The Ring of Five Dragons, page 14
part #1 of The Pearl Series
Annon judged it to be three sidereal hours before dawn when Giyan slowed their pace to a trot, then a walk, and finally halted beneath the thick canopy of a heartwood. By this time, the river was some few kilometers to the east, as the path there had widened to a road along which there was sure to be traffic, even at this late hour. The V’ornn had dictated that their rape of the planet continue night and day without letup. Logging wagons used that road; it would be far too risky to be spotted as lone travelers heading north. The forest trail Giyan had found slowed them, but afforded far more security.
The sweet smell of damp decay mingled with the storm’s ozone-edged frenzy as they dismounted.
“What is it?” he asked, coming around as she knelt at the side of her cthauros.
Giyan touched the beast so that he raised one of the hind legs. She inspected the sole of the hoof. “He picked up a stone,” she said, using the head of Kurgan’s bolt to pry it out. “He is so valiant that he didn’t let me know until it pained him overmuch. Only then did I feel the change in his gait.” She dug in her bag, massaged something into the cthauros’ hoof. “It is quite sore and will take some hours to heal.” She looked up at him as she dropped the hoof. “If I continue to run him, he will surely pull up lame and be of no further use to us.”
Annon nodded. “I could use some rest.” He put his hands on his own cthauros. He thought of what Giyan said about her mount, that he was valiant. Curious. He had seen these beasts many times, had even on occasion been near them. And yet he had never thought of them as being valiant creatures. Until now. Giyan was right. He stroked the heaving, steaming flanks, wiping down the sweat as he had seen the Kundalan drovers do. The cthauros turned its head, nuzzled the crook of his arm.
“My father used to ride cthauros, remember?” He turned to her, saw that she was weeping.
“Oh, Müna, they slaughtered him as if he were a beast, as if his life meant nothing, as if he were not beloved.”
He moved nearer but did not touch her. The world outside the heart-wood canopy was grey, shapeless, steaming with rain. He stood over her while she buried her face in her hands, while her shoulders shook and she sobbed.
What am I to do? he wondered. He felt the loss of his family but, curiously, it was at a remove. It was as if he and the memory of them were separated by a sheet of V’ornn crystal. Truth to tell, it was Giyan with whom he had grown up—Giyan, Kurgan, and all the others from hingatta lüina do mori. It was not that he hadn’t loved his father—of course he had! It was more thafhe had had precious little experience with that love. He could count on the fingers of his hands the times he had seen his father in the last six months. And as far as his sisters were concerned, he had seen them only on occasions of state when custom demanded all the children be present at the palace. Meanwhile, his life had gone on; so had Eleusis’, but they had been in separate orbits, coming in contact infrequently and for short periods of time. In consequence, Annon found that though there was a hole inside him, he did not know who it was that he was missing.
At last, he bent and took Giyan by the arm.
“Let’s move out of the rain.”
She rose, allowed him to guide her deep into the dense tangle of the heartwood branches. Owing to its thick root system, the ground beneath the massive tree was raised, making it drier than the ground around it.
“There,” he said, sitting down beside her. “There.”
And she looked at him, wiped her eyes, and said: “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not being strong enough.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To protect your father.” She looked at him with sorrowful eyes. “You were right to question my motives for publicly challenging Kurgan.” She gave him a wan smile. “Sometimes, I used to think that you were too smart for your own good, but now I’m glad of it.” The smile, what there was of it, faded. “The contest was a public warning to those who wished your father ill, to show that my sorcery would protect him.” She shook her head, dark, shadowed inside the sifeyn. “I failed. I swear T will not let that happen with you.”
He stared out at the rain. He heard it drumming against the ground, watched it form rivulets and run off to low spots it began to fill. It pattered down upon the leaves of the heartwood, dripping here and there where there were gaps in the structure. It began to grow colder, and he shivered a little, despite the Khagggun cloak Giyan had procured for him from one of the stupefied guards at North Gate.
“You must be hungry,” she said, and rose to her feet. “I will fetch us something.”
“There was no time to bring anything with us. Where will you find—“
“I can always find food,” she said.
She turned to go, but he reached up, held her wrist so that she turned back, stared down at him.
“Don’t go,” he said softly.
“Why?” She gave him a gently mocking smile. “This far from Axis Tyr and V’ornn control do you think I will flee?”
“Don’t go,” he said again.
Her expression changed, softened. Something familiar lit her eyes. She took his fingers from her, but not immediately. “It will only be for a little while. I promise.”
With that, she left the sanctuary of the tree, pulling her Tuskugggun robes more tightly around her. It seemed to him as if she passed through a veil of tears, from their small, safe world to a larger universe where everything now seemed fraught with peril.
He turned his head away, not wanting to see her vanish altogether. The cthauros stamped and snorted, as if they longed to be with her, but they did not move, save to crop another patch of wrygrass. Annon wriggled to get more comfortable, putting the small of his back against the bole of the heartwood. Something pressed against him, and he reached around, pulled the small leather-bound book he had found in the caverns from his waistband.
