Idol of Glass (26 page)

They nodded, collective.

It was early yet and the world was almost silver. The hard-packed snow didn't yield beneath their feet—or perhaps it had been turned into marble by the Meer—as they walked in the direction of the distant Delta without speaking, lost in their own musings. The world was quiet, and it seemed a shame to fracture the silence.

Ra and Ahr were at Jak's sides, Jak's ordinary appearance and genderless presentation like a neutral palette between them—or a mirror reflecting each back to the other. Jak might have worried that the intensity of their passion for each other and their shared history would eclipse what Jak shared with each of them, but somehow, Jak seemed to provide them with a balance they desperately needed. Jak was their line of symmetry.

Fate and magic had conspired to seduce Jak after all, and Jak happily surrendered, no longer afraid of being consumed or possessed by the chaotic irrationality of love. Jak gave a silent hat tip once again to the Hidden Folk, as was the custom when passing through highland mound country. Mostly, it was done ironically. But they'd turned out to be real, and magic was real, and Jak wasn't taking any chances.

Ahead of them on the drift, MeerShiva was a splendid winter tree, black-trunked and crimson-leafed, and MeerHraethe, having fallen into step behind them, not quite willing to give up the role of Ra's faithful servant, was a golden sun, despite the somber black garments he still favored.

Jak was surrounded by Meer. Except for Pearl, these four were all there were, the survivors of the expurgated, and each had spun off Shiva in their way as though she were the center of a dark universe that couldn't be contained.

It was how some believed life had begun, sparks flying off the hub of the soul, so great that it couldn't remain one, spinning out pieces of itself that would forever reach in a galactic spiral for their severed parts. They were all Meer and linked in an entangled web of desire and devotion—all but Jak, who was, despite Ahr's words, merely ordinary. These two beside Jak would abide for centuries, and Jak was already winding down toward the swift descent of age. How long would their need for Jak remain? When would they begin to slip away in the blitheness of their permanent youth as Jak drew ever closer to mortality? Whatever time there was left, Jak didn't intend to waste a day of it.

Shiva stopped on the embankment overlooking the frozen arm of the Filial, turning to survey the snow-covered heath stretching out before them in the sun-blurred haze, hands on her hips, as though everything within her gaze belonged to her. It had, once.
Soth
AhlZel's influence in its heyday had encompassed all the lands between here and the desert in the east, and to the north toward the Great Northern Lake, and even the sparse settlements of the southern swamps.

To her left lay the warm promise of the temperate Delta, to her right the seductive menace of Winter, Munt Zelfaal rising out of the tumbled banks of snow. Black, and white, and sharp—like Ra. Shiva observed him with dispassion. He had cut her as surely as a Meerhunter's knife.

AhlZel's resurrection, done in madness though it was, pulled her toward the west. She'd forgotten, until she'd visited with Ahr's ashes, so many of the little details Ra had faithfully recreated. And at AhlZel, it would be easier to keep an eye out for any stirrings of the Permanence. She'd resealed the portal Pearl had opened, but they would try again. And Shiva had no intention of allowing them to play their games with the lives of the ordinary or the lives of the Meer.

Ra had paused when her gaze rested on him, and he separated from his little triumvirate to approach her on the bank. “MeerShiva.” He bowed on one knee. “I am yours. Always. If you wish it, I will return to my previous form, regardless of the danger—”

She stopped him with a hand on his head. “Rise as Meer.” Shiva gave his cheek a cool, ceremonial kiss as he did so. “You know as well as I it is no simple matter, as you told your lovers. No, MeerRa. You must take the road you have charted for yourself.” Shiva lifted his chin with her fingertips. “But when your road is finished, perhaps the one who gave me comfort will return.”

“She will,” Ra promised, one eye underlined by a stroke of red.

Shiva waved him away. “Don't cry in front of me. I am not moved by you.”

Steeling herself like a sculpture of ice, she looked past him once more. “Jak na Fyn. Ahr Naiahn.” She commanded their attention, and they came to her. “Ahr Naiahn. You wished to know how Ra was accountable to you, what punishment she suffered on your behalf.”

“I don't need to—”

“Silence.” Shiva's word was instantly manifest, and Ahr stared mutely up at her. “She was bound amid the blood from her lashing, and I left her, taking myself from her as she had taken you from herself and the others who loved you. It was an absence that nearly returned her to the madness from which I'd brought her.”

Ahr looked down at her feet, for once displaying due humility. Perhaps the young Meer could learn to control her blood in time.

“You are a gift she didn't deserve. I gave because I couldn't bear her loneliness. Meerity is a place of unbearable isolation, and she had known enough of it.” When Ahr raised her head, solemn and reverent, Shiva dismissed her with a nod of her chin.

Ahr pulled her scarf about her throat against the biting wind, lacking the adornment of Meeric tresses to keep her warm. “MeerShiva.” She paused before she took her leave. “I am honored to have your blood.”

The corner of Shiva's mouth twitched. “You had better be.” Shiva turned her attention on the ordinary one. “Jak na Fyn. You have tasted Meeric blood.”

