HM02 House of Moons (25 page)

A gust of wind scritched the bare tree limbs against each other and Haemas thought of the second latteh left behind at Tal’ayn, as well as the girl, Kisa. “I have to go back.”

To the high places?

Haemas rubbed her eyes. Every muscle in her body ached. She longed to burrow into a heap of dead leaves at the foot of one of these trees and sleep for days. “I have to reclaim the other First One.”

Frostvine has already gone before you.
Summerstone’s outline softened as the ilseri altered her density until she was only a vague green haze.
She did not believe you would be successful.

Haemas watched her drift up through the twisting branches. “Tell her that I have brought the one in the most danger and am going back for the other.”

We cannot. In her present state, she cannot hear us, and there is little time left.
The dissolving black eyes bored into her.
We cannot survive in the high elevations long enough to find her. You must recover the other First One, then make Frostvine understand before it is too late.

“What is she going to do?” Haemas asked, but received only an increasing sense of confused despair from the ilseri’s mind, as if the answer was something terrible for which Haemas had no concept.

You must find her!
Summerstone insisted, and then would say no more.

Wearily Haemas opened her mind to the ilsera crystals set into the rim of the pool and sorted out the spatial vibrations that would transport her from one place to another instead of one When to another. The gray betweenness flashed by; then she found herself standing in the Tal’ayn portal, blinking at the backs of three Kashi who had arrived just seconds before her.

A stocky Lord jerked around. “What the—” Then he stared. “Lady Haemas?”

She knew she should recognize this man, but her exhausted mind would not supply his identity. “Please excuse me,” she murmured, and tried to slip past him.

“Have we missed the pyre?” His thick fingers closed around her arm. He smelled of wood smoke and freshly oiled leather, and his eyes were kind. “We’re sorry to be so late, but I see something has kept you, too.”

“I—I really don’t have time to talk.” She gazed pointedly at his hand on her arm until his fingers loosened. “Please excuse me.” Then, as she descended the portal steps two at a time, she remembered his name: Ellric Bramm, the father of one of her students at the House of Moons, who was no doubt wondering how he could ever have entrusted his daughter to such a rude, untidy, wild-eyed creature as she must now appear.

So my bride has returned.

Her head whipped around, but Chee was nowhere to be seen in the snow-dusted courtyard.

How touching that you couldn’t bear to be separated from me for more than a few minutes.
She could feel the amusement in his mind.
Shall I give you your matrimonial gift now?

Ellric Bramm pulled his wife closer to his side, staring at her from under shaggy gold eyebrows. “Is there some—problem, Lady Haemas?”

Down here,
Chee said.
On the ground.

Turning away from the Bramms, Haemas crossed to the parapet, then shaded her eyes and looked down to the Tal’ayn grounds below, where the chierra servants were putting the last touches on the huge funeral pyre. A tiny figure waved up at her, the winter sunlight glinting on his bright-gold hair. Beside him stood another, smaller figure, its hair a redder shade of gold. With a pang, Haemas realized it was Kisa.

What do you want?
She shivered as the wind whipped through the elevated courtyard.

I want you to come down here and behave like a proper woman—for once.
The amusement died out of his tone.
You must see your father into the Light, of course, but then, after the ceremony, we’ll announce our coming matrimonial.

Don’t be ridiculous!
she flung back.

Well, then, I suppose I’ll just have to marry Kisa here. I doubt she’ll mind.

Haemas’s nails dug into the frigid stone and she cursed herself for stupidity. She must appear to agree with him, play along, say anything to get close enough to steal the latteh and return it to the pool.
It would be pointless to marry her. She’s far too young,
she answered, letting a faint hint of jealousy infiltrate her thoughts.

They say the young meat is the most tender. Still, the matter is open for discussion. Come down.

Fighting a shiver that had little to do with the chill of the afternoon air, she turned away from the wall. She had to get the latteh; she tried to concentrate only on that and not think ahead to what would happen if she failed.

The servants glanced worriedly at her as she hurried down the familiar passageways, taking the shortest route to the main entrance below. Several sober-faced guests tried to speak to her, but she pretended not to hear, brushing past before they got out more than two words.

Her old nurse, Jayna, waited by the front door, bundled up in a patched cloak, her eyes red. “There you be.” Relief welled up in her simple mind. “I was so feared none of the family would be here, but I should have knowed, no matter what, that
you
would not let the old Lord down.”

