Текст книги "At the Edge of Space (Brothers of Worlds; Hunter of Worlds)"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 36 страниц)

18

Indresul the shining was set deep within a bay, a great and ancient city. Her white, triangle-arched buildings spread well beyond her high walls, permanent and secure. Warships and merchantmen were moored at her docks. The harbor and the broad streets that fanned up into the city itself were busy with traffic. In the high center of the city, at the crest of the hill around which it was built, rose a second great ring-wall, encircling large buildings of gleaming white stone, an enormous fortress-temple complex, the Indume, heart and center of Indresul. There would be the temple, the shrine that all Indras-descended revered as the very hearthfire of the universe.

“The home of my people,” said Kta as they stood on the deck waiting for their guards to take them off. “Our land, which we call on in all our prayers. I am glad that I have seen it, but I do not think we will have a long view of it, my friend.”

Kurt did not answer him. No word could improve matters. In the three days they had been chained in the hold, he had had time to speak with Kta, to talk as they once had talked in Elas, long, inconsequential talks—sometimes even to laugh, though the laughter had the taste of ashes. But the one thing Kta had never said was what was likely to happen to Kurt, only that he himself would be taken in charge by the house of Elas-in-Indresul. Kta undoubtedly did suspect and would not say. Perhaps too he knew what would likely become of a human among these most orthodox of Indras: Kurt did not want to foreknow it.

The mournful echo of sealing doors rolled through the vaulted hall, and through the haze of lamps and incense in the triangular hall burned the brighter glare of the holy fire,—the rhmeiand the phusmehaof the Indume-fortress. Kurt paused involuntarily as Kta did, confused by the light and the profusion of faces.

From some doorway hidden by the haze and the light from the hearthfire, there appeared a woman, a shadow in brocade flanked by the more massive figures of armed men.

The guards who had brought them from the trireme moved them forward with the urging of their spear shafts. The woman did not move. Her face was clearer as they drew near her: she was goddesslike, tall, willowy. The shining darkness of her hair was crowned with a headdress that fitted beside her face like the plates of a helm, and shimmered when she moved with the swaying of fine gold chains from the wide wings of it. She was nemet, and of incredible beauty: Ylith t’Erinas ev Tehal, Methi of Indresul.

Her dark eyes turned full on them, and Kta fell on his face before her, full length on the polished stone of the floor. Her gaze did not so much as flicker; this was the obeisance due her. Kurt fell to his knees also, and on his face, and did not look up.

“Nemet,” she said, “look at me.”

Kta stirred then and sat up, but did not stand.

“Your name,” she asked him. Her voice had a peculiar stillness, clear and delicate.

“Methi, I am Kta t’Elas u Nym.”

“Elas. Elas of Nephane. How fares your house there, t’Elas?”

“The Methi may have heard. I am the last.”

“What, Elas fallen?”

“So Fate and the Methi of Nephane willed it.”

“Indeed.—And how is this, that a man of Indras descent is companioned by a human?”

“He is of my house, Methi, and he is my friend.”

“You are an offense, t’Elas, an affront to my eyes and to the pure light of heaven. Let t’Elas be given to the examination of the house he has defiled, and let their recommendation be made known to rne.”

She clapped her hands: the guards moved, in a clash of metal and hauled Kta up. Kurt injudiciously flung himself to his knees, halted suddenly with the point of a spear in his side. Kta looked down at him with the face of a man who knew his fate was sealed, and then yielded and went with them.

Kurt flashed a glance at Ylith, anger swelling in his throat.

The staff of the spear across his neck brought him half stunned to the marble floor, and he expected it to be through his back in the next instant, but the blow did not come.

“Human.” There was no love in that word. “Sit up.”

Kurt moved his arms and found purchase against the floor. He did not move quickly, and one of his guards jerked him up by the arm and let him go again.

“Do you have a name, human?”

“My name,” he answered with deliberate insolence, “is Kurt Liam t’Morgan u Patrick Edward.”

Ylith’s eyes traveled over him and fixed last on his face. “Morgan. This would be your own alien house.”

He made no response. Her tone invited none.

“Never have I looked upon a living human,” Ylith said softly. “Indeed,—this seems more intelligent than the Tamurlin, is it not so, Lhe?”

“I do not believe,” said the slender man at her left, “that he is Tamurlin, Methi.”

“He is still of their blood.” A frown darkened her eyes. “It is an outrage against nature. One would take him for nemet but for that unwholesome coloration,—and until one saw his face. Have him stand. I would take a closer look at him.”

