"That seems a little harsh," Lorrine began, then shook off the protest. "But Derfek is a strong man, with much intelligence. He will find a place to stay."
Lorrine wondered at her strange situation as they rode through the blazing heat. She continued to ask questions along the way, trying to learn about this strange man who called her niece, but all the time she wondered why her head felt so strange, why she felt so blasted stupid and slow these days, why it felt so damned good to be away from Derfek, however briefly. Maybe her uncle was right. Maybe she should set off on her own.
Kama never made her feel stupid.
Memory
Kama slipped into her room at the end of her first day as part of the Academy of Grace, only to halt and blink stupidly in surprise. Liesel sat in the single comfortable chair in the room, by the cold fireplace that waited patiently for winter to come. She held a book in the steady light of an elemental lamp.
"Liesel? What are you doing here?"
The Healer marked her place carefully before setting the book aside.
"Hello, Kama. I am here simply to find out what disturbed you so after you spoke with the Mother."
"Um. . . " Kama paled. Should she tell Liesel? Perhaps it would do her good to get the story out.
Or perhaps not. It had lain hidden for more than a decade now, perhaps it was best to let sleeping dragons lie.
"You might as well tell me, you know. After all the time we've spent together the last few days, I can feel your emotions as clearly as I feel my own, and I won't let it go until you tell me what's got you so blasted upset. This is such an old, deep pain, I believe you need to face it and vanquish it."
"There is no real need to dredge up such an ancient problem."
"Yes, indeed there is. Because, you see, I will not rest until I know what troubles your heart so."
"Why?"
The simple word had layers of meaning all through it. Why do you want to know? Why do you care? Why do you demand this of me?
"Because of who I am," Liesel replied. "I am a Healer of hearts as well as bodies. I can no more leave this deep wound within you untreated than I could leave you to die from thirst and starvation. Now tell me."
Kama sighed, then sat on her bed, folding her legs beneath her. They ached in a pleasant way from her first dance class. She'd never danced before, but had always admired the grace and beauty of ladies swirling about in lovely, flowing gowns of shimmering satin and spiderweave.
"Mistress Eldanquin asked me a simple question, that is all. I reacted rather badly. She wished to know my full name."
"And?"
"Well, for one thing, I did not tell her." This time, with the topic under her own control, Kama spoke without the old memories overwhelming her, although they hovered nearby, waiting for a break in her control so they could attack. "My name. . . I was born a long way from here, just south of the Worldcrest. I had a family name, Varion, but. . . My father died. My mother remarried. The new husband had no liking for me or my three sisters. I was the youngest, at eleven. He married us off within the annum. My new name became Foxmeir."
Liesel gasped. "You! You're the missing wife? But. . . but that was annums ago!"
Kama nodded grimly. "I was a child bride. When my cousin Franco heard what had become of me, he rode to my rescue. It was all dreadful beyond words, right up until Franco burst into the bedroom where I was kept tied up like an animal and released me."
"Tied. . . " Liesel sighed, outrage melting into resignation. "I wish I could say I'd never heard of such things before, but I have, far too often for my own peace of mind. I can certainly say it is a good thing you do not use your last name, either one, for there were wanted posters scattered all over this town for annums. That so-called husband of yours must have incredible wealth, to carry his search all the way down here from the Worldcrest. Anyway, that's beside the point. Let's get down to this, and lay those old troubles to rest. You must, after all, or you risk giving yourself away the first time you hear one of the ballads."
"Ballads?"
"Indeed. The story of the Lost Wife became something of a favorite here in the school. Not only do we all know the popular ballads, but we've had our share of songwriters add to the collection. Now, give me your hand, and tell me what happened to your father."
With that, Liesel began her work of Healing the old wounds, and eased a bit more of the pain of the new. Kama had never realized how good it could feel to just talk to someone, with no fear of judgment, someone who cared. Although she could have done without the process of dredging up the old, painful details, she certainly felt more peaceful than she had in many annums when Liesel left her that night.
