The Singers of Nevya (40 page)

In a few hours she and Morys would meet the party in the Pass. Sira would ride away with them, and Morys would return to Observatory alone. Sira could only guess at how painful the sight of him, riding back without her, would be for Theo.

A
quiru
trembled about the traveling party in the brisk breeze that blew through the Pass from the south. Sira tried to send to the Singer who had made the
quiru
, to warn him of their approach, but he was an itinerant, and could not hear her. She and Morys approached the campsite in silence until they were close enough for Morys to call out, “Greetings. Two more travelers here.”

The people in the
quiru
did not hesitate to step out of it. In truth, they could have been comfortable without a
quiru
in the mild summer evening. The sky was just shading to the violet of the mountain dusk. Sira rode with her furs open, her hood pushed back. She lifted a hand in greeting, and she heard one of the travelers take a sharp breath. She lifted her scarred eyebrow, wondering which of them was so startled by her appearance.

There were four in the party. One still held his
filla
in his hand. Another was a woman, a rider by the look of her cropped hair and weathered skin. Next to her stood another rider, a man with hard black eyes. The fourth was an old man with hair as white as the snow on the high peaks. He was tall, as tall as Sira herself. She thought there was something familiar about him, but she did not know his name. Five
hruss
rested hipshot behind them, crowded into the circle of light despite the warmth of the evening.

“Cantrix Sira?” their Singer asked.

It was true, as Sira had thought. They had come searching for her.

She bowed from her saddle. Morys jumped down from his
hruss
and stepped forward. “This is Cantrix Sira. We’ve come from Observatory.”

There was a moment of strained silence. The hard-eyed man stepped forward. “We’re glad to see you, Cantrix,” he said, and bowed. The others also bowed, and from the white-haired man Sira felt a distinct wave of relief. She was sure he was not Gifted, and that meant his emotion must be very strong for it to penetrate her shielding.

Of course, she reminded herself, her shields were not what they had once been. Theo had seen to that.

She dismounted, and a place was made for her in the
quiru
, her bedfurs unrolled, her saddlepack put within reach. She sat cross-legged and looked around at the party.

The itinerant Singer put his
filla
to his lips and played a brief melody to expand the
quiru
to encompass the two new
hruss
. The sky darkened swiftly to purple above the campsite, and the air sharpened.The white-haired man knelt stiffly in the middle of the camp to start a cooking fire, and the others began to introduce themselves.

“I’m Tani v’Lamdon, Cantrix,” the woman rider said, putting her hand on her chest. She indicated the other rider. “This is Dom, rider for the senior Cantor at Lamdon. Cantor Abram, that would be.”

Sira’s head came up, and she fixed her gaze so fiercely on Tani that the woman took an involuntary step back. For the first time since they had arrived Sira spoke. “Cantrix Sharn?” Her voice rang in a breathless silence, and it appeared for a moment no one would answer.

“Died,” said Dom. “She went beyond the stars a few weeks ago, Cantrix.”

Sira breathed out slowly and dropped her head. She had been only a girl when Cantrix Sharn had received her in triumph at Lamdon. She remembered the soft, lined face and the gentle voice that belied Sharn’s great strength and influence. There were so many deaths still to mourn. She shrank from thinking of what other news might await her.

The itinerant Singer waited for the moment to pass. When he introduced himself, his bow was perfect, neither too deep, because he was after all Gifted, nor too shallow, because she was a full Cantrix and he only a traveling Singer. “I’m Iban v’Trevi,” he said in a light, clear voice. Sira nodded to him. He went on. “I was hoping the Singer Theo might be with you. The Committee thought you were together.”

Sira dropped her eyes to her linked hands. Her throat constricted, and she dared not speak. Morys came to her rescue.

“The Singer Theo is now Cantor Theo v’Observatory,” he announced with pride. “And a wonderful Cantor he is. Trained and presented by Cantrix Sira.”

“How is that possible?” the Singer Iban asked. “And why would he?”

“It was his choice,” Morys said with asperity. “Observatory isn’t the outcast House you all would like it to be. It’s a fine House, if a bit smaller than some, and now it has the finest Cantor on the Continent.”

A smile overcame Sira’s rush of sorrow. How Theo would laugh if he could hear Morys bragging about him. And how she would love to hear that laugh! The thought of his firm voice ringing out into the Cantoris of Observatory cheered her. She put her hand to her chest, where the bit of metal hung.

“I’m Morys, by the way,” the guide added. “Morys v’Observatory.”

