Authors: Gillian Andrews
Her upbringing on Coriolis wasn’t even on the list! How could that be? It was the one thing that had made her who she was.
She stared some more at the lake, not noticing that the day was turning to night, and that the stars were coming out over the Great Plain. Her face was taut. What did it mean? If being a meritocrat didn’t define her, then what did?
She began to think back over the list, mentally scrolling down the items, trying to see why the things she thought important didn’t add up to the person she was.
Then, all of a sudden, something shifted inside her. She was looking down at herself from afar and seeing two different people. One was the meritocrat girl; spoilt, haughty, proud. But that picture was just a façade, she realized. It was empty. It didn’t feel or have emotions. It was cool and calculating, and always did the correct thing. But it was unreal. It didn’t really exist.
The person who did exist was the one sitting here now, with her knees tucked under her chin, shivering slightly in the now cool night breeze. She was a person who had emotions, who could feel. She had felt something in all those moments on the list. Anger, pain, despair, fear, awe, happiness. The meritocrat in her had eliminated all feeling, but Xiantha was bringing it back. She sighed. Why had she made everything so difficult for herself?
And, as if somebody had waved a magic wand over her head, the whole picture changed and the two warring parts of her became one. At that moment she felt a shaft of exhilaration travel right through her, and she caught her breath excitedly. It was as if a well of happiness had opened up deep inside her, setting her free, offering her such a huge horizon as a future that it took her breath away. A bolt of absolute elation shot through her.
There was a scraping sound below her, and a head came into view.
“I have been looking everywhere for you,” said a very cross voice. “What on Sacras are you doing, sitting up here in the dark?”
“I was thinking.”
“Well, can’t you think at home?” Six heaved himself up the last rungs and edged into the tree house, turning so that he too could see the stars over the lake. “Come to any conclusions?”
She nodded slowly. “Lots. I decided that you were always there, at all the important moments of my live. You are a part of me.”
“Yes, yes,” he said tetchily. “—And?”
“And that the other moments of my live weren’t important.”
“So-o-o?”
“So I must be in love with you!”
He glared in the dark. “You think you must be in love with me because the rest of your life was boring?”
“No! Not at all! You are misinterpreting what I am saying deliberately! I mean that I was sort of an empty shell before I met you. They had taught me not to have or show any feelings. You have taught me how to feel.”
“Took you long enough,” said Six flatly.
“Yes, but I have realized it now.”
“You have only just realized that you love me?” He sounded affronted.
“No. Yes.”
“Well, which is it to be?”
“I … you are making this difficult. I have realized that I am in love with you. I don’t want to be anywhere or anyone else.” She rested her chin on her knees and smiled into the night. “I am a whole person. I wasn’t before.”
Six looked as if he were trying to understand all this. “You have been sitting here getting cold …” he put his hands together in a steeple, “… to come to the conclusion that you are a whole person.” He shook his head. “I can’t make head or tail of what you are talking about.”
Diva flashed an irritated look at him. “It was very romantic.”
“Oh! —Romantic!” He gave himself a self-congratulatory grin. “Well, of course – I am very romantic. You aren’t the first girl to tell me that.”
“No-name, you are about the least romantic thing I have ever seen. I said
it
was romantic.”
“It? What’s
it
?”
She breathed out noisily. “Oh, never mind. You are a man. You probably can’t grasp complicated concepts in any case.”
“I can so!”
“I was just saying I know who I am now.”
“And you didn’t before?” His forehead wrinkled in perplexity. “You are the crosspatch Coriolan girl who tricked me into marriage.”
“Oh Lumina!” She looked up at the heavens above her. “Never mind, Kwaidian. It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I know that! I expect you are feeling sick.”
She was repulsed. “I am not! I was trying to find out my Xianthan name.”
“Were you? Why?”
“Because I should know it.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Do you?”
“What?”
He sighed. “So what is your name?”
“I am ‘the girl who fights’.” She smiled. “I realized I have been fighting anyone and everything just about all my life.”
