“Start from the beginning,” Redal-Stan said tersely.
“She was complaining of music being played in this room.”
“But you locked it,” he interrupted.
“Yes. I told her no one was in here, but Bea—er—she insisted I come and open it.” Connen-Neute shook his head. “She really can’t open any door but those keyed for Keepers.”
The old Master gestured impatiently for him to continue.
“So I opened it. There was no one in here. But I might have heard music.”
“Really.” Redal-Stan stood, his sun-darkened face creased in worry.
Connen-Neute nodded. “She then became agitated, called for Strell, and collapsed.” He fidgeted with his sleeve, glad Redal-Stan was here to shoulder the responsibility.
“Aye,” the Master said as he bent low over Alissa. “It’s a meditative state. It’s a good thing you woke me. This is exactly what I wanted you to watch for.” He reached to touch her, but just before contact, Alissa’s eyes jumped to a wide-eyed alertness.
“Alissa!” Redal-Stan said, taking a startled step back. “You’re all right!”
Connen-Neute’s feeling of unease solidified into a sour lump as her frightened eyes flicked from Redal-Stan’s to his. Burn him to ash. It wasn’t Alissa. It was that beast! His heart pounded and he almost bolted, but he froze at her panic. She looked scared, like a child discovering the adult she’d been following belonged to someone else. With any luck, Redal-Stan would think it was Alissa. But even as he thought it, Redal-Stan peered sharply at her.
“Alissa?” he whispered, then straightened, his breath slipping from him in a hiss. “Slow now,” he said to Connen-Neute. “Move to the window.” Never taking his eyes from Beast, he backed up and fumbled with the door until it latched.
Ramrod straight, Connen-Neute held his uncertain ground.
“Move,” the old Master said. “She’s gone feral, though I’ve never heard of it happening while one is still in a human form.”
Connen-Neute shifted from foot to foot but didn’t move.
“I said sit in the window, fledgling!” Redal-Stan whispered. “We might still be able to salvage this. She hasn’t flown yet. Perhaps because it’s night, she can’t.”
Beast stiffened, looking affronted. “I can fly at night just as well as you can, old one.” Her eyes widened, and she clasped her hand over her mouth. Her accent was odd and precise, every syllable spoken with care.
“You speak!” Redal-Stan stood stock-still.
Beast’s mouth twisted. The look she gave Connen-Neute spoke of a sophisticated humor he hadn’t expected. She knew her words had destroyed any chance of passing as Alissa. With a resigned sigh, she settled herself. Her blanket pooled about her knees, and Connen-Neute blinked. Her smallest movement had a sultry slyness, and her slow voice carried the same.
“Of course I speak,” she said. “I know everything Alissa does, and a few things she’s forgotten. And as for keeping me grounded? You couldn’t catch me.” She turned an appraising eye to Connen-Neute, and he took an alarmed breath. “Neither could you, windmate.” She paused. “Not yet. Alissa’s teacher is the only one who can bring me down, and he cheated. He didn’t want to play at all.” Beast pouted.
Redal-Stan’s mouth gaped. “Wolves,” he finally managed.
“Wolves, indeed,” she said with a sniff.
“Redal-Stan,” Connen-Neute interrupted. “I’d like you to meet Beast.”
Beast extended her hand, and Redal-Stan backed away. “What the Bone and Ash is going on!” he cried, his voice echoing painfully. “Alissa is feral, and you act as if it’s nothing!”
“It is,” Connen-Neute said dryly, deciding he could sit in the windowsill if he wasn’t being told to do so. He winced as his teacher’s befuddlement predictably turned to anger.
“You said you would tell me of any atypical behavior!” Redal-Stan shouted, pointing at Alissa. “What the Wolves do you call this?”
Connen-Neute allowed a whisper of anger to color his words. “This is typical behavior for Alissa. Talo-Toecan allowed her to keep her feral consciousness.”
“What!” It was an appalled shout.
Beast curled her legs under her. “Allowed isn’t the word I would choose. He hasn’t figured it out yet, is all.”
Redal-Stan looked at her in horror.
There was a soft knock. “Alissa?” came an urgent whisper from behind the closed door. “Are you in there? I heard shouting.”
