by Anissa Gray
“As long as Eiadh is mine,” said Elemak, “I’m content, whether I’m in the desert or the city, on Harmony or on Earth.”
“Oh, Elya!” cried Eiadh. She flung her arms around him and wept into his shoulder.
Luet bent over and picked up the pulse from the sand at her feet. It wouldn’t do to risk losing a precious weapon. Who knew when they might need it for hunting?
Nafai walked over to her. It meant more than Luet could say, that he came first to her, his wife of only a few days, rather than to his mother. He embraced her, and she held him. She could feel his trembling. He had been afraid, despite his confidence in the Oversoul. And it had been a near thing, too.
“Did you know how it would all come out?” she whispered.
“The Oversoul wasn’t sure it could bring off the rope thing,” he murmured back to her. “Especially when he actually walked up to inspect the knot.”
“He had to do that, if he was going to believe it was miraculous when you broke free.”
“You know what I was thinking, when I was kneeling there with the pulse at my head, saying those things that were goading him to kill me? I was thinking—I’ll never know what our baby looks like.”
“And now you will.”
He pulled away from her, then reached out and took the pulse out of her hand.
Hushidh stepped close and put her hand on the pulse. “Nyef,” she said, “if you hold that, there’s no hope of healing.”
“What if I give it back to him?”
Hushidh nodded. “The best thing,” she said.
No one understood better than Hushidh the Raveler what bound and unbound people. Nafai at once strode to Elemak and held out the pulse to him. “Please,” he said. “I don’t even know how to use this. We need you to lead us back to Father’s camp.”
Elemak paused just a moment before taking the pulse. Luet knew that he hated receiving it from Nafai’s hand. But at the same time he also knew that Nafai didn’t have to give it to him. That Nafai didn’t have to give him back his place of leadership. And he needed that place, needed it so much that he would even take it from Nafai.
“Glad to,” said Elemak. He took the pulse.
“Oh, thank you, Nafai,” said Eiadh.
Luet felt a stab of fear through her heart. Does Elemak hear it in her voice? Can he see it in her face? How she looks with such awe at Nafai? She’s a woman who loves only strength and courage and power—it is the alpha male in the tribe who attracts her. And in her eyes, Nafai is clearly that most desirable of men. She was the best actress of all today, thought Luet. She was the one who was able to convince Elemak of her love for him, in order to save the man she really loved. I can’t help but admire her for that, thought Luet. She’s really something.
Those thoughts of admiration were themselves lies, though, and Luet could not long fool herself. Beautiful Eiadh is still in love with my husband, and even though his love for me is strong right now, there’ll come a day when the primate male in him overcomes the civilized man, and he’ll look at Eiadh with desire, and she’ll see it and in that moment I will surely lose him.
She shook the jealous thought from her, and walked with Lady Rasa, who was trembling with relief, in order to help her clamber onto her camel. “I thought he was dead,” said Rasa softly, clinging to Luet’s hand. “I thought I had lost him.”
“So did I, for a few moments there,” said Luet.
“I can tell you this,” said Lady Rasa. “Elemak would have died before nightfall if he had gone through with it.”
“I was plotting his death in my own heart, too,” said Luet.
“That’s how close we are to animals. Did you ever dream of such a thing? That we would be ready to do murder all so suddenly?”
“Just like baboons, protecting the troop,” said Luet.
“I think it’s rather a grand discovery, don’t you?”
Luet grinned at her and squeezed her hand. “Let’s not tell anybody, though,” she said. “It would make the men so nervous to know how dangerous we really are.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” said Rasa. “The Oversoul was stronger than I thought possible. It’s all over and done with now.”
