The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) (10 page)

The very thought went beyond outrage. The members of
the High Family were not treated so, were not used as
brit’ina
,
as bargaining figurines, first and second daughters abducted and held, to be
Traded for concessions. And no one was mistreated as a
brit’ina
,
most especially no one of the High Family. There were rules, even though the
use of
brit’tan’ti
as a way of doing business was frowned upon and generally caused more damage to
honor and reputation than the gain was worth; there were conventions.

When a daughter was captured, in the tradition of
brit’tan’ti
,
she was given the best suite of lains in her captor’s house. She waited upon
hand and foot by preferred
maddi
and servants.
She was pampered and cosseted, treated as an honored guest, and generally
amused by the whole experience. Should she come to harm, the Family or Tribe
responsible was immediately repudiated and stripped of all standing,
concessions and Trade rights, in addition to paying tremendous reparations to
the daughter’s Family. There was even the possibility of Outcasting. That end
almost never came to pass in the practice of
brit’tan’ti
,
and the threat of such dire consequences generally discouraged its use. No one
ever deliberately hurt the
brit’ina
. The
thought that any might do that to a daughter of any Family, much less a
daughter of the High Family was inconceivable. It was less than that. It was
beyond the realm of consideration. Audola considered it.

As a bereaved mother, she considered the worst. And
that was the worst she could think of. She beheaded her foe and carved a
likeness of her Family Crest into the dark with flashing silver.

Perhaps
the Ottanu was merely holding her and nursing her back to health.

But to use her as a
brit’ina
under such circumstances was beyond reprehensible - it would besmirch the
integrity of the Ottanu honor and render the challenge void, for none would
respect or tolerate such a practice.

Perhaps
the Heir was rescued by another Tribe and the Ottanu merely knows of this, and
is taking advantage of the information; but if that were the case, why has the
other party not come forward? The reward for aiding the Heir is much greater
than any concessions to be won by using her to bargain.

It
makes no sense. No sense at all...

A quiet presence intruded upon her tight sphere of
dark thought. This warm presence insinuated itself into her dance so perfectly
that she did not at first acknowledge that she had a real opponent that
countered all her moves with flawless grace. Only the final ring of steel on
steel on a high cut at the end of the fifth dance registered upon her
consciousness.

Audola did not look at the face of her sudden
opponent, already knowing whom it was. Only one dared come to her when she
decided to shut everything out, and dance here in the early eve with the wind.
Only one would have the skill and the courage to join her dance, and to wait
for that one’s presence to bring her out of her reverie by mere presence alone.
Only one dared do this without fearing her wrath. She should have expected him,
would have if she had not been so sick with worry.

She waited for her First Voice to do something as
they stood in identical poses, blade to blade, right high, left out and to the
side, right foot leading. He could not advise, could not speak, for the mandate
of contemplation and silence extended to them all, including her.

When he did nothing, she moved to the sixth dance,
looking through him, letting her sphere of thought engulf her again, letting
the slow rage and pain begin to blot all else out. The down-cut deflected to
the side, and the left swept up in a diagonal body cut. She missed the slight
clang of a blade sliding home into its sheath.

Tokia...

A gentle, but firm hand catching her wrist shattered
the hot sphere of rage with its molten core of vexation, pulling her from the
depths of introspection. It was unexpected enough that the sphere was broken
beyond immediate recall, and sudden enough that reflex forced her to freeze and
look at him, thereby acknowledging his presence, with deadly, widened eyes.

His head was down, his eyes down in apparent
supplication; but they were down in actuality so that the initial stabbing of
her glare passed over him, leaving him unscathed. His gaze then slowly climbed
to hers, his eyes shaped by compassion and a quiet, open offer of comfort. She
stared at him, her fury and blades no longer potent since both slashes had
missed their mark. She blinked at him, eyes no longer dry. She dropped her
captured sword-hand and only then felt the fire in her muscles that had been
overshadowed by the flame in her veins.

She wanted to hate him for causing her emotions to
break through her surface, wanted to despise him for breaking her sphere of
anger, for making her acknowledge him. But all she felt was relief that he had
and a gladness she did not want to admit that he was with her, now, in this
time of need. She looked away, expressing none of this, and a scalding tear of
molten heart-ache slid down her cheek, followed by another and another, and
another, until they flowed without end.

A hiss of silk hinted that he moved, perhaps closer,
and then his hand released her wrist and cupped her face, his thumb sliding across
her cheek, scattering the liquid emotion. The gesture was so unexpected and so
unspeakably ingratiating and winsome that she leaned into the caress just a bit
and her rigid mask of control fell away, her face crumpling in misery and her
heart-sickness taking voice in the form of a noisy, quiet sob.

