“Longer than a few days,” Galetia said. “You know that. Longer yet, before you have the control to be safe among the citties. And even then you go out with someone.” She smiled, much as a cabra might smile. “Proba bly me, from the looks of things.”
Alleksa turned her back with a flounce of offense and stalked back into the garden of rocks between which the citties believed no man nor woman walked.
And they’d be right. Such places were for the Scoria alone.
Galetia understood. They all understood, all the elders. The change made you that way—took away your common sense as it altered your body, inflating emotions from joy to anger to carefree abandon, all in the space of a conversation. And the elders knew no one had been through a change so great as Alleksa’s, not and expected to live. They spoke to her, but they did not punish her. They turned the entire Scoria underground into a watch network, and if the youngers couldn’t reach the elders through silent communication, they could still pass the word from one to another with amazing swiftness. They confined her to her section of the warrens, and they ran regular head counts.
When they came up short, it was Galetia’s job to track her down. She wore herself thin, maintaining her duties along with her new responsibilities to Alleksa, and so the elders pulled her from those duties. She rested as she could, waiting for the call . . . knowing that at the end of the trail she’d find Alleksa with eyes fever-bright, the change flaring through her body, and no more sense than the goddess had given a mud mite. “It will pass,” she told Alleksa—told herself, if truth be told. “It will pass, and one day you’ll wake and wonder that it ever was. That you were ever other than you.
“You don’t know that,” Alleksa told her, fierce with the natural inner ire of the small bak-bak squirrel that lived in the lower hills. The changes took her more deeply these days, and showed no signs of letting up. “None of you know that. There’s never been one like me. You don’t know that it’ll ever end.” And the tenacity of the bak-bak left her in a rush, turning her back into a younger who sobbed with frustration and followed meekly as Galetia returned her to the warrens.
And Galetia knew she was right.
“Two more babies this week,” reported Rurie, the elder only a year younger than Galetia. “Looking good for their survival.”
“Two more,” echoed Kisa, stroking her stomach as if she could imagine bearing babies herself one day.
It happened, sometimes. But they took pains to keep it from happening here in the warren, knowing their space was precious and their expansion room nonexistent.
Bodhan shook his head, running his hands over the veil of long, knotted rivergrass hanging at the uneven, rounded wall. Their tally system—of supplies, of warren space, of the Scoria themselves. “The grass is becoming unbalanced.”
“We cannot leave them to die,” Kisa said, flaring as though any of them had or even would suggest it. They only looked at her. “They are our own kind. Our only kind.”
“We will all die if we cannot balance things,” Bodhan said. He had a skill with the tallies, and for details.
That’s when they looked at Galetia. All of them. Elders with the weight of the warrens on still-young shoulders. Elders facing their mortality, their inevitable expansion, and their limitations. They looked at her, and Rurie said, “Watch Alleksa. She’s the one who can change things. Who can find us a new home . . . or teach the citties to leave us this one even if they learn we’re here.”
Watch Alleksa. Keep her safe. Keep her away from the citties.
Galetia said, “I will.”
She’s been seen, Bodhan told Galetia, calling from as far away as the city. Stone houses, cobbled streets . . . cittie lives were surrounded by stone, and copper. Bodhan was an occasional day laborer there, and he had, aside from his practical skills, a knack for culling gossip.
Although this particular gossip hadn’t needed any culling; it came freely. It’s all they talk about. The wild girl, lurking in the hills. How did she get there? How does she survive? That she’s one of their castoffs is evident to them. They merely argue over which wild animal took her as its own, snatching her off the hill.
An entire community of wild animals, that’s which one. A community grown over generations until it was finally outgrowing its allotted territory. A community grown strong enough to keep even Alleksa alive.
If they were lucky.
It’s going to take more than luck now, Bodhan said, picking up on Galetia’s not-so-subtle thoughts. Now they’re looking for her. And in looking for her—
He didn’t need to finish. In looking for Alleksa, they would find the Scoria. All of them.
The interruptive babble in her mind started all at once.
Galetia! She’s—
I can’t find—
And one inner voice from the city silenced them all, horrified into an inner shout—Goddess, she’s HERE!
Galetia bolted to her feet, scattering the littlest youngers who had been practicing knots and roping, clustered around her cross-legged work position. Even those youngers, still blind to inner voice, understood the import of her reaction. “Is it Alleksa?” they asked, all at once and half of them still lisping. Nothing more than ordinary children in these years before the change. “Is she in the city?”
They were too young to comprehend the nature of the development, or what it could mean to their survival in these next few years. Not so the other elders, the new elders who only went into the city with an escort and trainer and who had still heard every word of the babble and the emotions behind it. A new elder burst into the warren, her eyes wild. “I’ll take them,” she said, meaning the children who crowded Galetia, their knotwork forgotten and dropped to unravel on the floor. “Find her! Save her!”
Her outer voice generated an echo of inner voices. Find her! Save her!
And what they really meant was save US!