“Come in, Lodesh!” Beast called, her eyes glowing with a sudden desire.
“Go away, Lodesh!” Redal-Stan thundered as the door was flung open and Lodesh all but fell into the room, catching himself as he saw Connen-Neute and Redal-Stan. “I said, go away,” Redal-Stan growled. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Really, Redal-Stan,” Connen-Neute said apologetically. “I didn’t break my word. You told me to watch for atypical behavior, not to necessarily tell you about it.”
Redal-Stan froze. Slowly he turned to Connen-Neute.
“And this is normal,” Beast added. Then she bit her lower lip. “For the most part.”
There was an audible snap as Redal-Stan closed his mouth. He turned to Lodesh standing uncertainly by the door. “Out,” the Master demanded, his expression turning choleric when Lodesh shut the door and leaned back against it to become nearly immobile.
Lodesh swallowed hard. “With respect, I’m not leaving until Alissa asks me to.”
Turning a bright red, Redal-Stan pointed to the hall.
A low sigh drew Connen-Neute’s attention, and he froze. Beast had curled up with her knees to her chin, her arms clasped about her legs to make her look both defenseless and artlessly alluring. “I’m glad you’re here, Lodesh,” she said, her gray eyes almost black.
Lodesh grew pale. “That’s not Alissa,” he whispered.
Redal-Stan gave him a mirthless, disgusted look. “Do you think? Sure you want to stay?”
The Keeper took a step back. “What . . . what’s wrong with her?”
Running a hand over his bald head, Redal-Stan closed his eyes in a long blink. “Alissa has an alter consciousness. She is insane, remember?” He turned and paced before the hearth. “Beast, meet Lodesh. Lodesh, Beast.”
“We’ve already met,” she said.
Connen-Neute could almost see the Keeper’s thoughts fall into place. “Hounds,” Lodesh whispered. “That was you on the dance boards. That wasn’t Alissa, that was you,” he said, and Beast beamed.
Redal-Stan fumbled for the edge of the unmade cot and sat down. “You mean to tell me you’ve been flopping back-and-forth like a card? How many times has this happened?”
Beast’s face fell, turning her from a sensual goddess to a child. “Three—I think.”
“That was you dancing the Triene?” Lodesh said, sounding disappointed.
Beast smiled a wise, ancient smile. “No. That was Alissa. Mostly. I think.”
“You think?” bellowed Redal-Stan, and Connen-Neute watched his teacher struggle to maintain his composure and regain control of the conversation all at once. “Can’t you tell?”
“Mostly.” Beast winced. “But it’s getting hard.” She looked up, her eyes growing frightened. “It’s never been so before. I try to be good,” she said. “I promised. But she keeps leaving. And I don’t like it!” she finished with an unhappy cry.
Silence fell in the small room lit by three globes of warded light. Lodesh moved to a corner, clearly trying to stay out of Redal-Stan’s sight and therefore keep himself in the room. Seeing Beast begin to tremble, Connen-Neute made a robe and draped the soft gray over her shoulders as she didn’t seem to know to pull her blanket back up. Whether her shaking was from the cold or her fright, he couldn’t tell.
“It’s her disconnection from Strell,” Connen-Neute said quietly, and Lodesh turned at the unfamiliar voice. Connen-Neute’s brow furrowed. He had more to say, and because of Lodesh, he should say it aloud. Glancing at Beast,
he gathered his courage. If she could speak in entire paragraphs, he could, too.
“From what I have guessed,” he said slowly. “Strell was instrumental in restoring her sentience less than a year ago. She hasn’t had time to find other reference points, and without him, there’s nothing left to hold her to the now.” He turned to Beast. “Am I right?” he asked, and she nodded, looking scared. “And if you don’t find a way to return, Alissa will eventually go feral?” he finished.
“I think so.” It was a frightened whisper, and Connen-Neute hated having to force her to admit it aloud. For all her feral wisdom, Beast had a child’s ability to cope.
Redal-Stan put his elbows on his knees, his anger replaced by curiosity. “You’re frightened,” he said. “I would have thought you’d be pleased.”
