Hidden Truth

by Dawn Cook

  “Yes.” He set the tray on the sill with a clattering of dishes and held out his white hand. It was hard to let the ratty cord slip from her fingers and drop the bag into Bailic’s grasp. It had held her source, her will almost, for so long it was hard to accept that it was really empty. “A gift, you say?” Bailic murmured, his smile going wise. “But it’s empty.” He traced her mother’s initials with a thin finger, his manner distant and knowing.

  An uneasy feeling slid through Alissa as he handed the bag back. She could hear Talon screeching, sounding loud even through the ward on the window. Bailic turned and picked up the tray. Feeling as if she had let something slip, Alissa followed, holding herself a step behind him.

  “Here she is, Piper,” Bailic called, blinking at the glare of the sun-filled chamber. “Safe and sound, just as I predicted.”

  “Safe and sound?” Strell jumped up from a far window, relief flashing across him. “You said she had probably tripped over her feet and fallen halfway to the kitchen!”

  “A jest, my dear.” Bailic simpered as he placed the tray on the empty table.

  Strell choked back his next outburst, probably recognizing how Bailic had addressed her. She shrugged helplessly as Strell met her worried eyes. Bailic was too confident. He was up to something.

  “She was downstairs dallying the morning away,” Bailic continued. “But here she is. And with tea!” Showing a meticulous care, Bailic poured the strong brew into all three cups. Feeling ill, Alissa sat stiffly in her chair. Strell, grim and wary, sat in his. Bailic sat on the window bench with his back to the sun and watched them both with an expectant arch to his eyebrows.

  “You forgot your cup!” Bailic exclaimed, and he leapt up to play the congenial host. Alissa’s eyes lowered as he drew close, and the small click of the cup touching the bench beside her made her tense. “Or have you had enough tea already?” he finished dryly.

  With a roar that shivered the tea in the cups, Useless skimmed past the windows. Bailic dropped to the floor with a half-recognized curse. Strell’s cup slipped from him, tea spilling in a fantastic pattern. He lunged after it, missing. The cup fell off the table. There was no crash of pottery.

  For a moment, no one moved. Slowly, Alissa leaned to look under the table. Strell did the same. Bailic was already on the floor. All three of them gazed in wonder at the cup, hanging in midair as if, well, by magic, or in this case, a containment field. It wasn’t her, it couldn’t be Strell, and obviously it wasn’t Bailic. That left only one presence.

  “Talo-Toecan!” Bailic got to his feet and stared at the ceiling. “Leave. Or our agreement is ended!” There was a snort of amusement from the roof, and the cup hit the floor to crack in two. “What has gotten into him, buzzing the tower like a demented bat,” Bailic snarled, tugging his gray shirt straight.

  “It wasn’t agreed he had to shun the Hold, only Strell,” Alissa said sharply. Bailic whipped about, his eyes glinting dangerously. Wolves, she thought, a breath too late. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut?

  Bailic pointed a shaky finger at her. “You’re right.”

  Strell, who had been kneeling on the floor, silently sopping up the tea, cleared his throat in warning. At that instant, there was a tug on Alissa’s thoughts as someone nearby used their tracings. A fourth cup materialized silently next to the pot. Almost, Alissa could hear Useless laughing in her thoughts. Then his shadow raced across the snow, and he was gone.

  Bailic must have felt the pull on his tracings as well, for his lips curled in disgust as he noticed the new addition, but with a shuddering breath, he caught his temper, hiding it.

  Not sure what to think, Alissa took up her mending left yesterday between the cushions. There was a clatter of broken pottery on the tray followed by the creak of a chair, and Strell, too, was in his place. Bailic began to pace before the windows, speaking in his best lecturing voice as if nothing had happened. “As you have been told uncountable times, Piper, fields can serve three purposes.”

  Alissa tried to ignore him. Bailic was as interesting as an argument on the proper weather in which to plant beets. As her fingers shifted her needle in the rhythmic, soothing dance of repair, her thoughts drifted, predictably settling on her lesson this morning and her success in gaining permission to manipulate fields unchaperoned. It was an odd feeling, asking leave to do something that was so much a part of her, but over the past weeks, Useless had impressed her quite thoroughly about the dangers of experimenting on her own. Her disastrous attempt to remove Useless’s ward last fall had clarified his arguments, and she was quite prepared to listen. She trusted him implicitly, almost more than she trusted herself.

