The Singers of Nevya (92 page)

“There’s nothing you can do,” Cho said, very softly. “Before you can get to me, this blade will do its work.”

Sira held up her hand. She commanded, “Enough! Enough have died in this House. We will not attack you. Lower the blade.”

With agonizing slowness, Cho dropped the knife to Sook’s breast once again. Sira felt Zakri’s power building beside her, felt his overwhelming urge to slap the knife from Cho’s hand with a burst of psi. The carvers came to stand on either side of Cho, and she felt the wall they built, the frightening power of combined kinetic psi they possessed. In truth, Lamdon and Conservatory vastly underestimated the Gift in these artisans.

Zakri, wait,
she ordered.

Theo joined in.
Sira is right. This is too dangerous.
Cho smirked, hearing them.

Zakri released his pent-up breath. The three Singers faced the four carvers in a tense tableau, the dark-haired girl, the focus of their conflict, holding them apart. The scene froze for the space of several heartbeats, until Sook herself broke it.

“I don’t care!” she cried, her voice breaking. “Let him kill me, Singer Zakri! Then you can get him!”

Cho laughed. “Feisty little piece, isn’t she?” He brought his hand up from Sook’s waist and gripped one of her small breasts, making her wince.

He began broadcasting a picture, very clearly, of Sook in his bed with his hands on her, doing degrading things to her body. His lip curled as he projected the image. None of the three carvers with him could receive it, but it flamed in Zakri’s mind, and Theo’s and Sira’s, all too clearly. It was a fabrication, but it was detailed and obscene, the foul fantasy of a twisted and violent sexuality. Zakri tensed like a
tkir
about to spring, and Sira put her hand on his arm.

“Liar!” Zakri hissed.

“Maybe not,” Cho said softly. “I’m perfectly capable of it, and she knows it.” He laughed. “She’s heard things, haven’t you, little Sook?”

Sook’s cheeks flamed, but her eyes on Zakri never wavered.

“If you don’t leave, and now,” Cho said, “I’ll show your little friend here—” He jerked her hard, so that her head fell back against his chest. “—such a time as she’ll never forget. You won’t want her after that, will you?” At that, Sook closed her eyes.

Zakri’s control broke. The air around him burned, brilliant sparks firing about his face. His psi gathered, that old involuntary surge that had so tormented him in his youth. It lashed out, striking at the
obis
knife in Cho’s fist, to fling it across the room.

The support of the carvers had made Cho fearfully strong. The knife quivered, and moved in his hand, but it did not fall. He laughed and thrust it up under Sook’s chin again. Zakri shuddered under Sira’s hand, and his breath came fast. She felt his effort, and slid her hand down to grip his.

Let it go,
Theo sent swiftly.
He will do it.

I know
. Zakri made a supreme effort that Sira could feel. The sparks disappeared, and his mind closed. Cho relaxed his grip slightly on Sook, and lowered the knife again. One tear slipped from her eye to make a lonely track down her cheek.

“And now,” Cho said with a casual air. “You will leave, all three of you, or someone here will—lose his mind, shall we say?”

There was an audible intake of breath around the room. Theo touched Sira’s back lightly with his hand, and she gave a slight nod. She turned to look at the frightened itinerants. “This is the future you have chosen, then!” she said to them. “Spirit have mercy on you.”

With icy dignity, her back arrow-straight, she left the apartment, Theo and Zakri behind her. They made their way down the staircase, listening as they went. There was no sound from the Magisterial apartment except the sudden rush of feet when the itinerants were released from Cho’s presence at last. Too angry even to speak, the three Singers strode down the corridor to the stables to retrieve their
hruss
. The stableman looked at them with eyes that were fearful and without hope. There was nothing they could tell him.

Chapter Twenty-four

“The only way is to get him alone,” Zakri said. The Singers squatted or sat crosslegged around the cookfire, facing each other. “I thought if we went in together, he would be no match for us. But he uses the psi of those others as fuel for his own fire.”

Berk, standing by the pile of tack, stretched out his massive arm and flexed his fist. “Perhaps physical force is what we need, and not psi force. I’m ready!”

