The Gate of Ivory

by Doris Egan

  I wanted to dedicate it to Eln, but Ran might find out and he would never, never understand. I thought about dedicating it to Vale, or Irsa, or even Seth, who'd told me most of the stories. But that didn't feel right either, and anyway none of them would care.

  Nor did I know what would happen to it when it reached Athena—maybe the Board wouldn't like it. Maybe it violated some pet theory of somebody's; it was possible. But the hell with all that; it wasn't important enough to worry over.

  Important enough… I opened to the dedication page and wrote, in characters, "Ishin na'telleth."

  Now the only problem was whether to send it in storage or deliver it personally.

  Meanwhile, there were other calls on my time. Ran had won his fight, and there were people to be paid off. I know these details because he began to instruct me in the household accounts (the very heart of the mystery) and seemed to feel that tracking the rewards for our allies would be a pleasant introduction.

  "You want me to do accounts?" I said, with wariness.

  "It's money," he said, laughing. "How dull can it be?" ("It's numbers," said Kylla to me later, "and it's boring.") Two people in every branch could access the Cormallon treasury directly; here it was Ran and Kylla. " 'For a peaceful life,' " quoted Ran, " 'let the women worry about the money.' After the wedding, I'll transfer my access to your name."

  I grunted noncommittally.

  He said, "Kylla can show you how to set up my expense account. I like to draw an allowance every week or so. Not a good idea to carry around too much coin, you know."

  "Very true," I said. And he went away and let me play with the cash flow.

  Karlas, Tyl and other involved members of their ex-family were in receipt of Cormallon House and family shares. They were setting up an import company to deliver things up from the south to the capital; what they were delivering, I did not ask.

  The Serrens made a quick speech about their eternal gratitude to the House of Cormallon; then they asked for their shares, resigned, and opened up a cookshop (on-premises dining, with tables and benches) in one end of a building on the north side of Trade Square. It was a good location; not only would they pick up the spillover from the market crowds, but a lot of tourists made their way along the north side of the Square to get from the port to the Lavender Palace. Heida and Arno asked if I would drop in from time to time during the first few weeks, and let them know what dishes foreign barbarians preferred; although they did not phrase the invitation in exactly those terms. I decided they had what it took to make it in the Square.

  We never heard about Tagra. I assumed that she was in the Northwest Sector by then. Ran thought that she was probably dead, but Tagra never struck me as the sort of person who let go of things easily, and I wished her the best, within reason. It hadn't been much of a murder attempt, anyway, more of a game of chance. She left it in my hands—if I still felt too miserable to eat, I would live. If not, there would be one barbarian and one gold-band less in Cormallon.

  * * *

  So the weeks passed. We entertained Lysander Shikron regularly, and when he wasn't in Cormallon I was often invited to the capital to dine with his family. Ran asked me along to all the places he was asked to, and it seemed easier to accept. I would have dearly liked, however, some advice from someone I could trust.

  I returned to the library often those days; there was something comforting in touching the rhythm of Grandmother's mind. Unfortunately it was becoming more clear with each visit that to her dying moment she regarded Ran as the same boy who refused to behave on initiation day. She thought he needed spurring to perform his duty. And to her dying moment he resented it.

  "You spend a lot of time in there," he said one day, as I came out of the library.

  "Trying to understand things," I said.

  "Try asking me," he said.

  How could I let that go by? We went out to the courtyard. A light drizzle was falling in the pool.

  Ran said, "There's a banquet in the capital six days from now. A couple of officials and a delegation of Cormallons from the Serenth Peninsula. I hope you'll attend."

  He'd been like that the past few months, thoughtful and considerate. Either that was the way one was with a future wife, or he still wasn't entirely sure that I wouldn't skip out.

  But if there was any uncertainty in his mind, he wasn't showing it. I said, "Ran, tell me, when I first gave you my onyx cat, you thought it was some kind of trick of Grandmother's, didn't you."

