The Gate of Ivory

by Doris Egan

  Ran came by as I worked. "Can I watch?" he asked.

  "If you like."

  Working on Tyl, I could see what Vale meant when he said that people who built up their muscles had a different energy flow than dancers like Pyre. Both had trained their bodies sternly, but Tyl's energy was in separate pools, while Pyre's had leaped along like a river. "It doesn't hurt, does it?" I asked Tyl. I was going in more deeply than I ever had.

  "I barely feel it, you're like a butterfly," he said. My goodness, he really could talk. I gave his back an affectionate slap when I was through, and he smiled. There was a pleasant feel to Tyl, like a large family dog.

  Ran said, "You've studied hard, haven't you?"

  "Yes, I have."

  He nodded, as though figuring something out. Later he brought over a blanket from his pack. "I know you're too cheap to buy an extra one for yourself. Still, it's not spring yet."

  "Thanks." I took it from him. It was dark red wool, Karlas must have picked it up in Jerrinos. "Well, good night."

  "Yes, good night." He paused a moment. "Do you still have that onyx cat?"

  "Yes, it's in my pack. Do you want it?"

  "No. I just wondered. Never mind, tymon, sleep well."

  Tyl's stride picked up over the next couple of days. They tried to slow down for me, but after keeping pace for half an hour or so he and Karlas would pull ahead, and Ran and I would meet them much later, sitting on a log or a boulder, waiting for me. "Sorry, my lady," said Karlas. "It's difficult to hold back."

  I resented them for it, and it felt bitter to think of Ran going slower for my benefit. Not that he said anything about it—and I resented that, too. My feet ached and my back ached, in one continuous pain. One night I sat dully by the fire, thinking unhappy thoughts, when Ran sat down beside me. "You look more miserable than anyone I have ever seen," he began.

  "Thank you."

  "It's not you, it's the expression on your face. You should see it."

  I grunted.

  He said, "I know it's difficult for you, but… do you want to talk about it?"

  I scuffed up some dirt. "I have," I said, "no physical endurance at all."

  He seemed to be waiting for something more. "What of it? It's never bothered you before."

  "I never knew it before!" And there I was, yelling at Ran. I said, "I'm sorry. Please excuse me for a little while." I went off a short distance into the trees where I could be alone in misery.

  I hadn't known it before. I'd always done pretty well at whatever I tried to do, always comfortably in die top twenty percent of my class—and anything I hadn't done well at I'd figured wasn't all that important anyway. I hadn't known that my body was designed along such un-heroic lines. Nor had I had any inkling of the shameful way one's mind would follow the physical state—making me resentful and short-tempered with people who hadn't done me any wrong.

  When I'd told myself off sufficiently, I got up to rejoin the others. Then I had a major scare. There was blood on the boulder I'd been sitting on. I quickly checked my robes and found blood on my undertunic and between my legs. I was shocked and frightened, sure that I was hemorrhaging internally. Could I get to a doctor quickly enough? And was there a Tellys-trained doctor anywhere between here and the capital? I was shaking.

  I'd taken a couple of steps back to the camp when I suddenly remembered there was another and less harmful cause of bleeding in a female. It would be hard for an Ivoran to understand that I'd forgotten about it, but after all I hadn't menstruated since the first time, when I was thirteen. I'd had the usual implants to inhibit ovulation, right on the dot, every three years. The implants were supposed to last from three to five years, but I liked to be prudent. My last one must have just worn off. Great Plato, what was I supposed to do now?

  It occurred to me that besides the inconvenience, I was now capable of becoming pregnant—involuntarily pregnant. What a concept! I was capable of screaming my way through childbirth on a planet where the nearest medical facility I would trust was geographically and financially way out of my league. And what about Rao? Not that I was thinking, specifically, about Ran—but what if Ivory and the rest of the universe had indeed gone their separate ways, and we were different species? The definition of species was that they were able to mate and produce fertile offspring. But there were plenty of separate species that could mate and produce, well, something. There was no guarantee what. It might require sophisticated medical technology even to bring such a child to term.

