'I don't know.'
'What do they do there?'
'That I know: worship and serve the gods,' I answered, 'and grow crops and raise livestock, and-'
'On top of the spires?'
'The worship-and-serve part takes place on top of the spires. The growing-crops and raising-livestock part takes place down below, in the valley.'
She shrugged. 'Sounds peaceful enough.'
I went on with my unfinished line of discussion. '-and otherwise examine, learn, refine, and implement the magic that makes them mad.'
'Oh,' Del said.
'It kills them eventually, according to Simonides. The madness-and magic-manifests at a particular age, and while they can learn to control both, it's only for a while. Maybe ten years. Eventually the madness wins, and they die.'
'Just-die?' Del was intrigued. 'How?'
'They hurl themselves off the top of the spires.'
Intrigue was replaced by shocked horror. 'Why? '
'To merge with the sky.'
'What for?'
'That's where the gods live. The best way to truly join the gods is to give oneself to them. Literally.'
'But…' Her expression was perplexed.
'But,' I agreed. 'No surprise, is it, that everyone thinks they're mad.'
'How do they explain the bodies smashed to pulp all over the ground?'
'Don't know that they bother.'
'But if the bodies are smashed, they haven't merged with the gods.'
I grinned. 'I think it's considered merging in the strictly spiritual sense.'
'Ah.'
'Ah.' I sank down so the water lapped at my chin. 'No one really knows all the details of what goes on in Meteiera,' I explained. 'Simonides says it's a combination of rumor, speculation, and winehouse tales. The metrioi-I found out the 'oi' is the plural, by the way-don't talk about it at all because it's considered terribly dishonorable if anyone in the Eleven Families manifests this magic.'
'But if they are gods-descended themselves, doesn't this mean a few of them might be considered more so?'
'That's one interpretation,' I agreed. 'Except the metrioi don't much like it. They consider madness a flaw of a rather extreme sort.'
'So they send away to ioSkandi anyone who manifests this magic.'
'And promptly delete from the family histories-and the histories of Skandi-any mention of these people.'
'Unfair.'
'Being utterly removed from existence and any memory thereof? I would say so.'
'But what has any of this to do with Nihko setting foot on the earth?' She paused. 'I think that's what the priest-mage said.'
'It is. Simonides tells me that because the ioSkandics are themselves cast out of 'polite society,' if you will, they compensate by making up even stronger rules governing the behavior of anyone living in the Stone Forest.'
Del nodded. 'When excluded, become even more exclusive.'
'Exactly. So if a man who has already been deleted from his family then leaves ioSkandi, he is considered abomination-ikepra-for turning his back on his fellow priest-mages and the gods.'
'In other words, live with us and die in a few years, or leave us and die now. '
'More or less.'
'So Nihko left ioSkandi and became ikepra, but so long as he didn't set foot on the earth of Skandi itself, the ioSkandic priests didn't care.'
'They cared. There just wasn't anything they could do about it.'
'But there is something they can do about one of their own coming back here to Skandi?'
'The people of Skandi don't want to have anything to do with their mad relatives. But they won't kill them; they consider themselves a civilized society.' I grinned derisively. 'They have no problem with priest-mages coming back to the island briefly, so long as it's only to gather up the occasional lost chick now and again.'
'So they can take that chick back to the henhouse of other mad chicks.'
'And feed it to the fox.'
'Dead is dead,' Del said.
'Exactly. As long as the mad little chicks are gone, the civilized Skandics don't care what becomes of them, whether they die voluntarily merging with the gods, or are hurled off the spires after the Ritual of Unsoiling. Which of course means that even if the chicks don't want to merge with the gods quite yet, they can forcibly be merged. After the proper ceremonies.'
'The choice therefore lies not in deciding to die, but in deciding the time and manner.'
'Hurl yourself, or be hurled,' I agreed. 'Of course, it's not 'dying,' bascha. It's 'merging.' '
'Semantics,' she said disparagingly. 'Tiger-this is barbaric. It makes no sense. There is no logic in it.'
'Only if you're mad.'
'So this Sahdri has come here to gather up Nihko.'
'And take him back to ioSkandi so they can clean him up and dump him off one of the spires.'
'No wonder he doesn't want to go.'
'No wonder he lives on board a ship.' I blew a ripple into the surface of water. 'If you don't set foot on Skandi, you're safe from Skandic repercussions and ioSkandic retribution.'
Del contemplated this. Eventually she said, 'Not a comfortable way to live.'
'And a less comfortable way to die.'
'But so long as Nihko has guest-right, Sahdri can't take him.'
'You'll recall Prima asked that very thing: could Sahdri take Nihko.'
'Who dismissed the possibility.'
I shrugged. 'Nihko seems not to want to talk about any of this.'
'Well,' Del said, 'he's been tossed out of his family, and then tossed himself out of this fellowship of men who think they can toss him into the sky. I don't know that I'd want to talk about it either.'
'And the metri has made it clear as soon as her business with him is finished, the guest-right is revoked.'
'What is her business with him?'
'I'm assuming it's connected to this whole discovery-and-recovery-of-the-missing-heir issue,' I said. 'We don't know what kind of bargain Nihko drove on his captain's behalf before presenting me as the long-lost grandson.'
'Which you are.'
'Which I maybe am-but am as likely not.'
'Maybe.'
'Maybe.' I tilted my head back, let the surface of the water creep up to surround the edges of my face. 'I don't think it really matters.'
'You can't be certain of that, Tiger.'
I sighed. 'No. I can't read the woman.'
'So she may well mean you to inherit.'
'Maybe.'
'Maybe.'
'And then there's Herakleio,' I said, 'who stands to lose more than any of us.'
'Who's 'us'?'
'You, because of me. Me because of me. Prima Rhannet. Nihkolara.'
