by Ako Emanuel
Perhaps the Heir was rescued by another Tribe and the Ottanu merely knows of this, and is taking advantage of the information; but if that were the case, why has the other party not come forward? The reward for aiding the Heir is much greater than any concessions to be won by using her to bargain.
It makes no sense. No sense at all...
A quiet presence intruded upon her tight sphere of dark thought. This warm presence insinuated itself into her dance so perfectly that she did not at first acknowledge that she had a real opponent that countered all her moves with flawless grace. Only the final ring of steel on steel on a high cut at the end of the fifth dance registered upon her consciousness.
Audola did not look at the face of her sudden opponent, already knowing whom it was. Only one dared come to her when she decided to shut everything out, and dance here in the early eve with the wind. Only one would have the skill and the courage to join her dance, and to wait for that one’s presence to bring her out of her reverie by mere presence alone. Only one dared do this without fearing her wrath. She should have expected him, would have if she had not been so sick with worry.
She waited for her First Voice to do something as they stood in identical poses, blade to blade, right high, left out and to the side, right foot leading. He could not advise, could not speak, for the mandate of contemplation and silence extended to them all, including her.
When he did nothing, she moved to the sixth dance, looking through him, letting her sphere of thought engulf her again, letting the slow rage and pain begin to blot all else out. The down-cut deflected to the side, and the left swept up in a diagonal body cut. She missed the slight clang of a blade sliding home into its sheath.
Tokia...
A gentle, but firm hand catching her wrist shattered the hot sphere of rage with its molten core of vexation, pulling her from the depths of introspection. It was unexpected enough that the sphere was broken beyond immediate recall, and sudden enough that reflex forced her to freeze and look at him, thereby acknowledging his presence, with deadly, widened eyes.
His head was down, his eyes down in apparent supplication; but they were down in actuality so that the initial stabbing of her glare passed over him, leaving him unscathed. His gaze then slowly climbed to hers, his eyes shaped by compassion and a quiet, open offer of comfort. She stared at him, her fury and blades no longer potent since both slashes had missed their mark. She blinked at him, eyes no longer dry. She dropped her captured sword-hand and only then felt the fire in her muscles that had been overshadowed by the flame in her veins.
She wanted to hate him for causing her emotions to break through her surface, wanted to despise him for breaking her sphere of anger, for making her acknowledge him. But all she felt was relief that he had and a gladness she did not want to admit that he was with her, now, in this time of need. She looked away, expressing none of this, and a scalding tear of molten heart-ache slid down her cheek, followed by another and another, and another, until they flowed without end.
A hiss of silk hinted that he moved, perhaps closer, and then his hand released her wrist and cupped her face, his thumb sliding across her cheek, scattering the liquid emotion. The gesture was so unexpected and so unspeakably ingratiating and winsome that she leaned into the caress just a bit and her rigid mask of control fell away, her face crumpling in misery and her heart-sickness taking voice in the form of a noisy, quiet sob.
Luyon brushed gently at the other cheek with two fingers, not turning away from the open display of emotion. Audola might feel that it was a show of weakness. But he knew that it was no such thing, this expression of grief. It was a healthy release of destructive emotion, emotion that, if locked up inside, would build to a peak and then consume her. He knew he dared much: touching the High Queen unasked, breaking her war’don’ni and her dark contemplation, unhealthy though it was; deliberately breaking her control, forcing her into the release that she would not have permitted herself otherwise. And, had he the courage, he would have dared more, would have taken her in his arms and held her until her grief wore itself out. But not even he would dare do that. The only one who could dare that was the Prince Consort of the High Queen, and that worthy was long, long dead. He had made a calculated risk, though, and judged right, that she would welcome and respond to his touch rather than spurn it. He did his best to ignore the sweet softness of her jet brown, silken-smooth skin beneath his fingertips.
