Norton, Andre - Brother To Shadows

"Gracious and Illustrious One—" A slender female shape moved from between two misty blue-green wall hangings.

They were prepared to pile it on; Taynad's professional interest sifted it all. Greeting suitable to some' highborn, but delivered with apparently complete sincerity. She gave several points to the manager here—perhaps even a Jewel House Mistress might be impressed.

"Bright day," she responded pleasantly, but allowed to creep into her voice a faint tone of uneasiness as if indeed she were a little daunted by such ceremony. "I have heard— there is a maid at the Auroa who spoke highly of the restful value of your services. Such are new to me—but—"

"You were interested enough, Illustrious, to come and see what there is to be offered? We have many services— but since you have not visited us before, perhaps it is well that you begin by making your season choice—"

"Season choice?"

"Yes, it is known that beings differ greatly in their reaction to environmental changes. Perhaps on your world spring is the season which holds the strongest meaning for you—during which you feel at the best. Or you may look forward to the ripeness of summer—the soothing warmth— the cloudless skies under which living things rise to their fruitfulness. There are those also who find autumn stimulating—the first crispness of freshening winds, the savor of the land which has been touched faintly by frost. And there are those, though they are fewer in number, who like the bracing of storms, the clear cold of mornings when ice begems twigs and branches. We have these, Illustrious, ready for your service."

Taynad was intrigued. For a moment she held a flash of memory—of being young—running barefooted across a dew-wet strip of tiny mountain meadow to sniff the first star flowerets of the year.

"I think I choose spring," she found herself saying.

"If you will come this way, Illustrious, you shall meet spring—"

One of the curtain panels on the wall was looped aside and she stepped ahead of the attendant into a narrow corridor not more than three strides long, and so came into a second room. Or was it a room? She could not actually see any walls except a fraction of the one embracing the door behind her. There was a mass of greenery to the sides, and, centering, a pool into which flowed liquid. She might have come out into the open of one of those mountain valleys she knew so well, except this had no skin roughening winds tunneling down it, and the softness of the air was a caress on her flesh. There were fragrances carried by those lightest of breezes, clean, fresh scents of newly awakened growth reaching for new life and renewal.

The attendant beckoned her on to the side of the pool. There were places there for sitting, cleverly hollowed into the seeming stone. Some were so placed they would allow entrance into the pool. The attendant indicated one larger rock.

"You place the fingers so, Illustrious. Within is the spring robe for your use, also there are certain balms and essences. The spring maid will be with you when you are ready— only touch this," she touched another spot on the rock chest, "and she will come at once. What is your pleasure, Illustrious, as to other refreshment? We can offer the spring drinks of near a hundred worlds—"

Certainly not the one of the Lairs, Taynad thought, at least not that which was left in the spring—the sour dregs which survived a winter's supply.

"Something light—kind to the inner parts—" Taynad was sure she could detect any danger from a drink meant for some other species.

"Lily dew, then. This is collected from flower petals at dawn, Illustrious. It lightens the spirit, calms and soothes—" She produced a flask carved from green stone and poured a portion into a crystal flower shaped glass which she half filled before passing it to Taynad, who cradled the fanciful container between her hands and took a deep sniff of its contents. She could detect nothing save a faint sweetness akin to the perfume of a slowly opening flower.

"Your thanks." Taynad raised the cup toward the attendant in a small salute and sipped. It was good—holding the chill of a mountain stream, with a faintest shadowing of flower honey.

"May you enjoy your spring, Illustrious. The maid will come at your call." The other bowed her head and then disappeared behind those curiously veiling bushes.

Taynad, glass in hand, went to survey the contents of the coffer in the rock. There was a shelf set in its raised lid which supported a number of locked-in bottles and boxes. And in the coffer itself were the folds of a green robe.

She must follow the custom, she supposed, though she shed her clothing a little reluctantly. The robe was as fragile as one of her Jewelbright gowns and as transparent. She made no effort to unbraid her hair. What she carried within that concealment she intended to keep with her.

Having folded her clothing into the coffer, she hesitated about pressing the summons for the promised maid. Instead she sipped slowly at the drink which had been poured for her and took two steps down to one of the curved seats where she could slip her feet into the pool. The water was flesh warm.

Jewelbrights were accustomed to the highest forms of luxury Asborgan knew—many of the noted ones could command more service and pampering than lords' ladies.

Yet this place somehow offered too much—it was a Jewel House carried to the highest degree but she had no duty to hold her here.

She still had not summoned the promised maid, wanting to settle herself into the sensations this place summoned, but there was movement behind her and she looked around swiftly.

From here, the rise of greenery hid even the door through which she had come. Now out of the hiding of that stepped a tall, nearly bone-thin figure, certainly by her strange clothing no employee of the Tri-lily, or at least Taynad did not believe so. That clothing appeared to consist only of long strips of thick furry material of a brilliant scarlet, which stood out in eye-aching intensity against the smooth green, wound about her, to Taynad's reckoning, abnormally thin frame. Her long neck seemed too fragile to keep aloft the huge mass of her head where a large turban covered three-quarters of any skull she might have, its folds hung with a dripping of dazzling gems. Two of which, Taynad noted quickly, were ayzem stones—from Asborgan—and of the first water—the kind which the Shagga kept jealously in their hidden treasure places.

This newcomer moved stiffly, as if her knobby joints did not have the easy play known to most humanoids, and she came directly to stand before Taynad who had risen to meet her.

The long fingers of the one hand lifted lazily from the other's side to sketch a sign. So—Taynad waited, calling on all her training to show no sign of surprise. That signal she had never expected to see off her own world. It was an identification she could not deny.

THOSE STRANGE EYES WITH THEIR DOUBLE EYELIDS made her secretly uncomfortable. It was as if this alien stranger possessed some unnamed sense which could sift into her mind. Yet Taynad was not otherwise aware of any such invasion. She had never met any save the Jat and a very few of the highest trained Asshi Masters who could do more than pick up emotions their owners wanted hidden. Thought reading might be common somewhere along the star ways, but she had never heard of any who had encountered it. Which did not mean that it could not exist. Taynad suppressed thought quickly, closing off the way to the Inner Center.

"Gentlefem"—though it might give the other the advantage at their meeting, Taynad chose to break the silence first—"you have come to me. What is your wish?"