  The only thing they continually disagreed upon was the speed of her progress, or in her eyes, the lack thereof. Useless countered each of her arguments with skill and finesse, leaving her wondering why she hadn’t seen it his way in the first place. For Useless, she would be patient, polite, and well mannered. But her newfound reasonableness, as Strell called it, seldom extended any farther than the shallow pit in the garden. Try as she might, her temper still got the better of her. Strell, though, took it in stride. In fact, she swore he sometimes riled her on purpose.

  Lost as she was in her sewing and thoughts, she was ill prepared when Bailic’s hand slammed the table. Alissa jumped, painfully stabbing her finger.

  “Come now, Piper,” Bailic nearly snarled in frustration. “It’s not that difficult!”

  Finger in her mouth, she looked at Strell. He had hidden his clenched fists under the table, trying to hide his repressed anger. Alissa glanced at his mutilated right hand, thinking there might be some fright mixed in as well. “I’m trying,” Strell grated. “Perhaps if you showed me what you want I would understand.”

  Bailic rubbed a hand through his rigidly short hair. Abruptly he spun and strode to the table where he kept her book, maddeningly near. Ignoring it, he opened a drawer and took out a small box. Three sharp steps later he had it on the window seat and was lifting the lid.

  Alissa put her needle down and leaned forward to see. Dust? she thought in astonishment. It was dust, the same stuff domestics fight all their lives to eradicate. Apart from the stables, it was the first she had seen since she left home. The common areas of the Hold were kept blessedly dust free under a nightly sweep of a still-functioning ward. Yet, here was a box of it.

  Bailic took a healthy pinch, shut the lid, and much to her amazement, blew the dust into the air. The sun streaming in through the tall windows was suddenly full of breathtaking sparkles. “Pay attention,” Bailic snapped, a harsh counterpoint to the visual delight he had created. With no warning, a section of sunbeam coalesced into a small sphere as the dust inside was packed closer under the obvious influence of a field. Abruptly it was released; the motes were again free. “Now you,” he commanded as he sat stiffly on the bench, pointedly watching them both.

  Strell sighed and stared at the shimmering blocks of sun.

  A flash of excitement went through Alissa. She had permission; she could help Strell. For a moment she considered the hows and whys. It was only a field. It was different from catching a milkweed puff, but not that different. Trying to look interested but not intense, she focused her awareness around a small section of sunbeam. Her field shrank and gained definition. A globe of shimmering dust hung in the air, looking like a spot of sun. “Strell!” she shouted, simultaneously dropping the field. “You did it!”

  “I did!” he said, his eyes wide. “I really did!” He smiled, and Alissa beamed proudly.

  Bailic shifted on the hard bench. “So it would appear.” He opened the box again, and taking a handful of dust, he flung it into the air. The sunlight glinted, thick with the fine powder. Too light to settle directly, it eddied and swirled, making the room seem to glow. A field went up, larger than any Alissa had held before, almost encompassing the room. It quickly shrank, and Alissa shivered as she imagined she felt an eerie sensation as it passed through her. Soon it was the size of a pumpkin. Sh
e thought Bailic was done, but the field began to shift and change.

  Strell’s mouth dropped open, and Alissa blinked in surprise. A face was taking shape in the dust. Alissa looked at Bailic, not believing he was the cause of it, only to be stunned by his expression of entrancement. The lines of anger were gone. A wistful look was in his pale eyes. Grace and refinement, dignity and ease; this was the man he could have been had his revenge not led him to empty the Hold.

  Reluctantly, Alissa returned her attention to his sculpture. It was a woman, she decided as it gained definition. Young, almost a girl, with a single long braid. She had a narrow chin and a laughing mouth. She looked familiar, and Alissa leaned forward. It was her—her mother!

  “Who is she?” Strell asked, jerking Alissa back to herself. Her face went cold, and she shrank into the cushions. She had been a heartbeat away from telling Bailic exactly whose child she was. Strell had saved her again, but how did Bailic know what her mother looked like? Alissa’s thoughts returned to Bailic’s sly manner in the hall and his finger tracing the initials on her bag. Bailic knew her mother? Shocked, Alissa put her hand to her middle.

