C. J. Cherryh - Faded Sun 1 - Kesrith

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Faded Sun Trilogy #1 -- Kesrith -- C.J. Cherryh -- (1978)

Chapter ONE

Wind-child, sun-child, what is Kath?

Child-bearers, laugh-bringers, that is Kath.

IT WAS a game, shon'ai, the passing-game, Kel-style, in the dim round hall of

the Kel, the middle tower of the House— black-robed men and a black-

robed woman, a circle of ten. Warriors, they played the round not like

children, with a pair of stones, but with the spinning blades of the as'ei,

that could wound or kill. On the name-beat, the snap of fingers, the as'ei

flew across the seated circle of players, and skilled hands seized the hilts

in mid-turn, to beat the time and hurl the blades on in the next name-beat.

Fire-child, star-child, what is Kel?

Sword-bearers, song-weavers, that is Kel.

They played without words, with only the rhythm of their hands and the

weapons, flesh and steel. The rhythm was as old as time and as familiar as

childhood. The game had more meaning than the act, more than the simplicity of

the words. The Game of the People, it was called.

Dawn-child, earth-child, what is Sen?

Rune-makers, home-leaders, that is Sen.

A kel'en who flinched, whose eye failed or whose wits wandered, had no value

in the House. The boys and girls and women of the Kath played with stones to

learn their skill. Those who became kel'ein played thereafter with edged

steel. The Kel, like the mothers and children of the gentle Kath, laughed as

they played. They of Kel-caste were brief and bright as moths. They enjoyed

life, because they knew this.

Then-child, now-child, what are we?

Dream-seekers, life-bearers, we are&emsp;

A door opened, echoing, the sound rolling through the hollows and depths of

the tower. Sen Sathell broke in upon them, suddenly and without warning or

courtesies.

The rhythm ceased The blades rested in the hands of Niun, the youngest kel'en.

The Kel as a whole inclined their heads in respect to Sathell s'Delas, chief

of Sen-caste, the scholars. Gold-robed he was, like light breaking into the

dark hall of the martial Kel, and he was very old—the oldest man of all

in the House.

"Kel'anth, " he said quietly, addressing Eddan, his counterpart in the Kel,

"—kel'ein—news has come. The rumor is the war has ended. The regul

have asked the humans for peace. "

There was utter silence.

An abrupt move. The as'ei whirred and buried points in the painted plaster of

the far wall.

The youngest kel'en rose and veiled himself, and stalked from the gathering,

leaving shock in his wake.

The sen'anth and the kel'anth looked at each other, old men and kinsmen,

helpless in their distress.

And from the deepest shadows one of the dusei, a brown, slope-shouldered mass

larger than a man, stirred and rose, ambling forth into the light in that

mournful, abstracted manner of dusei. It pushed its way irreverently between

the two elders, thrusting its massive head at the kel'anth, who was its

master, seeking comfort.

Kel'anth Eddan patted the beast with age-smooth fingers and looked up at the

old scholar who, outside the divisions of caste and duty, was his half-

brother. "Is the news beyond any doubt?" he asked, the least trace of hope yet

remaining in his voice.

"Yes. The source is regul official communications, no city rumor. It seems

completely reliable. " Sathell gathered his robes about him and, tucking them

between his knees, settled on the carpeted floor among the kel'ein, who eased

aside to make room for him in their circle.

They were, these ten, the elders of the House, save one.

They were mri.

In their tongue, when they made this statement, they were merely saying that

they were of the People. Their word for other species was tsi'mri, which meant

not-people, and summed up mri philosophy, religion, and the personal attitudes

of the elders at once.

They were, as a species, golden-toned. Mri legends said that the People were

born of the sun: skin, eyes, coarse shoulder-length manes, all were bronze or

gold. Their hands and feet were narrow and long, and they were a tall, slender

race. Their senses, even in great age, were very keen, their hearing in

particular most sensitive. Their golden eyes were lid-folded, double-lidded as

well, for a nictitating membrane acted on reflex to protect their vision

against blowing dust.

