The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) (59 page)

“So to speak,” replied Cara dryly, following Tess up the steps.

Tess nodded at the guards, opened the door, and went inside. Inside, they found Sonia playing khot with the ke. Startled by this scene, Tess halted in her tracks and Cara had to gently shove past her in order to see what was going on.

“I think I must be wearing blinders,” said Tess in a low voice. “Lately I keep finding out that things are going on that I assumed weren’t. Or perhaps only,” she added with a wry grin, “that people are thinking and acting for themselves without consulting me first.”

“You sound more and more like your brother.”

“Thank you!”

Tess’s exclamation caused Sonia to look up, surprised, not having heard them come in. The ke did not shift position. Sonia smiled at them and beckoned them over, but Tess simply waved at her and took Cara over to the lectern where the
Gospel of Isia of Byblos
rested.

“Cara,” Tess continued as she opened the manuscript carefully, “do you know anything about how Chapalii perceive the world?”

“Not any more than you do. Isn’t it generally agreed that they use infrared? That they can see degrees of heat?”

“That same night you came in the ke told me that she could
see
the storm coming in. I don’t mean the clouds, but the front of the storm, as if she could see the currents. I’m not explaining myself very well. But if they can see in visible light and in infrared, why not other ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, too? How could we detect how broad a range they could see?”

“We could measure stimulus and response, but it’s difficult, to say the least, for the lab rats to conduct experiments on the scientists.”

“That’s a pleasant thought.”

Cara glanced back at the ke, who remained intent on the game. Sonia set down a white pebble on the board, and the ke responded at once by setting down a black pebble on a different part of the board. “We already know that the Mushai or one of his followers tampered with the genetic code of the humans they brought here. Recently I’ve been wondering why humans intrigued the Chapalii in the first place. It’s not as if we have any technological advances to give them.”

“Theater,” said Tess, half laughing. “Didn’t you hear that the Bharentous Repertory Company finally went to Duke Naroshi’s palace? Luxury items.”

“Luxury items,” Cara scoffed. “That old anthropological excuse. The rise of civilization, trade, and war all based on the desire to acquire cowrie shells. Huh. What’s this?”

Tess pulled a finger down the calligraphed page and drew Cara’s attention to the parchment set beside it. “That’s what I’ve been doing for the last fifteen days. Translating this into Rhuian. It’s tempting to read it as an ancient memory of the Chapalii and perhaps of the human arrival on Rhui. ‘And a bright light appeared out of the darkest skies, and on this light He ascended to His Father’s House. And the glance of God’s Eye scorched the earth where His feet took wing into the heavens.’ ”

“It’s also a common mythological trope.”

“But I’m hearing this now. Preachers in the square, talking about strange lights in the sky. The second coming of the Son of God and his sister. There’s certainly been more activity by our people in the last fifty years—”

“You know, Tess, in more barbaric times on Earth, doctors would confine people in small rooms if they thought they were ill, and the people so confined would begin to get odd ideas, and hallucinate. Perhaps you need a change of scene.”

Tess laughed. A khaja scholar—khaja were admitted once they had gained a dispensation—on the other side of the room looked up from his book and, seeing her jaran dress, looked away swiftly. “Admit that it isn’t entirely implausible. What do you know about Byblos?”

“A country in the south. Or a city. Or something in between. It’s hot. Rumored to be ancient. I’ve mostly heard stories that have more of legend about them than fact.”

“Kirill met Byblene merchants.”

“Kirill. Which reminds me, Tess—”

But Tess perceived that Cara was about to ask her an uncomfortable question about Kirill, so she quickly crossed the room to look at the khot game. Sonia was an excellent player whose skill had been honed in the past eight years by frequent games with her husband, Josef Raevsky, the acknowledged master in the Orzhekov tribe. But the ke held her own. Tess did not have a sophisticated enough understanding of the game to see quite what strategy the ke was using, but it seemed to focus on spreading a wide net so as to catch as many intersections as possible. Sonia was using one of her favored strategies: marking out territory in blocks and then connecting them.

