Jarid?
He felt her restrained surprise. How soon they forget. He took another bite, enjoying her discomfort.
I can’t talk to you now. I have company—my grandfather.
Then get rid of him, he said, and hurry. I haven’t enough strength to keep this up for long.
Well, she answered doubtfully, I guess I could tell him I have to check on Dervlin.
He relaxed back on the oversoft silsha-down coverlet. He couldn’t wait to return to Tal’ayn and start running the estate the way it deserved to be run after all the years of his uncle’s neglect. He would refinish the ballroom floor, throw out all that ugly dark furniture with carved animal-paw legs—
All right, what was so important that it couldn’t wait? Her mental tone was petulant. Grandfather is very adept, you know.
Jarid laughed. That old fossil couldn’t trace me if I were in the next room, much less all the way down here. And speaking of old fossils, how is Uncle Dervlin?
Oh, Jarid! Her mental tone altered abruptly to terrified. He’s growing stronger every day. Healer Sithnal actually said Dervlin may come to table in a day or two.
White-hot fury surged through Jarid. Can’t you do anything right? It’s a damn good thing I’m coming back or you’d have ruined everything!
How dare you speak to me that way! Alyssa’s mind seethed with anger. Not when you went off and left me to face everything alone! She was silent for a moment. You’ll never know how beastly it’s been, having to watch him get a little better each day, wondering when he’d remember—
Never mind that. I’ll take care of Uncle when I get there. Just keep the Council away from him.
That’s easy enough for you to say—
Just do it. I have to go now. He broke the mental contact between them, then stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling, picturing the shining tears tracking down her creamy cheeks. She always pulled that when she didn’t get her way.
Well, he told himself, the little baggage would still be good for a few more months of amusement after he returned, perhaps even as much as another full year.
Without a doubt, though, many other beautiful young girls, outfitted with suitably large dowries, currently languished in the Highland’s great Houses, waiting to be wed. And he’d bet his next year’s beard that any number of those golden-eyed beauties would have to be smarter than Alyssa Alimn Senn.
* * *
Haemas was cold, scratched and bruised, achingly weary from head to toe, but flames still whispered in the back of her mind; she didn’t dare sleep. She had wandered the forest all night into the morning, first foolishly seeking the elusive music, then trying to find her way back through the maze of foliage to Kevisson, until the tree trunks wavered before her eyes and nothing seemed real any more.
The air was chill and wet, an icy mist penetrating down through the leafy canopy. She stumbled and caught herself against a looming winterberry tree, so tall its top was lost in the canopy above. Forbidden sleep lapped at her mind like an inviting dark pool. She longed to be at peace, to go home and lay her aching head in Jayna’s lap and let her old chierra nurse stroke her hair as if she were an innocent child again. She sighed and pressed her cheek to the sweet aromatic winterberry bark that brought back memories of winter festivals and ceremonials. Everything seemed so far traveling on foot, she thought. If she had a portal, she could just step through to Tal’ayn—but that was only her exhaustion talking; no one built portals in the middle of the Lowland forest.
Then it seemed she did hear the hum of a portal crystal somewhere nearby. Surprised, she threw open her mind. A scintillating, eye-searing blueness flared, swallowing the trees. Crystalline chimes jangled inside her head, loud and off-key.
“But he’s so old!” a faint girlish voice complained.
Haemas shaded her eyes and edged forward. The blueness sorted itself into lines writhing beneath her feet.
“Dervlin Kentnal Tal is the Lord of a great House and first among the Council of Twelve,” an older woman answered. “The Light, itself, must have blessed you with this union.”
The bewildering blueness seemed less intense up ahead. Haemas took a step toward the voices, then another, and emerged suddenly behind a tall lacquered hearth-screen in a room crammed with furniture, a study perhaps, or private sitting room. Her heart pounded as she touched the smooth dark wooden arm of a red velvet chair. This couldn’t be real.
“But he doesn’t even like me!” the same girlish voice said.
