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a bit and went still, already asleep. Aleytys stood, ducked through the
dangling withes, strolled over to the fire.  We ll split the watch three ways.
How do you want to work this?
7
Wakille shook her awake.  Quiet, he said.  Something s hanging about, but not
threatening. Don t know what it is. Curious mix of emotions. Stays on the edge
of my reach.
Aleytys sat up, drew a hand across her eyes.  What next.
 If you will take on strays ...
 You objecting?
 Ah. That s a question.
She snorted.  Get some sleep. We ll be off early.
Much later, near dawn, she prowled about the camp, looking down a moment on
each of the sleepers, resisting a strong urge to tuck a thin arm under the
blanket as she hovered over Linfyar. She turned her back on him and moved out
from the shade of the scrubby trees to stand looking down at the road, a black
scar startling against the pallor of the sun-bleached grass, the light gray of
the scattered patches of bush drained of color by the moonlight. Once again
she felt the presence hovering behind them, the thing Wakille had noted. The
feel was familiar enough. The follower, of course. She d missed him or her or
it awhile, after the forest, hadn t thought of ... well, call it her, since
more than likely it was one of the zel, hadn t thought of her for days. Still
coming, still hanging on. As Wakille said, the mix of emotions seemed strange.
She could only catch whiffs of these like faded perfumes, but she thought she
smelled anger and fear, desolation and doubt and finally uncertainty. A deep
eroding uncertainty that distressed her when she touched it, yet she went back
to it again and again, like someone with a rotting tooth, exploring the aching
hole over and over with his tongue. The ghost of a ghost, that following zel.
Not threatening but there. A bother.
There was a faint glow in the east. Time to wake the others.
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They reached the pass at noon. Aleytys saw Esgard s sign cut in a rock wall,
met Shadith s eyes, smiled her relief. They nodded, but said nothing and
continued placidly on. Aleytys slanted a glance at Wakille. He was grinning at
her, fully aware of what that sign meant. Blasted snoop. Linfyar rode with him
this morning, back at his coquetting, pulling stories out of the trader,
though pulling wasn t precisely the right word. Wakille s stories were part of
his trading craft, a way to ingratiate himself with those he needed. In a way
he and that imp were much alike, the imp doing by instinct what years of
experience had taught the man.
All that day they rode undisturbed, even the small black biters that had
swarmed about them and the gyori vanished once they started down from the
pass. The slope of the road was gentle, the wind blew mild with the sweetness
of summer light on it. The sky was overcast, a high thin layer of clouds that
was enough to blank out shadows while leaving the air about them with an
underwater clarity, all colors darkened a little until they glowed with the
unreality of a color photograph.
A little after nooning Shadith took the boy up with her and threw off the
brooding that had kept her silent and rather melancholy during the morning.
She began playing up to his teasing, joining him in whistle songs he d learned
from her the night before, questioning him about life in the city he called
Courou, learning new songs, their voices making a pleasure in the undisturbed
beauty of the mountain slopes.
When the sun was low in the west, dissolving into the mists that clung to the
treetops, they reached the coastal plain. It was open and parklike, grassy,
with widely scattered trees and groves of trees that dripped musically with
condensation from the mists caught in their crowns. Except for the muted
sounds of the breeze, of the gyori hooves, the muttered exchanges between
Shadith and Linfyar, the parkland was eerily silent.
A herd of slender brindled beasts moved out of a small grove beside the road;
flicking drops of water off large hairy ears, twin jasper horns turning
gracefully down in perfect moon arcs beside each elegant elongated face, the
herd turned as one to watch the riders coming toward them. Calm, unafraid,
vaguely curious, they continued to watch until Aleytys was less than a dozen
meters off, then they moved off across the road, disappearing behind another
grove.
Aleytys touched her bowstave, took her hand away. Somehow it was impossible to
disrupt that serenity. She met Shadith s eyes. The girl stared, then laughed,
the ripple of sound oddly shocking in the stillness. She lifted Linfyar off
the pad in front of her, passed him to Wakille, then she kicked her gyr into a
trot and went after the herd.
 A lioness with a plushy heart. Eload Wakille twinkled at her over the matted
curls of the sleepy boy. He was being charming again, she didn t quite see
why.
The mounds turned out to be hard-packed earth platforms with a splotch of
black ash at one end. She rode her gyr up the slanting side onto the flat
surface, slid down and turned to face Wakille who was sitting his gyr out on
the grass, watching her.  I don t see any alternative, do you? Unless you want
to sleep wet.
She turned back to her gyr and began stripping off the gear, starting when
Linfyar appeared suddenly at her elbow and took the blanket roll from her. She
looked over her shoulder. Wakille was leading his mount to the center of the
mound.
He dropped the single rein and beckoned to the boy, made a soft clicking sound
as he realized the futility of the gesture.
 Eh Linfy, come help me find dry wood if any such exists in this showerbath.
Linfyar dropped the blanket roll and ran eagerly to him. Aleytys started to
protest, Madar knew what lurked out there, then she met Wakille s challenging,
too-knowing gaze and bit back that protest. Linfyar wasn t hers, no matter how
powerfully he aroused her possessiveness the trait that had troubled her with
Shadith not so long before and came back to haunt her now. Control. The boy in
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her hands. A need for a kind of loving that neither Grey nor Swartheld had
ever, could ever supply. She watched the two of them walk away, small hand in
slightly larger hand, the man not greatly taller than the child. She watched
and fought with the urges that surged up out of some morass within and
appalled her with their ferocity.
She went to work setting up the camp, testing the air, watching the clouds. It
wasn t going to rain, she was sure enough of that but she converted the ground
sheet into a tent with the collapsible poles that had been the stiffening ribs
for her backpack. No rain, but the mist would certainly thicken and drop
before the dawn, condensing on every available surface, promising damp, cold
discomfort if they slept uncovered. It would be crowded, but possible; none of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]