by Jane Kindred
“Who have we here?” The drunk bounced her slight form against his thigh, and the others laughed. “Barmaid or bed warmer?”
It wouldn’t do to give her strength away. Meerhunters still frequented the place.
“Please, sir.” She tried to speak demurely, drawing back from his bitter breath. “I’m only here to fetch some solace for my father. He’s not well.”
Her accoster started to speak, but his words were drowned out by the foreign sound of a motorized engine outside. All heads turned to look. Deltan contraptions were exceedingly uncommon in this neck of the woods.
Outside before the open door, a motorcycle rumbled to a stop, and Ahr’s head swam for a moment with the memory of climbing the road to Munt Zelfaal with Jak on a similar conveyance. The rider dismounted and removed the ice-crusted scarf that had protected his bearded face from the elements. Ahr had seen him before, but she couldn’t think where.
She seized the moment to try to extricate herself from her unwanted companion, but he was determined to keep her, emboldened, it seemed, by the entry of the newcomer, whom everyone seemed to know, as they hailed him.
Her accoster stretched an arm across her waist to clasp the newcomer’s hand as he went by. “What’s that Deltan monstrosity you’re stinking up the place with?”
“Motorbike. Picked it up at In’La. Got me all the way across the falend in four days.” The other man flicked his gaze over Ahr, his brows drawing together as though he also found her familiar. “Let the lass go, Smalls. She’s obviously overwhelmed by your stench.”
Smalls made an obscene gesture but released Ahr just the same, picking up his mug of ale once more to salute his acquaintance. “Fuck you too, Pike.”
Ahr stared. She had met him before. He was a Meerhunter.
Straightening her clothes, Ahr took a seat at the bar a safe distance from Smalls and nodded to the barkeep. “Meer’s Tears.”
The Meerhunter raised an eyebrow. “Strong drink for a young girl.”
“I’m older than I look.” Ahr pulled off her gloves. “How much?” she asked as the barkeep set the flask of dark red liqueur in front of her.
“Credit or gold?”
Ahr hesitated. An account ought to still be open in her name—most Haethfalters traded for credit, as money meant nothing to them—but she wasn’t about to press her luck. “Deltan universal.” All eyes were on her now.
“Three deltas,” said the barkeep.
“Three deltas.” Ahr reached into her pocket to retrieve them as their weight materialized, and set them on the counter. The mulled wine at Mound RemPeta had made her heady after just a ket’, so she’d have to be cautious with this once-cherished vice. She took a sip of the strong anise-flavored drink and glanced at Pike. “You still hunt Meer?”
Pike frowned, his mug of ale halfway to his mouth. “What makes you think I hunt Meer?”
“Heard your name mentioned.”
“By whom?”
Ahr took another sip without looking at him. “My father. Ahr Naiahn.”
“Ahr Naiahn.” Pike set his mug down. She had his full attention. “As in the Rhymanic prelate’s Second?”
“The same.”
“And how would he know about me?” The Meerhunter seemed genuinely rattled. “I’ve never met him. I doubt my fame is quite so legendary to have spread throughout the Delta.”
“Oh, but you have met him. To hear him tell it, you harassed him at his Haethfalt mound last winter, accusing him of harboring a Meer—if not accusing him outright of being one himself.”
“Last winter?” Pike took a swig of his ale, thoughtful for a moment. “You don’t mean the Deltan who lives alone at the foot of Munt Zelfaal?”
“Lived,” Ahr corrected. “He returned to Rhyman, obviously. And now he’s dead.”
“Dead? I hadn’t heard that.” Pike studied her profile. “Didn’t know he had a daughter. “But now that you mention it, you favor him a great deal. My condolences on your loss.”
Ahr set down her drink and turned to face him. “A Meer killed him.”
Pike’s eyes narrowed. “That’s quite a claim.”
“It’s no claim. It’s fact. MeerRa of Rhyman has returned.” There was silence in the tavern, though Ahr had kept her voice low.
“And how do you know that?”
Ahr stared into her drink. Jak would be hers alone if there were no Ra. She ran her finger along the rim of the cordial. Jak would never forgive her—if Jak found out. Could she do this? If she spoke, her words couldn’t be taken back. She was Meer.
