by Janet Morris
I walked with him, mute, not daring to press the matter. I had nearly forgotten it in the discomfiting realization that I stood but doors away from Sereth and could not aid him, when Khys spoke of it to me.
“M’tras mourns his ijiyr. I will give it to you. You may do with it as you wish. That, I assure you, is sufficient punishment upon his scales for any harm he might even have considered doing you. I shall inform him, also, of my decision.” It was an official transaction, there in the undertunnel prisons at the Lake of Horns.
I bowed my head before his gaze, that my smile fall upon my feet.
“This is the first time,” said Khys, “that I have truly marked the Shaper in you.” His grim censure rang back from the stone.
“It is surely,” I answered, “the first time I have marked such mercy in you.” I let my mind seek Sereth boldly. I found only his shield. I had not expected to touch more. I had done it for Khys, that he might know me without doubt what he had called me.
Khys turned to the lock. “You feel that strongly,” I heard him say as he cajoled the key.
“It is a blood debt. In his service, my life is forfeit. It is mine to spend, is it not? You have, already, that which you desired from me. The time calls me elsewhere. You must know it. I heard your name, too, upon the wind from the abyss. I have given you my word that I will aid you. Up to a point, I will do so. Where you go, I may be of some little use. You know it. Be assured that I know it also. Give me his life, and the larger thing might go another way. If I must be here for him, I cannot be there also.” So did I speak to him of Sereth and destiny, and of our own parts in what was to follow. But he would not hear me. Nor would I have heard any other, had I been about the setting and holding of such hests and counter-hests as twisted the whole fabric of owkahen that evening, Brinar third fourth, 25,697.
“No,” said Khys to all of it. Only that. Without looking at me, he pushed the great door inward and strode to the center of keep twelve.
I followed him, shutting the door behind me. I leaned against the rough ragony, searching.
M’tras raised himself to a sitting position. Still did he wear his form-fitting blacks, incongruous in this ancient holding keep. Around his waist was no blinking belt. He laid the ors aside, drawing his knees up against his chest. Those black-ringed eyes fastened upon me. He clicked. He seemed near thoughtless, waiting, poised like a forereader for the leap into owkahen. I sensed his physiochemical fear, his body’s tetanus from shock and obviation of space and flesh lock. Worst—bad enough that I shrank from him and turned to Dellin—was his disorientation. His knowns were not simply threatened, they were shattered. Whole chunks of his conception had crumbled upon the flawed foundations of false assumptions. M’tras’ reality had been forcibly altered by his experiences at Khys’s hands. He floundered within himself, scrabbling for footing. Perhaps for the first time without his machines to aid him, M’tras sought stance in the time. He would not, in my appraisal, gain it quickly.
Khys stood waiting. M’tras, as I, knew for what the dharen waited. It was a foolhardy defiance. My eyes met Dellin’s as Khys began the widening of M’tras’ conception.
“I have little time,” said the dharen to the M’ksakkan mechanic, who could not yet answer. “Let this be sufficient demonstration of the balance between us.”
He stepped back, removing his hold. M’tras waited out his tremors, unmoving.
Dellin of his own accord made obeisance to the dharen. Khys raised him without comment. I saw within Dellin a strength I had not seen before. He was frightened, as befitted a sane man in his position. But before the other, he was upheld, also. And pride did he seem to take in Khys, in what the dharen had done.
Khys called me to him. I went and stood there, before Dellin and M’tras. That one’s face was grayer than I recalled, and the web of lines around his eyes graven deeper. But he sat straight, his head raised to meet the dharen’s eyes.
“Further M’ksakkan perfidy has been made known to me,” said Khys sternly. “Before sun’s rising, the night will host two additional stars, if briefly.”
“You would not!”
“It is past done. The light has only not reached us.”
“You spend life casually, despite your protestations,” said M’tras.
