The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  “Did Maellenkleth sojourn here much before Krisshantem?”

  Klervondaf paused before answering. He looked into the hearth fire for a long, reflective moment, and then back to Morlenden. “Maellenkleth was beautiful of face, graceful and desirable of body, passionate of disposition. She was one not greatly given over to excessive self-restraint. She was of the Water aspect, Sanh: she had in her life many lovers, many friends, many in-betweens . . . here, she was in and out, more or less, according to the season. But until she moved in with Krisshantem, she remained here.”

  “She was gone a lot.”

  “Yes, that. Gone. Rather more often than not, even before Krisshantem, and not always in the expected places, either. I know, because I had to go look for her. Then she’d show up. No one seemed to mind. Where was she? She would say, with so-and-so, or with the Past Masters. And other times she said nothing.”

  Klervondaf stopped now, as if he had said what must be said. He would offer no more for the time. Morlenden now reflected upon what he had heard; there was, concealed within the easy answers, almost glibly given, almost a kind of distraction from something else. There was something deeper here. This Klervondaf spoke, but he knew more, and suspected even more yet. But the answers helped to conceal, mislead, trap. Nevertheless there was truth in it, Morlenden could see. It hung together well enough, in loose fashion. He felt like the fox watching the bird with the obvious broken wing.

  But it could have been just like that; the unweavable insiblings because of the same-sex rule, and then one of the girls turns out to be a prodigy for exactly the Game. One misfortune after another—it would disorient anyone. In a society that made the family more than a genetic unit, strengthened by the resonant occupation and interrelatiorial ties to the rest, this ending of the Braid line would be catastrophic, especially to the younger members, within any Braid. But here, in the intense competitive atmosphere between the Player Braids, and in the elitism of their social status, it would have been more. Yet they acted strangely—rationally in one way, inexplicably in the other. They just give up and get irritated with the errant insibling who wants to keep going. The parents give up and apparently move out early, turning everything over to, of all people, the outsibling. Morlenden never credited himself with the penetrating powers of a mnathman, but he could see that here were many contradictions, many mysteries; whole areas opened up to question. But he was equally sure that they would not be answered here.

  He could not let the whole of the idea go: considering that one would expect them all to be close and submissive. But not so—to the contrary. One even goes out and competes with the humans in their own pet project, and gets herself made a minor chief of it. And the other insibling, now missing, takes on the whole of ler society and its ostensible rulers, and her own Klanh chiefs, and with a hifzer, starts building a new Braid from scratch, counting on her verve and aggressiveness to carry it over. And seemed to be getting away with it. And the outsiblings cope. The enemies Maellenkleth must have made! Think of it—Sanjirmil’s Braid petitioned! And we’re denied, what’s the more.

  His musings were interrupted by a noise in the entryway; Morlenden suspected that it would be the Thes, Taskellan. And it was; in a moment, a barely adolescent lad brushed aside the door curtain and entered. This one was small, full of swift, sharp movements, possessed of a deft, foxy face. Wary as a young squirrel; not gone bad yet, but definitely one to watch, Morlenden thought. So were they all, these Perklarens.

  The younger boy glanced sidelong at Morlenden, a piercing, knife-stroke look, then said to his elder outsibling, “Kler, Plin said that you wanted me to come home. What do you want?”

  Klervondaf looked up from his silence by the hearth, where he had been fiddling with the meal, and answered, “I wanted you home that you could get to bed and get an early start tomorrow morning. You will need to take this Ser Morlenden Deren down to the place where Kris and Mael built the treehouse.”

  Morlenden interjected, “Why can’t we go tonight?”

  Klervondaf answered, as if explaining to a child younger than Taskellan, “For one, it’s a long walk, and so I hear, hard to find in the best daylight. But Tas knows the area—not so well he could find it in the dark, mind—and he can take you there. I hardly think you have such haste you would be willing to wander all over the old forest through most of a winter night.”

  Taskellan added, “Is that all? I could do it blind. We were just getting started down there. Let me go back!”

  “Will you promise to be home early?”

  “No later than the sun, Kler,” said the boy, smirking.

