Moving Water (16 page)

“It's not as bad as it sounds,” I struck in hopefully, and the Phathos snorted.

“It symbolizes the soul's death. And,” he added reluctantly, “its regeneration. It means,” he revived, “the death of kings. Also revolution.” He gazed balefully at me. “As you sow, you will reap.”

Beryx had grown thoughtful. Now, hunched forward over his knees, he glanced at the Fool and his eyes lit with vivid hilarity. “And,” he asked demurely, “the Gate?”

“The outcome,” the Phathos almost snarled. “The Fool symbolizes divine wisdom ignoring the lower world. It means a vital choice requiring”—his eye sneered—“great wisdom. But the Fool also contains elements of anarchy, recklessness—and improper levity.”

Beryx crowed with delight. The Phathos tore the cards to his bosom, kicked my cloak, hissed, “Your silver is accursed!” and took the steps like a cavalry charge with me plucking vainly at his elbow while Beryx rolled in the straw, quite gagged by mirth.

“Did you have to?” I asked ruefully, coming back. “I thought you might be interested. And—and some of it seemed to fit.”

“Oh, dear, I'm sorry, Alkir.” He wiped his face. “But . . . ! The Moon, the Devil, Death, the Fool!” He calmed. “It's like a bad mirror. Real things made unreal. I suppose they inherit it? Some must have known Velandryxe once. Ystir.
Truth it is
. That's the Great Tales' opening. And Imsar Losvure.
In the Sky-faces' name
. But—Alkir, he's a charlatan! He uses pictures! Four! Now I know why Th'Iahn would say ‘bastard sorcerers' and kick them out of the house.”

I kept silent. I am an Assharran, raised with the cards. To me a pure ruand cast was portentous enough, without the recurrent Sage, that sinister Cross, and the still more ominous Fool jigging in the Gate.

“Never mind.” He twitched up my cloak. “Math does say, ‘The wisest mirror shows a fool.' So you can console yourself by—” He broke off.

I spun round. The Lady Moriana, in a ruby-red gown marbled with white striations, a gold coronet on her ebony hair, a single torch-bearer at her elbow, had halted just within the arch.

My back went stiff. I stood like a stock. But in one glance Beryx construed the hesitation, the lack of escort; dropped my cloak, lifted the stool by Axynbrarve beyond armslength, and with a royal gesture invited her to sit.

Slowly, never taking her eyes off him, she advanced. Her eyes were bigger than ever, and dead black. Depthless, motionless. With honest goodwill he smiled at her, and said, “This is my hearth.”

My ingrained fear became stupefaction, turned to rage. She had chained him, slain his mare, nearly killed him twice over, made a guy of him. Now he welcomed her when she had the gall, the effrontery, to risk herself alone within the compass of his powers.

Then, rather bitterly, I thought that she knew him better than I.
My hearth
. Whatever her perfidy, he would never stoop to foul play against a guest.

He was watching her, openly, as I had never dared, without so much as a shred of wariness. Startled, then resignedly admitting he would always startle me, I decoded his expression. Candid, unoffensive admiration: any decent man looking at a beautiful girl.

She sank onto the stool. The torch-bearer hovered. Not turning, she gave a tiny dismissive nod. Then, tacitly admitting her trust in the host, she looked about her. When her eyes returned to Beryx he held them long enough to make his message clear. Then he sat down in the straw and expectantly raised his brows.

Leaning back, graceful as a browsing deer, she linked both hands about a knee and without warning offered her greatest challenge yet.

“Tell me,” she said, “about this . . . Math.”

The chain clinked as he rubbed his chin. Marshalling thought, not reconnoitering for a trap.

“It began with a vision,” he said, “in Los Velandryxe Thira. The very Well you have. It was seen by our ancestor Th'Iahn.” His eyes crinkled. “Your line began with his grandson Lossian. Mine came six generations later. Your foremother was a mistress, mine a concubine. I can't tell you about the vision, because that was between the Well and Th'Iahn. It doesn't show in Phathire, and the Well itself couldn't reproduce it. I can deduce the bones from what Th'Iahn said and did, but there have been seventeen aedric generations since. Math now is . . . like a building started to Th'Iahn's design. A great many minds have left their mark on it.”

