[AN: asa kraiya is now up on the new site]

Whether you are a new reader or returning to dip into chapters you enjoy or do a full read-over, you'll like asa kraiya : beyond the sword at my new website, currently here. (www.chevenga.com).

I am still counting ak as in beta now, as I haven't fully checked over everything, so if you notice any errors large or small -- or indeed have any comments on the site or the reading experience as it is now or whatever -- please let me know.

Enjoy.

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213 - It's very simple, what we want

In the hubbub, I learned later, Kaninjer signaled both the adakri and Darosera from the door, holding up one hand with all fingers extended. Darosera proposed a resolution that they allow me five days before I started again, and it went chalk unanimously. I was not hiding as well as I meant to that I was injured, I suspect.

Most of the rest of that evening I remember as a happy blur. When I requested painkiller, it was poured for me copiously. Linasika congratulated me, a little wanly, though he also leaned in a little close and whispered, “I bet you’re glad now I talked you out of resigning,” making wine burst out of my nose with horror or mirth, I’m not sure which.

I was swept up onto shoulders before I could change into the semanakraseyeni shirt, so I did it aloft. They carried me once around Vae Arahi, but then down to Terera too, and through every street. There wasn’t much Kaninjer could do about it, or I for that matter, but at least my weight was off the leg and my back out of reach of those who’d pound it. I’d wanted to introduce Krasila to every one of her kin, even the cousins twenty times removed, but had to leave that to my parents.

Between Kaninjer holding me to my promise I wouldn’t go too late, and Niku, who was genuinely tired, wanting me with her, they got me back into the sleigh at a decent hour. “Hot-tub, I treat you, then bed,” he ordered crisply. With everyone else having their hands full, I went down to the water-room alone.

Everyone had been too busy to light the lights, it seemed, so I took a lamp from a sconce in the corridor. The sky was still clear, and the just-waning moon shining on the snow on Haranin, suffusing everything with a silvery blueness through the windows, would probably have been enough to see my way anyway. I stripped and went in silently to savour the quiet, the peaceful trickle of the waterfall the only sound. Then from the hot-tub I heard a soft female sobbing, the voice one I didn’t recognize. I padded closer, dousing the light, and saw the grey-white spear. The sobbing cut off abruptly.

“It’s me, shadow-grandma,” I said. “Let me guess—not sadness, but the emotion that’s hard to name, of the hugeness of everything.”

“I know it’s you, Cheve—Virani-e. Congratulations, semanakraseye.”

“Or maybe you aren’t even sure what it is. The hot-tub relaxes—nothing like it for old achy wounds—and loosens internal knots… it can catch you off-guard.” I climbed in and sat across from her, leaned my head back and closed my eyes, and felt the heat deliciously erase the pain in my back and calf. I wouldn’t be long for the waking world, I felt right away. It had been a long day.

“I had no idea you liked babies so much,” I said.

“Of course I do,” she said. “They haven’t had time to turn rotten yet.” I let out my breath in a long sigh. I was too tired to come up with a good-enough answer to that.

“When I asked you tonight how you got hurt, shadow-grandson, you said, ‘kriffiyah accident,’ knowing full well that would tell me absolutely nothing,” she said. “Now you’re not coated with drooling drunken adorers, would you care to tell me what exactly a kriffiyah is, and how can you have an accident with one?”

“It’s a device for snatching up a person from the ground onto a double-wing, and you can have an accident with one through inexperience. But it’s not fair, shadow-grandma, that we should talk about what afflicts me and not what afflicts you.”

She pulled herself straight, fast enough that I heard it, and felt the ripples the movement threw off lap on my own skin. “Fourth Chevenga… I’m too old to change as much as you all want.”

“How do you know how much we all want you to change?”

“I’m not a fool, boy. You showed me what you wanted when the lot of you descended on me at my school.”

“Oh did we? And that was? You say you know, so I’m testing you.”

“My son, quite rightly, called me a layer-forged bitch this evening.” I’d seen no sign of a quarrel, so perhaps he’d said it jokingly. I hoped so. “He knows me well. A layer-forged blade cannot be melted and recast. It just breaks.”

Now I straightened, and looked her in the eyes. “Shadow-grandmother, it’s very simple, what we want,” I said. “You.”

She got up, waded to the steps and began climbing out. Unlike the front of her torso and limbs, which were seamed with old white scars, the back of all of her was wrinkled only, as unscarred as a Haian’s, the mark of a warrior who has never fled the field. “Good night, shadow-grandson. I’m tired.”

“For Esora-e and me, as kin. Tyiria, as a friend. That’s all.”

“Congratulations, semanakraseye, and good night.”

“You don’t believe me? Must I swear on my crystal to my own kinswoman?”

She stood for a moment, a towel wrapped around her, her face unreadable in the darkness. Finally she said, very quietly, “I believe you. Virani-e.”

“Thank you. Sleep well, shadow-grandma. I love you.”

“I… too.”

Krasila turned and strode away spear-straight, and I suddenly knew, as if I could see it in her aura though I was not seeing it, why she was fleeing me. It was not what I’d said, or that I had tried to touch her aura, since I had not. It was that my presence alone made the spear in her shift, ever so slightly.

Some day, I thought. In this life, or the next.

The faint whiteness of her body and the towel fading into darkness as she went suddenly blurred in my sight; just as I’d told her, the hot-tub can catch you off-guard. I let my own tears fall freely, full of the emotion that is hard to name, of the hugeness of everything.

vinya (the end)

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[Author's note: what next for me?]

