by Janet Morris
Kystrai, legs spread wide, faced his son.
“Fifteen lifetimes I have lived upon that world. Of me, I gave her rebirth.”
“None would take that from you,” said Estrazi.
“Raet would have.”
“Let us not speak of Raet,” commanded Kystrai, who had spawned him. “What rivalry exists between the Mi’ysten children and the Silistran children is not our affair.”
Khys laughed bitterly. His face was well known to me. He had found his stance. His decisions, though not revealed, were made. Looking at him, I knew he courted the life right. Kinship I felt to him, upon that realization, and a deep respect. His eyes flicked over me, noting. I sought longer consultation. He denied me.
“Send her back,” he bargained.
“You will remain?” Estrazi queried him. “Without the distasteful alternatives?”
I recalled, horrifyingly real, my time in the holding cubes upon Mi’ysten. Above and below and upon all sides had been others, destined to inhabit those clear prisons until certain observations had been made of their behavior. Some of us, in those cubes, had learned a thing. I could have done without the knowledge, at that price. Khys partook of my thought. I was pleased I might give some small warning.
I had known. But I had not known how it would come to be. I bit my lips, recollecting the dream. “Take them, the father and the son both,” I had said to Estrazi. Can one be responsible for one’s dream? I had warned him.
“Send her back,” Khys asked again of my father.
“This is not an unfit place for her,” Estrazi answered.
“If you speak in good faith, do it.” Khys’s eyes adjured me to absent myself. I dared not try that returning alone.
“Khys,” I pleaded, “do not make compromise upon my account.”
Estrazi stepped between us. “Daughter, I would speak with you alone.” And I saw Khys’s mouth, opening to speak, over Estrazi’s shoulder. Then I saw him not, nor Kystrai either.
We stood in the perfect green wood, or another wood swathed in darkness.
He stood very still, did my father. The bronze glow coming out from him lit the nearer trunks as if their bark had been dipped in molten metal.
Then he held out his arms to me. I took refuge in them. A time he stroked my hair. I pressed my cheek against his cool flesh and let my tears flow, unchecked.
“Shed no tears for that one,” he said sternly. “He needs them not.”
I did not answer.
“You found him unacceptable as a mate. Surely it cannot concern you, what I choose to do with him. He is badly in need of certain lessons, humility not the least of them.”
“Do not chastise him upon my account,” I begged.
“I will do what I have long intended,” said Estrazi in a tone that allowed no answer. “What think you of the progress we have made upon this sphere?”
I thought of the sun, which had followed us overhead, then dived at dizzying speed into the sea of night. What rhythm had they imposed upon this world, that it lay cooled and green so soon after its inception?
“Is it truly that world which I started?”
“It is. You did not have intention of completing it, I hope.”
“No,” I said, for I had not.
“As a sphere of holding for the dharen, it will do nicely. Here he may learn his skills and make his mistakes. There is a fitness, I think, in dealing with him thus.”
“He knows better than that.”
“I think not. He has made a start already upon the shaping of this world. He will, with little else to do, continue. And with each alteration he induces upon this nature will he be still further bound.”
I shivered in Estrazi’s arms. Here was retribution. Not the puny sort I had conceived, but a just and all-encompassing balance on the scales of power.
“And when he breaks those bonds?”
“Then he will be what he is destined to become. We will welcome him into the community for which he pretends disdain, but in truth has long coveted. Then he will be ready. Now he is but a precocious child with imagined grievances.”
I recollected the Stothric prediction concerning the days of judgment: “He who goeth first to his fall will come again, and be last.”
Estrazi brushed my hair from my shoulder. I felt his cool touch upon the dharen’s device.
“Can you make me what I was? Will you remove from me this mark and the damage done me by Khys and his minions?”
“I can. I will not. But I will return you to Silistra.”
“Let me give tasa to Khys. His affairs are barely ordered.”
“He has no Silistran affairs any longer. There is no need. You will see him again.”
