Necessity's Child

by Sharon Lee

  She drank her tea to the dregs, sighed and looked to Silain.

  “More tea, Grandmother?”

  “Not now. Now, I would like you to do a thing for me.”

  “Yes,” Kezzi said, preparing to stand. The luthia often asked her to fetch this and that from others of the kompani, or from the garden—like the limin branch.

  “This thing you can do without leaving the hearth,” Silain said. She patted the rug beside her.

  “Put another brick in, and come sit by me, here.”

  Another brick? Kezzi thought. It was already warm enough that Silain had put off her shawl. Maybe there was a tonic to boil, or a spell to set. She hadn’t heard that any of the kompani was need of either, but it was said that the luthia’s ears were so keen that she could hear songs inside of silence.

  Kezzi set the brick and waited three breaths, until the edges began to glow dull red. Then, she went to sit at Silain’s side.

  “Now, if you please, little sister, I would like you to look ahead for me.”

  Kezzi blinked, and looked up into the luthia’s face.

  “Look ahead?” she asked. “I…”

  “You don’t know what I mean? Did you dream the dreams I sent you?”

  “Yes, I dreamed both—” But, Kezzi thought suddenly, had then been three? Droi sometimes hid things, or took them away with her. But surely not even Droi would—

  “Be peaceful, child.” Silain brushed her hot cheek with cool fingertips. “Tell me what you dreamed.”

  “I dreamed that I breathed, and I breathed so deep that I breathed myself out of my head, and all there was left inside my head was a big silence. And I dreamed that I was given three stories, one after the other. The stories fell into my head, into the silence, and the silence formed the shape of each.

  “Then I dreamed that I breathed myself back into my head, and there were the stories, sealed in silence. I touched the first one and it filled up my mouth so I had to say it out, or choke.”

  She took a deep breath of hot, limin-scented air.

  “You have dreamed well and fully, my sister,” the luthia murmured. “What I ask you to do is to breathe as you dreamed, until your head fills up with silence. Close your eyes.”

  Obediently, Kezzi closed her eyes. She concentrated, found the dream-rhythm and breathed until she could not feel her body, and her thoughts blurred, and faded, and her head was filled with nothing, silence. Silence and the strong odor of limin.

  “Open your eyes!”

  She opened her eyes to utter darkness.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  See? She could see nothing here, save threads of red and orange, and…

  A paper printed with words, blurry and indistinct, and across the paper…

  “A pen…thick and black…green…red…blue…black.”

  It filled her whole sight, a thing of wonder; she ached to possess it, her fingers itching.

  “…mine…”

  Her vision wavered, the pen blurring—and vanishing into orange-shot blackness.

  The darkness produced a voice.

  “Well done. Close your eyes, little sister. Take a breath, and come back to me.”

  * * *

  Duty had called Uncle Val Con and Nelirikk Explorer off-world in the last hours of the night—Syl Vor heard Mr. pel’Kana saying so to Mrs. ana’Tak when he went by the kitchen. He hadn’t meant to sneak, but it was only reasonable, he told himself, that he would stand quietly out of the way until the servants had finished their business and took note of him.

  Mr. pel’Kana said that Scouts had come after the House had retired, asking for Delm Korval. The demand having been made in that melant’i, Mr. pel’Kana had of course to pass the message, despite the hour.

  So, the message was relayed, and Uncle Val Con had come himself to stand Korval and receive the Scouts, leaving the delmae to her rest, which the gods knew she—and that was when Mrs. ana’Tak had seen him, and asked if he’d come for his morning apple.

  Syl Vor admitted this, and the fruit was bestowed. There was no help for it then but that he leave the kitchen. And neither Mr. pel’Kana or Mrs. ana’Tak said one word more.

  Some time later, apple eaten, and lessons done, he went in search of company, or, if not company, then…occupation.

  Everybody had something useful to do, except for him.

  Aunt Miri was busy with Aunt Priscilla; Uncle Ren Zel was busy with Mr. Brunner, the weather-tech; Grand-Uncle Daav had gone out early to visit Boss Sherton; Aunt Anthora was doing something; and Grand-Aunt Kareen was gone into town to meet with the Civics Committee. Even Eztina was busy, stalking leaves in the inner garden.