Well, before we get into that, a reminder: the next Character Chat happens 2 p.m. EST this Saturday, Jan. 30. The very chatty Chevenga -- or should I say, Virani-e -- will be there, with his reflections on asa kraiya.

My writing plans: I've got into a two-project per weekday habit and at least some of my readers have as well, but since that was putting me on the edge of burnout, what I plan to do is post The Philosopher in Arms alone, at least until I get the new site truly up to speed. I might also devote some serious weblit time to publicity and advertising, to grow my readership.

After some discussion with Shirley, I think my next project will be a collaboration with her. It's a book we conceived years ago and have partially written. Start date TBA... not to worry, we'll generate enough hoopla that you'll know. We will locate it on the new site. Here is the blurb.

~:~

THE GAMES

A weblit novel by Karen Wehrstein and Shirley Meier

There’s only one way to get into the greatest school of generalship in the Fifth Millennium world…

TASERA KRIL

Her blood-mother died by her own hand. At heart, she feels she has a brilliant strategic mind, but her shadow-mother and her two shadow-sibs laugh at her ambitions and say she’s only good for farm-work.

If she goes back home a loser, it’ll be the final proof that she has no talent, only pretensions.

ELERA SHAE-TYEBA

He was working his way up the ranks of the Yeoli army quickly, until he got busted down as a result of his own obsessive envy. “A fine commander,” his military record reads, “as long as he doesn’t have Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e under his command.” As if that could ever happen.

Guess who decides, on a whim, to show up.

TORAS MENEKEN

Forbidden by Arkan law to command more than a hundred fellow solas for most of his career due to his caste, he is capable of much more. Now he’s free to pursue his dream of becoming a general… but he’s alone among foreigners who hate his people for what they did as conquerors.

For political reasons, this year will be his only chance.

What do they have in common?

They’re all out to win…

THE GAMES

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212 - The count of the votes of the people

My mind was suddenly full of the sight of her holding Esora-e that way as an infant. “Katanrani’s around somewhere, too,” I said. I wanted both of them to feel this touch as the first thing they knew of her.

“Keep naming children like that and we’ll have mouthfuls like the Enks… er, Enchians,” she said, rocking from one foot to the other unthinking as mothers do, while I introduced her to Servants, administrators, judges, writers and so forth, as well as Kaninjer, Minis, Kyriala and every other foreigner I could pull in. She barely took her eyes off the baby to greet any of them.

Then she was insisting on changing his diaper, and chuckling when I opened the wrong pouch, pulled out the semanakraseyeni shirt by mistake, and whipped it back in before anyone could see, I hoped. “Good strategy, bad tactics, lad… where can I do this?” I went with her, Kaninjer notwithstanding; gooey as she’d turned, some part of me worried she’d sneak out back with Tyiso and lay him in the stream.

As we came back, the bell started ringing. I saw Kuraila hastily kiss Surya and then scurry towards the Assembly chamber door. “Go on,” Krasila said. “I’ll get him back to his mother; it’s not as if she’s hard to spot.”

“I’m on leave, so I’m not actually required until they resolve to invite me to sit in the visitor’s chair,” I said. “So I’m going to lurk by the door.” I spotted Niku, mouthed to her, “You’ll never guess who’s here!” and, when she came over, introduced them. They swapped babies, and Krasila wanted to change Kat’s diaper. “Just born today... and you’re already in a political crowd,” Krasila cooed to her. “My poor kids can’t avoid it,” I said. “Though maybe I, and they, will be tossed out for good in a moment.”

Inside the chamber, Artira began calling Assembly to order; then Skorsas was at my elbow, so I introduced him to Krasila. He was, of course, in his finest, far outshining me or anyone else here, even Minis, and she looked him up and down without hiding it. “Enchanted, Sera,” he purred down his nose. “I’ve heard so much about you, all of it deeply impressive.”

“Mezem boy? You must have seen many fighters, then.” It was absent again, though, her eyes drawn back to Kat and her face softening again.

“Oh yes.” He laid his hand tenderly on my chest. “But really, only one. You have war-students here, as I understand, Serina; how many guest rooms will you and they need?”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought to presume on my shadow-grandson’s hospitality... we’re in an inn in Terera.”

That struck Skorsas blessedly speechless. “Shadow-grandma!” I said. “You’ve got so much family in this town that with this latest two I’ve lost count, and you’re paying for a room?”

“That is proper, given our years of estrangement, is it not?”

“Shadow-grandma, I told you you have a standing invitation, that our doors and our arms are open to you! My house is yours!”

“I recuse myself from presiding and relinquish the speaker’s crystal to the angaseye daiga krisa,” Artira said, inside the chamber, in her official voice. There was but one item on tonight’s agenda.

“Well, I… thank you,” said Krasila. In between her making mush-eyes at Kat, she and Skorsas worked out how many rooms, just in time for my parents to show up insisting she stay at the Dependent with them. The compromise we worked out was that my parents would all stay up at the Independent tonight. Skorsas had started the hot-tub draining as soon as we’d got out; it would be filled again by the time we were back.

“We convene so as to record and certify the national referendum on the matter of re-approving as semanakraseye First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e,” the adakri said, “in light of his conviction under the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 and the findings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee as stated in their final report.”

I could no longer pretend to myself that my heart was not in my throat. Kaninjer probably had calming essence, but I didn’t want anyone to see me take any. I’d never imagined I’d be in Krasila’s presence while the results were read; somehow that made it more nerve-wracking.

