Organización del expediente del proyecto

Spring in Vestir was gray and dull, bringing cold rains, and the Ukar prisoner Glam, looking out of the jail, saw the roadway knee deep in red-clay mud. The six window bars glistened like dripping icicles, water droplets falling in slow, disordered patterns, merging and devour-ing each other, resembldevour-ing ravished protozoa or rain on ink parchment.

Beyond the bars and the mud the chained Ukar (a numb sensation and a skin rash about the clamp on his left leg) could make out the somber edges of tight, smoke hued houses and ashen tree trunks. Cold winds rattled skeletal branches, and the sweet song of a small unseen bird was crushed by dogs barking idiotically down distant streets, and the inane honking of Midian geese, flying from unseen seasons, scattering their mournful, dull cries to the dreary peasant towns below. Welcome, a voice whispered in his head between wind gusts, to the Li Halan Worlds.

While the rains poured down Glam tried to remember an Ukari childhood song ( “One-legged Bwern Crawled to Tont”), or played in a sluggish manner with the heavy chain about his ankle. The damp air, pregnant with spores, produced a musty familiarity, and the rhythmic snoring of the prison guard, Borshka, induced a strangely soothing affect. It was hard to keep time, and Glam surrendered any attempt to mark the chronological divisions which separated darkness from light, time becoming an almost stoic, static thing, holding its breath in the present. In short, he reverted to the timeless, magical present sense of the Ukari and gave up the acquired habit of worrying and marking time the way his human comrades in the Scravers Guild did.

By day he listened to the rain streaming down cut stone gullies, swallowing thought in comforting musical gurgling, as if a musician’s notes washed and bubbled against an invisible mountain, old and weather-worn. Then came a waterfall of ascending notes, carving paths on the periphery of sound, lightly mocking the ear’s abilities with tiny, di-minutive dancing, an elfin sigh destroyed in the soon descending down pour. Those moments, of the light rain singing, briefly lit Glam’s mood,

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but were gone before a smile formed across the Ukar’s sullen, downcast face, smashed in heavy torrents of hard rain.

By night, he dreamed, and in his dreams he battled with his ances-tors in the mythic times, tooth and sword against the whispering gods and their Obun slaves. The great Ukari heroes were his companions, Thollo the first Nadakira, and invincible Shinris, and Shelkoro the Doomed, who first cursed the race with their shadows, the ialtach. Glam beheld great battles, and magnificent cities burned before his dreaming eyes, causing the waking world to seem even more dark and gray. Many-towered Thasfala he saw, and Lidwiant, and gleaming Tinoor’ar, the dream cities so ancient that many despaired that they ever existed, save in storytellers’ fancies.

And in his dreams his shadow-self was his friend, tossing him his sword and helmet before the braying horns issued war, or saving him from the fire weapons of the Obun. Comrades they were, fighting along-side the great gods, the Sons of Rillos and One-Eyed Anikrunta, the God of Judgment, whose gouged eye he held above his head, seeing all things in the nine universes while the blood of retribution poured from the wounded socket. Glam tasted the dust kicked up by Anikrunta’s gigantic, obsidian legs, when the god appeared in physical form, lead-ing hordes of howllead-ing, blood-crazed warriors. And his Shadow urged them ever on, to glory and war unending.

By day, he felt himself the shadow, diminutive, lacking substance, halfheartedly trying to escape, until he would crawl onto his hay bed, where the lice waited, and curl up under his ancient army issue blanket, stamped with the insignia of the Li Halan. Across from his cell the other prisoners, Miho (caught housing a suspected Incarnate priest) and Edson (poaching on Church land) regarded him with superstitious fear, whispering that demons had tattooed his skin, as they did all Ukari.

Glamok nidi Tadwar (his full name) ignored them until he wanted something, and then played the part of the demon-worshipping alien to the hilt, mussing his long white hair and pointing accusingly, saying,

“My grandfather on Aylon was a Taudwon who taught me the spells of summoning powerful, thirsty devils and blood-lapping ghosts.” They would hand him a portion of their old bread or egg gruel, shaking, eyes downcast. Glam howled, stuffing his face.

