by Gayle Greeno
The mindvoice cut in acerbically, “Then why tell me to shift away before?”
Perplexed, Jenret replied, “Because it would have slashed the rope. ”
“Frayed it, sure. Just climb faster than it frays. ”
Hardly a comforting thought. “Can you reach?”
A hawking, spitting noise, the realization that a globule of liquid sailed by his head. “Not very comforting when you can’t hear it land,” Rawn gulped. “A long way down.”
“Sure. Climbed worse. ”
And amazingly, centimeter by centimeter, the man shifted, embraced the wall, hugging himself to it. Once or twice the metallic chink of a pick rang out, shattering the silence. A leg swung over, foot sliding sideways, testing the widening lip. Finally, the other leg followed. Jenret tilted his head, saw ripped woolen trousers and a heavy canvas smock, the bare sketch of a face above that. “Seeker Veritas and Resonant Jenret Wycherley at your service. A stupid thing to say, considering his predicament. ”Or rather, awaiting your service, I hope. ”
A hand braced against his shoulder and the figure turned until he faced outward like Jenret. “Somerset Garvey. Wasn’t planning on a night stroll down a scarp. Still, you called for help. Not right to ignore or deny one of our own. ”
Jenret found himself pulled to his feet, scabard dragging against the wall, Rawn still in his arms. Nowhere now to set the ghatt unless he pinned him between his feet. “How do I climb? I need a hand free to hold the ghatt. ”
“Figured he’d cause trouble. A rustling from under his smock was followed by, ”Wrapped a gunnysack round my waist. Pop him in. Tie it to your belt. ”
“No! Not helpless like that!” Rawn squirmed and sputtered. “I’ll stay and starve to death before I willingly crawl into that sack!”
He lacked the heart to blame Rawn but couldn’t fathom any other choice. “Rawn, it has to be. Trust me.” And brought his attention back to Garvey. “Are we climbing up together or one at a time? Will the rope hold us both?”
He could see Garvey’s head swivel, realized he was shaking his head in disgust. “Nother rope anchored topside. ” A soft whistle, and the rope came, uncoiling as it went. “Side by side, that way I kin help if you hang up. Wall-walking’s an acquired habit. ”
Rawn growled, caught his attention. “How much do you value your hide?”
He strove to soothe, suspected he failed miserably, betraying the ghatt by forcing the indignity of the sack on him. Pride versus life. “It won’t take long, Rawn. What do you mean ‘how much do I value my hide’?”
“I mean, enough to forgive some inadvertent shredding if it’s necessary?” Claws dug deep into his sheepskin tabard as Rawn clambered onto Jenret’s shoulders. “I’ll cling to the tabard, that’s what it was meant for, but if I slip, I’ll sink my claws into any available part of your anatomy,” he warned.
Garvey ignored them, fashioning a harness from the rope end. Putting a hand up, Jenret steadied the ghatt. “Rawn, it won’t work. You won’t stay stable on my shoulders. I’ll pitch you off. ”
“I am planning on sinking my front claws into your shoulders, driving my teeth into your collar, and hooking my hind claws into your waist sash. Consider me as a ghatti knapsack, the latest fashion.” More urgently, almost apprehensively, “Please, humans drown kittens in gunny-sacks. If the bag falls into the stream below....”
Garvey tapped at one of his legs, waiting for him to step through the harness loop, a test of willpower if there ever was, balancing on first one leg, then the other with the ghatt’s additional weight threatening to tilt him off the ledge. Finally, the rope was knotted around his waist. “Fine, we’ll try it your way, he promised Rawn, ”but spare as much flesh as you can, I’m attached to it. ” He pressed the ghatt’s face close to his for a moment. ”Claw away, better to sacrifice flesh than you. ”
Three sharp tugs from above, and Jenret painstakingly turned to face the wall, let Rawn settle into position on his back. “Oh, ” he heard Garvey say, “best pass me your sword. One less thing to snag, catch between your legs if you insist on animal acrobatics. ”
Nerves taut, he tested the line, unclipped his sword belt with his free hand, and passed it, Garvey slinging it over his shoulder. The slow, steady pull had forced him onto tiptoe now, almost lifting him off his feet. Spitting on both hands, he grabbed the rope, placed a boot on the wall in search of a toehold and scrambled upward, Rawn’s breath hot on his neck. Forever and forever and forever, aching increment by increment, toes stubbed, knees bruised, arms aching from supporting his full weight as well as Rawn’s when he tried to climb faster to ease the harness pinch at groin and waist. Darkness at the clifftop, muffled grunts, a rhythmic chant that regulated their pulling efforts. A gray-white moon face peering over the edge, an arm extending down to him, grasping his wrist and hauling him clear of the free fall below.
