Off-Grid
The Tree House
Padi stood on the porch, her head tipped back, watching the Ribbons dance.
They were beautiful. Possibly, they were the most beautiful thing she had seen in her life, absent her father’s face, after the liberation from Runig’s Rock. Even tonight, when they were not yet fully risen, Padi felt a connection—an affinity with the ambient and its chaotic energies.
Standing there, bathed in Ribbon-light, it occurred to her for the first time that this affinity that gave her such joy might also be the source of great sorrow.
“What disturbs you?” Tekelia asked, arriving at her side.
Padi looked away from the Ribbons to the face that had become very dear, so very quickly.
“I was only just realizing that I can feel the Ribbons dancing at the core of me.”
Tekelia smiled.
“Then you are Haosa, indeed.”
The smile faded, and she felt a click inside her head, as if a connection had been made.
“You’re concerned that you won’t be able to leave; to trade,” Tekelia said. A warm hand caught hers. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Nor did I until this very moment,” Padi said, and laughed, rueful. “Truly, I am a daughter of dragons.”
“Padi—”
“No,” she said, placing a finger across Tekelia’s lips. “We will not entertain tragedy before its time! Now, tell me if you’ve found someone to stand in your place while you’re in orbit!” She lifted her finger away. “You may speak.”
“Thank you,” Tekelia said gravely. “Blays has risen to the challenge. She’ll be staying here in order to be immediately available in case of need.” Tekelia looked wry. “Which means she will have to be fetched, tomorrow, so that I can introduce her to the Warden day after. Will you make my excuses to Dil Nem?”
“I will, though I mention that Blays would be welcome to tour the shipyard, too. The opportunity to relieve three minds of the burden of their ignorance must weigh with Dil Nem, you know.”
“I’m sure, but Blays is at Visalee, on Wildege.”
Padi tipped her head. “You will of course tell me what that means.”
Tekelia laughed.
“It means it will take me the better part of a day to fetch her.”
“Ah, I see! I will make your excuses to Dil Nem.”
“Thank you, and now turnabout— Tell me why your father must speak with us about our relationship.”
“No, that was Thodelm yos’Galan,” Padi said. “Thodelms are the keepers of the Line’s integrity. He must account our relationship, else yos’Galan might fall into error.”
“Errors happen. I understand that.”
“Yes, but—forgive me—you are not yos’Galan. It matters very much to the thodelm, whose error might result in something as minor as missing a meeting, or as great as failing to extend protection when lives were the stake.”
Tekelia stared at her.
Padi sighed.
“It really is very important. I realize that it will be a disruption of your life, but if you could do me the—”
Tekelia put a finger over her lips.
“Do not ask me to do you either a favor or the honor. We are in this muddle together, and we will work our way out together. I suggest that what we should do, first, is sit together, while you explain who said what to whom, and the consequences of those things, so far as you know them. I hope to have us both on the same ground, so that we can usefully reason together.”
One well-marked eyebrow lifted.
“Is that a sound procedure?”
Padi grinned.
“Very sound. I do believe, Tekelia vesterGranz, that you were born to be a councilor.”
“You’re forgetting that I have Bentamin as a model, and a great deal of practice. The office of Speaker for the Haosa is ridiculous on its face, as each individual Haosa is more than willing to speak for herself. What little skill I have, I’ve learned through lengthy bouts of trial and error.”
“A quibble,” Padi declared. “If we are to proceed with due deliberation, we ought to take this indoors, so that I’m not distracted from my explanations by the Ribbons. It would also be helpful to have wine at hand.”
She felt Tekelia’s amusement ripple along their link.
“As dreadful as that?”
“Such explanations do sometimes become—intense,” Padi said, as one being fair.
“Wine we will have, then. Green or red?”
“Oh, green! I don’t expect anything worthy of the red.”
* * *
They were settled on the sofa, the wine poured and waiting on the table before them. Padi turned to face Tekelia.
“The first thing you need to understand, though I make no doubt it will hurt your head, is that Shan yos’Galan’s melant’i is varied and complex.”
