I know Ysobi would never have done anything like that, if it hadn’t been for me. He let Orphie see the emotional side of aruna as well as the practical, magical side. He kept telling me he loved me and his release, when it came, was loud. Naked Ysobi. Few of his students had seen, or ever would see, that.
I felt a lot more secure after that day, even to the point of asking how things with Gesaril were going. Ysobi and I were out in my garden, in the evening time. Crows yelled at each other in the tall beeches of the sheep field. It was chill after dark, but I’d put a couple of lanterns on the old wooden table, so we could sit out there. I liked to smell the scents of the season; the potential of spring.
‘He’s a problem through and through,’ Ysobi said. ‘I’ve managed to reach him, to the point where he actually wants to work on himself, but that’s brought other dilemmas. He feels vulnerable now, full of thoughts and feelings he doesn’t understand.’
‘Did he have a bad childhood or something?’ What I really wanted to say was: I hope he’s hurting to hell.
Ysobi shrugged. ‘Not as far as I can tell, but he’s an impenetrable har. His thoughts are always shielded. I think he just turned out the way he is. He’s like an incepted har, in many ways. Even though Orphie needs cautious treatment, he’s not unhinged. I think Gesaril might be.’
‘What do you mean?’ I was delighted to hear negative things about the har.
Ysobi gestured. ‘Well, for one thing, he keeps feeling odd, disorientated. It’s got to the point where I’m wary of leading him into any kind of meditation, since it affects him so dramatically. He came to me the other day and said that he’d been walking in the fields, and then a feeling stole over him. He couldn’t remember where he was, or how he’d got there. He panicked, and found his way back to town.’
I tried not to sound too sceptical. ‘Then he remembered where he was?’
Ysobi nodded. ‘Yes. He said it was like waking up. He has a lot of bad dreams, too. Often, he’s not sure what’s real and what isn’t. He’s obviously sensitive to energies beyond normal perception, and part of him wants to shut that off. I wonder what he’s hiding, or even if there is anything to hide. He’s a puzzle.’
‘So do you think you’ll be able to sort him out?’ I asked.
‘I hope so. It seems the more he learns, the more the world feels like an alien place to him. I’ve even considered writing to the Academy at Kyme. A second opinion might be useful.’
I knew Ysobi believed he was good at his job, and it would take a lot for him to want another har’s verdict on one of his students. Perhaps Gesaril really was screwed up, and his behaviour wasn’t just an act to gain attention.
‘I decided to stall the arunic training,’ Ysobi said. ‘I think that was contributing to his state of mind.’
Thank the dehara for that. ‘Oh,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘Will there come a point where you just give up and send him home?’
Ysobi laughed. ‘Come on, Jass. Do you really think I’d do that?’
Orphie happened to be there when the pearl arrived. He came to my door one afternoon just before the equinox, knowing I’d be at home. Some days before, Sinnar had told me not to come to work again until after it was all over and the harling had emerged from the pearl. He’d listen to no argument otherwise. I knew the time was soon, because my insides felt so peculiar, so I was just taking things easy. I was surprised to see Orphie though, since this was his training time. I reflected how much older and more confident he looked now and felt warm inside because I knew I’d helped him. We had a special connection, but it wasn’t an unhealthy thing. Orphie was not the obsessive type.
‘Ysobi sent me away,’ Orphie said as soon as I’d shut the kitchen door behind him.
‘Oh? Why’s that?’ I asked him, indicating he should sit at the table.
‘Gesaril came,’ Orphie muttered darkly. He looked genuinely displeased and wouldn’t sit down.
‘What do you mean?’
Orphie gestured angrily with both hands. ‘We were in the middle of things, and then Gesaril just burst into the room. He didn’t apologise, or even seem to notice I was there. He was hysterical. I was naked. It was really embarrassing. Ysobi tried to calm Gesaril down, but he was out of his mind. Then Ysobi told me to leave.’
I swallowed, aware that my heart-rate had increased, although I strove to keep my voice light. ‘Well, that’s understandable, Orphie. Don’t take it personally. I think Gesaril’s a bit sick in the head.’
‘I think he’s jealous!’ Orphie blurted. His face had gone red.
