Irsud Read online

  They pushed through the heavy growth of bamboo and settled onto the warm sunlit grass. Aleytys lay back and smiled into the sky. “My suns would strip your skin off if we lay like this on my own world during high heat.”

  Burash tapped her lips lightly with his forefinger. “Tell me about it, Leyta. What happened with the kipu?”

  Aleytys sat up and tugged at the fastenings of the robe. “This thing is scratching me.” She jumped to her feet and ran to the stand of bamboo, the robe trailing out behind her. Slipping out of it, she hung it over the outstretched limb of a mimosoid that had somehow struggled through the matted roots of the bamboo and raised its head high enough to cast a dappled shade over part of the small clearing. Burash watched with amused exasperation. When she curled herself beside him once again, he said dryly, “If you expect me to make love to you again, Leyta, you overestimate my capacity.”

  She laughed. “I was just being female. Didn’t want to muss my pretty dress.” She stretched out on the grass and sighed with pleasure as the warmth from the yellow sun hanging low in the western sky bathed her tired body. “So. This is what resulted. I’ll get out of this prison. On a short leash, of course. But enough to get a closer look at what lies outside the walls. You know.…” She ran her fingers up and down her body between her breasts, neck to navel and back again, staring thoughtfully into the sky. “That could be useful. Hm. In a day or so we’re going on a magnificent bust through the mahazh with all the pomp and ceremony the kipu can contrive, me with my eyes as wide open as I can contrive.” She flipped an arm at the gray stone wall distantly visible. “Especially the top where they keep the skimmers. And she’s going to get the trader from the city to bring me clothes and things. Later there’s to be a party with all the cityqueens and the trader and anyone else she thinks needs impressing.”

  He sat with his arms wrapped around his legs, thoughtfully gazing down at her. “She’ll watch you all the time.”

  Aleytys rubbed her nose. “I know. But I’ll be getting something she can’t keep away from me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Information. Until I know … and I mean know … what’s out there, I couldn’t possibly get anywhere with a plan for escaping.”

  “Leyta.…” His antennas drooped as did the corners of his mouth. He bent over and touched her leg. “Why escape? Don’t you realize there’s no escape for you?” He wrapped his fingers around the curve of her thigh. “There’s no doctor alive who could cut that thing out of you now. At least you’re comfortable here. You’ve got a year left, less a few days. Why not spend it.…”

  “A slave?” She sat up. “No thanks.” She stared down at hands clenched into fists. Opening her fingers so that they rested on her thighs, she said slowly, “I have resources I can’t talk to you about. There’ll be a way, Burash.” She rested a hand briefly on his shoulder. “It’s part your child too, don’t you … I.…”

  “Leyta.” He shook his head. “No. I can’t think of it as a child. No. It’s the old queen there. A horror, a monstrosity this world would be better without.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “Were the child ours, I would cherish it though it were to be hatched from my own body. I hated her. She disgusted me. They fed me drugs, the kipu organized that to keep the old one happy, or I’d have been limp as a three-day-gone fish. I hated her.” His voice trailed off and he looked sick.

  Aleytys sat silent fending off the unhappiness he was radiating. Silence stretched between them as the shadow from the mimosoid crept to her toes and slid quietly over her feet. “Will you come with me?” she asked suddenly.

  “With you?”

  “Off world.”

  “Off world.” He closed his hand over her ankle. “Would you stay with me, Leyta? On my homeland, Seb?”

  “I can’t.” She watched him with a troubled face. “I can’t,” she repeated unhappily.

  He nodded. “I thought so. And I can’t go with you, Leyta. What would I do out there? What could I do?” A twisted smile on his face, he tapped his fingers along her leg. “Don’t ask me to whore for you, my love. Wouldn’t that be my only use to you?”

  “Burash.…” She plucked in blades of grass. “I can’t stay, I can’t. I have a son. I have a quest. Did I tell you?”

  “Quest?” He looked startled.

  “To find my mother’s world. To find a home for myself and my son. And perhaps for a man I knew. A thief called Miks Stavver.”

  “Then we accept what has to be.” Burash sighed and smoothed his hand over her thigh. “Come. Take your mind away from all these sad things, Leyta. Look, I’ll go hang up your dress and get you something to wear. You rest here, get your mind straight.”