She paused, but Tekelia said nothing.
“So,” Padi said, folding her fingers into her palm with only the thumb showing, “the first tier is kin-ties. He is Priscilla’s lifemate, elder brother to three siblings, father, and foster-father. He is also variously uncle, cousin, and brother-by-Code to the lifemates of his siblings.”
She paused again. Tekelia said nothing. Padi unfolded her index finger.
“The second tier is life-work, and there he is master pilot, master trader, and Healer.”
Tekelia was watching her attentively, but offered no comment or question. Padi unfolded her middle finger.
“In the third tier, standing within the clan, he is Thodelm yos’Galan, keeper of the Line, its debts, and its credits. In this role, he is also advisor to the delm.”
She folded her hands primly onto her knee, and Tekelia at last spoke.
“That seems like rather a lot.”
“In fact, it is. The Code suggests that thodelm and master trader are each sufficient unto themselves. If Korval were not so thin, Father would not list thodelm among his honors.
“As it is, he has managed to sort the thodelm into an extremely precise box. We very rarely see him, the master trader being more than sufficient to most situations that might arise.”
“Does this make…Shan yos’Galan’s head hurt?” Tekelia asked carefully.
Padi frowned slightly.
“In the present instance, it may, though generally, I don’t believe so. The thodelm is willing to be advised by the master trader—indeed, that would be the case if—if Aunt Nova were thodelm.”
“Why isn’t Aunt Nova thodelm?”
“That had been intended, I think. Then, Uncle Val Con fell into his scrape and Aunt Nova was Korval-pernard’i until he returned to us, with his lifemate. Uncle Val Con and Aunt Miri are now Korval, which freed Aunt Nova to rise as Thodelm yos’Galan, but the clan removed to Surebleak, and Aunt Nova became Boss Conrad’s—that’s Cousin Pat Rin’s—administrator. Father calls her Boss Nova, and from what I hear from Quin—Cousin Pat Rin’s heir—that is at least as complex as standing thodelm—and Surebleak has no Code to guide them.”
“You said your family was thin,” Tekelia protested, holding up a hand. “This seems quite a crowd, to me.”
“We are much reduced in numbers,” Padi said.
Tekelia raised an eyebrow.
“There was a war,” she said repressively. “Shall I send you a condensed history?”
“That might be helpful, thank you,” Tekelia said politely.
“When it arrives, recall that you asked for it,” Padi said. “In any case, since the master trader and Thodelm yos’Galan had long ago perfected their arrangement, and Aunt Anthora does not at all have the proper skill set to stand up as either Boss or thodelm, matters continued as they were.”
“Could you be thodelm?” Tekelia asked.
Padi felt a jolt, and raised her head to stare into one black eye and one grey.
“Have I been an idiot again?” Tekelia put a hand on her knee.
“Never an idiot, I insist,” Padi said, and took a breath. “I—I am too young to accommodate Thodelm yos’Galan, though, as Shan yos’Galan’s heir, that may be required of me, in the future.”
“Does that disturb you?”
“I scarcely know,” Padi said flatly. “There’s training for it, of course, though I’ve had—nothing.”
“Because of the arrangement between the master trader and the present thodelm?”
“Quite possibly. Not to mention the profound disorder of the clan’s arrangements while the stupid Department of the Interior was pursuing us.”
She paused, frowning in the general direction of the floor. Suddenly, she shook herself and looked up.
“I will,” she said to Tekelia’s speculative gaze, “speak to the master trader about it. However! For us here this evening, that is a side issue. We are discussing Thodelm yos’Galan’s necessities with regard to ourselves.”
“We were, yes.”
Padi glanced down at her fingers, laced together on her knee, then into Tekelia’s face.
“You and I dance together. The Code, so far as I am aware, does not acknowledge such a relationship. It is therefore Thodelm yos’Galan’s duty to find what Line yos’Galan owes you.”
“Line yos’Galan owes me nothing,” Tekelia said firmly.
“Not true. As I think about it, the Line at least owes you protection,” Padi said. “However much the Haosa may love danger, Clan Korval—which encloses Line yos’Galan—has enemies. You heard the name of one just now.”
