Finders-Seekers

by Gayle Greeno

They stood at the starting line now, arms untied, waiting for the chieftain’s staff to fall and begin the race. Doyce judged the course to be about two hundred meters long, a quick sprint under normal circumstances. But this, this was like running into the maw and down the gullet of a giant, fanged beast. Erakwa, young and old, male and female, lined both sides of the path, deathly silent but intent with anticipation. And armed with any weapon that came to hand. A little boy of no more than four struggled with a windfallen branch nearly as big as he and had already jabbed two of his neighbors with it. Farther down on the opposite side, a young woman with raggedly hacked hair and an ash-stained face streaked by tears grimly hefted a more serviceable—and dangerous—club. Raw anxiety ate like acid as Doyce recognized one of the new-made widows, courtesy of Jenret’s sword during the battle. She clutched hard and felt Mahafny return the pressure, hand ice-cold.

  Against the sea of coppery skin the two pale, naked backs, both sheened with nervous sweat, one broad and sheltering, the other slighter but well-built and powerful, looked incredibly vulnerable. Harrap shouldered himself onto Jenret’s weak side, ready to drag him upright if the younger man faltered or fell. All movement froze as they readied themselves to spring forward as soon as the chieftain’s painted staff reached the end of its tortuously slow descent. The old man’s arm quavered in the air, frail wrist shaking the staff, making it tremble and hesitate in its downward course, dangling the temptation of a false start. Every eye locked on it as it jerked and quivered, and slowly, slowly descended. Doyce moistened her lips and began to pray.

  “Now, now, now, now!” The voice was mild but menacing with its precise and careful articulation. “We can’t have that. Wantah, stop that. Did you think I’d let you play with them just because I let you capture them? Whatever did you think you were going to do, trade damaged goods to me? This wasn’t part of our bargain.” And the chieftain drew back, not dropping his outstretched arm but bending it so that the staffs tip returned to its starting point, and his opaque eyes dropped in ill-concealed loathing. “No, not after I’ve led them this far with such solicitous forebearance.”

  Doyce broke free of Mahafny’s grip, whirling to look behind her, aware in one corner of her mind of her feet tangling, the crash to one knee. The quality, the timbre of the voice rang teasingly familiar, although the articulation was not. The sight, despite years of training as a eumedico, made her blanch. A survivor of a major catastrophe, that much was readily apparent.

  A tall man, long of trunk and long of leg, dressed in tight black leather, but unlike Jenret’s garb, there was nothing elegant about it, simply utilitarian. He sat a deep chestnut stallion with black mane, tail, and stockings. The whiteness of his hands and face and throat offered chill contrast to the dark shirt, and much of the whiteness of flesh consisted of pale, shiny scar tissue; it flowed down the whole right side of his face and neck, ropy and twisted in spots, smooth and glistening in others with the luster of satin. The right ear was nubbed like a blighted ear of corn, barely there, and the lashless right eyelid was glazed with scar, while the mouth on that side fused and curled at the corner, thus explaining the man’s need for careful enunciation. The nose had escaped damage except for a splash of scarring along one side.

  The scarring ran down his neck and as far down into the open throat of his shirt as she could see. Indeed, she suspected it ran down the whole length of his body on that side, for the hand on the right curled clawlike, the thumb still working opposably, but the fingers welded together, several end joints missing. The right moccasin looked overly stubby and short as well. Young, old, she had no inkling, but on the whole she opted for young from the unmarred hand and the unscarred portion of the face she could see. That, and the voice. But the horror of his appearance became commonplace next to the white-furred apparition that materialized out of nowhere to rub seductively around his horse’s hocks and then spring up in front of the man. A ghatt, the white of bleached bones, with black stockings, a black muzzle and deep pink eyes, the color of the ripe heart of the passion fruit from the Sunderlies. The total reversal of normal coloration increased its horror. It half shut its eyes and yawned once in their direction, patently clear that boredom was the least thing on its mind. Its long, lashing tail writhed like some white, deadly, snake. The scarred hand reached out and imprisoned it long enough to make its command known, and then dropped it. The very tip continued its insolent flick.

  “Well, little mindmate, what do you think?”

