Trying to see him forced her buds to unfurl, because that was where her senses now were. They spread with myriad shrill agonies, like teeth cutting, and she thought it had killed her, even while she was forcing further nerves and veins to the undersides of all her pale viridian leaves. When it was done, she was all alive and raw in the small hairs on the undersides of those leaves and in the symmetrical ribs of vein on the shiny upper sides, but she could sense Evor crouching at her roots now. She was grateful to him for forcing her to the necessary pain. Her agony responded to his. He was a friend. He had talked of love, and she understood that. She retained just enough of the strength it had taken to change to alter him, too, to some extent, though not enough to bring him beyond the animal kingdom. The last of her strength was reserved for putting forth small pear-shaped fruit covered with wiry hairs, each containing four triangular nuts. Then, before the wooden gap that was her mouth had entirely closed, she murmured, “Budding with growing things.”
She rested for a while, letting the sun harden her leaves to a dark shiny green and ripen her fruit a little. Then she cried wordlessly to the sun, “Look! Remember our bargain. I am an entirely new kind of tree—as strong as an oak, but I bear fruit that everything can eat. Love me. Love me now!” Proudly she shed some of her three-cornered nuts onto the hilltop,
“I see you,” said the sun. “This is a lovely tree, but I am not sure what you expect me to do with you.”
“Love me!” she cried.
“I do,” said the sun. “There is no change in me. The only difference is that I now feed you more directly than I feed that animal at your feet. It is the way I feed all trees. There is nothing else I can do.”
Phega knew the sun was right and that her bargain had been her own illusion. It was very bitter to her; but she had made a change that was too radical to undo now, and besides, she was discovering that trees do not feel things very urgently. She settled back for a long, low-key sort of contentment, rustling her leaves about to make the best of the sun’s heat on them. It was like a sigh.
After a while a certain activity among her roots aroused a mild arboreal curiosity in her. With senses that were rapidly atrophying, she perceived a middle-sized iron-gray animal with a sparse bristly coat, which was diligently applying its long snout to the task of eating her three-cornered nuts. The animal was decidedly snaggle-toothed. It was lean and had a sharp corner to the center of its back, as if that was all that remained of a wiry man’s military bearing. It seemed to sense her attention, for it began to rub itself affectionately against her gray trunk, which still showed vestiges of rounded legs within it.
Ah, well, thought the tree, and considerately let fall another shower of beech mast for it.
That was long ago. They say that Phega still stands on the hill. She is one of the beech trees that stand on the hill that always holds the last rays of the sun, but so many of the trees in that wood are so old that there is no way to tell which one she is. All the trees show vestiges of limbs in their trunks, and all are given at times to inexplicable thrashings in their boughs, as if in memory of the agony of Phega’s transformation. In the autumn their leaves turn the color of Phega’s hair and often fall only in spring, as though they cling harder than most leaves in honor of the sun.
There is nothing to eat their nuts now. The wild boar vanished from there centuries ago, though the name stayed. The maps usually call the place Boar’s Hill.
DRAGON RESERVE, HOME EIGHT
Where to begin? Neal and I had had a joke for years about a little green van coming to carry me off—this was when I said anything more than usually mad—and now it was actually happening. Mother and I stood at my bedroom window, watching the van bouncing up the track between the dun green hills, and neither of us smiled. It wasn’t a farm van, and most of our neighbors visit on horseback, anyway. Before long we could see it was dark green with a silver dragon insigne on the side.
“It is the Dragonate,” Mother said. “Siglin, there’s nothing I can do.” It astonished me to hear her say that. Mother only comes up to my shoulder, but she held her land and our household, servants, Neal and me, and all three of her husbands, in a hand like iron, and she drove out to plow or harvest if one of my fathers was ill. “They said the dragons would take you,” she said. “I should have seen. You think Orm informed on you?”
“I know he did,” I said. “It was my fault for going into the Reserve.”
“I’ll blood an ax on him,” Mother said, “one of these days. But I can’t do it over this. The neighbors would say he was quite right.” The van was turning between the stone walls of the farmyard now. Chickens were squirting and flapping out of its way, and our sheepdog pups were barking their heads off. I could see Neal up on the washhouse roof watching yearningly. It’s a good place to watch from because you can hide behind the chimney. Mother saw Neal, too. “Siglin,” she said, “don’t let on Neal knows about you.”
