The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  When at last she felt the stillness inside, when she could hear the silences within herself, she repeated subvocally the invocation to Water, her lips moving silently, almost invisibly. Then it was time. She stepped calmly into the water, feeling the bite of its cold on her legs and feet, then her thighs as she kneeled, and then the full shock of it as she slowly, deliberately immersed herself into the water, coming to rest facedown, completely covered. A deep fear, a corrosive worry, a mindless anger; take it all, trough-water, take it to the sea. From the first it was painful, an assault upon the entire body, all at once, a sensory explosion blanking her mind. There was an urge to panic. She resisted, and lay still, gently thinking nonthoughts, letting the cold grip her in its teeth of iron, clamping her firmly in its clammy jaws. When she could stand it no longer, she got to her feet slowly, carefully, standing, releasing the pent breath she had been holding. Then she swiftly rubbed herself down with her hands, using the backscrubber hanging on a peg nearby to reach her back. The air now felt warm.

  She was finished with the rite of Water. Still, despite the numbing cold, Fellirian forced herself to be slow, measured, deliberate. Nothing is any good in a hurry, and rituals least of all. I must wait for the water to become still before I leave it. That is respect for what it is. She waited, wrung out her hair, and stepped out of the trough. Then she gathered up her clothes, picked up her boots, and Pethmirvin’s as well, for in her haste to get into the yos and warmth, Peth had left hers behind. That scatter-brain, Fellirian thought warmly. Only when she was completely finished did she look back to the water. It was still again, rippling only from the fresh water falling into it from the pipe. Fellirian turned away, her skin goose-pimpling violently, climbing with measured steps up the stairs to the entryway.

  She brushed aside the heavy outer winter-curtain and stepped inside over the sill. As she put her old clothes down, she saw in the half-light spilling through the inner curtain that someone had left out her favorite autumn kif, a loose wraparound with wide, deep sleeves. By the light she could make out its pattern, a plain brownish hue with a pattern of cherry leaves ticked subtly throughout it. Wrapping her hair in a soft cloth, she took the kif up, putting her arms into the sleeves, wrapping it around her body, luxuriating in the feel along her skin of the smooth inner lining, already feeling it warm her. Then the wide sash belt to fasten it together, and she brushed the inner curtain aside, entering.

  Inside the hearth, the others awaited her, Morlenden, Cannialin, Kaldherman. Not the children; they had all gone to bed, even Sanjirmil. Fellirian suddenly felt as if she had been gone for years, instead of the two days it had been in reality, and she looked long at them, and around the hearth, as if she wanted to reassure herself with its familiar contours. She saw its spacious roundness, the dome of the ceiling, its outlet vent blackened around the lip by the hearth-smoke of generations of Derens. To her left was the hearth proper and table, and to the other hand a cushioned shelf for sitting, all the way around the compartment. In the back, three curtained crawlways led off to other compartments, left for adults, center to the workrooms and recordium, right to the children’s sleeper. Tapestries arranged behind the sitting-shelf illustrated the Salt-pilgrimage and stages along the Way. Every yos except the very poorest thus displayed some symbolic reminder of something great the Braid had done. Theirs was old and somewhat faded. Still, it was theirs, and this was home. It smelled of woodsmoke, clean, familiar bodies, onions.

  They had kept a fire on the raised hearth, and there was a pot of stew still on it, steaming away. Nearby was the ever-present teapot. Fellirian went to her place19 and sat. Morlenden ladled out a bowl of the stew, Kaldherman cut some bread from a loaf, and Cannialin stood behind her and began to braid her hair.

  Fellirian, realizing how hungry she was, began to eat immediately, blowing on the spoonfuls of hot stew to cool it down. Kaldherman replaced the loaf on its shelf, sat back in his place, and leaned back expansively.

  “No need to hurry, Eliya. We’ve bedded them all down for the night: the starsrith in the shed, and the little fox with the rest of the children.”

  “Did the Perwathwiy not wish to talk, then? Peth said she had come to talk this very night.” Fellirian spoke between mouthfuls.