  The ghatt rilled deep in its throat, and Doyce shivered in unison with its cry. Despite its broad, nobly shaped head, its wide chest and slim flanks, its perfectly set ears and intelligent eyes, she felt she had never experienced anything so innately evil in her entire life. It simply was, not through choice or will, but by its mere being, a wrongness pulsating from within its own heart and brain.

  She cast about wildly for Khar, desperate for a sense of contact, for a rightness of being, and saw only the empty tabard. Empty, no nesting, weak ghatta there. And if not there, where? She pushed blindly at the chests and shoulders surrounding her, mind spinning crazy patterns of fear. Not anywhere near this, this thing, she prayed. She sucked in a breath, started to mindspeak, almost not daring to trust herself.

  “Hush!” The one word struck with force, shaking her on her feet. Urgent, demanding, and utterly final. She could feel Khar sever their communion as if the umbilical between minds had been cut clean, a total separation, and Doyce prayed for the ghatta’s escape.

  “What?” The man shook his head as if to clear it. The white ghatt and the scarred man regarded each other, clear puzzlement on the part of one and incomprehension on the other’s part. “But I thought you said something. Well, never mind, then.” The ghatt sat still, pink eyes even more intent.

  “It’s nice, of course, to have you all together now, my four stalwart, faithful followers, tagging after me for so many leagues, and their four equally faithful ghatti, so committed. Of course, capturing them was quite a coup.” The claw of a hand rose in a casual half-salute, half-wave of command.

  At the signal four men trotted in from the forested side, each pair carrying a stout pole over their shoulders. And from the first pole hung Rawn and Parm, feet lashed together, heads dangling, tails limp, and from the second pole, alone, Saam. Each lolling head exposed the vulnerable throat, ready for slashing. But most pitiful of all was the limp crescent each body created, from dangling tail across the long broad arc of the back, then the sudden drop and course of the extended neck and head.

  “Four, damn you! I said four! Where’s the other one, the little bitch, the ghatta!”

  With a sobbing moan, Harrap pushed his way toward the ghatti, Jenret in his wake, swinging his stiff leg and cursing in a low monotone. At yet another signal from the rider, Erakwan after Erakwan tackled the Shepherd, clinging with dogged determination to whatever part of his body offered itself to their grasp. He moved slower and slower, as if wading though ever-deepening water, until at last he was dragged down a good ten paces ahead of the lighter, slimmer Jenret, who punched and kicked and fought his way down. As Harrap toppled beneath the wave of Erakwa, they heard his last despairing, desolate shout of “Parm!”

  Now, before it’s too late to distract him, before you choke on the fear rising in you, before you and everyone else are helpless, paralyzed by fear of, of, this thing, this being, and his equally macabre ghatt! Face contorted, frenzied fists pumping the air, Doyce screamed. “What have you done to them? You can’t treat Seekers this way! Are you mad? What have you done with Khar? Where is she? If you’ve captured us all, why isn’t she with the others?”

  The face, so whole and handsome on one side, so horrifically scarred on the other, turned and regarded her performance with interest. “Ah, yes, you. Dear little Doyce, so many years, hasn’t it been? Since you last took an interest in me, that is. I suspect you take more of an interest in that ghatta than you ever took in me. But then, I now know what that’s like, don’t I, Cloud?” The
disfigured hand toyed with the white ghatt’s ears, translucent in the sunlight.

  “Ah well, losing her is unfortunate, but no matter, really. I did assume that you managed to spirit her off since my men couldn’t find her. After all, I gave them explicit commands, and they know better than to disobey me. Even inadvertent disobedience requires ...” he rolled the words with sensuous pleasure, “... corrective measures. Even my direct interest in them is more than they often like ... but then ... they’ve no choice. As you’ll soon find out, won’t you, Doyce?”

  “Who are you? How do you know my name? And how do I know you? I’ve never seen you before in my life.” Heart hammering, Doyce stood, hands clenched behind her. Not that it fooled him, not in the least, she knew it, and knew with sick certainty that he relished seeing her tremble.

  “Oh, no, that’s not quite true.” She sensed a more than mild enjoyment in his correction. “You’ve seen me before. Not like this, of course. But you used to take quite an interest in me ... once. And I’d like my medallion back now, my dear stepmother.”

