Copyright 2000 to The Plaid Adder
After dark, trust no one. If a cat looks at you, don’t look back. Don’t touch silver unless you know whose it is.
Never, ever tell a stranger your name.
It begins in the womb. Learning the rules. How to respect the nine-tenths of the world that most of you will never see. If you’re lucky.
Water is safer than air. Idair is good but she didn’t make everything. Things that should never be trusted include: ice on a river, a light in a dark forest, and a promise from a dark user’s mouth.
Every child raised in Ideire hears all of these things ten times a day.
It’s not my fault people don’t listen.
He was painting like a man possessed. But in a good way.
Nobody had seen the canvas. Nobody would. It wasn’t even his father Keanrih worried about; Nocc had never shown interest in his painting and had no reason to start now. His mother loved everything he showed her, or pretended to, but would never take it on herself to enter his studio uninvited.
Not that it was really a studio. Just a room in the southeast tower that had good light in the winter and windows that opened. The smell of oil and pounded pigment could become overpowering in a room without a breeze. And since nobody used the southeast tower unless there was company, he could be sure of time alone uninterrupted.
Which was important, now.
A month ago he had been happy painting ordinary portraits on squares of board. Now he was facing a canvas the size of his bed, along whose diagonal leapt a vivid arc of flickering color. When he stepped back, the flames took on flesh, coalescing into the body of a man straining in his naked skin up and out of the frame. Yellow hair shaken back against the grass, mouth open in a half cry, eyes vague behind the screen of their lashes, muscular arms thrust out toward the watching eye, their wrists entangled in a flowering vine.
Keanrih had never tried to paint Taric before. Perhaps he had been afraid something like this would happen.
Nobody would see the canvas. But Taric had seen the painting. How, when, he was never going to know, exactly. Some moment of some afternoon or some evening when at the pitch of his passion he had become transparent as he always did and Taric had seen this image burning inside him. Seen it, and then thrown it back bitterly during one of their battles. Bound to you is right, Keanrih. Eyes no longer vague, mouth wide in anger, hands slashing free through the air. Bound and bleeding and thrown on your bed.
Because in Keanrih’s mind, the vines had thorns too. He hadn’t wanted to paint them. But since Taric had seen them, he might as well.
He picked up the brush and dipped it in a smudge of brownish green. Close to the canvas again, he began pulling sharp points out of the tendrils around the wrists.
He could be unfair, Taric. In the seven years they'd been together Taric had never once been in Keanrih’s actual bed. In life, or in this image, which had always had him drenched in outdoor light on a bed of grass…
Keanrih’s eyes wandered from the vine to the green blades interleaved with the yellow hair.
That’s what he’d meant. The land. The land Taric would never, if he lived to be a hundred, really forgive Keanrih for owning.
Well, a figure had to have a ground.
But maybe if he could think of something nobody owned.
He put down the palette he was holding and picked up the other, the one with the reds and yellows and vermilions. Some of them were too pale or delicate to be real flame. But he could make a start with the bolder ones.
Fire. Another thing he’d never tried to paint.
Maybe that was a bad sign. Maybe he was possessed by something. Maybe he should ask Theamh about it. Show her the painting, see what she thought.
The idea died instantly. It’s just an excuse. And you know that.
An excuse to show her the painting. To make her know, once and for all. To find out what it was like, to have someone know.
The wistful longing disappeared in the cold twist of fear, and he knew he wouldn’t have the courage. Not soon, at any rate. Certainly not before the paint was dry.
“The shriia is here, Aiv.”
Nocc looked up at Rince, whose lantern jaws were set in the usual expression of unobtrusive deference.
“Show her in, Rince.”
Rince never got the chance. Theamh brushed past him, the wool skirt of her hreapa flapping around her legs as she entered the room with as little grace and poise as if she had been born in the crudest shack on Nocc’s demesne.
She stood awkwardly on the other side of the desk, one canvas boot scratching the other, hands stuffed inside her voluminous white sleeves.
“What do you need, Nocc?” she said.
Theamh was an odd woman, even for a shriia. As far as Nocc could tell, being odd was one of the Order’s entrance requirements, along with honesty, poverty, celibacy and all the rest of it. They’d have to be odd, wouldn’t they, to give up any chance of a husband and children, and to give up money and property was odder still. But Theamh was just so much the opposite of what one expected from a shriia. Even apart from her being young enough to be his daughter.
“Please, shriia, sit down.” Nocc stood, creakily, motioning her to a chair. She dropped into it before his joints could let him back down into his.
“The stiffness is still with you, then,” she said.
She spoke without affection, but with something like concern. Which must have been real, since she had never been able to feign courtesy.
“It is.”
“Do you want me to try to get you an appointment with Lilea? She’s busy with the Returns work but she does still do some curing. She was able to help my seanmathi, a little, toward the end.”
It was like her to bring up mortality in a conversation about an old man’s health. And like her not to have any idea that it was tactless. Morat might have been just as crass at times, but at least she did it on purpose.
“Maybe later, if it gets worse,” he said. “But I want to talk about my boy.”
He saw the look of annoyance that he had expected. “Of course.”
Theamh and Keanrih had become great friends in the two years she had been taking care of the people in Mablad. He’d been glad to see it, at first; but he was finding now that his son’s resistance to this match seemed to have infected her.
“You say he’s clean.”
“I do say he’s clean and I am a shriia.”
“Shriias tell the truth.” She gave his sally only the most perfunctory of smiles.
“I could of course be wrong. But I very much doubt I am.”
“If he’s clean, then why won’t he do this one thing for me?” Nocc said, vexed at how much emotion cracked through his voice.
One of Theamh’s hands played nervously with a strand of red hair. “It’s not a small thing, Nocc. This is the rest of his life.”
“It’s a good match and Sioanna is a fine woman.” Theamh dropped her eyes with a sigh. “Don’t you think she’s a fine woman?”
Theamh looked up at him wearily. “Certainly most men would say she’s beautiful.”
“So why won’t he join with her?”
