Irsud

by Clayton, Jo;

  The shutter cracked open and the hiiri slipped inside.

  Aleytys shivered. “What time is it?” she whispered to Burash who crouched beside her in the tangled tree-brush mixture at the base of the wall.

  “Three hours until dawn.” He was trembling with cold, his antennas bedraggled and drooping, the fine feathering beaded with drops of icy water. He glanced at her. “Do you know … has the kipu missed us yet?”

  Aamunkoitta looked up alertly.

  “No.” Aleytys pulled her robe tighter against her body, but the cold wet material wasn’t much help in cutting the chill in her bones. “But Nakivas better hurry. Damn. I’ll never be warm again.” She looked down at the tiny calm figure of the hiiri. “You don’t seem to mind the cold, Kitten.”

  The hiiri shrugged. “What is, is. Accept and be one. Kunniakas, the henkiolento-maan would speak to you if you listened. Let them. Be one with the earth, then the cold is one with you and will not harm you.”

  Burash touched Aleytys on the shoulder. “Look.”

  The door was open. Nakivas slid out. He darted to them, bent over, keeping to the darker shadows. “Come.” His voice was a whisper almost disappearing into the whispering rustling leaves of the trees around them. Aleytys first, then Burash, with Aamunkoitta as rear guard, they trailed him into the dilapidated house.

  Aleytys started and grimaced wryly as a musty shrouded figure slid around her and swung the bar into its slots. She sniffed. The interior of the house smelt of rotting wood, rotting food, and human sweat and urine. The walls groaned, murmured, shifted continually, and the tiny ominous scrabbling of vermin feet combined with the stale thick blackness to work on her nerves until she jittered with the urge to get out of the noisome place. A hand touched hers, took it.

  “Hold onto the others. Follow me.” Nakivas’s voice came to her out of the fetid blackness. Aleytys swallowed and reached out.

  “Burash, can you find my hand?”

  He laughed. “You forget, Leyta.”

  “Oh. Catch hold of Kitten, will you? I think we’re supposed to make a chain.”

  “I hear.”

  Nakivas moved off with the others stumbling along behind him. Aleytys could have cleared out the blackness for herself by using her clairvoyance, but she didn’t want to. The thought of penetrating that blackness to see what lived there brought a quaver to her stomach.

  After an eternity Nakivas stopped. “One minute,” he said, freeing his hand. The blackness cracked apart just ahead of them. “Come,” Nakivas muttered.

  Thankfully she stumbled out into the rain. She lifted her head and let the cold clean water wash over her face and hands, pour through her hair. She shook herself after a minute and turned to Nakivas. “Now what?”

  “Come.”

  Ahead of them, sheltering in a hollow where the butte met the level ground: five horses waited restlessly, tails brushing, feet scraping on the littered stone, four saddled, one loaded with a pack.

  Silently, the four of them mounted, Nakivas and Aamunkoitta with a single smooth movement, Aleytys cautiously, Burash lengthily with eyes screwed shut, sweat streaming off his tense face. Eventually Nakivas gave him a hand up and helped him get settled into the saddle. “You all right?” He frowned. “Think you can keep up?”

  Burash shifted in the saddle, eyes still closed. Speaking through clenched teeth, he muttered, “If it kills me.”

  Nakivas gave a short sharp bark of laughter, then kneed his horse out of the hollow. Aleytys waited for Burash and together they followed. Again Aamunkoitta went last, her bright eyes darting about alertly.

  With rain falling in dreary sheets they rode interminably into the featureless plain. A vague graying of the east proclaimed the coming of the sun but the rain kept coming down, the sky lost in leaden gray smoke. Aleytys glanced repeatedly at Burash. He was clutching painfully at the saddle horn, passing into that trance-like state that went beyond mere tiredness into total exhaustion. She remembered that first night when she fled her own home, remembered the ache, the bone-deep tiredness, the stubborn refusal to quit. Her body throbbed in sympathy with his. She rode ahead to Nakivas. “Could we stop?”

  “The Seppanhei?”

  “Yes. He won’t quit, but he’s tranced by exhaustion.” She frowned. “Give me a minute and I think I can fix that.”