“Very appropriate. It suits you. But I could have told that you ages ago.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t seem important.”
She frowned. “Do you know your name here?”
“Of course. I am ‘the man who puts up with you’.” Then he grinned.
There was an icy silence from Diva. “I was trying,” she said, with great dignity, “to be serious.”
“No! Were you? Sorry!” But he was still chuckling.
“Oh you are impossible! I give up!”
“Well it seems a pretty stupid way to pass the day, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
“I had to come and find you!”
“Nobody asked you to.”
“But … but you weren’t there!”
“I am surprised you realized.”
“Of course I realized. I was getting hungr—, that is … I … I wondered where you had got to.”
“I see. You were hungry, and there was nobody there to make you a meal.” Her eyes flashed. “Is that what you are saying? Is that what you think of me? I have now become a mere cook?” She looked horrified at the thought of morphing from a fiery fighter to someone who made meals. She couldn’t help it.
“Actually cooking is quite difficult, I don’t think you should call it a ‘mere’ cook—, err … Certainly not. No, not at all.
I
can cook too, you know.” He shifted uncomfortably from one side to the other and refused to meet her gaze.
She clicked her tongue. “I am a warrior!”
He stared as if that were obvious, and opened his hands. “Yes? Don’t warriors eat between wars?”
“I suppose so. Shut up, Six, and leave me alone. All this was going swimmingly until you arrived. I was really getting somewhere.”
“You were getting cramp from being shut up here all on your own.”
“I was having a revelation!”
“A revelation? You want to be careful with that. You might regret it later. Perhaps you had better see Vion about it. It might be catching, and I certainly don’t want one.”
She dug him in the ribs. “Oh, go away!”
“If modom insists. Just to show there are no hard feelings, I will go and prepare a meal for you. How does that sound?”
She tossed her head, making no reply as he disappeared down the iron rungs again. As if she could be tempted back by the idea of food! A warrior like her, trained to withstand endless deprivation. She resumed her contemplation of the stars.
But, for some reason, her concentration had gone; she found it impossible to recapture that elusive feeling of completeness that had taken her over before. She found herself thinking more and more about sweetfruits, and in the end scrambled down the tree to see what Six had been able to come up with.
Chapter 5
ON VALHAI, TALLEN cursed his leg and dragged himself over towards the table, which was laden with such a display of sweetfruits, honey, chocolate and other delicacies that it made him furious. It had been a week since his operation, and he had just been authorized by Vion to move over to Mandalon’s 1
st
skyrise. He was not feeling particularly grateful; in his opinion he was already fit enough to take on Tartalus and half his army, and he had not been best pleased when Vion had told him he would be spending another three or four weeks on Valhai. It felt as though he had been sentenced to years on the place. He stared gloomily at the walls enclosing the skyrise. He hated to be shut in.
“How can you hope to eat all of that?” he demanded, glaring in Mandalon’s direction.
“I can’t. I will pass most of it on to my guards.”
“Your guards are Namuri. They will not eat all that. We eat sparsely, what we need. All this” —he gave a disdainful glance around at the spread of food— “is wasteful.”
Mandalon smiled, rather sadly. “Your sister used to say the same.”
“Of course she did. She was Namuri.”
“Don’t you eat enough?”
That caused Tallen to stiffen more. “Of course we eat enough. We eat what we need. We are not paupers!”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you were. I
have
visited your village, remember? I was merely asking for more information about your customs.”
Tallen told him about the sibyla, about the clan, how they lived, how they fought passively against the meritocrats.
“And now?”
“Now?”
“Well, you are friends with Diva. Hasn’t that changed your perspective?”
Tallen frowned. “NO!”
“Both Diva and I are trying to change our planets.”
“Yes, that is true.” Tallen was looking confused now. “I know you are.”
“But you are not prepared to change? The Namuri will never change?”
Tallen tried to straighten up, which caused a twinge of pain all down his leg, and made him scowl again. “Everything must change.”
