“Coffee, my lord? Or there is chocolate and tea on the sideboard.”
Jahir hid his astonishment at the servant’s offer. “Truly? Coffee?”
“Yes, my lord.” This was a new servant, a man he didn’t recognize, and he wondered where his mother had found him. “We have it through Laisrathera. If you would like a cup, we will prepare one for you.”
Which was an answer that begged further explanation, but not out of a servant who might find it uncomfortable to be interrogated. “Thank you. I’ll have the tea for now.”
“Shall I bring you the broadsheet?”
Useless to ask what the man meant, so Jahir said simply, “Yes, if you please.” Which is how he found himself to be settled with that cup of tea and a folded newspaper, in addition to the breakfast he selected from the sideboard which, he saw, was presented in modern chafing dishes. They’d set out a spread to satisfy his mother, who had an inveterate sweet tooth: almost entirely composed of pastries and fruits, with some cheeses and, he saw with a smile, the inevitable biscuits. Since Vasiht’h would have approved of the latter, he made himself a plate with one, spread with soft white cheese and a spray of black raspberries, and sat to consider the broadsheet. Printed on a press, he thought from the type… who had decided to build a printing press? God and Lady, what a museum piece that must be. And they’d used it to create what appeared to be a gossip rag. With growing bewilderment, he skimmed the speculations about the forthcoming summer court’s schedule of entertainments, and who was bringing whom to court, and what someone had said about someone else during the winter court and what could it possibly mean.
He was still reading—the back page this time, which consisted of letters to the editor—when his data tablet chirped. Grateful for the interruption, he answered. “Oh! Ariihir! How good it is to hear from you, though I did not expect you so soon.”
“It doesn’t feel soon on this end.” Vasiht’h looked tired, but not distressed. “Did I interrupt your breakfast?” Jahir glanced at his still full plate, a motion that was not lost on his partner of so many years. “Oh good. Go ahead and keep eating, I’ll talk.”
“All right. Is there something wrong?”
“Goddess. Not in the way you mean.” Vasiht’h sighed. “It’s good to be here. The whole clan turned out to see us, me and Sehvi’s family. Some of Kovihs’s relations too. It’s crowded.”
“Reassuring, surely?”
“I might not be quite so used to it anymore.” Vasiht’h’s chagrin was mild. “So I hope you have room over there, because a lot of them want to come home with me.”
Jahir put down the biscuit he’d been about to eat. “How many?”
“Between forty-two and forty-seven? Jahir—don’t push the plate away.”
Since he’d been about to do so, he chuckled a little. “How well you know me.” Forcing himself to eat, to chew, to swallow, gave him the pause he needed to compose himself. “You… are not making a jest, I perceive.”
“Not in the slightest, and it came at me just as cold as it’s coming at you. My family doesn’t want me living there by myself. Or you. Or Sehvi. They want to come and help. And to be fair… they have a lot of help to give. You should see the list of skills and professions they’ve compiled…! And before you ask, they know they won’t be able to practice a lot of those skills the way they’re used to. I’ve explained the situation with your tech level to them. They…” Vasiht’h spread his hands. “They want to help.”
“It is… a significant request,” he said slowly. “You know I can’t make such decisions unilaterally.”
“I didn’t expect it, no. And I told them I didn’t know if they’d be allowed. But they’re willing to wait.”
“Then… I will see what is necessary to make it happen.”
Vasiht’h was watching him, and so familiar was that expression that Jahir could sense the emotions that would have gone along with it: the narrowed focus that gleamed like the polished edge of a sword as he scraped it against a whetstone. “You haven’t said the important thing yet, though.”
“That being?”
“Whether or not you like the idea.”
Jahir started. “Need you ask?”
“Yes? It’s one thing to say ‘all right’ to your partner bringing his sister and her spouse and kids to your house to live with you. Another thing entirely to show up with an extra forty relatives. No one asked you if you wanted your home invaded by Glaseah, and that’s the first question you need to answer before we go any further.”