Spent but grateful, giddy with delight at being on solid ground, he lay on his stomach, gasping for air, wishing Rawn would detach himself, dismount. He suspected the ghatt’s problem, had trouble enough uncurling his own cramped hands. Suddenly Rawn’s claws dug tighter, startling him. “Wouldn’t consider a return trip, would you?” The ghatt spat. “Once you catch your breath, you’ll notice no one plans to shake hands. Not while they’re holding swords or knives. So much for the brotherhood of Resonants, I’d say.”
Surrounded, even his own sword in Garvey’s hand pointed at him, accusing him of his own stupidity. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked, already convinced he wouldn’t like the answer.
“And I’m inclined to agree with them!” The Monitor paced to the farthest reaches of Swan’s convalescent room, spun in anger as if the wall had personally deprived him of a clear path. Or an escape, he admitted silently. To run away, be done with it all if he were brutally honest with himself. “I don’t see any other choice. Let me remind you, four innocent elderly citizens are dead from last night’s fire. Four!” He nearly spat the word.
Eyes alert, the rest of her quiescent, Swan sat in bed, a writing desk propped on her lap, Koom stretched across her ankles. Dykshoorn, the Guardians’ Major General, stirred uneasily in a chair by the fireplace, while Doyce sat beside Swan’s bed, legs stuck straight in front of her, hands folded on stomach, head tilted to regard the ceiling. Her pose was too deceptively peaceful. Kyril van Beieven couldn’t decide if she were following or willfully not following his words. “Four in addition to the,” he consulted a crumpled paper for support, “other forty-six people across Canderis who’ve died from violence or under mysterious circumstances since this past spring. That makes a round fifty, unless I’ve missed some—a benighted soul dying from sheer terror, who knows! And of that fifty, we’re almost completely certain that no more than five of them were actually Glea ... Resonants.” That poor soul, that brave man Orem Fahlgren who’d claimed his wife’s body just about an octant back, his two small sons at his side. Where had he gone, what would he do after this rupture in his life?
“And all of them innocent, Kyril, whether they were Resonants or Normals,” Swan corrected the Monitor. The mention of fifty was an incredible irony, though Kyril didn’t seem to notice the parallel, or mayhap he did. Through sheer necessity the Monitor had become better at hiding things, glossing them over, whether to others or to himself as well, she refused to judge. Her physical infirmities had stripped away that luxury, not that she’d ever really had it with Koom there to remind her of the truth, palatable or otherwise. The Fifty, all dead in one mad night of massacre fifty years ago. Was history replicating itself?
“Of course they were innocent. As far as we know, not one Resonant has used his or her powers to mindwipe another human being, even on pain of their own death. It speaks of incredible self-control.”
“Or incredible fear,” Doyce chimed in, still staring at the ceiling. Ah, so she was listening. “Fear of revelation, of exposing themselves and their families for who and what they are. Look at the consequences.”
“Been
told it’s an ingrained habit, not to reveal themselves under the threat of torture or death.” Abandoning her view of the ceiling at Dykshoorn’s utterance of what he swallowed as gospel truth, Doyce sighed. Everyone was an instant expert. The man’s pale blue eyes popped more than usual tonight, his long face seemed even longer, as if a sculptor had positioned his fingers on the cheekbones of a freshly molded clay face and squeezed in, then dragged downward.
“Been told by whom, Shoorny?” The Monitor snapped waspishly, wanting to wound, to hurt something, someone. An unworthy thought, but he yearned so badly to lash out.
Writhing as if strapped to a hot seat, which he was, metaphorically speaking, Dykshoorn stammered, a soldier, a doer, reduced to the panicky state of a private enduring a dressing down by an officer. Used to giving commands, not receiving them, it didn’t improve his powers of recall. “I ... er ... well ... ah ... well ... everybody knows that, Monitor, always have.”
