by Janet Morris
“What is it?” I blurted, my throat aching, the hairs standing away from my skin.
“Nothing I can discuss with you,” he said, still in that compassionate tone. I shivered, though the day was mild and fair. Down by the lake he guided me, along the promenade, settling finally upon one of the white gol benches.
He sat, pensive, staring out over the lake’s green-gray raggedness. That same breeze had me holding my mane at the base of my neck, that it not blind me. Khys’s copper hair whipped around his face. The wind, up out of nowhere, died abruptly.
“I cannot call him,” I reminded Khys’s sullenly.
“I had thought you might like to try.” His eyes closed momentarily, as a bitter laugh escaped my lips.
Santh was quick to answer Khys’s summons. From the southeast he came, from behind us. His snapping wings sounded warning only moments before he landed. Khys, of course, had known from whence the hulion came. He had only stared off across the glassy becalmed water. Gone where I could not follow, was Khys.
“Santh,” I cried, delighted at the sight of him. I was on my feet, running, as his clawed forepaws touched the ground. Wings furling, he roared his greeting, loud as the falls for which I had named him. His great mouth open wide, tongue darting amid blade-sharp fangs, he trumpeted again. And I stopped. The hulion flattened his pointed ears to his head, his tufted tail lashing. His pupils distended, muzzle jerking, he twisted his head about. His growl was distinctly angered. I put out my hand, the right, very slowly. The hulion sank to the grass.
“Santh,” I whispered. One ear twitched. Muzzle shivered up, exposing his weapons, white and gleaming. “I know, Santh, I know. But it is me.” The hulion was upset. I could not hear him. His mind-touch could not reach me. He snarled, rose sinuous to all fours, sank down again, belly first, upon the grass. His great claws clacked, repeatedly retracted. “Santh.” I got down upon my knees, that our eyes be level, still holding out my right hand. He stretched his neck, his hindquarters wriggling. His wet, hot-breathed nose nudged my fingers. I scratched there, watching his luminous pupils dilate. He extended his neck still more. A rolling rumble began in his throat. Those great eyes closed. His tail curled in against his side and lay still. Swallowing the catch in my throat, I stuck my hand deep in his ear, rolled it around, fed him the wax I scooped out. He opened one eye. His right paw reached out. He laid it upon my closed thigh. Its spread covered them.
I heard Khys moving about. Santh’s ears flicked forward, stayed pointed behind me, upon my left. He ceased his satisfied growling, muttered to himself. The hulion retrieved its paw from my lap, sat up, front paws tucked between rear. Santh had much grown since I had last truly seen him. I found my fingertips at my band of restraint, with an effort disengaged them.
Santh regarded me, speaking plaintively in hulion. His tail again flogged the grass. He rose up, took a step forward, butting his huge head against my chest. I threw my arms around his furred neck, buried my head there, smelling the pungent airiness of him. Oh, Santh, I love you, I thought, wondering if he could hear me.
He pulled his great head away suddenly. A thrill of fear constricted my belly. He hissed. I had never heard such a sound from him. He backed away, his head snaking low, from side to side, growling. Then he whirled, and in one bound had the air, the crack of his wings blocking my ears, the wind of it slapping me back. I watched until he was a dot in the deep green sky, until the dot disappeared.
I turned to Khys. I had seen the hulion. He had allowed it. His one hand toyed with the great chald of Silistra, the other hid within the cloak licking around him. He watched me intently.
I would not cry. I had upset my tenuous equanimity. I had disturbed Santh. I rubbed my naked arms with cold, moist palms.
“I will take you back,” he offered. I nodded, fell in beside him. He put arm and cloak around me, for warmth. I smiled up at him, thankful for the small kindness. You are not what you were, I told myself fiercely. You will never be. Be at least strong. Behave with grace.
“As befits a Shaper’s daughter,” remarked Khys, softly mocking, or commiserating, I knew not which.
“Have you any message for me, from Santh?” I asked, as he headed us toward his tower. The sound of it was more bitter than I had intended.
Khys turned his head toward me, the parentheses that enclosed his mouth suddenly graved deep and sharp. “He considers you unfortunately afflicted,” he said.
“What price are you exacting from me, to treat me thus? What debt have I incurred?” I would not scratch at my band. I clasped my hands behind my back, my eyes upon the white walkway ahead of us.
