by Janet Morris
“Then let us do as you said, and enjoy this pleasant interval.”
His touch upon me proved the truth of his words, and I was caught in the tide of his intense emotion, for I opened my mind to his. When at last we were both exhausted, I got up from beside him and opened the draperies, that the night sky might shine in upon him. My mouth and, it seemed, even my stomach tingled long after from the taste of him, so potent was his gift to me.
“It is said here,” he murmured to me when I again lay in his arms, “that a Nemarsi takes his duty with a tiask, his lust with a crell, and his love with his brother. We seem to be the exception that proves the rule. Would you be Nemarchan beside me?” His tone had no hint of the veil about it. The couching seemed to have stabilized him.
“But you have a Nemarchan. Can there be more than one?” I asked, playful.
“There could be, one who was in truth what Liuma is in name,” he said.
“But she bears your child,” I pointed out.
“Perhaps, and perhaps Hael’s or Tar-Kesa’s, for all I know. She is little more than Hael’s eyes and ears, though she fancies herself a strong influence upon me.” I could feel his body stiffen with this truth, and its strain upon him.
“One cannot couch a forereader without couching also the Day-Keepers she represents.” Bitter was Chayin about the restraints Hael held upon him. “I think she would be relieved, should I put her burden upon another. And there is no way they could stop me. My father did the same, displaced another for my mother. And surely you are, whatever your protestations, as much of a fore-reader as any of them.”
I thought about this, silent, about all the reasons I could not do this thing.
“Chayin,” I said softly, “let us take some time together, a short-term couch-bond, if you will, and see what the Weathers bring us. You know nothing about me. I can truly say that I have never cared more for a mortal man. There would have to be great change in Nemar for me to reconcile this life with the law that resides within me. And I have certain things that I must do. If I live through the latter, we can come to terms with the former.” I sighed, knowing this to be the time.
“Your god Tar-Kesa and I are not upon the best of terms. I serve another, whose power is even greater and whose demands are heavy upon me. I think you and I must consider what we are allowed to do, rather than what we choose to do. Make no mistake: if such a thing could be, I would be most blessed of women.” And I kissed his throat, running my tongue in the dark hollow there.
“The chosen of Tar-Kesa is himself a god,” he reminded me, his voice dark as his skin.
“Then my tasks should be greatly lightened by your aid; and by your will, success must surely come to me. Only until the new moon let us keep this couch-bond, and if at that time you still want me, provided we both live, I will be your Nemarchan, if you will meet certain conditions which the time between now and then will doubtless make clear to you.”
And seeing that I would not be dissuaded from this, Chayin agreed to let Liuma continue as his Nemarchan until that time, and more that I asked of him. He would return to me my Astrian chald that Hael now held, and the helsar also. When I explained that Hael’s use of the helsar caused me pain, he became agitated, demanding to know why I had not told him before, and it came to light in that conversation that Hael was meeting with the other four dhareners of the Parset Lands to try to get some unified policy for dealing with the Bipedal Federate M’ksakkans, who had approached each tribe separately with certain proposals. An uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I guessed aloud what those proposals were: bases in the south and direct access to the drugs grown here, those drugs catalytic to the serums that are our only restraint upon the M’ksakkans, for they have not succeeded in synthesizing them.
As Chayin so aptly pointed out, if the Menetphers had hovers and star weapons, it would behoove the Nemarsi to treat for them also.
I expressed my disapproval of the scheme, and aired some considered opinions I had gathered from close and continued contact with the B. F. representatives, the Liaisons, in the north. I put it to Chayin that only disorder could result from treating with these materially fixated beings, and he promised me, in return for certain information, that I might sit in on the final negotiations, to be held at Frullo jer, where all the Parset lords would be gathered. Furthermore, he promised me that he would under no circumstances treat with M’ksakka, and that he would convince Aknet of Menetph to refrain also. If the two most powerful of the Parset nations did this, he was sure that the others would follow their lead.
