by Gayle Greeno
“Well, this is Hylan’s goat cart.” Bard tossed back the canvas, began throwing its contents on the ground as if he’d discover Lindy hiding beneath them. Giving a particularly vicious toss to the last sapling, he rounded on Parm. “In what sort of container does Hylan store her seasoning?” He snarled the euphemism.
Parm started forward, froze as the anticipatory longing seized him. Even at this distance the scent turned him weak with desire. I won’t be like poor Harrap, I won‘t! Must be strong for him. “Little stoneware jar with a cork.” Saliva flowing, he swallowed. “Barnaby can show you.” He nudged Barnaby, and the dog jumped into the cart, giving M’wa a wide berth. Rooting around he unearthed the jar and Bard seized it, and threw it to a passing Guardian who hurried off with it.
Reassured that task had been accomplished, Darl gestured to the sergeant. “Have the men check the campgrounds, every tent and wagon, every nook and cranny. Remember, they’re children, and scared children can jam themselves into impossibly small and unexpected spaces.” The sergeant gave a brisk salute and he and his men fanned out at orderly intervals to search. Faertom made as if to join them, but Darl held him back. “No, they know their jobs. ”
“Feels sort of like the last time we rescued Davvy,” Faertom ventured, shifting from foot to foot as he watched Bard searching all around the goat cart.
“Would that it were as easy as last time. ” Darl smiled despite himself. “All we needed was a fast horse and the stupidity to hurl ourselves between opposing armies and drag Davvy to safety.”
“This is more complicated than that. I know ” Faertom looked suddenly older. “Somehow this is tied together with whether we gain acceptance as Resonants here in Canderis, isn’t it?” He blurted out the next part, “Killing the king I can see—from their point of view. Cut off the serpent’s head, they think, and the body’ll die. But why take children?” Bard’s futile search, more and more frantic, grated on Faertom’s nerves. The man looked on the selvage edge of control, his normally golden skin the shallow, dun color of dried mud. Jenret had hurriedly warned of Bard’s potential to snap, turn crazed in moments of true stress. All he could hope was that M’wa exercised some control over his Bond.
Darl watched Bard as well, fingers caressing the bald spots that receded from his temples, his center crest of hair rumpled. “I doubt he can bear to lose someone again. He feels responsible for the girl, to lose her would be to lose a part of the legacy Byrta left him.”
Garvey trotted up, hand cradling something small. Not a young man, he bore his weariness with quiet expertise, not letting it completely drain him. “Is this something?” he opened his hand to show a small barrette. “Found it on the path that leads toward the back of town, I’d guess. Reason I thought it might is that it was dead center of the path, not crushed and trampled. Whoever dropped it was one of the last to leave. Course they could have been heading the other way.”
“Bard,” Darl called. “Do you recognize this?”
Bard came at a run, snatching roughly at Garvey’s hand, managing a brief grimace of apology. “Lindy was given it to wear for the festivities today. Which way?” As Garvey mutely pointed, he raced away. But M’wa was already ahead of him, following a white and brown terrier with flashing legs, nose to the ground, yipping encouragement over his shoulder.
Parm made to follow, but the pace was too much, and he reluctantly dropped back, his skin crawling with longing. Just a taste, a taste to give him strength, let him keep up! No, never again! “Harrap, I’m no good to them, I’m too weak. Not much better than you are.” He’d ’spoken Harrap all the way, not that it did much good, but it made him feel better. On occasion he’d feel the flutter of Harrap’s mindspeech, disjointed, meandering, locked in battle with the demons in his system. Harrap had deserted him, even Barnaby had left him behind. He felt Faertom beside him, stroking away his loneliness and dismay. It almost helped.
“Damnation!” Darl spun to see where the Guardians were, spun back. “We should have thought of that! The dog‘s Hylan’s—knows her scent. We’ve got to reassemble the Guardians to go after them. Can we gather them in time? They’re spread beyond hailing range, and Bard will be out of sight soon if we don’t follow.”
