Contrarywise

seared her heart like a blast of light from the noonday sun. Gathering her courage, Kelandris tried to meet his gaze once more, but she found she couldn't. Tears wet her cheeks. Zendrak watched Kelandris in silence, his expression patient. He had waited sixteen years for this day; he could wait a little longer. Zendrak fingered the Kindrasul thoughtfully. Kelandris must have sensed his personal, emotional «door» on the glass when she had first found them and smelled his psychic scent on them as clearly as Zendrak had smelled hers this morning. It was the nature of obsidian from Soaringsea to retain such an impression, regardless of time elapsed. The intense draw from the volcanoes of these northern isles marked everything with an indelible clarity of emotion. Like the igneous rock that spewed out of Soaringsea's lava cones, emotions rose in a Mythrrim from the innermost depths of its being: straight from the core. To a Mythrrim, the emotions of two-legged society seemed muddled and lacking in the crystalline purity of the black glass Zendrak and Kelandris now held in their hands. Zendrak's eyes softened as he looked at Kelandris with renewed respect. A Mythrrim could starve to death on the emotional diet of most two-leggeds. It was a wonder that Kelandris had not. Zendrak took a deep breath and refrained from his desire to take Kelandris in his arms and simply hold her. Although Zendrak was certain that every cell in Kel's body ached for the company and kinship only a Mythrrim could offer her, he also recognized that Kelandris was only temporarily sane. When they let go of the Kindrasul, Kel would be faced with a choice: sanity or madness. Still, thought Zendrak, there was something he could do to help Kelandris. If she would permit him to do so, he could clear away some of the rubble of her two-legged life in Suxonli. Zendrak eased himself off Kel's body. Kneeling beside her now, one hand on her neck and the other still clasping the Kindrasul under Kel's fingers, he drew from his Mayanabi training and reached inside her mind again. Kelandris stiffened, her eyes wary. Zendrak smiled at Kelandris reassuringly, flooding the Kindrasul with peace. Kelandris remained tense, but she did not fight Zendrak as she had done before. Zendrak modulated his breath to match her own and touched Kel's psyche with the skill of the Mayanabi Master that he was. Carefully, cautiously, Zendrak weakened the last of Kel's two-legged ties—what few were left her after the Ritual of Akindo—and strengthened her Mythrrim ones. This was a dangerous psychic surgery, especially if Kelandris refused his help later on—choosing madness over sanity—thereby isolating herself from not only her societal roots but her animal ones as well. Very dangerous, he thought, continuing with the process. Forcing himself to ignore the nervous twinge of his stomach, Zendrak impressed Kel's mind with the wisdom of Mythrrim laws of kinship. Such laws were more ancient and more gracious than any the two-leggeds had yet evolved. Zendrak cut deeper, and Kelandris began to feel very lightheaded. Zendrak spoke quietly to Kel, telling her Mythrrim stories of the Greatkin and the Presence. Kel's body slowly relaxed. Zendrak freed her psyche further. By leaving Kelandris only her Mythrrim heritage to consult, Zendrak hoped to sidestep the laws of Suxonli. If he could literally undercut the potency and legitimacy of Suxonli's Blood Day Rule in Kel's mind, he might be able to minimize Yonneth's damage. Also, by offering Kelandris a taste of ancient Mythrrim loyalty, Zendrak hoped to expose Yonneth's «brotherly love» for the sham that it actually was. Zendrak frowned. Sundering Kelandris from her Tammirring culture would make her utterly dependent on him for a while. After all, other than Kelandris, he was the only Mythrrim walking around in two-legged form at present. Zendrak swallowed. He knew he could handle it. But could she? What if Kelandris perceived such dependence as a threat to her survival? Risky, he thought, considering Kel's current mental instability. Still, Kelandris was his sister—and the child of two Greatkin. Furthermore, she was just plain willful, defiant, and dogged. In short, utterly creative and contrary. Good often came from such traits. He took a deep breath. But so did bad. There was no guarantee this psychic surgery would work. The entire operation rested on the folly of a calculated risk. Worse, the calculated risk banked on a trust engendered by a dimly recalled past love. Zendrak rolled his eyes, preparing to commit himself to Love's Keeping. Zendrak watched Kelandris play with the Kindrasul nervously. Her movements were jerky and her green eyes only marginally lucid. Here goes, he thought without enthusiasm. Then, pressing his fingers into the back of Kel's neck, Zendrak eased the last thread of two- legged morality away from her heart and soul. Closing his eyes, he poured a hundred thousand years of Mythrrim civilization into Kel's psyche. Kelandris shuddered. She started to fight Zendrak but stopped when he triggered her memory of a certain forest glen in Suxonli. Kelandris blinked, her expression disoriented. Time rolled backwards. Chapter Thirty-One Costumes and torchlight! Shrieks and laughing fury! The season was late autumn. Kelandris was seventeen, and the place was Suxonli. This evening, as had been the custom for centuries, the villagers of this small mountain community celebrated the Trickster's Hallows. They called it Rimble's Revel. This was Carnivale and Mardi Gras. This was Trickster's