  “Vesey?” The world windmilled around her, swooping and diving, rising and sinking, until she thought her stomach would rebel. Her eyes blurred at the swirls of blue sky, brown earth, green forest, the earth’s colors muddling themselves into the dire hue of fear. But the black and white of the dark-garbed man and pale ghatt stood out in stark, searing contrast, untouched by the whirling in her brain.

  “Vesey?” Belief and disbelief rose and fell in the same swooping pattern. “But you’re dead! The fire ... consumed you. We couldn’t even find a body to....” And comprehension dawned, petrified her until all she could do was stare, helpless, at the good half of his face, the face that did resemble a younger, handsomer Varon, the voice that had tickled her memory with its timbre and quality.

  “No, you couldn’t, could you?” The tone offhand, almost conversational. “But the headstone beside my mother’s was very touching. Too bad, though, that you had to bury her murderer, my father, on the other side. And that squalling brat of a baby on his other side.

  “Now, the medallion! Give it here!” The insistent voice struck lightning-hard at the core of her being. And she let herself crumple to the ground, drawing the safe, soft blackness around her for comfort and escape. The image of Khar flickered, then blurred. If she didn’t know where the ghatta was, and he didn’t know ... then, well ... she must be safe. And no one could track either of them in the darkness, she prayed.

  Cradling the Appaloosa’s right forehoof in his hands, Parcellus jerked his head and grunted to indicate the loose shoe, two nails gone, a third loosening. Sarrett hovered beside him, teeth chattering, nose red and dripping, arms wrapped tightly around herself to ward off the cold. She shuffled her feet to warm her toes, felt only numbness. Lady bless, but the higher they rode into the Tetonords, the colder it became, as if the laws of nature and the seasons had accelerated their cycles to match the extremes of towering, foreboding peaks and sheer, boulder-strewn slopes they traversed with such excruciating care.

  Frankly, nature had intruded more than she liked or understood. She thought about the events of the last three days and her heart sank yet again, though she’d sworn it couldn’t fall any lower. First, the shortcut that hadn’t been a shortcut. They’d argued about that, whether to chance it or not, and she’d won out, so anxious to press on. “Terrain’s got to be worse,” Parse had warned, tracing his finger along the map. “Stick with the main road, it may not be much of one but it’s all we’ve got.”

  “But we can save nearly a day,” she’d protested, and remembered her wheedling tone, “Please, Parse. Trust me on this one.” Well, trust her he had, and look where it had gotten them. The middle of nowhere, or close enough to it. And then to have Finian bolt with half their supplies... damn all anyway! It had all seemed so clear and uncomplicated, absolutely right in the cozy library, like some childhood tale of noble rescuers.

  The thought of the wolves still spooked her almost as much as they had Parse’s gelding, Finian. The ghatti had alerted them to the wolves’ presence, warned that they were running a doe, and they had stumbled onto their kill, the doe crashing down, entrails ripped and steaming, but still clinging to life. The wolves had drifted off like woodsmoke, growling and snarling in their direction, loath to leave their kill but uneasy near the riders. Parse had sprung down, planning on putting the deer out of its misery, when one of the wolves angled closer, canines bared, tongue lolling, yellow eyes predator curious. The nearness, the feral wolf smell, the scent of blood—with a scream of panic Finian had reared and bolted, Per’la tossed into the air, scrabbling and twisting to right herself as she’d landed. They could hear the sound of the horse careening through the trees, crashing and galloping back the way they’d come. They’d spent half a day calling and searching, but the horse had vanished.

  Since then they’d ridden double, but the trail snaked too steep and rough for Savoury to carry the weight easily, so they’d shared the walking turn and turn about. Sometimes both walked to give Savoury a good rest. They’d all but gained the road they should have remained on to begin with—and now this. Sarrett looked around with growing despair. Per‘la and T’ss lay curled up on the gear stripped from Savoury, their coats fluffed with the cold, tiny plumes of breath white in the air.

