by Rose Lemberg
“Why did you guide him here, then?”
“To seek the knowledge of the stars,” she said, and in her eyes I saw a hunger. “The stars as they fell, those vast and glorious globes of deepnames carried by Bird, the stars to which we guardians are bound.”
“Why?” I asked, and felt as if an understanding glistened just on the edge of my senses. “Why do you guide him then to seek the knowledge of the stars?”
She sighed, hovering, hesitating. But my secret-spilling pull must have worked on her at last, for she answered, “Because among the twelve triumphant stars that Bird had brought to us, for us to live and thrive, mine has gone out.”
You said so before. I made to question her further, but she was gone. The eight-sided doors of the library opened to admit Nihitu and a small delegation of courtiers, indignant and bristling. The Raker had taken lovers, they said, lovers who had come to him and were harmed.
* * *
In cloths of smoldering dawn
Having visited the wounded I now walked, troubled and pondering, towards the Raker’s guesting chambers. Nihitu accompanied me, but though she attempted discourse, I kept my silence. His lovers made no complaint. They felt dazed to me but not beyond reason, and not in distress or despair; all three seemed in good humor. It was their relatives and friends who came to see me. I healed the wounds easily. Yet this ease was deceptive, for I was a three-named strong, a wielder of the Royal House and ancient in the ways of power. How easily would wounds be healed in the smaller towns and encampments he’d visited in his trek through my lands? He had a singular power; why didn’t he heal his lovers?
I walked so, Nihitu at my heels, until I reached the guesting chambers and entered them without knocking.
He was awake. He sat on the bed, one leg folded and arms crossed. The long crown of his hair, unbraided now, fell shining over his bare torso. He wore loose pants of tan cloth, desert-made and without adornment. I made note to myself to keep my guest better clothed, for there had been no baggage train—not even a bag; indeed, he had carried nothing at all with him save the carpet of roses and his reticent ghostly companion, whose presence I did not now discern.
His face twisted when I entered, and the same arrogant smile tilted his lips.
“How delightful,” he said, “That you should come to scold me.”
“In the name of the Great Lion and the agreements you have made,” hissed Nihitu in my ear, “you must remind this criminal of the rules of guestright, make him understand that you protect your people, that in this place such behaviors would not be allowed—”
I turned to her. This person was my guardian, the best of Loroli chosen, who by the ancient agreements was allowed to shepherd me. I saw in her a youthful ardor to make of herself a presence with heft and power to sway me, not realizing yet that such power I afforded only to friends. And while the old guardian was my friend, Nihitu was not yet a friend of mine.
I felt no anger. But it would not do to reproach me in the name of the Great Lion, for we were equals and allies of old—not rivals or subjects to each other, nor horrors with which to cow each other into submission.
I spoke directly into Nihitu’s mind in that ancient language once shared by my people and the Loroli and taught only to our truest scholars and to their firstway; even if Nihitu could not speak it with fluency, she would understand. I bid you to guard my dignity and leave. In my domain I am protected by the Hillstar and what power I had woven, through these centuries past, into these walls.
It was harsher than I had intended, but she did leave. She appeared calm, but I knew better than to accept that armor as truth. I would talk to her later. For now, I directed my gaze again to my guest.
He gazed back at me. His lips had lost their smirk. I had expected a jibe, a contest of wits, I expected him to jest over the altercation he had just witnessed—but he gave me only silence, and a kind of grave consideration.
I saw now that if I came to scold him, as a parent would scold an unruly child, then it would come to naught. He would bend to no will but his own, though perhaps his will, for all his might, was yet not fully formed.
I would not change my discourse. He would hear my questions, if not Nihitu’s burning anger and threats.
“You took lovers of my people,” I said. “Your pleasure and theirs is not my concern. In my house, the people are constrained by consent alone. Yet some of them have sustained injuries beyond what is common in pleasure. They made no complaint. And yet they seemed to me delirious, and I was not sure they were fully aware of what they had agreed to experience. I would hear this tale from your lips.”