Luyon brushed gently at the other cheek with two
fingers, not turning away from the open display of emotion. Audola might feel
that it was a show of weakness. But he knew that it was no such thing, this
expression of grief. It was a healthy release of destructive emotion, emotion
that, if locked up inside, would build to a peak and then consume her. He knew
he dared much: touching the High Queen unasked, breaking her war’don’ni and her
dark contemplation, unhealthy though it was; deliberately breaking her control,
forcing her into the release that she would not have permitted herself
otherwise. And, had he the courage, he would have dared more, would have taken
her in his arms and held her until her grief wore itself out. But not even he
would dare do that. The only one who could dare that was the Prince Consort of
the High Queen, and that worthy was long, long dead. He had made a calculated
risk, though, and judged right, that she would welcome and respond to his touch
rather than spurn it. He did his best to ignore the sweet softness of her jet
brown, silken-smooth skin beneath his fingertips.

He sheathed his other sword, circled her, and with
his arms measuring her arms, his hands around hers, he gently made her sheath
her
dom’ma
too. For an instant he stood thus, his arms almost around her, and the impulse
to draw her close was overpowering. But then he stepped back, and guided her to
a padded bench, where the light meal permitted by the edict waited. He made her
drink water, and pressed the plate of food into her hands. He watched her
delicately eat and drink, solicitously offering more until she pushed the plate
away. She looked so young and vulnerable in this moment, an oddly compelling
and disturbing thing since she had already out-aged him by one and a half
normal lifetimes. And yet at this moment she looked of an age with his younger
sister, barely thirty cycles of the Seasons. Such was the consequence of living
in the influence of
Av’s
domain.

She wiped at her reddened eyes, glanced gratefully
up at him. He smiled and bowed, spreading his arms, then stood, offering a hand
and gesturing to the terrace. She took the proffered hand, rose gracefully to
her feet. He escorted her over to the terrace, where they stood watching the
completion of the turning of light to dusk in silent throes of deep maroon and
dark lavender.

The stars trod playfully across the velvet curtain
of eve, continuing their ageless, endless dance to the answering drums of eve.
The city sparkled below them, extending away like a sea of flung jewels as far
as the eye could see under the bathing light of the waxing moons.

Her hand crept back into his, reminiscent of another
time, long ago, when there had been another to share the moonlit eves of
stardance with. That one was no more. She shied from the full memory, could not
think about him without beginning to grieve for him again. She could not afford
that now. Not while she grieved for her daughter. The two combined would
totally undo her. So instead of thinking of either, she lost herself in the
dance of the stars, enjoying Luyon’s company, enjoying the solace of remembered
happiness of gazing into growing eve with a cherished companion. She felt his
slight hesitation at the familiarity of holding hands, the instant of
uncertainty, and then his hand tightened about hers as they watched the
darkness turning.

a slow turning
of light heralded ill-fortune...

The
gila cat laughed, paced back and forth within its own little glowing sphere. It
would pause every now and then to sing to her, then it would pace again, its
claws thudding like hoofs on stone. Its breath tasted of meat and water, and
sometimes it was very near to her, holding her lovingly in its paws and washing
her with a long, white tongue. Its eyes were oddly silver and so was its
sphere, and its fur flowed like silk across her body. It had hurt her hand
once, but it did not hurt her again. She asked it to sing again and it chuckled
to her, held her, sang to her.

“Oh, dear one,” it
said
into the timeless void of its sphere, “-you must go now. You must awaken.”

She
cried out in voiceless protest, clinging to its fur, but some unseen force
pulled her away from the silver sphere, up through the red space above that
turned black then gray, then misty white.

Jeliya floated up toward consciousness, through a
gray filmy haze that surrounded her sluggish brain. She felt detached from
herself, as if a fuzzy blanket enfolded her, blurring the edges of her
thoughts. And her thoughts were disarrayed, unordered, undisciplined. A distant
ache behind her eyes drew attention to itself, but it was vague and far away,
like everything else.

She struggled to come to full wakefulness but was
trapped just below the liquid edge of the conscious plane. There was a funny
silver taste all around her, a silver blanket that kept awareness away. It
tasted almost like - she fought to form the thought even as the silver-grayness
sought to sunder it and send her back to slumber. It tasted like -
av’rita
,
but not quite. It filled her nostrils with the smell of soothing peppermint,
made her eyes thick with the flavor of clover. She tried to push it away with
weak, immaterial hands but it only caught fast, and the voice of the gila
called to her through a thick wall of dreams.

