From alt.pub.dragons-inn Wed Dec 7 09:38:45 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7931 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!uwm.edu!caen!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!leggy.zk3.dec.com!orb!not-for-mail From: penny@agora.rdrop.com (Penny Hutchison) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [KAN] Nursery School Bell Date: 6 Dec 1994 06:26:32 -0000 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 467 Sender: news@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Message-ID: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is copyrighted (1994) by Penny Hutchison and Andrea Evans. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the author(s). Thanks to Hutch for the kickstart. ====== Kadrys has gone to earth for his day's rest in the herb garden in the 'kan Lighthouse. His rest has not been good -- fever daymare apparitions of ar'Elya have tormented him with the promise of his final destruction, because he has given a part of himself to be a part of her child. The universe, says this derisive imago, will destroy him now, because he has reproduced, he has spawned his own replacement. The intruder into his rest then leaves him, her cold, mocking laughter destroying even the peace of the dead. ====== The sun was gliding beneath the horizon, trailing a wide path of seashimmer that stretched toward the shore. The shadow of the courtyard wall reached further across the Lighthouse grounds, gathering tree and earth under its wing. The breeze, cool and dewy with the approach of night, rippled the grasses that grew in the garden of the 'kan. On a low mound, the rich turf had been rolled back, a green and living blanket, turned aside from a bed. The bared loam stirred in a ripple like the ocean swell, and then hands, seemingly too slender for such strength, pushed free in a single easy movement. With a practised surge Kadrys emerged, sitting at the edge of the patch of earth, staring at the sunset with eyes too dark for expression, wide with aftershock. His body gleamed in the gathering dusk, as pale and perfect and insensible as a statue. Then, a shudder rippled through him and he shook his head, tousling the thick black hair, and with that the sculpture was replaced by a man, naked and vulnerable. Absently he donned his clothes and knelt, rolling the turf back over the earth before rising silently and entering the Lighthouse. And ar'Elya was there to meet him, smiling in a welcome as warm as if the previous day's encounter had never happened. "How was your rest?" For the space of a long intake of breath, he was poised with agonising precision, unable to choose a reaction: believe her or not. Finally, he spoke. "It was a little ...disturbed." At her quick frown of concern, he found himself able to smile again. "Nothing important. Just a bad dream." The smile widened as reassurance became anticipation. "I probably couldn't rest for wanting to see these 'baby photos'..." he grinned. She returned the smile, and took his hand, leading him down the corridor to the sitting room, with its couches and its wall of glass overlooking the star-lit sea. ar'Elya flopped down on the end of one of the couches, tucking her feet under her. She patted the cushions next to her invitingly and Kadrys slid into place next to her. "Comfy?", she beamed. "Yes, but impatient." he grinned teasingly, taking the sting out of the words. She laughed at this. <> The shadow of a table appeared in front of them, solidifying into a low, oval form. Then, three peculiar lidded bowls materialized in front of Kadrys. At his quizzical glance, she chuckled and explained, "Refreshments, my friend, of the sort you may be able to enjoy. Lift the lids, one at a time, and inhale deeply." Kadrys removed the lid from the bowl nearest him. It was half-full with a thick-looking, dark liquid. An aroma came to his nostrils, delicate enough at first, savory herbs and a hint of fresh-turned loam, memories of recent rest. The next instant, the faintest breath of change in the scent and he knew it for the dark wet fungi that grew and died in the space of a single night, hiding in the most secret places of the forest. The scent continued to change, grow in complexity, layers of nuances building. Kadrys gasped a little, touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth, absorbed in deciphering the rising multitude of sensations, almost tasting them as he breathed. But the smell was still intensifying, and suddenly it was too much, too strong to give pleasure to his sharp senses. Quickly covering the bowl, he demanded, "What _are_ these?", waving the air in front of his face. and exhaling in a startled rush. She smiled smugly. "From a society that came to the conclusion that eating was a vulgar activity. You can imagine the fun I had there," and the smile turned into an eloquent grimace. "But they forgot that eating is also an important social activity. This," she indicated the bowls, "was their idea of a compromise between the two extremes. I haven't decided on the marketing angle yet, but this has certain possibilities..." A greedy, Ale-like calculation came to her face. "Won't you try the others? That was supposed to be the soup analogue, and the other two are the entree and dessert." Kadrys crossed his arms determinedly, tilted his head and gave her a sidelong grin, and said in a sort of growl, "Thanks, but I think any more will burn out what, ah, scents, I have left! And now, sweet ar'Elya, _what about those crystals_?" He leaned forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with her, and glowered theatrically, baring his fangs. After one wide-eyed look at him, she collapsed into giggles. He gave her a wicked little close-lipped smile, sat back and waited. At last, she raised her head and wiping her eyes, gasped, "You do that so _well_, you know. I'm sorry. Here we go, " and she pulled out the first crystal; the same one Kadrys had seen at the Inn. Once again, the ageless, silver-haired woman stood in the castle courtyard, next to something that wasn't quite a tree. She looked up and smiled, seemingly at both of them. "Hello, ar'Elya. I know you've been anxiously awaiting these. I do hope that you will be sharing this with as many of the grantors as is possible." 