HM01 Moonspeaker

by K. D. Wentworth

  “When will you start?”

  The Searcher turned his powerful, almost-animal eyes back to Senn’s face. “Now,” he said.

  * * *

  Lyrdriat, the third moon, was just rising, adding its pale-gold crescent to silvery Sedja, the first and biggest moon of the night sky. Haemas picked her way in the semi-darkness along a mountain-fed stream that led away from the chierra shrine. The air was cool, but lacked the damp chill of late spring in the mountains as she climbed over the gnarled roots of the true-trees lining the stream bank. After having grown up beneath all of the restrictions attendant upon the daughter of a High House, it was strange being out alone in the night by herself.

  She finally stopped when the first blush of rose and pale-green appeared above the mountains in the black sky. Bracing her tired back against a sapling, she eased down to the grass and closed her eyes. Surely she was far enough away from the stone keep to be out of the Sisters’ reach, and she had felt no more stirrings of Kashi Searchers since early that evening.

  Locked up inside her own head, the world felt dull and muffled, claustrophobic. It was as if she had lost something she hadn’t truly known she had possessed until it was gone.

  Jarid’s sarcastic, handsome face rose up smiling in her memory. Scowling, she tried to think of something else, but the image remained, mocking her. “What’s this?” it asked insolently. “Killed your own father?”

  A throbbing ache centered itself behind her eyes. No! she told herself. She would not think about that!

  She pulled off the scarf, clinging to it like it was a living thing until the sun finally rose and she was exhausted enough to sleep.

  * * *

  The fire in the great hearth was blazing higher than she had ever seen it before. Haemas stood in front of it, amazed at the heat radiating against her face.

  “Failed again, have you?” Her father’s gruff voice came from behind her back.

  Suddenly cold, despite the fire, she did not dare turn around.

  “Get that from your mother’s line, I suppose.” She heard the hollow clang of a metal cup against the heavy wooden table. “Though both the damn Killians and Sennays are supposed to be Talented. At any rate, I expect to whelp much better brats out of . . . of . . .”

  She heard the cup scrape as he picked it up again. “Alyssa,” she finished for him. “Alyssa Alimn Senn.” Hugging her arms around her body, she shivered.

  “One of Senn’s get.” The cup banged down again. “By the Light, a fine plump creature, full of curves, not another one of those damn Sennay beanpoles like you and your blasted mother.”

  Haemas watched the yellow-orange flames leap higher and higher.

  “You pay attention to the wench after we’re mated, girl. She has a few years on you.” He chuckled and she heard the chair scrape as he pushed it back. “Maybe you’ll pick up a few pointers on how to be a real woman.”

  Eight years, she thought. Alyssa Alimn Senn, who was to become her new stepmother on this day next week, was just eight years older than herself.

  “Darkness and everlasting damnation!”

  The heavy silver cup came flying almost over her shoulder at the fireplace, clanging against the back wall and bouncing back out through the flames. Haemas jumped aside and watched it roll on the thick brown rug.

  “Bring me some more mead!” he roared at her. “By the Light, I intend to have this place properly run after I get . . . Alsa in here!”

  Haemas bent to pick up the metal cup, still cold to the touch even after its trip through the flames. “Alyssa,” she said faintly.

  She woke up with a start, more tears running down her face, but she wiped them away, suddenly determined to be done with crying. Jayna, her chierra nurse, had always insisted “tears buy no bread.”

  No one could undo what she had done. Nothing would ever bring her father back, just as nothing would erase the pain of not being loved by him or her own shame of not being able to love him herself.

  Kneeling at the stream’s edge, she dipped a handful of cold water to drink, then more to bathe her scratched arms and hot face. High overhead, the orange sun indicated she had slept longer than was wise, and her stomach clamored for food.

  Food, she thought wistfully. She had neither money to buy it from anyone she might meet, nor any way to find her own. The plants here varied from those of the high plateau where she’d lived at Tal’ayn, and besides, she wasn’t a kitchen maid or a field hand. She recognized nothing of which she could be sure. Perhaps she could at least make a fire and drive the chill out of her bones.

  As clouds drifted across the sun, she gathered a pile of tiny twigs and dead leaves, then settled on her knees in the undergrowth. Taking a deep breath, she tried to compose her mind. She could almost hear old Yernan, her tutor, shouting for her to concentrate.

  “When properly trained, your mind will generate the spark!” His red-cheeked old face would puff up like a bellows, and his bushy white eyebrows would meet over his beak of a nose.

  Closing her eyes, she concentrated, turning inward until she knew nothing of the forest and the stream, nor anything around her, going deeper and deeper into her mind, looking for some spark of mindtalent still left, some sign that it wasn’t gone forever . . .

  There was nothing.

  When she opened her eyes, the sky had gone gray and brooding. Her head ached with a sullen ferocity, and her stomach twisted with emptiness, and beneath all that was a growing despair.

