Family

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "Absolutely," Sediryl said. "It's a real ceremony. I had reasons of my own to research it." Her smile grew thinner. "We'll need the evening. If you can use your Alliance-borrowed technology, aunt, you can get a copy of how it proceeds from the capital... the Queen created the rite with the help of the Church, and there's a copy of it in her datastore."

  Jeasa stared at her. "Only the heads of the Galare families are supposed to know about that datastore."

  Sediryl snorted. "If she'd wanted to keep everyone else out of it, she should have protected it better. Anyone with basic computer knowledge could find it."

  Behind them, Jahir said quietly, "That's probably the point."

  Both women glanced back at him.

  "The Eldritch who want nothing to do with the Alliance would hardly know how to use a computer," Jahir said. "So she left it open for the ones who cared enough to do so, for their use."

  "Twisty," Sediryl said. "Sounds like her."

  "In here," Jeasa said, opening the door into the same salon she'd greeted them in the first day. "I'll go check the computer and come right back."

  "I'll go with you, show you where to find it," Sediryl said.

  Which left Vasiht'h alone with his partner for the first time since mid-morning... when he'd shut the mindline down to its lowest trickle. He looked at Jahir, chagrined. "I'm sorry about earlier."

  "I'm the one who's sorry," Jahir said, the words sagging in the mindline, as if exhausted. He sat on a chair and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and hanging his hands between them, fingers entwined. It relaxed Vasiht'h, to see it... they had been compensating for their differences in height for so long that the move to put their heads on the same level felt reassuringly normal. He had not damaged the relationship, after all... not too much, anyway.

  "I should have known this would become complicated," Jahir finished. "I was so intent on having something—someone—sane and familiar around that I dragged you here, knowing that it would probably be uncomfortable for you."

  "Well, that's done already," Vasiht'h said. "And I can't blame you, and I decided to come myself... I have myself to blame for that too, even if—" holding up a hand to forestall Jahir's protest, a pressure building in the mindline, "—I didn't fully understand what I was getting into." Goddess, how he hadn't understood what he was getting into! "But arii, there's a far more important thing to discuss now."

  "Which is?" Jahir asked, eyes resting on Vasiht'h's.

  "Do you want me to be family?" Vasiht'h asked, sheepish. "I said yes because... I mean, I had to, or your mother's plan would have exploded. Wouldn't it have?"

  "Yes," Jahir admitted. "They're looking for reasons to call it off, but they want to look like they were in the right for doing so, so it's important to find a legitimate cause."

  "So I said 'yes.' Before I asked you. But I should have asked," Vasiht'h said, shoulders slumping. "I don't want to force my way in to your life like this."

  Jahir's smile was gentle. "Some would say you aren't the one doing the forcing."

  Vasiht'h snorted. "They obviously have never met any Eldritch."

  Jahir laughed. "I think the more pertinent question is whether you want to become family to me. I would think, anyway."

  Vasiht'h opened his mouth to say 'of course' and then closed it with a click. He frowned, thinking of the mess he would be inheriting—would feel obliged to help with, the way he would with his own people. Family was a sacred obligation, even among Glaseah with their artificial creation of it... perhaps because of the artificial creation of it. It was the more precious because it had to be worked for so hard, in defiance of biology. And the entire Eldritch species was, if Jahir, Sediryl and the evidence of his own eyes were to be believed, obnoxious, xenophobic... and in desperate trouble. It would be like marrying into a family deep in debt and peopled entirely by the mentally and physically ill.

  And yet, there were the Jeasas. And the Juzies. And even the Sediryls...

  ...and particularly the Jahirs.

  "I wouldn't want to be any Eldritch's brother," Vasiht'h said. "But I'd like to be yours."

  Jahir held out a hand to him and he took it. The mindline deepened, smoothed out, filled with a wordless reassurance. Vasiht'h sighed, relieved.

  "No," Jahir said, the word bulkhead-hard in the mindline, with all its menacing connotations of the lethal vacuum behind it. "No, this is crazy."

  "It's how the rite is done," Sediryl said.