Karr'at
Karr'at, the famed stronghold of the Dargasi, looked like a mountain from the outside. It had been built right into a vast pile of jumbled up boulders, ones easily the size of a house, all the same shade of dusty red. The outside structures looked rather modest, just some walls and stairs and such. But inside. . . inside the pile of rock, a world of wonder lay hidden, waiting for discovery and exploration.
Lorrine followed her uncle into the mountain with a sense of unreality. None of this made much sense, not the story he'd told her of her own birth, nor the fact that she now walked the halls of the most secret fortress in the known world without Derfek anywhere near. She fancied she could feel him with her, though, like he walked by her side and examined everything she saw with the same wondering eyes. Maybe he did. Who knew what his unknown magical abilities allowed him to do. She'd best behave as though he truly stood right beside her, just in case.
Red rock walls swallowed Lorrine and Ranam as they walked through a torchlit hallway. Torches! Lorrine found the anachronistic things nearly as astounding as the entire fortress carved of rock. Only the very poorest of folk ever used torches anymore, for the last several centuries. Ever since that elemental mage, what was his name? Something strange, like Luca or Luman or something like that. Whatever his name, hundreds of annums ago a mage had discovered a way to get fire elementals to burn happily on the end of a stick, and no one had needed torches since.
Now, these weren't common cheap torches, of course. They were the kind that burned oil and didn't smoke or stink. But still, they burned. How thoroughly unsafe. Perhaps the irrational prohibition against magic users extended to magic items, as well.
Lorrine forgot to wonder about torches as soon as they reached the first great open chamber. If she hadn't known better, she would never have believed any of this existed underground. It scarcely seemed possible. From the carefully inlaid floor mosaic, to the vast sense of space created by the overarching roof high overhead, it felt like the inside of one of the great temples of the world, not a mere room in a fortress, buried under uncounted tons of rock.
"Your arrival should be cause for a great disturbance," Ranam said. She wondered at the tone of his voice. Wry, or disgusted? She couldn't tell. "You are, after all, the first person not born here to ever set foot within Karr'at since its founding."
"Why is that?"
"I'll leave that to the Keeper, whether to tell you or not. It is his decision, not mine. I have risked enough of my life by simply bringing you here, and acknowledging your blood."
"Why did you do that? Not that I'm ungrateful, mind, but we've only just met."
"I should think it obvious, child of my sister." Ranam gave her a sober look. "I brought you here for your mother's sake, to right an old wrong."
"Thank you."
Then Ranam steered her past an amazing wall where water trickled endlessly over blue tiles, creating a pleasant patch of coolness, and directly to a regal looking elderly man.
"Keeper of the Stone," he said, confirming Lorrine's guess, "I have brought a previously unknown relative from the wild outlands to meet you. Arentin, I give you your great-granddaughter, Lorrine."
The old man stiffened all over in shock, his eyes devouring the details of her appearance. "By Athtara, you are the very image of—"
&nb
sp; His words cut off abruptly.
"Now, this is awkward," another voice observed. Lorrine sought out the speaker, a man older than Ranam. He also bore a strong resemblance to Ranam, to Arentin. . . to herself. "Lorrine, is it? Welcome to Karr'at, daughter of those we do not speak of."
"Ah. . . Thank you."
"Ranam," the old man, Arentin, growled. "What have you done, in bringing this girl here?"
"I have brought a branch of our family back to life," Ranam said, with a touch of defiance. Lorrine suddenly realized he wasn't really all that much older than herself. She'd always known that her mother had gotten pregnant with her really young, but somehow that never seemed odd, until she saw her new uncle acting like a defiant teenager. He was probably less than twenty annums older than her, making him what, under forty? How odd.
"Yes, we can see that. But is this a wise choice, given who she is?"
"She is a person, Alimansk. And more than that, she is right here, in the place her mother should have stood all along."
"Really, I don't want to be any trouble. . . " Lorrine began, then trailed off uncertainly as she abruptly became the focus of three sets of very intense male eyes, black and dark brown.
