The Singers of Nevya (79 page)

The trip south to Soren took half again as long as Zakri and Berk had spent riding north. Their
hruss
grew lethargic, ambling through Ogre Pass, resting too long at night. Snow fell, the fat slow flakes of late winter, and the heavy clouds only parted in the early mornings. The landscape was a dull, monotonous gray. Zakri was anxious about Sook, and worried about his Cantoris, but mostly he was bored and restive. He itched for action, and he managed to blame Cho for the tedium of this slow journey. In his mind, he planned a hundred maneuvers against his enemy, but every scenario he devised ended the same way: his own strength against Cho’s. Even in his imagination, he shied away from that. He had serious doubts about his ability to deal with Cho alone. He had even less confidence in that of Cantrix Jana or Cantor Izak.

On the night before they would finally leave the Pass, Zakri asked Berk, “Do you think they will find the right turning to Soren?”

“So I do,” was Berk’s answer. “I know Bran—he’s Lamdon’s courier. I’m sure this slow pace is not his choice! He’s traveled as much as I have—we’re of an age, I think.”

“And what age would that be, Berk?” Zakri asked.

Berk combed his beard with his fingers and looked past the
quiru
, where the irontrees loomed behind veils of drifting snowflakes. “I served our Magister’s father for five summers,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve served his son for two. I was almost five summers when I became courier for Amric—and I believe all of that gives me twelve summers.” He raised his eyebrows and laughed aloud. “That makes me sixty years old, give or take a year! Six Stars, but that’s a great number!”

“Berk, I will ask the Spirit to make me just like you when I have twelve summers,” Zakri said sincerely. “You are all that is fine and strong in a Houseman.”

Berk inclined his head. “You’re kind. But it’s easy to serve the House of Amric.”

“That is true,” Zakri agreed. “It is a fine House, with a fine Magister. It will be good to go home again.”

A silence fell between them as they each thought of Amric and their own concerns there. Zakri had surprised himself by speaking the truth—he had come to regard Amric as home. He had been without a home for too many years; then, when Sira had come for him, home had been wherever she and Iban were. But now, truly, he felt he belonged at Amric. Odd that he should come to understand that only when he was at such a distance from it.

In his bedfurs that night, Zakri prayed to the Spirit that he might go home again, once it was all over, Cho defeated, Sook safe, Iban avenged. In the back of his mind, behind a door he dared not open, there lurked a fear as dark as the shadowed trees around their camp. If Cho were to win, then he, Zakri, would be the defeated one. That would mean his death. He had hoped to hand this duty over to Lamdon, but the Spirit had other plans. There was no choice but to follow this through to the end.

Soon they would reach Soren. Even the Lamdon party could not stretch out the last bit of road past two days. The two Cantors from Lamdon would ride right into the heart of danger, and Cantor Zakri v’Amric would be as close behind them as he dared.

Chapter Thirteen

Zakri and Berk watched from behind a towering boulder on the hill above Soren as the Lamdon travelers took up a position in front of the house, just beyond its cobbled courtyard. Izak and Jana played their
filla
together, seated side by side on stools, as formally as if they were in their own Cantoris. Their
quiru
bloomed high and wide, its light spilling over the cobblestones and the trampled snow beyond, a circle that shone brilliantly against the grayness of late winter. It was as unblemished and steady as the walls of Conservatory itself, and the ragged
quiru
that was all Soren had wavered and trembled, abashed by its neighbor’s perfection.

The Lamdon Housemen busied themselves with bedfurs and cooking pots and saddlepacks. They unloaded rugs to set them on. Even a small table emerged from the
pukuru
. When all these things were arranged in the
quiru
there was still room to spare. The campsite looked like the inside of an upper-level apartment.

The courier Bran bowed to the two Singers and walked slowly across the courtyard to the double doors of Soren. They opened immediately to admit him.

Zakri could hear nothing. He was too far away. But he and Berk could see faces in Soren’s windows, faces that changed as the House members took turns peering out at the great
quiru
and the people inside it.

“I’d have thought Bran was wiser than that,” Berk grumbled.

“Yes, I wish they had done something different. They still do not understand,” Zakri answered gloomily. He pulled his furs tighter against the cold. “All that display only makes Cho’s point.”

