The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(450)

I knew what a rebellion was! A long long time ago, like a whole three hundred years, a godling called Kahl Avenger had tried to do bad things. Everybody was still upset about it. “And everybody is still upset about it.” I was trying to sound wise.

“No, it was ages ago; everyone who lived through that time is long dead. And the rebels were fools.” Eino scowled, stepping into his slippers. “They hoped that a few weapons and help from Tokken and Menchey—nations that were our enemies back then—would allow them to overthrow the government and establish a different rule. Male rule, in the foreign fashion of things. But the Darre were warriors then, much more than now, and the rebellion was put down. Harshly.”

Well, that wasn’t a very good story! “What happened to them?”

“Tried as traitors and executed or exiled. And then, even though men had helped to fight back against the rebels, even though a man was ennu, the nation’s leader, at the time… the women took away any rights the men possessed.” Eino shook his head, flicking at wrinkles and making minute adjustments to his robes. “To vote, to hold property, to occupy any positions of worth, even to be counted adults in their own right. It was a reaction against everything seen as a contribution to the rebellion: the weak ennu, a war that had decimated the country a few decades before, foreign influences. But that’s why now, a bunch of boys gathering to have fun brings down fifty hells’ worth of wrath.” He sighed and shook his head. “Or maybe that was me. That scroll I had you deliver—it was a proposal to grant men inheritance rights. It probably had no chance of passing, but I just wanted them to consider it, for gods’ sake. Instead, it just seems to have made them angry. Hells.” He began to take the combs out of his hair, letting it fall back into its usual black river.

I felt really sad and flat then, all the fun of the dance gone. “Why do you do things like this, then? Dance when you’re not supposed to, ask for things that make people mad? Wouldn’t it be easier to just…” I shrugged. I didn’t really know how to say it.

He let out a sharp sort of laugh that didn’t sound like he actually thought anything was funny. “You really are new to this realm, aren’t you? You don’t know mortals very well.”

I nodded, glad to finally have the conversation return to something I understood. “I’m new to everything. You are the first mortal I ever met.”

“The first—” Eino frowned. “You do seem… inexperienced. And, well, young. But one can never tell with godlings; forgive me if you’re actually a billion years old.”

I had to count on my fingers, and multiply by the spins of this galaxy’s wheel, and then by the expansion of the universe, and some other things. Time is annoying. “I’m almost a thousand hours old!”

“A thousand—” He got an odd look on his face. “Hours?”

Oh, wait, he had used years. But I needed the next thing smaller than a year. “Um, a month?”

He stared at me. “You’re one month old?”

“And, like, ten days.” It wasn’t like I was still a baby.

After a long, silent stretch he burst out laughing, and it was almost a mean laugh but not quite. “Gods, this is my luck! But I suppose I should thank you—er.”

“Shill! My name is Shill!”

He inclined his head in a formal sort of way. “Eino mau Tehno tai wer Tellomi, Shill-medre.” Son of Tehno, of the same clan as Fahno, and he’d given my name a suffix that just meant he wanted to be polite to a strange woman. I beamed, delighted, especially since I was still wearing a boy body. “Lady Shill, rather. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to keep the others hidden, without you.”

“You’re welcome! I would have done it for you, though, if you’d asked, so then you wouldn’t be so tired. That would be my thank-you for the dancing. Or fighting.” I frowned, confused.

Eino smiled. “Both. In the days before the traitors, that was how men fought to hide their strength from—and display their beauty to—women. It was called anatun, the battle-dance.”

“I like anatun! I became more of myself while dancing with you.” Eagerly I grabbed one of the dangly parts of his sleeve; this, finally, was what I needed to talk to him about. “Will you help me?”

His expression grew wary. “Help you do what?”

“I don’t know what I am.” I bit my lip. Mortals had different ways of saying it. How had Ia explained it to Fahno? “I don’t know my… nature. But lots of godlings, they come to this realm and meet mortals who help them figure themselves out. I think you can be that person for me!”