“What do you mean?” I hunkered forward; he was speaking softly, like he didn’t want the other boys to know, so I did it, too. “What was in that paper thing you made me take into the Raringa?”
“An idea they clearly didn’t want to consider. I’ll tell you later.” He looked around at the other boys, who had withdrawn into knots and were talking quietly to each other now. “Can you send them home? The hunters will be watching the trails, after that.”
“Huh? Oh! Yeah!”
“A moment, then.” Eino got to his feet, taking a deep breath and turning to the other boys. “You weren’t here, friends. If the ones they caught say that you were, you’ll be home safe in your beds in a moment to belie them. There’s no proof; remember that.”
Some of the boys let out relieved sighs. But another one who was tall and older like Eino frowned. “Eino, I can’t do this anymore. If I’d been caught… my mother’s carting business depends on me marrying into Selu-medre’s clan. The scandal—”
“Scandal!” A younger boy made an angry gesture. “You weren’t out here cavorting with foreign women or siring daughters for free, for gods’ sake—”
“Enough.” Eino looked weary and angry and some other stuff besides. “There’ll be time for recriminations later. If you don’t want to come next time, then don’t come. It’ll be some time before I do this again, anyway, to let things cool down.” His expression turned bitter. “I never dreamt they would find something so simple so threatening.”
The older boy frowned, but before he could ask, Eino glanced at me. I looked at the other boys and felt the places in the world where they were supposed to be, the place each called home, and I made little folds to put each of them in those places. (Some of them were surprised! I giggled at them.) After a moment, only me and Eino remained at the top of the terrace. He stared out over Yukur, the edges of his thoughts tasting thick and bitter. “There,” I said. “You want to go now, too? I have to go back to Fahno-enulai’s anyway; I’m staying with her ’til she finds me an enulai.”
He drew back a little at this, then sighed. “Of course you are. But I don’t want to go back yet.” His jaw tightened. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
He made an odd gesture with his hand, and I felt it: a tiny wave of the FORCE he had thrown during the dance. “I’ve never been able to do that before.”
I shrugged. “I dunno why you didn’t, but you could. Isn’t that what the dance was for?”
He turned his head a little, so I saw how he frowned. “It was just a dance. I found descriptions of it in a book, images of it in an old sphere. Nothing I learned said it was supposed to be magical.”
“Well, it was.” I shrugged. “The moves were not magic by themselves, but you made them magic because you told them to be, and the universe listened. Together you and the dance said stuff like sha ejuviat, and wahek akekkipu.”
Eino twitched. “You’re speaking godwords.”
“Um, yeah! ’Cause I’m a god?” I tried not to roll my eyes. Papa Tempa told me that mortals don’t believe things even when they see them, sometimes, so you had to say stuff that was obvious. Silly mortals. “Oh. Do you need me to tell you what I said in mortal?” I tried to think of how to translate, but mortal words are all wrong for stuff like that.
“No,” he said, slowly, frowning to himself. “I… understood what you said.”
Oh, well then. “So, you were speaking godwords yourself in the dance—just, you know, without godwords. Probably because you’re a demon, too, if you’re related to Fahno-enulai? I dunno. But that’s why the dance was full of magic. You were dancing with a god, and everything we do is magic, and you’re more magic than most mortals, so you danced it, too.” It had been so much fun! I did a little hop, remembering the dance, and stomped the ground once—but only a little, because Yukur didn’t need anybody else messing it up.
He turned to face me, looking troubled. “I know some magic,” he said, slowly. “My grandmother taught me enough to control myself, and to protect myself. But that takes concentration, practice. I’ve never done magic by accident.”
I stopped play-dancing, puzzled. “You didn’t do it by accident. You wanted to hit me, even though we were only play-hitting. You wanted the ground to shatter beneath your feet.”
“That’s it? I want something enough, and it happens?”
“Well, that’s how it works when I do it. But I don’t need the dancing. And I never saw anybody run out of magic before! Maybe because you’re mortal?”
