by Janet Morris
“Ah, you would, would you? Well, I will think about it. Right now, I am thirsty from too much idle talk. Run and get me a drink, boy. And none of that hydroponic swill, but your father’s man-trodden grape, of which I have heard so much.”
Like a bodyservant, Chaeron dropped his eyes and scurried from the room, looking back only once at the Labayans among the Kerrions, where none but Kerrions had any right to be. This, and the final touch, hand wiping brow in the manner of a youth beset beyond his capacity, he made sure Selim Labaya saw. Then, whirling quickly lest his joy pierce the facade, he sprinted down the hall to catch his father before Marada was brought to audience.
To Shebat, Lorelie was the truth within its wrap of fables: the enchanted towers overlooking sapphire mountains were finer even than legend had portended or mind’s eye created; she was enraptured, transported, enthralled. The absence of a welcoming committee did not trouble her, though she had seen Marada’s frown. The long walk over cerulean, velvety paths did not tire her, though her companion’s steps seemed to drag more slowly over each topped rise.
At the cobalt, hundred-staired dais that led from any side up to the majestic crenelated tower that presided over all lesser towers, she ceased her breathless chatter long enough to wonder at the hoods drawn close over Marada’s sepia eyes. The first soft shiver of apprehension crawled up her hand from where he had enclosed it in his, to prod her heart.
Brazen doors, thrice her height, opened effortlessly of their own accord. Marada’s encouraging smile ghast her as no words could have. The bold enchanter would not be so affrighted for little cause.
Shebat held back timorously, until his appeal moved her forward, across the threshold all shadowy and cold, into Lorelie’s treasure vault.
The doors hissed softly shut, approving.
Long halls of opalescent flags, ashlar walls muraled and richly hung, open doors framing unimaginable tableaux of magical goings-on, made her stumble and gape.
When a door at the end of all doors hummed open to reveal a tiny elevator, she clutched harder at Marada’s hand and he put an arm about her shoulders.
“Nothing,” he said in a tone that told her he did not believe what he said, “can happen to you, now. You are a Kerrion in the embrace of all Kerrions, here. Whatever comes to pass will cause you no grief. Rather, you will find a place among us.”
“It sounds otherwise,” she said in clumsy Consulese, conscious of her slight stature here where everything was twice normal size.
“We trust each other,” he reminded her, as the elevator door opened to reveal an encircling gallery full of folk in muted festivity. Pinwheel flights of lapis stairs like swirling water led up to it and down from it; and just below, where they stood, spawned an inner rotunda of doors, mirrors and windows that made her sense of perspective spin, likewise.
Men and women in knots laughed and murmured; others promenaded the stairs in measured stride; some hung over the gallery rail; some wore jet and carnelian; some cream and argent; laced through the uniforms were all the cyanic tones of Lorelie and stipples of damascene-hued ladies in long gowns. Somewhere a computer sang bravely in a melancholy, muted mode.
Before the elevator doors had more than closed, a youthful yet raffish figure, in Lorelien blues with a sorrel mane of curls swept back like a lion’s, appeared from between two of the swirling staircases and hailed Marada by name.
A deep sigh escaped the enchanter, and he stepped a pace away from Shebat, saying: “And to you too, brother, greetings. I trust you have been caring for the woes of Lorelie in my stead?”
The two did not embrace, but stood apart. The teal-cloaked brother looked curiously at her, smiling just slightly. Shebat straightened, tossed her head.
Still looking at her, the mage (for so he must surely be; how else to explain artful, indolently cultivated beauty in a man?) said: “Parma wants to see you. He wanted to see you twelve hours ago. Why so late, now of all times?”
“I overslept.”
That turned the ultramarine, discomforting stare away from her, to Marada, whose own eyes were deep in their hoods. “Chaeron, my half-brother, meet Shebat, your—”
“Do not think you are going to determine that particular relationship, oh fallen one. This time you have dug yourself a pit too deep to climb out of. Where is our most lamentably deceased sibling’s corpse—and that of our guests’ bondchild, by the bye?”
“In the Hassid, where they will stay until someone restores services at the dock. Whose idea was it to empty the crew out of there? What if there had been a problem?”
“Then you would be dead and there would be no problem.”
“Labaya is here?”
“With his brood about him.”
“And Parma?”
“Sharpens his claws. I believe you are the main course, and she—” he inclined his head slightly to where Shebat stood forgotten, “is merely dessert.”
“You are enjoying this so much, Chaeron, it is almost worth it, to see you smile.”
“You, too, will enjoy this moment,” he whirled half-around, speaking to Shebat from a near-crouch, “once you learn enough to know what you are seeing.” He peered down into her face. “Can she speak? Say something!” And he put out his hand to touch Shebat’s cheek. “Speak, child.”
Shebat forced herself not to step back, and gave a good Consulese greeting as Marada had coached her. The hand touching her cheek was withdrawn with no more ill effect than a slight tingle where Chaeron’s flesh had touched her own.
“Nice,” spoke Chaeron to Marada, straightening up and stretching widely, “but hardly worth all you will soon have paid. Shall we go, or do I need to convince you further?”
