Mindbond (20 page)

I should have known that Tyonoc would not sleep soundly through the night, even in the realm of the dead. He had been a king too long for that. I felt his touch, his grasp on my shoulder, knew it without looking at him, vaguely heard his voice in my ears. He began shaking me as if to bring me out of a trance, and I hearkened to him just enough to comprehend what he was saying.

Dan?
Kor heard silence, felt the change.

It is nothing, Kor. Tyonoc is badgering me. He wants me to come back to the tent. He says it is not safe here.

Indeed.
Dryly. I nearly laughed aloud, but caution stopped me. Tyonoc kept his voice low, though he pleaded with me intensely. I had showed no sign that I heard him, as in fact for the most part I did not. Presently he gave up talking at me, taking a guardsman's stance over me instead.

It seems he plans to stay here with me.

Good. He can watch the devourers for you.
Calm, Kor's mindspeaking, but a labor in the words, as if he struggled against great force.

Kor, are you all right?

Just
—
speak to me.

Our people, his and mine, not so much different. Fire on the hearth, work done, good food, chatter, small quarrels, the boasting of youths, old women scoffing, maidens smiling behind slender hands. Tassida—I dared to speak to him of Tassida. And children, living children who teased and shouted and played. The younger girls, the little ones of six or seven years, so winsome and imperious, always. Boys, mischievous. And very small children gazing with round eyes. Kor loved children, and they seemed always to love him, to cluster around him. All but the children of Mahela's realm.

He answered me from time to time, a single word or a touch, enough to let me know that he was there. Sometimes I felt him struggling and mindspoke him by name, calling on the names of our bonds. I was scarcely aware anymore of the cormorant-colored night—in this place it might go on until world's end. I was no longer aware of Tyonoc's presence, for Kor needed me more, that night, battling, if not for life, for something as precious—for selfhood.… At some time I had let myself slide to a seat on the harsh stones at the base of the crag. But when I grew aware of weariness, Kor's as well as my own, I struggled back to my feet to combat it. Weariness might be dangerous.

Remember comrades, Kor? Birc, Tyee, Tohr, others? Remember the wolf, the gray wolf on the mountain, maybe the very last? And how it traveled along with us? The wildness in its eyes. And how its fur
—

Warm
, he mindspoke.
Again. And again, and again, and again.
Very softly, a thought as much for himself as for me, drowsy, lulling, like a cradle song.

Kor!
I warned.

He was gone.

Not asleep. Gone, utterly, as if he had never been. As if he had gripped my hand in farewell, then let go, saluted, and stepped into a pit so deep, so black—I no longer tried to control my panic. It pushed me forward, into the open. Tyonoc snatched me back—I think I threw off his hand.

Korridun! Kor, my brother, where are you!

No answer. Tears choked me so badly that I could not have spoken to him had he stood before me, but my thoughts took their own course.

Sakeema! By all that is beautiful, answer me!

Touch of an odd passion in me, no feeling I could name—though I had felt something like it once before, on a beach at the Greenstones. And, as if out of nowhere, a sense of victory. Then—Kor again, somewhere. Hope and vexation surged through me.

Kor, you ass
—

Still he had not answered, but Tyonoc's grasp was on me again, tight with a strong sense of danger. He was trying to pull me back. With a start I scanned the night. A swift shadow was moving toward me downslope from the direction of Mahela's abode.

Kor, are you all right? Something is coming toward me.

Ass, yourself
, he retorted.
It is I.

“Kor!” I whispered aloud, and Tyonoc stared, loosening his grip, and Kor sped up to us, embraced me.

Embrace that lasted not nearly long enough. Arms around him, I swayed, staggered by my own relief and love for him as if by a battering wave. He was naked—pity for him overwhelmed me, as if he were no more than a motherless babe. Something heavy, some sort of furred skin or coverlet, trailed from his left hand, brushing my back. He let his head rest for a moment against my neck and shoulder, and I felt his chest heave once, felt also his urgent thought that there was no time for tears.

“Handbond, quickly,” he murmured. “We both need it.”

I felt weary enough to fall, faint from the night's ordeal, and for his part he could only have felt worse. But when I gave him the grip, at once a surge of victorious strength filled me.

