by Katy Winter
CHAPTER SEVEN
The land they passed across took them steadily closer to plains where cities were fewer and fortified. It was an unfriendly landscape. The only areas the travellers enjoyed crossing was where valleys opened to lush greenness and cultivation offered hopes of trade. Quon actively discouraged slavery. So the traders grudgingly sublimated their wish to invade local dwellings and instead became increasingly competitive and skilled hagglers.
Jepaul continued to grow. Clothes that should have lasted him for two cycles were too short. Javen softly teased him by calling him a scarecrow, a title that brought a faint blush and a shake of the auburn mop before Jepaul turned away, a little smile trembling on his lips. Quon wondered when the boy's height would stabilise. He thought uneasily of the fleeting memory he had some time before in connection with Jepaul and as the child grew to boyhood, Quon suddenly knew exactly what his elusive memory was. It was connected with the ancient Progenitor. Every day he saw an increasing physical resemblance to Jepaul, but equally he saw no sign of the nature of the beast in this boy. That unholy man, or being, whatever you wished to call him, had been, so records asserted, (and who was Quon to argue with texts of such antiquity?), a mightily tall man at six feet eight inches in height. Quon kept his thoughts to himself.
Gabrel finally decided the best thing for Jepaul was to provide him with adult clothing bought from those with whom they traded, since he reasoned, plausibly, that the child would very soon outgrow anything made for those his age. So Jepaul trotted contentedly about with rolled up breeches and shirt sleeves, the tails of the latter and any jerkin or jacket down to his knees. He looked a character. His sunny disposition exerted a charm on all those around him. The slavers came to like him and they developed a ferocious regard for his welfare, even exhorting the Varen to be more vigilant when the boy went off to hunt. Saracen watched carefully and still kept his own counsel. Knellen also watched, but his pain was increasingly intense and he struggled to retain that part of him a writhling would consume. Quon watched him with anxiety.
Knellen's struggle became apparent to all on the day they were met at the end of a long rift valley. The riders who approached were Varen. They were hunting and their quarry was a Shalah. The Varen moved purposefully, intent on their quarry, their interest in the large body of riders coming towards them negligible. That was until they sighted Knellen. They abruptly changed course and approached with frightening speed, their halt in a flurry of dust and small stones enough to make the traders draw back in some alarm, their weapons at the ready. Jepaul was drawn in among a cluster of men. It was, surprisingly, Gabrel who reached across to the child and deliberately drew up his dangling hood, hands swiftly tying it to hide the bright coppery curls. Later, Gabrel couldn't recall why he'd acted that way.
Knellen rose courteously in the saddle and inclined his head in the ritual gesture of greeting and respect. The others did likewise.
“I greet you, brethren,” he said in a cool detached voice.
“We greet you, brother,” answered the leading Varen, his keen eyes scanning the large group with seeming indifference. “Your nomen, brother?”
“Knellen.”
“You are on a mission?”
“Yes,” came the uncommunicative response.
“So are we,” explained the Varen coolly. “I answer to Foren and these are my kunons.”
“You honour me with your honorific,” answered Knellen. “Your quarry?”
“But could it be apart from your own?” asked Foren easily. “After all, Knellen, we are brothers of the common good and our allegiance to our masters unquestioning. Yes?”
“Quite,” said Knellen curtly.
He suffered a moment of anguish that made him sweat. He knew Foren smelled it. The man's eyes narrowed and the pointed teeth gleamed in a discomfiting smile that froze something deep inside Javen. His heart seemed to congeal. He knew Knellen wavered but also knew a dreadful fight went on inside the man that he couldn't hide, not even from others not his kind.
“Would you care to let us glimpse your quarry, Knellen?”
Knellen's eyes rolled back. It was as if the writhling would speak and act for him despite all he might do to prevent it. Quon moved close to him and spoke words that made the Varen rear up his head and give a half-strangled moan. Then he brushed Quon to one side and dismounted.
“I accompany the child,” he said distinctly. Saracen actually snarled at the words. Quon sighed softly to himself. “The boy is the one you seek?”
The other Varen stared rather blankly at the dismounted Knellen, then he too dismounted.
“Boy?” he asked surprised. “Why would I seek a boy that travels under your protection? Do we seek other quarry from you?”
“I accompany a child to his destiny. What do you seek?”
“The candemaran, friend, the candemaran. What makes you struggle against us so, brother?”
“It was my belief,” explained Knellen, in a voice hoarse with weariness and distress, “that you intended harm to one I must guard. It would be a predicament that would cause me considerable dismay if it meant I must defy either an expressed wish or an order. Nor do I wish to jeopardise the camaraderie of my kind.”