He stared at me without answering for so long that I got bored and started spinning around, humming the boys’ chant.
“I need to know if you’re going to tell my family about this,” he said finally. “Since you’re staying with us.”
I stopped humming, although I kept spinning, because it was fun. “Tell them about what?”
Having become more sophisticated, now I could tell better when mortals were wary or surprised or disbelieving, and he was all three. “About this. Some of the boys they caught will talk.” His jaw flexed. “They’ll have to. Some of them will say that this was my gathering. But like I told the others, without corroboration, it will just be rumor. Rumors can’t—” He paused, then laughed in an angry sort of way. “Well, they can hurt me. But not as much as proof, and they won’t have that.”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “I won’t tell if you don’t want me to. But why aren’t you supposed to be here, if that’s the problem? And why were those women so mean?” I stopped spinning and scowled after them, and wished that bad things would happen to Veiba. My first curse! I didn’t know if it would work, but I sure hoped it would.
Eino shook his head. “They were cruel because that’s what people are, sometimes. And we weren’t supposed to be here because good clan-sons don’t do such things. We stay home where it’s safe. We obey without question. We don’t go out late at night unchaperoned to cavort like barbarians. And we don’t demand, via unsigned proposals slipped unseen into the Council’s ‘new business’ docket, that men be granted again the rights that we justifiably lost centuries ago!”
I was really confused. “Huh?”
Eino sighed and looked around, finding his discarded robes and shaking them out. Some of the other boys had trampled them; he grimaced and brushed ineffectually at the footprints until I willed them all away. He let out a little wry chuckle, then nodded thanks and began to put on the robes in layers: first a long narrow sleeveless sheath of the same stuff as his loose pants, then a simple black robe, then the voluminous, brightly dyed outer robe, which had strange seams and extra lengths of cloth and weird unnecessary leather belts. It was very complicated. I grimaced over at my own discarded robes, disliking them just because of watching him.
“We come to Yukur,” he said, as he got dressed, “because once, a long time ago, a rebellion started here.”
I knew what a rebellion was! A long long time ago, like a whole three hundred years, a godling called Kahl Avenger had tried to do bad things. Everybody was still upset about it. “And everybody is still upset about it.” I was trying to sound wise.
“No, it was ages ago; everyone who lived through that time is long dead. And the rebels were fools.” Eino scowled, stepping into his slippers. “They hoped that a few weapons and help from Tokken and Menchey—nations that were our enemies back then—would allow them to overthrow the government and establish a different rule. Male rule, in the foreign fashion of things. But the Darre were warriors then, much more than now, and the rebellion was put down. Harshly.”
Well, that wasn’t a very good story! “What happened to them?”
“Tried as traitors and executed or exiled. And then, even though men had helped to fight back against the rebels, even though a man was ennu, the nation’s leader, at the time… the women took away any rights the men possessed.” Eino shook his head, flicking at wrinkles and making minute adjustments to his robes. “To vote, to hold property, to occupy any positions of worth,
even to be counted adults in their own right. It was a reaction against everything seen as a contribution to the rebellion: the weak ennu, a war that had decimated the country a few decades before, foreign influences. But that’s why now, a bunch of boys gathering to have fun brings down fifty hells’ worth of wrath.” He sighed and shook his head. “Or maybe that was me. That scroll I had you deliver—it was a proposal to grant men inheritance rights. It probably had no chance of passing, but I just wanted them to consider it, for gods’ sake. Instead, it just seems to have made them angry. Hells.” He began to take the combs out of his hair, letting it fall back into its usual black river.
I felt really sad and flat then, all the fun of the dance gone. “Why do you do things like this, then? Dance when you’re not supposed to, ask for things that make people mad? Wouldn’t it be easier to just…” I shrugged. I didn’t really know how to say it.
He let out a sharp sort of laugh that didn’t sound like he actually thought anything was funny. “You really are new to this realm, aren’t you? You don’t know mortals very well.”
I nodded, glad to finally have the conversation return to something I understood. “I’m new to everything. You are the first mortal I ever met.”