The cooking fire began to crackle and dance. The white-haired man straightened with difficulty and turned toward Sira and Morys. Sira watched him, wondering why he seemed familiar. He was thin, looking like a softwood tree at the height of summer. He looked, in fact, a bit like herself. But he must be very old. Too old, surely, to be riding out into the mountains.

He bowed to her as the others had, but stiffly. “Cantrix Sira,” he said, in a deep voice. “I’m Niel v’Arren.”

It was Sira’s turn to take a sharp breath. A silence stretched around the campsite. The other travelers watched as Sira slowly rose to her feet to face the old man. The flames from the fire made shadows that moved across both their faces, their angular, bony, thin faces. One was smooth and unlined, the other weathered and creased to the texture of ironwood, but the resemblance was unmistakable.

“I’m your father,” Niel said at last. “I feared you dead twice. Now I thank the Spirit you’re well.”

Sira was at a loss. She had been seven when her parents delivered her over to Conservatory. They had visited her once after that, in her third summer. She had now five summers, by common reckoning. More accurately, she was twenty-three years old. She had not seen her father in ten years.

Not knowing what else to do, she bowed deeply. “I am sorry, Father. I did not know you. And I never expected–that is, I—”

Niel nodded, his face as grave and unreadable as Sira’s own. “I thought I should be here,” was all he said, and crouched again by the cooking fire.

Sira hesitated. “My—my mother is—”

Niel looked up at her. “Your mother is well. Busy with grandchildren.”

Sira nodded. There must be many grandchildren. There had been so many brothers and sisters, and more after she left. She hardly remembered their names.

Her own childhood had not been like those of the children she came to know at Observatory. Her classmates at Conservatory, with her teachers, had been her family. The name of Maestra Lu, her master teacher, still caused her feelings of bereavement, but now, hearing that her own mother still lived and was well, she felt nothing more than a vague relief. She remembered being fond of her father when she was a small child, but the development of her Gift had set her apart, isolated her from the family. She sifted through her memories, trying to understand how her father came to be with this party of searchers.

Niel prepared the
keftet
with the quick ease of long practice, and soon all the party were seated on their bedfurs facing the little fire. Practiced travelers all, they ate every bit of the meat and grain, and washed their ironwood bowls with chunks of old snow from beyond the perimeter of the
quiru
. There was desultory talk, but no one seemed to know what to say to Sira, and she had little to say to them. Only when they were all preparing to roll into their bedfurs and sleep did she turn again to Niel v’Arren. To her father. “I would like to know why you are here.”

He turned his solemn face to her. The shadows deepened on his craggy features, and his eyes were dark and determined. “I heard about what happened with your first assignment. Bariken. All the Continent knows the story.”

Sira kept her face impassive, but under her breastbone a little flicker of emotion surprised her. “Yes,” was all she said. She doubted he had heard the whole story.

“You refused to go back into the Cantoris.”

“So I did.”

Niel stared hard at her. “But Nevya needs you. All of you.”

The flicker grew into a flame, and Sira recognized it as anger. She controlled her voice carefully. “Yes?”

“I didn’t give up a child to Conservatory to have her turn her back on her duty.”

“I see my duty differently than Conservatory does.” Her gaze was level, no less determined than Niel’s.

“Have you thought what this will do to your mother?”

“I do not understand you. Why should this decision harm my mother?”

“She isn’t a young woman. She’s become accustomed to certain comforts, and if you abandon the Cantoris, those will be taken away.”

Sira shook her head. “I am sorry for both of you,” she said. “I have disappointed you, and Conservatory, but I cannot help it. I have not abandoned Nevya. There is work I must do.”

Niel turned his back and went to his own bedfurs.

Sira lay down and pulled her furs around her chin despite the abundant warmth of the
quiru
in the summer night. The air above her sparkled and glimmered with the force of her anger. She could sense, as clearly as though she were looking at him, the Singer Iban watching, but she could not quell her anger. If her own father, stranger though he was, had come all this way to try to force her to obey Conservatory’s wishes, then certainly even more pressure would be brought to bear upon her. Yet Niel had not asked her a single question!

She calmed herself as best she could, mustering thoughts of Theo’s face, his smiling eyes, longing to be able to pour out her thoughts to him. Then she concentrated on the image of young Zakri, whom she had come to find, and who symbolized the work she had to do. Before she slept, her first night in the Pass in more than four years, she looked up at the distant stars twinkling through the
quiru
. Her hand found its way again to the bit of strangely marked metal on its narrow thong. Theo had given it to her only that morning, a morning that now seemed long past, part of a different life. The metal grew warm in her hand, and it seemed as if Theo’s hand were on hers as she held it. She sent a silent prayer to the Spirit of Stars for him, and for herself, and then she closed her eyes and slept.

Chapter Nine