by Sharon Green
"I'll see to it right away," Vallant said, looking just as vexed as Jovvi. "And I'll also get the rest of them hidden in the woods where they can feed themselves, with orders not to show themselves unless specifically directed to do so. We don't want them poppin' up at the wrong time."
There was nothing any of us wanted to say to that, so Vallant moved a few feet away to speak to the Blending entity that waited to give us what help we needed. The rest of us just stood there in the dark of very early morning, all but huddled around the light I'd kindled to let us see where we were going and what we were doing. The air was more cool than cold, middle-of-the-night cool that made you think about the comfortable blanket waiting for you in your bed. We hadn't had our own beds for a very long time, and now it looked like getting back to those beds would take even longer.
"I really wish this was over," Jovvi murmured, her arms wrapped about herself. "Back in Gan Garee I thought that being 'stuck' in the palace was a terrible fate, but right now even a small farmhouse would look good if we were going to be staying there for a while. I never knew I was such a … homebody."
"I'm really glad you said that," Lorand told her as he folded his own arms around hers. "I'd pretty much decided that I was the only one who was tired of being constantly on the move, so I didn't mention the feeling. Now I feel a lot less alone."
"You're even more not-alone than you know," I put in, touching his arm briefly. "I've been dreaming about being back in my house, and every time I wake up to find that I'm not really there…"
"The disappointment is almost crushing," Rion finished when I didn't, a wry smile turning his lips. "I've had my share of the same dream, and it was your house I dreamed about. Once Naran joined us there, it was the happiest time of my life."
"And of mine," Naran said with a better smile as she took Rion's hand. "I've spent most of my life on the move, never staying in one place too long, so it's no wonder that I consider Tamrissa's house as the haven I never had before. If we were back there now, I'd be incredibly content."
"Naran, are you saying that you've also dreamed of Tamma's house?" Jovvi asked, a small frown on her face. "And what about you, Lorand? Have you been thinking about the house you grew up in, or being back in Tamma's house?"
"Actually, it is Tamrissa's house that I've been missing most and dreaming about," Lorand answered, his own frown matching Jovvi's. "And now I'd like to hear Naran's answer."
"Yes, of course it was Tamrissa's house I've been dreaming about," Naran said with a small headshake. "How could it be anywhere else? And why are you all looking at me like that? I've just done the same as everyone but Jovvi and Vallant."
"You can't exclude Jovvi from the group," Jovvi said, obviously trying to lighten a situation that had grown heavy with some kind of portent. "I've also had the dream of being back in Tamma's house, and this is too much of a coincidence for it to be a coincidence. Would anyone like to bet gold against the possibility that Vallant has had the same dream as well?"
"That would be like betting gold against a complete certainty, so stop trying to cheat us," I said, and the words managed to bring a brief smile to everyone. "Instead, why don't you tell us what this could possibly mean?"
"Sure," Jovvi responded with a sound of ridicule that was totally unlike her. "It means we're all homesick for the safety and comfort we found in your house, even if it was only for a short while. What else could it possibly mean?"
We all shook our heads at her, I, at least, hating the way she'd said she had no idea of what the dreams meant. It was another really annoying mystery to add to the rest, and when Vallant suddenly rejoined us he looked at each of us with a frown.
"What's happenin' now?" he asked, and there was almost accusation in his tone. "I leave the bunch of you alone for no more than five minutes, and you find somethin' else to worry about as soon as my back is turned. So what is it now, and just how dangerous will it turn out to be?"
"Before we answer your question, you have to answer one of ours," I said, doing the honors this time. "Have you been dreaming of being back in my house?"
"As a matter of fact, I have," he said, and his frown had deepened. "Is that supposed to mean I'll be messin' up in some way because I don't really want to be here?"
"What it means is we now have confirmation that all of us have had the same dream about being back in Tamma's house," Jovvi said, her smile a good deal less soothing than it normally was. "We would love to know what the dream means, but so far nothing has come to us."
