Scene: Sarat’s bedroom in Var-segan; The room is at the front of the house. He is sitting at the desk in front of the bay window and day-dreaming. Let us keep this clean and not intrude on his thoughts. His lap-top is open on the desk in front of him but pushed aside. He turns to it, about to share his more interesting thoughts with Dill, and blinks, and looks out of the window again and blinks again. The vista before him is enshrined in the mosaic, boy and deer optional, but something is strange. He closes his lap-top down, just in case anyone should wander in (o those interesting thoughts), and wanders downstairs to gawp at the mosaic, as though he’d never seen it before. Some ancient Fidubi with a strange sense of humour propels him to return to Azt that very evening and prowl around the Jumesit. He asks PANTHER for the plans. Of course there are plans! Aren’t there? We suppose there are plans. The whole place was renovated. That doesn’t mean there are plans. Plans of Azt, then, said Sarat. Baz grinned. Rooted evil woz here! Nothing so dramatic, said Sarat. Water, water is the thing. Underground streams.
“Go and look at the mosaic. My one. Look at it long and hard. Here’s a hint. Pretend you’re back in Var-segan.”
Baz returned shaken.
“We’re idiots!”
“Possibly.”
“They ran out of ideas?”
“Tunnel. Maya, water. Jaizal. Zani. Sheheela. Dill. Great Divide. Fields in Carlin. View from Mel’s balcony. Fidubi games. Jigsaw. Sunflowers. Earthpower. Water. Someone knows what all this crap means. Someone alive and well. I do not think we have stumbled on something lost in the mists of history.”
“There are laws against killing Cho.”
“It’s not Cho.”
Baz managed a wry grin.
“There are definitely laws against killing Cantilip..”
Dill came on the line. After ten minutes of the usual he told he he’d pick her up at the border and they’d have a really interesting time, a sort of royal progress.
Dill has her panthers enabling the usual degree of semi-normality. There is now, as we know, a railway line between Azt and Zur. The entrepreneurial spirit flourishing on both sides, and the Great Divide being in the way, facilities have developed around the platform on both sides, so here is Dill in a huge black hat, sitting outside the café with her pussy-cats, when a small frisson shakes the assembled company. SARAT I is a cross between a racing-car and a limo, low but broad
four tiers of seats, with smoked glass, the sort of vehicle that gets noticed in a crowd. He doesn’t use it much, but when he does, it achieves the desired effect.
“Ah, my taxi!” exclaimed Dill, a girl who rises to the occasion.
Baz jumped out and opened the door for her.
The girls slid into the seats behind and chucked the bags into the back.
Dill snuggled up against Sarat.
“You are utterly compromised,” said Sarat enthusiastically.
“I’d only be utterly compromised if we’d been seen vanishing into the bedroom together.”
“I can do that,” said Sarat. “Call it a state visit.”
“To whom?”
“Vastulis.”
“That piece of – I do but quote my papa.”
“Vastulis is so-so. It’s the house. I have to see the house.”
“I suppose you do.”
“There are five mosaics. No-one notices the other four.”
“I didn’t know that! Why not?”
“My one is in a room the size of a large lavatory. Some tiler got bored!”
“What about them?”
“I don’t know! That’s what we’re going to find out. “
At last! I hear you cry. What has happened to Vaudos! Vastulis had not himself been evil, merely weak and nasty. Sarat feeling gracious had left him the house (as I keep telling you, it’s all in the mind, actually I haven’t told you that, but the houses themselves are not large). Vastulis corresponded occasionally with Cho but otherwise lived quietly. That was until Sarat and Dill arrived on his doorstep.
“You have a mosaic,” said Sarat.
“At last you understand!” said Vastulis.
Wot?
“Of course,” said Sarat brazenly then remembered to cover his rear. “Some of it.”
Next day, they arrrived in Van-senok, as the airwaves of the world began to steam quietly. Some kind of royal progress! Announcing the new Mistress of Kadun! Press-fiends too can be cunning. They lay in wait. Carlin hadn’t seen such a siege since the last time Sarat livened up its life. SARAT I scattered them like a tank. Those two on the bonnet, that was joke, Sarat!
“D’you think we might be on our way?” suggested Sarat.
