The Farris Channel (9 page)

“Freeband Raiders have never been any kind of organized menace. Here in the mountains, they’ve never been more than small packs of wild animals that swarm over any unsuspecting road party. Now suddenly they’re mounted, and they shoot fire-arrows to destroy our buildings, cooperate to scale our walls.

“Our scouts report the town of Shifron has been attacked by a very large, organized band of Raiders. A small part of that band split off and chased Tanhara here wanting their Gens for the Kill. Theory is they have taken the town’s Gen Pen and are settling in for the winter. Scouts report the town’s ordinary junct population has fled south.”

Rimon paused to let that news sink in. From Shifron the Freebanders could raid Gen Territory for fresh Gens to Kill during any break in the weather. The Gen civilization out there allowed no Simes to live among them, and kept a standing army to enforce that. But to selyn starved Freeband Raiders who often Killed two or three times a month instead of the normal junct’s one a month, Gen Territory was filled with herds of Wild Gens, not people living as best they could in a harsh environment.

If there was no break in the weather, those Raiders would come to Fort Rimon for their Kills. By spring, perhaps the more peaceful, disciplined junct residents of Shifron would return with the Sime militia to take their town back.

Shifron had been making a good living between furs, lumber and pine nuts. They’d want their town back.

“Rimon Farris,” Del Rimon said, “my grandfather, the first channel, discovered how to avoid Killing Gens, how to take selyn from any Gen and transfer it to any renSime, letting the Gen live to produce more selyn. Most of you are the fourth generation of this dream of a world where no Gen has to fear the Kill and no Sime has to fear dying of Attrition. But in only four generations, we are failing.”

The only sound was the rhythmic snick-hiss-thud of the shoveling.

“Our failure stops today. Today, over the open graves of our parents, children, siblings, and loved ones, we pledge ourselves anew to my grandfather’s vision.

“Fort Rimon will survive this winter, and by spring we’ll be bigger, stronger, and better than ever. Come spring, we’ll clear more land, plant and prepare for the following winter. And we will help the citizens of Shifron take their town back from the Freeband Raiders. Shifron will have no reason to ally with the Raiders against us.”

They might do it anyway,
thought Rimon. “To achieve this, we must re-unite these six Forts!”

“Seven,” interjected Solamar.

“What?”

Projecting his voice to the crowd, Solamar said, “...these seven Forts united. I am the last survivor of Fort Faraway. I arrived at Tanhara just after their last battle.”

“What happened to Fort Faraway?” asked Rimon loudly enough for everyone to hear while he masked his renewed grief.
Faraway gone too!

“Forest Fire. Just before harvest, a huge firestorm swept down the canyons driven by fall winds. We rode ahead of the fire and then made for Tanhara. We survived junct towns, Freebanders, wild animals, even a Gen army patrol, and then plague destroyed us last spring. I made it to Fort Tanhara with two children and my Companion, but they died within a few days.”

Rimon zlinned that there had to be a lot more to that story than Solamar was telling.

“Seven Forts United,” proclaimed Rimon. “We will be as one, solid, strong, and vital. Our walls will not be broken, our hearts will not weaken.”

The shoveling fell silent, the diggers standing to attention beside the fresh graves. With dense clouds rolling over the surrounding mountains, Rimon signalled the musicians for the final tribute so people could file past the graves, winding through the graveyard to visit each of the fresh piles of earth, murmuring their farewells then starting back, each walking alone in the dark, heading up to the small door in the wall on this side of the Fort.

The Simes lingered to help the Gens who didn’t have the Sime ability to zlin through darkness. The Gens gravitated to the Simes who could use the invisible selyn-glow of the Gen bodies to discern the path back to the Fort. They didn’t separate themselves by their Fort of origin.

