Shadow World (36 page)

Pandemonium ensued.

The heen rushed again at Mark, this time intent on spearing him, but recoiled suddenly as R'Thessra flew between them, wings beating furiously in the Wopind's face. Screaming with mingled fear and rage, the guard thrust at her, but missed.

Several other Wospind charged in to help Mark's attacker and the next moment the air seemed filled with flashing spears and swords!

A hard-flung stone whizzed by Mark's head, barely missing him, just as he heard the
thwup
of the repulsor weapon. Another stone hurtled at him, straight for his face.

Mark ducked, stumbled, then found himself falling. He rolled to protect Terris, hearing, as he did so, Hrrakk's snarl of rage. Suddenly the Simiu roared in pain and fury. Mark came up on his hands and knees, then immediately froze as a hand grasped his hair; something cold and sharp touched the back of his neck.

The human could move only his eyes, and he struggled to focus on the melee before him. Abruptly the blur of

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movement halted, then resolved into concrete images that burned into his brain.

The Wopind leader, repulsor gun in hand, stood looking down at two bodies lying on the ground before hin. One was a female in her red tunic, the side of her head sunken in and bleeding sluggishly, and the other was ... the other was RThessra.

Oh, God, no!

The Apis lay on her back, wings crushed beneath her carapace, forelimbs jerking uncontrollably. Mark could see no wounds. The Wopind leader must have shot her, and the charge in the repulsor weapon had flung her down so hard that her wings had broken--and something inside her, too, evidently, for even as the horrified student realized what had happened, the little alien jerked once more, then was still.

Cara was crouched beside her, vainly trying to offer help or comfort. "Oh, no!" she gasped, and began to sob.

Between the journalist and the Wospind stood Hrrakk', his enormous canines bared in a full Simiu challenge, his left hand up and ready for battle.

His right arm hung limp and helpless, the result of the jagged spear protruding from his muscled shoulder.

Hrrakk' glanced sideways, and the human saw pain flood his violet eyes as the Simiu realized RThessra was dead. The big alien did not budge, however, but snarled his chal enge again. "Touch her and die!" he growled in Mizari.

He's defending Cara. Is it just because of his honor-bond with me?
Mark's intuition told him that it was more than that.

In the sudden silence of the tableau, Terris' crying was the only sound.

Mark cautiously turned his head to see who was holding the weapon against the back of his neck. It was one of the hin. Mark said in Elspindlor, "I am going to stand up now. I will not fight or resist," then slowly, deliberately, rose to his feet. The point of the Wopind's sword now rested against the small of his back.

It's a standoff,
Mark realized.
They don't really want to kill us, or they'd
already have done it. What the hell am I going to do now?

Quite suddenly, he knew. "Wopind leader!" he called out.

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The other regarded him coldly.

"You said that I stole your hinsi, but you are mistaken," Mark cried. "This child was given to me by one of your people who was dying, with the plea that I would care for and nurture hinsi, and carry hinsi to safety, where hinsi could be cared for by other Elspind. I see that I have succeeded in doing that."

Gently, regretfully, Mark soothed Terris for the last time, then carefully detached the baby from his sweater. Hinsi lay cuddled in his palms, blinking up at him trustingly with those enormous eyes. Mark's throat tightened as he took a step toward the Wopind leader.

The sword did not bite into his back, so he took another, then another.

Slowly, one step at a time, he crossed the ground that separated him from the hin. When he reached the Wopind, he halted, feeling tears break free and run down his face.

"Good-bye, Terris," he whispered, and held out the baby.

The Wopind leader stared at him, then inspected Terris closely. "You came from the off-world ship that hin's sibling Orim brought down out of the sky?"

hin asked, as if doubting it suddenly.

"I did," Mark said.

The Wopind leader glanced back down at the baby, lying quietly,

contentedly, across Mark's palms. "You have cared for hinsi since the ship came down?"

"I have," Mark said. "Hinsi's name is Terris."

"Hinsi appears ... healthy."

