I considered having some lunch first, then thought, well, I won’t be that long, and opted for getting the little task out of the way first. Actually, I wasn’t that hungry.
The academy was very busy, hara milling about the entrance hall. What event was going on? I couldn’t recall that one was scheduled. I began to push my way through the crowd, intent on reaching Abraxxas’s office as quickly as possible. I was concerned somehar would spot me and ask me to do another job. As I reached the main staircase, my steps faltered. Every single har in the room faded to a blur, but for one. He stood with his back to me. Very tall, a flag of burnished hair. Malakess. I knew him even from behind. Nohar had told me he was coming back. Still, with my centred mood, I was more than capable of dealing with this situation. I composed myself for a cheerful greeting.
As I reached out to touch his arm, I said, ‘Kess, how are you?’
He turned then and we stared at one another. I thought, you look like him more than ever. This is cruel. I must have just looked stunned.
‘Gesaril,’ he said. ‘This is a… surprise.’
It wasn’t Malakess. How could I have thought it was? ‘Ysobi,’ I managed to say. ‘I’m sorry… I thought you were…’
‘Dead?’ he said and laughed.
‘No, I thought you were Malakess. What are you doing here?’ It was surprisingly easy to talk. I felt calm. Why should that be?
‘I was asked to come,’ he said. ‘A conference of hienamas, a conclave.’ He grimaced. ‘Sinnar felt I should come.’
‘How is everyhar in Jesith?’ I enquired.
He nodded his head slowly a couple of times. ‘Fine. Life is as it always is. You know Jesith.’
I winced a bit. In his position, I would not have said that. ‘Good. Well… I’d better get on.’ I waved the packet I was carrying. ‘I have work to do.’
‘You look well,’ he said. ‘Life here clearly suits you. I’m glad.’
Don’t say any more, I thought. I managed a smile. ‘Yes, I like it here. Anyway…’
‘We should catch up,’ he said. ‘Tell me about what you’ve been doing.’
‘Er… yes… maybe.’
He put his head to one side. ‘Gesaril, we should. There shouldn’t be awkwardness between us.’
How he could say that astounded me. I was actually shocked into speechlessness for some moments. There were so many snarling retorts I could make to that suggestion, that he really deserved, but all I said was, ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It is,’ he said, and smiled. ‘I had a feeling I’d run into you today. I’m really pleased to see you so well. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.’
And all I ever wanted was you. His fond concern was like poison to me, because it wasn’t the sort of fondness I craved. How could he expect me to sit somewhere making small talk with him? There would be so many things I couldn’t say; it would be torture. ‘Are you here for long, then?’
‘About a week, maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll have to see how it goes.’
‘Oh.’
He gave me an inscrutable look, long enough for me to lower my eyes from it. ‘Jass will get annoyed with me if I’m away for too long.’
As ever, the surgeon’s precision with a remark that would cut. ‘I’m sure. Well, I really must be…’
He took hold of my arm to stop me leaving. ‘I’ll be free later. How about dinner? You can take me somewhere interesting.’
A voice inside me was screaming: Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Naturally, I ignored it. ‘OK. Where are you staying?’
‘The Ivy House in the grounds here. A few of us are there.’
‘Will eight o’clock be all right? I can call for you.’
‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘See you later, then.’
‘See you later.’
Somehow, on legs that felt as if they were made of paper, I got up the stairs, turned into the first corridor and there, leaned against the wall. I fanned myself with the notes package. I put one hand over my mouth. I laughed. Then there were tears in my eyes. Are you insane? My inner voice demanded. You really shouldn’t do this. You know you shouldn’t.
‘Oh shut up!’ I said aloud, and went to deliver Huriel’s package.
As you can imagine, I have been thrown into in a completely peculiar state of mind. Part of me is filled with anger and a great desire to inflict some kind of revenge on Ysobi, another part is ecstatic at the prospect of seeing him again, and yet another part is terrified.
