Irsud Read online

  At the southern edge of the clearing, bamboo growing tight against the cliff wall climbed over a pile of rock. Aleytys slapped the damper down on one rock and clawed another free of the pile. With a fierce pleasure she slammed it onto the disc, turning the delicate circuits into scrap. Then she grinned back over her shoulder at Burash whose face was still faintly green. “Watch,” she said.

  As he watched, the ragged wound closed until even the marks of the cut vanished leaving only a few streaks of sticky half-dried blood marring her back. She stood and came back to him, her spirits bubbling so high her feet barely touched the grass.

  She dropped onto the sheet and closed her eyes, letting her mind flow free, drowning with delight, drowning in the glorious flood of life pouring into her, laughing, laughing, crying at the same time, tears streaming into her mouth open in wild free joyous laughter. She lay back, no, not lay back, flung herself onto her back and held out her arms. Burash laughed, fitted into them, came into her and she into him, body glowing hot to his touch, tasting his excitement until she no longer knew who was possessor and who possessed.

  A measureless time later, sunk in a boneless lassitude, she leaned against Burash fitting her body against him as they walked out of the bamboo into the light-filled garden where the morning sun was warm and the stream danced in splendid brilliance. She moved her feet with slow dreamy grace, fitting herself against him, tired and warm and so much a part of him that it was his brain that moved her feet, his heart that beat in her, his blood warm and slow in her veins. She was drunk with love and sex and the hot sun and the pouring of life into the web of her nerves from every living thing—plant, insect, animal weaving their reticulation of life in the garden.

  She tilted her head back against his shoulder, resting her hands lightly on the strong arm curling warm Just below her breasts. “I could sleep a hundred years.”

  Tenderness flowed out of him in a warm wave that broke over her head and splashed a gentle amusement around her edges. “Better take a bath, narami, though most of the blood’s been rubbed off.” He chuckled, then sobered. She could feel small flutters of worry as he went on. “Better no one sees to report it to the kipu. Remember, she threatened to drug you.”

  She rubbed her head against his shoulder and laughed comfortably. “Don’t bother about that one. Madar, I feel so happy, I don’t want to see anything, think about anything, hear anything … come in the bath with me?”

  He swung her around, radiating a delight that she felt in her bones with a shock of joy.

  Raw red anger slashed through the glow.

  Aleytys gasped and clutched at Burash. Reluctantly she twisted her head around.

  Gapp slapped her bony thigh with the coils of a black braided whip. The crisp whap-whap-whap beat in Aleytys’ blood while the fierce acrid flow of jealousy and rage radiating from the young nayid corroded her soft unwarded soul. She felt Burash’s arms tighten around her. He was trembling.

  “You. Migru.” Whap-whap went the whip. “Get away from my shigret.”

  Burash went sick. The battle inside him threatened to tear him apart. He wanted to stay, to protect his love because he sensed her unconscious expectations. But a lifetime of conditioning combined with the biological imperatives of his species drove him to obey Gapp’s command. Trembling, antennas drooping sickly, he dropped his arms and stepped away from Aleytys.

  She snapped out a hand and caught hold of his wrist. “No,” she growled. Fighting through the emotional overload scourging her nerves, she wheeled to face Gapp, pulling Burash back to her side. “No.”

  An avid glitter in her huge multi-faceted eyes, small mouth curling in a tight grin, Gapp shook the whip out, unreeling the slippery black coils over the grass. With no warning at all she cracked the whip alongside Aleytys’ face, leaving behind a sharp small pain.

  Reaching up slowly, eyes fixed on Gapp filled with astonishment and a waxing anger, Aleytys touched her face then held out her hand and looked at the fingers. A smear of blood reddened the pale amber flesh. She touched her face again and felt the short cut.

  Gapp laughed and shook the whip so the narrow black line writhed on the grass like an angry snake. “Get out, Migru,” she said with soft slow vowels lush with anticipation. “This one’s mine.”

  Aleytys could feel more confusion, trouble, pain in him, generated by his intuitive sensing on the conflicting expectations from the two females. Aleytys. On her world the male was the aggressor, the protector, the ravager of the female. Her body-mind set projected these basal assumptions to a point far below his level of conscious perception and his feeling for her impelled him to respond to it. Gapp. On her side was his genetic and social conditioning.