He sheathed his other sword, circled her, and with his arms measuring her arms, his hands around hers, he gently made her sheath her dom’ma too. For an instant he stood thus, his arms almost around her, and the impulse to draw her close was overpowering. But then he stepped back, and guided her to a padded bench, where the light meal permitted by the edict waited. He made her drink water, and pressed the plate of food into her hands. He watched her delicately eat and drink, solicitously offering more until she pushed the plate away. She looked so young and vulnerable in this moment, an oddly compelling and disturbing thing since she had already out-aged him by one and a half normal lifetimes. And yet at this moment she looked of an age with his younger sister, barely thirty cycles of the Seasons. Such was the consequence of living in the influence of Av’s domain.
She wiped at her reddened eyes, glanced gratefully up at him. He smiled and bowed, spreading his arms, then stood, offering a hand and gesturing to the terrace. She took the proffered hand, rose gracefully to her feet. He escorted her over to the terrace, where they stood watching the completion of the turning of light to dusk in silent throes of deep maroon and dark lavender.
The stars trod playfully across the velvet curtain of eve, continuing their ageless, endless dance to the answering drums of eve. The city sparkled below them, extending away like a sea of flung jewels as far as the eye could see under the bathing light of the waxing moons.
Her hand crept back into his, reminiscent of another time, long ago, when there had been another to share the moonlit eves of stardance with. That one was no more. She shied from the full memory, could not think about him without beginning to grieve for him again. She could not afford that now. Not while she grieved for her daughter. The two combined would totally undo her. So instead of thinking of either, she lost herself in the dance of the stars, enjoying Luyon’s company, enjoying the solace of remembered happiness of gazing into growing eve with a cherished companion. She felt his slight hesitation at the familiarity of holding hands, the instant of uncertainty, and then his hand tightened about hers as they watched the darkness turning.
CHAPTER V
a slow turning of light heralded ill-fortune...
The gila cat laughed, paced back and forth within its own little glowing sphere. It would pause every now and then to sing to her, then it would pace again, its claws thudding like hoofs on stone. Its breath tasted of meat and water, and sometimes it was very near to her, holding her lovingly in its paws and washing her with a long, white tongue. Its eyes were oddly silver and so was its sphere, and its fur flowed like silk across her body. It had hurt her hand once, but it did not hurt her again. She asked it to sing again and it chuckled to her, held her, sang to her.
“Oh, dear one,” it said into the timeless void of its sphere, “-you must go now. You must awaken.”
She cried out in voiceless protest, clinging to its fur, but some unseen force pulled her away from the silver sphere, up through the red space above that turned black then gray, then misty white.
Jeliya floated up toward consciousness, through a gray filmy haze that surrounded her sluggish brain. She felt detached from herself, as if a fuzzy blanket enfolded her, blurring the edges of her thoughts. And her thoughts were disarrayed, unordered, undisciplined. A distant ache behind her eyes drew attention to itself, but it was vague and far away, like everything else.
She struggled to come to full wakefulness but was trapped just below the liquid edge of the conscious plane. There was a funny silver taste all around her, a silver blanket that kept awareness away. It tasted a
lmost like - she fought to form the thought even as the silver-grayness sought to sunder it and send her back to slumber. It tasted like - av’rita, but not quite. It filled her nostrils with the smell of soothing peppermint, made her eyes thick with the flavor of clover. She tried to push it away with weak, immaterial hands but it only caught fast, and the voice of the gila called to her through a thick wall of dreams.
She could not fight it. The blanket turned pale green, and it quietly smothered her, shrouding her in darkness that should have turned. In desperation she called to the light, the weak yellow presence that was outside herself. It responded sluggishly, as if it could not quite hear her. Slowly, so slowly that she wanted to gnaw her fingers off, the av’rita gathered to her, twisting its lethargic way through the grayness. She despaired, then, savagely she marshalled herself to patience, a touch of control she had not known was gone reasserting itself. She held patience as the light gathered inside her, pooling hot and bright; and then she directed it at the smothering grayness, which burned away like mist and smoke.