  He paused and looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry about that. It's just that… you seemed fond of me, apparently. So I assumed that—look, Theodora, you're not going to ever mention this again, are you?"

  "Not if you answer now."

  "I assumed," he said, "that Grandmother had put an attraction spell on the cat. And that was why you—I mean to say, you were only going along with the spell. Look, is this funny?"

  "Sorry," I said, trying to stifle the laughter. "You mean all those symptoms I memorized, like increased heart rate and all that—you thought I'd fallen for a spell?"

  He didn't answer. I said, "Ran, I'm afraid I have to set you straight. I was experiencing those symptoms within about three minutes after you sat down by my pitch in Trade Square."

  For once he looked surprised. Maybe Kylla's right about men.

  This is the story Eln told to me that day in the market before my arrest.

  There was once a rich merchant who married a wife who was, many said, too young for him. One day he returned unexpectedly from a business trip and found his housekeeper waiting for him at the door. She said, "For some time now my lady's behavior with men has given me cause for alarm. Today I took' two trusted servants and entered her bedchamber without warning, in an attempt to discover the truth of the matter. It took several minutes to break the door. When we entered we found the mistress sitting on the great wooden chest in which she keeps her linens. She will not allow any of us to open this chest, even though we told her it would be best to establish her innocence before your return." The merchant thanked the housekeeper for her efforts, and went, most unhappily, to see his wife. He said, "My dear, I think perhaps I should unlock this chest of linens." She replied, "Do so, if you have no intention of trusting your wife and the mother of your children." And she threw him her keys and stalked away. The merchant thought fora while, then called his servants. He had the chest carried outside and buried, unopened, in the garden; and no one ever brought up the matter again.

  It was a story I'd heard in three similar versions before, when I'd studied on Athena; one was from a place called France. Maybe Eln had even heard it from his Grand-mother. But it struck me that it was the tale most redolent of Ivoran thinking that I had ever heard. I didn't know if I wanted to be that trusted.

  The banquet with the Serenth Peninsula delegates was in late summer. I went as Ran's guest. Our seating arrangements changed every three courses, and between the third and seventh course I enjoyed a delightful conversation with a dog-breeder from the Marble Cliffs on the north side of the peninsula. We didn't find out we were both Cormallons until our last course together. I finally woke up to my obligations and turned briefly to the woman on my left, whom I'd been ignoring, and introduced myself.

  She looked at me strangely, which made me look at her strangely, and I realized that I knew her. I said, "You were with the Athenan party I met in Teshin Village… ?"

  "Yes. We're due to leave on the Queen Gretchen in a week."

  "I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name."

  "Annamarie."

  "Yes. I'm sorry I didn't recognize you—you look older in Ivoran clothes."

  She said finally, "Your name is really Theodora?"

  "Yes, I'm afraid things were rather complicated in Teshin—"

  "Theodora of Pyrene."

  I laughed nervously. "I don't owe you money, do I?"

  She said, "But Theodora, haven't you been to the embassy?"

  "Many times. What about it?"

  "The fund, ha
sn't anyone told you?"

  I said, "No."

  So she told me. Since I left Athena, the Board of Student Affairs (prompted by my companions of the trip out, now suffering unexpiated guilt) had instituted a fund in my name. It revolved with the other theater and dance funds, and over the last few years they'd collected three hundred thousand dollars. At the going rate of exchange—

  "That's over half the price of a ticket," I said.

  "Yes, that's the point." said Annamarie, smiling broadly. "We brought the bank draft with us and deposited it at the Athenan Bank here in the capital. We told the ambassador all about it, didn't he tell you?"

  That filthy kanz. With the tabals in gold I had with my own banker, this put me over the top. And with no charity from any Cormallon.

  "Let me get this straight," I said. "All I do is establish my identity at the bank, and they give me three hundred thousand dollars?"

  She said, "Yes." And she added, "They've got your finger and retina prints."

