“As you,” she replied, this time looking directly at him. “But I am not pantless. While you, on the other hand—” And she pointed to the several worn holes in Nilmet’s trousers.
Nilmet laughed. Then he said, “Am I that obvious in my lack of affiliation?”
She did not smile, but slowly raised one brow exactly as he did, mocking him, or maybe acknowledging a like soul. And then she whispered with a blank face, “You are obvious to no one, but keep it down or you will be.” And then she winked. Still she did not smile, her face a mask.
“Indeed. What are they all but slaves to the Guilds?” said Nilmet, wanting to draw her out.
“Indeed, what are they? What is anything? Most relevantly, what is for dinner?” she replied. “I smell omelet. It is blatantly Guildless, in my opinion. Unless the onions decided to join the Apothecary Guild, in which case we are about to be dosed with something unspeakably potent. But never fear, I love onions, my friend, so I am well prepared. My stomach is ready and willing, as is yours—yes, I heard the rumble, do not deny, for it will only speak louder.”
Nilmet started to chuckle, then grinned.
“Your levity is excessive,” she said. “By the way, is that your half-played game over there? I am assuming it is yours; it has that equally Guildless look about it, Tilirr pieces abandoned every which way, chaos and aimlessness, lack of focus and affiliation written on their poor little faces. . . .”
He watched how, all throughout the conversation, her eyes managed to shift, to take in everything about them. The rest of her face, however, was oddly controlled, lacking a range of expression. Quite talkative, yet she managed to say nothing concrete about herself. Nilmet concluded finally, that she was definitely holding back something. But he was yet to pin it down.
They had talked thus quietly, even when the latest arrivals appeared, and Jirve tarried with his noble guests.
Ranhé did not move a muscle to show that she had recognized the noblewomen. The last time she’d seen them was in unreliable twilight, but she never forgot faces. Obviously, neither did the young lady in the carriage.
While her mother talked incessantly, the lady glanced about the room, and her eyes stopped for an instant on Ranhé, who looked back at her like a blank wall. And they mutually recognized that neither would prefer to acknowledge the other.
While the talk drifted, Jirve had the cook informed that they must start serving dinner. At this point, the outside door opened, and the tall young lord entered, apparently satisfied that the horses were now well. He immediately joined his aunt and cousin, and every eye followed his bejeweled hands, his confident walk across the room.
“Ah, Elas,” said his aunt, letting out a sigh of complete relief. Then she frowned, and began her harangue. Lixa pursed her lips disdainfully, while Elas looked at his recovered aunt, made so confident by the many times she had to describe their plight to a sympathetic audience.
“Sh-h-h,” he said. “Not now.” And then he turned to the proprietor, saying, “Master—”
“Jirve Lan, my lord, at your service!” Jirve Lan’s sycophantic aspect emerged and took over, excited at the many events happening in his inn.
“Master Jirve, I want as little of this as possible to be known, beyond the confines of your establishment.” The aristocrat’s tone seemed to include all those present.
“But my lord, the authorities? Shouldn’t they be informed, the outrage—”
“No.”
Jirve’s lips twitched. “As you wish then. But—”
“We would now like some of your good dinner,” said Elas, making it apparent that this particular talk was ended.
Jirve Lan knew when not to push. “Maertella!” he hollered. “Bring out the best!”
At which Nilmet, recognizing Jirve’s typical dramatic gesture, hid a smile.
And indeed, the aristocrats were then led to the best table in the house, and the rest of the guests found themselves places. Maertella, a thin, gangly woman with a bleached, sallow face—washed out despite the orange glow—came bearing the main course of meat stew, while two servants hurried around with the plates.
There were other dishes also, including a vegetable soup that smelled pungent like an herb garden, and yes, there was that famous omelet. The food was abundant for all, yet the lords were served first. Everyone was quite satisfied, however, despite Dame Beis sniffing the meat at one point suspiciously.