They were, as outsiders believed, a species of warriors, of

mercenaries—for outsiders saw the Kel, and rarely the Sen, and never the

Kath. Mri served outsiders for hire—served the regul, the massive

tsi'mri merchants native to Nurag of the star Mab. For many centuries, mri

kel'ein had hired out to protect regul commerce between-worlds, generally

hired by one regul company as defense against the ambitions and ruthlessness

of some business rival, and mri had therefore fought against mri. Those years

and that service had been good for the People, this trying of one kel'en of a

certain service against the kel'en of another, in proper and traditional

combat, as it had always been. Such trials-at-arms refined the strength of the

People, eliminating the weak and unfit and giving honor to the strong. In

those days the tsi'mri regul had recognized themselves to be incapable of

fighting and unskilled in planning strategies, and sensibly left all matters

of conflict to the mri Kel to settle in the mri fashion.

But for the last forty years, mri had served all regul combined against all

humans, a bitter and ugly conflict, lacking honor and lacking any

satisfactions from the enemy. The mri elders were old enough to remember the

life before, and knew therefore what changes had been wrought by the war; and

they were not pleased with them. Humans were mass-fighters, animals of the

herd, and simply understood no other way of war. Mri, who fought singly, had

early suspected this, tested it with their lives, found it bitterly true.

Humans rejected a'ani, honorable combat, would not respect challenge,

understood nothing but their own way, which was widespread destruction.

Mri had bent themselves to learn humanity, the way of the enemy, and had begun

to adjust their operations and their manner of service to the regul

accordingly. Mri were professionals when it came to combat. Innovation in the

yin'ein, the ancient weapons that were used in a'ani, was dishonorable and

unthinkable; but innovation in the zahen'ein, in modern arms, was a simple

matter of retooling and adjusting methods, a matter of competency in the

profession they followed for a livelihood.

Regul, unfortunately, were not as capable of adapting to new tactics. Regul

had vast and accurate memories. They could not forget what had always

occurred, but conversely they could hardly conceive at all of what had not yet

happened, and did not make plans against it happening. Hitherto the regul had

depended on mri entirely in the matter of their personal safety, and mri

foresight ? for mri could imagine ? had shielded them and compensated for that

regul blindness to the unexpected; but in latter days, when the war began to

take regul lives and threaten regul properties, regul took matters into their

own unskilled hands. Regul issued orders, prudent in their own estimation, for

actions which were militarily impossible.

The mri had attempted to obey, for honor's sake.

Mri had died in their thousands, for honor's sake.

In the House, on this world, there lived only thirteen mri. Two were young.

The rest were the makers of policy, a council of the old, the veteran. Long

centuries ago the House had numbered more than two thousand in the Kel alone.

In this present age all but these few had gone their way to the war, to die.

And their war had been lost, by regul, who asked the humans for peace.

Sathell looked about him and considered these old ones, kel'ein who had lived

beyond their own years of service, whose memories gave them in some matters

the perspective of sen'ein. They were Husbands to the she'pan, masters-of-arms

while there had been Kath children to teach; and there was Pasev, the only

surviving kel'e'en of the House, she most skilled in the yin'ein next Eddan

himself. There were Dahacha and Sirain of Nisren; Palazi and Quaras and Lieth

of Guragen, itself a dead House, taking refuge with the Mother of this one and

adopted by her as Husbands. And from yet another dead House were Liran and

Debas, truebrothers. These were part of an age that had already vanished, a

time the People would not see again. Sathell felt their sadness, sensed it

reflected in the beasts that huddled together in the shadows. Eddan's dus,

whose species was reputedly never friendly with any caste but the warrior Kel,

sniffed critically at the scholar's gold robes and suffered himself to be

touched, then heaved his great bulk a little closer, wrinkled rolls of down-

furred flesh, shamelessly accepting affection where it was offered.

