by Gayle Greeno
“The owl’s feathers fluffed to twice his size, then settled as he uttered a thoughtful ‘hoom-hoot,’ and he widened his eyes to round disks. ‘Little ghatten, would you do a favor for me?’
“ ‘Why should I? All you’ve done is insult me,’ the ghatten called back, his tail lashing so hard he beheaded a buttercup.
“ ‘Well, then, perhaps favor was the wrong word. You wish to prove your acumen to me, to demonstrate that you are not foolish. Do you not? Let me set you a task of cleverness and strength, knowledge and agility. Are you willing?’ The owl squinted his eyes, waiting.
“Quick as a flash the ghatten spat. ‘Yes, you feathered mocker, I will prove it to you.’
“ ‘Fine. Very well, I’ve seen you dance and prance. catch your own tail. Now, if you will, jump over your shadow for me.’
“ ‘Of course!’ And the ghatten began to jump and leap, dash left and right, twisting and springing, until it appeared he might turn himself inside out. He paused, he sidled up to take it unawares, then corkscrewed through the air, but the shadow always tantalized him, partnering and mocking his every move.
“The ghatten collapsed on the grass, panting, sides heaving, legs trembly limp and weak. ‘No fair,’ he cried between sobbing breaths, ‘It ... won’t hold ... still!’ ”
“ ‘No, it won’t, will it?‘ the owl responded. ’And you said the ghatti knew the Truth. What is a shadow?’
The ghatten hung his head in shame. ‘It visits when I block the sun.’
“‘Is it real?’ prompted the owl.
“The ghatten thought hard. ‘I am not sure. It exists, I can see it, but it has no smell, no taste, no texture that I can touch. It grows with me as I grow, yet changes size by itself throughout the day. And Truth, as we ghatti know, is not always something you can see or touch or hear, it simply is. As is my shadow.’
“ ‘That is not a bad answer, you thought about it, applied your wisdom to it. Something you did not do when I presented you with the task.’
“The ghatten felt warmth suffusing his body, warmth beyond the heat of exertion and the heat of the sun. He bowed his head lower.
“ ‘Remember, little ghatten, Truth is your shadow, and you should never try to overleap it,’ and the owl closed his eyes in sleep....”
“Truth is my shadow,” came a little echo sigh from Saam and he slept. Mem’now sat, head bowed on chest in thought, remembering the old tale with fondness. “Lovely, if I do say so myself,” he mindspoke to Koom, then realized that the reddish ghatt sat with eyes closed, swaying slightly, sound asleep. “And I do say so myself since no one else will. You’re very welcome, glad that you enjoyed the tale.”
Koom bestirred himself, yawned hugely and winked at Mem’now. “Ah, but I did. So very soothing—and edifying, of course. I listened through my dreams, the best way to hear an old and beloved ghatten tale. You told it admirably, as usual.”
Pride and doubt warred in Mem’now. “Thank yon, but do you think it did any good?” He indicated the sleeping ghatt with the faintest whisker flick.
“Of course, old friend. But Twylla would tell you that one dose of anything, be it medicine or tales, is only the beginning, not the immediate cure. Tell him our tales, bit by bit, until they find a new home in his brain.” He stopped, cocked his head. “A long day for us all. I hear Swan wanting me now, so I must go. Take care of him, Mem, take care of him for his sake and for all our sakes.”
The two days passed, quickly for some, more slowly for others. For Doyce they lagged at leaden pace, but she strove to maintain a routine, her aloneness haunting her through sleepless nights. No, not sleepless, but exhausting, the slumber that was supposed to heal and soothe left her twitchy with nerves, as if even her sleep, her dreams, expelled her from familiar territories. She threw herself into the outward activities to mask her emptiness from prying eyes. Granted permission to stay at Myllard’s rather than transferring to the dormitory at Headquarters, she embraced the privacy gratefully, almost greedily. Khar had chided her for her aloofness, but it felt simpler alone, without the press of the other Seekers and their Bondmates, their condolences, their attempts to convey a sorrow she dared not fathom. They want me to set it aside like a beloved but worn garment, but I can’t. I’m not ready to relinquish it yet, no matter how Khar glares at me. The ghatta’s been remarkably silent with her thoughts, but then, in all fairness, so have I.