  Well, there was no point in thinking any further on that topic, or I would lose heart entirely. But, gods who were supposed to watch over scholars, this was really the final straw. I climbed back up on my rock, avoiding the bloodstain, and thought about crying. I just felt numb, though.

  I didn't have the faintest idea what to do about menstruation, either. I wasn't sure about bringing up the problem to the others; maybe it was a taboo topic on Ivory, I'd never paid any attention to it before. Why doesn't anybody ever warn you about these things? I thought about all those marvelous stories I'd read back on Athena, the legends I'd fallen in love with—the heroes setting off to seek fortune and adventure. Knights and damosels rode forth to do battle at castles perilous, and the damosels never had this problem. And hobbits and tall elves strode swiftly over the earth, and the hobbits never had any trouble keeping up. Of course, hobbits were supposed to have great endurance.

  If only I were a hobbit. A male hobbit.

  Oh, well, I was just going to have to go ask. If they thought it was an unrefined topic to bring up, they would just have to live with it. I couldn't stay here on this rock forever.

  I went back to camp and told Ran about my problem. He looked blank. "Don't you have an idritak?" he asked.

  A what? "No," I said.

  "I assumed you picked up some in Jerrinos," he said. "Well, it's late, but we can't avoid it. I'll have Karlas go into Spur, it's just a couple of miles away, and he can get you some. Really, Theodora, I would have thought you'd anticipated this."

  "How can Karlas pick me up anything? Are we talking about an implant?"

  "A what?"

  Some confused exchanges of information followed. Eventually Ran shook his head and went over to talk to Karlas, who shrugged and left the camp. He came back in an hour with a small pouch containing a lot of little white things. They seemed to be made of absorbent cloth.

  "What do I do with these?" I asked.

  Karlas looked blank. "Whatever it is you women do with them," he said.

  "You put them inside," said Ran.

  "Actually inside me? How many at once? Are they sterile?" I looked at them distrustfully.

  Ran and Karlas were at a loss. Apparently this was something they had never given much thought to, either.

  Tyl spoke up. "If I may," he said quietly. Then he gave me explicit instructions. Ran and Karlas looked at him. "I have five sisters," he said, shrugging.

  So I took the idritak pouch and went off to "do whatever it is we women do with them." It was more difficult than it sounded. I told myself as I worked at it that it was all part of being a primate. But since that day I have often thought I would rather be a marsupial.

  I believed that I had reached the low point of my life so far. I was wrong. The following morning we arrived at the lip of the Simil Valley.

  It was a long, narrow, bare-looking place; filled with undergrowth in the summer, they said, but just muddy now. We were lucky, they said, that it wasn't summer and we didn't have to pick our way through it. I didn't join in these congratulations, saving my breath for the descent. We went down the long hillside trail, boots on in spite of the warm weather.

  "Almost spring," said Ran quietly to Karlas.

  "Um," said Karlas. His expression was serious.

  The valley looked long to me—too long to get through in three days, which was the schedule we were working on. But we tramped down into the heart, and I swore to myself that I would keep up, regardless of how I might have to run through th
e muck. Being too slow here would put all our lives in danger.

  I had said I would ask for no more rest periods, and I didn't. I knew I wasn't going as quickly as the others could, but I went on. And on. Soon the pain in my feet and back spread to my neck, my calves, and my chest. I pushed a fist into the small of my back to try to minimize it, and walked that way. I didn't complain—but that was small credit to me. I didn't have the wit or the energy to complain after a few hours. Speech was beyond me. At first I thought longingly of the trip up from Issin, when I set my own pace and rested whenever I liked; it was another world. Soon enough I stopped thinking at all. It was one long dreamlike horror, step after step after step. I no longer moved to wipe away sweat. One foot after the other, that was enough to deal with.

  Ran's hands were on my shoulders. "Theodora," he said. "You can stop now. We're stopping here. Do you hear me?"

  I dropped down into the mud and lay there.

