The Singers of Nevya (84 page)

You think you know me!
Theo teased.
But I promise you, I have any number of proverbs you have not yet heard.

Sira looked up at him, savoring the crinkling around his eyes, the twinkle that so often caused her to thank the Spirit for creating him.
You seem to be pleased enough about this . . . whatever it is.

It has been a long time since we had an adventure,
he answered.
And together, at that.

She arched her scarred eyebrow.
You will meet Zakri at last
.

He winked at her.
Ah, the troublemaker. In the thick of it once again!

So he is,
she answered thoughtfully.
So he is.

Chapter Seventeen

The halls of Observatory were hushed and dark when Sira and Theo emerged from her room. The two Watchers of the night had already made their brief ceremony and climbed the narrow stairs to the limeglass bubble at the top of the House, to spend the hours of darkness searching the stars for a sign of the Ship.

Sira called to Trisa as she and Theo went up the staircase.
Trisa, are you asleep?

The answer was drowsy, but immediate.
No, Cantrix Sira.

Could you dress, please, and meet Cantor Theo and me in Magister Pol’s rooms?

There was only a slight hesitation, a swell of surprise and curiosity quickly shielded, before Trisa answered.
Yes. I will hurry.

Moments later, she came flying up the stairs, still tugging her tunic down over her trousers, her unbound curls tumbling around her shoulders. She caught up with them as Pol opened his door to their knock.

An open ledger and inkpot on the table behind Pol showed he had been working. A flickering and odorous lamp, necessary in Observatory’s dim nighttime
quiru
, cast a narrow circle of hazy light over columns of figures. He lifted his bushy gray eyebrows at his visitors, and his rough voice was hoarser even than usual. “Cantrix Sira? Cantor Theo?”

Theo said, “We need a word with you, Magister.”

Pol’s hard eyes swept them. “I can guess this will be no pleasant surprise,” he rasped.

Theo grinned without remorse. “Sorry,” he said. Sira flashed him a look, registering the distinct lack of sincerity in his tone. He blinked innocently at her.

Pol took a step back to usher them into the gloom of his apartment. He had to clear chairs for them to sit in, moving bridles and torn saddlepacks to a corner, pushing back a stack of papers that teetered at one end of the table.

“You look busy,” Theo commented.

“It’s been a long winter,” Pol said. “I have to keep close track, because everything’s running low. But in the summer—” He reached to the center of the table for the precious pouch Theo and Morys had carried from Conservatory. He held it up for them to see. “This summer, we’re going to make an expedition to the Continent. I’m going to go myself!”

Theo saw Sira’s astonished look, and he felt no little surprise himself. “Have you ever been to another House, Magister?”

“No living Observatory member has,” Pol said shortly. “No one. But Conservatory has made it possible now.” He nodded brusquely to Sira. “You made it possible, through the little girl.” He tossed the pouch in his hand once, nodding at the solid clinking of the metal bits, before returning it to its place of honor.

Sira inclined her head, accepting the tribute without comment, but Theo sensed her deep feeling at the sight of the little leather bag. He knew the gifts from Conservatory meant more to Sira even than to Pol. When she had unwrapped the three small
filla
meant for Jules and Yves and Arry, her eyes had grown bright, the stern lines of her features easing. She had picked the little instruments up, one by one, sliding her fingers over the their intricate
obis-
carved surfaces. She had held each of them in her hand, staring at it for long moments as if it had something special to say to her, some message from her past, from Magister Mkel or from Conservatory itself, something only her sensitive fingers could understand.

Trisa looked from Pol to Sira to Theo, making an intense effort to control her curiosity. She neither sent nor spoke, but she wrapped her arms around herself and bounced in her chair, up and down, back and forth. Her lips were pressed tightly together, holding back the questions that bubbled up inside her. She looked, Theo thought, exactly like a kettle about to boil.

Sira had not yet spoken. She sat down for only a moment before she got up again and went to the window, leaning against the frame to gaze out into the night. There was little enough to see beyond the faded glow of the
quiru
except the jagged peaks that surrounded Observatory. They rose like apparitions against the dark sky, reflecting starlight from their snowy flanks.