Framing it thus made him sit back and consider it more carefully. And yet… he felt no differently. It might be strange to have the sepulchral peace of the Seni manse disturbed by dozens of strangers, but they would not remain strangers long, and really… the peace was sepulchral. His mother would be the first to say so, he thought. Had said so. Nor was there any reason all those relations should stay in the manor proper, with all the real estate spread around the house like a gift waiting to be unwrapped. Had he not been thinking how good it would be to see those copses and glades filled? And perhaps the Seni town might find itself revitalized, as well, if their tenants could be convinced to accept aliens as neighbors…
He sighed a little. “I will not lie and say it will be easy on any of us, ariihir. But that does not make it unworthy of the trial.”
“All right. That’s a better answer. What do we do next?”
“Next, I speak with the Empress. I am to make that appointment today, though I can’t guess when I’ll be seen. I will tell you when I know.”
“Good. I have things to do here, anyway,” Vasiht’h said. “And the reunion is likely to go on another week or two. Now that everyone’s in the same place, they’re going to decide why not stay a while and enjoy it. Though…” Vasiht’h grimaced. “The refugee situation is bad.”
“You are supporting some?”
“The port was crowded. I’ll tell you about that later… for now I need to show up for dinner, reassure people I’m really here and in one piece. Again.”
“All right.” Jahir smiled at him, fondly. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too. It’s good to talk to you! And hopefully we’ll get this figured out and I can come home. Eat your breakfast.”
“I shall,” Jahir promised. “Later, love.”
As he ate—slowly—through his first serving, he composed a note requesting an audience and sent it to the Empress’s secretary; by then, he could consider seconds, and was in fact trying to decide on what he would select when his data tablet chirped again. Spreading that message saw his plate discarded as he fled up the stairs. When one’s sovereign deigned to ‘fit one in’ to her schedule within less than half an hour, one did not keep her waiting.
In his life, Jahir had made his bows to Liolesa several times. The most informal of those bows had taken place at Seni, when she’d arrived to preside over the betrothal of Juzie to the Asaniefa boy… if indeed that event could have been called informal, given the pomp that had accompanied the ceremony and the subsequent reception. He had expected to be seen in the Blue Room, which was the smaller of the formal receiving rooms, and was startled when the page leading him through the palace halls did not bring him there, but rather past two expressionless White Swords and into a private corridor he didn’t recognize, and from there to a door guarded by two more of the Swords.
The page announced him, and held the door open so that he might pass through, and that was how he came to find himself in his liegelady’s office: for it was an office, no matter the antique décor. There was that sense to it, something he could feel like a texture beneath his fingertips, of decades of concentration and mental activity. That places could have auras, and that he could perceive them, was new enough that he nearly missed his cue; fortunately, the setting did not require punctilious attention to the timing of one’s courtesies.
Liolesa was behind her desk, cleaning the nib of her pen so deftly no ink marred her fingertips. “So,” she said. “The Seni heir is a morning lark.”
“Milady,” Jahir said, “I love the dawn.”
“That will serve you well when you marry my niece,” Liolesa said. “Farmers keep early hours. Do rise, Lord Seni Galare. As pretty a picture you make bending a knee to me, I prefer my instruments unbowed. Pull up a chair, if you would, and have a seat.” As he stood he sensed the power of her scrutiny, like sun burning through an early fog, and that without her looking at him: she was engaged in capping her ink bottle, and it wasn’t until she was folding her hands together on her blotter that her eyes rested on him. “You have found your way home at last.”
“Yes, milady,” Jahir said. “And gladly so.”
“Mmm. Very well you’ve served me, at that.” At his blush, she lifted a brow. “Will you deny it?”
“No,” he said. “No, I cannot. But I did what was right, milady. In that, I fear I was more intent on serving a power greater than the one to whom I owed my mortal allegiance.”
Her other brow went up. “Do you think I would find such devotion untoward?”
“No,” he said. “Only… a man can have only one master, my lady.”
She chuckled. “Ah… well. Rest assured, your choice does not distress me. Quite the contrary. I am not solely Empress, after all, but also High Priestess, and if our religion is observed more as a social phenomenon than a mystic one by most, it is not so by this woman. Having said that… your liegelady does require an account of your actions in the war. I have heard some part of it from others, but not from you.”
