The Novels of the Jaran (275 page)

“I’m sure Valentin will be all right if we just leave him alone for a while,” said Ilyana lamely. The baby turned her head and now her sweet breath blew moistly in, and out, on Ilyana’s neck. She snuffled and sighed in her sleep, stirred by tranquil baby dreams.

“I’m sure he won’t. Now it is agreed that we’ll monitor the latticework, and try to capture him?”

She couldn’t say yes. She couldn’t say no.

“Very well,” he said, accepting her abstention and making the decision himself. “I’ll talk to those I trust, and we’ll start sentry duty tonight.”

They sat there for a long time. The sunlight crawled up her skirts and touched her belt before the baby stirred and, waking, began to smack her lips, searching for milk. “I’m afraid to go back to my mother’s tent,” Ilyana said, admitting finally to the most immediate of her fears, which all seemed to be crowding round at an accelerated pace.

“Stay with Diana tonight—uh, no.” David looked shamefaced. “Umm, let me see. Well, listen, you can have the cot in my room and I’ll sleep with Gwyn and Hyacinth. I’ll take Little Rose back to your mother. No need for you—oh, hell.” He stood up abruptly and took the baby from her. Ilyana sat on the bench and watched him carry her out through the gate. The baby began to fuss and then to cry, and then distance drowned her cry and Ilyana sat and listened to the soccer match and to a friendly burr of voices from another room and to a rustling like the thin noise of wind through sparse leaves.

“Genji,” she said aloud, and wished suddenly more than anything else that she could be away from here, that she could vanish into Genji’s halls.

She snuck outside through the back gates, straightened her shirt, and walked, quickly at first and later, when the caravansary was distant enough, more slowly, trudging toward the far far distant wall of the dome.

The barge came to meet her.

It took her to the jeweled forecourt of the huge palace, ringed by six towers, where she had first heard the rustle of Genji’s robes. But this was the real palace, even bigger than she had imagined it, muted by a cascade of rain, endless sheets of it, drowning the jewels and the stuccoed walls as if it meant to wash them all away.

Walking from the barge up the steps, she did not get wet, although no awning sheltered her. But the rain struck on either side of a dry path, and up this dry path she walked, shielded by some trick of the air. Genji stood on the other side of the door, her robes a bell-like shadow behind the screen.

“You come alone, little sister,” said Genji in her odd voice, precise in enunciation but shot through with a drone, like insects on the wing.

“Is that okay?” Ilyana barely managed to force the words out of her mouth, she was so afraid she would be sent back. She couldn’t bear to go back, not yet.

“How long can you stay?”

“Forever,” said Ilyana fiercely. Then felt guilty. “No, not really. I have to go back after a while. My brothers and sisters need me.”

“You are eldest.”

It wasn’t a question, and yet it was. “Yes.”

“It is well you have come to me. There is beauty and wisdom in your art, but you are still young.”

“I haven’t done any art,” begun Ilyana, and then realized that Genji was talking about humans, not about her. “Is that why you keep the statues of Shiva here? I mean, in this palace, not right here.”

“Keep?”
Genji pronounced the word carefully, as if considering its flavor on her tongue. “This idea of
keep
to retain as a possession, no, I keep nothing. Ah, but I love this imprecision. Each word bears a multitude of meanings. To celebrate or observe. In this way I
keep
Lord Shiva, just as I keep the ritual of Passing.”

“You can also keep someone company. Uh, what’s the ritual of Passing?”

“All things pass from one state into another.”

“Is it anything like the, uh, the rite of extinction?”

“It is not unlike that rite, which like a sun seen in water only reflects the original. The rite of extinction has a use for those who feel it necessary to create passages they can manipulate.” She turned and began to walk. Ilyana walked beside her, noticing how the Chapalii glided more than strode, sort of like when she and Kori skated on their frictionless skates, covering the ground not in jerky impacts but in a smooth sliding motion. Genji seemed to be waiting for Ilyana’s response, and finally, because Ilyana had none, she decided it was better to admit it than to pretend to knowledge.

“I don’t understand that.”

“No, perhaps you cannot,” said Genji, but not in an insulting way.

