Family Page 5

  "And also because I really shouldn't be going," Juzie agreed.

  "So... you're... going somewhere you shouldn't, with someone you shouldn't be with, and no one saw you leave," Vasiht'h said.

  "Yes," the girl said, pleased. "I think it's a fine adventure. Cousin Sediryl was just telling me that it's customary for people who are about to get married to do one wild thing before they settle down. It's called a bachelorette event."

  Vasiht'h's body started shaking. He wasn't sure if it was laughter or some kind of mental breakdown. When he had control over himself again, he said to Sediryl, "You really are a bad influence."

  "If my entire society is going to condemn me as a fallen woman for a single mistake," Sediryl said, "I might as well revel in the role." She grinned. "So, want to go buy some candy?"

  "Oh yes, please!" the girl said. "Come with us? I've never seen a real outworlder before! You're so pretty!"

  Vasiht'h laughed, maybe with a little more exhaustion than he liked. But at least he was laughing. "Sure. I'd like to see what Eldritch candy is like."

  "Excellent," Sediryl said. "Off we go, then."

  "Can you fly?" Juzie asked eagerly. "The wings, do they work? Why do you have feathers for ears? How do you sleep? Can you run faster than a horse?"

  "Slow down!" Vasiht'h said, holding up his hands. "One question at a time!"

  The girl bounced on her pony. "Are you a girl Glaseah or a boy? I can't tell."

  At Vasiht'h's expression, Sediryl laughed. "It's going to be an interesting walk."

  It was, in fact, an interesting walk. Juzie's questions were born of an unquenchable enthusiasm; remembering Jeasa's intention to infect the groom with interest in the outworld, Vasiht'h couldn't help but think the plan had a good chance of success. There was not a drop of contempt in Juzie, who was fascinated by him and insatiably curious. He answered all the questions he could as they walked down the dusty road, on matters ranging from anatomy to culture to language. The girl was smart as well as good-natured, and he enjoyed her company.

  She did eventually run out of questions, however... either that, or she needed time to assimilate his answers. Probably the latter, knowing children; in his experience, any pause in questioning was just that: a pause. As the girl rode her pony beneath the leaf-shaped shadows, Vasiht'h dropped back to look around. The forest on either side of the road was without underbrush, unlike the woods where he was from which were more like jungles. His inefficient ears did not bring him much more than the sound of the pony's hooves and the wind through the boughs, but his more sensitive nose whispered glad intimations of spring, new flowers, piquant and unknown to him.

  "Pretty world, isn't it?" Sediryl said, joining him. "A pity it's full of Eldritch."

  Startled, Vasiht'h burst out laughing and covered his mouth, appalled.

  Sediryl chuckled, twirling her parasol again. "Oh, don't bother. They're horrid, we both know it."

  "So why did you come, if you hate them so much?" Vasiht'h asked, glancing up at her.

  "I don't hate all of them," Sediryl said. "Just almost all of them. And I came to remind myself of why I left." She grinned without humor. "It took a few minutes of being in their company. I could leave now."

  "But you haven't," Vasiht'h said.

  "Well... no." She smiled a little, lowering her brilliant, cutting eyes, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. "I have my reasons."

  Vasiht'h began to wonder how many of those reasons had to do with his partner. Either that, he thought ruefully, or Sediryl was nourishing thoughts of disrupting the wedding in some cataclysmic fashion. "Jahir tells me you live off-world?"

  "On a starbase," she said, recovering her more glib manner. "Did he tell you about my lover, then?"

  "Ah..."

  "I had one," she said. "You know, perfectly scandalous." She leaned toward him, eyes wide. "I'm not a virgin anymore."

  "I suppose that's important here?" Vasiht'h proffered.

  She laughed. "Oh, poor Glaseah. And you're attached at the hip to Jahir? You have no idea what you're in for. Procreation here, lines of descent, purity of bloodline... all very important. Of paramount importance." She grinned again, like a hunting animal. "He hasn't been teaching you the language, I assume, what with the Veil."

  "Right," Vasiht'h said.

  "Then I'll teach you your first profanity," Sediryl said with relish. "Repeat after me: elorim."

  "ELORIM," Juzie shouted.

