by Tanya Huff
He heard the old man call out a name and had barely enough self remaining to realize that if he’d known Kait’s name sooner, he might have been able to find her Song.
Too late.
The pain became more than even he could bear.
Holding tightly to the only Song he could remember, his kigh fled and his body fell to lie beside the other seven.
* * * *
“Annice!” Drawn by the long, low moan of pain, Stasya raced across the garden, dropped onto the wet dirt beside the kneeling woman and gathered her into the circle of her arms. “What is it, dearling? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Her body rigid, her face wet with tears, Annice slowly opened the fingers of one hand. Nestled in her palm lay a clump of earth, compacted by the pressure of her fist. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “But it just got worse.”
* * * *
“So, Vree.” Kovar smiled kindly across the desk at her, the waxed ends of his mustache rising. “How are you finding your stay with us?”
*Finding? What does he mean, finding? I haven’t lost anything.*
Vree felt her lungs expand and contract as Gyhard sighed. *I’m going to assume you don’t know enough Shkoden to make puns. Our Bardic-Captain-in-waiting here, wants to know how you are, relative to where you are.*
*Oh, that makes just as much sense.* She nodded at Kovar, her expression carefully unreadable, and said, “Fine.” Since arriving in Shkoder, she’d discovered it was a good, all-purpose answer for those times she didn’t quite understand the question. Unless, of course, she was talking to Magda, who’d be all over it, like fire ants in a bedroll.
“The food’s all right? The room? The bards aren’t pestering you too much?”
The bards didn’t actually see her. Most often, they saw two kigh and reacted accordingly. Occasionally, they saw some sort of romantic nonsense she didn’t understand. Of all the bards who’d Sung at, around, and to her since she’d arrived, only the Bardic Captain had actually responded to her, as herself, and Gyhard, as himself, instead of treating them like some strange new piece of music to be learned.
*What about Tadeus?* Gyhard asked. Since his return, Tadeus had used his age and position to co-opt more than his fair share of their time.
*He does it, too, although he’s so slaughtering charming about it, it’s hard to mind.*
*And Kovar? He seems worried about you.*
*He’s not worried about me. He’s worried about someone he thinks is me.* Realizing that Kovar was waiting for an answer, Vree shrugged. “The food is good. The room is more than I’ve ever had. The bards have been very interested.”
Kovar frowned and lightly drummed his fingers on the desktop in unconscious imitation of Captain Liene. He suspected there was more to Vree’s response than an imperfect command of Shkoden, but as he also suspected that the cause of her unhappiness was a perpetual eavesdropper on her life, he didn’t dare ask for further explanation lest she suffer for it later.
“Interested,” he repeated. “That’s one word for it. You’ve been a great help to us, Vree. I don’t know if she mentioned it to you, but Karlene believed that part of being a bard involved an ability to Sing the fifth kigh. That we’ve all always done it without realizing it. That every time we touch an audience, one listener or one hundred, we’re Singing the fifth kigh. Thanks to you …” His pause was so short that anyone but another bard would have missed it. Another bard or an assassin trained to notice the smallest detail connected to survival. “… and Gyhard, we’re discovering that Karlene was right. We’re beginning to find out why some Songs work, why some don’t. If we can learn to consciously Sing the fifth kigh, we could reach so many more people.”
*Or they could fine-tune the way they manipulate emotions. All for the greater good, of course.*
*Karlene said bards aren’t like that.*
*Karlene’s a bard, Vree. She’s not exactly unbiased.*
Noticing Vree’s blank stare, Kovar shook his head. “I’m sorry; I’m lecturing, aren’t I? Bad habit of mine, I’m afraid. Have you heard the songs the fledglings are writing about you?”
“Songs? There’s more than one?” Vree’s cheeks grew hot at the memory of the lengthy and overly tragic ballad she was already aware of. Hearing it sung in front of Magda and her brother had been the most embarrassing moment of her entire life. When the young bard had left, Gerek had summed up her feelings pretty much exactly.
