by Gayle Greeno
“Better to react and then decide what it is,” the ghatta commented. “Rock slides hurt just as much as Plumbs if you’re under them.”
“True enough.” She took a deep breath and exhaled with relief, spreading her fingers to form the eight-pointed Lady’s sign and be damned if anyone called her superstitious. Then a reassuring pat at her pocket to make sure that the misshapen, melted remains of Vesey’s Lady’s Medal were there. It hadn’t brought him luck, but it was all she had for remembrance. “And there hasn’t been a Plumb exploding in years, they’re all inoperative by now.”
“One hundred and ... eighty-seven years.”
“Now who’s ’scribing the records?” Doyce’s hazel eyes slid away from the ghatta’s cool amber expression, her tone cross from the exactitude of the ghatta’s correction. She was the one who usually pulled facts and figures from her capacious memory and her years as a transcriber and record-keeper. “Well, onward and upward? I suppose we might as well continue. And hope that we won’t have to dodge again.”
Plumb. Funny how the word reverberated in her mind, an unexperienced terror that had been drummed into her throughout her childhood, as it had through the childhoods of countless generations of children. To frighten a recalcitrant child into obedience all an adult had to do was utter the word “Plumb,” followed by an explosive sound or sharp handclap.
Of course, to children the word translated as “plum,” as if the succulent summer fruit with its purple-black skin and golden-moist flesh had some mysterious, destructive powers capable of leveling a house, a hamlet, a town, a mountain. And there was always one child somewhere, more curious, braver than the rest, who would cautiously gather some of the fallen fruit and bury it, then crouch behind a sheltering rock and wait all day to see if the plums would detonate. Or worse yet, threaten to throw the dark, soft fruits grenadelike at childish enemies.
One hundred and eighty-seven years. Doyce shook her head at the passage of time. They must all be dead, deactivated, or harmless by now, delicate contact points corroded by years of rain and snow, leaching minerals from the earth, or destroyed by their own tiny circuit-breaker sensor chips. But for nearly fifty years before that they had exploded wherever they’d been planted—in fields, beneath towns and villages, throughout the mountain ranges, along river beds—wherever man had felt the need for a monitoring system that plumbed the depths of the earth.
Plumbs. Why were they so vividly in her mind this morning? “Did I dream about them last night, Khar?” The ghatta’s shoulders rose, then her spine snapped rigid in surprise. Doyce took the movement as a negative and rode on, lost in past history, while the large striped ghatta sat erect, ears twitching for the slightest sound of a grain of sand, a pebble, a stone’s abrupt shift or fall. Nothing moved that shouldn’t have, and the ghatta relaxed but wondered, truly wondered, if the woman had inadvertently shared in the Tale-Telling the previous night. It had never happened that way before.
Jenret Wycherley swung sideways to slip his back into the right angle where bench back met bench arm and shoved a cushion behind him to stop the slatlike armrest from digging into his ribs. The cushion wasn’t too dirty, he judged, just worn. Had Myllard, the proprietor of this Ale House, or his wife, Fala, heard Jenret’s pronouncement on the cleanliness of the cushion, the young man would have been unceremoniously tossed out the door. He swung a foot up on the bench and balanced his wine-glass on his cocked knee.
As it was, Rawn heard Jenret’s internal comment about the freshness of the cushion. “It’s perfectly clean, as well you know. Though how it stays clean when louts like you put their booted feet on the seat cushions, I’ll never fathom.” The midnight black ghatt half-raised himself under the table, and his eyes glowed, caught in the beam of late afternoon sun streaming through the mullioned windows. “And is the wine satisfactory?”
Jenret paused, flourished his glass toward the light to show wine as golden as the sunbeams, and took a considering, judicious sip. “Obviously must be, it’s my second glass. ”But he took his booted foot off the cushion. “Why so grumpy today, my favorite Bondmate, my best friend?”
“The only Bondmate you’ll ever have, and sometimes, I think, your only friend.” Rawn subsided back under the table, flopped on his side, his tail drubbing the floor in warning. His head still buzzed from the strange panics and alarums of the previous night. The mindwalking crumbling, disintegrating ... the shrieks and wails.... He had not been mindwalking the Tale, had not been a part of the linkage, but the fallout of pain had exploded within him anyway. Ghatti all over the capital and who knew how far distant were still reeling from the inexplicable horror. But he would not tell this to Jenret, at least not yet. Jenret and the others, be they Seekers or not, knew only the tragic end of last night’s turmoil. There was more to be learned and ghatti everywhere planned on finding out, himself amongst them.
