The Singers of Nevya (74 page)
Read The Singers of Nevya Online
Authors: Louise Marley
Tags: #Magic, #Imaginary Places, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy, #Singers, #General
Sook stared at him for a long moment, her eyes brilliant in her weary face. “When can you be ready, Singer Zakri?”
“Sook!” Mura cried. “What are you thinking?”
Sook began to gather the long strands of her hair into a fresh binding. “I’m thinking of the carvery, and the carvers. They can be very noisy sometimes.”
Before Zakri could answer, the door to the apartment was abruptly opened from the outside. The three of them were caught by surprise, off guard. The members of Nori’s family clung together.
Cho himself had opened the door. He stood now in the doorway, his long arms braced on the frame, the thin braid of his hair swinging gently against his chest. His narrow eyes fastened on Zakri. “What business could you have in this apartment, Singer?” he asked lightly.
Mura stepped forward. “One of my kitchen girls was taken ill in the night,” she said. “Nori. This Singer was about, so I called on him to help.”
“Why, whatever could be the matter with our little Nori?” Cho asked. He stepped inside the apartment. One of the itinerants from upstairs followed close behind, not speaking, watching Cho’s every movement. Cho’s glance took in Nori’s family, then turned to the closed door to the bedroom. “Is she in there?” He took a step toward it. “I’ll just see if she’s feeling better.”
“She’s asleep,” Mura said hastily.
Cho chuckled, a sinister, light sound. “I won’t disturb her a bit.”
As Cho moved toward the bedroom, Sook moved, as if to intercept him. Zakri caught her eye and shook his head. Her eyes flashed, but she stopped, and stood with her hands on her hips, watching Cho open the bedroom door.
Zakri closed his eyes. Controlling his temper was taking a great deal of his energy, and he was following Cho with his mind at a careful distance, ready to act if Cho threatened Nori any further. He listened as the man bent over the sleeping girl. Tension made Zakri’s shoulders hard, his neck stiff. He breathed deeply, trying to release it. He felt a gaze on him, and he opened his eyes to see Cho’s man staring at him. Still he watched over the sleeping Nori with his Gift, his physical eyes open but unfocused. He followed as Cho touched her body with his own, cruder psi, then withdrew it.
Cho smiled as he came out of the bedroom. “Nori looks fine to me,” he said. “When she wakes up, you can tell her I was here, and that I’m sorry she had a bad night. No doubt that will make her feel better.”
Mura looked murderous, and Sook stood beside her, her chin lifted, her eyes glittering.
Cho laughed, a sound like the slither of claws on stone. “Oh, yes, I look out for all my House members,” he said lightly. He tipped his head to one side and his eyes moved over Sook, up and down. “All of them,” he repeated. “Remember that, won’t you?”
Cho’s man pulled the door closed behind them as they left. Zakri released his breath in a rush, and Sook gave a little sound of relief. Mura stood in the center of the room, her arms folded tightly. “I could poison that man!” she hissed.
“Be careful, Housewoman,” Zakri told her. “It is possible he could hear that thought.”
“Yes, I know,” she answered. “But at this moment I hardly care. No one is safe here!”
“That is perfectly true,” Zakri agreed wearily. “But we will do what we can.” His eyes burned with fatigue. It was time for the morning meal, but he only wanted his bed.
“Well, Sook,” Mura said, “we’d better get to work.”
“But you must be exhausted!” Zakri said. “I am—I’m worn out!”
“Well, you did all the work, Singer.” Sook patted his shoulder. “We only helped.”
“Yes, go to your bed,” Mura urged him. She didn’t smile, but the wrinkles of her face were a little softer as she looked at him. “When you waken, come to the kitchens. We’ll save you some
keftet
.”
Zakri bowed slightly in thanks, and raised a hand in farewell to the other House members before he left the apartment.
He was in the hall when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see that Mura had followed him out, and he waited for her to catch up.
“Singer,” she murmured, “you should have been a carver. Did you never think of it?”
“I—I beg your pardon?”
Her eyes were sharp as she looked up at him. “I saw what happened, there in Nori’s room. I saw the things move, the brush and so forth, the chair. Your psi is strong, isn’t it?”
Zakri ducked his head and laughed, trying to look as if he had been caught out. “Well, sometimes it is, yes. I try to control it, but—” He lifted one shoulder, and spread his hands. “It gets away from me.”