Ahr finished her drink. “Because I know where she is.” She rose, and left Pike sitting at the bar.
“Heygirl!” Smalls, the drunk who’d assaulted her when she entered, called out to her, running his words together. She ignored him and left the tavern, but he was determined and followed her into the street, catching at her arm.
Ahr spun on him, the heavy coat swirling in the snow. “Let go of me.”
“City tailor.” Smalls fingered the cloth. “Aren’t you a fine young thing in your fancy clothes, tossing deltas around like candy. What else you got in that purse?” He thrust his hand between the plackets of her coat and grabbed her between the thighs.
She opened her mouth to strike him down, but Pike called out from the doorway. “Go find your fun elsewhere, Smalls. I have business with the girl.”
Ahr was trembling with rage and unspoken Meeric wrath—and an unexpected surge of fear. She willed back tears that would give her away completely. She hadn’t been in danger; her assailant had. He’d walked away with his life by a hair’s breadth. But she’d forgotten the stark vulnerability of her form—that her person was forfeit in the lottery of men’s indiscriminate mercy.
“Impotence,” she murmured into her scarf, and Smalls stumbled as he turned back into the tavern, throwing a puzzled look over his shoulder.
Pike regarded her. “I have it on good authority that MeerRa is holed up in the ruins of Soth AhlZel on Munt Zelfaal. Very good authority. You know something different?”
Ahr wrapped her coat tighter against the wind. A dust of snow was falling. “I do.”
Twenty-four: Impetuosity
Pearl drew feverishly, as he’d once done after Ra’s renaissance, drawing as if he could bring Ra to him. Though he hadn’t meant to consciously, it was exactly what he’d done from his mirrored cage. She’d come to Soth In’La and found him and set him free. It wasn’t his aim now—he was dangerous, and he wasn’t sure he ought to be set free—but he couldn’t stop himself from drawing Ahr with fascination.
Like Ra, she moved like an omen in shadow across the barren white landscape of the snow-shrouded moor with grace and speed, walnut hair streaming out behind her dark-clad form like the mane of a horse. And like a wild horse, she was easily riled, somewhat skittish, and her emotions unpredictable. He couldn’t see clearly when she’d gone inside the tavern, but he’d seen her come out. Pearl’s heart pounded with fear when he paused in his drawing and saw who followed her. Not the drunk, but the other who’d chased him away. The Meerhunter Pike had found Ahr.
But in the next drawing that came to him, she’d left Pike behind. Had Pike known what she was? Pearl didn’t think so. She was safe for now, and Pearl had the absurd feeling that as long as he drew her, he could keep her so. But that was foolish. He hadn’t been able to with Ra.
Pearl remembered drawing Ahr from the distant flow of Meeric history before she’d been Meer—the maiden Ra had taken to his bed. Through the passion of Ra’s blood, she’d burned almost as brightly as a Meer herself. And now she was Meer.
As was Merit. Pearl drew him also, MeerHraethe, whose throne Pearl had sat upon at the Meerhunter’s machinations. Pearl wondered what Hraethe would think of him now if he knew. He drew MeerHraethe in the bath, surrounded by candles, not noticing until his drawing was done that the fl
ickering glow of the lights around himself had become warm and steady like candlelight. He drew another, of Hraethe standing before a mirror, and for a moment, the reflective surface in the drawing seemed to waver, as though Hraethe might walk right through it—or Pearl might walk through his own picture into Ludtaht Ra.
He stretched out his hand and could almost feel the surface of the glass, just as he’d done from beyond his cage when Prelate Nesre had placed Ra within it in Pearl’s stead. Pearl had shattered the cage with his words and loosed Ra from it from over a mile away. He closed his eyes, and felt the fabric of space bend against his palm, as though the glass were made of water, pulled toward him as with the wake of a boat. With a shudder, Pearl jerked his hand back.
Conveying his thoughts to his guests on paper was tedious. Hraethe wished he could break Shiva’s petty spell. He imagined she’d done it to humiliate him, a punishment for his daring to desire her. Or at least to keep him powerless. He might be Meer, but he could no more speak his desires and make them manifest than he could when he’d been only Merit.
