Lamarchos (15 page)

She caught up with Stavver as he sauntered through the archway into the campground. “Did you see enough?”

“No.”

“No?”

“It'll do.” He chuckled and ruffled his hand through her hair. “There's never enough to make a strike foolproof.”

“Greedy.” She shifted Sharl to her other side and took his arm. “Then it's tonight.”

“Talk about something else.”

“Well … why do those eerie characters creep around through … through wormholes like that?” She shivered.

“Apparently they're innate agoraphobes.”

“Huh?”

“Afraid of open spaces.” He freed his arm and dropped it around her shoulders, pulling her against him as they walked together toward the caravan. “In a way, that's a blessing for this world. Keeps the scaly foot off the Lamarchan neck.”

“Hm. What are you going to do the rest of the day?”

“Sleep.”

“Just sleep?”

He chuckled and held her against him. She could feel his ribs shifting. “Well, maybe not all afternoon.”

Chapter V

“Ah.” Aleytys touched the palm with the tips of her fingers. “I see a time of change coming for you. A time when you stand ready to make a choice.”

The girl bounced excitedly on her knees as she bent her dark head over her palm. “Makaoi. You see him? Will he ask my father …?”

Aleytys slanted a glance at her suppressing a smile. “It may be so. However the scales balance very evenly here. See this line. It branches here going both right and left. A change comes in your life soon, a point where you balance between joy and sorrow. And see here, the promise of sons.” Once again Aleytys tapped the palm, fingers pattering lightly across the plump flesh. “There is another thing.”

The girl sucked in her breath. “Ay, gikena, what is it? What is it?”

“See the jag in the line here. A sorrow comes. For a little while there will be a strong unhappiness. But it will end and your life runs smoothly thereafter. As all things pass, so will this time of pain.” Gravely she closed the small hand into a fist. “That is all.” She pulled her hands away, and rested them on her knees, eyes lowered in dismissal.

After bowing so deeply her head nearly touched her knees the girl jumped to her feet and ran away, staring intently at her hand.

Aleytys granced briefly at the patient figures sitting cross-legged waiting their turn with the placidity of a people who regulated their time by the changing of the seasons rather than the petulant ticking of clocks. She sighed. “Leyilli?”

“Si'a gikena?” Maissa bent over her solicitously, her pointed face smoothed into a bland courtesy.

“I'm tired of this stupidity.”

Maissa bent lower until her breath brushed against Aleytys' hair. “Don't be foolish. Don't change the pattern this day of all days.”

Aleytys' hands clenched briefly into fists then opened. She smoothed them down over the batik, then slapped them onto her knees. Without a further word she surged onto her feet and walked without haste toward her caravan. Maissa swallowed her anger but her throat was too constricted for speech so she snatched up the leather with the pillow caught in the folds and followed Aleytys into the caravan.

Stavver lay stretched on the bunk, deeply asleep, his body relaxed as a cat's. On the other side of the narrow space, Sharl snuffled peacefully in his morning nap. Aleytys touched the curls on her baby's neck, then stepped a single step away and looked fondly at the other sleeper. His black hair still confused her image of him though she was gradually getting used to it. She let her fingers flicker over his head barely disturbing the fine hair, then stroked the wispy curls beside his ears feeling a gentle tenderness suffuse her and she wondered what it would be like just to stay with him, to forget about.…

Maissa slapped the curtains aside and hurled the leather to the floor. When Aleytys turned a startled face to her, she hissed, “What do you think you're doing? You want to ruin everything? Get back out there.”

Stavver stirred restlessly but didn't wake. Aleytys settled onto the bunk beside him, her hip fitting into the curve under his ribs. “If you wake him up, he won't like it.”

Maissa coiled her small hands into claws. “Ignorant ground-walking shit. Don't you know anything? I can't believe you'd break pattern the day he goes in? Begging for those fucking snakes to spot the anomaly and rope us in?”

“Pooh!”

Maissa gaped, unable to believe what she heard.

“Nonsense.” Aleytys chuckled. “Relax. Pattern? Tchah. These people know I'm gikena. Whatever I do, that's my pattern. Ahai, Maissa, relax before it's you who blows the cover.”