"Eddan," said Sathell, stroking the beast's warm shoulder,"I must tell you

also: it is very likely that the masters will cede this world if the humans

should demand it as part of the peace."

"That would be," said Eddan,"a very large settlement."

"Not according to what we have just heard. It is rumored that the humans have

secured the whole front, that the regul lords are in complete withdrawal, that

the humans are in such a position now that they can touch all the contested

areas. They have taken Elag."

There was silence. Elsewhere in the tower a door closed. At last Eddan

shrugged, a move of his slender fingers."Then the humans will surely demand

this world. There is very little that they will miss in their desire for

revenge. And the regul have left us open to it."

"It is incredible," said Pasev."Gods! there was no need, no need at all for

the regul to have abandoned Elag. The People could have held there —

could have turned the humans, if they had been given the equipment."

Sathell made a helpless gesture. "Perhaps. But held for whom? The regul

withdrew, took everything that was needed there for the defense, pulled ships

from under their control. Now we — Kesrith — have become the

border. You are right. It is very likely that the regul will not resist here

either; in fact, it is not reasonable for them to do so. So we have done all

that we could do. We have advised, we have warned — and if our employers

refused to take that advice, then there is little we can do but cover their

retreat, since we cannot restrain them from it. They took the war into their

own management against our advice. Now they have lost their war; we have not.

The war ceased to be ours some years ago. Now you are guiltless, kel'ein. You

may justly reckon so. There is simply nothing further that can be done."

"There was something once that might have been done," Pasev insisted.

"The Sen attempted many times to reason with the masters. We offered our

services and our advice according to the ancient treaty. We could not—"

Sathell heard the footsteps of the youth downstairs as he spoke, and the

disturbance disrupted his train of thought. He glanced hallward involuntarily

as the door downstairs slammed with great violence. The sound echoed

throughout all the House. He cast the Kel a look of distress. "Should not one

of you at least go speak with him?"

Eddan shrugged, embarrassed in his authority. Sathell knew it. He presumed on

kinship and friendship and stepped far out of bounds with Eddan when he made

that protest. He loved Niun; they all did. But the autonomy of the Kel, even

misguided, was sacred regarding the discipline of its members. Only the Mother

could interfere within Eddan's province.

"Niun has some small cause, do you not think?" asked Eddan quietly."He has

trained all his life toward this war. He is not a child of the old way, as we

are; and now he cannot enter into the new either. You have taken something

from him. What do you expect him to do, sen Sathell?"

Sathell bowed his head, unable to dispute with Eddan in the matter,

recognizing the truth in it, trying to see things as a young kel'en might see

them. One could not explain to the Kel, could not refute them in debate nor

expect foresight of them: children of a day, the kel'ein, brief and

passionate, without yesterday and without tomorrow. Their ignorance was the

price they paid for their freedom to leave the House and go among tsi'mri; and

they knew their place. If a sen'en challenged them to reason, they must simply

bow the head in their turn and retreat into silence: they had nothing with

which to answer. And to destroy their peace of mind was unconscionable;

knowledge without power was the most bitter condition of all.

"I think I have told you," said Sathell at last,"all that I know to tell you

at the moment. I will advise you immediately if there is any further news." He

arose in that silence and smoothed his robes into order, gingerly avoiding the

reflexive grasp of the dus. The beast reached at his ankle, harmless in

intent, but not in potential. The dusei were not to be treated with

familiarity by any but a kel'en. He stopped and looked at Eddan, who with a

touch rebuked the beast and freed him.

He edged round the massive paw, cast a final look at Eddan; but Eddan looked

away, affecting not to be interested any further in his departure. Sathell was

not willing to press the matter publicly. He knew his half-brother, and knew

that the hurt was precisely because there was affection between them. There

was a careful line drawn between them in public. When caste divided kinsmen,

there had to be that, to save the pride of the lesser.