  "Hush you," Sediryl called. "Listen all you want, but never admit to eavesdropping on the conversation of your elders. That'll make them stop talking around you."

  "Yes, cousin," Juzie said with a giggle.

  "And what... exactly... does elorim mean?" Vasiht'h asked, cautious.

  "It's what we call someone so inbred he's a danger to everyone around him," Sediryl said. "If you want, you can also call someone a linith—that's a bastard, and nearly as bad. People have died in duels over being called those names." Her smile relaxed. "So I lost my virginity to a human, who didn't marry me, and this makes me used goods. And then I took a woman lover, and that was just as bad—one does not dally with one's sex here, you understand. Very, very bad. And now I am unrepentantly living on my own in alien space, something scandalous enough for a man, but absolutely unheard of in a woman. I will never fit back into Eldritch society. Your partner... he'll come back and be head of the Seni Galare one day, as heir; not even having you for a companion will save him from that, given his breeding. But there will never be a place again for me here. So I come back. To remember that I don't miss it."

  "Do you?" Vasiht'h asked.

  With unwonted gravity, Sediryl said, "No." And with a sigh. "No. You'll see soon enough."

  That seemed ominous. Vasiht'h was debating whether to ask for details when the girl cried out, "We made it!"

  The forest petered out on either side of the road, leaving it to wander down through... what could charitably be called a shanty town. He counted twenty ramshackle buildings and a few hovels bordering the road, and the air of decrepitude and disrepair was shocking.

  "What is that?" Vasiht'h asked.

  "That is the town nearest to the Galare manor," Sediryl said, stopping beside him. Before them, Juzie had urged her pony into a canter down into the commons.

  "This is a town?" Vasiht'h asked, mouth agape and feathered ears splayed.

  "This is a big town," Sediryl corrected. "There are a few more down the road, but there will only be a handful of people left in them."

  "But what happened?" Vasiht'h asked, turning to her.

  "Elorim," Sediryl said. "Generations and generations of people turning up their noses at hard work, decent people and the help of the outworlders... or even their neighbors. Generations of people elevated to the nobility so they wouldn't have to lift a finger to do anything more difficult than call for another cup of wine, or plan another party." She lifted her head, pointing toward the commons with her chin. "When too many things break here, the inhabitants will move down the road to the next place where things still work. They say the town 'died'. Because no one knows how to maintain anything anymore."

  "But... the estate... the beautiful house..."

  "Look at it more closely when you get back," Sediryl said. "Everything there is old, Vasiht'h-alet. It's old because no one knows how to make things like that anymore. Or to repair them when they start to fail. All those gorgeous tapestries, the woodwork, the jewelry, the instruments... all of it a dwindling or lost art." She smiled lopsidedly. "We're lucky the house servants remember how to keep gardens and kill chickens, or there'd be no food, and in a few decades, no Eldritch at all."

  Vasiht'h's haunches gave out, dropping him to a seat in the dust. "Then this wedding..."

  "...is one of my house's attempts at helping revive an interest in the outworld, in the hopes that maybe one day we'll let you people in to fix things before it's too late."

  "And that's why I'm here," Vasiht'h said, heart beating too fast. "Because I represent a
chance for survival."

  "One that my aunt couldn't help but reach out to, despite knowing how much it would offend the groom's family," Sediryl said, resting the point of her parasol on the ground and leaning forward on the handle. "She doesn't have the patience the Queen does." She made a face. "Though Liolesa's playing a game so long we might all be dead before it comes to fruition. I wish she'd just DO something."

  "Jahir's mother said just doing something might inspire a civil war," Vasiht'h said, still shocked.

  "Yes," Sediryl said. "But a civil war might get rid of all the dead weight." She grinned, with teeth. "Bring in some of the Alliance's racial genetic engineers and the rest of us will take care of the future."

  "Goddess," Vasiht'h whispered, feeling cold all over. "What have I gotten involved in?"

  "Nothing less than the life or death struggle of an entire race," Sediryl said, lifting her parasol back to her shoulder. "Exciting isn't it?"

  Vasiht'h stared at her, horrified. She met his expression with a grin and said, "The candy awaits." And strolled down the road after Juzie.

