by Janet Morris
His mouth stopped its chewing. “How do you know that this very rebellion of yours is not my will? Have you joined with those others of like mind near you?”
“Not yet, but I will do so.”
“If you survive, send me a message, and we will meet again. Now, leave me!”
And his command was such that I found myself flung upward into the baby’s cheek of that world’s sky, past it, into the dark between the worlds.
Only away had Estrazi flung me. I ended there, in the darkness where potential unrealized is banked. That which does not happen goes to this place, and is reabsorbed into the ever-forming now. There, alone, growing faint, did I learn the consequences of power, and the price paid by those who seek it. There is no fixed future, the darkness whispered. There is no omniscience; nothing is sure, it said as it devoured me.
And I may never know if Estrazi realized his mistake and extracted me, or I escaped by my own power. I was almost not, when an answer crept to me and warmed me in the cold. That thing in me that would not sleep snuggled warm against it. Shatter the helsar, it suggested to me, and you have confirmed yourself in the real world. Will it here, and yourself there. That which is cannot be in two places at once. Trade with the dark. Try.
I tried. I took what self I had and set it spinning, that I might reach all directions. And the spin gave me coherence. No one had ever spun here before. No one had ever refused oblivion, even retained self long enough to conceive such an act. I was. I spun my laughter in nothing’s face. And the helsar heard me. I drew it, desperate. It flared the whole of ever-dark nothing light at its entrance. I was blind in the afterglow, caught up in someone’s arms like some small child.
I knew he rocked me slowly back and forth. I breathed flesh upon the air, warm moist lifesmell. I heard my heart. My legs were prickled with fire. My feet did not feel. I found my eyelids and caused them to open. It was Sereth’s room I saw, but Chayin who held me. The room was night-lit. Sereth slept, his head upon his arm, his rest uneasy, nearby. Chayin rocked me softly, his chin resting upon the crown of my head. The helsar was not in my sight. My mouth was very dry.
“I am thirsty,” I said to him, with enough effort for a shout. I produced only a croak, but it was sufficient. He looked down at me, and I smiled at him. Perhaps he thought he dreamed. He touched my face with his hands; then he called my name and crushed me against him. Sereth, as light a sleeper as a hulion, was crouched there beside us. I tried to reach out a hand to him. It fell short, but he caught it in his.
“I thirst,” I tried again. My legs would not respond to me. They seemed dead. My hand in Sereth’s trembled violently.
“Get it,” Sereth ordered, and Chayin, who deferred to no man, laid me down upon the Shaper’s cloak and went to do Sereth’s will.
I tried to maneuver my thick-furred tongue. It remained, despite my best efforts, recalcitrant and unwieldy. Sereth knelt over me. He put a finger to my lips.
“Be silent,” he said. His strong, sure hands kneaded my legs, and I found voice enough to moan as his ministrations brought my muscles awake.
“I know,” he said, not ceasing his work. His hands had reached my thighs. “I was once, after a severe miscalculation, bound in one position five days. Truly, this is the least painful way.” And when I could, I flinched from his touch.
“Good girl. Now, sit up.” And I did that, too, that I might be as brave as he thought me. I bit my lips until I tasted my own blood, but I got my legs under me.
Sereth grunted and sat back on his haunches. A smile played on his lips, his eyes prowled me, returned to meet mine.
“There will be no more of this,” he decreed. “I have thought long about what to do with you. You came here, seeking my protection, my help, perhaps another thing from me.” And he was not now smiling. “I demand and receive unquestioning obedience from those who follow me. If you join them, I must have the same from you. You do not want Astria, you say. What do you want?”
“To serve you. My life is your will. I want nothing more,” I managed. I wished he had waited until I had my wits about me. I closed down my sensing, pushing away that which I would not see. If it was so short a time I would .have him, then that time was all the more precious.
“If you give yourself to me, it must be fully. Your body and mind, and the skills thereof, must be mine to do with as I see fit. I cannot accept less. I do not explain to my finger why I want to scratch an itch; it is mine. I do not allow that which is mine to risk itself upon its own initiative. Under these conditions, and these alone, will I accept you. Otherwise, go back with Chayin, for he would have you upon any terms.” So did Sereth crill Tyris speak to me, in his way, of love, in his coldest voice.
