by Janet Morris
He could not blame me, surely, if he had seen it. If his mind had touched it, he would not be angry. I leaned back against the window, waiting.
It was more than twice the third-enth Carth had given me before those doors opened and he motioned me to him, his concerned eyes admonishing as I passed by him into Khys’s personal quarters.
The dharen stood by the gol table, stripping off trail gear as blue-black as the thala walls. His copper hair glinted golden from the tiny suns, Day-Keeper-made, that hovered near the hammered bronze ceiling.
Carth crossed the thick rust rug, soundless, to speak with him. Then only did Khys look at me. I pressed back against the doors, trembling. His face, in that moment, had been terrible with his wrath.
Carth made obeisance to him and left the outer doors.
The dharen paid me no mind, but stripped himself of his leathers and weapons. I watched him, the only man that had ever touched me. I had forgotten him, his long-legged grace, his considerable mass so lightly carried, his ruddy, glowing skin.
In his breech, he went and poured himself some drink and took it to his rust-silked couch. Upon it he sat cross-legged, sipping slowly, his eyes regarding me over the bowl’s golden rim. The crease between his arched brows deepened. He threw the emptied bowl to the mat, where it rolled silently upon the thick pile. My throat ached, looking at him.
Then I recalled to myself that which he had done to me, and that which he had not done. I tossed back my hair and pushed away from the door.
“I was told you wished to see me,” I said quietly, my fists clenched at my sides.
He stared at me a time in silence through those molten, disquieting eyes. I felt my palms slick under his indolent, possessive scrutiny.
“Take that off,” he ordered. “I would see how childbearing left you.”
I flushed, but I untied the s’kim and dropped it.
“Turn,” he said. Shaking with rage, I did so, kicking my abandoned garment from my path. When I came again to face him, I put my hands on my hips.
“Well?” I demanded, shaking my hair over one breast.
“Do not stand like that!” he snapped. My hands went to my sides. “Come here.”
“Khys!” I objected. My head exploded with pain. I sank to my knees, my hands clapped over my ears. But they could not keep out that roaring. Then another pain, and my head was twisted back by the hair. By it, he pulled me up against him.
“How dare you withhold sustenance from my son?” he demanded. I thought my neck would snap. His other hand held my wrists against the small of my back. “How dare you come to me in such arrogance?” He shook my head savagely, his words hissing a fine spray upon my cheek. “You have disobeyed my expressed wishes. You will not do so again. When I am finished with you, you will not be so presumptuous.” Lifting me into the air, he threw me against the wall above the couch. I struck it with my back and shoulder with such force that the breath was driven from my lungs.
He stood, spread-legged, looming over me. I did not move. I lay very still, as I had fallen, that I might not further enrage him. My mouth was foul with fear. My mind cried and whimpered. I raised my face to him, pleading. His thick-lashed eyes, half-closed, were unreadable.
“Khys, please,” I begged him, hoarse. “I could do no different. It is a monster, a beast. Please, I tried. It drove me mad. It tried to kill me. Punish it, not me.”
His nostrils flared. He shook his head, his mouth twisted in disgust. “Sit on your heels,” he commanded.
I did so, my whole body sheened with sweat, my knees pressing into the couch silks. My arms clasped about me, I shivered in spasms. I hardly knew him, the dharen. Never before had he raised a hand to me.
“You had not given me cause,” he said. Still did he breathe heavily, still was his body taut with rage.
I ran my hands through my hair, tearing it from my eyes, trying desperately to stop thinking. But I could not. I was hypnotized by him, poised menacing above me. I felt as I had with the hulion—trapped, defenseless, vulnerable.
“I am frightened,” I whispered, my eyes downcast.
“That shows you are not totally mad,” he said. Hearing the amusement in his voice, I raised my head. I recalled his face as it had been when I had lain near death with his child in my belly, his concern, his compassion. I saw, now, no trace of such emotions.
