108 - Not supposed to be that powerful

Dear Niku:

I did receive your letter asking me not to write, but what I feel, I can’t contain and so must express…

†

Dear Niku:

I know you would prefer I didn’t write to you—I received that letter—but I am hoping that for the sake of the love I can’t imagine you don’t still have for me, you will understand…

†

Dear Niku:

I know you wish me not to write you, but I hope you will make an exception for extraordinary reason. I know what you are thinking, that my reasons cannot be extraordinary, but must be what you expect, and that is true, they are exactly what you expect, and yet still extraordinary, because…

†

Dear Niku:

I love you—surely that is all that matters, for my part?

†

I roughed it on a waxboard, of course; only when I wrote one that satisfied me would I expend paper on it. I must have rubbed smooth dozens of attempts.

†

Dear Niku:

Of course it is your choice, and can be no one else’s. I know you wished me not to write, but I just wanted to keep you up to date on the news here. I would be lying if I said I don’t miss you, but then you know that anyway; you must.

†

It would have helped if I’d felt I had a clue, or even a beginning to imagining, what she was thinking or feeling. Niku’s anger was quick as a rule; quick to rise, quick to blow away, like a summer storm; “you’re surprised she’s flighty?” Skorsas had once asked me. Thus, if it were only anger, she should be back by now; it was half a moon. We had never decided how long she’d go for, when it had still been just a visit home. I wondered what her mother was saying to her, or those who’d been opposed to her revealing the secret of the wing. “See, Wild One? Foreigners will always betray you.”

“Can you find no love for you among your own people?” So often we’d laughed together, for both having heard that a thousand times.

Of course I had found love among my own people, now. As our fire in the Shrine had died, Komona had suddenly begun weeping. “If only I had married you!” she said, her arms almost tight enough around me to hurt, when I asked her why. “I was such a fool! Such a coward! Why didn’t I see the signs? Why did I not have greater faith in you, that you would somehow make it all turn out well in the end?”

I’d reminded her of how much worse she’d have suffered by my being captured and fighting the war if we’d been married, on top of the pain of waiting; how the war might not have gone so well had we not had the A-niah as allies and the wing; how she could never have lived the life of contemplation she loved, joined to me. I said also, “Komona, it’s not as if I’m gone away forever, never to be seen again, anyway. You’ll always have my love, in the way of the dearest of friends, and we can talk whenever we like.”

It passed soon enough, though, her tears drying—she was senahera—and she said, “I see the lesson in it, which I can take into the future. When love bids one way, and fear another, always follow love.”

So which am I following now, with Niku? I wondered. You’re being a fool, I told myself back. Of course it isn’t just anger; it was never just anger. Don’t be blind; she’s carrying twins. No letter could solve that. Maybe I should marry Komona.

†

“I wonder,” I said to Surya as we sat on the soft chairs between the sponge-walls, “if I should make a study of Haian remedies, or whack myself in the head enough times to see auras? No—a surgeon. That’s the kind of healer I should be. I’ve already demonstrated great aptitude to make deep cuts in people with very sharp blades.”

“Well,” he said, with not the trace of a smile, “you are very much a person of touch, but actually you have aptitude for any kind of healing you care to name. It’s all one, in the end. What sort do you feel drawn to?”

I jumped up out of my chair. Was I imagining it, or was there starting to be a wear-mark on the part of his rug I tended to pace? “I’m joking, Surya. Joking. You’ve noticed I do that, now and then?”

“Yes, and always you joke away what you are afraid to look at straight on,” he said. “Like many people. You think the man who wrote that letter was not sincere? You think Komona is not feeling true effects? You should be looking at why you are afraid.”

“Nonsense. The citizenry of Yeola-e is paying perfectly good tax ankaryel to maintain for me an aura-seer, who can spot it in a glance and just tell me.”

“Mmm… yes, you’re probably right, that you haven’t a chance of seeing it yourself. So I’ll tell you. You are not supposed to be that powerful.”

I, who once walked at the head of an army of a hundred thousand who would do anything I bid and had never lost since I’d started leading them, who had sat on the Crystal Throne, the seat of the most powerful person in the world, stared at him, thinking now he has truly taken leave of his senses. “What,” I said, “are you talking about?”