But she
had
let her father down, Haemas thought bleakly as she pushed past Jayna’s comfortably round body without replying. She should have stopped Chee before he had ever thought to come here. Now her father was dead and Chee still had the latteh.

She rushed outside into a staggering wall of pain as Chee’s mind battered her in an all-out assault to break down her shields. She huddled on the steps, pouring all her strength into resisting, swaying as the energy drain made her light-headed. She’d had no sleep and nothing to eat, and had used far more energy than she could afford in the last few hours. She put her hands to her spinning head, then caught herself against the iron rail.

Abruptly he backed off.
We were meant to be together.
She could see him more clearly now, dressed in his usual black trimmed with silver, standing before the unlit pyre, his shoulders square and his hand resting lightly on Kisa’s shoulder.
Stop fighting me.

I might marry you,
she said, her heart hammering,
if you discard that wretched thing. I have no intention of being your slave!

Ah, but I can’t get rid of this,
he answered.
Not when it’s brought me so many wonderful new friends.
He smiled as a group of men dressed in fine dark velvets and wools emerged from behind the towering pyre to flank him.

Haemas backed away as she recognized portly Seffram Senn, who would now head the Council of Twelve in her father’s place, and stern-faced Himret Rald, current Lord of Senn’ayn, standing next to the elegant frame of Aaren Killian, who had once contracted for her to marry his son. With them were all the others, the remaining High Lords who made up the Council.

“What—?” Haemas could not find her voice.

I want only the best for you—that you take your place among us as a Kashi Wife and mother.
Chee swept his arm at the others.
And they’re all quite willing to help.

A wave of compulsion swept over her like a block of granite descending relentlessly upon her head as eleven of the strongest, best-trained Kashi in the Highlands combined their will against hers, trying to break her shields and lay her mind bare to Chee’s desires.

BELOW FROSTVINE,
the land folded into sharp rock-covered hills, forcing her to flow down into the angled nooks and crannies, through snow-covered thickets, and into every outbuilding and cave. She would leave no human alive up here in these snowy lands, even though the ilseri had traditionally avoided this country as too cold for their life cycle. The wretched human-things of power had menaced the ilseri lives for the last time. Though it was her final act, Frostvine would cleanse them from the surface of this planet and leave it safe for her kind.

Coming upon another large cluster of human habitations, she slowed again, spreading her heat-stealing substance everywhere, leaving nothing behind but the momentary absolute cold of deepest space. Beneath her, she saw the creatures stumble and fall to the ground, hard-frozen lumps that would never again know life.

But several human-things raced ahead of her and then, to her annoyance, disappeared. She realized they had used ilsera crystals to travel to another location here in the high country.

It did not matter. Wherever they had gone, she would find them before the end.

* * *

Even as Haemas fought against Chee’s amplified compulsion, she felt her leaden right foot slip, unbidden, forward through the slushy, ankle-deep snow. The world around her, the cold, the snow-covered Tal’ayn grounds, the huge pyre of wood rising to meet the green sky, the eleven Kashi men arrayed before it, everything disappeared in a buzzing white-hot haze.

YOU SEE?
Augmented by ten trained minds all equal to or greater than his own, Chee’s words thundered in her head.
IT’S NO USE FIGHTING.

Her left foot lurched another step forward against her will, and panic ate through her. It wasn’t even necessary to compel her to go to him. He only had to pin her there until he touched her with the latteh. Then she would be finished.

As would the rest of the Highlands, the back of her mind whispered. If she lost this fight, Frostvine would make good her threat and then everything would be lost. Taking a shuddering breath, she forced the raw, achingly cold air into her lungs and fought to clear her head.

YOU’LL MAKE A VALUABLE BRIDE,
Chee said.
AND THINK OF THE CHILDREN YOU’LL BEAR ME. WITH THE LATTEH BEHIND THEM, THEY’LL RULE THE HIGHLANDS LIKE THE GREAT LORDS OF OLD.

Sweat trickled down her neck and froze as she poured everything she had into her shields, trying to shut Chee out. The crushing onslaught gave a little and she thought she caught the faint swish of hurried footsteps approaching in the snow. Her stomach tightened—was that him?

But she could hear again; she seized upon that fact. And if she could hear, perhaps with just a little more effort she could regain her sight, too. Then, from out of nowhere, a familiar, sun-gold presence enveloped her, offering a quiet, steady strength. She turned her head blindly, seeking its source.
Kevisson?

