“I don’t know about most,” Luca said. “But some, definitely. It’s just that there are so few of us left. . . .”
“She’s angry with you,” Cuarel observed. “Seemed like she was about to bite you, couple of times, or at least wag her finger.” She grinned.
Luca nodded. “Setasan wanted to be an Inquisitor. Long before my time, of course. But she’s not Griffin Class. Her Talent isn’t strong enough, and no amount of discipline or practice can make it stronger.”
Cuarel looked at him sideways, with slitted eyes. “She gave in easily.”
“She didn’t give in. She’s playing a long game.” Luca rubbed his face with his hands. “I have to let her, though. One enemy at a time.”
* * *
“It’s remarkable.” Tel looked from one face to another.
Ker and Bakura shared an old wooden bench that had seen better days, the mask lying between them on the rough wood, unwrapped and brilliantly white against its red covering.
“It is said to be white jade.” The Princess Imperial traced her fingertip down the mask from eyebrow to chin.
“May I?” Ker’s own fingers hovered over the edge of the mask closest to her.
The Princess Imperial licked her lips, looked up at Kerida and back down again, before giving an abrupt nod.
Ker laid the first two fingers of her left hand on the chin of the mask. “It’s not jade; it’s some kind of petrified bone. And it’s warmer than I expected,” she said. “It belongs to your brother, but I guess that’s not news to you.” She smiled, and the other girl relaxed, leaning back against the wall of the shed. “It’s a part of him, isn’t it? He shares it with you, the way he shares your blood and your love.” Ker caught Bakura’s eye. “Both are important, both needed for you to use the mask while he still lives.”
“Can you see what he is doing?”
Ker, eyes closed, shook her head. “No, but he’s relaxed, happy even. He’s . . . he’s not thinking about you, not just now anyway.”
“Can you tell us anything else about the mask itself?” Tel said.
“They come from the far past of my people.” Bakura stroked the mask with her finger again. “It is my brother’s face.”
“But it wasn’t always.” Ker could have answered Tel’s question herself, but she sensed it might do the princess good to tell the tale herself.
“No. These are artifacts of the Horse People. Ours before we conquered Halia. There are four masks, one for each Horse Herd—that is what we call the Clans among our people,” she broke off to say. “When the chief of a Clan died, any who would lead tried the mask. If the mask fit, if it took on the features of the candidate, that one became the new lord. Every five years the chiefs would come together to choose from among themselves the Lord of Horses, to lead them all into battle. Now, because our Lord of Horses sits on the Sky Throne, he holds all four masks, and it is his face we see on all of them.”
“And that’s how you know that the right person becomes Emperor?” Tel said.
“Yes.” Bakura sat back again with a sigh. “And that is all.”
“Not quite.” Ker almost laughed at the look—half curiosity, half affront—on the younger girl’s face. “You said there are four masks, but there are five.”
“Impossible.” The princess shook her head. “There have only ever been four.”
“Except there are five.”
“Five . . .”
“Think about it. Four people can be equally divided. How could they choose one of themselves to be lord over all? A fifth chief breaks the tie.”
Bakura frowned, one brow up, one down. Ker had a flashing image of what she would look like as an old woman. If they all lived that long. Finally, the girl nodded. “Yes, I think it could be so. But then, where is the fifth mask?”
Ker shook her head. “All I can tell you is that this mask knows.” Ker saw the look on the other’s girl’s face. “I’m sorry, I’m not saying it’s aware. It’s just, when you’re Flashing, that’s sort of what it feels like.” Bakura nodded, but not as if she was really reassured.
“What about a demonstration?” Trust Tel to know the way to put the girl at ease and show her it was still the mask she’d had all along.
Bakura had her hand halfway to the handle of the mask before she hesitated. “I must warn you, it does not speak with my voice.”
“Is it loud?”
The girl blinked. “No, not unless I speak loudly.”
“Then go ahead.”
