Chapter Eight

When Seska saw the pallid, soft-skinned thing lying in Khea’s arms, she snarled in frustration. The cubling had not exaggerated; if the creature wasn’t dead already, it was only a breath away. She was furious with the child for not making her understand there would have to be another visit from the Restorers Guild. "Send for that wretch, Vexk, at once!" The thin silver bracelets on her arm jangled as she gestured toward the door. "In fact, do not send a messenger jit—it might stray, and due to your bungling, we have no time to waste. Put that creature down and go yourself."

Khea’s black eyes glittered angrily up at Seska, then the cubling gazed down again. "Yes, Line Mother." Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, but Seska caught the undercurrents. I told you, Khea’s stiffened young body said, as well as the reckless tilt of her ears. I warned you that it would die.

And so she had, again and again, and still it remained the cubling’s fault. It was her duty to keep at Seska until she made the Line Mother understand. If this creature died before Seska pried the truth out of its disgusting pink hide, Khea would bear the full brunt of her displeasure.

The gray-and-white cubling rose and stalked from the room, her gaze still focused on the red mat underfoot. Seska watched the tall, well-muscled form with calculating eyes. Khea was nearly full grown. Decisions would have to be made about her by the next gleaning. Only yesterday, Seska had been certain this cubling, with that unfortunate color pattern and meek manner, would be culled from the candidates for breeders, but now . . .

Flicking an ear, she realized Khea might be a late developer, one of the latent strains that sometimes appeared in the Vvok breeding pool. Such latents were easy to overlook in early gleanings, but when detected and brought on as breeders, they often were among the best of their generation, bigger and stronger, longer-lived, producing many fine daughters. If Khea were such a one, they could not afford to lose her.

Abandoned in an awkward heap on the mat, the Outsider rolled its black-fringed, round-eared head and muttered a string of alien sounds. Seska eased off her thick pile of cushions and prowled closer, the fur standing straight up along her spine. The ears were the worst, she decided, stiff, hairless knobs of flesh that apparently did not move at all. At least the creature had been washed and dressed in clean robes; its awful smell was almost bearable.

Standing over it, handclaws fully flexed, she glared at the pale, bizarrely naked skin, willing the creature to open its eyes and speak before it passed beyond anyone’s claws. "Why have you come?" she demanded. "How much does this Black/on/black know about what we did? And what does he mean to do about it now?"

The creature’s eyes opened to slits. Most of them were a sickening white, but the middlemost portion was a startling ice-shrouded blue which seemed to slice into her innermost thoughts. A snarl shaped Seska’s lips, then the strange eyes sagged shut again.

Chytt smoothed a fold of Qartt-blue robes across the dark-red fur of her arm, admiring the contrast. The fine cloth, woven by the westernmost hold of Kennd, was a luxury in which she rarely indulged. There were so many necessities to trade for, so many smaller pleasures, that she rarely allowed herself something this dear.

The shift in her weight wrung the coolness of crushed gynth from the cushions, and the aromatic scent threaded through her brain, summoning memories of hunting up among the blue-leaved gynth trees in the elevations where rain fell regularly so that the vegetation was lush and air always refreshingly brisk. She longed for such excitement now, but she had far too much to do.

No further word had come to her yet concerning the troublesome Levv male, but she could not get that eerie Black/on/black face out of her mind, nor the telling angle of certain ears when she had spoken of him upon her return. By all that was holy, what sort of pattern linked Qartt Hold with the return of this Levv?

It was apparent one or more of her daughters knew something about this business, but that did not make sense. None of the Lines had contracted blood-debt of any sort against Levv in those long-ago days, so why would any daughter of hers have risked both herself and Qartt’s honor to bring them down?

Killing outside established venues recalled the ancient taint of genocide, long purged from civilized hrinnti behavior. Such madness threatened them all, and it was for that Levv had been destroyed. But what if Levv had been innocent and the other Lines had been incited to execution without cause? She had never dared ask herself that question before, and now, when the emerging pattern was at hand and little could be done but follow where it led, she found she did not want to know the answer.

Someone scratched outside her door, asking for admission. She lounged back on her cushions. No doubt it was that wretch, Fik, for whom she had sent a good long time ago. There were always caves within caves with that one. She stretched one arm languidly, and then the other. Fik only came to bow her disrespectful pale-ginger head when she was good and ready, so now she could wait until the Line Mother condescended to gaze upon that insolent face.

