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little people and pots of gold at the end of rainbows. But there had been a
darker side to some of those stories, too.
Once my mother told me an old, old story about Lyr, an ancient Sidhe god. She
said that she told me because, before there were demis and cybs and draffs,
there were legends and myths, and that some of those myths were real. She
never said which were, and when I asked her, she'd only answered that they all
held truth, and that I'd have to find out which held which truths, because
once I was a demi, I'd have to understand. She knew from the beginning where I
was headed.
I didn't remember much of the story about Lyr, except three things. First was
that he was the god of the sea with horses like sea-serpents that pulled boat
chariots through the storms. Second, was that he wasn't a big tall god, and he
looked like a little old man. Last was that he went out of his way to put down
heroes. I wondered if that part got added because my mother didn't care much
for heroes.
"Storms on the sea they don't care whether you're a hero or a coward or a
draff or a demi. When the clouds clear and the sea is flat, none leaves
footprints. Nor does Lyr. The gods of the land, they tear up the ground and
leave mountains and hills and canyons, but for all the violence on the sea,
it's unchanging. The only thing the sea changes is the land."
Now, Yslena was working for Lyr, so to speak, and my parents had been dead for
a decade, and Morgen was gone, too. Time was like Lyr, too, I thought as I
took a sip from the refilled wineglass. Not many left footprints on time or on
the water.
Idres brought the salad, with the strong-tasting goat cheese and the tangy
dark brown olives. I wondered what cow cheese might have tasted like, but
there were so few cattle left that I'd never had any.
"Do you think they will try to destroy all the locials?" Dhozer appeared and
added a touch more wine to my glass.
"They could; they could try anything."
"A pity they have learned so little." He replaced the olive oil and vinegar
with a fresh dish, and added another quarter-loaf of bread to my basket.
I nodded as I took another bite of salad.
'You should try the leklavi."
"I should eat the dolmades before I consider something that rich," I
countered.
He smiled as he headed for the door and a new customer, a thin, dark-haired
woman.
In the end, I didn't have the leklavi, and I left early, still feeling
stuffed. I didn't need to complicate things by waiting until I was totally
exhausted before taking the flitter home in the dark, instrument beacon or not
at the house.
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The Construct
Mutual individual respect and self-respect must be maintained, since the
greater the mutual respect between individuals and the respect for the role of
each individual within society, the more stable the society.
Because society is based on trust, trust cannot be withheld on unfounded
suspicion.
Threats are a form of mistrust; so are unprovoked violence, use of physical
force, and manipulation of another. Failure to be trustworthy requires removal
from society.
Attempts to redefine principles into written rules of conduct reflect mistrust
and are doomed to failure.
Direct statements of individual desires are not forms of mistrust, but no
individual or group of individuals is bound or required to fulfill another's
desire.
Society may agree upon mutually restrictive and/or coercive measures, but only
so long as such measures have commensurate impacts upon those who develop and
impose such measures.
The previous day's clouds had lifted, and as I landed and air-taxied the
flitter to the base of the Deseret locial, a glance to the east showed that
the warmer breeze out of the southwest was strong enough at the higher
altitudes to lift plumes of snow off the eastern peaks.
After shutting down the turbines and flight systems, I'd barely lifted the
thin case containing the copy of The Paradigms of Power and a general recent
history of Old Earth off the second seat of the flitter when Kemra waved from
beneath the nose of the cyb lander, a boosted hydrocarb monster that had to
gulp kilolitres of fuel on every hop.
After sealing my comparatively minuscule flitter, I linked with Crucelle and
Keiko and walked toward the cyb craft. I wore a winter jacket, not the black
cloak. The ruins would be cold.
"Any reports to you from Elanstan?"
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