Jak looked puzzled for a moment before realization dawned. “Ahr's tears.”

“Do you know what it means to taste the blood of a Meer?”

Jak shivered, more easily affected by the elements than the others, but perhaps not shivering from cold. “Not really.”

“It won't transform you. Meerity isn't so easily achieved. But it has tied you to Ahr forever.”

Jak considered this and nodded. “I was already.”

Shiva pondered the unusual
falender
who had captured the hearts of two Meer. “I can give you my own blood. I can give you Meerity if you want it.”

Jak's hesitation was only fleeting. “I don't.”

Shiva raised a curious eyebrow. “You've now refused my
vetmas
twice. I may become offended.” She took Jak's wrist and pressed the pulse beneath her thumb. “Then a long life. And plenty of time to think about it.”

Finished with her leave-taking, she turned toward the shadows of AhlZel without bothering to give them an explanation. She owed them none.

Hraethe's eyes followed her, but he made no attempt to challenge her or to follow. So be it. Let him make his own bed.

Ra stopped when they reached the outskirts of the mounds, and Jak and Ahr stopped with him, the wheel and the counterbalance. It had begun to snow in a light scattering of white crystals on the silver air. He looked up at it as it fell, the first thing Ra had seen on taking a breath in the world that would lead her to Jak, and through Jak to Ahr. He had an affinity for it now, and it almost made him weep. Rhyman would be warm and bustling compared to this. His Rhyman.
Ludtaht
Ra waited for him.

Hraethe caught up with them, and Ra gave him a questioning look. “You're returning to Rhyman?”

“I am sworn to hold you up,
meneut
.”

“And you have, my dearest friend.” Ra linked Hraethe's arm in his as they walked. “But your presence in Rhyman will be harder to explain than my own.”

Merit had come to serve him as a litter-bearer some thirty-five years past, nothing but a drop in the river of Meeric time, and had never let him down—no, not even once. He'd prevented Ra from letting Ahr disappear into the sea of unmarked commoners. Without Merit, Ra would have let her go, never having touched her but for the communion of their eyes. He would never have known her name, nor seen her again after knowing such bliss. Without Merit, there would never have been the brief flower of RaNa. Ra would have remained an empty idol, dead to the world. He would have dissipated into the anonymity of the elements, decomposed on the steps of
Ludtaht
Ra and lost forever without Merit. But this was no longer Merit. It was MeerHraethe.

Ra stopped and turned to him. “You have never failed me.” He clasped his hand over Hraethe's. “But I am not your lord any longer. And I think your place is no longer with me.” Ra kissed him, and Hraethe's eyes dripped red as they embraced. “You no longer belong to me. I release you.”

Ahr threw her arms around Hraethe from behind, clinging to him, and he turned and took the
vetma
of her kiss, lifting her off the ground and holding her against him.

“It's not good-bye,” she promised when he put her down.

“No.” He looked off in the distance after the shadow that compelled him, already distracted from their presence. “But I am summoned to the service of the Queen of the Beginning and the End.” He turned and embraced Jak. “Keep up with your Deltan.”

“I just now realized,” said Jak. “You've been speaking perfect Mole.”

Hraethe shrugged amiably. “All languages are understood by the Meer.”

Jak took his hand and gave it a formal, highland shake. “
Durrh masseh ahnmat.
”

Hraethe gave Jak a wry smile. “
Through
we meet again?”

Jak grinned. “I'll practice.”

Shiva had long since disappeared into the swirl of white. Hraethe turned, forgetting them, and pursued his mistress.

Ra watched him go before turning back to Jak and Ahr. “I haven't told you everything. Why I must return to Rhyman.”

“The solicitors,” said Ahr. “The former templars—they were gaining power at In'La before I left. Have they moved against our court?”

“I don't know. But they will soon.” Ra sighed. “Pike obtained physical proof of my existence. He was hired by a consortium of solicitors from the courts of both Rhyman and In'La who wish to turn the Delta into a single great power ruled by the elite. With the evidence of my return, they'll have a powerful edge.”

Jak was frowning at him. “But what do you intend to do? Surely you can't just march into Rhyman and command them to worship you?”

Ra smiled. “I don't want to be worshipped. I want to serve as Rhyman's protector. I don't expect it to be easy. And I don't doubt it will be dangerous. Which is why—”

“Don't even say it.” Ahr glared hotly at him. “You will not go without us. Now
I've
spoken, so you're just going to have to deal with it.”

Ra laughed and kissed her cheek, not daring to do more lest he distract himself. “So I am. But it's going to be difficult enough for them to accept one Meer, let alone two. There's also Pearl to think of.”

“Pearl is one more reason for me to go. And I'm far less conspicuous.”

“Except for those damn blue eyes of yours,” Jak cut in. “Don't you think someone will recognize you?”

Ahr rolled the one visible indigo eye in response. “Who would expect to see Ahr Naiahn resurrected as a twenty-year-old woman? I'll do as I did with Pike if need be, and claim to be Naiahn's daughter.” Ahr bit her lip and glanced at Ra at having evoked the betrayal.

“We have no debt between us,
lif
.” Ra touched her cheek. “That is finished.”