She speared a mottled-green mizb fruit with a flexed handclaw, then scored the thick rind from top to bottom. Fik’s familiar scent drifted into her quarters as the female edged almost into sight. So, daughter, you push me. Chytt bit into the sweet flesh of the fruit. Not a wise decision on Fik’s part, though due in some measure, no doubt, to the fact that Fik had been birthed by one of Chytt’s younger cousins, not Chytt, herself. Theoretically, all female children of Qartt Hold had become her daughters when she vanquished the previous Line Mother, but the reality of hold life never lived up to that ideal. The birth-daughters of her rivals always seemed a bit hungrier and more wary than her direct descendants—just as she had been in the time of her predecessor, old Hallat.

After finishing the fruit, she said, "Enter."

Fik prowled into her quarters, her squat muscularity typical of a less desirable body type that cropped up in Qartt descendents from time to time. Chytt much preferred the taller, more graceful build—like her own—that had come to characterize Qartt bloodlines in the past seasons.

Anger was written into the stance of every pale-ginger hair on Fik’s body. She sank stiffly to her knees before Chytt’s cushions. "You sent for me, Line Mother?"

Laying her ears back, Chytt tossed the tough mizb core into a dish. "I sent for you some time ago."

Fik did not look up. "Mimki is near delivering."

The tension between them charged the air with electricity. Chytt felt her own fur stir with its intensity, and she wrinkled her nose at the sharpening odor of Fik’s coat which was not the acridness of fear exactly, nor the hot rawness of unbridled aggression either, but a muddle somewhere in between. "I often question my wisdom in allowing you to head the breeders." Her eyes narrowed. "I wonder what was on my mind that day for me to make such a mistake."

"It was your decision, Line Mother." Fik’s pale-orange ears lowered just a hair, the large well-shaped ears over which she had always been so vain.

"It is also a decision I can rescind at the blink of an eye—for the good of the Line." Just I could shred those lovely ears and no one in this entire hold would twitch so much as a single eyehair. Leaning forward, Chytt wiped the sticky mizb juice from her handclaws on Fik’s robes. She and Fik understood each other—most of the time, but, by the Voice, there had been increasing undercurrents of disrespect and resentment from her for at least a season now. This child of her cousin was preparing to challenge.

Chytt rose. "Ghitil is quite skilled—and well regarded by the other breeders as well." She let that nip sink in. Fik was competent, but popular with her hold-sisters, she had never been.

The pale-ginger ears flattened. "Ghitil is an empty-headed little yirn who has yet to bear a living child!"

"Yes, a great tragedy, is it not?" Chytt lifted a straying strand of mane on Fik’s neck with a flexed handclaw. "I wonder if poor Ghitil has always received the best of care?"

The pale-orange form stiffened and Chytt waved away Fik’s unvoiced protest. "I am only wondering, you understand, not asking." Sinking back onto her cushions with an ease and grace that she knew belied her age, she allowed a fierce grimace to wrinkle her muzzle. "Not yet, anyway." She reached for another mizb fruit. "What can you tell me about Levv?"

Fik stopped breathing, every muscle in her powerful frame locked into absolute stillness.

"What have you done?" Chytt leaned forward, bringing her teeth close to the pale-orange ears. "For what foolishness of yours must Qartt stand good when the pattern is complete?"

The female kneeling at her feet might as well been made of sand for all the sign Fik gave of hearing. Trembling with fury, Chytt slashed parallel trails of red-orange blood across a pale-ginger cheek and ear. "You reek of insolence!" she spat at the dazed figure at her feet. "Go and groom yourself before someone else smells it too."

Fik pulled herself up from the carpet, blood dripping down her muzzle, then, for one chilling breath, gazed straight into Chytt’s eyes before stalking out the door. Hair still on end, Chytt stared after the younger female. Trouble had only been postponed. A reckoning would come between them. For the sake of Qartt and all her daughters, she hoped the truth about Levv signified less than she feared.

The shaggy liver-brown herd had strayed farther than Nisk expected. When he found the yirn at last, clumped on the river to graze on the wiry low brush that dotted the bank, he was winded and aching and hollow as an empty bowl. He had used a great deal of energy the night before, fighting the much younger priest, and had not had either strength or leisure to look for food since. With the coming of the day, Ankt’s crimson eye glared down from the sky, calling heat up out of the ground as flames are drawn from wood, and he knew neither he, nor the failing Black/on/black, could go much farther on foot.

