The Carnelian Throne (34 page)

Sereth sat half upon the massive table that centered the room, cleaning his nails with a knife. He, too, was stripped down to breech, his hair and skin gleaming wetly. As Deilcrit and Mahrlys entered he put the weapon by Se’keroth, amid his gear which strewed the tabletop, and came to meet him.

“You should not have waited for us to eat,” Deilcrit said mechanically, trying to pinpoint what was wrong in the room.

“We find ourselves concerned with things other than our bellies,” said Sereth. As Mahrlys quavered Chayin’s name, stiffened in Deilcrit’s graps, he looked more closely and saw the dark power’s foreboding demeanor. Then he looked back at Aat-Sereth and said that he did not understand.

“It is customary here, as we learned in Dey-Ceilneeth,” said Sereth easily, disarmingly, with a comradely smile, “to exchange ipherim. So we thought, Estri and I, how fitting it would be to celebrate your accession in that manner.”

Mahrlys whole form quaked, and she moaned. Deilcrit looked from her to the spirit power Estri, and then at Aat-Sereth. He dropped his arms from Marlys’ shoulders.

“So be it,” said Deilcrit, watching Mahrlys closely.

She stood like a statue.

But the cahndor pushed himself away from the inlaid chest and struck an eloquently threatening pose.

“As you can see,” continued Sereth blithely. “Chayin has some small objection to this, which if we ignore I am sure—”

“Sereth,” growled Chayin.

“Yes, cahndor?” Sereth grinned, sliding off the table.

“There can be only one ending to this.”

“So I, myself, have surmised. Let us commence. The food grows cold.”

“You need not worry. You are not going to be eating it, but will be instead cold as any carcass on that sideboard.”

Deilcrit flicked a glance at Quendros, whose hand scratched his new beard and whose eyes were hooded.

Then Sereth asked for Deilcrit’s help with the table, and they moved it to the side of the room.

Exposed thus was a circular rug the color of mist.

Estri had taken leave of the couch. She sauntered leisurely to the center of the gray circle and said, “Well, is this not apt? I see only one problem.”

“What is that?” asked Deilcrit, when no one else did, as he instructed the doors to close and took Mahrlys under his arm.

Quendros, upon Chayin’s request, unstrapped the white-bladed sword and handed it to him.

“The problem is,” said Estri quite calmly, running her toe through the fleece of the rug and watching the track it made, “that there are not two chalded witnesses. Not even the Laonan priest would be acceptable to our authorities as witness in a death match when both men’s holdings comprise a continent.” And she wet her lips, and expelled a shuddering breath, and continued less calmly: “So, since we cannot have a death within the circle, even though we have a circle, both of you put those weapons down! I will not stand for it! As the only ranking neutral party, I demand hands only, full conventions, permanent injury penalized.”

Eyes flashing, she tossed her head. “Deilcrit!”

“Most High?”

“You are going to see something few have witnessed: the dharen of Silistra and the cahndor of Nemar scuffling on the mat like apprentice Slayers! So goes it with these highly skilled, intelligent scions of the most evolved race yet produced among all the worlds of creations. So goes it with a Mi’ysten child whose father was a god before whom Mnemaat quailed; and with Hase-Enor, our long-awaited pinnacle of genetics, he who is kin to all men. I tell you, Deilcrit,” she continued in a slightly lowered tone, “my father would not—”

“That is enough, Estri,” snapped Sereth. “You are right about convention, but I need no lectures from you. Get out of the way and keep quiet.”

She did that, and Deilcrit was glad that Mahrlys watched.

“Chayin, what would you fight for?”

“For the love of seeing you at my feet.”

“Estri, do we have your august permission to fight with no prize?”

“No,” said Estri, “Use Se’keroth, and all that accompanies it. I have had, as you say, about all of this I am willing to take.”

And Deilcrit was then not glad at all that Mahrlys’ head swayed from side to side as she followed the discussion. He pulled her nails from between her teeth, and wondered as he held her wrist what lay between her and the cahndor.

The two spirit powers stepped onto the gray, fluffy mat and Estri came around it to stand by Deilcrit’s side. Her arms were crossed over her breasts. He could see her pulse jump in her throat.

“The cahndor,” said Estri quietly, “will take the offensive, try to get Sereth in close, if ....” And then she fell silent as the dark power, crouched over, suddenly unwound and his long arms lashed out.

Sereth ducked under them, his hands moving in toward the darker man’s throat, and at the last moment dropping down.

