by Janet Morris
“If this were done,” he said in a slow and troubled voice, “there would be no more Silistran serums, for only in this climate upon the sands do the plants grow, and the insects fly, and the animals which complete the chain flourish.” His eyes saw other than the room around him. “Think you, brothers, of dorkat and apth, of friysou and wirragaet, and all who thrive upon the sands. And another thing.” He faced M’Erris. “It is no harm to us if the serums be lost, nor to those of you who have had them, for as you know, once the adjustment is made, it becomes hereditary. But why would the M’ksakkans destroy what they say they want? There is less than truth here, or some twisting of it I fail to comprehend.”
The Liaison Fourth rose and walked to where I leaned against a counter with an inset computer terminal. He punched up a drink, and a panel slid aside that he might obtain it. He looked at me above the rim of the glass. I realized my own thirst and joined him there. The board was similar to that in my former couch-mate M’Lennin’s keep, and I punched up-two jeris. The Fourth raised an eyebrow but said nothing. I took the two glasses and returned to Chayin’s side, handing him one. He sipped it cautiously.
“These changes would take time, Cahndor,” explained M’Erris, accepting a green M’ksakkan drink from the Fourth, “enough time so that the animal and plant life might adjust, and your people also, to a new and better life.”
“You dare to speak to me of time?” said Chayin incredulously. “What is the time now?”
M’Erris consulted his wrist chronometer, and gave Chayin answer in M’ksakkan reckoning.
“Time is more than numbers upon a chronometer’s face, off-worlder! And what you propose has the smell of the abyss about it. A wise man precipitates no action born of another’s conception, and what you propose is beyond mine. My answer is no!” And he seated himself once again upon the lounge. “I do not trust.you. I believe you could do this thing, and I do not think it should be done.” He sipped the jeri.
“I beg you reconsider,” said the Liaison Fourth. “Perhaps at a later date we could meet again?” He spread his hands wide.
“In a hundred years, then,” said Chayin, unsmiling, “approach me. If between now and then I have changed my mind, we will supply you with the three shiploads, retroactive to this date.”
“Could you produce so much?” wondered M’Erris, greed tempering his disappointment.
“Dordassa alone could produce that amount,” boasted Jaheil, “were there ever the need.”
Chayin leaned toward me and whispered in my ear. “Can you work the lift controls?” I allowed that I could. Chayin stood.
“Consider this, brothers,” he interrupted Omas’ query as to the life span of a M’ksakkan hover. “If such a craft were desirable, we could simply go down into aniet and make our own!” His voice was harsh. “And such cowards’ weapons also are extant there. Take up star weapons, and I might be tempted to make such a journey.”
M’Erris’ head whipped around sharply. His gaze followed us to the lift entry, eyes widening as I keyed the door open.
“And lastly,” said Chayin, his anger no longer hidden, “I bring to your attention the purpose of our gathering here upon the lands of Nemar! I, for one, am most interested in the Golden Sword. I have threx to work, and a race to win. I want this craft off my track within the enth. Keep you in mind, off-worlders, that if men walk the land of Nemar uninvited, they find themselves crells in our service. That hospitality I will extend to you also. Within the enth, begone from here!” And he backed into the lift. I followed, and the door slid shut behind me. I punched up the ground hatch, and the lift obeyed me, disgorging us onto the ramp and into the wind-yellowed morning, where the dhareners still huddled in the shelter of the ship’s bulk.
Chayin ignored them and strode so fast across the track that I jogged to keep up. The wind whipped around us, and I wished I had a Parset membrane to protect my eyes from the grit and dust.
I heard pounding feet behind us as we reached the line of M’ksakkan guards, and Hael and another dharener joined us, puffing in their undignified haste.
“Chayin, what happened?” Hael demanded.
“I told them to approach me at a later date,” he said, not slowing his pace. The second dharener’s face was striped laterally with blue and green lightning bolts, and he wore his tight-curled hair in two great swirls about either ear.
“You must meet with us, about the Menetph situation,” Hael demanded.