Nilmet sat at his regular place at the end of the far table, and hungrily attacked the stew, mouth salivating profusely before even his teeth could sink into the hot mass. He was always hungry, nowadays somewhat less, of course, ever since he’d started eating at the inn (for, Jirve was generous with those whose soul and learning he chose to intellectually vampirize—Nilmet knew quite well he was being fed off as much as he was being fed).
Next to him, Ranhé had sat down with her bowl of soup and a large chunk of bread. He noted that she had refused the main course when Maertella came around to her with the large bowl and platter. At first the cook was visibly insulted, and made herself quite audible, which caused everyone to turn around and look their way. But Ranhé smiled—in a bright winning manner that struck Nilmet unexpectedly after her deadpan expression—and looked Maertella in the eyes.
“Not enough coppers in my purse, mistress,” she explained. “Not that I can’t appreciate that wonderful aroma, believe me.”
And when the cook, somewhat mollified, mentioned that it made no difference, since the dinner was one solid price, Ranhé grinned again. “I’d be won over by you. Except that I eat no meat, good woman. A quirk of mine, that’s all, nothing to do with your fine cooking.”
And as the woman stared, Ranhé added, “But I wouldn’t mind having some more of your soup.”
Maertella shrugged, smiling helplessly, and told a servant to bring more soup. “Folks have odd notions nowadays . . .” she muttered.
Nilmet paused, somewhat guiltily swallowing his mouthful of meat, and said to Ranhé, “Is this . . . religious on your part, that you take no flesh? If I may ask?”
Two intelligent eyes met his, while her lips were on the verge of a smile. “You’re much too polite, friend. No, it’s not.”
“For your health, then? I’ve heard of the diet some physicians prescribe, abstinence from meat, for some ailments. . . .”
“Not that either. It’s merely for my sanity.”
“Oh . . . ?” He paused, a tentative question hung in the air.
“I don’t particularly enjoy talking about this, but since you want—have you ever looked into the eyes of a beast? Have you really looked, with that true intensity one uses to look at a thing in order to fathom its nature? With the will to see it as it really is? Looking past the first veil of habitual sight, past the . . . Do you understand me? I suppose you do, being, as I imagine, a Philosopher.”
“I think—I understand.”
“Well then. After using such a close scrutiny once, a long time ago, I suddenly found myself unable to consume animal flesh. I suppose it is oddness on my part, and indeed, I’ve been called insane. . . . For, I see in their eyes myself.”
And Ranhé’s lips moved at last, securely, into a smile. Across the tables she saw the gaze of the one called Elas momentarily touch upon her.
Other conversations around the dinner tables had long since broken off into their own private topics.
Ranhé, who saw everything, knew that the man Elas was aware of her also, as he too had been aware of all. They were both quite alike in that respect. From where she sat, Ranhé saw him engaged in quiet, seemingly oblivious conversation with his aunt and cousin. She watched the movements of his hands as he would sometimes gesture, the fingers and jewels of the rings caught on orange fire; the way he moved his head lightly, and the line of his profile against the blackness of hair. There was a streak of pallor in that hair, a pale albino lock.
She had not seen him so closely in the silver dusk. He had been a shifting chameleon, and now she foun
d him better defined. She recalled visual flashes of memory of how he had fought in the whirling mist of the clearing seething with Bilhaar. And then she contrasted the images with the present, his calm poise. . . .
Dinner was over, and guests were beginning to rise. A servant brought out hot mulled wine to those who could afford it. Nilmet did not decline the good drink, as he watched two men head upstairs to sleep.
Before all had retired for the night, Elas rose from his seat and announced loudly that he wanted to hire a couple of men to travel with them to the City. “I need a driver,” he said, while Ranhé chose not to look his way. “And another to ride guard with me. Someone who is willing to fight, if need be. I want no repeat of what took place earlier today. And, I will pay well.”
Elas had glanced around the room as he was saying these words, and most lingered, considering his offer. He had seen that freewoman sitting at one of the farther tables, the one he thought he’d never encounter again, and wondered now what she would do. He had mentioned nothing of her part in the incident to anyone here. And neither had she.