“Don’t you wish you were still an assassin?” he’d caroled, surrendering to the laughter he’d charitably suppressed while the fledgling was within earshot. “I bet you wish you could use your daggers right about now.”
“On me or on him?” she’d asked miserably. Gyhard’s amusement hadn’t helped.
And now she’d been told there was more than one. “Are the rest as bad?”
Kovar hid an involuntary smile at her tone. “Very likely. Never mind, Vree, the pressure’ll be off you in a little while. The bards will be too busy to drown you in their creative juices and there’ll be more Southerners around, so the Citadel, at least, shouldn’t look so strange.” When he saw he had her full attention, he went on. “According to the Imperial Ambassador, your young Prince Otavas is coming to Shkoder for a visit. His ship will be arriving sometime tomorrow.” The panic that flashed in her eyes disappeared so quickly he thought he might have imagined it. “Vree?”
She stared at him but saw another face—a younger face; Bannon’s face.
*Vree?*
*Why is he coming here?*
*You don’t know that Bannon is still with the prince.*
Rising, Kovar came around the desk and stood, outstretched hand not quite touching Vree’s rigid shoulder. “Are you all right, child?”
Before she could answer, or not answer, the door to the office burst open and Captain Liene threw herself into the room. “Open the window, Kovar! Quickly!”
Propelled across the room by Liene’s voice, Kovar flipped up the latch that held the multipaned window closed. It flew open with such force that he lost his grip and it slammed back against the wall. The howl of the wind drowned out the crash of breaking glass.
The two bards tried to calm the half-dozen agitated kigh that spun around them, drenching them both with the rain the window had been closed to keep out. It wasn’t until they raised their voices in harmony that the kigh’s message began to make any sense.
A young bard named Marija had been intercepted by a hysterical teenager and taken to the small town of Bartek Springs where she’d found that something had caused the dead to walk. Fortunately, Jazep had arrived before her and Sung the dead to rest—her relief at the older bard’s intervention was the strongest part of the message. Unfortunately, before she’d arrived, he’d then gone hunting the abomination that had done such a horrible and hideous thing—here the kigh grew agitated again and had to be soothed. Marija had Sung the notes of Jazep’s name to an air kigh and sent it to find him. When it returned, it told her that Jazep no longer was. She’d sent another, and another, and another. The answer didn’t change.
The final part of the message was less a Song than a wail. What should I do?
Liene groped her way to a chair and sat heavily, fingers white around the head of her cane. Kovar stared out the window as though he could find an answer in the blowing sheets of rain. Neither noticed that Vree was no longer in the room.
“Jazep.” The Bardic Captain fought for breath, feeling as though she’d just been hit in the chest. “Marija has no ability in earth and that’s the only quarter Jazep Sings. I need to get out of the city and hear what the earth kigh have to say.”
Kovar shook his head slowly, as though even that limited motion was almost beyond him. “She didn’t say that the air kigh couldn’t find him, Liene. They told her he no longer was.”
“That’s impossible!”
“No. It isn’t.” His shoulders sagged. “You know the only reason they would have told her that.”
“But Jazep
…”
“Is dead. And we’ll mourn him later.” He lost his voice in grief, swallowed, and found it again. “Right now, we have a living bard who needs our help. What is Marija to do?”
Liene closed her eyes, feeling her age tighten around her. She touched a recall of Jazep as a fledgling. The only one in his year unable to Sing air, he’d never resented the others’ easy communication with bards in other parts of the country; he’d just smiled his slow smile and been their anchor. The breadth of his shoulders and the heavy muscles in his arms made his legs seem short and out of proportion to the rest of his body, but everyone who met him saw his kindness and then his great strength. He had a tendency to fuss. She’d taught him the tambour and he’d soaked up the knowledge as effortlessly as the earth soaked up rain.
She’d mourn him later.
Straightening, Liene opened her eyes to meet Kovar’s concerned gaze. “It seems,” she said, “that if the dead are walking, the abomination of Karlene’s recall has crossed the border from the Empire. Who else is in that area?”
