“Do you understand this place?” Niun asked of him finally, without moving.
“No,” Duncan said. “And you have not taught me words enough to ask. What do you honor here?”
“First of Kel-caste was Sa’an.”
“. . . Giver of laws,” Duncan took up the chant in silence that Niun left, “which was the service that he gave to Sarin the Mother. And the law of the Kel is one: to serve the she’pan . . .”
“That is the Kel’es-jir,” Niun said. “The high songs each have a body, that is first learned; then from each major word comes a limb, that is another song. In the e’atren-a of Sa’an are twenty-One major words, that lead to other songs. That is one answer to your question: here kel’ein learn the high songs. Here the three castes meet together, though they keep to their places. Here the dead are laid before the presence of the Pana. Here we speak to the presence of Sa’an and the others who had given to the People, and we remember that we are their children.” There was a long silence. “Sa’an was not your father. But bend yourself to kel-law and you may come here and be welcome. The kel-law I can teach you. But the things of the Pana, I cannot. They are for the she’pan to teach, when she will. It is a law that each caste teaches only what it best knows. The Kel is the Hand of the People. We are the Face of the People that outsiders see, and therefore we veil. And we do not bear the high knowledge, and we do not read the writings; we are the Face that is Turned Outward, and we hold nothing by which outsiders could learn us.”
It explained much.
“Are all outsiders enemies?” Duncan asked.
“That is beyond kel-knowledge. The lives of the Kel are the living of the People. We were hired by the regul. It is sung that we have served as mercenaries, and those songs are very old, from before the regul. That is all I know.”
And Niun made a gesture of respect and rose. Duncan gathered himself up and followed him out into the outer corridor, where the dusei waited. Pleasure feelings came strongly from them. Duncan bore it, trying to keep his senses clear, aware—fearfully aware—that his defenses were down, with the mri and with the dusei.
In kel-hall they shared a cup of soi. Niun seemed in an unusually communicative mood, and expressions played freely through his eyes, which could be dead as amber glass.
As if, Duncan thought, his seeking out the shrine had pleased Niun. It occurred to him that the long silences were lonely not only for himself, but perhaps for Niun too, who shared living space with a being more alien to him than the dusei, who could less understand him—and of whom Melein disapproved.
They talked, quietly, of what little was immediate, when they reckoned that jump might occur, and what was to be done on the morrow. There was a vast area of things they did not mention, that lay in past and future. There were things that Duncan, finding Niun inclined to talk, would have asked another human, things that he might have said—questions of the past, to know the man: What was it—to live on Kesrith, when there were only regul and mri? Where did you come from? What women did you know? What did you want of life? But Kesrith had to be forgotten; and so did the things that he himself remembered, human and forbidden to mention. The past was gone; the future was full of things that a kel’en must not ask, must not question, must not see, save in dim patterns—as beyond the screen.
Duncan finished his cup, set it aside, pushed at the dus that instantly sought to hose it.
“I will play you a round,” said Niun.
Day after day, the Game, each day the same. The sameness became maddening. And on this day, with the memory of the shrine fresh in his mind, Duncan bit at his lip and weighed his life and gave another answer.
“With weapons,” he said.
Niun’s eyes nictitated, startlement. He considered, then from his belt drew the av-tlen, the little-sword, two hands in length. He laid that before him; and his pistol, that he put to the left, and apart; and the weighted cords, the ka’islai, that depended from his belt and seemed more ornament than weapon. And from an inner pocket of his belt he drew the small, hafted blades of the as-ei, with which the Kel played at shon’ai. All these things he laid on the mat between them, pistol on the left, and the yin’ein, the ancient weapons, on the right.
“There is missing the av-kel,” Niun said. “It is not necessary here.”
The kel-sword: Duncan knew it, a blade three feet long and razor-edged; he had returned it to Niun, and it lay now wrapped in cloth, next Niun’s pallet.
