The Seekers of Fire (29 page)

"And don't be afraid, Linde. Whatever the Bers might be trying to do, I am not going to let them succeed." She trembled, and he reluctantly stood and tried to help her on her feet, Blake biting her sleeve and pulling back immediately. "We need to be at Council soon, and I'll take a look at your shower before that, even though I wish I had more time to comfort you. And back off, Blake. We won't play a pulling game with Linde. You should learn that she is
my
lady."

Linden

Day 79 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

His
lady. And just how did he intend to comfort her? Who was it of them both who needed the comforting, if comforting it were, anyway? And what right did he think he had to look at her in the way he had looked at her just now, after his "
basic instincts and random wenches
" speech last night? Fears suddenly gone, Linden wanted to throw the shower head at him.

"Perhaps, instead, you should both learn that, lady or not, I am my own. And in the unlikely event that I would ever let a man play games with me, my lord, he would more likely belong to Blake's species rather than yours! Please excuse me for a moment."

She escaped to her bedroom, away from him, followed by Blake's barking. She was aware that she might be acting childishly and yet she was continuing to act. Just a moment alone, so that she could pull herself together ... She felt weak, much weaker than she had been before he had come to her and kissed her hand. So, was she like those women in stories, who literally swooned before men? She had not thought it physically possible.

Admittedly, it had not been an easy night, and Linden's fears were also returning now. Wretch the Bers, what had they done to Rianor? Since he had come this morning he looked as if he wanted to break something and break it hard, and she wondered if that condition was not even more detrimental to him that whatever the shower effects were. He controlled himself and his moods, but how for how long could he do it? At what price?

On top of that, she was still angry with him. Her hands were trembling, and the wounded hand hurt. Her head, too. She should do something. If she continued to stand here and grip the bed frame, she would go mad.

Well, she could take a look at her shower, herself. She found no strength to walk—rather, found no strength to make many small consistent steps—but it was easier to find the strength to dash.

She overturned a chair in the process, ignoring both the sound of its fall and the corresponding bark from the living room, as well as the subsequent sound of a door flinging open. Why was she so weak and disoriented? She did not remember clearly all that happened after that, but she did remember raising herself on her toes to grab the shower head, and then the feel of something shooting through her hand as the world became too bright and then faded.

The Sun was shining brightly, even though a moment ago, outside the bathroom window, the eastern sky had been darker and hinting of the approaching evening. Now, big trees with wide, warm trunks reached branches to the sky just a few steps away from her, and beneath her bare feet the grass was green and sewn with flowers. A gentle wind brushed her face. Her lungs tingled with the fragrant blend of Sun-warmed soil, budding leaves and blooming. Her hand did not hurt at all ... Her hand? Why should it hurt? Linden looked at her thin, bare wrist. It looked fine, but something was not right ... And there was something else, a nervousness, a sense of loss that even the Sun and wind could not melt, a feeling that intruded in this world's pervading peace—and, strangely, she wanted it to.

The wind brushed her face again, this time with more force, as if it wanted her to stop. Stop what? Stop thinking, feeling. Something was wrong. The wind again, this time a blast rather than a caress. Her head hurt, and so did her hand. Something was wrong, but she did not know what. She did not know ... She did not know!

"You don't know what, Linde?" A voice, both angry and concerned, and she knew that voice; it had something to do with the sense of loss that the wind did not want her to feel.

"You." She clutched at the voice, pulling it to herself, squeezing it so much that it hurt her and yet gave her something that she lacked, something that she needed. "You," she said again.
It must have been you that I missed.
"And the world."

Then the grass and trees and wind were gone, and she was squeezing not a voice but Rianor's arms while he was pulling her out of the bathtub. Blake was barking madly, but stopped when he saw her awake. A moment later he inserted his muzzle into the bathtub and presented her with a broken shower head.

"I will take this." Rianor extended a hand. "Good boy. As for you, my lady, you don't know a lot. And I won't let you be '
your own lady
' if you will do stupid things."

