by Doris Egan
Change again, dammit, change to anything! It looked useless even as I thought it; who would change to a defenseless thing like a fish unless his power was so low his choices were few? The serpent squeezed harder. I couldn't even see the fish, suffocating in the wet wormy flesh.
"Time," said the Duelmaster. I'd forgotten he was there. The word "time" echoed off the walls, and the misty water rolled back. The fish was dropped, gasping, in the center of the pit. The serpent melted and shrank and became Eln once again, on his floater, in the immaculate silk robes.
"Why isn't Ran transforming?" I said to the Duel-master.
"I don't know," he said, and as he said it I was running down into the pit. What I would have done, I don't know; the fish began to waver and stretch into a robed figure before I reached the arena floor. He was still gasping, though, and his robes were marred from lying in the dirt. He grabbed my arms and tried to rise. We stumbled out of the pit, up to the first ring, where he quietly collapsed on the floor. I looked over at the Duelmaster to see if he could help; the man had seated himself on the bench and taken out a book!
"Ran? Are you all right?"
He nodded, choking.
"Do you want me to do anything?"
"Wait," he got out at last. A minute later he said, "I'll be all right."
"Do you want water?"
He got out a strangled laugh. "I've had enough wa-ter-"
I sat down next to him on the granite. "How long have you got?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Maybe five minutes. I don't know. It's at the Duelmaster's discretion."
"Let's hope he's got a good book."
He seemed to be pulling himself together. I said, "Ran, this doesn't make sense. You've got Stepan away from him—don't give me that look, it's obvious—so where is he getting his magic from? He's made three transmutations, and he hasn't lost any power at all!"
"It doesn't matter."
"Kanz it doesn't matter. Shit it doesn't matter. You can't go back there, he'll kill you."
"I need to get Cormallon back."
"I'm talking about your death, you idiot."
"It has to be done."
"You monomaniac, you won't get anything if you go back. Did you see the size of that sea serpent? Maybe it was hard to tell when you were being suffocated—"
He looked up at me. "Theodora, listen. If anything happens to me, go to the Abbot. He's got a letter for you, I wrote it in the meditation room. There are some things in it that might help you get to Athena, if you still want to."
"The hell with that! Everybody wants to help me. Help yourselves!"
I wasn't getting through. That was all there was to say; I wasn't getting through. I'd never had an all-consuming passion in my life, I was always the reasonable one, and I could give out all the logic and rationalism in the world and I had to face that nobody was going to stop what they were doing. Somebody was going to die here, within the next few minutes, and it was beginning to look more and more clear who that was.
The Duelmaster looked idly at us, playing with his bookmark. I got up and walked over to him. "Finish your chapter," I said.
He turned to me a face with the merest hint of amusement. "Very well," he said. He opened his book again and dismissed me from his attention.
I stepped away from the Duelmaster, to go back to Ran, and I caught sight of Eln across the way, beside his witness, untouched, unconcerned, as though he were the center of the universe.
He was. Eln in the heart of the star, energy traveling up the arms—all at once I understood.
I went to Ran, squatting down beside him on the cold granite. "Listen." I said urgently. "I know what it is now. He has more than one source.''
"What are you talking about?"
"As soon as he drains one, he moves onto the next one. You've cut him off from Stepan, but he's got others—he can just keep going while you get weaker and weaker. Today may be the low point in his draw from Stepan, but he could be anywhere in the cycle with the rest."
He frowned. "How do you know there's more than one source?"
"I know. Anyway, what else can it be? His third transmutation was just as powerful as his first—that's because you were fighting three different sorcerers in there, Ran. And who knows how many more he's drawing off?" He looked thoughtful, and I pressed it. "You can't go back in—he might have a dozen more to fall back on."
He considered the matter. "It can't be a dozen. He'd never find a dozen people to agree to give up their magic, even temporarily. With luck he might find four besides Stepan… which would mean there's only one left. I can handle four."
"And if there are five?"
His face was stubborn.
I got up. "Fine," I said, and started toward the arena floor. Eln was at the opposite edge, looking interested.
"Will you come back here?" came Ran's voice, annoyed. "That won't do any good." I kept going. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"
I knew he was saying it to irritate me into returning, but it was irritating just the same.
Across the arena Eln was waiting with a .quizzical smile. "Theo, sweetheart, you're supposed to be on the opposite side; ceremonially speaking, of course."
"You're winning," I said.
He laughed. "Does that mean you're changing sides?"
I shook my head. "You and Ran come from another universe; ethically speaking, of course."
"Well, then? Sorry, do you want a seat?" He motioned to the bench nearby.
"No. Tell me, how many have you got?"
He didn't ask how many what. "Been at the cards again, haven't you? Have you mentioned this to Ran?"
"Naturally."
"Naturally," he agreed.
"So how many?"
"If I tell you, will you tell Ran?"
"Yes."
He grinned that morning sunrise grin. "Really, Theo, I think under the circumstances you can hardly blame me for declining to answer.''
His witness had been hanging around the fringes of our conversation. Now he moved in uneasily. "Eln, you shouldn't be breaking your concentration. Send her back."
