Shon'jir

Chapter Twenty-One

THE HOUSE murmured with voices, adults’ and children's. The People stared about them, curious at this place that only sen'ein had seen for so many hundreds of years… mar­veling at the lights, the powers of it and, mri-fashion, un-amazed by them. The forces were there; they were to be used. Many things were not for Kath or Kel to understand, but to use, with permission.

And the Shrine held light again: lights were lit by Melein's own hands, and the pan'en was brought and set there behind the corroded screens, to be moved when they moved, to be reverenced by the House while they stayed. There were chants spoken, the Shon'jir of the mri that had gone out from Kutath; and the An'jir of the mri that stayed on homeworld.

We are they that went not out:

landwalkers, sky-watchers;

We are they that went not out:

world-holders, faith-keepers;

We are they that went not out:

and beautiful our morning;

We are they that went not out:

and beautiful our night.

The rhythmic words haunted the air: the long night, Duncan thought, standing at Niun's side ... a folk that had waited their end on dying Kutath.

Until Melein songs sank away; je JwH was stSi; fire People went their ways.

There was kel-hall.

A long spiral up, a shadowed hall thrown into sudden light… the Kel spread carpets that had been the floors of their tents, still sandy: the cleaners skittered about in the outer hall, but stayed from their presence.

The Kel settled, made a circle. There was time for curios­ity, then, in the privacy of the hall. Eyes wandered over Niun, over the dusei, over Duncan most of all.

"He will be welcomed," Niun said suddenly and harshly, answering unspoken thoughts.

There were frowns, but no words. Duncan swept a glance about the circle, meeting golden eyes that locked with his and did not flinch without love, without trust, but without, he thought, outright hate. One by one he met such stares, let them look their fill; and he would have taken off the zaidhe too, and let them see the rest of his alienness; but to do so was demeaning, and insulting if offered in anger, a reproach to them. They could not ask it; it was the depth of insult.

A cup was passed, to Niun first, and to Duncan: water, of the blue pipe, in a brass cup. Duncan wet his lips with it, and passed it to Hlil, who was next. Hlil hesitated just the barest instant, as he might if he were expected to drink after the dusei; and then the kel'en touched his lips to it and passed it on.

One after the other drank in peace, even the kel'e'ein, the two kinswomen of Merai. There were no refusals.

Then Niun laid his longsword in Duncan's lap, and in curi­ous and elaborate ceremony, all kel'ein likewise drew, and the av'ein-kel, Duncan's as well, passed from man and woman about the circle until each held his own again.

Then each spoke his name in full, one after the other. Some had names of both parents; some had only Sochil's; and Duncan, glancing down, gave his, Duncan-without-a-Mother, feeling curiously lost among these folk who knew what they were.

"The kel-ritual," said Niun when that had been done, "is still the same.”

It pleased them, perhaps, to know that this was true; there was gestured agreement.

"You will teach us," said Niun, "the mu'ara of home-world.”

"Aye," said Hlfl readily.

There was a lorfg silence.

"One part of the ritual that I know," said Niun, "I do hot hear.”

Hlil bit his lip ... a man of scars more than the setcfal, Hlil s'Sochil, rough-faced for a mri, who were slender and fine-boned. "Our Kath our Kath is frightened of this " Hlil stopped short of tsi'mri, and glanced full at Duncan.

"Do you," Niun asked in a hard voice, "wish to make a formal statement of this?”

"We are concerned," Hlil said, glancing down.

"We.”

"Kel'anth," said Hlil, scarcely audible, "it is your right, and his.”

"No," Duncan said softly, but Niun affected not to hear; Niun looked about him, waiting.

"The Kath will make you welcome," said one of the old kel'e'ein.

"The Kath will make you welcome," others echoed then, and last of all, Hlil.

"So," said Niun, and arose waited for Duncan, while oth­ers stayed seated, and Duncan sought any other point but the eyes that stared at them.

The dusei would have come. Niun forbade.

And the two of them went alone from kel-hall, and down the ramp. It was late, in the last part of the night. Duncan felt cold, and dreaded the meeting to which they went: the Kath, the women and the children of the House, and per­haps, he hoped, only ceremony, only ritual, in which he could remain silent and unnoticed.

They ascended kath-tower; the kath'anth met them at the ' door. Silently she led them within, where exhausted children sprawled on their mats and carpets, and some few of the older ones, male and female, sleepless hi the excitement of the night, stared at them from the shadows.

They came to a door in a narrow hall: "Go in," the kath'anth said to Duncan; he did, and found it spread with carpets, and nothing more. The door closed; Niun and the kath'anth had left him there, in that dim chamber, lit with an oil lamp.