  Cannialin answered from behind her, a soft, pleasantly hoarse throaty voice in her ear. “Oh, no. She wanted to talk, sure enough, but we convinced her it would be better to wait for daylight. One could not know when our Klandorh was coming home, and she did insist that you be there. I do admit we used the argument of her convenience, although it mostly is ours. But since she had to wait for morning light, she could wait to drop her secret then.”

  “Did she drop any hint of what it was that she wanted?” Fellirian paused, almost saying something else, then changing it. “I cannot imagine what would bring her all the way down here at night.”

  “And in the rain, no less,” Kaldherman said. “But she never said. Although she’s in a hurry, whatever, it is, and an elder in a hurry is a remarkable thing—especially out of Dragonfly Zlos.”

  “Indeed, so it is.” Fellirian turned to Morlenden. “When did you arrive, Olede?”

  “Not so very long before you.”

  “Are you tired?”

  “Tired isn’t the word for it. Mind, I don’t mind walking in the rain all day; I’m used to that. What inconveniences one is that last evening I had to attend a weaving-party, and woke up this morn not in the best of humors.”

  Fellirian chuckled. “Serves you right. You’re supposed to officiate at those parties, not join in them.”

  “Ah, who can say no to a host in his cups?” Morlenden smiled back at her. Morlenden was somewhat heavier in build than Fellirian, indeed, than any of them, and his hair was fractionally darker, now beginning to show some hints of gray. His face was more sharply drawn, full of planes, defined lines, demarcations. It was a harsh face in certain lights, but for the most part it was also a face animated beneath by poise, confidence, general good humor. He continued, “Well, I suppose it would have been nice enough, except for the fact, denied with vehemence and zeal by all parties concerned, that the Toorh were already full-fertile and obviously had no use for anybody besides themselves. Had them dressed up all in white, they did, when I, a stranger, could tell they’d been doing it a month at least. I think the girl was pregnant already, carrying the Nerh. And of course the potables were the vilest sort of stuff you can imagine. Homebrew! Peach brandy, they had the nerve to call it. May as well call a squeal the whole hog to be consistent. It was, so I discovered, raw corn whiskey, not even cooled decently, with some peach-pits in the bottom of the crock, or I’m a human.”

  Here Kaldherman interjected, “Nothing wrong with that. Just good, honest folk. Why put on airs?”

  Morlenden leered askance at Kaldherman. “Even up your way they don’t go so far. But this was really remote. And you know how it goes in the most distant districts; too much ag-ri-cul-ture.” He drawled the last word out bawdily, making a lewd face to go with it, suggesting some yokel gaping in astonishment after the barnyard antics of bull and cow.

  Fellirian laughed, waving her empty bowl. “Where was this?”

  “Beshmazen’s.”

  “You walked all the way from there?”

  “Oh, indeed, all the way from the far side of the Hvar. Cleared my head, it did.”

  “And then you waited up for me, well knowing that the Perwathwiy would wait for the morrow?”

  All of them nodded agreement.

  Fellirian said, “Well, then, I am grateful to you all.” She turned the teacup up, draining it. “Now you can all come to the sleeper with me and warm my body to sleep. I’m freezing!”

  Fellirian arose from the hearth, placing her bowl with the others in the soak-tub by the fire, and went directly to the sleeper, pushing aside the curtain and climbing in. Morlenden and Cannialin followed her, while Kaldherman remained behind momentarily, banking the hearthfire and blowing out lamps. One by one, they all climbed i
nto the adult sleeper compartment, at a higher level than the rest of the yos, reached by a short ladder. Inside, they carefully removed their kifs and overshirts, folded them up, and placed them on shelves that ran all around the circular wall of the compartment. Here, they did not make lights; it was a smaller compartment than the main hearth, and they all knew every inch of it, especially Morlenden and Fellirian. She reached upward to a shelf for something she knew would be there: a large double comforter, which she retrieved and with Morlenden’s help spread out and buttoned the edges together. Finished, they spread it out, just so, and slid into it, moving close together for warmth, feeling the familiar bumps, angles, and contours of each other as they moved, making tiny adjustments in position until the fit was exactly right, just as they had been doing on winter nights for the greatest part of their lives. Across the compartment they could hear Cannialin and Kaldherman doing exactly likewise, rustling the comforter, arranging themselves, seeking out the most comfortable and warm position; for while the material of which the yos was traditionally built was a good insulator, it was also unheated inside except for what warmth from the hearth took the edge off the chill.