In the house behind you. Take as much as you need. I give you control.
His mindpresence melded with her shields. The pain eased and then her vision cleared. She saw Chee striding quickly toward her, the latteh thrust out in his gloved hand.

She backed away. If Chee hadn’t been hammering at her, she would have tried to disarm the latteh as Master Ellirt had taught her, but as it was, she could only protect herself. She jerked off her cloak and hastily swathed her hands in it.

A few feet away, Chee paused, his black-clad body dark against the artificial mountain of the funeral pyre. “So your chierra lover has returned.” A bitter smile ghosted across his face. “It won’t matter. Monmart is nothing compared to us. What little he can give you won’t last more than a few minutes. You’re only postponing the inevitable.”

White points of light shimmered behind her eyes for a second as Chee channeled the power of the ten men behind him, and she realized he was right. Whatever advantage she had gained from Kevisson was only temporary. Even this melding of his strength and hers would soon fail.

She glanced around the familiar grounds, the home from which she had been estranged for so many years, and suddenly anger flashed through her—a staggering, white-hot fury that she had lost her father and the House of Moons, that all Kashi might now lose their homes and lives, all because of the greed of this one crazed man who would not put away the forbidden lore that this When had sensibly abandoned generations ago.

Concentrating that anger, she focused it into one stunning burst and let it fly at Chee.
It’s your fault, all your fault!
Deathly cold from shock and exhaustion, yet molten-hot with anger, she watched him stumble backward, then sink to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
You have stolen my father; and Enissa, and the House of Moons, and the Mastership at Shael’donn, and now the rest of us will probably lose everything, all because you must have what never was due you!

For an instant Chee’s stunned mind lay bare before her. She saw her father’s shocked expression as Chee pressed the latteh to his temple ... saw Chee whispering into Kevisson’s unconscious mind as he set up the attack on Riklin Senn ... saw him leading a group of mind-controlled chierra men against Lenhe’ayn and striking down a fair-haired boy who penetrated his overstressed shields ... saw him returning to Lenhe’ayn to snuff out the life of Myriel Lenhe as she lay deeply asleep ... glimpsed her own face, pallid and barely breathing after being bludgeoned with the grinding force of the latteh ... saw the calculated attacks on Enissa both at Lenhe’ayn and later at Shael’donn—and something more that she had never suspected: She saw Master Ellirt’s ashen face as he lay dying from a little-known poison, a poison that Diren Chee had slipped into his drink.

Haemas slumped to her hands and knees, wrist-deep in the cold, wet snow, utterly drained.

You!
Kevisson’s mindvoice was thready and weak; she realized guiltily that he had already expended more energy than he could afford in order to back her up.
It was you ... all the ... time!

Sprawled in the snow, Chee struggled to right himself. “I couldn’t let the old ummit live—he knew more than the rest of the Highlands put together. Every time I carried the latteh, he sensed something and was after me about it. He would have always stood in my way.”

You—you’ll...
Haemas could barely hear Kevisson now. She shivered as his comforting presence abruptly faded from her mind.

She turned back to Chee. “Give me the latteh!” She wavered onto her feet. “Much more is at stake here than your foolish, senseless greed.”

Chee brushed the wet snow from the dull-green facets and staggered back onto his feet. Beside the funeral pyre, the waiting Lords blinked, then crunched through the snow as one to stand behind him. She felt his mind gather in their strength again, braiding it like a strong rope, binding each element firmly into the rest until he reached the same level of power as before. The fiery white mist resurged behind her eyes, and her stomach contracted with fear as she tried to fight him off, knowing this time she was alone.

Then a tendril of thought pierced the roaring haze that surrounded her.
Moonspeaker?

Windsign?
She reached through the pain for the ilseri thought-patterns. It was Windsign, she realized, but also Summerstone, and more—a host of ilseri minds linked together in a smooth amalgam of energies. Alien strength flowed into her mind like a river in full flood, ice-green, full of odd whorls and complex nuances that stretched her mind sideways. The haze retreated, but for an instant the sky arching above her was no longer green, but gray, and the snow beneath her feet a bloody crimson.

Take our strength,
Summerstone said to her.
Bring the First One back to us.

She felt detached now, as if there were no Kashi Lords bent on hammering her shields to shreds, as if she and Diren Chee could merely stand there and trade words in the snow as any two people might have talked about the next festival or the weather. When she spoke, her voice was rich with odd harmonics.
“Chee, give me the latteh before everyone loses.”

