Off-Grid
Peck’s Market
“Here they come!” Vaiza cried, leaping up from the bench. “Torin, come on!”
He turned as if to run down the slope from the pavilion to the driveway, only to find a large furry obstacle across his path.
“Dosent!”
“Why not let them arrive, and take a minute to orient?” Vayeen asked. “That would be the civilized thing. Am I right, Ritsi?”
“I was taught that it wasn’t polite to rush visitors,” Geritsi said solemnly.
“The car isn’t even here yet, Vaiza,” Torin added. She remained seated, Eet the norbear on the table before her.
“But I can hear it!” he answered, with only slightly diminished enthusiasm.
“I can’t,” Torin said.
He turned to look at her. “Truly? It’s plain as plain.”
“It’s a whisper on the ambient,” Vayeen said. “You’re not hearing it with your ears, boy-child. Now, be glad I’m not Tekelia, who’d be asking how you’d go about knowing one from the other.”
Vaiza spun toward him. “Well, how do—oh. Wait.”
Vayeen exchanged a glance with Geritsi, then looked back to Vaiza, who was staring up into the Ribbon-laced sky.
“Well,” said Torin, impatiently, “how do you tell the difference?”
“I—I just heard your voice with the outside of my ear,” Vaiza said, turning to face her. “And I’m hearing the car with the inside of my ear.”
Torin frowned. “The inside of your ear?”
“You know. Where we hear each other—and Eet.”
“Oh.” Torin transferred her frown to the tabletop. “I don’t—no, there is a car coming! But Vaiza, I’m hearing it with my ears.”
“And so am I,” Vayeen said, standing and walking a few paces away from the table. Geritsi had asked him to attend this meeting because he was a teleporter. His Gift was nowhere near as strong as Tekelia’s, of course, but he was more than able to snatch two small people to safety if it should happen that the outworlders weren’t quite as benign as was thought.
Vayeen was of two minds regarding the outworlders. On the one hand, they seemed to be thriving under the Grid, and he had on principle no use for anyone who styled themselves Civilized.
On the other hand, Tekelia vouched for them, and it wasn’t easy to fool Tekelia. The fact that the Healer was Tekelia’s own tutor in the finer points of Healing would make it even more difficult to conceal a nefarious purpose.
And the Healer was partnered with a Serendipitist, a Gift that was not only rare, but ten times out of twelve found to be a Wild Talent by those whose business it was to make such determinations, because it required no tools to operate. The sole criteria for declaring a Serendipitist Civilized was the individual’s ability to control their Gift.
Which, Vayeen thought sourly, was all you needed to know about Civilization, right there.
The whirring of a car’s engine grew louder. Vayeen looked around to see that Geritsi had risen, and come forward, Dosent at her side, Vaiza on Dosent’s other side. Torin remained at the table with the norbear.
The engine-purr increased, and the car came round the curve into the driveway—a bigger car than Vayeen had expected, bright blue and sleek. It pulled onto the grass at the side of the drive, out of the way of traffic. The engine cut, and the front door opened to release a person wearing the style of clothing favored by the outworlders. Vayeen felt himself tense, even as he asked the ambient for the driver’s signature. He was obligingly shown a mellow inner tapestry informed by a firm core dedicated to protection and order, laced with mordant humor. There was no Talent evident, not even the most minor Gift.
The driver opened the back door and a woman emerged, dressed in the same style, her shields closed tight. That, Vayeen thought, would be the Healer. A man exited behind her, closing the door, and Vayeen felt the ambient…shiver.
If the newcomer had shields, he didn’t care to use them. He stood fully exposed, as if he were Haosa born. The ambient coiled and flowed around him in a lover’s embrace, crooning softly.
“Well,” Geritsi breathed, at the same moment that Vaiza let out a yell.
“Mar Tyn!”
The man turned, raised a hand, and started quickly up the slope, his companions coming behind.
Vayeen felt Geritsi’s sigh in the ambient.
“Please, children, welcome our guests,” she said.
Vaiza leapt into a run. Torin got up from the bench, took Eet into her arms, and followed her brother. Slowly.
Vayeen stepped closer to Geritsi.
“The driver—is Deaf.”
“That seems to be so,” she agreed. “We did hear that the trade mission’s security officers were all of them Deaf.”
“So we did,” Vayeen murmured, as he watched Vaiza fairly throw himself into the arms of the ambient’s sweetheart, who caught him, spun him around, and set him onto his feet again.
