The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) (102 page)

“Damn it! I have to see her.” Forcing himself to calm down, he regarded Naroshi coolly. He must not get angry at Naroshi. That would be not so much bad manners as poor governance.

“Perhaps I may convey a message to her, your grace.”

“All right, then. Perhaps you know the answer. I believe your sister has been watching me while I travel, watching me while the ship I travel on is within the singularities, the windows. Can this be?”

“Ships are not the only vehicles for traveling on the great web, your grace, although most creatures are limited to this mode.”

One of the glasses shattered on the paving stones. “Oh, shit,” muttered David.

Stunned, Anatoly finally winched himself around to see David staring gape-mouthed at the Chapalii duke. Shards of glass lay strewn around his boots, slivers winking in the sunlight. “Well,” said Anatoly, looking back to Naroshi, “so Genji can somehow travel along or through the singularities without leaving this moon?”

“It is a female mystery, your grace. Only those who know the secrets of the deeper tongue can travel the web.”

“Are allowed to, or are capable of?” David murmured.

“And of those who know the deeper tongue, only the builders can fathom the net.”

“If your sister Genji has taken Ilyana Arkhanov on as some kind of apprentice, then does that mean she will teach Ilyana to, uh, fathom the net?”

“I beg your pardon, your grace. Although you are elevated above all but the other Yao by the Yaochalii himself, yet you and the others of your kind are still daiga. Animals are bound to the physical world. Is it not true that you can see only in the realm of what you call visible light, except with the aid of your brittle tools? As for the rest, you must ask this of your cousin yourself. She is not of my house, therefore I may not speak to her.” Naroshi lifted his head. “Unless you seek to give her into my house by marrying her to me.”

David hissed a sudden breath in through his teeth.

Anatoly shuddered, looking at this alien creature. But surely Naroshi had no… sexual designs on Ilyana. To him, surely, she would simply represent a powerful alliance with another princely house, a triumph for his house, for his prince. Who was, of course, the Teardrop Prince. Who had already stated his enmity toward Anatoly and
his
tribe.

“No,” said Anatoly. “No. I think not. But I would like to see her, if you know where she is, if she is with your sister.”

Naroshi waited for a moment. His gaze strayed to the broken latticework and back to Anatoly. “I am sure that my sister is already aware of your presence here. Is there more, your grace? Another way I might serve you?”

“No. You are free to go.”

When he had gone, and his craft sailed off into the late afternoon sky, David sat down and laughed weakly. “Oh, Goddess, I don’t know what gave me a worse turn, finding out that Genji can maybe travel through the singularities on her own, or the thought of Ilyana being married to that chameleon. Oh, Lady. Even if it was a nice Earth boy, it would
not
be what the poor child needs right now. Getting married, I mean. But I just could not reconcile that cold fish Naroshi with an ardent bridegroom having lascivious thoughts about his young bride. Like Himalaya’s daughter, who was so beautiful that Shiva was tempted to love her divine body for a thousand years.

Then Anatoly made his first mistake. Surprised by David’s babbling, he looked him right in the eye.

David was no fool. Nor was human nature any mystery to him. He jumped back to his feet, wine bottle and remaining glass hanging limply from his left hand. “Don’t you dare! She doesn’t need that. She’s too young.”

Anatoly bristled. “Staking out your ground?”

“She’s sixteen years old! She’s a child.”

“My grandmother was married at—”

“And her mother Karolla had had a child by the time she was sixteen or seventeen, yeah yeah, I’ve heard it all before. But this isn’t the jaran, in case you need reminding.”

“I can do what I want.”

“What the hell am I talking about?” said David suddenly, setting the bottle and glass down on the bench. “This isn’t truly about Ilyana, is it, however attractive she certainly is? This is about Diana. For which I am very sorry, Anatoly.”

“I don’t want your pity!”

