by Janet Morris
“Bathe, little monster. I would have you clean enough to couch before morning,” he commanded me.
The water was very cold, colder-seeming because when I jumped back after testing it with my toe, Sereth picked me up, waded in up to his own hips, and dropped me cruelly into the icy lake. Laughing and sputtering, I pulled his legs from under him, that he might join me. We played thus, until I saw Chayin, sitting upon the bank, alone. The rain stopped entirely while I bathed myself, scraping away the dead skin with handfuls of fine bottom sand.
“Do my back?” I asked Sereth,
“Kneel down, then,” he said. I did, my knees in the soft sand, and his hands worked knowingly upon my back, kneading sore muscles expertly.
“You are couching him, are you not?” I asked him.
“Yes,” Sereth said, toneless.
“It is a common thing in the south,” I said. He rinsed his hands in the water, and turned toward the bank, where Chayin waited.
“It is a common thing,” he said, offering his hand to me.
“I would consider it a great courtesy,” I petitioned him softly, “if you would leave me out of what transpires between you.”
“Why, Well-Keepress?” I tugged on his hand, that he would stop. He pulled me forward.
“I could give you a child, this night. I would want no doubt as to its sire.”
And then he did stop. I spoke those words upon impulse, unthinking. It was not in my plan, or my sensing. And yet I wanted it, though it would change all that was to be.
“Could you?” he demanded.
“Yes.” I did not say that I now had that choice, anytime, with any man. As Estrazi had said to me long ago, one must but direct one’s organs to do so.
“Could you take some precaution against it, then? I want no such thing. I would not bring about a child I might not live to succor.”
If he had struck me full force, he could not have hurt me more. And what could I say to him? That I could protect him? If it came to be that I could, and he knew it, at that moment he would be lost to me, as surely as if by his death. I was, though I knew him right, much shamed by his rejection. Although I had thrown off chaldra, its values were still within me. The Ebvrasea, it seemed, had truly shed its conditioning.
Sereth, already upon the bank, had his arm upon Chayin’s, and they spoke together in low tones. I regarded the sky above me, and hastened the clouds’ clearing. When I ascended the bank, some little ways away from them, the north star Clous twinkled brightly. I lay down upon the wet grass, spreading my dripping hair about me. Wirur, the winged hulion, watched over me from out of a clear sky. I went to do my hest, my first with my new skills. Upon the grids of force that hold the seven universes forming, I rode, past those whose thrumming guardianship keeps the primal order. I showered in star’s breath, moving ever back from the timetracks, that I might see truly. One cannot move in time, for time is within mind. What we apprehend as empty space abounds with mind. At that place where all is congruency, I stopped, and turned to see what conceptions existed there; whose will had preceded me. Upon a place that glowed and pulsed from the strain already on the time, I built still another conception. I could not excise the color pulses from the Astrian sky, nor the corpses ever crawling upon that bloody plain. I forced what existed to my will, and finally saw there a kind of victory. Sereth, I could see, and I did what I might to protect him. When at last I could hold us together, unscathed, in my vision, there was a snapping of the time, sharp as a slitsa’s tail, and I found that I had bridged a gap, and locked my will into another, far larger conception. Not what I had hested, but bound to succeed. And so deft was the hand that laid that hest, I could not break the link. I bowed my will to that power, which I had previously only sensed.
I sighed, and sat up under the Opirian sky. Sereth was surely served, perhaps even saved. And since I had not taken time to deal with the seven-cornered room, I put the thought of it away, that I might concentrate upon what I had done. Lastly, before I went back to the men, I checked my weapons, those I meant for Raet. I looked up at Wirur, and took the constellation’s measure. If such a battle was truly to be, I would be ready.
And I reveled in my mortal flesh, as I got up and went to sit with Sereth and Chayin, almost twins in the moonlight, and that Raet could not sustain himself in such a body. I had seen the best he could do, under the Falls of Santha. Upon his world, I had been badly disadvantaged. Here, he would take the burden. Nonsequential structures cannot exist, as we know it, in three-dimensional time and space. Raet’s power here would be lessened, so much of it turned to simply staying. The need of time-space to spit him out of it might be turned to my advantage.