Beast looked mournfully at him thorough Alissa’s gray eyes. “Alissa has gifted me with something far beyond the small wisdoms I have shared with her. I don’t want her to lose her sentience,” she whispered. “A beast doesn’t remember love.”
At that, Redal-Stan sat back in undisguised astonishment.
Beast blinked, her gaze going distant for a heartbeat. Then she grew dismayed. “Oh, the string is going loose. She can barely hear him now.”
“Him?” Redal-Stan questioned, and Connen-Neute strained, hearing a distant something on the edges of his awareness.
“Her piper.” Beast glanced about the room as if looking for something.
“No,” Redal-Stan said. “I won’t accept that Alissa can hear a commoner across time.”
“Time,” Beast lectured, turning irate at his disbelief, “is no barrier for thought, old one, or distance, if the string is taut and strong.”
“Not true,” he argued. “If you go beyond the curve of the earth, you lose contact.”
Beast looked at him smugly, a sliver of her original sultry air returning. “You’re very learned, old one. But in this instance, you’re less correct than usual.”
From the corner came a small sound. “Time?” Lodesh whispered.
“Do you know what you’re implying?” Redal-Stan sputtered.
Connen-Neute would have laughed in other circumstances. “She said you were wrong.”
“Not that,” the Master snapped. “What she suggests is impossible.”
“She can hear commoners?” This time, Lodesh sounded bewildered.
“Impossible for you, maybe,” Beast said. “But I taught Alissa how to listen, and she taught a beast how to love. Which do you think is more impossible?”
Redal-Stan’s mouth snapped shut.
Beast rose in a supple movement so seductive and graceful that Connen-Neute caught his breath with a thrilled alarm. Slipping to Lodesh, she took his hand. His eyes widened, and she pulled his head against hers and whispered, “Alissa is frightened to admit it, but I think you ought to know that she does love you, not like her piper, but loves you nevertheless.” She gave him a faint smile. “I’m here, Lodesh. Dance with me again?” Her gaze grew frighteningly aroused, filled with a desire and want so guileless that it shocked Connen-Neute.
Then, with a sigh and a slow blink, Beast slipped away. Awareness filled Alissa’s gray eyes. She stepped back as if to catch her balance and dropped Lodesh’s hand. Drawing her robe tighter about her shoulders, she took them in. “I guess,” she offered slowly in her own voice, “I have some explaining to do?”
33
Alissa breathed deeply, looking for the smell of the missing rain. It had been warmer, too, in Strell’s time. There was a fire in her room next door, but Strell’s presence was here, even if she couldn’t hear him anymore, and she wouldn’t leave. Exhaling, she turned to Redal-Stan and Connen-Neute. “But I simply can’t go feral. I explained that.”
Redal-Stan shook his head, offering her the honey-soaked veal Lodesh had brought up. The Master had been keeping Lodesh out of the room with a variety of tasks. Currently he was in search of tea. Shuddering, Alissa refused the meat, and Redal-Stan set the plate down with a disbelieving slowness. Connen-Neute slid closer, and the nasty bits began to disappear.
Unaware of his pilfering, Redal-Stan settled himself on the ugly cot with his elbows on his knees. “It’s inevitable,” he said. “You lack a connection to this time, and it’s going to do everything it can to minimize your impact.” He hesitated as he realized the plate held less than it had a moment before. Frowning, he moved the plate to the cot. “Just by being here you’re making changes. Small ones, but they’re building on each other.”
Connen-Neute rose. Pretending to stretch, he resettled himself closer to the plate.
“Time, I believe, isn’t so inflexible that it can’t accommodate small shifts,” Redal-Stan said. “One does have free will.” He smoothly took up the plate as Connen-Neute reached for it, setting it down on his other side. He deliberately chose a bite and slowly chewed. “But time, like water, takes the shape of the vessel it’s in.”
Alissa sighed. “Meaning . . .”
“You don’t belong.” He shifted his shoulders. “Events will occur that will minimize your impact. If you didn’t help Connen-Neute with his verbalization, someone else would.”
She nodded. “You mean I’ll go feral or die.”
“Hounds, Alissa,” Connen-Neute thought as he gasped. “Don’t be so morbid.”
