Irsud (10 page)

Swardheld grunted. “She gets drunk on words, give her half a chance,” he explained gravely. “But if you listen long enough she usually says something worth listening to.”

Shadith's voice, rich and filled with music, shining like spun silver, broke into an affectionate laugh. “He wants you to think his brain's all muscle, but don't believe it.” Aleytys glowed with the deep feeling the three shared, giving her a tentative comprehension that it might not be so bad after all to join these phantoms. She shunted the thought aside for later consideration and turned her mind back to the expectant pairs of eyes.

“A step at a time. You're the one I knew first, Swardheld. How'd the diadem find you?”

The black eyes narrowed, then Swardheld grunted. “Scram, Shadith. The child's not used to all this yammer in her head.”

Aleytys thought suddenly, all I see are eyes, why am I so sure he's male and she's female? But the auras were so vivid there was no mistaking them.

With a ripple of laughter, Shadith acknowledged the thought, then turned her eyes to Swardheld. “Leave you with the stage, you mean, old growler.” The purple twinkled. “'Bye, Aleytys. See you later.”

Aleytys settled herself back on the bench, stretched out on her stomach, head resting on crossed arms, hair flowing over her shoulders. The breeze slipped along her back, ruffling the rose chiffon, playing in the strands of her hair while she gazed dreamily at the lacy shadow of the mimosoid playing on the surface of the water as the stream glided over a smooth patch of mottled gravel.

“Mmm.” The black eyes took on a long-distance stare. “Time past I was sired in the mountains of Eldstad.” He chuckled. “Grew to manhood there. I wasn't what you'd call one of your better citizens. To be blunt, a damn nasty brat.”

Aleytys gasped. He twinkled at her. “I've had a few years to think, freyka. Don't know why someone didn't bust my head for me except my father was weapon smith to the Jaegere fa Poaeng. One thing I got was good training in two paths—metalworking and fighting. What with this and that, I left the borg before I spent fifteen winters. Stole a sword from the Jaegere. Repellent brat. I don't doubt he was glad to see the back of me. But that sword's the only thing kept me alive the next few years.” His voice slowed and the black eyes stared into the distance, through and far, far beyond the bone of her skull. Then he shook himself out of the reverie and went on.

“The land was cut into a hundred little fiefs. Always fighting. A couple big cities where the fiefholders called themselves kings. And they all had pampered cadres of mercenaries. A man who could swing a sword'd never starve. I learned a lot those days, had some of the rougher edges knocked off me mainforce, picked up a good double handful of dirty tricks in the fighting game, survived and got a little name for myself time I was nineteen. I didn't give a damn about anything those days. Ignorant brawling lout keeping alive because I was quicker than most.

“I'd have drunk myself slow and dead except Ledare Noje Omkringska walked into my fate. The stupidity of Jaegere Tjockskelle had nearly got me killed so I cursed him to his face, kicked the teeth in on his official hero, and stormed out of borg Sjobarre barely ahead of a flight of arrows.

“By the time I came up with Omkringska I was sore as a bee-stung bear, hungry as a fimbul-winter wolf, and parched with a thirst water wouldn't dent. I ran into him and he had a couple veterans hammer some sense in my thick head and fed me, then offered me employment.

“I said my head was thick, but I wasn't stupid even then, just stubborn and hot-tempered. He was quite a man, cunning and ambition and courage enough to conquer the whole damn continent. Did it, too. Took him five years. Time enough to grow me out of my conceit. He took a liking to me, saw something in me no one else bothered to scrape the crust off to find. Taught me the difference between strategy and tactics. I guess every man needs someone to trust. He could have walked on me with red-hot spikes and made me like it and he knew it. Ah well … he stuck those little fiefs together one after the other and made them like it, too.

“Five years. Then he had time to look around. Marry. Beget heirs for the dynasty … the old, old story … the woman betrayed him with her cousin, a greedy snotty little princelet … a pinch of poison finished him. Bitch tried for me too, but I was drunk to eat that night. All that fancy court life got on my nerves. But in the morning Omkringska was dead, the princelet giving orders, and I was running fast and light with an army on my tail.

