Watcher's Web (31 page)

There
was a
zhing
of a
crossbow, a chill in the air, and the next moment, the flash of a
knife. One of the soldiers dropped his crossbow, a dark stain
spreading out from his chest. A lithe figure came out of the
shadows.

No,
Alla!

Another knife
flew, but missed the soldiers.

There were
running footsteps and shouts. A second group of soldiers came out
of an alley, having restrained a group of Pengali youths.

The leader
shouted, “Right, let’s bundle these guys up and take them to
headquarters—Hey!”

A loud crack
reverberated down the street. One of the soldiers clutched his
throat, making choking sounds. Another lunged for the black and
white banded tail wound around the soldier’s neck, yanking it free.
Two others restrained the youth.

“Hah, don’t
you know what the laws of this city say about tails? Tails for
thieving and murdering?”

The youth
stared up at him, wide-eyed.

The soldier
nodded at a colleague. “Go ahead. Teach him a lesson.”

Daya pressed
himself against the tree trembling with the force of anger and
fear, not knowing where it came from.

He saw a flash
of metal.

Pain.

Someone
screamed, and the scream seemed to come from his mouth. There was a
sickening thud. The square exploded in shouts.

Daya peeked
around the tree trunk.

The youths
ducked under the soldier’s arms and ran. The female retrieved her
knife from the chest of the fallen soldier. As many people ran into
the square as were trying to get away. People shouting, shadows
flitting over walls and through trees. Stones flew into the
square.

*     *     *

Jessica jumped
out of bed and ran to the window. Wind whipped the tree in the
courtyard. Over the roof of the guesthouse wing opposite, strands
of light reached for the sky, flailing, calling for help. Pain
radiated out from them. She drew a strand to her.

*     *     *

The soldiers
vanished into the street, running after the mob of Pengali, leaving
behind a small figure on the ground. A Pengali youth, shivering and
whimpering. Blood covered his back and ran onto the pavement. Daya
took gasping breaths. Pain radiated from the youth and he had no
idea why he could feel it, but he could, and the pain made him feel
sick.

Daya
couldn’t
not
do
anything, even though he had not the faintest clue what to do. In
his mind, he heard the screams of a baby.
She’s going to die.
He was a clumsy youth again; helpless,
useless. That time, he had done nothing, except run faster, but the
searing air had still burned her. She still had the
scar.

He knelt next
to the young Pengali male, shaking his shoulder. “Come, get
up.”

The youth
rocked to and fro, panting and clutching his lifeless tail in his
hands, blood running down his arms.

“
Please,
get up.” Daya’s eyes blurred, seeing the skin peel away from the
chubby leg of a baby only three days, but fifty thousand years
old.
It’s my fault.
They were looking for me.

He turned
around, but the natives who had been in the alley with him had
gone. Again he tugged at the youth’s arm. “Please get up and tell
me where to go. I can’t carry you by myself.”

A silent
shadow jumped down from the wall behind him. He felt the presence
before he could see it. The shadow crossed the distance to him in
two steps and enfolded him in an offensive smell that hurt his
nose. White hair hovered like ghost in the darkness. The female
face at the height of his elbow was old and paper-skinned. Familiar
somehow.

Her voice
sounded familiar, too, even the harsh, vowel-less words that meant
nothing to him.

Ikay.

He pulled the
youth up, smearing blood all over the front of his tunic. The boy
swayed.

Without a
word, the female grabbed the youth by the feet. In this manner,
they struggled down the length of the main street, keeping to
shadows where moonlight wouldn’t show them so clearly, but where
tree roots bulged through the pavement, pushing up the street
tiles. Several times, one of them stumbled. Groups of Mirani
soldiers marched past, holding their crossbows.

Finally, the
female pushed open the gate and they entered the haven that was the
overgrown yard of an abandoned house. A dry fountain, cracked
pavers, hedges that had grown into small trees. Daya felt like he
had been here before, too.

It was the
house where Jessica had heard the truth about herself.

The young male
moaned some incoherent words.

Daya tightened
his grip on him. “Shh, we’re almost there.”

They ran up
the steps to the porch and the female pushed the door.

At least a
hundred Pengali sat on the motley collection of couches, chairs and
mattresses which sprawled haphazardly across the hall.

No one spoke.
Pengali were masters in stealth and hunting. Waiting was their
game.

Daya lowered
the youth’s shivering body, belly down onto a couch. Even with the
female’s gentle coaxing, he would not let go of his tail. Daya
undid the ties to his shorts and wriggled the blood-soaked material
off his buttocks, feeling the prick of hundreds of eyes in his
back. Someone brought a light.

The black and
white striped skin of his buttocks was smeared with blood. A white
fragment of bone protruded from the stump that used to be his
tail.

Daya
reeled.

“Nothing I can
do,” he whispered. “I can’t help, I can’t. I’m not even a healer. I
don’t know what you think I am. I can’t put their tails back on.
It’s impossible—” His voice spilled over; he wasn’t even sure what
language he spoke.

The female
held the bowl of water. In total silence, she helped him clean and
bandage the stump. Back in his youth, he had never done this for
the girl. He had chosen to leave her care to others. Wash his hand
of the responsibility. No wonder she cared more for these tailed
people than for him.

I was
too young to understand, too disturbed.

He saw
his father, saying those words that haunted him,
I have no son.
The culmination of years of
pain and desperation.

Awkwardly, he
took the youth’s hand.

I did
as best as I could.
But it wasn’t good enough.

Another
youth rose and spoke to the assembly. His words were like darts of
venom, amongst which the girl’s name stood out. Shouts echoed in
the hall, fists were raised. Several people shouted,
Anmi, Anmi!

What was it
about her that these people wanted?

