Beyond the Waters of the World

by Ruth Nestvold

  Beyond the Waters of the World

  Ruth Nestvold

  At a crack of thunder, Kislan looked up from the foreign symbols he had been practicing with ink on parchment. A spring thunderstorm was raging beyond the window of his dockside office. Toni probably would not come in this weather, and he felt a wrench of disappointment. But what did it matter, really? The ambassador from the stars had made it clear she no longer wanted his attentions.

  At least she also did not want the attentions of any of the other men the women of his house had sent to her. And she had given him this, the drawing-writing. He bent over the paper again, a small smile on his lips.

  #

  Mother Anash, the head of the house of Ishel, sent for him to join her in a common room that night. It was strange how the small group of people from the stars, the Ayaissee, had changed his life --had changed all their lives. Or perhaps it wasn't. Just knowing there was another world beyond the night writing in the sky, worlds upon worlds even, made everything on Kailazh different.

  Just as having touched the woman from the stars made Kislan different. Once, being called to share a bed with the Mother of the house would have been a great honor ( it still was), but he found himself reluctant to obey. The others in the house of men who had received no summons for the night eyed him enviously as he followed the messenger out of the room.

  Toni had tried to explain to him why she did not want to accept him as a gift from the house of Ishel, the leading house in Edaru, but as much as she described the world ( worlds) in which men as well as women chose their own mates ( but for months and years at a time), her rejection of him did not fit into his understanding of relations between the sexes. Didn't women use men at will to satisfy their needs? Didn't they need variety to whet their appetites?

  And Toni was alone. He knew --she had told him.

  She had also told him she would rather have him to herself, like the sister in the legend of how the moons got into the sky. At the memory of that day above the sea wall, his gut clenched painfully, and he almost stumbled.

  But how much did he really understand of what the woman from the stars told him, ever?

  He arrived at the chamber in the Ishel common house he had been directed to and knocked. Anash opened the door, smiling.

  #

  The docks of Edaru rarely slept. While it would not be a ship captain's choice to make port at night, tides and winds had minds of their own, not to be controlled by the captain of a sailing vessel.

  This particular ship had come to port at night, and even at so late an hour it was best if the cargo was counted and secured immediately. Kislan was inspecting the shipment of bowls of carved and polished eyliu shells from Melpaan and sturdy coils of rope from Sithray by the light of torches held high by his assistants, three young men of his house. He had begun to use the drawing-writing for keeping records, and he held a block of light wood with a piece of parchment (such as was usually used for drawing maps) affixed to it in one hand, and an implement Toni called a "pensil" in the other --very different than the needle and fine yarn the Mejan women used for writing. With this type of writing, he could record many more details than were possible with the simple knots the men of the Thirteen Cities used. While he wrote down wares and amounts and qualities, another assistant made knots for the cargo in the traditional way.

  The wind from the sea picked up and Kislan had to hold down the edge of the parchment with one hand. Hair laced with braids of multicolored threads whipped around his face. He tucked the pensil into a cord on the writing block and pulled his hair back from his forehead, holding it in place as he looked up.

  Toni was hurrying along the docks toward him.

  His reaction was immediate, and it didn't help that he cursed himself for it. To show desire for a woman who had given no indication that she wanted a man's attentions was an act of shame, and doubly so if the woman was not of a man's house.

  The second didn't apply to the ambassador, however, since his house had designated him as her gift --which she had ultimately rejected.

  When the men around him noticed the direction of his gaze, they too turned. At the sight of the woman from the stars, they flowed away like a wave leaving shore. Toni didn't seem aware of the interpersonal dynamics of the group on the docks, heading for him unerringly, in that determined, single-minded way she had. The thought made him smile. And the closer she came, the wider his smile grew.

  When she came up with him, she took his arm, making the young men behind him gasp. It was an exceedingly impolite gesture between adults, but Kislan could see her expression now -urgent, fearful even.

  "Sha bo sham, Kislan."

  "Sha bo sham, Toni."

  "Can we talk in your office?"

  "If you could wait a moment, tajan? I must finish here first." He thought she felt impatience at the delay, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it. He completed his inspection of the cargo, aware of the woman from the stars the whole time. Finally, his job done, he turned to her. "I am at your service now." She nodded curtly, and he paused for a moment until he remembered that in her culture, the gesture meant the opposite --nodding was for agreement.

  The ambassador must be very distracted if she forgot to shake her head; as if she had forgotten she was among the Mejan.

  "What is it, Toni?" he asked as they hurried through the dark streets to the low building holding the offices of the factors of the house of Ishel. The stars flickered between the black streaks of the rings in the sky above them.

  "Not here."

  Kislan was starting to become worried. The streets were dark, there was no one near, and still she did not want to tell him why she had sought him out at night. When they entered the office, his house brother Zhoran was still there, working by the light of a lamp at his elbow on the single small table, practicing the drawing-writing Kislan had been teaching him. Zhoran was captain of an Ishel merchant ship and wore the same colors as Kislan in his braids, those of the houses of Ishel and Kirtanar --and a friend such as few men had.

