To Guard Against the Dark

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Then, watch the life fade from Yihtor’s eyes. That, he thought coldly, he could do.

  But from Rael’s?

  Morgan slammed his feet down and stood. The plas he tucked decisively in a pocket.

  His future and theirs might be set.

  The Wayfarer and her crew deserved a choice.

  “Hasn’t budged,” Terk said, jerking a big thumb toward the med cocoon.

  Morgan scanned the panel. Many of the readings were outside his rough-and-ready medical expertise; a sufficiency were not. “He’s improved. It won’t be long.”

  “You changed our course yet?” Terk grinned at whatever showed on his face. “We fixed the coms. No more listening.”

  “To us, you mean,” Morgan said dryly. “Tell me you don’t have ears in the captain’s quarters.”

  “Me? Spy on our good captain?” The enforcer spread his big arms. “I’m wounded.”

  “Huh,” he replied. Easier to talk Huido into a sandpit than Terk out of surveillance. “We’re still heading for Plexis. I’ve the new coordinates.” He patted his pocket.

  “And?”

  “I need to be sure.”

  A scowl. “Now you’ve doubts? After dragging us into subspace in this decrepit scow?”

  He ignored the slur. “When Yihtor wakes, he can confirm it one way or the other. Don’t you think we owe the captain that before sending her ship off her legally posted course?”

  Terk’s face attempted astonishment; the result was a pained collision of angles that eased into a smirk. “I win. Bet Finelle you’d be smitten.”

  Unable to believe his ears, Morgan stared blankly. “Pardon?”

  “You heard me.” Smug, that. “Smitten. Attracted. Our Captain Erin not only owns a ship as much a pile of fun dregs as your old one, she’s got your kind of attitude. And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that smile.”

  Someone had, apparently. “I’m attempting to do the right thing here,” Morgan said pointedly.

  “What’s wrong about an attraction?”

  “I can wake him.” Morgan, relieved at the interruption, turned to see Rael in the doorway. “If you wish,” she added, walking into the room.

  Her movements were easier, and her high cheekbones glowed a healthy pink. As for her hair, it was noticeably longer, though had yet to stop its defiance of gravity. As a result, she looked like a ruffled Brassard chick. The childhood memory surprised Morgan.

  No, the ruffling was real. She’d overheard them and was disturbed. “The situation—” he began, stopping at her gesture.

  “Is clear to me.” Rael walked to the cocoon and rested her fingers lightly atop its hardened surface. “If the Clan are on Snosbor IV, the sooner we get there, the sooner we’ll be done. The sooner,” with stress, “heart-kin are together.” Her eyes found Morgan’s. “You want to ask the captain. What if she refuses?”

  His “We get a ship at Plexis,” overlapped Terk’s gruff “Not an option.” The two glared at one another.

  “I see.” Rael closed her eyes.

  The instant Morgan sensed Power flowing, he tightened his shields, dividing his outward attention between the Clanswoman and the medpanel.

  Rael’s eyes opened.

  Interlude

  I OPENED MY EYES and stepped back. “He stirs.” An unnecessary announcement, as the med unit chortled and beeped to itself, the top of the cocoon folding aside to the accompaniment of flashes on the display panel beyond, but I felt on edge.

  In this skin, in this place.

  Touching Yihtor’s mind, that most of all. He’d been close to waking on his own, my nudge all he’d required to reach consciousness. I withdrew at once.

  The tension between Morgan and Terk was an odd thing to find a comfort, but I’d witnessed it before. My Human could handle the other’s bluster. The two respected one another’s strengths and, usually, had similar goals, though I’d realized long ago what Terk never would.

  Morgan was more dangerous.

  It showed now, I thought, watching him prepare for Yihtor. I saw what others couldn’t: how his eyes gained their watchful focus, how his body aligned itself, deceptively relaxed but ready to act. Inwardly, he’d prepare, too. I dared extend my awareness, finding nothing where Morgan’s thoughts should be.

  If I probed deeper, I’d rediscover the shape of his shields, those he’d had and those I’d taught him. Their shape matched—had matched—mine, Chosen enclosed within each other’s protections, not excluded.