“I don’t really know, Nocc. I have asked.”
“And what did he say?”
Theamh shrugged. “He said he didn’t want to, and changed the subject.”
“And that’s all he said?”
Theamh stared back at him, her face suddenly set like stone.
“Morat may or may not have told you this while she was working here,” Theamh said, with a bite to her voice. “But when you imply that a shriia is lying to you, that makes her really, really angry.”
Morat had never told him that. Morat hadn’t had to. Morat could just look at a person and make him know the contempt in which she held him and all his little human weaknesses. Anyway everyone knew how shriias were about the truth. They were bound to tell it, so they expected everyone else to. A good idea, of course; but it just seemed to make them so unreasonable about some things.
“How can he not love her?” Nocc protested. “He’s only met her three times!”
Theamh blinked at him.
“Your logic is escaping me.”
“There’s nothing said against her among her family, among her friends. By all accounts they had a grand time when they met during the season at Vinha. Both times she visited she was charming. She comes from a good line and they say she’s intelligent. Why shouldn’t he love her?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Nocc,” Theamh said.
Nocc dropped a hand down onto the desktop, stroking his chin with the other.
“There must be another reason.”
“I think you’re probably right. But until he feels like telling you what it is, you’ll just have to wonder.”
He saw her face changing, and he knew she was reading him. Reading the anger, frustration, the bitter and desperate desire he felt to see his son agree to this match. And if she could read him, liking him as little as she did, she could surely read Keanrih much better.
“You could find out.”
“He doesn’t want to tell me his reasons. Probably because when he asked me why I was asking I told him.” Nocc sat back, annoyed. “I’m a shriia. You want a spy, go somewhere else.”
“You could read him.”
“All I can tell by reading him is that he’ll see himself in hell first. Which you know already.”
“But if you scoured him,” he said. “You’d know then.”
“I can’t scour him without his consent.”
“Why not?”
“To scour him I’d have to go into his mind. I can’t do that against his consent unless I believe he’s possessed.”
“But if he is possessed?”
“He’s not possessed.”
“Are you sure?”
“What did I just finish telling you?”
“Maybe you could scour him anyway,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Theamh demanded.
“Maybe you could…you know…just go in and take a look? To make sure everything is all right.”
Suddenly Theamh was on her feet and slamming her hands down on the desk with a clap that made him flinch.
“Now you tell me straight what you are asking me to do,” she said, her voice low and shaking. “And you listen to yourself say it.”
He knew he shouldn’t but he did.
“I want you to find out what’s wrong with him. I want to know what’s in his mind.”
“And maybe while I’m in his mind you’d like me to change it.”
“I didn’t ask that!” Nocc shot back.
He was surprised at how unconvincing that sounded, even to him. Theamh didn’t look any more convinced than he was.
“You want me to force his mind.”
“It’s not forcing-“
Theamh spat out a curse that would have whitened a younger man’s hair.
“In ten minutes the sun is going to set,” she said. “That means I have to get out of here and go down to your kitchen where some real believers are gathered to hear me read from the Chronicles. So I don’t have time to give you the tirade about how mindforcing is a loss violation and how even if I could do this without betraying Idair and losing my fire I wouldn’t because Keanrih’s mind belongs to him just like mine does to me. But I’ll tell you this. I don’t talk to the Council any more than I have to, but by the Spirit they’re going to hear from me tonight. Idair with you. I’ll find my own way out.”
Not fast enough for my taste.
She probably heard him. She was supposed to have one of the strongest minds in the Order. And she did slam the door behind her.
It couldn’t be a dream. You wouldn’t dream about nothing but a pair of hands.
And that’s all he could see. Two hands moving above a bed of red flame. The hands of a woman, with blunt nails and strong sinews. Dipping sometimes underneath the cuffs of their dark sleeves. Placing an iron kettle over the flame. Casting into it scraps of silver, dark ash, a thick liquid the color of curdled blood.
Tossing the mixture into the fire. Tracing through, around, above the fire shapes that he knew had to have a meaning he didn’t understand. Reaching into the fire and pulling out something that glinted silver inside its pouch of red flame.
That was it, that was all.
It couldn’t be a dream. He always told himself it was and then it wasn’t. Like the first time he’d seen Keanrih. It was a year before he brought himself to say, I was looking for you long before I met you. It was another six months before he told Keanrih what that really meant.
First, Keanrih took it seriously. It was only after that he made the joke. I’m pleased to know I’m the man of your dreams.
And the anger Taric felt take his throat had suddenly relaxed its grip. Because looking at the smile curving Keanrih’s lips he’d realized he wanted it to stay there and the longer he looked the more he could hear himself thinking, laugh, yes, look at me like a lover and laugh, make me laugh with you.
So much he could laugh at, if he chose. Him and the son of a big house bastard. Would his mother have believed it. If he had ever known her. Would his father. Whoever he was. Was that the joke, that Taric was the son of a big house bastard too.
Him on his own land. Finally. Plenty he knew who would laugh at that. If the farm itself weren’t having the best laugh, breaking his back against its flinty spine.
Him saying the word love. Him knowing even what that meant. Another laugh.
But with that vision in his mind there wasn’t a way to laugh.
Two hands moving above a bed of red flame. He was a man, what did he know from magic. Except that red was the color of the bloodeaters and the fire that comes from the Dark One. The shriias had drilled that much into him, before he ran off.
The fire shriias made could be a lot of different colors. But it was never pure red.
Hreapas were always white and shriias didn’t wear black, ever.
Dark magic was about to be done. Somewhere, to someone.
And as usual, he had no idea why Idair was telling him this.
Theamh laid one forearm along the cold stone wall and leaned her head against it, closing her eyes. The town leader, and everyone else in Mablad who had come to the reading, had already gone inside the na Polls’ warming kitchen to jostle for room on the floor and wait for her entrance. So nobody would see her out there, breathing the damp smell of the mortar in the chinks of the wall, trying desperately to get to a point where she could enter the room filled with something other than anger.