She was much younger, plain-looking now in the light, with no heroic mystery of silver evening shadows to surround and cloak her. Indeed, how plain she was! There was even something vaguely repulsive about the unkempt lines of her face. And her eyes, which he remembered as almost inhuman with something, some essence, he now couldn’t even catch for one moment. His first impression of her in the night—so sexless that consequently it was easy for him to accept, even then, that she was a woman and not a youth—was now simplified by the light of the monochrome. All otherworldliness was gone. Elas had heard of women like her, upon occasion, who chose to live outside the normal ways of men and women. Freewoman she was indeed.
And that, besides other things, meant that she had real skills to maintain her alienation. At least one such skill, that of the sword, he had himself witnessed.
He watched the rest of the room, and thought, You are all cowards. Even an offer of a reward cannot cure you.
“No thanks, my lord,” said one man, reinforcing his thoughts, breaking the silence. Others began nodding, muttering something incomprehensible, and started again to disperse.
A smile of derision gathered at the corners of Elasand’s mouth. “Fifty gold dahr,” he said, “to the driver. Seventy to the guard.”
Everyone paused once more. Nilmet, from where he sat, sucked in his breath, saying to himself mockingly, “Well, old Nilmet Vallen, now would be as good time as any to change professions, eh?” And he chuckled. The sum was a small fortune.
The fingers of Ranhé’s right hand drummed faintly on the tabletop. She half turned to Nilmet, saying lightly, “My friend, this may well be the one good reason to abandon philosophy. Go instead, and be well hired.”
Elas glanced quickly at her, but once again she eluded a direct gaze.
The military guildsmen stood frowning, looking from one to the other. “Well,” one said, “I suppose I might be able to drive for you, m’lord, for fifty dahr.”
“Good,” said Elas firmly. “And your name?”
“Pheyl, m’lord. Pheyl Milhas.”
“Stay then here, for a moment, freeman, so we can talk. Anyone else?”
In reply, the room was being vacated. From his seat behind the counter, Jirve Lan watched in intense fascination, and shook his head, muttering to himself. “Seventy dahr! Idiots . . . If I were but young . . . if I didn’t have this inn to care for . . .”
“What does this mean, Elas?” said Dame Beis, who had just finished her dinner, and now had this new cause for alarm. “Won’t anyone be hired? By all gods, I simply refuse to be taken anywhere without an escort tomorrow!”
There is no more danger, he thought, this is only to humor you, Aunt. Bilhaar are too confident to repeat an attack so soon. They don’t know yet of the failure of this set.
But he said nothing, only made a show of further waiting.
Ranhé was examining her fingernails. I will not, she thought violently, as a cold inexplicable fury suddenly gripped her. I will not say a word. If he thinks he can buy me still . . . The arrogant—
“Raise the price, Elas!” wailed Molhveth Beis, her warm eyes frightened out of their ordinary kind gentility. “Good sirs! Would anyone please—”
“Mother!” whispered Lixa like a snake, without changing her expression and barely moving her lips. “It is unseemly, the way you—”
Nilmet felt a twinge of pity. The fear of the assassins was genuine in the old woman.
Jirve Lan looked around the room in nervous anticipation, seeing only the merchant finishing his second course of dinner leisurely and getting ready to retire upstairs, and Nilmet with that scrawny sexless female seated at the far table. What the hell was she anyway?
The one newly hired man, Pheyl Milhas, standing to the side, was beginning to look as if he was reconsidering his decision.
“My offer stands, until morning, to anyone who is willing,” spoke Elasand then, calmly. The last glimpse he had of the freewoman in the corner showed a far greater indifference on her part than seemed natural under the circumstances. She was working so hard at it that he was beginning to have hopes after all.
“My lady, Aunt,” he said. “The two of you best retire for the night now.”
And as the noblewomen rose obediently, too worn out with the events of the day to even argue, Jirve Lan hurried to “escort” them personally to the bedchamber, calling servants on the way.
