HM02 House of Moons (6 page)

He made a picture for her in his mind: a clear pool rimmed with ice, broad white steps leading down into the water, a scattering of dull-green shapes nestled in the half-frozen mud at the bottom, and one empty depression where another had rested.
Not us,
he said dejectedly.
We did not take it. Not us. Not us!

No, not you.
Summerstone examined the image, shuddering. The tendrils on her head went limp with dismay. So it had started again. After so many Interims, the ilseri had thought the pools safe, but it was as the current oldest, Frostvine, had often remarked, even back in the days when Summerstone herself had been but a callow ilserin: All Whens hinged on Now, and Now was a precarious balance that could be lost at any time.

Summerstone would have to summon the others and see what, if anything, they could do.

* * *

Although the air was warm in the room where she lay, Haemas shivered as consciousness seeped back through her. Opening her eyes slightly, she tried to remember how she had come to this unfamiliar round room, built of dark-grained stone and hung with shredding tapestries thick with webs and dust. A shaft of midmorning sunlight slanted in from a high, narrow window, and a meager fire had been built in the huge fireplace. Next to her cot, a woman with hair the color of Old wheat dozed, her hands curved around an open book.

Haemas moved her head tentatively, but there was only a dull ache in her temples instead of the pounding misery of the night before.

The woman stirred, then blinked down at her with eyes that were medium gold but flecked with odd dark specks. “Well, you certainly look like you’ve been to Darkness and back again. Diren’s little toy was much more effective than I’d ever dreamed.” Smoothing a threadbare fold of her out-of-style velvet gown, she shook her head. “The more you fight the blasted thing, the harder it hits you. My advice is to cooperate with him from now on.”

“Diren?” Haemas closed her eyes again, realizing she had heard that name mentioned last night, too. “Diren—Chee?” She heard the muffled sound of boots striding down the hall.

“So, Axia,” a masculine voice said, “how is our guest today?”

“See for yourself, if you really want to know,” the woman replied curtly as she scraped her chair back. “You will anyway.”

Haemas tried to reach out with her mind, but her brain felt as if it had been smothered in thick layers of ebari wool. She got only the haziest of impressions while her head began to throb again with a peculiar buzzing. Opening her eyes, she saw the trim frame of the Lord of Chee’ayn, dressed in unrelieved black from head to toe. “It is you!” she whispered. “But why?”

“Now, if I were lying there in your place, I would be more interested in how.” He hefted a dull-green crystal in his hand. “Don’t tell me that you’ve never heard of a latteh.”

A latteh. Somewhere in the back of her mind it seemed she had heard of something by that name ... something ancient and forbidden.

Chee settled in the chair beside the cot, leaning back and stretching his arms above his head as if he were a hungry silsha limbering up for the hunt. “Interesting, is it not, for you and I to be here together after all those Council Meetings when you sat in the gallery across from me, tilting that proud Tal profile into the air.” The cot groaned as he put his weight on the edge. Then his finger traced a line of frozen fire down her cheekbone. She flinched from his touch and he smiled. “Well, that’s behind us now. Not only are you going to grace my House, you’re going to put my plans into action.”

“Plans?” Haemas struggled to sit up, fighting the waves of dizziness that swept over her until the whole room seemed slanted. “What in the name of Darkness are you talking about? Whatever—possessed you to bring me here?”

“The timelines, of course.” His pale face floated above his starkly black collar as if it were not connected to the rest of him at all. “Of course, you’ll probably understand much better after our matrimonial.”

* * *

Clouds had drifted across the two rising moons, obscuring the bright crescents as Enissa emerged from the simple Shael’donn portal, holding the younger Lenhe girl’s hand. She shivered in the frost-laden air, still soaked to the skin from the Lowlands downpour. She glanced up into the dark, restless sky for a moment, then turned as Kevisson emerged from the blue mist after them, cradling the exhausted, wet form of Kisa Lenhe against his chest. Enissa shook her head, still furious. If she’d had any idea what that idiot Orcado had been up to, she would not have allowed either child to attend the service, no matter what anyone said.

