C. Cherryh - Kutath

"Go away," the elee said in a faint voice, much-accented.

Niun almost laughed, "Where is your Mother?" he asked, expecting a flare of defiance at least at this question. But the elee slid a glance toward the farther corridor for answer, and at that all the Kel murmured in disgust. "Walk with us," Niun said, and when the elee tensed as if to flee; "We take no prisoners. Walk with us.”

The elee looked in one moment apt to break with terror, and in the next assumed a smile, made a graceful gesture of his long hands and offered them the way ahead.

Niun looked at his comrades, looked at Melein, who had veiled herself in this place of tsi'mri. "Ask his name," she said.

"Mother-of-mri, it is Illatai.”

Weapons moved. Tsi'mri did not speak to her, save in peril of their lives; but she bade them stay, looked at Niun. "Tell this Illatai he must take us to the she'pan of elee.”

Illatai glanced about him, at his folk who stood staring, and there was consternation in his face, the smile threatening to fade. The dusei stirred and moaned.

Tsi'mri, Niun thought, who even after so long, did not know mri. He considered, took the delicate sleeve of Illatai by its edge, and led him; the graceful man went with them, looked from one to the other with smiles for all they were veiled, nor did his eyes miss the beasts, nor the smile change. Niun let him go and let him walk as he would.

It was dream and nightmare, the halls of carven boulders and glass lit from glass structures of jewel colors, which light stained the floor of patterned stone and dyed the white manes and skins of elee and profaned Melein's robes too. There was no word from the Kel, none, for here were tsi'mri, and they were too proud; but elee talked behind their delicate hands and shrank from their presence, hiding themselves behind their monuments and their pillars of living stone and their jewel lamps. Here were columns rising to the ceiling, serpents wrought in gold, which crept up carven rocks and held the ceiling up, or crawled across it, writhing from this side to the other.

And beyond an archway of glass, and moisture-misted doors, a place where plants grew rife, and water flowed on stone walls and broke off glass panes. Plants bloomed, in warmth and mist Vines hung thick, and fruit ripened, lush and full of moisture. "Gods," someone said in the ja'anom mu'ara. It was on them all, the dazzlement of such wealth; this, Niun thought, this was K«– tath once, before the seas fled.

And more practical things; "Pumps," Duncan muttered very low. That must be so, that they had sunk deep as the basins to draw up such plenty.

More glass, panels and screens, prism colors; he remembered rainbows, which Kesrith had had and Kutath had forgotten. Doors yielded to the forceless hands of Illatai; his smile persisted, his moving was neither quick nor slow, but fluid as the water streams. Beyond the doors more elee clustered, and here gathered to bar the way, creatures delicate as lizards, whose robes seemed of greater weight than themselves, more alive than they, figured with he realized it now flowers, and beasts, and serpents.

Beautiful, he could not but think so. Beautiful as humans were not He stopped, and the Kel stopped, before the white, out-thrust hands, the frightened eyes which threatened nothing and pleaded defenselessness.

So also Illatai, who hovered between, as if to beg reason of either side.

"We shall go through," Melein said. "Say that to them.”

"No," said Illatai. "Send. I shall carry messages.”

Niun scowled at that, signed at Hlil, and toward one of the delicate lights. Steel flashed, and crystal shards tumbled in ruin. The elee cried out in dismay, as out of one throat, and ward-impulse from the dusei began to build like storm.

"We go through," Niun said, and the elee stood still, clustered still before the doors. Blades were ready. Rhian and Elan were among the first to advance, and the elee simply shut their eyes.

"Do not," Niun said suddenly. "Move them.”

It was not to anyone's taste, to lay hands on men and women who had chosen suicide. But lesser kel'ein performed that task, simply moving the elee aside; and as for Illatai, he turned his beautiful eyes on them all and gestured diffidently toward the inner hall.

The hall beyond blazed with gold, with colors, with the green of living things; and one elee there was in silver and gold, and one in gold and one in silver, amid others in colored robes; a gasp attended their entry, and elee tried ineffectually to prevent them, thrusting white hands before edged steel; they bled as red as mri and humans.

"Nol" cried an aged voice, and the one in gold and silver held up her hands and forbade her defenders. The gold and the silver stayed close by her, the gold male, the silver young and female, who seated themselves in chairs as the eldest did, whose unity tugged unpleasantly at the senses; chairs, as if they were all of such rank. The bright-robed younger folk clustered behind them.

"Who speaks?" Niun asked.

"She is Mother," said Illatai softly, making a bow and gestures to either side. "Abotai. And mother-second, Hali. And Husband-first, Thesfila. You speak to them, mri prince.”

He looked back in profound disturbance, such that the dusei caught it. An order like their own; and not; a Mother who was not alone, who he suspected was not chaste. Melein folded her hands, unperturbed. "Among elee," Melein said as if she spoke in private council, "they have different manners. Abotai; you understand why I have come.”

To take service," the old elee said, and a frown came on her face. "You have thrown the world into chaos, and now you come to take service. Do so. Rid us of this trouble you have brought.”

Melein glanced about her, cast a look at the elee, walked to one of the monuments and traced the delicate carving of a stone flower which bloomed out of living stone. "Tell the bearers-of-burdens, kel'anth of the ja'anom, that her existence is very fragile. And that An-ehon is in ruins; likely ruin belts the world, into cities beyond the basins. Tsi'mri have come from outside. And doubtless she knows this. This delicate place… stands; it did not link itself to An-ehon in the hour of attack, no. It was apart. Protected.”

"Did the elee hear?" Niun asked coldly, though by the flickering of the membrane in the elee's eyes he knew that they were understood.

"Do you not know me?" Melein asked.

"I know you," the epee Abotai said, her old voice quavering with anger.

"And yet you let me in?”

"I had no choice," the elee acknowledged hoarsely. "I beg you, send your war away. It has no place here.”

"Eighty thousands of years…" Melein murmured. "Eighty thousand years of voyaging… and to hear that we should go away. You are of persistent mind, Mother of elee.”

"You will ruin us," the mother-second cried.

"Listen," said Abotai, and made a trembling gesture to her companions. "Show them. Show them.”

A young elee moved, stirred several others into motion, a glittering of jewels, a nodding of white heads so swiftly moving that Niun clenched his hand on his gun and watched well where hands were. Light and colors flared, an entire jeweled wall parting upon, a screen which came alive with images… black, and fire… dead mri, a tangled field of corpses, an edun in ruins; an edun fell in fire, and figures ran, swarming like corruption over the dead.…

came closer, showing naked human faces.

changed again, ships over ruins, and Kesrithi landscape.

And a human face dominated the screen, young and familiar to them. The Kel went rigid, and dus-sense lashed out. "No," Duncan said beside him, and Niun set a hand on his shoulder. "No. This is nothing humans have sent.”

"Regul," Niun said, loudly enough for Melein, and the possibilities set a great dread into him. Melein's face had lost all humor.