Dragonfly

by Sylvia Kelso

  Tez’s hand jumped on mine. I heard her splutter, and then she hugged me, yanking our mounts together for a moment, laughing it in my ear.

  “Mother’s eyes, Chaeris, you don’t need a Sight!”

  * * * *

  I took that gratitude and delight and belief to bed with me. I told myself, as thought faded in sleep, that after this it would be all right. When Duitho flatly ordered me to rest a day before I tried another workout, I slouched off to breakfast, telling myself food would right matters. Before I drained the first cup of coffee, I knew that as a lie.

  In my heart I could feel, as perhaps a sufferer identifies in­curable illness, that this greyness leaching the world was no simple exhaustion, of body or of spirit. You have not been well, my own insight told me piercingly, since you left Grinsey. It would take more than sleep or food to exorcise this.

  I set the cup down and said, “I’m going to the lookout.” Iatha, Tez, Tanekhet looked up with quick anxiety. But it was a traditional remedy, after all. Asaskian gave me one brief scrutiny and waved her hand. Go.

  The trees were leafing out at last, hillsides brilliant above little pink legumes and the last spidery white cluster-lilies in the

  reviving grass. The air played round me, crisp with morning as well as the season, blending flower-scents into a breathtaking waft of new-turned soil. In the upper field, they were working the plough-team. I waved and scooted impenitently by. My turn would come soon enough.

  The lookout boulders sat dappled cream and silver beneath the chartreuse and lime of new-leafed helliens. And at the qherrique’s feet the grape-blue mountain hyacinths were again in flower.

  The qherrique had grown too. The boss was now wider than my arms would reach. Already it had wakened, was beginning to glow. I came as to a mother’s embrace, laying both hands on the stone.

  However long after, I detached myself, tenderly as a lover, and stood back. There had been rapport, and welcome, and healing comfort. The greyness had lifted a little. But now I was back in the world.

  And however long I stood here, or dallied in the lookout, eventually I would have to go back down to Iskarda. To the rest of the day.

  I looked into the pearl-depths of the qherrique, and the

  question looked out at me: Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life?

  An endless dwindling vista of obligation, labor, duty. Using the Sight. Working with whatever enormity came into being at Marbleport. Taking a lover, a husband, a partner, perhaps.

  Having children. Pretending there was love. All of it hollow as an ant-eaten tree. At the core, emptiness.

  I can’t do it, I said. I can’t do it like this.

  Logic and duty answered remorselessly. You have been given a gift. You cannot refuse to use it. You cannot give it back.

  I put my elbows down on the qherrique and rested my forehead between them. I can’t do it, I insisted wearily, like this.

  But what could I do otherwise?

  I opened my eyes into the grey shadows of the qherrique and knew with a certainty that came not from the Sight, but from the heart.

  I wanted Therkon. I needed Therkon. Not just for pleasure, or even love, but the way trees need water or cattle need grass. No matter the barriers or the problems or the costs. I had to have him. If I had Therkon, I could deal with the rest of this. For the rest of my life.

  Logic repeated, stupid, stubborn, obdurate. You can’t have Therkon. It’s impossible.

  Then stop thinking why it cannot happen, and begin thinking how it could.

  * * * *

  Two rapped it at me, almost as tartly as Asaskian. I actually jerked upright from the shock.

  Then I stood gaping at the rocks while solid matter parted, windows opened, vision and resolution pouring themselves like lava into the gap.

  Nothing but death is impossible to change. You only have to change how you see.

  I turned my eyes inward, and answered Two. I said, Show me how.

  Seven hundred years of history, all the past of Amberlight. Every possible variation on every possible love-tie, every possible impossibility, and how it had been solved. Two had stored them all. We had the present too, all the data for that present, and the function of extrapolation. Put them together, and you have the Sight.

  And now it was a matter of How, no longer a query on what I wanted or needed, we Saw.

  I sat down on the hyacinths, plump. My back came up against the qherrique, thump, as vision drove every vestige of breath from my lungs.

