Besieged (19 page)

Imoshen dropped to her knees and slid her arms around Frayvia’s shoulders. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

The girl looked up, surprised. ‘But he was only Malaunje.’

‘How can you say that?’

Frayvia flushed, then gulped back a sob. Her mouth worked. ‘They... they told me not to fuss. Told me Malaunje girls were more important, and I’d have plenty of chances to produce a girl, or even a T’En. They took him away. I didn’t even get to hold him!’

‘That’s so cruel.’

Frayvia wiped her cheeks. ‘That’s the way it is.’

‘It’s not right,’ Imoshen said. ‘One day, when I live with the brotherhood, I’ll change things.’

Frayvia stared at her, then looked down at the baby.

‘You don’t think it’s possible to change things?’

Frayvia shook her head and moved baby Iraayel to the other breast. He burped loudly and they both smiled.

Imoshen watched him feed. ‘I have to try to change things. If I think something is wrong, I can’t just sit back and let it happen.’

‘Oh, Imoshen.’

‘H
AVE YOU HEARD
?’ Arodyti asked.

Vittoryxe ignored her for the moment, completing the last of her gift-warrior exercises before stretching. They stood on the palace roof set aside for T’En sisters. Potted palms stirred in the breeze. ‘Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt a T’En seeking balance?’

The exercises were designed to promote peace and harmony between mind, body and gift. Every adult T’En was supposed to perform them every day. Warriors concentrated on building their strength, while scholars carried out stretches that helped focus the mind.

‘Sorry,’ Arodyti said, but her eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘You’ll never believe the news.’

Vittoryxe rolled up her mat and slung it over her shoulder. ‘You’re carrying on like a new initiate, not someone who will be an adept in three years.’

‘Remember Reoden’s daughter?’

‘Must be a year old soon?’

Arodyti nodded. ‘Did you ever wonder why Ree became the all-mother right after giving birth?’

‘She’s a healer. The best we have.’

‘She’s also the mother of a sacrare.’

‘How could she have a sacrare child?’ Vittoryxe demanded, sick with envy. She felt her gift surge and concentrated on banking it. ‘She’d have to make the deep-bonding, and no one’s done that for four hundred years.’

‘Thanks to her healing power, Ree was able to carry the baby to term. She’s provided her sisterhood with a daughter who will grow into a powerful adult and win great stature for them. That’s why their all-mother stepped down, making Reoden all-mother of the largest sisterhood!’

‘Ours is the largest sisterhood,’ Vittoryxe corrected. ‘It has the longest and most glorious history. More...’

But Arodyti was already darting away to waylay someone else with the news.

Vittoryxe went to check on her birds. Today, even their exquisite forms and fluting songs could not soothe her.

All she had to do was birth a sacrare to become an all-mother. Not only was it next to impossible, but it was not for her. She couldn’t bring herself to tryst with a male. Besides, she wasn’t a healer. She would never be able to fall pregnant, and carry a healthy child.

Furious with everyone and everything, she headed down to the chambers she shared with her devotee. As she strode into the private chamber, Choris looked up with a guilty start.

Their choice-son, Mefeyne, ducked his head.

Vittoryxe stiffened. Now that he was thirteen, they should be distancing themselves from him, not indulging him. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘It’s not Choris’s fault, choice-mother. I cut my hand.’

She took his hand to inspect the injury. It was the merest scratch, and her devotee had pandered to him.

‘Don’t you understand, Choris? He must go to the brotherhood by the time he is seventeen. He must be hardened up.’ She rounded on Mefeyne, trying not to recall the sweet little boy he had been. It helped that he was nearly as tall as her. ‘You will thank me for this one day. Go back to the other lads. Don’t come here again.’

His chin trembled.

‘Go.’

He turned and went.

Choris covered her mouth as if to prevent herself calling out to him. In all other things they saw eye to eye but, when it came to the lad...

Vittoryxe stalked out, her gift raging to be free.

She went straight to Gift-tutor Lealeni, determined to confront her. For years now, the gift-tutor had been promising to name Vittoryxe as her successor, but she had never made the formal announcement.

Reoden was eleven years younger than her, and already led her sisterhood.

Vittoryxe strode into the gift-tutor’s training chamber. ‘Lealeni?’

There was no sign of her in her private study, and the gift training chamber was empty. Bookshelves stretched along one wall. Vittoryxe was about to leave, when her gift switched to the empyrean plane without warning; the air rippled with distortion.

