Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

The boy lifted his eyes, flicker of molten obsidian, then he looked away.

“I went to see the Ommar Istib Memeli last night. We talked about you. Your father is on the Duzzulkas right now, bush-peddling black-market medicines, your mother works at the Kummas Kabrikon in the Fix room setting dyes, your two older sisters work there also, handling half a dozen spinners each; Hayati Memeli, the older of them, has first signs of the coughing disease. Your third sister is only a few months old. Your two brothers are mid-youngers, still with their tutors; neither of them shows much promise with his letters, but Aygil Memeli the youngest is good with his hands, he might be a carpenter or a mechanic if the Bondfees can be found. Do they mean nothing to you?” Karrel Goza stared at the boy, trying to see past the blankness. “Ommar Istib says you’re bright enough but lazy. That could be because you haven’t found anything you think worth doing, or it could be because there’s nothing to you but flash and foolishness. Ommar Istib says you’ve shown no special talents, that you’re not interested in anything, all you seem to know is what you don’t want which is everything inside these walls.” A muscle twitched beside the boy’s mouth, but he would not look at Karrel. “You think that matters to anyone? To me? Let me tell you, I’m not particularly interested in who you are or what you think.” Another molten black gaze. Karrel Goza nodded. “Right. I’m like all the rest. That’s the way the world wags, cousin. Let me make something clear. While you live within these walls, you will show some loyalty to the others here; which means you will stop your yizzy raids as long as you are associated with this House. If you want the freedom of the streets, you can have it; the convocation of ommars will pronounce a divorcement. They will not let you endanger the rest of Goza-Duvvar-Memeli.”

Zaraiz Memeli paled, flushed, clamped his lips together, struggling to control the emotions surging in him. A moment later he lost the fight. “Hypocrite!” The word exploded out of him in an angry whisper. “You… you’re doing worse.”

“I’m not a child.” Karrel Goza fixed a quelling eye on the working, angry face; inside, he writhed as he listened to what was coming out of his mouth; he wasn’t the pompous idiot he heard himself being, but somehow he couldn’t shake loose from… from this stinking parody of all he’d kicked against since he was Zaraiz Memeli’s age. The face of authority, he thought, as his mouth went on uttering fatuities. “I’m not recklessly endangering the House for the sake of a transient thrill.” He held up his hand to silence the boy until he was finished speaking. “There is a purpose to…

“Purpose!” Zaraiz Memeli’s voice cracked which made him angrier than before; he tried to say more, started to stammer and clamped his teeth on his lower lip. Karrel Goza waited, giving the boy time to collect himself. “Y… y… YOU!” Zaraiz got out finally. “Purpose, yunkshit. Playing stupid games. Going nowhere.” He jerked a long trembling thumb at the sky. “That! that… that thing up there says you’re full of shit and hot air.”

“Maybe so.” Karrel Goza sighed. “This isn’t about me, Zaraiz Memeli. The inklins haven’t much to lose, so they can afford their rashness. As long as you are connected to Goza House, you drag us down with you.” He rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Don’t tell me it isn’t fair. I know it isn’t fair. The Ommar and her convocation have the power, you have none. Your nearkin will back her, so will we.” He hesitated. “The time will come, Zaraiz Memeli, when you’ll have a chance to change the balance of power. If you’re here to fight, if you have the will to fight. All I ask is that you think about it.”

Zaraiz Memeli shuddered, shut his eyes and dropped his face onto his knees.

Karrel Goza rubbed at his arms, clamped his cold, chapped hands in his armpits, hunting some warmth. Weariness from the abruptly interrupted drive of the past months was dropping like a fog over him, the day’s damp chill was boring into his bones. He scowled at the boy; he might feel a certain kinship with him, but that embryonic brother-sense was drowning in impatience. Come on, he thought, come on, young fool; give in or get out. There’s nothing I can do for you. Look at me. Nothing I can do for me. Not now. You’re supposed to be intelligent, I can’t see it, show me. He pinched his nose, killing a sneeze, tucked, his hand back under his arm.

Zaraiz Memeli lifted his head. “How?”

Karrel Goza blinked. “How do you usually think?”

“No.” He jerked his thumb at the sky, the tremble gone out of his hand. “That. There’s whispers. I didn’t believe them before. It is true? Have you and her figured a way to get at it?”

Oversoul’s empty navel, Karrel Goza thought, I talk too much. “Nonsense,” he said aloud. “How could we? I was talking about Family matters.”

Zaraiz grinned. His black eyes glittering, he bounced to his feet, so much energy in him, if someone touched a match to him, he’d explode. “Right,” he said. “All right. I’ll make a deal. The Slimes’ll park our yizzies for now, if so you make us part of it.” He folded his thin arms, hugged himself as if those arms had strength enough to control what burned in him. The wind blew strands of curly hair across his eyes, his mouth; he ignored that and stood there, frozen fire, dangerous to his enemies, nearly as dangerous to his kin. When Karrel Goza failed to answer at once, his excitement blew out and the suspicion and resentment that smoldered under his skin burned hotter in its place. “Or aren’t Memeli worthy? Aren’t we good enough for you?”

Karrel Goza closed his eyes. I do not need this, he thought, Prophet touch my lips or no, anything I say will be wrong. If there was just some way I could drop him in a hole somewhere until… hole? Why not. He smiled. He couldn’t help smiling though he knew Zaraiz Memeli would see and misinterpret it. He opened his eyes, got wearily to his feet. “How much weight will your yizzy lift?”

“You?” Zaraiz was still suspicious but beginning to radiate a tentative triumph.

He’s quick, Karrel Goza thought, good, he might even be useful. “Yes.”

“You and me, no problem.”

“Tomorrow night. I’ll take you out, but you’ll have to make your own pitch. Another thing, you don’t like House discipline, but the worst thing that can happen to you here is divorcement. Act up there and you could find slave steel around your neck. I’ll back you, for what that’s worth; I think you might be useful, a clever boy can get in places a man can’t reach. All I’m saying is, it won’t be easy. Come along.”

Zaraiz followed him down the stairs. Not a word from the boy. The washcourt was empty, a few raindrops were splatting down, making pockmarks on flags whitened by decades of splashes from soap, starch, and bleach. Karrel stopped, turned. “Well?”

He watched Zaraiz Memeli struggle to make up his mind; his impatience was gone, he was too tired to care what the decision was. As the boy shifted from foot to foot, he could almost write the script for what was passing through his cousin’s head. He looked his age at last, vulnerable, wanting desperately for the offer to be real, afraid of trusting it because the whole of his short life had taught him that adults invariably lied to him, broke promises without a qualm, disregarded his ideas and his desires. He kept snatching glances at Karrel Goza as if trying to surprise him into betraying his real intentions. It was no good, of course; either he trusted and said yes, or he rejected the offer and took the consequences. Karrel Goza waited, shoulders slumped, eyes half-closed.

Zaraiz Memeli’s eyes burned black again. He licked his lips, nodded, a short sharp jerk of his head. “When do we go?” he said; his voice cracked again, but this time he ignored it. “Where do we start from?”