Law of Survival

by Kristine Smith

  He longed for the seclusion of his rooms, the quiet, the warmth that emerged from the output of a facilities array, not the laughing breath of a mocking goddess.

  I am Haárin.

  But who considered him such? Cèel and Shai, most certainly. They felt him most disordered, a traitor to his skein and sect. The only thing that saved him from the full vent of their wrath was the security of his station. He was their Chief Propitiator. In secular matters, he owed them obedience. In religious matters, which held greater import for any born-sect, they owed him their souls.

  I am Haárin…by name.

  He had earned the name Égri nìRau Tsecha, and truly. Over twenty-five humanish years ago, he had fought in Council and in Temple to allow humanish to form an enclave outside Rauta Shèràa. Then, he fought even more to allow them to study at the Academy. He had engaged and attacked both with words and with blades. There had been days when his enemies stood in line to declare themselves, when he fought à lérine with a weapon still bloody from the previous bout, when he could barely raise his arms for the number and pain of his wounds.

  The hum of conversation snapped Tsecha out of his grim remembrance. He tensed as he waited for the speakers to walk into view, relaxing when he saw them to be Communications dominants whom he did not know well. He watched them disappear into another of the enclosures, gesturing in animated discussion. Then he tugged in irritation at the tight sleeves of the coldsuit. He felt hot here in the enclosure. Constricted. He had donned the suit in anticipation of the chill of the Haárin enclave—he did not need such protection in the shelter of the embassy.

  Shelter…

  Dathim believes me sheltered. Unaware of the desires of Haárin. But I know them now. As his Jani must, as well. Such would explain her stubborn denials of her hybridization, and her anger as she did so. She did not like to be tricked, and Dathim Naré the Tilemaster had tricked them all. He had not journeyed into the godless humanish city to deliver stolen papers into the safety of one who could dispose of them. He had done so to confront his leader, to tell her the time had come for her to lead them to their place in this damned cold city.

  But she had denied him.

  And now he met with his enclave, in a crowded room in one of the tiny houses beyond the trees, to discuss what to do next.

  Tsecha imagined the Suborn Oligarch standing before him now, glaring down at him from her imposing height, shoulders rounded and hands twitching in displeasure. He imagined telling her words that she had no desire to hear.

  The embassy Haárin no longer wish to serve us, Shai. Their wish now is to serve themselves. The machinations of the meeting room meant nothing to them anymore, now that they knew the freedom of the humanish colonial enclave. The complexities and formalities of born-sect challenge, upon which their futures once depended, now angered rather than distressed them. They no longer care what we do, Shai. We bother them. We interfere with them. Even he, who chose the name Égri nìRau Tsecha to symbolize his expulsion from Vynshàrau, mean nothing to Dathim and the others who populated the embassy sequestration. They needed me to bring them Jani, and I could not do so. To them, I am worthless, Haárin by name and name only.

  “Name only.” Tsecha spoke aloud in French, so that any who overheard him would not understand. “I, who shed the blood of my enemies on the Temple floor.” He tried to move his right leg to a more easeful position, but his knee griped and the top of his head ached from pressing against the stone. I, Avrèl nìRau Nema, have become as nothing. Passed over by those he had once led. Cast aside by those who had once served him. Denied participation in reaching the goal toward which he had strove for half his life.

  Do you think to deny me, Dathim? Is this what you wish, and truly?

  He stared out at the empty veranda, filled only by the occasional murmur of voices or passing footfall.

  As my Hansen used to say, “Think again.”

  He rose slowly. He walked until the needling in his right leg forced him to stop, then leaned against a pillar until the pain and numbness left him. Then he stepped off the veranda and headed for the trees, his stride growing longer and surer with every slow, strong beat of his heart.

  Tsecha pressed the entry buzzer of the first house on the stone-paved path. The second. The third. He did so for a sense of completeness, of orderly progression, and to allow himself time to prepare. He also did it as a warning—the alarms echoed within the empty houses, sounding through the walls and along the deserted lane. A barely detectable alert, like the distant wail of the ComPol sirens.

