4.
 In the foothills of the Oba Range, on the other side of the island from the Emperor's throne room, sprawled Kusi-O, the space port. Oba might be a backwater, but it had one extremely valuable commodity. Oba was a fungal treasure house. More than a million species of all sorts of fungi flourished in the hothouse atmosphere of the water world—some medicinal, others with manufacturing value, others for warfare, still others that glowed in colorfully. The lights on the Obayyo, carried in pretty paper lanterns slung on a pole over each journeyer's back, were fungal, bioluminescent.
Inevitably, despite Shur's isolation, visits had come from various interstellar trading organizations, bringing curiosity and commerce. That lure had been greater for the feudal lords than its perceived danger to their way of life. Meeting at the imperial palace a century ago, the lords had induced the emperor to sign a set of decrees establishing Kusi-O while limiting its effects on Oba. The space port would be surrounded by a high concrete wall. Inside was bathed in light, outside in the gloom of Oba. Aliens must never set foot on Oba proper under threat of decapitation. Shurians and humans must stay out of Kusi-O, or face a gruesome death.
The Raum Transport League and the Oban lords conducted commerce through a bureaucracy that filtered through the drum wall that surrounded Kusi-O, a tall concrete structure guarded on both sides. All through the gloomy night, gravless boats rose and descended between Kusi-O and RTL's orbiting starport. The pillar of bluish, hazy light beaming straight up guided Jory toward Kusi-O, though he feared how anyone's eyes could endure such brightness close up.
Tonight, there was no conspiracy, whatever Ramyon's men thought. Jory simply had no place else to run. Either way, he faced death. At least he had some place to run to, however briefly. How, he asked himself as his leather shoes began wearing out and the rough cobblestones pounded the bones in his feet, can I have come down to this? And what of Ramy? His heart ached for her, knowing that she was probably facing her father at his most terrifying.
Heart pounding, Jory jogged unsteadily along the Obayyo. Cargo-carriers, both Shurian and human, trudged by in pairs or quartets, with various sizes of fungiport urns hanging by knotted ropes from poles slung over the carriers' shoulders. Passing pilgrims and mountebanks blended with the vast majority of ordinary Shurian peasants hurrying to market. The Oba lowlands smelled tank-like of the sea.
Now one of the frequent fogs rolled in suddenly, making ghosts of passers-by. The fog smelled like sea weed. It blotted out the many wooden hawkers' stands on either side of the road. The many lanterns look like cotton glowing from within. Jory remembered delicate ancient Oba poems, of which he was a specialist. One liners. Two liners. Three liners. Each a sacred tradition practiced in the rice paper walled courts. To compose a successful three liner over cups of sh'w after dinner was to honor one's host beyond all measure. To house a poet, even if it were a human pedagogue, was to display ineffable social grace.
All gone now, finished forever, in one mad moment, Jory thought. His rear hurt from a tiny cut where he'd barely escaped a cutting weapon, as he jumped through a window on the high castle ramparts just hours ago. He could almost feel the prick of the first sword point in his back as Ramyon's soldiers caught up with him, or the Obayyo police in the brown and brass armor with elk-horn helmets. He could foresee the way he would tumble on the cobblestones, captured in a hard fishing net, and dragged behind a horse to the castle, where his head would wind up on one parapet, his torso on another with his mingled arms, legs, and inner organs suspended in a net basket for all the world to see. The long ago sage had said: "When an Shurian does something wrong, that is a crime. When a human does something wrong, that is a crime. When Shurian and human do things wrong together, that is an abomination punishable by death."
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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