Tuesday, July 21, 2708, continued

Cyran hardly gives me time to scrub the grime from my face and to gulp down some food before sending me out again to meet with the Don.  I don't feel the least bit rested; in fact, my feet still throb.  It doesn't help that I've had to surrender even my sandals to a cobbler, to use as a pattern for my odd-shaped feet while I'm away.

I climb up a slanting street of raised brick, rounded by the years, with runnels on the sides; it must rain sometimes, then.  The bricks feel rough and hard, though, to bare feet used to dirt.  Houses huddle low to my left and right, hardly up to my shoulders—they build them half-sunk into the earth for the insulation, cozy little dens with head-brushing roofs to conserve heating-fuel.  They jostle close, sharing walls, crammed protectively against the whistling wind into narrow gorges gouged into the mountainside, with all the wide wilderness beyond.  Coarse, brown adobe brick and stone contrasts with the sills and lintels in their bright and peeling paint.  To each doorway one goes downstairs to the porch; a grilled hole beneath the stairs supposedly drains the hollow into a sewer for those rare occasions of rain.  But judging from the clogging mess of leaves and rubbish in the grates, I'd say that people forget they even exist till the rare storms crash down upon them and flood their homes—then they probably remember to clean them out.  Ah, human nature—same story, wherever you go!

I glance upwards.  No rain looks imminent from that icy blue sky, certainly nothing so soft as a cloud.  You could imagine a cloud made of frost-pale gravel and ragged quartz in a place like this.  I can feel my face and hands and especially the naked skin of my feet freeze-dry in the air; at least those porch-hollows cut the wind.

Who is this "Don", anyway?  Some wise old man of the mountains, possibly an oracle, who teaches a mystical discipline of his own invention, or so I’ve heard.  He has something of a following in certain foreign circles, among those fortunate enough to have both the spare time and the cash to travel the world in search of spirituality.

I draw out my luck-doll and finger it a bit, while my other hand steals to my pocket and brushes the prayer-cloth there.  I suppose I should focus my thoughts on sacred things to prepare for this meeting.  So why do I have this nagging, jealous feeling that plenty of good ol' profane fun goes on behind my back where the others quarter, while I trudge off after some kind of mountain monk?

Yet the sitting-room I enter, from the shelter of the sunken porch, seems homey and comfortable enough; the foreign tourists waiting on the pleasure of the Don seem less in place than me.  Homespun blankets in geometric designs provide padding for some nicely-turned chairs (not enough for some of the guests, judging by the squirms.)  A picture on top of the hospitality-bureau shows the Don's late wife in a tarnished but intricate metal frame—a cocky old woman, not at all esoteric, who smirks at the pinhole camera; the surrounding shadows inevitable with such primitive photography seem to hover about her like a premonition of death.  I admire with a fingertip the doily of crocheted lace; perhaps she crocheted it herself.  Or the Don did.  I can smell the faint essence of the bowl of dried rosebuds.  I note a couple of matches, and a few stray trinkets which might be charms.  Is that a tiny carved jade figure of a Buddha, Charadocian style?  And nearby lies a cross of shell.  I'm killing time to let myself thaw.

Still, the bureau...it's been a long time since I came into a home the front way and got a chance to rummage through the hospitality-bureau.  I pull open the drawer and push aside the expected gifts of prayer cloths, medallions, and other holy things to find something practical.  Aha! Thick, soft, llama-wool socks, mottled in their natural colors of ivory and gray.

"Just what do you think you're doing, young lady?"  I turn to face two very angry foreigners, one in the formally matching dark jacket and buttoned-ankle pants of Istislan, the other more casually dressed in a turtleneck—but no Charadocian who could afford knit truesilk would ever wear thin sleeves like that here, along with the fluid pants and distinctive monkstrap shoes of a wealthy Paradisian.

"Just what do you think I'm doing?"

"Stealing from a poor old holy man," Mr. Istislan says righteously.

I drop the socks back in sourly.  The men look strong and well-fed and certainly capable of making a citizen's arrest or raising some other ruckus before I can catch my breath to explain the local customs to them.

Mr. Paradisio does glance guiltily at my bare toes and says, "You're Mountainfolk, aren't you—like the Don?"  I nod as I sink wearily into a chair, and they fall all over themselves to gush about the beauty of my culture and show what good little disciples of tolerance they are, to the point of almost forgetting that I nearly "stole" socks.  Amused, I don't bother telling them that I'm half White.

Real disciples in undyed woolen robes usher us in, through a corridor, into a surprisingly large room carved into the mountain's rock, engulfed in the slope so that only a high strip of windows lets in some light.  Beyond, though, I can see a sun-drenched atrium open to the sky, basking in a light-shaft.  The robed-ones escort the foreign visitors to one side and leave me standing there in that chamber so dark, so drafty, so electric with the enthusiasm of disciples.

Ah, the disciples!  They include far more native Charadocians than I expected; I can only read it in the body-language of their various castes.  They bustle about on heaven knows what business, low-born and high alike in soft robes with dragging sleeves that encumber the arms when they stroll on meditations, or sleeveless chitons that free them to scrub floors or practice exercises, male and female no different, Mountainfolk or White or Asiatic or black, even some strange-eyed, hawk-nosed Michawnas, plus mixtures like Rashid and me, each serving each other in turn, each served, each pursuing the spiritual heights or scrubbing chamber-pots with equal fervor.

And they all look radiant, pleased with what they do, pleased even with the chill air that blows in from the unglazed windows above, in that cold which the Don, I hear, says sharpens the spirit.  I don't know that it's sharpened mine any, but I guess it's all a matter of context.

Now the Don enters the room and walks straight for me.  The others glance, but don't halt in their duties.  He looks so frail and old—here, in this world where even the smallest children grow as tough as old roots.  His long, wispy, white hair stirs like a dream; his thin, white beard lofts faintly on his breast.  His almond-shaped eyes recall his Mountainfolk blood; I feel so White next to him, and for the first time in my life that part of my blood feels lesser.

He beckons me forward.  On some stupid, insecure whim I will myself to move forward at a low hover (all I can manage without my magentine focus) as though my levitational abilities would somehow impress him.  The instant my feet touch ground before him I feel like such a jackass, but his face shows no slightest hint of rebuke; he knows that I already rebuke myself.

          He takes my hand.  "So—you are Cyran's lieutenant.  Deirdre Evelynne Keller of the Tilián."  I stare—he shouldn't know that.  He wraps his arm into mine and leads me to a small side chamber, then closes a door thick enough to shut out all ears.  He lights a candle with a flame that bends to some hidden ventilation shaft.  "Say what your General sent you to tell me, Soldier."