by Dawn Cook
Feeling ill, she said, “I’m sorry.”
He returned to sit on the edge of the couch, his elbows on his knees, his eyes downcast. “Something had to be done. Mirim was an adult by that time, and not well-respected because of her human origins. Alone, she gathered as many humans as she could who had two dominant coastal alleles. The people trusted her; her eyes were green, her fingers were normal, and she knew the culture.
“For nearly two hundred years she led them through the passes to the east, family by the family, soul by soul, enticed by promise of peace and freedom from the current tyrant. They tamed the sheep and goats, learned to respect our feral kin, and had children who utterly lacked recessive coastal alleles.”
Alissa shifted uneasily. “How did that make anything better?”
He dropped his gaze. “It didn’t. It’s still unclear what her thoughts were at that time. Whatever they were, everything fell apart when a young Master was enticed to his death with music and burned alive for his source.”
Her stomach clenched, imagining Connen-Neute writhing in flames, unable to escape.
Redal-Stan spoke to the floor. “The Masters went all but insane, striking out against the coast, purging from it the recessive trait that became known as the plains.”
Alissa caught her breath, unwilling to believe what he was saying.
“Yes.” His eyes flicked up and away. “Anyone with the possibility of a recessive plains allele in their signature was killed. Entire families. They knew Mirim had a population in the foothills with an abundance of that recessive trait. Removing it from the coast would reduce the chance of the coast engendering Keepers. Problem solved and revenge satisfied in one—neat—package.”
Alissa stared at him. “That’s—that’s . . .”
“Yes, it was,” he admitted, his gaze haunted, “which is why Mirim’s memories are still passed down. The atrocity can’t be allowed to be forgotten.”
Alissa’s knees came up to her chin, and she clutched her arms about them. No wonder Talo-Toecan was so reluctant to tell her about the past. It was horrific. The silence began to grow, but she didn’t think this was the end of the story.
“That was the way it was for four centuries while everyone caught their breath and buried their dead.” Redal-Stan looked at her horrorstruck face with a sad acceptance. “Just as they thought they had gotten control of the situation, the population east of the mountains began to spontaneously separate. Mirim had settled the area with people with no recessive coastal alleles, and it was found every time a dominant F and P linked up without at least one recessive coastal allele to moderate, the result was lethal.”
Alissa’s eyes widened.
“They didn’t expect that.” He stared into his long-emptied cup. “It explained why their calculations of probability had always been slightly off. Needless to say, they promoted the separation.”
“The foothills,” Alissa whispered, “were mostly the stronger F, and the plains were mostly the stronger P. If they married, there would be no weak coastal instruction in their children. They would—” She couldn’t say it.
“It’s extremely rare that a child from a mixed marriage survives to term,” Redal-Stan finished for her. Alissa looked at him, aghast, seeing the reason for the hatred that stretched back thousands of years. “It isn’t foolproof,” Redal-Stan said. “There was, and still is, a continual, unhelped migration over the mountains. Bring in one recessive coastal allele, and the plains and foothills can have children between themselves. Before long, you’re right back where you started.”
Alissa straightened, wondering about her own birth. “Keepers, Shadufs.”
“Yes.” Redal-Stan glanced at her. “All too soon Keepers began to appear.”
“And you?” she whispered.
He smiled bitterly. “Eventually me. They planned their sixth child very carefully.”
“Sixth child?”
With a rude snort, Redal-Stan set his empty cup on his desk. “I speak metaphorically, of course. Masters, unlike our feral kin, have children. Lots, if fortune smiles upon them. But everyone works to bring about the culmination of a transeunt. In a way they are a child.” He pointed a finger at her. “You’re the seventh. I’m the sixth. Mirim was the first.”
“Oh.” So she was a transeunt, Alissa thought, not sure she liked the title.
“Keepers are again painfully numerous,” he murmured uneasily. “And though they’re being taught restraint now, there has been hidden mutterings of purging the eastern populations of the recessive coastal allele once more. They’re ignoring Mirim’s memories of the horror and devastation they wrought upon the coast. Ese’Nawoer, they say, is where their next child will come from.” He eyed Alissa. “Clearly this didn’t happen.”