He gave a formal courtesy to the others and withdrew, and was glad to be out

of that grim hall, heavy as the air was with the angers of frustrated men, and

of the dusei, whose rage was slower but more violent. He was relieved,

nonetheless, that they had listened to all that he had said. There would be no

violence, no irrational action, which was the worst thing that needed be

feared from the Kel. They were old. The old might reason together in groups,

might consult together. The kel'en was, in youth, a solitary warrior and

reckless, and without perspective.

He thought of going after Niun, and did not know what to say to him if he

should find him. His duty was to report elsewhere.

And when the door closed, aged Pasev, kel'e'en, veteran of Nisren and Elag's

first taking, pulled the as'ei from the shattered plaster and merely shrugged

off the sen'anth. She had seen more years and more of war than any living

warrior but Eddan himself. She played the Game all the same, as did they all,

including Eddan. It was a death as honorable as one in war.

"Let us play it out," she said.

"No," said Eddan firmly."No. Not yet."

He caught her eyes as he spoke. She looked at him plainly, aged lover, aged

rival, aged friend. Her slim fingers brushed the fine edge of the steel, but

she understood the order.

"Aye," she said, and the as'ei spun past Eddan's shoulder to bury themselves

in the painted map of Kesrith that decorated the east wall.

"The Kel bore the news," said sen Sathell,"with more restraint than I expected

of them. But it was not welcome, all the same. They feel cheated. They

conceive it as an affront against their honor. And Niun left. He would not

even hear it out. I do not know where he went. I am concerned."

She'pan Intel, the Lady Mother of the House and of the People, leaned back on

her many cushions, ignoring a twinge of pain. The pain was an old companion.

She had had it forty-three years, since she lost her strength and her beauty

at once in the fires of burning Nisren. Even then she had not been young. Even

then she had been she'pan of homeworld, ruler over all three castes of the

People. She was of the first rank of the Sen, passing Sathell himself; she was

above other she'panei as well, the few that still lived. She knew the

Mysteries that were closed to others; she knew the name and nature of the

Holy, and of the Gods; and the Pana, the Revered Objects, were in her keeping.

She knew her nation to its depth and its width, its birth and its destiny.

She was she'pan of a dying House, eldest Mother of a dying species. The Kath,

the caste of child-bearers and children, was dead, its tower dark and closed

twelve years ago: the last of the kath'ein was long buried in the cliffs of

Sil'athen, and the last children, motherless save for herself, had gone to

their destinies outside. Her Kel had declined to ten, and the Sen—

The Sen was before her: Sathell, the eldest, the sen'anth, whose weak heart

poised him constantly a beat removed from the Dark; and the girl who sat

presently at her feet. They were the gold-robes, the light-bearers, high-

caste. Her own robes were white, untainted by the edgings of black and blue

and gold worn by the she'panei of lesser degree. Their knowledge was almost

complete, but her own was entire. If her own heart should stop beating this

moment, so much, so incalculably much could be lost to the People. It was a

fearful thing, to consider how much rested on her each pulse and breath amid

such pain.

That the House and the People not die.

The girl Melein looked up at her—last of all the children, Melein

s'Intel Zain-Abrin, who had once been kel'e'en. At times the kel-fierceness

was still in Melein, although she had assumed outwardly the robes and the

chaste serenity of the scholarly Sen—although the years had given her

different skills, and her mind had advanced far beyond the simplicity of a

kel'e'en. Intel brushed at Melein's shoulder, a caress. "Patience," she

advised, seeing Melein's anxiety; and she knew that the advice would be

discarded in all respects.

"Let me go find Niun and talk to him," she asked.

Brother and sister, Niun and Melein—and close, despite that they had

been separated by law and she'pan's decree and caste and custom. Kel'en and

sen'e'en, dark and bright, Hand and Mind; but the heart in them was the same

and the blood was the same. She remembered the pair that had given them life,

her youngest and most beloved Husband and a kel'e'en of Guragen, both lost

now. His face, his eyes, that had made her regret a she'pan's chastity, gazed

back at her through Melein's and Niun's; and she remembered that he also had

been strong-willed and hot-tempered and clever. Perhaps Melein hated her; she

had not willingly received the command to leave the Kel and enter the Sen. But

there was no defiance there now, though the she'pan searched for it. There was

only anxiety, only a natural grief for her brother's pain.

