Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) (16 page)

“No. I took a break about five minutes ago.” The warrior ran the light over my body as three of his comrades arrived. The rest stayed with the Kubraens. One of them checked me roughly for weapons. Rather thoroughly, I thought.

“No weapons, Lieutenant,” she said.

“Where's the kid?” the lieutenant asked me, his light still in my eyes.

I wiped snowflakes from my face. “There are no kids. These are a dispossessed and dying people.”

He slapped me hard. I was jarred. I almost fell. My cheek stung but I didn't touch it, though I could've choked on the tight lump of fear in my throat.

“Where's your daughter?” he asked. “My boss wants to talk to both of you.”

My boss the czar,
I thought and tried to relax my throat. “She's just a kid. Why do you want her? You've got me.”

He lowered the light and shifted his feet, to take the intimidation out of his stance, I think. “Look, we wouldn't hurt her. We're not that kind of people.” He pulled down his cap to keep off the snow and even smiled. “But when we get finished with those tree chewers, there won't be anybody around to take care of her.” He raised brows and nodded intimately. “The czar figures there's a rich lode under this land. With a little cooperation, you could be in for a cut.”

I went cold inside as I watched the warriors herd the Kubraens together in the slushy field. A manta lifted and hovered, spotlighting the rush of snowflakes, the people, and the armed warriors. The lieutenant peered out from under brows and sucked a tooth. “So where is she, tag?”

“What you see, Lieutenant, is what you've got.”

He stiffened. “No, bark fucker.”

I tensed as he switched the gun to his left hand.

“What you see is what
you
get!” He drew back his fist, swung. I raised a stiff arm and took the blow there. Someone kicked me in the thigh. I yelled, didn't see the next blow coming until pain shot through my head. I staggered, raised my arms to defend myself and saw the flash of a fist – too late. Lightning stabbed my head and I found myself on hands and knees, a sweet smell in my nostrils as blood seeped from my numb lip and was washed away in a blizzard of snowflakes. I coughed. “Starspeaker!” I whispered.

“What?” The lieutenant bent over me. “What the hell did he say?” he asked the others.

“Star reeker, sir,” one answered, “or Star peeker – “

“Yeah,” the lieutenant snarled, “or Star pecker, you dumb grassmole!”

“Watch him, Lieutenant,” another said in a clipped tone, “you know what him and that kid did to Master Bjorn.”

“Bjorn's the black-ass-hole of the universe!” the lieutenant responded. Get up!” He kicked me in the side.

I gasped from the sudden pain and tried to get up. The slippery ground seemed to shift and I curled there, moaning under my breath, my arms folded over my head for protection, my legs tucked, also for protection. The snow was cold.
Starspeaker!

“You damn Kub-lover, get up like a man!”

I flinched, but he only nudged me with the toe of his boot. A sense of overwhelming sadness.
Why not?
Tears squeezed from my eyes.
Sadness
? Had my mentor, the great and glorious silver tag, decided to make an appearance?

Gather your tel powers, Terran,
he sent,
such as they are.

What were you waiting for?

That which you should have provided. Initiative.

I got to my feet with the help of a tree as my head clearing. “Lieutenant?” I wiped my mouth on a sleeve and pictured that ball of electricity coalescing within my brain. Spinning. Growing. Dammit, this was going to hurt!

The lieutenant stepped closer and prodded my chest with a wet finger. “Ready to communicate?”

I nodded, carefully.

”Figured you might be with some of the stuffing knocked out of you. OK, where is she?”

I lowered my head, groaned as I forced the ball to intensify and prepared to send him messages.

“Not far, Lieutenant,” I whispered. “Just follow my directions.” I held onto the tree as I gave him instructions, in no uncertain mind commands, to vacate the Kubraen village, and take his warriors with him. It was easier, I realized, then when I'd twisted Bjorn's already twisted mind to paths of my own devising. I was improving.

I watched the lieutenant and his warriors walk dazedly back to their comrades, who were still guarding the people. The black uniforms stuck to their wet bodies as the sudden blizzard thickened. Thunder rumbled again within the black sky. Lightning flashed in strobe shots that illuminated massive clouds.

Lisa, my little kid, was manipulating the elements again.

After a short discussion among themselves, followed by a yelling match, the warriors boarded their mantas, lifted, and headed southeast.

Briertrush was at the hut's doorway as I held my side and limped there, my teeth clamped. He'd replaced the stones and burned branches to cover the hideout. His hands were white from scooping ashes back into the circle.