  I’d severed our Joining. Was no longer Chooser or Chosen or—alive, I reminded myself.

  Not so Yihtor di Caraat. He sat up on what was now a cot, his bare chest rising and falling with breath, his gray-green eyes open and aware.

  Eyes that found and dismissed the Humans, locking on me. Rael di Sarc. What’s happened to you? With all his old arrogance. Why am I here? Why is he? Morgan. With too-familiar malice. With intent—

  “Something’s wrong,” I warned, leaping forward to stop whatever he planned.

  Morgan was faster, hitting a control on the panel. A fine mist enveloped Yihtor’s head and with his next breath, he fell back, unconscious again.

  I took hold of his limp hand, a hand I’d never wanted to touch, and reached.

  . . . finding Yihtor, alone. His shields, down at first, were reforming. Behind them, I found what I’d feared: the unChosen Clansman of the past, filled with ugly ambition and worse, the urge to hurt Morgan, to make him pay for taking her away.

  Me. Yihtor no longer remembered I was here, knew nothing of AllThereIs or our mission. Was exactly who and what he’d been before Council erased his mind. Had being back in his physical mind broken his link to the others or—

  /anxiety/~StopGo~/urgency/

  A Rugheran?!

  Or more than one. If I opened to the M’hir, I’d see them, their sinuous bodies traced by light—

  “Rael!”

  —summoned, I opened my eyes and there, most improbably, was the Rugheran: in the medbay, crowding a very pale Terk against the wall. Morgan stood in front of the mass of gooey black, hands out in a valiant, if useless gesture to keep the thing back from me. Tentacles, long and fibrous, clung to the floor and ceiling as if gripping the ship was important. It spoke again.

  /identity/~help!~/urgency/

  Next, a wave of sorrow and longing filled me, a wave I’d felt before, in the amphitheater on Drapskii when the dear confusing Drapsk had presented me with a covered lump of dying something, and I’d sent it swimming off into the M’hir.

  “It’s all right,” I told Morgan, easing around his tense form. I hadn’t thought of Rugherans as individuals, but I knew this being. I’d saved it—or at least thought I had at the time. “Hello. Again.”

  Morgan was staring at me now, not our visitor, but I’d no time to worry about that.

  /identity/~help!~/urgency/

  “I got that,” I said. It knew me as well. Wonderful. “What help do you need?” I asked warily. If more interplanetary sex, now wasn’t the moment. If ever.

  /anxiety/~StopGo!~/urgency/

  “Stop what? Who?” Morgan. Our eyes met. “It’s shown up before,” he told me, quick and low. “Wanting Sira.”

  My poor Human, beset by my leftovers. “I suppose I’ll have to do,” I said as calmly as possible. “Answer us. Explain.”

  /anxiety/~BADGO!~/urgency/~STOPGO!~/DREAD/

  I winced at the force behind the message; Morgan doing the same. “Who?” I demanded. “Stop who?”

  Then, chilling me to Rael’s bones, an answer:

  /DREAD/~US~/DREAD/

  The Rugheran vanished, as though scaring itself. Terk landed on the floor, bouncing up with a curse and a weapon in both fists.

  Morgan looked to me. “What’s happening?”

  I hugged myself, not that it helped. “I
don’t know. I’ll ask. Keep him—” a nod at Yihtor, “—out.”

  Going to an empty cot, I lay down and invited the Watchers.

  Taisal answered.

  <>

  Harsh, that voice. Distant, yet not. We’d a connection on this side of Between as well as the other. Family. Yihtor’s link has been lost.

  <>

  I knew what the Watcher meant. There was an abundance of M’hir-life; none of it, in my experience, was friendly or comprehensible. Some were predators, and I’d felt their teeth in what was me, in that Dark. If the Rugheran’s arrival had somehow aroused them, there was nothing to be done about it. I’d greater worries.

  Or did I? Were Singers harmed? Been consumed, trying to hold Yihtor? Could that happen to me? Would I forget, too, and the Trade Pact be lost?