Galetia ran from the warren. She ran out into the arena, waved ahead by a sentry who signaled the all-clear. She bounded up the stepped seating with borrowed grace, not wasting her time wondering how Alleksa had gotten past them all. She’d been in the change phase and she’d done it; she’d been in the change and she’d made it into the city, endowed with all the speed and cunning of every animal that had ever wanted to go unseen. But while the change was upon her, she was vulnerable to detection as cursed . . . and when the change left her, she’d be vulnerable to the citties.
Save us!
Galetia fell into a steady, rangy trot, wolflike in endurance, and in economy of movement. She hadn’t bothered to change into cittie clothes—the knee pants that ballooned to huge proportions; the fine-woven blousy top with droopy, fashionable sleeves that only got in the way. She wore the clothes of the hunter-warrior the citties had made of her: rough-woven knee-length trous, leather leg-bells loosely covering her lower legs and strapped tight at the bottom to keep away the mud ticks and root leeches, and worn leather ankle-shoes stolen from someone’s back stoop. Atop she wore the season’s half-cape and hood over an indeterminate muddle of a shirt.
Not girl’s clothing. But neither was her short-cropped hair meant for a girl, and she hardly moved like a cittie girl, stumbling in too-short box-toed shoes or getting tangled in an excess of material at her knees. And if her breasts this past year had become impossible to ignore, the indeterminate muddle of a shirt and half-cape obscured them well enough for a first glance, maybe well enough for a second.
Or whatever it took to get Alleksa out of the city and away.
She cannot stay, Galetia told the others, her inner voice steady even as she panted evenly for breath, running along the old city path that none of them ever used. I will take her away. To the caves, perhaps. To the lake—
So far? they asked her. But no one protested. They did nothing but beat at her in a constant pummeling of escaping thoughts, using the web of thought that Galetia herself had once stabilized. Their worry, their anger at Alleksa, their understanding . . . every one of them
had been through the change. Every one of them had been driven to stupidity and danger along the way. They knew the stakes here. What Alleksa could do for them . . . what she could do to them if allowed.
With voices in her head and panting in her ears, Galetia almost missed the signs. Someone else coming toward her, twisting through the trees at a steady walk and perceptible at a distance only because of Galetia’s hawk-imbued vision. She leaped from the trail, loping uphill with every intent to skirt the interloper.
With her first step, she realized her mistake—that the crooked trees thinned, leaving her exposed to a man clothed in hunting garments much like hers. The hunter gave a shout, lifting one hand to point, the other whirling a tangler weapon of leather and stone—and though Galetia leaped farther uphill, the man anticipated her move and flung his tangler directly into her new path.
Leather wrapped around her legs, tripping her; the stones smacked against her shins, a white-hot pain that numbed her legs. Galetia fell, and she could not help but tumble down the hill. Only by grabbing a spindly, warped tree trunk did she keep herself from landing at his feet. Already she reached for her flint knife to free herself, and already she flung her mind wide open to the elders, letting them see. Letting them know. Making sure they understood if another was needed.
In the background conversation, she heard snatches of Bodhan’s report, his efforts to send others to find and shadow Alleksa within the city. For only Galetia could handle her one on one, and only because Alleksa could not yet rely on herself.
Because if she could, she wouldn’t be in the throes of the change. She wouldn’t be in the city, drawn by curiosity, driven by the warped sense of reality that came with the change.
But Galetia was long past that stage, and she had far too much experience with citties to be cowed by a man who had no concept of her true strength and speed, or of the adeptness with which she’d learned to lie. “Are you crazed?” she sputtered, sparing him only a swift glare as she tackled the confining leather with her knife, ignoring the pained shout of protest from the hunter. “These are cabra hills! Take me down, will you, when I’m already running for my life?”
“Here, now!” the man said, gesturing at her knife and ignoring her words. “Unwrap ’em, like!”
“No call for it,” Galetia insisted, sawing all the harder at the leather as the man broke from the trail to come after his precious tangler. If he got that close, he’d see she was no boy. He’d think of Alleksa and he’d start to wonder. “Take what comes to you, then.”
“It was a mistake, that’s all. I’m not hunting cabra or deer today.”
Alleksa. The man hunted Alleksa, with no idea that she’d already gone to the city.
Galetia ripped the tangler free of her throbbing legs and threw it at the hunter. She put strength behind it, and the rocks thudded into his chest, knocking him hard enough to stumble and fall. “Another day, we’d have words over the pain you’ve caused. Today, I’m getting out of cabra turf.” And even leaping up on unsteady legs, she quickly put herself out of his range. She pulled the doors to her mind closed, enough to nurse her pain in privacy—but not so much she didn’t hear the cabra team head out.
For there were cabras in these hills. And the team would find one, guide it to the right place at the right time.
She had warned the cittie. He hadn’t heeded her, and now he would discover the truth of her words.
And the Scoria, long reviled simply for what they might possibly grow up to be, would finally deserve the fears they inspired.
Galetia hoped the movement of the run would ease her legs, keep the swelling down and the blood moving.
She’d been wrong.
Let me look for her, Bodhan told her, sensing her difficulty through even the small inner window Galetia had left open. I can get away from this crew—
A crew on an important work site, pulling down the remains of a damaged building—a city-owned building, with a jaded and experienced work crew who took their conduit of inside information for granted. And for what would he lose that connection? The opportunity to watch Alleksa evading him.