Redal-Stan blinked, surprised as well at her matter-of-fact facade. “Probably,” he said. “Considering our conversation with Beast, I would say the former. The changes you have made will either be buried beneath an accumulated history of events, or your actions would have been performed by someone else to begin with.”
“Or,” Beast said dryly to Alissa alone, “we are here to do these things.”
“But how does that make me feral?” Alissa protested.
“Ah.” Redal-Stan nodded. “That is the second half. Connen-Neute is correct. Your reference points are wrong. Last spring, you completely redefined yourself. You went from a foothills girl to a student of a supposed legendary fortress, to a Master of the same, all in six months. Sand and Wind, Alissa. You had to reconcile a lifetime of beliefs with a new set of seemingly conflicting ones. It’s no wonder we go insane when we first shift. We lose our first, most real identity: our physical self.” He glanced at the door, clearly wanting the tea. “It takes time to create a new self-image,” he continued. “Time and stability. A single summer isn’t enough. A decade of summers, maybe.”
“But I shift fine,” she said, grimacing as Redal-Stan offered her the last piece of meat.
“Reconciling a new physical form is relatively easy,” he said. “It’s the mental image that is harder. You’ve lost a lifetime of references, and your self-image has become fuzzy about the edges.”
Connen-Neute slumped on the sill. “And once a certain threshold is reached?”
“She will go feral and stay that way,” Redal-Stan finished. For a moment there was silence. “When Strell returned your sentience, I believe you unwittingly made him your lodestone. You undoubtedly were building on that, forming additional reference points as you found what was fixed and what was subject to change, but your core was centered about him.”
“And he’s not here,” Alissa whispered, feeling cold.
“You’re relying upon imperfect reference points,” Redal-Stan said.
“The Hold,” Connen-Neute interrupted. “The grove, her room, the garden.”
“Which would work,” Redal-Stan said, “except they aren’t exactly the same points that you’ve been building upon the last six months. The subtleties aren’t there. The slant of the sun, the scent of the air; they’re betraying you even as you struggle to make them fit what you already know. I believe the only reason you didn’t go feral the moment you got here is because of your familiarity with your—er—alter consciousness. Anyone else would have gone feral within the span of six heartbeats.” His eyes went distant in some private thought.
There was a whisper of fabric as Connen-Neute turned to the door. Faintly she hear
d Lodesh returning with the tea, and nothing more was said until he appeared in the open doorway.
“Ah, Lodesh!” Redal-Stan held out an eager hand. “Thank you. There’s a long night ahead.” Redal-Stan poured out the tea into three cups, leaving the fourth empty. “But there’s no need for you to endure a sleepless night. You should return to your bed. You will have a busy day tomorrow.”
“But I want to stay!” he said. “I don’t care that Alissa has two selves.” He dropped his eyes, furtively glancing at Alissa. “I—don’t mind Beast.”
Alissa felt a rush of gratitude, but Redal-Stan ran a hand over his head. “Go to bed. We have to get rid of Beast, not promote her. Blessed randy Stryska boys.”
Lodesh drew himself up stiffly. “That’s not what I meant.” It was at that unfortunate moment Alissa set her mug of tea down with a grimace. It was bitter. She could taste it clearly. Lodesh saw, and her frown shattered what little pride he had left.
“Ashes. I can’t even make a decent pot of tea, can I,” Lodesh said tightly.
“It’s fine!” Alissa said, taking a gulp and forcing a smile.
Lodesh looked from her anxious expression, to Redal-Stan’s untasted cup, to Connen-Neute’s drink set carefully out of arm’s reach. “Yes, I can see that,” he muttered. I’ll leave. There’s no need to send me on any more useless errands.”
“Lodesh, wait,” she pleaded, but he was gone.
Alissa rose in an awkward lurch to follow him, only to be held back by Redal-Stan’s dark hand. “We have more pressing issues,” he murmured.
“More important than Lodesh’s feelings?” she snapped. “He’s the only one besides me who thinks Beast is not a problem to be weeded out.”
“Lodesh’s future,” Redal-Stan said. Reminded of last night’s decision to offer him as Warden, Alissa sat back down in dismay. There was the distant sound of a closing door.