He turned away slightly, as if to conceal from me some pain or hesitation. When he faced me again, it was with a now-familiar sneer. “Consent is the only measure of what is permitted. You think I violate it? No. I will not stand so accused. They want it. They want me to take, and to take without limits. This is why they come to me. I take because they offer, because they ask, and because I tell them what I will do, and they consent, and I enjoy it.”
There was more to it. I wanted to unravel it with care. “You would take—even onto an injury? Death?”
His eyes glinted, defiant. “Not onto death. But they beg me for it. Your people, too. They beg for dissolution, the ultimate crown of the pleasures I offer. They beg for the greatest pain under the skywing of Bird, they beg to be folded into a redness studded with deepnames of the stars until the world itself folds back, until all truths are sung through this pain like piercing knives, until Bird comes to pluck them at last from my guiding hands, from the world; for no world shall ever compare to my arms short of Her own embrace, far more glorious than mine.”
He crossed his arms at his chest, looked away. Spoke. “I am tempted.”
I saw now how his lovers would not say no, would seek him out even, for what he offered glistened now between us, that rarest jewel of magic, might, and yearning that would tempt beyond the world, yes. And I saw, too, his belief that he did no wrong—for even if he’d kill, the goddess would embrace those souls and carry them aloft. And he himself craved that—I felt in him that hunger, that singular addiction to Bird’s presence that would sometimes seize the most powerful mages, those who could see her coming for the dead, who would kill to experience it again and again. Many of our histories’ famous generals felt this pull, those who wielded the Warlord’s Triangle; some of them, not caring much for defeat or victory as long as it brought Bird closer, led even their own troops to death.
I had known of such crimes of yore—and always thought them crimes of loneliness.
He waited perhaps, for an accusation, for a change in the tone of my voice. Oh, it was a bitter vision. My power was older and mellower than his, subtler in its effects. My people did not beg me to grant them pain or death, but they craved my approval, my guidance. They spoke of my kindness. But my touch wasn’t kind. It revealed; like the desert wind reveals the ancient bones, so did my presence strip the hearts of persons, baring secrets that glistened and bled. My guest was not immune to this pull. He had spoken plainly of his yearning—and yet, he now waited only for my disapproval, as if an approval or kindness could never be won and thus should not even be sought.
To all this I said, “I understand.”
He pursed his lips. I saw Ranra in him then, for he, too, attempted to explain himself further. “Nobody ever says no.”
“Of course they don’t. They can’t withstand you. Can’t resist your pull. And so you have never truly known consent.”
He bared his teeth. “That’s what you say. That’s what you think. You think me a monster, you think my might makes me a criminal simply for daring to live and thus exert my pull.” The veneer of his arrogance crumbled. His deepnames hissed awake, disheveled and snakelike over his head. “You’re not the first, you know, to say that I should be caged like a dangerous beast or else exiled against a danger of any future crimes, that I should be broken away from people who crave my presence simply because it is so
strong as to overpower.”
I clasped my hands behind my back and bowed, for I am tall and this was not the time to tower over him. “My guest,” I said, “The words of hurt you repeated belong to other people. They are not mine.”
“No? You don’t think me monstrous? A criminal? Your guardian does. You do not say these words, but you still you say that I have never known consent. How can that be? I ask. I always ask.”
I am not kind, for all that my demeanor is often mistaken for kindness. I do not seek to soothe and comfort. But I do seek to teach. Teaching—true teaching—brings with it no comfort but pain, the most exquisite pain that is the exertion of a student in response to me, and its reward: expansion. Growth. And it is knowledge, too, that I seek, the delicious pain of my own expansion, my change. Curiosity settled over me now, the same curiosity I felt when I sensed him from afar, earlier, on the tiles—a shrugging-off of danger, the thrill of his uniqueness and my desire to shift him like no one could before.
