CHAPTER 16
You say the Goddess is but
a relic of our minds. If so, from
whence come our minds? If no creator,
how were we created? Something cannot come
from nothing. Even a fool knows this.
-Grand Bishop Hoortis,
"Defending the Scrolls"
Siverelle gasped on the sidelines as she saw
Gytira get knocked brutally by the blue uniformed point guard of the opposing
school's team. She thought for a moment
that her youngest daughter was injured and would fall to the ground, but the
tough, gray-skinned girl recovered quickly and gracefully. She waved first to her coach and then to her
mother that she was all right. Then,
with a silent brainwave command to the float-harness she wore, she shot back
toward the fray, chasing the hoverball, as well as the indecorous point guard,
down the field toward the opponent's goal.
Siverelle exhaled with relief when
she realized Gytira was not injured.
Hoverball was a rough sport and many a player ended up with injuries,
even in a beginner's league like this.
She watched as the players circled around the drifting ball at various
angles, looking for an unblocked shot, like colorful electrons orbiting their
nucleus. They were at the far end of
the huge field now and Siverelle had a hard time distinguishing her daughter
from her identically yellow-clad teammates.
She tried to assure herself that she didn't have to worry, that Gytira
was as tough as nails. But it was a parent's
prerogative to worry and worry she did.
Gytira was Siverelle's youngest
until two years ago, when Evoth made his unplanned appearance in the
World. She looked down at the green
skinned boy who stood dutifully next to her, but he was unaware of her attention,
having given his to another boy of equivalent age some meters away. The other boy was playing with his own toy
hoverball, which floated whimsically back and forth between his tiny hands. Evoth watched the ball with envious
eyes. When he realized his mother was
watching, he looked up at her with a pleading look and said,
"Mother?" He did not actually
say it, but it was clear he wanted his own.
Siverelle had seen the toy balls at the souvenir stand on the way into
the stadium.
"Okay, Evoth," she said
with a smile, "You've been very good today. We'll get one of those on the way out."
She had planned to get him one as a
gift for the upcoming day of Leetus, the most sacred and most widely observed
of saurian holidays, which celebrated the creation of the World. But she decided she would get him the ball
now and find another holiday gift later.
"Promise?"
"I promise," she assured
him.
The boy smiled and went back to
watching the other boy play, no doubt planning the tricks he would do with his
own, once he had it. Siverelle hoped to
T'Chen they wouldn't be sold out of the balls when they were leaving. There didn't seem to be many available when
they had entered and Evoth would not peacefully let her forget the promise.
Of Sarwin and Siverelle's six
children, four of them, including Evoth, had inherited Siverelle's green Priat
hide. But Gytira and Playtia, her
eldest daughter, were gray like their father.
Neither Sarwin nor Siverelle much cared what color their children were,
they loved them all equally, but saurian society was inexorably intolerant of
mixing the races. Although it was not
technically illegal to interbreed, the pillars of society, most notably the
T'Chen church, did whatever they could to discourage it.
Historically, Saurians known to be
half-breeds were treated with exceptional cruelty, often being rejected by both
races. Fortunately for Siverelle and
her family, there were an increasing number of secular institutions, such as
this private school that Gytira attended, that were not nearly as bigoted as
their theological equivalents. Although
Siverelle was a spiritual being and believed strongly in T'Chen, she disagreed
with some of the church's official interpretations of the Sacred Scrolls. It pleased her that there seemed to be a
renaissance of tolerant thinking sweeping her people in recent years.
But there was still a long way to
go. Violence between religious and
secular forces, instigated by both sides equally, was becoming increasingly
common in the news. Siverelle had a
peaceful spirit and such things troubled her greatly. She could not understand how religious people, who claimed to
harbor nothing but love for their fellow saurians, could lift a finger against
them. Conversely, the anti-religious
factions felt the peaceful rule of secular law should govern the World, yet
they often violated such laws in their continuing battle with the church. Siverelle sighed sadly to herself. What good are principles if they are ignored
when they get in the way of what you want, she thought.
A great roar from the crowd around
her stirred Siverelle from her thoughts.
Apparently, someone on her daughter's team had scored. She craned her neck to see over the people in
front and was rewarded by the sight of Gytira being hugged by her teammates for
having made the goal. Siverelle let out
a smile and cheered. She picked up
Evoth and held him high, so he could also see his elder sister's victory, but
he still seemed more interested in the other boy's toy ball. She put Evoth back down and watched the
brief, impromptu celebration in midfield.
The green skinned point guard who
had so roughly banged her daughter earlier drifted past the tiny revelry,
glaring at Gytira. When she was sure
Gytira was looking at her, she spit offensively toward the ground in an overt
display of hate, then buzzed off to join her teammates in their floating
huddle.
Still so far to go, thought
Siverelle.
With a shrill tweet of the referee's
whistle, the huddles broke and the game resumed afresh. The ref launched the ball down the field and
the two teams chased after it, like a multicolored school of spermatozoa
pursuing a reluctant ovum. In this
final triad of the match, which color got to the ball first would probably
decide the outcome of the game.
The correlation to her own children
was not lost on Siverelle. Whichever
sperm of her husband had reached her egg first had shaped the future of that
particular child. Playtia and Gytira
had been shorted in this regard. Though
they were as capable in every way as their verdant siblings, they would be
given far fewer opportunities to prove it in this World. It was official, as far as Siverelle was
concerned; life just wasn't fair.
