High Couch of Silistra

by Janet Morris

  “Sereth …” I leaned between him and the body, to cover the corpse with the brist pelt. I put both hands on his shoulders and my face close to his.

  “Sereth,” I whispered, “please talk to me.” I shook him.

  Finally his gaze turned outward, in his set face, flicker-lit by the fire. He shrugged my hands off and stood awkwardly. He had been crouched long in the same position.

  “I knew it then, and I sought to protect him, keep him with me, and I was the instrument of my fears. Thus I led him to his death by seeking to keep it from him. Celendra knew, in her mourning, what I did.” His eyes cut into me with every question I could not answer, and he cursed and sank back down by the brist-fur-covered corpse, and his shoulders shook, and I left him and tended the fire until he came and held me.

  I held back my own tears for his sake, as he had held back his wrath for mine, and eventually he released me and sat staring into the fire, red-eyed, swollen-faced, silent.

  When I could face it, I offered him dried meat, but he shook his head, and after the first salty, stringy bite, I put it down. My mouth was too dry to eat.

  We sat the night through, I huddled against him, both close to the fire. When the jitkaws took rhythm song and the black sky above us steeled, he put his arm around me.

  “I think we will give him to the falls,” he said. I had wondered what to do with the body. We could not fire him, here in the forests, as was proper, and we could not bury the body or leave it in the open. But if he were wrapped in the brist pelt and thrown from the Falls of Santha, his spirit would certainly find its destined rest.

  “What happened to you when you fell?”

  I told him. He had a right to know. I told him about the dreams and the apparition at the window at Morrlta, and the demands the cowled one had made of me while he and Tyith had battled for our lives. I told him also what I had realized, and experienced, in those moments; that the cowled one could not touch me himself; only through others could he harm me. Why this should be true, I did not know. I advised him to take Tyith’s body back to Arlet, and let me continue on my own, but both of us knew he would not do so.

  “He died well, and I would not belittle him by leaving the task we took up unfulfilled.” He had control, save that his tone was that cold flat quiet that chilled me.

  “I grieve with you,” I said softly, as he rose and damped the fire, “but I need you, and my need makes me selfish. I will say the words with you at Santha.” I knew, nothing else to say.

  We took sword belts from the dead men and with them bound the brist pelt tight around Tyith’s body. He seemed smaller, somehow, in death, and light. Some of the men were chalded, some chaldless, and it was odd that they should have banded together. By rights we should have taken the chalded, or their belts at least, to the Day-Keepers, but we left them, instead, for the forest scavengers. Tyith we hoisted across Wirin’s quivering back. The smell of death was on his master, and the steel-gray threx did not like it. He turned his head and sniffed at the brist-wrapped bundle slung across his back. Wirin’s ears went back, he lifted his head and uttered an awful trumpeted wail, and then stood, head between his knees, quiet, as we tied Tyith’s body firmly to saddle and girth.

  As the day unfolded, Sereth and I explored our altered relationship. The pace he set was hard, both on me and the threx, with short stops but no real rest. I was now just another commission to him, another woman. He was no harder on me than he had been the day we met, but the softenings, the little considerations, wordless gestures that had been between us affirmation of a growing empathy, were conspicuously absent. Once, I had wanted desperately to please the discriminating Sereth of Arlet, larger-than-life legend. When he had denigrated me, I had implemented a plan to make him court me at the very level he had chosen to put me, and I had succeeded. Until Tyith. I had lost all the ground I had gained with him. It was a measure of his strength that he did not blame and punish me, for he would have been within his rights. He was, once again, that distant, intense, time-hoarding Slayer who had fancied me in Arlet. And the further he pushed me from him, the more I craved our former intimacy. I would have gladly borne him a child to replace the one I had helped him lose, if only I could have so commanded my self-willed reproductive system. That I could not do. Nothing less, I was sure, would suffice.

