Finders-Seekers

by Gayle Greeno

  Pushing Varon ahead of his outstretched arm, pulling Doyce at arm’s length behind him, Vesey began the chant, eyes fixed on the baby as he began the circle. “Oh, ring-around, ring-around, ring around the rosy, ring around the rosy ...’ he sang, pushing faster and faster, making the circle spin. Varon laughed, trotting ahead, Vesey at the end of his arm. They capered around and around the baby, her head thrown back.

  “Ring around the rosy,” Vesey roared, then quick as a terrier after a rat, spun himself in the other direction, pushing at Doyce, rather than pulling her. Doyce stumbled but managed the turn, dragging Vesey behind her, Varon kite-tailing after him. “Ring around the rosy, ring around the rosy!”

  “Ring around the rosy, pockets full of posies,” Vesey warbled, high and breathless, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall ... down!” And as Varon and Doyce fell in an obedient heap on the ground, collapsing around the blanket, Vesey broke from their grasps, jumping skyward, arms outstretched with a shrill shriek of glee that he’d fooled them all. High, childish laughter bubbled from him, laughter that left him weak-kneed, bent over double, holding his stomach, staggering this way and that, until he finally tripped over himself and rolled onto the blanket, laughter still whistling and bubbling in his throat, eyes streaming. “All fall ... down!” Varon fell on top of him, began to wrestle him into submission, both of them laughing and rolling. “Ashes, ashes!” screamed Vesey.

  “We all fall down!” Varon finished. “Fooled you!”

  Doyce’s smile broadened as she dug her shoulder into the thin pillow and drifted deeper into asleep. Khar registered the end of the dream sequence and came alert, surveying her surroundings, listening to the breathing around her, some hushed and regular, others noisy and snorting. The eumedico made the tiniest of smacking sounds, then subsided.

  Khar knew without looking over her shoulder that Saam no longer slept at the foot of the bed, could sense him alone, huddled by the chimney. With a sigh for the lost warmth, she slipped off the bed and padded over, giving a tiny warning trill of her presence as she went. Then stopped short, waiting for further invitation or refusal. Always before he had been her leader, she the happy follower, acquiescing to his demands, though he made few on her. Now, she sensed with unhappiness, their positions were somehow reversed, the loss of mindspeech lessening him, making her superior at this moment. Regardless, she would not intrude unless he wanted her, though her heart ached to comfort him.

  The barest of whisker flicks invited her forward, and she came, settled near but not too near. He paid no attention to her, lost in his thoughts. “Oriel!” He gave a breathy purr, seemed to speak to himself. “I taste your touch on my fur and I rejoice!” He licked at his flank, licked again, at last looked at her, yellow eyes haunted. “But there’s nothing left now—every remnant, every flavor and smell and sound of him has fled!” A frail mewl like that of a lost kitten. “Everything is gone from my head! It’s all gone wrong! What’s happening to us?”

  Rawn and Parm glided across the floor, settling without a word at a calculated distance behind Khar, their unease as evident as if they shouted it. Saam glared in their direction. “Too many, too close.”

  She could feel Rawn’s anger building. He shifted, a flurry of claws working at the wood of the floor, and spoke in stiff falanese. “We’ve no choice. We may be solitaries, not pack animals, but we have no choice in this except to continue to intrude on each other’s space. We must stay together for the sake of our Bonds.”

  “It is hard,” Parm soothed. “We sniff and hunt like dogs giving chase, we who take pride in observing and then ambushing the truth, alone, each to his own.”

  “Then let us go our separate ways and ambush them.” Rawn’s lips drew back in a snarl, fangs gleaming. “Jenret and I can stalk them, trap them.”

  Parm shook his head. “We do not know what manner of evil we face. Fighting our own separate, personal battles will not succeed this time, don’t you see? We must be like the links in a mindnet, working together, supporting and bolstering each other for the added strength. Any time we come close to them, I feel weakened, the pain and evil disrupts, claws at my senses.”

  Saam spoke. “I am so confused! Nothing feels right any more. Even Doyce makes me feel ... uneasy,” he confessed. “As if there is a badness not in her but a part of her somehow. Jenret as well. Yet that came only as the storm struck.”