“Hmm.” Mura looked at him one more time, hard. Zakri knew she had no Gift, but he felt as if her eyes saw to his very center. He averted his own.
“Well,” Mura said. “Have a good rest, Singer.”
“Thank you, thanks, Mura. I—I’ll see you later.” He bowed to her and hurried off down the corridor. He must be more careful! Mura saw far more than was good for her. He did not want either Mura or Sook to be endangered by knowing his secret.
Chapter Eight
Zakri and Berk made surreptitious preparations. They filled their saddlepacks with generous provisions from Mura’s stores, everything she could spare, and Zakri made sure their
hruss
were clean and well-fed, ready to ride. Sook promised them a signal. Zakri fretted about her safety, but she cast him a sidelong look from her wonderful eyes and assured him she could take care of herself.
“It’s you who has to be careful, Singer Zakri,” she said. “And I . . . we’ll be waiting for you to come back!”
She put her small, warm hand on his. He controlled his impulse to pull away, as much not to hurt her feelings as to hide his secret. He admired her spirit. Any House could be proud of such a member.
They waited three days. Then, at the mid-day meal, Berk found a badly cracked cup at his place, one that would clearly leak if tea were poured in it. He lifted it up and said loudly, “This is broken!”
Sook was hovering nearby, watchful. “Oh, I’m sorry, Houseman,” she exclaimed. “Let me get you another!” She hurried out of the great room, wending her way deftly between the long tables. Zakri heard the exchange from his usual seat between Klas and Shiro, and he saw Berk’s nod in his direction.
It was the agreed-upon sign. Berk rose and left. Zakri sat on, pretending to take part in the conversation around him. The carvers and Sook had planned well. Only a very few minutes passed before the uproar began.
Shouts and crashes rolled from the corridor behind the stairs, and a flood of psi came with them, a wave of it that Zakri was sure would deafen anyone who tried to listen through it. He threw up his own shields before it could reach him.
Cho cursed. He and his henchmen leaped up from the center table and hurried toward the carvery. Zakri and several other Singers followed them out, but once they reached the corridor, Zakri turned in the opposite direction, only glancing behind him to be certain no one noticed. The noise increased, a din of raised voices and the slam of ironwood against stone. The racket followed him as he made haste down the hall.
He saw the stableman running toward him, drawn by the commotion, and he ducked into the linen room until the man passed. Then Zakri fled, his boots quiet on the stone, to the stables.
“By the Spirit!” Berk muttered. “What are they doing in there?” He was hastily saddling his
hruss
. He had already saddled Zakri’s, and it waited patiently beside him, all saddlepacks tied on, bedfurs secured with their thongs. The stable doors stood open to the morning.
“I believe they are fighting, Houseman,” Zakri answered with a grin.
“Over what?”
“Why, what do men fight over?” Zakri responded. He put his foot in the wooden stirrup and swung quickly up into the saddle. “They fight over women, do they not?”
He tried not to think of Sook in the middle of the melee, of Sook drawing Cho’s attention to herself. At least, he thought, she was not Gifted. Cho’s interest in her should be short-lived. All of them—Mura, Sook, Yul, and Zakri—were counting on it.
Berk settled into his own saddle, and they urged their beasts out of the stable.
Hruss
rarely galloped, or indeed moved at any pace faster than a heavy, swinging trot. It took some time to work them up even to that. Zakri watched nervously over his shoulder as they rode around the House to the front, where the road ran up the slope.
They still heard the shouting from the carvery. Zakri wished desperately to know what was happening, but he dared not open his mind. The carvers had planned a barrage of their special psi. He felt it beyond his shields, a storm of it beating against the barricade. It would be foolhardy to allow that bedlam to touch him, and it should effectively cover their escape.
He sincerely hoped it gave Cho a stinker of a headache.
Sook shrank against the wall of the carvery, beaten back by the turmoil around her. She knew there was more in the air than shouts and banging, but she was deaf to it, and glad to be so.
When Cho came in, the carvers, who had divided themselves into two groups beforehand, bellowed and shook fists at each other. One daring pair shoved each other back and forth, making the workbenches rock. The two Singers who always accompanied Cho turned sickly pale. One staggered, wth his hands over his sweating face. Sook knew the psi randomly thrown about the room was too much for him. One carver’s psi could not have done it; but their concerted efforts created a strong enough wave to affect a Singer.
