The Ordinary by Jim Grimsley

Author:Jim Grimsley
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2004-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

14

The meal was a bit of paradise, food that soothed her, mostly vegetables, along with more of the wine, one of the dark vintages, as her host termed them. By now they were well beyond the cup of friendship, though Jedda was careful to drink slowly, since she had no stat to help her system regulate the alcohol. Jessex paced himself as well, though she wondered if he were doing this for effect. The room, small and intimate, contained some of the few paintings she had ever seen here, what looked like oil on canvas; most of the Erejhen art to which she had been exposed was woven. These were paintings in the abstract, a style with which she was familiar from her own world but that surprised her to see here, hanging against the warm cream-colored stone of the walls.

“These paintings are very old, from an era in which this kind of———” and again he used a word she made nothing of, “was very popular. There have been two or three periods of art in this style, maybe more. Even I’m not old enough to know all our history.”

“What was the word you used? The name of the style of art?”

He spelled it. “Thorombulan.” He added, “That is the configuration of the word in your era. The older sound is slightly more elaborate.” He pronounced it and spelled it, to show the difference. “Thorombaryean.” He sighed after he said the older word, the sound full and deep-timbred. “The words grow shorter as time passes. I wonder why, sometimes.”

“Words don’t always grow shorter. But they always change.”

He watched her. “Does this mean you’re thinking about what I’ve told you?”

“Yes.”

“So will you make me draw this from you by questions?” He gave her a sly smile.

She laughed, softly. “I’ve studied many languages, including your own. If there’s a language that I can learn that will teach me what you do, I want to learn it. Or at least to find out whether I can or not.”

His face grew impassive; for a moment he seemed altogether remote, and she wondered whether she had said the wrong thing. “What bad timing,” he said, and came back to the room. “What you have said is wonderful. We’ll talk more, but I must withdraw for a moment.”

The lights from outside grew suddenly bright, and when she walked to the windows, leaving him seated at the table, silent and motionless, the lights outside were brighter, moving in an almost inky way through a mist that had settled over the house and hill, obscuring all but the two blurred moons in the sky and the haze of lights of the immense house in that volume of space below. A sound caused Jedda to look back. A woman opened the door from the serving area of the apartments, saw Jessex sitting frozen in his chair, and quickly drew out her head again.

Wind pressed against the glass panes of the windows, strong and vocal, a long low scouring. Jedda

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