“If you had not sent two unscheduled, undeclared vehicles to Silistra, you would not have had to count them lost. The barrier is passive protection. It only removes that which seeks to penetrate it.”
“You have isolated Silistra from the rest of civilization,” M’tras pointed out.
“Such was my intention,” agreed Khys patiently.
“They will not rest until they have us back,” M’tras said upon staccato clicks. His Silistran was fast becoming serviceable.
Khys, and Dellin also, found that to be amusing. Khys turned to the Liaison.
“You, then. Will you send a message to your people, informing them of what we both already know?”
“Allow me to serve you,” said Dellin, squaring back his shoulders.
“And to your relations there, will you also send word?” Khys pressed.
“But tell me what intelligence you desire them to receive.” Dellin, before M’tras, waxed ever more Silistran.
“Truth, nothing more,” spoke the dharen, his eyes narrowed. “That you would remain here, to discharge chaldra and take an education. That you will remain here until you have taken the teachings of the helsar you claimed upon the plain of Astria. What say you?”
“That I am honored,” said Dellin cautiously.
“At sun’s rising, I will deliver you to your keep. We will together draft such a message. You will send it. I will then return you here.”
Dellin’s gray eyes grew shadowed. He weighed his loyalities. He looked at M’tras. Then again he raised his eyes to Khys. “I will do your will,” he said.
“I would not try it,” said Khys sharply to M’tras, his hands of a sudden upon his hips. “You will not be successful.”
Seeking within Dellin for the source of his newfound grace, I had sensed nothing from M’tras. But I recollected him and his ways as he clasped his hands to his head and rocked upon his knees before us, moaning. The remembrance steadied me. I only regarded him, the sweat and tears upon his face. Sereth, upon an occasion, criticized the vengefulness he saw in the cahndor and in me, and derided us both for our alleged lack of compassion.
Unmoved, I stared down at him. Aural symbolist, stochastic improviser though he was, upon the taernite of Khys’s holding keep he begged and cried for mercy as sincerely as might any lesser man.
When M’tras was capable of speech, the dharen posed to him certain questions. From his mouth I heard of Gherein, and what twistings and turnings of justice and truth he had entertained in his conception. To rule Silistra, Gherein would have given much. He had given it, in truth, though it had not been his to give. As Khys had told it to Carth, so M’tras confirmed the dharen. Any, seeking to determine the truths involved, might now get them from M’tras.
I turned from him. Though it pleased me to see Khys instruct him, it never pleases to see strength brought low. I sought the torch play on the stone walls.
“Estri,” said Khys to M’tras, “has your ijiyr. I have given it to her. And your life, also, I will give into her hands.” I whirled upon Khys, staring.
M’tras fists were clenched upon his thighs. Seeing them, I remembered that which he had done to me, which had fitness only between men. I grinned at him.
He hardly saw me. He spoke a sentence in his musical meaningless language.
Khys laughed. “He objects most heatedly to being the crell of a crell. We have grievously demoralized him. Perhaps you might disabuse him of this particular preconception.”
I looked at Khys. I knew what he wanted from me. Shivering, I bent my will for the first time to the diminishment of a man. But I could not complete the act. I could not. I spread my hands, helpless.
Khys nodded, as if I had pleased him. I ran my
palms over my face. Both were damp. M’tras, tensed, looked between us.
“You must, it seems, take my word for our dhareness’ proficiency. Or perhaps you might consult Dellin, whom I leave here to advise you. Listen well to him, Yhrillyan, lest in improvisation you lose cognizance of the root structure of the chord.”
VI: An Ordering of Affairs
He showed me, later that evening, the lights in the sky. They seemed insignificant, viewed with the naked eye. And in truth their significance was great only to the world that had sent them. Silistra was never in danger. Other things he showed me, that night.
“What is this sudden ordering of your affairs?” I asked of him in a whisper when he had finished his extensive preparations.