'Lyand walked away from the tree and sat down at the nearby fountain, her hand gently stirring the waters. "All is well here. Your son has a good number of cousins for playmates. The families' businesses have been doing well, and even expanding. I like your prospectus on the outland spices, child. Good work." Her hand stilled. "Enough of this for now. Until next time, Bright Hope." She raised her hand in fairwell and her image faded. "Bright Hope?" Kadrys arched an eyebrow at ar'Elya. She blushed. "Just a nickname. Sometimes my family is too sentimental." Silently Kadrys nodded. After a long intake of breath he found the words. "The Warrior of Hope," he exhaled. Afterimages of silver wings blazed in his memory. "Oh! No, that's really just a coincidence." For the briefest moment, the mirrors of her eyes flashed. Like a beacon. Then she smiled and the moment passed. She picked up a crystal and rubbed it in her slender hands. It chimed faintly, the delicate ripple of sound seeming to come to Kadrys' ears over an endless distance, tugging at his heart with a sudden, unexpected pang of homesickness. He glanced at ar'Elya, and she smiled, but there was wistful resignation behind it. "That's his way of saying he wants to be with me. It's only normal. I'd love to see him too, but it's unwise, just yet. ...He's too young. Not independent enough. My great-aunt, 'Lyand, will care for him until he's old enough to leave s'ChkK's'kan." Kadrys tilted his head, curious. "But if he can't yet leave home, why can't you see him there?" "Because he's too immature. At that age separation is terribly lonely for both child and parent. ...And sometimes the parent, or the child, finds the temptation of reunion too great to resist. They ...remerge. The parent reabsorbs the child." Her voice had grown steadily quieter as she spoke, but at the last, she looked up, straight at him. "No, that's not right." she said, more clearly. "The most accurate word to use would be 'eat'. The reabsorption destroys the child: its identity is too fragile to stay coherent. That is one thing I have always envied in humans, that they can hold their babies. But," she pondered, "There is separation later. I'll get to see him soon enough." Kadrys nodded. "I understand." he said calmly. "...How long will it be until you can see each other in safety?" With that she smiled again. "Ah, not too long, no more than a year or so. The time will go, I'm going to be sure and keep myself busy, don't worry!" Kadrys chuckled. "I'm sure you will, Madame Trader. ...And anyway, I'm beginning to think the year'll be up before you get through those crystals!" he added with a teasing grin. "Touche'!" She picked up the crystal again and rubbed it. This time he was prepared for the chiming, managed to tune out its effects, concentrating on the image that unfolded before them. Kadrys blinked, startled. The shape before him reminded him instinctively of a shuriken. And not just any one, either. A four-pointed star with elegant windswept arms. The same shape as the ones he had used, all those endless years ago, back on his homeworld. Back when he had been alive. To him they had been private symbols of his career, his hard-won freedom to live his own life. Then in the next instant he saw the shape begin to turn. As it caught the light he saw that it was made not of lifeless metal but of crystal, mirror facets flashing as it began to spin. At last the realisation hit him that this was the trueshape of ar'Elya's child; like her shining pinwheel that he remembered so well, and yet unlike. He wondered at the coincidence he had seen in that shape, and then, for an instant, wondered whether it was coincidence. But the sheer absurdity of that thought made him shake his head. He turned, laid a gentle hand on hers. "ar'Elya, he's beautiful." Kadrys said sincerely, before smiling and adding, "...What's his name?" Her eyes snapped wide and she cried "I can't believe I've never told you!" Her astonishment quickly became a wry grin. "Well! If you want the full clanname, his is the same as mine, ar'Elya, but he's the 24th: ar'Elya het en 24 while I'm het en 23." Her eyelids lowered halfway, and her nose rose several haughty degrees into the air, and she sniffed, "...But that's a little too much for common usage." She thawed almost immediately. " Do you remember how 'Raelf calls me Raye?" Kadrys nodded. "Well, as far as _family_ goes," and she took his hand warmly, clasping it in the other for emphasis, "my son's just called Ray." "Ray." He smiled softly. "That's very appropriate..." She nodded, and picked up another crystal. The view cleared and Kadrys could see the same almost-tree in the background, standing by a rolling hillside rather than in the castle ground itself. The glittering child darted up the crest, dancing from point to point, his facets catching the light and throwing it back to the world in bursts of exuberance. When he reached