Idol of Glass

by Jane Kindred

  Jak wrestled with the pain of watching this and the need to keep Ahr at all costs. She ought to be told that what Ra had done had been done in madness, and that now, if it could be believed, Ra was sane and penitent.

  Ahr looked up into Jak’s eyes, pleading. “I said no, didn’t I, Jak?”

  “Yes.” Jak put her back together as calmly as possible, buttoning her up, not thinking to offer her something clean. “You said no.”

  “And so she ripped me open.” Ahr looked once more at the blood on her hand. “No wonder you can’t stand to see my tears. I’ve become like her.”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps I’m not really Ahr.” She stared at nothing, focusing inward. “Perhaps I’m a soulless monster she created to torment you.” This hadn’t even occurred to Jak, and the thought was briefly chilling.

  “No.” Jak lifted Ahr’s chin. “I don’t know what’s happened to change your blood. But you’re Ahr. You’re not like her. If anything, she was a poor copy of you.”

  “But I’m Meer,” said Ahr mournfully. “I’m defiled.”

  Jak sighed against the softness of her, cheek against cheek. “Truth help me, Ahr. Perhaps I’ve gone mad. Perhaps we’ve both lost our minds. I don’t care. You’ll be my undoing, but I can’t let you go.”

  Pearl’s hand seemed to draw without his conscious mind, as it sometimes did when he was deeply in trance envisioning the currents of the flow. He let it curve and dart and make hash marks against the paper, focusing on nothing, content for once to be a conduit. Since he’d realized he could affect the realm around him with his art, he’d been careful, trying new things—expanding the size of a room, changing a simple wooden stool to an ornate, gilded chair with a cushion embroidered with gold thread—but keeping such changes localized to himself without affecting the larger realm around him. The Permanence might know everything he did, but so far, no one had come to comment on it, or to tell him to stop. He suspected this was precisely what they wanted him to do, but the new ability was too intriguing to ignore.

  When his hand stopped at the edge of his current drawing, Pearl studied the image, and dropped his pastel with a start. Ahr’s face stared back at him. He’d thought for an instant it was Ra, but this was Ahr the Maiden. And she was weeping tears of blood.

  This was no memory from the distant Meeric banks. This was Ahr, today, now. Ahr was alive. And she was Meer.

  Ahr sat in Jak’s chair, stubbornly unclothed, feet drawn up onto her toes against the chair legs, and elbows propped on her knees, her sulking chin in her hands. She’d taken off the bloodied garments before discovering Jak had nothing else to give her. The washing hadn’t yet been done.

  Jak was frowning at her, making it worse. They both knew she had only to speak and she might dress in what she wanted. She wasn’t certain whether Jak’s displeasure was at her stubbornness or at the knowledge of this. If she opened her mouth, she would find out, for conjury was on the tip of her tongue. She could feel it burning there. It was as if her tears had unleashed the dormant skill.

  “Let me get something of Mell’s,” said Jak. “Or Sevine’s.”

  Ahr’s head popped up for a moment on a single, unstoppable “Ha!”

  “For soothsake, Ahr. They’re just clothes.”

  “Just—” Ahr clamped her teeth shut over the words. Her head was too full of pictures, and something solid was going to burst out. Could Jak understand this? Did Jak know enough about the Meer? Things were also bursting in. Jak was hiding something from her, deeply, something about rabbits. She had no idea what this meant, but it made her stomach turn. She tried not to listen. Jak suspected. She heard that too.

  She’d also obtained Jak’s thoughts about the Meer on a less personal level, a subconscious emanation of what this change in her meant. As Ahr the man, there were memories of a bitter dislike of this breed to which she now belonged. Ahr recalled measureless days and nights in a silence of his own choosing at the window of his mound, contemplating a cherished hatred. Its object so far still eluded her; the hatred itself, however, was a certainty. It had belonged to him. It had been his garment. If only she had it to wear now.

  A knock sounded at Jak’s door, and it opened without a pause, Geffn popping his head in. Ahr made no attempt to cover herself. Geffn pretended not to see and looked fixedly at Jak. His russet hair was edged with a cold sweat, and Ahr could read in it. They’ve come. Ahr’s scalp felt too tight upon her skull.

  Geffn cleared his throat. “Jak, there are visitors.”

