Free At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) by C. J. Cherryh Page A

the hands of the Methi’s guards:
    “Take care of Mim. And I do not want her or your father or any of Elas to come to the Afen. I do not want her involved and I am afraid for you all.”
    “You do not have to go,” Kta insisted.
    “Eventually,” Kurt repeated, “I would have to. You have taught me there is grace in recognizing necessity. Take care of her.” And with Kta, that he knew so well, he put out his hand instinctively to touch, and refrained.
    It was Kta who gripped his hand, an uncertain, awkward gesture, not at all nemet. “You have friends and kinsmen now. Remember it.”

6
    “There is no need of that,” Kurt cried, shaking off the guards’ hands as they persisted in hurrying him through the gates of the Afen. No matter how quickly he walked, they had to push him or lay hands on him, so that people in the streets stopped and stared, most unnemetlike, most embarrassing for Elas. It was to spite Nym that they did it, he was sure, and rather than make a public scene worse, he had taken the abuse until they entered the Afen court, beyond witnesses.
    There was a long walk between the iron outer gate and the wooden main door of the Afen, for that space Kurt argued with them, then found them fanning out to prevent him from the very door toward which they were tending.
    He knew the game. They wanted him to resist. He had done so. Now they had the excuse they wanted, and they began to close up on him.
    He ran the only way still open, to the end of the courtyard, where it came up against the high peak of the lock on which the Afen sat, a facing wall of gray basalt. It was beyond the witness of anyone on the walk between the wall-gate and the door.
    They herded him. He knew it and was willing to go as long as there was room to retreat, intending to pay double at least on one of them when they finally closed in on him. T’Senife, who had insulted Nym, that was the one he favored killing, a slit-eyed fellow with a look of inborn arrogance.
    But to kill him would endanger Elas; he dared not, and knew how it must end. He risked other’s lives, even fighting them.
    A small gate was set in the wall near the rock. He bolted for it, surprising them, desperately flinging back the iron bar.
    A vast courtyard lay beyond it, a courtyard paved in polished marble, with a single building closing it off, high-columned, a white cube with three triangular pylons arching over its long steps.
    He ran, saw the safety of the familiar wall-street to his left, leading to the main street of Nephane, back to the witness of passersby.
    But for the sake of Elas he dared not take the matter into public. He knew Nym and Kta, knew they would involve themselves, to their hurt and without the power to help him.
    He ran instead across the white court, his sandaled feet and those of his pursuers echoing loudly on the deserted stones. The wall-street was the only way in. The precinct was a cul-de-sac, backed by the temple, flanked on one side by a high wall and on the other by the living rock.
    His pursuers put on a sudden burst of speed. He did likewise, thinking suddenly that they did not want him to reach this place, a religious place, a sanctuary.
    He sprang for the polished steps, raced up them, slipping and stumbling in his haste and exhaustion.
    Fire roared inside, an enormous bowl of flame leaping within, a heat that filled the room and flooded even the outer air, a phusmeha so large the blaze made the room glow gold, whose sound was like a furnace.
    He stopped without any thought in his mind but terror, blasted by the heat on his face and drowned in the sound of it. It was a rhmei, and he knew its sanctity.
    His pursuers had stopped, a scant few strides behind him on the steps. He looked back. T’ Senife beckoned him.
    “Come down,” said t’Senife. “We were told to bring you to the Methi. If you will not come down, it will be the worse for you. Come down.”
    Kurt believed him. It was a place of powers to which human touch was