by Janet Morris
“You seem familiar with our ways, Cahndor. Have you been before at the Lake of Horns?” I asked, to camouflage my nervousness. I sought the cream-silked couch, sat upon its edge.
Chayin rendi Inekte growled his laugh, a rumble deep in his throat. Standing in the middle of the brown-hung couching keep, he dropped the cloak of harth-black feathers from his shoulders onto the creamy mat. His breech and leathers followed them, and his thigh-high boots. I found my breath caught in my throat at the sight of him revealed. It is said that what is dark appears smaller than what is light. That revelation made Chayin seem to me, in that dimness which gave him its substance, immensely powerful, gargantuan in his mass. About him was little of civilization, nothing at all of the refinement that marked Khys.
“You and I,” growled the cahndor, stalking about the keep, pulling back the hangings, checking the windows so revealed, “are going to have a little talk.”
I pulled my legs up on the couch, crossed my arms upon my drawn-up knees.
“Disrobe,” he snapped abruptly, throwing himself upon the couch, rolling to one hip. I scrambled to my feet to obey him, my fingers fumbling as I pulled the web-work up through my chald and over my head. I held it between us, folding and refolding it.
“Come, Estri,” he said impatiently. I dropped it where I stood, and walked toward him, keeping my hands at my side with difficulty. I wished he had even more darkened the keep. “Sit,” he said, patting the creamy silk. I sat there, my back straight, separating my hair, that I might clothe myself in it.
“No,” he snapped, lounging upon his side, his chald glittering wide and full upon his dark skin. “Tell me about yourself.”
There was little to tell. I told it as succinctly as possible. He chuckled, a bitter sound, when I told him of my naming, and why I had chosen as I had.
“The dharen,” he interjected, “is as close to omniscient a man as I have ever seen.” Of the arrar Sereth he asked me, and since I had felt him in my mind, I answered truly.
When I was finished, he sighed and sat up, crossing his legs under him, his large hand kneading the place where his right shoulder met his neck. “I cannot directly inform you of your past. Khys has forbidden me. But there is a chance that I might be able to bring it back to you, if you want it. When once such was discussed, it was postulated that my hand on you might achieve it.” He stared at me, the membranes snapping back and forth across his eyes. I saw then, upon his other arm, uritheria, the mythical desert beast, winged and clawed, whose fiery breath had manifested upon the plain of Astria in Amarsa, ’695. “What say you?” he demanded.
“Khys says if it comes upon me, and I am not ready, it will destroy me,” I whispered, trembling.
He shrugged. “Khys says what serves him. Part-truths, and twistings, thereof, are tools he is not averse to using. I doubt if your past will destroy you, though when you realize yourself, you may have some difficulty with what you have become since you lost cognizance. But the risk is there.” He rose. “I, for one, am in favor of taking that chance. It is not easy to look upon you thusly.” He searched among his piled gear and returned to me, a tiny pouch clasped in his hand.
“Here.” He held it out to me, unstoppered. “Take a small taste only. Put your tongue to the opening, then tilt the pouch back.” Under his scrutiny, I did so. It was bitter, a nerve-curling burning saltiness that left my tongue and throat numb.
“Sereth had two of these, once,” he said, fingering the gol drops mounted on my chald. “He saved them long for the Keepress, and when they came together after a lengthy separation, he gave her a blade, the match of his own, with such a gol drop embedded in the hilt.” He turned the chald at my waist, counting the drops. “One is a fortune, for an ordinary man. Khys holds you high.”
“Not high enough to keep me for himself,” I murmured, shaking. The drug was strong.
“He promised me more than a cursory use of you, once. He cares, I suppose, or he would not have amended his word.” His eyes searched mine for some corroboration they did not find there. His large hand ran up and down my back, his nails scratching lightly. I fought the urge to turn and bite it. The room air whined around me, geometries dancing like motes of dust wet with dew. I rubbed my eyes.
