Laem’sha seemed quite entertained by my reaction, although he looked around carefully for eavesdroppers. “In part, because you paid your way, giving the village its fair share of Morgan’s hunt. Of course, you did not fool Horhy here at all.” The creature waggled its oversized head at the sound of its name.
I was puzzled. “Why permit our imposture, if you knew?”
“Magic, Lady Sira,” was the soft answer. “We must have magic in our lives. And yet the true practitioners, our witches, are—shall I say—hard to live with at best? You provided a resident magician without causing any harm.” I looked at Laem’sha with new respect. “And in return we gave you some peace, did we not?”
It was a reflex to check my mental shields; his perception must come from a deep knowledge of people. “You are a good and wise being, Laem’sha,” I said, stopping to offer him my hands. A smash from the distance made me close my eyes briefly. “But don’t you think Premick is convinced by now?”
What Laem’sha would have said I never learned. In that instant, as we stood isolated and partially hidden, there came the whine of a falling object before a dagger of light drove consciousness from my mind.
INTERLUDE
“You cannot enter.”
Others who knew Jason Morgan would have been warned by the icy flash of his blue eyes. But then it was likely Withren had faced down enough hunters during her reign as virtual monarch of her tribe to be unimpressed by either rage or calm argument when they went against her wish.
Even so, Morgan was amazed to find himself still obeying the dictates of the village headwoman. He stared past Withren’s narrow shoulder at the closed and guarded door of the hut, fists clenched, straining every mental faculty to reach Sira’s mind, to assess her condition. Again, all he sensed was the peacefulness of deep sleep. But why hadn’t she awakened by now, and why were Withren and her people so determined to keep him away from her?
He tried another tack. “Our ways are not yours, Withren. Lady Sira would want me to be with her, I assure you.”
“You are male,” the headwoman pronounced as if this explained everything, her face grim under its mask of cracking festival paint. She held her arms folded in front of her, a complex wrapping which Morgan didn’t need to have translated to read as determination. Two other Poculans, female, stood silently to either side of her, folding their arms as well.
“What does—?” Morgan changed his mind, closing his lips over the question. He’d found the Poculans made very little distinction between their sexes in any role beyond the ownership of land and huts: usually held by their females, but not exclusively so. Even the provision of dowries—here a question of property ownership rather than bridal price, to allow younger members to become independent from family—was the responsibility of the oldest family member, male or female.
There was another way to ask. Morgan held out his hand. Withren touched her fingers to his palm without hesitation. Through the contact, Morgan sent a tendril of exploring thought, finding respect and concern for Sira—along with a surprisingly deep commitment to keep him from Sira while she was helpless. He withdrew before the sensitive Poculan detected his mind touch.
But he wasn’t about to give in while Sira needed him. “I’ve respected your customs, Withren,” he gritted out in as polite a voice as possible, fighting the tendency of his immediate surroundings to darken around the limits of his vision. It had been a long night. “But keeping me away from her now offends us both—and possibly endangers my lady. Let me see her. Please. She may need me.”
Withren’s eyes took on a hooded look. Through her fingers, still lingering on his palm, Morgan felt a startling rush of pity. “We know how to care for her—”
“What care does she need?” His alarmed voice cut across hers, and the women on either side of them reached for their knives at its tone. Morgan ignored them, twisting his hand from Withren’s sudden grip as she tried to hold him back. “All I sense is sleep. What happened to her?” Enough was enough.
He tried to step past Withren, only to find his feet unable to take him any closer, pinned in place by some, some thing between himself and Sira.
“What?” he gasped, staggering back.
Withren looked suddenly tired. “You cannot enter past Laem’sha’s magic,” the headwoman pronounced heavily. “He left it in my care. Your lady will be awake soon from the sleep of healing. Please trust me, Morgan.”
“I don’t understand,” Morgan felt, or rather tasted an ominous recurrence of the foreboding he’d experienced when Barac arrived. His eyes were dazed and pleading. “What happened? Laem’sha couldn’t tell me much before he—died.” Withren clicked her tongue in acknowledgment of echoing pain.
