Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  To the Sun’s Child do all who enter here give Obeisance, for these are His halls.

  The Sun’s Child she knew to be the Emperor because this writing was Chapalii. These gardens, these woods, these statues, this avenue, this palace—it was impossible.

  It was true.

  “Ilya, we can’t bring them here.”

  He still gazed upward. “Bring whom here?” he asked, intent on the figure above.

  “The khepelli. Ilya! The writing, do you know what it says?”

  That got his attention. His gaze leapt to her. “No one knows what it says.”

  “I can read it. I know.”

  He stared at her, so devoid of expression that she thought for a moment that he was confused.

  Above, the figure spoke again, not impatient but firm, an old woman’s strong voice. “Advance, travelers. I await you.”

  “We must finish the ceremony.” He started Kriye forward under the arch. But his gaze searched the carvings for the instant he could see them, and when he dismounted and began to lead Kriye up the stairs, he said in an undertone, “What do they say?”

  She had fallen behind, but she had no trouble catching up because Ilya was limping badly. Black pillars rose on either side of them, like spears upraised to contain those who thought to stray from right conduct. The sun slid beneath the high dome. Shadows bathed their path.

  “‘To the Sun’s Child do all who enter here give Obeisance,’” she translated, “‘for these are His halls.’”

  “But the Sun’s Child is a girl,” he objected.

  “According to the jaran.”

  “According to whom was it a boy?” She looked away from him. “What does this have to do with the khepelli?”

  They came to the top of the stairs and halted. An old woman waited there. She held a clay bowl in her hands. Its interior gave off light by some agent Tess could not detect, illuminating the woman’s lined face but shadowing her eyes.

  “I am the guardian of the shrine.” She examined each of them in turn. “You have ridden together at sunset up the sacred avenue.” The quiet resonance of her voice made it seem almost threatening. “Do you know the penalty for sacrilege?”

  “I know it,” said Ilya.

  Tess shut her eyes briefly. Opening them, she saw that the priestess’s gaze was directed at her. “Ah, I know it,” she answered hastily, sure some ritual was going on here that she did not understand.

  “Do you know the Laws of the Avenue?” she asked Ilya.

  “I know them.”

  “She is not your kin.”

  “No.”

  She inclined her head and looked at Tess. “Do you know the Laws of the Avenue?”

  Tess hesitated. Ilya was looking at the priestess, not at her. He had a slight, satisfied smile on his face. “No,” she said abruptly, suspicious, “no, I don’t.”

  “You do not know the Laws of the Avenue?” she repeated, with a sharp glance at Bakhtiian.

  “No.”

  “Is he your kin?”

  “Yes,” said Tess, on firmer ground here. “By his aunt’s gifting, he is my cousin.”

  Ilya glanced at her and swiftly away, looking startled.

  “This grows interesting,” said the priestess, but she did not look amused. “By gift but not by birth?”

  “No, not by birth.”

  “By two questions, young man,” said the priestess sternly, “you have gambled with the Laws.”

  “Ah, but my name is known here.” To Tess he sounded infuriatingly smug.

  “I know very well what your name is, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian. Do not trifle with me when the stakes are so high. What is your name, child?”

  “Terese Soerensen.” Tess looked from one to the other, bewildered by this interchange.

  “You see, Bakhtiian, her name is not known here. Thus am I forced to act rather than accede.”

  For a moment, silence reigned. Behind the priestess, the high walls of the palace rose up into the twilight sky. Fading reliefs embellished them, vague shapes that seemed to move in the failing light.

  “No,” said Ilya. “I have accepted responsibility for her under older laws than these.”

  “Do not correct me. Here there are no other laws but those of the Avenue. In this place, she alone accepts that responsibility.” She paused. He stood utterly still, as if only now absorbing and measuring some threat. “That she does not know what this journey has brought her does not, I fear, release her from its consequences.” They both looked at Tess. The priestess examined her with simple appraisal, but Ilya—Ilya looked afraid, and that dismayed her. “Consider what it is that you have done, Bakhtiian. Consider it well. Now, Terese Soerensen, you will come with me.”

