HM02 House of Moons (15 page)

How long? he asked himself, gazing into the savage circle of burning yellow eyes. How long did he have before his fuel was exhausted and they attacked?

* * *

Crossing the stable yard with a loaf of spicebread stuffed inside his shirt, Kevisson glimpsed a sweat-lathered black gelding standing still saddled in the open barn door, its weary head drooping to the straw-littered ground. He glanced over his shoulder and wondered why no one had put the horse up.

Well, no matter, it was a stroke of luck for him. Leric Rald was suspicious after the attack on Enissa and seemed disinclined to cooperate with him any further. Although the gelding looked tired, he would have to ride slowly in the forest anyway, and from the looks of the poor creature, it needed cooling out. He fingered a sword and scabbard lopped over the saddle’s pommel, surprised at the laxness of the staff. Discipline seemed to be going to pieces under Leric Rald’s administration.

He ran his hand over the gelding’s lowered neck and found the skin still warm, but not dangerously so. Then he gathered up the trailing reins and swung into the saddle before anyone could protest. He closed his eyes for just a second, testing his tenuous strand of contact to Dorria, then resolutely turned the gelding’s nose toward the gray-brown forest. The clip of hoof beats sounded like thunder to his guilty ears as he rode across the cobbled stable yard, but then they passed onto the dead grass and he relaxed, letting the horse set its own pace.

About an hour later, he caught a winking glimpse of Sedja’s silvery half disk as he rode under the arching trees, letting the gelding pick its way around deadfalls and the gnarled roots that twisted like giant, grasping fingers out of the frozen ground. Whatever had brought Dorria this way had followed no path or pattern that he could discern. The wind had come up fierce and bitter-edged, with a chill that numbed his unprotected fingers and face and made his eyes water.

Finally he sensed from the increasing clarity of the psionic trace that he was nearing the old servant. She hadn’t moved since he had located her earlier that afternoon, which puzzled him. This wasn’t that far from Lenhe’ayn. Why hadn’t she at least tried to walk part of the way back?

Perhaps she was injured, he thought, but he had picked up no hint of that earlier, just an overwhelming sense of despair and fear. All around him, the trees swayed and creaked, black against the deep-green night sky, cold and tinder-dry, ready to catch fire much more easily than he liked to think about. Dismounting, he knotted the reins around a sapling, then closed his eyes and summoned a handful of shimmering blue-white chispa-fire, not wanting to risk a real flame in so much wind.

His footsteps crunched through the stiff, frozen underbrush. “Dorria?” She didn’t answer, but he could sense her weary, fear-riddled mind cowering behind a massive winterberry; she was very close now. “Dorria, it’s Kevisson Monmart. I’ve come to take you home.”

Something stirred in the darkness beyond the range of his light. The wind moaned through the trees as he strained to locate the faint rustling. “Dorria, it’s all right. No one is going to hurt you.”

The faint sounds of muffled weeping came to him for a second over the wind. He sighed. She wasn’t going to make this easy. He reached for the subliminal line of contact between them, now quite strong. “Just stay where you are. I’ll come to you.” Something shifted in the interlaced branches above, and he tilted his head back and tried to make it out. Surely she was too old and tired to have climbed a tree.

As he held his cupped hands up, the chispa-fire gleamed off a moving body up there amid the tangle of dark tree limbs. The treetops were alive with lithe green bodies and large black eyes that mirrored his light. The breath caught in his throat. Were these the ilseri? Although he’d encountered the nonhumans once many years ago in the forest, he’d never actually gotten a look at one. They avoided most humans at all costs. Was this what had so terrified Dorria?

Give back what you have taken!

Kevisson’s hand jerked as the angry voice shouted into his still-healing mind. White-hot pain stabbed through his head and the chispa-fire sputtered cold sparks in his palm. “What—?”

The shadowfoot saw you.
The image of a roiling storm cloud formed in his mind, full of rumbling thunder and the blaze of lightning.
It is forbidden to disturb the sacred pool!

Sinuous bodies leaped to the ground, surrounding him with a tall living wall of bright-green flesh and bottomless black eyes that regarded him without blinking.