“What,” said Sereth, for I had been long still and silent, “are you thinking?”
“That of which you have forbidden me to speak,” I answered.
“Then do not speak of it,” he said and got to his feet, starting back up the slope without another word. Chayin and I scrambled, silent, after him. Once, when I stumbled, the cahndor steadied me. He smiled at me, and tousled my wet hair. A wind sprang up and circled the lake like some trapped animal. It raised the cold in me, and I was glad enough to take shelter from it in the always perfect mildness of Sereth’s ancient keep.
We had a saying, in our wellwomen’s training: “If you desire something from a man, tell him you do not want it.”
“What I need now,” said Chayin, rolling to his back, “is some real fear and loathing.”
“Indeed?” Sereth propped himself up upon one elbow. “There is, among our admittedly meager selection of captives, one blond daughter of a wealthy parr-breeder. She enthusiastically fears us, and her loathing is hardly feigned.”
“I will have to wake her up.” Chayin grinned, fastening his breech about him. He also took his sword belt and strapped it on.
Sereth regarded the sword belt. “She is not dangerous. You can encircle both her wrists with one hand, easily.” He sounded mildly reproving. Giddy, I felt like laughing. I restrained myself, barely, pressing my head against Sereth’s thigh.
“I want to make a strong first impression. Where will I find her?”
“Past the white corridor, straight three, left at the fourth. Ask the man on watch for her. Tell him what I told you. There are three empty chambers just left of this one. Take your choice.” Sereth’s fingers played in the hair about my neck as he gave Chayin tasa.
I traced a scar, one I had noticed immediately, with my lips. It went from just left and below his navel, crosswise, down his flat belly, was obscured by the hair there, to show again, trailing off across his right thigh. It was not new, by any means, but it had been deep, and in a hard place to take such a heavy cut. The darker ridge of it was as wide as my middle finger.
“How did you come by this?” I asked him, laying my head upon his stomach, my face toward his. I saw him through a forest of gold-brown hairs, some short and curling—his; some long and straighter, and tending toward bronze—my own.
“They sent Ganrom against me.” I was sorry I had asked.
I said so.
“No matter. They sent him against me, and I killed him. He sponsored me for the Slayer’s chain. He was a good man. But it was his chaldra to come against me.” Sereth shrugged, but his hand was rough in my hair as he pulled me up to lie sidewise against him, his arm around me.
“Why would they have sent him ... ?” I was aghast that the Day-Keepers would set one man upon the other, when all knew they were like brothers.
“They were thus surely rid of one of us. Strange moves, they made, to trap me. That is not the strangest, but only the most costly.” He rubbed at his groin, remembering. And I saw what he remembered, and his pain, and the long angry months of work upon his stiffened side. He mourned Ganrom’s loss, but not that he had killed him. In his remembrances of the fight between them, upon some black lava rocks, was mixed a certain satisfaction, a quiet triumph. I shivered and withdrew from his mind.
“Now, you tell me somethi
ng,” he said, drawing me closer. Unconsciously, I had pulled my body from him along with my sensing. “Tell me how it was to be crell. How you felt. Chayin told me what he did, what he knew. You tell me the rest.”
So I did that, puzzled, and under his urging I left nothing out, lest I leave out what he wanted to know. He listened attentively, interrupting me twice only.
“I have neglected to thank you for recruiting him,” Sereth said, when I told of the crell Aje—Lalen gaesh Saternit. “Men of his skill pass this way infrequently.”
And again, when I spoke of the crell whom not even Besha dared call anything but Carth, who said he was agent of the dharen of all Silistraagain did Sereth interrupt me, asking me to repeat everything concerned with him.
When I mentioned that proof I had seen during my Parset enchalding, the tapestry with the likeness of Raet upon it, Sereth withheld comment.
“You, of all people, know I am not mad,” I pressed him.
