No Quarter (28 page)

*No. If it came to a fight, I'd know every move he'd make before he made it.*

*Wouldn't he know yours the same way?*

*My life revolved around him. So did his.*

*Vree, if it came to a fight…*

As the sound of Bannon's footsteps blended with the sounds of Bartek Springs, she shook her head. *He can't kill me. He wants me for something.*

*What? Besides the obvious.*

Settling back cross-legged on the edge of the pallet, she snorted, the sound more sad than indignant. *Don't
you
start. I don't know what he wants but, trust me, I know when he's hiding something.*

*Vree?*

*Don't…*

*Can
you
kill
him?*

She closed her eyes and touched the memories of her brother. *I hate you sometimes, you know.*

He let his control move down into her arms. Once again, she allowed his embrace. *I know.*

"Gerek, things are happening here that you don't understand!"

He dropped his head into his hands and sighed. It'd been a long hard ride and this accusation was not what he needed at the end of it. "What don't I understand, Maggi?"

"If you force us to go back to Elbasan with you, you'll have completely
ruined
Vree's life. Destroyed
any
chance that she and Gyhard might be able to create some kind of a future together."

"How?" Suddenly suspicious, he studied her through narrowed eyes. "You're not thinking of putting Gyhard into Kars' body are you?"

Magda made a disgusted face. "Yuk, no."

"Then explain how I'd be destroying anything."

"Sometimes the past is like, like a millstone around your neck and it keeps dragging you back whenever you try to go forward. Kars is that kind of a millstone for Gyhard. As long as Gyhard was just killing time…"

"Not to mention assorted young men."

Magda ignored him. "… then he didn't have to deal with all the feelings of betrayal and guilt, but the moment he fell in love with Vree, then it all came to the surface like, like a festering boil that has to be lanced."

"Lovely imagery, Maggot," Gerek muttered, curling his lip. "Don't tell me—

you're the healer to lance the boil?"

"Yes!" Throwing herself to her knees at his feet, she gazed up at him, using an expression that had, in the past, softened his resistance. "Singing the kigh back into the dead for all these years, Kars has taken his
own
kigh out of the Circle. Gyhard and I
together
are the only hope of stopping him." Grabbing his wrists, she shook him as hard as she could—unfortunately, it made little impression. "If you can't help us for Vree's sake—who, I'd like to remind you, you were so
infatuated
with such a short while ago—then do help us for Shkoder. Who
knows
what terrible things will happen if Kars isn't stopped!"

Shaking free of her grip, Gerek captured her hands in his. "Listen, Maggi, I know you're used to being the only one who can do certain things, but Captain Liene has called Karlene from the Empire to deal with Kars. She's faced him before.

She knows what to do."

Magda shook her head, her dark eyes suddenly bright with tears. "She'll die, Ger. She'll die like Jazep did."

"Jazep only Sang earth, Maggi." His voice gentled, he wiped tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

She sniffed and pulled away. "Karlene's a bard. Kars needs to be
healed
. She won't be able to reach him and she'll die. Vree and Gyhard need to be healed, and I need
Kars
to do that." Rising, she walked to the window and stared in the direction of the shed. "This is
a lot
more important than keeping me safe or keeping Vree under some sort of supervision."

"Maggi, it wasn't only Her Highness. Annice sent me after you as well."

"
Mother
wants me back in Elbasan?"

"She sent me to find you."

"But did she tell you to take me back to the Capital?"

Gerek frowned. "Well, no, but…"

"Then
maybe
she wanted you to help me." Hands on her hips, she turned and glared at him. "Did you even
consider
that?"

"Help you?" There were times… "Maggi, when she sent the kigh to me, she had no idea of what you were going to do. She still doesn't."

"Are you sure?"

"What?"

"If you think, under these circumstances…" Waving arms emphasized the circumstances. "… Mother hasn't had the kigh watching both of us, you're not half as smart as you think you are."

"Look, even if Annice does want me to help you," he sighed, his tone suggesting it was highly unlikely, "I've been given a direct order from Her Highness to bring you back."