  “Visitors?”

  Ahr leapt to her feet. “Don’t let them! I will not be— Ai, meerrá!” She gripped her hair at the sides of her head and the words poured out, unstoppable, in a smooth, unraveling skein: “Gold-sweater-long-silk-skirt-the-color-of-perfect-kerum!” The garments of Ahr’s imagination swam upward from her ankles as the syllables left her tongue, and her hair drifted from her fingers and over the garments, snakelike, as if it had a life of its own. “Nonononono!” She was a child throwing a tantrum. Volatile, childlike emotion, she knew instinctively, was the hallmark of the renaissanced, but this knowledge neither comforted nor pacified her.

  Geffn stepped into the room and slammed the door behind him. “Fuck sooth.” It seemed a reasonable response. Beside him, Jak slammed a fist into the wood of the door and sprang back with a yowl of pain, while Geffn stared at Ahr in disbelief.

  Clutching the fist, Jak groaned, but not from the pain. “I swear, I don’t know how it happened, Geff. Do I do this to people? Am I a compass for them?”

  “My god, she’s—?”

  “I’m sorry!” Ahr burst out, angry for the moment with Geffn instead of herself, and this felt familiar. “You can be certain I hate myself more than you could possibly despise me for it. If I remember my former self correctly, this is the most despicable thing that could have happened to me. It’s loathsome. I’d like to tear out my own veins. Are you satisfied?”

  They were staring at her, tongue-tied. She looked down at her body, dressed like a fashionable version of a Haethfalt schoolgirl, the pleats of the brown skirt lying smooth against her legs, and the rough wool button-front sweater dyed a flattering shade of amber. She was irrationally pleased with what she’d conjured, and that was even worse than the unbidden act itself.

  “Forget about me, Jak.” A sudden calm came over her. “They’re here. They’ve come to collect me.”

  “Who?” Jak demanded. “Who’s here?”

  Geffn merely shook his head. “You’d better come.”

  Twenty-two: Reckoning

  The moundhold had gathered at the foot of the spiral stairs like defenders of a fortress at their last stand, staring up at Ra and Shiva on the threshold. No invitation to enter had been extended. Ra drew the dark, heavy cloak in which Shiva had clad her about her body, as Geffn brought Jak from the interior of the mound. Jak looked well, a confidence that had been missing restored. Perhaps there was—

  Ra made a high sound of surprise in her throat. Someone else had stepped into the firelight behind Jak, someone who couldn’t possibly be here. Someone with eyes like the soul of the wintry night sky itself.

  “So here you are.” The impossible vision addressed her coldly. “Queen Ra.” This was the voice of the one who’d sung MeerRa to his death, the face Ra had seen but once as the veil fell with him. The ground lunged beneath Ra’s feet.

  Shiva grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to stay upright. “This is part of what you must face,” she murmured sternly. “If you cannot face your own misdeeds, how can you call yourself Meer?”

  Ra pulled herself together, focusing on the warm amber light flickering over the inhabitants of the mound to center herself. It was like scrying in a field of candles to induce a trance before a blessing. Perhaps this was all nothing more than a Meeric vision, and Ahr might disappear in an instant.

  Oldman Rem spoke at last. “We’re los
ing heat. I suppose they should come in.”

  Shiva accepted his invitation as though it were graciously offered, the long tail of her black coat floating behind her like the train of a magnificent dress as she stepped inside, while Ra wiped her boots on the sisal mat, as Shiva hadn’t thought to do.

  Without hesitation, Shiva descended to the heart of the mound where the fire welcomed and sat in the largest of the overstuffed chairs, her arms on the cushioned armrests as though it were her throne. As Ra came down to stand beside her, Rem cleared his throat and nodded toward the kitchen, and the gathered mound went as a unit, no collective consciousness needed.

  “Jak na Fyn.” Shiva fixed her eyes on Jak, still standing in the corridor. “It is time to fulfill your part of our bargain. Come.”

  Jak stepped into the gathering room with obvious reluctance, and Ahr flanked Jak’s steps like a trained guard. “What bargain? I’ve made no bargain with you.”

  “Did you think what I gave you was for free? Am I worth so little?” Shiva shook her head in reproach. “Come. Sit.” As anyone would before such inarguable authority, Jak obeyed. “You snuck out of Rhyman under cover of dark. You and Ra behaved like children, dodging confrontation. This is no child’s game.”

