by Katy Winter
She has an appealing little daughter, who resembles someone whose looks are alien to us. The child's conception was cruel and violent, but she was born for a reason and brought her mother to knowledge of her sight. You know as well as I do, Soji, that Jonqi's destiny is written as is your own. You are a rare seer. You killed a warrior to save your child from an appalling fate and nearly died to do so. You even accepted a warrior in marriage because that was the only way you could see an escape from your father. We don't see a Churchik with us, Soji, or a warrior's daughter, other than in her courage and determination. You have everything to offer a man, child, everything." The tense figure fell back against Sagi's shoulder. Soji stayed that way for long minutes.
"Then Asok meant what he said?" Sagi smiled broadly and gave the girl she held a gentle, admonitory shake.
"Now when, child, has Asok ever said anything he didn't mean?" Soji bit her lower lip. "Who do you fancy, you foolish child?" Soji caught Sagi's look. "There's a young one who wishes to know you better." Soji's head went down.
"Is there?"
"You know there is. Soji, child, let him come. Don't let your experiences in Chika and Dahkilah make you have a lifetime of regret." Sagi turned Soji's head so that blue eyes met gray. "You'll never be treated that way again, child. Let a steppeman show you what love can be and don't be afraid." The gray eyes held the blue ones for long enough for Sagi to see the longing there.
~~~
The long summer days passed by and were idyllic for Soji. She was warm, felt she belonged and moved into an obtusa with other unmated girls. She began to take the idea of a mate seriously, noticed Leontok more by the day and became aware he watched her from a distance, a welcoming smile in his eyes. Each day she responded more to the encouragement, sensing that he was more than interested.
When he finally came to talk and asked her to walk with him, Sagi smiled and poked Asok when he merely raised an eyebrow. As the evenings drew in to autumn, Leontok sat with Soji while she ate, his arms around Jonqi who adopted him immediately.
One evening just before dark, as Soji knelt outside Sagi's obtusa, she looked up to see Leontok stand several paces from her. She felt blood rush to her face and bent her head over the herbs she'd gathered and sorted for drying. Leontok's voice was deep and calm, like Asok's, she thought with a flutter.
"What are you doing, Soji?" he asked, an amused light in his eyes.
Her heart missed a beat, she glanced up, aware he drew closer until he stood directly in front of her. His expression was kind.
"Sorting herbs," she murmured, though she'd no idea what pile was which and didn't really care. Leontok stooped. Putting a hand to her wrist, he pulled her gently to her feet.
"Look at me, child," he said quietly. "Let me read your eyes, Soji."
Flustered, Soji half-turned, muttering unintelligibly about Jonqi. She heard Leontok say something above her head, heard a movement behind her and from the corner of her eye saw Sagi scoop up Jonqi and disappear inside the obtusa. She stood still, feeling very young, then, without encouragement she lifted her head. Her eyes met Leontok's.
After they broke eye contact, Leontok took a very deep breath and sat cross-legged on the ground, indicating as he sank that Soji do likewise. She sat opposite, but immediately he changed position so he was next to her and could place his arm about her. She didn't flinch. Leontok felt her nestle into his arm and smiled when he looked down at the blond head.
"I'm asking you to come to me, Soji," he said very gently, his free hand touching the long silky hair. The answer was so quiet, he almost missed it.
"I'll come." Leontok stayed beside her, both arms protectively about her.
"No one, my little Soji, will ever harm you - I swear that to you with my life. I'll cherish your little one as if she was my own and you'll want for nothing."
~~~
It was a pleasantly weary twosome that emerged the next morning, to the faint clucking sounds that showed the camp knew of the mating and showed their approval and delight. Soji suddenly remembered she hadn't sought Asok's permission and reminded Leontok of that. He merely laughed and tickling her made her forget all about it.
Asok looked at the tall steppeman who approached, a smile lurking at the back of the older man's eyes. Asok thought how like his mother Leontok was, both in personality and in mannerisms. The young man knelt before him, head bowed.
"Yes, young man?" asked Asok in amused tones.
"I respectfully ask your permission to take a mate for life, Hasuran." Asok followed the ritual.
"With whom?"