the crest of the hill he paused without warning, poised en pointe, before moving the tiniest amount, a shift in orientation subtle enough to look sly after his previous capering. A shaft of sunlight was reflected through his facets, concentrated into a beam that made Kadrys wince. The beam brushed oh so casually across the trunk of the tree-being and was gone, leaving behind a symbol, burned into the tough outer bark. Kadrys winced, glanced sideways to ar'Elya, but she showed no sign of concern. He looked back at the image, and saw the great tree shake its crown a little, as if in a sudden gust of breeze. Flakes of gold drifted down, covering the starchild in a rippling drift: leaves that chimed like distant laughter. ar'Elya's son glinted happily and twirled to and fro, stirring up the drifts so that they flurried into the air, obscuring the scene as the vision faded. With a click ar'Elya set that crystal down on the table. Kadrys turned to her, bemused. "That - tree was alive, yes?" ar'Elya smiled. "Oh yes: his name's Faedril, he's an old friend of great-aunt 'Lyand, and a very wise teacher." "Then... I'd've thought he wouldn't take kindly to having his students, uh, carve their names in his bark." She chuckled. "Faedril is one of the Gatherer caste. He eats the pure emanations of our sun. Ray could never hurt him that way. No, that was just a personal joke. Take a look again." She touched the crystal with one fingertip and the image returned, the symbol burned onto the tree trunk. "Look above where he signed." Kadrys looked, bemused, at the place she indicated. The symbol there swirled incomprehensible, but then after a second, it seemed to change. Somehow, it reminded him of the old heart-smitten-with-an-arrow emblem, and the initials "SR" and "FC". Wincing at the image of the impaling arrow, he quirked an eyebrow at her. "SR? Do I recall 'Raelf calling you 'Shiny Rock' from time to time?" She laughed. "Exactly." He leaned forward. "Was it you or him who ..." ar'Elya laughed again. "Oh, it was me. Rafe wasn't exactly welcome in my home, you see. The family Did Not Approve, mostly. Faedril hid the mark for me until much later." She put the crystal down and drew another one from the pile. "Oh, you'll like this one," she said, a hint of a giggle in her voice. "What ..." but before he could finish, the image blossomed. A jumble of crystalline shapes -- snowflakes and daggers and the four bladed Ray-shuriken, were all dancing around a pillar of frozen light. With a flare like an unfolding umbrella, the pillar expanded a web of colors, and each of the crystals caught up a strand of the web and spun, gathering the colors like gossamer thread around the spool of their bodies. The pillar flared again, and the web detached and released, and all the colors spun loose and were collected. The individual crystals whirled together in a complicated interweaving, and then burst out of the pattern in all directions. "What does it mean?" Kadrys said, fascinated. "That," ar'Elya said slyly, "was a number of things. It was a birthday party for the six-spiked child, ar'Leine. It was a celebration of spring and the planting and harvesting. It was the first hunt, for all those children. And for Ray, it was, uhm, you'd call it his first solid food." "Solid food..." Kadrys half-grinned. "That does take one back." ar'Elya smiled a Gioconda smile and stroked a finger along another crystal. The image bloomed, a still, motionless scene at first. A man, almost, in his late teens, with an innocent open expression, was caught in a moment of almost-sleep. He was lying back against a rock, in the middle of a tangled, unkempt garden. His eyes were half-open: large, dark, one iris ringed with silver, the other with gold. He had an angular face, with broad cheekbones, and an almost feline cast. His hair was cut short, the ruddy brown bleached to red and gold by the sunlight. <> he said. <> The image faded -- Kadrys turned to his hostess. "It's where I used to go to think and be alone," ar'Elya answered the unspoken question. She picked up another crystal and it bloomed into light. This was another view of the garden, but Ray wasn't alone. He stood, looking much the same as he had in the earlier image. Facing him was a woman with bright eyes, a faint smile on her face. She had a silver stripe in her waist-length hair. "Ray, I want you to track my movements." Her voice was not stern, but not warm, at least not in the way that ar'Elya's voice was warm. Ray nodded, nervously. The woman blinked once, inhaled, and grew taller, muscular as an amazon, a serpentine beast appearing beside her, feathered crest on its head and back, its wings appearing too small to lift it into the air. Her silver dress became silver armor, scales trimmed in feathers, and a gleaming sword flashed in each hand. The young man, without hesitation, changed as well. He surged to half again his height, his red-brown hair fading to gold, his eyes a green fire. He had no bonded war-beast yet, but he did wear armor, a molten silver weave of scales on his warrior's frame, and he carried a black stick, a peculiar hooked staff half club and half halberd. "Very good," she grunted. She leaned down and scratched her beast on its head, and in the moment between touching and standing straight, the armor was gone and the beast was no longer a serpent -- it was a curious kind of creature, almost human, but still a meld of reptile and avian. In its hands it held a crystal sphere, which it offered to the woman. She was garbed in a robe and cassock, and took the crystal from the solemn beast. Ray shifted