He opened it but in the dense gloom it was impossible to see anything useful. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the supple worn leather. Judging by its cover, it had been read many times. How old is it? he wondered. Maybe he was the first V’ornn ever to see it. He looked at the text. Though he knew how to read Kundalan, these runes appeared to have no relation to the modern-day language. What root language had spawned them and why was it completely different? He stared at the runes, as if willing them to speak to him. He liked their curved and filigreed shapes. They looked like rain pouring off the mar-ginless pages. Closing it at last, he pressed the book into the small of his back, pushing it down into his waistband so that he would not lose it. He drew his knees up, wrapped his arms around his shins, and stared out the curtain of rain. How far would Giyan have to go to get food? Would it put her at risk if she was seen? His head ached from questions that could not be answered.
He had every intention of remaining vigilant, but the long day had taken its inevitable toll. Soon his eyes grew weary, his lids closed, and his head lowered onto his knees. He dreamed that he was a disembodied head roving the countryside, searching for his body. He knew he had left it someplace, if only he could remember where. He had just glanced down to see blood dripping from the raw and ragged stump of his neck when he awoke with a start.
His head shot up. The doleful dripping of the rain had synchronized itself to the rhythm of his dripping blood. But that had been a dream, right? He was laughing grimly to’ himself at his foolishness when he saw Giyan approaching through the veil of rain. She burst into the heartwood canopy, ran full tilt at him. She was only a meter or so from him when he saw the upraised knife blade and he rolled away from the tree bole, tangling his legs with hers and bringing her down. He clawed his way over her thrashing form, just missed a vicious knife thrust, and grabbed her wrist. He jammed his forearm against her throat, bent over her.
Peering into her face, he saw that though she was a Kundalan, she was not Giyan. For one thing, she was much younger, for another—wait a minute! He recognized this female! She was the girl he and Kurgan had encountered at the creek.
Recognition flooded her face at almost the same instant,
“Great Goddess Mima!” she whispered. “I almost slit your throat.”
“As if I would have let you!”
Again, there was a moment when their silence, their very inaction spoke volumes.
“Animal!” he snarled.
“V’ornn monster!” she shot back.
He took the Kundalan knife from her, sat back on his haunches. Freed, she gathered her legs beneath her. He remembered with piercing clarity how shapely they were. While they were wrestling, her hair had come undone from its pins, and now cascaded over her shoulders and down her back.
“What are you looking at, monster?” she said. Her deep, beautiful eyes glinted defiantly.
“Nothing.” He got up and went around to the other side of the tree.
The sight of her was doing strange things to him, things he didn’t like. He felt as if his hearts were in his throat, as if his trilobed lung could scarcely take in enough air. He heard her soft approach but did not turn.
She reached out to touch him where the Khagggun cloak had come undone from their tussle, then thought better of it. “Your wounds—I saw the gyreagle attack you, but now there’s no trace.”
“I am a quick healer,” he snapped, drawing the cloak back over his chest.
She seemed to ignore his implausible answer. “I never got a chance to thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“You know for what,” she said sharply. “Will you force me say it?”
Something in her voice made him look at her at last, and he felt weak, drawn in by the sight of her, as if his insides had liquefied. Her eyes spoke to him as if she had somehow slipped inside his brain, lodged there like an exquisitely painful splinter. “Forget it! Don’t say . . . anything.” He felt a delicious, painful drawing in his tender parts. “Here!”
She jumped back, her eyes wide. He had thrust the knife at her blade first. He turned it so that he held it by the blade, then offered it to her again. She hesitated but a moment, then snatched it from him as if expecting him to change his mind. A certain tension returned between them, centered on the knife. Understanding this, she quickly put it away.
“My name is Eleana.”
He said nothing, concentrating on his breathing as if it were a complex operation he hadn’t quite mastered.
“Won’t you tell me your name?” she asked.
“It’s … It’s not important.”
She seemed to think about this for some time. At length, she said: “Is it true what they say about male V’ornn?” She stroked her hair, made of it long, shining swaths. It billowed through her fingers as she spread them wider and wider. His jaw clenched.
“You needn’t say anything.” She was smiling. “I can see the answer in your face. Your V’ornn face.” Was she mocking him ever so gently? She dropped her hands to her sides. “I like what I see in that face.”
“Why is that?” He spoke despite his vow not to engage with her. It felt somehow dangerous, but not in any normal way.
“Because I see gentleness and compassion and honor, three things I never believed I would see in a V’ornn face.”
“Perhaps I am tricking you.”
“Then I will ask you outright. Are you tricking me?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. It was a soft, gentle laugh that transformed her face. “I do not believe you.”
He wanted to get angry—N’Luuura, he should have gotten angry! But to his surprise and consternation, he didn’t. / am enchanted, he thought. It is more Kundalan sorcery. But he wasn’t altogether certain he believed that. Surely not all Kundalan females were sorcerers.