  My musings were interrupted around sun’s set, when we came upon a wild golachit who had somehow fallen from the ledge above, to land on his back wedged between two large angular boulders. His strident high-octave whine had attracted perhaps a dozen of his fellows, from threx length to thrice that long, who clustered together below the giant, who lay, legs waving, wedged between the rocks. They were keening. But no golachit will move to help another right itself, for such a death is common to them, natural, and right. Dismounting and scrambling to its side, we could see the softer underbelly, already cracked, and the bubbling blue froth on its perpendicular excrescence tube. Its great recessed eyes followed us. The chitinous shell seemed undamaged. Another day, exposed to the sun, would surely finish it, if the night-hunting ebvrasea did not plunge their cruel beaks deep in its belly. An ebvrasea could not kill a golachit with its eight legs under it, but an overturned one is helpless.

  Sereth walked quickly back to the threx, returning with a long, soft web-fiber rope. This he looped around the golachit’s body, wedging it between thorax and head. The giant amber golachit clicked its mandibles weakly.

  Sereth handed me a section of the long line, and I kept it tight around the golachit while he played the coil to its end. He backed Wirin carefully up the rocky incline, until he could run the slack through the breast band around the steed’s chest. Then he mounted and urged the threx forward. The big threx’s muscles bunched, and he strained against the rope until he was sitting on his hind legs in his effort. The golachit did not budge. The web-rope hummed with strain. Sereth tried once more. Foam flecked Wirin’s chest as he gamely struggled to move the wedged weight. Stones flew under his hooves, and he dug troughs down to solid rock beneath him, but to no avail. Sereth dismounted, and leaving Wirin harnessed, brought Krist carefully beside him, backing him cautiously through the jumbled rocks. There was barely room for the two threx to stand abreast with level footing under them, but finally he had them positioned and then backed them in unison, that he might get the rope around both their mighty chests. That done, he stood before them, retreating slowly, calling. A good distance in front of them, he stopped, raised both hands, and whistled shrilly. Grunting, the threx threw themselves against the rope, determined to get to their master. The golachit’s hard shell grated against the rocks, and it was free. The threx’s lunging carried them thundering forward, and Sereth, running, narrowly escaped being trampled. The golachit lay on its side, stunned for a moment. The keening had stopped. All that was heard was rock settling, pebbles, and hard-breathing threx. Then, with a hissing squeak, the golachit righted itself, rocking on outstretched legs, until its teetering bulk fell heavily on its belly. It still wore the rope around it. Sereth, coiling the slack in his hand, went slowly toward it. He stood before it, carefully, showing no fear, and then walked around and disengaged the loop. Only when he was out of reach of those deadly mandibles did I dare breathe. A golachit is an intelligent being, but this one had lain in torture under the sun for long hours.

  The golachit stood, weaving on its eight legs, its excrescence tube stretched out before it. From that tube came two tiny drops of fire-red gol. Then the golachit, with amazing agility for a creature of such great size, turned on its back legs and scrabbled to its fellows. They creeched and chitted at each other, the number closing around the amber giant protectively. Then the whole herd moved off into the rocks, shadow on shadow in the failing light.

  I scrambled down from my perch against the boulders. Sereth had picked up the gol drops by the time I reached him. They were blood-pulse in his palm. Red gol material is secreted only at times of great joy or crisis, and is priced higher among us than any precious stone. T
he golachit had amply thanked us for aiding it.

  Sereth did not offer me the drops, even to hold, but put them in his belt. I went silently to Issa and stroked her tender nose, where the skin is bare near the nostrils. I felt very lonely, and I was glad to have the threx’s head rubbing against my shoulder. She closed her eyes, her jaw resting on my neck, and sighed heavily. Issa was tired. It had been a grueling day on this rugged path. The trees had dwindled and shrunken, and soon we would not even have their meager shelter, for the Falls of Santha, birthplace of the mighty Litess River, is almost at the snow line.

