by Jane Kindred
He was unable to deny it. “Midtlif,” he murmured. “I don’t want to hear another word about you not measuring up against the touch of a Meer. Ra and I are incomplete without you.”
Thirty-three: Singularity
Dawn rose with the typical dull Haethfalt winter gray. Scuttling out of bed and into his slippers, Rem took his robe from the back of the well-worn door. The mound was in good shape, but it was aging, and nowhere was it more apparent than in this first room where he and Peta had begun. Here Peta na Caetn ne Rem had brought forth his firstborn, Pim, who had been their pride. Here the three of them had shared the humble fruit of Rem’s youthful husbandry, and the mound had increased from one room to two, and then with prosperity to three: a room for friends to gather and feasts to be prepared.
Here Pim had died, Mound RemPetaPim once more Mound RemPeta; a fall from a horse had snapped his spinal cord in two. Rem had set the horses loose after that and refused to own more.
Here also Peta had brought forth unexpected Geffn, a fine son who was a comfort to them in their waning years. And here Jak had played as a child, like a second son to them—even then, never true to her sex. Rem shook his head at the knowledge of the fool thing he and Peta had shamefully allowed. They’d paid for it. Everyone had. Fyn had asked Pim not to acknowledge his child. She would honor her betrothal to Kol. Rem had suspected that one of a violent streak, and he regretted now that he’d not insisted Fyn take refuge as a daughter to their moundhold.
Jak’s relationship with Geffn had come as a complete and terrible surprise. They should have stopped it, but Peta’s good heart was soft, and when hotheaded and determined Jak had challenged them with declarations of the intimacy already shared with Geffn, they’d been quietly resigned. It was a blood tie once removed, a questionable transgression, and they couldn’t bear to hurt them with knowledge that was unnecessary. Unbeknownst to Geffn or Jak, Rem and Peta had allowed the marriage of their granddaughter to her uncle.
Rem cleared his throat as he prepared a morning pipe. No more unnatural acts would go on beneath his roof. The pair who’d displaced Keiren and Mell had thrashed and banged about their room at all hours, as though the place were a Mole Downs tavern—with a brothel included. Those creatures were leaving today, and now, if he had anything to say about it.
Peta was slowly rising out of bed. Her rheumatism hadn’t been kind during this unpleasant weather. “A light in the sky,” she said as she put her arm around him and watched the tiny break in the curtain of snow at the window’s top. “We’ve come to morning after all.”
He grunted against the comfortable habit of the pipe against his lips, then let it drop for a moment, the bowl in his hand. “And I’m tossing them all out. Gods or not, they’re getting the boot. If they kill us all, at least we’ll die as a moundhold.”
They went out to bring the mound to life, Peta to her kitchen and Rem to the gathering room of which he was humbly proud. Their adopted kin were rousing on the cold carpet. He frowned, unhappy with their sacrifice to that inhuman creature. He turned toward the corridor, determined not to waste a moment more on tolerance, and took a step toward the den that belonged to Keiren and Mell, but stopped short at the sudden vise grip against his arm. He hadn’t noticed the visitor seated at the border of the room before MeerHraethe had risen swiftly from his seat and taken hold of him.
“What do you mean by this?” Rem protested, unable to resist the fiend.
“I don’t like your intentions.” Hraethe’s eyes darkened with warning.
“My intentions are to see you to the door.”
The Meer released his arm so abruptly that Rem nearly stumbled with the effort he’d been exerting against the grip. “I believe I can find it myself.”
Steadying himself against the finial of the post at the base of the stairs where it extended into the corridor, Rem cleared his throat. “Your welcome has been worn, and you’ll go while the sky is clear.”
“As was our intention. But you’ll not disturb my lady. Step away from the door.”
Before Rem had an opportunity to challenge this opposition, the door in question opened. Shiva stood before him, hair the deep red of opium poppies spilling over stark, white skin. Her imposing form was bare from top to bottom, her nakedness something to shame him instead of herself.
“Ungracious hosts to the end. You could have simply asked us to go.” She murmured something in the diabolical language of the Delta. Black threads began to weave about her legs, and her nudity was neatly consumed by the utilitarian garments in which she’d arrived, complete with a heavy woolen frock coat that hung to the floor. When the statuesque Meer stepped past him to Jak’s closed door and opened it, Rem frowned with displeasure. Ra and Ahr lay curled together in Jak’s bed—and Jak was tangled with them.
