by Karen Lord
Paama looked in the opposite direction and saw a man standing on the other side of the room. He had quite a different air. Although he, too, seemed to have nothing to do, he did it splendidly, his eye on every servant, every tray, measuring the speed of service and the quantity of food and drink, and issuing orders with the smallest of nods. Only once did he need to beckon someone over and whisper, perhaps to make a more forceful point that could not be conveyed by a gesture. His eyes were??lat, expressionless. He could have been a piece of furniture animated for the evening.
'This one also bears the mark of alteration. Watch him closely.'
Paama was shocked. How was this possible? Could he be manipulating two at the same time? Sister Deian anticipated her question.
'It may be that they have had their memories altered, nothing more,’ she cautioned. ‘These are probably the men who have spoken to him directly.'
'And that's Lord Taran,’ breathed Neila.
A tall man, veiled and robed in ivory linen, came up and greeted Semwe, courteously thanking him for his gift. He ignored the three women, but Paama knew that was only more courtesy according to his culture. He would pretend that they did not exist until Semwe introduced them, thus giving him permission to speak to them.
'My wife, Tasi,’ Semwe said.
The foreign prince bowed, his hands clasped decorously behind his back. Paama noticed that he was also gloved, and she began to understand somewhat Neila's fascination with this man who exposed not even a finger's breadth of his skin to the air.
'My daughters, Paama and Neila.'
Neila lowered her eyes modestly, but Paama boldly searched the small, blurred rectangle of mesh for a glimpse of his eyes. Was he the one? Was he surprised to see her? Did he know who she was at all?
'Ladies,’ he said, and there was nothing but warm welcome in his tone. ‘I am honoured to have you in my humble home.'
'Is it really your home, my lord?’ Paama said, speaking her thought out loud and shocking herself with her boldness. ‘I mean, since you are travelling this is surely nothing more than a temporary abode.'
The blank face of cloth turned towards her. ‘I am a nomad, my lady. Wherever we sleep for more than three days, we call it home.'
Neila nudged her for her impudence, but she did not care. What she did care about was the fact that she had as yet heard nothing from the Sisters on how Lord Taran appeared to them. He spoke for a while longer with them, trivial pleasantries about the virtues of Makendha and its countryside, and then excused himself to speak to other guests.
'—probably the centre of it.’ Sister Deian's voice cut in suddenly, and then stopped.
'What?’ Paama said, speaking aloud in her frustration and earning another nudge from Neila.
She had forgotten that the Sisters could not hear her. Something had stopped Sister Deian's voice from reaching her, something that was ‘probably the centre'. That was no puzzle—the mystery man must be the enemy after all. She had a strong desire to tear that veil away.
Dinner held no drama. The food was good, but to the trained palate of a chef, it was not approaching excellence. Lord Taran was the main attraction, showing himself to be as civilised a barbarian as ever pitched a tent on the pastures of Makendha. He spoke intelligently and listened attentively and was in every way the kind of gentleman that mothers would wish to have their daughters marry. His expressive voice compensated grandly for the formless sheet before his face. Paama saw her parents glance at each other and give a little nod. His charm was magical, winning the hearts of all his guests—all except Paama.
After dinner, they all went outside for the entertainment, which consisted of a grand show of firestars. It was a well-chosen diversion; the whole village could see it and enjoy it, and the next day there would be a rush to order firestars from the merchant's stores. As the guests sat under the true stars and watched the spectacle, Lord Taran's servants ranged the fields with buckets of water and wet rags, carefully slapping out the few stray sparks that still glowed after the spent firestars had fallen to earth.
'Where is your sister?’ came Sister Deian's voice, sudden and frantic.
Paama jumped up as if she had been singed by a firestar and looked around wildly. Neila's chair was empty! She excused herself hastily, but her departure went unnoticed as all were captivated by a sky full of glittering meteors and coloured fire. Wishing again for some help from the Stick, she touched it almost superstitiously as she set off in a random direction, hoping that would be where she would find her sister. Sure enough, there was the sound of her voice??'Let me go!'
