by Janet Morris
I had expected words from Chayin upon this account, but I soon realized that he did not mark the man before him as that crell whom I had freed. I did not feel the need to enlighten him. We rode among those taciturn men without a rest or a word spoken until well past midday, over stubbly tundra and progressively more difficult terrain. Larger and larger harinder bushes clumped in breaks before us, their thorny brambles scraping tithe from our flesh as we thrust our way through them. In the later day we turned into a dry stream bed and followed it up into the foothills of Opir.
The air became noticeably cooler and blue-shadowed with the bulk of the Yaicas around us. Small needle trees grew here, and strands of stunted southern thala struggled with their chancy hold upon the slopes. Just out of a copse of almost respectable trees we came upon a small clearing where the smell of the air was suddenly so rank I found myself gagged and choking. Guanden leaped and snorted, and I suppressed a moan as I put more strain upon my battered arms and shoulders to hold him.
One of our guides urged his mount over to Chayin’s. All the men held their threx with difficulty. Three were fitting arrows to strung bows that had been slung from their saddles.
“With your permission, Cahndor,” said the one who seemed leader of the men, when he saw Chayin’s drawn sword, “we would dispatch this apth from a safe distance.”
Chayin considered this gravely, while under him Saer twitched and shivered. Even that calm-tempered and sensible beast was discomfited at the smell that reached him. The men had fanned out in a circle, their threx’ rears toward Chayin, and I and the man with ready bow beside him.
“You may do what you will,” said Chayin. The killing of apths is tightly regulated in the Parset Lands; all apths belong to the cahndors, who are accountable for their use to Tar-Kesa.
I scanned the trees. I had never seen one.
There came to our ears a great cracking of branches and a guttural squealing. The apth crashed into the clearing, incredibly fast for all its enormous bulk. A red threx screamed in terror and walked backward upon its hind feet before that hairy, huge-tusked head with its short square snout and tiny red eyes. The rider of the retreating beast leaned over his mount’s shoulder. His bow thunked, and the arrow penetrated a hand’s length into the apth’s side-set left eye. Then the other riders were upon it. It reared up on its short stubby legs, its humped neck quivering with barbed, feathered bolts. Streaming brown blood, the thing wheeled and charged leftward, that it might impale a tormenter upon those curved tusks, tossing it in the air and gouging again and again the soft underbelly of its victim with thrusts of its powerful neck.
An arrow lodged in the apth’s water sack, and the crested hump deflated before my eyes. The apth, screaming, blinded by its own water, took a fatal arrow, just below those oversized jaws. It went to its knees and laid its tiny head between them. Only its tail twitched. Then that too was still, and the thing was dead.
The stench, coming from offal stuck to the huge beast’s hairy coat in thick chunks and rotting gore splattered there from the death struggles of previous victims as the apth tossed them about in the air, was truly unbearable. Not even for the trophy of those man-long tusks could any stand it long enough to dig them out from their sockets. We left it there, waiting only for the men to retrieve those few arrows still unbroken that bristled in the apth’s thick hide.
My stomach rumbled angrily, turned numb as my backside from the unrelenting pace, and still we climbed. Through the uncertain light of dusk and on into the dark with no stop, even to rest the laboring threx, did we assay the treacherous slopes of Mount Opir. The air was thin and clear, and Wirur the winged hulion rose twinkling and fully visible in the sky. The just-waning moon spewed a cold and silvered light upon the trail. To my right a sheer archite face rose up, and upon my left was a sudden drop into black-shadowed crevice. We went single file. I held my breath against the wind that tugged and pulled at me and set my cloak abillow. Soon the crevice was replaced by another cliff, and we picked our way along the bottom of the chasm formed between them in pitch dark. I looked straight up at the tiny slice of visible sky, and saw only the north star Clous. Then that was gone, as we went under some natural bridge. I heard Guanden’s feet splash, and realized that a stream coursed its way through the cavern. An ebvrasea screeched, and another answered. Our arrival had been announced.
