The Singers of Nevya (83 page)

She reached the door to her bedroom, and she held up her prize in her fist. “If you come near me again,” she declared, proud of the ring of her voice, “I’ll stick this between your ribs!”

She panted with exertion, and with triumph. Cho laughed, and narrowed his eyes.

To Sook’s dismay, the
obis
knife leaped from her hand and skittered across the floor. It felt as if he had slapped it from her fingers. There had been nothing she could do. Helplessly, trying to conceal her fear, she pressed her back against the door and waited.

Cho bent to pick up the knife. He dangled it in his fingers and smirked at her. “Never mind, little Sook,” he said softly. “Rape is not my idea of fun. Not now, anyway. I have more use for you . . . intact, as it might be!” He thrust the knife back into its scabbard. “You just remember . . . Gifted or unGifted . . . I have all the power here.”

He walked around the table and opened the bedroom door. “Except,” he added softly, “except perhaps for the power of those eyes!” He traced them with his finger, and she shivered.

She pulled away and slipped through the door. Cho smiled at her as he shut it. She heard him shoot the bolt, and she hurried to her cot to collapse, weak with relief and anger and fear.

“Damn him,” she whispered. “Damn him!” She rolled over to pull the furs around her, to shut out the cold of the air, to shake off the chill of her fear. “Just wait until Zakri returns!”

Chapter Sixteen

Mreen behaved as if the trip to Ogre Pass were a holiday, with nothing more serious to think about than which
hruss
she would ride. She took turns riding behind Jana or Zakri, keeping up a stream of mental chatter for hours on end. Sometimes, leaning against their backs with her cheek buried in their furs, she would fall suddenly asleep, lulled by the
hruss’
swinging gait, comfortable on the wide saddle skirts. She would waken suddenly, and resume her merry conversation where she had left off. In the evenings, she practiced her
filla
under Jana’s watchful eye. Then she played, climbing on irontree suckers, packing snow into interesting shapes, climbing into her bedfurs upside down and pretending she couldn’t find her way out.

Zakri, watching her, felt old and careworn. His concern for Sook was never far from his mind, and he had added several other worries since leaving Soren, not the least of which was Mreen’s safety.

Berk, however, was Mreen’s fast friend from the beginning. On their first night out from Conservatory, Berk and Mreen struggled for a way to communicate.

“This isn’t fair,” rumbled the huge man. He was kneeling by the fire, looking down at the tiny girl. “You can understand me, but I don’t have an idea what you’re thinking!”

Mreen dimpled up at him, her halo twinkling. Berk was trying to bank the cookfire while Mreen teased him for more softwood to burn. She had delighted, as he cooked their evening
keftet
, in being the one to feed twigs into the fire, clapping her hands in glee as they caught the flames and blazed up under the pot.

Now she snatched a twig from the bundle in Berk’s saddlepack.
More fire,
she sent. Berk pretended to shake his head, no. Mreen made claws of her hands, and exposed her little white teeth in a pretend growl.
The
tkir
might get us!
she sent.

“What? What’s that?” Berk demanded. He wrested the stick from her, and held the pack at arm’s length, far out of her reach. She danced around him, grimacing silently and pouncing upon him with her make-believe claws. He obliged her by falling backward into the snow, making a supine mountain that she immediately leaped upon with her soundless laugh.

“She is a
tkir
,” murmured Jana. “You are about to be devoured, Houseman.”

Mreen dug her hands into Berk’s furs and pretended to bite him. He yelped in falsetto. “Ouch! ouch! I’m being eaten! Someone, please, build up the fire!”

Triumphantly, Mreen scrambled across him and retrieved her softwood twig. She plunged it into the banked fire and watched it blaze up, whirling to smile wickedly at Berk where he still lay in the snow.
There!
she sent dramatically.
I have frightened away the
tkir
!

“The beast is gone now,” Jana said under her breath.

“Thanks,” Berk said to Mreen. “But it’s too late for me. I have terrible bites all over!”

Do not worry,
Mreen sent.
Just lie still! I will heal you.

She reached into her tunic for her
filla
.
Now close your eyes.