  With a hiss of dismay and anger, Khar backed away, drew against Rawn for comfort. Betrayer! she wailed in her heart, betrayer of the beloved of your beloved!

  “I know. I feel it, too.” Parm admitted. “They are not bad, not evil within like Georges. This I would know.” His words emphatic as he drew closer to Saam. “But it is as if they carry some unwitting badness with them, not within them. I do not understand it, but it is so.”

  “What are we going to do!” Unmistakable agony shook Khar’s voice. “Doyce is my beloved, my Bondmate, I would know if there was something wrong.” But in truth, she knew something was wrong within Doyce, the strangeness of her dreams clawing at her for so long, no matter how she hunted, tried to find the key. But the others didn’t, couldn’t know that. and she would not admit it, not and shame her Bondmate and herself.

  “You cannot silence Truth, it’s just that we can’t hear it yet. We all have to listen harder, inside ourselves and our Bonds, and all around us,” Parm exhorted.

  “Couldn’t we try to contact the Elders?” Khar pleaded.

  Rawn gave a snort. “Not likely in this storm, not with the lightning, and you know it. We’d lack control. Besides, I fear giving a signal to someone or something else. We must wait, be vigilant.”

  With careful tread, Parm crossed to Khar, hunkered in front of her until his forehead rested against hers. “Doyce has been having bad dreams, hasn’t she?” Sympathy radiated from him. “I can feel a confusion building in her, not badness, but confusion, as if she cannot believe what she must, a lack of trust in her instincts.”

  Khar searched for the words, wanting to explain, not wanting to reveal how Doyce sometimes seemed to shut her out, exclude her. “The sequences are mixed, one past overlaps on another, mingles without reason. I try to chase away the wrongness, that which does not belong, but still it happens. Tonight there was no problem, the dream was of only one past, true and right.”

  “Do you remember what the Elder Amm‘wa once said?” Parm tilted an ear in her direction, waiting for her response. After a moment, he continued. “ ‘I slip through the tall grass and not a blade stirs. I am a part of all I survey and yet—not. But the mouse I stalk will soon be a part of me.’ Have you tried without, not just within? I think that is how I failed with Georges. Try to understand the pattern, not right it, and perhaps you will find its source.”

  “Maybe.” Khar sounded unconvinced. “What else can we do about the Truth we seek?”

  Rawn’s whiskers flicked. “Stalk it when we can. Until then, follow, support each other’s instincts. This closeness is not our way, but we have no other at the moment. And pray that our curiosity won’t be the death of us.” He made a small, sardonic falanese laughing sound.

  “And try not to irritate each other by that closeness. I am sorry,” Saam’s eyes swung from one to the other. “I am not me, my me-ness shifts and slides, though I try to hold it in check.”

  “I know. If I had lost as you have lost ... I do not think I could....” His voice suddenly gruff, Rawn halted. “Let us go back to bed, if not to sleep.” He brushed a terse comfort-touch along Saam’s length as he retreated to the far side of the room.

  Sarrett had lost track of the days—and nights—they’d spent in the Hall of Records, wading through the minutia, the trivia of hundreds upon hundreds of past cases of once-crucial import but now quaint relics of long-past times. Even the more recent cases the Seekers had heard on circuit, her own and Parcellus’s amongst them, bore the distance and remoteness of another life.

  Despite Housekeeping’s best efforts at replenishment and tidying, the room was c
luttered with the lonely-looking stubs of burnt-down candles, plates with cheese parings and petrified bread crusts, an apple core shriveled brown and dry. The only positive thing she could identify was a mound of fresh white handkerchiefs stacked beside Parcellus, near at hand to contain the erratic pattern of sneezes which burst forth at the most inopportune times. Twylla had confirmed that allergy, not a cold, left Parse in a simmering state of explosion, and had done what she could with further medicaments and the handkerchiefs. But the medicine left Parse drowsy and he refused to dose himself, saying that if she could stand the sneezes, he could live with it.

