He was standing in the elbow of a narrow street in a pool of purplish shadows, talking with two young women. There were bruised-looking crescents under his eyes which accentuated their colour and he looked as if he had not slept since leaving the ship, though his expression was as calmly determined as ever. Glynn’s feinna senses detected a hunger gnawing at him and she understood incredulously that the hunger was for her! They had been apart only a single night since their bonding through the feinna and Glynn realised that she felt the same. When she allowed herself to think of the windwalker, it was as if weeks had passed.
The feinna, who was still within her mind as well as her arms, began to weave Glynn’s longing into something almost physical, which reached out as surely as a hand towards Solen. Then something very strange happened. As if in a dream, Glynn saw Solen’s face change. One moment he was nodding to the women and the next his head jerked up and his eyes turned towards her, ablaze with a longing so fierce as to be a kind of madness. She had seen panthers pacing in their cages in zoos look out at passersby in such a way.
She could hear nothing, and yet she saw his mouth – oh his mouth – shape her name.
She did not know if she had fainted from shock or intensity or desire, but when she came to her wits she was on her knees retching and trembling, and the feinna was running around her, whimpering and touching her face and hands in agitation. When Glynn tried to stand, she realised that she had no strength. She dragged herself to the side of the bed and clawed her way up onto it to lie, limp and gasping, on top of the covers. Pulling off her shoes and tunic made her see spots, and perspiration ran freely down her cheeks and breasts as she dragged the covers over her. Then she lay still and concentrated on staying conscious and calm, though she had never felt so weak in all her life. It was as if whatever she had done with her mind had almost sucked the life out of her. But at the same time, every molecule in her thrilled at the thought that she had somehow made actual contact with Solen!
She wanted to glory in the memory of him looking at her, saying her name, his eyes molten with yearning, but fatigue washed over her and her eyelids began inexorably to close. She made a feeble attempt to resist, then realised she was being foolish. Of course she needed to sleep. She let go and plunged into sleep as into a black hole. There were no dreams and she knew nothing until the feinna began to nuzzle at her slack fingers. She roused herself and sat up, wondering if it was morning. Certainly she felt refreshed enough to have slept a night. She continued to stroke the feinna, until she realised that energy was flowing warmly from it into her. Was that possible? Her mind was too tired to unwind the thought but she went on stroking, following her hand with her mind. Bridge of its little nose, along its spine and right down to the tip of its tail, over and over. Focusing on the movement was like a physical mantra. She followed a dim prompt from the feinna link, or maybe from the youngling itself, and tweaked the ends of its ears very gently at the start of each stroke. It gave a chirrup that reminded her so much of a child’s giggle that she grinned.
Belovedloved sisterling.
The words that the youngling whispered into her mind reminded her inevitably of its mother. But at the same time, there was a distinct difference in the mental voice of the He, which arose from its maleness as much as from the difference in personality and age. The feinna link informed her in its idiosyncratic way, that the words the feinna had used were drawn from Glynn’s own vocabulary. The little creature not only had access to her thoughts and memories, but was actually learning from them; absorbing all that she knew to form the bedrock of its own fledgling intelligence. This transmission of knowledge was partly the reason for the temporary physical bond between a youngling and its birth mate.
This information troubled Glynn enough to rouse her from the pleasurable trance into which she had fallen, for surely it was as unnatural for a youngling to use a human mind as its blueprint as it had been for the feinna-She to mate-link with Bayard. The memory of the She-feinna’s feeling of mutilation still haunted her.
The feinna gave a forlorn chirrup that sounded for all the world like a question and, wanting to comfort it, Glynn conjured up in her memory the sensory impressions of the garden level that she had gathered.
Gothere! Now? Soon? the feinna sent impatiently. For some reason, its question provoked a vivid memory of the time when Glynn had been under the floor of the Acanthan haven trying to escape, and had heard the dreadful, blood-chilling voice of the Chaos spirit demanding the capture and death of the Unraveller. The feinna experienced the memory as well and, shuddering with hatred, it growled and bared its tiny sharp teeth.
Seeing that it was not frightened, Glynn let the memory flow on, so that the feinna could witness its mother finding her and guiding her out of the darkness. It was during these moments that she had formed the bond with its mother, which had later allowed it to reshape her mind so that she could bond with the youngling. At the time, she had lamented the abortive escape attempt, seeing it as a pointless exercise. But in retrospect, without it, she would not have bonded with the She, and therefore its son would have died. How strange it was to follow back a chain of cause and effect. In retrospect, everything seemed to have a purpose. Even the smallest events made sense because they fitted into a hitherto unseen pattern. The He was enthralled by the vision of its mother, and only when Glynn felt its attention waver did she allow the memory to fade.