Her body slammed into her as the kiss of Av boiled through the strange silvery-gray fog. Her eyes throbbed with a sickening pulse of dull red pain and her back was a patchwork of little flaming brands. The ache in her ankle thumped to some ancient, long forgotten rhythm. Her throat ached and her stomach turned to bitter lime. She lost her hold on the light as she groaned, fighting a wave of nausea. But the shred of discipline still held her, and she was able to work through the pain, sifting through the separate agonies, assimilating them, taking each and stripping it to its barest components. The pain ebbed away as she got control of all the hot, pinpoints of hurt and dull pulsing discomforts that seemed so overwhelming all together. The worst of it was behind her eyes, but she did her best to block it out; gradually it faded to the background along with the rest of her agonies, and she sighed in almost relief.
She found that she was on her belly, not the most comfortable of positions for her. The soft, pliable surface beneath her put a strain on her neck and back. The room was unaccountably chilly and dark, the presence of Av and the permeation of Av distinctly missing.
Where am I? Not at home, certainly. She could tell that she was not in the Palace - this was not her suite of lains, and there was not the background noise of others moving around, the murmur of voices behind thick walls. Also, there was not the feeling of many that she was attuned to in the Palace, for life was an aspect of radiance, of light, of Av. This place, wherever she was, had the taste of only one other presence besides herself.
She wondered how much it would hurt to roll over; and yelped as her back sizzled with searing flame on the first attempt. Too much to make a second. She lost control of the other agonies she had shunted away.
Her weak cry brought the sound of hooves.
“Are you awake yet, little climber?” the voice of dark silver from the shores of red seas and icy pain asked.
She moaned, holding her head, trying to get her headache back under control.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Do you feel up to trying to get some nourishment into your belly?”
She grimaced and tried to shake her head - and instantly regretted it as the sharp stab of hot pins behind her eyes and a wave of queasiness rewarded her efforts. A whimper was all she managed.
“You need sustenance, little ky’pen’dati, and you need fluids in you. You are still much too close to fever than I like and I don’t want your temperature to go back up. Besides, you need to eat, or you’ll waste away to nothing. It’s been a ten’turn since you’ve been able to keep anything much more substantial than water in your system, and I don’t want to lose you to malnutrition.” A cool hand touched her shoulder, and some of the pain seemed to drain away. “Will you at least try?” The voice was soft pleading that she could not resist.
She nodded carefully.
“Good. Come, I’ll help you sit up.”
Something large and heavy pressed into the surface on her left and strong hands slid under her armpits, and practically lifted her off the pallet. She drew her knees painfully up and the hands set her back against something firm and warm. Her back leapt to flaming life and she yelped again, jerking forward. She waited till the flames ebbed, then settled herself back carefully.
“My apologies - I was not thinking,” the silver voice murmured to her. She nodded again, and liquid silk cascaded over her shoulders and arms, tickling her neck, her face. Her back burned where the bandages were pressed to the firmness behind her, so she slouched, shivering in the cool air. In response the desi was drawn up about her and a warm calabash was placed in her hands. The cool hands of the other helped her support the bowl as she guided it to her lips. Carefully, the bowl tipped and the broth flowed into her mouth, relieving the dryness, soothing her aching throat. The flavor was muted but good, and it actually helped settle her stomach, washing the queasiness away. It loaned her warmth and strength, and more of the pain, especially in her head, faded away. She drained the bowl, suddenly very hungry.
“Good,” the silver voice murmured, taking the bowl away. “Water?”
She nodded and a second calabash touched her lips. It tilted and cool, clean water quenched her thirst.
“Do you wish to sleep some more, ky’pen’dati?”
In reply she curled against the warm body and sighed, pulling the desi more firmly around her to create a little cocoon of warmth. The broth settled pleasantly in her belly and the smell of wildberries and clean equine and man came to her, a decidedly pleasant combination. Smooth, liquid satin hair played about her face, soothing in an odd way. Her mind drifted on bluish-gray haze, seemed to float a little away from her senses, a strange, mild rapture taking hold of her. Was there medicine in the broth that was making her feel light-headed? Perhaps. She let the thought drift away.
