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Even on Kutath it was done, the deliberate forgetting, by all but the scholars of Sen-caste. It was, he suspected, the sanity of a world so very old. Sen remembered. No kel'en might, save in the chants of legends, of which he was one.
The ships which went out, they sang of his kind, With the World at their backs…
The noise of their voices oppressed him as silence. He looked up, realizing his lapse, looked about him, at Hlil, and the several survivors of the first rank of the Kel, the Husbands of the she'pan.
"We " he said, and silence fell, flowing to the rearmost ranks. "We should consider a matter. Our supplies ... in An-ehon. And what we do next.”
"Send us," a young kel'en exclaimed from the middle ranks, and voices seconded him. "Aye," another said. "Day by day, we could bring them out, if we hunt that way.”
"No," he said shortly. "It is not that simple. Listen to me. Putting a limb of the Kel into An-ehon… gods know what we could stir up. Ships may have landed there. The place may be watched, and not alone with eyes. Rubble may have buried what is left ... no knowing; and if we go to the open land again chances are we will be seen. What hit An-ehon could come down on us when we have only canvas over our heads. We need the supplies; I am sick of seeing Kath struggle to make do with what little we have. And I agree with you, we are pressing luck staying here. But I prefer rock between us and them for now. I am thinking of moving up into the hills.”
"Not our range," objected Seras, eldest of the Husbands.
"Then we take it," he said in a small and bitter voice.
The fusion of tribes, the merging of Holies ... oil and water. It was trouble; he saw their faces, and it was the hardness he expected to see.
You ca
"The she'pan's word?" Seras asked.
That too was challenge.
"I have not talked with her. I am going to.”
"So," said Seras.
There was silence after that, no murmur of suggestions, no expressions of opinion. Their faces, alike scarred with the kel-scars, regarded him, waited on him, set as stone. He considered asking again for their free discussion, reckoned that he would have only silence for answer. He brushed at his robes, gathered himself up and walked through their midst as they rose, perforce, a respect which might be omitted, which they never omitted, which began, to him, to have the flavor of mockery.
They would do their talking after he was gone, he reckoned. Hlil and Seras and the rest of the Husbands led them, in truth; him they only obeyed. He veiled himself, walked out along the narrow trail which followed the curving of the cliffs in the dark, back farther in the cliffs where in places not even starshine reached. A sandfall sheeted down, daily building at a large cone of sand with a constant, hissing whisper. He walked between it and the cliff, ducked his head from the windblown particles. He missed the dus, which probably hunted somewhere above, in the rocks; well that it had not come in with him, this night, with resentments smoldering in the Kel.
And on that thought he looked back, half expecting Ras to be there. She was not.
At the sharp bend of the cliff he walked across the open center, past the stand of pipe, which rose at an assortment of angles, its greater segments thick as a man's waist. Good fortune that it grew here, making far easier their existence with its reliable moisture; it was the only good fortune they had to their account.
Faint light showed in Sen's retreat. Gold-robes who sat in contemplation at the entry looked up in mild inquiry, scrambled up in haste when they recognized him, and stood aside in respect for the kel-first. He walked farther, into the shadow and lamplight of the i
He rounded the turning into the last secrecy, where a few gold-robes sat about the piled stones which served Melein for her chair of office, in this little recess which served as the she'pan's hall, primitive and far from the honor she was due. Her robes were white, her face always unveiled; Mother, the tribe ought to call her, and she'pan, keeper-of-Mysteries, the Holy.
Truesister, Niun thought of her, with a longing toward that companionship they had once had. Often as he had seen her in the white robes and surrounded by sen'ein, he could not forget kinship.
She motioned dismissal of the others, summoning him; he bowed his head and waited as the sen'ein passed, murmured courtesy to the sen'anth, old Sathas received back a grumbled acknowledgment, but that was Sathas's way with everyone.
"Come," Melein said.
He did so, took the offered place at her feet.
"You look tired," she said.
He shrugged.
"You have some trouble?”
"She'pan Kel does not admit this is a safe place to be.”
"So. Are not others worse?”
That was a drawing question; impatience. "Others require taking. But perhaps that is what we have to do.”
"Kel agrees?”