  Klervondaf ignored the provocation. “Oh, go ahead, go ahead. But be here and ready to go.”

  “Right!” he cried, and was halfway through the curtain.

  “Hey!” Klervondaf called after him.

  Taskellan stopped. A small, nagging voice said around the curtain, “Yes?”

  “Where did Plindestier go?”

  “She went home. Said she’d be along tomorrow.”

  “Very well, go!”

  The younger boy clattered about the entryway and was gone. For a time they could hear his footfalls in the clear, cold air outside. Then it was silent. Klervondaf retrieved the pot from the fire, poured off a mug of tea, and handed it to Morlenden. He shook his head slowly.

  “It’s been a job, I will tell you that; raising Tas has been a piece of work for an elder outsibling . . . mostly it has been just myself and Plindestier, although Maellenkleth helped. And it was easier when she was around; she had a way with Tas. He looked up to her. Then, too, when she was here, there seemed to be more people around, in and out, then. Tas is half wild, I don’t know what will become of him.”

  “How many years has he? Fifteen? One and a fourteen?”

  “Yes, that.”

  “How long ago did the older Perklarens leave . . . or begin staying away most of the time? A year, two?”

  “Ah, long before that . . . although leaving is perhaps not the most proper word. They were just absent more and more. It was about the time Tas was born that things changed, I think. Yes, it’s been a long time like this.”

  “It wasn’t when Mevlannen and Maellenkleth were born?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, I don’t think so, no.” The boy’s voice faltered, as if he agreed with Morlenden, but at the same time he realized he had admitted the fact that the absence of the parent Perklarens—their strange, intermittent, almost permanent absence—had nothing to do with the same-sexing of the insiblings. And also, their absence could have little or nothing to do with Taskellan. That simply wouldn’t fit. No. Something had happened about fifteen years ago, something out-Braid, perhaps even unrelated to it. Morlenden suddenly felt the boy’s resistance go weak and soft; he thrust.

  “Then there was an exterior event, eh?” The expression on Klervondaf’s face told Morlenden that he had indeed got inside the boy’s guard and was closing on it rapidly. He could sense it, something concealed, something hidden, coming into shape, almost tangible. . . . He reached, blindly, gambling. “And when Maellenkleth was known, known, I say, to be missing, why didn’t her own Braid go looking for her—or at the least come direct to us, the Derens—instead of it being done by the Perwathwiy, a former Terklaren?”

  It was the wrong stroke, and the missed target and the delay allowed Klervondaf to recover his composure by a supreme act of will. He breathed deeply, and answered, “So how should we know she was missing? She came and went as she pleased, and since she’s been living off in the woods with this hifzer, she’s hardly been home at all. Is that all so strange? All of us run off for a while, if nowhere but inside our heads! You, you are now Ser and Kadh so you had to be insibling when you were adolescent. Did you not walk away and have an adventure as well?”

  Morlenden reflected an instant, and the earnest, strong, hard-defined face of Sanjirmil flashed across the window of his mind. He said, “I must admit that things have been much as you describe them
.” He felt the surety of the moment ago slipping away. And now again it was truce. Standoff. The two of them looked at one another, slightly belligerently, for a moment. Morlenden added, “You haven’t been completely open with me, have you?”

  “No,” said Klervondaf, directing his glance downward to the floor. “No, not completely, even though I believe you and know you to be just what you say you are. And as much of what I’ve said, that’s truth. There are just some things of which I am not permitted to speak, things that no nonplayer may have the enlightenment of. No matter what.” At last, he looked up again directly into Morlenden’s face with an expression of tentative, if unmistakable, defiance.

  Morlenden tested his resolve. “What, then, was Maellenkleth really doing?”

  “She was living with an adolescent hifzer calling himself Krisshantem and planning to reconstitute another Player Braid with the connivance of the hifzer.”

  “That’s all you’ll say?”

  “That’s all I can say. Maellenkleth herself would tell you no more. And besides what I won’t tell you, there is much that I would be unable to, if for no other reason than that I only suspect, I do not know. I have been admitted to a level of secrets appropriate to my position as Nerh. Of a matter of course, Mael was much deeper in, parent-level or perhaps deeper. She spent much time with Kris, and much time at the Holy Mountain, or with the Past Masters. . . .”

