The Carnelian Throne (17 page)

When Sereth asked her in her own language whether or not she would accede to our demands, the black-winged one answered for her that there would be difficulties in granting our requests, but all efforts would be made to satisfy us, if we would only follow, and allow them to explain.

The woman stood straight as a rod, as if she had not heard, as if men’s converse, whether it be man or wehr-master, was beneath her ears’ concern.

“This is Eviduey, follower of Mnemaat, Third Hand, His Austerity of Wehrdom,” said the green-eyed woman. The creature made a deep bow, as if standing in some reception hall. I nodded, then introduced Chayin, giving all three of his titles; and Sereth, calling him the Ebvrasea, dharen; even ransacking his past for two additional honors. As I had expected, when I had announced my companions, she then spoke to me of herself:

“I am Mahrlys-iis-Vahais, Daughter of Mnemaat, Keeper of His Eye and Mouth, First in Dey-Ceilneeth, Most High.”

That last was, of course, what all this had been leading up to. As she said it her proud carriage drew itself even taller, and with stately grace she extended her black-robed arm to me.

I took it and gave some small account of myself in a suitable tone: dhareness of all Silistra, high-couch, daughter of my father, etc. It was not important what I said: I could have called myself Keeper of the Offal of Apths, for all she knew of the western shore. But I observed the form, and took her proffered arm, saying sweetly: “And are you not also of Wehrdom, and bound to Imca-Sorr-Aat?”

I heard a strange rattling noise that could not have come from a human throat: Mahrlys’ face drained pale; I spun on my heel.

They faced each other, Eviduey and Chayin, with Sereth, arms outstretched, a living barrier in between. As one woman, she screamed something in a sibilant tongue and I in my native one.

There came a rustle behind us from among the creatures I would learn to call ossasim, and I dropped pretense and ran to Chayin’s side. I flew against him. I shook him by the shoulders. He hardly noticed me, but stood there.

One part of my mind noted Mahrlys unintelligibly calming the stiff-winged wehr-master; another part felt Sereth press close, heard him whisper: “They just backed up and froze. What think you?”

“Some ritual taking of each other’s measure? How would I know?”

“Chayin!”

And then: “Get back.”

“No.” But I did, and Sereth slapped the cahndor, flat-handed, so hard that he staggered. But he woke, and caught himself, and snarled something about the probable parentage of the wehr-master Eviduey.

Mahrlys leaned on Eviduey’s arm, and from that distance asked me if I thought we might now proceed. I looked from her, to her reinforcements, to Sereth warily attending Chayin, and nodded. This fracasing in poisonous hedge served no one.

I said as much, and she turned upon her heel and with Eviduey marched through her own ranks. The corridor of furred forms stayed open.

We went into it three abreast, me in the middle between them, and when we were close upon Mahrlys’ heels, the ossasim followed at a respectful distance, double file.

“Now what?” asked Sereth, most diffidently, in Parset. “Or should I say, ‘Now what, Most High?’”

“I saw no reason to inform you afore the fact. Chayin knew. It was there in the sort, in Deilcrit’s memories. Shall I be a Most High for them? Will you continue with this charade?” It was Sereth who, grasping all, had knelt Mahrlys at my feet rather than his own.

“If it makes them more comfortable. If it gets us what we want .... I do not see any reason to disabuse them of their misconceptions.”

“It might prove ticklish,” cautioned Chayin.

“She just might be, at that.”

Chayin did not find that amusing. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing. What was that with the birdman?”

Chayin, this time, said: “Nothing.”

Sereth saw something in that ritual opposition of bodies. So did I. I saw it in the luxurious femininity of the woman whose black mane swayed before us, in her wide-set eyes that glistened like the ocean in the sun. I knew Chayin and Sereth well, knew their tastes: she was a woman neither would push from his couch. But I did not put enough concern into this observation: I did not know the difference between woman and wehr; or rather, knowing it, did not mark the significance of the fact nor how much influence it would come to have upon us all.

“I came to greet you myself,” observed Mahrlys, acerbic now that the doors of tied rushes were closed and the curtains drawn, over them. Beyond those doors awaited Sereth, and Chayin, with Eviduey and another black ossasim, in a long narrow hallway of pieced and colored glass.

