He shrugged, stared off into the dark. “I—would ask for Kta’s freedom,” he said. “And we would leave Indresul and go wherever we could find a harbor.”

“You are loyal to him.”

“Kta is my friend. I am of Elas.”

“You are human. Like Djan, like the Tamurlin.”

“No,” he said, “like neither.”

“Wherein lies the difference?”

“We are of different nations.”

“You were her lover, t’Morgan. Wheredo you come from?”

“I do not know.”

“Do not know?”

“I am lost. I do not know where I am or where home is.”

She considered him, her beautiful face more than usually unhuman with the light falling on it at that angle, like a slightly abstract work of art. “The hearthfire of your kind—assuming you are civilized—lies far distant. It would be terrible to die among strangers, to be buried with rites not your own, with no one to call you by your right name.”

Kurt bowed his head, of a sudden seeing another darkened room, Mim lying before the hearthfire of Elas, Mim without her own name for her burying in Nephane: alien words and alien gods, and the helplessness he had felt. He was afraid suddenly with a fear she had put a name to, and he thought of himself dead and being touched by them and committed to burial in the name of gods not his and rites he did not understand. Almost he wished they would throw him in the sea and give him to the fish and to Kalyt’s green-haired daughters.

“Have I touched on something painful?” Ylith asked softly. “Did you find the Guardians of Elas did somewhat resent your presence,—or did you imagine that you were nemet?”

“Elas,” he said, “was home to me.”

“You married there.”

He looked up, startled, surprised into reaction.

“Did she consent,” she asked, “or was she given?”

“Who—told you of that?”

“Elas-in-Indresul examined Kta t’Elas on the matter. I ask you: did she consent freely?”

“She consented.” He put away his anger and assumed humility for Mim’s sake, made a bow of request. “Methi, she was one of your own people, born on Indresul’s side. Her name was Mim t’Nethim e Sel.”

Ylith’s brows lifted in dismay. “Have you spoken with Lhe of this?”

“Methi?”

“He is of Nethim. Lhe t’Nethim e Kma, second-son to the lord Kma; and Nethim is of no great friendship to Elas. T’Elas did not mention the house name of the lady Mim.”

“He never knew it. Methi, she was buried without her right name. It would be a kindness if you would tell the lord Kma that she is dead, so they could make prayers for her. I do not think they would want to hear that request from me.”

“They will ask who is responsible for her death.”

“Shan t’Tefur u Tlekef and Djan of Nephane.”

“Not Kurt t’Morgan?”

“No.” He looked down, unwilling to give way in her sight. The nightmare remembrances he had crowded out of his mind in the daylight were back again, the dark and the fire, and Nym standing before the hearthfire calling upon his Ancestors with Mim dead of his feet. Nym could tell them his grievances in person now. Nym and Ptas—Hef. They had walked and breathed that night and now they had gone to join her. Shadows now, all of them.

“I will speak to Kma t’Nethim and to Lhe,” she said.

“Maybe,” Kurt said, “you ought to omit to tell them that she married a human.”

Ylith was silent a moment. “I think,” she said, “that you grieve over her very much. Our law teaches that you have no soul, and that she would have sinned very greatly in consenting to such a union.”

“She is dead. Leave it at that.”

“If,” she continued, relentless in the pursuit of her thought, “ ifI admitted that this was not so,—then it would mean that many wise men have been wrong, that our priests are wrong, that our state has made centuries of error. I would have to admit that in an ordered universe there are creatures which do not fit the order, I should have to admit that this world is not the only one, that Phan is not the only god. I should have to admit things for which men have been condemned to death for heresy. Look up at me, human. Look at me.”

He did as she asked, terrified, for he suddenly realized what she was saying. She suspected the truth. There was no hope in argument. It was not politically or religiously expedient to have the truth published.

“You insist,” she said, “that there are two universes, mine and yours, and that somehow you have passed into mine. By my rules you are an animal: I reason that even an animal could possess the outward attributes of speech and upright bearing. But in other things you are nemetlike. I dreamed, t’-Morgan. I dreamed, and you were dead in my dream, and I looked upon your face and it troubled me exceedingly. I thought then that you had been alive and that you had loved a nemet, and that therefore you must have a soul. And I woke, and was still troubled—exceedingly.”

“Kta,” he said, “did nothing other than you have done. He was troubled. He helped me. He ought to be set free.”

“You do not understand. He is nemet. The law applies to him. You—can be kept. On him, I must pronounce sentence. Would you choose to die with Kta, rather than enjoy your life in confinement? You could be made comfortable. It would not be that hard a life.”

He found surprisingly little difficult about the answer. At the moment he was not even afraid. “I owe Kta,” he said. “He never objected to my company, living. And that, among nemet, seems to have been a rare friendship.”

Ylith seemed a little surprised. “Well,” she said, rising and smoothing her skirts. “I will let you return to your sleep, t’Morgan. I will honor some of your requests. Nethim will give her honor at my request.”

“I am grateful for that, at least, Methi.”

“Do you want for anything?”

“To speak with Kta,” he said, “that most of all.”

“That,” she said, “will not be permitted.”

19

Keys rattled. Kurt stirred out of the torpor of long waiting. Suddenly he realized it was not breakfast. Too many people were in the hall: he heard their moving, the insertion of the key. Another of the moods of Ylith-methi, he reckoned.

Or it was an execution detail, and he was about to learn what had become of Kta.

Lhe led them, Lhe with fatigue-marks under his eyes and his normally impeccable hair disarranged. A tai,a short sword, was through his belt.

“Wait down the hall,” he said to the others.

They did not want to go. He repeated the order, this time with wildness in his voice, and they almost fled his presence.

No!Kurt started to protest, rising off his cot, but they were gone. Lhe closed the door and stood with his hand clenched on the hilt of the tai.

“I am t’Nethim,” said Lhe. “My father’s business is with Vel t’Elas. Mine is with you. Mim t’Nethim was my cousin.”

Kurt recovered his dignity and bowed slightly, ignoring the threat of the fury that trembled in Lhe’s nostrils. After such a point, there was little else to do. “I honored her,” he said, “very much.”

“No,” said Lhe. “That you did not.”

“Please. Say the rites for her.”

“We have said rites, with many prayers for the welfare of her soul. Because of Mim t’Nethim we have spoken well of Elas to our Guardians for the first time in centuries: even in ignorance, they sheltered her. But other things we will not forgive. There is no peace between the Guardians of Nethim and you, human. They do not accept this disgrace.”

“Mim thought them in harmony with her choice,” said Kurt. “There was peace in Mim. She loved Nethim and she loved Elas.”

It did not greatly please Lhe, but it affected him greatly. His lips became a hard line. His brows came as near to meeting as a nemet’s might.

“She was consenting?” he asked. “Elas did not command this of her, giving her to you?”

“At first they opposed it, but I asked Mim’s consent before I asked Elas. I wished her happy, t’Nethim. If you are not offended to hear it,—I loved her.”