Chayin straightened suddenly, throwing his torso back, and Sereth, from out of Chayin’s reach, stepped one step in and his hands left his hips to deliver two simultaneous blows to Chayin’s neck with the inner sides of his hands. Struck a nerve-debilitating blow by the short bones below Sereth’s thumbs, Chayin dropped to the rug without even a groan.

Estri expelled a breath, muttered a curse, and took a step forward.

“That is a four on the pain chart. You could have killed him,” she said very softly.

Sereth stirred Chayin’s crumpled form with his toe. “You underestimate me, Estri. Chayin did the same. You see the results. Now, call it!”

“You have it: Se’keroth and a new enemy, and twice the trouble you had before.”

“Thank you, neutral witness.”

Flushed, Estri bit her lip. He heard her mutter something about knowing better. Then she went up to Sereth and said soft things and he took her in his arms and Deilcrit was reminded that he, too, held such a woman, and pulled close Mahrlys.

After a time he heard a raucous squawking, the thunder of wings above his head, but he did not look up.

When later he walked them to the ridgetop, alone, he marveled at the clearness of the night air, at the tiny crescent of a moon, and at the dimmed amber dome that had once housed the memories of Imca-Sorr-Aat.

The cahndor, as the spirit powers called him, had taken his defeat better than Deilcrit could imagine he might have done, were the positions reversed.

Doubtless Chayin would have acquitted himself better with Aat-Estri if he had been included in the spirit powers’ version of the exchanging of ipherim. Which he was not. He was in another chamber, under Quendros’ care.

This had been of great concern to Deilcrit, for he knew himself no match for even the loser of the contest he had beheld.

So he had bid Quendros minister to the dark power, while he himself was taken deeper into Estri and Sereth’s company than he had ever expected to be.

And it had greatly constrained him, to use a woman with another man.

He felt like a thief, a masquerader, an impersonator about to be unmasked. He still felt so, carrying visions in his head which shattered the Beneguan law into fragments too tiny ever to be reclaimed. He recollected the softenss of Estri, and stole a sidelong glance in the moonlight.

As if hearing his thoughts, she turned to him and said that if ever he found the sheath of Se’keroth, which Sereth had cast into the bay, he should return it to her.

He promised that he would look for it.

Long after they had disappeared, leaving behind little wisps of flame that danced in the air, he sat on the ridgetop and stared down at Othdaliee, at the browned globe on the little island in the stream, at the twelve black towers waiting for him to explore. Mahrlys was down there. He conjured sight of her ivory throat, arched back in passion. Quendros awaited him with all the education and guidance he could desire. Kirelli swooped along the corridors, gloating, his “Kreesh, breet, kreesh” echoing in the halls of their freedom.

Why was it, then, that he felt so lonely?

He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in his palm, and thought that he would look very hard for the green sword’s sheath.

Chayin left us; courteously and with a small show of affection, at the Lake of Horns. It had been Sereth’s obviation. He had asked me the date on which I would like to return, and I had told him what my own estimate of the actual date was, and he had brought us all into the seven-cornered hall without even a shiver of cold touching my sensing.

Which startled our faithful Carth, who was holding a meeting there.

Of Carth we asked the date and found it to be Cal first first, which pleased Sereth, so that, the corner of his mouth, where the scar runs by it, pulled inward.

The cahndor went to Carth, and pulled him away abruptly; and Sereth sought a tatooed Menetpher, gathered him up.

While I played hostess to the high dhareners of Silistra, smelly and ragged in Chayin’s undertunic and hardwom leathers, Sereth and Chayin bespoke their unification agreement to Carth and to the ranking dharener of the Parset Lands, who was also there, he whose cheeks bear green bolts of lightning, three on a side.

So, it was done. I watched them together and breathed a sigh that caused one of the lakeborn dhareners to raise a golden eyebrow. I ignored him, staring above me at the ceiling with its ruddy gold scales, then down at my feet where the Shapers’ Seal, sign of my father’s people, glows eternally up from the floor. It is that of a universal order not completed, but one in which each of us have a part.

We have come a long way since joining forces. They will mend their differences. Or they will not. What matters is that for a time they shared love, and during that time they created out of their love a lasting monument to those times. My whole world will benefit from what union the cahndor and dharen have bestowed on Silistra: a change in the viewpoint of a few individuals that indeed affects the fortunes of all the individuals who consider themselves, part of the whole called Silistra; a succinct summation of catalysis genetics; a monument to Khys, Sereth’s predecessor, that he built in spite of his own intent, by acting according to his sense of fitness.