  Sereth checked each threx’s legs and quarters in turn, running his hands over first Krist and then Wirin. He then checked shoes and cleaned the gravel from the inner hooves. When he was satisfied that both were sound, he used some of the coiled rope to attach Wirin’s halter to the cantle of Krist’s saddle, and mounted the black. I thought, as I followed Wirin up the tas trail, that it was a wonder Tyith’s body had not come loose from its bonds. But it bobbled, brist-wrapped, in front of me along the trail until my eyes could not distinguish it any longer, and Sereth was forced to call a halt for the day, lest one of the threx lame itself in a crevice in the dark.

  There was no place suitable for a camp, but we found a level stretch wide enough for the animals to stand abreast, with some scrawny needle trees and sparse grass. We used our waterskins that night, mostly for the threx, and our stored foods. The moon was coming up, the night dry and clear. It seemed much quieter here in the mountains. My breathing sounded loud in my ears; the threx’s teeth ground and grated rhythmically. Sereth disdained a fire, though the night was chill. I huddled against him for warmth. I was glad for it, anxious for his touch, but nothing came of it. When he lay to sleep with me, I felt even colder, more alone, than before. It seemed to me then that it was I who had been hurt deeply by Tyith’s death, and he who had recovered unscathed. I felt the need to hurt back.

  “What will you do about your son’s child?” I said to Sereth when I was sure he was almost asleep.

  “What?” He rolled to face me, eyes heavy-lidded.

  “I said, what will you do about your son’s child? Though it be a coin girl, he still has issue. Would you leave your own blood in a Morrltan tavern?”

  Sereth of Arlet made a rude noise and turned his back to me. But I was awake long into the evening, and I know he did not sleep. Finally, my satisfaction lulled me, and I slept, mercifully dreamlessly, until he woke me, before the sun’s rise.

  “Get up.” He shook me so that the back of my head bounced against the hard ground.

  I pushed peace away, slipping back into stiff body like a rider long away from the saddle. I managed to get my elbows under me, and felt the Slayer’s hands leave my shoulders, and the shaking cease.

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “About what?” I asked innocently.

  “About the coin girl.” He threw a strip of dried meat in my lap. I threw it back. I would do without rather than eat that foul stuff another day.

  “Take her home and have your well women raise her child. She is not so badly deformed that you cannot find some use for her. What the child will be like is anyone’s guess. You may try a physician, but even if the child is deformed, or an idiot, it is still the only issue of your dead son. I think you can do nothing else but take the girl.” I tried not to let my pleasure show. The last thing Sereth Crill Tyris would want is a child of the type that so often fruits such a union. But he could not do otherwise than to take it in.

  “Are you so sure there will be a child?” He stood over me, hands on his hips. His fists were clenched.

  “Are you so unsure that you will ignore the boy’s wishes?”

  The Slayer turned from me, mute, and went to harness the threx.

  I smiled to myself and followed. Such verbal swordplay is woman’s game, and in it I can usually count point. And I was sure that the coin girl had conceived. I looked at her when the question first arose, and I had seen the egg in the womb, silver on red, and the sperm swim, and their ultimate ‘connection. The sharpness and self-mobility of the image denoted truth. In such simple psychic function, I am as good as any.

  Issa was cranky, twitching her ears and snapping the air, but no real trouble, I wondered, as I fitted her gear, what had made her bolt that afternoon. I remembered the cracking sound I had heard. I wondered how extensive the cowled one’s ability to control material reality truly was.

  I was soon to find out.

  By the time the sun, directly overhead, cast no shadow, we had made the plateau of Santha and turned due east, making our way across the relatively flat rocky ground with ease. To our left, the Sabembes towered, ice caps glittering, and the wind that swept down upon us was dry and chill. The air here was noticeably thinner, and my lungs seemed ever-hungry, my pulse thumping in my ears. I was grateful when Sereth called a halt, but I could get little respite from it. The view, to our right, of the foothills we had climbed, and Morrlta and Arlet spread below, mantled in mist, was magnificent, but I could not enjoy it; the apprehension I felt all morning had consolidated into precognition. My body was chilled with it, my stomach aching and cramping. Yet the vision was unclear, the feeling without reason I could name.

