The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  But while he was walking away from the gathering he saw Ermine standing there among her kin of Onyx.

  And if she had been beautiful when they were both fourteen, she was more so now. He stood and stared at her, a vision of white silk and pearls from the Sin, of pale hair and pink flushed skin. It was Ermine who drew him back to his mother's funeral. . . Claudette, he must think of his mother now, by her true name, for she had stopped being his mother, and might at this moment be born far across the City, to begin her journey back to them. This mourning was only ceremony, a farewell of sorts, excuse for a party. It grew, as they walked the stairs past the thundering waters of the Sin, as more and more curious attached themselves and asked who had died, and how, and the tale was told and retold at other levels. But it was the kin who really knew her who did the telling; in his own low estate he kept silent and soon grew disaffected from all the empty show. . . his eyes were only for Ermine.

  He moved to her side as they walked constantly down the long stairs which wrapped the chute of the Sin. "Might we meet after?" he asked, not looking at her, for shyness was the rule of his life.

  He felt her look at him; at least he perceived a movement, a certain silence, and the heat crept to his face. "I think we might," she said, and his heart pounded in his breast.

  Never set strong patterns, Claudette had warned him; and before her body was entombed her voice seemed far away, and her advice less wise than it had seemed. After all, she had passed that way, and he was about to live life on his own.

  I shall be wise, he promised her ghost. Claudette would be a child of his generation, surely. . . perhaps. . . the thought stunned him, perhaps his own with Ermine's. She would be very welcome if she were. He would tell her so many things that he would have learned by then. It would be one of those rare, forever marriages, himself with Ermine; Ermine would love him. . . such a drawing could not be one-sided. The feeling soaring in him was the whole world and it was unreasonable to him that Ermine could go unmoved.

  He was four years wiser than he had been, and filled with all the history he had been able to consume by reading and listening.

  Pertito and Legran argued loudly near him. He paid them no heed. They reached the level of the tombs, far below the course of the Sin, and with great solemnity—all of them loved pomp when there was excuse for it—conveyed Claudette to her tomb. The populace was delighted when Pertito accused Legran of the murder; was elated when the whole funeral degenerated into a brawl, and the Pertito/Legran quarrel embroiled others. It found grand climax when knives were drawn, and uncle Legran and Pertito vowed suicide to expiate the wrong done Claudette. This was a grand new turn to the centuries-old drama, and the crowd gasped and applauded, profoundly delighted by a variation in a vendetta more than thirty centuries old. The two walked ahead of the returning crowd, and from the tenth level, leaped into the chute of the Sin, to the thunderous applause of much of the City. Everyone was cheerful, anticipating a change in the drama in their next lives. Novelty—it was so rarely achieved, and so to be savored. The souls of Pertito and Legran would be welcomed wherever they incarnated, and there would be an orgy to commemorate the day's grand events, in the fond hope of hastening the return of the three most delightsome participants in the cycles of the City.

  And Jade Alain fairly skipped up the long, long stairs above the thundering flood of the Sin, to change his garments for festal clothes, his very best, and to attend on Onyx Ermine.

  He decked himself in sable and the green and white stones of his name, and with a smile on his face and a lightness in his step he walked to the doors of Onyx Palace.

  There were no locks, of course, nor guards. The criminals of the City were centuries adept and not so crude. He walked in quite freely as he had come in company to the great anniversaries of the houses, asked of an Onyx child where might be the princess Ermine. The wise-eyed child looked him up and down and solemnly led him through the maze of corridors, into a white and yellow hall, where Ermine sat in a cluster of young friends.

  "Why, it's the Jade youth," she said delightedly. "It's Jade Alain," another yawned. "He's very new."

  "Go away," Ermine bade them all. They departed in no great haste. The bored one paused to look Alain up and down, but Alain avoided the eyes. . . looked up only when he was alone with Ermine.

  "Come here," she said. He came and knelt and pressed her hand.

  "I've come," he said, "to pay you court, Onyx Ermine."

  "To sleep with me?"

  "To pay you court," he said. "To marry you."

  She gave a little laugh. "I'm not wont to marry. I have very seldom married."

  "I love you," he said. "I've loved you for four years."

  "Only that?" Her laugh was sweet. He looked up into her eyes and wished that he had not, for the age that was there. "Four years," she mocked him. "But how old are you, Jade Alain?"

  "It's," he said in a faint voice, "my first life. And I've never loved anyone but you."

  "Charming," she said, and leaned and kissed him on the lips, took both his hands and drew them to her heart. "And shall we be lovers this afternoon?"

  He accepted. It was a delirium, a dream half true. She brought him through halls of white and yellow stone and into a room with a bed of saffron satin. They made love there all the afternoon, though he was naive and she sometimes laughed at his innocence; though sometimes he would look by mistake into her eyes and see all the ages of the City looking back at him. And at last they slept; and at last they woke.

  "Come back again," she said, "when you're reborn. We shall find pleasure in it."

  "Ermine," he cried. "Ermine!"

