Beneath the Thirteen Moons (8 page)

Korl lowered his head and whispered in her ear. “You don’t have to do anything. Just let me tap your Power.”

Mahri shivered, whether from his words or the touch of his breath against her ear, she couldn’t be sure. He smoothed his knuckles across her cheek and turned her face to his. “I won’t drain you, I promise.” He looked at her so intensely, imploring her to trust him, at least in this.

Mahri nodded and she Saw with him when he Looked at Sh’ra, then Caria. Watched as he Pushed the antibodies from one to the other, admired his skill when he Pushed Trian’s antibodies through to Caria when her own body started to weaken. Like a juggling act he skillfully kept the balance between the three, until the virus shrank to the point that he could flush it from Caria’s and Sh’ra’s systems.

Through it all Mahri felt him take her Power, the Bond that now existed between them allowing him to access it, but without knowing what reserves she
had. Korl removed the bone tubes from all their arms, Healing the slight punctures with a negligent wave of his hand. Mahri could see the Power strengthening him, for she’d fed him as much as he needed to heal her family, as fast as she could. And still continued to do so.

“I can’t stop,” she gasped, and collapsed to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Trian. Mahri could hear the concern in his voice, although her normal vision had faded to black. But she felt the tingle that told her it was Korl’s arms that lifted her from the ground. She snuggled her face in the crook of his neck and sighed. He still smelled faintly of the white flowers that had almost buried her boat.

Trian near growled. “What can’t she stop?”

“She’s force-feeding me her Power. Water-rat, listen to me.” Korl jostled her gently in his arms; she could feel the rise and fall of his muscles. “You shouldn’t have Pushed your Power at me, should’ve just let me tap it. Now I’m going to have to Push mine back at you, understand? Don’t fight it.”

She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. She felt tired unto death. Korl had been right all along. With the Power gone she had nothing to keep her going, could actually feel parts of her body shutting down from overstimulation. Then she could feel him Touch her inside, knowing where to feed the Power first, what to heal.

“Jaja, get back!” Korl snapped, his voice more furious than Mahri had ever heard it.

“Let him, Healer. Her pet knows what he’s doing,” coaxed Caria in her gentle tones, stronger now with the absence of fever.

“She’s already root-fried!” Exclaimed Korl… or Trian? Mahri couldn’t be sure which of them spoke. The smooth coldness of zabbaroot touched her lips and she opened eagerly, the bitterness making her throat swallow in little convulsions. She opened her eyes and could only See the bits and dots of particles that made up her physical world, tried to refocus to normal vision and couldn’t. Would she see the world like this forever, now? Could this be the price of her abuse of the root, a total loss of control?

But there were others in the village in need of the Healer and he couldn’t do it alone.

Mahri took a deep breath and drew on the will that had sustained her through the deaths of her loved ones. “Caria’s right, Jaja knew what to do.” She wiggled out of Korl’s arms and struggled to stay upright. She tried to concentrate on the larger mass of lumps and when they moved she could identify each person in the room by the arrangement of their individual particles. Barely.

“I’m fine,” she reassured them. “And there’s others in the village that need our help.”

So she walked in a daze by Korl’s side, feeding him Power when needed, ingesting the root that Wald had recently harvested. Young, exceptionally bitter stuff, she forced it down, listened to Korl when he told her to just let him tap the Power, not force it at him. She did what he told her; even when he insisted that he keep hold of her hand as they made their rounds.

By the time they returned to Caria’s home the night had gone and Mahri Saw the rising sun in bits of glorious sparkles.

I did it, she realized as Caria ushered them inside. I saved all of them. And she waited for the guilt to leave
her while her sister-in-life tucked her into Sh’ra’s tiny bed, but it stayed like a tight knot of pain in her heart. She’d never be free from the loss of Brez and Tal’li.

“Where’s the prince?” she asked Caria.

“The who?”

“The Healer.”

A long, thoughtful pause. “We’re going to have a long talk, Mahri, after you recover.”

“If I recover.”

A warm hand felt her forehead. “What d’you mean, if?”

Mahri closed her lids and could still See bits of tiny matter. She’d hoped she could remain in control long enough to say goodbye properly, but by-the-thirteen-moons she no longer cared. Every nerve in her body felt afire, every muscle burned in agony. The last remnants of the root in her system had faded and the pathways that it had forged shivered through her like knives ripping out her insides.

And she still carried the guilt of those two deaths.

Mahri began to scream.

“What’s the matter?” mumbled Korl as he staggered into the room, his voice drugged with sleep.

Mahri kept screaming.

“I—I don’t know!” wailed Caria. “I put her into bed and she just started shrieking.”

Korl shouted to be heard. “Did she say anything?”

“No, yes. Something about not recovering. But I thought she’d be fine, after Jaja had taken care of her.”

“Mahri!” growled Korl, trying to break through to her, his fingers hot brands along her cheeks. But the screaming continued, until Caria fled sobbing from the
room. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d lost all control, water-rat?”

Thank-the-moons, thought Mahri, that I’m so weak. For as her shrieks faded to a hoarse moan, she could hear little Sh’ra crying in the other room. She’d probably scared her niece to death and if Mahri didn’t hurt so bad she might even be ashamed.

Korl laid Healing hands on her and she could only feel his Touch on the parts of her body that hadn’t already gone numb. He swore softly, curses Mahri knew he’d learned from her, and she couldn’t help but smile.

“More zabba,” he flung over his shoulder, and she could hear the heavy footsteps of Wald as he rummaged through the front cupboard, the sound of seashells shattering.

Caria will be mad at him, she thought, and started to giggle.

“Hush, water-rat,” commanded Korl, and then she heard the crunch of root. Felt his Power rushing through her pathways until he reached the nub of her mind. But this time he couldn’t shatter her firmly placed mind-barrier.

Mahri cracked that black wall herself. “Come on in,” she sang between giggles.

Losing one’s mind didn’t feel too bad, she thought.

Then the Sight began to narrow, she Saw into the cells of her eyelids, opened them but it didn’t help. Her Vision kept going deeper, into the things smaller than the stuff that made up her world and she longed to ask Korl if he knew what it was she Saw.

He answered her inside her head.
No one’s ever Seen this deeply before. Not that I know of.

Mahri could hear his voice within, even the deep huskiness that could make her shiver.
Can you hear me, too?

Yes, water-rat. I can also See what you do. So no matter how hard it gets, I’ll be with you.

Like an anchor?

Yes.

Mahri hesitated.
And if what I See makes me go mad?

Then we’ll go together.

He’d gotten more than he’d bargained for when he Bonded with me, thought Mahri—or had she seen aright, could his love for her have prompted this selfless aid? Or could it be that he dove in after her with the same unthinking heroics that had made him save her monk-fish? When he didn’t respond to her speculations she felt grateful that he could only hear what she wanted him to.

Then Mahri couldn’t think anymore, for the Sight continued to spiral into smaller fragments until nothing but pure white remained. Her mind tried to grasp the concept of this void and failed. She could Sense Korl battling likewise, felt his will like a tangible thing grab hold of her and keep them close, for as long as they stayed together they had a reality to hold on to.

Tiny particles pierced the whiteness, the world gone backwards, and now the Sight grew, creating from this reverse nothingness another world, where travelers of their kind dare not venture. Mahri felt Korl fight again, try to stop the Sight from continuing on.

What could lie beyond the opposite of reality?

She heard Korl’s mental growl of rage. The mere thought of plunging into that unknown had the power to whip him into a frenzy of panic. And this time Mahri
fought too, for she could let her guilt destroy her… but not him.

She matched her will to his and it grew even stronger. What they couldn’t accomplish separately they could together and for one breath-taking moment it felt as if their souls fused together, created a force that not even the universe could stand against.

The Sight slowed to a crawl, reversed, then began to grow so abruptly that they passed again through the white nothingness in the blink of an eye, then through the rest until Mahri could See the familiar world that she knew.

She refocused her Vision, and with relief it responded, the bits disappeared, and with normal sight she looked on the flushed face of her prince. He knelt beside the bed, his hands folded around one of her own, dark smudges beneath those light-green eyes, lines etched in his forehead and along the corners of his mouth. He had never looked more irresistible.

“Do I look as bad as you?” she croaked.

He smiled and sat back on his heels, removed the headband from his brow and shook back his hair. “You look even worse,” Korl replied as he raked his fingers through the golden strands.

Mahri bit her lip, ignoring the comment. Did he know that it made her crazy with wanting him when he shook his hair back like that? Did he glean that memory from their Bonding? She tried not to stare at the smooth line of his throat, the expanse of his chest that lay naked beneath her gaze.

That moment when their souls had united still echoed in her mind and heart, scaring her silly. How could she
fight something like that? Yet, how could she not, when the thought of that kind of connection with another could overwhelm her own identity?

