Chapter Twenty-Three

“Touch him, bitch, and I’ll cut off your nipples and feed them to your baby!”

Tis hadn’t remembered fainting. Actually she didn’t remember much past the time when they reached the heavy doors of Rarrana. It was then that she panicked, fought, beating at Zabb’s chest and face.

And now she was waking to a threatening voice echoing with the yowl of a back-fence cat warning off interlopers. Raising a hand, she lightly touched her forehead. Felt the residual signature of Zabb. No, not a faint, a coerced sleep. He had subdued her the way a man would tranquilize a frightened animal. Is that how the humans felt when I used my power on them? she wondered.

The sound of receding footsteps, the slam of a door. More distant and less distinct sounds began to force their way to her consciousness. Babies crying, children laughing, squalling, calling to each other in play. The yap of excited hounds romping with the children. Sounds of adult activity – the muted melody of water falling softly into fountain basins, a string quartet rehearsing, the drone of an announcer on the holo commenting on the action in a sporting competition.

There was a prickling sense that let her know that she was surrounded by people – female people by the delicate scent of their perfumes – and then one particular fragrance struck like a belly blow, and for one flashing, painful moment Tis was five years old again. Pillowed on his mother’s breast, screaming mentally because the telepathic communication that he had shared with his mother almost since the moment of his conception had been brutally and suddenly broken. In the background had been the same busy sounds of Rarrana. It had been Roxalana who had gathered him into her arms then.

It was Roxalana who gripped Tisianne’s shoulders now and pulled her into a sitting position. Disoriented by the strength of the memory, Tis murmured, “You’re wearing mother’s scent.” Tisianne opened her eyes.

Roxalana looked not very much different than Tis remembered. She had their father’s tipped-up eyes; they gave her a wicked, calculating look that was undeserved. She was as direct as a knife blade, and often as painful.

But it was Pandasala who jumped in with the sharp, acerbic comment. “For only the past forty years. Outstanding that you finally noticed.”

It was perfectly in character for her. It was said that life with Pandasala had prepared her husband for (or driven him into) the highly dangerous sport of agma hunting.

“Of course you have been gone,” said Cillka.

“Without sparing a thought for your poor sisters,” added Tri’ava.

“And we were supposed to make a baby together,” Melant said.

“We took a terrible drop in prestige when our nearest male relative was a mere regent.”

“Now maybe you’ll understand our plight,” finished Shi’tha.

And there was that rustling, the sideways glances that women exchange when they are hiding tolerant amusement at the foibles of men. Despite Tis’s forced sex change, it was apparent that in the eyes of her sisters arrayed about her that she was still a moronic male. Tis scanned the six delicate faces – Roxalana, Melant, Tri’ava, Pandasala, Shi’tha, Cillka.

They were all varying shades of blond, from the deep burnished bronze of the eldest, Roxalana, to the new minted gold of Cillka, the baby until Tach had come along ninety years later. Tis realized that since her body switch she finally looked like one of the family, an offspring of Shaklan and Ts’ara. She was even the right sex. After seven daughters the House Ilkazam had begun to despair of the Raiyis ever siring a boy child. They had even suggested that Shaklan break his unnatural fascination with his primary wife and try fathering a child on some other appropriately pedigreed woman. Shaklan refused and eventually Tisianne had arrived – male and redheaded, an oddity. Now Tis fit… On the whole she would just as soon have remained a changeling.

Other details were coming into focus. They were in the great star-shaped central courtyard of Rarrana. Directly in the center, beneath a domed skylight, was a bathing pool. Naked women dandled their children in the water or played silly water games. Like all pools on Takis, it was shallow. Takisians were notoriously bad swimmers. For a distance of four feet from the pool the ground was inlaid with beautiful mosaic pictures, most of which were hidden beneath bodies where more women lounged, enjoying the warmth of the heated tiles. Tarhiji servants slipped through carrying food, drink, towels. La’bs both male and female were very much in evidence, massaging the bodies of their mistresses, kissing them, feeding them, reading to them from holos floating comfortably at eye level. Nearby a couple was copulating, and Tis felt her cheeks go red. She quickly looked away and cursed Earth for turning her into a prude.

The jagged walls of the room were pierced with doors like tiny mouths. These were the least desirable quarters in Rarrana – noisy, no private garden, the least defensible if an enemy should penetrate the women’s quarters. Tis glanced up at the catwalk circling the bathing pool and counted seven guards.

She then looked back to her sisters. Four of them were pregnant. Five if you counted Tisianne. She chuckled humorlessly. “Well, we Sennari are a fertile lot, aren’t we?”

“Burning Sky, Tis, how did you end up in such an absurd situation?” Roxalana exploded.

It wasn’t really a question. It was an irritable exclamation of how troublesome their little brother was – and Lani ought to know. It had been her task to raise him after their mother’s murder.

Tis’s heart seemed to be expanding, filling her chest with an emotion so strong, the small body didn’t seem able to contain it. There is a closeness among telepathic people even when their shields are up. A constant leak of low-level, unimportant thoughts like the chuckling of a brook. It’s very comforting, and to be without it is like placing a normal human in an isolation tank. To find herself now in the midst of telepaths who loved her and had lowered all barriers so that affection could flow through was indescribable. Tisianne held out her hands to her sisters. Murmured their names as they each came forward and gave her the kiss between close relatives.

The love fest lasted about three minutes, then Roxalana called them to order. “Shi’tha, Cillka, circulate and see who’s talking to whom. Who’s suddenly decided to visit their wives. Which fathers have suddenly been seized with an overwhelming desire to contact their daughters.” The two women nodded and left.

“Come.” Lani helped Tis to her feet.

“Where?”

“Zabb left strict instructions. You’re getting the best suite in Rarrana.”

“How… condescending of him. Should I be grateful?”

“Probably,” said Pandasala. “It may save your life.”

“You think they’ll try to kill me?”

“You have been away a long time,” Melant called back over her shoulder as they hurried down switch-backed halls. “The Kou’nar have several deaths and a blighted hope to avenge.”

They reached a doorway, and Roxalana keyed the telepathic lock. It was an impressive set of rooms. Deep spider-silk carpets covered the marble floor, insulation to keep out the biting cold of Takis. In one corner there was a ten-foot-tall tiled stove-fireplace. Sofas, chairs, several tables. A card table near the stove, and a ka’et. Set atop the polished surface of the instrument was a re’ba’bi.

Tis crossed to the instruments, stroked the keys of the ka’et, and experimentally plucked the strings of the re’ba’bi. She set it carefully back down atop the ka’et, then slammed her hands down on the keyboard. The discord made Melant jump.

“This is my fucking instrument! He had this planned all along!” Nobody asked for a translation of the English word. A curse in any language seems to communicate.