"Stupid things, my lord? You did the same stupid thing today. And you can't let me or not let me anything." There. She was arguing with him again, and that was normal. Her head and body hurt from the fall, but she knew who he was again. And the world was not peaceful any more, but she knew who
she
was. And where.

"It is not the same stupid thing. I happen to be the High Lord; breaking a shower head is less dangerous for me. As for what I can or cannot do to you—" He had brought her to her bed and now lowered her on it, leaning over her. "How do you know? Did you by any chance ask me for the documents of your noble status? Do you know what exactly is written in them?"

"No. I don't know. So stupid of me that I trusted you, is that what you are trying to say? Well, you trusted me, too, with your Inner Sanctum and Aetarx." She stared at him. "And you know what? You trust the Bers, too, my High Lord. Breaking a shower head is less dangerous for you only if the Bers are not lying to you. And they did not tell you about the showers."

If possible, he looked even angrier than before. Then he sighed. "Well, you are right. Stupid of me to say this, after all that has happened. '
A mind too focused will miss the obvious,
' Master Keitaro likes to say, and he might be right, too."

She opened her mouth to reply but did not, her heart jumping in her chest as suddenly someone pounded heavily on the outside door and Blake started barking.

"I will see who it is. You be careful with moving. You hit your head." Rianor removed his arm from behind her waist, and Linden took a few deep breaths, unsuccessfully trying to calm down her heartbeat.

"Hello? Is everything all right?" A woman's voice, somehow managing to outshout the dog. "Hello? I heard something breaking a little while ago. Blake? Hello? I am going to count to twenty and then enter ... Oh! Rianor! I am sorry, am I intruding? I thought I heard something ... Blake! Don't jump on me! Down, now, that's a good boy. Oh! Hello!"

Linden had managed to stand up and reach the dressing room and then the door to the living room; now she leaned on the frame to steady herself and made herself smile at the newcomer. She could not just remain in the bed, could she? Fortunately, the newcomer looked like an easy person to smile to. "Hello, I am Linden."

The woman smiled back, two dimples forming on her cheeks. She looked several years older than Linden, with pretty wavy black hair and a flowing dress, and warm, golden-brown eyes that watched Linden with open friendliness.

"I am Jenelly—Jenne. Nice to meet you, Linden. Oh, no, this is too formal. Is calling you Linde all right? It is? Good. Perfect. I am sorry I did not come to see you yesterday, but I was a tiny bit sick—Oh, dear, but you are so pale and you are leaning on that door! Come on, you should sit and maybe drink some of Nan's rosehip tea."

She took Linden's hand and pulled her towards the rocking chair where Linden had sat earlier for her breakfast with her maids, then with a single "May I?" started rummaging through the cupboards.

"It is a very good daily tea for well-being, but if you drink it in the evening you may have difficulties falling asleep ... Well, looking at you, right now you would not have much difficulties with falling asleep, whatever you drank. So rosehips it is, just where is it ..." She opened yet another empty drawer. "Oh, but you have no bottles of tea here yet, do you? Of course you do not, you are so new and have not yet settled. I'll ask Nan to bring you some. But come on now, there is tea in our suite—Oh, Rianor, may we please hold the Council in our suite and not in the Council Room? I was actually going to your suite to ask you, before I heard the sound here from the stairs, so I am glad you are here yourself. You know"—she sighed and Linden thought a shadow passed before her eyes—"Desmond had better not walk around. He can walk, and he would, but it is not good for him, and perhaps if you told him, he would listen. He does not listen to me at all ..."

There was certainly a shadow on her face now, and suddenly Linden was irritated with Desmond. Such a sullen and conceited man he had seemed. How did Jenne, a woman who looked so sweet and clueless live with him? Why did she? "
Oh, the wonders and mysteries of love,
" a song popular in Linden's school went.

But of course. Call it "
a wonder
" or "
a mystery
" and you had an excuse to never try understanding it—an excuse to not take responsibility for it. People knew about love no more than they knew about Science, but at least most did not jump into Science headstrong, with the hope that they would figure it out as they went, or that some "
mysterious
" inborn trait would take care of it.