  <> A pause, then, disquietingly: <>

  Time wasn’t an ally—I knew that as well as any Watcher. It was my turn to be harsh. I need Yihtor to remember.

  <>

  She posed a potential strategy, Taisal being who she was and what she’d been; I made myself consider it. Could I use Yihtor-that-was to find his mother and followers? Possibly, but he, too, was a predator.

  One I refused to allow near Morgan.

  I need him to remember. Restore the link.

  <>

  I sat up quickly, jarring my hip. The pain was a welcome reminder of what was flesh—and what wasn’t. I looked for Morgan.

  Finding him sitting, too close, on the cot. At my flinch, he stood at once, gesturing apology. “Are you all right?”

  I was, and wasn’t, not with what I had to ask of him. “We have to kill Yihtor,” I said, my mouth dry, “then bring him back to life.”

  Terk swore under his breath. Morgan sent him a quelling look, turning his gaze back to me. “There’s no other way?”

  “For this, no.”

  “It can be done,” he said, no expression in his face. “Why?”

  “If we don’t, he’ll be what he was.” I searched his face. “You remember.”

  Without another word, my Human went to Yihtor’s cocoon. Terk met him there, as if to intercede, then stood aside, throwing up his hands.

  I’d be of more use Between.

  Reclining once more, I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 20

  HER EYES CLOSED, her head on the mattress haloed by an unruly mass of red-tipped brown hair, and it wasn’t her.

  Wasn’t Rael . . .

  Or wasn’t . . .

  No. Morgan stopped the thought. She’d given him a task, to protect them from a terrible enemy, however bleak the means. Without Sira—without her Power, Yihtor was too strong for either of them.

  The med unit would revive the Clansman, if reactivated in time. As for ending Yihtor’s life? He reached for a pillow.

  Terk got there first, pushing two fingers deep in the flesh beneath the unconscious Yihtor’s chin. As the body flexed, trying to survive, the enforcer looked detached, almost clinical.

  Not the first time, that said.

  The body stopped moving. Terk checked for a pulse, then gave a grunt and moved aside. “All yours.”

  Unsure if he should be queasy or grateful, Morgan took over, reactivating the unit. Alarms blinked, and servo hands fussed. They waited, the moment full of question.

  A pulse registered on the panel, then another, along with slow, steady breaths.

  Leaving the machine to finish its job, the Human went to the other cot and looked down. Expressions flickered across Rael’s face: determination, effort, then a fear so pronounced he clenched his fists and made himself remain still. Finally, calm.

  Her eyes opened. Warmed, seeing him, and it wasn’t fair, wasn’t right, he thought, repulsed. They should be gray, not bright green, with that look.

  “We killed him for you. Did it work?” Morgan demanded roughly.

  She blinked, and the warmth was gone, replaced by caution. Rael sat up. “The Watchers guided him to the Vessel—brought Yihtor to his body, that is,” she corrected and stood. “I’ll wake him again, and we’ll know.”

  Morgan stepped farther back than necessary to let her pass. Rael acknowledged the distance with a tiny frown, but focused on the Clansman. Instead of whatever she’d done before in the M’hir, this time she simply walked up to him and pinched his arm, hard.

  Yihtor’s eyes opened. “Ouch,” he said, a hand reaching not to the pinch, but to where Terk had pressed his fingers, shutting off the flow to his brain.

  “You’re welcome,” that worthy said, though it had to be a first even for him, conversing with a former victim.

  “Yihtor,” Rael urged gently. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  He nodded. This time, when he sat, it was a struggle. Rael put her arm around his shoulders to assist. “Morgan found you.” With wonder, looking between them. “I knew he would.”

  There was, Morgan thought, something new about his face. Then he realized what it was: the underlying hunger was gone. This Yihtor was content, fulfilled by whatever he’d found in that other universe.

  Seeing he could sit without help, Rael sat on the nearby stool. “We’ve an urgent question,” she said quickly. “Remember, you mustn’t reach. Where would Wys and her followers go?”

  “Back to Camos,” Yihtor replied. “To our former home.”

  Terk shook his head. “We’d have known.”