Glynn was astounded to find, when she opened her eyes, that she was not in the dark sleeping chamber, but in the mural garden. The feinna gave a trilling cry of delight and began to sniff about. Recognising that she was dreaming, Glynn felt a twinge of fear at the thought of being locked within her own mind, yet she was also fascinated. When she began to look about properly, it was immediately obvious that this was not simply a copy of the real garden, but a garden formed by what her mind had made of her experience of the real garden. And there were layers of solidity or reality. Some areas were very real to look at and seemed to be exactly as they had been. The pebble path and the overgrown bluish grass, for example, and the fiery red blooms on the shrubs. But there was no wall to be seen in the memory garden, although there were gaps through the trees where it should have been visible. And there were things that her mind had taken from elsewhere. The dusky Kalinda light, for one. And there was a walkway of stone a little distance away, which she realised she had seen in a garden once on a tour in St Petersberg. And there was a tree with drooping, frilly white blossoms that had grown in the yard of an old woman who had lived a few houses from them when she was a child.
It seemed that memories, left to themselves, made connections; communicated and combined. Evolved.
Perhaps the strangest thing, though, was that some parts of the garden were actually indistinct; blurred, as if a photograph had gone out of focus, or seen through a veil of glittering mist or melted together. The result was a surreal garden where real trees grew alongside smears of colour bisected by roofless stone corridors, and lit in some places by Kalinda dusklight and in other places by bright yellow sunlight from her own world. There were also drifting scents, too, some appropriate and some oddly placed. And there was the constant shushing sound of the wind in the trees, though not a leaf stirred.
The feinna ran around her feet, breaking the train of her thought and, as she watched it stop to sniff and nibble, she could not help but be aware that while she thought, the feinna lived. Then she gasped aloud as a bush touched by the feinna suddenly pushed forth a mass of tiny indigo flowers with jewel-like golden centres. Incredulously, Glynn’s eyes followed the feinna as it bounded lightly up the side of a tree trunk with the same impossible speed as a squirrel, and a trail of bright scarlet mushrooms sprouted brightly in its wake! It leaped to a nearby tree, and the air suddenly glimmered as a small cloud of minute flyts darted and swooped into existence.
She realised then, in wonder, that the garden was being altered and played with by the feinna. Fascinated by the idea that a memory could be altered, she
decided to try it too. She envisaged a huge cypress which had once stood in the front yard of a house they had lived in when she was a child. She had fallen from it, breaking her arm. The ground in front of her heaved and bulged and in moments it was growing before her, exactly as she remembered it. The feinna sniffed at it and gave Glynn a look that she could only think of as mischievous, and all at once there was a swing suspended from one of the lower branches.
Glynn stared in disbelief, because there had been a swing, but she had forgotten about it. The feinna had drawn it from her memory and had brought it to the garden.
The cypress suddenly sprouted huge clutches of impossibly red buds which burst open and emanated exactly the same odour that had arisen from the malt bread that her father had sometimes cooked, and Glynn sensed the little feinna’s surprise.
Suddenly the fierce-faced monkey creature she had seen that morning poked its head out of the red blossoms and, seeing her, hissed and chattered in fury before vanishing back into the foliage.
Glynn burst out laughing, realising that anything was possible in the memory garden. With a feeling of excitement, she pictured the path leading to the fountain and, suddenly, there it was winding palely through the trees. Beyond it, the mural now gleamed in an exaggerated golden light. She was affecting the garden both consciously and unconsciously, Glynn thought, for she had not imagined any particular light. Walking along the path, she was interested to note that, in her memory garden version of the mural, there was no encroaching creeper. Instead her mind had invented a border of symbols and shapes that reminded her of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The feinna grew suddenly impatient and raced along the path, leaping up onto the rim of the fountain and lapping at the water. As Glynn neared, it turned and leaped lightly onto her shoulders and so they came to the mural together.
What being? the feinna asked curiously, eyeing the glowing form of the Unykorn with evident interest.
Rather than try to explain the mural, Glynn offered the feinna her store of knowledge about the Keltan Unykorn and of the unicorn of her own world, as well as her speculations about the connections between them. If it must build its mind from hers, then at least let it have the broadest possible material to choose from. She was startled how quickly the little creature sifted through the information she offered, sampling, in apparent random bites, this or that fact. For a moment Solen and Wind flickered in Glynn’s memory, separate and then overlapping as the feinna considered them. It did not long dwell on the myriad conflicting stories of the Unykorn, Shenavyre and Lanalor, and Glynn guessed that with a genetic ability to access the information of adult minds from birth, it would go mad if it did not also possess the ability to accept what it could understand and set aside what it could not yet encompass.
After gazing a little longer at the mural, Glynn decided to withdraw from the memory garden. She was relieved to find that this proved to require nothing more than her will. Then she was lying curled within the blankets, the feinna a warm bundle at her side. Turning onto her back, she sensed dimly that the little animal remained in the memory garden. One part of Glynn wanted to immediately re-enter the mind garden again, but in a way, that would be the same as daydreaming and there was no time for that while the feinna was at risk of being used in the draakan rituals. It occurred to her, as it had not the previous night, that if she wanted to take the feinna, it might be best to carry it with her, concealed, into the audience chamber the next time she was summoned.
Solen’s image flashed vividly into her mind, and Glynn realised it was the feinna’s doing. Missing her, it, too, had withdrawn from the memory garden. Now it was looking up at her emanating the sweet, clove scent that it seemed to give off whenever she was thinking of Solen. Wanting, the feinna sent firmly, both interpreting her emotions and informing her of its own desires.