“None of that,” responded Foren, his eyes again narrowing, but this time to slits of friendly amusement. The pointed teeth parted in a smile that made Saracen shudder. “You keep to your duty, brother, as we shall to ours. I thought you may have abducted our quarry since one candemaran is much like another after all, and how would you have known, had you seen her, that she was ours for the taking? You might have wished to have her for your entertainment, yes?”
“I might indeed,” agreed Knellen weakly.
The pain gnawed fitfully and he kept his feet purely through an effort of training and self will. Even Saracen could see what it cost the Varen to stand so rigidly. Quon wandered forward. His demeanour was that of an old, rather bewildered man, the querulous persona he adopted bringing a reluctant grin to Javen's harsh face.
“Do you wish to ride with us?” he demanded petulantly. “I'm cold so don't appreciate standing about in this manner.”
He forgot to add that he'd quite deliberately dismounted when the Varen first approached. Foren stared down at him.
“You forget yourself, old man,” he reproved. “Let those better than yourself show you when you may act and when you may not.” He haughtily turned his shoulder. “Who is the child you guide, Knellen?”
There was a frozen moment, before Quon knocked into the Varen and made the man's horse shy a little with surprise. Foren swung round then pointed to Quon with his whip raised.
“You should discipline those about you, brother,” he advised Knellen, his attention all on his horse that he quickly mounted before Quon could knock him again. “And look to the child with a head that would set haystacks ablaze,” he warned jestingly. “News travels from city to city that an emtori seeks refuge, such a child of evil that it claims to have divinity through telepathy. It's destruction is, of course, a necessity.”
“The child with me,” said Knellen, through clenched teeth, “is but an ordinary child who has skills as a puppeteer. Others travel on to the northwest with us. We merely stopped for an exchange of goods.”
Either the Varen didn't see the sweat begin to coat Knellen's face or he was preoccupied with his musings, because he turned his horse to gesture to his men.
“Travel in comfort, Knellen,” he said politely, before he raised his hand again in a gesture of command.
As the group cantered away, Knellen swayed, then fell to his knees. He gave a cry that made Quon stare after the retreating Varen, his desperate hope that they wouldn't hear realised when they showed no sign of turning. Knellen's collapse was total. He foamed at the mouth and his pointed teeth ground together.
“Master!” he gasped. “Master!” His eyes rolled back.
Quon seemed at something of a loss. It was Jepaul, hood flung back and his peculiar eyes blazing with that strange light,
who came at a run and flung himself down beside the tormented Varen. He grasped one of the Varen's hands in his and began to speak very slowly, as if he was in some sort of trance. The traders stood back fascinated. Saracen tilted his head with interest and Quon waited patiently.
Slowly but painfully, the Varen was able to gain some sort of consciousness. The exertion to gain control of himself clearly made him quite sick because he gagged suddenly and staggered dizzily to his feet. A short distance from the travellers he promptly threw up. Quon eyed Jepaul.
“Lad,” he called softly.
Jepaul turned, his eyes still wide and with a withdrawn expression about them. He crossed to the old man and sank against him as though he too was bewildered and not a little confused.
“Tell me, child, why you went to Knellen.”
“He needed me,” answered Jepaul dully, as if he spoke from a great distance and through water. “He's been a friend to us. You said so. He was hurt and I don't want any of our friends hurt, ever. So I just talked to him to make him see we'll not leave him to do things alone.” Jepaul paused and added with an effort. “There's something inside him. I don't know what it is but it seemed to know me. What is it?”
“Nothing, child,” said Quon comfortingly, an arm snaking about the slight shoulders. “I think what you sensed was just another part of a Varen.”
“Oh.”
Jepaul subsided into the comfort of the arm, then, because Quon knew something was drained from the boy, he curtly told Javen it was time for a pause.
Javen stood watching the old man and the boy for a long time before he gave the order for a full halt to set up camp, then he came across to where Quon sat back against a rock. Jepaul lay sprawled, his head rested in the old man’s lap, his long fingers that could twine round puppet strings or did so when he was agitated, relaxed. Saracen lounged behind them on another rock and Knellen, head in hands, was resting further back. Javen looked long at Jepaul’s copper curls, lit by the sun, that blazed in a way that lent accuracy to the Varen's description of a fugitive emtori caste boy.
“Maquat.”
Quon looked up with a tired smile.