The Highlands wind had a raw, bitter edge that hinted at snow before the night’s end. She rubbed her arms as she peered at the wan face pillowed on Kevisson’s shoulder.
How is the poor thing?

Sleeping.
He shifted her slight weight in his arms.
You have room for them at the House of Moons, don’t you? I could take them over to Shael’donn, but I don’t know how our new Lord High Master Senn is going to rule on the subject of females. He hardly seems the liberal type.

Enissa sniffed.
As if I’d ever let the likes of him get his hands on this pair. They’ve problems enough as it is. Of course we have room, but we would keep them even if it meant we all had to sleep on the floor!

A fleeting smile passed across Kevisson’s face, only to be replaced by the brooding expression he’d worn ever since the two of them had discovered Myriel’s dead body. Enissa glanced down at young Adrina’s copper-gold head. “Come, child. A few more steps and then we’ll get a nice room ready just for you and your sister.”

Adrina glanced at the still form in Kevisson’s arms. “Is she—is—” A tear welled up, then trickled down the curve of her cheek.

“Bless me, child, she’s fine.” Enissa placed one hand on the silken hair. “She’s just worn out from lighting the torch. That was a very big job for such a small girl, you know.”

Adrina pressed her lips together and looked doubtful. Enissa bent over and folded her into a damp hug. “Just you wait and see,” she murmured into wet hair that smelled so much like that of her own three children, now long grown. “Now, let’s go get out of these wet clothes!”

Kevisson stepped out of the portal onto the crushed gravel path and headed for the gray stone building. Taking Adrina’s hand again, Enissa followed, then was startled by a low rumbling snarl.

The little girl looked around fearfully, then pressed closer to her side. “What was that?”

“That’s just a silsha,” Enissa said with more assurance than she really felt. Try as she might, she had never been able to work up the sort of link with the lithe, black-furred beasts for which Haemas Tal was justly famous. They never seemed anything to her except the savage killers of the forest she’d always heard about.

“A silsha?” Adrina’s voice was very low. “Like the ones that go after the horses and the ebari?”

“Not exactly.” Kevisson glanced back over his shoulder and winked. “These are a little larger, and they love little girls.”

Enissa grimaced at him.
That’s exaggerating a bit, isn’t it?

Well, not the size part, anyway.

Ahead of them, the massive double doors opened and a slender figure dressed in gray dashed down the path toward them. About fifty feet away, a muscular black beast leaped to the top of the low garden wall, then threw back its tuft-eared head and roared with a full-throated rage that rattled Enissa’s bones.

“Mercy!” She quickened her pace to draw even with Kevisson. “I’ve never known them to make such a racket before.”

“I have.” His lean face was grim.

“Lady Enissa!” The running figure waved at them, then slowed. “Lady Enissa, I’m so glad you’re back!”

Enissa recognized young Meryet Alimn. “Goodness, Meryet, no wonder the silshas are upset. What could possibly be worth all this dashing about in the dark?”

“She’s gone! We can’t find her anywhere, not even a trace, and the silshas have been furious ever since last night and—” Meryet broke off to gasp a breath. “And—”

“Who, child?” Enissa shook her head. “Who’s gone?”

“Oh.” Meryet glanced from her face to Kevisson’s, then back. “The Lady Haemas. We looked for her last night when the silshas became so loud, to calm them, but she was gone and she hasn’t come back and no one has seen her! We thought maybe she went—with—” The girl faltered as she read the message written on Enissa’s face.

Closing her eyes, Enissa cast her mind through the House of Moons, then the area close by, seeking some trace of the young woman she had come to look upon as a daughter, some hint of what had become of her, but there was only a disturbing blankness.

“We’re afraid—” Meryet stopped and put a hand on the bodice of her overtunic, forcing herself to take a deep breath. “I mean—she wouldn’t just go off like that, not without telling someone.”

