by Ako Emanuel
Smiling gratefully, Soku created an av’tun and left.
the peace of eve turned over all...
:First Voice,: a liquidly musical voice intruded softly in his mind. Luyon opened his eyes, a small spark of surprise showing on his face. The Av’rujo had never contacted him directly before.
*:Av’rujo,:* he acknowledged with profound respect and perhaps just a bit of fear, bowing low from where he sat. What could be so urgent that the Av’rujo would disdain using the voice of the High Queen to speak to him directly? :Peace and light upon you,: he added hastily, not wishing to give insult.
:Peace and light upon you,: she greeted back.
*:How may I be of service to you, Av’rujo?:* he asked, shivering at the feel of her in his thoughts, sweat starting under his arms and down the middle of his back.
:First Voice, I am worried about Audola,: the cool, light blue voice sighed. He straightened.
“Audola? What is wrong with her?” His shock was evident in his vocal outburst.
:She is suffering from excessive stress and prolonged, suppressed depression,: the Av’rujo said, her voice conveying volumes. :She still mourns her dead mate, and she has denied the needs of her body and of her soul. You are closest to her, after myself, but I cannot help her. But perhaps you can.:
Luyon blinked in shock. She was denying the needs of her body? :But - what of her bathers, High One?: he asked incredulously.
*:She does not fraternize with them, First Voice. She will not listen to her ol’bey’woman. You may be the only one she will listen to.:*
“I - I will do my best, Av’rujo,” he murmured, his head feeling as if it were swimming through thick, clammy mud.
:I would expect no less of you,: the voice of the Av’rujo said with quiet confidence.
finally the turning of eve brought the end of the light...
Audola entered her private lains. Her head maddi helped her remove her semi-formal wrap and take down the outer fastenings on her Dakua crown. Necklaces, bangles, and earrings followed, forming a small heap of finery, which other maddi hastened to stow away.
The maddi led her across the main room, down the middle of three passages, to the bathing lain, which was dominated by a huge, tiled pool of gently steaming water. The tiles ran over the lip of the pool to form an ornate golden pattern around it. The rest of the floor was done in a milky marble with streaks of deep purple running through as vivid veins. The walls had square pillars of the same marble imbedded in them, alternating with warm cream bricking. The circular skylight with its crystal pane and the high, broad windows shed soft light on everything.
A rainbow patch of color on the surface of the bath water indicated that thick palima oil had been poured near the edge. Its sweet, honey-like scent filled the lain. Audola stepped in through the middle of the pool of oil, lowering herself slowly into the hot, soothing water. The oil glided over her skin, closed in at her neck as she slid down the gently sloping side of the bath, the oil enfolding her in a cocoon of liquid silk. The tiles, heated by the water, felt good against her sore back, stiff from sitting up straight for so many cycles. She sighed and felt every one of her one hundred cycles of life, though she did not look a turn over thirty. She laid her head against a thick cushion placed at the edge of the pool gratefully. Her maddi loosened the remaining tight, restricting arrangement of fastenings that turned her long, braided hair into her crown and began to oil and arrange it into a more comfortable, less formal style.
The door guard announced the arrival of Luyon. She gestured acceptance of his audience, a mere formality - Luyon always had access to her, wherever she was, with the exception of her av’an. The swish of his de’siki robe came near.
“Peace and light upon you, my Queen,” his voice greeted her.
“Peace and light upon you, Luyon,” she replied, opening her eyes just long enough to make him out and raise her arms out of the water to spread them.
Her First Voice went to one of the expansive windows to look out in the gleaming city. The windows were high and wide, with only thin strips of wall dividing them. The crystal panes were turned to admit the evening breeze.
“How did it go?” he asked, his manner abrupt, as if he were ill at ease.
Audola sighed and sat back. “The meeting with the Doan was - informative.”
“Av’One, may I speak to you alone?”
