Patternmaster

by Octavia E. Butler

  “Teray?”

  He looked at her, knowing that she was about to leave him.

  “What did you do to Coransee a while ago? I felt him almost lose consciousness.”

  He told her.

  She smiled a very small smile, kissed him, gathered up a blanket, and went to Coransee.

  Chapter Eight

  AMBER RETURNED TO TERAY before breakfast the next morning. She was quiet and withdrawn. She seemed to relax a little when he asked her to link up again. But through the re-established link he could feel her smoldering anger.

  “Did he make you open again?”

  “Yes.” The anger flared for a moment.

  “Are you all right?”

  She did not answer.

  “Is the child all right?”

  “We’re both all right … for now. I have to go back to him tonight.”

  Now Teray felt anger of his own. “If he’s alive tonight.”

  “God!” she whispered. “Don’t tell me anything.”

  “I don’t know anything to tell you. I’m just waiting for my chance. He has to know that much already.”

  “He does. He knows everything I told you last night. He wasn’t even surprised when he read it—and he didn’t deny any of it. Look at him.”

  Teray looked toward the main group and saw Coransee standing encircled by his people. He was talking to them, and though Teray could not hear what he was saying, Teray felt suddenly apprehensive.

  “We now have eleven enemies instead of just one,” said Amber.

  “Is he linking with them?”

  “No. That’s our edge. It wouldn’t do him any good to link with them. He can’t use a link for anything but an alarm. He’s just ordering them to watch us. If one of us attacks him they’re supposed to sit on the other one. That way, we can be almost sure that whichever one of us takes him on alone will be committing suicide. He’ll be sure of taking someone with him even if he gets killed.”

  Teray nodded. “I can’t blame him. That’s what I’d do.”

  “You wouldn’t hold free people prisoner and put yourself in the position of having to do it.”

  “Why can’t he use a link with them—at least some of them—to borrow strength? I know they’re not close to him, and it wouldn’t be very pleasant, but he should be able to stand it. I could.”

  “If I had to,” said Amber, “I might be able to take a few of them myself. But Coransee can’t. He’s too close to succeeding Rayal.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “He can’t take strength from anybody until he can take it from everybody. I was with him the last time he tried, and I can’t tell you in words how close he came to losing control. He almost made a grab for the Pattern.”

  “Almost provoked Rayal into killing him, you mean. Rayal isn’t going to give up his power a day sooner than he has to.”

  “That’s just it. When Coransee and I were on better terms, he told me he would try to snatch the Pattern from Rayal if he weren’t so sure of having it handed to him soon. But to get killed trying to snatch it away now would be worse than stupid.”

  “All right, so he can’t use his people in the way they’d be most effective. All that means is that I’ll have to fight him in the way I intended to from the first. Alone.”

  “Either you will or I will.”

  “I will, if for no other reason than that there are two of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter much,” she said.

  He frowned at her, surprised. He had expected an argument.

  “If you kill him, well and good,” she said. “But I can feel that even you don’t think much of your chances. And if he kills you, he’ll still claim me. He’ll kill our child and then he’ll have to kill me. I’d rather be dead than be his property anyway.”

  She wasn’t just angry, he realized. She was bitter and resigned. Her last sentence reminded Teray of what he had said when Michael asked him whether he could ever accept Coransee’s controls.

  “Listen,” he said softly, “if I can’t kill him, I’ll cripple him. I’ll hurt him as badly as I can. I’m not as quick as you are at that kind of thing, but I’ll do what I can to soften him up for you. If you’re able to break free of his people … you’ll have an advantage.” He wondered what the chances were of her breaking free often Patternists. They had to be far worse than his chances of killing Coransee. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry for what?”

  He did not answer. Their eyes met in understanding.

  “He’ll be watching you,” she said. “Be careful.”

  As it happened, though, Coransee, like everyone else, was kept busy enough watching for Clayarks. The Clayarks were apparently closing in for the kill.