Tyonoc stood by, gaping.

“Now,” said Kor in a low voice, “hold this.” And he passed me—a pelt, a seal pelt that felt warm, somehow, even in the chill seawater. He held another like it, except that mine was lighter, glimmering sunnily even in the night.

“Our—our skins?” I could scarcely comprehend.

“Yes. She had spread them on the bed.” A grim fury sounded in Kor's voice, but also something of pain. “As if I might not notice. Or to toy with me, to show how consummate is her power over me. She overweens, Mahela does.” His tone had grown yet darker. “I have pleasured her into a stupor. Wait here for me, Dan.”

“Wait, yourself!” I whispered urgently, for I saw that he had taken his pelt in both hands, ready to put it on. “What if—”

If he fell to bits, like the unfortunate man Mahela had sacrificed to cow us. “Even that is better than this,” he said savagely, knowing what protest was in me. “I must risk it.” He flung the pelt around his shoulders, and at once he was a seal, shooting upward, a black, skimming shadow amid streaks of flashing green.

Kor! Come back!

I have to breathe!

Breathe! Air! It was a thought almost too immense to hold, as vast as sky, if it did not destroy him. With my own watery breath bated, I waited for what seemed far too long a time, though it could not have been more than a few heartbeats. And then in a greenfire swirl he darted before me again. Gladness shouted in me.

Kor! You are all right!

Come on, Dan!
he replied with a fierce joy.
We are going home.

All delight and excitement, I held up my pelt to fling it around me—then looked at Tyonoc and stopped.

“Go on,” he urged, his voice alive with his own excitement, his head high, the lines of his body full of ardor. Like the king I had known of old. With a pang I wished I could see his face.

“I have to take you with me,” I said, “somehow.”

Dan, make haste!

“I cannot leave my father here,” I said to Kor aloud.

Mahela's bowels! Dan, if we ourselves escape, it will be—

“But what we came here to do—”

“Blood of Sakeema, lad, go!” Tyonoc was exclaiming at the same time.

What, you wish to see me in torment!
An angry, bitter thought, not worthy of Kor, but I had no time to protest it.

“If you truly escape, it will bring me joy forever,” Tyonoc told me, full of fervor. “Haste, put it on and go!”

He meant it, he commanded me. I embraced him quickly, then stood and donned the pelt.

There was no change. I stood as before.

“Try again.” Tyonoc kept his voice low so as not to rouse Mahela's minions, but I heard uproar in his tone.

Dan, please!

I tried again. Nothing happened. “Wait,” I said softly, “perhaps this is not meant for me.” And before he could protest I flung the pelt around my father's shoulders. But there was nothing of the seal in Tyonoc, either. He stood as human, dead and immortal as I.

Dan, you must make up your mind to be a seal again. And I tell you
—I had never heard Kor speak so harshly, in mind or in voice—
I cannot bear it here, not another moment. You do not know.… Come with me now, at once, or I will go without you!

“We did not come here for your sake!” I flared at him. “Wait a bit longer, if you have any honor left!” And I set off down the dark ways at a reckless run. Tyonoc ran after me, and in a moment the seal that was Kor flashed past me.

What are you about?
he asked coldly.

I daresay I know one whom this pelt would change.

One who lay in a small lodge of peeled spearpine. I thumped urgently against the wall, though I dared rouse her only with a whisper. “Kela!”

Kor hovered, moaning within his mind.
Name of the god, Dan, I cannot bear to see her now that I am Mahela's plaything! I
—

“Cannot bear, cannot bear!” I mocked furiously, interrupting. “What you cannot bear, you are bearing.”

Kela had crawled out of the low doorway and stood before me, blinking. I held out the pelt to her.

“I am just a stupid Red Hart, and I cannot make the change. Here, be a seal, go.” Even though I was angry with him, as I said it I knew I was dooming myself never to be with Kor again, and my voice broke.

A small sound like a whimper came from Kor's whiskered mouth as he looked at his mother. She smiled, reached out, and touched him briefly. Then she turned to me.