  When he finally reached Dathim Naré’s house, he stood in front of the door for some time before daring to touch the entry pad. He sensed an ending here, as well as a beginning. As his walk down the lane had consisted of the conclusion of one step and the initiation of the following, so did his action here presage the end of one stage in his life and the start of the next. Not as one to be left behind, no, nor as one to be shunted aside. Such a fate was not meant for him, this he knew, and truly. Chief Propitiator of the Vynshàrau he was and would be until his death. Haárin he had been made, and would be until his death, as well.

  Intercessor between his Jani and her people, he would become, even if the steps he took this night hastened that death.

  He offered a whispered prayer as homage to Caith, then touched the pad. This buzzer seemed to sound more loudly than had the others. But then, such was to be expected. He heard no footsteps or voices just prior to the door opening, which meant someone had stood there and waited for him to request entry. Again, to be expected.

  That the someone turned out to be Dathim Naré was the most expected thing of all.

  “Ní Tsecha Égri.” Dathim offered his odd humanish smile and stood aside to allow Tsecha entry.

  Tsecha stepped inside, making sure to touch Caith’s reliquary along the way. Behind him, he heard a harsh expulsion of breath, but whether that breath resulted from Dathim’s surprise or his laughter, he did not bother to confirm.

  Dathim’s followers sat crowded in the center of the main room floor; they had arranged themselves in a tight circle as though to shelter themselves from nonexistent wind and cold. Not all the Haárin who had stood atop the ridge had gathered here. Tsecha recognized the female who had taken the place beside Dathim on the ridge, and several of the others who had stood closest to him. Eleven, he counted—the most wary, the most humanish-appearing, and thus the most outcast of all.

  Dathim stepped around in front of him, gesturing to the others as he did so. “We have been waiting for you, ní Tsecha.” He smiled again, as though saying the true Haárin version of Tsecha’s name gave him pleasure.

  “We have, and truly,” Dathim’s female said. She wore her brown hair unbraided and gathered in a loose stream that hung halfway down her back. From such, she gave no sign whether she was bred or unbred, whether any of the youngish who had stood watching Tsecha during his daylight visit had been birthed by her or not. “I am Beyva Kelohim, ní Tsecha. I speak for those who have awaited you but cannot be here to witness your arrival—glories of the day to come.”

  “Glories of the day to come,” intoned the rest of the Haárin in one voice, a voice that held a wide range of accents, from crisp and clear to rolling and smooth.

  “Glor-ries of the day to come.” Dathim ended the round of greetings, his voice like the cold stone against which Tsecha had rested his head. He then joined his followers in the circle; Beyva edged aside, leaving a space for him beside her on the floor.

  “How will we know if ná Kièrshia has succeeded in returning the documents, ní Tsecha?” Her voice sounded as Jani’s, low for a female, and quiet.

  And for my Jani, I know the voice means as opposite of that which she is. Tsecha drew close to the circle, and regarded Beyva most openly. She did the same, looking him in the face with no evidence of hesitation. She possessed the gold eyes of Vynshàrau; her particular variation darkened by brown flecks. Like Dathim, she wore trousers and a shirt of Pathen coloring
. Bright orange topped with sea blue, a most startling combination, and truly.

  “I have heard nothing. At times such as this, to hear nothing from humanish is a good thing.” As Tsecha stepped up to the circle, two of the Haárin slid apart to make room for him. He lowered gently to the floor, his knee complaining with every incremental movement. “If Anais Ulanova had complained to us concerning these documents, I would have heard news of such from Suborn Oligarch Shai. The importance of the documents was such that she would most certainly have contacted us. Since she has not, I must assume that my Kièrshia has indeed managed to return them.” He looked at the faces surrounding him—even Dathim regarded him with an air of solemn acceptance. All understood him to be the absolute authority in any matter regarding his Toxin. If he said something was so, than it was so. Knowing his Jani as he did, this unquestioning faith caused a clench in Tsecha’s soul. Not that she would ever disgrace or betray him—of that he felt most sure. But they expect that I know her mind. What she will do and when she will do it. They expected him to know that which no humanish had ever divined. That terrified him.