Sira shook her head. “He holds them all hostage. If he is threatened, the Gifted around him will suffer. The itinerants especially are frightened of what he might do to them. He does not care how many minds he ruins—but he knows we do, and he uses it against us.”

“If they could get themselves organized . . .” Theo said thoughtfully.

“They did try, once,” Zakri told them. “A carver died. And now, he holds Sook because of me. Ah, Spirit, I wish I had his neck between my two hands right now!”

Sira ran her hands through her hair, and then looked down at her fingers, long and dark and supple, made for the strings of a
filhata
. “This is another lesson in the Gift. I have been lecturing Lamdon, and Conservatory, trying to get them to consider new possibilities—but I too have much to learn. Such a painful way to learn it! I have been arrogant, overconfident. Maestra Lu would have pointed out that my strength is also my weakness.”

They were silent for some moments. Mreen was leaning on Theo, her curly head on his shoulder, staring into the fire. She gave a small sigh, and her little halo blurred and darkened, its light dimming to a pale shadow in the afternoon sunlight. Theo watched it change in response to the sombre mood around her. Suddenly he leaned forward, startling her. “I am sorry, little one,” he said swiftly. “But listen, my friends. What is Cho’s weakness?”

“Does he have a weakness?” Berk asked.

“Indeed he does,” Theo answered. “He has one great weakness.” A slow grin began on his face. He gave Mreen a squeeze. “It is in his Gift. His Gift, like all our Gifts, has its flaw.”

They stared at Theo. Mreen’s halo sparkled and brightened as she absorbed his excitement, and she wriggled in his arms. “Our friend Cho,” he pronounced above her head, “is a most capable carver. But he cannot make
quiru
.”

The white slash of Sira’s eyebrow rose. Zakri said, “But, Theo, I do not see—”

Theo tousled Mreen’s curls. She laughed silently, her small white teeth gleaming and her dimples twinkling. “You show them, Mreen,” he urged her. “Show us what your Gift can do!”

Mreen smiled around the circle, making sure she had every eye before she scrunched her eyes closed, and pinched her lips tight with effort. Her nimbus began to darken, to fade. The sparks that danced through it slowed, dimmed, then went out. She repressed her energy until her halo was completely quenched, and she stood in ordinary daylight, without the least gleam of
quiru
light about her. They watched, holding their breath. Her eyes flew open to see their expressions, and she dimpled. The light around her began to shine again, and they laughed to see its aureole flare, as welcome and expected as the morning sun blooming above the eastern peaks.

“The
quiru
!” Zakri exclaimed.

“Indeed,” Theo chortled.

Berk slapped his knee and roared. Even Sira, for whom a full smile was a rare thing, grinned until her cheeks hurt. It was the perfect weapon, aimed against the one vulnerable spot in Cho’s defenses. It would not be an easy thing to accomplish, but it would be devastatingly effective. For some minutes, they laughed together, enjoying the moment. When they sobered, they began to lay their plans. Mreen followed everything with grave attention.

At the very end, Sira brought out her
filla
to try to reach Cantrix Elnor. They would need her. They would need every bit of strength they could draw upon. Before they left the campsite, Zakri made the
quiru
as strong and bright as he knew how, to last through the night.

A second time they approached the House in unison, just as the afternoon began to shade into twilight. Sira took a position to the north of the House, just at the edge of the courtyard. Theo approached from the west, through the door of the stables. He nodded to the stableman, one finger on his lips, as he passed the
hruss
and the tack room. The stableman watched him in hopeful silence as he moved into the corridor that led to the House. He found a private corner in which to work. On the south side, Zakri once again made his way around the waste drop. This time he sat down on the cold stone step of the back door.

Cantrix Elnor was ready, too. Her sending had been more frail than ever, but she assured Sira she was all right, and looking forward to meeting them all face to face.

They knew Cho heard them come, but spread out as they were, he hardly knew which of them to assault first. They intended that by the time he had called the carvers around him and organized a sortie, their work would have begun and his support would be eroded . . . all his support. Sook was the one at risk; but the swiftness of their attack was meant to occupy Cho, prevent his reaching her before they could. He would be on the defensive, trying to stop them, busy repairing the damage they were about to do.

