Trickster's Touch

by Zorha Greenhalgh

  "Who?"

  "Elder Hennin," she said hoarsely.

  Zendrak shrugged. "Let her."

  "You're not invulnerable," Kelandris snapped, her green eyes angry.

  "I never said I was," he replied, and ran his fingers through his dark hair.

  "Elder Hennin is nothing more than a great nuisance—"

  Kelandris said nothing. Hennin had proved herself to be a formidable adversary to her in Suxonli, certainly more than a simple "nuisance." Of course, Kel reasoned in silence, Zendrak did not have to go through that. I did. Kelandris sat up in bed, her shoulders hunched with the weight of her memories. Finally she said, "You're a fool, Zendrak, if you think she can't hurt you. You've lived too long. You've forgotten what it's like to hurt.

  You've forgotten what it's like when every nerve is alive with pain and every emotion is stirred into anguish."

  "I've outgrown those things, Kel. At my age, emotions—all of them—lose their edge. They become almost boring."

  Kelandris sat bolt upright. "My pain bores you?" She felt outraged, the desires of her heart made insignificant by the dispassionate sweep of his longevity. She glared at him. "You have outlived your dreams, Zendrak. And so mine become, like Hennin, a nuisance to endure—but not indulge?"

  Zendrak said nothing for a few moments. "I do not like to see your pain, Kel," he admitted. "In seeing yours, I have to remember my own."

  Kelandris swore and got out of bed. She pulled on a black bathrobe, her motions angry. Turning to look at him, she said, "If you're what I am to become, then I refuse it. I refuse to live five hundred years like you. Life is feeling. If you don't feel, you're dead."

  Zendrak smiled. Then seeing Kelandris stare at him, he sobered.

  "You find me funny now?" she cried.

  Zendrak shook his head. "No—I just—well, I've waited a long time to hear you give me that lecture."

  Kelandris advanced on him. "Don't you play your Mayanabi games on me, mister. I pack a pretty good punch," she said, making a fist with her left hand. Kelandris had proved her mastery of fisticuffs on more than one occasion in Zendrak's presence. Even Podiddley had been at the wrong end of Kel's arm once.

  Zendrak eyed Kelandris cautiously. Then he said, "Do you truly believe I have no feelings, Kel?"

  She hesitated. Lowering her head slightly, she said, "I don't know."

  "Do you want to know?"

  "I don't know."

  Zendrak shrugged. "I have more than enough passion still left in me, Kelandris. And I have a desire for you that the years have not subdued."

  Kel's eyes widened a little bit. She took a step backward. Although she and Zendrak slept next to each other in bed, theirs was a purely platonic relationship at this point. It was all that Kelandris could handle, although she would never have admitted this to anyone—including Zendrak. Now it appeared that Zendrak wanted to change their relationship, perhaps be her lover again, as he had been once in Suxonli, seventeen years ago. Kelandris stiffened involuntarily. She did not know what to do. Her own indecision and vulner-ability angered her. Biting her lower lip, she whirled away from Zendrak, announcing over her shoulder, "I'm going to take a shower."

  Opening the door to her room, she quickly scanned the hallway to see if she could get to the bathroom without running into anyone else from the Kaleidicopia. At three in the morning, the wide hallway was empty.

  Kelandris gathered her black bathrobe against her otherwise naked body and ran toward the third-floor bathroom. She ducked inside and shut the door, her heart pounding, her emotions extreme. She leaned against the door, her head bowed and her green eyes closed. Her mind flooded with questions. Would Zendrak still be in their bedroom when she returned?

  What would he say to her? What would he expect of her? Kelandris gritted her teeth. She didn't want to think about these kinds of questions. She didn't want to feel these feelings. Despite her brave lecture on the benefits of feeling life deeply, ever since the Ritual of Akindo Kelandris had disciplined herself to feel nothing. It was a survival tech-nique more than anything else. To feel anything was to open a veritable box of emotional trouble. Experience had taught her that passion of any kind put you at the mercy of other people. So to remain in control of her life—such as it was—Kelandris had used her formidable will to numb her emotions. She had promised herself she would never feel deeply again about anything. Or anyone. It was a matter of survival.