  At least one sniper was with the Patternists constantly—sometimes more than one. The creatures kept out of sight, traveling through the hills. And they kept out of range—just out of Teray and Amber’s combined range. It had occurred to Teray that one of the reasons Coransee still permitted him to link with Amber was the unusually wide range of their awareness. That and the knowledge that no other linked pair was as anxious about Clayarks, after what had happened the day before.

  The group had come a short distance inland, crossing a small peninsula. In the clear air, they could see the ocean in the distance as they rode over a slight rise. There were Clayarks in the hills alongside them, firing uselessly. The Patternists had become used to them. But as the Patternists reached the top of the rise and looked down at the land and the vast expanse of ocean, a single deeper, louder shot thundered out.

  One shot. Teray knew nothing more than that the sound seemed to have come from ahead of them, and that neither he nor Amber had been hit. He snatched more strength from her, reached, stretched, extending their combined perception as far as he could ahead of them, sweeping a wide area, finding and killing a single Clayark. There was only one in range.

  Teray shifted his attention back to the Patternists and realized that they had stopped. Coransee had dismounted or fallen from his horse. He was kneeling on the ground, Amber approaching him, others dismounted, going toward him.

  Teray swung down from his horse quickly and strode over to the Housemaster.

  “I’m all right,” Coransee was saying to Amber. “I’m fine. Even I’m healer enough to handle this.” He turned sharply as Teray approached. For a moment they stared at each other. Teray assessing the damage with his eyes alone. His mind was suddenly tightly shielded. Coransee said softly, “Try it, brother, and the Clayarks will make a meal of you.”

  Teray relaxed slightly, cautiously. Coransee’s wound was not serious. The bullet had only torn through the flesh of his shoulder. He was not incapacitated mentally, not forced to give large amounts of his attention to keeping himself alive. He was no more vulnerable for his wound.

  “You would have done it,” said Coransee with surprise. “If you had come up and found me fighting for my life, you would have finished me off.”

  “As you would have finished me in the same situation, brother,” said Teray softly “I learn from you. And you have no idea what a good teacher you are.”

  Teray met Coransee’s eyes levelly, but he was shaking inside with reaction to what he had almost done. And he was shaking with anger—anger at himself. He had been too obvious, in too much of a hurry. If Coransee had not turned and spoken, Teray might have made a fatal error. Inexperience. Never in Teray’s life had he stooped to attacking a wounded person. He was surprised now at how ready he had been to do it. Coransee had indeed been a good teacher. But Teray found himself a little ashamed of having learned this particular lesson. He would do it again if he had the opportunity. But he wouldn’t learn to like it.

  Coransee seemed to read his emotion. The Housemaster smiled. “I see you surprised yourself too,” he said. “You’re shedding your school morality quicker than I thought. I’ll keep that in mind.” Coransee turned from him and began healing his wound.

  Teray glance
d at Amber and saw that she had been quietly surrounded by Coransee’s people—just in case. Frustrated and angry, Teray went back to his horse and remounted.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Coransee asked, looking up again.

  “I killed the Clayark who shot you. I want a look at the gun he was using.”

  “Stay here.”

  Somehow, Teray controlled his temper. “Brother, by the sound of that gun, it wasn’t the kind that the Clayarks usually use against us. It was something special, and if we leave it where it is we’ll be hearing from it again.” As Teray spoke, Amber went back to her horse, watched but not stopped by Coransee’s people.

  “You too, girl,” said Coransee. “All this concern over a Clayark rifle.”

  “No, Lord,” said Amber. “Actually, I just want to get away from you for a while.”

  Coransee stared at her coldly. “Go with him then. Be my alarm in case the gun gives him foolish ideas. Be my alarm and my eyes.” He looked at Teray. “But don’t even think about trying to get away again.”

  Without answering, the two urged their horses forward, away from the group.

  “I should have followed through,” said Teray. “Even though he was ready for me. It has to happen soon anyway.”