A serving maid—and they were always maids at Myllard’s Ale House, never wenches—swung by, pretty and pert, to check whether Jenret’s glass needed refilling. It didn’t, but he debated the idea if it would mean she’d linger to chat. She was trim, with a saucy look to her warm brown eyes, and a lace fichu discreetly veiled other notable attributes. Still, if he wanted that kind of companionship, there were other ale houses, other inns. A thought for later that night.
Part of the reason he came to Myllard’s was the reverse side of the coin: Jenret Wycherley knew himself to be a handsome man, his jet black hair set against almost alabaster skin that showed the need for a shave practically as soon as he’d finished with one. But his real downfall—or rather, the ladies’ downfall—were his gentian-blue eyes, hedged with the longest, darkest, curled lashes that made them the envy of half the women, young and old, in Gaernett. At Myllard’s the proprietor would brook no nonsense about outrageous flirtations or worse. Myllard’s serving maids might sigh about the handsome Seeker once they reached the kitchens, but while they served him they would be nothing but polite and professional. He could manage the same.
“Need the looking glass, or is memory enough to serve?” Rawn growled.
Stung, Jenret set the glass down hard, harder than he’d intended, and watched the wine slop over onto his cuff. The ghatt was certainly bad-tempered today. He daubed with his handkerchief, folding it to find a dry spot, glad all the same that he planned on changing for dinner—no Seeker’s garb this evening. His aunt was certain to proffer an astringent comment about his drinking habits if his clothing reeked of wine. Still, his voice came patiently as he continued to blot at his sleeve. “Rawn, peace, old friend. I know you’re upset about the day’s events, we all are. A sad loss for the Seekers Veritas.” He reached under the table and rumpled the big ghatt’s ears, tugged at the earhoop. “But, thank the Lady, we’ve still each other.”
Rawn rubbed his chin against the seeking hand, gnawed at the thumb. “Sorry,” he apologized and rubbed harder. “Don’t want to have to hear about it all over again at dinner tonight with your Aunt Mahafny. She doesn’t really approve of me anyway.”
“Of course she does. Just because she’s a eumedico doesn’t mean she’s like so many who think it beneath human dignity to share a mindlink with an animal. I’m not related to Mahafny by blood, but she is bloodlinked to Swan Maclough, her cousin. If being related to the Seeker General isn’t good enough for you—and I know being related to me is no recommendation—I don’t know what is.”
“When do we have to leave?”
“Not for a while yet. ” Jenret considered the angle of the sun. Later than he’d thought, close to dusk. “Mahafny prefers to eat early, but not that early. Time for another glass of wine before I go change. Besides, I want to hear her views on the day’s events. Mahafny’s wise beyond her eumedico training, and I’m anxious to hear what she makes of this. You’ll go, won’t you? She won’t throw plates at you as long as you stay on my side of the table. ”
“Who’s paying for dinner?” Rawn responded. Jenret laughed and waved the serving maid over to orde
r another glass of wine and instructed himself to keep his eyes on her face, not her fichu.
Late, ripe dusk of a lazy day balanced between the growth and the harvest seasons, and the lights of Gaernett began winking on, one by one, as the three descended the final switchback and merged into the main thoroughfare leading toward the capital. After the solitary ride through the cut, the jostle of humanity—full-laden carts and wagons wheeling toward the city dammed the outward exodus of clustered walkers, riders on horse-back, and passenger rigs—filled the air with good-natured cursing and comments as everyone jockeyed for position. Lokka sliced through the throngs, sidestepped capering children and work-weary adults, moving Doyce and Khar with slow assurance along the broad road.