Cho thrust up his long arm, his black eyes snapping. “Stop!”
Sook wasn’t sure it was enough time. Yul caught her eye, and she shook her head. Zakri and the courier needed more, a little longer. They would barely be out of the courtyard yet.
Yul took her cue. He picked up a half-carved chunk of ironwood and held it over his head with a yell, as if he were about to throw it, and someone immediately howled back at him. The din worsened. The black
obis
knives rattled on their hooks, and half-carved pieces on the worktables danced under the force of the kinesthetic psi flashing around the room.
The other Singer felt the effect now, hunching his shoulders and lurching to the door. House members clustered there, peering in, trying to see what was happening. In his disorientation the Singer could not get past them.
Cho stepped to the middle of the room, both arms lifted above his head, palms outward. He turned his dark gaze on Yul, and Sook held her breath.
The ironwood dropped suddenly from Yul’s hands, and the carver pitched forward to the stone floor, nerveless. All noise ceased abruptly as the carvers stared at their fallen comrade. The sudden silence made Sook’s ears ring. A moment passed before she could hear the gentle clicking the
obis
knives made as they swung back and forth, bumping against each other. She cried out, and ran to kneel by Yul.
“So,” Cho said in a soft, insinuating tone. He pointed at Sook. “Is this the cause?”
One of the other carvers stepped forward, fearful, but holding his ground. “There aren’t enough of them anymore,” he said stoutly, following the line Sook and Mura had invented. “Girls, I mean! This House is full of men. There are hardly any women, and this one was promised to me!”
Sook bent her head as if in embarrassment. They had planned this carefully, hoping to trivialize the incident in Cho’s mind. They hadn’t thought Cho would actually attack a fellow carver—she could hardly believe even now that he had. She thought of the drooling man at the center table in the great room and she shuddered.
Two of the other carvers offered comments, weakly, trying to keep up the pretense of argument. The sight of Yul sprawled on the floor restrained them. Sook knew the courage required to face up to Cho, and she prayed she would have it, too.
Cho’s eyes, assessing her, were stone-hard. “Ah—you again,” he said. “You’re Nori’s friend. Sook, isn’t it? You’d better come with me. Looks like you’re the one to answer for my meal being interrupted.”
Someone had run to fetch Mura from the kitchen, and she came rushing in now to crouch beside her son. She threw a vicious glance up at Cho.
“If he doesn’t recover,” she hissed, “you’d better watch what you eat, Carver!”
Several of the carvers gasped at her daring, but Cho laughed. “So I will, Housewoman!” he exclaimed. “So I will! But don’t worry. He’ll recover. It was just the tiniest slap, a warning. Next time perhaps he’ll heed me when I speak!”
Indeed, Yul’s eyes were already opening, and his ashen face began to color again. Sook chafed his wrists while Mura gently stroked his temples. Yul turned his hand to grip Sook’s, and she breathed a sigh of relief; he was telling her he was all right. She gave Mura the smallest nod of reassurance.
Cho stooped to say in her ear, “I think you and I will have a little talk upstairs.”
Sook shivered with a sudden chill. She cringed as Cho took her arm just above the elbow. He was strong, and his grip hurt when she tried to pull away.
“Let her be,” Mura snapped.
Cho only laughed again. “Mind your son, there, Housewoman. I’m just going to get an explanation from our little troublemaker, here.”
Sook had to get to her feet, or be dragged up bodily. She stood up, and when she wrenched her arm from Cho’s long fingers she knew she would have a nasty bruise by evening. His eyes were glittering, half-shut, as he leaned over her.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered, so close to her face that his breath stirred the loose tendrils of her hair. “Do you think only the Gifted are vulnerable to me?”
The room was deadly silent now. Even the
obis
knives hung still on their hooks; no psi buffeted the air. All eyes were on Cho and Sook. Cho was far taller, and he gripped her chin and tipped her head back, forcing her to look into his eyes. She wished she dared spit in his face. She felt small and alone—who would stand against him if he wanted to harm her?
Zakri and Berk were surely far enough away by now, she thought. She let her gaze drop. “Just leave me alone,” she said in a small voice. “Please. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
Cho hesitated. Then he snorted derisively and released her. “My friends,” he said, addressing them all. “We have more important things to do than fight over women.” He chuckled as he turned to the man who had spoken before. “Don’t worry, Carver. There will be plenty of these to go around before we’re done.”