  "You can't fling a drug at a completely different species and expect it to work," Jahir said, louring over the table at her. "Harat-Shar are not Glaseah. They are emphatically not Glaseah."

  "The Glaseah were engineered by the Pelted," Sediryl said. "It's probably a similar design, biologically."

  "Sediryl! Don't play the idiot with me!" Jahir said. "You know the volatility of plant chemistries!"

  "And that's all I know," she answered. "I don't know a thing about how they interact with people medically. The rite requires an altered state of consciousness, Jahir. Requires it, so that the outworlder's mind can be examined. Would you prefer one of us knock him on the head?"

  "A concussion would be safer than giving him a potentially toxic preparation!" Jahir said.

  Observing the argument, the groom's mother said, "Does this mean the rite is called off?"

  Jahir glared at her. Sediryl, whose back was to her, rolled her eyes.

  Vasiht'h had been watching the entire debate, which had erupted the moment the document—one that had conveniently appeared, and even looked handwritten—had been brought into the room with the groom's family. They had insisted on their inclusion in the discussion, and since the point of undergoing the rite was to appease them, Vasiht'h had not objected. He hadn't objected to anything yet, actually, though the description of every part of the rite thus far had proved daunting.

  But then, he hadn't needed to object; Jahir had been his ardent protector through the entirety of the discussion, speaking so rapidly the translation lag was distinct. He'd begun arguing when the aim of the rite had been made clear: to allow the Eldritch participants a chance to evaluate the outworlder mentally and see how well he conformed to the ideals of trustworthiness, integrity, honor and magnanimity. And naturally, the eternally-fearful Eldritch required the potentially dangerous outworlder in question to be helpless and open to suggestion, which entailed the ingestion of a drug.

  "We can't ask him to risk his life for this," Jahir said, looking at his mother, speaking in pointed Universal. The scorn and anger in his voice was so naked Vasiht'h wondered how it was affecting their witnesses. "To placate these worthless people! If they are so desperate not to marry into our house, let them go find some other child-bride for their useless son!"

  Jeasa looked at Vasiht'h, and in her eyes, he saw sorrow and compassion and resignation all together, a look that softened her face and made her look old. "You're right," she said at last. She turned to Carisil.

  "I'll do it," Vasiht'h interrupted, before she could speak.

  "Arii!" Jahir said, aghast. "You can't be serious. There's no medicine on this world worth speaking of. If you have a reaction to the drug, the limits of what they can do for you is give you an emetic and hope you vomit it up in time!"

  Vasiht'h nodded at Sediryl. "She said Sellelvi took it, and she's probably not wrong about the Glaseah sharing a lot physiologically with the first and second generation Pelted."

  "It probably worked on Sellelvi because it was toxic," Jahir said. "If I had a lab, if I had a chemical analyzer, if I had any useful tool at all! I could probably make a guess as to what it would do to you—"

  "But you don't," Vasiht'h said, feeling an unnatural calm. "And this has to be done." He tipped his chin at the groom's family. "Tell them we'll do it now, so that I have time to keep the entire vigil before the night ends, as required."

  Jahir stared at him. The mindline ached as he said, /I don't want you to die./

  Vasiht'h met his eyes. /But I will. Will it matter
if it's now or in seventy years? Compared to your lifetime?/

  Jahir's pupils dilated abruptly and he took one step back, as if from a blow.

  "We're wasting time," Vasiht'h said to Sediryl. "Let's get it over with." Before, he thought, he lost his nerve.

  It was a lonely thought, with only himself to hear it. The mindline was empty, without even a hiss to suggest it remained.

  So it was Jeasa who led him to the family chapel, down stone halls that echoed with the sound of her slippers, much lighter tones than those produced by the weight of Jahir's boots. He found he missed them, that their lack at his side made his fur fluff up in unease.

  "Vasiht'h," she said, and her attempt at his name was credible, "are you certain about this?"

  "My lady," Vasiht'h said, "I am not. But..."

  He trailed off, wondering why he was so steadfast about going through with it, and not precisely knowing. He found the mystery of his own motivations uncomfortable. All he knew was that with every passing moment, he felt it more urgently: not to back down in front of these people, and not to abandon them.