The Healer, in the meantime, had lengthened her stride, and met Torin higher up the slope, where she paused, apparently being made known to Eet, before the driver joined them and they all three came on together, the man slightly behind, Vaiza his satellite.
Arriving, the Healer was seen to be plump, with pale red hair pulled neatly back from a round, personable face. Her eyes, very blue, met Vayeen’s for a moment before she bowed to Geritsi.
“I am Dyoli ven’Deelin Clan Ixin,” she said, her voice strong and smooth. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Geritsi slentAlin?”
“You do, Healer,” Geritsi said with a smile. She moved a hand in Vayeen’s direction.
“I bring you my cousin, Vayeen cozaLima.”
“And Dosent!” Vaiza called, arriving. “Don’t forget Dosent!”
Geritsi laughed. “And Dosent, who is a sokyum, and my bonded companion.”
Dyoli ven’Deelin inclined her head. “I am pleased to meet Vayeen cozaLima and Dosent. Allow me to bring to your attention Mar Tyn pai’Fortana, one’s partner, and Tima Fagen, Tree-and-Dragon security.”
Mar Tyn and Tima bowed.
“I wonder if there is a place where Tima could rest and have something to eat while we tend to our business,” Dyoli ven’Deelin said.
“There’s a cafe inside the market,” Vayeen said to Tima. “Or, if the atmosphere isn’t a problem, they’ll make a tray and you can sit out here.”
“Outside,” Tima said decisively. “It’s been too long since I had a chance to sit and enjoy the free breeze.”
“Then that’s decided,” Dyoli said. “I believe we are destined to be inside where there is a shielded space.” She looked to Geritsi. “Or so I was led to understand.”
“The upstairs back apartment is shielded,” Geritsi said. “I can’t say if it’s shielded enough for you, Healer…”
“Dyoli, please. And there is only one way to know if it will do. Is now a convenient time to inspect it?”
“Yes, let’s go inside,” Geritsi said, and smiled at Tima. “We’ll show you the cafe on our way through, and make sure the counter knows to put your meal on Ribbon Dance Village’s account.”
“Do we have to go inside?” Vaiza asked plaintively.
“Yes,” said Mar Tyn pai’Fortana, firmly. “Dyoli needs a certain amount of quiet in order to See clearly.”
“I would like to go inside, too, please,” Torin said. She looked, Vayeen thought, a little pale, her pattern inclined to wobble against the ambient, as if the excitement of their guests’ arrival had worn her out.
“Another piece of cake, hey, Torin?” he said. “There’s plenty in the basket.”
She smiled at him, wan. “No, thank you, Vayeen. I just want to go inside.”
“Inside it is, then,” Vayeen said, and nodded to Geritsi.
The sense of constant whispering movement—nothing so unsubtle as pressure—that Dyoli had felt growing beyond her shields since they had crossed into the countryside, lessened appreciably as she followed Geritsi across the threshold of the back apartment.
She was still aware of a faint sense of—curiosity—which she hoped would be resolved once she opened her shields.
“Here,” Geritsi said, from beside a wooden table and four chairs standing on an oval rag rug. “This is the center of the shielding.”
Dyoli stepped to her side, aware of Mar Tyn and the twins entering the room, followed by the alert, untrusting shadow that was Vayeen, who closed the door behind him.
“Will it do for you, Healer?” Geritsi asked.
“In a moment, we will both know the answer to that question,” Dyoli said. She closed her eyes, centered herself—and opened her shields.
Color flowed before her Inner Eyes, and she felt a quick tug at her core, as if a question had been asked—and answered.
The mild sense of curiosity faded into a sense of warm welcome, that itself spread out into a general feeling of goodwill.
She stood there, open, holding herself quite still for a slow count of twenty-four, then deliberately opened her Inner Eyes.
Geritsi’s pattern was sweetly balanced around a core of vast calm; the bond with Dosent a pure and shimmering green. The big cat herself was self-satisfied, as every cat Dyoli had ever met, with an underlayment of ferocity that the bond with Geritsi mitigated, softening it into a desire to protect.
Vayeen was less structured, and rather darker—vigilant, suspicious, protective. Both patterns included a bright red thread that to Dyoli’s senses tasted of Tekelia.
“Yes,” she murmured, “this will do very well.”
