Meta-Conversations: The Challenge

            “What an interesting creature you are.”

            My hands flex gently on the teapot I was about to put to use… because I was trying to coax Ajan’s wife to come talk. Is this better? It will certainly be challenging. I pour. “You will like the texture of my cups.”

            “Will I?” The first Servant of Shame circles me like I’m a particularly tasty morsel. “Will they scorch my fingertips?”

            Two can play this game. “If they don’t, will you be disappointed?”

            He laughs. “Ah! You’ve grown claws since I ambushed you last.”

            “I am no longer a maiden,” I say.

            “And yet, so much yet to learn.”

            “We are not complete until we’re done,” I reply.

            That provokes another laugh. “You have been around us, haven’t you.” He slides onto the chair, feeling its edges with his fingertips, and takes the cup. As I expect, those hands caress its contours. I was using a double-walled glass piece that I like for espresso, because it keeps things warm for longer; I was hoping to find out if the Ai-Naidar have something similar for let. But I doubt the first Servant wants to talk to me about tea. He proves it with his next comment. “I like watching you.”

            Not stalkery at all. I suppress a smile. “You’ll want me to ask why.”

            “Because you hate change and long for order and routine and the expected paths, and then career off them into the weeds in search of the adventure you don’t want but that your ishas demands of you.”

            “Yes,” I say, nodding. “That would be accurate.”

            “But then, having committed to this rebellion… you remain fundamentally inflexible, and fight the very changes you are relentlessly seeking. And if you don’t guard your feet, they start curving you back toward the expected path.” He raises his brows, and I make myself meet his scarred eyes. “Still accurate?”

            “The first Servant of Shame is still Shame,” I say.

            “Oh, that’s good,” he says. “You even sound like one of us. So… since you know me so well, aunerai… why am I here?”

            “You’re about to tell me.” I shake my head and pour for myself. “I expect I won’t like it.”

            “Why do you insist on demanding that our stories fit into the expected shapes? When you yourself have flung yourself free of the strictures that require them to be that shape?”

            “Because,” I say firmly, “I am…” I stop. I know what he wants, and all my first objections aren’t ‘you’re not ready to write that’, they’re ‘how the heck would you market that,’ and ‘your other experiments in flash fiction collections haven’t done all that great.’ “All right. You’ve got me there.”

            “Have I? What an astonishing turn of phrase. I like it.”

            He is… much more of a sensualist than Kor. Or Amath. Kef’s… close, but the way a candleflame is to a forest fire. “I want to tell Mishor’s story.”

            “No doubt you will. But why must you treat Kherishdar’s story as a linear exercise? Told in chronological order? So orderly. So expected. You were more experimental in the past. It suited us.”

            That startles me. “Do you know about art, then?”

            “My work is art, aunerai. And I was…” He pauses, sensuous lips working as if tasting a particularly rare flavor. “…a pioneer. Also straying off the expected path, because my ishas demanded it of me.”

            “You liked it,” I pointed out.

            He grins, and it truly is ghoulish with his eyes… messed up… the way they are. “Unlike you, there is no conflict in my spirit. You might ponder the source of that conflict, if artist you truly are.”

            “Shame,” I say, “what do you suppose I’ve been doing in my art all my life?”

            He laughs again, pleased, and taps his fingertips together. “Very good. You are old enough to meet me on my own ground. The only question is: will you? And no, don’t tell me ‘at some time.’ Be honest. Art requires honesty.”

            “Honesty as radical as yours changes worlds,” I observe. And before he can regain the upper hand, I say, “Did you love it, even when it hurt?”

            “I loved it, especially when it hurt.” He raises a hand. “No, don’t tell me you don’t understand. Or I’ll wonder if you’re now too old to tell my story. Tell me, aunerai… are you? Or are you artist enough to remember how quick the blood flows through the veins of the new? And how pain is terrible and yet you know yourself alive, feeling it? You want to go to Mishor, because you want to think about death, and infirmity, and a life circumscribed. But that would be easy. Don’t you want to do the hard thing? Aren’t you always doing the hard thing?”

            I pause, then say, “Not as often as I should.”

            “Then, artist…” He rises, still grinning. “…do your duty.”

            I think about what it would take to write the stories of the first Servant of Shame. I know a little more about Thirukedi’s history, and Kherishdar’s. But I would have to meet some people of the time. But I get the feeling that some of them might start showing up… and I wonder where that will lead. What early Kherishdar was like—the Kherishdar that was more of the body.

            He really did throw down the gauntlet. But then, that’s what he did, for an entire empire.

            He also left me a word, though I don’t find it until I’m cleaning up the table. Written in a swift hand: jen. ‘Pioneer.’