by Janet Morris
“What, exactly, did she say, from the beginning?”
Chayin recited it for us. Wiraal had arrived early. Celendra could do little else than serve them. The significance of a visit by so many Parsets was not lost upon her. She demanded his aid, and he referred her to the Slayers, to her own Day-Keepers. She fumed. Dellin pointed out that he could not be implicated in the disposal, out of hand, of twenty-two Parsets, at this moment. He suggested she bide her time until the ships came. She snarled at him. Chayin’s dark face bore a huge grin as he dutifully repeated every curse. In the end, Celendra had agreed. After all, Parsets are men, like any others, she had acknowledged. With that profound statement, she had broken the link.
Sereth was not pleased. Wiraal was too early to suit him. He knew Celendra. He had timed the arrival of the jiasks in Astria with that of certain other sections of his total force.
“It is too long between,” he said softly. “We will have to go in there now, take her, keep her there, and quiet, until Jaheil and the tiasks arrive. I do not like it. I cannot give her enough time to figure things out.” He slammed his hand upon the desk.
“Chayin! That man of yours needs a lesson. ‘By’ is not the same as ‘on.’ If he were one of mine, I would do without him.”
The Viable
The woman, alone, posited upon the gold square of prime mover, on the board of catalysts.
Though her legs tremble, she is supported by what comes to be between them.
One who submits to the bidding of the First Weather is upheld by gale and breeze, and the very mountains make haste to provide her a resting place upon their summits.
The weak is surmounted by the strong, and thus comes to contain its strength.
Only that which may be conceived can be done. It’ is necessary to prepare expectation concomitant with the fruitfulness of the time.
Adjuration: That which is born to fill a need is always strong enough, for the demands of the time provide helpers as they are needed. The principle of replication is raised here to its purpose. What profit to that force, if in its hour it quails and trembles? The seed when placed finger-deep in warm loam, commences the duty for which the time has prepared it. Though it may tremble when first it is buried in the earth, shut away from air and light, it knows its purpose. So must it be with the Viable. The seed does not draw back from the cracking of shell or the putting forth of blind shoots, lest it should lose them. The seed knows that to reach the light once again it must thrust upward until it breaks the surface asunder, and that at that moment of success it will be other than that which undertook the task. The seed does not fear the loss of its seedness, but recognizes the transformation as its destiny and goes to meet its fate with confidence, for within it is the conception of rebirth.
—excerpted from Ors Yris-tera 285
VIII. Well Astria Revisited
We stood knee-deep in the sewers that feed into the Litess. Above us was Well Astria herself, open, vulnerable. She was a high-couch woman, not built to withstand siege. Below us were the undertunnels through which we had come here, unobserved.
We had left Dellin, bound and gagged, in his outer court. The Liaison’s keep we sealed. It might stay sealed forever, as we had erased all entry prints from it, retroactive to our exit. The building had no friends, and would open itself to no one. None would make use of the tools within, at least not for a long time.
Our makeshift plan was much changed. Chayin had taken a different route than we, and by now he had surely bought his well token and reserved Celendra for this night, as Wiraal was supposed to do the next evening. He would be moving among his men, in the common room, spreading new orders. If he had found Celendra, he would be, even now, with her in my own chamber, where the ceilings had been muraled by the finest gol-etchers upon Silistra, and the sky came tinted through the translucent roof.
I sighed, and wrinkled my nose, wishing I were Parset and could fold my nostrils against the smell.
As a child, I had not been bothered by the smell. These watery, phospher-mold-covered stone conduits had been my refuge, my secret world. I ran my hand along the stones, seeking. One did not waste gol upon sewers. I recalled the raft I had assembled here, piece by surreptitiously acquired piece, on which I had poled my way through my fantasies when so young the sluggish water had been waist-high upon me.
We could probably have taken the stairs just behind us, and walked Astria’s back corridors unobserved. I judged it between eighth and ninth bell, busiest enth of the evening in any Well. The girls would be in the common room, bedecked, awaiting their patrons’ pleasure. The dining, drink, and drug chambers would be filled. It was the choosing hour.
