“Lovely woman, I will protect you from him.”
Impulsively she began to search Gaet for knives. He only laughed and squatted by the fire, letting her touch him.
“Is this Death Rite a personal obligation of Joesai, or is it a clan obligation?”
“Once he has initiated it, the Death Rite becomes a clan obligation.”
“I’m going back to Sorrow.”
“No need. There are many ways these things can go.”
“Yes,” she flared. “You could kill me tonight. I have no reason to trust you.”
“How many of the Seven Trials have you survived?”
“He has said three. I count four. And I’m frightened.”
Gaet was amused. “Aesoe seems to have been correct about your kalothi.”
“I’m just a woman. I can die. Living is itself a Death Rite and no one survives!”
He pondered. “I’ll tell you what we can do. It will fit each of the criteria. We won’t return via the road. We’ll knife through the mountains, over the White Wound. That will be Trial Five.”
“You think so little of your own traditions that you mock them!” she snarled scornfully, backing away from him to the pillows where she wrapped herself in the quilt.
Gaet reproached Oelita with a hurt look. “The White Wound is no mockery. That mountain still kills.”
Horror gripped her. He was serious! “A moment ago you promised to protect me!” She had walked with the specter of the Death Rite at her back, hurrying, furtively watching over her shoulder — suddenly to glance forward and into the eyes of the Fiend himself! He was roasting his hands there beside the fire between her and the door.
“I will protect you. There is nothing in the Death Rite that requires you to face an ordeal alone. Is it not true that a person who cannot have help is low in kalothi?”
“They say you Kaiel are born of machines. It’s true! It’s true! You’re a machine! Just like Joesai!” she raged.
“The climb over the White Wound is an exalting experience. Why should one face death and find horror and pain when one has the choice of facing a beautiful death?”
These Kaiel! The way they lived with the Death Fiend! Morbid people! “I want peace! I want peace! I’ve always wanted peace!” she raged against her pillow until she was sobbing. “I want to be left alone by you priests! Leave me!”
And he was beside her, stroking her hair. “It is never that easy.”
Gaet became Oelita’s lover in the wilderness during the ascent up the ragged slope of the White Wound’s north face. The danger wore her out and his tenderness revitalized her. She did not understand why she had come to trust him, or why it was becoming important to her to impress him with her strength, or why she was beginning to love him.
At the top of the peak, windblown, cold, barren, she huddled with Gaet, amazed by the most incredible sight of her life, mountain shapes, blue and purple below her and a vast plain in front of her, yellowish to the horizon. She could even see the smudge that was Kaiel-hontokae. They were so high that the moon was no longer hidden. The sun rose in reds of glory. Here, man was nothing.
29
The Mnankrei priests claim that since the past is known and fixed, so must the future be fixed — for is it not true that the genetic pattern knows the unfolding of the adult? No matter what crime is committed the Mnankrei invoke the historical necessity of the event — for, if the past is fixed and the future is fixed, how could what is happening be otherwise? A priestly crime becomes justified as an inevitable stage in the development of the genotype toward its final destiny. This is arrogance.
The Mnankrei tell us that after long study of their doctrine, a Mnankrei priest, in trance, can see the images of this fixed future revealed to him. This is false.
Every backwards transfer of information through time destabilizes the future. The mere act of observing the future changes it. Not even God can violate the First Law of Clairvoyance.
If we had a torch to illuminate the darkness of the future, as Getasun illuminates dark Scowlmoon, what we would see would not be what will happen.
Some events, like the motion of the planets, have great temporal inertia. Who can change the heavenly motions? We look at them and come to believe in determinism.
Some events, like a burning house, have little temporal inertia. A man who sees his house burning tomorrow can, today, snuff out the candle that would have set the fire.
Future events with great temporal inertia are like the lake waters at the bottom of a valley. Future events with little temporal inertia are like the precariously teetering stone on a mountain’s ridge that will fall and bounce down the mountainside in any direction a climber chooses to push it.
The future seen is not the future that will be — because it was seen. Learn this law well, Kaiel child, use it, and you may become the Prime Predictor.
HOEMEI LEFT THE communications room and aimlessly wandered about the golden and alabaster luxury of the Palace. No additional word from Soebo. Not a word about Joesai or Teenae for days now. Somehow he needed a confirmation of their deaths so that he could quiet this restless need to do something. Noe was threatening to march for the northern coast and gather a fleet from her mother’s allies and take it to Soebo. Such a path seemed to invite disaster. Hoemei saw only burning ships and Mnankrei crowds in elated Judgment Feast of hapless Kaiel sailors who were not sailors.
He wandered until he felt some hunger pangs at the smell of food wafting from the great dining room which kept twenty cooks busy. It was a room where Kaiel met and where Kaiel decided. They were a clan that enjoyed eating while they worked.
In the hall, Aesoe hailed him from the great wooden table where only the most powerful dared sit.
He was with Kathein. The shock hit Hoemei.
To avoid them his eyes shifted to the small Liethe woman. Aesoe’s Liethe were as cold as a northern river dammed behind spills of ice until they smiled at you in a way that made you feel as if you had just met the love of your life. Hoemei had shunned these women like poison, though that was difficult to do because Aesoe was a great socializer and liked to share them as if they were some fine liqueur to bestow upon his closest friends — but for a price. Hoemei had never liked the price: total loyalty to Aesoe.
The Liethe’s blue and flecked eyes were watching him boldly. Once he had disliked these women as ostentatious examples of Aesoe’s power but he had lost his dislike the first time one of the Liethe — he could never tell them apart — had served him tea and flattered him outrageously. He never tired of watching them dance, as they often did at Aesoe’s parties. Some said they were very intelligent, but graceful as they might be they were far too servile for Hoemei’s taste. This one was serving both Aesoe and Kathein — and she ate with them as if she were their equal.
Kathein and Aesoe.
He felt bitter. He would have avoided Aesoe now, but he was with Kathein. The temptation was irresistible. She had not spoken to him since Aesoe had made his command. Now she would have to speak to him.
He went to the table. She pretended to be in animated conversation with the Prime Predictor and only when Hoemei arrived did she look up and nod. He nodded back. They said nothing.
“Kathein was telling me of an interesting communications trick she has between her toes. She wants to bounce long heat waves off the moon.”
“Devious mirror magic,” said Hoemei with frigid politeness.
“No, no,” Kathein said stiffly. “It is just like the rayvoice only the waves are shorter, more difficult to generate. We’re working on it.”
The Liethe woman radiated at Hoemei’s side, glancing at him, offering him a choice of pastes for the hard crackers. It gave him a good excuse to ignore Kathein. The moment he smiled at this strange unmarked creature she spoke. “The baked spei is wonderful right now if you’re hungry. That’s what you’re smelling. I’ll bring you some.” She waited.