Irsud (7 page)

“Ffynch Company Rep,” he said crisply. “Sombala Isshi.”

She noted that he tactfully refrained from questioning her in return although his curiosity was clearly evident. “Ffynch Company?”

There was cool speculation in his eyes as he examined her with almost insulting thoroughness, but still he refrained from asking her any questions. “Do you know the Companies?”

“A little.”

“Ffynch Company operates in this sector. Look there.” He rested one hand lightly on her shoulder. She could feel the heat of it through the cloth-of-gold cloak. Again she felt a fleeting twinge of gratitude. She looked down, following his pointing hand until she was gazing at the flat roof of the mahazh. She saw the skimmers clustering there like fleas on a hairless hog's back. “We provide skimmers and maintain them. Among other things.”

“You're traders, then.”

He smiled suddenly, widely, as if she'd said something that amused him. “In a way,” he said temperately. “May I ask you something?”

She watched him for a while, feeling the flicker of chaos hovering. She yearned to reach out and read him, to break through his skilled facade, but she hastily clamped down on the urge. “What do you need to know?”

“About you. If I'm not nayid, neither are you, lady. What role do you play down there?” He flipped a long-fingered hand with over-size knuckles turning the narrow digits into gnarled roots at the mahazh. He smiled his charming smile again. “To a trader all knowledge has value.”

She thought about what she should say. An imp of mischief tickled her stomach. “I'm nursemaid to the new queen. In a way,” she said demurely. As the sacerdote's voice once again boomed into a monotonous invocation she looked restlessly away and saw a massive column of smoke climbing suddenly next to one of the buttes. “What's that?”

It was his turn to follow her pointing finger. “Ha! The wild hiiri choose good time for a raid with the kipu busy here.”

“What?” She peered at the smoke, working out distant indications of turmoil, brilliant flashes breaking through the purple-gray coils. A flicker of motion caught the corner of her eyes, jerked her attention to the mahazh. Three skimmers rose from the roof and darted off to the east. “Will they catch the hiiri?”

“They never have before. By now the raiders are scattered, sitting under shelter, laughing at the futility of the nayadimi effort.”

“They must catch some of them. Where'd they get those?” Her hand moved slightly toward the hiiri burning behind them. “Or the others down there still?”

“The hiiri sell their own.” He smiled cynically. “One tribe will fight another. They only started taking prisoners because they started getting a price for them. Before.…” He shrugged. “Ritual torture. My enemy is not my enemy only if he's dead and his wife and his children and his brothers with him.”

Aleytys shuddered. “I sometimes wonder why men are cursed with intelligence when they use it to such ends.”

“Don't ask me. Takes me time enough to justify my own existance.”

Behind them the stench of roasting flesh was becoming oppressive while the chanting began again and went on and on and on and on until she ceased to hear it. Together they stood and let time flow over them in a sort of shared disgust. After a while she examined his face, meeting a humorous speculative look that stirred the driving curiosity that betrayed her once again as the damper roared on, blocking the mind thrust she aimed at him, not consciously but out of the habit that tripped her up so many times she lost count of them. She tottered and nearly tumbled over the cliff.

Through the whirl that blanked out everything but the fragmented images in her mind she vaguely sensed a strong grip on her arm. She fought back against the chaos, slapped her mind into order. Panting lightly, she righted herself. “Thanks,” she muttered thickly. As her vision cleared, she smiled nervously at him.

“Rab' Sombala Isshi.” The words were spoken almost in a whisper so they wouldn't interfere with the chant. He glanced over his shoulder. Sukall stood mask-faced and rigidly erect waiting with total discipline for his response.

He turned immediately, bowed with careful respect. “Yes?”

“Kipu requests you rejoin your company.” Her message delivered, not doubting his instant compliance, she turned to Aleytys. “Parakhuzerim, your part in the rite comes near. Kipu requests that you come and prepare yourself.”

Aleytys glanced quickly at the funeral pyre where the flames still leaped high in the air. The hiiri were silent, to her great relief. She hoped that smoke inhalation had killed them before they had time to feel the pain of being burned alive. Driving the memory of the screams from her mind, she moved away from the cliff edge, her stomach knotting and unknotting in a sickening rhythm.