“Old wives’ tales, old men whittling in the sun, trading big fish stones—is that what you’ve based your knowledge on, Dykshoorn?”
“Let him be, Kyril. We’re all guilty of believing what we want to believe these days, whether or not it’s rooted in fact. Believing in something is better than not knowing what to believe, and I, for one, don’t know what I believe anymore.” With effort Swan ran fingers through her clipped white hair, spiking it against the pillow. “When that happens, you start from scratch, with zero assumptions, and build on what little real knowledge you have, search out more facts.” She didn’t like the way Doyce looked at her out of the corner of her eye, back to pretending interest in the ceiling after examining the Major General as if to measure his face. Her expression was almost petulant, teeth sunk into the corner of her mouth as if to hold the words in. Close to erupting soon, Swan’d bet.
Van Beieven rejoined the circle, sank heavily into his chair. “There has to be a way for us to identify Resonants!” Silence followed his words, ripened and grew. “You don’t understand, I can’t have any more lives at risk, theirs or ours.” If only he could expunge the guilt that he hadn’t done enough, could never do enough to heal the breach threatening to sunder Canderis. He’d lacked the courage to contact Wycherley again, admit there was nothing further he could do. Not on a deadline like that, not and acknowledge his impotence.
“Who’s Us and who’re They?” Doyce feigned wide-eyed innocence. Blast the woman, Swan thought, and muffled a chuckle. “They and Us, as you so quaintly put it, are all full citizens of Canderis, native-born, or as native-born as we can be since all of our ancestors emigrated from another world—unlike the Erakwa, or the ghatti. If you look at it that way, we’re all aliens, Resonants and Normals alike, offspring of alien invaders.”
“Doyce, don’t twist my words,” the Monitor pleaded, “I know that as well as you. We have to discover how to unmask them, discover whom to protect. I swear I’d intern them all if I could, if it meant guarding them from the hotheads, the Reapers, and safeguarding the rest of us from those idiots as well. It wouldn’t be difficult to gain support for it, you know, a significant majority of the High Conciliators champions the idea. If I lean in their favor, no doubt some of the undecideds would shift, provide a majority.”
Dykshoorn sat forward, eager to contribute to a problem he could understand. “Easier to round up those Reapers, sir. Imprison them, convince them of the error of their ways, or—if worse comes to worst and they won’t adapt—ship’em off to the Sunderlies, let’m squabble and kill each other.”
“Solutions are never that tidy, Dykshoorn. Any group, even Reapers, has a legal right to free assembly. I can’t order their arrest before they commit another crime, unless we have evidence a crime may be committed,” the Monitor’s forbearance was wearing thin. “The clues in other cases have been perilously scanty. We can’t question everyone without a cause.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt the Reapers we captured last night will be sentenced to the Sunderlies. We’ve evidence and witnesses aplenty. But the Seekers questioning them can’t discover who leads them because they don’t know. All they know is their immediate leader, and we can’t find him. They’re too organized not to have a leader, as much as they act as if they spontaneously combust.”
“More like spontaneous generation. People thought that’s how maggots were created, once upon a time.”
Ignoring Doyce’s gibe, the Monitor refused to be baited, attention still fixed on Dykshoorn. “But beyond marooning the Reapers in the Sunderlies, have you thought how to re-educate our whole populace, convince them their fears are groundless?”
Chastened by the complexity of the problem, Dykshoorn subsided as Doyce spoke. “Have you considered some sort of peacekeeping force, bringing in a neutral group to keep order?”
The Monitor scowled from under lowered brows. “Surely you’re not suggesting that I ... ?” he let the words trail off. Impossible to be so credulous, and her a Seeker. “Find a neutral group,” he mouthed under his breath, “bloody well likely!”
“I wondered about a force from Marchmont.”
“Doyce!” The protest from van Beieven’s chair was equally loud as he slammed it back, seeking distance from such a radical idea. But Dykshoorn beat him to a response, bulling in ahead of him, “Seeker Marbon, might I remind you we’ve just fought them. Conveying Marchmontian troops here in force would be construed as an invasion, as if they were the conquerors.”
“Nobody conquered anybody else, Major General, given the givens of that abortive war, though all too many died,” Swan pointed out. “But your comment’s well taken.”
