The Golden Sword (15 page)

He came and lay close, his hand upon the silk at my turned hip, but his eyes were turned inward. He, too, felt the tension between us, that impropriety of the time that made my body cold to his touch, though he was a fine and handsome man and I had even then a great respect for him.

“Chayin,” I said softly, “if you were to tell me that which you feel I do not know, that which so concerns us both, it might help. It will be a long and painful time until I guess the right questions. I am no forereader.”

His eyes had anguish in them, and his voice was shaky. I could see the sweat beading upon his forehead. He sighed and rolled to his back, staring at the ceiling.

“If one sees a thing, one may think several ways about it: that it is true, that it is the product of one’s fears, that it is the dream of one’s heart. That is what I have been taught. You bring another
way.
I see you changing what would have been otherwise with your will, and I see that you cannot always control it, and are perhaps at some times unaware. The sort was for you to fight Besha beyond the web-weavers’ apprei, but you did not choose to do so. When I first took you, I did other than what was natural for me, and I have a sense now that you drafted me into your service. I have from this determined that I myself have upon occasion brought my own fears into the time, as I have long suspected.”

I said nothing, waiting.

“If one may bring a thing into time by will, then surely it is imprudent to speak of what might be, even when it is what one sees as truth. I do not desire that which I see. Therefore, it would be wise upon my part to try to conceive another ending to this affair, rather than give support to what I fear.”

“Some of what you say may be true, but one must first determine all the available probabilities, then choose between them. You cannot bring your choice into being if it is not among the time tracks. There is never only one way a thing may occur, but we both know there is crux, and within crux, what occurs is fixed. One cannot take responsibility for more than one’s personal behavior. We must trust that we sort and act in the best possible fashion when we work from the law Within.” I crawled to him and put my head upon his shoulder and stared into the forest of curling hairs upon his chest. He still wore the uritheria medallion on its thick-linked gold chain. “Tell me what bothers you, and I will turn my small skill toward it.”

“Many things bother me, little one. Nemar is no simple land, and that which ails my mind is nothing that can be helped.”

“I am not so sure,” I said.

“Sereth will surely kill you,” he said simply, “And you hasten with loving eyes toward your death. I cannot sit and pretend I do not know it, because it serves me to have you, unaware, do my will until I hand you to him, as Hael would have me do. Sereth is no longer the man you knew. He is an outlaw with a fierce band around him, and the people of Yardum-Or call him the Ebvrasea and fear him. It is said his men will have no women among them, and that to no living thing do they give quarter.”

“Sereth would never hurt me. All you have is gossip. Have no fear for me at his hands.” I almost laughed when I said it.

“I know it from his own mouth, for I met him when I was on the plains of Yardum-Or, and under circumstances which left me owing him a blood debt. For that I gave him asylum from those who hounded him, and the whole of Mount Opir as his own. Do not tell me of his feelings—I know them.” He turned his face into my hair. “I must present you to him, else violate the spirit of the bond between us. And yet I have feelings for you that I thought never to have for a woman.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Yet I see losing you wherever I look. I cannot have you near me without memory of the pain I will come to feel at your loss. This once I wish my foresight would fail me.” And he pulled me close and held me tight. “All that time, since I saw you and saw what would be between us, I have tried to shut it out, that I not feel this pain. It grew as I foresaw it, this caring, though I have denied myself your use. I would no longer go without it.”

“Then let us do as you said, and enjoy this pleasant interval.”

His touch upon me proved the truth of his words, and I was caught in the tide of his intense emotion, for I opened my mind to his. When at last we were both exhausted, I got up from beside him and opened the draperies, that the night sky might shine in upon him. My mouth and, it seemed, even my stomach tingled long after from the taste of him, so potent was his gift to me.

“It is said here,” he murmured to me when I again lay in his arms, “that a Nemarsi takes his duty with a tiask, his lust with a crell, and his love with his brother. We seem to be the exception that proves the rule. Would you be Nemarchan beside me?” His tone had no hint of the veil about it. The couching seemed to have stabilized him.