  As if in response to her thoughts, Parcellus looked up at her with pink-rimmed, watery eyes and gave a dainty sneeze, positively anticlimactic after what she’d experienced. Neither Per‘la nor T’ss twitched a hair but conserved themselves half-waking, half-asleep, chins tucked against chests with snub-profiled dignity. Despite the dust and boredom within and the beckoning beauty of the outdoors as fall approached, neither ghatti had ventured far, as if they waited for their Bondmates to find the answer to a secret they already seemed to know. But then, ghatti always looked so knowing, except when it came time to admit who had snagged the final piece of bacon from her plate this morning.

  Well, if they could be patient, so could she, but it wasn’t easy. Sarrett twisted her hair into a heavy white-gold swag and coiled it around her head, let it cascade free. The more days and nights she worked, and this night was no exception, the more disheveled Parse’s carroty hair became, flying out from his ears and nearly straight up from his crown as if he’d sustained a lasting fright. Yet his dishevelment ran in inverse proportion to the neatness about him, and Sarrett wavered between admiration and pique at the contrast.

  Parcellus’s half of the table showed stacks of Record Books aligned with military precision, every needful thing near to hand, sheets of foolscap inked with spiky, angular writing in even lines; her notes boasted marginalia large and small, doodles, angry cross outs flaring across the page like flags of defeat, tiny bird tracks of secret hopes. Her stacks of books jumbled together, some in cozy, cluttered piles, others tossed aside in dismay as promising lines of inquiry dwindled, faltered into some perfectly reasonable explanation of no use at all. She’d never given Parcellus his proper due for his methodical, single-minded search for the answers which might enlighten the Seeker General and help Doyce’s quest for the truth.

  With a start she realized that Rolf and Bard stood in the shadows at the door, waiting for someone to notice them rather than startle the others. Why hadn’t T‘ss alerted her that they were there, and then she realized that the constant pressure against her calf came from T’ss, black stripes against his white fur blending light and shadow. Per‘la, too, was trying to alert Parcellus without ’speaking him, paw hooking first one clean handkerchief, then another, from the pile so that they floated off the table’s edge like giant snowflakes.

  “Parse, visitors. Back to the present on the double, close the book.” She levered herself up against the edge of the table, tired, glad for the chance to stretch and move. How long since she’d taken poor Savoury for a run?

  “Not visitors, friends, I should hope,” came Rolf’s response as he and Chak entered, Bard and M’wa a diffident pace behind.

  Parcellus waved greetings, then grabbed a handkerchief just in time. Peering out over the white cotton, his eyes smiled welcome and with a final sniffle, he asked, “How’s Byrta coming along, Bard?”

  Bard’s face glowed and M‘wa arched and rubbed against his shin, slim black tail kinking. “Better, much better, thank you for caring. Now that Twylla has her in the infirmary, I feel much more confident, and M’wa feels better because P’wa isn’t worried sick any longer. The healing will be long, but Twylla promises she’ll ride circuit again. And tell me in advance what the weather will be when her leg aches! I only regret that the Seeker General would not let me return to Doyce’s side.”

  And the regret was genuine, because he knew there was something he had to tell Doyce, warn her about, but he had no earthly idea what it might be. He tried again to remember, face crimping with the agony of the effort, but it was no use. Just the faint malicious echo of laughter inside his brain each time he tried, then a teasing blackness. It made him want to beat his hands against his head, wrestle it into submission. With an effort, not wanting to alarm, he let his eyes rove around the shadowed, cluttered room, taking in the stacks of leather record books, the crumbled papers and debris of days of work. He managed to make his voice normal. “Don’t you have anything to eat in here?”

  “Ate it all ages ago.” Parse considered, then looked to Sarrett for confirmation. “It was ages ago, wasn’t it?” She nodded in agreement. “Sometimes I forget how long we’ve been working,” he apologized.

  “No need for that,” Rolf said. “Bard, bring in the basket. We brought you a little something for sustenance. Knowing your habits, Parse, we thought it might be necessary, but we were counting on Sarrett’s good sense about regular meals.”

  Bard flourished the lidded basket, eyed the crowded table and decided to borrow another smaller one from the other side of the room. Cold chicken, crisp pears, steaming biscuits, and a flagon of white wine appeared as if by magic. Per’la’s head disappeared into the basket to see if there were anything more, then sighed with contentment.