“And besides, what would their force consist of—all Normals, Normals and Resonants, all Resonants?” Having recovered his voice, the Monitor attempted scorn but found his curiosity piqued. The suggestion had flabbergasted him, but then, he was that desperate for a solution, wasn’t he? Even the unsavory tastes delectable to a starving man.
Sprawl forgotten, poised to press home her point, Doyce looked levelly around the room, daring objections. “You’re all taking it too literally. Think about it, think! What if we show them harmony in action? I suspect Eadwin believes he owes us a favor or two, given that we helped him attain the throne. What about a royal procession, some sort of royal progress to thank the people of Canderis for their contribution ? Have him and a large entourage, a very large entourage, journey from town to town, illustrate how Resonants and Normals hold equal stature. That, in fact, Resonants hold higher stature in some instances. Give our people a goal to strive for, a standard to emulate.”
“Aye, and all we need’s for their king to be assassinated by one of our hotheads.” Dykshoorn’s long face grew even longer than before, mournful with worry. “We’d be stretched thin guarding a group of that size day and night. You can make assumptions about how an army’ll move, where it’ll fight, but you can’t outguess a few zealots who don’t fear anything except failure.”
“I don’t know.” Van Beieven vacillated, certainly not convinced but not dismissing it out of hand. Had there ever been a time when answers, solutions were clear-cut? He seemed to remember such a golden time, not all that long ago. Fool’s paradise? That’s what Darl Allgood would remind him. “I just don’t know. Would Eadwin come? Can he leave Marchmont so early in his reign, while he’s still consolidating his own power base? Oh,” he threw up his hands in defeat, secretly relieved, “ask him, why not? It never hurts to ask, see what he thinks, if they have any better ideas. We don’t have to worry about protecting them unless they come,” the last as an olive branch to Dykshoorn before turning to Swan, “but I want Mahafny here as soon as she can come, thought you said she’d be here tonight. I want to know if she’s any farther along at discovering a way to unmask Resonants.”
And didn’t she want Mahafny here as well? Not for her healing gifts or for her answers, but for the sweet comfort of kinship. She quashed Kyril’s anger and her own with the sweet voice of reason. “Kyril, she’s due shortly, just a little late. Can’t make her giv
e anything a rest, so she’s always behind schedule. Ever know a eumedico who wasn’t?” Doyce snickered. “We’ll see if she’s uncovered anything that might help.” The slightest wintery smile frosted her face. “Of course, how you plan to test every Canderisian citizen, I’d love to know, Kyril. Oh, yes, I can just see them lined up across the country, no shirkers, no slackers, everyone waiting patiently to prove they’re garden-variety Normal, not a thought in their heads but what should be there, or hidden Resonants.”
“I’ll be first in line, Monitor,” Doyce added. “I’d love to know myself.”
Khar crouched beside the statue of Matthias Vandersma and Kharm in the plaza, the wind chilling her ears, wafting the heat from her body. Brr! Cold paving stones on fanny and feet, and tail-wrapping did just so much good. Nicer inside, but the tensions wouldn’t be any less. Doyce’s meeting was important, but this was more important still. Besides, Koom would report anything of significance to her—she’d exacted his promise—not stand on his status, invoke his relationship with the Seeker General. Too nice a sense of propriety about Koom sometimes, but she supposed it went with his position, especially his lack of true-Bonding. He’d never betray Swan’s best interests, or the best interests of all Seekers, so his best interests—his need for sharing—weren’t often served. Rarely had the brick-red ghatt faltered or failed, revealed what he shouldn’t, even when his burdens were pressing. It just wasn’t someone else’s business to hear.
She’d debated as well whether to invite the other ghatti tonight when she described to the Elders how Doyce’s life seemed to be merging with Matthias Vandersma’s at times. How a simple tale-telling, a revelation of their shared past, ghatti and human, had transmuted into something vastly different and disconcerting. Overlapping now, beyond the merely informational, a commingling of experiences. And Doyce’d absorbed the last one strictly on her own, hadn’t required the old diary or Khar’s delicate insinuation to key herself into the past. So far no harm had befallen her, but Khar wanted to know how and why it occurred. Most of all, whether it should be allowed to continue like that?