  But she left the bed and shrugged into her gown, called attendants and lingered there among the maids, laughter in her aged eyes. "In Onyx Palace, newborn lover, the likes of you are servants. . . like these, even after several lifetimes. What decadences Jade tolerates to bring one up a prince! You have diverted me, put a crown on a memorable day. Now begone. I sense myself about to be bored." He was stunned. He sat a good long moment after she had left in the company of her maids, heart-wounded and with heat flaming in his face. But then, the reborn were accustomed to speak to him and to each other with the utmost arrogance. He thought it a testing, as his mother had tested him, as Pertito and Legran had called him hopelessly young, but not without affection. . . He thought, sitting there, and thought, when he had dressed to leave. . . and concluded that he had not utterly failed to amuse. It was novelty he lacked.

  He might achieve this by some flamboyance, a fourth Jade death. . . hastening into that next life. . . but he would miss Onyx Ermine by the years that she would continue to live, and he would suffer through lifetimes before they were matched in age again.

  He despaired. He dressed again and walked out to seek her in the halls, found her at last in the company of Onyx friends, and the room echoing with laughter. At him.

  It died for a moment when she saw him standing there. She held out her hand to him with displeasure in her eyes, and he came to her, stood among them.

  There was a soft titter from those around her. "You should have sent him to me," a woman older than the others whispered, and there was general laughter.

  "For you there is no novelty," Ermine laughed. She lolled carelessly upon her chair and looked up at Alain. "Po go now, before you become still more distressed. Shall I introduce you to my last husband?" She stroked the arm of the young woman nearest her. "She was. But that was very long ago. And already you are dangerously predictable. I fear I shall be bored."

  "Oh, how can we be?" the woman who had been her husband laughed. "We shall be entertained at Jade's expense for years. He's very determined. Just look at him. This is the sort of fellow who can make a pattern, isn't he? Dear Ermine, he'll plague us all before he's done, create some nasty scandal and we shall all be like Legran and Pertito and poor Claudette. . . or whatever their names will be. We shall be sitting in this room cycle after cycle fending away this impertinent fellow."

&n
bsp; "How distressing," someone yawned. The laughter rippled round again, and Ermine rose from her chair, took his burning face in her two hands and smiled at him. "I cannot even remember being the creature you are. There is no hope for you. Don't you know that I'm one of the oldest in Onyx? You've had your education. Begone."

  "Four years," someone laughed. "She won't look at me after thirty lifetimes."

  "Good-bye," she said.

  "What might I do," he asked quietly, "to convince you of novelty and persuade you, in this life or the next?"

  Then she did laugh, and thought a moment. "Die the death for love of me. No one has done that."

  "And will you marry me before that? It's certain there's no bargain after."

  There was a shocked murmur among her friends, and the flush drained from the cheeks of Onyx Ermine.

  "He's quite mad," someone said.

  "Oynx offered a wager," he said. "Jade would never say what it doesn't mean. Shall I tell this in Jade, and amuse my elders with the tale?"

  "I shall give you four years," she said, "since you reckon that a very long time."

  "You will marry me."

  "You will die the death after that fourth year, and I shall not be bothered with you in the next life."

  "No," he said. "You will not be bothered."

  There was no more laughter. He had achieved novelty. The older woman clapped her hands solemnly, and the others joined the applause. Ermine inclined her head to them, and to him; he bowed to all of them in turn.

  "Arrange it," she said.

  It was a grand wedding, the more so because weddings were rare, on the banks of the Sin where alone in the City there was room enough to contain the crowd. Alain wore black with white stones; Ermine wore white with yellow gold. There was dancing and feasting and the dark waters of the Sin glistened with the lights of lanterns and sparkling fires, with jewel-lights and the glowing colors of the various palaces of the City.

  And afterward there was long, slow lovemaking, while the celebrants outside the doors of Jade Palace drank themselves giddy and feted a thing no one had ever seen, so bizarre a bargain, with all honor to the pair which had contrived it.

  In days following the wedding all the City filed into Jade to pay courtesy, and to see the wedded couple. . . to applaud politely the innovation of the youngest and most tragic prince of the City. It was the more poignant because it was real tragedy. It eclipsed that of the Grand Cyclics. It was one of the marks of the age, an event unduplicatable, and no one wished to miss it.

  Even the Death came, almost the last of the visitors, and that was an event which crowned all the outre affair, an arrival which struck dumb those who were in line to pay their respects and rewarded those who happened to be there that day with the most bizarre and terrible vision of all.

  She had come far, up all the many turnings of the stairs from the nether depths of the City, where she kept her solitary lair near the tombs. She came robed and veiled in black, a spot of darkness in the line. At first no one realized the nature of this guest, but all at once the oldest did, and whispered to the others.

  Onyx Ermine knew, being among the oldest, and rose from her throne in sudden horror. Alain stood and held Ermine's hand, with a sinking in his heart.

  Their guest came closer, swathed in her robes. . . she, rumor held it, had a right to Jade, who had been born here—not born at all, others said, but engendered of all the deaths the City never died. She drank souls and lives. She had prowled among them in the ancient past like a beast, taking the unwilling, appearing where she would in the shadows. But at last she established herself by the tombs below, for she found some who sought her, those miserable in their incarnations, those whose every life had become intolerable pain. She was the only death in the City from which there was no rebirth.