Kevisson clutched the sleeping child more closely in his arms. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“And the silshas are so angry.” Meryet glanced at the one crouching on the wall, then winced as its snarl rumbled ominously through the darkness. “It’s as if they know something we don’t, something terrible.”

Kevisson walked toward the front doors, his long strides crunching the ice-coated gravel in the crisp stillness. “They do.”

“YOU MIGHT AS WELL
eat it; you won’t get anything else.” The woman called Axia held out a chipped blue-and-white bowl of congealing meat broth in one hand, her other braced on her hip. She wore a faded, much-washed rose-colored gown and her straggling hair was pulled up into a loose knot. Her mouth was pursed, her golden eyes hard as granite. “I suppose you’re used to much better fare—at Shael’donn.”

Haemas stared down at the greasy soup, then rested her aching forehead on her drawn-up knees. Actually, the quality of the food at Shael’donn, where she had lived nine out of the last twelve years, varied widely since all students, herself included, were required to put in turns in the kitchens. Still, the rancid broth, along with the general air of moldering decay in this place, curdled her already unsteady stomach. She pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“‘Thank you,’ is it?” The sharp-faced woman set the bowl back on the cracked lacquer tray. “That’s rich—‘Thank you!’ Wait until Diren hears that.”

“Hears what?” Diren Chee strode into the ill-lit room, his fair hair neatly combed and swept back from the harsh planes of his face.

Haemas looked up at the sound of his voice, still unable to believe he was the same man she had seen in Council year after year, never suspecting what lay behind those dark-flecked eyes. She should have paid more attention to the gossip that always seemed to be circulating about the infamous House of Chee. She straightened her shoulders.

Looping his thumbs through his wide black leather belt, Chee scrutinized her with an assured calmness that spoke of power more eloquently than words. He cocked his head to one side, reminding her of one of her silshas stalking a rock barret. “Let’s get down to business, shall we? I want the timeways.”

Without answering, she tried to probe his mental shields, but her mind still felt muffled and dull. The latteh, whatever it really was, had drained her. With a shock, she realized she could not even have read someone standing across the room at that moment.

“That’s not possible.” She looked away. “Even among the ilseri, males can’t align with the timelines. You know I can’t take you, or any other man there.”

“I only know you
won’t.
” Chee seized her upper arm and dug his fingers into her flesh until she met his eyes again. “And that’s not the same thing at all, is it?” A bitter smile flitted across his face. “Besides, Jarid Ketral entered the timeways.”

She jerked her arm from his grasp. “And paid for it ultimately with his life, while nearly destroying the rest of us at the same time!”

“That was his mistake.” He tapped his chin with a forefinger. “I have no intention of repeating it.”

Suddenly she threw open her mind and reached desperately for the ilsera crystals set into the Chee’ayn portal. Perhaps she could access the temporal nexus and leave this terrible place.

Try all you like, Lady.
Chee slid into her weakened mind with a practiced oiliness.
You don’t really think I’m fool enough to leave the crystals in place, do you?
His mirth was like a drenching of ice-cold water.

With an effort, she raised her shields again and shut him out of her mind, but the back of her throat tasted of burned iron and the ache in her head strengthened.

“Of course, no one understands exactly how you do it,” Chee continued, “but I do know from the official notes of the last Conclave on Temporal Transference that you need a set of attuned crystals. I’ve separated the Chee’ayn crystals and they won’t be back in place until I’m ready.”

“It’s pointless!” Haemas stared angrily at his triumphant face. “You can’t change anything by going back. Nothing in the past can be altered.”

“Ah, Lady, you mistake me.” Chee reached out one finger and tucked a lock of pale-gold hair behind her ear. “I need to learn more about how to use the latteh crystal. Although it’s been forbidden for over twenty generations, I’ve managed to puzzle out a little of the craft. But if you give any credence to the old legends and tales, there was much, much more.” Gripping his hands behind his back, he strolled over to stand before the hearth, his eyes on the meager flames. “All the old manuscripts talk of the unparalleled power wielded by the latteh in the hands of the ‘true adept’—power to kill, power to heal, power to build.”

