Read Online Dying of the Light by George R.R. Martin - Free Book Online

forever. What do you say?”
    Dirk said nothing.
    “But now,” Ruark said smiling, “you have seen. Me, I wanted that, for you to see. Before I told you. But I was sworn to tell you, yes, a swearing to myself. Gwen, she has told me. We talk, you know, as friends, and I have known her and Jaan too since Avalon. But here we’ve grown closer. She cannot talk of it easily, ever, but she talks to me, or has, and I can tell you. Not violating trust. You are the one to know, I think.”
    The drink sent icy fingers down into his chest, and Dirk felt his weariness lifting. It seemed as if he had been half-asleep, as if Ruark had been talking for a long time and he had missed it all. “What are you talking about?” he said. “What should I know?”
    “Why Gwen needs you,” Ruark said. “Why she sent . . . the thing. The red tear. You know. I know. She has told me.”
    Suddenly Dirk was quite alert, interested and puzzled. “She told you,” he began, then stopped. Gwen had asked him to wait, and long ago the promise he had made—but it fit. Perhaps he should listen, perhaps it was simply hard for her to tell him. Ruark would know. Her friend, she had said in the forests, the only one she could talk to. “What?”
    “You must help her, Dirk t’Larien, somehow. I don’t know.”
    “Help her how?”
    “To be free. To escape.”
    Dirk set his drink down and scratched his head. “From who?”
    “Them. The Kavalars.”
    He frowned. “Jaan, you mean? I met him this morning, him and Janacek. She loves Jaan. I don’t understand.”
    Ruark laughed, sucked from his drink, laughed again. He was dressed in a three-piece suit of alternating brown and green squares, like motley, and as he sat spouting nonsense Dirk wondered if the short ecologist was indeed a fool.
    “Loves him, yes, she said that?” Ruark said. “You are sure of it, are you? Well?”
    Dirk hesitated, trying to remember her words when they had talked by the still, green lake. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But something to that effect. She is—what was it?”
    “Betheyn?”
Ruark suggested.
    Dirk nodded. “Yes,
betheyn,
wife.”
    Ruark chuckled. “No, utter wrong. In the car I listened. Gwen said it wrong. Well, not really, but you took the wrong impression.
Betheyn
is not wife. Part truth the biggest lie of all, remember? What do you think
teyn
is?”
    The word stopped him.
Teyn.
He had heard the word a hundred times on Worlorn. “Friend?” he guessed, not knowing what it meant.
    “
Betheyn
is more of wife than
teyn
is friend,” Ruark said. “Learn the outworlds better, Dirk. No.
Betheyn
is woman-to-man word in Old Kavalar, for a heldwife bound by jade-and-silver. Now, there can be much affection in jade-and-silver, much love, yes. Though, you know, the word used for that, the standard Terran word, there is no like word in Old Kavalar. Interesting, eh? Can they love without a word for it, t’Larien friend?”
    Dirk did not reply. Ruark shrugged and drank and continued. “Well, no matter, but think of it. I spoke of jade-and-silver and yes, often the Kavalars have love in that bond, love from
betheyn
-to-highbond, from highbond-to-
betheyn
sometimes. Or liking, if not love. But not always, and not necessarily! You see?”
    Dirk shook his head.
    “Kavalar bonds are custom and obligation,” Ruark said, leaning forward very intently, “with love latecoming accident. Violent folk, I told you. Read history, read legends. Gwen met Jaan on Avalon, you know, and she did not read. Not enough. He was Jaan Vikary of High Kavalaan, and what was that, some planet? She never knew. Truth. So their liking grew—call it love, perhaps—and sex happens and he offers her jade-and-silver wrought in his pattern, and suddenly she is
betheyn
to him, still not quite knowing. Trapped.”
    “Trapped? How trapped?”
    “Read history! The violence of High Kavalaan is long past, the culture is unchanged. Gwen is
betheyn
to Jaan Vikary,
betheyn
heldwife, his wife, yes,