Diadem from the Stars (38 page)

The animal moved restlessly, shifting against her palm. Aleytys cautiously lifted her free hand and scratched him behind the ear. He sighed plaintively as her searching fingers found a nerve complex where their probing brought delight to his small body. Joy bubbled feverishly through her. A fluttering laughter fell on her senses like rose petals while a bright, beaming interest surrounded her, vibrating the air until it tickled her skin.

“You don't care about that. You have a purpose we serve?”

The small head moved once again against her palm. “Not one but four.”

She chuckled. “Four out of one. Thrifty.” Then she sobered. “One of us—one will kill.”

“We hear. It is known. There is already blood.”

“Ah.” The pleasure soured in her. “I feel there will be more. It sickens me.”

“Not your doing, forget it. Life and death are both parts of the whole, one flowing into the other, death and life.” The speaker smoothed his small, black hands over his stiff, springing whiskers.

“Ah.” She sucked a breath deep into her, expanding her stomach, then let the air slip out in small bundles until no more would come. Sitting in silence she felt warm in the energetic approval of the Lakoe-heai. Warm in spite of the thickening mist that threatened to break into rain again, and happy to be out of the artificial womb of the ship, happy to be in touch with the earth and the world's life. Once again, she grew aware of the complex hierarchy of smells that matched the interweaving of life sparks. They rose in a glistening crescendo even to the clouds where unseen birds circled and soared among the drifting minutiae of the aerial bacteria that spread across the sky in brightly colored swirls.

After a dreamy, timeless time she sighed and stirred. “Then I may play at being gikena?”

“Sister.” The small voice gleamed silver in her ears. “Be what you are.”

She frowned. “I don't understand.”

Laughter circled joyously around her, hidden in thunder that boomed through the clouds, filled with a whooping amusement that brought images to her mind of soap bubbles bouncing wildly through bright spring air. The speaker animal snuggled against her stomach, ears flickflicking in response to the forces whirling wildly around them. The small voice spoke again, filled with amusement. “Sister, you are gikena born.”

“But I'm not born of this world.”

“Sister.”

The word suddenly had meaning for her. “You call me kin?”

“Sister.”

Aleytys looked dreamily down at the tiny beast curled in a ball of white and russet fur against her stomach, his head tilted back so the black eyes met hers, the look of intelligence startling in his beast face. She sighed and slid her hands under him to lift him back on the ground.

Tiny, black fingers closed around her thumb. “Keep the speaker. He is necessary to the gikena. Keep him with you while you walk our paths.”

“I thank you, Lakoe-heai.” She stumbled a little over the word, repeated it. “Lakoe-heai. I bless you for your friendship.” Cuddling the speaker against her breast, she lurched to her feet on stiffened legs, feeling the presences circling proprietorally around her, then retreating gradually as she stumbled toward the ship, shivering with sudden chill. When she put her foot on the lowest rung of the ladder they were only a vague ripple in her awareness, an intimation of an interest so distant she could sense it only when she threw her own awareness out toward the horizon.

Quietly happy, almost tranced, she clambered heavily up the ladder, hampered by the speaker until he moved up onto her shoulder and clung to her hair so that her hands were free. As she stepped into the lock the rain came down again in impenetrable sheets that played on the nerves like clumsy, hurtful hands.

Stavver thumbed the plate, starting the ladder sliding home. “Well?”

“Yes.” She drifted past him, tapped open the inner lock, and ducked into the interior of the ship.

Stavver picked up her abandoned batik and shut the outer iris. He caught up with her in the cabin as she bent over her son's improvised crib, letting the small furry beast settle himself beside the sleeping baby.

“Are you crazy?” He stepped past her and reached for the speaker. “That's a wild animal. No telling what diseases it carries.”

She stopped him. “Don't be silly, Miks. I wouldn't harm my little one.” She yawned and moved toward the shower. “Madar, I'm tired. And filthy.”

Smiling at the bemused expression on his face, she added quietly, “I know some things very well, Miks. I might not have your experience in the murky places of the universe, but wild things belong to me.” She yawned suddenly, startling herself. “I'll explain, Miks, as soon as I wash this mud off.”

