The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) (70 page)

But still.

“Of course I will tell you about Rhui,” Anatoly said, and let Moshe show him to the crash seats. As the door closed behind him, he saw the screen in the lounge blink off and the roll of numbers and destinations vanish into a gray sheet. They were on their way to the heart of the Empire.

T
HE SOUND NAGGED HER
through her dream, chasing her down a knife-edge ridge while a wind streaked the sky with silver threads and the land beneath shone with the scattered remnants of the burning tails of comets. Tess woke up with a headache, convinced that someone had put a call through to her on the console in the library. She knew she would not be able to sleep again until she checked.

She eased out from under the warm and now heavy arm thrown across her torso, but where Ilya, once fully asleep, could sleep through the worst storms and commotions and her nightly peregrinations, Kirill woke instantly.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Just going out.” She pressed a finger to his lips, and he shut his eyes and was back asleep within seconds. Ilya, once woken, would have stayed awake. Gods, she missed him, and yet at the same time, she wasn’t sorry to have this time, however brief it might prove to be, with Kirill.

She dressed quickly, slipped into the outer chamber, and kissed both sleeping children. Throwing her cloak over her shoulders, she went out into the night.

It was bitterly cold, courtesy of a sudden cold front that had swung down on Sarai from the north yesterday. The sky had the hard glare of glass, punctuated by the stabbing light of the stars and wandering planets. Her eye caught on a faint star moving across the heavens; a ship must be in orbit. What did the priests of Hristain think of such sights? Did they think an angel traversed the sky, on an errand for God? What did Ilya think of such sights? She couldn’t believe he never noticed such things. She shook off the thought with a toss of her head, greeted the night guards, and struck out across the plaza to the library.

She banked her path left, toward the side entrance, but stopped in front of the steps. Through the stone grill that surmounted the double doors, she saw the gleam of light. Who was in the main hall of the library at this hour? It must be the ke. She went up the steps. The small door inlaid within the great double doors opened noiselessly and she slipped inside.

It was the ke. She played khot at one of the tables—with Sonia.

Hearing Tess’s footsteps, Sonia looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, hello. You couldn’t sleep either?”

“What are you doing here?” Tess demanded. Her headache had subsided to a dull throb.

Sonia rubbed her skirt where it curved over her belly. “Too uncomfortable to sleep. And we’d left off right in the middle of an exciting game. What are
you
doing here? You never have trouble sleeping that I know of.”

“I woke up.”

The ke pondered the board and did not respond to the conversation nor to Tess’s entrance except to mark her with a nod of her head. Tess glanced at the layout of the stones: They made a pleasingly chaotic pattern, scattered across the board in odd polymorphic shapes of white and black. The ke finally placed her hands one on top of the other on the table. It was the closest Tess had ever seen the Chapalii come to using the hand gestures that were a vital part of at least one strata of Chapalii society.

“The game is yours,” said the ke in passable Rhuian. Her accent was uncannily sterile.

Sonia smiled with satisfaction.

Tess was stunned. In formal Chapalii, she said, “How did you learn to speak Rhuian?”

“A method exists to accelerate language acquisition,” replied the ke in formal Chapalii.

“I thought daiga languages were considered too primitive to be worth learning.”

“They are, but….”

Tess would never have said that she
knew
the ke well, nor that in the three years the ke had lived here in Sarai and Tess had been able to see the ke frequently that she had gained any significant understanding of the ke’s personality, if indeed the ke had a personality in human terms. But Tess had never seen the ke quite so hesitant before. She waited.

“This nameless one wished to speak with the daiga Sonia, so the program was activated.”

“I enjoyed our contest, holy one,” said Sonia smoothly in Rhuian, politely ignoring the interchange. “Perhaps we may play again.”

“Tess wishes my assistance,” said the ke, canting her veiled head so that she appeared to be looking at Tess.

“No, no,” said Tess hastily. Gods, what would she say to Sonia, then?

But it was too late. “Where are you going?” Sonia asked with apparent innocence. “May I come with you?”

