“I will accept your kind hospitality, lady.”
Feeling the ache of his stiffening muscles, Griffin toiled up the slope to join his rescuer. Then he followed Adara and Sand Shadow a short way to where a south-facing hollow sheltered a pocket-sized mountain meadow. The promised stream splashed and gurgled along one edge, pooling at the lowest point before overflowing and continuing its way down.
“I will fetch the venison,” Adara said. “Sand Shadow will guard you while you bathe, lest some wandering creature decide you may be edible after the dirt comes off.”
She chuckled as she vanished into the shadowed pines. The puma settled into a sunny patch of thick grass and yawned, once again displaying a magnificent array of fangs.
Griffin contemplated the pool. Although the sun was pleasantly warm, he knew that this high up the water would be very, very cold. However, there was no avoiding this bath. He was filthy, and Adara the Huntress did not look like someone who would respect a request for heated bath water.
Though in the days of old, he speculated as he peeled off his coverall, certainly hot springs or such would have been available. The Imperials—I wonder if that is what Adara means by “seegnur”—liked their comforts. Of course, if the springs were artificially heated, they would now run cold.
Griffin thought of his shuttle as he had last seen it, mostly buried beneath dirt and rock. If he could get into it, he could retrieve a comm unit and contact his orbiting ship, but what if he couldn’t get in? As Griffin stepped into the stream, the cold water was not the only thing that made him shiver.
* * *
When Adara returned, she found Griffin Dane much cleaner, although his hair was still dripping wet and his lips were blue with cold. For the first time, she got a good look at his attire unsmudged by debris. This proved to be a one-piece garment, colored two-toned green. Although it had been through a landslide, it showed not a single rip or tear, nor even as particularly dirty.
More evidence, she thought to herself, that Griffin Dane is a seegnur, even though he does not seem to know the word.
The twitch of Sand Shadow’s ears and flick of her tail told Adara that the puma had found the man’s bathing quite amusing. Images of Griffin combined with those of a fluffed and splashing robin showed the determined fashion with which the man had tackled the icy plunge.
Adara chuffed at the cat. You might have offered to dry him.
He would have died of fright.
Adara considered, then thought apologies. You’re right. She turned to Griffin Dane.
“I have a towel you can use to dry your hair,” she offered. “I’ll make a fire. Sand Shadow should have done so, seeing how cold you are.”
Griffin Dane accepted the cloth gratefully and immediately began to tousle the darkened gold of his wet curls.
“Sand Shadow should have made a fire?” He looked about for the puma.
“She has gone to get some wood,” Adara said, scraping the ground clear and arranging a circle of river rock around it. Next she used flint and steel to strike sparks into the dry pine punk she shook from a small bag on her belt. “Something she could have done before. Like all cats, Sand Shadow goes from activity to purest indolence with great speed and enthusiasm.”
“Oh?” Griffin said.
His tone invited Adara to say more, but she ignored the hint. She wanted to know why, after so many generations—Bruin said that something like five hundred years had passed—a seegnur had returned to Artemis. She wanted to know what had brought this Griffin Dane here. The lore had always been mixed regarding the seegnur. Some tales presented them as wise and talented. Some as grasping and cruel. This seegnur seemed neither wise nor particularly talented—although he had shown courage. Nor did he seem cruel.
Still, Griffin Dane might be minding his manners because he needed her aid. Best to wait and watch and learn. Was he alone? Part of a larger excursion party?
Adara fed her flickering flame with dry grass, then a handful of twigs broken from a scrub oak near at hand. She saw Griffin Dane move to the fringe of the hollow, carefully concealing the stiffness of his battered body. When he returned, he brought with him a dried pine bough.
“Will this help?” he asked.
She smiled up at him. “It will. I wonder where that lazy puma has gone?”
“I could go look for him,” Griffin Dane offered. Adara admired his offer, because Sand Shadow was right. Griffin Dane was afraid of the great cat. “Or I could mind the fire so you can look for him.”
“Her,” Adara said. “Sand Shadow is female. I think she will call if she needs help but, if she continues slow, I may take you up on that kind offer. In the meantime, are you injured? I have an ointment that is very good for bruises.”
She saw Griffin Dane consider denying his injuries, saw, too, that he ruled this to be stupid bravado. Faces and bodies were like game trails. The signs were subtle, but could be read by one who learned the marks.
Bruin, who had been Adara’s teacher, had made certain that Adara learned how to read those marks.
“Too often,” Bruin had said, “those born to hunt believe they know what destiny has shaped them to be. They refuse to learn more. I think otherwise. One cannot hunt forever.”
Those lessons had been a trial, with none of the joy in them that Adara felt when tracking or drawing a bow, but Bruin had been right. The best hunters ranged through wide areas that touched upon many settlements. Knowing how to read those one might meet only once or twice a season was a good thing.
“Yes,” Griffin Dane said. “I would appreciate a share of your ointment. My coverall protected most of me from cuts and scrapes, but I am one massive bruise.”
Adara dug into her pack and came out with two squat pottery jars. “Rub this first ointment anywhere but open wounds. For the rest, use this second ointment. If you wish, I can anoint your back.”
