Exile's Return

by Gayle Greeno

  “But the plan had you advancing directly to Gaernett. It’s not only the capital but our largest city,” Kyril van Beieven bobbed in Eadwin’s wake. “I can’t have you wandering from town to town willy-nilly. I have to send proper escorts.”

  “Protection, you mean,” Arras Muscadeine broke in. “It’s all about protection, van Beieven. I won’t have my king in any danger if I can help it. We’ve our own soldiers, but the populace will be more amenable to obeying your Guardians, their own.”

  Eadwin’s mouth quirked, although he didn’t pause, nearly lost van Beieven as he executed a sharp right turn and banked beside Mahafny’s desk. Mahafny rolled her eyes at him, clearly displeased he’d breeched her refuge. “I’m not planning on wandering willy-nilly, as you call it. We agreed on the route. The route remains the same—it’s merely the order we’re altering, commencing the royal circuit here and concluding by visiting your fair capital.”

  The Monitor sputtered and Muscadeine’s mouth thinned under his mustache as Eadwin continued. “Firstly, as you’re so well aware, Jenet Wycherley is being held hostage by the Resonants. I take it he’s not been located yet?”

  “Well, of course I’ve had Guardians out trying to locate him,” the Monitors’s face was mottled, and he pressed a fist against his breastbone. “Indigestion,” he muttered.

  “What about Seekers, Kyril?” Mahafny spoke at last. “Wouldn’t that make sense? Surely the ghatti could contact Rawn or T’ss, discover their location.”

  “I don’t command the Seekers Veritas, as well you know.”

  “I know you don’t,” Mahafny laid both hands flat on the desk, studying their backs. “But I can’t believe Swan would deny two of her own, Jenret and Sarrett. She’s been known to borrow Sergeant Balthazar Lamb to solve problems of that sort before.”

  The Monitor swung, arm outstretched to point at Saam. “Ask him. Mayhap you’ll receive a less convoluted answer than the one I got from Swan.”

  Saam’s nose twitched and he studied the window ledge as the silence grew. “From what I can gather through Mem‘now and the mindnet, the ghatti do know where Rawn and T’ss are. However, Rawn feels it might be ...” he hesitated, hoped Mahafny retained a modicum of humor regarding her nephew, “salutary for Jenret to cool his heels a bit. An opportunity to master alternate ways to cope with problems, the mind over physical action. A chance to form a link with the Resonants. Consequently, none of the ghatti will reveal their location.”

  Its springs creaking as she rocked back in her chair, Mahafny regarded the ghatt and waved her hands in a hopeless gesture. “I apologize, Kyril. I underestimated Swan as well. The ghatti know, but they’re not telling.” She shook her head in embarrassment. “They think Jenret and the Resonants should get to know one another, come to trust each other.”

  From behind her shoulder Eadwin spoke. “Not so unreasonable. He is a Resonant, but he isn’t one of theirs, someone they’re comfortable with, someone who’s shared their adversities. If only I could find them, talk with them! You know, van Beieven, from what you’ve indicated, they must be in the vicinity, somewhere here on the edges of the Tetonords. That’s part of my reason for starting the circuit out of sequence. If we can assuage your citizens’ fears in this part of Canderis, mayhap the Resonants would feel safer in revealing themselves.”

  “That’s not the only problem facing us, Marchmont and Canderis alike. There’s something else you’ve forgotten, Kyril.” Arras Muscadeine leaned against the wall, hand toying with the sheet draped over the machine, fingers tweaking and pleating it. Van Beieven stalked over, stood practically nose to nose with him. “Not just you, but Mahafny as well, I suspect,” he placated.

  “And what’s that?” Their protests overrode and tangled with each other, truculence on the Monitor’s part, patent surprise and discomfort on Mahafny’s.

  “Do we know,” he pounded fist against palm, softly hammering home his words, “where Parm and Harrap are? What Hylan Crailford is doing?”

  “Oh, that?” The Monitor shrugged, dismissive, faintly scornful. “I tell you there’s nothing to worry about from that woman, not when I’ve more serious problems—like Reapers willing to murder anyone they suspect is a Resonant.” He would not relive that night with Darl and Alyse, the dark streets closing in on him, the Reapers crowding forward.

  “Mahafny?”

