Patternmaster

by Octavia E. Butler

  Teray knew at once that he had met his match. Coransee was at least as fast and as strong as he was. At least.

  He hammered at Teray’s shield with a ferocity that left Teray able to do nothing more than maintain that shield and endure.

  Still, it was a standoff. Teray was enduring and Coransee was probably wearing himself out. Teray waited, shaken, jolted, but not really hurt—waited for his chance.

  But because Coransee was hammering at Teray’s shield so continuously, Teray was only half aware of what was happening to his body. He realized that someone had grasped his wrist but it took him longer to realize that the someone was Coransee.

  Contact! Coransee was so occupied with keeping Teray subdued that he wanted physical contact to help him focus a second kind of attack, and do physical harm. The realization came too late. It came after Teray realized that something had happened to his heart.

  Teray found himself clutching his chest in pain. He was suddenly not breathing properly, gasping coughing. The pain seemed to spread and worsen. Teray tore his wrist away from Coransee, but the Housemaster had already done his work. The pain continued, grew. He could have stopped it, but if he gave his attention to his body, Coransee would be free to break down the defenses of his mind.

  But his heart. He was dying.

  Somehow, he began again to strike at Coransee, to throw all his strength into a new attack. If he lived, he could repair his body later. If he died, he meant to take his brother with him.

  Suddenly Coransee ceased his own battering attack, and withdrew behind a total shield. Perhaps he was tiring. Desperately, Teray hit harder. But his body hampered him. He was slowing, faltering.

  Teray became aware of Coransee tracing a blow back through Teray’s shield. And even aware of him, Teray was too slow to shut him out.

  Coransee had his foothold. He slashed at the rest of Teray’s shielding, his mind a machete. Teray felt his shielding being stripped away. He tried to hold it, struggling to remain conscious. Coransee grasped him, held him, blasted him into oblivion.

  To Teray’s utter surprise, he regained consciousness on the bed of the guest room, with Iray looking down at him. He had not expected to regain consciousness at all.

  He moaned and closed his eyes again. He felt weak but he was in no pain. Apparently, Coransee or Iray had already made whatever repairs his body needed. He felt hungry the way people did after being healed, but it was a bearable hunger. He had only recently eaten part of his dinner. Iray had been sitting up. Now she lay down beside him. He put his arm around her and drew her closer so that her head rested on his shoulder. How to say it? How to tell her he was sorry?

  “Iray …”

  She put a hand over his mouth. “Didn’t I see? Don’t you think I know what you feel?”

  He shook his head silently, his body suddenly trembling with shame and fury. He made a ragged sound of anguish and twisted away from her. He wanted to go down and take Coransee on again—make him finish the job this time. He wanted to kill, or to die. He had lost everything. Everything! Why hadn’t Coransee killed him?

  Iray tried to turn his head, make him face her. He caught hold of her hands and looked at her. He had lost her. What was she even doing there?

  “I’ll get us out of this,” he said. “I swear …”

  “Teray …”

  “I won’t stop trying until—”

  “Teray, listen! There’s a way out.”

  He broke off, staring at her. “What?”

  “Listen. Coransee said you were to report to him tomorrow … tomorrow morning. He said he might make you his apprentice. You’re stronger than he thought. He said you’d make a better ally than servant. Teray, he said I might … we might be able to stay together.”

  “Might?”

  “He wants to talk to you. I don’t know why. And he said he had to find out something from the school. But we have a chance, Teray. At least a chance.”

  “Maybe. But what is there to talk about—or find out? Either I’m an apprentice or I’m not.”

  “You could learn more from him than from Joachim. Much more. And maybe you’d be able to have your own House sooner.”

  Teray shook his head wearily. “Love, don’t put so much of your trust in him. I don’t know what he has in mind, but …”

  “Teray, whatever it is, go along with him.” She was leaning over him, looking down into his eyes. “Please. Go along with him. I don’t want to be a thing won in a fight. I want to be your wife. Please.”

  He drew a ragged breath. “Do you think I’d miss a chance—any real chance—to get what we both want?”

  She seemed to relax. She kissed him and brought him to stronger awareness of her body softly against him. She was what he needed now. He slipped his arms around her. She would always be what he needed.

  Early the next morning, as the rest of the House awoke and began the day’s work. Teray announced himself outside Coransee’s private quarters. He stood in the great common room that he had entered the day before with Joachim. He had not realized then how big the room was. The fireplace seemed a long way off at the other end of the room. Right now there were two mutes in it, cleaning it. There were couches, chairs, and low tables scattered around the room, and the walls were lined with cases of books, learning stones, game boards, small figurines, and more. Yet the room was not cluttered. In fact, at this hour, it seemed far too empty. There were only a few mutes cleaning, and a Patternist who had chosen for some reason to come down the front stairs and walk around to the huge dining room.

  Abruptly, Teray received Coransee’s invitation to enter. Teray followed the invitation and found himself not in the Housemaster’s office but in a comfortable-looking carpeted sitting room. There, Coransee, wearing only a black robe of some glossy material, was having breakfast, served to him by a blond mute woman. The woman had set two places.