As grinned.
“How about some manoeuvres on the broad fields of Carlin?”
“Last time I was here,” mused Sarat, “I had the benefit of half the army.”
Last time you were here, you had Maya!
“The last time he was here was Sorg’s funeral and we didn’t like you then,” said As.
“The journal,” said Sarat, “either is or is not the biggest load of hooey.”
As roared with laughter.
“We’ve been waiting for you to say that.”
“Does Carlin have an explanation for this precious historical relic?”
“It is just that,” pointed out Saryulin, “a fragment only of Narulis’ life.”
“But a revealing one.”
“Or not,” said As, “as the case may be.”
“Narulis, says history, was a sea-farer who landed in Carlin with his crew, and found a war he was better able to fight than the indigenous population, though as Cantilip would point out that is not wholly true since earthpower more than adequately deals with the Cult when properly utilized.”
Saryulin smiled.
“Not trees alone preserved Van-senok!”
“Mel and Cantilip,” said Sarat, “describe themselves as the two sides of a sheet of paper.” Someone with less self-control than Duvi would have clapped her hand over her mouth. “Brig was earthpower and with her all Carlin?”
“That is so,” agreed Saryulin.
“It was an irtubi gig but Narulis became top banana. Just quoting someone. Suppose I say, and this of course is a wild, crazy generalization, that the irtubi whose gig it was were – broadly – female. It is my impression, and as such it is of course another generalization, but nonetheless it is my impression that while women in Kadun had second-class status in law, were beaten, murdered, oppressed and generally given a hard time for daring to exist, this inferior status was rarely accepted – “
“Women were written out of history,” said Duvi. “Darling, that is rather commonplace.”
“Consequently we fell into your arms,” said Dill.
As smothered a grin.
“It made Mitch real cross,” said Sarat. “When the empire worked it was supposed to be Fidubi, when it didn’t it was supposed to be irtubi. Who in hell ever called Jaizal Fidubi.”
“And it is held,” said Dill.
“Oh, it is held!” said Sarat. “That the values brought from Fidub were alien and the values of the Cult indigenous, but that is nonsense or why did so many follow Narulis?”
“Mitch is a real interesting guy,” said As.
“He is!” said Dill enthusiastically.
“The problem would seem to be,” said Sarat, “that there was no Cult in Kadun until after Narulis had established the empire.”
“Do you believe that, darling?” asked Duvi.
“I honestly don’t know,” said Sarat. “I can see it has possibilities. Harn too would have had sea-farers who reported that that which lay over the water was a threat. I should without wishing to besmirch the memory of someone very dear to me like to know why Sorg never told me. The outstanding question of course is why then was the empire established? My answer would involve a field of flowers bordering the Great Divide.”
“Oh Sarat,” said As, “all our little secrets?”
“Falita,” said Duvi.
“That Fal chose one of the more remarkable parts of the planet to goat-farm. You have no idea how much that field has permeated our thoughts! So I’m going to tell you. Then you can tell me how Carlin tells the history of the chair. Why was it dumped in Casin-ruhn?”
“Pass,” said As. “That was Van-senok.”
“Just checking,” said Sarat. “What is interesting – Sorg’s ghost, Sorg’s whatever – the effect of the field is certainly unusual but hardly – alarming, deleterious, evil or in any other way negative. Why then do you require Fidub to deal with it?”
Duvi chuckled.
“I think you did not mean ‘did’.”
“I did not mean ‘did’.”
“My understanding,” said Saryulin, “is – whether before or after I do not know – the Cult has the ability to harness for evil whatever physical – defect – is present there and so evil came to Carlin and earthpower could not prevail.”
“They came from Harn. Wouldn’t that mean the west - ?”
“Suppose they followed the Great Divide,” said Dill.
“Not just a pretty pair of fronds! The – the line of weakness. Maybe they discovered the fault accidentally. How to attack the empire would be from the south?”
“Earthpower can’t heal the earth?” asked Dill.
“Not as we knew it. Understanding in Van-senok perhaps differed.”
“The five-headed monster,” sighed Sarat, “is supposed to be under Azt.”
“You struck Sorg,” said As, “as a real modern guy.”
“I was several centuries younger then,” said Sarat.