  “No.” Jak’s lip twitched with anger. “It’s not. I’m surprised your kind can recognize that.”

  Ra was surprised at Jak’s temerity. Even she had never spoken to Shiva so freely.

  Shiva’s stone face was hewn into a dark smile that ought to have terrified a sane person. “Fierce Jak.” Despite the dangerous smile, she seemed to be regarding Jak with approval. “One can face anything when one has lived in hell. You and I know it.” She flicked her gaze to Ra. “One wonders if MeerRa can be so brave.”

  Ra raised her eyes to Jak’s, but Jak looked past her, focused on a point beside her as if to avoid any Meeric influence Ra might wish to extend. “Now, MeerShiva?” asked Ra. “Before…?” She couldn’t yet bring herself to say the name.

  Shiva lifted one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “If she chooses to stay.” The icy green gaze fell on Ahr. “Perhaps this is too much for the new one.”

  Beside Jak’s chair, Ahr crossed her arms primly. “I will hear what Ra has to say. This is all very interesting. Memory serves me sufficiently to know why she is accountable to Jak, but one would think Ra ought to be accountable to me.”

  Shiva sighed with annoyance. “The newly renaissanced are so self-centered.”

  Distracted from her purpose, Ra took an unconscious step closer, but Ahr took Jak’s hand on the arm of the chair as if to ward her off. “I—” What could one say to someone one had murdered? She knew what she must say to Jak, but to Ahr… The night-blue eyes accused her, and she wanted to fall at Ahr’s feet, to embrace those feet as the only part of Ahr she was worthy to touch, that she might feel her again. Those eyes—they had been her first touch of Ahr, nearly Meeric in their intensity. She could drown in their ocular ink.

  Ahr’s face remained impassive. “You seem to think there will be some kind of reconciling between us.” She crossed her fingers through Jak’s. “I want nothing to do with you. I am with Jak. You and I are finished.”

  Ra felt her heart dripping out of her like molten lead. She deserved nothing less, but this was Ahr, who’d said, “Forgive me, I love you,” even on the points of Ra’s deadly fingertips. This was the one she needed. She’d believed for a moment that her sin had been erased, that Ahr had come back to her, renaissanced as Ra had been by incendiary desire. This same Ahr had once looked into Ra’s idol soul and breathed life into the dull stone. She’d made the statue a man.

  The eyes that had worked this magic were unequivocal now. Ra had lost. It was worse than the finality of Ahr’s death. There was nothing left but to try to give Jak back something of what she’d taken. She relinquished her gaze from the lost Ahr and concentrated once more on what she’d come to do. Jak looked well beside Ahr. Justice had been served. Ra deserved neither of them.

  She met Jak’s unreadable eyes. “What happened at Soth AhlZel was my full responsibility. Madness was no excuse. To claim that I could never harm you was selfish of me, since it is clear that I could, and did. I have shamed us both.” She knelt before Jak and spoke quietly. “You trusted me with the most delicate part of yourself, and I tore it out and scored it with my obscene betrayal. I did to you worse than anyone in your life, save one.” Jak flinched at this and Ra fought the urge to comfort. “My crimes were inexcusable. I want to put right what I can—if anything can be. Tell me what you would have of me, and I will give it. Without conjury.”

  Jak’s grip on Ahr’s hand was so tight that both sets of fingers had lost all color. “I don’t want anything from you.”

  “But I must make reparation,” Ra insisted. “It’s not enough for me to tell you the shame was mine. My words were as much a violation as the crime they spoke of. I gladly made him suffer, but he can no longer be punished, and I must.”

  Jak began to shake with emotion, and Ahr glared at Ra, wrapping an arm around Jak fiercely in protection. “You’re ripping at Jak again. Go away. Go away or I’ll—I’ll crush your skull!”

  “Don’t, Ahr.” Jak’s voice quavered. “Don’t get involved in this.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words breathed out of Ra. Inadequate words. Impossible words. Her entire body hurt with the inability to reach Jak. “My words can’t be taken back, so I must offer you more to cover where they tore. If I could swallow every pain you endured and confer it on myself, I would do it, even if it left me forever mad. I would replace it with the knowledge of what you are that you can’t see: the strength, the beauty—the innocence that rises from you when I look at you. Don’t you know that you’re still that blameless child? She is all that you are. I love her. Tell me what she wants.”

