You made them understand, small sister?
Haemas wrapped her arms around her ribs and stared at the nexus where Lord Rald had stood just seconds before. The breath rasped in and out of her lungs as she fought to control her fear. “No,” she said. “Something else happened.”
Then they will try again.
“Yes.” Haemas knelt beside the motionless forms of Kevisson and Cale in the grass. “They probably will.”
* * *
Lord Rald lay on the floor, head to knees, breathing in shallow, ragged gasps. The shrill, discordant voice of the wrenched crystals wound down and down. Jarid stood beside the old man, staring numbly at the wall where, for a second, he had seen his cousin’s face.
Senn unlocked the door and shouted to the servants waiting in the hall. Then he gripped Jarid’s shoulder. “That was quick thinking, young man, when you broke the relay.” He mopped at his red forehead with an embroidered sleeve. “A few more seconds and we might have lost him.”
Servants rushed into the room with a litter, followed by the Senn healer, dressed in traditional Healer’s black. Senn urged Jarid out of the way as Healer Falt knelt to run practiced fingers over the old man’s head.
At length he looked up at Senn, his tawny eyes angry. “This is too hard a game for the older members. You need a younger man for the focus.” He motioned to the servants to load the unconscious man on the litter.
Senn released Jarid’s shoulder and backed wearily into a chair. “But we’ve tried that,” he muttered almost to himself. “Young men lack the necessary control, but now you say older men cannot handle the level of power required.” He shook his head. “There has to be an answer. We are so close!”
Jarid thought of the skivit’s hated face floating just out of reach, then ran a hand back through his disordered bright-gilt hair. “Would you allow me to try, my Lord?”
COOLNESS trickled over Cale’s hot face and down his neck. He felt himself rising involuntarily toward the thundering pain centered behind his eyes and tried to go away again into the soothing darkness. A winterberry-scented breeze danced over his skin.
“Are you sure he’s all right?” a distant voice asked.
He drifted, afraid of the agony he had fled before, the shriek of shattering nerves, the imminent splitting of his head. Coolness bathed his face again and his eyes slitted open. A glimmer of sunlight filtering through the leaves above stabbed deep into his brain. He groaned and clamped his eyes shut.
“Try to sit up.” The voice was urgent. “Windsign says you have to get away from here.”
“Return to the Mother, you mean,” he croaked. The throbbing in his head had a definite beat, like the big drums at Harvest Festival. He pressed trembling hands over his eyes; these Lords were insane, daring to call things into being that were outside nature itself. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the cold terror of the awful roaring blueness that had threatened to swallow the world.
Warm fingers touched his temples and he felt a presence within his skull where no one else had any right to be. He shrank from it, but there was nowhere to run.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
Blackness beckoned as a startling pressure built within his head, a half-painful pushing against—something. He gasped and the pain faded away. The relief jarred him with its abruptness; he lay there, limp with surprise, his right cheek pressed into the cool grass and his head spinning.
An arm braced his shoulder and urged him up. Weak as a newborn calf, he pried his eyes open again. A blurred white face hung over him, then resolved itself into his former Kashi captive. “Mother above!” he whispered. “What—happened?”
She sat back on her heels and met his blinking gaze with those baffling pale eyes that never gave him a clue to what she was thinking. “You have to leave before they try it again. This close to a nexus, you might not survive next time.”
He gazed past her at the little pool, rippling in the breeze. It was only water now, but he remembered it before, a crackling, writhing fiery blue gateway into hell. Just looking at it made him afraid. He lurched to his feet, biting back a curse at the stab of pain in his broken foot. An arm’s length away, the Kashi lay crumpled and motionless, his face drained of color. “Is he dead?”
“He’s sleeping.” She brushed a lock of white-gold hair out of her face, and he saw lines of strain between her eyes. “Summerstone says it’s the best thing for him now.”
Cale glanced over his shoulder. “Who’s Summerstone?”