  Before I lurched to my feet like a newborn foal and just

  managed not to dance round the qherrique whooping and skirling and waving both arms in the air, howling at the top of my voice, “Yes! Yes! YES!”

  The sun was in the rock-bay, dazzling as the light over Hringstenn’s stones. The qherrique was glowing like a lighthouse, but it was nothing to the brilliance in my heart. I could have lifted off the ground on it, spread my arms like wings and sailed over the Iskans, weightless with joy.

  I stopped at last and stood puffing, grinning all over my face. It was all so easy, so obvious, there would be obstacles but nothing unsurmountable. Nothing was impossible now. I had only to walk back down into Iskarda and begin.

  I patted the qherrique as if it were a friend’s shoulder, a

  beloved child. Turned toward the bay’s entry. And stopped.

  Someone was coming through the rocks.

  Troublecrew reflex froze my feet. My right hand slid to the wrist-sheath. Half my mind chortled that nobody could harm me now, I was invincible. The other half was firing Azo’s drills at me, trying to identify the step.

  Not a woman’s stride. Not a child’s, like Saarieq. Not a man’s I knew, of the two or three who would dare, want, have the right to come in here. Not . . .

  He stepped out from among the stones.

  He was wearing his clothes from the Isles: the boots were scuffed and dusty, the trousers crumpled, the shirt had not been washed for a week. The coat-arms were tied scruffily round his neck. His cloak had been bundled over the pack straps, and he had just pulled off a disreputable straw Korite hat. He had not shaved for a week, either. The stubble made him look a veritable Quezistani bandit, and his hair had been yanked summarily back, showing his face drawn, tired as it had been in Grinsey, the mouth tight, brows clenched in a frown. Over all lay the wariness of a man who travels alone, who has encountered trouble. And has learnt he must deal with it for himself.

  But if the groomed gaudy Dragonfly had vanished, the striking bones remained, the eyes, the narrow, graceful body. Stepping out into my sunlight, nervous, wary, tentative. Yet still elegant and cautious as some dark, beautiful deer.

  Then he must have made out my features against the glow of the qherrique. His eyes flew wide open. The mask shattered and joy burst like a sun-shower all over his face.

  “Chaeris!”

  He dropped the hat and rushed and I flew straight into his arms.

  We stopped kissing, eventually. Eventually, I could let him draw back an inch or so, so I could look up in his face. Move beyond the tangible reality, the dear recovered shape of him, and doubtless return a stare as besotted as the one he was giving me.

  “But what, what, what are you doing here?”

  He laughed down at me. Not aloud, but in a way I had never seen before. This silent mirth was the visible sign of irrepressible joy. Of something else, that might have been mischief. Even a hint of wickedness.

  He said, “I ran away.”

  “You did what?”

  “I found these,” he glanced down at his sleeve, “in some chest. Put them in the pack. Wrapped the pack in the cloak . . . I couldn’t bring Hvestang.” He sounded almost apologetic. He was also, I realized, talking like some dock-worker out of Riversrun. “It wouldn’t fit. Then I sent a message to—my mother. Told my secretary I was going to the
Sea-forts. Told Hurid, my troublecrew leader, to carry the bundle for me. To the Mel’ethi.”

  “The—the—”

  “The delegation. Shoshen’s envoys . . . You didn’t know?” He gripped me suddenly by the shoulders and I went dizzy at the brilliance of that smile. “My sweet oracle, you mean you sent those Mel’ethi all that way downRiver to me, and your intelligencers didn’t. Even. Know?”

  He was kissing me between words as if he could not help

  himself. I kissed him back, breathless, laughing, until we both managed to regain sense.

  “No, I didn’t know! I didn’t send them, either, don’t plume yourself! The Sight told them.” But he would know that. “I wasn’t even sure they’d go. I only hoped. But. I see why the clothes, the message, the messages—but why the Mel’ethi?”

  “Because, adorable damis, I needed dates.”

  “Dates?”

  “I’ve baffled Two,” he said with immense satisfaction. “At last.”