“And that other matter in which I sought your aid?” I ventured.
“As you comport yourselves, so will it go. I have, at this stage, no objection. But further use will I make of you both. There can be no permanent exemption; your own natures will preclude it.” His face came close to mine. I drifted in his eyes, seeking understanding. I did not find it. But I found acquiescence in myself.
He held me back from him. “I thank you for the spawn of your womb,” he said formally, in Mi’ysten. “Be assured of the service you have rendered.”
“Do not send me back,” I pleaded, suddenly spinning in the unconstrained time that devoured all else.
But it was late for such fears.
VII: Into the Abyss
I retain a moment of it: bearing witness to a light-rendered scene from Stothric tradition, wherein Ambrae, having found Dyin, her true male complement, and made that hermaphroditic match which opens the pair to universal points of power, is taken by him to a sheer pinnacle overlooking the very chasm in which I floated.
“Fly with me,” he proposed, his feet straddling that great peak that obtrudes into eternity.
She peered about her into a place of cold and darkness. “I cannot. My sight is obscured,” she demurred silently, for her head was all covered over with woolens to keep her eyes from the blinding wind that sought to freeze them dead, and she could not open her mouth to speak.
“You must find another way to see,” he instructed her, and cut away a tiny hole in the glove she wore so that the tip of her little finger lay exposed.
That being done, he then launched himself, and by his grip precipitated her also into the abyss.
As Ambrae, in desperation, I conceived a way to sensitize that part of me which did not normally see, but retain within its structure the capacity for seeing. As she changed a finger’s nail to an organ of sight, thus surviving her mate’s required test and teaching, so did I, amid harmonics ever forming, recreate the progression home.
But in two respects my sojourn contradicted the mythological model:
I was alone.
And I was there overlong.
VIII: The Passing of Khys
Upon the white walkways of the Lake of Horns I found myself, and they were red with blood. All about me was the snort and squeal of threx and the screams of men and women. The sky was thunderous and dark.
A threx sped past me, throwing up clods of turf. To my right it passed. Then stopped, whirled savagely around by its rider. I scrambled to my knees and ran. I ran past corpses and struggling knots of men and women. I leaped a forereader, trussed Parset style, wrists to ankles. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth was gagged. More threx did I see, and more. Louder and louder grew the hooves behind me.
I was in sight of the steps of the dharen’s tower when the huija bit through my tunic and cloak. Thrice it curled around me, imprisoning my arms at my side with its fanged leather. I screamed, jerked off my feet. For a moment I dangled in midair, the metal teeth of the huija biting deep in my flesh. Then the rider had me.
His strong arms thrust me facedown across the threx’s saddle. He jerked my wrists behind, bound them, and disentangled the huija in a practiced motion. I moaned as its teeth, pulling away, lifted tiny chunks of my flesh.
I struggled to raise my he
ad to him, to explain my identity. But the threx was running, bounding, jumping. A hand at the small of my back steadied me as he jerked his beast right. Before my eyes, all lay revealed. Gasping breaths between the threx’s bounds, I tried to estimate their number. I made it well over a thousand Parsets. My estimate was later to prove low. Then it seemed very high.
My captor leaned low in the saddle and skewered a lake-born man. I saw surprised golden eyes. Before knowledge came to him of his death, we were gone, seeking others. I saw a tiask, bent over a trussed lake-born. What she paused to do with him there upon the field of battle that had been the placid lakeside made me retch. The saddle grip dug into my stomach, refused me breath.
The pedestrian lake-born defenders had no choice against mounted Parsets. They seemed not to know. My tears washed the vomit from my chin, and the dust and dirt from my eyes.
Up the great steps of the dharen’s tower and through the open doors did the threxman urge his mount. Those steel-shod hooves threw sparks upon the archite and ornithalum. Its hooves reverberated like kapuras in the vaulted hall. Bodies adorned its length. I was sobbing, and I could not stop. Through the halls the threxman raced his beast, killing whatever moved within his sight. Nor was he the only one.