But as Luet walked back to find her own camel, she knew it was not finished. It had only been postponed. The day would come again when there would be a struggle for power. And next time there was no guarantee that the Oversoul would be able to bring off such a sweet little trick. If Elemak had once decided to fire off the pulse, it would have been over; next time he might realize that, and not let himself be sidetracked by something so foolish as Lady Rasa’s plea that he only tie Nafai up and abandon him. It was that close, such a near thing. And at the end, Luet knew that Elemak’s hatred for Nafai was stronger than ever, even though for a time at least he would deny it, would pretend even to himself that his hate was gone. You can fool the others, Elemak, but I’ll be watching you. And if anything happens to my husband, you can be sure of it, you’d better kill me too. You’d better be sure I’m dead, and even then, if I can find a way, I’ll come back and wreak some vengeance on you from the grave.
“You’re trembling, Lutya,” said Hushidh.
“Am I?” Perhaps that was why she was having so much trouble making certain of the cinch on her camel’s saddle.
“Like a dragonfly’s wing.”
“It was a very emotional thing,” said Luet. “I suppose that I’m still upset.”
“Still jealous of Eiadh, that’s what you are,” said Hushidh.
“Not even a speck,” said Luet. “He loves me absolutely and completely.”
“Yes, he does,” said Hushidh. “But still I see such rage in you toward Eiadh.”
Luet knew that she did, yes, feel some jealousy toward Eiadh. But Hushidh had called it rage, and that was a far stronger feeling than she had been aware of in herself. “I’m not angry because she loves Nafai,” said Luet, “truly I’m not.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Hushidh. “Or rather, I see that now. No, I think you’re angry at her and jealous of her because she was able to save your husband’s life, when you couldn’t do it.”
Yes, thought Luet. That was it. And now that Hushidh had named it, she could feel the agonizing frustration of it wash through her, and hot tears of rage and shame flooded out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “There,” said Hushidh, holding her. “It’s good to let it out. It’s good.”
“That’s nice,” said Luet. “Because apparently I’m going to cry like a ninny whether it’s good to let it out or not, so it might as well be good.”
She was still crying when Nafai came back to find her and help her on her beast. “You’re the last one,” said Nafai.
“I think I just needed to feel you touch me one more time,” she said. “To be sure you were alive.”
“Still breathing,” he said. “Are you going to cry like that for long? Because all that moisture on your face is bound to attract flies.”
“Whatever happened to those bandits?” she said, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
“The Oversoul managed to put them to sleep just before it started getting serious about influencing the others. They’ll wake up in a couple of hours. Why did you think about them?”
“I was just thinking how stupid we would all have felt if they had come running up and hacked us all to pieces while we stood there bickering about whether or not to kill you.”
“Yes,” said Nafai. “I know what you mean. To face death, that’s nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable.”
She laughed and held his hand for just a moment. Just another moment, and then another long, long moment.
“They’re waiting for us,” said Nafai. “And the bandits will wake up eventually.”
So she let go of him, and as soon as he headed toward his own camel, hers lurched to its feet and she rose high above the desert floor. It was like riding atop an unsteady tower in an earthquake, and she didn’t usually lik
e it. But today it felt as lovely as she had ever imagined it might be to sit upon a throne. For there, on the camel before her, sat Nafai, her husband. Even if it had not been Luet herself who saved him, what of it? It was enough that he was alive, and he was still in love with her.
THREE
HUNTING
They came down into Volemak’s camp in the evening. They had traveled longer than usual that day, because they were close; yet still there was all the evening work to do, for Volemak had not known they were coming that night, and there were no extra tents pitched, and Zdorab had already washed up from the supper he prepared for himself and Volemak and Issib. The evening work went slower than usual, because they felt safer and because, having arrived, it seemed so unfair to have as much work to do as during the journey.
Hushidh stayed as close to Luet and Nafai as she could. She caught glimpses of Issib now and then as he floated somewhere on his chair. There was nothing surprising to her about his appearance—she had known him for years, since he was Lady Rasa’s oldest son and had studied at Rasa’s house as long as Hushidh had been there herself. But she had always thought of him as the crippled one, and paid him little mind. Then, back in Basilica, as she came to realize that she was going out onto the desert with Nafai and Luet, it came clear to her—for she could always see the connections between people—that in the pairings of male and female in the Oversoul’s expedition, she would end up with Issib. The Oversoul wanted his genes to go on, and hers as well, and for good or ill, they would be making that effort together.
