The Singers of Nevya (30 page)

“Excuse me,” she said. Their eyes on her were neither friendly nor unfriendly, but waiting. Of course they knew her only as Theo’s traveler. “I would like to warm the water.”

One of them snickered. “How are you going to do that, build a fire with the benches?”

“Of course not,” Sira protested. “If we began that, the House would be gutted within days.” The woman stared at her, and Sira realized belatedly that she had meant to make a joke. She shrugged, and reached inside her tunic for her
filla
. It would be best to simply begin. Let them understand about her in their own time.

She sat down on one of the benches and began to play a plaintive
Doryu
melody. The light grew gradually around her, an intensely warm circle that expanded slowly but steadily to fill the
ubanyix
. The water looked clearer in the light, and the entire room seemed to take shape out of the gloom, walls and benches and niches and shelves coming into focus.

One of the women exclaimed at the sudden warmth, and another stood up, naked and dripping. She pointed at Sira where she sat. “You’re a Singer, too!”

They stared at each other, Sira and the women, for a tense moment. Then the one standing, her hair in sodden strands on her shoulders, burst out, “All this time you could have been warming this great cold pond, and you sat in your room listening to the Singer Theo play!”

Sira’s heart clenched, and she hid behind the frozen mask of her features. This was how it must have seemed to them, that Theo came to her room to play, and she listened. They would not know, even Pol did not know for certain, what she was. And now, instead of gratitude for warming the
ubanyix
, she met anger and resentment. She received just what she would have given had she been in their place.

Her mask melted, and a laugh bubbled to her lips. “You are quite right, Housewoman,” she said. “I have stayed in my room listening to the Singer, and now I am out of it. Make of it what you will!”

What a surprise she had for these people, she thought as she got to her feet. Not these poor, pitiful people, but these stubborn, spirited, hard-minded people. Perhaps she did not have to like them to admire them. And perhaps she did not have to agree with them to serve them.

She did not take time for a bath of her own. Instead, she hurried to her room to fetch the
filhata
. She unwrapped it, taking pleasure in the gleam of its restored wood and the nice tension of its gut strings. She tucked it under her arm in the old familiar way, and strode to the Cantoris.

She had avoided the Cantoris and its implications since her arrival. As she came into it now, it seemed little more than a high-ceilinged, empty space. It was neither elegantly spare, like that of Conservatory, nor ornately decorated, as it was at Bariken. Theo and Jon, it appeared, did not use the dais, but sat together on two carved chairs in the aisle between the benches. As Sira stepped up on the dais and took her seat, her boots left prints in the accumulated dust.

Her work with Theo had kept Sira in practice. Her fingers were sure and deft on the strings of the refurbished instrument. She tuned the C, and as a melody sprang into her mind, it was as if her last
quirunha
had been only yesterday instead of half a summer ago. If only there were a junior beside her, she thought, then smiled to herself. There would be, when Theo returned. He was almost ready. But this task she could handle alone.

She began in
Aiodu
, first just with the
filhata
and then, when her psi was clearly focused on the whole House—its apartments, its gardens, the kitchens, even the Watcher’s bubble at the top—she began to sing. As she modulated to
Iridu
, the rise in pitch was accompanied by a steep rise in the temperature of the House. She forgot that Observatory’s
quiru
was supposed to fade in the hours of darkness. She forgot she was a prisoner, and she almost forgot that Theo was working on a narrow path above a terrifying gorge. Sira lost herself in doing what she was born and trained to do. Her concentration was absolute. And Observatory began to come alive.

One by one, then in small groups, Housemembers straggled to the Cantoris. The music was strange to them, but the glow and the warmth of the
quiru
was hypnotic, and they found their way down the corridors with eyes and mouths wide with wonder. The
quiru
billowed out from the Cantoris, a wave of light and warmth and energy. The nursery gardens came alive, as if summer had burst upon them all at once. The abattoir brightened as if the suns had reached past the stone walls and right into its noisome interior.

