Irsud (25 page)

A while later … clean, dry, hunger comfortably sated … she dropped onto the furs beside Burash and fell into an endless dark chasm of sleep.

CHAPTER XXIII

Tiny figures curved out of undefined distance and swam vaguely round and round the equally undefined point that represented Aleytys' conscious being, red-haired figures, images of herself sitting, riding, screaming, laughing, making love, fighting, images out of the past, immediate and distant, scattered pieces of her life … figures came, transparent twisting veils shaped like … Harskari dark and slim, glowing amber eyes austere, shimmering with a power barely confined to her delicate image, radiating power, Shadith vibrating on a single sustained note, wild clustering curls a glimmering halo about her pointed face, fingers sweeping in soundless rhythms over the strings of the silver lyre … power, challenge, rejection, negation … Swardheld standing foursquare, arms crossed over his chest, ironic amusement glinting in his black eyes, implicit in the fleeting glint of tooth against the black of his shaggy moustache as his mouth moved now and then into a fleeting smile.…

Images of the queen young juicy reborn greedy in her outreach … wait … no I will not wait … the words screamed soundlessly through the miasma of the dream; screamed and bounced back from the sword blade of Swardheld, the bodies of Harskari, Shadith … no … no … no … the rising tide of negation battered at the unripe queen, her black eyes glittered like new-formed bubbles of black water, the multiple facets alternately catching and losing the light … launching her person into a projectile she bounced away and momentarily disintegrated into quivering fragments … came roaring again, a missile driving faster faster … and rebounded again from the wall of the three, shattering into fragments spinning off into the dimensionless mists at the edges of perception.…

Aleytys jerked up, trembling into a panic.

“Gently, love.” From the opaline half-light Burash's voice broke through the nightmare. She felt his hands touch her and lay back on the furs beside him sighing with relief.

“What's wrong?” One hand brushed the hair back off her sweaty forehead. In the gloom where the light was lowered to the outer edge of visibility for the sleeping, his face was a pale blur, the huge eyes black patches gleaming. She smiled at him.

“Nightmare. First I've had in months. Go back to sleep, naram, you need it.”

“I'll never become fond of that horse.”

“You'd be surprised. Another two or three days.…”

He pulled her face against his chest, smothering the rest of the words. “Don't remind me.”

As his grip relaxed she moved her head back and smiled at him. “I wish.…”

“Go to sleep, Leyta. I don't perform in public. Not with you.”

“Mmmmph.” She felt him relax beside her. Warm, content, her body ticking in slow steady tock-tock, the tension of the nightmare flushed out of her, she drifted into a half-doze and heard Burash's breathing slow and deepen also as he sank back into the sleep her nightmare had disturbed. She stuck where she was, not truly awake, not able to lose herself in the amnesia of sleep.

“Shadith.” Drifting drowsily she went back to the symbols that comfort and sharing had robbed of their terrible power.

“Leyta?” The purple eyes blinked open.

“The old queen. It wasn't just a dream. Was it? She tried to take me over, didn't she?”

“Right. We can handle her. Don't worry.”

“But she's getting stronger.”

“Yes, le-any, but we'll kick her yellow teeth in if she gets bumptious.”

“You sure?”

“Sure, Leyta.” Shadith chuckled, the laughter making delicate music at the back of Aleytys' skull. “I'm not much in this line, but Harskari's a raging terror when she starts swinging, and the old grumbler's shocked the pants off me time was. Figuratively speaking.” Her laughter rang out stronger. “Hard to have pants without a body.”

Aleytys smiled into the darkness, then frowned. “Still … I think she's beginning to tap my talents. What happens if she does?”

“That's a pain. Haga-roszh! I'll talk that over with our resident expert, let you know later. You'd better get some sleep, too, it's a long day tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Aleytys turned over onto her back. Thoughtfully she ran her fingers up and down the right side of her body.

“Something else?” The purple eyes blinked curiously.

“Something else. Maybe I'm pregnant.”

“What!” That really startled Shadith. “Impossible.”

“Burash … he's a different species, of course.”

“But you'd like having his child.”

Aleytys felt Burash warm and relaxed beside her. “Yes,” she murmured. “I'd like that.”

