by Dawn Cook
“Hold sway with the conclave?” Alissa said, feeling a trickle of alarm through her.
Connen-Neute folded his scarf. “They simply listen more to some than others. To me, not at all. I’m the fledgling of the Hold. And if you join with someone who isn’t a Master, they’ll never take you seriously, either. Transeunt or not.”
She frowned, not liking that. “I’m going to marry Strell or Lodesh,” she said. “I don’t care what Keribdis or anyone else says. I just can’t decide whom,” she said petulantly.
“I think you already have decided,” Connen-Neute said softly.
“What?” she exclaimed, tensing.
He shrugged his thin shoulders, looking far too young to know what he was talking about. “Lodesh is obviously the better of two bad choices. By not coming out with it, I think your heart has already decided on Strell. You’re simply too frightened to admit it, knowing the storm of trouble it will cause.”
She put the back of her hand to her warm cheek. “I just haven’t decided is all.”
Connen-Neute held out a long-fingered hand. “Strell?” he said, ticking off his fingers as he spoke. “Commoner. Very short life span. Can’t make a ward to save his skin. Last member of a family line half the Hold has been trying to surreptitiously wipe out. Capable of begetting only common children—”
“Stop it,” she protested, not wanting to hear it said aloud.
“Lodesh?” He put the other hand out, pantomiming weighing their qualities. “Keeper. Carries a curse to keep him alive until he breaks it. Children who will be Keeper, possibly Master. Past administrator to a city of thousands. Knows the same people they do. Been to the same weddings, parties, funerals . . .” His second hand had fallen appreciably, leaving his first high in the air. “Need I go on?”
She sighed. “No.”
“As I said . . . trouble. And to top it off, Strell gets seasick.”
She glanced to the stern, wondering if he was right and she was too blind to see it.
“I think you’re frightened,” Connen-Neute continued. “You know Keribdis will forbid you from marrying a commoner, forcing you to either stand up to her or live a lie.”
“How can I be afraid of her?” Alissa said with a false anger. “I’ve never even met her. And I haven’t decided only because when I do, I know the other will leave.” Her eyes dropped to her shoes. “I don’t want either of them to be alone.”
Connen-Neute gave her a wry look. “Them? Or you?
Alissa said nothing, unable to raise her eyes to his as he bound his scarf around his head again. “So will you follow your heart and bring about your end,” Connen-Neute said as he hid his golden eyes, “or follow your logic and marry Lodesh? He loves you, and you love him. Either way, you had better decide soon, or they will decide for you.”
“Who do you think would win out?” she asked in a small voice, wondering if she was so cowardly as to let them decide.
Connen-Neute shrugged. “Logic says Lodesh, seeing as he has a lifetime of experience to draw upon and is a Keeper. But Strell has survived Bailic when no Keeper could, charmed a feral raku, and defied the boundaries of logic to bring you back from the past through a memory.” Connen-Neute tucked the end of the scarf under itself and hid his bare hands in his sleeves. “Lodesh underestimates him. So does Talo-Toecan.”
There was a scuff behind her, and she turned to see the first mate approaching with Lodesh. “How so?” she asked softly.
“Strell was raised in the desert,” he said soundlessly as Lodesh and the nervous-looking crewman came close. “He has a core of savage ruthlessness no one but I seem to see.”
Folding his hands peacefully in his lap, he turned his cloth-wrapped head to Lodesh.
Alissa followed his gaze, her mild concern as to what they wanted shifting to alarm when Lodesh asked, “Have either of you seen crewman Farrin? He was on night watch, but no one has seen him since midnight.”
11
Connen-Neute’s plate threatened to move as the boat ran down an especially tall wave. Peeved, he grasped the edge with a scarf-wrapped hand. Gravy sloshed to stain his bandages, and he frowned. In a wash of irritation, he ran a mental search of the boat. The crewmen not on watch were clustered together in the bow. Still gossiping about the missing sailor, most likely, he thought. Deciding if worse came to worst he could snuff the oil lamp, Connen-Neute slipped his hands from his wrappings and undid the binding from around his eyes.
