The Singers of Nevya (90 page)

The stranger on the hill swept her furs away from her face as Sook watched, revealing short-cropped dark hair and an angular face, sharp planes of cheekbone showing clearly in the harsh light. A hint of white marked one of her eyebrows.

Sook was breathless with excitement. There were stories she had heard from travelers eating at the long table in the kitchens. They told of a Singer, a Conservatory-trained Cantrix who had abandoned the Cantoris and done heroic things. That Singer had a scarred eyebrow, marked with white by a
caeru’s
claw.

The bolt in her door rattled sharply, making her jump. She hadn’t heard the carvers return. The door crashed against the inner wall, and Cho staggered into the room. His mouth was strangely twisted, and he peered at her as through a thick fog. He grabbed for her, missing her arm and taking instead a painful, clumsy grip on her neck beneath her coil of hair.

“What is it?” she cried. “Let me go!” She struggled in his grasp, managing only to pull the hair at her nape more sharply. The sting of it brought tears to her eyes.

Cho only grunted. His dark skin was slippery with sweat, and he almost lost his hold on her as he dragged her by force through the apartment and down the corridor. The tears burned her cheeks and she screamed her outrage. “Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

At the top of the stairs two rebel carvers met them. Cho let her go, but the carvers took her arms and half-dragged, half-carried her down the stairs. She kicked at them, catching one a glancing blow on his shin. He swore, and she turned her head to spit in his face, winning a brief moment of satisfaction from seeing her spittle drip down his cheek. He dared not release her to wipe it away. “Shame!” she hissed at him. His skin burned red, and he avoided her eyes.

Behind them Cho stumbled and made a gagging noise. Sook thought he might actually retch as they rushed down the staircase. She could only guess what it all meant, but surely, surely it had to do with the tall woman on the
hruss
.

Two itinerants, eyes wide and faces pale, threw open the double doors as they approached. The carvers hauled Sook outside, and for a moment she thought she was to suffer the same fate as Mura. The cold hit her like a fist; she had only her tunic and trousers on. Cho and the carvers hadn’t taken time to put on furs either.

Cho came from behind to seize her by the hair, tearing the binding loose, thrusting her forward and holding her as he might dangle a cleaned fish over a cooking pot. Her neck was twisted to one side, and she lost her footing. When she found her balance again, she looked out past the courtyard to the top of the rise.

The tall woman was still there. Three other
hruss
stood beside hers.

Sook’s heart leapt, and her pain and tears receded. Even the bite of the cold seemed to lessen as she saw that one of the riders push back to show his light hair and fine features. It was Zakri, Singer Zakri come at last! Sook smiled fiercely through the cloud of her tangled hair.

Cho panted as if from a physical struggle. It was not the effort of holding Sook. Something else was pushing him right to the edge of his endurance. He groaned, and swallowed noisily. Sweat dripped from his arm onto Sook’s neck. He took a deep breath and shouted, so close to her ear that it hurt, “Stop!”

Sook knew as surely as anything that he was frightened, and she exulted. “Stop it now, or else this one—” He yanked Sook’s hair so hard she thought her spine would crack. “This one will suffer the—”

He gasped, and swallowed again, then jerked Sook right off her feet.

The tall woman raised her hand, and Cho let out his breath in a rush. He released Sook without warning. She fell, bruising both her knees on the icy step. She scrambled to her feet again, and looked up the hill, full of hope.

Sira remembered well what it felt like to break another’s mind. She remembered it too well, in truth: the power of it, the rush of energy, the sickening sensation that was like pushing someone off a cliff. It had been an irrevocable act, with irreversible consequences. It came back to her in her nightmares, the exhilaration, the violence, the guilt that overrode everything and lasted forever. It made her hold back when she exerted her power over Cho.

Cho’s Gift was less sophisticated, less refined, and far less vulnerable than that other’s. She did not know for certain she could break him, and she did not try. With Zakri and Theo lending her their strength, and Mreen under strict orders to keep her mind closed and apart, Sira applied her psi like a hook, a tether, taking hold of Cho and pulling him out of his lair as surely as he had pulled that poor girl by her long hair.