“Now, little girl... are you going to be big and strong too?” Whatever my people had decided for me, I reminded myself, I had twins, and I’d keep both of them.

“I propose that we invite Virani-e to the visitor’s chair as it would only be appropriate to this occasion.” Darosera, bless her.

“Strong, like your mama and papa both?” Something made me take a deep breath and still myself inside, then look at Krasila. My eyes must have taken on the aura-seeing gaze. Inside her, from the crown vortex to long past the base one, low as her knees, was a spear, sickly grey-white, like pus, with age.

“Discussion... I see no hands requesting the crystal. That we invite First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e to the visitor’s chair as it would be appropriate to this occasion, all chalk, all charcoal, all abstentions, I have seen chalks only, carried unanimously. Runner, enact.” Barely behind me was the Arch-Keeper of the Counting Chamber, with the papers. She’d be called in next.

“Beautiful like your papa, even if in brown, hmm?” Krasila drew Kat in close, and I saw the spear in her curve away from the baby, and the blue around her arms strengthen, between it and her, as if to protect her from it. Krasila could not know she was doing this.

“Chevenga.” The runner touched my arm, and several more hands patted my shoulders as I went in. It was written afterwards that I sat forward in the visitor’s chair from tension; in truth I was keeping the cracked rib off the chair-back.

“As I hold both my own and the crystal of the Assembly of Yeola-e in my hands, in the worldly witness of the people of Yeola-e as represented by the Assembly of Yeola-e and the spiritual witness of All-Spirit,” said the Arch-Keeper, “this vote and count was completed entirely properly and legally, no procedure omitted and no precaution neglected, in the witness in every counting-room in Yeola-e of the Counting Senaheral, Second Fire come if I am forsworn.” Deep breath. The spirit of Surya, I think, will be with me the rest of my life.

“As you have so sworn, sib Arch-Keeper of the Counting Chamber, we ask that you reveal the count of the votes of the people on the question, that we fully reinstate as semanakraseye First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e in light of his conviction under the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 and the findings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee as stated in their final report.” I stood up, feeling drops of sweat trickle down between my shoulder-blades, as she handed the packet of papers to the adakri, who opened them.

“Oh yes, and fly on one of those mad contraptions like your mama, yes!” When there was a baby in Krasila’s arms, the rest of the world didn’t exist for her. Several people around her said, “Shh!”

“The vote of the people of Yeola-e on the question, that we fully reinstate as semanakraseye of Yeola-e First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e in light of his conviction under the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 and the findings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee as stated in their final report, we have duly totaled as, of two thousand thousand, seven hundred and fifty three thousand, four hundred and twenty two proper and unspoiled votes: chalk, one thousand thousand, nine—”

I gasped—I couldn’t help it, and it rang out clear through the chamber. I threw my hands over my eyes.

“…hundred and seventy-one thousand, five hundred and seventy-three; charcoal, four hundred and eighty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and seventy-one; by our calculation a majority just shy of seven and one quarter in ten.”

Everything dimmed, and the room was spinning. I sat down fast, put my head on the table and buried it in my arms; it would be wrong to break my neck keeling over in a dead faint after a seven-and-a-quarter national chalk telling me to come in to work tomorrow morning. The result showed me what I had expected at heart, though I had hidden it from myself: either a slim win, or a slim loss.

The Servants were doing the somber applause that is proper from them; the crowd in the gallery and outside the door were madly cheering, some jumping up and down. A hand touched my shoulder; the adakri, asking, “Semanakraseye, are you all right?” I sat up hard and threw out a firm chalk, hurting my back; she still had to proclaim it and I to say, “The people wills.” But it was still all I could do to not bury my head in my arms again. She put her arm around my shoulders and said, “Take a little time, lad.” It was all too much.

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[AN: end of book whine; Chevenga chat]

I have it planned out, and the last post of this book is going to be on Tuesday.

Of course I will go back and revise; I've spotted one plot string I never tied up and there's an opinion piece from the Terera Pages that needs inserting somewhere, and of course I will have more ideas. A weblit piece is a living thing.

But that's not the same as writing every day and knowing that people are out there waiting for me to click on "publish post," sweating over the Friday cliffhangers, feeling and thinking things because of what I have written. I should be relieved because it means an end to the killer schedule, but I'm not. I'm sad.

Of course I'll keep going with PA until its end joins up with the beginning of ak, and then I will present them both as one work. (It will be well over a million words long, I estimate, and I plan to divide it into seven books, titled separately, under one main title.) And of course I will write more: more Chevenga stuff, more Fifth Millennium stuff, more who knows what.

But none of it will be asa kraiya. For personal reasons, for emotional reasons, even for spiritual reasons, this book is very, very special to me. Chevenga's transformation is my own, or, at least, runs parallel to it. Because of that, much of ak plotted itself. I've never had so many surprises from a book that I myself was writing, and I've never been so inspired, or inspired in quite that way. I don't know whether I'll ever have that with any other work. I hope so... I imagine it's possible... but I don't know. That makes it tough to leave this one.

Shirley and I announced that our next character chat would be a solo Chevenga (though again, surprise entrances by other characters are not to be ruled out) and now we're thinking it should be about asa kraiya since the book is concluding. I also know that there are people interested in chatting with Surya.

So.... we'll tentatively set the date and time for next chat as: Saturday, Jan. 30, 2 p.m. until... whenever. Location, same as before, here. Hope to see lots of you there.