  “The Holy Mountain?”

  “That which the nonplayers call Grozgor, the Mountain of Madness. . . . But I also know that sometimes she was not in any of those places. Where was she? No one has told me.”

  Morlenden slanted off, leaving the boy with his perilous integrity intact. He said, “I would know Maellenkleth’s appearance, her vidh. My Toorh Fellirian said that she had seen her and could do me a Multispeech visual, but I wanted a good one, one from those who knew her well. Her own Braid.”

  Klervondaf smiled. “You should have taken it when it was offered. I am unschooled in Multispeech, other than the pure speech modes. I can’t do visuals. Only in words, in perdeskris.”

  “Tell me.”

  “She is small, but not tiny. A little under average, but more muscular than most girls, most adolescents. Humans, they’d say ‘athletic.’ She is dark-skinned, like myself, but not so streaky-swarthy as Sanjirmil. Do you know that one?”

  “Yes, I know her. Tell me more.”

  “Maellenkleth has heavy eyebrows, a triangular-oval face, a little cheekbone show, hardly at all, a delicate and slender neck. Her lips are pursed full, as if she were on the verge of thinking of kissing someone. But her mouth is small. She’s quite pretty, gentle-looking, abstracted, elsewhere: do you know? You don’t see the determination and the fierceness until you get to know her better. She has dark eyes, deep-set, shaded. Intense. She and I share a Madh, but really, we don’t look much alike, as much as Tas and Mevlannen. Tomorrow, ask the hifzer. Krisshantem can give you a visual. He’s reputed to be good at it.”

  “What might a hifzer know about visual modes of Multispeech?”

  “I know not, but as a hifzer did he learn it. And Maellenkleth taught much more of it to him, the whole range, all modes, even Command. That was part of the training she was giving him. She could handle all modes, easily. Especially Command. All the Inner Game Players have to know it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She’s very lean and spare. There’s no extra on her—it’s all muscle. Lean, but not thin. Her hands give her away; they’re very long. And if she’s not doing anything with them, they almost seem clumsy, bony, awkward. But when she uses them, they are strong and perfect.”

  Morlenden was going to follow some more of the intangible leads and half-starts about the person of Maellenkleth, when he was interrupted by another rustling at the door curtain. Both Morlenden and Klervondaf looked up, not expecting anyone. The entryway curtain parted before either of them could rise to meet it, to reveal Taskellan and the girl, Plindestier. Both were ruddy-faced and rosy-cheeked from the cold outside, which was, at this late hour, growing intense.

  The girl said, “Klervon, by the time Tas got back to the Rhalens, they had all turned in for the night, so he came over to my yos and got me. I brought him back here, for he shouldn’t be out and wandering in the cold.”

  The younger boy came into the hearthroom shyly, heading for the children’s sleeper, but as he passed his elder outsibling, the older boy cuffed him affectionately across the back of his shoulders. Taskellan rolled with the mock punch and continued on toward the children’s sleeper, slyly digging out of his overshirt part of a fresh loaf of bread.

  Klervondaf said, “Well, Tas, you little thief, don’t eat it all! Give some of it to Ser Morlenden. He’s a guest, you little pig.”

  Taskellan turned back and began carefully dividing the loaf. The girl had remained by the entryway curtain. Klervondaf asked her, after Taskellan had shared the loaf and climbed into the sleeper, “Can you stay, Plindes?” His voice was hesitant, tentative.

  She removed her heavy winter outercloak, sighing with visible relief. “I can always stay here, you know that.” She turned to Morlenden. “Here, Ser and Kadh,” she said, and handed him a small wedge of cheese. “I brought this from home. You may have part of it.”

  Morlenden took the cheese, broke off a piece, very informally, and passed the remainder to Klervondaf. The girl continued, as if musing aloud to herself, “I don’t know what these two would do if I didn’t look in on them every few days. Two outsiblings with a whole yos to themselves.”