* * * * * * *

Solamar was exhausted. After the funeral, he had done a stint in the Dispensary giving transfers of selyn to fatigued renSimes in Need because they had been augmenting, using up extra selyn during the battle or its aftermath so they could work faster and stronger. It was nearly midnight and this was the first moment he’d had to breathe since they’d first spotted Fort Rimon with the Freeband Raiders chasing them.

He’d sent Kahleen, a truly remarkable woman, an exemplary Companion, to get some sleep and knew he had to rest a bit before letting himself grieve for Losa.

He pushed open a wide door in the side of the Dispensary building, a long, flat fieldstone building with a slate roof. It let him out into a space next to the wall. The patrollers atop the wall noticed him immediately and saluted nagerically. He crunched on through the ankle high snowdrifts, hands tucked inside the cloak someone had loaned him.

The Fort was so crowded, it seemed there would be no place for even a moment’s solitude to just let his nager expand without fear of hurting someone. But with the snow and cold wind, he thought perhaps the cemetery would be deserted, so he walked along the wall to the small door. The cemetery would be a good place for dark thoughts.

He heard the donkeys trudging around the well, though it was out of sight across the compound. He’d seen two wagons filled with kegs of river water parked by the stables earlier, and some of that hammering in the distance was the repair crew working on the well outside the walls. How long will the water last with all these people?

He heard a second pair of animals being led out to the well. He walked past the building that housed Rimon’s office, the infirmary, and sleeping quarters for the channels. Someone was emptying chamber pots into the privy pit behind the infirmary. Sanitation. Feed for the animals. It was going to be a very hard, very busy winter and he was already too exhausted to think.

Near the door out to the cemetery was recent construction, rows of family housing right across from the wing of the infirmary. Piles of dirt, split logs for the walls, and detritus surrounded the new buildings. Tonight, each one was accommodating three times the number it was designed for. People were tending crying children, nursing headaches, avoiding nightmares, trying to grieve silently.

He waved a tentacle in greeting to an old man sitting on the steps of a new house whittling what looked like a toy.

The small door in the Fort’s wall was barred with three hardwood planks and guarded by two young renSimes.

“Tuib, the order is that nobody is to go out until dawn after the scouts return. All the gates are shut.”

Of course.
“Yes, that’s good. Thank you,” he said as he passed by without breaking stride. A little further on he came to a stair and mounted to the top of the wall where guards paced, zlinning the distance.

He came up to the first one who stood with his hands tucked up in his sleeves and asked, “Mind if I walk the wall for a while?”

“You’re that new channel from Tanhara,” the renSime identified. “I’m Filo. Sure, go ahead as long as there’s no Raiders out there. How far can you zlin?”

Channels could zlin much farther than renSimes, but some channels were more sensitive than others.

“There’s nobody this side of that ridge.” Solamar indicated the low hill between the Fort and Shifron.

“Then it’s all right for you to be up here.”

“Good,” he told the guard. “I just wanted to breathe fresh air, move a little.” Outside the Fort walls, horses were tethered to a line, and a large herd of sheep was watched by four dogs and two renSimes. He’d heard people talking about the main herd of sheep being wintered in a nearby canyon at the edge of the valley. Some loose cows had snuggled up to the lea of the wall. Tanhara’s stray chickens roosted under the bushes around the Fort’s hen house.

“You just want to zlin the distance instead of the wall in front of your nose?”

“That’s the idea.” Solamar didn’t mention how easily he could zlin through the Fort’s walls.

“Guard duty has its good points!” agreed the man. “Just mind that ice where Jokim spilled his tea. Kick the snow down where you find a drift. Someone will be up to shovel it soon no doubt. Everyone’s sleeping in shifts because there’s no room, so plenty are working even now.”

“They’re talking about new buildings already.”

“Been building for months. Now with Tanhara added, we’re hauling river water from the irrigation canal for tonight and we won’t be able to do that all winter. They’re going to start a new line of privies tomorrow morning and another new well.”

“Tanhara is very grateful for your hospitality and sorry for the losses our arrival has cost.”

