“Your ignorance of the ceremony is unimportant, daughter of Jarad,” Yihtor said, voice pitched for my ears only. “Do as I say and do.” The bearers, both older than the majority of those here, placed their burdens on the table in front of me.
I concentrated on their faces, my attention caught by something strange. It wasn’t their expressions; it was a lack of awareness. They were like sleepers moving through a dream. No, I decided; it was something worse; something I’d seen before. They were hands and face, skin and flesh, moved only by Yihtor’s will.
Gistries,
I thought, swallowing bile, forcing myself to look straight at the fate she’d died to avoid. I hadn’t understood, never truly believed she’d been right.
As I studied the mindless Clansmen, I felt a draining beginning at my head, moving down to chill my shoulders, arms, and upper body. It was as though my life-blood was melting away, leaving only the decision to make it final. The draining and decision were infinitely soothing, like a good end to a story.
My relaxed nod appeared to satisfy Yihtor. “Good,” he said. “Take up your cup. We need . . .”
The rest of his instructions whirled away as the sensation I’d experienced earlier returned, but now a thousandfold stronger. Numbly, my hand obeyed Yihtor, mimicking his motions while I tried to track down the source of the feeling. There.
Morgan was here!
I couldn’t see him, not yet, but I knew he was close more certainly than I’d ever known anything before. And I knew the basis for that certainty. The blackness within me, the obscene mindless force, wasn’t bound by Yihtor’s drug. It was responding to Morgan’s presence just as an echo reverberates the sound that produces it. My hair squirmed under its careful taming.
I felt more than heard Yihtor’s angry voice urging me to some action. Through a haze, I saw his lips were ringed with red liquid, his cup already emptied. I stood and flung mine to the floor below—its bloodlike contents spraying in a great arc to stain a nearby tablecloth. A stillness spread through the hall.
My mind was anything but still. I struggled frantically to restrain that force in me. It stretched toward Morgan, drove at every level of my control with incredible power, seeking any crack or avenue to get to him. Somehow I curbed it, made my head turn so I could see Yihtor’s livid face. “I can’t Choose you.” I looked back over the stunned crowd, ignored them, speaking to the man I couldn’t see. “I’ve already Chosen. But I won’t—” The surging dark battered at my control, resisted always, squirmed and heaved.
“I’ll never let it hurt you,” I gasped and gripped the tabletop—I couldn’t control it—I had to. Yihtor was scanning the faces below, lips pulled back in a rictus of fury. “Go!” I warned Morgan desperately, knowing I was his greatest danger. “Go while you can!”
“No, Sira.” A lean figure in spacer coveralls stepped gracefully from the shadows and began to walk forward, apparently oblivious to the heads that swiveled in comic unison to watch him. The fountain babbled in the silence.
Then Yihtor screamed. I cringed from the ghastly sound. “A Human? You—” spittle appeared at the corner of his mouth. “You Commenced for this—his feeble bastard power—” Yihtor was beyond reason.
I was almost as tormented—torn apart by my need for Morgan and my frantic effort to save him. Some of Yihtor’s followers left their seats, closing on Morgan where he had stopped, his arms folded, calm eyes resting on me with a hint of a smile in their blue depths. “Stop!” Yihtor’s command was harsh. “He’s mine.”
“Just us?” Morgan’s question was enough to freeze Yihtor into a statue. “It’s almost fair. Hardly your style, Clansman. Coercer of women. Murderer.”
Yihtor summoned his power and lashed out at the lone figure standing below. There was a feeling of disorientation, of a twisting of the fabric of the air as if the real world was about to be sucked into the M’hir. Amazingly, Morgan stood, his shield holding. Abruptly, the assault ceased. The Human staggered, then collected himself with a smile full of mockery. “Not so easy as when we last met, Yihtor. Or did you have help, then?”
“Jason,” I said urgently, my lips numb with the effort of speaking clearly. “I can’t help you. Drugged me . . . Go—” Yihtor swung his arm. I watched it come in slow motion, felt it smash across my mouth, hurtling me backward to the floor.
“See what leads you!” Rael’s voice rang out like a silvery bell over the uneasy murmuring beginning to fill the hall. I raised myself up, licking blood from my lips, and saw Morgan flanked by my sister, Huido, and a slender, young man who could only be Barac. “Brothers and sisters,” Rael turned slowly, facing the gathered Clan. “See this evil for what it is!”