She organized the supplies and necessities she and Khar would require for the next circuit and even concentrated on a few tiny luxuries, easily carried, that made each circuit more civilized. A sturdy, blue-glazed water bowl for Khar to replace her old chipped one, a half-weight of the smoked fish they both enjoyed as a snack, sugar nuggets for Lokka. The evidence that one segment of her mind still functioned logically left her well pleased. She even remembered to visit Mintor’s shop to discuss the deep green leather he had mentioned for boots.
He handled it as reverently as a baby, an incredibly flexible, supple piece of doeskin, dyed a deep, rich green, the green of a Seeker’s dress tunic. “Thought of you when I first saw it,” he confessed. “High towner pleaded for it when it come in, but I said no, you had first dibs on it. O‘course ye don’t have to take it. I know your boots, I should since I made’m, and know you don’t need another pair far as needin’ goes....” He ran tannin-stained fingers across the leather, reveling in the texture and smell of it. “Those ye got on should last another few years, but for the fun o‘it, for the pride o’it, thought mayhap you’d like an extra pair.”
She didn’t, not really, but the leather cried out to be made up. And she wasn’t sure if she had it in her heart to hurt anyone right now. “You’re right, Mintor,” she admitted and watched his narrow, freckled face crease with delight. “You’ve got my measurements, so enjoy. No rush. Shall we say they’ll be ready when I swing through after two circuits?” Think of normality, the next circuit, not this circuit, and by then perhaps she could work up the enthusiasm Mintor deserved for the creation she knew he would make. “Perhaps even a small tassel on the side? Nothing too gaudy, though, you know me. But what’s the cost of all this magnificence?”
Mintor swelled with pretended offense, freckles camouflaged by the sudden color in his face, but that was part of the game, too. “You ask me what the cost will be!” He sprang on tippy-toe, tall enough at last to stare her in the eye, then dropped flat-footed with a percussive thump. “You ask me what the cost will be, as if it’s ever been anything but strictly fair and justified and ...”
She cut in. “Would you like me to have Khar ask you what the fair price will be? Profit price versus honest markup?” A ritual, this part of it, but the banter didn’t come easily to her this time.
“Three goldens ... and a surprise for you with the boots,” Mintor parried, waiting for the bargaining to begin. Haggling amongst friends.
She knew it, but couldn’t sustain it, not this time, not now. The price wasn’t unreasonable; the high towner who’d seen the leather first would have jumped at the bargain. Her last boots from Mintor had set her back two golden, four silvers. “Agreed.” And saw the little man wilt in disappointment, mouth down in preparation to protest her counterprice. Well, knowing Mintor, the surprise would be just a little more extravagant than he’d originally planned so he wouldn’t feel as if he were cheating her. “Thank you, Mintor, and Lady keep you. I’ll be by when they’re ready, then.” She turned and left quickly, even Khar caught by surprise.
“Doyce, Doyce, please!” Mintor scurried around the high counter after her.
She stopped outside, barely holding her ground, kicking Mintor’s good, serviceable boot against the curbing, scuffing the toe, the cobbler wincing at the treatment. “What, Mintor?”
“It’s just ... well, it’s just ... that.... Never mind. And don’t forget to stop by Rault’s. He’s been awaiting you.” Mintor shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, hands twisting beneath his leather apron. Khar stepped onto the walkway and tilted her head b
ack. He stooped ’til he was eye-level with the ghatta, something he didn’t really care to do, neither the stooping that made him shorter than he already was nor the staring of the ghatta in the eye. He whispered rapidly, breathily, ignoring Doyce. “And we’re sorry, tell her we’re all heartsick about Oriel and Saam. She doesn’t want to hear, but we all cared for them, too, because he cared about us.” Khar stretch-bowed solemn thanks.
“We stop at Rault’s.” No question in the ghatta’s voice, it was a statement.
“You stop, then. I’ve had enough shopping, enough of faces trying to see how sad my face is, how I’m coping. Prying so they can whisper to each other once I’ve left, ‘Is she holding up, do you think?’ ” She kicked the curbing once more, viciously, and turned back toward Myllard’s.
“Rault’s is the other way,” Khar persisted.
“Leave me be!”
