Patternmaster

  With shock, he realized they were in sight. He looked back to verify the impression and saw them first as a line, then as a wave coming over the crest of a hill, far too close behind the fleeing horses.

  He began to kill.

  The first ones died easily, their legs collapsing under them. Their bodies, impelled by their speed, rolled over and over, tripping those behind them who did not see them in time, causing some to dodge or leap over the sudden tangle of bodies.

  There was a sound like a baying of hounds, and the formation broke. Hundreds of howling Clayarks scattered, put distance between one another, some speeding up, some slowing, many keeping to the other side of the hill where they could not be seen, where most could not even be sensed. A few rushed completely out of the hills, speeding toward the two Patternists until Teray cut them down.

  The shooting began.

  The horses, sides heaving, reached the rocks, outran them slightly, and twisted back as more shots rang out. Teray’s horse stumbled and almost fell. He did not realize until he had jumped off that it had been hit. Even then, his attention remained on the scattering Clayarks. He was only peripherally aware of Amber beside it, cursing and apparently healing. It was a Clayark habit to shoot Patternists’ horses since shooting Patternists themselves was not as immediately effective. A Patternist on foot was at least a slower-moving target.

  Amber controlled the horses totally for a moment, made them lie down in the shelter of the rocks, then pushed them into unconsciousness. That was safest. It eliminated the possibility of their being frightened, or their bolting and being lost. Teray was aware of Amber shifting her attention, turning to help him. Then abruptly her attention was elsewhere.

  He needed her strength to extend his range, to reach the Clayarks who had fled back into the hills and who were now trying to approach them, shoot at them from a better angle. They were managing to stay just out of his range. He looked at her angrily.

  She was gazing off into space, her mind closed to him except for the link, and she was making no use of the link. He realized suddenly that she was in communication with someone. Another Patternist. Through the link, he received shadowy impressions of her fear, desperation, and hopelessness. Only one person could excite such emotions in her. Coransee.

  He turned furiously and swept for Clayarks. He found only a few within his range, and those he killed instantly. Then he snapped back to Amber.

  “How far away is he?” He did not want to reach out himself and touch his brother. That would come soon enough. That would come when for the second time he tried to kill Coransee.

  “Not far. He’ll be here in a few minutes.” Amber’s voice was soft, faraway. She was still in communication with Coransee. Teray seized her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “Cut him off!”

  Her eyes refocused on him sharply. She sat still, glaring at him until he let her go.

  “If he’s almost here, surely you can wait to talk to him.”

  Her gaze softened. She sighed. “I was trying to bargain with him.”

  He swept once more for Clayarks, and found none, but was now aware of the larger shapes of several approaching horses and riders. The Clayarks were leaving. Coransee had a party of about ten—ten, yes—of his people with him. Apparently that was more Patternists than the Clayarks thought they could pin down and kill. The shooting had stopped entirely.

  Teray sighed and turned his attention again to Amber. “I assume you failed—in your bargaining.”

  “I think so.”

  He put an arm around her. “I could have told you you would. But thanks anyway.”

  “He wants to take you back alive.”

  “He won’t.”

  She winced. “If we weren’t so close, you and I, I’d try to get you to change your mind.”

  “No.”

  “I know. We’re alike that way. Stubborn beyond any reasoning.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then drew her to him. “ Look, I want you to stay out of it when he gets here.”

  “No.”

  He pushed her away in alarm. “Amber, I mean it. He isn’t Darah, to be frightened off. He’ll kill you.”

  “Maybe. But he’ll surely kill you alone.”

  He severed the link with her and almost gasped at the sudden terrible solitude. Solitude had never seemed terrible before. He had come to depend on the link more than he had realized.

  “Teray,” she pleaded, “please. This isn’t an ordinary confrontation. He made you his outsider illegally. You haven’t challenged him. You don’t want anything he has. He’s dead wrong, but he’s still going to kill you. Your only possible chance is for me to help.”

  “I said no. He’ll face me alone, without any of his people backing him. That’s the way I’ll have to face him.”

  She looked up at the riders now in sight, coming down the trail. “The hell with your stupid pride,” she said. “You’ve forgotten that I don’t want to go back to Redhill any more than you do. You’d better link up with me again, because when he hits you, I’m going to hit him. If we aren’t linked, one of us is liable to get killed, without doing the other any good at all.”

  “Amber, no … !”

  “Link. Now!”

  He linked, furious with her, half hating her, feeling no gratitude at all. Pride. He was trying to save her life.

  He stood up to meet Coransee and his people. Amber stood next to him, close enough to make Coransee aware that his arrival had not caused her to change sides. She was the one Coransee spoke to as he dismounted. He came up to them, but his people stayed back, still mounted, apparently watching for Clayarks.

  “I don’t suppose you persuaded him to submit.”

  “I didn’t try.”

  “And you’re staying with him. I thought you were brighter than that.”

  “No, you thought I was more frightened of you than that. You were mistaken.”

  He turned away from her with a sound of annoyance. “Teray … do you really want to die here?”