  Fellirian moved closer to Morlenden; she was still chilled thoroughly, more than she had thought, from the long walk up from the mono line and the Water Rite as well. She felt the body next to her own; the skin was cool, but underneath he was warm. She stretched, tensing and releasing every muscle, feeling Morlenden curl around her. Across the sleeper, Cannialin whispered good night in her quiet shy voice into the darkness and the quiet, broken only by an occasional drip on the roof, and then by deep, even breathing. Kaldherman, like an animal, fell asleep instantly.

  When she was sure that the others were asleep, she nudged her insibling. Morlenden nudged back. She whispered, under the covers, barely audibly, “Do you have any idea what is going on? Why the Perwathwiy, and Sanjirmil?”

  “I know no more than you, Eliya. They told me naught save that it was a Braidish thing—that all of us would have to hear and judge, and agree. Sanjirmil said nothing. At any rate, when I came home she was too busy eating Peth’s supper to say anything.”

  “Did she really?”

  “Thus she did. But Peth did all well enough, I think. She wanted to go out anyway—I suspect a young buck hidden away in the brush outside.”

  “She had one, so it was.”

  “Might have known; comes from her foremother. You used to do that.”

  “Never mind the things I used to do. You used to bring them home, you rooster. Where you ever found such bedraggled things I’ll never know. Did you scour the whole reservation looking for the poorest girls?”

  “Well, as I have often averred, the wealthy give luxury, but from the destitute comes speed.”

  “Speed, was it? It was never speed that kept the rest of us awake half the night with your whispers and giggles under the window. And after I had spent most of the evening record-keeping so at least one of us would do it right after weaving.”

  “Ah, Fel, you always were too serious for your own good.”

  “Serious or not, what do you think of the Perwathwiy walking down here from Garkaeszlos in the rain?”

  “I like it not. Nor the fact she wouldn’t talk, either. It can’t be a good thing, can it?”

  “I see no way it could go thus.”

  “And you are tense, too. Something else? You spent too long in the water for things to be normal, even for a zealot like you. Have a bad time of it down there among the Hauthpir20?”

  “No, not that way. No different from other times. The same, more or less, and the same tired old provocs in the crowd. But I realized something I’d been stupid enough to overlook for some time. I really can’t be sure how long it’s been going on, but Vance has been having me monitored during the meetings, and after the visitors leave, when we sit and chat a bit. He hasn’t been pushy, just a little more leading and curious than normal. At first I thought it was just him—he is a little erratic in behavior. But when I saw it, it was clear. I tell you, something’s afoot, something’s going to happen, something bad. Maybe already. But I don’t know to whom, or why.”

  “Maybe it’s already happened.”

  “No. If it has, that’s not what we’re looking for.”

  “That’s not like Vance. He’s an old friend.”

  “So he has been. He’s been a good channel for us—working both ways. Keeps the worst of them away from us, and lets us have a freer hand than we might have had. And I know him well enough, or so I thought . . . He wouldn’t without good reason.”

  “Perhaps. But we don’t know those reasons, even assuming what you say is true.”

  “Mor, I think there’s some connection between this visit and the change at the Institute.”

  “Nothing we can do tonight. Unless you wish to walk out to the shed and wake the Perwathwiy.”

  “No. I want to sleep. By the way, did Sanjirmil say anything at all?”

  Morlenden was silent for a time. Fellirian could hear only his regular breathing. She prodded him. “Morlenden?”

  “Hm? Sanjirmil? No, she said nothing. Nothing at all. She was here when I arrived, but she kept her own counsel. A few pleasantries, politeness . . . no, nothing.”

  “Were you not as much past the Change as I, I’d suspect you of distraction.”