“As you say, milady,” Jahir replied, and embarked on it.
How long he spoke… he didn’t know. As he had with his mother, he recounted everything save that he deemed personal—he did not have Lisinthir’s consent to speak of their relationship, and refused to assume—but unlike his recitation to Jeasa, he did not spare the uglier details. Some of it exposed him, and he disliked that while knowing she needed to hear it. Some of it touched on matters involving their allies that she certainly should know. Everything he could recall, he shared, and he drank the coffee she poured him without realizing he was doing so, until by the end of it there was a plate before him to match the cup, and he had eaten… something. Shortbread, he thought.
“That is everything,” he said, pushing the plate away.
“That is a sufficiency,” Liolesa replied, her gaze on him considering. “Given I did not send you into the outworld intending you to partake in a war.”
“Milady?” he asked, surprised. “You had plans for me?”
“Of a certainty. But I expected more for you to bring some form of learning home with you when you tired of your wanders. You had a studious bent, even as a youth, Lord Seni Galare. The Chancellor noted it also when he made the arrangements for your exit to the outworld—that what you truly wanted was to train yourself into a man who could help your fellows. Not all who leave do so with that desire.”
“I… imagine not,” Jahir said. “I suppose it is foolish to think you were not tracking each of us, and considering our endeavors, after we applied to you for leave to go.”
“Correct.”
“And I…” He thought of the outrageous stipend she’d arranged for him through his mother. “You must have found my endeavor worthy of unusual assistance.”
“I am sympathetic to those who leave because they cannot bear the cage of our world,” Liolesa replied. “And I find that often those who leave for that reason do, betimes, stumble into benefits unexpected and serendipitous. But yes. I was minded to ensure your particular enterprise did not founder for lack of material aid, particularly once your education began trending toward the medical. We have great need there.”
“And yet, we have a hospital now, and one I had nothing to do with!”
“That we do, but don’t think that your absence during its establishment excuses you from putting yourself to work in its halls. When you and I are done, I require you to present yourself there; you are sorely needed, and no mistake. We have too few trained to the standards a modern hospital requires. Before I send you to that, however, there is a small matter.”
“Anything, my lady.”
“Then I say to you, Jahir Seni Galare, that you have gone above and beyond my intent for you, and come home bearing the scars to prove your fidelity. In this, you have earned from your liege a reward. Tell me what you would have of me for your service.”
Jahir paused, and found himself saying, “My lady, if reward I have earned, then I would ask if… you would permit me to settle some forty-odd of my partner’s relatives on-world?”
Had he ever seen Liolesa surprised? He might not have realized she was, had she not allowed him. That raising of her brows, and the spark of humor that crawled, fleetingly, over an aura that revealed almost nothing otherwise… “I admit most I ask this question do not have so ready an answer, Lord Seni Galare.”
“If it is too much…!”
Her mouth twitched. “Forty-odd… Glaseah, that would be? You will explain, I trust, the exactness of your request and how you came to harbor it? I would suppose it involves your partner.”
“It does, yes. I… I come to stay, naturally, my lady. But he would not be parted from me, and I… I would not part him from his context.” He paused. “His family is part of him.”
“All forty-odd of them?”
She was definitely amused. But that was the gloss she was permitting him to see, because in her eyes he thought he saw something too considering for mirth. “Are not all of the Galare part of us?”
That made her lips flicker into a grin so swift he nearly missed it. “Lord and Goddess help us, alas, yes. But there are issues involved with the wholesale settlement of aliens on our shores. You will perceive it.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“They will need someplace to live, and a community willing to work with them, as well as someone to speak for them who will not already be undertaking three other roles....” She lifted a brow. “You understand where I might be going with this, Lord Seni Galare?”
He rose. “I do, yes, my liege.”
Watching him with an indulgent gaze, she said, “Shall I trouble you to state it aloud?”
Jahir bridled his urge to laugh. “You need not, my lady. I had the message clearly.”
“Good. Then come by when you’re done.”
He bowed, soaking in the warmth of her amusement as if it was casting another form of sunlight to mingle with the rays spilling through the windows. “I shall, my lady. Thank you.”
