Exile's Return

by Gayle Greeno

  “Won’t be much longer, Mahafny,” and she’d lain there in bed, so gaunt that her hip bones raised the bedclothes, her skin translucent and papery-thin. “It’s time, past time, really. I’m not quite ready to go, wish I didn’t have to, but I do, and I’ve accepted it.” Koom lifted his head from where he stretched beside her on the bed, and even the ruddy ghatt looked thin and unkempt, as if he were fading as well.

  “No,” Mahafny had protested, “All we have to do is try another, a different medication, work on improving your breathing. And besides,” she cajoled, “I’ve discovered something you’ll find fascinating. What I’ve been searching for all this time, a way to tell who is and isn’t a Resonant.”

  Swan’s eyebrows arched, the effort of a smile more than she could muster. “For someone in a profession with a hundred percent mortality rate, you do seem to deny the obvious sometimes.” Her voice was so faint that Mahafny had to bend to hear her. “But go ahead, tweak my curiosity if you must. I suppose that that, if anything, will be the last thing about me to die.”

  Shaken, Mahafny launched into her description of the machine, the strange reaction it engendered in Resonants—and to a lesser extent, in the ghatti—and only in Resonants. “Don’t you see, we’ll be able to determine who is and who isn’t, very possibly even tell who has latent or dormant skills,” she’d concluded, exhilarated by the idea, swept by the warm glow of accomplishment that comes from the solving of a demanding puzzle. A neat answer to a knotty problem.

  But Swan’s reaction took her completely aback. “Destroy it!” she’d shouted as she struggled upright in bed, Koom hovering helplessly nearby. “What right have we to determine such a thing? Bad enough to conclusively identify those who truly are Resonants but fear such exposure, and you want to determine who might, just possibly might have latent skills? People who consider themselves Normal and are happy being who and what they are? People with no desire for mindspeech. What right do you have to disrupt their worlds, make family and friends look askance at them?”

  “But to know, to truly know....” Mahafny trailed to a halt, amazed how anyone could ignore true knowledge. It would be tantamount to ignoring the truth, and Swan of all people, Seeker General of the Seekers Veritas, couldn’t ignore the truth.

  “But is your world ready for this truth?” Koom straddled Swan’s body protectively. “Truth always has two edges and both are sharp. If the world were perfect, perhaps this knowledge might be good, but it’s not a perfect world. How can you stigmatize people whose skill may never ripen? What if they’re ostracized? What of those who know they’re skilled but chose not to-use it, content to be no more or less than anyone else?”

  “But ... but Doyce, for example,” desperate, she sought for a way to convince them both. “Is Doyce a Resonant or not? Don’t you think she’d like to know?”

  “Does it matter?” Swan’s lips formed the words, but she barely had the breath to utter them. She forced harder. “She is what she is. Mayhap she’ll develop in time, mayhap not. Will Jenret love her any the less if she isn’t?”

  “But to have a literal meeting of the minds—”

  “The day those two have a meeting of the minds, given their personalities, I’d like to see it!” Swan scoffed.

  “Don’t try to push it away by joking!” Damn all, why couldn’t Swan see, agree with her? It hurt to have her cousin so unalterably opposed, not able to share her vision.

  “But Koom’s vision is much more likely,” Saam added.

  “Please, Mahafny, think about it, think about it more deeply, with your heart, not just your mind. Think about it and destroy the machine. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you, I promise.”

  “I will,” she’d vowed, and she was still pondering it as they drove along, eyes suspiciously damp. Blasted torchères were too damn bright after the side streets, she told herself as she rubbed a sleeve against her eyes.

  Saam stiffened beside her. “Look out!” The horse turned skittish as she jerked the reins, and the gig swung wide around the corner, wheels skidding on the pavement.

  A thud and an irate shout, “You bloody fool driver!” And an internal cry, “Don’t care if I’ve been invited to mindspeak you or not! Mahafny, you wretch! How dare you knock down Parse like that? Saam, stop her so I can give her a piece of my mind!”

  She fought the gig to a halt, jumped down. “Parse, are you all right?”

  “Mahafny?” He sprawled on the pavement, desperately scrabbling for his crutches. “What? It’s not enough you half-crippled me by amputating my leg? Now you want to finish the job?” He pushed himself up. “Ouch!” Per’la stalked to Mahafny, peridot eyes flashing sparks, tail ribbon snapping.