"Kel offers no opinion.”
"Ah.”
"The Holy, the things we lost in the city. ... I think by now if there were ships we would have seen them. Give me leave to go in. I think we can get them out. And for the rest maybe it is not something in which Kel should have an opinion.”
"You have begun to stop waiting.”
He looked up at her, made a small gesture of helplessness, disturbed more than he wanted her to see. "I know the old kel'ein say weather change is a little distance off yet... on the average of years. But we ought to prepare our choices. This cut will be headed for the basins when the wind starts up; I believe that We have to do something; I have been trying to think what Chance is lying heavier and heavier on our shoulders.”
"You have talked with the Kel.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. "I have told them.”
"And they have no opinion.”
"None they voiced.”
"So." She seemed to stare past him, her eyes focused on something on the ground beyond him, her face half in shadow, gold-lit by the oilwood flames. At last her eyes flickered, the membrane passing twice before them, betraying some i
"Which way would you go?" she asked. "Down, into the basins? They tell me tribes range there too, that the air is warmer and moisture more plentiful; we would find larger tribes, likely, or smaller ranges. You would win challenge. I have no doubt that you would. Your skill to theirs is far more than they would want to meet; nine years with the finest masters of the Kel I have no dread of that at all. We could, yes. Even seize upon a Holy to venerate, take their supplies, if our own are lost. . . the gods forbid. And what more?"
"I am kel'en; how should I know?”
"You were never without opinions in all your life.”
"Say that I find no better hope in them.”
"You are missing one of your ftai.”
His hand went to his chest belt before he caught her meaning, touched the vacant place among his Honors.
"It was one of your first," she pursued him. "A golden leaf, a leaf, on Kutath. Surely it would not have dropped away and you not notice it I have for many days.”
"Duncan has it." It was no confession; she knew; he knew now she always had.
"We do not discuss a kel'en who left without my blessing.”
"He went with mine," he said.
"Did he? Even the kel'ein of this tribe consult me; even with the example of you and Duncan before them. I have waited for you to come to me to tell me. And I have waited for you to come to speak for the Kel. And you do neither, even now. Why?”
He met her eyes, no easy matter.
"Niun," she murmured, "Niun, how have we come to such a pass, he and you and I? You taught him to be mri, and yet he could defy my orders; and now you follow after him. Is that the trouble I hear from the Kel? That they know where your heart is?”
"Perhaps it is," he said faintly. "Or that theirs is constantly with Merai,”
"Because you constantly push them away.”
There was long silence after.
"I do not think so," he said.
"But that is part of it.”
"Yes. Probably that is part of it.”
"Duncan went back," she said, "of his own choice. Was it not so?”
"He did not go back. He went to the humans, yes, but he did not go back. He still serves the People.”
"So you believed ... or you would never have given him your blessing. And have you talked of this with
"No."
"Humans would surely not let him go again, if he even lived to reach them.”
"He has reached them." Niun made a gesture which included An-ehon, northward, the wide sky above the rocks. "There have been no ships, no more attacks. She'pan, I know that he has reached them, and they have heard him.”
"Heard him say what?”
That struck him dumb, for all his faith in Duncan did not bridge that gap of realities, that could span what was mri and what was human with a request to go away.
"And you talk of regaining the means to move," she said. "So I have thought in that direction too, but perhaps with different aims. You always hunt eastward. I have heard so.”
He nodded, without looking at her.
"You hope to stay close hereabouts," she said. "Or to move east, perhaps. Do you hope, even after so many days that he will find us?”
"Some such thing.”
"I shall send Hlil to An-ehon," she said. "He may arrange his own particulars; he may take whatever of the Kel he needs, and a hand of sen'ein.”
"Without me.”
"You have other business. To find Duncan.”
On two thoughts his heart leaped up and crashed down again. "Gods, go off with the Kel in one place and yourself left with no sufficient guard “
"I have waited," Melein said, as if she had not heard him. "First, to know how long this silence in the heavens would last. We need what is in An-ehon, yes; a hand of days or more; Hlil will need a little time in the city, and more returning if they are successful, and carrying then; limit. But alone, with no burden at all I daresay you could search even to the landing site and reach us again here in that time.”