Keral . . .
The chierihad come down from these mountains to seek Regis, to offer help during the crisis of the World Wreckers. At first meeting, Keral had seemed a tall boyish figure with the exquisite beauty that marked Regis and all his kin. The chieriwas deceptively strong and yet possessed an endearing uncertainty. How much courage it must have taken to leave everything safe and familiar, to journey into a land of strangers and their machines.
Keral, no longer in neuter phase but fully female, dancing in ecstasy, silken hair rippling around the slender body . . .
Keral’s radiant smile as he gazed down upon his own baby, the firstchieri to be born in so many years . . .
After the departure of the World Wreckers, Keral and his child had gone back to the Yellow Forest, or so it was supposed. His mate, a Terran doctor, had disappeared about the same time. Keral’s child would be the same age as Kierestelli . . .
The dun had started moving forward of its own accord, neck arched, each foot placed with ceremonial precision. Regis sat, hands quiet on the reins, trusting the animal’s instinct.
They passed the edge of the forest, moving through dappled shade. Dry leaves crackled under the horse’s tread. A breeze ruffled branches overhead. Again came that hint of sweetness in the air, that stirring of life . . .
With it came a faint mental touch, so delicate that Regis could not be sure he had sensed it. Kierestelli shifted her weight, pressing against him. She took the reins from his hands. In trust, he closed his eyes, lowered his mental barriers—reached out with his laran.
Regis? Is it you, my friend?
Keral!
As quickly as it had come, the contact vanished. Regis shuddered with the recoil. No easy fading this, but a severing, brutal in its finality. Only a moment ago, his mind had been filled with the alivenessof the forest and the presence of Keral. Now he felt only an aching absence.
He would have given up in utter desolation, would have surrendered to a loss too great to bear, had the horse not kept going. The beast never paused in its careful stride.
How long they continued like this, Regis could not have said. He lost all awareness of the swollen Bloody Sun creeping across the sky beyond the canopy of wind-kissed leaves. Unshed tears left him half-blind. After a time, he became conscious of someone singing. He could not make out words, only a melody compounded of hope and regret, of joy remembered and echoed.
The singer sat in the saddle before him, his own daughter.
The horse came to a halt in a clearing. Slanting light touched the grasses and the low brush that, against the order of the season, bore a profusion of star-bright flowers. Regis breathed deeply, inhaling their perfume.
Kierestelli gestured that she wished to get down. Regis dismounted and helped her to the ground. She walked to the center of the clearing and halted. He hesitated, unsure if he should follow. Beside him, the gelding stood as if rooted in the layers of fallen leaves, head up, ears pricked, nostrils flaring.
Suddenly Kierestelli laughed and glanced back at Regis, her face alight. The next moment, something flickered in the forest directly ahead, a shift of light-filled shadow.
A chieristepped into the clearing. Regis caught his breath, but it was not Keral. This creature was far older, more ancient even than the trees behind him. Like Keral, he was tall, willowy thin, and seemed to dance rather than walk across the grass. He wore a flowing garment of the same opalescent silver as his hair. Bones arched, delicate and strong, beneath milky skin. The eyes that watched Regis with wary regard were likewise pale, almost colorless. And cool, neither welcoming nor hostile. Measuring.
“Child of Grace . . .” Without conscious intent, Regis formed the traditional greeting. He wanted to rush forward, to fall on his knees before this being of a race that had traveled the far reaches of space before his own kind had learned to walk upright.
Keral had been a child, lost and overwhelmed in the land of men. This chieriwas old, experienced, and in his own territory.
But Regis was Comyn, and Hastur. Whether his own lineage descended from the first Hastur, son of Aldones who was Lord of Light, or whether from the interbreeding of lost Terran colonists with this ancient race, his heritage was still a proud and honorable one. Respect he would offer, for respect was certainly due, but not groveling.
He came forward and bowed. “ S’dei shaya,Noble One.” You lend us grace.
“What seek ye here?” The voice was light and clear, the words an ancient form of casta.
“I am Regis Hastur, friend to the one of you known as Keral, and I seek protection for my child.”
For a long moment, the chieristared at Regis. Meeting that gaze was like looking into the heart of a living starstone.
“Keral has told us of your people, who kill their own young.”
Regis held himself erect, although he wanted to cover his face in shame that humans could threaten children, even babes in their cradles. His throat closed around the cry —“No, not all of us!”—but it was true. Whether by direct assault, by abuse or neglect, his kind did not always cherish their children or protect them from those who meant harm. He had lost enough of his own nedestrooffspring, had seen the horrendous damage done to those who survived, even Lew’s daughter Marja, even Lew himself . . . even he, Regis . . .
The truth, then.
Regis opened his mind to the slender, gray-eyed creature before him. Chieriwere telepathic. Let this one look into his heart and see the good and the ill, the honor kept and betrayed, the hopes cherished, all his failures revealed. Under that uncompromising regard, he had little confidence in his own worthiness, but he had every faith in Kierestelli’s.
Not for my sake, but for hers, I ask this.
He offered the image of his own brother, learning the ways of power from the likes of Valdir Ridenow . . . allowedthat power by Regis himself.
The time for making excuses for Rinaldo, for rationalizing and temporizing, had passed. No matter how much Regis wanted to think well of his brother—and there wasgoodness in Rinaldo, albeit colored by fanaticism—Regis could no longer stand by, tacitly cooperating with the abuse of power.
If you will keep my child safe so that I may act without fear of retaliation upon an innocent, then I will stop him.
Silence, waiting. Then: How?
In that question, Regis sensed the chieri’sabhorrence of violence. Chieridid not kill, Keral had insisted; they did not even eat meat.
Truth,came from the chieri’smind. Truth, not fine words.
“I do not know,” Regis said aloud, “I will find a way.”
The chierishifted his gaze from Regis to Kierestelli. A gust of air, warm with the scent of flowers, ruffled the silver-gilt hair. Kierestelli took a step and then another, and then she burst into a run. The chieriscooped her up in his arms. With a smile of heartbreaking radiance, he glanced once at Regis, then faded into the forest.
“Wait!”Regis had anticipated time to say his farewells, to reassure Kierestelli that he would come for her once the danger was passed.