Maeve (7 page)

Shadith's laughter gently mocked her. “I call them, you pull them, Lee. You don't have to worry why.”

“Huh.” Aleytys shifted on the uncomfortably knobby branch, looked briefly at the ground, shivered and wrenched her eyes away. “Well?”

“Just be a good girl and listen.”

“Girl!”

Shadith sobered. “Look. There. You can see the power flowing like thin lines. Very close but not touching. All you have to do is force a conduit from one to the other. Then, whoosh! Pieces of machine raining from the sky. I'll pick the spots. Mmmm. At least two, I think.”

Aleytys wrinkled her nose. “It seems such a tiny thing to stop that monster.”

Shadith's laughter was full and warm. “Lee, a short between power lines carrying that load! Well, it'll be effective. Believe me. You won't be disappointed.”

“If you say so.” Aleytys backed carefully down the limb to the trunk, then swung down to the forest floor.

Qilasc fingered the nine rule-beads laced on a heavy thong that hung between her high, shrunken breasts. Tipylexne, reserved and impassive, stood beside her, hands tight on the short powerful bow that was the sign of his manhood. Behind him, six nameless cludair squatted calm and ready, expert hunters, with only their skills to worry about, not the life or death of a people.

To one side, Gwynnor waited, back pressed against a tree, unhappy and tautly nervous. She smiled at him and, by effort of will, he produced a twitch of his lips in answer. Slowly, with her help, with the healing effect of the passage of time, with the growing familiarity with a naturally dignified and open-hearted people, he was breaking free from his instinctive revulsion for the cludair. Teaching the cludair boy, Ghastay, the first steps in playing the flute was helping the alteration in his attitude move faster and a good deal more easily. Aleytys' smile widened as she saw him fingering the flute. She gazed thoughtfully at the finely crafted instrument, remembering the meeting in the long house …

“I can't be sure yet,” Aleytys said.

The calm, strong face of the old woman was undisturbed by her uncertainty. Qilasc nodded. “Sister of fire,” she said quietly, looking once around the still faces of the women to gather their agreement for her words. “You can injure the harvester. I know it. And I know that we wish this.”

“There's something else to consider. Have you thought about reprisals?”

Qilasc frowned, her hand going automatically to the heavy wooden beads. “The forest is big. What could they do? Attack women and children?”

“The Company men have the morals of a starving wolf. Or worse. If you hurt them badly enough they might quarter the forest with their energy weapons until there was nothing left but ash.”

“What choice have we?” The old woman shook her head. “Better to die in struggle and free than to lie down until we are nibbled to death.” She turned her head slowly around the silent circle of women. Each in turn nodded agreement. “Father of men?”

Tipylexne nodded shortly, not wasting breath on unnecessary speech.

A sigh exploded out of Aleytys. She rested her hands lightly on her knees. “I can't stay too long with you. I'm on quest. My baby son was stolen from me by a crazy woman and I now travel in search of him.” She sat very straight, her face stern. “As you must see, people of the forest, I can let nothing hinder me.”

“I understand.” The beads clacked again as Qilasc settled back to listen.

“Eventually you'll have to make some kind of bargain with the starmen. In the meantime, I need a distraction, something to mislead the Company men when I do my bit with the machine. One thing I've learned in my travels—starmen are bundles of superstition where groundings are concerned. Anything that smells of native magic scares hell out of most of them.”

Qilasc stirred. “The only magic we know is that of fostering, the magic of growing things.”

Aleytys smiled briefly. “I thought so. The spirits of the earth on this world are gentle and lazy. But the starmen don't know that.” She snorted. “Anyone who'd ravage a forest with that hideous creation has the sensitivity of a …” As she sought an adequate comparison, she glanced at the somber faces around her, halting at Gwynnor who sat huddled near her in one corner of the torchlit house. “Of a peithwyr. So I suggest we play on the fears they already have. The physical they handle with contemptuous ease. As you have already seen. Shall we see what magic can do?”

Qilasc frowned. “I don't understand.”

“I don't mean real magic. I mean tricks. I do my tricks with the machine and you provide a cover that should convince the Company men that you're doing the things I make happen.”

