Law of Survival (29 page)

“Your truth, born-sect! The truth as you see it!” Dathim advanced a single stride down the dune, arms held out to his sides for balance. “But we have our truth, as well. Our truth is that we want to live here, in this damned cold place. As the Elyan Haárin do on Elyas. As the NorthPort
Haárin do on Whalen's Planet. And the Phillipan, and the Serran. This is our colony,
here
! We will choose an enclave,
here
!”

“The humanish will not let you. Not
here
!” Tsecha tried to take an advancing step, but the strange warm wind swirled from his back to his front, stopping him in his tracks. He felt it rush up his sleeves, and damned Caith for her disorder. “They are not as us. They cannot leave alone. They will not allow you to live as you wish—you scare them!”

“Then they will scare. And your Jani will show them how not to fear.”

“But they will fear her most of all!” Tsecha raised his arms above his head—a pleading stance. “It must be done my way, Dathim. First the embassy, and the meeting rooms. First, the Ministers, and the generals.
Then
the city. The city cannot come before. Humanish will not understand!”

Dathim had grown still upon the slope. He maintained his balance without laboring, as though he had always stood in such a way and could do so forever. The Haárin on either side of him remained in their places, silent, watching as he spoke their words, said that which they wished to be said.

“We are here,” Dathim said from his slope. “We will stay. I have asked your Jani to help us in this, and I will ask again. It is your decision, nìRau, if you join us or not. You of the Haárin name and the priestly life. Your decision.” He backed up the incline and disappeared over the other side. The other Haárin followed him, in ones and twos, until the ridge showed clear.

Tsecha listened to the rustle of the grasses, the rumble of the lake. He pulled down one skewed sleeve, then let his hand drop away, and heard Caith's laughter in the wind.

Tsecha walked back to the embassy the same way he had come. Through the trees, across the lawns, toward the veranda.

He entered the sheltered haven with the timorous step of someone who now felt unsure whether he belonged, and looked around. Since her challenge, Sànalàn had taken to spending great stretches of the day and night in meditation, or in conversation with nìaRauta Inèa. Her accidental meetings with him had been frequent; Tsecha did not esteem these encounters, but now he anticipated them even less. With Caith's presence infused in the very air, who knew what disorder could ensue?

But the air felt cooler on the veranda than it had outside. He hoped it meant that Caith had been warned off, that Shiou and the other six gods had forced her back to her domain, a distant land of storm and upheaval.
Much as this place.
Tsecha turned, and looked out the entry toward the lake.
Storm and upheaval and shifting rocks beneath my feet.

Tsecha looked around the veranda's main enclosure, and found it emptier than usual. He chose to take that as a favorable sign as well, and tucked into a darkened corner furnished with a pillow-seat and a low reading table. From there, he could observe the rest of the area as well as the entry from the embassy. If Shai or Sànalàn appeared, he could contract into his space like a cava into its shell and remain unobserved.

He lowered carefully. His hip no longer complained, but he must have twisted his right knee during his flight down
the beach away from Dathim. The joint ached when he walked, and burned when he bent it. He took some time finding a comfortable position, and finally sat with his leg straightened before him. The mind-focusing ability of pain held no power for him now. He felt old and tired and discomfited, out of place in this most odd city that he had come to think of as his own.

You would live in Chicago, Dathim?
Somewhere out in the storm and upheaval, amid the sirens and the shootings and Caith's strange winds.
The humanish are different here—this is their homeworld.
Tsecha rested his head against the stone wall that enclosed him, damning himself for his caution but unable to quell his apprehension. He who had gone out into the city so many times, in disguise and as himself, felt the raw stab of fear at the thought of Dathim Naré doing the same.

Dathim does not hide.
The tilemaster displayed his work freely, and went about his business as though he lived in a worldskein colony.
He showed his cava shell tilework to Anais Ulanova, then walked into her office and stole documents.
Then he took them into the city as though such was something he did each day. Granted, his visit to Jani's home had upset him, but his was not the discomfort of an idomeni exposed to the ungodliness of a humanish house. He did not ask for absolution, or worry after his soul.
He wanted to convince her, persuade her.
Or, most likely,
order
her to assist him in his plans for the enclave.
And my Jani does not take orders.
Both idomeni and humanish had been forced to that conclusion long ago.

