Kherishdars exception, p.3
Kherishdar's Exception, page 3
part #1 of The Books of Kherishdar Series
“Farren will not let his soup get cold.” Kor said as he resumed setting out the pieces. “As he dislikes cold soup.”
Farren sighed, and sipped from the bowl.
I wasn’t sure what I was more grateful for: that Kor had prevented his ajzelin from haranguing me about leaving… or that the exchange had demonstrated that Farren cared about my welfare. I twitched my ears once to flick the blush from them, then found a chair and allowed myself to be pulled into the game.
It was an eccentricity of Kor’s, that he enjoyed games. That he knew so many of them and from castes he had never been part of. It wasn’t forbidden for us to learn the games of other castes, just… rare. We all had our preferred pastimes, our own concerns and interests. Even when we did cross boundaries, what did we really learn? To be a visitor, a voyeur… it gives you the feeling that you understand something when you really don’t. One never learns the nuances.
But Shame crossed boundaries with the ease of a shadow sliding over a wall, and he was a consummate teacher. We’d learned quite a few new games during the dareleni, but we interspersed them with games common to all the castes. To keep from outraging Farren’s sensibilities, I thought.
District was one of these cross-caste games: we use it to get a sense for the work our Regals and Nobles do. During it you build and manage a Regal’s district, as if you were creating a fresh city in new territory. Ad hoc versions are played with drawings on scraps of paper, representing the services; permanent versions are usually hand-carved, with pieces added over the years until each family’s set was unique. Less talented artists will make flat pieces, resulting in a grid-like game.
Our carver was quiet Jash, who had clever hands, so the Qevellen set was three-dimensional. After we’d been playing for a few hours our city looked like a diorama of golden wood and elegant trees. He’d added a few flowerbeds to the set since I looked at it last. I found their texture distracting, pleasing, and rubbed one of them while we played.
So we whiled away the dareleni, and Farren ate with that elegance I found so arresting in someone outside the fathriked caste, one that had everything to do with his long fingers and slim wrists, and his unconscious gestures, holding his sleeves out of the way. I loved watching him for entirely different reasons than I did Kor and Ajan, who were arresting because they were sensual, but so restrained. I had thought initially that was all Kor… but there was an inner core of privacy in Ajan that resisted performance of intimacies that involved other people.
I could appreciate that.
I still liked watching them.
After the game, Kor herded Farren out, talking about joining him later, mentioning some particulars of the House they had apparently been discussing before my arrival. Ajan and I put away the District pieces as they vanished into the hall.
“Don’t make it too hard for him,” Ajan said. “He’s a worrier.”
You’ll like that one, aunera. It’s literally ‘he has a bip krevili,’ which is a cup that overflows with waste water.
“I’ll try,” I said.
He flashed me a grin. “Try harder.” At my expression, he said, “Not trying to offend, Haraa. But you’re a little aggressive about being able to handle yourself on your own. It flusters people who want to take care of you.”
“I don’t want to be taken care of,” I growled.
“He’ll learn that in time,” Kor said from the door. He stooped to pick up his bowl of tea and drank. Offered it to Ajan, who finished the last of it off.
“No argument from you?” I asked, arch. “That I need supervision? That I’m new to this? That I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“In the end, we all learn by doing, Haraa.” He smiled at me, brow quirking. “And I don’t underestimate your mettle.”
I sniffed. “As if you know the extent of it already.”
“Not at all,” he said, the amusement more pronounced now. “But I am confident you will demonstrate that extent to me without further provocation.”
“Further provocation?”
“Now you’ve done it,” Ajan said, shaking his head. “Lover mine, I’m going to bed. Come see me before Farren.”
Which left me alone with Kor, who was already following him, so how much trouble could I be in for?
I was expecting teasing, so the sudden sobriety with which he met my eyes disarmed me. “Qenain’s fall was sufficient, Haraa. I need not push a soul already in transition.”
Startled and disturbed, I said, “And if I stop halfway? If I never make it all the way through?”