"Soji, daughter of Alleghy and Soraya, child of the Churchik."
"Unless there's some reason it shouldn't be so, then permission's granted. Bring the chosen one to me." When Soji was brought to him, Asok was immediately aware of a change in her.
"Yes, young woman?"
"I respectfully ask your permission to take a mate for life, Hasuran."
"With whom?"
"With Leontok -."
Soji broke off in deepest confusion. When Asok's eyes danced, Setoni shook his head reprovingly at him. Sagi smiled with pleasure. Soji was silent then knew Leontok came to kneel beside her.
"Son of Asok and Sagi," he said quietly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Daxel slept in very late this morning, but that wasn't surprising because he got to bed very late indeed after he and Ahliah sat up, gambling, almost till dawn. He stretched indolently but made no attempt to rise, unaware his chamber was cold because, even with the weather become wintry, Daxel always slept with the window open. Over the cycles, since he'd lived rough out in the open, he'd become inured to the cold. He dozed comfortably. He finally woke to find Kaleb observing him, an amused twinkle in the clear eyes.
He struggled up on his elbows. A spurt of panic gripped him. He'd lived with distress for so long, he was profoundly afraid. Kaleb shivered and crossed the chamber to close the window, then returned to perch on the edge of the bed, looking intently into Daxel's suddenly timid eyes.
"Don't be afraid of me," he cautioned Daxel calmly. "You must accept life, you know, however hard it may be." Daxel swallowed an unaccountable lump in his throat.
"I'd have come. It's just that I woke late -."
"I knew you'd come, lad. Just rest back easily and relax." Daxel obeyed, but he was very tense.
"This isn't going to be pleasant, is it?" he asked nervously, responding to the hand that pushed him further back on the cushions.
"You'll see, lad, you'll see. Look at me, Dase."
Fighting an overpowering instinct not to let down his defences, Daxel finally and unwillingly met the healer's odd-coloured eyes. He heard Kaleb's voice very clearly in his mind when he tried to break the visual contact but couldn't. The healer's eyes were strangely compelling.
"Tell me about your home in Ortok, then lead me to the day you lost Lute. Don't miss out anything if you can help it and know that I'm with you."
Daxel let loose raw torment. It poured forth in a torrent of words and broken sobs. When Kaleb turned quietly, picked up a cup he'd brought with him and held it to Daxel's mouth, the young man gulped at it. Once the cup was drained, the healer took Daxel back to Ortok and watched the distressed figure re-live a nightmare. Finally, Kaleb let the boy rest dreamlessly. When the healer rose, he frowned deeply. He looked consideringly at the curled figure.
"Until tomorrow, lad, until tomorrow," he said softly.
~~~
For the next few days, Kaleb spent most of his time with Daxel. It left Ahliah to search for his young friend in vain. He finally hesitantly approached Sarehl, who studied the young man contemplatively before he quietly explained why Daxel wasn't about. Ahliah sobered instantly and his voice was a stutter.
"Strategos," he said uncertainly. "I can't comprehend what's happened to you and Dase. He won't talk of Ortok to me, though I know it deeply grieves him. Only a fool wouldn't know how seriously you were hurt and I'm only sorry it took so long for our peopl
e to realise you can't stand all day. Even though I can't imagine the hell you've both endured, I wish there was something I could do for Dase. Does the healer help?"
"Yes, lad, he does," responded Sarehl with a smile. He put his hand on Ahliah's shoulder. "I hope you don't have to experience what Samar suffered, Ahliah. And you do help Dase, you know. You've offered him real friendship and he enjoys your company. It's good to see him out and about with those his age again and it means much to me to see him being young. We were made older than our cycles after Ortok, you see."
"Yes," replied Ahliah seriously. "I can see that. My father says you're a man older and wiser than would be expected of one so young." Sarehl laughed.
"Well, that's a compliment, I suppose."
"From my father, Strategos, that is indeed a compliment," grinned Ahliah, pushing at the long strand of hair that kept falling across his face. "He says Dase shows signs of profound hurt."
"Are you asking me why, Ahliah?" Ahliah fidgeted.
