Irsud (15 page)

“Good.” She smiled at him, feeling a glow of response even though she realized that he had deliberately provoked the feeling in her. “I agree. One thing. The kipu'll be hot after me and every cityqueen will have her greedy fingers clawing the hills.”

He shrugged. “The land speaks to us. They maul it with their machines and their poisons so that it resists them where it opens to us. I think once away we'll have little trouble staying free.” He stood up. “I'd give a lot to keep you with us, Kunniakas. You know that. We would drive the hyonteinens from our land like you drove death from my body.” He looked down at his arms and closed his hands into fists so that his wiry muscles rippled under the smooth unmarred hide on his forearms.

Burash shifted to sit beside Aleytys, hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

“You … hyont …” He bit his lip. “What clan are you?”

“Seppanu,” Burash said quietly, answering without hesitation. “These …” Burash jerked his head at the mahazh and swung his hand in a tight circle. “They're Reyshanu.”

Nakivas grunted with satisfaction, convinced at last of Burash's status, convinced simply because he'd named two names. For a moment Aleytys felt intensely depressed, intensely aware of how alien both of them were, aware despite her gifts how often she misread, misunderstood both. “You will be welcome in my tents,” Nakivas said formally. He extended both hands.

Burash bowed his head then rested his hands on the hiiri's. “You do me honor, leader of men.”

Nakivas nodded briefly. For a minute the two of them shared a common bond as males, shutting out both Aleytys and Aamunkoitta. Then the hiiri glanced up at the silent mahazh. “I don't like it here.” Turning to Aleytys he held out a hand. “Have we anything else to say?”

She took the hand. “I think not. You'll return?”

“One month. To arrange details.”

“Good.”

Nakivas nodded briskly then melted into the shadows, startling her by his lack of valediction.

“What a night.” She ran her hands through her hair. “You'll be all right, Kitten?”

“Yes.” Aamunkoitta raised her eyes from the shadows.

“Let's go to bed.”

CHAPTER XIII

Aleytys frowned at the elaborate red robe. Her instinct was to send it back to the kipu with a biting rejection. Sensing her anger, Burash put a hand on her shoulder, his fingers tightening with unspoken warning. The guard waited, eyes fixed rigidly forward, antennas jolting uncomfortably in small agitated circles.

“I consider,” Aleytys said softly, emphasizing the lilt affected by the old one. “Wait outside. You distract me.” She flipped a hand in a two-fingered gesture at the nayid.

The guard snapped a hand to her forehead and lips, then retreated through the archway, radiating a strong relief as she left the disturbing presence of the parakhuzerim.

As soon as the tapestry dropped behind the youthful guard, Aleytys hissed to Burash, “Should I stand for this?” She poked a finger at the brilliant red material bunched over the arm of the chair. “All that red. It yells kipu. She's really pushing.”

Burash patted her arm, smiling into her angry face. “Obviously she's had second thoughts about you. Calm down, narami.” He waited a minute until she smiled back at him and let her shoulders relax. “The old one did wear red,” he said. “When she wanted to annoy someone.”

“Huh.” She poked at the material again, then looked back at him over her shoulder. “Everything tells me not to let her get away with this.”

“Take care, Leyta.” Burash looked worried. “You can't afford to lose your temper.”

“Hah. Sometimes I can't afford not to. Let that bitch have an inch.…” She groweld deep in her throat and twitched the robe into a heap on the floor. Then she arranged herself in a graceful languid curve against the side of the chair. “Call that guard back.” She shook her head at Burash's frowning face. “I won't blow it, naram.”

Aleytys waited until the guard was standing rigidly erect in front of her. “You can remember what is told you?” she asked, her soft cutting tones sending tremors through the young nayid's body. The nayid's voice when she spoke was husky and hesitant, although she strained to maintain her military crispness.
“Im, belit Damiktana.”

“Excellent.” Aleytys packed sarcasm into her gentle murmur. “Tell the kipu this. I find her choice of robe a trifle too blatant. I request she consider again. A touch of this color is sufficient indication of commitment and would be, perhaps, more convincing. The rapier is subtler than the bludgeon and, to my mind, more effective.” She lifted a hand. “You have that?”

The guard touched her forehead, face pale, fingers trembling. She swallowed, throat working visibly.
“Im Damiktana.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go.” Aleytys suppressed a grin as the nayid backed out of the room with more haste than grace.

