A Bloom in the North Read online

  "You don't," Keshul said. "But I wouldn't; I have never betrayed the truedark kingdom to him, despite having known many dissidents in het Kabbanil including..." He looked at Hesa, "a dark-haired male in the silks of House Laisira wearing House Laisira's token. A male who took my message to Thenet about Roika's departure for the harbor at the end of the eastern road."

  Hesa whispered, "That was you?"

  "That was me," Keshul said. "But if you won't believe that, ke Pathen, believe this: I put the emperor on that ship. By the time it returns, anything you might have revealed to me will be old enough news to be useless." He smiled. "That is, if you're at all planning to succeed at whatever you're going to wreak. So. Can we talk?"

  I hesitated, then gave him back a taste of his own humor. "Since you've spent such effort to come all this way, I suppose I should."

  Keshul laughed and sat alongside the fire. Cautiously I joined him and looked up at Hesa.

  "If it would not be an imposition," Dekashin said. "It would be a great pleasure to speak with another eperu."

  Hesa flexed its fingers at its side. From where I sat I had a view up the hard edge of its thigh and hip to the yellow swath of light against its jaw, held clenched. I said, quiet, "Hesa. I think we are among friends."

  "Ke emodo," Hesa said.

  I set a hand on its wrist, startling it. "Remember what I promised."

  And it did—me between it and anyone coming to take it... take us. It breathed out and smiled at me, then glanced uncertainly toward Dekashin and picked its way around the fire to the other eperu's side.

  Keshul watched it go and said, "You found a fine partner there."

  "Do you think?" I asked, ears flicking back.

  He glanced at me then laughed. "You still aren't sure what to think of someone asking you questions like that, do you. Am I mocking you? Am I insinuating something about your perverse tastes? Am I making notes to use against you?" He huffed softly. "I know, ke Pathen. You're not the only one who loves inappropriately."

  I studied him in the firelight. It gleamed on his skin, but the yellows and reds seemed to fade against the glowing white. The shadows it made, though, pooled in a deep gouge near his heart and another at his shoulder. There was a pearl tied at his throat, one I almost didn’t notice against his skin.

  "Not what you expected?" he guessed.

  "Not of the emperor's lover," I said. "If you were, if that wasn't rumor."

  Keshul sighed, resting his wrists on his knees. "And if I told you I was?"

  I considered his profile. "Then I'd say it probably wasn't a... healthy... relationship."

  Keshul snorted. "Wasn't healthy. How accurate." He cocked his head, looking up at me. "You're not what I expected either of a former Claw turned rebel."

  "And what did you expect?" I asked.

  "Someone harsh and without charm," Keshul said. "Someone brutalized by the violence of the empire to the point of no longer having any sensitivity to... anything. But I don't see that in you. I don't even see offense at my attitude, which most Claws would have shown. The lover of the emperor shouldn't be... "

  "Sarcastic?" I offered.

  "Insouciant," he said, amused. "But it doesn't offend you. Do you like insolence, then?"

  "I hate fear," I answered without thinking.

  "Ah!" Keshul said. And then quieter, "Ah." He smiled to himself more than to me and said, "So, ke emodo. What's your plan?"

  "The goal is to create a web of support for this Thenet to use when it returns to overthrow the Stone Moon," I said. "As to the particulars... I seem to be feeling my way through them."

  "Take it as it comes, is that it?" Keshul said.

  "Something like that," I murmured. I looked over at him. "Am I passing your test?"

  "So far I have decided not to call the wrath of the Void down to turn you into an ice statue," Keshul said with a grin.

  "A rather fanciful threat," I said.

  Keshul touched the gouge on his chest. "Gods, I hope so." He shook himself. "Tell me, then, what you've done since you've defected."

  And... I did. It was easy to talk to him; I would have thought that the avatar of a god would be a distressing confidant, particularly one who really was as uncanny as Keshul's rumors had reported. But he was a good listener and I sensed that he had sympathy for my plight. And perhaps he did. I had only known the Fire in the Void as Roika's lover and councilor, and yet I was facing someone who'd admitted to a perverse love not just for an eperu but an anadi as well, someone who'd fought the empire to the last blow before leaving for het Kabbanil. His experiences and mine might be very different in the details, but our ambivalence about our roles in the Stone Moon and our need to escape them—in that we were kin.