Later he prayed, calling on the god of judgment, Anikrunta, to

release him. Glam had constructed a crude alter from a lodestone and hay which he tied into a representational figure of the great god. Yet his prayers, while formal, were listless, drowned out by the rains. The heart had gone out of him.

When he was first brought into the Church prison, Glam was an oddity, and people from the town and closer farms came to look at him, crossing themselves with the jumpgate sign, whispering “Ukar Demon-seed,” and “Unreflective alien!” Glam reacted vehemently, curs-ing their patriarch and saints until Borshka would club him, panickcurs-ing and shaking, fearing for his position as Church jailer, and they would applaud, all idiot grins and “Palamedes be Praised!”.

Later, as Borshka lost heart in pounding Glam’s sides (a growing sympathy for the prisoner was evident by increased removals of his waste pail) and the routine grew dull, Glam would read fortunes for small tobacco sticks, or bless seeds for local farmers’ ale. After three weeks people stopped coming, except for the occasional stranger and the children outside the window, pointing and running, and periodi-cally throwing sharp rocks. Glam grew to respect Borshka’s lackadaisi-cal attitude (his grandfather was a jailer, his father was, and so was he), even rolling dice with him, telling him ribald jokes about Criticorum women. Edson, upon hearing Glam was a Scraver, opened up, telling him there was profit in the used tech trade, and began talking commis-sions. He was waiting for the family matriarch to settle things with the Church quietly, and had a foot in the door of the local parts guild.

Edson was from that strange half-caste on Li Halan worlds, the almost nonexistent class of freemen, tilling the land rented from the nobles and Church, mostly poor but fiercely proud of their status.

Miho remained quiet. Her crime was the worse, and the Inquisition would interrogate her before the month was out. She faced possible death, and the presence of death was felt more by her silence, until it seemed that an invisible companion sat by her side, patiently waiting.

At night the wind howled through damp stones, and Glam dreamed that his Shadow was carrying him, injured and bleeding, from the fire arrows of Obun archers, through a city of deep pools, silent and con-templative. Jewels glistened like stars in the far deeps of the turquoise waters, and the stars responded, reflecting fiercely, demiurgic lights danc-ing to primitive pipe music, mournful and sad.

The music of the fountains reminded him of the primal tears of

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creation, and when Glam tossed a glance at their reflection in a long, rectangular pool he realized that he cast no reflection, but his trudging, burden-laden shadow did, more real in the dream world now as well, as both dreaming and waking became a fading for Glam. His ialtach was long kept in check, and he almost felt that he had placed it in sleep while working with his human guild comrades, except in dreams. Since his imprisonment on Vestir, his dreams grew with frantic intensity. Far off in the somber city, an infant cried and then the stars came crashing down, burning emeralds, causing the great pools to boil.

Borshka’s stick tapped him near the kidneys (a sore spot, much bruised). “Wake up then, you got yourself company.” In his dreams, the infant cry receded beneath a vanishing purple skyline.

And Glam opened his brown eyes onto the flushed robes of a bishop, looking gaunt and angrily at him behind widened, owlish eyes of sea-gray and a mane of unkempt, snow-white scarecrow hair. Three guards (rich livery causing them to appear like merrily painted puppets against a dark and forlorn wall) covered Glam from all sides with laser guns.

Instinctively grabbing for the piss pot, Glam deflected invisible blows until he heard the bishop’s old, brittle voice exclaim, “Glamok nidi Tadwar, you know why you are in here. This is a Church town, on Church land, administered by the Church, so don’t apply guild or Li Halan codes here.”

“Yeah, I guessed that,” Glam said, slowly rising. Why was the bishop addressing him? “Didn’t know Li Halan and Church law were much different.”

“There are authoritative locations. Vestir is a Church town. Your League friends sent word, but I won’t release you yet. You remember your crime?”

Glam nodded. A young Church boy, an Obun, sprinkled vanilla scented leaves at the bishop’s feet, clearing the musty air. Glam’s eyes bore into the child’s, and he retreated tentatively behind the bishop, grabbing onto the old man’s robes with fierce strength in his small hands.

