Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction)

S
hadow
M
an

Melissa Scott

Paragons of Queer Speculative
Fiction

Lethe Press

Maple Shade NJ

1-59021-242-8 /
978-1-59021-242-4

Also by Melissa Scott

Fiction

The Game Beyond

A Choice of Destinies

The Kindly Ones

Mighty Good Road

Dreamships

Burning Bright

Trouble and Her Friends

Dreaming Metal, a
continuation from Dreamships

Night Sky Mine

The Shapes of Their Hearts

The Jazz

The Silence Leigh trilogy

Five-Twelfths of Heaven

Silence in Solitude

The Empress of Earth

Written with Lisa A. Barnett

The Armor of Light

Point of Hopes

Point of Dreams

Novels based in the Star Trek
universe

Proud
Helios
(Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

The
Garden
(Star Trek: Voyager)

Nonfiction

Conceiving the Heavens:
Creating the Science Fiction Novel

Cover

Title Page

Copyright
Page

Also by
Melissa Scott

Beginning

Glossary -- Concord Worlds

Glossary -- Hara

About the
Author
 

Mesnie,
mesnies
: (Hara) basic unit of (traditional) Haran
society, a group of households (i.e., a man, a woman, and their
children) living together in a single compound and usually working
together at a profession or industry; all the households in
mesnie
are related, and marriage within the
mesnie
is considered incest and forbidden.

Clan: (Hara) one
of the fourteen political, social, and familial groupings that form
the basis of Haran society; although the people who formed the first
clans were not actually related, but rather chose to affiliate
themselves with one of the original fourteen founders, at this point
the clans are interrelated in complex and often confusing fashion.
Each clan controls a particular territory, which varies in the
quality and abundance of its resources; the Stane clan has parlayed
their original good luck into economic and political dominance of the
planet.

Watch: (Hara) largest
division of Haran society, based on the original divisions of the
ship that brought the first colonists to Hara. There are five
Watches: White (command), Blue (medical/scientific), Black
(engineering), Green (land-trained colonists), and Red (ocean-trained
colonists). Watches retain certain administrative duties, and are
also used to determine marriageability; the larger clans are split
between Watches to help keep the genetic mix stable.

1

Warreven

The White Watch House was built
like any other
mesnie
hall, but on a much grander scale. Warreven leaned on the railing of
the gallery that ran around three walls, looking out over the crowd
below. They still filled the open area at the center of the hall,
though the crowd around Aldess Donavie had thinned out a little. She
looked grateful, if anything, though it was hard to tell beneath the
drape of the white-and-silver
shaal
that covered her dark hair. Still, she was doubly alien here, a Stane
only by marriage, Red Watch rather than White; it couldn't be easy
to perform the rituals of mourning and absolution without the comfort
of her own clan's ancestor tablets, her own kin to offer advice.

And that, Warreven
thought, was just the sort of sentiment Aldess herself would never
tolerate. She had gone into her marriage clear-eyed--eager, even--for
the power of being married to the son of the Most Important Man, and
if she regretted this miscarriage, it was largely because it put off
the day that she confirmed her status by becoming the mother of his
child. If she had looked worn-out when he had paid his formal
regrets, the lines on her face suddenly stark, it was only the
physical stress. This was her fourth miscarriage in nearly eighteen
bioyears of marriage; she would have to be worrying about her ability
to carry any child to term, wondering whether to seek off-world help.
They had been at school together, years ago, and he remembered her
ambitions: if she had to go off-world to find a way to consolidate
her position, her rank within the most important of the Stane
mesnie
s, she
would do it without hesitation. At least Stane was rich enough to
afford that intervention.