“I came to you of myself, and you denigrated me before my own.” All pretense cast aside, she glowered at me, regal among priceless antiquities in that chamber filled with towering plants and statues of, stone carved into creatures part-woman, part-beast, who stared from their height down upon us through faceted brooding eyes.

I glowered back, and paced off the room in an inventory that was both peremptory and unabashed, saying: “You came to me tardy, in self-aggrandizement. You knelt before us at our will rather than yours, and this offends you? Perhaps you had better become accustomed to accepting such offense: if you do not quickly and completely meet our demands, you will find yourself in receipt of such chastisement the like of which this day’s display is only a mild forewarning.” And I took seat upon an offering table of black diorite held extended at the level of my waist by a muscular, whelt-headed deity.

Mahrlys’ face paled as she strode toward me, her silk robe pulled close by tight fists. “Who are you? Who are they? What need was there to slay the berceides, and all the other creatures you have wantonly killed?”

“Who I am,” I said softly, judging her ill temper sufficiently worsened, and therefore sliding off the statue, “I have already told you. But you do not understand. As for my companions, they are each regents in their own right, as well as my consorts, and they do not belong waiting in hallways while two women prattle over what such men have done.”

“Indeed? And what makes these men qualified to take a hand in the affairs of nature, when all know what poison their ilk has perpetrated in the past?” Her lips trembled, and her fingers also, and her voice rose toward a shriek.

I threw her a mocking stare from under a slightly raised brow, and made my voice low and soft and full of composure, though what she said shook me to my core. “Have you no use for men, then? How do you survive?”

“We have use for them.” And with that she pulled hard upon the reins of her temper, and ushered me with all decorum to a caned bench supported by two whelt-headed female figures carved from black stone. “We have use for all creatures. Men till our fields, they give us the craft of their hands, and children. But we keep them from the self-destruction that lies within their cleverness, and they do penance here for what they have done in the past: it is Wehrdom’s way, and the way of nature, that all live together, no one variety of the forest’s children ruling over all the rest. Is it not so in your domain?”

“No, it is not. There is a whole world out there, and beyond its expanse other worlds; and upon none of them does one sex count the other so low, instead favoring other creatures of diverse heritage.”

It was the winged one to which I referred, and she knew it. “I am wehr first, and woman second. Ossasim come from such wombs as mine—speak not of that with which you are not familiar. How dare you adjudge nature’s finest fruit, and find it lacking?”

I ran my fingers through my hair, found a knot, worried it in a search for some suitable answer. She waited upon me, those eyes through which Wehrdom peered expressionless fixed upon my face.

“I am only trying to save you grief: my companions are not like the men with whom you are familiar; treating them thus can only bring bloodshed and death to you all.”

“Then they are just exactly like the men with whom I am familiar, only scandalously freed to work their evil wiles.”

I almost lost my temper. “I am telling you, I cannot speak for them, nor make agreements in their behalf.”

She looked at me in pity, and offered refreshment. I accepted, and while we awaited the menials that entered to the summons of her clapped hands, we spoke no words. When the wingless, furred creatures had set a tart juice before us and departed, I said:

“If all this is true, if men have little worth here, why will you not cede me this Deilcrit and let me depart, and save those subjects of yours that you may?”

“Why did you let your creatures slaughter my berceides? They were among the wisest, most valued of my—”

“Look you, we are not here to exchange insults, or detail our damages to each other, but to reach some kind of understanding between us.”

“I will not treat with men! I would sooner make a bed partner of a guerm!”

“Are guerm, then, less sweet than ossasim? The distinctions, the niceties, escape me!”

“You are insufferable!”

“In truth,” I agreed. “And if you continue to devalue my companions, you will suffer as you have never dreamed possible. Your only recourse, as I see it, is to quickly meet our demands and let us depart, lest you learn obedience knelt at their feet.”

