Irsud

by Clayton, Jo;

  Aleytys giggled. She kicked a leg up and as the chiffon slid back, uncovering her thigh, sobered suddenly, her high spirits plummeting into deep depression. “Feeling and healing, lifting and shifting. How do I get rid of my incubus?” She rubbed her hand over her thigh.

  A cold chill vibrated through her body. She stared helplessly paralyzed at a swirl … a swarm of dots that gradually coalesced into the glaring face of a nayid female, strong, imperious … frowning … no … it breathed like a mist through her body. “No!”

  She blinked, the sensation faded, she was breathing on her own again. Cold with a fear that began as a seed in her belly, an ice seed that spread through her body, crystal on crystal spreading, breeding like the crystallization of super-saturated solution, her blood chilled, her breath came light and shallow off the top of her lungs. She pressed her hands over her eyes. “Harskari, help me.”

  The amber eyes opened slowly this time; Aleytys got the impression that the sorceress was puzzled. “Most peculiar,” she murmured. “I had no idea. Shadith?”

  “No, dammit. Of course not. Hey, grumpy.”

  “Shut up. Yammering females.” Swardheld’s gruff voice was moderated to a hoarse whisper. “Freyka, it’s up to you. We.…” The black eyes were grim. “We’ll help how we can but not one of us could expel one of the others, so how could we throw out this invader in your body? Especially since she has a physical foothold.”

  Aleytys got shakily to her feet and ran down the arching limb to the bank. She hesitated a minute, hand on the rough bark of the trunk, breathing in the pungent green aroma, then leaped down and ran across the cold dewy grass into the room.

  Burash lay deep in sleep. She bent over him and touched his face, feeling in him a security and a strength that she clung to gratefully, a center where she had meaning in all the flux of her tottering world. Reluctantly she forced herself to leave him, let him lie in peace. She could sense the deep exhaustion in him, the drained ache from the strain her healing had put on his body. Settling in the chair at the foot of the bed, she sighed and looked around.

  The floor was blotched with scuffed scummy blood stains, ugly red-brown dull splotches on the complex pattern of leaves, vines, flowers etched into the blue-green tiles on the floor. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  A murmur of voices came faintly through the tapestry masking the archway. A six-fingered hand grasped the edge of the tapestry and pulled it aside, letting Aamunkoitta push the serving cart into the room accompanied by a subdued rattle of dishes. Behind her Aleytys saw bits and pieces of her newly augmented guard, then the tapestry dropped again.

  Aamunkoitta blinked as she saw Aleytys waiting for her. Her eyes darted toward the glass wall then back and her face looked puzzled. The sun marked her usual time but Aleytys should have been still in bed. “Hyvaa huomenta, Kunniakas,” she murmured. “If you’ll wait a moment.” She trotted hastily across the room to the storecloset and brought out the light folding table Aleytys used for her meals.

  As she unfolded the legs and locked them in position, she noticed the floor for the first time. Her mouth fell open, eyes wide. The table fell with a wooden clatter as she clutched at the coarse material between her breasts. “Kunniakas?” She licked her lips and glanced again over the stained floor. “All those guards.… and that?” She freed a cramped hand and pointed to the floor, jerking the hand about in sharp interrupted lines that told without words the extent of her dismay. “What happened?”

  “Raid,” Aleytys said tersely. “Over the wall.”

  “But the guards. In the hall?”

  “We were drugged. Burash. Me. To make it easier, I suppose.”

  “Asshrud.” Aamunkoitta pushed the toe of her sandal against the rim of one of the blood splotches. “The kipu know that?”

  “What do you think?”

  The hiiri nodded. She picked up the table and straightened out the legs. “Has to be Asshrud. Gapp has the venom in her but not the brains. Asshrud.”

  As Aamunkoitta set the breakfast dishes on the table, Aleytys leaned back in the chair and yawned. “Well, that should cancel out one of my problems.”

  Aamunkoitta set the heavy stoneware jug on the table and took off the lid, letting the hot spicy aroma of the mastu coil out into the brisk morning air. She poured it out into a thick-walled cup without a handle and looked up as she set the jug down again, her face troubled. “You don’t understand Kunniakas.”