  Aleytys lived in him as he struggled with the conflict and at the same time stood apart, observer, marveling at the sensitivity of this being who had no vestige of her psi-power. Abruptly she touched his cheek, feeling the muscles twitching beneath her fingers, waking a new ache in her at the sudden physical sensing of his pain. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Do what she says. I’ll take care of her once you’re out of it.”

  “Leyta.” He cupped his hand around hers. His antennas twitched briefly. “Be careful.” He glanced over Aleytys’ shoulder and shuddered. “I know this one. She likes to hurt. For her, pain is better than sex if it’s someone else doing the hurting.” Sweat dotted his forehead and trickled around his eyes down along his high-bridged narrow nose.

  “Ah. But she can’t hurt me. Not now. Not now, naram, thanks to you.” She broke off as Gapp hissed malevolently, took a half-step toward them, twitching the lash over the grass. She flashed a smile at him. “Come back in a little. I’ll be in the bath.” With a sliding glance at Gapp, she stepped away. She scanned Burash’s face anxiously, momentarily caught up in her own internalized concepts of male ego needs. The twitching of his antennas and the rise of conflict in him jolted her back to present realities. “I keep forgetting, naram, how different we are. Scrub my back for me?”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Radiating relief and exhaustion he circled cautiously around Gapp and disappeared through the doorway.

  Aleytys glared at Gapp. She stood hands on hips radiating pride and defiance, her posture an insolent challenge to the nayid. “Well?” She spat the word at Gapp.

  Gapp dropped the whip into a slithery tangle on the grass. With a coaxing smile wet on her small triangular mouth she sidled toward Aleytys.

  “Get away, you!” Aleytys tossed the hair out of her eyes. “You make me want to vomit.”

  Gapp giggled and smoothed her hand over Aleytys’ head, pressing her hair against her skull, then jerked her tight against her hard narrow body, whispering love words, coaxing phrases into Aleytys’ ear until her stomach threatened to erupt. Gapp took a handful of the red hair and pulled Aleytys’ head back. As she slowly, sensuously lowered her head toward her, Aleytys saw small square teeth gleaming behind the plushy blue-crimson lips, saw sweat glistening in a film over the pale, pale skin. With stomach-twisting relish Gapp pressed her mouth over Aleytys’ in a long lingering exploring kiss.

  Aleytys fought back a need to vomit and continued to pull back fighting to get away, her struggles futile against the careless strength of the nayid. Gapp’s tongue moved against her mouth, trying to force her lips open.

  Aleytys shut her eyes and went limp. Help me, she cried to the blackness inside her head. Help me. Rider, please. Help me.

  Black eyes opened in the back of her mind, blinked slowly, and she had a sense of waking, stretching, moving, fitting something into the crannies of her body. Power waking, flowing, filling. Don’t kill her, she thought hastily.

  A chuckle she could almost hear rumbled through her head. “Move over, freyka.” Calm amused words in a resonant bass that shook the walls of her skull and the black eyes crinkled into a good-natured scowl. She could feel the strange being testing his control of her body, then a surge of power like a warm current poured through her.

  Gapp’s mo
vements slowed rapidly until her body was an ice-cold statue. Aleytys went briefly sick as she recognized the no-time state. “Don’t kill her,” she whispered. “Not like the other times.”

  A grunt, impatient, crusty, tart, sarcastic. “Don’t bother me, freyka, this one’ll get what she’s asking for. Dammit, I don’t get any thrill from killing. Shut up and let me work.”

  Aleytys watched as her body wriggled free from Gapp’s stone-hard arms. Around her the trees were cardboard cutouts, clouds like pats of cotton on the pale blue backdrop on the sky. Abruptly a deep low hum blew across her ears and shot rapidly upscale. She saw Gapp stir and stare gape-mouthed at Aleytys’ body standing just out of arm-reach.

  “How.…” She shut her mouth and leaped at her prey.

  Aleytys’ body stepped aside with a deceptively smooth twisting motion. With a quiet economy of motion it slipped away from the nayid’s grasp and watched her stumble past.