I was moved, and I did not resist it. I said, “Then ask me.”
The Raker seemed taken aback. Then he looked me up and down. Disdain crept back into his gaze. I took a step back and straightened, suddenly keenly aware of the aching in my bones, the way my skin sagged and stretched over them. I had not prepared for this, that he would contemplate my body, that he would reject the asking simply because I was old, old and folded into my skin. Or was it the current shape of my body that he contemplated? No, not that; from his choice of lovers I knew that he had multiple preferences, like myself. And yet I did not intend this to become real in this way—so raw, so fast. My offer was only an exercise of the mind. I did not expect him to consider it in truth, in the flesh, in my flesh. But he did. His gaze mesmerized me in place as his disdain gave way to a slow and pleasurable calculation.
He spoke, languid like honey that pours out of the honey crystal cracked with a craftsperson’s careful precision. “I would take you by the throat and know its beating under my hand. I would watch all the years you have lived as they bleed from your eyes in your fear. I would pierce your skin with my deepnames, a thousand quills. I would set each quill aflame until you are feathered in heat so unbearably perfect that you would sing, sing for me like the old guardians had sung to the stars. I would quench my thirst in you then, I’d feast on that old, old pain of yours that nobody hears but the sands. What say you?”
I swallowed, shuddering. Of course they said yes to such vision, such grandeur. He made them brilliant as he took. He meant it, too. Such beauty he would see in me—my power, my pain, my need—like no one else before, oh, not for a long, long time.
That old pain I was not ready to face.
I turned my mind to my star, to the comforting soft tendrils of its outer mantle. It was because of my star that I did not feel alone, that I had no need for crimes. Why was this powerful spirit untethered, untaught, matched to no great star? What failure of the goddess was this, to cast him roiling into my path? And yet I’d felt so alone. Now, yes, I would crave what he had offered.
I squeezed out, “No.” It fell from my lips, rough and without embellishment. A rare two-sided lesson, this, and I would cherish it.
“You want it,” he said.
“Perhaps. Yet, as you see, I am able to refuse.”
He smiled. It was not a smirk. “Oh yes. Yes, I see. I like your lessons better than at the university.”
I smiled back. Nothing much escaped him.
I was thinking through my reply when he suddenly said, “Now, you ask.”
Ah. Ah.
I began to pace. Did I want him? Not in the way he spoke of; not to be overpowered or acted upon. But—but—I wanted something. Yes. To be seen, and to see. To experience his power and to touch him with mine. To have my secrets unravel for him even as I unraveled his.
Would I ask?
I paced.
What did I know of him? That he sought to inflict pain upon agreeing lovers, yet people were pulled to him so strongly that their consent was marred by a diminishing of choice. That he did not heal them. That their friends and relatives called him a criminal. That his guardian, whom he did not know, pushed and prodded him to come here for reasons unknown to me.
How reckless would all of this make him? How alone?
That he craved to kill so Bird would come.
That he had not done so.
I paced and paced. In such a short time feelings had blossomed in my skin.
I did not want to cage him or to bind him, nor did I want to cage or bind myself. He wanted to control me in my age and splendor, and I, in my way, sought the same: to shape his wild will to the ways I thought true, and thus I sought to act upon him. But much more would be required before I could give him these truths of myself. And so I asked—not his consent yet, for I was not decided; but a question.
“Tell me,” I said, “Do you ever say no?”
For a long moment, the world stood still. Then, he recoiled.
Blood flowed away from his face. His deepnames reared once more, not snakes but rods of metal that bent and folded themselves into an iron crown.
He looked tightly wound and frozen, his spirit far, far away from me in some horrible vision.
This was not my intention. Whatever this was, it was not my intention.
“Forgive me,” I said.
“Leave me,” he said. Tight with effort. “Now.”
I did as he asked of me.
