by Gayle Greeno
Did she wish the other ghatti absent because she cringed at revealing her shame that things had gone awry? Oh, a hint of that, why deny it? Khar’pern the Clever, Clever Khar had thought it so simple, such a brilliant idea to share their past, find solutions for the future facing them. True, the Elders were ever indirect, elusive to understand, but the burden of failure was hers alone. No, a ghatti burden, but she’d urged them to shoulder it, beseeched the Elders for it. She’d have to be the one to see it through.
Could she attain the Fifth Spiral alone? Had she rightfully gained it, or had it been loaned her through Terl’s intercession ? Well, one way to find out—try. So why were her ears flattened with dread? Because most of all, she mustn’t harm the ghatten she herself carried or Doyce’s ghatten, although Doyce didn’t yet realize she bore twins. She wiped a paw across her face, erased a self-satisfied smile. Twins for them both. Would all these surges of story, nourishing them in the womb, alter them? Make them the wisest of the wise, she hoped. Nothing wrong with ghatti pride when it rang true.
Amber eyes fixed on the constellations, picking the patterns to guide her, the circling within circles, she commenced the mental climb. Oof! Heavier than she’d realized, although she didn’t show much yet, Doyce unsuspecting of the parallel pregnancy. Not that she physically climbed, but the weight, the knowledge of what her body protected restrained her, yet she forged ahead. Hmph? Extra stability from the weight?
She purred as she progressed, elated by her new steadiness of mindpurpose, recognizing her goal, spanning the distance. Wisdom appeared different at each level she attained; she’d never noticed that before. Higher didn’t make for smaller, but sometimes small things grew more visible, more sparkling clear, while larger worries shrank proportionately. Was that the wisdom of the Fifth Spiral? Surging around that final bend, she waited to be cast back, discover she did need Terl’s assistance to scale that final curve. But no, she arched around it, tail floating behind, lofted on starlight, whiskers pollened with stardust.
The voices tickled and swarmed before she was ready. “Well, well, Khar’pern, glowing like a comet in the night, eh?” “Night ... night... night,” other voices scintillated around her. “Star Khar, stardust bright!” Embarrassing to be caught preening like that.
“My apologies, oh Elder Ones.” Her eyes squinting in humility, she wished she could roll over, expose her belly to indicate submission. “Sometimes I grow a bit fanciful.”
“Oh ... roll ... roll over!” “Show us ... show us ... show us....” “Your white belly, let the starlight caress .. car ... ress ... sss ... sss the ghatten inside.”
Possible to do mentally? Never had she heard a command like that before. She attempted it—aware in a small compartment of her mind that she remained physically seated on the ground by the statue—flashing her white belly to the heavens, laving it in the starlight, the moonlight. “Car ... ress ... sss ... sss ... bless ... sss ... sss....”
Pierced by starshine, she rolled back reluctantly, awed by the sensation. A boon, but not why she’d attempted the Spirals. “An honor beyond deserving, beyond my imagining,” and she bowed low in homage. “But my honor will wither to ashes from disgrace if I cannot accomplish what I promised to do—help Doyce discover the meaning of our past.” She groped, unsure how to explain, if it would make sense to them, if they’d care that the memories, the past inextricably merged with Doyce. She’d wanted Doyce to know, but she hadn’t wanted Doyce to become the past, and she dared not try again until she comprehended what was happening, was going to happen.
“She’s journeyed ahead of me, ahead of us. She doesn’t understand, but she’s gathering it to her without our intervention. Unless,” and the thought struck hard as a blow, “unless you’ve been encouraging it on your own?” Accuse the Elders of meddling? So unapproachable, so difficult to reach, to extract an answer from—or at least a usable answer?
“Ah, Khar’pern, so much like me ... but much more white trim, very handsome. You’ve carried our stripes through the generations, you know.”
Sentences, complete, logical sentences! But the voice, though she’d never heard it before, left no doubt as to who spoke, and she shrank in obeisance, eyes shut, ears tacked back, timorous, waiting for the voice to do with her as it would. Anything, anything the voice commanded must be implicitly obeyed for the good of all ghatti—for the voice was of the Foremother of them all, Kharm! The voice supporting all Elder Voices, the Voice heard by so few in their lifetimes, but ever informing the ways of the ghatti! Her offspring blessed by the Mother of them all!