“Put your shirt on,” she said through the sandy feel in her throat. “And stay out of my head.”

Korl staggered to his feet. “As you wish,” he replied with bone-weary exhaustion. When he turned to leave, Mahri stared with hypnotic fascination at the line that ran down the middle of his back, the bunch of muscles that shifted with each step he took. The smooth gleam of his skin. She called his name and he glanced over his shoulder, froze at whatever he saw in her face.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He grinned and the shallow dimple appeared in his cheek. Mahri sighed. Since I’m not going to die, she thought, I’m really going to have to do something about this obsession I have for him.

T
HE AROMA OF GRILLED PIG-FISH AND CHAKA EGGS
filled the tree home, made Mahri wake with a mouth that watered and a stomach that rumbled. She carefully stood, stumbled to the pot shell, and smiled at the muffled sound of a childish voice. She emerged from the room, blinked at the late afternoon sunshine flooding through the open door and watched her niece string a necklace of pearls, feathers, and whatever else suited her fancy, while her mother tended the fire shell.

“Where is he?” croaked Mahri.

Sh’ra’s eyes widened and her rosy mouth formed a silent “O” of surprise. Caria froze and studied her sister with a speculative gleam in her blue-green eyes. “If you mean the Healer, and somehow I’m sure you do, he’s hunting with Wald and Trian. And Jaja went with him.” She added the last comment as if it were a question, for the monk-fish never went with anyone but Mahri.

Mahri ignored the implication and frowned. “For what?”

“More zabba, of course, and any game they might flush that can be put on the grill for dinner.”

Caria laid a platter of food on the rough-hewn table and gestured at Mahri to eat, who collapsed into a chair and wolfed down a chaka egg before she could even taste it. She slowed down to savor the salty taste of the pig-fish.

“S’good,” she mumbled through a full mouth. “I’m beyond famished—how long’ve I been asleep?”

Sh’ra giggled and covered her grin with a chubby hand. Caria ignored the little girl and continued to study Mahri. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she admonished absent-mindedly. Sh’ra gave her aunt a sympathetic grimace. “You’ve been out for three days and I’ve been near bursting with curiosity about this Healer you brought.”

Mahri lowered her head and concentrated on her food. A gust of wind set the seashell chimes that hung near the door to tinkling, carried the sound of women gossiping while doing their wash, men whistling as they constructed a new boat, and children laughing between and betwixt them. It was good to be home.

“I brought you some new shells,” she said, hoping to avoid a conversation about Korl as long as she could. Caria’s face lit up and Mahri’s lips twitched. She’d never understand her sister’s fascination with the common things, the way she studied and categorized them, spent her evenings scratching her findings onto soft bone tablets. But she knew Caria couldn’t resist a new find.

“Snail, clam, oyster, which?”

“Mostly snails.”

Caria sighed. “Those’re usually the most beautiful. They in the boat?”

“Aya.”

Caria gave the child instructions and sent her along to fetch them, but before she left, Sh’ra approached her aunt shyly and placed the finished string in Mahri’s lap. “T’ank you,” she stuttered. “For healin’ me.” Then she turned and stumbled out the door, still weak from her illness but rapidly recovering like only the young could.

Mahri tied the string around her neck, then fisted a hand around the beads and feathers, pushing against her chest as if that would stifle the pain that lay within her heart.

“She’s the same age as Tal’li, when he…” began Caria.

Mahri stiffened. “Don’t go there.”

“You’ve never mourned them, sister. Perhaps if you could, it’d stop tearing you apart.”

“Leave it be, Caria.”

The blonde woman stood and began to clear the dishes, stacking them with intentional clatter in the woven basket she always used when she carried them to the river. Mahri shook her head and rubbed an uncomfortably full belly. Her sister-in-life preferred to take an issue and flay it open like a fish, picking apart the innards and exposing the bones. For some reason she thought that it would somehow make things better and couldn’t understand why anyone would be reticent about sharing her methods.

Mahri took the bittersweet memory of her son and buried it again. She stretched until the joints in her arms quietly popped. “Traveled some new channels, this trip.”

The noise stopped a moment, resumed with much quieter clinks. “Oh, really,”

Mahri leaned back in the chair, fought down another smile at Caria’s feigned nonchalance. “Aya. Had plants and animals living in them that I never saw before.”

Caria shrugged. “Like what?”

“Oh, flowers that exploded. Waters that glowed with rainbows. A big old creature with lots of tongues.”

