by Emerson, Ru
Not even a whole one: just enough to blur the edges on reality; that would be lovely. She sighed. Forget it. Wine was available. But not to her. She'd promised herself. Because Aletto shared that with her—not an addiction. I'm no wino, I'm not an alky. I could've given it up any time, if I'd wanted to. Aletto says he could, and I believe it. All the same, he had a—all right, call it a problem to equal hers. A taste for wine and the oblivion it brought—from money or man problems in her case, physical pain in his. But Jen and Chris had always protected her, thanks to Aletto's uncle, he had such a rep as a useless, crippled drunk, he didn't dare drink above a cupful in public. Unfortunately, like Robyn, he wasn't altogether certain he could stop at that. In his case, people would be watching every swallow he took, and so, while he'd let them press the stuff on him, he actually tasted hardly any wine at all the entire time in Bezjeriad. And she'd done the same. Moral support. So far as she knew, he now actually had not drunk wine since the night in Sikkre, when they'd escaped Dahven's father.
The night I killed a man. Robyn let her eyes close briefly. The night she'd given up trying to pretend she could cope; Chris had tried to shine her on, but Aletto had understood. The rest of the night, thank God, had been a complete blur, and now she couldn't even recall if Aletto'd had any of that bottle after all.
So damned, horribly unfair, that of the three Angelenos, she should develop a murderous alter ego, the woman afraid of the least height should assume the form of a monstrous bird that could kill—had killed once already. I never hurt anyone in my life, not even under provocation. Chris—she'd instilled a belief in nonviolence in the boy from the first, and to her knowledge he'd never sought a fight. But he was practical, more practical than she: He was able to accept the need to defend himself, and he didn't agonize it later. Jennifer was probably even more pragmatic about such things than Chris; Robyn suspected her younger sister knew about the fight in Bezjeriad, down by the docks, where the Sikkreni had been stabbed. I remember what she said, though: Them or me and it's them every time. Jen knew herself; she probably could kill to protect herself and never look back on it. I wish I could be like that—now that I have to. I wonder if I ever will.
She rubbed her nose again. The headache was growing worse, even though the smoke was no thicker. She hated to ask Jennifer for one of her precious aspirins, she so seldom took such things. But the others weren't going to want to put this fire out once her pan of biscuits was cooked and the soup hot. Come to that, she didn't want it out either: Her back was cold and she could feel the damp seeping through the carpet under her backside. With the fire, the inside temperature was bearable; eventually, the heat would work its way into the corners—probably in time to make it too hot for sleeping. Without the fire, though, the inside air would be just like that outside—foggy-cold and miserably damp. She herself could feel ancient ankle sprains and the ten-year-old break in her arm when it was fog-cold; Aletto felt things like that much more. He wouldn't be able to get himself upright in the morning. Robyn checked her biscuits.
Aletto must really be feeling the damp. But she knew better than to mention that tonight; he was tired and out of patience. And she knew he was trying to keep up a front around Enardi.
I wish he wouldn't, Robyn thought unhappily. But macho stupidity seemed to translate as well here as in her own world. And it wasn't only Aletto, just look at Dahven! A woman would never half-kill herself trying to pretend she was fine—not just so no one would feel sorry for her! Robyn stirred her soup, sniffed it gingerly, and felt for the seasoning packet she'd made up before they left Bez: salt, dried peppers, cumin or something very similar. She poured some into her cupped palm, dumped it into the pot. They'd be lucky if Dahven didn't have some kind of relapse back into whatever flu-thing he'd had. He looked half dead at the moment, but try and talk him off that horse this afternoon and into the wagon, oh no! And then she'd actually heard him arguing with Jennifer that he ought to turn around and ride off for Sikkre. As if he would have made it halfway to the Bez gates!