I remember the thrill that went through me as I watched Carth and the Menetpher witness Sereth and Chayin’s pact. And all that had almost been lost on the shores of Aehre-Kanoss paraded by my sensing, and I wondered why Chayin had risked it.

I thought of how early he had been intent on his course, recalling that it was he who was first through the gate, and he who bound us to Deilcrit by his word. And when it was done and Chayin came toward me, I knew that he would leave.

He hugged me, and kissed my neck, and told me to come with Sereth in summer to Nemar North and look over the yearling threx, and I found myself near tears, though I saw his father’s stamp on him, and it chilled me.

As I told him how much I regretted what had come to pass, my voice betrayed me, and he and I stood awhile unheedful of all else. When he released me and wished me tasa and strode away through the dhareners into the outer hall, Sereth was nowhere in sight.

So I bade Carth have a meal placed in the dharen’s keep, and sought my couch-mate in the baths.

(B) = Beneguan

(P) = Parset

(S) = Silistran

(St) = Stothric

(M) = Mi’ysten

Aat:
(B) To come into being.

Aehre:
(B) The eastermost country that comprises half of the continental aggregate termed AehreKanoss; the city-state Aehre, on the inland Imaen Sea. Continental Aehre contains Benegua, Nehedra, Bachryse, Fhrelatiadek, Aehre proper, and Othdaliee. It is bordered on the north by the Rosharlcand Mountains and Fai Teraer-Moyhe; on the east by the Valsima River, Piyah-Ptesh, and the Imaen Sea; on the south by Kanoss and the Embrodming Sea; on the west by the tip of the Rosharkands and the Embrodming.

Aehre-Kanoss:
(B) Designation for the inhabited areas of the continent that dominates Silistra’s eastern hemisphere, including the islands east of Kanoss, whose shores none were empowered to speak of the lands ruled over by Wehrdorn.

Bachryse:
(B) A Laonan town on the Isanisa River in the Rosharkand Valley; one of the six remaining strongholds of man in continental Aehre-Kanoss, Bachryse is administrated by an elected male Byek.

Benegua:
(B) Those lands within the Wall of. Mnemaat; the stronghold of the Vahais of Mnemaat, Aehre-Kanoss’ ruling body; the spiritual, sanctuary of Wehrdom.

berceide:
(B) Jorge, constrictor-type serpent.

Byek:
(B) Any of the local administrators of Aehre-Kanoss; a Byek may be male or female, man or wehr, though this is regulated by the traditions of each city-state. All Byeks are subject to the Vahais of Mnemaat, but to no secular authority. They rule supreme and unmolested in their various preserves, subject only to the Beneguan mandate, the whims of Wehrdom, and the aggressions of their fellow Byeks.

cahndor:
(P) “Will of the sand”; warlord of a Parset tribe; in usage, one who commands the speaker’s allegiance and respect.

campt:
(B) A long-bodied, tusked carnivore whose average length and weight are thrice a large man’s; the campt has four legs, a tail one thrid its own length, a hairless hide usually russet in color.

catalysis genetics:
(St) The catalysis cycle (see the writings of the dharen Khys, Silistra, hide-years sixty-three through sixty-five); the reference formulae upon which the science of societal engineering was based. In outline: a proposed genetic cycle based in sociogenetics stating that atavism resurges at intervals made opportune by the manifestation of psychosocial triggers provided by inbreeding individuals with strong predispositions for agricultural gregariousness, creating a technological burst which undermines any existing feudal power structure and allows for the reassertion of individual aggressiveness.

This balance, sought repeatedly in rising civilizations, must be exact, or collapse of civilization follows. Hence the
cycle:
gregarious strategies create agricultural societies at the beginning of technological surges, curve produces progressively more altruistic, then atavistic individuals at moments of technological, ascendancy; culling between groups commences; precipitates a fall back to basic agricultural grouping; cycle proceeds in increasingly pronounced curves until unstable level of advanced technology triggers manipulations of societal stable strategies in an attempt to preserve the race as atavism physically assaults existing morality and survival rate lowers. Prevalent correlates on Aehre-Kanoss show an attempt to hold to a pretechnological culture by culling both the most and the least survival-suited individuals, in an obvious ploy to show the progress of the genetic curve and hold it at agri-man, against evolution’s ever-more energetic efforts to inject atavistic catalysts into a gene pool so stagnant that it, of itself, demands and produces them.