“How will that help?”

Aleytys sighed. “From my experience,” she said patiently, “the only thing some Companies respect is power. If you bargain from a position of power, then you have a chance of getting what you want. Otherwise, they're likely to ignore you.”

A sudden smile lightened Qilasc's straining face. “Like facing a rutting bull weywuks. You don't argue about who rules the path unless you have a spear in the throwstick.”

“Right.” She frowned. “I don't find a word in your tongue for …” After struggling for a way to say what she meant in the limited tongue of the cludair, she went on slowly, “for the making of pleasant sounds like bird talk.”

“Bird talk?”

“Damn. That's the closest I can get to …” She shook her head. “Though one can scarcely say the birds here make a pleasant noise.”

“I don't understand what you're trying to say.”

“And I'm explaining badly. Never mind. Showing's better anyway.” Aleytys turned to Gwynnor. “You carry a flute with you. Do you play it?”

He nodded mutely. Then he shook his head. “I did,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. His fingers fumbled with a thong crossing his shoulder, and pulled the instrument around in front of him. As he spoke, he ran trembling fingers up and down the slender length. “I don't anymore.”

Aleytys moved over to kneel beside him. One hand touched his face. “I need you,” she said softly. “The cludair don't know music and I need music. I need you.”

His mouth worked nervously. Then he stammered, “I can't, Aleytys. Ay-aiiii … don't ask me.”

“You still have the flute. You haven't thrown it away. I think you remember how to play it. Gwynnor, you'll be fighting men you hate, fighting the Company men. Play a few notes for me. Please?”

He licked his lips, glanced around uneasily. Then he raised the flute. At first, the sound that came out was harsh, cracked. Qilasc grimaced, made an impatient movement. This brought anger glowing in the boy's eyes. He licked his lips again and stared blankly into the darkness at the curving top of the long house. When he played again, the sound steadied to a gentle lilting tune that rippled through the dim torchlit council house, startling grunts of delight from the councilors.

“Gwynnor.”

At the sound of Aleytys' voice, the cerdd broke off his playing, looked uncertainly around, then stared down at suddenly shaking hands.

“That is what the cerdd call music. The sound Gwynnor made with the wooden tube. On many worlds music is used to accompany magic, expecially the greater magics. The starmen will expect it and it will cover the reality. What I do is not magic, Qilasc, at least … I don't know, I'm not really sure what people mean by magic anyway … this I do know—if they suspect what's really happening, they have ways of detecting me. Now. Even if you don't have the word for that,” she waved a hand at the flute, “have you anyone who makes sounds like that?”

The old woman sighed. “We're a silent people, fire sister. This is a new thing.”

Aleytys frowned. “Does the sound offend your ears or your beliefs?”

“No.” Qilasc looked vaguely wistful. Once again she glanced around the circle of women, checking their agreeing nods. “It is pleasant.”

Turning back to Gwynnor, Aleytys chewed on her lip a moment, looking thoughtfully from his instrument to his face. “Think you could teach one of the cludair to play a simple tune?”

Gwynnor shrugged. “Depends on aptitude.”

“How long did it take you to learn that thing you played?”

“My life.” His mouth twitched into a brief smile at the shock in her face. “There are lesser degrees of proficiency, Aleytys.” Sadness darkened his young face. “I was apprenticed to a master eileiwydd—a maker of songs—when my gift was found at the Discerning. But …,” the words stumbled painfully from his lips, “he was killed a year ago by the Company men. They came hunting maranhedd and hit the caravan we were traveling with. He … he fell on me … protected me by his body … died as he lay over me … I felt his body shudder … after that I … I couldn't go home … I joined Dylaw. I haven't played …” He dropped into silence.

Aleytys rubbed her finger along the crease beside her nose, then dropped her hand to cover his when she made up her mind. “We need you. Will you try?”

After a minute he lifted dull eyes. “I don't want to.”

“If it would hurt the Company men? Hurt them where they'd really feel it, in their profits?” She felt anger flare in him, partly directed at the Company men, but partly at her for forcing this painful decision on him.