Her flaring up at Nocc was not surprising. As time continued to go by with no news, Theamh’s short temper was shortening itself rapidly. No, the startling thing was that for once her outburst had been justified. Since Nocc had not spent his life at the bottom of a well, he knew no shriia would agree to force someone’s mind, which is why he had made that feeble attempt to convince her Keanrih might be possessed. But in his heart, he had to have known she’d never fall for it. He’d tried it because he was desperate. The question was whether, now that Theamh had refused to mindforce Keanrih, Nocc was desperate enough to hire someone who would.
No, Theamh. It was her own mind, although she could hear Morat’s voice echoing in it, and maybe Barant’s. The question is, can you do your job, or can’t you.
Because when you walked into a reading your mind wasn’t supposed to be on your still-smoldering anger toward a particularly weak father of a particular friend of yours, nor indeed was it supposed to be following that line irresistibly toward speculations about whether that particularly weak father might be particularly ripe for the plucking by a particular dark user who happened to have ruined your particular life. You weren’t supposed to bring anything in with you but the fire and the words.
So leave it outside, Theamh. Idair knows it’ll be there when you get out.
She lifted the latch and pushed open the door.
Inside the kitchen it was dark. At least she had finally learned how to feel out the path to the cleared semicircle at the end of the kitchen without stepping on three shins and five different feet. She crouched down on the sanded floor, unrolling the scroll in front of her.
“Ta se dubh anseo.”
Old Tongue hadn’t come naturally to her at first. But it was easy now, the translation murmuring automatically in the back of her mind. It’s dark in here.
“Ta’n solus ag dorith.” The answer came from everyone gathered on the rest of the ktichen floor and perched on tables and cabinets. The sun has set.
“Thrinnibh an linn,” Theamh answered. Light the fire.
“Ca bhfuil an linn?”
Rote as the response was, Theamh always heard it with awe. It was a question she felt she could spend her entire life trying to answer. What is fire?
She held her hands out above the scroll. The yellow flame filling the space between her hands shone through her spread fingers, casting soft stripes of light rippling across the raised faces of the listeners. Theamh didn’t know whether there would come a time when it didn’t surprise her even a little to see fire springing from her hands, running along her skin, answering to her.
“Ta se an linn.”
This is fire. Her fire, bursting from her opened hands up to the ceiling, where it radiated in a star across the plaster, sending flickering yellow runners down the walls and along the floor. There was the usual shifting as people moved out of its path, uttering mild exclamations as they discovered a streamer of pale flame running over a leg or a shoulder. For readings she adjusted the fire so that it was almost all light, and wouldn’t do more than warm anyone it touched; but they were wary of it just the same.
With the fire flickering in bright lines all over the room, and light dancing where the darkness had been, Theamh closed her hands and dropped them into the lap of her hreapa. She looked up at Mablad’s town leader, who got to her feet, pulling her blue jacket around her shoulders.
“What are you going to read us today, shriia?” the town leader asked.
“I don’t know,” Theamh answered. “What do you want to hear about?”
No one spoke up at first. People were still busy lighting candles at the runners of flame that criscrossed the floor.
“There’s always the Burning,” someone finally suggested.
“Ah no,” countered a gray-haired woman in a shawl who had been given one of the few chairs. “It’s a winter story and I’ve had it with winter.”
There were noises of agreement from the others. Keanrih had slipped in late, and was standing in the back by the door, watching her with a kind of amused interest. She could see some of the servants from the big house clustered in the middle of the room, surrounded by the farmers, merchants, dealers, and others who had tramped in from outlying holdings to come to this reading. They had all had it with winter, the raw winds and the stubborn snow, chapped skin and watering eyes and meals of roots and preserves.
“Why not choose for us, shriia?” called out the town leader.
“Now don’t make me do all the work, Helte,” Theamh bantered back.
“We trust you, don’t we?” said Carith, who sat with a candle in one plump fist. She was Nocc’s cook, so it was her kitchen, and she felt entitled to take charge.
Theamh put her hands over her heart in the formal gesture of gratitude. “I thank you,” she said. “However, I’m not falling for it.” Laughter broke in a wave over her. “It’s your call, friends, and I’ll sit here till you make it. Or if you don’t, I’ll choose the First Instructions, and then you’ll be sorry.”
More laughter. The First Instructions was one of the most important stories in the Chronicles-to shriias. To ordinary people, it was an intensely tedious catalogue of rules they could hardly be expected to care about.
“The coming of the seasons!” someone shouted, with feigned panic.
“Just as boring,” cried someone else. “How about Sincil and Anron, shriia?”
Oh for thurk’s sake not today.
Theamh was pretty sure she hadn’t actually sent that thought. Nobody was looking shocked, which they usually did when she forgot not to use profanity on the job.
“We’ve had it already this winter,” Keanrih called out. “I’d like something else, if no one objects.”
Keanrih knew that as the landowner’s eldest son, his voice would carry a lot of weight with this group of tenants and servants. That was why he hardly ever raised it during readings. Theamh knew he was only speaking now because he’d seen something in her face that told him-and, she was forlornly hoping, only him-that the last thing on earth she wanted to do right now was read a love story.
“Sure we don’t, Aivin,” answered one of the farmers.
“Well,” Theamh said, as Keanrih’s participation seemed to have created a lull, “when all else fails, ask the children. If nothing else, they’re good for a laugh.” She leaned toward Naisa, a girl of six who was sitting very proud and proper with her younger sister Teala and their mother. “Naisa, what kind of story would like to hear?”
Naisa didn’t care that there were landowners in the room. “Tell one about Idair, shriia!”
Theamh tried not to laugh, although everyone else was. “I will, Naisa, but you see, an awful lot of these stories are about Idair. Can you be more specific?”
Naisa put her arms protectively around her little sister. Striving hard to sound grown-up, she said, “Tell one about Idair’s mathi.”
Naisa’s mother burst out laughing, along with the others.
“Idair hasn’t got a mathi,” called an older boy, sticking his tongue out at Naisa when he thought Theamh wasn’t looking.
