The Carnelian Throne

by Janet Morris

  So, at the last possible moment, as I joined Sereth where he sat on a flat, moss-grown boulder, I considered Wehrdom, and took some care as to my armament before it.

  It was a soft crowd in my mind, back behind my sensing, cautiously curious like untold pairs of round eyes, blinking. I saw it as a curtain through which Sereth and the day and Chayin’s approach were not obscured, but intensified with a wonder that danced like a multitude of phosphorescent insects in all the air about, giving it volume that undulated in a pulsing dance.

  I made some affirmative sound to Sereth’s query as to my well-being, though it hung long moments in my ears bereft of meaning, as Wehrdom heard it, before my habituated understanding precipitated a response.

  I know Sereth looked at me strangely, for the wehr presence about me made a space of two breaths stretch interminably and performed a minute investigation of his face therein.

  I walked easily; I was aware of all that passed around me with a multiple perspective that showed me the wood as a magnificent palatial estate in which all things were about a perpetual reordering. There is a joy in wehr-thought that is equally from fury and ecstasy, ascendancy and suffering, birth and death. They are one and yet all, and from them I could separate the berceides who guard the maze whose every hungry mouth and yawning pit and sinksand dead end was as familiar to me as to the campt which awaited at the most hideous misturn of all; or to the wehr-master even now striding through the jicekak to intercept us.

  I said this, to Sereth and Chayin, and cautioned them to tread unerringly the very middle of the first corridor, on whose every side pink mouths waited gaping.

  We did this, and I saw Sereth’s heels before my downcast eyes. Both Chayin and I called the turn, together, and my mind slipped out from the wehrknowing, startled, fearful, and I spent long awkward moments battening down the cracks in my shielding through which Wehrdom’s song yet could be heard.

  When I heard it not, I heard another thing: the hissing of the berceides as they reared upon their coils for a better view. And saw Sereth’s doubtless instinctual reaction: like two popping gourds, the berceides’ heads burst apart. The steaming ichor splattered, but we three kept very still. The pink mouths of the hedge writhed and slurped and strained forward. We stood unmoving, though the death throes of the coils whipped around us, safe within the neutral barrier we had earlier determined to employ. Neutral, but immobile, sunk into the very bedrock of the universe. If Sereth wished, he could have held that envelope of space inviolate before a force that would powder the planet. As it was, the lashing tails of the dead snakes merely rebounded from any point closer than an arm’s length to our bodies.

  “That settles that,” growled Chayin, and spat disgustedly. “We are going in bloody: what else can follow but more of the same? It is rage for rage, here. Why must you do this?”

  “Ask your forereading. It tells you all things. If it told you true, you would know that two snakes are a cheap price for such an introduction, and will save higher blood later on.”

  “You persist in this hierarchal prejudice! This is Wehrdom. No such—”

  “Silence!”

  And he got it. Total, complete, unbreathing absence of sound.

  The hairs on my body rose up, waved in the air, returned to their normal rest. The barrier dismantled, we proceeded into the second maze.

  I wondered if I would dare open my mind again to Wehrdom, after what Sereth had done, and then reflected that I, as he, might as well dare what I chose. There was precious little from which to choose; it would remain thus for a space. Such is owkahen’s price to those who wish to lie with her: she denies us nothing, but rather designates that toward which we strive.

  The wehr-master met us at the beginning of the innermost maze, though I had expected him long since. But when we turned that corner, I understood.

  He blocked the aisle of silver-berried bushes, wings folded around him like some fabulous cape. His loins were bound in black silk as shiny as his coal-dark pelt. Behind him were ten of his kind, all colors, and these had their wings stiffened, akimbo.

  Besides the tall black-maned wehr stood a woman whose face I had seen in Deilcrit’s dreams, a woman whom Sereth yet thought to be a man: Mahrlys-iis-Vahais. Something prompted me to glance at Chayin, and the expression on his face was an odd mix of assessment and shock. I did not sufficiently mark it, for then the black-winged creature stepped forward.