  Amber said nothing.

  “It will be harder than ever now.” He looked at her. Her face was too carefully expressionless. “Whatever it is, say it.”

  “Just something you should be aware of.”

  “Yes?”

  “You made a good kill just now, but you went after the wrong animal.”

  Teray frowned and turned to stare at her with sudden realization.

  “I’ve never known you to move faster than you moved just now,” she said. “You took strength from me, you hit the Clayark—nobody even knew what you had done until a couple of seconds after you’d done it. Now if you had forgotten about the Clayark and hit Coransee …”

  Teray shook his head miserably. “I was responding to the Clayark,” he said. “Not thinking, just responding. I don’t think I could have moved as quickly if I had thought about it.”

  “I know. And he’s not going to give us the chance to try it again, you can depend on that. The minute we get back to him, he’s going to break us up. No more link.”

  “If he does, the Clayarks are liable to finish him for us. None of his people can handle Clayarks as well as we can.”

  “Maybe. Or the Clayarks might kill one of us. We’re only two days from Forsyth now. If I were him, I’d take my chances with the Clayarks.”

  They came upon the Clayark sprawled on the side of a low hill, his rifle lay beside him. They did not touch the weapon. Patternists had learned through bitter experience that Clayarks often booby-trapped their rifles just before using them—set them to inject a little recently taken saliva into the fingers of unwary Patternists. This could be done with nothing more than a few well-placed wood or metal splinters. Kept warm and moist, the Clayark disease organism could live for a few moments outside a human body.

  Teray and Amber only observed that the rifle was not the usual Clayark weapon, as Teray had thought. It was heavier, and doubtless more powerful. Neither Teray nor Amber had seen one like it before. Mounted atop it was a telescopic sight that had already proven its usefulness. In the past, Clayarks had rarely used such things. But then, in the past, Clayarks had not shot Patternists from nearly a kilometer away with rifles.

  Either the long period of Rayal’s illness had given them time to improve their weaponry or they were simply bringing out their best guns—and their best marksmen—to kill two of Rayal’s sons. Probably both.

  “What shall we do with the gun?” said Amber. “Burn it?”

  “Scorch it, you mean.” Teray stared at the polished wood of the rifle’s stock. “There’s not much more than grass around here to start a fire with. Mostly green grass.”

  “The gun has three bullets left in it.”

  Teray probed at the rifle where it lay, and sensed the three remaining bullets. He nodded. Then as Amber covered it with the driest grass she could find, Teray reached down to Coransee. He did not want contact with the Housemaster, but it was necessary. He found Coransee waiting for them, apparently finished healing his shoulder.

  You’re going to hear shots, Teray sent. It will be us destroying the gun. Warn the others. He was carefully open enough so that Coransee could see that he was telling the truth—that open, and no more.

  Coransee returned wordless agreement.

  Teray brought his attention back to Amber and saw that she was ready She lit the grass, then both she and Teray took cover down the opposite slope of the hill.

  There, while Teray kept watch for Clayarks, Amber saw that the tiny fire did its work. As the fire heated the metal of the gun’s receiver, Amber extended her perception into the metal itself and observed minutely the reaction of the metal to the fire—how it changed as it heated. She claimed later that she had never examined an inanimate object so closely before. But she seemed to have no difficulty doing it. She observed the quickening motion of the molecules of the metal. And once she had observed it, understood it, she could control it. She could intensify the heat of the metal to a point beyond the ability of the tiny dying fire. For a moment she sweated, concentrated on doing the unfamiliar thing. Then the three cartridges exploded almost simultaneously.

  The rifle leaped into the air with a roar. If fell to the earth in two pieces, receiver blown open, stock and barrel completely separated. The pieces landed heavily on the body of their Clayark owner.

  Teray and Amber went down the hill to where they had left their horses and found that Coransee and the others had ridden forward to meet them. Immediately Coransee gestured Teray up beside him. He spoke as they rode.

