“You will offer us food for rule — just like the Mnankrei,” she said bitterly.
He shook his head. “We cannot even offer you food in the weight that can be shipped from the Mnankrei islands. The mountains and the distance are great obstacles, but we offer you sounder rule. It is not the Kaiel who blended human gene with underjaw body so that children will not have the wheat that has been nourished by the sweat of their parents.”
“They did that? That, too?”
“Someone did.”
“You found human genes in the underjaws Nonoep sent to Kaiel-hontokae?”
“Yes.”
“That’s criminal! That’s horrible!”
“It is power gone awry as power will. When a priest needs power more than he needs to be a craftsman of human destiny, such things happen.”
She saw the burning silo at Sorrow, saw the arrogant sea priest Tonpa clearly by its light. Yet were the Kaiel more honest?
Annoyingly, he went on to disparage others in the hope of making his own kind look good. “The Stgal have failed you. You should be rich and you are poor. You have more wealth in your land than Kaiel-hontokae. Sorrow should have fleets of ships to match the Mnankrei but it is a minor maritime center. Does Soebo have a better harbor than Sorrow?”
She had had enough of his sly boasting. “And you will bring your creches with you and fill our meat markets!”
His answer was easy, glib, as if he had spoken it a thousand times before. “Only the Kaiel have creches. It is the way we breed for leadership. We do not interfere with the breeding rules of any other clan. In times of famine the clan groups who have sworn us allegiance accept our will. They are free to move and swear their blood to a better priest clan.”
“When I see the blood in the temples, I think we might do without the priest clans!”
Gaet shrugged. “It has been tried. And those who tried it did not survive their famines.”
She had a moment’s memory of her children, carrying them to the sea in her packsack because their legs were useless. Bright eyes they had, watching a nest of sand beetles. She felt tears. Her hand took Gaet’s. “Do not quarrel with me.”
“Your interests are mine,” he said comfortingly, reading her thoughts.
“How will you possibly get wheat through these mountains? I was not awed by them when they were only words to me and a hazy jag along the horizon — but here I am and I’m awed.”
“Come.” He kept her hand and led her outside into the wind that howled along the gorge. Her skirts flapped. He endured the cold, shivering. The world seemed dreadful and dark with Scowl-moon eclipsed by the mountain peaks.
“We’ll freeze out here!”
Gaet brought her body closer to his own, maneuvering her around to the back where the wind clawed less, sheltered as the spot was by a craggy wall of rock. They came to a filigree machine with three fine wheels partly buried in the drifting snow. “A new device. It looks fragile but it amplifies the power of an Ivieth enormously. It can’t carry more than a one-man wagon but it moves much faster. We’re rebuilding the roads to take them. Wheat can move west in such vehicles which can then return people eastward to famine camps in the foothills above Kaiel-hontokae.”
She saw the swift Mnankrei ships and the good harbor at Sorrow, and at the same time she saw the Wailing Mountains and the treacherous trail through the Valley of Ten Thousand Graves. Was he aware of how absurd his challenge appeared — a frail vehicle against this frightful terrain? “Let’s go back inside.”
“You don’t seem impressed?”
“How could I be?”
“Neither am I,” Gaet said, subdued by her coolness. “It’s the best we can do.”
She invited him to her tiny room and he built a fire for her, then rummaged about finding a quilt to warm her back. It was a lesson to her. All the Kaiel were different. This one was not violent like Joesai. He had an easy compassion. “I must ask you one more question.”
Gaet nodded while feeding another bush trunk to the blaze.
“Were you sent here to get the crystal from me? I do not have it with me.” There was defiance in her voice.
He looked up at her, the flickering light playing over the scars of his face. The face revealed nothing, no surprise, no alertness. He was merely waiting for her to go on. He had not understood what she said, and so perhaps it was true that he had not been in contact with Joesai.
“The crystal that Joesai called A Voice of God,” she explained.
“You have one of those? Yes, that would catch Joesai’s fancy. I know little of such things.”
She was disappointed. Gaet did not react at all as Joesai had. His disinterest frightened her. She was staking her safety on the value of that crystal to the Kaiel, for whatever superstitious reason they might want it. “It is of no value to you? I thought I might exchange it for wheat.” That had seemed like a good idea once. Now it sounded foolish.
“I’ll introduce you to a woman who will be extremely interested.”
“You’re still insisting on escorting me?” She did not feel so safe now.
“I must. This is Kaiel territory. You have no choice.”
“I have been challenged by the Kaiel to a Death Rite. I wish that ridiculous game to be cancelled. I wish protection from such nonsense.”
“Joesai?”
“I’m afraid of him. I feel haunted by him, as if he is following me through the mountains.”
“Lovely woman, I will protect you from him.”
Impulsively she began to search Gaet for knives. He only laughed and squatted by the fire, letting her touch him.
“Is this Death Rite a personal obligation of Joesai, or is it a clan obligation?”
“Once he has initiated it, the Death Rite becomes a clan obligation.”
“I’m going back to Sorrow.”
“No need. There are many ways these things can go.”
“Yes,” she flared. “You could kill me tonight. I have no reason to trust you.”
“How many of the Seven Trials have you survived?”
“He has said three. I count four. And I’m frightened.”
Gaet was amused. “Aesoe seems to have been correct about your kalothi.”
“I’m just a woman. I can die. Living is itself a Death Rite and no one survives!”
He pondered. “I’ll tell you what we can do. It will fit each of the criteria. We won’t return via the road. We’ll knife through the mountains, over the White Wound. That will be Trial Five.”
“You think so little of your own traditions that you mock them!” she snarled scornfully, backing away from him to the pillows where she wrapped herself in the quilt.
Gaet reproached Oelita with a hurt look. “The White Wound is no mockery. That mountain still kills.”
Horror gripped her. He was serious! “A moment ago you promised to protect me!” She had walked with the specter of the Death Rite at her back, hurrying, furtively watching over her shoulder — suddenly to glance forward and into the eyes of the Fiend himself! He was roasting his hands there beside the fire between her and the door.
“I will protect you. There is nothing in the Death Rite that requires you to face an ordeal alone. Is it not true that a person who cannot have help is low in kalothi?”
“They say you Kaiel are born of machines. It’s true! It’s true! You’re a machine! Just like Joesai!” she raged.
“The climb over the White Wound is an exalting experience. Why should one face death and find horror and pain when one has the choice of facing a beautiful death?”
These Kaiel! The way they lived with the Death Fiend! Morbid people! “I want peace! I want peace! I’ve always wanted peace!” she raged against her pillow until she was sobbing. “I want to be left alone by you priests! Leave me!”
And he was beside her, stroking her hair. “It is never that easy.”
Gaet became Oelita’s lover in the wilderness during the ascent up the ragged slope of the White Wound’s north face. The danger wore her out and his tenderness revitalized her. She did not understand why she had come to trust him, or why it was becoming important to her to impress him with her strength, or why she was beginning to love him.