"Her mother was exiled," Arentin spoke, voice heavy with emotion. "Rightly or wrongly, depending on whose opinion you seek. And her father was stricken from the family rolls for sheer madness. But this girl, this Lorrine, as yet has committed no crime. As an innocent babe, she had nothing to do with the actions of either of her parents. Lorrine, daughter of those we do not speak of, you are welcome in this family until you prove yourself unworthy."
Lorrine felt herself swept along the currents of unreality as the old man, the leader of the secretive Dargasi people, gathered her into his arms for a frail and trembling hug. Then he declared a night of celebration, and within moments, or so it seemed, Lorrine found herself the complete center of attention. She rode with the overwhelming current, tumbling along helplessly, bouncing off the occasional boulder as she stepped on unknown customs or said customs offended her.
Women took charge of her, a sea of faces the same color as her own, with her own long black hair. She felt at once out of place, and thoroughly at home, in the sea of cinnamon-colored people. She'd never seen so many people of her own color. Only her mother, and herself, before today. They bathed her, and dressed her in garments like their own, made out of a loose-woven material known as gauze. She wondered what Derfek would think if he could see her in this filmy, light, clingy fabric.
They talked to her, all in a chattering horde, but really only one person stuck in her mind: Selima, Ranam's daughter. She looked young, only about eighteen, and she seemed incredibly happy to have a new cousin.
"I just know we're going to be great friends, Lorrine," she said, more than once. "It's so wonderful to have you here!"
"Why all the fuss?" Lorrine finally asked, when most of the women and girls had gotten busy dressing for the special occasion, focused on what clothing to wear rather than the stranger in their midst.
"Silly," Selima giggled. "We've never had a real guest before, of course! We all know everyone in the entire blasted country, after all, and we're related to everyone, to boot. So you see, even though you're family, you're also a complete stranger. We've never seen a stranger before, you know."
"Still seems downright odd, all this fuss over me," Lorrine said. "I feel rather small and unimportant, looking at this magnificent place you all live in. I wish Derfek were here to see it."
"Tell me about him," Selima demanded, holding out an enveloping outer robe. Lorrine looked at it, then put it on with a shrug, as Selima put on an outer robe of her own. Why dress in such lovely garments, if only to cover them up with pure woven blandness? "Tell me while we walk to the Great Hall."
The younger woman tucked her arm through Lorrine's and tugged her into motion, leading the way through the halls of wonder until they reached yet another vast and awesome cavern. Lorrine told her cousin about Derfek, and how lonely she felt without him, and didn't even think it odd when Selima asked if he'd cast a spell on her. Like father, like daughter, it would seem.
After an astonishing feast, of exotic foods that people nearest her disparaged as just the same as they got every night, Lorrine found herself swept away into a room filled with unwed maidens, who giggled and fussed until even they grew tired and sought their beds in the communal sleeping room.
What a strange, strange world.
And yet, part of Lorrine felt completely at ease here. Not the part that longed for Derfek, and most certainly not the part that secretly missed Kama, but some part of herself that recognized this crazy place as home.
In the night, while Lorrine slept uneasily, missing Derfek, she woke to something that she should never hear, here in this stronghold of maidenly chastity. Soft sighs, quiet moans, the sounds of skin sliding against skin under the covers. . . Had one of these oh-so-chaste maidens snuck a man into her bed?
But no, because both of those voices were clearly female. What. . . how. . . Everybody knew the Dargasi didn't tolerate same-sex pairings. Even she knew that. The one bit of culture she'd managed to pick up about her ancestors was "no poofting."
So why, why were two girls giving each other so much pleasure over there? All that moaning. . .
"Hey, keep it down!" a sleepy voice protested. "Trying to sleep here."
"Sorry!"
A bit of muffled giggling, then more quiet sounds. Lorrine had to strain her ears to pick up the sounds of movement and pleasure now. Why was nobody protesting for real? Clearly she wasn't the only one awakened by the perverts. Why just a complaint about the noise, not about the morality?
