minute, Anne stared at the place where he had been. Then the full force of her grief caught her and she bent double, sobbing.
Chapter Six
Any slight—no matter how small—requires balancing, lest the value of one's melant'i be lessened
Balance is an important, and intricate, part of Liaden culture, with the severity of rebuttal figured individually by each debt-partner, in accordance with his or her own melant'i. For instance, one Liaden might balance an insult by demanding you surrender your dessert to him at a society dinner, whereas another individual might calculate balance of that same insult to require a death.
Balance-death is, admittedly, rare. But it is best always to speak softly, bow low and never give a Liaden cause to think he has been slighted.
—From A Terran's Guide to Liad
IT WAS A CRISP , bright day of the kind that 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
John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly