“What of them? It is the Night of the Fete of Boats, and all will be at the festivities. Who will complain of me?” Her words were fading, growing muzzy, dying away as does the chant of rowers from a galley passing by upon a dark and windy river.
Harsan rolled over and slept. The world whisked away to a glimmering spot in the unlighted void and disappeared.
Chapter Twelve
The smell of food awakened him. He opened his eyes to see Chtik p’Qwe setting a tray down next to his sleeping mat. Steam arose from a bowl of reddish Dna — grain porridge, and Chumetl dripping from an earthen mug made white puddles of buttermilk around a pair of bluish Dlel — fruit. The idea of solid nourishment did unpleasant things to his stomach, however, and he waved it all away.
The Pe Choi curled his articulated tail beneath himself to serve as a stool. The great green eyes gazed upon Harsan for a time; then he said, “ ‘The fish does not run in the same pack as the Zrne.' ”
Harsan tried to think of an appropriate adage in the Pe Choi tongue, but his head still seemed to belong to someone else. He replied in Tsolyani, “You are right, my friend. I shall forever abstain from all strange foods, drinks, substances-and maidens!” He reached for the mug of salted buttermilk, gripped it with fingers that still trembled, and sipped at it.
“Where is the Lady Eyil?” he asked.
“She stayed the night. Then she came again the next day. Your soul wandered for two days and two nights, and we nearly despaired of you. The Shen came once, too, but he is gone upon some commercial journey. He left a packet of gems for you to keep for him. I have had Reshmu lock them up in the cabinet with the Llyani artifacts.”
“When will the Lady Eyil return?” Harsan persisted.
“She said she would make some excuse to her clanspeople and come again in the evening.” The dry, whispery voice held no enthusiasm.
This was a matter that seemed to demand plain speaking. Harsan said, “I think you do not approve of her.”
“Who am I to approve or disapprove? ‘The tree profits nothing from cursing the clouds.’ Your human couplings are of no concern to me. Sleep with a Ssu if you wish! But-”
“But what?”
“Perhaps I have said enough.”
Both were silent. Again Harsan was surprised to find that he did not want to look directly at his relationship with Eyil. It seemed to be a tightly closed little packet within his heart, bound about with the cords of Tsolyanu’s traditions of romantic love and sealed with the wax of youthful attitudes appropriate to such things as pretty girls. In some way he felt afraid to open this parcel. The more he let himself ponder it, the more he was disturbed by niggling little suspicions to which he could put no names: things she had said, things she had done… He needed reassurance. He put the empty mug back on the tray and looked squarely at Chtik p’Qwe.
“I have never had anyone for whom I cared as much, my friend. Do you think she does not care for me?”
“It is clear that she does. She wept with remorse at having left you alone at the feast. But-”
“Another ‘but?’ ”
The Pe Choi waved all four hands helplessly in the air in a gesture that instantly took Harsan back to his childhood in the Do Chakan forests. “A great many ‘buts.’ I am not sure-I sense… You know that we Pe Choi possess powers of empathy…”
“I know,” Harsan said in the Pe Choi tongue.
“Ah, so you do speak my language; thus the priests told me before you arrived here! You can follow me and it will be easier to explain,” Chtik p’Qwe replied in kind. “You have lived amongst us; you know us as well as any human has ever known us; and you are aware that we sometimes sense things for which there are no words-in any tongue. To be a Pe Choi is to be cursed with thoughts that can never be uttered. As the Teachings of Tku Pnii say, ‘Can the mountain know of the diamond hidden within its heart?’ — Oh, Harsan, I feel there is something amiss. But-”
“Again a ‘but’?”
“Yes. Another. But this: I would lay this topic aside until I know more-or know that I know nothing.”
Harsan gave up. “What of the girl, Sriya, or whatever her accursed name is?”
“No trace, as one might expect. The priesthood of Hrihayal says it has a Sriya in Katalal and another in Hekellu, in the eastern mountains. The Temple of Thumis wants no confrontation with those people now, and you have no clan to go banging on their gates demanding Shamtla.”
“They lie, all of them. She was here-”
“I know. The Shen saw her, after all. But unless you have a powerful clan, a good reason for your superiors to get involved, or money to hire one of the assassins’ clans, you can only sing in the wind.”
“Oh, how I’d like to see some of their temple records for myself-or apply a spell or two to the heads of some of those deceitful pimps who pass for priests…! ”
“Nothing is to be gained from wishing. We Pe Choi are a practical race, and my council is that you give the matter up-for now. I have another and more urgent issue to chew over with you.” He scraped his four hands lightly over the ebon-gleaming chitin of his haunches. “I am not concerned with your female, nor really with the incident of the other night. They are clouds that drift past me in the sky. Instead, I think of the work we do here. I would have you prosper, just as I myself would prosper. And I tell you that the priests of the Lords of Change make strides that will leave us behind in the dust. Your skills are needed, Harsan. Now. No more of girls and feasts, but work.” He uncoiled himself gracefully. “Let me show you something.” He went into the inner room and returned with a lump of whitish metal. “This is what was within the second rusted container.” Harsan turned the object over in his hands. It was hemispherical, like one half of a Dziya- melon. A small circular hole occupied the centre of the flat side to the depth of a finger-joint. The rounded exterior was pockmarked with tiny, squarish depressions.
“I can make nothing of it, though I am familiar with many of the artifacts made by both your ancestors and mine.” The Pe Choi ran a hard, jointed finger over the stippled depressions. “These may be some form of writing.”
Thus they seemed to be, although Harsan did not recognise them. They were aligned in neat rows all around the convex outer surface of the object, and they were of uniform height and width and depth as well. Some were the same, while others differed. Letters? Magical runes? Harsan held the artifact tightly, but no miniature voices whispered in his brain. It was therefore probably not a map symbol, or at least not an active one.
‘ ‘Can you see the little ridges and whorls on the flat surface as well?” Chitk p’Qwe asked. “They are almost invisible unless one slants the half-globe toward the light.”
Harsan peered. Then he thought of something. He arose, shakily, an d brought his packet of personal belongings from the storage chest. Fr om this he took out a cloth-wrapped object. “Let me try this.” Zaren’s farseeing device was quickly set up to face the enigmatic white hemis phere. He adjusted it this way and that, but ail he saw was a pale blu r.
“A friend made this,” he answered Chtik p’Qwe’s unspoken question. “It brings far away objects nearer. I had hoped it would do the same for a little thing seen from close by.”
The Pe Choi examined the contraption. “I have seen pieces of curved glass used to enlarge things. There is a priest in my temple whose sight is as weak as a babe’s. He has a broken piece of a Mu’ugalavyani bottle which he uses to magnify the letters of books. But it distorts everything. Still-something might be made of this.”
“Zaren spoke of a text that gives the principles underlying this phenomenon.” Harsan struggled with his memory. “I think it was the ‘Book of the Visitations of Glory.’ ”
“Not a common treatise. Yet I have heard of it,” Chitk p’Qwe mused. “Your temple may have it here, or mayhap it will be in my temple’s library?”
“Or perhaps in mine.” They both jumped and whirled to see Kerektu hiKhanmu standing in the doorway, smiling silver mask in hand. “May I see the artifact, please?”
