Brothers of Earth

III

To judge by the size of the house and its nearness to the Afen, Kta was an important man. From the street the house of Elas was a featureless cube of stone with its deeply recessed A-shaped doorway fronting directly on the walk. It was two stories high, and sprawled far back against the rock on which Nephane sat.

The guards who escorted him rang a bell that hung before the door, and in a few moments the door was opened by a white-haired and balding nemet in black.

There was a rapid exchange of words, in which Kurt caught frequently the names of Kta and Djan-methi. It ended with the old man bowing, hands to lips, and accepting Kurt within the house, and the guards bowing themselves off the step. The old man softly closed the double doors and dropped the bar.

“Hef,” the old man identified himself with a gesture. “Come.”

Hanging lamps of bronze lit their way into the depths of the house, down a dim hall that branched Y-formed past a triangular arch. Stairs at left and right led to a balcony and other rooms, but they took the right-hand branch of the Y upon the main floor. On the left the wall gave way into that same central hall which appeared through the arch at the joining of the Y. On the right was a closed door. Hef struck it with his fingers.

Kta answered the knock, his dark eyes astonished. He gave full attention to Hef’s rapid words, which sobered him greatly. Then he opened the door widely and bade Kurt come in.

Kurt entered uncertainly, disoriented equally by exhaustion and by the alien geometry of the place. This time Kta offered him the honor of a chair, still lower than Kurt found natural. The carpets underfoot were rich with designs of geometric form and the furniture was fantastically carved, even the bed surrounded with embroidered hangings.

Kta settled opposite him and leaned back. He wore only a kilt and sandals in the privacy of his own chambers. He was a powerfully built man, golden skin glistening like the statue of some ancient god brought to life. There was about him the power of wealth that had not been apparent on the ship. Kurt suddenly found himself awed of the man, and suddenly realized that “friend” was perhaps not the proper word between a wealthy, nemet captain and a human refugee who had landed destitute on his doorstep.

Perhaps, he thought uneasily, “guest” was hardly the proper word either.

“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, “the Methi has put you in my hands.”

“I am grateful,” he answered, “that you came and spoke for me.”

“It was necessary. For honor’s sake, Elas has been opened to you. Understand: if you do wrong, punishment falls on me; if you escape, my freedom is owed. I say this so you will know. Do as you choose.”

“You took a responsibility like that,” Kurt objected, “without knowing anything about me.”

“I made an oath,” said Kta. “I didn’t know then that the oath was an error. I made an oath of safety for you. For the honor of Elas I have asked the Methi for you. It was necessary.”

“Her people and mine have been at war for more than two thousand years. You’re taking a bigger risk than you know. I don’t want to bring trouble on you.”

“I am your host fourteen days,” said Kta. “I thank you that you speak plainly; but a man who comes to the hearth-fire of Elas is never a stranger at our door again. Bring peace with you and be welcome. Honor our customs and Elas will share with you.”

“I am your guest,” said Kurt. “I will do whatever you ask of me.”

Kta joined his fingertips together and inclined his head. Then he rose and struck a gong that hung beside his door, bringing forth a deep, soft note which caressed the mind like a whisper.

“I call my family to the rhmei-the heart-of Elas. Please.” He touched fingers to lips and bowed. “This is courtesy, bowing. Ei, I know humans touch to show friendliness. You must not. This is insult, especially to women. There is blood for insulting the women of a house. Lower your eyes before strangers. Extend no hand close to a man. This way you cannot give offense.”

Kurt nodded, but he grew afraid, afraid of the nemet themselves, of finding some dark side to their gentle, cultured nature-or of being despised for a savage. That would be worst of all.

He followed Kta into the great room which was framed by the branching of the entry hall. It was columned, of polished black marble. Its walls and floors reflected the fire that burned in a bronze tripod bowl at the apex of the triangular hall.

At the base wall were two wooden chairs, and there sat a woman in the left-hand one, her feet on a white fleece, other fleeces scattered about her feet like clouds. In the right-hand chair sat an elder man, and a girl sat curled up on one of the fleece rugs. Hef stood by the fire, with a young woman at his side.

Kta knelt on the rug nearest the lady’s feet, and from that place spoke earnestly and rapidly, while Kurt stood uncomfortably by and knew that he was the subject. His heart beat faster as the man rose up and cast a forbidding look at him.

“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, springing anxiously to his feet, “I bring you before my honored father, Nym t’Elas u Lhai, and my mother the lady Ptas t’Lei e Met sh’Nym.”