  She was the one by whom the irreverent swore, lacking other terrors.

  "Go away," the eldest of Jade said to her.

  "But I have come to the wedding," the Death said. It was a woman's voice beneath the veils. "Am I not party to this? I was not consulted, but shall I not agree?"

  "We have heard," said Onyx Ermine, who was of too many lifetimes to be set back for long, "we have heard that you are not selective."

  "Ah," said the Death. "Not lately indeed; so few have come to me. But shall I not seal the bargain?"

  There was silence, dread silence. And with a soft whispering of her robes the Death walked forward, held out her hands to Jade Alain, leaned forward for a kiss.

  He bent, shut his eyes, for the veil was gauze, and he had no wish to see. It was hard enough to bear the eyes of the many-lived; he had no wish at all to gaze into hers, to see what rumor whispered he should find there, all the souls she had ever drunk. Her lips were warm through the gauze, touched lightly, and her hands on his were delicate and kind.

  She walked away then. He felt Ermine's hand take his, cold and sweating. He settled again into the presence hall throne and Ermine took her seat beside him. There was awe on faces around them, but no applause.

  "She has come out again," someone whispered. "And she hasn't done that in ages. But I remember the old days. She may hunt again. She's awake , and interested."

  "It's Onyx's doing," another voice whispered. And in that coldness the last of the wedding guests drifted out. The doors of Jade Palace closed. "Bar them," the eldest said. It was for the first time in centuries. And Ermine's hand lay very cold in Alain's.

  "Madam," he said, "are you satisfied?"

  She gave no answer, nor spoke of it after.

  There were seasons in the City. They were marked in anniversaries of the Palaces, in exquisite entertainments, in births and deaths.

  The return of Claudette was one such event, when a year-old child with wise blue eyes announced his former name, and old friends came to toast the occasion.

  The return of Legran and Pertito was another, for they were twin girls in Onyx, and this complication titillated the whole City with speculations which would take years to prove.

  The presence of Jade Alain at each of these events was remarked with a poignancy which satisfied everyone with sensitivity, in the remarkable realization that Onyx Ermine, who hid in disgrace, would inevitably return to them, and this most exquisite of youths would not.

  One of the greatest Cycles and one of the briefest lives existed in intimate connection. It promised change.

  And as for the Death, she had no need to hunt, for the lesser souls, seeking to imitate fashion in this drama, flocked to her lair in unusual number. . . some curious and some self-destructive, seeking their one great moment of passion and notoriety, when a thousand thousand years had failed to give them fame.

  They failed of it, of course, for such demises were only following a fashion, not setting one; and they lacked inventiveness in their endings as in their lives.

  It was for the fourth year the City waited.

  And in its beginning:

  "It is three-fourths gone," Onyx Ermine said. She had grown paler still in her shamed confinement within Jade Palace. In days before this anniversary of their wedding she had received old friends from Onyx, the first time in their wedded life she had received callers. He had remarked then a change in her lovemaking, that what had been pleasantly indifferent acquired. . . passion. It was perhaps the rise in her spirits. There were other possibilities, involving a former lover. He was twenty-two and saw things more clearly than once he had.

  "You will be losing something," he reminded her coldly, "beyond recall and without repetition. That should enliven your long life."

  "Ah," she said, "don't speak of it. I repent the bargain. I don't want this horrid thing, I don't; I don't want you to die."

  "It's late for that," he said.

  "I love you."

  That surprised him, brought a frown to his brow and almost a warmth to his heart, but he could muster only sadness. "You don't," he said. "You love the novelty I've brought. You have never loved a living being, not in all your lifetimes. You
never could have loved. That is the nature of Onyx."

  "No. You don't know. Please. Jade depresses me. Please let's go and spend the year in Onyx, among my friends. I must recover them, build back my old associations. I shall be all alone otherwise. If you care anything at all for my happiness, let's go home to Onyx."

  "If you wish," he said, for it was the first time that she had shown him her heart, and he imagined that it might be very fearsome for one so long incarnate in one place to spend too much time apart from it. His own attachments were ephemeral. "Will it make you content?"

  "I shall be very grateful," she said, and put her arms about his neck and kissed him tenderly.

  They went that day, and Onyx received them, a restrained but festive occasion as befitted Ermine's public disfavor. . . but she fairly glowed with life, as if all the shadows she had dreaded in Jade were gone. "Let us make love," she said, "oh now!" And they lay all afternoon in the saffron bed, a slow and pleasant time.

  "You're happy," he said to her. "You're finally happy."

  "I love you," she whispered in his ear as they dressed for dinner, she in her white and pearls and he in his black and his green jade. "Oh let us stay here and not think of other things."

  "Or of year's end?" he asked, finding that thought incredibly difficult, this day, to bear.

  "Hush," she said, and gave him white wine to drink. They drank together from opposite sides of one goblet, sat down on the bed and mingled wine and kisses. He felt strangely numb, lay back, with the first intimation of betrayal. He watched her cross the room, open the door. A tear slipped from his eye, but it was anger as much as pain.