The Golden Sword

by Janet Morris

  “Get you up and out of here, crell,” he dismissed her, holding the flap, which writhed and snapped with a life of its own. “It is thick as sucksand out there,” he said to me. But I had seen Khemi’s face as she rose and hurried out, and Chayin struggled with the flaps against the insistent wind.

  I watched with folded arms as he jerked tight the knot and stalked around the apprei. He was as light as a M’ksakkan, all covered with the yellow dust. He threw himself down upon the mats and stared at the apprei’s undulating walls. Liuma had done her work well, and the veil was heavy upon him. After a time, I went to him, but he did not see me. I raised his head and slid my legs under. I ventured into his pain that I might lead him out of it, and there I met that probability of which Liuma had spoken, and it was nothing spawned of mortal conception. Uritheria blazed and writhed its anger against some great midnight beast for which a hulion might have been microscopic model, and that thing answered with breath of ice, and their roaring ripped apart the firmament, exposing the grids of nonspace apulse. There I found Chayin, he frozen with horror at what he would do, and it was all I could do to bring him back with me, against the current, as time-space poured through that hole the beasts had made in their death struggle, and plain and towers crumbled around us as we fled.

  He reached up and put his hand on my neck, and I bent and kissed him. His face shone with sweat.

  “How does one know,” he asked me softly, “which among them all is the right way? Who should die, and who should live? So many ways, and no criteria with which to choose between them.” He turned his head against my belly.

  “I do not know,” I replied. “But I too seek that answer. If there ever was, some future in which all received benefit and none became sacrifice, it is no longer. With power, comes powerful burden.”

  “And yet, one cannot refuse to choose, else we be but pawn in some other’s choosing.”

  “Which might be worse than our own. I know too well.” I laughed bitterly. “It is a road upon which there is no turning back, for it forms before us as it dissolves behind. Layer upon layer of relevance, floating on a sea of chance, which recognizes only change. My father once told me that there is no value but the value one chooses, that which we manifest through our conception.”

  “It was my conception that Liuma would take joy in that which I did.” He raised himself up upon one elbow, looking into my face. “Have I unknowing consigned her to her death?”

  “Did you see it so?”

  “Not hers. Hael’s or my own, but not hers. Was I blinded by what I would not accept?”

  “Chayin, she plays with you. She saw what you saw and made a guess at what guilts could be pulled therefrom. Even if a woman no longer loves a man, she wants no other to have him. She thought to turn your illness against you, and with wily skill, for she is an accomplished forereader. If there is one thing I know, it is such manipulation. She would not stay her hand from Menetph. She merely wants you as well as Hael under her spell, that she might rule through you both.”

  “How could it be my child in her?”

  “You will have to ask her that,” I said.

  “I did so. She says it is my son she bears, and even Tar-Kesa will confirm her. But I have hardly touched her this last year.”

  “God or man, it is still sperm and egg. What did you expect her to say? That it is the dharener’s child she carries, and thus lose herself all she will gain by being mother to the heir of Menetph and Nemar? In the north we have ways of determining these things. Send her north and find out, if you will.”

  “She would not do that,” he said positively.

  “Exactly. She would not loose her hold upon you. Nor would she endanger her life by holding strong to thoughts of death. She has no forereader’s disease.”

  He reached up and pulled me down beside him. “Jealous she-apth!” he accused.

  “Doubtless,” I admitted. “But remember: for what is between us, there is no solution.” And I twisted in his grasp so that my back was to him.

  “One can do no better than one expects. When I said that, the veil was heavy upon me.” His body was of a sudden like stone against mine.

  And I was sorry that I had said it, and tried to turn back to face him, but his arms held me like a vise and I could not.

  “Lie still,” he ordered, “or sleep by yourself.” And I did as he bade me, and sleep took us our separate ways.

  He woke me a time later for a savage and wordless couching, and when I sank back into dreams, they were so troubled I could not bear them. I lay long enths staring wide-eyed at the apprei walls. Long I thought upon the dreams’ meanings, and of what I had seen in Chayin’s mind, and since such things could not come to pass, I called them allegory and mind mischief to case myself. I could not believe it, even then.