Kurt bowed very low indeed, and Kta’s parents responded with some softening of their manner toward him. The young woman by Nym’s feet also rose up and bowed.

“My sister Aimu,” said Kta. “And you must also meet Hef and his daughter Mim, who honor Elas with their service. Ita, Hef-nechan s’Mim-lechan, imimen. Hau,”

The two came forward and bowed deeply. Kurt responded, not knowing if he should bow to servants, but he matched his obeisance to theirs.

“Hef,” said Kta, “is the Friend of Elas. His family serves us now three hundred years. Mim-lechan speaks human language. She will help you.”

Mim cast a look up at him. She was small, narrow-waisted, both stiffly proper and distractingly feminine in the close-fitting, many-buttoned bodice. Her eyes were large and dark, before a quick flash downward and the bowing of her head concealed them.

It was a look of hate, a thing of violence, that she sent him.

He stared, stricken by it, until he remembered and showed her courtesy by glancing down.

“I am much honored,” said Mim coldly, like a recital, “being help to the guest of my lord Kta. My honored father and I are anxious for your comfort.”

The guest quarters were upstairs, above what Mim explained shortly were Nym’s rooms, with the implication that Nym expected silence of him. It was a splendid apartment, in every detail as fine as Kta’s own, with a separate, brightly tiled bath, a wood-stove for heating water, bronze vessels for the bath and a tea set. There was a round tub in the bath for bathing, and a great stack of white linens, scented with herbs.

The bed in the main triangular room was a great feather-stuffed affair spread with fine crisp sheets and the softest furs, beneath a sunny window of cloudy, bubbled glass. Kurt looked on the bed with longing, for his legs shook and his eyes burned with fatigue, and there was not a muscle in his body which did not ache; but Mim busily pattered back and forth with stacks of linens and clothing, and then cruelly insisted on stripping the bed and remaking it, turning and plumping the big down mattress. Then, when he was sure she must have finished, she set about dusting everything.

Kurt was near to falling asleep in the corner chair when Kta arrived in the midst of the confusion. The nemet surveyed everything that had been done and then said something to Hef, who attended him.

The old servant looked distressed, then bowed and removed a small bronze lamp from a triangular niche in the west wall, handling it with the greatest care.

“It is religion,” Kta explained, though Kurt had not ventured to ask. “Please don’t touch such things, also the phusmeha, the bowl of the fire in the rhmei. Your presence is a disturbance. I ask your respect in this matter.”

“Is it because I’m a stranger,” Kurt asked, already nettled by Mim’s petty persecutions, “or because I’m human?”

“You are without beginning on this earth. I asked the phusa taken out not because I don’t wish Elas to protect you, but because I don’t want you to make trouble by offending against the Ancestors of Elas. I have asked my father in this matter. The eyes of Elas are closed in this one room. I think it is best. Let it not offend.”

Kurt bowed, satisfied by Kta’s evident distress.

“Do you honor your ancestors?” Kta asked.

“I don’t understand,” said Kurt, and Kta assumed a distressed look as if his fears had only been confirmed.

“Nevertheless,” said Kta, “I try. Perhaps the Ancestors of Elas will accept prayers in the name of your most distant house. Are your parents still living?”

“I have no kin at all,” said Kurt, and the nemet murmured a word that sounded regretful.

“Then,” said Kta, “I ask please your whole name, the name of your house and of your father and your mother.”

Kurt gave them, to have peace, and the nemet stumbled much over the long alien names, determined to pronounce them accurately. Kta was horrified at first to believe his parents shared a common house name, and Kurt angrily, almost tearfully, explained human customs of marriage, for he was exhausted and this interrogation was prolonging his misery.

“I shall explain to the Ancestors,” said Kta. “Don’t be afraid. Elas is a house patient with strangers and strangers’ ways.”

Kurt bowed his head, not to have any further argument. He was tolerated for the sake of Kta, a matter of Kta’s honor.

He was cold when Kta and Mim left him alone, and crawled between the cold sheets, unable to stop shivering.

He was one of a kind, save for Djan, who hated him.

And among nemet, he was not even hated. He was inconvenient.

Food arrived late that evening, brought by Hef; Kurt dragged his aching limbs out of bed and fully dressed, which would not have been his inclination, but he was determined to do nothing to lessen his esteem in the eyes of the nemet.

Then Kta arrived to share dinner with him in his room.

