“Fine!” Keribdis shouted. “Wyden? Make a new count, please?”
There was a soft sigh. “Yes, Keribdis,” and the noise subsided to a slow mutter.
“See what you’ve started,” Alissa thought at Beast, and Beast sniffed in annoyance.
“May I have a word with you, Redal-Stan?” came Keribdis’s thought, soft into Alissa’s.
“Of course. But don’t expect we won’t be overheard,” he said, and Alissa winced at her unhelped-for eavesdropping.
“What the Hounds are you doing?” Keribdis said. “I’ve had this issue grounded since yesterday. Lodesh is fluff and flotsam. Are you trying to make my life difficult on a whim, or is this a political ploy?”
“Neither.” Redal-Stan sighed. “Lodesh isn’t as scatterbrained as you’ve been led to believe. He’s very popular in the city.”
Keribdis paused. “Well-liked? A pawn then?”
“Wolves no,” he cried. “He’s far too clever for that. Actually,” he said reluctantly, “he moves easily between the common and Keeper fractions.”
Alissa’s heart sank.
“Really,” Keribdis mused. “So you’re serious about this?”
“Apparently.” It was a very dry comment.
“Very well. We will do it the hard way.” Alissa felt Keribdis gather herself. “Wyden?”
Wyden’s presence grew strong, giving Alissa the impression of clearing her throat. “We have a movement to three absence, fifteen Lodesh, and forty-four Earan. And yours, which is?”
“Earan,” Keribdis said. “I assume everyone knows who has sided with whom and why?”
Silence.
“Then,” she said, “who wants to go first?”
Again the silence. Not even a whisper.
“Come now,” Keribdis cajoled. “Someone must have something somebody else wants.”
“My tour of Hold duty is upon me in three seasons,” came a masculine thought. “I’ll come in early and free someone if they switch their vote back to Earan.”
“I’ll do it,” chimed someone. “I have four seasons left in the Hold with two students who lack the restraint to make Keeper. I’m sure they could be encouraged to leave soon.”
“Fine,” the first voice agreed, “but I want no new students for five years, minimum.”
“You want a tower room but no obligations?” cried a third voice. “That won’t happen.”
“I’ll take anybody’s responsibilities for the next eighty years,” bellowed a new voice, “but I want a vote for Lodesh!”
“Eighty years! They’ll all be dead by then.”
Confused, Alissa whispered to Redal-Stan, “What’s going on?”
“Vote buying at its most honest, Squirrel, vote buying.”
“You mean,” Alissa said quietly, her outrage growing, “the decision of the next Warden isn’t based upon merit but on who wants the summer free and who will do whom’s chores!”
“I’m ’fraid so.”
“That’s wrong!” exploded Beast, shocking Alissa to a stunned silence. “The city wants someone they trust, depend on, someone they like! Not a self-serving, egotistical bully who will willingly bow to whatever you want out of fear or loyalty.”
“Quiet,” Redal-Stan hissed privately at her. But it had been Beast. She had shut Alissa out, leaving Alissa struggling frantically for control.
“I will not be silent!” Beast shouted, and the buzz of dealings hesitated. “Lodesh has studied those he lives among. He knows what will make the baker agree to the blacksmith’s ideas so both are pleased. He appears simple because it’s easier to get things done that way!”
“I said shut up, Squirrel!”
“You’re Masters of what?” Beast raged. “Everyone? Try mastering yourself. Look at you, bargaining with the helpless to shirk your responsibilities. Loosen your grip,” she warned. “You’re strangling your children, the very ones who freed you.”
“Who,” came Talo-Toecan’s startled thought, “is that?”
Redal-Stan formed a field about himself and Alissa. The stunned silence was replaced by Redal-Stan’s angry presence. “Get out,” he snapped, and he booted her from his thoughts.
Her eyes flashed open to find Redal-Stan glaring at her. Connen-Neute’s eyes were wide with shock. She stared at Redal-Stan, frightened that Beast had taken control so easily. Alissa hadn’t been able to stop her. Beast had called her bluff and won. Panicking, Alissa opened her mouth to explain and ask for help, but Beast took control again. Alissa felt her face harden. “Fine,” Beast said aloud through Alissa, and Alissa found herself standing up.