Treat. And an ancient Remembrance. So sing it: ah ya, Rimble! Come, Trickster, come! Be yet again! But beware his back door ways, the thrall of his disrespect! Beware the color of his striped coat, the prick of his maddening sting! Sing it, Yellow-Jacket Yellow! The Wasp flies abroad tonight! Tonight villagers donned masks and honored all unknowns. They must. Tonight the costumed beggar at the door or the nodding hag at the hearth might be Trickster himself come to merry-prank you. Tonight anything could happen. And while the rest of the world prepared for sleep, all Suxonli stirred. Witness a streaming, screaming time! Doors slammed as two hundred villagers swarmed from their mountain homes, the children leading. This was an instinctive exodus, choreographed by the generational hive-mind of Revels past. Here was a clarion call sounded by history and answered in full by the dancing, prancing men and women of Suxonli. Here gathered the Wasp Queen's hive, each member Rimblessah—Trickster blessed and Trickster drunk with wild abandon. The curious and the hedonistic travelled for miles around to join in the ecstatic revelry of Suxonli's wild festival. Strangers smiled at each other under homemade masks of terror. All were eagerly included in the rapacious clowning of this host village. No one was safe from Trickster's Touch tonight. And that was the way everyone wanted it—particularly young Kelandris. Dressed as a hermaphrodite, Kel wore Rimble's yellow and black. Tonight she'd lose her maidenhead to a costumed villager—like every Wasp Queen had done before her. If she conceived, the crops would flourish in the following year. If she didn't, no one would begrudge her a good time. Tonight was sorrow's banishment and joy's release. Voices! Louder! Change or be changed! Dance high, dance hard with the shriekers in the street! Sporting exaggerated breasts, a striped penis sheath standing erect between her legs, Kelandris led the Hive into the village square. Lips buzzed, children laughed. Now the five elderly members of the village council processed. Advancing slowly toward this year's Revel Queen, they carried a large straw wasp on their shoulders. Kelandris pointed to the effigy. She laughed maniacally—as per ritual instruction. Then the Wasp Queen chanted, her young voice piercing the crowd's clamor: Bugaboo you, you old Stingaroo! Sing Rimsah, ya Rimble, Nothing's taboo! On cue, the crowd erupted into giggles and wild hilarity. Tonight Trickster was theirs. Pulled from the Fertile Dark into the revel torchlight, Greatkin Rimble was no longer a thing of terror or reverence. Tonight Trickster was ripped off his Greatkin pedestal, and his form made disposable. He was the Changeable One. Tonight Trickster would perish in the village flames. But set free, his spirit would enter every woman, man, and child. The villagers each wore a masked version of the Great Fool's face, both claiming and buffooning him. Theirs was a serious silliness. The Wasp Queen lifted a torch high and set fire to the idol of Rimble. And for a brief moment of glory, Trickster's gossamer wings fanned the air with light in the harvest scarecrow-wind. And now the children came. They played a pinching tag game called Trickster's Touch. They were Rimble's little stings. Singing the rhyme, chanting the rhyme, and again! Grabbing hands, the village boys and girls snake-spiralled through the adults, shrieking and stomping their feet. They goosed every onlooker, village born or not, and chortled: «Rimble-Rimble!» The older villagers joined in. The snake-spiral swelled in size and speed. The line of masked and costumed bodies undulated like the wave of a wild electrical current. Then the village gave voice. They screamed. This was the signal for departure from the village. As the snake-spiral slowed, the villagers broke hands. Grabbing torches, all Suxonli scampered up the steep mountain path known as the Long Revel Trail. Spooking out the darkness, the torches lit the night with a will-o'- the-wisp beauty that wove a garland of flickering jewels along the black earth shoulders of the Western Feyborne. Kelandris—as per ritual instruction—cut away from the crowd. Heading to a secluded glen, the Wasp Queen waited for the Coins of Coincidence to choose her Trickster lover for the evening. The selection would occur in the center of the old circle of standing-stones high at the upper end of the Long Revel Trail. Selection of the Queen's lover could take hours, reaching a frenzy of drumming and chanting. Such frenzy was necessary. Anyone wanting to embody the King of Deviance—becoming as fertile as Trickster himself during the Rite of Coupling with Rimble's Revel Queen—could only enter the stone circle of ancient monoliths if he heard Trickster call his name. Once called, each man underwent a literal trial by fire. He danced barefoot on a bed of living, steaming, red-hot coals. Those who danced and were not called were burnt. But those who heard Trickster's voice whisper their names, danced long and wildly. Finally, one dancer was chosen from this corps. He was chosen by «chance» through the single fall of the copper Coins of Coincidence. Then, amidst great hooting and joyous Hissing, the night's King of Deviance went in search of his Queen. They would couple in privacy, and, on cues known only to themselves, the godstruck pair would return to the community. The Revel Queen would dance her newfound fertility and womanhood into the ground. She would act as the hub in a great turning wheel. It was an awesome sight, this turning. And a high honor.