But it is late! You must stay!
“It is absolutely vital,” said Sarat, “to discussion about stewardship in the modern age that we share a bedroom.”
“Impossible without,” averred Dill.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“My lords, my lady, the Anile empress!”
“Oh my dear,” said Duvi.
“Don’t tell anyone!” hissed Sarat.
“We need to make a few people scream first,” said Dill.
“I know about Sheheela,” said Sarat. “What I do not wholly understand is why the throne was not seized. I understand of course that when Azt turned rotten the empire essentially dissolved, reverted to independent fiefdoms. Is there anything else I should know?”
Saryulin laughed.
“We should not then have accepted the primacy of Var-segan.”
“You don’t think I should do a Cantilip?” asked Dill.
“That is rather different.”
“My lord Var-sega’!” said As.
“May we see the mosaic, please?” asked Dill.
Saryulin looked puzzled, genuinely, thought Sarat.
“There is only the Window.”
Someone with less self-control than Sarat would have clapped his hand to his forehead.
“But you know not only Var-segan - ? There’s one in the Jumesit too.”
“I did not know that.”
Sarat and Dill got up at dawn and scrutinized then photographed every inch of the Window.
Sarat lay in Dill’s arms and muttered, “But Sarat, she was built in Kadun.”
“I was,” said Dill.
“Then let me pay you due attention.”
Some hours later he suddenly snapped into full consciousness.
“Idiots, idiots, idiots, we’re all idiots.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Dill.
“The mouth does not connect with the brain. There was no border. Van-senok took the chair to Van-senok.”
“Everyone knows that,” said Dill.
“I’m special,” said Sarat. “I’m not just everyone, you know. Umm, does everyone know why?”
“To keep it out of the hands of the Cult.”
“I am reasonably sure,” said Sarat, “the Cult could not – to protect the Cult would make more sense.”
“That’s impossible,” said Dill.
“I know,” sighed Sarat.
After a while he went once more into his we’re all idiots routine. His eyes sparkled.
“They stole it! The other side of the piece of paper. To ensure the safety of Van-senok.”
“No wonder Cantilip. That does not say much for their – concern for the empire.”
“I want to do something,” said Sarat, “which may be impossible.”
“I did not think you knew that word.”
Sarat and Dill were sighted: attending lectures on the history of Kadun, visiting geologists, attending digs.
Sarat and Dill were not sighted: partying, whispering sweet nothings, cuddling. They did not appear together at formal occasions, or well only twice and after all she is Mistress of Var-segan and could hardly be absent! They did not apparently have candlelit or any other kind of dinners together. Opinion was divided as to whether they could be said to go on holiday together, since this thirst for knowledge took them not only all over the continent but all over the world, but when they stayed in the City, they stayed in an apartment owned by the Rep Centre, and no-one could be persuaded to reveal the sleeping-arrangements.
“Clearly he prefers hunting in pairs,” said Vax.
“One assumes a shared interest,” said Cho. “That Dill is not a fool I took for granted. That she is an academic – “
To the inevitable howls of WTF, Sarat, Sarat replied that he was indeed fortunate to be able in his spare time to pursue his own interests. Mel and Kai, of course, he added, are both anthropologists. The area of study is not new to me.
“You were going to be a vet,” Seani muttered weakly to the screen. “Sarat re-inventing himself as a student of ancient history. Go all the way, Sarat! Go to the Schools! Are you not a born scholar?”
“Yet another,” pronounced Num.
“Of course it’s a bloody wind-up! But. Except. He’s giving time to this. Has anything about Sarat’s life to date given you the idea he wastes his time? He wants to know this stuff. If he didn’t, it could be the diseases of cattle or the economic policies of the middle empire.”
“Probably knows them already,” said Num. “He thinks he can get something on them?”
“Hole them on history? I doubt that will shatter global finance.”
“The world is used to seeing them together.”
“Oh yes,” said Seani, “I think the world will get very used to that. Except!”
Dill had moved out from the hill and now lived in Zur where she went to college. Sarat was not sighted regularly visiting her.
“He’s still using us,” said Num. “That’s the point.”
“Isn’t that what we’re for? To fight the bad guys.”