“But,” I blurted, “I thought the world changed as soon as you saw—”

I bit my tongue. He answered, unruffled, “When the first smith forged an iron sword-blade, everyone else didn't do it next minute. But once it was forged, that smith had changed the world.”

He turned back to the Lady. “Whatever Th'Iahn saw, he set out to end the Xaira, the separation of aedryx and men. He was a great aedr, but also a practical man, so he didn't go off to live on locusts in Hethria and hope his idea would travel on the air. He began at the beginning. To spread an idea, you need it to travel. To cause travel, you must offer profit—or expose a need. To carry them, you need an instrument. So Th'Iahn built a road.”

“Eh?” I forgot my place again.

“A road from his keep to his country's annual market. Then roads all over his lands. So trade improved, and everybody profited, and the market expanded, and they did better still. But they also, both aedryx and men”—his eyes were white-green, crystalline, thought's combustion made visible—“came in contact with the idea.”

Roads are for carrying ideas. I heard him saying it, in Kemrestan.

“Pharaon Lethar—the land—was jammed with aedryx, most at loggerheads if not open war. Th'Iahn's arch . . . enemy—rival—other half—was an aedr called Vorn. When he saw what came of Th'Iahn's roads, he started building too. There's a saying about that, supposed to be Delostar's—Th'Iahn's son. ‘When Ammath seeks, Math finds.' So Vorn grew rich, but the idea entered his lands. There were other aedryx, especially in the north—Stiriand—who suffered from foreign marauders just as Th'Iahn did from corsair raids. When they came to the market Th'Iahn spoke about alliance, linking shields against enemies. The Stirianns listened. So did Vorn. He knew that to miss trade was crazy, but to be left outside an aedric alliance would be plain suicide. It was all coming together when Th'Iahn's only daughter eloped with Vorn's eldest son.”

After a moment I whistled. But the Lady had already laughed, a crystal, cynically delighted peal.

Unaffronted, Beryx gave a sorrowful nod.

“Oh, yes. Th'Iahn was aedric to the marrow. Away went the alliance, into the cupboard went Math, and the feud was on.” He sighed. “There's a great deal of history, much like any other history. Mistakes and bungles and bloody-mindedness wrecking good intentions, and insults wiped out in other people's blood. Somewhere on the way Th'Iahn's idea became a council of the eight aedric lines—the Tingrith. In theory it was to ward Pharaon Lethar without and within. In fact it was always disintegrating in another bout of the feud, invasions, bloodbaths, all but destruction of the aedric race. But the Ruands, the council leaders, always kept the Well, and in it they sought for Math. And some of them were very wise.”

The Lady spoke at last. The tale's tragedy had left her untouched. “But what is this Math?” she said.

“Um.” He scrubbed at his hair. “Th'Iahn must have meant to end aedryx' abuse of their powers and men's fear and hatred of aedryx, but all he ever
said
was practical arguments for his alliance. That peace brought profit, and so would conserving humans' lands. That the alliance protected its members, and to protect humans would be profitable too. His son Delostar, first council Ruand, took another step and said aedryx should unite with men—the northern invasions were at their worst in his day. Then Ruands from Stiriand decided aedryx' power should be used for the good of both aedryx and men. Then somebody decided power should just work for good. And then they tried to riddle out how, and now Math is a chain of precepts, like Respect that-which-is, Do only what you must . . . The full saying is,
The fool reasons, and does as he thinks he should. The wise man does only as he must
. But the proverbs are all negative. ‘Who sees Math does not speak. Who speaks of it does not see.'—‘The Math that can be named is not the vision of Math.'—‘Math is not Velandryxe. But Velandryxe is Math.'—‘Say, Math, see Ammath.' The best I can do is that it's not a thing at all. It's a way of seeing. Seeing everything.”