Audola opened her eyes to regard him speculatively. It was an unusual request, for servants and maddi were as invisible as the features of a household. They were not to be distrusted - their loyalty was absolute, lest they shame their ancestors in the eyes of the Supreme One. Still, Luyon was her oldest and closest friend. If he wanted to talk in absolute private, he would have good reason.
She clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Please - excuse us,” she said cordially to her servants. They all rose from their various tasks and bowed with arms spread, left. Excited whispering followed them. A moment pregnant with a strange silence and a tight tension filled the lain. Audola waited for Luyon to speak. She gazed at his back as he stared resolutely out of the window.
“Of what did you speak?” he finally asked, not turning around.
For this he had asked such privacy? “She told me of what she could infer about Tokia’s intentions,” she said, not pressing him, letting him broach his concern in his own time. She briefly outlined the exchange and Soku’s proposed course of action.
He listened, nodding. “It has merit,” he murmured, his eyes still locked on the window. “But she is a Border Queen.” It was not a question so much as a suspicion.
“Yes, though I am inclined to believe that she is loyal.” She ran her hands over her arms under the water. “I have it on good authority that she has no malice in her intentions.” The oil moved like a living thing over her skin. “But she says that she walks a fine edge between fidelity to the High Crown and the welfare of her Tribe.”
“She probably does,” he replied, finally looking away from the window to gaze at her. “Life is perilous on the Border. If she alienates her neighbors, she might as well put her Tribe to the spear one by one.”
“Those are almost her words exactly,” the High Queen commented in surprise. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, Luyon, I’d accuse you of spying.”
The advisor gave her a crooked smile. “There are those that call me the Av’One’s Ear as well as her Voice,” he said, chuckling. “But I know whereof she speaks. I’ve served in the court of a Border Tribe.”
“So her plan is feasible?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, it is workable, with a little refinement. It will require some very skillful maneuvering, however.”
“Are you up to it?” Audola asked.
“Av’One, you shame me,” he said in a slightly offended tone. “Have I ever failed you?”
She smiled wanly. “No, Luyon, you could outmaneuver the birds on the wing if I asked it of you.”
He inclined his head. “Av’One is too kind,” he said gravely.
“Soku has offered to play the prominent role in this plan,” she said, leaning back and closing her eyes, feeling weary, wishing that the hands of her bathers were caressing her at this moment, soothing all the tension out of her. “Do you think she would be useful in that capacity?”
“If her skills at the intricacy of Trade are as she claims, then yes, Av’One. But hers will be the most perilous role because Tokia will be watching her closely.” His voice sounded nearer. “And we will have to move swiftly.”
Audola started when his hands touched her.
“May I, my Queen?” he asked softly, the scrubbing sponge in his hand. “I do have experience as a bather.”
“If you wish,” she said, just a touch of uncertainty in her voice. Surely he had not asked that the bathing lain be cleared so that he could bathe her himself! The idea was preposterous; and yet there he was, shedding his robe and slipping into the water next to her, sponge in one hand and a precious glassite
bottle in the other. He urged her to sit forward and slid behind her, expertly sweeping her guinne over his shoulder. He pulled her back against his lean, trim body and began to lather her with the contents of the bottle.
Audola closed her eyes, her mind whirling, as his hands ran over her body almost lovingly, and tentatively at first, then with confidence.
“Luyon,” she said meaningfully, “I have servants to do this; the very ones, in fact, that you asked to be sent away.”
“I am a servant of yours, Av’One,” he replied, unperturbed, his hands kneading her shoulders.
“Luyon,” she pressed, her voice ringing with a slight warning, even as she began to relax beneath his ministrations, “this is highly irregular. I want an explanation.” Her tone brooked no dispute.
“Audola,” he said, his hands stilled, “I am your Chief Advisor and your personal confidante. Your wellbeing is one of my main concerns, and its maintenance, one of my duties. It has been brought to my attention that you have been - neglecting certain needs and harboring certain counterproductive emotions. This must be remedied.”
