ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-TWO: Grand Presentation

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They entered the main house through a door that opened into a narrow solarium. The room was situated between the exterior of the building and the kitchen, and vertical planters rising up the long transparent walls partially obscured the view in both directions.

Sitting at a table, a trio of household staff, all of whom Alden recognized from his stint as the room service guy the last time he was here, were talking quietly with each other and enjoying cups of steaming wevvi. Two were rolling some kind of dough into balls, and the third was coating them in what looked like tiny raisins.

At Stuart and Alden’s arrival, they all glanced up and gave a nod before going back to their task.

Stuart headed toward them, and Alden, assuming he was supposed to tag along until told otherwise, followed him.

“Is any spell wanted?” Stuart asked when he reached the table.

The woman coating the dough with the fruit smiled at him. “We’re all well cared for, and the work proceeds.”

The words were delivered with a rhythm and ease that made Alden think it was an exchange that was often repeated.

“Then let me introduce you to Alden,” Stuart said quickly.

Alden stood straighter. He was suddenly reminded of the fact that bluejeans and a mostly-clean t-shirt weren’t what he’d planned to wear the next time he came here.

“He’s one of Earth’s Avowed, commended by Loh Alis-art’h, and he is my guest. Alden, this is Muis-ida, whose family has assisted art’h wizards and knights for six generations, and this is my far-cousin Nimiot…”

I’m going to need to cheat, Alden thought as Stuart went on. There’s no way I’ll remember every name, pronunciation, and relationship without help.

By the time the introductions were finished, he’d mentally typed himself a message labeled “Art’h House Cheat Sheet.”

A couple of minutes later, he was trailing after Stuart through the kitchen, then into an arched, low-ceilinged alcove that served as a refrigerator. It didn’t have a door, but none of the cold touched him until he stepped over a thin silver strip of metal on the floor. From last time, he knew that the waist-high chests at the back of the alcove were freezers. With the exception of whatever was in there, everything was out in the open on shelves.

“I’m just going to have <<grain tea>> for first meal.” Stuart walked over to a shelf. “And we should pick up our second meals now, since we’ll be out in the forest for a few hours. Do you want any of these things?”

He’d just pulled a large rectangular basket off the shelf. It had a label on the front, and as Alden glanced at it, his flashcard logogram translation provided him with the words: “Food for Human.”

Wow. I have my own designated dining basket.

He’d already eaten fruit for breakfast from his Bowl of Welcome. While Stuart seasoned and boiled whatever grain tea was on the stove, Alden prepared himself a to-go container for later. He opted not to ask what any of the stuff he was selecting from the human basket actually was so that he could be adventurous.

“We can drink our tea in the husenot room.” Stuart was pouring the beverage he’d made into two lidded mugs. “Nobody should be there at this hour. And then we’ll go to the <<supply>> library to get what I need for my spell.”

******

“In the housing for new Ryeh-b’ts on Anesidora, my neighbors had a table full of these,” Alden said quietly, looking down through a glass floor at a rainbow of hibernating rock creatures. The husenots had a whole world of their own, just a couple of feet below him. Some of the animals had buried themselves in the pale sand until only a lump remained. Others were jumbled together. Based on how they’d arranged themselves, it seemed like most of them wanted to sleep around the edges of the mysteriously rippling pool in the center of their domain.“We wagered money on where they’d all relocate to when they moved.”

“We do that, too,” said Stuart, sipping from his mug as he looked down at a particularly large animal with a turquoise starburst pattern on its shell. “Not money, though. Usually we wager chores or errands.”

He was speaking in a near-whisper as well.

On their way here, they’d crept past Murmur, who was sleeping next door on the floor of the room that held the fire pit, one small Artonan child conked out on his back like he was a mattress and one red ryeh-b’t snuggled up against him.

Alden now had more questions than ever about the Mleirt. “When we saw Murmur and you said, ‘Grandpa-Grandpa is sleeping,’ is that a saying of some kind because Murmur is very old? Or …”

“We all call him that sometimes. He often cared for my father and his siblings when they were growing up.” Stuart stared off into space for a second, and a moment later the illumination below the floor changed to a black light setting. The husenots were suddenly a riot of speckled fluorescent patterns.

Alden bent to look closer. “Do your father and Alis-art’h support your plans?”

“Aunt Alis and Father almost never disagree about anything serious where anyone else can hear them. I’m sure they aren’t always <<in unity>>, but they pretend to be.” Stuart took a lengthy pause, sipping a few more times. “Those of us who grow up in the Rapports call our adolescence ‘the choosing season.’ It hasn’t always been that way. Historically, the idea of <<forcibly>> expanding the population of knights takes hold for years at a time, and there’s much less choosing involved. Until everyone decides again that the rewards aren’t worth the cost.

“Many of the older knights took their oaths during one of the worse cycles, and because they saw so many of the people they grew up with die during first binding or within a few years of it, they’ve done what they can to change bad traditions and revive good ones.”

“Like the choosing season?”