“Yes, Javen, I know what you wish to say. And no, I don't entirely understand. The child bonds with those for whom he has love or respect and is impelled, by what I don't know, to protect or help them irrespective of what such action may cost him. He gave something of himself to the Varen, as I can do, but in a completely new and unique way. It's effortless and natural, nor is it a learned skill such as we were taught. The child just is.”
“And grows stronger and more formidable,” added Javen gently.
“Does that worry you?” asked Quon, shifting a little before cramp took hold.
“A little,” admitted Javen with a crooked smile. “After all, he's still only a nine syn child, so one has to wonder what an adult Jepaul may be like.”
“Indeed,” agreed Quon, a protective hand down to the restful face. Javen saw the gesture and grinned wryly.
“Don't fear for him on my account,” he informed Quon shrewdly.
“Oh I don't,” chuckled Quon, his eyes crinkling with mirth. “But you raise an important point. The boy, with such gifts, must be properly and thoroughly taught. He can never be allowed to fall into the hands of those who would misuse his abilities and distort them.”
“Like the Progenitor he so resembles?” inquired Javen placidly. He saw Quon stare fixedly at him.
“And what do you know of that?” he demanded.
“Little,” confessed Javen rather entertained. “You can instruct me, if you wish, as you continually instruct the boy.”
“All very well,” growled Quon. “But hear this, my friend. Others didn't take the Progenitor, as you call him, and distort him. He was evil incarnate all on his own. There was no need to pervert goodness. He did it for himself and when quite young too.”
“What happened to him?”
Quon looked profoundly troubled.
“That we can't answer,” he replied slowly. “We just know that he disappeared, quite abruptly. He'd been gone from Shalah for so long we thought we were free of him but we were set to watch for any sign of his return. Maybe he was preoccupied elsewhere.” Then aware he may have said too much he hurried on, ignoring Javen's incredulously raised eyebrow. “You talk too much,” he added testily.
“Maquat, are you telling me that none of The Four know what happened?”
“We know a great deal that we keep to ourselves,” came the curt reply, then, when Quon saw how chagrined Javen looked, he relented. “My good man, we waited and served for longer than you can imagine. He returned. Oh yes, he returned. He brought back his hellish minions with him and they created chaos between them for long syns that seemed to stretch to eternity. Then, as I said, he disappeared again. The next time he came we struggled for longer, before he just simply seemed to lose interest in us and his minions. I suppose they simply withdrew.”
“So where does this boy come in?”
“He's of the Progenitor's line,” answered Quon simply.
“One of how many?” asked Javen, his jaw hardening.
“He's the last.”
“You once said the Progenitor wasn't always reviled. How is that?”
Tiredly, Quon turned his focus on Jepaul.
“Once, Javen, he was supposedly a most charming, charismatic man, gifted, intellectual, with a great love of the arts and music. He lusted after women, but that was no matter. He wasn't the first to be that way and wasn't the last either. I don't count that against him.”
“How many offspring did he have?”
“That's the oddity,” yawned Quon. “He didn't have children by his women, not for long, long cycles though he took so many. Then he met and took a young woman whom he kept close to him, so close she lost all contact with her family and was rarely seen. When she was about to have a child she disappeared. She was only seen again when the girl child was five or six syns old, the girl a replica of her father in height and colouring. As he did, she had five digits on each foot.”
“Strange,” commented Javen, intrigued by this small taste of history. It confirmed for him what he’d read long ago as one of the Order but it hadn’t seemed the tale could be true. As he listened to Quon, he knew it was.
“Indeed,” concurred Quon, yawning again. “It became the family trademark if you like. Each subsequent child had the five toes rather than the Shalah four.”
“Did they have more than a child each?”
“No.”
“So why should Jepaul be condemned for his digits?”
“Why do you think?” grumbled Quon trying to stretch. Jepaul stirred restlessly and his hands balled then relaxed. “You studied and should recall your history.”
“Long ago, Maquat, long ago.”
“After syns the Progenitor became his real self and Shalah eyes were opened. No longer did his line engender pride and dignity. They became accursed over hundreds of syns, as your history should have taught you, to the point where the first child born often faced death. Where a child was slain another tainted child was born to take its place so slaughter stopped. However, by degrees, since they no longer killed the child they enslaved him or her and reduced their standing by degrees till they reached the lowest caste. That's where they've stayed for syns now. Jepaul just follows in the cursed family line and tradition - a despised emtori with, worst of all, the devilish taint.”
“Poor fellow,” said Javen softly, his gaze down at the sleeping figure a long look. “His life comes from a long time ago, doesn't it?”
“Aeons,” replied Quon. This time his yawn was deep and it woke Jepaul. “But it shows distinctly, I think you'll agree, that the hatred of his so-called Progenitor, and the mistrust, goes very, very deep.”