He was a canny opponent. He resisted her with a stubborn strength. He held her off just enough to drag his hostage out with him, though the effort had cost him. She felt Zakri’s shielding waver, and the rush of his relief and then his renewed fear. She had no doubt Cho was capable of breaking the girl’s neck before them all. She raised her hand to make certain Cho understood her action was deliberate before she released her grip on his mind.

Cho’s victim collapsed on the steps, but was instantly on her feet again.

“Sook!” Zakri breathed. “Thank the Spirit!”

Berk rumbled, “Clever bastard.”

Cho’s high-pitched voice carried across the couryard and up the slope of dirty, much-trodden snow. “It won’t work!” Sira heard the forced bravado that made his voice almost a shriek, and she glanced at Theo with her eyebrows lifted.

Theo grinned. “Scared him,” he murmured.

The group on the hill sat motionless, looking down at the thin dark man with the long braid, the girl before him, the carvers and itinerants behind them. Through the open doors they saw House members putting their heads around just far enough to see what was happening.

“He’s right enough,” Berk muttered. “It’s a stand-off. We’ll have to try something else.”

“They must feel the cold by now,” Zakri said. “If they do not get Sook indoors, she will freeze.”

Cho shouted again. “Get away from my House! You have no business here!” He grabbed Sook again to hold her in front of him with one arm. Her head reached only to his chest. Her hair fell over her shoulders and her dark eyes fixed on the riders on the hill.

“Who is she?” Sira asked.

“She is one of the cooks,” Zakri said through clenched teeth. “He would not stop at killing her.”

“We will not let that happen,” Sira assured him. “But he is surprisingly strong. And someone is helping him, the same way you and Theo were supporting me.”

“They’re learning,” Berk said.

“We will have to teach them a different lesson,” Theo said calmly. “But perhaps not right at this moment.”

They reined their
hruss
around, retreating from the hilltop, backtracking to a shallow clearing they had passed earlier. There they dismounted, Theo lifting Mreen down with a passing kiss on her curly head. They set about making their camp in silence.

Sira untied the bedfurs and pack from her saddle. As she set them down, she found Mreen standing beside her, her face tense.
Cantrix Sira
, she sent.
There is a child in that House
. Her little nimbus shifted around her, flecks of darkness disturbing its light.
There is a boy—a Gifted boy—and all this fighting is making him ill.

Sira looked around for Theo.
Did you hear that?

So I did
. He came to kneel by Mreen.
Mreen, you must not open your mind to everything that comes your way. There is great danger here. This is a time to practice your shielding.

I was careful
, she sent. The green of her eyes had darkened almost to black. Strange lines were graven around her mouth and eyes.
You were all linked with that man, and I heard the boy. He is scared, and he hides in his room with a pillow on his head, but he cannot shut it out.

Zakri finished the
quiru
, a modest one just large enough to encircle the people and the
hruss
. He came to join them, replacing his
filla
inside his tunic.
I am sure he could not hear the boy and Mreen. He was too busy with our Maestra.

Nevertheless,
Theo repeated.
It is not safe for her.

But the boy needs us!
Mreen insisted.
He is so scared and sick.

Aloud, Sira said, “Yes, Mreen, and no wonder. We will do our best, but we must protect you, too.” To Berk she explained, “Mreen hears the Gifted child in the House. He is suffering from the psi being used—Cho’s psi.”

Berk growled in his beard. Theo, too, set his jaw, the muscles flexing into knots. “I am going in there,” he said. “To get the child out. I do not see another way.”

Sira found a flat rock at the edge of the
quiru
and sat down on it, stretching out her long legs. “We cannot protect you at such a distance. It was all I could do to force him outside. There is a wildness to his psi, an abandon, that I have never felt before. He has no compunction.”

“Zakri handled him,” Theo pointed out.

“It was not easy,” Zakri warned. “And he did not have help then. I am not so certain I could handle him now.”

“Please, Theo, let us think of something else,” Sira said. He did not answer and she sighed with a deep fatigue.

Berk and Mreen worked over the cookfire, side by side. Mreen’s little halo glowed peacefully now as she fed softwood twigs to the flames, always her favorite chore. Berk said, “That’s enough, little one. We don’t want smoke to show them where we are.” She dropped the last bits of wood into her pocket.

