Mystic and Rider

by Sharon Shinn

  She arched her eyebrows. “It just seems so unlikely. This far out. But it sounds like a raelynx.”

  Justin and Tayse looked startled; the others seemed mystified. “What’s that?” Cammon asked.

  “A sort of wild cat that lives to the east of us in the Lirrenlands,” Senneth said. “But there are mountains between us and the Lirrens, and I’ve almost never heard of a raelynx crossing out of those mountains.”

  “I’ve never heard of the Lirrenlands!” Cammon exclaimed.

  The others laughed. “Nobody knows much about them,” Kirra assured him. “The king considers the Lirrenlands to be under his dominion, and I think they pay tithes, and they fought beside Gillengaria in the last war, but it’s a strange country filled with strange people.”

  “And strange animals, apparently,” Justin said. He was still looking at Senneth. “How is it you know so much about the creatures that can only be found there?”

  She smiled a little. “I lived in the Lirrens for a few years.”

  Tayse shifted, and the chest of drawers protested. “Of course you did,” he said in a polite voice.

  “So—what—these raelynxes go prowling around the Lirrenlands, killing people off every few days? I would imagine there aren’t very many people left living there, then,” Justin said with some of his usual sarcasm.

  Senneth spread her hands. “The Lirren people—I’ve often thought the whole lot of them must be rife with magic,” she said. She glanced at Cammon with a smile. “I should take you with me sometime to visit there, and maybe you could tell me. Myself, I couldn’t feel the magic on them, but there was no other way to explain some of their abilities. Some of them are healers with gifts that are astounding. Some of them can grow crops on land that shouldn’t support a weed. And many of them seemed to have a bond with animals—particularly predators. Hunters. In any case, I never saw a raelynx attack a native-born Lirren while I lived there. They had this skill of controlling the creatures—of turning them away. At any rate, they never attacked the human communities where I lived.”

  “And I suppose while you lived in the Lirrens, you learned this skill of controlling wild animals as well,” Tayse said in a silky voice.

  She looked at him, her expression neutral. “I developed a certain aptitude for it, yes.”

  Kirra clapped her hands together in feigned excitement. “Oh, good! The barmaid said there was a reward for its death. Maybe we could earn a few coppers.”

  Senneth’s smile flickered across her face. “Gold pieces, I thought she said.”

  “Even better.”

  “Seriously?” Donnal said. “You think you can kill it?”

  “I think it would be hard to kill,” she said, and looked at Tayse.

  He grunted. “There was a raelynx up north once. Few miles from Ghosenhall. Situation much like this—small town, terrorized by the creature. The king sent a few of his Riders out to try to hunt it down.” He shook his head. “We never were fast enough. I’m not a bad tracker, and I’ve never gone hungry in the woods, but I had no idea how to catch this thing. We never even got close.”

  “So what happened?” Cammon asked.

  “One day it was gone,” he said. “Moved on, I guess, or died in some natural accident. After a while, we just left.”

  “Maybe this is the same one,” Cammon said. “If they never cross out of the mountains.”

  “My guess,” said Senneth slowly, “is that this is a young one. Still growing, which is another reason it feeds so often. And too inexperienced to know it shouldn’t stay long in one place.”

  “Makes even less sense that a baby cat could get all this way on its own,” Justin objected.

  She nodded. “I don’t think it came on its own. I’m guessing it was orphaned when it was just a few days old and trappers picked it up. They probably were bringing it out west to ship or sell. Maybe headed to Forten City. Exotic creature like that could bring a lot in some foreign markets.”

  “Makes sense,” Tayse said. “What happened to the trappers?”

  She smiled. “An accident in the wagon, maybe, and the kit got free. Went for the men first and then started roaming.”

  “And you think you can stop it,” Kirra said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You may as well have.”

  “If the King’s Riders can’t kill such a creature,” Justin said scornfully, “I don’t see why you think you can.”

  “I didn’t say I could kill it, either.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Senneth was watching Tayse; he was watching her. “If he thought his people were endangered by such a creature,” Tayse said, “the king would want us to stop the marauding, if we could.”

  “Even if such an act brings unwanted attention to our party?” Senneth said. “Because I think it would.”

  “Even then,” Tayse said. He shrugged. “I’m starting to think we’re destined to draw attention no matter where we go.”

  “There’s probably truth to that,” Senneth said.

  Kirra was looking at her. “What do you think you can do?”

  Senneth smiled. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

  IN the morning, she strolled through the town, talking idly to the few people out on the street who looked disposed to linger or gossip. Most of the stories tallied with the theory she’d developed so far, and she also discovered other bits of useful information, such as what time of night the predator was most likely to strike and where.

  “Why?” asked one of the tavern keepers when he’d gotten the drift of her questions. “You think you want to try your hand at hunting it?”

  “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

  He grimaced and wiped down his bar without answering, but his expression conveyed his opinion. Senneth grinned. “I guess you don’t see too many women hunters in this area.”

  “Look. We’ve probably had twenty men through here, locals and travelers, trying to track that thing down. We’ve lost two people and I don’t know how many animals. You can catch it, I’m happy. But I’m starting to think it’s the sort of thing that can’t be caught—” He paused and gave her one rather disdainful look. “Or if it can be, not by a lone woman who’s not even carrying a bow.”