  “I know that.” Aleytys picked up the cup and cradled it in her hand, enjoying the feel of the warmth against her palm. “What am I missing this time?”

  “The kipu won’t do anything to Asshrud.”

  “Why?” Aleytys stared at her, astounded. “It’s the perfect chance, catching her with her fingers sticky.” She lifted the cup and sniffed at the steam. “Mmmmm. I’m hungry.”

  Aamunkoitta shook her head. “You don’t see.” She shrugged. “You don’t know. First of all there’s no real proof. Those nightcrawlers still alive won’t know anything important. More important, Aashrud had strong ties with three of the cityqueens, one of the strongest factions against the kipu.”

  “What’s that got to do with Asshrud’s immunity?”

  “If the kipu touches Asshrud, that’s the one thing that would turn all the cityqueens against her. All the queens. Even she can’t handle that. Together they’d mop her up like a wet spot on the floor. Speaking of the floor, I’d better get a mop and clean up this mess.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t count too much on that if I were Asshrud, though. The kipu’ll find a way to take her out sooner or later. She’s a canny bitch. You watch out too, Kunniakas.” She started to turn away then she swung back. “How bad was last night?”

  Aleytys set the cup down with a too-loud clunk, her hands trembling. “He nearly died … and I … I walked just this side of dying, a hairline this side. A lot of that blood is mine.”

  “Take care, Kunniakas, Asshrud’s a viper with poison sacs the size of melons.” The hiiri squatted close beside Aleytys. “Strikes without warning too.” She gazed thoughtfully into Aleytys’ face.

  “Warning. That reminds me. Look out at the garden, will you?”

  Aamunkoitta raised her eyebrows, but jumped to her feet and pattered across the floor, her straw sandals scraping faintly against the stone.

  “Do you see them?”

  “Them? Ah. The guards on the wall. I see them.”

  “Get word to our friend, will you? The guards are there day and night from now on.”

  “Yes.” Aamunkoitta backed silently away from the glass wall and went into the storeroom again, coming out with a mop and an empty bucket.

  Aleytys lifted the cup again and sipped at the cooled liquid, took a mouthful of the mastu, swallowed, took another.…

  Pain. It jagged through her body eclipsing everything else. Pain. Burning. Animal claws tearing her apart. Burning. Her brain burned in a fire that ate at her nerves. She screamed. Moaned. Threw herself out of the chair, knocking over the table, the pot of mastu spreading on the tiles like a malignant cancer. Pain. It invaded her world, nothing else there, white hot claws tearing her brain and body apart atom by atom.

  Her body shuddered, spewed out the corrosive substance that was killing her. Her sphincters loosed until she writhed helplessly in the mess of her body fluids. She retched again and again, nothing left in her stomach to come, another pain, another convulsion another tearing ache, muscles wrenched and knotted by the dry heaves. Dimly she heard Aamunkoitta cry out, felt cool hands touch her face.…

  Harskari woke in her head and the amber glow of her presence came so strongly that it dominated even the tearing agony of the poison pain. “Heal yourself, Aleytys.”

  The voice rang like a deeptoned bell. Again and again, the sound penetrating, demanding, compelling. Compelling. Driven out of her pain-controlled frenzy, Aleytys plunged into the power river and let the black water flow through and through her body, burning, purging, washing out the corroding poison … again she saw the
three shadows holding her, comforting her, supporting her and grew warm and content in their care.…

  She opened her eyes. Burash and Aamunkoitta bent anxiously over her. With difficulty she forced herself to her feet and stood trembling, leaning on Burash, nauseated now by the stench of her expelled fluids, the vomit and feces and urine and poison her body had cast off in its extremity. “Bath …” she whispered.

  Jerking the tapestry impatiently aside the kipu strode in and halted, staring at the tableau that greeted her goggling eyes. Behind her Sukall waved the guard back, then entered herself, letting the tapestry fall behind her.

  “What happened here?” the kipu demanded.

  Aleytys turned to face her. “Poison. In the mastu.”

  “Who brought it?”

  Aamunkoitta began trembling. “I … I did,” she said hesitantly. She had no choice. Any of the guards could tell the kipu that.