She watched as Gytira zoomed past
again, this time trying to prevent the blue team from scoring a goal. Siverelle thought back to when she was
Gytira's age and her mother would watch her play games like this one. They’d had a wonderful relationship back
then and Siverelle missed that part of her life terribly. She had hardly spoken a word to Ampharix in
the past eighteen years that she had been with Sarwin. Siverelle did not want it that way and she
suspected that her mother, at least some part of her, did not want it that way
either.
But her husband had become a great
enemy of the church, at least in the church's eyes, and Ampharix was its sworn
protector.
Though she tried not to dwell on it,
Siverelle knew her mother despised Sarwin and probably would have had him
killed long ago, had Siverelle not intervened.
She believed her mother was not an intrinsically evil person, only
misguided by an unbending love for the church and an equally unbending fear of
anyone who opposed it. Siverelle had
tried reasoning with her mother about Sarwin, but there was no reasoning with
someone so entrenched in her own view of the World. The Scrolls said it, Ampharix believed it and that settled
it. End of conversation.
Ampharix had refused her permission
for Siverelle and Sarwin to marry in the temple, but after three years and two
children, they were considered common law spouses. This was enough for Sarwin, who considered Siverelle his wife,
the pompous opinions of the church and society be damned. But it troubled Siverelle that they were not
joined in the eyes of heaven, though she did not voice this to Sarwin. She feared she would never sit at the table
of T'Chen, as she was taught since childhood all worthy saurians would when
they died. This saddened her deeply.
It was tragic that Ampharix never
saw her grandchildren. Siverelle had
invited her many times to see them, but she steadfastly refused. She had sent her mother photographs of them,
but the packages were returned, unopened.
Siverelle could almost understand why Ampharix would disavow Playtia and
Gytira. Almost. But the others were a perfectly acceptable
shade of green. Perhaps her mother's
heart was harder than Siverelle wanted to believe.
Considering that the great and
powerful Priat senator was a half-breed herself, one might think Ampharix would
be more sympathetic. Siverelle pondered
the awful secret that she knew about her mother. It was probably the reason her husband was still among the
breathing. Ampharix's father, whom
Siverelle had never met, was a gray-skinned Ordinary. Fortunately, for her mother's career, Ampharix had inherited her
mother's Priat complexion and her father died when she was an infant, so he was
not around to embarrass her in later life.
These things Siverelle had learned from her grandmother, Ampharix's
mother, who confided the secret to Siverelle on her deathbed, many years ago.
Seeking her own proof, Siverelle had
sought out and located her gray-skinned uncle, Ampharix's older brother, who
lived a lavish lifestyle in far-off Garath, financed by his younger sister, as
long as he stayed silent about his heritage.
The choice had been easy for him.
Live comfortably but anonymously in exile, or die. If word got out that gray blood flowed in a
senior senator’s green veins, let alone one who led the council of elders, Ampharix's
career would be shattered overnight.
Siverelle desperately wished she
didn't have to use this threat to keep her mother at bay, but she had no
choice. She didn't care much if Sarwin
and Ampharix would ever come together.
Their ideologies were just too far apart for that to happen and
Siverelle had long since accepted they would never be close. But it was such a shame that Ampharix would
never see her grandchildren; and that they would never meet their famous
grandmother. Siverelle knew this hurt
Playtia, who had now grown old enough to understand.
In just a few weeks, Siverelle knew
she would see her mother for the first time in years, albeit from a distance,
when Sarwin debated his case before the senate. Siverelle had her own internal debate regarding the matter, as to
whether she should bring their children to watch. She had all but decided she would not, due mainly to the danger
surrounding the event, as violent protests from both sides of the issue were to
be expected. And although she would not
admit it to Sarwin least it undermine his confidence, she also harbored fears
that he might lose his argument and she did not want the children to see their
father humiliated before the eyes of the World.
Another roar from the crowd brought
Siverelle back into the here and now.
Her daughter's team had scored again, though not at Gytira's hand this
time. But the game was over and her
team had won. Siverelle watched
joyously as Gytira joined her teammates in big group hug, spinning around in an
embracing circle that drifted languidly over the mid field line.
After a long bout of cheering and
clapping, the spectators began to head for the exits and Siverelle knew she
would have to meet Gytira at the main entrance soon to take her home. But she still had time to get Evoth his toy.
Siverelle looked down and was
surprised to see Evoth playing with a hoverball, floating it joyfully back and
forth between his hands, giggling with delight. She assumed he had acquired it from the other boy, but when she
looked, she saw the other child still had his own.
"Evoth, where did you get
that?" she asked, a little worried.
"The nice old matron,
mother," he answered, pointing away, into the departing crowd, "She
gave it to me."
Siverelle looked in the direction of where the child pointed, but saw only the manifold backs of departing spectators. Then for a moment, she thought she caught a glimpse of a tall figure wearing a dark hooded cloak, leaving one of the exits in the distance. Just before disappearing out of the door, the figure turned for second, revealing for a fleeting moment the verdant face of an aged matron, who wore a golden diadem of high office marking her forehead. Before Siverelle's eyes could focus to identify the distant matron, the old woman turned away and quickly vanished out the exit, merging with the hundreds of other homeward bound souls who filed out in droves.