Kurt had both his arms seized, and he was pulled roughly and abruptly to his feet, his face hot with shame and anger. But if there was one act that would seal the doom of all Nephane, friends and enemies alike, it was for the friend of Elas-in-Nephane to attack this woman. He stubbornly turned his face away, until the flat of a spear blade against his cheek turned his head back and he met her eyes.

“Like one of the inim-born,” the Methi observed. “So one would imagine them, the children of the upper air,—somewhat birdlike, the madness of eye, the sharpness of features. But there is some intelligence there too. Lhe, I would save this human a little time and study him.”

“As the Methi wills it.”

“Put him under restraint, and when I find the time I will deal with the matter.” Ylith started to turn away, but paused instead for another look, as if the very reality of Kurt was incredible to her. “Keep him in reasonable comfort. He is able to understand, so let him know that he may expect less comfort if he proves troublesome.”

Reasonable comfort, as Lhe interpreted it, was austere indeed. Kurt sat against the wall on a straw-filled pallet that was the only thing between him and the bare stones of the floor, and shivered in the draft under the door. There was a rounded circlet of iron around his ankle, secured by a chain to a ringbolt in the stones of the wall, and it was beyond his strength to tear free. There was nowhere to go if he could.

He straightened his leg, dragging the chain along the floor with him, and stretched out face down on the pallet, doubling his chilled arms under him for warmth.

Nothing the Tamurlin had done to him could equal the humiliation of this; the worst beating he had ever taken was no shame at all compared to the look with which Ylith t’Erinas had touched him. They had insisted on washing him, which he would gladly have done, for he was filthy from his confinement in the hold, but they leveled spears at him, forced him to stand against a wall and remove what little clothing he still wore, then scrub himself repeatedly with strong soap. Then they hit him with a bucketful of cold water, and gave him nothing with which to dry his skin. There was a linen breechclout, not even the decency of a ctan;that and an iron ring and a cup of water from which to drink: that was the consideration Lhe afforded him.

Hours passed, and the oil lamp on the ledge burned out, leaving only the light that came through the small barred-window from the outer hall. He managed to sleep a little, turning from side to side, warming first his arms and then his back against the mattress.

Then, without warning or explanation, men invaded his cell and forced him from the room under heavy guard, hastening him along the dim halls, the ring on his ankle band a constant, metallic sound at every other step.

Upstairs was their destination, a small room somewhere in the main building, warmed by an ordinary fire in a common hearth. A single pillar supported its level ceiling.

To this they chained his hands, passing the chain behind him around the pillar; then they left him, and he was alone for a great time. It was no hardship: it was warm in this room. He absorbed the heat gratefully and sank down at the base of this pillar, leaning against it and bowing his head, willing even to sleep.

“Human.”

He brought his head up, blinking in the dim light. Ylith had come into the room. She sat down upon the ledge beneath the slit of a window and regarded him curiously. She was without the crown now, and her massive braids coiled on either side of her head gave her a strangely fragile face.

“You are one of the human woman’s companions,” she said, “that she missed killing.”

“No,” he said, “I came independently.”

“You are an educatedhuman, as she is.”

“As educated as you are, Methi.”

Ylith’s eyes registered offense, and, it was possible,—amusement. “You are not a civilized human, however, and you are therefore demonstrating your lack of manners.”

“My civilization,” he said, “is some twelve thousand years old. And I am still looking for evidence of yours in this city.”

The Methi laughed outright. “I have never met such answers. You hope to die, I take it. Well, human, look at me. Look up.”

He did so.

“It is difficult to accustom myself to your face,” she said. “But you do reason. I perceive that.—What is the origin of humans, do you know?”

It was, religiously, a dangerous question. “We are,” he said, “children of one of the brothers of the earth, at least as old as the nemet.”

“But not light-born,” said Ylith, which was to say, unholy and lawless. “Tell me this, wise human: does Phan light your land too?”

“No. One of Phan’s brothers lights our world.”

Her brows lifted. “Indeed. Anothersun?”

He saw the snare of a sudden, realized that the Indras of the shining city were not so liberal and cosmic in their concept of the universe as human-dominated Nephane.

“Phan,” she said, “has no equals.”

He did not attempt to answer her. She did not rage at him, only kept staring, her face deeply troubled. Not naive, was Ylith of Indresul: she seemed to think deeply, and seemed to find no answer that pleased her. “You seem to me,” she said, “precisely what I would expect from Nephane. The Sufaki think such things.”