“You have no evil in your face—Please, won’t you tell me your name? It is hard enough speaking this way to a V’ornn without knowing his name.”
“What way?” he breathed.
“Saying …” She turned abruptly away. “I cannot. Few Kundalan would have the courage to do for me what you did yesterday.”
He felt himself take a quick intake of breath. He was unaccountably afraid to let it go. “I will tell you…” He had to begin all over again. “My mother had a name for me. Only she used it.”
She turned back to him and his breath left him in a sigh. “When you were little?”
“She is dead now.” Involuntarily, he sucked in his breath. They were all dead now, his family. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten, but now the horror came flooding back anew.
She saw the pain in is eyes. “What is it? Are you ill?”
He shook his head, angry at appearing weak before her. “No… But I am lying. It wasn’t my mother who called me this name. I never knew my mother. It’s… I was brought up by a Kundalan female.”
She lowered her eyes. “I am sorry about your mother.”
He searched her face, as if memorizing each feature. “This Kundalan, when I was very young she called me Teyjattt.”
“Teyjattt.” She tasted the alien word, getting the last syllable wrong. When he corrected her, she said it again. “What an odd sound it has.”
“It is a nestling, a baby teyj—a beautiful four-winged bird from our home planet.”
“What is the name of your planet?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “No V’ornn knows for certain. It burned to a cinder eons ago.”
“But surely you have histories.”
“We do not,” he said.
“I do not understand. How can you know the name of this four-winged bird and not the name of your homeworld?”
“We brought teyj with us eons ago. All of us have grown up with them. On Kundala, the Gyrgon keep them, train them. They are exceedingly intelligent.”
“It is odd that a Kundalan would call you by the name of a V’ornn creature.”
“She is an… unusual female.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“What? No!” He burst out laughing. “Are you crazy?”
His laughter vanished like smoke, he stood very near her. Her eyes watched him carefully as his forefinger lightly traced the fine down of hair on her arm. She saw a tiny tremor run through him and wondered whether he was attracted to her or repulsed. His hairlessness fascinated her. So many questions swirled through her mind. This moment felt more intimate than any she had experienced before.
“I would like to see a Teyjattt one of these days,” she whispered. His image filled her eyes.
He smiled—his first smile since early yesterday afternoon. “So would I.”
It was growing lighter, and the steady, drumming rain had diminished to little more than a heavy mist. In the nacre-grey of the early morning, the nearby trees were beginning to appear like ghostly Khagggun. With the storm’s passing, the wind had died to fitful gusts, and the gentle racket of the morning birds had begun.
She indicated the two cthauros. “I see that you are not alone.”
“I am traveling with someone—a female.” He went to Giyan’s cthauros, stroked its back, as if by touching it he could feel close to her. “She went off to find us some food, but that was some time ago. We’ve got to find her.”
“My cottage is only a league from here,” Eleana said, pointing off to the northwest. “I saw her go in that general direction.”
“Do you know how to ride?” he asked her.
“My parents used to raise cthauros,” she said and he pointed to his mount, which was closest to her. “Take that one,” he said. He swung atop Giyan’s cthauros, saw Eleana deftly follow suit. He grabbed the mount’s mane and dug his heels into its flanks. “Let’s be off then, and all good speed. She has been gone long enough for me to worry.”
They cantered through the woods, Eleana leading the way through dense underbrush and thickets of mountain-nettle that sprouted up like tufts of whiskers from the thickly needled bed of the forest floor. As they went, Annon automatically listened for birdcalls, trying to identify them, as any hunter would, in order to single out those he might wish to bring down. He had identified half a dozen when the forest fell deathly still. Not a bird sang, not an insect hummed, whirred, buzzed, or droned. For a moment, not even a breeze stirred the highest branches. Then he heard a disturbingly familiar sound.
He stopped his cthauros, and Eleana did the same. The sound came clearer now, threading a certain dread through his bones.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Khagggun hoverpods. They use them off-world in search-and-annihilate missions. Here on Kundala they usually prefer to ride cthauros.” He swallowed, his stomachs in turmoil. “They are equipped with instrumentation that can pinpoint body heat or the sound of a pulse, but they have to be in a direct line to detect us.”
Eleana seemed breathless. “How close are they?”
He cocked an ear. “By the sound, I would estimate that they will be here within minutes.”
They galloped the rest of the “way. The air behind them began to sizzle and a sharp smell of burning pricked their nostrils, as the ion-induction thrusters of the hoverpods literally gobbled up the air around them, metabolizing it, digesting what was needed, spewing out the rest.
Leaves and twigs whipped by them, scoring welts on their cheeks and arms. The cthauros’ thundering hooves threw up clods of damp black earth, fallen pine needles, and emerald-green moss in their wake. They jumped over fallen logs, crawling with powdery white insects; through puddles of rainwater, dark and reflectionless as an abyss. As if sensing the danger behind them, the animals lowered their heads, pumping their powerful legs all the faster, and it seemed to Annon as if they fairly flew over the narrow, twisting path that his companion could see but he could not.