Haemas peered through the hinged opening in the screen. Women in rustling silks and satins and velvets milled back and forth, their cheeks scarlet with excitement. They parted and she glimpsed the back of a petite girl whose bright-gold hair had been threaded with tiny white moonstones. The girl turned with a swish of her stiff skirts, a decided pout lingering on her red lips, and Haemas couldn’t breathe. It was Alyssa Alimn Senn, wearing the same pale-blue matrimonial gown in which she’d married her father.
But that couldn’t be. Haemas’s hands clenched. Her father had taken Alyssa as Lady of his House two years ago. She must have fallen asleep under the trees after all. This had to be a dream.
Alyssa patted the back of her upswept hair and a tiny, jeweled comb tumbled into the rug’s thick cream-colored pile. A faint strain of music penetrated the room and a crease appeared between her striking green-gold eyes.
“They’re ready for you, pet.” Her matronly companion looked expectantly at the closed door. Alyssa smoothed the jeweled bodice, then composed her face into an expression of serenity. The music grew louder, vibrating with curious brittle overtones.
Haemas heard the door open, then the whisper of long skirts as the women followed Alyssa into the crowded main hall for the ceremonial. After they were gone, she circled the screen and picked up the fallen comb, fingering the inset diamonds and green kori crystals. Then she glanced at the open door. What was wrong with those musicians? They were playing such an awkward beat, their tones so high-pitched. The music jangled into her very bones, making her head hurt, her teeth—ache. She closed her eyes and backed away.
The intensity of the sound lessened. She opened her eyes and looked around in stunned disbelief. A grove of tall winterberry trees arched overhead, shading the forest beneath into near darkness. Through the breeze-blown branches overhead, though, she could just catch an occasional winking glimpse of sodden gray clouds.
Something sharp-edged and hard was jabbing her hand. Opening her fingers, she looked down at a jewel-encrusted comb with a single strand of gilt-bright hair still snarled in the tiny teeth.
The comb dropped from her nerveless fingers into the dark moss at her feet. The strange crystalline sound returned abruptly, and she had the sudden, skin-crawling feeling she wasn’t alone.
Her hands knotted and she made herself walk forward as her breath came hard and fast. The sound modulated to a higher, more painful pitch. She fought dizziness as she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Stay, something whispered in her mind.
Stay—stay—stay echoed hollowly through the trees.
The sound vibrated so loudly now that she could barely see the ground. Groping for the rough tree trunks, she pulled herself along.
Small sister, it said, stay.
Stay—stay—stay echoed in her head. She realized she had stopped. She couldn’t feel the forest floor beneath her feet, or see the trees, could perceive nothing but the intense vibrating sound which hovered between bizarre musicality and pain.
Small sister?
“What?” she cried out. “What do you want? Who are you?”
Stay—stay—stay.
“No!” White-hot fear flashed through her.
Stay.
The terrible crystalline vibrations increased until she thought she would pass out, and then the blue lines sprang up before her again. She turn
ed and fled down the nearest one.
* * *
The barret jerked sideways as the arrow pierced its cream-colored throat. It fell kicking into the damp brush. Cale limped to the creek bank, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Picking the barret carcass up by its tawny ruff, he estimated he could make it last several days—if he continued on half-rations.
What in the seven hells was he doing here anyway? He ought to be back at Eevlina’s camp helping with the plans for the next raid and letting this damn foot heal properly. Why was he out here in unfamiliar territory traipsing after a crazy, half-grown Kashi girl and the Motherless Kashi bastard who had stolen her away from him?
Pulling out his knife, he sat down on a log and skinned the barret with quick, practiced strokes. Well, he told himself, the girl had proved fairly useless up to this point, unless you were fond of living with silshas, but that didn’t change the fact that he had found her and he meant to keep her.
He pulled the heavy gold chain from under his tunic and fingered the smooth-edged medallion, thinking of how first one Kashi Lord, and then the other, had taken his mind and used him like a puppet on a string. Eevlina had been right; the Lords treated the chierra people like they were nothing more than cattle.