Jak’s vagaries had played havoc with the moundhold since Geffn and Jak had married—this strangeness with refusing to identify with a gender; the rejection of Geffn, which despite secretly being a relief to both himself and Peta had caused misery in the moundhold; the period of drunkenness and fights, when Rem had feared Jak would follow in Pim’s footsteps after all; the consequent indiscretion with Mell—but this time, Jak had gone too far.
As Rem moved toward the open door, a dark head lifted from the ball of arms and legs, and Rem dropped his pipe in surprise. Ra had worked some Meeric sorcery and was no longer a woman. This one too muttered words of incantation and rose from the bed prepared for travel in navy pants of wool and a narrower woolen navy coat that brushed his thighs, double-breasted, with clasps that were undoubtedly the gold they appeared to be.
Rem had seen enough. “Out!” He charged forward to drag Ra from the room, but was stopped by Hraethe’s hand with a thud against his chest.
“You’ll not disturb my liege either.” Hraethe pulled the door shut.
Jak scrambled from the bed, yanking on the nearest clothing, and leaned in to give Ahr a reassuring kiss as she began to extricate herself from the tangled sheets. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him.” Ra had taken the lilac scarf from the wardrobe and was tying it around his neck, and Jak pressed his arm on the way to the door. “Please. Just wait.”
In the corridor, Rem stood clutching his pipe, his face set like iron, as Jak stepped out. “Oldman, listen—”
“No, Jak. This time, you’ll listen. “Rem jabbed the pipe in the air between them for emphasis. “You’re family to us. But I can’t tolerate the rest of them any longer. Nor can I tolerate your behavior. You’ve pushed us too far this time. They’re all going, your friend Ahr included.”
Before Jak could respond, Ra stepped out of the room, buttoning the clasps on his coat.
“Wait a minute. No.” Jak held up a hand toward Ra as if to stop him. “No one is throwing anyone out.” Seeing Ahr already dressed, Jak put another hand up, palms out flat in both directions, distressed at the sudden abandonment ensuing.
The noise had drawn Geffn from his room, with Sevine peering through the crack of the door, while Keiren and Mell rose sleepily from their makeshift bed at the hearth, and Peta hovered at the arch of the kitchen. It was a complete moundhold gathering.
“Don’t cross me, Jak,” Rem warned. “I’m liable to say something I don’t want to.”
“What, Oldman?” Jak challenged him. “What have I done to you?”
“You draw this sort of oddity to you.” He folded his arms. “You’re unnatural.”
“Rem.” Peta came forward, putting a cautioning hand on his arm, but Rem ignored her.
Jak tried to keep cool. “We’ve deliberated this argument to death. I have a right to my choices.”
“Your choices.” Rem made a dismissive gesture with the pipe. “Your choices all seem to lead to aberration. You bring these creatures here and foist them on us, unnatural beings.” He cast a look of mistrust toward Ra. “Your affections have always been unnatural.”
Peta�
��s face went white. “Hush, Rem. We promised not to speak of it.”
“It’s time to say something.” Rem frowned at Jak. “It’s down to your father.”
The stone floor reeled. Jak took a horrified step back. Geffn had told them. He’d exposed Jak’s shame before the entire moundhold. Destroyed that he would do this, Jak threw him a look of betrayal, but Geffn shook his head, his expression baffled.
“It’s our fault,” said Rem. “We kept quiet. We let it go on.”
Jak’s stomach twisted. “You what?”
Peta shook her head at him, but Rem cleared his throat. “We let you marry your uncle. And that was the start of it all.”
Geffn gaped at his father. “What in sooth are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?”
But a light had gone on in Jak’s head. A beautiful, glorious light. “Pim?” Jak looked from Rem to Peta. “Pim and Fyn?” They didn’t deny it, and Jak began to laugh, tears of shocked relief flowing amid the laughter. Rem scowled at the unexpected reaction. Jak tried to be serious, but it was no use. Kol was nothing to Jak, had never been. Jak shared no part of his despicable blood. Jak could have grabbed Rem by the hands and twirled him about in a dance.