  Eyes shut, she shook her head, shame creeping over her. How could she have shunted them out of her mind so easily? “I don’t think I’ve been paying much attention to what Saam’s found out lately, been somewhat distracted. But with good and justifiable reason,” she added. “I’ve something important to show you.”

  “Later, Mahafny. We’ve things to settle here and now.” Muscadeine hitched his hip on the table, nudging the draped machine aside. “That’s why we sent Hru’rul ahead to contact Saam, find out what was happening. According to Saam—and he’ll correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure—Parm’s making even less sense than usual. Rambling, almost as if he’s drunk.”

  “Ghatti don’t drink,” Mahafny snapped, and it was clear she was simultaneously and furiously ’speaking Saam. “But he could be ... drugged.”

  “Yes, and if he’s been drugged, then isn’t it likely that Harrap’s been drugged as well? I can’t envision Harrap letting anyone hurt Parm; the only way that could happen is if he were incapacitated as well. The source must be Hylan, and if she’s drugging them both, it must be because she’s hiding something from them. Something a Seeker and a Shepherd wouldn’t approve of.” Eadwin laid a hand on Mahafny’s shoulder, calming, protective. “Arras and I talked it through as we rode here. I’ve ’spoken Saam about it.”

  “Well, where are they, then?” Van Beieven pressed at his chest again, cheeks bulging as he suppressed a belch. “We can send Guardians to extricate Harrap and Parm from Hylan Crailford’s company, though I still don’t have any grounds to arrest or detain her, not until we have evidence they’ve been unwillingly drugged or coerced in some manner.” Almost bitterly, “Unless there’s more you haven’t told me?”

  “According to Saam, it sounds as if they’re heading to Ruysdael,” Eadwin placated. “And that just happens to be where I think we should make our first official stop on the royal circuit. Ceremonies, civilities, bowing and scraping and polite discussions do just so much good, but if we can convince Canderis that we Resonants are useful, helpful, so much the better. If we can rescue Harrap, control Hylan Crailford, perhaps even rescue Jenret Wycherley and his friends, they’ll see we have a role to play!”

  “Beyond the reason you’ve got Dwyna Bannerjee peering around my Research Hospice, you mean?” Mahafny snapped her sleeves down, curious why Kyril looked both apprehensive and smugly satisfied at the mention of Dwyna’s name, like a schoolboy relieved of tattling because someone had beaten him to it. What was he keeping from her now? “It might just work, all of it, bit by bit, accretion by accretion. Unless you’re staking your all on one incredibly melodramatic climax to proclaim your worth?” Eadwin had the grace to color slightly, but Muscadeine’s eyebrows gave her a sardonic salute of amusement.

  “Go to Ruysdael, go anywhere you damn choose, I don’t know if I’m in charge here anymore or not.” Van Beieven stalked toward the door, complexion ashy with fatigue.

  “Kyril, wait!” Mahafny hurried around the desk, tugged his arm, almost hectically animated. After all, this was what he’d been browbeating her for for so long. “Don’t you want to see my surprise? It’s something you’ve been at me to do—a way to discover who is and who isn’t a Resonant. Or at least I think it is.” Their collective startlement soothed her vanity, but the muted hope Kyril radiated made her wince in sympathy for the burdens he carried.

  With a flourish she tossed back the sheet to reveal the mechanical device beneath, Saam bounding out of the room, Hru‘rul tight on his heels a scant moment later. “I am not staying anywhere near that thing if you propose to crank it up again,” she heard him say as he and Hru’rul dashed into
the hall.

  “Scaredy-cat, ” she informed the tip of his tail as it disappeared down the stairs. “At any rate, gentlemen, behold!”

  They crowded the table, gingerly poking at it, touching the metal rods and wires, tracing the two curved arms tipped with metal balls, almost the way an ox’s horns are capped. The circular glass plates gleamed from Mr. Farnham’s zealous cleaning. “What does it do? How does it work?” Eadwin laid a hesitant hand on the handle but didn’t turn it.

  “I should warn you—Eadwin, Arras—that the reaction you feel won’t harm you but may surprise you. It’s, ah,” she searched for the words, decided she was a blunt old eumedico, mixed company or not, “when it stops, there’s almost a sensation of sexual relief involved, the satiation or repletion one feels after orgasm. So please don’t entertain any ideas, because I’m entirely too old for such nonsense.”

  “Hardly nonsense when we’ve an attractive, elegant woman sharing the room with us,” Arras bowed, gallantly flirtatious. “But, as gentlemen, I can assure you we’ll control ourselves.”