  Zhoran rose at Toni's entrance and lifted the back of his hand to his forehead in a sign of respect, waiting for her to speak first as was proper.

  Toni returned the gesture. "Sha bo sham, Zhoran."

  "Sha bo sham, tajan."

  "Would you leave me alone with Kislan for a moment?"

  "As you will."

  Zhoran gathered up the parchment and brushes he had been using. "I will come to you again tomorrow evening for more instruction?" he said to Kislan. But Toni left him no time to answer. "I wouldn't recommend it," she said. She indicated the parchment Zhoran held. "This is what I came to speak with Kislan about."

  "Then perhaps Zhoran should remain?" Kislan suggested. Again Toni nodded, forgetting for the second time in the space of a short walk where among the stars she was. She began to pace the small office with long, determined strides, those strides that were among the many things Kislan recalled whenever she ghosted through his waking dreams.

  "I overheard a conversation at a gathering of the representatives of the Thirteen Cities in the common house tonight," she said, her voice like a calm sea far from shore, with barely a wave to disrupt it --but with danger lurking in its depths. "If I understand it right, several of the women were discussing the rumor that increasing numbers of men in Edaru are learning to use drawing as writing --and what to do about it."

  For a while, the only sound in the room was that of Toni's footfalls on the stone floor.

  "Do about it?" Kislan finally repeated.

  " Al." The woman from the stars stopped pacing and faced him. "I fear for you."

  "Why?"

  "While this culture has no taboos against
men using drawing-writing --" Zhoran snorted, and for the first time since she had sought Kislan out this night, Toni smiled.

  "Yes, I know. How could there be a taboo regarding something that doesn't exist in Kailazh culture?" Her expression grew serious again. "But the women I overheard were talking about the danger to society if the rumor was true, men developing a system of writing of their own. I thought I even heard someone say that it might be a misdeed similar to that of trying to learn the Language of the House."

  Kislan stared at her, unable to answer. Alnar ag Eshmaled, the Language of the House, was spoken only by women, and it was forbidden for men to learn it. Those who repeatedly tried after being warned were returned to the sea --just as were men who struck a woman or stole from another house or murdered a brother.

  "What are you saying?" Zhoran said.

  "I'm saying that they may be changing the laws to make drawing-writing a crime." She took Kislan's hands. "And making you a criminal. I'm sorry." His world was giving way beneath him like sand pulled back by the surf. How could he be a criminal? He had never committed more than small rebellions, and most of those even only in his mind: fantasizing using violence when he was angry, wanting to talk back to a mother, reading unaccepted messages into old tales --wishing to have Toni for himself, like the lovers in the legend of the three moons.

  When in reality, she did not want him at all.

  But a criminal? Kislan loved Edaru, loved its way of life, loved the women and children of the house of Ishel. He might fantasize about breaking the laws of the Mejan, but he would never do it.

  Would he?

  "You must tell them they cannot do this, Toni."

  She still held his hands, but now she dropped them and turned away. "How can I? I am not of the Mejan, am only an honorary member of the council. There must be some other way. Perhaps you can speak to Lanrhel or some other representative among the men?" How could he have thought she would defend him? She had shared embraces with him, twice, three times, had seemed to want his attentions as the mothers of the house of Ishel had intended, but then she had turned him away.

  She faced him again, eyes the color of a dashik flower and hair of night, short and curling around her face, not long enough for braids. "Is there anywhere you can go?" Kislan nodded denial. "Go? No, there is nowhere to go outside of the Thirteen Cities. And if Edaru changes its laws, so will the others. I will not go anywhere." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ah, Kislan. I never should have started to teach you. You must stop now."

  Stubbornness and even a hint of anger chased his confusion away. He looked at Zhoran; his house brother's lips were pressed together, as if there were something he wanted to say but couldn't.

  Kislan took Toni's shoulders, despite the intimacy of the gesture: as much as he doubted her, he knew she would accept that degree of touch from him. And he needed it, those little connections they shared. "No, I will not stop. It should not be a crime for us to learn a new tool which will help us in the work we do. I am glad you taught me." There was a sheen of moisture in her eyes, and Kislan couldn't help but smile. She wouldn't defend him, wouldn't take him to her bed, but on some level, she cared for him. Toni blinked and gently removed his hands from her shoulders. "But I can teach you no more, Kislan. I have broken the rules of the Ayaissee by teaching you in the first place. It was wrong of me."

  "It was not wrong," Kislan insisted.

  "By our laws it was. Unless a government or a people requests it, we are not to share knowledge of our worlds with the cultures we visit."

  " I requested it."

  She sighed. "I know."

  After she left, Zhoran took out a bottle of shabezh from the cupboard and poured them each a glass. They did not often indulge in such luxury: very little of the strong drink from the fruit of the joshaba tree was produced each year and it was quite expensive, even without the taxes placed on its distillation by the Thirteen Cities. But some occasions required such luxury. They took the liquor and sat down on the two simple chairs the office boasted.

  "There is a place, you know," Zhoran said.

  Kislan shot a look of surprise at him. "What do you mean?"

  "Where you could go. I've fished men out of the sea myself and taken them at least part of the way there."

