IT WAS THE season when waterfire should have filled the sea at night, as phosphorescent diatoms multiplied in the wake of the seaswallowers. Instead, there was only a tinge of green light in the waves for a night or two. As if to make up the lack, Merwen dreamed night after night her own cryptic version of the fire that consumed water and sky alike.
Their daughters were home safe, that was the main thing. Even Lystra was recovering faster than Merwen expected: a week under one roof together, and already they had fallen into their first quarrel.
“Mother, what's the matter with you? Was it I who brought Spinel here in the first place? It was smooth swimming, so long as he kept his place like a sandturtle for the children to play with; but as soon as we get serious, you tread water.”
Merwen clapped her hands to her head. “Lystra, how can you say such things?”
“I'm furious, that's how.” A smile wavered on her lips. “I always say things like that when I'm furious.”
“Will you go on earning your name forever?”
“Don't you name me, Mother. If you've outgrown your own name, why don't you choose another?”
Merwen said nothing. Lystra fidgeted from one foot to the other, and her toes curled around knobby seams where the torn webbing was knitting back. “All right, I'm sorry.” Lystra's voice fell. “I just want to stay here awhile withâwith the family. I was alone so long in that place.”
“I know, and I want you here too,” Merwen said. “I wish you could stay here always, and Spinel also. You can't know what a joy it is for me to see you both happy together.”
Lystra spread her hands helplessly. “Then why do you ask us to leave?”
“For one thing, you and I will always quarrel under the same roof.” The truth tasted bitter, but was better out.
“Only when you ask crazy things, Mother.”
“Lystra, you know how hard it is for our stonesick sisters to face
Spinel with the stone. It's a starstone, and I know why he kept it, and I'm gladder than I can say. But Ishmaâ”
“Well, it's high time our sisters stopped running away from themselves. They will never be free until they face it.”
Very angry now, Merwen kept her voice to a low monotone. “There are more kinds of courage than that of swimming to the soldier-place. What courage does it take for a stonesick one simply to live through each day normally? How soon you've forgotten.”
“I have not forgotten!” Lystra shouted. “How could I,
when I was just as sick as Rilwen
?” She drew back and went on more quietly. “I fought harder, that's all. Through work, and through hatred. I shared more hate with stonetraders than anything, until Spinel came. When Rilwen died, I nearly died with her; but afterward, it was easier, without her example to drag me down. And Spinel helped me then.”
“Do you think I don't know all this?”
Lystra shuddered. “I suppose you do. What you don't know is that in the soldier-place I spent three months totally surrounded by stone. It was so dark I never really knew what the place looked like. It was like hanging alone in space, without even stars. And in the end, for me, stone was just thatâjust nothing at all.” Lystra paused for breath, and the drone of a helicopter was heard outside. “So you see, Mother, we can't hide anymore, especially from ourselves. I know I sound crazy, but certain things have to be said.”
“I'm used to you. I've shared your life for twenty years.”
“And I've lived with you for those years, Mother.”
They smiled then and hugged each other. Still, Merwen knew, nothing was changed. Lystra was right, but her stonesick sisters were right, too.
Outside, the helicopter rumbled louder, until it sounded like a pair of raft trunks knocking together very fast. It was not for Siderite; it was too close.
Merwen met Lystra's eyes and squeezed her hand once. Without a word they both stepped outside to stand before their door. Merwen recognized the soldiers by now, the ones who always came when Realgar wished to see her. She was so relieved that it was not Lystra they came for that she went herself to meet them at the helicopter.
“Go with Shora, Mother,” Lystra said to show she was not afraid. “When you return, we'll have supper waiting for you.”
As usual, Merwen was hunched into the floor of the helicopter, and she fought to keep her stomach settled. Even so, she wondered if this might be a good time to begin sharing speech again. The Gathering should properly decide, but she could listen and consider whether the Valan wordweaver might be ready to share a gesture of goodwill.
The soldiers tossed her as rudely as ever onto the floor where Realgar hid behind his desk. “You hear me,” Realgar said in distinct Valan, louder than usual. “I know that, and it's good enough. I want the Lady Berenice of Hyalite, whom you call Nisi the Traitor. I give Nisi twenty-four hours to surrender herself here. In the event that Nisi fails to appear, every Sharer in Per-elion will die.”
Merwen's first response was incomprehension. Every Sharer would pass the Last Door some day, no matter what Nisi chose to do. But of course by now Merwen knew what the death-hastener meant, or what he thought he meant.
Merwen had known all along that hiding was useless, especially from one's lovesharer. Merwen herself had avoided this truth, while Nisi passed test after test yet shunned the only true test of a Sharer. Would Nisi survive it now? Nisi, who had shared love with this hastener of death?
Long ago, Virien had asked Merwen, Will you share my love? This Valan wordweaver now was something much harder than Virien, an ocean of malevolence beyond understanding. Somehow, though, Merwen would have to reach that understanding. To what lengths must she go, and must Nisi go? What a deadly thing it was to share love among Valans.
Â
Nisi was weaving at her loom and squinted as the sun reached to her eyes, low as it was on the horizon. A boat wandered in and Merwen stepped out. With a wave, Nisi jumped from her seat and embraced her. “Merwen! It's been so long. I can't believe all our sisters are back. How are the girls doing?”
“Stronger by the day, devouring their weight in squid.” Merwen's smile flashed only briefly. “Nisi, I have a bad choice to share: I have to bend Unspeech, rather than hide a truth from you.”
Nisi's hands dropped to her sides. “Yes?”
“Your lovesharer asks for you.”