His nose wrinkled at the yirn’s scent; the herd was ranker than usual. This lot had not been worked lately in the hunts, and a few wild beasts must have strayed into it, which would make them edgy and harder to catch than usual. He dropped into a half-crouch, meaning to prowl closer, then snarled at a hot flash of pain as several of his scabbed-over slashes broke open. The feeding yirn froze, stared up with hot yellow eyes, radiating a peeved wariness.

Nisk sat back on his heels and conserved his strength while he waited for them to settle back down. They fell back to grazing, with snuffles and whuffs, still watching him out of the corners of their eyes. He had directed the Black/on/black to hide just beyond the last bend, so as not to alarm the beasts more than necessary. The Black/on/black had complied without argument. He obviously intended to travel only a short distance with Nisk, and then slip away to return for his Outsider companion. He had not said as much in words, but it was written in the slant of his ears and the uneasy lay of his fur and his frequent glances back at the red-orange cliffs guarding the plateau.

But Nisk could not permit that. He was now more sure than ever that the pattern shaping events was the legendary patience/in/illusion, never before perceived in living memory, but said to be unimaginably large, reaching into the skies and the lands beyond Anktan itself. The Black/on/black himself was part of its illusion—he had seemed to be dead, along with the rest of his Line, and yet was not. He also appeared deceptively ignorant, forever looking directly into Nisk’s eyes until the blood pounded in his ears and his claws ached for the other’s throat, yet this same male had hunted the stars themselves, where no hrinn had ever ventured before, had seen wonders which the eyes of earthbound hrinn like himself were forever denied. Being in his presence was like touching another plane of existence, one beyond all imagination, overpowering and unsettling and utterly unfamiliar.

The herd gradually grew careless of him and Nisk schooled his breathing to evenness, waiting for his chance. When one beast finally strayed within reach, he leaped and locked his fingers around its dangling ear. The yirn squealed and bucked as he dug his heels into the sandy ground and held on as though picking a ripe piece of fruit. With a deft twist, he avoided its horns and scrambled up to leap onto the broad back, clinging to the matted fur of its hump with his clawtips.

The Black/on/black darted around the bend and stared up at him. The whole process had taken less than two blinks of the eye. Nisk reached down an arm, beckoning him to come forward and mount.

He hesitated. "Can this beast carry the weight of two?"

Nisk bared his teeth in exasperation, but then thought of the pattern looming below the surface. Patience/in/illusion—nothing was what it seemed. He would have to wait until all participants abandoned illusion for reality, taking on their real forms, and events made themselves known. He leaned back. "Do you wish to catch your own yirn?"

The Black/on/black scowled, then took the offered hand and leaped. His weak right leg buckled, making him fall short against the yirn’s side, then slide to the ground. The beast squalled and bolted sideways, halted only by the judicious application of Nisk’s claws. He gripped its huge barrel with his knees and stared into the distant green-capped mountains. The Black/on/black was said to possess the strength of the molten core of the earth itself, stronger than all others of his kind, male or female, regardless of size. This apparent weakness of body was only another part of the illusion.

The Black/on/black picked himself up out of the sand, then stepped up on a flat rock. His fur was matted and he was panting as though he had run since last night. He flung himself upward, grabbing the yirn for purchase, started to slip back, then flexed handclaws into the matted fur long enough to swing his leg over the wide back. Pricked by a claw gone too deep, the yirn leaped forward as he settled into place behind Nisk.

Nisk kept his seat easily, moving with the beast, watching the whole procedure over his shoulder without flicking an ear. When the other settled into place behind him, breathing heavily, Nisk heeled the yirn into the river. "Not a promising beginning."

Drained and aching, Rakshal waded into the river until the cold green water swirled up to his breastbone. He braced himself against the throb of the current, letting the water numb the gashes written across his ribs like mysterious glyphs. Despite his age, Nisk had been far fiercer and more agile than he had expected. Without the foresight to draw power beforehand, events might have ended very differently.

He sank lower in the cold current until the water swirled around his throat and muzzle, redolent of the soil and sand it carried, almost brackish in this season from high mineral content. The taste lingered on his tongue, whispering of other, more verdant lands upstream, other, less sacred ways to live. He shuddered. Last night’s challenge had strayed far beyond his intent. He’d meant to slay the false Black/on/black, revealing him for the falsehood he must surely be and thereby gain additional status for himself.