  Removing Eadwin’s hand from the crank, she began to turn it, slowly at first, then faster, the belts humming and thrumming, the glass plates spinning against each other in opposite directions, blue-white sparks beginning to flash, fly between the balls. Van Beieven stood, puzzled, feeling nothing, unsure what to make of the other men’s reactions, their grimaces, the strange contortions their limbs made. “Kyril, I have to speak to you about—” and he belatedly realized that Darl Allgood had burst into the room, stumbling to a halt as the peculiar effect overtook him as well, dropping him to his knees.

  Shocked, Mahafny let go of the crank as if it burned, the plates gradually spinning slower and stopping, Allgood seized by the same intense relief and release flooding Eadwin and Muscadeine. “Oh, Blessed Lady, not you, too, Darl?” the Monitor whispered and fainted dead away.

  The days and nights lagged for Jenret, his near-brush with death evidence he was doomed, the “when” only a matter of time. Never had he felt such an impotent sense of inevitability, doom. Win free, reach Doyce, be with her when the baby came—the tasks mocked him, and he cudgeled his brain for a way to accomplish them. His mind clenched tight, ready to explode with all the thoughts he yearned to ‘speak, but if he so much as attempted a phrase of mindspeech, Garvey or one of the others cuffed down his words, lashed back without mercy. Oh, he couldn’t exactly blame them, or at least didn’t when his thinking was clear, reasonably pragmatic. Garvey was retaliating both for being balked at killing Jenret, justifiably so in his eyes, and for Rawn’s and T’ss’s attack. His face resembled nothing so much as a patchwork quilt, seamed with scratches, his arm swollen and hot-looking.

  Jenret’s headache throbbed harder, almost constant now, no surcease. Wonderful, those low-grade constant headaches when his Resonant skills were awakening in Marchmont, and headaches now because they were trapped inside, not allowed free play. Well, lose hope, lose all, so he husbanded himself for one incredible soaring mindcry, a plea for help if everyone else were simultaneously distracted. Worse still, his moodiness estranged him from Sarrett, Towbin, even Yulyn, she most of all who should have understood his pain.

  Mostly he sat in stony silence, arms wrapped around knees, watching yet not watching everything around him, sunk in despair, even refusing to gamble. When he did rouse himself, he taunted his captors in viciously subtle ways that niggled under their skins. Easy enough to do, given his reputation as supercilious, condescending, arrogant—why try to live it down now? Someone had taken pity on him the other night, allotted him a dipperful of wine with dinner. Much as he’d craved the wine, the relaxation it might offer, he’d raised the gourd to his lips, taken a sip and spat it in a fine spray, mouth curling as he muttered “vinegar” just loud enough to be heard. Laying the dipper aside, saying, “Thank you, but not to my taste. Palate’s too well-educated. Best you drink it and enjoy it.” Yes, small but transitory victories.

  Sometimes when grief and rage flamed too hot, threatened to consume him, he hectored them for being a ragtag band of cowards, not brave enough to face the world, wrestle the respect they deserved from it. But his haranguing apparently fell on deaf ears, although in retrospect he could gauge its effectiveness by his treatment on changing camps. Whether care was taken to guide him over exposed roots or rocks with the hood in place on his head, or whether he was left to trip and fall, right himself as best he could. Or worst of all, once, when he’d been deserted—or so it seemed—hood cinched tight around his neck, hands locked behind him, ankles manacled. Left to stumble in darkness, material steamy with his breath, clinging to mouth and nostrils as he inhaled, clueless where he was, where he was going, whether anyone else lingered near, the silence deafening except for Rawn’s worried directions. He’d finally stopped, dropped to his knees and waited. Either they’d drag him along with them or they wouldn‘t, and if they didn’t, Rawn would free him somehow. But that, he suspected, was far too much to hope for. Any annoyances he visited on them revisited him tenfold.

  As to where they camped now, he had no idea. Sometimes they climbed higher into the mountains until he thought they finally planned to cross into Marchmont, sometimes they sought lower ground. Could have been circle-dancing, but weren’t; Rawn had assured him.