  Better assuage the ghatta first from the looks of things, because Mahafny suspected she didn’t have a prayer that Saam’d come to her defense. “That’s right,” he commented as he sauntered over, sniffed at Parse, “Apologies and patchwork, right up your alley—or patchwork, anyway. I’d suggest you work very hard on the apology, though.”

  Retrieving the crutch beyond his grasp, she handed it to Parse. “I’ll be happy to apologize once I’m sure you’re not seriously hurt. If you are, medical attention comes first, apologies second.”

  He waved the crutch at her. “Breath knocked out of me, a few scrapes and bruises. Was in a brown study myself, mulling over some awfully interesting things and not looking where I was going. I’ll live.” He looked more closely at his crutch, “But this seems to have sustained a greenstick fracture. And you nearly scared Per’la witless.”

  She drew herself to rigid attention, intoned, “I am a careless, egocentric wretch of a eumedico, with too much on her mind, convinced that nothing but her problems are important.” Per’la’s fur fluffed, and she preened. “I humbly beg both your pardons and to make amends, ask if you’d be interested in traveling to Ruysdael with me. The king should be there late tomorrow, so we should arrive just about in time.” Assuming they changed horses along the way, and assuming she and Parse shared the driving while the other slept as best as possible. And besides, with his love of puzzles and gadgets and gizmos, mechanical thingamabobbies, Parse was the perfect person to have along. He could make sketches of it in case she wanted more made.

  “Ruysdael’s near Coventry, isn’t it?” Both crutches in one hand, Parse came upright before she could help. “That’s what I was mulling over when we collided. I’ve some peculiar news for Doyce. Sort of present history replicating past history—oh, not desperately past, but fifty years ago, at least. We’ll go, with pleasure.”

  Unable to restrain himself, Parse launched into his tale as soon as he’d boosted himself into the gig. “You know, I’ve been seeing a great deal of Maize Bartolotti lately,” he confided, “and she’s just fascinating.”

  “Who?” Was Parse becoming fickle, using Sarrett’s absence to romance another woman? Well, none of her business.

  He shook his head in surprise, tucked his arm around Per’la as the gig picked up speed. “Oh, I guess you’ve never met her. No reason you should, I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in her stories that I assumed everyone knew her. She’s 103—used to be a Seeker, though for a very short time.”

  Don’t burst out laughing, she instructed herself, transformed a chuckle into a throat-clearing. “And still has all her wits about her?” she ventured.

  “Oh, definitely. She’s become the hit of Myllard’s Inn since the Elder Hostel burned, a regular fixture, house granny, so to speak. But it’s not that she’s wrapped up in the past, you know. Takes a lively interest in the present, astute about observing the world around her, drawing parallels between now and then.”

  “Such as ...?” Couldn’t he come to the point? She ached to tell him about the machine, her precious device, see what he thought. Surely he’d support her, given his love of winkling out solutions, solving riddles.

  “Well, do you know what we were talking about tonight?” No, of course she didn’t know, she wasn’t a Resonant, was she? A ti
ny growl of frustration escaped her, but luckily Parse didn’t hear as he pressed on. “Reapers, no less. They’re the ones who burned the Elder Hostel. She said it reminded her of something that happened fifty years ago when a group of farmers banded together and massacred a gathering of Gleaners. Apparently they used various farm implements, shovels, rakes, sickles, scythes to kill the Gleaners, because those were the weapons they had at hand.” An inward, swinging motion of his hand, “You see? Sickles, like those little silver crescents the Reapers wear on their collars?”

  “Interesting, not exactly original, though.” They’d be outside the city shortly and she could let the horse have his full stride, pacing the distance with tireless precision.

  But Parse didn’t notice her perfunctory response. “The farmer who organized the attack was named Hosea Bazelon. He and some of the others were convicted of murder, exiled to the Sunderlies.”

  “Odd name, Bazelon, don’t think I’ve heard it before.”

  “Maize said his family went with him, and the few other relatives remaining in Canderis legally petitioned to have their names changed.”

  “With good reason, I suppose.” An experimental flick of the whip to hide her irritation. She had nothing to contribute to this, and if she let him run on without interruption, he’d finish all the faster.

