She was still standing there when someone behind her said, "Welcome to the Vault of the Twelveworld, my Queen."
The Queen turned. At the door stood an older, four-armed female, her skin a soft, warm gray and her long hair lighter, almost white. She wore russet robes that matched her unusual auburn eyes, but even more than their hue the way she used them arrested the Queen. Females did not have such calm confidence, nor did they look directly at others without fear. At least, Chatcaavan females didn't.
"Who are you?" the Queen asked.
"I am the Keeper of the Cave," the female replied. "Who holds the secrets of our race, passed down from the time of our flight from the Source. And you are my Queen... and I believe, the female we have been praying for since that flight."
The Queen could say nothing to that, because there was too much to say. What secrets? Who was this female, to call her Queen? And why had she been prayed for? Why her?
"It is overwhelming," the female said. "I apologize. Please, sit. I will send for food and drink, and something for you to wear. And I will tell you everything you wish to know."
"That will take a while," the Queen said.
"Yes," said the Keeper. "But we have time. For you, we have all the time. May I call for our meal?"
The Queen inclined her head, and as the female stepped away, sank onto one of the padded benches around the small table. When the Keeper returned, the Queen asked, "My companions?"
"We have brought them to rooms here in the retreat house."
"The retreat house," the Queen murmured.
The Keeper said, "You are ignorant of the history of the Twelveworld-that is not surprising. The Twelveworld prefers the Empire ignorant." She paused as a child entered with a tray, and another with a robe. "Thank you. Please, dress, my Queen. Unless it pleases you to remain naked."
"No, I'll take the robe. Thank you." The Queen gathered it from the arms of the child, ignoring the cramping of her heart at the sight of that small, earnest face. Where were the Emperor's children now? And his concubines? Had the Alliance taken good care of them? She furled the fabric around herself and resumed her seat.
The Keeper poured a bowl of tea and handed it to her formally with two hands. "Long ago, my Queen, before we knew aliens, all females were shapechangers, and what they learned from the shapes they took they could bequeath to their children in perpetuity. These traits they took from animals, for they were the only creatures available to us, and there came a time when we drank too deeply from that well and created monsters."
The Queen stared at the Keeper, the tea in her hands forgotten.
"These monsters were so shameful, we Changed our daughters so that they could never again shift shape." The Keeper spread her four arms. "As you see. And we made that trait dominant so that fewer and fewer of us were born shapechangers. We chose to freeze our race in its current shape, and never again modify it, for we no longer trusted our wisdom."
"What?" the Queen whispered.
"Taste this truth," the Keeper said, raising her eyes. "Deep in you. You will recognize it in the marrows of your solid bones. We were the mothers of our race, my Queen. We ensured our survival by taking from the creatures around us the tools we needed to survive. Do you doubt?"
How could she? The patterns in her felt urgent and new and vital, and they whispered things to her she could no longer ignore. "No."
The Keeper inclined her head in acquiescence and continued. "The sports that we created, we did not destroy, because they were our children. But we could not bear to look at them either. So we sent them far, far away."
The howls that had troubled her fevered dreams resurfaced, atonal, primal, awful. "Here. They live here."
"Yes. One of our duties is to watch over them." The Keeper spooned some of the fruit they'd been brought into a bowl. "We call the Vault a hunting preserve because that fiction serves us. But we do not kill our children, save when one group begins to predate too successfully on the rest. Then the Chief Ranger sends a party out to do what is necessary." She lifted her eyes. "But our mission has been forever twofold. The Ranger oversees the preserve. And the Keeper of the Cave waits for the female who will bring back to our race the ability to shift, not just as transitory act, but as a genetic choice."
"You think I am this female," the Queen said, trembling.
"You arrived in the fugue. All females who fix traits do so while in dreamstate. That you are winged and capable of shifting, and of the fugue... that you arrived here, when we have waited for a winged female for so long..." The Keeper inclined her head. "Yes. We believe you might become the Breath of the Living Air, so long denied us. If you can prove that you are capable of using the Change to change yourself, and not just take a new shape, we will crown you the head of our ancient religion, and the entire Twelveworld will bow to you." The Keeper pushed the bowl of fruit to her and added, "Eat, my Queen. You must be famished."
The Queen took a piece of melon more out of a need to move than out of any hunger. "We shaped our race."
"Yes."
"How... how does that work?"
"All Chatcaava born winged can Change," the Keeper said, folding her lowermost set of hands on the table and gesturing with the topmost. "From one shape to another. All Chatcaava can also pick to shift only to part of that shape."
The Queen stared. "Like the head of one shape and the body of another?"
"Or the ability to process poisons faster, but not the skin and bone structure," the Keeper said. "That was one of the traits the queens of old fixed in our race to protect us. They also gave us horns, wings, and the harder hides on our backs."
"Why didn't they extend the hide over our stomachs?" the Queen asked, because she could think of nothing else to say. It all sounded so unlikely.
"Possibly because we nursed our young, and no one wanted to risk covering our breasts. And also because flying made us less vulnerable. Or perhaps because the animals we took the trait from did not have armored undersides. Those reasons are lost to us now."
