Lackey,Mercedes - Darian's Tale02 - Owlsight.doc

by Owlsight [lit]

  “But not aggressive either?” Kero asked quickly.

  “Not aggressive, at least not at the moment,” Darian confirmed. “They’ve seen showy magic before, I’d bet on it.”

  “On to the next phase, then,” Snowfire said. “We approach at dawn, and see what they have to say for themselves.” He looked up at the tree branches above his head. “Dawn isn’t that far off; we won’t have long to wait.”

  In the mist and still, pale gray of dawn, the contact group approached the barbarian camp once again - this time without the lights and noise. They stopped a bit further away, however, just out of arrow-shot range, where Kelvren joined them.

  A cautious deputation approached from the encampment, but not immediately. From the haggard faces and dark-circled eyes, it appeared that the barbarians had gotten no more sleep than the allies. Once again, Darian was in the tree branches, but hidden better this time, and without Kuari. The eagle-owls had no advantage during daylight, except for show; Darian was here to satisfy his own restlessness, not as a primary scout. That duty had gone to Wintersky, Ravenwing, and their bondbirds.

  It appeared that at least they were going to be treated as important enough for the barbarians to put on their best finery, for the deputation jingled and clattered with every approaching step. In their own way, they are impressive, he thought, peering through his screen of leaves. The oldest man - possibly the chieftain - had donned a fur cloak of the pelt of a huge cat, with the fully preserved head of its original owner acting as the hood. Their leather tunics and breeks were as well-constructed as Tayledras scout gear, and though they jangled with amulets and jewelry, and their decorations were a bit garish for Darian’s taste, they were no worse than the Shin’a’in, who had never seen a color they didn’t love. But they weren’t wearing armor, and there was still no sign of that eclipse-amulet Darian recalled only too well. Unless they were supposed to be sacrificial lambs, they weren’t expecting to meet with physical force in this parley.

  This time, the allies intended to wait for the barbarians to speak first, so they waited with expressionless faces, still mounted, as the strangers approached. They, in their turn, stopped well short of the contact party; the leader cleared his throat ostentatiously when no one spoke, mind-to-mind or otherwise, and began what sounded, from the measured cadences, like a prepared speech.

  :This is the Clan of the Ghost Cat,: Tyrsell interpreted, and with that name, images - of a huge, fierce, and reclusive predator, and of something else, a fleeting shadow by day, a call in the night, a trusted presence that guided. . . . :They claim their totem animal led them here, and by that sign from their gods, they say it is their right to stay. I must admit, as a defense, it has the benefit of being unique and probably unprovable.:

  After a pause to confer, Tyrsell replied. :Whether or not that is true, you are in our land, where our gods hold sway, and our laws decree the measure of what is and is not to be.:

  This time the leader went on at some length, with many broad and flamboyant gestures. :He wants to know by what right we claim this land; says that there are no boundary markers, no claiming poles to show that we speak the truth. If this land was ever settled by the hole-dwelling people and diggers-of-dirt - that is us, by the way - it has been abandoned for decades and should belong to anyone for the taking.: The leader’s voice grew bolder, possibly because the contact-party hadn’t struck him down. :He has no idea that it is me doing the talking, by the way. He thinks it is either Firesong or Starfall. Kelvren impresses him, but he thinks Kel is something we’ve tamed.:

  Kel remained unruffled, fixing the speaker with his unblinking gaze.

  :Now he tells us how huge and strong his clan is, how many warriors they have, how many battles they fought.: Tyrsell paused a moment. :This is partly a bluff; something - a disease - drove them out of their own lands, and they ran rather than face a foe they had no hope of beating.:

  This time Darian heard Starfall’s reply. :Tell him his own numbers,: the mage said, with grim humor. :Let’s see how he reacts to the fact that we know his strength down to the last baby.:

  Tyrsell did just that, and Darian had the satisfaction of seeing the barbarian leader shaken. But he recovered quickly, and spoke again. :Now he says that we should know that even the babies of his Clan are fighters, that if we come against them and try to force them out of the place their totem has brought them to, even the babies will take up bows and swords and slay our men.: Tyrsell pawed the ground, roused in spite of himself. :There’s no doubt; he means to stay, and he’ll make it cost us dearly to be rid of him. His people are desperate, and that’s dangerous.:

  Darian hadn’t needed that last admonition; he knew for himself just how dangerous a desperate person was.