Maissa glared at her, then stamped out of the caravan, her nerves strung so taut that her body seemed to jerk even when she stood still. Aleytys slid off the bunk and leaned out the back watching her go. Then she sighed and slid the heavy curtains shut. As the rings clattered along the rod Stavver grunted in his sleep, shifted position slightly, bringing Aleytys to hover over him. But his breathing steadied. She sighed, ruffled Shari's hair. He murmured in his sleep, then his breathing was soft and slow again. “What stimulating company you are, my loves.”

She stretched out on the mattress so that she lay staring up at the painted ceiling, her hands clasped behind her head. Working through the exercises that relaxed her body and mind, she sank into the deep semi-trance that let her touch the creeping tendrils of the diadem's influence. The hazy uncertain presence grew aware of her.

“I greet you, rider in my head.” She let the words flow slowly smoothly across the tranquil surface in her mind, surface like a deep black pool, cool and placid, unchanging and remote. Shimmering in the water ghost images of amber eyes opened, then faded, opened again and faded once more. Frustration tingled through her. The black water surface shattered. Tension hardened the muscles in her neck. Carefully she quieted her pulses, letting the black pool form again.

“Don't do that.” She let little trills of laughter like pink and curling ribbons frame the creeping words. “I need your help.” The words flowed off leaving the water tranquil again. Amber light flared and vanished. “Good.” For a hundred slow heartbeats she rested silent, holding her body rhythms slow and deep until the air, the earth, the whole Lamarchos throbbed in union with her.

“I need you.” On the mirror surface of the black water pool the words drifted momentarily then dissipated. The amber light came back. With it, on the edge of her consciousness, came the dim perception of a feeling of curiosity. “Stavver goes into danger tonight. I feel that if it weren't for me he'd have got himself out of this mess long ago.” She rested again, lying on the swelling breast of the world. “I want to go in with him, but only if I can be of help. That thing you do when you stop the world … if we get into a mess could you do that for us? Both of us?”

She waited. After a time while she listened with all her being, the amber light flared briefly and she felt a distant sense of acquiescence, like a yes whispered into the face of a storm. “Madar bless, Rider. There's another thought I had.” Again she gave the words time to sink. A ripple of curiosity flittered around the corners of her mind. “Yes. I know so little about you. Could you warn us if one of the Karkiskya is coming? Or if we were heading into some kind of trouble?” She hesitated, coming up a little out of the trance state as she struggled to phrase the query so that she could wring some kind of meaningful answer out of the fragmentary impressions that constituted the only means of contact she had with the diadem. “Could you warn me—somehow—if someone was coming?”

As she lay holding her senses open to the faintest of twinges, feeling the slow thud of the muscle clenching and unclenching in her chest grow even slower … she felt the pulses, counted them, one hundred … two hundred … a shock of fear jolted her body upright until she was standing beside the bed trembling and disoriented. “Ahai Madar!” she gasped.

Sharl lay on his back playing happily with his toes totally entertained by the feel of his own fascinating self. She looked across at Stavver. He was flaccid with sleep, the discipline of his craft strong enough to overcome all the disturbances around him. He slept each time before he worked the night. He slept, allowing nothing without or within to interrupt this time of blankness that honed body and mind for the intense effort ahead when his senses would be stretched to their widest outreach. She sighed and lay back on the mattress. When her body had slowed to trance she murmured into the silence of her head, “You really pulled strings that time, Rider. I take it you can warn me if some inconvenient insomniac wandering around is liable to stumble over us.”

Feeling of amusement and agreement.

“Good. And … um … a small twinge, please. The halls in that place don't have room for more. I'd bust my head.”

A brief flash of humor pricked like insect feet across her brain.

“I suppose I'd better leave it at that. If you'll stay ready to pull us out of swampy spots.”

Feeling of acquiescence.

“And warn me if guards or other night ramblers are coming up on us.”

Flash of amber. Acquiescence.

