Brothers of Earth

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Priest," urged the Methi.

  "Great Methi," answered the priest, "this is no easy matter. Whether this is a man as we understand the word, I cannot say. But he is not Tamurlin. Let the Methi do as seems just in her own eyes, but it is possible that she is dealing with a feeling and reasoning being, whether or not it is a man."

  "Is this creature good or evil, priest?"

  "What is man, great Methi?"

  "Man," snapped the Methi impatiently, "is the child of Nae. Whose child is he, priest?"

  "I do not know, great Methi."

  Ylith lowered her eyes then, flicked a glance toward Kurt and down and back again. "Priest, I charge you, debate this matter within the college of priests and return me an answer. Take him with you if it will be needful."

  "Methi, I will consult with them, and we will send for him if his presence seems helpful."

  "Then you are dismissed," she said, and let the priest go.

  Then she left too, and Kurt sank down again against his pillar, confused and mortally tired and embarrassed. He was alone and glad to be alone, so he did not have to be so treated before friends or familiar enemies.

  He slumped against his aching joints and tried to will himself to sleep. In sleep the time passed. In sleep he did not need to think.

  In sleep sometimes he remembered Mim, and thought himself in Elas, and that the morning bells would never ring.

  Doors opened, boomed shut. People stirred around him, shuffling here and there, forcing him back to wakefulness.

  The Methi had come back.

  This time they brought Kta.

  Kta saw him--relief touched his eyes-but he could say nothing. The Methi's presence demanded his attention. Kta came and knelt before her, and went full to his face. His movements were not easy. He appeared to have been hard-used.

  And she ignored him, looking above his prostrate form to the tall, stern man who bowed stiffly to his knees and rose again.

  "Vel t'Elas," said Ylith, "what has Elas-in-Indresul determined concerning this man Kta?"

  Kta's distant kinsman bowed again, straightened. He was of immense dignity, a man reminiscent of Nym. "We deliver him to the Methi for judgment, for life or for death."

  "How do you find concerning his dealings with Elas?"

  "Let the Methi be gracious. He has kept our law and still honors our Ancestors, except in the offense for which we deliver him up to you: his dealings with this human, and that he is of Nephane."

  "Kta t'Elas u Nym," said Ylith.

  Kta lifted his face and sat back on his heels.

  "Kta t'Elas, your people have chosen an alien to rule them. Why?"

  "She was chosen by heaven, Methi, not by men, and it was a fair choosing, by the oracles."

  "Confirmed in proper fashion by the Upei and the Families?"

  "Yes, Methi."

  "Then," she said, looking about at the officers who had come into the room, "heaven has decided to deliver Nephane into our hands once more. And you, u Nym, who were born Indras, where is your allegiance now?"

  "In my father's land, Ylith-methi, and with my house-friends."

  "Do you then reject all allegiance to this house of Elas, which was father to your Ancestors?"

  "Great Methi," said Kta, and his voice broke, "I reverence you and the home of my Ancestors, but I am bound to Nephane by ties equally strong. I cannot dishonor myself and the Ancestors of Elas by turning against the city that gave me birth. Elas-in-Indresul would not understand me if 1 did so."

  "You equivocate."

  "No, Methi. It is my belief."

  "What was your mother's name, U Nym? Was she Sufaki or was she Indras?"

  "Methi, she was the lady Ptas t'Lei e Met sh'Nym."

  "Most honorable, the house of Lei. Then in both lines you are Indras and well descended, surely of an orthodox house. Yet you choose the company of Sufaki and humans. I find this exceedingly difficult of understanding, Kta t'Elas U Nym."

  Kta bowed his head and gave no answer.

  "Vel t'Elas," said the Methi, "is this son of your house in any way a follower of the Sufak heresy?"

  "Great Methi, Elas finds that he has been educated 'into the use of alien knowledge and errors, but his upbringing is orthodox."

  "Kta t'Elas," said the Methi, "what is the origin of humans?"

  "I do not know, Methi."

  "Do you say that they are possessed of a soul, and that they are equal to nemet?"

  Kta lifted his head. "Yes, Methi," he said firmly, "I believe so."

  "Indeed, indeed." Ylith frowned deeply and rose from her place, smoothing the panels of her chatem. Then she shot a hard look at the guards. "Lhe, take these prisoners both to the upper prisons and provide what is needful to their comfort. But confine them separately and allow them no communication with each other. None, Lhe."

  "Methi." He acknowledged the order with a bow.

  Her eyes lingered distastefully on Kurt. "This," she said, "is nemetlike. It is proper that he be decently clothed. Insofar as he thinks he is nemet, treat him as such."

  Light flared.

  Kurt blinked and rubbed his eyes as the opening of his door and the intrusion of men with torches brought him out. of a sound sleep into panic. Faceless shadows moved in on him.

  He threw off the blanket and scrambled up from the cot his new quarters provided him-not to fight, not to fight- that was the worst thing for him and for Kta.

