“At least,” said Kurt grimly, “the Sufaki will have the same chance a human has among Indras; and that is better than dying, Kta, it is infinitely better than dying.”
“I hope,” said Kta, “that Bel sees it that way. I am afraid for this city—tonight. There has been too little resistance. They are saving something back. And there is a report t’Tefur is in the Afen.”
Kurt let the breath hiss slowly between his teeth and glanced uphill, toward the Afen gate.
“If we are fortunate,” he said, “Djan will keep control of the weapons.”
“You seem to have some peculiar confidence she will not hand him that power.”
“She will not do it,” Kurt said. “Not willingly. I could be wrong,—but I think I know Djan’s mind. She would suffer a great deal before she would let those machines be loosed on nemet.”
Kta looked back at him, anger on his face. “She was capable of things you seem to have forgotten. Humanness blinds you, my friend; and I fear you have buried Mim more deeply than earth can put her. I do not understand that. Or perhaps I do.”
“Some things,” Kurt said, with a sudden and soul-deep coldness, “you still do not know me well enough to say.”
And he walked back into Elas, ignoring t’Nethim, retreating into its deep shadows, into the rhmei,where the fire was dead, the ashes cold. He knelt there on the rugs as he had done so many evenings, and stared into the dark.
Lhe t’Nethim’s quiet step dared the silent rhmei.It was a rash and brave act for an orthodox Indras. He bowed himself in respect before the dead firebowl and knelt on the bare floor.
He only waited, as he had waited constantly, attending them in silence.
“What do you want of me?” Kurt asked in vexation.
“I owe you,” said Lhe t’Nethim, “for the care of my cousin’s soul. I have come because it is right that a kinsman see the hearth she honored. When I have seen her avenged, I will be free again.”
It was understandable. Kurt could imagine Kta doing so reckless a thing for Aimu.
Even for him.
He had used rudeness to Kta. Even justified, it pained him. He was glad to hear Kta’s familiar step in the entry, like a ghost of things that belonged to Elas, disturbing its sleep.
Kta silently came and knelt down on the rug nearest Kurt.
“I was wrong,” said Kurt. “I owe you an accounting.”
“No,” said Kta gently. “The words flew amiss. You are a stranger sometimes. I feared—you were remembering—human debts. And you have found no yhiasince losing Mim. She lies at the heart of everything for you. A man without yhiatoward such a great loss cannot remember things clearly, cannot reason. He is dangerous to all around him. I fear you. I fear for you. Even you do not know what you are likely to do.”
He was silent for a long time. Kurt did not break the silence.
“Let us wash,” said Kta at last. “And when I have cleansed my hands of blood I mean to light the hearth of Elas again, and return some feeling of life to these halls. If you dread to go upstairs, use my room, and welcome.”
“No,” said Kurt, and gathered himself to his feet. “I will go up, Kta. Do not worry for it.”
The room that had been his and Mim’s looked little different. The stained rug was gone, but all else was the same, the bed, the holy phusabefore which she had knelt and prayed.
He had thought that being here would be difficult. He could scarcely remember the sound of Mim’s voice. That had been the first memory to flee. The one most persistent was that still shape of shadow beneath the glaring hearthfire, Nym’s arms uplifted, invoking ruin, waking the vengeance of his gods.
But now his eyes traveled to the dressing table, where still rested the pins and combs that Mim had used, and when he opened the drawer there were the scarves that carried the gentle scent of aluel.For the first time in a long time he did remember her in daylight, her gentle touch, the light in her eyes when she laughed, the sound of her voice bidding him good morning, my lord. Tears came to his eyes. He took one of the scarves, light as a dream in his oar-callused hands, and folded it and put it back again. Elas was home for him again, and he could exist here, and think of her and not mourn any longer.
T’Nethim, his peculiar shadow, hovered uncertainly out on the landing. Kurt heard him, looked and bade him come in. The Indras uncertainly trod the fine carpeting, bowed in reverence before the dead phusa.
“There are clean clothes,” Kurt said to him, flinging wide the closet which held all that had been his. “Take what you need.”
He put off his own filthy garments and went into the bath, washed and shaved with cold water and dressed again in a change of clothing while Lhe t’Nethim did the same for himself. Kurt found himself changed, browner, leaner, ribs crossed by several ridged scars that were still sensitive: those misfortunes were far away, shut out by the friendly walls of this house.
There was only t’Nethim, who followed, silent, to remind him that war hovered about them.
When they had both finished, they went downstairs to the rhmeito find Kta.
Kta had relit the holy fire, and the warm light of it leaped up and touched their faces and chased the shadows into the deeper recesses of the high ceiling and the spaces behind the pillars of the hall. Elas was alive again in Nephane.
T’Nethim would not enter here now, but returned to the threshold of Elas, to take his place in the shadows, sword detached and laid before him like a self-appointed sentinel, as in ancient times the chanwas stationed.
But Kurt went to join Kta in the rhmeiand listened while Kta lifted hands to the fire and spoke a prayer to the Guardians for their blessing.
“Spirits of my Ancestors,” he ended, “of Elas, my fathers, my father, fate had led me here and led me home again. My father, my mother, my friends who wait below, there is no peace yet in Elas. Aid me now to find it. Receive us home again and give us welcome, and also bear the presence of Lhe t’Nethim u Kma, who sits at our gate, a suppliant. Shadow of Mim, one of your own has come. Be at peace.”
For a moment he remained still, then let fall his hands and looked back at Kurt. “It is a better feeling,” he said quietly. “But still there is a heaviness. I am stifling, Kurt. Do you feel it?”
Kurt shivered involuntarily, and the human part of him insisted it was a cold draft through the halls, blowing the fire’s warmth in the other direction.
But all of a sudden he knew what Kta meant of ill feelings. An ancestral enemy sat at their threshold. Unease rippled through the air, disquiet hovered thickly there. T’Nethim existed, t’Nethim waited, in a city where he ought not to have come, in a house that was his enemy.
A piece of the yhiaout of place, waiting.
Let us bid him go wait in some other house,Kurt almost suggested; but he was embarrassed to do it; and, it was to himself that t’Nethim attached, his own heels the man of Indras dogged.
A pounding came at the front door of Elas. They hurried out, taking weapons left by the doorway of the rhmei,and gave a nod of assent to t’Nethim’s questioning look. T’Nethim slipped the bar and opened the door.
A man and a woman were there in the light: Aimu, with Bel t’Osanef.
She folded her hands upon her breast and bowed, and Kta bowed deeply to her. When she lifted her face she was crying, tears flooding over her face.
“Aimu,” said Kta. “Bel,—welcome.”
“Am I truly?” Aimu asked. “My brother, I have waited so long this afternoon, so patiently,—and you would not come to Irain.”
“ Ei,Aimu, Aimu, you were my first thought in coming home—how not, my sister? You are all Kurt and I have left. How can you think I do not care?”
Aimu looked into his face and her hurt became a troubled expression, as if suddenly she read something in Kta that she feared, knowing him. “Dear my brother,” she said, “there is no woman in the house. Receive us as your guests and let me make this house home for you again.”