Torian

After we ate, Zal strung the hammock from his pack between two sturdy trees. He’d begun doing that a couple of nights after we’d started sharing our bedrolls, the first time it had rained overnight. He suspended oilcloth above it, pegged down on either side to form a tent to keep the rain off from above as the hammock raised us off the wet ground below.

The first time I’d tried to climb in with him, I’d dumped us both unceremoniously to the ground, but he’d just laughed and we’d tried again until I’d managed to join him.

Hammocks, particularly when one is nestled against a warm, solid presence like Zal, are surprisingly comfortable. I always slept as well or better than I had in the Lab.

Tonight, though, I wasn’t quite ready to sleep. “The Trine, Zal. You promised you’d tell me all about them.”

“I would have,” Zal said, pulling the blankets up over our shoulders and settling me against his chest, “except you distracted me when you started singing that song about climbing over rocks when you were actually climbing over rocks.”

I chuckled. That had led to “Poor Wand’ring One” and then to “When the Foeman Bares His Steel.” When Zal asked, I’d gone back and started from the beginning, sung the entire libretto from The Pirates of Penzance—with two encores of “With Catlike Tread”—and we’d never gotten back to the Trine.

My questions had remained, of course, but I’d sidelined them with end-of-day alerts because the look of wonder in Zal’s eye, the rapt attention on his face… Well, when I finished a song and he said, “Another, please?” always careful to phrase his request so I could refuse if I wanted? How could I possibly disappoint him?

“Yes, I sang, but you’re the one who…” I paused, frowning into the dark as rain started to patter against the oilcloth overhead. “Zal, why did you keep getting up and peering into the woods?”

His big chest rose and fell, his breath ruffling my hair. “It was naught, love. Only my nerves. Before, I could set wards and be sure we would be protected. Now that I can’t… Well, I imagine bogeys behind every tree and boulder.”

“Will the fire keep animals away?”

His chuckle rumbled in his chest, vibrating my bones. “Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The rain has changed to ice.”

I listened to the pick of the current precipitation, scanning the library of environmental sound clips I’d amassed on our journey so far. There were a lot of samples. Growing up in the Lab as I had, I’d never imagined the variety of noises out here. Not even the silence was the same, and rainfall had its own subdirectory. But my scan didn’t return a match.

“Does snow sound different, too?”

“Snow is silent. At least until enough piles up on the branches above you to whump down on your head. But tonight, animals with any sense will stay snug in their burrows.”

“That didn’t stop you from hanging our packs from the tree again,” I said dryly.

“Aye. That’s what people with any sense will do, since it’s best not to depend on the sense of animals.”

“All right. Stop stalling. The Trine.”

Zal’s arms tightened around me, not with amorous or intrusive intent, but because he shifted in the hammock and had to adjust my position to keep us stable.

“Truly, I’m not trying to be difficult, but you always want to know the why of things. The Trine has just always been, and I haven’t got a good explanation for them.”

I tilted my head back until I could see the strong angle of his smooth jawline. “I only ask reasons because that’s how I’ve been trained to approach a problem. Not that you’re a problem,” I said hurriedly. “I’ve only had the Lab’s methodology to teach me how to learn. That doesn’t mean I’m judging you or your society. Only that I want to understand.”

“It’s all right, love. I know you’re not asking to find fault. But I want to do right by you as well as do justice to my world.” He kissed the top of my head. “The Trine are the three mages who administer our order. They’re in charge of the College of Mages and are responsible for all Sun-born with magical ability, regardless of whether we choose to take the mage vows.”

“Are they hereditary positions?” I tried to keep the censure out of my tone. Power that was defined purely by bloodline was a recipe for authoritarianism at best and totalitarianism at worst.

Zal laughed, setting the hammock swinging. “Shite, no. We hold elections every three years, at that conclave I was telling you about, to fill the positions—Speaker, Scale, and Scribe.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what—”

“You say those letters often. Why is that?”

“What letters?”

“O and K.”

“Ah.” I chuckled, nestling closer as the tick on the oilcloth increased in tempo and force. “It means the same as your all right. It’s a verbal artifact in the historical records I was cataloging for the Infomancers that appealed to me.”

“What about that other word? The one you say when you’re upset. What does fuck mean?”

I shook my head. Given that the Originators had seeded a common language into this world, as well as the three primary genetic strains, I was constantly surprised by the omissions. Whoever the first linguist was, they must have been rather prudish.

“It means, well, sexual intercourse, although it’s also one of the strongest of expletives, and it’s in that context I’ve been using it. I won’t do so anymore if it bothers you.”

“Nay, don’t stop on my account.” He laughed again, almost sub-vocally, but I could feel the vibrations in his chest. “I like knowing when you’ve reached your limit.”

“If you don’t want me to reach my limit now,” I said with mock severity, “back to the Trine.”

Another warm chuckle rumbled through him. “Okay.” One of his hands stroked my arm, although I suspected he didn’t realize he was doing it. “The Speaker, well, speaks for all mages. They preside as head of the College, represent us in the Congress of Mages and Seigneurs, hand out circuit assignments, that sort of thing. Our current Speaker is Obeila. She’s about a decade older than me, so pretty young to hold the post, especially since this is her third term, and she looks likely to be elected again since nobody else seems interested in stepping up.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the job is a pain in the arse, keeping all us stubborn sods in line. I’d never want to do it. But Obeila is terrifyingly organized, and manages it all while maintaining an unruffled serenity. I suspect we’d elect her even if she chose not to run.”

I scanned my databanks for equivalencies. The Speaker sounded like the CEO of an old-style company, or the Prime Minister of a country, or an on-site project director. “Got it. Please continue.”