“Your very presence convinces me,” said Marada with a flash of teeth. “Come, Shebat, and you will meet our father.”
“I do not think so,” said Chaeron, putting out a hand.
“Then think again,” advised Marada, brushing it aside.
She found herself being dragged by the hand; the arbiter’s grip was slick, crushingly tight, yet unsteady. For the first time she feared for the efficacy of her spell, and what its failure might mean. What use, after all, was her meager coil of twelve against the might that could set a jewel world spinning about in space?
Chaeron Kerrion bowed them into an anteroom, and disappeared: to expedite the funeral arrangements, he said.
Marada circled like a guilty pup around a hearth before he settled in the corner of a grandly damasked couch, and indicated that she should follow suit.
But Shebat was still pressed into a vacant corner while Marada bit a broken nail, sunk in his thoughts, when the doors bearing the Kerrion eagle over the circle of seven stars opened.
The oldness of the man was not of physical age, for he was robust and heavily made; but a smell of temper, a ponderous, seasoned surety that exuded from him so that he seemed to bulk like two men, rather than one. When Parma Kerrion embraced his son with a dour smile that she had first seen on his child Chaeron’s face, he proved to be of a height with Marada. But as soon as the two stepped apart, Parma Alexander Kerrion swelled up to twice life-size once again.
“Introduce me to your companion,” said the father to the son in a carefully gentle voice, and sank down on the couch with an explosive sigh. “Come here, little one.”
Shebat had no choice but to move her leaden feet; closer; too close; finally, the high-sinewed talons had her, the huge hands, larger than Marada’s, almost met as the father put them round her waist.
Curiosity that was unfeigned softened the forbidding visage. “You’ll be all that is needed,” he said under his breath, and smiled a grin meant to be encouraging. Then he let her go, and might have forgotten that she was present.
“Sit down. Oh storied traveler, and tell me a tale that will turn this lead over my heart to gold. You are an arbiter, so the records say. Tell me an arbiter’s tale, even, so that I can keep your fine butt out of Labaya’s stewpot.”
“So? Is there us
e in that, when you have already acted on your decision by inviting Iltani’s people here? Why not just talk of pleasanter things for the required amount of time, and we will presently emerge, drawn and subdued of aspect. Then you can call your tribunal and take your puppet vote and do whatever it is you have in mind. I am not going to obstruct you.”
“So, you think you have me all figured out? Ready to drop your pants and give up your manhood and your place, are you? Surely you don’t feel you are responsible for their deaths and want to be punished?”
Marada shrugged, and the boy in the man was brought home to her so painfully that a gulped sob snuck past her lips, past the hand over them, and caused both men to eye her.
Then, again, father and son faced each other from opposite ends of the wildly figured couch as if all the cosmos hung in between.
“You doubtless know what I did as regards the girl.”
“I know it. You know that you cannot make such a wardship hold.”
“What will you do?” Marada said tiredly. Shebat sank down on the floor in her corner, arms circling her knees, drawing them close up to her chest to prevent their knocking together.
“Make a bargain with you,” Parma replied in an oddly tinged voice.
“What have I to bargain with?” he asked warily, touching a finger to one of the supple chain circlets in his ear, then covering the ear with his palm, casually, as if merely seeking to prop his head with his arm which rested on the divan’s back. But the position was awkward, and Shebat knew it to be something else—a warning: he would not give up his pilot’s circles.
“I made your mother a promise, once. In order to keep it, I have need to keep you a Consortium citizen in good standing.”
“I, as well as you, know that is impossible.” The pressure of the supporting palm canted upward the left side of his face.
“Improbable, but not impossible. Give the girl over to my wardship.”
“No!” leapt from Shebat’s throat.
The look Marada sent in answer made her turn her head away.
“You must, to insure her safety. No plan is certain of success.”
“If I have your word that such a move will be to her benefit, then I will do it.”
“There is no honor bond to be taken here: if she remains your ward, then you and she will be Consortium citizens for perhaps . . . oh, another four hours and a half. After that, law will take its course. Do as I say!”
To that imperative, Marada acceded. “Let it be so recorded.”
“Done!” said Parma from behind closed lids, whereby Shebat suspected that some mind similar to that of the ship’s was overhearing and recording what was being said.
“Done,” echoed the arbiter faintly.
Shebat, in the corner, lay head on crossed arms and bit her lip fretfully, forgetful of the mil-hood which gave her skin an odd resiliency.
“Now will you tell me what alternative you are presenting as viable in the face of Labaya’s obvious petition for my balls?”
“You have not told me how sorry you are about the death of your brother, nor your betrothed. I suggest you meditate on expressions of mourning. And perhaps find time in your busy schedule of self-concern to wonder how and in what place I have entered your ward into our family. For now, I have given you all the time I can. In three hours, we shall begin the services for the remains of your brother, my son, and your betrothed, Labaya’s daughter. Between now and then stay in your apartments. Speak to no one, your siblings least of all.”