  Coransee glanced at Teray and waved him into the empty chair at the small window table. Just as though they hadn’t been trying to kill each other only hours before, Teray thought. He sat down, was served steak and eggs from the mute’s cart, and, like Coransee, ate silently until the mute left. Then Coransee spoke.

  “Have you ever seen our father, Teray?” His tone was surprisingly friendly.

  “No.”

  “I thought not. You look like him, though—much more than I do. That’s what caught my attention about you yesterday.”

  Teray was interested in spite of himself. Rayal did almost no traveling. Probably only a small fraction of the Patternists had actually seen him. He was the Pattern. He was strength, unity, power. Every adult Patternist was linked to him, but the link did not involve tracing out his features. Most Patternists neither knew nor cared what he looked like.

  “You and I are full brothers, you know,” said Coransee. Same father and mother. I awakened the Schoolmistress last night to find that out, though I already suspected it.”

  Teray shrugged. He knew nothing of his mother. Rayal had many wives.

  “Our mother was Jansee, Rayal’s sister and lead wife.”

  Teray froze, a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. He put down the fork and looked at Coransee. “So that’s it.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “If I was, you would have died last night.”

  Teray turned his attention back to his food, not wanting to be reminded of his defeat. The informality of the scene suddenly seemed incongruous to him. He had expected to stand before Coransee’s desk like an errant schoolboy and listen to the Housemaster’s sarcasm. Yet here he was having breakfast with Coransee. And not once had he called the Housemaster “Lord.” Nor would he, Teray decided. He might as well find out now just how far he could go. What could Coransee possibly want?

  “As it is,” said Coransee, “we both might live. It would be best if we did, now that our father is dying.”

  “Dying? Now?”

  “He’s been cheating death for twenty yea
rs,” said Coransee. “Even at the school, you must have learned that.”

  “That he has the Clayark disease, yes. But I thought you meant he was really about to die from it.”

  “He is.”

  Teray ate silently, refusing to ask more questions.

  “He’s let me know that he can last perhaps a year longer,” said Coransee. He lowered his voice slightly. “Do you want the Pattern, brother?”

  “You’re asking me if I want you to kill me.”

  “I mean to succeed Rayal.”

  “I can see that.”

  “So you’re right. If you contest, I will have to kill you.”

  “Others will contest. You won’t just step into Rayal’s place.”

  “I’ll worry about them when they reveal themselves. Now, you are my only concern.”

  Teray said nothing for a long moment. He had never really thought that he had a chance to succeed Rayal. The Patternmaster simply had too many children, a number of them not only older but, like Coransee, already Masters of their own Houses. Clearly, though, Coransee thought Teray had a chance—and was now demanding that he give up that chance. Teray had no doubt that Coransee could and would kill him if he refused. If the Housemaster was not actually stronger—and that was still in doubt—he was more versatile, more experienced. And if it was possible for Teray to live the kind of life he had planned for himself without fighting, he would rather not challenge his brother again.

  “I won’t contest,” he said quietly. The words were surprisingly difficult to say. To be Master of the Pattern, to hold such power …

  “I let you live thinking that you wouldn’t.” Coransee looked across at him calculatingly. “Shall I accept you as my apprentice?”

  Teray tried to conceal his sudden excitement. He met Coransee’s eyes with simulated calm. Was it going to be this easy? “I would willingly become your apprentice.”

  Coransee nodded. “What I’m trying to do,” he said, “is use you to avoid making the mistake our father made.”

  “Mistake?”

  “When our mother allied herself with him, he let her live. He wanted someone as powerful, or nearly as powerful, as he was to be ready to take the Pattern if anything happened to him. Someone he could trust not to try to snatch it away from him ahead of time. But he kept Jansee with him. Made her his wife instead of permitting her to set up a House of her own in some other sector. That meant that when trouble came to him, she was vulnerable to it too. And as it happened, it killed her instead of leaving her to take over for him.

  “Now, to prevent that from happening again, I want to leave you here at Redhill. When the time comes, I’ll have to move to Forsyth, to the House of the Patternmaster.”

  Teray frowned, not daring to understand what Coransee seemed to be saying. “Brother …?”

  “You’ve understood me, I see. When the Pattern is mine, this House will be yours. I’ll take from it only the closest of my wives, and a few outsiders. The rest I will leave to you.”

  Teray shook his head, fearing to believe. It was too much, and far too easy. “You offer me all this at no cost? You give it to me?”

  “What price could you pay me?”

  “None. You’re right. I have nothing.”

  “Then you have nothing to lose.” He paused. “I do ask something. But it’s not what you would call a price.”

  Teray looked at him with sudden suspicion, but Coransee went on without seeming to notice.

  “It’s more like a guarantee. Brother, I have to know that when you’re older and more experienced you won’t decide that you gave up the Pattern too easily. I have to be certain that you’ll be content as a Housemaster and not decide to try for Patternmaster.”

  “I’ve said it,” said Teray. “I’ll open to you, let you see for yourself that I mean it.”

  “I already know you mean it. I know you aren’t lying to me. But a man can change. What you believe now might not be worth anything five or ten years from now.”