  “The Assemblers attacked Camos,” Rael said, adding, “It must be part of the Song, now.”

  “Ah, yes.” Yihtor looked down at his legs, under the blanket, then rapped a knuckle on the device where his knee had been. “This isn’t. I’m glad I missed it. The Retians, I suppose. They were eager to get their paws on us.”

  Terk met Morgan’s look, nodded, and pulled out his com, moving off to speak in a low voice. He’d have Finelle contact the Conciliator—presumably not her captain—and start a query down those lines.

  “Would she go to Ret 7?” Morgan asked, while this went on.

  Eyebrows rose over those scar-lined eyes. “No. We all knew better than to trust Retians in numbers. She’d wanted to go to Omacron—liked working with them—I’d disagreed. I found Human minds more useful.” A gesture of apology. “I don’t like remembering that. I don’t like being here.”

  Terk would add Omacron to Finelle’s instructions.

  “What about Snosbor IV?” Rael asked as though just thinking of it. Clever, he thought, approving. “Its population is Omacron.” She glanced at Morgan. “Janac knew. My Chosen.”

  As if he needed an explanation for her knowledge. Why?

  “Why ask these questions?” Yihtor frowned, moved uneasily. “I don’t like remembering. Let me do a heart-search.” His eyes lost focus.

  “Stop.” Rael snapped her fingers under his nose, claiming his attention. “Remember this, unChosen, like it or not. Here we were property, of our parents first of all. We were never trusted.”

  Morgan hadn’t known Rael took their father’s betrayal so personally, but he should have guessed, given how close she was to Sira. Heart-kin as well as sister. And hadn’t Rael been the one to step up and help them be together?

  “I was. My people were loyal!”

  “Would your people go to Snosbor IV?”

  Brow furrowed, Yihtor’s lips moved without sound, as though trying to find words. Finally, he gave up. “I can’t remember.”

  She gave him a pitying look. “Because your mother didn’t want you to.”

  “You think she blocked my memory?” Yihtor accused, a hint of his former self in its heat. “Impossible! I was the leader.”

  “Of her empire, not yours.”

  His face crumpled. “Sira—”

  “Was never you
rs, Yihtor,” Rael said quickly. “You know that,” with emphasis. “You remember now.”

  “Yes,” faintly. “But how can I help, like this? What good am I except as bait?”

  For Wys di Caraat wanted her son back—his body at least, Morgan thought with pity of his own. It might come to that, but first?

  “I can remove the block,” he heard himself offer.

  Rael whirled. “No!”

  “We need the answer. So does Yihtor.” He made himself be calm to counter her alarm, feeling enough of his own. “It’s my skill. Sira must have told you.”

  “She told me you were reckless!” Fire in her eyes as she half-rose, her fear pressing against his shields. “That you’d need protecting from yourself!”

  Yihtor found her hand; Rael stared down at him. Whatever passed unheard between them, Morgan couldn’t know, but she gave a shuddering sigh and nodded in defeat.

  “Please try, Morgan,” the Clansman said to him, lying back down. “I must rescue my family from this life and have them, as they should be, in mine.”

  The word “rescue” was deliberate, an appeal to what were more Human instincts than what he’d known of Clan’s. “Very well.” Morgan waited for Rael to leave Yihtor’s side, but she moved back, not away.

  While Terk, weapon drawn, went to the end of the cot.

  His protectors, Morgan thought, touched. Not that either were a match for the Power waiting for him, but he chose to believe this Yihtor.

  If he was wrong, they’d know soon.

  The Human pulled the stool to the head of the cot, careful of Rael’s toes, her worried nearness a distraction he put aside. Steepling his fingers, he focused, then laid his left hand on Yihtor’s forehead, closing his own eyes.

  Clarity. His first impression was of passion, controlled, organized, driven. The potential here astonished.

  Appalled, knowing it had been wasted, but none of these thoughts helped, Morgan knew, and he dismissed them.

  Usually, he needed to penetrate shields, at least the minimal layer healthy or ill minds kept as a last resort, but Yihtor’s mind lay open to him. Trust?