“But you have a Nemarchan. Can there be more than one?” I asked, playful.

“There could be, one who was in truth what Liuma is in name,” he said.

“But she bears your child,” I pointed out.

“Perhaps, and perhaps Hael’s or Tar-Kesa’s, for all I know. She is little more than Hael’s eyes and ears, though she fancies herself a strong influence upon me.” I could feel his body stiffen with this truth, and its strain upon him.

“One cannot couch a forereader without couching also the Day-Keepers she represents.” Bitter was Chayin about the restraints Hael held upon him. “I think she would be relieved, should I put her burden upon another. And there is no way they could stop me. My father did the same, displaced another for my mother. And surely you are, whatever your protestations, as much of a fore-reader as any of them.”

I thought about this, silent, about all the reasons I could not do this thing.

“Chayin,” I said softly, “let us take some time together, a short-term couch-bond, if you will, and see what the Weathers bring us. You know nothing about me. I can truly say that I have never cared more for a mortal man. There would have to be great change in Nemar for me to reconcile this life with the law that resides within me. And I have certain things that I must do. If I live through the latter, we can come to terms with the former.” I sighed, knowing this to be the time.

“Your god Tar-Kesa and I are not upon the best of terms. I serve another, whose power is even greater and whose demands are heavy upon me. I think you and I must consider what we are allowed to do, rather than what we choose to do. Make no mistake: if such a thing could be, I would be most blessed of women.” And I kissed his throat, running my tongue in the dark hollow there.

“The chosen of Tar-Kesa is himself a god,” he reminded me, his voice dark as his skin.

“Then my tasks should be greatly lightened by your aid; and by your will, success must surely come to me. Only until the new moon let us keep this couch-bond, and if at that time you still want me, provided we both live, I will be your Nemarchan, if you will meet certain conditions which the time between now and then will doubtless make clear to you.”

And seeing that I would not be dissuaded from this, Chayin agreed to let Liuma continue as his Nemarchan until that time, and more that I asked of him. He would return to me my Astrian chald that Hael now held, and the helsar also. When I explained that Hael’s use of the helsar caused me pain, he became agitated, demanding to know why I had not told him before, and it came to light in that conversation that Hael was meeting with the other four dhareners of the Parset Lands to try to get some unified policy for dealing with the Bipedal Federate M’ksakkans, who had approached each tribe separately with certain proposals. An uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I guessed aloud what those proposals were: bases in the south and direct access to the drugs grown here, those drugs catalytic to the serums that are our only restraint upon the M’ksakkans, for they have not succeeded in synthesizing them.

As Chayin so aptly pointed out, if the Menetphers had hovers and star weapons, it would behoove the Nemarsi to treat for them also.

I expressed my disapproval of the scheme, and aired some considered opinions I had gathered from close and continued contact with the B. F. representatives, the Liaisons, in the north. I put it to Chayin that only disorder could result from treating with these materially fixated beings, and he promised me, in return for certain information, that I might sit in on the final negotiations, to be held at Frullo jer, where all the Parset lords would be gathered. Furthermore, he promised me that he would under no circumstances treat with M’ksakka, and that he would convince Aknet of Menetph to refrain also. If the two most powerful of the Parset nations did this, he was sure that the others would follow their lead.

“At some time,” I had said, “I must return to Astria, and take up again my duties there. I would like to send a message to my uncle, adviser Rathad, that I am well and safe, and that I will be home when this business with Sereth has finished.”

“I thought you knew, surely, for you did not ask me to return you,” he had said incredulously, propping himself upon his elbow to stare down into my face.

“Knew what?” I asked him, my lips suddenly stiff and cold. And in a way I had known, for among the probabilities of my sorting had been none concerned with my beloved Astria; no way home.

“Knew,” he said, hesitant, “that Rathad lives no longer, that Jana, who was Well-Keepress there, has long since disappeared, none knowing whither, and that Celendra bast Aknet rules in Astria.”

And I have never been gladder for a man’s arms than at that moment, when so many things became clear to me, and the pieces all fell together, and I saw with the clairty of true seeing what awaited me upon the plain of Astria.