Garvey settled his belt more comfortably around his canvas smock. “Are you gentlemen game?” And to Faertom the words were a taunt, a challenge. “Wouldn’t leave a child, Resonant or Normal, in Reaper hands, and that’s who has to have them. For once the hunted can be the hunter. ”
But before Faertom could respond to the verbal gauntlet Garvey’d tossed at him, a mindvoice reached him, a mindvoice unlike any he’d ever heard before. “Carry me, I’m sooo tired. We can bring the Guardians with us. M‘wa can follow Barnaby, and I’ll stay in touch with M’wa, find out where they’re heading. Please, for Harrap if not for me.”
“ ’Fraid not, Garvey.” Faertom hated the thought of not rushing after but knew Parm was right. If only he didn’t appear to be cowardly! “Some eager hunters forget the prey may be bigger, more deadly than they are. Best always to
have...” he hesitated, ”trusted friends as backup. Parm and I will round up the Guardians, come after you. ” Garvey nodded once, began running after Bard.
It took Darl longer than he wanted to catch up, pounding along at Garvey’s heels. “This is insane, you know,” he saved his breath for running, not for speech. “Faertom’s right. There are logical ways to rescue the children, endanger as few as possible. ”
“Mayhap so, in your world, the one you used to inhabit exclusively.” Garvey’s years of quarry work had left him hard and strong, not necessarily fast, but able to maintain a ground-devouring pace without setting his heart pounding, and Darl envied him that. “But those of us who’ve lived as Gleaners, Resonants, trust ourselves to each other, not outsiders. I’ll welcome the Guardians when they come, but I won’t depend on them or Faertom.”
And Darl Allgood couldn’t bring himself to argue with that, not given what he’d seen, what he knew from the past year.
Addawanna slipped through Ruysdael, scarcely noticed by the few who remained instead of joining the crowds greeting the king’s arrival. She’d wondered if city earth sounds would offer different news, if city streets had other information to share. With her incredible endurance she’d covered the distance to Ruysdael well ahead of the royal party and had spent the time wandering in the woods, the fields, and now the streets. Most of what she’d needed, she’d found effortlessly, the earth whispering the sites to her, but even it had forgotten the location of one thing.
So she’d searched on her own, found it. She patted the bark packet. Always there’d be some woman who grew it, knew its virtues. An unassuming plant with heart-shaped leaves and bulging, petalless flowers depending from its almost vinelike stem, each one resembling a pregnant uterus and cervix. Late in the season for flowers, but she’d found two withered blossoms, hoped they’d suffice. She might not need them at all.
The earth was telling her too many things, as if it couldn’t make up its mind. And if it couldn’t, how could she? Strange to be so drawn to these offspring of people from a different world, but then, so had her grandmother, Callis, been. And wasn’t her grandson Nakum a part of them himself—cousin to Eadwin the king through her own long-ago liaison with Queen Wilhelmina’s younger brother, Ludo? For better or worse these people were on this world, even gradually becoming a part of it. The earth told her that.
Strange, too, that she and Khar had found a bridge to let Erakwa and ghatti communicate, had shared their needs to help save Doyce from Vesey. Never before had ghatti and Erakwa spoken, the ghatti curious but the Erakwa feeling no need, not with the fullness of the earth’s powers to sustain them. She touched her earth-bond, ran her fingers over the beading. Inside, along with her bond, revealed to no one because each Erakwan’s was individual and distinct, was a clump of Khar’s fur. The little Pern-khatt was always with her.
The earth sounds were converging, each one generating its ow
n ripples with it. Soon the ripples would collide, make waves, crash down on one another. She’d headed off one rippling collision by placing Jenret in Eadwin’s custody. Yes, tampering, but somehow it had seemed only right and proper. After all, wasn’t Eadwin kin of a sort, hers as well as Nakum’s? Oh, not by blood, but by love, by knowing he shared Callis’s care and concern for the arborfer. She hoped, but would not ask, that Jenret would give her the arborfer knife he’d found. She could ask, but it had to be given freely. Her earth-bond might suffice to key the herbs she’d gathered, release their full potency, but the knife gave better assurance.
Bored by the streets she moved outward, seen if she chose to be, unseen if she chose not. Yes, the earth spoke of big changes tonight, and she’d best hurry if she wanted to see it. See what these people truly were made of.