  THE TWISTING branches of true-trees, thick with oval blue-green leaves, towered over Haemas she waded through whispering ferns and beds of tiny white anith flowers. The air was filled with the wild clean fragrance of growing things, the rustling shadows deep and cool, but the dense brush caught at the cumbersome long gray gown and made her progress even slower. She wished she still had her tunic and breeches, but at least she had gotten away from the shrine with her boots.

  She stopped and squinted up at the sky, barely visible between the branches shifting in the breeze. It was late afternoon by the angle of the sun. She had been walking all day with very little sleep the night before, and nowhere could she find any fruit or berry familiar to her.

  Finally, almost ravenous, she snagged a purple berry from a low thorny bush and sniffed. It smelled edible enough so she popped it into her mouth as she picked her way along the stream. It was sour, but she made herself swallow anyway, then ate several more; if she didn’t get some real food soon, she knew she would just fall down and never get up.

  After she finished, she stopped long enough to drink from the stream’s clear water and wash her sticky fingers. Her left hand tingled where the dark purple juice had stained and could not be washed off.

  When she looked up her rippling reflection, a twisting shadow caught her attention up ahead where the stream curved. She watched for a moment, her heart pounding. There it was again, a flicker of movement against the lighter brown of tree trunks.

  She turned and ran back along the stream in the opposite direction. Her feet seemed increasingly clumsy though, and it was stifling even here under the thick shade. Wiping her forehead with the back of a hand, she struggled forward, roots and half-buried logs catching her feet every step of the way.

  She burst into a clearing and saw a man sitting on a stump across the stream, watching her.

  “Having a spot of trouble?” he asked, his voice casual, friendly.

  She blinked. The air rippled and two men sat on stumps, dressed in faded blue tunics, holding long bows. The ground tilted sideways suddenly and she found herself down on her hands and knees, wrist-deep in spiny grass.

  “Are you lost?” he asked.

  She tried to regain her feet, but her head was so light, it seemed in danger of floating off. She blinked again and the men resolved back into one dark-haired person. She looked down at her hand. It looked insubstantial, almost tran
sparent. She heard splashing, then flinched as the stranger tilted her head back. She heard his sharp intake of breath as he gazed straight into her eyes. “Mother preserve us!” He yanked the scarf off and spilled pale-gold hair down her back.

  She grabbed for the scarf, but her fingers clutched only empty air. All her movements seemed to be in slow motion now. Studying her hand, she wondered how she could have missed.

  “Well, you be quite a prize to fall into a man’s lap, all alone and unprotected.” He grinned insolently at her, his teeth very white in his tan face. “Have you a name then, prize?”

  She stared at him uneasily. There was something wrong with his face, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

  “No?” He held her scarf out of reach. “Be reasonable. If you don’t give me a name, how will I know who to send to for the ransom?”

  She reached up to push him away, but suddenly there were three of him! Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to quiet her stomach’s flip-flops.

  “You don’t look at all well.” A strong cool hand touched her forehead briefly. “That won’t do. There’s very little demand for the return of dead loved ones.” She felt him grasp her hand and force apart her fingers. He sniffed. “Mother around us! Vriddis berries? How many did you eat?” He shook her until she opened her eyes. “How many?”

  It didn’t matter, she thought wearily, nothing mattered. Her eyes fluttered closed again.

  “Kashi idiot!”

  She heard him walk away, the leaves and underbrush whispering as he passed. Her arms and legs seemed heavy and her mouth very dry as the cool breeze played across her hot face.

  * * *

  “Drink this!” A strong arm pulled her up as a slab of bark pushed against her mouth. She tried to push it away. “Drink, damn you, or I’ll hold your high-and-mighty Kashi nose and pour it down your throat!”

  Thick pulpy liquid trickled into her mouth and she choked. It tasted like laundry water at the end of wash day.

  “More!” the voice ordered.

  Opening her eyes, she turned her head away. The man tilted the bark up and relentlessly poured more down her throat. It burned like soap all the way into her stomach. She coughed until he returned.

  “Drink a bit of this,” he ordered. “It’s just water, but it will cut the taste.”

  She sipped the cool water for a moment, then he took it away.

  “If you drink too much right away, it’ll dilute the antidote.” He sat back on his heels and watched her.

  She blinked slowly, but he remained just one man, dressed in a patched tunic the same shade of blue as the true-trees.

  “What possessed you to come down here all alone?” He took a sip of water himself. “You don’t even know enough to keep from killing yourself.”

  She braced herself against the tree trunk so she could study his face. He had black hair and darkly tanned skin with strong cheekbones and a crooked nose. Then she realized what had seemed out of place before; he had blue eyes.

  “Where be your people?” he persisted. “And why are you dressed like that? Anyone who didn’t get a good look would take you for one of us.”

  In all her life, she had never seen blue eyes before. They glittered like points of ice in his tan face. She glanced around, finding the scarf by her side, and looped it over her pale hair. Then she stood and wavered away from him.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” He scrambled after her, bringing her up short by the back of her gown. “Sorry, you’ll not be leaving just yet.” He forced her into the stream and up the far bank with him.

  His grip was too strong for her to break away, and her feet still didn’t seem to be working that well, but at least he was taking her away from the mountains, so she decided she could afford to bide her time.