  “She’s no one,” Bailic said through a slow exhalation. His smile was gentle as he raised his hand to touch his vision. Just before contact, his eyes went hard, and his arm dropped. The containment field collapsed, and the dust diffused into a shimmering pool of shattered desire.

  “Now,” Bailic said bitterly, “I will eat, and you,” he pointed at Strell, “will practice.” Snatching a roll of bread, he settled into his chair and watched Strell with intent eyes.

  Feeling shaken and ill, Alissa tentatively began making fields, letting each one dissolve before beginning the next. Strell had his eyes fixed to the sunbeam, playing his part well. Whether his fascinated look was contrived or not, she couldn’t tell; it was a curious sight. Alissa was watching, too, as any interested observer might. It was monotonous though, and after a time she picked up her stockings and began to stitch, one eye on her fingers, one eye on Strell. Her fields needed no chaperoning; she knew what they were doing.

  As she worked, a whisper of presence slipped stealthily into her uppermost thoughts, almost unrecognizable. The slight pressure was easy to ignore, but it increased to a niggling tickle. Perhaps Useless had returned and was calling her. Frowning, she set her stitching aside to look out the window. The eerie feeling vanished, leaving her uneasy.

  Too much going on this morning, she thought, rubbing her hand over her eyes and gazing out over the wooded valley below. Ese’ Nawoer’s rooftops glinted in the sun, barely visible behind the trees at this low height. A cloud bank was building, and she wondered if it was going to snow again. It never seemed to stop. The sun, though, was warm and comforting, so she resettled herself and resumed her work.

  But the feeling slowly crept back. With a sudden revulsion, Alissa recognized the dusky sliver of thought as Bailic’s. She froze for a horrified instant, then forced her fingers to resume their work. It was a struggle not to react, to drive him from her with a blistering thought. If Bailic realized she could sense him, he would know she was the Keeper. Apparently he wasn’t satisfied with Strell’s latest performance and was trying to reach her thoughts.

  What the Wolves is Bailic doing? she thought. Useless assured her Bailic couldn’t see her tracings or hear her thoughts. With a slow, even breath, she recalled her mother’s teachings and relaxed, but he was as hard to ignore as a spider on her arm. Her eyes fixed upon on her sewing, she continued making and collapsing the fields. Easy, she thought. Find that calm, still point. If Bailic saw her insulted anger, it would be over.

  Finally, he withdrew. None to soon, either, for the longer he stayed, the harder it was not to drive him out. She disguised her shudder by stretching. But then she got to thinking. Perhaps she could send a questing thought out, too? If Bailic noticed, he would assume it was Strell. Useless hadn’t said she couldn’t. What harm could it do?

  Alissa gave a warning cough to Strell to let him know she was going to try something. His foot tapped out the beat to a song she recognized, and she bit her lip in an effort not to smile. It was from a child’s jumping rhyme called, “I’m Ready If You Are.” Mindful of her dual role, Alissa continued her mending as her thoughts went out, a whisper of awareness barely recognizable even to her. Curious as to her limits, she first went to Strell.

  That’s interesting, she mused, for she couldn’t make any sense of the emotion she found. She lingered, trying to sort through the confusion of conflicting sensations, puzzling until her perceptions seemed to shift ninety degrees and fall into place. With a jolt, Alissa realized Strell was worried to the point of distraction.

  She glanced at him, startled by his casual slouch. It was as if his only care was the small spheres of dust, shimmering in the sun. His toe, however, was moving ever so slowly, tracing a small arc on the floor. It was the only show of his worry. Frowning, she looked deeper. Beneath that was a darker emotion. This one she recognized easily. It was fear, but not for him, no. It was for her and what she might be planning!

  Face scarlet, she withdrew, bending her attention back to her stockings. She had no business poking about Strell’s emotions as if they were wares on display. His turmoil was anything but obvious, but Alissa could see it now that she knew it was there.

  She couldn’t do this! she thought taking a chill. Strell didn’t even know what she planned, yet had agreed to suffer the consequences if anything went wrong. She had never realized what failure might mean until she saw his near panic. And it wasn’t even for him. He was more concerned about her after Bailic killed him, than about himself being killed. Ashes! What the Wolves had she been thinking!

