High Couch of Silistra

by Janet Morris

  I shifted my knees from the pebbles that jabbed up through the grass. I said nothing.

  “Daughter,” he said slowly, “I will rescind my injunction. I would not constrain you unduly on this our first meeting. Do as you will with him. Only, remember that you owe him no allegiance, and what I have said.”

  I went to him and sat by his side. He took my hand in his. I could not speak. I merely leaned my head upon his shoulder, watching the light dance out from his skin.

  “You are much like your mother,” he remarked. “Out of all the women of time and space, I had the most hope for her. She, among all of them, was the only one who knew me. She had no fear, no superstition. If I had not needed you so desperately, I would have brought her here. I have often thought of her. It gives me great pleasure that you have so much of her strength, her fitness, her beauty.”

  “For what did you need me so desperately? Are you not omnipotent, omniscient?”

  “For what, you will summarily apprehend.” Estrazi smiled, and a warm breeze came out of nowhere and fondled my skin. His arm went round my back and I leaned my weight against his cool flesh. “As for omniscience, upon such a tiny scale, none can claim it. The interruption of probability by a Mi’ysten is not foreseeable, since they are not creatures of time.”

  And summarily, I did apprehend Estrazi’s purpose, for I was thereupon lifted up in my father’s arms, and when he set me again upon the ground, we stood in a vast natural amphitheater, wherin all the legions of creation had convened to hear the assessors render judgment upon the worlds of time and space.

  My father, as Architect of Days, presided. Beside him were arrayed the six other fathers, Kystrai directly upon his right. Upon his left sat the assessors themselves, each of whom wore the aspect of a silhouette before flame, and those flames that came out from each dark man-form melded into one another in one great conflagration. All around that central circle were gathered the factions who would this day hold forth. At the forefront of one group was Teris, and of the other, Raet. Directly opposed to the assessors stood the Hertekiean, myself, and the blond girl who had been beneath me in the cubes. The Hertekiean took my left hand in his right and held it. It was good. I reached with my right and clasped the hand of the blond girl.

  Long did Teris hold forth in his impassioned plea for the flawed creatures of time and space, while the winged and the mist-formed and those whose feet were golden talons hovered and stood and sat, each in his circle, ranged around the central pit. And even longer did Raet deliver his diatribe. With implacable logic he submitted his appeal to reason and. order. Striding to and fro before the assessors (upon whom it was difficult to look for more than a moment), he stated his case for the purging from all the worlds of creation those children hopelessly enfleshed.

  The Hertekiean’s grip upon my hand became painful. It seemed to me, staring around at the convoked host, that many leaned forward, that many nodded heads.

  Upon his conclusion, Teris made rebuttal, using, as had Raet, myself and the Hertekiean and the blond girl as example.

  Once more, and briefly, did Raet speak. Not once in that final speech did he even look upon me, but faced the assessors the whole time.

  When that was done, my father directed the general vote. Both he and Kystrai, and Raet and Teris, abstained, as concerned parties whose judgment could not be unbiased.

  There was no word spoken nor ballot passed, only a long silence, broken at last by the assessors. As one being, they rose up. From seven throats came their decision: “There will be no cleansing of the time-space worlds. In all their imperfection, they must remain. It is Time itself that will remake the inhabitants thereof.” And they were gone.

  Pandemonium broke loose then in the great amphitheater. The Hertekiean lifted me bodily into the air and swung me around. When he released me, it was into Estrazi’s arms.

  “Take a loan from me, little one,” he whispered into my hair, “against that wealth you hold still buried within.” And from him, into me came a flood of strength and knowing that spread out through my form like the first sip of water slaking a long-borne thirst, and like that water, brought to my awareness, by its easing, every cranny of what had lain long parched within. The power which had aided me on occasion in the past seemed to rise up and out, until it looked through my eyes. And when Estrazi released me, though I staggered briefly, I had no need of question, but met his gentle smile.

  We parted, then, he to join Kystrai and the other fathers, and I to do what had long cried out for the doing, what the power within me demanded, and what Estrazi’s gift had made it impossible for me to avoid.

