“I don’t know you!”
They introduced themselves formally. She belonged to a daughter line of the se-Tufi which was not yet established over the full age range, having been founded only half a lifetime ago with the melding of se-Tufi and be-Mami ova. Such a line, like most Liethe lines, had no father.
Three introductions later, as the kitchen filled up, the crone appeared in the doorway looking straight at Humility, the first really older version of herself Humility had ever met. It was a shock. She was old. Humility knew well the map of her own line. This woman would be close to death — but her mind would still be strong, her ways demanding, and her energy relentless if economical.
“Your drill begins now,” said the crone mother severely.
“Yes old one.” Humility was on her feet and bowing. She did not finish her pancakes.
25
If one is wary of an enemy bringing gifts, can there ever be the union of mankind under God’s One Sky?
THE SQUEAK WOKE Oelita to a sudden sitting position. Panic located the intermittent noise at the window. Then she saw the screw between the bars, happily turning and pausing in an erratic fashion, pulling together two heavy nuts that were, in turn, pushing a rigid framework against the bars, bending them and in the process slowly extracting them from their stone base. It was fascinating because no one could be out there. She watched for a while. The screw turned and paused, turned, grunted, protested, paused again. A bar broke loose and the machine sagged. Instantly she grabbed the rhomboid shape and pondered for a moment how to reset it between the remaining bars. She would have to rewind the screw until the machine was thin again. “Shall I reset it?” she asked the sky, bewildered.
“Ho,” came a voice on the wind, “that would save me a nasty trip. Any guards?”
“They’re asleep.”
“Is the bent bar free?”
“I think I can work it free.”
“Don’t drop it outside… make a racket to wake God!”
“Where are you?”
“I’m the beetle on the windowsill.”
For thumping heartbeats she said no more, but just reset the screw and removed the loosened bars. The screw was being worked by a metal rod from above. Finally she could stick her head out and look down below, far below, at the Temple’s base. The height was sickening. Normally it wouldn’t have bothered her. “Are you coming inside to help me?” she asked weakly.
“No. You’re coming outside to help yourself.”
“I’ll never get down!”
“All you need to do is crawl out the window and gravity will take it from there.”
“I hate your sense of humor!”
“Ho! I thought this was a good time for levity.”
She had no choice. Her heart was racing and she began to crawl out the window, clawing for a grip that found only smooth stone. When she saw the man above her, she froze in terror. It was Joesai, the Kaiel murderer. The wind that was trying to blow her away and her own expectations had changed the voice.
“Ready for Trial Three?” He was grinning in supernatural stance on a ledge above her, a ledge half a footprint in breadth,
“I’m going back inside.”
“There’s a door in that room, and it is Death’s door. Your choice.”
She was so paralyzed that she couldn’t even return. “You’ll kill me!”
“No,” he grinned. “Won’t have to.”
She took the harness he lowered to her, made from the hide of some unfortunate pauper. It fitted around her waist and under her crotch. Iron rings were sturdily woven into the belt. He showed her how the ropes attached and how to walk down the wall with her weight being held by a piton, but mostly the wind took his words and she had to reason out the process. He let her lower herself while he backed her up and then he lowered himself while she backed him up. Once he screamed because she was doing something wrong but it was too late and a piton gave away and all the security of the rope was gone. She fell. Terror. But the second rope went taut and she was slammed against the stone. She never even paused. She just secured herself and called up the signal. “Ready! Go!” He dropped and secured himself. “Ready! Go!” he shouted down at her. When they reached a ledge on the first large buttress the terror came back again and she had to fight it off before she could move on.
“In Trial Four you have to climb up.” He laughed the great laugh while they shared this ledge built for one and a half.
“Why don’t you just push me off!” she replied savagely.
“Kiss me or I will.”
She was clinging to him, but not out of love.
“We have to go,” he said.
“I can’t.”
He waited patiently. He waited longer than he wanted to wait. “You’ve shown at least half of the courage you need to get down.”
“If this is a Trial in a Death Rite, you shouldn’t be helping me.”
“I’m not. I’m not carrying you on my back, am I?”
They reached the roof. He lowered the ropes and harness to a strategically placed lackey after being given the all clear signal. Then they jumped. The waiting small crowd had robes for them and they faded into the town. Joesai indicated a gaming tavern up a side street. “Ho! I have thirst after such a climb!”
“No,” Oelita protested, pulling at his robe. She didn’t want to risk it.
“You really think the Stgal cowards will come after you now?”
“They were going to murder me!”
“Never. They were merely working on a ruling to give you special permission to contribute your known Ainokie gene to the Great Chromosome Sink.” Joesai laughed, picked her up and carried her into the tavern, continuing the conversation by whispering into her ear. “And you pissed on them by waving your kalothi while they sat in ponderous debate. They’ll have their heads tucked up their arseholes tonight!”
He set her down on the tile floor while their companions swarmed up the stairs behind them, then made a flourish to the startled customers. “May I present the Gentle Heretic!” And he took her arms roughly, and, stripping the sleeves from them, held her arms up, wrists out, unslashed wrists, in the universal gesture of high kalothi. The barkeep was weeping. Both drinkers and gamers cheered, raising their mugs. An old man went to his knees on the floor. Joesai bought the house a round of mead, courtesy of Aesoe’s coin vaults.
She was sitting at her table with fingers around her mead when Joesai brought her a handful of spiced wheat sticks to help along her thirst. “I don’t understand you,” she said. “I don’t understand your morals. I don’t understand your beliefs, even your loyalties. Why do you do what you do? Is it possible that we might stop your little game and start something simple? Perhaps a friendly bout of chess?”
“I always lose at chess.”
“I noticed. You’re a fool for a set-up — that move where your opponent threatens a piece and you rush up to protect it, and two moves later you have lost your defender.”
Joesai clanked her mead mug with his and smiled wryly. “Then you know I didn’t burn the silo?”
“I wasn’t sure. I told you I didn’t understand you.”
“Life is a race to outwit Death.”
“No it isn’t. Life is peace if you create that peace.” She looked him in his eyes and saw the transit of a dark moon across a green and alien planet. “Peace?” she implored.
He laughed. “Till tomorrow!”
When they took her home, Joesai’s two men commanded a patrol of men who checked out every intersection and alley and doorway before they moved forward. He told her there was no danger but he wanted to be thorough. He offered to lead her out of Sorrow to some strongpoint she could hold.