Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) (26 page)

“She said—Kezzi said—that she would come to school tomorrow. Do you think she will?”

Eztina blinked.

Syl Vor sighed. “Well, I hope she will, too . . . but I think she might have not been
quite
truthful. We’re . . .
gah-gee
—I think that means
outworlder
. It—I—it would be very bad if her honor were . . . impinged. Because of me.”

He frowned, trying to work out if one’s honor could be sullied by breaking faith with an outworlder. Grandaunt said that the Code governed Liadens wherever they went—but Kezzi wasn’t Liaden. Grandfather . . .

Grandfather said that one ought to act with honor on all occasions, and that
honor called honor
.

Grandfather deferred to Grandaunt’s greater knowledge of the Code, but he was, so Padi had said, very nice in his manners, and extremely particular in matters of Balance.

If Kezzi’s honor were drawn to—well, not to
his
honor, really; he was only a boy, but to
the clan’s
honor, with which he was invested—at least, that was what the Code said. If Kezzi’s honor were drawn to Korval’s honor, then she had told the truth, and would come to school.

Syl Vor closed his eyes, immensely relieved to have reached a reasonable conclusion.

Of course, Kezzi’s grandmother might not allow it, he thought then, his stomach clenching—and then relaxing. Obedience to an elder was honorable, so—

Four points of pressure on his chest increased painfully—and were gone.

“Gnh!” Syl Vor sat up, staring at a cat’s high, sinuous tail as she walked into the little alcove that was his study room.

He sighed, and rolled off the bed.

Eztina was right. Ms. ker’Eklis had left him a lot of work to do, and he’d best get to it if he wanted to finish before dinner.

* * *

“
Luthia
, a word, if you will.”

Silain opened her eyes.

“For the headman, a sentence,” she said. “Will you have tea?”

“Tea would make the telling less dry.”

She stood to fetch the kettle and the mugs. The child had not yet returned from her errand. Perhaps Torv had not been easy to find.

She poured tea, and brought the mugs to the hearth, handing one to Alosha. He stood politely while she settled herself, waiting for her permission before he dropped cross-legged to the rug.

It was the way of the Bedel to sit quietly over tea for a small time, until the hearts of those gathered beat as one. This had never been Alosha’s way; he was one who led with his head, and did not stint his tongue.

Silain therefore sipped her tea, waiting . . . and waiting more, with growing surprise.

Half a mug was drunk, by patient sips, before Alosha the headman cleared his throat and spoke.

“How fares Dmitri?”

Here was another surprise. The headman could himself walk to Dmitri’s hearth and inquire of Ves and Luma. There was no need to make inquiry of the
luthia
on so straightforward a matter.

Yet, he had asked, and he was the headman. The
luthia
could but reply.

“He proceeds at a stately pace. Early this day, he and I prayed together. He spoke at length of what, and who, he hoped to meet, when he came into the World Unseen. I think that another three days will see him safely over. He is content, and his death will be a good one.”

“His death,” Alosha repeated, and leaned toward her, his eyes intent.

“
Luthia
, the Bedel are on
chafurma
; the numbers are fixed.”

Ah. Suddenly it made sense, this visit; and this specific inquiry. Alosha thought long, as a headman must.

Silain moved her hand, inviting him to continue.

“The numbers are fixed,” he repeated. “When Dmitri crosses into that kinder place, the numbers will be in disarray. There is no coming birth to balance his death. I have counted, I have dreamed, and again have I counted and dreamed. Now I come to the
luthia
to beg her wisdom. If we are not to be fruitful with each other, how then will we survive? If we become fruitful with those in the City Above, how will we remain who we are? And—this troubles me most of all—are we, after this length with no news, to suppose that something ill has befallen those others of us, and that
chafurma
. . . will not, for us, end?”

Long thoughts, indeed.

There was a rustle near the hearth, and the smallest click of claw on stone. The child and her faithful friend had returned. Silain considered sending them to Jin, and then decided not. The child was her apprentice, and strange knowledge was the lot of both the
luthia
and the
luthia
-to-be.