She knelt in the grass and picked up the gleaming length of the sword he’d taken from the Kashi. “This is Tal’ayn’s crest.” She ran her fingers over the device etched on the silver hilt.
Hobbling over, he snatched it from her hand. “That’s mine now!”
She stared at him until he could have sworn he felt her inside his head again. He had a flash of that terrible ride from Dorbin at the Kashi Lord’s side, the sun beating down on his face, trapped in an unresponsive body while his mind gibbered in terror. His face heated.
“You’re fortunate to be alive.” Her expression was grave. “Jarid rarely makes mistakes.”
“I suppose I could say the same, then, about you.” He ducked his head and wiped the sword clean in a fold of his shirt. “He were almighty anxious to get his hands on the likes of you, too.” He shuddered. “I won’t never forget the nasty feeling of him using me.”
Her face was solemn. “The ilseri sealed your mind against that sort of meddling after you followed me into the forest. No Kashi will ever command you again.”
Cale put a hand to his head. “You mean something else has been tromping through my mind besides you and that Lord fellow?” He turned away. “Makes me feel like a damn public road.”
Her warm fingers closed around his wrist. “I have to shield you for a few seconds to take you back. Windsign and Summerstone have shown me how.”
He tried to pull away, but, at her touch, blackness danced at the edges of his mind, weakening his knees. His heart pounded as the shimmering blueness sprang up again, but quieter this time, almost tame. “Close your eyes,” she said in his ear, and though he tried to resist, his eyelids sagged. She drew him forward and he stumbled after her, feeling a disorienting wrench. She pulled him one more step, then another, and released his wrist.
He straightened, blinked, smelled the smoky tang of meat roasting over an open fire pit.
“And where in the seven hells have you been?” a familiar voice bawled from behind.
Cale turned around and stared across the fire into Eevlina’s bristling gray eyebrows. His mouth dropped open but nothing came out.
“Fine way to treat your poor old Gran,” she continued, one hand perched on her ample hip, “sneaking up on a body like that! You got no consideration for nobody.”
He limped to the huge hollow tree trunk in which Eevlina made her home and felt the rough bark with a wondering hand.
“And I suppose all them horses you was supposed to steal are tied up just out of sight behind them trees over there?” She advanced on him, her walking stick firmly clenched in an upraised hand.
“Horses?” Cale swallowed around a large knot in his throat.
Eevlina stopped in front of him and looked him up and down like a haunch of suspect meat. “I always knowed blue eyes was unlucky, and on a manchild to boot!” Her brow furrowed. “I told your mum the day you was born that what she wanted with a manchild was beyond me, but she wouldn’t listen to her poor old mother, no indeed!”
Cale suddenly remembered Haemas, but the Kashi girl had vanished—as if she’d never been there at all.
* * *
It seemed to Kevisson that he heard Haemas Tal calling him from the other side of the world. His head was filled with shards of blue ice; he couldn’t remember what had happened or how he came to be lost in this cold dark place.
She called again and he struggled to answer; she was his responsibility and he had let her down, along with Master Ellirt and the Council.
“You have to try harder.” Anxious fingers bit into his shoulders. “Kevisson, please! You can’t stay here.”
He put his bound hands to his head and groggily opened his eyes. “Haemas?”
The girl breathed a deep sigh and sat back. Her lips were tight with strain, her eyes dark-hollowed. She raked her fingers back through the tumbled mass of her unbraided hair. “We have to go.”
He gazed around the rapidly dimming grove; the last rays of sunset were just fading above the trees. “At—night?”
“We have to leave before they try again, and I can’t carry you.” She bent over his swollen wrists, picking at the knotted rawhide tie. Her pale hair brushed his face, silken, scented with winterberry.
He shook his head. “They?” She peeled the tie away and he rubbed the angry red indentations in his wrists, wincing as the circulation returned. “Who—what are you talking about?”