“The yhia,” he said, venturing dangerously, “is beyond man’s grasp, is that not so, Methi? And when man seeks to understand, being man and not god, he seeks within mortal limits, and understands his truth in simple terms and under the guise of familiar words that do not expand his mortal senses beyond his capacity to understand. This is what I have heard. We all—being mortal—deal in models of reality, in oversimplifications.”

It was such a thesis as Nym had posed him once over tea, in the peace of the rhmeiof Elas, when conversation came to serious things, to religion, and humanity. They had argued, and disagreed, and they had been able then to smile and reconcile themselves in reason. The nemet loved debating. Each evening at teatime there was a question posed if there was no business at hand, and they would talk the topic to exhaustion.

“You interest me,” said Ylith. “I think I shall hand you over to the priests and let them hear this wonder,—a human that reasons.”

“We are,” he said, “reasoning beings.”

“Are you of the same source as Djan-methi?”

“Of the same kind, not the same politics or beliefs.”

“Indeed.”

“We have disagreed.”

Ylith considered him in some interest. “Tell me, is the color of her hair truly like that of metal?”

“Like copper.”

“You were her lover.”

Heat flashed to his face. He looked suddenly and resentfully into her eyes. “You are well-informed. Where do you plant your spies?”

“Does the question offend you? Do humans truly possess a sense of modesty?”

“And any other feeling known to the nemet,” he returned. “I had lovedyour people. Is this what your philosophy comes to, hating me because I disturb your ideas, because you cannot account for me?”

He would never have said such a thing outside Elas; the nemet themselves were too self-contained, although he could have said it to Kta. He was exhausted; the hour was late. He came close to tears, and felt shamed at his own outburst.

But Ylith tilted her head to one side, a little frown creasing her wide-set brows. “You are certainly unlike the truth I have heard of humans.” And after a moment she rose and opened the door, where an elderly man waited,—a white-haired man whose hair flowed to his shoulders, and whose ctanand pelwere gold-bordered white.

The old man made a profound obeisance to Ylith, but he did not kneel: by this it was evident that she knew of his presence there, that they had agreed before hand.

“Priest,” she said, “look on this creature and tell me what you see.”

The priest straightened and turned his watery eyes on Kurt. “Stand,” he urged gently. Kurt gathered his almost paralyzed limbs beneath him and struggled awkwardly to his feet. Of a sudden he hoped; he did not know why this alien priest should inspire that in him, but the voice was soft and the dark eyes like a benediction.

“Priest,” urged the Methi.

“Great Methi,” answered. the priest, “this is no easy matter. Whether this is a man as we understand the word, I cannot say. But he is not Tamurlin. Let the Methi do as seems just in her own eyes, but it is possible that she is dealing with a feeling and reasoning being, whether or not it is a man.”

“Is this creature good or evil, priest?”

“What is man, great Methi?”

“Man,” snapped the Methi impatiently, “is the child of Nae. Whose child is he, priest?”

“I do not know, great Methi.”

Ylith lowered her eyes then, flicked a glance toward Kurt and down and back again. “Priest, I charge you, debate this matter within the college of priests and return me an answer. Take him with you if it will be needful.”

“Methi, I will consult with them, and we will send for him if his presence seems helpful.”

“Then you are dismissed,” she said, and let the priest go.

Then she left too, and Kurt sank down again against his pillar, confused and mortally tired and embarrassed. He was alone and glad to be alone, so he did not have to be so treated before friends or familiar enemies.

He slumped against his aching joints and tried to will himself to sleep. In sleep the time passed. In sleep he did not need to think.

In sleep sometimes he remembered Mim, and thought himself in Elas, and that the morning bells would never ring.

Doors opened, boomed shut. People stirred around him, shuffling here and there, forcing him back to wakefulness.

The Methi had come back.

This time they brought Kta.

Kta saw him—relief touched his eyes—but he could say nothing. The Methi’s presence demanded his attention. Kta came and knelt before her, and went full to his face. His movements were not easy. He appeared to have been hard-used.

And she ignored him, looking above his prostrate form to the tall, stern man who bowed stiffly to his knees and rose again.

“Vel t’Elas,” said Ylith, “what has Elas-in-Indresul determined concerning this man Kta?”

Kta’s distant kinsman bowed again, straightened. He was of immense dignity, a man reminiscent of Nym. “We deliver him to the Methi for judgment, for life or for death.”