“Do you think that wise?” Lodesh asked, not meeting his gaze as he continued to sop up his leftover gravy with a crumbling biscuit.
Connen-Neute ran a long-fingered hand through his short hair to free it from the folds the scarf had pressed into it. “I know where everyone is,” he said softly.
The Keeper shrugged, seeming not to care. “Where’s Alissa?” he asked as he sipped his drink. “She promised to play cards with me tonight.” Glancing at the black rectangle of the night at the top of the ladder, he took a strip of salted meat with a guilty swiftness.
Connen-Neute reached across the table and commandeered what was left in a show of quiet possessiveness. “You told Alissa you wouldn’t eat meat anymore. You and Strell, both.”
“I said nothing of the kind.” Lodesh grinned mischievously from under his yellow curls. “I simply stopped when she brought it to my attention she didn’t like it. That she would make a conclusion from that is her prerogative.”
A small sound of warning escaped Connen-Neute. He was sure the distinction would mean nothing to Alissa. Shredding the last wedge of meat, he ate it piece by mocking piece. He rather liked that Alissa stuck to her foothills upbringing and didn’t eat meat. It saved possible wear and tear on their friendship. And since he had no designs on pursuing her, she didn’t care what he ate. “Alissa is asleep already,” he said, answering Lodesh’s original question as he washed the meat down with gulp of tepid water.
They had gone through almost half the casks of water in the boat’s hold. What was left was showing signs of going bad. Perhaps the captain was right. Perhaps they should start back tomorrow. At least the humans . . .
A scuffing at the top of the ladder broke into his thoughts. He quickly hid his hands in his sleeves, sending a questing thought to find Strell shakily descending. Blowing in relief, Connen-Neute reluctantly picked at the potatoes Alissa had made the cook boil up.
“Strell!” Lodesh called companionably. “Potatoes tonight. Your favorite.”
The haggard man hesitated, swallowing as he glanced at their plates and quickly away. “Maybe later,” he said. “I came down to get my blanket.” His usually dark skin was pale in the amber light from the swinging lamp. “The Navigator help me, I can’t stay down here.” A panicked look came into his eyes as he lurched to his pack.
A frown pulled Lodesh’s brow tight. Leaning across the narrow table, he whispered to Connen-Neute, “Can’t you ward him to sleep? For one night? He’s doing better, but look at him.” He went silent as Strell gripped the ceiling support. “He’s been on deck every night,” Lodesh continued. “A good sleep might be just the thing.”
Connen-Neute nodded. Reassuring himself that none of the crewmen were near, he set his tracings to glow. The patternfor a ward of sleep was difficult, and as he set his field about Strell in preparation, the plainsman started, dropping his pack. As Connen-Neute and Lodesh watched in surprise, Strell looked behind him. “Ashes,” the piper whispered. “Now I’m seeing them down here.”
“Them?” Connen-Neute questioned cautiously.
Strell grimaced. “Ghosts. The plains are full of them. So is the Hold, and I don’t even want to think about Ese’ Nawoer.” He made a mocking shudder, turning to dig in his pack again. “Talo-Toecan taught me some exercises to ease the scar tissue across my tracings. He thought it might help me reach Alissa when she was—” He hesitated, flicking a dark look at Lodesh. “When she was trapped in the past. I don’t do them anymore as it makes the ghosts all the more clear. Sometimes, I don’t notice them at
all. But when I’m tired or worried, it’s worse.”
“Really . . .” The idea Strell was sensing ghosts was thin at best, but the piper’s response had been a classic reaction to a novice catching his first resonance. Connen-Neute glanced at Lodesh, reading in his uncomfortable expression that the Keeper had guessed the same. “Strell,” Connen-Neute asked cautiously, “would you like me to ward you to sleep tonight? So you can get a good rest?” He smiled. “We’ll need all your piping skills to calm Alissa tomorrow when Captain Sholan announces we’re turning back.”
Strell looked ill. “No. Bailic warded me to sleep once. I couldn’t wake on my own.”
“How about a ward of calming, then?” he asked. “If you’ll allow me to look at your tracings, I can tailor it as strong or weak as you like.”