  "But," he finished, "I'm going to do it anyway."

  "My son," she said quietly, "is rotted through with fear for you."

  That was a strange enough statement that Vasiht'h wondered if it was lifted directly from some Eldritch idiom. He glanced at her. "When this is over, we'll be fine," he said, and willed it straight to the mind of the goddess so that She could make it true.

  The corridor ended in a large arch, with wooden doors grown dark with age and agleam with generations of polish. Jeasa pushed on one of them and stepped back to allow him to enter. It was as he had come to expect: a long chamber with a vaulted roof held up with columns capped in lacy arches. The walls seemed entirely composed of windows... dark ones, the candlelight flickering off their lead bars. He wondered what the design and colors would be like in the morning. He hoped he would be in a position to appreciate them.

  "Here, then," Jeasa said, stopping before the altar rail. There were no pews in the chapel, only a collection of triangular pillows stacked in the back. Like everything else in the house, it was too quiet. What would it be like for this household to be filled with people, instead of reflecting its dwindling populace with its oppressive silences?

  "So," Vasiht'h said, drawing in a deep breath. "I'll take this... cup. And drink the stuff. And then while I'm in a semi-conscious state, five people will be studying and directing my thoughts. And then, in the morning, they'll decide whether I'm worthy, and this will be over."

  "Yes," Jeasa said, solemn.

  "All right," Vasiht'h said. "I guess it's not all that different from what Jahir and I do to our patients, at that." He smiled crookedly. "There's some symmetry there. Or justice, maybe."

  "You are a brave man," Jeasa said. "And I thank you for what you are doing for us."

  Footsteps at the door distracted them both. Jahir was standing there with a cup: not just a cup, but a goblet made of some kind of silver metal, with amber and pearls inset on the walls.

  Vasiht'h had no idea why he wanted to laugh: because the cup was so absurd, so over-the-top, so ridiculous... or because it fit in with everything else around it, and he was the one who didn't belong in the fairy tale, and what did that suggest about him surviving?

  But Jeasa was right: Jahir was upset.

  /Arii,/ he sent, /I'll be fine./

  Jahir entered with the cup and set it down in front of him. "I have to turn the mindline... well... off," he said. "They don't want me to influence you."

  "How 'off' is 'off'?" Vasiht'h asked uncertainly. Even at its lowest ebb, even with both of them blocking it, the mindline was still there. Losing that surety in his life would be upsetting.

  "They're going to have a priest sit on me," Jahir said. "So... functionally gone."

  Vasiht'h swallowed. "All right. As long as it comes back."

  "It will," Jahir promised, but Vasiht'h was painfully aware than neither of them was using the more intimate speech the mindline allowed... for fear, no doubt, of revealing their worries to one another.

  "So," Vasiht'h said. "The cup."

  Jahir handed it to him, as careful of his gloved fingers as if they had not spent years twining them in order to broaden the mindline and slip into the minds of their dreaming patients. Vasiht'h wondered if he was doing that to play to the audience no doubt hovering out of sight just beyond the chapel doors... or if it was another bid at keeping his fears to himself. He made no remark, just took the cup and looked in it at the dark, glittering fluid. It smelled like grass. He wrinkled his nose and downed it all at once, swallowing around its acrid tingle. His throat wanted to contract around it.

  Wiping his mouth, he handed the cup back with as much ceremony as he could muster and then settled down, paws tucked beneath his body and wings tightly folded to his back. He laced his fingers and let them hang against his lower chest.

  "Good luck," Jeasa said softly, and withdrew.

  Jahir hesitated.

  "See you in the morning," Vasiht'h said firmly around the tingle-taste in his mouth.

  Jahir drew in a breath... then smiled. "In the morning." And left, taking the cup with him and closing the door with a heavy and very final sound. A few moments later, the mindline vanished from his awareness, leaving him completely alone in his head for the first time in years.