CHAPTER VII

Shadows stretched in a long thin bars across short springy grass still damp from the morning's dewfall. Aleytys snapped the wrinkled sheet open, doubled it and spread it over the grass, then collapsed cross-legged in the middle of the pale yellow rectangle. She shivered and rubbed her knees, the slight chill in the early morning air magnified by the excitement that churned her blood. She moved restlessly, plucked at the shoulder straps on the rose chiffon falling in soft careless waves around her legs. As a leaf rustled and a six-winged insect
zzedded
past her ear, her body jerked, shivered. A purposeful crackle snapped her head around. Burash pushed through the circle of giant bamboo and pines shutting her into the clearing.

Eagerly, Aleytys jumped to her feet and stood, fists clenched, heart throbbing, blood rushing so fast her body was bathed in a layer of cold sweat Flushing then paling in rapid alternation she began to tumble into the too-familiar confusion as the damper sent waves of itch agonizing across her back.

Burash caught her as her knees sagged. Leaning against him she sucked in a deep breath, then another and another, disciplining herself to the smooth deep inhalations, making them longer and longer, slower and slower, not-thinking not-feeling until, shaking with reaction, her body colder, a dull feeling at the base of her stomach, she pushed away from him and lowered herself cautiously to the sheet, jerking trembling lips into a momentary smile for him.

Burash settled beside her and held out the knife. “Be careful with this, Leyta.” He cupped his free hand behind her head, his fingers warm and comforting on her neck. “What are you going to do with it?”

Aleytys pushed the knife down so that it rested on his thigh beside his open hand. “Keep that a minute.” She closed her eyes.
Rider
, she thought into the blackness,
remember your promise, remember, remember
.…

“Leyta?”

“Never mind. What do you know of me, Burash?”

Letting the knife slide off his legs onto the sheet, he brushed a knuckle gently over the twitching muscle at the corner of her mouth. “Why, Leyta?”

“I have some … some uncomfortable gifts, uncomfortable for anyone wanting to control my actions.” “So?”

“I need you to do something. No.” She held out her hand, not letting him answer. “There's … oh god … I don't know.…” She wiped at her face, reached toward him, pulled her hand back. “I need you to do something for me. If you want … if you're willing to do it.”

“Yes?” His voice was quiet, full of affection. Supported by this unspoken commitment Aleytys felt the febrile over-stimulation of her nerves flow away until she was calm and relaxed, able to speak with precision and detachment.

“Because he was warned, the slaver took steps to avoid endangering his investment. There's a damn lot I don't know, only the result. He put a thing, a disc, in the muscles of my shoulder, or rather, he had a surgeon do it.” She twisted around. “Here,” she said, “just under my left shoulder blade. Feel.”

He slipped his hand beneath the chiffon and probed the muscles in her back. “There's something hard here.”

“That's it. He called it a psi-damper.” She laughed nervously. “It sends my head into pieces sometimes. Burash.…” The tip of her tongue flicked over her lips. “I want you to cut it out of me.”

“What?” He turned pale, his antennas thrashing wildly as the shock of her words bit into him.

“It won't be hard,” she said rapidly. “It's up to you … has to be up to you. The thing is just under the skin. You said you could feel it. Don't be worried about hurting me, you won't and soon's it's out, as soon as I can smash the damn thing, I can heal myself. You can do it, Burash, please … ah, please, it'll only take seconds, naram, and you'll set me free, you don't know, you don't know, it's one thing being shut up in a few rooms, a prisoner, but being shut up in my mind, how would you feel, Burash, if one of the sabutim put her thumbs through your eyes, broke off you antennas, and it's worse than that for me … remember what it does to me, you've seen it, you saw it just now, please.”

Drowning in the flood of words, Burash shook his head then shook it again, but more slowly, his reluctance dissipating, his resistance crumbling. “I won't hurt you?”

“I won't feel a thing. I promise you.”

“Not just feeling, what if I do something wrong? Injure you?”

