The Golden Sword (43 page)

By the time he returned, I had fastened the sheath once more at my right shoulder. I lay upon the midnight couch, half-reclining. I felt very proud, looking at him as he approached, that such a man had used me.

He sat beside me, fondled my breast lightly. “You will bear me a son,” he said.

“If it is within my power to do so,” I breathed, bending my head to kiss his hand.

“It is already done.” He laughed. I put my hands to my flat, hard belly wonderingly.

“I thought such could happen only after long and concerted effort,” I disbelieved.

“I am the dharen,” he reminded me. “Such a small feat is well within my capabilities. Are you displeased?” He narrowed his eyes, and for a moment I felt invaded.

“No,” I said, “only disconcerted. It will be an honor.”

“One you richly deserve.” He chuckled, his hand running the length of my turned hip.

“You will not send me back to my chamber, will you?” I implored him.

“Only for a set’s time, while your quarters are being prepared. We were not sure that you were ready. But I will visit you.” He lifted my chin with his finger.

“And are you sure now?” I tried to hide my disappointment.

“Almost,” he said, and his face went very stern. It was frightening to look upon.

“I have a new keeper for you. Carth has an emergency to tend. He awaits. Go and sleep well. I will visit you tomorrow.” Reluctant, I got up and left him. I felt his eyes upon me until I closed the door and leaned back against it.

I stood there, shivering a moment. I smiled to myself, and turned to my new keeper. I marveled at how diverse men are. This morning I had seen only Carth. Now my eyes knew the dharen, and this man, also.

He was as tall as Khys, but not as broad. His skin did not shimmer. HIs hair and eyes were brown. He wore the arrar’s chald, as did Carth, and plain leathers, almost black. He wore a weapons belt. Carth did not. His eyes were very deep under his brows, and I could not escape them. My back against the doors, my hands clenched behind, I looked at him, trapped.

“Let me take you back,” he said at length. He hardly opened his mouth when he spoke. His words hissed upon a whisper like the wind against the tower. He was some sheathed weapon, cold as steel. He bore many scars, this man, and I had no doubt that he had earned them dealing death.

“Come with me,” he said with what could have been gentleness, and I let him take my shoulders and guide me up the stairs. His eyes never left me. The silence between us was deafening.

“I am Estri,” I said to him, to break it.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “you are not.” And there was a sadness in his voice that stopped me in the passage. He stopped too, and turned to face me. Muscles twitched in his jaw. He tossed his head.

“Just come with me,” he said. “I am sorry. I knew it would be that name they gave you.” And I looked at that man, trembling visibly in the corridor, and asked him his name. He spoke it. Tears filled my eyes for him, that he still carried such pain for his dead couchmate.

“I did not realize,” I said touching his arm. “I did not mean to remind you.”

“Let me take you back,” he said, disengaging my hand, propelling me forward.

“Sereth,” I said.

He closed his eyes, opened them. “What?”

“You will find another.”

And then it was he that halted. He left me and leaned on the corridor wall. I went and peered up into his face. I should not have. What was there was private grief. I put my hand upon his shoulder. He shivered. Not knowing anything else to do, I stood there with him.

“Sometimes I get dizzy,” he said with a weak grin. “Too many blows to the head.” He pushed himself away from the wall. I let my hand fall.

We walked the rest of the way in silence.

He opened my chamber and stood back.

“Go on,” he said, his lean form tense, his eyes watchful.

“Carth comes in and sits with me. We talk. I am not sleepy.”

“And I am not Carth. Have you no soul, woman? Leave me be. You will have your Carth back soon enough, from this timely emergency.” And before his fury I ran into my chamber, and turned and put my hand upon the door, so that he could not close it.

“Why are you angry?” I asked him. “I have done nothing.”

“I am not angry,” he said, running his hand over his eyes, as if to clear them. “I have matters pressing. Remove your hand, and I will go find Carth.”

“I had a dream about you once,” I said softly.

His face changed. He took my hand from the doorjamb. Then dropped it.

His eyes searched mine. Whatever they sought there, they did not find.

“You had best content yourself with dreams. I value my life. I must choose well the moment to spend it,” he said, and closed the door upon me. I heard the tumblers spin.