“Come on.” She stood, straightening her back wearily. “I’ll tell you when we get to Shael’donn.”
“It’s days from here to Shael’donn,” he protested as she levered him onto his unsteady feet.
“Not through the nexus.” She steadied him, then looked toward the pool. “Let me shield you, then I’ll explain as much as I can.”
“Shield me?” he echoed stupidly. “You? But—”
“Be quiet.” Her light brows knit together. “I’ve only done this once and I have to concentrate.”
He watched her profile as she drew him toward the stone-edged pool. Her pale skin was luminescent in the deepening dusk, and yet, despite her obvious fatigue, she was more confident than he’d ever seen her—as well as in full possession of her mindsenses. What had happened after she left him in the forest? Was this really the same terrorized, damaged girl he’d trailed all the way from the Highlands? She seemed transformed, older, someone else entirely.
The faintest jangling of crystal began. He flinched back from the pool.
Lower your shields, she said clearly into his mind, startling him. And then it won’t hurt.
He hesitated as the crystalline vibrations climbed higher, setting his teeth on edge and exacerbating the dull ache in his temples. He rolled his shields back with a convulsive shiver. The sound cut off immediately as her mind softly enfolded his.
Icy, prickling blueness formed around them, the same terrible blueness that had nearly swept him away before. She stepped into it, but he hung back.
She turned, her body bathed in crackling, scintillating blue fire. It will be easier if you don’t look.
This wasn’t real, he told himself, nothing about this nightmare Search could be real. He must be lying under a tree somewhere in the deep forest, thrown by that wily black Lenhe mare, his head split open and his life ebbing into the dirt.
“Please.” It was only the voice of an ordinary young girl. “Trust me for just a minute, and then we’ll be at Shael’donn.”
“Shael’donn,” he murmured and closed his aching eyes. Her fingers closed around his arm again, urging him forward into who-knew-what.
Well, he wouldn’t mind walking into Darkness itself, he thought, if it meant he could sleep at Shael’donn tonight.
* * *
The same two Third Form boys were flipping spoonfuls of berrysauce at each other again. What were their names, Ellirt wondered irritably—Tiqery and . . . ?
He sighed, then sent a mental note to Brother Alidale, instructing him to have that particular pair of youngsters scrub the dining hall floor after the evening meal was concluded.
Although it wasn’t really that long ago, he told himself, laying his fork down, that Alidale had been cheerfully throwing mush around this very same dining hall. As the years wore on, mounting into the tens, life seemed to mire him down in foolishnesses instead of letting him attend to the problems that really mattered. Food fights, indeed! Ellirt picked up a piece of baked whiteroot and turned it over in his fingers. He was too old to spend his last days worrying about how much food wound up on the floor instead of in—
Master Ellirt?
His hand froze halfway to his mouth.
Master Ellirt, could you . . . come outside?
He sensed several boys staring up at him from their tables down on the main floor. Ellirt smiled benignly at them and popped the whiteroot in his mouth. Kevisson?
Yes, Master. I’m . . . in the walled garden.
I see. Ellirt reached for his napkin and wiped his hands. Is there some reason you don’t want to come inside?
It would be better, Master, if you came to me.
Stay there, Kevisson. I will be down as soon as possible. Pushing his chair back from the table, Ellirt turned to Brother Alidale on his right. “You will see to that little matter,” he said quietly, “concerning young Tiqery and—” He frowned, then his memory finally produced the name he had been seeking. “—and Sanner!”
Amusement radiated from Alidale’s mind, although his tone remained disapproving. “Of course, Master Ellirt.”
“I have something to take care of.” Ellirt put one hand on Alidale’s shoulder and edged behind him along the wall.
“Do you want one of the boys to come with you?”
“No, thank you.” His Inner-Sight was superior to normal sight in the darkness. “I should be able to manage.” The noise from the dining hall followed him as he made his way down the corridor.