Know you Astria? She is not as Arlet, where Liaisons’ and Day-Keepers’ school and Slayers’ hostel all exist within the outer walls. All that we need is brought to us from our dependent city, Port Astrin, south from here, where the Litess meets the Embrodming Sea. Between Astria and the port, upon the easterly banks of the Litess, lie the Day-Keepers’ school and the Slayers’ hostel, at a distance of some sixty and seventy neras, respectively.
I did not take us up those stairs, which would have led into the couching keeps. My fingers found what I sought at the level of my shoulder. I could barely make it out—the first stra rung of eighty, set into the stone, limned faintly with moss.
“Here,” I said, and my voice echoed back to me. Sereth’s hand touched the rung. I could feel Lalen’s bulk, ever behind me. “At the top is a stra trap, which may be lifted. These crawlways exist only in the older buildings. They are seldom used.”
Sereth swung lightly up the first rungs. High above us, twelve floors, lay the Keepress’ chamber, in the oldest and highest tower, which was once the whole Well. Now the Well curled around, her gleaming towers much multiplied, encircling a nera of open ground, but still was the first business of Astria pleasure and replication, carried on in this tower alone.
We climbed. I counted the slippery rungs. Once I lost my foothold, and my heel struck Lalen’s head as I hung by my hands’ grip. His fingers grabbed my ankle, steadied my weight, guided my foot back to the rung. I pressed my face against the cool stone, thinking of the fifty-rung drop.
When I had gained the seventy-first, Sereth lifted the trap. Light poured in through the opening, blinding after enths in the mold-lit dark. There should have been no light there. I scrambled the remaining rungs, disdaining caution.
Sereth’s hand reached down. I took it, and crouched beside him in the crawlway, bright with strung power globes and filled with cables like huge black Slitsas upon the got. I looked around in wonder. Astria was much changed. Above me were pipes of stra and copper—the plumbing that had been once the primary reason for these passages.
Sereth must have read my face. He pulled me gently away from the trap as Lalen’s head appeared in it. The two of them lowered it soundlessly into place. “The Keepress’ chamber,” he reminded me gently.
“The Keepress’ chamber,” I repeated, dazed. How dare she string lights in my crawlways? And for what conceivable purpose? Every torch sconce in Well Astria was a precious stone, sculptured by a master's hand. Sereth pushed me, hardly more than a nudge. The glare of the naked globes did ugly things to his skin and to the scar upon his cheek. I shook off my feelings, and, half-crouched, led us down the crawlway. I found my smallness an advantage; the men had to go on their hands and knees, slowly. Lalen’s shoulders brushed the walls. I took us up an ascending passage, then right upon level surface, then again right into a sloping, curving tightness that would lead, directly, to my old keep. Even in the olden days of this tower’s building, when we were so few and fresh from war that none would raise hand to another, it was thought that the Keepress might need her own exit.
It was slow going. My knees hurt, and my palms stung. Lalen cursed continually the close walls that abraded him. When we reached the passage landing, a small level space before a wall of amber gol, the stra door set into it was locked tight from the inside.
I sat between them, where they huddled upon the landing. The door was crouched-woman-sized; I hoped Lalen could squeeze through it. We waited.
After a time we heard voices beyond the wall. All that could be told from them was that one voice was male, the other female. Sereth, needlessly, put his fingers to his lips. Lalen drew his gol-knife.
The voices changed their tenor, grew faint. Perhaps a quarter-enth passed. I shifted my weight. Sereth hissed at me.
At that moment there was a creaking, and the low stra door was swung back from the inside, exposing a Parset rug that did not belong there. Crouched upon it, peering at us, was Chayin. Torchlight flickered over his hugely grinning face. She had had the grace to leave the sconces, then. I crawled through first, at the cahndor’s wordless invitation, wondering what had become of my white-upon-white floor tapestry, that one I had commissioned in exotic Galesh.
