The Tery

  Kitru laughed aloud. "Friend? Oh, I'm afraid you're crazier than anyone ever imagined, Rab. This is her pet!"

  "I am a man," the tery said.

  The tery was not quite sure why he had said it; he could not truly say he thought of himself as a man. The declaration had escaped of its own volition.

  Kitru stepped back, shock blanching his face. Then he sneered.

  "You're not a man! You're nothing but a filthy animal who can mimic a few words."

  "How strange," Rab said in a goading tone. "I was just thinking the same thing about you."

  In a sudden rage, Kitru roared and aimed a cut at the tery's throat, no doubt hoping to catch the beast off guard and then dispose of the others at his leisure. He lunged wildly, however, and the tery leaped aside and aimed a balled fist at the back of the keep lord's neck. Kitru went down without a sound and lay still, his head at an unnatural angle.

  Rab came over and nudged the body with his toe.

  "I wish you hadn't done that. I was going to trade his life for safe passage out of here."

  "There'll be no safe passage for us anywhere now!" Dennel wailed.

  "We can still get back to the forest," Rab told him.

  "The forest. What good is that to me? It's a living hell out there. I can't go back."

  "If the other Talents can manage, so can you."

  "I – I'm not like others. I can't live like an animal, scrabbling about for food and shelter. The forest has always scared me. I'm frightened every day out there, every minute. I can't eat, I can't sleep."

  "But out there you live as a man," Rab said. "Here, you live as a tool, and you're allowed to do that only so long as you prove yourself useful."

  "No – you don't understand." A thin line of perspiration was beading along Dennel's upper lip. "I can reason with them...make them accept me."

  Rab turned away. "Suit yourself." He indicated Kitru's inert form. "Think you can make them accept that?"

  The tery had already forgotten Kitru and was kneeling beside Adriel. The girl stared vacantly ahead but did not appear to be physically injured. The tery lifted her, one arm across her back, one under her knees, and held her tightly against him. She was breathing slowly, regularly, as if sleeping. How strange and wonderful to hold her like this.

  After a long moment, he turned to Rab.

  "She will be all right?"

  "She'll be fine."

  Rab was busy wrapping the four remaining books in a wall drapery. Even from across the room the tery could sense something strange, alien about those volumes. Rab tied a knot, then carried them to the center of the room.

  "If we get out alive," he said. "And I've got an idea of how we might do that. If we can get downstairs unseen -

  "

  "There is one debt yet due in this keep," the tery said.

  He had tasted vengeance tonight and craved more. One more life needed to be brought to an end before the balance would be restored: The parent-slayer dwelt below in the barracks.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "A captain named Ghentren must die before I leave tonight."

  "Ghentren left a little while ago," Dennel said from the doorway. "He was sent to Mekk's fortress with a sample of the books and news of the captured Finder. He's gone."

  "Forget him," Rab said, swinging the sack of books over his shoulder.

  The tery said nothing, but knew he could not forget him. Balance would not be restored until Ghentren's blood had seeped into the dirt like his mother's and father's.

  Rab headed for the steps, pulling Dennel after him. "Come. We'll get you out of here alive."

  The tery brought up the rear, carrying Adriel's limp form as gently and smoothly as possible. He kept his eyes on Dennel, directly ahead of him, watching him closely.

  Why are we bringing this traitor with us? he thought. He could not forgive Dennel for betraying Adriel. If he wanted to return here so badly, why not let him stay?"

  As they rounded a curve in the stairway, he noted a subtle change in Dennel's demeanor. The young man's slumped, dejected posture gradually straightened. He stole a quick glance over his shoulder at the now-burdened beast behind him. The tery sensed trouble brewing.

  Then without warning, Dennel leaped for one of the window openings in the wall.

  "Guard! Guar – !"

  The tery's fury erupted. With one quick movement, his right arm snaked out and lifted Dennel into the air by his throat. He swung him in an arc and smashed the young man's head against the stone wall, cracking it like an egg. A grisly stain remained on the stones as he loosed his grip and let him drop.

