The Best of All Possible Worlds (15 page)

“Of course, Maria,” I said, tears now falling freely. “Of course.”

We spoke for a few more minutes. I told her a message would be coming for Rafi very
soon. I apologized for not having done more. She told me not to be silly, and she
even sounded as if she meant it.

I left the monitor with eyes red but face wiped dry. Then I saw Tonio outside and
realized I had to brace myself for another encounter.

He was perfect. He took me by the hand and led me away to a quiet place under the
eaves of the forest. He sat down on a fallen log and pulled me gently into his lap.
Unexpectedly, in contrast to his calm face, his emotions sang against mine in a mutual
cacophony of mingled joy and sorrow. Perhaps we were both a little giddy, a little
susceptible to the melodrama of the moment. Perhaps not.

“Now stop that,” I said, swallowing down my tears. “You’re so loud the Sadiri will
hear you.”

He gave me a wide-eyed look of innocence. “Perhaps you’re projecting your feelings
onto me.”

“If that’s true, then drop the ‘perhaps’ and tell me so directly,” I challenged him.
“Hmm. I didn’t think so,” I added as he looked away for a moment with a wistful smile.

“We’ve had too little time, you and I,” he said quietly. “And now you go that way,”
he continued, nodding toward the forest, “and I return this way.” He looked in the
direction of the savanna. “So it goes.”

“No jokes?” I said breathlessly. “No lighthearted humor to make it easier?”

He gave a half smile, touching my cheek softly with the back of his hand. “I don’t
want easy. I want true.”

“Then this,” and I kissed him lightly on the lips, “is not easy, but it is true.”

He pressed his forehead to mine, then kissed me, a kiss as brief as mine had been
but far more intense. “Worth it,” he sighed.

I know, perhaps it wasn’t a grand passion by the usual standards, but can anyone understand
what it meant to me? To have had for however short a time the interest and attention
of a man who was strong enough to walk away from me and strong enough to let me walk
away from him—it might be too much to say it healed something in me, but it was a
start.

There’s a nice little
postscript to this adventure. Two weeks later, long after we had left the area, Qeturah
informed Dllenahkh and Joral that a remote village in the forest uplands had made
an unheard-of effort to contact Central Government authorities.

“It seems they learned about your quest to find taSadiri brides for your homesteaders,
and they’re impressed with your courage. They’ve submitted genetic samples as proof
of their eligibility
and wish to send a delegation of women to the Tlaxce settlement.”

“That’s marvelous!” I exclaimed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

Yes, I was going to say it. I was going to start talking about the place I’d been
to and the people I’d seen and the things I was supposed to keep secret. But instead
my voice dwindled and choked off, my mouth closed, and my teeth clenched shut so fast
that I bit the tip of my tongue. Lian gave me an odd look, but otherwise no one else
remarked on my strange little coughing fit. Dllenahkh, who had noted with concern
and sympathy my sudden stop and watering eyes, came to me after the meeting.

“I may have neglected to mention that the injunction placed on us to say nothing to
others on this matter is far too strong for me to remove,” he said softly.

“No kidding,” I said, and tried to squint down at my outstretched tongue.

“But you have guessed correctly. I am grateful that they found a way to acknowledge
our need without compromising their way of life.” The words were neutral, the tone
calm, but his eyes sparkled with triumph.

I smiled at him. “I’ve got something for you.”

I reached into a pocket. It had been in a batch of knickknacks I’d picked up for Gilda’s
kids, but for some reason I hadn’t sent it on with the rest. “Never did thank you
properly for saving my life and healing me and getting me back safe. So … here.”

He took the small brown object, bemused. Then his lips twitched. “Highly appropriate.
I thank you. It is good to have someone with whom I can remember this.”

He gravely affixed the teak elephant to the collar of his tunic and gave it a pat
of satisfaction that reminded me of my own dealings with the real-life, full-size
versions.

Zero hour plus one year two months twenty-four days

Some mornings, inspired by good weather and exceptional scenery, all four of them
meditated together. In the initial days after his return from the hidden monastery,
the communal sessions became more frequent, perhaps out of relief and gratitude that
he
had
returned. For Dllenahkh, it was more; he could now sense the latent connections that
would lead them into that deeper communication shared by the people of the monastery.
It took away the bittersweet nostalgia of the old familiar ritual and replaced it
with the new excitement of
this is what we will become
.

One day, Commander Nasiha lingered to speak to him after meditation. “I have been
thinking,” she said. “Delarua could benefit from some of the techniques of the basic
disciplines.”

Pleased that she had spoken his innermost thoughts, Dllenahkh responded promptly.
“That is an excellent suggestion. When will you start?”

She gave a brief nod in begrudging acknowledgment of the compliment and the trick,
fixed him her usual direct look, and pressed on. “We both know that you are far better
qualified to train her.”

“That might be considered a conflict of interest,” he remarked.

She kept her face expressionless, and that was as bad as an out-loud laugh. “Oh? How
so?”

Patiently, Dllenahkh explained, “I do not wish to be seen as another Ioan.”

She blinked, shocked. “Councillor! I did not mean—”

Neither did I
. He tried to explain without compromising the safety of his bridled tongue. “Of course,
but the fact remains, she can trust me while we remain colleagues and equals. Becoming
her teacher would shift the balance of power, and I would prefer not to lose her friendship.”

For I have already done too much to alter that balance
. He was relieved that he could not speak of what he had done, because for all his
good intentions, he felt strangely close to the edge of guilt. Healing Delarua had
been unexpectedly exhilarating, partly due, no doubt, to the thrill of learning a
new, nearly miraculous skill, but also perhaps akin to the transcendence of bonding
with a mindship and feeling the bones, tendons, and nerves of another being—not as
a puppet master but like a dancer fitted to a partner, able to suggest a movement
with a light press of silent, invisible communication.