His heart racing, Kevisson stared back into the hard alien faces. One of them, shorter than the rest, fingered his hair; then the rest of the green creatures crowded in, probing his face and body, while dark-green tendrils danced over their round skulls as if they had a life of their own. One of the creatures bared sharp predatory rows of white teeth.
The First One is not here.

I only came for the old woman,
he said, hoping they could understand him as well he did them.
I didn’t know this place was special, and I’ll be more than glad to leave.

It is only a male, like us,
one said,
but that does not excuse what it has done.
It leaned over him and its breath smelled of wet earth and newly sprouted leaves.
You must put the First One back.

I don’t know what you’re talking about!
Kevisson tried to shoulder his way through the living wall of bodies but the creatures stood their ground, firm as young trees.

We must take him with us. Then, when the mothers come, they will know what to do.
The tall green bodies pressed in on him until he couldn’t breathe and his chispa-fire guttered. Stronger-than-human hands seized his arms and legs, then passed him between them hand to hand into the trees above as if he weighed nothing. Halfway up, his flailing boot connected with a smooth nonhuman torso and he wrenched free. Then the back of his head struck a branch, plunging him into a heavy green darkness that snuffed all sight and sound and thought.

RIKLIN FOUND THE
mood of the House of Moons satisfyingly somber as he passed through the wood-paneled foyer into the main house. Several downcast girls brushed past him in the hall, not meeting his eyes. Upstairs, he could hear several age groupings of students at their lessons, dutifully attempting whatever was asked by their instructors, but the spirit, the heart of the institution, was flagging. A smile tugged at his lips. According to reports, eleven families had already taken their daughters home. Events were well on their way.

He stopped before the closed sickroom door and sampled the unshielded thoughts of the student sitting with Enissa Saxbury. Such carelessness better suited the pampered daughter of some High House than a person aspiring to the complicated and delicate art of Healing. This young nit had paid precious little attention to her training, from what he could tell. Well, it was no less than he had expected. Nodding to himself, Riklin opened the door without knocking.

“Lord High Master Senn!” An ash-blond slip of a girl, no more than sixteen, jumped up and spilled an open packet of dried herbs down the front of her gray tunic and onto the floor. She spread her hands helplessly above the mess. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you knock.”

Narrowing his eyes, Riklin let the chill weight of his presence settle over the room. “Why should the Lord High Master of Shael’donn knock to gain admittance on his own grounds?”

But this is not Shael’donn,
the young healer’s mind blurted. Then, blushing, she turned her bluish-gold eyes away.

Poor stock, Riklin thought coldly, gauging those off-color eyes. It was getting harder to find Kashi with the truly golden eyes and hair that had always been so prized here in the Highlands. Well, that was what came of the High Houses breeding on the whim of emotion instead of logic.

Circumventing the girl’s slight form, he crossed to the bedside and studied the Saxbury woman’s vacant face, noting the increased ashen quality of the skin and the ragged breathing. He found it hard to believe the old harridan wasn’t already dead. “How is she?”

“No better.” The girl brushed fine dark-brown powder off her gray uniform, then reached across to twitch the blanket a fraction straighter. “Master Lising attended her earlier and said he would be back tomorrow. An injury like this is beyond my training. I’ve—” Her voice faltered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Of course not,” Riklin said bluntly. “We haven’t had an attack like this here in the Highlands for years. Well, there’s no help for it. She’ll have to be moved to Shael’donn.”

“But my Lord!” The girl’s hand froze in the middle of reaching for a basin of herb-scented water. “She’s far too ill—”

“I have, of course, consulted Lising on this matter, and he concurs,” Riklin continued smoothly. “Lady Saxbury will do much better at Shael’donn, where there are a number of fully trained healers to look after her, and it’s out of the question for her to stay on here now that the House of Moons is being closed.”

The girl stared at him blankly. “Closed?”

Riklin locked his hands behind his back and allowed a touch of pious concern to leak from his shields. “In the light of recent events, we can hardly do anything else.” He pulled a chair out and sat down, turning away from the pallid face on the pillow. “First, we have the unexplained disappearance of your headmistress, then the brutal attack down at Lenhe’ayn against Lady Saxbury, and now those damn silshas are running wild, frightening the students half to death and making it dangerous to use the portal. The Council cannot allow the Kashi daughters entrusted to the care of this school to remain here in a state of dubious security and without adequate supervision.”