“How do you find concerning his dealings with Elas?”

“Let the Methi be gracious: he has kept our law and still honors our Ancestors, except in the offense for which we deliver him up to you: his dealings with this human, and that he is of Nephane.”

“Kta t’Elas u Nym,” said Ylith.

Kta lifted his face and sat back on his heels.

“Kta t’Elas, your people have chosen an alien to rule them. Why?”

“She was chosen by heaven, Methi, not by men; and it was a fair choosing, by the oracles.”

“Confirmed in proper fashion by the Upei and the Families?”

“Yes, Methi.”

“Then,” she said, looking about at the officers who had come into the room, “heaven has decided to deliver Nephane into our hands once more.—And you, u Nym, who were born Indras,—where is your allegiance now?”

“In my father’s land, Ylith-methi, and with my house-friends.”

“Do you then reject all allegiance to thishouse of Elas, which was father to your Ancestors?”

“Great Methi,” said Kta, and his voice broke, “I reverence you and the home of my Ancestors, but I am bound to Nephane by ties equally strong. I cannot dishonor myself and the Ancestors of Elas by turning against the city that gave me birth. Elas-in-Indresul would not understand me if I did so.”

“You equivocate.”

“No, Methi. It is my belief.”

“What was your mother’s name, u Nym? Was she Sufaki or was she Indras?”

“Methi, she was the lady Ptas t’Lei e Met sh’Nym.”

“Most honorable, the house of Lei. Then in both lines you are Indras and well descended,—surely of an orthodox house. Yet you choose the company of Sufaki and humans. I find this exceedingly difficult of understanding, Kta t’Elas u Nym.”

Kta bowed his head and gave no answer.

“Vel t’Elas,” said the Methi, “is this son of your house in any way a follower of the Sufak heresy?”

“Great Methi, Elas finds that he has been educated into the use of alien knowledge and errors, but his upbringing is orthodox.”

“Kta t’Elas,” said the Methi, “what is the origin of humans?”

“I do not know, Methi.”

“Do you say that they are possessed of a soul, and that they are equal to nemet?”

Kta lifted his head. “Yes, Methi,” he said firmly, “I believe so.”

“Indeed, indeed.” Ylith frowned deeply and rose from her place, smoothing the panels of her chatem.Then she shot a hard look at the guards. “Lhe,—take these prisoners both to the upper prisons and provide what is needful to their comfort. But confine them separately and allow them no communication with each other. None, Lhe.”

“Methi.” He acknowledged the order with a bow.

Her eyes lingered distastefully on Kurt. “This,” she said, “is nemetlike. It is proper that he be decently clothed. Insofar as he thinks he is nemet, treat him as such.”

Light flared.

Kurt blinked and rubbed his eyes as the opening of his door and the intrusion of men with torches brought him out of a sound sleep into panic. Faceless shadows moved in on him.

He threw off the blanket and scrambled up from the cot his new quarters provided him—not to fight, not to fight: it was the worst thing for him and for Kta.

“You must come,” said Lhe’s voice out of the glare.

Kurt schooled himself to bow in courtesy, instincts otherwise. “Yes, sir,” he said, and began to put on his clothing.

When he was done, one guard laid hands on him.

“My lord,” he appealed to Lhe, a look of reproach on his face. And Lhe, dignified, elegant Lhe, was the gentleman Kurt suspected; he was too much nemet and too Indras to ignore the rituals of courtesy when they were offered.

“I think that he will come of his own accord,” said Lhe to his companions, and they reluctantly let him free.

“Thank you,” said Kurt, bowing slightly. “Can you tell me where or why—?”

“No, human,” said Lhe. “We do not know, except that you are summoned to the justice hall.”

“Do you hold trials at night?” Kurt asked, honestly shocked. Even in liberal Nephane, no legal business could be done after Phan’s light had left the land.

“You cannot be tried,” said Lhe. “You are human.”

In some part it did not surprise him, but he had not clearly considered the legalities of his status. Perhaps, he thought, his dismay showed on his face, for Lhe looked uncomfortable, shrugged and made a helpless gesture.

“You must come,” Lhe repeated.

Kurt went with them unrestrained, through plain halls and down several turns of stairs, until they came to an enormous pair of bivalve doors and passed through them into a hall of ancient stonework.

The beamed ceiling here was scarcely visible in the light of the solitary torch, which burned in a wall socket. The only furniture was a long tribunal and its chairs.

