HM02 House of Moons (18 page)

Cold gripped her, a heavy, biting chill that seemed to halt the blood flowing in her veins. She huddled into her cloak, shivering violently.
Hunted by the Kashi?

The coldness intensified, settling down through the trees like an impenetrable fog of ice.
Long ago, in a time even before mine, your kind discovered the birthing pools and our First Ones who must lie there until the Change.
The throbbing mind voice was vast, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
When the First Ones are taken from the pool, they no longer grow and, depending on how near they are to the Change, eventually die.

Beloved children, crumbling into dust ... never to grow into nimble ilserin and play among the trees of the Great Forest ... never to join their sister ilseri ... never to know the freedom of the Oldests. Haemas shuddered as Frostvine drove the agonizing images deep into her mind: countless generations of ilseri children never born because humans, Kashi, had removed them from their nurturing birthwaters and used them as tools, as if they were no more than unknowing rocks or sticks.

Enough!
A faint glimmer of Summerstone’s warmth seeped through the mantle of ice.
This small sister has always done her best to speak between our two kinds.

Which has availed us naught
. Frostvine’s tone was caustic.
The destruction begins again and even she can see where it must end. How many of our First Ones will be left by the next Interim?

The air stung like ice crystals in Haemas’s lungs as she clung to the twisted trunk. She thought suddenly of the Otherwhen where she had found Ellirt again. What was it the old master had said to her about the ilseri?
They’re just a myth. No one has ever actually seen one.
In his timeline, the latteh was still used for both good and evil as it had been for countless generations, but very few were found, and no one had seen an ilseri for so long that the brothers of Shael’donn didn’t believe they had ever existed.

Her fingers tightened on the rough bark. If the pools were once again robbed, the ilseri would die out here as surely as they already had in the other Ellirt’s timeline.

The cold lessened slightly.
It understands more than I thought possible.
Frostvine’s all-encompassing voice was more muted than before.
You chose better than I believed. Perhaps there is still a chance to avert the coming destruction.

De—struction?
Haemas was so cold that it was agony even to try to think.

Of either your kind or ours. In the working out of this pattern, we cannot both continue. One kind or the other must end.

What—can I—do?
Haemas forced herself to form the thought.

Return the two Youngests to their pool. Stop the male-thing from stealing more.

I will—do—my best.
Her teeth chattered uncontrollably.

A hint of warmth wrapped around Haemas and she sensed the familiar thought-presence of Windsign.
The First Ones can remain out of the pools for only a limited amount of time without irreversible damage.
The warmth intensified into a soothing golden glow. Feeling crept back into Haemas’s face, fingers, and toes.
The Youngest that was taken only a day ago was very close to the Change and will be safe for only a few more days at most. The other has even less time before it loses its potential to enter the Change.

Haemas drew the warmer air into her lungs. The first Youngest had to be the latteh that Diren Chee had used to assault her, the one that had disappeared with Axia into the nexus. She had no idea whether it could ever be recovered, and she could only speculate that Chee had taken the other one, too.

Rubbing her hands over her arms, she stood. The bare trees loomed over her, stark and gray against the murky sky.
I believe there is only one person involved with these thefts. I will go to him, and then I will speak to the Council to prevent more Kashi coming down to take the lattehs from the pools.

No, small sister, you must not.
Summerstone’s mindvoice seemed to come from just over her shoulder, and Haemas turned to find the other ilseri had finally coalesced into solid form.
If any of your kind knows how to enslave the First Ones, then we are in danger. You must not tell your males, or the Youngests will never be safe.

Haemas shivered again, from the chill within as much as the cold without. They wanted her to search for Axia and Diren Chee, but not to enlist anyone’s aid, when even the thought of Diren Chee armed with another latteh made her more afraid than she wanted to admit.

This time, I will do whatever I must to protect the future,
Frostvine’s immense mindvoice said.
I will not let this come again.

The hair prickled on the back of Haemas’s neck.
What do you mean?

It has never been given to our kind to be predatory.
Frostvine’s words reverberated through her head.
Not even we ilserlara, who, with our last form, come into more power than your kind will ever know. Ilseri have always fled when threatened, never able to shape our minds for any form of resistance. But since my final Change, my memories have made me different. I remember before, when your kind plundered our pools, wielding our young as crude, unthinking weapons, and I see how I might employ my strength to prevent this from happening again.

If the Youngests are not returned, I will do whatever I must. This world belonged to ilseri first, and this time we will not be driven to the edge of nothingness without fighting back.