  “Ní Tsecha?”

  Tsecha looked up to find Dathim’s smile had returned.

  “Should we remain here on the embassy grounds, or choose an enclave outside this city?” Dathim gestured toward the bare tile in the center of the circle, as though it contained a two-dimensional map or a three-dimensional relief. “Up to the north, in one of the lakeside preserves? Or out to the west, in the midst of Chicago’s garden domes and kettle factories?” He watched the reactions of his followers. “In the midst of humanish food.”

  “Even the humanish would not subject us to such. Of this, I feel most sure.” An Haárin who Tsecha recognized as one of the garden workers spoke with hesitance, his English an odd swirl. “They would send us further north, in the hope that the cold would freeze us into leaving.”

  “And they would not put us amid their food for fear of sabotage,” Tsecha added. “Remember how they think. You cannot hope to live among them if you do not know how they think.” He pointed to a nonexistent place on the imaginary map. “As I said before, this is the capital, home to the Earthbound humanish. The colony humanish tolerate us because we provide them with supplies that they cannot obtain from their own merchants, but in this city, all can get what they wish. They do not need us here, and humanish dispose of that which they do not need.”

  “You try to scare us, Tsecha?” Dathim’s voice sounded again as the stone.

  “I speak only truth, Dathim. Because you do not agree with it, you will not hear it. Allow me to honor you—you have become most as humanish already.” Tsecha waved a dismissive hand as the Haárin’s shoulders rounded. “And this will proceed how? Will you visit Shai in her rooms and demand the right to petition the humanish for permission to live here? Can you imagine what her reply will be, she who would send you back into the worldskein with the next sunrise? Or perhaps you will go to the humanish directly? I can tell you what they will answer, Dathim, and you will not like that, as well. Your shoulders will round and you will argue and dispute, but they will not hear you anymore. They will know what you wish, and they will refuse it. To confront directly as with idomeni is not the way to deal with humanish!” Tsecha waited for the sound of his words to die in his ears before flexing his back, first one way, then the other. Even the painful support of one of Shai’s chairs would have been preferable to this free-sitting agony. But even with that being the case, he knew that he dared not leave. Intercession had become his duty, as it had with his late Hansen. My Hansen, who died in the explosion of an Haárin bomb. Tsecha imagined the smoke and rubble of the long-forgotten scene, and felt the frigid air once more through his coldsuit.

  “Then what do we do, ní Tsecha?” Beyva tilted her head and lifted a cupped hand in a most Vynshàrau display of question.

  “If I could speak with my Kièrshia, we could together determine something. If I could speak—”

  Dathim again expelled breath. “If? Is not the question when? Where? How? You are bound to this land, Tsecha. You are under arrest.”

  Tsecha gestured agreement with a truncated Low Vynshàrau hand flick. “But you leave this land quite easily, Dathim. Any time you wish, so it appears, and truly.” He stared at the blank center of their circle, and considered his next words. So easily had they formed in his mind that he knew they had been put there by a god. Whether that god be Shiou or Caith did not matter. He felt their divinity. Therefore, he was fated to speak them, and take the consequences as they came. “You will take me to her.”

  Dathim stared him in the face as the rest of the Haárin grew most still. “You are bound to this land, Tsecha, by Shai’s decree.”

  “Yes.” Tsecha again gestured strong affirmation, adding a humanish head nod for emphasis. “I am ambassador to this damned cold city. I am charged with representing my people to the humanish. Tell me, ní Dathim, if I am not to act as ambassador at this time, when am I? If not to prevent you from enraging the humanish so that they expel us all, when should I?”

  “If not to prevent them from killing us all.” The garden Haárin spoke once more, his voice as dead. “If not to prevent another Knevçet Shèràa.”