  Rab's face blanched. "Did you have to do that?"

  The tery looked at the limp, twisted form and felt that the balance was a little closer to being restored.

  "If his yelling brought the troopers, we'd all be dead. Now only he is dead; we still live, and there are no troopers." He clutched Adriel closer. "If he wishes to be killed, he should not include us."

  Rab sighed. "He didn't think he'd be killed. I caught a flash from his mind in the instant he called out – he thought he could use sounding the alarm as a show of loyalty. Poor Dennel. He feared the forest, and they wouldn't let him stay here."

  "Poor Dennel?"

  The tery didn't understand. You were loyal to friends and family, you protected them against those who would harm them. Dennel had done none of those things. Why Poor Dennel?

  Continuing the descent, Rab grabbed a torch out of its holder on the wall and led the way to the kitchen. The scullions had not yet arrived. Rab found the wood pile for the stove in a corner. He shoved the torch into it.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Giving Kitru's men something to worry about besides us."

  That struck the tery as a brilliant idea, but he feared large fires. Everyone who lived in the forest did.

  As the wood started to catch, Rab went to a window and looked outside. The tery followed.

  The stars were fading and the sky was lightening beyond the wall. Pre-dawn.

  "Good timing for us," Rab said. "It's that hour of the day when consciousness has ebbed to its nadir, when the man awake finds it most difficult to remain so, and when the man asleep is most inert."

  The smoke from the fire had filled the ceiling space and was now moving down upon them. The tery's eyes began to burn.

  Rab coughed. "Let's go."

  Rab and the tery became two wraiths skimming across the courtyard to stand and wait in the shadow under the walkway on the outer wall, each with his own precious burden.

  They did not have to wait too long – it only seemed that way. The tery kept looking at the brightening sky, knowing that soon the shadows would fade, exposing them. The initial whisps of smoke from the kitchen went unnoticed. Not until the flames caught the door and licked upward did a groggy sentry sound the alarm.

  All available hands rushed to quench the conflagration. As a bucket brigade formed from the well to the kitchen, Rab and the tery crept up the steps to the parapet. Rab threw his books over the side, then reached for Adriel.

  The tery held her, unwilling to let her go.

  "I'll hold her while you go over," Rab said. "Hurry!"

  Reluctantly the tery gave her over, then scurried down the outer wall. Reaching the ground, he lifted his arms, feeling his heart beating in his throat. If he missed her…

  Rab dropped Adriel over the edge and the tery caught her. He put her down briefly to catch Rab, then he had her in his arms again.

  "Now run," Rab whispered. "Somebody's sure to spot us before we reach the trees, so run like you've never run before!"

  The tery found the going difficult. He was built to travel on all fours, yet with Adriel in his arms he had to run in an upright position. Her weight threw his balance off, but he still managed to outstrip Rab in their race for safety.

  They were half way to the trees when a call went up from one of the few sentries remaining on the wall. Before many arrows could be loosed, however
, they were out of accurate range for even the best of the keep's archers. The trees closed in on them and they were safe.

  -XIV-

  After putting a little more distance between themselves and the keep, Rab called for a halt and dropped his bundle of books to the sward.

  "I don't think there'll be much pursuit, if any," he panted, leaning against a tree trunk. "Once they find Kitru dead, there'll be nothing but chaos in the keep."

  The tery stood with Adriel still in his arms, barely listening, his mind racing. Rab's voice trailed off. The tery felt his gaze settle on him, flicking over Adriel and the way he held her.

  "Why don't you put her down and we'll see if we can bring her around."

  Lost in the sensation of Adriel's inert form against his chest as he clutched her tightly, possessively, it took the tery a while before he could answer. Her warmth, her softness, her scent...all awakening a timeless ache deep within him. He had never been so close to her. Holding her like this...

  He had come to a decision.