A ringbolt was in the floor, already provided with chain. Lhe courteously—with immense courtesy—asked him to stand there, and one of the men locked the chain through the ring on his ankle.

He stared up at Lhe, rude, angry, and Lhe avoided his eyes.

“Come,” said Lhe to his men. “We are not bidden to remain.” And to Kurt: “Human,—you will win far more by humble words than by pride.”

He might have meant it in kindness; he might have been laughing. Kurt stared at their retreating backs, shaking all over with rage and fright.

Of a sudden he cried out, kicked at the restraint in a fit of fury, jerked at it again and again, willing, even to break his ankle if it would make them see him, that he was not to be treated like this.

All that he succeeded in doing was in losing his balance, for there was not enough chain to do more than rip the skin around his ankle. He sprawled on the bruising stone and picked himself up, on hands and knees, head hanging.

“Are you satisfied?” asked the Methi.

He spun on one knee toward the voice beyond the torchlight. Softly a door closed unseen, and she came into the circle of light. She wore a robe that was almost a mere pelan,gauzy blue, and her dark hair was like a cloud of night, held by a silver circlet around her temples. She stopped at the edge of the tribunal, her short tilted brows lifted in an expression of amusement.

“This is not,” she said, “the behavior of an intelligent being.”

He gathered himself to sit, nemet-fashion, on feet and ankles, hands palm up in his lap, the most correct posture of a visitor at another’s hearth.

“This is not,” he answered, “the welcome I was accorded in Nephane, and some of them were my enemies. I am sorry if I have offended you, Methi.”

“This is not,” she said, “Nephane. And I am not Djan.” She sat down in the last of the chairs of the tribunal and faced him so, her long-nailed hands folded before her on the bar. “If you were to strike one of my people,—”

He bowed-slightly. “They have been kind to me. I have no intention of striking anyone.”

“ Ai,” she said, “now you are trying to impress us.”

“I am of a house,” he answered, hoping that he was not causing Kta worse difficulty by that claim. “I was taught courtesy. I was taught that the honor of that house is best served by courtesy.”

“It is,” she said, “a fair answer.”

It was the first grace she had granted him. He looked up at her with a little relaxing of his defenses. “Why,” he asked, “did you call me here?”

“You troubled my dreams,” she aid. “I saw fit to trouble yours.” And then she frowned thoughtfully. “Do you dream?”

It was not humor, he realized; it was, for a nemet, a religiously reasonable question.

“Yes,” he said, and she thought about that for a time.

“The priests cannot tell me what you are,” she said finally. “Some urge that you be put to death quite simply; others urge that you be killed by atia.Do you know what that means, t’Morgan?”

“No,” he said, perceiving it was not threat but question.

“It means,” she said, “that they think you have escaped the nether regions and that you should be returned there with such pains and curses as will bind you there. That is a measure of their distress at you. Atiahas not been done in centuries. Someone would have to research the rites before they could be performed. I think some priests are doing that now.—But Kta t’Elas insists you have a soul, though he could lose his own for that heresy.”

“Kta,” said Kurt with difficulty through his own fear, “is a gentle and religious man. He—”

“T’Morgan,” she said, “you are my concern at the moment, what you are.”

“You do not want to know. You will ask until you get the answer that agrees with what you want to hear, that is all.”

“You have the look,” she said, “of a bird,—a bird of prey. Other humans I have seen had the faces of beasts. I have never seen one alive or clean. Tell me, if you had not that chain, what would you do?”

“I would like to get off my knees,” he said. “This floor is cold.”

It was rash impudence. It chanced to amuse her. Her laugh held even a little gentleness. “You are appealing. And if you were nemet, I could not tolerate that attitude in you. But what things really pass in your mind? What would you, if you were free?”

He shrugged, stared off into the dark. “I—would ask for Kta’s freedom,” he said. “And we would leave Indresul and go wherever we could find a harbor.”

“You are loyal to him.”

“Kta is my friend. I am of Elas.”

“You are human. Like Djan, like the Tamurlin.”

“No,” he said, “like neither.”

“Wherein lies the difference?”

“We are of different nations.”

“You were her lover, t’Morgan. Wheredo you come from?”

“I do not know.”

“Do not know?”

“I am lost. I do not know where I am or where home is.”

She considered him, her beautiful face more than usually unhuman with the light falling on it at that angle, like a slightly abstract work of art. “The hearthfire of your kind—assuming you are civilized—lies far distant. It would be terrible to die among strangers, to be buried with rites not your own, with no one to call you by your right name.”

