Major Pieces, page 30
“So… where… exactly are we going?”
“Sector Ne’s starbase,” Vasiht’h said. “This first leg’s the short one.” He pushed his baggage into the underfloor bin and shut the hatch before settling on the assigned floor couch and buckling himself in. When Kovihs didn’t move, Vasihth leaned over and grabbed one of his forelegs, pulling at it until his brother-in-law stepped out of the way of the Seersa couple trying to inch past him. “We’ll pick up our connecting flight at Starbase Pe.”
Kovihs stowed his luggage and dropped down alongside Vasiht’h. “What’s in Sector Ne?”
“Knowing Sediryl, farming equipment.”
“Farming equipment…?”
Vasiht’h fished in his saddlebags until he brought up his tablet. “You’ll see when you meet her.”
“Sector Ne,” Kovihs muttered.
“Maybe we’ll see lots of Phoenix. Their homeworld’s in the area.” Vasiht’h brought up his latest novel, a historical not only in its setting but as an artifact itself, since it had been written before the Pelted had existed. He’d toggled the language filter several times, fascinated at how little the language had changed, before deciding to leave it off but annotated. This was one of the novels from the list Sehvi had compiled to prepare them mentally for the transition from ‘civilized modern cultures to whatever it is your partner’s people do,’ and while Vasiht’h was sure it would fail completely in that aim, still, he couldn’t help turning the pages with a little thrill. Books written by humans before the Pelted existed! And yet, all the same themes kept returning: love, loss, drama, heroism, nihilism, family and duty, romance and ennui, growing up and growing old. It comforted him how many of the eternal things really were eternal, regardless of species.
Kovihs, seeing him engaged, continued brooding—sulking, really. Once you’d seen an Eldritch brood, a Glaseah’s take on it felt amateurish. Vasiht’h let him stew.
As Vasiht’h expected, by the time they’d boarded their second ship, Kovihs had tired of his own thoughts and could no longer sit on his interest in the world around them. It was one of the traits Vasiht’h had noticed the last time they’d traveled together… how his brother-in-law lit up when he was on the move. Kovihs and Sehvi had probably never realized that they were consonant in that way: both of them were intrigued rather than threatened by novelty, and both of them liked to be doing things. One of the reasons Vasiht’h had committed to this one attempt at changing Kovihs’s mind was that he didn’t think Kovihs would be happy on Anseahla. The world he’d been born to, that he already found familiar, amid the family he’d grown up with, doing expected work in the expected way for people who didn’t find it novel? Oh no. He’d be chafing at his self-imposed cage within months, and with little understanding of why the ‘safe place’ he’d chosen for his family was making him miserable.
This second ship was not a single-day jaunter, but a passenger liner with private cabins, intended for multi-day trips. He and Kovihs dropped their luggage in their cabin and abandoned it immediately to explore the ship. After poking around the grand dining hall and the game rooms, they found the perfect place to await their departure. On the top deck, an observation lounge capped the end of the ship, shaped like an amphitheater with tiered seating. The curved flexglass wall wrapped the hemispherical room entirely, leaving only the back bulkhead free—that was where the crew had set out a spread for the passengers who were joining Vasiht’h and Kovihs.
The ship was pointed out toward the stars, but there was enough traffic that the glass’s smart coating obliged them with multiple tags of incoming or outgoing ships. It also hung circles with names around the brightest stars. Vasiht’h rested his palm on the surface, and it gave him an option to see the ship’s path as a bright line leading into the darkness; he smiled and let his hand drop so he could turn his attention to the cheese and fruit they’d brought from the table.
“Needs wine,” Kovihs said, picking up a chunk of melon. “Can’t have fruit and cheese without wine.”
Vasiht’h heaved himself up. “Say no more.”
They ate by the window, preferring the ground floor tables to the higher view on the risers, and were still there when the ship departed.