Again the hesitation, then somewhat awkwardly, “That would be very kind.”
At that moment, Sand Shadow returned. The puma had found a nice bit of seasoned scrub oak and had broken off enough to make two neat bundles. These she had slung over her back. Now she pranced into the hollow, pleased as a house cat who had caught a mouse.
Griffin Dane, caught in the act of peeling down the upper portion of his coverall, froze in midmotion.
“Do you have another companion, then?” he asked.
“No,” Adara replied, enjoying his confusion. “Why do you think that?”
“But if no other companion, who loaded the wood onto the puma’s back?”
“She did it herself,” Adara said. “Admittedly, she’s more skilled than many, but haven’t you seen an adapted creature before? The lore says that the seegnur themselves created them.”
She stopped herself before repeating what Bruin had speculated, that the adapted had continued to change in the years since the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines.
“I have not,” Griffin Dane said. “Our history—what I suppose you might call our ‘lore’—tells of such things, but the manner of creating such was lost in the great war.”
Adara had the feeling that Griffin Dane was not saying everything he might, but did not press.
“Do you have any companions with you? You have shown no anxiety such as you might if someone was trapped within your vessel, but what about elsewhere?”
Griffin Dane stood with the upper portion of his coverall hanging loose around his waist, leaving his upper body bare. If he hadn’t been so badly battered, he would have been an admirable sight, well muscled, with a light down of chest hair. Now, however, he was marked in shades of red, many of these turning the darker purple of deep bruises.
The fire was burning well. Sand Shadow would add more wood as soon as she had her bundles off, so Adara went over to Griffin Dane. Dipping her fingers in the jar of bruise ointment, she moved behind him and began to rub the greasy stuff in, trying to be gentle. Her fingers felt the ripple of muscles beneath the fair skin, confirming her im
pression that Griffin’s incredible paleness was no indication of ill health.
“I am alone here,” Griffin Dane said after a long moment, “not just here in this place, but also in this system. Does your lore contain stories about how there are many planets, circling many suns, and this is but one?”
“Yes,” Adara said, reaching around him to dip her fingers again into the ointment jar. Her arm brushed against his nakedness and she felt a pleasant tingle. “Some of the folk who live where the air is thicker say this is just a legend, but those of us who live where we can observe the stars see this must be true.”
She did not add that Bruin, who had at one time been a student of the Old One Who Is Young, had told her this bit of lore was true and had shown her the evidence in the dance of the stars and planets.
Griffin Dane nodded. Perhaps to give himself a moment to frame his thoughts, he began rubbing the bruise ointment into his left arm.
“I came here by myself, in a small ship constructed to travel long distances without needing much fuel or tending precisely because it carried just one.” He gave a great shuddery sigh, although whether this was because his bruises hurt or because of some memory, Adara couldn’t tell. “I came alone because I was certain I was on to something that would make my reputation and I didn’t want to share the credit with anyone. I suppose that seems foolish to you.”
Adara laughed deep in her throat. “Perhaps it would not make sense to a farmer or a sailor, but to a hunter or a pro … Yes. It makes sense. You were on the trail of big game and thought you could take it alone.”
“And I was wrong.” For the first time, Adara heard bitterness in Griffin Dane’s voice. “If you knew how long and how carefully I prepared … Then to crash the shuttle within minutes of breaking atmosphere … If I ever get over feeling stupid…”
He shrugged, winced, then, defiantly, shrugged again.
Adara finished rubbing ointment into his back. Feeling a certain reluctance—this Griffin Dane really had a very nice back—she moved over to the fire. Sand Shadow had added a couple of larger pieces of wood before returning to lounge in the sunlight.
When Adara sent her thanks, the great cat stretched in pleasure. A graphic, mocking, and very sexual image followed. Most altered creatures were amused by the human capacity for sex at any time and in any season. They claimed that this alone was what set humans apart from beasts and praised the stars for being spared such distraction.
Adara admitted desire was a distraction, but she’d never been one to have sex with just anyone. Such behavior left one too vulnerable. A huntress, a rare occurrence already, must take care not to seem weak. Even so, she’d warmed herself at that fire and been burnt. Her heart twisted as she remembered Julyan. She’d loved him, given him not only her heart, but sought to shape herself into what she thought he had desired. Yet he had walked away without a backward look.
Yes … She must take care not to seem weak. The lore whispered that the seegnur had the ability to command the people of Artemis. As polite as this Griffin Dane might seem, she must be on guard against his wiles.
Interlude: TVC1500
Darkness. Deadness. Purest cold.
Heat. Intense, incredible heat. The beginnings of awareness.
Awareness. Purpose. Purpose displacing darkness. Purpose displacing awareness. Awareness becoming purpose.
2
Lost and Alone
Griffin and Adara were dining on grilled venison steaks seasoned with tiny wild onions and accompanied by a salad of peppery greens when the roar of rock upon rock shattered Griffin’s last hope that there would be a neat and relatively easy solution to his problems.
Despite his bruises and the stiffness that had settled into every bone and joint, Griffin would have rushed to find out what had happened, but Adara halted him with a hand on his sleeve.