  “D . . . d . . . Huh! They were strangers so they wouldn’t give you away and nobody could blame them afterwards. And you could make what’s-his-name stop outside their suite, and I bet—I bet they had some sort of outside door.”

  He winded me with a hug of approval. “But the dates?”

  “I don’t—we don’t—blight and blast, that isn’t fair! Wait: you were coming upRiver and you still had the last finghend, didn’t you? So you could buy passage but you needed an excuse. A reason to travel. No, wait, not just travel, to get ashore at Marbleport without being headed off as a questioner, and reach Iskarda—oh! Oh, Mother! You’ve been peddling dates?”

  He beat my back heartily until I recovered breath. “I see nothing funny,” he announced, in well counterfeited huff. “I noticed their samples. The closest, most expensive wares I could find. And I learnt how to chaffer,” he actually smirked, “watching you.”

  I hiccupped, and leant back in his grasp. Then I remembered. “I told them dates would be good trade!”

  That time he had to lean on me. It isn’t so very funny, I told myself, it’s just that I’m so delirious, so happy, I can’t stop laughing. We can’t stop.

  “So you got clear out of Riversend—”

  “They smuggled me,” he said with satisfaction. “I told them it was a secret mission I could trust to nobody else. Then I dressed, and packed the dates, and they paid a visit to their consulate. Just adding another ruffian to Sitha’s train.”

  “And of course we’ve heard nothing. Oh, Mother, the

  palace—Riversend must be going crazy. And your mother.” I stopped laughing, though I still had to keep good hold of him. “Therkon, what will your mother say?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He had half-sobered too. “I told her I was going away. Not to worry, no matter what happened. That she was perfectly capable of managing without me, as she had for the, the last six months. In any case, it’s her own fault.”

  “What’s her own—?”

  I stopped laughing altogether. I even reached up and pulled his head forward by the rascally loose tail of hair. Suddenly the bliss was qualified.

  “Therkon. What are you doing here?”

  His joy had vanished too. He looked tired, harassed, and dispirited as on that night in Grinsey.

  “I tried to do my—duty, Chaeris. I did try. I thought I could manage, once you, you were safe. At home. Beginning to use your Sight.” He hugged me suddenly, almost convulsively. “I did, I did think, at first, with Mel’eth . . . No. At first, I did hope.” That it had been a signal, as I feared. He looked down at me, his face suddenly naked. “But I knew, in my heart, it was not so. And then. I knew too, you would remember—everything. But I, no matter how I tried . . . I was beginning to forget.”

  It was my turn to hug him to strangling point. The one thing I had not, did not, should have remembered. Two’s memory, that had come at times to seem almost a curse. But I had told him about it, and he was only human. Which is worse, to remember when you wish otherwise, or to have no choice when you forget?

  He leant his face lightly into my hair.

  “I told myself, it was impossible. I could never marry you. I would never make you my mistress. Even if you ever would.” Oh, that Dhasdeini honor. I tried not to sigh. “And now I, you, we were both chained in responsibilities. I told myself that I had to forget.”

  He broke off and took a sharp little breath. Then he reburied his face. “So,” he said into my hair, “when the council began hinting, suggesting, saying—”

  “That you ought to marry,” I supplied.

  He made a muffled sound. Then, more strongly, “When they said you were gathering young men. When I knew you had begun to look.”

  “Oh, clythx.” I could say that aloud now. “None of them ever mattered. I told the House so. Didn’t your intelligencers pick up that?”

  He made another noise. No. And, Would it have mattered? When, I could extrapolate the rest all too well, the blade of

  possibility was already in his heart?

  “If you knew how I used to cringe, every time we got downRiver intelligence.”

  “Did you?” He kissed me, a sunflower revived. “Did you truly?” He beamed at me, fatuously as I was undoubtedly beaming at him.

  Then he sighed, the brilliance snuffed. Shut his eyes, and leant his cheek to mine, like a man come from bitter cold to the sanctuary of temporary, impermanent fire.