  “What in the name of Mnemaat,” it growled throatily in a voice quite unexpectedly clear, “do you want here? What further sacrifice could you possibly demand? What brings you to war upon us, and from whence? Who are you? What is expected of us?” As he spoke, he came ever closer: by the time he had finished speaking, he was kneeling at my feet, peering up at me through totally red eyes described by two concentric black rings that seemed to be iris and pupil. I looked into those blazing fires.

  I did not know what to say. I stared down at him, noting that as he waited, his wings began to rustle. Sereth, besides reaching behind my back to touch Chayin’s arm when the thing approached me, made no move.

  Before words came to me, while yet I stared into the red-on-red eyes of Wehrdom, the woman whirled on her heels. I heard the scramble of those behind her to move out of her way.

  “Wait. You have not been dismissed,” Sereth advised, so quietly that I thought perhaps the woman did not hear. She took two more steps between her winged guardians, then turned stiffly and proceeded to kneel beside the black-winged one at my feet. I had seen her eyes, and there was no doubt in me that it was Sereth’s will, and not her own, holding her on her knees. And the tremors that coursed visibly over her flesh an instant later proved me right: such is the aftermath of flesh-lock.

  I surreptitiously tugged on his tunic. Accidentally, he jostled me. The winged creatures, each man-sized or larger, stood very still, watching through their red eyes. Some had head ruffs or manes; some had lips, and some did not. A few were thick, with wrestlers’ muscles taut amid their wings, so massive that I wondered if they could truly fly. Most were lithe as shadows, pale as a young moon. But all were formidable, armed only with what nature had provided. I knew why they did not speak, but I was not about to open myself to Wehrdom’s thousand throats.

  “Most High,” hissed the woman at my feet, “restrain your servants. I am iis of this place. Only reveal your desires to me, and they will be sated. But please”—and this an agonized whisper—“do not shame me before my wehr-masters.”

  I answered her in a deep and formal tone, that all of hers might hear:

  “I want a man called Deilcrit, and those belongings of ours that he has upon him. And I want your sage counsel as to how you can make amends for the loss of our ship and men.” This last was at Sereth’s rather obvious urging.

  The woman put her head in her hands, raised it, and said: “Might I rise?”

  I nodded, and they both stood, and I saw from the flames in her green eyes that she played a part only, one forced upon her, and that she was concerned that I realize the fact.

  “What in the name of Uritheria is going on here?” exploded Chayin in Parset. Sereth silenced him in the same language, while the woman, composed, suggested that we accompany her into Dey-Ceilneeth.

  When Sereth asked her in her own language whether or not she would accede to our demands, the black-winged one answered for her that there would be difficulties in granting our requests, but all efforts would be made to satisfy us, if we would only follow, and allow them to explain.

  The woman stood straight as a rod, as if she had not heard, as if men’s converse, whether it be man or wehr-master, was beneath her ears’ concern.

  “This is Eviduey, follower of Mnemaat, Third Hand, His Austerity of Wehrdom,” said the green-eyed woman. The creature made a deep bow, as if standing in some reception hall. I nodded, then introduced Chayin, giving all three of his titles; and Sereth, calling him the Ebvrasea, dharen; even ransacking his past for two additional honors. As I had expected, when I had
announced my companions, she then spoke to me of herself:

  “I am Mahrlys-iis-Vahais, Daughter of Mnemaat, Keeper of His Eye and Mouth, First in Dey-Ceilneeth, Most High.”

  That last was, of course, what all this had been leading up to. As she said it her proud carriage drew itself even taller, and with stately grace she extended her black-robed arm to me.

  I took it and gave some small account of myself in a suitable tone: dhareness of all Silistra, high-couch, daughter of my father, etc. It was not important what I said: I could have called myself Keeper of the Offal of Apths, for all she knew of the western shore. But I observed the form, and took her proffered arm, saying sweetly: “And are you not also of Wehrdom, and bound to Imca-Sorr-Aat?”