“Yes. After we attend our first…there is a ceremony where some knights request rest. If you are raised in a Rapport, your first attendance at that ceremony usually marks the beginning of your choosing season, and the season doesn’t end until you announce that you have chosen.”

Alden swallowed.

“Almost everyone from the Rapport children’s school will go on to become a hn’tyon or a wizard sworn to aid them in some way. Both choices are serious. And so it’s important that they are made, or rejected, without the <<buffeting>> of stronger winds. We’re encouraged to go slowly. During the years of our choosing, our Instructors are <<charged with>> teaching us as if we might have any future. Everyone, including our peers and our family members, waits patiently to give advice if we ask for it or to celebrate our choice with us once it’s made.

“Before my choosing season, I and everyone else thought I would become a votary…which is not someone specifically trained to kill people.”

“No?”

“No.” Stuart shook his head and laughed softly. “Where did you pick up an idea like that? Votaries are wizards who serve as assistants and dedicated casters, often for a single knight but not always. Hn’tyons spend so much time training their skill, recovering from affixation, and working far from home. Almost all pursue education in wizardry, but it can be difficult to gain a <<comprehensive>> one. At least in the usual time frame. A votary fills in gaps, cares for the knight in whatever way is called for, makes sure certain social responsibilities are met, and may join them <<in the field>> when situations allow it.”

“Esh-erdi had Lind-otta’s votary following me around school yesterday,” Alden told him.

“Why?”

“To make sure no wizards or law enforcement bothered me about the dead people. Or maybe because it was funny. He also had my birth tree moved to his house.”

Stuart’s brows drew together. “Where was your birth tree previously located?”

“Outside of a building where babies are born. In a place where vehicles stop rolling.”

<<Park>>.

“Right. I know that word. I just forgot it.”

“You can’t have your birth tree in a place like that, Alden. What if the autodrive on a vehicle malfunctions, and it crashes into it?”

They blinked at each other.

“You look like you don’t understand me right now,” said Stuart.

“I didn’t even know what birth trees were until Esh-erdi told me he’d bought mine. And now you look like you don’t understand me.”

Stuart came over to stand beside him. “Since we’re talking about birth trees anyway…I wasn’t born here. My mother was a courageous person who fought many battles, but her last one left her unwell. She went to a corrupted world to help my father. She stayed too long and gave too much. She was pregnant with me, and Father didn’t know. She said she would go back to the Triplanets ahead of him to recover, but when he returned, nobody had seen her. He searched for her and eventually found both of us on another planet.”

“Oh,” said Alden quietly. “She was a knight, too, then?”

Stuart looked surprised. “Yes. The place where I was <<conceived>> isn’t somewhere many people who aren’t knights could safely travel to. But it’s too long a story to tell in whispers with that group sleeping next door. And Weset is too young to hear it.”

Alden added a note to his cheat sheet that said: “Weset = sleeps on top of Murmur.”

“When Father returned home with me, I required a lot of gentle care and attention. Everyone gave it to me. And when I was less fragile, they did everything they could to make my life as it should have been, if nothing had gone wrong. When my family told me stories or talked about the kinds of things I might do with my future, they told me how well-suited I was to being a wizard of the Rapport. And that’s a special and worthy thing to be. It’s a life that many members of the family have chosen. So I was always proud.

“As the years of my childhood passed, I grew very close to one of my older sisters. Sina. I told people I would be her votary one day, and she agreed with me. It became something that felt true. To me. And to everyone else.”

He drained his drink and wiped his lips with the pad of his thumb. “You’ve seen my mourning name, so you know…she died.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alden said, hating how insufficient the words were.

Stuart looked down into the empty mug then back up.

He looks so much like he did on the day she died, Alden thought. But so different, too.

Watching his face that day, Alden had wondered how he would ever be all right. But here he was, talking about it like it was a scar instead of a fresh wound.

“It was more horrible than anything I had ever imagined. I had to delay my season of choosing for another year, so I could mourn her and recover. Around that time, people asked me every now and then if I had thought about leaving the Rapport. I guess to live in <<leisure>> with no responsibility at all.”

Alden was sure from his tone that those people had been put on some kind of idiot list in Stu-art’h’s head.

“But my family and I still talked as if I would be a votary one day, maybe for one of my other siblings or cousins. Maybe for someone else.”

“I have a cultural question,” said Alden. “Is becoming a votary, or swearing to serve the Rapport in some other way, considered an equal sacrifice? Compared to being a knight?”

Stuart frowned. “How could it be? No, maybe I should have explained better. To be a wizard is to move through reality with <<true awareness>> of your own freedom. The theoretical<<pinnacle>> of wizardry is dominion over the self and the universe. Omnipotence.

“It’s not as though anyone <<sane>> thinks they’ll actually reach that pinnacle, but sometimes, when you cast a spell and things go very right, or a little wrong in a specific way, you can almost imagine what it would be like.”

He lifted the hand that wasn’t gripping the mug and examined his fingers.

