callo and so she’s decided to destroy it in a blast of holy fire. And anyone who values his or her place in heaven should leave immediately. That started a nice little panic—but it made it possible for us to get out of the city undetected. So, thanks for the small favor.

  “Once we got into the sea of grass, the first thing my boys asked, ‘What did Smiller do? Threaten to nuke the place?’ I laugh then, but I just talked to her, and she did exactly that, didn’t she? She has a nasty sense of humor, that one. But the panic left thirty people injured and three dead that I know of. So we had better not laugh too long or too hard. We’ve probably pissed off the Mother enough already. Let’s hope we can reclaim some of her grace.”

  “What about the rail wagons?”

  “They left this afternoon. Almost on schedule. They had to replace a cracked axle first. But the fear of the Mother’s wrath got them out quick enough. They won’t make very good time though. A lot of the refugees have headed for Mordren along the rail tracks. That’ll complicate our job, but only a little. Luckily for us, the Magistrates won’t let anyone travel with the wagons or even in sight of them, and wagons that heavy can’t travel very fast; so we think most of the refugees heading for Mordren will have passed us long before the wagons arrive at the target zone.

  “The good news—I have to laugh at this. Most of the Calloons haven’t fled very far. The bulk of the city’s population has only gone a short way out into the grass and set up camp to wait, so they can see for themselves the promised fiery destruction of Callo and Gomorrah. We passed quite a few of them, staring up into the sky and wondering when it would begin. I’ll tell you this, Lorrin. Never underestimate the power of ignorance.

  “The bad news—a lot of panic-stricken people fled in the direction of the Mother Land. I guess they believe they’ll find safety there. The Revelationists have called for a holy war against the people of Oerth, and they’ve promised arms to any that will follow them and help in the battle against evil. Blah blah blah. We now have a bigger problem than before.” Jorge looked to da. “I know. You don’t have to tell me. Smil wanted to get the Hale-Stones out of town. Well, she did that, but now we have them building an army on our flank. We’ll talk about that tonight too. Anyway—”

  He fumbled in his vest for a moment, finally pulling out and unfolding a ragged yellow paper. “The Ten Commandments. As delivered by the Mother’s Only Begotten Son—Real Soon Now. I won’t tell you how I came by this. But the Hale-Stones don’t know all of our secrets yet.”

  He passed the paper across to me. “I want you to see these. I want everyone to know that these people intend. Read this, Kaer. Tell me what you think.”

  I turned the paper around so it was right-side-up. The page was covered with surprisingly neat writing, but in the gloom of the darkened cabin, I couldn’t it read it very well
, so da reached up and switched on the seat light. In the sudden yellow glow, I read:

  I speak for the Mother and the Father of the world. You will bow to no other Gods, nor will you allow others to bow to false Gods in your presence.

  You will bow down to no idols except the ones that I give you.

  You will not misuse my name, nor will you allow the misuse of my name in your presence.

  Six days will you labor and do all of your work, but the seventh day you will keep holy, for the seventh day belongs to me and on that day you will not work. You will keep the seventh day for devotion to me and mine.

  You will honor your fathers and your mothers. You will honor the holiest Father and the holiest Mother first above all.

  You will not kill, except in the service of the Father and the Mother. You will not kill believers in the Father and the Mother.

  You will not take what you do not own. The Mother and the Father own the heavens and the seas and the earth. You will use the gifts of the Mother and the Father with their blessings, except that you will return a tenth part of all that you harvest to serve us.

  You will not have knowledge of each other’s bodies, except in a state of blessed marriage sanctified by the Mother and the Father.

  You will not give false testimony against your brothers and your sisters who share the blessings of my revelations. You will not speak of revelations outside my holy grace, nor will you allow false revelations spoken in your presence.

  You will not covet the property of others. Your prosperity comes from your devotion to me.

  Da read it over my shoulder. When we were both finished, we looked over to Jorge. He sat there and scratched his ear, the one with the earring, while he waited for our reaction. “So. . . ? What do you think, Kaer?”

  I was too shocked and too angry to speak right away. I must have been gasping for air. Finally, I blurted out in English, “This is wrong! This is so—pardon me, da—so fucking wrong! How dare they?!”