He stripped off his breech. I sat very still, watching the play of muscles across his back.
“Once,” he said softly, straightening up, “you asked me to teach you your femaleness. I thought you too weak, then. I did what needed done, and nothing more. Doubtless your failure to function as a woman lies partly upon me, I am going to attempt to remedy the situation before it kills you.”
But when he came toward me, I could not do it. I could not sit and let him vent his anger upon me. I fled, as far as he allowed. When he chose, I found myself imprisoned within my own body, and it, of its own accord, returning to him. He stood calmly by the couch and took my flesh from my control. I could not speak. I found myself at his feet, my head pressed to the mat.
He let me try those bonds, for a while, let me dance upon the brink of madness. When he took his will from my limbs, I did not move.
He flipped me casually onto my back, crouching down, menacing. His large head came close to mine.
“Lie still, and do as you are told. Only that, no more.” And I did so, until I forgot, in my need, his instruction. The taste of blood in my mouth, the flat of his hand against my searching lips, reminded me. I laid my head back against his thigh as my body leaped to him, pleading, I heard my voice repeating things he had bade me say, without understanding. And later, when his teeth and tongue were upon me, did I beg for his use. And I did for him what I had not known a man would ask of a woman, whimpering. And he, raised on stiff arms above me, laughed. As he thrust into me, I sobbed his name, my love for him, my need. And then his weight came down and I could but cling to him as he rocked me. When I thought my bones would shatter, he grunted, shivered, and lay still.
He stayed with me, holding his weight upon one arm, stroking my hair back from my forehead.
“I needed you so much when I had the child within,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. “I have a world to run.” His eyes narrowed. I felt him, I thought, in my mind: “Do you know how lonely it is for me, locked up?”
“I can do nothing else with you.” He rolled away, onto his side. “But I will be here. My works are progressing nicely. I need not be elsewhere.
“I want you to understand something,” he continued, taking me into his arms. “I have what I wanted from you.” His voice was gentle. His hands wandered my hips. “I must see a radical change in your behavior to justify the trouble of you. Carth tells me it is doubtful that you would survive another pregnancy.”
“I do not take your meaning,” I said numbly.
“There are more than two thousand forereaders at the Lake of Horns, many extremely attractive, all skilled and cooperative. I cannot, for reasons I will not explain, put you in common holding.”
I rolled away from him. “Did the child please you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“But I do not.” My voice shook. I had been breeding stock to him. I was no longer useful as such.
“No,” he said. “You do not.”
“I did the best I could,” I flared. “I am ignorant of couch skills.”
He laughed, touching my lips with his finger. “It was a start,” he admitted. “If you live, you might learn to serve a man properly. You misunderstand me, or I give you more understanding of life here than you have.” He sat up, and pulled me by the hair into his lap.
“I had not intended to breed you again. If I do decide to do so, you may not survive it. I am not in need of a contentious, undisciplined female. Either you will become otherwise, or I will have to breed you to justify your existence.”
“Have to?” I asked. My terror of pregnancy and that of death balanced eve
n.
“You are coming up for assessment. I must follow my own rules, if I expect others to obey them.”
I shivered, buried my head in his lap. I thought of what I had read; I could not help it. I waited for the pain of his displeasure. It did not come. His hand went around my throat, lifted my head. He bent and pressed his lips to mine. I felt him move against my thigh. My hand sought him, and he allowed it. He bent his bite to my nipples, erect and waiting.
Something within me, turned and rustled in that couching, and halfway through it, when I choked and gagged on him, it woke itself to my aid. I shifted position, arched my neck slightly, and my discomfort disappeared. Easily, sure, I worked upon him, my lips against the very root of him, my nose in his golden hairs. And he shuddered and his hands came upon the back of my neck, and I let him slide forward, that I might get the taste of him. As he pulsed in my mouth, I ran my tongue, fast, hard, up and down the underside of him. And the dharen moaned and twisted, his hands convulsive upon me.