“And blessed be your Bondmate’s offspring as well. Twinkling twins you shall both have.” A faint chuckle, an encouraging purr. “And so boldy striped—” Khar stiffened in shock, claws spreading. “Yours, that is, not hers, don’t worry.”
Dare she push? Did anyone dare push the Mother of them all? “But Doyce? I think, I think that Matty,” how dare she utter such a familiarity? She gulped, made her heart subside back down her throat. “That Matthias Vandersma, Blessed Bondmate, has intertwined his life with Doyce’s. I fear she’ll be lost between worlds, unable to distinguish which is which.”
“You mean that in the middle of one of his adventures, Matty’ll be highly surprised when labor starts?” Aghast, Khar’s hackles rose at the impropriety of the comment. “Oh, peace, Khar’pern, peace,” the voice continued, chucking Khar under the chin. “But it is time to teach her to tap into the past on her own. She possesses the power, power for that and more if she’s ever able to unleash it. You must teach her which is which, to come and go between past and present unimpeded until she learns what she must learn. And she’s always been a good pupil, hasn’t she?”
Khar managed a nod. “Help her ... ? Teach her ... ?” she quavered, couldn’t think how she could possibly teach this.
“Yes,” the Great Kharm continued. “Don’t you think she should go away? Abandon her fears and distractions, return to her roots? She’s needed here, but she needs to learn more. A country excursion, perhaps, away from this new world a-borning. You can do it. Koom and Swan will help, if you like.”
“So very ... generous,” the best she could manage. Was she being dismissed? A tentative backward slide down the Spiral.
“Ah ... eager, are we? Even if we aren’t completely sure we know where we’re going, what we’re doing? Commendable.”
“Com ... mend ... able:” “Oh, so ... so very....” “Commendable ... very ... very....” The voices splintered and prickled, mocking, friendly, unhelpful, or incomprehensible, she was never sure which, or if they encompassed everything. Never had she slid down the Spirals so rapidly in her life, with no desire to linger, savor what she’d accomplished by gaining each turn. Out, out, back to where she belonged, and she’d decipher it later. She must! She landed with a thump inside herself, kicked experimentally behind an ear, hind claws digging into the soft fur. It felt good, felt real.
“But oh, Mother Kharm, if you cherished us true, surely you’d reveal....” No point in finishing. She had been shown, now she merely had to determine what to do. She dug harder in frustration. Not just what, but how as well.
“How convenient you arrived just after Kyril and Dykshoorn left.” Swan waved away the glass of water that Davvy coaxed her to drink and glared at her cousin.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Mahafny agreed blandly, looping her navy cloak over a chair and stalking to her cousin’s side, hand almost steady as she traced the curve between Swan’s neck and shoulder, the most she could muster in an outward show of affection. “I’m not an oracle, after all, and that’s what van Beieven wants.” She hadn’t known a meeting’d been planned, suspected Swan purposely hadn’t mentioned it when she’d told her she was coming to Gaernett. Well, once they’d arrived, late as always, Saam hadn’t exactly eavesdropped on the activity inside the Seeker General’s suite. No, not at all, but she’d grown adept at using him as barometer, his oblique actions and reactions like isobars connecting equal pressures. She’
d gladly agreed that they should check the kitchens for a snack. Now she knew why. Of course, Doyce’s presence caused unseasonable highs and lows as well.
Without Khar to chide her, Doyce bared her teeth in an almost smile, nearly scaring Davvy witless as he gathered drink glasses, tidied up. Contrite, she lumbered over to help, affording Swan and Mahafny a small measure of privacy for their reunion.
“Best clear out now,” Davvy whispered. “I have to help Mahafny examine Swan.” The officious little dragon was dead serious. “I can tell her the bits Swan can’t or won’t say, things she doesn’t always know. I sense what her body’s feeling inside.”