“I would, but I can’t. That’s why we’re bondmates. Once I chose, I chose. There’s no turning back.”
“There’s no turning back, is there?” She forced herself to reach down and scratch the ghatta’s neck. Khar twisted with delight, managed to insinuate herself beneath the hand so that her whole spine got scratched. “Ought to leave me for a more companionable person.”
As trained as they were in the human mind and its convoluted turnings, the ghatti were not human but animal, and sometimes tended to take things too literally.
“Doyce!” Fright and shock echoed in Khar’s tone. “No ghatt or ghatta has ever left its Bondmate for another! Even the Seeker General and Koom have not ’Printed!”
“Just trying to tease, my friend, and not very successfully if it hurt you. I’m a bear these days, admit it. Let’s go to Rault’s, but quickly and be done.”
“My bear,” the ghatta mindwhispered and wreathed herself around Doyce’s ankles for an instant, then bounded down the street, tail quirked.
One of the oldest shops in the heart of the old marketplace, Rault Rasmussen’s gem and gold shop had passed from grandfather to son to grandson, and Rault was no longer a young man. It also boasted the best barricades in the marketplace and with good reason: there was always someone foolish enough to think he could winkle a gem from the old man’s trays or, better yet, make off with everything in the night. Not that the townspeople were thieves or suffered such poverty that theft was a necessity to sustain life; indeed, Canderis took care of its own through freely given gelt-gifts and through taxation. Yet everything Rault touched—the sparkling faceting of a gem, his hammer poised for a final breathtaking tap that would reveal the complexities of crystal far better than nature had; the lifelike details of his gold and silver-work—made his pieces cry out to be stroked, worn, admired. Sometimes the cry resonated so imperiously that it flooded people’s minds, as if a prosaic business transaction of money changing hands sullied the vital-force of the work. Other gem and goldsmiths dealt with theft, but not for the same reasons Rault did.
Ensconced within the tiny, cluttered shop, sipping gingerly from scalding-hot but fragrant jasmine cha, Doyce felt neither crowded nor claustrophobic, despite the forest of clustering iron bars and padlocks around her. Rault studied the teapot, its spout the frozen image of a ghatt stretched in a magnificent leap, muscular hind legs extended to spring from the body of the pot, forelegs stretched to form the spout. Another ghatt at rest, body C-shaped, formed the handle, head curled against forelimbs with its tail following the curve of its back legs; a tiny ghatten served as the knob on the teapot’s lid, a ghatten sitting on its haunches, one front paw half-extended in readiness to pat at a nonexistent butterfly or falling leaf.
“I am christening it with tea, its first use. But I do not know about the handle,” Rault confessed, mumbling through his bristly white beard. “Something seems ... not quite right.” He cocked a questioning eyebrow at Khar. The ghatta examined the teapot, sniffed it over, then shifted to the other side to examine it from that angle. She lay down beside Rault’s hassock, her body creating a “C” which almost replicated the shape of the handle. Rault squinted and frowned, then brightened as both hands rapidly combed through his beard. “The hind feet are not right, that’s it. They don’t touch the pot properly. Thank you, Khar. That I can fix, I think, if I hold you in my memory. Still, memory fades.” He reached behind him without looking, hand scrabbling on the workbench for a crumpled piece of paper. Smoothing it flat against his knee, he fished a charcoal stub from a pocket and began to sketch. “Yes. No....” He frowned, wet his thumb and scrubbed at the paper, drew again.
Doyce slouched, handleless cup warming both hands, entertained by the beams of refracted color splintering and dancing on the wall where late morning sunshine poured between dark bars to strike the crystal pendants suspended from a piece of driftwood, aglow with mineraled leaves and blossoms unmatched in life. Diverted from her pose, Khar darted and skittered after a yellow disk of light shimmering and floating against the wall, then stopped short, disconcerted to discover its lack of substance. Rault creased the drawing paper into precise quarters and stowed it in the breast pocket of his blouson top, his cha-green eyes inspecting her for the briefest instant.
“Mintor said you wanted to see me.” Doyce lifted the cup to her lips and blew at the cha, using the cup and its thready steam to shield her expression.
“I always want to see you and Khar,” Rault reproved. “But, yes, there is something this time that I must do.” He eased himself upright. It was obvious that his knees and hips were giving him pain.
