I
Mount Alban: 59th of Spring
Jame paced the infirmary, watched warily by Kindrie and benevolently by Aerulan, laid out to dry over the back of a chair. Having given up begging to be let out, Jorin was curled up on the foot of Graykin's pallet, ostentatiously ignoring everyone. Still, his ears twitched at every tantalizing noise out in the hall. Jame twitched too. Running feet, thumps, curses . . . all the sounds of departure. But where on earth were they going, and how?
Curtains of oiled cloth across the arched windows had kept out the initial surge of weirding. Now the mist had subsided to a flat, glowing sea, level with the cliff-top, under a ribbed ceiling of clouds which dimly reflected its light. The infirmary had none of the ship-board motion that had almost made Jame sea-sick in the wooden herb-shed below. Still, the floor did vibrate.
Out in the hall, people were approaching.
". . . shift more supplies to the top floor," said a crisp, deep voice. "The entire core of the college is adrift, as well as the upper keep, as the scrollsmen predicted; but we may still lose the lower hall or more if the main door gives way. Has our newest guest been made comfortable? God's teeth, a lady of that stature, to descend on us at a time like this . . . !"
"She was caught out in the storm, Director," said someone soothingly. "It was pure luck that she found our front door at all, swept as far north as she had been, or that the singer sent down to fetch Index heard her escort hammering on it."
Jame frowned. That didn't sound like her own arrival.
Brier Iron-thorn's voice sounded outside. "The cadets have brought up all the supplies they could find, Director. Have you further orders?"
"Not at present, ten-commander."
Footsteps and voices receded down the hall, but the door knob quivered in Jame's grasp, as though at someone else's touch on the other side.
"Ten!" Vant's voice, approaching. "Captain Hawthorn wants you. Now."
"I . . . see," said Brier, just outside the door. The knob became suddenly inert as she let go of it. "Yes, of course."
"I did warn you," said Vant, smugly.
Two sets of feet retreated down the corridor.
Jame sighed, half relieved that Brier hadn't entered, half disappointed. She was still embarrassed by what she had tried to do to the Kendar at the falls. Sweet Trinity, in effect to have used Caldane's voice on someone who equated domination with violation . . . ! Iron-thorn's trust in the Knorth had been fragile to begin with. If Jame shattered it, Tori would kill her. He might anyway, on general principles.
But what lady of stature, what Captain Hawthorn, and what had Vant warned Brier about? She wouldn't find out here . . . but she didn't dare go out, either.
Brier wasn't the only person she was avoiding. In the confusion of their arrival, someone had mentioned that Kirien, the Jaran Heir, was also in Mount Alban. He hadn't attended Torisen's memorable dinner at the Cataracts, so Jame hadn't met him. She had heard that he was a scrollsman engaged in studies of the Fall until, coming of age, he took his place as head of the Jaran. The last thing Jame wanted just now was to expose her conduct and damaged face to Highborn criticism.
She found that she was touching her cheek, and jerked her hand down. The impression lingered, however, of a developing scar bad enough to be felt through both mask and gloves. Whatever it had been like after the first injury, the repeated blows to the face which she had taken since couldn't have helped.
Damn.
But she wasn't the only one in trouble here. The Southron hadn't yet retained consciousness. His breathing didn't have the deep regularity of dwar, either; in fact, she could barely hear it.
"He was going to be all right, wasn't he?" she demanded of the healer. "Somehow I could sense that when I touched him, back in Cattila's garden. But not now. What happened? I didn't hit him that hard."
The Shanir sat on the far side of Graykin's pallet, back to the wall, head drooping with fatigue. Her voice jerked him awake.
"I think it has something to do with the bond between you," he said, marshalling his wits. "Why does it mean so much to him?"
"I suppose because he's a bastard, born without a name or a place. I seem to have given him both. He had an identity before we met, though. I'm not totally responsible for who or what he is. I don't even want his service. He's just a . . . stray dog I accidentally picked up."
"You made that pretty clear, when you slapped him."
"Sweet Trinity. What's been the point of this whole expedition, if not his rescue?"—and perhaps to make her forget her own problems. "I've never meant him any harm!"
"Maybe destructive Shanir can't help but destroy, however good their intentions. Maybe innocence isn't enough." He looked up at her askance, through the white fringe of his hair. "If you have this effect on a servant who needs you, what will you do to a brother who fears you?"
"He has no reason to. I love him."
"That makes it worse."
FRATRICIDE, the God-voice had called her. Bane . . . or Tori?
Jame looked down at Graykin's still form. "Is he going to die?"
Without thinking, Kindrie reached toward the unconscious man, then stopped. His fingers curled into a fist, which he drew back to cradle against his chest like a broken bird. "Find out for yourself," he muttered, no longer meeting her eyes. "He's your responsibility."
Jame regarded him for a moment with raised eyebrows, then sighed. To date, she had done a poor job of being a Highborn. This was one duty, though, which she could no longer shirk. She knelt and touched Graykin's face gingerly.
A momentary dizziness made her squeeze shut her eyes. In the darkness behind the lids, she felt as if she were falling, except for her fingertips on the Southron's forehead. It felt odd. She blinked away darkness and looked down into a face half human, half canine, wholly mongrel, like the dog in the old song after whom she had renamed this wretched boy. Under him, through him, she could see the cold hearth stone on which he lay. A ghost, Kindrie, had called him, haunting someone else's soul-scape. Whose?
Her hand had ivory plates across its back so on up her arm. On her face, the weight of an ivory skull mask. She raised her head with difficulty to look over her shoulder, down the sweep of a vast hall paved with green-veined stone, hung with death banners. Silver Knorth eyes watched her through the bars of their warp threads; the woof on each cheek bunched like an ugly scar.
The Master's hall in Perimal Darkling . . . her soul-scape?
"No!" Jame cried, leaping to her feet.
The darkness swarmed back, although this time her eyes were wide open.
Got up too fast, she thought, swaying, clutching at composure. Wait for the blood to rise, wait . . . .
Her sight cleared. Kindrie was staring at her open-mouthed. "What happened?"
"I . . . need some air. I'm going for a walk."
At the door, she turned. "All right! I came back for you after all, I've accepted responsibility, and now you can keep watch on that damned cold hearth until your tail freezes off. Satisfied?"
The door slammed. The ounce (who hadn't quite gotten through in time) squawked. The Knorth departed, swearing. Graykin's breath deepened into the slow, healing rhythm of dwar.
"B-but what happened?" Kindrie repeated, bewildered, to the silent room.