Maeve (32 page)

“You say you love him. If you do, if you aren't thinking only of appearances, then do what's best for him.”

She collapsed back on the seat, her head dropping onto her hands. “I don't know what's best.”

Vajd's voice was gentler as he spoke. “Sharl is surrounded by love here. He has the stability he needs and an assured place in life. When he's hurt in body or spirit he has someone immediately available to comfort him. Friends. Brother. A father. A mother. Will you be with him day and night as Zavar was? When he's hurt, would you be there? Or would you have to be off somewhere else doing the work you are paid for? Will you teach him what it is to be a man? Will you find a father for him to take my place?”

“I see.” She sighed. “I don't need to ask you those questions, do I? Zavar has already taken my place.” Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back. “What about Sharl? How will he feel if his mother just goes off and leaves him like mine did to me.”

“The two cases are different, Aleytys.” She could feel the beginning of triumph in him. She was beaten and he knew it. “The boy will feel nothing because he'll never know about you.”

Aleytys winced and closed her lips over a protest. She knew her son would be better off here and that undermined all her resolution. She opened her eyes a slit and watched Vajd sitting quietly, his beautiful, skilled hands resting lightly on his knees. He still had a preference for broad stripes in his abbas, she thought, using trivial detail to avoid temporarily the wrenching decision she knew she had to make. The heavy avrishum with its dark blue and silver stripes glowed with a supple, silky sheen in the firelight.

“I shouldn't have come back,” she said abruptly. Then she stood. “This is twice you've made me grow up, Vajd. I liked your first shot better. I was … I came here clinging to a dream of love and joy, like a child clinging to its mother's sleeve. You used the knife skillfully on that. You've cut me loose finally from my roots, stripped off my last illusions. You've won on all counts. I can't take Sharl away from you. And I won't be back to trouble you again.” She stepped up close to him, reached out a hand to touch his face, then ran stumbling out of the room, through the still empty hall, and out the back.

On the river path she fell to her knees, arms hugged tight across her breasts, shaking so hard she lost balance and tumbled into the sand. She wanted tears to release some of the agony but her eyes were stubbornly dry. For several minutes she lay twitching spasmodically, then she pulled herself back onto her knees. She crawled to the river's edge and splashed the icy water over her face. Then she lay on her stomach and drank from the river until the clean, alive taste of the water brought her out of her fog into a painful but vigorous realization that she was still alive and intended to stay that way.

She stood, brushing leaves and dirt off herself. Then she moved hastily down the river path back to the crossroads at the mouth of the valley where Grey was waiting with a skimmer.

He opened the hatch for her and tactfully made no comment when he saw she was alone.

As the skimmer rose and darted off to join the orbiting mothership, she struggled to do something about the turbulent tides of emotion surging under her brittle calm. Her flashes of rage alternated with black fits of depression until her head threatened to burst. Once, she laughed when she had a sudden vision of her body as an expanding balloon about to go pop! Grey glanced at her, then returned to his silent handling of the controls.

When the skimmer was stowed, Grey hesitated. “You want to go straight to the cabin?”

She shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “I don't know. No. I don't know.”

Shaking his head, Grey led her up several levels into the passenger lounge where the other Hunters were sitting about, talking desultorily. Leaving Aleytys standing uncertainly just inside the door, Grey crossed to the communicator and touched a sensor. “Captain Tokeel.”

The captain's calm, chocolate face came into the small viewer. “I see you're back. Business finished?”

“Right.”

The screen blanked out and Grey turned to find a situation developing. Sybille was lying in a graceful pose on one of the couches, every shining blond hair in place, every fold of her delicate white gown disciplined into perfection. Long, elegant hands stroking with intense sensuality over her torso and thighs, she ran milky blue eyes over Aleytys, her slight smile a deliberate provocation.

