by Emanuel, Ako
“And are you given a difficult time each cycle?”
Again the nod, and the Trader looked intrigued at the direction the proceedings had taken. The murmurs that moved through the spectators were even louder, and uneasy, like the tides before a storm.
“Well, if there is going to be cheating done, it certainly should be a bit more sophisticated than this. I rule in favor of the independent Trader.”
Excited and agitated chatter rose in a wave and broke against the walls of the Hall, washing out most coherent speech. Junu’un looked ready to kill.
“You cyan’t do that!” he bellowed. “Meh profit margin for this turn will be a t’ird below line if you do this! He jus’ a outsider Trader tryin’ t’pull the wealt’ outta we lon, Highness! You cyan’t do this to the Faliel!”
Silonyi turned a blank expression to him. He flinched back and froze.
“Imraja, send for the official set of weights from the Library,” she said quietly, holding Junu’un trapped with her gaze. “And put a halt to this noise.”
“THERE WILL BE SILENCE!!” Imraja thundered, in the specially trained tone that all Voices could make use of to silence a large amount of noise. The absence of sound fell like leaves from a dying tree. She ordered the weight set fetched forthwith.
“And as to the Faliel, and what I am doing to them,” she said like quiet death, “loyalty is loyalty, but business is universal. When one starts depending on profit margins from the cheating of others, then the rules of business have been violated. No matter how hard a deal you drive, it must still be done under the constraints and ethics of the ways of Trade. The Faliel have gone unregulated for, I think, too long. And this cycle, at least, the Faliel will make their profits as honestly as I have the power to enforce.”
The merchant sweated and fumed and cowered in rapid succession.
The weights were set before Silonyi. Her eyes never left Junu’un. “Weigh them.”
“Highness, I protest this - this...!”
“Noted. Weigh them.”
“The Queen woulda nevah...!”
“The Queen,” she said in a voice that froze the blood of all there, “is not here. I sit upon the Throne. Now weigh the standards, or I will confiscate all of your property under the charge of fraud and violation of the business ethic, and wasting the matriarch’s time with this nonsense!”
Shaking with fury, he took his scale and set the largest weight on one side, then piled all the others, equal to the largest, on the other. The side with the collection of weights sank lower than the side with the single weight. There were not as many surprised gasps as she had expected. Uneasy murmurings moved the crowd like flowers in a freshening breeze before a storm.
“Kor’ilya,” she called the Warru First to her. “I want every scale in the city checked before the Festival and public scales set up so that any who feel that they are not being dealt with fairly may go and have their claim substantiated or disproved. And as for you,” she said to Junu’un, “you will remunerate this Trader for the time he has lost to this travesty, plus the court for the time and energy wasted on your petty greed and the larger greed of the Faliel. I hate flagrant stupidity and I hate obvious thievery. Next time, if you are going to try and cheat someone, be a little more clever about it, and do not bring it to the court’s attention when it is under my rule.”
He bowed under her decision and turned to file out, clutching his rigged scale. He knew his credibility and name were both in ruins. The Faliel would lift not a single pudgy ringed finger to back him now. “The sins of the mother will deal wit’ you,” she heard him mutter under his breath.
“WHAT?!” Silonyi shot up from her throne, her eyes ablaze. Spectators cringed and warru hands plunged for weapons. “Detain him!” she shrieked, a red haze of fury rising before her eyes. “None may slander the Throne and live!”
The merchant was seized at the door and dragged back, yelling and fighting like a cornered animal. Silonyi stood over him as if she would crush him with her presence alone. He cowered before her. In fact, all the court save the warru cowered before her rage. But she saw only Junu’un.
“How dare you? How dare you?! Do you wish a quick and painful death?” she hissed. “I can readily think of several ways to deal with an insolent dog like you!”
“Highness, me ain’ say nothin’ ‘gainst the Throne!” he whimpered, suspended between the two warru, his legs appearing useless.