He settled then, in a corner, apprehensive at the first, and conscious finally that he was cold and sleepy, and that per­haps the kath'ein would abhor him and would not come at all. It was a bitter thought; but it was better than the trouble that he foresaw. He wished only to be let alone, and perhaps to sleep the night out, and not to be questioned after. And the door opened.

A blue-robe stepped inside, bearing a small tray of food and drink; the door closed without her effort, and she brought the offering knelt down to set it before him, and the cups rattled loudly on the tray. She wore no veil, not even on her mane; she was of about his years, and from what he could see of her downcast face in the lamplight, she was lovely.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, forced by a blink. "Were you made to come?" he asked.

"No, kel'en." She lifted her face, and gentle as it was, there was stubborn pride in it. "It is my time, and I did not decline it.”

He thought of it, of trying to deal with her, and the coldness stayed in him. "It would be bitter. Would it offend the Kath if we only sat and talked?”

Golden eyes wandered his face, through a sheen of tears. The membrane flashed, clearing them. "Would it offend?" he asked again.

Pride. Mri honor. He saw the war in her eyes, suspecting offense, suspecting kindness. He had seen that wariness often enough in Niun's eyes.

"No," she agreed, smoothing her skirts; and after a mo­ment she tilted her head and firmed her chin. "My son will call you father, all the same." "I do not understand.”

She looked puzzled, as much as he. "I mean that I shall not make it public what you wish. My son's name is Ka'aros, and he has five years. It is a courtesy, do you not under­stand?" .

"Are we permanent?”

She laughed outright despite herself, and her laugh was gentle and the sudden touch of her hand on his was pleasant "Kel'en, kel'en… no. My son has twenty-three fathers." Her face grew sober again, and wistfully so. "I shall make you comfortable at least. Will you sleep, kel'en?”

He nodded mri-fashion, bewildered and weary and finding this offer the least burdensome. Her gentle fingers eased the zaidhe from him, and she stared in shock at the manner of his hair that, although he had let it grow shoulder-length, mri-fashion, was not the coarse bronze mane of her kind. She touched it, unbound by the formalities of kel-caste, tugged a lock between her fingers, discovered the shape of his ears and was amazed by that And from the covered wooden dish on her tray she took a fragrant damp cloth, and carefully, carefully bathed his face and hands it was easement for the sandburns and the sun­burn; and he loosed his robes at her insistence, and lay down, her knees for his pillow. She spread his robes over him and softly caressed his brow, so that he felt distant from all the world, and it was very easy to let go.

He did not wish to: treacheries occurred to him, mur­der he strove to stay awake, not to show his distrust, but all the same, not to slip beyond awareness what passed.

But he did drift for a moment, and wakened in her arms, safe. He caressed her cradling arm, slowly, sleepily, until he looked into her golden eyes and remembered that he had promised not to touch her.

He took his hand away.

She bent and touched her lips to his brow, and this dis­turbed him.

"If I came back another night," he said, for the time was short, and there suddenly seemed a thousand things he wished to know of the Kath of this kath'en, who was gracious to a tsi'mri, "if I came back again, could I ask for you?”

"Any kel'en may ask.”

"May I ask?”

She understood then, and looked embarrassed, and distressed and he understood, and forced a smile.

"I shall not ask," he said.

"It would be shameless of me to say that you might.”

Then he was utterly confused, and lay staring up at her.

A soft, lilting call rang out somewhere in kath-hall.

"It is morning," she said, and began to seek to leave. She arose when he sat up, and started for the door.

"I do not know your name," he said, getting to his feet human courtesy.

"Kel'en, it is Sa'er.”

And she performed a graceful gesture of respect and left him.

He regretted, then, that he had declined… regretted, with a curious sense of anticipation… that perhaps, on some other night, things would be different Sa'en it was like the word for morning. It was appropriate.

His thoughts wrenched back to Elag/Haven, to rough and careless times, and next Sa'er, the memory was ugly.

One did not, he knew in all the principles of kel-law, hurt a kath'en, either child or woman. There was in him a deep certainty that he had done in this meeting what was right to do.

And there was in him increasing belief that she would not, as she had said, breach confidence; would not make little of him with others; would not come next time with tears, but with a smile for him.

Cheerful in that thought, he settled to the carpets and put his boots on, gathered his robes about him, and his belts and weapons, that he had put aside: rising, he put them to rights; and put on the zaidhe, that was more essential to modesty than the robes; but the mez he flung across his throat and over his shoulder.

Then he went out into the hall, and flushed hot with sud­den embarrassment, for there was Niun, at the same moment, and he hoped that kel reticence would prevent questions.

