Authors: Vera Nazarian
He had been flying, then crawling. . . . He was not exactly sure of the terrain, but it was irrelevant, for at some point, against all logic, there had been voluptuous bodies there, nude and solid in his path, without face or expression. And as they lay before him, slowly undulating, he had to pause on his strange journey. Compelled, he lay on top of them, and pressed his loins (having grown appropriately hard and hot and furious) into the anonymous flesh. Wallowing against warm springy mountains of rotund buttocks and breasts, he moved, first slowly and then picking up rhythm. . . .
And then again he would lift himself, while the alien forms dissolved into nothing, and he would crawl onwards. Sometimes he got up to walk, but his movement was oddly slowed, as though he moved through a swamp of molasses, and he actually made more progress on all fours.
Hestiam lay again motionless, trying to recall the dream ending. His conscious mind did not want to take in the reality of the warm sunny afternoon, the fact that there was a day ahead of him, a day like any other day. . . .
Please, not quite yet.
He did not want anything. That was the simplicity of this reality, of this afternoon. He dreaded, hated the next instant, every breath that his still groggy lungs pulled in, deeper with every pumping. He hated the sensation of being inside his own body—heavy, stiff, barely alive, as it always seemed to him after sleep. He hated the act of awareness itself. Because it signified that the rest of the day was still there, and he had to get up and he had to live it.
For, he did not
want
. He simply did not want anything. He wanted to be dead. To be—oh, just not to
be
at all.
Hestiam did not like to talk to anyone about this manner of awakening that had come to him almost every morning, for as long as he could remember. The dreams had been different each time; no, the dreams were not at fault.
He had told this to Deileala once, his brazen sister who could usually comprehend anything—not that they were so close, but simply because she was the only one he had to tell such things. He had tried to describe to Deileala this terrible emptiness, this desire to be gone, to dissolve.
Deileala had called it depression. She suggested he change his sleeping schedule, try regulating the hours, go to sleep earlier, and “try to rise every morning, not late afternoon” (saying this, his loving sister smirked). He knew she was right.
And yet, he could never sleep well. He could never sleep correctly, the way most people could sleep. To him, every nightfall was the beginning of a battleground, a personal hell, a fierce war with his own conscious mind that he tried to put off for as long as he could every night, as a result going to bed at odd hours of the deepest darkness.
Every night the demon of his waking self would take over, and the more he tried to relax, to let go, the hotter his mind-self burned. Hestiam had taken lovers to bed with him, not because he was (as most around him thought) a lecher, but because he wanted to be lulled to sleep by passion’s aftermath.
None of it worked. Eventually, a personal physician had prescribed a draught that was supposedly good for inducing natural sleep. Hestiam, a tall, strong, well-formed man in his early middle years, had been weary of any and all draughts and elixirs, even from the most trusted members of the Physician Guild. His health had been good, and often, when minor ailments and chills came to plague, he would lie to the doctors, never taking their medicines, and weather the disease on his own. And not even Deileala suspected that his daily sleeping mixture was used to water a tall exotic plant on the balcony of Hestiam’s bedroom. Hestiam used to chuckle softly to himself as he privately emptied the glass over the pot every night that this had to be the most groggy plant in all of Tronaelend-Lis. And, he thought, if the plant survived these ministrations a year or two from now, then maybe he too would try the drink one of these nights. . . .
But why? What? Why did it have to be like this, to be such
darkness? What was depression, truly? And how was it linked to the ability to sleep?
In any case, what did it matter, when he could—once he’d forced himself out of the hell of his bed (a hell that he perversely did not want to leave)—he could spend the rest of his day in joyful madness, in entertainment and brilliance, surrounded by the charming pleasures of Court.
Until the next night came, with its twilight. . . .
For some reason, Hestiam had always been slightly afraid of the twilight. Not a coward, he. Not really. Neither particularly weak—maybe only somewhat. It was just that there was something about the monochrome fading of pale grayness known as light into the absolute shadows, that hinted at sorrow, at endings, at a manner of death. Even the pitch-black night itself was not as bad as twilight, the “in-between” time of the not-quite-dead. Even as a child, Deileala, his older sister, would burst into his room and then extinguish either the torchiere or the orb of the light monochrome until he would start screaming in sheer terror. And now that he was a grown man, and the Regent, he would neurotically set
Dirvan
ablaze with
color
every night, until it shone forth like a rhinestone in the heart of the City.
And now, the twilight, his private ancient childhood fear, the twilight had come in reality, and in force. It had come at last upon Hestiam and his City. Its precursor was the one who called himself Lord Araht Vorn, having appeared in Tronaelend-Lis a day ago in conjunction with an unpleasant incident, and—knew Hestiam—that was the man he would be receiving formally later this day. Or maybe the next morning.
Maybe that was part of the reason he wanted to be dead now. To have this responsibility pass him, somehow. To escape. To have it all
not be
.
But Chancellor Lirr—oh, the good clever experienced man that he was—insisted that this was the best course of action. Lirr insisted the Regents pursue this graceful mixture of caution, and the chance to discover more about this mysterious entity that was now a potential threat to the peace.
Hestiam remembered how something odd was spoken by that man Vorn, according to Lirr. Something about unpronounceable names. Something about serving the “twilight one.”
Whatever threatening nonsense that grim Lord Vorn spouted, it had touched Hestiam then, indirectly, even though he had never heard the actual words in person.
Twilight
.
Hestiam Grelias jerked upright, and sat up. He then quickly got off the bed, and stood up, naked and robust and unaware of himself. He felt dizzy for a moment, his limbs still recovering from the abysmal sleep. The fingers of his right hand absently played with the thick, dark, very short stubble of his beard, while he thought.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon.
