Finders-Seekers

by Gayle Greeno

  “Perhaps you don‘t,” golden-sweet as honey, Doyce tasted the enjoyment of the phrase, “but the ghatt has just ’Printed on Harrap. He’s worried, fearful of losing his new Bondmate. And the ghatt’s name, by the way, is Parm. My ghatta is Khar’pern.”

  Mahafny came down hard on her heels, hands fisting in her pockets. “Impossible. Absolutely. It can’t have happened,” she said with meticulous, level emphasis. “I know of no precedents, no cases....”

  “Yes, precisely. Nor do I. But past history—or lack of it—bears little immediate relevance to our concern with Shepherd Harrap’s condition. Perhaps you could see to him now? The brother has brought the water and your ’script case.” Motioning Khar and Parm after her, she withdrew to the far end of the room to give the eumedico and patient a discreet amount of privacy.

  Parm hoisted himself up on the vacant bed, too tired to spring, and stretched his length along the rough brown woolen blanket. Looking down at him, Doyce decided he’d do as the most strangely marked ghatt she’d ever seen, as if some mad, blindfolded painter had mixed a palette of tabby orange and black and a bit of white and daubed at random, a speck here, a splotch there. A white chest and chin, but half the ghatt’s face was orange, or mostly so, the other half black, but even the line of demarcation faltered and floundered across his face. White thumbprint-sized markings on one side plus one white hind leg. Rare for a male to carry such coloration, and the few who did were invariably sterile. For the most part Parm bore his motley proudly, jaunty as a jester in his ragtag coloring, a perky, knowing expression and a sporty walk a part of his being.

  Now, however, he looked woebegone, fur matted in spots; in other areas clumps of fur stood straight, patched with the residue of his race through the Market Square—raw egg, beer, custard, something else Doyce hesitated to identify, though Khar’s derisive sniff confirmed it. Whiskers wilted with dejection, Parm’s ears stayed tucked low, pinned back against his head.

  “By the gift we all hold sacred and by the truth we Seek, what happened, Parm?” she mindspoke.

  The ghatt shifted, twisted himself on the bed. “It’s Georges ... we cannot Bond anymore.” He hesitated, and the voice in her mind cracked with pain at the admission. “He ... he is not Georges!”

  “What do you mean? Of course it’s Georges, who else could he be? Are you mad?”

  Georges Barbet was Georges Barbet, a quiet, unassuming yet basically proficient Seeker, a man with a hidden but barbed sense of humor to match his name. When he chose to sting, he made his victim very uncomfortable. She had known him for some time, an acquaintance rather than a friend, the majority of their chance meetings and occasionally similar leave times had been on a superficial but correctly pleasant basis. They’d played a number of hard-fought card games when he’d discovered her weakness for Tally-Ho, but conversation had been minimal in deference to the need for careful point counting. Parm was the gaudiest thing about Georges, as if the ghatt had symbolized some deeply suppressed aspect of the man.

  “Something in him has turned wrong. He hides from my mindtouch ... and I can feel the blackness growing within him!” Parm’s tongue darted in nervous licks at a spot of stiffened egg yolk on his leg, and Doyce gave him a moment to groom. “So black ... the badness inside, the seed sprouting, just as when we must destroy a ghatten because it is not good.”

  “But if he wasn’t good, how could you have Chosen him, ’Printed on him?” No sense, no sense at all, or sense that she was missing? She twisted at a strand of hair, wound and unwound it, perplexed at missing some secret that shouldn’t have been a secret at all. “And what do you mean about destroying ghatten? Ghattas don’t kill their ghatten, they’re not like some barn cat devouring her litter!”

  Ghatt and ghatta side-glanced each other, communicating beyond Doyce’s ability to mindwalk with them.

  “They must sometimes.” Parm stared down at Khar. “Tell her! She must understand this!”

  Khar’s head drooped low, vulnerable and beseeching as a supplicant. She paused, reordering her thoughts. “Sometimes a ghatta sees within her newborn that which is not right, that which is not true. Not a weak or sickly body, but a mind wrong bent, that would cause great damage if allowed to survive. To allow such a mind to ’Print with one of yours would cause destruction, a black seed growing into a warped black vine that strangles all it comes near. It was so with my first litter....” Her amber eyes dilated, pupils black against the deep gold, Khar cast a yearning look toward her Bondmate, craving understanding and forgiveness. “And so I killed them.” She shook herself. “What Parm is trying to say is that he knows of that blackness, and that same blackness is now within Georges.”

