Aisling glanced up at him, her eyes meeting his for a long moment. She had expected him to begin pressing her for more information and was pleased and surprised to discover that he was not going to do that. She sensed that he wanted to, very much, but he refrained.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
Olaf knew that she was thanking him for not pressing her. As difficult as it was, he was glad he had kept his questions to himself. It was obvious to him that Aisling was more relaxed than she had been just a day earlier, but there was more to it than that. She seemed to be revealing more of herself, a little bit at a time. He didn’t want to do or say anything to send her back into her shell.
Chapter 11
Thelba Ralink was very nervous, but she reminded herself of the importance of her task and swallowed her fear. Moving very slowly, she raised her head and peeked over the edge of the boulder she was hiding behind.
The encampment of the Brethren, the newcomers to Onddo, was not very large as there were not very many of them. As she watched, a light breeze brought the scent of them to her and she wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t that they smelled bad. They just smelled...different.
Thelba slowly counted the Brethren as they moved back and forth through the camp. This was not an easy thing to do, but she had a rare gift for numbers, which was one reason she had been chosen for this task. She was also a good runner, and had learned Standard in one of the classes the Xanti had offered.
After several minutes she shook her head and sat back down. It was no good. She would have to try again.
Taking a deep breath she raised her head and peeked into the encampment again, this time starting at one end and working her way to the other. Before long she became confused by the constantly moving people and had to begin again.
After several more attempts, she nearly gave up. It was impossible to count the number of people as they were continually coming and going from place to place. She was going to have to return home and admit failure.
One more try, she decided.
This time, when she peeked over the boulder, she saw something unusual. So unusual that she forgot entirely about counting.
As she watched, several of the Brethren walked together to a small clearing just outside of the circle of white habitats that the Xanti had given them to use as homes. One of them, a large male that she had a difficult time taking her eyes off of, stood facing the group and spoke for a few minutes. When he was finished, three smaller males, not children, but not yet men, knelt in the dirt, each of them placing a small container in a hole. After they rose and backed away, three more men stepped forward and filled the holes in with soil. When the holes were filled, they knelt down and placed small white markers over where the holes had been. Then the large, handsome, male spoke again, more briefly this time, and they all turned around and returned to the camp.
There was something about the scene that tickled Thelba’s mind, but she couldn’t think what it was. She remained motionless, staring at the small clearing with the tiny white markers for a long time. Finally she sighed and lowered her head safely below the top of the boulder. She sat down and tried to decide what to do next.
She had meant to try counting the Brethren one more time, but the day was late and soon they would all hide in their habitats as they always did when the sun went away. She might as well return home and admit her failure.
She stood up and began making her way down the mountain of boulders when it suddenly occurred to her that the tickling in her mind was the beginning of a racial memory. She went straight back to where she’d spent her day and sat down again. She closed her eyes and imagined a flower with blue and white petals as her mother had taught her. As everything fell away so that there was nothing but the flower, her body relaxed and she felt as though she were floating.
Almost at once the flower faded and in its place she saw a group of people who looked as she did. They were her own people, she realized. Her ancestors, and not all that far into the past either. They stood on Onddo, not that lost ancient world of the past that often appeared in her racial memories.
As she watched, a female stepped forward from the group and behind her came several males carrying a prone figure on a slab. They set the slab on the ground, then rolled the figure into a hole and covered it over with soil.
Then the female knelt beside the spot, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Before she left, she placed a small marker over the hole.
Thelba had seen enough of the sad scene and deliberately broke her trance.
“So that’s it,” she thought. They were disposing of their dead. How odd.
Her people took their dead and dropped them off of a high cliff half a day’s walk to the east, near Magoa’s killing fields. They did now, anyway. Her memory had just revealed to her that they had once had a ritual for burying their own dead in the ground, as the Brethren did. She wasn’t sure how they made their dead so small that they fit into tiny containers, but she had no doubt that was what they had done.
Now that she thought about it, burying the dead made sense. Much more sense then throwing the bodies of their loved ones away as though they were so much waste.
Well, never mind all that. She had a way of counting the Brethren without trying to follow them back and forth across the camp. She stood up and peeked over the boulder once again, but this time she looked to the clearing and counted the markers. She counted them twice to be sure, then sat back down.
There had been 103 Brethren when they began their journey to Onddo, according to their informant. All male. 96 had lived to reach Onddo. There were 12 markers in the clearing. So there were 84 Brethren left.
Thelba smiled to herself. She had succeeded in not only counting the Brethren, but also in learning of an easier way to do it. Then she frowned. Twelve markers meant that twelve of them had died since their arrival two weeks earlier. That seemed a lot. Were they weak in some way?
Thelba stood up and began making her way down the boulders again, this time not stopping till she reached the ground. By then the sun had set, which was a relief to her. Like all Narrasti, she had excellent night vision. It was much easier to run in the cool of the night than it was in the heat of the sun, and she was in a hurry to get back home and deliver her news. As quickly as the Brethren were dying, they might have to move more quickly than they’d planned, else there might be no Brethren left for them to breed with at all.