  I sought Raet. I sought him through the crowded confusion of the convoked host, with Estrazi’s words reverberating in my mind: Do as you will with him. I rescind my injunction. Do …

  I found him, near the lowest of the grassed ledges that encircled the pit like so many concentric bangles, amid a score of his followers. His face was terrible to look upon, his eyes glowing slits of flame, as if by their heat alone he could char his defeat to ashes. How long had he labored, how painstaking had been his preparations for this, the moment of his defaming and mortification?

  The stiffening of his frame, his countenance, suffused with rage, and the grim line of his mouth as he threaded his way toward me through his allies spoke most eloquently. It was I, in his sight, and I alone, who had brought his plans to ruin. Ambition, thwarted, is the bitterest of poisons.

  What might I have said to him, had he not so menacingly, so inexorably approached? I know not; only do I recollect his contorted face and the wrath and animosity that issued therefrom, and the answer his fury called forth from me.

  “Cousin …” I greeted him coldly, the power within me parrying the projectile of his rage as if it were never launched.

  He halted, at arm’s length. All emotion drained from his face, and the assessing calm so revealed was more chilling than the wind from the abyss.

  “When you are possessed of those skills to which you now only aspire,” he spat, “and only then, will I hear from you a claim of propinquity. Claim kinship with great care, Estri, for when you do so, you will have gainsaid the immunity your ineptitude demands.” His hands, at his sides, were balled into fists.

  “I will waive it,” hissed the power within me, while my heart longed to ease him in his distress. “Too long have you obstructed me. Even with guile and dishonor did you exact from me a vow in reparation for a debt nonexistent. Release me, by word or contest!”

  “I release you,” he said almost inaudibly. “I would not have it said that I am so lacking in fitness as to destroy a creature inarguably my inferior.” And he wheeled and strode away into the midst of his minions.

  I watched him through a comber of ambivalence that threatened to throw me to my knees. My love decried my heartlessness, my hate reviled me, that I dealt so lightly with my enemy.

  When at last I could no longer see him, I turned, and found my father smiling down upon me.

  “Come, little one,” he said, encircling my shoulders with his arm. “I will show you an end worthy of the most arduous labors, and what triumph you may one day enjoy.”

  He took me, then, to view his most recent creation, and it was truly perfect. We floated there unscathed in the void before that raging newborn, supported and surrounded by the imperviousness of Estrazi’s skills. My lungs did not gasp upon the vacuum, nor did my blood become crystals of ice. I but stood at his side, upon the platform of realized will, and beheld what heritage might someday be mine.

  Raet has bespoken it: I could not have survived a moment of that experience upon the strength of my barely emergent skills.

  But I am learning.

  I have showered in star’s breath.

  Glossary

  aniet: One of the seven interconnected underground life-support complexes that housed refugee Silistrans during the thousand year period known as hide-days. The hide aniet lies under the Dead Sea in the Parset Desert; or the hide-name aniet,
as Aknet aniet Beshost. Of all the hides of Silistra, the blood of aniet is the least common, being confined almost exclusively to the Parset Lands by an insular confederation of tribes who maintain there a strict autonomy. Almost one-half of aniet’s survivors were of Gristasha tribesmen, and this strong infusion makes “aniet’s stamp” an easily recognizable Silistran type.

  apprei: The tapestried, pyramidal tents of the nomadic desert cities of the Parset tribes.

  Arlet: Well Arlet. Also, the lands controlled by her.

  Arletian: Of or pertaining to Well Arlet. In couching, any coupling attended by bondage or containing elements of submission; as criticism, excessive vehemence, or roughness.

  Astria: Well Astria. The lands controlled by Well Astria, including Port Astrin, her dependent city. Sometimes, in coloquial speech, it may denote the Well Foundress: “By Astria!”

  Astria Barina diet Hadrath: The Foundress of Well Astria, great-grandam of Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi. It is legend that Astria was born in hide-year sixty-three. This cannot presently be authenticated due to the unavailability of hide records. Astria died Cai first fifth, 24,833 of the Silistran calendar.