“It is custom to take dinner in the rhmei, all Elas together,” Kta explained, “but I teach you, here. I don’t want you to offend against my family. You learn manners first.”

Kurt had borne with much. “I have manners of my own,” he cried, “and I’m sorry if I contaminate your house. Send me back to the Afen, to Djan-it’s not too late for that.” And he turned his back on the food and on Kta, and walked over to stand looking out the dark window. It dawned on him that sending him to Elas had been Djan’s subtle cruelty; she expected him back, broken in pride.

“I meant no insult,” Kta protested.

Kurt looked back at him, met the dark, foreign eyes with more directness than Kta had ever allowed him. The nemet’s face was utterly stricken.

“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, “I didn’t wish to cause you shame. I wish to help you, not putting you on display in the eyes of my father and my mother. It is your dignity I protect.”

Kurt bowed his head and came back, not gladly. Djan was in his mind, that he would not run to her for shelter, giving up what he had abjectly begged of her. And perhaps too she had meant to teach the house of Elas its place, estimating it would beg relief of the burden it had asked. He submitted. There were worse shames than sitting on the floor like a child and letting Kta mold his unskilled fingers around the strange tableware.

He quickly knew why Kta had not permitted him to go downstairs. He could scarcely feed himself and, starving as he was, he had to resist the impulse to snatch up food in disregard of the unfamiliar utensils. Drink with the left hand only, eat with the right, reach with the left, never the right. The bowl was lifted almost to the lips, but it must never touch. From the almost bowl-less spoon and thin skewer he kept dropping bites. The knife must be used only left-handed.

Kta was cautiously tactful after his outburst, but grew less so as Kurt recovered his sense of humor. They talked, between instructions and accidents, and afterward, over a cup of tea. Sometimes Kta asked him of human customs, but he approached any difference between them with the attitude that while other opinions and manners were possible, they were not so under the roof of Elas.

“If you were among humans,” Kurt dared ask him finally, “what would you do?”

Kta looked as if the idea horrified him, but covered it with a downward glance. “I don’t know. I know only Tamurlin.”

“Did not”-he had tried for a long time to work toward this question-“did not Djan-methi come with others?”

The frightened look persisted. “Yes. Most left. Djan-methi killed the others.”

He quickly changed the subject and looked as if he wished he had not been so free of that answer, though he had given it straightly and with deliberation.

They talked of lesser things, well into the night, over many cups of tea and sometimes of telise, until from the rest of Elas there was no sound of people stirring and they had to lower their voices. The light was exceedingly dim, the air heavy with the scent of oil from the lamps. The telise made it close and warm. The late hour clothed things in unreality.

Kurt learned things, almost all simply family gossip, for Djan and Elas were all in Nephane that they both knew, and Kta, momentarily so free with the truth, seemed to have remembered that there was danger in it. They spoke instead of Elas.

Nym was the authority, the lord of Elas; Kta had almost no authority, although he was over thirty-he hardly looked it-and commanded a warship. Kta would be under Nym’s authority as long as Nym lived; the eldest male was lord in the house. If Kta married, he must bring his bride to live under his father’s roof. The girl would become part of Elas, obedient to Kta’s father and mother as if she were born to the house. So Aimu was soon to depart, betrothed to Kta’s lieutenant Bel t’Osanef. They had been friends since childhood, Kta and Bel and Aimu.

Kta owned nothing. Nym controlled the family wealth and would decide how and whom and when his two children must marry, since marriage determined inheritances. Property passed from father to eldest son undivided, and the eldest then assumed a father’s responsibility for all lesser brothers and cousins and unmarried women in the house. A patriarch like Nym always had his rooms to the right of the entry, a custom, Kta explained, derived from more warlike times, when a man slept at the threshold to defend his home from attack. Grown sons occupied the ground floor for the same reason. This room that Kurt now held as a guest had been Kta’s when he was a boy.

And the matriarch, in this case Kta’s mother Ptas, although it had been the paternal grandmother until quite recently, had her rooms behind the base wall of the rhmei. > She was the guardian of most religious matters of the house. She tended the holy fire of the phusmeha, supervised the household and was second in authority to the patriarch.