The attack had been sudden and deadly to those close to the once-gay circle of fire. Stun grenades, tossed from shielded aircars into the crowd of celebrants, had released a gas that meant harmless sleep to Human and Clan—asphyxiation to any Poculans caught directly in its cloud. Laem’sha had miraculously clung to life long enough to gasp what he had seen to Morgan. A vision of Sira floating up into the night sky.
Morgan shuddered at the memory. He suspected he’d gone more than a little mad then, sending searing questing thoughts into the night, ignoring any self-protection in his fear for her. Sira would have his head for it, he reflected ruefully. She had trained him to do better.
But he had found her at last, a pitifully crumpled figure tossed like so much refuse to lie unconscious in a clearing across the river from the village. The sight of her deathly still form alone in the moonlight burned behind his eyes when he dared close them. This was exactly the type of assault he’d feared and she hadn’t; the type he’d fortified the Haven to withstand with every bit of his knowledge and skill. What good were sophisticated alarms and deadly traps when he’d let Sira leave their protection?
What good was he?
Warm, twiglike fingers wrapped around his. Withren’s face was slightly frightened, a common expression among the villagers as they learned how much power lay within both him and his mistress, but she offered comfort anyway. “You haven’t blamed us,” Morgan said wonderingly, meeting her eyes. “The attack was aimed at us—at Sira. You lost eight of your own. I don’t understand.”
“You did not expect your enemies to follow you here, or you would not have come. And we are the Fak-ad-sa’it,” she said with a note of tired pride. “We face life, accept it. There is no comfort in guilt or revenge.”
Revenge. Morgan’s eyes narrowed at the word, nostrils white as he took a shuddering breath. But he did not speak whatever was in his mind, saying instead, “I’m sending for help. My lady has kin in the city.” He closed his eyes, forming an image within his mind of Barac, forcing himself to focus calmly. But his mental message to Barac was brief and forceful enough to wake the Clansman from a sound sleep: Sira’s been attacked. Come. Beneath the words, Morgan drove the locate, his memory of this place, into Barac’s thoughts. He’d need it to move through the M’hir to the village.
Morgan staggered, then caught himself, knowing he was near the limits of his strength and determined not to fail again.
“Ah,” the satisfied whisper made him look up again. “The sisterhood draws together in trouble.” Withren seemed beyond surprise as she beckoned to the slim figure forming out of the air beside them.
Morgan breathed a name in startled recognition.
“Rael . . . ?”
Faster than reflex, Morgan drew and aimed the weapon he’d tardily begun to carry, moving to put himself between the Clanswoman and the hut containing Sira. Suddenly, everything made a kind of terrible sense: Barac’s arrival to drive Sira from safety and time the attack, and now Rael’s to check on its result. The two members of the Clan Morgan halfway trusted, that trust a key to unlock their defenses. His mouth tightened as Rael became solid, her beautiful face turning ashen as she saw his welcome.
“What is the meaning of this, Human?” she demanded, her voice imperious. “Where is Sira?” Under the question, Morgan felt the lash of Rael’s power as she sought her own answers, that power glancing from his shielding with a lack of success she acknowledged with a measuring stare and a raised brow. Rael took a step toward him, choosing to disregard the weapon aimed at her, her attention now on the hut. “What keeps me out?” she asked, head tilted as though she’d finally found the real puzzle.
Before Morgan could answer, the air was shattered by a scream. Forgetting Rael, he turned and ran toward the hut, finding the unseen barrier gone but landing right in the arms of the villagers Withren had placed as guards. He struggled frantically. Then, a second scream, unheard, burst through his mind. Morgan!
Chapter 7
I WOKE up screaming.
It was an understandable reaction, since the first sight to meet my eyes was the drooling grin of Horhy, Laem’sha’s truthsayer. At my scream, the small creature let out one of its own, scrambling back from its perch on my chest to huddle in a ball on my stomach, quivering as though terrified.
I immediately lost my fear of it, reaching a curiously heavy hand to scratch its tiny patch of fur. When I touched it, I recoiled again. The thing had Talent!
I placed fingers on its warm fur again, curious. Strong impressions of fear, loss, loneliness; a lighter one of pleasure at my caress. Exhaustion and relief as well, as though it had been somehow exerting itself and had just now dared relax. This explained a great deal about Laem’sha’s “truthsayer.”