“There's one I've got more than half convinced.” She stretched and sighed.

“One.” He shook his head at her grin. “Get into your part, Leyta, and stay there.”

“Ahai. It's so damn dull.” She stretched again and pattered across the tiles to stand staring out at the garden, glowing green and gemlike in the brilliance of the morning sun, drops of dew sparking and diffusing into the warming air. “Damn.”

She wheeled and pressed her back against the glass. “Why am I still here, Burash, tell me! I could get away, you know it. I could be gone from here tonight.”

“And go where?”

She rubbed her hands up and down the cool glass. “I don't know. The star city?”

“What would you do if you got there?” Burash shook his head and crossed the room to stand beside her. “And how would you get there?”

“Steal a skimmer, one of those boats out on the river, a horse … I don't know.”

Burash pressed the milky square so that the door slid up and the fresh cool air flowed in. “All this is froth, worth as much as those dew drops sublimating into the sun.” He turned her around and made her look into the garden. “Well?”

Her shoulders moved impatiently under his arm. Mutely she stared past the greenery at the massive granite blocks of the wall that made the garden a prison in spite of its beauty. After a while she sighed. “So. Back to the tedious sly maneuvering.”

“Belit Damiktana.”
The nervous shrilling of the guard sounded through the tapestry.

“Pah.” Aleytys stepped backward, bumping against Burash's solid chest. As he moved his arm and turned away she strode past him and climbed into the chair at the foot of the bed. “All right, naram. On your head. Send that shiver-shanks in.”

Burash held the tapestry aside while the guard sidled reluctantly inside. She halted before the chair with a double nayid arm-span between her and Aleytys, a blue-green robe folded stiffly over her arm.
“Belit Damiktana,”
she said hoarsely, then stopped to clear her throat as unobtrusively as she could. “The kipu thanks you. She requests you consider this robe.”

Moving awkwardly she unfolded the garment and held it out so that it fell in graceful folds from the points she grasped between thumb and forefinger, the other fingers lying curled stiffly against her palm.

The robe's basic color was the queen's blue-green, several shades darker. Tongues of fire were embroidered around the hem in a brilliant red that went leaping up the left side nearly to the shoulder.

Aleytys stifled her leap of pleasure at the sight of the lovely garment and waved a languid hand at the guard. “Give it to the migru.”

Keeping as far from Aleytys as she could, the guard handed the robe to Burash and edged back.

“Inform the kipu that the robe is acceptable.” Aleytys tapped her forefingers lightly on the wood of the chair arm. “She is to come for me in thirty minutes.” She stared haughtily at the guard. “Well, do I have to escort you to her myself?”

“Pardon, Damiktana.” The guard gulped. Hastily she backed out, her antennas semaphoring her agitation while her mind radiated her barely controlled melange of hatred and fear.

Aleytys hopped out of the chair and ran to Burash, cooing over the exquisite robe. With his help she pulled it over her head and fastened the ties. She looked down at herself and smiled with delight. “It's almost worth it.” She laughed and danced around the room, the full skirt ballooning out from her body.

In the bathroom, she brushed her hair smooth and posed in front of the mirror, turning this way and that, immensely pleased with herself, forgetting for the moment the purpose of the thing that charmed her. Burash pushed the tapestry aside and laughed when he saw her.

“Flying high,” he said. “Up and down again. Leyta, Leyta.”

She flashed a grin at him, but the elation drained swiftly out of her. Sighing, she let the wings of the robe fall, smoothed her hair back from her face and walked back into the bedroom with Burash trailing behind her.

She settled herself in the chair to wait for the arrival of the kipu. “One more month,” she said, then glanced at Burash. “Something strikes me as curious. That guard. She was blasting out fear and fidgetiness and antipathy, as if she were terrified of me and hating me at the same time. Why?”

“The old one.” Burash leaned against the back of the chair and ran his fingers over her hair. “And I think she's one of Gapp's Leyta.…”

“Hm?” She rubbed her head dreamily against his hand, a sudden warmth in her belly, her nipples hardening.

“You asked me once why I came to you that first morning.”

“You said.…”

“I know.” His hand slid down and curved around her neck. “I know. After I saw you, talked to you, after.… I couldn't.…” Though he stopped talking, the tips of his fingers kept rubbing up and down on her neck; he was troubled with a complex of emotions Aleytys found disturbing and confusing, chilling her. She leaned back and stared into his abstracted face.

