Mother of Demons Read online

  A little diplomacy, here. Kopporu made the gesture of respect.

  "You yourself, Ghodha, are a former battle leader of the Anshac legions. Would the legions have fared so badly against Yoshef's apalatunush?"

  Ochre. Then, the gesture of grudging admission.

  "Probably not. Certainly not—in a second battle. Where they understood what they were facing."

  "Exactly. The Anshac discipline is, in all essential regards, as good as that of the Utuku. But the Anshac are far more flexible and clever."

  One of the Opoktu clan leaders spoke.

  "But we are not at war with the Ansha," she protested.

  "Not yet," replied Kopporu. "But we will be."

  Another uproar, quieted by Indira.

  "Explain," she commanded.

  Kopporu held up a sixth arm.

  "The reason loops back to the question. I have listened carefully to everything Inudira has said, over the past many days. Most of it has been strange to me, and new, and difficult to comprehend. But one thing has become clear. I understand it, because I myself spent a lifetime as a warrior trying to change my tribe's methods of war. Tried and, for the most part, failed. Why? Because—as Inudira has explained—the way in which a people makes war is ultimately an extension of the way they live. Tribes will fight like tribes. Prevalates like prevalates. Savages like savages."

  Kopporu groped for words.

  "I cannot explain this well. Inudira could explain it much better. This much I know. The whole world is changing—and was, even before the ummun came. You all know this is so. You especially, Ghodha. Nowhere is change coming faster than in the south. Why are there so many former helots among my people? Because the lot of the helots is growing worse in the south. More and more helots are becoming outright slaves. The prevalates are going to war with each other more and more often. More and more, they are encroaching on the plains. And now, a great new cloth is being woven. We are weaving it here, on the Chiton. The cloth we call the nashiyonu. The new army we are building is only a single thread in that cloth—and not the most important one. Think of all the other threads we have decided upon. The new yurts for teaching new skills. The new trade routes we will seek to uncover. The new arts and crafts we will create. All of these things, sooner or later, will bring us into battle with the Ansha—and all the southern prevalates."

  She fell silent. After a moment, all eyes turned to Indira.

  "Is this so, Inudira?" asked Ghodha.

  "Yes. Everything Kopporu has said, and more. I will elaborate on her words, at a later time. But Kopporu has stripped the meat from the shell."

  She looked at Kopporu.

  "Your conclusions, battle leader?"

  "The army of the nashiyonu must be a gukuy army, in its essence. It must be built and led according to the best principles that we know, along with the new things which Inudira will teach us. But those must be principles which gukuy can use. Principles of the flail, not the spear. The ummun apalatunush will have a place in that army, for there are special things which they can do which we cannot. But they will not be at the center, when the clash of armies comes.

  "The army should therefore be commanded by a gukuy. Whether that gukuy should be myself, or another, is a different question. But it must be a gukuy. We can, and will, learn much of the art of war from the ummun. And there will always be ummun in positions of command and advice. But no ummun could ever understand a gukuy army as well as a gukuy.

  "And, it would be a waste. There are so few ummun, and they know so much. Even the young ones, who remember little of any world than our own, know far more than any gukuy. I would not see them wasted on a battlefield, any more than necessary."

  She made the gesture of profound respect to Joseph.

  "I, too, was awed by Yoshef's cast of the spear. But I would rather see him cast his thoughts into the sky."

  In her mind, Ushulubang also made a gesture of profound respect. Not toward Joseph, but toward Indira.

  Shrewdly done, Mother of Demons. As always. There will be no hesitation, now, at selecting Kopporu.

  With quite a different mental gesture, Ushulubang considered Ghodha.

  I believe I shall make a point of talking more often with that one. Rather too full of the Answer, she is. Answers which would have killed her, and them, had it been she who tried to lead an entire people through the Swamp. Even now, she cannot see past Kopporu's crude armor. It has not yet occurred to her to wonder: how is it that a "barbarian" could see things which I could not?

  Because the barbarian, whether she knows it or not, follows the Way of the Question.