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211 - Guests I did not expect

We had decided that if we had two boys we’d call them Tyiria and Esora-e, if two girls, Karani and Tanra, and one of each, Tyirisora-e, the names of father and son merged to symbolize their rejoining, and Katanrani, the names of our respective blood-mothers merged formally, just as Roshten had informally merged the names of our blood-fathers.

So, though we had meant to name them as soon as they were born, as is also done in families that don’t stream-test, with the first one, we’d have to wait until the other came.

Kima wanted a sister, Tawaen a brother, saying, “I have enough little sisters,” to great outcry. “Daddy,” Kilalere asked me, “this isn’t something we can vote on, is it?” Meanwhile Niku had pushed out the first after-birth, and Baska taken it from the midwife’s hands and slipped away; I was too shy yet to tell my parents about the Niah custom of the mother frying and eating it, just as they eat the hearts of their dead. (I’d never had an argument with her eating my heart after I died, but I wasn’t sure it would be so with any other Yeoli; now it was good not to have to worry about that happening so soon.)

“No, loves, this is a no-choice,” I said to my squabbling spawn. “You’ll love him or her, and she or he will love you, either way.” The second twin’s head crowned, and then on the next push (on which Niku and I were both seized with fits of giggling between pushing-yells), he was out. He was a boy, but his sex was suddenly the least of our troubles, as he did not breathe, and turned blue as the blood ceased flowing in the cord.

As third eldest, Vriah should have the knife, but she was almost too young anyway, and the midwife said sharply, “Cut it now,” so Etana did it, and Natandra passed the baby straight to Kaninjer, who sucked I know not what out of his mouth and nose with his own mouth, then worked points on his tiny chest.

We all went silent in terror. “He’s scared,” whispered Vriah. Niku buried her head in my neck; feigning calm for all I was worth, I told her, “He’ll be fine,” praying that it prove true.

It took time and work on Kaninjer’s part, but soon enough came a tiny coughing and gasping, and then he started mewling, and all the children cheered and danced, Vriah crowing, “He likes breathing!” When he’d turned to his true colour, Kaninjer brought him back to us.

They both took to the breast well, one apiece. “Welcome to the world which we will fill with love for you, Katanrani,” I said. “Welcome to the world which we will fill with love for you, Tyirisora-e.” Once the second after-birth was delivered and spirited away also, and it was clear that Niku was not bleeding, it was truly over. The four of us basked in the water, while the midwife and Kaninjer packed up their things.

“I suppose you’re going to wave it in everyone’s face that you’re not stream-testing them, by asking us to put up the flags now,” Esora-e said to me.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Red for your shadow-grandson, blue for your shadow-granddaughter, hop to it.” He went out without a word.

Kat—that would be her name from now on in the family—slipped off the breast with a tiny sucking pop, fast asleep; Tyiso hung on even in sleep, and so I carried her and Niku carried him when we finally climbed out, and she lay back in the bed. Kaninjer insisted on checking me before I joined her, then tenderly slathered my back and calf with whack-herb cream, gave me several remedies and ordered me to spend the whole rest of the day in bed. This was just as the vague memory was coming back to me that there was a referendum count happening today about whether I’d remain semanakraseye, and I was due down at Assembly Palace.

“How were you going to get the results on the island?” he asked me, when I stood back up again.

“I’m not there now, I’m here, and I can get to where I should be.”

“You have a good excuse not to, if being with your new children and wife who is recovering from bearing them isn’t enough: healer’s orders.”

“For two bruises?”

“The cracked rib was more what I was thinking of. This one, here.” He pressed his point with a hard enough finger-poke to draw a yelp out of me. “And what you have on your calf is not just a bruise but a hematoma. You’ll have to suffer the hardship of staying here with the new life you’ve made.”

“Cracked rib?” Niku said from the bed. “Hematoma?”

“Getting kriff’ed took two tries,” I said. Taking her demand to tell her everything as evidence that she was strong enough to hear it, I told her. She took several deep breaths.

It was she who came up with the compromise that settled it, that I rest here until the last flyers were in. Tawaen helped by offering to act as runner and accounting for them. Vriah patted my shoulder. “You don’t need to worry, Aba. You said, either way it would be good.” At least I’d hid my nervousness from everyone else.

We posted Tawaen on the terrace as lookout. Down at Assembly Palace, a crowd grew as dark fell; each time a wing came in, they’d send up a huge cheer, the last getting the hugest. “That’s my signal,” I said. “A bead or so, and all the summing-up will be done. Whoever’s coming, coats and boots on.” The kids raced out in a yelling clot.

“Take a horse-sleigh down and back, stay sitting the whole time and no late partying,” Kaninjer commanded.

“If I’m reinstated,” I begged him, “can I let them carry me around Vae Arahi on their shoulders once?” He decided his best bet for keeping me under his thumb was to come down with me. As Skorsas and Krero were setting up the sleigh and escort, I dressed properly: austerely, of course, but I folded the semanakraseyeni shirt into my pouch, just in case.

Then Niku decided she was up to coming, too, which meant everyone; my mother slung Kat and Niku slung Tyiso and they stepped up into the sleigh beside me, and we all went down, like a parade. No one could argue we did not already have reason to celebrate.

The counting-room has a public gallery, but I’d look too hungry if I sat there. Instead Kaninjer set Niku and me up in chairs on the dais of the stone-stove in the ante-room to the Assembly chamber. The place was jammed with people; Kaninjer kept dragging me back down into my chair by my shirt when I’d stand up to take their I-haven’t-seen-you-in-a-month hugs. There were a few I definitely did not expect.