“It’s almost to the border, Captain. There’s no one close. Jeremias is near the south end of the Coast Road, but he’s only got two quarters—air and water, I believe …”
“All right.” An upraised hand that trembled only a little cut him off. “Marija needs the description of the old man from Karlene’s recall. We need the recall she’s carrying about what happened at Bartek Springs. The Duc of Somes needs to be warned what’s walking her province. We can’t do anything with bits of information scattered all over the country so we have to consolidate, and we have to get a bard who Sings earth into those mountains. Jazep must have left a Song.”
“With Jazep walking that way, we’ve spread the others with earth over the rest of the kingdom and with this opportunity to study the fifth kigh, we’ve shortened a number of walks …” His face went blank as he worked out the rough locations of the bards they could use. Suddenly, animation returned. “I’ll go. And we needn’t send the courier. I can ride with the recall myself.”
In spite of everything, the corners of Liene’s mouth quirked up. “Kovar, when was the last time you were on a horse?”
He frowned. “Ten, twelve years ago, why?”
Bards walked. It kept them connected to the land and the people. The few times it became necessary for a bard to ride, younger bards, those closest to their lives before the Bardic Hall, were invariably chosen.
“I think,” Liene told him kindly, “we’d best leave this to those who ride for a living.” When it looked as though he were going to protest, she added, “You wouldn’t ask a courier to Sing the Fourth Quarter service, would you?”
“No.” He sighed. “No, I wouldn’t.” His chin rose. “All right, then what?”
“That depends on His Majesty’s orders.” Liene stood and smoothed down her robe, her palm lingering over the brown quarter. “I’ll request an immediate audience. But, no matter what His Majesty says, this much is definite: Marija is not to try and find Jazep’s body until she knows what she may be facing. We have few enough bards to risk their lives so foolishly.” She could see a pair of kigh just outside the window, waiting for an answer to Marija’s final question, their presence a reminder of the message they’d brought, a reminder of Jazep’s death. All at once, she wanted to smack their pointy little ethereal faces. “Could you send her my decision please, Kovar. I don’t think …” She shook her head and blinked away tears. “I don’t think I could Sing right now.”
* * * *
By the time the Bardic Captain had slammed the door all the way open, Vree had been out of her chair reaching for the daggers she didn’t wear within the Bardic Hall. When the winds blew into the room, she’d kept her back to the wall and slid toward the door. While the two bards were trying to calm the air spirits, she’d slipped out of the room.
This was bardic business, not hers. If they wanted her to know later, they’d tell her. A quick glance showed she hadn’t been missed.
*Aren’t you the least bit curious about what the kigh are telling them?* Gyhard asked.
*No. Whenever the air spirits …*
*The kigh.*
She rolled her eyes. *Fine. The kigh. Whenever the kigh blew around Karlene that violently, it was always bad news.*
Gyhard tried to remember every time the kigh had come to Karlene and decided, after a moment, that Vree was right. *I’d still like to know what they had to say.*
*You know what we used to call people who always had to know what was going on? Jiir’s targets—and then we’d bury them.*
*But this message might have been about us,* he argued. He let her feel his desire to turn her around, back toward Kovar’s office.
*That,* she declared, ignoring the feeling with the ease of much practice, *is all the more reason to make ourselves scarce. If they want us, they can find us when they calm down.*
After a moment’s consideration, Gyhard muttered, *That’s not a bad idea.*
*Yeah, well, a lifetime in the army teaches a number of useful survival skills.*
Halfway up the stairs, a bard Vree’d forgotten the name of rushed past, eyes streaming tears. The ex-assassin froze in place, head cocked.
*What is it?* Gyhard demanded.
A breeze touched Vree’s cheek and moved on. “There’s a lot of air moving around in here,” she murmured.