The girl stood, her face gone white. “I assure you, Lord High Master, that all the classes are running smoothly, and although the silshas are fractious at times, they have never hurt anyone.”

He frowned. “When and if Haemas Tal comes back, the Council will discuss reopening the House of Moons, although there will certainly have to be alterations in its management.” Riklin swiveled his head, surveying the neatly kept sickroom with its piles of white linens and carefully labeled medications. Personally, he would rather be dead than let some female excuse for a healer touch him. “Certain aspects of this place have never been—satisfactory.”

“Such as?” The girl braced her slender shoulders and met his gaze without flinching. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes narrowed.

In spite of himself, Riklin was intrigued. He studied her oval face more carefully. He usually preferred young, downy-cheeked males, such as the students at Shael’donn, but she had a certain pliant grace. It might be amusing to feel the silk of those young arms caressing his naked skin. “What is your name, child?”

She lifted her chin. “Meryet Cassidae Alimn,” she said, giving him both her maternal grandfather’s and her father’s surname.

Alimn’ayn, of course, was a respectable High House with a seat on the Council, but the other connection was unfortunate. She would never get a decent marriage contract. Cassidae’ayn was located so far out in the Lowlands that Riklin had never seen it marked on a map. Still, her lack of standing made an illicit liaison easier. After all, who would dare protest if he favored her with his attentions? He would have to keep an eye on this one. “Alimn’ayn,” he said smoothly. “Yes, you’re very like your grandfather, Staanvan.”

“Great-uncle.” Her body was rigid.

“Yes.” He turned toward the door. “You must give him my regards.”

“I’ve never met him.”

“A pity. You really must make the effort someday.” Riklin glanced back at the motionless body on the bed. “I will have Lady Saxbury moved tomorrow morning, and you must leave by then, as well. The House of Moons will be officially closed at noon tomorrow. All students will return to their homes at that time. The Castillans are coming to take the Lenhe girls.” Then he crossed the room, feeling Meryet Alimn’s frustration well up behind him.

And that, of course, signified what was wrong with this whole concept, he thought, lifting the latch. It gave even well-bred and carefully brought up Kashi daughters a mistaken idea of their importance in the scheme of things. There was no place in this carefully ordered society for women who would not do as they were bid.

* * *

Haemas wandered under the brick archway into the sun-filled courtyard, where the morning air still held the just-scrubbed freshness of the preceding night’s rain. She breathed in the damp scent of rain-washed stone and flashed back to a similar day when she had stood on the wet cobblestones of the Shael’donn courtyard before Master Ellirt in order to be Tested. The full complement of Masters had looked on as he had plunged her into a green-black river of psionic power that had confirmed the full measure of her Talent and carried her forward into adulthood. She had made many decisions since then, both good and ill, but she had always forged her own path and sought to construct something tangible from her dreams.

A pang of homesickness stabbed through her, and she knew suddenly that she could not stay here any longer. Despite the threat Diren Chee posed, her real life was back in her own When, with the House of Moons and her students and Enissa—and Kevisson. She longed to see his face again, and feel the warmth that underlaid the restrained facade he showed most of the world, the quiet steel of his strength, the fierceness of his loyalty. Her stomach tightened as she remembered how angry he had been with her that day at the Council meeting. Strangely enough, when she had asked about his counterpart here, no one in this When recognized his name or had even heard of Monmart’ayn. He had never come to the Highlands, never trained at this Shael’donn—perhaps had never been born at all.

Master Ellirt walked up from behind and gripped her shoulder affectionately.

Haemas turned to face him. “I have to go back.”

“You seemed restless, so I suspected as much.” His sparse white hair ruffled in the soft breeze as he placed a black velvet bag in her hands and folded her fingers around it. “I’ve taken the liberty of having Alidale bring your—companion out to meet us at the portal, but you must promise to come back someday and share what you learn with us.”

“Learn?” Haemas’s fingers traced the shape of facets through the velvet.

“About the latteh crystals.” A wistful smile flitted across his craggy face. “Whether they really are alive or not, and what, if anything, the ilseri have to do with them.” His golden eyes gazed steadily at her as her own Ellirt’s never had.