Even after all these years the wonder of the small, secure city with its pink and gray granites, its white and green and gold-veined marbles, its slates of mauve and gray, rose and blue, still enchanted her, the way it all fit together as if the city were an extension of the mountains it nestled against. And in a way it was, for all the building stones of the city were quarried in the heart of the low, hummocky ranges scattered throughout the continent of Princept, although none were ever mined from the heart of the Hightmont itself. Doyce had ventured to Gaernett late in life, not born of the city but discovering it with the rapturous interest that an adolescent brings to everything that is new and exciting and different. She’d been sixteen, done with her Tierce and pledged to the eumedicos, deserting her family, as her weaver mother had so baldly stated it. But she had dreamed so of being a eumedico, had earned the scholarship for it, though she knew her leaving would make her mother’s life more difficult, fearful that without Doyce to partner her in the weaving the income would be too scanty to support her and Doyce’s older, crippled sister.
She relinquished the old memories and concentrated on the distant mosaic of colored stones that tiled the city, certain landmarks catching her eye just as the features of an old and familiar friend stand out from the sea of faces in a crowd. Ensconced on the highest hill within the city-center stood the Monitor’s Hall with its plain, pale green marble with the barest relief of a darker green, decorated tracery above its fluted pillars, a tracery that charted the history of their new world. The seat of their government and the dwelling place of the Monitor, duly elected by the populace after nominations from the Wards.
Ticking them off against her fingers, Doyce squinted to spot the dancing colors of each Ward House flag: Merchanters, Growers, Artisans, Builders, the Delvers or miners, and the Transitors, all those involved in road-work, the canals, shipping, and transport. Her former Ward, the Eumedicos, would come into sight soon enough. And, of course, the largest, most disparate Ward—the Commonality, made up of any citizen who came of age and did not hold membership in one of the other seven Wards.
Nearest to the Monitor’s Hall yet surpassing it in grandeur, in its yearning for the heavens, stood the dove gray stonework of the Bethel of Our Lady, its eight outer walls forming the points of an octagon with gently flared sides. From its topmost level eight flying buttresses supported the penultimate spire, its complex, curved masonry delicate as antique lacery from this distance. The Bethel served as mankind’s symbol of the perfect moon that never waxed nor waned over Methuen, encircled by her eight companion satellites that showed the changing phases of each Octant.
Doyce strained to locate the next emblem, though the edifice itself stood starkly visible, located halfway between the Monitor’s Hall and the western side of the outer Ring Wall. Her eyes sought the Ward banner, a deep cerulean blue with three four-pointed white stars arrayed in a triangle: the sign of the Eumedico Hospice. Three hanging lanterns would soon announce its presence by night. The Hospice pained the eye with its uncompromising lines and austere rise of pure white marble, built not for aesthetics but for total utility: the healing of the sick, the final hope of a populace against the ravages of illness, injury, and age; and for the training of novice eumedicos, as she had once been. Uncompromising—that was the word for it, and the brief smile that flickered across her face honored the positive attributes of the word, but the bleakness in her eyes acknowledged other possibilities.
Good at last to let her sight drift to the final major building situated nearest the outer wall, the youngest in construction, a scant hundred years old. A pale rose-tinted cupola capped the front of a spacious four-story building of mottled gray-rose granite, while two darker gray wings of later vintage jutted to form a gentle V-shape sheltering the parkland’s green slope. The training ground and the burial ground, the starting point and the end point of all Seekers were encompassed within that gentle embrace.
Seeker Veritas headquarters. The place where she began and ended each octant-long circuit, the repository of her hopes and dreams, her life as she now lived it, and the storage place of the few artifacts of her other lives, harbored inside its gray-rose walls. The closest thing she could claim as a permanent home for the past ten years. She waved a sketchy but heartfelt salute of welcome, a homecoming of sorts, though she was still distant from it. Not tonight, she’d promised herself that, a night at Myllard’s first, and then, the next day, home.
“Khar, love, you’ve been awfully silent. How are you?”
“Fine.” The ghatta twitched an ear. “Watching people is more fun than watching buildings.”
Doyce laughed. “Are you insinuating that I haven’t been watching where I’m going?”
“You’ve been watching where you’re going, not where you are. But Lokka and I have taken care of that for you.”
“Then let’s see if I can’t get Lokka and the two of us to the gate a little more quickly.” She patted Lokka’s neck, gave a chirrup and slapped the reins, and they were off, weaving their way through the knots of traffic.