He paused, hand resting on the doorframe. “You will.” A smile then, crooked but gentle. “Good night, qirini. If I don’t see you before you go, fair travels.”
That left me alone in the room to wonder if Kor knew why it irritated me so badly that Farren wanted to fuss over me, and that some part of me dreaded the day he wouldn’t anymore. I drifted to the window to look out at the world, try to see it the way an artist might. The sky was… some purple color dense enough to seem like fabric. There were lamps shedding warm light on the street. I could just see the spires of some temple, also lit, but I didn’t know which one. The veneration of anything had never mattered to me, except Shemena, the Maiden, and I never felt I needed anyone to teach me her precepts.
I was not an artist. Looking outside, what I noticed was Kherishdar… because tomorrow, I’d be leaving it.
Maybe that said enough about me, at that.
A paper is clipped here. On it, written in a strong hand, with austere letters:
vetsen [ VEHT sehn ], (verb)— to ignore something that should be ignored.
kuvetsen [ koo VEHT sehn ], (verb) — to ignore something that should not be ignored.
qov [ kohv ], (verb) — to deny
The following morning I was spared—I think that’s the only appropriate word—the discomfort of a second not-quite-argument, for I found the first floor silent after my descent from my room. Not that I was the only one awake. The doors to the garden were open, and through them I saw Shame’s Guardians flowing through their exercises, their movements synchronized and effortless. One of the privileges of living in Qevellen, I thought: to be exposed to the disciplined beauty of the Guardian caste’s devotions, so like and yet unlike the ones I’d learned as fathrikedi. I let myself linger a few moments to observe, then passed into the kitchens to break my fast. For once the irimkedi didn’t tax me with one of her scowls, being too busy with preparations for the day’s cooking. I still ate according to the dietary customs of my former caste, which made for very light and very carefully selected meals. It offended her sensibilities, that I picked through her offerings and left most of them untouched.
Poor woman. Between Kor, rarely present; Farren, rarely in this world; and me, rarely eating enough, she must feel herself sorely afflicted. I sympathized, but not enough to change the habits of a near-lifetime. I liked my body the way it was sculpted far too much to re-shape it with an osulkedi’s diet.
I was trying not to examine my own ambivalence about escaping the House unnoticed when I exited the kitchen and found Ajan leaning against the wall, arms folded, his pelt still sweat-sheened from exercise and his tail flopped over his boots.
“You’ll get the tuft dirty,” I said.
“I’m trying to get it dirty,” Ajan said. “You do that when your lover is good with a sponge.” He grinned and stretched. “Shall we whisk you away before the ajzelin rise? Kor will keep him a while, but the morning sun will draw him down from the bedroom soon enough.”
“I know,” I said, because Farren loved the morning sun best for painting. “Yes, let’s go.”
When I’d first come to Qevellen, Kor had drawn me aside. I still remember the slant of the afternoon sunlight on my shoulders and the laze of Ajan’s body sprawled on a divan, and the way I’d smelled incense and flowers on the breeze that had floated in through the open window. “You’re osulkedi, and your work involves the aunera,” he’d said. “You will need to learn to ride. We’ll teach you.”
And they had. Sometimes together, but usually apart, and Ajan more often than Kor. Between the two of them, though, they imparted the knowledge and those sessions… those had made my transition to osulkedi real to me in a way Thirukedi’s declaration of my caste change, and even my new clothes, had not. It had had nothing to do with what they’d been teaching me and everything to do with the camaraderie to which they’d admitted me. I was one of their number; of course, they must share the skills they’d acquired. The gift of in-caste knowledge, so freely given, lawfully.
We enshrine duty, aunera, but that doesn’t mean we always love it. But at our best, its fruits spill from us, and that magnanimity of spirit is to a soul the way a fire is to cold hands in winter.
The Exception had made fun of my boots, thinking my only attachment to them involved flight, but they’d been a gift from Ajan when he’d decided my lack of proper footwear was impeding my progress. He’d escorted me to the shoemaker to have my feet measured, talked me through the advantages and disadvantages of different styles, teased me about having them dyed orange to match my eyes. That objects might become the repository of memories I could keep was a new concept. Fathriked did not own things.