  “Take the hiiri. Destroy it.” The kipu’s voice was cool and devoid of any emotion. Sukall stepped around her and reached for the hiiri’s thin shoulder.

  Aleytys pushed Burash away and stood tottering on her own feet, anger cold and hard inside her. “No.” She pushed at Sukall’s stringy powerful arm. “Don’t touch her.”

  Sukall hesitated, looking over her shoulder at the kipu.

  “She brought poison.” The rich voice was cold and inflexible.

  “Get behind me, Kitten.” Aleytys confronted the two nayid females, eyes burning now, hands cold, stomach knotted, trembling with weakness of body that sapped her spirit. “No!” she repeated.

  Sukall put hands on her shoulders to move her out of the way, then screamed as black fear, terror, weakness, pain, anxiety flooded through her.

  With cold sick precision Aleytys plucked the strings of the guard’s weaknesses, exaggerating them enormously until she crouched in a whimpering heap at the kipu’s feet.

  Aleytys turned her dark gaze on the kipu. “No,” she breathed and projected the load of negation at the kipu, spending her emotional strength prodigiously, accepting no limits in her attack.

  The kipu backed until her shoulders touched the tapestry.

  “If you have to punish someone,” Aleytys whispered, her strength draining away, “punish the guilty, not a convenient scapegoat. Asshrud poisoned me. You know it. The hiiri is innocent. She is mine. Touch what is mine and I fight you.”

  Recovering slightly the kipu nodded, then said dryly, “So you’ve given up your play-acting.”

  Aleytys laughed. “Funny. The old one has really waked in me. Never mind. I’m loyal to my friends. You don’t understand that, do you. She doesn’t either, the old one. Just promise and punish, buy the service. You’ll give her good service, won’t you, kipu?” She laughed again, this time her voice shrilling into hysteria.

  The kipu nodded. “Indeed, I serve my queen.” She smiled, a small tight movement of her thin lips. “Very well, the hiiri remains. Sukall!”

  The quivering nayid pulled her lanky body onto her feet, stumbling awkwardly, still mis-coordinated and uncertain in her movements. She stared briefly at Aleytys, radiating incoherent scraps of emotion all overlaid by a bitter hatred. She straightened slowly. “Im rab’ kipu?”

  “Return to your duties. Say nothing about this to anyone.”

  Sukall saluted snappily and strode from the room, her boots clattering in super-military emphasis.

  “Another enemy.” The kipu sounded amused.

  “Yes, rab’ kipu.” Aleytys felt her anger dissolving. She felt as if she would collapse, melt into a heap on the tiles. Only the kipu’s continued presence kept her on her feet.

  “The Ffynch company trader is coming after the noon meal.”

  Aleytys laughed shakily. “Thinking about a meal is rather beyond me right now.”

  “The old one is to override.”

  “Ah.”

  “The Damiktana will wear the red robe.”

  “Concession for concession. I’ll wear the red robe.”

  “Your meals will be watched from now on by my sabutim.”

  “That’s a comforting thought.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find it so. Though poison seems somewhat ineffective.”

  “You never can tell. Perhaps the poisoner was inept, used too little.”

  “Perhaps.” The kipu puckered her face into a disgusted grimace. “Have the migru taste for you.”

  “No.” Aleytys shivered. “No.”

  “Stupid. The old one wouldn’t be so squeamish.”

  “Neither of you understands loyalty. Anyway I think you know I’m not the old one.”

  “I always knew.”

  “But it was convenient to pretend.”

  “See that it stays convenient.”

  Aleytys nodded tiredly. “I’ll do that. Anything more you want?”

  The kipu looked at her for a moment. “You’re supposed to be intelligent.”

  “I am.” Aleytys took a step toward the bathroom. “I know my limitations. Do you?”

  “I know my road. Keep out of my way.”

  “I’ll remember.” Followed by a silent worried Burash and a trembling Aamunkoitta she walked to the bathroom and waited for the hiiri to pull the tapestry aside for her. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “You have anything more to say to me?”