His queen’s implicit command distracted him as he made his way across the plaza to the Pad to fulfill her explicit one. She had enough on her plate without adding the logistics of settling an entire new population, so it was for him to smooth the way. He would approach his mother about serving as the Glaseah’s sponsor on-planet; after that, the two of them could talk to Vasiht’h about where his relatives would be content to live. Once they had a plan, rather than a blurted request, he would return to Ontine and put it before Liolesa for her approval.
If he remembered the timeshift correctly from the morning call, Vasiht’h would be in Anseahla’s evening, and busy. So he had time. And he wanted to see this hospital that had erected itself without his help. Ruefully he remembered the many times he’d promised himself he would bring modern medicine to his homeworld, as if he alone could accomplish that feat. To discover he’d been beaten to the prize made him smile. What a weight off his shoulders, to no longer know himself alone!
The Pad took him from Ontine in the south to the northernmost settled province on-world, Firilith, home now to House Laisrathera, and what he’d been expecting… Jahir didn’t know. Another manor like his mother’s, or perhaps something less modern...the original settlers had favored castles, if he recalled his history. What he confronted on finishing his step over the Pad was a pair of Tam-illee in unfamiliar livery. They wore swords belted at their surcoats like ornaments, and palmers that they treated like tools, and they were, unmistakably, guards, at a post that had been built to look like a small folly and was very obviously modern in construction.
“Welcome to Laisrathera!” one of them said. “Is someone expecting you, alet?”
The words came from very far away, because beyond them he felt twin beacons piercing the sky, and the power from them washed the cool air, sea-scented and only flirting with spring. Jahir tore his gaze from the north to focus on the concerned face alongside his. “I… I beg your pardon, alet. The Empress sent me to give my credentials to the hospital. I am a licensed healer-assist.”
“Iley Everlaughing!” the foxine exclaimed. “An Eldritch Hea? Wonderful! Go on up, then, the hospital’s on the right as you’re entering, in the gardens. It’s hard to miss, there are signs.”
“Thank you,” Jahir managed, and headed up the path toward the castle gates. Laisrathera was one, he saw, and not a manor: an old-style town with city walls, built not far from the shore. The wind was brisk and damp, stinging his cheeks, and he was grateful that court garb tended toward layers, which served him well on the walk. And such a walk it was. He kept glancing toward the power that could not be seen with mortal eye, confusing himself when he tried to keep the physical destination before him when it was the metaphysical one that was so much more arresting.
That difficulty, at least, resolved itself when he passed through the gates and into the bustle of Laisrathera’s forecourt town, because a town it was becoming, and a modern one at that, with multiple species visible everywhere he looked. Buildings… their shining contrasted strongly with the weathered stone of the walls visible at a distance, but they’d been designed not to jar with the gardens, the existing buildings which were being renovated. He slowed as he reached the main thoroughfare leading to the castle, listening to birdsong, no doubt rising from the gardens that were rife with the delicate scent of new flowers. To the left, a cluster of buildings appeared to be one of the mixed use developments favored by the Core, with little eateries and housing mixed with general stores. To the right… nestled amid the gardens, what he recognized as a medical complex. A clinic and hospital, and behind it… physician housing, like at Mercy, though not as extensive.
The juxtaposition of the new facility against plants he recognized, beneath a sky he could walk without exertion stole his breath. The future had arrived, despite all the terrors that had conspired to prevent it, and he had lived to see it manifested. His eyes watered, seeped, and he stepped to one side, into the garden, so he would not distress anyone on the path. To explain that he was crying for joy would have been as awkward as receiving comfort for a distress he wasn’t feeling. Jahir walked unsteadily until he found a small square with benches and groped his way onto one of them.
That was where he was sitting when the powers converged on him, an event he sensed coalescing the way he might have been aware of a breeze pulling clouds apart, gradually, to reveal the sun. The emanations warmed his skin, tightened it to gooseflesh beneath his sleeves, and he dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief before he lifted his face to look at the two men who’d appeared on the path.