"And please don't say that it might not mean anything," Lorand put in when Vallant parted his lips to speak. "If all six of us are having the same dream, I'll bet everything I own that it means something very specific."
"I was goin' to say that just because we don't know what the dream means, that doesn't mean we won't find out at some time," Vallant told Lorand with just a trace of injured feelings. "I was also goin' to add that the invaders are bein' taken care of by our associate Blendin's, but there's somethin' we need to look into. One of the associates told me that there was a fairly heavy stir of activity over by the place where the Gracelian assembly members were watchin' the goin's on. No one has gone over to find out what happened, so we'd better take a look."
"And after we find out what they've done wrong this time, I hope we can get some more sleep," Naran said with a sigh. "The next time I wake up I'm going to make a concerted effort to break through that flux that's been keeping me from Seeing more than bits and snatches. I'm tired of being surprised by everything but what we absolutely have to know."
"You know, that's exactly the way it has been," I said, distracted from her first, out-of-character statement by a flash of revelation. "You haven't been able to see much of anything beyond the completely essential, and that can't possibly be a coincidence either. Someone has to be deliberately blocking you."
"Could the enemy really be strong enough to reach all the way here to block Naran without us being aware of it?" Lorand asked, worry widening his eyes. "If they are, we have even more trouble than we thought."
"It can't possibly be the invaders," I said while everyone else just came up with exclamations of worry and startlement. "Naran's had this trouble since before we left Gan Garee, and if the invaders are that strong we might as well just stand here and let them take us over. No, someone else is responsible for blindfolding us, and I'd really like to know who that is."
"Who could it be?" Vallant countered, but not in a challenging way. "I'd be willin' to believe that Ristor Ardanis, leader of those with Sight magic, is behind the blockin', but he and most of his people are a long way away from here. Naran, are you absolutely certain that the people in your link groups are workin' with you rather than against your breakin' through?"
"Normally I might not be absolutely certain, but once I'm part of the Blending there's no doubt," Naran answered with a nod. "My people are trying as hard as I am, but something is keeping us from breaking through."
"It certainly can't be the Gracelians," Jovvi said, her distracted gaze saying that her mind searched for an answer. "The Gracelians don't have anyone with Sight magic, so they can't possibly affect it. Who does that leave?"
"No one but the Highest Aspect," I said, finding it impossible to keep the dryness from my tone. "If the enemy isn't doing it, the Gracelians aren't doing it, and Ristor Ardanis's people aren't doing it, there's no one left."
"But there is someone left," Rion disagreed slowly, his gaze as distracted as Jovvi's had been. "We haven't mentioned the fact in quite some time, but there's still a mystery in our lives that we haven't solved. Those 'signs' the Prophecies spoke of… We've denied that they ever happened, but they did happen and we still don't know who was responsible for causing them."
"And we don't know who was responsible for bringing us all together," Lorand took his turn to point out. "A minute or two ago we were refusing to accept all those dreams as a coincidence, but we never questioned the even bigger coincidence that we all ended up in t
he same residence. We are each of us the strongest practitioner of our respective talents, and we all just happened to end up in the same residence and made into a Blending? If you can believe that, then you must also believe that the Highest Aspect leaves a copper coin under our pillows as a reward for having gone through the five-year-old tests successfully."
"It looks like someone's been makin' a lot of things happen around us," Vallant observed, vexation showing on his face as strongly as I felt it inside me. "So there's some group, large or small, makin' these things happen, but we don't know if they're friend or foe. Until we find out just what their aim is, we can't call them one or the other."
"Well, one of their aims was to bring us together," I suggested, thinking about it even as I spoke. "If they're friends of ours, they did it so that we could win the throne and get rid of the nobility. If they're enemies, they did it to put us all in the same place so we could be gotten rid of with a single effort. If we get taken down, everyone knows that no one else is as strong as we are and so they might not even put up a token struggle. By winning over us, the enemy would win over everyone else at the same time."