“Would that I could!” she spat with shaking voice, and bent her head away to pour us new drink and seek composure. “Am I expected to be terrified by that sorcery in the hedges? I am horrified, disgusted, appalled. I have powers,” affirmed she, graciously proffering a full cup, “should I need to use them. I am no wanton, spilling blood enough to bathe in at my slightest whim. You have slaughtered whelt, ptaiss, quenel, guerm, campt, threfrasil, ossasim.” She ticked them off, upon her fingers, and when she looked up, her eyes were filled with tears: “Even the berceides of the second hedge. They counseled my mother and her mother and her mother before her. Do not threaten me with your men! It is you whom I hold responsible for this whole affair. Poor, despoiled Deilcrit! It is you with whom I will treat. If necessary, it is you with whom I will contend. And when I say ‘I,’ be assured that the whole of Wehrdom will stand behind my words.”

Owkahen showed bright and clear the consequences if I dropped her to her knees in helpless flesh-lock, went to the doors and admitted Sereth and Chayin, consigned her to their mercies. The price was too dear, the repercussions too great. Instead I said:

“Mahrlys, if you feel the need of a test of strength with me, I shall not deny you. But first, hear me out:”

She inclined her head. Assured of the royal permission, I continued:

“You have reason to be distressed, as have I. I and mine have been set upon by this Wehrdom of yours. We emerged unscathed. If you should again come against us, we would be forced not to simply beat back your attack, but to make an example such as will run your river red with wehr blood.” I said this very calmly, leaning back against the sculptured stanchion’s thigh. “Simply call the time.” And when she did not call it:

“Then so be it: I will call Sereth and Chayin and we will enter into—”

“No!”

“Mahrlys ...”

“I cannot suffer such a thing to be seen in Dey-Ceilneeth.” She was very beautiful, flushed with her pent rage. “I petition you that we instead exchange attendants, as is meet.”

I almost told her that I would not, even that I would not breed down, but it was an overture on her part, the only one, excepting pitched battle, she had made.

“Give me Deilcrit.”

“I do not have him.”

I rose up and circled the chamber, readying my stroke, but she continued: “He is gone on Imca-Sorr-Rat’s business.” And my prowling mind told me she spoke the truth, that Deilcrit was not in the holding.

“Nor Se’keroth, either; then?”

“I do not understand,” said she, uncertain as to what had gone awry.

“The green metal sword he had.”

“When he left he took all with him.”

“How came he,” queried I, catching the thread, “to leave upon this errand?”

“Imca-Sorr-Aat requested it,” she answered smoothly.

“Did he? And who is Imca-Sorr-Aat?”

At that her eyes widened, and she made a sign before her face. “From what bowel of ignorance do you come, woman? Imca-Sorr-Aat is His Spirit abroad upon the land. His call was the honor that saved the foul creature from the death he earned cavorting with you in the forest.” She actually spat.

“What could there have been about what passed between me and Deilcrit to affront one in whose land children are slaughtered not only by beasts but by men, and none raise hand to help them?”

“Estri,” said Mahrlys after a long pause, “you do not understand. And I do not understand. And I am beginning to doubt that I want to understand. Or should. I am sure there are many things as sensible and commonplace to you which would sicken me should I look upon them. In point of fact, you have brought two with you. If I am willing to accept such a creature, even in the search for peace between us, then take that as an article of my faith. I cannot give you Deilcrit unless you would wait here until his return. Which you are welcome to do.”

I did not like the way she spoke that last part. “I will tell you tomorrow. I repeat, I only speak for myself.” Though they had said to me that I might play Mahrlys’ game, I had been unable. There was too much enmity, born of instinct, between me and this not-quite-woman who ruled the shores of which none were empowered to speak.

“If I cannot give you Deilcrit”—Mahrlys smiled warmly—“and I cannot give you the weapons you have lost, is there anything I can give you?”

“Have you a ship that will sail an ocean, fit as the one you destroyed?”

“No, I have no such ship.”

“Do you have skilled labor with which to build one?”

“No, I have not that either. Are you then marooned here?” Her upper lip had a slight curl to it which became more pronounced when she was pleased, as she was then.

“No, only at a loss as to what might be fair reparation for something you have not the skill to replace. Can you direct us on the path Deilcrit took?”

“If you wish, though it is no easy trail even for one familiar, which you are not. Why not, better, remain with us until he returns? That is, if you can control your creatures.” She smirked.