  I heard a strange rattling noise that could not have come from a human throat: Mahrlys’ face drained pale; I spun on my heel.

  They faced each other, Eviduey and Chayin, with Sereth, arms outstretched, a living barrier in between. As one woman, she screamed something in a sibilant tongue and I in my native one.

  There came a rustle behind us from among the creatures I would learn to call ossasim, and I dropped pretense and ran to Chayin’s side. I flew against him. I shook him by the shoulders. He hardly noticed me, but stood there.

  One part of my mind noted Mahrlys unintelligibly calming the stiff-winged wehr-master; another part felt Sereth press close, heard him whisper: “They just backed up and froze. What think you?”

  “Some ritual taking of each other’s measure? How would I know?”

  “Chayin!”

  And then: “Get back.”

  “No.” But I did, and Sereth slapped the cahndor, flat-handed, so hard that he staggered. But he woke, and caught himself, and snarled something about the probable parentage of the wehr-master Eviduey.

  Mahrlys leaned on Eviduey’s arm, and from that distance asked me if I thought we might now proceed. I looked from her, to her reinforcements, to Sereth warily attending Chayin, and nodded. This fracasing in poisonous hedge served no one.

  I said as much, and she turned upon her heel and with Eviduey marched through her own ranks. The corridor of furred forms stayed open.

  We went into it three abreast, me in the middle between them, and when we were close upon Mahrlys’ heels, the ossasim followed at a respectful distance, double file.

  “Now what?” asked Sereth, most diffidently, in Parset. “Or should I say, ‘Now what, Most High?’”

  “I saw no reason to inform you afore the fact. Chayin knew. It was there in the sort, in Deilcrit’s memories. Shall I be a Most High for them? Will you continue with this charade?” It was Sereth who, grasping all, had knelt Mahrlys at my feet rather than his own.

  “If it makes them more comfortable. If it gets us what we want .... I do not see any reason to disabuse them of their misconceptions.”

  “It might prove ticklish,” cautioned Chayin.

  “She just might be, at that.”

  Chayin did not find that amusing. “What are you implying?”

  “Nothing. What was that with the birdman?”

  Chayin, this time, said: “Nothing.”

  Sereth saw something in that ritual opposition of bodies. So did I. I saw it in the luxurious femininity of the woman whose black mane swayed before us, in her wide-set eyes that glistened like the ocean in the sun. I knew Chayin and Sereth well, knew their tastes: she was a woman neither would push from his couch. But I did not put enough concern into this observation: I did not know the difference between woman and wehr; or rather, knowing it, did not mark the significance of the fact nor how much influence it would come to have upon us all.

  “I came to greet you myself,” observed Mahrlys, acerbic now that the doors of tied rushes were closed and the curtains drawn, over them. Beyond those doors awaited Sereth, and Chayin, with Eviduey and another black ossasim, in a long narrow hallway of pieced and colored glass.

  “I came to you of myself, and you denigrated me before my own.” All pretense cast aside, she glowered at me, regal among priceless antiquities in that chamber filled with towering plants and statues of, stone carved into creatures part-woman, part-beast, who stared from their height down upon us through faceted brooding eyes.

  I glowered back, and paced off the room in an inventory that was both peremptory and unabashed, saying: “You came to me tardy, in self-aggrandizement. You knelt before us at our will rather than yours, and this offends you? Perhaps you had better become accustomed to accepting such offense: if you do not quickly and completely meet our demands, you will find yourself in receipt of such chastisement the like of which this day’s display is only a mild forewarning.” And I took seat upon an offering table of black diorite held extended at the level of my waist by a muscular, whelt-headed deity.

  Mahrlys’ face paled as she strode toward me, her silk robe pulled close by tight fists. “Who are you? Who are they? What need was there to slay the berceides, and all the other creatures you have wantonly killed?”