Jana was about to relay this, but Mreen ran her palm over Berk’s eyelids and he obediently closed them. She sat crosslegged beside his head and played a short
Iridu
melody.
There,
she sent.

“You are quite well now,” Jana told Berk. He opened his eyes and sat up.

“Thank you, Singer,” he said to Mreen, bowing. She bowed, too, flashing her dimples.

Zakri sat in silence, watching. Jana caught his eye.
Are you all right, Cantor?
she asked.

He nodded to her.
I am,
he answered.
Only worried by what is to come.

Jana held his gaze for a moment. Zakri noticed she was considerably thinner than she had been when he first saw her at Lamdon, and he reflected that she must be fearful too, for different reasons. She would be concerned about Izak, of course . . . and then there was Observatory.

Are you anxious, Cantrix?
he asked.

She nodded, smiling a little.
So I am,
she responded.
It is foolish . . . but all I know of Observatory is what the legends say . . . and it is all frightening.

What do they say?

She gave an embarrassed shrug.
Oh, it is so silly. It cannot be true!

Tell me.

Jana looked across the fire. Mreen was waving her hands about and making faces, trying to tell Berk something. Berk was laughing aloud, Mreen silently.

There is an old song,
Jana began.

Sing it, then.

She thought for a moment. When she began the song, it was with an air of apology, and she kept her voice low:

B
EWARE THE
W
ATCHERS!
Y
OU CANNOT SEE THEM.

T
HEY DESCEND FROM THEIR MOUNTAIN,

T
HEY PLUNGE FROM THEIR CLIFFS,

T
HEY HIDE BEHIND BOULDERS TO SEIZE THE UNWARY.

T
HEY DISDAIN THE COLD AND THE CRIES OF THEIR VICTIMS,

T
HEY SEIZE ALL THE
S
INGERS AND EAT ALL THE REST.

B
EWARE THE
W
ATCHERS!
Y
OU CANNOT SEE THEM.

W
ATCH FOR THE
W
ATCHERS!

F
OR THEY ARE WATCHING YOU.

Zakri chuckled.
Sira would say it is all imagination,
he sent. But Jana was not looking at him. Mreen had come to stand by his shoulder.

It is not all imagination,
Mreen sent, staring at Jana with wide eyes.
They do Watch, you know.

Of course, Mreen,
Zakri answered.
But the Watchers do not eat people.

They did once,
Mreen sent. Jana shivered.

Mreen!
Zakri protested.

Her eyes turned to him. They were very dark, and something ancient looked out from their depths.
Cantor Zakri, it is true. When there was nothing else. People died, and there was no other way to make the
keftet. She lifted her hands expressively. She looked like a tiny old woman at that moment, her mouth turned down, her nimbus shaded.
But that was a hundred summers ago.

Jana sent,
How can you know such a story, Mreen?

It is not a story
, the child answered.
I saw it when I picked up an old cookpot, thrown away on the waste drop
. She smiled suddenly.
It had a hole burned right through it,
she sent brightly, as if that were the most interesting part.
My whole hand went in! And then I saw the pictures.

Berk was sitting on his own bedfurs now, pulling off his boots. “That’s a pleasant song for bedtime, Cantrix,” he said wryly. “Don’t you know some more?”

“So I do, Houseman,” Jana smiled. “And I will sing one for you. But first, I think, a certain Conservatory student should make ready for her bed.”

Mreen sent,
No!
and scuttled backward to hide behind Berk.

“I understood that well enough,” he boomed. “Be off with you, and no more nonsense! I’m quite out of patience with you, little one!” But no one believed that, least of all Mreen.

Sira heard Mreen’s call just as she was stripping off her boots, ready for bed. She froze with one boot in her hand, listening. The child could not possibly be any closer than Ogre Pass, yet the call sounded clearly, if faintly, in her mind.

Wait
, she answered, standing with one foot bare, reaching for her
filhata
on its shelf.
Wait, Mreen!
She tasted fear in her mouth as she tore the leather wrappings from the instrument. Theo had returned days before, and they had been trying to accustom themselves to Observatory without Mreen’s small haloed figure in their class, in the halls. She could not imagine a circumstance that would have brought Mreen to the Pass, certainly none that was auspicious.