One of the hands dropped to stroke her hair, her cheek; the other settled to her shoulder. The familiarity surprised her, but it seemed so natural, so usual that she let it pass unremarked.
Jeliya turned her detached, contented thoughts to her situation. She was not home. The being attending her was not the royal family ol’bey’woman, obviously. This one who cared for her was a Katari. She could feel and smell the kati’yori part of him and the sound of hooves from before was explained away by this.
The last thing I remember - is…the trap. Falling. Seeing my target get away.
She could only assume that she had been found by one of the hooved Av’Touched, but the silky hair puzzled her. The Katari were not a hirsute people and the hair they did possess had a much coarser texture than any wuman’s. It formed a stiff crest that ran from the middle of the forehead to the equine shoulderblades, much like the kati’yori. The rest of their bodies was covered in short velvetine fur-skin.
Was she perhaps in a Katari village? Had she been found by the hooved ones where she had fallen and been taken care of by this ol’bey’one? It seemed reasonable, but the behavior of this particular one was unusual. He stayed with her, touched her without reluctance, called her by endearments - ‘ky’pen’dati’ meant ‘dear one.’ The Katari that she had met had been somewhat remote and aloof, though strictly polite, to outsiders. And they carefully avoided the casual touch of uninvited strangers. Perhaps their ol’bey’women and ol’bey’men were different?
Her mind, in a grayish-white cloud, drifted back to the endearment. Perhaps this was a hermit who seldom received visitors. That would explain the excessive contact and the endearment. But not the silky hair.
“Why do you call me ky’pen’dati?” she whispered, her voice, still ravaged from the fever, sounding far away.
“Because, dear one, I do not know your true name.” His voice settled gently around her like falling olia petals. It reminded her vaguely of something, perhaps something she dreamt. “You would not tell me.”
“It is Jeliya.” She was pleased to know that her safeguards were still in place. No information could be extracted from her while she was not fully conscious. She was
beginning to feel very light now, weightless, and her voice became dreamy even though her mind stayed clear. “Do you have a name?” It was strange, like hearing herself through a long, echoless whitish-silver tunnel.
“Long ago - when it mattered - my name was Gavaron.”
It was a peculiar name, not like any Katari Family or Tribe name she had ever heard...
Her eyes distracted her, paining her from far away. She grunted as the pain tried to reach her through the dully thumping, blackened silver. Her distant hand went to distant thumping eyes, felt the silk blind covering them.
“What is wrong with my eyes?”
“The thrista poison. You fell into a thick patch of thrista nettle. The poison attacks the eyes, makes them sensitive to light.”
She tried to (thu-thump) remember all she could about thrista nettle. It was not deadly poisonous, but it was very (thu-thump) unpleasant, making the victim dreadfully sick, and yes, it did affect the eyes. It also affected digestion...
Thu-thump.
The thumping grew, overwhelming her thoughts. It was peculiar, an odd, sensual double beat, almost like a heartbeat, but a thousand times louder and a thousand times more seductive. It was like the wild drums of the Salaka Dign calling to the ancestors. It seemed to vibrate in the black silverness around her, then in the golden lightness within her, drawing her own pulse to its rhythm. As she listened it faded, and then she heard a second, fainter double beat underlying it (two hearts?). And far, far away, a whooshing sound like the wind singing in the narrow tunnel of a bellows (lungs?). And even as she studied each engaging sound it became a background noise to let some other sound come to her awareness. All of the sounds were soothing, alluring, familiar somehow. Next to the forefront was the sound like low growling, or low liquid rumbling, like a stomach in the business of digesting, satisfied, full. She listened in fascination, enthralled, as the sound receded and echoed itself (a second stomach?). Then came crackling, popping sounds she could not even begin to identify (joints and tendons perhaps?). Then a rushing sound that echoed the initial double rhythms (blood in veins?). Then soft buzzing (nerve endings?). Then...