“Repeat what you said as you approached the door,” she demanded.
“M - me say, ‘the digns of meh brothers will peal for true,’ Highness. Tha’s all, I give meh oath!”
The red haze swirled uncertainly. She felt the weight of his oath, binding his words. Silonyi blinked in confusion. If what he swore was true, then why had she heard what she thought she had heard? Did that even make any sense? She sat down slowly. The court was dead silent, all eyes wide and focused on her.
*:Imraja?:* she wanted to shake her head at the confusion.
*:It is a popular idiom,:* Imraja answered, her voice uncharacteristically guarded. *:It means that the others of the Faliel will commiserate for him. The original saying was started by a Family Head not too long ago.:*
She pondered this as the anger turned to mist and slunk away, pondered the effect on the court. Had she just made a fool of herself? What must the court think? The silence was blaring.
“Take him away,” Silonyi said, making a quick decision. Let the court think what it would. They did not know her, or her ways - this could not really be seen as aberrant behavior because this was her first time holding court. Perhaps there was a way to turn this to her advantage. “See that he pays his fines and turn him loose. I have been counseled to lenience. Let all know that the Throne is not without mercy in a time that is supposed to be joyous. He will not die this turn.”
The number of gasps of surprise were much, much more than she expected. Yes, her blunder had turned to unpredictability. If she could continue to startle them without making another such mistake, it would keep them on their toes.
An impulse of something, not quite wrongness, moved from one shoulder to the other, as if confused and trying to make up its mind. Finally it went away, unsatisfied.
Relief began to flower, then also died away confused. That damned phrase!
She watched as her bidding was done, and then she adjourned court early, deciding that she had the beginnings of a massive headache. She rubbed her temples as the Hall emptied of aides and spectators and petitioners alike, with Imraja hovering worriedly over her.
“Highness, how fare you?”
“Imraja, I have been better.”
“Perhaps the strain is a bit much to throw on you all at once.”
“I’m fine. It is not the strain.” It’s that bedimmed phrase! If I hear that phrase one more time, I will scream, I swear it!
Imraja carefully did not ask what phrase, for she was sure that Silonyi did not know that she was projecting her thoughts as loudly as a shout. But what phrase would almost cause her to order a man’s death, or choke on a slice of imilan? For the Princess had been projecting her thoughts then, too. What phrase had she heard twice that disturbed her so?
Imraja pulled her thoughts away from the troubling coincidence of events. If the Heir would not confide in her, then there was nothing she could do.
“Perhaps you will find solace in your morn devotions,” she suggested.
Silonyi cringed inside without knowing why, but nodded to the Voice. She allowed Imraja and the two warru who were always near to guide her from the court Laine and escort her on the path to the chi’av’an. The path passed through the rock of the hillside into which the palace had been built, the weight of thousands of cycles comforting rather than oppressive. It gave a feeling of continuity, of connection to roots firmly planted in the past, the strength of ages and ancestors culminating all in her. At first the way was as it had always been, softly lit, serene, familiar: the broad stairs leading through a connecting garde
n, the long, sinuous passageway. Silonyi felt her tension beginning to drop away in anticipation of the coming Rite. Then her perception trembled and, gradually, with each successive step, began to shift, like the turning of eve upon the land. The way grew from serene to silent, then to sinister, as if she entered a place long remembered, but with a new and malevolent guardian. The passage stretched interminably, like the eve six turns before when the dread had taken hold of her, then it became impassable as the feeling of malevolence grew. Halfway there she finally balked, the dread rooting her to the spot she was, one foot forward in the motion of stepping. Imraja and the warru stopped also, glancing at her with perplexity.
“You know, I am more hungry than anything,” she said, turning to the side, managing to keep her voice from shaking only with an act of will. The flickering little flame-torches swimming in their bowls of sweet oil threw ugly imaginings on the marble walls. “I think perhaps I will have my zenith meal now. I will attend devotions later. There is much that I still must do before the turn ends.”