"I did my best to care for hinsi as well as any adoptive father could," Mark said.

Slowly the Wopind reached out and scooped the baby out of Mark's hands.

Terris immediately began to wail, stretching hinsi's twiglike little arms out toward the human.

Mark's attention was arrested by a labored moan and gurgle from the direction of his feet. He looked down at the injured Wopind. "Hrrakk'," he said in Mizari, "did you hit her?"

"No," answered the Simiu, pain evident in his voice-- whether pain from his wound, or for his dead friend, Mark did not know. "One of the stones from her own people's slings struck her."

I
have to establish common ground,
Mark thought.
It was
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only when I was able to convince Orim that I totally understood and
respected hin's goals that I got anywhere negotiating with hin. Can I do the
same thing now?
An idea was forming in his mind. "Your friend here is dying," he said to the leader. "Someone must dance the Mortenwol for han."

The Wopind leader looked down at the gasping female. "What do you know of our ways, off-worlder? What do you know of the Mortenwol?"

"I know that this one has the right to have someone dance the Mortenwol for han--and that none of your people have moved to do so," Mark said, holding the leader's eyes with his own, putting into his gaze all the conviction and intensity he could muster. "Therefore I will do it!" he cried, raising his voice so all could hear. "I will dance the Mortenwol for han, and then you will see what I know of your ways!"

The entire group of Wospind--Mark saw that now there were at least fifty or sixty--stood watching him, silent with astonishment.

The student hesitated. I'll
bet there are some kind of ritual words I should
say!
he thought frantically.
But I wasn't there when Eerin danced for the
hijacker.

Before his pause became awkward, though, Eerin was suddenly there, staggering a little with weakness, Mark's knapsack in her hands. When she reached his side, she swayed and had to grasp his arm for support, but then she drew herself up, and together, they faced the Wopind leader.

"Mark Kenner knows much of our ways," she said. "Heen's Mortenwol will honor the journey-taker." Eerin looked up at Mark, her golden eyes full of trust and hope. Then she knelt, with his help, beside the dying Wopind.

"Journey-taker!" she said in a loud, formal voice. "Behold your last Mortenwol!"

The stricken female's amber-colored eyes opened, then widened

incredulously as they regarded Mark. Hastily the human picked up his knapsack and removed Eerin's two cases, then he fumbled out the kareen and wound it.

He opened the other case and fished out the two deep red feathers, the dark green one, the two soft blue ones. Adrenaline made Mark's hands tremble, and he dropped the green feather. He retrieved it hastily.
How the hell am I
going to manage this?
he wondered. He'd been going on instinct, trusting his 249

gut feeling, but now the craziness of what he was attempting, the near
impossibility, was catching up to him.

How was he, an ordinary human, going to manage a dance that would
challenge a ballet dancer or a null-grav gymnast? Still his hands
moved, sweating and awkward, weaving the feathers together as he
had seen Eerin do so many times.

Mark reached up and set the chaplet of Elseewas feathers on his head.

A stir went through the Wospind surrounding him. Terris was still
crying, and the pitiful sobs tugged at Mark's heart. He forced himself to
ignore hinsi and concentrate as he stepped into the middle of the little
circle, within sight of the dying Wopind, the kareen in his hands. The
Wopind leader must have gestured behind the human's back, for

suddenly all of the onlookers stepped back, leaving a good-sized
space.

Mark turned back to Eerin and the others. First he gazed at the dying
han, and said, "I am dancing for you, journey-taker," then he bowed his
head in the direction of R'Thessra's corpse. "And I am dancing for you,
my departed friend."

Quickly, before he could lose his nerve, Mark laid the kareen off to one
side and his fingers went out, pressing its four sides at once. The little
music board's low, powerful throb emerged. Mark took a deep breath.

Mortenwol,
he thought.
Death dance. And if you screw this up, that's just
what it will be---for you and for everyone else!