“It does,” agreed Javen, watching Jepaul shake his head. “He's a lucky lad that Gabrel had the wit to cover that head of his,” he added rather sourly. Quon just shook his head at that rider and began to enquire
if Jepaul was hungry.
The meeting with the Varen unsettled them all, including Jepaul who didn't look as carefree as he'd done before. Knellen became increasingly touchy and unapproachable because he sensed a renewed distrust of his motives and he now, openly, mistrusted himself. Saracen made some cutting remarks that only stopped when Quon peremptorily told the little man to leave the Varen alone. Secretly, Quon worried. Javen saw it too.
Three weeks after the brush with the Varen, the bulk of the slavers bade a small band farewell, their leader Javen among them. Also with them, to everyone's amazement, was Gabrel. It was a quiet, reflective group that now struck northwards towards mountainous terrain, the trails that guided them untouched for no one knew how long. The journey had suddenly become arduous and touched with a grim reality.
Quon was restive, Knellen brooding, Saracen suspicious, Gabrel helpful but essentially uncommunicative, and Javen preoccupied. That left the boy, dreamier these days, to wander along, either on horseback or foot, his eyes appreciatively taking in the rather harsh but breath-takingly beautiful surroundings. He spoke less too. He was a boy among grown men who only spoke if the need arose, and though they talked with him, on and off, he'd long ago learned to amuse himself. He whistled, and sang, or hummed, or sometimes broke into a most tuneful yodel that startled his companions.
He was thus preoccupied the day he went a little ahead of the others, to be brought up short by a girl no more than about eleven syns. She was dressed in appallingly filthy rags. She stood on the path, a hand to her mouth and the other brandishing a wicked-looking branch studded with spikes, a weapon she’d clearly hacked from a nearby bush. She was barefoot. Her blue eyes were terrified and her short hair matted beyond an ability to describe its colour.
Jepaul drew up frankly astonished. Then he advanced with his hand held out in a gesture of friendship. The club whistled past it and he leapt back as though stung, his eyes flashing with indignation. The girl backed, an arm again poised to strike. Jepaul backed warily too.
“I won't hurt you,” he reassured her.
She stared at him.
“She's beyond understanding that,” remarked Javen sagely, the man coming up alongside Jepaul.
At that moment she saw the Varen. She gave an inarticulate cry before the branch fell to the ground and she sank weeping to her knees, her hands up imploringly. Knellen looked coldly at her, distaste at her filth showing in his expression.
“Stand,” he ordered sharply. He glanced resignedly at Quon. “The candemaran,” he added succinctly.
Quon moved cautiously towards the girl.
“You can see I'm an old man and rather frail, my child. That should help you understand I couldn't hurt you.”
Javen gave a dour smile, as well aware as anyone that the Maquat Dom could hold his own in most situations. Certainly he was frail, as befitted his venerable antiquity, but no one, seeing those eyes, would take him for granted or be silly enough to push him.
The girl hesitated, doubt warring with a glimmer of hope.
“Meche?” she asked.
Quon looked dubious then inclined his head to Knellen for guidance. Knellen shrugged.
“What does she say?”
“She asks if you will leave her alone.”
“What would I be supposed to do with her?”
“The candemaran are females removed from their homes at a very young age to serve the Varens’ wants,” responded Knellen unenthusiastically. “She's an escaped one and the one the Varen were pursuing.”
“That doesn't explain her presence here,” objected Javen. “We all know the tracking skills of the Varen are legendary and this child doesn't look as if she could give hunters the slip. How has she escaped thus far?”
Knellen looked uncomfortable. He saw searching eyes scanning him and uttered wrathfully,
“I slightly altered the scent in the faint hope she may have a chance to get away, but the foolish girl hasn't gone far enough.”
“Kind of you,” commented Saracen, with a sideways look at the Varen. “Do you want her for yourself then?”
The Varen spat to one side with disgust.
“The candemaran mean nothing to me.”
“They're slave prostitutes then?” demanded Quon, outrage in his voice.
“I suppose so,” conceded Knellen wearily.
“But,” pursued Javen, “does that mean the Varen will return to seek her and us out?” His look at Knellen was accusing. “Is that the reason you let her escape?”
“No,” replied Knellen stung. “She is small quarry from the city we left behind. The Varen don't waste time on worthless quarry. They'll assume she died in the open spaces because candemaran are never taught survival skills.”
“We'll hope you're right,” said Quon more moderately. “Meanwhile, Knellen, tell the child she has nothing to fear and that we'll clothe and feed her.”