  “I’ll either die here or I’ll go on to Forsyth. Nothing is going to get me to go back to Redhill with you.”

  Coransee frowned. “What did you expect to find in Forsyth, anyway?”

  “Sanctuary.” Coransee would find out sooner or later anyway.

  “Sanctuary? For how long?”

  “Even if it was only a few months, at least I’d spend them in freedom.”

  “You’d spend them learning everything you could to defeat me.”

  “Only because you’ve left me no choice.”

  “I left you one very simple choice and you …” Coransee stopped and took a deep breath. “There’s no point in arguing that with you again. Whether you believe it or not, though, I really don’t want to kill you. Look … I’ll give you one more choice.”

  “What choice?” asked Teray suspiciously.

  “Not much of one, maybe. It’s just that even with our ancestry, I find myself wondering more and more how much of a threat you could become.”

  Teray ignored the implied insult in Coransee’s words. “Left alone I’d be no threat to you at all. I’ve already told you that.”

  “And it still doesn’t mean a thing. It’s not your promises I’m interested in, it’s your potential, and that’s something I can only guess at. Rayal would be able to do more than guess.”

  “You want Rayal to evaluate me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What would happen if he found out that I … that I didn’t have the potential to interfere with you?” It was a humiliating question to have to ask. No matter what words he used, he was really saying, “What will you do with me if I turn out to be too weak ever to stand against you?”

  “What do you want to happen?”

  “I want my freedom!”

  “No more?”

  “Freedom from you will be enough.”

  Coransee smiled. “You wouldn’t ask me for more, no matter how much you wanted it, would you, brother?”
r />   Teray said nothing.

  “No matter. Are you willing to be judged by Rayal?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll go on to Forsyth, then. We’re nearly there and I want to see Rayal anyway. But there is one more thing. Only Rayal’s findings can free you. You go to Forsyth as my outsider.”

  Teray shrugged.

  “My property.”

  “You’ve captured me.”

  “Say the words.”

  Teray stared at him in silent hatred.

  “I’ve wasted enough time with you, Teray. Say the words or face me now.”

  Say the words and give up any right to sanctuary in Forsyth, should Rayal’s decision leave him still in need of sanctuary. Say the words that could later be picked from his own memory and used to damn him. Or refuse to say them, and die.

  “I am your outsider,” said Teray quietly. “Your property.”

  Chapter Seven

  TIME SEEMED SUSPENDED. THE thirteen riders rode two abreast with Coransee alone in the lead. Teray and Amber rode directly behind him, still linked, but resting, no longer watching for Clayarks. There were eleven others who could watch. Teray felt his own weariness shadowily echoed by Amber’s. They had not let themselves realize how draining the constant vigilance had been, especially during the past twenty-four hours. And to have that vigilance end in capture by the very person they had endured it to escape.

  Teray looked at Amber, and read not only weariness but bitterness in her face. He realized abruptly that the bargain that he and Coransee had made in no way included her. She had fled from Redhill because Coransee had denied her independence, tried to hold her against her will. And now she was his again. At least Teray had a chance for freedom, but she was caught—unless she wanted to try against Coransee her healer’s talent for swift murder. And she had already admitted that she was afraid of him.

  Abruptly Teray urged his horse forward to pull alongside Coransee. He could not abandon the woman, could not let her be drawn back into captivity without even trying to help her. She had helped him. The shot rang out just as Teray moved.

  Teray felt the bullet’s impact so strongly that he slumped to one side, almost falling from his horse. He held on somehow, aware of pain now, growing, but oddly dulled. It was then that he realized that it was not he who had been shot, but Amber.

  The link, fulfilling its function too well, had given him so great a share of her experience that if they had been alone he could have been shot too while he was recovering. But he was not alone.

  He realized from the alert, intense expressions of the outsiders and women that they were already seeking the Clayark sniper. The party had come to a stop. Teray left the hunt to them, dismounted, and went to help Amber.

  She had not fallen. She sat hunched over, coughing blood, fighting desperately to keep herself alive. She had taken a bullet through the throat. As Teray lifted her down she seemed to pass out. He felt the limp, dead weight of her and only the link reassured him that she was still alive.

  He carried her onto the soft sand of the beach, put her down, and knelt beside her for a moment, wondering whether it would be dangerous to disturb her with an offer of help. Did she need help? A wound like that probably would have killed a nonhealer before anyone could do anything about it. She was not only alive but working to heal herself. Teray felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, startled, as Coransee knelt beside him.

  “You looked as though you were just about to reach out to her,” the Housemaster said.

  “To help her. She might need it.”

  “No. I’ve seen her badly hurt before. She manages better if she’s left alone.”

  Teray looked at him doubtfully, wondering whether he knew what he was talking about. But the link was no longer transmitting distress. Amber had gotten rid of her pain and she was no longer bleeding either from her neck wound or from her mouth. She seemed in control. Teray decided to leave her alone unless she seemed in trouble again. He got up, went to his horse, and got a clean handkerchief. He wet it from his canteen and brought it back to wipe the blood from her face and neck. Coransee watched him silently for a moment, then said, “Were you speeding up a little just before she was shot?”