  Tonight he sat as distant from the fire as they’d allow, arms embracing his knees, idly kicking his heel into the ground, not even realizing it. Rawn sat beside him, but at last stretched lazily and joined T‘ss by the fire. Even Rawn found his company lacking these days. Worth it to ask T’ss and Rawn to play mindtricks, let their ghatti humor have full sway? Damn Resonants acted so sober-sided serious it might do them some good, make them lighten up a little. Question was, would Rawn indulge him? T’ss might, curiosity piqued until Sarrett chastised him. Oh, Rawn’d do it if it’d help them escape, but he lacked the temperament to tease, bedevil for the sake of it. Except for bedeviling him, his Bondmate.

  Jenret ground his heel harder and took conscious note of his compulsion. Well, well, nervous tics now. Ran his right hand down his leg, holding the chain left-handed so it wouldn’t rattle, and prodded at the dirt he’d disturbed. Burrowing like a mole. If only he could burrow away, escape them that easily. Digging in his fingers, he touched something hard and smooth, one finger slipping into a gap, an interstice where the earth wasn’t so tightly packed. Interested despite himself he dug deeper, furtively checking if anyone noticed. Dark over here, and his dark clothing obscured the mound of dirt rapidly accumulating under his leg. In turn, that meant he lacked light enough to see clearly, dependent on his sense of touch.

  Felt like, felt like ... he worked his way farther, elongating the trench carved by his heel so it ran toward him, sheltered by his bent leg. Felt like ... bone? Short and thin, tiny bits of knob between them. Changed hands, reached beneath his leg and placed his left hand palm down in the opening, revulsion rising as the bits and pieces organized themselves in his mind, matched the flesh overlay. A skeletal human hand! Gah! His neck hairs rose and he shivered. Did they plan to bury him here, too?

  But at that moment something sharp slashed his thumb. Damn, felt as if it’d sliced to the bone. He jerked clear, sucked the dirty, bleeding thumb. “Rawn,” he ’spoke, urgent to share the puzzle, “come here, tell me what you see. ” Reluctant at abandoning the fire, Rawn sauntered over, sniffing the scent of turned earth, a trailing whiff of blood. He hunkered by the trench, stuck his nose in, sniffing audibly, dirt particles dusting whiskers and muzzle. “Hand. Human,” he announced with a sneeze. “Something near it, not sure what.”

  “I know. ” Mounting excitement, a mystery, an unknown to shatter the numbing dullness. And mayhap more than that. Of course, he grinned, smothered it against his knee, I’ve dug up a skeleton key! “Can you dig for it? Careful—it’s sharp. Look!” He thrust his thumb under the ghatt’s nose to prove the damage. “Just don’t dig too vigorously, disturb things too badly. Don’t want them to notice what we’re up to, and w
e’ll have to cover it come morning.”

  “It’s got a hilt, I think.” Rawn dug, working away from the spot where Jenret’s blood scented the dirt. He dipped a paw with slow patience, scooted it along the object’s side, not over it. “Wait, think I can get it, if I ...” Tongue protruding in concentration, he fished with his claws, hooked them under the edge and dragged it forth. “Like so. There!” Satisfied, he flipped the thing clear of the trench so Jenret could grasp it.

  A knife! Dirt-encrusted, but the shape felt solidly reassuring beneath his grip. Guilty as a grave robber, he laid it down, flicked fingers against it to dislodge the dirt, tapped it against his boot heel to knock off more. “I wonder how it got here? Who that is—er, was. ” Slipping the knife under his thigh to shield it, he began to shovel dirt back into the hole. “Best get this covered up. Help me, Rawn.”

  With Rawn’s help, he refilled the trench, Jenret packing it in with the heel of his hand, trying to tamp it with his foot without being obvious. “There,” a triumphant glow warmed him inside, “that should do it. ”

  “Not quite.” Rawn scratched at leaves and pine needles, Jenret helping rake them over the disturbed earth.

  Traces mostly obliterated, he felt secure enough to examine his treasure, but only after risking a long, surveying glance to make sure his warders slept. Delicately fingering the knife to gauge its size, its heft and grip, he was amazed it had remained so sharp and unblemished. Eyes closed, he let his fingers analyze it—completely whole and all of a piece, its grip a continuation of the blade, no wood or leather wrapping to it. No, not eaten away by dirt, the hilt fit his palm comfortably, and he could feel, when he scratched his nails across it, cross-hatching to improve the grip.

  “Can’t have been buried too long, ” he remarked and shivered, remembering the bony hand. What would he have found if he’d dug further? “Wasn’t buried that deeply either.”