"Tomorrow?" I said, stifling my dismay. "I was hoping to put paid to this errand as quickly as possible, and now we will have to tarry here for an entire night?"

"I think I can find something to do with an entire night," Kor said, and touched his fingertips to Ajan's chin, startling the youth. "What do you think, menuredi?"

Now this pause made the first one look positively leisurely. The eagerness and hope that energized the youth was palpable, though his bearing and speech were punctiliously correct. "I might have some notions, masuredi, if you are so inclined."

"I think it is past time for me to be so inclined," Kor said, and to my delight allowed me to witness his first lover's kiss with his penokedi. It was a sweet, brief thing that looked, on the surface, much like the chaste kisses he gave me... and left all of us with our fur on end.

"I believe I shall see to the fathrikedi, and perhaps arrange our dinner," I said, sliding off the bed. I accepted with concealed amusement the robe Ajan found for me with such alacrity it seemed magical. "I'll knock if anything significant needs your attention, my peer."

"Thank you, ajzelin," Kor said, and there was a depth in his voice that made it clear what he was thanking me for.

I left them to one another, then. And when I had closed the door, I am not at all ashamed to admit, aunera... that I perhaps did a little dance-in-place for sheer glee.

"You seem happy," the fathrikedi said from the door to the bathing chamber.

"Tell me, fathrikedi," I said, moving carefully to a seat in one of the chairs by the window. "What is your favorite version of the parable of the broken pot?"

She snorted. "I hate them all. So much fuss over a stupid pot! Fix it, get a new one, do without, but for the sake of love, move on already and stop talking so much about it." She joined me, dropping to her knees at my foot. "So, they finally decided to consummate their unrequited body-love."

I glanced down at her. She was shrouded in the blanket from the massage table and looked somewhat more together than she had earlier. "You noticed?"

She sighed at my apparent naiveté. "Osulkedi, anyone who glanced at them even once would notice."

I laughed. "I am a sad specimen, it seems."

"You are an artist," she said. "It is a characteristic of artists."

"To be daft?" I said, too pleased to be much distressed over her critique.

"To be consumed in their own worlds," she said. "There is an inevitable travel time required for an artist to move from his world into ours sufficiently to communicate with us."

I eyed the top of her head. "You are teasing me, fathrikedi."

She met my eyes and grinned; this close I could see the hints of her distress, though she had done admirable work minimizing the swollen skin around her eyes. Their rims remained raw, though, like a hint of cosmetics gone wrong. I felt it like a color I could mix on a palette, a broken-open flesh color, like a fruit bruised to spilling...

"You see," she said. "You're doing it now."

"I am observing that your eyes have cried, though you have hidden it well!" I objected.

"Shame observes that my eyes have cried, and I have hidden it well," she said with a laugh. "You observe how they look, and you will be busy with that for long enough that the reason they look that way will only occur to you... later. As I said. You must travel into this world from your own."

I hmphed, but I was not truly upset. I had helped my ajzelin—had Corrected him in the Emperor's stead—had in fact served as his poor, bound-up fathrikedi at the shrine had served!—and we had both come out the other side well... better than well, even.

"It's good," she said after a moment. "They suit one another. And gods know Kherishdar's sole Shame needed a good—"

This word she used, aunera, was rude in the extreme. I'm told you have several equivalents, but I would not use them, lest I give offense in two languages.

I cleared my throat and said, "This not being my area of expertise, I will bow to your superior knowledge."

She laughed. "I won't tease you about what you need, then, osulkedi—"

"I should hope not!" I interrupted.

"But I don't think it's heavy petting and hot sweating between the sheets," she finished.

Surprised, I said, "Really?"

"Really," she said, resettling her blanket around her narrow shoulders. "Not to say you wouldn't benefit from a little physical relief. I just think you need help of a different sort."

"Pray, don't leave me in suspense, fathrikedi," I said, looking down at her.

"You need... a massage," she said, with a sly grin. "You have been moving like someone three times your age since before you crossed the Gate."

"People three times my age are dead," I said, ears flattened.

"Exactly," she said.

"I'm not that stiff!" I said, and then flexed my toes experimentally. Wincing, I finished, "Much."

She laughed. "A deal, then, osulkedi. You give me a name. I'll give you a massage that will make you feel a third your age."

"One third my age would be too young by far to be giving fathriked names of the kind you're imagining," I said. "I am not that old..." She waited, and I said, at last—because when can I turn down a challenge these days? Apparently never—"Very well. A name for a massage. But you must allow me to use the time under your hands to consider it."

"If I do my job well, you won't be able to think of anything!" she said, rising.

"Then you will have to make do with your name being 'ahhh'," I said.

"The out-breath of a contented, cared-for universe?" she said. "I could be happy with that. Come, Calligrapher. The sooner we repair to the bathroom... the sooner the happy lovers can make free with their noises without concerning themselves over our delicate ears."

"Do you really think..." I began, and then stopped myself. I could only too well imagine Kor devoting some part of his thoughts to protecting my sensibilities, and being quite aware of where in the suite I was. "Lead on, fathrikedi."

Reck this: Once there was an aridkedi, a country Merchant, who was known far afield for her gift for making pots of extraordinary beauty... such beauty, in fact, that to see them broken was a cause for grief among all those who bought her work. They often brought her shattered pieces after one of those breaks, begging her to mend the pot, or grieving if it was beyond aid.

Now, the potter was a good friend to an artist, who was taking tea with her one day when another Ai-Naidari brought a collection of these pieces to the shop. After the patron had left, the potter poured these pieces into a box behind her counter.

'What is that box?' said the artist.

'This is where I dump the remains of my broken works,' the potter said. 'I have no use for the pieces, so I collect them here until I have time to dispose of them.'

'Give them to me!' the artist said. 'I shall put them to work again.'

The aridkedi did so allow, and the artist took the box home. She assembled the broken pieces into new vases, strange and fragile and variegated. These vases became very popular as vauni haale—vessels used as focus for meditation. Some say they helped popularize the use of such vessels.

This is the parable of the broken pot. Reck it well.