Her silence was frosty and her back once again stiff, as if he had given offense. She waited for him to elaborate. He sighed, leaned his head forward almost over her shoulder.
“You have been mourning for ten cycles,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. “And you have denied yourself the pleasure of another’s flesh in all that time. You even mourn for your daughter, and since the attack...”
“All of that is my concern, Luyon, not yours,” she said, furious, sitting forward and glaring back at him.
“No,” he said, his voice as harsh as he roughly pulled her back and held her tightly in his arms, “it is my concern. Harboring such pain and indulging in such self-denial can greatly affect your mental state of being, Audola, which can in turn affect the decisions you make as High Queen. You are a good ruler, and until now, you have managed to keep the two separate. But everyone has a breaking point, and though you are the strongest person I will ever know, you will eventually reach yours. If that were to happen at a delicate moment or in a crucial situation, this Queendom of yours will disintegrate to dust and your inexperienced Heir would be left to pick up the pieces. Kiro’birds like Tokia are just waiting for an opportunity like that to present itself. You would not listen to D’rad’ni, your ol’bey’woman, and you would not listen to the Av’rujo. Well, perhaps here, now, where your rank means nothing, you will listen to me.”
Audola sat rigid, profound shock rooting her, binding her in its confusing coils. Was her self-denial so serious? Could it really influence her, the Obsidian Queen, who was like a stolid rock in the face of all trials? But she had broken that image at the Bolorn’toyo - she had showed her uncertainty, had wavered. Was that a direct result of these things she kept hidden within her? Had that break in her resolve opened an avenue for Tokia to attack? Was this whole crisis an indirect result of these ill-feelings that she had never bothered to expunge, but instead had nursed and nurtured? The memory of the afterzen when she had completed the Rite of Seeking three turns ago flashed before her eyes. How weak she had been in her mother’s arms, how defenseless. She felt the blood drain from her face.
“Have I - have I gotten so weak?” she asked softly, her voice breaking, her demeanor brittle. “Am I so...?”
“Audola,” he whispered, drawing her close. She yielded. The rest of what he was going to say was lost to the sweet tenderness of her skin. His mouth savored the soft flesh of her shoulder. His hands cupped and lifted her heavy breasts, massaging them with loving, languid movements, only occasionally remembering to lather them. She let her head fall back, coherent thought destroyed by sensations that she had not experienced for over ten cycles. His hands moved lower and she made a small, open-mouthed sound, her hands flexing and stroking his knees. His mouth traveled up her graceful neck and his arms enfolded her, tightened; finally his mouth found hers, muffling her soft moan.
“My Queen,” he breathed into her ear, “you have been very tense of late.” His words asked a question.
“Yes,” she said, her voice breathless, “that is true.” It was an answer.
He smiled and swept her up as he stood, holding her tight against his chest. “I am skilled in the arts of relaxation, my Queen,” he murmured. Then, his mouth again drinking of her, he exited the water, taking them both, dripping, to the Queen’s sleeping lain.
CHAPTER XIII
the light turned to sickly darkness...
Gavaron ran.
Back to the Este and Sor’n, back the way he had gone and come, back to the laughter of the lu’mari. He grabbed weapons blindly as he flowed out his door, practiced moves seating them without conscious effort.
He ran away from the punishing words, the flooding memories, the naked truth in Jeliya’s accusations. He ran for his soul, to escape the pain, but it pursued on sickly yellow hooves, laughing out of pale green eyes.
How had she come so close, found him so easily? She had come so close because she knew, knew everything. Knew...
No, not everything.
He slowed finally, stopped, his flanks flecked with foam, his face drenched with sweat, both chests heaving. He let himself collapse to the loam-covered ground, his back to a forest giant, and hung his head with sobbing gasps, dashing tears of ancient sorrow from his eyes. Let the lu’mari come. He would gladly share his pain with them.