“I love this moment,” Kovihs said, staring into the dark. The glow of the tagged stars was reflected on his unblinking eyes. “When you’re just setting off, and you don’t know what’s ahead.”
“I like it too. Sometimes.”
That wiped the reflection off his brother-in-law’s eyes as he turned his face to Vasiht’h’s. “Sometimes? You left Anseahla for college!”
Vasiht’h nodded. “At the time, I decided I needed to get away or I might never figure out who I was. But I was nervous.”
“And then you left Anseahla for Veta—”
“I’d seen Veta! On the way to Selnor. It was pretty!”
“You went to Selnor,” Kovihs said. “And if your sister’s right, you did it at the last minute, without knowing if they were going to toss you out of school for vanishing!”
“It was an emergency?”
“And now you’re doing it again,” Kovihs said. “How can you possibly say you only “sometimes” like adventure?”
“Because it’s true?” Vasiht’h grinned and spread some cheese on his cracker. Was Jahir eating something similar right now? He hoped someone was making him eat. “I like being home. I like routine. I like it when things go pretty much the way I expect them to. But… a little adventure is good. The way you’d use a little salt to make a flavor come alive, but too much salt makes it inedible.”
“And yet you…” Kovihs shook his head. “They’re already writing about you.”
Vasiht’h didn’t want to know, or even think about, what ‘they’ might be writing about him or any of his friends and beloveds. “And I’m sure seventy-five percent of it is wrong.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“When they decide to put a statue of me up somewhere, then I’ll worry. Until then…” Vasiht’h twitched his wings and refolded them on his back. “People are going to talk, no matter what.”
Kovihs had stopped eating and was staring out the window again. The muscle in his jaw was taut; Vasiht’h could tell by how the light was reflecting off the fur. “You’re a hero, and it doesn’t bother you.”
“I’m not a hero,” Vasiht’h said. “I’m just… someone who was there, did his best, and helped. Next time I’ll do a better job of it, now that I know I can handle it.”
“Next time.” Kovihs pounced on the words. “So you admit there will be a next time.”
“Of course I am,” Vasiht’h said. “Because there’s never stopped being a ‘next time,’ ariihir. The only difference is that we haven’t noticed, because we’ve insulated ourselves from it. Violence is something that happens elsewhere. War is something that happens to someone else. Pirates are a concern only for people who go places where there are pirates. Making sure people don’t get hurt is someone else’s problem, and we don’t want to hear about it. In fact, when we do hear about it, we get angry, because someone is threatening our bubble, the one we live in where we don’t have to be afraid.” He looked at his cracker and set it back down. “I lived in that bubble, Kovihs, until I fell out of it and into hell. And you know what the Goddess says about knowledge.”
“The Breath once breathed cannot be called back.” Kovihs picked up his glass of wine, staring at the condensation. Then drank. “So, you think I’m a coward.”
“Did I say that?”
“You implied it.”
“No, I didn’t,” Vasiht’h said firmly. “If you were actually paying attention, you’d know what I was implying is that you are willfully ignorant. Which is a whole different thing.”
Shocked, Kovihs stared at him. And then… laughed. “Goddess, you sound just like your Eldritch!”
“Do I?” Vasiht’h tried to imagine Jahir saying anything similar. “No, he wouldn’t have been that abrupt about it. He’s more of a ‘leave things in your head to germinate’ sort. Hammers are more…”
“Your style?”
Vasiht’h chuckled. “I prefer to think of myself as a ‘spatula and kitchen knife’ type. I’m only going to use the hammer if I need to tenderize something.”
“Well, keep your hammer off of me. I don’t deserve it. What were you reading on the way here?”
Vasiht’h took a sip of the wine, a dry white, and drew in the nutty bouquet before moving with his brother-in-law’s change of subject. Sometimes you needed the hammer to knock a crack in the stone for the seed. But once you dropped the thing in there, you shouldn’t mess with it. “It’s this story about a girl who shows up at her aunt’s house and discovers everyone is miserable and so she decides to fix things…”
7
“This is the most delicious piece of cheating,” Jeasa confessed in cheery silvers as they guided their horses over the field, “and I feel absolutely no guilt about it whatsoever.”