The Queen said, "And this... ability... to be only partially a shape... that ability belongs to all of us."
"Yes."
"But only females can ensure that partial shape will breed true."
"Correct."
She could barely grasp the implications of it. The possibilities... and the dangers, those too. The howls of the misborn echoed again in her head and she flinched.
"You see the responsibilities inherent in our sex."
"And the power," she said. "So long... the males... we were... we were nothing!"
"We were everything," the Keeper said. "But we made ourselves lesser. The males filled that vacuum, and in the absence of balance, created the diseased society we suffer now. We were always meant to be a partnership. Partial traits are difficult to do well; one must be an exemplary shapechanger to attain them, and failure can kill. The males went out into the wild and sought new traits from the most dangerous creatures; the females considered their offerings, and chose, and the males would go and bring back a specimen for her. We worked together.
"But theirs was not the first sin," the Keeper finished. "Not all the fixed traits in the universe matter if a male will not mate with you to propagate them. Resorting to mechanical means to subvert that process is an admission that you feel yourself above that partnership."
"Did we... we did that...?"
"How do you think we ended up here?" The Keeper sighed. "That is why we have been waiting so long for a new Breath. We needed a winged female: rare enough in these days. We also needed a female courageous enough to embrace her own power. And out of that microscopic pool, we needed a female who would not use that power to subjugate the males of the species." She cocked her head. "You... you are two of those three. Tell me, my Queen. Do you hate the males who oppressed you?"
"Even males can change," the Queen said. "And my Emperor is waiting for my return."
"A promising answer."
"And to fulfill that promise, I m
ust change myself," the Queen said. "Is that right?"
"It is. There is no rush, my Queen. The world beyond the Vault continues, but we abide. We will always abide."
There, the Queen thought, the Keeper was wrong. The Great Pattern she had observed in the dream with the Guide... that pattern was singing to her of urgency. "I would like time to think. And to wash."
"This is your room," the Keeper said, rising. "That door to the left leads to your bedchamber, and the bath."
"And... there is a computer?"
"You will find access in every room, voice or console. The one in this room is there." The Keeper pointed to a discreet panel on a raised counter lining one of the walls. "My Queen, even if you fail in the change, you are still the closest we have come in generations. We will honor you for that reason, if no other. You are safe here, as are your alien companions. We serve a purpose higher than any transitory government. We guard the viability of our race."
"I understand," the Queen said. "I would like to be alone now, please."
The Keeper rose immediately and bowed, both sets of palms clasped. "My Queen. Call at need."
Left to herself, the Queen drifted back toward the windows. Once again, she found herself in a tower. But oh, how different this time was!
Females, a great power?
Females, as ultimately responsible for the survival of their race?
A single Emperor as a replacement for the missing female principle that had once ruled their world in a harmonious partnership with the male?
The Queen started quivering and didn't stop. She chafed her arms. It was too much. The ferment in her head reminded her of those first days in the Ambassador's company, when his very existence challenged all the truths she thought so impregnable. How she missed him, and the opportunity to speak honestly of her confusion. If only she could do so again!
Her head slowly rose, and she frowned.
"This is certainly better than our last situation," Vasiht'h said, looking around the rooms the Chatcaava had assigned her.
"I'm not sure how," Sediryl said, resigned. "We're still stuck somewhere with no way to leave."
"At least the people here aren't actively hostile?" Vasiht'h stretched his wings. "They even fixed our injuries."
"Are you sure about the hostility?" Sediryl sat on one of the benches because she longed to pace and didn't want to reveal her agitation. When she noticed Vasiht'h making a face at her, she said, "Sorry. I don't mean to be the pessimist. But... I want to know what's happening. Whether we're winning the war. If the people we love are all right. What's happened to the slaves we abandoned at the pirate base. I want to go find out, not kick my heels in some backwater, waiting for news."
Vasiht'h smiled, peering out the window. "Don't let the Chatcaava hear you calling this place a backwater. It seems pretty important to them."
"Yes, well. Importance is relative." Sediryl sighed. "I'm surprised Qora didn't follow you in to harass me."
The Glaseah laughed. "Oh, I'm sure he'll turn up once he's done making his rounds of the Faulfenza."
"Wonderful."
"You almost sound like you don't like him."
"Funny," Sediryl said, "I was just thinking he almost doesn't want to be liked. By me." She spotted the sparkle in Vasiht'h's eye and said, "You find that funny."
"Because it is. And because you think so too."
Did she? Sediryl smiled. "I guess I do. Because you're right. This is better than our last situation. I just..."
"Want news, I know." Vasiht'h nodded, staring into the vista past the window. "But I feel like we've turned a corner, arii. How could we not? We escaped a fleet full of pirates! How often does anyone manage that? How can you not feel hope?"
Sediryl thought again of the thousands of slaves who had failed to escape those pirates and tried to smile for the Glaseah's sake. "You have a point."
Her attempt probably wasn't good enough to fool a therapist, so she was relieved by the hesitant knock on the doorframe that drew both their attentions. There, swathed in a long gray robe, was the Chatcaavan Queen, looking... well. Like someone who'd had a shock. A little too rigid, a little too pale in the skin around her nose and eyes.
