91 - Always and forever, and I still mean that...

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Chevenga Mental State Assessment Committee of the Assembly of Yeola-e, etesora 38, Y. 1556

Tamenat of Haiuroru: Now your second question, is it acute, or more exactly, a series of acutes, or chronic insanity… the words are almost too blunt an instrument to direct our thinking. Most of the time, obviously, he thinks accurately. It’s as he said himself, he is able to perform his duties; as a warrior and a general and an administrator, obviously, he thinks accurately enough not just to function but to excel. It is strictly in this one area of his life that he has been living under a delusion, or a cluster of delusions, and in that sense is chronically insane. You could say, in the matter of valuing his own life, he’s chronically insane; in everything else he’s perfectly sane.

Li: If I may intercede: the matter of valuing one’s own life is a rather important and major matter.

Ta: Yes. Does the Servant have a question of me?

Li: Well, I think that many would argue that if someone is insane on the matter of preserving his own life, he could be said to be… insane. Do you not concur?

Ta: I think you are simplifying it too much. What proportion of a person’s thoughts have to be inaccurate for it to be reasonable to publicly call him insane? I don’t know, but it can’t simply be more than none, because we all have some thoughts that are inaccurate. How would you determine what proportion of a person’s thoughts are inaccurate anyway, by which I mean, how do you enumerate?

Li: Well… there must be such a measure, and an unspoken consensus among people of what that measure is, that is inherent in the meaning of the word ‘insane,’ used to describe a person generally. And it strikes me that if someone’s insanity is in the matter of the preservation of his own life, which some might say is the most significant matter we can think about, then it’s reasonable to call him, generally, insane. You deal with insane people all the time in your work, so you must have such a measure, you must designate people insane, or not insane; you answered questions in that spirit earlier—

Ta: Actually, no, I do not designate people insane or not insane. We don’t use that word. Our measures are more specific measures, such as whether a person’s mental state is likely to cause him to hurt himself or someone else, what he should avoid or not be asked to do and so forth. So I will not declare Chevenga sane or insane, and risk that my words be used for purposes I do not intend.

†

This, I could see, was how it would go with the Committee. I saw it entire, clear as day, knowing my thinking was accurate.

The psyche-healers would say that I was crazy in that one way but no other—Tamenat had deduced from the transcripts what Surya had seen from my aura—and Linasika would try to induce them to give stronger evidence of my madness. And the healers would answer carefully as Tamenat had done, leaving the larger and more dangerous question unanswered. How the Committee would conclude, I wasn’t thinking accurately enough to foresee.

But I saw what I did, as I read fast through the proceedings I’d missed by being away, just before going in with Surya and Tamenat to talk about the suicidal instances in my life. It was strange, to be talking about these things I had guarded so privately, the innards of my life, in this building where I did such public work so outwardly.

It was another mountain of pain to cross, of course, and again I didn’t remember it well almost the moment I was out the door, but Surya recommended that I study the proceedings, which I have. Whether I felt I was having revelations from reading them, he assured me, I would have, and they would further me on my path.

†

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Chevenga Mental State Assessment Committee of the Assembly of Yeola-e, etesora 44, Y. 1556

Lanai: Now I’d asked to start a little late so as to allow you, Chevenga, to become acquainted with Tamenat informally before you came in, and so I ask, have you done that?

4Che: Yes, and it was one of the more unusual first meetings I’ve ever had, “Welcome to Yeola-e, are you enjoying it here so far, how’s the digging through my history of trying to kill myself,” you know (laughter). But entirely pleasant nonetheless.

†

At the party for Tyirya and Esora-e, Niku had been quieter than she should be, the ebullience of pregnancy faded. She was four months along now, her whipcord body showing a faint bulge. She was even quieter with me when we went flying the next morning, her face seeming turned inward, as if thoughts were eating her.

The likeliest thing made my guts want to eat themselves, too, but there was nothing to be gained by pretending it wasn’t there. I waited until we were down and done the landing protocol. There is a series of safety actions for before and after a flight, to do with harnessing and unharnessing, assembling the wing and disassembling it, which A-niah know in their bones; I’d come up with a nonsense poem in Yeoli as a mnemonic for it, that has been used by Yeoli flyers ever since.

Though I was forbidden to take the bar in the air, Niku had started getting me to do both protocols every time. It was a few times before I realized this wasn’t just to keep me in practice, but a test. On the double wing, of course, missing something can be not just suicide, but murder, so I’ll have it known I never failed.

When we were down and a little off the landing-field, away from others, I gave her warning by saying, “There’s something I want to ask you.” She agreed without looking at me, and we sat down in the grass, that was full of ever-white flowers. “How many are you carrying?”

Her hesitation answered me as sure as if she’d said it. If it had been one, she’d just have said one. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me, yet.”

The particular blade of grass I was looking at became sharp-edged in my sight; my mind flew back to a rocky mountain-valley near Arko, with cypresses straight as spears, and a tiny icy corpse stiffening in my arms. My insides went hollow.

“When I knew… when I felt,” she said, “you’d gone to Chavinel. I went to speak to Surya about it. He was the safest to talk to. I didn’t want to say anything that would hurt what was happening…”

“Would hurt what was happening? What does that mean?”

“I don’t want to hinder your fight for life, love, with my own fears and troubles… I’m afraid that if I say the wrong thing at the wrong time, I’ll lose you.”

I felt my brows rise hard under my forelock, not just with shock but anger, that she’d think me so weak. “Fears and troubles? If we’re going to have twins, we’re going to have twins; that’s hardly something you can will away. I could tell you were hiding something; that’s why I asked.”