Startling Rem into dropping his pipe from his mouth, Jak kissed him instead on the wizened cheek with arms thrown around him in a tight embrace. “I love you, Oldman. I’m sorry I married my uncle.” Jak burst out laughing once more at the look on Geffn’s face behind him. “No, really, I am. But I love you all.”
Rem stepped back stiffly as Jak let go of him. “This is hardly amusing.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I can’t explain. But you have no idea how happy I am to be your granddaughter.” Jak brushed at the tears and tried to look soberly at Geffn, but he’d finally been struck by the absurdity of their predicament, and he threw his arms around Jak with a strangled guffaw that started Jak up again.
“I fail to see what’s so funny,” Rem insisted, making Geffn laugh harder, turning red in the face, unable to breathe in characteristic silent mirth.
“It’s the past.” Peta squeezed her husband’s arm. “Let it go, Rem. Things have been remedied.” She enveloped Jak in a motherly embrace, giving Jak a comforting pat against the sleep-tousled hair when she pulled away, still holding Jak’s hand. “We should have told you, Jak. The truth is, we were ashamed of Pim. He never took responsibility for anything in his life. He was a drunk, and he killed himself trying to take out one of the horses when he was in his cups.”
Jak was amazed at the confession. Pim had always been held up as the son who could do no wrong, nearly deified. Geffn had complained to Jak his whole life of feeling he’d grown up in his dead brother’s shadow.
Peta acknowledged the contradiction with a shrug. “He blamed us for not convincing Fyn to break it off with Kol, said Kol had stolen Fyn and you from him. Of course you don’t remember. You were so small. Geffn was just a baby at the time.”
Rem grunted around his pipe. “Jak doesn’t need to hear this old story.”
For once, Peta opposed him. “I think Jak would like to know.” Peta gave Jak’s hand a squeeze. “Pim took after Kol and Fyn with a knife one day, and took you from their mound. Stole one of the horses and tried to run away with you to who-knows-where. I don’t think he meant to hurt you. But when Kol found the two of you the next day, camped in the woods beyond the Downs, he said Pim attacked him and tried to kill him. When Pim couldn’t get his way, he took off on that horse and got himself killed, and if it hadn’t been for Kol, he’d have taken you with him.”
Jak was sober now. The dream of riding away with the white-robed Caeophes from the fairy tale—the mage who’d stolen the village children from their unkind parents—it hadn’t been a dream at all. Pim had tried to protect Jak from Kol. He’d known somehow. “Never let him see your sex.” The words Jak had thought were a dream, the words of a mage—they were Pim’s last words to Jak. It was ‘him’, not ‘them’, as Jak had remembered it. It wasn’t the mystical wisdom of the seer speaking of sex as gender. Pim had been warning Jak about Kol.
Shiva had removed herself from this drama and mounted the stairs to the ground above, with Hraethe behind her—and Ra was following.
Jak let go of Peta and turned toward them. “Wait. Wait!”
Geffn put a hand on Jak’s shoulder in reassurance. “It’ll take an hour just to clear the snow.”
But Shiva proved him wrong, swinging the door open and admitting a flood of steaming water. It poured over their feet and down the stairs, and Rem cursed as it flowed across his carefully polished floor.
Ahr stepped up from behind and put her hand on Jak’s shoulder. She was dressed for the elements as they were. She was leaving. She was one of them, and she was going, and Jak was being left behind.
But before Jak could say anything to stop her, she took Jak’s hand and moved toward the stairs. “Come, midtlif. Time to go.” Jak gaped at her, and Ahr paused and took Jak’s collar, turning it up. “Something warmer,” she mused. “Like mine.” Jak’s rumpled pants and mismatched buttons transformed into a snug outfit of steel gray, covered by a warm black coat, complete with heavy boots over Jak’s favorite woolen socks. “Say good-bye to them, Jak. You’re not one of them anymore.”
“But I am,” Jak protested. “I’m not Meer.”
“No, you’re not Meer. But you’re not ordinary.” Ahr smiled, the deep blue eye vibrant in the light from the door. “You’re ours.”