  Jak made a sharp sound like a strangled cry. “I only wanted someone to protect me. You can’t do that.”

  “No,” Ra admitted, pained. Ahr was regarding her furiously, the one who’d resisted her to defend Jak when she was in the rage of madness; who held Jak now and assured Ra with her consuming eyes that she would once more carry out her expurgatory mission if Jak was harmed again. “But Ahr will. From now on, you will always have Ahr.” With dawning certainty, Ra recognized the inexplicable beating of Meersblood in Ahr’s heart. “She is the protector you didn’t have as a child. She loves you more than I do.” Ra rose and turned away, empty of offerings, but Shiva grabbed her wrist as she tried to leave.

  “You are not done.”

  Ra beseeched Shiva with her eyes. There was nothing else she could do. What more could Shiva ask of her? With a guilty pang, she reminded herself that nothing was enough.

  “On the contrary, MeerRa. It is enough.” Shiva answered her thought. “Now it is for Jak to take heed.”

  Shiva stood and prompted Ra forward, bringing her to stand before Jak. “I told you to stand fast.” She addressed these words to Jak. “But you have faltered in your patience with Ra, preventing her from making this offering of her penitence that you might hold on to your suffering, stealing away from Ludtaht Ra before she could muster the courage to do it.”

  Jak looked up, riveted by MeerShiva’s inarguable voice.

  Shiva held Ra by the shoulders. “Ra stood fast. She is equally passionate in her mistakes and in her remorse.” As she spoke, she lifted the cloak from Ra’s shoulders, and Ra clutched at it, trying to prevent Shiva from her course, but it was fruitless. By Shiva’s machinations, the clothes she’d provided for Ra before they’d set out had dissipated into the ether of Meeric will. As when she’d first come to this mound, a cloak was her only garment. The black folds came away, and Ra was exposed.

  The white marks Shiva had given her were visible at Ra’s throat and shoulders, but Jak had seen these before. Jak’s gaze shifted to the deeper marks across Ra’s stomach, hips, and thighs, and then stopped, accompanied b
y a gasp, at the ribbon of white that marked the more intimate strokes Shiva had inflicted upon her. Ra had never felt shame at her nudity before, but she felt it now—yet another facet of Shiva’s punishment. But it was nothing to the shame Jak had once borne.

  Jak threw an angry look at the other Meer. “What do you mean by this?”

  Shiva shook her head with a sigh. “Are you deliberately obtuse, Jak na Fyn? These are yours.” Her fingers traced over the deeper scars. “She didn’t move while I administered them. She asked me for more.”

  “Sooth.” Jak curled forward, whispering into white-knuckled hands, and at last looked up and met Ra’s eyes. “Meerrá.” With this imprecation, Jak leapt up, embracing Ra’s exposed and branded body. “Why did you do this, Ra? I never asked this of you.”

  Ra was afraid to feel the embrace. “I didn’t want you to see. I didn’t mean for you to see. I don’t want you coerced to forgive.”

  Jak stepped back, head shaking, wiping at tears. “You shouldn’t have had to show me. I’ve been a fool.”

  Behind Jak, Ahr stood holding her arms over her sweater as though in cold, the midnight eyes smoldering with rage and hatred. “I think we’ve all gotten the point.” Her tone was caustic. “Why don’t you put something on?”

  Ra crossed an arm self-consciously across her breasts. She looked for the cloak Shiva had taken from her, but Shiva didn’t offer it.

  “Dress yourself,” she said to Ra. “But use your tongue frugally from now on. Your words will come through me as vetma until you’ve proven yourself responsible.”

  Ra spoke tentatively. “The cocoa brown suit I left at Mound Ahr?” It was something she’d already expended energy in making. It merely needed calling forth. Shiva nodded, and the tight knit wrapped around Ra, her hair looping automatically into the braided knot down her back as she’d worn it with the garment before.

  The kitchen door opened as if someone had been watching and waiting for the opportune moment. Peta and Rem emerged into the gathering room, while the others hung back a moment as if they hadn’t all been taking refuge there together.