Heart of Light (53 page)

Kitwana looked at Mrs. Oldhall and heard Peter
Farewell laugh softly. He knew immediately why he was laughing.

Farewell didn't believe Mrs. Oldhall would consent to it. He didn't think someone like her, a woman from her background, would allow someone like Kitwana into her mind. And the fact that Kitwana wanted to merge with her, mind and body—the fact that she was the only woman he felt he could ever love—made it all the more difficult for him to ask her.

Kitwana understood that a mind-merge was a very intimate thing. How else could it be, when, for the duration of it, you'd know everything about the other? How could he be daring enough to merge with this woman of golden-brown skin and blue-sky eyes, this woman who managed to be by turns an innocent child and a world-striding goddess—and with all of that, still the most human person he knew?

But then . . . how could he not do it? Let him merge with her for a moment, even if the result would be for him to suffer the grief of separation forever more.

In most tribes—even among the Zulu—such a merge was a marriage, as good as if it had been performed by contract and bride price and firmed by both families. Boys and girls with any magical power at all were told not to allow their power to lead them to mind-merge, even in societies such as the Zulu, where mere sex was seen as the pleasure of the crossroads and meant nothing unless it led to a child.

He understood all that, and he felt a great sorrow for the scruples he could read in Mrs. Oldhall's shocked gaze, but really there was nothing he could do for her in this. She had her choice and he had his.

He would take this almost-marriage, this few minutes of union. He knew that neither his family nor his people could ever approve of her, and that her family would shun him just as violently. But this almost-marriage would not just save a man who'd gotten his wounds saving all their lives, it would also give him his heart's desire for a too-short instant.

And in his mind and heart, forever he'd call her his. His Emily.

But he would not speak nor push his choice on her. He looked at Emily and saw a blush climb, dusky beneath the gold of her cheeks. She ran her hand back, as though to fix her hair, though it had long since slipped the demure bun in which she normally kept it, and twisted wild and dark over her shoulders to her waist. Then she nodded, once. An answer to an unasked question.

She put her hands forward, palms up, offering the physical contact necessary for the mind-merge. Because Peter was between them, her hands were held above his chest. And reaching down to meet them, Kitwana met Peter's eyes, to read in them great shock and surprise, as though this could not be happening at all.

“It might not work, Mr. Kitwana,” she said in a piping voice that seemed to come from someone much younger. “Others have tried to open my power before, and it could not be done. It might be defective.”

He frowned, a quick, impatient frown. “It is not defective,” he said, the idea offending him in a way he could never explain. “There is nothing wrong with your power. I don't know what keys attempted to open it, but I can do it.”

Her hands felt small and moist, beaded with sweat, shaking with nervousness. He closed his hands on hers, and willed his power to touch hers. He knew he had a large magical power. It had been inherited from his mother, he'd always thought, though now he wondered if Wamungunda hadn't simply kept his own power hidden. After so many mistakes, Kitwana was no longer sure he had ever known anything. Certainly other people treated his father as though he had great power. And besides, to have great power, you usually had to inherit it from both parents. Emily Oldhall had great power, too, and he could feel his power touching hers, gently coaxing it into allowing him the freedom of her mind.

For a moment nothing happened. It stretched, silent and impossible—a moment of silence and desolation. He was kept outside of her magic, and she outside his. Their powers only touched, and he could tell hers was at least as large as his—warm and fluttering and beautiful, like a winged creature unsteadily held in the shell of his hand—but he could have known that before he touched it.

And then . . .

And then there was a feeling like the sound of shattering glass, and in the next moment he was a small girl, in a country he could not identify. India, a female voice told him. Mrs. Oldhall's voice. No, not Mrs. Oldhall. Emily.

And Emily was with him, and in him, as he was with her and in her, their minds mingling and their memories—a boy herding goats on a verdant slope, and a girl in lacy dresses watched by her ayah, a young man killing to preserve his people, a young girl mourning for her mother, the stranger in Zululand and the stranger in England. All, all shared, all the same. The knowledge of each other's body as their own, the touch, the melding, the being one.

Hands on hands and mouth on mouth and the vague feeling of the rain falling on them, very far away, in a forgotten world. While their joined hearts beat as though in a single breast and they drew their breaths—combined, in his mind—Emily stood and twirled, laughing, and she wore the wrap the girls of his tribe wore, her hair free. And her glorious eyes—like living pieces of the summer sky—looked into his full of laughter and rejoicing and said, “I never knew it could be like this. I never knew.”