Water puddled around my boots as I stared at the wooden bones of the fire and pressed my raw cheek. “The tel suggestions won't last long. I'm not that good. Not yet.” I tossed a burned stump into ashes. “And I don't think your Mountain Spirit can influence non-tels.” I went to the door. The thunder and lightning had stopped as suddenly as it started. A puppet storm dissolved by my little girl. “Those crotemungers will be back in force pretty soon, and out for blood.”

“Yesh.” He flung the last branch into the circle, raising ashes, then wiped his broad hands on his tunic, came and took my head in both hands, and tilted it to see the bruises. It was dark in the hut and I wondered about eyesight that good. “Nesh time they come, ish not ta talk with you, humane. Ish your blood threy drink.”

“I know. And your people's blood.”

He ran a palm across the right side of his neck and brought the sticky hand to my face.

“No.” I blocked his wrist. “That's all right.”

“Ah! Drink humanes ta fluid from crow's belly, but not thris heal salve!” He held up his glowing hand and licked it.

“I never drank anything from a crow's belly. They don't excrete – Oh. A cow's belly.” I shrugged. “Yeah. Well.”

We walked outside, where a low moon was bathed in the glow of the mountain. Its sisters were scattered across the sky. ”Do you always get these flash storms?” I asked.

“No,” he answered softly and stared at me. “Only till now.”

“You can blame me for a lot of stuff, Briertrush, but I can't cause storms to come and go on cue.” The fact that Lisa could would remain our secret.

“I know,” he said cryptically.

“Probably your Kubraish Spirit's work.”

He just grunted.

We both stopped as our ears filled with the cries of people wailing for Gwis. I wondered if they knew just how close they'd come to following her.

”Brier?” I stared at the distant Western glow through clearing skies. “Let's see if we can bring your people home to the mountain before the next attack.”

We had no time for funerary rites. The three oldest Kubraens stripped Gwis' body naked, oiled it with liquids from their neck glands, and left her on a bare rock for predators and scavengers. It was the Kubraen way of repaying the ecosystem for the physical nourishment Gwis had taken during her lifetime. Her spiritual nurturing they commended to their god, whose name was something like Tres Omu Cruash, but I'm anthropomorph-pronouncing.

They were sorry, they told Gwis' cold bones, that they couldn't stay to watch her gift of flesh, but her spirit knew their enemies would return.

The people bundled their few possessions as casually as though they were preparing for a day at the beach. I was given back my stingler, small comfort that lone weapon, and we moved west, toward the Spirit Mountain.

I carried Lisa on my shoulders. After our tel-link during the incident with the czar's warriors she was afraid to leave me. Her head lay against mine as she dozed, drooling into my hair.

I put my hand on the stingler as an animal hooted in the woods. Another yodeled a reply. Were the czar's warriors trained in guerrilla warfare?

Spirit?
I sent to the silver tag.
I know you don't like to disclose information any more than Starspeaker did, but do you mind giving me a hint on how I'm going to repel a czar attack with only my trusty stingler
?
On the other hand, if I'm supposed to dazzle them with tel power, you might be overestimating my talents.

I waited for a reply. Nothing. As usual.
Gwis?
I looked back. No response there either, though the veils that shrouded her body suddenly shimmered with a cool light.

A whip of wind beat the backs of silvered trees on high craggy hills where Kubraen youths moved darkly, keeping watch while snow clouds brooded at their backs. Maybe the silver tag was busy forming a defensive strategy for the coming siege. Sure. And maybe, as usual, he was out to lunch.
Well, thanks again for all your advice
, I sent.
Have a nice day while your people are murdered.

The doll Gwis had given Lisa slipped from her fingers.

Briertrush, walking silently beside me with the wrapped sublink under his arm, picked up the small figure and studied it. “Thris bring good luck,” he said, rubbing an amber button on the doll's neck, where a Kubraen's gland would be.

“Yeah. Real good thing we have it.”

He slid me a look. “Still alive, you an' Lisha. Sleep you na in dungeon. Know you na the touch of czar's electric burn thring.” His voice held a sinister note.

“What's a…” I cleared my throat. “An electric burn thring? I mean thing.”

“Ah! Terran concept.” He shook his craggy orange head. Spiky hair scissored the air. “Make you sorry ta cling ta life, thris thring.”

“Well is it a concept or a thing?”

“Concept horror Terran thring.” He squinted at the sky and my spine grew cold as he hissed out a slow breath through square teeth.

I glanced southeast again and tried to separate stars from moving lights of mantas, and wondered what I'd do if I saw them. “Is that how the czar got your people to leave their homes, through torture?”

“Torture czar ta people who wouldna go, thren leave their torn bodies in thre groves fo us ta find.” His tone never changed but his chest heaved. “Ta rest of my people leave with quiet.”