Chapter 12
Aisling tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep. Her third day of translating the Xanti recordings had gone better than the first two days, but only because she was being very careful about how long she listened. She now knew that she could only listen for a few minutes at a time, and then had to take a break of at least half an hour. At this rate, it was going to take longer than she’d expected to finish. Not that it mattered, she thought. She’d finally received a response from Jessi, and it hadn’t been good news. There was no need for her to rush through the translations anyway.
The most difficult part of the entire process was having to sit at a desk all day long. Definitely not something she was used to. Her body felt tense and uncomfortable, almost as though it didn’t belong to her. She knew what the problem was, but she couldn’t do anything about it without breaking her cover. She turned over onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Maybe it was time to ditch the disguise completely, she thought. Nobody knew where she was aside from Jessi, and she trusted her completely. Even if her location was discovered, how much safer could she be? The Jasani were very well aware of the Xanti and their capabilities, and they took precautions against them at all times. Besides, she was tired of pretending. It would be so nice to just be herself again. To act like herself, talk like herself, and not have to worry all the time about giving herself away.
It was a tempting idea. She wasn’t altogether sure it was a good idea though. One thing she did know was that if she didn’t do something physical soon she was going to scream with frus
tration.
She sat up, threw the covers back, slid out of bed and turned on the lamp. There was a large area of empty floor space between the garden doors and the bed which she eyed carefully. The floors were hardwood, which had just enough give, but the rug, though beautiful, was too thick. She knelt down on the floor and rolled the rug up, a simple process made more difficult than it should have been by her back injury. She really needed to get that fixed soon. She was tired of limping around all the time, and it severely limited her ability to protect herself. Leaving the injury untreated had been a calculated risk that she was beginning to think was no longer necessary.
She pushed the rolled rug to the far edge of the room, then looked down at herself. She was wearing a ribbed tank and a pair of stretchy shorts. Of the few items of clothing she owned, they were the most suitable for what she was about to do. She sat down in the center of the floor and began doing slow, careful stretches. She’d done this whenever she’d gotten a chance while staying with the Bearens, but it hadn’t been easy since she’d shared a room with Karma. It was difficult at first to get the full flexibility she was after, and even then she was limited by her injury. Still, it felt good to stretch her muscles.
She stood up, then slowly bent forward until her palms were both on the floor, lifting her right leg off the floor at the same time. With a little push, she lifted her left leg as well, then straightened them both so that she was standing on her hands. She shifted her hands in a precise pattern, causing her body to turn, slowly at first, then more quickly until she was almost spinning. She slowed gradually, not wanting to push things too hard this first time, then bent her elbows and arched her back just enough to give her momentum. Her body shot into the air and spun around as she flipped, landing on her good leg, her left foot not quite touching the floor. Pleased with how well that had gone, she bent over and began a series of flips, placing her hands on the floor, pressing up and flipping, her right foot landing exactly where her right hand had been. After about twenty flips she stopped, smiling at how good it felt to be using her muscles again. Now that she was warmed up, there was a lot more she wished she could do, but she had no desire to injure herself further. The problem was, she was even more awake now than before.
She smiled to herself as she turned around and left her room without pausing to think too carefully about what she was doing. The lights were out in the rest of the house, but it wasn’t completely dark. She had more than enough light to see her way as she limped up the curved hallway, through the living room, the dining room and finally, into the kitchen. She had only been in here twice, but she remembered where the cutlery drawers were and hurried over to them. She pulled a drawer open, and reached in. The first knife she pulled out was very fancy with bone handles and etched blades. She put it back and moved to another compartment. The next knife was solid metal of some sort, and very heavy. Silver, she thought. She put that back and tried again. The third knife was part of a set with ordinary wood handles and steel blades. She remembered using them at dinner that evening. They didn’t have great balance, and knives were not her preference, but they would do. She picked up a handful of them, closed the drawer and retraced her steps back to her room. She grabbed her jacket, pulled it on, and stepped out the garden door.
She wandered around the garden for a few minutes looking for something she could use as a target. She didn’t want to throw knives at the fruit trees, and she couldn’t use the patio furniture either. Finally she spotted a series of tall wooden posts that appeared to be markers around a couple of new flower beds. They were thick, solid and plain, obviously not used for decoration since the wood was unfinished and raw.
She crossed the garden, marking out what she guessed was about fifteen feet. Might as well start small, she thought. It had been a long time since she’d done target practice of any kind, and she wasn’t sure how long it had been since she’d thrown knives. And these were just steak knives. Not throwing knives.
She selected a knife and held the tip of the blade between two fingers, testing the weight and balance. She glanced up at the post, then back to the knife, and rolled her eyes. It would be a miracle if she even hit the damn post, she thought.