“Surya?” I’d never seen him dressed formally, except as an asakraiyaseye, so I didn’t even know him until he was right beside me, Kuraila beside him in her Assembly kerchief. “How in Celestialis did you get off the island?”

“The only way, the same way you did. We decided we didn’t want to miss it so we sent one of your pigeons up to Sijurai.”

“You mad fool, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Didn’t you see that when I did it?”

He slapped his hand over his eyes. “Just when I think you’re cured. Well, I tell you what…” He glanced around, spotted what he wanted, pointed. “Argue that with him.” My next question, “We?”, died on my lips. Next to my mother, caressing Tyiso’s tiny brown cheek, was Azaila.

Then a blond head and two white satin shoulders with gold that I knew but couldn’t believe appeared. “We thought we’d surprise you!” Minis said, throwing his arms open. “Kall sends his regrets, you know, Imperator… but I’ve brought Kyriala.”

His fiancée had the typical bred-for beauty of ancient Aitzas houses, like Liren, from which she’d come, with the silken, almost-silver hair, the fine skin, slim wrists and ankles and perfect features. It belied her strength, though; he and she both had relayed here, which made her the first woman who’d ever done it. So had his two shadows, both of the new Mahid, dressed in deep wine rather than black, with just a silver buckle as a nod to the tradition, and smiling freely. As I welcomed her, I mentioned I’d heard tales of her courage from her husband-to-be, which turned out to be a gaffe; I didn’t know they’d never been re-betrothed after he’d released her. She gave him the ‘we-must-talk’ look, and he blushed a colour not unlike the uniforms of his new Mahid. Just the fact that they were here together would be a scandal among some Arkans, so I don’t blame myself.

Then I caught sight of the girl from Krasila’s school who’d asked me if she was good enough to be in the School of the Sword, Merao Shae-Lishiyin. Esora-e’s mother had finally softened enough to let her try out, it seemed. I could introduce her to Azaila right here. She seemed surprised I remembered her. “Yes,” she confirmed when I asked. “Kraiyasenseye brought us to apply, three of us.”

“Brought you? You mean—she’s here?”

“Yes… somewhere in this room.”

“Tell him I told you what I did, that you’re good enough.” I waved over Azaila, introduced them and left them to speak, and headed back to the dais to search the crowd for my shadow-grandmother. She found me first.

“Virani-e. I understand that is the current name you are going by. Integrity… not Rao?” She was still wearing a deep grey woolen coat with a thick fox-fur collar, and black gloves, though we were inside, and stood spear-straight as always, so the coat looked as if it were hung on an armour-stand.

“Shadow-grandma!” I threw my arms open and said what I was saying to everyone, “Around the shoulders, please!” She gave me a stiff short clench. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Neither did I. But here I am. New-child blessings to you, twice over... imagine it, twins. Your chocolate wife threw them? May I see the little brown blighters?”

“If we can find them; they’re getting passed around. Trust my luck they’d be born on the same day as the count.”

Her brows drew down hard. “Born? Today? Then they haven’t been stream-tested yet? The flags were up and Esora-e said they survived.”

So she’d spoken to him first; I wondered where I’d find the blubbering ruin of him. I could see just how it had gone; she’d said something about them both surviving though they were twins, and he’d said, “Yes, they did,” so as to avoid the subject, knowing he’d be able to say he’d thought she meant survived the birth.

“He must have thought you meant survived the birth,” I said. “The boy almost didn’t. But we aren’t planning to stream-test them, that’s why the flags. Ah, here…” Ignoring her glare, I caught sight of my youngest son in Artira’s arms, introduced her and Krasila, and took him. “This is your shadow-great-grandson… Tyirisora-e.”

She stared at me hard again, but her hands, as if independent of her mind, reached for him, and as his tiny warm weight went from my arm to hers, she transformed. Her hands were suddenly tender as a new mother’s, she softened all over, and her face lit up with a smile, dropping twenty years in a moment, as she stared into his. “Well, young man! Aren’t you the little bruiser, hmm? Aren’t you something?” He smiled and burbled back; soon she’d pulled the gloves off with her teeth and unbuttoned her coat, to snuggle him inside it, cooing non-stop.

I stood blinking in amazement. Krasila Mangu, a sop for babies—who’d have imagined?

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210 - The all-consuming task that is birth-labour

When I opened my eyes, cold scalded them, and I saw only grey; I didn’t know up from down until my back hit mud, the lake-bottom. I got my feet under me and clawed back up towards light, hoping I’d either find the hole in the ice I’d made, or could find the strength, though I had no air, to make another one. My head and arms burst through the floating ice-shards—the water was about chest-deep—and when I could I drew a gasping breath. Some people were running towards me along the dock, others scrambling down through the snow on the shore, ready to wade in to pull me out.

I signed them off—the water was too kyashin cold to stay in long enough to be helped, or for them to get into in the first place—and used the swimmers’ ladder on the dock to escape it, breaking my way through the ice with hammer-blows to get there. Suku would circle back to see how I was; if he didn’t see me walking, he wouldn’t be willing to try again. Too soon, I was too soon on both the run and the jump, I thought, that’s all. From nerves—no, just from not knowing. Now I do. The experience that teaches best is the hard-won. As the asakraiyaseyel threw several cloaks around me and started pulling me toward the maesa, he soared back around, low enough for me to hail him, though yelling hurt my back while I was doing it. “Again, after I get changed!” He yelled back, “Foa-een, I get height! Flash or wave when you’re ready!” He turned into the smoke and was wrenched skyward.