With Tadj’s help Hylan seated the children on the pillar’s base, struggling to chain their wrists to a rusted iron ring protruding from the pillar. The girl screamed, kicked, landed a solid blow to Hylan’s shin. She forced herself not to react. Then the boy erupted as well until Tadj cuffed him into submission. A hand on each of their heads she looked at her audience and finally spoke. “Two children, both young, both innocent, both pure ... or so you think. But let me be the judge of that.” She lofted the forked stick with both hands. “I am a diviner, this my divining rod. A special rod because it, too, has known suffering, suffering that made it stronger and more sure of seeking out the source of its pain.
“Some four years past I was given a sign, a warning that those who came from the skies would come again. They who deserted us, abandoned us on this planet, will return, wreak destruction on a scale to dwarf our past sufferings! Think what Plumbs did to us in the past—what they or even worse evils could do now?” The crowd murmured, but not as much as she’d hoped when she’d dreamed of this moment. “And who will call to the stars, guide these strangers down into our midst?” Silence. Were they waiting for her—or did they truly not see? Well, she would lead them. “Why the children, of course. The offspring of Resonants who infested our planet from its very first days, Resonants who spoke mind-to-mind from one ship to another. Like calling to like, above and below.
“Our salvation is in knowing them. They cannot hide their faces from us any longer, cloud our minds with their powers.” She flourished the rod, its forked ends gripped in each hand. “The witch hazel tells me the true from the false, the fair from the foul, no matter how outwardly fair!” The divining rod poised near Davvy’s chest, Hylan fought to control it as it began to weave a pattern, end whipping the air. “You see,” she screamed triumphantly. “Now watch.” Fighting for control of the rod she jerked it in Lindy’s direction and it instantly stilled, remained immobile. “Both must be sacrificed to the Lady to show Her we are earnest in our need.” The word warmed her heart. “Sacrifice!”
But where, where was the answering roar of approval she’d heard in her dreams? Where was the response, sibilant and soft, whispered from two hundred pairs of lips, “Sacrifice, sacrifice!”?
Instead, murmurs, coughs, uncertain foot shufflings. Again she tried, voice trembling, cracking. “We must sacrifice them to avert the Spacers’ return, avoid our destruction!”
A man, bolder than the rest, called back, “Lady Hylan, it’s not right to hurt children, even a Resonant child.”
Her lips trembled as she cast a pleading glance at Tadj, stationed behind the pillar to guard the children. “What do I do? Why won’t they understand?” she whispered, a cold sweat on her upper lip. Why were his eyes boring holes in her like that? What had she forgotten?
His lips barely moved, didn’t disturb the fixed smile on his face. “Resonants, Hylan. Resonants, Now, Today—not Tomorrow. Tell them what,” a minute chin thrust in Davvy’s direction, “he’s done to the girl, made her bad. Bad girl, Hylan.”
Strange how those words echoed, rippled in her mind, because Hylan had been a bad girl, deserved the whippings, yes, she had! Bad Terra, too, trying to corrupt little Hylan. DA-de-Da DA-de-Da.... Her silence had gone on too long, the crowd increasingly edgy, perturbed. No, not Past, but the Present, Now, Today. Forget her Past. Tadj knew, Tadj was right.
A deep, sustaining breath. “Yes, sacrifice, I say. And both of them, the foul and the fair!” She raised her hand to forestall them, quell their dismay. “Because that one,” she pointed the quivering rod at Davvy, “has already begun to corrupt the fair,” and the rod now jerked at Lindy. And lo, even she could feel the rod’s tentative, hesitant stirrings—how had she missed it before? Oh, not as strongly, no, but questing, seeking. With a communal intake of breath, the crowd noted it as well. She was inspired now. “Just as in the short time that he has been with her her corruption has begun ...” she looked around deliberately, catching the uneasy expressions, “so it will be with your own loved ones, your children! If the Resonants gain a place in society, they will corrupt your children, corrupt us all!”
She could feel them following her now, slowly merging with her, a fusion of minds and belief. “We must expunge them from the earth! Kill their Resonant King!” Yes, this was what they wanted to hear. If they could only grasp Today, so be it. If the Resonants were slaughtered, there’d be no worry about Tomorrow—for who’d remain to call the Spacers down? “Shall I sacrifice them?” And this time the affirmation roared back gratifyingly. Yes, ignore the few who slipped away, always the faint of heart, cowards lacking courage for the ultimate challenge.