Pol was among the first to come to the Cantoris. He stood in unabashed triumph at the back as Sira, his captive Cantrix, played the swiftest and strongest
quirunha
of her life.

In the mountains, two hours ride southeast from Observatory, Stfan looked up from where they all huddled on the path around Emil. “What’s that?” he cried, his voice cracking like that of the boy he really was.

They all looked up to the peak which was Observatory’s home. Theo grinned as he recognized the halo of light that bloomed on the far side of the mountain, a radiance like all those other beacons of warmth and safety, sister
quiru
that rose above the Continent where Cantors and Cantrixes served to protect their people.

“That, my friends,” he said, “is Cantrix Sira v’Conservatory at work.” He laughed, and slapped his thigh. “That is the result of a real
quirunha
performed by a Conservatory-trained Cantrix. No one will Watch at Observatory on this night!”

Sira finished her music, and looked up to see that the Cantoris had filled with people. Some stood, others sat on the benches. All but one stared at her in utter confusion. Unsmiling now, she stood and bowed to them all.

“I am Sira v’Conservatory,” she announced. The resonance of the Cantoris answered her with a deep, satisfying echo. “I warn you that I will not stay at Observatory any longer than I must. But while I am here, I will serve.”

Defiantly, though she knew it must be strange to them, and perhaps even offensive, she chanted the closing prayer of the
quirunha
.

S
MILE ON US,

O
S
PIRIT OF
S
TARS.

S
END US THE SUMMER TO WARM THE WORLD,

U
NTIL THE SUNS WILL SHINE ALWAYS TOGETHER.

She tucked the
filhata
under her arm and stepped off the dais. The people watched her as she passed, and Sira, her mind still feeling exposed and raw, sensed a lightening of their worries. She sensed their hope, and its yearning intensity pained her. She pressed her lips together, and paced out of the Cantoris.

Pol caught up with her in the hall. “A marvelous
quirunha
, Cantrix.” He cast her a sidelong glance, and matched her steps with his own.

Sira threw him a look. “Just Singer,” she said firmly.

Pol chuckled. “You may choose your title as you wish. But please remember in the future that at Observatory we require darkness at night.”

Sira stopped, thunderstruck at his arrogance. He stopped with her, and his eyes glittered savagely in the brilliance of her
quiru
. “I’m sure you can manage that,” he added. His wooden features softened, almost a smile. “I doubt there’s a more talented—
Singer
—on the Continent.” He turned and marched away from her, wearing his satisfaction like a fur wrapped around him.

Sira took a deep breath. If she had expected gratitude, or compliments, they were evidently not forthcoming. Another laugh, bittersweet, burst from her. These people were more like herself than she had ever wanted to believe.

Baru knelt beside Theo, watching until the Singer sat back wearily to rest a moment. “Will he live?” Baru asked.

Theo sighed. “Wish I could say. I am doing all I can.”

The other men slept, each snuggled close against the cliff face, as far from the edge of the precipice as possible. Stfan moaned in his sleep, and Theo turned to look at him. All was well, however, in the oversize
quiru
that still stretched along the path and down into the chasm.

Emil was badly hurt. Theo had spent most of the night trying desperately to stop the bleeding that threatened to steal his life despite all they had done. He felt Sira’s presence, though she was silent. Indeed, he had no energy to spare for conversation.

Emil was bleeding inside his body as well as from lacerations of his belly and chest. He had been lucky not to plunge into the canyon with his
hruss
. He had likely bounced against the cliff more than once before landing on the ledge. There had been no need to play in the first mode, as Emil was still unconscious. It was
Aiodu
Theo used, reaching inside the torn tissues to nudge them together. If Emil wakened, the pain from his blood-filled belly would be intense.

Theo played a slow, searching melody as he followed the path of the bleeding. Here, he thought, must be the worst of it. He applied precise touches of psi to press on the source. And there, he told himself, there is another, and he did the same, the slow music and Sira’s energy making him stronger, more accurate, more powerful than he had ever been.