And glad I was too that he would make me his, for of a sudden I was homeless, without family but for Estrazi. Had Chayin again asked me, while I wept and he held me, to become Nemarchan of the Nemarsi, I would have accepted. But he is a righteous man, and he did nothing but what was needed. He held me throughout the long Nemarsi night.

In the morning, upon awaking, I remembered and took refuge; I couched him upon my own initiative, and drove away once again that feeling of aloneness within me.

I thought that day, as we rode the threx around the perimeters of Nemar North, of Rathad. Chayin knew only that he was dead, not how. My mother’s brother had been all family to me.

We rode also to see the child of Besha’s, who was now my responsibility, for as the Weathers would have it, I now wore around my waist the strand of birthing fulfilled. The boy was near adult, and a web-weaver, as had been Besha’s father, Tenager the First Weaver. The youth was not noticeably disturbed; it seemed he hardly even noticed us. The whole time we were there his webber was busy upon the frame and his eyes were elsewhere focused. Tenager, on the other hand, was visibly grief-stricken, and Chayin sat talking to him well over an enth.

As we left the weavers’ appreis I mentioned to Chayin a dream I had had, in which I stood in the middle of a seven-cornered room. He interrupted me there and described to me exactly what I had been about to describe to him—the seven occupants of the room and the aspect that each presented. He was as excited as I that another had seen what had been to each dreamer so real, and we set about speculating upon the identity of the seven men and the meaning of the dream, but we came to no supportable conclusions.

That night we spent in his keep, and the next day, I viewed all that had been Besha’s—each crell, each threx, the appreis, and the palace quarters. Her most amazing possession was a great apprei upon the Way of Tar-Kesa, for which Tenager himself had created the web panels. There was more wealth than I found seemly, and more material things about which to be concerned than I liked. I gave all to Chayin but one apprei, the threx, and crells, and bade him distribute it. I kept the threx upon impulse, and the crells because I felt responsible for their welfare. When we returned to Chayin’s keep that night, a Day-Keeper awaited him with the news that Hael would be late in hide aniet. He bade us await him; that we delay our departure to Frullo jer until his return to Nemar.

Chayin dismissed the man without a word and slammed about the keep, kicking unwary cushions out of his way. He stripped off his sword belt and threw the exquisitely crafted weapon against the far wall. Finally he sat, hands clasped behind his neck, staring at the floor.

“What means this?” he whispered, when I went behind him to knead the knots from his shoulders. I had for him no answer.

“Curse them! Curse them all, the forereaders and the Day-Keepers and Tar-Kesa and the Weathers! I am so tired of suiting my actions to their will! Someday I will throw every manipulative one of them into a pit of hungry apths! This secretiveness is more than I can bear. The two of them, loose among their kind; who knows what harm they will hatch up!” He trembled with rage.

“I have often thought, these last few days, we might be better off without them,” I commiserated. There was one particular Arletian forereader whom I would have liked to add to Chayin’s candidates for the apth pit.

“Do you really have one?” I asked him at last.

“One what?”

“An apth pit.”

“Surely, although they are old and lazy,” he answered. “It takes them days to fully devour their victims. Would you like to see them?”

“No.” I shuddered.

He turned and faced me, reaching up to pull me to my knees by the hair.

“We leave for Frullo jer before morning. I want you to wear this. It will keep the jiasks from you, even if you are maskless. And you will be safe even from other tiasks.” He grinned, and took the golden uritheria medallion from about his neck and placed it about mine. It lay cold and heavy between my breasts. A superstitious chill ran through me.

“I would not take this, it is too great an honor.” I could not say I would not have Tar-Kesa’s sign upon me.

“You must.” His smile was proud and gentle. “I command it.” And for his sake I agreed. Then he went and rummaged behind his hangings, and a great pile of Parset gear began to grow beside him. He threw toward me the Shaper’s cloak.

“You might as well wear it, and these also.” And to the cloak he added a gol-knife in red-gold sheath and a stra straight blade, such as is used in the north, with a hulion’s head carved into its archite hilt.