  "That won't be necessary," he told Rab in a dry voice.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "We're not going to rejoin the psi-folk. We'll find a life of our own in the forest. I'll protect her, provide for her, and no one will ever harm or threaten her again."

  Rab's expression was sad. "I don't think that would be wise," he said softly.

  The tery spoke in a rush, as much in an effort to convince himself as Rab.

  "I'm human, am I not? You told me so yourself."

  "Yes, but that doesn't mean –"

  "Right now I feel very human. She's human, too. And she's lonely and unhappy living with the psi-folk. I could make her happy. She loves me – she's told me so, many times."

  "She loves you as a beast. As a pet." Rab straightened and approached the tery. "But will she love you as a man?"

  "She will learn."

  "You don't know that. It's a choice that only she can make. And if you take her away and try to make it for her, then you're no better than Kitru and the captain who killed your parents." His voice softened. "And there are some hard facts you must accept: If by some wild chance she did accept you as a man and a husband, the offspring of your bonding would carry your shape – or much of it."

  The idea startled the tery. He hadn't thought of children. He envisioned horrid mixtures of Adriel and himself that left him speechless.

  "Your ancestors were deformed at the whim of some diseased mind. This atrocity has been perpetuated for generations. It might be best for you to decide to bring the Teratols' colossal joke to an end – let it go no further than you."

  Anger and bitterness thickened the tery's voice as he spoke.

  "I would find that easy to say if, like you, the only mark I carried was the ability to speak with my mind – a 'gift' rather than a deformity. It is easy to speak of letting the curse go no further if someone else must make the sacrifice."

  A grim smile played about Rab's mouth. "Why do you think I've spent most of my life looking for a link between teries and humans? I told you I knew there was a link – how do you think I knew?"

  "You?"

  Rab nodded. "I was born with a tail, as were my mother and brother and sister, and their mother before them." He shook his head sadly. "What amusement my ancestors must have caused some depraved Teratol. Normal in every way except for a scaly rat's tail."

  The tery sensed the pain and humiliation in Rab's voice. It echoed his own.

  "So, you're a tery, too."

  "Yes. But for generations my family has seen to it that the tail is cut off flush with the body immediately at birth – there's virtually no scar left if done that early in life. And so they have passed for all those generations as humans, yet all the while thinking of themselves as teries, lower life forms somehow altered by the Great Sickness so that they looked and acted like humans. I'm sure some of my forebears suspected that they might be human, but none was ever so sure as I. For I had another birthright besides a tail – I had the Talent. Neither my mother nor my father was so gifted – perhaps each carried an incomplete piece of the Talent within, and those pieces fused into a whole when I came to be. I don't know. There's so much I don't know. But I did know I was a tery with the Talent, and only humans had been known to possess the Talent. So I decided to prove I was human."

  "What has this to do with me?"

  "I also decided that the Teratols have laughed long enough. I shall father no children."

  The tery stood unmoving, eyeing Rab intently. He had known the man only a short while but had come to trust him. He sensed he was telling the truth. Yet he could not bring himself to put Adriel down. He felt he would explode if he did not have her. He had to take her away with him.

  "You cannot stop me, Rab."

  "That's true. You've killed two men tonight, nearly killed a third. You could kill me easily. But you won't. Because I sense something in you, something better than that. I sense in you most of the good things that are human. And you won't force yourself upon the girl who befriended you."

  The tery swayed. The forest seemed to reel and spin around him. He so wanted to be an equal in Adriel's eyes, but he never could be if they stayed with the Talents. What should he do? What was the right thing to do?

  Rab emptied his ancient metallic volumes from the drapery that had served as a sack, and spread it on the ground. He stared at the tery expectantly.

  After a brief, tense moment, the tery gently placed Adriel on the cloth and folded it over her. Feeling a sob building in his throat, he straightened and started to move toward the forest depths.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Away. I don't belong here."