The Ring Wall’s smooth outer facade of black basalt—still stoutly maintained despite the fact there had been no direct assault since Marchmont’s only foray about one hundred years ago—loomed over Doyce as she reached a small, patient assembly of people awaiting formal recognition to enter. They parted to let her reach the head of the line; the deference wasn’t necessary, but it was pleasing. She pulled Lokka ahead as the four Guardians on duty snapped to attention, their leather and bronze half-armor brightly polished. Two she recognized by sight and nodded to in greeting; they’d stood her an ale one night at Myllard’s. They gave the faintest acknowledgment, a slight bob of the head, and stared straight ahead, true to their duty and their training.
The closest Canderis could claim to a standing army, there was little need for the Guardians in the military sense. Trained and constantly tested to the highest degree of readiness in mock combat and group battle strategy, the Guardians seldom found themselves engaged in traditional battles in these long years of peace. Instead, they served wherever the sight of them reassured the populace of their safety, and turned their hands to whatever emergency tasks might prove useful, as well as serving as a constabulary in cities and towns. Surprisingly enough, the life suited them well, for the Guardians recruited no brawlers, nor men with naught on their minds but mayhem and aggression, the love of killing. Instead they took pains to enlist men with good hearts, who cared about the land and the people and the protection of them, but who yearned for a touch of adventure as well.
Flanked by the four Guardians, Doyce waited until the .gatekeeper emerged, rubbing the remains of his evening meal off his face, jostling past the Guardians. Doyce straightened herself in the saddle and intoned, “Seeker Veritas Doyce Marbon and the ghatta Bondmate Khar’pern. Enter we may?” Pure ritual, for a Seeker-Bondmate pair would never be denied access anywhere.
“Ah. Aye, enter ye may,” the gatekeeper rasped, then tossed a sneer back over his shoulder at the soldiers. “ ’Nother of those damn Stealthers and her cat. Ye get rid of one, ’nother appears.” The youngest Guardian, cheeks and chin sunburned scarlet where a beard had recently been barbered clean, and flushing redder at the insult he’d heard, narrowed his lips and his armor ga
ve a warning jangle as he started forward, then restrained himself under the watchful eye of his Sergeant. Khar’s ears pricked forward as she stared through the gatekeeper. The one word transmitted to Doyce’s mind described offal that had begun to rot and that any self-respecting ghatt would scratch dirt over to bury.
“Apt, but hardly original,” she whispered back.
“Why waste originality?”
Lokka’s hooves echoed on the cobble streets as they wound their way off the broad entry avenue and into the twists and turns of the old quarter where Myllard’s Ale House was located. Shopkeepers dragged forth the clumsy night-shutters and chatted back and forth with each other about the day’s business while children noisily played tag in the shadows, shrieking and chasing each other, darting away minnowlike when “it” drew too near. A few early drunks already saluted the power of the five nearly full Lady’s moons creeping up into the sky and serenaded them in a cacophony of sound. “The Guardians will have their hands full tonight.” She plugged fingers in her ears. The tune was long past having any identity she’d care to know.
“And for the next few nights,” Khar murmured, ears twitching.
Tired, Doyce looked to see who watched them as they rode down the street. Fascinating to see how many gazed after a Seeker and Bondmate, either overtly or covertly. Some with a faint look of disgust on their faces, the ones who referred to them as Stealthers; while many others called greetings, smiled at the trio. A few children jogged companionably alongside, some stretching up gingerly to pat Khar, saying “Hey, ghatty, hey, kitty,” and then dropping back to rejoin the tag game. Khar licked her rumpled fur into place, swiveled her head to check if more grubby hands waggled fingers toward her. Still other watchers made their ignoring obvious, backs stiff-turned, as if not seeing meant the three did not exist.
Once she had been one of those who had ignored, during her training as a eumedico. She had truly believed that the need for a ghatt as an intermediary, a mindlink from human to human, affronted any intelligent, educated mind, and the Lady’s as well, if one believed in the panacea of religion. Almost a sin to let a four-legged lesser being slink into one’s mind. Now that she wore the tabard of a Seeker Veritas she could imagine no other way, would feel that way even if she did not know the truth about the eumedicos and their vaunted link from human mind to human mind, from eumedico to patient.