Hestiam Grelias, Regent of Tronaelend-Lis, stood and thought of ways that one could possibly grapple with twilight.
* * *
A
chill of morning brought Ranhé awake. She took one deep breath, and let her consciousness come into focus, to a gray dawn and the singing of birds. Shivering, she lay in the stable next to the horses, her old blanket somehow having slid off her body during the night, leaving her frozen through the skin, since she was only wearing a thin shirt. She squinted at the cobweb-faint light coming from the cracks in the barn walls, blinked several times, stretched, looked up the fine legs of her horse, who was as awake as a hungry horse can be. And then, in a burst of shock, she remembered the dream of the
other
place, a
violet
world. Or rather, a different anomalous perspective on this very same world, so oddly realistic, that for an instant she doubted which reality was hers. The
woman
whose hair rained and sang. Who was love incarnate. . . .
And merely remembering this, Ranhé felt warmth surging within her. Things were again in sharper contrast, a clearer black and gray, an acuteness of line and form.
Her horse gave a soft neigh, and wasting no more time, Ranhé got up, brushing the hay off her hair, her plain shirt, trousers and boots which she had worn against the night’s chill. She folded her blanket, then shook out her cloak and fastened it about her, running her fingers instead of a comb through the fine, long ashen hair. She had unbraided it last night for warmth, and now it hung in stringy locks, peppered with bits of straw from the ground where she had slept. She must braid it again now, tight and functional, and out of the way.
And she thought of the man she saw in her dream, as she placed a bag of grain over the horse’s muzzle, and then made her way to the outhouse. Elas’s presence in her dream was no doubt due to her preoccupation with the idea of accepting his offer of employment. (It had been a sweet soft dream. . . .)
Or then, maybe not. Maybe it was but the porcelain-fineness of him that’d had this effect upon her. For, of certain things, of certain kinds of beauty, Ranhé was a connoisseur. On the other hand, if the employment
was
the point of concern (as always, her thoughts pounced back and forth), it’s no wonder indecision still gnawed at her.
Ranhé used instinct more often than anything else to weigh offers, at times taking extreme care before deciding one way or another. But in this case she’d been just plain hardheaded and irrational. So what, that he’d made her angry with his initial attitude?
Indeed
, reasoned Ranhé,
what else would someone like him do? Really, I demand too much of the aristocracy. I’ve simply met my match in pride. It’s a matter of two bulls butting heads.
It was stupid not to take his money. And stupid not to agree immediately to his offer. I only hope he hasn’t hired anyone else by now
.
And suddenly anxious, she actually hurried into the inn.
At the doors she bumped into one stablehand, then, entering, saw the man whom she knew as Nilmet, the so-called Philosopher, yawning on his pallet, and then had glimpses of the thin woman Maertella, who was hurrying to start her cooking for those who would be up soon.
“
Good morning, mistress!” Ranhé said loudly and cheerfully to Maertella. “What’s for breakfast?” And nodding to Nilmet, sat down at one of the tables. She then grinned, and grinning like a fool, hailed every inn servant for the next half hour or so. (
What’s be wrong with ‘er, to have cheer at this ungodly hour?
thought more than one in passing.)
By the time the guests of the inn came down one by one, a fire was lit in a large grate in the corner to dispel the cool morning. It was always cool, mornings of that season, and would warm up by midday.
Elas was one of the first downstairs, and requested that Jirve Lan have breakfast brought upstairs for the two fine ladies who supposedly still slept. (Jirve had himself just gotten up, yawning profusely, missing his warm bed and the pretty serving wench he’d left in it, the one who’d been frequenting his room lately.)
In the strong light of morning, Ranhé looked at the face of the nobleman, made innocent by the night’s rest, and thought she saw there some otherworldly stamp, some difference, a new sorrow. But it was illusion, wrought by the memory of her vivid dream, because his eyes, when he turned to her, were quite worldly, and faintly humorous.
He approached her immediately, like an old friend, saying, “A good morning to you, freewoman. I see now how pale and thin you are by the light of day. Have a stout breakfast, won’t you, so as not to fall off your horse upon the first gust of wind when today we ride.”
Ranhé watched him with a light smile. “We? Ride? My lord, honestly now, didn’t I make it clear that I’d rather pick fleas off a goat? Or stir fresh horse dung? All right, I jest.” And then she grinned. “I might be thin, but my wrists are as big as yours, and I’m nearly as tall. It’ll take more than wind to topple me. Hell then, I’ll say it.
Yes
. I’ll be hired by you!”
He seemed only half-surprised. He’d expected her decision, but not her manner of communicating it.
They were both unwittingly transformed by the night, given a wash of childishness. New tender skin was revealed under the topmost layer of cynicism.
He nodded, smiling back at her, then became serious. “Excellent. But now, I admit, I owe you an apology. For presuming too much. . . .”
He said it quietly, so that no one could hear: “You understand me, right? An apology for
everything
.”
Ranhé’s expression was clear. “It’s I, my lord, who owes you the apology. I left behind your fine purse of silver, behaving like a fool. Now that I think back, I’m not even sure what it was that made me do it. A forest mosquito bite?”
“
Maybe.” His smile was light, yet sad somehow.
“
But, my lord,” she continued, life dancing in her chameleon face. “Believe me, this does not happen often to me, this behavior of a child. I rule my caprices. Whatever it had been, will not happen again.”
“
You were interesting since the first moment . . .” he whispered suddenly, and sat down next to her. To onlookers, he was merely taking his seat for breakfast. “And the way you wield the sword is remarkable—”
“
No need, my lord. I need no soothing.”
He smiled. “Ah, but your pride requires it.”
“
Never. I keep my pride quiet before my betters.”
“
Yet even now you mock me, in a subtle way. I speak with you now as an equal. Because, from what I’ve seen, I know you.”