“The first—” Eino frowned. “You do seem… inexperienced. And, well, young. But one can never tell with godlings; forgive me if you’re actually a billion years old.”
I had to count on my fingers, and multiply by the spins of this galaxy’s wheel, and then by the expansion of the universe, and some other things. Time is annoying. “I’m almost a thousand hours old!”
“A thousand—” He got an odd look on his face. “Hours?”
Oh, wait, he had used years. But I needed the next thing smaller than a year. “Um, a month?”
He stared at me. “You’re one month old?”
“And, like, ten days.” It wasn’t like I was still a baby.
After a long, silent stretch he burst out laughing, and it was almost a mean laugh but not quite. “Gods, this is my luck! But I suppose I should thank you—er.”
“Shill! My name is Shill!”
He inclined his head in a formal sort of way. “Eino mau Tehno tai wer Tellomi, Shill-medre.” Son of Tehno, of the same clan as Fahno, and he’d given my name a suffix that just meant he wanted to be polite to a strange woman. I beamed, delighted, especially since I was still wearing a boy body. “Lady Shill, rather. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to keep the others hidden, without you.”
“You’re welcome! I would have done it for you, though, if you’d asked, so then you wouldn’t be so tired. That would be my thank-you for the dancing. Or fighting.” I frowned, confused.
Eino smiled. “Both. In the days before the traitors, that was how men fought to hide their strength from—and display their beauty to—women. It was called anatun, the battle-dance.”
“I like anatun! I became more of myself while dancing with you.” Eagerly I grabbed one of the dangly parts of his sleeve; this, finally, was what I needed to talk to him about. “Will you help me?”
His expression grew wary. “Help you do what?”
“I don’t know what I am.” I bit my lip. Mortals had different ways of saying it. How had Ia explained it to Fahno? “I don’t know my… nature. But lots of godlings, they come to this realm and meet mortals who help them figure themselves out. I think you can be that person for me!”
Eino flinched and glared at my hands until I let go of his robes. “No,” he said, in a cold scary way that made me think of Mama Yeine. “You destroyed the city by accident, Lady Shill. You think I don’t remember, just because Lord Ia cleaned up your mess? I’m grateful for your help, but go find your nature with someone else as your prop. I have my own troubles.”
“But it only happened with you! And I only found a little bit of me!” He set his jaw and turned away, starting toward and down the terrace steps; anxiously I trotted after him, trying desperately to think of how I could convince him. “Maybe—um—maybe I can help you?”
Eino stopped. Fully robed, with his hair perfect, he was so different from the wild master of the dance that he seemed like a whole other person. I didn’t know which was the real him, and which wasn’t. Maybe he was both. In this shape, however, his expression didn’t change; his whole face was like a mask. “What do you mean?”
“I… I don’t know.” I twisted some grass beneath my toe; it didn’t mind. “I could do more god-stuff for you, I guess?” He had so little magic. “Anything you want, if I know how to do it.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’d do my bidding? In exchange for… what, exactly?”
Oh, this! I inhaled. “Let me follow you around and do stuff like you do and talk to you and watch how you do things and maybe be your friend!”
Eino’s expression turned sardonic. “Just that.”
“Well… yes. I need to understand you.” This, I felt sure, was the key to learning my nature. And then I gasped. “Oh! Maybe you could be my enulai, too!”
Something changed minutely in his expression. “No.”
“Why not? You’re a d-demon, aren’t you?” I still shivered when I said it.
“Yes, I am.” He smiled, but it was another not-happy smile. “I am the only child or grandchild of Fahno, greatest enulai of the age, who’s inherited her gift. But I’m told I don’t have the temperament to be an enulai.”
I remembered Eino yelling at me in the market when I’d stood there blubbering. “Uh, I don’t think whoever told you that was right.”
He blinked, then for the first time since the raid, he smiled in a good way.