We stood upon a ledge that sloped gently down into a valley limned clear in the moonlight. At its center, the stars were reflected back into the sky from the calm mirror of a mountain lake. Perhaps twenty neras around, the valley was bounded by rock upon all four sides. Mount Opir towered over the lake in her belly, glittering like a woman at feast of conception with the ice that mantled her regal head and shoulders.
As the threx assayed the twisting downward trail, I made out low, clustered shelters upon the valley floor. We did not go toward these, but took a sharp turn left, along one sheer cliff wall.
Only when we were upon them and dismounting did I notice the squared-off openings that entered into the cliff walls themselves. Old, even ancient, must be these cliff dwellings; not since before the rebuilding have we of Silistra made use of the terrible forces needed to hew those huge rectangular edifices from solid rock. Such square and ugly architecture as this squat giantism had nothing of Parset or even gristasha culture about it.
My speculation was cut short by the appearance of two men with torches, who conversed in low tones with the leader of those who had brought us. Though I had seen no sentries, I had no doubt that the Ebvrasea’s nest was near to impregnable to those uninvited. Everywhere my eyes found unsealable cliff face. The men separated, Lalen of Stra going off with two others. He made a casual gesture of farewell. One with a torch, he who had asked Chayin for permission to kill the apth, motioned us to follow.
We did this, I looking over my shoulder long enough to mark the direction in which they took Guanden and Saer.
Down a torchlit archite passage, glassy-smooth and geometric, our guide led us. The torches were set upon stands on the floor. I was later to learn that this was done because the ancient passage rock had been treated with some substance which made it impervious to hand tools. At intervals down the passage’s length I saw such diverse items as fresh threx. dung and long-dark power lamps, some broken, with wires hanging down from them like fossil slitsas. Also I marked upon each passage numbers and legends in pre-hide Silistran, their messages unfaded through countless years. Like ghosts they spoke to me: “Med. 1,” “Surg. 2,” “Power Aux.,” Master Air.”
I noticed at intervals upon the walls visual displays whose colored graphs still shone brightly, ever shifting. A practiced eye could, from those displays, gauge how many were in the passages, where they were located, even when and where they had entered. This answered one of my questions—why there were no signs of habitation other than human and threx. The doors were air-scanner-controlled, programmed from some central source to admit only certain life forms and attendant matter through polarized molecular barriers that must still exist in every doorway. I sniffed the air and belatedly realized it to be the clear, sterile air, temperature-regulated, of mechanical processing. I was struck with wonder that such a place yet existed, functional, above the ground; and more, that the Day-Keepers had not claimed it.
We turned down a corridor that was not archite green, but a sterile white. It said “Admin. 1-5, Comm. Inter., Intra.” As we passed by the many cubicles upon either hand, it became obvious that the Ebvrasea was using the small rooms in this area as stables. Makeshift rope barriers ran down its length, and curious threx stuck their heads over the ropes and peered at us as we hurried past.
Another turning found us again in a natural archite passage, in the center of which was a threx with three men attending her. She was hobbled, and one of the men had his arm up the beast’s rectum to the shoulder. He pulled it out and peeled off the shoulder-high glove of transclucent denter intestine as we approached them. I put Chayin’s bulk between us, suddenly col
d and trembling. Would the time match my hest?
“She has doubtless settled,” the Ebvrasea assured the others. The sound of his voice dazed me helpless. If I could have spoken, I would have called his name. If I could have moved, I would have run to him. I stood frozen, behind Chayin, my tiask’s mask upon me.
“Take her back,” he ordered, in northern Silistran, running his hand down the threx’ rump as he turned to face us. We might have stood in the halls of Arlet, so unchanged was he in a worn tunic of leather, with just a knife slung upon a parr belt at his hips, but that no chald lay there beside it. His tanned face broke into a grin when he saw the cahndor.
“Chayin!” Sereth clasped him in his arms, and as they embraced, his gaze fell upon me. His face, more tired and lined than I recalled it, drained white, all but the scar that traced its length, which turned livid. Icy cold chased the pleasure from his dark eyes. Not even a moment had it taken him to know me, though I was bedraggled, masked, and dirty, wrapped in Estrazi’s cloak.