  :We do not need to use the spear or the sword to rid ourselves of pests,: Tyrsell replied loftily, and Darian sensed Firesong’s hand in his phrasing. :As any should know who once had the misfortune to dare the Killing Trees of the north. We had hoped that the foolishly bold and suicidal had learned to keep a wary distance from our lands by now.:

  The leader barked an artificial laugh, and made his counter. :He says that the so-called Killing Trees did not prevent his passage, and implies that this means his magic is stronger than ours.:

  There was a stirring in the distance, and for a single moment, Kero’s troops showed themselves before blending back into the shadows and undergrowth. This did affect the barbarian leader; he had not gotten long enough to count heads, for Kero had timed the moment so that all he had was an impression - an impression of great numbers.

  :You managed to avoid the Killing Trees by passing to the west, and your boast is hollow as an old reed. Magic is not our only weapon,: Tyrsell said with great boredom, :It is only the easiest to use.:

  The leader remained silent now, as his underlings whispered urgently in his ear.

  Tyrsell did not wait for them to formulate a reply, not when the negotiations had just turned in the favor of the allies. :Here are our fighters, our magic, and our gods barring your way - but we are a generous people, and compassionate to those who are willing to serve. These lands have no current tenant, it is true; what have you to offer us in return for leave to remain?:

  If anything, that startled the leader even more than the presence of the troops. His posture full of confusion, he made an abrupt gesture, spoke a few words, and retreated with his party.

  :He wants to go discuss this with his people,: Tyrsell said uneccessarily.

  Back in camp, with Wintersky spying on the barbarians and Kero’s sentries keeping careful watch, Tyrsell gave them a fuller account of what he had read in the barbarians’ thoughts.

  Darian fought back a yawn, clamping his jaws on it. It seemed an eternity since the last time he’d slept, and with his excitement and fear wearing off, he felt a bit lightheaded with weariness.

  :You all know, of course, that without taking his mind in such a way that he would know I had done so, I could only read what came to the surface of his mind?: Tyrsell began, as a preamble.

  “If we didn’t before, we do now,” Kero replied logically. “So, what information came along with those surface thoughts?”

  :This Ghost Cat - I am forced to believe it is either a very powerful hallucination, or it is very real: Tyrsell shook his head in irritation as a fly buzzed around his ears. Darian fought another yawn. :I am quite serious; and I am inclined to think that it would be difficult to hallucinate such a thing during the course of a migration lasting moons.:

  Firesong and his father exchanged sharp glances, and Kero and Eldan did the same. “That puts an interesting kink in our plans,” Kerowyn ventured. “But until this Ghost Cat shows itself to me, I’m leaving it out of the calculations for now. What else?”

  :The disease I mentioned. The three of us managed to get bits and pieces of the whole story.: Tyrsell sounded proud of himself and his underlings, as well he should be; that would be a difficult proposition to read from the surface thoughts. Darian wondered a
bout this Ghost Cat;

  Firesong had told him about the two Avatars that helped his friend An’desha - could this Ghost Cat be something like them? And if so, then what did that mean for the Tayledras and Valdemar? :There was a tradition of an annual gathering of clans and septs of clans every Midsummer, and the last year it ever took place, it was held in Ghost Cat territory. Just as a matter of caution, they always avoided Change-Circles, but as we know, other clans don’t. Someone from Blood Bear Clan found a Circle and went into it - and came out with more than he‘d expected.:

  “The disease,” Snowfire stated, without surprise. “We were afraid something like this would happen, and we took precautions against it - ”

  “Obviously they didn’t,” Kero said dryly.