  "Damn you, Zendrak," she swore, tears filling her eyes. "Everything was fine between us and then you just had to go and spoil it."

  Continuing to swear, Kelandris turned on the water in the shower. She waited for it to warm up. When the room became steamy, Kelandris dropped her black bathrobe. It fell to the floor revealing a muscular but surprisingly feminine body. Her bones were long to support her weight, but they were also delicate. Her belly was slightly rounded, her breasts soft and inviting. She stepped into the shower, letting the hot water beat her senses into forgetfulness. Moments later, she felt a draft. She poked her head out of the shower, her long blue-black hair clinging to her face and neck and breasts. Zendrak stood inside the room, closing the door as she stared at him in astonished indignation.

  "I locked that door!"

  "And I opened it," he said. He too dropped his bathrobe. Around his neck hung a necklace of black stones. The necklace was made of obsidian, and it had been forged in Soaringsea. Like Kel, his body was muscular; his chest was covered with fine dark hair. Although his body was considerably older than hers, it was a mirror image except that it was harsher and male.

  Without asking permission, he climbed into the shower with Kelandris. Kel reacted like a cornered animal. She pulled away from him, cowering against the wall. Zendrak ignored her fear of him and his sex and reached for her.

  Water streaming down his scarred face, he pulled Kelandris toward him and held her in silence. He kept his hands free of the erogenous places, touching her only as a friend might. Trembling, she made fists with her hands but she did not strike him. She could not. In her heart, she knew he meant her no harm. And had never meant her any harm. He had been ensnared by the events in Suxonli as much as she had. And yet, she could not accept this—not entirely. He had made love with her and left her just before the revel began. And when the night turned from a festival into a trial, Zendrak was nowhere to be found. Kelandris had never found a way to forgive him for this. Nor had she ever been able to bring herself to question him about his disappearance that night. She feared he would tell her that he was on Rimble's business. Kelandris could not bear the possibility that Trickster's business might be more important than her sanity—or life.

  Standing in the shower with him so close now, she felt she must now ask.

  Clearly he wanted to make love with her. This was an impossibility as long as she felt he had betrayed her.

  Kelandris raised her head. Without introduction, she asked, "Why did you leave?"

  Understanding the question without need of amplifica-tion, Zendrak said, "I left because I was overwhelmed with my own feelings for you. The smell of your blood that night acted wildly on my senses—it was a Tricksterish thing. And a Mythrrim thing. Until that time, I had not known there was anyone like me in all the world. I thought I was alone." He paused, his face contorting with the pain of that statement. "Can you imagine what it is like to walk the world for five hundred years with no hope of ever meeting anyone who would understand what I am? And then there you were—so beautiful, so trusting, so willing to love me. I was taken unawares, Kel.

  And it hit me very hard. I know this cannot make sense to you now. But I was used to my loneliness, in one night, you changed all of that forever."

  He paused, stroking her wet hair with his long fingers. "Rimble-Rimble on me," he said quietly.

  "Then why did you come back at all?" she asked bitterly.

  Zendrak took a deep breath. "I heard your scream, Kel. Overneath time, on the back of Further, I heard your scream. It shocked me. I fell off my mare�
�between time and space. If Further hadn't gone after me, I would've been lost in a backwash of time. I ride the lines of coincidence. It is a dangerous business. When I reached you, I was ill myself. It was all I could do to take you across the border into Piedmerri."

  There was a long silence between them.

  Kelandris turned away from Zendrak, her face to the wall of the steaming shower, her arms over her belly, her fists clenched. Zendrak moved closer to her but did not touch her.

  "Talk to me," he whispered fiercely.

  "I—I can't," she said, her face twisting in agony.

  Zendrak swore, looking at the floor of the shower. Hot water swirled over his toes. He raised his head, his expression wild. " Speak to me, Kel. You've kept these things in your heart for seventeen years, my beloved. They have rotted there and made you mad. For Presence sake, speak. Free us both from Suxonli."

  Kelandris leaned back against the shower wall, her chin lifted, her eyes closed. She took a ragged breath and said, "I was pregnant."