Warreven heard laughter
from the north end of the hall, a familiar, rich sound intended to
carry, and leaned forward a little against the railing. Temelathe
Stane, Speaker for the Watch Council, and the Most Important Man on
Hara in fact as well as in sour jokes, stood on the low dais, head
thrown back, still laughing at something the man at his side had
said. As Warreven watched, Temelathe clapped the stranger on the
shoulder, said something, still grinning. The stranger smiled back--an
off-worlder, almost certainly a representative of one of the
out-system pharmaceutical companies that dominated Hara's
economy--and stepped away. Temelathe stood alone for an instant,
hands on hips, legs spread wide, surveying the hall. Consciously or
not, his pose echoed the Captain carved on the wall above him, and
Warreven allowed himself a rather bitter smile. The massive
carving--it was a famous work of art, commissioned a hundred years
ago by Stane from his own Stiller clan, showing all seven of the
spirits who mediated between God and man--had recently been
repainted. The colors glowed in the sunlight that streamed in through
the gallery windows and the wide-open doors, and there was no
mistaking the resemblance between the Captain's face and
Temelathe's broad bones. He had even pulled his gray hair into an
old-fashioned knot at the nape of his neck, imitating the carving.
Duredent Stiller, who had carved the piece, would be turning over in
his grave if he could see it, Warreven thought. The rivalry between
Stane and Stiller was old and deep, dating from before the first days
of settlement, from the colony ship itself and the legendary
animosity between Captain Stane and Chief Stiller; the fact that
Stane had in effect won that ancient battle only made the situation
worse. In the carving, the Heart-breaker turned her face away,
smiling at Caritan crouching at her skirts, and Cousin-Jack, the
spirit of the land, shaded his eyes to look into an invisible
distance, but even Duredent had been unable to blunt the Captain's
authority. The rest of the spirits--Genevoe the Trickster, stolid
Madansa of the Markets, even Agede, the keeper of the door between
life and death--stood shoulder to shoulder with the Captain, their
domains meaningless without the Captain's strength to support them.

There was a movement in
the crowd then, and a young man in the traditional tunic-and-trousers
suit forced his way to the dais, said something quietly to Temelathe.
The Most Important Man nodded, and then clapped his hands loudly.
Heads turned all across the hall, conversation stopping instantly as
people realized who was summoning their attention.

"Miri, mirrimi,"
Temelathe called. "And our distinguished off-world visitors. If you
haven't yet paid your respects to my daughter-in-law, this is your
last chance to do it." He paused then, but no one moved. From his
place in the balcony, Warreven saw Aldess lean sideways, murmuring
something to another woman he didn't recognize. Tendlathe,
Temelathe's only son and her husband, was nowhere in sight.

"The wheel has
turned," Temelathe went on, "and the doors have opened. We
welcome the spirits who carry us as we carry them in our hearts."
He nodded to the young man beside him, who lifted a bell in a carved
and painted frame. It was metal, forged from the salvage of the ship
that had brought their ancestors to Hara, and its odd, resonant note
carried weirdly in the stillness. It was answered by the shrilling of
a whistle, and then the beat of drums. The people by the entrance
gave way, clearing a path, and familiar figures danced in--two
vieuvants
, the
old souls who served God and the spirits, moving as though carried on
the heady rhythm. The first
vieuvant
was dressed as Agede, all in black, one eye blinded by a dark patch,
the second as the Heart-breaker, her cheek scored with the three
parallel lines that marked that spirit. She carried a new
shaal
,
brilliant saffron silk embroidered with glittering glass beads and
shells and even a scattering of metal, and spun it into the air as
she twirled through her dance. All around the hall, people began
clapping, picking up the rhythm of the drums.

Agede led her up the
hall, three drummers following them, and then back down again,
stopped at last in front of Aldess. She touched her lips in dutiful
acknowledgment, lowering her
shaal
to her shoulder, and the
vieuvant
produced a bottle of sweetrum from under his tunic. He lifted it in
salute, drank, then sprayed a second mouthful of the liquid over
Aldess's face and hair. She accepted the blessing without flinching
and there were cheers and scattered, off-beat clapping from the
onlookers. The second
vieuvant
spun forward then, skirts belling as she turned, dipped, and extended
the length of saffron silk. Aldess touched her lips again, and took
it, wrapped it in place of the other, over her head and shoulders.
There were more cheers, and the
vieuvant
s
turned away, dancing back toward the doors, the drummers following at
a respectful pace.

"What--exactly--was
that all about?" a woman's voice said quietly at his elbow. She
had spoken
franca
,
but the liquid off-world vowels were unmistakable, and Warreven was
not surprised to see a woman in the drab coat of a pharmaceutical
leaning on the rail beside him. He knew her slightly: Sera Ax Cyma,
her name was; she was new to the planet, and they had had dealings in
the traditional court where he was an advocate in a matter of trade.
Those dealings had been settled with satisfaction for both sides, and
he answered willingly enough.

"It's the end of
Aldess's mourning. Agede--the Doorkeeper, he holds the doors of
life and death--has released her, and the Heart-breaker is
reblessing her marriage."

"I guessed some of
that," Cyma said, and sounded faintly pleased with herself. "But
why'd he spit the rum on her?"

"It's a blessing,"
Warreven said. "Traditional." In the hall below, he could see
Aldess discreetly wiping her face with one corner of her new
shaal
.

"I see. And the
dancers--
vieuvants
--"
She corrected herself hastily, and Warreven nodded. "They're
representing the spirits?"

"More or less,"
Warreven began--he never quite knew how to explain the spirits to
off-worlders--and felt a hand on his shoulder.