It was highly preferable to poverty, though, and Rahniseeta was grateful to Harjeedian for his loyalty to her. So now she sat with the guests even after they had finished their midday meal, and she thought the men were pleased. It was hard to tell with Lady Blysse. She was lying on the ground, her head on the Wise Wolf's flank, dozing.
"How do they explain the existence of magic in your land?" she asked, hoping through their answer of this question to get some hint as to whether they were indeed maimalodalum. She did not expect the expression of dislike that came over both of the men's faces almost as one.
Derian Counselor, the red-haired one, was—rather surprisingly, for he was not usually talkative—the first one to answer.
"We don't usually talk about magic, Rahniseeta," he said a bit stiffly. "It is not considered a good thing."
Barnet, the minstrel, seemed eager to make certain she was not insulted.
"Derian is right," he said, "but I love a good story and it's going to be another long afternoon. How do they explain the existence of magic in your land?"
"It is not the existence of magic in my land," Rahniseeta said, taking care to make certain she had understood. This conversing when she understood little of their language, and they only a bit more of hers was challenging. "It is the existence of magic in all the great wide world."
She made the gesture that indicated the surrounding Earth and Earth as mother. The two men looked startled, and the Lady Blysse, who had sat up and was now openly listening, drew back as if fearing she would be struck.
Rahniseeta repeated the gesture, slowly, so it would not be misinterpreted, bringing her hands up from directly below her navel, straight up so her arms formed a graceful curve a hand's breadth above her head, then hands and arms parting, rounding down to meet again near the navel, like a mother cradling a child.
"The great wide world?" asked Barnet, trying the gesture and not doing too badly. "Do you always have to do that when you say those words?"
Rahniseeta giggled.
"Not always, but it is always good to remember the Earth who holds us and feeds us, for she is our mother, as the Air that rounds out our lungs is our father."
She made the Air-as-father gesture beginning with hands flat and tips of forefinger and middle finger meeting over her head, pulling out to draw an imaginary line between them, then falling in the gentle curve that indicated the horizon, before closing the line in front of her. This time both Derian and Barnet imitated her.
"You know," Derian said, turning to Barnet, "I saw some of the sailors do that one a few times, especially right after that nasty storm. They did another one, too."
He colored as he looked at Rahniseeta, doubtless because he feared to make a mistake.
"It was like this."
He put his hands in front of himself at navel height, then parted them with a wavy gesture before carrying them up in a straight line, and bringing the hands down with fingers stiff.
"That is very good," Rahniseeta said. "That is the sign of the waters. The first is the ocean waves, then the mists that rise and the rain that falls. Sailors acknowledge the power of Water frequently and they are wise to do so."
Barnet looked a little nonplussed, doubtless because he had not shown his own knowledge of the sign first.
"Let me guess," he said, making fists in front of his navel, then bursting them apart with stiff fingers while his hands rose. "This one must be fire."
Rahniseeta nodded, but she felt a trace uneasy. The men were doing the signs as if they were steps in a dance or some other secular act. They apparently had no idea of their sacred significance.
"That is right," she said, "but how do your people acknowledge the elements? How do you praise Earth our mother and Air our father?"
The two men looked at each other, and at the Lady Blysse, who was watching with great amusement. Finally, his tone holding a mixture of embarrassment and awkwardness, Barnet replied.
"We don't, Rahniseeta. We've never heard anything like it."
Rahniseeta was appalled, but maybe they were testing her. The maimalodalum were kin to the yarimaimalom, after all.
"You must know. It is something every child knows."
Derian cleared his throat. "If that's the case, maybe you had better tell us."
Rahniseeta was certain now this was a test, and she felt proud that her brother was an aridisdu and had made certain she knew the teachings in the best and most comprehensive form.
"I will tell you then how nothing became something," she said, "and of the creation of Earth and Air, of the birth of their three children, and of the creation of all living things."
The three guests nodded. Rahniseeta thought that the Wise Wolf nodded slightly as well, and settled themselves as for a long telling. Rahniseeta began, trying to keep the words simple, since the guests did not seem to know the speech of the Liglimom very well—though now she was wondering if they were pretending.
"Once there was only a great swirling with no shape nor form nor height nor depth nor breadth, but within the swirling were the seeds of potential. As the swirling slowed, the potential separated. Part was heavy and falling became the earth. Part was light and rising became the air that surrounds the earth. Earth and Air knew themselves as separated from the swirling. This knowing was the beginning of life.
"Earth and Air never forgot how they had once been one thing. They reached for each other and tried to rejoin the swirling where they could again be one, but this could not be done. All they succeeded in doing was to throw off parts of themselves. These parts became their first two children: Water and Fire.
"Water loved his parents and wanted them to be happy. He ran between them, carrying messages. These messages are the rains and mists and all other ways the waters seek to rise and to fall. So many messages have been sent between Earth and Air that Earth holds many rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans, while the sky is filled with clouds.