The guard gathered himself, nager shaded with grief. “We’ll get through this. Rimon will see us through it. I have to get on about this patrol. Just let us know if you zlin anything out there, then get down fast. We dare not lose any more channels.”

“I’ll do that.”

The guard headed off toward the woman patrolling the next section of wall, and Solamar turned in the other direction. He circled back, walking over the arch of the gate leading out to the cemetery

Just short of the privies, halfway to the next guard’s beat, he stopped and leaned against the outer rail to stare out into the night throwing his attention into the lonely silence out there.

The ambient behind him felt crowded. At least nobody was actively paying attention to him now that the guards had zlinned his presence.

A crack in the clouds let moonlight through, sparkling off the snowflakes drifting on a light breeze. He let himself go hyperconscious, shutting out awareness of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste and focusing on the selyn fields interacting to form the ambient nager. He scanned the wilderness seeking peace among the trees beyond the cemetery where he had seen the dead walking, summoned by Rimon Farris’s grief and guilt.

He had intended to meditate then grieve for Losa before considering that development.
What have I done?

Clearly, Rimon had not experienced anything like that vision before. Solamar knew that the kind of deep nageric interaction they had shared twice that day might have sensitized Rimon to planes of existence beyond the scope of most people’s awareness, if Rimon had the talent.

Sudden expansion of a channel’s awareness could be deranging or even deadly for one as sensitive as Rimon.

Why did I ask him who they were?
The words had just flown out of his mouth, in simple curiosity, not to validate Rimon’s perception. Still, it had been a dreadful error.

Behind him, a Farris channel nager slid out of the infirmary door, instantly spotted Solamar and headed for the stair next to the privy. Solamar greeted Rimon nagerically, but kept his attention on the landscape. Moments later, Rimon joined him at the high rail, breath puffing in clouds visible in a narrow shaft of moonlight.

They stood side by side, zlinning distant nothing, not thinking, just breathing quietly, letting awareness slide away. Solamar let the strong, steady Farris presence wrap him in quiet. It was almost as good as solitude.

Ever so slowly, they both surfaced to full awareness of their surroundings, with no shock of a new sudden emergency. Solamar thought Rimon would just let it stay that way, a restful interlude. But no.

“So,” Rimon said at last, “you saw them too.”

Solamar considered denying that, claiming ignorance, but a Farris would zlin right through any deception. “I thought I saw, well, they’d be ghosts, if they were your father and your daughter.”

A frisson of anguish flickered around Rimon at the word ghosts. “Did you hear them speak?”

“Maybe. Maybe I just have a vivid imagination.”

Rimon turned and inspected him visually as well as nagerically. “You do. You didn’t imagine hearing what I clearly heard, seeing what I saw but couldn’t zlin. Nobody else saw what you saw. Why?”

“I wish I knew. I don’t generally go around seeing ghosts.” Solamar shivered, and not from the cold.

“That’s what it was? Ghosts.”

“You said you recognized Aipensha. But she’s dead. So what you saw was her ghost.”

“You didn’t see Losa’s ghost, did you?”

“No.”

“But...?” prompted Rimon.

“I wasn’t feeling guilty about her death, just appalled, horrified, shocked, all the usual when someone you know and like, someone who’s a part of your life, dies.”

“I was feeling guilty.”

“I know. I could zlin that much.”

“You could?”

“Well, I don’t get much from you,” admitted Solamar, “your showfield zlins like solid stone most of the time, unless you’re projecting. I can’t zlin your primary fields. Still, when you were so upset, I picked up on some of it. I’m sorry. They were after all your ghosts, not mine.”

Rimon grinned into a gust of snowflakes.

“Now why would that make you happy?”

“I have a theory that the people from the other Forts who’ve ended up here don’t trust Lexy and me, don’t trust our judgment because they can’t zlin us clearly. Maybe you won’t distrust us just because we’re Farrises. Maybe they’ll listen to you. Maybe things will get better here.”