  Knuckles white, wound so tightly in the lock of hair that she expected it to pull free, Doyce let her mindspeech scream, “But how could you have Chosen Georges if you knew!” Would a black-souled ghatten corrupt an innocent person or choose a Bondmate with an equally black soul? Could an evil person corrupt an innocent ghatten, bend its mind to evil? Her mind spun, trying to sort the permutations, the possibilities, more than she could chart. And how was Truth subverted then? “How could you ... ?” And didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

  “Because he was true when I ’Printed on him!” Khar nodded once as if to affirm the statement, and she had to trust her, had no choice. “But ever since our trip through the Northerlies three circuits ago, he was changed. He went away one night, he said for cards and said he must go alone, that the others would be afraid I read their hands. And when he returned, he had begun to change. It kept waxing stronger and stronger, burning inside him. He kept staring at me and I knew he wanted to claim my mind! As if he would devour me and the me-ness inside me! Bondmates share but they do not consume!” The ghatt panted in dread at visions that he would not share. “The Bond was broken.”

  “It is true,” Khar interjected. “I felt it in him as soon as he entered the town. Faint at first ... then stronger, more lethal, clawing at any thought within his reach. I have never felt that before ... except ...” She froze, the fur along her spine rising. “Except for ... the night Oriel died and Saam was hurt ... when I felt something so horrible but so faint that I could not believe my mind read true.”

  Doyce sat numbly, thoughts squirrel-wheeling around and around, gaining no ground the harder she thought, ceaselessly circling. “Did ... you notice anything like it last night at the Cyan Inn?” She poised herself for the answer, breathing fast, waiting for confirmation.

  “No, no, I don’t think so.” The ghatta’s eyes slitted in concentration. “No, but I was far gone into my time when we arrived. I stayed outside all the evening until I reached the room. What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, but for a moment at the inn, amidst the laughter and the comfort and the camaraderie, I felt ... something just as I started up for bed. Animosity so sharp I stumbled. It was probably ... nothing.”

  But it had been. For a brief instant it had pierced sharp as a suddenly unshuttered lantern beam lances night-vision, destroying it. Then nothing, as if it had never been. Who had been in the taproom at that moment? How many people, some she knew slightly, some by sight only, and others she’d never see again? Where had it—if anything—come from? Or was she so on edge, so suggestible, that Khar’s and Parm’s stories together made her recast and remold things into a foreboding signaling?

  “Doyce,” Mahafny’s voice called her to attention, beckoned from across the room. “He’s coming to now. If what you say is true, I think you should be here.”

  She stood, pressed her knee against the side of the bed to brace it, and then turned. “I am a Seeker Veritas as you well know. I speak the truth, but I don’t know where it will lead us, Mahafny. I only hope the Lady herself knows.”

  Walking down the main aisle to Harrap’s bed, she reached out and captured an unwilling hand. “Harrap, Harrap. You must listen to me now, we have much to discuss.”

  Harrap’s restless eyes avoided hers, searching around the room. S
he knew what he searched for, what he fervently prayed not to find. With a low whistle she called both ghatti to her, Khar pausing while Parm tumbled off the bed. “Harrap, his name is Parm. Give him no other; he chose it for himself.”

  “I know.” The fluty whisper bore little resemblance to Harrap’s normal baritone. “He told me.” Reaching down hesitantly, broad fingers splayed, Harrap allowed his palm to touch the ghatt’s forehead. A deep purr rolled from the depths of Parm’s chest, but Harrap jerked his hand away, and the ghatt stopped, neck stretched upward, head seeking the caress again. Harrap reached back gamely and jerked away equally as fast.

  “Parm, you’re pushing too hard, let him be for a bit,” Doyce begged, knowing the ghatt mindspoke on the intimate mode, chattering magpie fast and furious in his eagerness to communicate with his new Bond.

  “Just telling him that I am his and he is mine, that we are a Pair,” Parm protested, radiating hopefulness at the recumbent man who regarded him with wide blue eyes, one hand pressed tight to his mouth like a frightened child.

