Rebel Ice (13 page)

"Skrie." Malmi nodded toward the Skjæera, who was flanked by two jlorra and now walking toward the ice field.

"You see? She never waits." Daneeb hurried after their healer.

They reached the middle of the ice field before Skjæera glanced at her.

"I know what you are thinking. I need not accompany you. So Malmi said." Daneeb stopped to knock the ice packed between the teeth of her serrats. "I am feeling most unloved this day." As always, there was no reply. "And you, Skjæera? How are you feeling?"

Despite the cold wind blowing in their faces, Skjæera kept walking, unaffected, uncaring. Like the big cats who walked freely at her side.

Sometimes Daneeb wondered if despite her flesh, Skjæera remained partly spirit. She had almost died, that day on the ice. Since then she never took notice of such things, or complained about need, comfort, or desire. She never showed the slightest emotion.

One of the jlorra, a female, looked up at the head-woman. In her calm, clear eyes was an uncomfortable amount of interest in Daneeb.

Intrigue death
, the Iisleg said.
But only once
.

"We saw on the box a red moving light," Daneeb called after her. "An ensleg survivor from the wreckage, it would seem." Skjæera would not wait, and she had to move quickly to catch up. "The ensleg will not know what we are. We could return, wait until it shows its intentions."

Skjæera's pace never faltered.

"I know you think it will not attack, or that the hunters will stop it if it tries to." Always such confidence in their guise. What would happen when the hunters discovered their holy vral was a skela who had refused to carry out her work? "I suppose we do not need them. If it attacks, I will stop it."

Skjæera halted and turned. So did the big cats. What covered the healer's face appeared so like an expanse of smooth, uninterrupted flesh that it was easy to imagine her features gone forever. It was a mask, formed by some sort of living mold that behaved as a cowl. Malmi had found two lumps of the mold in the wreckage, the same day Enafa had been killed.

Skjæera did not have to remove the thing masking her face or say a single word. Everything about her shouted her thoughts.
You made a vow to me, Daneeb
.

So Daneeb had, many weeks after that day on the ice, when Skjæera had walked into the crawls and proved to all the skela that she no longer belonged to this world or the next by saving the life of the one none of them could bring themselves to kill.

That day, Daneeb had been the first to crouch at the healer's feet and swear to serve her.
I promise you that I will never kill again, Skjæera
.

She had never let her forget that promise, either.

The healer regarded her silently.

She wanted to know why, of course. There were one hundred lies Daneeb might have uttered. Skjæera would not have known them as such. Yet it was guilt made the truth rumble, thoughtless and reckless, from Daneeb's lips. "It was I who made you vral, Skjæera. I gave the order to kill the child, to save us all."

Skjæera studied her for a moment before she spoke in a low, clear voice. "Her name was Enafa. She was born twelve seasons past, and her mother often favored her above her sisters."

The ice beneath Daneeb's feet might have split apart to suck her into a crevasse and she would not have felt so horrified. She had to try three times before she could reply. "You remember."

Skjæera glanced toward the crash site.

Daneeb swallowed bile. "What will you do?"

The living cowl Skjæera used to cover her face seemed to melt away, receding from her piercing eyes and pale skin.

How can she bear to look at me? Why does she not use her blade to slit my throat?

The cowl crept up again, erasing Skjæera's features with the smooth mask of blank flesh.

Daneeb nodded. "You are right—we should hurry. Let us go now, before they cut this ensleg to pieces and feed him to the rothawks."

Chapter Seven

Iisleg, Duncan Reever discovered as he crouched behind the cover of the wrecked launch, was a terse amalgam of several Terran Scandinavian languages. The Toskald had never permitted it to be recorded for analysis and addition to any language database, so no offworlder could speak it.

Reever's linguistic abilities allowed him to identify root words easily, but the grammatical structure of Iisleg was complex, and based partially on another, non-Terran language, probably one used by the slavers who had brought the Iisleg's ancestors to Akkabarr. Without the physical contact he needed to establish a telepathic link to absorb their language, he could understand only a limited portion of what the natives who had flown to the crash site were shouting at him.

