I shuddered. Poor Chahdzi father. “You really don’t think I did it.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t think it’s you. I don’t think it has anything to do with you. I’ll go further. I don’t think you sinned at all. I don’t think your face is the result of apostasy or heresy or whatever you choose to call it. In fact, I don’t think you’re guilty of anything, Saluez.”
“Please don’t,” I said feebly. “You … you disturb me when you talk like that. You take all my … all my foundations away.”
It was true that when she spoke so, something quaked inside me, as though my heart had torn loose. I couldn’t bear it.
She shook her head angrily, flushing and pinch-lipped. “Sorry,” she said. “I have no right. Ignore me, Saluez.”
But how could I? As we drove across the open space between Dark Canyon and the Canyon of Burning Springs, I could not get it out of my head. Was it better to be guilty of sin while knowing there was a power that had punished you? Or was it better to be innocent and feel there was no power? Was it better to be lost in a horrid storm at sea, knowing there was land, or be sailing peacefully with no certainty of land anywhere?
For myself, I decided I would rather be guilty. I could deal with that. One had only to outlive it. Submit to it. Atone for it. Surely if I helped these people save humanity and Dinadh along with it, that would atone for something!
So I set my teeth together and resolved to listen no more to Lutha the temptress. Not that she was a bad woman; she wasn’t; but some people are not good for other people, and I thought then that Lutha was not good for me.
At the port city of Simidi-ala, the arrival or departure of outside travelers is an infrequent occurrence. Days go by with only the wind blowing in from across the shallow sea, tangy with the scent of rushes that grow along the shores and of the fragrant weed that floats on the waves. The people of Simidi-ala are Dinadh’s only sailors or fishermen, and the bright sails of their shallow little boats scud to and fro across the placid waters, a pattern of bright dots, continually changing. I have seen them. I was there once, long ago, as a child, with Grandpa.
The boats were the first thing the ex-King of Kamir saw as he stood with Poracious Luv at the latticed gate of the shiplift while it slowly lowered them to the beach. The former King of Kamir said something convoluted and quintessentially Kamirian to her, a lengthy cadence comparing the brightness of the boats to the desolation along the shore. Normally Poracious indulged his poesy games, but this time she didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed elsewhere.
Poracious murmured, “How in hell did he beat us here?”
“Who is he?” Jiacare asked, following her gaze to the stooped figure waiting at the gate, a younger man standing in attendance.
“The Procurator, boy. Things must be in a pickle if he’s decided to join us. Pull up your socks. Smile. Make pleasant. He looks like a nice old man, but he can have our guts for garters if he likes.”
The Procurator did not move toward them, but waited for them to come to him, murmuring as they did so, “Madam Luv,” and to the ex-king, “Citizen Lostre. How do you do, sir. May I introduce my aide, Mikeraw?”
They uttered conventional phrases of greeting as the Procurator led them away across a paved courtyard and into the nearest of the slablike structures that serve Dinadh as hotels or inns or warehouses, as needs must. The ex-king verified a suspicion by scratching a wall with his nails. The place was built of dried mud. He shook his head, wonderingly.
They went up a flight of shallow, curving stairs, down a wide hallway, and through an open door. Mikeraw shut the door behind them, then absented himself, leaving the three together in a sizable chamber lit by a score of glazed openings in the outer wall. They were not the shape Poracious associated with windows, being mostly round or oval, some head-sized, some larger, all randomly scattered from floor to ceiling, from sidewall to sidewall, though sidewall might be a misnomer since the general effect was that of being inside a perforated egg with a flattened bottom. Still, the chamber had a peaceful feel to it, and Poracious rejoiced to see several chairs large enough to hold her comfortably.