The first time I’d been in that costume, I’d felt exotic and beautiful. Then Taro had seen it. He’d thought it looked ridiculous.
He was right. I had made a spectacle of myself. But it had been necessary to get the coins we needed in order to eat.
I put the costume in my wardrobe, far in the back. I should get rid of it—I certainly wouldn’t be wearing it again—but I wasn’t ready to do that quite yet.
I craved a bath, but lacked the patience to wait for water to be heated and brought up. I poured some water into the wash basin and disrobed entirely. With the cloth, I scrubbed the grime of the market from my skin.
I was so happy to be home.
Once I was bathed and I had put on a fresh dress, I picked up the bundle of discarded clothes. At the moment before putting them in the laundry bag, I remembered the bob. I took it off and, after depositing the clothes in the bag, I put the bob in my jewelry box. I went to the door of my suite, preparing to go down to the kitchen for some coffee.
And I couldn’t make myself go through the door. I didn’t know what it was; I just felt restless and uncomfortable. I felt as though I was forgetting something important.
I felt better when I took a step back, and better again when I went another step back. I felt best of all when I went back to my bedchamber and stood over my jewelry box.
It was stupid. It was all the power of suggestion. That merchant had performed that ritual, and now I had spells and casting on my mind. It was making me act all ridiculous.
Still, I opened the jewelry box and picked up the harmony bob, holding it at eye level. It was a pretty little thing.
And I had to admit, I wanted to wear it. I would have had no problem wearing it if Taro weren’t wearing the same thing. Why did we have to get matching bobs? What was Taro thinking?
I was so adverse to the idea of putting the bob in the jewelry box that it shocked me. But I was not going to pin it on my dress for all the world to see.
Feeling like a complete idiot, I stripped down to my chemise and pinned the bob to that. I felt better. I dressed again, and when I went to the door of my suite again, I was able to pass through it with no difficulties.
It made absolutely no sense, but I wasn’t going to think about it. I would wear the bob and I wouldn’t think about it. And when I went to bed that night, the merchant’s influence would have dissipated and everything would be normal. I really, really wanted everything to be normal.
Chapter Four
Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Stop. Grumble, growl or sigh. Turn. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Stop. Grumble, growl or sigh. Turn. Do it again.
The Stall was a very small building. One small room, in fact. Built just outside the general sprawl of High Scape, its official name, according to the Triple S, was the Observation Post of High Scape, where the Pair on duty waited while they watched for natural disasters to channel. It had been nicknamed the paranoia stall by one of our predecessors, so everyone called it the Stall.
It was a very boring place to be. That was the intention. The Pair on duty was not to be distracted by anything interesting.
High Scape was unusual in having multiple Pairs. Most sites that required Pairs had only one, and that Pair was not set to any kind of schedule. A Source and Shield didn’t have to be together when they channeled, though it made it easier when they were. In most cases a Source and Shield went about their separate business. The Source would feel the onset of an event and lower his or her natural protections in preparation for channeling. The Shield would feel the Source’s protection going down and would erect his or her Shields. This could be accomplished over a distance.
But High Scape was the largest city in the world and, until recently, had been one of the most turbulent, with events at least once a day, and often once a shift. It was filled with constant distractions, both day and night. The Triple S had deemed it wise to arrange to have a Pair on official duty at all times, and while on duty, to have them in the Stall.
One of the consequences of having fewer than the usual seven Pairs was that our watches in the Stall were much longer. I had been told that the shifts had lengthened from seven hours to nine when Taro and I were sent to the Southern Islands, and then to eleven when the circuit Pair had left. They had stayed at eleven once Taro and I returned, as Riley and Sabatos would soon be leaving.
For some reason, eleven hours felt so much longer than seven. It felt as if it were twice as long, not just four hours more. The books we’d brought had all been read; the games had been played too many times. All we had to keep ourselves from going mad with boredom was each other. There were times when that wasn’t enough.
Don’t get me wrong; Taro could be a very entertaining fellow. I really thought the flaw was with me. I wasn’t the best conversationalist, and I couldn’t listen to someone else for more than a few hours before getting tired of reacting to everything he said. I was used to having my attention absorbed by reading and writing, not people.
And if I felt that way, I could only imagine how Taro felt. He wasn’t a person who read, or could sit still in quiet contemplation. He needed people and activity, and the long, eventless shifts tested what little patience he had.
And he tested mine. “Stop pacing,” I snapped.
“I’m bored!”
“So? Is that any reason to torment me?”
“It’s ridiculous for them to expect us to just sit here and do nothing for eleven hours. There is no reason why we couldn’t just stay together in more interesting surroundings. This is a stupid waste of time.”
That was true. Why didn’t they trust us to stay together at the residence? “We could play cards.”
“I’m sick of cards.”
Taro loved playing cards, even when I was his only opponent and there were no real stakes. We had whiled away many a slow hour losing our firstborn to each other. He was just being difficult.