Haemas breathed on her hands to warm them.
It may take some time to find the one responsible.

The ilserin are holding the male-thing,
Frostvine said.
I have tried to question it, but, as always with your males, it cannot hear my voice.

Ilserin?
Haemas turned back to Summerstone’s lithe green-skinned form.

The children, as you would say, our—sons, the Second Ones.

Summerstone and Windsign had explained to her long ago that all ilseri children were born male, then became female after mating, but Haemas had never seen a male.
Where are they, the—ilserin? Are they far?

Nothing is ever far for an Oldest.
The overwhelming voice reverberated through her head as if she were trapped inside a huge bell. Then Frostvine’s icy presence swept back over her, drowning all sight and sensation of the winter-bound glade. She had a flash of featureless gray betweenness, then found herself standing on the bank of an immense green river that roared down from a crown of rocks to dash itself against the tumbled boulders below.

The gorge had a feeling of primordial beauty, as if no human had ever walked here. It was a place of ancient trees, huge as Highlands houses, twisted by the wind into spreading shapes. Light-headed from the abrupt transfer, Haemas steadied herself against the trunk of a gray-barked giant.

This is the place of the Second Ones.
Frostvine’s chill presence hovered near.
Tell the male-thing to give back the First Ones or I will deal with your kind as I must.

Movement stirred in the canopy of branches on the other side of the rushing river, and she saw the trees swarming with green-skinned creatures. Trembling, she thought of Diren Chee’s overconfident face, then put away her fear. She could not afford to be afraid. Too much depended on her now.

Come down,
Frostvine commanded, and the green-skinned males jumped lightly out of the trees, glancing across the river with bright black eyes. Then a last pair of young males climbed down, supporting a stumbling figure between them. Haemas edged closer to the riverbank, trying to see. The other did look to be human, but the hair wasn’t right, nothing like the bright shade of gold that Diren had inherited from his Chee bloodlines. She spoke to Frostvine.
I must cross the river.

A chill grayness swept over her—and she stood on the opposite bank, knee-deep in tangled weeds doubled down to the ground by a glaze of ice from the river’s spray, the hesitant ilserin so close that she could have stretched out her fingers and touched their smooth emerald skin.

The ragged figure supported between two natives raised its haggard face and tried to focus. Then it struggled erect and reached a six-fingered Kashi hand out to her. She met the hand with both of her own, human warmth against warmth, surprised and relieved. “What are you doing here?” she shouted over the thundering roar of the falls, then stared in shock as Kevisson’s eyes rolled back and he wilted to the frozen ground.

THE AFTERNOON HAD
finally turned fine and clear, the green sky gleaming like a finely cut emerald. Diren motioned the Lenhe girl onto the portal platform. The wind gusted, whistling through the portal’s eaves, and she frowned as she struggled with a frayed cloak of Axia’s that swathed her from chin to heels and dragged on the steps. Over her shoulder, the stand of pines caught his eye, swaying dark green against the lighter sky. He could smell the clean tang of the needles even all the way over here. The muscles in his jaw tightened. That grove had been Chee’ayn’s pride and joy, back when the Chees had still known pride as part of their lives. No matter what it took, he would see that this neglected House was returned to its former glory.

Ignoring the way Kisa followed his every move with her eyes, he painstakingly replaced the ilsera crystals in the portal housing. He didn’t like to leave the portal active, but it couldn’t be helped. Chierra servants could not replace the set properly; they could not distinguish one attuned crystal from another, and the crystals had to be set in the proper sequence. It took a trained Kashi to tell them apart. Axia was the only person who could have done it for him, and she—

He flashed back to her glimmering face, trapped and terrified, suspended in a brilliant blue mist above his head. His palms went sweaty and he shivered in the chill air. What in the name of Darkness had happened after she’d entered the timeways? He had to find the Tal woman and learn if there was any way to release his sister.

“Where are we going?” Kisa asked, wrestling the bulky cloak with her small fingers.

“Shael’donn.” Diren stepped up beside her and twitched his own cloak more closely around his shoulders. “I have business there.” His gloved hand traced the hard-angled shape of the latteh inside his pocket, already set for the next person foolish enough to touch it with his or her bare skin.

Kisa gazed up at him, worry pouring from her loosely shielded mind in waves, but she said nothing, letting the fiction stand that he was her father.