  I grinned back at her. Just then the sixth course ended, and we all had to get up and change seats. "Well, thank you very much," I said.

  She looked puzzled. "Don't you want to stay and talk?"

  "It wouldn't be polite." Besides, I had some thinking to do. The nice dog-breeder on my right tugged at my robe.

  He said, "Will I be seeing you again?"

  "I don't know," I said honestly.

  And then I had to sit beside one of the Imperial officials, who smiled and said, "You're engaged to young Cormallon, aren't you?"

  "Yes," I said, to cut it short.

  "A tinaje artist, too, I hear."

  Oh, damn, was he trying to prove how thorough his background checks were? Just what did he want? Was I about to be offered a bribe on some Cormallon business?

  He leaned closer. "Maybe you could do me a favor."

  "Oh?" I leaned farther away.

  He looked embarrassed. "I have this problem with my lower back…"

  * * *

  Well, what are we to do with all these facts? They float in and out of consciousness, seemingly unconnected, just when I most need a pattern.

  Do you know that I think about Ran all the time, even when I'm doing other things? I can say that because I'm going to erase this section from the record when I 'm done. I've heard about this sort of obsession though (the archaic term is infatuation), and they say it passes. I hope to the gods that it's true, because it can become very wearing.

  As for Ran, who takes me for granted in a way that is a great compliment, who is willing to ally himself to me for life although he knows nothing of my genetic background, who assumes I'm far more competent than I think I am… he's not infatuated, in the sense of the word I implied above. The Ivoran word for that kind of mind/body obsession would translate as "crazy." I've run the cards, and I know him. His erotic adventures have been varied, to say the least, but his emotional life always comes up surprisingly barren. He's never loved anyone in his previously too-easy life… too easy before he met me, that is to say.

  But I think it was in the plans Grandmother had for him. I think maybe she held herself responsible for his problems. I think she had some kind of lifetime design involved, and we've only gotten to the tip of the iceberg.

  Or am I falling into paranoia? What do we do with these facts?

  They all seem to think this marriage makes sense. But what Ran doesn't seem to realize—or Kylla, or Grandmother—is that the water has become too tainted to drink.

  I've been badly shaken, not only by the idea that I'd killed someone but by the dawning realization that I was not the same country scholar who'd left Athena. All this time I'd thought I was compromising, when what I was doing was changing.

  Be honest. We're not talking about tolerant views on bribery. We're talking about killing a human being. A consciousness that's not there any more, and that was the point of the exercise. There's no use confiding in Ran about this; he's Ivoran born and bred, he knows that there's always something gnawing away at your vitals, no matter how happy things look; unless you're a true na'telleth. It was an act performed, to him, a thing done. To Grandmother it was a necessary thing. To Ran it was a reasonable thing. But at bedrock, at my core, I find I still have the soul of an Athenan, and the question I must ask myself is this: Was it a good thing, or a bad thing? And the answer is yes.

  All right. I understand now, I admit I will be forever detached from whatever culture I live in—very like Eln. I've lived on Ivory now for over half the time I lived on Athena, and how can I change that fact? And I'm not going back to Pyrene, no matter how confused I become. There is no "home," there will never be a home in the way other people take one for granted.

  Two roads, then. Ran can be difficult when his desires conflict with mine, but of course it's taboo to kill a member of the family without good reason, so I won't have to walk on eggshells around him. And my position is quite a strong one, thanks to Grandmother. I wonder if she saw something like this coming when she placed her curse—doing something in a fit of temper has come to seem less and less like the old woman.

  But is that a happy ending? What sort of children, if any, could we have? And how dangerous would it be for me? Or given the statistics on male life expectancies in the Great Houses, what happens when Ran dies young, leaving me this little kingdom I am not qualified to run?

  On the other hand… I have the money. I have the expertise, given my tutoring in Ran's tricky ways, to get aboard the Queen Gretchen, now due in port, without leaving a trail. But if I do return to Athena, it won't be as a scholar. Too much has happened for that ever to be more than a hobby. It hurts to acknowledge it, but university life has come to seem, well, boring.