  They ate and drank, made companionable by the shared meal, although Sarrett found herself being cautious with the wine and noticed that Parcellus was as well. Glorious to relax, disastrous to become muddle-headed. They chatted, inconsequential gossip, but she could see the lines of strain etched deeper on Rolf’s face. His new position as a member of the Tribune advising the Seeker General was no sinecure, and she wondered just how much of her unnameable burden Swan Maclough had laid on Rolf’s shoulders. If only they had some answers for them!

  As if on cue, Rolf stared off into space, then reached down to play with Chak’s ears, rumple his fur. “So how goes it?” His voice balanced between commendable neutrality and polite interest; she watched his hands twitching with anxiety as he stroked Chak.

  “If we’re the hounds set off after the rolapins, then the rolapins are laughing their heads off,” said Parse, a gloomy, dismissive wave of his hand indicating nothingness. “Round about and round about and round we go until we’re fair dizzy with it.”

  The silence hung on,. the food lost any semblance of flavor or appeal, the lights dim and groping. Surprisingly, Bard broke the silence. “And if Parse’s nose gives out,” he indicated the red, raw nose, enflamed and tender from repeated sneezes and wipings, “we still have Sarrett’s more elegant one to track the information.” Eyes wide and innocent, he continued, “And did you know, miss, that there’s ink on it?”

  Grabbing one of Parse’s precious handkerchiefs, she wet the corner with her tongue and scrubbed in earnest, trying to see her reflection in the polished silver candle stand. Then stopped as she realized her foolishness; Bard, always so self-contained and solemn, had caught her out—there was nothing there, no smudge, no smear. How unlike him to play the trickster! T’ss chuckled in the back of her mind, laughed with her rather than at her.

  Bard began to pack and straighten up, leftovers wrapped, plates stacked, the flagon and two glasses left on the table if they should require more later. “Rolf, let’s be going. Time for bed and they want to get back to work.”

  They made their good-byes, and Sarrett and Parse tried to settle in, making little, unconscious gestures and movements that brought them to the brink of the uncharted paper ocean they must dive into again.

  Parcellus picked up his pen and made two neat check-marks against his list. “I can’t glean a thing from all this, not an absolute thing. I know what we don’t need to know, but I don’t know what we need to know.”

  “What did you just say?” Sarrett felt the far-off glimmer of an idea tugging at her brain. Gold or dross, which was it? “What did you just say!”

  Peevish yet patient, he
repeated himself. “I know what we don’t need to know, but I don’t know what we need to know.”

  “No, before that—quick!” Standing now, hands clenched, holding her breath, waiting for the word to see if it would glint as brightly this time. Please, oh please, by the Lady, let this be, don’t let me be wrong, don’t let me have given him unreasonable hope, she prayed.

  “I said I can’t glean a thing from all this ...”

  Still blissfully unaware of what he had said, Parcellus was more than aware that Sarrett had flung herself at him and was kissing him. He returned it enthusiastically and waited for enlightenment. T‘ss’s and Per’la’s eyes widened, then narrowed knowingly, their bodies relaxing as if unbound from some inner tension of knowledge self-controlled, self-contained until the correct key turned the lock. Bondmates were truly strange beasts, they reflected. Always needing the proper cues for everything....

  The storm had spent itself during the night, wisps of stringy clouds darting erratically across pearl-gray sky as the wind sheepdogged their heels, nipping them away from the swell of pale blue at the horizon’s edge. Clearing fast, and the river flowed powerful and strong, still swollen with the previous night’s downpour. The ferry had been winched back into position on the Deutscher side of the river, carrying with it two early morning travelers and one pack horse.

  After a hurried breakfast, Doyce, Jenret, Mahafny and Harrap awaited their turn to cross in the other direction.

  “Will it hold all of us?” Harrap worried, counting on his fingers. “Four humans, four horses, and four ghatti?’

  “And two ferry-tenders. And cargo. And anyone else in the vicinity who wants to cross over.” Then, with just a touch of wide-eyed innocence, Jenret added, “You can swim, can’t you, Harrap?”

  “I used to ... but.. ”

  “Swim? Get all wet? Oh, no!” A desperate Parm twined himself around Harrap’s ankles, nearly toppling him.

  “All ghatti can swim. We just don’t like to.” Khar spoke with excessive patience. “And we won’t have to if you don’t bounce around once we get out there.”