“And there’s a shadow of that pleasure every time we cast. But an affixation is like…a contract between you and your own future about what you will be, <<terms deeply carved>> into your very being and all around the spot you occupy <<within the way things are>>. And because you are not meant to be limited like that, and you can feel the <<wrongness>> of it, you fight it. And the you that has not been bound runs a <<desperate race>> forward, trying to <<claim>> more space for itself.

“So most do grow very strong. The life of a hn’tyon is one where <<self-peace>> is hard-found, if it’s found at all. And often fleeting. It’s a higher and narrower branch to…” He trailed off. “Alden, are you all right?”

“Yes,” Alden said automatically. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Eyes with slender golden rings watched him closely. Alden tried to smile.

“You’re a very <<compassionate>> person,” Stuart said. “Don’t be afraid for me.”

Alden wasn’t exactly sure it was fear he was feeling. Maybe that was part of it. A lot was going on his head. “Aren’t you afraid for you?” he asked.

Stuart continued to watch him.

“A little,” he said finally. “But the season of choosing was good for me. The setting aside of time to think, the encouragement our instructors gave us to calmly consider all paths…I was taking it seriously and slowly changing my mind about things that had seemed sure throughout my childhood. And I was gaining <<determination>> and a sense of my purpose.

“Apparently, everyone thought I was taking years to announce because I liked the rituals and sense of camaraderie that comes with being one of those who are choosing, which I very much do, of course. But I was taking so long for the same reasons almost everyone else does. Because the adults all said it was a special time of life that shouldn’t be rushed away from and because I didn’t want to embarrass myself by formally announcing and then later have to say I’d made a mistake.

“That kind of <<vacillation>> makes people more likely to worry about you. My family spent so much of my youth worrying about me. I didn’t want to give them another cause for concern.”

“That didn’t go as you planned,” Alden noted.

“There was a significant difference in how I understood my situation and how they did. When I was younger, nobody I loved ever said I didn’t have the ability to become a knight. It didn’t need to be said. It was obvious even to me, as soon as I was old enough to know a little about it. But I thought that, over the past few years, we all realized I had become strong enough to do whatever I wanted.”

He scowled. “We talked a lot about how well I was doing. Everyone told me how proud they were of the adult I was becoming. They treated me like nothing about me was delicate anymore. And it never occurred to me that they were being liars.”

Alden was surprised by the vehemence.

“When I realized I was completely confident in my choice, I was so excited to tell them. I knew they’d be surprised, but I expected them to be happily surprised. Especially Father. It is the path of highest onus, after all, and there is a love and a <<communion>> that can only be shared with those who walk it with you.” Stuart closed his eyes and shook his head. “I told them the night before that I would be announcing the end of my season of choosing in the morning. And so everyone was there for first meal in the big dining room.

“The change in their expressions when I told them…”

He fell silent.

“Bad?” Alden prompted after a while.

Stuart’s eyes opened again. His voice was suddenly gloomy. “If one of my grandparents had teleported back from the grave, hauling chaos with them like <<one who yields to perversion>>, and <<shat>> in the wevvi boiler, I’m sure my family would have been less horrified.”

“Nooo,” said Alden, moaning with vicarious embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was terrible,” said Stuart.

“It sounds like it was. What did your father say?”

“He couldn’t speak.”

“Oh no.”

“He just left the house.” Stuart’s expression was distant. “He was gone for almost a week.”

Alden cringed.

“That was about half a year before I met you,” Stuart said. “I’ve had an <<astounding>> variety of arguments with everyone since then. But actually, right after the mishnen, when Father came to see me, we talked for hours. About the mistakes I’d just made, but also about my future. And he told me to choose as I thought best and said he would trust me whatever the choice was.”

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He smiled. “I will repay his trust by <<thriving>> in every way. And someday soon, he will be glad he gave it.”

 

******

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“I’m willing to consider the idea that you’re not less mature than me,” Alden announced, peering through the translucent barrier that kept people from falling out of the elevator. It was carrying them rapidly down below ground level to the place Stuart called the supply library. “I’ll tell Lute I was wrong when I get back to Earth.”

“I enjoy your company very much,” said Stuart. “So please don’t feel that I’m insulting you. But you’re so strange.”

“I’m strange!?”

“Yes.” The elevator stopped, and the barrier disappeared. As soon as Stuart stepped out, a golden glow warmed the massive room he’d just entered. The lighting came from the shelves, racks, and cabinets in the space.

Aisles full of them.

This is not a basement, thought Alden, craning his neck as he hurried after his host, who was striding forward purposefully as if there was nothing at all special to see in this part of the house. This is like the organized version of a treasure room in an animated movie.

But instead of in mounds, the jewels were in boxes with labels like “Worshipped in a Fetuna Temple for at least Three Hundred Years” and “Fossilized Resin Drops with Stinging Oons Inside.”

They walked past a rack covered in loops of Artonan hair. Well, no fantasy treasure room I ever saw had that.

But he was pretty sure if he were a Wright he would have fainted the second he set foot in here. They had enough of that powder Everly Kim used to cast her ice patch spell to fill a bathtub. There were metal ingots in piles. One cabinet had a sign on the front that said, “Don’t let me out without asking Evul.”