by Dawn Cook
“I—I don’t know,” the girl whispered, pale and uncertain. “Tempest just went wild, broke down his door and ran away. No one was near him!” she protested. “We knew to stay away. Horse master Hilder will be so angry!” Tears dripped from her, and Alissa stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do.
“Hush.” Lodesh gave the girl a quick, brotherly hug. “Perhaps a fly bit him.”
Snuffling, she looked up. “I think he hurt his leg,” she said around a hiccup. “I—”
“What under the Navigator’s Wolves happened!” came a bellowing shout. The horses nickered a greeting, and Alissa spun. A large man filled an adjacent archway, reminding Alissa of an imbedded rock. It wasn’t that his ragged hat nearly brushed the top of the doorframe, or that his shoulders were nearly as thick as the walls, or even that his legs were wider around than a good-sized tree. It was his presence. He was flanked by two skinny boys. All three were stained with the sweat of work.
Lodesh gave Coren a reassuring smile and stood. “Morning, Hilder,” Lodesh said. “Tempest felt he was sound enough to be loosed.”
“So I see.” Frowning, Hilder turned from the wreckage. Seeing Coren afraid, he blinked, kneeling to put himself face-to-face with her. “This wasn’t your fault, Coren,” he said. His voice was kind, rumbling about the shadowy, dusty beams like grace itself. “I know you’re too good with the flighty beasts to have done anything to cause this.”
Relief flooded her face. Satisfied, the large man stood, the matter clearly in the past. As the horses continued to blow and stomp, he went to inspect the damage. One by one, Hilder peered at each piece. “Lodesh?” he muttered. “If you would please?” And there was a tug on her tracings as a soft glow blossomed, lighting the stables with an unaccustomed light. “Here it is,” Hilder breathed, holding a piece up to Lodesh’s light. “He’s bleeding.”
Lodesh ran a finger under the telltale mark of blood. “We’re headed for the field. I’ll make sure he finds it all right and is moving well.”
His light went out and Hilder grimaced, tossing the wood carelessly away. “I’d appreciate that. I’ll have my hands full getting this lot calmed down again.” He chuckled. “We haven’t had an escapee for years. Wolves,” he swore, watching the horses toss their heads and shift nervously. “It’s almost as if a Master had come down.”
Alissa froze. It was her. Tempest had broken down his door and fled because of her.
“Coren!” Hilder shouted, and Alissa jumped. The horses, however, seemed to calm.
“Yes, master Hilder?” The girl slid from her bale, her eyes downcast.
“If you have your scattered self together, get Kally a mount. One that isn’t ready to bolt.”
“Yes, master Hilder,” was her relieved sigh. She and Kally disappeared through another archway. The two put their heads together, comparing the attributes of the horses they passed.
“You there!” This was directed to one of the boys, and he slowly pushed himself from the wall. “Get Frightful, and remember he takes the rope bit.”
“Frightful is in the field, Hilder,” said Lodesh. “May I borrow one of yours?”
“So he is.” Hilder turned to an empty stall. “I should have recognized his magnificent absence.” Grimy fingers ran through his hair under his hat. “There’s Nightshade.” He shrugged. “She’s due for a spell in the field. You can leave her there or return with her as you like.”
Lodesh nodded his agreement. “Cotton bit for her as well, please.”
“She’s not broke to it,” Hilder warned.
“We’ll get along fine,” he said, stroking a long nose. Nightshade, apparently.
“As you will.” Hilder turned to Alissa. She knew her smile must look rather sick as he chuckled and said, “You’ve never been astride anything larger than a goat, have you.”
Alissa felt her face warm. “No.”
“We’ll put you on Sunbeam,” Hilder said.
“Sunbeam!” Lodesh groaned in a soft disgust, and Hilder gave him a dark look. Turning to Alissa, Hilder put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Sunbeam is a nice old lady. Gait as soft and mellow as her name. You’ll be fine.”
Alissa’s smile was getting stilted, but she kept it in place. She had a bad feeling Sunbeam wouldn’t like her.
Hilder’s gaze dropped to her slippers, and he pulled a pair of boots from a high shelf. Lodesh’s eyes widened. “Here,” Hilder grumbled, extending them to her. “Wear these.” They were light in her hand. Exquisitely detailed. Cream colored.
