C. Cherryh - Kutath

They gave their names, those Duncan did not know well; one did not play with strangers save in challenge. Duncan dropped his veil, for it was no friendly act to play veiled. There was hazard enough without that.

Kel Peras began, being eldest. . . threw to Ras. Hands struck thighs, the rhythm of the Game; and on the name-beat of the unspoken rhyme, the blades spun across the circle again.

They played about him, from man to man and woman to man and youth to youth, back and forth, weaving patterns which became established, excluding him, a Game of Five, oddly seated. Mri fingers, slim and golden and marginally quicker than human, snatched spinning steel from the air and hurled it on at the next name-beat

At no time did he relax, knowing that the rhythm could increase in tempo and that some impulse might send the blades spinning his way, from the youths, from Ras, any of those three.

Suddenly he had warning, a flicker of the membrane as Ras stared at him. Next time; he nodded, almost unnerved by her warning, whether courtesy or reflex.

The blades spun to her, shining in the sun, and she snatched them, waited the beat and hurled them at the steady time of the Game, no deception or change of pace.

He made the catch, hurled them left of her in his time, to a young kel'en. Now a new lacery began, which wove itself star-patterned like the islan, the mandala of the Game, the Game of Six, as each Game was different by every factor in it

The pattern varied, and beside him kel Peras laughed, catching the treachery of Has; the bkdes, missed, might have killed; Ras' eyes danced with amber merriment, and the blades came back to her, cunningly thrown, low-and-high. She cast them again to Peras, left-slant; he threw to her, again left; back to elder Da'on, right; and he threw to young Eran and he to young Sethan.

Tempo altered, making again a safer rhythm, the moment's sport among Masters tamed again, beating slower for lesser players.

It came back, from Ras to himself; he caught, and threw to the youngest, Sethan, tacit recognition of his status.

It returned, evenly paced; he cast back; it went to Da'on on bis left, to Ras, to Peras

And stopped, Peras signaling halt. The rhythm of the hands ceased. Duncan drew a great breath, suddenly coughed from the chill air and realized that that reflex a moment ago might have killed him.

"Veil," Da'on advised him. He did so, holding the cloth to his mouth and nose until the chill left his lungs. The dus edged up to him, settled against his back, offering him its warmth.

"An unscarred," said Da'on, "should never play the Six.”

"No, kel'en," he agreed. "But when a scarred asks, an unscarred obeys.”

Breaths hissed softly between teeth. Heads nodded.

"You play the Game," Peras said, "in all senses. That is well, human kel'en.”

He leaned against the dus, caressed its neck, for his heart was still pounding and the dus shivered in reaction.

The tent flap stirred. Another kel'en came out and sat down on the sand, out of the wind. He looked up and two more followed, and four and three, not all of their own Kel. The black assembly widened, veils dropped, so that he felt he should take his own down, and did so, trying to breathe carefully.

He must not be afraid. The dus would catch it up and cast it to them. He must not be angry. The dus would rouse and they would sense that too. The mri of Kutath could not veil their emotions, not generally. He received a touch of resentment, and some rare things warmer, pure curiosity. It was not attack, not yet. He soothed the dus with his touch, himself master of it and not the other way about, making it feel what he wished it to feel quiet, quiet

Shon'ai, the mri of Kesrith said; the Game-throw is made.

No calling it back, no mending it now.

Shon'ai; it is cast!

Throw your Me, kel'en; and deserve to live, for joy of lie Game.

They had been there all along, and more came now, until all in the kel-tents must be there, and he was the center of it.

"Tell us," said Peras, "kere-who-has-shared-in-Kath, make us all to understand this thing of ships and enemies.”

He cast an anguished glance toward the she'pan's tent, hoping against hope to see Niun and the others, some indication even that the Council might be near an end, that he might delay. It was a vain hope.

"Shall an unscarred of this Kel know more," asked Peras, "than the seniors of it, who sit in Council? Things are out of balance here, young kel'en of the ja'aom. That is one disease here. Remedy it”

"I am from the other side of a Dark," he protested, "and I am forbidden to remember.”

"So is this brother I have gained for my brother," said Ras in a harsh voice, "who calls you brother to him. We are by that. . . kin, are we not? Answer. We kel'ein, are we not the Face that Looks Outward? Our eyes are used to the Dark. And the trouble has come here, to us, has it not, tsi'mri brother? Has the she'pan silenced you on that matter or is it for your own sake you keep your secrets, ai? What arrangement did you and my brother-by-death have, that he knew where to find you?"

A muscle jerked in his face. He fought for control. "Hlil arranged this.”

"Hlil would not," she said. "I. My kindred. I ask.”

He gazed at her, kel'e'en of the second rank; daithe, kin of the kst kel'anth and blood-tied to no knowing how many kindreds, A chill settled into him.

"I hear you," he said, understanding. He bowed his head then, soothing the restive dus with the touch of his fingers… felt her touch against the other side of it, so that the animal shivered.

It was a mutual trap, that contact. There were no lies possible, no half-truths. He laid his hand firmly against the beast

And yielded, point by point.

"There have been arguments," the she'pan conceded, facing the Council. Niun sat nearest her, cross-legged on the mats, no Husband, but the she'pan's own kel'en, and kel'anth at once, doubly owning that place of honor. The Husbands of the ja'anom sat ranged nearest, and the several highest of the five tribes settled by them, a black mass. The ja'anom kath'anth was there, Anthil; and the whole ja'anom Sen, in a golden mass, beneath the lamps which they used in Council even in daytime. Sen'anth Sathas was foremost of them, but there were sen'ein of the five stranger-tribes there too, who had come in yestereve with the kel'ein.

"There have been strong dissensions," Melein continued, "within the ja'anom ... for the losses we have suffered, for the choices we face. But Sen has agreed in my choices. Is it not so, sen'anth?”

"So," Sathas echoed, "Sen has consented.”

"Not easy, to come home. The pan'en which is holy to us ... what can it mean to you? A curiosity, full of strange names and things which never happened to you? And the holy relics of your wanderings on Kutath… how shall my kel'anth and I understand them? We struggle to do so, you with us and we with you. We of the Voyagers, we who went out ... we want a place to stand; and you who stayed to guard Kutath so many millennia ago perhaps you look about you and hate us, that we ever voyaged out at all. Is that not part of it? Is that not a little part, that you blame us two, that of all Kutath sacrificed ... we are all that has come home, all who will ever come home?" Her eyes moved to the Kel, traveled down to Niun. "Or is it perhaps for what we brought home with us, for what we call one of us”

Niun glanced down. "Perhaps. It is many things, she'pan, but both may be so.”

"And the ja'anom Kath?”

"Kath," said AnthiTs soft voice, "blames no one. We only mourn the children, she'pan; those lost and those to come.”

"And the songs you have taught those children over the ages… look for what, kath'anth? For the returning of those who went out when the world was younger and water flowed?”