One of those he recognized intimately from their hours of communion over Sediryl’s body… and not at all, because he’d passed out shortly thereafter, without introduction. It was… strange, to be so confident of the stranger and not recognize him physically or socially. There had been an introduction, but he was hard-pressed to remember it; he had been so exhausted, and so consumed with his need to reach Sediryl. Perhaps it was forgiveable; he could so hope. The man was tall—from his father’s generation, or older perhaps, with the physique of one of those elders, who had been far more assiduous in their sword training, and with heavier weapons, than Jahir’s peers. He was dressed in something approximating Eldritch fashion but with modern materials, in burgundy and tan and brown. His hair was far too short—not even a tenant would have shorn it above the shoulder—but he showed no signs of self-consciousness. Maybe he felt none, for the baldric proclaimed him a man of rank, and the sword, of Alliance make, identified him as the mind-mage Sediryl had told him had been capable of defending the world from pirates and slavers, alone.
His power felt familiar to Jahir’s senses, welcome as sunlight, a memory of shared purpose and agency. Maybe Vasiht’h would have perceived it as cookies; to Jahir it was the smell of a hospital, and the warm ceramic of a mug in his hands after a long shift.
The other man was a stranger, though, and Jahir guessed to most people he didn’t give off the aura of a mind-mage at all, so perfect was his camouflage. Like mist, or air, something one breathed and took no notice of. But it was hopeless, for Jahir at least, because the mind behind that mask was too active, and the heart too passionate, to remain veiled. It reminded him, slightly, of Lisinthir’s—it had that same sense of playfulness and vitality—but rather than being honed to a violent edge, it bled into mystery, one that whispered of distant church bells and smelled of incense. Physically an enigma, this Eldritch was shorter, with a pointed chin, an animated face, and too direct eyes. His hair had been bobbed at the jaw, but unlike the Lord of War, he sported his coiffure like a gauntlet flung at the viewer, daring them to take issue with it. It suited his clothes, which were almost aggressively nondescript.
The two alone would have been overwhelming. Together, combined with the sight of the hospital… Jahir drew in a slow breath and closed his eyes, all his skin tingling.
“Oh no,” the shorter one said. “This one’s mine. You can have the next one.”
The Lord of War laughed, quiet. “I’ll fight you for him.”
“I’d win.”
“I don’t know, I won the last bout…”
“Luck. You won’t win the next one. Especially with such a prize…” A pause, voice gentling, directed now at him. “Ah, you’re not deft with the shielding yet, are you. Here…” An act that should have been an adjustment, something to dim their shining. It might have worked with someone else. It didn’t on Jahir, who squinted up at them cautiously.
“You still see it?” The shorter one sucked in an explosive breath and rounded on his companion. “Mine, I’m telling you!”
“I will generously allow you to have half his time. Whatever’s left from his existing responsibilities.” The taller one smiled at him. “Forgive him, Lord Seni Galare. He’s desperate for pupils.”
“Forgive me! What about you? Cavalier about keeping him, aren’t you?”
There was mischief in the taller one’s eyes now, though Jahir could see straight through them to the depression that the Lord of War no doubt discussed with no one. “Also, I beg your pardon for our discourtesy. You and I met briefly in Selnor orbit, alet. I am Hirianthial Sarel Eddings Laisrathera, and beside me you find the Lord’s High Priest, Valthial Trena Firilith.”
Startled, Jahir rose so he could bow. “Most Favored Elder—”
“You had to tell him,” the shorter one said with an exaggerated sigh.
“Well, yes.”
“Like that.”
With a hint of a smirk, the Lord of War said, “Oh yes. Of course. Nothing less would have been appropriate.”
The words were more than evidence of camaraderie, because Jahir could see them gleaming like sparks flying off a cord that joined them, almost… almost like a mindline. Not an actively maintained one, like his to Vasiht’h, but an echo of a joining that had been so powerful it remained functional, somehow, as evidence of trust and shared sacrifice. So obvious and so unexpected was that chain that Jahir couldn’t keep his eyes from returning to it; only belatedly did he realize that both men had ceased their persiflage to watch him.
“Well, hell,” the High Priest said. “He sees it.”