Anatoly whirled and ran out of the gate. He went out to the horses, but Little Sosha was gone, and he had left his saddle on the yacht in any case, in his haste to come downside. Swearing under his breath, he began to walk across the grass toward the ruined caravansary, the only place he could brood in peace. Shadows lengthened around him. By the road, the night-flowers began to open, their scent mingling with the smell of grass and an odd flavor in the air, one that hadn’t been here before. Looking up, he realized that the air above no longer wore the faint shimmer that betrayed the presence of the dome. So many things he had failed to notice, in his haste to come downside. Insects buzzed. A horse neighed, calling out, and he turned to see Little Sosha, at a distance, galloping toward the herd. Behind her came a barge. He waited.

As he knew it would, it halted before him and Ilyana walked hesitantly down the ramp. She stopped in front of him, cocking her head to one side. Then she blushed and with an effort did not look away from him. He had forgotten how beautiful she was.

He drew his saber.

She paled and took a step back, one foot coming solidly down on the ramp. The barge did not move, floating in the air, ready to receive her.

“Don’t,” she said. That was all.

“Oh, gods,” said Anatoly, and shut his eyes. While they were shut, he sheathed his saber. When he opened them, she still stood there. She was still beautiful. She was so young, and yet not young, having been marked by death and exile. “You have to marry,” he said finally.

“Oh, gods!” She rolled her eyes and grimaced, no longer shy of him. He could see himself transforming in her eyes into another meddling adult. “I don’t have to marry. I don’t have to take a lover unless I want to. And I’m sorry about the flower night, but you know that my mother lied about it. Not that I wouldn’t have picked you under other circumstances—” But that was too much. She faltered, collected herself, and glanced toward the distant caravansary, as if willing David to come to her rescue.

Anatoly realized that he was jealous of David. But that was a morass he did not want to step into, yet.

“I’m sorry about Diana,” she said finally. “I feel really bad for you. I know you…loved her.”

He looked away, unable to endure her sympathy.

“But…I was thinking, about Evdi. Maybe Evdi could be with Portia. Maybe there could be some kind of arrangement, with…Evdi’s parents, that she could be fostered out. I think it would be better for her, and I bet Portia would like it.”

“It’s a good idea,” he said without looking at her. “I’ll see.”

“And Anton,” she pressed. “Maybe Hyacinth and Yevgeni could foster him for a while.”

“Yes,” he said automatically, thinking it was a good idea before recalling that he ought not to approve. But he did approve. “Do you like it here, Yana?”

She cleared her throat. “Yeah. Genji told me something really strange today, but interesting. It’s true you’re a prince, isn’t it? I mean that the emperor said you were one.”

“It is true that he has acknowledged that I am a prince of the Sakhalin. What did Genji tell you?”

“Well.” He heard her feet rustle in the grass as, gaining confidence, she stepped off the ramp again. “She said that the empire is like a grid, all staked out and growing to fill the lines, the…space, I mean the grid that’s already staked out. I’m not quite sure what she meant, except she talked about the net, it’s like the grid in nesh. Does it make any sense to you?”

Anatoly clenched his hands. A slow smile spread onto his face. “Yes, it does. A bit of sense. It’ll make more sense to others. What if she’s talking about the transport system, the singularities? That would imply that the Chapalii constructed, or created, the singularities themselves, that they’ve already sown them, staked out the net, and now the empire is just growing to fill it. Except how far does it extend?”

“I dunno. Genji says the Mushai was her brother, one of her brothers, I mean. He was an earlier brother than Naroshi.”

“But according to what we understand of Chapalii history, the Tai-en Mushai’s line was made extinct.”

“That’s what she said. She made it sound like there were other brothers between the Mushai and Naroshi. Like she only has one at a time, like she controls when they appear, or something.”

“You must ask her further about this.”

“I know.”

Struck by the confidence in her voice, he almost laughed. Here she spilled this vital intelligence, information that even he couldn’t get, that generations of civilized khaja had not discovered, and there she stood, not truly a woman yet by jaran custom but old enough to be a woman, once she chose to cross over. He studied her, although it was not quite good manners to do so. She folded her arms over her chest and regarded him in her turn, steadily. Any man would be honored to be chosen on her flower night.

But Anatoly had a damned good idea, at this moment, that he wouldn’t be the one.

“Are you truly happy here?” he asked instead. “I can take you somewhere else, see that other arrangements are made….”

She threw up her hands in disgust. “None of you want to believe me. I
am
happy here. I’m where I belong. When it’s time for me to leave, I’ll go, to wherever I need to go next, but this is where I need to be right now.”