Jak’s head was still shaking, but Geffn stepped in and enclosed Jak in his arms. “I love you, Marsh Willow. Be well.”
Jak made a feeble attempt to resist his hug. “But I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are.”
Mell and Keiren were next to hug Jak good-bye while Jak submitted, bemused. Even Sevine came forward and gave Jak a shy kiss of parting on the cheek before Ahr took Jak’s gloved hand firmly in hers and headed up to the surface.
Jak paused at the top of the stairs, looking back at the mound that had offered family, warmth and comfort for as long as Jak could remember. “I’ll see you again.”
They nodded, collective.
It was early yet and the world was almost silver. The hard-packed snow didn’t yield beneath their feet—or perhaps it had been turned into marble by the Meer—as they walked in the direction of the distant Delta without speaking, lost in their own musings. The world was quiet, and it seemed a shame to fracture the silence.
Ra and Ahr were at Jak’s sides, Jak’s ordinary appearance and genderless presentation like a neutral palette between them—or a mirror reflecting each back to the other. Jak might have worried that the intensity of their passion for each other and their shared history would eclipse what Jak shared with each of them, but somehow, Jak seemed to provide them with a balance they desperately needed. Jak was their line of symmetry.
Fate and magic had conspired to seduce Jak after all, and Jak happily surrendered, no longer afraid of being consumed or possessed by the chaotic irrationality of love. Jak gave a silent hat tip once again to the Hidden Folk, as was the custom when passing through highland mound country. Mostly, it was done ironically. But they’d turned out to be real, and magic was real, and Jak wasn’t taking any chances.
Ahead of them on the drift, MeerShiva was a splendid winter tree, black-trunked and crimson-leafed, and MeerHraethe, having fallen into step behind them, not quite willing to give up the role of Ra’s faithful servant, was a golden sun, despite the somber black garments he still favored.
Jak was surrounded by Meer. Except for Pearl, these four were all there were, the survivors of the expurgated, and each had spun off Shiva in their way as though she were the center of a dark universe that couldn’t be contained.
It was how some believed life had begun, sparks flying off the hub of the soul, so great that it couldn’t remain one, spinning out pieces of itself that would forever reach in a g
alactic spiral for their severed parts. They were all Meer and linked in an entangled web of desire and devotion—all but Jak, who was, despite Ahr’s words, merely ordinary. These two beside Jak would abide for centuries, and Jak was already winding down toward the swift descent of age. How long would their need for Jak remain? When would they begin to slip away in the blitheness of their permanent youth as Jak drew ever closer to mortality? Whatever time there was left, Jak didn’t intend to waste a day of it.
Shiva stopped on the embankment overlooking the frozen arm of the Filial, turning to survey the snow-covered heath stretching out before them in the sun-blurred haze, hands on her hips, as though everything within her gaze belonged to her. It had, once. Soth AhlZel’s influence in its heyday had encompassed all the lands between here and the desert in the east, and to the north toward the Great Northern Lake, and even the sparse settlements of the southern swamps.
To her left lay the warm promise of the temperate Delta, to her right the seductive menace of Winter, Munt Zelfaal rising out of the tumbled banks of snow. Black, and white, and sharp—like Ra. Shiva observed him with dispassion. He had cut her as surely as a Meerhunter’s knife.
AhlZel’s resurrection, done in madness though it was, pulled her toward the west. She’d forgotten, until she’d visited with Ahr’s ashes, so many of the little details Ra had faithfully recreated. And at AhlZel, it would be easier to keep an eye out for any stirrings of the Permanence. She’d resealed the portal Pearl had opened, but they would try again. And Shiva had no intention of allowing them to play their games with the lives of the ordinary or the lives of the Meer.
Ra had paused when her gaze rested on him, and he separated from his little triumvirate to approach her on the bank. “MeerShiva.” He bowed on one knee. “I am yours. Always. If you wish it, I will return to my previous form, regardless of the danger—”
She stopped him with a hand on his head. “Rise as Meer.” Shiva gave his cheek a cool, ceremonial kiss as he did so. “You know as well as I it is no simple matter, as you told your lovers. No, MeerRa. You must take the road you have charted for yourself.” Shiva lifted his chin with her fingertips. “But when your road is finished, perhaps the one who gave me comfort will return.”