“That is possible, Methi.”
She slammed her hand down on the arm of her chair. “I refuse to bow to such a possibility. I refuse to perish, priest, or to lead men to perish. In sum, the College does not know the answer.”
“No, Methi, we must admit we do not.”
“I have a certain spiritual authority myself.”
“You are the viceroy of Phan on earth.”
“Will the priests respect that?”
“The priests,” said the old man, “are not anxious to have this matter cast back into their hands. They will welcome your intervention in the matter of the origin of humans, Methi.”
“It is,” she said, “dangerous to the people that such thoughts as these be heard outside this room. You will not repeat the reasoning we have made together. On your life, priest, and on your soul, you will not repeat what I have said to you.”
The old priest turned his head and gave Kurt a furtive, troubled look. “Let the Methi be gracious: this being is not deserving of punishment for any wrong.”
“He invaded the
Rhmei
of Man.”
“He sought sanctuary.”
“Did you give it?”
“No,” the priest admitted.
“That is well,” said Ylith. “You are dismissed, priest.”
The old man made a deeper bow and withdrew, backing away. The heavy tread and metal clash of armed men accompanied the opening of the door: and the armed men remained after it was closed. Kurt heard and knew they were there, but he must not turn to look: time was short. He did not want to hasten it. The Methi still looked down on him, the tiny chains swaying, her dark face soberly thoughtful.
“You create difficulties wherever you go,” she said softly.
“Where is Kta, Methi? They would not tell me. Where is he?”
“They returned him to us a day ago.”
“Is he—?”
“I have not given sentence.” She said it with a shrug, then bent those dark eyes full upon him. “I do not really wish to kill him. He could be valuable to me. He knows it. I could hold him up to the other Indras-descended of Nephane and say: look, we are merciful, we are forgiving, we are your people. Do not fight against us.”
Kurt looked up at her, for a moment lost in that dark gaze, believing as many a hearer would believe Ylith t’Erinas: hope rose irrationally in him, on the tone of her gentle voice, her skill to reach for the greatest hopes. And good or evil, he did not know clearly which she was.
She was not like Djan, familiar and human and wielding power like a general. Ylith was a Methi as the office must have been: a goddess-on-earth, doing things for a goddess’ reasons and with amoral morality, creating truth.
Rewriting things as they should be.
He felt an awe of her that he had felt of nothing mortal, believed indeed that she could erase the both of them as if they had never been. He had been within the
Rhmei
of Man, had been beside the fire: the skin on his arms was still painful. When Ylith spoke to him he felt the roaring silence of that fire drowning him.
He was fevered. He was fatigued. He saw the signs in himself, and feared instead his own weakness.
“Kta would be valuable to you,” he said, “even unwilling.” He felt guilty, knowing Kta’s stubborn pride. “Elas was the victim of one Methi; it would impress Nephane’s families if another Methi showed him mercy.”
“You have a certain logic on your side. And what of you? What shall I do with you?”
“I am willing to live,” he said.
She smiled that goddess-smile at him, her eyes alone alive. “You existence is a trouble; but if I am rid of you, it will not solve matters. You would still have existed. What should I write at your death? That this day we destroyed a creature which could not possibly exist, and so restored order to the universe?”
“Some,” he said, “are urging you to do that.”
She leaned back, curling her bejeweled fingers about the carved fishes of the chair arms. “If, on the other hand, we admit you exist, then where do you exist? We have always despised the Sufaki for accepting humans and nemet as one state: herein began the heresies with which they pervert pure religion, heresies which we will not tolerate.”
“Will you kill them? That will not change them.”
“Heresy may not live. If we believed otherwise, we should deny our own religion.”
“They have not crossed the sea to trouble you.”
Ylith’s hand came down sharply on the chair arm. “You are treading near the brink, human.”
Kurt bowed his head.
“You are ignorant,” she said. “This is understandable. I know of report that Djan-methi is—highly approachable. I have warned you before. I am not as she is.”
“I ask you—to listen. Just for a moment,—to listen.”
“First convince me that you are wise in nemet affairs.”
