I presented myself at the house in Tockta Street at one minute to two, and almost laughed at the irritated disappointment I sensed from Shardul. He’d been hoping to tell me off for being late.
“Did you read what I sent you?”
“Yes. All of it, and I have a list of questions as well.”
More disappointment. I hid my grin as I followed him up the stairs. Nice arse. Very nice.
He knelt when he entered his aunt’s rooms, and I imitated him, though I didn’t know the reason for the unusual respect. “Thank you for having me back again, Roshni-ji.”
“You’re welcome, Sri Ythen. I’m so pleased you’ve agreed to help.”
Today she was in purple and crimson, her white hair just as carefully braided as the day before. She asked me to sit and sent Shardul out for the chai.
“Before we start, I’d like to apologise for my unintended rudeness yesterday in using your incorrect name, and the name for your people. I’ve come to realise there’s a lot I don’t know.”
She smiled. “Most people’s ignorance is vast, Sri Ythen.”
“Please call me ‘Javen’?”
“Very well, Javen. Acknowledging one’s lack of knowledge is the first step to repairing it. You have other questions, don’t you? About the monuwel...or about me?”
“Both, actually. I know you’re reluctant to tell me, but I really do need to know what the monuwel is to your community, and what your role is.”
“I can’t tell you that, Javen.”
“I know you don’t want—”
A crash of glass and metal interrupted. “She said she can’t tell you. Not ‘won’t’. Stupid guko.” Shardul glared, his pale cheeks red with anger. “She can’t tell you.”
“Who can? I’m not asking for idle reasons.”
Roshni-ji shifted, anguish and anxiety coming off her in almost visible waves. She stared at her nephew. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“Please, muor, don’t be upset. Ythen, we can’t tell you.”
“All right. Can I make some guesses and you tell me if I’m hot or cold?”
She nodded jerkily. Shardul growled, then brought the chai tray over and set it down with another crash. “Show respect,” he growled.
“I’m trying to. Roshni-ji, are you some kind of priestess?”
“No. We have no priests or priestesses. Only the guardian of the Seeker’s house, our scholars and those souls who feel the need to commune with the Spirit more deeply and regularly, and spend their days studying the Seeker’s words for the sake of their own inner peace.”
“Okay. Losing the monuwel damages your religion in some way?”
“Ye...es. That’s a way to put it. Please don’t ask me how.”
“I won’t. And your role as...protector...gives you so much status in the community, no udawatha would violate your home?”
She sagged with relief. “Yes. Is that enough?”
“Yes.” For now, at least. “Shardul, I thought of a better cover story. I have a great aunt back on Kelon who’s more than a little crazy, and who collects all kinds of things. She’s actually so ga-ga no one in my family’s had a conversation with her in years, but I can use her as a cover story. I can say she has a few high quality Nihani artefacts which her family want sold for the best price, and that I’ve been engaged to make enquiries here on Uterden. I’ve messaged her daughter and got her assurance to field any enquiries that come her mother’s way. If necessary, I’ll mention my empathy, say my aunt’s interest was piqued by that.”
“Is that likely?” he asked.
“No, but no one needs to know that. My great aunt’s never been to Uterden, and even if anyone asks my family and they don’t know anything about it, I can explain it by their prejudice against your people. Which is real, unfortunately. Sorry to offend you, Roshni-ji.”
“I am seventy years old, Javen. There is very little that surprises me any more. Your people don’t understand mine, and what you don’t understand, you fear.”
“They make no effort to understand,” Shardul snapped.
“My sister-in-law says you don’t make any effort to teach. She works in a primary school and a request to the community centre here to come to the school and talk about your culture was rudely turned down, she says.”
“Oh yes? And how was it addressed? How was it framed? As a request or an order? I’ve seen these ‘requests’, Ythen, and all too often the assumption is that the chuma are entitled to our time, for which we have no better use, and that your people are doing us a massive favour by putting us to the inconvenience of teaching them things they’ve already been told and promptly forgotten. Stupid guko,” he spat.
I expected his aunt to reprimand him for his rudeness, but she only nodded.
“You’ve experienced this, Roshni-ji?”
“All too often, Javen. We would happily help your children understand us, but we don’t like being asked to perform, and Shardul is right. We have better uses for our resources than to teach the unwilling.”
Somehow I doubted Tara would like me to repeat this explanation. “I understand. Sorry I have to ask you to teach me, but I need to understand what I’m talking about. I have some more questions, if you don’t mind.”
I pulled out my reader to make notes and the two of them took turns in explaining. Though Roshni-ji was much more polite than Shardul, her anger over the way their important cultural artefacts had ended up being traded back and forth between rich Kelons was easily as great as his. After an hour, I closed down the conversation. “I’m sorry this is so distressing to you.”
She came back to herself. “Ah, I shouldn’t let it upset me. They are only things, after all, and in the Great Spirit, lifeless objects aren’t important.”
“But the living make the objects to record your history and beliefs.”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and became a little calmer. “What hurts most is how the market in our possessions goes so completely against the teachings of the Seeker and his wisdom. Greed, avarice, the desire to keep another from owning something, are contrary to our culture and our beliefs. It pains me greatly to know the gifts of the Spirit are being used in this way.”