  “So.” I cleared my throat. “They found her, didn’t they? The lord’s daughter? Out of Riversrun?”

  He lifted his face, and stared past me at the qherrique.

  “They found her,” he answered bleakly, “and she was perfectly groomed, perfectly trained, perfectly—amiable. An ideal empress.”

  “Amiable.” I wanted to hate her, but pity was expelling all else. “Therkon, did you—how—” but there was no tactful way to say it. “How far did it go?”

  He took my face in both hands and looked carefully in my eyes. Satisfied, apparently, that this was not jealousy, he gave a little nod. “I never slept with her. I never, I tried never to, to attach her. You know what I mean?”

  “To court her, honestly? Not just for show?”

  “Yes. That. I never did that. But. I kept telling myself, it had to be done. I couldn’t have you, that was impossible. I had to do my duty, and remember Dhasdein.”

  I shuddered. How had we escaped, when we had both been so mindful of our shackles, when disaster had been a day, a breath away?

  I said, “Asaskian told me, If the one I wanted was the only one, I should stop thinking why it couldn’t happen, and start thinking how it might.”

  At his startled half-laugh I understood. I said, “Who did it for you?”

  He put both hands on my shoulders, looking down, grave now, into my face.

  “I might really have done it,” he said, slowly. “I might have deluded myself so far. But one night when we dined together, my mother said to me, ‘Are you sure? Is this really what you want?’”

  His mother. The Empress, who had served the qherrique. Who loved him, I knew with bone-deep certainty, far more for himself than for whatever role he might fill for Dhasdein.

  “I went back to my rooms, and the moon was coming up.” He glanced back down at me, again almost smiling. “Second winter moon. Two days past full.”

  I had taught him to keep moon-time. In the Isles.

  “The next night, it was intended—it had been planned—that I should—propose.”

  I felt a shiver go through me from head to foot. He nodded, and himself took a firmer grip.

  “But the moon looked at me through the window, and something, someone said, Your own life is your business. But will you ruin two others as well?”

  I leant my forehead into his throat, and said silently, Mother, I owe you a mule-load of candles. Whether that was You or not.r />
  His hands drew my face up again. He gazed unsmiling into my eyes.

  “It made me think of Tanekhet. Whose real love—died. Who married twice after and was never happy. The moon said, His love died. Yours has not.”

  I caught my breath. He gave me a short unsmiling nod.

  “I knew then, yes. That I could not go on with the . . . other. And I understood. Not what I wanted: what I had to have. What I truly could not live without.”

  He smiled a little, with one side of his mouth.

  “So, like you,” he was trying for lightness, “I forgot about

  saying why not, and began thinking how.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” The plan of escape, the trip upRiver, how he had not only passed Marbleport but come all the way to me. “But. Wait one moment. How did you get into Iskarda? We are supposed to have some guard posts. And how did you know to come up here?”

  “Ah.” I felt him shift his weight. The way he had, the very first time we met. “The road-guards were simple.” He dropped into a thicker River accent. “I gotta commission, I’m on hire! I brung these poxy fruit all the way from Riversend ’cos the paymaster says, There’s a mark’ll buy every spoonful you can haul. Up there. Sunset, Tankard, something. I’ve drug ’em three weeks upRiver, lady. Have a heart, don’t stop me now!”

  “Oh, you—fox! Just like Jurrick.” He pretended to preen

  himself. “But how did you get up here?”

  The foolery dropped away. “I was in the street. By the

  fountain. Trying to think which would be the, the House. And this woman came past. The most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life.”

  My breath stuck. I could just whisper, “Go on.”

  “She took one look at me and stopped dead. Then she said, ‘You’re from Riversend’.”

  He pulled a face. “I thought it was all over. I tried whining, talking harder. When I got to ‘Sunset’ she held up her hand. I think—really, I think she was trying not to laugh. She said, ‘You don’t need him.’ She pointed up the hill. ‘Up there is the one you want’.”

  I was trying not to gasp like a fish. “Oh, my—oh, Mother. She—what did you say?”