"Windlord… man… fight."

"… liver… cook pot."

"Give… women… sniveler."

As bolts from Iisleg crossbows hammered the hull panel protecting Reever, he made a judicious adjustment on his wristcom that would allow him to communicate. He then amplified the translation device's volume, so his words might be heard over the Iisleg's angry voices.

"I am not a windlord," he told them, speaking slowly and clearly. "I do not serve the windlords. I am a visitor from another world. I search for a crash survivor."

"He searches," one scout said, indicating that much was understood, and laughed.

"… show him," another promised in a furious tone. "His insides… my hands."

The glimpses Reever caught of the natives showed an unimpressive-looking group. Dressed in a ragtag assortment of native furs and offworlder wear, they were all armed with primitive crossbows that dispensed an inefficient amount of alloy-tipped bolts. The blades they carried remained in their handmade sheaths, and Reever guessed they reserved them for use in close-proximity, hand-to-hand fighting. They had arrived on skimmers, but had nothing with them to indicate they had come to salvage the wreck. The skimmers were piled with several bulging sacks stained with dark fluids at the bottom.

Hunters, not salvagers
. He had hoped the ignited fuel trail would attract the latter.

"I am searching for a female Terran," he told them. "The vessel in which she was transported crashed somewhere in this area some time ago. She may now be living among your people. She is a doctor, a healer."

An angry voice yelled something mostly indecipherable, about ensleg women being or becoming dead. The man extended what sounded like an invitation for Reever to do the same.

Movement to the south caught Reever's eye, and he turned his attention toward the pair of figures approaching the crash site on foot. Both seemed to shimmer, twin mirages conjured up by the reflection of sunlight on the snow. As they drew closer, their forms seemed to compress and solidify, while the outlines of those forms remained inconstant, vacillating with the rising wavelike patterns of true mirages.

"Ensleg… drag you… hole?"

A well-tipped bolt penetrated the alloy next to Reever's head, its barbed shaft scoring across his left cheek. He barely felt the burn as he stared at the two figures, who evidently intended to walk directly into the fray.

The natives who were present also took immediate notice of this, for they called to each other to look at the newly arrived pair. There were suggestions made in troubled voices. In the still unfamiliar language, they talked about stopping, cutting, and what Reever thought might be praying.

"No," one said, sounding sick. "Vral… vral."

The bolts stopped hitting the launch, and Reever lost sight of the two figures as they passed him and went to intercept the scouting party. Now the Iisleg were whispering instead of shouting, and the one word Reever kept hearing repeated was the one his wrist-com could not translate.

Vral.

"Spirit… flesh," the male who had earlier been so angry said, his words unsteady. "Man… no dying… judge."

"… blood," a harsh voice said.

"… ensleg, holy one," another Iisleg said. His tone was that of a shamed child, admitting wrong to a parent. "He… soul."

"Holy one… judge," the harsh voice said.

Snow crunched under heavy steps, and before Reever could move, three native males walked around the launch and confronted him. None of them held weapons, and each of their faces was pale and tight with strain, as if Reever had them pinned down.

"Come," one of them muttered, and made a gesture for Reever to accompany them. "You… vral… come."

Reever adjusted the volume on his wristcom as he slowly rose to his feet. "Vral?"

"Vral… holy one… come." The male swung a hand toward where the other Iisleg and the two strangers were waiting. "Blood… measure… soul." Contempt curled his lip. "You… no soul…gift… head."

Reever understood that
vral
meant the two strangers, evidently revered. He also gathered that they had come to pass some sort of judgment on him, the natives who had attacked him, or perhaps all of them. He considered using the weapons he carried on this trio and making his escape, as he did not have time to indulge in whatever primitive ritual they sought to carry out. At the same time, he wanted a better look at the pair who had caused the others to break off their assault. If these vral were powerful enough to stop a group of furious men intent on killing, they might also persuade them to help Reever.