“I never thought you were,” he said softly, his lips against my ear. “What do you wish me to say? If he would face me, as a man, with a sword or any other mortal’s weapon, I could fight him for you. I will fight his minions, be they fleshly, until I drown in their blood or am buried under their corpses. I will surely fight Hael. He is a man, like any other. But more than that I cannot do.” He kissed my throat, and rose upon his elbow to peer down into my face.
“Think you,’’ he asked me, “that it will be enough?”
“Doubtless,” I assured him. The light played tricks upon his face above me. I raised up my head until our lips met.
“I think,” he said after a time, “that you lie. That you do doubt.”
“Not you, but myself, do I doubt.”
He grunted, and lay down once again. I nestled against him and watched the room-flicker play upon the hollow in his throat. I was sure now; the ceiling was lightening. Outside, it must be nearing a new day.
“What will you do with Celendra, when you have her?” I asked him.
“I have not decided,” he said. “Perhaps I will give her to Chayin. I owe him a woman.”
“Surely you jest!”
“Why? Should I kill her, but let you live? A woman is dangerous only when she commands men. She will be safe in the crellpits. Even you could not escape them. He can kill her, if he wants to. I am no woman-killer.”
“I think you hold her too lightly,” I said, angry, though I knew not why. He sensed it, and turned silently, to smooth the fury from my body, knowing that my mind would helpless follow. And that made me more angry, for a brief time. Then that was gone from me, and I but moved under those hands that had taught me my femaleness, and I found that they had still more to teach.
I dozed under him, after, until awakened by one of his men, standing frozen over us.
“What is it, Idrer?” Sereth said, rolling onto his back. Only then did I recall the large, heavyset, black-haired Slayer I had first met with Dellin upon the road to Arlet. He had been of Ganrom’s band. He nodded to me. I smiled back stiffly.
“A large number of mounted riders approach us.” His voice held ill-restrained unease.
“Jaheil and Nineth, probably,” I opined. “Chayin invited Jaheil, and gave him the route, should he choose to follow it.”
“Why was I not informed? Get Chayin, he is in one of the empty chambers. See if he expects anyone. Have him in the screen room when I get there. How many do you make them?”
“Forty to fifty. They are still far.”
“Mount fifty, and have them wait at the cavern mouth. They need the drill. Move!”
Idrer was gone, charging the door, which barely slid from his path in time.
Sereth took up breech and sword belt.
“If you are coming, bestir yourself,” he ordered me. I got up, looking for the clothes I had brought. I could not find them. “Here.” Sereth threw me a bundle, and I unwrapped it and sat awe-struck above all that had been in Issa’s saddlepack upon the trail to Santha, While I still hovered, staring, at the breech and band and tas-wear and combs and plump coin purse that had been mine, he threw down upon the pile the stra-hilted gol-knife he had given me, and after it a sheath and belt.
“Hurry, or you will miss the wonders of this place at work.” I was in the breech and band, with the knife in sheath belted around me, within a dozen breaths, but still I had to run to catch him, striding down the hall. He entered three cubicles in turn, but Chayin was within none of them. The last, however, showed signs of recent use.
Sereth grunted, satisfied.
“What wonders?” I asked him, as we entered the corridor “Comm. Infer., Comm. Intra.” He smiled bleakly and pointed at the legend upon the wall. We stopped before a door. Like the other doors in this section, it bore a pre-hide Silistran label.
“‘DAS.’ What is that?” I asked.
The door slid aside and I saw what Sereth’s answer confirmed.
“Direct Access Screening. Whoever built this place was concerned about who might be coming to visit.” I saw a very odd-looking console, with no faders, and what seemed to be a large assortment of light-emitting diodes, all blinking. Sereth began moving his hands over them, and I realized them to be light sensors of some sort. It looked easy. All the room lit up with views of the slopes of Opir, except for the wall behind Sereth’s back. In places the images were not sharp, but hazy.
“That is a large blind spot, after going to so much trouble,” I remarked. One quarter of the slopes, north to northwest, had no surveillance.