“Here’s evil!” Yihtor countered quickly, pointing a shaking hand at me. “No
Chooser.
This thing is a traitor to our kind! She would bring an alien into the M’hir!”
“Sira di Sarc has done nothing wrong,” Morgan answered steadily, his eyes ablaze in the paleness of his face. “Nothing except to fight for her life and the lives of those around her. What of you, Yihtor? What of your dealings with pirates to bring Sira here—against her will!” More shocked mutterings from Yihtor’s followers.
“Hear me.” Ossirus, it was hard to move my mind around words and speak; almost as difficult as the struggle to contain my power, to keep it from ending Morgan’s valiant effort. Luckily, I had everyone’s attention. “Some of you, maybe all, must be here because you wanted freedom, the right to make your own Choices.” I paused, drawing as large a breath as I could, trying to project my voice, wondering how long I’d live. “That’s not what Yihtor wants. He wants control.” A looming force grew beside me, like the shadow of a sandstorm; I had little time left. “Yihtor needs me so his descendants will have enough power to rule you and yours forever. He plans to use my mindless body—”
Perhaps there was a roar of outrage, mental or vocal, imagined or real. I couldn’t hear it. I was too busy fighting for my life. Soundless, unseen, Yihtor’s awesome power sought to force me to stop breathing, to force my heart to cease, most of all to erase his shame in plain view of those he sought to command.
How ironic,
I thought as I died. This was the death I had planned to inflict on myself. It wasn’t pleasant. A final weakness darkened my sight.
Out of nowhere, another’s power filled me, driving my lungs to seek heaving gasps of air, speeding my heart to match the desperate need of my failing body. I grasped it as a drowning swimmer would reach for a lifeline, uncaring as to its source, only grateful to be alive for another minute.
The attack on me ended as quickly as it had begun; no longer necessary, my lifeline winked away at the same time. Gradually, I became aware of other lines of invisible force, they crisscrossed all around me, centering on Yihtor. I opened my eyes, saw the contemptuous curl of his lip. He was biding his time, playing with his attackers. They didn’t know what he was. But I did.
Without stopping to think of the consequences, I reached down to the primitive force within me, the area untouched by the suppressing drug. I willed it to surface. The darkness rose eagerly, lapping toward Morgan. No! I was in command. My need was deeper, my will greater. Slowly, I bent the inner force to my determination. It was a thoroughly treacherous ally; I constantly intercepted tendrils trying to reach past my control.
I reopened my eyes and focused on my enemy.
Now,
I ordered: a barrier around
that
mind; cripple the power trying to destroy the one who was rightly mine. Drive
him
into the M’hir.
Yihtor looked confused as the edge of my weapon feathered against his mental shields. He shook his handsome head, then, realization dawning slowly, looked down at me. His widening smile was one of pure triumph.His eyes glowed with desire. “Oh, yes, Chooser. Come to me willingly.” One hand reached down. I stretched my own hand eagerly to meet his. There was a shocked gasp from somewhere behind me. The crisscrossed lines of power faltered and died away. Yihtor’s hot moist grip crushed my fingers.
That contact was all I needed. Refused any other outlet, my power lashed out, surging over the welcome of his mind like a black tide, smothering his power, driving him
out.
I couldn’t tell if Yihtor fought to free himself or even knew what was happening before my trap closed utterly.
I was emptied of all but a weary relief. I would hold Yihtor’s mind suspended in the M’hir; the rest of the struggle wasn’t up to me. I closed my eyes and my thoughts.
INTERLUDE
“I’m here, Sira. I’m with you.” Rael’s whisper trailed away; she hated speaking aloud, even though it was safer at the moment. She gazed down at her unconscious sister, eased her arm to better cradle Sira’s head and shoulders, and touched a loose strand of red-gold hair. After a second, the hair politely but firmly slid away from her fingers. Rael clenched her hand and sent Yihtor’s crumpled body a look of pure hate. She was careful not to touch him.
“Barac,” she said as he approached. “Look! What could have happened? What’s she done?”
Barac opened his mouth to answer, then closed it when he noticed Morgan and Huido climbing up to join them. Barac refused to look at the two mind-erased Clansmen waiting in dull confusion at the edge of the platform. Kurr had been luckier, after all.
Morgan rushed forward to fall on his knees beside Sira, saying something incoherent.