  Aleytys looked up at him through the veiling of her hair. She managed a smile. “I don’t deserve you.”

  He brushed the fluttering tangles out of her eyes. “That’s a sorry state of mind.”

  “I suppose I’m tired.”

  “Too much up and down, Leyta. Try for moderation, will you?”

  She chuckled tiredly. “A little sunshine and a little sleep.” Laughter danced in her eyes. “And a little loving, maybe, when the moon, the single moon in this poverty-stricken sky, slides down the sky to morning?”

  “And now you’re a song spinner?” He caught her chin and swung her face up to him, laughing as she protested. “Where’s the moderation in this?”

  “I make a bargain. Sleep, love, and get your strength back. And I’ll work on the ups and downs and practice being the old bitch till I scare the teeth out of all these … hah!”

  “Moderation?” She grinned sleepily at him, turning onto her stomach. He rubbed his hands gently along her spine. “You can’t help it, I suppose. Up and down. Up and down.”

  Her eyes closed, the world noise blurring in her ears. As her breathing slowed and steadied, Burash stopped his massage and stood up. “I’ll come back when the sun goes down to wake you, Leyta.” He shook his head and moved to the tree where the robe was swaying gently in the rising wind.

  CHAPTER XII

  Aleytys floundered out of a deep sleep, coming slowly conscious under the pull of small hands tugging at her shoulder. For an endless moment her heart raced faster as her arms and legs lay log-like in a temporary paralysis then, an eyeblink later, the paralysis surrendered and she jerked up, pulling away from the hands, bumping into Burash and waking him as she peered into the darkness trying to find the owner of the hands.

  “Kunniakas.” The word was a tiny thread of sound barely louder than her own breathing. Aleytys scrambled to the side of the bed.

  Aamunkoitta crouched, head level with the mattress, almost completely hidden in the folds of the bed curtain.

  “How.…” Aleytys bent lower so she could see the hiiri’s face. “You’re crazy to be here, Kitten.” She kept her own voice low, glancing apprehensively at the silent archway.

  “Help me.” The hiiri fixed her dark eyes imploringly on Aleytys’ face. Then she gasped and nearly fell over as Burash’s head appeared behind Aleytys’ shoulder. “No.” She clawed at the muffling curtain, sobbing in her frantic struggles to get away.

  Aleytys seized hold of one of the flying hands. “Stupid,” she hissed. “He won’t hurt you. Stop it.”

  Burash cupped his hand around her shoulder. “Leyta, for all she knows.…” He slid around her and off the bed, ending up on his knees beside the sobbing panting hiiri. “Hush, little one.” He touched her shoulder then pulled his hand away as she tried to bite him. “No need to fear me. I’m more powerless than you. Quiet, child.” He caught hold of a flying hand and held it firmly. “Look at me. If I wanted to make trouble, all I’d have to do is call the guard. Out there.” Her struggles lessened. “Yes, just out there.” He jerked his head at the archway.

  The sense of his whispered words trickled through her terror. She quieted, kneeling beside the bed. Slowly intelligence flowed back into her face. “Kunniakas,” she breathed. “Would he betray you?”

  “No. Never.” Aleytys s
lid off the bed and stood beside the kneeling figures. “Kitten.” She touched the hiiri on the top of her head. “What’s wrong? It must be serious to drive you to take this risk.” In the darkness she could see Aamunkoitta’s small teeth shining against her dark skin as she chewed irresolutely on her lower lip. She was desperately anxious but her sidelong glances at Burash attested to her lingering distrust of the nayid.

  Then she jumped to her feet. “Come,” she whispered.

  Shivering slightly as the air from outside crept past their bed-warmth, Aleytys and Burash followed Aamunkoitta outside into the garden.

  A man’s body lay huddled in the shadow next to the wall near where the stream passed out of the garden through a heavy grating, his crude blood-crusted bandages gleaming like mottled snow in the moonlight. As they came closer Aleytys saw his chest heaving in his struggles to breathe, heard the air sobbing and rasping in his throat. His eyes were dull, half-shut, but he clung to consciousness, held to it by a will evident in the taut muscles of his face and neck.