When he cursed, softly, laughing, I sat up to see him. My strangeness still upon me, I noted his fine-chiseled lips, swollen with his heat. Then I bent again, licking, nipping, and took from him that last aftertaste.
By criteria I had not known before, I read his body’s response, my cheek against his hard belly, that I might feel his excitement, judge it by the wane.
“Tell me again, dharen, what you might do to me, if I cannot sufficiently please you.” And I heard my voice, deeper and more upon breath, and it seemed to me that it was a stranger’s voice, with an accent I could not place.
He grunted, sat slowly. He cuffed me lightly, pushed my head from his lap, crossing his legs under him. I regarded him, discerningly, and found him not wanting.
“Insolent saiisa,” he growled, grinning. And I knew the word’s meaning, though it is man-slang, and Carth never spoke crudely. The word means coin girl, of the cheapest variety and questionable skill.
“I wish I were even that, rather than living my life in that chamber,” I said, the mood gone, and with it that odd confidence and comfort.
“You may have the both of them, yours and mine, for a while.” His eyes probed mine. “Is that one of those things a woman instinctively knows?” he asked, and I knew what he meant, but I had no answer. I smoothed the rumpled couch silks.
“Perhaps I read it,” I said. I wanted to crawl into his lap, curl into a ball, and sleep. More than I had wanted the child out of me, even, I wanted his approval. I recalled those nights, alone, I had cried myself to sleep over him. He stared at me, his head slightly cocked. I remembered my humiliation, that he would not even deign to use me, that he cared not even enough to check on the growth of his child in my belly.
I laid my hand upon his forearm, upon the copper, silky hairs there. His skin, a reddish gold, was shades lighter than mine, and the glow upon it was more pronounced.
“Khys,” I whispered, “keep me with you, please. I will be whatever you want. Just give me time.” I did not look at him. Tears I had thought long spent came and drowned me. “I love you,” I blurted, miserable, not understanding.
And he pulled me up beside him, and in those arms I poured out my pain to him, my confusion, my doubts. I begged him to explain why I wore the band upon my neck. I pleaded for my past, or some way he might know to make me whole without it. And I asked him of the child, and why it had been such a curse while residing in my womb. He said nothing, until I had finished, dry of words and tears both.
“I will discuss it with you,” he allowed, still holding me. “I am not prone to patience, I will speak of these things once, only. You will never ask me again.”
I nodded, my head pressed against his chest, where his copper hair grew thick.
“First the band. When and if you show signs of emotional stability, we will consider removing it. When you were progressing so well, those first passes, I had thought we might have done so by now.”
“It was the child, and the pain from its growth,” I whispered.
“And it was you who chose to experience your pregnancy as you did. Another woman would have, perhaps, enjoyed it, loved the child, and cried when it was taken from her. Still another might have filled her time with study, or some creative work. Females have been bearing young for thousands upon thousands of years.”
I pulled away from him. He looked at me narrow-eyed.
“I am not insulting you. I am going to explain something to you. You were, so to speak, born anew two years ago. You still gather the experiential perspectives most acquire when they are babies. You could not get them from lying hungry, denied mother’s milk. You could not get them learning to walk. You still gather the experiential perspectives; those upon which adult behavior must be based. Wait!” he snapped, as I sought to interrupt him. I sat back upon my heels.
“You wear the band. It is my will that you continue to wear it. If it pleases you to feel that you are unjustly marked by it, then feel so. The forereaders in common holding did not ostracize you of the band. Where there are women, there are great stores of information. I am sure they know all about you. You are not common-held. You come from the outside, but are complexioned as a blood princess among them. And those women from outside, perhaps rightly, hate the superior lake-breds. When I allowed it, I was sure you would not stay. I wanted you to realize the value of your isolation. You did not.
“No one has barred you from any studies you might have wished to pursue. Tutors of all sorts might attend you. One makes what one wants of the opportunities life presents.”