In the middle of the courtyard, there was a glint of blue as the portal’s crystals flared. Then several haggard Andiine brothers carrying a litter with a bloodied man materialized within the simple frame structure. The two glanced around hurriedly, then stepped out of the portal and rushed toward the main doors.

Haemas’s hands tightened around the crystal’s velvet covering; it was so restful inside these brown stone walls that she had forgotten that this When, where House fought House, aided by the latteh, was much more troubled than her own.

Ellirt sighed, his faded-gold eyes following the pair and their urgent burden. “We have not had peace here in the Highlands now for a double handful of generations, and most of the trouble began after the discovery of the latteh. It represents power in its purest form. Few can resist that lure, no matter what their intentions, but no latteh lasts for long. Maybe the fighting will end when there are no more of them.”

Before she could answer, Brother Alidale brought Axia into the courtyard. Her hair straggled around her ears, wild and uncombed. Her restless eyes were bloodshot and her hands had been bound before her with a leather thong.

Ellirt followed Haemas’s glance. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave this creature with us?”

“No, she has to go, too.” Haemas felt her throat close, but there was no help for it. Axia did not belong here.

“Then at least take care.” Ellirt squeezed her hands with his large-knuckled ones. “Good journey, my dear.”

The breeze tugged at Axia’s disheveled wheat-colored hair as Alidale halted her beside the portal. She examined Haemas’s expression and a glimmer of hope crept into her wary face.

Haemas thrust the latteh into her pocket. “If you don’t cooperate this time, I may lose you in the nexus.”

Raising her rope-bound wrists, Axia tossed her hair back from her face. “Then cut me loose.”

Alidale paled. “Lady, I—”

“Cut me loose or I won’t go.” A feral gleam crept into the Chee woman’s dark-flecked eyes. “You can’t force me into the nexus, and you do want me to go back, don’t you? You’re afraid to leave me here with these
sheep
.” She smiled thinly. “Go ahead and leave me, if you dare. Now that I’ve been through the nexus myself, perhaps I can help them unravel its secrets.”

Haemas stepped into the portal housing and stared down at Axia’s calculating golden eyes. What was she planning behind that brittle smile?

Seizing Axia’s arm, Alidale maneuvered her onto the portal platform next to Haemas. “Master Ellirt, if they’re going to use the portal, they need to hurry. We had word from Bramm’ayn a few minutes ago. There’s been another attack and they’ve asked to bring the worst of the wounded here.”

“Of course.” Ellirt looked up at Haemas. “You must go now, my dear. May the Light keep you safe until we meet again.”

Meet again ... The breath caught in Haemas’s chest and she had to turn away from his familiar craggy face. But it was better than the way they had parted before. Even if she never saw him again, she would always know Kniel Ellirt lived on in this timeline, the same cheerful, Talented man who had once shown her the way out of her troubles when she had nowhere to turn.

Throwing her mind open to the six pale-blue ilsera crystals set into the framework of the portal, she sifted through the crystalline voices until she found the one vibration that would key the nexus. She turned to Axia and asked,
Are you coming?
as the glittering array of the nexus sprang up to enclose her with chill blue fingers. The simple wood portal faded, supplanted by the awesome multiplicity of Whens radiating around her.

Actually, I wouldn’t miss your reunion with Diren for the sun and all three moons put together.
Axia lowered her shields, then slitted her eyes against the suddenly visible brilliant blueness.
Where in the name of Darkness is the way back?

Let me think,
Haemas countered,
or I might make another mistake.
She turned slowly, seeking the one line that would take them back to their own reality, their Truewhen, as the ilseri called it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Axia picking at the cord binding her wrists with her teeth.

The flat taste of fear rose in Haemas’s mouth. Axia was going to make this difficult again, and all the scenes at the ends of the lines were so unfamiliar, filled with men and women she’d never seen before, strange landscapes and buildings, unfamiliar styles of ornate clothing. The Kashi Temporal Conclave had espoused the theory that the lines available to a temporal walker were governed by the walker’s desires. Could it be that the choices appearing to her now were the ones she wanted most to see? In her deepest places, was she afraid to go back?