He released Chayin, who moved uncertainly from between us.
“I—” Chayin started, but Sereth’s sharp gesture cut him off.
“I appreciate that which you have done in my behalf. I would speak with her alone. Go and get settled in my quarters. We will join you.” His voice was a whisper from the abyss. He jabbed a finger at our guide. “Install the cahndor, and see to his wants.” The man hurried to obey. Sereth leaned against the archite wall, his arms folded over his chest, his eyes shadowed by the mass of brown hair that fell across them. I remembered the silky feel of it from another time, when he lay all covered over with dust, unconscious beneath the Falls of Santha. I did not move. I did not speak, though my mind told me to go upon my knees to him and beg forgiveness.
After a time he dropped his hands to his sides, and the chaotic rolling of events ceased to deluge me through his memory.
“Come here.”
Woodenly I walked the few steps toward him and stood so close I could see his nostrils flare as he breathed. He raised his hands to my head and removed the mask from my face. His fingers touched my cheek, my eyes, and when they came upon my lips, I kissed them. Our eyes met and held.
“Have you no greeting for me after so long?” he asked softly. His arms went around me, pulling me tight to his chest. He buried his face in my hair. I wished that it was clean and sweet-smelling for him.
Then was my hest full upon me. The pattern of light and dark on his worn circlet armor, the smell of him, the feel of those arms about me, his warm moist breath against my neck—all were as I had waited so long for them to be. And owkahen—the time corning to be; I knew it not. This did not trouble me. I partook of his strength and was not afraid. Everything I had done to stand thus with him became as nothing. My paralysis left me.
I breathed his name, and the taste of it did me good. His hands ran up and down my back, tangled in my hair, confirmed the need in him for me. I closed down my sensing as best I could. He relived his pain and could not share mine. Waiting for him to come again into the land of words, I pressed against his hardness, content.
“All this time,” he murmured, his lips against my ear. “I have lived Celendra’s lie, though something in me knew it false. I thought, too often, that I had indeed gone mad. Though there has been much madness, I hold you—proof that such was not of my making.” He brought his face down to mine, so close that his breathing was a gentle breeze upon my cheek. “Where did you go that day? Where have you been all this time? And what brings you here before me at the side of my only ally, with his sign of rank upon your breast, garbed tiask, even to the chald of Nemar upon you?”
“I had to come to you. Since my return to Silistra I have been about it. I have my own questions. If you will have me, I will stay here with you. We can take our leisure at the answers.” So simply did I throw my will against my father’s. Though by Estrazi’s word Sereth was not for me, I disclaimed his rights upon me.
“I have nothing to offer you. Even my life is uncertain.”
I touched him. “You, have all that I need. Chayin said you would kill me. I came here, knowing that, preferring death at your hands to life with another,” I pleaded.
Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth, danced in its old place deep in his eyes. “I might still kill you. Women have been couched to death before.” And then it left him, and his voice turned toneless. “I thought I would, should I ever have the chance.” His hand traced the curve of my neck, finding there the thick gold links of the uritheria medallion and drawing them tight about my throat.
“What of Chayin? Where does he stand with you? I need his good will.”
“He brought me to you and left me in your hands, thinking you would harm me. He loves you, not me.”
“I know that,” said Sereth darkly, releasing me. “Let us join him.” He pushed me gently down the corridor.
I was content to walk beside him.
“It is good to look upon you.”
“Chayin said you keep no women about you,” I replied, as we entered a passage; free of torches, where the ancient ceiling lights still functioned.