Of obeisance and respect, Kta explained, there were complex degrees. It was gross disrespect for a grown son to come before his mother without going to his knees, but when he was a boy this deference was not paid. The reverse was true with a son and his father: a boy knelt to his father until his coming of age, then met him with the slight bow of almost-equals if he was eldest, necessary obeisances deepening as one went down the ranks of second son, third son and so on. A daughter, however, was treated as a beloved guest, a visitor the house would one day lose to a husband; she gave her parents only the obeisance of second-son’s rank, and showed her brothers the same modest formality she must use with strangers.

But of Hef and Mim, who served Elas, was required only the obeisance of equals, although it was their habit to show more than that on formal occasions.

“And what of me?” Kurt asked, dreading to ask. “What must I do?”

Kta frowned. “You are guest, mine; you must be equal with me. But,” he added nervously, “it is proper in a man to show greater respect than necessary sometimes. It does not hurt your dignity; sometimes it makes it greater. Be most polite to all. Don’t . . . make Elas ashamed. People will watch you, thinking they will see a Tamuru in nemet dress. You must prove this is not so.”

“Kta,” Kurt asked, “am I a man, to the nemet?”

Kta pressed his lips together and looked as if he earnestly wished that question had gone unasked.

“I am not, then,” Kurt concluded, and was robbed even of anger by the distress on Kta’s face.

“I have not decided,” Kta said. “Some . . . would say no. It is a religious question. I must think. But I have a liking for you, Kurt, even if you are human.”

“You have been very good to me.”

There was silence between them. In the sleeping house there was no sound at all. Kta looked at him with a directness and a pity which disquieted him.

“You are afraid of us,” Kta observed.

“Did Djan make you my keeper only because you asked, or because she trusts you in some special way, to watch me?”

Kta’s head lifted slightly. “Elas is loyal to the Methi. But you are guest.”

“Are nemet who speak human language so common? You are very fluent, Kta. Mim is. Your . . . readiness to accept a human into your house-is that not different from the feelings of other nemet?”

“I interpreted for the umani when they first came to Nephane. Before that, I learned of Mim, and Mim learned because she was prisoner of the Tamurlin. What evil do you suspect? What is the quarrel between you and Djan-methi?”

“We are of different nations, an old, old war. Don’t get involved, Kta, if you did only get into this for my sake. If I threaten the peace of your house-or your safety-tell me. I’ll go back. I mean that.”

“This is impossible,” said Kta. “No. Elas has never dismissed a guest.”

“Elas has never entertained a human.”

“No,” Kta conceded. “But the Ancestors when they lived were reckless men. This is the character of Elas. The Ancestors guide us to such choice, and Nephane and the Methi cannot be much surprised at us.”

The lives of the nemet were uniformly tranquil. Kurt endured a little more than four days of the silent dim halls, the hushed voices and the endless bowing and refraining from untouchable objects and untouchable persons before he began to feel his sanity slipping.

On that day he went upstairs and locked the door, despite Kta’s pleas to explain his behavior. He shed a few tears, fiercely and in the privacy of his room, and curtained the window so he did not have to look out on the alien world. He sat hi the dark until the night came, then he slipped quietly downstairs and sat in the empty rhmei, trying to make his peace with the house.

Mim came. She stood and watched him silently, hands twisting nervously before her.

At last she pattered on soft feet over to the chairs and gathered up one of the fleeces and brought it to the place where he sat on the cold stone. She laid it down beside him, and chanced to meet his eyes as she straightened. Hers questioned, greatly troubled, even frightened.

He accepted the offered truce between them, edged onto the welcome softness of the fleece.

She bowed very deeply, then slipped out again, extinguishing the lights one by one as she left, save only the phusmeba, which burned the night long.

Kta also came out to him, but only looked as if to see that he was well. Then he went away, but left the door of his room open the night long.

Kurt rose up in the morning and paused in Kta’s doorway to give him an apology. The nemet was awake and arose in some concern, but Kurt did not find words adequate to explain his behavior. He only bowed in respect to the nemet, and Kta to him, and he went up to his own room to prepare for the decency of breakfast with the family.

Gentle Kta. Soft-spoken, seldom angry, he stood above six feet in height and was physically imposing, but it was uncertain whether Kta had ever laid aside his dignity to use force on anyone. It was an increasing source of amazement to Kurt that this intensely proud man had vaulted a ship’s rail in view of all Nephane to rescue a drowning human, or sat on the dock and helped him amid his retching illness. Nothing seemed to ruffle Kta for long. He met frustration by retiring to meditate on the problem until he had restored himself to what he called yhia, or balance, a philosophy evidently adequate even in dealing with humans.