  But that is for the future. For the moment, there is still a matter to be resolved. There is, after all, a core of meat at the center of Ghodha's prejudices.

  For the first time since the council began that day, Ushulubang spoke.

  "I fully support the proposal to make Kopporu the commander of the army. But a problem remains, which is the nature of the army itself."

  She waited, allowing the council to digest her words.

  "Is it to be a Kiktu army? No, clearly not. Kopporu has told us herself that she seeks to adopt Anshac methods—and even more. The methods which Inudira has begun to explain. But that will require the tribespeople to learn a whole new way of war. A difficult thing to ask, especially of warriors who are rightfully proud of their accomplishments in battle."

  Another pause.

  "Then, there is the problem of the Pilgrims. Many of them will want to join the army. Some were warriors themselves, in times past. From Ansha, and other prevalates. But most are helots, with little skill or training in the craft of war."

  Another pause.

  "And finally, there is the problem of the former Utuku. Warriors all, and brave ones. Do not deny it, simply because of your distaste for their former habits. They have renounced those habits, and they too must somehow be incorporated into the new army."

  A long pause.

  "You see the problem? It is not enough to have a commander. She must be able to command an army—an army, a whole and well-knit cloth. But we do not have such a cloth, today. Nor do we have much time in which to weave one."

  Ushulubang looked at Rottu. "You estimate that the Beak and the main army of the Utuku will arrive at the Chiton in three eightweeks, am I not correct?"

  The spymistress made the gesture of tentative affirmation.

  "Approximately. The former Utuku whom I interviewed all agreed that the Beak took the main army south after the battle of the Lolopopo. Leaving only two ogghoxt to watch the Swamp in case Kopporu emerged. One ogghoxt we destroyed. The other will remain in its assigned position south and west of the Swamp. In the meantime, the Beak is preoccupied with completing the conquest of the Papti Plain. Not all of the tribes joined with the Kiktu. Several retreated south, and are still opposing the Utuku."

  She made the gesture of certainty.

  "They will not succeed in that opposition. But they will keep the Beak occupied for some time. Enough time—barely—for us to weave a new army. And there is an added benefit. Refugees from broken tribes are trickling north. Some have already reached the Chiton. At my suggestion, Kopporu has already dispatched small battle groups into the plain to seek for such refugees. We can add their threads to the cloth."

  Rottu fell silent. Seamlessly, Ushulubang continued.

  "We have everything we need to weave our army. We have the nashiyonu, which is our loom. And we have the warp and the weft—the ummun, the tribespeople, the Pilgrims, the former Utuku, the new refugees. But—"

  "We need a shuttle," said Kopporu. "Someone—it will have to be gukuy—who knows the Anshac methods of war. And the ways of the tribespeople."

  "Just so."

  Kopporu's mantle turned black.

  "And someone who will be able to instill discipline of bronze. A warrior so feared and respected that none will dare challenge her."

  "Just so."

  After a moment, one by one, all who were present bega
n staring at Dhowifa.

  PART V: The Shuttle

  Chapter 26

  Dhowifa himself brought the summons. As she watched her little lover approach their yurt, Nukurren found it hard not to whistle derision.

  He's getting fat, the lazy little creature. Look at him waddle along! Even slower than usual. He's gotten used to riding in Ushulubang, and working no other muscles than those of his siphon. Which he works constantly.

  But, as always, Nukurren did not begrudge Dhowifa the new life he had found on the mountain. She did not begrudge him the comfort of his new friendship with Guo's malebond, nor the joy he found in Ushulubang's company.

  No, not at all. After eightyweeks of misery as an outcast, Dhowifa had found acceptance. More than that, he had found hope and purpose. He was well into the Coil, now, learning the Way of the Pilgrim, and learning it very well. Still shy at times, uncertain, diffident. But Nukurren knew that if Ushulubang had, at first, called Dhowifa the best of the new apashoc out of her desire to shake the error of the Answer, she did so now because it was the simple truth. And many apashoc, especially the younger ones, were learning to shed their bigotry and seek discourse with the unnatural truemale whose understanding of the Question was subtle, supple, and uncanny.