Instead, Nisk had stepped into the center of events and taken control, obviously discerning a different pattern in this situation than death/in/longing, the one Rakshal had glimpsed, something potent he could exploit to his own advantage. Now Rakshal found himself mired within this unnamed pattern/in/progress, forced to make decisions he had not planned, to act in ways he had not forseen. He had meant to wait until Nisk was older before he challenged. Now he was Leader in Nisk’s place, a rise in status, but subject to challenge himself with all that implied, while the Outsider male was wandering free in the company of wily old Nisk, benefitting, no doubt, from his counsel, and all the while following the dictates of a pattern Rakshal could not divine.

Deep in thought, he waded toward the shore, then stopped, still knee-deep in the shallows. The water sluiced from his dark-gray fur in rivulets. At least half the males currently in residence, including most of the older ones, were watching him from the shore. Silhouetted by the rest of the group, Jikin’s pale-gray form blocked Rakshal’s path, so still he might have been carved from whitestone.

Jikin? Rakshal stared. The wiry old Teller who never harassed anyone, not even cublings just accepted for training, who just told the old tales and let them be? He emerged from the water as though nothing were out of the ordinary. "What do you want, Teller?" he asked, edging his tone with the superior-to-inferior inflection.

"I am serving you notice." The breeze ruffled Jikin’s green robes around his tough old body, revealing muscle and bone under the pale fur, and very little else. "After the required ten days, I intend to challenge."

Jikin was a head shorter than Rakshal, and more than twice his age. The old male would never survive. Rakshal took a deep breath that made his open gashes sting. "That is your right."

Jikin glanced at the males fanned out behind him. "Each of these others intends to challenge in turn, if I fail."

So. Snatching up his gray priest’s robes from the sand, Rakshal thrust dripping arms into one sleeve, then the other, feeling the burning weight of all those eyes. Last night, they must have seen something in him that they could not respect, and so now he would face challenge after challenge, each spaced only the minimum ten days apart, until he fell, as he must, and another took his place.

He buckled the leather straps across his aching chest, then glanced up into their silent faces. "I shall be waiting."

Forcing the obstinate yirn along the faint path with flexed handclaws, Khea squinted, trying to mark the edge of the plateau, somewhere beyond the scrubby gray-green brush ahead. The sunbaked ground smelled like the inside of one of the immense ovens outside the hold, hot and closed, fused. Panting against the terrible heat, she wondered why the Line Mother had bid her travel in the hottest portion of Ankt’s midmorning gaze instead of sending a messenger jit. Was this yet another of the endless tests a cubling was subjected to between gleanings?

If she were culled this next time, she might be relegated to the nursery, one of the lesser responsibilities, or even worse, sent to the fields to sow and reap, activities at which even unnamed servants took a turn. Her ears trembled. She did not know how she could bear the shame of that. Far better to die than to fail, better to leave this life altogether than live the rest of her days, a worthless shadow among her superiors.

The yirn trotted up a small rise, grunting with the effort, and then she saw the tumbled redstone rocks that signalled the plateau’s abrupt edge. She tethered her mount, then slid down the steep sandy descent, dodging boulders and loose chaff all the way. At the bottom, bruised and scraped, she paused to catch her breath and look at the Guildhouse. Someone actually seemed to be sitting on the whitestone roof under the sweltering morning glare of Ankt. How strange, she thought, hurrying down the well-worn path, but then Restorers were reputed to be an odd lot, even pale-gray Vexk, who had been born of Vvok and was a cousin of hers out of her birth-mother’s generation.

Vexk emerged from the hold as she approached. "I bear a summons from the Line Mother," she said, making an effort not to pant.

"So." Vexk’s ears flicked. "It is as I feared."

"Will you come?"

"I can do nothing more for this creature at Vvok." Vexk studied her face. "Tell the Line Mother it must be brought here—by you, no one else." Her lips wrinkled back from bone-white teeth. "Otherwise, we shall refuse the honor of this service."

Khea forgot herself and stared at Vexk’s pale face in wordless, undignified surprise.

Her expression was strange, unreadable. "Now, come into the hold and rest. There is time enough for that."

Khea’s ears pricked forward, then she thought of the Outsider, how it had stirred in her arms when she laid it at the Line Mother’s feet. What if it woke and stared directly into Seska’s eyes, as it often did hers? Seska would kill it out of pure reflex.

Her ears sagged. "No," she said hastily. "I must return."