“The Scale… Well, the Scale is another story. They’re in charge of enforcing the rules, keeping order at meetings, and adjudicating conflicts between mages, so they’re more remote and intimidating. Have to be, if they don’t want to be accused of bias. Gerd, our present Scale, had to take over the post in the middle of the term because the fellow who’d held the job for the last two sessions sickened and died unexpectedly. Since he’d been the Scale years ago, back before I was assigned my circuit, he stepped in.” Zal shivered, although it felt exaggerated and intentional, like a dramatic comment, rather than an involuntary reaction. “Now there’s an intimidating man. But perfect for the job, since I don’t think he’s spoken more than six words to anyone outside his duties for the last decade.”

“That sounds… lonely.”

“Aye, well, that suits some folk. Obeila offered to appoint someone else, gave him plenty of opportunity to refuse after his name was put forward in the Congress, but he agreed to return until the next election.”

“Do you think that’s a good thing?”

I felt Zal shrug. “Gerd’s a hard man, but I’ve never known him not to be fair. Although he’s nearly a generation older than I am, he’s at least as fit. Some would say more so, since he still has all his body parts.”

I frowned into the dark. I hated it when Zal thought of himself as defective, as less. “I find it hard to believe that anyone could best you.”

“Wait until you meet him. You’ll see.” He settled his shoulders, making the hammock swing. “Brylun’s our Scribe. They’re like you. Two-natured. Although I suppose you’ve more than two, haven’t you?”

“I don’t mind two-natured, although nonbinary is what I use if I’ve needed a label.”

In a way, that was ironic, given that so much of me was precisely binary—nothing but ones and zeroes, defining my nature. My earlier failed queries still haunted me. Had those ones and zeroes betrayed me? Or had they been hijacked by others who wanted to describe my every function in binary terms?

On. Off. Yes. No. Free. Captive. Or maybe… Alive. Dead.

Zal patted my arm, diverting my darkening thoughts.

“Nonbinary then. They’re an historian, our official record keeper, and preserve the proceedings from all our meetings, although they’ve got a staff to do the legwork while they coordinate and collate. They’re the head librarian and were even before they were elected Scribe. They took office for the first time right before Obeila’s first term, so they’ve served together for almost ten years. I expect Brylun will want to keep you all to themself once they realize how much you know.”

Without my conscious will, my hand crept to Zal’s sleeve, and I clutched at the fabric, the rough homespun wool so different from the characterless synthetics in the Lab. “Zal?”

“Yes, love?”

“What if… What if the Trine won’t listen to you? What if they judge that I’m a rogue mage? Will they condemn me the way they did Loriah?”

His arms tightened around me. “Loriah was a threat. She was about to slaughter an entire Earth-born village, a village not too far from here. A dozen or so leagues beyond Market Spinney. This was her circuit.”

He was silent then, perhaps remembering his friend, the one who’d betrayed him, the one who’d injured him. However, I also noted that he didn’t say that the Trine wouldn’t condemn me.

In a way, I found that more reassuring than if he had immediately denied the possibility. From my work in the Lab, both prepping and cleaning up after the Informancers’ experiments, I had learned that evaluating all possible outcomes, from optimal to catastrophic, was far better than optimistically expecting success.

It allowed one to prepare.

“We mustn’t forget that they might consider me a threat as well. After all, I did k-k-k…” I frowned. Was there a problem with my vocal subroutines now? “I did k-k-k…” I tightened my middle and pushed the words out. “Kill a man.”

“You did. However, you made a choice in that instant that Edric’s threat was greater. That’s where Gerd will be the deciding voice. He can weigh whether your choice was justified, whether allowing Edric to live would have caused more harm than his death.” He sighed. “When they sent me to fetch Loriah, I was told that her death, while not ideal and certainly not what any of us could wish, was better than the deaths of hundreds of innocents.”

“The needs of the many,” I murmured.

“What?”

“It’s from another ancient film. One set in space, actually. ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’”

He snorted, ruffling my hair. “That sounds like something Gerd would say.”

I didn’t tell Zal the rest of the quote: Or the one. What if the Trine decided the one—in other words, me and what I represented in terms of information about the very nature of their existence—constituted the greatest threat of all? One well-placed knife thrust and they could go on as they always had.

That had been my intent as well, hadn’t it, when I’d chosen the planet over Edric?

Be honest. The planet’s safety, the safety of the many, was incidental. You chose Zal over Edric. You chose the one.

“When they hear about the Star-born—”

“But how much should they hear?” I said, a little desperately. “Will they even believe any of it? They’d have to take my word for everything. You said yourself that nobody in memory has ever seen a Star-born.”

“Other than me?” he asked dryly.

“Well, what if they don’t believe you?”

His breath caught. I could hear it, could feel the constriction in his chest under my cheek.

“You never thought of that, did you?” I said softly. “That they might think you were lying?”

“No.” His chest rose and fell with a sharp breath. “But I should have. You threw that at me yourself, back when we first left Corvel-on-Byrne. That I wasn’t inclined to listen to what others, like Loriah, had to say. That duty has to be tempered with mercy.”

“That the ones who give the orders might be the ones who are lying?” I said gently.

He started at that. “No. There was evidence. From many. I saw it. I wouldn’t have—”

“Zal. I’m not saying you were at fault with Loriah, or that you’re at fault for taking me to the capital now. All I’m saying is that we need to consider our approach carefully, from all angles.”

“And our escape as well, should things not go to plan?”

I was relieved that his voice once more held a hint of amusement rather than panic. I nestled against him. “We simply need to keep our options open.”

As well as all three of our eyes.