Then I saw Celendra. In mid-crawl, I saw her, and rose up on my knees. She lay upon that red mat she must have brought with her from Arlet, all bound up in her Arletian love chains. They are women’s chains, strong enough, yet light. They would not chafe her black and shapely wrists like crell chains. Objectively, I admitted that she was very lovely, lying there, bound and gagged with her own thigh-length black hair. Chayin had balled a great wad of it and forced it into her mouth, taking more of her silken mane and binding it across her mouth, then tying a great knot at the back of her dusky neck. Her gold-green eyes stared over her gag, terrified. I did not blame her, Chayin can be truly terrifying. He had bound each hand to her ankles, between which she had a handbreath slack of links, as is often done with pleasure chains. She was leashed to the foot of my Astrian couch, on six links of tether.
It struck me funny. I knelt, laughing softly, until Sereth pushed me out of his way. I fell to my side and lay there, smiling. When Celendra saw him, she closed her eyes. Trembling, she bowed her head to the extent her leash allowed it.
Lalen squeezed through and closed and locked that half-door, his quick eye even replacing the rusty curtain that Chayin had thrown back to expose it. Chayin, who sat now upon the rumpled couch covers, was fully dressed. In his hand he held a braided strap, of the sort with which Parsets discipline women. Wide it is, and not fearsome in itself. Wielded by Chayin’s strength, by a man’s strength, it was a very terrible instrument indeed. I recalled the feel of that strength when I had displeased him in the desert. I looked around. I might have been in Arlet, rather than Astria. Celendra had brought all her accouterments with her. She had played at submission a long time. But now she shook with fear. She would find out how the reality differs from the fantasy. She moaned softly. She would moan often, as a crell. She did not know, of course, unless her forereading had told her, that she would be crell. I found it satisfying. There is never ease between beautiful women. I took pride in my position of high favor with these powerful men, and joy that she was not so favored. I stretched out upon one hip and crooked my leg. I was no longer angry. Celendra would get exactly what she deserved.
“I bought her token from Wiraal, and one for tomorrow night, also. I paid, even, a deposit for overage, that I might have her undisturbed from now through the morning of second seventh. The fee was exorbitant. She was flattered, and so should she have been. I have better cleaning threx stalls in Nemar. It was hard for me to believe,” said Chayin, grinning broadly, his face turned so she could not see it, “that this was truly the Well Keepress, when I found her. I told her I would have no lesser in my arms. That is the truth. I think I have never had.”
Sereth had walked around Celendra and was leaning against the window. When I lived here, those windows had no M’ksakkan crystal in them. The room was all reds, browns, and blacks. I looked up at the ceiling that was also roof to this tower. That, at least, was unchanged. Once a year, the stars lined up with the etchings of the constellations. It is a glorious sight, upon the anniversary of the Well-raising. This night, it was not unlovely.
I went to Sereth, thinking to give solace. His face was against the pane, his shoulders hunched. Only when I peered up into his eyes did I realize I could not give it.
I reminded myself that this woman had birthed him his only son. That in her, he saw Tyith, and what she had done to him in revenge for the boy’s death. That she had known Tyith would die, I did not doubt. What lay between them, that a woman would sacrifice her own son to destroy the man who had brought that child upon her? I touched him, wordless, and to my surprise, he took me under his arm and laid his chin upon the crown of my head. I felt the stiffness leave him. I kissed the hollow in his neck, running my tongue there lightly.
“Be silent in this,” he whispered to me, “unless I ask you to speak, no matter what is said.” He looked down upon me sternly.
“I promise,” I said, and a smile touched him.
Forever he was silencing me, and forever I disobeyed him, without meaning to do so.
There was a sharp, muted, sound, the sound of lash upon flesh. We both turned. Chayin struck her once more upon the back. The leather hissed, parting her skin. She lunged upon her tether and presented her buttocks to him. He greeted them with a restrained stroke. Welts rose high and angry upon her black cheeks.
“She likes that,” said Sereth dryly. “Do not give her too much.” But those devastating, knife-sharp blows were not to Celendra’s liking. She wriggled and cried out around her gag. Chayin, for all his punishing savagery, was very careful. And I realized he did not use his full strength upon her. He struck always as men strike women, judging, giving quarter, and even that was too much for her. Huddled before him, her neck stretched to the tether, she seemed smaller than I remembered her. Chayin, put down the lash.