It went on for hours, with Theo unaware of his own body, only of the torn one he was trying to mend. When at last he thought he had done all he could, he put down his
filla
, trembling with fatigue.

Sira spoke to him then, over the distance she had bridged with her
filhata
.
Well done, Singer
, she sent.
Emil is lucky to have you as his healer.

Thank you.
Theo felt the contact dissolve, and he looked around him for the first time in hours. The high mountain sun glimmered over the eastern peaks, and the sprawling
quiru
paled before its light. A faint color tinged the cheeks of the unconscious man, and Theo thought he might wake before long. The problem now was to transport him.

The path was too narrow for a
pukuru
, but Baru had fashioned a litter with
caeru
hides and softwood poles. They would carry Emil by hand back up the cliff path. The sun gleamed on the layer of ice that clung to the rocks. It would be a treacherous passage until they made it through the crevice and into the broader road above the canyon. Stfan led the extra
hruss
on long tethers. If one of them slipped, he would have to let it go. Theo rode in front of him, keeping an eye on Emil and refusing to look down in the depths of the chasm. Baru and one of the riders walked slowly, with the litter slung between them, feeling their way cautiously, trying not to jar Emil. It was a silent and tense group of men.

When they were perhaps a quarter of an hour from the narrow opening, Emil began to wake from the stuporous sleep that had held him all night. He shifted and tossed in the litter, putting those who carried him at risk of slipping.

“Put him down gently,” Theo called. They did so gingerly, mindful of their precarious footing. Theo dismounted and pulled out his
filla
once again. He knelt in an impossibly small space by the litter to play a melody in
Iridu
, to induce his patient to sleep. Emil’s pain had begun to rise, and with it came delirium. Theo put his hand on the injured man’s forehead, and the sensation of Emil’s pain made him catch his own breath. He cast about for an idea.

Theo.
Sira was with him again.
You need a sleep
cantrip.

I do not know one
, Theo sent back, helplessly.

Then I will help you
.

At this distance?

We must try
, came her answer.
Be as open to me as you can. I will give you the
cantrip.
It will come from me, but you will be the instrument.

Theo took a deep breath, set down his
filla
, and closed his eyes, putting himself in Sira’s hands. He felt her psi, so strong, so steady, join with his own as if they were one person. Words came into his mind, and he sang them, as Sira’s psi threaded through his own. His voice was neither so cultured nor so disciplined as Sira’s, but the
cantrip
succeeded just the same. Emil’s restlessness ceased, and he lay quiet and still. Only his breath showed that he still lived.

Somehow,
Theo sent,
I must learn that skill
.

You have just done so,
she answered.

Shortly afterward, the party was on its painstaking way once again, with Emil soundly sleeping in his litter. The
pukuru
was waiting for them beyond the cliff path, and when they had squeezed themselves and the
hruss
through the crevice, Baru hitched the sled to his own
hruss
and transferred Emil into it. He mounted, and looked back at Theo from his saddle. “I don’t know how you did it, Singer,” he said, “but you’ve saved this man’s life. His family will be grateful, and so are we.”

“Better thank the Spirit.” Theo was too tired to smile. “I hardly know how it happened myself.”

They were safe at Observatory two hours later, welcomed into a warm, brilliantly lighted House. They went to bathe in very hot water in the
ubanyor
. Mates and children greeted them excitedly, and the injured man was put to bed in his family apartment. Sira insisted that Theo eat and sleep, and she promised she would treat Emil’s pain if he wakened.

I could not have stopped his bleeding,
she sent to Theo in a private moment.
But I can ease his pain.

I think you would be surprised at how much your healing skills have grown
, Theo sent wearily.
But we can discuss that later.

Sira gave him a narrow smile.
Indeed. Sleep now, dear. I will be here when you waken.

In his fatigue, Theo pushed away the question that came to his mind. She would be here when he woke this time, but for how much longer? It was not a question he could deal with now, and he kept his thought low so as not to disturb Sira with it. He fell into his cot and slept for hours without moving and without dreams.