Kusac looked from the Touiban Speaker to Pam, then back. “Is that a request, Speaker?”
The Speaker hesitated and turned his face to Mara and Josh. “Yes.”
Mara could feel Kusac’s surprise. For a Touiban to limit himself to one short word was unheard of. They’d not only followed what had been said, but had interfered and taken her side against the head of this team. She could hardly believe what was happening.
Before she had time for that to sink in, she heard another trill of sound, then she and Josh were surrounded by eleven Touibans and being escorted toward the far end of the chamber. As they left, she heard Kusac say, “I will see what I can do, Speaker. Thank you for supporting my people.”
Hands gripped the edges of her coat, gently tugging her and Josh forward until they had reached the refectory tables. Their trills blended, forming a gentle melody of sound that was accompanied by the same, strange scent. Then the glittering, brightly colored folk were gone, their bodies interweaving with each other as if performing some exotic dance as they made their way back to rejoin their Speaker.
Handing Kashini to Carrie, Kusac remained talking to Ruth and Pam while the mother and cub came over to join them.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Mara,” said Carrie, sitting down beside them, “I’ve never known the Touibans do that before, neither has Kusac! They’ve certainly taken a fancy to you. Josh, you’ve made an impression on them, too, and they don’t impress easily!”
“I don’t know how,” he murmured. “I haven’t had much to do with them. Mostly I just get on with my work.”
“They value dedication to the job in hand, in case you hadn’t noticed. I take it they broke up an unpleasant scene.”
“She’d just ordered me off the site, and fired Josh,” said Mara. “Can she do that? Can she send him back to Shanagi?”
“No, she can’t. She doesn’t have the power to do that,” Carrie reassured her, turning Kashini so she could sit her daughter more comfortably on her lap. She looked from one to the other and smiled. “I take it you’ve patched up your differences?”
“You could say that,” said Josh with a slow grin, moving his hand across the table to take Mara’s. “Despite Pam’s inopportune arrival.”
Mara felt her heart leap as his hand squeezed hers comfortingly.
“I’m pleased for you. I suggest you forget about Pam Southgate. Kusac intends to have her returned to Shanagi. I’m sure we won’t have a problem, considering the Speaker has officially requested it. Greg’s next in command, isn’t he? Will he cope? Has he led a team before? If we can avoid bringing in someone new, we’d prefer it.”
“Greg can cope,” said Josh confidently. “He’d have been team leader had it not been for Pam pulling strings to get the post.”
“Hi, kids,” said Ruth, settling herself into the seat opposite them. “All settled. She’ll not bother you again.” She held her arms out across the table for Kashini. “Do I get a cuddle, then, young lady?”
“She’ll either sleep like a log or keep the whole house awake tonight,” said Carrie ruefully, lifting her daughter up and trying to pass her across the table to Ruth.
Kashini had ideas of her own. As soon as she felt the table top beneath her feet, she scrabbled for a purchase, twisting and turning till her weight meant that Carrie had to rest her on the surface. That was it. With a bound she flung herself at Ruth, knocking the breath out of her as she landed, arms and legs splayed, claws out, against her chest.
It was difficult to tell who yowled louder. Ruth from the insertion of twenty small needle-sharp claws or Kashini at the shock of Ruth’s reaction. Nonetheless, Ruth grabbed the squirming bundle firmly.
“You are a handful, madam,” she admonished, disengaging the claws and arranging the cub’s weight to make them both comfortable. “Thank God my Mandy was nowhere near this big—or active—at two months! Sholan females have my sympathy!”
Rulla appeared at her side, his hand going to touch her shoulder. “Clan Leader,” he said, flicking an ear in deference to Carrie. “Is everything all right?” he asked Ruth. “I heard you from the other side of the cavern.” His eye ridges were creased with concern.
“I’m fine,” she said, gently bouncing Kashini up and down on her lap. “It was this little rascal here. She launched herself at me and drew blood when she landed! It takes a strong woman to handle you Sholans, Rulla,” she said, looking up at him. “All teeth and claws, you are.”
