by Tanya Huff
Vree tucked her chin closer to her chest. “I’m so thrilled.”
As sleep claimed them, the night seemed to take on the rhythm of their breathing. Leaves danced with the breeze to the same slow time; the thousand and one noises of the creatures who made the darkness their own became a gentle harmony. At first, the music was only an extension of the breathing, the breeze, the creatures, but then it took on a definition all its own. Promising security, it lay over the sleepers like another blanket.
When it finally trailed off, the other sounds went with it and the night was, for a moment, perfectly still.
On the far side of the graveyard, Celestin pulled her fingers from her ears and yawned. “Is that it, then?”
“That’s it.” Marija Sang a quick four notes and a kigh danced on the wick of the lantern she held. “I can’t guarantee it’ll hold them until morning, but we’ll have time enough to lock them safely away.”
The priest shook her head as she beckoned her nephew and three other men forward into the light. “I don’t much like this.”
Marija shrugged and rummaged a bit of hard candy out of a pocket. “You won’t have to not like it for long. According to the kigh, they’ll only be our problem until noon tomorrow.”
* * * *
Clean and fed, dressed in a borrowed robe better than any he could remember wearing, Kars lay on a pallet by the hearth and listened to the sounds of people sleeping. Tomorrow, they’d told him—speaking slowly and loudly for he understood very little of the language—the cutters would be coming in and everyone would be home for the festival.
Everyone would be home.
He would wait.
* * * *
Eyes still closed. Breathing regular. If anyone was watching, they’d think she remained asleep. She was in a building. A small building. She was alone—or at least Magda was no longer with her—and her weapons had been removed.
*Vree?*
*Quiet.*
The urgency in the command and the surge of adrenaline accompanying it penetrated Gyhard’s usual waking fog and he found himself completely attuned to Vree’s senses.
It wasn’t a stable, although it had held an animal. She could smell a faint hint of musk behind an overlay of soap. The pallet beneath her was clean. The blanket, the one she’d fallen asleep under.
She could hear dogs barking. A rooster crow. Farther away, a baby cried fretfully. She could hear only her own breathing.
She opened her eyes. Before her lids were all the way up, she stood, hands out from her sides, in the center of the shed.
Logs as big around as her thigh had been sunk into the ground to make a square, each wall a little longer than the pallet they’d laid her on. Light and air came through a multitude of tiny chinks. Something large and angry had gouged lines of parallel claw marks into the wood. The roof had been built of more logs with sod laid on top. The door dragged open outward on bullhide hinges and had been braced or barred. The dirt floor showed signs of having been recently repacked around the base of the walls. There was a jug of water by the bed and an empty, covered pot in the opposite corner.
A cautious look outside showed a field, a dirt yard and a fence, the back of a building, and the side of what smelled like a cow stable.
Moving back to the center of the floor, she drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose, teeth clenched too tightly to allow even the passage of air. “What happened?”
*Offhand, I’d say there’s a bard in Bartek Springs.*
*A bard did this?*
*Probably Sang us a lullaby.*
Vree flexed her fingers around an invisible throat. “I’m beginning to understand the Cemandian attitude.”
* * * *
“So you stuck her in a shed that used to hold a bear? You locked her up like an animal?”
Marija was beginning to regret ever having mentioned the shed’s previous occupant. “She’s an Imperial assassin; I doubt very much Celestin’s house would hold her.”
Eyes blazing, Magda stomped across the room and jabbed her finger at the bard. “You have no business holding her at all! For that matter, you have no business holding me!”
“Her Highness commanded …”
“What? That you break your vows and use the kigh against an innocent pair of travelers!”
“I haven’t broken anything!” Astonished to find herself shouting, Marija took a deep breath and regained a measure of control. “You know as well as I do that Singing a lullaby involves no kigh.”
Magda smiled triumphantly. “Does, too. Fifth kigh. And you can’t argue with that because I know.”
“I was just following orders …”
“Oh, sure, convenient excuse. If they’d ordered you cover us in honey and stake us over an anthill, would you have done that, too?”
Marija sighed. “Maybe not yesterday.”
“What’s that supposed to mean!”
Raising both hands, palm out, the bard stood. “Look, Magda, as much as I personally find it difficult to understand, the powers that be want you back in Elbasan. They also want your companion, an Imperial assassin with two not entirely stable kigh, back where she’s under some kind of supervision.”
“And they don’t consider me sufficient supervision?”
“Apparently not.” With one hand on the door, she cautioned the young healer against approaching any closer. “I’ve done what I was told to do and in a very short while you won’t be my problem. The kigh say your brother and her brother are a very short distance from town.”
“Her brother?”
“His name is Bannon. He came into Shkoder with Prince Otavas and was recruited to help out. That’s all I know.” Nodding at the table she added, “Try a little jam on the oatcakes, they’re really good.” Then she left.
“Oh, sure.” Magda slapped a spoonful of jam on an oatcake with one hand and dashed away angry tears with the other, “I’m not sufficient supervision for an Imperial assassin, but Gerek is? Like that’s fair.”