  :Exactly so. It ran through the assembled clans like a wildfire. They call it “summerfever,” since it disappears in winter, though they don’t know why.:

  “Is this disease the cause of the crippled children?” Snowfire asked.

  :It is. It begins as coughing, sneezing, chills and fever, then becomes a wasting disease. It kills more often than not, as the chest muscles waste away and breathing becomes impossible, or as full paralysis sets in and the victim is helpless to keep up; only the very lucky survive.: Tyrsell was uncharacteristically sober; evidently he found the images that had come with that knowledge to be disturbing. :Usually death from disease comes to the old and weak or the young and helpless. This death does not pick and choose in that way. Enough fighters died in the first sweep that every clan feud was called off, but new outbreaks have occurred every summer since then.:

  Darian wasn’t sleepy anymore; whether he was picking up images from Tyrsell, or his own imagination was working hard, but he had seen those children lying beside the fire. . . .

  “All right, but why come here?” Firesong asked.

  :Their shaman was one of the victims, but before he died, he told them that a sign would lead them to a place where they would find healing and an end to the sickness. And after he died, the Ghost Cat appeared, and led them south. That was when their lore-keepers recalled that we of the south reputedly have many powerful Healers.:

  “Oh, really?” Eldan’s eyebrows rose, and he turned to Starfall. “Was this Cat a revenant, do you think? Or an avatar?”

  Great minds follow the same path, Darian thought.

  “It could be,” Starfall said cautiously. “But we shouldn’t discount either. Well, now we know why they avoid Change-Circles.”

  :Before he died, their shaman declared that their own gods and magic were helpless against this “plague from outside” and that “they must look outside for help.” They aren’t down here purely by chance, following the Ghost Cat. They’ve heard of the Valdemaran-style Healers, as I said, and have come looking for some. Their initial intentions were to kidnap some and coerce them into helping, if they had to.:

  “Huh,” Kero snorted. “They don’t know Healers very well, do they?”

  Darian had to agree with that.

  :However, confronted by our strong force . . . that doesn’t seem like too good an idea anymore.: Tyrsell’s sides heaved with an enormous sigh. :And that is all I can tell you.:

  “I think we’d better bring the Healers in on this,” Darian put in, with visions of more crippled children in Errold’s Grove. “How do we know we won’t catch this fever?”

  “We don’t, and that is a damned good point,” Kero responded. She rose - but halfway to her feet, was interrupted.

  “Captain! Visitors!” One of the Guards entered the cave and saluted Kerowyn smartly. “Two to see you, urgently, Captain!”

  “I didn’t send for anyone,” Kero began crossly, as she straightened. “And I’m certainly not expecting anyone.”

  “I know you aren’t, Captain Kerowyn,” said a high, young, female voice. “I came here on my own.”

  Around the edge of the cave stepped a young woman dressed in Heraldic Trainee Greys, and trailing her was her Companion - who had a distinctly hangdog and guilty look about him. Darian cast a quick glance at Kerowyn’s Sayvil, who was glaring at the new Companion with much the same expression that Kero was using with the Trainee.

  Darian knew an incipient explosion when he saw one, and he was quite glad that he wasn’t standing in the footprints of either the pretty young woman or her Companion.

  There was something about the girl that was naggingly familiar to Darian, even though he was certain that he had never seen her in his life.

  “I also brought my sister,” the girl continued, undaunted. “And since you just now mentioned Healers, I can’t help thinking that my premonition was accurate.”

  She beckoned, and around the same edge of the cave, looking nervous and determined at the same time, stepped Keisha Alder.

  Keisha hadn’t had a moment to think from the time that Shandi scooped her up until the moment they both intruded on the war council. Much to Keisha’s relief, Darian rose and worked his way over to her, and both of them escaped from the council as quickly as they could. The fierce interrogation that Kero was putting Shandi Alder through was also an extremely uncomfortable and public grilling. No less public - though silent - was the similar set of coals that Shandi’s Companion was being hauled over by Sayvil.

