HM02 House of Moons (19 page)

Frostvine?
He glanced around the riverbank, but even the ilserin had fled back into the trees.

Haemas’s pale eyes blinked as she seemed to look for something that couldn’t be seen.
I don’t think that Frostvine uses her solid form anymore. She’s ...
He felt her struggle for the proper term.
She’s more advanced than Windsign and Summerstone, older. They call her an ilserlara, an Oldest. I don’t completely understand what that means, except that she’s somehow more than the others.

The heavy cold filtered back through the trees, settling around them and chilling Kevisson down to the marrow. Was that what Haemas was talking about? He opened his shields and strained to hear the ilserlara’s mindvoice, but there was only a vague impression of frigid anger, immense weight, and mind-numbing cold.

Haemas reached out a hand to him.
Lower your shields so that she can take us back to Shael’donn. I suppose that’s a good enough place to start, and we can go to Enissa.
She gripped his fingers hard within her own, as if seeking his strength.
Maybe there is something that the two of us together can do for her.

A snarl rattled softly from the ice-coated brambles beside the river, then a huge black silsha emerged.
Shadowfoot!
Haemas reached out with her free hand. Its eyes narrowed to yellow slits, the silsha rubbed its black-furred head against her palm.

Now lower your shields,
she said, and as Kevisson did, the glade shifted, seeming to twist itself inside out, leaving him the impression of a mind-numbing blueness that glittered with the brilliance of the noonday sun on newly fallen snow. For a second he couldn’t breathe; then he staggered and fell to his knees on the crushed-gravel path that led from the House of Moons to Shael’donn.

* * *

The door to the old healer’s sickroom at Shael’donn stood unlocked. After directing Kisa to wait for him in the hall, Diren quietly lifted the latch. No one should be expecting trouble, but that didn’t mean he could be careless. Inside the room, a girl glanced up from her seat beside the bed, her face confused.

“Can I help you?” She brushed nervously at the ash-gold hair caught at the nape of her neck.

Diren didn’t recognize her, and fortunately she didn’t seem to know him, either. Probably one of the unTalented brats from the House of Moons who had lingered on after its closing. He assumed a look of concern. “How is she?”

The girl’s mouth tightened. “No better, I’m afraid.” She turned back to peer into the colorless face in the bed. “Her breathing is very shallow.”

After sliding the reset latteh crystal out of his pocket, he cradled it in his gloved hand and moved closer to the bed. “What does Master Lising say?”

“He thinks she will be gone by the end of the day.” The girl closed her eyes, radiating misery through thinly maintained shields. “It isn’t fair! She’s always worked so hard to help anyone in need!”

“You’re right, of course.” He stopped by her side. “Do you know who I am?”

She turned wet-lashed eyes to him, puzzlement written across her young face. She might be no more than fourteen or fifteen, he thought, not old enough to be very well trained. That should make his task all the easier.

“No, my Lord,” she said.

With a smooth motion, he pressed the latteh to the side of her forehead, catching her slender body with his free arm as she swayed.
I am Kevisson Monmart,
he said into her mind, projecting Monmart’s tan features and golden-brown eyes and hair.
You will remember that it was I who came to see the healer this afternoon, and no one else. Do you understand? No one else was here.

Her lips moved as she repeated his words without sound, her bluish-gold eyes staring straight ahead. Then he lowered her into the chair beside the bed.
You will stay here until twenty minutes after I’ve gone.

He turned back to the still form buried under the comforters on the narrow bed. It was really quite amazing that the old biddy still lived. The mindblast he had given her while her shields were down would have killed most people within a few minutes. Now, more than a day later, here she was, still clinging to life. Well, that could be remedied with only a few seconds’ work, and no one would remember anything except that Monmart had forced his way in here to finish her off.

Stretching his fingers out, he touched her feverish right temple. Her shields were in shreds, a good sign. This would be short work indeed. Letting his mind slide deeper, he looked for the nerves that controlled her heart. Just one nudge and he—

Noise from out in the hallway intruded—voices, loud and quarreling, breaking his concentration. Then he felt Enissa Saxbury herself rouse somehow, sensing his presence.
Kevisson,
he whispered hurriedly to her,
Kevisson has come to finish your tough old hide off.

Withdrawing, he rubbed his eyes. Whatever happened, he must not be caught here. He opened the door and motioned to Kisa. “What is it?”

Her back pressed to the wall, she stared up at him with bewildered eyes. “Someone is arguing—down there.” Her small hand pointed back the way they had come up.

He took her arm and hurried her in the opposite direction.
Be very quiet,
he told her.
No one must know we have been here.

Just as they reached the stairs and turned the corner, plunging safely down the steps out of sight, he heard the voices more clearly. His hand jumped on the rail as he recognized Monmart’s voice—and then Haemas Tal’s.