I went cold. ‘Jealous? Why?’
‘He did it on purpose because he knew what we were doing. I’m sure of it. He doesn’t like Ysobi training me. It’s not right. My phyle is paying Jesith just as much as Gesaril’s parents are for training. I feel like I’m second best, always!’
I hesitated. ‘Orphie, has Gesaril interrupted your training sessions more than once?’
Orphie nodded. ‘He often turns up. Not when we’re doing arunic arts, though, except for today. It was like he just couldn’t stop himself. Usually, he’ll just come into the room when we’re meditating or performing majhahn, and lurk about. I don’t like it. He’s a distraction. He makes me feel nervous and I can’t concentrate. Ysobi never tells him to go, and I wish he would.’
I heard in those last words an unspoken plea for me to speak on his behalf. I was angry with Ysobi, because he couldn’t see that Orphie was suffering while he tried so desperately to sort out Gesaril. I couldn’t speak frankly to one of his students, much as I’d have liked to grill Orphie for more details, so just said airily: ‘Don’t worry, Orphie. Yz probably doesn’t realise you can’t work with Gesaril there. I’ll speak to him for you, then it’ll stop. OK?’
Orphie hugged me. ‘Thank you, Jass. I knew you would.’ He regarded me steadily. ‘Gesaril has a thing for Ysobi, but I suppose you know that.’
I laughed, and hoped it didn’t sound off key. ‘I know that, Orphie. It’s just a crush.’
‘I think it’s more creepy than that.’
I stared at Orphie, torn between speaking openly to him and maintaining a professional distance. We were friends, but because he was one of Ysobi’s students, I thought it wasn’t right for me to confide in him about my personal life. In hindsight, I was stupid. I’d once shared an intensely intimate moment with Orphie, and was shortly about to do so again, albeit in a different sense. ‘Well,’ I said lightly, ‘if anything ever creeps you particularly, you can come and tell me about it.’
‘I’m not just being spiteful,’ Orphie said. ‘Don’t think that.’
‘I don’t.’ I smiled in heatless cheer, and was about to offer Orphie a drink to change the subject, when suddenly a hurricane of pain blew over me, or rather hit me like a fist. I staggered backwards against the table, clutching my stomach.
‘What is it?’ Orphie asked.
I swallowed, took a deep breath, and when I spoke, it was with difficulty. ‘Take my pony. Ride to the vineyard. Fetch Sinnar.’
Orphie’s eyes had gone completely round. ‘Is it the pearl?’
‘Hurry!’ I said.
Orphie ran out of the door, leaving it open behind him. Moments later, I saw him gallop past, riding my pony bareback, with only a rope halter to steer him with. Fortunately, the beast’s most familiar journey was to the vineyard and back, so a lack of a bridle wouldn’t be a problem for a rider who didn’t know him. I leaned back against the table. I dared not move. I was sure I could hear my body creaking and groaning.
I’d already been informed that a pearl drop can take quite a long time; we’re not so different from humans in that respect. Sinnar came almost at once – he must have ridden like a maniac – and got me upstairs. Orphie had come back with him, and now Sinnar shouted orders at him, telling him what items he’d need, and so on.
‘Fetch Yz,’ I said to Orphie. ‘Fetch him now.’
Orphie hesitated. I could see he didn’t want to do it. Then he nodded.
‘OK. I’ll be right back.’
Sinnar arranged me on the bed. He put towels beneath my hips and I found myself thinking of that first time with Ysobi. For some reason, this upset me. ‘I don’t want this,’ I said. ‘Sinnar, I don’t want any of this.’
‘Hush.’ He stroked my forehead. ‘I’m going to make you an herbal drink, and it’ll make you feel better. Just keep breathing deeply.’
I took hold of his wrist. ‘You’re our phylarch. You shouldn’t be doing this. It seems… I don’t know… wrong.’
‘I look on it as part of my job,’ he said. ‘What should the harish term be for mid-wife, do you think? Mid-har doesn’t sound right. But anyway, I like doing this, so let me go.’