  Baniese: Of or pertaining to Baniev.

  Baniev: Silistra’s most northeast coast port. Baniev’s major exports are: the famed northern thala; danne, the yellow herb that grows high in the Sabembes; and the tri-sailed long ship whose fleetness has no equal even in the quays of Dritira.

  bast: The hide bast, which lies under Well Arlet and is said to extend under the Sabembe range. The hide name “bast.”

  Beten: The planet Beten twins Katrii around the G-star Cerioles. Famed for her mathematicians and her astrogators, it was Betenese minds which first solved the congruence problem and put such outlying worlds as Silistra upon the interstellar trade routes, previously restricted to those worlds in the Inner Stars and Central Clusters.

  Betenese: Having origin on the planet Beten.

  binnirin: A high-protein, high-fat grain that grows in numerous varieties all over Silistra. Binnirin proliferates with little urging, and is the hardiest and most nutritious of Silistra’s grains. Kernel size varies with region and variety, but is generally bifurcated, with twinned germs. The plant, when mature, may reach the height of a man, and the ripe grain is a tannish-brown. Anything tannish-brown may be called binnirin. From the grain comes flour and the fermented beverage brin, as well as oil and stalk fodder for denter and parr.

  Bipedal Federate Standard Time: (BFST) Measured in hours, minutes, and seconds; an hour being equal to twenty-one twenty-seconds of an enth.

  Bipedal Federation: (B.F.) The M’ksakkan confederacy of worlds as a whole, including both the Bipedal Federate Trade Union, (merchant arm) and the Bipedal Federate Group (the original fifty-five worlds, commonly referred to as the Inner Stars).

  Bipedal Standard: (B.S.) Universal mean weights and measures.

  birth-price: The fee paid to a man by the Well for impregnating a well woman in exchange for waiving his right to her body, generally in the area of a thousand gold dippars and never more than ten thousand.

  bondrex: A class of horned herbivores; any undomesticated grazer whose milk and meat are not coveted by man (except the steppe bondrex, prized and raised for its long, silky hair). There are nineteen species of bondrex cataloged on Silistra, requirements for inclusion into this group being a split or cloven hoof, three stomachs, horned males (both branching and curled), a height no more than five B.S. feet at shoulder, and an average weight of no more than eight hundred B.S. pounds.

  brin: A mild intoxicant drink fermented from the binnirin grain, most commonly in wisper-wood casks.

  brist: A large and ferocious Silistran carnivore, hunted both for pelt and meat. Brist have a standing height of up to sixteen B.S. feet, a weight of up to twenty-five hundred pounds. Unless ill or frightened, brist walk upright. Their appearance is generally manlike. The head is round, the jaw slung under and hinged below side-set ears. The whole body is covered with a thick hair coat, generally brown, much prized for its warmth and durability. The brist has six clawed digits on hands and feet, and opposing thumbs. Their cry is high and shrill, almost a bark.

  caocu: A yellowish, lanceolate-leaved plant from the swamps of Galesh. This photo tropic plant unfurls its leaves only at night, at which time they emit a phosphorescent glow. Although attempts have been made to cultivate the caocu, the medicinal value of the cultivated plant is markedly reduced as compared to the wild plant hunted in its riparian habitat of choice. The caocu’s root, and to a lesser extent its stalk and leaves, contain a benign acid of phosphorus not found in any other Silistran plant (the “fourth” phosphor), which accelerates localized cell reparation and retards the formation of scar tissue; the reagent caophosphor; the yellow salve extracted from the root.