  “Who I am,” I said softly, judging her ill temper sufficiently worsened, and therefore sliding off the statue, “I have already told you. But you do not understand. As for my companions, they are each regents in their own right, as well as my consorts, and they do not belong waiting in hallways while two women prattle over what such men have done.”

  “Indeed? And what makes these men qualified to take a hand in the affairs of nature, when all know what poison their ilk has perpetrated in the past?” Her lips trembled, and her fingers also, and her voice rose toward a shriek.

  I threw her a mocking stare from under a slightly raised brow, and made my voice low and soft and full of composure, though what she said shook me to my core. “Have you no use for men, then? How do you survive?”

  “We have use for them.” And with that she pulled hard upon the reins of her temper, and ushered me with all decorum to a caned bench supported by two whelt-headed female figures carved from black stone. “We have use for all creatures. Men till our fields, they give us the craft of their hands, and children. But we keep them from the self-destruction that lies within their cleverness, and they do penance here for what they have done in the past: it is Wehrdom’s way, and the way of nature, that all live together, no one variety of the forest’s children ruling over all the rest. Is it not so in your domain?”

  “No, it is not. There is a whole world out there, and beyond its expanse other worlds; and upon none of them does one sex count the other so low, instead favoring other creatures of diverse heritage.”

  It was the winged one to which I referred, and she knew it. “I am wehr first, and woman second. Ossasim come from such wombs as mine—speak not of that with which you are not familiar. How dare you adjudge nature’s finest fruit, and find it lacking?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, found a knot, worried it in a search for some suitable answer. She waited upon me, those eyes through which Wehrdom peered expressionless fixed upon my face.

  “I am only trying to save you grief: my companions are not like the men with whom you are familiar; treating them thus can only bring bloodshed and death to you all.”

  “Then they are just exactly like the men with whom I am familiar, only scandalously freed to work their evil wiles.”

  I almost lost my temper. “I am telling you, I cannot speak for them, nor make agreements in their behalf.”

  She looked at me in pity, and offered refreshment. I accepted, and while we awaited the menials that entered to the summons of her clapped hands, we spoke no words. When the wingless, furred creatures had set a tart juice before us and departed, I said:

  “If all this is true, if men have little worth here, why will you not cede me this Deilcrit and let me depart, and save those subjects of yours that you may?”

  “Why did you let your creatures slaughter my berceides? They were among the wisest, most valued of my—”

  “Look you, we are not here to exchange insults, or detail our damages to each other, but to reach some kind
of understanding between us.”

  “I will not treat with men! I would sooner make a bed partner of a guerm!”

  “Are guerm, then, less sweet than ossasim? The distinctions, the niceties, escape me!”

  “You are insufferable!”

  “In truth,” I agreed. “And if you continue to devalue my companions, you will suffer as you have never dreamed possible. Your only recourse, as I see it, is to quickly meet our demands and let us depart, lest you learn obedience knelt at their feet.”

  “Would that I could!” she spat with shaking voice, and bent her head away to pour us new drink and seek composure. “Am I expected to be terrified by that sorcery in the hedges? I am horrified, disgusted, appalled. I have powers,” affirmed she, graciously proffering a full cup, “should I need to use them. I am no wanton, spilling blood enough to bathe in at my slightest whim. You have slaughtered whelt, ptaiss, quenel, guerm, campt, threfrasil, ossasim.” She ticked them off, upon her fingers, and when she looked up, her eyes were filled with tears: “Even the berceides of the second hedge. They counseled my mother and her mother and her mother before her. Do not threaten me with your men! It is you whom I hold responsible for this whole affair. Poor, despoiled Deilcrit! It is you with whom I will treat. If necessary, it is you with whom I will contend. And when I say ‘I,’ be assured that the whole of Wehrdom will stand behind my words.”

  Owkahen showed bright and clear the consequences if I dropped her to her knees in helpless flesh-lock, went to the doors and admitted Sereth and Chayin, consigned her to their mercies. The price was too dear, the repercussions too great. Instead I said: