But because Coransee was hammering at Teray’s shield so continuously, Teray was only half aware of what was happening to his body. He realized that someone had grasped his wrist but it took him longer to realize that the someone was Coransee.
Contact! Coransee was so occupied with keeping Teray subdued that he wanted physical contact to help him focus a second kind of attack, and do physical harm. The realization came too late. It came after Teray realized that something had happened to his heart.
Teray found himself clutching his chest in pain. He was suddenly not breathing properly, gasping, coughing. The pain seemed to spread and worsen. Teray tore his wrist away from Coransee, but the Housemaster had already done his work. The pain continued, grew. He could have stopped it, but if he gave his attention to his body, Coransee would be free to break down the defenses of his mind.
But his heart. He was dying.
Somehow, he began again to strike at Coransee, to throw all his strength into a new attack. If he lived, he could repair his body later. If he died, he meant to take his brother with him.
Suddenly Coransee ceased his own battering attack, and withdrew behind a total shield. Perhaps he was tiring. Desperately, Teray hit harder. But his body hampered him. He was slowing, faltering.
Teray became aware of Coransee tracing a blow back through Teray’s shield. And even aware of him, Teray was too slow to shut him out.
Coransee had his foothold. He slashed at the rest of Teray’s shielding, his mind a machete. Teray felt his shielding being stripped away. He tried to hold it, struggling to remain conscious. Coransee grasped him, held him, blasted him into oblivion.
To Teray’s utter surprise, he regained consciousness on the bed of the guest room, with Iray looking down at him. He had not expected to regain consciousness at all.
He moaned and closed his eyes again. He felt weak but he was in no pain. Apparently, Coransee or Iray had already made whatever repairs his body needed. He felt hungry the way people did after being healed, but it was a bearable hunger. He had only recently eaten part of his dinner. Iray had been sitting up. Now she lay down beside him. He put his arm around her and drew her closer so that her head rested on his shoulder. How to say it? How to tell her he was sorry?
“Iray…”
She put a hand over his mouth. “Didn’t I see? Don’t you think I know what you feel?”
He shook his head silently, his body suddenly trembling with shame and fury. He made a ragged sound of anguish and twisted away from her. He wanted to go down and take Coransee on againmake him finish the job this time. He wanted to kill, or to die. He had lost everything. Everything! Why hadn’t Coransee killed him?
Iray tried to turn his head, make him face her. He caught hold of her hands and looked at her. He had lost her. What was she even doing there?
“I’ll get us out of this,” he said. “I swear…”
“Teray…”
“I won’t stop trying until”
“Teray, listen! There’s a way out.”
He broke off, staring at her. “What?”
“Listen. Coransee said you were to report to him tomorrow … tomorrow morning. He said he might make you his apprentice. You’re stronger than he thought. He said you’d make a better ally than servant. Teray, he said I might… we might be able to stay together.”
“Might?”
“He wants to talk to you. I don’t know why. And he said he had to find out something from the school. But we have a chance, Teray. At least a chance.”
“Maybe. But what is there to talk aboutor find out? Either I’m an apprentice or I’m not.”
“You could learn more from him than from Joachim. Much more. And maybe you’d be able to have your own House sooner.”
Teray shook his head wearily. “Love, don’t put so much of your trust in him. I don’t know what he has in mind, but…”
“Teray, whatever it is, go along with him.” She was leaning over him, looking down into his eyes. “Please. Go along with him. I don’t want to be a thing won in a fight. I want to be your wife. Please.”
He drew a ragged breath. “Do you think I’d miss a chanceany real chanceto get what we both want?”
She seemed to relax. She kissed him and brought him to stronger awareness of her body softly against him. She was what he needed now. He slipped his arms around her. She would always be what he needed.
Early the next morning, as the rest of the House awoke and began the day’s work. Teray announced himself outside Coransee’s private quarters. He stood in the great common room that he had entered the day before with Joachim. He had not realized then how big the room was. The fireplace seemed a long way off at the other end of the room. Right now there were two mutes in it, cleaning it. There were couches, chairs, and low tables scattered around the room, and the walls were lined with cases of books, learning stones, game boards, small figurines, and more. Yet the room was not cluttered. In fact, at this hour, it seemed far too empty. There were only a few mutes cleaning, and a Patternist who had chosen for some reason to come down the front stairs and walk around to the huge dining room.
Abruptly, Teray received Coransee’s invitation to enter. Teray followed the invitation and found himself not in the Housemaster’s office but in a comfortable-looking carpeted sitting room. There, Coransee, wearing only a black robe of some glossy material, was having breakfast, served to him by a blond mute woman. The woman had set two places.
Coransee glanced at Teray and waved him into the empty chair at the small window table. Just as though they hadn’t been trying to kill each other only hours before, Teray thought. He sat down, was served steak and eggs from the mute’s cart, and, like Coransee, ate silently until the mute left. Then Coransee spoke.
“Have you ever seen our father, Teray?” His tone was surprisingly friendly.
“No.”
“I thought not. You look like him, thoughmuch more than I do. That’s what caught my attention about you yesterday.”
Teray was interested in spite of himself. Rayal did almost no traveling. Probably only a small fraction of the Patternists had actually seen him. He was the Pattern. He was strength, unity, power. Every adult Patternist was linked to him, but the link did not involve tracing out his features. Most Patternists neither knew nor cared what he looked like.
“You and I are full brothers, you know,” said Coransee. Same father and mother. I awakened the Schoolmistress last night to find that out, though I already suspected it.”
Teray shrugged. He knew nothing of his mother. Rayal had many wives.
“Our mother was Jansee, Rayal’s sister and lead wife.”
Teray froze, a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. He put down the fork and looked at Coransee. “So that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“ Are you going, to kill me?’
“If I was, you would have died last night.”
Teray turned his attention back to his food, not wanting to be reminded of his defeat. The informality of the scene suddenly seemed incongruous to him. He had expected to stand before Coransee’s desk like an errant schoolboy and listen to the Housemaster’s sarcasm. Yet here he was having breakfast with Coransee. And not once had he called the Housemaster “Lord.” Nor would he, Teray decided. He might as well find out now just how far he could go. What could Coransee possibly want?
“As it is,” said Coransee, “we both might live. It would be best if we did, now that our father is dying.”
“Dying? Now?”
“He’s been cheating death for twenty years,” said Coransee. “Even at the school, you must have learned that.”