Jaran

'You will.'

Finally, she lowered her head in acquiescence. He stepped down. Too quickly, this time; he winced and with a marked limp moved back to the middle of the room.

'Oh, God,' she said under her breath. This was it. All her efforts for nothing: now he would know, and she could not begin to imagine what the knowledge would do to him.

She turned into the corner and retrieved the cylinder. With it in her hand, she stepped down from the bed and handed it to him.

He took it to the candle. 'I see no writing. Is this some holy relic?'

She felt impelled to smile, thinking of what Ishii had said about archaeology. 'Yes, the relic of a prince who is long since dead.'

He turned it in the light as if its black sheen fascinated him. 'Whom ought this to belong to?'

'That depends on which one of us you talk to. Myself or Ishii.'

'Why do you want it?'

'My brother wants it. It represents-I can't explain in a few words. Power and knowledge.'

'Why should your brother have it? It is the pilgrims, after all, who have come on this journey for holy purposes.'

'For their purposes.'

'Which are?'

'Bad ones.'

'While your brother's are good? That is very easy, my wife, but rarely true.' She winced at his cutting tone. 'Well?'

'How long do you want the explanation to be?' She rubbed at her eyes with her palms, then lowered them, taking in resolve with a deep breath. 'Ilya. The khepellis will use that relic to enslave my people. Already they control most of the trade that enriches Jeds. And many other cities. But if my brother gets that relic, then he can work to free all those the khepelli have subjugated. Not just for his own sake. You have to believe me. He isn't-his work is for other people not for himself.''

Her gaze on him worked like a fire. He took a step toward her, away from the table. Framed by light and shadow, he seemed to Tess a man in some half-remembered legend, a force in and of himself, caught between the new world and the old. 'How could you read the inscription on the arch?'

'I have learned-' She broke off.

'You have learned the tongue the khepelli speak. You said it was their writing. Last night, after-' He jerked his gaze away from her suddenly, staring down at the lines of wax that laced a tangled pattern around the base of the candle.

'Last night,' he began again, 'I went to the sacred fountain to-to reflect. But two of the pilgrims were in the room. They did not see me, but I saw them drink from the basin. Deeply. It did not harm them, Tess. They aren't like us. I have always known that-only a blind man would not see it-but this… The water did not poison them. They aren't-' He hesitated, as if once said, the words would alter his world forever.

Which they would. She could not look at him, stared instead at the candle burning down. Soon its flame would fail, having consumed everything that it could feed on. They aren't from this planet.

'They aren't human,' he said. 'There are old stories about the ancient ones who lived here long ago, who were driven away by war or drought or sickness, or by us-those who are women and men, jaran and khaja both- never to be seen again. I think those stories are true. I think they fled away across the seas and founded a kingdom in lands far from here. And now they've come back to find what they left behind. Am I right? Did their ancestors build this place?'

In the silence she heard the clack of twigs as the wind stirred in the garden outside. 'Yes.'

'And as they traded and grew strong, your brother must have sent you to watch them.'

'Not precisely, but…' She trailed off, shaking her head.

'And you followed them here, to discover-you didn't know either, did you? That they had once lived and ruled here.'

'No,' she said, a hoarse whisper. 'No. We did not know.''

'They believe they have some right to this land?'

'I don't know.' But the opening leapt full into her mind. 'But if my brother gets this relic, then he will ensure that they never exploit these lands. Jaran lands. They will be forced into treaties. They will trade, or at least their trade will be circumscribed, that is-'

'You are either lying to me,' he said, 'or else you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. What will your brother do with this relic? How can his having it help him in his good purposes?'

'I don't know how he will use it, not to tell you details. Except that it will help him disrupt their trade. Help him keep them from ever claiming these lands, if that is their intent. Because it is proof entire that they did indeed once reside here.'

He lifted the cylinder, extending his arm so that the black shape marked the distance between them. As it did. How could she not have seen it before? He was bound by his world, bound still to Newton's universe, which, like the idea of the Chapalii being not human, was wildly revolutionary to him. Farther than that-farther than that did not even exist for him. To him, Rhui was the universe.

'If I agree to help you,' he said, 'what guarantee do you offer me that your actions, and mine in aiding you, will not harm my people? Will not prevent them from fulfilling their destiny?'

She crossed to him, halting a bare arm's length away from him. He was not so much taller than she as she had at times thought. 'Ilya,' she began, and she faltered. Meeting his gaze, she knew without a doubt that if she kissed him now, used passion, used her love for him as her guarantee, he would help her. But it would be no better than a weapon used to get what she wanted. As he had used her ignorance to make her his wife.

'Ilya. We have clasped friends, and I have given my honor into your hands. That is my guarantee. And by the honor you gave into mine, my right to ask your aid and protection.'

The room was still, like the hush before dawn, only two motionless figures in the fading glow of the candle.

'Damn you.' He jerked his gaze away from her, staring into the shadowed corner. ' 'By my honor,'' he murmured, as if to the gods themselves. As if he wished with all his heart that she had used any other argument but that.

She simply breathed, watching him, and the wind sighed and called outside. She could not read the expression on his face.

'Then you will help me?' she asked at last in a low voice.

He met her gaze. 'I will not let them kill you,' he said with such simplicity that she knew that it was true. 'I will get you to the coast and safe on a ship for Jeds. Will you let me keep this until then?' He turned the cylinder so that it winked in the candlelight. 'Only to keep it safe. By your honor and mine.'

'Yes. By that guarantee, I trust you.'

'By my honor,' he said, so quietly that she scarcely heard it, 'but not as my wife.' The he shook his head, as if he had not meant to say it, or her to hear it. 'You look exhausted. I think it would be best if you didn't go back to your room tonight.' He hesitated, then gestured to his bed. 'No one will remark on your sleeping in the same room as your husband.'

She flushed, and her gaze strayed to the bed. She saw how neatly he had folded his blankets at the foot, how carefully he had hung his saddlebags over the endpost. Only a scrap of material sticking out from the opening suggested untidiness: a shirtsleeve, with a needle pierced through it, as if he had been interrupted in the middle of embroidery.

She simply nodded, afraid to venture words.

He picked up the candle. Darkness moved around him as he carried it to the door.

'But you must sleep-' she protested, seeing that he meant to leave.

'Someone must guard you.'

'Ilya…' She was not sure what she wanted to say to him. She was not sure what she wanted at all, except that, right now, she wanted him.

He blew out the candle abruptly, flooding her in darkness. The door opened and closed, and then the snick of the latch sounded as it fell into place outside.