  When we awoke, the wind had stopped, but only when he shook my shoulder did I realize it, for the helsar, growing ever stronger, had lured me from my stance between sleep and waking with its whispered songs. I sat up cold and trembling, and he mistook my confusion for displeasure, apologizing for what had passed between us. I leaned against him and said nothing.

  One of the oil lamps had gone out while we rested. He filled and lit it, and opened the flaps. Two guards stood revealed at their watch against a still and starry night. Dust lay like golden snow upon the appreis and the aisles between them under the full but waning moon. We had slept the day away.

  The two guards were quick to attend him. He motioned one in, and the man stood nervous between the flaps, his eyes flitting everywhere that they might not rest upon me. I stretched luxuriously and busied myself with my sleep-tangled hair.

  “Speak, man. What holds your tongue?” demanded Chayin.

  The guards sighed and shuffled his dusty feet. “Cahndor, Wiraal has arrived from Nemar North and begs audience.”

  “How long ago?”

  “At first dark, when the wind had just stopped.” The guard wet his lips. “The dharener has been here and left word that he has seen to the threx, and the cahndor should not trouble himself. Jaheil of Dordassa has been here thrice and left invitation for you both to join him in his apprei at your convenience.” He cleared his throat. “And the dharener and high chalder of Menetph have come twice here. And”—he seemed to search for a word—“your couch-mate also left her greeting.”

  “No doubt. Is that all?”

  “No, Cahndor,” he said hesitantly. “All nine of the tiaskchans came here together, and they would see you with certain complaints they aired to me but which it would not be my place to repeat. And the threx masters sent a message that at sun’s rising all who ride must be weighed and weighted, and the threx master of Menetph begs consultation before that time.”

  “And is there any more?”

  “No, Cahndor.”

  “Send a man to fetch us food, and rana if any can be found.” The guard nodded and turned to go.

  “I am not yet finished.” Chayin’s voice snapped him around. “I will see Wiraal as soon as you can get him here. Have the chalder and dharener of Menetph, and Hael also, meet me at the threx masters’ pavilion an enth before sun’s rising. The Menetpher threx master wants to know who shall ride in Aknet’s place. Tell him the choice be his. And repeat this to him exactly. I want no call of unfair play. If he can beat Nemar, let him do so. It is not men but threx we race here on the morrow. And one more message, to the tiaskchans, that their complaints have been noted, and only I am qualified to adjudge the solution.”

  “But you do not—”

  “Know what their complaints are? Your cahndor is a god, man! The tiaskchan Estri’s conduct at my service is no business of theirs.”

  “You want me to tell them that, Cahndor?” The man was horrified.

  “Send someone against whom you have a grudge to do it,” Chayin advised. “Now, begone before my hunger makes me irritable.”

  The guard backed out of the apprei, and then began much shouting and pounding of feet as he delegated the ta
sks that Chayin had set him.

  “What about Jaheil?” I asked as we dressed.

  “I think we will accept his invitation.” He peered through the open flaps at the stars, he dug out his uris pouch and handed it to me. I wondered, as the taste of it sent a thrill through my body, how I ever did without it, Thus emboldened, I bested my hair clean and tangleless, not caring that Chayin saw me or that the helsar shifted where it lay.

  Chayin raised an eyebrow. I grinned at him. “I have no comb here,” I explained.

  “I will buy you one, lest you usurp my godhead from me with such tricks.”

  “That is all it is,” I assured him, “simply a trick of polarity.”

  “You had best save some for Sereth the Ebvrasea. I had a dream of dire portents.” And he finished pulling on his boot and leaned close, taking me in his arms.

  “I have no fear with you to protect me,” I told him.

  “I have told you that I am bound by his will in this matter, and before his wrath I cannot stand for you. Before Hael I can protect you, or Liuma, or even all the tiaskchans of Nemar, but not to Sereth will I raise my hand. It is not that I would not, but that I cannot.” He grasped me by the shoulders and held me at arm’s length, as I had seen him hold Liuma.