“Then what use is it?”

He looked at her under his brows.

“Before Math,” he said evenly, “aedric law was, As I Want, I Will. And they had aedric powers. The greater the power, the greater the risk of corruption. The greater the corruption, the greater the ruin. They ruined themselves. They ruined Pharaon Lethar. Cycle after cycle of wanton cruelty, murder, brutality, wholesale destruction. And they thought it was normal. Natural.”

I said nothing. It was so little time since I had thought nature, normality, was the state of Assharral. But the Lady arched her brows and retorted, “Isn't it?”

“Certainly. Without Math.”

Her lips parted. And closed again.

“When Th'Iahn brought Math from the Well, he changed the world. He gave aedryx—and humans—a choice. A chance to escape Ammath. Maybe they refused, maybe they misunderstood, maybe they tried and failed. But never again were they doomed to remain below the level of beasts.”

“You cannot,” she said incisively, “choose something that cannot be defined.”

“Oh, that's much easier. You need only define its opposite. Ammath. Cruelty. Waste. Destruction. Pleasure in misusing power. Math says, Respect that-which-is. Because”—his eyes held hers—“that-which-is is reality. Ammath distorts it. And the greater the distortion, the greater the havoc when reality is restored.”

She was silent.

Very softly, he said, “It does happen, you know.”

Elaborately, insolently, she yawned. “So we're back at that. You want me to renounce everything for the sake of your ‘Math.' ”

“Not ‘my' Math. And not for Math's sake. For yours.”

“And what good will it do me?”

After a moment he said, “Turn it round. What bad will it do me if I don't? Sooner or later, the distortion will collapse. And the later the fall, the longer and bitterer the memories of Ammath. Assharral's a big empire. And only the wise say, ‘Vengeance is sweet. But wisdom chooses salt.' ”

Inexplicably, her eyes turned to me.

Then she straightened up, that flowing water motion that was so beautiful. Rose. Strolled between the braziers. His eyes followed her, and now the admiration bordered on longing, indeed open desire.

She turned. Watching him under her lids she said sweetly, “Why?”

When he did not answer, she probed, “For love of ‘good'? Because you want to redeem me from my vice? So you can feel righteous and pure, having done your tiny bit for ‘Math'?”

Suddenly he grinned. “Because I hate waste,” he said.

“Or suffer from want.”

“I am rather a bear, yes.”

“More of a bore.”

“I thought you loved your beasts in Assharral?”

This time I recognized that tingle which had informed the air by Los Morryan. Just so Callissa and I had sparred in our first courtship bout.

She stretched. A hint of tantalizing, of display. Lazily, but quite finally, she said, “Poor beast.”

“Poor beauty.”

She raised her brows.

“You are beautiful.” The sparring was done. “Going to waste. Like your powers.” The pity was clear. “An aedric empress. And you twist it into Ammath.”

“Powers?”

“You could have them. Speech, the Sights, the Commands. Mastery of beasts, weather, fire.”

Aghast, I thought, he's taken her in good faith! Has he forgotten everything he ever knew of war?

“You could have Velandryxe,” he was saying. “Wisdom. Understanding how not to act. The most important of all.” He looked at her as if in pain. “For the Four's love, Moriana, can't you see what a waste it is?”

Her head tilted. Sounding half-swayed, I was sure in whole falsity, she said, “And this Well of mine? That brought the vision of Math? That changed the world?”

I shut my eyes. Don't, I prayed. Show her through your armory, explain your tactics, but you can't be such a fool as that!

He could. “The Well didn't bring the vision,” he said. “Th'Iahn and the Well made it between them. In Wreve-lethar, the highest aedric art. To alter the Dream. Change the Universe.”

“Why,” she asked innocently, “did he need the Well?”

“Because it's the focus. You can't do Wreve-lethar without it. That's what the Well's really for.”

He looked at her eagerly, sure that truth was invincible, she need only hear it to yield. Nothing is so vulnerable as good faith. And she, I thought in blinding fury, she had known it.