Kta also played the aos, a small harp of metal strings, and sang with a not unpleasant voice, which was the particular pleasure of lady Ptas on the quiet evenings. Sometimes he sang light, quick songs that brought laughter to the rhmei, sometimes very long ones that were interrupted with cups of telise to give Kta’s voice a rest, songs to which all the house listened in sober silence, plaintive and haunting melodies of anharmonic notes.

“What do you sing about?” Kurt asked him afterward. They sat in Kta’s room, sharing a late cup of tea. It was their habit to sit and talk late into the night. It was almost their last. The two weeks were almost spent. Tonight he wanted very much to know the nemet, not at all sure that he would have a further chance. It had been beautiful in the rhmei, the notes of the aos, the sober dignity of Nym, the rapt face of lady Ptas, Aimu and Mim with their sewing, Hef sitting to one side and listening, his old eyes dreaming.

The stillness of Elas had seeped into his bones this night, a timeless and now fleeting time which made all the world quiet. He had striven against it. Tonight, he listened.

“The song would mean nothing to you,” Kta said. “I can’t sing it in human words.”

“Try,” said Kurt.

The nemet shrugged, gave a pained smile, gathered up the aos and ran his fingers over the sensitive strings, calling forth the same melody. For a moment he seemed lost, but the melody grew, rebuilt itself in all its complexity.

“It is our beginning,” said Kta, and spoke softly, not looking at Kurt, his fingers moving on the strings like a whisper of wind, as if that was necessary for his thoughts.

There was water. From the sea came the nine spirits of the elements, and greatest were Ygr the earthly and Ib the celestial. From Ygr and Ib came a thousand years of begettings and chaos and wars of elements, until Qas who was light and Mur who was darkness, persuaded their brother-gods Phan the sun and Thael the earth to part.

So formed the first order. But Thael loved Phan’s sister Ti, and took her. Phan in his anger killed Thael, and of Thael’s ribs was the earth. Ti bore dead Thael a son, Aem.

“I have never tried to think it hi human terms,” said Kta, frowning. “It is very hard.”

But with a gesture Kurt urged him, and Kta touched the strings again, trying, greatly frustrated.

“The first mortal beings were Nem and Panet, man and woman, twins. They sinned the great sin too. The council of gods rejected them for immortality because of it, and made their lives short. Phan especially hated them, and he mated with Yr the snake, and brought beasts and terrible things into the world to hunt man.

“Then a prophecy came,” said Kta, “and Phan chose Isoi, a mortal woman, and gave her a half-god son, Qavur, who carried the weapons of Phan to destroy the world by burning. Qavur destroyed the god-kings, but Isoi his mother begged him not to kill the rest of man, and he didn’t. Then Phan with his sword of plague came down and destroyed all men, but when he came to Isoi she ran to her hearthfire and sat down beside it, so that she claimed the gods’ protection. Her tears made Phan pity her. He gave her another son, Isem, who was husband of Nae the sea-goddess and father of all men who sail on the sea. But Phan took Qavur to be immortal; he is the star that shines in morning, the messenger of the sun.

“To keep Nae’s children from doing wrong, Phan gave Qavur the yhia to take to men. All law comes from it. From it we know our place in the universe. Anything higher is gods’ law, but that is beyond the words of the song. The song is the Ind. It is sacred to us. My father taught it to me, and the seven verses of it that are only for Elas. So it has come to us in each generation.”

“You said once,” said Kurt, “that you didn’t know whether I was man or not. Have you decided yet?”

Kta thoughtfully laid aside the aos, stilled its strings. “Perhaps, said Kta, “some of the children of Nem escaped, the plague; but you are not nemet. Perhaps instead you are descended of Yr, and you were set out among the stars on some world of Thael’s kindred. From what I have heard among humans, the earth seems to have had many brothers. But I don’t think you think so.”

“I said nothing.”

“Your look did not agree.”

“I wouldn’t distress you,” said Kurt, “by saying I consider you human.”

The nemet’s lips opened instantly, his eyes mirroring shock. Then he looked as if he suspected Kurt of some levity, and again, as if he feared he was serious. Slowly his expression took on a certain thoughtfulness, and he made a gesture of rejection.

“Please,” said Kta, “don’t say that freely.”

Kurt bowed his head then in respect to Kta, for the nemet truly looked frightened.

“I have spoken to the Guardians of Elas for you,” said Kta. “You are a disturbance here, but I do not feel that you are unwelcome with our Ancestors.”