* * * *
“Magda is locked in the priest’s spare room, Your Grace. We felt her companion …” Under the intensity of Bannon’s stare, Marija cleared her throat and began again. “That is, under the circumstances and considering everything we’d heard about her ability, we felt her companion should be put someplace a little more secure.
As Gerek translated, Bannon shifted his weight forward and flexed the muscles across his back. Although he looked ready for a fight, all he said when Gerek finished was, “Where?”
* * * *
*Someone’s coming.* Vree rolled up onto her feet and held her breath as she sifted the quiet sound of approaching footsteps from the sounds she’d been listening to all morning. Whoever it was, was walking softly. Not furtively, as though expecting to reach the shed unnoticed but with a sure and quiet tread that kept the weight balanced and the noise to a minimum.
Whoever it was …
*Vree! Are you all right?*
*No …*
*Vree, breathe!*
She jerked and sucked in a frantic lungful of air just in time to expel it as a name when the footsteps stopped. “Bannon.”
“He’s made you weak, Vree. These people should never have been able to catch you.” His voice dripped disdain; for Gyhard, for her, for the people who’d caught her.
“Their bards don’t exactly fight fair.”
“What was it Commander Neegan used to say? The survivors determine what’s fair?”
“Things are more complicated now,” she said, turning to follow the sound of his movement as he circled the shed. “Survival isn’t everything.”
“Does he think so, too, sister-mine?” He used to say it like an endearment. Now, it was more of a reminder. “Remember what he’s done in the past to survive.”
“We remember.”
“We?” His voice picked up an edge, just as arrogant but a little less certain. “You’ll never share his memories the way you shared mine, Vree, because you’ll
never share his life the way you shared mine.”
“What makes you think I want to?” She watched his shadow flicker silently past the chinks between the logs.
Finally, it stopped, a hand’s span to the right of the door. “So it’s like that, is it? I might have known. Do you let him use your body? Does he touch you with your hands?”
Vree rolled her eyes. “Is that all you ever think about?” she demanded. “Bannon, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you back to Elbasan.”
“By whose command?”
“As a favor to the crown of Shkoder.”
“Then as a favor to me, let me go.”
Bannon laughed. “That’d be a favor to him, not to you. It isn’t you that’s running after Kars, it’s him. It isn’t you that needs to be stopped, it’s him.” His voice grew slightly shrill. “It isn’t you who left me, it’s him!”
“I chose.”
“NO!”
His pain ripping great holes in her heart, Vree took a step toward the wall. He was the younger brother she’d loved and protected her entire life, and she wanted to destroy the thing hurting him so.
*Vree.*
*Not you; me.*
*I know.* He gave her his strength and was surprised when she used it.
“Bannon, even if I’d let Gyhard die, things could never have been the same between us. We can’t go back into the past.”
“I know that. I’m not stupid, Vree. But why can’t we go into the future together?”
She laid her hand against the logs. Saw bits of him mirror the movement on the other side. “Because we’d drag the past with us and it would drag us down. I’m not going back to Elbasan with you.”
“Yes, you are.” His hand fell away. “If I have to knock you out and tie you to the slaughtering horse.”
*Can he?* Gyhard asked as they listened to the footsteps move away.
Trying to remember if her palms used to sweat, she dried them on her thighs. *No. If it came to a fight, I’d know every move he’d make before he made it.*
*Wouldn’t he know yours the same way?*
*My life revolved around him. So did his.*
*Vree, if it came to a fight …*
As the sound of Bannon’s footsteps blended with the sounds of Bartek Springs, she shook her head. *He can’t kill me. He wants me for something.*
*What? Besides the obvious.*
Settling back cross-legged on the edge of the pallet, she snorted, the sound more sad than indignant. *Don’t you start. I don’t know what he wants but, trust me, I know when he’s hiding something.*
*Vree?*
*Don’t …*
*Can you kill him?*
She closed her eyes and touched the memories of her brother. *I hate you sometimes, you know.*
He let his control move down into her arms. Once again, she allowed his embrace. *I know.*
* * * *
“Gerek, things are happening here that you don’t understand!”
He dropped his head into his hands and sighed. It’d been a long hard ride and this accusation was not what he needed at the end of it. “What don’t I understand, Maggi?”
“If you force us to go back to Elbasan with you, you’ll have completely ruined Vree’s life. Destroyed any chance that she and Gyhard might be able to create some kind of a future together.”
“How?” Suddenly suspicious, he studied her through narrowed eyes. “You’re not thinking of putting Gyhard into Kars’ body are you?”
Magda made a disgusted face. “Yuk, no.”
“Then explain how I’d be destroying anything.”
“Sometimes the past is like, like a millstone around your neck and it keeps dragging you back whenever you try to go forward. Kars is that kind of a millstone for Gyhard. As long as Gyhard was just killing time …”
“Not to mention assorted young men.”
Magda ignored him … then he didn’t have to deal with all the feelings of betrayal and guilt, but the moment he fell in love with Vree, then it all came to the surface like, like a festering boil that has to be lanced.”
“Lovely imagery, Maggot,” Gerek muttered, curling his lip. “Don’t tell me—you’re the healer to lance the boil?”
