Local Custom by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

doubtless delighted the resident population. Er Thom shivered violently as he hit Quad S and belatedly dragged on his jacket, sealing the front and jerking the collar up.

    Jamming his hands into the fur-lined pockets, he strode off, heedless both of his direction and the stares of those he passed, and only paused in his headlong flight when he found water barring his path.

    He stopped and blinked over the glittering expanse before him, trying to steady his disordered thoughts.

    The child's name was yos'Galan.

    He shivered again, though he had walked far enough and hard enough for the exercise to warm him.

    His melant'i was imperiled—though that hardly concerned him, so much had he already worked toward its ruination—and the melant'i of Clan Korval, as well. A yos'Galan born and the clan unaware? Korval was High House and known to be eccentric—society wags spoke of 'the Dragon's directive' and 'Korval madness'—but even so strong and varied a melant'i could scarcely hope to come away from such a debacle untainted.

    Er Thom closed his eyes against the lake's liquid luster. Why? Why had she done this thing? What had he done that demanded such an answer from her? So stringent a balancing argued an insult of such magnitude he must have been aware of his transgression—and he recalled nothing.

    Abruptly he laughed. Whatever the cause, only see the beauty of the balance! A yos'Galan, born and raised as Terran, growing to adulthood, building what melant'i he might, clan and line alike all in ignorance . . .  If Er Thom yos'Galan had been a stronger man, one who knew enough of duty to embrace forgetfulness without once more seeking out the cause of his heart-illness . . .  It was, in truth, an artwork of balance.

    But what coin of his had purchased it? If Anne had felt herself slighted, if he had belittled her or failed someway of giving her full honor—

    "Hold." He opened his eyes, staring sightlessly across the lake.

    "Anne is Terran ," he told himself, as revelation began to dawn.

    There were some who argued that Terrans possessed neither melant'i nor honor. It was a view largely popular with those who had never been beyond Liad or Liad's Outworlds. Traders and Scouts tended to espouse a less popular philosophy, based on actual observation.

    He himself had traded with persons unLiaden. As with Liadens, there were those who were honorable and those who were, regrettably, otherwise. Local custom often dictated a system strange to Liaden thought, though, once grasped, it was seen to be honor, and consistent with what one knew to be right conduct.

    Daav went further, arguing that melant'i existed independent of a person's consciousness, and might be deduced from careful observation. It was then the burden of a person of conscious melant'i to give all proper respect to the unawakened consciousness and guard its sleeping potential.

    Er Thom had thought his brother's view extreme. Until he had met Anne Davis.

    He knew Anne to be a person of honor. He had observed her melant'i first-hand and at length and he would place it, in its very different strengths, equal to his own. She was not one to start a debt-war from spite, nor to take extreme balance as bolster for an unsteady sense of self.

    Is it possible, he asked himself, slowly, that Anne named the boy so to honor me?

    The lake dazzled his eyes as the paving stones seemed to move under his feet. He grappled with the notion, trying to accommodate the alien shape, and he grit his teeth against a desire to cry out that no one might reasonably think such a thing.

    Facts: Anne was an honorable person. There had been nothing requiring balance between them. The child's name was yos'Galan. Therefore, Anne had meant honor—or at the least no harm—to him by her actions.

    He drew a deep breath of chill air, almost giddy with relief, that there was no balancing here that he must answer; that he need not bring harm to her whom he wished only to cherish and