Left alone, I felt as if I was in shock again. It was real now. In hours, perhaps sooner, a pearl would come out of me. There was life inside me. It seemed so unlikely. Did I really want a harling? Would I have to take it to work with me? I’d pushed to the back of my mind any thoughts concerning how it would affect my life. At Natalia, I’d just been ensorcelled by the romantic idea, and now I was alone, and in pain, and Ysobi was somewhere else, comforting Gesaril.
I was weeping by the time Sinnar came back upstairs. ‘I’m so stupid,’ I said to him. ‘I’m so fucking stupid.’
‘Drink this,’ he said, holding out a steaming mug. ‘You’re not stupid.’
I took a sip of the hot murky liquid, then spat it out. ‘That’s vile! I don’t want it!’
‘Yes you do. Don’t think about it. Just swallow it. You’ll be grateful afterwards.’
He was right. Whatever Sinnar had put into that drink, it was a hefty dose. I could observe the pain, but it was as if it wasn’t me feeling it; very strange.
Orphie came back alone. He slunk into the room and came to stand beside the bed. He didn’t say anything at first.
‘Where’s Yz?’ I asked him.
‘He says he’ll be here soon,’ Orphie answered. He looked pained.
‘When?’
Orphie shrugged. ‘Can I help, tiahaar?’ he asked Sinnar. ‘I know about this. I helped with my brother’s pearl.’
‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ Sinnar said. He said it in a way that implied he thought Orphie was all alone in the world.
‘Why isn’t Ysobi here?’ I moaned. ‘Sinnar, why isn’t he here? Will you fetch him for me?’
‘Sssh.’ Sinnar gripped one of my hands. ‘I can’t leave now.’
‘You can if you want,’ Orphie said. ‘I know what to do.’ And he said that in a way that implied he really thought Sinnar should go to the Nayati.
‘He’ll come when he’s ready,’ Sinnar said. He and Orphie stared at one another, and it appeared that some unspoken dialogue occurred.
‘He’s with that shitsucker,’ I announced. ‘His welfare is more important than mine.’
Even in my deranged state, it didn’t escape me that Sinnar knew precisely who I was talking about, since he didn’t question me about it. ‘Don’t worry about anything but yourself and the pearl,’ he said. ‘Yz will be here, Jass. You know he will.’
Orphie looked as if he was bursting to say something, but held his tongue.
‘Go and watch the water, Orphie,’ Sinnar said. ‘I put a large pan on the stove. It needs to be boiled.’
Orphie left the room.
‘Sinnar,’ I said. ‘Speak to me honestly. Do I have a problem?’
‘It’s all fine,’ Sinnar said. ‘I’ll massage some ointment into your soume-lam. It’ll make things easier.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Now’s not the time, Jass.’
‘Yes it is. Answer me. Is there something I don’t know?’
Sinnar shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no. You don’t have the problem. Ysobi does. Tibar really regrets asking him to train Gesaril now. Everyhar can see he’s screwed up. Ysobi can’t bear to fail, that’s the trouble. We all think he’s investing too much time and energy into a hopeless case, and that’s all it is. Gesaril’s no threat to you, Jass. Now, try to relax. Let’s concentrate on the task in hand.’
I was lucky: the entire procedure took less than two hours. I was out of my mind on Sinnar’s herbal concoction, and the first time I saw the pearl I laughed. ‘It looks like a big nut or a fruit,’ I said. ‘It’s bizarre.’ I wondered what the harling would look like now, if I cut open the pearl with a knife. One minute I was laughing hysterically, the next I was weeping. I was sitting on blood-soaked towels that were going cold. Sinnar gave me another drink. I was semi-conscious as he and Orphie dealt with the bed and then put me into it.
I must have slept. When I woke up, Orphie was sitting in a chair beside the bed, reading a book by the dim light of my lamp. It seemed as if many hours had passed. The room still smelled of blood. ‘Where’s Ysobi?’ I asked.
Orphie looked at me and put down his book. He came to sit on the bed and took one of my hands. ‘He came, but you were asleep.’
‘You mean he came and went?’
Orphie nodded. I turned my head away. Sinnar was a liar.
‘He looked at the pearl,’ Orphie said. ‘Do you want to see it?’
‘No. I know what it looks like.’