“I suppose that means it’s still there,” the Lord of War replied, so seriously Jahir mistook it for earnest until the burst of mirth shot through that link, illuminating it like lightning behind clouds.
“He’s in rare form today,” the High Priest said to Jahir. “Don’t mind him. I assume Liolesa sent you? Or did you blunder here on your own?”
“The Empress did send me, yes. I’m to work at the hospital. But…”
“You couldn’t help but see us,” the High Priest finished, and nodded. “Not a surprise.” He offered a hand, palm up, as the Pelted did. Startled, Jahir set his hand on the priest’s, and through his skin tasted… wine, and smelled vetiver wax and candles, all of it carbonated by a personality that mediated gravity with levity like a perfectly balanced champagne. It was so engrossing and surprising an impression that he almost missed the words that followed. “Call me Val, please. I’m officially the one teaching the high level talents on world, and Hirianthial’s right. I’m looking for pupils, and I’ve already heard a lot about you. None of which was adequate preparation for the sight of you, because I assure you, we find you just as startling as you find us.”
“I… I highly doubt that,” Jahir stammered. “As I never thought to meet another mind-mage at all. Not on planet, anyway.”
“Ah, yes, the one that got away,” Val grumbled.
“He’s sore on that point,” the Lord of War said. “He very much wanted the opportunity to acquire the Nase Galare heir as an asset.”
“That would be…” Jahir paused, sought a diplomatic response. “…an interesting event, were it to be possible.”
The Lord of War glanced at him, his aura scintillating with a gentle amusement; it reminded Jahir that this man must have met Lisinthir. Must have had far more converse with him, in fact, than Jahir had managed, passing out so swiftly as he had, and in Lisinthir’s lap. “Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it. I suppose we’ll see. In the mean, I am the head of the hospital, so if you wanted to give yourself over to work, I’m the one you would have wanted to see.”
“I have credentials—”
“You can send them to me for our records-keeping,” the Lord of War said. “But all I need to know about your suitability I learned in Fleet Central’s surgery. Does your Glaseahn partner also join you?”
“On world, certainly,” Jahir said. “But at the hospital, probably not. He plans to remain a xenotherapist, and if I am not mistaken, will second himself to his sister’s practice when she arrives.”
Sudden interest spiked over the Lord of War’s aura. “His sister’s practice?”
Perhaps he might be forgiven his anticipation of the other man’s response, on behalf of his brother-beloved. “Yes. Vasiht’h’s sister’s family hopes to settle here; she is a reproductive specialist and midwife, and her husband a research biologist.”
The High Priest said sententiously, “Now, Hirianthial. Contain your avarice—”
“God and Lady,” the Lord of War interrupted. “When do they arrive? Do they want a small practice or would they be open to something more formalized? We have a reproductive clinic in need of someone to manage it, but we haven’t begun the search…”
“Perhaps you should give him a tour,” the High Priest said, his tone droll.
“I would like that,” Jahir said.
“I beg your pardon, Val,” the Lord of War said. “But… we have a need.”
“I know.” A little more gentle, before resuming its teasing note. “And I see nothing will do for him but to go immediately. You healers. But…!” The High Priest stepped closer, though, closer than strangers among their kind were wont, and the fog around him touched the edges of the space Jahir had claimed around himself and shocked him… because it was an embrace, tender and considerate and not a little seductive. Nothing at all like the seduction he was used to either, but something that whispered of flying doves and sighs granted to Heaven, wrapped up with joy at the sensual delights granted them on the earth. Stunned, Jahir froze, eyes wide.
Eyes sparkling, the High Priest crooked a finger and beckoned with it. “You will come visit me next, Seni’s-No-Longer-Heir. Because as you love the Lord and Lady, you will honor the gifts They gave you. Won’t you?”
“Oh,” Jahir breathed. “Yes.”
“And,” the High Priest continued, smirking, “you won’t hear the story about the real first mind-mages since Corel unless you come to me. Because you weren’t the first.”
The other man was reading him too easily, but what should have felt threatening… didn’t. Under the gloss of sardonic humor and the barbed wit, Jahir could sense a shining, like light falling through darkened stained glass. Like Lisinthir, the High Priest had learned to protect himself, and Jahir suspected the core being protected was worthy of it.
