Waterborn

VI

A Visitor

'Well,' Ghan asked, studying her face closely. 'To what do we owe this renewed interest in matters intellectual?' His pen remained poised to continue its scratching upon the sheaf of paper open before him.

'I need to see those books, Ghan. Please.'

'A little argument with your paramour, perhaps? A disagreement over 'lacies'?'

Hezhi suppressed a snarl. 'Ghan,' she snapped instead. 'I don't have time to argue with you, do you understand? I know I upset you. I know you think I have better things to do than to play the court games. Don't you think I know that? But if you ever thought the least bit of me, if you ever cared about me at all, you have to help me. I have no time!'

Ghan's face changed oddly as she said this. She wasn't sure what emotions he displayed, so quickly did he master them— dismay? fear?

He regarded her for another moment, his face now carefully blanked, and then tersely commanded, 'Come.' Grasping her hand—her hand—he practically dragged her off to the back room, where the index and valuable documents were kept. Shutting the door, he bolted it from the inside.

'You little fool,' he hissed. 'Don't you know better than to go shouting about like that? Who knows who might hear you?'

'What do you mean? What did I say?'

Ghan stepped back, his eyes dark with challenge. 'Tell me,' he said, his voice harsh. 'Tell me why you have 'no time.' '

'I cannot,' she breathed. Ghan knew? 'I cannot. I know you have been Forbidden.'

'Forbidding stops me from speaking, not from hearing. Tell me.'

She studied her teacher, her heart sinking. Tears poised behind her eyes, cataracts waiting to fall. 'I can't trust you,' she sobbed suddenly. 'I can't trust anyone. Not now.'

'Hezhi,' Ghan said more gently. 'Hezhi, listen to me.' He took her chin between thumb and forefinger and tugged it gently up. 'I notice things, you know,' he said at last. 'I heard the talk about the ghost in the Hall of Moments. There are those who think it was after you. I saw, that time when you ordered that boy away from you, and he went, as if you had slapped him. You read books, many books, and all about the Royal Blood, about the old city. Can't you see I've been helping you all along? Child, you must trust me. I'm all that you have.'

She stared at him, blinking away tears. It was true, of course, she knew that. Sometimes his help had been blatant, usually not. She had to trust him because he already knew—because she had to trust someone.

'We cannot get the books you want,' Ghan went on. 'The priesthood will not release them to me, and even if they were so inclined, they would certainly want to know who was reading them, and why. They would find you out, you see?'

'They will find me out anyway,' Hezhi all but shrieked. 'The next time they test me. The next time…'

'Is it that bad?' Ghan whispered almost wonderingly.

Lips pressed together defiantly, she pulled up her long sleeve, and there it was, blue and green in the pale illumination streaming weakly through the translucent skylight.

'By the River,' Ghan breathed. Hand to his forehead, he sat back heavily onto a small stool, massaging his brow.

'What am I to do with you?' he muttered.

'You can't do anything,' she rejoined, trying to seem brave. Despite her intentions, her voice sounded like a pathetic moan, even to her own ears.

'Why did you want the priest books? What did you think of?'

'Ghan,' she said tremulously, 'Ghan, I've seen them. I found a way down to where the Darkness Stair goes, to the old palace. I saw them, the Blessed. I can't be like that. I'll jump off the roof first.'

She would, this time. She had promised herself.

'Hezhi, what did you think of?'

'That maybe… Maybe there is a way to stop it. To stop the Royal Blood from working. To keep the River asleep in me.'

Ghan's head hung as if it weighed a hundredweight. She had never seen him look so old. 'There can't be,' he muttered.

'Why?'

'The priests would do it, don't you think?'

'They do do it, Ghan. They stop it in themselves!'

'By castration, before the change starts. That won't work for you. You aren't a man, and if you were, you would already be too old.'

Her voice strengthened, as she gained a little courage. 'If there is one way to stop it, there might be another.' She watched him rub his head hopefully.

'I don't know. There might be. I don't believe so.'

'It doesn't matter,' she remarked bitterly. 'Not if I can't see the books anyway.'

Ghan looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time in several exchanges. 'No,' he said. 'But I can look at them, if I go there. They have to let me, if I say it is required for the index.'

'That would be dangerous for you,' she replied.

'Yes. As this conversation, right now, is dangerous for me.' He gripped her shoulder, pointed his index finger squarely at her nose, so that she almost went cross-eyed. 'Stay calm, for a day or two only. Stay off of the roof, and act normally. Work here in the library, tell anyone who asks that I have demanded it. I will find out what I can, do what I can. But you have to trust me. Me, and no one else. Have they tested you once already?'

Hezhi nodded, dumbfounded by Ghan's sudden passion.

'Then they are watching you, you can be sure of that. Somewhere, in the shadows, following you. He will see you, Hezhi, but you won't see him.'

'Who?'

'The priests set watchers on children like you, children that worry them. Members of the Jik sometimes.'

'The Jik?' she repeated, her voice quavering.

'I know you've read about those Blessed who were discovered too late. The noble children who went wild, caused destruction. The priesthood won't let that happen again. When they fear it, they turn loose the Jik—not to spy on foreign diplomats, not to kill overly ambitious merchants—but to watch children, to stop them while there is still time.'

'It sounds like you agree with them,' Hezhi murmured, suddenly unsure.

'I'm just explaining your danger and the reason for it,' he explained quietly. 'I have no wish to see my library and the rest of the palace come down around my ears. But rather that than know you were below the Darkness Stair. Bide, Hezhi, and let me see what I may. And watch the shadows! Your half Giant will not be able to protect you from one of the Jik.'

 

 

When they returned to the central room, she noticed Yen, a half-dozen books open in front of him. He looked up and smiled at her. She waved but did not approach him. Her life was compli-cated enough without becoming better friends with the son of a merchant. Instead, she went home, silently watched Qey go about her tasks, and at last retreated to her own room, where she could hear the comforting sounds of the house without danger of having to speak to anyone.

As she lay there, turning thoughts and images over in her mind, her ghost appeared, a man-shaped blur touched at the edges by rainbow. She watched with some apprehension as he meandered around the room, as if performing some stately spectral dance. He did not approach her or threaten to touch her as he had before. Eventually the shimmering that marked him twisted, became thin, a line, vanished.