In the seven-cornered audience room were six threxmen.
He who had me drew his mount up with theirs. It blew and heaved and shook spittle upon me. I raised my head. The rider slapped me upon the buttocks. Further I squirmed, that I might get my rider’s attention. He cuffed my head with his booted foot.
“Did you find them?” I heard dimly.
“Not yet. Where shall I put this one?” said the voice of my rider.
“Is she marked?” Again I tried to rise.
“I know not.”
“Let me see her.”
The rider raised me up roughly, setting me before him in the saddle.
“Please,” I said, before his hand covered my mouth. I bit it. He grunted and set about gagging me with my hair. I wriggled from him. My eyes pleaded with the jiask who sat opposite us upon a brown threx. The screams and sword sound and threx noise rang through the audience chamber. Behind the threxman, the hangings had been torn from the window. Through it, I witnessed the efficiency with which the Parset forces invested the Lake of Horns.
“Let me see her,” said the jiask upon the brown threx again, sliding off his mount. Wadded hair was forced into my mouth, bound with other locks behind my neck.
“She is mine,” growled the rider who held me. I heard the hiss of his blade as he drew it.
“If I am not mistaken,” said Lalen gaesh Satemit, “she belongs to those we seek.”
“That one,” growled my captor, “would have worn only white. This one”—he demonstrated, ripping from me cloak and tunic—“wears leathers.”
“Nevertheless,” said Lalen, his eyes crinkled with amusement, “she belongs to the cahndor and the Ebvrasea.” He noted upon me Khys’s device. Nor did his eyes miss my chald, set with gol.
“If they live,” growled the voice, even deeper. “And if you are not mistaken. All I want to know is where I can leave her. I would pick some more of this lakeside fruit.”
Lalen looked at me. He shrugged. I tried to speak.
He turned from me and walked to his threx. “She might know where they are.” He grunted. “She might be of some help. But put her in the undertunnel keep with the others. Number four keep. Down three flights, left at the turning.” He mounted his threx. “I think I might pick a few myself,” he said, and urged his mount by that of my captor.
At the stra-doored stairway he was forced to dismount. We had seen no living thing in the halls, but we had seen many that had once lived. He left the threx, pulling me down into his arms. I could only implore him with my eyes. The soaking hair in my mouth threatened to choke me senseless.
“Be still,” he advised, as I writhed in his grasp. I was still. At the stairs’ foot lay the guards of the undertunnels in their own blood.
A Dordassar jiask lounged against the door of keep four.
“Did you mark her?” he grumbled, surly at his ill-drawn duty. “I cannot keep track of them.” His dark face bore a disgruntled frown. His membranes wavered, receded.
“I will know her,” said the jiask. “Lalen says she might be the cahndor’s. I would not mark her until I am sure she is not. Here.” He handed me unceremoniously into the guard’s arms. That one kicked open the plank door with his foot. My captor’s face split in a grin, teeth showing bright in his dark-skinned face.
Then he turned and ran up the steps two at a time. I raged and yelled around my gag of hair, but to no avail.
“Quiet, little crell,” the guard said, laying me among perhaps two yras of women. Some of those I saw had marks such as I bore upon my own breast. I considered the refuge of madness. Crell, and crell, and crell again. He dropped me between two others and took up his stance outside the door.
It was long I lay there while the battle raged above. Thrice men came with lake-born women they had claimed.
I struggled to free my wrists of the braided leather that bound them. The Parset had known what he was about. I could not even loosen the bite of that thong.
Lalen, I thought, would surely come. No matter how he counted me, he did not hold Sereth, nor Chayin, that low. And if they were those that remained unfound, my aid was needed. I screamed in frustration, and the sound was only muffled gurgle. How long a time I lay there, I know not. My wrists had ceased to feel, my fingers were no longer even cold when Lalen brought a forereader to the holding keep.