“But I may not walk the lakeside. I may not even walk the dharen’s tower.”
“You attempted suicide. We found it necessary to restrain you.”
“Before that?” I tossed my hair forward. It fell shining, past my knees, copper ends on the rust silks.
“It was too early. You were not ready. You are still not ready. If your memory does come back to you, and you have not become ready, it will destroy you. There is nothing I can do to hasten its return, nor would I choose to do so.” His voice had a tinge of impatience. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“And my child?” I asked him.
“Your child is no monster, only the first of its kind.”
“How can that be?” I shifted, knees aching.
He rose and filled two bowls from that golden pitcher and brought me one. I tasted it, found it fine kifra, dry and live. I sipped, laid the cool metal upon my thighs.
“Look at yourself,” he commanded. A muscle ticked upon his jaw.
I did, and back at him, my hand upon the bowl to balance it.
“Once the fathers spread their seed widely upon the land. We have long been about gathering up those offspring. You are one we missed. Surely you knew it when you saw your resemblance to the lake-born.”
I had considered it, but felt it some pretentious fantasy.
“But there are other children.”
“Other attempts. This is the first that has matched my vision.”
“I still do not understand.”
“I did not expect you would. But I have told you that you at least have some truths to work with, building your particular reality. Build it well, for you must live within that construction.” His voice had an edge, and he drained the bowl he held and set it down. My stomach lurched, tightened, as he approached.
“What is assessment?” I asked.
“You will find out, soon enough,” he said, taking the bowl from my lap. His long fingers fondled my breast. I twisted, that I might free myself.
“Do not flinch from me,” he ordered, but softly. “I would give you a few more truths for your reality. You are mine. I will do with you what pleases me. Lie back.”
I lay back, stretching my aching legs out straight.
“I do not wish to be touched, not now,” I objected, but I did not move away from his hand.
“Then do not wish it. Your wish has very little bearing upon what will occur, at this moment, or any other. But you will
wish it shortly. I promise you.”
I was his. And he did what he pleased with me, and within an enth, all I wished was his couching.
I found myself alone, in his chambers. The doors were not locked. He had looked back at me, almost smiling, and left one door ajar. And I had risen to my feet and gone to stand before them, my arms clutched around me, shivering. Freedom lay, doubtless not, out those doors. He would see me disobey him. Or perhaps he would see that I could not.
For I could not. I stared at the open door, sank to my knees. If I ran, he would find me and bring me back. I remembered his wrath. I recollected his strength. And I found that not only did I dare not run, but that I dared not displease him. I wondered how I could sit calmly with the open door beckoning, and not try.
I sat cross-legged, a luxury he would not have allowed me. Above my head, the tiny suns had dimmed, as ever when no Day-Keeper is within their range. To the miniature stars, each within its prison, I did not exist. I wondered if they were sad, and restless, as was in my constraint. And if there were any of them, for the bronze ceiling hosted twelve, that felt love.
I lay upon my stomach, on the rusty Galeshir carpet, humming softly, under my breath. My acknowledged couch-mate, the dharen, whom I had so fully served, was possessed totally of me. A responsive female he had made me. I smiled to myself. I was other than I had been, a few enths ago. And doubtless he would teach me to become still a different creature. I shivered. I wondered if the fear of him would pass.
Sighing, I rose and wandered the dharen’s lair, that I might know what such a man would choose to keep about him. Without a word, he had left me. I found myself at the gol table, a featureless translucent slab, upon which he had piled his trail gear. A straight-blade lay there, half the length of my arm, in a chased scabbard of green stra metal. Its hilt was inlaid with titrium wire, the butt of it a single fire gem.
I slid it from the scabbard, my hand upon the hilt. A strange thrill went through me, holding the weapon, as if I had held such before. Upon the stra blade was engraved a legend, in some unfamiliar script. And a symbol, one I had seen repeated upon the scabbard and hilt, a bursting spiral. And then I recollected the tune I hummed: Se’keroth.