  Dhowifa's happiness stemmed from other things he had found on the mountain, as well. He had spent hours in the company of the Mother of Demons, during meetings of the council. Returning each time with new awe and wonder at what he had heard. And a growing adoration for Inudiratoledo herself, and the new world she was making.

  No, Nukurren loved Dhowifa, and was glad for him, and listened, patiently if not attentively, to everything which Dhowifa told her. But she herself said nothing. It was not that she disbelieved. Simply that—she didn't care.

  She didn't seem to care about anything, anymore. It was as if she had lost her soul along with her eye. Her heart kept beating, her lungs kept breathing. Beyond that—nothing. She had no need of shoroku to keep her mantle gray. Her soul itself was gray. All around her, day after day, she watched a new world being created. A strange new tapestry, woven of mysterious alien threads, colored in dazzling hues.

  With, as always, no place in it for her.

  It was not that she was outcast. Not at all. Oh, no, not at all.

  She was admired, now. Respected, praised, even adulated. New chants were being chanted, throughout the Chiton, of the battle which was called Shatalunungurdu. (Ushulubang had decreed that strange name, for reasons known to none, save, perhaps, the Mother of Demons.)

  Glorious, triumphant chants. (Longwinded ones, too, but none complained.) Chants which told of the exploits of heroes and champions. Of the sagacity of Kopporu, and the battlecraft of her warriors, and the might of Guo, and the honor of her malebond (and none objected to the presence of males in a battlechant, unheard-of though it was), and the valor of the Pilgrims against the shield wall, and the ferocity of Ludumilaroshokavashiki and Takashimidudzhugodzhi, and the fleetness of their apalatunush, and the spearcast of Yoshefadekunula, and the courage of his Companions (for so, in fact, they were called in the chants), especially the great warrior Dzhenushkunutushen.

  And, most of all, of Nukurren the Valiant. Many new chants had been composed, over the past eightweeks, by chantresses of all peoples. Pilgrim chants and Kiktu chants, and Opoktu chants, and chants by former swamp-dwellers, and even, in a strange unrhythmic meter, a short chant by a young demon named Anagushohara. Each chant was somewhat different. A Kiktu chantress might dwell on the details of the battle on the Utuku left flank; a Pilgrim chantress, on the fury at the shield wall. But in one respect, all chants agreed:

  The height of the battle, the decisive moment, the turning point, the pivot of history, the opening of the Way and the salvation of the peoples, had been the Charge of Nukurren. The Kutaku of the Coil, as many chants called it.

  Oh, glory and grandeur and triumph and hope!

  Oh, valor and courage and heroism and nobility!

  Nukurren the Mighty! Nukurren the Bold!

  Nukurren the Champion!

  Nukurren had heard the chants. Had been unable not to hear them, for all that the chants grated on her soul. During the long days after the battle, she had remained in the hospital at Dzhenushkunutushen's bedside. Nukurren herself had suffered only minor mantle-wounds during her charge, quickly healed. But Dzhenushkunutushen had lain near death. He had not suffered any single great wound. But he had nearly bled to death, for it seemed as if his entire body had been flailed.

  As, indeed, it had been. Most of his wounds had been received at the very end of the battle, in the last moments before Nukurren reached the little band of human warriors in the center. For, at the end, Yoshefadekunula had fallen, knocked down in the press of the fray by the staggering body of another demon, mortally injured. Unhurt, but helpless, the demonlord had been the target of all the remaining Utuku. At last, the cannibals had seen their chance to destroy the implacable demon who had been the most terrible of them all, and they had fallen upon him.

  Or, had tried. But the cannibals never reached the black monster. Their flails never touched him. The assault of the Utuku broke against the demonlord's companion, who stood over his prostrate form, unmoving, unyielding, accepting each blow of the flail and returning it with a stroke of the spear. And if Utuku flails tore the demonlord champion's flesh, his spear split Utuku brains; if their flails spilled his blood, his spear spilled their lives; and if they gave him pain, he gave them oblivion.