Paama began to run, but just then a hand gripped her arm firmly above the elbow.
'Where are you going? It's dangerous to go roaming about in the dark.'
She wrenched around, but her arm was still held fast in a strong hand.
'You!’ she hissed.
Lord Taran put a hand over her mouth. ‘Hush! Not so loud.'
One hand remained free. She grabbed a fistful of veil and pulled as hard as she could??nd stared. He let her go and stepped away, looking at her in dismay.
'You!’ she said again, her heart pounding more in confusion than fear. ‘Then where is??ho is?'
She ran again, towards where she had last heard her sister's voice. There she saw two figures struggling in the dark. One was the poet, Alton, his young face aged with fury as he shook Neila by the shoulders.
'Give it back to me, you thief! You don't understand such power, you'll only misuse it!'
Neila screamed and broke away from him, then ran to Paama and fell sobbing into her arms. Paama held her securely for a brief moment of comfort and then shook her by the shoulders and forced her chin up.
'Neila, look at them. Look at them!'
The man who had been veiled walked cautiously towards the sisters and then around them, and stood next to the poet. Two men were before them, the lord and the poet, both standing very still as if trying to think of what to do next. Neila looked from one face to the other, her tears silenced in her shock. Then she cried out in anguished query to the man who had worn the veil.
'Alton?'
The lord stood with hands limp at his sides like a puppet with cut strings, looking at her with an expression of pure bewilderment. Paama could not understand why, for was it not Neila who had the right to bewilderment, faced with two copies of the same man? One was dressed as suitor and the other as servant, but both had the face of the poet Alton.
The man dressed as the poet sighed, a harsh sigh of frustration and annoyance. ‘I don't have time to play this farce any more. Let us talk plainly.'
He stretched out his hand with a grasping motion, and stillness seized the night like spreading ice quelling a river current. The popping sounds of the firestars, the screech of the crickets, and the chirp of the tree frogs were all halted in the space of one slow heartbeat. Then he stepped closer to Paama and Neila, his figure blurring, his features changing, his skin becoming a deep indigo under the white glow of a firestar frozen above. Paama, too, was frozen—frozen with deep fear.
'Now I have all the time in the world,’ he said in a chill voice that little resembled the warm tones he had borrowed from the poet. ‘Give me my power back, and I will allow you to forget that this ever happened.'
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13
one star rises, another star sets
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Do not think badly of Paama. She had never had any experience of being a heroine, and she was not accustomed to otherworldly beings threatening her loved ones. So it was courage of a sort that made her step in front of Neila, whip out the Stick??nd offer it to the indigo lord.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he took another step closer and stretched out his hand. Neila ran from Paama with another shriek of fear and went straight to the arms of Alton, who was not so dazed that he did not react appropriately, holding her protectively and shielding her face from the awful scene playing out befor
e her. Paama had no refuge; she stood her ground and trembled as that unearthly blue hand closed slowly over the Stick.
The Stick would not move. He tugged it fiercely, she opened her palms wide, but it stuck to her like an extension of her own hand. He stopped pulling and became strangely calm, almost analytical, as he held her wrists gently and turned his head to view the phenomenon from all angles.
'Perhaps if I cut her hands off?’ he mused to himself.
Neila gave a low moan and Paama's breath choked off in the middle of her suddenly constricted throat.
Just when it seemed impossible to be any more shocked and terrified, a new thing happened. A bizarrely shaped figure loomed out of the stilled outside world and casually tore open their little bubble of time, holding the edges apart carefully with sharp-tipped, multiple, hairy legs.
'They're coming,’ it said.
It was half Bini, half the trickster spider. The dead human eyes remained as blank as any mere decoration, but the spider eyes glittered avidly with pure mischief. The indigo lord did not quite show surprise, but his eyes narrowed again and his lips pressed together angrily as if he were thinking, I might have known.