Chayin suddenly pulled me down beside him, his hand holding both my wrists, with ease, above my head. His other hand, exploring, demanding, was unbearably arrogant. I fought him. I bit and kicked and writhed and turned, forgetting all my promises to Khys. I sank my teeth into the fanged creature that lurked upon his bicep. He laughed, struck my head away. I saw, suddenly, another place, another time I had struggled thus with the cahndor of Nemar. Above me were no longer the brass scales of the forereader’s common keep, but a desert apprei, whipping in the hissing wind.
“No,” I wailed, and he, just entered in me, grunted and strove harder to split me asunder. “Chayin,” I gasped, when I could, “let me go, please.” My wrists would surely crack, imprisoned in that grip. As I thought it, he tightened his grasp upon them.
“Estri,” he rasped, kneeling over me, his knees upon my hair. “Recall me, or what Khys gets back will be greatly different from that which he lent out!” He did not give me time to answer, silencing me with his need. I had been helpless under him, another time. Still, I would not see it. I saw the Keepress’ life, her couching of the cahndor, as she had described it. Swallowing, convulsive, it burst upon me with his sperm, with the taste of him in my mouth. I found my hands free, clutched at him, my whole universe shifting like a bondrex in sucksand.
He held me while I wept, my head pressed against the curling black hairs of his chest. I thought I might never raise my head, that I could not live with such shame. And another thing, I thought, over and over: Khys, what have you done to us? Sereth, my love, my couch-mate—how could he ever forgive me? Santh, my own, whom I had raised from a whelp, how might I explain my absent love to him? Chayin, who still loved me, whom again I would gainsay for another, who had better served me than any—what might I do to repay him?
But out loud I only wailed, again and again, my spread fingers clutched over my ears: “Khys, what have you done to us?”
III: Seeking Stance in the Time
Chayin slapped me hard with the flat of his hand. Thrice, before my hysteria subsided. His rage had his great arms quivering.
“Estri! Cease this now! Speak to me! Later you will have time for tears.”
And I put my arms around his neck and brought him down upon me. “Chayin,” I wailed. “What am I going to do? Help me. I am so sorry. I could do no different.”
“I know, little one. You seem destined to be ever some man’s crell.” His tone much softened, he kissed my closed eyelids, out of which tears squeezed anew. I sobbed against him. “I do not know, truly, what you can do. As always, you have my support, anything I have, whatever I can do. And more, if you come to want it.” His hands, with their own wisdom, brought calm upon me.
“What I said to Sereth—how could such a thing come to be? If there is any sanity in this universe my father made for us, I fail to see it.” I pushed at him, that I might see his face. Chayin’s eyes were red, his upper lip beaded with sweat, his brow furrowed. I knew that what I had to ask would hurt him.
“Do not think,” I said softly, taking deep breaths, trying to clear my thoughts, “that I am not aware that no other could have brought me to myself.” I ran my fingertip over his lips. Crouched above me, he nipped it. “Always, it will be you to whom I am indebted.” I raised my head, kissed him, a long time. “I will find, should I extricate myself from this, some way to repay you that will cause you to look back upon this day with joy. Will you do for me, right now, what must be done?”
“If I can, little crell.” He grinned at me, bit my neck.
“Find Sereth. Bring him here to me. I beg you. I must explain myself, salve the wound I dealt him.”
His body stiffened against mine. He brushed stray hairs from my forehead with his lips.
“That I c
annot do. When he left the meal, he left the lake. He was much offended that Khys would put such a mark upon you.” I felt his probe, turned my face away.
“It is my father’s sign,” I whispered.
“Not upon Silistra,” he said, taking his weight from me.
“What is the time, Cahndor?” I demanded, dizzy with confusion. Once, it was I to whom Chayin had come for such counsel. A great reversal had come to be in our positions. “What reason had Khys for allowing this to come to be?”
“I know not, little crell, what he has in his mind. The time, so muddled with all who now set hests within it, yields me little.” He sat up, crossed his legs under him. “I thought he might let me have you now, since he got the child. He will not. He told me once I might breed you. He will not allow it. Yet he allowed me this couching, doubtless knowing what I intended.”