“Oh hasn’t she?” Theamh said.
When she turned her eyes on the boy, he hid something behind his back in a hurry. Spitballs, his mind told her.
“That’s very interesting, Gollc-how do you know?”
Gollc didn’t answer immediately.
“Idair has a mother, shriia?” he finally said, chastened.
“I don’t know whether she does or not,” Theamh said. “You don’t either. I’ll tell you what, Naisa,” she said, turning back to the girl. “I’ll tell you a story that has stuff about Idair, and stuff about mothers. Will that do?”
Naisa nodded.
“How about it, friends?” Theamh put it to the rest of them.
Enough heads were nodding. Theamh’s hands went to the scroll.
“So then. From the beginning of the first scroll, the story of Idair’s Coming.”
Unrolling the scroll was a ritual detail; Theamh didn’t need to look at it. She had all the Chronicles memorized.
“For the love of Idair and in the name of the Spirit which we will never know, we begin the story of Idair who made us. And we will tell you how she came to us, and what she taught us, and how she fought the Dark One, and how she returned, and how with her fire we go on.
“And because when we speak of Idair we would speak only the truth, we tell you first the things that we do not know.
“We do not know who she was, before she was Idair.
“We do not know where she was, before she was here.
“We do not know where she went, after she returned.
“We do not know where we will go, after we are gone.
“We do not know why she was not always with us.
“These things we do not know, and there are many others, and we cannot write them all, for the things we do not know increase daily even as the things we do know.
“This thing we do know. One day, we needed her, and she came.’”
Theamh glanced out over the audience. So far, they were still with her.
“On the day Idair came, Sincil was in the forest drawing water from the stream. And she was alone at that time, for she lived in a house in the midst of the trees and if there was a village nearby, she did not know its name or how to find it. And as she was drawing water, and wondering as she often did who had made the water, and why, and whether the stream would always be there, she heard a noise, as if a wild animal were caught in a thicket.
“And Sincil set the pail down by the stream, and listened. The noise she had heard she did not hear again; but as she was lifting the pail, she heard the voice of another woman, and it seemed to be crying out in alarm.
“And although Sincil was frightened, she said to herself, ‘She seems to be in trouble; and if it were myself in trouble, I would want someone to come to me.’ And so she took her pail and walked toward the sound of the voice.
“There was at the top of the hill a great tilu tree whose branches were full of blue-green leaves. Sincil went often to sit under that tree, wondering to herself about this or that. And when she saw that underneath the tree, there was a woman standing, she thought for a moment that perhaps it was herself. But then she thought, ‘it cannot be myself, it must be someone else.’ And so she called out to her, ‘Can I help?’
“The woman turned her face toward Sincil, and Sincil was full of wonder, for it seemed to her as if this woman was very strange, and her hair was fiery red, but her face was very pale, and she was trembling.
“ ‘I do not know,’ said the other woman.
“And Sincil said to her, ‘Perhaps I can help you, if you tell me what it is that you need? I heard you cry out, and you seem frightened.’
“ ‘I am frightened,’ said the woman, although she was no longer trembling.
“And they looked at each other, and finally the other woman said, ‘Can you tell me where I am, and who you are?’
“And if Sincil thought these were strange questions, she said nothing, but simply answered, ‘You are in our country, and I am Sincil.’
“And as the sound of her name seemed to mean something to the other woman, Sincil said, ‘Do I know you?’
“And the other woman answered, ‘You do, and you do not.’
“And before Sincil could ask what she meant, the other woman said, ‘I am sorry; I have had a shock, and my mind is not right. Please do not mind what I say.’
“Sincil nodded, and said to her, ‘Why do you not come with me to my house, for you look as if you need to rest.’
“ ‘Thank you,’ said the other woman. ‘You are kind.’
“And they went back to Sincil’s house, and as they were sitting by the hearth eating Sincil’s bread and drinking water from the stream, she said to Sincil, ‘Do you live here all alone?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said Sincil. ‘I have always lived here all alone.’
“ ‘Always?’ said the woman.
“ ‘As long as I can remember,’ Sincil answered.
“ ‘Where are your parents?’ asked the woman.
“ ‘Parents?’ asked Sincil, for she did not understand.
“ ‘Your father and mother. Where are they?’
“And Sincil frowned, for she was puzzled, and she said, ‘I do not understand. What is a father? What is a mother?’
“And the other woman looked as if she were greatly startled, and she said, ‘You do not remember a man and a woman, who took care of you when you were a child?’
“And Sincil understood at last, and she said, ‘When I was a child, there was a man who went out to hunt, and he brought me food, and made me clothing. I think it was he who built this house. Is that a father?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘I think that must be who I mean.’
“ ‘He is gone,’ said Sincil. ‘He went hunting one day, and did not return.’
“And the woman seemed saddened to hear this. And Sincil asked, because she was curious, ‘What is a mother?’
“The woman said, ‘You do not remember a woman, who was with your father, and helped him care for you?’
“ ‘I do not,’ said Sincil. ‘Is that a mother?’
“And the woman looked as if she were about to answer, and then she stopped, and thought for a time, and then began the answer again.
“ ‘There are two ways to be a mother,’ said the woman. ‘One way is to give birth to a child, and the other is to bring one up. Often a mother does both things; but sometimes only one or the other.’
“ ‘What does that mean, ‘give birth’?’ asked Sincil.
“And the woman said to her, ‘It is long to explain, but I will try.’
“And after the woman had explained to her what birth was, Sincil was thoughtful, and said, ‘It sounds as if it must be painful.’
“ ‘It is,’ said the woman.
“ ‘Why must it be painful?’
“And the woman paused, as if she were surprised by the question. Then she said, ‘Because it matters; and anything that matters is painful.’
“ ‘Then why do mothers give birth?’ asked Sincil.
“ ‘Some because they must, and others because they wish to,’ the woman answered.
“ ‘Why do they wish to?’ Sincil went on.