The mri, he thought, looked well-content.

"Was it well with you?" Niun asked.

He nodded.

"Come," said Niun. "There is a courtesy to be done.”

Kath-hall looked different under day-phase lighting. The mats were cleared away, and the children scurried about madly at their coming, ran each to a kath'en, and with amaz­ing swiftness a line formed, guiding them to the door.

First was the kath'anth, who stood alone, and took Niun's hands together and smiled at him. "Tell the Kel that we do not understand the machines in this place, but there will be dinner.”

"Perhaps I could assist with the machines," Duncan sug­gested when the kath'anth took his hands hi turn; and the kath'anth laughed, and so did Niun, and all the kath'ein that heard.

"He or I might," Niun said, covering his embarrassment with grace. "We have many skills, he and I.”

"If the Kel would deign," said the kath'anth.

"Send when we are needed," said Niun.

And they passed from her to the line of kath'ein; Niun went first and gravely took the hands of a certain kath'en, bowed to her and took the hands of her little daughter and performed the same ritual.

Duncan understood then, and went to Sa'er, and did the same; and took the hand of her son as the boy offered his, wrist to wrist as men touched.

"He is kel Duncan," said Sa'er to her son, and to Duncan: "He is Ka'aros.”

The child stared, wide-eyed with a child's honesty, and did not return Duncan's shy smile. Sa'er nudged the boy. "Sir," he said, and the membrane flicked across his eyes. He did not yet have the adult's mane: his was short and revealed his ears, that were tipped with a little curl of transparent down.

"Good day," said Sa'er, and smiled at him.

"Good day," he wished her; and joined Niun, who waited at the door. Silence reigned in the hall. They left, and then he heard a murmuring of voices after them, knowing that ques­tions were being asked.

"I liked her," he confessed to Niun. And then further con­fession: "We did nothing.”

Niun shrugged, and put on his veil. "It is important that a man have good report of the Kath. The kath'en was more than gracious in the parting. Had you offended her, she would have made that known, and that would have hurt you sorely in the House.”

"I was surprised that you took me there.”

"I had no choice. It is always done. I could not bring you into the Kel like a kel'e'en, without this night.”

Duncan tucked in his own veil, and breathed easier to know himself well-acquitted. "Doubtless you were worried.”

"You are kel'en; you have learned to think as we think. I am not surprised that you chose a resting-night. It was wise, And," he added, "if you send the kath'en the ka'islai, and she does not return them, then you must go and fetch them.”

"Is that how it is done?”

Niun laughed, a soft breath. "So I have heard. I myself am naive in such matters.”

They came to main hall, and Duncan went behind Niun as he paid his morning respects at the shrine; he stood silently there, thinking strangely of a place in his childhood, sensing in another part of his thoughts a dus that was fretting and impatient, confined in kel-hall.

And of a sudden came the machine-voice, An-ehon, deep and thundering through all the halls, through stone and flesh:

Alarm... alarm... ALARM.

He froze, dazed, as Niun thrust past him. "Stay here!" Niun shouted at him, and rushed for sen-hall access, where a kel'en had no business to be. Duncan stopped in mid-step cast about left and right, saw other kel'ein rushing down from kel-tower; and there were kath'ein; and Melein herself, descending from the tower of the she'pan, seeking sen-access at a near-run amid the frightened questions that were thrown at her.

"Let me come!" Duncan cried at her, overtaking her, and she did not forbid him. He followed her up, up into sen-hall, where alarmed sen'ein boiled about like disturbed insects, gold about Niun's black, who stood before An-ehon's flicker­ing lights who questioned it, and obtained screens lighted with pictures the rudest kel'en could understand: the desert, and a dying glow in a rising cloud on the far horizon.

The ship.

Melein thrust her way through the sen'ein, that crowded from her path, and the while she laid hands on the panels her eyes were for the screens. Duncan tried to follow her, but the sen'ein caught at him, thrust out their hands in his path, for­bidding.

"Strike was made from orbit," An-ehon droned, the while the mad alarm dinned from another channel.

"Strike back," Melein ordered.

'Wo.'" Duncan shouted at her. But An-ehon's flicker-swat reaction showed a line of retaliation plotted, intersecting or­bit

Lines flashed rapidly, perspectives shifting.

"Unsuccessful," An-ehon droned.

And the panels all flared, and the air filled with sound that began too deep to hear and finished like thunder. The floor, the very foundations shook.

"Attack has been returned," said An-ehon. "Shields have held.”