The girl picked the mask up and with no further hesitation fitted it to her face. Tel sat astride the bench behind Ker, and she leaned back against him, welcoming his solid warmth.
“Can you hear me? Does the magic work for you?”
Ker gasped, and Tel closed his arms around her. Even with the warning, the man’s voice was astonishing.
“Just for a minute there, I thought I saw two of you, one sort of overlapping the other.” Ker had only seen this phenomenon once before, with Larin Time-seer. Not every time the girl spoke, but often enough that Ker recognized it. “Can you see the future?” she asked now.
The mask looked down and up again. “Not now. Not since the netting. And not always clearly or well.”
“Like Larin.” Tel’s voice rumbled against her back. “Not enough training. Wait— Time-seeing is a Feeler’s gift, so it might eventually come back, net or no net.”
Ker had a disturbing thought. “Do the Shekayrin see the future?”
“There has never been any mention of such a thing.” Bakura lowered the mask, hands trembling. “Forgive me. I am suddenly very weak.”
“Why is she still so tired?” Tel stood, as well as he could in the small shed. “I thought you removed the mist.”
Baku packed the mask away, making a face like she was trying not to cry. She let the satchel rest in her lap and hugged it like a stuffed toy. Ker was certain the girl was unaware of her actions.
She tapped her fingers on one knee. “It’s using the mask. Look,” she added when Tel raised his eyebrows, “using a Gift is an exertion, just like fighting or marching. You can only do so much before you need sleep and food—”
“I have chicken rolls in my satchel,” the girl said.
“Well, haul them out, Princess. They won’t get any fresher hiding in there.” Tel squatted down next to the princess and gestured to her to open her pack.
“No food, no sleep, and she’s using her Gifts.” Ker continued as if there’d been no interruption. “No wonder she’s exhausted.” Ker rubbed at her own face. Exhaustion was something she knew about.
“Perhaps it is time for you to remove my net?” The girl looked up without raising her head, half fearing the answer. A chicken roll hung slack in her hand.
“Why not?” Tel’s tone was full of reassurance. “She removed mine.” He rescued the roll and handed it to Ker.
Ker wasn’t so sure. “You weren’t netted, not like this. If you had been, you’d have ended up like Ester.” Who, with luck, would be awake by now and angry with them for leaving her behind. “Your net overlaid your aura and changed you, but it wasn’t . . . it didn’t contain you in this way.” Ker took a bite of her roll and was pleased to see Bakura doing the same.
“Jerek believes you can remove it.” A movement of muscle in the side of Baku’s jaw showed that she’d clenched her teeth. She was prepared to be stubborn about this.
“I’d like to wait until we’re back in the Mines and Tunnels.” Where she’d have the help of a Mind-healer. Ker thought about contacting Weimerk, but she had an idea what he would say if she didn’t try everything she knew first.
“Please.” Baku’s voice was tight as a bowstring. “It cannot be much longer. I . . .” She pressed her lips together and blinked rapidly. “I would be more useful free. My visions would return, I’m sure.”
Tel
grunted and swallowed the food in his mouth. “Would Svann be any help?”
Ker knew what it must have cost Tel to make that suggestion—he had to be desperate to be willing to ask Svann for help.
“I can’t reach him,” she admitted. “I’ve tried over and over, but I don’t get anything.”
“Do you think something’s gone wrong? Or is he not answering you deliberately?” How quickly Tel returned to his usual skeptical self.
“I don’t know.” Ker didn’t want to voice her fears aloud. If “something” had happened to Svann, it had happened to Wynn Martan as well. “He’s not very good at using the jewel to Far-think; he hasn’t had a lot of practice.”
“Then you’ll just have to fix her yourself.”
Ker pressed her lips tight. Just like that. As if her bones didn’t feel like jelly, as if her eyelids weren’t gritty with all the sleep she’d missed and all the magic she’d already done today. She took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly. Baku would do this herself if she could. Mother knew Tel would do it for her if he could. She shoved what was left of her chicken roll into her mouth and wiped her palms off on her trousers.