“We went outside,” Silain said to Alosha, “and got Rafin.”

“We did. But how many others can we get before we are something else?”

Silain waited. After a moment, Alosha sighed gustily, and put the mug down by his knee.

“There is more. The
garda
have expanded their watch. You know this. What you do not know, I think, is that we have closed and sealed two of the nearer gates. The risk of them was too great. If this continues, we will no longer be hidden,
luthia
, we will be trapped.”

“Will it continue?” Silain asked. “The
garda
have come before and, after a time, they have gone away again.”

“This Boss Conrad. He lights a fire in their bellies. More! Those others who have come on-world—the People of the Tree, and their allies—they are eager for work. And hungry for room. It is said in the City Above that Boss Conrad looks at the buildings above us, and sees housing and hydroponics for his people.”

Silain closed her eyes. There was something—the tang of something dream-known, at the back of her tongue. But faint. So very faint.

“Luthia?”

Without opening her eyes, she raised a hand, and Alosha the headman composed himself to silence.

The dream . . . it tasted nearly as old as the story of Riva, and for a moment she thought that it was too far and too fragile to bring forward. If she could but locate some marker, she might find it again, among the dreams she held in keeping for the
kompani
—and suddenly, it was there, in fullness. Not a story-dream, but a piece of history, filed under Bedel cleverness, and strategies for survival among the
gadje
.

“How if,” she said to the headman, her voice dreamy and slow. “How if we say to Boss Conrad that we the Bedel have . . .
established tenancy
, and the buildings are ours.”

Silence greeted this; a silence so charged with misgiving that it crackled along the
luthia
’s nerves and awakened blue lightnings in her long sight.

She opened her eyes.

Alosha the headman sat cross-legged on her rug, arrested in the act of filling his pipe.

“You—” he began, swallowed and began again. “The
luthia
would advise us to deal openly with the
gadje
and claim
ownership
of this, our
kompani
’s grounds?”

Frank horror informed the headman’s voice, and Alosha was not one who came easily to fear.

“It has been done before,” Silain told him calmly. “And we do not say that we own this building—though we might, with no breaking of custom. After all, it is
not true
that we own this space or the warehouses above us.” She gave him a sharp glance. “Or is it true?”

“No,” Alosha said shortly. He finished packing his pipe, and reached to the hearth for an ember.

“This was done before, you say? By the Bedel?” he asked, after the pipe was going to his satisfaction.

“It was.”

“And the outcome?”

“The
gadje
granted to the
kompani
the right to remain where they had set camp. The
garda
was made to know that the Bedel were not vagrants.” She raised a finger as another bit of information rose from the old dream.

“The
gadje
populated that space hard by the
kompani
, which the
kompani
had not claimed.”

“And so the
kompani
was absorbed by the
gadje
? Or did
chafurma
end in bright joy and happiness?”

Silain frowned; shook her head in frustration.

“I will need to dream again.”

Alosha nodded, drew on his pipe and exhaled a fragrant cloud of smoke.

“And the question of the numbers?”

“There, too, I will dream. We know there have been those who have not returned from
chafurma
, but their dreams are lost to us.”

Silence while the headman smoked gloomily.

“It may be that it will be solved for us, if we adopt this
established tenancy
and the
gadje
come to live eye to eye with the Bedel. We will cease to be Bedel. Our dreams will be lost, and our children’s children will be
gadje
.”

“It may be. It may not be,” Silain said to him. “I will seek the fullness of this dream. We have time for that. When we have dreamed in fullness, then perhaps we ought to share with the
kompani
, and call for an Affirmation.”

Alosha smoked for a time, then abruptly extended a long arm to knock the ashes out of his pipe.

“There is much in what you say,
luthia
.” He tucked the pipe away and rose. “I leave you now to your hearth and your dreams.”

“Headman. The
kompani
sits in your hand.”

“Well I know it, Grandmother.”

He bowed, and walked away, down the commons, toward his own hearth.

Not until the headman’s shadow had melted into the larger shadows, did Silain the
luthia
raise her head and say, “Come forward, Sister. Bring the teapot and a mug for yourself.”

