The Ordinary (34 page)

When she woke, the first thing she saw was the pillow, edged in blue thread, a precise, neat stitch clearly done by hand; next she saw the window, a dark sky that looked like the end of day, though it might have been dark from clouds. The wind pressed at the window as if the weather were rising. A tall shadow moved from there to the bed and Malin bent over Jedda, her white hair falling across Jedda's face. “You're here,” Malin said, and they watched each other eye to eye.

This time Jedda could see the woman she knew, the one she had known, only a few days ago in her memory, in that bed in the north of Irion. For Jedda, the separation had been no more than that, just enough time to cross a lake of fire, for instance, or to be slowly flayed alive. Whereas for Malin the wait had been a long one, and it took awhile for that old Malin to surface.

“Am I very different?” she asked.

“You look a bit more wary,” Jedda said. She swallowed, reached for Malin's hand, half afraid her own body would refuse her. She felt no pain now, but the memory of it was intense, and she ought to be sore.

“You missed the fighting,” Malin said. “After I got the letter and understood. After I came to get you away from him.”

The letter was on the table, as it turned out, the one Jessex had written long ago. Malin picked it up so Jedda could see. “But you'd already met me,” Jedda said. “So what did the letter tell you?”

“That you'd met me. That this was the moment I was waiting for.”

Her voice made Jedda shiver. She lay back on the bed, arm over her eyes. “You've known this was coming all along.”

“Yes. The same way you knew what was coming the night of the dinner. Does that bother you?”

After a while Jedda said, “No.” The placement of her arm muffled her voice and made her feel oddly apart from Malin, till Malin stretched along the bed, leaning her weight carefully onto Jedda.

“I'm glad.”

They lay silently together, their bodies warming, Jedda's breath gathering against Malin's collarbone. She wondered whether she ought to feel afraid, or crazy, or uncertain; she wondered whether this was really sane, to feel so safe with this woman. But she would not deny the feeling.

“What happened?” Jedda asked.

“The letter was my signal to move on the tower here at Cunevadrim. It was my job to beat the impostor, the part of my uncle who was here, who wanted to stay independent. My uncle had another task, joining himself back together out of all his pieces.”

“It was the woman who did it,” Jedda said. “She was the one who stopped Irion when he took the ring.”

“The woman?” Malin shook her head, touched her lips to Jedda's forehead. “No, that was my uncle. He didn't kill it. He only took it back into himself where it came from.”

“There was a woman in the room,” Jedda said, leaning up with some effort, looking down at Malin. “Your uncle saw her, and was afraid of her, and she killed him, or at least that's what it looked like. And she touched me and I was all right. And the next moment Jessex was there, in the same clothes as when I met him. And then he was gone.”

Malin was very quiet a moment, looking at Jedda soberly. She touched Jedda's brow. “You really mean it. A woman?”

“Yes. Very old. Walking with a stick.”

“Oh my,” Malin said, and would not say anything else. Sometime during that silence Jedda fell asleep again, and Malin lay quietly beside her.

“So now you've seen her, too,” Malin said.

They were on the deck of a ship in the arc of the Eseveren Gate, riding the roll of the waves, hearing the singing of Prin choirs mingled with the ocean wind, a choir of Krii.

Jedda had never heard such music, and to think it was no more than voices and the wind. Ships full of Prin, some choirs on hovercraft bought from the Hormling, a few on steamships, on sailing vessels straining to hold place, the wind ripping at the riggings on the masts. A motley fleet spread across the waves, the bright sun shining.

She had met her friends yesterday, clasped Opit to her shoulder, shaken hands with Himmer and Vitter, seen the edge of fear in Brun's eye. They were all here somewhere, on one of the ships. When she was with them she felt most keenly the change in herself. I don't know who I am anymore, she thought. What a pleasant prospect, at my age. “What's left to do?”

“You tell me,” Malin said.

“I don't understand.”

“It's time for you to decide.” Malin walked to the ship's railing, stood there silhouetted against the waves. “Do we open the gate again, or not?”

Jedda followed. “I thought that's why we came here.”

“You have to say.” They were close now, and eye to eye.

Jedda's heart was pounding. “Why does it have to be me? Why is it my choice?”

Malin shrugged. “God kissed you. Not me.”

“But you don't even think she is God.”

Malin smiled. “But you do.”

Was it true? She felt as if Malin had engulfed her in some way, or as if the old woman had, or both. It was the most wonderful feeling she could remember, to be so taken. She waited till she felt calmer to answer, and even then she hardly knew what she would say, since she was tempted both ways. “Yes,” she said at last. “I want to open the gate again.”

“Why?”

“Because I think it's what she wants. And because I want her to be out there, too. In my world.”

They stood there quietly. “All right,” Malin answered. The wind rose, ruffling all the sails, and a light grew sudden and strong through the clouds. “Touch the ring when you're ready.”

She had been wearing it lately; for a while after she recovered she could never stand to have it in sight. The stone had grown warm in the sun. She touched her finger to it. Far in the north in his tower, Irion felt her wish. Jedda looked for a change in the stone arch but saw only the waves and wind beating against it. Malin signaled for the fleet to sail and the Prin began to sing as the ships moved through the arch, across the little patch of sea, and into the new world.

Readers of my earlier novel
Kirith Kirin
will understand that the world of
The Ordinary
is the same world as that older Aeryn, changed by time. While a few of the characters from
Kirith Kirin
appear in this book briefly, the story is not a sequel to that book, nor is it the second volume in a series of books that tell, or attempt to tell, some single larger story. Threads of a larger story are there, of course, but are not vital to the novel. The universe shared by the Erejhen and the Hormling is one about which I intend to write more, on all sides of the time line.
The Ordinary
serves as the story of the place where the Hormling and Erejhen meet, literally and figuratively. I repeat information about Erejhen religion, history, and other subjects only to the degree that it illuminates the current story. Readers wishing to learn more about the long past of these people will want to turn to
Kirith Kirin
. Readers who are curious about the Hormling will want to read the stories I've published in
Asimov's Science Fiction
over the last few years.

I call this present book “science fiction” in spite of the fact that it is the successor to a fantasy novel and in spite of the fact that it uses the word
magic.
I am exploring the interface between a culture that believes in magic and one that believes in science, and I ultimately wish to explore the kinds of doubts that arise in each world as a result of the presence of the other. The book presumes that science will eventually explain magic, and thus my own belief that the science fiction designation is earned, if more softly than hardly.