  "You must come," said Lhe's voice out of the glare.

  Kurt schooled himself to bow in courtesy, instincts otherwise. "Yes, sir," he said, and began to put on his clothing.

  When he was done, one guard laid hands on him.

  "My lord," he appealed to Lhe, a look of reproach on his face. And Lhe, dignified, elegant Lhe, was the gentleman Kurt suspected; he was too much nemet and too Indras to ignore the rituals of courtesy when they were offered.

  "I think he will come of his own accord," said Lhe to his companions, and they reluctantly let him free.

  "Thank you," said Kurt, bowing slightly. "Can you tell me where or why... ?"

  "No, human," said Lhe. "We do not know, except that you are summoned to the justice hall."

  "Do you hold trials at night?" Kurt asked, honestly shocked. Even in liberal Nephane, no legal business could be done after Phan's light had left the land.

  "You cannot be tried," said Lhe. "You are human."

  In some part it did not surprise him, but he had not clearly considered the legalities of his status. Perhaps, he thought, his dismay showed on his face, for Lhe looked uncomfortable, shrugged and made a helpless gesture.

  "You must come," Lhe repeated.

  Kurt went with them unrestrained, through plain halls and down several turns of stairs, until they came to an enormous pair of bivalve doors and passed through them into a hall of ancient stonework.

  The beamed ceiling here was scarcely visible in the light of the solitary torch, which burned in a wall socket. The only furniture was a long tribunal and its chairs.

  A ringbolt was in the floor, already provided with chain. Lhe courteously-with immense courtesy-asked him to stand there, and one of the men locked the chain through the ring on his ankle.

  He stared up at Lhe, rude, angry, and Lhe avoided his eyes.

  "Come," said Lhe to his men. "We are not bidden to remain." And to Kurt: "Human, you will win far more by humble words than by pride."

  He might have meant it in kindness; he might have been laughing. Kurt stared at their retreating backs, shaking all over with rage and fright.

  Of a sudden he cried out, kicked at the restraint in a fit of fury, jerked at it again and again, willing even to break his ankle if it would make them see him, that he was not to be treated like this.

  All that he succeeded in doing was hi losing his balance, for there was not enough chain to do more than rip the skin around his ankle. He sprawled on the bruising stone and picked himself up, on hands and knees, head hanging.

  "Are you satisfied?" asked the
Methi.

  He spun on one knee toward the voice beyond the torch-

  light Softly a door closed unseen, and she came into the circle of light. She wore a robe that was almost a mere pelan, gauzy blue, and her dark hair was like a cloud of night, held by a silver circlet around her temples. She stopped at the edge of the tribunal, her short tilted brows lifted in an expression of amusement.

  "This is not," she said, "the behavior of an intelligent

  being."

  He gathered himself to sit, nemet-fashion, on feet and ankles, hands palm up in his lap, the most correct posture of a visitor at another's hearth.

  "This is not," he answered, "the welcome I was accorded in Nephane, and some of them were my enemies. I am sorry if I have offended you, Methi."

  "This is not," she said, "Nephane. And I am not Djan." She sat down in the last of the chairs of the tribunal and faced him so, her long-nailed hands folded before her on the bar. "If you were to strike one of my people..."

  He bowed slightly. "They have been kind to me. I have no intention of striking anyone."

  "Ai," she said, "now you are trying to impress us."

  "I am of a house," he answered, hoping that he was not causing Kta worse difficulty by that claim. "I was taught courtesy. I was taught that the honor of that house is best served by courtesy."

  "It is," she said, "a fair answer."

  It was the first grace she had granted him. He looked up at her with a little relaxing of his defenses. "Why," he asked, "did you call me here?"

  "You troubled my dreams," she said. "I saw fit to trouble yours." And then she frowned thoughtfully. "Do you dream?"

  It was not humor, he realized; it was, for a nemet, a religiously reasonable question.

  "Yes," he said, and she thought about that for a time.

  "The priests cannot tell me what you are," she said finally. "Some urge that you be put to death quite simply; others urge that you be killed by atia. Do you know what that means, t'Morgan?"

  "No," he said, perceiving it was not threat but question.

  "It means," she said, "that they think you have escaped the nether regions and that you should be returned there with such pains and curses as will bind you there. That is a measure of their distress at you. Atia has not been done in centuries. Someone would have to research the rites before they could be performed. I think some priests are doing that now. But Kta t'Elas insists you have a soul, though he could lose his own for that heresy."

  "Kta," said Kurt with difficulty through his own fear, "is a gentle and religious man. He-"

  "T'Morgan," she said, "you are my concern at the moment, what you are."

  "You do not want to know. You will ask until you get the answer that agrees with what you want to hear, that is all."

  "You have the look," she said, "of a bird, a bird of prey. Other humans I have seen had the faces of beasts. I have never seen one alive or clean. Tell me, if you had not that chain, what would you do?"