  Gapp wheeled, her long stick arms and legs flopping awkwardly. She righted herself and frowned. “One way or another,” she whispered. Two steps took her to the whip. She scooped it up and stood flick-flicking it against her thighs, She smiled hotly. “One way or another, shigret, you’re mine.” She flicked her wrist and the tip scored the skin of Aleytys’ right arm, laying the skin open for several inches. Again the lash tip darted out, snapping one shoulder strap, then another, so that the rose chiffon pooled around Aleytys’ feet.

  Aleytys’ body balanced on its toes. With a guttural cry it lunged toward the nayid, ducking under the whip, Blackeyes in fine control, sending the hands chopping blades against the tender flesh below the jointed ribs of the nayid’s thorax, driving the air from her lungs in an explosive whoosh. Chop at the wrist with the bladed palm. Seize the other wrist, slam the fist to the elbow. Gapp shrieks with pain. She flails out with her arms. Blackeyes moves the body with contemptuous ease. Chop again at the unprotected groin. Gapp tears a shrill squeal out of a tortured throat. Slam foot against the vulnerable knee to the right then the left. Gapp crashes as her legs go from under her. Slap the face with corrosive contempt until the nayid, destroyed in body and spirit, is a quivering mess on the grass.

  Blackeyes moved Aleytys’ body back and stood silent, still looking down at the writhing nayid. In her head Aleytys felt Blackeyes withdraw, nestling back in his corner, stirring until comfort was achieved, exuding a quiet satisfaction. Finally the eyes, narrow, corners crinkled with good humor, waited for her.

  Aleytys shook herself and caught hold of her lower lip with her teeth, biting down just enough to have a feel of her own flesh. Thank you, Rider, she thought, and dipped in a mental curtsey that amused him.

  “Swardheld’s my name. If you want my advice.…” The words rumbled in a sleepy slightly impatient bass. “… don’t give her time to think. Get her on her skinny feet and drive her out.” The eyes began to close. “You handle the voice,” Swardheld went on sleepily. “Better not give her more to worry at.” The black eyes closed and once again she was alone in her head. She heard Gapp’s petulant whimpers and looked down in time to see her hand creeping toward the abandoned whip.

  “No!” She brought her heel down on the reaching fingers, her notions of pity abruptly forgotten, regretting the softness of her bare feet, wanting a stout pair of spiked shoes to drive the lesson deep in Gapp’s flesh. Gapp shrieked and Aleytys slowly took her foot away. Watching the nayid struggle to her knees, she backed a few paces away.

  As soon as Gapp tottered to her feet, Aleytys lashed out with her foot and kicked the whip toward the building. “Now pick it up,” she snarled. She stood, head back, defiant, arrogant, insolently proud of her body and strength, radiating confidence in her ability to control the situation. “Good,” she said when the nayid scooped the whip up. “Now, coil it.”

  Gapp complied sullenly.

  “Good. Get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t walk your road and I don’t feel like learning. Come at me again and I’ll have the kipu lift your scalp.”

  Gapp snorted, her short stubby antennas jerking with disdain.

  Aleytys felt the rising confidence, the new-born arrogance, and knew she’d made a mistake. So the kipu’s fine words meant nothing. Well, that wasn’t so unexpected. She caught hold of her own anger and blasted it at the young nayid, sending her staggering back.

  “Get out of here.” Aleytys flung the words at her with anger and disgust. “I don’t need the kipu to handle you. Pull your tricks on me again and I’ll smash you. Flat!”

  Gapp stumbled through the doorway, disappearing into the mahazh.

  Aleytys sighed and scuffed slowly through the grass toward the stone seat, feeling sick to the verge of nausea, sick and just a little pleased with herself. She picked up the discarded garment and slid it over her head, knotting the shoulder straps so that it would stay on, the sore spots on her shoulders and arms reminding her that she’d better get busy healing her wounds.

  A high shrill scream loaded with pain jerked her around. It came from the bedroom. She began running toward the doorway.

  Its swish-crack counterpointing with Gapp’s harsh breathy giggles, the black whip swung, cutting bloody lines on Aamunkoitta’s back as she crouched beside a tumbled pile of linen, shrieking wildly, yet oddly passive beneath the punishment. Aleytys caught hold of the entranceway’s smooth edge, appalled.