Kezzi dropped to her knees on the rug, poured tea into Silain’s mug, and what was left of the pot into hers.

“So, little sister?”

The child looked up, her eyes opaque.

“Torv says that school begins an hour past the winter dawn.”

Silain smiled. “That is well done, and well said. Now, sit, and tell me what you heard pass between myself and the headman.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Rys opened his eyes, and immediately regretted doing so.

What light there was—and it was not by any means brilliant—assaulted him, waking the dull throb of a headache. His mouth felt furry, and tasted foul; his stomach was queasy and he was not at all certain that it was proof against even the slightest movement.

He closed his eyes again, which settled his stomach somewhat, and tried to force his laggard brain to recall what had occurred, that he should waken in such a state, in . . . in . . .

Gingerly, he opened his eyes to the thinnest of slits, surveying his surroundings through his lashes.

He lay on his side on a thin pad; a blanket had been thrown over him, though he was fully dressed, even unto his boots. Before him, not many handspans from the tip of his nose, fabric rippled, like a curtain drawn over an open window. He raised his eyes. The ceiling was swathed in more fabric, and there were two small, round disks set into it. It was these that provided the meager light.

Unless his memory was now also malfunctioning in the short term, he had never seen this place before. Certainly, he did not remember lying down on the mattress, nor pulling the blanket up around himself.

He took a breath, trying to remember, but gently and without urgency.

First, where was he not?

Absolutely, he was not in Silain’s hearth-room, which was bright, airy, and open to the common area.

He was—he
knew
he was—back with the Bedel, beneath the city.

Well.

Deliberately, he relaxed into that conviction, eyes closing against the silence.

Slowly, as if he were watching bladder lilies rise to the surface of a pond, the events of the last several hours elucidated themselves.

The meeting with Rafin, the expedition to Finder’s Junk Heap, the advent of Malda, and the decision to go with those who sought for Kezzi.

He had fallen behind, his handicaps having overset him, and leaned against a wall to recruit himself.

There had been—he had been more exhausted than he had known, and must have fallen into a . . . doze, for the next thing he recalled was Udari bending close and asking if he was well.

The headache snarled, and he winced.

One deep breath; and another, deliberately thinking of nothing. He shifted on the mattress, and turned onto his back. The blanket was twisted ’round him irritatingly, and he snatched at it with—

With a hand that gleamed liquid brass in the dim lights.

Rys froze. His prime hand had been badly damaged, he told himself very carefully indeed. It was splinted and padded, lest any random bump cause him pain. He could use it for gross tasks, and to keep balance, but on the whole, it was useless, and likely to remain that way for the rest of his life, if he understood Silain correctly, even if he found an autodoc in this place.

And yet, here was no splint, padded out with rags. Here . . . was a thing of precision and beauty. He brought his hand closer to his eyes, understanding that he wore a glove, a glove to which hundreds—thousands!—of golden scales had been meticulously adhered by some art that was beyond him—the whole being wondrously light, and—

He clenched his fist.

There was a small hum from among the larger scales at the glove’s hem. That was all.

He opened his fist and spread his fingers as wide as they would go, rotating the hand at the wrist. The palm and the underside of his fingers were covered with dark, flexible mesh. It had a metallic glitter to it, but was soft against the skin of his opposite palm.

His heart pounding in his ears, he closed his eyes, resting his hands on his chest, where both relaxed with a slight curl to the fingers.

The remainder of yesterday flowed into his consciousness, as easily as if he had never been at a loss.

After he recovered from his swoon, they—being Rafin, Udari, Kezzi, Malda, and himself—had walked slowly back to a gate, where Rafin let them in.

It was not the gate they had passed through on their way to Finder’s. Indeed, his knowledge of the Bedel led him to suppose that there were
several
gates, and that the location of all were known only to a few. Once they were inside, their coats and hats hung on hooks for the use of those next to venture outside, Udari had taken the child and her dog to the
luthia
, while he and Rafin had returned to the forge.