With that, Parma Kerrion pushed himself up from the couch, and was gone, all but for a final warning that wafted back through the doors closing behind him: “And your dear mother, Ashera, who was supposed to go and greet you, to take the girl and prepare her for later’s festivities: do not speak with her, either, until I can determine just what it was that she found to do more important than what I had bid her.”
Two sarcophagi dominated the arched vault, of equal richness but divergent style. Hundred-flamed sconces illumined each at the head and at the foot; other than the golden candlesticks, there was no light but for the single taper each mourner bore.
Slowly past the coffins, one open, one closed, filed six Labayans; fifty-four Kerrions of intimate relatedness to the handsome corpse whose bier was open; and one neither Kerrion nor Labayan who nevertheless recognized the pale golden lifemask which topped Iltani’s closed casket of state and the look of mild surprise still visible in death on the countenance of Marada’s brother.
It was said, by someone among the Labayans, that a viewing of Iltani’s defiled corpse would have provoked a second mourners’ procession, but someone else shushed the knowing voice of the girl whose whisper had pierced the silence, the brunette whose short leg gave her a dragging gait that caused her candle to wriggle, throwing violent shadow dancers all about.
The girl was Madel, the only one present for whom tears were impossible: even Ashera Kerrion had been able to summon up the waters of seemly grief. Chaeron wept in manly fashion; he had long been the master of his tears. Marada hesitated so long over Iltani’s corpse that only a hiss from his father moved him. The old patriarch stood with Selim Labaya by the candlesticks at each coffin’s head, receiving comfort with the air of two men desolate beyond comfort, each displaying the same measure of burdensome grief as if trained in tandem; or as if more concerned with each other than with all else, which was indeed the case.
For Shebat, proximity to corpse rather than clean ashes in a solemn urn was an occasion for abject terror; proximity to two, either of whose shade might hold her partly responsible for a death unmitigated by release from fleshly bond, caused her legs and arms to tremble so that even after all Marada’s coaching she dashed through the aisle bounded by coffins and drew up on the far side of them with gasping breaths and fearful backward glances to assure herself that neither of the deceased had reared up out of its final bed to chase her.
When all concerned parties had passed between, the catafalques sunk slowly from sight without any visible precipitation of their descent but Parma’s raised head. Then the floor which had somehow swallowed the two deceased, ornate shells of interment and all, closed itself up once more, so that there was no sign but for golden trees whose buds were made of flames that any death’s heads had ever been eulogized in between.
“From stars we come; to stars we must return,” Shebat heard without understanding. Her tongue was busy with murmured spells and her fingers blurred ultramarine in frantic motion before her heart as she spun her warding spells, without which, clutching hands would surely burst up from the marble floor on which she stood, take her by the ankles, and drag her down to whatever underworld in which they were now imbound.
Onto that chancy space of disappearing flooring the Labaya and Kerrion consuls general then sauntered, their sons and daughters ranging themselves behind.
Shebat, as she had been counseled, stayed by the gold candlestick which had briefly illuminated the slain Kerrion heir’s quizzical smile.
Labaya spoke: “These two who are dead died from the negligence of another.”
Parma Kerrion replied: “This son of mine bears no blame, for the scythe falls where it will.”
Marada Seleucus Kerrion stepped between them, slowly, standing quiet with head bowed.
“Restitution must be made. Betrothal vows lie unconsummated. I have lost a daughter,” intoned Labaya so forcefully that his jowls flapped.
“Restitution must be made,” retorted Parma Kerrion. “Betrothal vows lie unconsummated. I have lost a son.”
All held their breath in a susurrating intake that swept like a wave arching to break through the crowd. All, so far, had been ritual. What followed would be that for which everyone waited.
Marada looked neither right nor left, nor up nor about, but only stood slack-shouldered, as if it were another between the sconces, where what was said was as irrevocable as a flame consuming the tapers’ lengths.
“Offer me a son, unburdened, or sever the
bond between our houses!” And the straight line of Labaya’s brow waited to tote the sum of Parma’s bet.
“I offer you this son who stands between us. Offer me a daughter, unburdened, or sever the bond between our two houses!” Parma replied, implacable.
“It has been said to us that the son is burdened with a ward.”
Parma raised his head and smiled slowly at Selim Labaya. Then he nodded to Marada, who without seeming to have seen stepped two paces back into shadow,
Parma held out his hand and Shebat minced like a skittish filly into the light, gaze fixed on the hand outstretched toward her. Drawn thither, her pale skin flushed like a somnambulist’s, she stood in the candlelight.
A hiss broke the silence. A movement in the crowd brought Ashera Kerrion and her first-born somehow to the forefront. Shebat saw mother touch son, son shake off hand with an angry twitch that seemed to dislodge a mask from Chaeron’s face. Suddenly, wrath and fury flooded toward her from his eyes. She remembered that, more than the hand of Parma Kerrion coming down on her head, intoning the formula no one had expected to hear but Chaeron, who had been hearing it, though differently, in his dreams for years.
“I hereby install this child in full wardship and place of first-born to the Kerrion consulate. Any harboring objections speak them now, or put them by.” Parma waited a moment for the hum to die down among them, then ordered a vote by voice.