  Tsecha flicked his left hand in strongest disagreement. “Only my Kièrshia could enact another Knevçet Shèràa, and she would not do so in this case. She might yell, and question most loudly, but that is not the same as killing us all, and you are most stupid to say so!” He slumped with fatigue as his aged back surrendered its efforts to maintain its straightness. “If we persuade her of the worth of our argument, she will help us. She helps when she can. Such is her way, just as it is Shai’s to press the old customs upon us all and Dathim’s to trick and enrage.” His knee ached again. He shivered, and longed for the soft and warmth of his bed.

  Dathim smiled once more. “You are so sure of her, ní Tsecha. You are so sure of us all. I must indeed take you to this meeting.” He looked to the timeform that sat within a niche on the other side of the room. “It is too late to go now—the darkness will soon be gone, and we still need darkness to travel in this city. But this next night we will go, and I will learn much of the ways of humanish from your discussions.”

  Beyva gestured in strong affirmation. “I will go, as well, to witness this discussion.”

  “And I will go,” said the gardener. “I have never seen ná Kièrshia.”

  “And I will go—”

  “And I—”

  “I, as well.”

  “We will all go, and truly.”

  Tsecha looked at the faces around him. Some appeared cool and questioning as Dathim’s. Others, as Beyva’s, held youngish enthusiasm. None held confusion. Such had been left for him, so it seemed, to hold in his soul. I will disobey Shai. Such, she would not forgive. Perhaps she will challenge me. After fighting her, he would be most as outcast, and truly. He worked his hand beneath the short braids that fringed his forehead, and massaged the tightening bands that encircled his skull.

  “If you go out in this city looking as you do, Tsecha, all who see you will know you as idomeni.”

  Tsecha looked up to see Dathim brush his hand over his own sheared head. “I have gone out into this city before, Dathim. My hair fits under a tight wig most well.”

  “A wig is trickery, is it not, Tsecha? But I am the trickster, and I see no need for such.” Dathim lowered his chin in challenge. “You are our ambassador to humanish ways. So you said. So you said.” He rose to his feet and walked across the room, disappearing through the front entry and into the night. One by one, the others followed him, the gardener and the rest, until Tsecha sat alone with Beyva.

  He watched the door close. “Ní Dathim is most vexing.” Once more, he pushed his forehead fringe aside to rub his scalp.

  “Such is his way.” Beyva lifted her right hand, open palm facing down. A gesture of acceptance. “He wishes to live as he will, where he will. Such is what we all wish.”

  Tsecha nodd
ed in such a humanish manner that even he did not understand what he meant. He tugged at one of his braids, felt something give, then pulled back his hand to look at the short length of unfurled silver cord that he held between his fingers.

  “You must retie it before you leave, ní Tsecha.” Beyva rose. “The loose hair hangs before your eyes.”

  “Yes.” Tsecha rolled the lock between his thumb and forefinger, then released it and instead tied the hair cord into a knot. He heard Beyva’s footsteps, but did not look up to see where she walked or what she did. When he heard her approach from behind, he did not turn back to look at her.

  He flinched when he felt her hands work through his braids. Then he felt the steady pull as she gathered the twirled lengths of hair in one hand, followed by the gradual loosening as she applied the cutter to the root of each one in turn and snipped it through.

  “You will have to wear a covering out of doors, ní Tsecha,” Beyva said as she cut. “You are not used to the cold.”

  Tsecha listened to the soft grassy sighs as his hair fell to the tile. Felt the slackening over his scalp as Beyva hacked away the tight braiding, and the pain in his head ease. It took so little time, to turn away from that which he had been. It took such simple acts, to become as outcast.

  He sensed Beyva step back from him, and knew that she had finished. He rose, his knee cracking as it unbent. She held out the cloth to protect his head; he gave his answer by walking out the door and into the chill night, uncovered.

  None saw him as he crossed through the trees, the lawns, the veranda. He entered the embassy and walked to the residence wing, up and down the halls to his rooms, seeing no one until the last corner when he turned and found himself face-to-face with Shai.

  “Tsecha.” The Suborn Oligarch stared at the top of his head, then turned from him, her shoulders hunched and rounding.