“What’s even worse, these stupid chuma thieves believed the artefacts have magical properties, when the Seeker very firmly teaches there is no magic, only natural laws and their working. Claiming magical powers is a very great sin,” Shardul said, his voice oddly reverent, as his aunt’s had been.
“The monuwel...to someone who thought that way...would be considered more magical than most things?”
“Probably. I don’t pretend to understand the gullible and greedy.”
But I did. It was my job.
“I’ll need some images of suitably tempting objects. You have a list of people I should talk to?”
“I’ll allow you to give me a lift to my office. I’ll give you the information on the way.”
I snorted at his cheek, and stood. Roshni-ji turned her blind gaze up to me. “Javen, matos is a talent in which you should be trained. Should you wish it, I’d be happy to give you that training.”
“Muor, why waste your time on this guko?”
“Shardul, it’s my time to waste.”
I ignored Shardul’s glare as I answered his aunt. “Roshni-ji, I’d be honoured to be trained by you. And to listen to you speak more about your beliefs, if you feel you wish to.”
“I’d like that, Javen. Very much.”
Shardul muttered “Guko” under his breath. “I need to go. Ythen?”
I expected him to call a taxi once we were outside but instead he indicated with a jerk of his head that we were to walk. “Nice act you put on for her, but you don’t fool me.”
“Your aunt’s an empath, beto. She can tell if anyone’s trying to kid her, and I wasn’t.”
“Oh, you probably believe you’ve suddenly become this enlightened pro-indigenous chuma, but I know your kind. I’ll be waiting for you to trip up and show your true c
olours. Your type always do. Hear this, Ythen. There is more to udawa than symbols and rituals and teachings. There is more to the people of the Spirit than the belief, and the history. You’ll never understand us, unless you live with us, work with us, suffer with us, and you can’t suffer with us because you are Kelon and you look Kelon. This is an amusing pastime for you. My aunt has given her whole life to the service of our people and the Spirit, as have I. There is no point of commonality between us, no comparison.”
I sucked in my teeth. “So, no chance of a shag, then?”
“Not if you were the last man in the universe.”
I grinned. I’d caught him off guard and he didn’t like that at all. “So what about this list?”
“In my office.”
“Aren’t you worried about being seen with a chuma?”
“My job requires me to consort with low lives from time to time.”
“You never give up, do you?”
He turned to me and sneered. “No, I do not. And I do not change my mind about people either. You’ve been tagged, bagged and shelved, Ythen.”
“Good to know.”
His office was a good kilometre from his aunt’s house, right on the edge of the banis neighbourhood. Not that far from the central courthouse, which made sense. “You live upstairs?”
“Yes. And that’s as much as you’ll ever know. I don’t date outside my species.”
“Whoa. Your aunt got all the decency in your family, didn’t she?”
“Yes, pretty much. Come in.”
I’d been in a few lawyers’ offices over the years, so I don’t know why it surprised me that Shardul’s wasn’t that different from the others I’d seen. He spoke to two of his clerks on the way through, collecting what were clearly messages, and beckoned me towards an inner door. His banis staff discreetly checked me out, but were either too well trained or too intimidated to stare openly. I couldn’t blame them for their suspicion, even a little anxiety. I smiled brightly and tried not to look too scary.
“Sri Ythen, if you don’t mind.”
Shardul held his office door open with barely disguised disdain. I slipped through and took a seat without waiting for him to offer it. “You the only lawyer here?”
“No. I asked you here because I have to breach a sacred trust, and the least I owe my aunt is not to involve her in that.”
“You’re going to tell me what the monuwel is.”
“Yes.” And boy, did it make him unhappy to do so. “If you ever reveal what I tell you to another living soul, I will hunt you down, cut out your liver, and make you eat it. Do you understand?”
“Oooh, you make me all hot when you talk dirty like that.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is just a joke to you.”
“No, it’s not, but you’re being deliberately insulting. My job is about secrets. I know stuff that would curl those pretty braids. I bet I hear more shit than even you do. I don’t talk, ever. I don’t understand your religion and I’d be lying if I said I take any of that stuff seriously, but I respect its importance to your people. I like Roshni-ji and I’d never hurt her. Besides, I know about six udawathei all up. Who the hell would I tell?”
He gritted his teeth. He wasn’t exaggerating how hard it was to trust me. “There are three objects of profound significance to udawa. All of them are believed to have been made by the Seeker of the Spirit himself when he was last incarnated. We believe that one of the ways we’ll recognise the Seeker when he is reincarnated once more, as he inevitably will be, is that he will ask for these objects, the gatha, by name. One, the monuwel, is his drinking cup. The second is the sawret, his shirt. The third is the guzmei, his pouch. My aunt is one of the three keepers of the gatha. The role is passed from incarnation of each keeper to incarnation, and the stigmata of the reincarnated keeper is—”
“Blindness.”
“Yes. Not just blindness, but blindness in that form. It’s very rare, and considered a mark of the Spirit.”
