"You left your markers. The she'pan has already said that it was enough. She gave you her word on the matter. If you go back, they will take you back, and we will not permit that.”
"Am I a prisoner?”
Niun's eyes nictitated. "You are keKen of this Kel, and we will not give you away. Do you wish to go back?”
For a moment Duncan could not answer. The children shouted, laughed aloud, and he winced at the sound. "I am of this Kel," he said at last. "And I could serve it best there.”
"That is for the she'pan to decide, and she has already decided. If she wishes to send you, she will send.”
"Better that. I am not wanted here. And I could be of use there.”
"I would die a death myself if harm came to you. Stay close by me. No kel'en that has won the seta'al would challenge you, but the unscarred might… and no unscarred will trespass with me. Put such thoughts out of your mind. Your place is here, not there.”
"It is not because I would run from them that I ask. It is because of what I hear. Because you have not learned of all that you have seen. Dead worlds, Niun.”
"Sov-kela," said Niun, and his voice was edged, "have care.”
"You are preparing to fight.”
"We are mri.”
The beast beside him stirred. Duncan held to it, his blood pounding in his ears. "The survival of the species.”
"Yes," said Niun.
"For that, you would do what, Niun?”
"Everything.”
There was long silence.
"Will you," asked Niun, "seek to go back to them?”
"I am at the she'pan's orders," he said at last. "With my own kind, I can be damned no more than I am. Only listen to me sometimes. Is it revenge you want?”
The mri's nostrils flared, rapid breathing, and his hands moved over the dus' velvet skin, long-fingered and oddly graceful. "Species survival. To gather the People. To have our homeworld. To be mri.”
He was answered. The human in him would not understand it; but kel-law did ... to be the sum of all things the mri had ever been, and that meant to be bound by nothing.
No agreements, no conditions, no promises.
And if it pleased the mri to strike, they would strike, for mri reasons.
Peace was four words in the hal'ari. There was afa, that was self-peace, being right with one's place; and an'edi, that was house-peace, that rested on the she'pan; and there was kuta'i, that was the tranquillity of nature; and there was sa'ahan, that was the tranquillity of strength.
Treaty-peace was a mu'ara word, and the mu'ara lay in the past, with the regul, that had broken it.
Melein had killed for power, would kill, repeatedly, to unite the People.
Would take the elee, their former allies.
Would take Kutath.
We will have ships, he could hear her saying in her heart.
And they knew the way, to Arain, to human and regul space.
It was not revenge they sought, nothing so human, but peace sa'ahan-pence, that could only exist in a mri universe.
No compromise.
"Come," said Niun. "They are almost done. We will be moving now.”
Chapter Twenty-One
THE HOUSE murmured with voices, adults’ and children's. The People stared about them, curious at this place that only sen'ein had seen for so many hundreds of years… marveling at the lights, the powers of it and, mri-fashion, un-amazed by them. The forces were there; they were to be used. Many things were not for Kath or Kel to understand, but to use, with permission.
And the Shrine held light again: lights were lit by Melein's own hands, and the pan'en was brought and set there behind the corroded screens, to be moved when they moved, to be reverenced by the House while they stayed. There were chants spoken, the Shon'jir of the mri that had gone out from Kutath; and the An'jir of the mri that stayed on homeworld.
We are they that went not out:
landwalkers, sky-watchers;
We are they that went not out:
world-holders, faith-keepers;
We are they that went not out:
and beautiful our morning;
We are they that went not out:
and beautiful our night.
The rhythmic words haunted the air: the long night, Duncan thought, standing at Niun's side ... a folk that had waited their end on dying Kutath.
Until Melein songs sank away; je JwH was stSi; fire People went their ways.
There was kel-hall.
A long spiral up, a shadowed hall thrown into sudden light… the Kel spread carpets that had been the floors of their tents, still sandy: the cleaners skittered about in the outer hall, but stayed from their presence.
The Kel settled, made a circle. There was time for curiosity, then, in the privacy of the hall. Eyes wandered over Niun, over the dusei, over Duncan most of all.
"He will be welcomed," Niun said suddenly and harshly, answering unspoken thoughts.
There were frowns, but no words. Duncan swept a glance about the circle, meeting golden eyes that locked with his and did not flinch without love, without trust, but without, he thought, outright hate. One by one he met such stares, let them look their fill; and he would have taken off the zaidhe too, and let them see the rest of his alienness; but to do so was demeaning, and insulting if offered in anger, a reproach to them. They could not ask it; it was the depth of insult.
A cup was passed, to Niun first, and to Duncan: water, of the blue pipe, in a brass cup. Duncan wet his lips with it, and passed it to Hlil, who was next. Hlil hesitated just the barest instant, as he might if he were expected to drink after the dusei; and then the kel'en touched his lips to it and passed it on.
One after the other drank in peace, even the kel'e'ein, the two kinswomen of Merai. There were no refusals.
Then Niun laid his longsword in Duncan's lap, and in curious and elaborate ceremony, all kel'ein likewise drew, and the av'ein-kel, Duncan's as well, passed from man and woman about the circle until each held his own again.
Then each spoke his name in full, one after the other. Some had names of both parents; some had only Sochil's; and Duncan, glancing down, gave his, Duncan-without-a-Mother, feeling curiously lost among these folk who knew what they were.
"The kel-ritual," said Niun when that had been done, "is still the same.”
It pleased them, perhaps, to know that this was true; there was gestured agreement.
"You will teach us," said Niun, "the mu'ara of home-world.”
"Aye," said Hlfl readily.
There was a lorfg silence.
"One part of the ritual that I know," said Niun, "I do hot hear.”
Hlil bit his lip ... a man of scars more than the setcfal, Hlil s'Sochil, rough-faced for a mri, who were slender and fine-boned. "Our Kath our Kath is frightened of this " Hlil stopped short of tsi'mri, and glanced full at Duncan.
"Do you," Niun asked in a hard voice, "wish to make a formal statement of this?”
"We are concerned," Hlil said, glancing down.
"We.”
"Kel'anth," said Hlil, scarcely audible, "it is your right, and his.”
"No," Duncan said softly, but Niun affected not to hear; Niun looked about him, waiting.
"The Kath will make you welcome," said one of the old kel'e'ein.
"The Kath will make you welcome," others echoed then, and last of all, Hlil.
"So," said Niun, and arose waited for Duncan, while others stayed seated, and Duncan sought any other point but the eyes that stared at them.
The dusei would have come. Niun forbade.
And the two of them went alone from kel-hall, and down the ramp. It was late, in the last part of the night. Duncan felt cold, and dreaded the meeting to which they went: the Kath, the women and the children of the House, and perhaps, he hoped, only ceremony, only ritual, in which he could remain silent and unnoticed.
They ascended kath-tower; the kath'anth met them at the ' door. Silently she led them within, where exhausted children sprawled on their mats and carpets, and some few of the older ones, male and female, sleepless hi the excitement of the night, stared at them from the shadows.
They came to a door in a narrow halclass="underline" "Go in," the kath'anth said to Duncan; he did, and found it spread with carpets, and nothing more. The door closed; Niun and the kath'anth had left him there, in that dim chamber, lit with an oil lamp.
He settled then, in a corner, apprehensive at the first, and conscious finally that he was cold and sleepy, and that perhaps the kath'ein would abhor him and would not come at all. It was a bitter thought; but it was better than the trouble that he foresaw. He wished only to be let alone, and perhaps to sleep the night out, and not to be questioned after. And the door opened.