the moment she leaned, and stood calmly wearing the plain cassock of an itinerant monk. He had given up the stature of the warrior, and had the lean spareness of the ascetic mystic. He met the gaze of the priestess with the same calm regard in the bottomless blue of his own eyes. She smiled and blinked again, and pulled back the hood of her cassock to reveal the silver runes lining it. The homonculus at her side was changed again. Still reptilian but no longer avian, its eyes were a yellow glow. The woman had not changed much physically -- but her eyes were the same glowing yellow as her creature, and each strand of her long hair was tipped by a silver bead. In contrast, Ray's change was more noticeable, as he matched her shift. His body retained the lanky wiriness, the elegant articulation, but his hair had gone red-gold and he had a fringe of beard that managed to make him look mysterious but failed to make him look old and wise. The silver of his left eye did not match the gold of his right. "Very good indeed," the woman said, and with a snap of a finger, she was suddenly no longer the silver-garbed witch. There was no smooth change this time -- she was lithe and clad in black, head to toe, and her hair was cut short. She smiled when she saw that Ray had anticipated her. He had changed at the same instant. His hair was jet black, his skin pale, his eyes the deep black of the sky on a cloudy night far from the lights of the city, which made the silver rim of his iris all the more disturbing. He drew a peculiar four-sided shuriken from the black leather of his coat and tossed it to the woman, who returned it with another, and back and forth until they were juggling six of the deadly razor-edged blades without a pause in their pattern. The image froze and faded. "Who is she?" Kadrys asked. "That's my mother. She's been coaching Ray in his role-formation. The next batch of pictures should have one or two of him mixing roles." "That fourth image, that was..." "Yes, yes, my dear friend. There's a small still that you may have." She handed Kadrys one of the crystals, this one barely the size of the nail of his left little finger. It warmed to his touch, and there before him was the image of the fourth figure. The face was familiar, and yet not. Over the years Kadrys had seen his own reflection often enough, in magical mirrors, and this was like him. But, there was a difference -- instead of the grim, tight set to the mouth, and the sharp, harsh angles of his own face, the image before him had a more oval shape, with almond shaped eyes, and a quirky smile -- that smile he never saw himself, though it was, very rarely, his own. And, there was something else, an innocence, perhaps, or a sense of hope, of life as a gift to be lived and indulged. For the space of a long intake of breath, Kadrys was poised on the edge of his chair, utterly without movement: absorbed in what he was seeing. Then, slowly, he turned shining eyes on ar'Elya. A smile dawned, lighting his features, and fleetingly he was almost identical to the face in the vision after all. "I... He..." He shook his head slowly, smiling all the while. In this moment, his ancient ease with words had deserted him completely. His hand reached out, fingers caressing hers. "What can I say?" he murmured gently. "You are wondrous. And because of you, new wonders live. ...Thank you." ar'Elya blushed. "Kadrys, dear, this is a common enough wonder. Every parent brings something new into the world. This is no different, really. And now, you, too, know this joy." She touched the last crystal. The image that it threw out was a posed family picture. It was a chaos of faces, bodies, shapes. Most were women, all were human, or close enough to human that any admixture was in the distance. Kadrys had only seen a few of these before: the ageless woman with pure-silver hair, that ar'Elya had identified as the Clan Ruler, 'Lyand, herself. The woman who looked like ar'Elya's sister was Cyr'ene, who had travelled to Nexus with 'Raelf's grandson for the party at the Lighthouse last winter. Then there was Ray, sitting cross legged at ar'Elya's mother's feet. As she put down the last crystal, a shard broke loose from it and clattered to the tabletop. "Strange," ar'Elya mused aloud, "I hadn't noticed that before." Putting the crystal down, she picked up the shard carefully with her fingers, gasping, "oh, it's _cold_", as she came in contact with it. She rubbed it as she had with the others, but nothing happened. She opened her palm, and the shard was now coated with frost. She looked up, puzzled, at Kadrys. With a slight frown, he bent over her hand, then gingerly reached out and touched it with his forefinger. With a sudden *paffth* it exploded at his touch, then drifted over their hands in a glitter of diamondust. As the dust touched his skin, he was overwhelmed with a swirl of sensations he could not decipher; colors with no names, an acrid odor, a burning cold and finally, the echo of laughter. Once it had ceased, Kadrys asked with a rueful smile, "Is that how you kan end your family slideshows?" then stopped at the look on her face and the sudden crushing grip in the hand holding his. "What is it? What's wrong?" Slowly, the hand that had held the shard curled and the fingers rubbed the dust. Small cuts began to appear on her skin. Blood froze on the edges of the slices. "Odd," her voice low, harsh, forced through a throat thickened with rage and fear. "No ransom demand...no note." She looked up at him, her eyes broken mirrors. "My son. He's been taken. Stolen away. They don't know who or where."