“Why not? Why couldn’t I, I mean?”

“You yourself will pass through rituals of passing, and in the end through the rite of extinction.”

“Does that mean death?”

“Termination alone does not always bring extinction. Perhaps, like Lord Shiva, you are not doomed to be obliterated.”

“I hope not! That sounds pretty awful.”

Ilyana felt more than heard amusement in Genji’s voice. “To be nameless can be a form of freedom.”

“Yeah, maybe it can,” Ilyana retorted, “but I notice that you use a name.” Then regretted saying it, because it was so presumptuous.

Genji did not answer because they passed under an arch. Ilyana paused and glanced back into the great entry hall they had left behind: Hadn’t the statue of Shiva dancing been in that hall the last time she’d looked?

“I am not bound by the same rites.”

“Oh, right,” exclaimed Ilyana, feeling that she had stumbled upon a revelation. “Because you live longer.” The next words died in her mouth as she stared down the hall they now stood in.
This
was the hall Anatoly had described, lined with statues and strange sculptures, there Shiva (she picked him out at once) and across from him a translucent sphere of light pulsing chaotically, and farther down, more and yet more, receding into a distance that seemed actually to curve away along the moon’s vast surface, except Ilyana knew she couldn’t possibly see that far. “This is the hall of monumental time. But I thought the other one with Shiva on the cliff, on the mountain, was the hall of monumental time.”

“This is the hall of memory, which is but one wing of the palace of time. Walk with me.”

They walked in silence. Ilyana stared at the statues, but Genji did not seem inclined to stop and explain anything. Finally, the thought that had been nagging at Ilyana surfaced again, and she gave up trying to hold it in. “But if you live so long, wouldn’t that mean that you would even live longer than the emperor? But if you live so much longer, how come you let him rule?”

Genji folded her hands together, the thin pale fingers as delicate as lace over the stiff jet fabric of her robes. “What makes you think the emperor rules over me?”

“Well, doesn’t the emperor rule over everyone? I mean everyone, everything, that lives within Chapalii space.”

“Time creates space.”

“Are you saying that if you live outside of time, then you live outside of space, too? But that doesn’t make sense. Then how come you can be here with me? You’re in space. You’re—” Impulsively, without realizing what she did, Ilyana reached out and touched Genji’s hand. Gasped, jerking her hand back. Genji’s skin was hard, ossified, and as smooth as a pearl. “You’ve got a shell!”

Genji laughed. Not in a human way, forcing breath out through her vocal chords and mouth and nose, but in a Genji way, amused and delighted. “You are quick in your curiosity, little sister.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We will turn aside here. You will come back again?”

“I have to go now?”

“Many of your hours have passed. Did you not say you have brothers and sisters to care for?”

Ilyana sighed, but it was true enough. The memory of them settled onto her like a burden. “Yes. But I
can
come back again?”

“Yes.”

They passed through an arch, crossed a hall carpeted with white pebbles, and came out at the far end of the jeweled courtyard. It was still raining. The barge, like a well-trained horse, was waiting for them.

“Why do you want me to come visit you?” Ilyana asked, hesitating before she stepped out into the rain. It flooded down like heat, drenching the world.

“Because you interest me. I am a builder.”

Ilyana shivered. Here, in the gray light of a downpour, that sounded rather ominous. “Are you going to design me into something new?”

“Buildings grow. They are not forced.”

“But then what is your talent? I thought you were an architect. Didn’t you build this palace? Design it? Make it, uh, grow this way?”

“Ah. You speak of the shaping hand. It is true that what I touch is forever after marked in some fashion by that touch.”

“Does that mean I will be, too?”

Genji did not smile. Ilyana was not sure she could. But she inclined her head slightly and steepled her fingers, three fingers, two opposable thumbs on each hand.

“You already are.”

“What makes you think,” Ilyana asked, feeling pleased with herself, “that the emperor rules over her?” She settled herself more firmly on David’s cot and folded her hands smugly on her lap.

“Don’t distract me!” David snapped. “We’ve got enough trouble without you running off without telling anyone where you were going. You should have heard—well, anyway, it didn’t help the situation!”

She sagged back to lean against the wall. “Are my parents angry?”