  That was far more distressing somehow than the fact that his body was trying to curl into a ball around his stomach. What had been in that cup? Maybe Jahir had been right: maybe it worked because it was poison. Maybe there had never been an outworlder visitor to whatever-the-mouthful-of-a-name house... maybe they'd killed her for having the temerity to come here and be an alien at the Eldritch.

  So why was he here?

  Why had he even chosen Jahir?

  Vasiht'h thought back to the day they'd met, at the border between the college campus and the children's hospital. He'd been tangled up in a jump-rope, letting a handful of children distract themselves from their sorrows by attempting to teach a clumsy "manylegs" to play their game... and out of nowhere, there had been a voice, assured, friendly, amused, asking if he could help. And he had... unthreading the rope Vasiht'h had been holding (surreptitiously) in his wing's thumb-joint and then joining him at the games, amusing the children until a pair of nurses had arrived to spirit away their delinquent charges.

  Like everyone else in the Alliance, Vasiht'h had heard the rumors about Eldritch. He'd never expected to meet one. And when he had, Jahir had been nothing like those rumors. Not a single one of those stories had said anything about a sense of humor—often directed at himself when confronted with the Alliance's many challenges—nor had they said anything about that willingness to understand, to learn. The open heart that somehow lived comfortably with the Eldritch Veil. Perhaps, Vasiht'h thought, because Jahir was always helping someone, or listening to someone, and he knew very well that listening and helping were good ways to keep secrets.

  Still, the magnitude of the secret Jahir had been keeping... Vasiht'h got to his legs, which were trembling in a way he found disconcerting, and tried pacing the length of the chapel. He felt strange, but not sick and not in immediate danger; surely that was a good sign.

  So, the secret: the Eldritch were dying. They were choosing to die, by turning their backs on civilization, technology, new ideas, change of any kind. And amid this march to self-destruction, a small handful of individuals were fighting to prevent it; a fight, Vasiht'h thought, that Jahir would eventually feel obliged to take up himself, no matter his tales of wanting to escape. Vasiht'h was sure the given reasons had been true, but seeing Jahir among his family, how seriously he took the duties of the heir, how easily he slipped into the role... he knew it was only a matter of time. It might not be in Vasiht'h's lifetime—

  —but then, it might. And the odds of that increased if he survived this ritual, because then he could be a part of it. A part of a struggle to revitalize an entire world. What would that b
e like?

  Vasiht'h had never had any ambitions beyond going off his own world and finding something to do, something helpful. He was bewildered at the thought of having stumbled into an epic adventure, one suited entirely to the fairy tale halls of this Eldritch mansion.

  His feet abruptly stopped working.

  First one went numb. Then the other. A moment later he found himself pitching to the floor, spreading his wings to—what? Brake his fall? Ridiculous!

  Flat on the ground, feeling his limbs oscillate between numbness and pins-and-needles, Vasiht'h wondered if he'd underestimated the toxicity of his drug. He licked his lips and found them dry, and his mouth as well. He tried to flex his fingers and found them only partially responsive. Maybe, he thought, if they hurry, they can find me worthy of posthumous brotherhood and then the wedding can go on anyway. Of course, they'd have to clear the corpse out of the chapel first...

  This brought on the inevitable question about what it would feel like, when the Eldritch in charge of making that determination slipped into his mind. The patients he and Jahir had seen in their dream-therapy sessions reported not noticing, or seeing them represented in the dream itself, not as alien impressions, forced on them from outside... but as abstractions their own minds had created to explain the foreign presence. Would that be how it worked? Or would there be something more obvious? Something more high-handed?

  Five people, he thought. One of them a priest of the God, one of them a representative of the Lady, a priestess supposedly though he'd been confused at the explanation; the Lady had a different kind of clergy than the God, or somesuch. And three people from the family. Jeasa maybe? He could hope for such gentleness. But maybe strangers. Vasiht'h tried to wrinkle his nose and thought he succeeded. The floor beneath him was very cold and very hard, and he'd fallen on his cheek with some of the fur against the grain, and it bothered him.

  He was pondering whether to vomit when the chapel door opened. Confused, he looked toward the candles—they were still fresh, and the windows were still dark. It wasn't yet morning, so...