"Stop it," Duncan shouted, pushed sen'ein brutally aside and broke through to Melein, stopped when Niun himself thrust a hand in his way. "Listen to me. That will be a class-one warship up there. You cannot beat it from earthside. We have no ship now, no way out do not answer fire. They can make a cinder of this world. Let me call them, let me contact them, she'pan.”

Melein's eyes were terrible as they met his: suspicion, an­ger ... in that moment he was alien, and close to the edge of her rage.

The thunder came again. The mri held their sensitive ears, and Melein shouted another order for attack.

"Target is passing out of range," An-ehon said when the noise had faded. "Soon coming up over Zohain. Zohain will attack.”

"You cannot fight it," Duncan shouted at them, and seized Niun's arm, received from the mri a look that matched Me­lein's. "Niun, make her see. Your shielding will not go on holding. Let me call them.”

"You see what good your signal from the ship did," said Niun. "That is their answer to your signal of friendship. That is their word on it.”

"Zohain has fallen," said An-ehon. "Shields did not hold. I am receiving alarm from Le'a'haen… There is another at­tack approaching this zone. Alarm… alarm… ALARM ... ALARM....”

"Get your people out!" Duncan shouted at them.

Terror was written in the eyes of Melein and Niun, night­mare repeated: the floor shook. There was a rumbling crash outside the edun.

"Go!" Melein cried. "The hills, seek the hills!”

But she did not, nor Niun, while the Sen broke for the door, for outside, abandoning possessions, everything. Even over the sounds of An-ehon cries could be heard elsewhere in the edun.

"Get out, get out both of you," Duncan pleaded. "Wait for a break hi the attack and get out of here. Let me try with the machine.”

Melein turned to Niun, ignoring him. "Kel'anth, lead your people." And before Niun could move, she looked up at the banks that were An-ehon. "Continue to fight. Destroy the in­vaders.”

"This city is holding," droned the machine. "Outer struc­tures may be drained of shielding to protect the edun com­plex. When this city falls, there are others. We are coordinating defenses. We are under multiple attack. We ad­vise immediate evacuation. We advise the she'pan to secure her person. Preservation of her person is of overriding impor­tance.”

–"I am leaving," Melein said; and to Duncan, for Niun had gone: "Come. Haste.”

He thrust past her, to the console. "An-ehon,?' he said, "give me communication “

"Do not permit it!" Melein shouted, and the machine struck, a force that lit the air and hurled him numb and cold against the floor.

He saw her robes pass him, and she was running, running, down the center of sen-hall, with the floor shuddering under renewed attack ... it shook beneath him, and he tried re­peatedly to gather his numbed limbs under him.

The floor bucked.

"Alarm… ALARM… ALARMLLL…" cried An-ehon.

He rolled his head, dragged a shoulder over, saw areas of the banks going dark.

And the floor shook again, and the lights began dimming.

There was a time of quiet.

He found it possible finally to move his legs, arms, to drag himself up, and he staggered through littered sen-hall into the winding corridor down to main hall. A great shadow met him there, his dus, that almost threw him off his feet in the pressure of its body: he used it then, leaning on it, and stag­gered past the litter that confused the hall, and out into the light, the open city there began to see the dead, old sen'ein, children of the Kath a kel'en, crushed by a toppling wall.

He found Sa'er, a huddled shape in blue at the bottom of the ramp, a golden hand clenched about a stone, a face open-eyed and dusty with the sand of Kutath.

"Ka'aros!" he called with all the strength in him, remem­bering her son, and there was no answer.

The People's trail was marked with dead, the old, the frag­ile, the young: all that was gentle, he thought, everything.

He heard a sound of thunder, looked up and saw a flash, a mote of light. Something operating in-atmosphere. He expect­ed, even while he ran with all the speed that was in him, the white flash that would kill him, as he left the protective zone.

But it went over the horizon. The sound died.

Beyond the city, beyond the pitiful ruin, there stretched a line of figures, alive and moving. He made haste to follow, desperate, exhausted. The dus moved with him, blood-feelings stirred in it, that caught up his rage and fear and cast it back amplified.

He overtook the last of the column finally, his throat dry, his lungs wracked with coughing. Blood poured from his nose and tasted salt-coppery in his mouth.

"The kel'anth?" he asked. A narrow-eyed kel'e'en pointed toward the head of the column. "The she'pan?" he asked again. "Is she well?”

"Yes," one said, as if to answer him at all were contami­nation.

He kept moving at more than their pace, seeking the column's head, passed kel'ein that carried kath-children, and kath'ein that carried infants, and kel'ein that supported old ones of any caste, though few enough of the old were left them.