  I explored the rocks, looking for something I could not find, and came away dissatisfied. Sereth, lounging with his back to a large boulder, watched me, unspeaking. He seemed in good spirits, and I envied him. I was not so resilient.

  I collapsed beside him, content to let my pumping lungs have rest.

  “What did you see?” The unspoken laughter was again in his brown eyes.

  “Nothing. I would find shelter this night. I have a feeling, and I dare not ignore it this time.”

  He looked at me, his eyes searching. I had thought he would dismiss my fears out of hand.

  “I know a place,” he said. “A cave, with good cover, easy to defend. Would that do? What do you sense?”

  Defend from what? I could not say, but the weight I felt lightened.

  “How far?” I asked.

  “We could make it before sun’s set. The cowled spirit—is that what you fear?” He did not mock me.

  I nodded. He shifted against the rocks, his hand unconsciously going to his sword hilt, loosening it in its scabbard. His eyes checked the shadows around us.

  “I would get this thing done, and you safely back to Arlet.”

  I smiled at him, touching his shoulder.

  “You and I will part at the Falls of Santha. I will be no burden to you on your return trip.” I had known since my confrontation with the cowled one.

  “You are no burden that I have not willingly taken up. I would not have you try the mountains alone.” He did not understand.

  “I will find my way from Santha, and it is a path for one only.” I tried again to make it clear. “If we make it there, you will have fulfilled your charge.” I did not underestimate the cowled one. Within the available probabilities, it seemed to me that I would make it to Santha. I was not so sure about the Slayer. But my recently surfaced scanning skill was adamant. To discuss it further would solidify a time line unacceptable to me.

  “To fulfill my commitment to Dellin, I must return you in good shape to Arlet. If your inner voice speaks otherwise, I suggest you share your information with me. If you had done so before, we might have fared better.” That was the first time he had spoken of my complicity in Tyith’s death.

  Yet I could not tell him more than I had.

  “I have no specifics, just a feeling.” I lied, to protect him. “But give me some time, and I will go and see what I can see.”

  He nodded, and I lay back against the rocks and prepared my body for trance. Not, as I had said, to clarify my feeling, but to do what I might to shift and solidify the time flow as best I could. I could not alter the draw to crux, but perhaps I could designate which approach we would take.

  I made my heartbeat and respiration slow, and my limbs cold and tingling. Sounds around
me became magnified, then faded, leaving me floating, with no-feeling flesh, in the red-dark where the time tracks meet. Into the ball of writhing color I went, instinctively, for I had never been taught to do so, finding my branching line and Sereth’s, luminous and intertwined amid countless unborn tomorrows.

  I did what was needed. My own line, before me, twisting mist of unsolidified reality, ceased to branch and became clear. Like a great pulsing ball, the crux sucked all the alternatives within itself. I could not see beyond. Not one twisting path toward the crux failed to enter it. I wanted no more foreknowledge; my mind reeled. Yet I found the strength to enter Sereth’s flow, to disentangle his from mine just before the great ball devoured it, and to cause the sharp cessation of his line to fold back upon itself and become absorbed. As I watched, new branches sprouted from that spot, so close to crux, and drifted away tangentially. It was enough. I saw the main path firm and take color, and I knew I had done all I could. I pushed back from the flickering probabilities, and floated free until my body claimed me.

  I found my eyes, and caused the lids to open. The numbness drained slowly from my limbs, and I felt the wind tickle my face with strands of hair, and my ears again sorted sound. I saw the sun, still high, and Sereth, his position unchanged. What had been done had taken only moments.

  When the tingling was gone, I sat up and met his questioning gaze. I shook my head as if nothing had been accomplished.