She took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders and unfocused her eyes so that she could see the post, but wasn’t looking directly at it. When she was ready, she flipped the knife into the air, caught it by the blade tip, and threw it. Before the first knife reached the target she threw the second, then the third, and the fourth.
Only after the fourth knife left her hand did she blink, then look to see if her knives had hit the post. It was too dark to see clearly, so she limped closer, pleased to see that each blade had hit the post, though not in the neat, perfectly aligned row she had attempted. She sighed softly to herself as she walked to the post and worked the knives free from the wood.
“That was impressive,” Olaf said softly.
Aisling spun around without thinking, one knife poised to throw. She was so startled to see all three of the Gryphons standing there that for a moment she didn’t know what to think or how to react. Had she become so lax that people could sneak up on her so easily? Apparently, she thought ruefully.
“It seems there is a bit more to you than you have revealed,” Olaf continued calmly, apparently not too concerned at the sight of a knife aimed at him.
Aisling lowered the knife. “Not really,” she said as she walked back to the spot where she’d thrown the knives from before. “I just like to throw knives.”
“You do it very well,” Rand observed.
“I’m a bit out of practice,” she said.
“Out of curiosity, what were you attempting to do, aside from hitting the post?” Olaf asked.
“They should be in a perfect vertical line, the blades not quite touching each other,” Aisling replied as she turned toward the post again. “And I should be able to do it from twice this distance.”
“In the dark? Using ordinary kitchen knives?” Rudy asked doubtfully. “I’m impressed that you were able to hit the post at all with one of those knives.”
Aisling blushed, glad that the night was dark enough to hide it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have asked before using your cutlery in this manner.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Rand said, waving one hand. “What type of knives do you usually use for throwing?”
Instead of answering, Aisling turned back to the post and threw the knives again as she tried to decide what to tell them. What kind of knives she preferred to throw wasn’t really the important issue here, and they all knew it.
“Nice,” Rudy said as he stepped to the post and checked the position of her knives. “Perfectly straight line, each blade not quite touching the one above it.”
“Better,” Aisling said as she checked the knives herself. “Not too bad for steak knives I suppose.”
She turned around to face Olaf and Rand. “Go ahead and ask what you really want to know,” she invited, making up her mind.
“Shall we go inside first?” Olaf asked. “We can start a fire in the living room and get you something warm to drink.”
“That sounds good,” Aisling replied, grateful for the suggestion. Her bare feet were cold against the garden flagstones. She turned to retrieve her knives, but Rudy had already done that for her. He offered them to her and she took them with a murmur of thanks. She would wash them and return them to the drawer in the kitchen, unless they were damaged. In that case, she would replace them.
“How is it you guys saw me?” she asked as she followed Olaf across the garden toward the living room.
“We just returned from our usual night flight around the village,” Rand said. “We saw you throwing the knives before we landed.”
“Except for me,” Rudy said. “One of us always stays behind to guard you and Karma. I came out here to watch for Olaf and Rand, and saw you doing flips in your room.”
Aisling looked at him with an arched brow. “You were looking through my wi
ndow?”
Rudy smiled. “Look,” he said, pointing toward her room. Aisling looked and saw that from the garden, with the light on in her room and the blinds open, it was like a spotlight in the dark. It would have been difficult not to look into the room.
“Doing flips?” Olaf asked as he opened the garden doors into the living room.
“Yeah, you should have seen her,” Rudy said with admiration in his voice. “It was amazing.”
Aisling shrugged. “Not so amazing really,” she said. “With the injury in my back, I’m sometimes very frustrated with my limitations.”
Rand walked over to the fireplace, checked that the logs were set correctly and focused on it for a moment. Suddenly, flames shot up from beneath the logs, sending out instant warmth. Aisling set the knives down on the hearth and held her hands out with a sigh of pleasure.
“You guys have Fire magic,” she said, not too surprised since she had seen the Bearens do the same thing a few times.
“Yes,” Rudy replied. “You are familiar with our magic?”
“A little. The Bearens told me about it,” she replied. “What else can you do?”
“We are strongest in Fire and Earth,” Rand said. “Basically we can light the logs in the fireplace, make things warm and throw rocks.”
Aisling smiled, hearing the humor in Rand’s voice. “Well, remind me not to make you angry whenever there’s a pile of rocks around then.”
“I will, promise,” Rand said with a grin.
“Hot brandy-chela?” Rudy asked.
“Brandy-chela?” Aisling asked. “What is that?”
“It’s brandy made with a fruit that tastes like chocolate,” he said. “It’s very strong, but if served hot with milk it can be very warming.”`
“Sounds good, thank you,” Aisling replied.
“Here, have a seat,” Olaf said, guiding her to a chair by the fireplace. Aisling sat and a moment later Rudy handed her a hot drink which she took a careful sip of.
Laura Jo Phillips Page 9