"No," said Intel sharply."I tell you to let him alone."

"He may harm himself, she'pan."

"He will not. You underestimate him. He does not need you now. You are no

longer of the Kel, and I doubt that he wants to be faced by one of the Sen at

this moment. What could you tell him? What could you answer if he asked you

questions? Could you be silent?"

This struck home. "He wanted to leave Kesrith six years ago," said Melein, her

eyes bright with unshed tears; and possibly it was not only her brother's case

she pleaded now, but her own. "You would not let him go. Now it is too late,

she'pan. It is forever too late for him, and what can he imagine for himself?

What is there for him?"

"Meditate upon these things," said Intel,"and tell me your conclusions, sen

Melein s'Intel, after you have thought a day and a night on this matter. But

do not intrude your advice into the private affairs of a kel'en. And do not

regard him as your brother. A sen'e'en has no kin but the whole House, and the

People."

Melein rose, and stared down at her, breast heaving with her struggle for

breath. Beautiful, this daughter of hers: Intel saw her in this instant and

was amazed how much Melein, who was not of her blood, had become the things

her own youth had once promised—saw mirrored her own self, before

Nisren's fall, before the ruin of the House and of her own hopes. The sight

wounded her. In this moment she saw clearly, and knew the sen'e'en as she was,

and feared her and loved her at once.

Melein, who would hardly mourn her passing.

So she had created her, deliberately, event by event, choice by choice, her

daughter-not-of-the-flesh, her child, her Chosen, formed in Kath and Kel and

Sen, partaker of the Mysteries of all castes of the People.

Hating her.

"Learn restraint," she earnestly wished Melein, in a still, soft voice that

thrust with difficulty into Melein's anger."Learn to be sen'e'en, Melein,

above all else that you desire to have."

The young sen'e'en let go a shuddering breath, and the tears in her eyes

spilled over. Thwarted for now, the sen'e'en for a moment being child again:

but this child was dangerous.

Intel shivered, foreknowing that Melein would outlive her and impose her own

imprint on the world.

Chapter TWO

THERE WAS a division in the world, marked by a causeway of white rock. On the

one side, and at the lower end, lay the regul of Kesrith—city-folk,

slow-moving, long-remembering. The lowland city was entirely theirs: flat,

sprawling buildings, a port, commerce with the stars, mining that scarred the

earth, a plant that extracted water from the Alkaline Sea. The land had been

called the Dus plain before there were regul on Kesrith: the mri remembered.

For this reason the mri had avoided the plain, in respect of the dusei; but

the . regul had insisted on setting their city there, and the dusei left it

Uplands, in the rugged hills at the other end of the causeway, was the tower

of the mri. It appeared as four truncated cones arising from the corners of a

trapezoidal ground floor—slanted walls made of the pale earth of the

lowlands, treated and hardened. This was the Edun Kesrithun, the House of

Kesrith, the home of the mri of Kesrith, and, because of Intel, the home of

all mri in the wide universe.

One could see most of Kesrithi civilization from the vantage point Niun

occupied in his solitary anger. He came here often, to this highest part of

the causeway, to this stubborn outcrop of rock that had defeated the regul

road and made the regul think otherwise about their plans to extend it into

the high hills, invading the sanctity of Sil'athen. He liked it for what it

was as well as for the view. Below him lay the regul city and the mri edun,

two very small scars on the body of the white earth. Above him, in the hills,

and beyond and beyond, there were only regul automatons, that drew minerals

from the earth and provided regul Kesrith its reason for existence; and wild

things that had owned the world before the coming of regul or of mri; and the

slow-moving dusei that had once been Kesrith's highest form of life.