Kurt bowed his head, of a sudden seeing another darkened room, Mim lying before the hearthfire of Elas, Mim without her own name for her burying in Nephane: alien words and alien gods, and the helplessness he had felt. He was afraid suddenly with a fear she had put a name to, and he thought of himself dead and being touched by them and committed to burial in the name of gods not his and rites he did not understand. Almost he wished they would throw him in the sea and give him to the fish and to Kalyt’s green-haired daughters.

“Have I touched on something painful?” Ylith asked softly. “Did you find the Guardians of Elas did somewhat resent your presence,—or did you imagine that you were nemet?”

“Elas,” he said, “was home to me.”

“You married there.”

He looked up, startled, surprised into reaction.

“Did she consent,” she asked, “or was she given?”

“Who—told you of that?”

“Elas-in-Indresul examined Kta t’Elas on the matter. I ask you: did she consent freely?”

“She consented.” He put away his anger and assumed humility for Mim’s sake, made a bow of request. “Methi, she was one of your own people, born on Indresul’s side. Her name was Mim t’Nethim e Sel.”

Ylith’s brows lifted in dismay. “Have you spoken with Lhe of this?”

“Methi?”

“He is of Nethim. Lhe t’Nethim e Kma, second-son to the lord Kma; and Nethim is of no great friendship to Elas. T’Elas did not mention the house name of the lady Mim.”

“He never knew it. Methi, she was buried without her right name. It would be a kindness if you would tell the lord Kma that she is dead, so they could make prayers for her. I do not think they would want to hear that request from me.”

“They will ask who is responsible for her death.”

“Shan t’Tefur u Tlekef and Djan of Nephane.”

“Not Kurt t’Morgan?”

“No.” He looked down, unwilling to give way in her sight. The nightmare remembrances he had crowded out of his mind in the daylight were back again, the dark and the fire, and Nym standing before the hearthfire calling upon his Ancestors with Mim dead of his feet. Nym could tell them his grievances in person now. Nym and Ptas—Hef. They had walked and breathed that night and now they had gone to join her. Shadows now, all of them.

“I will speak to Kma t’Nethim and to Lhe,” she said.

“Maybe,” Kurt said, “you ought to omit to tell them that she married a human.”

Ylith was silent a moment. “I think,” she said, “that you grieve over her very much. Our law teaches that you have no soul, and that she would have sinned very greatly in consenting to such a union.”

“She is dead. Leave it at that.”

“If,” she continued, relentless in the pursuit of her thought, “ ifI admitted that this was not so,—then it would mean that many wise men have been wrong, that our priests are wrong, that our state has made centuries of error. I would have to admit that in an ordered universe there are creatures which do not fit the order, I should have to admit that this world is not the only one, that Phan is not the only god. I should have to admit things for which men have been condemned to death for heresy. Look up at me, human. Look at me.”

He did as she asked, terrified, for he suddenly realized what she was saying. She suspected the truth. There was no hope in argument. It was not politically or religiously expedient to have the truth published.

“You insist,” she said, “that there are two universes, mine and yours, and that somehow you have passed into mine. By my rules you are an animal: I reason that even an animal could possess the outward attributes of speech and upright bearing. But in other things you are nemetlike. I dreamed, t’-Morgan. I dreamed, and you were dead in my dream, and I looked upon your face and it troubled me exceedingly. I thought then that you had been alive and that you had loved a nemet, and that therefore you must have a soul. And I woke, and was still troubled—exceedingly.”

“Kta,” he said, “did nothing other than you have done. He was troubled. He helped me. He ought to be set free.”

“You do not understand. He is nemet. The law applies to him. You—can be kept. On him, I must pronounce sentence. Would you choose to die with Kta, rather than enjoy your life in confinement? You could be made comfortable. It would not be that hard a life.”

He found surprisingly little difficult about the answer. At the moment he was not even afraid. “I owe Kta,” he said. “He never objected to my company, living. And that, among nemet, seems to have been a rare friendship.”

Ylith seemed a little surprised. “Well,” she said, rising and smoothing her skirts. “I will let you return to your sleep, t’Morgan. I will honor some of your requests. Nethim will give her honor at my request.”

“I am grateful for that, at least, Methi.”

“Do you want for anything?”

“To speak with Kta,” he said, “that most of all.”

“That,” she said, “will not be permitted.”