The Varen obliged, his words clipped and his tone uncompromising. In spite of that, the girl crept closer and closer to him with each word he uttered, until she crouched beside his horse, her head bent and her hands still clasped together. It was obvious Knellen was becoming frustrated because his fixed stare down at her became a glare of annoyance.
“What's the matter?” asked Javen, rather amused.
“She thinks of me as her saviour,” explained the Varen irritably.
“Faith, you are, man,” laughed Javen. “So what happens now?”
“She will go to no other and says she's mine.” Knellen now looked extremely vexed.
Quon stepped forward to the girl and bent over her.
“You wish to be with the Varen?” She nodded. “Then I see no problem with that,” he added gently, “but in the meantime you should eat some food then clean yourself.” He glanced around the silent group. “You'll have to wear a boy's clothes, my dear, because we have no women among us, but that's a minor thing. Do you have a name?”
The girl looked up at the Varen, adoration mixed with respect in her eyes.
“I'm Marilion,” she answered clearly. “Marilion.”
“Then come, my child,” invited Quon, a kindly hand down to her.
Marilion was a singularly pretty girl once filth was removed, her hair washed and her clothes replaced. She had to be attractive to be a candemaran, but it wasn't just that her face was pretty. She had a wistful charm and a rather endearing manner towards those she came to trust.
She remained unshaken in her resolve to be near Knellen and that despite his loud, irritable denunciation of her nearness. When she realised, after a short time, that he wished to have no relationship with her, she turned instead to Gabrel, a move that nearly caused a serious quarrel between the Varen and the slaver.
“You don't want her, man,” spat Gabrel in disgust. He backed precipitately from pointed teeth from which lips were drawn back in a decidedly feral snarl.
“She's a child,” growled the Varen edging closer. Gabrel's hand went to the nearest weapon he could find and he stood his ground.
“Not from where I'm looking,” he jested.
“You leave her,” warned Knellen.
“Shalah love you!” expostulated Gabrel. “Man, she came to me. She offered herself! Do you take me for a rapist then?”
Knellen turned round on the balls of his feet to stare threateningly down at the shrinking Marilion.
“Did you, candemaran?” She nodded, just as Quon arrived, his expression one of interest.
“What goes on here?”
“One who has a bone but doesn't want it and won't share it,” muttered Gabrel, the long stave in his hand swinging over and about his head.
“Put that thing down!” ordered Quon. “Must you fall out over a mere child?” He glared up at the Varen who took a pace back at the look in the old man's eyes. “Knellen, you make it clear you don't want the girl near you. No one quarrels with that, but is it reasonable for no other to show an interest in her? As candemaran I imagine she's not untouched?”
“No,” agreed Knellen, anger still smouldering in his eyes.
“Presumably she's used to men of one sort or another and probably from an early age?”
“Yes,” conceded the Varen, now gnawing on his lower lip.
“So what's the problem with her being with Gabrel rather than yourself?”
“She seeks protection of a slaver?” questioned the Varen incredulously.
“It seems so, yes, though why she needs protection is beyond my understanding.”
“She must not go to another, nor to me.”
“Very well,” said Quon amiably. “I'll care for her.”
“No!” exploded Knellen. He saw the look of pained enquiry.
“My dear man,” remonstrated Quon amused, “I'm past the age of lustful thoughts concerning girls, and even more beyond the age of executing any youthful fantasies I may once have enjoyed.”
Knellen began to laugh, anger quenched and sudden genuine mirth in his eyes and voice.
“Don't be so hard on yourself,” he reproved, a comment that made both Quon and Gabrel grin broadly. Gabrel put the stave on the ground. “Maquat, the child must be protected. She can't go to another male, not even me.”
“Why?” asked Gabrel curiously.
Knellen hesitated, then said carefully, “She carries the offspring of a Varen.”
“What?” yelled Quon and Gabrel together.
“She shouldn't,” added Knellen thoughtfully. “How this happened I don't know. I've not heard of a candemaran having issue. They're made so they can't,” he explained. Then he rushed on at the expressions of revulsion that came to two faces at his explanation, “Unless it was deliberate, or she wasn't originally a candemaran at all.”
He again turned to stare thoughtfully at the hunched figure, a child with child. Quon thought she looked rather pitiful and it was clear Gabrel felt uncomfortable.
“Marilion,” Quon called softly, waiting for the young face to be upturned to his. “Were you born into the candemaran caste?” She shook her head.
“Did you ever undergo the rite that sterilises a candemaran?” asked Knellen calmly. She shrugged. “Did you go into the chamber, have a form of surgery, take a chalice, drink from it then remain in the room until you began to show signs of blood?” Quon and Gabrel looked questioningly at each other. Marilion looked confused.