“At some time,” I had said, “I must return to Astria, and take up again my duties there. I would like to send a message to my uncle, adviser Rathad, that I am well and safe, and that I will be home when this business with Sereth has finished.”
“I thought you knew, surely, for you did not ask me to return you,” he had said incredulously, propping himself upon his elbow to stare down into my face.
“Knew what?” I asked him, my lips suddenly stiff and cold. And in a way I had known, for among the probabilities of my sorting had been none concerned with my beloved Astria; no way home.
“Knew,” he said, hesitant, “that Rathad lives no longer, that Jana, who was Well-Keepress there, has long since disappeared, none knowing whither, and that Celendra bast Aknet rules in Astria.”
And I have never been gladder for a man’s arms than at that moment, when so many things became clear to me, and the pieces all fell together, and I saw with the clairty of true seeing what awaited me upon the plain of Astria.
And glad I was too that he would make me his, for of a sudden I was homeless, without family but for Estrazi. Had Chayin again asked me, while I wept and he held me, to become Nemarchan of the Nemarsi, I would have accepted. But he is a righteous man, and he did nothing but what was needed. He held me throughout the long Nemarsi night.
In the morning, upon awaking, I remembered and took refuge; I couched him upon my own initiative, and drove away once again that feeling of aloneness within me.
I thought that day, as we rode the threx around the perimeters of Nemar North, of Rathad. Chayin knew only that he was dead, not how. My mother’s brother had been all family to me.
We rode also to see the child of Besha’s, who was now my responsibility, for as the Weathers would have it, I now wore around my waist the strand of birthing fulfilled. The boy was near adult, and a web-weaver, as had been Besha’s father, Tenager the First Weaver. The youth was not noticeably disturbed; it seemed he hardly even noticed us. The whole time we were there his webber was busy upon the frame and his eyes were elsewhere focused. Tenager, on the other hand, was visibly grief-stricken, and Chayin sat talking to him well over an enth.
As we left the weavers’ appreis I mentioned to Chayin a dream I had had, in which I stood in the middle of a seven-cornered room. He interrupted me there and described to me exactly what I had been about to describe to him—the seven occupants of the room and the aspect that each presented. He was as excited as I that another had seen what had been to each dreamer so real, and we set about speculating upon the identity of the seven men and the meaning of the dream, but we came to no supportable conclusions.
That night we spent in his keep, and the next day, I viewed all that had been Besha’s—each crell, each threx, the appreis, and the palace quarters. Her most amazing possession was a great apprei upon the Way of Tar-Kesa, for which Tenager himself had created the web panels. There was more wealth than I found seemly, and more material things about which to be concerned than I liked. I gave all to Chayin but one apprei, the threx, and crells, and bade him distribute it. I kept the threx upon impulse, and the crells because I felt responsible for their welfare. When we returned to Chayin’s keep that night, a Day-Keeper awaited him with the news that Hael would be late in hide aniet. He bade us await him; that we delay our departure to Frullo jer until his return to Nemar.
Chayin dismissed the man without a word and slammed about the keep, kicking unwa
ry cushions out of his way. He stripped off his sword belt and threw the exquisitely crafted weapon against the far wall. Finally he sat, hands clasped behind his neck, staring at the floor.
“What means this?” he whispered, when I went behind him to knead the knots from his shoulders. I had for him no answer.
“Curse them! Curse them all, the forereaders and the Day-Keepers and Tar-Kesa and the Weathers! I am so tired of suiting my actions to their will! Someday I will throw every manipulative one of them into a pit of hungry apths! This secretiveness is more than I can bear. The two of them, loose among their kind; who knows what harm they will hatch up!” He trembled with rage.
“I have often thought, these last few days, we might be better off without them,” I commiserated. There was one particular Arletian forereader whom I would have liked to add to Chayin’s candidates for the apth pit.
“Do you really have one?” I asked him at last.
“One what?”
“An apth pit.”
“Surely, although they are old and lazy,” he answered. “It takes them days to fully devour their victims. Would you like to see them?”
“No.” I shuddered.
