The Singers of Nevya (53 page)

This made Sira laugh, but she did take care. She sliced off the length of his hair first, dropping the soft locks on the bench in a little silken tassle. Then she cut the hair around his face and at his crown to the length of her thumb. When she was done, it lay against his skull like the downy fur of a newborn
caeru
pup. When he turned his face up to her, his eyes shining beneath the soft brown halo of his hair, Sira was surprised by a rush of maternal affection. She caught her breath at the power of it.

Her shields sprang up immediately, hiding the feeling. She released her breath, and sent only,
Do not worry, Zakri. You look nothing at all like Iban.

Zakri was keeping secrets of his own. He hid even from Sira the true extent of his Gift. She had said he must take control of it himself. He struggled with it, trying to discipline and restrain it, channel it into usable forms. Still, despite Sira’s power and her own strong Gift, he heard things from her mind that she did not mean him to hear.

When they worked together, her psi lifting and directing his own, showing him how to apply his energies to those tiniest particles of the air around them, he became aware of her hidden thoughts. He needed her help, especially at first, to focus his abundant energy, to avoid throwing brushes or sailing bits of tack across the room when he was trying only to create
quiru
. On his own, experimenting in his attic room, he still had difficulties. Most of his few possessions had flown across the floor more than once. But when they were joined, Sira’s psi twined with his, he sensed that other, Theo, ever present in her thoughts. He was neither shocked nor disturbed. The revelation made her seem more human, more vulnerable, less overwhelming in her discipline.

With Iban it was different. When the three of them left Tarus at last, generously supplied and outfitted by Magister Kenth, Iban cheerfully assisted Sira in Zakri’s ongoing training.
Quiru
called up with Iban were swift and economical, as straightforward as the Singer himself. With Iban it was not difficult to obey the precepts of courtesy, and when the music stopped and their psi subsided, he knew no more of the man than had they simply taken a walk together.

Zakri was both fearful and excited when he learned they were on their way to Conservatory. The heavy snows had come and gone, and they rode in icy sunshine over deep snowpack, the broad hooves of the
hruss
almost soundless on its surface. Iban kept a cheerful countenance as Sira and Zakri conversed silently.

“I am sorry, master,” Sira said on their first night out in the Timberlands. The stars were incredible, Zakri thought, beyond numbering in the purple mantle of the night. “If Zakri speaks aloud too much now, he will lose the ability he has developed.”

Zakri heard her send,
Can you hear this, Singer Iban?
When he showed no sign of having heard, her face remained politely impassive. “Of course we will speak aloud with you whenever you wish it.”

Singer Iban nodded and made some light remark, his strange eyebrows flying up and down. But Zakri wondered if it did not hurt him, just the same.

Zakri wondered many things, especially how Sira expected to wrest a
filhata
from Conservatory. She had confessed to owning not one bit of metal. She heard this idle thought of his, and she raised the warning finger, reminding him to discipline his mind. He sighed at the familiar gesture, and she smiled a little and relented.
I have to rely on old associations. And to convince someone
—
perhaps Magister Mkel
—
that what we are doing is beneficial to all Nevya.

Zakri doubted whether anyone could be convinced of that, including himself, but he kept this thought very low, and Sira did not appear to hear it.
What happened to your own
filhata?

I bought my
hruss
with it. It was all I owned of value.

It had never occurred to Zakri that a full Cantrix would have no metal to spend. He still wondered whether it was possible to obtain a
filhata
for someone like himself, but he could only trust that Sira would find a way. He was glad to give himself up to the glory of riding through the snowbound countryside, and to the joy of having companions.

Everything about traveling appealed to Zakri. The
hruss,
his special responsibility, delighted in eating up the distance with their swinging steps. Their coats stiffened and rose to thicken their padding against the deep cold. At night their mouths hung open as they tried to cool themselves in the
quiru
warmth. They could have left the heat for the frigid darkness beyond the light, of course, but the silly things couldn’t bear to be far from the humans, so they huffed and panted through the long nights. Zakri patted and soothed them, and they nuzzled him, almost trampling his feet as they pushed close.

Keftet
had never tasted so good as it did when cooked in a campsite under the broad sky. This Zakri said aloud, and Sira told him that her own first efforts at camp cooking had been all but inedible. “Like eating burned stones.”

“Singer Iban’s
keftet
is wonderful,” Zakri said.

Iban bowed from where he knelt by the little fire, measuring the herbs he used to make tea. “I thank you, Singer Zakri.”

Zakri’s cheeks warmed, and he ducked his head. “I am not yet a real Singer.”

Sira smiled. “I think you must be, if our master says so.”

“So I do,” Iban asserted. “You lack only experience, and that you’re getting now.”

Zakri felt bubbles of joy rise inhis throat, like the white foam on the stones of the beach below Tarus. He smiled at Sira and at Iban, and Iban suddenly laughed aloud. “By the Spirit, Zakri, you look as if both the suns just rose behind your head!”

Zakri looked around him and saw that his surge of happiness had enveloped him in a fiery corona of light. He shot Sira a guilty look, but she only lifted her teacup to him.

“You are entitled to be proud,” she said. “And this, tonight, must be your ceremony. Congratulations, Singer Zakri.”

“Thank you, thank you both.” Zakri’s heart felt too full for his chest to contain it. The air around him shimmered with a giddy brilliance.

But remember
, Sira sent privately, not revealing by so much as the flicker of an eyelash that she was sending.
You have another title still to earn, and that one will be far more difficult.

Zakri carefully controlled his own face. He looked down at the cooling tea in his cup.
I remember.
But even her note of warning could not dim his happiness. Singer Zakri. He had not thought it possible. No song he had ever heard could sound sweeter than that title.

Chapter Twenty-three

The glitter of deep snow and the vivid icy blue of the sky were spectacular, when the travelers dared glimpses of the beauty around them. They rode muffled and swathed, their furs pulled well forward over their faces. Sira began to long for some smell other than the tang of
caeru
fur, but the fresh air, when she let it inside her hood, burned her nose and lungs with cold. Her saddle leather creaked stiffly beneath her, and the ironwood trees groaned and cracked above her head. Iban said, “That sound reminds you’re in deep cold season—as if you could forget.”

Twice already Iban had spoken sternly to Zakri for exposing his face to play his
filla
. “No, do it this way,” he had said, allowing only the very end of his own
filla
out of the warmth of his hood. “Make sure your furs are roomy enough that you can play inside them. Otherwise, you can lose some skin where it hurts you the most.” He tapped his lips with a barely exposed finger. “Keep your sleeves pulled down, too, just your fingertips out. The biggest mistake an itinerant can make is to underestimate the cold. Worse than getting lost.”

To Sira he said, “No elaborate melodies in this season. Quick
quiru
are important.”

“Yes, master,” she answered respectfully.

In her mind she heard
No fancy stuff!
and Zakri’s mental laugh.

Pay attention
, she sent to him.
These lessons could save your life one day.

The cold slowed their progress. The journey took half again as long as it might have in easier weather. The sun rose late and set early, and seemed to shed no warmth at all once they had wended their way north through the Timberlands and climbed into the Mariks. Every day Iban had some lesson for Zakri, or for both of them. Though the trip was long, the time passed easily. The days were full of learning, and the evenings they spent in
filla
practice, singing, and storytelling. When at last they turned east at the landmark of trees and rock, toward Conservatory, Sira almost regretted seeing this journey come to an end.

They made their last camp well before the sun sank past the mountain peaks to the west. Iban was confident they would reach Conservatory the next day. Sira knew the time had come to speak to her master, but she was reluctant.

She watched with pleasure as Zakri’s strong, bright
quiru
swelled around them. She did not tell him, but she had never seen
quiru
so intense as those he called up in their mountain campsites. They all pushed back their furs in relief, glad to feel fresh air against their cheeks. Zakri hurried to pull the saddles of the
hruss
, to let the beasts cool while Iban unpacked the cooking things. Sira struck flint and stone over a tiny pile of softwood from her saddlepack, and it blazed immediately into a cheery yellow flame. “You see, master. I got it the first time.”

Iban grinned down at her. “That’s an odd small thing for a Cantrix to be proud of!”

“I worked hard to learn it.”

Now if only the great Cantrix could cook!
Zakri sent.

