So it had been prophesied.
Eventually Kathein could bear the pain no longer and selected an arched room at a level one stairwell higher than the low dungeon she had hoped to reach. Dank water seeped from cracks in the stone. She laid out her mat upon the floor. The torch flickered, relit, and died. She screamed her long breaths in the darkness in tune with the contractions until she had taken the child from herself, holding him, Joesai’s child.
Fingers crept along the floor, patting for the knife. She cut the umbilical cord in the dark. Still in the dark, she thanked the sky-spark that was God and held the bloody infant to her breast, warming his fury, while she recovered her strength. Only following the afterbirth did her unsteady hands light another torch. Monsters carved into the walls balefully bared flickering fangs at madonna and child. Over the torch she heated kaiel bellies for their incense. The prophesy said that kaiel incense would greet the Savior Who Speaks To God when he was born in the Graves of the Losers.
Carefully she swaddled the baby in soft long strips of flannel until he was soothed. Like God, I’ve brought you from an easy world to a harsh one. He was so tiny. She cried a little. This was the only gift she had left that she could offer her beloved Joesai — to make him father of the Savior. When she walked back into the light she was proud and her weakness did not overwhelm her.
14
Do not force upon others your forebearance toward the weak but do speak bravely. There will be times when brave-ness is stylish and there will be times when only the brave will dare braveness.
MEN WERE OUTSIDE, guarding the modest house that stood on the highlands overlooking Sorrow’s Temple in an area of difficult streets and stairways and cobblestoned back alleys. Apparently there was no front entrance and so the boy took Teenae to Oelita via the back, down stone stairs to a room that faced the sea through leaded windowpanes of bubbly green glass. The shy guide did not know how to make introductions; he just stood by awkwardly. Oelita was standing. Her eyes met Teenae with such open clarity that Teenae feared she knew everything and that this was a trap. Those wounded wrists!
“Where did you get such a beautiful gown?” she blurted to hide her fear.
“A friend. The oz’Numae weave them in one piece. My friend tells me that the oz’Numae are a small clan who live on the islands of the Drowned Hope Sea.”
“Then it indeed comes from afar! Where Scowlmoon is on the eastern horizon! A long overland trip!”
“You are a stranger to Sorrow,” said Oelita. “You’ve come from afar yourself.”
“Who on Geta is a stranger to sorrow? Really, you’re not a stranger to me. I read your Sayings of a Rule Breaker long ago,” she lied.
“Zeilar gom-n’Orap tells me you wish to publish a small edition of that book.”
Ah, thought Teenae listening to the eagerness of her voice. I’ve chosen the right snare. She reached into a pocket and brought out a fine book on kolgame strategy printed in Kaiel-hontokae. Bait. “This is an example of our craftsmanship.”
“Beautiful,” said Oelita enviously, turning the pages, fingering the needlework of the binding. There was no paper like this among the Stgal, nor was the printing here as crisp.
“It would please me,” continued Teenae, “if you would care to look over my handwritten copy of your manuscript for mistakes. In your growing wisdom you may even wish to incorporate alterations.”
“I’ve been thinking on this matter all night, ever since Zeilar carried the good news of your interest to my attention. But we’ll discuss business later when we know each other better.”
A little girl sneaked into the room and crawled under the table as if children should be heard and not seen. She spoke in a singsong voice. “Toeimi walks to False Start at dawn. He wishes to know if there is anything you want him to bring back.”
Oelita went to her knees, smiling. “There’s a little shop that carries root-spice just below the stalls of the tinkers. There’s no root-spice in Sorrow.” She glanced at her wrists. “It will help the healing. That’s all, my wee bug.” The girl waited impatiently while she received an affectionate head rub, and then crawled out from under the table and ran off. Oelita turned back to Teenae. “Are you in the mood for a game?”
“Kolgame?”
The holy woman smiled. “I’m a kolgame master. You’ll have a hard time. Perhaps chess?”
“Kolgame.”
Teenae watched the game for clues to Oelita’s character from the moment they threw dice to assemble the many-shaped blocks of the game’s territory. A pattern emerged. The heretic seemed to take over territory only to stabilize her food supply so that the Culling condition would occur less frequently. Teenae countered by occupying key command centers. Surprisingly, Oelita shared the burden of the inevitable impasse conditions among her tenants, making it difficult to eat them. This was an unorthodox defense and astonishingly well played. Oelita could see very far into the future — but it was always better to load your weaknesses onto one tenant and grant suicide. Oelita could have won had she been willing to sacrifice more often but she would cede control rather than lose a tenant and so Teenae’s o’Tghalie mind ruthlessly annihilated her by playing on that one weakness.
And Teenae knew then that the Kaiel could conquer her. Threaten someone’s life and Oelita would be set against herself. She was neither willing to kill to save a life nor willing to stand aside while that life was taken. Such contradictions, intensely analyzed, were always at the fulcrum of Teenae’s shattering attack.
Oelita’s weakness reminded Teenae of the teachings of the kembri-Itraiel. Those who are not willing to kill make tempting victims and thus have chosen endless conflict, while those who are willing and able to kill may always choose a peaceful life. Whosoever values his life becomes enmeshed in the game of saving his life.
Teenae’s own thoughts were more mathematical in nature. A strategist might seek to minimize death, but the attempt to eliminate death invited such a misplacement of resources that the only result must be a higher than minimal death rate. Especially if you were playing against Teenae.
“You have a merciless soul,” said Oelita, conceding defeat with a smile.
“Only when I play kol. Otherwise I’m very tenderhearted.”
“Will you stay for dinner?”
Teenae laughed with pleasure. “I shall be delighted to share your time and bread.”
“Could I send a runner out to find your husband? I’m really quite obliged to him for the help he gave me.”
Teenae was suddenly alert. “Joesai cannot. He’s such a man of business. His time is planned dawns ahead. He’s such a wretched man to live with.” Her eyes were twinkling. “I’d die of boredom without my other husbands.”
“I found him very kind.”
Oelita cooked the dinner over a small ember fire in the central stove of her room. She chatted happily with her new friend about the outside world and books. Teenae noticed that every mention of the Kaiel made her wary.
“You’ve never been to Kaiel-hontokae, have you?” Teenae asked, probing.