“Yes!” Throwing herself to her knees at his feet, she gazed up at him, using an expression that had, in the past, softened his resistance. “Singing the kigh back into the dead for all these years, Kars has taken his own kigh out of the Circle. Gyhard and I together are the only hope of stopping him.” Grabbing his wrists, she shook him as hard as she could—unfortunately, it made little impression. “If you can’t help us for Vree’s sake—who, I’d like to remind you, you were so infatuated with such a short while ago—then do help us for Shkoder. Who knows what terrible things will happen if Kars isn’t stopped!”
Shaking free of her grip, Gerek captured her hands in his. “Listen, Maggi, I know you’re used to being the only one who can do certain things, but Captain Liene has called Karlene from the Empire to deal with Kars. She’s faced him before. She knows what to do.”
Magda shook her head, her dark eyes suddenly bright with tears. “She’ll die, Ger. She’ll die like Jazep did.”
“Jazep only Sang earth, Maggi.” His voice gentled, he wiped tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.
She sniffed and pulled away. “Karlene’s a bard. Kars needs to be healed. She won’t be able to reach him and she’ll die. Vree and Gyhard need to be healed, and I need Kars to do that.” Rising, she walked to the window and stared in the direction of the shed. “This is a lot more important than keeping me safe or keeping Vree under some sort of supervision.”
“Maggi, it wasn’t only Her Highness. Annice sent me after you as well.”
“Mother wants me back in Elbasan?”
“She sent me to find you.”
“But did she tell you to take me back to the Capital?” Gerek frowned. “Well, no, but …”
“Then maybe she wanted you to help me.” Hands on her hips, she turned and glared at him. “Did you even consider that?”
“Help you?” There were times … “Maggi, when she sent the kigh to me, she had no idea of what you were going to do. She still doesn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“What?”
“If you think, under these circumstances …” Waving arms emphasized the circumstances. “… Mother hasn’t had the kigh watching both of us, you’re not half as smart as you think you are.”
“Look, even if Annice does want me to help you,” he sighed, his tone suggesting it was highly unlikely, “I’ve been given a direct order from Her Highness to bring you back.”
Lips pressed into a thin line, Magda pivoted on one heel and stared out the window once again.
“Maggi …”
She shook her head.
Gerek sighed and left the room. It had seemed so simple when he’d left the capital. Stepping out the back door he saw Bannon approaching across the yard. Something in the Southerner’s face, or his posture, or the way that he moved, made Gerek frown.
All at once, he suspected that his little sister was right.
Things were happening here that he didn’t understand.
Ten
Singing softly, Karlene tried to work out what was wrong with the kigh. They weren’t frightened, although the air trembled still with the faint reverberations of Kars’ passing. They weren’t trying to warn her of danger; if anything, they seemed sad. Even after she Sang a gratitude, three or four hovered about her head not, as they would usually, in order to make mischief but almost as though they thought she might need the support.
She began to get a very bad feeling about walking into Fortune.
From where she stood, the mining settlement seemed normal enough. A little quiet perhaps, but as it was barely noon, it seemed logical to assume that most of the activity should be going on out of sight at the mine. The breeze shifted and from one of the cottages she could hear the faint wail of an ang
ry baby.
As one, the kigh around her head spun up and out of sight.
“Fickle,” she muttered. Squaring her shoulders under the weight of her pack, she walked slowly along the track. At the point where it spread out and became the central square of the settlement, a trio of huge, rough-coated dogs bounded out to meet her. Their greeting seemed subdued. Two of them were strangely submissive, the third sniffed her outstretched hand, then turned and ran barking back the way it had come.
Karlene stayed where she was, waiting for someone to respond to the barking and taking a closer look around. In spite of a Third Quarter chill in the air, all the doors and windows were open in the two, large, communal buildings fronting the square. Except for the dogs, the place seemed deserted. Even the baby had stopped crying.
Then a young woman stepped out of one of the small cottages, pulling the door closed behind her. The way she moved spoke of both fear and suspicion. Karlene thought she saw a shape stir at the window and the fine hairs lifted off the back of her neck as she felt herself watched.
“What do you want?” the young woman called, one hand resting lightly on the dog’s broad head.
Karlene Sang her name.
To her surprise, the young woman started, raised both hands to her mouth, and burst into tears.
* * * *
“Why didn’t you send word to the duc? Or even down to Bartek Springs?”
“How?” Krisus demanded, bouncing a now smiling baby on his lap. “We had so many people to bury and Ilka to take care of—she’s not even weaned yet—and …”
Karlene laid her hand lightly on his shoulder and cut off the flow of bitter words. “I wasn’t criticizing,” she explained gently. “It’s just that you’ve been through so much, I’m amazed that you managed without sending for help.”
“We couldn’t leave them,” Evicka declared defensively. She poured warm milk into a glass flask and deftly tied a cloth nipple to the top. “What if the others had come home while we were gone and found only bodies?”
“You’re right.” Astounded by the strength these two just barely out of their teens had shown, Karlene didn’t bother being subtle with her voice. She let all her admiration and her sympathy and her sorrow show.