"I haven't known Dase long," he began hesitantly, as if choosing his words with care, "and I'd not be so presumptuous as to suggest I know him. It's just that, sometimes, I sense he seems incomplete; there's an unsatisfied hunger in him for a part of himself he seems unable to find. Perhaps I'm imagining things." Ahliah ran a hand across his mouth while he thought. He didn't see the long look Sarehl gave him.
"Ahliah," Sarehl said quietly. The young head turned up. "I'll tell you something that must be repeated to no one, not even to Dase." Ahliah nodded.
"I understand, Strategos," he answered quickly.
"I told you Dase is with the healer, because he's not recovered from the devastation he experienced in Samar. That's not a lie, but it isn't the whole truth either. Perhaps it'll help if I explain the reason you so acutely sense my brother isn't whole, is simply because he isn't. He lost his twin brother in Ortok and it's he Dase seeks every day, without respite, as he's done for nearly eight cycles now. They're identical, you see."
"Gods," whispered Ahliah, his hand rubbing his cheek. He looked quite pale. "What's his twin's name?"
"Luton, though he always answered to Lute. Dase grieves ceaselessly because he can't reach his brother in the way twins do. Lute was taken as a slave and sent south on one of the caravans. We know nothing other than that, though Dase senses someone has Lute and the boy's suffered very badly. Dase may not endure all Lute's physical pain, or even all the mental agony, but he suffers enough, is tormented and experiences anguish in ways others can't even begin to comprehend. He felt Lute a lot in the earlier days. Their distress for the other is very real."
"Gods," said Ahliah again. He grasped Sarehl's hand and gripped it hard. "Strategos, Dase tells me at some stage he'll return to the northern army. I've prevailed on Father to let me go then, though I've not told other than you. Your work's been successful, you see." The youthful grin was a little twisted. "I'm to take a unit with me, but that's not important - what is, is that I'll stay with Dase from now on and we'll fight together. He'll have a friend he can trust, Strategos, that I promise you." Sarehl looked at the flushed, earnest countenance and smiled.
"Ahliah, I couldn't wish the boy to have a better friend."
"Nor," was the pointed and surprisingly mature response, "could I, Strategos, ask for a better friend than Dase."
Ahliah wasn't obvious in the way he changed towards Daxel. Sarehl noticed the young man, a cycle older than his brother, was more protective of his younger friend, not permitting teasing about where Daxel was from and guarding the youth from persistent and inquisitive questions that made Daxel want to curl up inside. It was subtly done. Sarehl was grateful for the friendship Ahliah offered his brother and respected the young man for the way he shrugged off the knowledge that neither Sarehl, nor Daxel, was royal.
The prince just stared blandly when yet again another courtier chided him on his common friend. His reply was to the point.
"Perhaps," Kaleb heard Ahliah say coolly one morning, "it's an object lesson for a prince that he should seek his friends from outside the royal circle. That way he may be sure they are friends, rather than those who constantly seek companionship for less noble reasons."
Kaleb noticed the courtier went muttering on his way, nor did the young prince see Kaleb's broad grin. The healer was thinking of Ensore.
~~~
Kaleb worked hard with Daxel. The healer only let the young man's awareness gradually return. Daxel accepted the past more easily as one session succeeded another, because he learned to stop fighting both the healer and his hurt. By the end of a week, Daxel talked freely about his twin, Alicia and the children and Sarehl as a younger man, the loved older brother who teased. Kaleb made Daxel understand who Sarehl now was and accept his elder brother had changed and adapted. Daxel let go his guilt over Brue.
Finally, his cheeks white and wet, he let out the overwhelming sense of failure that gripped him over his not being with Luton and being unable to help the one person dearest to him on Ambros. It was an agony that twisted in him like a knife for cycles. Now, slowly, he set it free. Though he wept, it was with relief rather than anguish.
"How could you know what would happen, Dase?" asked Kaleb, reasonably.
"I couldn't," whispered Daxel.
"No. So should you feel guilt, any more than, say, Lute himself if the roles were reversed?"
"No."
Kaleb sat quietly looking at the dark, pensive eyes that stared into the distance. The healer may have helped Daxel in many ways, but as he looked at the profile of the one beside him, Kaleb knew he couldn't give the boy back his youth and innocence. They were irreparably torn from Daxel the day Ortok was sacked.