Lips pressed into a thin line, Magda pivoted on one heel and stared out the window once again.

"Maggi…"

She shook her head.

Gerek sighed and left the room. It had seemed so simple when he'd left the capital. Stepping out the back door he saw Bannon approaching across the yard.

Something in the Southerner's face, or his posture, or the way that he moved, made Gerek frown.

All at once, he suspected that his little sister was right.

Things were happening here that he didn't understand.

Chapter Ten

Singing softly, Karlene tried to work out what was wrong with the kigh. They weren't frightened, although the air trembled still with the faint reverberations of Kars' passing. They weren't trying to warn her of danger; if anything, they seemed sad. Even after she Sang a gratitude, three or four hovered about her head not, as they would usually, in order to make mischief but almost as though they thought she might need the support.

She began to get a very bad feeling about walking into Fortune.

From where she stood, the mining settlement seemed normal enough. A little quiet perhaps, but as it was barely noon, it seemed logical to assume that most of the activity should be going on out of sight at the mine. The breeze shifted and from one of the cottages she could hear the faint wail of an angry baby.

As one, the kigh around her head spun up and out of sight.

"Fickle," she muttered. Squaring her shoulders under the weight of her pack, she walked slowly along the track. At the point where it spread out and became the central square of the settlement, a trio of huge, rough-coated dogs bounded out to meet her. Their greeting seemed subdued. Two of them were strangely submissive, the third sniffed her outstretched hand, then turned and ran barking back the way it had come.

Karlene stayed where she was, waiting for someone to respond to the barking and taking a closer look around. In spite of a Third Quarter chill in the air, all the doors and windows were open in the two, large, communal buildings fronting the square. Except for the dogs, the place seemed deserted. Even the baby had stopped crying.

Then a young woman stepped out of one of the small cottages, pulling the door closed behind her. The way she moved spoke of both fear and suspicion. Karlene thought she saw a shape stir at the window and the fine hairs lifted off the back of her neck as she felt herself watched.

"What do you want?" the young woman called, one hand resting lightly on the dog's broad head.

Karlene Sang her name.

To her surprise, the young woman started, raised both hands to her mouth, and burst into tears.

"Why didn't you send word to the due? Or even down to Bartek Springs?"

"How?" Krisus demanded, bouncing a now smiling baby on his lap. "We had so many people to bury and Ilka to take care of—she's not even weaned yet— and…"

Karlene laid her hand lightly on his shoulder and cut off the flow of bitter words. "I wasn't criticizing," she explained gently. "It's just that you've been through so much, I'm amazed that you managed without sending for help."

"We couldn't leave them," Evicka declared defensively. She poured warm milk into a glass flask and deftly tied a cloth nipple to the top. "What if the others had come home while we were gone and found only bodies?"

"You're right." Astounded by the strength these two just barely out of their teens had shown, Karlene didn't bother being subtle with her voice. She let all her admiration and her sympathy and her sorrow show.

Krisus sniffed. "After what happened…" No need to actually say what had happened; the memory lay like an oily film over the settlement. "… it was almost a relief that they were dead." He jerked and stared at the bard, horrified by what he'd said. "Except for Jazep, I mean. I wasn't… I didn't .. when he Sang… If it wasn't for Jazep, they'd still be walking around and Ilka would have starved and I didn't mean we were relieved that he was dead."

"I know." And they had to believe her.

Only the baby, feeding with the single-minded intensity of the very young, remained unaffected. After a moment Evicka cleared her throat. "Could you Sing over the grave? We said what we thought we should, but the nearest priest is in Bartek Springs and it feels unfinished."

The mound of stone at the edge of the forest was larger than Karlene expected, larger and sadder.

"There's rock close to the surface up here," Krisus told her. "I had to dig near the trees to get down far enough that they wouldn't get dug up again by scavengers." He looked at the dirt ground into the creases of callused hands. "I—

we, haven't been back to the mine since it happened. I grab onto a pick and all I can think of is…" Words failed him, and he waved toward the mound.

Evicka shifted the baby from right arm to left. "We put Jazep's body in with the others. We didn't know what else to do. If the bards want him…"

"No. Let him lie where he is." The body without the kigh was an empty shell.