“No,” I said. “Nor you either.”
“Say as little as you can, and wear the old blue dress; it makes you look younger,” Mother said, turning toward the door. “You might just get off. Or they might just have come about something else,” she added. The van was stopping outside the front door now, right underneath my window. “I’d best go and greet them,” Mother said, and hurried downstairs.
While I was forcing my head through the blue dress, I heard heavy boots on the steps and a crashing knock at the door. I shoved my arms into the sleeves, in too much of a hurry even to feel indignant about the dress. It makes me look about twelve, and I am nearly grown up! At least, I was fourteen quite a few weeks ago now. But Mother was right. If I looked too immature to have awakened, they might not question me too hard. I hurried to the head of the stairs while I tied my hair with a childish blue ribbon. I knew they had come for me, but I had to see.
They were already inside when I got there, a whole line of tall men tramping down the stone hallway in the half dark, and Mother was standing by the closed front door as if they had swept her aside. What a lot of them, just for me! I thought. I got a weak, sour feeling and could hardly move for horror. The man at the front of the line kept opening the doors all down the hallway, calm as you please, until he came to the main parlor at the end. “This room will do nicely,” he said. “Out you get, you.” And my oldest father, Timas, came shuffling hurriedly out in his slippers, clutching a pile of accounts and looking scared and worried. I saw Mother fold her arms. She always does when she is angry.
Another of them turned to Mother. “We’ll speak to you first,” he said, “and your daughter after that. Then we want the rest of the household. Don’t any of you try to leave.” And they went into the parlor with Mother and shut the door.
They hadn’t even bothered to guard the doors. They just assumed we would obey them. I was shaking as I walked back to my room, but it was not terror anymore. It was rage. I mean, we have all been brought up to honor the Dragonate. They are the cream of the men of the Ten Worlds. They are supposed to be gallant and kind and dedicated and devote their lives to keeping us safe from Thrallers, not to speak of maintaining justice, law, and order all over the Ten Worlds. Dragonate men swear that oath of Alienation, which means they can never have homes or families like ordinary people. Up to then I’d felt sorry for them for that. They give up so much. But now I saw they felt it gave them the right to behave as if the rest of us were not real people. To walk in as if they owned our house. To order Timas out of his own parlor. Oh, I was angry!
I don’t know how long Mother was in the parlor. I was so angry it felt like seconds until I heard flying feet and Neal hurried into my room. “They want you now.”
I stood up and took some of my anger out on poor Neal. I said, “Do you still want to join the Dragonate? Swear that stupid oath? Behave like you own the Ten Worlds?”
It was mean. Neal looked at the floor. “They said straightaway,” he said. Of course he wanted to join. Every boy does, particularly on Sveridge, where women own most
of the land. I swept down the stairs, angrier than ever. All the doors in the hallway were open, and our people were standing in them, staring. The two housemen were at the dining room door, the cattlewomen and two farmhands were looking out of the kitchen, and the stableboy and the second shepherd were craning out of the pantry. I thought, They still will be my people someday! I refuse to be frightened! My fathers were in the doorway of the bookroom. Donal and Yan were in work clothes and had obviously rushed in without taking their boots off. I gave them what I hoped was a smile, but only Timas smiled back. They all know! I thought as I opened the parlor door.
There were only five of them, sitting facing me across our best table. Five was enough. All of them stood up as I came in. The room seemed full of towering green uniforms. It was not at all what I expected. For one thing, the media always show the Dragonate as fair and dashing and handsome, and none of these were. For another, the media had led me to expect uniforms with big silver panels. These were all plain green, and four of them had little silver stripes on one shoulder.
“Are you Sigrid’s daughter, Siglin?” asked the one who had opened all the doors. He was a bleached, pious type like my father Donal, and his hair was dust color.
“Yes,” I said rudely. “Who are you? Those aren’t Dragonate uniforms.”