Which, fortunately, he was not. Diren turned his face away from the shivering child. The last thing he had ever been interested in was fathering a brat on some Lowlands woman, good-looking or not.
Open your shields,
he told the child.
I’ll transport us both.
Activating each crystal in turn, he attuned his mind to the similar set at Shael’donn, concentrated—then opened his eyes on a sunny but chill afternoon on the other side of the Highlands, at least three days’ hard ride from Chee’ayn.

At his side, the girl studied the huge brown stone edifice of Shael’donn, then turned to look over her shoulder at the smaller House of Moons. “Are we going to get Adrina now?”

“What?” For a moment, he couldn’t think what she was talking about. Then he remembered there was another Lenhe child, even younger than this one. “Not now,” he said brusquely.

The young green-gold eyes seemed to accuse, staring a hole straight through him, but she said nothing. She merely hiked up the cumbersome cloak and stepped down from the portal onto the crushed-gravel path. Diren followed her, casting his mind around the quiet, snow-dusted grounds for some signs of the silshas or even Haemas Tal herself. He sensed nothing, though, except a tree barret skittering around in the shadows and a few circling lraels in the clear green sky overhead.

The two of them walked the short distance to Shael’donn in silence, their feet crunching on the snowy gravel. At the main door, Diren nodded to the boy on duty. “We’ve come to see Healer Saxbury.”

The youngster, a healthy crop of freckles sprinkled across his face, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lord Chee, but Master Lising left word that she’s in a very bad way.”

“Well, of course, she can have no
regular
visitors.” Diren pushed the cloak impatiently back off his shoulders. “But the Lord of Chee’ayn can hardly be described as that.”

The boy paled. “No, sir. If you’ll just let me call Master Lising or—”

Blocking Kisa’s view with his body, Diren used his gloved hand to pull the latteh out of his shirt, then quickly touched it to the boy’s forehead.
You will call no one. You will remember no one coming to see Healer Saxbury this afternoon except Kevisson Monmart. Do you understand that? Kevisson Monmart.

Rigid with shock, the boy stared glassily ahead. Casually Diren withdrew the latteh and replaced it in his shirt, resetting it with his mind even as he did so. Who knew but that they might meet more students or Masters on their way to Saxbury’s room who would also require a certain amount of
persuasion.

* * *

The wintery glade wavered in and out of focus and the grinding roar went on and on, never varying in its intensity. Kevisson felt his eyes blinking, so he knew they were open, and yet for some reason he could not make sense of anything. Fingers stroked his brow and he pushed at them weakly, shuddering. Why couldn’t the damned ilserin leave him alone? No matter what the green-skinned idiots thought, he hadn’t taken anything!

No, it’s all right,
a familiar mindvoice murmured.

“Haemas?” he said, but his words were lost in the immense thunder of the falls. He realized he was stretched out on the frozen ground, his head pillowed on something warm and yielding. His fingers moved, brushing the softness of the inside of an ebari-wool cloak that had been tucked over him, and he smelled the smoke of a blazing fire close by. It might be her, he thought, but he couldn’t focus his eyes enough to be sure. The light here under the trees seemed to refract in odd directions, distorting the face that looked down at him as if he were seeing it underwater. Perhaps he was just dreaming again or had even lost his mind completely. He shifted restlessly, trying to raise his head.

It is me.
Warm fingers turned his face to meet her gaze. He blinked, then blinked again, hard. Braided hair slipped over the figure’s shoulder, the golden strands as pale as the third moon gliding through a star-studded night. Haemas leaned over him and the warmth of her mindpresence surrounded him, a comforting silvery glow that he would have known anywhere.

“Where in the name of Light have you been?” he demanded, then, without thinking, his arms closed around her neck and he found himself kissing her fervently, as he had never dared before, as if she were air itself and he were drowning for the lack of her.

She kissed him back, her arms twined around his shoulders, trembling, mingled anxiety and relief spilling through her shields. Finally she sat back and smiled wanly.
You had me so worried!

He tried to sit up, but the trees spun sideways and threatened to take him off the edge of the world with them. His vision fuzzed, and sometime later he realized that his head was pillowed in her lap. He gazed up through dark-gray, bare tree limbs interlaced so thickly that the leaden green of the sky could just be glimpsed between them. Something overhead rustled, and then supple green bodies skittered effortlessly through the branches. “Not again!” he muttered hoarsely, and struggled to right himself before they could drag him off into the trees.

No, you’re safe,
Haemas said, but Kevisson remembered limber green hands hauling him through the trees like a piece of baggage, being so cold he would never get warm again, fearing that he would never get home.