  When I had finished, Keshul considered my words in silence. We watched the fire snap against the sky like a flag in the wind.

  "Do you really think you can do this?" Keshul said. "Foster a bloodless revolution? Keep all the good of the empire while paring away the bad?"

  I said, quiet, "Someone must, ke emodo... if not me, then who?"

  Keshul started, then laughed, and there was something in it I couldn't define. It was very much an oracle's laugh and I found it unsettling, wondering what it was he saw. "I have heard such words before. They have the power to change the World, ke Pathen."

  "I so hope," I said. "You won't come back to us to het Narel...? You are still the emperor's minister..."

  "I am, and I'm sure I would be welcomed," Keshul said. "But I won't live without Dekashin and Bilil. The empire tore them from me once and that... that was already one time too many." He flexed his fingers on his knees and said, "No, I won't come back until what we are is no longer a crime. And I have a duty to await Roika at the harbor: the god wants that of me, to see what I began to its end."

  "Does... He really speak to you?" I asked.

  "Not often, for which I am deeply grateful," Keshul said. "But when He does, it can't be mistaken."

  "Then," I said, "I'll see you again. When this is over, and it will be, must be over soon. When that ship returns..."

  "Then we will see," Keshul agreed. "But I have hopes now." He stood, brushing off his pants. I noted that the soil clung to them but not to his tail or feet. "I am glad we met, ke Pathen."

  "Just... Pathen," I said, standing, and offered a hand.

  Keshul took it with nimble fingers, but cold. "Then… Pathen. I'm just Keshul. And you're right. We will meet again when Ke Bakil has its resolution."

  "Gods willing," I said.

  "That's what I'm here for," he said with a grin. Turning, he called, "I've decided not to blast him with lightnings!"

  "Good," Dekashin called back, "because I'm not in the mood to clean up the pieces."

  "Are you keeping him, master?" Bilil asked in her sweet voice, one that held a touch of mischief.

  "He'll do," Keshul said, joining them and climbing back into the saddle. To Abadil, he said, "You hear that? I see and approve." And grinned, all coarse fangs.

  "I'm glad," Abadil said. "Go with care, ke emodo."

  "Have a drink for me," Keshul said.

  "Fifty-coin, if I can find it," Abadil answered, smiling now too.

  Dekashin, taking up the reins of Bilil's mount, said to Hesa, "Remember what I've said."

  "I will," it answered, sober.

  "Until we meet at the end of the road," Keshul said. "All luck to you, Pathen. Oh, and Pathen... catch."

  It was a pouch he threw me, a light one. As I caught it, Keshul said with a grin, "In case you ever need proof of my affection."

  "The affection of an avatar of the Void," I said. "Gods help me."

  "Exactly," he said with a laugh. As he turned his rikka to the north, he called over his shoulder, "My friends, you have a little over a year. Use it well."

  And then they were off. The three of us stood beside the firebowl, watching them recede: the two on the beasts, the eperu between them... their ease with one another, the distant murmur of their conversatio
n, Bilil's laughter, Keshul's. An oracle, a seer and their guardian. That such a thing could exist on Ke Bakil...

  "I hope you're not too angry with me, "Abadil said at last.

  "No," I answered. "But let's get home before Darsi worries."

  At home, walking back from the stable, Hesa said, "You haven't asked."

  I folded my hands behind my back, pacing it through the fire-lit courtyard. "About your conversation with the avatar's guardian?"

  "Yes," it said, stopping at the threshold of the House.

  I opened the door for it and said, "If you'd wanted to tell me, you would have."

  The eperu paused, meeting my eyes. And then thanked me with its smile before passing inside.

  The following morning I received Eduñil on a patio that had been made agreeable for entertaining rather hastily. It extended from the back of the House and faced what I assumed would have been the gardens, but was now barren earth. I noted Kuli's interest, however, by the fact that the soil had been turned; she had no doubt recruited some eperu to prepare the plot for whatever she planned.