Stavver shrugged. “It's your baby.” He sat on the bed to wait for her.

Aleytys stepped into the shower alcove and let the hard driven needle spray wash the caked mud off her body, washing her fatigue away with it. When she stepped out, Stavver held the batik for her while she wheeled around wrapping herself firmly in it. She pinned the brooch at her waist, driving the pin through the triple layer of cloth. Then she dropped onto the bed, patting the hard mattress beside her. “Come sit down, Miks. Tell me what's bothering you.”

“Is it so damn obvious then?” He collapsed beside her, leaning back against the wall, hands clasped behind his head.

“To me. You relax with me, Miks. You let your guard down.”

He moved his shoulders restlessly. “I work alone, Leyta. I always work alone.”

“You don't trust Maissa.”

“She comes through on contracts.”

“That's not what I mean. You don't trust her to manage this thing.”

“I trust my own skills, Leyta. I know them.” He shrugged. “You compound trouble when you take a partner. And these.…” He jerked abruptly, impatiently, to his feet and began pacing back and forth across the narrow width of the cabin. “I know Maissa too well to depend on her. Her mind is good. But her obsessions ride her too hard. The whole business can fall apart in a minute if she blows. Then there's Kale. He's some kind of outcast on this world. What a recommendation! The whole thing's a disaster already. I don't think it's going to work, Leyta. There's too much about it I can't control.” His long, thin hands closed into tight fists, then opened helplessly. “But we owe passage. We'll have to make it work.”

“Miks.” Her quiet voice pulled him around to face her. “Come sit down and relax. The Lakoe-heai are on our side. At least, they're friendly.”

He frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Come.” She waited until he slumped beside her. “Put your head on my lap and let me work the tension out of you.”

Stavver sighed and stretched his long, thin body out along the mattress. “Magic fingers.”

“Mm. Come now, relax, best of all thieves.…” She smoothed her fingers gently over his forehead a while then slid her hands down and kneaded the tense, hard muscles in his neck and shoulders. He sighed, this time with deep pleasure, eyes closing, hands falling limp and relaxed.

Aleytys chuckled, a warm, slow sound that slid like honey over his nerves. “Poor thief … let your planning go … don't worry your head about Maissa. We're all caught in the web of another's weaving, we're on this world to their purpose, puppets with strings in strange hands.… But that's not so bad, that means they'll help us, help things go smoothly.…”

He opened his eyes, still calm under the soothing effect of her smoothing hands. “You're talking riddles again, Lee.”

“I mean the Lakoe-heai of this world have taken us into their own plotting, my love. We don't have to give up what we came for, but they've got us marked for their own purposes, so relax.”

“‘Walk into my parlor' said the spider to the fly—relax?”

“Speaking of spiders, I haven't dreamed the Hounds since we left Jaydugar.”

He pulled away from her hands and sat up. “Thanks, Lee.” He stretched and yawned then leaned against the wall, eyes searching her face. “We're still broken loose of them?”

“Mmmmh.” She tapped a forefinger against her temple evoking the ghost chimes. “I think as long as I wear the diadem they'll sniff me out.”

“Pleasant thought.”

“I'll just have to keep running fast.”

“One comes.” The reedy, small voice cut into the conversation, pulling both pairs of eyes to the crib. “And one other.” The speaker's small head, alert ears wiggling erratically, dark eyes glittering, nestled between tiny, black paws clutching at the foot of the crib.

Aleytys ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “Maissa …” She yawned and rubbed her face. “So it begins.”

Stavver stood up, his face drawn in an intent inward look, radiating a feeling of unease and diffused anger. Anger at himself, at Maissa, at the whole situation which forced him to submit himself to the caprice of others, and anger at Aleytys for arousing feelings in him that imposed a responsibility for her safety on his reluctant shoulders.

The strip of batik around his hips began to unwind as it slid down beneath the wide leather belt. Muttering a complex curse in a language Aleytys had never heard, he jerked it taut, resettling the belt to keep it in place. “Maissa will expect us in the lock waiting for her,” he growled. “Lee, you remember what I said? Don't contradict her in any way. Just do what she says, all right?”

Aleytys shrugged. The elaborate, blue markings on her breasts drifted and jiggled with the movement. “I hear,” she said shortly. “You don't have to keep reminding me.”