When I returned home from my errand, I had no intention of saying anything to Huriel, sure of his disapproving response, but, like the fussing surrogate parent he has become, he noticed something was afoot the minute I stepped back inside the house. I suppose I brought it with me, the spectre of my impending assignation, like a large roaring fire that curled the wallpaper from the very walls and made it too hot to walk upon the floors.
‘Gesaril!’ Huriel called, emerging from his office. ‘Did you deliver my package?’
‘Of course I did,’ I replied lightly, making great effort to appear and feel – to Huriel’s senses – normal.
Huriel narrowed his eyes. ‘What’s happened?’
This was a crucial moment. I could lie, which would inevitably be found out, and would perhaps damage my relationship with Huriel, or I could tell the truth and get a lecture. ‘Well…’
Huriel folded his arms. He meant business. ‘Gesaril, there’s no point trying to hide anything from me. What is it you have to tell me?’
‘You’ll be angry,’ I said, sighing.
‘Then tell me quickly to get it over with.’
‘Ysobi is here in Kyme.’ I held my breath.
‘What? Why?’
‘He said he was summoned…’
‘You’ve seen him? Spoken to him?’
‘Yes.’
Huriel frowned and when he spoke it was as if to himself, not me. ‘I know nothing about any summons, and I surely would have done. He hasn’t contacted me.’
‘Does he contact you?’
Huriel glanced at me. ‘Of course. We are friends. I am his mentor.’
‘You’ve never told me this before. Has he spoken to you about me?’
Huriel didn’t appear to hear my question. ‘He said he would never come here. I told him not to…’
‘Huriel!’ I took a few steps towards him. ‘You’ve spoken to Ysobi about me… recently?’
Huriel sighed. ‘I was never going to tell you but… yes. Not that recently. I thought it was in your best interest after you confided in me that day.’
‘How can I ever trust you?’ I snapped. ‘First the secrecy about Malakess, now this. You disappoint me… greatly.’
Huriel pulled a despairing face. ‘It was because I cared about you that I kept silent. Also, you have to face the reality that I’ve known Ysobi for a long time. Much as it might gall me, I have to respect his privacy too.’
He might as well have been standing there punching me in the face. I was so angry, I felt oddly calm. ‘So what was the content of your discussions? You might as well tell me now.’
‘It’s irrelevant. What I want to know is what he’s doing here.’
‘I don’t think it’s irrelevant. Tell me.’
Huriel put his hands upon my arms. I wanted to lash out and throw him off but remained stiff and unyielding in his hold. ‘You know that I love you. You are like family to me and I don’t want to see you hurt. Ag knows what Ysobi’s doing here, but it’s vital you don’t look on it as a sign of hope. You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Utterly. I’m meeting him for dinner later.’
Huriel actually shook me. ‘No, you are not! Don’t even think about it.’
‘He asked me to.’
‘Stay away!’ Huriel insisted. ‘Don’t go near him. Please.’
‘It’s only dinner,’ I said. ‘Why make such a fuss? He’s here because of official hienama business. We ran into each other, we made an arrangement to share a meal. That?
??s hardly high drama.’
Again Huriel sighed. He would not let me go. ‘Gesaril…’ He held his breath, clearly debating with himself. ‘Look… I asked him outright, a long time ago. I asked him how it was between you. He had no reason to lie to me, and even through correspondence and ether communication, I would be able to tell if he was lying. He told me he felt nothing for you. He told me you’d… well, not made it up exactly, but that you’d totally misinterpreted his behaviour.’
Now I did throw him off. I felt stunned. ‘You believed him? You thought I was a liar, even after I told you everything?’
‘No, I didn’t think you were a liar.’
‘So you humoured me. You indulged my deluded little fantasy. You said nothing. How could you do that?’
Huriel at least had the grace to look ashamed of himself. ‘I just thought it was the worst case of crossed wires I’d ever come across.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that you wanted to see something there, and the way Ysobi is with everyhar… well, you read too much into it.’