"Alet?" Sediryl said, standing. "Are you all right?"
Vasiht'h studied her and said, "I'll run you a hot bath."
"I..." the Queen began and halted as Vasiht'h vanished. She let her hand drop. "That... won't be necessary?"
"He's decided it is," Sediryl said. "He's usually right. Alet, what's wrong?"
The Queen rubbed her brow ridge, head dipped. "Nothing. Things are very much not wrong, in a way I cannot begin to assimilate. That... that is why I've come. To whom can I speak about such things, if not aliens? They are too outlandish for Chatcaava."
"That sounds... a lot like how I felt when I left the homeworld," Sediryl admitted.
The Queen's head jerked up. "Oh?"
"When I was young," Sediryl said, "my father and I... we were very close. I did not love my mother, so I spent as much time with him as I could, until it became inappropriate. He taught me about the land, and husbandry, and to love the seasons, and kindness to those unlike us..." Her heart contracted, remembering. Wondering what her father would think of her now, and what he would say when she came home. Breathing in to settle her sudden queasiness, she resumed. "He even taught me a secret language, something he told me was for us only. I found out later our ‘secret language' was Universal, and he'd called it a secret because it was: from my mother, who didn't want me to know that the Eldritch-and my family in particular-were friends with aliens. She disapproved of the outworld, and she was afraid I would get... ideas."
Round-eyed, the Queen said, "What did you do?"
Sediryl paused, remembering those wild days, the smell of honey and wildflowers. She smiled ruefully. "What else? I packed my bags and left my world, because if my family had ties with aliens I wanted to claim them for myself."
"Was it all that you hoped?"
"It was..." Sediryl trailed off. She spread her hands. "I was so young, alet. I thought it would be all good. Or all bad. I didn't think it would be... complicated."
"Yes," the Queen murmured. "Complicated."
"But I wouldn't go back," Sediryl said, surprised to discover it was true. "I wouldn't change that choice if I could. I've... I've been through and done things I'm not proud of, and things that frightened me. And I'm a little worried about who I am and who I might become if I'm not careful. Because I know so much more about the wrong turns I might take, and the dark paths I might find myself on entirely by accident. There are so many more wrong turns and dark paths when you expose yourself to a larger world." She sighed, smiled. "But I would still choose for that larger world. We weren't made for ease. We were made to strive, because striving grows us toward the light."
"Or the dark," the Queen said.
"Without the choice, it would be a meaningless exercise," Sediryl said.
The Queen nodded, Pelted-quick. And said, suddenly, "We called one another sisters, while on the pirate base."
"I... yes. We did. I didn't want to impose, if you'd changed your mind...."
The Queen's eyes narrowed. "This has to do again with your desire to blame yourself for my decision to embrace all the shapes."
"I..." Sediryl started, and stopped. Chagrined, she said, "I'm doing it again. I'm sorry."
"Do not be," the Queen said decisively. "So long as you are still willing to call me your sister? This is a claiming of those ties with aliens, isn't it?"
Surprised, Sediryl said, "Yes."
"Good, because I need a sister now. I have a great deal to understand, and I fear little time to do so."
"All right?" Sediryl said. "Ah... do you mind talking in the bath?"
"No." The Queen touched her hair, winced. "My mane is a tangle."
"I'm good at brushing manes," Vasiht'h said from the door to the bedchamber. "Come on over, the water's fine."
"I can't remember the last time I
had a bath," Sediryl muttered.
"There's enough room for everyone," Vasiht'h said. "Trust me."
Maybe the strangest thing about bathing with a Chatcaavan woman was how not-strange it was. There was no separate bathing chamber in their suite; the tub was a deep depression beside the balcony, more the size of a small pool than a bathtub. Vasiht'h pushed the balcony doors open so the fresh, high breeze could swirl through the steam rising from the water. He'd set the scrubbing sands and towels and brushes on that side, along with a tray of food and a glass pitcher: cold water, from the condensation beading on it.
The Queen dropped her robe and walked down into the water. Sediryl thought of all the ways her body had become alien to her and... followed suit, before she could overthink the situation. She refused to give Kamaney her body when she'd had lovers who deserved to be remembered.
"You are injured," the Queen said, startled.
Sediryl glanced down herself. "Just a lot of bruising. It looks bad because of the skin tone."
"Like the Ambassador," the Queen murmured, and nodded to herself. "There are things I have learned here that I must understand better."
Sediryl relaxed into the water and sighed. The heat felt good, particularly with the cool wind on her face and shoulders. "All right. Go ahead?"
The Queen was silent for several moments, her eyes distant. Then she focused again on first Vasiht'h, then Sediryl. "If I can use all the patterns I've learned to change myself in one way, permanently, I will prove myself the female the Twelveworld was established to await."
"Maybe I should wash your mane while you talk it out," Vasiht'h said, ears sagging. "Because there's more in that one sentence than a day's worth of conversation could unravel. I'm not even sure I understood it."
"Wait," Sediryl said, mind racing. She could almost see pictures reflected on the undulations of the water. "The creatures on this world. The ones the hunters killed. Those... those are related to you somehow, aren't they."
From Ruins Page 31