“Those eyes saw, once. It is broken, and I am not mechanic enough to fix it, nor do I have the part. It would take a Day-Keeper, and I am hesitant to call one.” He grinned, his eyes upon his hands, which flickered across the board; low, high, pause, but never did he touch the console’s surface. The countryside loomed closer, closer.
I saw in Sereth’s face that absorption of man with machine that had brought the culture whose remnants we used crashing down upon its creators. His hands flew upon the panel.
“Look,” he said. Truly I had no alternative, except the blind eye behind us. He showed me the thing’s skills; it produced a number of different viewpoints, even one of the empty sky. Then he laughed, for he saw them. And again his fingers slid upon the empty air above the lighted console. The magnification increased, and the moving mass ascending the slopes of Opir showed itself composed of threxmen. Sereth grunted. I heard the door. Chayin and another, Idrer, entered. One final time did Sereth play upon the panel, and we saw before us Jaheil’s party.
“Well?” demanded Sereth, turning from the screen, leaning stiff-armed against the console. He did not, then, know Jaheil. I struggled with the image, searching to see if Nineth was among the riders, as she and I had pacted.
“It is Jaheil, and I did invite him,” said Chayin, relieved, surprised, and obviously pleased. “But he said he would not come.” He peered closer at the screen. “It seems that the chandor of Dordassa found not only a yra of jiasks, but recruited some of my own tiasks, also.” And his eyes upon me let me know he saw my hand in that.
I grinned at him. Sereth looked between us.
“That is all I need!” Sereth said very quietly. “More tiasks. Where am I going to put them?” He caressed the board into darkness. The images did not fade; they were simply gone, the room suddenly acquiring walls of milky gray.
“Seems to me,” said Idrer, who seldom spoke, “that they’ll find couch to suit them, as did the first batch. Those tents of theirs lasted half the first night!” He was smirking. I had wondered about that, when I went to the lake. There I had seen no appreis risen on the grass, no sign of the forty-two Parsets Wiraal and Pijaes had brought. I wondered what couches the tiasks had found—outlaws’, jiasks’, or one another’s.
“We had twelve wounded,” reminded Sereth, “before they settled down.”
“Twelve you heard about,” muttered Chayin. “Do you want me to recall the fifty mounted at the cavern’s mouth?” Idrer asked.
�
��No. Send them out to meet this Jaheil, cahndor of Dordassa. Have them mind their manners.”
Idrer snorted. Sereth eyed him bleakly. “Then have them pretend. I will have no infighting!”
When Idrer left, still chuckling, Sereth darkened the room itself. “Old habits die hard, with us all,” he said, touching me lightly. “Your friend Lalen hamstrung a tiask the night before last. Something about an old debt.” We left the darkened room, and the corridor light seemed very bright.
“I miss your meaning,” I said to him.
“I might like his sword beside mine.”
“I would count him as a friend, nothing more. But we have no bad debt between us, if that is what you want to know.”
“Something like that,” he admitted. “Chayin, what say you?”
“I hardly know him. There are many crells in Nemar.”
“That is my point,” Sereth said, serious. “Ask him.” Chayin shrugged.
“I will. What of this Jaheil? Do we need what is now close to one hundred of your men—and women—for this? I had thought more like fifty.”
“Let us see what Jaheil knows that we do not, of Hael and what he plans. Jaheil’s sword is worth ten lesser blades, his loyalty unquestionable.”
“I see,” said Sereth, and took a turning that would lead us to the kettle room. “I want a map from you, Estri, of Well Astria, every room and passage.”
“And the tunnels beneath her, perhaps? Would you have any interest in such as secret passages, or long-forgotten access to the undertunnels from above?” I asked him.
“Anything you think might be of interest,” he answered me, thoughtful. “We also have access to those tunnels here.”
“So I assumed,” I said.
“You could never get a threx down there.”
“Are your men so far removed from the Slayers’ ways that they can no longer fight upon their own two feet?” I wondered.
“Whose sortie is this, yours or mine?” he growled, but pulled me against him as we turned into the kettle room, crowded with men at sun’s meal. Many stood with their bowls in hand; so full was the archite green chamber that they could not sit.