The hour of the
quirunha
came while they huddled beneath the great rock. Soren’s
quiru
grew marginally brighter, but no less ragged. Cantor Izak and Cantrix Jana sat stiffly on their stools. Their own sphere of light glowed with unwavering warmth around them.

“I think we had better get closer,” Zakri said. “I doubt I can do anything at this distance. I fear that—”

The double doors to Soren opened once again. Bran came out and crossed to the
quiru
, where he bowed once again, and spoke to the Singers. Cantor Izak rose and stepped out of the
quiru
then, his back very straight. He crossed the courtyard with the courier at his heels. Cantrix Jana stood to watch them go. When the doors closed behind Izak she stayed where she was, a solitary figure in the yellow circle of light.

Zakri and Berk mounted their
hruss
and hurried down the last distance into the valley. As he rode, Zakri stretched his mind outward, trying to hear something, anything. The difficulty of it surprised him. He had suffered terribly from the random thoughts and feelings of others, and had worked hard building shields to protect himself. Now when he needed to be open, his every instinct rebelled. He felt exposed and vulnerable, but he persisted, refusing to let his shields spring up. The lack of them was a sensation of chill against his forehead, as if he had forgotten to pull his hood around his face. As they rode closer, fragments of thought reached him, but nothing from Cantor Izak, nor from Cho’s brutish Gift. Perhaps he had been wrong, and Lamdon truly did know how to negotiate with a rebellious carver!

“Do you see those trees, just to the north of their camp?” Zakri asked. “That might be close enough.”

Berk grunted assent, and they turned their
hruss
.

The Southern Timberlands were named for their thickly-forested hills. Away from the traveled road, the irontrees grew in tangled, impenetrable groves. Suckers swelled in great woody coils above the ground, too high for the
hruss
to step over. They were forced to turn and backtrack again and again.

It took too long, but they finally reached the spot Zakri had chosen. He dismounted and leaned against the trunk of the nearest irontree to close his eyes and concentrate. He cast about, sampling the fragments of thought that reached him, but with caution. Cantrix Elnor had said Cho was capable of hearing thoughts if they were very strong. Behind him Berk stood quietly, holding the reins.

Zakri whispered, “Cantrix Elnor is still there, she is sending to Izak! He is answering her, but I am afraid—it is too loud—Izak is careless—” He fell silent, straining to hear.

“What is it?” Berk asked softly.

“I do not know. It broke off.” Zakri straightened, his eyes fixed on the House as if he could see through its stone walls. Sook was in there, somewhere.

The doors opened, and Cantor Izak walked away across the courtyard, his steps deliberate, neither quick nor slow. He was alone. Jana came to the edge of their
quiru
to meet him, and he lifted his hand to her as he approached. There was something in his hand, some small object that flashed briefly in the sun. Behind him, a tall, dark figure appeared in the doorway, flanked by two shorter ones.

Zakri threw up his shields immediately, and expanded them, trying to put them between Izak and that dark figure. He drew an enormous breath and clenched his fists, throwing all the strength he had into an extended barrier, knowing it would be thin and fragile, but hoping at least to dilute what was coming, to weaken it. He tried with all his might, reaching past the limit of his power . . .

Izak fell at the edge of the cobblestones, just short of the Lamdon
quiru
. He crumpled as if the impulses that connected mind and body simply ceased to be, all at once. His body lay sprawled in an ungainly position, his legs at a ghastly angle, and he did not move.

Zakri heard the cries of Cantrix Elnor in his mind,
Cantor! Cantor Izak, are you all right? O Spirit . . .

Jana sent, too.
Izak! Izak! Send something . . . oh, who will help us?

Zakri ran. His boots slipped in the snow as he raced toward the Lamdon
quiru
, propelled by Jana’s desperation. He felt, at the edges of his mind, the darkness that was Cho, and he drew in his shields, thickening and strengthening them, shutting out the calls of the other Singers.

He parried battering strikes from Cho even as he ran toward the camp. Jana reeled and fell to her knees, clutching her head between her hands. Zakri called out aloud to her, “Shield yourself! Cantrix, close your mind, or he will injure you!”

The ashen face she turned to him was distorted with fear and shock. She recognized him, though. He felt her shields go up in the thin, brittle barrier of the Conservatory-trained. Cho’s waves of energy skittered away from it like drops of water on a hot stove.