“I don't know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember anything like that, just being taken and given to a man as soon as I was captured.”
“Whose child does she bear then?” demanded Gabrel. “And is that why you deflected the Varen that day? Did you know?”
“I sensed why they chased her, yes,” responded Knellen cautiously. “It seemed wrong to hunt one with child in such a callous manner, even if her having a child is against all accepted laws of Shalah and violates all Varen codes. I assume it's a Varen she carries or maybe not.”
“To hell with Varen codes,” growled Gabrel. “If she carries a child of your lot then well and good. I've no quarrel with that, but such a girl can still respond to a man in spite of it.”
“True,” responded Knellen with a sudden smile. “Candemaran never have such a dilemma, but this girl's different. There should be no child.”
“We've established that,” murmured Quon, a hand to his forehead that he scratched in a perplexed way. “What caste were you, child?” he addressed the girl directly again.
“No caste once,” she whispered. She lowered her head again. “I was taken because my father displeased his Cynas.”
“What were you then?” Quon noticed the girl wore no collar. “Knellen, why has she no collar?”
“Candemaran don't need one,” replied the Varen, showing his teeth again. “They know that to disobey a Varen or not to perform to satisfaction means pain.”
“I see.” Quon's tone was sour. “Why then would this girl, who bears one of your kind, run from those who presumably gave her the child?”
“Ask her,” came the cool response.
“Marilion,” began Quon again. “Why do you run from those whose child you carry?”
“There should be no child,” she said in her soft voice. “Candemaran don't have children. I was made a candemaran when my father was executed. My mother was already dead. My sister was also a candemaran but she died after being with a Varen.”
“A short but eventful career for a girl,” sneered Gabrel, his upper lip curling.
“Some are more brutal and demanding than others.” Knellen met Gabrel's look squarely. “Just like slavers, Gabrel. Some are crueller than others. Did all your victims live happily ever after?”
Knellen looked haughtily at the other man.
“No, damn you,” admitted Gabrel honestly. A reluctant smile dawned when he saw the glint in the Varen's eyes.
“Do you know the father of your child?” persevered Quon. He saw how Marilion whitened and tightened her lips.
“I wasn't the ordinary candemaran because I was the prize of a treasonous father,” she began hesitantly. “The Varen,” here she paused to glance a little wildly at Knellen, “is wrong when he says I was probably with other men. I wasn't.” She paused again, then went on. “I was chosen as a candemaran for the one Varen because I was untouched and he wished to have the pleasure -.” She gave a tiny gasp and stopped.
“Of deflowering you,” continued Knellen conversationally. “That's not unknown but usually happens with girls younger than yourself. You come late to candemaran.”
“Were you badly hurt?” asked Gabrel roughly, a hand going to her that she rose to and grasped.
“You obey whatever is asked of you,” she said evasively. “The Varen wished to have me all through his visit because he said I was easy to teach.”
“His visit?” asked Knellen, turning to face her after staring abstractedly into the distance for a while.
“The Varen,” repeated Marilion. She looked across to Quon, released Gabrel's hand and stood awkwardly in a way that showed just how very young she was.
“Was the Varen not from your town then?”
Marilion glanced again at Quon for guidance. Encouraged by a nod and a smile she spoke again to Knellen.
“He came for a long visit. He was invited,” she added helpfully.
“Who was he and who invited him?”
“They asked him to come,” Marilion said, a little puzzled by the intentness of the Varen's expression.
“I think we need a bit of clarity.” Quon walked to Marilion and took her hand. “Who invited the Varen to your town, my dear?”
“All the Varen. They say he's an important man.”
“I see.” Quon glanced quickly at Knellen. “Why was he important? Do you know?”
“He's important to all Varen. That's why I was given to him and not one of the other used candamaran.”
“What is his name, child?” At that Marilion shrugged expressionlessly. “You don't know?”
“No,” came baldly.
“What did you call him?”
“What they called him.”
“And that is?”
“The Mythlin.”
“What?” The monosyllable was positively shouted by Knellen and his eyes blazed with a curious light. “He was in your town, the last small city we just passed?”
“Yes.”
“What was he doing there?”
“He was with me.”
“Who's the Mythlin?” asked Gabrel.
“He's our master, the Utmost Varen, a man we rarely see but one we still obey. He commands our Order and to him we owe honour and obeisance. I didn't know he'd moved from Baron/Kelt. How is this possible? He's ancient and an invalid.”