  "I know that," replied Zendrak fiercely. "You lost the child during the Ritual of Akindo. The holovespa dose they gave you changed your genes. The draw knew this. So the child was given to Fasilla by the draw. She had been raped by Cobeth only an hour or so before the Ritual—conception hadn't taken place. And wouldn't have if the blasted draw hadn't intervened. For that I cursed it. I would've rather had a monster than give that child—born of our love—to someone else."

  Kelandris swallowed. "What noble sentiments. That's a very pretty picture, Zendrak."

  Zendrak snorted. "I'd hardly call it that, Kelandris."

  "A very pretty picture that you've been telling yourself for years."

  Zendrak stiffened. "I beg your pardon?"

  Kelandris regarded him coolly. "You've been lying to yourself—"

  Zendrak stared at Kelandris. "I never lie—"

  "Yes, you do," she countered, her voice hard. "I am a Mythrrim now. Thanks to you—and I do thank you for it—I am a Mythrrim who can remember telling The Turn of Trickster's Daughter in the Great Library Maze last fall."

  There was a short silence.

  "So?" said Zendrak impatiently, his dark eyes hooded.

  "So I know what happened. Let me quote you the lines:

  "Touching her battered body with a lover's care The King lifted the Queen to the back of his mare, Riding in silence, they left Tammirring.

  Now Zendrak crossed the border shift and wilds,

  Listening to the Queen's frantic whimpering—

  He realized she would lose their unborn child."

  Zendrak's face contorted with fury. "You think I'm a murderer? I'm telling you, the draw intervened! You think I would willingly take you across the draw border and cause you to abort our own child?"

  Kelandris laughed raggedly. "I think that's exactly what you did. It's funny I never saw it before so clearly. Being branded as a murderer myself, I guess I never thought to accuse you of the same crime. I suppose I needed you to be stainless. It made my own degradation bearable."

  Zendrak said nothing. After a few moments, he said, "I'm getting out."

  "Out of the shower? Or out of the conversation?" said Kelandris icily. Then she added, "Some Greatkin you are. We're supposed to be exemplars of truth, you know. Makes the two-leggeds nervous when we aren't."

  Zendrak glared at her and climbed out of the shower.

  Kelandris sat down in the shower and began to weep quietly, the water beating on her face and knees and drowning out her sobs. Being a Greatkin, Zendrak felt her pain and was brought up short by it. Swearing, he took off the yellow towel he had just wrapped around his torso and climbed back in the shower with Kelandris. He put his arms around her. She reached for him soundlessly.

  After a few minutes, Zendrak pulled back and said, "I had no idea you claiming your Mythrrim inheritance would trigger a memory like this one. I thought the Ritual of Akindo had wiped it from your mind. You see, I didn't want you to know, Kelandris. About taking you across the draw. I didn't think you would be able to forgive me."

  Kelandris raised her face, her expression exhausted. "I'm not sure I ever shall," she said simply.

  Zendrak groaned. "How am I to live with that?"

  "How am I to live with what you did?"

  Zendrak ran his fingers through his wet, black hair slowly. "There was a reason for that abortion, Kelandris."

  "Right. Rimble made you do it, I suppose?"

  Zendrak swallowed. He disengaged himself from Kelandris fully. "No.

  Rimble didn't make me do it. But he pointed out what would happen if I didn't do it."

  "And what exactly was that?" asked Kelandris, her voice cruel.

  Zendrak put his head in his hands. "When I saw what Hennin had done to you—what the whole village had done to you—I cursed the draw—"

  "I know that!" interrupted Kelandris impatiently.

  "Shut up and listen!" he yelled at her, his expression furious.

  There was a terrible silence between them.

  Zendrak swallowed and continued. "I thought I was cursing the draw out of my own sense of outrage at the barbarism and brutality of the Ritual of Akindo. That was only partially true." He paused. "Now, listen carefully, Kelandris. I cursed the draw because Elder Hennin directed me to do so."

  Kel's eyes widened. She felt as though she might start screaming and never stop. All she said, however, was, "You did what Hennin told you to do? You killed our baby because that bitch told you to?" Kelandris started weeping wildly. She crawled away from Zendrak, her back pressed against the wall.

  "How could you?" she whispered. "How could you?"