  “I understand,” I said, though I did not, and a great commotion presaged the entrance in quick succession of Wiraal and our meal, and as we ate, the jiaskcahn gave his report. Nothing had been overlooked. He had even brought the crell Aje, as I had instructed him to do if his wounds were healed. They filled three places fallen empty in the cahndor’s personal yra of twenty-one jiasks that would follow Chayin to Mount Opir, and the three of us searched for a way to circumvent with a likely story the tiaskchans’ displeasure at being excluded.

  “I do not think it will work,” commented Wiraal.

  “It had better. I cannot take tiasks among northern men, lest they kill each other instead of the enemy.”

  “Then tell them that,” Wiraal proposed, rubbing his jaw with his gnarled hand.

  “You tell them. I have not the time or the inclination to bother with them.”

  “They are not pleased at our conduct; they sent some representatives here with complaints,” I interjected.

  Wiraal looked at me out of icy eyes. “None of us are easy about you, tiask.” I rose and got the bitless headstall Chayin had given me, and walked out into the night.

  “Wait,” said Chayin, and joined me outside.

  “I am going to try this upon Guanden,” I said, shaking his restraining hand from my arm. “I will see you when you are finished with the dharener and the chalder and the threx masters and your ill-mannered subordinates.”

  “I must send two men with you, then,” he insisted, and snapped his fingers at two of the score that waited about the apprei to do his will.

  With the jiasks to protect me, I had no trouble among the aisles, or even upon the track, for they saddled their own mounts and accompanied me as I walked Guanden around the course, that he might sniff the obstacles newly built there. The bitless headstall proved successful; he even carried his head lower, and it took just the slightest pressure of the single braided rein upon his nose to make him obey. I worked him longer than needful, even chancing a full nera’s run, and found busywork upon my gear until sun’s rising, when I turned him to the threx masters’ yellow pavilion, the restless and tight-mouthed jiasks following dispiritedly behind. They had had other plans for this time.

  And I did not blame them. The polyrhythmic thrum of dhrouma and kapura players mixed with voices raised in song, and the jer fairly seethed with life. Hundreds had arrived during the night, and festival was upon them with the dawn of Amarsa first first.

  It was slow going through the pedestrians, many drunk and reeling, to the threx masters’ pavilion. I dismounted, and led Guanden, whose ears were flat to his head above rolling eyes. Within the pavilion were scales upon which we were both weighed. Guanden was taken from me by a threxman to be tested for health and pronounced free of drugs or devices.

  I drew third slot from the inside, out of fifteen positions, between a tiask of Dordassa, who had second, and a spare rangy Menetpher, who had fourth. Then we were each called up and received a flat racing pad with pockets for deadweight in them. Mine was heavily loaded, for I was lightest weight among the riders. Chayin lounged against the huge pavilion’s far wall, Jaheil beside him.

  When Guanden was returned to me, I set the racing saddle, which weighed almost as much as I with stra rods in its pockets, upon his back and went to receive waiver from the high threx master that I might use the bitless headstall. When that was done, I relinquished him into the care of the threxmen and found my way across the threxcrowded pavilion to Chayin and Jaheil, my two guards close behind me. I could not even get near my mount again until second section was called and I and the fourteen other riders went to see which five would race the final section.

  “What number did you get?” Chayin demanded, as I sidled through the jiasks to join him. My guards stood uncertain with their mounts in hand, watching.

  “Dismiss them,” I begged him. Chayin did so. “Three in the second section,” I answered. “And I am seventh in the first,” the cahndor told me. “And Jaheil, with Dordassar luck, has first in the first. You should have no trouble with the elimination; all your competition runs first section.”

  “Except Menetph, which has three mounts in my group,” I reminded him. “And I have almost my own weight in stra to carry.”

  “I told you to eat a bigger meal.” Chayin grinned. A gong sounded loud in my ears.