“Any other would have destroyed you out of hand,” he said wearily. “I may do it yet, to save my own sanity. I am constantly urged to do so, by those who know just how great a power you unleashed upon the plain of Astria. One might say you incurred a debt there great enough to wipe out your life-right. Some, Gherein included, have demanded that payment. More vehemently will such demands be made of me, now that you know your identity. You are not free. It is that simple. Should I imprison you in some undertunnel, feed you upon stale crusts, until you enter that fact into your conception?” he demanded. His hand grasped my arm hard above the elbow.
“But as you yourself pointed out once, we did only your will! You did not imprison Sereth, nor feed stale crusts to the cahndor of Nemar!”
“Would that owkahen allowed it,” he muttered, squinting ahead, toward his tower. His grip upon me loosened. I felt my blood rush to heat the squeezed flesh. “I have to fill my council’s empty seat. Then I will see about your circle partner,” he added, almost companionably, as if regretting his harshness.
“My thanks,” I managed.
His gaze flickered over me, though he did not turn his head. I pushed my hair, wind-tickling, off my forehead. Up the wide steps he propelled me.
“I must go do my work,” said Khys as the attendants answered his ringing summons and the doors opened before us. “The keep is unlocked. Stay there until I send for you. Baern!” It was to the dark attendant he spoke. “See her safely to my couch.”
The guard reached out. Khys pushed me toward him. Then he was gone down the steps.
“Lady,” the guard invited, his eyes lowered. I preceded him, taking the front passages, those of ornithalum and archite, that I might pass the hulion tapestry upon the way. Before it I stood a long time gazing, until the man made small noises in his throat, his body rustling its impatience as he shifted. He was darkly hirsute, rather like some brist that had learned to walk upright, if ponderously. When I adjudged him distressed unto the verge of speech, I moved off toward the dharen’s keep.
The doors were still ajar. Without a backward glance I slipped within. By the time I had turned to face them, they were closed and locked.
I smiled to myself, as I went and pulled back the alcove’s curtains. I sat upon the ledge a time, watching the water, attempting once more to cut my mind adrift.
It was a sound like wind’s wailing. Like standing atop the Keening Rock of Fai-Teraer Moyhe on the eve of winter solstice, with the Embrodming Sea rumbling below. That wretched, that lonely was the sound that emanated from my prison keep. I have been there, where the heart of the world beats the dirge of the spirit upon Silistra’s bones, and I know. I crept toward the doors to my prison, stealthy. They were not locked.
With infinite care I parted them, drew them back. Upon my couch in that gray holding keep lay Liuma, curled into a ball, my own white robe wrapped around her velvet darkness. I hovered there an ith, undecided. She had not seen me.
“Presti m’it, Nemarchan,” I said quietly. She stiffened, sniffled, uncovered her head, using her arms instead to push herself upright. I saw the horror in her swollen eyes, the trembling of her puffy lips. She drew her knees up to her chin, crossing her wrists about her ankles.
“Chayin said you recalled yourself,” she said shakily, not wanting to believe otherwise.
“I do,” I admitted, leaning against the d
oorframe. “Whatever it is that troubles you, it might ease you to bring it out here.” I motioned behind me, to Khys’s keep. “We could drink some kifra and consider it.”
She looked at me warily, at Khys’s device, at my throat, where beneath the silver and white silk nestled his band of restraint, warm pulsing against my skin. If I had been she, I would have been much affrighted at what I was—what the Keepress Estri had become.
“There would be no harm in it,” she decided muzzily. When she rose, her movements were slow, uncoordinated.
I turned from her, went to fill two bowls. “Sit in the alcove,” I suggested. I poured the kifra, brought the drinks to her where she sat beneath the window. When she reached up to take one, her light-nailed hands shook.
“Would you speak of it?” I asked, sitting cross-legged upon the cushions, my elbows upon my knees. I thought of Khys, and how displeased he would be to see my limbs so arranged.
“How can you stand it?” she demanded, her black eyes gigantic over the golden bowl. She did not sip, but gulped her kifra down. Her lids closed, pulse showing on their gilded backs, she found more tears to shed.
“What?” I asked, discomfited.
“Him,” she sniffed, discarding her empty bowl, smearing her tears across her cheeks.