  Alissa forced herself to take a deep breath, trying to keep her fingers steady as she laced another shaky stitch into her stockings. Her curiosity was going to be the death of them both. Immediately, she yawned to tell Strell she had changed her mind. His foot became still. Slowly his posture changed until he was truly relaxed. He actually sighed, seeming to droop. Alissa glanced at her work, wincing as she realized she would have to take it all out and start over.

  “Piper,” Bailic shouted, causing them both to jump. Alissa allowed the field she was holding to collapse as if in surprise. “You aren’t thinking of falling asleep again, are you?” he drawled in his most insulting voice.

  “No,” Strell said darkly, hiding his right hand under his left.

  Bailic sauntered closer, his gold sash furling about his ankles. “Once more,” he demanded, hands aggressively on the table.

  Alissa couldn’t help but form a tiny field, just before his nose.

  “Enough!” he snapped, squashing her field with his own. It disappeared with a sharp pop. The sudden emptiness hurt. She gasped, quickly turning it into a sneeze. It was, after all, rather dusty. Hiding her face, she fumbled for a cloth.

  “That wasn’t necessary, Bailic,” Strell croaked hoarsely, recognizing her sneeze for what it was and feigning to be hurt.

  Bailic’s attention went back to Strell, and the fallen Keeper leaned across the table until he was a hand’s breath from Strell. The dust glowed and danced about them, adding an unreal feel to the frozen tableau. Alissa sneezed again, a real one this time, and the dust vanished. All three froze in the sudden change. Thinking she had unintentionally done something, she panicked.

  “The sun is gone,” Bailic said irately as he straightened. “Your lesson is almost done.”

  She sagged in relief as she realized what happened. The massing snow clouds had finally caught the sun. As its light was lost, so was the dust.

  Bailic sneered at Strell. “The lesson is ended when you get the dust back in its box.” He shook his head in disgust and left.

  “The lesson is ended,” Strell mimicked softly, “when you get the dust back in its box.”

  “Quiet,” Alissa admonished. “He’ll hear you.”

  Leaning the chair back on two legs, Strell looked out the open door. “I don’t care.”
>
  “Please, Strell,” she pleaded. “My morning has been hard enough already.”

  “Oh, right.” Strell’s chair thunked back to a normal position. He looked at his hands and took a deep breath as if settling himself. “What kept you this morning?” he asked as he reached for the breakfast tray and took a hunk of cheese.

  Her worry vanished, and she grinned. “I have permission to manipulate fields on my own,” she said. With a casualness she didn’t feel, Alissa went to the table to retrieve a helping for her own breakfast. If she didn’t, Strell might forget and eat it all. He had before.

  “I gathered that. High time,” he grumbled.

  “And,” she continued, terribly pleased, “I have bound my source!”

  “That’s nice.” He pulled the tray closer. It appeared he was far more interested in his breakfast than her news. “Do we have any of those sweet rolls left downstairs?”

  “Strell!” she cried. “Don’t you care?”

  Turning a brown eye to hers, he raised his eyebrows. “Course,” he mumbled, making a decorative pattern on his bread with the jelly. “Good for you.”

  Alissa pouted. Strell didn’t seem to care at all. “Good? It was glorious.”

  “If you say so.” He took a large bite. “M-m-m-m. Would you pass me the tea, please.”

  “Urrg . . .” Alissa stormed to the window and watched the first snowflakes, gritting her teeth at his casual disregard. Lodesh would’ve understood. Lodesh would’ve been happy for her.

  There was the sound of liquid filling a cup followed by a noisy slurp. “Cold,” he muttered.

  “Well, don’t expect me to warm it for you,” she said. “I don’t know how yet.” She spun about, catching his startled look. Anything was better than his indifference, and she frowned.

  “You could do that?”

  “Probably, but you’ll never know.” Deciding to ignore him, Alissa sat at the long window bench and watched the snow put a fresh layer of white on the black branches. Down below was the well where she had found her papa’s book, its mouth dark and perfect amid the clearing Useless had torn in order to land. The raw gashes of earth were softened by weeks of snow, but she could tell by the depressions where trees had once stood. It was her opinion she had made very little progress since they had been uprooted. Useless seemed pleased at her snail’s pace, but she wasn’t. Insisting theory was harder than practice, he had severely curtailed all her attempts at wheedling any practical information from him.