‘I… what?’ I put my hands to my face, so angry with Huriel it made my eyes ache. All this time, he’d let me believe he sympathized with me, while he’d privately thought I was out of my mind.
‘I’m astonished he’s here,’ Huriel said, ‘which is why I have to tell you this. We’d already agreed he’d keep a distance, even though he used to visit here quite regularly. I’m cross with him that he’s come, especially since he’s not told me about it in advance. I don’t know what he’s playing at, or why he’s made contact with you like this. But it’s not good, and you must stay away. All that will happen is that it will hurt you more. He’s no good for you, Gesaril. He doesn’t care. Harsh as that sounds, keep it in the forefront of your mind. He has his life and he’s content with it. You have no place in it.’
‘Is it really so astonishing he wants to see me?’ I said. ‘Am I that repellent?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he finds you attractive. Who wouldn’t? But he has no intention of doing anything about it. He doesn’t feel the same as you do. To do this now is just cruel. I’m very disappointed in him.’
‘Disappointment all round, it seems.’
‘Are you still going to see him later?’
‘Yes.’
‘I broke a vow, telling you what I did,’ Huriel said. ‘I can see how angry you are with me, but please think of my position in all this. I can see from your face that nothing I say will change your mind. All I ask is that you do not reveal what you know. And be careful. I have told you the truth as I’ve been told it.’
‘He made you vow not to tell me he didn’t give a damn?’ I asked icily.
‘Essentially… yes.’
‘I see. What puzzles me then is, if he really cares so little, why it should bother him if I know that glorious little truth?’
I didn’t wait for Huriel’s response. I walked away. He didn’t call me back.
Now I am in my room, writing. What’s going to happen to me? Who can I trust? Certainly not myself, and certainly not Huriel. The way my body feels, full of swirling energy, the way my heart feels, it’s as if I’ve just slipped back in time a year. Has Ysobi asked to eat with me simply to be friends? But he knows the way I feel. Why is he here, really? This is so dangerous; I know it is. Ysobi made me ill, yet here I am exposing myself to the infection again. I can’t keep away.
Pelfazzarsday, Windmoon 9
I suppose it was anger more than anything that stood at my shoulder as I walked towards The Ivy House last night. As to who I was most angry with, I could not tell. I’d been made to feel like a monster and yet part of me knew – and had always known – that none of it would have happened if Ysobi had not been a conspirator. When I’d first met him I’d thought he was a freak, and a rather tedious one at that, but it had been both his warmth and his personality that had eventually made me see him differently. Sometimes, I had ached for him because he’d had such a vulnerable quality. At those times, the bands about my heart had drawn tighter; it had made me love him more. So many times over the past year, I’d doubted my memory, as if the things he’d said to me, the way he’d been with me, hadn’t happened at all, and it really was all in my imagination. Strangely enough, it had been Huriel who’d helped me keep a grip on my sanity, and now I’d discovered that that too was a lie. For a moment, as I walked through the dark, with the scent of evening all around me, I saw the triviality of it all. I faltered on the path. What was the point of this meeting? Nothing good could come of it. Even if Ysobi was playing games and I ended up in his bed, no doubt the following morning he’d deny it happened or else say it was all my doing. And I would be left to cope with the aftermath. Again.
Turn back… The voice of my heart was most insistent. I must. I really must. This was a nexus point. If I turned away now, if I refused to see him, avoided him even, he would go away and leave me alone.
But then there was another voice; a voice I could not hear with my physical ears. You cannot run away from it. There were no words in my head; just a touch, just a wisp of feeling. I shivered and turned round.
And there on the path before me was a ghost of the twilight. I stared at it until it swam into focus from the distance, and I saw that it was my Nagini spirit from the water meadows. He was dressed in some pale, floating garment, with a scarf around his head, the tassels of it dangling down. I opened my mouth to utter a greeting, for surely we knew one another, but he put a finger to his lips. In mind touch, he said to me: don’t stray from the path, even if it is hard. You must follow it…
I couldn’t organize my thoughts to compose a response. I simply watched him walk past me until he faded into the darkness once more. I stared at the place where he had vanished for some moments and then I continued to walk to The Ivy House. Some destinies cannot and must not be avoided.