“Do not worry, child, he cannot harm you in my presence,” the bishop said, and the Obun boy snuck enigmatic peaks at Glam from beyond the bishop’s wiry frame. The two cousin races, separated by religion and time, with the old bishop between them, struck Glam as

laughably symbolic, and a harsh chuckling shook his throat. You couldn’t rub it in more, those who sided with humanity and became their pets, and those who fought them and became their prisoners.

At the sound of his laughter Borshka picked up his iron shock-stick, until the bishop motioned him to stop with a wagging of his index finger. Then he shot an intense, angered glance at Glam that froze the sarcasm bubbling in his throat.

“What do you think, Scraver Glam, that your punishment will be?”

“I thought the Church would just tie me to a whipping post before the town and crack hell on me,” Glam said. “I heard you Li Halan bishops are tough.”

“An apt response, but no, Ukar Glam, some of us make it to bishop without belonging to the royal family, through what St. Kao Tu called the Reflection of Merit. The world irks me with its variegated void. My name, Glam, is Bishop Mythius Mezenzikes. My bishopric is Zujan province. It is Sanyue, the Season of Rains, in the Year of the Yellow Serpent, an unhappy, churning time, according to the old astrologers.

Now, tell me about the incident.”

Glam nodded, trying to read the Church man’s intent. Why would a bishop from the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun take a per-sonal interest in the affairs of an off-world Ukar? He remembered once, on a hot and balmy day on Criticorum, the blessings of a bishop over the Fifth Dark Legion before they went into battle with Decados-led Stigmata Garrison forces. The Ukari forces were theoretically converted, and the soldiers accepted the blessings as powerful human magic to be added to the protective spells of their tribal and racial gods. When a high Church official asked Duke Hakim al-Malik why he employed so many Ukari in his armed forces, the duke answered that he didn’t have any Ukari that he knew of in the military, but there were a peculiar number of armed albino Obun who signed up with his legions.

Honesty is the only thing that will work here, Glam decided. The bishop will discover it if I am lying. Something big is at stake, and he is testing me. Glam cleared his throat and began.

“I had completed a job with my Scraver team on Rampart, and we were told to wait two weeks on Midian for our next assignment. We were in Lyonesse Province — higher tech base, more accepting of off-worlders. Still, even there, I felt uncomfortable, and a woman leading a pig herd through town spat on me and then fled, shrieking.

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ment proved to be that awful drama the peasant’s eat up, “Nobles Also Weep,” and everyone on the magic lanterns looks pale and ceremonial.

A week and I’m bored. Pao and I decide to see Zujan province, for the local guild pageants they hold here on St. Maya’s Eve. They told me not to go. Lyonesse was dull, but I felt invisible eyes on me, on all of us, reporting our movements. The off-world section was small, and the Li Halan army would sweep into town at night, young boys with machine guns, setting up road blocks. I saw a man shot for being drunk after curfew, and one evening they came into a bar and beat the owner sense-less, in front of us. I was afraid they might kill me on sight, but they didn’t notice me hiding behind the stacked chairs. Military training doesn’t desert you; it becomes habit.”

Bishop Mezenzikes nodded, clearly knowing something about the army sweeps, but saying nothing.

“I wanted peasant life, real life, like where I’m from. Well, you know how it is. I get here and they start staring at you and pointing, and I said, well, a drink inside will shake it off, and they cross themselves with the jumpgate sign and mutter prayers to drive demons out. Pao gets me drinking, where the old one-armed man, Waigong, serves rice-beer, and I lose that watched feeling that gnaws at the base of my neck. We see the parade outside — some village lady singing the miracles of St. Amalthea, and the Butchers Guild performed the Temptation of Alyward Allmen.

Next, the Market Guild set up Zebulon and the Dragon — what a sight!

But you must have seen it, the clanking, fire breathing mechanical monster. Now that’s religion!” Abruptly Glam’s voice broke off.

The bishop’s exasperated glance rolled to the ceiling. “Please con-tinue.”