Slipping one hand into his pocket, he drew the oddly cut crystal out and held it up in the palm of his hand. “But that knowledge was literally thrown away by rattle-headed thinkers who thought they could decide what was best for everyone.” His fingers caressed the dull-green facets. “It would take more than a lifetime to rediscover all that by trial and error. But there is another way; you can go back and find it for me.”

Her heart settled into a steadier rhythm. Although he didn’t know it, he was giving her a way out; once she had entered the timelines, he couldn’t follow her. No male could enter the timelines without an enormous boost of outside power, and even then it endangered the fabric of reality. She would pretend to agree, then escape him in the temporal pathways, exiting somewhere else, or even some-when else, and he would be able to do nothing to prevent it.

“Where—where do you want me to go?” she asked, concentrating fiercely on her shields.

“Not where so much as
when
.” He gripped the latteh tightly in his fist. “You will have to go back into the time of the Ivram Despots or even earlier. I don’t care as long as I get what I need. And if it’s true I can’t go with you myself—” a grim half smile twisted his mouth, “I’ll send Axia in my place.”

Haemas leaned her head back against the wall. “But she’s not trained.”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?” Chee looked down and smoothed the black fabric of his long loosely fitted pants.

Again Haemas tried to think, hoping her strained shields could keep him out of her mind. How Talented could Axia be, anyway? Perhaps she could just leave her behind, too, as soon as Chee gave her access to the ilsera crystals.

He crossed his arms. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

A sliver of ice formed between her lungs and her heart. “I have friends who will look for me.” She closed her eyes. “You won’t get away with this.”

He laughed a brittle, hard-edged laugh. “But, Lady, I have already gotten away with it.” Placing a hand on either side of her, he leaned over the cot and stared into her eyes. “And if any of these so-called friends of yours should happen to get the least bit close to the truth, or if you refuse me the timeways, I will kill every one of them, starting with the fat old meddler, Enissa Saxbury, and that tiresome dreamer, Kevisson Monmart.”

* * *

The gathering ilseri clustered around the violated pool, their anguish so palpable it was as if another, darker sister had joined them to mourn. Starlight winked down through the leafless trees as Summerstone hovered above the grove, counting the new arrivals. She was more worried than she wanted the rest to know. So few had come back from the southern seas, and this was so very important! Did they not understand? What the ilseri decided now could alter the future in unforeseen ways. Every full-grown sister was needed to examine the nexus for possible courses of action before they decided which course to take.

Windsign drifted into the grouping, and Summerstone reached for her mindpresence with a profound sense of relief. They had known each other for so long that she trusted this sister’s judgment more than any other ilseri of similar experience.

Windsign responded with a mental caress, then increased her density and let gravity tug her down to the forest floor as she gazed into the pool.
I thought they had forgotten.

Summerstone joined her.
We must call Moonspeaker and learn what she knows of this matter. Perhaps she can—

No!
A young, clear mind voice rang through their midst.
She is one of them!
The speaker coalesced into a tall, broad-shouldered sister, well grown and strong.

Seashine, we welcome your strength and vision.
Summerstone regarded her gravely, remembering that this sister had not yet borne her first son. She was barely out of the trees, quite young compared to the rest of the gathering, and her judgment was still clouded occasionally with ilserin excesses.

Summerstone projected an image of the young human whom she and Windsign had once called to them, then trained in the ways of the nexus: a slender female with golden hair as pale as moonlight and eyes of the same elusive shade.
She saved this world from temporal disruption when she was hardly more than a child.
She textured the image with Moonspeaker’s fierce, uncomplaining strength and her former courage in the face of fear and pain.
She has spoken well for the ilseri to her kind.