“Let’s have another look. Maybe I’ll see something I didn’t see before.” Paraste. She was going to need all the help that her Talent and concentration could give her.
This time she focused on Baku’s aura as if the net wasn’t there. In addition to the three basic colors, the princess had the purple and the orange that were the colors of any Gifted person—no surprises. There was the black of a Far-thinker, and perhaps a streak of gold—that was unusual. Ker had it, but it had been a gift from Weimerk. There were still more colors, red among them, some wide ribbons but too faded to be sure of, some tiny threads like the ones she’d seen in Jerek. But there was one color Ker could see very plainly, as it was a color she had herself. Turquoise.
As well as everything else she might be, or might become, the Princess Imperial was Talented. Ker’s own aura swirled around her in excitement. Baku had more colors than she did. More colors than Jerek. She was Feeler and Talent both, and if she could use a jewel, and take the griffin colors as well. . . .
“Faster would be good.”
Ker only just stopped herself from giving Tel’s aura the kind of shove that would have sent his body flying as well. But he wasn’t wrong.
“She has a lot of colors, Tel. More than I’ve ever seen before in a human.”
She turned her attention to the net holding Baku’s aura, tracing each line, touching each joining with one of her own colors, until the net looked like a spider’s web dusted with dew. This confirmed that Baku’s net was far more intricate than the similar one that had touched Tel’s aura. Since Tel wasn’t a mage, or a Feeler, or a Talent, all that net had done to him was modify his thinking a little.
Though no one had thought it was “a little” at the time.
Now that she was looking more carefully, she could see that some of Baku’s colors, certainly the black and the turquoise, were outside the net, which explained how she could Far-think, and how, like a Talent, she sometimes just knew things. As Ker refocused on the net itself, she wondered whether she could affect it the same way she’d done with Svann’s. It had hurt him, but this one wasn’t a part of Baku. Ker should be able to influence it without hurting the girl—or at least not much.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her own jewel. Baku’s eyes widened and her aura, even confined as it was, shivered.
“This will help,” she told the girl. “With the jewel, I’ll be able to use my own web, not just the colors of my aura.”
“I am not afraid of you,” Baku said. “But—” She indicated the jewel with a tilt of her chin. “Nothing good has ever come to me from one of those.”
Ker thought for a moment. Around her neck, beneath layers of tunic, undertunic and shirt, was the small bag holding the blank jewel Larin had given to Tel. No. Ker let her hand drop. Too complicated. That had to be a last resort, she thought. Once everything else had failed.
Ker called up the patterns of her own jewel. The first one to spring up wasn’t even the same basic shape as Baku’s net. Breathing deeply, Ker let her patterns loose, watching them change until she finally had one that looked like a star-pointed spider’s web. She floated her web over the other one and tugged it into a shape that matched Baku’s more exactly. Like making a bed, she thought. Starting in the center, she began adjusting individual lines, twitching, moving, nudging, until she had an exact match. Or thought she had. When she mentally stepped back, and Flashed her creation, she saw that two tiny lines remained uncopied. Heart pounding, she filled them in.
“What is it? You are frightened.”
“It’s all right,” Ker said, keeping her voice steady, though she was frightened. What might have happened if she hadn’t noticed the flaws?
Ker closed her fists, and her net grew brighter until it obscured the other completely. She gripped the edge of her net and peeled it back and, as she’d hoped, the old net came away with the new, like a scab peeling off as a bandage unwrapped.
Just as she was starting to breathe more easily, the net slipped from Ker’s control and snapped back to its original position around Baku’s aura.
“Daughter curse you blind.” Ker stuck her fingers in her mouth. They felt as if they’d been closed in a door. “All right, don’t panic. I have another idea.” Meticulously, Ker built her web back until it once more exactly duplicated the web holding Baku. This time she would try to change the pattern; that might make it easier to remove.