Tess swore under her breath in Anglais. She met Sonia’s clear-sighted gaze, and it was like being slugged. She knew Sonia very well indeed after twelve years, knew her well enough to read many things from her expression alone. Sonia knew damn well what she was asking. She knew Tess was concealing something, and whether through chance or choice or simply the restlessness brought on by her pregnancy, she had decided to force the issue now.

Except she had left Tess the option to say “no.”

The word came out of Tess’s mouth before she knew she meant to say it.

“Yes.” Then she blanched. But it was too late.

Sonia cocked her head to one side, regarding Tess quizzically. She stood up and shook out her skirts with the same brisk gesture her mother used, and she waited. The ke stood also. After a few moments, Tess managed to get one of her feet to move. Her thoughts raced wildly, jumbling in on top of each other, but like the throb of her headache, one emotion drowned out the others finally: Relief. Whatever the consequences, she had finished with deception. Taking hold of Sonia’s hand, she led her back to the ke’s suite, past the anteroom and into the private office. A lit bar on the console bled a line of red into the darkened room: a call had indeed come in.

“Lights,” said Tess, and the walls lightened until they shone with a soft white glow.

Sonia shook free of her hand and walked over to touch one wall. But she said nothing. Instead, she turned to survey the chamber: the long bank of the console, the shining walls, a wooden table with two chairs, and the red and gold couch.

“This is the fabric that Mitya’s wife gave you,” said Sonia, going over to run a hand down the curve of the couch. Her voice sounded very odd in this room, because Tess had never expected to hear it here. “I always wondered what became of it. It’s very fine. It’s a shame to hide it in here.”

She did not need to say aloud: Why
do
you hide it in here? The jaran had many small formalities with which they smoothed over the constant rubbing of lives lived in close quarters, and it was not unknown for a woman or man to simply ride out for hours, seeking solitude. But to have a private chamber, closed away, must seem inexplicable. Privacy lay outdoors, cloaked by the anonymity of the sky.

Sonia grinned. “You khaja are very strange.” She brushed a hand over the console, and Tess saw how she started and, more curious now, slid her fingers along the pale gray surface, tracing around the pads and bars without touching them. “What is this? The walls, the way they light without a flame, and this table, they all remind me of things I saw at the shrine of Morava.”

Tess finally found her voice. “They are like. I have to get a message.” She joined Sonia at the console. Gave a great sigh. “Sonia, there’s a great deal I haven’t told you.”

“I had figured that out for myself.”

“Play incoming message,” said Tess in Anglais.

The air spun into a cloud above the console and coalesced into…

“Charles!” said Tess, startled to see her brother. These days he rarely sent direct links to her.

Sonia stared.

“Hello, Tess,” said Charles’s image, which seemed to rise from the console. Sonia crouched down and peered up the incline of the console, as if to see where he was hiding. “I have important news about Anatoly Sakhalin. He went with the Bharentous Repertory Company to Naroshi’s palace, and ran into Naroshi’s sister in nesh, which led him to an audience with Duke Naroshi. But the odd thing is, Naroshi honored Sakhalin as if he was a prince, and he—Sakhalin, that is—has been called to appear before the emperor. As you can imagine, this has thrown the council and the Protocol Office into an uproar, and I want you to be prepared in case some idiot tries to come nosing around on Rhui. It’s unlikely they’ll get through. I’m going to add security at all gateways onto the surface, but forewarned is forearmed. I will give you an immediate report when he returns. If he returns. Of course we don’t have a clue what the emperor intends, if indeed he intends anything at all. Nor do I have any real assurance that Sakhalin will behave in a rational manner. He intends to issue his full report to his uncle and Bakhtiian, but I can prevent that. The Interdiction proceeds normally for now. A more extensive report will arrive in coded bursts over the next two days. Soerensen off.”

The image froze, Charles’s torso and head resting a finger’s breadth above the gray sheen of the console. There was silence in the room. The ke waited, a cloaked backdrop. The thin whine of a fan buried in the machinery hummed away, oblivious to their measured breathing.

“He is not truly there,” said Sonia finally. “How can he appear to you so?”

“It’s a message, sent from far away.”

“Sent from across the ocean? What carries it?”