He leaned over, twisting her head back. The couch creaked with the strain as the leash hummed taut.
“Do you like that?” he asked her, his face close to hers, shaking her head back and forth. She made noises around her gag. There were tears in her eyes. “Blink if you like being whipped.” Celendra did not blink. “Good,” grunted Chayin. “You are not supposed to like it. When you are crell, you will bring me the lash in your teeth, upon your knees, begging.”
Celendra struggled wildly. She was half Parset, and she knew, better than I had known, what it meant to be crell. Chayin arched her back by the hair until she lost her balance and fell heavily, her body held off the ground by the collar and leash.
“Estri, Sereth, come sit here.” I ran my palms over my face, that I might smooth away any shadow of my mixed emotions. I went and sat by Chayin, where he patted the couch beside him. Celendra’s knees were at Chayin’s feet. Sereth came and sat near me. He looked down at her, his face cold. She met his eyes, pleading, shaking her head to and fro; little strangled noises came out of her. I put my hands around Sereth’s arm, leaned my head against it. Celendra watched me. I smiled politely.
“We have not been,” said Chayin to her, “properly introduced. I found it served me to fabricate a name,” he explained to Sereth, who needed no explanation. “Jasrey aniet Saer”—he grinned—“is the name I used, if you have need to call me by it.”
“Son of a threx, are you?” Sereth laughed. Celendra looked between them, horrified, understanding. “Let me introduce you two properly. Celendra Doried bast Aknet, meet the man that set your father about the chaldra of the soil; Chayin rendi Inekte, chosen son of Tar-Kesa, cahndor of Nemar, cahndor of Menetph.”
Celendra found strength in her to renew her struggles. Chayin kicked her casually in the diaphragm. She choked and coughed and finally knelt quiet, her head down. Tears fell upon her breasts, ran off those dusky nipples, raining down upon her thighs and knees.
“Stop it, crell, or I will give you a beating worth such a production!” Chayin, snapped, irritated. Celendra sniffled. Her shoulders ceased heaving. She straightened perceptibly.
Chayin ran the length of braided leather back and forth between his long-fingered hands. Celendra watched the motion, hypnotized. If she had been a man, it would have been the
sharp-fanged huija he used upon her, and her back no more than shredded flesh upon exposed bone. I had seen it. Celendra had not. The welts she bore were nothing. I knew. She did not know. I shot a glance at Lalen, sitting cross-legged before the rust-toned curtain, drawn sword on his knees. Lalen, I saw, also recollected what it was to be crell. His stony face showed his contempt for her, she who did not know.
“That is better,” said Chayin. “Straighten your back. Pull your stomach in. Throw those breasts out.” With each order, he slapped the leather loudly against itself. She was quick to obey him.
“Celendra ...” Sereth said softly. She flinched as though she had been struck, and raised her face to his. “We know about your arrangement with M’ksakka. Your friend Dellin lies bound and gagged, helpless in his own keep.” Celendra shuddered. Her head bobbed. Her shoulders sank, and she slumped. Chayin brought the coiled lash down hard across her breasts.
“I told you to sit up,” he said. She sat up, her eyes upon Chayin’s hands. She had begun to sweat. Little beads of it broke out upon her forehead, between her breasts.
“I have given you to Chayin. Do you understand that? So sure were we, so easy was it to take you, that your fate was decided a set before you fell to us. You have been a crell this whole time—Chayin’s possession, only you did not know it. Now you know. You, by my will and design, shall be less than a beast of burden in Nemar. I gave you to him. You are his.”
Celendra’s body pleaded with him. If she could, she would have kissed his feet. She could not. All she could do, she did—widen her eyes and tremble and make tiny noises like some poisoned yit.
“As you may know, there are many different kinds of crells,” said Chayin informatively. I thought of those oiled, fragrant girls he had kept at his palace in Nemar North. I thought of the cell where I had been chained. “What your lot is like depends on you. Though you are surely no man’s ten, you might keep yourself from the mines. We shall see. I will free your tongue, and with it you will choose for me. You will repeat exactly what I say. You will beg to live, as crell to me.”