Young Brirn Lockne had door watch this night. Ellirt smiled pleasantly at the boy as he approached. “Unlatch the door for me, Brirn. I need to check on something.”
“Outside, Master Ellirt?” Brirn’s voice was surprised. “By yourself?”
“Not to worry, rock barrets rarely go after dried-up old carcasses like mine.” Ellirt clasped his hands behind his back and turned his face to the door.
“Are you going to be out long, Master?” he asked breathlessly as he tugged the heavy bar out of the braces across the door.
“No, I should be only a moment.” As the door closed behind him, Ellirt cast his special Sight out through the night. The crisp evening air bathed his face with the soft spring smell of callyt blossoms. He sensed that Lyrdriat, the smallest moon, had drifted out from behind the night clouds to cast its pale golden light over the landscape. Ellirt sighed. Moments like these made him wish again Fate had permitted him true vision. Inner-Sight was useful, but he was well aware from occasional peeks through other people’s eyes that merely finding one’s way and seeing true beauty were not the same.
He shivered and thought momentarily of returning for a cloak against the rapidly cooling evening air, then chuckled. Getting old, he told himself. He set out toward the garden, easily navigating the crushed gravel path where a sighted man would have needed a lantern to find his way. Just as he reached the garden gate, he felt Kevisson’s familiar, sensible presence ahead of him, but the younger man’s mind was muted, almost distant. And someone else waited behind the wall too, someone he didn’t recognize.
The gate creaked open on its rusty hinges. Must have that seen to, he chided himself.
Just on the other side, a figure moved to meet him. “Master Ellirt!”
“Kevisson, lad!” Ellirt moved forward to clamp his hands over the younger man’s broad shoulders. “I was beginning to think we had lost you to the Lowlands.”
“At some points, Master, that very nearly was true,” Kevisson whispered hoarsely. An aura of numbing weariness surrounded him.
Ellirt tightened his grip, reading the Searcher’s low energy level much more clearly now. Kevisson had little reserve left. “But what of your Search for the young Tal? Lord Senn has been deviling me for answers.”
Kevisson glanced over his shoulder and again Ellirt sensed someone behind several smaller callyt trees. He ex
tended his mind toward the unseen figure: it was a young woman, or a girl . . .
He turned back to Kevisson. Haemas Sennay Tal?
Yes, Master. He rubbed his forehead.
Why didn’t you tell me you had found her? Ellirt’s mind whirled like a top. And how did you use the portal without anyone noticing?
We didn’t come through the portal. Kevisson swayed under his hands, then caught himself.
The grass rustled as the girl stepped out from behind the trees. He could tell she was taller than he had realized from the image in her father’s mind, long-legged, slim and graceful, dressed in something flowing. She touched Kevisson’s shoulder. “I—I have to go now.”
“Where?” Kevisson seized her arm. “Not back to Tal’ayn?”
She flinched, and Ellirt caught a startling glimpse of flames in her mind. “No, back to the grove.”
She was almost as exhausted as Kevisson, he realized, yet as tightly strung as a lute. He read Kevisson’s desperate wish to keep her here at Shael’donn, and agreed. After having expended so much time and energy to find her, they couldn’t let her disappear again. This whole matter had to be cleared up. “Why not stay with us for a few days, my dear, just until everything is straightened out?”
She turned back to him, and for a second he studied her through Kevisson’s sight—her eyes were so light they might have been frosted gold; she had the Killian coloring, inherited through her mother, which in combination with that unusual white-gold hair, was a possible sign of a rare and particularly powerful strain of Talent.
“He’s dead.” She pulled away from Kevisson. “That can’t be `straightened’ out!”
“Your father?” Suddenly the latest gossip among the great Houses of the Highlands came to mind. “Not only is he alive and very worried about you, he’s holding your Testing and Naming ceremony tomorrow at Tal’ayn. The rumor is he’s gone quite mad over this whole affair.”
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