Beyond this complex was a kind of arena. A round flat open area surrounded by tiers of benches and a broken circle of tall marble columns tied together with stone lintels and capped with odd bronze arrangements that puzzled her until one of the Eolt brushed low across the arena, caught hold of a bronze rod and used it to hold xe in place. Xe rested there a moment, swaying gently.
Maorgan thrust two fingers in his mouth, let loose a whistle that made her ears ring.
The Eolt at the arena loosed xe’s hold, rose till xe found an air layer traveling the way xe wanted and came rushing toward them.
Xe dropped and coiled xe’s speaking tentacle about Maorgan’s neck. Maorgan’s eyes glazed and his face relaxed into a shapeless joy that made Shadith uncomfortable-as if she had inadvertently broken into someone’s bedroom. She looked hastily away, went back to examining the Vale.
A number of other Eolt had started drifting toward them and there was a stirring in the crowd outside the large buildings, a swirl that gained definition and direction as half a dozen Fior and Denchok started marching along the road that ran from the lake toward the pass.
They were at least ten miles off so it would take a while to get here, but she didn’t want to wait. She glanced at Maorgan, sighed and looked away again. They’d been apart for days. She could remember the burning excitement when Melech had touched her that once. She moved her shoulders, shifted the strap of the harpcase and started Brйou down the trail. He could follow with the other ponies when he felt like it.
It felt good to be riding finally without the need to extend the mindtouch and sweep the land in front of her. She was still very tired and relaxing the stress made it hard to keep her eyes open, even with so much interesting strangeness about.
An Eolt tentacle brushed against her, sending a jolt through her body. She looked up. Eolt were circling thick above her. As she watched, another tentacle dropped. Hastily she extended her arm and let it touch the back of her hand. It was easier on both of them that way. Touch and touch and touch till she was near drunk with them. Power surges ran through her body, Brлou squealing as they passed through her and stung him.
Behind her Maorgan shouted and the Eolt cleared reluctantly away.
She looked round. His caцpa coming at a jolting trot, the packers following free, he was riding toward her, Marrin in the flikit close behind, holding the flier only a few feet off the ground. That was dangerous, but tactful under the circumstances.
“Shadowsong!”
She wrinkled her nose at the irritation in the word. “Calm yourself, Ard. No harm.”
He stopped the caцpa beside her, grabbed her hand, inspected the palm, turned it over, inspected the back. He let it drop. “I told you, Shadow, they’re dangerous. Especially free Eolt like these. Sometimes they get… cha oy… funny when they’re very old. And there are a lot of Old. Ones here.”
“We’ve got an escort coming to meet us, Maorgan. I doubt the Eolt would get that funny when we’re expected.”
“You don’t know that, Shadow.”
“Well, I do, Ard. There was only curiosity, no malice.”
“I forget you can do that. Cha oy, there’s still clumsiness to figure in. So be careful.”
She smiled and shook her head, then urged Brion onward, thinking fond thoughts of the sturdy if stinky beast. He’d done well by her on this long trip. She glanced back at the flikit and giggled. It looked so silly trailing there behind them, sitting on top of billows of white dust that the lift effect etched from the unpaved track. Like an odd-shaped black balloon. More balloons overhead, golden and bell-shaped. She looked up. Not so dreamlike when you saw the underside with its nests of coiling and uncoiling tentacles, the multiple mouths the Eolt used for their singing-and, no doubt, excretory functions. That thought made her giggle again.
They met the escort an hour later. Shadith dropped back, let Maorgan do the talking.
“Buli Terthal. Buli Dengol.”
The Denchok Buli banged xe’s official staff on the dirt of the roadway as a prelude to speech, then glared at Maorgan with a down-browed annoyance. “Ard Maorgan. We summoned one mesuch and one only. Who are they?” Xe swiveled the staff up, pointed it at the flikit.
“They are the reason we’re alive and here,” Maorgan said. He extended his voice into song mode so it reached beyond the speaker to the Denchok and Fior who’d gathered to watch the show. “We were attacked at the Pass Tower by a score of choreks. The watchmen there are dead; we laid out their bodies on the lower floor. Unless you insist on keeping us out here when we’re tired and hungry, this can be explained to the Meruu.”
4
Melitoлh, the Kushayt, morning in the office
Ilaцrn knew he must look bad when even Hunnar noticed. “I am not a young man,” he said in a response to the Ykkuval’s abrupt inquiry. “And I did get wet last night.”
“Remind me to have a med tech look at you. Don’t want you getting sick on me. Keep the music light and easy, hm?”
“Of course, O Ykkuval.” Ilaцrn flexed stiff fingers, slid them across the strings without plucking sound from them. His body wanted to be as inert as his mind, but the time he’d spent in here had taught his a lesson all his years as Ard had not-that he could produce sounds he loathed and do it to a schedule, not when he felt like playing.
He closed his eyes, forced them open again. The heat in the room and a night without sleep were almost too much for him. Eyes on the blank screen that took up the whole of the wall opposite, he plucked a single note, added another, worked his way into a children’s song. The music brought its usual relief, easing away the bitter remnants of a night filled with unresolved questions. Distantly he heard Hunnar’s voice as the Chav talked with his guards and techs, the hum of the machines as he worked on things incomprehensible to Hewn.
A soft bong woke him from his haze. He knew that sound. It was Kurz calling from Banikoлh, a warning to Hunnar that shielded matter was coming.
A cell near the middle of the screen flashed to life, the face of the Spy assembling from broken bits of light and color.
The image steadied.
Hunnar leaned forward. “Well?”
“O Ykkuval, I could wish I had better news. The University group are either more competent at defense than we suspected or are gifted with large helpings of luck. Luck is impossible to fight, one must simply wait till it turns. Fortunately it always does.”
“What’s all that about?”
“O Ykkuval, my information is that there have been five separate attacks on the group, all of which have failed. Also, a number of cutters have fallen into the Scholar’s hands.”
Hunnar swore. “That is what comes of leaving things to incompetent dirt grubbers.”
Ilaцrn watched him master his anger and make a superior/inferior apology gesture at the screen. He found this interesting. Hunnar must be more desperate than he thought, more dependent on this spy.
“No, I’m not blaming you, my friend.” The Chav’s voice was as syrupy sweet as it’d been with the mesuch traitor. “It was my idea to make the grubbers my surrogate. Where are they now?”
“The manager is in the Yaraka Enclave. The other three are in a place called Chuta Meredel. My informants are not especially reliable, but I have no reason to doubt this. They are very bitter about the inhabitants of that place, rabid about the jellies, they want to burn them all. When I showed them what a cutter would do to a jelly, they went into rut like a bodj driven mad with must. They’re too stupid and too impatient to plan anything which is why they are where they are. Which is why I have to be careful how I approach them. Given half a chance they’d try knocking me on the head and getting off with everything I have, no matter that I am a source of more weapons and other useful commodities.”
Hunnar grunted. “You’ve dealt with worse material before this. You have a plan?”