“ ‘Because they would like to have children to care for,’ the woman answered.
“And Sincil understood this, for she thought that it would be a good thing to have someone to care for. ‘Did I have a mother then?’
“ ‘You must have,’ said the woman.
“ ‘Why do I not know her?’ said Sincil, as she began to feel sad.
“ ‘I am not sure,’ said the woman.
“ ‘Perhaps I never had one, after all?’
“ ‘You must have had one. You must have come from somewhere.’
“And Sincil found that the other woman had become very quiet. And it looked to her as if the other woman was saddened, as if she had done hurt to someone without meaning to. And because she wished to make the woman less sad, Sincil said to her, ‘What should I call you?’
“And the woman looked at her, and Sincil noticed for the first time that her eyes were green, and that fear and sorrow seemed to be melting in them.
“ ‘Call me Idair,’ she answered.
“ ‘It is a strange word,’ Sincil replied. ‘Does it mean something?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said Idair.
“ ‘What does it mean?’ Sincil asked, because she suddenly wanted to know.
“And Idair looked as if she would not like to answer. But then she said, ‘It means that I am the woman who made you.’
“Sincil did not understand what Idair had said. And yet she felt happy. And she smiled at Idair, and said to her, ‘Does that mean you will be a friend to me?’
“And Idair said, ‘Yes. Always.’
“ ‘Thank you,’ said Sincil. ‘I have long wanted one.’
“ ‘I am sorry for that,’ Idair answered. ‘I should have come sooner.’
“And as Sincil wondered what that meant, Idair stood, and said, ‘What is it that you eat for your evening meal? I would like to help you make it.’
“ ‘I will show you,’ said Sincil.
“And they went out together. And there were many things that Sincil did not understand. But she was happy, for she was glad to have a friend.”
Theamh rolled up the scroll. The adults sat quiet, thinking. Naisa had her hand up, and was burning to ask the first question.
“Yes, Naisa?”
“Shriia,” she said. “What happened to Sincil’s mathi?”
“We don’t know,” Theamh answered. “Most people assume she died giving birth. That used to happen often, before Idair’s coming; and it would explain why Sincil doesn’t remember her.”
“Oh,” said Naisa, looking frightened.
“It’s all right, sweet thing,” said Naisa’s mother, patting her shoulder. “Sincil was all right, because she had Idair, wasn’t she, shriia.”
“That’s right,” Theamh answered, feeling a twinge of pain. “Idair took care of her like she takes care of all of us.”
Someone else had a question farther back, where the haze from the candles and flames made it harder to distinguish faces.
“You know how in the other stories, when Sincil asks Idair what something is, and Idair makes it just pop into the world, bang, just like that?”
“I don’t know about the ‘bang,’ but otherwise, yes,” Theamh said, trying to make out the young man’s face.
“How come that doesn’t happen with this story?”
“Oh, that’s a great question!” Theamh said, betraying an enthusiasm that immediately embarrassed the young man. “No, really. Because that is how it happens, in the later stories. Sincil says, ‘What’s a flower?’ and Idair tells her, and then there the flowers are, like magic.” There was some laughter. “Well, not like magic; it was magic. And you’d think, you know, that it would have happened that way here. Why doesn’t Idair just poof Sincil’s mother into being, like she does with everything else?”
Trying not to think about what Barant would have had to say about her use of ‘poof’ as a verb, Theamh listened for answers. Carith was giving it a try.
“It would be ridiculous,” she said. “A grown woman springing out of nowhere like that.”
The gray-haired woman nodded. “Anyhow, shriia, if the mother died, then that’s it, isn’t it? Idair couldn’t bring the dead back.”
“Yes but anything’s possible,” countered Rince, the house steward.
“Yes but not that, surely,” Carith replied, asserting an authority here that she didn’t have over him during the work day.
“Well,” Theamh said. “Anything is possible, Idair told us that. At the same time, it’s true Idair couldn’t undo death. If Sincil’s mother really was dead, Idair couldn’t bring her back. But…well, that’s one answer. I’ve got a different one, but you don’t have to believe it. It’s a little strange.”
“Try us anyhow, shriia,” said Naisa’s mother.
Why not. They all knew by now, surely, how strange she was.
“I think it does happen,” Theamh said. “I think Sincil’s mother comes into being while Idair’s talking.”
Carith blinked. A girl of about sixteen sitting next to her gave a little cry of comprehension.
“See, Weroda’s got it,” Theamh said.
Weroda blushed. Poor Weroda had only been working in the house for a month and was still skittish and shy.
“Well share it with the rest then,” Carith said, nudging her.
“I…you mean that it’s Idair who’s her mother, shriia?”
There was a murmur of appraisal, as if people weren’t sure what they thought of this.
“That’s what I mean,” Theamh said. “She says there are two ways to do it. Well, we know Idair didn’t give birth to anyone. But she certainly does bring Sincil up. Even before Sincil knows who Idair is she’s constantly asking her questions. Sincil’s just all about what and why and how come. Cliath, does that sound familiar?”
Naisa’s mother laughed. “Sounds like a child to me, shriia.”
“Exactly,” Theamh said. “Idair doesn’t maybe know it at first. But Sincil asks her what a mother is, and Idair tells her, and then while she’s telling, she realizes. ‘That’s what I am. If she has a mother, it’s me.’ And by realizing that, she becomes Sincil’s mother. She agrees to take on the job.”
Theamh was surprised to see some of the other women with children in the crowd nodding as if they understood. She felt she wasn’t being very clear.
“All right, the woman who birthed Sincil is lost. But Idair does for Sincil what a mother would have done. She answers her questions, she takes care of her, she fights for her; and she teaches her how to do right.”
It looked as if she’d convinced Naisa’s mother, at any rate. And Naisa seemed to find this comforting.
“Does anyone else have a question?” Theamh said, after a pause.
Weroda, emboldened by having been the first to catch on, raised her hand.
“Why do you think she came to Sincil first, shriia?”
Theamh had never thought about this. “I don’t think anyone knows, Weroda, but I’ll give it a shot.”