“Are you sending anything ahead?” Ajan asked as we approached the communal stable.
“No. I don’t really need much.” I rested a hand on the pack slung at my side. The changes of clothing in it constituted almost my entire wardrobe. “And I won’t know until I get there what learning the aunerai language will require by way of supplies.”
“Maybe you’ll need a trunk Farren’s size by the time you’re done,” he said with a grin.
“I hope not,” I said. “I like traveling light.” We passed under the broad stone arch and into the dim lavender shade of the stable.
Most Ai-Naidar walk. Those of us who must travel significant distances or pull loads too heavy for our own backs borrow beasts from the stables maintained for the district. We tend not to develop the strong attachments to beasts that you do, aunera, from the stories I’ve heard. But even among us, we might have preferences. One of mine was available, a gray male with a white mane, and while Ajan led him out of the stall I disclosed the details of my journey to the Regal’s beast servant. It made me realize that Kor and Ajan’s suggestion that I decide the length of my stay hadn’t solely been intended to assuage Farren’s concerns.
It must have been on my face when I exited the office, because Ajan had a look at me and laughed. “What?”
“Your lover,” I said, accepting his cupped hands and the boost up into the saddle. “Always teaching, even when it’s not obvious.”
“Ah, well. He’s generous that way.” Ajan took one of my heels and adjusted it in the stirrup. “Little more grip, if you’re going to run all the way there. And you’re going to run all the way there, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “Why walk when running’s more fun?”
“You won’t find me disagreeing,” he said, walking around the front of the beast to check my other foot. We both knew I didn’t need it, but I liked it for the memories it invoked. It was… pleasant… to indulge him. In a way it wasn’t, with Farren. Maybe because I knew Ajan wasn’t worried about me. We were going through the motions for fun, and out of affection. “There, you’re good. Oh, don’t wear the bag all the way there, here, hand that down.” Taking it, he attached it to the back of the saddle with the loops I hadn’t noticed. “There. Now you’re good.” He smiled up at me. “I’ll tell Kor and Farren you said goodbye.”
“I’ll be home soon,” I said.
“Come back when you’re ready. We’ll be here.” He slapped the beast on the shoulder and stepped back as it started forward. “Go well, Haraa.”
“Thank you,” I said, wanting to call him something. Friend? Fellow osulkedi? Brother? But I was out on the street before I could decide and the moment was lost.
I looked up at the perfect blue plate of the sky, so far overhead. The spires of Kherishdar’s temple district touched it, gold flashes of fire in the sun. The breeze skirled past, bringing with it the perfume of incense, and it tugged me into motion, down the thoroughfares toward the gate. I had last entered the capital on the back of a beast, nude and leaning against the Calligrapher’s back to stay astride. How different I must look today leaving it, silver robes fanned over the saddle, confidently astride, alone. I looked what I was, the osulkedi Haraa, on Thirukedi’s errand. And… this part felt good. I liked riding. Both Kor and Ajan had said I would, and they were right. Being carried by a beast is unpleasant. Controlling one….
Farren doesn’t like riding, so he never bothered to tell you our name for the beasts: jev, and if you decline it, it refers to the animal, and if you conjugate it, it refers to the act of traveling by beastback. But the more pertinent word, aunerai, is sumil. Freedom.
It took me half a day to navigate the morning traffic to the external city gate. Since most of the capital’s travelers were pedestrians, there were strict laws governing the speed of beasts and where you could ride. Once I gained the Ashumel, though, the highway leading to the World Gate, I was free to use the courier lane, a separate road parallel to the highway reserved to those traveling at speed.