He’d explained, as well as he could—and within the bounds of propriety—how he’d come to be Meer after an ordinary lifetime. He said only that he’d been under a spell of forgetfulness of his own making so that he could watch over Ra. That much was technically true. He glossed over the bit about destroying his soth and killing himself for want of Shiva.
In return, Ume told him all that had befallen Pearl since he’d left Ludtaht Ra. Hraethe brought out the drawing Pearl had done to enchant him—it couldn’t influence him now, since the key to remembering Pearl had been remembering himself. Had Pearl known who Hraethe was, hidden within Merit? He didn’t think so. And yet the boy had tapped into his deepest subconscious and found Soth Szofl, MeerHraethe’s shame. How Pearl had ended up there of all places was still a mystery. Perhaps drawing it had conjured it for him.
But the greatest surprise in Ume’s tale was the knowledge that Cree was Pearl’s mother, the common woman Nesre had found to bear Alya’s seed. Ume too skipped over details, and Cree sat as quietly as Hraethe, letting Ume do the talking, but her suffering was palpable. Prelate Nesre had been more despicable than Hraethe had even imagined, and he found himself glad the man was dead to save Hraethe from losing control in tearing the miserable cur to shreds.
What was important now was getting Pearl back. That the ones Ume called the Hidden Folk had him in their realm was unconscionable. Hraethe couldn’t say how the name of the Permanence had come to him, but something buried in his memory told him these were the ones who’d given life to the Meer. Ume confirmed that the Hidden Folk avowed this to be so. They claimed to have retreated under the hill to avoid the atrocities of humankind, but had felt remorse for their lack of involvement in the affairs of their offspring after the shockwave of the Expurgation reached them. They’d sensed Pearl in his prison at In’La in Ludtaht Alya and had brought his mother and her lover under the hill to enlist their aid in freeing him.
Whether any of what the Hidden Folk said was true, Hraethe couldn’t be certain, but his memory insisted they belonged under the hill and had no business taking a Meerchild into their custody. He had a vague idea that they were no friends to the Meer, despite having been their source, but even how they were connected, he couldn’t recall. It was maddening, like an itch against the back of his throat, to have these incomplete memories, when everything else in his former life seemed to lie in stark relief—so stark, it made him cringe at his own foolishness.
How he would breach their realm, he wasn’t yet sure, but he wouldn’t rest until he’d done it and brought Pearl back. There had to be some other way besides the method that had brought both Cree and Pearl under, but if there wasn’t, Hraethe was prepared to do what he had to. He might not have his voice, but he’d given his promise on paper to Ume and Cree. He was Meer, and he would damned well keep his word.
Ahr returned before dawn, slipping noiselessly into the mound.
The two by the hearth were sleeping soundly as she descended the stairs. Her skin itched as though she were burning with fever, and she pulled off the coat and cap she’d conjured and hung them with the others in the entryway. Ra’s door stood before her, tucked beneath the spiral staircase. The light no longer showed beneath it. Ahr turned the knob and stepped inside, her breathing hot and rapid in her chest. Ra lay there in the dark, a stark, satisfied shape in the gray mist of half-seen night. Her face seemed to have its own illumination, a pale glimmer on the horizon that said her light only waited beneath it.
Ahr’s head was full of rage that only the Expurgation could still. The drunken Downser had only brought it more certainly to the fore. Her father had sold her for a trifle; her templar “husband” had desired her for her innocence, a prize to consume, and not a person; and Ra had used her to relieve the endless monotony of his pitiful Meeric existence.
He’d come to life within her. In the midst of his procession, in the midst of his glory and the begging of vetmas from the anonymous throngs, he’d experienced himself at last through the mirror of her body, through the hole into the world that he’d made of her. He had filled her with Mila, and he’d taken that too—a thing to reflect himself, to give himself value, not a person in her own right. RaNa, he’d called her: created out of him, of him, belonging to him, as if his semen were the only thing that made her who she was. Whether he truly believed he’d loved either of them was irrelevant, for even his love was a thing to make him feel the godhood of himself.