“Aren’t those—” Lodesh began.
“Shut up, Keeper,” Hilder growled. “It’s not as if Keribdis ever got the chance to wear them. And do you see anything else that will fit those tiny feet of hers?”
Lodesh shook his head, clearly uneasy, and Alissa slipped them on before anyone could see the holes in her stockings. She put her slippers in a rack with the rest.
There was the unmistakable clatter of hooves, and Kally returned leading a brown horse. Kally had her own boots. Lodesh, too, had plucked a pair from a nearby rack. He sat between Kally and Coren upon a bale of straw to tug on his boots. The girls were teasing him, and he was thoroughly enjoying it. They were happy and content in their meaningless banter. Alissa turned miserable, missing Strell.
“Rest easy, miss,” Hilder murmured, having misread her melancholy. “Lodesh has spent many hours with many fine ladies, but none has he cared to bring to my stables.”
She looked up in surprise, and he grinned to show a missing tooth. Another clip-clop, this time slow and lazy, and a fat yellow horse, almost a pony, made her majestic way down the wide alley. It had to be Sunbeam. She was already saddled, and Hilder beckoned Alissa close.
“Here.” An apple weighted her palm, small and yellow. “Give it to her on the flat of your hand, and she will be your friend forever.”
Doubtful this would work, Alissa swallowed hard and did as he suggested. Sure enough, the moment Alissa neared, the horse flattened her ears and backed up.
“Sunbeam!” Hilder bellowed, giving her a light slap on her rump. “What’s under your blanket! Stupid beast,” the large man muttered, gesturing Alissa should try again. This time, the “gentle old lady” bared her teeth. Alissa’s knees went weak, and she backed up into Lodesh.
“Well, I’ll be,” Lodesh whispered as he gripped Alissa’s shoulders to keep her from falling. Then he brightened. “It’s the boots.”
Hilder frowned. “Keribdis made ’em. I’d wager they reek of her. I won’t send anyone out in slippers. Redal-Stan will have my liver if his newest student comes in with blisters.”
Lodesh shrugged. “Try her on Tidbit. She has a nice temperament and has been conditioned to tolerate Masters better than any horse in your stable.”
Tidbit, Alissa thought. That sounds like a nice, small horse.
Hilder made a grunt. “Worth a try. She needs to get out.”
“And she’s a lot faster than Sunbeam,” Kally added, earning Hilder’s dark look.
Alissa followed Hilder down the aisle, drawing back in alarm as he stopped before a tall gray. She was dainty and clear-eyed, elegance refined—and the most frightening thing Alissa had ever seen on four legs. “Ah. I don’t think so,” she mumbled, retreating to the center of the aisle.
“Nonsense.” Hilder reached over the gate and Tidbit nuzzled him. “Give her the apple. If she likes you, she’s yours for the day.”
Not wanting Lodesh to think she was afraid, she offered the apple. Much to Alissa’s amazement and dismay, Tidbit perked up her ears, and with lips both picky and soft, she took the yellow fruit. “That’s nice,” Hilder said with a chuckle. “Let’s get her a saddle.”
All too soon Tidbit was ready. Kally and Lodesh had already mounted—Lodesh upon a blanket instead of a saddle— and were smiling encouragingly down at her. “But she’s so tall!” Alissa said as she balked at how high she had to reach for the saddle.
“We can double up if you like,” Lodesh said.
“Ah, I’ll be fine
.” Taking a breath, Alissa slipped her foot into Hilder’s cupped hands and found herself quite a bit higher off the ground. Tidbit shifted uneasily, then settled. Proud and scared all at the same time, Alissa tried to smile.
“Now,” the large man said as he fastened her pack behind Tidbit’s saddle, “Tidbit is nice. She won’t roll on you or brush you off. Lean forward to go, back to stop. Use the reins like this.” And he showed Alissa how, slipping the thin strips between her fingers where they stayed to become hot and sticky.
“Keribdis made sure her horse was well taught, even though she never could get on the stupid beast,” Hilder added. Seeing Alissa if not confident at least reasonably comfortable, he slapped Tidbit on her rump and shouted, “Off with you, before it gets hot!” and they were away, bursting out of the dark, cool stables into the sudden warmth and light of the day.
9
“You let her go?”