  “You know you’re going to have to pay for what you did, don’t you?”

  “Almost did.”

  “Oh, you did enough. However clumsily.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The woman has told you what I want. I saw it in your mind when you called to me a few minutes ago.”

  Teray looked away from him in silent defeat and desperation. As careful as he had been, Coransee had read him—had read him as easily as he had that first time months before on the day Teray left school.

  “Break the link, brother.”

  After a moment, Teray obeyed and dropped back silently to his place beside Amber. Everything Coransee did made Teray more aware of how little chance he had of surviving a fight with the Housemaster. He had let himself hope, let himself forget. Coransee might make even quicker work of him this time, because this time the Housemaster would be out to kill instead of only to subdue.

  Teray would die. Then Coransee would turn his attention to Amber. Eventually she would die. The embryo growing within her would die. Painfully, Teray considered giving in, submitting to Coransee’s control. It was not something he would do to save himself. Could he do it for Amber’s sake? He had not done it for Iray’s, and Iray had been his wife. He thought about it, head down, perception indrawn, not caring at this point whether the Clayarks shot him or not.

  No. No, that was stupid. Dying by a Clayark bullet would be the same as dying in combat with Coransee. Amber would still be left to the Housemaster. In fact, even if Teray submitted to Coransee’s controls, Coransee would still be free to kill Amber. Teray would be of no more help to her than Joachim had been to Teray. Submitting would solve nothing even if he could have done it. And he couldn’t have. He couldn’t.

  Amber.

  What could he do to help her, beyond trying to cripple Coransee? And with ten Patternists restraining her, how could she get to Coransee if Teray did manage to cripple him?

  He looked at her, then looked away. She was watching him. She was beside him, watching him, yet he had never felt so cut off from her. He could not link with her or speak openly to her. And tonight, against her will and his, she would again share Coransee’s pallet.

  Teray turn
ed his thoughts away from that quickly. In that direction lay fury, recklessness, death. And he realized now more than ever that to be of any help at all to Amber, he had to find a way to keep himself alive. If there was a way.

  Teray found himself thinking about Rayal. Journeyman Michael had promised Teray sanctuary if Teray managed to reach Forsyth on his own. How much of a difference would it make to Rayal if Teray reached Forsyth not on his own, but in tow, the acknowledged outsider of Coransee? Not a successful runaway, but an outsider. How much did Rayal care about either of his two strongest sons? He was the one man who could surely take Teray from Coransee if he wanted to. But would he want to? Apparently he had all but openly designated Coransee his heir. That was contrary to the law of succession, but who was going to force Rayal to obey the law? And if Rayal had chosen Coransee, why would he now oppose Coransee over Teray? But then, why should Rayal have offered Teray sanctuary at all? Would it be worth Teray’s while to trust Rayal, go on to Forsyth, giving up hope of leaving a crippled Coransee for Amber to kill? If only he could reach Rayal and find out before he arrived at Forsyth. But he did not know Rayal. He had never had any communication with him, and never recorded within his memory the knowledge of anyone who had. That meant that he could not call Rayal as, for instance, he could call Coransee or Amber. It was possible that Amber had met the Patternmaster on her last trip to Forsyth and could share her knowledge of him with Teray. But Teray did not dare to ask her. Thus, there was only one way for him to reach Rayal. One illegal way.

  Through the Pattern.

  Since the Pattern connected each individual Patternist with Rayal, in theory, any Patternist, however lowly, could use it to contact Rayal. In fact, though, the use of the Pattern for communication was restricted to Housemasters, Schoolmasters, Rayal’s journeymen, and Rayal himself. Rayal, of course, could use it whenever he chose, but Housemasters, Schoolmasters, and journeymen were permitted to use it only to report a Clayark emergency. Lately Rayal had chosen to ignore their emergencies. It was possible that he would also ignore Teray’s. He might even punish Teray for misusing the Pattern. But Teray had to take that risk. Had to take it soon—that night. Forsyth was getting closer.