  “No!” cried Ilya. His sudden movement up one step alarmed Tess, but the priestess did not move. The light in her hands shone full on his face. He seemed very pale.

  “Do you threaten me?”

  “She is not jaran,” said Ilya hoarsely. “I am responsible. You can’t take her.”

  “Do you presume to tell me what I can and cannot do? Your own aunt gifted her into your tribe. If you regret now whatever rashness led you here, it is too late. The ceremony is completed. But her name is not known here. Thus, she must be tested and then released, one way or the other.”

  “Take me in her place.” He made it an order not a request.

  “You are presumptuous.” Her voice cracked over them with all the harshness of a person used to complete rule and utter obedience. She lifted a hand. A door opened in the wall, and four white-clad men came out. Before Tess could react, the men surrounded Ilya. She put a hand on her saber. Then she realized none of them was armed with so much as a knife.

  “You know the penalty for violence in this shrine,” continued the priestess. Ilya stood stock-still, rooted to the stone, as if he were too stunned to react. The old woman moved her light to shine equally on all of them. Tess saw that the lines on her face were gentle and much marked about the eyes and the mouth. “Give your horse to one of the priests, child. Then come with me.”

  “Oh, gods,” whispered Ilya, shutting his eyes. “I didn’t think—” He broke off. Tess had never seen him with his emotions so uncontrolled. When he opened his eyes, his expression was clearly one of desperation.

  “Clearly you did not think,” responded the priestess caustically. “A man of your reputation. Have you anything whatever to say for yourself?”

  He looked like a wild animal at bay, gauging its trap, as he examined the four men surrounding him, each in turn. But the cage was firm. To break out, he would have to use force, and here, in this shrine…

  “The penalty is death,” said Tess, without thinking. “Wait. I don’t understand. Do you mean to harm him? Is this all because of the Laws of the Avenue?”

  “No. No physical harm will come to you or to him because you rode together down the Avenue at sunset.”

  Tess handed Myshla’s reins to one of the priests. “Well, then,” she said, seeing that Ilya had been pushed to the edge and would in a moment do something—something very final, she feared. “I will go with you. Willingly. Freely.” She looked at Ilya as she said it.

  “Tess.” He turned his head in one smooth movement to look at her. She stared at him, bereft of words.

  “Yes,” said the priestess. “The penance the gods have put upon you, Bakhtiian, will be far harsher than any punishment I could devise.” Up beyond, a single faint light winked into life in one of the high towers, a sentinel to whatever beings dwelt in this valley. “We must go, child.”

  Tess found that she was grateful to the priestess for this command. Too many things happening at one time: the ride, his face, the sudden kindling of fierce love only to face those simple, awful words, the Chapalii writing, the priestess, Laws, penance, his face…

  “But we can’t let the khepelli come here,” she said, grasping at the one thing she did understand.

  The priestess had already turned away, assured of Tess’s obedience.
Now she turned back, and her white robe swelled out briefly with the turn. “Khepelli? What is this, Bakhtiian? Are there others in your party?”

  He turned his head slowly to look at the priestess. “My jahar, and the pilgrims we escorted from the issledova tel shore.” His voice was so even that it betrayed his agony.

  The priestess shrugged. “Do not worry for them, child. They will come by the usual road.”

  Ilya shut his eyes and took in a deep, unsteady breath.

  “This is not the usual road?” Tess gestured toward the Avenue behind them, now faded into the obscurity of dusk.

  “That is a most unusual road. Come.” She turned and with a marked limp made her way toward the great doors.

  “Ilya,” Tess began. He would not look at her. And she remembered what he had said, there at the ruby arch, with her whole heart revealed before him: Now you are mine. “You bastard,” she said, and she strode away after the priestess.