She made an effort to keep her hands still.
“I think it’s because Sincil is so close to what Idair wants us to be,” Theamh said. “This is the beginning of the story; so Idair’s giving us the rules, right up front.”
Theamh smiled, not sure whether she were more serious or more joking, and began counting them off on her fingers.
“If you’ve got food, share it. If you have shelter, offer it. If you see a stranger, make her a friend. To help someone, find out what she needs. It’s good to have someone to care for.”
Carith was nodding; so were a lot of the others. Gollc was beginning to wonder whether he might now be able to get away with a spitball or two.
“If you want to know something, ask. If you don’t understand, ask again. If it doesn’t make sense, come up with your own answer. If someone’s in trouble…go to her.”
Theamh knew that if she was aware of the pain she felt when she said that, so must some of the others be-at least the ones closest to her. And the growing silence did seem to indicate that they were beginning to read her.
“And the hardest one, maybe,” Theamh went on. “Anything that matters is painful.”
Well, she’d killed that discussion in a hurry.
“And there are some rules in there just for the shriias,” she went on, trying to lighten the mood. “If you’re asked, tell the truth. And if you don’t know the answer, admit that.”
This time the laugh was loud, and almost universal. All shriias followed the first rule; a lot of them had a harder time with the second.
“Well,” said the town leader, standing up. “Have we heard enough to keep us?”
Everyone seemed to agree.
Theamh stood up and raised her hands. “I have given you my fire. Let me return with yours.”
As they began to sing, she brought the fire back, withdrawing it from across the floor up the walls to the star in the ceiling, pulling it down in a pale yellow stream toward each hand. She left the kitchen, leaving the candles winking in their hands.
She stepped out into a cold night, with darkness and clouds muffling the stars and a wind beginning to rise. The season was turning; but winter wouldn’t go without a fight.
Theamh was glad that people began streaming out of the kitchen before her own thoughts had time to descend upon her. Cliath came up to her with Teala by one hand and Naisa by the other.
“Naisa has a question for you, shriia,” said Cliath with a smile.
Theamh bent over so she was closer to Naisa’s height. “What is it, Naisa?”
Naisa said, solemnly, “Do you have a mathi, shriia?”
“Yes, I do, Naisa. I have an athi too.”
Naisa seemed immensely relieved. “So you’re all right, shriia?”
Naisa had been close enough to read her, and she knew something was wrong. And she had no idea what it was, but she wanted Theamh to be all right. And she was six years old, so she believed that as long as you had your mathi, you had everything.
“Thank you for asking, Naisa,” Theamh said. “And for helping pick the story.”
Cliath touched her lips and bowed. “Thank you, shriia. Till next time.”
She led her two children away. Theamh watched them following the others down the hill to where their farms spread out in the valley.
“Are you all right, Theamh?”
Keanrih was the one person in her entire practice who was willing to use Theamh’s name instead of calling her ‘shriia.’ It was something she’d always been grateful for. Just as she was grateful to him now for having stayed behind after the others left, and for asking the question, difficult as it was.
“So I had another chat with Nocc before the reading,” Theamh said, bringing her hands together with a clap. She knew he’d notice she wasn’t answering the question; but she knew he’d let it go. “I’d say guess what about, only you’d get it in one.”
“I surely would,” Keanrih groaned. “I’m sorry about him, Theamh-I know you must be sick of having that conversation-“
“Well, every once in a while he does something to make it interesting,” Theamh said. “Today, for instance, he tried to get me to mindforce you.”
Keanrih’s brown eyes widened, and then the lids drooped over them again.
“I’m sure he didn’t expect you to do it,” he said. “You know what he’s like, he blusters. Half the things he says to my mother he apologizes for within five seconds.”
Theamh knew he was right, but found herself wishing all the same that he would take it more seriously. “Well, you may well be right. But I still have to report him to the Council. It’ll probably get back to him, so brace yourself.”
“What do you mean report him?” Keanrih said.
“I mean I have to inform the Council that he asked me to commit an abuse of the fire. Technically speaking it’s not an abuse of the fire, but-“
“But it’s still a loss violation, and he’s still a gleachinai for asking you to do it,” Keanrih said, nodding. “Will they arrest him?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.” Keanrih laughed. “No, he hasn’t done anything illegal, Keanrih.”
“So what’s the point of reporting him?”
“So in case he hires someone who will force your mind for him-which is illegal-we’ve got this on record.”
Keanrih looked startled.
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” he said, quickly.
Theamh shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Dark users make a lot of money off mindforcing. Anyhow you don’t even need a dark user. Any ordinary person with enough mindstrength and no scruples could do it for him. Course ordinary people can’t do the shields, so they’re visible, so that makes it harder to get close enough to the victim.”
He was beginning to look horrified. Theamh reminded herself that not everyone had spent a summer living in evil’s lap, and some people were not used to these things.
“I’m not saying Nocc’s dealing with the Dark One, Keanrih; I’m just saying he has a real burr up his gleacha about this match, and he’s either going to make you do it, or know the reason why. Might be less trouble for everyone if you just told him whatever it is you’re keeping from him.”
She looked at him hard when she said that. He looked right back.
“I’m not going to. Ever.”
Well, at least he wasn’t lying to her.
“Ah well,” she said. “Take care of yourself, then, and don’t talk to strangers.”
“All right,” he said, with a smile.
She expected him to make his farewell, but he didn’t. Theamh looked back as he studied her, wondering what he was reading.
Finally, he said, “Still no news of Istria, then.”
“No,” Theamh said, crossing her arms as if against the cold.
“I’ll hope it for you, Theamh,” he said.
“Thank you,” she answered, trying to mask.
“And I appreciate the warning,” Keanrih answered. “But he’ll get over it-someday. Idair with you.”
“Idair with you,” Theamh said, watching him climb the steps back to the front door of the big house. She was alone now on the bare hillside under the night sky.
And as she had known it would, it all surged back on her.