  “Distraction? Hmph. Hardly. Although you have to admit that Sanjirmil certainly possesses more erotic quality than the average girl.”

  “Bah. A primitive, that’s all.”

  “Just so, just so. . . .” He mused. “And a waste too, for one hears along the road that she’s a bit of a zealot, a Zan fanatic.”

  “All those players are odd, you know? Well, so be it. I leave them to their Zan Game, however they will. Good night.”

  “And you, Eliya. On the morrow.”

  FOUR

  The more dimensions in a Game, the more complex become the factors in the surround that influence the state of a given cell. This becomes significant when we recall that only two things determine what a cell’s state will be: what it was in the last temporal frame, and what the surround is. Now if we imagine that our familiar universe of three dimensions is instead a three-dimensional projection of an n-dimensional Game, then the task before us of first importance is to determine the dimensional matrix. Is this not obvious?

  —The Game Texts

  FELLIRIAN SEEMED TO drop into sleep instantly, as soon as she had moved a little, finding just the right position she wanted. Her breathing became deep, slow, and regular. Morlenden did not fall asleep. No less tired than Fellirian, something deep in his mind itched, something basically wrong. Wrong? That was not quite the proper word. Un-right might have been better. He could not place the source of these feelings. For a time, he probed at it, but he could not find the unraveling-place, so gradually he left it. He reflected on his past, keyed by the events of this night, and the visitors who had come to their holding. Perwathwiy. Sanjirmil. Yes, Sanjirmil. Morlenden reflected on his past. His, and Sanjirmil’s.

  It had been long ago. Two and a fourteen years ago. In 2534, in the human calendar. In the early autumn. He had been one and two fourteens, twenty-nine, and she thirteen. At this time had occurred the interplay of two separate customs, or traditions, in a most curious way he had never put away in his mind.

  The first had been the Canon of Permissibility: the rules governing sexual activity among ler adolescents were few, and of those that existed fewer still were the ones restricting it. Thus, it was said that among persons of adolescent phase age of itself would be no bar, provided that all acted according to their own desires and wills. In practice, one most usually paired off with partners near one’s own age, but exceptions did occur, and one was neither praised nor defamed, either way.

  The other tradition was more restrictive, for it pertained only to insiblings. Normally avoiding one another somewhat as they grew up through adolescence, as fertility drew near, insiblings gradually spent more time wi
th each other. But at the same time, the rivalries and tensions accumulated during their long childhood and adolescence began to simmer and come to the surface. Knowing how tense this period could be, and was, and knowing how important it was that the insiblings remain together, the ler had inserted a period of relief into the very last part of adolescence, so that a hostile relationship would not unravel Braid lines carefully nurtured over hundreds of years. It was custom, then, that sometime in the last year of adolescence, the insibling was allowed a vayyon, a walkabout, an idle wandering-off, a last adventure, a great affair. It went without saying that these walkabouts were undertaken more or less specifically for the purpose of having one last fling, something to remember and cherish for the rest of one’s life.

  Autumn, 2534. Fellirian had already had her adventure, her vayyon; in the spring of that year, in accordance with the custom, she had simply wandered off one rainy day. Three months later, in summer, she had returned, saying nothing to anyone, dropping no hints, revealing no confidences. She had been tense before, uncharacteristically sharp-tongued and acrid of remark. Now she seemed settled, placid, relaxed, at home again within herself, most of the earlier late-adolescent fidgets gone, her perplexities resolved. Or were they? Morlenden did not know. He had never known. She had never spoken of it, what she had done or with whom, if indeed anyone. That, too, was the custom: what one did on the vayyon was forever a secret. And so Fellirian had returned, calm as still water, silent, enigmatic.

  All this time Morlenden had felt the urge to the unknown building in him, and had found the environs of the Deren Braid holding increasingly bland, unsatisfying. Fellirian had been not only Klandorh-to-be, but she was also eldest insibling, so it was her right to go first. But within a few days of her return, Morlenden gathered a few things and also left, as silently as had his insibling. On the way out to Main Path, they had passed, wordless. There was nothing she could say to him. One found one’s own truth, and no other’s words could tell it.