Their first four jars were totally immoral. With the fifth they learned how to precipitate out the final oxygen by oxidation inside the jar. But their real success only came with the twelfth jar. By the eighteenth jar they could consistently duplicate their efforts.
Soon after the first triumphant demonstration to the crone mothers, the entire rayvoice program was abruptly terminated. Humility’s teammates, all long residents of Soebo, some emotionally committed to their lovers, were shipped off one night by the new crone mother. They were angry, and yet obedient in the haste with which they prepared themselves. More and more of the established residents of the hive had been leaving. There was a heavy influx of newcomers — like herself — who had been imported for a purpose. She wondered what it meant.
Unexpectedly, Humility met’t’Fosal in her Radiance persona before she met tu’Ama in her role as Comfort.
The One Who Pats Flesh had been putting too much sureness in the Radiance she was creating for Fosal. It made him uneasy. He was a man who believed that women who were not afraid of men were dangerous. He beat her for no other reason than to restore the dominance-submissive balance. He did not stop. His rage at her willfulness subsided and still he beat her for pleasure. She had never witnessed such behavior. To have it directed against her was terrifying.
The crone mother who was in charge of investigating Nie’t’Fosal was a se-Tufi, the se-Tufi Who Rings the Soul’s Bell, and so she thought she could convince this young sister to continue her affair with Fosal. Flesh refused. The crone argued with guile and cunning. Flesh begged for another assignment, anything, a task no matter how demeaning, anything except to be touched by Fosal again. Soul’s Bell finally laughed and called Humility.
“You are to see him tonight.”
“But I have not been fitted to the mask of Radiance.”
“Flesh will drill you until the highnode sun.”
“That is not enough time.”
Flesh made a noise of contempt. “He cannot perceive even the grossest differences. I could train you during the fall of a pebble from my toe to the ground! He’ll beat you; that’s what you have to know!”
Part of Humility’s training had been Kontaing, the art of being beaten without being injured. There were ways to absorb blows harmlessly. “I will not know what to say to him.”
Soul’s Bell folded her hands. Her face was inscrutable. “You will have a sharp change in personality due to the beating. You will be afraid, unsure of yourself, desperate to please. You will have found the man you could be willing to die for if he would but ask of you such sacrifice.”
“Is he so insensitive he would believe that?” asked Humility.
“Yes,” said the crone.
“How can you bear to be with such an insect!” Flesh stormed with scorn, directed not at her sister but at the man.
“It is my vocation.”
“Do not harm him!” warned the old one severely.
“No.” The Queen of Life-before-Death bowed submissively. “You have instructions?”
“Yes. Obey him.”
A call came from the Temple of the Wind for five dancers to entertain at a feast. They were taken by masked Mnankrei boys to the upper terrace where the walls had been shaped with many slits that spoke in eerie tune with the wind. Humility found that she would be dancing only for males. The Mnankrei women, invisible in the world of pleasure, did not seem to attend their men when they were drinking heavily and speaking loudly.
A veiled crone mother chaperoned her children. She was still almost too young to be a hag, and she was the least of the hive mothers, but she was used to authority, and used to being silent, and to sparing her efforts. Only once did she slow Humility, indicating with the lightest hand a tall Mnankrei. “Winterstorm Master Nie’t’Fosal,” whispered her wise voice almost teasingly.
The wizard creator of the deviant underjaw. The man who experiments with the bodies of unwilling women. The man who has beaten the mask known as Radiance. The man I now fear and love for I am Radiance.
She pretended shock to see him here, the smallest gasp, a hair’s breadth widening of eyes, a toe-length withdrawal. She stared at him for a moment of confused love so that she might have time to fix his face in her mind’s file. She saw a broadly muscled giant whose eyebrows were so thick that they were braided into the design of his hair. His beard hid his face like seaweed growth upon a drowned corpse. He said nothing. She bowed, then propelled herself along the terrace into the friendly arm of another Mnankrei who saw her to the stage where the opening dance was to begin.
Her eyes returned to the Winterstorm Master all through the dances. He was a center of power. Soebo would not fall until he fell. Hoemei was a fool to expect a man like that to crumble without taking the world with him. It was self-deluded wishing to believe that such a ruthless tyrant was primed to destroy himself! Hoemei is only a man, a beloved man, groping in the dark like us all. Such a thought shook her, made her feel alone, almost as if God had failed to cross His Sky.
When their chaperone led them away from the celebration, Fosal appeared and stood between the frightened Radiance and the others. The older Liethe tried to protect her but the Storm Master furled her sails. Radiance, still frightened of him, but wanting to be with him, aided his kidnapping and the crone was left helpless. How easy it was to manipulate this leader of men.
He took her to some male den deep in the Temple and ordered her to bring them all drinks in great crystalline mugs while he played chess with a friend, discussing the Gathering, sometimes seriously, sometimes as a joke. She watched him attack across the board recklessly with his White God and his Priests, penetrating deep into his opponent’s squares, leaving his Child exposed. He’s foolish, she thought, seeing how he could be annihilated.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he growled. “Radiance. You’ve been watching. How do I get out of this scrape?”
You can’t. She put an arm around him. “You’ll find a way.”
His opponent, an older priest with a face which had been half burned away by a fire he had survived, moved his Horse for the kill, covering with the Black Queen, destroying the line of White Farmers. Fosal simply continued his wild attack, having never lost control, and made checkmate in five more moves. It sobered Humility.
He set up the board again. When one of his sons arrived, Fosal ordered Radiance into a pillowed room adjoining the game room so that she might take his son in sex. He had promised her to him.
“But I want you.”
“Later. If you please my Beil.”
He pushed out a Farmer in the opening move of the second game. But he did not finish his attack because he was losing and that bored him. He wandered for a while, muttering to himself of plans and strategy, finally pushing through the curtains to stand over his son while he invented bawdy jokes about the helpless humpings of inexperienced youth. Eventually his joking turned to impatience and he threw his son out and took her himself. Humility was ready for violence but a gentle mood overtook him once he was relaxed on the pillows.
“Are you still mad at me?” she asked with a tremble in her voice.
He laughed the universal Getan laugh. “You’ve been a good girl today. Why should I be angry?”