Hiding the medallion again, he stretched the wet skin over the log. Too bad he didn’t have time to work the pelt. The trail was growing fresher every day, even though his pace remained tediously slow due to his broken foot.
The image of that amused Kashi face still floated in his mind. Well, he would see who was smiling after he crept up on the sleeping bastard by night, and put the same sword that had broken his foot to that pale Kashi neck.
Pulling out his firestone, Cale struck a spark, then heaped twigs on the tiny flames, cursing the wetness of the day. Finally the damp wood caught, producing an unsatisfactory smoky fire. He spitted the halved barret carcass on a long stick and thrust it over the fire to roast.
Watching the crackling flames, though, the girl’s pale, high-cheekboned face and those almost blank-looking eyes lingered in his mind. She said they would kill her, and his last sight of her had been her unconscious body slumped like a sack of whiteroots across the saddle of that smug Kashi bastard.
Fighting his impatience to be back on the trail, he waited until the meat was at least half-done before bolting down a hind-quarter. He wrapped the remainder in some broad leaves and stuffed it inside his shirt. Then, leaning on his stick, he hobbled back to the deep, fairly fresh ummit tracks and began to follow them through the forest again.
Several hours later, he caught a whiff of ummit stink and wood smoke. Smiling grimly to himself, he backtracked immediately. He would wait until the deep hours of the night, then return to catch the Kashi asleep.
* * *
Kevisson stared at the tips of his boots stretched out before him. Not one sign of the girl, he thought wearily, and yet he had no sense that she was dead. The link between them didn’t feel severed, just . . . blocked somehow.
Jarid Ketral must have caught up with her while he’d slept. He watched the flame patterns in his small fire change as the wind shifted. He could go back to Shael’donn and hope Ketral would return Haemas to her father, but that was unlikely. All the signs pointed to Ketral simply killing the girl and leaving her fate a mystery.
Reaching into the saddlebags, he rummaged for a few crumbs of leftover food, but he’d already eaten everything. He was too tired to hunt tonight. Tomorrow he’d see what he could do to re-supply himself.
If he couldn’t find Haemas again, though, one possibility still remained. He could Search for Ketral.
Kevisson banked the tiny fire, then closed his tired eyes, and began to count his breaths, sending his mind into the deep-trance state of Search. After he had centered down, he entered the gray otherness cautiously, knowing his energy reserve to be low. He hesitated, reconstructing his impression of the other man, remembering the patterns of strength, arrogance . . . contempt.
His mind flowed out, holding Ketral’s thought patterns as a map. Timeless as that other place always seemed, he still sensed it was a long time before he found what he was looking for.
Somewhere between the forest and the foot of the towering mountain, Kith Shiene, Ketral lay sleeping in a small chierra inn. Kevisson wasted time Searching the surrounding area for some sign of the girl, but she was nowhere. Then he returned and eavesdropped on the vague surface thoughts of the sleeping Kashi, not daring to probe someone so obviously well trained.
Confused images flashed by—a huge House built into the rock of twin crags . . . an angry gray-haired man . . . then a jangling head-splitting din that swirled through the brain, confounding the senses.
Another image formed . . . a young clear-skinned Kashi woman, smiling with all the warmth of a poisonous rock bavval. Kevisson felt his strength giving out. What of the girl? he whispered to the sleeping mind. What of Haemas?
Dead, Ketral’s mind answered, then Kevisson felt the other man’s awareness. He withdrew immediately, starting the long, tiring trip back to his body in the forest.
Behind him, back at the inn, he dimly sensed how Ketral bolted up, glaring around the small room, knowing someone had been there.
Traveling back, the gray cold seeped into his mind, numbing him so that he could hardly find his body again. When he finally reached the tiny campsite in the forest, he gratefully merged with his physical self, then forced his eyes open, eager to build up the fire.
Before he could move, however, the icy sharpness of steel pricked at his throat.