That did it. Caria dropped the last bone spoon and near landed in Mahri’s lap, peppering her with
questions. Mahri answered them all as best she could, even helped her sister to name them when she insisted on adding them to her bone tablet “records.” And when Sh’ra returned there followed another round of questions, until the exhaustion again began to creep into Mahri’s abused body.

“Enough, now,” Caria said, removing her daughter from the redhead’s lap, where she’d insinuated herself during the conversation. “Your aunt and I will have a bath, while you run along and play with Zerik.”

Her niece’s mouth dropped in horror. “You going to wash in the daytime?”

Whether she feared an actual bath or birdsharks, Mahri couldn’t be sure. But as for the winged monsters, she didn’t really care, for just the thought of clear fresh water to soak her aches made her willing to take on a flock of the huge beasts.

“We’ll stay beneath the leaves, darling. Run along, now.”

Sh’ra looked at them both with an expression of genuine puzzlement. When she bolted from the house the two women exchanged a maternal grin.

Mahri began to rummage through the trunk Caria kept for her and forced herself to hum a bawdy tune until her sister-in-life quit examining her with that frown of suspicion. Mahri sighed in relief. She no longer thought of anything but the need to get out of her dirty traveling clothes. Her hand brushed across the softness of green spider-silk, the only true dress she owned. Brez had bought it for her shortly after they’d been mated, said the hue brought out the dark-gold highlights in her red hair. She’d worn it once. With an angry grunt Mahri
shook the mass of spider-silk out, refusing to acknowledge that she wanted to wear it just to see the look in the prince’s face when he saw her in it.

“How’d you know?” asked Caria.

“Know what?”

“That we’re planning a celebration tonight. A party to honor you and Korl.”

Mahri rolled the dress into a bundle and strapped it with the belt of her bone staff. “So he told you his name. Does it mean anything to you?”

Caria started for the door, tossed her sister a bow and quiver of arrows, then waved her through the threshold, a frown of puzzled annoyance marring her clear skin. “No, should it?”

“Course not.” Mahri followed Caria around the base of the home tree, then up slanted branch-paths. In the backwoods they wouldn’t recognize that rare name as belonging to the prince and apparently he hadn’t enlightened the villagers as to who he was. Not that it would matter. Swamp villagers didn’t care much for Royals, one way or the other. They usually kept to themselves.

When they reached the smaller limbs near the very top of the tree Mahri dropped her bundle and began to strip, avoiding Caria’s curious gaze.

“Something’s going on,” said the blonde woman, “Between you and this mystery man.”

Mahri strapped her weapons around her bare waist and eyed the sapling that grew next to the home tree. “Why do you keep thinking there’s something mysterious about the Healer?” She grabbed the rope ladder that hung down the side of the small tree and started to climb without waiting for an answer. “Do you have the soap?”

“Yes,” snapped Caria, her voice already far below.

Mahri scrambled over the crown of newly budded leaves and scanned the late afternoon sky with caution. Although the sapling’s fresh water cache didn’t have the dangerous depth, nor the perilous garbage-skimmers that the older trees did, they grew so tall to find the sun that they rose above the forest growth—growth which usually hampered the attack of birdsharks. She didn’t spot any dark specks against the clouds and relaxed. All dangers being relatively equal, the villagers preferred the small ponds of sun-warmed water to the frigid lakes of the older trees.

She allowed herself to enjoy the view. Here atop the canopy the sky stretched on forever, the treetops creating a blanket of bumpy green beneath. The crystal blue of the sea lay even farther below, its incessant waters flowing around and through the trunks of the forest, until it spread out to the very edge of the horizon.

Mahri tore her gaze away. A leaf from the home tree had reached over to partially cover the sapling and she hunkered beneath the edge of it. “All clear,” she shouted, setting down her weapons on the dry lip of the treetop.

“I’m right here,” panted Caria, her blonde head popping up over the edge. She removed her belt and set down the soap root, spread the drying cloths over the leaf to warm. Her eyes squinted against the bright sunlight that reflected off the water as she immersed herself, quiet grunts of pleasure sounding from the back of her throat. She walked to almost the middle of the pool before she had to tread water.

Mahri scooted down the shallow bowl until the water covered the top of her breasts and let the warmth of it soak
the aches from her body. The bark felt smooth beneath the skin of her bottom, the air smelled spicy and light, and the wind made a gentle roar through the canopy. She might’ve dozed, listening to Caria swimming around the pond, if not for the sudden splash across her face.