“I will teach her,” Nasiha said with a firmness that was as good as an oath.

“Thank you, Commander. If I may make a suggestion, be subtle. She may appear fearless,
but she is very quick to retreat if she feels pressured.”

“I will be careful, Councillor,” she promised.

THE FAERIE QUEEN

H
er hair was
a cloud of silver foam growing back from her temples in tiny soft curls, then expanding
up and out in fierce glory. Few crowns of the traditional mold could encompass it,
but none was necessary when diamonds of all colors, rose and white and gold, sparkled
freely throughout her tresses, transforming the cloud to a starry nebula. Her eyebrows
were golden and perfectly shaped, each one a gentle, delicate arc. Dark pupils stood
out starkly in sea-gray irises; long, light brown eyelashes framed all with a sleepy
sultriness. Her look was forgiving of the ordinariness of others and understanding
of their natural desire to adore her. Slender limbs made her sprawl elegant; the very
fineness of her bones drew the eye along her lines and subtle curves. Her skin defied
common sense; it combined translucency with an amber tint, revealing an intricate
tracery of blood vessels under the paler skin of her inner arm. She would have made
an artist weep for shame that neither brush nor tint could do her justice.

A catalog of my own flaws began to scroll through my mind. The uneven texture of my
hair, whose inability to decide whether to curl or ripple meant that a crew cut was
the best out of a bunch of bad options. The mundane brown of that same hair.
Flat, broad eyebrows strongly marking my face, eyes that needed the help of kohl to
become remarkable. Thick bones and muscles that spoke of sturdiness rather than grace—ha,
the irony! Cedar-brown skin that might have been just acceptable if it hadn’t been
for the faint dusting of freckles across my nose and cheeks.

Ah, there. I consoled myself. We had very much the same nose, a happy medium that
was neither big nor small, broad nor pointed, just well proportioned and joined harmoniously
to the forehead with a gentle dip. I held on to the image of my nose and tried to
feel confident as I looked down it at her—insofar as it is possible to look down at
someone seated on a throne elevated on a dais.

“The Tlaxce Visiting Mission of the Central Government of Cygnus Beta thanks Your
Majesty for her kind invitation and wishes to avail itself of the opportunity to renew
to the Seelie Court the assurances of its highest consideration.”

The impressive part wasn’t the high diplomatic language. It was the fact that I was
able to resurrect enough of my Cymraeg to say this without pause or stammer.

The Faerie Queen inclined her head graciously. “Be welcome,” she said.

It had been blissfully mundane for almost three weeks, exactly what I needed after
the excitement of waterfall jumping. We had flown the shuttle south and made our way
across open farmland, visiting settlements with scant humanity and an overabundance
of ruminants. I might have glanced once or twice at the gray edge of wooded hills
to the west. I might even have wondered a little, but when Qeturah told me that we
had obtained clearance to go to Faerie, my immediate reaction had been that it was
a Bad Idea with a capital B I, because I was damned if I was going to explain to the
Sadiri how a community of their people had ditched their own culture wholesale to
actualize an obscure
Terran myth. But I was stuck with the job, so I went ahead and tried my best.

“Reports are sketchy. Faerie has been closed for more than a century, because visitors
tended to treat it a bit like a theme park.”
Smart visitors
, I thought cynically to myself. “But they say that for centuries the land was populated
by two taSadiri clans who were constantly at war with each other. They had endured
a particularly bad run of hostilities when a strange Cygnian turned up with an intriguing
solution to their problem. Since the main cause of their war was the question of which
clan’s rituals and dialect should take precedence, the compromise was for both clans
to learn an entirely new identity.”

Tarik was utterly disbelieving. “This makes no sense. Do you mean to tell me that
two taSadiri tribes abandoned millennia of tradition for a society drawn from folktales
and fictional writings?”

“I’m afraid so,” I said, trying not to smirk at his appalled expression.

As a belief, it was rather seductive, actually. Long-lived, superior, and mentally
dominant over the weaker Terrans, the Elves were clearly an indication of some covert
pre-embargo Sadiri visit to Terra. If you’re out of your skull, that is.

“Who was the Cygnian who told them this?” asked Dllenahkh.

“Some crackpot academic descended from the Druids of Ynys Môn who made it his business
to know all ancient and modern manifestations of Celtic culture. They say his forefathers
founded New Camelot. I don’t know. Frankly, I find it all a bit silly, but they’ve
heard about us and they’ve invited us, and we can’t very well say no.”

Fortunately, I had set their expectations so low that when the shuttle set down on
the bald brow of a tree-ringed hill, we were relieved to be greeted by ordinary Cygnians
dressed in contemporary
attire and with only slightly glossy hair, drawn up in a welcoming party around the
Queen’s throne. They did, however, hold firmly to their own language, and until Tarik
could get a translation program up and running, that meant yours truly was the main
conduit of communication on our end.

The Faerie Queen was eloquent but slightly insane, and this made translation difficult.
After descending the dais to greet the Commissioner gravely, she turned her attention
to the rest of the team as introductions were made. Initially, she nodded perfunctorily
at each name, but then she began to walk among us, her slender height both imposing
and fragile. Lian earned a lingering look, Nasiha another grave nod, but at Fergus
she stopped and considered. With a sideways glance at Qeturah, she murmured, “Probably
hers,” and went to Joral. Taking the poor young man by the chin, she examined him
and proclaimed, “Young,” before moving on to Tarik. Nasiha, who was quicker on the
uptake than the rest of us, seized her husband’s hand and stared challengingly at
the woman, who merely smiled and came to stand before Dllenahkh. Keeping her gaze
on him, she beckoned me over.