He eyed her unhappily. “You've got a temper, Lee. I—oh hell.” He stalked out of the room without looking to see if she followed.

Aleytys sighed and smoothed the cloth over her hips.

“Take me with you.” At the sound of the speaker's voice, Aleytys started and turned around. The three-fingered, black paws were waving excitedly in the air. She picked him up, then checked to see if Sharl were still asleep. She touched her son's soft cheek with love flooding through her body, forgetting briefly the complicated and dangerous situation waiting for her.

Sighing, she shifted the speaker to her shoulder and reluctantly left the cabin. Out in the corridor she rubbed her fingers up and down his spine, laughing as his contented humming rumbled in her ears. “Do you have a name, little one?”

“Name?” His breath was warm against her ear.

“No name? Then I'll call you Olelo. You're Olelo. Do you understand?”

“Olelo.” The speaker tried the sound out, pleased with it. “Olelo. Me, Olelo. Olelo.” The syllables turned over in his mouth as if he found them tasty. “Speaker say thank you for the naming, Sister.”

Aleytys jumped slightly, almost dislodging the beast, startled by the sudden change of timbre in the small voice.

“Ahai! I suppose I'll get used to this. No thanks necessary, Lakoe-heai. It's only a matter of convenience. A very little thing.”

“Naming is no small thing, Sister. A name given sends ripples through time like a stone thrown into water. Never name lightly.” She heard a tiny chuckle from the speaker, echoed by the boom of thunder outside the ship. “But you have named well, nonetheless, and we thank you for the gift.”

The sense of presence receded until, once again, Aleytys heard the beast purring in her ear. She pulled her mind from this new puzzlement and marched resolutely down the corridor toward the lock.

Hand on the cold metal above the fingerplate, she paused. “Olelo?”

“One hears.”

“The rain. Can one do something about that? I ask because she who comes will be difficult enough without the added burden.”

A tiny chuckle rustled in her ear. “One can.”

Smiling in her amusement with the buoyant elementals inhabiting this world, Aleytys tapped the plate and stepped into the lock.

Chapter II

The horses stood head down, tails twitching desultorily over their wet sides. They had a hard-driven look that kindled anger deep inside her. She walked to Maissa's team and touched the long, rain-sleeked hair that steamed faintly in the humid heat of the sun which was sinking like a squashed orange behind the vermilion-touched haze at the western edge of the world. The animal jerked nervously away, then quieted under her hands.

Aleytys gentled the horses, crooned to them, anger bubbling hotter as her fingers moved over welts and ragged cuts, healing them, taking the hurt away. Lips pressed together, she watched the empty mouth of the lock with its pendant ladder waiting for Maissa to appear; thinking of what Stavver had told her. Sensing her disturbance, the horses pawed at the coarse soil and nickered uneasily. She turned abruptly to face Kale. “Why?”

He shrugged and stepped down from the driving bench on the other caravan, his blocky body moving with the taut control of a hunting cat. “The captain doesn't like the wet.”

“And you?”

He rested a broad, strong hand on the flank of the left-hand horse of his own team. “Would I lash my own feet?” Then he jerked rigidly upright, his eyes on a level with hers, flat, dark, suddenly angry. Everything about him looked time-polished, compacted by will and use into a gloss that shed punishment almost casually. The stylized pattern of hunting cats that climbed up arms and chest, the blue cat faces snarling on his broad, high cheek bones suited his feral aura even though they weren't his clan signs but skillful fakes like those she and the rest of the party wore. He stared at the side of her face, a rising anger struggling out from behind the mask. “Let it go,” he said.

Aleytys frowned. “What?”

A hiss exploded into a spitting sound. He took a step toward her, his body poised forward on his toes while his arm came up, a tautly trembling finger jabbing at the animal sitting on her shoulder. “The speaker. That.” The finger jabbed again. “I don't know how you caught it, woman, but only a gikena—a
real
gikena, woman—can keep it. Fool!” His hand jerked in a crooked circle compassing the ship, wagons, and the distant rim of the horizon. “Do you want to wreck everything?” His eyelids came down, hooding his eyes. “Let it go.”