Wide-eyed with embarrassment, Rulla glanced at Carrie, begging silently for help, and tried to ignore Mara and Josh’s grins. “We have our gentler side, too, Ruth,” he mumbled. “You know that.”
“I suppose you have your moments,” she said, wagging a finger in front of Kashini for the cub to catch.
He leaned down till his head was level with hers, his hand stealing round her shoulder till it began to caress her neck. “Ruth, Dzinea, you’ll have them thinking I treat you like one of those scratching posts you talk of,” he said, trying to keep his voice low. “You know that isn’t so!”
Mara suddenly discovered a need to cough and found herself being thumped on the back by a grinning Carrie.
Nice to see him less than his usual pompous self, isn’t it? Ruth winds him round her finger beautifully! sent Carrie.
It’s even better at home, Mara replied, gesturing to show Carrie she was fine.
Josh had turned to look at Kusac and Pam and had missed the byplay. “Is it that easy? He can send her away just like that?”
Mara looked round, too. Kusac had called Dzaka over, and Pam was now being firmly escorted toward the tunnel down to the lower level.
“Not quite, but his father will support his decision,” said Carrie. “We can’t afford to have prejudice here. We’re working to help people like yourself who are trying to come to terms with the fact they they’ve just acquired a Leska from another species. It’s hard enough for them to deal with their own emotions and fears without having to cope with the Pam Southgates of the world. I’m just glad we were here when it happened.”
“What if you hadn’t been?” The words were out before Mara could stop them.
“Garras would have been informed and the matter put on hold till I’d returned in the evening. And I’d have made exactly the same decision. This is our home, Mara, and Josh’s, before it’s anything else.”
“Mine?” asked Josh.
“Yours, too,” she confirmed, rescuing the spoon that Kashini had picked up from the table. “You know your test was positive. That makes you one of us, and a member of our Clan—if that’s what you want. The choice is yours. If you decide to join us, then nothing and no one but Kusac has the power to make you leave here.”
“So when the team pulls out, I can stay?”
“We can demand that you stay,” she grinned. “Not even the Terran Ambassador could order you to leave if you chose not to. It goes with being a member of our En’Shalla Clan. However, we would ask you to start training your Talent so as to give the claim some basis in fact. It could help you in your work anyway. When I pick up items, I sometimes have a feel for their previous owners, who they were and what they used the item for, that kind of thing. It should strengthen those intuitive hunches of yours.”
“Psychometry,” mumbled Josh, obviously embarrassed. “How’d you guess? And what about my work? I’m an archeologist, not a telepath. That’s what I want to do.”
Carrie shrugged. “Every Human’s Talent seems to include hunches. As to your work, quite a few Terrans only train part-time. You could join their classes. Kusac’s coming over now. Would you mind helping him fetch some drinks for us, please, Josh?”
“Sure,” he said, getting up.
As they came down into the lower cavern, Kusac grasped Carrie briefly by the arm, holding her back. He nodded toward where his sister and Dzaka were working on something buried in the cavern floor.
“Look at them,” he said. “I’ve never seen or felt Dzaka so relaxed, and as for Kitra! Is
that really my little sister? There’s an air about her that Mother has. A sort of …” He stopped, searching for the word. “A quiet contentment, a glow.”
“I tried to warn you,” Carrie said softly, holding onto his arm. “She’ll choose Dzaka as her life-mate, Kusac.”
“I think you’re right,” he said, reaching up to stroke Kashini’s back as the cub began to squirm and mewl at the interruption of their walk.
Kitra looked up and waved happily at them.
“You know,” said Carrie, beginning to move again, “in years to come, I can tease Dzaka about that evening when Rhyasha and I railroaded him into becoming Kitra’s first lover. I think we knew even then that they were right for each other.”
“Female’s intuition?” asked Kusac. “Pity it didn’t work for you! I remember my first attempts at persuading you to accept me!”
