Amberlight Page 24

  “So now,” she says. And feels the blessing rise, slow and sweet and sure as the moon’s vanguard luminance. Washing away loss, and rancor, and the memory of destruction, and all obstacles between them. Even grief. “So now, what are you doing here?”

  The black horse takes a forward step. Another, unrebuked. His owner matches him. A wobbly, absent stride, his eyes never leaving her, his good arm through the reins.

  “‘It’ wanted. ‘It’ said. Tel, does it—did it—think?”

  Tellurith ponders, and as always, reaches the same conclusion. An answer that is no answer, not a closed door but infinite openness.

  “Think. Feel. Talk. I don’t think—our words apply.”

  He picks his way, breathing with an injured man’s care, amid the wet-time ruts.

  “Then it’s probably stupid to ask—was it alive? Was it a rock, a vegetable, a—anything.”

  Except qherrique.

  “Probably, yes.”

  Now the frown comes. “But it could move minds. I thought I decided for myself. But we did what it wanted. Even when we didn’t understand. We—our people, your people, died for it. You have to wonder. Were we ever more than puppets? Did we—have any choice?”

  Tellurith ponders that in good earnest. “I never felt—as a shaper, as a cutter, as a House-head—that you did what it wanted—so much as it offered you—if you listened—advice.”

  “And if you didn’t listen?”

  Denara, faced with qherrique’s abuse, averting her eyes. Eutharie, squeaking about the honor of the House. The obduracy, in contention, of Vannish.

  The entrapment by her own defense schemes of Ti’e, Jura, Zhee, Averion. Was the plan futile as others’ denial, just part of the ultimate aim?

  Without it, we would all have died.

  That answer comes from her heart, as sure as ever from the qherrique.

  “I think you could refuse to hear. And it would let you. I think it had its own,” survival? “good as the final aim. But—I never thought I was a puppet. I—”

  No puppetmaster would have known gratitude. Would have given me those last words.

  “I think the contact went both ways.”

  The touch of the cutter grip, the statuette’s glow. The warmth, the tangible assent, of the mother-face. The rapport, the ineffable contact, for whose loss women died. That face in the dust-cloud. If it was not human, it was more than rock, more than plant, more than beast.

  And less than god, having to die for its release.

  When she looks aside it is a shock to find him blinking too. A greater shock when he speaks softly, looking down at his good hand twisted in the reins.

  “The night I touched it—I’ll never forget.”

  A rapport, a meeting of impossibles, that no one can describe. That no one will ever repeat.

  “And when it spoke—I know I never had much to do with it—but to feel that . . . to feel it like that. Just once . . . “

  Sharing the memory of that more than human moment, the black eyes are glossed, like hers, with tears.

  Tellurith swallows hard. And then, somewhere within her, another voice speaks.

  Enough, daughter. She can see the face in the dust-cloud, acerbic as Zhee in the flesh. Mourn, remember, never forget. And now, get on with your life.

  “So now, again—what are you doing here?”

  * * * *

  The column is stretching out, more than half its length across the bridge. He stares ahead of them. Tension in his face, his gait now. Almost, he has begun to limp.

  Tellurith pulls her hat down. Silently, keeps pace.

  It is his patience that breaks first.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the Iskans.” The words come easily, flowing, bright as assent from the mother-face. If the qherrique never speaks to me again, I know that this, this is right. “After all, the one thing that always sells is marble. And the one thing we do understand is working stone.”

  He claps a hand to his ribs and chokes. It is a moment before she understand it is the consequence of mirth.

  “God’s . . . eyes!”

  Gradually, the mirth ebbs. The column is picking up speed. The horses lengthen stride. Frowning, he keeps pace.

  In the end, she cannot play it out. Time enough for that, when he was coerced to her bed. This choice, so much greater, must be free.

  “Are you coming with us?”—“I can work in stone.”

  They say it together. Check together, and stare.

  Then the black eyes widen, incredulous. Softening, glowing, deeper than the River-depths. Waking, a sheen on velvet, to the marveling, marvelous smile.

  Before he says huskily, “Tel,” and she steps forward, taking him carefully, delicately, lovingly, in her arms.

  * * * *

  “You’ll have,” he says, when he finally lets go, “to strap my ribs.”

  “I’ve brought Caitha.” Smugly, she smiles.

  “And get used to my outland ways.”

  “Hmm.” Far down the column her eye catches, her heart lurches, at the sight of a tall, bronze-brown head. “You may have to get used to a few outland ways yourself.”

  It is wonderful how the grey has thawed out of his face. But it gathers wariness now.

  “Oh?”

  “We won’t have a men’s tower. But I think,” she clasps hands behind her back, lifting eyes skyward demurely, innocently, “that we have to look after the ones we let out.”

  This time he turns his head and stares.

  “You—I thought only the men married more than once?”

  Those indestructible wits. She cannot help it. Spontaneously, Tellurith laughs.

  “I don’t see why I can’t have two husbands—if one of them has other wives.”

  “God’s teeth . . .”

  He lets it die away. The black eyes roll at her, hot less with rage than mirth.

  “So, can you handle being married to Sarth?”

  A long pause. A very deep breath.

  “I can handle being married to you. I can handle you being married to—but I will not, damn it, not for any godforsaken outlander, be married to Sarth!”

  He has to hold his ribs before they sober. She does hold him, however carefully, first by the arm, then around the waist. How many times, in fear and deadly anguish, have I wanted to walk like this?

  The troublecrew are beaming fatuously as a new daughter’s aunts. The orphans keep stealing backward looks. When the horses overtake them, Tellurith cannot help a grin and lordly wave.

  “Hassa, Daman—this is my new husband. Just married today.”

  The girls essay a smile. The more forward, Hassa, slides a look at Zuri, august troublecrew. Mysteriously encouraged, ventures, “And—ah—what do we call you?”

  For another moment their eyes meet. Then he looks back to Hassa, and answers, smiling.

  “My name’s Alkhes.”