“I wore out half a dozen horses keeping ahead of them. The only place left for me was my mountains. Even Omkringska'd left them alone. It'd take more than an army to tame those crags and the human rocks that lived in them. The last horse died in a rainstorm that turned to snow toward a black and icy morning. All I had left was the sword I brought out from the mountains and I was damned if I'd let them have that. So I came back to the mountains exactly as I left them, on foot with just a sword to keep me company.

“In the middle of the blizzard, to top everything, the earth started shaking. Behind me the mountain muttered and threw down enough rock to block the pass for which I gave thanks to the spirits of the earth. Then I was lost beyond finding, all the shapes so changed mountain and valley almost switched places in front of my straining eyes. But I didn't have time to worry about that. My most pressing need was shelter. I stumbled into a steep-sided valley that cut most of the wind.

“That I was a dead man anyone would have said, but I was too cross-grained to agree. Fortunately the snow let up before I froze my butt off though my toes should have been a dead loss. The valley was a little cup with walls like … well, walls. What I could see of it, with dawn a gray cold light in the lowering sky, sent a chill not born of cold to my belly. Everything dead. The stink of death about the whole place. Not that I could smell much with a nose half froze off my face.

“When I started to get out of the demon-haunted place, a fork of lightning licked down out of the sky and hit a dead pine. It flared like it was all resin, fell against another tree, set it going. The warmth whispered to me and I swallowed my uneasiness. The fire warmed the chill out of me and warmed life back in. I found the remains of a wrecked spacer there too, next the fire. Didn't know what it was those days, but it was shelter. I crawled inside after testing the walls to make sure they wouldn't crumple on me and mashed old bones to dust before I noticed them in the dark dry interior.”

Purple eyes opened suddenly. Aleytys caught the impression of an impish grin. “Me,” Shadith said. “The clumsy oaf put his boots right in the middle of my poor little bones.”

Swardheld snorted. “You were done with them, weren't you? She had the diadem round her skull. It suckered me like it did you. Without thinking I set it on my own head.” A mental shrug. “After a bit longer, well … here I am.”

Yellow eyes opened. Impression of a vast age and wisdom, warm compassion for frail humanity. Aleytys felt a tinge of the glow she got when she dipped into the power river and an awe that had her in mental obeisance before this one.

“Harskari.” Shadith sounded startled.

“How did you …
you
… get caught in this?” Aleytys swallowed nervously as soon as the words rushed out of her mouth.

Impression of a wry smile. “We all have our weak spots, Aleytys, cracks in the facade we present to the world. I loved a man, I thought we shared our delight and our dreams but I was more gifted and he was jealous. He knew me. Ah, he knew me. He fashioned the diadem for me with all the skill he had and all the fire of his envy-born hatred. Unfortunately I was so wrapped in my studies, so insensitive to him that he trapped me easily. However.…” The amber eyes flicked from the purple to the black. “If you want the story, I'll tell it another time,” Harskari projected quiet amusement, the understanding and acceptance of foible glowing over them all. “Listen, young Aleytys. Gapp has gone to the kipu about what happened here. You'll be summoned soon. You've about.…” The eyes closed briefly. “About two hours to get ready to counter.”

Aleytys jumped up to stand trembling beside the bench, a sudden panic jarring through her. “What!” She wrung her hands. “What can I do? Tell me what to do.”

“Use your head. It's a good one, Aleytys. Don't start depending on us to do your thinking—that's foolish and futile. We can and will aid once you sketch out a course of action. I will say this. Don't run in circles. Make the kipu work for you.”

“How? Do you know.…”

“Not enough. Do you forget we are as strange here as you? Talk to Burash.”

“Burash?”

“He waits.” The amber eyes looked quietly amused. “To scrub your back.”

Aleytys tingled to the combined auras even after the yellow, black, and purple eyes were shut and the personalities faded. She staggered as she took a step, paused, disoriented, as she sought the outward world after the intense inward turning. She licked her lips and said the names like a litany. Swardheld. Shadith. Harskari. There wasn't even an echo inside her head. She was alone.

Circling around the bench she ran toward the mahazh.