"Fire was jealous of the love of Earth and Air. At first he held himself apart, and this holding apart is what we call the sun, which to this day is the home of Fire. Earth and Air wished for Fire to be happy, but Fire remained a sulky child. This is why some days the sun is warm and pleasant, while other days the sun is too hot. This is why Fire remains the least trustworthy of the elements. However, unpredictable Fire is directly responsible for the coming of other types of life.
"Fire thought, 'If Air had something to distract him from Earth, then Earth could pay more attention to me. When Air becomes offended, then I will say sweet things to him, and he, too, will pay more attention to me.'
"So Fire coughed out bits of himself and shaped them into the first birds. Air was at first a little afraid to find these things in himself. After a time, as Fire had predicted, he became interested. However, Fire was wrong in how Earth would react. Instead of paying more attention to Fire, she made of herself pleasant roosts for the birds: cliffsides and trees and tiny little shrubs. The birds came to Earth, and Air's attention was drawn hence, and they laughed together, for these living things seemed to make them closer.
"Air said, 'Earth, you are more lovely so adorned. Let us make more creatures for you.' Together they made many more animals to live in the forests and deserts and hills. They made more birds and insects to fly between and to color the Air. They made fish and whales and crabs and boneless things to amuse Water, but because Fire was sulking, unhappy with how his plan had come to pass, he would not join them. Thus, to this day there are no creatures who live within Fire, and most creatures fear Fire more than anything in Air or Earth.
"Fire remained unhappy, and seeing him sulk, Earth and Air said, 'We will make you a creature who will need you in order to live.' So they made humanity, which naked and blunt-toothed does indeed need Fire to thrive. For the first time since he was born, Fire was happy.
"However, now Water grew envious, for though many creatures filled him, he felt that his fidelity to his parents had not been sufficiently rewarded. Fish are well and good, an
d they cannot live outside of water, but jealousy does not lead to clear thought. Moreover, Fire constantly kept reminding everyone how he had created the first birds and thus started the coming of living things.
"Water said to himself, 'I will make a creature myself, even as Fire made the birds. It will be a wonderful creature, different from those that swim or fly or walk or creep or in any way adorn Earth or Air or Water. It will not be a mere bird, but a force to compare favorably with us First Four.
"Water drew from himself a ball of water and concentrated that water into itself. He envisioned a creature with the power to create and to change, like himself, but different, so it is no great surprise that the creature he created was female. Water's creation rose from the depths of the deepest ocean and into the skies above. Just as she was about to take her place among Earth, Air, Water, and Fire as one of the great creations, she burst.
"Little parts of her flew everywhere, some sticking in the sky where they became stars, others falling to the Earth even as we still see them do today. Where the pieces landed, whatever they touched became imbued with magic—for Magic was what this daughter of Water was to be. That is why there are Wise Beasts and humans with magical talents. That is why some rocks and plants and waters hold the ability to enhance magic. That is why magic is scattered among us, and not all of us understand it equally.
"Magic did not completely fragment. The greater part of her remained in the sky, where her injuries are visible on any clear night. We here living on Earth name the shattered remnants of Magic the Moon. To this day, Moon calls to her father Water, asking him to make her whole, and when he pities her most, then the oceans ebb, for Water is attempting to rebuild his daughter once again."
Rahniseeta drew in a deep breath, concluding with the ritual storyteller's words, 'So it was told to me, so I tell it to you," only then did she emerge from the story and look at her audience.
Their reactions were very different. Barnet's brow was slightly furrowed, not in anger, but as if he had been trying to commit the tale to memory. Derian looked simultaneously uneasy and fascinated. Lady Blysse's dark eyes were dreamy, as if she still dwelled in the time of the story and that time was more real to her than the present moment.
Despite Lady Blysse's mood and her usual uncommunicativeness, she was the one who spoke first.
"I like. Explains all so close—so neat. Is it true?"
Rahniseeta blinked. "Of course it is true. This is the way the story has been told forever and always. Have your people lost the tale?"
The Lady Blysse did not answer directly, but looked to Derian.
"Actually," he said awkwardly, "we don't have any story like that. It isn't that we have lost it, I don't think, we just don't have it. How about in Bright Bay, Barnet?"
Barnet shook his head. "It's a wonderful story, but I've never heard the like. The Tavetch of Stonehold have their own story about how the sun and moon are associated with the creation of the world in their stories, but it isn't at all the same."
Rahniseeta couldn't believe him.
"But how do you explain the way the world came to be?"
Derian slid the empty cup from which he had been drinking fruit juice around the table, drawing damp snail trails with the base.
"Actually, we don't worry about it much," he admitted. "There are levels of mystery, and we leave such things to the ancestors."
"I do not understand."
Derian's hand shifted from the pottery tumbler to the small bag he wore at his waist. Harjeedian had told Rahniseeta that these had been inspected while the guests were unconscious, but they held nothing that could help the guests to leave prematurely, and seemed to be religious in nature, so they had been permitted to retain them.