“You need to consult a eumedico, old friend.”
“Phah on them,” he muttered. “Poke and prod, prescribe, think deep thoughts as if brushing at your soul. As if they knew what you were thinking and feeling instead of you. And then they try to tell you how you feel!” His voice vibrated with indignation.
“Even so, they do their jobs well for the most part and could probably ease your pain. If it attacks your hands, what then?” Doyce stated reasonably.
His age-spotted hands vehemently flashed the eight-pointed star. “Lady close her ears to such words! But you’re right, I shall have to go and prevail over their pokings and proddings. But I’ll stop off at the Lady’s House first and leave an offering. Best to be covered both ways—insurance, you know.” Leaning heavily against the security of his age-scarred workbench, he jerked open a drawer, taking out a small, blue velvet box. “For you,” he offered, holding it out and limping back to sit down.
The box floated feather-light in her hands. Khar, insatiably curious, rose from beside the hassock and edged near, resting her striped head on Doyce’s thigh. She rotated the box in her hands, testing the velvet for the seam which halved it and the tiny lumps that indicated the hinges. When she located them, she turned them away from her so that the box would crack open in front of her as an oyster reveals its pearl. And its heart and meat. Khar pressed harder, then gulped as she pinched her windpipe.
She nudged the lid up, not knowing what to expect. Two perfect garnets, one fractionally smaller than the other, nestled against white satin. Each garnet cunningly carved like a perfect, full-blown rose, each deeply, wondrously wine-red petal distinct and perfect. Each rose bloomed on a golden stem with a back guard so that it was clear they were meant to be earrings.
“For dress,” Rault announced with pride. “You each wear the gold Seeker hoop in your left ear, but change the gold ball in the right ear for these. Elegant but not ostentatious. Perfect but subtle, and because I knew you both, I knew what he wanted.”
“What who wanted? Rault, I can’t accept these and I surely can’t afford them. The coppers fair, the silver slim, and the gold fewer yet in my purse right now.” She made as if to close the case and hand it back, but Rault stopped her with an impatient shooing gesture.
“The traditional plaint of the Seeker,” Rault finished for her. “Oriel came in six circuits ago with the exact same tired plaint on his lips, but determined to do something about it. He said he’d leave it up to me what the choice would be, but
that he’d pay me bit by bit each circuit when he came through. And so he did. It took me awhile to decide what to do and to find the right stones, but when he stopped by two cycles past, I showed him the raw gems and told him my idea, and he agreed. ‘Everlasting roses,’ that’s what he called them. ‘Everlasting roses for his everlasting love.’ ” Rault paused. “He was to pick them up this time.”
She could scarcely see the roses, barely feel her fingers working to tug the gold stud from her right ear, but she struggled at it until she succeeded. Somehow she set the rose in place, but the old man had to help with the backing. She picked up the smaller rose, but it slipped from numb fingers and danced along the floor until Khar’s quick paw stopped it. She knelt faster than the old man could, to spare him the indignity of the pain and to hide her tears. Her fingers burned slightly from contact with the rose, as if it held the power to warm her, and her right earlobe tingled as well. Khar’pern held herself motionless while Doyce removed her gold stud and slipped the smaller rose into place.
“They wanted you both to have them,” Rault murmured. “They both knew beauty, not just outer beauty, but beauty or courage of spirit when they saw it. He said that he hoped it would remind you of the inward beauty you carry no matter what the years.”
“Thank you, Rault,” she managed, and leaned to kiss the gemsmith on the cheek, a shaking finger to his lips forestalling any more words. And somehow she gained the door, blindly gravitating back to Myllard’s, unshed tears clouding her vision. Only Khar’s persistent guidance, pressuring first one leg, then the other to move her right or left, eased her along her path, she didn’t care which way.
Swan balanced on the stool, cradled the marble sculpture against her paunch and then hoisted it up, thumping it on top of the pillar. It had to fit precisely into the grooves and she gave it a cautious turn, then turned harder as she heard it latch. Two down, two to go. With a stabilizing hand against the pillar she stepped from the stool, missed the final step and felt her heel brush one of the copper urns, almost knock it over. She jerked forward and leaned both hands against the stool to recover her balance.