It had been a hard thing to accept. Especially on the wedding night, as Luet and Nafai, Elemak and Eiadh, Mebbekew and Dolya all were married by Lady Rasa and then went, two by two, to their bridal beds, Hushidh could hardly bear the rage and fear and bitter disappointment in her heart, that she could not have the kind of love that her sister Luet had.
In answer, the Oversoul—or so she had thought at first—sent her a dream that night. In it she saw herself linked with Issib; she saw him flying and flew with him; she understood from that that his body did not express his true nature, and that she would find that marriage with him was not something that would grind her down but rather would lift her up. And she saw herself bearing children with him, saw herself standing in the door of a desert tent with him, watching their children play, and she saw that in that future scene she would love him, would be bound with him by gold and silver threads tying them back through generations, and leading them also forward into the future, year by year, child by child, generation by generation. There were other parts of the dream, some of them terrifying, but she clung to the comfort of it all these days. As she had stood with General Moozh, forced to marry the conqueror of Basilica, she had thought about the dream and knew that she would not really end up with him, and sure enough, the Oversoul brought Hushidh’s and Luet’s mother, the woman named Thirsty, who named them as her daughters—with Moozh as their father. No marriage then, and within hours they were in the desert, on their way to join Volemak in the desert.
But since then she had had time to think—time to remember her fears. Of course she tried not to, tried instead to cling to the comfort of the dream, or to Nafai’s reassurances, for he had told her that Issib was very bright and funny, a man of good company, which of course she had never had much chance to see at school.
Yet despite the dream, despite Nafai, her old impressions, the ones she had held for so many years, remained. All the way through the desert she kept seeing the almost macabre way his arms and legs used to move in the city, where he could wear lifts under his clothing, so that he always seemed to be bouncing through the air like a gamboling ghost, or like a—what was it that Kokor had once called him?—like a rabbit under water. How they had laughed! And now, how disloyal she felt, although it had been Issib’s own sister who made the joke. Hushidh could not have guessed that someday the cripple, the ghost, the underwater rabbit would be her husband. The old fear and strangeness remained as an undercurrent, despite all her attempts to reassure herself.
Until now, seeing him, she realized that she was not afraid of him. The dream had given her too much hope. No, she was afraid of what he would think of her—an even older and darker fear. Did Issib know yet what Aunt Rasa and the Oversoul had planned for him? Was he already eyeing her as she worked at tent-pitching, sizing her up? No doubt that if he was, he would be bitterly disappointed. She could imagine him thinking, Of course the cripple gets the plain one, the one too tall, the sourfaced one whose body has never caused a man to take a second glance. The studious one, who has no gift for causing anyone to laugh, except sometimes her younger sister Luet 〈ah, so bright! but she belongs to Nafai〉. He must be thinking: I’ll have to make the best of it, because I’m a cripple and have no choice. Just as I’m thinking, I’ll have to make do with the cripple, because no other man would have me.
How many marriages have begun with such feelings as these? Were any of them ever happy, in the end?
She delayed as long as she could, lingering over supper—which was better than anything they had eaten while traveling. Zdorab and Volemak had found wild greens and roots in this valley and simmered them down into a stew, so much better than handfuls of raisins and jerky, and the bread was fresh and leavened, instead of the crackers and hard biscuits they had made do with while traveling. Soon it would be better still, for Volemak had planted a garden here, and within a few weeks there would be melons and squashes, carrots and onions and radishes.