She turned away from the upward slope of the passage and started back down. After a pause, the three retainers followed. If any of the three servants thought it strange that she would put off performing the Rite of Solu until later in the turn, and they did, none gave any indication.
And they did not comment when the devotions were never attended to.
glaring and writhing, the light turned...
Silonyi cast the tome from her in a rage and covered her eyes, willing the pain and dizziness to go away. But they persisted, a nagging, obstinate throbbing, like a hunger unfed in too long. She ignored them both.
Three turns, three turns, and I can’t find one simple phrase. Three turns I have been hearing it in the place of other words, and I am about to go crazy! Silonyi groaned and placed her head on the cool wood of the table. She was neglecting her duties and wasting valuable time in this silly pursuit, but that phrase, that phrase was pushing her to the edge of distraction! She heard it everywhere now - in the giggling conversations of the servants, in the orders shouted by warru officers, even in songs sung by workers in the fields she had gone to inspect. The phrase capered around her like a pack of unruly cubs, popping up at the most inconvenient and unexpected times. She had heard it so much that she felt on the verge of repeating it over and over at the top of her lungs until she could not hear it anymore!
Enough had come to enough. She had to find it, before she did something murderous. In desperation she had come here, to the Library, in hopes of finding it and understanding its fiendish hold on her - if she knew what it meant, then maybe, maybe she could make herself stop hearing it. But she could not find it at first. For three turns she had searched and for three turns she had been having the hardest time finding just five words, five words strung together in a simple phrase, an unusual phrase; a phrase that hounded her like vengeful lor’ugawu.
The sins of the Mother. She had dared not say the phrase out loud, and her rite of finding, time after time, had turned up nothing. She had not dared ask for help, either, for the same reason she dared not say it aloud - her mother had forbidden it and would surely hear of it if she broke the prohibition.
But then, finally, glory be and praise the Goddess of mercy, she did find it, in the oldest herstory books of the Library, after having to go through the place stack by stack and shelf by shelf. Three turns of torment, to find one phrase. And if that is not bad enough, when I do find it, I also find that some of the books have been altered, telling lies and half-truths about the herstory of the beginnings of the Ava’dan, and events surrounding the reigning Families of the early Realm. Passages, descriptions, even whole chapters had been changed from what she had learned from her teachers and tutors and texts. And no one had even noticed the changes.
And something even worse than that is going on. Either I’m going crazy or the rest of the world is! For she had asked one of the proselyte Librarians to double check the first book she found that had been changed. She had expected the girl to exclaim in surprise and anger, for herstory texts were sacred in their way and were supposed to be proof against tampering. And - the girl had found nothing wrong, commenting that she had learned from a copy of that very book, and Silonyi’s own learning text on herstory had been transcribed also from the tome she held. And when Silonyi, after looking at the wrong words again, had asked the other to read parts of it out loud, it had sounded right. But whenever she looked at the columns of words, the lies were still there. Inaccuracy after inaccuracy, about events at the beginning of Ava’dan. Lies about the first High Queen. Lies even about her own ancestresses. And the sins of the Mother were implied to be her own ancestresses’ sins.
She clenched her fists and pounded them without much effect on the polished table-top.
Lies, she raged. All lies! How - how can this be? All had confirmed that the text was accurate. Even the Head Librarian did not see anything amiss. And she could not, for some inarticulate reason, say what was wrong or why. Was this some cruel joke? A symptom of some strange malady? A result of the rotten way she was feeling? She sat staring at the table, where her silent musings drew hideous designs in its grain. Time slipped by and the designs flowed in and out of each other, offering diversion but no answers.
Then a presence intruded slowly upon her thoughts. It was not the darkness given form, but rather the silence, a silent, patient presence that tried to soothe, politely pleading her attention. She blinked through filmy nets of confusion and depression, and noticed irritably that the turn had advanced rapidly toward zenith and that she still had duties to perform. But she just could not find the energy to face those duties, not after what she had learned, or thought she had learned. She willed and wished the presence to go away.