  * * *

  Kevisson rolled the black obsidian ring in the palm of his hand, reading the faint traces of personality that remained. He had a fleeting impression of loneliness . . . despair. The girl had been solemn, reclusive—

  Kevisson?

  His head jerked up. Yes, Master Ellirt?

  Come by my rooms before you leave. I need a word with you.

  On my way. He threaded the ring onto a heavy golden chain and settled it around his neck, then wedged the last of the trail food into his pack and lashed the leather ties. Looking around the small room with its thick walls and bare flagstone floor, he couldn’t think of anything he’d forgotten. He probably wouldn’t be gone long anyhow. After all, his quarry was only a girl.

  He stepped out into the empty corridor and heard raucous young voices down in the dining hall. The air was filled with the inviting smell of tonight’s roast savok, but he had no time to eat. He could munch a handful of trail food after he got started.

  He paused outside Ellirt’s heavy wooden door.

  Come in, boy. Come in.

  Kevisson pushed the door open and walked into the spacious room. The older man stood by the fire, his white-haired head bowed.

  “Put the pack down, and have a seat.” Ellirt didn’t turn around.

  “With all due respect, Master, I need to be off.” Kevisson sank uneasily into a chair close to the hearth.

  “You want to make a good impression on old Senn.” Ellirt reached for the chair behind him, running his fingers over the carved arm before he lowered his round body into it. “I don’t blame you. We don’t get many requests for help from that quarter. The Houses are usually too busy trying to cut each other’s throats to turn to us.”

  Kevisson hesitated. “It’s more than that.”

  “Yes?” He settled back and locked his fingers together.

  Kevisson watched the shifting yellow flames. “I got a sense of something . . . out of joint when I talked to Lord Senn. I felt—I don’t know—urgency.”

  “A youngster drugs her own father and then burns his helpless mind?” Ellirt snorted. “That could give a person a sense of urgency all right!”

  Kevisson shook his head. “No, that’s not it. Lord Senn seemed to be holding something back.”

  Ellirt leaned forward, his sightless eyes staring. “Birtal Senn is a powerful man, Kevisson, second only to old Tal, himself. Don’t let his age fool you, and don’t cross him. The High Houses are squaring off over this matter and we don’t want to be caught in the middle. It runs deeper than rank; if Tal doesn’t recover, important alliances are going to be broken and remade in the next few weeks. You just find that young delinquent and dump her off in his lap as soon as possible.”

  Kevisson didn’t repeat his doubts. “I understand,” he said, rising. “Now I really had better be off.”

  Ellirt rose too, and walked beside him to the door, one hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “If you have any trouble at all, link back here to me immediately. Do you understand? Just me, nobody else.”

  “Of course, Master.” Kevisson tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Very well, then.” Ellirt patted his shoulder. “Off with you now and don’t tell anyone else where you’re going.”

  Kevisson shouldered his pack as the door swung closed behind him with a soft thunk. Don’t tell anyone where he was going? He looked back down the torch-lit hallway. He’d never heard of such a thing in all his years of training here in Shael’donn.

  The wind was still blowing as he entered the courtyard and headed for the portal. Stepping onto the covered platform, he reached out with his mind and activated the dormant energy in each inset ilsera crystal in turn, recalling the subtly different frequency of the portal above the Barrier.

  North . . . south, he recited in his mind, feeling each crystal warm in turn, east . . . west . . . above . . . below!

  As he completed the sequence, he reached for the Barrier crystals’ harmonic signature. The world around him dissolved and he flashed through a silent gra
y otherness into the portal on the rocky slopes of Kith Shiene.

  He could feel the strength of the Barrier blazing just below. Strengthening his shields to the maximum, he steeled himself and started through the thick wall of pain that had kept chierra Lowlanders out of the Highlands for the last five hundred years. Even though he had done this before, sweat trickled down his face as he strained to keep his shields tight. By the time he reached the other side, he ached all over.

  He paused beside an outcropping of jagged gray rock and cast his mind ahead, seeking some sign of the girl, but there was nothing. Although it didn’t seem possible for someone of her age and limited training, she must have made it through the Barrier and then walked on down the mountain. Kevisson shook his head, disappointed. He’d hoped to find her before she got that far. Well, the orange sun hung just above the horizon. In another hour or so, he could reach Lenhe’ayn, the minor House which oversaw this region, and claim lodging for the night.

  He could start again from there in the morning.

  * * *

  “What in the seven hells have you got there, Cale?”

  Haemas’s head ached and her feet were worn to rawness as she stumbled into a fire-lit clearing.

  “Don’t look big enough to eat,” one man said. Several male voices laughed.

  “Maybe we can use it for silsha-bait,” another put in.

  The man released the back of her gown. She sank to the ground next to a crackling fire.

  “Keep a close eye on this,” he instructed. “And give it a bit to eat.”

  A man walked up and fed several sticks into the yellow flames. She looked up at him. Dressed as poorly as her captor, he was thick-necked and shaggy with a dark, scraggly beard and a jagged scar running across his heavy cheek.