He bowed his head once more, unwilling to dispute with her to no advantage.
“What,” she said after a moment, “would you have to say that is worth my time? You have my attention, briefly. Speak.”
“Methi,” he said quietly, “what I would have said, were answers to questions your priests did not know how to ask me. My people are very old now, thousands and thousands of years of mistakes behind us that you do not have to make. But maybe I am wrong, maybe it is—what you call
yhia,
that I have intruded where I have no business to be and you will not listen because you cannot listen. But I could tell you more than you want to hear, I could tell you the future, where your precious little war with Nephane could lead you. I could tell you that my native world does not exist any longer, that Djan’s does not,—all for a war grown so large and so long that it ruins whole worlds as yours sinks ships.”
“You blaspheme!”
He had begun; she wished him silent. He poured out what he had to say in a rush, though guards ran for him.
“If you kill every last Sufaki you will still find differences to fight over. You will run out of people on this earth before you run out of differences.—Methi, listen to me! You know—if you have any sense you know what I am telling you. You can listen to me or you can do the whole thing over again, and your descendants will be sitting where I am.”
Lhe had him, dragged him backward, trying to force him to stand. Ylith was on her feet, beside her chair.
“Be silent!” Lhe hissed at him, his hard fingers clamped into Kurt’s arm.
“Take him from here,” said Ylith. “Put him with t’Elas. They are both mad. Let them comfort one another in their madness.”
“Methi,” Kurt cried.
Lhe had help now: they brought him to his feet, forced him from the hall and into the corridor, and there, finally, clear sense returned to him and he ceased to fight them.
“You were so near to life,” Lhe said.
“It is all right, t’Nethim,” Kurt said. “You will not be cheated.”
They went back to the upper prisons. Kurt knew the way, and, when they had come to the proper door, Lhe dismissed the reluctant guards out of earshot. “You are truly mad,” he said, fitting the key in the lock. “Both of you. She would give t’Elas honor, which he refuses. He has attempted suicide: we had to prevent him. It was our duty to do this. He was being taken from the temple: he meant to cast himself to the pavement, but we pushed him back, so that he fell instead on the steps. We have provided comforts, which he will not use.”
He dared look Lhe in the eyes, saw both anger and trouble there. Lhe t’Nethim was asking something of him: for a moment he was not sure what, and then he thought that the Methi would not be pleased if Kta evaded her justice. Elas had once hazarded its honor and its existence on receiving a prisoner in trust: and had lost. Methi’s law. Elas had risked it because of a promise unwittingly false.
Nethim was involved: the priest had said it. The honor of Nethim was in grave danger. Both Elas and the Methi had touched it.
The door opened. Lhe gestured him to go in, and locked the door behind him.
There were two cots within, a table, beneath a high barred window. Kta lay fully clothed, covered with dust and dried blood. They had brought him back the day before; in all that time, they had not cared for him, nor he for himself. Kurt exploded inwardly with fury at all nemet, even with Kta.
“Kta.” Kurt bent over him, and saw Kta blink and stare chillingly nothingward. There was vacancy there. Kurt did not ask consent: he went to the table where there was the usual washing bowl and urn. Clean clothes were laid there, and cloths, and a flask of
telise.
Lhe had not lied. It was Kta’s choice.
Kurt spread everything on the floor beside Kta’s cot, unstopped the
telise
and slipped his arm beneath Kta’s head, putting the flask to his lips.
Kta swallowed a little of the potent liquid, choked over it and swallowed again. Kurt stopped the flask and set it aside, then soaked a cloth in water and began to wipe the mingled sweat and blood and dirt off the nemet’s face. Kta shivered when the cloth touched his neck; the water was cold.
“Kta,” said Kurt, “what happened?”
“Nothing,” said the nemet, not even looking at him. “They brought—they brought me back—”
Kurt regarded him sorrowfully. “Listen, friend, I am trying as best I know. But if you need better care, if there are things broken, tell me. They will send for it. I will ask them for it.”