“Verbally, Connen-Neute,” Redal-Stan corrected. “You need more practice.”
Connen-Neute grimaced, straightened, and tugged at his wide sleeves. “Why?” he said, hardly enunciating the word.
For a long time Redal-Stan was silent, scanning a view virtually unchanged in the past five centuries. “It’s more important she start making permanent ties than to begin her studies.” Seeing Connen-Neute’s questioning look, he rubbed his eyes. “She can’t go back.”
“But you said last night . . .”
“Verbally!” he barked, his frustration finding an easy outlet, then he shrugged in apology. “Please,” he added.
“. . . that she could,” the young Master finished aloud.
Redal-Stan’s brow furrowed. “At the time I thought she could. But I’ve been giving it some thought. She got here tripping the lines using a septhama point. It makes perfect, illogical sense, but it can’t be done. The pathways used to shift and those used to trip the lines don’t intersect. It can’t happen.”
“It did,” said Connen-Neute.
Redal-Stan sat back in unease, slumping in an unmasterly fashion, with his cup sitting precariously upon an elevated knee. “Yes, it did, and I plan to find out how. The shame is that even if I do, I still can’t get her back.”
“Can’t she do the same in reverse?”
“Send herself back using one of her own memories?” Redal-Stan’s eyes tracked a flock of birds scared up by the students on their way to the fields. He absently rescued his cup as it began to slip. “No.”
“Why?”
Redal-Stan turned, stiffening as he counted the sausages. One was missing, and he moved the plate closer as Connen-Neute brushed crumbs from his front. “She must send herself to a memory that doesn’t include her, of a time when she’s absent. She can’t do that. No one can have a memory that doesn’t include themselves. A shaduf can’t see that far ahead. And though it would be possible to use a memory of another, no one here remembers a time Alissa has yet to live. That’s assuming I can figure out how the patterns got crossed to begin with.”
Connen-Neute was silent, then, “She’s here for good.”
His brow rose. “You don’t sound pleased. Why not?”
“I’d rather not say,” Connen-Neute hedged, standing up and turning his back to him.
“Verbally, please,” Redal-Stan growled, his eyes narrowing at his student’s refusal to explain himself. Then he slumped, deciding a different tack was in order. “I feel it would be best for Alissa to begin making ties to this time,” he said. “It will help when she discovers her situation is permanent.” Redal-Stan watched Connen-Neute’s reaction to his next words. “Perhaps you could—take her under your wing? Keep her company?”
“No.”
Surprised, Redal-Stan blinked. “True,” he said in a deceptively uninterested voice, “she has markedly fewer years to her credit, but they’ve all been spent in her human shift making her physically, and for all accounts, mentally, the same age as you. Perhaps you should begin to consider the possibility that Alissa might—”
“No.”
Intrigued, Redal-Stan hid his astonishment behind a sip of tea. Connen-Neute had been sheltered for most of his first hundred years, partly by design, partly by fate. His entire generation had been lost to accidents, leaving him to grow up more alone than was customary. It was unusual he would react this way to the chance to develop a real friendship, one that had the distinct possibility of growing into a more permanent relationship.
Redal-Stan warily set his cup on a stack of fluttering papers. He had found Connen-Neute to be overly sensitive to subtle patterns of thought even he couldn’t sense. It was unfortunate that the young Master lacked the experience to interpret them. If Alissa made him uneasy, there was a cause for it.
Shrugging helplessly, Connen-Neute turned from the sun. “For some reason, she scares the wind from my wings,” he offered hesitantly, sounding embarrassed. He returned to the view, his back stiff and his thoughts closed.
Redal-Stan shut his eyes as the wind rose to pull at his sleeves and thoughts. Worried, he wondered what might have fallen into his quiet, predictable life.
10
Strell slumped in Alissa’s overstuffed chair before the fire in the dining hall. He had been there all night, the hours passing with him knowing them all. Only now, as the sun rose above the mountains, did he finally slip into a light doze despite the faint headache that had been plaguing him all night. The loss of her presence cut more clearly than if he were missing an arm. Sitting in her chair before the hearth had seemed to ease his heartache. So he had stayed, shunning his bed in the Keepers’ hall, taking comfort in the curious scent of book paste and lace flowers that existed in her chair.