* * *

The door stood open, and the small sickroom itself was crowded with people. Riklin Senn pushed to get his breath back after enduring two flights of stairs. It was not seemly for the new Lord High Master of Shael’donn to be seen puffing.

He assumed his deepest voice. “All right. Just what is the problem here?”

Healing Master Brevit Lising glanced up from the bedside. “My Lord, come quickly!”

Straightening his brocaded tunic, Riklin pushed through the onlookers, noting with distaste that not only had Kevisson Monmart reappeared, but also that upstart Haemas Tal. Her aristocratic face was tight with tension and she looked much wearier than she had just this morning. He sniffed. It was beyond him as to why her father had never married her off so that she had children of her own to keep her busy and out of the way. Standing beside the bed, he gazed down upon the Saxbury woman’s pale face, noting how her eyes were only dark smudges in her weary face. “Is she dead?”

“Not—” the older woman’s bloodless lips said, although her eyes remained closed. “Not—yet.” The breath wheezed in and out of her lungs.

“Enissa!” Haemas Tal pushed through the massed bodies.

Riklin glanced irritatedly over his shoulder at the willowy Tal heir who towered over him by half a head. “What’s the problem, Lising?”

“I’m not worried about Her Ladyship, Lord High Master.” Lising’s narrow eyes darted toward the shocked onlookers. “But Master Monmart is quite another matter.”

“I just want to see for myself that she’s all right.” Monmart’s voice had the temper of cold steel beneath it. “Then I’ll go.”

“You’ll go now!” Lising’s voice rose. “And you’ll answer for what you tried to do here!”

“But we’ve only just arrived.” Haemas Tal edged closer to the bedside, her shoulder brushing Riklin’s. “And we have done nothing except try to see our friend.”

Enissa Saxbury’s gray-haired head moved restlessly on the heap of pillows. “Why, Kevisson? Just tell—me—why.”

Riklin watched closely as Monmart glanced uneasily around the crowded room. “Why
what?
”

“I’m afraid I saw him, too, my Lady.” A girl dressed in the gray uniform of the House of Moons turned to her, hands clutched anxiously together. “He came to finish her off, that’s what he said.”

“Finish her off?” Monmart echoed. “You mean Enissa?”

“Kevisson, why?” Enissa began, then broke off in a fit of coughing that sent tears streaming down her lined cheeks. “Why—did you—want to—kill me?”

HAEMAS GROPED UNDER
the thick layer of quilts for Enissa’s hand, then curled her own fingers around it, shocked by its chill and the looseness of the skin. The healer’s head sagged back against the heaped pillows, her cheeks the color of old snow.

“It couldn’t have been Kevisson,” Haemas told her again. “He was being held by the ilserin, and then I was with him down in the Lowlands for hours before we came back to Shael’donn.”

“No,” Enissa whispered, each sound a fearsome struggle. “Kev—is—son.”

But whatever had aroused the old healer had also sapped her remaining strength; Haemas felt her slipping away. She clutched Enissa’s hand so tightly that her fingers ached.
I won’t let you die,
she said fiercely into Enissa’s mind.
You have to fight! Stay with me!

Enissa made no answer, sinking deeper into a black exhaustion from which there would be no return. Haemas pressed Enissa’s clammy hand to her cheek and closed her eyes, so desperate that she would have gone back to the pool and stolen a latteh herself if she thought she had time. But the ilseri were watching now, as well they should, and, of the two lattehs that she might have used, the one Axia had taken was probably lost forever, while the other was presumably still in Diren Chee’s possession.

Chee. Suddenly Haemas knew who must have attacked Enissa, then made sure that Kevisson, of all people, was blamed. Better than anyone else in the Highlands, she knew how convincing a false memory could be, how it wove in between the cracks of what had really happened, distorting words and events until the victim believed an utter falsehood. The sight of her father lying dead at her feet still surfaced in her nightmares, even though she had fresh proof that the image was false every time she visited Tal’ayn.

Sitting back in the bedside chair, she stared blindly around the sparely furnished sickroom. Chee must be aware that she had returned without Axia, and he was making good on his threat to destroy everyone she cared about. Now that Master Ellirt was dead, only Enissa and Kevisson remained. And ten minutes ago, Senn had locked Kevisson up on the charge of attacking Enissa. Haemas had argued, protested, even threatened to call her father—which would, of course, have been of no use whatsoever, but she had thought Riklin Senn might not know that. Senn, however, had only smiled and asked her to give Lord Tal his regards, then closed his office door in her face.