‘Soon …’ Glynn promised them both.
But she thought of how she had been on the ship. Her determination not to be drawn into deeper involvement with a person she must leave behind had stopped her letting him kiss her. Coward, she accused herself. She had been so frightened of the pain of losing Solen that she had been prepared to give up any chance of seeing or holding him to save herself. How could she have imagined that it would hurt less to leave Keltor if she did not see him again? Their parting could be no less final or painful if she allowed herself to love him fully. She scowled and unconsciously lifted her chin in a way that her father would have recognised, vowing that she would see Solen again. And soon. No matter what followed, they would have their time!
Weary of dwelling on a hunger that could not be satisfied she decided to get up. It must be morning by now. She would go and see if she could find some food for herself and for the feinna. She had no sense that it was hungry yet, but she was ravenous, having eaten only a little at breakfast time the previous day. With luck, it would be too early for the draakira to have assembled in the dining room but late enough that the servitors would be laying the table. She might even have the chance to question them again.
Coming, the feinna sent sleepily as she stood up.
No, Glynn told it firmly. Dangerous humans here. Must not see youngling. He must hide.
The feinna gave her a reproachful look, but Glynn was busy searching the room until she found what she was looking for – a hiding place for the youngling. It was a cavity beneath the bed where it would be able to conceal itself, and be hidden even from someone who looked there casually.
She gave the feinna an image of itself inside the cavity.
Hiding, it agreed reluctantly.
12
Lanalor segued to find the Chaos spirit
to offer a bargain; his living
soul for a way to unbind the Unykorn.
And the Chaos spirit hungered, for it fed only on the darkling
energies of those who opened their hearts to it.
The pain of a tormented soul would offer a rare richness,
though it must be returned to its flesh if the Unraveller succeeded.
LEGENDSONG OF THE UNYKORN
As Glynn neared the communal dining room, she realised it was later than she had guessed, for she could hear a babble of voices. Steeling herself, she entered and was startled to see green-clad servitors moving smoothly among the tables serving the draakira. Obviously the Prime had taken up Kalide’s offer of additional servitors.
Glynn made her way to the buffet tables and joined the servitors preparing platters, thinking that, with luck, she might manage to fill a plate with food and leave without even being noticed in all the bustle. Gathering such food as Bayard had given her to feed the She-feinna, she focused her new senses enough to reassure herself that the servitors about her were only curious, then she turned and looked over to the table where the senior draakira were seated.
As on the previous day, they seemed completely absorbed by their conversation, and she concentrated on trying to hear so that her feinna hearing would activate. She heard a draakira with a thin, edgy voice saying, ‘… am not denying this Kalide is a handsome figure, if haughty and conceited with it.’
‘No doubt he is the more attractive for his haughtiness and conceit, since most women are foolish enough to prefer men who treat them badly,’ observed Mingus ironically.
‘According to Aluade, he has quite a reputation for his activities with women,’ said a pinch-faced draakira called Leta, who had sometimes come to see Bayard in the scholars hall at the haven. Leta dealt with some aspect of the training of draakira who would serve as guards for the cult.
‘I have heard that they enjoy his mistreatment. I understand he is a master of that,’ one of the other draakira said suggestively.
‘A case of practice making perfect from what I have heard,’ said Leta and some of the others laughed.
Glynn grimaced inwardly. Cult members endured long periods of sexual abstinence, which seemed to feed directly into a tendency to lascivious speculation. The draakira had seemed more restrained in the haven on
Acantha, but that might only have been because there were few visitors and male draakira were not inclined to women, as far as she could tell. Also, in the haven, servitors spent less time around the draakira.
Another draakira now said with evident relish, ‘How could he avoid conceit when it is said he must change lovers frequently simply in order to accommodate all those who seek to be mistreated by him.’
Glynn wondered where they had heard such intimate gossip. It could only have come from Aluade or one of the new servitors but it was hard to believe that any of them would dare to speculate about Kalide in such a way. Unless they had been instructed to do so.
Like the people on the pier who had seemed to sense Glynn’s invisible scrutiny, Leta suddenly looked around, saying uneasily, ‘We should be careful of how we speak of the Iridomi chieftain and her son. I have heard the chieftain of Iridom regards the smallest slight as reason for hatred and even murder. Her personal guards are said to vie to be the ones who defend her honour in any duel and are only too glad of the slightest opportunity to do so. It is said their reward is her favour.’
‘Do not be such a waterflyt, Leta,’ Mingus sneered. ‘How would she come to hear of our words? The walls are stone and the servitors are too few and far away at this moment to overhear anything.’
Leta and a few of the others automatically looked around, and Glynn swiftly bent her head to pour a mug of let milk. She could still hear quite clearly, and so she kept her back turned.
‘I do not mean we must be careful at this second, but in general,’ Leta continued. ‘I have heard that the palace walls in Iridom are riddled with narrow passages where listeners and watchers hide. It may be so there as well. And it is said the olfactors have created some sort of device using callstones which does not need humans to take words from one place to another.’
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