She did not seek out the twins—not yet—but she did Look for Mar Tyn—and very nearly gasped.
She was by this point in their partnership very familiar with Mar Tyn’s pattern—a lacy affair that one might expect to unravel under the mildest stress. Yet it did nothing of the kind. It shifted, it rewove itself, it made accommodation, but it never wholly unraveled, while his core remained straight, and true; taut and unassailable.
Only, the lacy confection had acquired…depth, and a certain carefree fluency, as if it were tying and retying itself into new patterns for the sheer joy of experimentation. His core had also altered. Straight, true, and taut, but now showing swirls of color, as if interacting with the dancing lace.
“Dyoli?” he said, coming to her side. “Is the room well?”
Luck was a Wild Talent, Dyoli told herself. And Mar Tyn’s Gift had been changing since they arrived on Colemenoport, under the Grid. Why shouldn’t it change again, when the Grid was left behind? Luck was, above all else, adaptable. There was the question of what this change might do to their shared Gift, where Dyoli’s Short Sight…possibly…guided the flow of Mar Tyn’s Luck. But that was for later.
“The room will answer,” she said. “How are you, my Mar Tyn?”
He smiled at her. “Very well. The air is exceptionally fresh here.”
“Is it?”
“Well, we had no basis for comparison before, having come on-planet under the Grid, but it seems to me now, as we’re out from under, that the air was a little—stale.”
Vayeen laughed.
“There’s a truth, Cousin! Stale is the hallmark of Civilization.”
Dyoli turned to Geritsi.
“My purpose is to examine Torin and Vaiza, with particular attention to the artifact that has been identified,” she said. “As I told you when we spoke, I received a sense of the working the other day, but was not able to make a detailed study. With the children’s permission, I will do that now.”
“On behalf of Ribbon Dance Village, I agree to this,” Geritsi said.
“So noted; thank you.”
Dyoli approached the back window, where the twins had taken over the cushioned bench. Vaiza was kneeling, gazing down at the lawn. Torin was wilted, her back against the wall, norbear on her knee. Dyoli paused, considering the norbear, waiting for a face to be proposed. But the norbear was—remarkably, in Dyoli’s experience of norbears—reticent.
She took a deep, quiet breath.
“Torin. Vaiza. May I speak with you?” she asked.
“Of course,” Torin said. “Vaiza, come listen.”
Her brother twisted and collapsed cross-legged onto the cushion, face turned up to Dyoli.
“I am here today in my capacity as a Healer,” Dyoli said.
“Yes!” Vaiza said. “Geritsi told us. There’s a kink in our patterns.”
“Not a kink,” Torin corrected. “A tangle.”
Dyoli smiled.
“And that is why I particularly want to examine you—to find first if it is a kink, a tangle, or something entirely else. This is important because Torin had said she was tired, and I wonder if this…irregularity may be the reason.”
Vaiza looked at his sister.
“Still tired?” he asked. “Even after—”
“I told you that it didn’t seem to help,” Torin said, and looked to Dyoli. “Our mother had taught us a—balancement. That’s what she called it, though Pel said that wasn’t really a word. If Vaiza was falling behind in his studies, or his headaches were coming back—then we would dream together—us and Eet—and balance the flow so Vaiza’s head didn’t hurt anymore.”
“We did it a couple times after we came to the Haosa,” Vaiza added, “when Torin got tired, and it worked—didn’t it, Torin?” He turned to her, brows pulled.
“It did work, before,” Torin said. “But not this last time.” She paused, frowning, then said quietly, “I think I might be feeling more tired now.”
Dyoli felt a thrill, not entirely pleasant, and resisted the urge to focus immediately on Torin.
“I will Look very carefully,” she promised. “Will you come with me to the table?”
“All right.” Vaiza rose, and bent to pick the norbear up. Dyoli held a hand down to Torin, who took it with a pale smile, and came to her feet.
* * *
Vayeen, Geritsi, and Dosent had withdrawn to the window seat, where they could observe and yet not intrude on the process. Mar Tyn sat beside Dyoli, with the twins side-by-side in the chairs across the table. Eet sat upright on the table before them, radiating interest, and a certain amount of wariness.
“You have done this before, I think,” Dyoli said. “I will ask you both to consider a blank white wall. As well as you can, empty your mind of all thought. If a thought should intrude, merely bring the wall once more before your mind’s eye.”
“Yes,” Torin said. “Eet, do you hear? You must be very quiet and let Dyoli See.”