“No he's not,” objected Marilion. She blushed and turned her head away. “The Varen who answers to the Mythlin walks. He even runs,” she offered. “He has much -.” She paused again. “He seldom tires,” was the lame addition before Marilion fell silent.
Quon studied the Varen's face and finally commented,
&n
bsp; “This appears to profoundly disturb you, Knellen. Why? Don't you rejoice that your leader, for want of a better word, has become youthful and vigorous again?”
“But how?” whispered the Varen, in some consternation. “You may gain something. But to do so you must also lose or give up something else for a gift as was clearly offered to him. Nothing in life is free, Maquat, nothing. It doesn't sound like the Mythlin, the guardian of our sacred texts and our Order.”
“Many a man will sell something for youth and vigour, Varen.”
“Would you, Maquat?” Knellen flung at Quon vehemently.
“Well, no,” confessed Quon, “but I'd have little to gain and I've never hankered after youth and inexperience.”
“Nor did he.”
“Something must have tempted him,” observed Gabrel sourly.
“He'd have to renounce something of enormous value to secure this,” said the Varen to himself. “It isn't the nature of the man at all. What could he sell for the joy and spontaneity of youth?”
“His soul,” said Quon, very bluntly. He saw Knellen quiver and go pale. “Is that possible?”
“I hope not,” gasped the Varen, “because if he has, Maquat, the very doors of darkness stand wide and yawn at us. For a man like the Mythlin to yield to temptation of that magnitude makes me fear for all Varen.”
“And is his having offspring anything to do with this?” asked Gabrel, the man clearly a mite lost in the conversation. His looked from one person to another.
“Varen don't mate as you do,” said Knellen through his teeth. “We go through a process that sees the male seed taken, fertilised in a special way, then sent to germinate before being raised. Those raised as I was have become few and far between over the last syns. There is more than enough seed for us to reproduce ourselves as required. It is considered a depersonalised approach to reproduction is preferable to the choice of a female seed by an individual male – as it was with me. We can control the process, retard it, refine it, or accelerate it better by no personal selection.”
“I suppose that's impressive,” said Gabrel, “but I must admit I prefer the old-fashioned way. It seems your master does and all, because he took this little soul here and bedded her rather thoroughly by all accounts. Just look at her.”
“The pleasures of the flesh have never been denied by the Varen.” There was an edge to Knellen's voice. “It's just easier to organise replacements of Varen who die by artificial means. It means you keep the gene pool clean.”
“Oh quite,” agreed Gabrel sarcastically. “So what went wrong, Varen, that this child should have to fly from her city?”
“She should never have conceived. Her ability to still reproduce must have been overlooked. Never should a common candamaran be in such a position.”
“She was, many times, we gather,” came the rather malicious comment. Gabrel glanced mockingly at the Varen. “What were they going to do to her? Kill her?”
“Tear out an abomination,” said Knellen coldly, “and then kill her for her temerity in ever conceiving. It's unthinkable.”
Gabrel was now coldly angry.
“I see. You rape the girl, then when she has the misfortune to conceive you destroy both child and mother. There's a fine sense of justice for you.” He turned his head to Quon. “Javen is angry about Shalah, Maquat Dom. It seems rightly so, doesn't it?”
Quon patted Gabrel's arm soothingly and held Marilion close.
“Hush, Gabrel, you frighten the child.” Gabrel's expression softened and a large hand ruffled the girl's hair. “What are the Varen afraid of, Knellen? Is it that the girl may give birth to a child that's unique on Shalah and therefore an unpredictable equation? Could the child have talents that would make it a threat to the very Varen that spawned it? Could it understand the Varen as few of us do, simply by virtue of its parentage?”
“No Varen has fathered a child for millennia, Maquat, no one. This girl has broken the fundamental traditions that govern what we are. In a real sense she overturns the Order of the Brotherhood.”
“No,” corrected Quon quietly. “This girl has done nothing other than have the misfortune to be born and brought to candamaran status. The one who's broken with your tradition is the Mythlin, no one else. The girl is as innocent as the day she was born. She deserves our respect and caring.” Quon felt the small hand in his cling harder. “There are lots of questions we need to answer, Knellen, not least being why this child was reduced to candemaran in the first place. And we need also to know when this infant will be born.”
“I can tell you that,” said Knellen unemotionally. “If you care to study the girl's body you'll see that a boy's baggy clothes disguise how far on she is. She will birth within a seasonal turn. Presumably she could no longer disguise the fact from those about her and that's why she knew she had to escape before she was captured, the child removed and herself executed for defiling a Varen.”
“Is that correct, Marilion?” Quon bent his head.