The short green tendrils that covered Seashine’s head writhed with indignation and distrust.
She is still one of them, and if they have not forgotten after so long, they never will. In the fullness of time, they will always come back.

Let us examine the nexus for possible Whens,
Windsign interrupted.
Then we will consult our sister Moonspeaker and decide what must be done.

* * *

Kevisson hunched his shoulders against a biting Highlands wind as he trudged back across the grounds to Shael’donn. His wet clothes clung like a clammy second skin and his feet were blocks of ice, but much worse was the coldness he felt within. Why in the name of all that was holy had he turned on Haemas in front of the Council and half the members of the Highest Houses as well? No wonder she had left without telling anyone. Reaching Shael’donn, he jerked the huge door open and passed the startled student on duty without a single word.

It was his damned pride; he knew that. Born of only a Lowlands House and with his dark coloring, he had always been oversensitive to the slightest insinuation that he was not as good as his fellow Andiine Masters.

But Haemas had never seemed to see anything but simple Kevisson Monmart when she turned those pale-gold eyes on him. The image of her introspective face rose up in his mind, and he thought back to twelve years earlier, when Lord Senn had sent to the Lord High Master of Shael’donn for the best Searcher available. Kevisson had answered that summons. The charge had been to find the daughter of a High House who had attacked her father, then run away to the Lowlands. Haemas Sennay Tal had been that girl, not quite sixteen at the time. He’d found her using the ancient mind-disciplines taught by the Andiines, and in one way or another, it seemed the link he had established with her then had never been broken. He sighed. They had both come so far since those days. She was light to his dark side, a river of quiet strength and perseverance. He couldn’t imagine life without her.

He ran into several more students on the steps, including one from the Eighth Form whom he had been tutoring personally. Ignoring their greetings, he swept by and felt their bewildered thoughts follow him up to his small room in the West Wing.

Finally, closing the door behind him, he leaned against the varnished wood and gave into the ache; she had left without telling him, had gone away to only-the-Light-knew-where to nurse the pain he had caused. He stared around his sparely furnished room, then squared his shoulders. Myriel and Ellirt were beyond his help, but he could still do something about Haemas. Although she probably never wanted to see him again right now, it wasn’t safe for her to go off alone. She never admitted it, but the House of Moons was a sore point with the more old-fashioned Houses, especially in the Highlands where the High Lords had little interest in seeing their wives and daughters and sisters better trained and more able to decide for themselves how to live their lives. She had enemies, not the least of whom were the Killians, since she had once refused to marry a son of that House. He had to find her and make sure she was safe.

He stripped off his sodden breeches and shirt and threw them in the corner, then pulled on a loose robe. Kneeling, he started a fire in the small hearth. Once it was properly kindled, he crossed to the narrow bed that had been his ever since he had first come to Shael’donn, a frightened Lowlands boy of seven. Although he’d rated more luxurious quarters as he’d moved up through the ranks, he’d retained this room, preferring its familiarity.

He pulled a fine-linked chain over his head and fingered the gold ring threaded upon it, an ancient signet of the House of Tal: oak leaves of solid silver, chased with gold and studded with tiny green koral stones. His face warmed as he remembered the touch of her fingers as she had folded his palm around it in return for his gift—the Monmart emblem of flying caestrals, though his had not been half so fine. Try as he might to feel differently, it still rankled him that Tal’ayn was one of the Highest Houses while Monmart’ayn was little more than a Lowlands farm. Despite the fact that Haemas never seemed to care, he had always felt the distinction standing between them.

Stretching out on his back on the bed, he closed the ring into his fist for a focus and shut his eyes. Letting the sensations of his body fade from his awareness, he began to count each breath, setting his mind adrift. With each breath, he let more tension drain from his body, soaking up the faint emanations of her that still permeated the ring: her strength, her determination and stubbornness, and still, even after all this time, her sorrow. He pictured her somber expression ... the sense of duty that ruled her even when he would have had it otherwise ... the steady regard for him that he had come to count upon.