Nilmet chuckled. “If only Master Jirve was hirable, I’m sure he’d be willing to perform both jobs. I never did ask him how well he handles the sword, if at all.”
And suddenly he remembered what Ranhé had said earlier.
“Freewoman, weren’t you just telling me that you were traveling to the City for hire? I notice a sword there, at your side. Why don’t you consider this offer?”
* * *
Postulate Six: Rainbow is Pain.
* * *
The young boy stood before a great monolithic statue of precious gray stone and metal, its fifty-foot bulk representing the likeness of a god. All around, the dimly illuminated Temple swept upwards into eternity, resting on doric columns of stark granite.
The boy looked about him, his eyes oddly unaccustomed to the natural illumination produced by torches. Their colorless gray fire flickered low on the walls, but left the immense ceiling a shadow-mystery. Everything stood bland, single-hued, gold and silver and granite distinguished only by the fine texture of surfaces. And in places winked the small gray suns that were the finely faceted jewels of smoky hue, exploding into light when the torches caught on their razor facets.
He looked about him and for a moment wondered what would happen if a color monochrome, like the one in his bedchamber back in Dirvan, were to be lit here. The one in his bedroom happened to be of an ultimate pale blue hue, and really was not what he might have preferred to have as his own. It was so cold, so utterly chill, the feeling that he got when he sat in his bedchamber.
Chill.
He looked at the great god before him, Alhveh Himself, the god of Empty Skies and Death. The statue, boldly hewn of granite, was of a man-shape in elaborate stone folds of clothing, all details of Him merely suggested at by geometric flow, except for His Face and His Hands, which were exquisite, and covered by a thin layer of precious metal. In the irregular torchlight those parts gleamed.
Alhveh wore the Face of a beautiful cold man. And His Hands, detailed elegant and powerful—each finger exquisitely formed on a grand scale—His Hands were strangely harsh yet gentle. For, one great Hand was slightly extended forward, palm upwards, in a gesture either of receptivity or of offering, while the other was clenched in a fist of locked power.
The boy gazed up, straining to see the Face and simultaneously ignore the Hands. For, somehow They frightened him in Their ambiguity, while the Face, though cold, was open to him, and therefore to be comprehended.
From where he was, at the very base of the statue
, he could only see the chin and the fine flaring nostrils of the god, while the brows and forehead and the ambiguous flowing stone hair ended fifty feet high and far into the shadow.
Lord Alhveh . . . It is I again. So bland, so passive on the surface, in actuality his very thought trembled.
You can hear me, can You not, lord? I know You don’t like to answer directly into my head, but—I know that someday, yes, I will hear from You. Yes?
I know it’s not time yet. When it will be time, You will tell me. And I will know, yes.
And since as yet there was silence from the god, the boy—knowing and expecting nothing else, really—continued standing passively, blankly, his outer shell of apathy unbroken.
From behind him, someone called. An old unsteady voice. “Your Grace, Heir Lissean!”
And when the boy turned, seeing the familiar old priest, the man said kindly, “What brings you yet once again here, my lord?”
“Good day to you, Priest Nestre. I’ve come to contemplate the god Alhveh. My studies for today are over, so this is my own, free time.”
“Ah, of course,” said the old priest. The same three words as always. He looked at the young child-man before him, softening and for a moment forgetting that this was anything more than a boy. But the child’s precocious bearing and serious tone (not to mention the silk clothing and glittering seal-ring on his small thin hands) did not fail to remind that this one was a prince of Grelias, and the Regent Heir.
The boy-prince came here regularly. Old Nestre took notice of him earlier, but began to speak to him only after seeing that Lissean was here obviously of his own free will, and not due to some conventional duty placed on him by his elders. He would come in, almost creeping, silently, and stand beneath the god’s statue, sometimes almost an hour, in an autistic state that never quite approached that what the priest was used to seeing as worship, at least from others. And then, just as silently, he would leave, never having spoken words of prayer out loud, never having bought a sacrificial candle to place at the god’s feet.