Ahr had no doubt Shiva would discover what she’d done. Shiva would exact the Meeric blood, spilling it out of Ahr through a hole more jagged and deep than the one Ra had torn in Ahr’s body at AhlZel. But Ahr would be free at least from the cursed blood, and she would have had Jak, for the few days of this brief incarnation—hers alone. Something MeerRa would never again possess.
Wind buffeting the window casements woke Jak just after dawn to find Ahr standing at the mirror, her face streaming with tears, fingers clutching the untidy brush of her hair.
“It’s all right.” Jak kissed her cheek. “We can fix it.”
Jak took her to the privy chamber and rummaged in the vanity for a small pair of scissors designed more to the task than the leather shears with which Ahr had accomplished the job, and began to trim what Ahr had done. Seated before the vanity, Ahr continued to weep as Jak brought the unruly strands into order. She could have spoken and restored her hair in an instant, but Jak preferred not to encourage her in that direction, and despite her weeping, she seemed content to let Jak work. The dark hair had a natural curve to it as it began to lie flat against her head, and Jak thought she was even more beautiful than she had been, with her cobalt eyes large in the tight-capped face. If only they weren’t so wet with red.
“It’s fine, Ahr. It really is,” Jak insisted. “Just look at yourself.”
“I am looking at myself.” Ahr took the damp cloth Jak offered and blotted at the stains on her face, peering closer into the mirror. She challenged her reflection. “Who on earth are you? I don’t know you.”
Jak got up from the stool beside her and went to the plank door that enclosed the running shower Rem had fashioned, complete with a small brazier kept glowing with coal to heat the water. It was one of the things that made RemPeta the pride of Haethfalt. Jak cranked the reservoir’s pump and stepped back to undress as the heat began to steam up the small closet. Ahr sat motionless, letting Jak come to her and loosen the tie of the robe she was wearing.
“Come on.” Jak drew her into the shower closet and closed the door.
They stood beneath the water and washed without speaking, the striking angles of Ahr’s accentuated face streaming with water. Jak kissed her and pulled her close, their wet bodies slipping against one another.
Ahr murmured into the flow of the water running between them. “If I asked you to choose between us, would you do it?” Jak stood still, holding her, as the heat
rolled over them. “You made me do it. I chose.”
Jak let the hot water beat against their skin for a moment, but Ahr was waiting. “If I had to, Ahr, I would choose you. Even with your Meeric blood, you’re like me. She is something…else. And I couldn’t bear to be without you again.” Ahr leaned her wet head against Jak’s shoulder, obviously relieved by the answer she thought Jak was giving—until Jak finished. “But I don’t want to choose.”
Jak had left her with no alternative.
Ahr dressed in the dark copy of Shiva’s clothing as Jak was preparing to head up to the barn for the morning chores. “I’ll feed the qirhu,” she offered. “I want to make myself useful.”
Jak stopped with one boot on and looked up at her. “It’s not just feeding, Ahr. I have to break up the ice on the watering trough and clean out their bedding. I’ll help you.” Jak stuffed the other foot into its boot.
“Ra can help me.” Ahr put on the leather gloves. “I want to talk to her.”
Jak observed her. “That’s good, Ahr. You should talk.”
Ahr nodded and left Jak sitting on the bed staring after her.
Ra was a late sleeper, and Ahr stood inside her door, once more watching her sleep. Ra looked rested and content. She had no right to contentment.
“Ra.”
She woke instantly, coal black eyes, like her soul, staring into Ahr’s. The bruise on her cheek was a dark, ugly mark impressed with the oval filigree of the silver brush. Ahr looked down at her hands. “I wanted to apologize. Could you—would you come up to the barn when you’re dressed? I’m taking care of the morning chores.”
A soft smile lit Ra’s face as Ahr lifted her head, dark eyes reflecting relief and longing in the dim morning light. “Of course.”
Outside, dawn was spreading cold and gray across the moor, wind whipping up whorls of snow on the path before her. Ahr pulled a weight before the barn door to prop it open, and watched as Ra approached, dressed too lightly in the garments she’d worn inside the cozy mound, her feet in a pair of fleece boots.