And she would. Bodhan, for all his skill with the number grasses and detailed projects, could not keep up with Alleksa—and could not hold her without drawing attention. Galetia could do both.
I should have been watching her. Never mind that a handful of others had been watching her, and let her slip away. Or that Galetia had needs—to sleep, to eat, to rest her mind in time with the children. She was the only one who could have stopped this.
By goddess, she’d stop it now.
Bodhan perceived her answer, flashing her unspoken acceptance. But he added, If you need me . . .
She wouldn’t.
She slowed on the outer edges of the city, coming into it through little-used alleyways left only to the bold. Noxious, dangerous . . . they reflected none of the city’s stolid splendor, the magnificent buildings, the streets that were bright both day and night with their tall cedar-oil lamps, the gentle drift of those out walking simply for the purpose of being seen. This was an area of skulkers and wounded and those who barely survived—along with those who made it hard to survive. But Galetia settled into her cabra’s stalk, her eyes confident, her gaze quick, and her sling ready in her hand. No one bothered her—everyone here knew the difference between predator and prey, even if this particular predator wasn’t as graceful as she ought to have been.
Two rows of buildings separated this section of ragged homes and the glory of the city—warehouses, storage rooms, and a line of stables and livestock shelters for the animals not allowed in the city proper. Galetia paused between two buildings, finding a quiet spot beside a struggling tuft of grasses. This close, she would be able to sense Alleksa directly, her familiarity with Alleksa’s touch honed by weeks of close proximity and endless hours of searching. Even if she were in a change phase, Alleksa couldn’t hide herself; she could only close herself off.
The deep, welcome scent of water, a burbling splash, delightful fine spray against hot skin . . .
She wasn’t even closing herself off. She was too far immersed in what she’d found . . . and no wonder. The ever-flowing central city fountain was a delight to the senses, even for those without quite so many senses to delight. Sun sparkling off water, coins glinting from the glass mosaic of the fountain floor—all copper, all thrown in thanks to the copper ore mining that kept this city prosperous. The giggling and singing of the water as it splashed from one tiered saucer to the next, spraying the air with a mist so fine that rainbows often surrounded the fountain itself.
Once she’d seen it, Alleksa wouldn’t have been able to resist, driven by her changes and a mind not quite sane in the middle of it all.
Galetia opened her eyes, found herself so quickly grown stiff that she dared not rest any longer. Following Alleksa’s simple, profound sensory exhilaration, she moved through the streets as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself. In the background of her mind, the elders encouraged her, a support tinged with desperation. Save her. Save us.
Alleksa stood at the fountain, arms outstretched as if greeting ecstasy. Those around her—servants of the affluent, carrying errand baskets and private messages and responsibility—gave her wide berth, for the most part pretending they saw nothing at all. Children—running those same errands, or simply tagging along with their parent—had no such compulsion. They pointed, asking questions. They laughed at Alleksa’s bemused expression, her eyes half-lidded, a smile curving her lips. They laughed at her rough clothing, at the scanty nature of it in spite of the taste of fall in the air.
In the warrens, she would have been plenty warm. Here in the bright sunshine, her skin looked pale, her hair washed out, her face bleached of color aside from the spots on her cheeks and lips that looked too full, too mature on that thin face. Here, she was attracting attention. Soon enough the wrong person would see her . . . someone who was determined to do something about this spectacle.
Alleksa, Galetia whispered, making her way around the edge of the small square within which the fountain sat. She had little hope that Alleksa could or would hear her, but it would be best for them all if she did, if she could pull herself away from that which so delighted her beleaguered mind. You are not safe. Come to me.
Alleksa’s body gave a little shiver of denial. She turned her pale face to the sun. On it shimmered the signs of change, clear for all to see. Shadows chasing across her skin, sparks of iridescence and hints of color.
So be it.
Lower legs aching, pounding with the pain of too much swollen bruising inside skin too small to hold it all, Galetia did not waste any time. Not with Alleksa’s change out there for the whole of the city to see—not when some of them had already gasped and drawn back, forgetting to pretend they saw nothing at all. Galetia strode to the fountain, shaking off the grim fear of those who perceived the situation through her thoughts. All these years they’d stayed hidden . . . and now they teetered on the verge of exposure, betrayed by the strength of the change in which they’d so recently placed their hopes.
Galetia did nothing more than put her hand on Alleksa’s arm, her voice almost hidden in the song of the fountain as she said, “Now.”
Too late— Bodhan’s inner voice whispered into her mind, so close that she jerked around to find him at the edge of the square, having come in spite of her injunction against it.
Scoria voices wailed in silence, filling her head in response to what Bodhan now showed her from his better vantage point. The constables, striding into the other side of the square with truncheons to hand, their faces holding fear beyond what any mere adolescent girl could inspire. They’d heard. Even now Galetia heard the murmurs through Bodhan’s ears, where through her own she heard only the sweet fountain. Her face! Did you see her face? and It’s her! It’s the girl from the high ground. She’s one of the cursed!
Under Cover of Darkness Page 2