“Khys?” I wondered what he had done to her. Very probably, he had done little. I had seen her tears before. “What did he do to you?”
“He ... I ... He is ...” She looked at me, imploring, as if I should know.
“He is dharen of Silistra,” I supplied. She nodded, her lips twitching. I waited.
“Did you catch with Chayin?” she asked, her membranes fluttering like crier’s wings.
“Did you catch with Khys?” I queried her back.
She started, rose to her knees, clasping her belly. “Uritheria protect me!” she moaned. “I pray not. Please, did you?”
“No,” I said. I understood part of her tears. If I had spawn by Chayin, he would have choice between them. She did not want her son’s position endangered. Her fear, that I might bear Chayin a more worthy heir than she, was not unfounded.
“I saw your son,” she said, sitting up, relief taking the weight from her shoulders.
“Indeed,” I said. “And how did you find him?”
She shook her head, spread her hands wide. They still trembled, pink-palmed. She licked her lips, red tongue darting. “Awesome,” she said.
“Have you taken a helsar?” I asked, to cover my confusion. My child was eight passes old, surely too young for such an appellation.
“No,” she murmured. “Nor do I wish to.” Those slanted eyes shot black fire at me. “Chayin, under its influence and that of the dharen, has become a stranger to me. He is worse than ever. There is no controlling him.”
I only smiled. That would bother the Nemarchan. When he had been afflicted, she had worked her will through him.
“He was not even interested enough in the affairs of this world to be present at the birth of his son,” she said, upon a hiss wet with poisonous spray.
“I bore mine, also, alone,” I said, in what I hoped was a commiserating tone. “Where is the cahndor?”
“With Sereth.” And that hiss was sibilant in the extreme. “They couch!” she spat, leaning so close that her breath rained upon my shoulder.
“They have long made such assignations their practice,” I admonished her, startled. “I would not attempt to get between them. You might lose your place altogether.” She straightened. I recollected something she had said, long ago at Frullo jer. “You still live. You did not fulfill your prophecy and die the death Chayin had in mind for you.”
“Not yet, I have not,” she said. Then: “I would have died, had I been fool enough to linger near the coast of Menetph. I was inland, in Menetph North, when the sea rose up and smote the city.”
I had not known Menetph smitten. But if the coastline of Astria had been changed in the holocaust, then why not elsewhere?
There was a silence between us. I rose to refill her bowl. She grabbed it up and stood. I could look down upon the part in her black hair.
“Is Sereth well?” I asked her, as she followed me to the kifra stand.
“I doubt that I have ever seen him well. He is recovered from his temper of last evening, if that is what you mean.” I wondered what Chayin had told him of me.
“It would be a great favor if you would tell Chayin I must speak with him,” I said, pouring her golden kifra from the moisture-beaded pitcher.
“About what?” she said softly.
I almost slapped her, then recalled that I sought her aid.
“About the arrar,” I said, even softer.
She inclined her head. Understanding crossed her face like a hulion’s shadow.
“Are you not afraid of Khys’s wrath?” she murmured, making the jump. I reminded myself that Liuma was an accomplished forereader.
“One would be a fool not to fear him,” I said coldly, seeing her recollect her own fear in whatever had passed between her and the dharen. Her eyes found my chald. “I might be able to keep him away from you,” I offered.
“Could you?” Gratitude afore the fact has always confounded me. Her fingers found my arm, squeezed. I resisted the impulse to shake her hand away. I lifted my full bowl with my free hand to my lips. The keep grew dim, as if a cloud obscured the sun.
“Perhaps,” I said, as if I was sure. “But I must know your purpose here.”
She took a step backward, her eyes opened so wide they seemed dark stones amid fresh-fallen snow. Her mouth fell open. Wheeling, spilling kifra down my leg, I saw what she had seen, and my bowl dropped from nerveless fingers, splashing its contents upon the rusty mat.
It had been no cloud before the sun. There was a blinding flash, a crackling as of burning parchment. An acrid wind, upon which rode stinging grains of window, rattled the keep’s locked doors. Tiny Liuma grabbed me around the waist, buried her head against me. I stood, unmoving, stroking her hair, her whimpers rattling my flesh. Through the pulverized window, beyond which hovered a creamy egg-shape, came a metal ramp that secured itself around the sill with hooked claws. The metal screeched upon the stone. Over that bridge, into Khys’s keep, scrambled two men, clothed but for heads and hands in black form-fitting garb. Around their waists were wide, blinking belts. I saw the red eyes of M’ksakkan death cubes. Their booted feet, first one pair, then the other, hit Khys’s glass-sharded mat.