She could not fight it. The blanket turned pale
green, and it quietly smothered her, shrouding her in darkness that should have
turned. In desperation she called to the light, the weak yellow presence that
was outside herself. It responded sluggishly, as if it could not quite hear
her. Slowly, so slowly that she wanted to gnaw her fingers off, the
av’rita
gathered to her, twisting its lethargic way through the grayness. She
despaired, then, savagely she marshalled herself to patience, a touch of
control she had not known was gone reasserting itself. She held patience as the
light gathered inside her, pooling hot and bright; and then she directed it at
the smothering grayness, which burned away like mist and smoke.

Her body slammed into her as the kiss of
Av
boiled through the strange silvery-gray fog. Her eyes throbbed with a sickening
pulse of dull red pain and her back was a patchwork of little flaming brands.
The ache in her ankle thumped to some ancient, long forgotten rhythm. Her
throat ached and her stomach turned to bitter lime. She lost her hold on the
light as she groaned, fighting a wave of nausea. But the shred of discipline
still held her, and she was able to work through the pain, sifting through the
separate agonies, assimilating them, taking each and stripping it to its barest
components. The pain ebbed away as she got control of all the hot, pinpoints of
hurt and dull pulsing discomforts that seemed so overwhelming all together. The
worst of it was behind her eyes, but she did her best to block it out;
gradually it faded to the background along with the rest of her agonies, and
she sighed in almost relief.

She found that she was on her belly, not the most
comfortable of positions for her. The soft, pliable surface beneath her put a
strain on her neck and back. The room was unaccountably chilly and dark, the
presence of
Av
and the permeation of Av distinctly
missing.

Where am I?
Not at home, certainly. She could tell
that she was not in the Palace - this was not her suite of
lains
,
and there was not the background noise of others moving around, the murmur of
voices behind thick walls. Also, there was not the feeling of many that she was
attuned to in the Palace, for life was an aspect of radiance, of light, of
Av
.
This place, wherever she was, had the taste of only one other presence besides
herself.

She wondered how much it would hurt to roll over;
and yelped as her back sizzled with searing flame on the first attempt. Too
much to make a second. She lost control of the other agonies she had shunted
away.

Her weak cry brought the sound of hooves.

“Are you awake yet, little climber?” the voice of
dark silver from the shores of red seas and icy pain asked.

She moaned, holding her head, trying to get her
headache back under control.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Do you feel up to trying
to get some nourishment into your belly?”

She grimaced and tried to shake her head - and
instantly regretted it as the sharp stab of hot pins behind her eyes and a wave
of queasiness rewarded her efforts. A whimper was all she managed.

“You need sustenance, little
ky’pen’dati
,
and you need fluids in you. You are still much too close to fever than I like
and I don’t want your temperature to go back up. Besides, you need to eat, or
you’ll waste away to nothing. It’s been a ten’turn since you’ve been able to
keep anything much more substantial than water in your system, and I don’t want
to lose you to malnutrition.” A cool hand touched her shoulder, and some of the
pain seemed to drain away. “Will you at least try?” The voice was soft pleading
that she could not resist.

She nodded carefully.

“Good. Come, I’ll help you sit up.”

Something large and heavy pressed into the surface
on her left and strong hands slid under her armpits, and practically lifted her
off the pallet. She drew her knees painfully up and the hands set her back
against something firm and warm. Her back leapt to flaming life and she yelped
again, jerking forward. She waited till the flames ebbed, then settled herself
back carefully.

“My apologies - I was not thinking,” the silver
voice murmured to her. She nodded again, and liquid silk cascaded over her
shoulders and arms, tickling her neck, her face. Her back burned where the
bandages were pressed to the firmness behind her, so she slouched, shivering in
the cool air. In response the
desi
was drawn up
about her and a warm calabash was placed in her hands. The cool hands of the
other helped her support the bowl as she guided it to her lips. Carefully, the
bowl tipped and the broth flowed into her mouth, relieving the dryness,
soothing her aching throat. The flavor was muted but good, and it actually
helped settle her stomach, washing the queasiness away. It loaned her warmth and
strength, and more of the pain, especially in her head, faded away. She drained
the bowl, suddenly very hungry.

“Good,” the silver voice murmured, taking the bowl
away. “Water?”

She nodded and a second calabash touched her lips.
It tilted and cool, clean water quenched her thirst.

“Do you wish to sleep some more,
ky’pen’dati
?”