Eln didn't look at him. "Thank you, Jermyn. I thought you were going to behave yourself if I let you come along?''
The young man dipped his head, embarrassed, and walked away.
"Overenthusiastic," said Eln, "but a good heart."
"Not like the rest of us, then. Why are you here? You've got what you wanted, why don't you go home and enjoy it?"
"I don't have everything I wanted," he said simply.
No, not with Ran still around as a thorn in his side. What should I say? Go home and try to ignore your brother? Maybe if you don't kill him he won't kill you? Was there one chance in a thousand that I could talk either of them into stopping?
No. All my life, when I found myself in a situation I hated, I withdrew. Light years, if necessary. Was that wrong? If the Cormallons had spent some time learning the art of withdrawal, none of us would be in this position.
So withdraw, then. Leave Eln, leave the whole arena— you know what's going to happen, you don't have to witness it as well. "Good-bye," I said, and turned to go.
"See you," he said, unrepentantly.
I was a few steps away. I looked back at him, I don't know why—to try to imprint his image in my memory, maybe; I had no intention of seeing him again, and it would no longer be possible to see Ran.
His clothes hadn't even gotten mussed in the first round; blue silk suited him, his hair was light for an Ivoran. Rare in every way, I had to admit—physically, mentally, emotionally. I still wanted to protect him if I could. A crazy feeling—he wasn't the one who needed protection.
But there was still that disarming sense of tenderness. Damn it and damn this stupid planet, too, because I didn't see any way out of this that would leave any of us whole. I glanced back at Ran, who was sitting on the wide ledge at the other side of the arena, watching, breathing deep with visible intakes of breath, preparing everything he had for the next round. Which wo
uldn't be enough. Why couldn't Eln have left things as they were? Why couldn't he follow custom and confine murder to strangers? In that instant I wanted to stop him—to kill him if necessary— to see that he couldn't hurt anybody ever again. I felt the stone around my neck pulsing warmly with my heartbeat. Ran was going to be dead as soon as the Duelmaster put down his book, and I didn't have any idea what I could do about it.
But Annurian of Kado Island knew very well. "Eln," I said, and I took my hand from the pack strapped to my side and tossed him a round, black object. He caught it neatly. It was the onyx cat. Fresh from my bare hands, the scent of it all on its stony skin: the tenderness and the understanding and the gratitude, the hatred and the wish to end all this. An emotional confusion more than equal to his own. He looked up from the cat., his dark eyes widened in surprise. "Theo, sweetheart—" he said. "I can't—" And he looked down at his chest, at the knife handle suspended there, and I looked down, too, at my empty fingers and the empty sheath under my robe. "Theo," he said again. The bluestone pendant was a fire against my skin. I ignored it.
What had I been thinking? For a wild second I tried to convince myself that I hadn't done this, that I wasn't responsible, although I could hear my thoughts still echoing: the mechanical choice of target, Vale's remembered voice telling me the location of the heart, tracking the nipple line, at the fifth intercostal space. The abdominal aorta would be easier, but the head of the floater masked it. The carotid artery, then, I seemed to hear the Old Man's voice: but I rejected it. Cut throats were the way cattle were killed.
I knew Eln's upper body intimately, from all the days of sa'ret practice in the garden. Now a red spot was spreading over the blue silk, just above his left nipple. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. His face was drained of color. His eyes met mine in disbelief. He lost consciousness as I watched, his body sagging down awkwardly off the floater, the straps on his legs holding him to the seat.
Ran pulled me out of the arena. The Duelmaster was talking, making some kind of announcement. "The Cor-mallon matter has been settled privately," I remember him saying; "Thank you for your time and attention."
Ran grabbed hold of my upper arms, his hands like ice through the robe. "Are you all right?"
I pulled away. "Of course I'm all right." It occurred to me that he might yell at me, that he might think I'd usurped his male prerogative to slaughter, or something like that; but I'd underestimated him. He was of a practical mind. Eln was dead and Cormallon was legally his; the details were not relevant.
"Come on," he said, "I'll get you out of here. Can you walk?"
"Of course I can walk." It wasn't clear even to me quite why I was so angry at him. I strode past him, up the ramp and out of the arena. I walked all the way up the tunnel, into the monastery, through the halls, and out the front doors. Once there I didn't know where to go next.
I paced in the yard, from the trees to the front steps and from the steps to the trees. After some amount of time had passed, Ran came out. He said to me, "I've arranged to borrow an aircar from the abbot. You can rest at Cormallon. By the time we get there, they'll have read Eln's documents. They may not be sure, but they'll let us in."
"I don't need to rest." And I didn't; my system was throbbing with energy.
"Come along anyway." He took me by the hand. "I know I do."
It was a long ride to Cormallon. Ran said once, "That was an amazing throw. I didn't know you had it in you."
I grunted. With help, apparently I did. I fingered the stone around my neck. I suddenly wondered what would happen to Eln's stone. It was a pretty good guess that it wouldn't be laid in honor in the library at Cormallon. Swept up with his clothes, by the monks, to be burned or sold? What about his witness? Would he take care of it? I hadn't looked back at either of them when I left the arena. How convenient things were on Ivory, when you paid the proper people; we would never have to think about these details again.