“You’re trying it again?” several people said. “You’re lucky that thing didn’t break your neck.” As if to remind me why I was, a birthing pain hit right then, a hard one. She’ll be pushing soon… I hoped it didn’t work both ways, making her feel what I did; cloaks or not, my hair was frozen solid by the time I got to the door, and the pain on the spot on my back, on the sword side and below the shoulder-blade, was worsening. I didn’t let Tyaicha examine me, suspecting he’d tell me I was too badly hurt to try again.

When I was in dry clothes and had taken a few whacks of whack-weed, I had them build up the fire again, went to the south end of the dock, shook out my arms and legs, warmed myself by pacing, and, when I saw Suku was high enough, gave him the wave. I didn’t know it at the time, but from the shore across from the island where Krero was waiting for me with the rest of my guard of four, he was screaming, “No! Nooooo!! Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, I forbid it, I’ll kyashin run you in before Assembly if you live!!” Luckily, I couldn’t hear him.

Though the asakraiyaseyel were more nervous this time, I was less so, somehow, perhaps because I knew I could now judge how soon Suku would be here by where he was. The human-built bird of prey came down, enlarging unearthly fast again, wind whistling through its wires. I set off easily this time, though every footfall was a stab of pain through my back, hit full-speed a little before half-way, and this time had the kriffiyah lined up in my mind all the way, with the harmony of timing between me and it that should be there.

It caught me at the perfect apex of my jump. The only thing I did wrong was not pull my sword-side leg up fast enough, so the calf got hit by the same spar, another blinding pain, then trapped between them as it closed. But I was whipped forward and swooping skyward, wrapped fast by the netting and grabbing the spars nonetheless. I went swinging up behind Suku, then a little down again, and he looked over his shoulder from where he was gracefully curled most of the way through the bar, to balance my weight, and laughed. “Ha! Got you this time!” The cheers and birth-blessings faded fast in the rush of wind. He turned us towards the smoke-column, and I closed my eyes and held my breath until heat turned back to cold as he steered us out. Three more dips into it and we were high enough to make the crossing.

They hadn’t yet conceived a way to bring a kriffiyah’ed person down lightly without catchers, so as we came over the shore and he began to float us down towards Krero’s four, he yelled to them, “Catch him, I catch me on my feet, catch him!” They did, Krero at my head, as gently as a mother takes a baby. Once I’d been sprung I gave Suku a fast hug, told him to flash Daku to flash Niku that I was a tenth-bead away, and took off running, though it hurt my leg even to stand and the back-pain was a dull scream. It was only pain; I could use it to drive myself, especially the pain that was intermittent, and getting more and more frequent.

“Curse you, Ch’eng’, where are you going?” Krero barked. “It’s my job to check to see if you’re all right!” I yelled back over my shoulder, “No, it’s your job to keep up with me!” They did their best. Kunarda got ahead of me at the start, no surprise, but I left him behind about three quarters of the way up the shortcut.

At least I had a good excuse to streak right through the herd of writers at the door. They tried anyway. “Chevenga, what do you think your chances are?” “Chevenga, you haven’t campaigned at all, but your detractors have been all over!” “Chevenga, if you lose, what will you do?” “Chevenga, we heard you foiled four assassins unarmed and sick and without bloodshed, is that true?” I answered with but one sentence; asa kraiya or not, I still had my battlefield voice. “My wife is about to give birth!”

As we’d planned, they had the water-room set up for it, with all of the midwife’s things ranged on a cupboard, spare tables, a wide bed set up for afterwards and so on. The kids frolicked in the cool pool. Niku paced, leaning on Baska’s arm; Skorsas bustled; all of my parents and siblings and other spouses sat ready to fetch and carry when needed; Natandra Kyaina, the Vae Arahi midwife, and Kaninjer stood by.

The whole room was decorated with ribbons and evergreen branches; that was not a Niah custom, else she’d have had the room in the Marble Palace where she’d given birth to Roshten and his brother done up similarly. Just someone’s idea? Everything was much more joyful then I’d ever seen before for a birth, the children giddy with excitement, the grown-ups full of smiles. I realized why. We will not stream-test them. That changed everything. This is how it must always be, I thought, in families that don’t do it.

“Niku, I’m here!” I cried. “How are you, love?”

“Omores, thank Ama Kalandris…” she breathed. “Aba Tyriah, I’ve missed you. I’m fine.” Of course my spawn got to me first, not being so encumbered as she, and were all over me, having not seen me for a month; I gave them all hugs and pushed through them to her and we kissed just in time for the next pain. We held each other through it, her fingers leaving marks on my arms, then she said, “How are you?” with a little concern in her voice. I was limping, and flinching on some of the hugs, and had come in gasping for breath.

“I am wonderful,” I said. “Though maybe I could use a little whack-weed.” My remedy-pouch was drying out in the maesa asa kraiya, of course, but Kaninjer had some. “We’ve got a little time before the next one, love, can you spare me for a bit?” She said yes, and I threw off my clothes and let myself fall into the hot-tub and float on my back, in delicious heat—the water was not the usual blistering hot, but gently so, as we’d planned for her sake—and blissful stillness. “You didn’t have to risk life and limb to get here!” she said, as she saw the bruises. “How else was I going to get here?” I answered. “I’m in one piece.”