“Is that why you don’t get the disability cured? Not because you can’t afford the prostheses?”
His lip curled in disdain. “We don’t consider it a disability. The keepers can have prostheses implanted or not, as they choose. Some choose not to, as my aunt did not. They consider the blindness bestows other benefits.”
Wow. Very crazy. “Okay, so that explains why none of your people would rob your aunt.”
“Yes. She couldn’t tell you because even talking to close relatives about it is frowned on, though often inevitable for many reasons. Telling an unbeliever about it is unthinkable. I’m only telling you because retrieving the monuwel is more important than keeping this secret.”
“I won’t tell anyone, I swear. But still—you know, Sohan knows. What if relatives of previous keepers were a bit careless with private knowledge? It’s possible, right?”
He wrinkled his elegant nose. “Unfortunately, yes. I’ve been able to find no trace of this, but I can’t deny it could have happened. The interest in the udawathei’s ‘magical’ powers has been intense since the second wave of colonisation. The first colonists, having their own religion, scorned such ideas.”
“Okay. Well, at least I know what I’m looking for, and what to use as a hook. The other gatha are safe?”
“Yes.”
“But if I were to say I had access to one or other....”
“You could hook your fish. But they’re very big fish, Ythen.”
He opened a drawer in his desk and drew out a folded sheet of paper, which he handed over. It was handwritten, in a surprisingly beautiful script too. I scanned the list. “Whoa. You’re not joking.”
“I never am. If you wave bait under the noses of people like this, you had better be prepared to reel them in fast. People are often prepared to commit violence to obtain objects of value to them. I have reason to believe these men are definitely not exceptions to the rule. If you use your relative’s name...you could be exposing her to danger.”
“Even on Kelon?”
“Especially on Kelon.”
Cursed insanity. “Thanks for the warning. Surprised you care about a chuma you’ll never meet.”
“Even though your people are ignorant of the Seeker’s teachings, the Spirit created you and all that you see around you, though I wish it had been seen fit to make you all udawatha.”
“Bit of a theological conundrum for you, isn’t it? Spend a lot of time thinking about them?”
“Hardly any. I’ve done what I asked you here for. Now leave. I expect regular reports.”
“Sure. But one thing—if someone outside your community knows about the gatha, and your aunt was targeted, then the other keepers could be at risk. Especially since they’ve all got that handy identification.” I pointed to my eyes. “You can move the objects to safer places, but I guess you don’t want to risk the people either.”
“Indeed not. A good point,” he allowed grudgingly. “Is that all?”
“Yeah, and I’m going.” I stood and went to the door, and turned. “Oh Shardul? If you were the last man on the planet?”
He gave me the dead fish stare. “Yes?”
“You’d be in with a chance.”
As I made my escape, his fury was the wind beneath my wings.
~~~~~~~~
I need to lay down a solid cover, so even though I had Shardul’s list and some images of objects I’d been assured would get collectors drooling, I spent a day visiting small dealers, telling them the story of my eccentric aunt and her somewhat baffling interest in indigenous culture. I hoped word would filter up to the big guys of my interest. I didn’t mention the monuwel or the other gatha. Instead, I let the traders entice me with tempting bids, for me to supposedly send back to my aunt for approval.
It would take time for the cover to take, and if the object was somewhere else on Medele, I could be wasting my time. Hegal was the capital but there were other cities, other places with wealthy people who collected artefacts. There was also a risk the mo
nuwel might be sent off world, but it might already have gone. I didn’t have a choice. There was too much danger of alerting the thief to my real motives. If he or she was on Shardul’s list, then we were talking about someone rich, powerful and smart. My main weapon was their greed. I had to play my line very carefully.
I pretended to myself that visiting my grandfather up in the Tudon Hills was all part of building the cover, but it wasn’t really. To tell the truth, I felt horribly guilty for avoiding him since the argument between him and my parents two years ago, while I was still recovering from gunshot wounds and trying to take in the news that my injuries meant I had to leave the job I loved, for reasons I’d never anticipated. I’d never held it against Grandma, and certainly not against Granddad, but things were tense enough with my parents at the best of times without me stirring the pot.
But it was time for me to deal with what had been left in such a mess, and hopefully learn a bit more about the woman who’d had such an impact on my life. I thought I’d surprise my grandfather, fully prepared to have to spend the night in a hotel if he was away, but his auto was in his garage, and I found him working in the little flower garden at the front of his neat house. A home he’d built after his wife died, one he could manage on his own. My parents owned his old place, and rented it out. I liked this one better.
He stood, cricked his back, then saw me. A huge grin split his aged face. “Javen? Sainted reason, I was just thinking of you, boy.”
I hugged him, enjoying his familiar smell and his unalloyed pleasure at my arrival. “Hi, Granddad. Been thinking of you a lot too, lately. Missed you.”
“Thought you were mad at me, Javen. No one visits from the family any more. Rajan and Lochana have never forgiven me.”
“Which makes no sense at all. Want to talk out here? I can help you weed.”
He grinned. “Just like old times. Sure. I see you came dressed for it.”
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