“Funny. It's easier to talk with you this time, Rider. Maybe, given a little more time and practice.…” She sighed. “Never mind. Leave that till later. Ah.…” She sucked in a deep breath, then pushed herself up until she was leaning against the wall. Her head ached until she sent the pain away. She closed her eyes and built a mandala in her mind.

For the next hour she sat in meditation, passing slowly through the mandalas Vajd had given her. Slowly, slowly, the great circles revolved before her, bringing comfort and tranquility into her uncertainty.

A hand touched her shoulder. She looked up, moving her head with slow reluctance, to see Stavver's anxious face swimming over her. Her mouth stretched into a smile, then drooped as she forgot to hold the corners up. His voice sounded harsh against her ears. Distant. As if he spoke through wads of cotton. “Wake up, Leyta. Time to eat.”

Aleytys rocked gently from side to side, breaking herself out of the stillness. “I think I went too deep.”

Stavver shook his head. “It's beyond me.” He stretched and yawned. “Fix me some tea, will you? I need to wash the fog out.”

“Yes, master, certainly, master, anything at all, master.” Her grin faded. “Miks.” He was at the door, his hand on the curtain. “Wait a minute before you go out.”

He leaned against the back wall, smiling sleepily at her. “What is it?”

“Sit down. Please.” She waited until he dropped onto the bunk, his face twisting into an amused somewhat impatient scowl. “I'm going with you tonight.”

“No.”

“Miks, I'd keep out if I didn't think I could help. No. Hear me out. I've got in touch—in a way—with the diadem. Look. You say you're the best. Maissa says you're the best and she doesn't like you. But any thief can find himself in a tight place even if he is the best. You've seen what the diadem can do. There's more. It warns. You're going in late when all sensible beings are asleep, but how can you control the actions of the Karkiskya. Or there might be guards in the halls. I don't know, you may have instruments that could do the same for you, Miks, but should you reject this extra edge? You told me always learn as much as you can even if you don't need the knowledge. Isn't this the same thing?” She dropped her hands in her lap and waited for his response.

Stavver sat frowning, eyes focused somewhere beyond her. After a minute he blinked. “You feel a strong need to go?”

“Yes.”

He straightened the curve in his spine, rubbed the tip of his long nose. “You haven't shown any sign of clairvoyance before.”

“What's that?”

“Never mind.” He pushed off the bunk and stood looming over her, staring intently into her face. “Do you ever find yourself developing new talents?”

“I don't know.” She ran her hands through her hair, then reached out and took hold of his arms. “What's it matter now? I haven't thought about it. Do I go with you, Miks?”

“You come. Keep your mouth shut and don't do anything unless I tell you to.”

“I won't mess things up, Miks.”

He ruffled her hair, grinning affectionately at her. “Good. Now, woman, remember your promise. Fix your master some tea.”

She bowed until her hair tickled her knees. “Yes, wise and honored master, full of … um … extraordinariness beyond description.”

Chapter VI

A fugitive breeze fluttered the worm-eaten leaves sending a rain of powdery dust over Aleytys. She sneezed and wrinkled her nose then followed sounds of laughter down slope to the stream.

Loahn and Puki stood talking animatedly beside two strings of horses obviously having timed their arrivals so they would meet. While the horses sucked greedily at the sluggishly flowing water the two young Lamarchans stood very close but not touching. Aleytys scratched Olelo's stomach. Looks like he's serious about this one. She smiled, feeling a gentle surge of affection for the boy. Then he turned and saw her.

“Si'a gikena?”

“Good evening, Loahn, Puki.” She glanced up at the darkening sky and shivered, nerves tightening as she remembered what was to come. “Loahn, leave the horses with Puki. I have to talk with you.” She set Olelo on the ground and pushed him toward the girl. “Keep watch for us, little one.”

The speaker sat up on his haunches and regarded her with a suspicious gleam in his black eyes. Then he flipped onto all fours and trotted briskly to Puki.

With a quick nod, Loahn tossed the lead rope to the girl. “They've had about all they need. Take the team to Kale when they're done.”

She ducked her head and watched unhappily, radiating a confusing queasy blend of fear and jealousy, as Loahn walked apart with Aleytys.