"We need to speak more of Lute, lad," he said gently. The black eyes turned to the healer, Daxel not flinching at his twin's name. There was no pain in the eyes, just sad and patient resignation.
"Aye, Kaleb, if that's what you wish," he answered, in a subdued voice.
"You mention you felt him until you were about fifteen cycles and then abruptly sensed nothing much other than flurries of sensation. Is that correct?" Daxel nodded. "I want you to go back to each time you felt him, to see if we can piece together anything coherent about him."
"Aye," mumbled Daxel, still unwilling. Kaleb smiled when he saw the faintest flinch, well aware the pain Daxel felt was very real. He understood.
"Go back again for me, lad." Daxel closed his eyes on a sigh.
"The pain was there off and on, Kaleb, for the first few months because I tried to send comfort. I don't think he responded, but I don't know. I knew he endured awful physical pain because I felt some of that too. The sensations I got came and went, as if Lute's mind was closed."
"Terror, fear and extreme pain can close a mind as sharply as slamming shut a door, lad."
"As I told you, I know Mam died because I felt her death, and Bruno's, through Lute - I know, too, that they died in an awful way." Daxel's voice was unusually steady, Kaleb noticed. He watched the young face. "If I remember, Lute was made to watch. Kaleb, I can't be sure -."
"You've pushed all that away, lad, haven't you?"
"He was in such agony, Kaleb," murmured Daxel, opening his eyes. "I'm not sure that I can bear that again. And I think we sent our shock and fright backwards and forwards to each other, to the point where neither of us could cope anymore. I flooded him and he flooded me. I was trying to get from the city with Brue."
"Lad," said the healer softly. "See how far we've come. But will you feel truly reconciled until we face what you and Luton experienced together, so long ago?"
"No," whispered Daxel, his eyes wide, a trapped expression in their depths.
"You won't be alone, if you don't want to be." Daxel licked his lips, then bit his lower one. "Would it help if I travelled back with you?"
It was a tentative offer, the healer's expression showing he clearly expected a rebuff. He was, therefore, surprised when Daxel came and knelt beside him, then sat fully on the mat at his feet, long legs stret
ched out in front of him and his head rested against the healer's knees.
Daxel turned his head and looking up at Kaleb, said appreciatively, "It would help."
They locked eyes and Kaleb let Daxel lead him back. The healer had never been inside the young man's mind, other than to tell him to relax. He'd merely acted as a spiritual guide and healer, so the experiences he went through with Daxel shook him profoundly. He felt the pain of both Melas' death and, likewise, Bruno's agony until the man drew a last choking breath. He endured, with Daxel, some of the physical shock and pain of Luton's encounter with the Churchik warriors who treated the boy with amused contempt as they held him flat on the pallet, one man following another. The actual specific detail of experience was quite unclear, only the emotions of it surging into Daxel's consciousness. It was enough for the healer. He sensed Luton's inability to utter a sound, then the on and off anguish of the caravan trail. He lived the later intermittent sensations Daxel experienced, of his twin being close to death with fever. The healer and Daxel experienced the drifting in and out of tormented consciousness while Luton, half-starved and in pain all the time, fought to survive.
There was a long period during which Daxel felt very little, just occasional tugs of pain and despair, but not often. Kaleb kept with him. Daxel's memories of Luton resurfaced with a sudden resurgence of physical agony that left Daxel and the healer breathless, but Kaleb kept the meld reassuringly firm and Daxel stable. At the same time there was a sensation of intense, bone-chilling cold and ice. It was followed by a despairing desire to die, mingled with fear. It was abruptly blocked. Kaleb suspected someone stopped the boy from killing himself and wondered why anyone would care to save a slave. He judged Luton was then fourteen cycles and had endured hell for one and a half cycles.
Not much later, the healer sensed bitter burning hatred that was snapped from Daxel's mind so sharply it caused Daxel to utter a whimper, but it passed very quickly only to be succeeded by a sensation Daxel couldn't understand. The healer did. He was stunned. The healer was shocked when he realised Luton briefly left himself and Kaleb felt a creeping malevolence that edged its way to where the young essence found itself.