Zakri began first. In his early years, this very phenomenon had been part of the curse of his untamed Gift, the wild and unpredictable talent that had earned him banishment from House and master more than once. He remembered with painful clarity what it had felt like, seeing the
quiru
die around him. He knew how to do this.

He bent his head, and closed down his hearing, his sight, his sense of warmth or cold. He drew in his thoughts, folding them in upon themselves like rolling up his bedfurs. He concentrated and reduced his Gift until it became a void at the back of the House, a black engulfing shadow that drew away every bit of light and heat from the nearby apartments, the corridors, the carvery.

In the west wing, Theo drained the
quiru
that sustained the kitchens. He had to thrust aside his repugnance, the fear every Nevyan was born with. Grimly, he repressed every nearby patch of light and warmth. They darkened and cooled with fearsome speed.

Cantrix Elnor, with strength born of desperation, drew the light and heat away from the upper corridors. Vestiges remained here and there, like puddles of melting snow, but the dark and cold that lurked outside every House, that haunted every Nevyan’s dreams, began to spread.

Sira advanced across the courtyard to stand on the broad steps with her arms outstretched. Her Gift was the strongest of all. She was a full Cantrix, a Singer in her prime, and she threw herself into battle with all her resources. She slowed the tiny particles of the air around her in an utter reversal of the techniques she had learned so painstakingly years before. She felt the light fade from the great room, the Cantoris grow chill and dank, as if the limeglass windows were thrown wide. She focused her mind so fiercely that the cries of alarm from within the House hardly reached her. Her body grew cold, but she did not feel it. Not until her work was done did she feel the stiffness of effort in her neck and shoulders.

The cries from the House became wails, then shrieks. Children screamed in terror as shadows they had never known crept around them. Sira shut out their fear. She knew these people would never forget this night, when the dreaded darkness fell over their House.

She could not regret that now. She shielded herself, closed her mind to their suffering in the old manner. Zakri, too, had to brace himself against the emotions that poured from the House members. Theo, always vulnerable, found his face wet with tears, but still he held. Cantrix Elnor suffered the most, because she was weakened by hunger and age and grief, and because this was her House, her people. But even she did not relent, not for a moment.

The House grew cold between them. Cho stormed out of his apartment and raged about the corridors, ordering the itinerants to play, to work, to bring back the heat and the light.

Some tried. Fragments of melody sounded here and there, but the power of two Cantors and two Cantrixes was too great. The Gift turned inside out, darkness drinking in light, a terrifying revocation of the work of all Singers. It was a nightmare made real, and against the overwhelming fear of the cold, even Cho’s weapon paled. Any light beginning to swell around the itinerants dimmed and died. Their fear made them tremble. The cold itself defeated them.

Vaguely, Sira became aware that Cantrix Elnor was no longer with them, no longer mirroring their work from her attic prison. She searched for her with her mind. She found Cho and two others, the Singers Klas and Shiro, bursting into Elnor’s room, carrying her bodily down the stairs from the attic, then down the main staircase. Through the ruckus of psi and fear and the din of frightened people, threaded Elnor’s cry for help.

Sira,
she sent,
they have me . . . they . . . .

Sira threw open the double doors and strode into the hall.

Cho and the itinerants hauled Elnor into the Cantoris. The Cantrix was weak, her limbs trailing, her head falling back. A third man was halfway down the stairs, one hand sliding across the elegant banister, the other clutching a wrapped
filhata
.

Sira ordered, “Stop right there!”

The man threw her a wide-eyed glance. His feet were still, but he was poised to flee, up or down. “Please, Cantrix,” he whined. “The
quiru
—”

Cho appeared in the doorway of the Cantoris, his features twisted with rage. “Bring me that, man! Hurry!” he commanded.

The itinerant put one foot on a lower tread. Sira snapped at him, “Do not move, Singer!”

He froze again, trapped like a
wezel
between two predators. Cho’s eyes narrowed, and he hissed, “If you don’t get down here, I’ll wipe your idiot mind as clean as any
obis
blade!”

The man gasped, and sagged against the banister. Sira sent swiftly,
Zakri! I need you here!
Then she set her jaw and stretched out her shields to encircle the itinerant.