  “Yes, and ghatt-dancing and ghattawauling through his brain into secret places he never even knew existed.”

  The fringes of his tonsured hair whipped back and forth as Harrap shook himself, hoping to cast off the voice the way a large dog shakes himself to shed water. “Go gently, little friend, little Parm. I think I hear you speak but know it can’t be real. The exalted hear from the Lady in their hearts, but I am only a simple Shepherd, not worthy enough for that, though I’ve listened hard.”

  Rearranging the contents of her medical bag, Mahafny cleared her throat, but continued her organization. “He’s not a demon, Harrap, nor are you mad or blessed with visions, hearing voices. It is the ghatt you hear in your head.”

  Doyce hadn’t expected Mahafny to speak, to throw herself in on her side. She had counted on the eumedico to argue, to continue to protest that it was impossible, or that if it were possible, that it could be cured as if it were some sort of disease. The challenge she’d set herself dissolved before her face. Obscurely, she questioned if she wanted an ally or, more particularly, this one. It destabilized the relationship she knew and that she could at least see objectively after so many years.

  “Transparent, Doyce,” Mahafny chuckled, but no amusement lightened the sound. “But that that is, is. You know that and Harrap, I’m afraid, is beginning to know that. One must acquiesce to facts, but I remain intrigued. I’ve certainly never heard of a second Bonding. A total anomaly. Could this be replicated in other instances?”

  “Doyce, what is going on? I don’t understand,” Claire broke in, and she started in alarm, forgetting that the girl remained, so locked was she in the triangle of Harrap and Mahafny and herself, and the triangle of Harrap and Parm and herself. Claire’s presence came as a sudden, extraneous element and she sorted frantically through her mind as to how much to say, how much to tell her. Best to let her involvement remain peripheral if she could manage it.

  “Claire, do you think perhaps you could find some wine for us all?”

  Her look of protest more eloquent than a shout, she restrained herself. “Ever an innkeep’s daughter,” came her wry response, all bitterness checked. “But only if you promise to explain things to me later.”

  Harrap sat propped upright in bed now, arms thrust behind him in pillared support. Parm crept onto the foot of the bed, one orange ear and one black ear just visible over the mound of the Shepherd’s feet. An orange/black nose appeared, tested the reception and withdrew in haste. “How often does he speak?”

  “As often as you want, frequently more than that, and sometimes never when you truly crave it.” Khar gave an explosive sneeze at Doyce’s rejoinder. “You have a hard road ahead of you, Harrap, but a worthwhile one. First, you’ll have to travel to Headquarters for training, and then ...”

  “But I can’t!” he broke in, a bead of sweat jarred loose by his agitation rolling down his face tearlike. “I am a Shepherd! That is my vocation, that is my vow—the Bethel claims me to serve our Lady in any way She sees fit! How can I serve the Lady and be a Seeker? To have a ghatt at the center of my world, we who vow to have no other being or thing ahead of Our Lady!” His words rushed into each other, his eyes swimming with tears as his hand sought the solace of the medallion at his chest. “Must I choose one or the other, perhaps lose the Lady’s blessing?”

  Mahafny sat on the edge of the next bed, her usually erect shoulders slumped. “I know it seems late in life to make a change, but it may be necessary. I do not think the ghatt will demand that you stop loving and revering the Lady; am I correct, Doyce?” Doyce nodded, then nodded with more conviction. “But it may be in more challenging and more subtle ways than before.” Her voice dropped, becoming almost inaudible, so faint that Doyce questioned her hearing of the final words. “To face a choice at this stage, when the time of questioning seemed past, is it a blessing ... or a curse?”

  Doyce risked a tentative stroke to the twisted crown of silver hair and wondered, for the first time, what private regrets crowded Mahafny’s mind.

  “Harrap, I’ve little time, for I must be on my way about this circuit for other reasons. But let me begin to explain, to train you a little.” Doyce prayed that the confidence in her tone showed, that that much of the eumedico training remained with her. “I’ll have Khar transmit a message to request that a Seeker-Guidancer pair ride out immediately from Headquarters to teach you some basics, offer encouragement, to help you decide your path. You and Parm together have much to think about over the next few octs and octants.

  “Now first, I want you to let Parm touch your mind again. Gently, Parm,” she admonished. “No, Harrap, don’t try to block it, I can see it in your eyes, not yet. You don’t know how to block it and you’ll only strain your sanity. Just accept the voice for what it is, a voice.”