  “Except I met someone named Bazelon the other day, Bazelon Foy. Right here in Canderis. I was going into the High Conciliators’ offices when he bumped into me. Almost sent me sprawling, like you, but at least he didn’t do it with a gig!” He was bouncing now, not in rhythm with the gig, but completely opposite, jarring it, jarring her. “Do you think he could be a relative, a grandson or nephew or something? Someone come back from the Sunderlies, just as relatives have the right to do. Planning to take revenge after so many years, prove Hosea Bazelon was right, finish off the job he started!”

  “It sounds too much of a coincidence to me, that you’re weaving together unrelated threads based on a chance circumstance of similar names.” Best nip his fancies in the bud, bring him back to reality.

  “There might be truth in the connections he’s made. If she wasn’t such a stubborn, single-minded—”

  “Per’la!” Saam warned. “She’s already said she’s sorry.” “But he might be right!”

  “Fine, then. I promise to let you tell me the whole story if you’ll let Mahafny talk with Parse and get something off her mind. It’s important as well.”

  PART FIVE

  Eeling his spine, digging in his shoulders, Parm waved all four feet in the air; his toes curling as he sank into even deeper sleep. Nicey-wicey, Ni—Ooof! A ball of ice rammed his slitted eye, and he twisted away, swinging a foreleg up to shield his face. A giant, slurping slab of raw, chilled liver draped itself across his muzzle, caressed it damply. “Bar... na ... by, go’way!” And the wetness receded. “Goo’ dog!” he mumbled, already sinking into the blessed wooliness of sleep as the cold nose worked its way to Parm’s nether end and planted icy nostrils on a part of the ghatt’s anatomy that only his nearest and dearest should touch. Yeow! Parm was upright now, at least marginally, trying to determine top from bottom when it came to planting his legs. He already knew where his bottom was, thanks to Barnaby.

  Still, he couldn’t stay mad at the terrier, couldn’t stay mad at anyone for long. Sooo happy! he crooned to himself as he finally managed to stick his head under Harrap’s blanket preparatory to burrowing underneath. Poor doggy, whining, pleading little moans in his ear. Poor, poor Barnaby. He tried to express the thought, but it wasn’t always simple to converse with canines, so many of them spoke a shorthand doggerel, and Parm giggled to himself. “Worry-hurry” came from Barnaby’s brain, singsonging like a squeaky hinge, “worry-hurry.”

  Cracking open an eye, he focused on the dog, bouncing on its neat little feet, his whiplike tail wagging encouragement. “Come, come, head hum-thrum bad.” Dogs just couldn’t concentrate on having a decent conversation, always becoming distracted, needing to water a tree, investigate an enticing aroma, roll in it. The icy nose poked him again, imploring, the dog’s head dipping in supplication, springing away as if to entice him to follow. “Please, please, need steady heady. Need your help.”

  With a yawn, Parm slithered back into the night air, squinted in shock. When had all the people come, or was he seeing double or triple again? Where? How? Abruptly he sat, went to scratch his chin with a hind foot and missed, burped, the residual taste of that lovely seasoning Hylan gave them flooding his mouth, a hint of memory, past glory. Except now it tasted vile. Cock-eyed he examined the terrier, the white so sharp against the night, the brown ears almost invisible. “Don’t feel very well,” he confessed.

  “I know so, I know.” The words came fast as the tail wags, blurred, as was the tail. “Come, come, come. Barnaby fix icky-icks, sicky-icks. Then Parm help Barnaby? Warnaby helping Barnaby?” Darting off, he dashed back again, back and forth, back and forth, making Parm dizzy as he stood and staggered off, anything to shorten Barnaby’s dashes or at least head him in one direction. Head pounding, stomach roiling, he placed each foot carefully, as if he were a million years old.

  They traversed two meadows filled with tents, wagons, people wrapped in bedrolls and blankets. Most slept, but there were plenty still awake, lanterns festive like fireflies, fires winking, a chattering, buzzing filling the air. It reminded Parm of the time years ago when he’d seen a field of locusts, the air thick with their wingbeats, the chewing sounds, the cracking buzz of their scraping legs. Catching them had been ridiculously easy—simply put a paw down and trap one or two underneath. He’d gorged himself, crunching away, swallowing still-kicking legs, beating wings, until he was sick.

