by Janet Morris
I would, I knew upon awakening, contrive to speak again with Chayin. He, I was sure, knew more than he would say. Before, he had withheld from me that which he had adjudged me too weak to know. I rose, rubbed my eyes. Squinting out the window, my hand crushing the thick-napped drapery, I guessed it an enth before mid-meal. In the sky, full greened, I saw tiny specks rise and fall, chasing each other upon the wind. Hulions romped above the Lake of Horns. What part did they see for themselves in Khys’s hest? Why would they aid the dharen? One cannot constrain a hulion. They are the freest of creatures, primal proponents of the law within. If they lent their strength and their wisdom to Khys, his works must be potent indeed, in their sight. I longed for the sort, the spread of probability, to make itself known to me. I quivered, standing there, remembering the strength of the hesting skills I had once had. I, Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi, who had once made a world, who had once claimed the heritage of the sevenfold spirit, had by my own will come to this moment, undone. I had set my will against my father’s, and he had sent me to another who did likewise. But I had not known. The failing, as Estrazi had once warned me, was not in the power, but in the conception. My incredible foolishness had come to tithe its due. I had spent my power unwisely. You will not interfere with Sereth’s destiny, Estrazi had decreed. No, I would not. I could not interfere with a wirragaet’s destiny, now.
I threw myself upon the cushions, curling into a ball. Khys’s books jabbed at my hip. I could not, in any conscience, blame the dharen for what he had done to me, lest I shortchange my father. But my rage was deaf to reason, blind to the pattern I was only just apprehending, as it had been when it came to me, aforetime, and precipitated all that Khys had done to erase it.
I rolled onto my back, my fists clenched around the chald I bore. If I had not blared my hate at him when first we laid eyes upon each other, how might it have gone? But the hate had come unbidden, out of owkahen, out of what he would do to me, and thereby made it impossible for him to do differently. My head ached. I rubbed my fingers over my temples, unable even to rid myself of simple physical pain. I did not like what I had seen, these past enths, and I felt no better for the seeing.
Blame him? Myself harangued me. Of course you can blame him. He demanded that he be ceded casual responsibility when Sereth, Chayin, and I had been brought before him, battle-torn, bleeding, and bound. I am the sort and the hest, he had said. All that you have done is my will, he had boasted. And my father’s hest—he had claimed it his tool, and called it paltry. The hest of a Shaper, a world creator, he had downgraded.
I rose, pressed my head against the cool pane, watching my breath mist its surface. There was no use searching relevance in Khys’s actions, no more than in my father’s. I had learned that lesson upon Mi’ysten. The only relevance is that of consummated will, upon the plane where Khys and Estrazi did battle.
But the question remained in me—whose hest had Chayin locked into with his own? Was it a father’s, or Khys’s own machinations upon the time? And whose will, between them, would be done? Often hests run congruent for a space, gaining power from such synchronistic periods, causing great chunks of crux when they part. I sighed, backed from the window. My foot came down upon one of the dharen’s volumes, twisted. I stumbled amid the cushions, knelt down to rub my wrenched ankle. I recalled Carth’s anger when he had read that paper I had long researched for him, in which I postulated certain conclusions drawn from the genealogical records kept at the Lake of Horns. His anger, that I could have suggested Khys’s longstanding breeding program faulty, was vehement, of greater violence than I had deemed him capable, so great that he had refused to pass the work to the dharen, so great that he had, before my eyes, torn it into tiny scraps. And he had made me do another, upon a specified subject in which I had no interest. I wondered, sitting there, rubbing my aching ankle, why I had recalled it.