I saw upon him his northern chald, and the new strand woven there, that of helsars. With both minds, I knew him. He who had so affrighted me without my memory was a comfort in my sight. And yet his altered chald showed him also Khys’s crell.
He shook his head. “Little can I do for you, Estri, or for Sereth, or even myself, before him. I asked for you. He refused me. I petitioned him for Sereth, that I might have an arrar’s aid in calming the chaos that is now upon the Parset Lands.” He laughed harshly. “He allowed me an arrar—Carth. Such is the dharen’s humor. He wants you both here to serve his hests, whatever they are.” He fell silent, brooding. I could get no sense of him, of what emotions raged within him. Nor could I keep him out from my own mind.
“What are you thinking?” I queried him helplessly.
“About you and Sereth. He was angry that I would try this, even that I sought to free you. He believed Khys, that it was uris which in truth destroyed you, and that you were better off unknowing if you remained in Khys’s hands. What was left of you mattered so to him that he would not have risked it.”
I said nothing. My fingers found Chayin’s, entwined them as of old.
“You did,” I assured him, “the right thing. I will be better off, after I have correlated what information I have. It is only the shock. I will be fine.” I did not believe it. “If you would restrain your attention from my thoughts until I have them ordered, it perhaps would be easier upon the both of us.”
“It hurts me,” he growled, “to see you so helpless. Before, when you did not know, it lay easier upon you.” He rose and paced the keep, ever the desert stalker. “I know now what has set Sereth upon the edge of madness.” He kicked his piled gear, scattering it.
“Could you not seek him with your mind, tell him what has come to pass, that I am restored to myself, that you did me no harm, but invaluable service?”
“I cannot. He likes not such conversation, and has spent much time upon a shield to keep him isolate. I doubt if even Khys can crack it,” he said proudly.
“Let it be. I will see him presently.” I sat up, tearing the braids and the fire gems from my hair. My skin pebbled as my mind began to function.
“Chayin,” I asked softly, turning my head to follow him around the keep, “what will Khys say? What will he do to you for helping me? They destroyed the last hest I set before I was banded, while about my assessment.”
“Little crell,” Chayin snarled, striding across the keep to stand over me, fists upon his hips, “I care not. He cannot destroy me. He needs me to hold the south. Far-reaching changes he intends in the Parset Lands. Without the trust my people have in me, none of his seeds could bear fruit. Jaheil has made very clear to Khys the connection between my life and his goals.” His white teeth flashed in that fearful grin I so loved. He sat beside me, encircled me with his arm, pulled me onto his lap.
“But do not underestimate him. He is an awesome talent. Doubtless he knew of this probability. Perhaps it is, in some obscure way, his intention. I set my hest interlocking with a larger conception that encompassed yours. If I had set it upon yours, I would have lost it. It is a trick I learned from a certain Keepress when I restudied her works with a helsar-trained eye.” He squeezed my breasts. I nestled my head against him.
“You hooked into Khys’s hest?” I echoed. It made no sense.
“I know not whose it was; it was of such enormity I could only attempt to employ a tiny section, placing my own coeval with what I could apprehend.”
A knock, twice repeated upon the door, precluded my answer. I pulled the couch cover around me. Chayin grinned, striding to open it. I thought it not funny. Within me were the emotions of Khys’s Estri, as well as my own. I lowered the cover from me deliberately as Chayin pulled open the door. He who stood there was an arrar, that blond who had held Liuma and me so clumsily in the common room. He bid the cahndor come with him and attend at once the dharen. The woman, he instructed, inspecting me coldly, was to be left here. Another would come and collect her. Chayin could make no objection, even when the arrar shackled my hands behind my back. He only stood by, helpless, as the blond arrar lifted me bodily from the couch and put me on the mat beside it. I was struck dumb in my fear. He took from his robe a chain. Then he lifted my hair, held me by it while he snapped one end around the band of restraint I wore. The other end he attached to a ring set low in the couch’s side. I could not rise upon that short tether.