“I am talking about what you believe you are permitted, and suited to, in your heart of hearts. The power of arms you have been allowed. Political power, less so, but still, it was expected of you. The power of healing you were taught would be far in excess of your mandate.”

Now it began to ring true, with the echoes of thoughts I’d had years before, in the company of Ininden as a child, and then Kaninjer. They always seemed miracle-workers, doing something so good and beautiful it was as distant from me as a mountain-peak. I’d never even felt worthy to wish I were a healer, I realized, since wishing implies some possibility of it.

“As well, you were taught that being a healer was unwarriorlike, and hence beneath you.”

That rang true, as well. “Above me and beneath me at the same time…? That counters itself.”

“These things often do; yet they are both still there. And we wonder why we are confused.”

“Well… I’m hardly going to hang out a shingle,” I said. “ ‘Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, healer and sometime semanakraseye: boils lanced, colds cured, hearts soothed and sexual healing at a discount, by appointment only.’”

“Of course it wouldn’t read that,” he said, deadpan. “It would say, ‘First Virani-e Shae-Arano-e, boils lanced, colds—”

The soft chairs, bless them, have cushions, suitable for shutting up an aura-seer by hitting him clear in the mouth.

†

“There is another calling you are drawn to, actually, but I’m not going to risk being pegged with a cushion again by spotting it in your aura and just telling you, the Yeoli citizenry’s tax ankaryel notwithstanding.”

“A wise decision. Surya—” I went serious, in heart as well as face. “I… this all feels too good. Wrong for how good it feels.”

“I know. As if you are being praised unduly, or awarded with something for which you are not worthy, I understand. That’s only because you feel unworthy. But think of how you’ve been complaining about the pain of the healing you are doing, such as when you took the lung-wound and so forth. It can’t be all bad. It’s like that, good and bad, up and down. You are in a good place now; but there will be more bad ones, trust me.”

Something in his look made me ask, “You mean coming, soon, don’t you? You see something coming.” I had a sudden pang of wondering what that looked like, in my aura. There was something I had wished; that I could see through his eyes for a tenth-bead.

“Ehh… I always see something coming. There will be bad, let’s leave it at that.”

I took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Another calling, you’re saying… other than healer?”

“Yes. But as I said, I won’t tell you. I have your next order: go to the shrine.”

“The shrine?”

“Yes, the Vae Arahi senahera shrine.”

“I was just there the other night,” I said.

“Go again.”

“What do I do there?”

“I don’t know.” Surya, I’d noticed, had become increasingly willing to give me cryptic instructions, or partial ones, or ones for which he didn’t know the reason except that he had been inspired. I kept faith with him, but sometimes lost patience. “Just go there and stand looking at the trees, I suppose,” I said. “Or do you mean I should pray or do an abstinence or something?”

“If I meant those things I would have said them. It will come clear when you are there. I am certain.”

“If someone asks me what I’m doing there, what shall I tell them? My healer sent me?”

“That will do.” I was reminded, almost wrenchingly, of Megidan saying exactly the same, when she’d started me off on all this. “Or else tell them you don’t know.”

“Surya, you’ve got to be joking. This is Vae Arahi. People know me.”

“If I could give you more specific instructions, I would. Perhaps a monk can tell you why you’re there. Try working your way up the ranks until you get someone who can.”

“Maybe you should do that, since you’re the one giving the order.”

“I’m not the one who needs to act. Go to the shrine, kraiyaseye—that’s an order.”

I was astonished, at how strong and fast my anger came up. It was like fire in a wild gust of wind. “Don’t call me kraiyaseye!”

Surya flinched ever so slightly, but didn’t cower or turn away. “You will do me violence if I do?”

I took a deep breath, even as part of me was seized with laughter. “No. Of course not. So—I make it as a request. Kraiyaseye is not an appropriate word for me anymore.”

“You are not asakraiyaseye yet—but all I meant by it was to remind you that you relinquished your will to me.”

“I had not forgotten that. A-e kras, I will go to the shrine.” I got up fast from the chair and strode to the door.

“Today, Virani-e,” he said, behind me.

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