Finders-Seekers

by Gayle Greeno

  “Shall I tell them, or will you?”

  “For better or worse, let me begin, Jenret.” Her voice sounded clear but papery-soft, close to the edge of exhaustion. “Jenret is my nephew by marriage. His father and my husband were brothers. There is, Lady help us, some sort of ‘taint’ in the family or—at least by the terms most of the world uses so easily—it is considered a ‘taint.’ In another place, in another time, with other training, it might be construed as an incredible gift: the ability to comprehend people’s thoughts. Telepathy is the old—and far more correct—name for this gift. In most cases, without training and guidance, the ability is misused, a danger to those who possess it and to those in proximity to anyone possessing this trait.”

  Jenret offered her another sip of water, then pressed the cool metal of the cup against his brow, his head bent in shame. He swallowed hard and lifted his face to theirs as he set the cup down. “She means the ability to Glean.”

  “Jenret’s brother Jared exhibited the ability at an early age.” Mahafny touched Jenret’s knee with soft insistence, bringing him back to himself. “No one understood the problem at first. or how to cope with it. And since he was young and totally untutored in his ability and in mastering his emotions, he nearly killed Jenret because of his jealousy. Later, two others, two servants, were killed before Jenret’s father finally allowed himself to admit that there was some terrible difference about his elder son. Something that to him grievously compromised the family honor.

  “He attempted to make reparation in the only way he could conceive of doing. He killed Jared, but not before the boy had burned his mind completely clean and blank during their struggle. Perhaps it was just as well in the end....” She patted the black-clad knee again and Jenret pulled back, distancing himself from the compassion in her touch, as if undeserving, guilty in some strange way. “Perhaps just as well, for the note found in his room indicated that he also planned to kill Jenret to ensure that the seeds of this ability were not passed to another generation.”

  Jenret pressed the cup into the earth, twisting it, raising it, and placing it next to the first indentation, making another interlocking circle, then another, but his voice carried firm as he picked up the tale. “And so my father lives on, with a quizzical, open smile and a mind as blank as a newborn baby’s. When he sees me on a visit I could be a servant, his son, or someone completely alien to him, but then, everything is alien to him now in the empty room of his mind. That was the legacy my brother bequeathed me. That—and more.”

  Motioning for another sip of water, Mahafny swallowed and continued. Despite her rising horror, Doyce once again admired the eumedico’s self-possession.

  “But Jenret’s brother wasn’t the only one so afflicted by this, this curse, talent, taint, call it as you will. As I mentioned, my husband and Jenret’s father were brothers. And so it was that we discovered much later that our daughter Evelien also carried this trait.” With a lift of her head in Doyce’s direction, she spoke as if they engaged in a private conversation. “You met her a few times, Doyce, while you were near the end of your training. Remember, she had just begun as a trainee.”

  She started to deny it, that she didn’t recollect, then stopped short. “The slim, intense one with the long, dark braid of hair? I vaguely knew you were related, but I didn’t realize she was your daughter. You never introduced her as such.”

  “Just so. She preferred not. Few eumedicos have a family, for children demand attention that their patients need. But I was determined to have both. I soon discovered I didn’t have the time or the patience to raise her alone, not and do it right, so I left her with Jenret’s mother. Still, when she finished her Tierce at sixteen, she was determined to become a eumedico.

  “Not through any love or admiration for me—Lady knows, I didn’t warrant it, not after deserting her, even though I left her in the best possible care after her father’s death. It was more a crazy-quilt, mixed-up kind of love and hate. Perhaps not that unusual in any adolescent under any circumstances. That was when I noticed it, or began to realize, but almost too late.” Hands spread in mute appeal to forestall any comment, she rushed the next words out, and Doyce wondered if Mahafny spoke to her or to herself now. “Quick-tempered, quick to love, emotions flowing hot and cold, and enthusiasms, too, jealous ... so much like me when I was young and impetuous. And at first I thought our empathy bespoke kindred blood and kindred spirits, despite our separation. But then I began to sense her transferring my thoughts, surreptitiously trying them on for size, measuring those that fit and those that didn’t and casting them aside. Oh, it was subtle, very insidious, she was old enough when she began to realize her power, not like Jared, so that for the most part she didn’t do irreparable hurt to anyone or to herself. And being raised in a household that had already been maimed by a Gleaner’s power may have helped her damp down her talents, increased her self-awareness because of the sheer need for self-preservation. But she was more than capable of spite and hurt—and that’s when I made arrangements to send her on, before things became any worse. She was insanely jealous of you, Doyce—and of our relationship.”