  Athena must have spies on Tellys and Ivory, though I don't know how I know that. Surely there are job opportunities for someone who can talk like an Athenan scholar and bribe like an Ivoran aristocrat, and who speaks sev-eral languages (albeit some of them dead) with colloquial accents.

  It doesn't sound unpleasant. My classics teacher used to say that the ancients believed you could tell if prophetic dreams were true or false only if you knew how they came to you; false dreams came through the Gate of Ivory and true dreams came through the Gate of Horn. Trust me to get it backward. Still, maybe it was a fitting reversal, for an ex-scholar. The trouble with telling true dreams is you ritever really know, not for twenty years or so, if you were right.

  But whatever happens, there's too much history here.

  I boarded the Gretchen five days ago, an hour before take-off, under an assumed name. I'm in my cabin now, on a first-class deck, dictating this to my terminal. You don't know how dry your throat can get in five days; there were hours at a stretch when I had to give up and use the keyboard.

  I left a note for Ran, telling him where to pick up the cards and the onyx cat. I told him that Grandmother had lifted the curse. I said I would miss him. And I apologized for not attending Kylla's wedding.

  Many weeks ago I sent to Tevachin to see if the monks retained any of Eln's effects, particularly the bluestone ring he used to wear on his left hand. They still had it— it had looked valuable—and they were willing to send it to me for a nominal handling fee. It arrived in a small wooden box, lined with velvet. I made sure it was there, then closed and locked the box. I had no intention of touching this one. Perhaps I'm oversensitive, but dealing with Annurian's mental reflexes seems more than enough for one lifetime. I wrote out a letter to the jeweler on Marsh Street who'd been Eln's companion, and'sent the letter and the box to him by messenger. I 'm sorry to say that I didn't remember the jeweler's name. I didn't want to send a letter telling the death of someone close to a person whose name I'd forgotten. But he needed to know, and I had no right to censor the information.

  The messenger came back saying that the store was closed and the jeweler had moved, no one knew where. So now I have a carved wooden box, four centimeters by six centimeters, which I have no plans to ever open. What else could I do? I could hard
ly send it to Cormallon and ask them to place it in the library.

  I think Eln would have liked to go off-planet. I hope someday I find a place for him.

  The cabin I've drawn is pretty sumptuous, but I haven't brought much to it in the way of personal objects. The wardrobes and drawers are empty. I didn't take any Ivoran clothes when I left, just a couple of tunics and trousers to wear aboard ship. Beyond that, I have in my possession one cut-rate dagger, a stone pendant belonging to a rebel, killer, and ex-prime minister, and a ring from a person whose mental problems I will not begin to try to define. Just some mementos from friends. Souvenirs from a trip that lasted a little longer than I planned. That is the attitude to take, I think.

  I finally went to the dining room tonight. It was the first time I'd been out of my cabin since I watched the world of Ivory fall away from us in the lounge monitor. Table 53A, my assigned dinner seat. It was a very small table, since I'd not signed up as part of a party when I boarded.

  Ran was sitting there, inspecting the menu. I don't know if anyone reading this is surprised; I found that I was not surprised. I was not expecting him, but I was not surprised.

  He looked up as I took my seat. "Do barbarians really eat snake?" he asked.

  "Some do. I understand it's a delicacy on Tellys."

  "Amazing." He reached into a pocket, brought out a pack of cards and placed them on the tablecloth. "You left some things behind recently. One should be more careful."

  How had he gotten my message out of the Net before-time? And even harder, how had he gotten the cards away from Irsa? I'd told her to hold onto them until after the ship left.

  "Ran, you could read them yourself."

  "Not as well as you." He said, "Do you realize I've been sitting here alone for five days? I was beginning to think you'd keeled over and died in that cabin of yours."