Carefully he tapped the spidery
symbol
in the middle of the little music
board, activating it. Then he
straightened
and
stood waiting. A kaleidoscope of sensations washed over him; the springiness of the meadow grass, the smell of alien blood, the sun's heat, the wispy brush of the feathers. The headpiece weighed nothing, but at that moment, it seemed to Mark that the weight of an entire world was pressing him down.

The kareen's first high, clear note rang out. Mark remembered the Elseewas, seeing its last flight in his mind. The note swelled out sweet and pure into the air, slowly at first, and then with the sudden throb that had always been Eerin's cue to leap for the stratosphere.

But I'm too heavy to do that,
he thought desperately.
Even in Elseemar's
lighter gravity, I'm too heavy ... I can't do it ...

Shit,
Mark thought. I
have to try!
He closed his eyes
and
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spun, then threw his arms up over his head and followed them into the air.

The jar of the landing traveled through his entire abused body. Mark stumbled, almost losing his balance. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to see Eerin's body moving in his mind, as hin had floated lightly through the patterns of the dance. He strained to remember the sequence of steps.

The second, upward-swelling note sounded, the one that meant melody was coming.
Back one, two forward, side-hop and spin, reverse and alternate.

Frantically reviewing the pattern that went with the first melodic theme, Mark heard the music tumble out. He floundered after it, already two beats behind.

His feet had lost the rhythm; that meant that
he
was lost ... had lost this desperate gamble ...

How does Eerin do it? How?

The image of Eerin in Mark's mind suddenly flowed into and merged with the image of the Shadowbird. They became one, flying and dancing together, the music lifting them, pulling them, whirling them. Mark gave up trying to remember the patterns, and simply let his body follow that soaring image, half bird, half Elpind, that filled his mind.

The first melodic run was ready to repeat. Mark opened himself to the music, spreading his arms to echo the image in his mind that the rippling notes conjured up. The first downbeat reached him, and miraculously his body knew, or remembered, he wasn't sure how, and he stepped back smartly, keeping the rhythm.

A breath, and then it was forward--
and forward again--
and, yes, knees bent
slightly now, and now sideways, and yes, that fits, that's right, then spin
and ...

The pulse of the music, a hot wildness just beneath the sweet overlay, captured him, ensnared him. It had always called to his blood, even when watching, and now, somehow, it
was
his blood, flowing over him, through him. The music/blood swirled and flowed and ran free. Mark's feet followed surely, unerringly.

The trills and runs wove their familiar patterns, and Mark followed the Eerin/

Shadowbird that danced in his memory.
Feel it, the life they both love, the
life that includes death, but does not end there ...

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Joy sprang up in Mark. Miracles surrounded him: pumping heart, heaving lungs, light feet, swift-rushing blood, but they were nothing ... nothing compared to the wonder of his sudden freedom. Now
he
was the Shadowbird, unfettered, and he flew wild and beautiful and free above the fear, above the sorrow, above the anger.

Faces filled his mind, his memory: Hrrakk's when the Simiu had stood by to steady him in the desert, Cara's bent over the dying Misir, Terris' trusting green eyes. RThessra, touching Cara gently, tenderly, and Eerin, leaning over a small grave, hin's treasured white feather in hand. There were other faces, too: Captain Loachin's, Rob Gable's, Esteemed Sarozz's--

--and his mother's.

This time, her memory did not bring pain, for Mark knew that she had understood, and loved him, and forgiven him-- as he had finally forgiven himself.

The faces whirled in his memory, as his body whirled in the dance, and a great love for all of them welled up in him. Why hadn't he heard it before in the music? Love, strong and steady, was the beat that held the patterns in place.

The music began to rise toward its final crescendo. A new note, one saved for the final moments of Mortenwol, slipped out from beneath a trill. It swelled, closer and closer to breaking free, closer and closer to owning the song.

Yes, take it,
urged Mark.
Take me!

And when it did, when the music said it was natural to become part of the air, Mark let go completely, leaping higher than he had ever thought he could, letting the sweet, pure vibration of the final note lift him beyond all reason.

For a moment he hung suspended, half convinced that he would never come down.