  Don’t think about it, he commanded himself as Barnaby nosed him one way, then another, guiding him away from the worst of the crowds, a destination in mind that Parm couldn’t decipher. “Where did all the people come from?” Mayhap if he thought about something else he wouldn’t feel so ill. Yes, people had been following Hylan, following behind Harrap and the goat cart, more each day, but the numbers couldn’t have swelled so high, could they?

  “King thing,” the dog whined. “King thing, Hylan bring. Kill-he will-she. Not good. ’Splain later.”

  King thing? Thing king? He squinted tight to keep the moon above from dancing gold-sphered pregnant overhead, multiplying each time he glanced skyward, dizzying him. Thinking was what he should be doing, but why did it seem so hard? King? The only king he knew of resided in Marchmont? Wasn’t any reason for the king to come here. Hru‘rul? Nice, bouncy Hru’rul. And Hru’rul’s Bondmate was Eadwin, King of Marchmont and ... a Resonant. Hylan didn’t like Resonants, did she? Why did he think that?

  Was the dog going to walk him forever? As far as he could tell, they’d traversed the length of both meadows, had reached a stone wall. The dog bounded, scrabbled over and gave a pleading whine from the other side. Stretching as far as he could, Parm jumped, teetered on the top and toppled headfirst, twisted desperately and landed on his back, wind knocked out of him. He lay bordering the remains of a summer garden that stretched beyond a farm house. Empty mounds of dirt stretched before him in rows, shocks of dried cornstalks rustled, traded secrets with the dried gourd vines that wound through a wide, wire mesh fencing stapled between posts. Late cabbages over there, he could smell them, rank in his nose.

  Barnaby, Barnaby the indefatigable, pushed him again, boosted him along to the southern side of the stone wall. There, tight against the stone, protected by the mounded side of the garden, grass still grew greenly. “Eat, sweet eat,” Barnaby urged, nipping a few blades himself. Parm took a tentative bite, and the fresh taste of grass flooded his mouth. Plucking the blades, sawing at them with teeth not meant for grazing, he gulped the grass. And the next thing he knew he was retching, heaving, turning himself inside out. He huddled there, miserable, exhausted. So weak, his head still pounding, but he could almost think, string together a coherent thought ... watched it drift away. O
h, dear, could Barnaby fetch it for him?

  Nose to ground, Barnaby coursed the garden, the overgrown area at the far end, then pounced, forefeet frantically digging. The snap of jaws, a tremendous backward tug, and Barnaby shook his head, dirt flying from a long, whiplike tap root. He trotted back, dropped his treasure in front of Parm’s nose. Wretched weed had an awful, reeking smell that made him sick all over again. “Chew poo-phooey weed, chew,” Barnaby exhorted him.

  “Bleh!” Parm closed his eyes, turned his head away. Jaws gripped the back of his neck tight, pushed his face against the noxious weed.

  He let go, panted, “Helped whelp. Puppy Barnaby bad once,” he sounded shamed. “Greedy for seasoning weedy. Lurp, slurp, gulp, gulp—so happy!” He rolled crazily on his back, tongue lolling, miming the past pleasure, then sprang up. “Hylan catch, slash, lash. Thrust poo-phooey weed down hatch. Oh, Barnaby borribly horribly sicky-ick. After, head clear, never go near”

  It was too long and convoluted a speech for Parm to follow, but he registered the gist of it. Wrinkled his nose, chomped down on the offensive weed, sure the cure was worse than what ailed him. He ate more, eyes watering, stomach burning, and lay there gasping. Slowly his head became clearer, his limbs more responsive. Had enough strength to wonder what it was that had had him in its thrall.

  “Poison? Is that seasoning a poison? Is Hylan trying to kill us, drug us?” The dog whined unhappy confirmation, backing away anxiously as if afraid Parm would take it out on him. Hoarse barking, basso deep and profoundly angry at discovering trespassers on its property, split the night air and a dark shape came hurtling over the wall.

  Frozen in shock, Parm crouched, unable to make his legs work, fear, the aftereffects of the drug paralyzing him. The foe looked the size and shape of a mastiff, and the thought of its huge, slavering jaws made his spine ice. “Hurry-worry!” Barnaby’s shrill barking pierced his brain as the terrier spun in circles around the larger dog, bearing down on him like an enraged bull. “Dumb crumb, big but dumb! Hurry, hurry! Suddenly Parm’s legs were churning, digging divots from the earth as he brought his paws under control, aimed them all in the same direction. ”Run toward gourds!”