It amuses me to forward this to you, that you may be apprised of the fate of your envoy. Your daughter will bear my son, and when he is grown, I may choose to set him against you.

Be warned. Send no more manipulators into my domain.

Khys

(P) = Parset

(S) = Silistran

(ST) = Stothric

(M) = Mi’ysten

(MK) = M’ksakkan

Amarsa:
(S) The eighth pass of the Silistran calendar; the pass of summer solstice.

aniet:
(P) One of the seven interconnected underground life-support complexes that housed refugee Silistrans during the thousand-year period known as hide-days. The hide aniet lies under the dead sea in the Parset Desert; or the hide-name aniet, as Aknet aniet Beshost. Of all the hides of Silistra, the blood of aniet is the least common, being confined almost exclusively to the Parset Lands by an insular confederation of tribes who maintain there a strict autonomy. Almost one-half of aniet’s survivors were of gristasha tribesmen, and this strong infusion makes “aniet’s stamp” an easily recognizable Silistran type.

apprei:
(P) The tapestried, pyramidal tents of the nomadic desert cities of the Parse tribes.

appreida:
(P) The gathered appreis that constitute the Parset tribal unit; any group of appreis containing, representatives of the major facets of Parset life; the ground upon which rests the bulk of a given tribe.

apth:
(P) These large and ferocious tusked beasts roam the barrens and foothills of the Yaicas, even venturing into the desert itself. The ill-tempered, pugnacious apth has a disproportionately small head, from which jut its savage tusks, set upon a thick and muscular neck. Where neck
meets
shoulder, the apth boasts an exaggerated crest, which in times of drought “humps” full with stored water. Apths, though formidable opponents even of men and dorkats, are increasingly rare and are under the protection of the cahndors and the god Tar-Kesa.

Arlet:
(S) Well Arlet. Also, the lands controlled by her.

Arletian:
(S) Of or pertaining to Well Arlet. In couching, any coupling attended by bondage or containing elements of submission; as criticism, excessive vehemence, or roughness.

arrar: (ST) The chald of the messenger, within which
is
woven every strand attainable on Silistra; the mark of the dharen’S personal service; one who bears such a chald.

Astria:
(S) Well Astria. The lands controlled by Well Astria, including Port Astrin, her dependent city. Sometimes, in colloquial speech, it may denote the Well Foundress: “By Astriar”

Astria Barina diet Hadrath:
(S) The Foundress of Well Astria, great-g
r
andam of Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi.

Baniese:
(S) Of or pertaining to Baniev.

Baniev:
(S) Silistra’s most northeast coast port. Baniev’s major exports are: the famed northern, thala; danne, the yellow herb that grows high in the Sabembes; and the tri-sailed long ship whose fleetness has no equal even in the quays of Dritira.

bast:
(S) The hide bast, which lies under Well Arlet and is said to extend under the Sabembe range. The hide name “bast.”

binnirin:
(S) A high-protein, high-fat grain that grows in numerous varieties all over Silistra. Anything tannish-brown may be called binnirin. From the grain comes flour and the fermented beverage brin, as well as oil and stalk fodder for denter and parr.

Bipedal Federate Standard Time:
(MK) (BFST) Measured in hours, minutes, and seconds; an hour being equal to twenty-one twenty-seconds of an enth.

Bipedal Federation:
(MK) (B.F.) The M’ksakkan confederacy of worlds as a whole, including both the Bipedal Federate Trade Union (merchant arm), and the Bipedal Federate Group (the original fifty-five worlds, commonly referred to as the Inner Stars).

Bipedal Standard:
(MK) (B.S.) Universal mean weights and measures.

bondrex:
(S) A class of horned herbivores; any undomesticated grazer whose milk and meat are not coveted by man (except the steppe bondrex, prized and raised for its long, silky hair). There are nineteen species of bondrex cataloged on Silistra.

brin:
(S) A mild intoxicant drink fermented from the binnirin grain.

brist:
(S) A large and ferocious Silistran carnivore, hunted both for pelt and meat. Brist have a standing height of up to sixteen B.S. feet, a weight of up to twenty-five hundred pounds. Their appearance is generally manlike. The head is round, the jaw slung under and hinged below side-set ears. The whole body is covered with a thick hair coat, generally brown, much prized for its warmth and durability.

cahndor:
(P) “Will of the sand”; the warlord of a Parset tribe; in usage, one who commands the speaker’s allegiance and respect. The Silistran root word “chan” (“will of”) has been adopted into Parset, with only its division into gender to differentiate it from its usage in the north. Whether suffix or prefix, “chan” is always female, while “cahn” denotes a male.

ca-nera:
(S) Three-quarters of a nera.