“I meet with my rugs and mats. I am in need of sleep. Set me a dozen guards, that I may rest undisturbed. If the wind dies before dark, wake me. The temporary regent of Menetph will rest with me. I will come to you when I seek conversation.”
“There is much consternation among us,” said the Menetph dharener. “Surely your sleep could be postponed for a little while.” His eyes were red, and I thought it not from the dust. Aknet had been much loved among his people. We were among the threx fitters’ stalls, all curtained now against the gale.
Chayin sighed and rubbed his neck as he strode through the almost deserted aisle. “I bow to your need,” he said. “Give me until mid-meal. Have with you at that time suitable viands for four. Then will your regent and I speak with you. Now, leave us!”
“But—”
And Chayin stopped still in his tracks and glared at Hael and the objecting Menetpher.
“Do my will, Menetpher, exactly and without question! I am not Aknet. If you would live to keep another day, you had best get yourself from my sight!”
Hael put his arm upon the Menetpher’s shoulder and turned him away, wordless. Chayin stood watching until they disappeared among the appreis. He spat upon the ground and squinted into the yellow-green sky.
“If this wind does not let up, it bodes ill for the race,” he muttered. I put my hand on his arm.
“It will. We have another day before first first,” I reassured him as he pulled me into the shelter of his arm and we made our way through the food vendors’ stalls to the Nemarsi appreis.
V. The Golden Sword
The wind had not let up by mid-meal, when Hael and Dyis, the Menetpher, awoke us from too little sleep with a host of clumsy crells and a meal that would have fed thrice our number. The apprei growled like distant thunder with the whipping wind upon it, and the sand riding those hot gusts out of the south hissed its way into the apprei with their entrance, and my ears rang with the gale’s constant keening.
“Even the air weeps for Aknet.” Dyis voiced my own thoughts as he sat himself upon my right and shrugged off his cloak. The last of the crells departed, and Hael laced the flaps against the yellow dusk at midday. Truly, the very sky seemed to mourn Aknet’s passing.
“Has the M’ksakkan ship departed?” Chayin demanded. He did not sit up, but still leaned naked upon his side, his body curled around mine, so that my buttocks were against his belly. Hael lit a second oil lamp and sat beside Dyis.
“As you instructed them, they left within the enth. Even now the obstacles are being built upon the track. All will be in readiness. If the wind lets up, we can work the threx tonight. Moonlight is better than this yellow dark.”‘
Hael reached out and filled a bowl for Chayin, and one for himself. The Menetpher did the same for me. And we ate in cold silence, though the day was more than warm.
Chayin licked his fingers and refilled his bowl. None seemed willing to speak first.
“You want to tell me, I suspect, that I cannot have a female regent in Menetph.” Hael started to speak, but Chayin raised his hand. “Let us save what time we may. My appointment of Estri as regent was qualified by the word ‘temporary.’” We had discussed this before we slept, and I knew what Chayin wanted of me.
“I have no interest in Menetph,” I agreed.
“I am pleased to hear it,” said Hael, “for we would not allow such an unprecedented regency.”
“You had better close your mouth before a stray wirragaet lands in it, brother, and hear what I have to say, else you may once again re
gret the looseness of your tongue.”
Dyis shifted uncomfortably.
“It is my intent,” Chayin continued, “to put Liuma as regent-in-trust to Menetph, her holding it for the son she bears in her womb. And it would not be unfitting, under the circumstances, if her favorite dharener accompanied her there. I am willing to abide a Menetpher Day-Keeper in Nemar, that we may more quickly unify the two lands.”
And indeed Hael’s mouth fell open, and the dharener of Menetph examined the nails of his right hand. Ready to threaten and argue, they were unprepared for Chayin’s proposal.
“What say you to this? Perhaps it is not a woman in Menetph which displeases you, but only the indentity of her who sits in that place of power.” And he leaned back, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had, in effect, given Menetph to his brother, to do with as he might choose.