“You may touch them.” Niun said; and as he gathered up the small blades of the as-ei: “Have a care of them. Of all these things, Kel Duncan, have great care. This—” He gestured at the pistol. “With this I have no concern for you. But kel’ein who have played the Game from childhood—die. You are barely able to play the wands.”
A chill, different fear crept over him in the handling of these small weapons, not panic-fear—he no longer entered the Game with that—but a cold reckoning that in all these arms was something alien, more personal and more demanding that he had yet calculated. He considered the skill of Niun, and mri reflexes, that quite simply seemed a deadly fraction quicker than human, and suddenly feared that he was not ready for such a contest, and that Niun waited for him to admit it.
“It seems,” Duncan said, “that quite a few kel’ein might die in learning these.”
“It is an honorable death.”
He looked at the mri’s naked face and sought some trace of humor there, found none.
“You are a kind,” Niun said slowly, “that fights in groups. We are not. The guns, the zahen’ein, they are your way. You do not understand ours, I see that. And often, Duncan, often we tried to approach humankind; we thought that there might be honor in you. Perhaps there is. But you would not come alone to fight. Is this never done among humans? Or why is it, Duncan?”
Duncan found no answer, for there was a great sadness in the mri, so profound a sadness and bewilderment when he asked that—as if, had this one thing been understood, then so much else need not have happened.
“I am sorry,” Duncan said, and found it pathetically little.
“What will you? Will you play?”
The grief still remained there. Of a sudden Duncan feared edged weapons with such feeling still in the air. He looked down at the small blades he held, cautiously attempted the proper grip on them nonetheless.
Niun’s slender fingers reached, carefully adjusted his, then withdrew. The mri edged back to a proper interval.
“One blade at a time, Duncan.”
He hesitated.
“That is no good,” Niun said. “Throw.”
The blade flew. Niun caught it. Gently it returned.
Duncan missed, it hit his chest and fell to his lap. He rubbed the sore spot over his heart and thought that is must be bleeding despite the robes.
He threw. Niun returned it. Awkwardly he caught the hilt, threw again: it came back, forth, back, forth, back—and his mind knew it for a weapon suddenly, and he froze, and a second time it caught him in the ribs. He gathered it from his lap and his hand was shaking. He cast.
Niun intercepted it, closed his hand on it and did not return it.
“I will keep playing,” Duncan said.
“Later.” Niun held up his hand for the other. Duncan returned it, and the mri slipped both back into his belt.
“I am not that badly hurt.”
The mri’s amber eyes regarded him soberly, reading him from shaking hands to his unveiled face. “Now you have realized that you will be hurt. So do we all, kel Duncan. Think on it a time. Your heart is good. Your desire is good. Your self-knowledge is at fault. We will play again, sometimes with wands, sometimes with the blades. I will show you all that I know. But it is not all to be learned today. Let me see the injuries. I judged my throws carefully, but I could make a mistake.”
Duncan frowned, opened the robe, found two minute punctures, one over his heart, one over his ribs, neither bruised, neither deep. “I suppose that I am the one more likely to mak
e a mistake,” he admitted. Niun regarded him soberly.
“True. You do not know how to hold your strength. I still must hold mine with you when we play at wands.”
He regarded the mri with resentment.
“Not much,” Niun conceded. “But I know your limit, and you do not know mine.”
Duncan’s jaw knotted. “What is the hal’ari for arrogant?”
Niun smiled. “Ka’ani-nla. But I am not, kel Duncan. If I were arrogant, you would have more than two small cuts: to use an opponent badly, that is arrogant. To press the Game beyond your own limits: that is stupidity. And you are not a stupid man, kel Duncan.”
It was several moments before Duncan even attempted to answer. The dusei shifted weight restlessly.
“If I can make you angry,” Niun said when he opened his mouth to speak, “I have passed your guard again. If I can make you angry, I have given you something to think about besides the Game. So my masters would say to me—often, because I myself was prone to that fault. The scars I have gained of it are more than two.”