I guess I squeezed Lisa's ankles too hard. She moaned in her sleep and slapped my head. I loosened my grip.

“What about the czar's mountain warriors?” I asked. “Do you have a plan in mind if we should run into them? I mean besides the czar's troops, who are probably crawling up our asses right now?”

He snapped a white spore off a long plant as we strode by, studied its fragile design, a silver snowflake in three dimensions. “Know I only thre Kubraish Spirit call us home.” He released the spore and it lifted. Drifted. He touched his groin, his heart and his neck in that ritual gesture. “Pray you not ta gods thris dark night?”

“There were times I've prayed on dark nights,” I told him. “And times I didn't.” I would have shrugged but for Lisa's weight. “I never noticed a difference.”

“Difference ta makes ish here.” He touched his breast. “Ta peaceful here.”

I fingered the stingler and scanned the southeastern sky again. I shifted Lisa's weight, continued walking doggedly as a drift of snowflakes dusted us. “I'll be quiet here,” I tapped my chest with a fist, “when we make it safely to the mountain, and when I find out just what your Kubraish Spirit expects from me and my daughter.”

It's snowing again, Daddy
, Lisa sent as she awoke.

I felt her apprehension and wondered, on a non-verbal level that was more a feeling, to what extent I should try to protect her from the reality of our situation? To what extent I should prepare her for the very real adversities in our future? In her future, if I were no longer around. She was so young, so easily hurt. But then the snowflakes drifting around us parted like a veil. “Did you do that?” I asked her.

“Uh huh. I wanted you to stay dry, Daddy.”

“Thanks, Lis'!” I patted her knee. So she continued to work the elements. I wondered how powerful she would become as she grew up, and if her tel power
would
increase with age? That was a random factor.

How different this situation from that time, long ago, when my immaturity and impulsiveness was responsible for my sister's death. As though Great Mind had allowed me a new roll of the dice, if there really be a Great Mind, and if He/She/It favored a roll of the dice over the Greeks' Three Fates who spun the thread of life, measured it, and cut it. I patted her leg and found myself smiling.
Did I ever tell you that you're a great kid?
I sent.
And how much I love you?

She patted my wet head.
Yesh, Draddy
. She giggled. I chuckled with her. Briertrush looked at Lisa, then glanced at me and frowned. Well hell, he knew we were telepaths, and I wasn't too fond of the times he talked to his people in Kubraen, while I stood there like a dumbshit bottom scrabbler.

You think Tikkie's OK?
Lisa sent wistfully.

I think so, Lis' He probably went back to the ranch.
She laid her head against mine and I withdrew the link, hoping her thoughts would turn to other things.

“How much further?” I asked Briertrush and studied the glowing mountain.

“Further thran the snow that makes ta mountain path long.” He scraped at a horny ridge of flaking skin on his arm. It slid off and the black lizard with the collar scurried between his legs, grabbed it and ran. A large brown spider ran after him. “Further thran wish of weary people ta lie down in warm caves an' sleep.”

“Not further than fear,” I added.

At my order, no blobs trailed us with their lights, but the cloud-shrouded moons gave us glimpses of our path. I pictured mantas swooping out of that sky. I pictured clay ducks at a shooting gallery as hundreds of Kubraens, their silver eyes stabbing night, sang as they moved in small separate groups, as I'd instructed, across the bare terrain. Did they sing to keep up their spirits or out of some alien concept that It things could be worse? After all, they were going home, in this world or the next.

Speaking of which –

Jules,
she said in my mind.

Starspeaker!
I thought you were out among the stars.
Time for another lesson?

I look forward to stars. But not yet. Your final lesson. The time is short, the conditions too dangerous for full realization. You must forgive my people for the trials we impose upon you.

Sure
.

Lisa wrapped her arms around my head and kissed my hair.
Starspeaker's nice, Daddy. She told me stories about the Mountain Spirit's children.

Why are you letting her in?
I demanded of Speaker.
She's too young for your harsh lessons
.

To give your child the skills she will require for survival, in the events to come
.

Events to come?
I tightened my grip on Lisa's legs as though I could somehow hold her safe.

The events we move toward,
Speaker sent.

The lesson was gratefully short. I felt drained afterwards. After all, lowering your shields and allowing the babble in while you lock onto a young male among the people and feel his cold fear of death, a fear he doesn't even admit to himself as anything but hatred for the czar, while the storm clouds gather again and sweat melts snowflakes off your brow, is no light task.

But I did it! And better than that, I tapped into the young Kubraen's subconscious desire to impress the young females with his physical strength and sexual prowess. He was not aware of the intrusion, but I watched him desert a group of males to walk beside a surprised young female and smile as he talked to her.