  “If I do it, I want to do it my own way,” she said. “I don’t want people interfering.”

  He spread his hands, the damp cloth dangling from his fingers. “Have at it,” he said. “I don’t think anyone will stop you. No one will help you, either.”

  “I understand there’s a reward,” she said.

  He nodded. “Ten gold pieces. A pretty good sum.”

  “I hope I earn it,” she said and went out.

  From what she could tell, the raelynx had not struck for two days, and hadn’t fed much the last time it killed, so she figured it would come out again this night or the next. It seemed to hunt sometime between midnight and dawn. She could grab a few hours of sleep before setting out after it.

  She explained her plan over dinner, which the six of them ate together. The others had had a profitable day, buying a thick blue cloak for Cammon, as well as some sturdy boots, and having two of the horses reshod at the smith. In addition, Kirra had bought more supplies for the road and listened for any news that might not involve the raelynx. Only in that very last venture had she not been successful.

  “So you’re going out tonight?” Kirra asked. “Do you want help?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Will you stake out a dog or a goat for bait?” Justin wanted to know.

  Senneth smiled at him. “I’m the bait.”

  Tayse looked at her. “I don’t think you should do this alone,” he said.

  “If too many people are about, it might not come at all.”

  Tayse counted on his fingertips. “Two people and seven or eight animals dead because of this creature.”

  “Two rather helpless people,” she amended.

  He surveyed her again. “My father’s one o
f the oldest of the King’s Riders,” he said. “Do you know how he lived so long, when many soldiers die before the age of thirty?” Justin was grinning. Tayse went on, “Because he was never stupid. He never went out alone, even on a task that a single man should have been able to complete.”

  “I would be happy to meet such a wise and skilled warrior,” Senneth said gravely. “But I don’t think even his talents would help much in this particular hunt.”

  “Good,” Kirra said, yawning. “Because I want to go to bed right now and stay there till morning.”

  In fact, Kirra lingered downstairs with the men while Senneth went up to the room to sleep for a few hours. At midnight, she rose and dressed. Kirra was sleeping on the other side of the bed, her hair spread like amber across her pillow. She didn’t stir as Senneth slipped out the door and down the deserted hallway. No one else in the whole inn, in the whole town, appeared to be awake.

  She stepped outside into the star-chilled night and paused a moment to get her bearings. Only once had the raelynx struck deep within the borders of town; more often it seemed to prowl along the eastern edge, not far from a thin border of trees. Undoubtedly it had its lair somewhere in that stand of woods, but none of the local townspeople had been able to track it there.

  Senneth walked through the faint moonlight to the edge of town and looked around for an old bucket or a dropped log to sit on. There was nothing. She sighed and sank cross-legged to the ground, drawing her jacket around her a little more tightly. Just a moment or two of concentration, of sensing the heat running under the surface of her skin, and she was comfortable again.

  The raelynx, she thought, might be drawn as much by the warmth of her body as by her scent.

  She sat there unmoving for more than an hour, relaxed as she could be while waiting for a wild animal to try to kill her. She liked the deep stillness of an untenanted night, the pervasive cold that seemed to take corporeal form and lean against her like an affectionate child. She liked the utter blackness of the sky, the stars like spilled sugar across an unswept floor. She liked being alone.

  She stayed motionless but grew extremely alert as soon as her solitude ended.

  She didn’t pretend to have Cammon’s gifts of perception, but she could sense the wild heart of the creature that was stealthily advancing on her out of the eastern woods. Its mind was a chaotic tumble of drives and hungers, impatient and lawless; its memories and impulses were all of violence. It was so single-minded and destructive that, in a way, it reminded her of fire, and that made it seem beautiful to her.

  It came close enough to attack her, and it bunched its muscles to spring.

  Senneth reached out with all the force of her personality and laid her will against the cat’s.

  Instantly she felt the roil of confusion and dissent in its brain. It loosed a furious snarl into the night, a sound to strike terror into any soul, and it jerked its whole body as if to yank free of a net. Senneth held on. She closed her mind over its mind, made her choices its choices, coerced it into obedience. It snarled again and fought her; she could feel it lay each separate velvet paw down against the ground as it attempted to back away. She clenched her fingers and tightened her mental hold. The raelynx froze in place. She made a motion with her fingers and invited it nearer.

  Slowly, delicate foot by delicate foot, the raelynx minced out of the shadows and came to stand in front of Senneth where she still sat on the ground. She could sense the bewilderment and resentment in its coiled body but now, overlaying all that, curiosity, too. In its short life, it had known only one personality stronger than its own, and that had belonged to its mother, who was dead. It had not occurred to it that there might be other creatures in this chilly world with strength or subtlety to match its own.