“No you don’t!”

“Caria,” she sputtered. “What’s your problem?”

“If you think you’re gonna get out of answering my questions by pretending to sleep…”

Mahri wiped water from her lashes. She might as well give in now—from past experience she knew the woman would pester her to death until she’d told her everything. “Let the flaying begin,” she grumbled.

“What?” Caria sat behind her and began to unbraid Mahri’s long red hair.

The gentle tugging on her scalp felt wonderful and she sighed. “Nothing.”

“Good. Now first things, first. Who is this Healer, anyway? And why’d he agree to help us, and what’s going on between you two? Hold out your hand.” Mahri obeyed and Caria deposited one of the shells that’d been strung through the braid. “Well?”

“What do you mean, what’s going on between us?”

Caria yanked the red mass, hard. “Don’t play games with me, sis. I saw the way you two looked at each other. Now don’t make this anymore difficult for yourself. Fess up.”

Suddenly the words tumbled out and Mahri near stumbled over them. “Nothing’s going on, I swear. It’s just that the journey kind of threw us together in ways that I couldn’t… and I refused to let him get to me… even though I wanted him… but not in my
heart
? You know?”

“Uh huh, right. Let’s make this easier. Where did you find this Healer?” Caria added another shell to the pile.

Tell her all, tell her some? wondered Mahri. “In the Healer’s Tree.”

“And he agreed to come with you to the swamps?”

“Not exactly.”

The hands untwining her hair stilled. “You didn’t, I mean, have to, give him something to come with you?”

“Not exactly.” Caria tugged hard enough this time to bring tears to Mahri’s eyes. “Oh, all right. I kidnapped him.”

She heard the air whoosh from Caria’s lungs. “You
what
?”

“I stole him from his bed, chucked him over a balcony and trussed him like a pig-fish.”

Mahri smiled at Caria’s muffled giggle. “But why?” the blonde woman managed to ask.

The wind lapped at the water, made Mahri’s full breasts bob gently. They felt wickedly free from the tight constraints of her vest. “You remember what happened the last time I tried to ask for help, don’t you?”

Both women sobered for a moment, remembering the loss of brother, nephew, life-mate, child. But they both knew it wasn’t a subject they could discuss and allowed the wind to sweep their memories out to sea.

“And I thanked him for agreeing to help us,” said Caria, voice low with disgust. “Why—he’ll be honored at the party tonight!”

Mahri turned her head, met the blue-green eyes with her own olive ones. “Don’t discuss what I tell you with anyone. Swear, or this talk ends now.”

Caria blinked. “I swear. You know you can trust me.”

“Aya.”

“Tell you what; I’ll wash your hair if you explain why this Korl is so… strange.”

“What do you mean?”

Caria spun the redhead around and finished unplaiting the mass of thick hair. She spread it out and Mahri moaned in pleasure.

“I thought I recognized my work,” said Caria. “You haven’t washed this mess since I last braided it, have you?”

“I didn’t exactly have the time.”

Caria snorted.

“I stood in a rain wash for hours.”

Caria snorted louder. She waded over to the thin dry edge of the tree, pounded some soap root into foam and brought it back to Mahri’s head, scrubbing it in with vigorous pleasure.

“Ouch. So what’s so strange about the Healer?”

Caria’s hands gentled as she replied. “He acts so odd, like every time he says something, people ought to jump to do it. And I know city folk aren’t used to the swamps, but he seems downright ignorant of the sea forest… and yet quite intelligent about things we barely understand.”

“He’s a prince.”

“So?”

“That’s what they’re like—used to having everyone bow to them, take care of them. And they focus their talents on the old records.”

“What I wouldn’t give to see a real library! Aah, the envy. No wonder you don’t like Royals.”

“Aya. Worse though, is that this prince has many enemies, many powerful enemies.”

The hands working their way through strands of dark red froze. “You weren’t followed?”

“No.”

“Does he know what you are?”

“Aya.”

“Oh, Mahri, this could get very complicated.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She stood, so that Caria could wash the rest of her hair. The wind curled around her body and raised gooseflesh, the lavender scent of the soap filled her nostrils and nearby something hooted and growled. “He saved my life, more than once, and did agree to Heal Sh’ra when I promised to return him home.”

“Uh oh.”

“Aya. If I take him back, he could tell them about me.” She sank into the water and leaned her head backward, let her hair spread around her like a dark halo.