"I see a flaw in that logic," Lorand said, another of us almost lost to distraction. "These unknown someones have obviously known about us since before we got together in Gan Garee. Putting us all together just to conquer us at the same time makes no sense, not when they could have killed us one at a time before we knew what we were doing. If they had, there would be no 'others' to worry about, only the Middle Seated Blending the nobles picked out. Even an arrogant enemy would never go to such lengths just to best six people."
"I'm forced to agree with that," Vallant said even as Jovvi nodded her own agreement. "What's the sense in havin' almost a dozen more enemies, when killin' a few people will give you no enemies to speak of at all? These invader leaders just rolled over all opposition until it was crushed, and then it took over the people and used them for their own purposes. That means there's definitely someone else in the game."
"And we're being used by them," Jovvi said, closing the circle that I seemed to have opened. "There has definitely been someone interfering in our lives, and that fact suggests that the someone is also interfering with Naran's talent. There are things about to happen that they don't want us to know about in advance, but it shouldn't be because they're our enemies. If they weren't on our side, we would hardly be standing here discussing the matter now."
"That idea isn't very flattering," I had to point out when no one else said anything in response to Jovvi's conclusion. "Keeping us in the dark suggests that we do better reacting to a situation as it happens than we do after we think about the circumstance. If they're trying to tell us that we're not built to think, I'm definitely feeling insulted."
"I really don't believe that that's what Jovvi - or our mysterious others - are saying," Naran told me with a laugh that had everyone else joining in. "It's probably just a matter of their wanting our entity to do the reacting and thinking rather than us as individuals. Our entity does things that sometimes horrifies us afterward, and if we knew about the need in advance we might be able to influence the entity against doing what was needed."
"That makes sense to me, at least," Lorand said, looking a bit shamefaced. "The rest of you have found it easier to accept what we've sometimes needed to do, but the horror of some of it still disturbs me. I feel the urge to say that we ought to have a choice about whether or not to add to that horror, but there's too much at stake here. If we don't do something necessary because of my tender sensibilities, a lot of innocent people will pay the price for my squeamishness."
"It isn't squeamishness, Lorand," Vallant said, and it seemed that he'd taken the words out of Jovvi's mouth this time. "Tamrissa, Rion, and I seem to be the most aggressive ones in this group, and in my opinion we need people with real consciences to balance us out. That balance consists of you, Jovvi, and Naran, so there's a good chance that Naran isn't bein' allowed to See very far because she would want to do what you would. Which means I'm wonderin' if you really should try forcin' your way through that flux again, Naran."
"I've been wondering the same thing for the last few minutes, Vallant," Naran answered, her pretty face showing the ghost of disturbance. "Let me think about the matter for a while, and then we can all discuss it again before I do any forcing."
"That's more than sensible and reasonable, so we'll table the discussion for a while," Vallant agreed with one of those smiles I like so much. "Meanwhile, let's go and find out what's happenin' with the Gracelian assembly people."
Jovvi and Rion made sounds of surprise, leading me to believe that they'd forgotten about the Gracelians just as I had. The mystery had distracted us all, but since there was nothing we could do about solving it right now it only made sense to go on to other things.
Vallant and I - along with the light I'd kept burning - led the way back into the village and through it. Vallant suggested that we stop to check on the new Blending members on our way, but one glance told us that it would be a waste of time to stop. All twenty members of the new Gracelian High Blendings were dead asleep, which really came as no surprise. They'd used all of their strength removing the protection from half of the invaders, and they'd probably let themselves collapse once they saw that we'd taken over to handle the rest.
"There won't be any wakin' them before mornin'," Vallant said as we walked past the unmoving bodies. "I remember how much I needed sleep when I was in their place, more than I needed almost anythin' beyond breathin'. Too bad you don't remember feelin' the same way."