“Don’t touch her,” Rael warned, one of her arms barring Morgan from any contact. “We don’t know the consequences.” She winced delicately. “To either of you.”
“What’s he done to her?” Morgan’s eyes flashed from Sira’s peaceful features to her small hand, clenched in Yihtor’s fist.
“What has she done,” Barac corrected him quietly. “We don’t know yet. And if you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to disturb whatever force is keeping Yihtor helpless.” Barac knelt beside Morgan, resisting a strange impulse to put a comforting hand on the Human’s shoulder. “Listen to me. Yihtor’s mistake was in believing his followers would accept his attempt to force a Chooser. They are humiliated and angry. They don’t know what to do—yet. We have to get out of here before they start thinking again.”
“Barac’s right, Morgan,” Rael said, dark eyes imploring. “And there’s great danger to you here. They heard Sira.” She had trouble with the last words.
Morgan considered this for a moment. The Clan forced themselves to be patient, though Barac’s eyes shifted to the cluster of Yihtor’s people standing motionless and silent down by the fountains. For once he was grateful for the strict individualism of his kind. Without Yihtor’s aberrant leadership, the Acranam Clan would need time to commune and argue before they could react.
Barac recognized faces among the group, dead faces come back to life. They weren’t pleased to see him and he couldn’t blame them. This new life of theirs was over once he reported to Council. Any unChosen among them would again be subject to the Prime Law.
Barac met Rael’s eyes. She nodded slightly, indicating Morgan. Barac didn’t need her inner sense to read Morgan’s anguish, his struggle not to tear Sira from Yihtor’s hold. Barac shrugged. What could they do about it now?
“We can’t go to the Fox. Not with him,” Morgan said steadily, though there was an undertone of violence in his voice. “There’d be no way to separate them without blowing Yihtor out the hatch.” Huido immediately clicked his approval.
“Where, then?” Barac demanded hurriedly, moving closer to Morgan.
“Here,” Morgan said. Morgan placed his space-darkened hand lightly on Barac’s forehead and dropped every mental barrier. For a shattering moment, Barac thought of eliminating the Human once and for all. It was his duty, wasn’t it? Morgan waited, a hint of a challenge deep in his strange blue eyes.
Barac relaxed, taking only the offered locate and courteously avoiding all else. The Human was no longer his or Rael’s problem. The Council held authority over the Choosers—and their Chosen.
Morgan replaced his barriers, but not before Barac tasted the Human’s rising self-confidence. Unfortunately, it was likely Morgan was as aware of the change in his status as the Clan.
Chapter 30
I RETURNED slowly, cautiously, working my way to consciousness like an animal roused from hibernation. First, I checked the force trapping Yihtor’s mind and power in the M’hir. There was no sign of tampering, from within or without. The blackness heaved hopefully, and I slapped it down.
Good enough. I wondered if Yihtor would be any good as a hostage. I certainly didn’t want him. I hoped my unlikely team of rescuers had conquered Acranam during my absence.
I traveled upward and outward, gathering the threads of my now functional power as I surfaced, weaving it into my own shielding. Hovering just at the point of consciousness, I paused, then heard a familiar sound and opened my eyes with relief.
A small fire crackled and snapped to itself a few feet from where I lay. I looked past its reassuring glow to Morgan.
I’m back,
I sent gently, not wanting to startle him. His bowed head jerked up, eyes glowing in the firelight, but he didn’t move. I understood and reclosed my eyes. On a narrower, tighter band, I continued:
Are you all right?
Warmth, deep and real, for me.
I thought I’d lost you.
My rising happiness was undercut by a sudden red currentof loathing, anger, and was it also jealousy? from Morgan.
Must he hold you?
Hold—?
The word made me aware of a throbbing pain in my right hand and I looked down at it. To my horror, Yihtor lay close beside me, his hand clenched around my own, his rolled back eyes showing white under half-closed lids. I sat up, dragging at my fingers desperately. Two brown hands reached past me and cracked open Yihtor’s rigid hold. Then I was lifted into the air and held tightly.
Morgan carried me to the far side of the fire, cradling me in his lap despite my insincere protest. I laid my head back against his shoulder—content to shelter there while Morgan gently rubbed the circulation back into my whitened fingers. I watched the luminescent flowers above and smiled to myself, knowing this moment was worth all that had gone before.