Redal-Stan pointed a trembling finger at the door, and she walked out. “I didn’t want to stay anyway, old one,” Beast snarled, and slammed the door.
Beast stormed Alissa down the stairs, earning several stares and raised eyebrows. Beast wasn’t paying attention, so Alissa managed to divert them to the garden and the firepit. They sat in the dark on the cold stone: Beast fuming, Alissa panicking. Alissa didn’t think Beast knew she was in control, or they would have shifted and flown away. Alissa struggled to move a finger, blink, anything, becoming more frightened until, like a soap bubble bursting, she was back in control.
Alissa gasped at the sensation. A wave of cold assailed her. Beast’s thoughts turned panicked. Alissa had been right. Beast hadn’t known she was in control. She did now, though, and Beast’s wail of dismay flooded Alissa’s mind.
“I broke my word!” Beast cried. “I stole your wind as I said I wouldn’t.” She hesitated. “You’re going to destroy me. You must! I can’t be trusted!”
Alissa’s wildly thudding heart eased at Beast’s obvious dismay. And as Redal-Stan hadn’t known what happened, they could work this out by themselves. “Beast,” Alissa said firmly, trying to disguise her fear. “You made a mistake. Why? What was different?”
“You’re not angry?” Beast asked tremulously.
“I’m furious,” Alissa said softly, “but clearly you weren’t aware you had taken control.”
“No,” she whispered.
“It’s been happening a lot lately.” Cold from more than the night, Alissa lit the wood already laid out and leaned close to the flames. The Hold loomed dark above her. The same walls, the same stones, full of life but empty of the one she sought.
“I know,” Beast said meekly. “I’m sorry.”
Alissa sighed, wondering why she was having so much trouble with Beast lately. “And now Lodesh has gone from a fool to a candidate for Wardenship.”
Beast said nothing, all but disappearing in a wash of misery.
Alone in her thoughts, Alissa allowed her worry at Beast’s slip to come flowing back. Accident or not, it had happened. She sat and stewed, reluctant to move. She felt more herself at the firepit than she had all day.
The moon was set and the sun nearly risen when Connen-Neute spiraled silently down and woke her from an uncomfortable doze. He gazed at her, his golden eyes full of worry. He knew it had been Beast speaking, not her. “Well?” she prompted with a feeling of futility.
“Lodesh is the Hold’s choice. It was realized his foolishness is indeed a ploy to avoid responsibility. His apparent gullibility is more of an asset than Earan’s loyalty. And Earan’s recent attempt to burn another’s tracings in anger raised questions as to his control.”
Alissa felt a tear form and her shoulders slump. She never meant for this to happen.
“If it helps,” he offered awkwardly, “Beast’s words had nothing to do with the decision.”
“Please go away,” she said. Not wanting him to see her cry twice in one night, she put her head in her hands, and he silently left. She didn’t know if it bothered her more that Lodesh was going to be the Warden or that Beast’s words of shame had been heard and ignored.
29
Srell sat at the firepit, shaking inside. Warm rain slipped down his collar as he clutched the stone bench with a white-knuckled fervor and stared at the damp night. Steam rose from the warm earth,
adding to his feeling of unreality. “Thanks,” he whispered raggedly to Talon, and the small kestrel chittered from her sheltered position in a bush. His heart slowed, and he forced his grip to loosen. Putting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head into his hands. Alissa’s presence filled the firepit, and he basked in it.
“That wasn’t a good idea,” he whispered. He squinted into the dark as a gust of rain and wind, accompanied by Talo-Toecan, descended. The old raku said nothing, preferring to remain in a form that didn’t mind the wet. “I’m not going to do that again,” Strell said defensively.
The raku rumbled a question.
Strell wiped the rain from his eyes. “I purposely stopped following Alissa as you suggested. Your idea that she would sense my lack of presence as I had sensed hers was a good one, Talo-Toecan,” he stammered. “But she wasn’t paying attention. Something was distracting her. And then,” Strell breathed, remembering his fright, “I lost her completely.”
With a savage, clawlike finger, the Master gestured for him to explain.