Nisi blacked out, then caught herself again, as red streaks receded from her vision. “He asks ⦠for me?” No place to hide, not anymore,
now that Realgar had found her. “What else, Merwen? What else does he want?”
Merwen was silent.
“What else, do you hear? You're hiding from me.”
“In his distraction, he speaks of hastening death for all other Sharers of Per-elion.”
So that was the ultimatum. Nisi could actually breathe easier now, knowing the worst. In a sense she could breathe easy for the first time since “Lady Berenice” had ceased to be.
“A shameful thing to threaten,” Merwen added. “Yet children talk biggest when they share the most fear.”
“What? Merwen, he will do it, I know him well. And if I give myself up, do you know what they'll share with me? A fate ten times worse than Lystra's.”
“Then stay here.”
“Nonsense. We'll all die then.” Even as she said this, Nisi rejected both choices. She would never give herself up, never give them the satisfaction of putting her on trial. As for Realgar, he would kill as many Sharers as he had to, whether she surrendered or not. Vengeance would be just another excuse.
There was only one way left for Sharers to survive, all of them. “Merwen, when Usha taught me whitetrance, I learned that it is right to hasten one's own death for freedom, for a free mind.”
“Yes.”
“If that is true, then I believe it is right to hasten a few others, that Sharers may live in peace once more.”
“A contradiction many times over. To hasten death, one must share death, and the death of another can't be shared until one dies.”
“Yes, but what if every Sharer had to die all at once? When the hastening of Valans could prevent it? Just once, Merwen, to save Shora.”
“To save what? Which is worse, to die having lived or to live having died?”
“Merwen! We can't afford such sophistry now. We're facing thousands of Viriens all at once.”
“And you would hasten them all? And you tell me Shora will survive? Nisi, all Valans are not Virien, even among death-hasteners. We can share with them, share ourselves with their selves, until they see themselves for what they are.”
“You only postpone the inevitable. I know soldiers, and I say this: in the end, either they die or we die. You can't just give in.”
“It is you who give in. Why Nisi? What words did I share that brought the poison?”
“I learnshared your whitetrance, and I'll do what I have to, but I will not die just to save them the trouble of hastening me!” Nisi turned and rushed into the silkhouse, pulling at the doorhole so it whooshed shut behind her.
All she could think was that she had to act before Realgar did. Sharers would do nothing, but Nisi still had her explosive pack. If she had to pass death's door, at least she would take a few soldiers with her. Perhaps her act would even shock some sense into other sisters. Merwen had said one could not share death
unless
one died, first. If Nisi blew herself up, along with Planetary Headquarters â¦
A sense of unreality descended on her. It was absurd to think that she herself would commit a singlehanded suicide assault on the Valan fortress. Nisi shook her head to clear the haze, to focus on what must be done. She dug out the explosive from her hiding place in the tunnel below. Vaguely she wondered how strong it was, since the figures on the package meant nothing to her. It made little difference, since she had no choice left, only one path ahead. Realgar had foreclosed all others.
Nisi rubbed herself all over with fleshborer repellent. Then she went out to the water's edge. The sight of the horizon caught her unawares. Clouds stretched into velvet mountains, lined with molten cinnabar that streamed downward into the ocean, mountains of a heavenly country that could be seen and yearned for but never touched. It was as if the Patriarch had allowed her one last glimpse of how the world could be if only His pure wisdom were obeyed. But I will never find it, thought Nisi bitterly, not in this world where men are deceivers ever.
She plunged and swam out beyond the branches, not daring to take a boat, which guards might detect. Fortunately the sea was calm this evening, and she could reach Headquarters without exhaustion. The package strapped to her waist scratched softly as she kicked. In the sky, red and green headlights twinkled, and ahead at last loomed the hulk of a space freighter with a deck built out around it, where Realgar would haveâ
Nisi choked and sputtered, and she clung to a dead branch of raft
seedling to catch her breath. Don't look back, she warned herself; you've made your choice for dead and free.
On the deck there were many points of light, and they cast long arcs of feathery red onto the ripples. Nisi wondered how close she could get undetected. The best thing, she figured, was to dip under and trust to her breathmicrobes the rest of the way.
Blackness closed over her, except for the faint streaks of searchlights above on the surface. She swam on, whether for five minutes or fifty she could not tell. The surface light grew brighter, and she feared she would be seen; but then it suddenly trailed off again. She swam upward slowly, until her head bumped something hard. This must be it, the underside of the deck. Nisi took the explosive and pressed it up. Its seal broke, and the plastic molded and stuck.
It sat there, inert. What in Torr's name was wrong with it? Was there another catch, or had it simply gone bad over these months?
Once doubt cracked her senses, instinct flooded through. I am a survivor, her mind screamed, I'm still alive, and I will live. She swam blindly, gasping for air, heedless of anything except to get away, away from darkness and death. How far she swam, she had no idea, until the blast ripped the night sky in two and showered the sea with flame. The Headquarters towered behind, a jagged silhouette against the flame.
From everywhere helicopters swarmed and dove at the sea, and loudspeakers called. Lights were all over. Something caught Nisi and choked her as she thrashed about to kick herself free. Half conscious, she felt someone drag her across the slimy deck of a ship, whose oily odor gagged her stomach. She was shaken until her ears rang, and stark leering faces whirled above her.
“Bastard catfish,” she heard from one, his lips stretched taut against his teeth. “If that's your doing, by the Nine Legions you'll pay for it.”
“Say, you're an odd catfish.” Someone squeezed Nisi's hand and pried apart the fingers and jabbed under her nails. She cried out sharply.