“That’s what I think. Everything must change – even the Namuri.”
The two boys stared at each other. They came from totally different worlds, yet there was understanding in their gaze.
“Perhaps,” admitted Tallen, though his tone was reluctant. “Perhaps the Namuri, too, will have to change.”
“Petra taught me that.”
“She taught you to change?”
“No. She showed me how to accept change. Like she did.”
Tallen felt his eyelids prickle. “She earned her place in the sacred marshes.”
“She certainly did. I wish she hadn’t had to give her own life for mine. I am not worth it.”
Tallen was about to agree, when something stopped him. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “she would have disagreed. She knew that you were planning to change the whole way of thinking of an entire planet. She would have thought that to be very worthwhile.”
“She was a brave girl.”
“Braver than I will ever be.”
“Braver than either of us will ever be.”
Mandalon sighed, and they were silent for a short time. Then the Sellite signed to Tallen.
“We had better get to class. You will join me in my studies. The
vimpic
will take you at your own rate through the courses.”
Tallen looked horrified. “I … I am not very good at classes.”
Mandalon grinned. “Well, you have days to get through here while that leg of yours is recovering its functions, so that will give you time to get better at it.”
“I … I think I ought to go back to Xiantha.” Tallen felt a sudden rise of resentment against
Valhai
Diva, who had conveniently disappeared, leaving all this arranged! “They might need me there.”
“They don’t. They think you will heal better and more quickly here, with me and with the rehabilitation the medical skyrise can offer. We have the best installations in the binary system.”
Tallen grunted. He wasn’t so sure.
“Never mind. We will have combat practice every afternoon after your physical therapy, and I have six combat masters to teach me. Even a Namuri will have plenty to learn from them. Don’t worry; your time here will be well spent.”
“Why are you doing this for me?”
Mandalon stared. “You know the answer to that.”
Tallen gave a nod. “You think you owe me something.”
Now it was the Sellite’s turn to glare. “I owe you nothing. Nor do I owe your sister anything. I was her emptor, and she died fulfilling a binding promise to protect me. I am doing this for you to honour her memory. I am doing it because she deserves it. I thought you – of all people – would have understood that.”
Tallen looked down at the floor. “I have never been a good student. You can ask Maestra Cimma.”
“I want to learn things from you too. You can teach me a different way of thinking, a different way of life. That is priceless to somebody who has hardly traveled off his own planet and who is surrounded by people who all think alike. You are not the only one who needs to heal. We can help each other.”
The Namuri nodded slowly. Perhaps they could.
AS SOON AS he returned from his next periodical visit to Enara, a few weeks later, the visitor sought out Arcan.
“I’m afraid that things are not looking too good,” he told him. “I think the Enaran animas are about to sign a treaty with the Dessites. They were openly discussing an alliance.”
A shadow ran through the orthogel entity; the whole lake seemed to shiver. “Then I shall have to go over. It should not be put off any longer.”
The visitor stared at Arcan. “You can’t mean it!”
Arcan darkened. “I don’t usually say things I don’t mean.”
“Well, no, but it is dangerous to go over to Enara. You know it is! What if the Ammonites have already signed an agreement with the Dessites? What if they manage to harm you?”
“How could they harm me? I am immune to them. And the Dessites cannot be physically there on Enara yet. It must be nearly 90,000 light years away. We know that there is only one traveler up in orbit – and they were lucky with that one. There can’t be many more near the Feather Constellation. Most of the Dessite travelers are in this quintile of the galaxy.” Arcan clouded over. “I am the orthogel entity; the Enarans can do nothing to me. I cannot feel that they will persist in this madness. There are not so many quantum entities in the whole galaxy that we can afford to put them at risk. We should all be working together, not causing ruptures. I have to go and try to make them see sense. Their position may not be set in stone. They have had time to get acclimatized to Enara now, have had time to think about everything. Surely they must realize that things have changed during the time they were stopped light, that the universe has moved on?”