Strell struggled to find the words. “I followed her thoughts to Ese’Nawoer’s grove—”
Talo-Toecan expressed his wonder with a rumble.
“I know that’s where she went,” Strell said. “I can sense her even at that distance now, and that’s just it,” he pleaded. “I followed her flight back and felt her settle in the tower, one of the upper rooms, and then, nothing.” He looked up, his pulse quickening in the memory of his fear. “She was gone. I ran upstairs, thinking if I could juxtapose ourselves again, she might reappear, but even the memory of her was gone.”
Talo-Toecan raised his head in alarm, and Strell held up a reassuring hand. “Talon led me to her. As soon as I reached the firepit, she was there to be found.”
The raku’s eyes narrowed with puzzlement. He shifted in a swirl of gray almost indistinguishable from the rain and dark, appearing with an ugly, wide-brimmed hat atop his head. “A moment,” he said, stepping down into the pit. “The involvement of Talon aside, you want me to believe your lack of proximity to Alissa triggered a disillusionment of her?”
Strell frowned, uncaring if the Master believed him or not.
“Perhaps,” Talo-Toecan offered, “you simply lost your sensitivity of her.”
He shook his head, feeling his hair stick to him. “She was gone, then she was back.”
His expression deep in thought, Talo-Toecan adjusted his hat and bent to sit.
“Not there!” Strell shouted, and the Master halted halfway down. Giving a small grunt, he edged three steps to the left and sat. Strell rubbed his forehead, pinching it to try to drive the soft headache away. His fingers were slick with rain.
“Strell?” came Talo-Toecan’s slow, wary voice. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” he said around a sigh. “Nothing. I can’t seem to do anything.”
“No,” the Master said. “My tracings are resonating. Portions of it, anyway. And Lodesh is skulking in the kitchen, too far away to account for it.”
Strell looked up, his astonishment mirrored by Talo-Toecan’s in the soft dark. “May I look at your tracings?” the Master asked softly.
Strell blinked. “My—” His breath caught at the implications. “Yes.”
Talo-Toecan’s gaze went distant. Strell held himself still, his pulse hammering, knowing Talo-Toecan was peering into his mind, able to see his tangled tracings but none of his thoughts if what Alissa said was true. Even so, he kept his emotions carefully blank. Talo-Toecan’s head tilted, and his jaw snapped shut. “Wolves,” the Master said, his face ashen as he stared at Strell.
Hope lit through him. “A pattern?” Strell asked. “Did you see a pattern? What am I doing? Am I a Keeper?”
Talo-Toecan shook his head vehemently. “No. No Keeper, Strell. Keeper tracings are very precise, as are Master’s, and you’re neither. I can promise you that.” His eyes went distant. “Wolves,” he whispered again.
“But I’m doing something?”
“Yes.” He dropped his head into a hand, and Strell’s eyes widened at the unusual show of unease. “Tell me, did anyone in your ancestry have, by chance, a foothills background?”
Strell stiffened on the wet bench. The suggestion was an insult to someone born in the plains. Then he swallowed his pride, knowing it had no place in his new, hard-won view of the plains and foothills. “My grandfather had blue eyes,” he said shortly, still affronted.
Talo-Toecan took a deep breath. “The Hirdunes are a chartered name, yes? Can you follow your line back to the coast?”
Taking a stick, Strell began to sketch in the soggy earth, the marks washing away as quickly as he wrote them. “Yes,” he said uneasily as he finished. “Lodesh is right. My far-back grandmother is his sister. I don’t know her background—I imagine Lodesh could tell you—but my far-back grandfather came from the coast.” He looked up, reading surprise in the old Master’s expression. Strell swallowed a smirk. What did Talo-Toecan expect? Strell had a chartered name. His lineage had been part of his sister’s dowries. Of course he would know it.
But the Master had returned his gaze to the fire. “Why were there never any Keepers?” he was muttering intently. “Someone scarred the entire family line and is trying to destroy the evidence.” His head rose. “Keribdis?” he breathed.
Strell’s jaw clenched. His family had a disturbing history of narrowly escaping annihilation from plague, fire, and more recently, flood. “Why is she trying to wipe my family out?” he demanded. “What the Wolves is wrong with me? With us?”