  Centaus: The planet Centaus is an airless sphere composed almost exclusively of heavy metals; the single satellite of the yellow dwarf Artersh.

  chald: (Stothric: spirit-bond.) A belt of chains commonly soldered around the waist.

  chalded: Possessed of or wearing a chald.

  chaldless: Possessing no chald; one who has been either unwilling or unable to acquire chaldra; an outlaw; one who has been stripped of his chald for iniquitous behavior, and so disbarred from Silistran society.

  chaldra: Numerous volumes exist upon the subject of chaldra, first and foremost Ors Chaldra (the dharen Khys, hide-year sixty-three); Khys’ postulates of self-rule; the goal-seeking morality of Silistra in general, including both high-chaldra (tasks and responsibilities undertaken to strengthen the spirit form and increase survival potential of the eternal particle, the individual consciousness, or the flesh race as a whole) and low-chaldra (pertaining to the survival and betterment of the mundane individual, the acquiring of life skills of material import only); a trade or craft chain.

  chaldric: Demanded by chaldra; the “chaldric strands” that make up a chald; duties or labors determined by the Laws of Chaldra.

  chan-tera: (chan: will of; tera: life.) Avowed life dedication; that toward which the life labors, any ongoing struggle to perfect.

  chit-guard: Caretakers and handlers of golachits, most ok ten an apprentice position.

  coin girl: A girl who couches for pay outside the Well system. Most often such girls sell themselves into, long-term servitude contracts as a last resort when the alternatives to such work are meager. Coin girls are sometimes purchased as children from chaldless, and in this fashion a comely chaldless girl may better her estate. Coin girls, though generally chaldless, are not considered outlaw, nor are they disbarred from acquiring chaldra, should they choose to labor toward that end.

  couch: (n.) A sleeping platform, any surface used for coupling.

  couch: (v.t.) To copulate.

  couchbond: A companionship agreement between two consenting adults. (Low-chaldra.) The titrium couch-bond strand is issued to the male at puberty after potency has been determined. No Day-Keeper need officiate at such an enchalding, nor is a chalder demanded by custom. The titrium chain may be inwoven or removed from a chald at the discretion of the two parties involved. There is no minimum or maximum time of couchbond.

  couch-gift: The tokens exchanged upon the assumption of couchbond, forever after the property of the individual in receipt. Also, any gift of sentiment.

  couching: (n.) Any single coupling; a style, as “an Astrian couching.”

  couch-mate: Persons bound together by love and/or issue; in usage, those in extended couchbond, those who consider their relationship more binding than simple couchbond. Couch-mate denotes responsibility of a high moral order between two people. Gifting between couch-mates is traditionally regulated; one gives either the gift of life (progeny, animal or human) or the gift of death (knife or sword).

  couch-met: Met while performing well work; couching partners who have no previous acquaintance.

  couch-price: The fee a woman demands for her sexual services. Fees may range from as low as a titrium half-well for a coin
girl to as high as fifty gold dip-pars for a high-couch girl.

  couch-sisters: Well women; those of the same Well.

  crill: The hide crill, under the city Nin Sihaen across the Karir-Thoss River, is the most westerly of all Silistran hides; the hide-name crill, as: Sereth crill Tyris.

  crux: One of the major Weathers of Life; time within which only that preordained may be done. Time so obscured that no foreknowledge may be gathered of what will occur therein. Colloquially, the abyss. Any time that spawns far-reaching changes whose effects and purposes are supernal in nature. Events that precipitate numinosity or nympholeptic response in the superconscious.

  danne: Psychotropic yellow herb that grows best at high altitudes in stony soil. The strength and efficacy of danne vary greatly from area to area. The best danne grows high in the Sabembe range. Danne lowers both blood pressure and brain-wave frequency and is mildly hallucinogenic. It is removed from the human system neither by the kidneys nor liver, but goes directly to the brain and seems to be absorbed by the hypothalamus. It was once thought to be a “brain food” and sympathetic nervous-system revivifier with cumulative effects, but no empirical experiments have proved this out, Danne neither prolongs life nor increases intelligence; it simply alters consciousness with no long-term effects whatsoever.

  Day-Keepers: The guardians of Silistran history, past, present, and future, The Day-Keeper hierarchy as a whole is referred to as the Dharendiil, a High Day-Keeper as dharener. Over these presides the dharen, the spiritual guide of Silistra. It is said that when Khys conceived the Dharendiil, he directed that Day-Keeper always be capitalized as a reminder to those who bear the title of the humbleness of their function. The forereaders, however, were given no such injunction, and maintain the lower-case honors.