“And when we’ve proved ourselves worthy, will not our Lady deliver to us the ultimate monster, the foul beast that controls them all, their King? Will She not say crush the serpent’s head, cut it off? For a serpent without a head cannot control his followers, and they will be ripe for our reaping! And reap we shall!” Hylan reveled in the sound of her words, blessed Tadj for forming them, molding her inarticulate thoughts into transforming power. How she’d scourged herself, hoping the power would come, but it had been Tadj who’d shaped her raw longings. The crowd was hers now, hers alone.
Like a lumbering insect, Doyce scooted down the packed dirt slope on her fanny, people so mesmerized by Hylan’s words her passage went unnoticed. Easier to shift unthinkingly than tear their attention away from the figure in the center. “Khar, what are we going to do?” She’d never felt such deep, physical dread, constricting, practically paralyzing her body.
Khar skidded, sank in her claws for traction. “Try to reveal the truth to them, but I’m not sure truth will count for much in the face of mass hysteria.” So few minds around her ready to accept truth, the rest shuttered, closed from accepting anything that did not feed their needs. A hunger here, a desperate longing, like with like, no discord allowed or tolerated. “Perhaps the best we can do is buy time.” How, she didn’t know, but she would, somehow. There must be other ghatti in the vicinity, there had to be! Hru‘rul, if Eadwin had arrived, at least one Bond-pair nearby, either as Seeker Veritas representatives at the ceremonies or simply as part of their circuit. How could she have overlooked that? She dared not take her mind off Doyce, but she risked a quick, frantic shout to F’een. “F’een, raise every ghatti you can reach! Get help!”
She hurried after Doyce, who’d reached the cellar floor, rolling onto hands and knees to rise. At first no one noticed the bulging figure as Doyce made her way toward the triangle of Hylan, the children at the pillar, and the brazier with its steaming copper bowl. “What can you find in this woman’s mind, Khar? Any leverage, even her own untruths, ”she begged.
She stood, hands clasped behind her back, casting a jutting shadow that wavered in the torches’ light. “Excuse me,” and Hylan whirled, cloak flaring, its hem scything the children’s faces.
“Ah, the faithful crowd closer, believing!” she smiled, love in her heart. “Don’t fear, my child, you’ll bring your baby into a safe world, a world free of Resonants, my promise to you.” She raised the witch hazel rod in blessing and Khar shivered, but it remained perfectly still. It should have reacted to the
babies Doyce carried. But then, wasn’t it Hylan who truly made it react, based on some primitive, subliminal instinct? But in this instance the instinct was faulty, had been lulled, somehow. Khar had no time to feel relief as Hylan thrust the rod into her belt, but continued delving in Hylan’s mind, urgently seeking a clue.
“Oh, I’m not afraid,” Doyce forced her voice to carry, enfold the crowd above her, “but I am curious.”
“The Fifty!” Khar threw the information like a lifeline. “She was a child, the Fifty-first, their good luck charm, so she thought. Taken along that night of the massacre. May once have exhibited some latent or residual skills herself, but she’s scourged them into submission.”
“Yes, curious,” Doyce continued, open hands placatory. “You see, I don’t know. How are you going to sacrifice them? With a scythe, a sickle?” Hylan backed away, a hand at her throat. “Terra!” Khar interrupted. “Like Terra that night so long ago? The scythe sweeping into her ribs,” she was repeating Khar’s words now, “like Wim and all the rest?”
“Terra?” Hylan’s mouth formed the words. “No, no, not like Terra!” She shook her head frantically, conquered the memories, all but a nagging, DA-de-Da DA-de-Da. “Won’t the Lady do it?” Hylan looked wildly for support, but everyone was still, even Tadj had a stricken expression on his face. “No, not blood,” she elaborated, wanting this woman to understand, a woman blessed with what she’d never had, what Terra’d never had the chance to have. But Terra was bad, didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve to live. “I’ll mark him,” she nodded in Davvy’s direction, the girl huddled close. “He shouldn’t go to the Lady without being marked for what he is. Then She’ll know. The girl as well, don’t you think?”