  “Even that, Kunniakas?”

  “Why not.”

  “The rain will be breaking soon and we’ll need cover anyway.” He looked over his shoulder at the nayid. “Could he ride another half hour?”

  “He’ll ride till he drops.”

  “That’ll do then. And you, Kunniakas? How do you ride now?”

  She laughed. “Stiffly, my friend. But the old skills come back and tomorrow will be better.”

  The rain abated to a light drizzle and Aleytys could see what other senses had been telling her. They had left the plain and were in gently rolling wooded country. Nakivas threaded his way through the trees and finally dismounted in a small grassy clearing. “We rest here till the night,” he said crisply.

  Aleytys slid down and hurried to Burash’s side. “How are you?” Anxiety made her voice sharper than she intended.

  Swaying precariously in the saddle, he forced his eyes open and tried to smile at her.

  “Let me help.” She caught hold of his hand and set it on her shoulder. “Lean on me. Just let yourself fall off. Come on, the easiest thing in the world. And I’m here; you don’t have anything to fear.”

  He nodded and slid toward her, grunting as the saddle brushed past tender thighs. Aleytys caught hold of the clumsy burden, stumbling as his whole weight came on her. He couldn’t stand, could only move feebly. She let herself fold downward until she knelt with him, then let him stretch out flat on the wet cold grass.

  “Close your eyes a minute, naram.”

  The thin delicate membranes slid over the faceted eyes. He was trembling with the cold, his whole body shivering with cold and exhaustion. Aleytys reached to her river and let the power flow through her hands into his body. As it had flushed the poison from her body, it washed away the fatigue from his and healed the scraped spots on his thighs.

  Burash felt the strength flowing back into his body and opened his eyes, smiling up at her. “You never fail me,” he whispered.

  “May I never,” she answered. She touched his face with her fingertips. “Think you can stand now?”

  Not bothering with words he jumped to his feet and held out his hand for her.

  She laughed and let him pull her up. Then she looked around. The sod had been opened up. An irregular circle of grass on a timber backing had been pulled aside revealing a dark hole. Aamunkoitta was leading the pack horse down, stroking and coaxing him into skittish submission.

  “Surprise, surprise.” Aleytys went over and looked into the hole but could see little except the rear end of the descending animal. “What an organization.”

  Aamunkoitta came back to the slope. “Come on down, Kunniakas, so we can close the top. The kipu will have skimmers out hunting us by now.”

  “It’s dark down there.”

  Aamunkoitta laughed. “Not for long. Not once we get the top on. It’s very comfortable. You’ll see.”

  Sniffing skeptically, Aleytys held firmly to Burash’s hand and walked with exaggerated care down the incline. Nakivas brushed past her and joined Aamunkoitta. Together the hiiris pulled the lid back into place then groped their way through the thick blackness back to where Aleytys and Burash were standing.

  “Take my hand.” Aamunkoitta’s soft clear voice sounded oddly distorted by the darkness. Aleytys couldn’t locate her at first. Then a small three-fingered hand touched her arm and slid down it to take her hand. “Come.”

  “Burash?”

  His answering laugh was warm and comforting. “You forget.”

  She chuckled. “I always do, naram. Well, then come on. Lead off, Kitten.”

  They wound a little deeper into the earth, then a light spran
g out and Aamunkoitta clapped her hands, laughing delightedly at their gasps of astonishment. They were in a smallish domed chamber, soft furs on the floor and hanging from the walls, the ceiling set with tiles, with the flower patterns so familiar winding in crimson gold and green convolutions.

  “Those.” Aleytys pointed, swept her hand in a small circle. “It was your people made them?”

  “You don’t think the hyonteinens could?” He made as if to spit.

  She shrugged. The drag of her stained, soaked, muddy robe against her shoulders reminded her of another pressing need. “Is there a place where I can wash?” She plucked at the clinging material. “And some dry clothes for us.”