  Vasiht'h did not enter the dilapidated building where Juzie and Sediryl were buying their sweets. He had initially feared the possibility of being seen, but there was no one on the street, and when he glanced at the windows, most of them had drawn curtains, or looked like dark sockets in the skulls of their facades, without anyone behind them to give them life.

  He found it ironic that standing in the middle of a nearly empty town, he felt more painfully exposed than he had in a room full of sneering Eldritch. Exposed... and somehow endangered. He rubbed his arms against the grain of the fur, trying to generate some warmth to counter the chill in his joints, one he knew very well had nothing to do with the weather.

  Not long after, Sediryl exited the building with the girl at her heels. Both of them had little bags, and the girl was sucking on some kind of golden ball.

  "Want some?" Juzie said, offering a piece to Vasiht'h.

  "It's pynade," Sediryl added. "Nuts, honey and spices."

  "No thank you," Vasiht'h said mechanically. "Hard candy hurts my teeth."

  Sediryl took Juzie's bag as the girl pulled herself back onto her pony's back. "I see... only the softest cakes for our alien, eh?" Before Vasiht'h could answer, she handed him a little candy shaped like a swan. "Here. Eldritch marzipan. It's chewy, not hard."

  "Thank you," Vasiht'h said, and followed the two of them back up the road. He glanced over his shoulder at the town, then nibbled on the swan. He was hungry. It seemed like hours since they'd left, though he had no idea how to tell the local time. The light was different... his shadow longer. He frowned at it as it rippled over the uneven road. "Are we going to be back in time?"

  "We'll be fine," Sediryl said, biting off the head of her marzipan swan.

  There didn't seem any argument with that. The candy kept Juzie occupied, and Sediryl had no more poisonous (or terrifying) commentary to share, so Vasiht'h kept pace with the pony, accepted a sugared leaf or nut from Sediryl when the woman offered one, and tried to work through his feelings... entirely without success. He thought about tapping the mindline, but he was beginning to feel guilt for abandoning Jahir and then going quiet on him. He didn't look forward to making explanations for his unusual behavior. Their clients often assumed he was the passionate one of the pair because in the Alliance the Eldritch had a reputation for taciturnity and isolation, but it was Jahir who was all fire and air, to Vasiht'h's more dependable, more stolid earth and water.

  Or at least, his usually more dependable, more stolid earth and water.

  Surely, though, he could be excused for having a fit when confronted with the possible extinction of an entire race. One that hated him. He sighed and licked sugar off his fingertips, and tried to concentrate on the feel of the breeze on his back and the smell of flowers in his nose. If the world was going topsy-turvy, at least it was beautiful.

  Perhaps Sediryl was reading his mind, for she murmured, looking around, "Oh, the things I could do with this place if given the chance. Lying so fallow, completely undeveloped..." At his look, she said, "I'm a botanist."

  "A... a botanist?" Vasiht'h asked, startled.

  "Of course," she said. "Normal people have jobs." She smiled lopsidedly. "I love my job. One of the other reasons I don't live here. Women's job opportunities here are limited to 'menial', 'lady's maid' and 'broodmare'. If you can't get 'queen,' that is."

  "A botanist," Vasiht'h repeated, trying to imagine a farmer's jumpsuit on the urbane, lithe young woman pacing him in her russet-colored gown with its pounds of ribbon and silk trim and gossamer undergown and... goddess only knew what other absurdities were required to keep such vast dresses afloat.

  Sediryl grinned at him slyly over her latest marzipan fancy, some kind of leaping fish, and nipped off its fin. And suddenly he could see it: ears of wheat braided into her hair and dirt smudged on her pale cheeks.

  "I want to have a job one day," Juzie said.

  "Maybe you will, cousin," Sediryl said lazily. "You've got a long life ahead of you."

  "And I won't let my husband stop me," Juzie said, lifting her chin. "I'm a Galare. I've got royal blood."

  "Just so, sweetings," Sediryl said with a grin.

  The poor boy, Vasiht'h thought. He hardly knew what he was in for. Vasiht'h had some sympathy there.