Enissa’s breathing grew increasingly ragged and shallow, her chest barely rising and falling. Haemas flashed back to that terrible moment when Master Ellirt had died, his life-force dimming, slipping slowly and inexorably beyond her reach. She couldn’t let that happen again. She clasped her hands on the edge of the bed and pressed her forehead against them, trying to think. Before anything else could be done, Enissa must be made to breathe more easily. Perhaps she could manage that much. Closing her eyes, she opened her shields and slid into her friend’s unprotected mind, searching for the nerves that controlled the breathing centers.

Shadowy images surrounded her: golden-eyed men who sneered, laughed, attacked, everywhere people who didn’t understand, who—

Fear seeped into Haemas’s mind, electric and razor-sharp, but she fought to shut it out. It was natural for Enissa to be afraid now, but Haemas could not afford it. She had to find the breathing nerves.

Faces crowded into her mind, people she had never seen, haggard, fresh-faced, affectionate, laughing, furious ... One after the other, she shunted the memories aside, trying to hold her concentration. A child’s high, thin crying tugged at her, then the dusty, dry smell as the servants cleaned out Rhydal’s study after his death ...

Just as it seemed too late, she found the proper nerves and keyed Enissa’s breathing herself, holding control and feeding it with the energy of her own body until the pattern was reset and Enissa breathed normally again.

Feeling lost, Haemas rested, knowing that what little she had accomplished so far was just the first step. Lising and Nevarr had surely done this for Enissa already, and more than once—but without mending the real damage, her breathing would only deteriorate again and she would slip away. Lising and Nevarr were both excellent, highly trained healers. What made Haemas think she could do any better than either of them?

But they had given up and she had to at least try. She drifted through Enissa’s mind again, looking, searching for something that could be put right, if only she had the wit to recognize it when she saw it. Then a burst of energy blasted her, sun-bright and molten hot, almost making her lose consciousness. Tumbling through the chaos of Enissa’s unconscious mind, she fell through images, sights, sounds, feelings—

An older man’s face grimaced at her. “For Light’s sake, Enissa, can’t you behave like a proper wife in public? It’s more than—”

The strong scent of hot keiria tea overwhelmed her, heavily sweetened with honey—

Pain burned through her abdomen like fire sweeping down before the wind, her son would be born any—

Footsteps echoed through the long empty hall as the servants came to carry Rhydal’s bier down to the funeral pyre—

Energy, too much energy. Even as she was buffeted by it, Haemas recognized that here was the focal point of the damage. All Enissa’s mental energies seemed to be grounded to this one place in her brain, so that no matter what thought was begun or memory accessed, it shunted here, then combined with the cacophony of her other thoughts into a blaring chaos that overwhelmed all autonomic functions of her nervous system.

As she was swept away by the thought-storm, Haemas fought to shut the distracting images out. Here was the place where something could be done, if only she knew what to do. The energy must be halted somehow, quieted, the thoughtpaths redirected until everything flowed as it was meant to. But it was tricky and baffling, and for a moment, she considered going to Lising and Nevarr for help.

Then she realized that they must have seen this, too, and already given it up for lost. She would have to work by herself. Summoning her remaining energy, she edged toward the disruption, fighting to shut the deafening half-finished thoughts out. At the first shorted neural pathway, she poured her own energy into it, trying to remember how it had felt when Ellirt had healed her with the latteh.

There had been warmth, she thought, a blissful warmth that had healed her cut and bruised face. Concentrating, she poured heat into the damaged area until she was exhausted, and then continued doggedly until a ragged blackness threatened to drown her. When she finally stopped, the pathway was complete again, the thoughts flickering along it like slim golden fish in a mountain stream. Only a rough scar remained to indicate where it had been disrupted.

She had succeeded, but all the same, she was dismayed. It had taken every bit of free energy she possessed just to heal this one pathway, and thousands of pathways fed into this disruption. At this rate, it would take thousands of days to heal her friend—if she lived that long, if Diren Chee left them alone, if Frostvine didn’t take action against the Kashi because of the missing lattehs, if—

Unsteadily Haemas groped her way back to her own body, barely able to feel it slumped on the edge of bed at Enissa’s side. When she opened her eyes, she found them wet with her own tears. Enissa could not survive long enough in this condition to let Haemas finish what she had begun, even if she had time to meticulously heal each pathway.

And the one thing she did not have was time.

* * *

Diren took Kisa back to Chee’ayn and set one of the few remaining servants to watch her. Then, as soon as the sun set, he entered the portal again and reached for the pattern that signaled Tal’ayn. Sleet blasted his face the instant he materialized; an ice storm was in full progress on this side of the Highlands caldera. He took shelter under the covered doorway into the main house, then glanced up. He could just make out the towering twin crags with their bridging walkway. The Tals had built this house into the living mountain and had the most interesting architecture in all the Highlands. After he had consolidated his power, Diren would spend some time here enjoying the unique amenities of this place. There was supposedly an excellent rock garden with thermal springs nestled somewhere between the house and the cliffs behind—

JUST WHAT IN THE NAME OF BLOODY DARKNESS ARE YOU SNIFFING AROUND HERE FOR, YOU WET-EARED EXCUSE FOR A MAN?

