The Golden Sword

by Janet Morris

  At the end of the ceremony one of those miniature bladders was passed around, and when it came my turn, I found it to be uris, that drug of which I had had so much in the desert. I blocked the bladder’s mouth with my tongue, but even the small amount of bitter liquid produced immediate results. Colors brightened, and I stood suddenly on a high precipice overlooking myself amid the Nemarsi.

  From that vantage point I picked from among the tiasks two who looked likely, by the standards with which women judge each other. These I deep-read with shameless skill, and what I learned, I put to use upon them.

  To the first, whose name was Nineth, I gave that which had been Besha’s clothing, telling her that I could not use them, which was true, and that I thought her to be almost as tall, though much slimmer, which was not true, for she was easily as wide as Besha.

  To the second, Pijaes, I spoke in low tones of threx, and praised her skill, of which I had heard nothing, but seen in her mind and her carriage, and asked her advice about the number of contracts to take for Guanden at Frullo jer. Once given an opening, Pijaes extolled to me the virtues of particular threx bloodlines, until Chayin pulled me gently away to meet his couch-mate, the Nemarchan.

  I stood before Liuma reluctantly, for I had seen her, and it took no deep-reader to mark that though she carried Chayin’s announced child, her body and heart were Hael’s. Such situations always bring me discomfort. I wondered whether Chayin did not know, or knew and did not care. And, after the ways of a woman, I wondered whose child truly kicked and turned within that taut, dusky, firegem-encrusted belly.

  She held out her tiny hand to me, and I looked into her eyes deeper than sleep and calm beyond mortal composure.

  “Pre-sti, m’it tennit,” she said to me in the language of the north, perfect and without accent.

  “And you also,” I said, but in Parset, “feel free to approach me, at your leisure. What have you within?” I asked the polite question, the answer to which I already knew.

  “A son for the cahndor.” Her voice was velvet soft, but assertive.

  “What takes you into the hide?” I made conversation as Chayin left us together, alone in the crowd, and sought the dharener. Watching him, I again saw the night-dark hanging, with those blazing eyes that seemed to follow me.

  She turned her head also, to watch her couch-mate. “He is well today,” she commented. “It is not always so easy for him. Think you,” she demanded suddenly, “that you can succeed where we have failed?” Her black eyes had midnight ice in them. So deftly did she turn aside my question, I did not even notice.

  “I ... I do not know,” I stumbled. “He feels me kin to him through our struggles. He might be right. Can the bondrex, up to her knees in sucksand, help her brother, sunk in to the hips?”

  “Often, even among the bondrex, one is sent ahead to scout out the safer way, that the balance of the herd not be risked upon untried ground. I had thought perhaps you were such. We call them first-come, and I have myself predicted such a one’s arrival among us. Could it be that you, who match my vision, do not know yourself, nor the use to which we will put you? Did not He-whose-name-we-will-not-mention prepare His representative?”

  I tried, cautiously, to think of some answer that would not reveal me as less than the Nemarchan chose to make me, and yet pierce the veil within which she swaddled her words. Liuma made dextrous use of the forereader’s cloak, obscurity, and in the dark so engendered. It is easy to fall and hurt oneself.

  I was still trying, my eyes upon her serene smiling face, when the dharener came up behind her, and at his touch upon her shoulder, Liuma melted to him. Again I felt sorrow for Chayin, that such could occur even in his presence.

  “Chayin will begin your indoctrination. Stay close to him until I return. There is little time before Frullo jer, and you must be able to comport yourself in a tiask’s manner by then. When I am back from aniet, I myself will attend your schooling.” Liuma looked adoringly into Hael’s bearded face. I reminded myself of whose power he invoked to protect his people. How could he go from here, down into hide aniet, where the philosophy of the Weathers held sway, and feel no ambivalence?

  The cahndor at that moment appeared and steered me over to meet his jiasks.

  “You must greet them first,” Chayin explained, his lips close to my ear. I turned my head to answer him in kind, and saw Hael and Liuma just stepping out the door.