'You'd better clear up this mess before you go,’ the spider continued with infuriating superiority.
The indigo lord looked as if he would have liked to snarl at the Trickster, but from the sudden shadow in his eyes, it was clear that another sense was warning him of the truth of the Trickster's words. He closed his eyes for a moment and looked at Neila and Alton, and then he glared at the Trickster.
'You helped start it; you can finish it off,’ he said, punctuating his curt words with an impatient gesture.
The bubble shrank, pulling swiftly away from the Trickster's snatching pincers, drawing smoothly past and through the tightly intertwined forms of Neila and Alton, and centring at last on Paama and the indigo lord. Far too late, she made a movement to dash away, but he looked at her with an expression of deep satisfaction and gently folded the bubble in with one last, lazy curl of his fingers.
It was as if some small piece of the world had silently imploded and extruded itself elsewhere, and the unseen breach had pinched off and healed itself over like a cell budding off from its parent. When it was done, the Trickster, Alton, and Neila stood staring at the empty space that had held Paama and the indigo lord. The Trickster sighed gently. He would have enjoyed the chase, but the indigo lord had been right. He was bound to help tidy up the loose ends.
Once more ordinary in his form of Bini the majordomo, he looked at Alton's memory, then at Neila's, and grinned at the excellent adjustment that the indigo lord had achieved in the brief seconds before his departure. It would truly be a pleasure to build on this tale.
'My lord, it appears that your disguise has been discovered.'
Alton frowned as if trying to recall something, and then nodded slowly as Neila gazed up at him.
'Are you disappointed in me, love? It was the only way I could get to know you without all this getting in the way.’ He swept his hand to indicate the gorgeous tent, the brilliant firestars, and his own princely attire.
Neila's eyes were adoring. ‘All the qualities I love are together in one man. How could I be disappointed?'
The Trickster smiled and withdrew??ut I am hearing some rumblings from my audience. You are distressed that I have spoiled the moving and romantic tale of how Love's Laureate courted his beautiful wife? You complain that I have turned it into a cobbled pastiche of happenstance, expediency, and the capricious tricks of the djombi? I bleed for your injured sentiments, but to dress the tale in vestments of saga and chivalry was never my intent. A sober and careful reading of history will teach you that both lesser and greater persons have been treated more roughly by fate. Be content. If it was only a djombi's vanity and aversion to human company that caused Alton to become a merchant prince for one night, if it was fear of discovery and capture that made that djombi flee, thus settling a lordly mantle on Alton for all time, how does that come to be my fault? I am only the one who tells the story.
So, while the young lovers kiss under a firestar-filled sky, while the Trickster glides among the guests—ever the discreet servant—and quietly adjusts memories that might contradict what is to become the official version of events, while all these reasonably amazing things are happening, there is something more out there in the night. A ripple, perhaps, in reality; an extra shiver that tingles along the spine that can be attributed to the firestars, or to kisses. Certainly there is nothing else to be seen.
The djombi are coming.
Bini straightens and stiffens as he feels the equivalent of someone tugging at his sleeve.
A voice inaudible to humans rings in his ear. ‘Where are they?'
He shrugs it off, murmurs softly, ‘I may be a trickster, but even I know better than to interfere in affairs of this kind.'
'You interfered quite beautifully when you told him about Paama. Why stop now?'
'I have my orders. Sometimes I even carry them out. I can't stay a trickster forever, you know.'
The djombi swirl away, disappointed, and continue their hunt for their apostate comrade.