Tsecha felt his eyes grow heavy. It had become most late, and now that Dathim had returned safely from the city, he felt tired. He lay back in a half-recline, his head abutting cold stone, his sore leg braced against the hard edge of the table, suffering just enough discomfort to keep awake.
Dathim's chairs felt most comfortable.
Short hair, easeful furniture, no fear of humanish rooms—how readily Dathim Naré had adjusted to change.
More quickly even than I.
Tsecha felt a twinge in his soul, as though the pain in his knee had altered in location.
More quickly…

He longed for the seclusion of his rooms, the quiet, the warmth that emerged from the output of a facilities array, not the laughing breath of a mocking goddess.

I am Haárin.

But who considered him such? Cèel and Shai, most certainly. They felt him most disordered, a traitor to his skein and sect. The only thing that saved him from the full vent of their wrath was the security of his station. He was their Chief Propitiator. In secular matters, he owed them obedience. In religious matters, which held greater import for any born-sect, they owed him their souls.

I am Haárin…by name.

He had earned the name Égri nìRau Tsecha, and truly. Over twenty-five humanish years ago, he had fought in Council and in Temple to allow humanish to form an enclave outside Rauta Shèràa. Then, he fought even more to allow them to study at the Academy. He had engaged and attacked both with words and with blades. There had been days when his enemies stood in line to declare themselves, when he fought
à lérine
with a weapon still bloody from the previous bout, when he could barely raise his arms for the number and pain of his wounds.

The hum of conversation snapped Tsecha out of his grim remembrance. He tensed as he waited for the speakers to walk into view, relaxing when he saw them to be Communications dominants whom he did not know well. He watched them disappear into another of the enclosures, gesturing in animated discussion. Then he tugged in irritation at the tight sleeves of the coldsuit. He felt hot here in the enclosure. Constricted. He had donned the suit in anticipation of the chill of the Haárin enclave—he did not need such protection in the shelter of the embassy.

Shelter…

Dathim believes me sheltered.
Unaware of the desires of Haárin.
But I know them now.
As his Jani must, as well. Such would explain her stubborn denials of her hybridization, and her anger as she did so. She did not like to be tricked, and Dathim Naré the Tilemaster had tricked them all. He had not journeyed into the godless humanish city to
deliver stolen papers into the safety of one who could dispose of them. He had done so to confront his leader, to tell her the time had come for her to lead them to their place in this damned cold city.

But she had denied him.

And now he met with his enclave, in a crowded room in one of the tiny houses beyond the trees, to discuss what to do next.

Tsecha imagined the Suborn Oligarch standing before him now, glaring down at him from her imposing height, shoulders rounded and hands twitching in displeasure. He imagined telling her words that she had no desire to hear.

The embassy Haárin no longer wish to serve us, Shai. Their wish now is to serve themselves.
The machinations of the meeting room meant nothing to them anymore, now that they knew the freedom of the humanish colonial enclave. The complexities and formalities of born-sect challenge, upon which their futures once depended, now angered rather than distressed them.
They no longer care what we do, Shai. We bother them. We interfere with them.
Even he, who chose the name Égri nìRau Tsecha to symbolize his expulsion from Vynshàrau, mean nothing to Dathim and the others who populated the embassy sequestration.
They needed me to bring them Jani, and I could not do so. To them, I am worthless, Haárin by name and name only.

“Name only.”
Tsecha spoke aloud in French, so that any who overheard him would not understand.
“I, who shed the blood of my enemies on the Temple floor.”
He tried to move his right leg to a more easeful position, but his knee griped and the top of his head ached from pressing against the stone.
I, Avrèl nìRau Nema, have become as nothing.
Passed over by those he had once led. Cast aside by those who had once served him. Denied participation in reaching the goal toward which he had strove for half his life.

Do you think to deny me, Dathim? Is this what you wish, and truly?

He stared out at the empty veranda, filled only by the occasional murmur of voices or passing footfall.

As my Hansen used to say, “Think again.”

He rose slowly. He walked until the needling in his right
leg forced him to stop, then leaned against a pillar until the pain and numbness left him. Then he stepped off the veranda and headed for the trees, his stride growing longer and surer with every slow, strong beat of his heart.

 

Tsecha pressed the entry buzzer of the first house on the stone-paved path. The second. The third. He did so for a sense of completeness, of orderly progression, and to allow himself time to prepare. He also did it as a warning—the alarms echoed within the empty houses, sounding through the walls and along the deserted lane. A barely detectable alert, like the distant wail of the ComPol sirens.