  “What shall I say?” I whispered.

  “It does not matter, but a tiask is accorded the privilege of first address among jiasks with whom she ranks equal or higher.”

  “You mean they cannot come up and talk to me at their inclination?” I asked incredulously.

  “You must go up and talk to them at your inclination,” Chayin explained gently.

  “I will find that very difficult. I would rather be sought. How does one avoid importuning upon their privacy?”

  He laughed. “I do not know. I am cahndor. I speak first to all, and it does not cause me embarrassment. You will get used to it.”

  We stood now before the ten highest among Nemarsi jiasks. They were dark, large men. The gristasha stamp of their ancestors and the Parset nictitating membranes were all that marked them apart from any Slayers of the north. Most wore only breech and weapons belts; some had lashes coiled diagonally around their chests.

  And I was introduced to them as Estri of Nemar only, as we had earlier agreed.

  They looked at me, expectant. None said a word.

  “Jiasks, Chayin has told me of the customs between jiask and tiask, and I have much to learn and much to live up to. I thank you all for confirming me.” I took from my face the tiask’s mask, though I knew this to be a sign of sexual availability among them.

  “There is one custom, however, that is so against my nature that I find myself constrained to alter it between us. As it is said in the towers among which I was raised, I will say it to you, and with like meaning. At any time, approach me,” and the men looked startled, but their smiles were truly warm and welcoming as they crowded around me. As we walked, the jiasks, Chayin, and I, to that room where I had earned my tiask’s chald, I could sense his approval, his relief that the jiasks, and to some extent the tiasks also, had accepted me. The Day-Keepers and forereaders had been cold and distant, but for Liuma. They were hesitant to accept other than aniet-born among them, although, as the dharener himself had explained to me, there was a precedent—the mother of both Hael and Chayin, the rendi woman the cahndor Inekte had brought into Nemar.

  “Chayin,” I said as we seated ourselves at one of the plank tables, “you once said to me that there appeared no solution for the problem between us. Things seem to have worked themselves out.” His face grew grim, then regained its former humor.

  “There is not, on the larger scale. We live in a pleasant interval, where fantasy, for a time, can give us succor before events strip our pretensions away. Let us enjoy it while we can,” he advised.

  The jiasks and tiasks settled themselves noisily about us, pushing together tables and benches, until Chayin and I sat at the middle of one great board. Upon my left sat the cahndor, and upon his left the tiasks, each of whom was commander, or tiaskchan, of three hundred. Upon my right was a jiaskcahn I recognized from our triumph over the Menetphers, and beside him another, who bore a fresh scar the length of his arm from the battle. The “chan” Silistran root word has been adopted almost unchanged into the Parset language; only in its division into male and female does it differ in usage from the north. Will of is a popular Parset concept.

  None sat opposite me or any other upon that long table, for friends in Nemar sit beside one another, never opposite.

  As the kitchen help brought great heaping trays of food to us, I looked in vain for signs of my confrontation with Besha, but not one drop of blood remained upon the seamless ornithalum floor.

  “How is Khemi, Chayin?” I broke the silence between us. Upon my right, the jiaskcahn heaped his plate.

  “Who?” C
hayin asked, as he served himself, and put upon my plate some greenish meat with a jellied skin and pungent odor. Upon few of the serving trays did I see food familiar to me.

  “What mean you, ‘Who?’” I was angered that he did not recall her, for she was his. “That crell of yours, that Besha pummeled senseless over the death of the red threx!”

  Chayin motioned a server to him, and that one ladled onto our plates black lumps in some viscous sauce.

  “There are thrice a thousand crells in Nemar North alone, not counting those who serve in the fire-gem mines or the uris fields or in maintenance in the west, south, and east. Should I concern myself with all of them, I would have time for nothing else.” He leaned forward and called down the table to his left. “Yisri, how many crells did Besha own?”

  The tiaskchan Yisri put down her two-pronged fork. “Around sixty, cahndor. I am not sure of the exact number,” she answered.