Tess watched the game while Cara looked through the
Byblene Gospel.
The khaja scholar, perhaps made anxious by their presence, left, but two other men entered, dressed in the gray robes worn by Habakar officials. They passed on into a farther room. The game continued. Tess was beginning to see that the ke had an advantage.

The door opened again, bringing with it the scent of rain, and Tess looked up to see Kirill take three steps into the library and stop, looking uncomfortable. Sonia glanced up at Tess and had the gall to wink at her, smirking.

Irritated, Tess went over to Kirill. He waited for her by the door. Silver threaded his blond hair, so pale that it blended in unless you knew to look for it. He was about forty years old now, and maturity sat well on him. His clothes were slightly damp from the rain, and all at once the faint scent brought back memories to Tess, the sweet memory of the first time she had slept with him, with the drizzle of rain outside and the muzzy smell of damp blankets and clothes permeating the close interior of her traveling tent. Gods, that had been twelve years ago, before she had married Ilya. Kirill met her gaze, and she knew instantly that he was remembering the same night.

Even more annoyed, she flushed. “What is it?”

“I’ve decided to ride south. I should have gone instead of the messenger.”

The thought of him leaving so abruptly darkened her mood further. “You said yourself you ought to spend time with your children. What can you do? The message doesn’t need you to deliver it.”

“I feel responsible,” he said shortly, not looking at her.

“Kirill, surely if the original message, the one sent from the north, didn’t reach the prince of Filis, then Ilya is in no danger yet. He won’t be in danger until he reaches Filis.”

“Perhaps.”

She had an insane urge to smooth the lines of grief away from his eyes. One of her hands lifted, but she snapped it back and hooked her fingers safely into her belt. “There’s something else you’re trying to tell me, isn’t there?”

He said nothing for a long moment. Then he lifted his eyes to look straight into hers. What she read there unsettled her, not least because it did not displease her. She tried to say something, but no words came out. He turned and left the library, that quickly, opening the door into the rain and heading out into it without hesitation. Just as he had done years ago. “What’s a little rain?” She recalled him saying that now, but the door shut behind him and she just stood there and finally walked over to stand next to Cara and stare at the
Byblene Gospel.

“I won’t ask,” said Cara. “I like this bit where the sister—the Pilgrim, they call her—sews together her dead brother’s remains with thread spun from the feathers of a sparrow, the sinew of a deer, the scales of a fish, and the ashes of the wooden cup in which she caught his blood. Pagan holdovers woven into the new religion, surely.”

Tess suddenly felt very tired.

“Done,” said Sonia from the table. “You have me surrounded. I concede the game, and admire your prowess yet again.” She rose. “I thank you, holy one. Perhaps we may play again another time.”

The ke nodded but did not rise.

“Now I ask that you excuse me. I have duties to attend to.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Tess, wanting to get away.

“I’ll stay,” said Cara, and by that Tess knew that Cara wanted to go into the back rooms, where the console lay hidden, and conduct business of her own.

The ke rose and escorted Cara into the back. Tess left with Sonia. Outside, the rain had turned to mist, giving the world a hazy shimmer.

“When did you start playing khot with the priestess?” Tess asked.

“Some months ago. At first, you know, when you brought her here, she stayed completely to herself, sequestered in her private rooms, but recently I’ve noticed her venturing out more. She must be becoming accustomed to our ways.”

“What do you think of her?”

“She smells funny.” Sonia chuckled. “What do you mean, what do I think of her? She speaks only a few words with which I can talk to her. She is made invisible because of her veils. I know nothing about her or the people she comes from. I think she is a mystery, Tess. But she plays khot very well. I wonder if she knows any such games she could teach me.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“You could teach me her language, you know. Or do you wish to keep that to yourself?”

“Hah! That’s unfair!”

“Is it? But I
am
interested, if you’re willing. You should take Kirill as a lover. I don’t know why you haven’t already.”

“Sonia!”

“I must say I find him more attractive now than when he was younger. If you don’t, I’m going to.”

Tess stopped by the fountain, its base now half inlaid with stone. Water trickled down into the hole, washing the dirt at the bottom into slimy mud. The workmen had fled to the shelter of one of the makeshift open warehouses on the other side of the plaza where the quarried stone was stored. Tess saw them sitting among the stone, chattering amongst themselves and smoking long pipes.