I am the last person in the world who should be speculating on the motives of the djombi and the reasons they have for acting as they do, but I cannot help contrasting the Trickster with the indigo lord. I have a suspicion that the Trickster began as tricksters do, delighting in the frailties of humans and exploiting those weaknesses for his own entertainment. The junior tricksters who led Ansige on his merry dance to ruin would have been impressed by some of his earlier exploits, and indeed many of these had become legend. However, of late he had become almost staid and boring. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that he had unwittingly become fond of the creatures he was so accustomed to torturing, and tired of playing the same old practical jokes. He had gradually changed his modus operandi, taking up the greater challenge of turning people to situations of mutual benefit rather than merely gratifying his own sense of the ridiculous.
The indigo lord had come from the other direction. Assigned to the protection and improvement of humankind, he found himself dismayed and disillusioned by humans and their flaws. It was like being made to play with broken toys, and the moment a few were fixed to some degree of functionality, a fresh set of broken ones was pushed his way. First he grew proud, then contemptuous, and finally uncaring. His sense of honour would not permit him to do as the tricksters do, and either way he prided himself that his sense of humour was too sophisticated for him to be amused by the pratfalls and pie-faces of a pitifully lesser breed. Having lost common purpose with his colleagues, and unable to find common ground with his adversaries, he was content to isolate himself??nd would have continued to do only that if it had not been for the partial stripping of his powers.
I think that by strange chance the Trickster had risen even as the indigo lord had fallen. The Trickster was now tentatively taking on the ‘orders’ that the indigo lord was refusing to carry out. And yet even the Trickster had his version of pride??o admit that he was pushing his toe past the line was something that he was not yet prepared to do. So, trust him not, but do not believe that all his actions are intended for the ruin of those affected, human or djombi. I, too, shall have to wait until the tale is fully told before I can be sure which way he will turn.
One of the consequences of that night was that Paama's disappearance was not immediately noticed, because one of the memories that Bini chose to blur was Paama's attendance at the dinner. However, the heart of Semwe warned him that something did not feel right about what his mind was telling him. Baffled and concerned, he wrote a letter to the House of the Sisters.
* * * *
Dear Sister Jani,
Please thank Sister Elen for her swift and excellent craftsmanship. I believe she will soon see more orders for similar furniture coming from our resident merchant prince.
Have you any word for me from Paama? I thought she was coming to the dinner,
but perhaps she slipped away. I was a bit preoccupied at the time, so I may have missed what she was telling me about her future plans.
All the best to those in the House.
Semwe
A reply came back to Semwe with unusual swiftness, as if it had been penned and sent immediately with the postboy.
* * * *
Dear Semwe
Do not worry about your elder daughter. Paama is away on an errand for us. We promise to look after her for you.
She may have left a cushion on her bed when she left. Please keep it safe for her. You and Tasi may find it a comfort to use it from time to time.
Congratulations on the engagement of your younger daughter. We understand that the gentleman in question is a talented poet and a wealthy businessman. You are very fortunate to be gaining a son-in-law of that calibre. There are so many tricksters about in this world.
Blessings from your friends at the House.
Jani, Elen, Deian and Carmis
Semwe found that this letter took away very little of his bafflement and concern, but he was at least reassured by their promise to look after Paama. It was the comment about his prospective son-in-law that made him uneasy. What he would do to avoid another son-in-law like Ansige!
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14
a lesson in the appropriate use of power
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Paama stumbled forward and was instantly aware of icy cold hammering up through the soles of her thin slippers like bolts of frozen iron. She was standing on snow. She breathed in, and it felt like a thousand tiny spikes of ice in her nose, throat, and lungs. A cloud blew out of her nostrils as she exhaled. Her eyes prickled and watered in the cold, dry breeze. Everywhere was white.
The indigo lord studied her, his eyes bleakly distant. He walked a few paces away and sat on a snow-covered boulder, apparently immune to the cold, and continued to watch her.
'Put the Stick down by my feet,’ he commanded her.
Her half-frozen fingers were clenched tightly around the Stick, but Paama managed to ease her grip, step forward, and stiffly put the Stick down in the thin carpet of snow. He looked at her suspiciously as she edged away and then bent and picked it up.