“I guess you could say that Father Wind carries it.”

“But that is not what
you
would say.”

“No.”

Sonia rapped the console’s surface gently with her knuckles. “Are there other things hidden in here?”

“Yes.”

The console was backed up against one wall, but Sonia got down on her hands and knees and investigated all its angles and shadows. She found the latch that opened the catch-door, and popped it. Tess did not need to cross over to her to know what she saw inside: the modeller banks themselves, sealed away from air and dust and the corrosive sweat of human hands. For a long time Sonia crouched, chin on hand, and peered inside. She did not try to touch anything. After a while, she rose, carefully closed the door, and walked over to the couch. She sat down.

“What message did he send you? He spoke of Anatoly Sakhalin.”

Tess sighed and sat down next to her. The ke, silent, un-moving, remained standing by the door. “A strange message, in truth. The Chapalii emperor has sent for Anatoly Sakhalin to appear before him.”

“Ah,” said Sonia wisely. “He has learned that a prince of the Sakhalin resides in his country.”

“Uh, well, it’s not quite that… simple.”

Sonia chuckled. “Is it ever? Does Ilya know that your brother sends you messages that are carried on Father Wind? No, of course he does not.”

“I can’t—”

“You needn’t make excuses to me, Tess. If this is some kind of khaja magic—”

“It isn’t
magic
.”

“If this is some kind of khaja tool, a way to send messages faster even than our post riders, then it is perhaps no wonder that you keep it to yourselves.”

“You have kept nothing to yourselves,” said Tess miserably, “not from me, at any rate.”

“We don’t need to.”

Tess had to laugh, because even Sonia wore arrogance like another suit of clothes, as all the jaran did. “Can you forgive me, Sonia?”

“For what? I have never forgotten you are khaja. That does not mean I love you any less.”

“For lying to you.”

“Have you lied to me?”

“More or less. I’m not really from Jeds. I
am
from Erthe, but she doesn’t truly lie across the seas. Or at least, not the ocean as you know it.”

“Are you sure you want to tell me this?”

“Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m just tired of hiding the truth.”

Sonia looked up, examining the ke. “As the holy one is hidden, in plain sight, but concealed by her robes.”

“Huh. Perhaps.”

“You are with us, but part of you remains unseen.”

“Not all the threads in a rug are visible.”

“Ah. You mean to best me at my own game. If Erthe does not lie across the ocean, then there are only two other places it can lie, if it truly exists: in the high mountains that lie south and east of the plains or else in the heavens, where the gods live.”

“It does not lie in the mountains.”

Sonia crossed her arms over her chest and for a long, uncomfortable moment examined Tess skeptically. “Are you saying that you come from the gods’ land?”

“Are you saying that you find that unlikely?” Tess demanded, and could not help but laugh.

Sonia smiled. “Yes. Why should the gods disturb themselves in our affairs, in any case? Why would they look like us?”

“You have your own story, of Mother Sun sending her daughter to the plains—”

“Tess. That is a story. I have read enough to know that peoples in other lands have each their own story, about how they came to be. I would be as likely to believe the Hristanic story of how God allowed his only son to be mutilated and dismembered and strewn about the land like any piece of offal, and then appeared to lift him up to heaven afterward on a beam of light.”

“You don’t believe in the story of Mother Sun?”

“Of course I believe it. But not in what you khaja would call the literal truth, not like a child believes, not like even Ilya himself believes—” She stopped suddenly. Her eyes widened. “Gods!” Sticking her little finger in her mouth, she worried at it while she squinted at Tess. Finally she withdrew her finger and wiped it dry on her skirts. “Do you believe in that story, Tess?”

Tess let out a great sigh and sank her weight onto her knees, hunching over. “No. And yes. Mother Sun sent her daughter down from the heavens and that daughter fell in love with a dyan of the tribes and brought him great victory. Well, it isn’t that far from the truth. If you leave out Mother Sun.”

“I would never leave out Mother Sun, having a great respect for the power of the gods. If this is true, or a way of telling the truth, using what words we have, then it is no wonder you have concealed the truth from Ilya. He would be furious.”