  At once he knelt beside me. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes. Go away."

  He seemed to sense that I meant it, and went away. After a while, I don't know how long it was, he returned with Karlas. "Help me get her up," he said. They each took an arm, and we went on. That was how it was in the daytime. At night I took no part in setting up the fire or cooking. They left me alone, for which I was grateful. As for my body, it ached through the night; there were blisters on the soles of my feet and there were rashes on parts of me I had never known about before. It itched terribly, but when I saw the effects of scratching I tried to stop.

  One day, two days, three days. We were still in the valley. Ran and Karlas were worried, always listening now for the sound of rushing water; but I was beyond that. In fact, I was the only person in the party who wasn't frightened. But something gave out on that third day. I had no notion it was coming; if I'd been asked before I entered this valley, I would not have thought that one's limits could be reached so quickly. Between one step and another it happened: I stopped. I sat down.

  I said nothing to anybody, and it was several minutes before they realized I wasn't with them. Then they came back and stood around me.

  Ran said gently, "Theodora, we have to get on. We can't even go back, it's too late. We're in danger here.

  We could be flooded out at any time, and it's a vicious flood, IVe heard about it. Theodora? It'll cut through here like a knife through paper. We couldn't possibly survive."

  "Go," I said.

  "What?"

  "Go. Save yourself."

  They looked at each other.

  Ran said, "Theodora—"

  "Go. It's all right. I don't care." And I didn't. It's hard to enter now into my feelings on that day, at that moment, but I really didn't care. Things had simplified for me enormously: I couldn't continue. Therefore everything else had to follow from that point. Death just didn't seem like the thing to be avoided it was when I was in my right mind.

  They went away and spoke to each other for a few minutes. I could hear them, but I wasn't interested. After a bit Ran came back.

  "I've sent them on ahead," he told me.

  "You go, too." Conversation was an effort but it had to be said. I didn't want the responsibility for his death. On top of everything else it was just too much. If he stayed, I might try to get up in a while, and I didn't want to.

  "No."

  "Please."

  "No. Listen, Theodora, sweetheart, you don't have to talk. Lie down if you want to. Pretend I'm not here."

  I sat there dully, resenting him for making me deal with his presence. After a few minutes—or maybe it was longer—I realized he'd pulled off my boots.

  "What are you doing?"

  "If you won't lie down, this will at least help." He poured water from his canteen over a tunic he'd pulled from his pack; then he started washing my feet with the tunic. He was crazy, but it would take too much effort to stop him. "Your feet look horrible," he said conversationally. "I didn't know a person could have this many blisters and rashes in such a small area. Athlete's foot, too. My, my—sensitive skin for a barbarian." When he'd finished washing off the sweat and grime he lifted one foot and began pressing against the sole with his thumb, using a tinaje grip.

  "I didn't know you knew that," I found my voice saying.

  "I watch and learn," he said, "much like yourself."

  We sat there like statues for several hours. I said, finally, "I'm very sorry."

  "Sorry about what?" He seemed genuinely blank.

  "I've slowed everybody down. I'm not the stuff heroes are made of, Ran. I'm not even the stuff Karlas and Tyl are made of. I'm not worth wasting your time over."

  He was quiet for a minute, then he said, "I have often had difficulty understanding you, Theodora, but never more than right now. I don't see what the question of how quickly you can travel through the Simil Valley has to do with how good you are. You're not a hiker, at least not with these people and in this terrain. Too bad, but I always took you for a city kid anyway, tymon. I'm strictly urban, myself, and when I go to the country—as you've seen—I bring plenty of comfort along with me. You'll probably never be called on to do something like this again, you know. And in the capital, who's going to care if you take shorter steps when you walk?"

  I hadn't thought of it that way. Still, it was easy for him to be polite about it—he hadn't failed.