The very thought of love irritated Linden further. Science, on the other hand, made her feel good; thinking of it right now seemed to somewhat lessen her weakness. So, of Science she thought.

"Certainly, Jenne," Rianor was saying, "we may have the Council in your suite. Do not worry."

"Do you have a wheelchair, Jenne?" Linden looked at her. "Not to use it now, but in case Desmond wants to go outside later."

"Oh, no, dear." Jenne shook her head. "The situation must be dire for Desmond to allow someone else to push him around in a chair, and even then I am not sure he would. He will walk, or else he will stay in one place."

Pride, and perhaps too much of it; Linden was not surprised. But it was not Desmond's pride she was interested in right now.

"Oh, no, there might not be a need for him to succumb to someone else's help," she said carefully. "I am thinking of a Scientific device, rather. Think about a chair that could move by itself. That is, if you connected the wheels to a system of levers, you could push the levers with your hands and move the chair like that ..." She proceeded to explain her idea in a few words. Jenne looked cluelessly at her, then looked at Rianor as if for confirmation, and finally started nodding enthusiastically.

"Linde, this might work, even though I hope Desmond doesn't need it." Jenne smiled. "All the technical things you said go way beyond my head, of course. I wish that were not so; I am so envious of you."

"It sounds more complex than it is. I can show you if you want, but we will need an existing chair and some other things, such as wire and metal rods. I don't know where to get them, though. I could use the rods from walking crutches, but the shop where I know they sell crutches is too far away from here ..."

Linden stopped, suddenly, finally, grasping the reality of her situation. Could she go to a shop or anywhere else—could she go outside of the House at all? And even if she did go to a shop, what money would she pay with? She did not have any right now, even though she was dressed in fine clothes and slept in a room full of splendor. What were the logistics of her new daily life? Who was she, at this moment, to the world of Mierenthia? Was her life in danger outside the House? Inside the House? Linden clutched her hands together so that they would not shake. Where and how were Mom and Dad? Were their lives in danger? And was Rianor's own life in danger, from the Bers?

"We will take care of the materials for your chair. Don't worry, my lady." Rianor extended a hand to help her stand, for a moment looking at her in a way that said he knew her other worries, too. "I have not shown you my study and everything in it yet, have I? Tomorrow, maybe. It is an interesting thought, building such a chair. Now, however, let us go to Desmond. Jenne?"

"Yes." Jenne smiled again, oblivious to the tension and unsaid words between Linden and Rianor, then moved closer to Linden as the three of them and Blake walked out of the room.

"Linde, wait, you have dog hairs on your jacket." She reached out and brushed Linden's sleeve. "There are more on your chest, brush them off yourself, so that I do not touch you there." She brushed something off from her own dress next. "Yes, our Blake's hair is very obvious on black clothes, I am glad my dress is yellow ... Oh, Linde, but black trousers and a green shirt suit you so fine, especially with the silver scarf. Don't they, Rianor?"

She lowered her voice so that only Linden could hear. "I wish I could wear trousers, too, but you know, I need to lose weight first ... "

Linden barely heard Jenne's chatter; replied to her, but later did not remember her own words. The weakness had come back, and she had to invest all her concentration in walking, so that Rianor would not have to help her yet again. She would not be such a burden to him.

Yet, despite the concentration, some thoughts refused to sit still.

The moving chair might have been Linden's next project, after Mistress and Mister Clerk's pulley system, had she stayed at home. Mistress Cadence Healer might have had use for something like this. The old woman was finding it harder and harder to walk with her crutch and yet would throw that same crutch at anyone who tried to assist her.

Mister Podd had not been enthusiastic about the chair at all.

"Lind, it is one thing to haul shopping bags with a mechanism," he had said, "and quite another thing to haul
people.
Science is insufficient for something of that scope. Don't even think of it, do you hear?"

Not that he had been enthusiastic about the shopping bags earlier.