The waters gathered as she walked home. Deeper, colder, darker. Drawing her down, away from the here and now, into the black pool where nightmares were born.
If someone’s in trouble, go to her.
Nothing was ever as simple as it was in the Chronicles.
Morat had not been asleep. She hadn’t even taken back the fire she’d hung above the bed. She swung her bare feet onto the cold floorboards and threw off the coarse blanket, shivering in her shift. Running one hand through her cropped gray hair she waved at the fire globe with the other, dragging it behind her to the tiny entrance hall.
“Who’s there?”
Her voice sounded to her like the grate of iron on iron. The knocking stopped.
“It’s Theamh ni hUlnach, Aiv.”
It leapt out of her mind unbidden. Is it the end of the world?
“No,” Theamh answered, from the other side of the door. “I just-I said I’d report it tonight and I forgot about the block on my link.”
Morat pulled back the latch and opened the door.
“Report what?” she said, not stepping back or motioning her in.
Theamh was still in hreapa, and smelling faintly of her horse’s sweat and her own. Melted snow pooled around her canvas ropesoled boots.
“Nocc mac Deira asked me to mindforce Keanrih. I thought the Council should know.”
She turned to go.
“Excuse me?”
The sound of her voice brought Theamh up short.
“When did this happen?”
“This afternoon, before the reading.” Morat shook her head, startled and not quite sure who to be angry with. “Look, Nocc has been on my case for two weeks and more trying to get me to get Keanrih to consent to join with this woman he doesn’t want to join with. I tried to mediate but you know my talents lie elsewhere.”
“They certainly do.”
Theamh swallowed the barb with more grace than usual. “This afternoon he suggested that I scour Keanrih against his consent. I called him on it and he repeated the request.”
“And what exactly did he say?”
“He said, ‘I want you to find out what’s wrong with him. I want to know what’s in his mind.’”
She bit the sentence off. The words dropped flat on the flagstones in the hallway.
“And you told him--?”
“He could go thurk himself. Not in those exact words.”
“With you one can never be sure,” Morat answered dryly.
“Fine,” Theamh snapped. “Insult to injury. What else can I expect. I told him I would report this and now I have. Idair with you, Morat.”
“Theamh.”
Once again, Theamh swung back to face her, her mood deteriorating palpably.
Instead of what had been in her mind to say, Morat said, “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
This seemed to rattle her.
“Anything’s possible,” she said.
Around Morat-around any member of the Council, with the exception of Lilea and Slythe-Theamh masked so heavily it felt like forcing to try to read her. So that one brief gust of sorrow cut like a mountain wind.
“But right now,” Theamh said, as the fissure closed, “it doesn’t seem likely.”
Morat watched her for a moment, weighing things. It was long after sundown. It was a long ride to the Pharc from that house in the forest. It had been a long time since Theamh had spoken to her voluntarily.
Barant’s apartment was down the hall. She was on the Council too, and as Theamh’s dhiaoc she would have been the person for Theamh to go to with this. That would have satisfied her truth duty, and made for a far more pleasant conversation. Somehow Barant had managed not to earn Theamh’s hatred, despite having helped commit every one of the wrongs Theamh held against Morat.
So what was she doing on this doorstep.
She’d knocked on Morat’s door because Mablad was part of Morat’s old practice and Keanrih and his family used to be Morat’s people, and she felt Morat had a right to know. Even though this was a hard thing that she didn’t have to do.
It had taken a year and more. But some small, fragile sense of duty to the Order had begun to push its way through the caked-up sod of Theamh’s obstinacy.
It was a sensitive plant, and Morat knew that so far she hadn’t done a very good job of nurturing it.
“Thank you for coming to me,” Morat said.
Theamh looked startled.
“I could talk to Barant and Grinth about reopening your link to the Council,” she said. “If you want that.”
Theamh shrugged, and said, “I suppose it would make things…”
Under Morat’s gaze, she broke off, swallowed, and resumed.
“Yes. I would like that. It has been hard on me.”
“You made it necessary.”
“I know.”
There was a tense silence, while Morat failed to read her.
“I’ll go out there tomorrow,” Morat said. “Whatever you laid on him, he’ll get double that and more.”
Theamh bowed, awkwardly. “Thank you, Aiv.”
“Good rest to you and safe home, Theamh.”
“Idair with you.”
Morat shut the door.
Half the time, looking at Theamh, she could only feel resentment. To be hated so much for having been the one to do what everyone agreed was necessary.
Half the time, she thought Theamh didn’t hate her as much as she deserved.
Idair accepted this. That there could be two truths living side by side in the same human heart. That it could be hard, with the heart, to know the absolute truth. Which had not stopped Morat from searching herself for it, night after night, praying that Idair would forgive her. Easier than Theamh would ever forgive her. Easier than she would forgive herself. Certainly easier than Istria, wherever she was, ever would.
[Nocc’s ready to do business.]
I looked up at Maerin’s florid, sweating face. Curls of red hair stuck to his damp brow. His eyes were half-closed and his mouth half-open.
[Fifteen minutes, Bric.]
[All right.]
I shut the link and went back to what I was doing.
Normally I’d have worked him another hour and a half. But the prospect of getting my hooks into Nocc mac Deira na Poll was more interesting.
I hooked my legs around his waist and drove him down into me.
Maerin is unused to swift gratification. His shout of pleasure was at least half shock. When I surged up and pushed his shoulders down, he dropped like a sack of pratai. He lay on his back on the stone floor, with me crouching over him. Fit for nothing but to lie there and shudder while I brought him to it.
We have been doing this every day for six years and he hasn’t figured out yet that it’s a rite.
I change things from day to day to keep myself entertained. But some things are always the same. He always begins on top and finishes on the bottom. It’s always on a stone floor. And at his climax, it’s always the same four questions.
I locked my hands around the back of his head and fixed my eyes on his.
“Who owns you?” I grunted, forcing my hips down on him.
He roared it, hoarse. “You do.”
“Who rules you?”
“You do.”
“Who do you burn for?”