A picture formed inside of Dyoli’s head—a dark-haired woman, rather too thin, with a look of sorrowful desperation around her blue eyes. She looked too much like the twins for there to be any doubt of who she must be.
“Yes,” Vaiza said. “Mother would have wanted us to find out why Torin’s so tired, and to fix it.”
There was a moment when Dyoli thought the norbear might lodge a protest; there was that sense in the aether.
“Eet,” Torin said sternly, “you need to help us with this.”
The moment passed; Eet subsided, and the children settled into themselves, obediently stilling their thoughts.
When they had achieved as much stillness as seemed reasonable to expect from two bright children, Dyoli extended lines of peace to ease them into a light sleep. Then, she brought her attention fully to their patterns.
At first glance, they were perfectly ordinary, their heart-link strong and vital. Vaiza was slightly brighter than Torin and showed the hazy border Dyoli had previously noticed in Tekelia’s pattern, and today in Geritsi and Vayeen. She filed it as a marker for Haosa.
Torin’s pattern was the more ordered, the border more pronounced. Dyoli marked that, and Looked more closely still, finding the bruising of broken connections, as well as the spark of new growth. Dyoli Saw a heart-link forming with Geritsi, another with Dosent, a thin sturdy thread that was Tekelia; and a lacy, flat connection that stretched and vanished into the flare and confusion that was all her Sight could make of the norbear’s pattern. The whole was symmetrical and—
No.
There—just there—a thread quivered with strain, pulling others out of true, altering the pure boundary line.
Dyoli put her attention on the strained thread, following until it looped into the indistinct edge of Vaiza’s pattern, and looped again, back over the distorted boundary and into a dense portion of Torin’s pattern. Dyoli Felt more tension, and discovered one whole section quivering with distress.
Dyoli paused, thinking she had seen a thread that she might with care loosen, and followed it back—only to find it tightly knotted inside Vaiza’s pattern.
Carefully, she relocated the original thread, followed it inward, then out, then—
Into a hopeless knot that gave off hints of norbear empathy, sparking with Vaiza’s unrestrained energy. With difficulty, Dyoli followed Torin’s thread into the center of the tangle, and marked the place where it was choked and grey.
Dyoli withdrew as quickly as she dared, knowing that she was trembling.
“Geritsi,” she murmured, pushing her chair back. She got to her feet, aware of Mar Tyn’s hand under her elbow, and paused a moment to be certain that the children were still asleep.
Geritsi rose. “Vayeen—cake,” she said, and came forward to take Dyoli’s hand.
“What’s amiss?”
“Torin was right,” Dyoli said. “It is a knot—and a dangerous one. Vaiza, Eet, and Torin are entangled in a spontaneous weaving, and Torin’s essence is burning up.”
Geritsi frowned.
“I don’t understand,” she said, as Vayeen arrived with a slice of cake on a napkin and a bottle of cold tea.
Dyoli took the cake with a nod of thanks. Mar Tyn received the bottle, and cracked the seal.
“If I were to guess, I would say that they—the three of them, working together—attempted something that was beyond their combined abilities—or perhaps the energy outlay was unequal. Again—how and why scarcely matter. We are left with a desperate snarl, which is draining Torin’s core energy.”
Geritsi took a breath.
“Maradel—our medic—said the threads binding the twins together might contract if there was a growth spurt—”
“Or a threat!” Vayeen snapped. “That damned madman with his gun—”
“Yes, but they protected themselves!” Geritsi said, turning to him. “They caught the bullets and sent them back—Tekelia told me. They said that Eet had—” She stopped and looked at Dyoli, who was dusting cake crumbs off her fingers.
“They said that Eet had helped them,” Geritsi finished slowly. “Could that—”
“Very possibly,” Dyoli said, accepting the tea bottle from Mar Tyn, “but that is, if you’ll forgive me, of secondary importance. What must be done, and at once, is to release that knot before Torin weakens any further.”
Geritsi pulled herself up. “Are you competent to do this work, Healer?”
Dyoli looked grim.
“I am,” she said, “and necessity is. However, I cannot guarantee that I won’t do damage—even mortal damage.”
The color drained out of Geritsi’s face.
“Mortal damage, Healer?” Vayeen growled. “Would you murder one of our children?”