You may be mad, still, I chided myself, my mind bucking and twitching like some unbroken threx at first saddling. This situation might bring madness upon a more stable mind than my own. I thought, momentarily, of the child, then chased the image from my mind. I cared not what they did with it, nor into whose hands its care devolved. I had wanted, desperately, to bear a child to Sereth. Circumstance, or owkahen, had prompted Sereth to refuse me. Surely it would have been a child of which both of us could have been proud. But he had refused, and I had not the will to go against his wishes. I saw him, a cascade of memories we had built together, upon the trail to Santha, at Tyith’s death, under the falls, with Estrazi’s cloak upon his shoulders as he had been that day we did battle upon the plain of Astria. He had lost, and lost again, and yet he lived. There was that. He lived. I took comfort in it. I would, I avowed, do nothing to endanger his life. If I served Khys well enough, I might even come into some small influence over the dharen. If so, I would be able to discharge some part of that obligation I felt. But to do so, I must quiet the love I had for Sereth. There was no trickery I could play upon Khys, no deceiving such sensing as the dharen possessed. So I came to it, the decision I made upon my recollection of self, with so little cognizance of my true situation. But any choice is better, I told myself, than making none. That rule, first of mind skills, always holds true. I would serve Khys, who in my best evaluation was an unknown. I had been placed here by a convocation of will that I might do so. I would let the past go. If I could, I would ease Sereth, free him of his love for me. Unencumbered, he could seek another; one the Weathers would allow him. I would do my best not to further enrage the dharen. I would come to some terms with my crippled state without seeking to place blame, for in truth, there is ever only will, and the responsibility for one’s actions.
I guessed it near to mid-meal, bare iths from the time the dharen had bade me be ready. I looked, unhappily, at his books, regretful that I had not even started them. Khys had, I was sure, specific reason for presenting me his works. I gathered them up, slid back the wardrobe’s thala panel, placed them with my things there. I promised myself I would attack them with my full attention at the earliest opportunity.
There was a white length of off-world silk, laced with threads of silver, among the wraps Khys had provided. I chose it. I would wear my old colors, those of Well Astria. I wondered, as I draped the short length around me, fastening it with a spiral clip of silver at my throat, at the gift my father had left within me for the dharen. I ascertained, reviewing my assessment, that he had not himself tried to extract any knowledge from me at that time. He had only watched, while his council tried their skills upon me. Rethinking it, I saw that they, in those moments, had also been assessed by their master. I giggled, a bit hysterically. He had either known I would give the sequences up to him, or made me do so. He had been in no hurry. I wished him better luck with those skills than I had had. They were not meant to be wielded in the domain of space and time. I had learned them upon Mi’ysten. I had paid dearly for them. Even upon the dharen, I would not wish such as had come to me, when I used them against Raet. I sighed, taking up the comb of carved bone he had allowed me. I needed it. There was a time I might simply have hested my hair smooth and shining. I stepped from the wardrobe, intending to avail myself of the alcove’s midday sun.
He was standing there, his hair water-sparkled. He must have just come from the baths.
“Have you been here long?” I asked, nonplussed.
“I do not need to be near you, to hear you if I choose,” he said quietly, brushing past me into his storeroom. He took a circlet tunic of dark, soft tas, and buckled it about him. Then he clipped a cloak, upon which the Shaper’s seal blazed brightly, to his shoulders. It might have been the one Estrazi had given me, or its double. I did not ask. He did not volunteer the information.
I tucked the white and silver silk beneath my chald, set the hip clip tighter, conscientiously driving each question from my mind as it appeared. He slid shut the panel which enclosed the wardrobe, leaned against the night-dark wood. I stood still and straight under his scrutiny, aware that he m
ight take exception to the colors I had chosen, or the way I had fastened the silk at my throat, obscuring my band of restraint.
“You look lovely. I question the ease with which you have taken to your new perspective.”
“I look reasonably well. I could do with a circle partner; daily work upon my body must soon commence. Also, with your permission, I would be allowed an enth, say at sun’s set, for dhara-san. As for perspective, I have not enough information to have one currently.” I heard my own voice, soft and sure, poised. I smiled to myself. I had me—much more than Khys’s Estri had ever had.
“I will find someone,” he granted. “A man, most likely. We do not have a woman in training for the Slayer’s chain, here at the lake.”
“You do not wholly approve?” I licked my lips, widened my eyes at him.