  The words dropped at her feet, waiting to be embraced as truth. And in remembrance of those days, the good times, the caring times, she rushed to ease the look of supplication in Mahafny’s eyes. “But surely the relationship of mother and child carries different, stronger bonds—beyond what we had. We shared something very special,” and swallowed hard at the unbidden memories of their love, “but not what she shared with you.”

  Mahafny shook her head, pitying, and Doyce realized that she had missed some subtle nuance that the eumedico saw all too well. “No, she wanted you. Because you wanted me, and she wanted to have whatever I wanted all for herself, even if later she decided to spurn or reject it. She shadowed you everywhere. When she realized she couldn’t sway you, she readied herself to strike at you.”

  With diplomatic delicacy Jenret interjected himself into the intense conversation, and Doyce felt a flicker of gratitude for his sensitivity in trying to shift their talk away from forbidden territories. “And so you escorted her to the Research Hospice, the one for pure or theoretical research. She’s still there, isn’t she?”

  “I think so. I hope so, although I haven’t had direct word from her since then. I had a twofold objective in sending her there: to help her learn to master herself, and to give others the opportunity to learn what to make of her special talent, and in so learning, perhaps to help other unfortunates master it before it destroyed them. And to give us the gift we have sought for so long, the talent we’ve pretended to possess. I receive—or received until recently—twice—yearly reports from the director. Now the silence worries me. Even colleagues passing through have said nothing, look surprised when I ask, don’t seem to know who or what I’m talking about.”

  “That must have been at least twelve years ago.” Doyce shook herself loose from her thoughts, from the effort of tracking back through the years. “She must be, what, twenty-nine by now?”

  “Yes. And you know where the Research Hospice is, don’t you, Doyce?”

  Tracing at an eyebrow, still lost in the unraveling of time, Doyce sifted through her memories. She certainly had heard of it, but mostly through rumor and gossip. A secretive place, shrouded in mystery. Only the very best of a very special kind of eumedico-in-training and a few outstanding older eumedicos who had surpassed themselves in their profession, pushed it to new heights, gained admission. Come to think of it, she had met only two eumedicos who had left that rarified world of pure theory to rejoin the real world, the daily numbing round of patients, some to be helped, some to be eased, and others to be lost despite every effort. She had never felt the faintest desire to be transferred there, though it supposedly constituted the ultimate advancement for any eumedico. Without really thinking about it, she spoke. “It’s up in the north, isn’t it? Up near the Marchmont border. Very isolated and remote ...”

  Two watched her with co
mprehension and pity; one, Harrap, watched with pity but very little understanding of the import of what he had heard.

  Reflected in their faces she saw what she had refused to see, and finished the sentence in a rush. “... and that may be precisely where we are heading, where our rendezvous will take place. You think Evelien is involved in some way? You can’t possibly believe... ?”

  “It seems possible. Or rather, not impossible. She may not be involved, but Gleaners are, and eumedicos, from the evidence we have—and she is both. When Jenret met me for dinner one night after Oriel’s death, he told me about the incident and mentioned you in passing, merely as a name. I knew the name. I also knew of your marriage and its end. And I didn’t like the sound of what had happened to Oriel. While I kept my suspicions to myself, I warned Jenret to be alert for anything which seemed out of the ordinary or dangerous on his circuits. And I set out for the Hospice to see for myself—and to try to watch over you as well, not sure how close I’d be able to get to you. I didn’t know how easily you’d accept my presence after all this time, how much you begrudged your oath. And I was right about not expecting a particularly warm welcome in your new life.”

  Doyce bowed her head in unspoken acknowledgment of the words as Jenret spoke, eager to pick up the story. “She never explained precisely what she wanted me to keep watch for, though, and somehow that aroused my suspicions more than anything else. When you seldom speak of something, as we seldom speak of Gleaners in our house, the unspoken carries greater weight than the actual words. Somehow everything comes to relate to it. Still, I had no evidence, not until tonight, just my fears.”