When Dill forsook her fronds for neat wings tucked behind her ears, folks had murmured knowingly, a more decorous look in keeping…but Sarat! Aw, Sarat! We need some detail here. After years in the sunless north, hair no longer permanently lightened by the sun, skin no longer permanently tanned, Sarat had levelled out at tawny, skin the colour of weak milky coffee, hair golden brown. The streaks were pale gold, undoubtedly elegant, no quesch bad taste, but whether they are entirely appropriate…
“What does ‘permanent; mean to Sarat?” Seani asked again. “You can’t say he had a normal youth!”
“It may all be very simple,” mused Num.
“Oh yes,” said Seani, “I’d got there. Sarat has a right to have some fun!”
Mel took private soundings as to what Zur would feel about Sarat and Dill wandering around as an item. Bit spooky. Deserves to be happy. Deserves a bit of fun.
Does she have boyfriends? This is the question on everyone’s lips. Does she even party? The answer was a definite no. Dill did not appear to be having fun. Dill was apparently deeply studious. When she visited the hill, she vanished into the Library, where Mel cornered her.
She gestured at a pile of books.
“I know you guys have been through all this before. It’s a question of alternative histories, what does and does not mesh with the – perspective of Var-segan.”
“You mean we believed everything we read,” translated Mel.
“Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe how we in Var-segan have seen things is a load of hooey.”
“The journal,” said Mel. “He’s talked to them?”
“Oh yes,” said Dill. “It is but a fragment of Narulis’ life!”
“How true,” said Mel.
“But a revealing one. Possibly.”
“Why hasn’t he come down on Cantilip?” Dill struggled to keep her face straight. “I could have put that better.”
“Puh-lease!” said Dill. “Is he not a gentleman!”
Mel grinned.
“Harassing the pregnant and nursing-mothers – there was a time before Cantilip achieved the ultimate defence!”
“I don’t think he’d got there. It would seem to be because of something you said. You and she are two sides of a piece of paper. I think our understanding is that our business is with Narulis’ side of that sheet of paper. “
“The Matter of Kadun is – is the interface between the two sides?”
“The Matter of Kadun appears to be that earthpower could not heal the earth. Perhaps that should be earthpower alone. Regardless of what is in the journal, Kadun needed Narulis’ input.”
“Tell me, are you ever going to live together?”
“Oh sure,” said Dill.
“When you have resolved the Matter of Kadun?”
“When we have found the end of a ball of string.”
Mel picked up a book put it down again next to the pile and pretended not to notice the book now on top.
“You don’t, in the slightest, the tiniest bit, mind?”
“We’re together all the time now,” said Dill.
“Ah,” said Mel.
“Did you know Van-senok stole the chair?”
Mel’s mouth opened slightly then closed, then twitched, then gave way to laughter.
“Yes.”
Mel lay on the bed.
“Urgent request. Piece of paper needs its other side. I actually said that.”
Cantilip continued cooing over the cot..
“Little did you know…”
“Together all the time. How can we be this dense?”
“When one considers – “
“The whole of their lives together or should that be apart?”
“Naturally we watched like hawks.” She assumed television commentator voice. “It has become immediately apparent that Maya ban-essa is no mere appendage! She operates in her own right.”
“The chair.”
“It is a little late to throw ourselves on the emperor’s mercy.”
“I think it’s time to talk,” said Mel.
Mel arrived in Var-sega’ and showed he knew how to pronounce it properly.
“Is this a private party or can anyone join in?” He started to move the armchair round. “Love the hair.”
Sarat lying back in the chair opposite, arm slung over the back, looked at him with something between a rueful smile and a mad grin.
“Fronds are next week. How’s the daughter and heir?”
Mel looked smug.
“A small round heap of black curls.”
“Not two of you!” said Sarat. “Can the world cope!”
“Can you?”
Sarat snorted. “How do I feel? This is crazy. What am I doing? There was a point at which I wanted to thank you for not joining the queue, then I thought I shouldn’t break the spell. Mel’s a sensible guy. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
“And?”
“It doesn’t work,” mimicked Sarat. “It didn’t. It does now. That was my stuff.”
“May stuff.”
Sarat ignored that one.
“I told Venga I was looking for the end of a ball of string. Tear your hair out. You have enough to spare.”