Kurt dressed carefully on the last morning. He would have worn the clothes in which he had come, but Mim had taken those away, unworthy, she had said, of the guest of Elas. Instead he had an array of fine clothing he thought must be Kta’s, and on this morning he chose the warmest and most durable, for he did not know” what the day might bring him, and the night winds were chill. It was also cold in the rooms of the Afen, and he feared he would not leave it once he entered.

Elas again began to seem distant to him, and the sterile modernity of the center of the Afen increasingly crowded in on his thoughts, the remembrance that, whatever had happened in Elas, his business was with Djan and not with the nemet.

He had chosen his option at the beginning of the two weeks, in the form of a small dragon-hilted blade from among Kta’s papers, where it had been gathering dust and would not be missed.

He drew it now from its hiding place and considered it, apt either for Djan or for himself.

And fatally traceable to the house of Elas.

It did not go within his clothing, as he had always meant to carry it. Instead he laid it aside on the dressing table. It would go back to Kta. The nemet would be angry at the theft, but it would make amends, all the same.

Kurt finished dressing, fastening the ctan, the outer cloak, on his shoulder, and chose a bronze pin with which to do it, for his debts to Elas were enough; he would not use the ones of silver and gold with which he had been provided.

A light tapping came at the door, Mim’s knock.

“Come in,” he bade her, and she quietly did so. Linens were changed daily throughout the house. She carried fresh ones, for bed and for bath, and she bowed to him before she set them down to begin her work. Of late there was no longer hate in Mim’s look. He understood that she had had cause, having been prisoner of the Tamurlin; but she had ceased her war with him of her own accord, and in consideration of that he always tried especially to please Mim.

“At least,” he observed, “you will have less washing in the house hereafter.”

She did not appreciate the poor humor. She looked at him, then lowered her eyes and turned around to tend her business.

And froze, with her back to him, facing the dresser. Hesitantly she reached for the knife, snatched at it and faced about again as if uncertain that he would not pounce on her. Her dark eyes were large with terror; her attitude was that of one determined to resist if he attempted to take it from her.

“Lord Kta did not give you this,” she said.

“No,” he said, “but you may give it back to him.”

She clasped it in both hands and continued to stare at him. “If you bring a weapon into the Afen you kill us, Kurt-ifhan. All Elas would die.”

“I have given it back,” he said. “I am not armed, Mim. That is the truth.”

She slipped it into the belt beneath her overskirt, ‘through one of the four slits that exposed the filmy pelan from waist to toe, patted it flat. She was so small a woman; she had a tiny waist, a slender neck accentuated by the way she wore her hair in many tiny braids coiled and clustered above the ears. So little a creature, so soft-spoken, and yet he was continually in awe of Mim, feeling her disapproval of him in every line of her stiff little back.

For once, as in the rhmei that night, there was something like distress, even tenderness in the way she looked at him.

“Kta wishes you come back to Elas,” she said.

“I doubt I will be allowed to,” he said.

“Then why would the Methi send you here?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps to satisfy Kta for a time. Perhaps so I’ll find the Afen the worse by comparison.”

“Kta will not let harm come to you.”

“Kta had better stay out of it. Tell him so, Mim. He could make the Methi his enemy that way. He had better forget it.”

He was afraid. He had lived with that nagging fear from the beginning, and now that Mim touched nerves, he found it difficult to speak with the calm that the nemet called dignity. The unsteadiness of his voice made him greatly ashamed.

And Mim’s eyes inexplicably filled with tears-fierce little Mim, unhuman Mim, who would have been interestingly female to Kurt but for her alien face. He did not know if any other being would ever care enough to cry over him, and suddenly leaving Elas was unbearable.

He took her slim golden hands in his, knew at once he should not have, for she was nemet and she shivered at the very touch of him. But she looked up at him and did not show offense. Her hands pressed his very gently in return.

“Kurt-ifhan,” she said, “I will tell lord Kta what you say, because it is good advice. But I don’t think he will listen to me. Elas will speak for you. I am sure of it. The Methi has listened before to Elas. She knows that we speak with the power of the Families. Please go to breakfast. I have made you late. I am sorry.”

He nodded and started to the door, looked back again. “Mim,” he said, because he wanted her to look up. He wanted her face to think of, as he wanted everything in Elas fixed in his mind. But then he was embarrassed, for he could think of nothing to say.

“Thank you,” he murmured, and quickly left.