“If you so much as twitch a single muscle, either yours or mine, I’ll slice your Motherless head clean off!”
Kevisson tried to reach out once more with his mind, but he’d expended more energy than he could afford in the Search. His head sagged heavily backward and everything faded into blackness.
HAEMAS made out a low rectangular shape in the shimmering blueness before her. The agonizingly shrill vibrations died away as she ran and the line abruptly faded, leaving her alone in a large hall with an arching, high-vaulted ceiling. Polished benches of rich dark wood stretched out in long rows on either side of her. The breath caught in her throat; it was the public sanctuary of Tal’ayn.
The air was stuffy and still, thick with incense. The vast room lay in shadow except for a row of transparent bowls filled with flickering blue chispa-fire before two low tables at the far end. A trickle of fear seeped through her; mind-conjured chispa-fire was appropriate upon only the most holy of occasions. Suddenly she feared to go closer.
A foot scraped as someone in the shifting blue light stood up and peered through the shadows at her. “Be someone there?” The old woman’s trembling voice bore the mark of tears.
Haemas remembered that voice from hundreds of frightened, lonely childhood nights—the only voice that had ever comforted a motherless child. “Jayna?” Her brow knotted and she walked toward the lights.
The standing figure, wrapped in a long woolen shawl, put one hand to her mouth, brown eyes staring. “In the Mother’s name, who are you?”
“Jayna, it’s me.” Haemas stopped short of the flickering circle of blue light with a cold sense of dread. The tables ahead of her were not tables at all, but biers, and on them lay two motionless bodies, dressed in colorful, richly worked garments and draped with the thinnest veils of pale-yellow silk, awaiting the funeral pyre to come.
“Mother, I don’t understand!” The old woman dropped to her knees like a broken doll, sobbing as though Darkness itself had opened before her.
Cold sweat trickled down Haemas’s temples as she looked down on the two white faces under the shrouds. The nearest was of an older man, stocky and gray-haired. She raised the sheer material with her fingertips. The stern accusing features of her father’s face lay framed by the white silk undersheet. She stared at the familiar, harsh lines of his dead face—she had killed him
. However much she had wanted to believe the Searcher, she’d known it all along. Kevisson Monmart had told only lies.
Her hand released the fragile silk, then she moved as if in a nightmare to the second bier, the blood thundering in her ears. Was this more misery to be laid at her feet? Had she killed someone else, too, on that terrible night? The figure lying on the second bier was female . . . slender . . .
Frozen inside, Haemas watched her hand reach for the translucent shroud. Jayna’s muffled sobs grew louder as she lifted the silk and stared at the still face of an adolescent girl . . . a high cheekboned-face with a delicate high-bridged nose surrounded by long fine-textured pale-gold hair . . . equally pale lashes downswept against the white skin . . . folded long-fingered hands that bore no ornament except for a glittering black obsidian ring . . . her birth gift from her mother’s family. Haemas Sennay Tal lay cold and dead on her bier, close to her father in death as she had never been in life.
Somehow she found the strength to drop the shroud and back away, staring at her achingly bloodless fingers as though they belonged to someone else.
Cowering at the foot of the two biers, Jayna made the four-cornered sign of the Mother above her heart, her sobs echoing through the emptiness.
Haemas turned away, unable to fathom how she had come here or what she should do now. Hot tears stood ready in her eyes, but she felt too numb to spill them. Or perhaps, she wondered, was it just that ghosts couldn’t cry?
Small sister-sister-sister . . .
She glanced around fearfully.
Come back-back-back.
I’m not lost, she thought, I’m dead.
Small-small-small . . .
Squeezing her hands over her ears, she ran down the shadowy aisle, her heart pounding.
. . . sister-sister-sister . . .
She stumbled and fell to her knees, throwing her hands out to break her fall. The richness of growing plants filled the fresh, cool air. She made out the faint black outline of trees arching up to the cloudy night sky, and between her outspread fingers, she realized that she clutched rain-slick leaves and the damp crumble of forest soil.
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