  Kislan tossed back the shabezh. "You mean, with the pirates?" Zhoran shrugged. "Many of them are pirates, yes. But many are fugitives, trying to make a life for themselves outside of the world that has exiled them. Most are men like you and me, nothing more."

  "How do you know so much about the outcasts on the eastern coast?" His house brother leaned over the table. "I trade with them, Kislan --those who are honest. And sometimes I bring them those who have been returned to the sea." Kislan stared at Zhoran. It was strange how much life had changed in the space of an evening: he himself might be a criminal, and pirates were honest. But he still was not willing to go live with them. "It doesn't matter. I won't leave here until I am forced to."

  Zhoran smiled. "I didn't think you would. And it still may not come to that." Kislan could only hope he was right.

  #

  Toni Donato stared up at the arc of Kailazh's rings. Until first contact, Kailazh had been known to the Allied Interstellar Community as Christmas for its colors and the shape of the one major continent, like a red Christmas tree on a sea of green. Now AIC used the Mejan word for

  "world," but sometimes she still thought of this place as "Christmas," especially when the air smelled as it did tonight, of something resembling cinnamon and allspice. In the night sky above, the rings cut a swath of black across the multitude of stars, interrupted only by two of the three shepherd moons. "I've made a horrible mistake, Sam."

  "That's putting it mildly," her colleague agreed out of the near-darkness beside her. They were sitting on the veranda of the AIRA "house of women" --which still consisted only of Toni. In order to conform to Mejan customs, Sam couldn't enter the building, but the veranda overlooking the spill of buildings leading down to the sea wasn't off-limits to men. And they had more privacy here than they would have had in the house shared by the men of the first contact team.

  Toni took a sip of denzhar, a native dessert wine. "I truly didn't think teaching Kislan our form of writing would be regarded as such a bad thing. Men aren't strictly forbidden from learning even Mejan writing, after all."

  "But it's socially discouraged. And that often amounts to the same thing. How many Mejan men do you know who master rodeli?" Rodeli was the Mejan word for writing --which on this planet was done with a hooked needle and very fine yarn or thread. Toni's predecessor as xenolinguist on the first contact team had originally translated it as "crocheting" until they figured out that what they were dealing with were documents rather than decorative lace. Toni sighed. "None."

  "Exactly." Sam put his glass down on the table between them and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I know you've never been the most diplomatic person in the universe, Toni, but there's a reason why we're forbidden from doing anything to affect native society." Samuel Wu was the team sociologist --her logical brain had told her she wouldn't get any sympathy from him for messing with cultural norms. But he was her best friend on this world. Toni put her glass down next to his and stood. "Well, the mere idea that we can leave native societies untouched is a myth, and you know it."

  Sam looked up at her, shrugging. "Certainly it's a myth. But it's still one of the most important guidelines we have for our actions."

  "I know, Sam. But the taboo against men writing is still unfair."

  "True enough, but what do you want to do? Be a missionary? Free half a society?" Toni leaned back against the railing enclosing the veranda. She gazed up at the two visible shepherd moons, the mother and the sister; the lover was lurking somewhere below the horizon tonight.

  She wasn't a missionary --and yet, Sam's accusations were justified. "I don't know what to do."

  Sam got up and joined her at the railing. "I think you should tell Moshofski." The
day was short, the year was long, and Toni was tired. "But I might be sent off-planet."

  "You should have thought of that before you started messing with the rules of this world." Toni turned to face the darkened city below, resting her hands on the railing. Here and there the light from a lamp illuminated a window, while the stars on either side of the rings winked in broken reflections on the water of the bay. "Kislan was so interested when I told him about our way of writing --and that men as well as women used it all the time," she murmured.

  "What would you have done?"

  Sam was silent for a moment. "I don't know, Toni. I don't know."

  #

  It was getting more difficult by the day for Kislan to show the respect owed to the mothers of the city. Somehow, the simple knowledge that the Council of Edaru was considering creating laws to make him a criminal turned him into one.

  The life he loved was gone, and resentment had taken its place. As the trees began to unfurl their wide, red leaves and spring gave way to summer, Kislan had discovered a stubborn streak in himself that he never knew he had. He still took his tablet and parchment and pensil with him to the docks when a shipment of fine glassware from Muranu or decorative cut stone from Fesalis arrived that had to be tallied, and he still kept his records in the factor's office in the writing Toni had taught him.

  It surprised him, his unwillingness to give up this new tool, even when he suspected the consequences. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say, his unwillingness to bend to something he considered wrong. He had spoken with Lanrhel, the chief male representative on the Council of Edaru, and while the councillor had been sympathetic, he had given Kislan little hope that the members of the council would be swayed by the argument of the drawing-writing's usefulness.

  "You can make all the tallies you need with the knots we men have used for generations," Lanrhel had said. "Why start with a new system now, when so few can understand it?" Kislan tapped his pensil against the parchment of his writing tablet. "I can be much more precise about the amounts and condition of the goods with this method. I always make a record in knots when I am back in my office, if I do not have an assistant with me for the purpose at the docks."