  “Shoe’s not going to hold much farther. We’d best walk her until we reach the next village.” Parse pulled out his map, uncreased it against Savoury’s side, dirty finger marking their route. “At this rate, we should reach it tomorrow morning. Not this evening as we’d hoped, but there’s no choice now that we can’t ride.” Parcellus sneezed and Savoury twitched at the indignity of the sudden spray. “And this is a cold, definitely. Not an allergy. You needn’t have shared your cold with me.” He hadn’t complained about losing Finian, but he grieved inside, prayed the horse was safe. He’d not complained, cried “I told you so,” or betrayed by a word or a gesture his dismay at their situation, just gone on as best he could. But the cold made him pettish at last.

  “Would you rather have slept alone and tried to keep warm by yourself? That was a freeze, not a light frost last night. We had every blanket left on top of us plus the ghatti—and you have cold feet!” Sarrett snuffled miserably, hated the bickering, hated herself for having gotten them into this mess, for not having apologized. Parse relented enough to hand her one of his handkerchiefs, increasingly precious as the supply dwindled, gone along with the better part of their food on Finian’s fleeing back.

  “How can Doyce and Jenret keep going in this weather?” she wondered. “And how can we possibly catch up with them like this if we go at a crawl? The ghatti can’t seem to raise them, the mountains distort their mindspeech, they haven’t a clue as to where they are now. We’ve got to reach them and warn them what they’re up against! To blindly tackle Gleaners ...” she trailed off, swallowing hard and refusing to finish her thought, though she could see her apprehensions mirrored in Parse’s strained expression as he envisioned exactly what she did—friends and compatriots as walking, empty shells, minds snatched and discarded like so much chaff tossed into the wind. While they limped along like the blithe innocents they were, thinking to offer assistance. It galled her that they were two babes in the woods, literally ready to make themselves a bed of leaves.

  Dusting his hands on his pantaloons, Parcellus unslung his canteen from his shoulder, unstoppered it and took a sip. “Here, it’s still warm. Er ... at least it’s not stone cold.” The last of their cha.

  “Well, I am.” Pale gold hair straggling from beneath her red tam, she shook her head. “If they don’t have a smith at the next village, perhaps we can buy horses and stable Savoury there until we come back. How much money did you bring?”

  Slapping his head, jaw dropping, Parcellus clutched at his waist pouch. “Lady bless and keep all fools—including me—I forgot to bring...”

  “Any money,” she finished for him.

  “Well, he remembered everything else
,” Per‘la consoled, snuggling tighter against T’ss, her wide peridot eyes even wider and rounder with indignation over the slur against her Bondmate. “And he knows when shortcuts aren’t shortcuts,” she added with a ladylike private hiss in Sarrett’s direction.

  Sarrett let herself collapse in a heap, holding her aching, stuffy head in both hands. “And what I have won’t go far, we’ve spent some of it already on food.”

  “Riders coming!” T‘ss and Per’la both sang out, springing to their feet. They danced and boxed in mock combat, excitement barely held in check. T’ss whirled after his own tail. then stopped short, gave his spine a lick as if he’d planned that all along.

  “That’s something to be thankful for, but why such joy, my purrling friends?” Parse asked.

  “You’ll see. You’ll see. Just wait!”

  “Either bandits—in which case we’ve nothing much left to steal—or rescue for the rescuers. Well, since there isn’t much else we can do. we wait.” Untying her bedroll, Parse shook it out. “Come on, Sarrett, up. Get this under you. Too cold to sit and wait on the bare ground like that.” Smoothing the blanket, he sat, drawing Sarrett under his arm. Per‘la and T’ss threw themselves across their laps, all feline grins and knowing superiority.

  By the time the riders swung into sight, Parcellus’s and Sarrett’s roles were reversed, Parse asleep with his head on Sarrett’s shoulder. As the first three trotted around the western curve of the trail, all she could see were their silhouettes’ dark outline against the vibrant orange-gold of the setting sun. The crest on the helmets cut sharp and bright as a flame-edged sickle.

  Guardians! The helmets meant Guardians. Her heart dropped stone cold toward her growling stomach as she calculated the reception awaiting them. Roughly shaking Parse awake, she wondered if they were on business of their own or if their business was finding them, ordered to bring them back after their precipitous—and unauthorized—departure. To be fetched back now....