  “First call,” Jaheil chortled. “Give me a kiss for luck,” he demanded, and I did so, and Chayin also did I wish well, and then ran through the crowd into the new day to find a place near the ta-nera pole, that I might see the winner pass it. I squeezed my way between two men in plain leathers, who had upon their breast armor no device, but each wore around his waist a scarlet sash, and I knew them to be some who attended as guests of Nemar.

  My stomach was an aching knot, and my throat was dry, but I knew my nerves. My indisposition would pass when I sat upon Guanden’s back.

  Another gong’s stroke ushered the threx out of the pavilion, and they foimed up into a ragged line of snorting, frothing excitement. Facing left upon the track, they waited the huija crack that would start them. I was so close to Jaheil’s red mount that I could see the sweat break out upon his flanks. Chayin, down the line, sat Saer with the calmness of a man ready to jog around his holdings, and the dappled threx stood, with ears flicking and head held low, as if he were in his stall in Nemar North.

  For one moment, each of the beasts faced front, and all was in readiness; the threx master gave the signal, lest the opportunity be lost. So close upon the huija’s crack did the beasts spring forward that the sound was lost in the thunder of their start.

  By the time the dust settled so that I could see, they had passed over the tyla-palm break at the first turn and were close upon the ditch at the sa-nera pole. I jumped up and down to peek over the heads of those before me, and the plain-leathered man upon my right picked me up bodily and sat me upon his broad shoulders. I yelped and pounded upon his helmet when I saw Saer ‘s dappled form fly over the ditch with Jaheil’s red mount close behind. A pure white beast with the Menetph black-and-amber hooding his head did not fare so well, but misjudged his leap and floundered, to be pummeled by a dun whose saddle pad proclaimed him of Coseve.

  Then they were at the half, and a black began to move among the bunched threx.

  A deafening roar rose around me as the black began to move upon the leaders. The white threx who had gone down at the ditch had not risen. Gaen were hurried onto the track to drag him from it before the second lap. The dun threx who had crashed into him was limping slowly toward the inner field, his rider beside him. Two out.

  The black threx, whose pad was of Nemar, had closed upon the leaders as they entered the stone chutes set diagonally across the track. Two gr
ays of Coseve followed them into it, and when the leaders reemerged, the grays were close upon them. With enviable skill the Coseve riders had paced their beasts at the perfect speed for the chutes, exploding from them with a burst of speed that brought their muzzles to the tails of the leaders, still collected up from the chutes’ narrow confines.

  I saw Chayin throw his mount sideways as the grays flanked him. Then they were packed tight at the ca-nera pole and straining toward us, Chayin’s Saer on the inside, one gray pocketed behind him by his mate on the outside, and Jaheil’s red behind. The black threx, who I now saw was Quiris, came up to match Saer, blocking the Cosevers’ path again. And while Chayin and Hael held the grays in check, they slowed their own mounts. Jaheil, as if expecting this, had dropped back and out, loosing his red in a great burst of speed upon a clear track. Past me Jaheil sped, and again over the tyla-break and into the second lap, while the grays were still held entrapped between Quiris and Saer and the tight field closing behind them.

  Then, as if of one mind, Hael and Chayin loosed both Saer and Quiris after Jaheil, while the unobstructed grays of Coseve matched them stride for stride, not a nostril’s difference between them as they took the tyla-break four abreast.

  Jaheil had the half, and started slowing then for the chutes. He could have walked him through them, such a lead did the Dordassar have upon the rest.

  I saw Saer snap out at the gray, who seemed to bump him, and Chayin’s hand raised from his mount’s neck, and the two of them fell back, while Hael and the second gray matched each other, less than a threx-width between them over the ditch. The moment they landed upon the far side, Jaheil passed before me in a red blur, and the volume of the shouting doubled as Parsets screamed themselves voiceless.

  The man whose shoulders I rode reached to lift me down, and when I was on the ground, Hael passed before me, a quarter-length behind the first Coseve gray, and at that one’s tail was Chayin, and the other Coseve gray a half-length to the rear.