  "Yes, you do. Or at least, you will. You'll be a hero among the Talents."

  "I'll still be a pet."

  What had been amusing before seemed intolerable now.

  "You don't have to remain one."

  "You'll tell them?" Hope began to grow. "Explain to them?"

  "I'll help you become a man in their eyes. The Talents won't accept you as one right away, and they may even reject you if we push your humanness on them too forcefully. So we'll start slowly. You'll talk more and more; you'll start to use tools. I'll guide you. Before I'm through I'll have them thinking of you as a man before I ever get around to telling them. And the first thing to do will be to give you a name."

  The tery turned and watched Rab's eyes as he spoke. Only one other man had ever looked at him that way.

  Rab held out his hand. "Will you stay...brother?"

  The tery looked away and said nothing. Moving slowly, almost painfully, he returned to Adriel's side. Lowering himself to his knees, he slumped and hung his head over her, wondering what to do. He remained in that position for a long time. He sensed Rab moving away to sit quietly with his back against a tree.

  The tableau was broken by the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush nearby. Both were on their feet immediately: Rab half-hidden behind the tree trunk, the tery crouched over Adriel, ready to spring.

  A lone man broke into view. Tlad.

  -XV-

  Tlad stopped at the edge of the clearing and stared at Adriel's inert form.

  "Is she hurt?"

  The tery sensed real concern in his voice.

  Rab cautiously stepped out from behind his tree.

  "No. Just drugged. Who are you?"

  "I'm called Tlad. The tery here can vouch for me."

  Rab glanced sharply in the tery's direction. "He knows?"

  The tery nodded – a very human gesture he had picked up – and lowered himself to all fours next to Adriel.

  "He is a good friend. I don't know how he knows, but he does – perhaps for a long time. Maybe he is a tery, too."

  The tery was beginning to feel the physical, mental, and emotional strain of the night's events. His mind and body were numb. A great weight seemed to press down on his chest and shoulders, making it hard to stand.

  Everything was comin
g apart. He wanted to lie down and let it all pass. He felt adrift...lost...stripped of his identity. His place in the world had been torn from him: He was no longer a tery, he was a human. But he could neither live as a human nor be accepted as one. Nothing added up. He knew Tlad should not have been able to find them, yet he had. The tery did not have the will to wonder how.

  Not so Rab, who had regained his composure and was wasting no time in satisfying his curiosity. His voice seemed to echo down a long tunnel to the tery.

  "How did you know to look for us here?"

  "I have my –" Tlad began, but stopped short.

  "Is something wrong?"

  But Tlad did not answer. Instead, he rushed to where the ancient volumes had been spilled from the drapery and knelt to inspect them in the growing light.

  "These are yours?"

  "Yes."

  "Where did you find them?"

  "In the ruins near Mekk's fortress when I lived there."

  "Then you must be the one the Talents have been waiting for. Rab, isn't it?"

  "Yes, but you're not one of us."

  "Right." Tlad continued speaking as he flipped through each of the volumes. "But they're not far behind me. They're heading directly for the keep. I suggest you let them know where you are. They should be in range."

  Rab looked off into the forest for a moment, then returned his attention to Tlad.

  "There. They know we're safe and where we are. Should be here soon. Now, tell me what –"

  "Where's Volume Five?" Tlad quickly ran through the four volumes a second time. "Did you lose it?"

  With a dumbfounded expression, Rab sat down with a jolt on the other side of the pile of books.

  "Who are you? I'm the only one who can read these things. How could you know that Volume Five is missing? This is the only set."

  "Wrong." Tlad said, voice low, words hurried. "I come from a fishing village but never had much of a bent for the sea. So as a boy I used to comb the ruins up the coast. I found a similar set and brought it to the village elder who knew how to read some of the ancient writing. He kept the books for a long time, and when he was finally through with them, he made me row him out past the reef. As we sat in the boat, he swore me to secrecy and told me what the books contained. Then he threw all five overboard."