  A while later … clean, dry, hunger comfortably sated … she dropped onto the furs beside Burash and fell into an endless dark chasm of sleep.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Tiny figures curved out of undefined distance and swam vaguely round and round the equally undefined point that represented Aleytys’ conscious being, red-haired figures, images of herself sitting, riding, screaming, laughing, making love, fighting, images out of the past, immediate and distant, scattered pieces of her life … figures came, transparent twisting veils shaped like … Harskari dark and slim, glowing amber eyes austere, shimmering with a power barely confined to her delicate image, radiating power, Shadith vibrating on a single sustained note, wild clustering curls a glimmering halo about her pointed face, fingers sweeping in soundless rhythms over the strings of the silver lyre … power, challenge, rejection, negation … Swardheld standing foursquare, arms crossed over his chest, ironic amusement glinting in his black eyes, implicit in the fleeting glint of tooth against the black of his shaggy moustache as his mouth moved now and then into a fleeting smile.…

  Images of the queen young juicy reborn greedy in her outreach … wait … no I will not wait … the words screamed soundlessly through the miasma of the dream; screamed and bounced back from the sword blade of Swardheld, the bodies of Harskari, Shadith … no … no … no … the rising tide of negation battered at the unripe queen, her black eyes glittered like new-formed bubbles of black water, the multiple facets alternately catching and losing the light … launching her person into a projectile she bounced away and momentarily disintegrated into quivering fragments … came roaring again, a missile driving faster faster … and rebounded again from the wall of the three, shattering into fragments spinning off into the dimensionless mists at the edges of perception.…

  Aleytys jerked up, trembling into a panic.

  “Gently, love.” From the opaline half-light Burash’s voice broke through the nightmare. She felt his hands touch her and lay back on the furs beside him sighing with relief.

  “What’s wrong?” One hand brushed the hair back off her sweaty forehead. In the gloom where the light was lowered to the outer edge of visibility for the sleeping, his face was a pale blur, the huge eyes black patches gleaming. She smiled at him.

  “Nightmare. First I’ve had in months. Go back to sleep, naram, you need it.”

  “I’ll never become fond of that horse.”

  “You’d be surprised. Another two or three days.…”

  He pulled her face against his chest, smothering the rest of the words. “Don’t remind me.”

  As his grip relaxed she moved her head back and smiled at him. “I wish.…”

  “Go to sleep, Leyta. I don’t perform in public. Not with you.”

  “Mmmmph.” She felt him relax beside her. Warm, content, her body ticking in slow steady tock-tock, the tension of the nightmare flushed out of her, she drifted into a half-doze and heard Burash’s breathing slow and deepen also as he sank back into the sleep her nightmare had disturbed. She stuck where she was, not truly awake, not able to lose herself in the amnesia of sleep.

  “Shadith.” Drifting drowsily she went back to the symbols that comfort and sharing had robbed of their terrible power.

  “Leyta?” The purple eyes blinked open.

  “The old queen. It wasn’t just a dream. Was it? She tried to take me over, didn’t she?”

  “Right. We can handle her. Don’t worry.”

  “But she’s getting stronger.”

  “Yes, le-any, but we’ll kick her yellow teeth in if she gets bumptious.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure, Leyta.” Shadith chuckled, the laughter making delicate music at the back of Aleytys’ skull. “I’m not much in this line, but Harskari’s a raging terror when she starts swinging, and the old grumbler’s shocked the pants off me time was. Figuratively speaking.” Her laughter rang out stronger. “Hard to have pants without a body.”

  Aleytys smiled into the darkness, then frowned. “Still … I think she’s beginning to tap my talents. What happens if she does?”

  “That’s a pain. Haga-roszh! I’ll talk that over with our resident expert, let you know later. You’d better get some sleep, too, it’s a long day tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” Aleytys turned over onto her back. Thoughtfully she ran her fingers up and down the right side of her body.

  “Something else?” The purple eyes blinked curiously.

  “Something else. Maybe I’m pregnant.”

  “What!” That really startled Shadith. “Impossible.”

  “Burash … he’s a different species, of course.”

  “But you’d like having his child.”

  Aleytys felt Burash warm and relaxed beside her. “Yes,” she murmured. “I’d like that.”

  “My dear … you and Burash, I know you’ve made love, how could I help it, but you … you’re hominid and he, well, I suppose he arises from some insectile reptilian combination which is, I believe, limited to this particular world. At least I’ve never seen another like it in all the worlds I’ve visited. There’s no possibility of cross-fertilization. Not in all the science I know.”