Women had more brains than that, Robyn thought firmly. She eyed her younger sister covertly from under her spill of blonde bangs. Most women did. Jennifer was capable of the same kind of behavior, but then, she hadn't ever depended on men—emotionally, financially, any way. She'd taken charge of her life early and kept hold of the reins, putting herself through college, then through law school, pulling herself up by her own bootstraps, living and working in that kind of—as Robyn saw it—man's world. Well, men still held the best positions, and male stiff-upper-lip behavior was expected to be the norm. I couldn't do that, Robyn thought. Fortunately, she'd never had to. Jen managed it very competently.
Just as well. Merrida had dropped them in this world so hard Robyn still felt the emotional bruises. They'd needed someone strong to take over and run things. Aletto hadn't any idea what they should do, where they should go. Jen took charge and probably kept them all alive.
Give it a rest, girl, she told herself. All this junk is bad for your digestive juices, and you're gonna burn the soup. She gave the pot another stir, checked her biscuits and pulled them away from the fire. “All right, folks, get it while it's hot."
* * * *
It must have been midnight; Chris didn't bother digging under a snug sleeve and the blanket he'd thrown over his shoulders to check his watch. It was definitely late, anyway. He and the guys were on fire-watch for a little longer. Enardi had just crawled over to add wood to the fire and balance some more of the damp stuff near enough to the heat to dry it, not near enough for it to catch and start the carpets smoldering. Unfortunately, the stuff wasn't really that dry when it went onto the fire and the tent interior was a little too cool for comfort.
Chris had been trying to write out rap lyrics and not getting very far: Too dark and too cold, and for some reason the shift into Rhadazi wasn't obvious to his brain until he tried making it rhyme. And it was a little embarrassing, doing it with Ernie and Eddie sitting there; he'd have liked a little time to polish what he was doing, at least the first tries.
It was a lot harder than he'd have thought, back home.
Edrith was fiddling with the blue-light, trying to get a little more illumination out of it. Chris stretched his legs, flexed his fingers. They were stiff and cold; the tips of his ears felt like ice. Probably they could wake Jen up before much longer and let her take over the fire-watch. The fog was at least as thick as Ernie had predicted, though; thick enough that they didn't really have to worry about anyone riding up and grabbing them in the middle of the night. Even paranoid ol’ Lialla wasn't staying awake to listen for sounds of pursuit.
He cast a guilty glance in her direction. That wasn't exactly fair—or nice. Lialla had taken some serious crap off her stepfather, and he was such a total jerk, she had every right to be paranoid about him. Besides, it wasn't as though the guy hadn't been doing his best to grab them all. And the stories he'd spread about them—! Boy, I'd be pissed if I was her and someone told the world my brother killed this fat, middle-aged guy so I wouldn't have to marry him and my brother and I could keep sleeping together. Jeez, what a jerk.
* * * *
It was a wonder those two ever made it past the gates of Duke's Fort, they had started out so damned unworldly. Fortunately, they had some good people with them. His mom really had done a lot to straighten Aletto out, and Jen had got Lialla past yelling about how you couldn't do all this stuff with Night-Thread; dumb, because Jen could, and here she'd never been trained in magic. Now—you could actually talk to Aletto, and he was growing muscles. Starting to use his brains. At one point Chris had wondered if the guy had any. Lialla—well, she was still fairly weird and hard to talk to, but some of that was shyness.
All the same, Aletto had shown a normal interest in the opposite sex—once he'd had the chance. Lialla didn't. And particularly in the day or so since Dahven joined them, she'd gone even quieter than usual. Maybe she really had liked the guy, or she just wanted what she couldn't have; some girls we
re like that. Another thought hit him. Jeez, I wonder if she's gay, or something? Of course, it might not be the big deal it was where he came from, but wouldn't it be grim if on top of everything else Li had a thing for Jen? Jen was pretty broad-minded, of course, but it wasn't like she was likely to ever have a thing for other girls, not with the way she felt about Dahven.
At least Lialla wasn't fighting with everyone right now; Chris had absolutely hated listening to her and Jennifer go at each other. And Aletto went longer between fits of sulking, and now you had a pretty good idea what would set the guy off. He was less sensitive about his limp and about magic—probably because he could see it worked, when it wasn't that old bat Merrida trying to use the stuff.