The glass clunked against the black lacquer tray harder than she’d intended, outwardly revealing her shock. “Mahafny agrees with your ...” she forced herself to say, “diagnoses?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes she’s lighter ‘cause she understands what it means when I see hidden things.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t understand, do you? Thought you might, though. Sort of like Hide the Thimble, Nana Cookie used to play it with me when I was small. For me the ‘thimble’ shouts its presence loud and clear.”
“What’s the thimble?” Assuming it had ever existed, was this the long-gone trance skill eumedicos pretended to employ, the ability to “see” internally?
“Hurt places, festering places, spots where germs,” he pronounced it “grr‘ms,” and she corrected him. “And them, too,” he countered, “but Nana Cookie calls ’em grr’ms.” He’d tilted his chin chestward so his bangs shielded his eyes. “Can even see what’s going on inside you.”
“Funny,” Mahafny kept the flow of conversation low, lulling, despite the change of topic, “I guess he’d be about the same age as her daughter, if she’d lived. Mayhap a tad younger.”
Swan’s fingers flashed the eight-point star. “Pray to the Lady nothing like that happens again.”
“She should deliver fine, she’s disgustingly healthy.”
“It’s the afterward that concerns me. Briony’s death wasn’t from natural causes, as well you know. Let’s pray no other unnatural causes stalk this topsy-turvy world.”
“Nothing’s certain. The only certainty is uncertainty.” Chiding herself, Mahafny wondered when she’d become so pessimistic. “At any rate, I’m here to see you. How’re you feeling?”
Swan stared at the wall so long she seemed to stare through it, and Mahafny found herself speculating on what Swan envisioned. A world at peace, a world without pain for everyone? Did she allow herself a place in such a world? “I’d feel a lot better if I were six feet under.”
Mahafny leaped as if scalded. “You don’t even know what it means, that term’s so archaic!” If only scoffing would make it so.
Steepling her fingers to hide a weary smile, Swan recited, “A foot: a unit of measurement, three of them comprising a yard, a yard being slightly less than a meter. Translation: to be buried a shy two meters deep. Unless you’d literally interpret it as resting under six feet—specifically your two plus Saam’s four, dancing on my grave.”
“Don’t even joke about that in passing!”
Saam pushed between them on the bed. “Would you prefer a ghatti gavotte or a falanese fandango? Or something more stately? Should I start practicing now?”
Mahafny began to laugh despite herself, but the tears she surreptitiously wiped away weren’t from laughter. “Oh, Saam,” Swan choked, “laughter is better medicine than anything Mahafny can offer. And the end is coming whether she’ll admit it or not.”
But Koom had interrupted, ’speaking her privately, excluding the others. Whatever his message, Mahafny watched her cousin steel herself, as if for some ordeal ahead. “Well, we’ve still business to attend to, even if you thought you’d escaped the brunt of it.” Voice raised, she called, “Davvy, clear out and go to bed—now! I promise Mahafny won’t examine me until tomorrow when you’re here to help. Indeed, she swears she can’t do it without your assistance.”
Hip prodded by a hand under the covers, Mahafny nodded. “With the training you absorbed at the Hospice, you’re already halfway to being a eumedico.” Looking somewhat mollified at his dismissal, Davvy rushed to kiss Swan good night, held Mahafny’s hand in both his own, concentrating, then met the eumedico’s eyes.
Unconsciously flexing and straightening her freed hand, Mahafny watched him out the door, lips pursed in thought. Did she want to know what Davvy could tell her about her hands?
“Doyce.” Her attention commanded, Doyce swung round as the Seeker General fumbled behind her pillow. “A letter regarding you came today. Your sister wrote, begs me to excuse you to return home.” Doyce’s mouth opened in protest. “No, sit. Your mother’s had a slight stroke. Not serious, but a warning to slow down, a reminder that things from the past remain unfinished, deserve an airing, perhaps an ending. Your sister wrote me directly in hopes I’d intercede. It seems you ignored her last letter.”
The paper crackled and trembled in her fingers as she took Francie’s letter, scanned it. “She’s not as ill as ...” and bit her tongue to stop herself.