“Exactly that. In the early day I will be absent with Dellin, at the Liaison First’s. Carth will come to you before I return. Maintain your calm, regardless of the implications of his message. Be assured that you can render me no greater service than that.”
I kissed him upon the shoulder. When one must hold calm within, against all rational instinct, it is of great service if there be calm without. It was a measure of his distress that he should plead my aid in what faced him. I promised him that service, not knowing how difficult its rendering would come to be.
When I awoke, he was gone from the keep. Knuckling the sleep from my eyes, I sought the window, that I might judge from the view the time and weather.
And I saw it then, but I did not mark it with my sleep-dulled senses. I but turned away and pulled on the breech and band. When that was done, I went seeking rana and sun’s meal.
I found them, upon the main floor. It was the arrar’s kitchen into which I wandered. None made objection. The dhareness, I thought, getting in line with them, might eat wherever she chose. I saw there the blond arrar who had been Gherein’s witness. Upon that seeing, I turned away, that I might avoid him, then back again when I realized the futility of my actions. I was the only female in that many-benched archite hall.
The men before and behind me were stiffly silent.
The server ladling out salsa-laced gruel screwed up his face at me, and inquired after the weather as he filled my plate.
“Will you have water in your rana?” he asked.
“It is for your rana I have come to this board, rather than another’s,” I lied to him. “I would chase the sleep from me, not stroll with it about the lake.” The blond arrar had a hand upon my arm.
“Know you what has come to pass?” he asked me.
“Of what, specifically, do you speak?”
“There are no hulions in residence at the Lake of Horns.”
“And when did they leave?”
“Upon my master’s death,” he said, pushing close.
I walked from the line. Others were waiting.
“Sit with me,” he urged.
“No.” I shook off his hand and sought an untenanted expanse of wall, squatting at its foot with my food between my legs, Slayer fashion.
“Why do you tell me this?” I asked after a time, when he hovered there still. I wished he had waited until my head was clear. The rana, tongue-curling and thick, steamed. I sipped it cautiously.
“It concerns you,” he said.
“You give me more than I have, arrar.”
“I doubt that.” He grinned. He, I decided, must be longer awake than I.
“Direct me to the fitter’s,” I asked him.
He allowed that he would escort me there. I moaned silently. I had been a fool to come here. I had had other designs upon the time remaining before the dharen’s return.
I gulped my rana, handed him the empty cup. “Get me, if you would, another serving,” I asked of him. I waited until he had taken a place in line. The man ahead addressed him. His thought bristled, shielding. Of me, the other queried him. His guarded answer revealed nothing. But I felt ever more as I wakened the crux that crackled the very air about. I knew every nerve in my body. My pulse spoke loud. There were no longer hulions at the Lake of Horns. At Gherein’s death they had left. I cautioned myself, lest I assume some false causal relationship between the two events. And what value might I attach to that piece of information, when I knew not the hulions’ function, what service they had previously rendered at the Lake of Horns?
“Perhaps Khys called them elsewhere,” I postulated to him when he returned with two cups.
He laughed. I liked not the sound of it. But I had not, upon first sight, liked anything about this blond-haired lake-born.
“What name have you?” I asked him, swirling the hot liquid.
“Ase,” he replied. I had known another by that name once. It is not an uncommon name in the northeast.
“I had thought to do more of the dharen’s work upon our new prisoners,” I informed him. “I seek Carth, to get the keys. Know you where I might find him?”
“He is in seclusion, not to be disturbed until Khys returns.” He did not hide his satisfaction. I wondered what he found to gloat about in the hulions’ absence.
“There is little time,” I said determinedly. “I am afraid I will have to disturb him.”
He squinted at me from above. I felt his mind’s seeking, and showed him what served me. “I have the keys,” he said, eyeing me speculatively. “I might take you down there, after you have seen the fitter. I would not want you to disturb Carth. He is, after all, a councilman.” His voice dripped venom like a swamp slipsa’s fangs.