“I expected no different, nor could I settle for less. I am yours upon your terms, upon any terms, without question. It has been so, in my heart, a long time.” It was the best I could do. I supported myself with my hands, sitting there. I wished he would touch me, hold me. He did not. He looked at me a time, pensive. Then he nodded.
“Take that off!” He meant the uritheria medallion. With some difficulty, for it was tangled in my hair, I did so. I looked at it in my lap, and my copper fingers seemed to glow and flicker as I handed it to him.
“You will renounce the chald you wear, and give back to Chayin all that he has given you.” I nodded mutely. “And you will speak to no one, especially Chayin, of whatever you might have gained from the helsar.” Almost, I objected. But I saw the testing in his narrowed eyes and kept silent. Let him make his arbitrary rules.
“Let us see if you can walk,” he said, and lifted me to my feet, supporting me as I assayed first one step and then another. The door slid aside, and Chayin entered, a bladder slung over his shoulder. He, like Sereth, wore only brief tas breech. He hesitated in the doorway a moment, then stepped through. The panel slid shut behind him. He walked those few steps to where we stood waiting, his rana-colored skin giving some eerie cue to the room walls, which chose to mimic him, rhythm and tone.
“Here,” he said, and handed the bladder to Sereth. His eyes on me were like some wounded animal’s. Sereth held out the uritheria medallion. Chayin took it, expressionless, and put it around his own-neck. Sereth held the bladder to my lips, and let me only wet my tongue. His arm tightened around my waist, his fingers twisted in my Nemarsi chald. Again he gave me drink, and this time my stomach seemed filled by the single swallow he allowed me.
“Did you find what you sought?” Chayin asked, as again Sereth impelled me to use my legs as best I could.
“I found the sounding board of an instrument that might someday play that music which holds the spheres in harmony. But I must learn to play it. The theory is not enough. The practice, the skill, might sometime be mine,” I said.
This answer, I felt, met Sereth’s conditions. My sidelong glance at his face confirmed it. He had put, however, his restrictions upon what I could say, only. About what I could do, he had said nothing. Then did I give Chayin the one gift I had for him, in such a way that my anonymity was protected; I banished his affliction from him. Sereth knew no more than that I again leaned heavily upon him. Chayin, pacing us silent on my left side, knew not what I did. But I knew. It was enough.
“The helsar disappeared, around sun’s meal this day. Did you shatter it?” Chayin pressed me. I sighed, and the shifting of the time was not lost upon me. For a moment I wondered if perhaps I had come back to a different now from that I had left, but I shook the feeling away.
“I do not know,” I lied, not meeting Chayin’s eyes. I turned, instead, to Sereth, that he might help me. But he only took his arm from my waist. He stood, watching me, waiting, hands upon his hips. I wavered upon my feet, unaided.
And then I told Chayin, as I had agreed, that I would give back the chald I wore, even though it meant going back upon my word, and also all that he had given me.
And he seemed not at all surprised, only subdued and solemn.
“All but Guanden, I will take. If you t
ruly do not want him, give him then to Sereth. And this”—and he crossed the room in three strides and dug in his saddlepack, returning to us with a volume bound in the green-patterned hide of slitsa.
“I must divest myself of all possessions,” I objected.
“You may have the ors,” Sereth said softly, “and I will take the threx in safekeeping for you.” I looked at him, grateful.
I took the Ors Yris-tera into my hands. Then I reached up and put my arms around Chayin’s powerful neck and kissed him. His answering embrace was light, restrained, his lips upon mine dry and passionless.
“There is only one thing that saddens me,” he said, holding me away from him, his hands upon my shoulders. “That you hold your word—and the chald of Nemar—so cheap.” Then he took his hands from me and drew his gol-knife, and before I could move, he had sliced from me the chald of Nemar. I heard the tinkle of the split links as they fell from their strands to the floor. Then he reached into his breech and threw something down beside those links. It rattled as it struck, and lay still, shimmering—in the dim light. I looked down, at my feet, upon my Astrian chald.