“You!”
“And who am I?”
“You-are-Lythril.”
One more long shudder, and he’d spent everything he had.
I climbed off him. While he gasped on the flagstones, I picked up my robe and wrapped it around me. Sometimes I take the robe off, sometimes I leave it on. I always wear the boots. And the chain.
“Meet me in the study,” I said, leaving him there. “We’ve got a new client.”
The hangings make the study dark. I hung some fire above the table, just enough to give the polished oak surface a ruddy sheen.
[Is he ready, Bric?]
[Mostly.]
[Bleed me through.]
I sat down and put my feet up on the table.
Bric thinks that when I say that I’m telling him to deepen our link, so I can see and hear what he’s seeing and hearing. I don’t need his consent to get deeper into his head. But this is the secret of managing men. They have to believe they’re in charge.
I could see Nocc sitting in that office of Bric’s, one hand tapping nervously on his bony knee. His eyes roamed nervously along the paneled walls, reassuring himself with the richness of the wood and the heaviness of the gilt trim. Bric has taste, but is inclined to overspend. I don’t bother correcting that. It’s his money.
“Nocc mac Deira na Poll,” I said.
My voice came out as Bric’s, of course. But people know when it’s me.
“Yes,” Nocc said, trying not to show fear.
“I am Lythril,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I…” The new ones always have trouble spitting it out. “It’s my son. I want him to be joined and he won’t.”
“And what do you want me to do for you?”
Nocc rubbed his hands nervously along his worsted trousers. “I haven’t been able to persuade him. My mind’s no stronger than his. I’ve arranged a match for him, the woman is more than willing, I just need to change his mind.”
A disappointing beginning. But he was worth cultivating.
“Mindforcing will run you fifty pieces a day plus travel and the cost of the shield. How long an engagement were you planning?”
I was surprised by the look of dismay. The na Polls owned most of Mablad. He shouldn’t have had any trouble paying the introductory rate.
“You mean it won’t be permanent?”
“You didn’t ask for permanence. You said you wanted him joined. Multiply the number of days between now and the joining by fifty and if you can’t pay it, stop wasting my time.”
[If I may?] Bric put in.
[Go ahead.]
I let Bric take control of his own voice for a moment.
“I think from what you were telling me, Nocc, that the joining is just part of it. You want him changed, for good. Isn’t that right?”
Nocc nodded gratefully.
“It isn’t so much that you want to force him into this against his will, as that you want him to want to be joined.”
“Yes, yes, that’s it exactly.” His foolish head bobbed up and down on his neck. “I just want to see him-you know-righted.”
This is why I use Bric. Hardly anyone comes to me prepared to face the fact of what they are about to do. Being a lawyer, Bric is exceptionally good at dressing it up for them. No, this isn’t wrong. No, dark doesn’t mean evil. No, you’re doing the right thing. It’s really for his, her, their own good.
“You want him to be happy, to have a good marriage and a good family,” Bric continued.
Nocc looked inexpressibly relieved. “Yes. That’s what I want.”
“And for that to happen, he has to be changed. That’s what you’re really asking for.”
Nocc couldn’t agree with him fast enough. “Yes. Exactly. Can…can you do that? Set him right?”
Sure. I can completely transform someone’s basic human nature. It’s easy.
But since new clients hardly ever appreciate sarcasm, what I said was, “That is a very different transaction. One lump sum, half paid in advance and half on completion.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?” Nocc inquired, tremulous now that he faced the prospect of parting with gold.
“This kind of service is not cheap,” I said. “I will have to oversee it personally, and there is risk of exposure.”
“And how much does all that cost?” Nocc persisted.
“Nine hundred,” I said. “Gold.”
If he hadn’t been deathly afraid of me Nocc would have said what he was thinking.
“If you weren’t a new client I would ask a thousand.”
“I-I’ll have to think…”
Another thing that tries my patience. If you are going to sell yourself to the Dark One it makes no sense to haggle over the price.
“You may find someone who will do it cheaper,” I said. “But I doubt you’ll be satisfied with the results.”
“Half up front?” Nocc said, rubbing the straggling whiskers on his chin.
“Yes,” I said.
“I think I can cover that in cash,” he said.
I knew he could cover it in cash. I don’t pick these figures out of the air.
“Good. Make the arrangements with Bric.” Nocc nodded. “Now I will need a few things from you. First, I need something personal belonging to your son. Something close to him, that he will be invested in.”
Nocc blinked. “You mean like…what do you mean?”
[Keanrih paints,] Bric suggested, sensing my impatience.
“Your boy paints, I hear?”
Nocc nodded.
“Bring Bric one of his paintings.”
“Very good, Aiv.”
“Second, stop pressuring your son. Tell him you have reconciled yourself to his will and make sure everyone knows that. Whose ears have you been bending about this?”
“Well,” Nocc said. “I’ve talked to my other children-my wife, Minead-the shriia-“
One of Bric’s hands hit the desk. But that was all. I didn’t have his money yet.
“Your shriia is Theamh ni hUlnach.”
“Y-yes, Lythril…”
“What exactly have you said to her about this? Don’t lie, I’ll know.”
“I…asked her to try to…to find out…why he was refusing. She…misinterpreted.”
[Where do I find them, Bric? From under what rock does the Dark One drag these morons?]
[I wouldn’t presume to fathom his ways,] Bric answered.
It would be all right. I could use this.
“Did she say she would report this to the Council?”
Nocc nodded, timidly.
Morat was on the Council. And Morat had been shriia for Mablad before Theamh took the practice.
“Very well, Nocc,” I said. “Here’s what I need you to do. And you will do it exactly as I instruct you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Lythril.”
I always savor the moment.
Because the darkness in each heart is mixed of different proportions of gall, venom, bile. The watery taste of weakness, the bitter taste of hatred. The sweet odor of corruption. Every heart has a different taste, just as every aura has a different hue. And this moment, the moment at which the dark needle pierces him, is the last time anyone will taste it.
Everything rotten turns black in the end.
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