"Yes." Reever nodded to emphasize this, and the three men turned away. He followed them out onto the open ice and kept alert for any signs of treachery.

The two vral were wearing offworlder robes made of a material Reever guessed to be a bleached form of dimsilk. Spun of light-bending fibers, the fabric cloaked the body while disguising its exact dimensions, which accounted for the mirage effect Reever had noticed earlier.

The other Iisleg stood apart, in a tight group very near to their skimmers, talking quietly and directing furtive, almost shameful glances at the pair.

Reever pointed at the two. "Vral?"

One of the men gaped at him, while a second struck the hand Reever was using to point. From what they both babbled, apparently pointing at the vral violated a taboo.

"Vral," the third said, gesturing for Reever to approach the pair.

The three Iisleg stopped in their tracks as if afraid to go any closer to the mysterious pair. As for the vral, they displayed no interest in Reever until he came to stand before them. He inspected their robes, but the dimsilk concealed everything it covered. Then he looked up into their faces, which were draped with normal cloth that completely concealed their features.

"Ensleg," the larger of the two murmured.

"I am not a windlord, and I do not serve the windlords," he said, giving them a condensed version of what he had told the Iisleg. "I am a visitor searching for a crash survivor. She is a female Terran healer."

The shorter of the two vral lifted one cloaked, gloved hand. For a moment Reever expected a blow to "He… not dying," the larger vral said.

The one who had touched him turned and produced a pack from its robes, which it opened. The pack, made of animal skins, contained plas packets, vials, and small cases. The assortment didn't make sense, nor did the small scanner that the gloved hand removed and activated. The supplies appeared completely modern, so much so that they might have come from one of the storage units on board the
Sunlace
. The scanner was even more confusing, for Reever recognized the diagnostic device with one glance.

It was a medical scanner.

"Are you healers?" If they were, they might have heard of Cherijo. They might know where she was at that moment. Reever tensed, resisting the urge to grab and shake and demand.

The vral did not answer, but turned the scanner toward Reever and began passing it in front of his body to take readings.

Being unable to see their faces or touch their skin to establish a telepathic link made communication impossible. He hadn't absorbed enough of the Iisleg language to make himself understood, and the garments the vral wore completely covered their skin. On impulse, he reached out to pull down the material covering the vral's head. The vral stepped away from Reever's hand, but not in time to prevent the wrap from falling back.

Behind Reever, several of the natives made frightened, babbling sounds. He did not try to translate them. He was transfixed by the vision of a being without eyes, nose, mouth, or any other orifice in its head. He would never be able to tell what it was thinking, because the vral did not have an expression. The vral did not have a face.

As the vral turned away, a fold revealed a vertical seam, running around the edge of that blank face. Whatever this being was, it wore a very convincing mask, Reever realized, of material that made it appear as if it did not have a face.
But why? And how can it see or breathe through it? Is it some form of Lok-teel
? Reever had used the sentient, color/shape/texture-changing telepathic mold to disguise his own features, but the Lok-teel were unknown in this part of the galaxy.

Or were they? Cherijo had always carried one with her.

Reever reached out again, but just before his fingers touched the vral's disguise, the larger vral snapped something furious and indistinct and pushed his hand away. It turned its wrapped face toward the Iisleg for an instant as it covered its companion's head.

Reever understood. It was important that the natives believe the vral's ruse. "I won't tell them about your masks."

Some of what he said was understood, for the larger vral went still. The other acted as if it had not heard him speak.

"I will not tell them, but I must learn your language," Reever said to the smaller vral, and held out his hand. Although it wouldn't understand his words, he kept talking. "To do that, I must touch you. I am a telepath, and physical contact will permit me to absorb your language faster. Please."

The vral ignored him and finished taking the diagnostic readings. It studied the scanner's display before going into the pack to retrieve a sterilization kit and a small suture laser. When Reever moved closer, it "D? vena yepa." The larger vral stripped off a glove, revealing a very human-looking hand, and grabbed Reever's. "Learn it from me."