Without comment to the guard he stepped within. Then did he take his gol-knife and upon the trussed forereader’s bottom trace his sign. Hair-gagged and bound, she only shivered.
He sheathed his knife and looked around him, his prize at his feet.
I struggled to my knees.
He ran a tanned hand through his blond hair and chuckled. Insolent, he came and stood before me. He did not move to free me of my bonds.
“Know you the whereabouts of Sereth and the cahndor?” he asked.
I made noises and nodded my head vigorously. Behind him, two jiasks, similarly laden with quivering battle spoil, entered. Both were familiar to me, though not well-known.
Lalen turned away. The men compared their new crells. I rose unsteadily to my feet,
“A Menetpher took that one,” he said to them, pointing in my direction. I closed my eyes. Tears of relief squeezed through my tight-shut lids. “She says she knows where the cahndor is.”
“Do you believe crells, Lalen?” spoke one who had been with us at the investment of Well Astria.
“It might be a likely chance,” said Lalen. “But I seek no confrontation with that Menetpher.”
“Let us free her tongue and see what waggles forth.” At my feet, a girl bound hand to ankle moaned and turned, pulling her hair from under my foot.
That one came toward me, gol-knife drawn. Shaking my head, I backed from him, stumbling over the limbs of a woman slumped dumbly against the wall. He kicked her, on his way to me. She did not even notice.
With the gol-knife he cut the hair that bound my mouth. I closed my eyes, feeling the short lock swing free against my cheek. His fingers sought the wadded mass between my teeth. At my throat lay the gol-knife, in his other hand. “Do not bite,” he advised.
I spat, trying to rid my tongue of a strand that wound around it, dangled down my throat.
Lalen gaesh Sratemit came to stand beside that other, his face expressionless.
“Know you where they have imprisoned the cahndor, crell?” he asked me when I only stared back at him.
“Have you not had enough amusement with me, Aje?” I hissed, using his crell name.
“Miheja,” he retorted using mine, “I have barely started. Where are they?”
“Sereth, when last I knew, was in number thirty-four, this level. The cahndor is in the tower holding keep, on the highest level.” All three wheeled and ran from the cha
mber.
I sank back upon the floor, my wrists jerking their bonds. The guard peered within. He grumbled a curse, that they had not gagged me.
I closed my eyes, that I might shut it all out, the Parsets, the lake-born, the terrible culling in progress around me. I had not used my skills upon the walkways. It had been too fast. And against whom would I have raised my hand? Against Khys’s people, or Chayin’s? But I had not thought of it then. More proof of the conditioning to which Khys had subjected me. I fled in fear. From fear one can find no stable place to make a stand. I had run from them in fear, as would have Khys’s Estri, who yet looked out through my eyes.
I got to my feet, a decision upon me. I had cried and groveled and feared and been crell since I had become Khys’s. No more would it be so. Before such as Lalen I would not restrain my skills, in pursuit of some unattainable fitness. With what little courage I could summon, I sought Sereth. I found him not in keep thirty-four, but another place. I turned my mind upon the leather that bound my wrists. Such are not my strongest skills. I burned my wrists, while at the weakening of that leather. Mind sought to part it. Precious iths were lost while I attained certainty. Fast attendant upon it came the parting of the thongs, with the smell of singed hair.
I leaned against the wall, my wrists still behind my back. With one I rubbed the other, until they once more knew me. I remembered thinking that I should not mourn for the Lake of Horns. And I called also my own attention to the moment. Upon action’s verge, I floated detached. This is now. It is real, I reminded myself. Lose or gain, the moment rises.
Then I struck the guard from behind with a neatly turned turbulence the width of my arm. I pushed away from the wall and stepped over the lake-born women. Some had doubtless been Khys’s. They lay, and they did not beg to join me. Not one so much as raised a glowing head. I wished I could do the same, for a moment, then struck the ambivalence savagely aside. My stroke, I determined, turning the guard, had not been hard enough. He would, left to his own, regain consciousness momentarily. I sedated him further.