Aleytys looked drained and knew it. Her red hair hung in untidy tangles down her back. A fragment of leaf was caught in the dulled mass over one ear. Her tunic was worn and old with ugly, damp splotches and smudges of dirt. Without saying a word, Sybille made her feel clumsy and ludicrous. Her blue-green eyes began to glitter.

Sybille's smile widened microscopically. “Didn't we come out of our way to pick up your son, witch? Bring him in. Let us see your wunderkind.”

Aleytys seemed to swell. The limp tangled hair stirred on her head and blew out as if in a strong wind. Even the air around her quivered visibly, stirred by the terrible rage building to a point of no control.

Grey strode hastily back across the room and caught her arm. “Aleytys!” he said sharply. At the sound of her name she tore her eyes off Sybille's mocking face and turned them on him. The fury in her struck at him like a physical blow. She was on the verge of exploding and the thought of what she might do made a chill hollow in his middle. He stepped between her and Sybille. “Aleytys,” he said more softly, “we're your friends. Don't mind Sybille. She's a stainless steel bitch but a good Hunter in her way. You'll be able to laugh at her later when you're feeling better. Come on. A hot bath while I get you some food. A pot of cha. Then lots of rest. I want you rested and happy when you see Wolff.”

She deflated suddenly and collapsed against him, tears gathering in her eyes and dripping silently down her smudged face. Grey patted her back and glared over her shoulder at Sybille, daring her to open her mouth.

Aleytys woke and stretched cautiously, unwilling to wake Grey who lay on his stomach, deeply asleep beside her. Somehow the pain of losing Sharl and the realization that she'd never really had Vajd was diminished by time and distance. She began to feel a rising excitement at the thought of seeing a new world. She was still somewhat dubious about whether she'd like being a Hunter, but there was an excitement in that also. “Wolff,” she whispered info the darkness, savoring the crisp, tough feel of the word. “I wonder what it's going to be like.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Diadem Saga

Chapter I

The faras stepped daintily through the scattered rocks and began walking along the edge of the escarpment. The Sawasawa valley floor far below stretched into the blue distance, dry and lifeless, the scattered patches of juapepo growing over it like tufts of hair on a mangy cat. Films of red dust rose, rode the wind in brief spurts, then dropped. “A long time away, Shindi.” He leaned forward and scratched at the base of his mount's roached mane. The faras tossed his horned head and snorted with pleasure. Manoreh chuckled. “Run in the pastures and roll in the wet grass. We'll both be home soon.” He slapped at the pouch slung over his shoulder and smiled at the rustle of the parchment inside. “With a good bit of new land mapped for the Director.”

Jua Churukuu the sun was hanging low in the east. He squinted matte indigo eyes at the lime-green sun, passed a long-fingered hand over the wiry tangle of his indigo hair. In the strengthening light the faint scale markings on his silvery-green skin became a bit more prounounced. He shifted in the saddle. “Tomorrow night, Shindi,” he murmured. “You'll be in your pasture and I.…” He grimaced. “I'll be swallowing Kobe's insults and quarreling with Kitosime.”

The faras's split hooves clacked rapidly over the stone, the tidy sound tick-tocking into the soft whispering of the wind. The memory of his last encounter with his wife was still vivid in his mind even though six months had drifted by since then.
A long time
, he thought.
Too long? She wants me to take up my father's land and get away from Kobe. My father's land
.… Harsh, painful memories. A line of bodies stretching out, out Endlessly. His mouth tightened.
No! Never! Let the land raise weeds and vermin
. He glanced down at the Sawasawa, closer now as the escarpments flattened and lowered toward a ripple of foothills.

The dust clouds seemed thicker as they hovered in a crimson haze over the brush. Manoreh frowned. Something moved down there. He halted the faras, leaning forward, straining to penetrate the haze.

Flashes of white thickened to a ragged blanket that smothered the soil and brush. Hares. A hare march. “Meme Kalamah, mother protect us,” he whispered. “So many of them. I've never seen so many … sweeping clean this time … everyone … Ah!” He groaned. “So many … so many … so many.…” His hands began to shake. He saw again the bodies of his people. The watuk blindrage ignited and began to take him. He raised his head and howled.