About then, Krero came growling in, chest heaving. “Curse you, curse you, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e! You know kyashin well I’ll forgive you for this time, like all the rest!” I shot him a look that meant “Don’t tell her what happened!” Bless him, he didn’t, and bless her, she was too distracted to ask.

We settled, then, into the all-consuming task that is birth-labour, the mother’s part to do and suffer it, everyone else’s to make it easier and safer for her, a time apart from the rest of life for all. Her waters had broken this morning, about two aer after dawn, and it was going faster than last time; to me it looked like the twins might even be born before dark.

She came into the hot-tub, sat on my lap and said, “That’s it, I’m staying here,” so I wrapped my arms around her. Niah women often do what they call “dolphin births,” in the sea; this was the next best thing. She wanted to bear down, and so Natandra stripped and got in with us, and after feeling her inside, told her to go ahead. The children were wonderful, the perfect midwife’s assistants, bringing Niku water and fruit, wiping her brow with cool cloths, giving her kisses and strength-blessings and jokes.

As the sun fell behind Haranin, the first one came, shooting out into Natandra’s hands like a little fish, to the joyful shriek of all the children. The cord had been wrapped around her neck but the midwife freed it easily enough. A girl, her tiny squinched face tender brown and her eyebrows mine if I’d ever seen them; she had a good strong voice and a ready smile.

“Tawaen,” the midwife called, as if he should have known to be there already, and handed him the cord-cutting knife. I had no idea that this was how it was done in families that don’t stream-test, that the oldest child cuts the cord when the blood ceases running through it; I’d seen my siblings’ births all from a distance. He did it smoothly enough, and Kima tied it off; first and second-born blood-siblings, that’s the custom.

Niku said the traditional Niah words, vriah sala mi totoh, ash ni ash reeshen: “Freedom of the sun to you, little child. Fly far, fly high.”

I said, “Strength, my little one, against—” and cut myself off. Against the cold that tries you, is how it goes.

I’d never say it again.

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209 - The kriffiyah

The day before the count, the weather turned bitter cold, too late. In the afternoon, I felt a tightness between my hips that was not quite pain, but had a sense of promising pain in the future, and then was gone. Two more and I knew what it was despite my not wanting to. Niku was in labour. It was early, but not implausibly so, especially for twins.

How long would it be? By the degree and the pause between and from the last time, I guessed she’d give birth the afternoon of the next day—the day I’d been scheduled to go home anyway, the day of the referendum count. Two all-important events of my life in one day, and I wouldn’t be there.

Assembly and the people of Yeola-e would understand, I knew. A labouring Niku, not so much. A winger came by above, and dropped a note on a stone, from her to me. It read, “Omores, you must know. I don’t know how you are going to do it, but get up here.”

“Stretch flat on the ice, with two long poles, as the assassins were planning,” I thought aloud to Iyinisa and Surya. “If I break through I swim until it’s thick enough again to climb out…”

“Over my dead body,” Iyinisa said matter-of-factly.

“Mine too,” said Surya in the same way.

“A double-wing… rope… hook me up somehow…”

“Has anyone ever done that with a person?” asked Surya.

“Ehhhh… no.”

“You are not going to be the first.”

“My wife is in labour, she needs me!”

“I doubt she’d prefer losing you for good to not having you there while she gives birth,” Iyinisa said. “Though the way the note reads makes me wonder… is it just that she’s in labour or is she always like that?”

“She’s just asking the impossible of me in return for my asking the impossible of her with… well, several things,” I said. “Our marriage is like that.”

One kindness that Surya had done me was bring four of my pigeons, that home right to the Hearthstone Independent, onto the island. I sent one to her saying “Stumped so far; ideas?” A bead later, someone came in from the training-ground, where they’d been shoveling off last night’s snowfall, saying, “There’s a winger above us, yelling something that sounds like ‘vie’ and ‘moy’ stuck together to wake the dead, and I figure it must have something to do with you, Vir—oh I guess so, there he goes.” Fading behind me I heard, “I’ve never seen someone jump up from a chair and land running before.”

The winger was Sijurai, circling just low enough to hail. “Vaimoy! We get you by kriffiyah, yes?”

“Sure!” I bellowed back up. “What’s a kriffiyah?”

He let go the chamir with one hand and made a snatching motion with the other, broad so I could see from a distance. “Catch! Snatch! Grab! Diyadesai invent! Like sea-eagle get fish!”

Away from home for a month, I was no longer up-to-date on the wing innovations. Niku had mentioned something about them working on a way to seize up a person from the ground onto a double-wing. I hadn’t thought it was far enough along to have built the first one yet, though, let alone test it. It also occurred to me that the fish usually doesn’t come out of the sea-eagle’s talons alive. But the next tightening came up just then, and I imagined Niku chewing her nails to the quick. “Tell me what to do!” I yelled up.

“Wait, I come back!” Of course part of the climb he had to do on foot, today’s updraft not being good enough to carry him. I saw the long red speck that was his wing, folded up, on his shoulder, dashing up past the falls against the white of the snow. By the time he was flying over again, the cloud-dimmed daylight was just starting to fade, early as it does in early winter, and he dropped another letter.

Omores, Krero’s saying no to getting you by kriffiyah and he’ll go to Assembly to make it illegal, unless he sees with his own eyes ten other people do it and come out unharmed first. There isn’t enough day left to do that. It will have to be tomorrow. I don’t think the babies will come tonight, and the midwife doesn’t either, and at least I have Baska with me. I still wish you were here. I love you, always and forever, sleep well.