“They are only scratches.” The threat of outsiders seemed to lend Kta strength. He struggled to rise, leaning on an elbow that was painfully torn. Kurt helped him. The
telise
was having effect, although the sense of well-being would be brief, Kta did not move as if he was seriously hurt. Kurt put a pillow into place at the corner of the wall, and Kta leaned back on it with a grimace and a sigh,—looked down at his badly lacerated knee and shin, flexed the knee experimentally.
“I fell,” Kta said.
“So I heard.” Kurt refolded the stained cloth and started blotting at the dirt on the injured knee.
It needed some time to clean the day-old injuries, and necessarily it hurt. From time to time Kurt insisted Kta take a sip of
telise,
though it was only toward the end that Kta evidenced any great discomfort. Through it all Kta spoke little. When the injuries were clean and there was nothing more to be done, Kurt sat and looked at him helplessly. In Kta’s face the fatigue was evident. It seemed far more than sleeplessness or wounds,—something inward and deadly.
Kurt settled him flat again with a pillow under his head. Considering that he himself had been without sleep the better part of three days, he thought that weariness might be a major part of it: but Kta’s eyes were fixed again on infinity.
“Kta.”
The nemet did not respond and Kurt shook him. Kta did no more than blink.
“Kta, you heard me and I know it. Stop this and look at me. Who are you punishing? Me?”
There was no response, and Kurt struck Kta’s face lightly, then enough that it would sting. Kta’s lips trembled and Kurt looked at him in instant remorse, for it was as if he had added the little burden more than the nemet could bear. The threatened collapse terrified him.
Tired beyond endurance, Kurt sank down on his heels and looked at Kta helplessly. He wanted to go over to his own cot and sleep, he could not think any longer, except that Kta wanted to die and that he did not know what to do.
“Kurt.” The voice was weak, so distant Kta’s lips hardly seemed to move.
“Tell me how to help you.”
Kta blinked, turned his head, seeming for the moment to have his mind focused. “Kurt,—my friend, they—”
“What have they done, Kta? What did they do?”
“They want my help and—if I will not,—I lose my life, my soul. She will curse me from the earth,—to the old gods—the—” He choked, shut his eyes and forced a calm over himself that was more like Kta. “I am afraid, my friend, mortally afraid. For all eternity,—But how can I do what she asks?”
“What difference can your help make against Nephane?” Kurt asked. “Man, what pitiful little difference can it make one way or the other? Djan has weapons enough; Ylith has ships enough. Let others settle it. What are you? She has offered you life and your freedom, and that is better than you had of Djan.”
“I could not accept Djan-methi’s conditions either.”
“Is it worth this, Kta? Look at you! Look at you, and tell me it is worth it. Listen, I would not blame you; all Nephane knows how you were treated there. Who in Nephane would blame you if you turned to Indresul?”
“I will not hear your arguments,” Kta cried.
“They are sensible.” Kurt seized his arm and kept him from turning his face to the wall again. “They are sensible arguments, Kta, and you know it.”
“I do not understand reason any longer. The temple and the Methi will condemn my soul for doing what I know is right. Kurt, I could understand dying, but this—this is not justice. How can a reasonable heaven put a man to a choice like this?”
“Just do what they want, Kta. It doesn’t cost anyone much, and if you are only alive, you can worry about the right and the wrong of it later.”
“I should have died with my ship,” the nemet murmured. “That is where I was wrong. Heaven gave me the chance to die—in Nephane, in the camp of the Tamurlin, with
Tavi.
I would have peace and honor then. But there was always you. You are the disruption in my fate. Or its agent. You are always there—to make the difference.”
Kurt found his hand trembling as he adjusted the blanket over the raving nemet, trying to soothe him, taking for nothing the words that hurt. “Please,” he said. “Rest, Kta.”
“Not your fault. It is possible to reason—One must always reason—to know—”
“Be still.”
“If,” Kta persisted with fevered intensity, “if—I had died in Nephane with my father, then my friends, my crew—would have avenged me. Is that not so?”
“Yes,” Kurt conceded, reckoning the temper of men like Val and Tkel and their company. “Yes, they would have killed Shan t’Tefur.”