  Morlenden watched Plindestier for a moment, until she grew self-conscious under his scrutiny. He thought that here was a fine situation indeed. More than a simple love affair was passing between these two adolescents; from her secure position in her own Braid, she was supporting these two. And why not? We make no provisions for orphans; everyone has a Braid. Except Klervondaf and Taskellan. He turned his attention back to the older boy.

  “You are to weave in about five years; what will happen to Taskellan then? Is there a place for him around here?”

  “I’ll keep him with me until time comes to weave him.”

  “That’s a hard job, maybe harder a one than the raising of him. You’re talking about ten years yet after your weaving. And now, apparently, there’s little enough you can offer in the way of weaving-price to an insibling, even if Taskellan were to become civilized enough to become interesting to one. I know the way of these things. You need influence. Now listen: would he come with me, come and live with the Derens? I have a srithnerh, his own age, and with the contacts we have it wouldn’t be difficult at all for us to see he gets a good Braid to weave into somewhere. He needs the environment, the sense of Braidness, and we have room enough.”

  Klervondaf paused. “What would I do with the yos?”

  “Close it up and turn it over to the Revens for transferal. Take what you wish and move in with someone else. You need it, too. Five years with someone is better than going it alone. You seem to have had to be too much the parent ahead of your time. I assume that wherever your elder Perklarens are, they won’t come back for any length of time. . . .”

  “... They can’t. You don’t understand. I can reach them if I need, but they feel they cannot. We agreed.”

  “Surely someone in the community here . . .”

  Plindestier offered, “Why not, Klervon? You could move in with us; we have the room, and it wouldn’t make any difference to the rest. You and I are about the same age, and the Toorh are going to weave soon, so the elders of us will be gone.” She added, turning to Morlenden, “I’m Thessrith.”

  The boy replied hesitantly, “I don’t know, I’d have to talk to Taskellan, think it over, get permission from Kreszerdar. . . .”

  Morlenden said, “Not to hurry it. Take your time. If and when you are ready, send him along downcountry to my place. We are easy enough to find; people come to us. I know not why this has gone on as it has, but I could not meet it and not make this offer, for
it needs fixing. Your people have their reasons; even so think upon what I have said.”

  Morlenden finished and returned to his bread and cheese, withdrawing from the two adolescents, allowing them space to settle whatever uneasinesses lay between them. He refrained from asking any more questions about Maellenkleth, for the time being. He knew more now than he had when he had started out this morning, but he also realized that what he had learned was not yet to the degree at which he could begin to solve anything . . . perhaps even frame an intelligent question. He felt confusion, subtle, complex disorientations; the basic assumptions about his own people were that they had chosen simplicity, directness, orthodox transitions, and left subtlety and multiplexity to religion, language, philosophy, and art form. People themselves, so the proverb went, were plain as planks. Not so, not so . . . multiplex beyond belief. This Maellenkleth . . . A weak smile flickered across his face, as he recalled some inner vision. And so are we all, in our own dirty little ways.

  Later, alone in the parent sleeper, settled in the heavy winter comforters, with an additional blanket wrapped around himself for double warmth, Morlenden lay, isolated in the silent yos, listening into the spare density of the night sounds of winter, which were even fewer here: somewhere off in the distance, he thought he could hear a dog barking, rather disinterestedly. The nearby creek whispered, almost silently, below the threshold. One had to listen hard for it, and even then, one could not be sure. Was it really the creek, or was that sound simply what one wished to hear? And the trees were silent—there was no wind to move among those overhanging pines and make the susurrous whispering. Whispering? Yes. There was whispering, and it was originating from inside the yos, not outside it, where there was no wind.

  It was coming from the other sleeper, and judging from their timbre, the voices belonged to Plindestier and Klervondaf. He could not make out the words. It sounded like an argument, but with no words to hang the thread of it on, he could be wrong. He was not, suddenly, sleepy, even after the long walk upcountry; something would not settle. He began trying to relax himself, finding sets of tense muscles and loosening them, one at a time, He had never known this method to fail to put him to sleep. It always worked before you could finish. And while doing so, he tried to review the suspicions he had gained in the yos of the Perklarens.