  Zendrak's face looked drained of life. Speaking hoarsely, he replied, "I was Hennin's teacher. Her Mayanabi teacher, Kelandris. She left me twenty years before she put you through the Ritual of Akindo. During that time, she gained in power and mastery. I had no idea she had become that powerful. She had always been a quick study. Extraordinary, really. And terribly ambitious." He paused. Then Zendrak said, "You see, Hennin knew I was a Greatkin. She figured it out after she left me. She suspected—when you didn't die after the Ritual of Akindo—that you were one, too. She was—and is—a very good psychic, Kelandris. She knew you were pregnant with Yafatah. She knew that child—born of two full-blooded Greatkin—would be a spiritual giant. One that would rival her. So she wanted that possibility killed. That future destroyed. The cursing of an entire draw was a small price to pay in Hennin's mind. So I cursed it. And mutated it. Think, Kel. Think what this means. A mutant Greatkin? Born out of my rage and your despair? Such a child would be a monster. Rimble begged me to put a stop to your pregnancy. So did Themyth. Thus the incoming soul—which had a right to live—was given to Fasilla."

  "But Fasilla was on Tammi soil, same as me!" cried Kelandris. "She drew from Tammirring, same as me. That's the law. Where you conceive determines the draw. Her child would be a mutant, too, and Yafatah is not!"

  "But Fasilla was not on Tammi soil! She had wandered far from the revel site. So had Cobeth. They were both on drugs. They had no idea where they were. Well, they were in the Feyborne mountains, in the border between Tammirring and Piedmerri. You know how borders are. Anything can happen in the borders. Well, anything did. When I took you across the Piedmerri border, Piedmerri took pity on us. Piedmerri landdraw protects children. So it did just that. It took our child from you and gave it to Fasilla, who had not yet conceived. The draw of Piedmerri allowed Yafatah to keep her Tammi bearings but protected her against my stupidity. My curse. Piedmerri protected Ya all the way through the pregnancy. It was a miracle, really. A bit of grace that I certainly didn't deserve. In short, the draw of Piedmerri took the brunt of my curse—and turned it away from Yafatah. Yafatah, true to Trickster's influence, is the impossible possibility. She is a cross between two draws. She has the warmth and sociability of a Pied and the body of a Tammi."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Kelandris said accusingly. "Why didn't you confess what you had done befor
e now?"

  "Partly pride. And partly to protect you."

  " Pride?"

  Zendrak glared at Kelandris. "How do you think I felt— feel—knowing that Elder Hennin had gotten inside my brain—me, a Greatkin—and given me orders that I followed out! Orders that nearly scuttled everything Rimble had been working toward for at least five centuries? Well, I will tell you how I felt. Like an idiot. And an unwitting traitor. On top of everything else—losing you and the baby—knowing that I had been duped by Hennin scarred my mind. As she no doubt hoped it would." He paused. "Since I'm speaking my heart with you right now, I might as well say this, too: I didn't tell you why I took you into Piedmerri because I thought you'd lose confidence in me—"

  "I have!"

  "That you might never regain—"

  "I won't!"

  "Since Hennin directed me to curse the draw in the first place," he mumbled, his voice trailing off painfully. Zendrak took a deep breath. "Like you said, I'm not much of a Greatkin, am I?"

  "You certainly aren't!" cried Kelandris, getting to her feet. She climbed out of the shower. Without another word to Zendrak, she hurriedly dried herself and pulled on her bathrobe. She opened the door to the bathroom and left.

  The door slammed after her. Zendrak did not follow. He was too devastated by her reaction to be able to do anything else except sit in the hot shower and try to keep from putting his fist through the wall. A few minutes later, someone banged loudly on the door.

  It was Janusin.

  "I don't know what you two Greatkin were doing in there—fighting or fucking—but whatever it is, knock it off!"

  Zendrak rolled his eyes and stepped out of the shower. Janusin lived on the third floor in a room to the right of Zendrak and Kel's. He was a man of forty years and much accomplishment; he was one of Speakinghast's only working Jinnjirri sculptors. Although Janusin was normally a polite soul—as Jinn went—at three-thirty in the morning he was apt to be blunt of speech.