“What is is,” she said. “And that place will not be safe yet. If you rush off now, no good will be served, and a very nice steak will be wasted.”
Something in the reverent way she spoke of the steak made Griffin suspect that Adara the Huntress had seen her share of hungry times. In any case, she was right. Rushing would not change anything.
So they ate their steaks, drank from tin mugs a tea so strongly flavored with mint and anise that even the generous dollop of honey Adara added could not dull the flavor. Only when the meal was concluded and the relics of their cooking were stored neatly in the pack Adara slung over her shoulders did they move in the direction from which the sound had come—back, Griffin was now certain, to where he had crashed the shuttle.
He knew what he would find before they got there.
The shuttle was gone—or if it wasn’t, it was as good as gone. Griffin Dane looked down upon the pile of loose, still shifting rock that entombed his ship. Gone were his hopes of salvaging a comm unit, some of his gear, or even a change of clothing. For the first time, Griffin accepted that he might never leave this planet, never see his home system again, never see his family again.
The realization hit him harder than any of the rocks that had battered his body.
To this point I haven’t accepted I might be trapped, Griffin thought. What happened seemed rather like a lark, an adventure right out of those serials my brothers loved so much, the ones I pretended to sneer at, but secretly watched over the top of my reader. Shuttle crashed. Rescued by a beautiful woman. Dalliance … All right, not quite that, but a rough and rustic meal. Then what?
She’d offer to help me get back to the shuttle. I’d discover the damage wasn’t as severe as I had thought. A few repairs would be needed and then …
Or we’d discover the shuttle itself couldn’t be used, but that key elements of my gear—weapons, medical supplies, a few other wonders—survived. The two of us would travel valiantly to where I could rig what I needed to contact my orbiter. This done, I would depart, promising to return again, someday, and Adara would look after me, the faintest glint of tears dampening those amber eyes …
Griffin shook himself hard, forced himself to look down the slope, really look, to accept that not the smallest tail fin, not even the barest rim of a thruster showed above the rubble.
“It’s completely buried,” he said.
Adara pointed up the slope. “The shock of your falling must have made the area weak. There was a small peak there. It’s gone now.”
“Good thing we didn’t stay to try and salvage anything,” Griffin said, forcing his voice to remain level. “If I’d stayed near, I’d have likely been buried.”
Adara’s lovely mouth shaped a very small smile.
“Then that is twice I have saved your life, eh? Remember that, seegnur. Now, listen to me while I save it again. You accept that we cannot reach your vessel?”
“Not bloody likely!”
“Then I tell you this. The land here remains unstable. I suspect it will be unstable for some time to come. What did your vessel burn for fuel?”
“Burn?” Griffin began to explain, then shook his head. “I don’t think we have the words between us for me to explain.”
“But it made heat,” Adara persisted.
“Yes, but…”
“Will it continue to make heat?”
Griffin considered. “No. I don’t think so. The automatic shut-offs went into effect when the shuttle lost control.”
“Still,” Adara said, “parts of your boat were very hot. Here the ground is very cold and filled with ice, for winter is not long past. Heat and cold do not like each other. For many days to come, the ground in this area will be unstable. We must leave.”
Griffin wanted to protest, some lingering part of his fantasy nagging at him. Reality stared up at him from a heap of still shivering boulders. Unless he could get his hands on earth-moving equipment, there would be no getting to the shuttle—and even then, no promise there would be much useful to retrieve. Ground to atmosphere shuttles were not armored. It was likely that the hull had been crushed like an eggshell.
“Y
ou’re right,” he admitted heavily. “But what next?”
“Soonest next,” replied Adara, “we go from here. Sand Shadow and I have a cache farther down this mountain. Next soonest, we find another place to camp, one where we will not be buried if the earth chooses to belch after swallowing your craft. After that? We shall see. Although we are in the growing-longer days, still, daylight hours are short enough. This would not much trouble me and Sand Shadow, but how well do you see in the dark?”
“Well enough,” Griffin replied curtly.
“Good,” Adara said. “Come, then.”
* * *
Griffin Dane did not see at all well in the dark. Indeed, he began stumbling over small shrubs when twilight was only thickening. Exasperated, Adara made camp. She set Griffin to tend the new fire she had kindled, then put him in charge of grilling a couple more steaks. At least he could manage that.
She set about erecting her small tent. Soon, the tent would be an indulgence, but for now, this high up in the mountains, shelter at night was a good thing. Usually, Sand Shadow slept next to her, so Adara did not need to burden herself with any but the lightest of blankets. Now she envisioned complications. Both lore and popular ballads were full of tales regarding the seegnur and their appetite for local lovers. Would Griffin Dane have the same expectations? It wasn’t that she didn’t find him attractive, but she did not care to be told what to do.
Sand Shadow returned from bringing more firewood. She did not shape images, but Adara was aware of sparkling hints of feline laughter at the edges of her thoughts.
To distract herself from that coming awkwardness, Adara turned to matters no less awkward, but at least a little less intimate.
“So the seegnur did not all die,” she said.
Griffin Dane did not reply for a long time. When he did, his answer was not at all what Adara had expected.
Artemis Awakening Page 2