“On the contrary, I think it wise of you to find some way to vent your frustrations. Just do not kill any of my arrars,” he said, mocking, fiercely.
“I promise.” I grinned genuinely. “I will not. It would much ease me if you allow me a less sedentary life.”
“As trustworthy as you prove yourself, that much more freedom will I allow you. Are you hungry?”
“Desperately.”
He inclined his head, ran his fingers through his still-damp hair. “That is the first time you have ever, since I have known you, expressed any interest in food.” One of his brows drew down. He extended his hand to me.
“You have not known me, Khys,” I murmured, taking it, “only in battle shock, and then that shadow child you made me.”
The cloak he wore, with the Shaper’s seal upon it, brushed my arm. My hip, as he walked beside me, rubbed against his thigh. He did not bother to lock his keep, but left the doors ajar.
I examined the passage, the tapestries and artwork displayed upon its walls, with an eye that could appreciate them. He allowed me stop before the hulion tapestry. Long I gazed upon it. Only in Nemar had I seen its equal. Tenager, First Weaver of the Nemarsi, had attained near the skill of the artist who had worked those hulions upon the grid. So real were they that their eyes, as one shifted, took deep glow and seemed to follow, so real that it could not be said for certain that those tufted tails, one black, one red, had not just twitched as one looked above their bloody heads at the krits that jabbered soundlessly, ever-leaping from branch to branch above their pointed ears.
He touched me lightly, his palm at the small of my back, led me toward the stairs.
“I would see Santh,” I whispered, unsteady, leaning against his arm.
His glance, sidelong, was ruminative. The tendons in his neck corded. I was about to withdraw my request, my foot descending the second stair.
“After the meal, we will see to it,” he said. I almost stumbled. Still were the effects of uris on me, I thought as I caught myself. And that brought another thought to mind.
“It was not uris, was it?” I ventured. It had not been uris that had stripped me of skill and self-knowledge.
“It was uris that so weakened you that I could take you. It was uris that caused the scarring you yourself have seen. But it was not any one thing, unless one might call the Weathers to account. Or Shapers. It was my will, but if I could have done it some kinder way, I would have.” He glanced at me again, his jaw slightly forward, his fine nostrils flaring.
I said nothing. Khys was many things, kind not being one of them. And yet, I knew nothing of the constraints put upon him by his hests. And if he would shape, he would be even further bound. Or did he think that upon that plane he could, as he had done upon Silistra, make his own rules? I paced him down the stairs, silent.
“Estri,” he said to me when we gained the landing of the ground-floor hall with its ceiling of golden scales, “are you actually concerned?” His tone held some little incredulity.
“I am empathic by nature,” I mumbled. He snorted softly. “I once went against Shapers. I set my will against Estrazi’s. I lost.” I straightened my shoulders, remembering that my first manuscript had never appeared upon Silistra. “I thought, in my audacity, that I might free us from the manipulation of Raet’s ilk.” I laughed, then wished I could call back the ugly sound of it.
He pushed open the door to his study, held it for me. The round table was set. The entrapped stars that lit the muraled ceiling came alight with their master’s entrance. I swallowed, and then again, as water came anticipating into my mouth.
“What your father left for me will be of great aid in achieving that goal,” he said, motioning me to table.
“I hope so. But I wonder. I think you have not been with him. He left you a gift. It had some purpose. That information was never accessible to me. I knew not of its presence until you bespoke it.” I settled into the thick-padded chair. Khys served me charred denter, red-running with blood, a heap of zesser greens. The drink in its silver pitcher was a light-milled brin. It frothed in the silver goblets, whispering.
“Your concern is duly noted,” he mused. At least he did not discount my impressions. I was heartened. Half an enth later, he leaned back in the chair, regarding me over steepled fingers.
“Little saiisa,” he called me. I looked up from the fat edge of my meat, where I had been searching another edible bite. “You may have more.”