“Then I will leave you, Cousin,” he said, inclining his head toward her as a man does toward a woman, to show his respect, “although I hope you will give me a full accounting of all that you have learned, all that you do learn, from Genji. You are our only window into her world.”

“I know, and I understand.”

So he left her and walked back, alone, to the caravansary.

“What will you do now?” asked David, kindly not alluding to whatever may have happened between Anatoly and Ilyana, out on the grass.

Anatoly allowed himself a few moments just to bask in the sunlight. It almost warmed him, but he felt perpetually cold these days, except when he had Portia by him. He shut his eyes and tried not to think about Diana, but failed. So he opened them and caught David watching him, with compassion on his face.

“I don’t know,” he admitted finally, because he had to admit it to someone. David was loyal to Charles Soerensen; Anatoly knew that. Yet David was more than that: David was simply David, a human being who was capable of caring and of understanding and of just plain listening. “I thought I knew. I thought I comprehended the worlds. It’s like seeing the lay of the ground through a mist, and then having the mist lift and none of the landmarks are what you thought you knew. Suddenly you’re lost, when you thought you knew the path.”

“I don’t envy you your position, Anatoly. Some may. That’s the way of the world, that’s the way of human nature. But unless you succumb to the easy road, to the abuse of power, you’re not going to have an easy time of it.”

“It’s not that, so much. I
am
a—”

“—prince of the Sakhalin, yes, born and bred to power.” But he said it with a laugh.

Anatoly tried to grin but could not. “It’s that I just…can’t…understand why Diana—” Here his voice broke, and he could not go on.

David put a hand on his arm, companionable. “Have some wine. Hell, forget the wine. I’ve got some Martian whiskey. Let’s get drunk.”

So they did.

Once the shock of the dry season wore off, Ilyana discovered she was tired of it. She missed the novelty of the rain. She and David went looking for a new place to live, but in the end they decided to stay in the caravansary. It had room for visitors, and it was the most humanlike structure that they found, except for Genji’s monumental halls.

Ilyana studied, and rode, and visited Genji. David did whatever adults did when they were on retreat, and he faithfully transcribed her reports, asked her probing questions about what she had seen and talked about, explained a few things she had missed or misinterpreted, and sent coded messages up into the heavens to Charles Soerensen’s—no, to Prince Anatoly’s agents.

Ilyana did not visit the ruined caravansary, but she still dreamed about Shiva, dreamed of him dancing, dreamed of the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, dreamed the grace and power of his body. And woke up, sitting bolt upright, his sash twined around her body and her heart beating hard, sure that someone had been in her room, was in her room, but no one ever was.

But when she didn’t dream about him, she woke up disappointed.

“You must learn to draw and measure,” said Genji.

So David came upon her one day while she sat cross-legged on the road a hundred meters away from the caravansary. Flowers bloomed on either side of her. Their scent filled the air. Beyond them, the horses grazed. Sosha nipped at another mare, and there was a flurry as they settled back into place. Insects buzzed. Birds had flown in from the jungle and combed the grassy verge for bugs.

David crouched down beside her. She had a board across her knees for the paper to rest on, and a pencil gripped in her right hand. She frowned at the sketch.

David cleared his throat. “What is it?”

She grimaced. “It’s supposed to be an elevation. You know, an image of the standing facade except I thought I’d start with something I could draw from life. Genji says I need to learn how to draw, and the Roman architect Vitruvius says that an architect must be ‘skillful with the pencil’ and a bunch of other things, too, like astronomy and law and medicine and music and obviously mathematics, so I thought…”

“Uh. Do you mind? I have some skill at drawing, and, uh—”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. If you’re going to learn to draft, you’ll have to start with the basics. But you’re right to start with pencil and paper. We’ll go the modeller once you’ve got a handle on this technique.”

So they worked. After a bit, Ilyana paused and looked at him.

“I want to use your nesh, to see if Valentin…”

“Ilyana, Valentin isn’t in nesh anymore. Please understand that. He’s dead. His
neshamah
, his soul, hasn’t somehow gone to a higher plane where it has found immortality.”