Everyone was tired and awkward with each other through supper. The memory of Nafai’s near-execution still lingered in their minds, all the more embarrassing to them now that they had returned to Volemak and could see how easily he held command over all of them, being a man of true leadership, so much more powerful than Elemak’s swaggering, bullying style. It made them all dread some kind of accounting with the old man, for how many of them, except perhaps Eiadh—and of course Nafai himself—were truly proud of how they acted? So, good as the food was, no one but Hushidh had much desire to stay and chat. There were no fond reminiscences of the journey, no amusing tales to recount to those who had waited here for them. As quickly as the supper was cleared away, the couples went to their tents.
They went so suddenly that despite her anxiousness to avoid exactly this moment, Hushidh returned from the stream with the last of the pots she had washed to find that only Shedemei remained of the women, and only Zdorab and Issib of the men. There was already a dreadful silence, for Shedemei had no gift of chat, and both Zdorab and Issib seemed painfully shy. How hard for all of us, thought Hushidh. We know we are the leftovers of the group, thrown together only because we weren’t wanted by anyone but the Oversoul. And some of us not even by her, for poor Zdorab was here only because Nafai had extracted an oath from him instead of killing him at the gate of Basilica, on the night Nafai cut off Gaballufix’s head.
“What a miserable group you are,” said Volemak.
Hushidh looked over in relief to see Volemak and Rasa returning to the cookfire. They must have realized that something needed to be said—introductions needed to be made, at least, between Shedya and the librarian, who had never even met.
“I was entering my husband’s tent,” said Rasa, “thinking how good it was to be back with him, when suddenly I realized how much I missed my traveling companions, Shuya and Shedya, and then I remembered that I had failed in my duty as lady of this house.”
“House?” said Issib.
“The walls may be stone and the roof may be sky, but this is my house, a place of refuge for my daughters and safety for my sons,” said Rasa.
“Our house,” said Volemak gently.
“Indeed—I spoke of it as my house only because of the old habits of Basilica, where the houses belonged only to women.” Rasa lifted her husband’s hand to her lips and kissed it and smiled at him.
“Out here,” said Volemak, “the houses belong to the Oversoul, but he is renting this one to us at a very reasonable fee: When we
leave here, the baboons downstream of us get to keep the garden.”
“Hushidh, Shedemei, I believe you know my son Issib,” said Rasa.
“Our son,” said Volemak, as gently as before. “And this is Zdorab, who was once Gaballufix’s archivist, but now serves our way station as gardener, librarian, and cook.”
“Miserable at all three, I fear,” said Zdorab.
Rasa smiled. “Volya tells me that both Issib and Zdorab have explored the Index while they’ve been waiting here. And I know both of my dear nieces, Shuya and Shedya, will have profound interest in what they’ve found there.”
“The Index of the Oversoul is the pathway into all the memory of Earth,” said Volemak. “And since Earth is where we are going, it’s just as important for us to study in that great library as it is for us to do the work that keeps our bodies alive in this desert.”
“You know we’ll do our duty,” said Shedemei.
Hushidh knew that she was not referring to studies alone.
“Oh, hang the courteous obliquities,” said Lady Rasa. “You all know that you’re the unmarried ones, and that everybody has to marry if this is going to work at all, and that leaves only the four of you. I know that there’s no particular reason why you shouldn’t at least have the freedom to sort things out among yourselves, but I’ll tell you that because of age and experience I rather imagined that it would be Hushidh who ended up with Issib and Shedemei who ended up with Zdorab. It doesn’t have to be that way, but I think it would be helpful if you at least explored the possibilities.”
“The Lady Rasa speaks about experience,” said Zdorab, “but I must point out that I am a man of no experience whatsoever when it comes to women, and I fear that I will offend with every word I say.”
Shedemei gave one hoot of derisive laughter.
“What Shedemei meant, with her simple eloquence,” said Rasa, “is that she cannot conceive of your having less experience of women than she has of men. She, too, is quite certain of her ability to offend you with every word, which is why she chose to respond to you without using any.”