  “Your sister must be crazy. I can’t believe she ran away from the Collegium,” Darian said, shaking his head.

  Keisha just sighed. “I can’t either - though to give her credit, she didn’t exactly run away.”

  Darian gave her a quizzical look. “So what did she do?”

  He found a place for them both to sit. Keisha was only too glad to sink down onto a cool stone and stretch her aching legs out. Riding pillion, even on a Companion, was about as uncomfortable as riding a dyheli.

  “She bullied them into letting her come back, if you can believe that! She said she had some sort of premonition, and since she obviously wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, they gave in!” Keisha thought incredulously about the Shandi who had left Errold’s Grove, Shandi the peacemaker, Shandi the gentle, and shook her head with disbelief. “I hardly recognized her - ”

  “Start from the beginning,” Darian interrupted. “I want to hear this in sequence.”

  Keisha took a deep breath, and began at the beginning - just after dawn this morning. “I was in Errold’s Grove. Nightwind told me to spend half my time there since I’m supposed to be the on-station Healer now, and I’m supposed to take care of anything that happens to the volunteers, now that most of the other Healers are here with Kerowyn. I’d just checked the camp at morning call for anyone sick - no one was, but I always check - it was just about dawn. Then one of the sentries reported a Herald coming. We expected Eldan, of course, so I stayed to see what had brought him there. Obviously, we thought something might have happened out here. And out of absolutely nowhere, up comes Shandi, acting as if she had every right to be there and not at the Collegium where she belongs!” She couldn’t keep her indignation to herself; it crept out and colored her last sentence.

  Darian cocked his head to one side. “Are you aware of how much you sound like your mother?” he asked dryly.

  She flushed. “I suppose I do; well, being someone’s big sister tends to make you feel that way. Anyway, she somehow managed to bluff the lieutenant into thinking she had orders to find Herald-Captain Kerowyn. She found out where you all were, and before anyone could question her about anything, she just scooped me up and kidnapped me! She says she had a premonition that she and I had to be here for some reason, and that was why the Collegium let her go.”

  “Do you believe her?” Darian asked.

  She hugged her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on them. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “If it was anyone else - but it’s hard to think of Shandi as - as having premonitions I’m supposed to believe in.” She rubbed the side of her head, easing the ache in her temple. “I mean - Shandi, of all people! She never showed any signs of anything like that before!”

  “Peo
ple often don’t, not until they’re Chosen anyway,” Darian reminded her.

  “She says her Gift is ForeSight, but that it isn’t properly trained yet, so all she gets is bits and pieces. I just don’t know.” Keisha rubbed her tired eyes, and wished that this had happened to anyone but her.

  “Can you think of any other reason why she should come pounding up here?’ Darian asked, reasonably. “And can’t you think of a lot of reasons why she would avoid doing so if she could?”

  Keisha had to smile at that. “Well,” she admitted, “now that you mention it. If Mum and Da got word she was here, they’d have a worse fit than they did over my staying. She’d never hear the end of it. And as for the Captain - ” she shuddered. “ - I’d rather die than have to explain something like this to Captain Kero.”

  Darian spread his hands. “There you have it. I’d trust that premonition, personally. Everything she told you sounds perfectly logical to me. I don’t think her Companion would have gone along with this if she had been making it up, do you?”

  Keisha nodded, slowly, and felt a little better. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

  The only thing is, she said her premonition involved me. I don’t like the sound of that. . . .

  Darian interrupted her worrisome thoughts. “Now, would you like to hear what we’ve been finding out, since it seems that you’re going to be involved?”

  Keisha nodded, and when Darian was done, she remained silent, thinking everything he’d told her over carefully. “This Summer Fever,” she ventured. “I don’t like the sound of it. It sounds more dangerous than the barbarians.”

  “Why?” he asked, puzzled.

  “They’ve had a few years to get used to it - I’ve never heard of anything like it down here,” she told him, feeling a little chill in her heart. “If it got loose here, it could go through us like a wildfire.”

  “We have Healers,” he objected. “Surely they can do something first.”