“Trisa,” Theo said softly, “could you brighten the
quiru
, do you think, just here in Magister Pol’s apartment?”

Trisa quickly unwrapped her arms and reached inside her tunic for her
filla
. Theo nodded approval at her being prepared. It would have been an easy thing to leave it in her room, forgotten in some other tunic or pocket. He hoped his other students would learn from her example. She played a short
Aiodu
melody, quickly increasing the light and the warmth to a daytime level. She played just enough, gracefully but not dramatically, which might have been considered excess. The room brightened, its corners and high ceiling fully lighted, but Theo had perfect faith that beyond its walls, the
quiru
would be unaffected. Sira turned from the window and regarded Trisa gravely.

She sent to Theo,
Our young protege is a model of discipline and skill. Observatory will surely be safe in her hands for one day.

All you have to do,
he sent back dryly,
is convince Pol of that
.

So I do
. She broke her silence then. “Magister, the girl we sent to Conservatory—Mreen—is down in Ogre Pass.”

Pol folded his arms and grunted. He regarded her from beneath his heavy brows.

“There is a great crisis on the Continent,” she went on, looking from Pol’s frown to Trisa’s eager face. “One of Lamdon’s own Cantrixes is also in the Pass, with Mreen. She is waiting to be escorted here, in exchange for Theo and me.”

Trisa’s eyes went wide, and her fingers whitened where they gripped her
filla
.

Pol growled, “Are there no other Singers, that they need the ones from my Cantoris?”

Theo leaned forward to answer. “They need me, because the crisis concerns the itinerants. I was an itinerant Singer for three summers, as were all of my family for generations past remembering. I know the itinerants and their business. There is some sort of rebellion, an uprising, and it sounds serious.”

“It is hard to understand exactly,” Sira added, “because our information came through Mreen, and she does not really comprehend all of it. But the only way they could reach us was through Mreen.”

“They? Who? Who is with her?”

“I told you about Zakri, who is now Cantor at Amric.”

“I know him!” Trisa burst out, her first words since coming into the room.

Sira nodded to her. “Yes. The situation must be grave, because he has left his Cantoris to come for us. He would not have done that if it were not necessary. He is a strong Singer, with a great Gift, but only Mreen and I can send over the distance between Observatory and Ogre Pass.”

Pol measured Theo with a cold glance, then Sira. “Why both of you? They’re asking a lot of my House!”

Sira said, “Zakri knows my strengths. If he says I am needed, you may be certain it is so.”

There was a short silence. Pol rose to pace the long room while Trisa watched openmouthed. Her nervousness and her excitement made her shiver in her chair, and she hugged herself again, trying to be still. Theo caught her eye and winked.

From the opposite end of the room, Pol barked, “Do I have any choice in this matter?”

Theo pushed away from the table and went to stand next to Sira. “Magister Pol, your House will be safe. Singer Trisa is perfectly capable of performing the
quirunha
alone for one day. And on the second day, Spirit willing, the other Cantrix will arrive to act as her senior.”

“Observatory is rejoining the Houses of Nevya,” Sira said slowly. “It is a great work, a noble accomplishment. You are part of the community of the Continent now.”

“This is a high price to pay for it,” Pol grumbled.

“But not to pay it,” Theo said, “would be unthinkable.”

“My father would have turned them away in a heartbeat,” Pol mused.

Sira stared hard at him, her scarred eyebrow arched high. “Your father,” she said, “was content to rule a cold House and hungry people. But under your leadership, Observatory flourishes, and the Gift fills it with life. You are a very different man.”

Pol stood a little straighter. A light kindled in his small, shrewd eyes as Sira spoke. He did not exactly smile, in fact Theo could not remember ever seeing him smile, but the set of his shoulders and the lift of his head spoke of his pride. He nodded to Trisa. “Singer? Do you agree with all this?”

Trisa looked to Sira and to Theo, and then answered with grave dignity, her trepidation well hidden. “If my teachers say I am capable, then I am.” But she sent privately to Sira,
Who is it that is coming?