“That was different,” she said primly as they walked down the tunnel and out into the winter sunshine. “We were the first, and you were a different species.”
“But you loved me, right from the earliest days, you loved me.”
“Did I? I suppose I must have.”
“Yes, you did. I know you did,” he insisted, catching her arm again and stopping. “I felt it.”
“Then I suppose you must be right,” she said, maintaining her unconcerned air.
“You, cub, are a tease,” he said, pulling her into an embrace.
Kashini immediately began to purr with delight, and leaning down, wrapped her tiny arms round her mother’s neck.
Carrie laughed, kissing both of them before slipping quickly out of their embraces. She skipped a few paces down the path, still laughing at them. “A female’s got to have her secrets!” She turned and headed for the waiting aircar. “Come on, Jack and Jiszoe are holding second meal for us and Jiszoe says he’s starving!”
Ghyakulla’s shrine at the Retreat was, as Lijou said, very different, yet it had its own beauty. Like its sister, it lay within the heart of the mountain.
The air in the cavern was warm, heated by nearby underground streams of hot water that, their warmth lost to the mountain, finally emerged in the plain below. Lighting had been installed, but it was sparing and diffuse, in keeping with the ambience of the shrine.
Columns of naturally shaped rock, their surfaces covered with growths of subterranean molds and fungi, stretched upward for thirty meters. As he walked beside Guardian Dhaika, Kaid found himself wondering why both Stronghold and Vartra’s Retreat should have shrines to the Goddess that cast the one in Her own temple into the shade.
“These existed before it was possible to rebuild the plainslands,” said Dhaika. “When the floods subsided, it was decided it would be better to move the Goddess’ temple to the lowlands to make her accessible to more of her people. And, of course, the buildings you mention already belonged to Vartra.”
Kaid stopped short, a little startled at the Guardian’s ability to pick him up.
Resting his hand on Kaid’s forearm, Dhaika drew him on toward the altar. Though aware of the paintings that covered the sides, Kaid saw only the statue of the Goddess that adorned the top. In Her arms She held a male cub scarcely older than Kashini. A kitling, feet within the protective curl of the Goddess’ tail, leaned against Her, looking up into Her face. In front of Her crouched an older child, its attention wholly captivated by a small animal.
Kaid walked up to the montage, reaching out to touch the carving of the cub. The bodies of the Goddess and Her children were of natural stone, but touches of color had been added so that the eyes seemed about to blink, the hair, ruffled by an unseen breeze, about to lie flat again. He let his hand slide away from the cub, looking at the creature the youngling was trying to attract. It was a jegget, its sable-tipped cream pelt rendered in vibrant, living colors which contrasted with the cool warmth of the stone people.
“I had no idea this place existed,” said Kaid, turning away from the sculpture. “Why? Why this, here?”
“It’s said this is Vartra’s Shrine to His Mother, and in light of recent events, who can deny the possibility of it being the truth? It’s never been a public part of the Retreat, more a place where those who feel they’ve been called by the Goddess come to talk to Her. Only the older acolytes—they’re priests now, of course—of Ghyakulla come here regularly. And myself.”
Kaid raised a quizzical eye ridge.
“Ghyakulla is the Mother of all living things,” said Dhaika enigmatically. “Shall we begin?”
Prayer mats had been set out for them, and as Kaid arranged himself comfortably on one, Dhaika began to send to him.
This is similar to a meditation session. Focus on the brazier to the left of the altar, then recite your litanies as usual. When you’re in a light trance, I’ll guide you to the realm of the Goddess.
Kaid found it took longer than usual for him to relax. When finally he was floating within the familiar gray mist, he didn’t at first realize that he was listening to the Guardian’s instructions. Almost imperceptibly, the haze was parting, leaving him suspended in a darkness as black as night. Curiously he looked about him, gradually realizing that the darkness wasn’t complete and that around him he could see ribbons of light flickering and shimmering as they streaked past him. As he concentrated on them, the colors brightened till he could pick out a gold one here, a blue one there. If the trails left by shuttles could be seen, then surely they would look like this, he thought. Then he realized that one of them was approaching him.