He turned and faced me, reaching up to pull me to my knees by the hair.
“We leave for Frullo jer before morning. I want you to wear this. It will keep the jiasks from you, even if you are maskless. And you will be safe even from other tiasks.” He grinned, and took the golden uritheria medallion from about his neck and placed it about mine. It lay cold and heavy between my breasts. A superstitious chill ran through me.
“I would not take this, it is too great an honor.” I could not say I would not have Tar-Kesa’s sign upon me.
“You must.” His smile was proud and gentle. “I command it.” And for his sake I agreed. Then he went and rummaged behind his hangings, and a great pile of Parset gear began to grow beside him. He threw toward me the Shaper’s cloak.
“You might as well wear it, and these also.” And to the cloak he added a gol-knife in red-gold sheath and a stra straight blade, such as is used in the north, with a hulion’s head carved into its archite hilt.
He strode to the double doors and passed through them, and I heard a great chiming. Chayin returned to his pile and dressed himself from it until there was nothing left of the pile and he stood armed and ready for the desert in brown web-cloth cloak and breech and untrapped leathers. I had seen him strap all manner of weapons about him, from tiniest sticker to razor-moons and gol-knives, but this armament was so cleverly hidden that one saw only a gol-knife at hip and short sword beside it.
He grinned through narrowed eyes at me, silently staring. I picked up the Shaper’s cloak and put it over my arm, and threaded the gol-knife through the sword belt before I belted the familiar northern straight blade about me, just below my Nemarsi chald.
There was a clatter in the hall, and another, and two jiasks burst through the double doors and skidded to a halt before their cahndor. Before Chayin could even turn to face them, two more followed. These two were noticeably winded, and both familiar to me from my confirmation.
“I leave for Frullo jer within the enth,” Chayin told them. “Wiraal, it is on you to get the remaining threxmen there safely.” Wiraal nodded.
“Yimon, Nemar North is in your hands,” he said to the second, and that one bowed his head.
“Asi, prepare Saer and Guanden, with a light hand. Send all I would have carried with Wiraal. Just see it is not forgotten, for I will need it, first first of Amarsa. And send to fetch desert gear for Estri. Those things I ordered are surely ready.” And the jiask Asi backed hurriedly from the room, without protestation as to the lateness of the hour.
Chayin turned to the fourth, a heavyset, grizzled veteran whose age I found it impossible to judge. He wore his scowl of disapproval as might another his weapon.
“Isre, I—”
The older jiask did not let his chandor finish, but broke right in. “You are not going again into the desert without me, Chayin! That last was my only folly. If anything had happened to you, your father’s spirit would surely—”
“It is time, Isre,” Chayin interrupted in kind, his hand raised palm up to the jiask. “That the father’s son be left on his own. I have my own spirit to temper in the caldron of time. You cannot do it for me. I must leave more than one man whose love is unquestioned in Nemar North.”
“I will not stay here,” said the jiask, crossing gnarled arms thick as thala saplings across his breasts.
“You will, for I shall not return with the others from Frullo jer, but continue on to Mount Opir. Would you leave Yimon to stand for Nemar against Hael upon his own? Surely your responsibility to the jiasks outweighs all else that might be balanced against it.”
The jiaskcahn Isre had that look of a man who only sees the trap when it has closed upon his ankle.
Chayin made a sign, and the three bowed down, and the cahndor, in his capacity as living god, blessed them and their endeavors in his name. He then bade them rise and leave us, which they did, as a fitterwoman with sleep still in her eyes stumbled through the double doors with the weapon-master. Both of them carried armfuls of their craft before them, the little fitterwoman such a load it was a wonder she could see around it.
At my feet they dropped enough to garb a yra of tiasks, rather than one.
From this assortment I soon found myself dressed a double to the cahndor, concealed weapons included, even down to the razor-moons in my thigh-high boots. My cloak, it was decided, was weapon enough without the wires and stickers Chayin’s contained, but still they insisted upon slipping the Shaper’s cloak within a brown double thickness of web-weave and sewing shut all the edges, so that the cloak was totally encased, except for the starburst clasps, which they dulled with some paste so that they no longer shone.