Niun sat, brooding, on the rock that overlooked the world, hating tsi'mri with

more than the ordinary hatred of mri for aliens, which was considerable. He

was twenty-six years old as the People reckoned years, which was not by

Kesrith's orbit around Arain, nor by the standard of Nisren, nor by that of

either of the two other worlds the People had designated homeworld in the span

of time remembered by Kel songs.

He was tall, even of his kind. His high cheekbones bore the seta'al, the

triple scars of his caste, blue-stained and indelible; this meant that he was

a full-fledged member of the Kel, the hand of the People. Being of the Kel, he

went robed from collar to boot-tops in unrelieved black; and black veil and

tasseled headcloth, met and zaidhe, concealed all but his brow and his eyes

from the gaze of outsiders when he chose to meet them; and the zaidhe further

had a dark transparent visor that could meet the veil when dust blew or red

Arain reached its unpleasant zenith. He was a man: his face, like his

thoughts, was considered a private identity, one indecent to reveal to

strangers. The veils enveloped him as did the robes, a distinguishing mark of

the only caste of the People that might deal with outsiders. The black robes,

the siga, were held about the waist and chest with belts that bore his

weapons, which were several; and also they should have held j'tai, medallions,

honors won for his services to the People: they held none, and this lack of

status would have been obvious to any mri that beheld him.

Being of the Kel, he could neither read nor write, save that he could use a

numbered keyboard and knew mathematics, both regul and mri. He knew by heart

the complicated genealogies of his House, which had been that of Nisren. The

name-chants filled him with melancholy when he sang them: it was difficult to

do so and then to look about the cracking walls of Edun Kesrithun and behold

only so few people as now lived, and not realize that decline was taking

place, that it was real and threatening. He knew all the songs. He could

foresee begetting no child of his own who would sing them, not on Kesrith. He

learned the songs; he learned languages, which were part of the Kel-lore. He

spoke four languages fluently, two of which were his own, one of which was the

regul's, and the fourth of which was the enemy's. He was expert in weapons,

both the yin'ein and the zahen'ein; he was taught of nine masters-of-arms; he

knew that his skill was great in all these things.

And wasted, all wasted.

Regul.

Tsi'mri.

Niun flung a rock downslope, which splashed into a hot pool and disturbed the

vapors.

Peace.

Peace on human terms, it would be. Regul had disregarded mri strategists at

every crucial moment of the war. Regul would spend mri lives without stinting

and they would pay the bloodprice to edunei that lost sons and daughters of

the Kel, all because some regul colonial official panicked and ordered

suicidal attack by the handful of mri serving him personally to cover his

retreat and that of his younglings; but far less willingly would that same

regul risk regul lives or properties. To lose regul lives would mean loss of

status; it would have brought that regul instant censure by regul authorities,

recall to homeworld, sifting of his knowledge, death of himself and his young

in all probability.

It was inevitable that humans should have realized this essential weakness of

the regul-mri partnership, that humans should have learned that inflicting

casualties on regul would have far more effect than inflicting those same

casualties on mri.

It was predictable then that the regul should have panicked under that

pressure, that they would have reacted by retreat, precipitous, against all

mri counsel to the contrary, exposing world after world to attack in their

haste to withdraw to absolute security. Consequently that absolute security

could not exist.

And that regul would afterwards compound their stupidity by dealing directly

with the humans—this too was credible, in the regul, to buy and sell

war, and to sell out quickly when threatened rather than to risk losing

overmuch of their necessary possessions.

The regul language contained no word for courage.

Neither had it one for imagination.

The war was ending and Niun remained worldbound, never having put to use the

things that he had learned. The gods knew what manner of trading the merchants

were doing, what disposition was being made of his life. He foresaw that

things might revert to what they had been before the war, that mri might again

serve individual regul—that mri would fight mri again, in combat where

experience mattered.

And gods knew how long it would be possible to find a regul to serve, when the

war was ending and things were entering a period of flux. Gods knew how likely

a regul was to take on an inexperienced kel'en to guard his ship, when others,

war-wise, were available.