Thinking about the wise man was enough to drive the creature to a near madness of grief. I reached with my mind to calm it. The ease with which the small thing accepted my presence in its tiny thoughts suggested its master had used such techniques often. Former master, I reminded myself. What had happened to Laem’sha?
We had been attacked at night, but daylight shone through the roof vanes of the hut. Where was Morgan? He would never have left me alone, with only an alien beast for company, wrapped so, as I now discovered, that I couldn’t rise from the sleeping platform if I tried. Instantly alarmed, I sent his name flying outward, Morgan!
Sira! Warmth, joy, burning out a black desperation I had never felt in Morgan’s mind before.
What is going on? I replied, thoroughly alarmed by the violence of his emotions. What could have happened?
A sudden upwelling of sound: voices, a suspicious thumping, then footsteps. My welcoming smile for Morgan froze on my face at the sight of him.
Morgan’s eyes were sunk in puffy, blackened flesh. One cheek was scraped open from ear to chin: a raw, oozing redness blending into his split and swollen lips. Knowing Morgan, I supposed Premick looked worse, though it was hard to imagine.
Morgan gave me no time to assess his wounds. He came to my side in long strides, dropping to his knees as though he’d lost the ability to stand, then buried his face in great handfuls of my hair. I was astounded to see his shoulders begin to shake. Words struggled out of him, none making coherent sense: “. . . gone . . . could have lost you . . . my fault . . . my fault . . .”
Jason, I reached mentally; at the same time my hands tried to hold him still. He had to be exhausted, irrational—how long since he’d slept?
It was horrible, feeling the depths of his torment and relief, knowing I was the cause.
But was it not also wonderful?
My mind cleared, leaving the simple truth. Beloved and foolish Human, I sent, and under the words gave him all I had always kept locked inside, a tide of love and need that surged over my other senses until I was blind and deaf. I felt him quiver and come to life under my arms.
A joy close to pain as the tide turned, was amplified, and came back to me. I felt tears pouring from my eyes. Emotions flowed back and forth between our minds until we couldn’t bear any distance between us. I knew when Morgan pressed his wounded lips gently to my skin, the touch echoing my desire as well as his own. I knew when his eager hands released my body from its wrappings.
Then I knew sudden agony, reeling as a flash of dismay, horror, and rage roared from his mind to mine before Morgan slammed down every barrier, leaving me breathless and terribly alone.
“What’s wrong?” I said, my eyes fighting to focus. I could see his face, dimly make out that Morgan was staring down at the lower part of my body. He seemed to hear me after a moment, and moved slowly, dragging the blanket up again. Then his eyes slid reluctantly to mine, anguished between their swollen lids.
I grew cold, summoning reserves of will to control my emotions. It would be easier to talk, to work out what had happened (or almost happened, an aching emptiness reminded me), if I were sitting up. I told my body to rise.
And I couldn’t. The muscles of my abdomen would not respond. Attempting to twist, to roll to a sit resulted in a searing agony that left me gasping for breath. Morgan quickly seized my shoulders and eased me back into the pile of blankets. “Don’t, Sira,” he ordered hoarsely. Then in a rush: “You’ve been hurt. I didn’t know. Withren wouldn’t let me see you—she said you needed to sleep. I didn’t know—” He seemed unable to go on.
“Jason,” I began, my hands cupping his bruised face, bewildered by the chill feel of his skin, the depth of pain there. “What happened? I remember something falling—a blinding light. An attack?” He nodded within my hands but didn’t speak. I sent a gentle summons, and a light weight landed on my legs. The truthsayer clung there, apparently willing to accept Morgan’s presence. “This creature has Talent; it told me Laem’sha is dead. Others?” Another nod, slower. I searched his eyes, wishing he’d let me reach deeper. Then I thought I knew. “Do you want me to admit you were right about the Haven? I do. But it’s not your fault. I was the one who left its protection, remember? You can’t guard against my poor judgment—”
A violent negating gesture. “What, then?” I asked, drawing my hands away. “Surely not whatever wounds I have,” I chided. “I’ll heal.”