  "I hope," Eduñil said once we had a pot of hot broth and a plate of dumplings to pick at, "that I am not here because our eccentric hasn't worked well for your House."

  "Kuli?" I said. "Oh, no. She's fine." I chuckled. "More than fine. I'd be surprised if there was a single person in the House who doesn't like her. So much so that it seems remarkable to me she hasn't had that effect on House Rabeil's people."

  "She does," Eduñil said. "But she goes back to the residence every few months so that someone else can have a turn outside it."

  "Does she," I murmured.

  "An extraordinary individual," Eduñil said. "I would hate for her to waste her life, unseen."

  I glanced at him. "Are you allowed to speak such thoughts, ke Eduñil?"

  "I don't know," Eduñil said. "I am in House Asara. Am I?"

  I rested my skewer on the side of my plate. "Perhaps you might have some insight for me, ke emodo. Given that you seem so aware of the... nuances of such permissions."

  "Go on?"

  "Would House Rabeil be willing to extend to House Asara the same arrangement that allows the anadi to visit for a period before returning to the residence?" I said.

  Eduñil speared himself another dumpling. "Does House Asara not want a specific individual, then?" he said after a moment.

  "House Asara's emodo wanted to choose one of the anadi they served last week," I said. "But did not know their names."

  He looked up at my sharply. "They asked you?"

  "Yes," I said. "They knew we were only due three but they wanted the ones they'd met before."

  Eduñil set his skewer down then, facing the opposite direction mine was. He folded his hands together at his brow and rested his head against them.

  "Does this trouble you?" I said. "Or really even surprise you?"

  "The purpose of the anadi residence is to prevent the emodo from forming attachments to the anadi," Eduñil said without raising his head.

  "And to the extent that it does so, it serves its builders' purpose," I said.

  "The Jokka's purpose," Eduñil said.

  "Its builders' purpose," I repeated. "Not the Jokka's. Unless you wish to live in a society where all three sexes live apart and think of each other as lesser beings. Do you?"

  "Of course not," Eduñil said. "But I don't see how encouraging fraternization can lead to anything but suffering."

  "Is that why you keep an anadi friend of your own?" I asked. "And why you permit the rotation of anadi into House Rabeil out of the residence?"

  He grimaced, looking away.

  "Ke Eduñil... don't you want to live among emodo who treat other Jokka with compassion and respect?" I said.

  "Of course," he said. "But we live beneath the Stone Moon, ke Pathen—"

  "—and the emperor is gone, and will be for some time," I said. "Thesenet seems less interested in the letter of the law and more in the prosperity and contentment of the het."

  "You are suggesting we push because we might not be reprimanded?" Eduñil said. "But what if we are?"

  "Then we make the appropriate noises, pay the fines and do as we're told," I said.

  "And if the fine is your life?" Eduñil said. "If the fine is your punishment on the platform?"

  "I'll take that chance to give the anadi an opportunity to breathe the air above their caverns and see the sun on autumn leaves. Wouldn't you?" When he didn't answer, I said, quieter, "Of course you would. You already made that choice when House Rabeil began its practice."

  "It's safer for Rabeil," Eduñil muttered. "Everyone assumes we have cause."

  "If you fear what Thesenet will say," I said, "ask him first. But if you do, you will be ceding to him the power the empire gave to House Rabeil to manage the anadi in het Narel. Are you truly the ones entrusted with that power? Or are your decisions to be subject forever to the minister's whims?"

  "You say that as if we ever had that power," Eduñil said.

  "You may not have in the past," I said. "But if there is a time to assert yourself, now would be that time. Then you get two things you want, ke emodo: more power for your House... and more of a life for the anadi for whom you stand guardian."

  That affected him, from the suddenness of his look.

  "Consider it," I said.

  Eduñil sighed. "You make compelling arguments, ke emodo. And I really want to believe there is room for change in the empire."

  "There are a lot more citizens in het Narel than there are Claws," I said, spearing myself a fresh dumpling.