I know now that few aunera ride animals save for pleasure, so perhaps you don’t know that riding is physical exertion. For someone of Farren’s sedentary habits, just being in the saddle is enough exercise. But I was fathrikedi, and you have learned that we are trained to an athleticism that would find riding at a sedate walk less than nothing. Riding a racing jevi—that is joy. The burn of muscle tension along the thighs, into the abdomen. The pleasure of holding yourself in perfect balance above the moving neck. There you find that moment of mindlessness where all your powers are engaged, physical and mental. I loved it, and the moment it was safe to do so I jammed my heels into my mount’s sides and we lunged for the horizon. The wind pulling my hair back and beading water from my eyes... yes. This was needful. Even if I could not outrun my racing thoughts. They kept me company, neck and neck with my steed, and one by one they peeled off, were left behind, until only one remained, and that one stayed. Stayed effortlessly. Stayed and left me unable to look away from it.
Some number of you will have seen it already. That I was in love with Farren. I knew it was ridiculous. For a fathrikedi to love a single person was already in poor taste, and I had tripped headlong into that vulgarity with my former master, the lord of Qenain. To stumble from that gaffe, stunned by my own broken heart, into an entirely new and equally hopeless love with a man who considered me a daughter?
It was farcical. I would have hated myself for it except that loving him felt good, even when it hurt to know he didn’t reciprocate my passion. And I thought… maybe… if he lived with me long enough to realize I wasn’t his daughter…
I bared my teeth and urged the jevi on. You say ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ aunera. We say ‘absence draws one’s needs into relief.’ Maybe my being away would make it clear to Farren that he needed to live again, to stop languishing in the arms of his departed wife. Or maybe he would realize how little he missed me.
He would have loved the way the sunlight seemed poured on the road in bright creamy shafts. He would have told me to pay attention to how the shadows looked like lilac gossamer now, and how as the hours passed they would contract into deep purple pools beneath my beast’s galloping feet. He would have made me notice those things, and I would have found it absurd that beauty could exist outside Ai-Naidari bodies. People are beautiful. It would take an artist to see that the world was too.
I rode, alternating between a jog and a run, all day. Twice couriers passed me, heading to the capital, the wind of their passing ruffling the strands of hair that had fallen from my chignon. Alongside, the travelers on the Ashumel proper were blurs I was free to ignore. I made far better time than the sorrowful cavalcade had when Farren had led us back home, and that put me, thankfully, at an entirely different inn than the one we’d used on that journey. No memories to trail my body like fog as I passed through the common room; none to fret me when I stretched out on the bed to sleep.
I looked one more time at Lenore’s letter, not to re-read it, but to study the translation. She’d pulled the Ai-Naidari words apart as we might have to teach the finer points of grammar to children, and labeled those pieces with what I guessed to be aunerai equivalents. I stared at the explosion of the phrase ‘I wish I could be,’ petting the single letter that seemed to mean ‘I’. The elemental loneliness of it struck me as ominous and strange. One letter to isolate every person inside her own head, absent of context. I thought I must be misinterpreting it.
Little did I know.
It had been a long day. I slept without dreams.
The following morning, leading the jevi out of the stable…that was when I felt the Gate wind for the first time on this particular journey, cooling the fur on my face and ruffling the edges of my robes. I glanced toward the Gate, squinting into the sun. It was easily visible, of course; one could see it from the capital on a clear day. I think Farren must have told you its size? That each of its pylons was the length of several city blocks? And that it rises so high sometimes clouds obscure its arch?
The Gates are an inextricable part of our society. Hearing my mother repeat ‘The Gates saved Civilization’ is one of my few clear memories of childhood. Dressing me for a day spent sitting with her at the receiving office where she conducted business: “Remember, Daughter, the Gates saved Civilization.” Every day, day after day, like a prayer. The Gates saved Civilization. Daughter, they still do.
She would have cleaved to such a sentiment. Among us we say ‘everywhere is local,’ an idea we express in a single word: toverash. The idea being that no Ai-Naidari should be unable to obtain the goods and services available elsewhere, or speak a different language, or find themselves disoriented no matter where they travel. Many segments of our society are dedicated to enforcing toverash, from the linguists who carry language changes and accents across the empire to the Public Servants who ensure we have consistent naming and building practices. There are also Merchants specifically employed to find what is particular to different locations and enable their sale elsewhere, and my parents had been among these toverashi Merchants.