“I ... I am overwhelmed,” said Hael, with more honesty than I had thought in him. “We would not have asked so much of you. For Liuma, and for myself, I accept, if Dyis agrees.” He looked at the Menetpher, who spread his fingers wide and steepled them before his face. The tattoos upon his cheeks seemed to glow in the lamplight.
“We must get the other dharener’s approval, of course. This is one contingency for which we were not prepared,” he admitted. “I would be agreeable to such a move, in the name of peace.”
“In the name of peace, then, get you from my sight and arrange what you will. If this is not acceptable to you, perhaps I will have new dhareners to whom I might later make the same proposal, after I have united all the Parset Lands under the device of Nemar,” Chayin said softly.
“You leave us little choice, brother.”
“Such was my intention. Go and persuade whom you must. I will hear no more on this subject until after the race. Hael, send Liuma to me, and someone clean up this clutter!”
And without another word, Hael and Dyis departed, leaving me with the feeling that the thing had been too easily done.
“Think you that you are truly rid of him so easily?” I asked him. “Is that confrontation you sorted now obviated?”
“It is too early to tell, for the probability I seek to make real was not a strong one, while that which I intend to avoid would have surely occurred. Is Menetph enough for them? I cannot tell. But for the meanwhile, Hael is diverted. We will see what we shall see, when you and I go to Opir. If his lust is not sufficiently sated, we will know it then.” He laced the last flap and came to sit beside me.
“It is the hand of Tar-Kesa in this I fear,” I said, laying my head in his lap. “Hael may be distracted, but such a one as his master is not so easily fooled.”
“Sometimes I think you have a touch of forereader’s disease, Estri. Can you not hest your will? Bring into being some other way, if what I chose does not please you.”
“If one bends natural laws excessively, the pressure of the mass of distortion can make it impossible to even move within the sort. I would not create more disturbance until I have taken the helsar’s teaching. Should I bring an alternate future into time now, I open myself to those stronger at such skills than I. You be my eyes and ears this little while longer, and I will repay you later in kind.”
“When all this is over, and your blindness leaves you, you must teach me this hesting,” he said, while his hand wound in the chain around my neck. “At this moment you may begin making reparations for the further inconvenience you will undoubtedly cause me. Divested as you are of all rank and privilege”—and he tightened his grip upon the golden chain, drawing me up against his chest—“you are helpless before me.” He growled, his teeth and tongue upon my neck.
“Helpless,” I agreed, “and without hope of rescue.”
“Utterly without hope,” he affirmed, pushing me down upon the mat, where I attempted to begin discharging my obligations. I found it suitable at that time to recollect certain of my WellKeepress’ skills, and was still at my remembrances upon Chayin’s prostrate form when a cacophony of angry voices reached us from without the apprei.
“This is absurd,” I whispered, and rested my head upon his muscle-taut belly, looking into his face.
“Let us ignore this disturbance,” he commanded, his hand twisting in my hair. I could feel the pulse of him against my cheek.
“It is your couch-mate, certainly,” I gasped when he let go his grasp for a moment.
“She will wait this short time longer.” And his tone brooked no argument, nor did his eagerness need more than the touch of my tongue to bear fruit, nor was my own body hesitant to take what pleasure the moment afforded.
“I promise you,” he said, hunting up his breech among the mats, “that before we leave Frullo jer we will get you properly couched,” and he pulled my hair and went and once again unlaced the flaps. I did not bother to do more than roll upon my belly to watch, the uritheria medallion cool and hard between my breasts.
In she swept, all swathed in the sheerest emerald web-cloth edged with tiny gold beads that jingled against one another as she moved. Black eyes painted with sun tones were all that was visible of her face, but her belly was exposed and wound around with golden links, and in her navel rested a shiny gold nugget the size of a well token. She threw herself into Chayin’s astonished arms in full view of the crells and guards who clustered around the apprei. I got up and laced the flaps.