Cathe:
(P) The mythological winged slitsa, guardian of the Spirit Gate that opens upon the twin rivers of Ascension and. Dissolution, and before whom every traveler freed of flesh must come in supplication, lest his journeys never end.

chald:
(S) (Stothric: spirit-bond.) A belt of chains commonly soldered around the waist.

chalded:
(S) Possessed of or wearing a chald.

chaldless:
(S) Possessing no chald; one who has been either unwilling or unable to acquire chaldra; an outlaw; one who has been stripped of his chald for iniquitous behavior, and so disbarred from Silistran society.

chaldra:
(S) Numerous volumes exist upon the subject of chaldra, first and foremost
Ors Chaldra
(the dharen Khys, hide-year sixty-three); Khys’s postulates of self-rule; the goal-seeking morality of Silistra in general, including both highchaldra (tasks and responsibilities undertaken to strengthen the spirit form and increase survival potential of the eternal particle, the individual consciousness, or the flesh race as a whole) and low-chaldra (pertaining to the survival and betterment of the mundane individual, the acquiring of life skills of material import only); a trade or craft chain.

chaldric:
(S) Demanded by chaldra; the “chaldric strands” that make up a chald; duties or labors determined by the Laws of Chaldra.

Clous:
(S) The Silistran north star.

coin girl:
(S) A girl who couches for pay outside the Well system.

Coseve:
(P) The southeastern Parset Lands, holdings of the Cosever nation, whose color is green and whose device is a white sphere transfixed by lightning upon a beryl ground.

couch:
(S) (n.) A sleeping platform, any surface used for coupling.

couch:
(S) (v.t.) To copulate.

couchbond:
(S) A companionship agreement between two consenting adults. (Low-chaldra.) The titrium couchbond strand is issued to the male at puberty after potency has been determined. No Day-Keeper need officiate at such an enthalding, nor is a chalder demanded by custom. The titrium châin may be inwoven or removed from a chald at the discretion of the two .parties involved. There is no minimum or maximum time of couchbond.

couch-gift:
(S) The tokens exchanged upon the assumption of couchbond, forever after the property of the individual in receipt. Also, any gift of sentiment.

couching:
(S) (n.) Any single coupling; a style, as “an Astrian couching.”

couch-mate:
(S) Persons bound together by love and/or issue; in usage, those in extended couch\ bond, those who consider their relationship more binding than simple couchbond. Couch-mate denotes responsibility of a high moral order between two people. Gifting between couch-mates is traditionally regulated; one gives either the gift of life (progeny, animal or human) or the gift of death (knife or sword).

couch-met:
(S) Met while performing well work; couching partners who have no previous acquaintance.

couch-price:
(S) The fee a woman demands for her sexual services. Fees may range from as low as a titrium half-well for a coin girl to as high as fifty gold dippars for a high-couch girl.

couch-sisters:
(S) Wellwornen; those of the same Well.

crell:
(P) A subhuman status awarded humans in the Parset Lands. Crells are bred, bought, and caught: a foreign chald is reason enough for such immurement and exploitation of an unwary stranger.

crill:
(S) The hide crill, under the city Nin Sihaen across the Karir-Thoss River, is the most westerly of all Silistran hides; the hide-name crill, as: Sereth crill Tyris.

crux:
(S) One of the major Weathers of Life; time within which only that preordained may be done. Time so obscured that no foreknowledge may be, gathered of what will occur therein. Colloquially, the abyss. Any time that spawns far-reaching changes whose effects and purposes are supernal in nature. Events that precipitate numinosity or nympholeptic response in the super-conscious.

danne:
(S) Psychotropic yellow herb that grows best at high altitudes in stony soil.