What occurred fit so exactly with my sorting that I was afraid to break the spell, and we rode long silent neras out of Nemar North to the southwest, through the decline of evening and sun’s rising and at midmorn we stopped in the middle of a dried-up streambed to rest the threx. The veil was heavy upon Chayin then, and in a sense it was on me also, for I made no move to alter what was to be, nor any judgment upon my part in it. We waited, silent, until the threx were rested, and we shared water, but neither ate, and then once again we set their noses toward Frullo jer. Halfway through that harrowing, silent trek, Guanden ceased his pulling and fighting. He had had, finally, enough run to suit him. And when the threx would have slowed, I urged him on, half in revenge for his ill manners.
The full moon was high when we made the ridge country, and higher when we reined them up to gaze upon FruIlo jer—a long day-bright hollow between two parallel ridges, ringed with a thousand torches beneath which a sea of appreis shone like jewels. In the center were huge pavilions, with the device of Nemar, a slitsa wound around the re-curved blade upon a field of crimson, emblazoned upon them. Frullo jer lies in Nemar, and the midsummer festival of Amarsa is always hosted by the Nemarsi. Three years in a row had Aknet of Menetph beaten the Nemarsi, upon their home ground, and taken back with him to Menetph the Golden Sword. This year Nemar would regain it. Men’s hoarse shouting came to us on the breeze, and the smells of food and threx and life. Appreis and pavilions were still being raised, work still being done. To our left, some gaen, Parset draft beasts, pulled a huge rake along a nera-around circular track, in the center of which were more web-structures. It was toward these we headed, down the slope, among the busy throng that seemed not to know or care about the night’s waning. I was to learn that Frullo jer, like many Parset institutions, is a day-and-night, nonstop affair. A tired Parset tastes his uris and keeps going, that he not be interrupted. This we did, also, as Chayin guided Saer across the beautifully graded track among the pavilions to one with the Nemarsi device upon it. Behind us was another, easily as imposing, that bore the amber star upon the black field of Menetph.
We were challenged by a querulous Nemarsi. Chayin casually
dismounted, and I did likewise. The man, seeing his cahndor, reached out his hand for Saer’s reins. I handed him mine also, and we followed the threx’s rears to see where along the ropes they would be placed. Never have I seen more fine threx under one cover. A great part of the purpose of these festivals is to mix bloodlines, threx and Parset both, the rest being the meeting of tribal leaders and Day-Keepers and the checking of weights and measures to reaffirm them lawful. At such threx meets also it is not infrequent to see greedy grain merchants from Yardum-Or, for there is a truce of sorts about these affairs, and even safe passage for a few chosen outsiders. There are many northern threx breeders that would give a man’s weight in silver for a chance to stand where I stood; more even to contract for service of their best threx by such proven producers of race stock as Aknet’s Tycel. The Parsets do not cross-breed their stock outside their own tribes, and even among them, security about the threx was tight. All of thirty jiasks stalked the aisles between the ropes, constantly vigilant.
We passed along aisles where owners worked upon their beasts’ coats with razors, patterning their rumps, and with dyes upon their tripart hooves, and with all manner of beads and ribbons and brushes and combs beautified them. Many men were stripped down in the heat of the night, and their dark skins shone slick in the torchlight as they worked.
We regained the track and crossed it, and were among the awnings, where all manner of threx gear was available. I saw stone-studded headstalls and gold-worked rounded reins and great ruffed saddlepads of vibrant coloration. Parsets browsed and haggled about the stalls in all variety of dress, some eating or drinking as they wandered about. Chayin’s hand at my waist guided my steps; his voice was proud in my ear.
“Nowhere in all of the Parset Lands is there another meet to equal that of the Golden Sword. My people have been months preparing. Two hundred have been at this spot for three sets, that the track be perfect and the grounds free of slitsas and apths.”