Again, the net snapped back into place, and this time the stinging in Ker’s fingers didn’t fade. She covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Mother, Daughter, and Son, help me!” She wasn’t praying so much as cursing.
“I can’t do it,” she said finally. “It keeps slipping away. It’s like trying to pull an eel out of the water with your bare hands.” Ker kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see the look of disappointment on Baku’s face. Gradually, it seemed a vast space surrounded her, became part of her. As if Weimerk spoke to her, mind-to-mind. Ker lowered her hands.
“I’m an idiot,” she said.
“No argument here,” Tel growled.
“I’m doing the same thing I did with Ester, I’m trying to take something out. I should try putting something in.”
“You said my aura is intact.” Baku’s eyes narrowed.
“What if I gave you more? What if your aura was too big for the net to contain?”
“I wish I could see what you’re talking about,” Tel said.
Ker sat back on her heels. “You can’t, but I’ll bet you that, with the right Gifts, Baku can.” The princess’ aura had at least black and turquoise outside the net. If she could see the auras, the girl might be able to free herself. Ker teased loose a thread of coppery metallic color, the first one Weimerk had ever given her, and wove it into a braid with the black and the turquoise, adding the moss green that would keep Baku from being overwhelmed by auras.
Baku inhaled sharply, gripping Ker’s hands, but Ker could see that the new colors were blossoming, swirling inward and outward.
“Ker, there are people coming through the grove. Kerida.”
Ker split her attention and Flashed outward. “Eleven men,” she told Tel. “Crap! And three of them Shekayrin.”
She had the same Gifts the Shekayrin had—or she would have if she hadn’t spent the last two days, and even the last few hours, using all the magic she had. Baku wasn’t the only one who was worn out. And any one of the mages had more training in using their jewels than she had.
“Kerida.” That was Baku’s hand on her wrist.
She could waste this time, and what was left of her energy, keeping the enemy at bay for a few minutes, until her strength failed. Or she could help Bakura. The choice was obvious. Ker’s job
as the Second Sign, as Griffin Girl, was to do everything she could to complete the Prophecy. “See the child eyes of color and light. Holds the blood and the wings and the bone, child of the griffin.” And that meant Baku. Ker was sure of it now. The girl had all the Gifts: Talent, Feeler and Shekayrin; the blood, the wings, the bone. Or she would have. All Baku needed was a jewel of her own.
And Ker had one for her.
The blank jewel appeared in her hand, as if following her thoughts. If she was quick, she’d have time to tell Baku what to do.
“Ker, is this it? Is this what Larin meant?”
Without looking at him, Ker said. “I’m sorry, Tel. I love you.”
“Never doubted it.”
“Swallow this,” she said to Baku. “Flash my aura,” she added softly. “You know you can trust me. Swallow.” The girl took the jewel into her mouth with a grimace, as if she had bitten into a sour apple. She swallowed. Ker waited. Nothing. The soldiers were surrounding the shed.
Baku licked her lips and opened her eyes. She reached out with her right hand and touched Ker’s face with the tips of her fingers.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said. “All the colors.”
Ker grinned. “You should see yourself.” Maybe this was going to work. “You’re part of it now, the blood and bone of the world. Reach for it.” Baku’s brows drew down into a vee, and she frowned. Suddenly her face relaxed.
“Now, do you see the patterns?” Baku nodded. “Are they changing, one after another?” The girl nodded again. “Keep them all, accept them all. Use them to match and remove your netting. Be careful to—crap!” The others were getting closer.
<
The shed exploded away from them.
* * *
Weimerk awoke from meditation feeling uneasy. The skin between his wings itched, and no amount of movement or attention by beak or paws helped. Meditation was meant to create calm and harmony, not feed a sense of worry and anxiety.
Gift of Griffins Page 29