CHAPTER IX

Burash looked up as she came in. “You all right?” His betraying antennas flickered erratically, the iridescent colors rippling. “Do you want me or should I go?”

His anxiety hit her like a blow, sending blood in a crimson flush over her face. The phenomenon startled her into stopping to look at him, then, after a moment's futile search to reduce the experience to something she could handle, she moved to the bed and knelt beside him. Still disturbed, she touched his cheek a second then settled herself beside him. “I've been thinking.…” She stirred and looked. “Where's the hiiri?”

He flicked a finger at the tapestry. “In there.”

Her eyebrows went up.

He nodded. “The old queen liked to keep hands and feet around her to run her errands and fuss when she felt like being fussed over, but she wouldn't have them underfoot.”

“The old queen.” She took his hand and cuddled it in her lap running a forefinger up and down the length of it while she thought. “You knew her well?” She watched intently as he answered.

He drew his antennas together in a taut tense curve. “I was her migru for the past year.”

She smiled and cupped his captive hand around the side of her face. “Poor love. Can the hiiri hear us?”

“There's only that between us.” He indicated the heavy tapestry. “Why?”

She shook her head vigorously, a warning in her sudden frown. “Did you fix my bath?”

“The water should still be hot.” His eyebrows arched gently while his antennas tilted into interrogating curves.

She stretched and yawned. “Scrub my back?”

In the bathroom she slipped off the crumpled chiffon, letting it fall into a rosy pool at her feet. As she sank down on the deep-piled rug, she murmured, “Tell me about her.” She curled her fingers around his calf, briefly pleased by the warm alive feel of his flesh. “If the kipu thought the old queen had waked in me, what would she do?”

He stripped off his kilt and knelt beside her, touching his lips to her palm.

Impatiently she freed her hand and put it over his mouth. “There's no time.” Against her fingers she could feel his mouth curve into a brief smile.

Pulling her hand down he said, “Gapp?”

“She's probably with the kipu now.”

“That's all you can think of to fight her?”

“That's all.”

“You'll never fool the kipu.”

“Does it matter? If she sees the value for her in the illusion?”

“Ah.” He radiated a shrewd appreciation with an underlying aroma of humor. After settling himself more comfortably, he pulled her against his shoulder and looked past her at the image of two of them in the full-length mirror. “Hm.” His antennas swayed gently. “When the old bitch was irritated, she'd rub her left thumb over the back of her right hand. Is that what you want?”

Drowsily she nodded, her hair sliding over his chest. As he spoke, softly, slowly, thoughtfully, building a picture of an imperious complex devious old female, she recorded absently what he was saying but on another level of consciousness let her mind drift, staring into the mirror, examining him as he frowned at the slowly popping bubbles in the bathtub.

Blocking her empathic outreach she ran her eyes over his image as dispassionately as she could. His body was human, more or less, enough that there was no shock to her senses. But his face … huge black eyes, size of teacups, divided into hundreds of tiny octagonal facets, bulging from a narrow rather elegant face. A thin nose, sensitive and mobile mouth, pointed chin. Rising above all, the spectacular antennas, whose movements reflected his every mood. He was alien … she let the empathy flood back and the strangeness was gone, evanesced into the steamy air, the image was simply Burash, the total effect of line, shape, form, dear because it was Burash, coalescing into a tenderness that she hesitated to call love because she fled the responsibility. As his voice sounded quietly in her ear, though, she admitted deep inside herself that her feeling for him transcended form and species.

Her body curved against his, a pale amber figure, slender, full-breasted, her long legs sprawled out over the brilliant colors of the lush rug, her red hair over her shoulders in un-disciplined tangles, her blue-green eyes disconcertingly strange in shape and size as she lay half entangled in Burash's mind set. How strange, she thought, how alien I must have looked to him that day. Madar! only the day before yesterday. But he didn't hesitate. He sensed my fear and my loneliness and responded instantly, warmly, without bounds. He crossed that species difference that shook me, still shakes me when I think about it, crossed it effortlessly, discovered somehow that likeness we share, part sexual response but going beyond the mere hunger of body for body to speak directly to … what should I call it, it sounds pretentious to say soul … to speak to that place where my essence abides.