Lodesh opened his mouth—undoubtedly to point out that it wasn’t possible to tailor a ward in such a way—and Connen-Neute shot him a warning look. He didn’t care what ward he put on Strell; he just wanted to get a good look at his tracings.
“Why not?” Strell draped his blanket over his shoulder and straightened. “Ward away.”
Lodesh’s mug of water hit the narrow table with an accusing thump. His arms crossed before him, and he leaned back against the narrow bench.
“Good,” Connen-Neute said, not liking being caught in a bald-faced lie. “I’ll set it up, and you tell me when you sense it. That should be strong enough to do you some good but weak enough such that it won’t incapacitate you. And, ah, I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell Alissa about this. Talo-Toecan wouldn’t approve if I told her it was possible to tailor wards this way.”
Lodesh snorted, and a faint smile came over Strell mind. “She won’t hear it from me,” he said.
Settling himself, Connen-Neute glanced at a wry-faced Lodesh before easing a thought into Strell’s mind. He had been invited under a lie but invited nonetheless. He stifled a wince as he viewed the chaos. It was hard to see anything as Strell had no source to light his mindscape, but it was obvious the piper’s tracings had no cohesion. It would be impossible for Strell to have caught a resonance. Especially as everything was coated with healing scar tissue. Concerned, Connen-Neute looked closer. The damage looked too old to have been acquired in the short time Strell had been at the Hold. Where had he gained that much scar tissue? And why?
Connen-Neute set up a ward of sleep as he had earlier, careful to keep the energy below the level of invocation. Strell did nothing, standing blankly as he waited for something to happen. There was not a glimmer of resonance from his tracings. Connen-Neute shifted his head slowly, and Lodesh seemed to relax, easing back against the narrow seat.
Wondering what Strell had sensed if it hadn’t been his ward, Connen-Neute prepared to put a ward of calming over the plainsman. He could at least do that for him. But as his field touched Strell, the man stiffened. “There,” Strell said, his eyes intent.
Connen-Neute looked at him in wonder. He hadn’t yet set the ward. “It’s the field,” he said. “You’ve become sensitive to the fields that carry wards. That’s all.”
“A field?” Strell said, his eyes going wide. “Is that . . . normal?”
Connen-Neute exchanged a cautious glance with Lodesh. “There have been very few commoners allowed to stay in the Hold as you have. Perhaps the extended contact with fields and wards could account for it.”
That seemed to satisfy Strell, and at his nod, Connen-Neuteset the calming ward in place. Immediately Strell slumped. His face went slack, and his grip on the support post eased from white-knuckled to one only mildly clutching. “That should help,” Connen-Neute said, ignoring Lodesh’s disapproving look as he noted the piper’s breathing had grown slow. He had begun to rock with the boat, too, instead of against it.
“Yes,” Strell said around a yawn. “Thanks. It’s working. But I’m still going to sleep on deck. G’ night, Connen-Neute. See you in the morning.” Giving Lodesh a nod, he took the last biscuit from the tin plate and headed to the stairs.
“We should have done that the first night out,” Connen-Neute whispered as Strell vanished.
“Uh-huh,” Lodesh drawled, a questioning tone to his voice.
Jolted from his thoughts, Connen-Neute flicked a look at him. “You saw him jump. I had to see his tracings,” he said. “He might have had a resonating pattern.”
“You lied to gain his permission,” Lodesh answered.
Connen-Neute met his gaze evenly, refusing to show any guilt. He was a Master of the Hold. Lodesh was a Keeper. “And you’ve never lied before?” he questioned.
Lodesh took a slow breath, his gaze going back to his plate. “Never mind.”
Making a satisfied noise, Connen-Neute picked up his cup and took a swallow. The water was getting worse at the bottom, carrying a sour taste that seemed to stick with him. He set the cup aside, his thoughts going back to Strell’s damaged tracings. Strell Hirdune: piper, potter, and heavily scarred. There was only one way to account for it. Feeling a hint of mistrust, he watched Lodesh pick at his biscuit. “Where is the pipe?” Connen-Neute asked.