“Yes! Keep it up!” Zakri called. He ran to Izak, and knelt beside him.

Between the open doors of Soren, Cho raised his long arms, his hands in claws, his face dark and furious. The two itinerants beside him each took a step back, forced away by his rage.

Behind Zakri Jana cried out. Her sobs made Zakri grit his teeth. Cho’s eyes glittered from the shadows of the House, and Zakri let the cold flame of his own anger burn high. The distance across the courtyard seemed to shrink to nothing as he gathered his resources for a furious, reckless wave of psi. Cho staggered slightly under its impact, and Zakri grinned fiercely, showing his teeth. For the moment, he did not feel like Cantor Zakri; he felt like Zakri the hunter, like a
tkir
with his blood high and his prey in sight.

He was tempted to throw caution aside, to indulge in the savage joy of open battle. He could strike again, could try for the weakness in Cho’s defenses, without regard for the consequences. It would be a relief to pit his own strength against the carver’s without a thought for what might come later. His psi flexed within him, eager for release.

It was the sound of Jana crying, a woman’s tears, that held him back. Sook might be weeping, also, in that cursed House.

Cho’s kinetic abilities were stronger even than Zakri’s. A lifetime of wielding an
obis
knife had honed them, and he was unrestrained by empathy. His response to Zakri’s attack was a vicious swamping of psi that cut off even Jana’s sobs. Zakri was saved from Izak’s fate only by those shields he had worked so hard to develop.

Zakri felt as if he and Cho were two
hruss
butting their heads together, kicking with their hooves, biting, striving for domination. Neither would go down. The struggle could drain away the last drop of life from both combatants if one did not surrender.

Abruptly, as if he realized exactly that, Cho ceased his attack.

Zakri, trembling, sat back on his heels by the fallen Cantor’s head. His tunic was soaked with sweat under his furs. How close, he wondered, had he been to breaking? In his fury, he had lost his sense of vulnerability. He was appalled at the risk he had been ready to take.

Cho recovered quickly. His itinerants had disappeared, unable to bear the proximity of the psi battle, but Cho leaned casually against the doorjamb, fingering his narrow braid. He contrived to look as if their struggle had been only an amusement, something to while away a dull afternoon.

“Singer,” he called. “Welcome back.” His high-pitched voice carried clearly across the courtyard.

Zakri thought irrelevantly that Cho might have made a good Singer after all. It would have been better for them all if he had. He bent to lift Izak’s body from the cobblestones.

“Leave him there!” Cho commanded. His psi, dark and ominous, began to gather again, like thunderheads rising, threatening a storm.

Zakri paused with his hands under Izak’s shoulders. “If I leave him, he will die in the cold,” he snapped at Cho. “How will that help your cause?”

“He is dead anyway,” Cho said in an offhanded manner.

Cantrix Jana gasped, and sent,
Izak! Izak?

Zakri looked down at the unconscious Cantor. The breath still moved in his chest, and a pulse throbbed in his forehead. He still held the little object in his hand, and Zakri saw now that it was a bit of carving, a small ironwood panel of some kind. “He is not dead,” Zakri told Cho.

But when Zakri tried to lift Izak, Cho attacked again, and he needed all his energy, mental and physical, to protect himself. He lowered Izak gently to the cobblestones. Even then, because his strength was divided, Zakri felt shaky and sick from the effects of Cho’s psi. He turned to face the carver one more time.

Taking a deep breath, Zakri concentrated everything he had, or hoped he had, into one blow, a sharply focused blast of psi that would have devasted any Singer. Cho dropped his offensive, and there was a sudden, shocking, mental silence. Zakri felt dizzy with exhaustion, and took satisfaction in assuring himself Cho felt the same. They were at an impasse.

“I will not leave him here,” he said when some of his strength returned.

Cho laughed, and lifted his narrow head to look down his nose. “I always leave an example behind me,” he snarled. “That way the next one thinks twice before crossing me.”

Izak groaned, and moved slightly, but from his mind there was nothing. Zakri got slowly to his feet and went into the
quiru
to stand before Cantrix Jana. Her eyes were wide with fear, but she met his gaze steadily.