*What?*
*Something’s wrong. Can’t you feel it?* Silently, she sped down the stairs to the first floor and headed for an exit. Although she had no reason for believing it, she was convinced that the arrival of the air spirits and the weeping bard were connected. *This building suddenly seems too small for what it has to hold.*
Fully aware that Vree’s instincts had been developed by years of brutal training, Gyhard examined that statement from every possible angle. *I think you’ve been spending too much time with the bards,* he concluded as they stepped out into the rain.
*Maybe. But listen.*
From one of the upper windows came the same four notes, repeated over and over and over. The raw emotion lifted the hair off the back of her neck and made it impossible to tell if the voice was male or female. Eddies of wind, given definition by the rain, spun around the building.
Unwilling to leave the Citadel, Vree made her way to the cloister where she and Magda most often spent their afternoons. With a minimum of effort—more for practice than anything—she slipped unseen into the Healers’ Hall and then out into the cloister. Choosing a bench that gave her a clear line of sight on both doors leading back into the building, she sat and stared out at the herb garden, deserted because of the rain.
*What are we doing here?* Gyhard demanded, moving restlessly within the confines of Vree’s mind. *If we’re hiding, we’re not doing a very good job.*
*We’re waiting for something to happen.*
*Like what?*
*If I knew, we wouldn’t have to wait. We could go looking for it.*
She reminded him of a cat, sitting by a hole gnawed in the wall, certain that, in time, a mouse would appear. It wasn’t that she was focused—he could almost feel her concentration spreading out to cover all possibilities—it was that all she was doing was waiting. It made him very uncomfortable although he wasn’t entirely certain why. *Did they train you to do this?* When she nodded, he wondered if maybe that was it; that perhaps she was, in a way, training him, and he didn’t want to learn to be an assassin. He wanted to fidget, to pace, to twiddle his thumbs—except that he didn’t have thumbs of his own to twiddle. *Shouldn’t we be doing something?*
*Like what?* she demanded in turn.
When Gyhard couldn’t find an answer, he decided it might be time to change the subject. *Vree, about Bannon; I’m sure if you don’t think you can face him, it can be arranged so that you don’t have to.*
*First of all,* she snapped, * what makes you think I don’t want to see him? And second, what makes you think anyone here could stop him if he wanted to see me?*
Her mental voice suggested she’d be equally unaffected by either scenario, but she couldn’t block the chaotic mix of emotions churning just below the surface of her thoughts. Though it was far from that simple, guilt, longing, and fear seemed to predominate.
*What are you more afraid of, Vree?* Gyhard asked quietly. *That he won’t want to see you or that he will?*
*Maybe I’m afraid that the moment you see him, you’ll jump back to his body. It suited you well enough before.*
He couldn’t be angry, not when he could feel her frightened uncertainty and knew she lashed out at him only because he was there. He could, however, be irritated by her desire to pick a fight rather than face an emotion or two. *I can’t jump unless your body is dying or you push me out. So if I end up back in Bannon’s body, it won’t have been my choice.*
Just for a moment, he caught the memory of her thigh brushing his with nothing between them but scented water. Before he figured out whether it was his memory or hers, it was so strongly suppressed it took other, less heated memories, with it.
*There’s just so slaughtering much between us.* Gyhard recognized Bannon in the plural rather than himself. *Or maybe,* she continued as she remembered a strained good-bye on the docks of the Capital, *it’s that there’s nothing between us anymore at all. That we used it all up. Besides …* She flicked one finger at a dead leaf back of the bench, the closest Gyhard could ever remember her coming to fidgeting. *He probably still hates you and you’re still with me.*
*A lot of people don’t get along with their sibling’s partners.*
Vree snorted. *You’re not exactly a partner. You’re more like a …*
*A parasite.*
The lengthy silence became agreement.
She stared out at the rain, watching it bead on the broad leaves of the boneset, listening to it run down the cistern pipes, tasting it with every breath. Finally, she sighed. *We have to find you a body. Soon.*
Gyhard fought the urge to nod her head. *No argument here.*