The distant sound of voices raised in anger shocked him from the edge of sleep, and his eyes flew open. The room was empty, the voices gone. A dream, he thought, as his head began to throb all the more. He stirred as the comforting feeling in Alissa’s chair seemed to fade away.
Strell sat up to put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The hiss of cooking bacon came faintly from the kitchen, and he rose to follow it in. Not acknowledging Lodesh busy at the hearth, he sat at one of the narrow tables. “That’s not right,” he whispered, and not knowing why, he shifted down two spots.
A plate of eggs and bacon slid in front of him. “Would you like some breakfast?” Lodesh asked cautiously.
Strell looked blankly at him. “No,” he said, rubbing the top of his truncated pinkie with his thumb. “That’s not why I’m here,” he added, not knowing why he was.
Lodesh retreated to the hearth. He left the plate behind, and it steamed. As the odors penetrated Strell’s daze, he pushed it away. Alissa would be appalled at the meat. Strell wondered where Lodesh had found it.
The kitchen grew silent, and Strell vaguely realized that Lodesh had left. He didn’t care. The kitchen now satisfied him, and he was as content as his sleep-deprived mind would allow. He rubbed his fingertips into his forehead, pushing back against the dull pain. His eyes closed, and he slumped. Again he drowsed, eyelids twitching as his body tried to find a deeper state of slumber.
Strell started awake at the crash of pottery and a high-pitched wail. Heart racing, he cast about the empty, sunlit kitchen. Only the water dripping from a rag broke the stillness. He watched another bead form and fall. “A dream,” he whispered, gazing at the empty tables and silent pantry shelves. They looked wrong. “It must have been a dream.”
But he rose and made his way into the garden. He shut the door behind him with a sharp click. The sound beat against his ears, and he picked at the last flakes of blue paint taking refuge between the wood and metal latch. His steps jolted up his spine in time with the throbbing of his head as he wandered the ragged path. Squinting from the sun, he stared numbly at the firepit’s familiar lines. Then he continued, compelled by an unknown reason. The firepit wasn’t right.
“But the bench is,” he breathed as he came upon it and sat down. “I’m moonstruck,” he said, his voice flat, not knowing wh
at was happening but too grieved to care. Gazing blankly at the bright flowers, his vision blurred. The bench filled his aching emptiness. Lulled by the serenity, he dozed, half-asleep, half not, lulled by the sound of bees.
Quite distinctly, he heard the sound of a stone splashing into a small pool. He jerked awake. Heart pounding, he stared at the sunken flowerbed full of rushes and water iris. “I’m going insane,” he breathed as the bench abruptly lost all its appeal.
Alarmed, he jumped to his feet. Now he inexplicably wanted to be somewhere else. Abandoning reason, he blindly followed the faint pull back up the path, through the kitchen, and up to the highest chamber in the Masters’ tower. He stood in the echoing, empty white room, alert and aware, consciously willing himself to listen, searching with his heart instead of his senses. Pushing the heel of his hand against the pain in his head, he moved about, testing the air as if searching for a faint scent.
“Here,” he breathed, his eyes closing as he found contentment on the balcony. He stood and soaked it in as if it were the sun, bathing his soul in the emotion. Strell’s headache redoubled, and he gasped at the pain.
“But my tea!” he heard in his thoughts, and he reached and grasped blindly as she was ripped away. Stumbling, he opened his eyes, shocked at the emptiness of the room.
“No!” he cried. “Come back!” Down he ran. But he lost her on the stair. Frantic, he cast wildly about. She was gone. Half of him was gone. Someone was taking her away. He had to get her back!
Choking back a cry of frustration, he held his breath and slowed his emotions. He couldn’t sense her when his thoughts were swirling. Standing at the center of the great hall, he forced himself to take breath after breath, each slower than the last, letting the tiny point of stillness within him grow. His head hurt, and he welcomed the pain, knowing it had something to do with feeling her presence. Gasping, he felt Alissa pass through him and continue.
“Wait!” he cried, slipping as he turned. He blindly followed, only to find himself hammering upon the locked and warded stable doors. “Back,” he panted. Heart pounding, he ran to the great hall. He hit the inner set of the Hold’s front doors, sending them crashing into the permanently open outer ones. He had to get out before the whisper of Alissa’s presence faded.