“No,” I demurred, pushing my plate away and my hair back from my face. “I must increase my intake with moderation.” He himself had only half-cleared his plate. Khys’s Estri interpreted his narrow-eyed gaze, quailed before it. I steadied my breathing, pushed back my shoulders.
Khys leaned forward, his elbows upon the table. The robe fell back from his hair-gilded forearms. He laced his fingers. “Tell me of Mi’ysten,” he commanded.
As I did so, I recollected the time he had spoken to me of fathers, of Shapers. All that he had said had been concerned with their work in space-time. When I spoke of Estrazi, he leaned forward, almost imperceptibly. Twice he nodded. Once he asked me to repeat information—that which Estrazi had said to me concerning him. Having done so, I fell silent. Innumerable questions threatened to overflow the dam I had constructed in my mind to hold them, wash me away with their tide. Sweat formed beneath my breasts, rolled down my rib cage, past my waist, before the silk absorbed it.
He rose abruptly, and the whirl of his cloak as he turned away sent his silver goblet clattering, spraying brin to the floor. He paid no attention. I retrieved it, placing it carefully upon the table. It stood askew upon its base, dented. I took a meal cloth and set to sopping up the brin puddling the silvery mat, glad for something upon which to turn my attention.
“No,” he said softly. I stopped what I was doing, sitting back from the stains over which I knelt.
“Dharen?” I said. Did he wish me to leave the brin to soak into his priceless mat?
“No, I said,” he repeated, whirling, the cloak lashing around him. “It cannot be that simple. You are the courier of his propaganda.”
And I remembered that, even to Estrazi, Mi’ysten hests are invisible when set within time. How much more, then, to Khys, would Shapers’ design be obscured?
“Estri,” he said, exasperated, “be silent.” I had said nothing. I crouched small upon the mat. He sought and regarded his domain through the cloud-draped windows.
And the bearer of his gift was I, also: I had come to the dharen complete with couch-gift, available only to the mate for whom I had been intended. I cursed them both. A deadly gift it might come to be. The thought cheered me, as my ambivalence hissed and slithered in its cave deep within my heart. I pressed my palms against my temples, that I might quiet myself somehow. I held my breath, fearful. But Khys either heard not, or cared not.
“Let’s us go and find your hulion,” he said, abandoning the window.
I scrambled in a most ungraceful fashion to my feet. A grin, fleeting, lit his features. He swept by me, out of his study. I trotted after him.
“If you were in charge of the standardizing of the Parset Lands,” he asked when I had gained his si
de, “what would you do with rebellious tiasks?”
“Against what are they rebelling?” I found it hard to pace him. We took a left into the main hall. Tiny, down that interminable corridor of archite, were the great doors and those who attended them.
“We have outlawed the wordship of Tar-Kesa, torn down his temples. We have now in the south real dhareners, and uniform chaldra, and Slayers. There is no place for a force of such women. A number of them, disdaining Well work, have gainsaid their chalds and roam the land in bands.”
“I can imagine.” I thought of Nineth as a well-woman. I laughed aloud. “Are there still crells in the Parset Lands?” I asked.
“Yes. What they do with their chaldless is their own affair.”
“Catch them. Make crells of them. Even better, for each tiask put in crell chains free a female crell and install her in your new Wells. The gene pool will be served, both ways. As crells or well-women, the tiasks will get men’s use, according to their desirability. And there are some worthy women, crells in Nemar.” I recollected Khemi, and those dark girls Chayin had kept in Nemar North. “It is harder to envision a tiask as well-woman than crell,” I added. “They are not fond of men, as a principle.”
Khys laughed as we came up to the doors. “I will suggest it to the cahndor. It is much less complicated than his plan, or mine, and a good bit more realistic.” He touched me, left me to converse with the black guard. When he returned, his straight nose was bracketed at the brow by two deep lines.
“Come,” he said very gently, “let us seek the hulion.” He put his arm, protective, about my shoulder. His long-fingered hand, closing on my shoulder, squeezed reassuringly. He led me, thus, out the doors into the midday.