“My dear … you and Burash, I know you've made love, how could I help it, but you … you're hominid and he, well, I suppose he arises from some insectile reptilian combination which is, I believe, limited to this particular world. At least I've never seen another like it in all the worlds I've visited. There's no possibility of cross-fertilization. Not in all the science I know.”

Aleytys continued to rub her fingers over her side. “I should have started bleeding yesterday. For two months now.”

“That could be stress. Has it ever happened before?”

Aleytys chuckled briefly then stifled the sound as it echoed hollowly over the soft inhalations of the sleepers. “Yeah,” she murmured. “When I was pregnant before.”

Shadith grunted. “I still think … no, it must be something else.”

Suddenly sick, Aleytys clenched her hands into fists and laid them over her side. “I know,” she whispered. “I know what it is. Oh god.”

“Leyta? What's wrong?”

“I know what sits in my womb. Oh god …”

“Ah.” The purple eyes squinted thoughtfully. “Yes. You're right. You have to be. Wait, le-any, keep your cool. You'll be all right, we'll see to that.”

“It won't let you.”

“Hah! Let Harskari get wheeling and she'll know she's in a fight, the old bitch.”

An involuntary bark of laughter startled Aleytys, the sudden amusement washing the melodrama out of her laboring mind. “With my body as battlefield. Do I have anything to say about that?”

“Tagadas, I'm afraid the fight occurs where the combatants are.”

“Yeah.” She yawned and stretched. “Ahai, friend, I'm tired.”

CHAPTER XXIV

The long shadows spread like black ink over the grassy rubble flooring the narrow canyon. Beyond Aleytys the horses in the pack train pawed restlessly at the ground and shook their halters until the small metallic clinks danced like bells around them. The settlement was a big one, she thought, but you'd never know it. Each of the semi-permanent houses was their multi-pointed leather roofs and log walls was built close to or around the squat leathery leaved trees. Burash stood in shadow close to the shaggy trunk, half invisible. Here and there small faces peered around corners and out of their own patches of shadow, radiating curiosity, tentative hostility, uncertainty. They had tried out a few noises and insults before and had been cuffed into silence and manners. The adults had been grave-faced, accepting, formally courteous.

“Kitten.”

“Kunniakas?”

“They won't hurt him?”

“No. Of course not.” The hiiri hesitantly put her hand on Aleytys' arm. “I'll take care of him. But he was the word of the Paamies.”

“I know. But Nakivas won't be there.”

“I'm here. I know the worth of this one.”

“Thanks.” Aleytys smoothed her hands over the soft white leather tunic. “I like this thing,” she said absently. “It was good of your people to make it for me.”

“Not my people.”

Aleytys shook her head. “Kitten, Kitten.” She brushed the long graceful fringes hanging to her knees. White leather leggings clung to her legs fitting over soft low moccasins. She sighed and swung lightly into the saddle. “I don't feel good about this trip, Kitten.”

Aamunkoitta shrugged. “It's a debt.”

“And debts must be honored.” Aleytys looked up, surprised to see the sun sliced into a nubby orange half glowing in layers of sunset gilding. There wasn't a cloud in the brilliant bowl of the sky. A chill passed over her … black over the sun … high and thick … but passing too fast to seize on … the image was extraordinarily vivid, strong enough to overcast the reality around her at least for a fleeting moment. She shivered and shoved away the uneasiness.

Nakivas called out and the pack train began walking toward the slowly disappearing sun.

All that night they wound through the knife-edged canyons moving in alert silence, the only sounds the thudding of hooves, an occasional scraping sound, the creak of leather and the muted jingle of the halter rings.

They came over the edge of a ridge and wound down to a steep-walled flat-bottomed canyon bisected by a gently roaring mountain stream that plunged around boulders bubbling white water. Behind them the sun crept up, growing rounder as it oozed over the rim of the world, sending long shadows stark and beautiful over the pale gray stone, stark and beautiful too in its way, the morning fresh and new, waking to sound with scattered birdsong.

As they crept down the side of the mountain on the layered switchbacks, Aleytys searched the still silent canyon for the silver needle of the smuggler's ship. Eventually she found it. But it was no silver needle. It blended against the stone so that it looked like smoke floating insubstantial and unreal above the ground.