Ask the
one they call Ikay, and you will see.

The old female
sat next to him, looking up as if she expected he would ask. Had
she heard the girl’s mind-voice? He put his hands in her old,
paper-skinned ones. She stroked his cheek with her tail. Then she
closed her eyes.

The web spread
out from her forehead. Weaker than the girl’s, but strong enough to
carry memories. There was a cave in the rocks close to the tribe’s
settlement. There was a chamber with friezes carved in the stone
walls.

Daya saw; he
understood why the Pengali felt for him and Anmi, why he saw these
images in Ikay’s mind . . . why the soldiers were keeping
Barresh under siege. Oh, the implications.

*     *     *

The contact
between him and Jessica fell away.

There was
silence.

Jessica
slept.

Chapter
26

J
ESSICA RESTED
her head on Iztho’s shoulder. Languid steam rose off the surface of
the bath. Its sulphuric scent mingled with the perfume in his wet
hair.

Her heart
still thudded with the afterglow of lovemaking. Lazy, relaxed,
luxurious. Getting better all the time. That’s how it was meant to
be: a relaxation, not a fight.

He trailed a
finger over her back; her skin broke out in delicious
goosebumps.

“What do you
say? Shall we do this for the rest of our lives?”

Jessica met
his light blue gaze. She couldn’t help a twinge of unease stirring
inside her. Since coming to share her room yesterday morning, he
had spoken of little else—gaining Union citizenship, joining his
business, travelling the universe— “I do want to learn.”

Not
really an answer at all, but
yes
was not
an answer either. The assumptions he made based on the fact that
they slept together frightened her.

“You will
learn. Whatever you want.”

“
And I
want to be something, not just . . .” She understood
Miran was a very patriarchal society. Iztho had said,
You can be Miran’s second
ever female Trader.

Although
that left too many questions yet unanswered. Like what those
soldiers had wanted from Daya.
Us Traders belong to a very different
society,
Iztho had
said. He said, he said, but what should she believe?

“You can be
anything you like, my Lady. I can even see you on the council.”

“I want to see
my parents.”

“As often as
you like. I’ll make sure of that.”

He had made
this promise many times over, too. She tried to imagine him walking
up to her parents’ house. No way. With his fur cloak and uniform,
he didn’t fit. Even in his hippie outfit, her parents would be
horrified. He was much too old for her. Now that would be very
different with Daya—

Damn Daya. Why
did she think about him?

Because
I worry.

Because, after
she had lost contact with him, she had heard nothing more. Because
he knew why they had a bond with the Pengali, and now he chose not
to talk to her.

Because
something had happened to him?

She turned her
face to Iztho’s; their lips met in a kiss tasting of sulphuric
water. For now, she was spared from having to answer his inevitable
question.

There was a
loud knock on the bedroom door.

Iztho broke
the kiss. In one movement, he rose and clambered over the side of
the bath.

Jessica
stiffened. “What is it?”

He
grabbed a towel, wiped himself and wrestled his arms into a tunic.
“There might be news from the Exchange.” False papers or such,
whatever he was arranging. Papers to get out of here,
as his wife.

He wrapped a
cloth, sarong-like, around his waist. The material was tight and
left little to the imagination as to what he had been doing. Had
she not felt so uneasy, it would have been funny.

Instead she
felt worried. She still didn’t understand what was happening with
the local authorities, if there was even such a thing. Daya hadn’t
made any fuss about satisfying regulations. He’d acted as if
leaving was easy.

There was
another knock.

“Yes, I’m
coming.” Hair dripping over the back of his tunic and on the floor,
he hurried out of the bathroom. There was the sound of the door
rolling open, and a male voice—a question asked, not in a friendly
way.

Iztho replied.
They spoke Mirani, but their voices were too low for her to make
out more than shards of meaning.

“. . . haven’t seen anything . . . ran out
and couldn’t find her . . .” That was Iztho’s
voice.

Damn, he was
telling his own countrymen that he didn’t know where she was.

“We received
this . . . don’t know who else to give it to.”

Jessica heaved
herself out of the bath and grabbed the cloth Iztho had left on the
floor. The skin on her stomach and chest glowed soft pink and as
soon as she was dry, heat again flowed through her. Damn it. Would
it ever stop? She wrapped a cloth around her.

The door to
the room rolled shut.

When she
entered the bedroom, Iztho stood a few paces inside the door,
staring as if he’d just seen a ghost. She went up to him, but his
muscles were tight and didn’t relax under her touch.

“What is
it?”

He didn’t
reply.

“It’s those
soldiers—they’re after me aren’t they?”

“They’re meant
to keep you safe.”

Well, that was
an obvious lie. He was trying to hide her from them.

“Is there a
reason we haven’t left this room for more than a day? Is anything
going on outside?”

“There’s a lot
of natives in the street. There’s some sort of festival going on.”
Not really an answer either.

“Any
fighting?”

He gave her a
sharp glance. “Not that I know.”

She thought he
was lying, but no point in pressing the fact. Somehow, she would
have to get out of this room. Who knew what had happened outside in
the past two days? There were probably guards outside the door.

She sent
out a careful tendril of mist.
Daya? I could do with some advice.

Fancy that.
For all she knew he’d tell her to take a hike—that’s what she would
do.

Shit,
Daya. I’m sorry. Just talk to me all right?

There was no
reply.

Then she
noticed that Iztho held a folded piece of paper. “What’s that?”

“You best get
dressed, Lady. The Barresh council has asked for your appearance.
They declined my application to take you to Miran and want to
question you in person.”

A cold feeling
went over her. “Why?”

“I’m guessing
that they found out that you might have been a passenger on the
plane.”

“You said they
didn’t know. How did they find out?”