“It would have been so unbearable, the derision? Perhaps that is largely leached?”
“7/10,” said Sarat. “It wasn’t really that at all.”
“You still love Maya.”
“Of course.”
“It is hard to love two women equally?”
“Not when one is dead.”
“Is she dead to you?”
“That’s an interesting question,” said Sarat.
Mel waited a moment.
“Not one you wish to answer?”
“Who said, you are holding my hand so why am I crying?”
“You are not – in some sense continuing to share your life with Maya.”
“I am not,” said Sarat.
Mel grinned.
“I was ready to duck. I still am. Why not?”
“Dill is there.”
“Instead?”
“Is that a question?”
“Have I got it the wrong way round?”
“I think you will have to elaborate on that one.”
“Watch me choose my words with care – “
“One must always be exact,” murmured Sarat.
“Bah! That part of you which is in any case there rather than here. Was it there with Maya?”
“Nonsense,” said Sarat.
“Then what are you talking about!”
“Cho’s fantasies, by the sound of it. Shav told me.”
“We did our best to be reasonable.”
“They were terribly worried about me. I, however, was not worried about me, merely – thoughtful.”
“What did you think!”
“That I didn’t really want to talk about it, to anyone, because I didn’t, full stop. Also because they insisted on knowing what it’s about and they didn’t have a clue and I didn’t feel particularly good-tempered or lucid concerning a conversation I didn’t want to have in the first place.”
“What is it about?”
“It is not even mostly about Maya. Of course I am and have been bereaved and bereft. It is not the case – I too choose my words with care – that I am or have been abnormally bereaved and bereft. Both the exact nature of our relationship and the circumstances of her death make more acute a normal ailment. They do not change its nature. Unfortunately this takes places against the backdrop of the Matter of Kadun. As well to say it’s about Sorg. Or Kaminua. Jaizal. You!”
“Where we no longer live wholly in linear time,” said Mel.
“But we never did. Did and didn’t. They brought us up, the beasts, to understand that we did not exist solely in linear time. But of course that had nothing to do with getting on with life!”
“What does being dead mean?”
“We have all noted that time hiccups only backwards and that perhaps is the Matter of Kadun, a burp where the future is closed. Which may also mean the whole thing is some monstrous game, though which monsters.”
Mel laughed.
“It plays in real-time, whatever that is. Precognition - ?”
“Dead wrong,” said Sarat. “Which was strange.”
I think I’m beginning to get this, thought Mel.
“Or was it?”
“You – implied I was sitting here communing with Maya or at least - implied volition, I prefer sitting here thinking about Maya to being with Dill. Perhaps – definitely perhaps – a physical me and a physical Maya are together, somewhere, some alternative future, some parallel universe. I am here and now and the physical me and the physical Dill occupy my thoughts.” He grinned. “In all our aspects.”
“Some worm-hole! Kaminua and Asyrion.”
Sarat made theatrical gestures of astonishment.
“He has a brain! I don’t want that. My time and place and – duty, it is not the right word. Role – purpose – “
“But guilt?”
“If I loved her as much as I said I did and I love her as much as I say I do – I don’t think, you know, even the Denzines could set that up once someone was dead. I did not find it necessary to enquire.”
“Why are we all so obsessed with Asyrion! That was not – future tense?”
“Our limited social circle! Suppose what everyone ‘saw’ when they attempted to gaze penetratingly into the future of Sarat and Maya was Kaminua and Asyrion?”
“That’s crazy.”
“Tell me about it. Bring it down a few levels and you come to my parallel universe. Suppose the bloody Matter of Kadun is that somehow the whole place (or at least a certain field of flowers) is also in a parallel universe. I am not of course saying I believe that! Suppose also what I, me, myself, I want to do is live and love with Dill here and now and do worthy things contributory to improving the quality of life in Kadun.”
“Suppose,” said Mel slowly, “everything is a metaphor, except that.”
“Oh verily!” said Sarat. “Now, all that said, I am not totally sure I believe in the Casin-ruhn trip. My gut reaction was special effects. That said, a lot of finely tuned minds saw the same movie. All that said – “ He grinned. “ – I am not convinced that if you mooched off to Qartly and asked him to fix immortality for you and Cantilip he would be able to oblige. Knowledge can be lost. I’ll say that before you do. I shall also say that screwing perception is very much an earthpower gig. You know Van-senok stole the chair.”