Learning how to take care of himself in a fight had done the most for the nera-Duke's ego, Chris thought. He was extremely proud of himself for introducing them to staff fighting—it worked, and Aletto had proven he could not only absorb what he was taught, he could think up his own maneuvers and improvise in need. Those guys of his uncle's had to have been major impressed, and I'll bet ol’ Jadek's chewing nails, he thought in satisfaction.
They had better get back to practice, though. Aletto was pretty stiff, but they needed to reinforce the moves. And then there was Ernie to get in shape before something else hit them. He was glad for the guy's company, but a little concerned that he might not be up to this; Ernie hadn't struck him, back in Bez, as anything but an easygoing party dude: Dad's money and all that. Well—they'd just have to see.
Edrith gave the light one last fiddle and dropped back down cross-legged next to him. “Not very bright, but the best I could do,” he whispered. “These aren't strong ones."
"It's all right,” Chris assured him. “My hands're too cold to write any longer, anyway. Listen, though, I can watch the fire until it's time to get Jen up if you're tired.” Edrith shook his head. “You?” Enardi, who had just come back from the fire, rubbed his hands across the thick rug under them.
"Me what? Oh—no, I'm all right."
Chris glanced over at the sleepers. His mother was a still, faintly snoring shape next to Aletto, who was moving restlessly but apparently not being kept awake by the low conversation across the tent from him. Jen and Dahven hadn't moved in what seemed hours. Lialla—well, she'd sat up a while back but she seemed to be asleep once more. “Well, then, tell me more about those two ships, okay?"
Enardi shifted, trying to get comfortable, finally dragged a pillow over and sat on it. “I miss couches more than I would have thought possible, you know? And chairs."
"Yeah, I know,” Chris said. “Body wasn't meant to sit around like this. Those ships, though. You're sure they came from the east, and not from straight across the sea?"
"The Lasanachi come from somewhere out that way.” Enardi waved a hand in what he thought might be a westerly direction. “Until they came up the south coast, these guys'd never even heard of Lasanachi. Besides, the Mer Khani brought goods they'd traded for down the south coast; things father's trading company brings into Bez."
"Mer Khani,” Chris echoed. “Is that what they call themselves, or how it sounded to you?” Enardi shrugged. “And they came—?"
"Around the point of the southern continent,” Enardi filled in patiently and for perhaps the fifth or sixth time as Chris paused expectantly. “Because they actually live somewhere across the east mountain barrier. But not next to it, on their own seacoast. So it's a very long journey just to reach the mountains and they are impassible most of the year. According to the Mer Khani, the journey around the southern point isn't pleasant, either,” he added thoughtfully. “Just easier than the land route."
"You met them, though.” Chris thought a moment, then shifted with a little difficulty to English. “Did they ever speak to each other in a language that sounded anything like what I'm saying right now?” Enardi's brows drew together; Chris translated into Rhadazi. His friend shook his head.
"I can't say. Their language was foreign, of course. But it's been so long since I saw them—well, perhaps, a little."
"Well—all right.” It was so damned tantalizing, the possibility of American ships in Rhadaz! And if Ernie's information was right, this really had to be the west coast, the big water out there the Pacific. But then Ernie had paid so little attention, it was too long for him to remember much, and there were all these things that didn't track. He should be able to pick up more information in Podhru if there was time. And Ernie had said one of the ships might have gone there. They'd been worried about the weather south, worried about the return journey, might have simply gone back home without journeying to the Emperor's city.
Mer Khani—God, it had to be a corruption of American!
It was truly frustrating: All this time, asking as many questions as he could, and Chris still had no idea where they could possibly be in relation to where they had been. The terrain south of Sikkre was enough like the Palmdale area north of L.A., but outline maps of Rhadaz looked more like Spain and the Mediterranean—except it wasn't mountainous enough. Chris had put in enough hard work on geography the past year to know such things. And the distances were all wrong. The language didn't sound like anything Chris knew but if this was the L.A. Basin, then why was there a sea about where the Mexican border should be—and did that make the Rhadazi American Indians?