We rode for an hour or so. After a while I said, "You'd better land this thing, I'm going to be sick."
We landed on the dirt hills near Amshiline. I was ill, on and off, for the next couple of hours. Somewhere in between the waves of nausea I got this crazy idea: That I had to go and talk to Grandmother. She saw herself as the moving spirit of Cormallon, and I guess the rest of the house did, too; there was nobody else who could give me absolution. Maybe she wasn't supposed to see visitors, but Kylla would find a way, I knew, if I let her see how important it was. Not that there was much chance of forgiveness in that quarter, really. Eln was always her favorite.
Ran rolled up his outer robe and placed it on the dirt under my head. I wanted to tell him he didn't have to help me. I wanted to say that I was as na'telleth as anybody, that I wasn't upset, that what made me sick was the decision; that I was contaminated by the act of choice. Luckily I was too weak to say any of those things. He got a canteen from the car, poured water over a cloth and wiped my forehead. He held me when I was heaving sick and said things like, "There, now, get it all out, you'll be all right." And all the while he had a pinched, abstracted look on his face, as though he wasn't even there.
It was afternoon. Ran called ahead and found that Eln's documents had been read, and that several hours ago Grandmother had sent a letter with them to the Cormal-lon council giving Ran her full support. I thought resentfully that if she had given Ran her support a lot sooner, maybe we could have avoided this past day. We rode in silence through the gray, rain-filled clouds of early summer. Below, on the hills ranging toward Cormallon, was a line of fires. I looked down and my mind flashed to the bowl of fire I'd seen in the cards, the torch Kylla took from Eln. I looked at Ran's face, drawn now and white as my own.
"What are they?" I asked.
"They're funeral fires," he answered.
"For Eln? How could they know?"
"They don't," he said shortly.
We landed in the front compound, and the goldbands who came out to bow Ran inside all wore black.
They were Grandmother's funeral fires.
Chapter Twenty-One
No absolution, no higher judge.
I am a person who makes lists. This was something to add to the list of things I'd noticed changing as I got older. I'd noticed that making a fool of myself no longer seemed to be the soul-rending experience it once had been; that when I was badly treated by others, I understood when to make a fuss and when not; and now, I saw the third item: the knowledge that there was no court but the one in my head, and its judgments were all life sentences. I suppose I'll find other things to add as I go along… but the first two bits on the list had been a comfort to me; I saw now it would not all be that way.
I didn't go to the ceremonies, not the family ceremonies that went on for a week (and to which I would not have been invited in any case) or the House ceremony that took place two days after we arrived. I stayed in my room, mostly. Nobody expected any duties from me, and Ran and Kylla were busy. It was several days before people started to notice me beyond polite inquiries as to my health and my room.
I wasn't eating at that time. I want to be clear about this; I wasn't trying to commit suicide, or anything so dramatic—it was simply that the sight of food made me feel ill. I drank, water, milk, and tah in great quantities, but although from time to time I could feel hunger stirring in my belly, as soon as I looked at a bowl of soup or a cake, I had to turn away. I was perfectly aware that human beings can last for many days without food and that the time would come when my hunger would be great enough to overcome the revulsion. However, I was beginning to alarm the household, which made me feel badly.
I accompanied Kylla down to the kitchen one evening in an effort to set her mind at rest. She said that Herel had made me a light casserole of egg, cheese, and bacon, and although the very thought of it made my stomach turn over, I agreed to go with her and give it a try.
"Here she is," said Herel, pulling out the bench for me to sit. "It's warming in the oven. Just you wait a minute." I hated being tr
eated like a patient, but they'd gone to a lot of trouble. I sat down beside Kylla and Herel brought the dish from the oven with great ceremony and set it before us. Then she called, "Tagra! I asked you to bring the plates." And Tagra stepped out of the pantry doorway and carried two plates to the table. She planked them down with just enough force that one couldn't, quite, call it rude. I looked into the scarred face for a moment and met eyes just as wounded.
I hope my own eyes didn't have that trapped look. Gods, when was the last time I'd used a mirror?
She raised one eyebrow, beautifully ironic, just the way Eln used to. "Was there something else?"
"No, thank you," I said, and she left the kitchen. I picked up a fork. "I didn't expect she would still be here," I told Kylla.
She was cutting a wedge off the casserole, with difficulty. Without looking up, she said, "Where else would she go? This is her home." She got the slice onto my plate. "There we go," she said with satisfaction, handing it to me. She licked a finger and said, "Beautiful work, Herel. Go ahead and start, Theo, don't wait for me."
I put down the fork again. I said, "I'm sorry, Ky."
It had been two weeks, and I was walking through the back garden, smelling the aroma from the kitchen, thinking that maybe the human race hadn't gone so wrong after all when it decided to get energy from food. Maybe
I should try it. Ran joined me there just as I was sitting down under the sa'ret equipment.
"I was thinking about having all this pulled down," he said, motioning to the bars and the platforms. "But then I thought you might want to use it for arm-work when you go back to doing The River. What do you want me to do?"