  After he'd left, Kuli found me still sitting at the table, and from how quickly she did it she'd been waiting.

  "You were listening?" I said.

  "Maybe a little," she admitted, flushing white at the ears. "You don't mind?"

  "Not when the talk is about your proposal," I said.

  She perched on the chair Eduñil had vacated. Someone had braided her hair into multiple plaits with long leather cords and brown vines. Perhaps in spring they would use flowers? I looked forward to it. "Do you think he'll do it?"

  "He will," I said. "But he'll need some time to convince himself of it."

  "We can wait," Kuli murmured. "We're good at waiting."

  I watched her face, her eyes glowing from beneath her lowered lashes as she ran her finger over the honey on Eduñil's discarded dessert plate. "Who turned the garden soil for you? And what are you planning?"

  She brightened and began to explain, and I listened with pleasure to her animation, her enthusiasm. Gods, what a sin we committed by acting as if the anadi were lost to us before the mind-death took them. We thought to avoid heartache by hiding them from sight but all we did was transfer the pain from ourselves to them. Very convenient for us.

  The matter of childbearing remained, but there had to be some way to manage it. That I could not imagine it now, observing Kuli's excitement and how it lit her eyes, did not mean it didn't exist.

  When Darsi and I arrived the following evening at the cheldzan the conversation in the room drifted to a halt. As we paused in the center of the room, the Head of House Dzeri stepped forth and said, "Ke Pathen. We would be pleased to invite House Asara to the Leaf Gathering at the end of autumn."

  I had heard a little of this fete from Abadil; that it was important, that only the noteworthy Houses of the het attended... and that new Houses had to be invited by those already chosen, or they would be turned away at the door.

  "House Asara would be honored to attend," I said.

  "Then we offer the leaf," the Head said, and held it up for everyone in the cheldzan to see, and it was indeed a leaf... falcate and traced with the suggestion of veins, but made of metal, bright silver metal like the knives of the empire. It had been threaded with white ribbon at the base and the year had been stamped on it. As I reached to take it, the Head said, "For display, ke emodo. In your storefront, when you have one."

  "I suppose I'll have to rent one then
," I said.

  The Head of Dzeri—whose House managed property throughout the het—grinned. "Yes, do. Come to me, will you?"

  I laughed. "I will." And took the leaf from him to the satisfaction of all those watching. My acceptance signaled the end of the excitement; they returned to their conversations, leaving me to find a drink with Darsi, to whom I gave the leaf. I was surprised to find Thesenet seated in the back, hands cupped around a hot cup of broth.

  "You know you'll have no end to trouble now," he said when I paused by his table.

  "Why's that?" I said, sitting across from him.

  "The Leaf Gathering predates the empire's arrival," Thesenet said. "We've let it continue because of our policy on local celebrations." He paused to see if I understood and I dipped my head. It wasn't Roika's way to take such things from the populace. Thesenet continued. "So I've observed the custom for the years I've been here, and I've never seen the leaf go to such a new House, especially one without a storefront. It's the het's way of indicating prestige, not power." He sipped his broth and then finished, "There will be people who dislike you receiving it."

  "The upstart House that hasn't yet made a single coin, is that it?" I said.

  "Just so," Thesenet said. He glanced at me. "You don't seem worried."

  "You are asking me to fear crime under the Stone Moon," I said.

  "To be punished, criminals have to be caught," Thesenet murmured.

  I leaned toward him. "Are you admitting something to me, Minister?"

  "No more than you already knew," Thesenet said. "You were a Claw, ke Pathen. How many criminals do you suspect went unpunished?"

  I said, "Very few, ke emodo. Very few."

  "It only takes one," Thesenet said.

  I stared at him.

  "Just a warning, ke emodo," Thesenet murmured.

  "Thank you for it," I said. "I'll keep watch." I stood, then added, "Minister?"

  "Ke emodo?"

  "If someone were to be caught in the act on my property," I said, "and perhaps an over-zealous guard made them incapable of standing formal trial..."

  "A pity," Thesenet said. "Dead Jokka not being capable of answering questions."