The arrar strode out into the hall, looking back impatiently when Chayin did not immediately follow. The cahndor knelt down and kissed me, holding me so tightly that all breath was forced from my lungs.
“Tasa, little crell,” he growled in my ear. “If I can, I will see you again before I depart for Nemar.” He rose. I watched him, unspeaking, my hands in chains behind my back, kneeling as Khys’s Estri had been so well trained to do. The door shut behind him with a muffled thump. I slid my legs from under me and slumped back against the couch frame, waiting. Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi, you have come to occupy a most untenable position, I thought bitterly. Khys—unconscionably had he treated me. Yet, not knowing him culpable without my memory, I had loved him. I sought within me for some vestige of my skills; found, as I had expected, only scars and reminders of what had once been. I waited, fearful and defiant, for the dharen to come collect me.
My mind skittered and whirled and paced in the silence provided by his band of restraint. Desperately I sifted the memories of him I had acquired, for some hint or sign, some clue, overlooked in my ignorance, that I might now put to use. I found it not. I came upon only my weakness. If they had not so thoroughly dealt with me in my assessment, I thought, I might have fared better. I recollected him, with both minds, and shivered at the ambivalence that was mine. It had been such ambivalance that had destroyed Raet, Khys had once confided. I struggled in my chains, to no avail. What would he do with me? I lunged against my tether. The couch, set into the floor, remained unmoving. The chain hummed, held. The band of restraint at my throat did not so much as bend. Half-choked, my neck badly wrenched, I leaned back against it once more. I sought the sort, saw nothing. My skin sheened with sweat. It dried, lay there like a dusting of salt.
When the door opened, I scrambled to my knees automatically.
He pushed it wide, paused there, regarding me critically. I awaited him, sitting upon my heels, my wrists chained behind, my head bowed, my chin touching the tether that bound me to the couch. I fastened my gaze upon my copper thighs.
I heard the door close, the sound of him moving. I saw his sandaled feet before me, and I knew for what he waited. Stiffly, I bent my head as far as my tether would allow. My unbound hair fell over his feet. A thousand pulsebeats he kept me so before he bade me rise, long enough for my shame to set my body afire, long enough for my terrorized mind to babble to him all he might choose to hear.
He squatted down and touched my shoulder. I flinched, sat back upon my heels.
“Keepress,” he greeted me, even-toned, shadow or humor dancing at the corners of his mouth in the dim light. A terrible wrenching took me as I tried to make some accord between my two views of him. Those molten e
yes sought mine. I avoided them, until his hand under my chin forced my head up.
“Dharen,” I managed. I could hardly hear my own voice.
He raised one arched brow, ran his familiar, alien hand down me. I quivered, fighting the old hate, the new love within my heart. “No repudiation?” he queried, low, in that silken voice. “No threats, no imprecations, no judgments upon my use of you?”
“No,” I whimpered. She who had not known him had not known her danger. I appraised it, saw my defeat in every molecule of that father-bred body. He whom my father had chosen for me was more than my match. “You do not have to reteach me, dharen.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “I have no doubt of your power, your skill.” I stared into those eyes, so like Estrazi’s, drowned there. In them was no hint of what he intended.
“Do you know now what I have done?” he said gently.
“No,” I whispered, my wrists by their own will fighting the bracelets that bound them. I searched his face, desperate for some hint of his intent. There was none. I wished, agonized, that he would hold me. My skin crawled at the thought. I moaned, closed my eyes, tossing my head as if I could shake away my pain.
Khys laughed softly. “Talk to me, Keepress!” he commanded.
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, shuddering at his presence in my mind. He took from me all that I had felt with the cahndor. I did not attempt to defend myself. I sat straight, my head raised before him.
“What I choose,” he said, freeing the tether where it had been snapped to the couch ring. I thought wryly how great an honor it was considered, upon the outside, to be allowed to come to the Lake of Horns. He wrapped the end of the chain around his fist. Again he wrapped it, and again, drawing me toward him.
“Khys”—the wail burst from me—“please, tell me how I may serve you.”