“We’re drinking and getting ripped, cheering them on, and then…

then… the damned local Baker’s Guild comes clanking down on their mule-drawn cart, with the Martyrdom of St. Glam. St. Glam! I share his name, though not his outlook. There they are, a bunch of groaning idiots, painted to look like Ukari, torturing St. Glam. The tattoos are wrong: no Ukari would recognize those clowns.”

One of the guards coughed nervously, his eyes staring intently at the floor. Another looked at the water patterns on the damp ceiling, both men expecting a momentary reaction from the bishop. But Bishop Mezenzikes’ face grew flush red, and a strange, crackling sound escaped his lips. He motioned Glam to continue.

Glam began, hesitantly. “St. Glam was slain when he tried to scare off some clans from an area he cursed so that his traitorous clan could grab the land — the Ukari didn’t care shit what he preached! And here they have him yelling about dying for the Pancreator’s Truth, which he prays reaches his ‘unreflective, demon-haunted brethren.’ What crap. I looked at those phoney painted Ukari with their rolling eyes and bad tattoos and spitting tongues and something snapped.”

In the dim jail light, the bishop’s face glowed red, and his frame began to shake, a thin wind-whacked tree.

“I ran out, over-turned their cart, and went for that phoney Glam’s throat. Knocked him unconscious and began wailing on those half-dressed freaks mimicking my people, bloodying those fat bakers up good. The crowd’s throwing food at me and then the constable begins beating me with a sticks. I grab it and bash the guy’s mouth, but his friend, the one too ‘fraid to get near me, strikes me with some electro-gun and my nerves freeze and I fall over, thinking the runt killed me. I woke up here.”

Glam smiled, and then laughed exultantly. “It felt good,” he whis-pered.

The guards stepped back during the tale, as Glam’s presence en-gulfed the holding area, and Bishop Mezenzikes’ eyes shot into the animated Ukar, who now visibly regained his spirit, crushed on that day nearly a month ago. Then Mezenzikes laid his ashen hand on Glam’s shoulder, and a dry uncontrollable force rumbled from his throat, until barking laughter erupted. The guards froze, and the Obun boy jumped from behind the bishop’s robes with a sudden fright.

Gasping for breath, his thin arms wailing like wind-tossed branches, Mezenzikes caught himself, clutching his heart. “You’re… You’re the real thing, aren’t you? The real thing!” Uncontrollable laughter again erupted, with tears streaming down the old man’s cheeks, until Borshka the jailer brought a tin cup of water for the bishop, who swallowed the offering in one gulp. Next he wiped his eyes with his sleeves, shaking his head in amused disbelief, attempting composure.

“And these buffoons in so much face paint and wigs, howling like fishwives at a mercy coin toss — oh, it kills me,” Mezenzikes said, after a final swipe of his liquid eyes. “I’ve met your people, ministered to them, so I can imagine. Ah, that water, Glam, it hit the spot. You see, I am reminded of a similar incident. I ministered to these remote pagan

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communities on Gwynneth, in my ill-spent youth, and they performed a play about Zebulon, whom they interpreted, primitive fashion, as a dying and reborn vegetative god. They got this toothless old man dressed up, and were going to give him a young virgin girl to perform coitus with, and it was pathetic, a child’s game, and I broke up their pageant with harsh words, until they bowed before Zebulon’s representative and I told them the truth. And that toothless old fake began cursing, be-cause he was all hot and bothered about the girl, looking like one of those ancient statues to phallus gods, holding his member and implor-ing the frightened child to embrace him…”

Bishop Mezenzikes laughed again and dried his eyes a final time.

“He went hobbling about, frantically, pleading with her like a horny mime, eventually begging any of the women, from the oldest hag to the girl’s younger sisters, to minister to his slobbering lust. I ordered him tossed in the river to cool off, but what a sight. Green leaves were falling off his crooked crown, and he tore at his vine woven cape, scratching it to pieces during his anguished moans.”

After a distracting convulsion, where all eyes watched the bishop, too frightened to act, he calmed down. Then, reaching at Glam’s prison

After a distracting convulsion, where all eyes watched the bishop, too frightened to act, he calmed down. Then, reaching at Glam’s prison