Emily held her power like a golden ball in her hands and extended it to him. “Here, here, here. I wish you to open and use it.”

Kitwana tried to tell her he wasn't worthy. He tried to tell her of his crime. That he'd killed a man and disobeyed his father. But she looked at him and shook her head slightly. In her eyes was the full knowledge of what he was—and perfect acceptance. Acceptance beyond guilt and forgiveness. Instead there was caring and admiration and . . . joy in what he was.

Kitwana had never thought he'd see such an expression in any woman's eyes, much less in the eyes of this woman from so far across the seas.

“I want you to have my power,” she said, enveloping him in the sweetness of her mind, in her admiration. In her love? “You see, I wish you to take whatever you want from me. For now, we're one. And there will never again be a barrier between our souls.”

And Kitwana's mind reached for it, and it cracked in his hands, like an egg, birthing light and love and all goodness—a cascade of warmth and pure joy that fell over them both, like water washing him clean after a long day in the field.

They stayed like that, bathed in her magic a long time, his magic resounding and echoing through hers, like a child delighted to discover a companion, a playmate, after years and years of loneliness. Then from somewhere came a distant voice, one that he remembered as Peter Farewell, the dragon-man, and the voice was amused and cool and distant but also gasping, out of breath and wounded. “Well!” it said, in tones of great surprise, and then mildly, “You might as well call the elephant.”

And they did.

SURPRISED

“Water,” Nassira said.

To Nigel, the word echoed as though she had shouted, “Behold the promised land!”

He had been walking for almost a day now, sweaty and tired, and still splashed in lion blood. Oh, he was grateful for the sandals that kept his feet from being cut or stabbed, but he could still feel blisters form above them. And just recently thirst had joined the other torments, and they had all contributed to his discomfort.

They'd walked through the whole day and into the night, because if they stopped they knew they would both fall asleep and they could not afford it. They'd walked, weary of the sounds in the bush, keeping an eye out for predators. All night, there had been no sign of human habitation. And now, with the sunrise, they had been facing the prospect of walking all day again, without relief, until Nassira had said, “I think I hear water.” They'd followed that suspicion of a sound till it became clear. Now Nassira pointed to a glimmer amid thick vegetation ahead.

There was only one path amid the shrubs and trees and grass that grew wild at the riverside. A narrow path, beaten down by animal or human feet, Nigel couldn't tell. But the water ahead looked limpid and sparkled. “Do you think it will be clean enough to bathe in?” he asked Nassira.

“Oh, yes,” she answered, laughing. “And to drink, too.”

She skipped ahead and he ran after her, longing for the feel of water on his abraded, tired feet.

Suddenly, he saw someone spring out of the bush and grab at Nassira, but he didn't even have the time to scream before something heavy hit the back of his head. And then there was darkness.

THE FAVORED SON

Nigel woke. His head hurt as though something had
been driven into it at the back—a blade that had splintered his thoughts and shattered his memory.

He was lying down on dirt and rocks. And his hands and feet were bound with something that felt like some sort of natural rope or vine. Opening his eyes hurt. The light was too bright and sharp, like a blade, and he groaned.

“So you are awake, Nigel,” a voice said with a great deal of amusement.

Nigel blinked. The ghost of Carew was sitting before him, looking much as Carew usually did—cool, self-possessed and more satisfied with himself than anyone truly had the right to be. Scars marred his skin, which had acquired the reddish tan of a fair person in Africa. The right side of his face was a crisscross of scars, like a network of fine spiderwebbing. But it was Carew, right enough. He smoked a cigarette whose aroma tickled Nigel's memory—Turkish cigarettes. Peter's.

He frowned slightly and his brother's ghost smiled brilliantly. “Gone native, have you, Nigel?” he said, grinning mockingly.

And Nigel was suddenly very conscious of wearing only a wrap and a lion headdress and a belt. The lion fetish—which Nassira had fashioned for him out of the tail and ears, promising Nigel it would have great power under all circumstances and greatly increase his magic—was threaded through the belt. Nassira had told Nigel that with them, Nigel could force someone to tell the truth. Nigel felt ridiculous, but the thought of Nassira distracted him, and he tried to rise and look around. He saw her lying beside him, still unconscious.

“Nassira,” he said.