* * *
A lion dismissed
Nihitu waited for me outside the Raker’s chambers, her face taut with anger and need.
I nodded at her but did not speak. The Raker occupied my mind—his challenge, the way he recoiled, as if my words had grazed and bled a wound he would hide from me, from everyone. Far stranger even than that, I still did not know what deepnames he held; just the glitter and daze of them, as if of whispering steel, as if of serpents. His configuration did not feel to me like a Warlord’s Triangle, and yet, how could it be anything different? Many short names—the mind would not hold more than three—
Nihitu ran after me. I did not realize that I was walking, or how fast, or that I was walking away from her, until she placed her hand on my arm.
“Old Royal, my ward,” she asked, “Have you told him—?”
I faced her, surfacing slowly from my thoughts. I took hold of her hand and removed it. “I would ask you to ask, next time.”
She did not even apologize. Perhaps she did not even notice that she had touched me. “What has transpired? Has he hurt you?”
I shrugged. “He asked me a question.”
“A question?”
I sighed. “He asked if I would satisfy his desire.”
“What?” Nihitu eyed me with alarm. “How—? Did he attempt force?”
“No, no. Just asked. I think he always asks.”
“How dare he,” she spat, “to mock you so! I will tear him apart for this, I will protect your honor!”
I was taken aback by her words and her tone. “He did not mock me.”
“No?” Nihitu’s voice lost nothing of its vehemence. “Then how could he be so vile, to fling himself at everything that moves?”
I stopped, and she stopped too, attending only to my motions and not the implication of her words.
I said, careful to conceal my sudden anger, “Is that what you see in me?”
“Forgive me?” She bit her lip, becoming aware of her misstep—perhaps. Perhaps not.
I spoke, clear and cold. “That I could only be desired by a rake who falls for any creature that comes into their path and without discernment? Is it my age? Or is it, perhaps, my shifting?” Among her kin, only the fourthway changed their gender and their bodyshape freely, a change deemed undignified for a firstway such as Nihitu.
“No, not your shifting,” she said, a little too fast and with great fervor.
My age, then—for she did now eye me, much as the Raker had done; but where his gaze on my body grew warm and calculating, hers grew
only more and more perplexed, as if shocked that a body as weathered as mine could still harbor desire and be regarded likewise, much less by a person her age.
She licked her lips at last. “You want him?”
I sighed, unsure whether to be comfortable with this line of questioning. “Perhaps. I have not decided. Why would it matter to you?”
“Because I am to protect you.”
I crossed my arms. Certainly the Great Lion had explained to her the nature of her guardianship, but in truth she had not yet encountered this situation in all the time spent by my side. I had not taken lovers in many years. I’d assumed that I was simply growing older. But now I felt as if plum wine, not blood, was circling in my veins.
I spoke, more curtly than I’d intended. “My liaisons, such as they might be, are not in the purview of your guardianship.” To my old guardian I had made no such statements, but she had always been discreet.
Nihitu frowned. “It is the purpose of my guardianship that you will not be slain.”
“He is no assassin,” I snapped.
“How can you be sure?” She snapped back, “How can you be sure he’s not dangerous?”
“I am sure he’s not one of Ladder’s assassins,” I said. “By his magic I am sure.” But I did not say what I should have said, that I did not yet know if he was dangerous, that he probably was, perhaps in ways more unpredictable than that of an assassin, but that because he was not an assassin I would be tempted to trust him. I wanted to trust him—the splendor of his mind, and also because he was wild, and because of that pain of his, and because he had offered me something that others had not dared to offer for centuries, bowing always to my power. And I had delighted in that, for sure, taken pleasure in the supplication of those who sought to bask in my regard. Yet if I tired of it, if I came to desire something else, something old and nearly forgotten, or yet something new, then I was on my own—and on my own was where I’d found myself for many years now, tired of my own grandeur’s ready influence—just as he himself felt alone, desired something more than he had known before.