No, not everything. She does not know about my treasure, my pen’lata. She does not know where it is, the only thing I have left of Jenikia. What am I to do?
A flitting shape gave him temporary reprieve. He lurched to his feet, armed this time with short staves and a long knife. He was not out to kill, but the pack needed to know that he was not easy prey. If he did not show strength now, they would harry and harass him in his own territory until he was forced to wipe them out.
This gets settled here and now, he thought viciously, malice as a poor mask for consuming pain. The polished staves made flashing figure-eights, and a fierce, angry gladness rose in his chest and drowned out, for the moment, Jeliya’s words.
She was right, he knew the cause of the Zehj’Ba, knew it was this, his pen’lata, but how could he give that up? How could he break his oath to Jenikia?
The first sinuous shape came out from behind a fern that looked like it would not be able to conceal a creature whose head came up to his lower chest. It stood panting and grinning at him, its head swinging about the pivot point of its neck, as if it were taunting him. Its milky blue eyes, without visible pupil, narrowed and it gave a soft laugh. Gavaron stood his ground, eyes still leaking, but his arms relaxed now and the staves almost dangling from his hands. He would hold. Their pain would not be quick. It would be slow, like the agony he had known.
For he had known, from the first, that this was the cause. He had felt it from the time it began. He had tried to find some way to stop it, but failed. Dare he leave it to Jeliya to find some method of stopping the Zehj’Ba, and could she do it without destroying what was his? Did he love her and trust her that much? Did he forgive her already her cruelty?
The lu’mar turned and trotted back into the trees, rejoining the pack that circled and surrounded him. Its laughter left a bitter trail down his throat. They whined and yipped, their excitement mounting, just as his pain built as returning memories grew.
Then Jeliya’s words came back to torment him, filling a gap in his knowledge. He had known that Jenikia had endured some terrible, awful thing, before their Joining had been severed, a thing that had forever left her broken, but he had not known what.
Purification and Expungement? Forever barren?
...A screaming, ripping, scalding tide of light, a flood of searing pain, a barren pathway left within the core of him, of her, a screaming of unborn death, an unmaking of what made her a woman. A welling of burning tears, an enormous, horrible emptiness, a barrenness that could never be undone, a stripping away of an inner skin. A pledge from a liquid throat, a w
hispered name, a breaking of a vivid soul, leaving only a pale reflection of a shadow of self. And then... nothing, a horrible void of nothing.
Nothing...
He moaned, held back more tears of his own. His defensive pose faltered, under the weight of this revelation.
Oh my ky’pen’dati, had I known what they would have done to you, had I but known...
The lu’mari attacked as his concentration flickered. The first leapt, springing not for his throat, but for the staff in his left hand. They were going to toy with him, giving each member of the pack a taste before they ripped him apart. But the staff flashed up, catching it on the side of its thick head and knocking it away. A second was right behind it, and a twist of the wrist brought the reverse end of the knobby staff up under its jaw. The third appeared in the air at almost the same instant to his right and he caught it in the shoulder, swinging it around to bash full body into the tree behind him. With a back hoof he shoved the stunned reptiloid-mammal away as he turned back to face yet another, also jumping for a non-vital point. His mind was strangely freed as he fought for his life. He would have fought…
He should have fought for Jenikia. Had he known what they would do to her…
Had he known, he would have gone to her, would have taken her away. Would have taken her to the deepest, farthest corner of the Realm he could find, or maybe even across the Av’ru itself.
My darling, he cried out to her haunting shade. A lu’mar caught a front hoof between the eyes and shook it off. It did not shake off the knob end of the staff that followed. My darling, you should have called to me. I would have come, and be damned whoever tried to stop me. I would have come for you.
Tears started from his eyes again and he lashed out viciously with the staves, only remembering at the last moment to pull his blows. Seven of the thirteen in the pack had felt his pain, and the remaining six were more wary, no longer playing. He stood, breathing hard, waiting for the next set of snapping jaws, but they hung back, looking at him from cover.