So now I was also playing matchmaker, arousing their sexual desires and the maternal, paternal instincts. Why it was important for a Terran to manipulate Speaker's own people, I did not know. But she was pleased. If the silver tag approved, he didn't say. Perhaps next time I could probe the full depths of a being's psyche, as Starspeaker had done to me back in the caves.
To find their weakness, my silver friend?
I added on a hunch.
And ultimately direct the czar's actions? Like off a cliff, followed by his entourage?

Could be.

I knew that Speaker was pleased with Lisa's power, too, which was taking a direction that complimented my own. Though I thought
pleased
was a bit of an understatement. Lisa could naturally shield, and she could tap the elements themselves. To what extent, I wasn't certain, but the sudden storm she raised when the czar's warriors invaded the village was pretty damn impressive. During Speaker's lesson, I had felt a rumble and the raw power of a distant squall through Lisa's link, then a slight shift in the tectonic plate. Even more incredible, I felt the forces of flowing magna beneath the plate that caused the shift. I didn't ask Lisa about it. What could she express in words that came close to the experience itself? But I worried about her role in this game the Kubraish Spirit had set up.

I was here to execute the czar. That much I knew. But did my mission include stopping the crystal trade once and for all? Even with the czar dead, his miners and warriors, to say nothing of Bjorn and Lost Vegas, would be more than happy to continue doing business. The only way to end it once and for all would be to collapse the mines and keep Spirit's other sources a secret.

Spirit?
I sent.

I am here.

Would that finish things for us? Would that guarantee continuance for you and your people? And Lisa's ticket back home? Maybe mine too?

All. Yes. The time of the ravagers would be finished. With the mines, as you Terrans call them, collapsed back into the earth, they would again nourish my world.

Jesus and Vishnu, Spirit! Is there anything else I should be asking?

Our minds do not always function in mesh, Terran! What you call mines are not mines. What you call blood is not my blood. I do not always foresee your thought processes.

Nor I yours
, I admitted. I rubbed my brow and turned my thoughts to any long-distance link with advancing human minds from the southeast.

Nothing.

Maybe the czar's warriors were waiting for daylight. At dawn, they'd have us in their sights when they attacked. Nice of them, though, to give Lisa and me time to continue to strengthen our powers.

Thickening snow turned the night frosty as we climbed into windy foothills. It would block the manta's visuals, but not their other tracking systems.

The mountain was an inverted cone of blazing light, the sky above it clear, showing a joint of the galaxy's arm, as though Spirit's home was not subject to weather. Within the cone's aura, the jagged peak seemed to pierce space itself.

We'd been walking for five hours and I was chilled. So was Lisa, but she didn't say. The Kubraens, dressed only in tunics and cloaks, marched stoically, their eyes set on the mountain. Briertrush had taken Lisa onto his shoulders when my leg muscles burned with fatigue on steep, slippery inclines. Thick silver trees shielded us, but wind growled overhead and tried to throttle their leafy crowns. The woods were so silent, though, I almost thought I heard snowflakes building white mounds. I prayed for continuing silence, since droning engines could be the sound of death.

A stately tawny-skinned woman moved up to our small group, clasping the hand of an adolescent who was creamed coffee and sugar with her golden skin and hair, her silver eyes.

The woman wagged her head at Briertrush. He grunted and she walked by his side and directed the girl to Briertrush's other side, next to me.

Wind fluttered the girl's tunic and green cloak against the curve of hips and thighs as she walked. I glanced at her double pairs of breasts. Perhaps when they do reproduce, it's multiple births. Her oversized bare feet slapped rugged ground with a fluid motion. A real beauty among her people, I'd venture, yet except for the youth I'd influenced, I never saw a male glance at a female in the way that signals sexual interest. And I never saw a female respond to a male in that alluring manner that makes for real sexuality, among Terrans, anyway. I had a feeling it wasn't much different with these humanoids.

“Thris Hasril d'Trush,” Briertrush told me and wagged his head at the woman.

“Trush?” I nodded at Hasril. “Then trush is a title?”

“Ish…medal of honor,” Briertrush informed me. “An' thris Shasra, Hasril's pro…prog – “ “Progeny? Daughter?”

“Daughtrer.” Briertrush sounded relieved. The crease between his eyes smoothened out.

I smiled at the women. Hasril smiled back, said something to Shasra and gestured toward Lisa. I was curious, since Kubraen adolescents had been indifferent to Lisa. From not having grown up with kids, or from never having reached full puberty and maturity? Maybe both. I'd a feeling that with our approach toward the nourishing food of their homeland, Hasril wanted her daughter to get acquainted with children.