  The kipu shook her head and left without another word.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Aleytys sat stiffly erect, uncomfortable in her flaming red robe. The mimosoid curving over her head swayed slowly back and forth as the afternoon breeze blowing up from the river curled over the wall and tickled the upper branches into motion so that the fragile shadows of the leaves danced in lacy patterns over her lap. Behind her, on the wall, the silent black figures of the slowly pacing guards moved back and forth, an oppressive reminder of her danger and her captivity.

  The kipu came through the door into the garden, the dark flamboyant figure of the Ffynch company representative pacing beside her.

  “You see our difficulty.” The kipu stopped in front of Aleytys and sketched her outline with an expressive hand, “This one is more like your females.”

  “Hm.” He ran his eyes over the stiffly erect Aleytys then turned back to the kipu. “You have her measurements?”

  “What ones do you need?”

  He smiled suddenly, his teeth glinting pearly white in his dark face. Little red sparks flashed in his eyes. “I’ll take the measurements if you don’t mind.”

  The kipu frowned. “Why?”

  “As you said, she’s more like my species. I know where to loop the tape.”

  The kipu tapped the communicator at her waist. When a guard appeared in the doorway, she said crisply, “A tape measure.”

  “Im, rab’ kipu.”

  The Rep walked casually over to Aleytys while he waited. “Remember me?” he asked softly.

  She glanced coolly up at him. “Sombala Isshi.”

  “Nursemaid?”

  “I said ‘in a way.’”

  “I’m still curious.”

  She examined him calmly. “No, you’re not.”

  “All right. I’m not.”

  The kipu’s voice sounded behind him. “The tape measure.”

  Isshi produced a pad and a stylus from a pocket inside his crimson and green blazer. “If you would take off that thing you’re wearing?”

  Aleytys snorted. But she stood up and let the robe slip off her shoulders. The afternoon air was cold on her skin. She shivered. “Hurry with it.”

  “Hold out your arm.”

  He spread the tape here and there over her body, a grin on his face, taking extra time over the breast and hip measurements, chuckling softly so that Aleytys felt like slamming her knee into his face.

  “I believe that should be sufficient.” She stepped back and pulled the robe about her body again.

  “A pleasure, Damiktana.” He stood up and brushed the sand off his knees.

  “If you’ll come, Damiktana?” The kipu stepped b
ack.

  Aleytys knotted the last tie and stalked past Isshi. As she moved with exaggerated grace past the two of them, she heard the kipu talking to the Rep.

  “That little matter I sent to you yesterday.”

  “Yes?” Isshi’s voice was cool, curious.

  “The runner.”

  “Ah. Yes. We threw a net through the Agora and the surrounding Kalybionta near the spaceport. We’ll have her today, probably.”

  “There’s no way she can get off world?”

  “The only ships off this world are Ffynch company owned. No, she won’t slip out of the net.”

  “Good.”

  Aleytys glanced back over her shoulder. She smiled at the kipu then stepped aside and waited for her to come and hold the tapestry for her. As the nayid sauntered past, moderating her long stride to Isshi’s shorter legs, Aleytys murmured, “I get your point, rab’ kipu.”

  The kipu’s short stubby antennas twitched briefly but her face was impassive as she pulled the tapestry aside and waited for the other two to walk through.

  In Asshrud’s quarters the procession halted briefly. Asshrud stood reluctantly and waddled down from her chair to salute Aleytys. “Ilu-annana, my adann is yours.”

  Aleytys lifted a lazy hand in acknowledgment and bowed in her turn. From somewhere deep inside her an impulse welled up irresistibly, she felt cruel and savage, felt a hatred that in another part of her disgusted her but she had no control of it. Wanting to scar, to hurt, she murmured, “May your loves be numberless as the radiance of your beauty deserves.”

  She felt a wave of hate and fear almost smothering in its intensity roll out from Asshrud, the hate understandable, the fear something else. And something in her chuckled at it. She could feel the laughter shaking her. I wouldn’t do that, she thought, I couldn’t … even if she’s trying to kill me, that’s no reason to … damn you, you old bitch. Keep out of my mind!

  Face a vapid mask, she swayed out of the room followed closely by the kipu and Isshi and the honor guard.

  The ceremony was repeated in Gapp’s rooms.