  On the level, Tess was a head taller, but the old woman’s authority diminished the disparity in height between them. “How might I address you?” Tess asked, mindful that on this occasion formality was called for.

  The priestess smiled. “For now, child, you may simply follow me. Later, if the gods say it is fit, you may ask questions.” At the great doors, they halted, and she examined Tess for a moment by the light of her bowl. “You are not jaran, and yet you are. This is a strong wind that blows, your being here.” She touched a gnarled hand to a panel, pressed it, and the door swung open onto a long, high hall.

  A hall distinctly Chapalii in shape and decoration. Stark, abstract patterns lined the walls. They seemed to form pictures, until you looked at them directly; then their form slid away, revealing nothing. Torches lit the hall. Soot and ash shadowed the floor although a wide path lay clear down the center. There was not enough of the black grit to account for long use. How could they keep such a huge place clean without machines?

  “Enter, child.”

  Tess glanced back to see Ilya staring after them as dusk grew at his back. The horses shifted restlessly behind him. The door shut behind them and she was within the shrine.

  They walked down the hall in silence. Nothing disturbed their progress. No doors shut, no feet sounded but their own, no voices pierced the heavy air. Yet beneath her feet, Tess felt that the stone itself was alive, a bewildering sensation after so long in the open. She walked on her toes, cautious and ready, a hand on the hilt of her saber. It took her almost the entire length of the hall to sort through her thoughts and let her old self emerge above half a year’s journey with the jaran.

  The answer was so simple it was laughable. The palace must still be alive: with machines. Hidden, of course. Silent. Meant, like servants, to do their work unobtrusively, successful only if they went entirely unseen. The jaran priests, having no such conception of technology, had almost certainly never noticed any machines, had probably felt this strange trembling life to be the touch of the gods on their greatest temple.

  Shadows mottled the scalloped ceiling. Reliefs lined the upper walls. It was the epitome of Chapalii architecture: breathtaking, ornate, and utterly useless, built for the sole purpose of having people walk from one end to the other. To be wealthy enough to spend money on things that could only be used once was to be wealthy enough to matter in Chapalii society.

  “If you push there, behind that niche,” said the priestess, “the door will move.” They passed through into an enormous chamber, its decorations too profuse to be distinguishable in the gloom. This chamber gave on to a second, and thence to a third.

  A huge monument, this was, and after unknown years still in incredibly fine condition. But the Chapalii prized efficiency as much as wealth. The machines ought to work for centuries at full capacity. The palace would be cleaned by mobile scrubbers programmed to vanish into the walls before they could offend the fastidious Chapalii eye. Hadn’t she and Dr. Hierakis once tried to catch the scrubbers at it, that time on Odys, and failed? Such a palace, heated by fluid mechanics, buffered from the elements by diamond coating or some more advanced technique, could exist for generations.

  “Here,” said the priestess with humor. “You have forgotten me, Terese Soerensen. We turn here. Those of us who live here live in the back rooms, which are less overwhelming.”

  Tess smiled slightly and followed her into a less ostentatious corridor that led to humbler spaces. Also, doubtless, to the quarters for the stewards and the ke. Apartments for the nobility would be on the second floor, but the main maintenance room would be down here—that was what she had to find.

  And she knew that it was worth it, this entire journey. Everything else aside, all the other joys and sorrows, everything she had learned and lost and become, this knowledge would be of priceless value to Charles. If spy she must be, spy she would become. She would leave here knowing why this palace existed and what the Chapalii were trying to hide.

  “If you will wait here.” Tess sat obediently on a bench in a narrow hallway while the priestess disappeared inside a room. Two torches gave a glum light to the corridor, and she could see into several rooms, scarcely more than closets, that showed signs of habitation: A couch with an old stain on the cushions, a table with a cloth on it, a sandal forgotten in a corner.