  Mrs. pel’Esla had recommended that he work ahead of his tutor, but he had already finished all the modules at his current level and lacked the key code necessary to access the next. She had then recommended that he find a book or play a match game, but the books in the nursery library were boring, and the counterchance program had performed a disallowed move that put him unjustly in peril, and besides that, it was bright and sunny outside.

  After having studied upon that fact for an entire half-hour, Syl Vor put on his sweater and his jacket and his hat and his gloves, let himself out by the West Patio and was soon walking briskly across the crunchy brown grass.

  If he had exited Trealla Fantrol by the West Patio, he would have gone across the lawn to the edge of the trees, then down a path which eventually found and followed the stream. A little way on, there was a place where the rocks were close enough together that a boy who was steady on his feet could use them as a bridge across the stream. On the other side was a meadow, and another path, not so well marked, that ended at the fence, though Syl Vor hardly ever went all that way by himself.

  He didn’t mean to go far today—only a walk, on their own land, to see something different from the inside garden.

  Before long, he had taken off his gloves and his hat and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket, which he had unsealed. The day was cooler than a similarly bright day would be at ho—on Liad, but the combination of the sun, a lack of breeze and a rather spanking pace soon warmed him. Indeed, he was considering removing the jacket, too, when he came to the crack in the world.

  The sight of the irregular joining of the land that had come to Surebleak with Jelaza Kazone, and the land that had been here all along, gave Syl Vor pause. This was the border with their nearest neighbor, Mr. Shaper. One had been cautioned that Mr. Shaper was sometimes irritable and unwelcoming of visitors. One had been told not to cross over the boundary unless explicitly invited, and never to tease or in any way harm Mr. Shaper’s cats.

  That last had hardly been necessary, Syl Vor thought, irritable at the memory. He approached the boundary with a certain amount of curiosity. Unlike the browning grasses he walked on, each step waking a crunch, the grass on the far side of the boundary was green—short and sharp-looking but green.

  Native grass, Syl Vor thought, which had adapted. He had learned about adaptation and useful mutations and cross-breeding. Perhaps the grass from home would breed with the Surebleak grass and so learn how to survive in this changed climate.

  He was at the boundary now, the toes of his boots just barely not over the edge of Korval land. Grand-uncle Daav had told him that, when first the house and land had been grounded within the old quarry that it now occupied, the gap between Mr. Shaper’s land and their own had been as wide as Syl Vor was tall, and quite, quite deep. It had been Mr. Shaper who had suggested that dirt be imported from Boss Sherton’s land, on another side of Korval’s holding, and the crack filled in.

  That had been done, but the level of fill was lower than the land Syl Vor stood on.

  “Startin’ to settle, is she?”

  The voice was right in his ear. Syl Vor jerked, face warming with embarrassment at revealing himself inattentive. He looked up into brown eyes and a thin, chapped face. A Scout, he thought, embarrassment ebbing. No one had told him that Mr. Shaper—for surely thi
s must be Mr. Shaper—was a Scout.

  “You’d best tell your granda to call in some more dirt.” The Scout-who-was-probably-Mr.-Shaper gave him a hard look. “That’s your granda, ain’t it? Boss Conrad’s uncle?”

  Syl Vor chewed his lip. His Terran was good—he’d studied hard, understanding that, if they were forced by enemies to leave the Rock, then it would be among Terrans that the lesser danger would be found. This inquiry into lineage—it was what a civilized person wished, to be able to correctly place persons within their clan. Grand-aunt Kareen had made them study clans and lineage for just that reason. But…Cousin Pat Rin—Boss Conrad’s—that was to say, Uncle Daav was, by Line, Syl Vor’s cousin. Only he was so very old—Grand-aunt’s brother!—that it seemed rude to use the same mode as one would with Padi, or Quin. Or even Uncle Val Con, who had at least been fostered to yos’Galan, and was of course accounted a son of the Line…

  And all that was rather too much to explain in Terran to this stranger with his hard, bright eyes, so Syl Vor only nodded, not without a thought for Grand-aunt and the lineage charts. At least, he thought, a nod was surely proper and acceptable here, in converse with one who was Terran.