They went toward the mountains, that promised conceal­ment, as they were pitifully exposed on this bare, naked sand. He saw the line extended over the roll of the land, and it seemed yet impossibly far, beyond his strength at the pace he tried. He paused, cut a bit of pipe that was left as a stub from someone else's cutting, a prize that was seen by others too, and he offered them of his, but none would deign to touch it. Leaving the rest to them, he sucked the water from a sliver and managed simply to keep his feet under him and to stay with the middle of the column outside it, for he felt their hatred, the looks that the Sen cast him.

He had betrayed himself before the Sen; they knew, they had seen the nature of him, and whence he was they guessed ... if not what. They could not know the reason that they were attacked, but that they were mri, and that the tsi'mri in­vaded, and they were dying at such hands as his.

No attack came on them. He was not amazed by it, for there was little inclination for a large orbiting craft to waste its energies on so small a target as they made. But the city came under periodic fire. They could look back and see it, the shields flaring rainbow colors under the rainless sun, and the whole of the city settling into increasing ruin. The city that had stood dreamlike against the setting sun itself glowed and died like embers, and the towers were down, and ugliness settled over it.

"A-ei," mourned an old kath'en. "A-ei.”

And the children wept fretfully, and were hushed. The Sen shook their heads, and there were tears on the faces of the old ones.

From the Kel there were no tears, only looks that burned, that raged. Duncan turned his face from them, and kept moving at such times as the column rested, until at last he had sight of Melein's white robes, and he knew the tall kel'en by her, with the dus.

They were well; that was enough to know, to take from him some of the anguish. He kept them in sight for the rest of that day, and when they at last paused at evenfall, he came to them.

Niun knew his presence. The dus went first, and Niun turned,, looking for his approach. Duncan settled quietly near them. "You are all right?" Niun asked him. He nodded.

Melein turned her face from him. "Doubtless," she said fi­nally, "your wish was good, Duncan; I believe that. But it was useless.”

"She'pan," he murmured with a gesture of reverence, grateful even for that; he forbore to argue with her: among so many dead, argument had no place.

Niun offered him a bit of pipe. He showed his, and de­clined, and with his av-tlen, cut off a bit of it that was sickly sweet in his mouth. There was a knot at his stomach that would not go away.

A cry went up from the Kel. Hands pointed. What looked like a shooting star went over, and descended toward the horizon.

"Landing," Duncan murmured, "near where the ship was. There will be a search now.”

"Let them come into the mountains looking," said Niun. Duncan put a hand to his stomach, and coughed, and wiped his eyes of the pain-tears. He found himself shaking. He also knew what had to be done.

He rested. In time he made excuse, a modest sort of shrug that denoted a man on private business, and rose and moved away from the column; the dus followed him. He was afraid. He tried to keep that feeling down, for the dus could transmit that. He saw the desert before him, and felt the weakness of his own limbs, and the terror came close to overwhelming him, but he had no other options. The diissoddenly sent award-impulse, turned. He looked back, saw the other dus. There was a black shadow a distance to the side of it. Duncan froze, remembering that Niun, like him, had a gun. Niun walked across the sand toward him, a black shape in the dark. The wind fluttered at his robes, the moon winked on the brass of the yin'ein and the plastic of the visor, and on the j'tai that he had gained. The great dus walked at his side, turn-toed, head down.

"Yai," Duncan cautioned his, made it sit beside him.

Niun stopped at talking distance, set hand in belt, a warn­ing. "You have strayed the column widely, sovkela.”

Duncan nodded over his shoulder, toward the horizon. "Let me go.”

"To rejoin them?”

"I still serve the she'pan.”

Niun looked at him long and closely, and finally dropped his veil. Duncan did the same, wiped at the blood that began to dry on his lips.

"What will you do?" Niun asked.

"Make them listen.”

Niun made a gesture that spoke of hopelessness. "It has al­ready failed. You throw yourself away.”

"Take the People to safety. Let me try this. Trust me in this, Niun.”

"We will not surrender.”

"I know that. I will tell them so.”

Niun looked down. His slender fingers worked at one of the several belts. He freed one of the j'tai, came toward Duncan, stood and patiently knotted the thong in a compli­cated knot.

Duncan looked at it when he had done, found a strange and delicate leaf, one of the three j'tai that Niun had had from Kesrith.

"It was given me by one of my masters, a man named Palazi, who had it from a world named Guragen. Trees grew there. For luck, he said. Good-bye, Duncan.”

He gave his hand.

Duncan gave his. "Good-bye, Niun.”

And the mri turned from him, and walked away, the one dus following.

Duncan watched him meet the shadow, and vanish, and himself turned and started on the course that he had plotted, the sand and rocks distorted in his vision for a time. He resumed the veil, grateful for the warmth of the beast that walked beside him.