  His voice thickened as he wrestled with his thoughts, then continued. “All my life I’ve lived in terror of Gleaners, even before I had a name to call them, of what they’ve done, what they can do ... whether I carry the seeds ...” his thoughts drifted away, lost in memory, “... watching my mother try to cope, run the mercantile as if Father were still in charge, playing an elaborate charade so no one would lose faith in the House of Wycherley, struggling to remain true to the memory of the man she married. I vowed then, I vowed....”

  Harrap interrupted, voice sonorous and pure-toned as a bell calling the faithful to worship and be not afraid. “And so, we think we know where we are going or where we are being led. We have some inkling of why this is so. Perhaps even an idea of who may be involved, although that is still tenuous. But still we have no idea of what we will do when we arrive.” Flinging his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture, he smiled, the smile of a child, or of the pure of heart, too pure to fear or even fear the feeling of fear. “And we will do what must be done, trusting ourselves and each other until then and beyond. And the answer will come. Lady’s will be done.”

  The taut muscles in her face and neck relaxed themselves, and Doyce managed a small, genuine smile of relief. The others’ expressions echoed hers, uncertain at first, but gradually smoothing at the sound of a trusting voice, sure in its faith even if they hesitated to lay their burdens down. The answer would come; it must.

  “And so, to bed,” Jenret shook himself as if to let the ghost memories fade and spoke, in complete charge of himself and the others once more. “Harrap, will you take first watch? I’ll take the second, and Doyce the final leg. I think Mahafny had better rest the night through.”

  “Two ghatti on and two off for each shift?” Doyce waited for confirmation, only too aware of how tired she felt. Typical of Jenret to assign himself the worst possible shift, breaking his rest into two short halves so that the others could gain a longer, uninterrupted slumber. She could argue him for it, but held back. Let him give what he chose to give; he needed to do it. And she was so very exhausted. She forced her jaw closed in the midst of a bone-cracking yawn.

  “Yes, but where are they anyway?” Perplexed, Jenret scanned the camp, searching for the blend of fur and shadow. “Khar’s been here all evening, curled tight as a clam, but where are the other rascals, especially Saam?”

  The yawn broke again, she couldn’t swallow it. “Out scouting. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Saam may be teaching Rawn the finer points of stalking. Parm’s probably along for the fun of it.”

  “Well, have Khar round them up. I’m for bed.”

  Mahafny’s voice broke into their quiet companionship, a touch of chagrin frosting the sleepy tone of her voice. “Lady knows how I forgot. You know why I got bitten today? Why I didn’t pay any mind to where I planted my foot? I caught sight of something, someone, just then. At least ... I thought I did.” Dubious, she paused, mulling it over. “Seeing faces in the forest, a mindtrick, no doubt. Like finding faces in the clouds.” Then, decisively, “There was no one there.”

  “Well, if our companions—seen or unseen—have waited for us this long, they’ll probably be waiting in the morning, but all the more reason to set a guard,” Jenret answered, rolling himself into his blanket, shoulders digging back and forth as he twisted into a position of easement and muttered a good night to Harrap.

  On the other side of the fire Doyce bundled her blankets around her, twisting and turning as Jenret had, trying to settle in. Should have taken the time to grub a bit, carve out a hollow for my shoulders and hips. Savage as a miniature spear, a twig stabbed through the blanket at her right shoulder blade and she dug behind her, routing it out and discarding it, then falling back on her left thigh—only to feel the dull lump of a stone she hadn’t spotted in the dark. She started to chuck it away viciously but restrained herself and laid it aside. Despite her exhaustion, sleep felt very far away: everything said and unsaid, the looks, pauses, hesitations, the misjudgments cycled through her brain. Khar nosed her, patting and testing at the cocoon of blankets, wistful at the missed warmth since she was due on guard.

  Doyce reached out with her mindspeech. “You’ve been silent tonight. Why didn’t you speak, why didn’t you help?”

  “It was something you had to resolve amongst yourselves, just as we ghatti sometimes have to amongst us. I listened.”