Talo-Toecan started. “Um,” he stammered. “Nothing. I think your misaligned tracings are what’s allowing you to find Alissa through time where Lodesh and I can’t. The few fragments I can see resonating in my thoughts would be used to find septhama points, among other things. I think you’re somehow tapping into that.”
“Septhama points are where ghosts come from,” Strell said, feeling a stab of alarm.
“Not really, but that’s pretty much what Alissa is right now, isn’t she?” Looking across the wet night at Strell, his golden eyes seemed to glow, sending a shiver through him. “I have a few mental exercises to help smooth the scar tissue across your tracings,” the Master said softly. “I’d have mentioned it earlier, but it seemed pointless. It will help get rid of your headaches.”
Strell’s eyes went wide. “How do you know I’m having headaches?”
Talo-Toecan stirred as if Strell had confirmed a suspicion. Adjusting his hat so the rain fell at his feet he said, “They stem from a lack of clean flow of energy through your tracings.”
“But you said they were a tangled mess.”
“They are. But it might help.” He hesitated. “Perhaps . . . perhaps you shouldn’t say anything to Lodesh about this,” Talo-Toecan said. “Until we know for sure.”
Strell’s breath left him shakily. It sounded like a good idea to him.
30
“Lodesh!”
Lodesh’s elbows slid off the narrow table. His breakfast dishes rattled, and he looked sheepishly at the woman who had raised him, standing above him with her hands on her hips.
“For the third time, dear. Will you please take the ward off the window? The morning has grown warm.”
“Yes, Mother. Sorry.” The ward vanished. The scent of mirth flowers drifted in to mix with the rhythmic, soothing sound of Reeve sharpening his shears.
“Collecting daydreams so early?” his mother said as she settled across from him so the light fell across her sewing.
Reeve gave a small harrumph. “I expect our son still has his thoughts on his gathering last night. From the amount of noise they put out, I would say it was a success.”
“Aye,” she answered dryly. “A huge success.”
Lost in finding the bottom of his cup, Lodesh smiled. It had been a resounding success.
“M-m-m,” Reeve grunted. “That reminds me. Someone tore the moss under the westernmost tree. See that it gets replaced. And use
the moss still damp with dew so it settles in properly,” he admonished, his eyes firmly on his shears.
“Yes, Father.” Lodesh flushed. He hadn’t known his and Alissa’s dance had done any damage until he had gone out to inspect the grove this morning. He had anticipated a severe chastisement. This calm acceptance was unexpected.
His mother squinted as she threaded her needle. “I’m surprised you managed to drag yourself out of bed this early.”
“Haven’t seen my bed, yet,” Lodesh admitted. “I’ve been helping the stragglers home.”
“With Alissa!” his mother cried, setting her work down.
“No. She left at moonrise. She was called back to the Hold.”
“You let her return unescorted?” she said, even more shocked.
“No. Connen-Neute took her.” Lodesh’s eyes flicked worriedly to Reeve, but he seemed unusually complacent this morning, contenting himself with only a slight grimace.
“Connen-Neute, you say?” his mother mused aloud. “Reeve, dear. What do you suppose Redal-Stan wanted from a Keeper that couldn’t wait until morning?” She bit her thread free, and a freshly mended apron fell back into the pile of never-ending mending.
Reeve gave a noncommittal grunt.
Lodesh stacked his dishes to make room for his tea. What had Redal-Stan wanted? he wondered. True, Alissa had left early, but he said everything he had intended. And his words had been well-received. Alissa hadn’t wanted to leave; Connen-Neute had dragged her away.
Reeve tested his shears’ edge before resuming his work. “Too bad such a closed-mouth lout had to take her home.”
“Posh,” his mother admonished. “It’s only a short trip by horse.”
Reeve snorted. “It’d be a long walk with Connen-Neute.”
“He wouldn’t make her walk!” his mother protested. “It would take half the night.”
Lodesh smiled, his eyes unseeing out the window. “She walked it. Horses don’t like her. It’s the oddest thing. She can’t get on any but Keribdis’s, and Tidbit is in the Hold’s stables.”
“Oh, the poor dear,” his mother sighed. “Just imagine that long, silent walk home.”