“Then it's settled,” said Jak with a wry look, moving in between them and taking their hands as if to put a stop to their burgeoning desire before anyone got carried away. “We're going. The three of us. Whatever waits for us in Rhyman, we'll deal with it together.”

Thirty-four: Harmony

Ume knelt beside Pearl on the priceless tile of a Meeric temple while he drew with fantastic speed and precision. The resplendent platinum hair hung in a braid over his shoulder, grown long since they'd last seen him in Szofl, and the peculiar pink satin ribbons woven into his wrists fluttered with the motions of his hands like birds or butterflies perched on his arms. As Cree watched them from the bench seat in the nearby window alcove, her heart swelled. In her wildest dreams, she'd never imagined such a scene: her family—Meeric temple notwithstanding.

They'd stayed on at
Ludtaht
Ra, not knowing where else to go. Hraethe's fate was uncertain. Though Pearl could have reopened the portal to the realm under the hill to bring him out, they didn't dare risk losing Pearl to the Hidden Folk again. The temple staff knew him—and probably knew he was Meer—and gave no indication that Cree and Ume were unwelcome. How long they might continue to be welcome if Hraethe remained absent, Cree wasn't sure. But Pearl was at home here.

She hardly knew what to do with the realization that Pearl didn't hate her. They were shy around each other still, but the moment he'd put the truth together and flung himself into her arms, Cree's fears had shattered like the Meeric glass at her feet. She was his mother, and Pearl had clearly ached for one his whole life. It made her ashamed that fear had kept her from looking for him after learning he was alive. She'd believed it without question when the Hidden Folk had told her Pearl would despise her if he ever met her. It had fit the narrative of her fear. The Hidden folk were full of shit.

Ume glanced up at her and smiled. Murmuring something to Pearl, who nodded distractedly, intent on his drawing, Ume came to join her.

“He enters something of a trance state when he draws.” She snuggled next to Cree on the bench. “I think I was annoying him.”

Cree pulled Ume close against her shoulder and kissed her hair. “I can't believe he's here. I can't believe
we're
here. I'm just sorry it took us so long.”

“You promised. No beating yourself up. Pearl adores you.”

“Well, I don't know about
adores
. But he doesn't hate me. That's a start.”

Ume shrugged mysteriously. “You should see what he's drawing right now.”

“Why? What's he drawing?”

“You'll see.”

As if conjured by Ume's words, Pearl sat back and brushed the pastel dust from his paper, nodding in satisfaction, and rose to bring the drawing to them.

He held it out to Cree and smiled shyly. “For you.” He almost never spoke, though Ume had said he could when he chose. His voice was like the whisper of a butterfly's wing.

“For me?” Cree took the drawing and studied it. It was a drawing of her, sleeves rolled up as she worked the docks at In'La years ago, before the Expurgation. She must have been twenty. He'd captured the moment as perfectly as if he'd been there—the breeze off the river catching her hair, the little lump of the cigar and tinderbox she'd kept in her vest pocket.

She swallowed against a similar lump in her throat, touched that he'd looked into the past to see her and had drawn her with such care, despite her role at that very moment in time in bringing about the death of his own father. “Thank you, Pearl. It's lovely.”

As Pearl returned to his pastels, Cree set the picture carefully on the bench beside her, but something in the image caught her eye, making her gasp. The scene had shifted, like the images in a zoetrope being spun. The Cree in the drawing moved a crate aside and took a step back with a look of pleasant surprise. Against the wall of a carriage house facing the dock, what appeared to be a young man in rags and bare feet huddled in sleep, face covered by a shock of stunning tawny-port hair. But it wasn't a young man. It was Ume, disguised as Cillian, on the day they'd met.

Ume's figure in the drawing opened her eyes, revealing the liquid amber that had grabbed Cree's heart and never let go. Words formed a caption at the bottom in a little scrolling line of ink as the drawn Cree folded her arms and stared down at Ume with a look of amusement: “Unless you plan to be loaded onto the barge, I suggest you get on your feet, sir.”

On the bench beside her, Ume curled her arm around Cree's. “You see? He adores you. Just as I've done since that very moment.”

Pleased that his drawing had made Cree happy, Pearl took out his box of charcoal as another vision flowed toward him within the Meeric Anamnesis. This drawing he rendered in shades of black and gray, the shadows on a vast plain of white. He'd never touched snow, but he could feel the delicate fall of it as it scattered and danced out of the sky like the firefly lights that followed him when he'd been under the hill.

The first drawing he'd done of Ra had been her awakening in the snow, born of her own will, to seek Ahr, who'd been lost to her. She'd taken a circuitous route—one that had brought her to the mirrored cage in
Soth
In'La where Pearl had lived his whole life, releasing him to partake of a world that theretofore had existed for him only in his visions in the glass. Her route had also taken her to unspeakable madness.

But there was no sign of the darkness that had leached from her into the river of Meeric consciousness to poison him in far-off Gundoumu Arazi. This Ra was clear-eyed and confident, with his loves beside him, made whole. MeerRa of Rhyman was coming home.