Couldn't be. So maybe all the stuff about alternate universes really was just fiction. But then, why would they have a Cortez, a Nero, a Charlemagne? That carried coincidence a little far.
Yeah, you're hoping you can learn enough to somehow get yourself back home, right, guy? Chris demanded of himself. Good luck, all right? Well, but it might work that way, and besides, it would be neat to know, try and figure out where things had branched to make a world like this one. Figure out how magic got into it, how come there wasn't any major technology.
Probably he'd have the rest of his life to figure it out, the way Jen said—God, there was a depressing thought. Much as he liked these guys, he'd trade them both for the CD player he'd left behind, for an afternoon at the movies, for a really rad skateboard or even a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. And a girl to share it with. Yeah, like maybe Jessica Morrow from English, with those legs and the outrageous short skirts ... oh, man? Girls here: The ones he'd met in Bez dressed in wads of material and were pretty much off limits except to talk to a little bit. They were nice enough, but they didn't smell quite right—different perfumes or shampoos or whatever. And then there was that innkeeper's daughter up in Sikkre, the one Dahven'd kidded him about. Wow. Chris wasn't certain he was ready for anything that hot.
But it was going to be pretty depressing if a guy had to pass on just—nice girls unless he got married. So ask. But not so you sound like a total nerd. Bad enough Jen had been there when Merrida announced he was a virgin; it wasn't the kind of thing you exactly wanted spread around. He cast one more wary glance across the fire to assure himself Robyn was still asleep, then he dropped down onto his elbows and leaned toward Edrith. “Hey, listen. I got this dumb question, okay?” He could feel his ears growing warm. “Um, like, girls."
"Girls?” Edrith shook his head. “What about girls?"
"Well, you know—” Chris spread his hands rather helplessly. “Okay, where I come from, it's okay if a guy goes out with a girl, just the two of them, go do stuff together, kiss and all that.” He swallowed; amazing how warm it had become in here, the past few moments.
To his relief, neither of them seemed to think the subject odd and when Edrith laughed it didn't seem to be at him for bringing up embarrassing stuff. “It's pretty much an according to your class matter—wouldn't you say, Ernie?” Enardi nodded. “You remember the party in Bez—there were girls like Ernie's sisters, music, food. I doubt it would be possible to just go somewhere by yourself with a girl of that class.” Enardi shook his head. “People like me, at least in Sikkre, have a little more freedom about such things, even the women. People like Aletto have less.” He shrugged. “I don't know if that's
what you wanted to know—"
"It's what I suspected,” Chris said gloomily. “No dates—no taking a girl somewhere—"
"Oh, that's not so, really: In Sikkre, there are festivals and parties, sometimes there will be some kind of celebration when a caravan comes in, and there's music, good food and ale, dancing. And it's acceptable to go with either a crowd, or just one other person—even alone."
"And even dance with girls there?” Chris asked. He shook his head. “Without—I'm not saying this very well, I guess—say, there was a caravaner girl just standing around, you could go up and talk to her without her parents getting pissed?"
"Probably. Caravaner women particularly have considerable rights of their own, even the unwed ones.” Edrith tipped his head on one side to consider his friend thoughtfully. He grinned and looked rather embarrassed himself suddenly. “I remember now; something Jen said to Lialla. About not sleeping with men before life-bonding? That holds true more for women like Lialla, who are expected to keep blood lines pure, not for the rest of us."
"Um, swell,” Chris mumbled.
Edrith dug under his shirt and held up a hollow wooden ball on a leather thong; Chris had seen it before and presumed it to be the local equivalent of a crucifix, if he'd thought about it at all. “Most girls insist you protect them from babies, of course. Perhaps we should get you one of these.” He held it out; Chris, now red to the ears and very grateful for the dimness of the blue-light, touched it, sniffed cautiously. It smelled green, odd—not unpleasant. “Charm,” Edrith said briefly as he stuffed it back under his shirt. “One like this is pretty inexpensive, keeps you safe for three moon-seasons. Someone like Dahven can afford to buy the silver armband that's effective for a year."
