Steal Across the Sky Read Free Page B

if we did not play kulith? Would we think slavery so natural if one could not buy and sell some—but not others—of the variously colored stones in a kulith game, which represented men and women? Aveo had stopped short of asking the question really in his mind, which was: Would we even believe in the Goddess of All Green if belief were not shaped by the objects that, even in kulith, must be given to Her in daily tribute?
    Despite omitting that final question, with the wealth of examples he had gathered to support it, the treatise was a dangerous one. At the university, old Ubapa had urged Aveo not to let it be read or copied or archived. It could get him imprisoned. Aveo had not listened, and Ubapa had been right, and here was Aveo walking too fast along a hot and dusty road, emissary to a goddess he did not believe could exist.
    They had been on the road four days. The moon, green and blue, now filled the sky. Aveo, not a soldier, was unused to the exertion or the pace. His feet burned in their worn sandals, his muscles ached, his face burned from the sun. Sweat matted his skirt to his bony shanks. He stank.
    “With pain comes delusion.”
That had been Ibrix, writing three centuries ago, and the Sacred Scholar had been right. Sometimes, trudging along on feet that blossomed into fire, his head light, Aveo thought he saw Ojea in the heat shimmers of the road ahead. His son was a child, a man, an infant in the arms of the King’s Torturer. Aveo cried out. A soldier reached out to cuff him, stayed his hand, and scowled.
    On the fifth day they arrived at Memenat. That city had been captured, sacked, and burned. The bulk of the army had moved on, but two entire detachments of soldiers had remained, encircling the fallen skyegg with a makeshift city of their own. Aveo passed through wooden gates set into high dirt walls. He crossed plank bridges over deep trenches dug by newly enslaved Memenati. This shoddy city of tents and clay was nonetheless rich with plunder, and Aveo noted the jewels and rich robes on the prostitutes, the roasting meats beside the cook tents. His stomach ached with hunger.
    Despite the new riches, the shadow city showed surprising order. The prostitutes were confined to one area, the dirt streets were swept, the soldiers on duty stood sober and at attention, their breastplates polished. When Aveo was marched through the staring camp and turned over to its commander, he saw why.
    “Rem Aveo ol Imbro,” the commander said, and Aveo raised his eyes in astonishment. It was illegal to give him his scholarly title. Was it done from fear? A superstitious soldier might well be unsettled by events here: An egg fell out of the sky, a woman could not be pierced with a spear. Things were not as always supposed, and anything could happen next, the ground itself might well give way as just another illusion. Fear could make such a man overly careful, unwilling to invite divine retaliation in any quarter.
    Commander Escio ol Escio was not such a man. He was short but very muscular, his bare chest painted with the blue whorls of his rank. Escio’s eyes met Aveo’s squarely. Light gray eyes, measuring, neither easily frightened nor easily duped. Aveo said, “Is it permitted to ask questions?”
    “Yes. But would you first like to sit and to eat?”
    Something broke in Aveo then, from fatigue and hunger and grief, and tears filled his eyes. He turned away. When he had mastered himself, the tent was empty, which almost brought the shameful tears again. When had he last encountered that much kindness?
    The commander returned with a steaming plate of meat and stewed fruit. He busied himself while Aveo sat on a three-legged stool and ate it. Then Escio sat opposite him, hands on the knees exposed by his blue skirt. Escio’s voice was controlled, quiet. “The egg fell out of the sky eleven days ago. We attacked, but neither spears nor fire so much as blackened it. The next day the woman came out. She has come out every