Like a river in spate, it rushed toward him, growing larger and larger. A green light shot through with coruscating silver filaments engulfed him, sweeping him up and bearing him irresistibly onward. Strangely, he felt no fear, only intense curiosity. Within his mind, he could hear the Guardian telling him that all was as it should be.
Ahead of him, as if at the end of a tunnel, he could see a brilliant white light. He knew that it was toward this he was being taken. The sensation of movement slowed until, without warning, he found himself deposited before a gateway. A wooden door, flanked by the boles of two enormous trees, barred his way. Abruptly, the presence that was Guardian Dhaika was gone, and he was alone.
This isn’t real, it’s a hallucination, he told himself. A trip to the realms of the spirit. He reached out to touch the door.
“It’s damned solid for an illusion,” he murmured as he looked for some handle or catch with which to open it.
There was nothing, save for a carving in the center which looked hauntingly familiar. He passed his hand over it, letting his fingers trace their way across the triple spirals within which was set a blue-white crystal.
As he touched the stone, the door swung slowly open to reveal a forest within. He hesitated, knowing he was expected to enter, but reluctant to commit himself.
Pushing his fears aside, he stepped through, instantly turning back to check on the door. There was nothing, only the forest. He sniffed, breathing in the rich, humid air of summer. He knew immediately which way to go; someone had left a trail. It was nothing he could identify, but it was different, it demanded to be followed. Within a few paces, he found himself on a narrow track heading in the same direction.
At a steady lope, he followed the trail, noticing that as the forest began to thin, the path widened. Suddenly the cool greenness was behind him and ahead lay an open clearing. Overhead, the sun blazed down from a summer sky. Dazzled, he put his hands to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare. The tang of wood smoke hung in the air, and up ahead, he could hear the sound of a grindstone.
Slowly the scene in front of him began to resolve itself. At the far edge of the clearing stood a rustic house, smoke coiling lazily upward from the single chimney. Against one side was an open lean-to. Within it a figure, back turned to him, was working. The sound of metal being drawn across stone filled the air and every now and then a shower of sparks would light up the dim interior.
Kaid frowned. This was unlike anything he could imagine being associated
with the Green Goddess. Curious, he began to cross the clearing.
As he drew close, the noise stopped, and the figure turned to meet him. “I knew you could make the journey.”
“You!” said Kaid angrily, fists clenching at his sides as he stopped. “You dared to use the Goddess to bring me here!”
A voice was calling him, he realized. He ought to answer. Concentrating, he focused on the brightness of the distant flame, making it come closer until all he could see was its golden glow. Beyond it, he knew, lay the other side of reality, and Guardian Dhaika. It was only a small step, then he was blinking and pushing himself up stiffly into a sitting position.
“I was concerned,” said the Guardian, sitting back on his haunches. “You were gone for some time.”
“It was Vartra, not the Green Goddess, who called me.” He felt tired, and still not wholly of this world.
“Vartra?” Dhaika was shocked.
Kaid got to his feet, rearranging his robe before slipping his hands within the opposite sleeves. “I must return to Stronghold, Guardian Dhaika. Vartra has work for me.”
Gary Davies was eating breakfast in the lounge with Kris and Zashou when they heard the guards outside their chambers thump their spears on the ground in a salute to their Lord.
“A bit early for them,” murmured Davies, setting down his tankard of ale. “Wonder what they want.”
The door opened to admit Lord Killian accompanied by Belamor and an irate Taradain.
“My son has reminded me that your continued safety is my concern,” said Killian, moving further into the room. “With the coming of spring, those of us foolish enough not to wear our talismans all year round bring them to Belamor to have their protective spell renewed. You can’t, therefore Belamor has brought them to you.” He beckoned his mage forward. “Get on with it, Belamor. Do your magic, then we can all carry on with our work.”
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