“Pipe?” Lodesh never looked up.
Connen-Neute leaned forward and pushed the Keeper’s plate out of his reach. “The one I warded for you three centuries ago to prevent your sister’s children from turning shaduf. Strell is a descendant of your sister, and you know it.”
Lodesh glanced up and away. His face showed no emotion. “Of course I know it,” he said as he pulled his plate back. “He knows it himself. So does Talo-Toecan.”
“Alissa doesn’t.”
The Keeper frowned. “Strell has chosen to remain silent. But please, I’m sure he would appreciate your telling Alissa before you find out why he hasn’t told her himself. I think the man is embarrassed to be my kin. The Navigator knows why.” He pulled the plate back, his motions slowing in thought. “Unless . . . No.”
A tinge of red came over the man, and Connen-Neute eyed him suspiciously, not remembering ever having seen such an emotion on the usually composed Keeper before. He gestured for him to continue, and Lodesh went sheepish. “I only meant it to get him to leave me alone,” he said, “but maybe he took me seriously. Last winter during an—ah—discussion concerning Alissa, I told him the only way I could get rid of my curse was to remove a threat that could save or damn the world, and that if anything like that came up, I’d just leave it to Talo-Toecan. He kept pressing the issue, looking for a way to absolve my curse so I would go away and leave him and Alissa alone. It became rather tedious, so I told him if I got angry enough, I could probably foster it off on one of my descendants. Maybe he took me at my word and is trying to hide his ancestry.”
“You’d give another your curse?” Connen-Neute asked, thinking the often self-serving Keeper might someday do just that if he thought it would be to his benefit.
Lodesh looked at the square of night at the top of the stairs as if seeing into the past. “Connen-Neute, you know I never had any children. Besides, why would I want to lose my curse? Especially now?”
Connen-Neute grunted softly at that. Curious about whether his ward had been responsible for the damage, Connen-Neute stretched to pull Strell’s pack closer. After searching Strell’s mind, ransacking his pack was a small indiscretion.
“I can’t believe my ward is still holding,” he said as he shuffled about in it. “I’d have expected it to have lost its effectiveness by now.” He hesitated. “That’s why Keribdis has been trying to wipe out the Hirdune line. She doesn’t know my ward has been keeping them commoners when they ought to be Keepers and shadufs. You never told her?”
Lodesh’s eyes went tight in anger. “Keribdis began her campaign to wipe out the Hirdunes long after I’d died. Three generations of failure is embarrassing, and for her, it’s easier to eliminate an aberrant family line and start over than try to understand why it isn’t giving her what she wanted. I see no reason to say anything now. Or do you want to explain to Keribdis why her attempt to nurture a shaduf fro
m the Stryska/Hirdune union failed so spectacularly?”
Tensing in a pang of angst, Connen-Neute shook his head. Giving Lodesh’s sister a warded pipe to gently scar her infants’ tracings into unusable pathways to prevent her from having a shaduf child had been his idea. If it was found he had secretly worked against the Hold’s agreed plan, he could be charged with sedition—even three centuries later.
Connen-Neute stifled a shudder as he dug deeper into Strell’s pack. He’d never agreed with the morality of the Hold’s policy to capitalize upon the tragedy of shadufs. But as no one listened to him, he always relied upon stealth to make things go the way he thought they should.
A cry of success slipped from him as his fingers found a smooth length of wood. Then he looked closer, frowning. “It’s made of mirth wood, but this isn’t the pipe.”
“No.” Lodesh took a huge swallow of his drink, making a face as he set the cup down at arm’s length. “He broke it. Which was just as well, seeing he was starting to scar himself worse playing it for Alissa. He made that one from the end of Alissa’s staff.” Lodesh stacked his plate upon Connen-Neute’s empty one. “See the position of the last hole?”
Connen-Neute held the pipe as if to play it. “He put the hole where his shortened finger could reach it.” He looked up, his brow furrowed. “Our good minstrel has a pipe of mirth wood that no one but he can play. Interesting . . .”
Lodesh guffawed. “Save me from prophesying rakus.”