After a moment he sighed. “Very well, then, Lady Shill.” He extended his hand; not quite sure what else to do, I took it. “I suppose you’ve been helping me all along, lately. We might as well formalize the relationship. Only until Beba assigns you a proper enulai, though. And only if you tell no one; I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
I gasped in delight. An enulai! A secret enulai, all mine! “OK!”
“In the meantime—” He tilted his head with perfect grace. “Home, please?”
“OK!” I was so happy that I took his hand and did exactly what he wanted, right then and there.
OK OK OK OK WAAAAAIT. (This is how Mama Yeine likes to tell stories. I don’t tell Papa Tempa that I like her storying, too, even if it is not the Proper Way.)
Now I will tell you about other stuff that was happening, because mortal stuff is very tiny stuff compared to everything else that’s always going on. And this other stuff is important! You need to know it, too, because you are really new, like me.
THERE IS A BIG HOLE IN EXISTENCE. Can you see it? Mortals can’t, but you can. Look right there. Look look look! Now tilt your head and squint. And now laheelishrinjael jyama, shu enwa owamehikach. Ashkayeerikajishge ichttu. Ichttu, ichttu! No, your other left. See it now?
Yes, it is really big. That is where the Maelstrom punched through. The Three have patched over the hole, and it is healing; Naha says it should be fine in a couple billion years. But right now it is still a big hole and actually you should not ever go too close to that hole because there are still bits of Maelstrom stuck in it and they will eat you. That is why I told you about it. I’m a good teacher!
Now look here and here and here and here, and there. Those are smaller holes. They will not hurt you. They’re hard to see, even, right? But they hurt existence. Those are the holes that are left behind when godlings die. We are not very important, not like the Three. The universe does not come apart if we die. It does get kind of messed up, though. Especially when one of the very old ones dies, because they’ve been around long enough that existence has sort of grown around them, and leaned on them a little. Without them, it cracks and maybe stumbles. Then in a few eons it’s fine again.
Everything was already stumbly when the Maelstrom came. The Demons’ War killed demons, and they do not leave holes the way godlings do, but maybe they left little itchy bumps because then later everybody
got cranky and had the Gods’ War. That one was really bad, because lots of godlings died in it—mostly young ones, but a few old ones, too. And maybe that is why it was so easy for Kahl to call the Maelstrom, and why Sieh changed and died—because when existence is shaky, all kinds of things can happen, good and bad.
(Like me! OK, that is not really why I happened. I happened because my parents had sex.)
Anyway so when Sieh died and the hole was there, everything in the universe got… drifty. Galaxies spun loose, with stars flying everywhichway. Wandering planets barged into solar systems without even asking! Even the dark matter has been getting snitty; it keeps shrinking down and trying to make pocket universes. The Three have to keep telling it to settle down.
Some of that was because of the big hole. But some of it was because Sieh was gone. All the planets and moons used to like Sieh. The suns didn’t like him as much because he stole planets sometimes, but they listened to him, and did what he asked. Every other god, they give attitude.
That is what a trickster does, see. Shifts things around, stirs things up, makes the strong weak and the weak strong, makes people mad in good times so they won’t get madder in bad ones.
Tricksters are important. They are not always funny, not always cruel, not always childish; there are many kinds of tricksters, and Sieh was not the only one. But he was the Trickster, the one who keeps existence on its toes, and without him, things keep going, but they don’t go well.
Tricksters are really, really important. OK so there.
WHEEEEEEE WHEEEEEEEE WHEEEEEEwhat? But that part was fun! I wanted to tell you about it so you would know how fun!
Oh, fine. I will skip the stuff that is not important, but I think you are being a storybully, and you should maybe just relax. OK. So Eino slept really really late the next day and I got bored with watching him, so I went to a couple of other planets nearby and found a big gassy one that had really fast winds that were fun to skate on. There were little dancing creatures in the wind so I danced with them, and deeper inside the planet there were big boxes floating that had lots of long-dead mortals inside but you are BORING and don’t want to know about that so I will skip ahead.
The Inheritance Trilogy Page 118