He rolled over, fighting to push himself to his feet. “You don’t know what they’re like. We have to—”

She pressed her hands to his temples and willed him to meet her luminous pale-gold eyes. They burned at him like distant suns, made for some other world, where love had its season and haste and fear were unknown.
The ilserin won’t bother you now.
She seemed wiser for some reason, older, more assured. The tension melted out of his arms and legs and he sagged against her.

She pulled the warm cloak back across his shoulders.
They didn’t mean to be cruel. They just had no idea of how to care for a human.

They keep saying I—took something.
Unutterably weary, he closed his eyes. A spinning darkness seemed to be drawing him down.

Unfortunately, they can’t tell one human male from another.
Her arms encircled him, comforting and human.
I’m not sure how old they are chronologically, but mentally they’re very young.

For a while, he drifted on the edge of sleep, soaking up the crackling warmth of the fire and the balm of her touch, but there was something that nagged at him, something he ought to ...

Then he remembered.
Where—where have you been?
He rubbed his aching head fretfully.
I Searched until I found you on the other side of the Highlands, but then something or someone shattered the link.

It was Diren Chee.
She pressed a cool ovoid into his hand.
Try to eat a little of this to settle your stomach. I’m sorry I haven’t anything hot, but the poor ilserin would be horrified if they saw us eat animal flesh.

Chee?
His fingers curled around a purple nasai and brought it to his lips.
The Council?

The Council had nothing to do with it. He had some plan to use the timeways.
She raised her head, and her pale-gold braid of hair tickled his neck.
Do you feel strong enough to go back?

Back. He turned that word over in his mind, chewing it as slowly as the bite of fruit in his mouth.
Back ... Enissa!

Yes.
Despair glimmered in her pale eyes for a moment.
She’s very weak. I thought I could find—something down here to help her, but it seems ...
Her mindvoice trailed away tightly. Then she took a deep breath.
It isn’t possible.

Swallowing the mouthful of fruit, he attempted to sit up again, this time making it almost all the way before the dizziness set in. Hunching forward, he pressed both hands to his forehead and fought it.

Haemas pressed another wedge of the sticky purple fruit into his hand.
Here, eat a little more.

His stomach rolled sickly, but he made himself eat another bite. Juice dribbled down his chin and he dabbed at it with the back of his hand.

Do you think you can stand now?
Rising to her feet in a single graceful motion, Haemas held her hands out to him.

He reached for her, then shivered as the forest seemed to grow suddenly heavier with a chill brooding presence that he could neither see nor name.

Haemas paled and backed away.
But he has to know.
She looked sharply up into the overhanging tree branches as if speaking to someone.
He’s not like the others. He’s a good man. He can help.

Kevisson struggled to his feet, trying to balance against residual dizziness.
What is it?

Her upturned face grew ashen, making her seem older, weighing her down in some way. “But I don’t know if I can
do
it by myself,” she said, her words all but lost in the background roar of the falls. Her eyes closed, and she seemed to strain against something.

Kevisson touched her face and found her cheek as cold as the icy river.
Is it the ilseri? What’s wrong?

Haemas gazed at him with the same lost, bleak expression he’d seen the first time they’d met, years ago.
My father is dead!
she had insisted, falsely believing she had killed him herself. What could have happened now to match the depth of that old despair?

Staring over his head at the pounding river, she seemed to pull herself together, standing taller and straighter, certainly taller than half the men in the High Houses.
We have to—go back to the Highlands, and there are some things I must do that I can’t—explain.
Kevisson heard tears in her voice, yet her cheeks were dry.
I need you to help if you can, without asking why. Do you—do you think you can do that?

Startled by the urgency of her request, he hesitated. Then she added,
Because if you can’t, I’ll have to do it alone.

Suddenly he wanted to protect her as he had all those years ago, make the world better for her, smooth away the rough edges and give her peace and security again. But she wasn’t a child anymore; she was a woman with an awesome amount of power at her command, and the world was a much more complicated place. He started to nod, but then the dizziness swept back over him and he groped for support against the rough bark of a towering redthorn tree.

She laid a hand on his arm.
You need hot food and a decent night’s sleep.

I’ll—be all right.
A fit of shivering overtook him and she picked the ebari-wool cloak up from the ground, then wrapped it around his shoulders. His teeth chattered as he shook his head.
I’ll be fine. Let’s—let’s go back, if you can take me, then I’ll do whatever I can, although I don’t promise not to ask questions.

There are no crystals here.
She looked around, the tip of her high-bridged Tal nose reddened in the chill air.
Frostvine will have to take us if she can; otherwise we’ll have to walk to the closest pool.