Something drew her to an aisle between bookshelves.

There Lealeni sat slumped against the shelf, half bent over a fallen initiate. The foolish girl’s gift must have surged uncontrollably and torn her from this plane into the next, and the gift-tutor had gone after her.

As Vittoryxe watched, a wound opened up in the side of Lealeni’s face, leaking bright power. Another opened on her arm.

She would have to go through to help. Annoyed, because she would gain no stature by risking her life, Vittoryxe knelt to touch the young initiate

Immediately she segued to a twilit hillside. She stood between two rows of heavily laden grape vines. A brooding sky hung low overhead.

There was no sign of Lealeni, and the girl lay on her belly on the icy ground, hands covering her head. Stupid initiate. It was a wonder her gift and life essence hadn’t been leached away. At least she was shielding her power. Shielding madly, by the feel of it.

Vittoryxe hauled the girl to her feet.

Sarosune’s young face was blank with terror. She was both gifted and smart. Vittoryxe had marked her as a possible future threat. But right now she was barely twenty and out of her depth.

Vittoryxe scanned the hillside for Lealeni, and spotted scuffled ground further up the rise. Each step she took, she expected one of the great predators to spring through the vines and take them down.

Someone had clearly run up this hill, though nothing had followed, which meant the attack could come from above. Vittoryxe looked up, fearing a harrowraven had them in its sights, but the sky was empty.

On the crest of the hill she found disturbed ground. Beyond it, the earth fell away into a natural amphitheatre.

Lealeni was backed up against the wall directly below them, surrounded by the dark forms of a dozen scraelings, sentient shadows. One was dangerous, a dozen were deadly.

Lealeni hadn’t sensed Vittoryxe yet, her attention focused on her attackers. She was wounded in several places and bleeding power – irresistible to empyrean beasts.

Scraelings followed big predators eager for their leavings. They had to get out of here before whatever it was came back.

Vittoryxe dropped to her knees and was about to her use her gift to form a rope when she hesitated. If Lealeni died here, no one would be surprised.

And she would become gift-tutor.

The position was hers.
Should
have been hers already.

Sensing the proximity of Vittoryxe’s gift, Lealeni looked up. Face pale with fear, she held out a beseeching hand.

Vittoryxe formed the rope and Lealeni caught it. With Sarosune’s help, she hauled her up. The scraelings screamed in frustration and charged, but they were too late.

As Lealeni collapsed in Vittoryxe’s arms, Sarosune’s gift surged on a tide of fear.

Vittoryxe spun around. An omnivulper loped up between the vines towards them, its broad wolfish head lowered in determination.

Vittoryxe felt Lealeni shudder with fear. Quick as thought, she drove her elbow into the gift-tutor’s abdomen, sending her reeling backwards into the amphitheatre and the waiting scraelings.

As the omnivulper leapt, Vittoryxe grabbed the girl and segued to the earthly plane, where they returned to their bodies with the juddering impact of a fall.

Gasping, Vittoryxe scrambled to drag them both to safety as Lealeni shuddered in her death throes.

Sarosune shivered, teeth chattering.

‘You’re safe. You hear me? You’re safe.’ Vittoryxe shook her.

‘What happened to Lealeni?’

‘I don’t know. She was right behind us.’

A noise made Vittoryxe spin.

Five frightened lads backed off, Mefeyne amongst them. Their gifts surged, driven by fear.

‘What’re you doing here?’ she snapped.

Mefeyne made obeisance. ‘We found the three of you unconscious, choice-mother. We didn’t know what to do, so I sent for help.’

‘You did the right thing not to touch us.’

‘The gift-tutor’s dying,’ Sarosune said, stricken. ‘True death, her gift and essence devoured by the beasts.’

Vittoryxe glanced to Lealeni.

The gift-tutor’s wounds no longer bled. A white frost covered her, creeping up the wall and across the floor.

‘Look,’ Vittoryxe told the youngsters, stepping aside so they could see the body. ‘This is why we are so hard on you. Even a trained T’En like Gift-tutor Lealeni can–’

Footsteps, voices coming closer.

‘Someone said there was trouble.’ Egrayne came up behind the lads, accompanied by Arodyti and a younger boy. ‘What’s going on here?’

In answer, Vittoryxe gestured to Lealeni’s still body.

‘Lea...’ Egrayne whispered.

‘The gift-tutor gave her life in the line of duty,’ Vittoryxe said. ‘She named me her successor.’