  “And how many of those are in Nemar North?” Chayin pursued the matter.

  “A score. Of that I am sure;” Yisri replied, puzzled.

  Chayin turned back to me. The tiask, after a moment, returned to her meal.

  “Have you seen to your own crells? Name them for me, and give me a report on their health and well-being.”

  “That is unfair!” I protested. But he had made his point. I had been too busy even to ask after Aje, whom I knew was badly injured. I resolved then to do what I could for those crells who were mine. And there was the matter of Carth.

  “And Carth, who wore the arrar! Is ignorance your excuse for mistreating an agent of the dharen?”

  Chayin sighed and put down his fork. The muscles in his jaw twitched.

  “These things are not table conversation,” he reprimanded me, his eyes narrowed, voice low. “I knew it not. But Hael knew, and did as he saw fit. The dharener receives all crell chalds. We will speak of this later. Attend Our brothers and sisters, and make friends among them. That is why I have called them together.” He rapped my stra plate with his fork. “Eat your food,” he commanded.

  “Thou art my will,” I mocked him, and turned my attention to my plate, as an approving cheer from the jiaskcahns greeted the arrival of servers with pitchers, and a purple, frothing beverage was poured into our bowls.

  I pointed to the green meat upon my plate, nestled between the black lumps and some yellow vegetable in red sauce. “What is that?” I asked, “And this, and this?”

  “Tail of apth, a great delicacy. And the black are unborn eggs of kelt. And the yellow the fruit of the succulent which produces uris.”

  “I am really not hungry.” I pushed my plate away.

  Chayin grinned and repositioned the plate before me. “Eat!” he repeated.

  I tasted the yellow chunks. They were spicy, not unlike sour name. Gaining courage, I nibbled the green apth meat, which I found quite tasty, once one got over the source. The eggs of kelt, a smaller relative of the golachit, I could not bring myself to try. But the cahndor was satisfied. The purple beverage was invigorating, and possessed of a tingly tartness. I drank it down, and a clean-scrubbed, deferential crell scurried to refill my bowl.

  The jiaskcahns had long been at this refilling of their bowls, and their mood was much lightened. The man upon my right was telling in a loud voice an exaggerated account of my prowess as it had been shown to him in our skirmish upon the desert, and in a very proprietary manner. He put his arm around me and pounded me upon the back, and another who had been there took up his tale. I did not mind, but thanked whatever unconscious grace I possess that predisposes men toward my favor.

  I judged it to be late day when Chayin pushed back from his place and rose and stretched mightily. Long ago had cloaks been discarded, and formal headgear and weapons joined them upon the floor. Some wagering had been made as to which threx among the active sires was most well-endowed, and a number of those present prepared to adjourn to the stables to find out.

  Chayin demurred when enjoined to accompany them, and he and I took up our raiment from the floor and walked a different way through the halls until we entered through a well-concealed door in a shadowed alcove into Chayin’s chamber.

  He slid the bolt and rearranged the ruby-toned tapestry that secreted this entrance from view. “If you ever need to come to me unobserved, you now know the way,” he remarked, stripping off all his trappings but breech, and leaving them upon the floor. I threw upon the pile my elaborate weapons belt and the feathered cloak. There was a soft rustling, and I turned to see the two silken crells hovering silent behind us, gleaming in the torchlight. The room was dim, though it was still day, for heavy web-cloth draperies had been drawn across the eight windows.

  Chayin commanded them to withdraw, and one of them raised pleading eyes to him. I did not understand the dismay I saw in their faces as they searched among the cushions for their flimsy robes. Chayin touched my shoulder and went to them, where they hesitated by the double carved doors. He spoke in low tones and kissed them each atop their harth-black heads, the highest of which only came up to his shoulder.