Karlene knew that, had seen the proof of it, but it was harder, far harder, to believe it when the body belonged to a friend. "He liked to have people around him."

"We didn't get to know him very well."

Blinking back tears, Karlene remembered what Virine had said. If Jazep had to have an epitaph, she couldn't find one better. "He was kind."

"And brave," Krisus added.

"And one of many." Karlene straightened and drew in a deep, cleansing breath.

"Tell me about the others."

"Just the seven that walked?"

"No, all of them."

It was one of the longest Songs, she'd ever Sung, but when it was over, she felt curiously clear-headed as though more than just the dead had been Sung to rest.

Evicka smiled tentatively, then looked guilty when she'd realized what she'd done. Krisus pressed his lips against the top of the baby's head, who woke up and started to fuss.

"One thing I still don't understand," Karlene murmured as they walked back to the cottage. "In the

Empire, when Kars did what he did, babies died. How did Ilka survive?"

"Her mother was one of the dead?"

"A possible reason, but I doubt that's it."

"Our babies are tougher?"

Karlene shook her head. "Nice to believe, but I don't think so." Turning and walking backward, she tickled Ilka's nose with the end of her braid. "What is it about you, baby? Why are you still here?"

Ilka shrieked with laughter and stretched out chubby fists. To Karlene's surprise, she wasn't reaching for the braid.

The kigh slid its elongated body through the infant's grasp and, twisting back on itself, stroked both her cheeks with ethereal fingers.

Too stunned to notice where she was putting her feet, Karlene tripped over a rock and sat down. Hard. To her companions' astonishment, she stayed where she was, and Sang a question to the kigh. When they answered, she bounced up, took Ilka, and swung her in the air.

"All four quarters! You little music box, you!"

"What are you talking about?" Krisus asked, his hands extended to retrieve the baby but unwilling to insult the bard as long as Ilka herself seemed to be happy with the situation.

Eyes gleaming, mouth stretched out in so large a smile her cheeks hurt, Karlene handed the laughing child back to her anxious guardian. "She's a bard. Or she will be in time.
And
all four quarters. This is incredible. This is absolutely incredible!

I've got to tell the Captain!" Opening her mouth, she noticed the expressions on the two people facing her and closed it again. "What's the matter?"

Evicka stroked a rounded cheek, much as the kigh had. "Will she have to go away?"

Suddenly understanding, Karlene shook her head. "Not for fourteen or fifteen years, and not even then unless she wants to."

Relief came off them in waves. "So she doesn't
have
to be a bard?"

"No. She doesn't have to be anything she doesn't want to be." There was no need to mention that the odds of any person who could attract such attention from the kigh as an infant deciding
not
to be a bard were so small as to be essentially nonexistent. They'd dealt with enough for one day.

One day…

"By the Center of the Circle, Third Quarter Festival starts tonight!"

Frowning, Evicka began to count on her fingers. "That's im .. Oh, my heart, you're right."

"It doesn't matter," Krisus sighed. "Not this year."

"It matters this year more than any," Karlene told them gently. "Grieving is a needful thing and it's enclosed by the Circle, but it can't be allowed to stop the Circle from turning."

"We don't have much to give thanks for."

"I realize you've lost a great deal." Her voice slid from sympathy into wonder.

"But you have the strength that a loving family gave you and you have Ilka and you have each other and isn't that something to be grateful for?"

The young partners looked at each other over the baby's head.

"If I hadn't had you," Krisus murmured.

Evicka took his hand and together they turned to face the bard. "All thing beings enclosed, we think that we'd like to keep the festival."

Karlene smiled and taking each of them by an elbow, she pushed them toward the cottage. "Come on, we've got to get some kind of a harvest in, there's festival cakes to bake, and, if I'm going to Sing the Quarter around, I'm going to need some honey for my throat."

"Here, if you're going to be sitting around in my way, you can make yourself useful." When Kars stared at her in confusion, Ales closed his fist about the shaft of the wooden paddle. "Stir," she said, moving his arm around in a circle.