No one questioned her announcement.

‘Leave us now, boys. We must mourn our lost sister.’ Egrayne waited until they had gone then gestured to Arodyti. ‘Aro, take Sarosune away. See that she has something hot and sweet to drink. She’s had a shock. We’ll investigate this later.’

‘It’s my fault,’ Sarosune whispered. ‘I was practising immersion and extraction when–’

‘Did you vary your entry points?’ Vittoryxe asked.

The girl shook her head.

‘That’s what did it. You shed power each time. You might as well have lit a beacon.’

A sob escaped Sarosune.

‘Enough,’ Egrayne said.

‘Her lack of thought nearly got us all killed,’ Vittoryxe countered. ‘I’m gift-tutor now. I say when it is enough.’

Egrayne eyed her thoughtfully, but didn’t argue. ‘What took Lealeni in the end?’

‘We don’t know,’ Vittoryxe lied. ‘She was right behind me when I escaped with Sarosune.’

‘There was a vulper,’ the young initiate said.

‘An omnivulper,’ Vittoryxe corrected. ‘It was old and smart. It was stalking us.’

‘And there were scraelings,’ Sarosune added, ‘dozens of them. She didn’t stand a chance. She saved me by drawing the omnivulper away. Told me to hide.’

‘She died serving her sisterhood,’ Egrayne said. ‘There is no better way to die. Vittoryxe’s appointment will have to be recognised by the all-mother’s inner circle, but...’ They all knew it would be a formality.

‘Let me be the first to congratulate you.’ Egrayne stepped forward and gave Vittoryxe the formal obeisance of an equal.

Vittoryxe realised that they finally held the same rank. Now only Egrayne stood in her way.

‘T
HERE’S FIVE CANDIDATES
waiting in the corridor,’ Irian reported. ‘How they act when they think no one important can see them will reveal what kind of person they really are. They’ve been told we’re looking for a new tithe-collector.

‘Which is true,’ Ardeyne said. ‘As far as it goes.’

Rohaayel nodded. ‘Send in the tithe-master and his assistant.’

Irian opened the door to the tithe-master’s study and beckoned. Tithe-master Ysanyn was an old, mid-ranking adept, who was not privy to their plans for Imoshen. His Malaunje assistant was equally aged.

‘When the initiate first enters, I want you to berate your assistant,’ Ardeyne told the tithe-master. ‘Then tell the initiate to wait and go into your study.’

Ysanyn nodded.

Ardeyne turned to the assistant. ‘When you’re alone with the initiate, knock the abacus off the desk. The rods have been loosened so the beads will go everywhere. You’ll need to repair the abacus between each initiate. We’ll be behind the screen observing their unguarded reactions.’

‘I don’t normally go to this much trouble to select a tithe-collector,’ Ysanyn said.

‘Indulge me. We’re testing a theory,’ Rohaayel said.

They retreated to sit behind the screen.

The first three initiates ignored the Malaunje assistant’s predicament. The fourth looked contemptuous. The fifth knelt and helped him pick up the beads.

He was still picking up beads when Ysanyn called for him.

‘You go,’ the assistant told him. ‘I’ll be alright. Thank you.’

The initiate sprang to his feet, dusted off his pleated trousers and went in for his interview. When it was over, Ysanyn reported. ‘Two of the candidates would make good tithe-collectors. Both were smart, with a good head for figures.’

‘Which two were they, in order of interview?’

‘The second and the fifth.’

Irian saw Ardeyne and Rohaayel exchange looks.

‘The fifth one’s name was?’

‘Reothe.’

‘Tell him you’ve selected him,’ Rohaayel said, and then he and Ardeyne walked out.

Ysanyn caught Irian’s arm. ‘You’re not going to tell me what this is about?’

‘Sometimes it is better not to know,’ Irian said, wondering if Reothe would live to regret the honour they did him; it was not like he could refuse.

A little later, Torekar escorted the young initiate up to the all-father’s greeting chamber. Irian waited behind the door, arms folded, watching as Reothe knelt to give his obeisance to the brotherhood’s all-father and voice-of-reason.

After Rohaayel had explained about his secret T’En daughter and Reothe had recovered from his surprise, the all-father said, ‘We’ve chosen you to do a great service for our brotherhood. We want you to court Imoshen and make the deep-bonding so that she can carry a healthy sacrare son. With him, we’ll unite the brotherhoods and free ourselves from sisterhood domination.’