  Aamunkoitta dropped to her knees beside him and looked over her shoulder at Aleytys, her face mirroring her agony and fear. “Heal him. Please? Please, Kunniakas?” Her eyes slid off Aleytys and fixed on Burash. She began to tremble. Aleytys felt the whirlwind of anger, anxiety, hatred, awe, fear wheeling out of the hiiri.

  “Yes, of course,” she said reassuringly. She knelt beside the straining hiiri male. Tentatively she probed at the wounds, but the chill of the air distracted her. “Burash.”

  He touched her shoulder. “Leyta?”

  “I’m cold. Would you get me a robe?”

  He looked down at himself, chuckling. “Not dressed for the occasion are we. Back in a minute.” He turned to go.

  “No!” In a panic again the hiiri exploded. “No! Hell call the guard.” She ran around in front of him and stood glaring at him, interposing her body between him and the mahazh.

  “Aamunkoitta!” Aleytys twisted around and glared at her. “Fool! If you won’t trust him, what can you do?” She rested her hand on the wounded hiiri’s shoulder. “Can this one move? Look at him. And, dammit, the more you distract me, the closer he gets to dying. Make up your mind.”

  “Ah!” The hiiri flung out her hands and moaned her distress. “No.” She fell to her knees and hid her face in her hands for a long minute. Then she dropped her hands onto her knees and said sullenly, “I can get your robe.”

  “No. Come here.” Aleytys frowned and jerked her shoulders impatiently. “I’m sick of people using me. Either we’re companions helping one another out of need or forget it, Aamunkoitta.” She stood, dusted off her knees, straightened with an angry scowl on her face. “Well?”

  Aamunkoitta’s eyes moved from the silent nayid to the wounded hiiri who struggled to breathe, moaning faintly, even his driving will unable to repress the sounds that agonizing pain forced out of him.

  Aleytys broke the strained silence. “Burash is a nayid. All right. But he’s a slave here. Like you. Like me. His people are in another place. He owes these no loyalty.” She sighed. Kneeling again beside the wounded hiiri. she laid her hands on his laboring chest and said very softly, “Time is running out. Choose.”

  Burash moved to the trembling little figure. “Aamunkoitta,” he said softly. She lifted her head and gazed up at him, her dark eyes gleaming from a face leeched of all color by the hue-swallowing moonlight. “Aleytys is right. What I owe these river pigs is a dead brother a dead sister. Perhaps.…” His antennas twitching briefly, he smiled at her. “These are not my clan.”

  Aamunkoitta stared, startled again. Burash touched her shoulder and felt her shudder. He let his hand rest there and stood quietly beside her until the shuddering lessened. She sighed. “Go,” she muttered.

  Burash nodded and trotted back into the building.

  Aamunkoitta watched him go, terror rising in her again. Resolutely she stood and crossed the short stretch of grass and knelt beside Aleytys. “Can you help him?”

  Aleytys’ face turned soft, vague, eyes staring into a distance the hiiri couldn’t even imagine. As her hands fluttered like white moths over the battered body, she swam in a black river, immersed in the symbolic magic of the power-river coiling around the stars, black waters singing their illusive hum of power, a music that flowed around her brain, warming her, caressing her, filling her until the power lapped over and slid in a wild torrent through her arms, a torrent that she directed and controlled more surely each time she summoned it.

  It flowed into the dying lacerated body and filled it, driving death back with the strength of its pseudo-life, somehow … somehow, she was dimly aware … changing into flesh just as the food she ate changed into her own flesh, she didn’t know how it happened, not really, though when she thought of it she thought of logs feeding fire to warm the outside of the body, but even that was a mysterious process, the way her body changed food into life without her mind being aware of the process, this flood of strange power flowing through her groping fingers was the same, the same changing from the black water of her mind image into the man’s flesh so that the wounds healed themselves, the holes gouged in his flesh filled with new flesh, strong healthy flesh, and the blackened charred skin was absorbed and changed, new healthy skin moving inexorably over the terrible burns so that when she took her hands away and fell back trembling with a terrible weariness, the only marks of his passage with death were the blood-encrusted rags that fell from his body as he sat up and looked dazedly around, his face slack with astonishment.

  Burash caught Aleytys as she crumpled and wrapped a soft robe around her aching weary body. She smiled her thanks, content to rest against him, in touch with the ground, the good feeling of the earth beneath her, a warm flow of energy coming into her body from the elemental center of Irsud. For the first time she felt the world itself welcoming her. She closed her eyes and greeted them with respect and simple pleasure.