I am in good hands, he thought, waiting to see if he was right, and one of the High Priest’s brows twitched, just a little.
“I would very much like to hear that story,” Jahir said. “So I shall come to you next, Most Favored Elder.”
“Val.”
“Alet.”
“Val,” the High Priest insisted. “Because if I’m going to train you, I don’t want to listen to five syllables every time you want to ask me a question.”
To say it seemed impertinent to address their world’s high priest by a diminutive—
Val snapped his fingers, drawing Jahir’s startled eyes toward his fox-shaped face. The priest’s expression had become grave and fierce, and his eyes… his eyes burned. “If you think training isn’t going to put us on intimate terms, you don’t know what you’re walking into.”
“I am rather afraid it will put us on too intimate terms,” Jahir admitted. “As all my training prior to this has been… intense. You do not seem to me to be any less so.”
The Lord of War laughed. “Ah, he has you circumscribed there.”
His companion huffed. “It’s not like I’m hiding it.” Returning his attention to Jahir, he said, “Let me put this a different way. Corel has all of a double handful of true heirs, and three of them are standing here. You are now part of a very exclusive club, Jahir Seni Galare, and in this club, you are no less a member for any perceived lack of experience or age. You may, in fact, be the most senior in your discipline, because unless I’m mistaken the talent spread you were born with is one of the rarest recorded. You may have literally no peers.” He grinned. “So maybe I should be calling you ‘Lord Seni Galare’ and asking permission for a few drops of your time.”
“You jest!”
“He doesn’t,” the Lord of War said. “Or at least, he isn’t right now. He likes a prank, Valthial does.” Considering Jahir, the Lord of War smiled, a small smile, with the faintest hint of wonder. “To have talents appropriate to violence is common, alet. What you did in that surgery… I have never heard of anything like it.”
“We might want you to search for others with similar talents, and teach them, in fact,” the High Priest said. “But before we get there, we have to make sure you’re properly trained in the basics. Which is what you will come to me for. And when you do, you will call me…” He lifted his brows, waiting.
“Val,” Jahir said, obediently, smiling. “Because otherwise I suspect you will make an issue of it every time we meet.”
“Excellent. I’m glad we’ve gotten that out of the way.” The High Priest stepped back. “Find me, before I find you.” And then ambled off, not just whistling, but a piece of Alliance pop.
“An original,” the Lord of War said. “But he will take good care of you, I pledge it.”
“I don’t doubt.”
“And he makes a good point,” the Lord of War finished. “If we are to work together closely, we should dispense with overmuch formality. You may make free of my first name, and should.”
“Then I am solely Jahir. And… I would very much like that tour.”
“Good, because I would very much like to show it to you, as one of the very few Eldritch who will appreciate its many excellencies.”
On returning to Seni, Jahir was met in the hall by his mother, who exclaimed, “Welcome, my dear! I have had a tea set out for—oh, but has something happened?”
He supposed his day was writ on him for those who knew him well to read. He smiled for her and held out his hands to receive hers and shone his words in gold and white. “Don’t mistake me, lady mother. It’s joy, not grief, that you think you see. Such a day I have had!”
“Then you must tell me all about it. Come.”
They retreated to the solar, the afternoon light entering as an effulgent glow through the rows of windows. That he might be drinking that tea here, on the carved and painted chairs with their embroidered upholstery, amid the wealth and anachronisms of his childhood, after having come from one of the most exquisite hospitals he’d ever entered… he began with that, then, and could not keep from describing the equipment, and the architecture, and the people already employed there, few but dedicated. And if he fell silent at times, failing of words, his mother was the essence of patience.
When he judged the matter well described, she sighed with a smile. “To think we’ve lived to see it. It is marvelous, isn’t it?”
“It is the only appropriate word,” Jahir replied, glossing it white. “If one does not use ‘miraculous’ instead.”
The conversation did work itself at last to the audience with Liolesa, and Jahir set his cup aside to rest his folded hands on his knee. “She is a woman energized.”