“I know,” said Mel.
“Here lies whole the emperor’s peace!” intoned Sarat mockingly.
“They didn’t mean to cause the dissolution of the empire.”
“That’s as maybe.”
“There is an Anile throne,” sighed Mel, “regardless of whether there’s anyone sitting on it.”
“The Anile throne,” intoned Sarat, “does not rust or tarnish. What it does do. Five kingdoms under the imperial crown. Only when they were finally threatened by the fiction of All-Kadun , together of course with the rise of the Cult, did it seem a jolly good idea to have the empire back, Mitch’s politics excepted, and a few hundred other things, such as the necessity of joining with the modern world.”
”Why, why, why, why, why, Mummy, why, Daddy,” said Mel. “Zani did not want the throne. How did he know? They did not want the empire. It had turned rotten. It was not the answer. What was the question?”
“Irtubi are governing Kadun, and everyone lives happily ever are. It also occurs to me – I must have been 17 at most – very bright in many ways, but apparently oblivious to the fact that a post to a Grid forum may be seen by anyone in the world – I really set the cat among the pigeons when I wrote, oy, that’s MY chair. All this crap fits together. Alternatively, all this crap doesn’t fit together. When I know what the question is I can judge if I want to answer it, if I can answer it, how much of my time I want to spend on answering it. An informed decision. Have I not insisted on informed decisions?”
Mel chortled.
“Dill was reading up on hallucinogens.”
“Clearly drinks can be spiked,” said Sarat. “It’s an interesting question, whether one can ingest or inhale something that wholly alters perception without any other physical or mental effects. There are things we know. What happened to Mitch and Dill and others. It’s a continuum.”
“It is in your view a possibility that if you crack this you’ve cracked the Cult?”
“It is in my view a possibility I can send them packing with their tails between their legs never to return.”
“Without wrecking Harn.”
“They have never, you know, been decisively defeated. At the metaphysical level. I think I can wreck their brains.”
“I’d like that,” said Mel.
“I think I walked into a trap,” said Sarat. “Certainly an unusual one, say herded, rather. Shepherded into a sheep-pen! Bit like a ram being herded into a pen of ewes to – ah, do something. Do his thing.
Since I was oblivious it hardly made any difference and the shepherds wanted nothing but the best for me and for Kadun, but nonetheless. I sort of realized. I said to Cho, it had to be a tree-hugger! I said to Cantilip and Venga, what did you expect of me. I dismissed them with a light laugh because clearly there was no malevolence, and because I was very, very, very busy. How it seems to me is that many people have puzzles. The game is that everyone thinks his – his or her – puzzle the puzzle. I think it probable all this crap fits together. On the other hand, the universe is truly not my responsibility. I reject that out of hand!”
“The ball of string.”
“The ball of string is how to be Anile emperor.”
“Got it all wrong,” sighed Mel.
Sarat grinned.
“Does He Want To Give It All Up? I did think round that one. Not Shav. Why, I thought evilly, should I not dump it on Cho? Could he refuse! What I actually want is to enjoy it and get the universe off my back. The universe to know its place in my life. The MofK is my job. It has its place in my life. It should not swamp my life. If – if there is a place in which Maya and I are living out our lives together, I do not want to be there.”
“Same old ball of string,” said Mel. “Staying Sarat.”
Sarat looked approving.
“You have talked,” went on Mel, “without pain or anguish. About that, then, I was right. I said – to Cho – I do not think you are hurting, at any rate more than – the pain of a – normal ailment diminishes with time. Why then have you driven your dear grey-haired old grandpappa up the wall!”
“I’d have thought that was obvious. What happened between Maya and me in those last moments is not his damned business.”
“I remembered,” said Mel. “Saski! It never was, was it. Anyone else’s damned business.”
“I know Dill told you.”
“It explains so much.”
“It explains,” said Sarat, “a jagged wound in my head much as if it had been cleaved open by an axe. About which no-one could do anything except me.”
“What did happen – “ It wasn’t a question. “You were both dead, weren’t you.”