The pack train picked carefully through the scattered boulders that dotted the floor of the canyon like spilled marbles, some higher than the horses' backs. The water of the stream was icy cold, the sound of the horses' hooves muffled on the hard-packed sand of the ford. Across, at the edge of the shadow that marked the edge of the circle of ash, three men sat, still and silent, beside a black cloth spread out on the ground, a deep black cloth offering silent piles of small glittering things, knives and needles, arrow points and bullets, darts and projectile throwers, pots and rope, bolts of cloth and jars of beads, and more knives, axes … heads not hafts … dark gray-blue iron wedges, pots of paint, brushes, and shiny anonymous things that screamed for fingers to touch.

Nakivas stopped his horse when its forefeet touched the trade cloth. “Hyvaa huomenta, salaku.”

“Aspash, trax.” The center figure of the three spoke, his voice a light tenor.

Watching, sitting hands crossed on saddle horn, Aleytys waited for the signal to dismount, spending her waiting time examining the three strangers.

They sat impassively with a dignified formality beside their goods. The center, obviously the leader, had straight black hair tied back from his face with a wide leather strap, a thin bony face projecting a sardonic cynical enjoyment of life's absurdities, enjoyment even of his own personal follies. A man who took few things seriously. To his right sat a pale man. The sight of his shock of white-silver hair, colorless translucent skin, watery blue eyes, thin thin wiry body, all these brought a flush of excitement flashing through her. He looked so much like Miks Stavver he might have been the thief's own brother. But the face was different enough, somehow more vulnerable. He was, in a way, less of a man, like a paler copy, emotions, wants, needs, all more muted. Aleytys looked away, turned to the third man.

He sat on the leader's left, crouched rather, a small dark cat of a man, quick pointed ears that moved restlessly through the ragged thatch of coarse dark hair. He stared at her briefly then his eyes slid away sweeping over the rest of the hiiri, then darted back to her.

Nakivas grunted. “Trade-truce, salakul.” He took the knife from his belt, leaned forward over his crossed legs, and placed its hilt toward the three. Eyes fixed on the leader, he straightened his back and waited.

Wide mouth twisted into an irreverent smile, the leader produced a knife of his own and placed it hilt to hilt with the other, eliciting a small but audible click. He straightened, beckoned to the pale man.'

“Paoengkush.” He lifted two fingers and the pale man nodded.

He came back with a silver tray, on it a silver pot steaming in the crisp morning air and, beside the pot, two crystal cups. With a murmured word of thanks the head smuggler took the tray and set it between himself and the hiiri. He poured two cups full of the steaming liquid, a gold-brown translucent liquid with a delicate herbal scent. Then he waited, hands spread, for Nakivas to make his choice.

Nakivas smiled tautly, lifted the cup on the right and waited in his turn. The smuggler, grinning, took the other, sipped briefly. Nakivas sipped then from the cup, then held it as he beckoned to Aleytys.

She slid off her horse, noting that the rest of the hiiris followed her example,-settling themselves in a mute ring between the horses and the bargain ground. Nakivas touched the earth beside him. “The bargaining begins now, Kunniakas. Take a sip of this, will you? I've often wondered what it was.”

Aleytys took the cup from him and tasted the still hot liquid. “Good,” she murmured. “I recognize this. Tea. Nothing underhanded here. Simply a refreshing herbal infusion. By the way, if you're interested, I understand what he's saying, I speak his tongue.”

“Ah.” Nakivas glanced shrewdly at her. “If you hear anything to my profit.…”

“Of course. Then you don't want me to let them know I understand what they say?”

He laughed, eyes twinkling with good humor. “Kunniakas, never give anything away without getting something for it. Never.”

“Not even for the sake of improved communication?”

“We communicate well enough, Kunniakas. You watch and tell me what excites him, I'll make the bargains. We' begin. Now.” He snapped his fingers and the silent hiiris began unloading the packs, setting them down beside their leaders. Nakivas took out a pelt, ran his fingers through the pale amber fur, emphasizing the rich glow and the thick texture.