Without bothering to tune the strings, and with her unbooted foot feeling the chill of the stone floor, she launched into a simple air in
Lidya
, one her fingers could play automatically, that needed no concentration. She opened her mind as completely as possible.

Mreen? What is it? Are you all right? Why are you there?
Her psi spun out urgently over the long distance. She reached down Observatory’s mountain, skimming above the cliff road and the boulder-strewn slopes, stretching a fibril that grew ever thinner as it extended to its utmost limits, to touch at last the mind of her student. Her former student, who should at this moment be safe within Conservatory’s walls!

Mreen had no
filhata
of course, would not have earned one for years yet. Still, her thoughts were as clear to Sira as if they were in the same room, face to face, as if she had leaned close to press her forehead directly to Sira’s, a thing children sometimes did when they were learning to hear and send.
We are in the Pass,
she sent.
Cantor Zakri and I. And Cantrix Jana.

But why? Why did you leave Conservatory?

They needed me,
came the simple answer.
For this.

Mreen, what is happening?

There was a pause. Sira played the
Lidya
melody, over and over, her fingers finding the right strings, the right rhythm. She sensed Theo come into her room to lean against the wall, his arms folded, supporting her extended psi with his own strength. She did not feel the ache of the cold in her bare foot. Her eyes were closed, her mind as focused as she could make it, and Theo listened through her.

Cantor Zakri says to tell you it is Soren, and the Singers there. People are hurt, and people need help, and . .
. Another pause, while Sira’s fingers played on and on, repeating the familiar patterns. In the silence, the distance between herself and Mreen seemed insurmountably long and empty.

Then the child’s sending came again, a small, crystalline, delicate voice, all the voice Mreen had.
Cantor Zakri says he needs you, and Cantor Theo too. Cantrix Jana will go up to Observatory. Cantor Zakri says, send Morys.

The request had far-reaching implications. Mreen could hardly be expected to understand, but Zakri would know. Sira opened her eyes and met Theo’s. He gave her his crooked grin.
I would never argue with that child,
he sent, shrugging.

We will be there tomorrow, then,
Sira sent. Her back had begun to ache, and her fingers to tire.
Tell Zakri—
The image of Zakri was clear between Mreen and herself, and Sira felt a rush of pleasure at the thought of seeing him again. And to be riding once more on the roads of the Continent . . .
Tell Cantor Zakri we will be there tomorrow.

She broke off her melody, and the contact with Mreen. She straightened her back, holding her
filhata
upright on her knee, and flexed her arms and her weary fingers.

Do you have any idea what is happening?
Theo asked.

She shook her head slowly.
I must think, try to remember. It is so odd—Jana, Cantrix Jana, was assigned to Lamdon. I cannot think what brings her here.

But Mreen is well
. Theo pulled up a stool to sit close to Sira.

Of course he knew her worry for Mreen, the frightening dreams she had. He knew all her thoughts and fears. She smiled a little, appreciating his calm, and the immediate way in which he had sensed her need and come to her when Mreen had called.
She seems perfectly well.

Theo took the
filhata
from Sira and wrapped it again in its leather covering. She watched him, but she was thinking of Soren.
What is it?
he asked.

It is Soren—did you hear her mention Soren? Where the carvery is . . . I remember a rumor, something Singer Iban told me.

Singer Iban? He was your apprentice master.

She smiled again.
So he was, and a very fine one. His eyebrows dance on his forehead like
ferrel
wings—you would like him.

And about Soren?

Sira narrowed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her long fingers, trying to remember.
He said—there was something about the itinerants, and they were gathering at Soren . .
. She spread her hands in a helpless gesture.
I simply cannot remember, or else he never told me more.

We had better see Pol,
Theo sent, always practical.

He will not like this,
she answered, making a wry face.

Theo laughed aloud.
No, Pol does not like surprises! But as they say, even the ironwood bends if the wind blows hard enough.

Hm. I thought it might have been the one about the Glacier changing its course,
she answered. The tension eased in her, and she became aware of the bite of the cold in her bare foot. She bent to put her boot on again.