Duncan considered the mri, found it strange that after so long a time he learned something of Niun as a person, and not as mri. He considered the amusement that lurked just behind the amber eyes, and reckoned that he was intended to share that humor, that Niun instead of bristling had simply hurled back the throw that he had cast, as a man would with a man not his enemy.
“Tomorrow,” Duncan said, “I will try the as-ei again.”
Niun’s face went sober, but there was pleasure in his gesture of assent. “Good.” He absently extended a hand to fend off the dus that intruded on them: the beasts could not seem to resist intervening in any quiet conversation, wanting to touch, to be as close as possible.
But the dus, the lesser one, snarled an objection and Niun snatched his hand back quickly. The beast pushed roughly past him, and settled between them. An instant later it moved again, heaved its bulk nearer and nearer Duncan.
“It does that sometimes,” Duncan said, alarmed by its behavior. There was a brush at his senses, affecting his heartbeat. The massive head thrust at his knee, and with a sigh the beast worked its way heavily against him, warm, beginning the pleasure sound. He lost himself in it a moment, then shuddered, and it stopped. He focused clearly, saw Niun sitting with his arm about the shoulder of the other, the larger dus.
“That is a shameless dus,” Niun said, “that prefers tsi’mri.”
He was, Duncan thought, vexed that the dus had snarled at him. Duncan endured the touch a moment more, knowing the attachment of the mri to the beasts, fearing to offend either by his complaint; but the touch at his senses was too much. A sudden shiver took him. “Get it away from me,” he said suddenly; he feared to move, not knowing what afflicted the beast.
Niun frowned, carefully separated himself from the larger dus, put out his hand to touch that which lay against Duncan. It made a strange, plaintive sound, heaved the more closely against Duncan, hard-breathing. Niun, veilless already, took off the zaidhe that covered his mane—unwonted familiarity—leaned forward and shook hard at the animal. Duncan felt the strain of dus-feelings, of alienness. He tried to touch the beast himself with his hand, but it suddenly heaved away from him and shied off across the room, shaking its massive head and blowing puffs of air in irritation as it retreated.
“Tsi’mri,” Niun judged, remaining kneeling where he was. “The dus feels something it cannot understand. It will not have me; it cannot have you. That is going to be a problem, Duncan. It is possible you cannot accept what it offers. But it can be dangerous if you will not accept it eventually. I cannot handle this one. There is a madness that comes on them if they cannot have what they want. They choose. We do not.”
“I cannot touch that thing.”
“You will have to.”
“No.”
Niun expelled a short breath, and rose and walked away, to stand staring at the starscreen, the dusty field that was all that changed in kel-hall. It was all there was to look at but a confused beast and a recalcitrant human. Duncan felt the accusation in that frozen black figure, total disappointment in him.
“Niun.”
The mri turned, bare-faced, bare-headed, looked down on him.
“Do not call me tsi’mri,” Duncan said.
“Do you say so?” Niun stiffened his back. “When the hal’ari comes easily from your mouth, when you play at the Game with weapons, when you can lie down to sleep and not fear the dusei, then I shall no longer call you tsi’mri. The beast will die, Duncan. And the other will be alone, if the madness does not infect it, too.”
Duncan looked at it, where it crouched in the corner. To have peace with Niun, he rose and nerved himself to approach it, Perversely, it would have none of him, but shied off and snarled. The dark eyes glittered at him, desiring what it could not find.
“Careful.”
Niun was behind him. Duncan gave back gratefully, felt the mri’s hand on his shoulder. The dus remained in its corner, and it did not seem the time to attempt anything with it.
“I will try,” Duncan said.
“Slowly. Let it alone for now. Let be. There is no pressing them.”
“I do not understand why it comes to me. I have tried to discourage it. Surely it understands I do not want it.”
Niun shrugged. “I have felt its disturbance. I cannot answer you. No one knows why a dus chooses. I could not hold them both, that is all. It has no one else. And perhaps it feels in you the nature of a kel’en.”