Sira smiled a little at her student.
She is Cantrix Jana, a classmate of mine. Do not worry, Trisa. We are confident of your skills.

Trisa turned back to Pol. “A Singer serves where she is asked,” she said.

“Commendable, I’m sure,” Pol growled. “So, when does all this trading take place?”

“We must wake Morys,” Theo said. “And fill our saddlepacks. We will ride at dawn.”

It was possible, of course, to make the trip to Ogre Pass and back in one very long day. The riders from Observatory had done it when they first brought Sira and Theo to the House as prisoners. But it was far riskier to leave the House when it was still dark, to ride down the cliff road in the uncertain light of early morning. And it would be hard enough, Sira knew, for Jana to have to ride that terrifying path above the chasm. She wanted her to have the advantage of full day when she did it.

She herself had no qualms about the road. At the bottom of the mountain, in the Pass, were Zakri and Mreen, and her heart was light, soaring on the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would see them both.

The sun was high, its light filtered through thin clouds, when Morys led Sira and Theo around the concealing jumble of great rocks at the end of Observatory’s road. They rode their
hruss
out into the open and paused on a lip of stone overlooking the Pass. Sira felt a beating at the base of her throat as she looked down to find the
quiru
perhaps a half hour’s ride away. Its strong yellow envelope glowed vividly against the snow, reaching as high as the tops of the towering irontrees. The figures of the travelers were motes of darkness moving within its light.

There was still a twisting, complex path to negotiate as they made their final descent into the Pass. Sira wanted to urge her
hruss
forward, coax it to into its lumbering trot, but she restrained herself. She stayed behind Morys, but she felt the muscles of her thighs strain forward, as if she could move them all faster with her own efforts. The travelers heard them coming, and they stood waiting, peering out of the
quiru
at the approaching riders.

Sira was the first to dismount. She tossed her reins to Morys and paced impatiently into the
quiru
, putting back her hood as she went.

It was Jana who bowed to her first.
It is good to see you again, Cantrix,
she sent.

Sira bowed in return.
And you, Cantrix. I thank you for your sacrifice.

It is an honor
. Jana smiled, and Sira was surprised to see how she had changed. She was thinner, and her face had grown brown, yet she somehow looked happier than the last time they had met. There was a brightness, an aliveness, to her face.

Jana stepped back, and Zakri came forward.

Sira’s breath caught at the sight of him. He had grown taller, and his shoulders and chest had filled out. His hair was as fine as ever, cut short now to curl about his ears and neck. His eyes, the clear soft brown she remembered so well, glowed with pleasure.

He bowed as formally as Jana, but his sending was different.
Cantrix Sira,
he sent. And with mischievous humor,
Maestra.

She had started to bow, but interrupted it to send,
You must not call me that! I have told you before.

His eyes twinkled as he straightened.
You are as changeless as these mountains!

She had to smile, a full smile of joy at seeing him so tall and straight and strong. Her throat was tight, and she doubted she could have spoken aloud.
You, Cantor Zakri, are much changed. You are . . .

Bigger?
he finished for her.

She shook her head.
That, too, of course, but . . . you are different. Older.

He laughed.
I have almost five summers!

It is so good to see you. I have—
Sira caught herself. She dropped her eyes to the snow, powerless to disguise the emotion that moved her. She had to control it, to stop herself from touching him, putting her hand on his cheek or stroking his hair. She composed her face before she looked back at him.
I have thought of you often, Cantor Zakri.

He grinned, answering,
And I of you, Maestra.

Before she could remonstrate again over the title, Theo was beside her, Mreen already hugged tightly in his arms. He and Zakri bowed to each other.

Cantor Theo, this is Zakri—Cantor Zakri.

Zakri was carefully respectful.
It is an honor to meet you, Cantor.

Theo shook his head, chuckling.
No need to be formal. I am just an old itinerant with a new job. In fact, you and I have a lot in common
.
We are two leaves from the same tree!

Zakri laughed at that.
Does she let you call her Maestra?