“Oh, do you think? I thought so as well, but Liolesa has always had a tremendous amount of energy. At some point it becomes difficult to measure any addition.”
That surprised a laugh out of Jahir. “Mother! Really?”
Jeasa’s dimples were showing, and her mood shadings all impish silvers. “She isn’t a marble monument, my love, but a woman. No doubt it pleases her sometimes to be thought of one as well as an empress. So, you found her wick! And did she try to give you a present?”
The description of their sovereign as sharing a quality one would have used to describe healthy cattle distracted Jahir from the second question, so that it landed unexpectedly. “Is she so predictable?”
His mother sobered, just a touch. “A little. Particularly when she’s been pleased by the acts of her vassals, and you have surely earned her pleasure. So what did she offer you?”
“She asked me what I could wish, and I said…” Jahir hesitated. “Well. My partner wishes to bring his family to live here.”
Jeasa tapped her fingers together, eyes lighting. “Oh, yes! A very good use of such a guerdon. What did she say to your plan to fill my halls?”
“Granting that I will be filling them rather fuller than we anticipated…”
“Oh?” Jeasa leaned forward.
“Some forty-odd of them have asked to come, I’m afraid.”
“Oh! Very good!”
Which was the answer he should have expected from her, and yet, her zeal surprised him. “You have no objections?”
“To being overrun with Glaseah?” His mother laughed. “Goddess and Lord, not in the slightest. I look forward to it! So why that considering look, my son? Have you promised my cooperation to a plan prior to my acquiescence?”
“Nothing so certain,” Jahir said. “But it is evident that the Empress does not want an influx of foreigners without a native to speak for them, and she has made it clear that I am to consider myself too busy to take on the additional responsibility of seeing to my partner’s family.”
“Which leaves the delightful role of sponsor to me!” Jeasa beamed. “How fortunate. I was hoping for something to do that was not too interfering.”
“Only if it’s something you wish? We are no longer speaking of six or seven people….”
“Thank the God and Goddess,” Jeasa said. “What good would that have been? Two families with children… what would their children do for courting when they reached the age? They do, quickly. No, this will be far better, and you must perforce settle them in Seni where they will have allies. And also because—need I remind you, my dear—they are family! To turn them away would be unpardonable."
He laughed. “You need not convince me, you know!”
She sniffed, raising her chin. “I should hope not. I am still Seni’s mistress, so if I wish to import a gaggle of Glaseah to companion me in my dotage, no one may gainsay me.”
“Your dotage,” Jahir repeated with difficulty to the merry woman facing him, for Jeasa Seni was in her life’s prime, and many Eldritch considered the period after raising their heirs to be the real beginning of their lives.
“I am very much on the shelf,” his mother agreed dolefully, and then laughed. “Oh dear. I’m afraid I’m not very convincing, am I.”
“Not to me, and particularly not when you’re not trying,” Jahir agreed, chuckling. “So… you would not be opposed, I take it, to standing as friend to Vasiht’h’s family, and helping them find a place to settle within the province?”
“Not only unopposed, but eager. I would like something to do with my time, my love… and I very much would like to be involved in the future our world is making for itself. Tell me what you know about the situation, and let us devise a plan. Once we have it settled with your beloved we can present it to Liolesa a fait accompli. She will like that far better than if we expect her to arrange it herself.”
And yet, the Empress had been arranging things for all of them for centuries. “Do you think so?” Jahir asked, frowning. “That she might tire of holding the reins?”
“She is a masterful creature, Liolesa,” Jeasa said. “But even the most domineering of spirits might long, now and then, for trustworthy lieutenants. If only so she can find fault with their plans and amend those plans to suit her better. But Liolesa will not find it necessary to amend ours, because she is not an unreasonable woman, and this is not a task beyond our measure.” She rubbed her hands together. “But certainly it is too interesting a prospect to discuss sitting in a parlor. Let me find my shoes and you a tablet and we shall walk outside and talk!”
“In the evening,” Jahir said, amused.
“The best time for making plans,” Jeasa said. “Just before dawn, or just before nightfall. When all is liminal and everything feels possible. The universe is listening, ready to be molded!” She rose. “I will meet you at the kitchen door!”