Alissa shook her head solemnly, realizing she was playing with the ends of her hair. A soft, hesitant knock at the door pulled her hands down. Giving Redal-Stan a stilted smile, she hid her discomfort behind her cup, surprised to find it empty.
“What is the point of being at the top of the tower if everyone knows where you are?” Redal-Stan grumbled. He took a deep breath, and Alissa wished she could block her ears. “Go away!” he bellowed.
“Don’t punish Alissa,” came Connen-Neute’s faint thought. It was the equivalent of a whisper, as if he were afraid to hurt her tracings further. “I was sent to watch her. Sati’s loss is my fault.”
Redal-Stan’s nonexistent eyebrows rose. He tilted his head to the door, a crafty look in his eye. “Come in.”
The door opened enough for Connen-Neute’s tall shadow to slip in. His gaze flicked between hers and Redal-Stan’s as he cautiously took the chair farthest from the desk. “I’ll take her punishment,” Connen-Neute said, his eyes level and undaunted. “Whatever it is.”
“Uh, Connen-Neute?” Alissa said, only to find her shin kicked. She glared at Redal-Stan.
“How noble of you,” Redal-Stan drawled, and Alissa grew angry. No one but Strell had tried to take her punishment before, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate it. “But she has no punishment,” the older Master finished.
“She hasn’t?”
“No. But your offer to help me search the texts to find the appropriate family line to watch for a replacement shaduf is appreciated,” he finished.
“I didn’t—” Connen-Neute hesitated and, appearing to have swallowed something sour, whispered. “Of course.”
Alissa frowned. “You won’t let me read your books. Why are you letting him?”
“He’s not letting me,” came Connen-Neute’s whispered thought. “He’s forcing me.”
Redal-Stan rose with a stretch. Moving to a shelf, he tugged the largest tome free. It hit his desk with a thump, and he opened it, scanning the names listed. “Only because you don’t want to,” he said. “Take this one with you when you go.”
Alissa gritted her teeth in frustration.
“You can’t win, Alissa,” Connen-Neute advised. His long face grew solemn. “How is your shoulder?”
“It’s fine,” she grumbled, angry that Connen-Neute could read Redal-Stan’s books and she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.
“No, really. How is it?” he persisted. “I’m sorry I dropped you on the balcony. I thought I might have . . .” he lowered his eyes, “. . . have broken it.”
“You very nearly did,” she said, flexing it experimentally. “I ran a healing ward as soon as I woke up.” She eyed him darkly. “It was the only reason you managed to pin Beast down, you know.”
Bent over his books, Redal-Stan slowly looked up. “What was that?”
“Uh,” Alissa stammered, wishing she hadn’t brought up Beast’s impropriety. “I’m sorry,” she said, her fingers twining her hair into knots. “I talked with Beast. She promises not to do it again, fight you, I mean.”
“I did not!” Beast cried, but only Alissa heard her.
“No. Not that.” Redal-Stan stood still as stone. “The other thing.”
“I fi
xed my shoulder?” she offered, wondering at their gaping looks. Then she rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she grumped. “I know. Learning a ward of healing before a window ward isn’t proper, but Hounds. I had to take my lessons when I could.”
Leaving his book open, Redal-Stan ghosted from behind his desk. He sat down onto the couch beside her. “M-m-m, ward of healing?” he said mildly.
“Yes.” She eyed her empty cup, wishing she had started with a bigger rock. “Do you call it something else? Sometimes my terminology is off.”
Redal-Stan waved Connen-Neute to silence. “Describe it to me,” he suggested. He saw her gaze on her cup. “Here. Let me fill that for you,” he murmured, doing just that.
Hot cup in hand, Alissa settled back uneasily. Redal-Stan was being most attentive, and Connen-Neute looked positively intense. “Well,” she said, “it’s the ward that speeds up healing. Three days’ worth in a moment—you know—and allows you to do the same for anyone else. That’s why my tracings don’t hurt. Much,” she added in afterthought.