Diren’s hands jumped, but he held his temper. As soon as Tal felt the kiss of the latteh, the old bastard would be falling all over himself to be pleasant. The thought of Tal’s imminent downfall warmed him, even out in the biting, ice-filled wind. He looped his cloak over one shoulder and leaned against the door.
So this is how you greet your visitors. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I’d heard tales of Tal “hospitality.”

WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Tal’s mindvoice was still deafening.

I’m on Council business, of course.
Diren allowed a note of peevishness to creep into his tone.
Or do I have to discuss that with you in there sitting by the fire, while I freeze my backside off out here in the damned courtyard?

Tal made no answer, but seconds later, the door swung open and a gaunt, middle-age servant inclined his brown-haired head to him. “My Lord?”

Diren favored him with a withering glance, then swept down the narrow stairs into the main house, shedding ice pellets as he went. “Fine sort of welcome,” he muttered, shrugging out of the sopping cloak at the bottom of the steps.

“You might get a better reception,” a sultry female voice commented, “if you waited to be invited.”

Diren turned and stared down into the green-streaked golden eyes of a petite Kashi woman.

Her fingers trailed idly down her slender white neck, brushing the green velvet of her low-cut bodice. She was dressed in long flowing skirts, the latest fashion affected by the women of the Highest Houses, and her skin had the translucent elegance of the finest imported porcelain. She tilted her small head back, studying him with an unsettling frankness, her full red lips parted in a pout. “I am Alyssa Alimn Senn.”

“Lady.” He met those startling eyes, then looked away, feeling disconcertingly hot.

She waved a small hand at the servant. “Haner, you’re dismissed.” Then she turned her level gaze back to Diren. “My husband doesn’t want to see you, of course.” Her fingers traced the gold-worked sunbursts on her bodice. “And I think you’ll find that he’s remarkably good at doing exactly as he pleases.” Then she froze, seeming to hear something he could not. Her eyes darted toward a door just down the hallway and her smooth cheek paled. A blankness descended over her face. “You’d better go on in.” Lifting her cumbersome skirts in both hands, she glided down the passageway before him.

Diren followed the shapely back, trying to remember what he had heard about her. Alyssa Senn, the old Tal’s very young wife—hadn’t there been some sort of scandal at one time? “Has the Lady Haemas visited recently?” he asked, as if making casual conversation.

“Now I know you have no true business here.” She radiated amusement, pausing with her hand on the latch of an enormous oak door decorated with carvings of the hunt. “No one who knew Dervlin well would be foolish enough to ask that question.” A chilling smile flitted across her face and she suddenly looked ten years older. “Ask him yourself, if you dare.” Opening the door, she stood aside.

Tal’s gruff voice rang out from within. “Well, are you going to come in, or are you going to stand out there and ogle the wench all night?”

Diren tightened his shields, then entered the golden glow of firelight in the wood-paneled office beyond the door. The pleasant aromas of wood smoke and hot mead filled the room.

Tal’s lip curled. “She has all the discrimination of a starving silsha and the morals of a poisonous bavval. You can have her, if you’re willing to take the risk, but I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Lord Tal,” Diren said, trying to think of anything but the cold hard shape of the latteh secreted within his gloved hand.

The old man was smaller than he remembered from seeing him in Council. He sat in a wing-backed chair before the fire, his feet propped up, his eyes like hammered circles of gold, deep-set under bushy white brows. They raked Diren. “What in damnation is it that couldn’t wait until the next meeting? I don’t like visitors, especially uninvited ones.”

“I have important news, my Lord.” Diren glanced around for a second chair, but though the room was stuffed with a massive pine desk, cabinets, and bookshelves, there was no place where a second person might sit. “News that I’m sure you’ll want no one else to overhear.” Sliding his hand behind his back, he approached the old man and the huge crackling fire. “News of the Lady Haemas.”

The chair creaked as the old man leaned forward, then turned his eyes moodily to the flames. “You dare speak that name to me?” His voice was threaded with menace.

“I do.” Diren spread his free hand before the dancing yellow flames, glad of the warmth after being half frozen out in the courtyard. If he could just get a bit closer, he thought, no one would be able to stop him, but it was well known that the old Tal possessed both a powerful Talent and the training to use it. He had to be careful. He cleared his throat. “She has recently been my—guest—at Chee’ayn, where she and I came to an-understanding.”