He had trained all his life to fight humans, and the policies of three species

conspired to keep him from it.

He rose up of a sudden, mind set on an idea that had been seething there for

more than this day alone, and he leaped to the ground and started walking down

the road. He did not look back when he had passed the edun, unchallenged,

unnoticed. He owned nothing. He needed nothing. What he wore and what he

carried as his weapons were his to take; he had this by law and custom, and he

could ask nothing more of his edun even were he leaving with their blessing

and help, which he was not.

In the edun, Melein would surely grieve at such a silent desertion, but she

had been kel'e'en herself long enough to be glad for his sake too, that he

went to a service. A kel'en in an edun was as impermanent as the wind itself,

and ought to own no close ties past childhood, save to the she'pan and to the

People and to him or her that hired him.

He did feel a certain guilt toward the she'pan too, to her who had mothered

him with a closeness much beyond what a she'pan owed a son of her Husbands. He

knew that she had particularly favored Zain his father, and still mourned his

death; and she would neither approve nor allow the journey he made now.

It was, in fact, Intel's stubborn, possessive will that had held him this long

on Kesrith, kept him at her side long past the years that he decently should

have left her authority and that of his teachers. He had once loved Intel,

deeply, reverently. Even that love, in the slow years since he should have

followed the other kel'ein of the edun and left her, had begun to turn to

bitterness.

Thanks to her, his skills were untried, his life unused and now perhaps

altogether useless. Nine years had passed since the seta'al of the Kel had

been cut and stained into his face, nine years that he had sat in heart-

pounding longing whenever a regul master would come up the road to the edun

and seek a kel'en to guard a ship, be it for the war or even for commerce.

Fewer and fewer of these requests came in the passing years, and now there

came no more requests to the edun at all. He was the last of all his brothers

and sisters of the Kel, last of all the children of the edun save Melein. The

others had all found their service, and most were dead; but Niun s'Intel, nine

years a kel'en, had yet to leave the she'pan's protective embrace.

Mother, let me go! he had begged of her six years ago, when his cousin Medai's

ship had left—the ultimate, the crushing shame, that Medai, swaggering,

boastful Medai, should be chosen for the greatest honor of all, and he be left

behind in disgrace.

No, the she'pan had said in the absolute, invoking her authority, and to his

repeated pleading for her understanding, for his freedom: No. You are the last

of all my sons, the last, the last I shall ever have. Zain's child. And if I

will you to stay with me, that is my right, and that is my final decision. No.

No.

He had fled to the high hills that day, watching and not wishing to watch, as

the ship of the regul high command, Hazan, that ruled the zone in which

Kesrith lay, bore Medai s'Intel Sov-Nelan into manhood, into service, into the

highest honor that had yet befallen a kel'en of Edun Kesrithun.

That day Niun had wept, though kel'ein could not weep. And then in shame at

this weakness, he had scoured his face with the harsh powdery sand and stayed

fasting in the hills another day and two nights, until he had to come down and

face the other kel'ein and the Mother's anxious and possessive love.

Old, all of them. There was not a kel'en left now save himself that could even

take a service if it were offered. They were all greatly skilled. He suspected

that they were the greatest masters of the yin'ein in all the People, although

they did not boast anything but considerable competency; but the years had

done their subtle robbery and left them no strength to use their arts in war.

It was a Kel of eight men and one woman past their reason for living, without

strength to fight or—after him—children to teach: old ones whose

dreams must now be all backward.

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摘要：

FadedSunTrilogy#1--Kesrith--C.J.Cherryh--(1978)ChapterONEWind-child,sun-child,whatisKath?Child-bearers,laugh-bringers,thatisKath.ITWASagame,shon'ai,thepassing-game,Kel-style,inthedimroundhalloftheKel,themiddletoweroftheHouse—black-robedmenandablack-robedwoman,acircleoften.Warriors,theyplayedth...

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C. J. Cherryh - Faded Sun 1 - Kesrith

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