“You mean other Masters, of course,” Redal-Stan said.
“No.” Surprised, Alissa set her cup down. “Anyone.”
“Show me?”
It was a plaintive whisper, and she looked up, not believing it had been Redal-Stan’s. That wistful tone usually came out of her. Her mouth fell open in understanding. “You don’t know a healing ward!” she cried, afraid.
Redal-Stan took a sharp breath, shattering his obvious longing. Again the self-assured, slightly egotistical plainsman-cum-Master was before her. Giving a gruff “Harrumph,” he settled back into the couch, then slipped to the edge again. “No,” he said. “Will you teach me?”
Alissa felt a grin creep over her. “All right. Under one condition.”
Immediately he grew defensive. “What?” he said flatly.
“I want to show Connen-Neute, too.”
Connen-Neute’s breath came in a quick sound of gratitude.
“Yes,” Redal-Stan agreed, settling back. “That would be fine.”
40
Redal-Stan glanced up as Connen-Neute’s empty cup touched his desk with a small click. “If I might retire?” his student questioned. “It’s late.”
“Verbalize, please.” Redal-Stan rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “You speak to Alissa. Why won’t you speak to me?”
“Because,” was all the young Master would say, and Redal-Stan grimaced.
“Go,” he grumbled. “Go to bed, or the roof, or wherever it is you’re sleeping these days. But don’t leave my book where it can go damp.”
“The roof,” Connen-Neute mumbled. He straightened his vest as he stood. “Would you like me to watch her tomorrow?”
Stretching, Redal-Stan reached for the ceiling. His back cracked several times, and he groaned softly. “Yes. If you would.”
“What about tonight?” he persisted. “She refused to take the sleeping aid.”
Redal-Stan chuckled. “You saw her palm it off into my cup, too, eh? No. She won’t go feral tonight as long as no one gets Beast upset or frightened.” He paused. “I’ll check on her.”
Connen-Neute nodded. “But tomorrow she might go feral?”
“Yes.” He felt his forehead crease with worry. “Tomorrow, the day after, next week. It depends on things I don’t understand yet. I’m hoping the longer we can stave off Beast flying away, the better the chance Alissa has for finding new reference points.”
“She might find a lifetime of points in two weeks?” Connen-Neute asked hopefully, slumping when Redal-Stan shook his head. “Then tomorrow I will accompany her,” he said aloud. “To remind Beast if she becomes—dominant.”
Redal-Stan closed his eyes in a long blink. “If she gives you any trouble, tell her I’ve charged her with getting you to speak aloud more. I’ll take the day after on the excuse of lessons. The daylight hours I’m not too concerned about. It’s at night Beast seems to grow strong.”
Giving him a nod, Connen-Neute took the book and left, closing the door behind him.
Redal-Stan went to his balcony, drawn by the newly risen moon. As Connen-Neute had said, it was late, but his thoughts were spinning. It was unlikely they would lend themselves to sleep. There was a tug on his thoughts as Connen-Neute shifted on the roof, and he smiled. Redal-Stan had spent many nights himself watching the air currents stream about the stars. But now, in his long-lived agedness, he contented himself with his balcony. The open sky was for the young.
Falling carelessly into his balcony chair, he flexed his hand. The slight burn from the tea was gone. It was an odd feeling, being at the receiving end of the student/instructor relationship again. Alissa had the bearings of a born teacher, answering all his questions with a patient understanding very unlike her usual temper. And his hand—he looked at it in wonder—was healed.
Redal-Stan leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he recalled her intent instruction. “No,” she had said. “You don’t need to know anatomy and such. You aren’t healing anything, just focusing the surrounding energy to a fevered pitch. The body uses it as it sees best, and the body knows how to heal itself.”
And it felt so good! he thought, unable to stop his sigh. Like being in a sunbeam, or having a sunbeam inside you. Just the memory of the ward seemed to warm him. Connen-Neute had nearly fallen asleep when Alissa demonstrated the ward upon him. After seeing the young Master’s bemused expression turn into a languorous stretch and nodding head, Redal-Stan had decided he would heal himself, thank you all the same. He had memorized the resonance, and after getting his “teacher’s” permission, he tried it only to all but fall asleep anyway.