And why, oh why, did they have to do that sort of thing right now, while Lorrine felt so painfully alone, separated from Derfek by hours' worth of desert sands, without Kama to turn to for comfort. . .
Culture Shock
The morning found her still tired, because she hadn't really slept much. Between longing for Derfek and wondering about girls having sex with each other (how?), she'd managed to keep herself awake most of the night. Maybe she'd better move on, get back to her man, leave these crazy people to their rocks and their sand.
"What's wrong?" Selima asked her as they headed for the breakfast table. "You seem unhappy."
"I didn't sleep well." Should she just come out and ask?
"Were you missing your man? Poor thing. Perhaps you'll find a companion to keep you warm at night, until you're back with him."
Lorrine stopped in her tracks. "What? You can't mean—"
"No, not me, silly. Find someone to lie with. You know it's the only way we survive."
"No, I don't know." Lorrine tugged at her hair, distressed. "Maybe you'd better tell me what you people really believe about perverts."
"Perverts?" Selima laughed. "Come on, don't just stand there. Walk with me. You sound like you've been talking to a man. They're the ones that drone on about perversion, because they can't stand the thought of being intimate with another man. Think it'll unman them, or something. But us, now, well, us women are kept locked away from all men, and it doesn't change much once we're married. So we find what joy we can with each other."
"I. . . I always thought. . . "
"Be honest, cousin, there's not a thing wrong with enjoying a woman's love. Absolutely no chance of pregnancy, and the perfect opportunity to feel loved and wanted. What could be wrong with that?"
Kama's blue eyes looked at her through a veil of tears, wanting to know the same thing.
"I—I don't—I just always thought, mother always said it was wrong. . . Just not done. . . "
"Oh, don't be silly. Our culture's been stable for over a thousand annums now, if it was that wrong to seek a bit of pleasure we would have collapsed long ago, trapped in this great rock pile as we all are."
They reached the dining tables, and collected some kind of cooked grain cereal, but Lorrine remained lost in a fog of confusion as she ate. If even her own people
found nothing wrong with a woman loving another woman, then why the hell was she with Derfek?
Because she loved him, of course. She tried to put aside her questions and worries, instead trying to figure out exactly what she was doing here, in the middle of Karr'at, surrounded by people related to her through varying degrees of blood.
"Lorrine," Ranam's voice said at her elbow, as she finished up her grain. "You need to come with me. My mother wishes to speak to you." Then he glanced at Selima. "Daughter, you may be needed later this day, after Elmaria is finished with your cousin. Her fate is yet uncertain. So be ready."
"Certainly, Father," Selima said, then smiled at Lorrine, a far more restrained expression than her usual wide grin. "Good luck with Grandmother."
Lorrine wondered at that as she followed Ranam through the amazingly well-lit hallways. Light came from outside through cunning tunnels, made of shiny metal of some sort, so it looked like small patches of normal sunlight falling on the floors and walls.
Why would her fate be decided by her grandmother, a woman she'd clearly never met? Shouldn't that be up to the Keeper of the Stone, leader of the Dargasi, who'd already welcomed her into the family with open arms? Literally.
"Your grandmother," Ranam said suddenly, as they reached a point very deep in the fortress where the stone overhead felt menacing, poised to fall on their heads, "my mother, was terribly upset by the fate of her children. She has not been entirely right since Malina left, and she got far worse when Mintarre died. But her word still carries weight here, as a future matriarch of the people. So be ready for nearly anything, and remember to be kind, for she is not the woman she once was."
"I will," Lorrine promised solemnly.
"Good. I will leave you here. She asked for you, not me. Follow this hallway to the staircase, then go down until you can not go down any more. There you will find her, your grandmother Elmaria."
"Thank you," Lorrine said, and watched a moment as the tall, proud man walked away, leaving her all alone in the middle of a mountain.
Lesbian: A Lesbian Life Worth Repairing Page 6