“I don’t know that using a satellite image instead of a poorly and inaccurately rendered map should be construed as cheating,” Jahir said, amused.
“It certainly is when there are few places on the planet that can put that satellite image onto paper.” His mother patted her breast where said map was residing, tucked into the inside pocket of her riding habit. “A data tablet would have been far less trouble than insisting on a physical copy. Much less one that looks hand-drawn.” She beamed. “I cannot wait to replace the old map in the library. Do you suppose anyone will notice? Maybe I should artificially age it… but no, if I make the attempt at darkening the corners with a candle flame I might burn the house down. Better that I have a story prepared. I know just the thing! Elves exchanged it for pots of cream left out on the lawn of a morning.”
It was impossible not to laugh at the mischief that sparkled on her aura like dew in sunlight. “I misdoubt highly that anyone would believe such a tale.”
“I suppose not. Brownies are the ones who like milk, aren’t they? But they’re tied to households so how would they ever roam far enough to commit such an extravagance to paper?” She pulled up her horse to survey the field, tilting her hat to shade her eyes. “This is too open, I think. But about the right size?”
“Yes, and yes.”
“I worry a touch that they might be too far from us by foot. What if we cannot acquire a Pad for their settlement?”
“Then they will walk to the manor until we do,” Jahir replied. “They can always use the Pad to return.”
“Oh! Yes. I forget that it can send without a receiving Pad.” She tapped her heels against her mare and set off at a canter, her skirts flapping on the animal’s hindquarters. Smiling, he followed.
Their goal for the day was to identify a number of sites that might serve the incoming Glaseah, and perhaps sketch notions on how they might use the real estate. Jahir’s visits to Anseahla had been necessarily few, for the gravity made longer stays grueling… but he remembered well the handful of hours he’d spent with Vasiht’h in his parents’ community. He didn’t know what exactly his partner’s family had planned, but he wanted them to have options, and solidifying those options would simplify Liolesa’s decision as well.
Besides, it was no hardship to ride with his mother on a spring morning, with the breeze fresh on his brow and the white sunlight glistering on his mother’s hair and her mare’s pale mane. Jeasa’s habit, with its fuller skirts, had not been strictly fashionable for years, and she insisted on wearing colors other than those considered proper for a matriarch in the royal—now imperial—house. In sunlit green linen and with spring’s peach flowers braided into her hair, she looked a maiden rather than a widow with two grown sons.
Did he feel a pang riding the grounds? He loved Seni still. It would no longer be his, when his mother stepped down from her seat, and some might have wondered if the loss troubled him. What he felt at the sight of it, beyond fondness, was gratitude: that it had nourished him, and released him to his destiny. He could not fear for Seni’s future, not with his mother at the reins, and his brother to follow her.
They rode off a slope and under the wildling trees, and a flock of birds leapt away in a fan of flashing wings at the tattoo of their horses’ hooves. Jahir ducked his head beneath a branch, slowing his mount. Like all the horses in the stable, the gelding was an unexceptional ride; Jahir remembered the fire and flash of the solidigraphic mounts on the starbase and suppressed a smile. How Lisinthir would laugh to hear him opine that their fake horses had felt more lifelike than this real one! And yet there was pleasure in the effort of riding, and the heat generated by the living creature moving under him. He was grateful Lisinthir had forced him to resume his practice; Pads would come to Escutcheon, but it was hard to imagine horses vanishing overnight.
Jeasa glanced up at the intertwined branches. “Will they prefer shade to open areas? We could clear some of this….”
“They might,” Jahir said. “But I think they may be capable of sculpting whatever they please, and it is the location that will matter.”
“So in selecting our choices… we might suggest something close to the manor, something far from it on the other side from the village, and something close enough to both to visit?”