A breath of wind carrying the promise of morning frost slipped over him. He retreated back inside at its sudden chill, longing for the bone-soaking heat of his plains for the first time in centuries. Restless, he went to his desk for a paper and quill. A quick thought and the globe of light he had left upon his desk doubled its intensity. Alissa, he mused, couldn’t be allowed to go feral. The idea of her irksome, exasperating, nimble-minded presence joining the ranks of the lost was intolerable. But he gave her less than a week, even with Beast’s cooperation.
It wouldn’t be an easy loss, either, but long and drawn out, painful to both. Already Beast was beginning to assert herself. Alissa still maintained control, but it was slipping. Soon, he imagined there would be a nightmarish period of confusion where you might ask a question of Alissa and Beast would answer. He was sure Beast would be unhappy and apologetic, but it would continue to happen with an increasing regularity. A day or two of that, and Alissa would fade further, leaving a distressed Beast to cope with a world she barely understood. Eventually Beast would wake one morning with no memory of Alissa and fly away.
It was inevitable. It was unthinkable. It was not going to happen. Not if there was a way he could stop it. But he knew there wasn’t. He had to stop thinking there was and focus upon the even more impossible task of getting her back to her own time. Back to her lodestone, Strell.
“Strell,” he whispered, dipping his quill. What if she did get back? She said there was no one left but Talo-Toecan. And Talo-Toecan wouldn’t willingly sanction a Master/commoner union. Master/Keeper, perhaps, considering the apparent lack of suitable matches.
He hesitated, reaching for his tea. It was to his lips before he remembered the sleeping draught. Smiling, he rose and threw the liquid out over his balcony.
“Strell is a commoner,” he whispered as he returned and began to write the possible signatures for a man from the plains. He eliminated any with four or more recessive alleles that would make Strell a Keeper. Those with any dominant plains, two recessive coastal, or two recessive foothills alleles were also ignored as being highly improbable. The lethal combinations were, of course, omitted. When done, he pondered the remaining signatures. Any of them were possible. None would instill Talo-Toecan with any desire to allow Alissa to have children with Strell. He scribbled more, sighing as the truth came out. The best she could
manage with him would be Keeper. There was an unsettlingly high chance at commoner, and even worse, shaduf.
The quill was gently set to rest. “Talo-Toecan will forbid it,” he said. Redal-Stan could imagine the hot fallout from that. He hadn’t known Alissa long, but it was obvious that telling her she couldn’t do a thing would all but guarantee that’s what she would do. Whatever Talo-Toecan did, her genetic heritage would be lost. If she joined with her commoner, her children would lack a perfect neural net. If Strell was forbidden to her, she would refuse to join with anyone else.
Talo-Toecan would have to risk allowing her to make the decision herself, hoping she would do the responsible thing by forgoing her desire for Strell for the good of the Hold. If not, the Hold would lose her desperately needed influx of new blood.
“Just as they lost mine,” he murmured, wondering if perhaps his rigid pride was why the Hold fell. The Masters counted heavily upon the addition of new genetic material into their dwindling population that their transeunts provided. Centuries ago, upon learning that his conception had been engineered for their benefit, he had resigned himself to a state of bachelorhood, feeling as if he were thought of as only a— brood stallion. His chair creaked as he slumped back. It was exactly what Alissa had accused them of. Perhaps she was right.
If she joined with a Keeper, she would have at least a chance at a raku child. There would have to be lots of Keepers about, even if the Masters were gone. The thought cheered him somewhat, but it would have to be quite a charismatic man to overcome the love she already held for her commoner. Talo-Toecan would have to fly a delicate updraft, appearing to give her a choice of suitors while struggling to find someone worthy of her.
He frowned, thinking. “Though Talo-Toecan is no longer one of my formal students,” he said, taking up his quill, “he is bound by ties to respect my wishes, no matter how odd they seem.” Redal-Stan bent low, and the sound of his quill scratching lasted for some moments.
