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her, filled his ears with tales of her noble family and laments about how low
she d sunk marrying his father until he felt as if he were drowning in spite.
He blamed her for the way his broth-ers treated him and the scorn his father
felt for him, but didn t realize how much like her he was, how much of her
outlook he d absorbed. Brann recognized Zuhra s voice in the excessive respect
he had for people like the Envoy and his dislike for what he called rabble.
Settsimaksimin came to Tadar s House around mid-morning. He scared the
stiffening out of my bones, Ahzurdan said. Six foot five and massive,
not fat, his forearms where they came from the halfsleeves of his robe
looked like they were carved from oak, his hands were twice the size of those
of an ordinary man, shapely and strong, he wore an emerald on his right hand
in a smooth ungraven band and a sapphire on his left; he had thick fine black
hair that he wore in a braid down his back, no beard
(he couldn t grow a beard, I found that out later), a face that was handsome
and stern, eyes like amber with fire behind it; his voice was deep and
singing, when he spoke, it seemed to shake the house and yet caress each of us
with the warmth, the gentle-ness of ... well, you see the effect he had, on
me. I was terrified and fascinated. He brought one of his older apprentices
with him, a Temueng boy who walked in bold-eyed silence a step behind him,
scorning us and everything about us. How I envied that boy.
Tadar paid the bond and sent one of the houseboys with Ahzurdan to carry his
clothing and books, every-thing he owned. That was the last time he saw his
fam-ily. He never went back.
On the twelfth day out of Jade Halimm the merchan-ter Jiva Mahrish
sailed into the harbor at
Kukurul. A few days later, as they waited for a ship heading for Ban-drabahr,
Settsimaksimin tried again.
5. Silagamatys On The South Coast Of Cheonea, The Citadel Of
Settsimaksimin.
SCENE: Settsimaksimin walking the ramparts, looking out over the city and
talking at his secretary and prospective biographer, an improbable being
called Todichi Yahzi, rambling on about whatever happened to come into his
mind.
Soaring needle faced with white marble, swooping sides like the line from a
dancer s knee to her shoulders when she s stretched on her toes, a merloned
walk about the top. Settsimaksimin s Citadel, built in a day and a night and,
a day, an orgy of force that left Maksim limp and exhausted, his credit drawn
down with thousands of earth elementals and demon stoneworkers, fifty acres of
stone, steel and glass. Simplicity in immensity.
Late afternoon On a hot hazy day. Grown impatient with the tedium of
administration and the heat within the walls, Settsimaksimin told Todichi
Yahzi to bring his notebooks and swept them both to the high ram-parts. Heat
waves crawled from the earth-colored struc-tures far below, a haze of dust and
pollen gilded the Plain that stretched out green and lush to mountains whose
peaks were a scrawl of pale blue against the paler sky, but up here a brisk
wind rushed from the open sea and blew his sweat away.
Write, Maksim said. You can clean it up later.
He wound his gray-streaked braid in a knot on his head, snapped a skewer to
his hand and drove it through the mass to hold it in place. He opened his
robe, spread it away from his neck, began stumping along the broad stone
walkway, his hands clasped behind him, the light linen robe fluttering about
his bare feet, throwing words over his shoulder at Todichi Yahzi who was a
thin gan-gling creature (male), his skin covered with a soft fur like
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gray moss. His mouth was tiny and inflexible, he ate only liquids
and semi-liquids; his speech was a humming approximation of Cheonase that few
could understand. He had round mobile ears and his eyes were set deep in his
head, showing flashes of color (violet, muddy brown, dark red) as he looked up
from his pad, looked down again and continued his scribbling in spi-dery
symbols that had no like in this world. Settsimak-simin fetched him from a
distant reality so he d have someone he could talk to, not a demon, not an
ambi-tious Cheonene, but someone wholly dependent on him for life and
sustenance and ... perhaps ... transport home. His major occupation was
listening to
Maksim ramble about his experiences, writing down what he said about
them along with his pronouncements on life, love, politics and everything.
The Parastes ... the Parastes ... parasite Par-astes, little hopping fleas,
they wanted to make me their dog, their wild dog eating the meat of the land
and they eating off me.
He charged along the rampart, breasting the wind like some great bull, bare
feet splatting on the stone, voice booming out over the city, lyric basso
singing in regis-ters so low Todichi had to strain to hear the words.
They wanted to go on living till the end of time as entitled do-nothings.
Bastards of the legion of the
Born. Lordlings of the earth. Charter members in the club of eugennistos.
Owners of lands, lives and good red gold.
Todichi Yahzi hoomed and cooed and was understood to say, For the honesty of
my records, sar
Sassa ma sa, were there no patrikkos among them, no good men who cared for
their folk? Among my own ..
Settsimaksimin swung round, yellow eyes burning with feral good humor. My
mother was a whore and I m a half-breed, don t ask me for their virtues. Not
me. He threw back his head and let laughter rumble up from his toes. I never
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