  “Yes, to talk to you. To talk about her, in fact.”

  “That’s interesting. From what Lias said—she was riding just behind Amber—if you hadn’t moved when you did, the bullet would have hit you.”

  Teray thought about that, and nodded slowly.

  “It was probably you they were aiming at. You were lucky.”

  “Where was the Clayark?”

  Coransee pointed inland toward the hills. “He was high and far back, but he waited until you and Amber were almost directly in front of him. I hope they don’t have many rifles or riflemen who can make that kind of shot.”

  “Well, at least now they have one less.”

  “No. We lost him.”

  Teray stared at him incredulously. “All of you? You couldn’t catch one Clayark?”

  Coransee lifted an eyebrow. “That’s what I said, brother.”

  Teray heard the warning in his voice and ignored it. “I don’t see how you could possibly have missed him. So many of you …” He thought of something suddenly. “Lord, are you linked with anyone?”

  “I’m not, but the others are linked in pairs.”

  And the range of a linked pair of them would be little better than Coransee’s range alone. What good did it do Coransee to have ten people with him if he didn’t use them sensibly? Teray found himself glaring at the Housemaster in open accusation.

  “Blame?” said Coransee calmly. “What are we doing out here between sectors with the Clayarks, Teray? Why are we here?”

  Teray made a sound of disgust. “All right, make it my fault if you want to. But you know as well as I do that you should link up with at least some of your people. You could stand it with a couple of them even though they’re not close to you. Hell, you’re the one who wants the Pattern. That will link you with everyone.” He could see that Coransee was getting angry, but he did not care.

  “You know,” said Coransee quietly, “I would have stopped you some words back if I didn’t realize you were speaking out of your feelings for the woman. But even for that, you’ve said enough.”

  Teray looked at Amber and saw that she was breathing normally now. For a while she had hardly seemed to be breathing at all. But she was pulling out of it. The wound was closed already. She was going to be all right. And this wouldn’t happen again, because weary or not, he and Amber wouldn’t depend on the protection, the watchfulness, of others. They would look out for themselves as before, working together, their combined, extended awareness missing nothing. For days they had traveled safely alone. Now, amid a group of strong Patternists, the Clayarks had reached them. Coransee could not even be trusted to give protection to the people he claimed as his own.

  Teray touched Amber’s arm and knew that she was aware of him, that she took comfort in his presence. He looked at her silently for several seconds, then spoke to Coransee.

  “You’re right, Lord, I did speak out of love for her. I … do you intend to keep her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was afraid you did. If Rayal’s findings free me, will you let me buy her?”

  “Buy her with what?”

  “With service, brother, work. I had planned never to see Redhill again if I was freed. But I’ll go back and work at whatever you say if my service will buy her.”

  But Coransee was already shaking his head. “You’re welcome to come back to Redhill, to my House, if you’re freed. But she’s not for sale” Coransee smiled slightly. “You’d never be able to hold her anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t try to hold her against her will. I want her as my wife, not as my prisoner.”

  “You won’t have her as either. At least not until I’m tired of her. But you’ll have the same access to her as any other outsider if you return with me.”

  Amber opened
her eyes and looked at Teray, then at Coransee. She did not speak. Perhaps she could not, yet.

  “Of course,” said Coransee to Teray, “you can have it all if you decide to stop fighting me. Amber will be the least of what you’ll get.”

  Amber sat up, closed her eyes again for a few seconds, then opened them and stood up. Still without speaking, she walked over to her horse, took down her canteen, then went off several steps to a large rock. She leaned against the rock, kicked aside some sand, and vomited into the depression she had made. When she was finished, she rinsed her mouth, then took a long drink of water. She kicked sand into the depression, turned, and came toward them, eating something that Teray had not seen her take from her horse. Her eyes were on Coransee.

  “I’m an independent, Lord.” She spoke with slight hoarseness. “I’m an independent because most people realize how much trouble I can cause them if they try to hold me.”

  “You think I don’t, after two years?”

  “I think you haven’t thought about it enough.”

  “That sounds like a warning.”

  “Good. At least you know me well enough to understand that much.”

  He hit her just as she was turning away. She shielded too late to escape the force of the blow. She fell to one knee, and stared her hatred at him.

  “I’ve taken you into my House,” he said. “You belong to me. You don’t give me warnings.”

  “I’ll give you this one!” Her voice was a harsh whisper.

  “Hit me again and you won’t have an undamaged organ left in your body!”

  Teray came between them. He stepped between them physically, and emphasized the link mentally so that Coransee understood the situation.

  “This is none of your business, Teray,” said the Housemaster.

  “Lord, she’s just recovering from a wound that would have killed anyone else. Can’t you at least wait until she’s rested before you start on her?”

  Amber came up beside Teray and said quietly, “Stay out of it, Teray. You’ve made your deal.”