“Take it,” hissed Chayin.
It pained me that he had so misunderstood. I saw Sereth’s knowing smile, oblique.
“It is mine no longer,” I demurred. “It is not only the chald of Nemar I have put by me, but chaldra. It does not serve me to carry the weight of chaldra.” I saw the membranes snapping, agitated, back and forth across Chayin’s eyes.
“Have you no honor?” he demanded.
“Do not talk to me of honor. It is a foreign thing to me, and one too easily taken up and put down. I am a woman. I know nothing of honor. I know only survival. Honor is—for men. You, a man, took what fantasies of honor I had from me!” I spat back at him.
I turned to Sereth, for he understood. My eyes implored his for help, but none was forthcoming.
“Chaldra was everything to me once, for I thought it right and just and obtaining to the law within. Now I have lost it.” I stared down at it; at the Well-Keepress’ strand nestled there among the others, and at the red strand—due for changing—of the chaldra of the mother. Red indeed had been the deeds done to discharge that one; both before and after. Now it would never be changed.
Sinking to the floor upon trembling knees, I reached out and touched the chald. I ran my fingers in it, this one last time.
“Get up!” Sereth ordered. I did, leaving the chald there. “We must keep those limbs moving awhile longer.” He beckoned me. I went to his side. His narrowed eyes assessed my body, his supporting arms propelled me, to the door. “You want to know how you lost Astria. You might simply have asked. I will tell you.” His voice was hard-edged, stracold. “But first we will walk you to the lake and back; there you will bathe. Then we will eat.” He motioned Chayin to also support me, for my muscles had taken a fit of trembling; tetanus after so long, unmoving. I wavered upon my feet.
I pressed my arms against me, crossing them over my chest, that I might stop the tremors that shook me. My palms upon my arms found the skin there dry and flaking, as if by fever. Everywhere I touched myself, that skin that had been darkened by the sun of Nemar came away, a powder, and beneath it the new skin was lighter. In some few places it glowed, hot copper in the uncertain light. I needed a bath.
“Let’s go to the lake,” I agreed. “But I am not hurigry.”
“You will eat,” said Sereth, as the door slid aside and, we walked, the three of us atangle, the corridors of his keep.
“If you insist, but I am not hungry.”
“I need not insist. Nor explain. You will obey me, without question.” And I bent my head and said nothing, for I knew that I would, in all things, defer to him.
I watched my bare feet, between theirs, pass upon the archite floor. He had left me no choice. Sereth knew me, perhaps as no other man ever knew me. I walked with great attention, conscious of my body, furious at its feeble response. As best I could, I straightened my shoulders and tightened my flanks under me, that my movements might be once again graceful and pleasing. I had not walked so in a long time, and I felt the outcry of certain muscles as I brought them into play. In Nemar, I had adopted, perhaps unconsciously, the tiask’s manly strut. Here such would not do, and Sereth, ever watchful, saw, and smiled to himself, reaching out a hand across me to touch Chayin’s arm, brushing my breasts as he did so. My nipples rose to that touch. My body had not forgotten his.
“It is as I told you,” said Sereth to Chayin. And Chayin looked first at me, assessing, and then across to Sereth.
“I see it, but I do not believe it. And I certainly do not understand!” We crossed into the white corridor.
“She was well-trained,” said Sereth, grinning. “But you spoiled her. She lost perspective. She needed only to be reminded. If the man does not sense himself male, the female cannot sense herself female against him.”
“In Nemar, it is different.” Chayin pondered.
“Indeed it is.” Sereth laughed. “Treat a woman like a man, and she will do her best to become one. If you want a woman, and she thinks herself a man, you must remind her.” He spoke as if I was not present.
“But Liuma is not like that. She, is ...” Chayin objected, struck wordless.
“Pregnant with your child,” Sereth finished his sentence for him. “Even if she were not, she is yours by law. By any man’s law! Would you give up a prized threx to another because under his hand she was gentler than under your own? You would not. What difference, then, with a woman? The flat of your hand is sufficient upon a threx, and upon a woman also. I tell you, you should take her back! One does not give up what one still covets, surely, even in Nemar!”