  Then he was going on. "I know you have no reason to listen to me. I fell apart just when you needed me. When I found out that I wasn't going to have every move I made backed up by the family, I just gave up living. I know, Vale claims that it was an attack by sorcery; but I know, myself, that I wouldn't have been vulnerable to it if I hadn't given up first. You had to take care of everything. That wasn't what you signed on for, was it? Don't think I haven't thought about it every day since Teshin—"

  "Are you crazy?" I don't know how long he would have gone on with that nonsense if I hadn't stopped him. "Look, I understand that this family business means more to you than to a tymon from Pyrene. Your world was hammered down in front of you, Ran, how were you supposed to react?" He looked so miserable. I raised his head. "I was irritated, of course, when you checked out like that. But I get irritated by a lot of things. That's all I thought about it. Really."

  We sat there holding onto each other for a while. Eventually I noticed the particular aches and pains that had receded for the past few hours into generalized misery were making themselves known. I sighed. "We'd better go," I said.

  He got up and held out a hand. We went limping off into the mud. I felt pretty miserable, but I really didn't feel too bad.

  I must have thought I heard the sound of water a dozen times before we reached the halfway point on the trail up the pass out of the valley. "We're safe at this height," Ran said. When we got to the top of the ridge, I turned around.

  "I wish I could see the water come through," I said. "After all that trouble, I'd like to see what could have killed me."

  "Well, there's no hurry now," said Ran. "Do you want to wait?"

  We sat for a time looking out on that lousy valley. I felt as though I'd spent a lifetime in it. The sun swung behind the mountaintops to our left. "I guess we should go on," I said.

  He shrugged. "Sorry, tymon, it doesn't come on cue."

  "Yeah, all things being equal I suppose I should be glad we missed it."

  He laughed and helped me up. We crossed over the ridge. On the other side I stopped.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "I thought I heard water. Never mind," I said, as I started walking again. "It's probably all in my mind."

  Behind me the roaring got louder. Ran looked at me questioningly.

  "No, thank you," I said. "We're out of it now. Believe me, Ran, you haven't got enough in the family treasury to get me in that valley ever again. That sound," I added firmly, "is in our minds."

  "As you say," said Ran; "Grandmother taught me never to contradict a lady of Cormallon."

  Chapter Fourteen

  We
met up with Karlas and Tyl in the town of Tenrellis, a few days away from the capital. There were a lot more towns now, and a lot more traffic on the roads. They'd booked themselves into an inn—the sort of place that was as inexpensive as we could go without offending Ran's sensibilities. It was all right by my standards, anyway; which is to say, vermin were kept to a minimum. I ask for little else.

  Ran agreed that we could stay for a couple of days and rest up. While he was eager to move, he didn't want us staggering into the capital in rags, too tired to deal with whatever we might find there. The morning after our arrival I went out to the market, leaving Ran behind with Karlas and an old, battered chessboard they had dug up somewhere. Chess has never interested me, probably because I'm such a bad player, and I wanted to buy something good to eat and sit under the striped awning by the market and think about how I didn't have to do any walking today. It was a beautiful springlike morning.

  I was sitting under that striped awning, licking a lemon ice, when I heard a voice I knew very well. "Have you shrunk," it said thoughtfully, "or have I gotten taller?" It was Kylla, standing over me in her best go-to-the-city robes, hair demurely braided but with wide gold hoops in her ears and a hint of gold swirl on her cheeks. I looked down at the sandals that peeped out from under her robes and saw her toenails were painted gold, too.

  "I'm sure I've shrunk," I said, blinking up at her face in the sunlight. "I really don't think there's much left of me."

  "My, my," she said, and sat down tailor-fashion by my side. "We'll have to do something about that. How's my brother?"

  "Well."

  "And yourself?"

  "Shrunken, but otherwise unharmed."

  "Good." She played with the hem of her robe. "Theodora, I think we should talk. How would you like to check into the local Asuka baths with me? We could order in food and masseurs and anything else we like, and make a day of it."

  The idea of hot water in bulk was very tempting. "Uh, you would be paying for this, Kylla?"

  "Naturally."

  I took perhaps a second to make up my mind. "Done. Let me leave a note for Ran at the inn."