Dyoli moved her hand in a sharp gesture. “I hope I am more skilled than that. However, the possibility exists that the process will damage the norbear. I can hold the children inside Healspace while I make repairs, but the norbear—the points of connection are not congruent. I cannot say what will happen. You understand that I may have to cut certain threads. Happily, the original weavings were done in such a way as to avoid critical systems. The children may be bruised, a little, but they will recover entirely.”
“Having only lost their final link to their mother,” Geritsi said, “and their constant companion.”
Dyoli spread her hands.
“I will do what I can to keep them all safe. In my capacity as a Healer, I recommend an immediate intervention, before Torin becomes any weaker, and Healing becomes both more difficult, and more dangerous.”
Geritsi looked to Vayeen. Vayeen drew a deep breath and turned his palms up.
Geritsi inclined her head.
“We agree to an immediate intervention. However, I insist that all of us be fortified before work goes forth. Vayeen, please bespeak a tray from the cafe. Dyoli, will you wake the children?”
They had all eaten a very substantial snack, whereupon Vaiza asked if their trouble was a kink or a tangle.
“It is past any tangle I have ever seen,” Dyoli told him, truthfully. “It Looks to me like a terrific snarl. If you would like to think of your patterns as woven from slightly stretchy threads, it is as if something stretched certain of your, Torin, and Eet’s threads much too far, and when they rebounded, they did not tidily return to their proper places, but tangled around each other, as if trying to make a new pattern. If it had been dealt with immediately, it would not have been difficult to set right. But it has had some time to continue to grow, and now it is dangerous, especially to Torin.”
Vaiza looked at Torin.
“We made it worse,” he said, “with the balancement.”
“That is an open question,” Dyoli said. “You may instead have slowed its growth. We cannot know that.”
Mar Tyn, sitting next to Dyoli, felt a shiver along the inner pathway his Gift traveled upon. He sat up a little straighter, breathed in, and waited, not without some trepidation. It was true that his relationship with his Gift had changed dramatically since they had arrived on Colemeno. For most of his life, he had been Luck’s puppet, and he was on his guard, lest the old order seek to reestablish itself.
His Luck did not seek to move him, however. The feeling faded and he brought his attention back to the table.
“I do not hide from you that what we will be undertaking between us is risky,” Dyoli was saying. “Torin is more at risk than you, Vaiza, because she is being drained by the action of the knot. Eet is more at risk than either of you, because he is a norbear. It’s possible that I will not even be able to bring him into Healspace, in which case, he may not survive the Healing.”
Torin gave a cry, her hand going to her throat.
“No!” she said. “I won’t have Eet harmed!”
“Torin—” Vaiza spun in his chair and caught Torin’s free hand. “If we don’t have the Healing, you won’t get better.” He turned his head and caught Mar Tyn’s eye. “That’s right, isn’t it Mar Tyn?”
“As I understand the situation,” Mar Tyn said gravely, “if Dyoli does not repair this now—or very soon—Torin will get weaker, until she becomes too weak to wake.”
There came a flicker in the space behind his eyes, where Lady Selph had more than once shown him faces, and offered reassurance. This touch was different, though, definitely not Lady Selph; someone less polished, though no less assured.
The first face that formed was of a woman with the same dark hair and blue eyes as the twins, followed hard by a man’s clever face, sharp black eyes, and determined chin.
“Yes, but Mother and Pel are dead,” Torin said straitly, apparently in answer to those comments. Eet the norbear sat on his haunches and stared at her. Again, the woman’s face, from a different angle, as she sat on the edge of a bed, gazing down at two young sleeping children. Mar Tyn had the impression of concentration, of infinite care; almost he saw the flicker of the threads as she wove—
“Yes—” began Torin, but Eet was not to be interrupted. The woman continued weaving, and her focus was terrible to observe. Finally, she paused, and raised a hand. Mar Tyn felt as if she were pressing the top of his head, realized it must have been Eet she was touching, even as he felt a question asked, a promise made—and a compact sealed.
“Mother made Eet promise to protect us,” Vaiza said solemnly.
Torin spun to face him.
“But she didn’t make him promise to die!”
“Pel promised to protect us,” Vaiza said. “And he died. Mother protected us—”
“And she died!” Torin cried, tears running her cheeks.
“I don’t want you to die,” Vaiza said simply.
In the space behind Mar Tyn’s eyes, another picture formed, this of Eet, standing tall between the twins, all three of them facing Dyoli. The image was saturated with strength.