“You’re not being a traitor by admitting the truth.” Koom held his ground, forced her to find hers. “Just admit all of the truth, don’t use one part to shoulder aside the other.”
Khar traced Koom’s habitual route up through the thick ivy coating the building’s east side, judging from the scratches, the scents that she was right. Oh, other ghatti scents come-hithered as well, for Koom wasn’t alone in using this handy entrance or exit when ghatti patience ran thin with humans too busy to open doors. The branching of his scent reassured her that she headed for the right window, feeling pitiful and careworn after her encounter with the Elders. Doyce still remained in Swan’s room, thus Khar yearned to be there, beside her Bond.
She scratched at the window, essayed a brief “Merow?” The effort of mindspeech was more than she could bear, made her want to regress to ghattenhood, be cuddled and cossetted, fussed over—if Doyce weren’t too preoccupied. And Swan usually had various tidbits of food around, leftovers that her less-than-enthusiastic appetite hadn’t been able to stomach. Koom, she hoped, wouldn’t mind sharing. It penetrated her senses at last that Saam and Mahafny were also present, unsure if that boded well for her cause, though she was always relieved to see the steel-gray ghatt.
Again she scratched, harder this time, satisfied at the earsplitting “skreek” of claws on the windowpane. There, that should make them notice! Huddled in the sharp, clear night air—colder than the heights she’d so recently spiraled—she waited, saw their shadowy outlines through the window and its curtains, arguing, intent, Koom transfixed by the interplay. At length he shook his head as Saam ’spoke him, glanced toward the window and the dark outside, face comical with surprise as he realized who peered in at him. A bound, a rapid crossing of the floor, and he alighted on the windowsill’s narrow edge, ghosted behind the curtains. His body heat radiated through the pane at her.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did,” and leaned her head against the pane where his breath fogged it.
“You didn’t mindspeak. There’s so much going on in there that it’s a wonder Saam heard you.”
“A visit with the Elders sometimes takes its toll,” she allowed with a certain unwillingness.
He stretched against the window, checked its fittings, nosed around. “I know,” a certain admiration and awe echoed in his tone, but he became immediately pragmatic. “Too tightly latched for me. Should be refitted for ghatti paws. Have to ask Doyce for help.” .
How much did he know? Could he have learned already? A puzzlement. Miserable, she waited, contradictorily content to wait, yet yearning to be inside. ’Speaking Doyce, uneasy at what she must tell her Bond, sooner or later, was something she didn’t relish. Still, it was her task. Hadn’t the Great Mother of them all told her so? Of course the Great Mother didn’t have to worry about Doyce boxing her ears—or worse!
Curtain rings jangl
ed along the rod, almost making her start with fright as Doyce appeared at the window, put palms on the sash, and heaved upward. Khar struggled through the gap before it widened enough to be comfortable, wanting to be inside more than anything else in the world, rash though she might be. She pressed her cold nose against Doyce’s cheek.
“Welcome, glad you could drop by, even if a bit late.” Khar’s skin twitched at the heavy sarcasm. Definitely not a good evening to convince Doyce to drop her Seeker research and quit Gaernett for her childhood home. Would the promise of learning more about the Seekers’ very beginnings be incentive enough? A paltry lure if ever there was one.
“Oh, it’s not as bad as all that.” Koom licked her face, and she tilted her head, let herself be cleansed. “I’ve had my marching orders and informed Swan of hers.” Her earhoop in his teeth, he gave a little tug to make her concentrate. “Actually, the timing’s not that bad. I think Swan’s relieved by the idea.”
“Mahafny agrees, if that puts your mind at rest,” Saam winked.
“You mean ... ?” Unbelievable! The Elder Mother of them all had ’spoken Koom, had left nothing to chance. Perhaps, perhaps it might work after all. She allowed herself a shred of hope, heeded an enticing bit of cheese Swan waved in her direction, nicely warm and aged, just the way she liked it.
“I hope you mean the cheese, and not my Swan,” Koom teased, “though she’s nicely warm and aged as well. Shall I tell her that?”