The Nemarchan wept copiously, her face pressed to Chayin’s chest. He stroked her multiplaited black hair, from which the emerald cloth had fallen. His eyes met mine, and he rolled his upward. I was not amused. I sat back among the mats in the apprei’s darkest corner before Liuma regained her self-control and raised her perfect face, somehow unmarked by tears, from his shoulder. I had to admit she was beautiful, with her delicate, almost miniature features and those huge evening eyes set aslant in her head.
She sank down before Chayin and put her head to his feet.
“Please, Chay, please do not send me away,” came her muffled voice, soft but distinct from beneath the hundred plaits of her hair. “Whatever you feel for me, you would not slay your son.” By this time Chayin was on his knees beside her, his arms about her shoulders, trying to raise her up. This the Nemarchan allowed, and now her face shone wet with tears. “He is your son! No matter what you think! If you were not so ill”—she smiled bravely, reached out her hand to touch his mouth with a trembling finger—“you would know it. The child is yours. I am yours. Do not send us away.” And she again collapsed against him where he knelt beside her.
“I thought it what you wanted, Liuma,” he said, stroking her head helplessly. “It matters not to me whose the child is. It is enough that Nemar has an official heir. And Menetph, too.” His voice was all confusion. “This is no banishment, but a chance for you to rule your own life and do that which you choose.” He grasped her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length, and I turned my head to the apprei wall and wished desperately that I were elsewhere.
“It has been long since there was more than politeness between us, Liuma. I am overwhelmed by this sudden show of devotion.” His words were strong, but his voice betrayed him. He coughed. “I cannot change this arrangement. I have given my word. Surely Hael did not send you here to refuse it.”
“No. He cannot see what lies before his face. I know what you are doing!” Furiously she wrenched her shoulders from his grasp. “I saw. You and the northern woman! I will not die the death you have in mind for me! I will not!” And she got to her feet, and her midnight eyes flashed. “The uritheria and the hulion, upon the plain before a place of rainbow towers! And the opening sky, and you and Hael! I saw it all! Even the vengeance He will wreak upon us all for your defiance! By all you hold sacred, Chayin, keep me and our child at your side. It is our only hope!”
Chayin rubbed his shoulder with his hand and got slowly to his feet. He stared down at her, and finally he shook his head slowly from side to side.
“You did see, Liuma. I had not thought you possessed that much skill.” And
the confusion was gone from out of him. “But you only saw the beginning, or you would not ask me to do that which cannot be done. You must be in Menetph. I must be where I must be. The child will survive.”
“And Hael? And I? Even yourself, do you know that? Oh, please, forgive me!”
“Only that the child will live. That is the only assurance I have to give.” He spread his hands and dropped them at his side. “You were as much a part of the forming of this future as I. There is only that which will come to pass. There is no forgiveness or blame, no amnesty or safety, except what one’s own self can provide. Go now! This quaking before owkahen does not become you!”
And I saw the stunned disbelief in her face as he escorted her to the apprei’s entrance and beyond into the small knot of crells and guards that still waited there in the abrasive whining wind. It snapped the open flaps with a sound like the strike of a huija, and sand devils danced upon the mats and dust darkened the air. I paid it no mind, but lay watching as Chayin stood with Liuma leaning against him in the haze, and the crells who had been awaiting this moment entered the apprei to clean away the remains of our meal. In the process, one of them, a female, tripped in the flickering dust-hazed lamplight and sprawled among the cushions, showering me with crumbs and bones and dregs of kifra. I cursed her and leaped to my feet and kicked out at her as she knelt among the garbage, sending her sprawling, prostrate in the mess she had made.
By the time I had collected my temper, the crell had still not moved, but cowered, head pressed to the mat, buttocks in the air before me. Shame coursed hot through me, and I bade her clean up and get herself from my sight. I turned away and went to stand in the apprei’s doorway. Chayin still attended the Nemarchan, oblivious to the wind. The crells sidled by me with whispered excuses on their lips, eyes downcast. Chayin turned from Liuma, and two of the guards escorted her into the yellow ambience. The last crell, the clumsy one, had just finished her reparations, when Chayin crossed the apprei’s threshold. She went down upon her knees to him. He waved her up impatiently.