“If you think the tenants would be amenable.”
“I will not have tenants less accepting than Laisrathera’s,” Jeasa said firmly, shadowing a few words. “We will find a way for both parties to endear themselves to one another before they have a chance to find one another appalling.”
Jahir chuckled softly. “A high-minded if difficult goal… one I look forward to setting in your capable hands.”
“Good. You’ll be busy enough with your own tasks.” She reined up her mare so they could ride abreast. “You have some sense of what your days will be like now, I imagine.”
“Prior to the wedding,” Jahir allowed. He rubbed his thumbs on the reins, chafing glove against strap. “After it… I suspect there will be a great deal of politics.”
“Does that daunt you, my love?”
“No,” Jahir replied. And smiled ruefully. “Is that hubris, you think?”
“That you feel you might be up to managing a passel of provincials after fighting literal slavers and despots over the fate of galactic empires?” She sniffed. “I don’t know. Is it?”
He hid his smile, knew she caught it anyway. “The challenges here are no less difficult for their smaller scale.”
“Of course not. But you might face them with far more equanimity, after having pitted yourself against worse ones.” She shook her head, the ribbons on her hat fluttering. “No, I don’t think it hubris at all. But I fear it may disappoint you.”
“The pettiness?” he guessed, and saw her sadness briefly in her eyes as she glanced at him. “Where there are people, Mother, there are fears and shames and guilts and regrets. You think of me as a warrior—and I pledge you, with very little reason!—when in fact, I am far more a psychologist, and a healer. Pettiness might disappoint me, but it won’t surprise me. And it is that surprise that breeds resentment, bitterness, and feelings of betrayal. No… this is just… another very long illness that needs a doctor. One does not hate disease. But one does not surrender one’s patients to it, either.”
“Oh my!” Jeasa sighed. “When your children grow wiser than you, then truly—”
“I hope you are not about to say ‘you are obsolete’…?”
“I was going to say, ‘then truly you can retire and eat bonbons while reading improper novels and poetry.’”
Jahir laughed, shining the words gold and silver. “I will buy you as many books as you like!”
Her eyes twinkled as she tossed him another of those brilliant smiles, and then she was pulling the map out of her pocket and unfolding it. The mare plodded along beneath her, incurious. “Here, we should be coming to a very lovely area… ah!”
They passed from beneath the nodding arches of the trees and into what had been a field; some capricious wind had sown sufficient seeds to have brought forth several copses, and a single tree near the center was so old three of its largest branches had sagged to the ground and grown felted with opportunistic grasses and flowers. Its uppermost branches curved downward in a great cup until the leaves trailed on the ground, creating a shifting pattern of light green shadows.
“Who could resist such a marvel! We shall picnic there.”
“A worthy throne for the Seni sealbearer.”
“Oh yes!” Jeasa laughed, delighted. “If all thrones were trees wound with flowers, you would find me far less oppressed by them.”
Jahir tied the horses down while his mother saw to their spread, and they were soon ensconced beneath the dense boughs, with the ruffle of the wind through the eaves for music. “There should be,” his mother said, still looking at the map, “a stream thereabouts…?” She raised her head and shaded her eyes, pointing toward the south. “Where the field ends. We shall check, for all this place lacks is running water to approach perfection. Which we all know is rare under Heaven.”
“Then we shall eat and enjoy it as the gift it is.”
She flashed him another of those happy smiles, and he savored it, even as he sensed the gray veil that shivered beneath it. Not melancholy… something more active. It tasted like worry, and the first few bites of their lunch were contaminated by it, like a film that numbed his tongue. But he ate, and he poured their sparkling wine, and lifted his face to the breeze and closed his eyes, feeling the ripple of the shadows over his skin.
When they had sated themselves, he said, gently, in the softest white, “Art worried, Lady Mother?”
“Well should I have known how futile it were to hide it.” She toyed with her napkin, pleating it. “It is only that this is the most delicate of times.”