“I'm going to try to teach them to respect the cludair and their forest. I'm going to make them feel cold fear run along their bones whenever they hear the sound of your flute. I want you to wake such terror in them that they'll turn tail and stampede. Will you help me?”

His face flushed then paled. Unable to speak he nodded once. Then nodded again, the hunger in him so intense it battered at her. She clutched at her sliding senses and raised her shields. “Good. How long would it take to teach a cludair a simple tune?”

“Given a youngling with some shade of gift willing to put in a lot of tedious practicing, about a week.”

Qilasc stirred impatiently, pulling Aleytys from her reverie. She looked rapidly around again.

Ghastay squatted beside Gwynnor, stroking his new flute, his fingers moving repeatedly from hole to hole, silently practicing the fingering of the tune.

Aleytys felt a quiet satisfaction that had nothing to do with her purpose here in the forest. A week ago the plainsboy couldn't have come close to the forest boy though they were near matching in age. But the teacher-pupil relationship had insensibly altered Gwynnor's prejudices. Now he had a proprietary attitude toward Ghastay that made Aleytys want to smile. She repressed her amusement, granting him the dignity he needed. “You ready?”

He touched the dart gun at his waist, then the flute, then smiled, a fierce, savage baring of teeth. “When you give word, Aleytys.”

“Remember. When the machine stops, play on a few minutes, no more. When you go, go away fast. Both of you.”

“You think they'll come into the forest?”

“I have no idea. If they do, that's what the hunters are for.” She jerked her head at the squatting cludair. “You and Ghastay take off. I need you both to work up a good healthy terror in those bastards. If you get yourselves killed, you waste a good plan. You hear me?”

Gwynnor grinned at her. “I hear.”

“Ghastay?”

The cludair boy twitched his nose and shook his shoulders, his thin lips curling up with excited glee. “I hear.”

She looked up at the tree and sighed. “Give me a leg up.” Stepping briefly onto Gwynnor's knee, she sprang up and caught hold of the lowest limb. As soon as she was straddling it, she called down, “Begin playing when I whistle.”

“We know, Aleytys. We know. You only told us half a dozen times.”

“Huh.” She clambered laboriously up the trunk then pulled herself out onto the familiar limb until she could see the top of the machine. As soon as she was settled, she whistled briefly.

Below, the eery, jarring music trickled up through, the thick cover of leaves and wound through the noisy clatter from the machine. It made her head ache. My god, she thought, Gwynnor was right. He knows his music. It doubled its impact as it wove in and around the harsh grinding roar of the locust machine. She saw the harvester slow to idle. A dark head came out of the cab, looked around. She could see the frown drawing the blunt features of the man's face into a concentration of disgust. Then armored figures came lumbering around the back of the machine, energy rifles resting lightly on glittering arms, visor-protected eyes moving with trained skill along the deceitfully tranquil face of the forest.

“All right, Shadith,” she whispered, “here we go.”

Together they reached out, found the vulnerable places. One. Two. Shadith bubbled with glee and chose a third. Then Aleytys opened a pathway between the wire shapes. One. Two. Three. Whipping from point to point with the speed of thought. Not needing to hold because the damage was done instantly when the two lines touched.

There was a spectacular crashing and roaring behind her as she slid recklessly down the trunk in a controlled fall. Small fragments of metal came pattering through the canopy of leaves. One struck her on the shoulder, drawing blood before she brushed it away. The jarring music went on as she ran past the boys, glaring at them. The music cut off as Gwynnor dropped the flute, grinning fiercely at her. Aleytys sighed and trotted off toward the village.

Running easily, feet nearly silent on the leaf-padded ground, Gwynnor and Ghastay caught up with her. Once again, Aleytys felt a small triumph as she felt the growing ties between the two boys.

Then Tipylexne came to join them, his hunters silent and disappointed behind him.

“They didn't come?” Aleytys slowed to a walk.

“Not this time.” Then he grunted with satisfaction. “The machine has stopped. You killed it.”

She shook her head. “No. They'll fix what I did.”