Chayin flinched from Sereth’s words. Then he looked again at me.
“It seems to be my habit,” he admitted, “to give up what I most desire. I gave up Liuma, and Menetph, and this one, too. Perhaps you are right, perhaps I should take back some of what I have given.
“Looking at her, I can see that I never really had her. I did not first agree, but this”—and he touched my still-erect nipples, and ran his hand down me—“shows me your truth. I will have my choice, and my chance, soon enough, if what Wiraal and Pijaes say is true.”
“The choice, and the chance, are yours alone,” Sereth said.
“And what,” I demanded, “do Wiraal and Pijaes say?”
Sereth and Chayin exchanged looks in silence.
“Tiasks speak first in Nemar,” Chayin pointed out grinning, though he tried not to show his mirth.
“But this is not Nemar, and she is no longer tiask,” Sereth rejoined, as we turned the final corner that led out into the hidden valley that was the Ebvrasea’s.
The night sky was cloud-covered. Beneath my feet the grass was slippery with moisture. A fine drizzle fell steadily.
“Still it rains,” Chayin wondered in a portent-heavy voice. “It has rained since you fell under the helsar’s spell.” His grasp caught me as I slipped upon a hidden rock and pitched forward.
“Doubtless,” I answered, “it often rains upon the slopes of Mount Opir.” My embarrassment at my clumsiness flushed me hot. I was glad they could not see it in the misty dark. The moon, close to third phase, dived in and out of the clouds like some grinta fish skimming the Embrodming Sea.
“It has rained, these four days past, upon not only the mountains, but upon Frullo jer as well. It rains, perhaps, upon all of Nemar. It is an uneasy omen. Never in my lifetime has it rained in the pass Amarsa. The uris will rot, for the ground rejects this untimely torrent. Hael—”
“Chayin!” Sereth’s warning cut him short. So there were things that Chayin, also, had been constrained by Sereth’s will not to discuss with me.
“Hael has roused many among those at Frullo jer against you,” I said, that Sereth might have the proof he sought by his constraint. They stopped in their tracks, as one man. The moon broke through the clouds, backlighting them. It shone back upon itself from out of the lake, dow
n the slope from us. “They will rise out of the desert and strike you upon the plain of Astria, under the banner of TarKesa’s will. Thus does Raet move against me. Chayin, you must choose where you stand—your father has turned upon you!” And neither spoke, not even to reprimand me for my outburst.
“Sereth, you also must make a choice. If it is your pleasure to set Celendra groveling at your feet, do so knowing what will follow. If you war with Day-Keepers, it is a doomed battle. I must know your will aforehand, to do it.”
“There is only that which one chooses, eh?” Sereth said. “As you say, it is my pleasure to set Celendra at my feet. Since Chayin killed Aknet, it is also necessary for him to lend a hand. Celendra will not rest until she has her revenge, and she can call all of M‘ksakka to her aid. She holds Dellin so tight he has lost the ability to think.” And I winced, in the dark, at the mention of Dellin, who once in my ignorance I thought I loved.
“Day-Keepers war with me, not I with them,” continued Sereth, squatting down to tear up handfuls of the wet grass. “We must strike first. If the Day-Keepers would allow Celendra to come to rule in Astria through murder and guile, if they would do what Hael has done, what Vedrev did, then it seems to me that someone must stand against them.” He looked up at the sky, squinted at the moon. “And if all this is simply peripheral to some struggle between you and Raet, that does not make it less real. As many would die, were neither you nor your god-friend involved.” He tossed his head, threw down one last mangled handful of turf, and straightened up.
Sereth crill Tyris set his hest, and cared for nothing less. He had known, all along, what it had taken me so long to learn. Even against Raet, he would not give it up. I reached out and touched his arm.
“We will need a multiplicity of plans, to fool a forereader,” I said.
“How many?” Chayin asked, with implicit assent.
“Five, say. Enough that she sees only the outcome—her downfall—and cannot determine how it will come. We must make her doubt her own sensing. We shall give her a taste of forereader’s disease.” Chayin laughed at this, and Sereth swatted my rump and pushed me gently toward the lake.