Orphie sighed. ‘Quite a few of your friends have called, but Sinnar told me to send them all away until tomorrow. He’s gone home for dinner now, but says he’ll look in on you later. I’ll stay the night with you, Jass.’
I squeezed his fingers, but could not speak.
‘You should have the pearl in bed with you, really,’ Orphie said. ‘It’s wrapped up, but I think body warmth helps it grow. I slept with my brother every night until he hatched.’
I looked at him then. ‘What about your hostling? Why didn’t he do it?’
Orphie looked away. ‘He… he died. Something went wrong.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you before, in case it frightened you, but it was different for him anyway.’ He paused. ‘You and Ysobi both know there’s a reason I had problems with the arunic part of my training. I want to tell you about it now. Can I?’
I nodded.
‘Thanks.’ Orphie gazed at the wall, as if into the past. ‘My hostling’s name was Loruen. He was the travelling type, and we’d go from settlement to settlement, where he’d work for a while, then move on. I never got to meet my father, although Loruen said that one day he’d take me to him. Well, one time, we got into trouble, near Lund.’
Lund was renowned as a dangerous area in Alba Sulh. The worst elements gathered there, skulking in the ruins. I nodded again in encouragement.
Orphie swallowed. I could tell this was difficult for him. ‘Some hara… wild hara… captured us. That happens, you know. To some, other hara are like… I don’t know, just animals. I won’t call them animals, because animals would never do the things they did. They wanted Loruen to take aruna with them, but they were so cruel. They jeered at him. He refused, which I think now was stupid, but that’s just the way he was. He didn’t like anyhar telling him what to do. So they just forced him anyway, and committed pelki on him. I had to watch. They beat him really badly.’
I didn’t want to think that things like that happened here in Alba Sulh, the green land of magic. I didn’t know what to say. But now that Orphie had broached the subject with somehar, he wanted to say it all.
‘They made him with pearl somehow,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how they did it, because he fought them all the way. I can’t remember some of it now, because it went on for so long. I don’t know how they did it.’ He frowned.
‘Maybe they gave him a drink, like the one Sinnar gave me earlier,’ I said, dully.
Orphie nodded. ‘Perhaps. Anyway, he was badly damaged. They put us in a hole in the ground and we were there for what seemed like days. Sometimes, they’d throw food down to us.’
‘How did you get away?’ I asked.
Orphie sighed. ‘We were very lucky. Some other hara came along and raided the nest we’d been
taken to, so we were rescued. They were from a local settlement, and they’d heard rumours there were captives nearby, so they’d come to find out if it was true. We were cared for, and they did everything they could, but Loruen died when the pearl came out of him. He bled to death. It was like more of him came out than should have done. The healers could do nothing. I was there. Now you know.’
I was glad he hadn’t revealed those facts to me before. But how to react? It wasn’t easy. ‘I’m so sorry, Orphie. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Congratulate me,’ he said bitterly. ‘I was next on the list, but I escaped. I was told that our captors were probably waiting for my feybraiha. They liked to seize hara to use them for breeding, so they didn’t have the inconvenience of having pearls themselves.’ Orphie grimaced. ‘Some hara are hideous. When I’m around Gesaril, I get the same feelings I used to get in that nest. It’s like a smell of burning hair.’
I shuddered. ‘What happened when you went back to the Nayati earlier?’ I asked. ‘Tell me the truth.’
Orphie looked me in the eye. ‘Gesaril had done something bad to himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know the details, but there was blood. I think he cut himself. Ysobi had Tibar there, and a couple of the other hienamas. I didn’t see much, because they’d got Gesaril in the bedroom, but Tibar said Gesaril was hurt.’
‘How clever of him,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Orphie agreed. He reached out and stroked my face. ‘Do you want anything, like a drink, or something to eat?’
‘In a while,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Orphie.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He smiled. ‘Thanks for listening. I don’t speak about my past to many hara. I don’t like them knowing. There’s no need for them to know.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘It won’t go any further.’
‘You can tell Ysobi,’ Orphie said. ‘I suppose I should tell him myself but…’ He looked at me meaningfully. ‘It’s easier with you.’
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