  A sharp exclamation woke her from that dreamy lassitude.

  The hiiri male was on his feet, a knife suddenly in his hand. “Hyonteinen!” With a low hoarse hissing cry he leaped at the nayid, one foot catching Aleytys painfully in the shoulder as he began the leap.

  Burash rolled out of the way, escaping the vicious slash of the knife only because the hiiri was still dazed from the healing and off balance from hitting Aleytys on his way up. He scrambled to his feet and backed warily away as the hiiri rolled erect. “No,” he blurted. “Don’t. I’m not.…” He threw himself aside as the hiiri laughed at him again.

  Aamunkoitta threw him off stride, clutching at his leg as he swept past her. “No,” she hissed. “He’s with us.”

  The hiiri shook her off and began stalking Burash, so intent on his prey he ignored both Aleytys and Aamunkoitta. “Hyonteinen,” he whispered, his mouth stretched in a fierce killing smile.

  “Do something,” Aamunkoitta wailed frantically. “He won’t listen to me. He’s in the surrinhukkua, the killing frenzy, won’t stop until he’s killed him.”

  Afraid to turn his back on his stalker, helpless to fight him, Burash backed frantically away, but he made no sound, even in his terror. Aleytys stared, too startled to react.

  Aamunkoitta beat her with her small fists. “Do something,” she cried. “Look … look … hurry?”

  Burash leaped back again, but this time the knife caught him and blood spurted from his outflung arm.

  Aleytys cried into the darkness of her mind as she leaped to her feet. “Swardheld, help me!”

  The black eyes snapped open. She felt him flow swiftly into her body. He plunged after the battle-mad hiiri. Scarcely breaking stride he kicked out and slammed Aleytys’ bare heel against the hiiri’s elbow, numbing the arm with the knife. As soon as his feet touched the ground Swardheld spun around, kicked out again, his heel striking the hiiri’s wrist, sending the knife flying from the paralyzed fingers.

  The hiiri snarled and leaped toward the knife. Swardheld caught hold of his flying hair and jerked him around, u
sing his momentum to throw him into a flying circle that fetched him up, face digging into the grass with Swardheld in Aleytys’ body kneeing him in the spine, twisting his knife arm painfully high across his back.

  “Hiiri!” The word came from Aleytys’ mouth in a harsh bark as Swardheld manipulated her vocal cords.

  The body twitched under him. “Hiiri,” Swardheld repeated brusquely. “You understand me?”

  The hiiri muttered something but his words were lost in the grass.

  “Listen, fool. Stop creating so much fuss, or you’ll have the guards on your neck instead of me. Got that through that damn thick head of yours? Nod your head if you hear me.”

  The hiiri lay still a moment then the shaggy head nodded with an impatient angry jerk.

  “If I let you up, will you listen?” Swardheld chuckled easily. “Go crazy again and I’ll break some pieces off you. Got it?”

  The hiiri lay stubbornly still. Swardheld yanked on the captive arm, forcing a grunt of pain out of him.

  He twisted his head around and spat the grass out of his bruised mouth. “I hear you,” he said reluctantly.

  “Remember it. I got more tricks than a knockhead like you learns in a lifetime. Don’t fool with me, boy.”

  “Boy!”

  “When you act a man, I’ll give you the name.” Swardheld let go of the arm and leaped back, standing balanced and ready just out of arm reach.

  The hiiri got painfully to his feet. He flexed his arms and probed carefully at his ribs, then his mouth twitched into a brief rueful smile as he looked over Aleytys’ slender form. “You don’t look it, woman.”

  Swardheld grunted, then loosed his hold on Aleytys’ body, so that she stumbled momentarily. In her head she heard a chuckle as he settled himself. Good fight. Thanks, freyka. Lets me exercise my talents. But keep an eye on that one. Tricky bastard. His head’s not all, muscle.”

  Aleytys sent warm thanks to him then blinked at the hiiri. “I’ll look at you in a minute.” She hurried to Burash. He was staring down at his arm, his hand clutched futilely over the throbbing wound, blood pumping copiously between his fingers. His face was white and shocked.