“Camerati, Lady,” said one who was brown all over with wriggly hair. He was young, younger than my father Yan, and he smiled cheerfully, like Yan does. But he made my stomach go cold. Camerati are the crack force, cream of the Dragonate. They say a man has to be a genius even to be considered for it.
“Then what are you doing here?” I said. “And why are you all standing up?”
The one in the middle, obviously the chief one, said, “We always stand up when a lady enters the room. And we are here because we were on a tour of inspection at Holmstad, anyway, and there was a Slaver scare on this morning. So we offered to take on civic duties for the regular Dragonate. Now if that answers your questions, let me introduce us all.” He smiled, too, which twisted his white, crumpled face like a demon mask. “I am Lewin, and I’m Updriten here. On your far left is Driten Palino, our recorder.” This was the pious type, who nodded. “Next to him is Driten Renick of Law Wing.” Renick was elderly and iron-gray, with one of those necks that look like a chicken’s leg. He just stared. “Underdriten Terens is on my left, my aide and witness.” That was brown-and-wriggly. “And beyond him is Cadet Alectis, who is traveling with us to Home Nine.”
Alectis looked a complete baby, only a year older than I was, with pink cheeks and sandy hair. He and Terens both bowed and smiled so politely that I nearly smiled back. Then I realized that they were treating me as if I were a visitor. In my own home! I bowed freezingly, the way Mother usually does to Orm.
“Please sit down, Siglin,” Lewin said politely.
I nearly didn’t, because that might keep them standing up, too. But they were all so tall I’d already got a crick in my neck. So I sat grandly on the chair they’d put ready facing the table. “Thank you,” I said. “You are a very kind host, Updriten Lewin.” To my great joy, Alectis went bright red at that, but the other four simply sat down, too. Pious Palino took up a memo block and poised his fingers over its keys. This seemed to be in case the recorder in front of Lewin went wrong. Lewin set that going. Wriggly Terens leaned over and passed me another little square box.
“Keep this in your hand,” he said, “or your answers may not come out clearly.”
I caught the words lie detector from his wriggly head as clearly as if he had said them aloud. I don’t think I showed how very scared I was, but my hand made the box wet almost straightaway.
“Court is open,” Lewin said to the recorder. “Presiding Updriten Lewin.” He gave a string of numbers and then said, “First hearing starts on charges against Siglin, of Upland Holding, Wormstow, North Sveridge on Home Eight, accused of being heg and heg concealing its nature. Questions begin. Siglin, are you clear what being heg is?” He crumpled one eyebrow upward at me.
“No,” I said. After all, no one has told me in so many words. It’s just a thing people whisper and shudder at.
“Then you’d better understand this,” Lewin said. He really was the ugliest and most outlandish of the five. Dragonate men are never posted to the world of their birth, and I thought Lewin must come from one a long way off. His hair was black, so black it had blue lights, but, instead of being dark all over to match it, like wriggly Terens, he was a lot whiter than I was, and his eyes were a most piercing blue, almost the color they make the sky on the media. “If the charges are proved,” he said, “you face death by beheading since that is the only form of execution a heg cannot survive. Renick—”
Elderly Renick swept sourly in before Lewin had finished speaking. “The law defines a heg as one with human form who is not human. Medical evidence of brain pattern or nerve and muscle deviations is required prior to execution, but for a first hearing it is enough to establish that the subject can perform one or more of the following: mind reading; kindling fire or moving objects at a distance; healing or killing by the use of the mind alone; surviving shooting, drowning, or suffocation; or enslaving or otherwise afflicting the mind of a beast or human.”
He had the kind of voice that bores you, anyway. I thought, Great gods! I don’t think I can do half those things! Maybe I looked blank. Palino stopped clicking his memo block to say, “It’s very important to understand why these creatures must be stamped out. They can make people into puppets in just the same way that the Slavers can. Foul.” Actually I think he was explaining to Alectis. Alectis nodded humbly. Palino said, definitely to me, “Slavers do it with those V-shaped collars. You must have seen them on the media. Quite foul.”
“We call them Thrallers,” I said. Foul or not, I thought, I’m the only one of me I’ve got! I can’t help being made the way I am.