“I'm a healer, Burash, when I'm free. I can heal whatever you do in … in seconds. Seconds!” Her lips vibrated against his palms, then slowly she pulled his hands away from her face. After a minute of heavy silence, she said slowly, “I need this terribly, Burash. But only if you want to do it. There's something in me that reaches out when I'm in need and slaves those I need. I don't want to do that to you.”

He pulled free. “If you'll take off that thing and turn over.” His voice shook at first then strengthened as he settled into his decision. He picked up the knife, firming his beautiful mouth into a hard straight line.

When Aleytys was stretched out on her stomach, he felt her back, located the hard place, and touched the tip of the knife to the skin. It was harder than he thought, making the first cut. The knife was sharp but his hand shook, all the strength ran out of his fingers. He shut his eyes for a minute and drove the point through the skin. Grimly he cut the tough reluctant flesh until the point of the knife scraped on metal, then worked the point beneath the smooth disc and with a quick convulsive twist snapped it out of her back.

Blood streaming thick and red down the smooth pale gold skin of her back, Aleytys squirmed rapidly around and closed her fingers on the blood-smeared damper. “Got you,” she said fiercely.

At the southern edge of the clearing, bamboo growing tight against the cliff wall climbed over a pile of rock. Aleytys slapped the damper down on one rock and clawed another free of the pile. With a fierce pleasure she slammed it onto the disc, turning the delicate circuits into scrap. Then she grinned back over her shoulder at Burash whose face was still faintly green. “Watch,” she said.

As he watched, the ragged wound closed until even the marks of the cut vanished leaving only a few streaks of sticky half-dried blood marring her back. She stood and came back to him, her spirits bubbling so high her feet barely touched the grass.

She dropped onto the sheet and closed her eyes, letting her mind flow free, drowning with delight, drowning in the glorious flood of life pouring into her, laughing, laughing, crying at the same time, tears streaming into her mouth open in wild free joyous laughter. She lay back, no, not lay back, flung herself onto her back and held out her arms. Burash laughed, fitted into them, came into her and she into him, body glowing hot to his touch, tasting his excitement until she no longer knew who was possessor and who possessed.

A measureless time later, sunk in a boneless lassitude, she leaned against Burash fitting her body against him as they walked out of the bamboo into the light-filled garden where the morning sun was warm and the stream danced in splendid brilliance. She moved her feet with slow dreamy grace, fitting herself against him, tired and warm and so much a part of him that it was his brain that moved her feet, his heart that beat in her, his blood warm and slow in her veins. She was drunk with love and sex and the hot sun and the pouring of life into the web of her nerves from every living thing—plant, insect, animal weaving their reticulation of life in the garden.

She tilted her head back against his shoulder, resting her hands lightly on the strong arm curling warm Just below her breasts. “I could sleep a hundred years.”

Tenderness flowed out of him in a warm wave that broke over her head and splashed a gentle amusement around her edges. “Better take a bath, narami, though most of the blood's been rubbed off.” He chuckled, then sobered. She could feel small flutters of worry as he went on. “Better no one sees to report it to the kipu. Remember, she threatened to drug you.”

She rubbed her head against his shoulder and laughed comfortably. “Don't bother about that one. Madar, I feel so happy, I don't want to see anything, think about anything, hear anything … come in the bath with me?”

He swung her around, radiating a delight that she felt in her bones with a shock of joy.

Raw red anger slashed through the glow.

Aleytys gasped and clutched at Burash. Reluctantly she twisted her head around.

Gapp slapped her bony thigh with the coils of a black braided whip. The crisp whap-whap-whap beat in Aleytys' blood while the fierce acrid flow of jealousy and rage radiating from the young nayid corroded her soft unwarded soul. She felt Burash's arms tighten around her. He was trembling.

“You. Migru.” Whap-whap went the whip. “Get away from my shigret.”

Burash went sick. The battle inside him threatened to tear him apart. He wanted to stay, to protect his love because he sensed her unconscious expectations. But a lifetime of conditioning combined with the biological imperatives of his species drove him to obey Gapp's command. Trembling, antennas drooping sickly, he dropped his arms and stepped away from Aleytys.