“The Department of the Interior.”
Padi inclined her head.
“They have lately been much constrained, but one dares not believe that their malice has come to an end. We ought not to leave you exposed.”
Tekelia frowned.
“Is that all?”
“Well, that is what Thodelm yos’Galan seeks to establish,” Padi began—and stopped, blinking.
“What?”
“I only just—what you said to the master trader. Would you care very much if we were found to be lifemates?”
Tekelia stared at her.
“I would—have to know more.”
Padi laughed. “Of course you would.”
“You had better tell me what I said,” Tekelia prodded, when she did not continue.
Padi took Tekelia’s hand.
“You said, ‘If I am disadvantaged, I trust Padi to guard my interests.’ And that will be heard as an avowal, my friend. According to the Code, one puts perfect trust only in one’s delm, one’s kin—and one’s lifemate.”
Tekelia’s blink was a flash of amber and blue.
“The Code is in error.”
“Yes, it’s been said. However, unless the delm means to break entirely with Liaden culture and form Korval anew—which, as Uncle Val Con is Scout-trained, isn’t wholly impossible—it is the Code that must guide the thodelm’s thinking.”
She squeezed Tekelia’s hand, and released it.
“To answer your question—lifemates share one melant’i. That means either partner is understood to speak, and act, for both.”
“No, that won’t do,” Tekelia protested. “I dance with others, as you know—”
“Yes,” Padi said. In fact, she had met those others with whom Tekelia shared heart-ties: Geritsi, Kencia, and Vayeen, all persons of impeccable melant’i, their affection for Tekelia, as Padi was able to See now that her Inner Eyes were fully open, profound and true. They had each made Padi welcome, but—
“No, it would be entirely ineligible,” she said now, half-laughing. “Only think of me, daring to speak for you! Geritsi would hit me with a shovel!”
“Nothing so violent, I think,” Tekelia said, squeezing her fingers. “But she certainly wouldn’t think that she had been bound by anything I had agreed to.”
Tekelia paused, head tipped.
“It goes just as ill in the other direction. How could I begin to speak for you? I’m neither a trader nor Liaden.”
“No, you are quite right. As pleasant as it would be to accommodate the Code and offer Thodelm yos’Galan a convenable solution, it cannot be done. We shall think of something else.”
Tekelia laughed. Padi smiled.
“Come, let us recruit ourselves with a sip.” She took up the glasses and handed one to Tekelia. They savored the wine in silence. Tekelia’s eyes closed, and Padi watched the play of shadow along cheek and brow.
“What if we come at this from another angle?” Tekelia murmured.
“Such as?”
Tekelia opened eyes that were both by chance blue.
“What if I outline my necessities and expectations?”
“That is well-thought; I will need to know those precisely. Tell me.”
Tekelia took Padi’s glass, and put both on the table before taking her hand between two warm palms and leaning forward to look directly into her eyes.
“I will accept nothing that results in limiting your goals or impinging your joy. I will not be a rock tied ’round your neck, or a shackle, holding you against your will.”
Tekelia’s expression was quite savage, brows pulled tight.
“Nor do I relinquish those others with whom I dance.”
Padi waited. Tekelia said nothing else, fairly vibrating with a tension that she scarcely understood, even linked as they were.
When it seemed clear that Tekelia was not going to speak further, Padi inclined her head.
“Very good,” she said calmly. “These are very clear conditions. If it does fall out that I stand as your negotiator, you may depend upon me to see that your necessities are honored.”
Of a sudden, all the tension left Tekelia.
“Thank you.”
“It is no more than we have agreed to do,” she said, and flung forward to hug Tekelia tight. Strong arms came around her in response, and she sighed.
“Between us, we have made a most spectacular muddle,” she murmured. “It bodes well for our collaboration, going forward.”
Tekelia gave a shout of laughter.
“To the astonishment and peril of the universe!”
“Well, yes,” Padi said, settling her head comfortably on Tekelia’s shoulder. “After all, it is Korval.”