  “But you’d hold the Pattern by then. You could stop me from any attempt to usurp …”

  “Perhaps I could—and perhaps not. But I’m not about to wait and find out the hard way.”

  Teray knew the price now. He found himself thinking of Joachim. Controlled. But he recalled Joachim’s words. Coransee needed the cooperation of his victim if he was to plant his controls, he could not do it unless Teray let him.

  “I want you alive for the sake of the people,” said Coransee. “We’ve got Clayarks chewing at the borders of every sector from the desert to the northern islands. They know Rayal has been too much concerned with keeping himself alive to give proper attention to raiders. When he finally gives up the power and dies, I mean for the people to have security again. But I won’t permit you to be a threat to my security.”

  “I’m not a threat,” said Teray stubbornly.

  “You know what assurance I want, brother. Your words aren’t worth anything to me.”

  “You’re asking me to step from physical slavery into mental slavery!”

  “I’m offering you everything you claim to want. Are you getting ambitious already? My controls would do nothing other than make certain you kept your word.”

  “Joachim told me how you use your controls.”

  “Joachim!” Coransee did not bother to hide his contempt. “Believe me, brother, Joachim needs the controls I keep on him. Without them, he would never have succeeded in taking a House of his own.”

  “How could he, as your outsider?”

  “He became my outsider through his own bad judgment. Just as he accepted you for apprenticeship through bad judgment.”

  “You mean because he wasn’t as suspicious of me as you are? Because he believed me when I let him see that I wasn’t after his House?”

  “Teray, the moment he realized that you are stronger than he is—you are, by the way, and he knew it—he should have dropped you. That’s common sense. When you’re Master of your own House, see how you feel about accepting an underling who just might learn enough from you to snatch your House away.”

  “Did you help Joachim win his House from its previous Master?”

  “Indirectly. I gave him some special training.”

  “But why? And why keep control of him?”

  Coransee gave him a long, calculating look. “Sector politics,” he said finally. “I wanted to be certain of a majority vote on the Redhill Council of Masters. Joachim’s predecessor opposed me very loudly, very stupidly.”

  The warning was unmistakable. Teray sighed. “I don’t oppose you,” he said. “How can I? But I can’t pay your price either. I can’t bargain away my mental freedom, sentence myself to a lifetime of mental slavery.”

  “How free do you think you are now?”

  “Free at least to think what I want to.”

  “I see. Well, since you put so much stock in promises, I’d be willing to give you my word that I won’t interfere with your thinking except to stop you from usurping power.”

  Teray glared at him.

  After a moment, Coransee laughed aloud. “I see you’re less naive than you pretend to be. Thank heavens for that. But listen, brother, noble lies aside, just how much control over you do you think I want? You’d live your everyday life as free mentally as you are now. Why not? I haven’t the time nor the inclination to meddle into the petty details of someone else’s life. The only thing you won’t be free to do is oppose me. All my controls would do is put you at the same level as everyone else, once I’m Patternmaster. You’ll be different only in that your strength makes it necessary for me to have an extra hold on you—a hold beyond the Pattern. You have no more reason to object to my controls than you have to object to your link with the Pattern.”

  “The Pattern is different. It doesn’t control anyone’s thinking.” Teray drew a deep breath and said bluntly, “Even if I thought I could trust you—even if you were Joachim, whom I did trust—I couldn’t accept the leash, the brand that you want to put
on me.”

  “Not even to save your life?” Coransee’s voice remained quiet, conversational.

  Teray opened his mouth to give him a defiant “No!” but somehow it was not that easy to say the word that could condemn him. He closed his mouth and stared down at his plate. Finally he found his voice. “I can’t.” The two words were so shamefully much weaker than the one would have been that he felt compelled to say more, to redeem himself. “What’s the point of buying my life with the one thing I still have that makes it worth living? Go ahead and kill me.”

  Coransee leaned back and shook his head. “I wish I had read you less correctly, brother. I thought that was what you would say. I will give you as much time as our father has left to change your mind.”

  Again Teray betrayed himself. He wanted to insist, as he believed, that he would never change his mind. But that would be like asking to be struck down now. He said nothing.

  “I can only accept you as an apprentice on my terms,” said Coransee. “Until you accept those terms, you remain an outsider, subject to all the outsider restrictions and observing all the formalities.” He paused. “You understand.”

  “I … yes, Lord.” As long as he was still alive, he had a chance. Or did he think that only because he wanted so badly to live? No, there was a chance. One could escape physical slavery. The physical leash was not as far-reaching or as permanent as the mental leash.

  “As for your work,” Coransee said, “one of my muteherds is due a promotion. He’s in charge of the mutes who maintain the House and grounds. You will replace him.”

  “A muteherd?” Teray could not keep his dismay out of his voice. Caring for mutes was not only the job of an outsider, but, for the sake of the mutes, a weak outsider.

  “That’s right,” said Coransee. “And you start today. Jackman, the man you’re replacing, is waiting for you now.”

  “But, Lord, mutes …”

  “Mutes! Damage them with your strength, and when you recover from the beating I’ll surely give you, you’ll find yourself herding cattle.”