Lewin flapped his hand to shut Palino up, and Renick went on again. “A heg is required by law to give itself up for execution. Any normal person who knowingly conceals a heg is likewise liable for execution.” Now I knew why Mother had told me to keep Neal out of it.
Then it seemed to be Palino’s turn. He said, “Personal details follow. How old are you, er, Sigrun?”
“Siglin,” I said. “Fourteen last month.”
Renick stretched out his chicken neck. “In this court’s opinion, subject is old enough to have awakened as heg.” He looked at Terens.
Terens said, “I witness. Girls awaken early, don’t they?”
Palino, tapping away, said, “Mother, Sigrid, also of Upland Holding.”
At which Lewin leaned forward. “Cleared by this court,” he said. I was relieved to hear that. Mother is clever. She hadn’t let them know she knew.
Palino said, “And your father is?”
“Timas, Donal, and Yan,” I said. I had to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh at how annoyed he was by that.
“Great Tew, girl!” he said. “A person can’t have three fathers!”
“Hold it, Palino,” said Lewin. “You’re up against local customs here. Men outnumber women three to one on Home Eight.”
“In Home Eight law a woman’s child is the child of all her husbands equally,” Renick put in. “No more anomalous than the status of the Ahrings on Seven, really.”
“Then tell me how I rephrase my question,” Palino said waspishly, “in the light of the primitive customs on Home Eight.”
I said, “There’s no such place as Home Eight. This world is called Sveridge.” Primitive indeed!
Palino gave me a pale glare. I gave him one back. Lewin cut in, smooth and humorous. “You’re up against primitive Dragonate customs here, Siglin. We refer to all the worlds by numbers, from Albion, Home One, to Yurov, Home Ten, and the worlds of the Outer Manifold are Cath One, Two, Three, and Four to us. Have you really no idea which of your mother’s husbands is actually your father?”
After that they all began asking me. Being heg is inherited, and I knew t
hey were trying to find out if any of my fathers was heg, too. At length even Alectis joined in, clearing his throat and going very red because he was only a cadet. “I know we’re not supposed to know,” he said, “but I bet you’ve tried to guess. I did. I found out in the end.”
That told me he was Sveridge, too. And he suddenly wasn’t a genius in the Camerati anymore, but just a boy. “Then I bet you wished you hadn’t!” I said. “My friend Inga at Hillfoot found out, and hers turned out to be the one she’s always hated.”
“Well,” said Alectis, redder still. “Er, it wasn’t the one I’d hoped—”
“That’s why I’ve never asked,” I said. And that was true. I’d always hoped it was Timas till now. Donal is so moral, and Yan is fun, but he’s under Donal’s thumb even more than he’s under Mother’s. But I didn’t want my dear old Timas in trouble.
“Well, a cell test should settle it,” Lewin said. “Memo for that, Palino. Terens, remind me to ask how the regular Dragonate usually deals with it. Now, Siglin, this charge was laid against you by a man known as Orm the Worm Warden. Do you know this man?”
“Don’t I just!” I said. “He’s been coming here and looking through our windows and giggling ever since I can remember! He lives on the Worm Reserve in a shack. Mother says he’s a bit wrong in the head, but no one’s locked him up because he’s so good at managing dragons.”
There! I thought. That’ll show them you can’t trust a word Orm says! But they just nodded. Terens murmured to Alectis, “Sveridge worm, Draco draco, was adopted as the symbol of the Dragonate—”
“We have all heard of dragons,” Palino said to him nastily.
Lewin cut in again. I suppose it was his job as presiding Updriten. “Siglin, Orm, in his deposition, refers to an incident in the Worm Reserve last Friday. We want you to tell us what happened then, if anything.”
Grim’s teeth! I thought. I’d hoped they’d just ask me questions. You can nearly always get around questions without lying. And I’d no idea what Orm had said. “I don’t usually go to the Dragon Reserve,” I said, “because of being Mother’s heir. When I was born, the Fortune Teller said the dragons would take me.” I saw Renick and Palino exchange looks of contempt at our primitive customs. But Mother had in a good Teller, and I believe it enough to keep away from the Reserve.
Believing Is Seeing Page 9