  Then did the cannibals falter, for the spear-strokes were unstoppable. If the white passion of the demonlord's companion seemed mysterious to them, they had not the time to wonder at it. For the blue rage of their mantles was the palest of shades, compared to the color in the monster's eyes. The demon's white passion quickly vanished, covered with red blood. But the blue never faded from his glare, and it seemed, to the Utuku who faced him, to be the color of Fury Itself.

  They faltered. And then gray death arrived, for Nukurren was there. The demonlord's companion finally collapsed. But the demonlord himself had regained his feet, and took up his spear, and fell upon them. Black as night, implacable. Endless night, then, to the Utuku who had flailed his companion.

  For days Dzhenushkunutushen lay near death. Indeed, would almost certainly have died, were it not for the strength of his body. Other demons in the hospital, weaker than he, did die in those days. Three of them. Two had been among the human warriors in the center, and they had died soon after arriving in the hospital, from terrible wounds.

  The third was a female demon. Though many of the apalatunush warriors who had ravaged the Utuku right would bear scars, only two had been slain. Of those two, only one had survived the battle itself, to be brought to the hospital.

  The female demon lingered for days before she died. Her name, Nukurren learned, had been Shofiyaburrunushtayn. She learned the name from the many demons who came to the hospital. All of the demons came, Nukurren thought, to sit by the side of their wounded and dying. Nukurren found the demon way of expressing grief, like so much else about them, to be messy, unsightly and grotesque. But she did not doubt for a moment that the water which leaked from their eyes, transparent though it was, bore the essence of brown misery.

  The Mother of Demons herself came, many times, to sit with Shofiyaburrunushtayn and Dzhenushkunutushen. Nukurren was mildly interested to note that the Mother of Demons, alone among them, never wept (such, she learned, was the Enagulishuc word for that strange means of showing grief). She merely sat there, silent, still; her flat, armless face as rigid as bronze.

  In her visits to the hospital, the Mother of Demons spoke rarely, and never to Nukurren. At first, Nukurren wondered (not caring, simply curious) if the Mother of Demons was angry at her for some unknown reason. All the other demons who came to the hospital spoke to Nukurren. Spoke to her often, in fact, and sometimes at tedious length; expressing their gratitude and their affection.

  Eventually, Nukurren thought she understood
. The Mother of Demons never showed her grief because it was so great that the showing of it would break her completely. And if she never spoke to Nukurren, it was not out of anger. It was because to speak to the gukuy warrior who had saved so many of her children (perhaps, in the end, all of them—for battles are fickle things) would be to acknowledge her own responsibility for sending them into their death. A responsibility which the Mother of Demons had taken, and had accepted; but could not yet, thought Nukurren, call by its own name.

  The day came, after Shofiyaburrunushtayn finally died, when the healer demon Mariyaduloshruyush pronounced Dzhenushkunutushen safe from danger. Shortly thereafter, the Mother of Demons arrived at the hospital. The young male demon was conscious now, if still very weak, and he and his mother exchanged a few words before he fell asleep. For long, then, did the Mother of Demons remain, holding the huge, deadly hand of her child in her own tiny and much deadlier one.

  The Mother of Demons sat on one side of Dzhenushkunutushen's pallet. Nukurren, as she had done for many days, squatted on the other. As always, the Mother of Demons said nothing to Nukurren; did not even look at her.

  Much later, the Mother of Demons arose and made to leave. But at the doorway, she stopped, motionless for a time, and then turned back. She came to stand before Nukurren and then, still silent, bowed to the warrior.

  Nukurren recognized the bow. Nukurren was very observant, and had already learned many of the subtle methods by which the demons expressed their sentiments. But no subtlety was needed here. The bow which the Mother of Demons gave to Nukurren was not the bow which ummun gave to gukuy. This was the great bow, the special bow. The bow which had no name in Enagulishuc, but which the Kiktu called the gukku tak tu rottonutu, the "homage to the Old Ones"; and the Pilgrims, in Anshac, the purren owoc.