  "I would like to get off my knees," he said. "This floor is cold."

  It was rash impudence. It chanced to amuse her. Her laugh held even a little gentleness. "You are appealing. And if you were nemet, I could not tolerate that attitude in you. But what things really pass in your mind? What would you, if you were free?"

  He shrugged, stared off into the dark. "I... would ask for Kta's freedom," he said. "And we would leave Indresul and go wherever we could find a harbor."

  "You are loyal to him."

  "Kta is my friend. I am of Elas."

  "You are human. Like Djan, like the Tamurlin."

  "No," he said, "like neither."

  "Wherein lies the difference?"

  "We are of different nations."

  "You were her lover, t'Morgan. Where do you come from?"

  "I do not know."

  "Do not know?"

  "I am lost. I do not know where I am Or where home is."

  She considered him, her beautiful face more than usually nonhuman with the light falling on it at that angle, like a slightly abstract work of art. "The hearthfire of your kind, assuming you are civilized, lies far distant. It would be terrible to die among strangers, to be buried with rites not your own, with no one to call you by your right name."

  Kurt bowed his head, of a sudden seeing another darkened room, Mini lying before the hearthfire of Elas, Mim without her own name for her burying in Nephane: alien words and alien gods, and the helplessness he had felt. He was afraid suddenly with a fear she had put a name to, and he thought of himself dead and being touched by them and committed to burial in the name of gods not his and rites he did not understand. He almost wished they would throw him in the sea and give him to the fish and to Kalyt's green-haired daughters.

  "Have I touched on something painful?" Ylith asked softly. "Did you find the Guardians of Elas somewhat resentful of your presence, or did you imagine that you were nemet?"

  "Elas," he said, "was home to me."

  "You married there."

  He looked up, startled, surprised into reaction.

  "Did she consent," she asked, "or was she given?"

  "Who... told you of that?"

  "Elas-in-Indresul examined Kta t'Elas on the matter. I ask you, did she consent freely?"

  "She consented." He put away his anger and assumed humility for Mini's sake, made a bow of request. "Methi, she was one of your own people, born on Indresul's side. Her name was Mini t'Nethim e Sel."

  Ylith's brows lifted in dismay. "Have you spoken with Lhe of this?"

  "Methi?"

  "He is of Nethim. Lhe t'Nethim u Kma, second-son to the lord Kma. Nethim is of no great friendship to Elas. T'Elas did not mention the house name of the lady Mim."

  "He never knew it. Methi, she was buried without her right name. It would be a kindness if you would tell the lord Kma that she is dead, so they could make prayers for her. I do not think they would want to hear that request from me."

  "They will ask who is responsible for her death."

  "Shan t'Tefur u Tlekef and Djan of Nephane."

  "Not Kurt t'Morgan?"

  "No." He looked down, unwilling to give way hi her sight. The nightmare remembrances he had crowded out of his mind in the daylight were back again, the dark and the fire, and Nym standing before the hearthfire calling upon his Ancestors with Mim dead at his feet. Nym could tell them his grievances in person now. Nym and Ptas, Hef. They had walked and breathed that night and now they had gone to join her. Shadows now, all of them.

  "I will speak to Kma t'Nethim and to Lhe," she said.

  "Maybe," Kurt said, "you ought to omit to tell them that she married a human."

  Ylith was silent a moment. "I think," she said, "that you grieve over her very much. Our law teaches that you have no soul, and that she would have sinned very greatly in consenting to such a union."

  "She is dead. Leave it at that."

  "If," she continued, relentless in the pursuit of her thought, "if I admitted that this was not so, then it would mean that many wise men have been wrong, that our priests are wrong, that our state has made centuries of error. I would have to admit that in an ordered universe there are creatures which do not fit the order; I would have to admit that this world is not the only one, that Phan is not the only god. I would have to admit things for which men have been condemned to death for heresy. Look up at me, human. Look at me."

  He did as she asked, terrified, for he suddenly realized what she was saying. She suspected the truth. There was no hope in argument. It was not politically or religiously expedient to have the truth published.

  "You insist," she said, "that there are two universes, mine and yours, and that somehow you have passed into mine. By my rules you are an animal; I reason that even an animal could possess the outward attributes of speech and upright bearing. But in other things you are nemetlike. I dreamed, t'Morgan. I dreamed, and you were dead in my dream, and I looked on your face and it troubled me exceedingly., I thought then that you had been alive and that you
had loved a nemet, and that therefore you must have a soul. And I woke and was still troubled, exceedingly."

  "Kta," he said, "did nothing other than you have done. He was troubled. He helped me. He ought to be set free."

  "You do not understand. He is nemet. The law applies to him. You... can be kept. On him, I must pronounce sentence. Would you choose to die with Kta, rather than enjoy your life in confinement? You could be made comfortable. It would not be that hard a life."