"In each of our houses," Derian said, "there is a shrine to the ancestors of our family. In some cases, they go back for generations, but in most households, they are concerned only with the nearest ancestors—one's own parents, or grandparents if they have died, the generation before if not. Then as one grows older, one adds to the array. Eventually, the family shrine is passed to the eldest child in the family. There are deep secrets associated with this passing on, but—well—I am not old enough to have been initiated into them. There are stages in the initiation, and the first comes when one becomes a parent—and thus a potential ancestor oneself."
"It's much the same in Bright Bay—or the Isles," Barnet agreed. "We call on our ancestors to intercede for us with the powers beyond, but we don't really discuss what those powers are. We just know they are there, but we don't give them names or shapes."
He looked apologetic, but went on, "It would seem to reduce them—as if they were mere society emblems."
Rahniseeta couldn't believe she was hearing this. It must be the fault of the abbreviated language they were forced to use. She decided that further pressing the matter would only create unhappiness for them all—and Harjeedian had wanted her to entertain their guests.
"What is a society?" she asked. The word Barnet had used in the language of Liglim meant something like "friendly group," but she felt he meant more.
"Societies?" Barnet paused, visibly relaxing, his delay in speaking a matter of linguistics and nothing more. "Well, in Bright Bay we have fourteen—one for each moon of the year and the last associated with the royal family. They're named for animals. I think our countries vary a bit there, don't they, Derian?"
Derian nodded. "You have a Gull Society, instead of our Elk, I remember that, and Fox instead of Dog. I don't recall the rest."
"Whale instead of Bull," Barnet said, "and, of course, our royal family wouldn't associate with the Eagle. Their society patron is the Osprey—or at least Queen Valora's is. I don't know what King Allister has done."
Rahniseeta fought down a mingling of rising excitement and confusion. Despite their odd discussion of changing names of these societies, it did seem to hint that these were indeed maimalodalum.
Very carefully, she asked, "So each of you has an animal with which you are associated?"
Derian nodded. "My society patron is the Horse."
"Mine's the Whale," Barnet said. "That's why I remember the difference from Hawk Haven."
Rahniseeta glanced over at Lady Blysse, but the answer was obvious even before she spoke.
"I am wolf."
Rahniseeta considered these associations. That the woman was a wolf gave her no problems at all. She still thought Derian's coloring was more that of a fox, but horses did often manifest in shining chestnut. Barnet was so slim and sleek that there seemed nothing of the whale about him, but who knew what wonders Water held in his depths?
She could hardly wait to tell Harjeedian her conclusions, but stayed a while longer, letting the conversation drift to more general topics. Barnet and Derian vied in recounting the festivals their various societies had sponsored, while Lady Blysse and her companion drifted off to sleep.
At last Rahniseeta felt she could glance up at the rising glow of Fire's Home and say without awkwardness:
"I must leave now if you are to have a proper midday meal."
Both men rose courteously to see her to the gate, acting as if they were hosts seeing away a guest rather than what they were—not really guests, no matter what Rahniseeta wanted to think.
She asked one of the guards at the end of the passage where she might find Harjeedian.
"I saw him coming from a meeting not long ago," the guard replied. "He went toward the residences."
Rahniseeta thanked the guard and hurried off to the apartment she shared with Harjeedian and his snakes. It was a small enough space, but since they took their meals communally and used the temple baths, it was quite sufficient for their needs.
She found Harjeedian dropping live mice to his snakes and murmuring the appropriate prayers. He turned from these rather more rapidly than was his wont. Rahniseeta had often felt he lingered over these rites when she was near precisely to impress his importance on her, but that was probably foolish. He was trul
y devout, or he never would have been chosen to join the ranks of the aridisdum.
"Your eyes sparkle like Magic's brightest stars," he said. "What have you learned?"
Without sparing detail, Rahniseeta told him everything, including her conjecture that their guests might be maimalodalum. She had expected Harjeedian to be pleased, so she was startled to see him grow paler and paler. He did not interrupt until she had finished, and then his words were not at all what she expected.
"You say that Derian Counselor claimed affiliation with the Horse Society?"
"Yes?"
Harjeedian groaned and pressed his face into his hands.
"Harjeedian, what is wrong?"
"I may have committed a great wrong." He took a deep breath and continued, "We knew of the association of Lady Blysse with the blue-eyed wolf and took care to secure both without injury. However, we knew nothing of Derian Counselor and the horse."
"What horse?"
"You must understand that in order to secure our guests we had to make certain that no one would believe they were not about their usual business."
"Yes. That is why you were gone so long. You had to wait for the propitious time."
"We also had to erase any indications that they had not gone on their planned journey. For that reason we secured their mounts and baggage."
He paused for so long that Rahniseeta was forced to prompt him once more.
"Yes?"
"There were two animals they planned to take with them. One was clearly a pack animal, well built, but not exceptional. The other was a chestnut mare with white stockings, and even to my eyes—and I know little of horses beyond what any aridisdu must—she was a beautiful creature, elegant and high-spirited. It came near to breaking my heart to… "
"To what?"
"To order her slain."
"No!"
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