His hand stopped moving. “I came intending to kill you, Leyta. Take your neck in my hands and squeeze until the life went out of you. Rid this world of that curse. She poisoned life here too many, many years. I couldn't do it.” His voice broke and she felt anger and pain dominate him. “If you'd been different? I don't know. If I could kill the thing in you without.… I can't.” He pulled away from her and ran from the room.

Aleytys slid out of the chair and started after him. “Burash mi-naram, wait.…” The door to the lift slid back and the kipu stepped out. Immediately Aleytys straightened, stiffened the mask on her face, cursing the inopportune arrival of the nayid. As the kipu moved aside to let the honor guard file out, Aleytys straightened her back and stepped daintily to her place a half step in front of the kipu. Simmering with impotent anger she fought for control as she silently tripped along beside the lanky insufferably complacent kipu, the guard clicking snap-snap-clank with military regularity behind them.

“Good girl, Leyta.”

“Steady, child.”

“Whip it to them, freyka.”

The three whispers, soprano, contralto, basso, blew through her head, leaving her cool and calm, focused on a double purpose, escape and destroy. Escape. Destroy.

CHAPTER XIV

Hiiri's eyes, dark, lively, curious, speculative, following with sly persistance, lowering with hypocritical meekness before the nayid arrogance, blind arrogance, rising again behind nayid backs with mocking dark glances making nonsense of their submission waves of hatred and fiery anger poured out of them around the deaf ignorant bodies of the nayids, flooding Aleytys' mind until she trembled behind the austere mask held precariously on her face. Walk, feet slipping hollowly over tiles through miles and miles of ochre tunnels, storerooms musty with dust-covered bins, names, names, names, so many names,
bubutt lapashana patret mastitanauzzin shiru nunnana kurmat alpapana shikarun
, the names slipping nimbly from the tongue of the cook-master until her head ached, her heart labored with dark terror to be so far underground shut in dim rooms, thick walled prisons, suffering, but her spine stiffened by the sardonic amusement pouring from the wiry arrogant kipu.

Eyes. Nayid eyes on her, curious, speculative, shuttered, flutterings of terror and from the kipu cold calm pressing waiting for her to break, to loose the hold on the game pressing, testing, driving to her limit and beyond, no fear here, amusement, sardonic and cruel, cat playing with mouse, extending the illusion of freedom and waiting to the very last moment to plant the razored paw on the fleeing tail, stubborn sullen refusal to surrender. It held her back straight and the stiff curved smile fixed on her face.

A massive door opened. Aleytys stepped delicately through. A respectful half-step behind her the cook-master said with red-neck pride, “These are the hiiri hadaa. You can see we keep them secure. And away from the stores. There's no way one of the little beasts can creep into them.” She sniffed, ignorant, spiteful, contemptuous. “What they didn't steal, they'd spoil. Like rats. Destructive beasts without sense enough to respect property. You know, out in the wild, they're animals. No moral sense at all. Couple with their own mothers, no doubt.” She shuddered. Aleytys couldn't see this but sensed the frisson behind her, the hatred and sly repressed envy blaring out from the cook-master's psyche. Harskari, help me. Help me. Shivering knees going weak, she cried out for strength to endure the battering of her senses. She closed her eyes a moment.

“Steady, child.” The deep contralto voice was slow and kind, pouring like honey over her desperate spirit. “Look ahead. You had no part in birthing this horror, but you will have a part ending it if you go on with the plans.” A faint chuckle. “The ones you haven't told hiiris about yet. Or Burash. Hold onto that thought, my dear.”

“Yes.” As she flung the word back at the closing amber eyes, exultation flooded her. Soaring up out of despair she coolly examined the dank cellar with its narrow barred embrasures rising steeply toward a distant light. Narrow wooden shelves projected from the walls in tiers of three with a narrow gap between each tier, a gap furnished with a few wooden pegs where the hiiri's meager possessions hung, a spare dress, or a tunic, an embroidered sash. And the smell. Aleytys wrinkled her nose. “Yes.” She yawned delicately. “Admirable. Ah, kipu, commend the cook-master for me, if you please. Then let us rise to more pleasing surroundings. The smell.…”