  It was late afternoon when they finally gained the path to the manor, but neither Juzie nor Sediryl seemed worried, so Vasiht'h kept close to them and hoped their little indiscretion had gone unnoticed. He'd go inside and scrub the dust off his feet and belly and meet Jahir in time for the ceremony and all would be, if not well, then at least as close to normal as could be hoped for. As they walked toward the house, Vasiht'h glanced to either side, into the gardens and toward the fountains, hoping not to be seen.

  By the time they'd gotten most of the way down the path, Vasiht'h was beginning to be concerned that there was no one to see them.

  "Where is everyone?" he said to Sediryl.

  "Oh, inside preparing, no doubt," Sediryl said. She motioned to her bodice. "Do you know how long it takes Eldritch to dress in these get-ups? It requires servants. And that's nothing to the hair. Braiding a dragon's hoard onto your head takes time. Plus, no showers, you know. Baths are leisurely affairs."

  "Right," Vasiht'h said, his shoulders relaxing a little.

  And then they broke from the path and the doors to the manor spilled a river of Eldritch... onto the steps, onto the packed earth before them, more and more of them until Vasiht'h backed away and almost into the pony, which responded with a bored sidestep.

  At the top of the stairs, nearest the door, were Jahir and his mother... and the groom's mother, and a man Vasiht'h assumed to be his father, and an array of relatives with similar faces. The expressions on those faces were not heartening.

  /Um, Jahir?/ Vasiht'h managed weakly. /Am I in trouble?/

  Jahir's face was a mask, but a sense of resignation seeped into the mindline as it opened more fully, bringing with it foreboding, like the scent of rotting fruit. /Let me guess. My cousin's idea./

  /Yesssss.../

  "What is this!" the groom's mother hissed, the translation throwing off red flashes of light in the mindline. "What have you done! The bride is supposed to remain in the company of family before the wedding!"

  "I am family," Sediryl said dryly, the words almost a drawl when translated.

  "That woman is an inappropriate role model!" the woman exclaimed. "She is a—"

  "—watch your next word carefully, madam," Jahir said, all cold steel.

  "—a woman of uncertain morals!" the woman finished.

  "But still family," Sediryl said cheerily, twirling her parasol again.

  "She is correct," Jeasa said, voice quiet. "One can fault her for her morals, Carisil, but no rule was broken. Juzie was with family."

  "THAT," the woman said, pointing at Vasiht'h. "is NOT family. That is an alien. Lady knows what ideas it has put i
n the bride's head."

  "She has no idea who the dangerous one is here," Sediryl said sotto voce, in Universal, to Vasiht'h.

  "This is not funny!" Vasiht'h whispered back, all his fur on end.

  "Well?" Carisil asked, with a note of triumph in her voice that Vasiht'h could hear even without the translation. "I am correct, am I not? You have permitted someone into the bride's presence who is not family before the ceremony."

  "The outworlder guest is extended the courtesies of the family they're visiting," Jeasa began, her voice colored all over with dismay.

  "—but that doesn't make them true family!" the groom's mother said.

  "No," Sediryl said, interrupting them. "But there is a way for outworlders to be made true-family."

  Complete silence. Everyone stared at her. She smiled, eyes half-lidded, and rested the parasol on her shoulder.

  "Sediryl?" Jeasa said. "You speak truly?"

  "Jisiensire was not only the first to host an outworlder," Sediryl said. "She was also the first House to welcome an outworlder into their ranks. A ritual was created especially for that purpose. It can be done."

  "And do you know how it may be done?" Jeasa asked.

  "I do," Sediryl said smugly.

  Another long pause. One by one, the Eldritch's gazes moved to Vasiht'h, who tried not to tremble under their pressure. The mindline remained quiet in the aftermath of the colored translations, leaving him alone to make his choice. He lifted his head and said, very clearly, "Tell them I'll do it. Right now."

  Sediryl grinned at him and obliged, and the crowd erupted into noise: objections, speculation, cheers, confusion. Amid it all, someone came for Juzie and Sediryl shepherded Vasiht'h up the steps to where Jeasa was standing beside the groom's mother.

  "We will want to witness," Carisil said stiffly.

  "Of course," Sediryl said. "The ceremony requires it." And with a motion, whisked them all into the hall before the throng could follow.

  To Sediryl as they strode on, Jeasa said, "You know what you're doing, I hope, my niece."