Duncan glanced at the dus, that had ceased to radiate hostility, and again at Niun, wondering whether he understood that in what the mri had said was an admission that he had won something.
* * *
That night, as they were settling to sleep on their pallets, Niun put away his weapons in the roll of cloth that contained all his personal possessions, and there, along with a curious knot of cord, was the ill-made figure of a dus, as if it were valued.
It pleased Duncan. He looked into the shadows at the living model that lay some distance from him, eyes glittering in the light of the starscreen, head between its paws, looking wistfully at him.
He whistled at it softly, an appeal ancient and human.
A soft puff of air distended the beast’s nostrils. The small eyes wrinkled in what looked like anguished consideration.
But it stayed at a distance.
Chapter Thirteen
No longer gold-robed, but white, Melein. She had made herself new robes, had made herself a new home from the compartment nearest controls, plain and pleasant—one chair, hers, and mats for sitting, and upon the walls she had begun to write, great serpentines of gold and black and blue that filled the room she had taken for her own hall, that spread down the corridor outside in lively and strange contrast to the barren walls elsewhere. From her haven she had begun to take the ship, to make it home.
Out of her own mind she had resurrected the appearance of the lost edun, the House of the People. She had recalled the writings; and of her own skill and by her own labor she had done these things, this difficult and holy work.
Niun was awed when he saw it, each time that he came to attend her, and found her work advancing through the ship. He had not believed that she could have attained such knowledge. She was, before she was she’pan, youngest daughter of the House: Melein Zain-Abrin, Chosen of the she’pan Intel.
He had utterly lost the Melein he had known, his truesister, his comrade once of the Kel. The process had been a gradual one, advancing like the writings, act by act. He put from his mind the fact that they had been children of the Kath together, that they had played at being kel’ein in the high hills of Kesrith. Hers became the age and reverence of all she’panei. Her skills made her a stranger to him. Being merely kel’en, he could not read what she wrote, could not pierce the mysteries in which she suddenly spoke, and he knew to his confusion how vast the gulf was that had opened between them in the six years since they had both been of the Kel. The blue seta’al
were cut and stained into her face as well as his, the proud marks of a warrior; but the hands were forbidden weapons now, and her bearing was the quiet reserve of the Sen. She did not go veiled. A Mother of an edun almost never veiled, her face always accessible to her children. Only in the presence of the profaning and the unacknowledgeable did she turn her face aside. She was alone: the gold-robed Sen should have been her servants; experienced warriors of the Kel should have been her Husbands; the eldest of the Kath should have brought bright-eyed children for her delight. He felt the inadequacy of everything he could do for her, at times with painful force.
“Niun.” She smiled and touched his offered hand. He knelt by her chair—knelt, for the Kel did not use the luxury of furniture, no more than the ascetic Sen. His dus was near him, warm and solid. The little one, visitor, crowded near the she’pan’s feet, adoring, dus-wise. A Sen-Caste mind was said to be too complex, too cold for the dusei’s taste. Niun did not know if this were true: it was strange that even when Melein had been of the Kel, no dus had ever sought her, a source of grief to her, and bitter envy of other kel’ein. Now she had none, would have none. The dus adored, but it did not come close with its mind—preferring even a human to Melein s’Intel, to the calculating power of a she’pan.
He bowed his head beneath her touch, looked up again. “I have brought Duncan,” he said. “I have told him how to bear himself; I have warned him.”
Melein inclined her head. “If you judge it time,” she said, stroking the back of the dus that sat by her. “Bring him.”
Niun looked up at her, to make one final appeal to her patience—to speak to her that he had known as a child; but he could not find that closeness with her. The disturbance passed to the dusei. His shook its head. He rose, pushed at the beast to make it move.
Duncan waited. Niun found him standing where he had left him, against the door on the other side of the corridor. “Come,” he told the human, “and do not veil. You are not in a strange hall.”