  “Well, so what do you think?”

  The ghatta twisted her neck, licked at a spot between her shoulders. “That you all told the truth. Or told the truth as you see it and believe it—as much as you know. That’s still the problem—we don’t know enough yet.”

  “So how do we obtain the knowledge we need?”

  “That’s another tomorrow. And I have to go on watch now. I’ve been lazy all evening, as Jenret pointed out.”

  Doyce hoisted the blanket over her ears, snuggling the scratchy wool around her neck to cut the cool of the night. “Well, you’d better take care....” and fell instantly asleep.

  Khar roamed the night silence with Saam, their sleek moves slicing the ground mist without tattering it. They prowled several meters apart, together yet alone, neither impeding the other, aware of each other’s cautions and starts, double-checking scents and sounds from one another’s reactions. The woods always smelled interesting, different scents to each pine or fir variety, all sharp but each individualized. A headier, richer scent of rot and decay, of needles and leaves decomposing in gradations, the musty, moist smell of an overturned tree trunk, shifted and rolled in a search for grubs, earth and punky, exposed side shimmering pale against the dark. Bear smell garlanded around the log and the surrounding earth, and over the bear stink she could taste-scent fish and honey, acrid ants. And the familiar scent of those they followed still tainted the air with a faint green effulgence, neither stronger nor weaker than before.

  Saam ghosted to her side; they stood cheek to cheek to communicate, eye whisker flicks, vibrissae rub, ear semaphorings, all in keeping with the silence. “I will keep watch alone if you wish to track her dreams,” he offered. The tiny warm stream of nostril breath touched moist against her face.

  “You think I cannot do both at once?” And now she angered, despite herself. It was hard to concentrate on both when she began following the path of Doyce’s dreams, too easy to misjudge a footing and reveal herself eit
her in the real world or the dream world, and she couldn’t afford exposure in either place.

  He backed a discreet distance, sat, licked one paw, then the other, concentrating, eyes lowered. Finally he tried again, “If we both do what we each do best ...” and he drifted off, “... and I cannot help you with that.” She knew what the admission cost him, and respected him because he had phrased it that way, rather than flaunting the greater acuity of his physical senses, thus putting her on the defensive, shaming her with his superiority. She rubbed her chin across the hump of his shoulder blade, conciliating. “How did you know she was dreaming again?” His insight gave her pause.

  He gave a little shrug-twist, as if her rubbing tickled. “She makes the air swirl around her when she dreams, the dust motes dance, my fur feels staticky, my ears tingle with a sound too high to hear.” He wrinkled his nose in puzzlement. “Don’t you feel it, too? I just can’t read it. ”

  “Ah,” she mouthed the sound without sound. “What if I stalk her dreams from here, watch this spot right here? You cover the rest?”

  “Fine. I will stalk alone as well. Good hunting,” and he ghosted off.

  Curled between two tree roots, Khar let her mind range free, sought the patterning and set herself to wait. Parm had counseled her to wait and watch, not try to correct, and tonight she would see what that brought. Given everything that had already happened tonight, she expected Doyce’s dreams would be more chaotic than ever, maddening to a tidy ghatta who wanted to rearrange and reorder. Humans tended to react to stress by conjuring up a fantasy of truth and untruth, oil and water that would not mix to her mind. But it let them play out their fears—or worse, strengthened them. She netted a tiny, unobtrusive place in the dream for herself, batted at it to set it to rights, ready to seine a fish, to view what she had seen before as knots holding the net, instead of trying to unravel them....

  “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty ...” Doyce pillowed her eyes against crossed arms, felt the soft inner skin of her forearms dragging against the rough bark of the giant red maple she leaned against. She knew that people massed behind her, could hear them shifting and shoving, impatient, trying to clear as far away from her as they could, muffling their sound against her singsong counting. A branch cracked underfoot, and she heard a sharp expletive begin, then choke off. The change in air movement told her that some swarmed by her silently, charting a new direction, confident that she couldn’t search everywhere at once, that someone could always slip home while she ran a fruitless chase after another. Although she couldn’t see the faces, she knew that everyone from her past and present was laughing, running from her, hiding. “Ninety, ninety-five, one hundred! Ready or not, here I come!”