The faras danced about, jerking his head back and forth. For a moment Manoreh's body kept balance automatically while he sank deeper into the uncontrollable rage that shook him like a rag and slammed into the
FEELING
centers of the faras. Then, with a high ululating whine, the animal plunged and reared, throwing him off his back to crash onto the rock. Then the faras ran blindly forward, seeking the easiest way even in his panic, leaving Manoreh stretched out on the rock, blood running sluggishly from a short cut on his head.

When Manoreh woke, the sun was shining directly into his eyes. He sat up slowly, clutched at his throbbing head. Then he remembered the hare march and grunted onto his feet. For a moment he stood swaying, eyes shut, head throbbing, then he forced himself to look at the valley. The herd was still passing, there seemed to be no end of them. He rubbed his eyes. A force weighed heavily on him, stifling, oppressive, impersonal.
Haribu
, he thought.
Driving them
. He pressed his hand to his head.
The Holders … have to warn them … Kitosime.…

Manoreh stumbled away from the edge of the cliff and began walking along the faint trail. As he walked, the pounding of his boots against the stone sent flashes of light and pain stabbing into his brain. Grimly he kept on. Gradually his body settled into a comfortable long stride and the ache in his head eased to a dull throbbing that he could ignore. The feel of Haribu was oppressive but bearable since the demon's attention was focused on the hare herd. For a short while Manoreh tensed himself against a probe, but the blast of rage that had set him afoot must have been too brief to call Haribu's attention.

The barren stone gave way to sun-dried grass and red earth. Manoreh topped a gentle rise and stopped, startled. Several lines of hares were heading for the main herd on the valley floor. He stood, clouds of red dust blowing around him, perplexed by what he was seeing. Hares traveling naturally moved a few paces forward, stopped to graze, moved on, walked a few steps on their extra-long hind legs, dropped on fours again, grazed—continuing this irregular but patterned movement throughout the day. He saw these marching like mechanical soldiers down the hillside and a shiver rippled through his body. He closed his eyes.
Hare walk … the line of the dead … no! Breathe in … breathe out … slow … slow … order straying thoughts into rhythmic patterns. The mountains call me, blue mountains eating the green sky, the plains call me, the great grass sea
.…

Manoreh swung into a smooth lope he could maintain for hours. As he ran, he kept the songs flowing in his mind and ignored the familiar disorientation thrown at him by the patches of juapepo as the hundreds of receptor nodes picked up his emotions and retransmitted them, mixing them with snatches of the plants' own irritations and fears, snatches of the hungers, terrors and satisfactions of every insect, reptile and rodent nesting among its roots.

Hares in the hills
. None of the teaching songs spoke of hares outside the Sawasawa, even the songs of Angaleh the Wanderer, who'd mapped most of the Grass Plain in the far side of the mountains. Manoreh smiled. Angaleh the legend. Poet and singer. Explorer and mystic. Forgotten now except for his songs and the stories about him, sunk into the anonymity of the Directorship of the Tembeat. Manoreh smiled again. During the past half-year he'd added a small new triangle of territory to Angeleh's maps.

The land dipped and flattened. Manoreh slowed to a walk, the hare rumble closing in on him until he wove a precarious path through the lurching bodies of the hares ambling along at the edge of the monster herd. More than ever he regretted the loss of the faras. By nightfall he could have been.… He dismissed could-have-beens and lengthened his stride, closing his mind to the hares.

But he couldn't shut out memory.
Haribu Haremaster
. Manpreh's feet thudded against the ground, moving faster and faster as the sight and smell of the hares triggered the watuk blindrage, and that rage disrupted the rhythm of his breathing and the coordination of his body. He stumbled, slowed, took in great gulps of dusty hot air … lost in memories.…