  Proper or not, it answered. The man gave a sharp nod of his own in return.

  “I’m Yulie Shaper,” he said in his abrupt, rough way. “You come down to check the edge?”

  “No…” Syl Vor paused, but this was a much simpler truth. “I came because everyone has work, but not me.”

  Mr. Shaper made a hard sound—the audible equivalent of his nod.

  “Got nothin’ in hand, is it? Well, you can help me, if you wanna. I got plenty work.”

  This sounded unexpectedly promising. Syl Vor looked beyond the man, to the wagon full of…trays? parked next to a plot of turned land.

  “I will be pleased to help you work,” he said carefully, “if I can be of use.” He paused, eying the cart once more, then looked back to the man. “What are you doing?”

  “Settin’ the spring seedlings,” Mr. Shaper said. “An’ I better get to it. Hop on over if you wanna work, and I’ll show you what to do.” He turned away, toward the plot and the wagon.

  Syl Vor leapt over the crack in the world and ran after him.

  - - - - -

  Setting spring seedlings was riveting work. Syl Vor handled the tender leaflets and the thread-like roots with care as he escorted each beginning plant to the hole he had prepared for it, pressing the dirt down firmly, so it stood upright. It was also warm work, and pretty soon he had taken off his jacket and hung it on the low branch of tree, next to Mr. Shaper’s overshirt.

  Mr. Shaper was a quiet man, but observant. When Syl Vor had, in his ignorance, made a hole too deep and too wide, Mr. Shaper leaned over and showed him the proper way to go on. He occasionally broke silence to explain what a particular tray of seedlings was; the manner in which they would grow, and what sort of “eating” they would eventually provide.

  It was all so engrossing that Syl Vor quite lost track of anything but the task in hand, until Mr. Shaper broke his silence once more.

  “Here comes something big—you miss your dinner, boy?”

  Syl Vor looked up at that, fuzzy-headed, like he’d been woken up out of a sound sleep, raising his head and looking beyond Mr. Shaper, and beyond the crack in the land, where a very large man indeed was walking briskly across Korval’s browning grass.

  He scrambled to his feet, suddenly very aware that he had told no one of his intended direction when he left the house.

  “I have to go,” he said, short as Mr. Shaper himself.

  “Sure you do—no use arguing with a mountain. Get, then.”

  Syl Vor was already in motion, snatching his jacket from the branch and running. He leapt the boundary, landing just as Diglon Rifle arrived.

  “Apprentice, you are missed,” the big man said sternly in Trade. Diglon was studying, but his spoken Liaden wasn’t very good yet. He understood quite a lot, though, and his mastery of the dance was something Syl Vor hoped he might someday approach.

  Syl Vor gulped. “I forgot the time,” he said.

  “Recall it now,” Diglon advised, “and come with me.”

  He turned, not waiting to see Syl Vor darting after, until they were both brought up by a shout.

  “Hey!”

  They turned. Yulie Shaper stood at the boundary, a seedling in one hand, the other held chest high, fingers open.

  “Landholder?” Diglon said politely, in slow, but perfectly intelligible, Terran. “You want to speak?”

  Mr. Shaper gave his sharp, hard nod. “Tell the Boss up there to the house that the boy was a big help to me today. With my work. He wants to help again, I got a barn needs painting.”

  “I will inform the…Boss, Landholder Shaper. Now, this young one must be returned to his place.”

  “Boy needs his dinner,” Mr. Shaper agreed, and turned back to the garden plot.

  - - - - -

  By the time they reached the house, Syl Vor all but running to keep up with Diglon, he had come to an understanding of his errors.

  First, it was a breach of proper behavior to have left the house without telling Jeeves.

  Second, he had been away for quite a number of hours, though it had hardly seemed so long, when he had been working.

  Third, he was quite dirty—the knees of his pants were damp and black with soil, the cuff of his sweater was smeared with grime, his hands caked brown. There was mud under his fingernails. He wasn’t certain, lacking a mirror, but he felt that there might even be dirt on his face. Mrs. pel’Esla was not, he thought, going to be pleased to have him back in this condition. She would ask him if he were not old enough to take care of his clothes, and she would ask him if he did not know enough to sign out of the house before he went rambling, and she would ask him—Syl Vor gasped as he followed Diglon, not to one of the numerous side doors, but to the formal front door, as if he were a visitor.