None of them felt hungry, but Berk made tea, “To help us think.” Mreen served it, dimpling as she delivered the brimming cups, spilling only a few drops into the snow.

They sipped their tea and listened to the rustling of the irontree branches around them. In the Timberlands that sound never died down. The trees grew so closely that it was hard to tell, looking up, which branches belonged to which trunk. Above their clearing clouds gathered, and the lazy snowflakes of late winter drifted through the
quiru
, making tiny sputtering sounds as they dropped into the fire. Mreen sat crosslegged on her furs, rolling tiny balls of snow and tossing them into the fire to hear them hiss.

Berk said, “You’re going to put out our nice little fire, Mreen.”

She looked up hopefully, and he chuckled. “Yes, you can put in a few more sticks.”

She stood and plunged her hand into her pocket. When she drew it out she was holding Cho’s bit of carving in her hand, the little panel Izak had given her. She stared at it, her nimbus burning bright around her. When she looked up, her face was pinched and white.

Very clearly, she sent,
We must all go in. All at once.

All the Gifted gazed at her, openmouthed. Berk looked around in consternation, and Zakri whispered, “She says we must all go in together.” Berk, too, opened his mouth, and then closed it, shaking his head.

Theo went to Mreen and squatted beside her.
It is a brave idea, but I do not think we will be allowed inside. Cho is powerful, and he is a bad man. The House members do what he tells them because they are afraid. There is no one inside the House to help us get in.

There is a Singer there. He is afraid of her,
Mreen responded. Her eyes were as clear as new limeglass, and there was neither doubt nor hesitation in her sending.

Mreen, Soren is full of Singers!
sent Zakri.
And they are all terrified, every one of them.

This one is locked up,
she answered. Her sending was so precise, so lucid, that Sira imagined even Berk could hear her. But the big man only watched, forced to wait until someone explained.

Zakri suddenly snapped his fingers, making them jump. Their eyes turned to him and he grinned. “Of course!” he cried. “Cantrix Elnor!”

Sira blinked. “Mreen,” she said. “Could you hear her too? Is she still alive?”

For answer she held out the carving.
She was alive when he gave this to Izak.

“I will try to reach her,” Sira said.

“It might be the answer,” Theo put in. His arm was around Mreen, the sleeve of his coat alight in her glow. “But now, Mreen, put the carving away.” To Sira he sent,
I am worried for the child. This is too intense for her.

Sira nodded, but she felt a fresh energy and a renewal of hope. Mreen obediently dropped the little panel into her pocket. Berk began preparations for a meal, and Mreen crouched beside him, dropping her bits of softwood into the fire, laughing her silent laugh as they burst into little stars of flame.

When they had eaten, Theo and Mreen scrubbed out the bowls and the cooking pot. Zakri measured out handfuls of softwood leaves for the
hruss
. Sira went to sit alone on the flat rock. She took out her
filla
, turning it for a moment in her long fingers, thinking and gathering her forces. Then she lifted the instrument and began an
Iridu
melody, slowly at first, then increasing the tempo until it was as bright and merry as the child playing by the cookfire. She cast her mind out with the careful precision learned over years of Conservatory training and practice. With perfect discipline, letting nothing distract her, she sought the mind of the older Cantrix.

Chapter Twenty-three

Who is there?

The sending was clear, but faint, from weakness or caution Sira could not yet tell. She answered,
I am Sira. Cantrix Sira v’Observatory, formerly v’Bariken.

She waited for an answer. There were slight rustlings as the others prepared for bed, but Sira’s focus was so narrow she heard nothing but the feeble voice in her mind. Her
Iridu
melody ended and began again. The old Cantrix’s voice, despite its frailty, was as precise as the touch of a fingertip. It tingled delicately in her forehead, a familiar and distinct sensation, the unmistakable signature of Conservatory training.

I know your name. I am glad you are here, but this is dangerous. He hears everything.

Sira opened her eyes and signalled to Zakri. “Do you think you could occupy Cho, distract him so Elnor and I can talk?”