I took Ysobi to the restaurant where Iscane had taken me that first time. There were hara there I knew, who were clearly interested in my companion. I made a few cursory introductions as we walked between the tables, all the time thinking: he is with me. He is walking behind me. It’s really happening. But it didn’t feel real. It could have been anyhar behind me.
We sat down, and Ysobi said, ‘This is rather… upmarket, Gesaril. Is this the sort of place where you spend your time?’
‘Upmarket?’ I frowned at him. It was obvious what it meant, but I pretended ignorance because it was an ancient term.
Ysobi rolled his eyes. ‘OK, it seems… a place for high ranking cliques. You never struck me as a har who’d be into such things.’
I shrugged. ‘My friends come here.’ I signalled to the waiter, who glided to our table as if he floated some inches above the ground. ‘Shall I order for both of us?’ I asked.
Ysobi smiled at me inscrutably, his eyes were blue flames. ‘As you wish.’
I must admit it made me feel good to speak with confidence to the waiter. I felt sophisticated and in control, conscious all the while of Ysobi’s somewhat humorous gaze upon me.
The order attended to, I folded my hands upon the table. ‘So, what brings you to Kyme exactly?’
‘As I said, a meeting of hienamas,’ Ysobi replied. ‘We need more organization, training facilities.’
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. ‘By Aru, could the students keep up with you?’
He bridled a little at that. ‘It’s important that hara achieve their full potential. Too many neglect themselves in a spiritual and psychic sense. It’s not deliberate, just a product of hara who were once human producing harlings and subconsciously passing on their own upbringing. You must know what I mean.’
It took all of my will not to react badly. ‘I see the sense of it, yes. But part of me can’t help feeling it’s telling hara what’s good for them, rather than letting them find out for themselves.’
‘You were never good with authority, were you?’ Ysobi observed.
The waiter returned with our wine and
we were silent as he poured it for us. I sensed ice in the atmosphere between Ysobi and I; sparring words, a certain viciousness.
‘So what have you been doing with yourself here in Kyme?’ Ysobi asked, once the waiter had retreated once more.
‘Working for Huriel,’ I said. ‘I live in his house.’
Ysobi nodded. ‘I know that.’
‘I know you know.’ I wanted to say more but reined myself in. ‘It’s been very… educational.’
‘I’m sure.’
I wondered if Huriel had ever told Ysobi about Malakess and me. Surely not. ‘It’s better for me than the Shadowvales, in any case. I won’t be going home. Well, this is my home now.’
‘You’ve obviously fitted in really well. You were meant to come.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, then couldn’t resist adding, ‘but perhaps not in the way it happened.’
Ysobi stared at me, and somehow I managed to hold his penetrating gaze. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked. ‘I’m fine with that, if you do.’
Could you get any more arrogant? I thought. With effort, I managed a smile. ‘I think I said everything that possibly could be said. What’s the point? You made yourself perfectly clear to me.’ Or rather, to others. But of course I couldn’t say that.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry you got hurt. It wasn’t my intention. I had no idea.’
You opened me up like a corpse on a slab, I thought. You laid me bare, and gave to me such strength and warmth. Then you denied all that and made it out to be something else. How can I sit here and talk with you about it, when you refuse to admit you were part of it?
‘There’s nothing else to say,’ I said.
‘You don’t know how much I’ve wracked myself over what happened…’
I wished he’d stop. I didn’t want to hear it.
‘It made me look at myself in a different way… I realised there had to be changes in the way I interacted with my students.’
And now another har reaps the benefit of it.
Mercifully, our food arrived, not that I felt like eating. In fact, I wanted to leave. So close, yet so far, a table top away, and a host of self delusions in between. We sat in silence, playing with the meal. This wasn’t working at all. Yet how to escape with dignity?