When he finally reached Dathim Naré's house, he stood in front of the door for some time before daring to touch the entry pad. He sensed an ending here, as well as a beginning. As his walk down the lane had consisted of the conclusion of one step and the initiation of the following, so did his action here presage the end of one stage in his life and the start of the next. Not as one to be left behind, no, nor as one to be shunted aside. Such a fate was not meant for him, this he knew, and truly. Chief Propitiator of the Vynshàrau he was and would be until his death. Haárin he had been made, and would be until his death, as well.

Intercessor between his Jani and her people, he would become, even if the steps he took this night hastened that death.

He offered a whispered prayer as homage to Caith, then touched the pad. This buzzer seemed to sound more loudly than had the others. But then, such was to be expected. He heard no footsteps or voices just prior to the door opening, which meant someone had stood there and waited for him to request entry. Again, to be expected.

That the someone turned out to be Dathim Naré was the most expected thing of all.

“Ní Tsecha Égri.” Dathim offered his odd humanish smile and stood aside to allow Tsecha entry.

Tsecha stepped inside, making sure to touch Caith's reliquary along the way. Behind him, he heard a harsh expulsion of breath, but whether that breath resulted from Dathim's surprise or his laughter, he did not bother to confirm.

Dathim's followers sat crowded in the center of the main room floor; they had arranged themselves in a tight circle as though to shelter themselves from nonexistent wind and cold. Not all the Haárin who had stood atop the ridge had gathered here. Tsecha recognized the female who had taken the place beside Dathim on the ridge, and several of the others who had stood closest to him. Eleven, he counted—the most wary, the most humanish-appearing, and thus the most outcast of all.

Dathim stepped around in front of him, gesturing to the others as he did so. “We have been waiting for you, ní Tsecha.” He smiled again, as though saying the true Haárin version of Tsecha's name gave him pleasure.

“We have, and truly,” Dathim's female said. She wore her brown hair unbraided and gathered in a loose stream that hung halfway down her back. From such, she gave no sign whether she was bred or unbred, whether any of the youngish who had stood watching Tsecha during his daylight visit had been birthed by her or not. “I am Beyva Kelohim, ní Tsecha. I speak for those who have awaited you but cannot be here to witness your arrival—glories of the day to come.”

“Glories of the day to come,” intoned the rest of the Haárin in one voice, a voice that held a wide range of accents, from crisp and clear to rolling and smooth.

“Glor-ries of the day to come.” Dathim ended the round of greetings, his voice like the cold stone against which Tsecha had rested his head. He then joined his followers in the circle; Beyva edged aside, leaving a space for him beside her on the floor.

“How will we know if ná Kièrshia has succeeded in returning the documents, ní Tsecha?” Her voice sounded as Jani's, low for a female, and quiet.

And for my Jani, I know the voice means as opposite of that which she is.
Tsecha drew close to the circle, and regarded Beyva most openly. She did the same, looking him in the face with no evidence of hesitation. She possessed the gold eyes of Vynshàrau; her particular variation darkened by brown flecks. Like Dathim, she wore trousers and a shirt of Pathen coloring. Bright orange topped with sea blue, a most
startling combination, and truly.

“I have heard nothing. At times such as this, to hear nothing from humanish is a good thing.” As Tsecha stepped up to the circle, two of the Haárin slid apart to make room for him. He lowered gently to the floor, his knee complaining with every incremental movement. “If Anais Ulanova had complained to us concerning these documents, I would have heard news of such from Suborn Oligarch Shai. The importance of the documents was such that she would most certainly have contacted us. Since she has not, I must assume that my Kièrshia has indeed managed to return them.” He looked at the faces surrounding him—even Dathim regarded him with an air of solemn acceptance. All understood him to be the absolute authority in any matter regarding his Toxin. If he said something was so, than it was so. Knowing his Jani as he did, this unquestioning faith caused a clench in Tsecha's soul. Not that she would ever disgrace or betray him—of that he felt most sure.
But they expect that I know her mind. What she will do and when she will do it.
They expected him to know that which no
humanish
had ever divined. That terrified him.

“Ní Tsecha?”

Tsecha looked up to find Dathim's smile had returned.

“Should we remain here on the embassy grounds, or choose an enclave outside this city?” Dathim gestured toward the bare tile in the center of the circle, as though it contained a two-dimensional map or a three-dimensional relief. “Up to the north, in one of the lakeside preserves? Or out to the west, in the midst of Chicago's garden domes and kettle factories?” He watched the reactions of his followers. “In the midst of humanish food.”

“Even the humanish would not subject us to such. Of this, I feel most sure.” An Haárin who Tsecha recognized as one of the garden workers spoke with hesitance, his English an odd swirl. “They would send us further north, in the hope that the cold would freeze us into leaving.”