  “I will be gentle, I will not pry,” Parm reassured. The ghatt’s eyes brightened and his head popped over Harrap’s feet. Harrap, Doyce suspected, had made an effort to mindspeak, not simply let his thoughts be read. “Because you are good, because you are my Bondmate,” the ghatt purred, rubbing his head and chin against the blanketed mound of Harrap’s feet.

  Catching Harrap’s attention, Doyce continued. “Parm is using surface mindwalking with you, rather than the deep mindwalking you felt before when he became overexcited. Surface is for simple conversations between you, deep mindwalking for Seeking Truth when we judge our cases. They do not pry with any particular enjoyment to discover inner secrets, but out of a charge to Seek the Truths. Ultimately Parm must engage in this with you to know you inside and out, as well or better than you know yourself. The ghatti carry that responsibility with great care and pride not to break the trust. Our skills as Seekers do not range as deeply as theirs, and while we can read them and speak them to a certain level, our abilities will never allow us the deep mindwalking of the ghatti ... or approach the specialized gifts of the eumedicos.” The lie came effortlessly, although not painlessly, as she paid lipservice to the old credo, refusing to reveal Mahafny’s secret, the eumedico’s secret to outsiders, but Mahafny only inclined her head, her eyes half-closed in meditative thought.

  “I, too, came to be a Seeker later in life than most, have had other pasts and personal ambitions that I wasn’t sure I wanted to yield in favor of this. But Parm has made his choice, and you have both branched onto a path you never expected to take. In all honesty, we’ve no road maps or guides to a Bonding of this sort, and while we can assist you, much of what you do will be creating new paths of knowledge for us all. You lack a sure footing at this moment, but we are all here to guide and reassure you as much as we can. And others will soon be here to help even more.

  “I must go for a little while, but I promise I’ll be back. Arrangements must be made, messages sent, things decided. Mahafny, will you stay with him until Khar and I return?”

  “Of course. Harrap, whether you wish silent companionship or someone to talk with, I shall be here. Altho
ugh,” and she paused, her eyes holding a glint of amusement which Doyce remembered only too well, “I wonder what the All-Shepherd Nichlaus will have to say about a lone man and woman together in the Shepherd’s sleeping quarters, chaperoned by a ghatt.”

  Harrap let out a roar of laughter that rollicked Parm on the bed and left the ghatt tremulous with delight.

  The final chant floated mistlike through the night air, and Parm’s fur trembled and rose with the unearthly beauty of the sound. Voice upon voice swirling in and out of each note, one leaving, another beginning, then two sounding as one, the echo of counterpoints. If the ghatti mindnet were audible to human ears, he thought, it would resemble this. The last notes faded away, but the resonance remained, tingling the hairs of his inner ear. He shifted and settled, curled himself into a tight ball and wrapped a paw around his nose and over one eye. Phew! Still smelly! He’d licked and rubbed and licked some more until he’d thought the bristles on his tongue would wear away, leave him smooth and slurpy as a dog. Ugh, what a thought! Harrap didn’t notice the smell, he was confident of that; humans didn’t have very sensitive nostrils, despite their size.

  Harrap lay beside him, stiff and unbending as a log. He quelled the desire to race up and down the wide figure, to startle him and find himself airborne from the booming laughter. He didn’t dare—not yet. Perhaps soon, and perhaps ... never. He had taken on responsibility for guiding and training a fully formed human mind, not a malleable youngling of their species. Now what was he to do? Well, the rightness resided in Harrap and he had determination and patience. No matter that many laughed at him and his looks, he knew what he was made of and the mettle of the new Bond he had Chosen.

  He gave a minute ghatti sigh of distress into the soft fur of his inner leg. It wasn’t fair to Harrap, so good, so kind, and so baffled by what had happened. But what other choice had he had? In all honesty, Parm felt equally bewildered, sure that he was just but wondering if he’d gone about it the wrong way. The Elders had remained silent to his desperate cries, and when he’d felt the emanation of goodness from Harrap he had literally taken his life and run with it, away from Georges toward the sensation he felt, beckoning stronger and stronger as he raced through the Market Square toward Harrap. But what was a Shepherd, this kind of shepherd?