She heaved a huge sigh, but then got straight to the point. “Do we have enough children in the line of succession that we would not have to stream-test these two?”

It’s as they say: it’s easy to give a child to the ice-water when you’ve never lost one. To do it again when you have is what is hard. I wouldn’t be able to do it, I knew, without steeling my heart so hard I’d be barely human. “I know,” I said. “I’d rather not, either.”

“I don’t know that I could,” she said. “You’d probably have to tie me down.”

It was not wanting to face what this meant, I suppose, that sent my mind down another path. “You spoke to Surya; what did he say?”

“He said I shouldn’t make any rash judgments, and to wait.”

“Rash judgments? Wait.... instead of doing what?”

“Oh, Chevenga! You know me! I scream and storm around and break things and… think of leaving. I don’t want to do any of those any more. But carrying two children seems so wrong, and I am afraid instead of joyful.”

I hardly heard the last part. “You told him you were thinking of leaving me?” A spitting laugh broke out of me, in spite of myself. “Well, why not? He rules my life anyway.”

“No. He just looked at me…” She motioned her hand around herself, meaning her aura. “And he said I should wait. But… there has to be some way other than leaving you.”

There is always a solution; we just haven’t thought of it yet. The path unconceived. Somehow I failed in my usual discipline of hope, though; it didn’t convince. “Don’t take me wrong, Niku. I don’t blame you. Losing me to keep your flesh and blood—two of them—I would understand.”

Her eyes fixed on me, and she went to her full war-face, inhuman with rage. What did I say? Oh shit. You could never count on her to think she might be misunderstanding if she heard something that offended her. “Let me rephrase that! I meant leaving me.”

The rage ebbed to mere anger. “I don’t want to!” She threw her hands over her face. “But I don’t know how I would survive another child’s death.”

“And Surya said wait… as if he knew that would be for the best?” I told myself I was playing for hope, though I knew I might be playing only for time.

“Chevenga… what will we do? What can we do?”

“What he says. Wait.”

“I’m going crazy with it... and there are yet months to come! They might not even survive the birth...”

There is no point in telling Niku that the one worry ought to cancel the other out. “Right. Wait and shit hot coals. You can’t bear the waiting; I feel sick at the thought myself.”

“It was the hardest thing for me, in the Mezem,” she said, softly. “Waiting. Being helpless. I hate it. I can fly, but never far enough away from this. And I chose it. I love you and I’d choose it again. I know I would. Always and forever, and I still mean that…”

“But you are thinking that loving someone should not have to require such a thing.” The ever-whites blurred in my eyes, with tears.

“Chevenga, can we hold each other? Please?” I threw my arms around her and we clung, both weeping, as two people perhaps cling as they fall together off a cliff. “I keep wanting to say ‘I’m sorry.’ But for what? That my family bears twins? That my body likes bearing children? How can I hate my own body? Or my family? Then I get angry; but there’s no one to be angry at. I could spit at the sky and it would do me more good.” I just comforted her with my touch.

“Did you ask him, wait for what?” I asked, when we’d both calmed some.

“He just looked at me and around me and said I’d know what to do in time. That’s all.”

“Right. He doesn’t know. He does that; he’ll tell you something with certainty, but not know why. I’ve learned to trust him when he does that.” Most of the time, anyway, but I didn’t say that.

She wiped her tears with one hand, clinging to me with the other. “Maybe I need to cry with you more. I feel better even I haven’t done anything but make my head ache...”

“For Roshten’s brother, you mean?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I’m here.” I laid my hand on her cheek tenderly, and she leaned into it.

“I know. I love you. I haven’t heard the Sea Oracle in too long… I need to sit and listen to the ocean thunder.”

“I love you too. And two within. Maybe you should go home for a while.” That would take her, and them, away from the madness that my life had become, for one thing.

“Chevenga! Home is here now; you know that.”

“I meant Ibresi… the Sea Oracle is hardly here.”

“I know. I think it’s a boy and a girl this time, the two within… Can you bring Surya and come with me?”

The temptation was as compelling as warm fine sand under the body on a Niah beach, children wheeling in the sky like bright birds, the sweet juicy fruit that could be picked from any tree, the distance from all requirements and cares. “No. I’m sorry. It would look as if I were running away from the Committee.”

“Well… I thought I should ask. I could bear to be away a few weeks I suppose, and let my mother fuss at and over me.”

“And we might not drive each other crazy that way. I’m not myself, I know it.”

“Chevenga, if it means you live longer, I don’t care how bad you get.

“But you’re pregnant, and that makes both of us touched.”

We were both grudging about it, knowing we’d ache with missing each other, but we were planned. At least she’d be there, and I could imagine the peace she’d have. “Niku,” I said finally, “let’s think of divorce as a last resort... if all else fails. It may be the only way everyone will come out alive.”

She gazed at me, her dark wide eyes hard with love and resolve both. “Last resort... fine. But I’m still breathing, and so are you, so we aren’t at the last yet. We beat the odds getting out of Arko, and you beat the odds winning the war and a dozen other things. We’ll wait for the path unconceived, since we’ve already conceived… doubly…” I laughed in spite of myself. “I love you. Always and forever.”

“Always and forever.”

“I’m sorry my people have such customs.”

She tossed her head a little to the side, in that graceful way she does the Niah version of a shrug. “Not your responsibility. I chose, too.” We went back down the mountain, arms linked tight for knowing we’d be apart.




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