  I recognized then with a pang of empathy that piteous dependence upon a man’s will that brought them one moment to the abyss of misery and the next to the precipice of joy. Those two crells were deep in love with their cahndor. Chayin slid three bolts upon the door behind them. When he turned to me, his face was distracted. He had hardly seen them. I had been in their place, one time, with a certain man, when a touch brought me to grateful tears. I shrugged the memory away. Not again would that happen to me. Chayin smiled. I was not amused. I flopped down upon a heap of sunset cushions and stretched full out on my side, my clean fragrant hair falling loose about me. The silk I wore against my flesh was memory of countless times I had worn silk and given pleasure before. Yet this was different. I found a struggle within: I was not so sure of myself as I had been, or my place or purpose. I did not want to play any game at all with Chayin rendi Inekte, no lovers’ games, no women’s game of submission and manipulation.

  He came and lay close, his hand upon the silk at my turned hip, but his eyes were turned inward. He, too, felt the tension between us, that impropriety of the time that made my body cold to his touch, though he was a fine and handsome man and I had even then a great respect for him.

  “Chayin,” I said softly, “if you were to tell me that which you feel I do not know, that which so concerns us both, it might help. It will be a long and painful time until I guess the right questions. I am no forereader.”

  His eyes had anguish in them, and his voice was shaky. I could see the sweat beading upon his forehead. He sighed and rolled to his back, staring at the ceiling.

  “If one sees a thing, one may think several ways about it: that it is true, that it is the product of one’s fears, that it is the dream of one’s heart. That is what I have been taught. You bring another way. I see you changing what would have been otherwise with your will, and I see that you cannot always control it, and are perhaps at some times unaware. The sort was for you to fight Besha beyond the web-weavers’ apprei, but you did not choose to do so. When I first took you, I did other than what was natural for me, and I have a sense now that you drafted me into your service. I have from this determined that I myself have upon occasion brought my own fears into the time, as I have long suspected.”

  I said nothing, waiting.

  “If one may bring a thing into time by will, then surely it is imprudent to speak of what might be, even when it is what one sees as truth. I do not desire that which I see. Therefore, it would be wise upon my part to try to conceive another ending to this affair, rather than give support to what I fear.”

  “Some of what you say may be true, but one must first determine all the available probabilities, then choose between them. You cannot bring your choice into being if it is not among the time tracks. There is never only one way a thing may occur, but we both know there is crux, and within crux, what occurs is fixed. One cannot take responsibility for more than one’s personal behavi
or. We must trust that we sort and act in the best possible fashion when we work from the law Within.” I crawled to him and put my head upon his shoulder and stared into the forest of curling hairs upon his chest. He still wore the uritheria medallion on its thick-linked gold chain. “Tell me what bothers you, and I will turn my small skill toward it.”

  “Many things bother me, little one. Nemar is no simple land, and that which ails my mind is nothing that can be helped.”

  “I am not so sure,” I said.

  “Sereth will surely kill you,” he said simply, “And you hasten with loving eyes toward your death. I cannot sit and pretend I do not know it, because it serves me to have you, unaware, do my will until I hand you to him, as Hael would have me do. Sereth is no longer the man you knew. He is an outlaw with a fierce band around him, and the people of Yardum-Or call him the Ebvrasea and fear him. It is said his men will have no women among them, and that to no living thing do they give quarter.”

  “Sereth would never hurt me. All you have is gossip. Have no fear for me at his hands.” I almost laughed when I said it.

  “I know it from his own mouth, for I met him when I was on the plains of Yardum-Or, and under circumstances which left me owing him a blood debt. For that I gave him asylum from those who hounded him, and the whole of Mount Opir as his own. Do not tell me of his feelings—I know them.” He turned his face into my hair. “I must present you to him, else violate the spirit of the bond between us. And yet I have feelings for you that I thought never to have for a woman.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Yet I see losing you wherever I look. I cannot have you near me without memory of the pain I will come to feel at your loss. This once I wish my foresight would fail me.” And he pulled me close and held me tight. “All that time, since I saw you and saw what would be between us, I have tried to shut it out, that I not feel this pain. It grew as I foresaw it, this caring, though I have denied myself your use. I would no longer go without it.”