  Aleytys continued to rub her fingers over her side. “I should have started bleeding yesterday. For two months now.”

  “That could be stress. Has it ever happened before?”

  Aleytys chuckled briefly then stifled the sound as it echoed hollowly over the soft inhalations of the sleepers. “Yeah,” she murmured. “When I was pregnant before.”

  Shadith grunted. “I still think … no, it must be something else.”

  Suddenly sick, Aleytys clenched her hands into fists and laid them over her side. “I know,” she whispered. “I know what it is. Oh god.”

  “Leyta? What’s wrong?”

  “I know what sits in my womb. Oh god …”

  “Ah.” The purple eyes squinted thoughtfully. “Yes. You’re right. You have to be. Wait, le-any, keep your cool. You’ll be all right, we’ll see to that.”

  “It won’t let you.”

  “Hah! Let Harskari get wheeling and she’ll know she’s in a fight, the old bitch.”

  An involuntary bark of laughter startled Aleytys, the sudden amusement washing the melodrama out of her laboring mind. “With my body as battlefield. Do I have anything to say about that?”

  “Tagadas, I’m afraid the fight occurs where the combatants are.”

  “Yeah.” She yawned and stretched. “Ahai, friend, I’m tired.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The long shadows spread like black ink over the grassy rubble flooring the narrow canyon. Beyond Aleytys the horses in the pack train pawed restlessly at the ground and shook their halters until the small metallic clinks danced like bells around them. The settlement was a big one, she thought, but you’d never know it. Each of the semi-permanent houses was their multi-pointed leather roofs and log walls was built close to or around the squat leathery leaved trees. Burash stood in shadow close to the shaggy trunk, half invisible. Here and there small faces peered around corners and out of their own patches of shadow, radiating curiosity, tentative hostility, uncertainty. They had tried out a few noises and insults before and had been cuffed into silence and manners. The adults had been grave-faced, accepting, formally courteous.

  “Kitten.”r />
  “Kunniakas?”

  “They won’t hurt him?”

  “No. Of course not.” The hiiri hesitantly put her hand on Aleytys’ arm. “I’ll take care of him. But he was the word of the Paamies.”

  “I know. But Nakivas won’t be there.”

  “I’m here. I know the worth of this one.”

  “Thanks.” Aleytys smoothed her hands over the soft white leather tunic. “I like this thing,” she said absently. “It was good of your people to make it for me.”

  “Not my people.”

  Aleytys shook her head. “Kitten, Kitten.” She brushed the long graceful fringes hanging to her knees. White leather leggings clung to her legs fitting over soft low moccasins. She sighed and swung lightly into the saddle. “I don’t feel good about this trip, Kitten.”

  Aamunkoitta shrugged. “It’s a debt.”

  “And debts must be honored.” Aleytys looked up, surprised to see the sun sliced into a nubby orange half glowing in layers of sunset gilding. There wasn’t a cloud in the brilliant bowl of the sky. A chill passed over her … black over the sun … high and thick … but passing too fast to seize on … the image was extraordinarily vivid, strong enough to overcast the reality around her at least for a fleeting moment. She shivered and shoved away the uneasiness.

  Nakivas called out and the pack train began walking toward the slowly disappearing sun.

  All that night they wound through the knife-edged canyons moving in alert silence, the only sounds the thudding of hooves, an occasional scraping sound, the creak of leather and the muted jingle of the halter rings.

  They came over the edge of a ridge and wound down to a steep-walled flat-bottomed canyon bisected by a gently roaring mountain stream that plunged around boulders bubbling white water. Behind them the sun crept up, growing rounder as it oozed over the rim of the world, sending long shadows stark and beautiful over the pale gray stone, stark and beautiful too in its way, the morning fresh and new, waking to sound with scattered birdsong.

  As they crept down the side of the mountain on the layered switchbacks, Aleytys searched the still silent canyon for the silver needle of the smuggler’s ship. Eventually she found it. But it was no silver needle. It blended against the stone so that it looked like smoke floating insubstantial and unreal above the ground.