He shrugged. “I have been known to belt on an appropriate chald and venture into Well Oppiri when my need is strong enough. For a while I took an occasional captive, but the quality of captives is not as high as when we first hunted them. Near the lake there are coin girls among the camp followers, for what they are worth. I developed higher tastes in Arlet than an outlaw’s life can sustain.” He tossed his head, shaking the hair from his eyes. He wore it longer now, almost upon his shoulders. His hand reached under my cloak, and his questing fingers found the fading ridges of scars there.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
“I too, have led a different life from that to which I was born. I am no longer the soft and pampered Well-Keepress you knew. I have killed two men, and a tiask thrice my size, with my own hands. This chald is no gift. I am tiaskchan of Nemar.”
“I will keep in mind your fierceness,” he promised. “But you cannot be tiaskchan and outlaw both.”
“I will give it all up,” I said airily.
“Not quite yet,” he replied, turning into a corridor of some dark brown material that had actual doors, spaced along its length. Before one of them he stopped, and the door slid open of its own accord. Within, Chayin started to his feet, crouching there, frozen.
“Did you .. ? What did ... ? No. I see you did not,” said the cahndor of Nemar in faultless Silistran.
“Kill her?” Sereth laughed. “Not yet. Would I do such a thing without inviting you?” And he strode across the chamber and rummaged in a wooden chest in one corner.
I stared around me, at this strange and ghost-ridden chamber whose walls were ever changing color. The art of a long-dead age reached out to calm me. No windows broke the walls’ expanse. The floor was soft as tas-suede, resilient, tiered in what semed random sequence, except that the raised areas were different tones of that same neutral. Anachronistic against those walls stood Arletian wooden racks bristling with sword and shield and spear, helmet and armor and five-lashed stones, and even a number of large pelts. Sereth closed the wooden chest and turned to me.
Upon one loam-colored tier in the middle of the room had been dumped my saddle and Chayin’s. I found myself standing over them with no memory of crossing the distance from the door. The helsar reached out to me, demanding, rolling softly. My face, shoulders, and arms slicked and flushed, as if I stood over some raging conflagration. In a way, I did. It took all my attention to back away from that blaze.
“What?” I said when I could, from where I found myself sitting upon the floor, Sereth standing over me. Behind him the light from the walls shifted softly. The ceiling was dark with a likeness of night clouds upon it. The room knew it was evening. I had no doubt that in the day one might look up and see the semblance of greening sky. Through the helsar I sensed its gladness to have within it once more eyes to rest upon its work. I pushed the room-co
nsciousness away with a shiver. Did the ceiling count the days and nights, all those centuries when none had dwelt beneath it?
“Choose one!” Sereth repeated. “They are as exact as the best weaponsmith in Yardum-Or could make them. I have held them for this moment a long while.”
“And you still say you did not know I lived?” I wondered, taking the two parr-wrapped bundles from him.
“I did not know it,” he maintained.
“The truth of that being that you know not what ‘knowing’ feels like.” Chayin made my point for me in a wry voice as he came and knelt beside us.
I unwrapped the bundles, and laid upon the sand-toned floor two stra-hilted gol-knives. They were without ornamentation but for a small red gol-drop embedded in the butt of each hilt. I hefted them. They snuggled against one’s palm the same. They balanced in the fingers the same. Each was perfect, eloquently simple. I recollected how he had come by those two priceless gol-drops, in the gollands above Arlet. My eyes misted unaccountably. I took one and handed back the other.
“Tomorrow we will go together to my fitter and have sheaths made,” Sereth said. It is considered a bad omen to give a virgin weapon in sheath.
“First, that which is first, Sereth,” I declined. “I must take the helsar’s teaching. Even tomorrow might be too late, but I would spend this night with you both. It is very strong now, and I am weak. It might come to pass that I cannot shatter it.” I paused, not knowing what else to say.
“What is a helsar?” Sereth asked, his eyes narrowed into slits.
“If you cannot shatter it”—Chayin touched my arm—“might you not return the way you came?”
“If I cannot, and I lie there still breathing, upon the fourth day you might do whatever comes to you to arouse me.” I took Chayin’s dark hand in mine, and turned my head to meet Sereth’s anxious eyes.
“In these matters, take Chayin’s lead. As to what the helsar is, I am not sure. The fathers know, but they are not saying. You remember the cowled one?”