He found Kta standing out on the curb. Kta, like himself, was masked with soot and sweat and the dim red marks of burns from fire fighting.
“They have buried t’Nechis,” Kta said hollowly, without looking around. They had been so much together it was possible to feel the other’s presence without looking. He knew Kta’s face without seeing it, that it was tired and shadow-eyed and drawn with pain.
“Get off the street,” Kurt said. “You are a target.”
“T’Ranek is on the roof. I do not think there is danger. Fully half of Nephane is in our hands now, thank the gods.” |
“You have done enough. Go over to Irain. Aimu will be I anxious to see you.”
“I do not wish to go to Irain,” Kta said wearily. “Bel will be there and I do not wish to see him.”
“You have to, sooner or later.”
“What do I tell him? What do I say to him when he asks me what will happen now? Forgive me, brother, but I have made a compact with the Indras, and I swore once that was impossible; forgive me, brother, but I have surrendered your home to my foreign cousins; I am sorry, my brother, but I have sold you into slavery for your own preservation.”
“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 yhia since losing Mim. She lies at the heart of everything for you. A man without yhia toward 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.”