His face grayed as the tremendous energy drain told on him. She saw his forehead crease as he drew upon the other Lords for more and more power, but the ilseri strength bolstered her shields until she was invulnerable to his efforts. One of the Lords standing behind him crumpled to the snow and lay there unmoving, then another. The latteh glowed a muddy green in Chee’s black glove, dangerous and yet innocent, the cause of so much death and pain, but no more a part of it than a dagger in the hand of a murderer.

Poor thing, she thought distractedly, to have been snatched out of its birth pool and used in this way without ever understanding. She stretched out her hand, still wrapped in the cloak, but Chee scrambled back toward the Kashi Lords who stood anchored like posts behind him.

Another vacant-eyed Lord succumbed to the power drain and tumbled unconscious into the snow. Then, as Chee’s power wavered, Haemas felt him wrench Kisa Lenhe into the bond and draw upon her powerful but untrained mind to break the ilseri protection. In the first second, Kisa cried out and slumped at his feet, a forlorn heap of clothing that none of the others heeded.

Chee’s augmented power flared at the edges of Haemas’s mind, but her shields held, and Haemas realized he could come at her all day without hurting her now, until he and the rest were mindburned husks. But Kisa did not have the training to last that long. Another few minutes bound into Chee’s network at this intensity would finish the child forever.

Casting aside the ilseri strength, she dropped her shields and laid her mind bare to the latteh in his hand, trying to link with it before Chee’s stolen power could overwhelm her. She sensed the flickers of energy deep within the crystal, still aligned in the pattern that spelled mind-binding.
You are meant for more than this!
she cried into the latteh’s unaware mind.
You are meant for the freedom of the trees and forest pools and waterfalls and the wind.
As she spoke to it, she tried to nudge the painful energy pulses into a randomized pattern.

Before she had barely begun, though, Chee’s rock-hard will swept over her shieldless mind and smashed her concentration.

THOUGHT YOU WERE SO BLOODY CLEVER, DIDN’T YOU?
Suddenly she could not feel her body standing in the snow, could hear nothing but the deafening echoes of his amplified voice in her mind.
SURRENDER AND I MAY STILL SPARE YOU. SAY YOU WILL SERVE ME!

Pain sizzled through her every nerve. She clenched her jaw, fighting for a few more seconds of consciousness. She sensed the latteh, half aware, waiting, pulsating, alive, and powerful, yet helpless.
Resist!
she cried to it as the agony closed in.
You are meant to be an ilseri, proud and independent, not some human’s toy! You don’t have to be used like this!

Dimly the latteh stirred, and its energy pulses strained out of the mind-binding pattern into a more natural randomness. Haemas called to it again, becoming aware of shouting somewhere in the background ... screaming ... panicked voices ... She realized the air had grown bitterly cold, much worse than before—the sharpest cold she could ever remember there at Tal’ayn, and the winters were notoriously fierce in this corner of the Highlands.

She reached out into the haze in front of her eyes, seeking Chee by touch, but the cold intensified, an aching, numbing, bone-chilling cold that was turning her body to stone and cutting off what little of her senses remained.

The temperature continued to plummet, the frigid air searing her lungs. Ice crystals formed on her lashes as her vision cleared. A few feet away, she could see Chee’s black tunic hunched in the snow as he clasped the latteh to his chest.

Another incoming wave of glacial air rushed against her numbed face and she suddenly felt a presence, as if an immense, unseen living creature hovered very close to her. Behind Chee, the remaining Lords had collapsed to the ground, their unseeing faces turned like stones to the sky.

Inching forward on hands and knees that she could no longer feel, Haemas fumbled for the latteh in Chee’s shaking hands. He blinked at her, but he was shivering too hard to resist. Clumsy with the cold, she pulled the green-faceted alien child from his stiff hands and cradled it to her breast, feeling even as she did how the energy pulses within it were slowing, though it hadn’t been absent from the pool nearly as long as the other had.

The temperature dropped another notch so that now it was agony to breathe, and then Haemas
knew
what was wrong. The savage cold was killing the latteh, just as it was killing every other living thing at Tal’ayn—including her.

She tried to think, but her thoughts were dull, frozen things lying at the bottom of her mind, refusing to come together and make sense. What was it, she wondered, that Summerstone had said?

Frostvine has already gone to the high places
.