When I thought about it, I couldn’t believe Taro had never developed any solitary pursuits, with the upbringing he had. What did he do all those hours he was locked alone in his room as a child? “Then please find yourself something to do that isn’t so distracting.” Because I couldn’t settle down as long as he didn’t settle down.
“Let’s practice the weather,” Taro announced, suddenly seating himself at the table.
“Practice the weather?”
“Aye, see what you can do with it.”
I was shocked as I realized he wanted to experiment with my uncertain ability to tamper with the weather, an ability we’d discovered during the Harsh Summer. The regulars hadn’t been able to understand why Pairs who could calm tsunami and earthquakes and volcanoes were helpless against things like blizzards and temperature. I’d thought they’d had a point, at the time, so I’d bullied Taro into experimenting, seeing if he could do anything. After all, he could create natural events when he wished, not just channel them. There had been reason to think he might be able to tamper with the weather, too.
Except he couldn’t. He would open himself up to the forces, let them swarm through him, but was unable to glean the sensations that were caught up in the movement of the weather. It was as though all of his attention was absorbed in the grander sweeps of the forces, making him blind to the more subtle shifts of weather.
I wasn’t. I could see them, hear them, feel them. More astounding, I could give those sensations a nudge, which resulted in a change in the weather.
Unfortunately, the changes were largely unpredictable, and ended up being negative at least as often as they were positive. So I was leery of the whole thing. There was no one to act as a mentor for me, and I had no way of knowing what the long-term implications of changing the weather might be.
So, of course, I was caught in a circle. I didn’t want to experiment because I couldn’t predict the results, but I would never be able to learn how to predict the results if I didn’t experiment.
There were worse conundrums. I didn’t like the idea of doing it unle
ss it was absolutely necessary, anyway. I didn’t want to do it just to see what I could do. That seemed disrespectful somehow.
“I’m not playing with that sort of thing just so you have something to do.”
“I’m bored.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t do that!” he snapped. “I hate it when you do that.”
“Don’t do what?” What was wrong now?
“Dismiss me,” he interrupted. “I hate it when you dismiss me.”
His leaping about in tangents was not a good sign, but if I stayed calm, I could possibly steer him back into making sense. “I’m not dismissing you. But it’s not my fault you’re bored. You knew what it would be like. Why didn’t you bring something to entertain you?”
“I brought you.”
Cute. “I was thinking along the lines of racing circulars. Or letters to write. Or read.” I knew that the man was practically bombarded by letters from various admirers.
“You’re acting like you did before,” he accused me.
How bizarre. People had been telling me I looked different, that I was acting differently. Here was Taro, telling me I was acting as I had before. But perhaps I was misunderstanding him. “Before what?”
“Before we went to that damn island.”
Why was that a bad thing? What was wrong with the way I had been then? “What do you mean?”
“Why did you leave your things in your room?”
Sometimes his conversational leaps just took too much energy to follow. I wished he’d pick a topic and stick with it for a while. “Because we have separate rooms. We’ve always had separate rooms.”
“We always shared a room on that damn island.”
“That’s not entirely true. And when we did share, it was often a matter of saving space or money.”
His eyes widened in shock before narrowing into a glare. “I see,” he said coolly.
Clearly, it had been a bad idea to mention that. I should have said I’d wanted to share space for pure sentimentality. But damn it, it was the truth. “I assumed that once life got back to normal—”
“What does back to normal mean to you?” he demanded.
What, he was going to make me say it? “Well, coming back here, getting back on the roster.” I wasn’t going to mention the fact that now we were home, Taro would wish to return to his more philandering ways. Because I wasn’t stupid. Comments to that effect had always infuriated him.
Taro wasn’t stupid, either. Sometimes he could hear what wasn’t being said. “You are assuming a great deal,” were the chilly controlled words that came out of his mouth. “But then, you always have.”
The anger in him seemed to spark off some anger of my own. “Seems to me I’m not the only one making assumptions.”
“Really?”
When Taro got angry, he had a whole repertoire of responses. He snapped and snarled. He shouted. He became rigidly polite. But I really hated that soft voice with the almost hidden edge.
“And what assumptions am I making?” he asked.
“Well, you obviously assumed we’d be sharing quarters once we got back here.” Why should he be making all the decisions about how we did things? He was going to be the one to decide when it was over. It was only fair that I would be able to have some influence over the rest of the relationship.
“And you think that expectation presumptuous, given the circumstances.”
Yes, but I knew better than to say so. “Just illogical. Why settle for less space when we can have more?” It made perfect sense to me. We’d spent so long in cramped quarters. Didn’t he enjoy being able to stretch out more?
Didn’t he enjoy having his own space again? Somewhere that was purely his when he wanted to be away from me, when he wanted privacy to do whatever kinds of things he did that needed privacy?
Sure, it meant a little more inconvenience on the sex side of things. He could no longer just roll over and find me there. But the trip down the hall wasn’t too taxing. And it would make things so much easier when the relationship was over. No awkward moving-out scene.