“Yes,” came from below him.
“So the Mythlin recognised you carried his child?”
“No,” came again.
“But other Varen obviously knew it was his child then?”
“They said I was a young whore who knew no loyalty to the one who asked for me and gave of himself to me.”
“Then they actually think your child is that of other than the Varen?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“So there's no recognition of your carrying what is an abomination, as Knellen put it?”
“The Varen said I was faithless and would face death because of it. To look at another when you're with a Varen is a crime, but to have another's child is the worst thing a girl can do.”
“So you fled. Is that why you went to Knellen, because you know you bear a Varen?”
“Yes, because I have been with none other than the Mythlin so must carry his child. I wanted the Master,” here she glanced up imploringly at Knellen, “to protect me, but since he didn't want to, I went to Gabrel. Gabrel's kind to me.”
“So I am and all,” agreed Gabrel, drawing the girl closer as Quon let her go.
“She carries Varen blood,” put in Knellen fiercely, “so she stays close to me but will stay untouched.”
“Marilion?” asked Gabrel.
She looked up into his face and stroked his whiskers.
“I'll stay with the Varen until my child's born, then I'll come to you,” she whispered. “Once the child's born, the Varen won't care any more.”
Quon, aware that his existence on Shalah had just taken yet another tortuous turn, wasn't so sure - not at all.
A half-bred Varen was born when they were struggling through the mountains. Jepaul was Marilion's constant companion and friend and it was as much to him as the adults that she turned. He fascinated her. On the day Cadran was born, Jepaul was seated quietly beside her, her hand held in his. When the contractions began to intensify, the boy broke free and ran for the Varen and Quon, both men arguing affably with Javen and Gabrel over the route they'd take once Marilion was on her feet again and ready to resume travel.
They hurriedly broke off their conversation and hastened back to Marilion. It was a brutal labour for a girl so young and not yet come to physical maturity. When Cadran finally came, he was tiny but healthy.
“Take the child,” ordered Quon sharply.
Marilion didn't want to care for the child. Her lack of interest surprised Quon but came as no surprise to Knellen.
“She's lived among Varen, Maquat. They care nothing for children. Those artificially raised don't have parents and live in a controlled environment. That's all the girl's probably seen for at least two syns. At her age she was impressionable.”
“So who cares for the child?”
“I do,” said Knellen stolidly.
“Can you, with the writhling?” asked Quon curiously.
“I will, Maquat,” responded the Varen. “I will also teach Marilion how to be
a mother.”
And he did. Knellen became the boy's father and he treated him as he treated Jepaul, with kindness, firmness and authority. Marilion still honoured the Varen, her admiration of the one who'd saved her life bordering on sheer adoration, but she never approached his bed nor demanded anything of him. From the day Cadran was born, Marilion lived with Gabrel. Despite their relationship she never had another child, though she did care very well for the infant, their bond as mother and child deepening through Knellen’s help and Gabrel’s encouragement.
The time spent caring for the infant slowed the travellers in a way that frustrated Quon and prompted Knellen to occasionally gnash his pointed teeth. Saracen stayed calm but it was clear Javen fretted. He kept casting long looks behind them. When Gabrel milked the jetz, several times a day to provide milk for Cadran, Javen could be heard to audibly grind his teeth in imitation of Knellen.
It was finally decided, when Cadran was ten weeks old, that he, his mother and Gabrel, would remain behind the others, this despite cries from Jepaul. His protests fell on deaf ears.
“Jepaul,” reasoned Quon calmly, “the child must have some sort of stability. Here's a hamlet, miles from nowhere, where there are offers of a home for both he and his mother. Gabrel is already a father to the little fellow and would let no harm come to him. In time, when Cadran's a little older they'll seek us out, that I promise you, or we will find them.”
“What's the hurry?” demanded Jepaul dejectedly.
“You are,” came the quiet response in a way that brought up the young head with a jerk. Colour flooded the young cheeks.
“I'm sorry to be such trouble to you,” Jepaul muttered rather dolefully.
“Silly boy,” reproved Quon gently. “Come, lad, make haste.” He watched the youngster scuff a bare toe in the dirt. “Do you think, for a moment, that Knellen would leave such a child behind if he sensed any danger?”
Jepaul stared hard at the old man, sighed, accepted the way things had to be and was hastened on his way to his horse by a curt shove from Knellen and words that made the boy quicken his pace. He never disobeyed or queried the Varen. Cadran's large light-coloured eyes, unusually clear and mature for an infant, watched the boy walk away until Jepaul was gone from view. The eyes blinked, once.