“Whatever the hell that means,” said Sarat.
“Which is not a million miles dissimilar from sitting on the Anile throne.”
“Let us say,” said Sarat, “that there is possibly some state, wherein one is if not dead in this dimension, then beyond return to life. That is identical to sitting on the Anile throne. One must be exact. One may be what we call alive in that state. Another may be what we call dead in that state. Not many people know that.”
“The shock of – congruity. Dying to self, dead to the world, that is old news.”
“They never got around to telling us what it means.”
“Probably,” said Mel, “because they don’t know.”
“If we may now move on,” said Sarat, then relaxed suddenly, “to one of my madder schemes. I want to take Dill to Casin-ruhn.”
“Meet the family? See what she makes of it!”
“Days out can be real special when you’re Anile empress.”
“ I am sure Ciletij would facilitate! But that’s the opposite.”
“Or heals the wound?”
“Or explains without the need for words. If we may return,” teased Mel, “to my initial question.”
“Answer it,” suggested Sarat.
“You still need thinking time.”
“Somewhere you are Master of Kadun.”
“I don’t go on about it,” admitted Mel. “Fortunately my friends and family. Sheheela!”
“Ah yes, Sheheela. Did anyone tell you she was Var-segan’s heir?”
“That’s impossible! They would have claimed the throne – “
“It’s more complicated than that.”
Mel sighed.
“Not in the female line! That makes no sense.”
“Her elder sister was the heir, m and f. Her sister had children, indeed, she had a partner. Children and partner died of the pox, leaving sister, who never remarried. Sister duly died. Sheheela was in her late seventies. They really didn’t want the Anile heir as Mistress of Var-segan.”
“There is a sort of voice,” said Mel, “people adopt when they want to totally mask what they are thinking about what they’re saying. So who?”
“Younger sister,” said Sarat in exactly the same tone. “This is a tale of three sisters.”
“I’m sure you just love it,” said Mel. “Cho must know.”
“He does,” said Sarat blandly.
“What else does Cho know?”
“I used to tell him everything. Now I tell him nothing.”
“Whom these days do you trust?”
“What does it mean?” asked Sarat. “To whom have I confided? Dill and Shav.”
Mel closed his eyes.
“Cho’s an idiot!”
“To whom am I confiding? You. To whom shall I confide – what is this, a grammar lesson? Probably no-one else.”
“Not Hass?”
“I trust Hass to fight his way through a blazing inferno to rescue me. I trust Hass to cut his own throat rather than reveal a confidence. I trust Hass to risk his being to get me were I lost in time! All that goes equally for Cho and Venga. What then?”
Mel smiled.
“Objectivity.”
“Ex-actly. Kyse! I’m not about to pour my heart out to him but I’d trust him absolutely to keep me on the straight and narrow. The same with Fal. Did you know my revered grandmother sent Fal to me for me to cry on her shoulder?”
“Oh for - !”
“There was a lot of other stuff. Fal and I have three things in common. One of course is Maya, the second is the rather large jump from a kid in the boatyards of Zur to Falita San-yaeaga-baht, heroic widow of the heroic young officer feeling the weight of the history of Carlin on her back. Tell me about it! The third is little adventures in time. She met Kaminua in The Field.” Mel’s eyes widened. “Before that she had an experience of her and Maya as kids in Zur. It rather made me want to cry but I am expert in not crying.”
“Oh Sarat.”
“I trust that no beady-eyed little Denzine lurked in the shadows to wreck her perception.”
“Any more than Sorg was staged.”
“Ex-actly.”
“You can’t blame them for trying.”
“But I did,” said Sarat, with considerable satisfaction. “I was livid. Fal has enough stress without being set up by my bloody grandmother! She didn’t know I didn’t want to talk.”
“I’m not up to speed here. Does She Want To Give It All Up? Obviously she decided she didn’t. We all sat on the chair.”
“In the presence of each other. Except when Maya first sat.”
“Dill told me what you want to do. Sarat – what do you expect to happen?”
Sarat grinned.
“Oh, the earth to crack and writhe and five-headed monsters to sprout from it. A chorus of dancing bears at minimum. Did you know the first allusion to the Matter of Kadun predates Narulis by four hundred years?”