“Why, Dannoc, what a generous heart is in you,” she marveled. “I am sorry I have called you unkind names.”

She took the pelt from me. I stood and bowed my head, trying not to feel the pain, not now when Kor would sense it in me, not now when they would need courage. After they were gone would be time enough to grieve, unto forever.… I could not mindspeak, not in any way that would make sense, for only one thought was in me, throbbing like a heartbeat. Kor … Kor … Kor.…

Kela flung the pelt around my shoulders, smoothed it down tenderly with her shell-tan hands.

I was a seal, my buckskin clothing falling away behind me, and I knew only that I must breathe at once or I would die. I shot skyward.

Ai, the night sky powdered with stars! True, crisp, unwavering, airy depths such as I might never again have seen … There at the surface, under that sky, as I was drawing in great gulps of sweet air, Kor joined me.

They say, Sakeema speed us. My mother and Tyonoc
—
they say they will rejoice with us forever. They have their hands at their mouths to keep from shouting.
And as if they were in my own body I sensed the muddle of emotions in him, pride and terror and awe and the ache of leaving two loved ones behind us in Tincherel, ache such as I also felt. But mostly terror.
Dan, not another moment, now. Come.

We sped homeward.

Chapter Fourteen

We swam just beneath the surface so as to take less time about breathing, and we swam at the limit of our speed. Swiftly as I cut through the water—and joy and fear make a mighty goad—Kor swam every whit as swiftly. Sometimes I strained to keep up with him.

Dan, how much is left of this night? Can you tell?

With a seal's fluid sense of time, I could not tell, not even by the stars. Seals are odd folk. I did not know even what season it was, and I had no sure sense of how long we had been journeying or how long we had stayed with Mahela. But a seal's inwit was serving Kor and me, drawing us back toward the Greenstones so that we could never be lost in the vastness of the sea. I could sense those sea stacks so clearly that it almost seemed I could see them, far, far ahead. The sense held the course of our flight arrow straight.

The night seemed all too long, before
, I told Kor.

And now it seems all too short. When Mahela awakens and looks for me
—

May she sleep well
, I petitioned whatever powers mindspeak can reach.

She might sleep well and late.
A grim triumph in Kor.
By my body, I believe she might.

We sped on in silence, scarcely pausing even to breathe. Seawater felt lovely, liquid, uplifting, a goodly substance now that we were using it for swimming in and not to fill our lungs. Starlight, sweet breeze, and the shimmer of seawater—such peace, and the ripple of our passing scarcely broke it. Terrible to think that it would not last another day.

Mahela will be mighty in wrath
, I mused.

True for you, Dan.
Kor was gently mocking me. I nipped at his neck, surging next to mine.

I hope she does not think to visit it on
—

Your father, my mother. Ai, Dan, I hate to think it, too. But—

Yes.
I knew, as he did, that they were better off in defiance. My father was a man again, and a king, in his own mind. Kela had acted as befit one who had been king and leader of her people.

Dan
—
what I said to you
—
about leaving you
—

Never mind that. We are here, are we not? Kor, I am ravenous.

As I had meant it to, that took his mind away from melancholy.
You dolt
, he complained,
do you never think of anything but your belly? There is no time to eat!

We must eat for strength.

We must make the best distance we can, first, in the time that remains to us!

Easy for you to say. Mahela fed you.

Mahela may keep her food.

We swam on, arguing companionably, gulping a few fish that had risen to the darkened surface to feed—it was not enough, and I said so. After a while I turned the friendly quarrel toward the matter of who was faster, and we turned our flight into a race. It seemed less tiring, so, and we went the faster. I wish I could say truly that I let Kor win, but I cannot. He won despite me.

See? I am weak and starved
, I grumbled to amuse him.

Excuses
, he retorted with a spirit that gladdened me.

Dawn came. We rushed on, weary but knowing we could not yet rest.

The beauty of daytime sky! Every time we breathed I rejoiced in it as if I had never seen sunsheen on water before, or wind traces on high wisps of cloud, or the way the blue of high sky washed pale toward the horizon. Empty sky, empty surface of the sea no longer felt too large to me, but welcome, cleansing, as if I needed to be purged of something.