  Senneth sat very still, letting the raelynx investigate her while she examined it in turn. As the barmaid’s sister had said, it was fox-colored, dappled here and there with black spots and patches of white. Its head was bigger than a cougar’s, the nose longer and more pointed, the eyes dark and set wide apart. Its triangular ears seemed too big for its head, even bigger because of the black tufts of fur edging the pointed tips. Its paws were huge—this beast was going to grow to a considerable size—and also featured tufts between the divided toes. At first, Senneth thought its spine was visible through the sleek coat, and then she realized she was seeing just another ridge of bunched fur running in a straight line down the long back. A narrow, flexible tail whipped slowly from side to side, proof that the cat was alert and considering its next move. Senneth had no doubt that he would like it to be a violent one.

  Involuntarily she smiled. “But I can control you,” she murmured, quietly but aloud. “You are a creature of flame and hunger, and I can always bend those elements to my will. You will not kill again unless it is at my command.”

  She stood up, and the cat watched her, its tail lashing now, its dark eyes even wider with checked fury. “It would probably be best if we rode out tonight, but I think you are safe enough by my side,” she said. “So back to the inn we go.”

  She took a few steps toward town, listening carefully to see if her quarry would follow her. He hissed once, more in irritation than rage, she thought, and then padded up beside her and accompanied her down the road.

  They had not gone twenty paces before a shadow detached itself from an unlit doorway and approached them.

  The raelynx spat and dropped to a crouch, but Senneth held it beside her. Her own knife was in hand, but it only took a few seconds before she knew she didn’t need it.

  “Tayse,” she said. “Offering me your protection after all.”

  He was using the pale moonlight to stare at the raelynx, but not as if he was astounded at Senneth’s audacity or power. Merely, he had never seen one before, and he was memorizing its attributes while he had the chance. “I can hardly credit it,” he said, “but I’m guessing you think you’re going to bring this creature along with us as we continue on our journey.”

  She could not help a smile. “I can scarcely let it loose to begin its depredations again.”

  “It seems it will stand still for you,” he said. “You could hold it helpless while I cut its throat.”

  “There is no reason it should die,” she said. “It has done nothing but try to live, given only the skills it was born with.”

  Tayse lifted his eyes, unfathomable in the night, to examine Senneth. “And you are not overfond of killing anything,” he said.

  “I am not. You think that is a weakness on my part.”

  “I don’t think you have any weaknesses at all,” he said.

  She smiled again at that. “What would you do, if this creature was in your power?”

  He turned his attention back to the raelynx. “I would probably destroy it. Unless I had a very good use for it. I would destroy it because I wouldn’t trust that my power would control it for long.”

  “Are you afraid that it will slip free of me?”

  He looked at her again. “Oh no,” he said. “I am not afraid of that in the slightest.”

  “I can’t think that the villagers will be so very glad that I have taken it alive and mean to leave it that way,” she said. “We will have to be on our way again in the morning.”

  “Where will you put it for the night?”

  Now her smile was irrepressible. “Why, next to my bed in my room back at the inn. It will be quite safe there, I think.”

  He started laughing, the sound quiet but comforting in the dark. She thought that she had not heard him laugh before. She imagined he didn’t think that too much in this world was amusing. “I foresee an interesting day,” he remarked, and turned his footsteps back to their hotel.

  CHAPTER 10

  IN the morning, Senneth was woken by the sound of Kirra’s scream. Half the hallway was roused by the same sound, so the next few minutes were a tumult of knocks on the doors and cries down the corridor and everyone assuring everyone that there was no trouble, everything was f
ine.

  That whole time, the raelynx sat backed into a corner, its teeth bared, its red fur ruffled, its tail twitching, and loosed a low, menacing growl upon the world.

  “You could have at least warned me!” Kirra exclaimed when she’d recovered her composure and all the neighbors had stopped visiting. “If I’d known you were going to bring that thing back here—though, how could I not have known? It is so like you! Protect all the creatures that roam under the Pale Mother’s watchful eyes—”

  Senneth smiled. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold it. But once he came close enough last night, I knew I could. I can’t bring myself to kill him.”

  “And at night? Even while you’re sleeping? You can control him then?”

  Senneth smiled. “Even while you’re sleeping, can you maintain a disguise? Yes.”

  “What do we do with it now?” Kirra asked.

  “We’ll take him with us some distance and then decide.”

  Kirra, who really feared very little, stepped a pace closer to the creature, who yowled a warning. She jumped back. “It’s a he, then?”

  “Well, I think so. It was dark, and I was being careful, so I didn’t examine him too closely.”

  Kirra turned to look at her, a smile on her beautiful, aristocratic face. “Have you given him a name? For I know you, Senneth! He will become your pet, your familiar. Right now, you’re thinking, well, when I have the time, I’ll cross the mountains and return him to the Lirrens, where he’ll be safe—but in your heart, you’re already growing attached to him. You won’t want to give him up.”

  Senneth smiled back. “I will try to do what is best for him when the time allows,” she said. “Right now, we just need to move on. He is not welcome here, understandably so, and we won’t be either once I emerge with the raelynx by my side.”

  Kirra looked thoughtful. “Maybe I’d better fetch us breakfast, then, so you can eat it in the room before we go.”

  “Good idea. And—if you can—something for him. He didn’t feed last night, and he’s hungry. He might be much more pleasant once he’s fed.”