“Which one?” said one intruder, halting, arms akimbo. I moved toward the prison keep, away from Liuma. She moaned, huddling.
“That one!” said the second, whose belt blinked more than his fellow’s.
I kept moving, wishing I had retained the bowl, toward the prison keep.
“Stop!” said the first, approaching. I stopped. I was far enough. The second M’ksakkan, his attention upon Liuma, had his back to us. I moved hesitantly toward the blond, my hands at my throat. Well away from the wall I stopped again.
He came slowly toward me, head jutting forward, eyes alert.
“Please,” I moaned, my voice atremble. “Do not hurt me.” I begged in clumsy M’ksakkan, omitting the contraction.
“Just come along,” he said, in his own language, relieved. “No one will hurt you.” I walked slowly toward him. Temple, windpipe, throat?
“What’ll we do with the other one?” he called to his fellow, turning his head. I leaped for it, hand drawn back, arm scissored. My three stiffened fingers deepened the hollow in his throat, as my feet touched the ground. He gurgled, fell unconscious. My arm hurt, burning pain to the shoulder. I stepped back, clutching my fingers. The other M’ksakkan just stared. I doubted that his friend was dead, but from the feel of my hand, he should have been. I cursed my sluggish body.
“M’kinlin!” bawled the remaining M’ksakkan. I heard a scrabble upon the bridge.
“Come take me,” I invited the second, in proper grammar. The man I had scored, I decided, was dead. He had yet to breathe. I fe
lt uplifted, turned my full attention upon the first, and the man who now jumped from the swaying bridge into the keep.
“Come on, M’as ... What?” He froze, eyes widened. I heard noises, perhaps upon the stairs. “This one ... let that one go! Help me.” He started toward me, not deterred by the corpse. I backed toward the prison keep. He had a decidedly un-M’ksakkan frame, graceful for all its bulk. The belt at his waist was a veritable galaxy, blinking. He sidled. I retreated from him. He grinned, gray eyes slitted.
“M’kin hadn’t the authority to use one of these on you,” he said to me, closing. Deftly he herded me, toward the corner. “I do. And I wouldn’t mind a bit,” he added, his eyes touching his dead companion. In his hand was the incinerating device, its twin red eyes alight with baleful promise. “If you aren’t on the ship at the count of three, you’re dead.” He spoke M’kaskkan, without any interest in whether or not I understood him.
“One,” he said. I nodded, walking toward him.
“Two,” he said, turning on his heels, the death cube trained upon me. I realized then that he would do it. I ran, gained the ledge, my skin aprickle, waiting for the hot tongue. I crouched there, in the wind. The bridge, rivet-rough, swayed. Below, tiny, was the walk-waved grass, behind me, the black-haired man.
“Two and a half,” he said, grinning, touching my shoulder with the cube. I looked across it, at the opening into the hover. I saw two more men crouched there, squinting across the gap.
He pushed me lightly. I fastened my eyes upon the opening, crawled onto the ramp. It lurched. My fingers clutched its edges, curling around them. One leaned forward from inside the ship, extended his hand. The wind took up my hair and blinded me with it. A hand slapped my buttocks. I crawled, unseeing, my breath as loud as the high-tower wind. Crawled more, my hands never leaving the edges, my hair fouling my arms, pulled by my knees. A hand touched mine, grabbed my wrist. Another, at my shoulder, pulled me in, out of the numbing gale. I stumbled; the hands held me upright. My feet touched a resilient, fleshy surface. I shook my vision clear. The M’ksakkan loosed his hold upon me. The gray-eyed man, the casualty upon his shoulders, jumped down into the hover. Then I saw, through the hatch, what the last man, the blond, found to do with Liuma. He lifted her up to the window ledge. It seemed to me that she slept. Her arms swung loose, her body untenanted as he dropped her out the window. Running crouched, he crossed the gap. Humming obediently, the bridge let go the tower’s sill, retracted itself. I saw the claws come over the sill as the hatch sides met. I swallowed hard, wondering if her body had yet splashed upon the grass.