  The hiiri squalled and wriggled under the lashing that drew lines of blood crossing and recrossing her naked back, but she made no attempt to escape even though her hands and feet were free. She was hurting. Aleytys frowned, puzzled by the mixture of emotions emanating from the curiously involved pair, a weaving of pain and pleasure into a sickening vortex that lapped seductively at her, sucking her into the whirl that bound the two together.

  She wrenched herself free, profoundly disturbed at the sexual response in her own body to the violent emotional involvement of Gapp and Aamunkoitta. Frightened, she whispered urgently. “Swardheld, help me.”

  The black eyes opened. Calm flowed into her twitching limbs, her body straightened, took on a subtly altered balance as Swardheld shrugged himself into possession and looked coolly around. Gapp and Aamunkoitta remained too self-involved to notice his/her intrusion into the scene.

  Swardheld stepped quietly past the bed. He caught hold of the whip just above Gapp’s hand, settled his foot against her skinny posterior, then straightened his leg, jerking the whip free as he sent the nayid into a broken-kneed slide that ended against the far wall.

  Awkwardly, slowly, Gapp pulled her splayed-out legs under her and fumbled onto her feet. Snuggled safe and warm inside her skull, Aleytys felt the paralyzing astonishment radiating from the slack-faced staring nayid and she exulted in it. Swardheld felt it through her and laughed in his turn, a short sharp bark. He lifted the whip.

  “Your turn, princess.” Aleytys’ voice under his manipulation sounded deeper, almost gruff. Grinning, he snapped the whip so that the tip swept in a deceptively gentle caress across Gapp’s cheek. “Like it?”

  He drove her along the wall, touching her with the whip’s tip only, in delicate dabs that left behind small flecks of red. She reached the archway and fell through, nearly pulling the tapestry from its rings, stumbled past the astonished guard and fled whimpering down the hall, fled in terror from this terrible reversal in roles.

  The horse-faced guard swung around, pulled the stun rod from her belt.

  “No!” The word was a guttural bark that snapped the nayid up short. Swardheld grunted and let the tapestry drop between them. He marched the body to the bed and set it down. “Your turn, freyka.”

  Aleytys flexed her fingers and stared at them a minute, this moving in and out of the flesh giving her an unsettled feeling. Deep in her head she felt a fugitive amusement, then the black eyes closed and she was alone again.

  Sighing, she stood up. Aamunkoitta huddled on the floor, moaning desultorily, staring up at her out of a stupid mask that denied her interest, shut her out of the hiiri’s w
orld.

  Exasperated, Aleytys dug her toe into the delicate figure’s ribs. “Shut up, idiot,” she said impatiently. “Your audience ran off. Stretch out flat.”

  Aamunkoitta glanced up at her cool skeptical face and let the whimpers trail off. She didn’t move.

  “Stretch out.” Aleytys drove her toe into the ribs again, ignoring the hiiri’s yelp of pain. “Stupid. I’m a healer.”

  Aamunkoitta looked resentfully over her shoulder at Aleytys, then slowly and reluctantly flattened her body on the tiles, her wrapper still clutched to her full breasts.

  Aleytys knelt beside her and examined the smooth dark skin, wincing at the sight of the raw weals that cut across old whip scars. “She makes a habit of this?”

  Aamunkoitta nodded, her looped braids scratching across the tiles. Then she waited submissively for whatever was going to happen.

  Aleytys looked at her for a minute, realizing at last what it meant to be a slave. She knelt beside the hiiri and laid her hands down over the wounds. “Be still,” she murmured as the slight form twitched at the pain. She closed her eyes and reached out to the swirling seething river of power rushing around … coiling around the stars … black warm whisper going on forever … channelled it into and through her fingers … the aura filled her body with a glory that warmed out the aches and ashes of anger. She moved her hands slowly over the bruised back, bathing it with that healing force.

  Relaxed and remote, she opened her eyes and smiled affectionately at the tiny brown figure. “Aamunkoitta.” Her voice was sleepy and faintly amused. “Are you hurt on your front?”

  The hiiri sat up and twisted around so that she could see her back. “Takku!” she breathed. Eyes wide, mouth open, hands crossed limply over her breasts, she stared at Aleytys. After a minute she extended her arms, trembling slightly as she waited with mute awe while Aleytys drew her hands over the spidery whip markings.