“A pre-literate society?”
“These scribes, get everywhere.”
Mel cocked his head.
“You actually are caching up on your reading.”
“I love it when you’re sensible.”
“As soon as they knew how to, they wrote it down.”
“Kadun is not land-locked!”
“irtubi in Fidub? Or of course Harn. What is possible? irtubi shared earthpower with Harn. Might some bright little spark not have spilled the beans in Harn, where it was picked up by the Cult?”
“You are coming to Zur! Your second cousin demands it!”
Sarat made wide eyes
“Where shall I stay!”
“That,” said Mel callously, “is your problem. One other thing. Kai. This is so much her territory.”
“You’re blushing,” said Mel enthusiastically.
“Oh shut up!” said Cantilip.
“Oy, that’s my chair! I loved that bit.”
“Yes, we all saw it,” said Cantilip.
“Yikes?” suggested Mel.
“Try tetraphonic 6D yikes.”
“And who is this fine youth! Blooming ‘ec, lad’s a tree-hugger!”
“If we’d designed a blue-print,” sighed Cantilip.
“A tree-hugger with a mind of his own,” said Mel.
“I detect a note of reproof?”
“Not exactly. Why did it matter so much?”
“Now you’re being dense. Earthpower had to heal and has healed Kadun.”
“But that’s the exact opposite!”
“I know,” said Cantilip. “It’s still true. Both are true.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Hadn’t you noticed? Kadun is a bloody impossible place!”
Mel howled with laughter.
“I almost believe in the parallel universes.”
“The chief problem with that is the sense it makes. Two opposing sets of physical laws.” Mel was still yowling with laughter. “Exactly what,” growled Cantilip, “is so funny?”
“Oh everything. Mostly – lemme try to be exact – I have this image of Sarat standing in his bedroom at home asking us very quietly and very distinctly – and you know he almost never swears – what the fuck does the Anile emperor look like? Then of course there’s the whole staying Sarat clause. No, Sarat, no, they don’t want you to look like a dashing young officer (not that you can help….) Just put on your oldest clothes and get out there to hug the trees and Kadun will fall at your feet.”
“You know that is not exact,” said Cantilip reprovingly. She broke into a smile. “Except of course it is. Haven’t I just said? Bloody impossible!”
“My lady leaf, the impossibility of storming the Great Gates.”
“The impotence of earthpower,” said Cantilip.
Click! Whatever else Sarat is doing, he is certainly bonding with Zani Marula! Want one, Sarat? Oh yes, said Sarat. You’re staying with Dill, right, Sarat. One of the things I love about you guys – come to think of it, the only thing I love about you guys – is how you make a statement of commonplace fact sound like a scientific discovery that revolutionizes our perception of the universe. Of course I’m staying with Dill! Uh, yeah, Sarat. !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Life, wrote Seani, as all our former plotters know to their cost, their heavy cost, is a thing of impermanence. Might we all not move on here? Sarat and Dill are clearly in some sense sharing their lives in the knowledge those lives may be cruelly foreshortened. Who could possibly grudge them that? Who would wish to sully their time together?
It didn’t quite work. That doesn’t explain why he doesn’t declare her Anile empress! Will Dill’s child be Anile heir!
Doesn’t it? said Seani.
“Zani-hyphen-Marula,” said Cantilip. “Everyone calls her that. We didn’t bargain on that one!”
“School,” suggested Sarat, “will shorten it.”
“What to!”
“A not-too-flying visit,” said Mitch.
Mel considered.
“A not-too-obvious statement of faith in the government and people of Kadun.”
Mitch smiled.
“My mind is running in strange directions,” said Mel. Cantilip gave a theatrical yawn. “Had Dill been first and Maya second…”
“Vastly more vulnerable,” said Cantilip.
“It really was an awful lot to ask,” said Mel after a while.
“So why is it significant now?”
“Keep your fingers crossed. It may be called normality.”
Karula said sleepily, “We talked, Mitch, and then we talked more.”
“I follow you closely.”
“Our last decision, if you recall, was that pregnancy and an election campaign did not mix. Since then our feet have not touched the ground.”
“They did before? Broody?”
“Damn broody!”
“Sleepless nights, no time, what’s new.”
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006.
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.