“Sonia, hasn’t it made any impression on you, the news Kirill brought? That Ilya and the others may be riding into some kind of ambush? I’m hardly likely to enjoy myself with a lover here while my husband is in danger.”

“Denying your own feelings is hardly likely to keep your husband alive, if he is truly in grave danger.”

“That’s not the point! Anyway, Kirill just lost his own wife. It’s…unseemly!”

“Some men mourn the loss of a wife quietly, by withdrawing for a time from the life of the tribe. Others need the comfort of another woman. Kirill is of the latter kind, as I’m sure you are aware. In any cases, Tess, he still loves you.”

“I know,” said Tess bitterly.

“And you still love him.”

“Which would make it all the more indescribably foolish. Don’t you see?”

“Well. No. I don’t.” Sonia offered Tess an infuriating smile. “I’m going to get out of this rain, and I promised Josef I would teach the younger children more letters today. Are you coming with me, or do you
want
to get wet?” Sonia said it provocatively.

“I want to get wet, of course.” Tess walked on beside her. “Sonia.” She hesitated. “If you could be immortal, would you?”

Sonia chuckled. “That’s the kind of question Ilya would ask.”

“How would you answer?” Tess suddenly desperately wanted to know what Sonia would say.

“Should the moon always be full? It waxes and it wanes and it vanishes from our sight, only to be born again. That is the natural order. Would you, khaja that you are?”

“I don’t know,” said Tess, and could think of nothing more to say.

The ke regards the carbon board and the lines etched into its surface. Unlike living lines, these are dead. They do not shift in the flux, the ever-moving shape of the greater universe where all threads tangle and untangle, forming the web of existence. But the game is clever. The ke wonders at a stray thought:
If only
, this thought whispers.
What does “if only” mean?

The ke recognizes a strange impulse, the wish to show this game, the laying of the stones along the lines that represent the threads that bind together the universe, to the other nameless ones, the ones left behind beyond the veil of interdiction. Like ke, the stones remain nameless. Like ke, the stones rest each on an intersection of lines, caught in the web, forming a pattern above it.

The ke has existed in this place for two orbits of the sun. A plague of restlessness has infested the alien air which the ke breathes. In the environs beyond, the daiga go about that endless cycle of agitation, of movement, like the ceaseless trembling of atoms, that confers the mark of existence on daiga life, fleeting though it may be.

More often now, the ke ventures out, careful to keep skin and face covered according to the laws of interdiction passed down from the Tai-en Charles Soerensen out of whose authority the rite of extinction did not claim the ke. Though there is, truly, no creature here with right of authority over a nameless one, still, out of respect for the Tai-en’s gesture, the ke holds to the laws of the outer world.

This other one, this curious one, this daiga with the living light of flowers gracing the pattern that entwines its body, has ventured in to greet the ke with the game, which is named, in the daiga way of naming all things, khot. The game, as played with board and stones, has no life except in the playing. That is what makes it interesting.

The door opens and the daiga of flowers comes in, together with a gust of damp wind and the swirling currents of the outside air, the weather front that moves across the daiga city.

“Smell the rain,” says the daiga, by way of greeting, as the ke has learned the daiga do: Stating observations as if the observation marks a new presence.

Daiga words are difficult because primitive. The ke transfers the utterance to the shallow brain and processes the words. Rain is precipitation, water droplets or ice condensed from atmospheric water vapor in such quantities that it falls to the surface of the world. Smell is…this word takes longer to process, to identify a meaning for. A way to perceive the world by the use of nerve fibers that conduct chemical indications of
smell.

Distracted, the ke reflects on the primitive discriminatory faculties of the daiga, who must use names to define names, and often the same name to define its own self. Each name becomes a self, as each daiga regards its own body and mind and soul as a self. That is, the ke is learning, the essential nature of daiga-ness. While ke are the unnamed stones that surround and integrate the web of the universe, while the shifting threads of that net embrace and create all that is living, the daiga like all primitive creatures seem to see the web only as discrete parts.