  A stranger.

  Mrs. pel’Esla—certainly, she would be annoyed, but she would not—would she?

  If she had called Grand-aunt to take charge of his scolding, he might miss his dinner in truth—and tomorrow’s breakfast, as well. He had been most careless—of security, and of kin—that was true. Perhaps if he owned his faults at once, it would not be so very bad. Some chapters of the Code to read, perhaps, and a few days’ close attendance upon Grand-aunt—that would be bearable, and no more than he had traded for.

  Diglon put his hand on the front door, which was immediately opened by Jeeves, orange headball flickering in the pattern that meant he was distressed.

  “Rifle, you have accomplished your mission with dispatch,” he said as Diglon stepped into the foyer, Syl Vor hard behind him.

  “Master Syl Vor,” Jeeves said sadly.

  “Jeeves—” he began, but the butler pivoted a half turn and again addressed Diglon.

  “You are expected. Please proceed.”

  The big man went down the hall, walking firm and centered. Syl Vor kept pace with an effort, his dirty boots making gritty, skittish sounds against the floor.

  The door to the library stood open, Diglon entered, pivoted so that he stood with his back against the door, and said, expressionlessly, “Syl Vor yos’Galan.”

  There was nothing to do but step into the room, and so he did, expecting to see Grand-aunt in the chair nearest the window, but no—the lowering sun struck hair that was red, not pepper-and-salt.

  Syl Vor’s stomach plummeted to his feet, anchoring him to the spot.

  Mrs. pel’Esla hadn’t gone with half-measures.

  Mrs. pel’Esla had invoked the delm.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice cool in the High Tongue. “You may leave us.”

  “Captain,” Diglon acknowledged. Syl Vor heard a rustle of fabric behind him, and the snap of the latch catching.

  The delm, Syl Vor thought. He had breached security, endangered the House entire. He could not imagine what she would do to him, bu
t he did not doubt that it was deserved.

  “Come here, Syl Vor,” the voice said, warmer now, in the Low Tongue.

  He swallowed. The delm would not speak to him in the Low Tongue. Grand-aunt had explained very carefully that the delm was not of the clan, but the clan embodied. It was difficult to understand; he was not certain that he understood it perfectly, even yet. But on one point, he was clear—

  The delm would not speak to him in the Low Tongue—that was for kin, and for agemates. That being so, it was not the delm, but Aunt Miri whom he faced.

  He was not completely sure, but that he would have preferred Grand-aunt Kareen.

  Taking a deep breath, he went forward to stand before the chair by the window.

  Aunt Miri closed her book, and slowly looked him up and down. If Syl Vor had not already taken the full measure of his own misdeeds, he might have suspected her of smiling.

  “What have you been doing, child?” she asked. “Wrestling in the mud?”

  “No, Aunt. That is—I have been helping Mr. Shaper set the spring seedlings.”

  Slim eyebrows rose over grey eyes.

  “Indeed? How do you find Mr. Shaper this day?”

  “Very well,” Syl Vor answered, and took some thought. “He spoke very little, but taught much. He said…” He hesitated, not wanting to overwhelm her patience.

  She inclined her head, which meant that he should go on.

  “He said to tell—Grand-uncle Daav that the soil was settling at the boundary, and that he should—he should call in more.”

  Aunt Miri nodded. “We’ll put that on the to-do list,” she said, in Terran.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Syl Vor said. He took a breath and bowed his head. “I am ashamed, Aunt. I endangered the House. Please forgive me.”

  She sat silent so long that Syl Vor began to fear that forgiveness was, after all, out of the question. Perhaps he should have knelt. Had it been the delm in truth, he would have knelt, if only because he suspected that his knees would not have supported him. Should he kneel now? Or would that—

  “We seem to have survived the breach,” his aunt said at last. “Stand up straight and listen to me.” She waited until he had raised his head, and a moment longer, looking closely into his face.