But it did not. After a while a throat was politely cleared and a soft attention-calling tap on the floor forced her to look up and glare about angrily. One could not ignore such an overt call from one’s Voice.
Imraja stood at her elbow, holding the book she had thrown.
“Highness,” she said diffidently, “perhaps you should - take some time to - commune.”
The words gave Silonyi a jolt. It was a coded phrase, meaning that she had not performed her turnings’ rites in too long, and that she would get sick if she did not correct the oversight. And she realized with a guilty start that for the past three turns she had been neglecting her turnly devotions, almost by design, and she did feel sick at heart and worn out and enervated, drained in a way that sleep could not remedy. She reined in her temper and acceded to the wisdom of the Voice, who smiled and took her elbow. Imraja again guided her part of the way to her place of worship.
A shiver ran through her as she approached the curving doorway that opened to the enclosed labyrinthine circle of hedges surrounding the lain itself, the Chi’la’av’an, or chi’av’an, as it was called. She hesitated for an instant, as an unnamable sensation of something like apprehension, and something like fear, something like revulsion or anticipation danced along her nerves. She had been coming to this lain all her life - she had been named here. So why was she afraid? The instant became a pause as she considered, wondering if and dreading that the wrongness sense would drive her away from here.
There was no wrongness. She felt only the shiver.
Squaring her shoulders, she left Imraja and her warru behind and went through the arched doorway, negotiated the path leading to the Chi’la’av’an and entered it, kneeling in the bowl-like depression in the center; the shiver grew stronger, more like anticipation but no less like revulsion. She knelt on the cushion atop of the raised platform in the center of the lain, and drew a breath of harvest flowers blooming out in the garden. She then invoked the Rite of Solu that she had been performing since she was old enough to remember the words, looking up into the diffuse, muted Av’light falling around her, opening her arms, saying the words with a vehemence she did not feel.
“In you there is power,” she said, “in you there is strength. I
n you there is the will to do what must be done. In you, we are all one. I call upon the Lo’chi’ndo to feed my soul’s hunger. Ashe!”
The air about her began to swirl, tugging at her pec’ta and stirring her guinne. And with each turn the miniature whirlwind picked up speed, and she herself began to turn, opposite to the wind. Faster and faster she spun, until the air’s passing grated like blown sand and she felt as if she would fly apart or burn away to little more than a wisp of smoke or air itself - and then the air incandesced around her, filling her with energy and - with a not-energy, a strange particle of substance that she had never noticed before. But her appetite was whetted and she drank it in - it did not seem to be enough, a mere crumb compared to - and she cringed, but the comparison could not be stopped - compared to the onslaught of the Rite that the prisoner had called down. She drew and drew upon the energy of the whirling air and the particle energy that rained darkly upon her, and - it did not fill her as the radiant energy from Av had. That other Rite, the prisoner’s Rite, seemed to have created an inexhaustible space within her, a place, bottomless, that demanded to be filled.
I need more. I have to have more!
And driven, almost whipped to a frenzy by her need, she invoked the second order of the Rite, in vain hope of satisfaction. Somehow she had the feeling that nothing would fill her the way that other Rite had...
“Lo’chi’ndo - I call upon the fate, to regain what is mine.
“Lo’chi’ndo - I call upon the past, to remind me of my path.
“Lo’chi’ndo - I call upon the age, to turn in my favor.
“I call upon the power, to fill me with the strength to persevere.” She stood, still turning, and threw her arms up to the crystal ceiling. “I call upon the Mother of my Mother’s Mother, to show me the way. Ashe!”
The whirlwind renewed its fury, roaring down to her need, almost, almost satisfying her. So intent was she on feeding that she failed to notice that a shimmer of darkness began to coalesce above her head, with a faint, seething hiss. The pinprick manifestation grew, first as large as a marble, then a pebble, then the size of a young, unripe calabash.