It was an impressively complex sending, Mar Tyn thought, and after a moment, Torin wilted.
“No one wants anyone to be hurt,” Geritsi said quietly.
“I will be as careful as I may be,” Dyoli added. “Eet is very brave and he has so far upheld his oath with strength and with honor. I have no doubt that he will continue to do so.”
There was silence around the table. Dyoli drank what was left of her tea, and put the cup on the table.
“I will need permission to continue,” she said gently. “Torin? Vaiza? Eet?”
Eet’s agreement came first, firm and loud.
“Yes,” Vaiza said, and took his sister’s hand. “Torin?”
She hiccuped and raised her head to look Dyoli directly in the eye.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Dyoli closed her eyes, centered herself, and stepped into Healspace.
Orange and cream mist wafted about her, cool, comforting, and vital. She breathed that vitality into her core, breathed it out and said, “Torin. Vaiza. Eet.”
Two tapestries immediately formed in the mist before her—Vaiza and Torin. A moment later, a third tapestry arose, slowly, as if learning its shape even as it formed. It was smaller than the other two; there were gaps, and a tendency to fade. But it was connected to Torin and Vaiza. Connected by strong threads of love, accommodation, and duty.
Dyoli waited, and it was well she did so, because a fourth pattern abruptly snapped into existence—a twisted, spinning snarl of energies, distorted and hungry, with thin threads binding it to Vaiza, to Eet—and one thick cable anchored in Torin.
Dyoli brought her attention to that malicious knot, extending her senses, willing there to be a loose end. Their mother—so skilled a weaver!—surely she would have left a loose end, something harmless and quick, that would undo what she had wrought, painlessly, as soon as danger was past?
But there was nothing to be found; the snarl was too tight. She was going to have to cut threads…
She hesitated. The knife was not her first, or even her second, tool. Mitigation, ease, gentle regrowth—those were her preferred methods. In this case, a cut should not be necessary. All that was needed was a simple release.
Why, she thought desperately, was there no release?
Isn’t there? Mar Tyn asked, just inside her ear.
Safe inside Healspace, Dyoli shivered, and felt the electric tingle that meant the Gift she shared with Mar Tyn was—active.
Do you See it, my Mar Tyn? she dared to ask, and felt the ripple of his amusement.
No—you’re our Eyes in this. I only ask: Couldn’t there be a release?
She took a breath as before her Eyes, the patterns shifted, the snarl fading to the background, the sparse alien pattern that was Eet coming to the fore.
And there—yes, there!—was a simple black thread, homey and ordinary, with a loop tied in its end.
Dyoli took hold—
And pulled.
The Healer had once again entranced the children, this time including the norbear in her web of peaceful drowsing.
Vayeen, Watching from the window seat with Geritsi and Dosent, allowed that the Healer knew her work. Gentle she was, and specifically unthreatening, easing the children, and Eet, too, into a state of warm vulnerability.
He Saw the moment she stepped aside into a pocket of the ambient, and Felt the action of her will as she drew her subjects to her.
Beside him, Geritsi drew a hard breath, and put a hand on his knee. He shifted so that she could lean closer against him, sharing comfort.
Long minutes passed, the ambient reflecting fierce fires of concentration, and dogged care, amidst twisted shadows of hungry malice.
There came a glimmer, as if the Healer had found her answer. Vayeen caught his breath, feeling Geritsi start forward even as the shadow loomed, and the glimmer died aborning.
Vayeen Felt the ambient tighten with the Healer’s despair, and looked to the table, where all sat motionless, his Eye drawn to Mar Tyn pai’Fortana, at the Healer’s right, his hand pressing hers, surrounded by the colorful nimbus of the ambient’s regard—which should not be possible, Vayeen thought, in a shielded room.
Even as he Watched, the nimbus grew brighter, until the entire table took fire. The ambient was crooning, close and dear, and Vayeen heard dice rattling inside his ear.
In that moment, there came a lurch, a lunge, a leap; the ambient’s song became a shout! For a moment Vayeen’s Vision doubled, so that he saw two tables, both equally possible, stretching away into the realms of what might be—
Something snapped.
Everything was still and calm at the only table that was possible—the only table that had ever been possible—in this time and place.
The nimbus faded; the ambient’s song was a pleased and loving trill.
At the table, Dyoli ven’Deelin opened her eyes, took a breath, and said to the room at large—
“It is done.”