Pearl in the Void (Stone Moon 2)

When emissaries of the Stone Moon arrive in het Narel, Keshul, the charlatan seer of House Akkadin, is suspicious. Who are these prosperous, well-fed people, and why do they care whether the Houses of het Narel have better wells and healthier crops? It doesn't take long for Keshul to see the breadth of their ambitions and to know they must be fought. But in that battle he discovers that bringing about the downfall of the Stone Moon may undo everything its emperor has planned for the species... including its survival.

Is freedom the price the Jokka must pay to stave off extinction? And what price will Keshul be forced to personally pay to see his mission to its end?

Genre (setting): low fantasy (Jokka)
Tags: aliens, no-humans, neuters, trisexual, low tech
Rating: R for rape, violence

Excerpt from Part 1

                  As usual, both friend and apprentice were awaiting me when I arrived, and both knew instantly that I had had a long night.

                  Bilil said, "I'll get tea," and vanished before I could protest that I loved him. That left me to Dekashin, who said, "Something uncomfortable."

                  "Is it so obvious?" I asked.

                  It just shook its head and said, "Keshul, Keshul. How long have we known you now?"

                  "Long enough," I admitted, and sat across from it after pulling off my pants and vest. The long-cloth I left on, but after wearing the rest of it all day I got tired of the drag at my hair, which sprouted all the way down my spine to my tail. I scrubbed my face with cold hands, wondering if the Void would ever leave them so I could be warm again. "I don't suppose you've heard anything in the het."

                  "Heard anything?" Dekashin asked. "That's remarkably vague."

                  "Anything about... changes," I said. "Big changes."

                  It clicked its tongue against its teeth. "Nothing like that, no. But I haven't been out in town for a few days, with the pefna working us all so much. Why?"

                  "I had a client..." I said, and trailed off as Bilil joined us. This time I finished the ritual: "I love you."

                  "I know," he said, smiling, and poured us all tea.

                  "An emodo came to me," I continued after my apprentice had settled, bright tail folded over his feet. "Asking about whether he should fight some change. And the... Void... was interested in it. I think."

                  "You think?" Dekashin asked carefully. Neither of us were true believers... or at least, Dekashin wasn't and I didn't want to be. But the incident last year with Running Rikka and the Unnamed had given me a bad turn on the subject. Since then, I'd had occasional inexplicable knowledge that I tried not to examine too closely.

                  "I think," I agreed, trying not to sound as miserable as I was. "I told him—or something told him—that there would be no fighting this change. It seemed more significant than just some internal matter or personal decision."

                  "Who was it, did you know him?" Dekashin asked.

                  "I couldn't even read his house token," I said. "But he was rich. Very rich. And not young." I thought. "I've seen him in the center of town, maybe. Short ear tufts, curled. Pale in the starlight. And a ridged profile, not sloped."

                  "Ke Eduñil," Bilil said promptly.

                  We both stared at him.

                  "Ke Eduñil," Bilil repeated. "Who heads the House of Transactions. His mane was short, cut at the shoulders? And dark eyes, with one spiral under the left."

                  "Yes," I said, startled. "How..."

                  "I met him when Akkadin was arranging for my apprenticeship," he said. "He'd come to oversee the transaction. It was only a few moments, but that was long enough to make an impression." He sipped his tea. "The profile and the short tufts, and the rich part... that sounds like him."

                  "Ah...so the emodo in charge of Transactions is worried about a big change?" Dekashin asked me, ears flattening against its head. "And the Void was interested in it?"

                  "The Void thought there was nothing but grief waiting for us without it, but cruelty with it," I said with a try at a smile that came out decidedly lopsided. "Which does sound like the counsel of the god of night."

                  Dekashin stared at nothing for a moment, then said with an equally wry expression, "Did this rich emodo at least pay you?"

                  Bilil snorted, but I said nothing and handed over the fist-sized shell. Dekashin turned the conch in its clever fingers and said, "For some reason, the Jokka the Void takes an interest in always seem to have deep pockets."

                  "Then we should soon expect shell to be worthless," I said, chafing my cold fingers together. At the look the two gave me, I said, irritated, "It's the Void. All that He touches comes undone."

                  "Sometimes," Bilil said, "something must come undone before it can be repaired."

                  "And how much more undone can we possibly become?" I asked him now, ears flat. "Have you noticed we're practically extinct as it is? Soon there will be nothing left of us. We'll go the way of the eightclaws."

                  "Some say there are still eightclaws on the plains," Dekashin murmured.

                  "Some say that love solves all problems and things always turn out for the best," I said. "They're wrong too."

                  Bilil set his tea down and said, "Well, if we're already nearly undone, master, then surely the repair is coming soon."

                  "The repair?" I asked. "Or the final blow?"

                  "Either way," Dekashin said. "That would be change."

                  I clawed my hair over my face and squeezed my eyes shut. My muscles did not release until Bilil brought me soup and Dekashin draped a blanket over me.

                  "Be at peace," Dekashin said more gently. "Sometimes a fortune is just a story, Keshul. You should know that better than any of us."

                  "And sometimes," I said. "It's not."