In reply she curled against the warm body and
sighed, pulling the desi more firmly around her to create a little cocoon of
warmth. The broth settled pleasantly in her belly and the smell of wildberries
and clean equine and man came to her, a decidedly pleasant combination. Smooth,
liquid satin hair played about her face, soothing in an odd way. Her mind
drifted on bluish-gray haze, seemed to float a little away from her senses, a strange,
mild rapture taking hold of her. Was there medicine in the broth that was
making her feel light-headed? Perhaps. She let the thought drift away.

One of the hands dropped to stroke her hair, her
cheek; the other settled to her shoulder. The familiarity surprised her, but it
seemed so natural, so usual that she let it pass unremarked.

Jeliya turned her detached, contented thoughts to
her situation. She was not home. The being attending her was not the royal
family
ol’bey’woman
,
obviously. This one who cared for her was a Katari. She could feel and smell
the
kati’yori
part of him and the sound of hooves from before was explained away by this.

The
last thing I remember - is…the trap. Falling. Seeing my target get away.

She could only assume that she had been found by one
of the hooved Av’Touched, but the silky hair puzzled her. The
Katari
were not a hirsute people and the hair they did possess had a much coarser
texture than any
wuman’s
. It formed a stiff crest that
ran from the middle of the forehead to the equine shoulderblades, much like the
kati’yori
.
The rest of their bodies was covered in short velvetine fur-skin.

Was she perhaps in a
Katari
village? Had she been found by the hooved ones where she had fallen and been
taken care of by this
ol’bey’one
? It
seemed reasonable, but the behavior of this particular one was unusual. He
stayed with her, touched her without reluctance, called her by endearments - ‘
ky’pen’dati’
meant ‘dear one.’ The
Katari
that she had
met had been somewhat remote and aloof, though strictly polite, to outsiders.
And they carefully avoided the casual touch of uninvited strangers. Perhaps
their
ol’bey’women
and
ol’bey’men
were different?

Her mind, in a grayish-white cloud, drifted back to
the endearment. Perhaps this was a hermit who seldom received visitors. That
would explain the excessive contact and the endearment. But not the silky hair.

“Why do you call me
ky’pen’dati
?”
she whispered, her voice, still ravaged from the fever, sounding far away.

“Because, dear one, I do not know your true name.”
His voice settled gently around her like falling
olia
petals. It reminded her vaguely of something, perhaps something she dreamt.
“You would not tell me.”

“It is Jeliya.” She was pleased to know that her
safeguards were still in place. No information could be extracted from her
while she was not fully conscious. She was beginning to feel very light now,
weightless, and her voice became dreamy even though her mind stayed clear. “Do
you have a name?” It was strange, like hearing herself through a long, echoless
whitish-silver tunnel.

“Long ago - when it mattered - my name was Gavaron.”

It was a peculiar name, not like any
Katari
Family or Tribe name she had ever heard...

Her eyes distracted her, paining her from far away.
She grunted as the pain tried to reach her through the dully thumping,
blackened silver. Her distant hand went to distant thumping eyes, felt the silk
blind covering them.

“What is wrong with my eyes?”

“The
thrista
poison. You
fell into a thick patch of
thrista
nettle. The
poison attacks the eyes, makes them sensitive to light.”

She tried to (thu-thump) remember all she could
about thrista nettle. It was not deadly poisonous, but it was very (thu-thump)
unpleasant, making the victim dreadfully sick, and yes, it did affect the eyes.
It also affected digestion...

Thu-thump.

The thumping grew, overwhelming her thoughts. It was
peculiar, an odd, sensual double beat, almost like a heartbeat, but a thousand
times louder and a thousand times more seductive. It was like the wild drums of
the
Salaka
Dign
calling to the ancestors. It seemed to vibrate in the black
silverness around her, then in the golden lightness within her, drawing her own
pulse to its rhythm. As she listened it faded, and then she heard a second,
fainter double beat underlying it (two hearts?). And far, far away, a whooshing
sound like the wind singing in the narrow tunnel of a bellows (lungs?). And
even as she studied each engaging sound it became a background noise to let
some other sound come to her awareness. All of the sounds were soothing,
alluring, familiar somehow. Next to the forefront was the sound like low
growling, or low liquid rumbling, like a stomach in the business of digesting,
satisfied, full. She listened in fascination, enthralled, as the sound receded
and echoed itself (a second stomach?). Then came crackling, popping sounds she
could not even begin to identify (joints and tendons perhaps?). Then a rushing
sound that echoed the initial double rhythms (blood in veins?). Then soft
buzzing (nerve endings?). Then...