  The priestess returned and led Tess down a white-walled hallway into a bright room. Twelve white-robed men and women regarded her, unsmiling. Tess blinked, rubbing at her eyes. She could not make out the source of the light. Walls of luminous stone lined the chamber, and it was bare of furnishing or ornamentation except for a cylindrical fountain at the far end, about twelve meters from her. While the priests studied her, she studied the fountain. It was a clear, hollow structure, intricately carved to reveal six spouts curled within, releasing a fine spray of rainbows and water that trickled into a basin and thence into a drain in the floor.

  “You have ridden down the Avenue at sunset, knowing but not knowing what the Laws are, with a man who is but is not your kin,” said the priestess. “Because your name is not known here, at this shrine where the gods’ breath still lies heavy over the earth, the gods must judge you. Drink from the fountain, child. Drink your fill.”

  Tess looked around the circle of faces. They were all serious, dispassionate, yet none was unsympathetic. This was a test, but she could not connect it with what she knew of this culture or with Ilya’s distress. She walked up to the fountain and knelt, cupping her hands to get a handful of water from the basin, and sipped at it, a bare touch. Lowered her hands slightly to watch the priests. Lifted her hands. Before her lips touched the water again, her mouth stung.

  She swore and jumped up. The water in her hands spilled onto the stone. She rubbed her hands roughly on her trousers.

  “It burns!” She sat down, screwing up her face, trying to rub the stinging off of her lips. But if this was the gods’ drink, she had surely failed to meet with their approval. And the penalty for sacrilege—she stood up. They would not kill her without a fight.

  But they were all smiling. And none of them was armed.

  “You have a certain enthusiasm for the truth which is refreshing.” The priestess walked forward. “May I show you to a room for the night now?”

  Tess did not move. “That was all? That was the test? I’m safe?”

  “My child,” said the priestess, a little scoldingly, perhaps, “no violence is ever done in this shrine.”

  “But the drink?”

  “The water is poisonous. A sip does no harm, but were you dishonest or frightened, or greedy enough, you would have drunk your fill.”

  “And died.”

  The priestess shrugged.

  “Does everyone who enters here whose name is—not known—have to pass this test?” she asked, suddenly curious about the Chapalii.

  “No, only those who have transgressed the Law in some fashion.”

  “But how did I—?”

  “First, child, you may call me Mother Avdotya. Second, you may come with me t
o your room. There is much to do if pilgrims are expected, and no time for all of us to stay with you.”

  Tess submitted. The hallway seemed very dark after the bright intensity of the fountain chamber. The priestess led her with her bowl of light down another hall, up stairs, and along a narrower corridor until they reached a room furnished with a single bed, a table, a chair, and a small window. And Myshla’s saddlebags.

  “You may sleep here. Yeliana will come for you in the morning.”

  Tess sat on the bed, hands folded in her lap. “May I ask some questions, Mother Avdotya?”

  “Yes. You have earned that right.”

  Tess sighed and decided to begin where the ground seemed safest. “How long has this shrine been here?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Who built it?”

  “I do not know.”

  “How does it stay so—clean? Are there many of you here?”

  “Never more than twenty-seven. It remains pure by its own devices.”

  “How does it stay light?”

  “We have torches. The other lights come, perhaps, from the stone. I do not know.”

  “Does anyone know?”

  She chuckled. “Do you think I am the old half-wit they have sent to you to keep you ignorant?” Tess blushed. Out the window she saw only dark and stars and the skeletal outlines of trees. “No, child. I am Eldest here. That is why I went out to the Avenue, when it was seen that a sunset ride had begun.”

  Tess could not yet bring herself to speak of the Avenue. “What will Bakhtiian do tonight?”

  “He will remain outside. I hope it proves a cold night. I know from experience that stone is hard ground on which to kneel for so many hours, especially when the penitent does not know whether he has brought about another person’s death.” Tess winced away from the merciless chill in the old woman’s voice. “Now I will leave you. You have a great deal to think about.”

  Tess took in a breath and stood up. “You said that we rode together down the Avenue at sunset as if that meant something. That—the ceremony was completed. What is the Law of the Avenue?”