“I
thought
they were angry before. We could have kept this under control until you ran off, Yana. Now it’s all blown open. Your mother as good as accused Yomi of kidnapping you—no, she phrased it some other way—your father was last seen headed toward the ruins—”

“He’ll never catch Valentin!”

“You don’t understand!” David rounded on her. She had never seen him so angry before. A sob choked her throat and she fought to stop from crying. “You will stay in this room until you have permission to leave. The upshot of this whole fiasco is that rehearsals have been canceled until Valentin is found and we hold a council to determine what must be done. That’s what you get for disappearing.”

“But it was to see Genji!”

“I don’t care if it was to see the emperor himself!” David’s anger was very different from her father’s: It was clean and honest, and she felt bitterly ashamed of herself for bringing it to the surface. But she also felt put upon.

“It isn’t fair,” she muttered. “It’s not
my
fault.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

David threw up his hands in disgust. “Now you sound like your brother! Someone will bring you food later. Don’t leave this room.”

He left. Hands clenched, she sat on the cot and stared at the curtain that sealed her off from her freedom. It
wasn’t
fair.
She
had done nothing wrong. Then, chewing on her lower lip, she began to worry about Valentin. What if Vasil did find him? Except he wouldn’t. What about Evdokia and Anton? She hated to think of them back at the tent. It was very quiet outside, as if no one was in the caravansary. Daring much, she got up and peeked out the curtain, and indeed, no one was around. She thought about going out—she could always say she had to go relieve herself—but remembering the anger in David’s face, she sat back down. In the corner of the room, David’s nesh sponge lay on top of his modeller. Eye patches dangled in two neat rows from the sponge. She licked her lips. She could go visit Genji in nesh.

Voices sounded in the courtyard, and she started guiltily. Now she was acting like Valentin. It would be better to wait and ask David’s permission.

Hyacinth came in, smiled at her, and set a plate of vegetables and bread down on the chair. “Here’s somewhat to drink.” He handed her a flask of juice and sat next to her on the cot. “Yana, is it true that on Tau Ceti Tierce Helms Arundel, the cultural minister, tried to sleep with you?”

“He hung around after me. It’s happened before. I mean, not that anything happened, just that people hang around.”

Hyacinth touched her chin with two fingers and lifted her face so that he could look at her. He shook his head. “People don’t hang around you innocently, ma chere. Not that kind of people. Not the kind of people your father gets mixed up with.”

“Don’t say anything about him!”

He warded off her anger with a raised hand. “Let’s leave him out of it for the moment, then. I guess we all just ignored the signs because there wasn’t anything dramatic going on. But wouldn’t you say two children running away in the space of ten days is a bit theatrical?”

She hunched her shoulders against him.

“Yana, Yana, don’t go all Valentin on me. I went down to the catacombs last night, you know, and almost caught the little bastard.” He said the word affectionately. “I ran away from home when I was a kid.”

“You did?” She looked up at him, curious in spite of herself.

“Yeah. I always fought with my mom and dad was never around. The only one who ever loved me for myself was my grandmom. Huh.” He smiled wistfully. “I ran away to live with her when I was nine years old. Never saw my parents again except once a year at the legal hearing to consider my case, which lasted until I was sixteen. There was never any dispute, though. My mom never wanted me back, and my dad dissolved the partnership and went off to the asteroid belts in Three Rings system. But you don’t have a grandmother to run to.”

Ilyana said nothing.

“So maybe you’d better help us try to fix what you do have. Evdi is going to stay with Diana and Portia for a few days, and I’ve agreed to take Anton….”

“He didn’t used to be such a sneak and a whiner,” Yana blurted out. “Anton, I mean. But I don’t—”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t like Anton much anymore, and I feel bad about that. It isn’t right that I don’t like him. He could be better, he could be likable, if he didn’t think he had to sneak and whine to get his way. He’s a dishonest little pig!” Embarrassed by her outburst, she got up and went over to the window.

“That’s better. Anton isn’t unsalvageable. I happened to go by his school about a month before we left London, and three of his tutors talked about what a good student he is, and how well and fairly he plays with the other children. So perhaps he’s only like that at home.”