viridity, n.1a:the quality or state of being greenb:the color of grass or foliage2:naive innocence

aunera, n.1:a color—emerald green, very lush and deep, with a slight tint of blue2:anything alien, from people to worlds to emotions to thoughts.

This time the Guardians at the Gate with their brightly-sleeved weapons examined the permit produced by Shame and let us pass on. I was expecting more ceremony, perhaps, but there was none, only that careful check and then a wave of a hand. So we kept riding, into the breeze out of the Gate with its coolth and increasingly, its fragrance... something unknown to me, but that felt like the essential definition of cleanliness... or emptiness. Or newness...

I was still trying to find the word when we passed through the film and out of it, instantly, into the colony's bright, hot afternoon. My eyes began watering at once: the colors were so sharply delineated by that hard white sun that I could not find any gradients at all. Each blade of grass was its own, distinct color and I saw them all as separate things. That together those separate things should have made a gradual shading of the brilliant green at the top of the hill to the shadowed brown in its lap never seems to have occurred to any of them.

My first impression, then, of an alien world... was that it was quite intrinsically, poetically, and completely aunerai.

It also smelled liked flowers, and a high, dry smell like dust, though I felt nothing particulate against my skin with the Gate wind blowing at my back.

The Gate on this side was, like its face on our world, paved toward with roads and set about with buildings. Though there was more of it than there was on the opposite side, most of the architecture was familiar: on the right, I saw our warehouses, Guardian barracks, and Gate-houses, with the roads connecting them winding around the short hills in a way I found harmonious; there were, of course, the inevitable gardens, though the familiar flowers looked bizarre beneath the foreign sunlight. But on the left, connected by straight roads laid on a grid pattern, there were buildings made in a fashion unfamiliar to me: utilitarian things with slab sides in plain gray or white paint. They came in different sizes and heights, but that was the only clue to their use for they were otherwise identical, as if they had been upended in place out of similar molds.

Well, not the only clue. As Shame showed his permit yet again to a new set of Guardians, I saw plaques on the walls next to the doors, and my ears flattened to my head.

"Kor," I said, once he'd rejoined me. "They speak a different language."

He glanced at me. "Of course they do."

"That we don't," I said pointedly.

"We do business with them," he said. "Someone must speak both languages. The lord certainly does."

"He at least speaks some form of language they understand," Ajan said from behind us.

Sadly, aunera, that innuendo took me several moments to grasp.

"Ignore him," Kor said. "He's young."

"Less young than frustrated," I said, which was my way of teasing both of them at once; and since I won sharp glances from them both I counted myself quite the success.

"You know your duty," Kor said to Ajan, more seriously.

"Master," Ajan said, matching his mien. And then his mount fell back and I found myself riding alone with my peer.

"You leave him at the Gate?" I asked, puzzled.

"He'll join us soon," Shame said.

Not long after, then, we came to Qenain's Gate-house at the colony, and once again found ourselves leaving our mounts in the hands of their Servants and asking for the lord. Shame sat in the foyer beside the guest fountain, composed, his hands resting on his thighs. I sat across from him and studied the colors of the shadows on the inside of the building. They were grayer here than on our world... less purple, and still sharper despite the sun being on the other side of the walls. I wasn't sure what I would think of working here. All my art would feel too soft for this world. Too civilized to survive, somehow.

I was still considering the notion of art changing to suit its environment rather than to reflect the inner world of its maker, when the Servant returned to regretfully inform us that the lord was not in, and that she wasn't sure where we had gotten our information that he was, as he hadn't been back across the Gate in days.

"Is that so," Shame murmured.

"It is," she said, Abased and obviously distressed. "And we have work here in need of his approval, so if you do find him, osulkedi..."

"We will tell him his duties call him," Shame promised.

And then we were outside, waiting for our animals.

"Do you think he was there, and the Servant lying?"

"Do you?" Kor asked, glancing up at me.

I thought back to her expression, to the hurried movements of her body and the tightness of her gestures, and the way her face had felt open, like a flower. "No."

Kor said, "I agree. And I didn't expect him here."

"If you didn't expect him here, then... how are we to find him?" I said. "He could be anywhere. And these creatures..." I trailed off, staring at the complex on the other side of the road. It was not small. "Presumably his interest is in only one of them. How are we to find it? We don't even know its name!"

"Patience, Farren," Kor said, with a tone that was like a pleased smile. "Why don't we have tea while we wait?"

As our mounts were brought to us, I said, plaintively, "Wait for what?"

Naturally, he did not answer. I pulled myself into the saddle and followed him, and once I drew alongside him said, "You know you don't have to act inscrutable and all-knowing around me."

His mouth worked but managed to avoid breaking into the smile I heard again in his answer. "Indulge me, Farren."

I sighed. "Fine. But only because you are a good cuddler."

No doubt several people wondered why the high priest of Shame in all Kherishdar was laughing so hard when we rode past. I felt some sympathy for their not being able to ask.

The Merchant hall in the colony was maintained by the colony's lord, though in design it more resembled a guest-house than the place we stayed our first night in the capital. It was much smaller, and much, much emptier, as might have been expected: while Merchants can travel freely in Kherishdar, to conduct business on the colony world they needed special permits, and that only to deal with the Ai-Naidar there. To cross the street to do business with the aunera... that is a matter that goes all the way up the chain of responsibility. Such a Merchant would have the backing of a House above the Wall of Birth and would ordinarily be staying at its Gate-house, not in an unaffiliated Merchant hall.

In practice, then, the hall was a tea house that had lodging on the second floor, and catered only to the occasional visitor—osulked like us, most probably, or couriers. Which was a pity, as it was a beautifully designed space; perhaps the colony shared a penchant for mild weather with the capital, as three of the walls were nearly entirely windows, and all of them open. Shame and I sat at a round table near, but not in, the aggressive sunlight, and enjoyed the Gate breeze that passed uninterrupted through the room. It teased the smell of the litsilver blooms planted just outside back within, fresh and new, a perfect accompaniment to the delicate smell of the tea the proprietor herself brought us.

When we thanked her, she said, "It is good to have company."

"Is it always so bright out?" I asked. "The weather feels so fair, and yet the sun seems otherwise."

"It's just the way it shines," she replied, with a courteous level of Abasement. "One grows accustomed to it presenting itself as something more cruel than it is."

"A sun that lies," I murmured.

"A sun that speaks a different language," the proprietor suggested, respectfully, and withdrew.

Shame chuckled, and at my glance said, "It was a well-turned phrase."

"Everything here is a metaphor," I said with a sigh, looking down at my drink. She had served it in very traditional bowl, small and shallow, a beautiful bisque color with a hint of green at its thin brim.

"I would worry less about the sun and more about the world-weight," Kor said. "It is similar enough to fool the body, but by day's end we'll both be more tired than we expect." He glanced at me. "Something to consider if you want to paint later."

"I can't imagine painting here," I said. "In this alien place."