It really was untested, then. I found out later they’d done it only with straw manikins, attaching eggs to them to see where they’d break. It was probably best that I didn’t know. Of course part of me cursed that I would not be the first. Krero knew me too well.

Sleep well? You must be joking, I thought. First was the party; every time someone leaves the island at the end of his time of transition, there is a celebratory goodbye, with a lot of hugging and toasts, the night before. This wasn’t certain, but we decided we would party as if it were so as to strengthen the chances. I only had a cup or two of wine, though, suspecting that I should be at the top of my form for whatever it was I had to do to be snatched. I spent the rest of the night pacing, mostly, as the tightenings gradually grew more intense, Iyinisa staying up with me until about midnight when I told her she need not. Sometime after midnight came the first one that I had to admit to myself couldn’t be called anything but a pain. Niku was probably pacing too.

At the first paling of the sky I went out to the northern point of the island to see what I could see, if anything, of the testing. Once it was light enough, I saw wings on the gentle slope of Haranin, diving then swooping up, with something seeming to slow them slightly at the lowest point, but it was too far away to see more. At noon or so, Daku flew over to drop me another letter. By then the clouds were patchy and a brilliant sun shining much of the time, so that at least we could flash-signal now. A wing flew lazily over at a far greater height; when I saw its colours, blue and green, I realized, it was carrying the vote-count from one of the most distant ridings. It began diving down over Vae Arahi.

The letter read:

Omores, it will be Sijurai who snatches you. The kriffiyah is made of silk netting and bamboo spars. It’s set forward at first, but when it hits it swings back and closes on whatever, or whoever, it’s got. To get enough height with you afterwards, he has to do a fast dive to you, so what you have to do is run full-out and then jump and tuck good and high, just as the netting is about to hit you. By the time Diyadesai’s students had practiced enough that Krero was happy, they were having too much fun to want to stop.

Suku thinks he cannot get enough height after the dive to get across the water, so what you must do is have a big fire burning on the island, fairly near the dock, for a brandilmoy. We’ve scouted all over the island, and we suggest that little field near the big house, that we understand is the training-ground.

The only place that has a long and wide enough clearing is the dock—there are too many trees too near the training-ground and the roofs are all too steep. Make sure every last snow-flake is shoveled off; your foot slipping could mean death. The way the wind’s blowing, it’s best you run north, so start at the south end. He’ll aim to snatch you when you’re at about the middle, so you have enough dock left to stop if it’s a miss. Don’t wear anything loose or hanging.

Daku’s going to circle. We will know you are ready by the fire. Ama Kalandris and Aba Tyriah grant you a safe kriff, I love you always and forever, I will see you soon.

Every last snow-flake? Spoken like a woman from a winterless home, I thought. Because it is not used in winter, the dock is usually not shoveled until the ice breaks up in spring. Because the weather had turned cold after wet, underneath the five-odd handspans of snow was another hand-span of solid ice stuck hard to the dock’s flagstones. Iyinisa was suddenly a commander again. “Every person on this island—yes, the prisoners, too—find every shovel, axe, hatchet and broom on this island, and report to the dock!” she bellowed through the maesa and beyond. I swear I heard several people say “A-e kras!”

“You don’t think it’s the death-in-me inclining me to do this, do you?” I quietly asked Surya, as we used our axes carefully, so as to smash the ice without chipping the stone. Iyinisa had wanted to exempt me from the work, but it would warm me for the run, not to mention help my nerves. “No,” he said, “I think it’s the life-in-your-wife-about-to-come-out. Somehow I doubt you’d want to die without seeing them.” Iyinisa inspected the dock and had me do the same, once every ice-chip had been swept off, then I ran the length a few times to get the feel. While they were lighting the fire—they piled up a goodly amount of their winter firewood—I changed into unsweated clothes, with nothing loose or hanging, and went back out onto the dock.

Soon I could see not only smoke, but the odd flash of a flame above the trees. From far below, the wing with the kriffiyah didn’t look unlike a giant bird of prey, with straight talons angling forward stiffly under it. It had to be lighter than it looked. Suku did one tight east-north-west-south circle, which meant a query: was I ready? I flashed him back yes, and he headed straight south. All along the shore the asakraiyaseyel, and three of the four assassins, had ranged themselves, none wanting to miss this; now they all exhorted me with waves and blown kisses. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d never done it, seen it done or even seen the device, from anywhere close.

As the speck in the sky to the south began growing larger fast, I realized I had not only to time when I jumped, but when I started running in the first place. Surya’s voice was in my mind: Deep breath. Deep breath. The nerves were about the birth, I knew, not this, but they’d still affect this. I thought to measure his speed by memories of doing dives myself, but I hadn’t flown for a month, so the memories were not sharp.

When I guessed the time was right I sprang out, keeping a gaze over my shoulder like a relay-runner about to receive the branch. Half-way down the dock, with him still behind, I realized I’d started too soon, slowed a bit then speeded again as he came streaking down, a monster bird roaring through air. When it seemed right I jumped up with everything I had, pulling my legs up and my arms in. But then I was past the apex of the jump and coming down again and I hadn’t been seized, so I had to uncurl again to land; I heard Suku yell “No no Vai—” and then there was a blow so hard on my back it knocked both the breath out of me and all light out of my eyes, so I knew only by the feel of stone against the parts of me tumbling over it that I’d curled up to roll out of the fall. Then I was in air again for a moment, and there was a crackling smash all around me, and instant burning iciness, soaking in all over me, just like the stream-test.

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