"Don't rub it in," I grumbled, finding it impossible not to laugh at the same time. Back when we were in the same position, Vallant had fallen asleep when he was supposed to stay awake and make love to me. I'd been so hurt and disappointed that I'd been ready to swear that I'd never speak to him again, and he'd had to come up with a really wild story to get me past the feeling. We'd long since gotten the matter completely straightened out, but remembering the time was still enough to make me blush with thinking how innocent I'd been.
I hadn't been that innocent for quite some time, so when we finally reached the camping place of the Gracelian assembly members and everything seemed quiet I felt more suspicion than relief. If the previous disturbance had been bad enough for our associate Blending to call it "heavy," then everything shouldn't be peaceful and quiet now.
"I hope you've come to tell us that you've found a way to defeat the invaders," Antrie Lorimon said as she and Cleemor Gardan came toward us out of the dark. "After everything that's happened, we could use some good news."
"No, unfortunately, we haven't found any magical ways to defeat those invaders," I answered, finding it impossible not to notice how really weary both Antrie and Cleemor looked. "We're here because we were told there was some trouble. Is it anything we can help with?"
"Probably not," Antrie answered, and there were tears in her eyes as if she were crying without knowing it. "Thrybin Korge is probably going to die, and Zirdon Tal will be the one who killed him."
Chapter Five
"We've been discussing whether to execute Tal before Korge dies or after," Jovvi heard Cleemor Gardan say as she stared at the two Gracelians in surprise. "There's also the problem that the attack against Korge was due to Korge's playing games again, so the matter could almost be considered suicide. If having someone plunge a knife into your back can be looked at as suicide."
"What kind of games was Korge playing?" Jovvi asked as Lorand hurried off after exchanging a glance with her. Lorand was going to see what he could do for the victim, and it was Jovvi's job to speak to Antrie and Cleemor and try to calm them.
"Tal told us that Korge tried to talk him into killing your group," Cleemor said with a sigh, responding to Jovvi's soothing without seeming to be aware of it. "Tal pretended to be uninterested, but once you'd all Blended and your bodies were unprotected, he took a knife and went after you. He said he'd almost reached you when the truth finally came t
o him. You weren't the ones this country had to be protected from, the real villains were those of us who still pretended to be leaders. He turned around and came back to kill all of us, and Korge was his first target."
"The rest of us were Blended and watching what was going on with the invaders," Antrie said after taking a deep breath. She'd stopped crying, which meant that she was also responding to Jovvi's soothing. "We noticed nothing, of course, but Zirdon had apparently forgotten about Thrybin's former Blendingmates. They couldn't Blend without Thrybin, but they were trying to follow what was going on by individually using the power the way we do in challenges. Korge was doing the same, so he had no idea that Zirdon was near him until Zirdon plunged that knife into his back. When Thrybin screamed, his former Blendingmates in Spirit and Earth magic took control of Zirdon."
"Well, at least Tal started with the proper victim," Tamma said with a headshake. "It was an absolute guarantee that Korge would make trouble for someone, so isn't it nice that the someone turned out to be himself? If Korge didn't deserve it, no one in this world does."
"How can you say that?" Antrie put to Tamma, the Gracelian's distress clear enough to see even without Spirit magic. "You sound as if you think we ought to be pleased that Thrybin is dying, but that just isn't possible. The man was a colleague of ours, another human being even if he wasn't everything a man should be. Being attacked like that shouldn't happen to anyone, not even Thrybin Korge."
"That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard," Tamma stated flatly, looking at both Antrie and Cleemor. "Korge wasn't just attacked, he brought the attack on himself and you know it. He wasn't an innocent victim, he was someone who should never have been allowed near any kind of power. He shouldn't have been a colleague of yours, and Zirdon Tal shouldn't have been one either. The bunch of you let those two twisted fools get into positions of power and authority, and they were almost responsible for your destruction as well as their own. If you refuse to do the right thing, you can't complain when tragedy strikes."