He was as good as his word. And he was also the man Khys had chosen for my circle partner. A strong statement of power, was that: his placing my life routinely in the hand of his son’s favored arrar. We descended many stairs.
“Get your gear,” he urged me as we walked the halls. “I would try you.”
I was more than pleased to agree. There fell between us then an assessive silence, ceasing only when our mental paths crossed.
“Why are you not grieving for Gherein?” I asked aloud.
“I still implement his will.” His voice was hard-edged. “When I have finished my tasks. I will doubtless take time to consider him and his completed works.” We crossed a nexus hosting six passages. I saw no windows.
“Are we below ground?”
He nodded, guiding me through the passage west of north. It was short, with no doors upon its length. It led to a door of stra plate. The door when opened to the arrar’s fist revealed a huge chamber, compartmentalized. A woman from one answered the arrar’s summons. From her I commissioned a robe identical to the one I had lost. Also I procured a white tas tunic; a cloak lined with shorn white brist; three silks long-lengths, all white; a gol-knife; two straight-blades that I selected with care, and the leathers appropriate to such weapons. One of the blades I chose was noticeably heavier than the other. Even did I take it from a different section.
“One should practice with the same blade weight one intends to use upon the kill,” he criticized.
“I have always done it thus.” I had never done so. “My master was Rin diet Iron, of Astria. Who was yours?”
“Lake-born do not study Slayer’s skills.” His voice said that it was favor he did me, that such work was far beneath him. “The dharen assured me you would not kill me.”
“I would not be too certain,” I said, adding an additional gol-knife to my store. All but the heavier blade I had sent to the dharen’s keep. That I put in sheath, first nicking my arm with it. The lake-born raised his eyebrows as I sucked the new blood. Evidently one did not blood a new weapon before sheathing at the Lake of Horns.
“Take me to your civilized and urbane holding keeps, O effete one,” I suggested, piqued.
He grinned and acquiesced, leading me a way that twisted and turned and convoluted so that I took fear of being lost forever wandering in the soundless maze, with only the lake-born and an occasional ceiling star for companions. After an agonizing time, we came finally to a passage hosting doors. They were high-numbered. We proceeded down it.
“What keep do you want?” he as
ked me, fishing out his keys from his robe.
“Thirty-four,” I said, dry-mouthed
“Here, then.” He stopped. Bent over the lock, he regarded me. “How long here had you in mind?”
“An enth, perhaps.”
“That is long to wait for you.”
“I will make the wait well worth it,” I promised him.
“It is to be hoped,” he said, shoving the door inward with his shoulder. Across the green-dark keep he strode, to disappear. I heard crackling lake rushes, then a sound as of flesh upon flesh. “Wake, arrar,” I heard, and another muffled sound.
I felt the rushes under my feet. Straining for sight, I trod that dimness.
“Get out of here,” I hissed at the looming bulk of the arrar Ase. He melded into the darkness. Wood grated upon stone; the dimness became more complete.
My hands found him first. He spoke a low greeting.
His form detached itself from the shadows as I whispered a return.
“Saw you Chayin?” he asked me. His manner kept me back, though I longed to lay my head upon him.
“Yes. He bade me wear white to your ending. I cannot see this, I am unbanded. I can deal with the arrar who brought me here. He has keys.” I saw the ice in his gaze, and knew as I spoke that he would refuse. “Carth will seek me here, before mid-meal. If you held me, he would free you of the band. Upon my life, he would do it. You must not do this. Gherein tried him, Gherein is dead. The hulions are gone from the Lake of Horns. Khys admits he has lost stance in the time. Sereth, let me free you.”
“You do not think I could prevail against him?” he questioned me very low.
And I sought his eyes. I could not meet them. They rested upon the dharen’s mark, half-revealed by my open tunic.
“I see no need.”
“Where could a man run from Khys? Estri, let me be. Keep your questions from the affairs of men. I will have a testing of him. It suits me. I would hear the manner of Gherein’s death.”