Taro opened his mouth, no doubt ready to say something cutting. Then he frowned. “Something’s happening.”
Wonderful. He’d shifted moods again. I was still stuck in anger, because I was a normal person, and once I felt something, I felt it for a while. “No need to go overboard on the specifics, Taro, my love.” No, that wasn’t sarcastic at all.
He scowled at me briefly. “An earthquake, but not in High Scape.”
“Oh.” It was assumed that Sources could only feel events that were in their vicinity, but no one really knew what “vicinity” really meant, when it came to actual measurements. “Can you tell if there’s anyone doing anything about it?”
“There doesn’t seem to be.”
“So, do you want to do something about it?” It was possible that the reason no one was doing anything was that the earthquake was hitting an empty area, but it was also possible that someone wasn’t doing their job, or that this was an area that didn’t normally experience events and so didn’t have a Pair to protect it.
“I’d really like to.”
That, I thought, was an odd thing for him to say, and it made me curious. Were there events that Sources preferred to channel over others? What made a particular event more appealing? I couldn’t believe I’d never thought to ask.
But it wasn’t time to ask right then.
I felt that little spurt of excitement I always felt when I knew I was going to Shield. This was what I was good at. It was what I was born to do. And there was something so cleansing about it. It was almost like a good, challenging, physically exhausting but satisfying bench-dancing competition, except it was for the mind.
His barriers lowered, I raised my Shields around him. I felt his mind open to the forces, only not to the forces around him, which was what he usually did. It was more like he was reaching out, trying to find and pull in the forces that were setting off an earthquake, somewhere far away. This was the moment, when it was too late, that I wondered if his channeling an event so far away was such a good idea. What if it drained him too quickly?
There was a bit of a wait before he found the forces he was looking for, and then he drew them in, channeling them through his own body. My task was not only to prevent all the other forces that were swirling about from rushing in and crushing him, but also to make sure the blood didn’t burst from his veins, his heart didn’t beat itself to explosion, and his brain didn’t tear itself apart, literally, under the strain of world forces being funneled through a vessel that really hadn’t been designed to do the job it was doing.
This took great concentration on my part, as well as a firm knowledge of how Taro’s mind worked, how thoughts traveled over his mind, how his blood moved. That, as far as we knew, was the reason for the bond, to enable me to feel all of that information within him. I could do it with other Sources, but not as well as I did with him.
The flickering of color behind my eyes was my next hint that this was going to be an unusual channeling. Sometimes, I got images when I Shielded. This was not common. In fact, I’d never heard or read of another Shield seeing images when they Shielded. That didn’t necessarily mean they never had. I hadn’t gone out of my way to tell anyone, and perhaps all other Shields who had seen images had been similarly embarrassed. If I was the only one to see such things, I was clearly a freak. Both of these possibilities were a reason, as a rule, to keep the experience to myself.
The images never really made any particular sense, and this time was no different. What was different was that the sensations were not limited to the visual. A dark, clouded sky. High, rocky cliffs. Some kind of eagle or hawk screaming. Fast, rushing gray water laced with whitecaps that made me feel cold. The smell of rotting greens, and a taste of salt.
The assault on my senses was confusing, distracting. And the forces Taro was channeling seemed to be rushing through him particularly fast and particularly hard. I felt
like I was scrambling to keep everything under control. It wasn’t the first time that had happened to me, nor was it the first time it had frightened me. I didn’t know why it was happening. Was it because the source of the event was so far away?
At least there wasn’t any pain this time.
As the channeling continued, the screaming of the birds became continuous, and louder, pressing against the insides of my ears. My nose and mouth felt coated with salt. And the waves kept reaching higher and higher until thoughts of drowning trickled through my mind.
The rushing of the water nearly obscured the rushing of Taro’s blood, which strained against the sides of its carriers in an unusual bid to break free. His heart was racing, pulling against the confinement of its own form. And the fluids moving over his brain seemed to be, what, curdling? Something vile. Something not good. I pushed against the entrancing images in my mind in an almost desperate bid to prevent Taro killing himself.
I had lost awareness of everything around me. I couldn’t see the table in front of me, couldn’t feel the floor beneath my feet. Usually I didn’t so thoroughly lose all sense of what was going on around me. Should this worry me?
And then, finally, it was over. Taro was re-erecting his own protections and I breathed in a deep sigh of relief. “What the hell was that?” I demanded. Without thinking, I put my hands on my legs to see if my dress was wet.
“What do you mean? What is wrong?”
“Far too hard and fast.”
He grinned. “Not to your taste, then?”
I didn’t roll my eyes. Men. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. Why?”
It had all seemed normal to him? Really? “I saw strange things,” I admitted.
“I see,” he said, appearing serious. At least he believed me. Probably because I’d told him of the other times I’d seen images while channeling, and it had always been a bad sign. “What did you see?”
“Cold water and high cliffs. Lots of screaming white birds. The air tasted like salt. It was very gray.”
Heroes at Risk Page 5