I can cook, you rascal! Only you and Iban do it so much better.

Zakri knelt beside Iban at the fire, dropping more softwood twigs on it. “I’ll make the
keftet
, master.”

Iban handed him the much-scarred and seasoned ironwood pot and a long spoon. “You think you remember everything?”

“So I do.” Zakri scooped a handful of clean snow into the pot and balanced it on two stones close to the fire. His fingers were deft as he sliced
caeru
meat into the pot to soak. Sira’s stomach grumbled as she watched him add the grain to the melted snow water, letting it soften before he sprinkled in the bits of green and yellow herbs and flakes of Tarus’s dried fish for flavor. He stirred everything after each step.

You take a long time over it,
Sira complained.

Cooking is an art. It needs patience
, he answered.
Like your stomach.

I would like to see such patience with your scales!

Zakri’s cheeks curved with laughter, but he kept his eyes on the
keftet. Scales do not fill empty bellies.

“Smells good,” Iban said, sniffing the aroma that rose from the cooking pot. “Makes me hungry. Let’s finish up Tarus’s fine fruitbread, too.”

Sira sat cross-legged, idle, and watched as the men served the meal. They were all silent as they savored Zakri’s
keftet
. It was moist and spicy and wonderfully hot.

“Excellent,” Iban murmured. “Singer Zakri, you’re a worthy student.”

“Since our master makes us eat it all, it might as well taste good,” Zakri said, with a sidelong glance at Sira.

She arched her white-slashed eyebrow.
I will be happy to let you prepare all meals.

Oh, I thank you!
he responded in mock relief. Sira’s lips twitched as she returned to her meal.

They made a long evening of it, with a feeling of celebration over journey’s end. Iban sang a silly song he had picked up on his trip to Trevi:

I
F A
C
ANTOR CAN’T AND A
S
INGER SINGS

A
ND A
FERREL
FLIES ON FEATHERED WINGS

T
HEN A
WEZEL
WON’T WITH AN
URBEAR
BONE

B
UT A
CAERU
CAN IF YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE!

They all laughed, and Iban confessed he had cleaned up the words of the song a bit for Sira’s sake. Zakri played the
filla
for them, first the old melody of his mother’s and then, to tease Sira, the scale exercise she made him play so often. Even when he was only playing the modulation exercise,
Iridu, Aiodu,
right through the modes to
Mu-Lidya
, the air around him glowed brighter than the rest of the
quiru
. At the end of the evening Sira sang the old lullaby Isbel loved. Her fingers danced on her lap, remembering the feel of the
filhata
strings.

L
ITTLE ONE, LOST ONE,

S
LEEPY ONE, SMALL ONE,

P
ILLOW YOUR HEAD,

D
REAM OF THE STARS,

A
ND THE
S
HIP THAT CARRIES YOU HOME.

L
ITTLE ONE, SWEET ONE,

D
ROWSY ONE, LOST ONE,

T
HE NIGHT IS LONG,

T
HE SNOW IS COLD,

B
UT THE SHIP WILL CARRY YOU HOME.

“What does it mean?” Zakri asked when she was finished.

Sira shrugged one shoulder. “I do not think it means anything.”

“The Watchers do, though,” Iban put in.

“So they do.” She looked out into the night, where the softwood trees drooped under the frozen weight of snow on their branches. “The Watchers believe in the Ship. They send two of their House members to the roof of Observatory every night, and they watch for the Ship to fly to Nevya like some sort of
ferrel
of the stars. They sing a song that says they will wait a thousand summers for it to come.”

Zakri’s eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Why should they put faith in such a fable?”

“Once in a great while, perhaps once a summer, they see strange lights in the sky, and they think that means the Ship is coming for them. And then—” She broke off, remembering. The others waited, and only the sound of the
hruss
’s raspy breathing and the crackle of the fire filled the campsite. Sira made a wry face. “The leader of Observatory, Pol, is a strange man. Nothing matters to him but his House and its beliefs. He showed me a huge piece of metal once, a bigger piece than any you can imagine. As big as a
caeru
hide, and smooth as still water! He claims it is a map of the stars, and that it shows where the Ship will someday carry his people.”